monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Deciphering the Patterns in Trump’s Falsehoods

The mysterious 8chan poster known as “Q” promised on multiple occasions that “2018 will be GLORIOUS.” For people who genuinely believe that Q is a government insider close to President Trump, that “glory” was supposed to come in the form of mass arrests of some equally dramatic event that would expose the so-called “deep state.” But even as QAnon community broke into mainstream awareness, vindication remained elusive.

What a bunch of crap.

And they pass this **** off as news...

Several US newspapers suffered major printing and delivery disruptions on Saturday following a cyber-attack.

The attack led to delayed distribution of The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun and other titles belonging to Tribune Publishing.

The company said it first detected the malware on Friday, which hit papers sharing the same printing plant.

The attack is believed to have come from outside the US, the LA Times said.

West Coast editions of the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, which share the same production platform in Los Angeles, were also affected.

"We believe the intention of the attack was to disable infrastructure, more specifically servers, as opposed to looking to steal information," an anonymous source with knowledge of the attack told the LA Times.

Tribune Publishing spokeswoman Marisa Kollias confirmed this in a statement, saying the virus hurt back-office systems used to publish and produce "newspapers across our properties".

"Every market across the company was impacted," Ms Kollias said, refusing to give more specifications on the disruptions, according to the LA Times.

Other publications owned by the company include the New York Daily News, Orlando Sentinel and the Annapolis Capital-Gazette, whose staff were the targets of a deadly shooting earlier this year.

Another publication, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel was also "crippled this weekend by a computer virus that shut down production and hampered phone lines," according to a story on its website.

"We are aware of reports of a potential cyber incident affecting several news outlets and are working with our government and industry partners to better understand the situation," a Department of Homeland Security official said in a statement.

Investigators at the Federal Bureau of Investigations were not immediately available for comment.

President Trump needs a face-saving way to call off his government shutdown. No matter how much he tries to blame the situation on the Democrats, he went on live TV and said he would be "proud" to own the shutdown, and there is simply no spinning that away. That's why the incoming White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney is now desperately tying to find a way out, even signaling that Trump will accept an unstated amount less than $5 billion for his wall.

Democrats should acquiesce on one condition: That Trump legalize all the DREAMers (people who were brought to this country without proper authorization as children) whom he jeopardized when he scrapped the Obama-era DACA program and all those whom he kicked off their "temporary protected status."

This would no doubt be hardball. But given that Democrats are poised to take control of the House next year, they have a far stronger political hand than during the January shutdown when they were forced to back down because Republicans controlled all the branches of government.

The wall is, of course, dumb. It will waste taxpayer money while accomplishing diddly in terms of national security. Drug smugglers will find ways to breach it given the enormous profits at stake. And it will do nothing to keep out visa overstays, half of the unauthorized population. It will also simply never be completed because $5 billion is less than a quarter of what would be required to cover the entire 2,000-mile-plus Southern border and what Trump — the "great negotiator" — walked away from during the last shutdown.

But how much harm would a partially-built wall really do? Funding it would not even qualify as a drop in a $4 trillion budget. Meanwhile the potential upside of a deal, if Democrats are effective, is huge.

The mystery is why they haven't already put a wall-for-DREAMer deal on the table. It's not like they have any major moral qualms about the wall. After all, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer along with 23 other Democratic senators voted "yay" for the 2006 Secure Fence Act that put up seed money for the first installment of the wall.

Democrats claim that Trump has already ruled out legalizing DREAMers so there is no point asking for such a deal. But they have to know his posture is just a negotiating tactic. Trump owns the shutdown and if he walks away he'll look even worse, not just with Hispanics but the vast majority of Americans who want the DREAMers legalized.

The more plausible explanation is that now that courts have barred the administration from scrapping DACA and TPS, Democrats no longer fear that mass deportations of DREAMers are imminent. Hence, they'd rather not fight for full legalization if that means denying Trump a symbolic victory on the wall. Plus they want to keep the issue alive for the 2020 election to encourage Hispanics to turn out to vote.

That is not just cynical, but a massive miscalculation.

The administration's efforts to scrap DACA and scale back TPS are on sound legal footing. (TPS holders, remember, are folks fleeing natural disasters or turmoil who have been given permission to live in the country on a renewable basis till things stabilize in their native countries. But Trump cut six countries including El Salvador, Haiti, and Nicaragua from the program, setting up about 98 percent of TPS recipients for deportation if they didn't voluntarily leave by the end of this year.) Even though liberal lower courts have ruled against the administration, the conservative Supreme Court isn't likely to go along.
The Immigration and Nationality Act hands the president vast prosecutorial discretion to set immigration enforcement priorities as he sees fit. That's why former President Barack Obama was perfectly within his legal rights to implement DACA and defer the deportation of DREAMers. But, by the same token, Trump can reset these priorities and scrap the program.

The TPS program, likewise, is up to the president's discretion. As its name suggests, it only lets affected immigrants temporarily stay in the country and it's up to the executive to decide when their time is up. Just because previous presidents have let these migrants stay for decades does not mean that Trump is legally required to do so.

Should the Supreme Court rule for the administration, there would be literally no avenues left to prevent this administration from conducting mass deportations of people who have built lives in America. Furthermore, having missed their big opportunity to fight for DREAMers' permanent status, Democrats will be in no position to make the moral case to let them stay.

The political upshot of this will be that while the deportations will energize the president's base, it will demoralize the Democratic base already sour from all the deportations that President Obama conducted.

It would be smart politics — and good principle — for the Democrats to use Trump's desire for the wall to drive a hard bargain and force him to back off his assaults on DREAMers and TPS holders.

The government will finally reopen. The question only is if Democrats will squander the leverage that Trump's shutdown gambit has handed them or use it to do some good.

Retired general gives interview to Los Angeles Times
Statements on immigration and more likely to anger president

As Donald Trump attracted criticism for blaming the deaths of children in US custody on Democrats opposed to his demands for a border wall, outgoing White House chief of staff John Kelly said he had “nothing but compassion” for migrants attempting to enter the US without documentation.

“Illegal immigrants, overwhelmingly, are not bad people,” Kelly said, describing many migrants as victims misled by traffickers. “I have nothing but compassion for them, the young kids.”

Two young Guatemalan children have died in US custody this month. Amid debate, the causes of death remain unknown.

Kelly, a retired Marines general, spoke in an interview with the Los Angeles Times conducted by phone on Friday and published on Sunday morning. He will leave the White House on Wednesday. His remarks, jarring with those of the president, echoed those of his successor as homeland security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, who visited the border this weekend.

In a statement released around the same time on Saturday that Trump tweeted that “any deaths of children or others at the border are strictly the fault of the Democrats and their pathetic immigration policies”, Nielsen said: “The system is clearly overwhelmed and we must work together to address this humanitarian crisis and protect vulnerable populations.”

Nielsen also called on Congress to “act with urgency”. That is unlikely during a standoff over funding for Trump’s wall which has now led to a nine-day government shutdown.

Kelly, an immigration hardliner, also clashed with the man who is still his boss when he said: “If you want to stop illegal immigration, stop US demand for drugs, and expand economic opportunity” in Central America.

On Friday, Trump tweeted a threat to “cut off all aid” to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador for “doing nothing” about migration to the US and “taking our money”.

Kelly’s interview contained a number of statements likely to irk Trump, who remains at the White House during the shutdown, communicating with the outside world via his Twitter account.

The chief of staff criticised the implementation of the family separations policy at the border, which in the summer “brought down a greater deal of thunder on the president”.

Of Trump’s demanded wall, for which he has shut down the US government despite campaigning on a promise to make Mexico pay, Kelly said: “To be honest, it’s not a wall.”

“The president still says ‘wall’,” he said. “Oftentimes frankly he’ll say ‘barrier’ or ‘fencing,’ now he’s tended toward steel slats. But we left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration, when we asked people what they needed and where they needed it.”

Citing the thorny question of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and Trump’s urge to pull out of Nato, the Times said Kelly “defended his rocky tenure, arguing that it is best measured by what the president did not do when Kelly was at his side”.

Kelly was one of the so-called “adults in the room” – many of them generals, who supposedly restrained Trump’s worst impulses. Another, defense secretary Jim Mattis, will also leave on 1 January, his resignation over the withdrawal from Syria brought forward by a president piqued by the favourable media attention it gained.

Trump has chafed at media accounts of experienced aides acting to calm his wilder behaviour. In September, in his bestselling book Fear, the veteran reporter Bob Woodward wrote that Kelly called Trump an “idiot” and said working for him was like working in “Crazytown”. Trump responded angrily and Kelly denied the quotes.

Telling the LA Times his was a “bone-crushing hard job”, Kelly echoed recent comments by fired secretary of state Rex Tillerson, who said Trump regularly pushed the limits of his authority under law.

The paper wrote that “Trump never ordered him to do anything illegal, Kelly stressed, ‘because we wouldn’t have’.” Kelly told the paper that “if he had said to me, ‘Do it, or you’re fired,’” he would have resigned.

In the end, after a succession of reports of infighting and arguments within a chaotic White House, Kelly did resign. He told the paper he decided to go after the November midterm elections, in which Republicans lost control of the House. Trump announced his departure on 8 December.

Amid near-meltdown at the White House, no permanent replacement has been named. Kelly was asked why he stayed 18 months. He said it was down to duty.

“Military people don’t walk away,” he said, two days before walking away.

(Bloomberg) -- The partial U.S. government shutdown over border wall funding entered its ninth day on Sunday, President Donald Trump blamed Democrats for the death of two children, and all parties await the start of the new Congress in January for a possible resolution.

Latest Developments:
Trump on Saturday blamed Democrats “and their pathetic immigration policies” for “any deaths of children or others” in U.S. custody at the border, a ramp-up in rhetoric over wall funding. Absent “10 Democrat votes,” the president said on Twitter, “we have to do it the hard way, with a Shutdown.”
“I am in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come on over and make a deal on Border Security,” Trump tweeted earlier. On Friday night, Trump dined at Vice President Mike Pence’s residence with Pence, incoming Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and adviser Jared Kushner, a White House aide said. Trump was at the residence for about two hours.
Trump late Friday issued an executive order freezing pay for federal employees in 2019. It could still be overruled by Congress. “This is just pouring salt into the wound,” Tony Reardon, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said in a statement. NTEU represents 150,000 workers across various agencies.
Some 14,000 workers from the Environmental Protection Agency were put on furlough after the EPA exhausted funds on hand to continue operations.
Coast Guard service members almost missed their final paychecks of 2018 but at the last moment the service found a way to pay its military workforce in a “one-time action,” according to a Coast Guard workforce blog. Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, called the White House on Friday urging an “immediate fix” and termed the outcome “good news.”
There’s little indication of any imminent agreement to resolve the standoff before the new Congress convenes on Jan. 3.
Trump is demanding $5 billion for the wall, while Democratic leaders proposed $1.3 billion for border security.
The Senate and House are set to hold brief sessions Monday but no votes are scheduled. Lawmakers will be given 24 hours notice if there’s a breakthrough that would require a vote.
If the standoff continues, all workers in the nine departments and dozens of agencies affected by the closure will miss their next paycheck on Jan. 11.

Next Steps
Democratic leaders in the House and Senate have been negotiating with the Trump administration. Once they reach agreement, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he’ll seek a vote on the deal.
Democrats take control of the House on Jan. 3, when Nancy Pelosi, who’s in line to become speaker, says the chamber will pass a spending bill to reopen the government -- without money for a wall.

Key Impacts
The shutdown, which began Dec. 22, affects nine of the 15 federal departments, dozens of agencies, and hundreds of thousands of workers.
Among the departments without funding are: Justice, Homeland Security, Interior and Treasury. Independent agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, are also affected.
The departments whose funding lapsed represent about a quarter of the $1.24 trillion in government discretionary spending for fiscal year 2019.
An estimated 400,000 federal employees are working without pay and 350,000 are furloughed, according to a congressional Democratic aide.
Federal employees working without pay and those now furloughed got their Dec. 28 paychecks under a decision by the White House budget office since pay reflects work before Dec. 21.
The remaining parts of the government, including the Defense Department and the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services, were already funded and won’t be affected by the shutdown, nor will mandatory entitlement programs like Medicare payments.

The omission of a name and the use of the words “the accuser” may give the misleading impression that Christine Blasey Ford, who testified to Congress that Justice Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers, had recanted her account. But in fact, Mr. Trump was referring to another little-known accuser named Judy Munro-Leighton, who recanted her claim of sexual assault.

The usual target of this particular strain of falsehoods is the news media, which Mr. Trump suggests purposely underestimates or misinterprets him.

There is an unconfirmed report out that Trump is threatening to go on a hunger strike

That is speculation.

After Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court and in the days before the midterm elections, Mr. Trump told rallygoers in Missouri that “the accuser admitted she never met him, she never saw him, he never touched her, talked to her, he had nothing to do with her, she made up the story, it was false accusations.”

Trump is right the MSM does misrepresent him.

At an October rally in Arizona, Mr. Trump criticized Democrats for allowing undocumented immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses. “Next thing you know, they’ll want to buy ’em a car,” he speculated. “Then they’ll say the car’s not good enough, we want — how about a Rolls-Royce?”

A day later, at a campaign rally in Nevada, Mr. Trump presented this theory as reality, telling supporters that Democrats wanted to give cars and licenses to undocumented immigrants in addition to free health care and education.