All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[Tami]

‘Someone’s Gotta Tell the Freakin’ Truth’: Jerry Falwell’s Aides Break Their Silence

At Liberty University, all anyone can talk about is Jerry Falwell Jr. Just not in public.

“When he does stupid stuff, people will mention it to others they consider confidants and not keep it totally secret,” a trusted adviser to Falwell, the school’s president and chancellor, told me. “But they won’t rat him out.”

That’s beginning to change.

Over the past year, Falwell, a prominent evangelical leader and supporter of President Donald Trump, has come under increasing scrutiny. News outlets have reported on business deals by Liberty University benefiting Falwell’s friends. Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen claimed that he had helped Falwell clean up racy “personal” photographs.

Based on scores of new interviews and documents obtained for this article, concerns about Falwell’s behavior go well beyond that—and it’s causing longtime, loyal Liberty University officials to rapidly lose faith in him.

More than two dozen current and former high-ranking Liberty University officials and close associates of Falwell spoke to me or provided documents for this article, opening up—for the first time at an institution so intimately associated with the Falwell family—about what they’ve experienced and why they don’t think he’s the right man to lead Liberty University or serve as a figurehead in the Christian conservative movement.

“We’re not a school; we’re a real estate hedge fund,” said a senior university official with inside knowledge of Liberty’s finances. “We’re not educating; we’re buying real estate every year and taking students’ money to do it.”

[InformationGeek]

While I wouldn't put that past Adolph Twitler, I need a link before I'll believe it. Even if I'd only be shocked but not surprised if it is true. That would be so openly racist that he'd lose supporters - at least many of the ones who still lie to themselves about what he is.

Been seeing more about that on Twitter.

Hundreds like Renard Oliver and his baby now have to get off the ferry from Freeport, Bahamas to Florida. He was trying to evacuate — told he could leave with Bahamian passport and police record like normal but then ferry crew says US Goverment called and changed plan last minute

This is what I’m learning from passengers: normally Bahamians can FLY to the USA with their passport and a clean police record. Bc of the hurricane, the rules were changed and they could also come to US under those conditions on ferries and ships. They’ve been doing that for days

So they all lined up and waited for hours to board this ferry. (See my tweets from earlier) when we were about to leave, something changed.

[InformationGeek]

My god, someone can't go five minutes without demanding attention.

When all of the people pushing so hard for Criminal Justice Reform were unable to come even close to getting it done, they came to me as a group and asked for my help. I got it done with a group of Senators & others who would never have gone for it. Obama couldn’t come close....

....A man named @VanJones68, and many others, were profusely grateful (at that time!). I SIGNED IT INTO LAW, no one else did, & Republicans deserve much credit. But now that it is passed, people that had virtually nothing to do with it are taking the praise. Guys like boring.....

....musician @johnlegend, and his filthy mouthed wife, are talking now about how great it is - but I didn’t see them around when we needed help getting it passed. “Anchor”@LesterHoltNBC doesn’t even bring up the subject of President Trump or the Republicans when talking about....

.....the importance or passage of Criminal Justice Reform. They only talk about the minor players, or people that had nothing to do with it...And the people that so desperately sought my help when everyone else had failed, all they talk about now is Impeaching President Trump!

John Legend and Christine Teigen respond appropriately.

Imagine being president of a whole country and spending your Sunday night hate-watching MSNBC hoping somebody--ANYBODY--will praise you. Melania, please praise this man. He needs you.

lol what a pussy ass bitch. tagged everyone but me. an honor, mister president.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

More Americans will die after Trump abruptly ends Afghan talks, Taliban say

President Donald Trump's decision to cancel Afghan peace talks will cost more American lives, the Taliban said on Sunday while the United States promised to keep up military pressure on the militants, in a stunning reversal of efforts to forge a deal ending nearly 20 years of war in Afghanistan.

The Islamist group issued a statement after Trump unexpectedly canceled secret talks planned for Sunday with the Taliban's major leaders at the presidential compound in Camp David, Maryland. He broke off the talks on Saturday after the Taliban claimed responsibility for an attack in Kabul last week that killed an American soldier and 11 others.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, criticized Trump for calling off the dialogue and said U.S. forces have been pounding Afghanistan with attacks at the same time.

"This will lead to more losses to the U.S.," he said. "Its credibility will be affected, its anti-peace stance will be exposed to the world, losses to lives and assets will increase."

In Washington, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Afghan peace talks were on hold and Washington would not reduce U.S. military support for Afghan troops until it was convinced the Taliban could follow through on significant commitments.

The United States has recalled U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad to chart the path forward, Pompeo said in appearances on Sunday TV news shows. Asked on "Fox News Sunday" whether Afghan talks were dead, Pompeo said, "For the time being they are."

[Tami]

Been seeing more about that on Twitter.

Just saw this

This morning, CBP claims they did not tell the ferry company to make Bahamians without visas disembark after hours of waiting in line. There should be a full investigation into what happened & an immediate effort to help these people. They are our neighbors.

Twitter Link

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Just saw this

Twitter Link

This is starting to sound like a classic case of either CYA, or the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Or, perhaps both.

[jetengine]

Donald Trumps fucked up both attempts at peace in the middle east. Fucking hell....

[Tendrin]

Just saw this

Twitter Link

"We didn't think about our actions getting filmed and put on twitter so we'll pretend that wasn't what happened"

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Donald Trumps fucked up both attempts at peace in the middle east. Fucking hell....

Don't tell me you're surprised. Trump could screw up a perfectly good wet dream. The neverending clusterfuck that's the Middle East is well beyond his limited capabilities, provided he was ever serious about brokering a peace deal there to begin with, and I seriously doubt he was.

[Tami]

Donald Trumps fucked up both attempts at peace in the middle east. Fucking hell....

He had three reasons for trying it
1. Photo Op
2. Nobel Peace Prize
3. Win votes

He never cared on way or another. But when the Taliban cancelled the meeting, he had to save face and claim that he was the one who cancelled it.

Obama got a Nobel Prize.

Trump is desperate to get one as well. It's the one thing he can't take away from Obama, and one of many things he can't do better than him on.

[jetengine]

Realistically the issue is that America kicked over a government with no plan to fix it, assuming they'd do it themselves. If you want to utterly remove the Taliban your going to have to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan into first world nations that love the USA. Thats going to take ALOT of money, time and energy. Ironically all of which create jobs.

[Tami]

Did Barack Obama Deserve the Nobel Prize?

President Obama, at the time, did not feel he deserved the prize but was in an awkward situation. In the end, he had no choice but to accept it.

One thing the prize did ultimately end up doing, is driving Trump crazy. We all know that Trump has no concept of diplomacy, that he has allowed the Diplomatic corp to disintegrate through either not filling needed positions, driving people out, or bring people in who were far from qualified.

Yet even he realized that, if he ever wanted to prove himself better than Obama, he had to also win the Nobel Prize, and to do that, he had to do something Peaceful.

Trump probably felt that it would be very easy to negotiate a truce between the Taliban and the Afghanistan government, dismissing the fact that, if it had been that easy, the war woudl have ended years and years ago.

So, with an ignorance of diplomacy, a staff who was equally ignorant, a refusal to listen to anyone who does know about teh situation there, and his usual 'I can do anything, I aam the chosen one' attitude, Trump sent his people to dive right in.

The negotiations weren't going well, so trump had the bright idea to bring everyone to Camp David, in early September, around the time of the 9/11 memorial day.

He forgot the part that
a. It was 9/11
b. The Taliban were involved in that
c. The Negotiations weren't going well
d. The Taliban have no interest in photo ops with the US President.

[Tami]

Exclusive: US extracted top spy from inside Russia in 2017

Washington (CNN)In a previously undisclosed secret mission in 2017, the United States successfully extracted from Russia one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government, multiple Trump administration officials with direct knowledge told CNN.

A person directly involved in the discussions said that the removal of the Russian was driven, in part, by concerns that President Donald Trump and his administration repeatedly mishandled classified intelligence and could contribute to exposing the covert source as a spy.

The decision to carry out the extraction occurred soon after a May 2017 meeting in the Oval Office in which Trump discussed highly classified intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and then-Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. The intelligence, concerning ISIS in Syria, had been provided by Israel.

The disclosure to the Russians by the President, though not about the Russian spy specifically, prompted intelligence officials to renew earlier discussions about the potential risk of exposure, according to the source directly involved in the matter.

At the time, then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo told other senior Trump administration officials that too much information was coming out regarding the covert source, known as an asset. An extraction, or "exfiltration" as such an operation is referred to by intelligence officials, is an extraordinary remedy when US intelligence believes an asset is in immediate danger.

[Tami]

Dozens of Bahamas Hurricane Evacuees Kicked Off Ferry Bound for U.S.

Dozens of weary Bahamas residents hoping to seek refuge in the United States from the storm-ravaged islands were kicked off a ferry headed for Florida on Sunday night, after an announcement on board that anyone without a valid visa would “have problems” at the American port of entry.

Videos of the incident spread rapidly on social media, with frustrated passengers lamenting that standard protocols — which in the past had allowed Bahamians to enter the United States without a visa as long as they had a passport and documentation of a clean criminal record — were not being honored.

“At the last minute like this,” said one passenger, Renard Oliver, who held onto a toddler as he spoke to a reporter with the Miami television station WSVN. “It’s hurtful because I’m watching my daughters cry, but it is what it is.”

American officials said their procedures for processing Bahamians into the United States had not changed. Unlike with other cruise ship operators and airlines that have ushered hundreds from the Bahamas to safety in the United States since Hurricane Dorian hit, the officials said, the ferryboat’s operators had not contacted the American embassy ahead of time to confirm that passengers without visas did, in fact, meet the requirements for entry, which include a valid passport and a police record obtained within the last six months.

A spokeswoman said the agency had not denied the passengers entry into the United States, but instead had advised that they disembark and coordinate with the American embassy because without such pre-clearance it would have taken hours to process them after arrival in Florida.

“C.B.P. continues to process the arrivals of passengers evacuating from the Bahamas according to established policy and procedures — as demonstrated by the nearly 1,500 Hurricane Dorian survivors who arrived at the Port of Palm Beach, Fla., aboard a cruise ship on Saturday and were processed without incident,” an agency spokeswoman said in a statement.

The statement continued, “C.B.P. relies on the transportation companies in both the air and sea environments to be engaged in ensuring the safety and well-being of any individuals that have been devastated by this tragedy, and that requires transparent communication and planning for adequate resources to receive any arrivals.”

The ferry was operated by the company Balearia, which conducts frequent sailings between Fort Lauderdale, Bimini and Grand Bahama — all popular tourist destinations. Representatives of the company could not be reached for comment, and it was not clear if or why Sunday’s boarding may have been handled differently than in the past.

Peter Vazquez, a yacht broker in Fort Lauderdale who has been delivering aid to the Bahamas daily, said he has been bringing storm survivors back to South Florida and they had encountered no problems. The people were not required to have a visa, but they did have to check in upon landing, where they were processed by Customs officials, he said.

[Malvolio]

Don't tell me you're surprised. Trump could screw up a perfectly good wet dream. The neverending clusterfuck that's the Middle East is well beyond his limited capabilities, provided he was ever serious about brokering a peace deal there to begin with, and I seriously doubt he was.

Of course he would. No matter how good the sex was, he would be completely obsessed with the size (or lack thereof) of his penis.