Swamp Watch News

[_EAllusion]

This is pretty severe corruption:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/26/busi ... zones.html

But it is absolutely dwarfed by the federal government awarding a 10 billion dollar contract to Microsoft over Amazon after Trump specifically ordered his underlings to do so because he doesn't like criticism from the Washington Post. That's a major impeachable offense. Trump's strategy of committing all the impeachable offenses because you can't pay attention to everything isn't a strategy so much a function of his boundless capacity for immoral behavior, but this one is probably gonna end up as a blip on the radar.

[_canpakes]

This is the current public face of a White House that used to pretend how they were once so injured to be characterized as ‘deplorables’ ... and who now characterizes their own political opponents as ‘human scum’.

[_moksha]

This is pretty severe corruption:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/26/busi ... zones.html

But it is absolutely dwarfed by the federal government awarding a 10 billion dollar contract to Microsoft over Amazon after Trump specifically ordered his underlings to do so because he doesn't like criticism from the Washington Post. That's a major impeachable offense. Trump's strategy of committing all the impeachable offenses because you can't pay attention to everything isn't a strategy so much a function of his boundless capacity for immoral behavior, but this one is probably gonna end up as a blip on the radar.

Yikes! I suppose this comes with the Trump territory.

[_Icarus]

This is pretty severe corruption:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/26/busi ... zones.html

But it is absolutely dwarfed by the federal government awarding a 10 billion dollar contract to Microsoft over Amazon after Trump specifically ordered his underlings to do so because he doesn't like criticism from the Washington Post. That's a major impeachable offense. Trump's strategy of committing all the impeachable offenses because you can't pay attention to everything isn't a strategy so much a function of his boundless capacity for immoral behavior, but this one is probably gonna end up as a blip on the radar.

Is there a cause and effect here? A few people on social media have been saying this was in the works for many years and Microsoft was really the only viable option because there were a few things Amazon couldn't provide.

[_EAllusion]

Is there a cause and effect here? A few people on social media have been saying this was in the works for many years and Microsoft was really the only viable option because there were a few things Amazon couldn't provide.

Amazon was by far considered the frontrunner to get the contract. Mattis has previously reported that Trump ordered him to "screw" Amazon out of the contract due to his dislike of Jeff Bezos due to his dislike of Washington Post coverage. After Mattis left, Amazon lost the contract to Microsoft.

[_EAllusion]

This is the current public face of a White House that used to pretend how they were once so injured to be characterized as ‘deplorables’ ... and who now characterizes their own political opponents as ‘human scum’.

What Clinton characterized as "deplorables" were the portion of the Republican party who were bigots. She initially said that was "about half" the party but immediately was forced to apologize for and walk her comments back. Though if you look at polling data, it is indeed about half who hold extremely bigoted views. Republicans immediately went on to pretend she was talking about all of them to pretend to be grievously injured by her uncivil behavior.

Then, you have this example of the public ally funded press secretary defending Donald Trump calling never-Trumpers "human scum" by calling people who don't support Trump the same. It's tempting to draw a parallel, but that makes it easy to forget the comparison is between calling bigots deplorable and calling people who don't support Trump human scum. One of those two things may be impolite for people to hear about themselves, but it's not exactly wrong. The other is what dictators and comic book villains say.

[_canpakes]

Payday Loan lenders like their cozy relationship with this Administration:

(courtesy of the Washington Post)

Billing himself as one of President Trump’s top fundraisers, Michael Hodges told fellow payday lenders recently that industry contributions to the president’s reelection campaign could be leveraged to gain access to the Trump administration.

“Every dollar amount, no matter how small or large it is” is important, Hodges, founder of Advance Financial, one of the country’s largest payday lenders, said during a 48-minute webcast, obtained by The Washington Post.

“For example, I’ve gone to Ronna McDaniel and said, ‘Ronna, I need help on something,’ ” Hodges said, referring to the chair of the Republican National Committee. “She’s been able to call over to the White House and say, ‘Hey, we have one of our large givers. They need an audience. … They need to be heard and you need to listen to them.’ So that’s why it’s important.”

The Sept. 24 webinar sponsored by Borrow Smart Compliance, an industry consultant, gives surprisingly frank insight into the payday lending industry’s strategy to push for weaker government regulations by forging a tight relationship with the Trump administration and the president’s campaign. The payday lending industry, made up of businesses that make short-term loans to consumers at high interest rates, is awaiting new rules that could weaken Obama administration requirements. Those rules include a requirement that the companies must ensure consumers can afford to repay the money they borrow.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the powerful chair of the Financial Services Committee, is an industry “hater,” and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) would pose a big threat if elected president, Hodges and three other industry insiders said during the talk. They called Trump their “ultimate backstop” against attempts to defeat legislation the industry wants.

“When Trump was elected, the needle moved in our favor — finally,” Max Wood of Borrow Smart Compliance said during the webinar.

[_canpakes]

... as does the Coal Industry, even as some producers struggle to remain solvent ...

Robert E. Murray, the U.S. coal baron who pressed the Trump administration to help save America’s struggling miners, placed his company into bankruptcy as demand for the fossil fuel continues to weaken.

Murray Energy Holdings Co. filed for Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Columbus, Ohio, to restructure more than $2.7 billion of debt. The miner -- the largest privately owned U.S. coal company -- reached a restructuring support agreement with a group of lenders that provides a new $350 million loan to keep operations going during the reorganization, according to the court filing.

The move comes more than a year after the Trump administration’s efforts to subsidize struggling nuclear and coal-fired power plants failed, shot down by Trump’s own appointed energy regulators. Some of those plants were Murray Energy’s customers. Robert Murray, a big donor to Trump’s campaign, was instrumental in setting his energy agenda and has hosted multiple fundraisers.

[_canpakes]

President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner's participating in Saudi Arabia's annual investment conference this week raised ethics concerns from a watchdog alleging that the Saudi government is a part-owner of a company building a Trump-branded property that Kushner's wife Ivanka Trump holds a stake in.

Kushner, a senior White House adviser, arrived at the Future Investment Initiative forum in Riyadh on Tuesday, a year after Western leaders, including some from the United States boycotted the conference due to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

In a report on its website Tuesday, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) pointed to its finding from last year that the Trump Organization's business partner in Indonesia signed a deal with a Saudi government-owned construction firm to build a Trump-branded resort. The agreement was apparently reached three weeks before Khashoggi disappeared.

The development appears in Kushner's financial disclosure because Ivanka Trump, also a senior White House adviser, listed it in her assets, according to CREW.

"The question becomes, how does that influence his dealings with the Saudi government, would he do something that could endanger the family finances?" CREW spokesman Jordan Libowitz told Newsweek on Wednesday.

"This raises serious national security concerns, when there were already concerns around Kushner security clearance," Libowitz continued, "And his dealings with Saudi officials in which there aren't records of the meetings or talks."

The Trump Organization and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Newsweek on Wednesday.

[_canpakes]

Billions of taxpayer dollars go to Trump’s contractor friends to build his ‘border wall’, and it can be cut through with common power tools...

SAN DIEGO — Smuggling gangs in Mexico have repeatedly sawed through new sections of President Trump’s border wall in recent months by using commercially available power tools, opening gaps large enough for people and drug loads to pass through, according to U.S. agents and officials with knowledge of the damage.

The breaches have been made using a popular cordless household tool known as a reciprocating saw that retails at hardware stores for as little as $100. When fitted with specialized blades, the saws can slice through one of the barrier’s steel-and-concrete bollards in minutes, according to the agents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the barrier-defeating techniques.

The taxpayer-funded barrier — so far coming with a $10 billion price tag — was a central theme of Trump’s 2016 campaign, and he has made the project a physical symbol of his presidency, touting its construction progress in speeches, ads and tweets. Trump has increasingly boasted to crowds in recent weeks about the superlative properties of the barrier, calling it “virtually impenetrable” and likening the structure to a “Rolls-Royce” that border crossers cannot get over, under or through.

The Base gets ripped off again ... along with the rest of us, who already knew this was coming.