Swamp Watch News

[_subgenius]

The President of the United States Told Law Enforcement to Break the Law

Because, you know, Republicans care so much about the rule of law.

If this were Obama.... sigh

from the cited article (spoiler alert, KG didn't read it...ok, that's not a spoiler because its always a given)
Behind the scenes, two sources told CNN, the President told border agents to not let migrants in. Tell them we don't have the capacity, he said. If judges give you trouble, say, "Sorry, judge, I can't do it. We don't have the room." (emphasis mine)

cool how you can squeeze a drop of hope out of a stone of gossip.

[_Kevin Graham]

Oh I get it. If CNN has sources it must be nothing more than gossip. Meanwhile, FOX News posts about multiple Mexican countries and Trump's 55% approval rate and that's news. Never mind the fact that this dovetails perfectly what with the moron just said on live TV insisting we have no more room and everyone will be turned away. For small minds like yours, this is just gossip. As if you'd really care if this was caught on camera. You'd still blow it off as nothing.

From the Hill:

On Friday, during a visit to Calexico, Calif., Trump told border patrol agents behind the scenes not to let any migrants in and, if ordered to by a judge, to respond, “Sorry, judge, I can’t do it. We don’t have the room,” two sources told CNN.

When the agents later asked their commanding officers about the remarks, their superiors said policy was to obey the law and that they would face personal liability if they complied with Trump's orders, according to the network.

The news comes amid the ouster of Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen, who has frequently found herself the subject of Trump's ire over illegal immigration policy.

During Friday's trip to the border, Trump reportedly told Nielsen and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to shut down the port of El Paso on March 22, with plans to close other ports later.

Nielsen pushed back on the idea, arguing that closing down the ports would simply shut down legal commerce and travel while migrants entered between the ports. Trump reportedly responded “I don’t care,” according to two people in the room, CNN reports.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney was eventually able to talk Trump out of the plan, leading Trump to pivot to instead refusing entry to asylum seekers. Nielsen allegedly tried in vain to explain to Trump that migrants from Central America are legally allowed to apply for asylum.

Monday's articles echo earlier reports from NBC News that Nielsen’s resignation Sunday night was largely due to Trump pressuring her to resume the separation of parents from their children at the border. Trump argued family separation was the most effective deterrent, while Nielsen reminded him he had already signed an executive order ending the practice, according to NBC.

The family-separation policy led to sharp and bipartisan backlash last year, with even some of Trump's strongest allies decrying it before the president backtracked and ended the practice.

Trump adviser Stephen Miller is reportedly pushing him to remove further senior Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials, including Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Lee Cissna, and the department's general counsel, John Mitnick.

The White House and DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.

[_EAllusion]

Promising pardons for law enforcement breaking the law on his insistence is a very clear basis for impeachment. Failure to impeach a President for even that is a sign of institutional break down of the US government.

This allegation should be pursued by Congress with testimony under oath.

[_subgenius]

Oh I get it.

no you don't.

Trump told border patrol agents ... two sources told CNN.

sez who?...the same guys who promised you collusion?

dovetails

"dovetails"?, a.k.a. believable, which on all things Trump is a ring in your nose of desperation being led around by a racist and unimaginative democratic party that has no solution for 2020....Pelosi/Schumer went all in on the Mueller report and meh.
good luck ya bigot.

[_Kevin Graham]

Every time Trump gets busted for doing something stupid and/or illegal you pull this hand-waving stunt: "That's from CNN, and Democrats have no solutions bla bla bla." Just admit it already. You don't give a flying damn about the rule of law. So long as the people breaking the laws are Republicans who will give you what you want, you're good.

And now the NYT is reporting the same thing.

Just gossip huh? Nielsen also left because Trump was tired of listening to her explain why he couldn't break the law.

Anyone remember Rex Tillerson? He was asked what he thinks caused his relationship with Trump to go off the rails. Tillerson was candid in his response:

Part of it was obviously we are starkly different in our styles. We did not have a common value system. When the president would say, “Here’s what I want to do, and here’s how I want to do it.” And I’d have to say to him “Mr. President, I understand what you want to do, but you can’t do it that way, it violates the law. It violates treaty.”

He got really frustrated. I didn’t know how to conduct my affairs with him any other way than in a very straightforward fashion, and I think he grew tired of me being the guy every day that told him, “You can’t do that, and let’s talk about what we can do.”

Trump has publicly mocked the idea that courts should oversee asylum hearings (“Get rid of judges”), and claimed unilateral authority to spend federal money on border fencing despite being denied authorization by Congress. Reporting on Nielsen’s departure shows that her central disqualification was an unwillingness to violate the law. CNN reported that Trump “becoming increasingly unhinged” in his demands to Nielsen, and kept making demands incompatible with “legal, humanitarian and international realities.”

A senior administration official explains, chillingly, “At the end of the day, the President refuses to understand that the Department of Homeland Security is constrained by the laws.”

Hell, even FOX News is saying Trump wanted Nielsen to break the law. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/steve-l ... -scapegoat

She refused, and so she was fired. And then blamed.

[_canpakes]

... a racist and unimaginative democratic party that has no solution ...

Not that you can tell us why the Democratic Party is racist for Republican Party failings, but can you at least tell us why the Republican Party simply did not change the laws regarding seeking asylum when they controlled both House and Senate?

[_Chap]

<stuff>

- Doc

First you say my wife is having sex behind my back while she's going through chemo (its OK mods, no need to delete it again, people need to see the kind of human garbage we're dealing with here) and now you're questioning my manhood and suggesting I'm a homosexual? You're completing the stereotype wonderfully for a woman beater with little man syndrome aren't ya? Let me guess, you probably have a cheesy tattoo on your shoulder and a lumberjack beard because you're that self conscious about your own virility.

Do yourself a favor. Stick to the subject matter and stop pretending to be a tough guy.

My arguments on immigration have never involved dumping large numbers on a city's streets.

The bolded advice is very good. I do wish DrC would take a deep breath, and move decisively and permanently out of the degrading territory he has got himself into. This cannot end well.

[_Kevin Graham]

Trump Owns the Swamp Now, and It’s Awash in Lobbyists

One of the catchier, if vague, slogans of the Trump campaign in 2016 was “Drain the Swamp!” which normally was interpreted as meaning an attack on special interest influence of government policy-making via lobbyists. But that wasn’t so clear given the fact that Trump borrowed it from Ronald Reagan, who meant it to involve getting rid of “wasteful” federal programs, i.e., those that conservatives didn’t like.

The first tip-off that “Drain the Swamp” didn’t mean an ethics crusade came from the composition of Trump’s post-election transition team, which was thickly larded with lobbyists (in sharp contrast with what the supposed corrupt insider Hillary Clinton had planned: a ban on any lobbyists on the transition team).

Now a bit over halfway through Trump’s first term, the liberal group American Bridge 21st Century has supplied the Washington Post with a list of lobbyists on Team Trump, and it’s formidable:

Data provided to The Post … identifies over 350 individuals who’ve worked as lobbyists who currently work in the administration, have worked in it or have been nominated to serve in Trump’s administration. Cumulatively, they’ve represented more than 2,800 companies at one point or another, according to lobbying registration documents. Nearly 200 of them now served or have been nominated to serve in divisions of government that they once lobbied.

Most of these people are not as famous (or infamous) as, say, the former oil industry shill and coal lobbyist who have serially run the Environmental Protection Agency under Trump. But 350 ex-lobbyists represent a lot of special interests. And their greatest concentration, the Post notes, is in the Executive Office of the President, where 47 ex-lobbyists toil to set policy for the entire federal government.

One great fictional swamp-dweller, the Okefenokee possum named Pogo in the cartoon strip of that same name, once made an observation that holds true for the alleged swamp-drainers of the Trump administration: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

First you say my wife is having sex behind my back while she's going through chemo (its OK mods, no need to delete it again, people need to see the kind of human garbage we're dealing with here) and now you're questioning my manhood and suggesting I'm a homosexual? You're completing the stereotype wonderfully for a woman beater with little man syndrome aren't ya? Let me guess, you probably have a cheesy tattoo on your shoulder and a lumberjack beard because you're that self conscious about your own virility.

Do yourself a favor. Stick to the subject matter and stop pretending to be a tough guy.

My arguments on immigration have never involved dumping large numbers on a city's streets.

The bolded advice is very good. I do wish DrC would take a deep breath, and move decisively and permanently out of the degrading territory he has got himself into. This cannot end well.

Oh, cry me a river. You never take Kevin 'the cock goblin' Graham to task for his vicious personal attacks on others. The moment I mirror his behavior all of a sudden Chap finds his voice. I see neither one of these two have bothered to call out canpakes for her deeply racist and troubling post comparing people with brown skin to feral cats.

Disgusting.

- Doc

[_canpakes]

I see neither one of these two have bothered to call out canpakes for her deeply racist and troubling post comparing people with brown skin to feral cats.

Disgusting.

Wait, who mentioned the color of anyone? Hmm. ; )