General Trump hilarity free-for-all thread

[Doktor Howl]

Trump is now demanding that Iran live up to the deal *he* scrapped. 

[kiss my axe]

They need to take a tip from Kim Jong-un and understand that he's a dotard.

[Juana]

Trump is now demanding that Iran live up to the deal *he* scrapped. 

Man, what a time to be alive

[Cain]

So here's a fun story about how the Border Patrol love to act like Nazis in a cheap, low budget film.

Austin is where I was born and raised, and I usually get waved through immigration after one or two questions. I’m also a white man; more on that later. This time, when my turn came to show my passport, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer was more aggressive than usual in his questioning. I told him I’d been in Mexico for seven days for work, that I was a journalist, and that I travel to Mexico often, as he could see from my passport. That wasn’t enough for him, though. He wanted to know the substance of the story I was currently working on, which didn’t sit right with me. I tried to skirt the question, but he came back to it, pointedly.

I was going on three hours of sleep, and I hadn’t had anything to eat in the last 12 hours besides some popcorn and peanuts and a Monster energy drink. Had my blood sugar been higher, I might have cheerfully told him. Instead, I muttered something about not having a legal obligation, under the circumstances, to disclose the contents of my reporting.

The agent, whose name was Moncivias, said we would see about that.

A bespectacled supervisor named Lopez made an appearance. In a polite back-and-forth, I learned that I was not under arrest or suspected of any crime, and my citizenship was not in doubt, but if I didn’t answer the question asked by the “incident officer,” I wouldn’t be allowed into the United States. He handed me some brochures and left the room.

In general, law enforcement agents have to get a warrant to search your electronic devices. That’s the gist of the 2014 Supreme Court case Riley v. California. But the Riley ruling only applies when the police arrest you. The Supreme Court has not yet decided whether the same protections apply to American citizens reentering the United States from abroad, and federal appeals courts have issued contradictory opinions. In the absence of a controlling legal authority, CBP goes by its own rules, namely CBP Directive No. 3340-049A, pursuant to which CBP can search any person’s device, at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all. If you refuse to give up your password, CBP’s policy is to seize the device. The agency may use “external equipment” to crack the passcode, “not merely to gain access to the device, but to review, copy, and/or analyze its contents,” according to the directive. CBP can look for any kind of evidence, any kind of information, and can share what it finds with any other federal agency, so long as doing so is “consistent with applicable law and policy.”

I had my doubts as to whether they could actually crack my iPhone and MacBook, but I didn’t doubt that they would be happy to confiscate them. So I decided to take another tack: I told the officers I had nothing to hide, but I felt I had a professional obligation to call an attorney for further advice. Pomeroy said I could not because I wasn’t under arrest; I just wasn’t allowed to enter the United States. I wasn’t allowed to leave the Homeland Security zone, either. I know because I tried to sort of wander out a couple of times and got yelled at. When I actually tried to call a lawyer friend of mine in Austin, Pomeroy stopped me. They held onto my phone from then out.

At one point, Pomeroy was standing over my laptop on the desk. I couldn’t see the screen, and he had such a puzzled expression on his face that I stood up to see what he was looking at. “Get back,” he said, clapping a hand on his sidearm. “I don’t know if you’re going for my gun.” At another point, Pomeroy had taken my laptop to the desk in the waiting area, and I thought I heard him call for me to come over, so I did. “Stand back from my gun,” he said, when he saw me approaching; it turns out he had been talking to someone else. Three times during the course of the secondary screening, Pomeroy pronounced words to the effect that he was subjectively forming a reasonable belief that I might grab his service weapon.

It was an implicit death threat and a rhetorical move on part of the police that will be familiar to people of color: I’ve got a gun on you, ergo, you’re a threat to me. Speaking of which, I’m certain this whole experience would have been worse had I been black or brown instead of white. And that is to say nothing of migrants and refugees, whose treatment at the hands of CBP on the U.S.-Mexico border is another matter altogether. But it does go to show that you can’t contain a culture of aggression to one part of an armed agency.

I was being physically submissive, keeping my hands visible at all times, not making any sudden moves, but Pomeroy would not let me see the laptop screen. I told him I at least had the right to know what files he was reviewing. “All of them,” he said, giving me a hard stare. “I’m going to look at all of them.”

[nullified]

The only person who would leave the perfect state is an enemy of the perfect state. Why else would you choose imperfection over perfection?

[Doktor Howl]

Well.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/21/media/time-photographer-trump-threat/index.html

[Brother Mythos]

Mueller to testify publicly on July 17 following a subpoena

As per the article:

“Robert Mueller will testify before Congress on July 17 after House Democrats issued a subpoena for his appearance, a move that paves the way for a reluctant special counsel to answer questions publicly for the first time about his 22-month investigation into President Donald Trump.

The House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees announced Tuesday that Mueller had agreed to testify after they issued subpoenas for his testimony, and Mueller would appear in public before the two panels next month.”

Here's the link: https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/25/politics/robert-mueller-will-testify/index.html

So, what are the odds Mueller will actually show up, if Trump claims he is barred from testifying by reason of Executive Privilege? Based upon the Special Counsel's behavior to date, I'm not feeling particularly optimistic.

[Emo Howard]

What could he possibly have to say that isn't in the report?

[Cain]

He likely will literally repeat the report in the hearing.

The only thing they might be able to wrangle out of him is some further details on specific incidents of behaviour he deemed as obstructing his investigation.

Also they want soundbites they can run throughout 2020.

[Juana]

I'm still gonna watch it. It'll be a repeat of the Cohen hearing, probably, and less juicy, but I'm gonna do the thing.

[Faust]

He likely will literally repeat the report in the hearing.

The only thing they might be able to wrangle out of him is some further details on specific incidents of behaviour he deemed as obstructing his investigation.

Also they want soundbites they can run throughout 2020.

The one thing he wouldn't answer previously was "Do you think there should be an investigation / impeachment proceedings etc" to which he responded "Its in my report it speaks for itself"
I don't know can they force him to testify on the question "In your personal opinion what do you think the next steps are on this", but I suppose he will just say, "read the report, you decide".

[Junkenstein]

Given he's repeatedly said that if called will just read the report as statement, it's probably going to become quickly apparent who has even read it in full in the first place. I'm expecting some full on special Olympics of mental gymnastics to be on full display. All sides.

[Doktor Howl]

Given he's repeatedly said that if called will just read the report as statement, it's probably going to become quickly apparent who has even read it in full in the first place. I'm expecting some full on special Olympics of mental gymnastics to be on full display. All sides.

Our people didn't make the team.  It's very sad.