Trump’s answers to Mueller’s questions leaked: CNN

Opinion | The People vs. Donald J. Trump

He is demonstrably unfit for office. What are we waiting for? The presidential oath of office contains 35 words and one core promise: to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Since virtually the moment Donald J. Trump took that oath two years ago, he has been violating it.

                       Democratic Talking points for 2018

1. Health Insurance-The Affordable Care Act – (a.k.a. Obama Care) Although most informed people understood the Republican tax plan included a provision to repeal the mandate in the ACA, the Republicans now have taken ownership of the ACA. Prior to this, Donald Trump had scaled back the marketing campaign and shortened the enrollment period in an attempt to sabotage the system. As a result of these and other attempts to kill the ACA it is estimated premiums have increased between 20 – 30%. The Congressional Budget Office has further estimated a 10% premium increase due to the elimination of the mandate. In total then, the Trump administration has caused premiums to increase from a range of 30 to 40%.

  Talking Points: As a result of actions taken by the Trump administration and the Republican Congress, insurance premiums have increased from 30 to 40% in indivisible markets.

1. The Trump administration has taken several actions to sabotage the ACA – these include reducing the enrollment period, eliminating the marketing campaign and education for the act, eliminating the mandate and other attempts to create uncertainty relative to the future of the act.
2. The elimination of the mandate within the ACA, will result in 13 million people no longer having insurance over the next decade. This number is a result of findings from the Congressional Budget Office.
3. According to the Kaiser family foundation and Center for American Progress, the results of Trump repealing the mandate will increase premiums from $400-$2000 a year. Goodbye tax cuts. In fact, in some analysis it notes that the repeal of the ACA mandate will reduce tax cuts for more than 50% of households. Thank you Donald Trump.

1. Tax Reduction– Republican tax cuts – Depending on the source, it is estimated that approximately 80% of all households will receive some type of tax cut over the next few years. But make no mistake that the plan is geared to enhance Republican donors and the top 1% of the wealthiest people in the United States.

Background: According to NBC’s Maury Cartine, a tax expert at Marcum LLP, says the House legislation would save the president approximately 22.6 million per year and 1.1 billion over the next decade. This estimate is based on the 2005 few pages of the Trump tax returns. Donald Trump has refused to provide his complete returns and therefore there is considerable speculation as to his net worth and income.

What you should read:

The 3 False Promises Of The GOP’s Tax Plan-Forbes

Talking Points:

1. The President’s tax plan has enhanced his annual income at a minimum to $22.6 million a year. And over the next decade to approximately $1.1 billion. Great for him, crumbs for the middle class and the poor.
2. According to the Tax Policy Center analysis, the top 1% of earners a year will earn about 60% of the total tax cuts. That amounts to $60 going to one out of every 100 people. Or to put it another way – the top 1% get $60 and the remaining 99% split $40 – with the least going to the middle class and the poor.
3. Only 62 percent of households would see a tax cut of at least $100 in 2019 under the GOP tax bill, but that percentage would drop in subsequent years, according to an analysis of the Joint Committee on Taxation.
4. According to the analysis, 38 percent of households would either see a tax change of less than $100 in 2019 or a tax increase. Most of the people in that group, 30 percent, would see a tax change of less than $100. Sixty-two percent of tax returns would show a decrease in taxes of at least $100. (  The Hill  )
5. 38 percent of all taxpayers would either pay about the same in taxes as they do now or get a tax hike of $100 or less. So essentially 38 out of every 100 taxpayers would not receive a tax cut. Most of these people reside in the upper middle, middle and poor classes.
6. When promoting the plan, Trump stated “the rich will not be gaining at all with this plan.” According to fact check.org, this is totally false.

             12-20-2017

This is a work in progress and we intend to add more talking points the tax plan by this Friday. The important thing here is for each of us to remember these type of talking points which you can reconstruct in your own language. If you have any additional talking points, leave them in your comments and we will consider adding them. Remember, this is all hands-on deck and we cannot let Republicans turn this to a positive side over the next 11 months. We must keep hammering them on this and other issues.

R.J. Intindo

ABA deems another Trump judicial nominee ‘not qualified’

Another one of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees – this time, to the powerful appellate courts – has been deemed “not qualified” by the American Bar Association. Leonard Steven Grasz was nominated in August to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals and has his confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee this week.

Elizabeth Warren Calls For Doug Jones To Be Seated Before Tax Vote

Elizabeth Warren calls for Mitch McConnell to seat newly elected senator Doug Jones before the tax bill vote is scheduled.

                                                                          The Trump File

When I asked, a lifelong close friend why he was voting for Donald Trump, he cited two issues. First, he said that Trump was a great businessman and we needed somebody with business knowledge in the White House for a change. Secondly, he indicated Trump would be a change agent since he was not a Washington insider.

Another close friend who also voted for Trump and was a Democrat indicated that Hillary Clinton was crooked and compromise United States security by installing her personal server. I next asked him about Donald Trump’s qualifications to serve as president and which ones were the most important to him. He thought for a moment and said, he admired an individual whose father only gave him one million dollars and turned it into a billion-dollar empire.

Both of my friends shoved off my questions concerning the morality and ethics of Donald Trump as both believed Clinton had more significant and severe breaches of moral and ethical misconduct. While the phrase, “moral and ethical conduct,” was one I frequently used to ask a question concerning both candidates, I was surprised that slightly more than 50% believed Clinton’s conduct was worse than Trump’s. However, of the more than 20 people I interviewed, on the question of Clinton’s misconduct, the three issues cited involved personal emails, the Clinton foundation, and Bill Clinton’s indiscretions. No other concerns or issues were noted except for one person calling out like water and to others indicated she helped start Isis.

I wrote the above questions concerning the issues of each presidential candidate because from numerous past discussions and interviews it was generally apparent that Trump voters were unaware of the candidate’s background, his issues nor were informed concerning his moral and ethical history.

Although we stopped writing this report in January 2016, even after the election we decided to create and maintain a record of the activities, moral, ethical and other subject matter relative to Donald Trump. Once completed, I believe this will be the most comprehensive report on Mr. Trump. It is not intended to be a biography, but instead a chronicle of his past and current activities as they relate to serving in public office.

We provide links where possible to serve as supporting documentation or reference material for further reading. From time to time we may adjust the sequence where subject matter is located in the report, with the intention of making it more reader friendly.

Russia:  Donald Trump’s ties Russia and Putin:

Throughout the course of the campaign, Donald Trump has repeatedly stated he has absolutely no economic or personal ties to Russia or Vladimir Putin. After the Democratic National Committee was hacked, Trump tweeted “” I have zero investments in Russia.”

According to the Democratic Coalition, the FBI failed to investigate at least ten connections regarding Trump’s ties to Russia. The coalition formulated the Dworkin report, which translates to, “evidence tying Donald Trump to Russia.”

Links:

This Is How the Trump Campaign May Have Interfered With Russia Policy

  The Libertarian party- Issues and Platform

Gary Johnson

Although I am very informed and engaged in the current presidential election, I must admit the shock when I began studying the Libertarian platform. Even more confusing are the results of several recent polls showing that many Bernie Sander’s millennials have moved toward the Libertarian party. The reason for my confusion is that the majority of their platform is further to the right than the Republican Party and diametrically opposite the issues adopted by the Sander’s progressive movement. In other words, why would a Sanders supporter migrate to a candidate that rebuffs the major components of the Sander’s platform.

I would be interested in hearing comments, especially from millennial’s, and more specifically from those who supported Bernie that now support the libertarians.

Key Issues

Johnson does not believe in climate change.

Johnson supports Citizens United.

Economy and Budget

1. Pledged to submit a balanced budget within the first 100 days of his administration. This would necessitate a more than 20% decrease in current federal spending and will include the reduction of entitlements. A few departments would be eliminated and military spending dramatically decreased. Most experts on the Internet indicate this position would be dangerous to the economy and to senior citizens and low income individuals.
2. They would reduce military spending by 20%. Military bases throughout the United States and the world would also be reduced by 20%. Experts on this issue indicate this proposal could jeopardize the security of the United States and our allies. Many indicated the proposal is dangerous.

Entitlements- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid

1. In regard to Medicare and Medicaid, The libertarians would basically eliminate the role of the federal government. The literature on this issue believes this could result in 50 different systems and programs that could result in substantial chaos for these programs.
2. Johnson, would reform Social Security, including increasing the eligibility age. His comments have ranged raising the age from 68 – 70.

Gun Control

1. Does not believe the, “no-fly list”, should be utilized to deny a person gun ownership.
2. Believes open carry should be a national policy as it will reduce mass shootings. He states that Americans would be safer if guns were more readily available and not restricted. He believes that private citizens carrying guns could have stopped some of the atrocities. He forgets that in Orlando there was a security guard on duty with a gun.
3. Johnson believes that no restrictions should be placed on the purchase of automatic in semi automatic assault rifles

Medical and Abortion

1. Supports abortion
2. Supports Planned Parenthood
3. Would eliminate the Affordable Care Act and has no plan to replace it with a different program.
4. Does not believe in, nor would permit funding for stem cell research.
5. Eliminate the Bush plan for prescription drug assistance.
6. Does not believe in funding nor would support insurance four mental health issues.
7. No government involvement whatsoever on any healthcare insurance.
8. No government cost regulations related to prescription drug even those that are lifesaving.
9. Reduce Medicare and Medicaid by at least 50% or eliminate altogether.

   International Trade

1. In general Gary Johnson typically opposes trade agreements. However, he does support The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

This article should not be considered to be a testament of exoneration of the Hillary Clinton email situation. However, it should bring into the question why Republicans, who essentially did the same thing or worse were never questioned. I believe the consternation brought to bear on Hillary Clinton is simply because she is, who she is, and that Republicans ignore the same circumstances that exist within their own party. But more importantly, what astounded me as I conducted the research is the lack of press and media attention on all of the numerous other similar situations.

Let us begin with Jeb Bush, Florida Gov. from 1999 – 2007, who voluntarily from his own computer server posted thousands of emails online that were categorized by his own determination of what was relevant to government business. When questioned, the Bush campaign indicated that public records not related to government business were not turned over to the state. But again, similar to the Clinton situation, that was strictly based on the his discretion. Sources indicate that Bush did not include emails related to politics, his campaign, or donors asking for favors.

During the George W. Bush administration, Karl Rove, Deputy Chief of staff, deleted 22 million emails dating from2003 to 2005. Further, the Bush administration improperly utilized email of the Republican National Committee (RNC) that somehow disappeared. It was believed the RNC email system was utilized specifically because they would be hidden from public purview.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a watchdog group, alleged that the missing emails were possible violations of the Federal Presidential Records Act

In 2006, seven Democratic US Attorneys were fired and replaced with political hacks with little or no experience.  A congressional committee investigating the firing of the US attorneys requested the emails and learned they could not be found. At the time there was considerable outrage that the firings were simply a political act to protect VP Dick Cheney and his comrades for unmasking Valerie Palme, a CIA specialist. Palme was a covert CIA agent whose husband publicly criticized the Bush administration for invading Iraq without accurate information concerning weapons of mass destruction. As a result, of the unmasking Palme sued Cheney, Rove, and Scooter Libby, (Bush’s Chief of Staff) for conspiring to destroy her career. Scooter Libby was sentenced to serve 30 months in prison and pay a $250,000 fine. President Bush commuted his prison sentence, and therefore he is one no time.

A majority of the records regarding Palme scandal and the US attorney firings were deleted from the private political server located in the White House. Not a single Republican called for an investigation of this situation. The emails contained information regarding the firing of the eight attorneys who would’ve been involved with the prosecution in the Palme case. Wouldn’t it have been interesting to have those emails available? And where was the Republican outrage. It doesn’t exist because the name Hillary Clinton wasn’t involved.

In 2007, CREW and that National Security Archive sued the Bush administration, stating that he violated federal laws that required such records be maintained.

Links:

nydailynews

CNN

Links to other pages:

1. Fact Checking: Ninety- One Percent of Donald Trump’s Statements are Not True
2. Trump mocks and makes fun of handicapped people