This is the least of the horrors here, but shouldn’t a grand jury indictment remain secret until there is an arrest? Could Comey now theoretically flee?
Perhaps the concept of minimizing prejudicial pretrial publicity is hopelessly out of date, but for those like me who continue to see it as a horror, I draw your attention to a Truth Social post tonight from the U.S. President:
(this is Trump being quoted, not @PhillyGuy but as I understand it we can’t change things in quote boxes)
I agree that Comey is a terrible human being for putting us in the worst timeline but you’d think Trump would remember him a little more fondly.
I would also like to crap on Trump for describing a pair of things as “various”. You can’t count to two, Trump?! Enumerating two items is too hard for you? When one of your unlucky servants is pushing your shoes onto your cankled feet, do you describe those items as various shoes?
As a further aside, isn’t it interesting that the one and only aspect of law that Trump actually seems to respect is the statute of limitations? That’s why this had to drop right now. Comey was about to get away with it forever… like Trump has done numerous times by now. Trump can’t do away with that legal protection, he might still need it.
Other stories say the executive mansion is 55,000 square feet, but look at the graphic. The Capitol-style front staircase is, pace the thread title, a horror.
Ha! When I heard that on the news yesterday, my immediate thought was that companies could rent an industrial warehouse and put a PHARMACEUTICAL FACTORY sign on it. ‘See? There it is! We’re in the process of getting the machinery!’
But you’ll have to write is as “FARM-A-SOOT-I-CAL FACTORY” so Mr. Phonics Didn’t Quite Work For Me could read it. God forbid they tell him they’re making acetaminophen there.
The lunatic Trumpist ambassador to Canada speaks, threatens to cancel the US customs and immigration pre-clearance that’s been in effect at international Canadian airports for the last 73 years::
The U.S. ambassador to Canada said Washington may need to reassess airport pre-clearance as part of an at-times tense exchange during a forum with Canadian business leaders on Thursday.
The United States has been conducting pre-clearance “under various arrangements” at airports in Canada since 1952. It allows passengers to clear U.S. customs in Canada, so that when they arrive in the U.S. they can avoid waiting in long international lineups.
Addressing the Global Business Forum in Banff, Alta., Pete Hoekstra said pre-clearance locations in Canada are experiencing declining numbers.
“Matter of fact, the numbers are down. We’re not sure we can make the numbers work anymore … pre-clearance is something that is done at the expense of the U.S. government. We paid for it,” he said.
Hoekstra doesn’t seem interested in why “the numbers are down”. They’re down because Canadians are now largely disinclined to visit and spend their tourist dollars in the hostile insane asylum that the US has become, and possibly risk detention and deportation to God knows where if ICE doesn’t like their face. There was one horror story recently of a Canadian citizen (a white woman) entering the US from Mexico who was detained for several weeks for no clear reason, which she found so traumatizing that it gave her PTSD. If Hoekstra is really concerned about dwindling Canadian tourism, he should be blaming his boss, the Orange Peril who runs the place.
As for “we paid for it”, are you really that stupid? Of course the US government pays for customs and immigration. They pay for it regardless of where it’s located. If they didn’t pay for it in terms of pre-clearance in Canada, they’d have to pay for it in terms of extra staff and extra facilities at US airports or face major congestion. It’s actually the Canadian government that’s paying the real costs, because pre-clearance requires airports to be segregated into non-cleared and secure pre-cleared areas. which is a major headache and expense.
Hoekstra is perfectly following the playbook of his orange master – create a big problem, and then blame everyone else for it.
And eliminating the pre-clearance areas will only exacerbate this issue. If I’m at the US customs area in a Canadian airport, they guy starts acting all Trumpy, making outrageous demands, I can just tell him to go fuck himself, and walk out, and go home. You can’t do that if you’re already in the US, they’ll have full legal and physical control over you.
Hell, Calgary built a brand-new terminal, just for US-bound, pre-cleared flights. Pretty sure that the cost of that outweighs whatever the US is paying to operate Calgary’s pre-clearance personnel.
“From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first, America first. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families”.
-2017 Inaugural Address