Trump to graduates: 'No politician in history... has been treated worse'

By Dan Merica, CNN

New London, Connecticut (CNN)President Donald Trump, amid his own swirling controversies, advised United States Coast Guard Academy graduates that while things aren't always fair, "you have to put your head down and fight, fight, fight."

"Look at the way I have been treated lately, especially by the media," he said. "No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly.

 

 

 

 

 

Now you can have all the negative consequences of drug use without any of that pesky "getting high!"

From WXIA, Atlanta's NBC affiliate:

Georgia now has more than 250 officers with special 'drug recognition expert' training.

So what does that mean?  It means that you can be pulled over, pass every roadside sobriety test and these special officers can look at you and "recognize" that you are on drugs because I guess they're psychic or something? And you can be arrested for DUI even though you have passed the sobriety tests because this psychic cop decides that even though there's no evidence that you're high, you're high!

I don't know if this video is going to embed properly, but you can watch it here: http://www.11alive.com/news/investigations/the-drug-whisperer/437061710
You can skip ahead to about the 20:15 mark when the officer, AFTER the driver has passed several sobriety tests, asks her if she's been smoking marijuana. She says no, he says that she's "showing indications" that she has and proceeds to cuff her.




The conversation, in part, goes like this:

Officer Carroll: "I'm going to ask you a question, okay? When was the last time you smoked marijuana?"
Katelyn Ebner: "Oh, I don't do that. I can give you a drug test right now."
Officer Carroll: "You don't smoke marijuana?"
Katelyn Ebner: "I do not, no."
Officer Carroll: "Okay. Well, you're showing me indicators that you have been smoking marijuana, okay?"

And then she's arrested.

Katelyn Ebner: "I'm going to jail for marijuana?"
Officer Carroll: "No, ma'am -- not possession, unless I find any in your car. I believe you're impaired by the marijuana you've smoked."
Katelyn Ebner: "Okay, so when I do a drug test, I'll be free to go, correct?"
Officer Carroll: "You're going to jail, ma'am. Okay? I don't have a magical drug test that I can give you right now."

She's arrested with no actual evidence of having committed any crime other than the fact that this particular cop has been given the right to decide that she seems like maybe she's high because he can read some sort of bullshit "indicators." How do I know they're bullshit?

The waitress spent the night in jail, had her alcohol server's permit revoked because of the arrest. After four months, prosecutors dismissed all her charges -- because the blood test came back completely clean.

[emphasis added. By me.]

"You had to spend months -- and thousands of dollars --  proving your innocence," Keefe said.
"I did," Ebner said.

So this woman had her life fucked up pretty bad because this one officer thought he could magically determine her drug status because he had some magical training.



So what kind of training do these officers receive in order to become "drug recognition experts" (DREs)?
Well, I found this on the website of the International Association of Chiefs of Police:

The DEC Program trains law enforcement officers and other approved public safety officials as DREs through a three-phase training process:

1. DRE Pre-School (16 hours)
2. DRE School (56 hours)
3. DRE Field Certification (Approximately 40-60 hrs)

The training relies heavily on Standardized Field Sobriety Tests (SFSTs), which provide the foundation for the DEC Program. 
 (DEC stands for Drug Evaluation & Classification)

Not a lot of detail, except that the basis seems to be the standard roadside sobriety tests which any police officer can do, so what makes DREs special? I don't know.


 I did find this training video on YouTube:






In this video, the officer talks about checking the suspect's pulse and pupil size. I had an experience with this years ago, when I was a young single fella. My girlfriend and I had just left a bar where we had gone to see a band. I had had one beer. We were in the parking lot of a public park across the street which must be the site of  some drug activity, I guess. Anyway, just as I was about to start the car, a police car pulled up with lights on and the officer asked for my license & registration. He asked had I been drinking. I told the truth, one beer over an hour ago. He asked what other drugs I had taken. I told him "none." He did not believe me.

He got out his pupil measuring card, shone his light in my face, checked my pulse and told me I was definitely on something. He asked me why, if I wasn't high, was my pulse so fast and my pupils so large. I told him my pupils are just naturally large, they always look like that (which is true) and my pulse is fast because you're making me really nervous.

I gave him permission to search my car. By now another police car had pulled up and there were three officers all telling me that I was definitely on some drug or other. I offered to take a breathalyzer. I offered to take a blood test, a urine test, any test they had. I made this offer several times and none of the cops responded or acknowledged that I had said anything.Eventually a third police car arrived on the scene like I was Al Capone or something.

They did not find anything incriminating in my car, and eventually, after about an hour, and after one officer told me that I was probably "coming down," but he knew that I was on something (and as angry and frustrated as I was, I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. "Coming down?" Am I in an after-school special?" This was the 1990's!) anyway, after about an hour, they finally let me go with the recommendation that my girlfriend drive as I was obviously impaired. I didn't say anything, but I thought that if they were so convinced I was high, they had no damn business letting me get back in the car with just the advice that I have her drive. What kind of irresponsible bullshit is that?


Anyway, thank God they didn't have the DRE program back then, or they'd have cuffed me and taken me in. And I was way too pretty to go to jail!

The same thing happened to college student Princess Mbamara two weeks earlier -- on Good Friday.
Officer Carroll: "When's the last time you smoked weed?"
Princess Mbamara: "I don't smoke weed."
Officer Carroll: "You don't smoke weed?"
Princess Mbamara: "No. Not at all."
Officer Carroll: "Okay."
                 
[And yes, this is the same Officer Carroll]
 Princess Mbamara: "Wait -- okay, hold on sir."
Officer Carroll: "Just one second -- Just give me one second."
Princess Mbamara: "You're arresting me!?"
Officer Carroll: "That's correct."
Princess Mbamara: "Sir, hold on one second. I'm complying."

 Princess Mbamara was also jailed. She fought the DUI-drug charges for half of 2016.

Mbamara's toxicology screen came back and only showed positive for lidocaine -- an over-the-counter local anesthetic used in transdermal patches to treat back pain, insect bites and other types of pain and discomfort



And again,I'm not sure if this video will embed, so here's a link to where you can watch it:
http://www.11alive.com/news/investigations/raw-princess-mbamara-dashcam/438127977

Months later, it happened again to an Auburn University student.
Officer Carroll: "You're giving me indicators that you have consumed marijuana, okay? So at this time, I believe that your failure to maintain lane was the reason for that -- so you're being placed under arrest for DUI, okay?"
The prosecutor filed a dismissal of the DUI-drug charge five months later: "Defendant performed well on FSEs (Field Sobriety Evaluations) and blood and urine were negative."

So what kind of consequences have their been for this officer? Well, from what I could find online:

Due to this special training and his high ate of making arrests, Carroll got a promotion and a merit raise in 2016. According to 11Alive, he got top marks for making the proper arrest or don’t arrest decisions regarding whether drivers were impaired.
However, as 11Alive noted, the three innocent people he arrested for allegedly driving under the influence that year — Ebner, Mbamara and an unnamed student from Auburn University — were not mentioned in these glowing reports.

I have not found any reports of any of the falsely arrested persons being compensated at all.

DRE programs exist in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Happy motoring!

Why do they keep letting him do interviews?

I'm sure I'm probably about the 5 millionth person to comment on the interview tRump did with the Economist, but holy shit, that was fucking nuts!


It's bad enough his handlers let him do interviews with soft-headed lunks like the Fox & Friends crew, but this is the Economist. You have to know how far out of his league he is here, right?


Actually, I guess they did know, because they sent a couple of what passes for ringers in this administration to try to help him through it.

DONALD TRUMP, the President of the United States, along with Steve Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, and Gary Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, sat down for a conversation with editors from The Economist on May 4th, 2017.

 Ladies and gentlemen, the A-team!

What is Trumponomics and how does it differ from standard Republican economics?
Well it’s an interesting question. I don’t think it’s ever been asked quite that way.

Really? Are you sure it's never been asked in that obvious straight-ahead way before?
Oh, I bet he means no one's ever asked him that question with an English accent before!

But it really has to do with self-respect as a nation. It has to do with trade deals that have to be fair, and somewhat reciprocal, if not fully reciprocal. And I think that’s a word that you’re going to see a lot of, because we need reciprocality in terms of our trade deals.

Someone got a word-a-day calendar!

 . . .  if I said I’m going to put a tax on of 10%, the free-traders, somewhat foolishly, they’ll say “Oh, he’s not a free-trader”, which I am, I’m absolutely a free-trader. I’m for open trade, free trade, but I also want smart trade and fair trade. But they’ll say, “He’s not a free-trader,” at 10%. But if I say we’re putting a reciprocal tax on, it may be 62% or it may be 47%, I mean massive numbers, and nobody can complain about it. It’s really sort of an amazing thing.

 Okay, let me see if I got this. You're all for "free trade" and also all for "fair trade" two concepts which are mutually exclusive. Also, the the "free-traders" get upset about a 10% import tax, but they have no complaint about a 62% or 47% tax? Have I got this right?

Or would it be fair to say that you just think "reciprocal" is a magic word that makes everyone approve of whatever you do?

So that’s the story. It very much has to do with trade. We have so many bad trade deals. To a point where I’m not sure that we have any good trade deals. I don’t know who the people are that would put us into a NAFTA, which was so one-sided. Both from the Canada standpoint and from the Mexico standpoint. So one-sided. Wilbur [Ross, the secretary of commerce] will tell you that, you know, like, at the court in Canada, we always lose. Well, the judges are three Canadians and two Americans. We always lose. But we’re not going to lose any more. And so it’s very, very unfair.

**sigh** You don't know, do you? You have no idea how your economics differ from standard GOP economics, do you?

One last question on trade. Do you think you’ve permanently changed the Republican Party’s position on trade?
No. Because there’ll always be someone that comes along with another idea but it’s not a better idea. We have the better idea. But yeah, I think that a lot of the, like for instance today, health care. Very big thing. Very big. And it wasn’t two bites of the apple. It was one bite. Somebody set a time limit and that was mistake, I said never set a time limit but somebody set a time limit. So when they didn’t meet that time limit they said, “We didn’t get it there”, well, they shouldn’t have set a time limit.

Who was it that set that time limit? Who was the fool that said he was going to do this in the first 100 days? Who was that guy? I can kinda picture him. . . orange skin, bad combover, tiny hands. . . Oh well, whoever it was was certainly a dolt!

Another part of your overall plan, the tax reform plan. Is it OK if that tax plan increases the deficit? Ronald Reagan’s tax reform didn’t.

Oh, fuck! I take it back. This idiot is definitely in tRump's league if he thinks Reagan's tax policies didn't increase the deficit.

But beyond that it’s OK if the tax plan increases the deficit?
It is OK, because it won’t increase it for long. You may have two years where you’ll…you understand the expression “prime the pump”?
Yes.We have to prime the pump.
It’s very Keynesian.
We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world. Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?
Priming the pump?
Yeah, have you heard it?
Yes.
Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just…I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It’s what you have to do.

For God's sake, he just told you that he has heard that expression before. You can't turn around and say you just made it up!  I mean, I guess you can. You just did, but Jeezus, you look like an idiot when you do that.

But let's go back to something you just said a moment ago: "we're the highest-taxed nation in the world." Yeeeeeah. . . not so much.
I mean, we totally are unless you count Australia.
And the UK
And France, Portugal, Belgium and Spain.
But other than that, we're the highest taxed country in the world other than Japan.
And Finland.
And the Czech Republic.
And Denmark, Greece, Canada Switzerland and one of the Koreas.
But we're definitely taxed more than Germany and Poland. So there's that.

So you would have a bigger deficit, a stimulus, to prime the pump that would lead to faster growth?
So I happen to think that 3% is low. But you can’t do it if your companies are leaving the country because taxes are too high.

 Or, and hear me out here, I'm just spitballing, but maybe they leave the country because they can pay Third-World workers starvation wages, have no safety or environmental rules and can have employees arrested for saying the word "union" out loud?

I don’t know if you saw what’s happening. Ford has announced massive expansions in the United States. General Motors cancelled a big plant in Mexico and a big plant in Europe. They’re all cancelling plans because I told them, I said…I get along with them great. But I said, “Look, we don’t mind if you leave the country. You can build all you want out of country, I hope you enjoy your plant. But when you build your car, you’re going to have a 35% tax when you bring it back in.

And they were all so impressed with me that they went back in time and put these expansion plans on the books during the Obama Administration!

So I mean, I have, it has, I haven’t been given massive credit for it yet, but I have been given some because I just see polls out in Michigan and different places, that really are affected by this, have been unbelievable, you know, much bigger than election day.

Um, any polls that show you gaining popularity in Michigan are #FakeNews. I haven't been able to find a single one. It may be that your handlers are making up fake poll numbers to keep you from sulking.

The other thing, just in case we…I believe it could be anywhere from $4trn to $5trn outside, you know don’t forget we’ve been talking about $2.5trn for four years now. I’ve been using $2.5trn, the same number we’ve all been using for years. Well, you know, it grows. I think it…I wouldn’t be surprised if it was $5trn but, you know, we’re close. We’re letting that money come back in. And that has two barriers which you have to watch. It’s got a barrier of the tax, which we will take care of. We’re going to make it 10%. Now it’s 35%...
Sorry, 10%? The repatriation taxes?

You know the interview is going well when the reporter has to hazard a guess as to what the fuck you're babbling about!




Sorry, 10%? The repatriation taxes?
The repatriation. Inversion. The corporate inversions, which is a disaster, with the companies leaving. But they want to bring back their money. Number one, the tax is too high but the other thing that’s too high is the bureaucracy.
Mr Mnuchin: Correct.
President Trump: I have a friend who said even if you wanted to bring it back in you can’t because you have to go through so many papers, so many documents, so many…
Mr Mnuchin: We’re going to make it simple
President Trump: You have to do…Steve, they told me you’ve got to sign books and books of stuff, you pay millions of dollars in legal fees and they almost don’t allow you to bring it back in.

So some guy I know said this and I have absolutely no reason to think he might be exaggerating or bullshitting or maybe doesn't know what he's talking about or maybe is a guy that I made up who doesn't exist. But I'm sure he's right. Anyway, it's not like I have access to the tax codes or to any economic experts who could explain them to me or anything. It's not like I could just call the IRS and ask them to send someone over to walk me through the actual process. I'm just a humble, ordinary private citizen who. . . I'm not? Really? The President? Of what? America? Hoo boy, we're all in trouble!

I just love this idea that these CEOs are hiding all this money in offshore tax havens because, while they'd love to bring it back to their country, it's just too darn complicated! How could these simple salt-of-the-earth businessmen ever figure out how to move money back into the US? I mean, moving it out of the US sure - any fool could transfer profits to a shell company with a subsidiary in the Caymans while re-assigning all expenses and losses to the American parent company. That's what we pay the bean-counter for! But bringing it back? My God, you should see all the paperwork!


Oh my God, this interview keeps going and going and I can't take any more! Maybe I'll pick this up tomorrow.

Things are getting weird.

There has been some weird stuff going on the last couple of days.






First of all, the New York Times - The NEW YORK TIMES!-- ran a column asking their readers to say something positive about Trump. Seriously:

Search

Sunday Review

By MICHAEL KINSLEY

April 29, 2017

Opinion | Say Something Nice About Donald Trump

The establishment press has been vicious about Donald Trump. He’s portrayed, day after day, as a narcissist, personally obnoxious, with a policy agenda to match. He deserves most of this criticism.

If, as you acknowledge, he deserves this criticism, how is the press being "vicious?"
And tRump is a personally obnoxious narcissist. Pointing this out doesn't really count as criticism, let alone vicious criticism. I mean, it wouldn't be particularly vicious to point out that he is a racist, a failed businessman, and a conman who has bragged about committing sexual assault. If all they're doing is pointing out that he's obnoxious, I'd say they're letting him off pretty easy.
Also, I can't really recall any instances of the "establishment press" even doing that. I do remember much of the media spending the campaign season fluffing him like a gay-for-pay pornstar, but maybe I missed something.

But does he deserve all of it? Does he never do anything right? Say anything wise? Are all his schemes to reform this agency and abolish that regulation utterly misguided? Can “President Trump’s America” really be compared to Vladimir Putin’s Russia?

Well, to be fair, no, his America can't really compare to Putin's Russia. Mainly because Il Douche has only been in office about 20 weeks, and Putin is just a lot better at doing, um, everything really.

Surely, if there is a “party line” among the establishment media in the United States, it is anti-Trump, not pro. That doesn’t make it wrong. In fact, it’s largely right. But the venom, the obsession, the knife-twisting are hard to understand.

   SERIOUSLY?

You don't get why someone would have a visceral reaction tn unhinged, juvenile narcissist who has brought neo-Nazis into the goddamm White House and wants to take away people's ability to see a doctor? You seriously don't understand why people might feel venomously towards someone who wants to deport millions of our friends and neighbors while turning refugees away at the border? What's not to understand?

It must be partly a matter of bad timing. Mr. Trump came along just as the mainstream media, especially newspapers, were trying to come to terms with the internet. Hoary concepts like “objectivity” and “balance” were giving way. This was a good thing, believe it or not. Reporters no longer had to pretend that after spending weeks or months on a story, they had emerged with no opinion about it. The word “I” could now be used to refer to oneself, rather than “a reporter.” Mr. Trump, already dislikable, became the first test case of the new mind-set.

WHAT?!?!?!? Like we haven't had an entire cable "news" network and nearly all of talk radio dedicated to trashing the last two Democratic presidents? You think the Obamas and the Clintons have been treated "objectively" and with "balance" by the FOX-Limbaugh-WSJ matrix? What rock have you been living under?

But yeah, obviously bad timing. If only the internet hadn't been invented, the American public would welcome an incompetent, childish sociopath who sees the presidency as just another long con. Oh, we'd have welcomed him with open arms! We'd have strewn flowers in his path while singing songs of praise about his shady ties to Russia, his use of the office to enrich himself, and his encouragement of violence against his detractors.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, though, and even Donald Trump can’t be wrong all the time.

With that in mind, we’re looking for a few positive words about the president, and we’re asking for your help. This is not about Trump the family man. It’s not another forum for debating the issues. It is a place to point out positive things Mr. Trump has said or done from the viewpoint of The New York Times and its readers.

Um, okay. Let's see. . . As far as we know, he has never acted on his sexual attraction to his daughter.
Um. . . he hasn't nuked anyone yet.
And, uh, he hasn't ridiculed a disabled person for a while now.
And I'm out of ideas.

Anyway, the column goes on a bit but I've already spent too much time on it. I will leave you, though with the last sentence of the column: We’ll be revisiting this theme regularly in Sunday Review.

Yeah, because this is gold! You want to milk this theme for all it's worth!


Another weird thing

On Tuesday, Dan Scavino, the White House director of social media, celebrated the six-month anniversary of the election by tweeting a screen grab of the late night phone call in which Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton called to concede to Republican candidate Donald Trump. Scavino promised to share video of the conversation, which he said came via a Nov. 9 phone call at 2:30 a.m. from longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin to Trump’s then-campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway.

"I have on video & will share that in the near future."

 

What would be the point of that? Why would anyone want to hear a recording of a concession call. Does he think that this will embarrass Hillary Clinton? Probably. That is exactly the type of petty, spiteful petulance we've come to expect from this administration. You would think if anything, they'd want to try and embarrass any potential 2020 opponents, or maybe someone in the House or Senate who is opposing his agenda, but no. Hillary had the temerity to run against him, he "won" and her4 face must be rubbed in it at any opportunity. 

The best part is, he's not releasing it now. He's waiting. Like this recording is some sort of Ace up his sleeve. Like when the Russia/Comey?Flynn news gets bad enough, they'll be able to whip this out for some sort of positive publicity. Because, like a schoolyard bully, he thinks that humiliating someone else makes him look stronger.

And maybe the weirdest thing yet:

Trump to send senator a letter asserting no business connections to Russia

 

Okay, so apparently Lindsey Graham has gotten the vapors over all this Trump-Russia stuff going on and he does declay-uh that we all ought to have just a tiny little ol' peek at Trump's business dealings, bless his heart.

Trump's response?

Spicer said Trump has "charged a leading law firm in Washington, D.C." with preparing a certified letter to Graham saying he has "no connections" to Russia.

Okay, why a law firm? If you want to say "I have no connection to Russia," that's something you can do in 140 characters. Then you just send it here:

Lindsey GrahamVerified account

@LindseyGrahamSC

The official Twitter feed for United States Senator Lindsey Graham.

I know you're capable of that. You do this all day long when you're supposed to be presidenting.
And what is the point of this letter. Do you think that just saying "I'm not beholden to Putin" (or as you so eloquently put it, "No puppet. No puppet.") isn't going to convince the wily Graham, but a letter! On legal firm letterhead! There's no way he could not believe that!
Oh, and be sure to make a point of sending it certified so he can't pretend like he didn't get it. It's not like you could have someone walk a mile tp the Capitol building and fucking hand it to him or something.

Yessirree, things are getting weird. There are strange things happening every day in DC

Ass of the Day - Nominee # 2

Labrador: ‘Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care’

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/article149013339.html#storylink=cpy

How? How do you even come up with a statement like that? It's like saying water is not wet.

Maybe there's some context? Something that would make this statement make some kind of sense?

After a woman suggested that the lack of health care was essentially asking people to die, Labrador had a controversial answer at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston.
“That line is so indefensible,” Labrador said. “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.”

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/article149013339.html#storylink=cpy

Nope, no context!

An email to Labrador’s press secretary late Friday for comment did not receive an immediate response.

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/article149013339.html#storylink=cpy

No kidding! How could his press secretary possibly come up with a defense for that statement? When he heard Labrador's remark, I assume he reacted like this: