Swamp Watch News

[_canpakes]

Like you, I am shocked and dismayed by what DrC seems to have devolved into.

Actually, Doc has gone missing for a while. I’m hoping that all is OK with the fellow.

[_Chap]

I’m hoping that all is OK with the fellow.

You're not the only one.

[_subgenius]

and?

Oh I dunno. ....

you and pancakes could always stop at that point. The insistence you have at arguing from a position of ignorance is adorable, but at times its tedious.

Try to form your opinion on your own...it might be refreshing.

[_Chap]

The Arms Trade Treaty was signed by Secretary of State John Kerry in 2013 with overwhelming support from the international community. Only three countries—Iran, North Korea, and Syria—opposed it.

and?

Oh I dunno. Maybe canpakes might have felt that the US is getting into slightly strange territory when the only company it has on the international stage is Iran, North Korea, and Syria.

Of course there's the NRA too. I'm sure Kim Jong Un is a corresponding member of that.

An interesting question is how on earth Trump ever heard of this agreement in the first place. What's the betting one of his aides said to the NRA 'Is there some big political gesture the President could make that might energise your supporters? Something he can do on his own, with just a signature, and talk about at your meeting?'. And this is what they gave him.

... The insistence you have at arguing from a position of ignorance is adorable, but at times its tedious....

So, nothing substantive of your own to say on the point at issue, then?

[_Gunnar]

Like you, I am shocked and dismayed by what DrC seems to have devolved into.

Actually, Doc has gone missing for a while. I’m hoping that all is OK with the fellow.

Yeah, and I hope his recent unpleasant behavior was a temporary aberration, and that he is in a happier place than he seemed to be last time he posted.

[_canpakes]

So, nothing substantive of your own to say on the point at issue, then?

Substantive just ain’t his thang. Weak trolling attempts, perhaps, but that might be all you’ll see from him.

[_canpakes]

The “Rule of Law” Party has changed its tune ...

... (A) social media campaign to see #LindseyGrahamResign was sparked by a deluge of Democratic Coalition demands and the South Carolina Republican's own hard turn toward what many see as his defense of the Trump family over the rule of law.

Tens of thousands of tweets and Facebook posts created the trending hashtag calling for Graham's resignation Tuesday, focusing criticism on the increasingly ardent Trump supporter with accusations he's tied to Russian oil money. In addition to his impassioned defenses of President Donald Trump each week on cable news programs, it was Graham's Sunday advice to Donald Trump Jr. that he should break the law and ignore a Senate subpoena that pushed his critics into demands for his resignation.

[_Gunnar]

And Lindsey Graham used to be a "never Trumper!"

Graham elaborated on his refusal to get behind Trump as the nominee in a Friday interview on CNN, describing an election between Clinton and Trump as a “race to the bottom.”

“He lost me when he said my friend John McCain was a loser because he was captured as a P.O.W. He lost me when he accused George W. Bush of lying to the American people about the Iraq War. And he thinks Putin’s a good guy,” Graham said. “So I just can’t go there. I respect people who can. And to Donald Trump, congratulations, you did a hell of a thing. You beat me and everybody else. I just really believe that the Republican party has been conned here.”

The senator also cited Trump’s penchant for conspiracy theories as a reason he won’t be supporting the real estate mogul’s presidential nominee.

“I’ve got a hard time supporting somebody for president who spent thousands of dollars of their own money trying to find out if President Obama was born in Kenya versus Hawaii. I think that’s crazy. I’m just glad we’re having the convention in Cleveland, not Area 51,” he said. “I think Donald Trump is going to places where very few people have gone and I’m not going with him.”

I wonder how much he had to be bribed to change from a "never Trumper" to just another Trump sycophant.

[_canpakes]

Because there was no other residence option available, right?

The Interior Department has renewed two controversial mining leases for Ivanka Trump’s billionaire Chilean landlord despite significant fears the operation will destroy a pristine Minnesota wilderness area.

The announcement Wednesday by the Bureau of Land Management is a “continuation of the Trump Administration’s assault on the Boundary Waters Wilderness,” said a statement by the nonprofit advocacy group Save The Boundary Waters. The group says the Trump administration’s environmental review of the project was “wholly insufficient to determine the impact of sulfide-ore copper mining.”

Interior Undersecretary Joe Balash said that extending the leases for 10 years “balances” conservation policies with the “need to produce minerals that add value to the lives of all Americans.”

Minnesota businesses and environmentalists went to court to block the mining operation planned by a local subsidiary of Chilean copper conglomerate Antofagasta. The family-owned company is headed by Chilean businessman Andrónico Luksic, who bought a $5.5 million mansion in Washington shortly after Donald Trump won the presidency. Luksic now rents the 7,000-square-foot mansion to the first daughter and her husband Jared Kushner at a bargain $15,000 a month, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

[_canpakes]

Russian and foreign election interference? Welcomed by the Trump Swamp -

The Senate will not vote on any legislation to protect US elections from foreign interference, a Republican committee chair said, despite the consensus of the intelligence community that Russia will once again seek to hack election systems and manipulate American voters in 2020.

The reason, said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) on Wednesday, is that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has decided not to bring any election security bills to the floor for a vote. Blunt’s remark occurred during a hearing of the Rules and Administration Committee, which has oversight of election administration. When Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) asked Blunt, the chairman, whether he was planning mark-ups of any of the several election security bills pending before the committee, Blunt responded that it would be fruitless to advance legislation that McConnell would not allow to come up for a vote.

“I don’t see any likelihood that those bills would get to the floor if we marked them up,” Blunt said. After prodding from Durbin, Blunt explained, “I think the majority leader just is of the view that this debate reaches no conclusion.”

Blunt also acknowledged that it was McConnell who stopped the Rules Committee last year from advancing the Secure Elections Act, a bipartisan bill to protect elections from interference. The committee was poised to mark up that bill last August when the hearing was mysteriously canceled the same morning that it was set to begin.

The decision by Republicans not to consider election security bills is frustrating to Democrats who have been cranking out bills to stop foreign interference and increase security ahead of the 2020 elections. In addition to the Secure Elections Act, the Rules Committee has failed to take up the Protecting the Right to Independent and Democratic Elections (PRIDE) Act, the Protecting American Votes and Elections (PAVE) Act, and the bipartisan Honest Ads Act, which would give online political ads the same disclosure requirements as political ads on television and other media. All three bills were introduced last year and reintroduced this year after no action was taken in the previous Congress.

Democrats are increasingly frustrated that despite the sense of urgency from law enforcement and intelligence agencies, Republicans in Congress have taken very little action on election security. Just last month, the FBI shifted additional resources toward stopping Russians from interfering in 2020. “We are very much viewing 2018 as just kind of a dress rehearsal for the big show in 2020,” Director Christopher Wray warned. But Republicans in Congress appear unwilling to cross President Donald Trump, who does not like to hear Russian election interference mentioned, according to reporting by the New York Times. Democrats in Congress say this reticence to confront the issue has trickled down, affecting not only preparedness at federal agencies but also the willingness of lawmakers to take up the issue.

“I hope you catch the irony here that at the CIA and intelligence agencies, millions of dollars are being spent to stop the Russians from making a mess of the 2020 election,” Durbin said Wednesday, “and yet, in the United States Senate, we can’t bring a bill to the floor to even debate it.”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... ator-says/