President Trump criticized his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, on Wednesday and called him “DISGRACEFUL” after Mr. Sessions indicated that the Justice Department’s watchdog would look into accusations of potential abuse of surveillance laws rather than the agency’s own lawyers.
I still wonder how much Sessions hates Trump and is calling his bluff. Sessions obviously wants as long as possible in the DoJ to do as much damage as he can. I'm not almost 100% sure that he'll never quit, so he's just trying to force Trump to sack him. But Trump doesn't have the balls to do it.
Imagine if Obama had said anything remotely like this:
Vice President Mike Pence said later that “the focus is to literally give families and give local law enforcement additional tools if an individual is reported to be a potential danger to themselves or others.”
“Allow due process so no one’s rights are trampled but the ability to go to court, obtain an order and then collect not only the firearms but any weapons in the possession—”
Trump cut him off: “Or, Mike, take the firearms first and then go to court, because that’s another system.”
“Because a lot of times by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court, to get the due process procedures, I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida,” he continued. “He had a lot of firearms. They saw everything. To go to court would have taken a long time. So you could do exactly what you’re saying but take the guns first, go through due process second.”
As with every scandal from the Trump Whitehouse, I can't work out if this is a big deal or not.
I can't even work out if this would be a big deal from a normal Presidency.
Trump clearly likes her, but it doesn't appear that she had that much power. On the other hand, there are the rumours about her and Trump, and having her on the outside might be unhelpful.
I think that the "rumours" are nothing but Michael Wolf's fever dreams, but one potentially interesting question will be whether her leaving the administration will render her less willing to toe their rather ridiculous line on executive privilege.
IIRC it was predicted on this thread last year that eventually it will just be Trump and his three kids left over from the transition team. Hicks going brings that closer. My inference is that she failed some personal Trump loyalty test in one of the answers she gave in that 9 hour testimony. Alternatively, all Trump campaign and administration hirelings have some in-built obsolescence; nobody is meant to survive a full 4 year stretch except the offspring. Churn is the system's very logic.
Alternatively, all Trump campaign and administration hirelings have some in-built obsolescence; nobody is meant to survive a full 4 year stretch except the offspring.
"As a key NORAD and NATO ally, and as the number one customer of American steel, Canada would view any trade restrictions on Canadian steel and aluminum as absolutely unacceptable,"
"Any restrictions would harm workers, the industry and manufacturers on both sides of the border. The steel and aluminum industry is highly integrated and supports critical North American manufacturing supply chains. The Canadian government will continue to make this point directly with the American administration at all levels."
"Should restrictions be imposed on Canadian steel and aluminum products, Canada will take responsive measures to defend its trade interests and workers."
Not looking optimistic for next round of NAFTA discussions I guess.
Given that the Right are broadly supposed to be the parties of big business, the republicans and the tories have a really limited idea of how the economy actually works on a basic level. At what point did they become the parties of giving you taxbreaks and burning down your business?
There aren't many (if any) manufacturers among the Mar a Lago membership, nor do the Kochs or Mercer's care about tariffs. Over here, this kind of thing is evidence of the following out of the GOP's support, though I'm sure he thinks that it will play well with his base.
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