monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

President Trump distanced himself Friday from acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker amid intensifying scrutiny of the controversial legal views and business entanglements of the president’s pick to run the Justice Department and assume control of the Russia investigation.

With the White House scrambling to manage public examination of Whitaker’s background and resistance to his leadership within the Justice Department, Trump sought to douse speculation that he had installed the partisan loyalist to curtail the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump insisted that he had not spoken with Whitaker about the investigation being led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III — and the president upbraided a reporter when she asked whether he wanted Whitaker to rein in Mueller. “What a stupid question,” he said.

Defiant and testy as he departed the White House on Friday morning for a weekend visit to Paris, Trump claimed four separate times that he did not personally know Whitaker, who had been serving as chief of staff at the Justice Department.

“I don’t know Matt Whitaker,” Trump told reporters, adding that he knew him only by reputation.

That claim is false, according to the president’s past statements as well as the accounts of White House officials — one of whom laughed Friday at Trump’s suggestion that he did not know Whitaker.

Trump and Whitaker have met in the Oval Office several times, and Whitaker briefed Trump when the president preferred not to talk to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom he had disparaged publicly, according to White House officials. As Trump said last month on Fox News Channel, “I know Matt Whitaker.”
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On Veterans Day Weekend, Trump skipped his visit to the American cemetery at Belleau (a site of immense importance to the US military) because it was slightly raining.

Trump was meant to take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the site for Veterans Day weekend, but heavy rains were reported in the area.

Trump’s latest comments are also at odds with the another recounting of the two men’s close relationship: Murray Waas reported in a Vox exclusive Friday that as Sessions’ chief of staff, Whitaker directly counseled the White House on investigating Clinton — behind his boss’s back. While Sessions, Rosenstein, and other senior department officials resisted Trump’s demands to open politically motivated investigations into his enemies, Whitaker met with the president privately to discuss how they might pressure Sessions and Rosenstein to accede

As to whether Trump “knew” Whitaker, Waas reports that Sessions’ chief of staff met with the president at the White House at least 10 times, and “frequently spoke by phone with both Trump and Chief of Staff John Kelly... On many of those phone calls, nobody else was on the phone except for the president and Whitaker, or only Kelly and Whitaker.”

Trump likely picked Whitaker to help him fix a few headaches. Instead, he’s causing more.

Trump has good reason to pretend, however implausibly, that he doesn’t know Whitaker. Democrats and Republicans alike have expressed concern over the acting attorney general’s public criticism of Mueller’s investigation — an investigation he now oversees.

And footage from his failed 2014 Senate bid shows him arguing that states have the right to nullify federal law, something constitutional experts disagree with.

Given all that, Trump’s denials might make sense politically — if not factually.

Slightly raining?

oralloy wrote:

Outlawing the Democratic Party in America is the best way to stop them from ruining innocent people with their witch hunts.

Outlawing any institution or organization is the very first step in an ACTUAL witch hunt, and not one that only lives in your imagination.

As far as I know, no one from the democratic side of the political spectrum (at least not anyone here) has suggested the republicans be outlawed, but you have suggested it for the democratic. And others have suggested even worse...

I'd wondered why 45 bothers lying about this stuff, there are way too many footprints for people to track.

It starts much earlier than that.

Grade school teachers teaching their students that the classmate next to them deserves respect and no matter if they are poor or a minority that you should treat them as you'd like to be treated. Some of these classmates are even illegal aliens. They obviously don't deserve respect. Classmates should be taught to ask for their citizenship papers and all poor classmates getting reduced or free lunch should be made to beg the other classmates for their table scraps and for their charity. Adults are made to prostrate themselves sometimes in front of church congregations to beg for help and relief. Why not their delinquent children?!

Amirite?!

As vote counting continues from Tuesday’s midterm elections and three states have a handful of elections with razor-thin margins, the fight has become about whether all the votes should be counted in the first place.

The races for Arizona’s US Senate seat, Florida’s US Senate seat and governor, and Georgia’s governor are all extremely close — close enough that under some state laws, a recount is warranted.

As of this writing, Arizona’s Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D) is ahead of Rep. Martha McSally (R) by about 21,000 votes (and they’re still counting); Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) leads incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson (D) by about 15,000 votes for the Senate seat; Rep. Ron DeSantis (R), whom the Associated Press declared the winner, is ahead of Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum (D) by about 35,000 votes in the Florida governor’s race; and Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R) is ahead of former state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams (D) by 63,000 votes in the governor’s race there.

In Arizona, the recount margin, should they get to that point, is extremely narrow — one-tenth of 1 percent difference between the top two candidates (some exceptions apply). In Florida, races can go to a recount if they are within half a percentage point — a range the Senate race appears well within and one that the governor’s race is inching toward as votes continue to be counted in Democratic-friendly areas. In Georgia, where the recount margin is 1 percent, the circumstances are a bit different: The question is whether Kemp will fall under 50 percent to force him into a runoff election with Abrams.

Each race in each state has been subject to unique circumstances — in Georgia, Kemp was in charge of administering the election while also running in it. He’s engaged in a number of moves to purge voters, of which voting rights academic Carol Anderson wrote in the Atlantic, “if the Georgia race had taken place in another country — say, the Republic of Georgia — U.S. media and the U.S. State Department would not have hesitated to question its legitimacy.”

The question, however, is what each state does now. Republicans in each state have filed lawsuits to stop or slow the counting of votes.

The stakes of each are enormous: the outcomes of each could determine if Senate Republicans have an extremely narrow majority or a comfortable one. Both Democrats running for governor could have huge policy impacts on people in the state — and potentially weigh in on the maps the states redraw in 2020.

What’s happening in Arizona
Arizona is among the states that are heavily dependent on mail-in ballots, which enable residents to vote early or physically drop off their ballots at designated locations on Election Day. As Vox’s David Roberts has written, mail-in ballots are often way more convenient for voters, who can make their decisions at home and simply send them in once they’re done. In a number of places where mail-in ballots are used, studies have found that they streamline the experience so much that they improve voter turnout.

Currently, 27 states use mail-in ballots in some capacity, and Washington, Colorado, and Oregon use them for all elections, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The downside of mail-in ballots is that they can take much longer to count compared to votes that are submitted the more traditional way on Election Day.

This issue is exactly what’s playing out in Arizona, and one that California has often had to deal with as well. As of Wednesday, there were still 600,000 mail-in ballots — of more than 2 million total ballots cast — that Arizona officials were waiting to process in places like Maricopa County.

Despite the light rain, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a moving ceremony in Compiegne, northeast of Paris, to mark the 100th anniversary of the signing of the World War One armistice.

Might well be that we here in Europe have a different idea about how it's raining.

Florida Election Official Implies Asking about Vote Counting Process Is Racist

Of course she doesn’t say “racist.” She says, “You know what I mean.” Wink wink. Because everybody’s in on the joke that Republicans are racists. Everybody gets that right? Right?

These kinds of derogatory attacks are so frequent now, that they hardly even get a notice. This is an election official asserting that people who have suspicions about the voting process and want some answers are in the wrong. They are “disruptive.” People have every right to be suspicious about the voting process when irregularities occur, and even a judge agrees that something is fishy in south Florida.

But if the irregularities weren’t enough of a problem to draw suspicions, then Bucher’s inference that anybody asking questions is also racist certainly cemented that perception. Anyone criticizing her is racist. Ok, got it. Now tell us how many ballots you have left to count.

Delusions of Diversity Week in Higher Education

Pointing out the lack of intellectual diversity in higher education can get you into trouble.

Sarah Lawrence Prof pens Op-Ed about lack of intellectual diversity, social justice warriors want him driven off campus

Yet this is completely fine.

Georgetown Prof Calls FOX News ‘Terrorists’ in Tweet
Pro-Antifa Dartmouth Prof Argues Capitalism Will Destroy Us All
University Lecturer Caught on Video Stealing Republican Yard Signs

So much diversity…

Faculty and Academics at Cornell Donate 99.5 Percent to Left Leaning Groups
Admin and Faculty at Mizzou Donate Overwhelmingly to Democrats
Far Left Former ESPN Host Kicks Off University’s Diversity Summit

And this is where things are going.

Law School at Northwestern Plans Cuts to Faculty
Savannah State Announces Layoffs Amid Lower Student Enrollment

All leftism, all the time.

Seton Hall University Admin Caving to Student Occupiers
Young Democratic Socialists of America Argue Free Tuition Would Stimulate Economy
Student Protesters at Harvard Say Cutting Down Old Campus Tree is ‘Murder’

You keep demonstrating selective blindness with your "No one on the Democrat side has..." The last time it was the silly claim that no one on your side uses juvenile monikers like "Demokkkrat"

We can and will argue all day which tribe is the worst, but your obvious tendency to want to portray yours as without fault or flaw is silly.

Oralloy keeps advancing the foolish notion of outlawing the Democrat party, likely because he knows it's guaranteed to get a rise out of you and others. He's done it so many times, it's really hard to believe anyone responds to it still.

In any case, he is one person in a tiny internet discussion forum and not a spokesman for any organization or cause.

Somewhere out there I'm sure we could find at least one person arguing for outlawing the Republican party.

So what? When we hear people with power and influence advancing such notions, that will be the time for concern.

BTW who in this forum has suggested something worse than outlawing the Democrat party and what was it? Lining all Democrats up in front of a firing squad?

two years have opened my eyes to the depths people in power, or people desiring power, will sink to.