WTF Community

Day 781

General Discussion
#1

Updated 3/11/2019 1:58 PM PDT

1/ Trump proposed a $4.75 trillion budget, dubbed the "Budget for a Better America." Trump requested an additional $8.6 billion for his border wall, and proposed increasing military spending by 5% to $750 billion while cutting funding for domestic discretionary spending $597 billion to $543 billion – a 9% cut in 2020. The budget calls for a 23% cut in State Department funding, a 15% cut in spending by the USDA, and a 31% cut in the budget for the EPA. The budget for Homeland Security would increase by 7.4%. The budget forecasts a $1.1 trillion deficit in 2019, 2020, and 2021, and a $1 trillion deficit in 2022 with the national debt ballooning to more than $31 trillion in the next decade by 2029. It currently stands at more than $22 trillion. Trump's acting budget chief call the budget a "return to fiscal sanity." (CNN / New York Times / Washington Post / The Guardian / Reuters / NPR / Wall Street Journal / CNBC)

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2019/03/11/day-781/
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Bill Shine's Monkey Shines
Bill Shine's Monkey Shines
#2

Trump and his advisers are launching a behemoth 2020 campaign operation combining his raw populist message from 2016 with a massive data-gathering and get-out-the-vote push aimed at dwarfing any previous presidential reelection effort, according to campaign advisers, White House aides, Republican officials and others briefed on the emerging strategy.

Trump’s advisers also believe the Democratic Party’s recent shift to the left on a host of issues, from the push for Medicare-for-all to a proposed Green New Deal, will help the president and other Republicans focus on a Trumpian message of strong economic growth, nationalist border restrictions and “America First” trade policies. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan will become, in signs and rally chants, “Keep America Great!”

The president’s strategy, however, relies on a risky and relatively narrow path for victory, hinged on demonizing Trump’s eventual opponent and juicing turnout among his most avid supporters in Florida, Pennsylvania and the Upper Midwest — the same areas that won him the White House but where his popularity has waned since he was elected. Some advisers are particularly concerned about the president’s persistent unpopularity among female and suburban voters, and fear it will be difficult to replicate the outcome of 2016 without former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton as a foil.

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#3

After it claimed no such document existed, the Justice Department just unearthed a letter Matt Whitaker delivered to the Utah U.S. attorney directing a review of how the department handled the Clinton Foundation and the Uranium One issues.

Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions wrote the letter on Nov. 22, 2017 for Utah U.S. Attorney John Huber. Matt Whitaker, who was Sessions’ chief of staff at the time, emailed the letter to Huber that day, writing, “As we discussed.” He also sent Huber a copy of a letter the Justice Department’s Congressional affairs chief sent to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee on Nov. 13 of that year.

The existence of a letter documenting Sessions’ directive that the DOJ revisit probes of Trump’s top political foe is a surprise because a department lawyer said in court last year that senior officials insisted it didn’t exist. The liberal nonprofit American Oversight obtained the letter through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request they filed on Nov. 22, 2017––the same day Whitaker emailed Sessions’ letter to Huber.

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#4

The next five days could reveal how the Mueller probe will play out.

  • Paul Manafort will know how long he’ll be serving in prison, closing the book on special counsel Robert Mueller’s most visible legal fight.
  • Roger Stone will know his trial date, putting a timeline on when the public will get more details about his alleged contacts with WikiLeaks.
  • And status reports are due for two of Mueller’s biggest cooperators — Michael Flynn and Rick Gates — that will signal whether the special counsel has tapped them for all the information investigators need.

This week could even include the ultimate exclamation point: Attorney General William Barr announcing that Mueller has completed his assignment and that a summary version of his findings is imminent.

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🔍 All things Mueller - What we know he has on Trump 'n Co
#5

Oh my. Just-departed White House communications director Bill Shine was receiving money from Fox while working in the White House and taking actions that appeared to benefit Fox, which is a major ethics problem. Ethics expert reveals the shady circumstances around the departure of Trump’s communications director – Raw Story

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#6
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#7
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#8

Other news of note:

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#10

The biggest budget ever, yet it slashes over $1 trillion from Medicare and Medicaid over the next 10 years. It’s astounding to me why so many seniors show up at Trump rallies.

Skilled Nursing News
March 11, 2019

Trump Budget Plan Would Cut $845B from Medicare, $241B from Medicaid

And from the WaPo’s budget article:

Total spending on Medicare, the popular health-care program for the elderly that in the past he had largely said he would protect, would be reduced by about $845 billion over 10 years. Some of those savings — possibly between $250 billion and $300 billion, according to an estimate from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s Marc Goldwein — would be redirected to other health programs, but most would be removed from the budget.

The president’s budget also proposes a major overhaul of Medicaid, the health-care program for low-income Americans run jointly with states, by turning more power over to states and cutting spending by $241 billion over 10 years.

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#11

We’ve been awaiting this trade-off from within the R’s fiefdom. It was something that former House Speaker’s Paul Ryan’s fever dream to do away with Medicare/Medicaid.

I hope T gets stopped in his tracks.

If is beyond belief EVERY SINGLE DAY.

:persevere:

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#12

I agree! As a senior, I really don’t understand how anyone could back this liar. I can only hope that the one piece I read calling this his " read my lips" moment is really his downfall.

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#13

The no deal Brexit, is the nightmare scenario Brexit! Would bring back a hard border in Northern Ireland, plus a potential financial meltdown for the UK and across the world.

Nigel Farage told Donald Trump he should back a no-deal Brexit when the pair met in Washington earlier this month.

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#14

:boom:

The New York attorney general’s office late on Monday issued subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Investors Bank for records relating to the financing of four major Trump Organization projects and a failed effort to buy the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League in 2014, according to a person briefed on the subpoenas.

The inquiry opens a new front in the scrutiny of Deutsche Bank, one of the few lenders willing to do business with Donald J. Trump in recent years. The bank is already the subject of two congressional investigations and was examined last year by New York banking regulators, who took no action.

The new inquiry, by the office of the attorney general, Letitia James, was prompted by the congressional testimony last month of Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, the person briefed on the subpoenas said. Mr. Cohen testified under oath that Mr. Trump had inflated his assets in financial statements, and Mr. Cohen provided copies of statements he said had been submitted to Deutsche Bank.

The inquiry by Ms. James’s office is a civil investigation, not a criminal one, although its focus and scope were unclear. The attorney general has broad authority under state law to investigate fraud and can fine — or in extreme cases, go to court to try to dissolve — a business that is found to have engaged in repeated illegality.

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#15

You and I paid for these flights – so did Trump’s die hard, red state base, but elitist behavior like this doesn’t seem to bother them a bit – go figure. :thinking:

White House senior advisers Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, President Donald Trump’s daughter and son-in-law, sought to assert some authority over flights funded by the State Department, according to a new book by journalist Vicky Ward.

The book, “Kushner Inc: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump” is sourced from interviews with over 200 people. …

Like many other White House tell-alls that have been published during Trump’s first term, it paints an unflattering picture at the chaos in the Trump administration, and discord among its senior staff.

According to “Kushner Inc.,” Ivanka frequently asked to travel on Air Force planes when it was not always necessary. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was eventually fired in March 2018, rejected Ivanka’s requests.

Ivanka reportedly found a work-around by inviting cabinet-level officials to the trip…

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who himself was embroiled in scandal for reportedly wanting to use an $25,000-an-hour Air Force jet to travel to Europe for his honeymoon, was often invited by Ivanka and Jared in order to justify the trip.

Makes you wonder if Tillerson’s rejection of princess Ivanka’s demands contributed to his downfall.

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#16

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#9

This the same voting block that built the blue wave.

Democrats did particularly well in the suburbs, where they hoped to capitalize on anti-Trump sentiment, especially among suburban women. They unseated Reps. Barbara Comstock (Va.), Mike Coffman (Colo.), Carlos Curbelo (Fla.) and Kevin Yoder (Kan.), as well as Pete Sessions (Tex.), who serves as Rules Committee chairman and has been in Congress for 15 years.

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