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Posts posted by Francisco 2.0
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We all suspect people just run to Trump with some stupid idea and he goes with it. Now, here's proof:
QuoteWhite House officials are furious with Bill Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director, who talked the president into suggesting a 50-year mortgage plan.
The White House was blindsided by the idea, according to two people familiar with the situation granted anonymity to discuss internal thinking, and is now dealing with a furious backlash from conservative allies, business leaders and lawmakers.
QuoteOn Saturday evening, Pulte arrived at President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach Golf Club with a roughly 3-by-5 posterboard in hand. A graphic of former President Franklin Roosevelt appeared below “30-year mortgage” and one of Trump below “50-year mortgage.” The headline was “Great American Presidents.”
Roughly 10 minutes later, Trump posted the image to Truth Social, according to one of the people familiar, who was with the president at the time.
QuoteAlmost immediately, aides were fielding angry phone calls from those who thought the idea – which would endorse a 50 year payback period for a mortgage – was both bad politics and bad policy, a move that could raise housing costs in the long run, the person said.
“He just sold POTUS a bill of goods that wasn’t necessarily accurate,” the person said. “He said ‘FDR did it, you can do it, it’s gonna be a big thing.’ But he didn’t tell him about all the unintended consequences.”
SpoilerThe episode underscores the haphazard ways consequential policies are sometimes brought before the president, and how Trump’s govern-by-whim nature can backfire.
“Anything that goes before POTUS needs to be vetted,” said the person present for Pulte’s poster presentation. “And a lot of times with Pulte they’re not. He just goes straight up to POTUS.”
One of the two people familiar said there is more fallout from this idea than almost any other policy proposal of the second term, including from the MAGA base.
Conservative influencers, including Laura Loomer, Mike Cernovich, Christopher Rufo, Sean Davis of the Federalist, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) blasted the idea on social media.
“The thing that became clear from this latest episode — if it wasn’t already clear — is that Bill Pulte doesn’t know the first fucking thing about how the mortgage markets operate,” one of the two people said. “After publicly humiliating the president with his moronic 50 year mortgage plan it’s safe to assume that his days are numbered.”
A slew of experts also panned the idea.
“It would lead to buyers building equity in their homes more slowly. At the beginning of the mortgage, more of those payments tend to be interest,” Gennadiy Goldberg, head of US rates strategy at TD Securities. “This is more of a stopgap bandaid to address affordability.”
This morning, Pulte seemed to acknowledge the criticism, posting that a 50 year mortgage is just one piece of “a WIDE arsenal of solutions” that the Trump administration is developing. He also mentioned other ideas including portable mortgages, which can transfer to a new property, and assumable mortgages, which can be transferred to a property’s new buyer.
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said Trump is “committed to making it easier and more affordable to achieve the American Dream of homeownership by eliminating unnecessary red tape, increasing supply, and lowering costs.”
“The White House and the entire Trump administration are appreciative of Mr. Pulte’s efforts, and everyone is working together to implement the President’s policies,” Ingle said.
An FHFA spokesperson told POLITICO that the inflation under former President Joe Biden destroyed the housing market. “As a result, we are studying a myriad of options to combat the damage it’s done,” the spokesperson said.
This is not the first time Pulte’s policy proposals have caused headaches. He was also behind the idea Trump floated earlier this year to take Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of government conservatorship, which also resulted in significant pushback from industry.
It was also Pulte who first lodged mortgage fraud allegations against Fed Gov. Lisa Cook that Trump later used to fire her. Cook’s firing has been blocked in the courts and the case is pending before the Supreme Court.
POLITICO has also recently reported that Republicans in Congress are also growing increasingly frustrated with him.
Now, senior administration officials are increasingly getting fed up with Pulte’s approach. Yet Pulte remains close with the President and has direct access that aides have not been able to control.
“Trump isn’t just Pulte’s biggest ally in the admin, he is perhaps his only friend,” said one person familiar with their dynamic. “During Trump 2.0, the last time anything got as much pushback as this was over the ‘Epstein Files.’ MAGA is furious.”
In theory, 50-year mortgages would mean lower monthly payments for borrowers, but it also comes at a cost to homebuyers, who would build equity much more slowly.
In a statement warning that 50-year mortgages would “not address the true cause of today’s affordability challenges,” the National Association of Realtor’s chief economist Lawrence Yun said that homeowners could still gain some equity “as long as these mortgages are soundly underwritten.”
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1 hour ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:
gold creeping back into the interior design palette is one of the more subtly annoying side effects of this regime.
In the next few years, home interior decorating will fall into two camps: MAGA and non-MAGA.
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20 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:
Just wait until he gilds the embellishments on the resolute desk.
and then moves it to MAL.We have an update:
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https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/youtube-tv-disney-blackout-20-dollar-credit-customers-1236573169/
QuoteIn a bid to appease disgruntled customers, YouTube will begin issuing eligible YouTube TV customers a $20 credit starting on Sunday, Nov. 9, if there is still no deal with Disney to restore the channels. YouTube will send YouTube TV subscribers an email with instructions on how to apply the one-time $20 credit to their next billing statement. All credits will be issued by Wednesday, Nov. 12.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/11/federal-judge-resignation-trump/684845/
QuoteIn 1985, president Ronald Reagan appointed me as a federal judge. I was 38 years old. At the time, I looked forward to serving for the rest of my life. However, I resigned Friday, relinquishing that lifetime appointment and giving up the opportunity for public service that I have loved.
QuoteMy reason is simple: I no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom. President Donald Trump is using the law for partisan purposes, targeting his adversaries while sparing his friends and donors from investigation, prosecution, and possible punishment. This is contrary to everything that I have stood for in my more than 50 years in the Department of Justice and on the bench. The White House’s assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out. Silence, for me, is now intolerable.
QuoteWhen I accepted the nomination to serve on the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, I took pride in becoming part of a federal judiciary that works to make our country’s ideal of equal justice under law a reality. A judiciary that helps protect our democracy. That has the authority and responsibility to hold elected officials to the limits of the power delegated to them by the people. That strives to ensure that the rights of minority groups, no matter how they are viewed by others, are not violated. That can serve as a check on corruption to prevent public officials from unlawfully enriching themselves. Becoming a federal judge was an ideal opportunity to extend a noble tradition that I had been educated by experience to treasure.
SpoilerMy public service began in 1974, near the end of Richard Nixon’s presidency, at a time of dishonor for the Department of Justice. Nixon’s first attorney general, John Mitchell, who had also been the president’s campaign manager, later went to prison for his role in the break-in at the Democratic headquarters at the Watergate complex and for perjury in attempting to cover up that crime. His successor, Richard Kleindienst, was convicted of contempt of Congress for lying about the fact that, as instructed by the president, he’d ended an antitrust investigation of a major company after it pledged to make a $400,000 contribution to the Republican National Convention. The Justice Department was also discredited by revelations that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had obtained and disseminated derogatory information about political adversaries, including Martin Luther King Jr.
I joined the Department of Justice as a special assistant to the honest and able Deputy Attorney General Laurence Silberman. Soon after, in 1975, President Gerald Ford named Edward Levi as attorney general to restore confidence in the integrity of the department. Levi, then the president of the University of Chicago, had a well-deserved reputation for brilliance, honesty, and nonpartisanship. Ford told Levi that he wanted the attorney general to “protect the rights of American citizens, not the President who appointed him.”
I organized Levi’s induction ceremony and was there when he declared that “nothing can more weaken the quality of life or more imperil the realization of the goals we all hold dear than our failure to make clear by word and deed that our law is not an instrument of partisan purpose.” For the next two years I served as one of Levi’s special assistants, working closely with a man who was always faithful to this principle.
With Levi as my model, in 1981 I became the deputy United States attorney and chief federal prosecutor of public corruption in Massachusetts. In about four years, my assistants and I won more than 40 consecutive corruption cases. Many convictions were of defendants close to the powerful mayor of Boston at the time. As a result, I received the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award and was appointed a federal judge.
Some of the cases over which I presided as judge involved corruption and were highly publicized. Most notable was the prosecution of the notorious Boston mobsters James “Whitey” Bulger and Stephen “the Rifleman” Flemmi. Both, it turned out, were also FBI informants. Agents in the bureau, I discovered, were involved in crimes and egregious misconduct, including murders committed by Bulger and Flemmi. I wrote a 661-page decision detailing my findings. This led to orders that the government pay more than $100 million to the families of people murdered by informants whom the FBI had improperly protected. Their FBI handler was convicted twice and sentenced to serve a total of 50 years in prison.
I also presided over a six-week trial of a former speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. After he was convicted of demanding and accepting bribes, I sentenced him to serve eight years in prison.
I decided all of my cases based on the facts and the law, without regard to politics, popularity, or my personal preferences. That is how justice is supposed to be administered—equally for everyone, without fear or favor. This is the opposite of what is happening now.
As I watched in dismay and disgust from my position on the bench, I came to feel deeply uncomfortable operating under the necessary ethical rules that muzzle judges’ public statements and restrict their activities. Day after day, I observed in silence as President Trump, his aides, and his allies dismantled so much of what I dedicated my life to.
When I became a senior judge in 2013, my successor was appointed, so my resignation will not create a vacancy to be filled by the president. My colleagues on the United States District Court in Massachusetts and judges on the lower federal courts throughout the country are admirably deciding a variety of cases generated by Trump’s many executive orders and other unprecedented actions. However, the Supreme Court has repeatedly removed the temporary restraints imposed on those actions by lower courts in deciding emergency motions on its “shadow docket” with little, if any, explanation. I doubt that if I remained a judge I would fare any better than my colleagues.
Others who have held positions of authority, including former federal judges and ambassadors, have been opposing this government’s efforts to undermine the principled, impartial administration of justice and distort the free and fair functioning of American democracy. They have urged me to work with them. As much as I have treasured being a judge, I can now think of nothing more important than joining them, and doing everything in my power to combat today’s existential threat to democracy and the rule of law.
What Nixon did episodically and covertly, knowing it was illegal or improper, Trump now does routinely and overtly. Prosecutorial decisions during this administration are a prime example. Because even a prosecution that ends in an acquittal can have devastating consequences for the defendant, as a matter of fairness Justice Department guidelines instruct prosecutors not to seek an indictment unless they believe there is sufficient admissible evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Trump has utterly ignored this principle. In a social-media post, he instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek indictments against three political adversaries even though the officials in charge of the investigations at the time saw no proper basis for doing so. It has been reported that New York Attorney General Letitia James was prosecuted for mortgage fraud after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, one of Donald Trump’s former criminal-defense lawyers, questioned the legal viability of bringing charges against James. Former FBI Director James Comey was charged after the interim U.S. attorney who had been appointed by Trump refused to seek an indictmentand was forced to resign. Senator Adam Schiff, the third target of Trump’s social-media post, has yet to be charged.
Trump is also dismantling the offices that could and should investigate possible corruption by him and those in his orbit. Soon after he was inaugurated, Trump fired, possibly unlawfully, 18 inspectors general who were responsible for detecting and deterring fraud and misconduct in major federal agencies. The FBI’s public-corruption squad also has been eliminated. The Department of Justice’s public-integrity section has been eviscerated, reduced from 30 lawyers to only five, and its authority to investigate election fraud has been revoked.
The Department of Justice has evidently chosen to ignore matters it would in the past have likely investigated. Some directly involve the president. It has been reported that at a lavish April 2024 dinner at Mar-a-Lago, after executives from major oil companies complained about how the Biden administration’s environmental regulations were hurting their businesses, Trump said that if they raised $1 billion for his campaign he would promptly reverse those rules and policies. The executives raised the money, and Trump delivered on his promise. The law may be unclear concerning whether Trump himself could have been charged with conspiracy to bribe a public official or honest-services fraud. In addition, Trump himself may have immunity from prosecution if similar payments for his benefit continued after he became president. However, the companies that made the payments, and the individuals acting for them, could possibly be prosecuted. There is no public indication that this matter has been investigated by Trump’s Department of Justice.
As a prosecutor and judge I dealt seriously with the unlawful influence of money on official decisions. However, Trump and his administration evidently do not share this approach. After Trump launched his own cryptocurrency, $TRUMP, his Department of Justice disbanded its cryptocurrency-enforcement unit. The top 220 buyers of Trump’s cryptocurrency were invited to a dinner with Trump. Sixty-seven of them had invested more than $1 million. The top spender, Justin Sun, who was born in China and is a foreign national, reportedly spent more than $10 million. Sun also reportedly spent $75 million on investments issued by a crypto company controlled by Trump’s family. It is illegal for people who are not U.S. citizens to donate to American political candidates, and the most that anyone can donate directly to one candidate is $3,500. Ordinarily, the Department of Justice would investigate this sort of situation. There is, however, no indication that any investigation has occurred. Rather, a few months after Sun started purchasing tokens from the Trump-family cryptocurrency company, the Securities and Exchange Commission paused its fraud suit against Sun and his companies pending the outcome of settlement negotiations. (Sun and his companies have denied any wrongdoing.)
Trump is not the only member of his administration whose conduct is apparently shielded from investigation. In September of last year, Tom Homan, who became Trump’s “border czar,” reportedly was recorded accepting $50,000 in cash in return for a promise to use his potential future public position to benefit a company seeking government contracts. The FBI had created the fictitious company as part of an undercover investigation. Typically, an investigation of that sort would have continued after Homan became a Department of Homeland Security official, with the FBI seeking any additional evidence of bribery. However, after Trump took office, the investigation was shut down, with the White House claiming there was no “credible evidence” of criminal wrongdoing. Weeks after the FBI investigation was reported, Homan denied taking $50,000 “from anybody” and has said he did “nothing criminal.” An honest investigation could reveal who is telling the truth.
There is also the matter of Trump’s executive orders. A good number are, in my opinion, unconstitutional or otherwise illegal. For example, contrary to the express language of the Fourteenth Amendment, one order declares that not everyone born in this country is a U.S. citizen. Trump’s administration also has deported undocumented immigrants without due process, in many cases to countries where they have no connections and will be in great danger. Although many federal judges have issued orders restraining the government’s effort to implement those executive orders, some appear to have been disobeyed by members of the Trump administration. Trump has responded by calling for federal judges to be impeached, even though the Constitution permits impeachment only for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” such as treason and bribery.
Trump’s angry attacks on the courts have coincided with an unprecedented number of serious threats against judges. There were nearly 200 from March to late May 2025 alone. These included credible death threats, hundreds of vitriolic phone calls, and anonymous, unsolicited pizza deliveries falsely made in the name of the son of a federal judge, who was murdered in the judge’s home in 2020 by a disgruntled lawyer.
Over the past 35 years I have spoken in many countries about the role of American judges in safeguarding democracy, protecting human rights, and combatting corruption. Many of these countries—including Russia, China, and Turkey—are ruled by corrupt leaders who rank among the worst abusers of human rights. These kleptocrats jail their political opponents, suppress independent media that could expose their wrongdoing, forbid free speech, punish peaceful protests, and frustrate every effort to establish an independent, impartial judiciary that could constrain these abuses. These kleptocrats have impunity in their countries because they control the police, prosecutors, and courts.
In my work around the world, I have made many friends, young and old, who have been inspired by the example of American judges, lawyers, and citizens. They have suffered greatly for trying to make their countries more like ours. Among them are impartial judges who have been imprisoned in Turkey, a brilliant young Russian lawyer who was alleged to be a spy and forced into exile, and a Venezuelan law student who almost lost sight in one eye while protesting his country’s oppressive government. They courageously share what have historically been our nation’s convictions. These brave people inspire me.
I resigned in order to speak out, support litigation, and work with other individuals and organizations dedicated to protecting the rule of law and American democracy. I also intend to advocate for the judges who cannot speak publicly for themselves.
I cannot be confident that I will make a difference. I am reminded, however, of what Senator Robert F. Kennedy said in 1966 about ending apartheid in South Africa: “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.” Enough of these ripples can become a tidal wave.
And as Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney wrote, sometimes the “longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme.” I want to do all that I can to make this such a time.
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1 minute ago, Red Five said:
They really don't give one shit about the optics. Of anything.
When your worldview is based totally off of Fox News, Newsmax, OAN and whatever Trump or his underlings spout, you truly believe everything you are doing is perfectly fine.
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SHOT:
CHASER:
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6 hours ago, Hank Kingsley said:
He didn't say this. Troll account.
While I concur, we might as well take it as gospel. There's plenty of other shit that Trump and Company say on a daily basis with no pushback.
Make Duffy come out and say he never said such a thing.
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16 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:
Just wait until he gilds the embellishments on the resolute desk.
and then moves it to MALNah. What will happen is some photographer will take a pic of the desk being hauled out to the pile that is the East Wing rubble and being shredded. When asked, some spokesperson will say something like they are still remodeling the Oval, and they had to get rid of old, disgusting furniture that had outlived its usefulness.
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2 minutes ago, C-Man said:Imagine what that would do to the Commanders free agency in the future.
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40 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:
He so badly wants it to be called Trumpcare, no matter how terrible the implementation and execution of it would be.
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On 11/6/2025 at 7:25 AM, Underdog said:
$20 for pecan pie? GFL.
20 euro, so $23.14 dollars

Elon Musk: Nazi traitor piece of shit [Confirmed]
in Daily Texan
Posted
She's just gonna keep roasting his ass