monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Cyclops, I read left wing writers. You should try it...

Meanwhile, the ME is promising a conflagration if Trump insists on recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

Turkey just stepped out in front.

US President Donald Trump has told Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that he intends to relocate the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, according to Palestinian officials.

Wafa, the official news agency of the Palestinian Authority (PA), reported on Tuesday that Trump called Abbas to inform him of his "intention".

"President Abbas warned of the dangerous consequences such a decision would have to the peace process and to the peace, security and stability of the region and of the world," Nabil Abu Rudeina, the Palestinian president's spokesperson, said.

Under the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, the embassy must be moved to Jerusalem or the State Department would face the penalty of losing half its appropriated funds for the acquisition and maintenance of buildings abroad. Every six months, however, presidents can sign a waiver to avoid these penalties on national security grounds.

"The President has been clear on this issue from the get-go that it's not a matter of if but a matter of when. No action, though, will be taken on the waiver today. And we will declare a decision on the waiver in the coming days," Gidley said.

Given what's happened since Trump has been elected (supreme court pick, all the judges to the appeals and lower courts, the deregulations and cutting back of national parks and their budgets, the pulling out of the climate change agreements, making it harder for people to get healthcare and raising the prices for everyone, the tax bill that penalizes education and charity among many other things, etc, etc, etc).....if the choice was yours and yours alone would you replace a Trump presidency with a Clinton one?

Jeff Flake‏Verified account
@JeffFlake
12m12 minutes ago

Country over Party

@jfreewright
5m5 minutes ago

Trying to work this Republican math.

Roy Moore is NOT discredited by child molester allegations from Republican women.

But. Bob Mueller IS discredited for removing a biased investigator from his team.

Quote:

Jeff Flake‏Verified account
@JeffFlake
12m12 minutes ago

Country over Party

pushing back against the tax bill would have been more meaningful but cash is an asset

More like a revealing one.

Cycloptichorn

Refugee admissions tumble after Trump lifts ban

The number of refugees entering the U.S. has plummeted since President Trump lifted a four-month ban on admissions.

Only 3,108 refugees came to the U.S. in October and November, the first two months of the new fiscal year. The Obama administration admitted 18,300 refugees in the same period last year. The new numbers represent a dramatic 83 percent drop.

Trump restarted the refugee resettlement program in October. A month earlier, he lowered the annual refugee admission cap from 110,000 to 45,000, the lowest level on record.

Despite all the bloviating from some here about how the Mueller investigation is 'tainted' and 'over,' (Pro tip: it's neither), here's the real news of the day:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-deutsche-bank/deutsche-bank-gets-subpoena-from-mueller-on-trump-accounts-source-idUSKBN1DZ0XN

Mueller has gotten access to Trump's personal financial information at Deutsche Bank. This is a major escalation in the investigation, as there are a lot of threads that can only be connected by following the money. I also believe this is a critical step to unwinding the many layers of obfuscation he's placed over his business dealings, as while you can hide the ownership of a company, it's hard to hide when the investigators have access to where the money lands.

Trump is not only in danger of being revealed as to having a LOT of Russian financing (which is almost certainly true), he is in great personal danger of being caught in any number of tax and finance scams at this point.

Cycloptichorn

“We confirmed that the news reports [that] the special counsel had subpoenaed financial records related to the president are completely false,” Sanders said during the daily press briefing.

“No subpoena has been issued or received. We have confirmed this with the bank and other sources. I think this is another example of the media going too far and too fast and we don't see it going in that direction," she said.

Citing an anonymous and unidentified official, Reuters reported earlier Tuesday that Mueller’s team had subpoenaed records from Deutsche Ban.

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials and others familiar with the proposals. The sources say the plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency.

The creation of such a program raises the possibility that the effort would be used to create an intelligence apparatus to justify the Trump administration’s political agenda.

“Pompeo can’t trust the CIA bureaucracy, so we need to create this thing that reports just directly to him,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official with firsthand knowledge of the proposals, in describing White House discussions. “It is a direct-action arm, totally off the books,” this person said, meaning the intelligence collected would not be shared with the rest of the CIA or the larger intelligence community. “The whole point is this is supposed to report to the president and Pompeo directly.”