Donald Trump Presidency-Day One

[Stavros]

I agree with blackchubby. No one will be able to pin the hacking directly on Putin so a vague tie-in with Russia will amount to nothing. Now the networks are confirming that the new Secretary of State will be Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson. Tillerson and Putin are pals from the early 90's when the young oil exec was negotiating drilling deals after the Soviet breakup.
Trump is clearly paving the path for a new Russian-American alliance and McCain and his lot in congress look tired and old trying to block it.

The question is what does the US get out of improved relations with Russia -and what does Russia get? TIME has a short piece on this from last month which says-

The U.S. could benefit from better relations with Russia in managing growing tensions with Europe, coordinating to help stabilize Middle East hot spots and even dealing with problems in Asia. Trump has a point that confrontation is pointless and that there is surely something to gain from toning down what might become a dangerous escalatory spiral in cyberconflict.

A new approach to Moscow might even appeal to those who mistrust Putin most and despise his government. Russia now faces a long period of economic decline, one brought about more by technological change in energy markets and Moscow’s own failure to modernize and diversify the Russian economy than by Western pressure. Perhaps the shortest path to change in Moscow is to deny Putin a foreign scapegoat as Russia’s economy becomes encased in rust.
http://time.com/4574480/us-russia-relationship/

-What puzzles me though is that from where I am sitting, Russia has been deepening its commitment to Syria and while I would not be surprised if Trump's administration removes support for all or part of the Syria opposition, the Russian presence in Syria rather than help solve the region's problems could make them worse. Is the Russian presence in Syria any better or worse than the US military presence in Saudi Arabia that led to 9/11? What TIME has not factored in is the likely response of Saudi Arabia, currently bogged down in an unwinnable war in the Yemen but most recently it has repaired its relations with the Taliban and is now shipping money to them via Pakistan. How Asad even governs a shattered country has yet to be considered, if we assume that Daesh is in decline and the rest of the opposition weakened to the point where their agenda for change is irrelevant. I am also puzzled by the reference to Europe where Putin is seen as a threat, notably to the Baltic states and where a harder line against the Russians remains the order of the day.

I can see that US-Russian relations could open up the Arctic for petroleum development if the two major powers agree to convene a conference to sort out which state owns which part of the Arctic, and although the long-term prospects are dependent to some extent on climate change making exploration and production easier, there is a lot of money to be made in the commitment to fossil fuels both Trump and Tillerson wish to make. Whether or not Putin would like to open the Russian economy to American capitalists I am not sure of, and it would probably be as risky a venture as it was when Yeltsin was in power, but Russia has suffered from chronic under-investment and the businessman in Trump clearly sees opportunities (and probably for himself and his family too).

So I can see the advantages of a new US-Russia relationship but it also has many dangers lurking in the background, and we have no idea how Trump as President will respond to challenges to American power abroad.

[hippifried]

He'll replace Scalia on the court. Then he'll get a lesson in how much power he doesn't have.

[Stavros]

Some of you may recall the story earlier this year which claimed that John Kasich had been offered the Vice-Presidency on the basis that he would be in control of day-to-day policy while Trump focused on 'making America great again'. On Fox News Trump not only said he is so smart he doesn't need to read daily intelligence briefings, but that this tedious business has been passed to Mike Pence and 'the Generals'. Maybe a President doesn't need to read these briefings, maybe it is the defence and intelligence lobby protecting their interests through daily reports, or maybe being President is too much for this man?

Another curious story -when Trump attacked Boeing for the costs of upgrading Airforce One, Boeing's share value fell knocking $1.4bn off the value of the company; after criticising Lockheed Martin for the costs of a new generation of fighter jets as being 'out of control' Lockheed shares fell by 3% wiping $3.5bn off the value of that company. Reckless comments from a man who has yet to set foot in the White House, or calculated comments designed to take advantage of a fall in the price of stock?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bu...-a7470046.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7468456.html

[blackchubby38]

Some of you may recall the story earlier this year which claimed that John Kasich had been offered the Vice-Presidency on the basis that he would be in control of day-to-day policy while Trump focused on 'making America great again'. On Fox News Trump not only said he is so smart he doesn't need to read daily intelligence briefings, but that this tedious business has been passed to Mike Pence and 'the Generals'. Maybe a President doesn't need to read these briefings, maybe it is the defence and intelligence lobby protecting their interests through daily reports, or maybe being President is too much for this man?

Another curious story -when Trump attacked Boeing for the costs of upgrading Airforce One, Boeing's share value fell knocking $1.4bn off the value of the company; after criticising Lockheed Martin for the costs of a new generation of fighter jets as being 'out of control' Lockheed shares fell by 3% wiping $3.5bn off the value of that company. Reckless comments from a man who has yet to set foot in the White House, or calculated comments designed to take advantage of a fall in the price of stock?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bu...-a7470046.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7468456.html

That story was one of the reasons why I voted against Trump. While there have been prior U.S. Presidents who were known for delegating some of their responsibilities, I don't think they did it because they wanted to be the hype man for "Making America Great Again". It also makes me wonder if he really wanted this job in the first place and/or didn't realize how hard the job was going to be.

As for his comments about Boeing and Lockheed Martin. I really don't know what to make of them. I would think Trump would be the last person in the world who would criticize a defense contractor about their costs being out of control. So maybe they were calculated comments. I wonder what the experts on CNBC and Fox Business think about it.

[bluesoul]

^^ i remember many speculating whether or not trump really wanted to be president considering he always seemed to be sabotaging his own campaign with his 3am twitter rants, but i think if anything he wanted to be president for his ego; plus his tax plans means his family will get around $7.1 billion in tax breaks while adding about $9 trillion to the national debt all while making sure foreign leaders help the family make a tidy sum of money with their various business dealings.

his daughter also recently closed a deal with a japanese clothing company which the country's government is a large stakeholder in all while she and her dad met the japanese prime minister, and while you can argue there is a possibility that they didn't mention this business deal, there's the question of why his daughter was at the meeting.

as to the lockheed comments, i know they have to do with his continued hate of the F-35 which has been going on since last year when he was convinced that it wasn't as good as the current fighter planes. also, remember trump hates trudeau, and trudeau agreed to purchase F-35, so in trump's eyes, he can't do the same thing. what he'd really love is to convince lockheed martin to stop production of F-35's thus embarrassing trudeau therefore proving he knows a lot about defense and and doesn't need military briefings, then, after a couple of private meetings with the ceo and board of directors of lockheed martin which wouldn't be open to the press, they'd agree upon a different project that would most likely cost about the same as the F-35 and would be surprisingly more useless; but all interested parties would again make a tidy sum of money.

[bluesoul]

if i were him i'd have just gone for god instead of this whole man person thing

[Stavros]

^^ i remember many speculating whether or not trump really wanted to be president considering he always seemed to be sabotaging his own campaign with his 3am twitter rants, but i think if anything he wanted to be president for his ego; plus his tax plans means his family will get around $7.1 billion in tax breaks while adding about $9 trillion to the national debt all while making sure foreign leaders help the family make a tidy sum of money with their various business dealings.

his daughter also recently closed a deal with a japanese clothing company which the country's government is a large stakeholder in all while she and her dad met the japanese prime minister, and while you can argue there is a possibility that they didn't mention this business deal, there's the question of why his daughter was at the meeting.

as to the lockheed comments, i know they have to do with his continued hate of the F-35 which has been going on since last year when he was convinced that it wasn't as good as the current fighter planes. also, remember trump hates trudeau, and trudeau agreed to purchase F-35, so in trump's eyes, he can't do the same thing. what he'd really love is to convince lockheed martin to stop production of F-35's thus embarrassing trudeau therefore proving he knows a lot about defense and and doesn't need military briefings, then, after a couple of private meetings with the ceo and board of directors of lockheed martin which wouldn't be open to the press, they'd agree upon a different project that would most likely cost about the same as the F-35 and would be surprisingly more useless; but all interested parties would again make a tidy sum of money.

The Business of America is Business -or the quote from Calvin Coolidge in full reads: After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world.

As was once said of the Campaign to Re-Elect the President: Follow the Money.

[bluesoul]

[broncofan]

Ummm haven't you heard of a little thing called The ISIS? How about The Pulse? Hello!

The Hello! at the end of that post reads as incredibly camp to me. Like Richard Simmons level campiness. Which is neither good nor bad but I just wasn't sure if you knew that's what you were putting out there. Hello!

[broncofan]

The Hello! at the end of that post reads as incredibly camp to me. Like Richard Simmons level campiness. Which is neither good nor bad but I just wasn't sure if you knew that's what you were putting out there. Hello!

I would say the umm at the beginning of the post and calling Pulse nightclub "The Pulse" add to the effect. Not a bad thing at all.