Donald Trump Presidency-Day One

[broncofan]

So what happens if he wins? It's looking like a real prospect. Will things be not as bad as the most pessimistic fear they'll be? Will they be worse? Will it lead to apocalypse? Or utopia, if you're a fan? In this thread, you can give a summary of what you think a Trump presidency will be, from the perspective of an American or a non-American. Will our Democracy survive? Will the Republican party survive? Will it be resurgent after the fact or an irreparably damaged party?

[blackchubby38]

If Trump does win:

I think our democracy will survive.

I don't think it will lead to an apocalypse. But America won't become the utopia again that him and his supporters think it will be either. I can see members of his own party in Congress as well as Democrats fighting him any chance they get when it comes to some of his proposals. So expect 4 more years of gridlock.

As for what will happen on the international stage, who knows? We have to wait and see who would Trump surround himself when it comes to key cabinet positions and most importantly what his doctrine will be when it comes to foreign policy. For the world's sake, lets just hope it doesn't revolve around some kind of isolationism.

If Trump does win, I don't think the Republican Party will ever be the same. I think the primary showed you that Republican voters were fed up with the status quo and were ready for something new. So they're not going to want to go back to that.

But I think the same can be said for the Democratic party one as well. Who will emerge to become the new "it" candidate in wake of Hillary's defeat and what direction will they want to take the party in. Because a Trump victory will signify that people were truly fed up with political correctness, the Left's perceived weakness on Radical Islam, and illegal immigration. That they were fed up with being labeled a racist, sexist, anti-LGBT community gun-loving xenophobe because they dared question any aspect of those aforementioned groups of people. In other words, that "deplorable" remark will wind up coming back to bite Hillary and the Democrats in the ass.

I know one thing is for sure. Regardless of who wins, you're looking at a country that is going to be divided more than ever because one of the two most polarizing candidates in history is now the President of the United States. The amount of resentment and animosity towards to what people will consider the "other side" is only going to get worse. All you have to do is look to reaction of those who opposed Colin Kapernick's stance against police brutality and the actions of some the protesters in Charlotte.

[flabbybody]

I think it's worth pointing out that Trump is currently polling 7% of the African American vote. Among college educated women and Hispanics his numbers are almost as bad.
Among white males, Trump's only strong demographic group, he's trailing Romney's 2012 totals. In the state by state electoral college contest, there is simply no path for Trump reaching the magic 270.

Folks this ain't BREXIT. There will be shocking result that will throw financial markets into turmoil. Clinton's no Churchill but her victory will mean the world will muddle along without weekly geo-political disasters.

The OP asks about day 1 of a Trump Presidency. My response is why stress ourselves thinking about it.

[martin48]

If we jot down everything he promised, looks like a very busy day

"Repeal every single Obama executive order (http://www.dailypress.com/news/politics/dp-nws-pence-20160920-story.html)." (He has also pledged more specifically to "eliminate every unconstitutional executive order (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/trump-speech-clinton-email-corruption-disqualifies-her-from-seeking-preside).")
"Repeal Obamacare (http://www.dailypress.com/news/politics/dp-nws-pence-20160920-story.html)." (On Trump's campaign website, he's less bullish, promising (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/healthcare-reform) only to "ask Congress" on day one to repeal Obamacare immediately.)
"End the war on coal. (http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/290798-pence-trump-will-end-the-war-on-coal)"
"Begin swiftly removing criminal illegal immigrants from this country (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trump-says-on-day-one-he-is-removing-criminal-illegal-immigrants/2016/08/27/a0a546d6-6c98-11e6-91cb-ecb5418830e9_video.html)." (More specifically, Trump has promised to do this in his "first hour (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-latest-plan-would-target-at-least-5-million-undocumented-immigrants-for-deportation/2016/09/01/d6f05498-7052-11e6-9705-23e51a2f424d_story.html)" in office, "day one, before the wall, before anything (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3761998/Donald-Trump-says-immigration-policy-bad-guys-removed-Iowa-speech.html).")
"Begin working on an impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful, southern border wall (http://www.nbcnews.com/video/trump-touts-technology-plan-for-border-wall-755544643686)."
Meet with Homeland Security officials and generals to begin securing the southern border (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/05/us/politics/donald-trump-president.html?_r=0).
"Notify all countries that refuse to take back dangerous illegal immigrants who have committed crimes in this country that they will lose access to our visa programs if they continue to do so (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/trump-speech-clinton-email-corruption-disqualifies-her-from-seeking-preside)."
Convene his top generals and inform them they have 30 days to come up with a plan to stop ISIS (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/donald-trump-isil-isis-227807).
Fix the Department of Veterans Affairs (http://www.dailypress.com/news/politics/dp-nws-pence-20160920-story.html).
Call the heads of major companies who are moving operations oversea to inform them that they'll face 35 percent tariffs. (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/05/us/politics/donald-trump-president.html?_r=0)
"Contact countries and say…'Folks, we love protecting you, we want to continue to protect you but you're not living up to the bargain'…They're not paying what they're supposed to be paying—which is very little, by the way (https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/trump-on-day-one)."
"Defend the unborn (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/pence-trump-administration-will-begin-fight-against-abortion-rights-day-one)."
"Withdraw from TPP. (http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/28/donald-trump-gets-to-specifics-during-trade-speech/)"
"Start taking care of our…military (http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/02/24/preview-gop-debate-one-day-to-go-mattingly-lead-dnt.cnn)."
Suspend Syrian refugee resettlement (http://indianexpress.com/article/world/world-news/us-presidential-elections-2016-if-elected-it-would-be-busy-first-day-at-white-house-donald-trump-3017760/).
"Notify our NAFTA partners of my intention to renegotiate the deal (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/trump-speech-clinton-email-corruption-disqualifies-her-from-seeking-preside)."
"Designate China as a currency manipulator (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/us-china-trade-reform)."
"Direct every agency in government to begin identifying all wasteful job-killing regulations, and they are going to be removed. (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/trump-speech-clinton-email-corruption-disqualifies-her-from-seeking-preside)"
"Get rid of gun-free zones [in] schools" and "military bases" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/08/donald-trump-i-will-get-rid-of-gun-free-zones-on-schools/)—which would require repealing a 25-year-old federal law. ("My first day, it gets signed, okay? My first day. There's no more gun-free zones.")
"Ask Congress to pass 'Kate's Law'—named for Kate Steinle—to ensure that criminal aliens convicted of illegal reentry receive strong mandatory minimum sentences. (http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/08/31/donald-trump-throws-down-in-phoenix-champions-10-step-immigration-reform-plan/)"
Learn the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas (http://www.hughhewitt.com/donald-trump-on-the-day-he-took-the-pledge/).

[martin48]

Support the arsehole


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg0pO9VG1J8

[buttslinger]

As I stated once before, If Trump wins, we would also win a Republican Senate, House, and Supreme Court.
That may not be enough to guarantee a Hitleresque deportation of wetbacks, or a HUGE Wall that rivals Normandy Beach, but it is more than enough power to reverse every advance the LGBTQ community has gained under Obama.
Hillary has her DEPLORABLES, and the Republicans have theirs.
I sure hope everybody takes their hand off their dick long enough to Vote for the real United Stated of America and send Trump crying back to Sean Hannity for comfort.
God, I hate those pricks.

[Stavros]

I don't think Trump will win the Presidency, and either way Congress holds the keys to power in the US at the moment, as it has demonstrated through its deliberate, even spiteful obstruction of policies proposed by the Obama Presidency, its over-ride of the Presidential veto on the prosecution of Saudi Arabians by US Citizens, and the Senate's refusal to accept the President's nominee for the Supreme Court.

Historically, the endurance of the US political system has been shaped by pragmatism and compromise between the parties in Congress and the Presidency. Even a man as ideological and divisive as Ronald Reagan in his second term was more of a pragmatist than an ideologue, and his compromise on nuclear capability with the USSR at the time was viewed by some as a key moment in the end of the Cold War, but a betrayal of conservative principles, and a weakening of American power by those around him who went on to create the 'Neo-Conservative' agenda outlined in the Project for a New American Century.

Reagan is Trump's political idol, and one expects that after all the braying, the abuse, the insults and the threats, a President Trump would have to compromise to get any of his policies through Congress, but what we do not yet know is which party will dominate the Senate and the House, and that is where the future of policy-making lies. I also wonder if, as we have discussed before, it is not just the Republican Party that appears to have lost its way -the party remains divided between pragmatists, evangelical Christians, TEA Party radicals and Trump who has no affiliation to any of them- I sense that the Democrats are also in danger of failing to articulate a policy agenda for the 21st century where technology and communications are vital to jobs and the economy. But this is also true of our parties in the UK and Europe, making this an era of uncertainty, though we have been through such phases before.

[trish]

What I find both shocking, disappointing and depressing is Donald’s showing in the poles. Shocking, because I wouldn’t have guessed that so many people are amenable to such displays of bigotry, racism, misogyny and ignorance. Disappointing because these people must themselves harbor a great deal of ill will toward their fellow beings and depressing because the indication is that the result of this election is by no means settled.

It is true, that Donald will have to get his agenda items through the House and the Senate. But it is by no means clear he has any real commitment to any of the grandiose (if base) promises he’s been making. His real goal (it seems to me) is merely to become president - period. It’ll prove to himself (for a short while) that he is a great historical figure; a genius to be love and admired - not the spoiled little rich kid who, in his darker moments, he knows himself to be. If he does have any real commitment to the promises he made, then we can expect that he would push any number of the items Martin mentioned in post #4 above, and at least some of them would be supported by a majority of Republicans. Health care would be gutted, planned parenthood unfunded (if not dismantled), environmental regulations would be weakened or go unenforced, the Supreme Court would for a long time afterward be a protector of the privileged and champion of the mob against the civil rights of the individual, and should he cut our revenue our debt would climb once again as it does whenever the Republicans take charge. These are just the domestic issues. I can’t begin to guess what international quagmires he’d get us involved in.

It gives me no relief to think that some of his promises will find opposition, even with Republicans. The best case scenario, should he be elected, is that he loses interest in the job and effectively hands it over to Mike Pence, the evangelical governor of Indiana who supported the Tea Party, is against all manner of gay rights, doesn’t believe the scientific consensus on global climate change, is against Medicare, leads the ‘No-Amnesty’ immigration reform movement, opposed stem-cell research, denies the theory of evolution, is against the FDA regulation of tobacco, is against sex education, says condoms offer a ‘very poor protection against sexually transmitted diseases’, wants to privatize social security, and who defunded planned parenthood in his home State. I could go on about Mike Pence, but like the State of Indiana itself, he is just too fucking depressing to contemplate for any period of time.

If anybody reading this actually believes in God, please pray the American electorate doesn’t inflict these two assholes an already troubled world. If you’re an American citizen and you find the possibility of a Trump presidency even half as troubling as I do, make sure your vote counts against him.

[blackchubby38]

I think there is practical reason for Trump's showing in the polls. Both parties' conventions were in held in early to the middle of July. There was no way that Hillary was going to be able to maintain that lead she had coming out of the DNC for what was essentially 4.5 months. So that gave Trump plenty of time to get his campaign in order and whittle down that lead. Hillary's own missteps are also to blame. As well as Democrats losing their enthusiasm for her.

Having said that, I'm not shocked that this happening. Yes there are that many people who are amenable to racism, bigotry, misogyny, and ignorance. They believe that political correctness has gone too far (something I actually agree with at times), that this country is under attack from both foreign and domestic threats, and that peoples' feelings are being taken into consideration before keeping it safe. That both parties have sold this country out in the exchange for Hispanic voters and the economic well being of other countries.

But at the same time, some of the people that will vote for Trump have genuine concerns about where this country is headed/has been headed and the impact it will have on their everyday life. They feel just has disenfranchised has many Democratic voters do, but for different reasons. That's why I feel that "deplorable" remark was a huge mistake on Clinton's part. Instead of just writing off the Trump voters I mentioned in my previous paragraph, she should have been trying to convince the ones with an open mind to vote for her.

I think right now there only way those voters are going to be swayed is if someone from the Republican party with some real gravitas comes out and says that Trump is not the right man for the job. Hate to say it, but he would have to be someone like Dick Cheney.

There is a definitely worry of the unknown when it comes to Trump. As well as a worry of putting someone like Mike Pence in position where he is a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Those two factors are the only reasons why I would consider voting for Hillary Clinton.

[Stavros]

"That's why I feel that "deplorable" remark was a huge mistake on Clinton's part. Instead of just writing off the Trump voters I mentioned in my previous paragraph, she should have been trying to convince the ones with an open mind to vote for her."

-I must agree with blackchubby38, as it showed Hillary Clinton allowing Trump to shape the debate. In my view Clinton's best tactic should be to either ignore Trump's hysterical comments, or dismiss them but simultaneously focus on policy instead. So far I have not heard one contribution from either candidate on what their policies on education are. There is nothing on this on the Trump website. I feel Trump is most vulnerable on policy because his 'positions' as they are called on the website, are not thought through and resemble sound-bites. Moreover, having to respond to policy incoherence would underline just how incompetent this man is, even if you don't agree with the Clinton strategy to create jobs by expanding Federal programmes and the staff needed to implement them. But it is at least a policy that can be debated.

[Budweiser]

I am voting for Trump (like I already did in the primary) because of a number of important policy positions he's espoused which no other candidate, Republican or Democrat, has expressed support for. He's not a traitor like most politicians, he's a True Blue American.

[trish]

I am voting for Trump (like I already did in the primary) because of a number of important policy positions he's espoused which no other candidate, Republican or Democrat, has expressed support for...

Let me guess, he's building a wall.


...He's not a traitor like most politicians, he's a True Blue American.

A true blue American who doesn't pay his taxes and took a 916,000,000.00 dollar deduction. ( http://nyti.ms/2d51X9E ) Whatever happened to, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for you country" ?

[buttslinger]

If you are an American and under 30 years old, there is not a time in your conscious life that your government hasn't been WATERBOARDED by a republican party that is most rotten at it's core.
It's not partisanship, no no........
it's the republicans.
but the blame and responsibility belongs to the middle class voter.

[notdrunk]

Let me guess, he's building a wall.



A true blue American who doesn't pay his taxes and took a 916,000,000.00 dollar deduction. ( http://nyti.ms/2d51X9E ) Whatever happened to, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for you country" ?


Ugh, I can't believe I am agreeing with trish. Trump is the candidate for low information voters. For example, during the debate, Trump mentioned that he will lower the corporate tax rate to 15%. According to him, one of the purposes is to prevent companies from leaving the country. Apple, an American company, and Ireland are currently in trouble because of taxes. What is Ireland's official corporate tax rate? 12.5%. What was Apple's tax rate in Ireland for years? Less than 1%. So, Ireland gave Apple a sweet deal to keep them in their country. However, the EU told Ireland that they must collect billions of dollars in taxes from Apple that they didn't collect.

So, an individual can assume that an official lower rate at 15% will not keep companies in the United States. It is funny that Trump was arguing a tax cut for himself.

[trish]

I can't believe I'm agreeing with notdrunk. :kiss:

[martin48]

..... It is funny that Trump was arguing a tax cut for himself.

I thought the recent evidence was that Trump was 0% rate

[notdrunk]

I can't believe I'm agreeing with notdrunk. :kiss:

Hell must of frozen... :o


I thought the recent evidence was that Trump was 0% rate

You're wrong, Lester. ;)

[martin48]

What's all this fuss about pussy grabbing?

[trish]

In the 2nd debate Trump reveals what he respects most about Hillary is that she doesn't quit and never gives up. Contrary to one of his repeated campaign talking points, he apparently respects her mostly for her stamina!

[martin48]

Don't worry, our Royal Family are on the case

[Budweiser]

Let me guess, he's building a wall.



Building the wall, deporting illegal alien criminals, blocking Muslim entry into America, intensely surveiling Islamic Muslim immigrant Mosques, etc.

[holzz]

meh...US politics is a big sham...i can see why they call it showbusiness for ugly people. that's really what US politics is.

the 2nd debate was a tie, but Trump had a better showing. 1st debate he got a fucking licking from Hilary (i dont care if that sounds dirty...it's not..lol)

[broncofan]

Now that it's official, I suppose we won't find out for sure until his inauguration on January 20th.

[hippifried]

Find out what?

[Paladin]

Building the wall, deporting illegal alien criminals, blocking Muslim entry into America, intensely surveiling Islamic Muslim immigrant Mosques, etc.


muslims / islamists have the deplorable distinction of treating the LBGT community WORSE that any other identifiable group!


I think it's worth pointing out that Trump is currently polling 7% of the African American vote. Among college educated women and Hispanics his numbers are almost as bad.
Among white males, Trump's only strong demographic group, he's trailing Romney's 2012 totals. In the state by state electoral college contest, there is simply no path for Trump reaching the magic 270.

Folks this ain't BREXIT. There will be shocking result that will throw financial markets into turmoil. Clinton's no Churchill but her victory will mean the world will muddle along without weekly geo-political disasters.

The OP asks about day 1 of a Trump Presidency. My response is why stress ourselves thinking about it.

Umm,,, the markets closed today at Near Record HIGHS!!!

And Trump did BETTER that expected with the various minority groups - to include myself (college educated, minority).

Stavros: You fail to notice that the GOP has control of the executive and BOTH leglislative branches - there will be NO vetos.

[Paladin]

Hell must of frozen... :o

Hell not only froze over, it then broke loose! :p

[Stavros]

Stavros: You fail to notice that the GOP has control of the executive and BOTH leglislative branches - there will be NO vetos.

It is daft to say I haven't noticed it. Trump is not cut from the same cloth as the Republicans in Congress, and one of the big questions at the moment relates to those policies on which they have common ground, and those where they disagree.

I think we can take it as given that the GOP will support Trump's proposal to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act and replace it with the alternative which Paul Ryan says they sent to Obama, knowing he would dismiss it. Indeed, there is a sense of revenge politics in the assumption that the GOP in Congress will seek to repeal everything Obama regards as his legacy.

And yet I wonder if, in spite of the hostility to 'political correctness', Congress would seek to pass laws that take rights away from specific people and in particular, if the Supreme Court would endorse such a move. For example, I don't think same-sex marriage will be made illegal, just as I don't think Roe-v-Wade will be repealed and remove a woman's right to an abortion when it is easier to fiddle with the law by adjusting the number of weeks beyond which an abortion cannot be performed.

What is also unclear is Trump's position on two foreign policy positions which were discussed on BBC-2's Newsnight programme this evening, where Anne Applebaum pointed out that ever since Trump became political around 16 years ago, he has consistently dismissed NATO and the US presence in Europe as an expensive irrelevance, and consistently admired the Presidency of Vladimir Putin. I wonder if, to see how Trump reacts, Putin will provoke him by doing something in the Ukraine or the Baltic states, not serious enough to scramble jets and troops, but as Putin cleverly does, just provocative enough to see how resilient Trump's commitment to the NATO alliance is, just as Turkey may do the same in Syria and Iraq. The fear in Europe is that Trump is turning his back on the American commitment to European security, so the question is will Congress support such a disengagement, if that is what it is, of NATO, a position Marine le Pen in France would support but which the equally fascist Dutch politician Geert Wilders would oppose (its main policy here is to expel Turkey from NATO).
The same may happen in East Asia if, with or without China's approval, North Korea provokes the South to see if the US remains committed to the security not just of the Korean Peninsula but also Japan. Again, will Congress take a different position on the basis that the US should continue to honour its time-honoured alliances, or will Trump be an isolationist and dump the USA's allies in the shit as Dictatorships -perhaps Dictatorships he admires- break international law with impunity? Trump has even said both that the USA will defend Israel, and that the US should support Palestinian rights. The first test from Netanyahu may be a call for the 'immediate' removal of the US embassy in Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem.

The list of possible policies fractures is as long as the possible agreements, the problem is we don't know because we don't know how Trump will behave in office or who is on his team. Like Brexit, it is too early to tell. And caution remains the safe option.

[peejaye]

Trump built is campaign on one leading factor that he isn't a Politician and wanted to change the Establishment. Yet he sounds more like a Politician every hour and day that passes by! Loads and loads of empty promises I'm sure &, of course, full of shit!

[wearboots4me]

I am pretty nervous about this. I hope he turns out to be a good President, and he may very well. But he does not have a lot of experience in government, not everything in business translates to government.

[Paladin]

NATO's not going anywhere.

Plus, he's got Mike Pence as VP who will keep him in line and keep him from going off the deep end. Pence was a great choice for a running mate, much better that that idiot Kaine (or Biden).

[Ben in LA]

Let's wait and see.

[Stavros]

The BBC has drawn up some possible names for Trump's first Cabinet.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-37931552

One notes that Rudolph Giuliani made his reputation prosecuting tax dodgers and crooks...

I don't know much about Chris Christie so cannot comment.

Steve Mnuchin is a former Goldman Sachs executive...follow the money Donald!

Jeff Sessions and Michael Flynn both share with Trump a positive view of Russia, indeed, Flynn has sat at high table with Vladimir Putin celebrating ten years of Russia Today on which Flynn is a regular (Julian Assange couldn't make it, otherwise detained).
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/9/12129202/michael-flynn-vice-president-donald-trump
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/08/15/sen-jeff-sessions-backs-donald-trump-russia-policy/88796584/

Newton Gingrich will be familiar to anyone who 'watches Iran' as he not only wants to scrap the Iran Nuclear Deal, he advocates regime change. Stand by your beds, lads! We're goin' in. Oh, and the Iranians by his side could not possibly be 'former' terrorists who once killed Americans, surely not?
https://theintercept.com/2016/07/10/hey-donald-trump-heres-newt-gingrich-palling-around-terrorists-saddam-armed/
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/Gingrich-Iran-nuclear-deal/2016/07/10/id/737980/

[peejaye]

Sounds positive, every cloud etc, but I do think the World is a safer place now Hilary Clinton's disposed of!

[sukumvit boy]

Chris Christie dropped . Thank god , one clown gone , now for Newt .
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/11/chris-christie-dropped-trump-transition-team (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/11/chris-christie-dropped-trump-transition-team)

[flabbybody]

Chris Christie dropped . Thank god , one clown gone , now for Newt .
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/11/chris-christie-dropped-trump-transition-team (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/11/chris-christie-dropped-trump-transition-team)
Christie was dead meat from day one. First, he put Ivanka's father-in-law in jail when he was US Attorney. Jared never forgave the fat man for making daddy do time.
Two, Trump never believed he was telling the truth about Bridgegate.

[blackchubby38]

Christie was dead meat from day one. First, he put Ivanka's father-in-law in jail when he was US Attorney. Jared never forgave the fat man for making daddy do time.
Two, Trump never believed he was telling the truth about Bridgegate.

I guess all that ass kissing Christie did was for nothing. Its amazing how the mighty have fallen. At one time, Republicans were looking to Christie to be their savior. Now he is probably beginning the slow march to a life outside of politics.

[broncofan]

Christie was dead meat from day one. First, he put Ivanka's father-in-law in jail when he was US Attorney. Jared never forgave the fat man for making daddy do time.
Two, Trump never believed he was telling the truth about Bridgegate.
A good friend of mine was at NYU law with Jared when his dad was in all the papers. I only remember it because he and some friends were talking about Jared and they showed me a picture of his dad on the front page of one of the New York tabloids with the words Sex Trap over it. Apparently it had something to do with hookers and blackmail...but what was striking is that nobody liked Jared and this was not an especially mean group of people (if the guy's dad is getting locked up you would expect some sympathy for the son as long as the dad is not Jack the Ripper). When I finally got a look at him over ten years later in the press, he seems like an unassuming sycophant, but not much character.

But either way, I'm not sure what he could have expected Christie to do. That was a time when Christie was apparently enforcing the law rather than deliberately fucking over his constituents. It is at least an okay sign that they've excluded Christie since what he did was so flagrant. If only they could do the same with Gingrich and Giuliani.

[Budweiser]

muslims / islamists have the deplorable distinction of treating the LBGT community WORSE that any other identifiable group!

That is true, all Muslims want to throw all LBGT people off of the top of a tall building and then throw stones at them until they're dead.

:(

[trish]

I really can't tell if you're joking or not. You know that's not only false but idiotic, right?

[broncofan]

That was a time when Christie was apparently enforcing the law rather than deliberately fucking over his constituents. It is at least an okay sign that they've excluded Christie since what he did was so flagrant. If only they could do the same with Gingrich and Giuliani.Enter Steve Bannon. He is going to be Trump's chief strategist and from what I understand is one of the reasons Breitbart has for years resembled a soft-core version of a white nationalist site in content, with the comments often being hardcore. If you've ever reads the comments on breitbart, they are unashamedly racist against African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Muslims. Only recently have they also become overtly anti-semitic as well, since the fine readers of Breitbart believe the Jews have committed a betrayal by not supporting Trump (and supporting open borders and gun confiscation and the usual nonsense). I don't know enough about Bannon, but people on Twitter are acting like Trump just decided to hire a full blown white nationalist.

Anyone know anything?

[Stavros]

The bleak news is that it appears Breitbart is being presented as a legitimate 'news' website, when it is propaganda that regularly takes news items whose facts can be verified, and turns them inside out with the 'post-truth' tactic that makes everything an opinion -other than their own argument. In the summer of 2015 for example, Breitbart produced more than one article on the shocking photo of three-year old Aylan Kurdi lying dead on a Turkish beach and used it to point out how 'odd' it was that this one photo had changed the debate on Syrian refugees -the answer being that it was staged, that the 'facts' about Aylan Kurdi and his father were the opposite of what the 'liberal' media had said and it was Breitbart that alone had the truth to hand. Just last week President Asad said the footage of the small boy rescued from a building bombed to rubble, placed in the back of an ambulance with blood on his head and bewildered look on his face was anti-Syrian propaganda staged for the media.

Another example is the extent to which Pamela Geller (who has been denied entry into the UK for her extreme views) has exploited an incident in Twin Falls, Idaho earlier this year in which she claims Muslim immigrants raped a five year old at knifepoint, even though the truth is there was no knife and there was no rape. No matter, Muslim immigrants are only in the USA to rape and murder, and that is the only 'truth' Ms Geller wants her fellow Americans to know.

But that is not all. The Trump campaign has capitalised on the disaffection with both Democrats and Republicans and hacked away at both the liberalism and conservatism it sees in those decrepit parties. In its place there is a radical, or pseudo-radical 'populism' which is really just White Supremacist garbage dressed up as the 'righteous' anger of 'Americans' disillusioned with globalization -the buzz word for job stealing foreigners. It doesn't just mean ridiculing Conservatives like John McCain and Jeb Bush, but identifying them by their religion, as happened to the distinguished conservative Bill Kristol (see below).
Ben Shapiro in the Daily Wire, who used to work at Breitbart has turned on Bannon in this piece here-
http://www.dailywire.com/news/8441/i-know-trumps-new-campaign-chairman-steve-bannon-ben-shapiro#

[flabbybody]

A few news outlets saying Giuliani about to be appointed to Hillary's old job...Secretary of State. I would have guessed he'd prefer Justice Dept given his background as prosecutor. But the chance to run foreign policy has to be irresistible

[Stavros]

Or it could be John Bolton as Secretary of State -he has a long-established contempt for Iran- while Giuliani heads Homeland Security?

In the meantime I understand Trump will not put his businesses or shareholdings into a Blind Trust and his family will run the Trump empire. Will this lead to a new definition of mergers & acquisitions?

[blackchubby38]

A few news outlets saying Giuliani about to be appointed to Hillary's old job...Secretary of State. I would have guessed he'd prefer Justice Dept given his background as prosecutor. But the chance to run foreign policy has to be irresistible


Or it could be John Bolton as Secretary of State -he has a long-established contempt for Iran- while Giuliani heads Homeland Security?

In the meantime I understand Trump will not put his businesses or shareholdings into a Blind Trust and his family will run the Trump empire. Will this lead to a new definition of mergers & acquisitions?

Supposedly if Trump apppoints Bolton, he will use up any political capital he has when it comes to his appointments. But there has to be somebody else for better for Secretary of State than Rudy Giuliani. It seems to me he would be in way over his head if he took that job.

So there lies the question for any Republicans who maybe don't like Trump and think he was the wrong person for the job. If offered a position in his administration, do they do what's best for the country and say yes. Or do they stick to their convictions and just wait his presidency out.

[Stavros]

So there lies the question for any Republicans who maybe don't like Trump and think he was the wrong person for the job. If offered a position in his administration, do they do what's best for the country and say yes. Or do they stick to their convictions and just wait his presidency out.

If the meetings with 'Lyin' Ted Cruz' and Mitt Romney are anything to go by it appears some people are desperate to be part of the game and have no shame when it comes to justifying their actions, though I suppose 'what's best for the country' produces a group of people who maybe think they can manipulate Donald or want to 'keep him on the right path'? Or he could like Theresa May be giving high profile jobs to people who disagree with each other to strengthen his position while weakening theirs.

What I don't understand is the relationship between Trump's business and his family and his responsibilities as President. I don't understand the mechanisms which would require Trump to put all or any of his businesses into a 'Blind Trust' -are they legal requirements or conventions? Also, the presence of his children in the transition team and at meetings with domestic and foreign leaders further blurs the distinction between Donald Trump the President, Donald Trump the businessman and Donald Trump the father with regard to decision-making, security clearances and so forth. The only parallel I can think of is JFK choosing his brother Robert as Attorney General in 1961. I am assuming this will be clearer by January.

[broncofan]

If the meetings with 'Lyin' Ted Cruz' and Mitt Romney are anything to go by it appears some people are desperate to be part of the game and have no shame when it comes to justifying their actions, though I suppose 'what's best for the country' produces a group of people who maybe think they can manipulate Donald or want to 'keep him on the right path'? .
I think this is the right question. If right wing moderates are unwilling to be a part of Trump's administration because they're ashamed of the association, that's a bad kind of self-selection. I hope that some moderating forces step up and are willing to influence him.

There are unfortunately early indications that nobody controls Donald but Donald...how else could one explain the tweets he's put up since winning the election. Very scary that people are either afraid to give him advice, don't know what advice to give him, or he cannot be influenced by sane people. There's no way a president elect should be admonishing comedians for satire, or directing vitriol at independent journalists and actors in plays. It's not that these are strictly prohibited acts, but they move in the wrong direction regarding expressive freedom given the power of his office.

[fred41]

I wish someone would take away his twitter account. It's as if it's his crack and he just can't stop. It needs to sink in that being a President means you're a diplomat 24/7...your public statements usually have to be carefully thought out/chosen - your words have meaning that can't always be stepped back.

Mike Pence, on the other hand, said all the right things when asked about his 'Hamilton' experience :
http://nypost.com/2016/11/20/mike-pence-calls-hamilton-incredible-despite-boos/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/mike-pence-wasn-offended-hamilton-cast-message-article-1.2881033?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nydnrss%2Fblogs%2Ffantasyhudd le+(Blogs%2FFantasy+Huddle)

He even raved about the play, urging everyone to see it and calling it "incredible".

Still need to wait and see what Trump does in January, but for the love of....Stop fucking going on Twitter and get a thicker skin.

[broncofan]

Mike Pence, on the other hand, said all the right things when asked about his 'Hamilton' experience :
http://nypost.com/2016/11/20/mike-pence-calls-hamilton-incredible-despite-boos/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/mike-pence-wasn-offended-hamilton-cast-message-article-1.2881033?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nydnrss%2Fblogs%2Ffantasyhudd le+(Blogs%2FFantasy+Huddle)

He even raved about the play, urging everyone to see it and calling it "incredible".

I agree with everything you say here. Tons to be said about subject. I personally would not boo Pence if I were at play and I could not have less respect for his politics. That said, there is a way for a democratically elected leader to act in the face of hostility...with dignity and restraint which Pence did.

The statement made to him may have taken him off guard and singled him out, but it was a measured statement. Politically embarrassing that someone feels the need to say it, but not an attack or an attempt to ridicule him.

In fact, if it were met with reassurances by Trump, Trump probably would have won political points, which I suppose he doesn't need since he already won the election. But if he wants to heal the divide, he would respond like an adult to criticism....it would not win everybody over, but it would provide some measure of comfort to the public. The reason pieces of shit feel empowered by Trump is in large part bc he responds to criticism like someone with a major personality disorder.

[blackchubby38]

I wish someone would take away his twitter account. It's as if it's his crack and he just can't stop. It needs to sink in that being a President means you're a diplomat 24/7...your public statements usually have to be carefully thought out/chosen - your words have meaning that can't always be stepped back.

Mike Pence, on the other hand, said all the right things when asked about his 'Hamilton' experience :
http://nypost.com/2016/11/20/mike-pence-calls-hamilton-incredible-despite-boos/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/mike-pence-wasn-offended-hamilton-cast-message-article-1.2881033?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nydnrss%2Fblogs%2Ffantasyhudd le+(Blogs%2FFantasy+Huddle)

He even raved about the play, urging everyone to see it and calling it "incredible".

Still need to wait and see what Trump does in January, but for the love of....Stop fucking going on Twitter and get a thicker skin.

He has to realize that he is following in the footsteps of the two of the most polarizing Presidents in the history of our country. From what I can recall, neither Bush or Obama reacted negatively to the ton of crap that was said about them.

[trish]

I'm not sure it's fair to say the presidents were polarizing. Bush ran as a "uniter not a divider" indicating the populace was already divided.

After 9/11 Bush stood behind Muslim Americans. The whole world was behind us at that point. Then Bush blew it by invading Afghanistan and Iraq. We were divided again, not for the first time.

Nor was Obama polarizing -he has the least polarizing personality I can imagine - it was his race that was polarizing.

I believe the current division in America began when Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House and shut down government for the first time. It was also the time when new technologies brought about a revolution in media that is still ongoing. Cable gave us 24 hour news stations devoted to their own particular slants and the Internet was just coming into its own.

[broncofan]

Nor was Obama polarizing -he has the least polarizing personality I can imagine - it was his race that was polarizing.

The divide between how he was described and how he is is so stark. These are subjective impressions, but Obama is patient, thoughtful, eloquent, direct, thick-skinned. Trump is impatient, impulsive, thin-skinned, inarticulate, and dishonest. We really have been so polarized that these sorts of fact-supported opinions can't be generally agreed upon. Imagine trying to tell a Stalin partisan that Stalin was paranoid and cruel. They'd say that's just your opinion because you don't like him.

He got the Trump University lawsuit out of the way; it's not a bad idea to get it figured out ahead of time but he clearly defrauded the students of Trump University whether he admits guilt or not.

As Stavros said, I'm not sure what he has to do with his assets...he's not going to set up a blind trust. Some have recommended that since he already knows what he owns and the assets are not liquid, a blind trust would not be sufficient to avoid conflicts. He would have to liquidate his assets and then put them in a blind trust so that he doesn't know what he owns. I remembered reading that the conflict of interest rules don't apply to the President....but I don't know whether the source was reliable.

Edit: this is where I read it. He is not legally required to avoid conflicts, but something called the emoluments clause does apply. He has to avoid accepting anything construed as a gift from a foreign government.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/nov/16/rudy-giuliani/giuliani-president-trump-will-be-exempt-conflict-i/

[blackchubby38]

I'm not sure it's fair to say the presidents were polarizing. Bush ran as a "uniter not a divider" indicating the populace was already divided.

After 9/11 Bush stood behind Muslim Americans. The whole world was behind us at that point. Then Bush blew it by invading Afghanistan and Iraq. We were divided again, not for the first time.

Nor was Obama polarizing -he has the least polarizing personality I can imagine - it was his race that was polarizing.

I believe the current division in America began when Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House and shut down government for the first time. It was also the time when new technologies brought about a revolution in media that is still ongoing. Cable gave us 24 hour news stations devoted to their own particular slants and the Internet was just coming into its own.

Maybe polarizing was the wrong word. But from people insulting Bush about his intelligence and saying that 9-11 was an inside job. To people saying that Obama wasn't born in this country and of course the subtle/not so subtle racist comments, both of them didn't react to every negative thing that was said about them. Trump needs to learn that a ton of heat comes with job that he has just been elected to. Some of it will be warranted and some of it won't. He needs to grow a thicker skin.

While that war has gone on 15 more years than it should have, I still believe that invading Afghanistan was the right response to the 9-11 attacks. But you're right about how much good will Bush wasted with the invasion of Iraq.

[trish]

Basically we agree; this is just a quibble about our reaction to Afghanistan. It's not clear ( as far as I know) that Al Qaeda was state sponsored. It's true that the government was essentially Taliban, and both Al Qaeda are Sunni, but the connection may end there. Yet we opted for regime change in Afghanistan and we opted to implement it militarily.

The people of Afghanistan are incredibly poor. We might have tried to change hearts and minds by offering to provide aid, build schools and hospitals. We could have remove Al Qaeda more surgically. Of coarse the objection to this might be that we have no business building schools in Afghanistan in an attempt to moderate their politics and religion. But if that's a valid objection, then neither do we have any business forcing a regime change.

[Stavros]

Basically we agree; this is just a quibble about our reaction to Afghanistan. It's not clear ( as far as I know) that Al Qaeda was state sponsored. It's true that the government was essentially Taliban, and both Al Qaeda are Sunni, but the connection may end there. Yet we opted for regime change in Afghanistan and we opted to implement it militarily.

The people of Afghanistan are incredibly poor. We might have tried to change hearts and minds by offering to provide aid, build schools and hospitals. We could have remove Al Qaeda more surgically. Of coarse the objection to this might be that we have no business building schools in Afghanistan in an attempt to moderate their politics and religion. But if that's a valid objection, then neither do we have any business forcing a regime change.

The problem lies in defining 'state sponsored'.
It is well known that both the USA and Saudi Arabia provided the finances and in the case of the USA some of the military hardware (Stinger missiles) that was used by the Mujahideen to fight the USSR in Afghanistan, but direct US involvement was minimal and most of the oganization was left to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency [ISI] and their primary aim was to buttress the domestic Islamist politics in Pakistan imposed by General Zia ul-Haq following the execution of President Bhutto in 1979, through its support for Islamic forces in Afghanistan, just as they nurtured the student movement in the refugee camps in the 1980s which morphed into the Taliban. For most of the 1980s the Arab fighters were considered useless by the Afghans, but after the Soviet withdrawal Osma bin Laden removed from the Sudan and with a few thousand fighters in the 1990s proved to be useful to the Taliban in fighting warlords around Kandahar. The money came from bin Laden's own resources and whatever he could raise from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf and while this must have come from wealthy individuals linked to the royal families, it is not possible to describe it unequivocally as 'state sponsored'. More like the states concerned -the USA, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran supported various groups in Afghanistan for their own interest, which (as we observe in Syria), is one reason why the war lasted so long and national unity proved, then as now, so hard to cement. There is an extensive, if relatively short history here-
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/who-is-responsible-for-the-taliban

[Stavros]

I believe the current division in America began when Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House and shut down government for the first time. It was also the time when new technologies brought about a revolution in media that is still ongoing. Cable gave us 24 hour news stations devoted to their own particular slants and the Internet was just coming into its own.

If I disagree with this, it is only because I see the 1960s as a pivotal decade following the Roosevelt era, possibly more influential than the Reagan era which dismantled the New Deal economy that had held since 1933. The reason is thus not so much economic in origin as social and political and can be seen in the data the Pew Research Center has published on the transition away from a bi-partisan Congress to an increasingly polarised one, and that it began in the 1970s. Here is a key illustration of what happened -

Since the 1970s, the congressional parties have sorted themselves both ideologically and geographically. The combined House delegation of the six New England states, for instance, went from 15 Democrats and 10 Republicans in 1973-74 to 20 Democrats and two Republicans in 2011-12. In the South the combined House delegation essentially switched positions: from 91 Democrats and 42 Republicans in 1973-74 to 107 Republicans and 47 Democrats in 2011-12.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/12/polarized-politics-in-congress-began-in-the-1970s-and-has-been-getting-worse-ever-since/

-I think we know that the impact of Civil Rights legislation hammered the 'Dixiecrats' in the South, just as the arch-Conservative Moral Majority and other evangelical Christian groups used the South as a base from which to mount their attacks on the 'identity politics' which then and now they believed is 'destroying' America. But what also happened, according to the late Richard Rorty is that the Democrats became the party of 'identity politics' to the extent that they abandoned a coherent economic programme that would maintain a degree of attention to poverty, income inequality and the fair re-distribution of wealth-

The alliance between the unions and intellectuals, so vital to passing legislation in the Progressive Era, broke down. In universities, cultural and identity politics replaced the politics of change and economic justice. By 1997, when Mr. Rorty gave three lectures that make up the spine of “Achieving Our Country,” few of his academic colleagues, he insisted, were talking about reducing poverty at all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/books/richard-rortys-1998-book-suggested-election-2016-was-coming.html?_r=0

I think Rorty underestimates the problem that the Democrats had after the ascendancy of Ronald Reagan -their inability to win the White House -they only won it once between 1964 and 1992. It was this hunger for the Presidency that forced the Democrats to move to the centre ground defined by Reagan and throw in their lot with globalization without seeking to manage its worst excesses, symbolized by the 'regulation lite' of the banking and financial system although the repeal of Glass-Steagall originated in Congress and Clinton would not have vetoed it. Thus the Gingrich 'Contract with America' is an attempt to distance the Republican Party from an economic agenda it would have supported in previous years, but was an extension or affirmation of the breakdown of a bi-partisan Congress but also illuminated the divisions within the Party which Trump has been able to exploit, and just as the Republicans are hungry for power, they will grab whatever morsels Trump throws at them.

But, fundamentally the 1960s remains the dividing line for me, and what is most striking is not just the extension of constitutional rights to all Americans, but the outstanding fact that the one 'group' who emerged from the 1960s in a far better position than before was women, and one can hardly describe American women as a minority. Yet the vitriolic abuse of Hillary Clinton makes me wonder if the deepest -or least recognised- cleavage in the USA is not regional, not 'racial' or even economic but gender based. And here the irony is that the Trump many believe regards most women as furniture will become President while the woman who not only won two million more votes than he did, scored the second highest vote in US election history. That doesn't remove the Democrats credibility problem, but it does offer an intriguing recipe for change and success, if it chooses to embrace change -and develop a coherent economic strategy.

[Budweiser]

muslims / islamists have the deplorable distinction of treating the LBGT community WORSE that any other identifiable group!



That is true, all Muslims want to throw all LBGT people off of the top of a tall building and then throw stones at them until they're dead.

:(


I really can't tell if you're joking or not. You know that's not only false but idiotic, right?

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

[hippifried]

ISIS is just the Muslim version of the American klan/nazis who are currently crawling out of the woodwork like so many maggots.

[hippifried]

Actually, ISIS is one step closer than the klan/nazis to being civilized, for the simple fact that they're not racist.

[Vladimir Putin]

After Trump walks into the Oval Office on Day 1, he will issue an executive order banning the abortion drug RU-486.

[broncofan]

http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/the-age-of-donald-trump-and-pizzagate

I thought this was a good article about pizzagate...the conspiracy theory spread by right wing nutjobs that the President elect panders to. It was promoted by the National Security Adviser's son (Flynn himself had promoted similar conspiracy theories) who was part of the transition team but has since been fired. Terrifying. Also terrifying that it's already considered old news in our news cycle.

[Stavros]

http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/the-age-of-donald-trump-and-pizzagate

I thought this was a good article about pizzagate...the conspiracy theory spread by right wing nutjobs that the President elect panders to. It was promoted by the National Security Adviser's son (Flynn himself had promoted similar conspiracy theories) who was part of the transition team but has since been fired. Terrifying. Also terrifying that it's already considered old news in our news cycle.
He may have been fired but he still has a transition team email address and has not backed down on the conspiracy, tweeting-
"Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, it'll remain a story. The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many 'coincidences' tied to it," the younger Flynn tweeted.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/mike-flynn-son-alt-right-neo-nazi-white-supremacy-conspiracy-theories-social-media-fake-news-a7458836.html

[broncofan]

I'm morbidly curious to see how bad this gets. Our ability to predict the future is not good as we found out in the election. It really brings home a point I've been pedantically making for years (others have probably done it eloquently)...that those on the left who claim there is no difference between the parties simply because their preferred policy choices are not represented are shameful ignoramuses. Or they don't give a shit about the stuff they claim to give a shit about.

How do I make this point simply. The new head of the EPA is someone who believes climate change is a hoax. Our head of the Department of Labour is someone who is a critic of minimum wage increases. The AFL says he's a man who has spent his entire career fighting against the interests of working people...he will be charged with administering the fair labor standards act, which enforces minimum wage and overtime violations. Oh joy. Our national security adviser is an open bigot against Muslims and a conspiracy quack. Our President elect himself has spent his time since being elected abusing the head of a labor union on twitter, who is now receiving death threats, and lashing out at media stations and comedy shows. He is considering as secretary of state Dana Rohrabacher, a shill for Putin who today told a Moldovan-American woman on television that she had no right to criticize Putin for human rights violations because her background disqualifies her as biased. Where have we heard that argument before?

Please tell me now bleeding heart lefties who couldn't tell the difference between Trump and Hillary how much you care for the environment, how much you care about working people and the rights of minorities. Tell it to the person making 7.25 an hour. Say it at the local mosque! No but seriously. Any hardcore lefties want to weigh in on why Hillary would have been just as bad.

[blackchubby38]

I'm morbidly curious to see how bad this gets. Our ability to predict the future is not good as we found out in the election. It really brings home a point I've been pedantically making for years (others have probably done it eloquently)...that those on the left who claim there is no difference between the parties simply because their preferred policy choices are not represented are shameful ignoramuses. Or they don't give a shit about the stuff they claim to give a shit about.

How do I make this point simply. The new head of the EPA is someone who believes climate change is a hoax. Our head of the Department of Labour is someone who is a critic of minimum wage increases. The AFL says he's a man who has spent his entire career fighting against the interests of working people...he will be charged with administering the fair labor standards act, which enforces minimum wage and overtime violations. Oh joy. Our national security adviser is an open bigot against Muslims and a conspiracy quack. Our President elect himself has spent his time since being elected abusing the head of a labor union on twitter, who is now receiving death threats, and lashing out at media stations and comedy shows. He is considering as secretary of state Dana Rohrabacher, a shill for Putin who today told a Moldovan-American woman on television that she had no right to criticize Putin for human rights violations because her background disqualifies her as biased. Where have we heard that argument before?

Please tell me now bleeding heart lefties who couldn't tell the difference between Trump and Hillary how much you care for the environment, how much you care about working people and the rights of minorities. Tell it to the person making 7.25 an hour. Say it at the local mosque! No but seriously. Any hardcore lefties want to weigh in on why Hillary would have been just as bad.

Exhibit A: Colin Kaepernick.

Supposedly he couldn't be bother to vote because neither party was specifically addressing the concerns of the community. To that I have to say to Kaepernick and other black people who were supposedly still pissed off about the Crime Bill that Bill Clinton passed in the 1990s', its not just about black and brown people. There were other issues at stake. Until the liberals on both coasts and in D.C. realize that, they will continue to be party that wanders aimlessly in the woods. Asking themselves, "what went wrong"?

[Stavros]

Please tell me now bleeding heart lefties who couldn't tell the difference between Trump and Hillary how much you care for the environment, how much you care about working people and the rights of minorities. Tell it to the person making 7.25 an hour. Say it at the local mosque! No but seriously. Any hardcore lefties want to weigh in on why Hillary would have been just as bad.

Look again at the campaign and you will find that the two candidates who most publicly railed against globalization and its trade deals were Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. The two candidates who most publicly attacked Wall St, the 'Bankers' and the unelected lobbyists were Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. The two candidates who sought to represent the forgotten workers of America struggling on low pay in depressed areas of the country were Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. So the idea that there was some polarised view of 'left and right' no longer holds on a wide range of issues and is one reason why Trump in the USA and the 'Brexit' camp in the UK along with anti-immigrants Wilders in the Netherlands and Le Pen in France are being re-branded as 'Populists'.

And yet, while Hillary Clinton was seen as old-style system politics, she whipped Trump in the popular vote which wasn't even close if you compare GW Bush and Albert Gore. Just as the Leave campaign failed to win the EU Referendum in the UK by a margin of even 5% and last night UKIP failed, yet again, to get a candidate elected to the House of Commons in a bye-election in an area of the UK supposedly packed with Leave supporters you find that this 'protest politics' is winning elections and votes, but only just. Old system politics continues to offer something to a lot of people.

I think in the UK that voters have become disenchanted with elected politicians over the last ten years due to the lies that were told about Iraq followed by the actuality of regime change there, and then the scandal over MP's expenses which was even more damaging to the reputation of politicians. The fact that many of these politicians are the same people held responsible for ten years of low everything -low interest rates, low pay, low expectations- hurts them, but does not necessarily allow a 'fresh' opposition to offer substantially real alternatives because as we have discussed before, capitalism is not producing the solutions in terms of new jobs with good wages in high volume creating economic growth.
All we are left with, in a manner of speaking, are frauds and fascists who have stolen ideas and policies from left, right and centre, marketing it with an aggressive posture while being unable to prove they can do anything different, other than deepen already existing divisions in society.
I fear we are moving into a decade of indecision and disappointment, and that this will test the resilience of democracy if people feel it is no longer working to their advantage even if there is no superior alternative, unless that is deemed to be the kind of dictatorship that offers the illusion of leadership and decisive action.

[blackchubby38]

Look again at the campaign and you will find that the two candidates who most publicly railed against globalization and its trade deals were Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. The two candidates who most publicly attacked Wall St, the 'Bankers' and the unelected lobbyists were Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. The two candidates who sought to represent the forgotten workers of America struggling on low pay in depressed areas of the country were Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. So the idea that there was some polarised view of 'left and right' no longer holds on a wide range of issues and is one reason why Trump in the USA and the 'Brexit' camp in the UK along with anti-immigrants Wilders in the Netherlands and Le Pen in France are being re-branded as 'Populists'.

And yet, while Hillary Clinton was seen as old-style system politics, she whipped Trump in the popular vote which wasn't even close if you compare GW Bush and Albert Gore. Just as the Leave campaign failed to win the EU Referendum in the UK by a margin of even 5% and last night UKIP failed, yet again, to get a candidate elected to the House of Commons in a bye-election in an area of the UK supposedly packed with Leave supporters you find that this 'protest politics' is winning elections and votes, but only just. Old system politics continues to offer something to a lot of people.

I think in the UK that voters have become disenchanted with elected politicians over the last ten years due to the lies that were told about Iraq followed by the actuality of regime change there, and then the scandal over MP's expenses which was even more damaging to the reputation of politicians. The fact that many of these politicians are the same people held responsible for ten years of low everything -low interest rates, low pay, low expectations- hurts them, but does not necessarily allow a 'fresh' opposition to offer substantially real alternatives because as we have discussed before, capitalism is not producing the solutions in terms of new jobs with good wages in high volume creating economic growth.
All we are left with, in a manner of speaking, are frauds and fascists who have stolen ideas and policies from left, right and centre, marketing it with an aggressive posture while being unable to prove they can do anything different, other than deepen already existing divisions in society.
I fear we are moving into a decade of indecision and disappointment, and that this will test the resilience of democracy if people feel it is no longer working to their advantage even if there is no superior alternative, unless that is deemed to be the kind of dictatorship that offers the illusion of leadership and decisive action.

During the post election forum that involved the campaign team of both candidates, the one thing that all involved could agree on was the impact that Bernie Sanders had. While I don't agree with a lot of Bernie Sanders has to say, I'm starting to wonder if things would have turned out different if he was the Democratic nominee and not Hillary. Or at the very least there wasn't the appearance of the DNC going out of its way to hand Hillary the nomination.

Another thing that came out of that forum was that its going to be a longtime before the Clinton campaign is going to get over losing this election.

[filghy2]

All we are left with, in a manner of speaking, are frauds and fascists who have stolen ideas and policies from left, right and centre, marketing it with an aggressive posture while being unable to prove they can do anything different, other than deepen already existing divisions in society.
I fear we are moving into a decade of indecision and disappointment, and that this will test the resilience of democracy if people feel it is no longer working to their advantage even if there is no superior alternative, unless that is deemed to be the kind of dictatorship that offers the illusion of leadership and decisive action.

Actually, we've already had a decade of indecision and disappointment, which is what created the perfect conditions for aggressively self-confident hucksters like Trump. On the positive side, there may be a natural corrective as the populists are unlikely to be able satisfy the expectations they have created. However, we should not underestimate the ability of Trump and the like to create distractions and manipulate things to their advantage, particularly if the other side fails to settle on a coherent alternative.

I think people tend to underestimate the extent to which democracy and the rule of law are vulnerable. Ultimately, these don't depend on pieces of paper but on the willingness of most people in the system to abide by and support the rules (both letter and spirit). When one party controls all of the arms of government it depends on a critical mass within that party being prepared to stand up for these principles. Nixon was forced to resign in the 70s because key members of his own party refused to support him. It's hard to be optimistic that that would happen today.

[sukumvit boy]

There may not be a day one of this presidency if Russia's 'interference' in the elections compromises the results.

[blackchubby38]

There may not be a day one of this presidency if Russia's 'interference' in the elections compromises the results.

Never going to happen. I don't put anything past the Russians. But interfering in an United States presidential election is dangerous territory, even for them to enter into. Also, the last thing President Obama wants to do is make it look like anything is going to impede the peaceful transition of power. So even if this study into election hacking does reveal anything, I don't expect much to come of it.

[flabbybody]

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.

[Stavros]

Actually, we've already had a decade of indecision and disappointment, which is what created the perfect conditions for aggressively self-confident hucksters like Trump. On the positive side, there may be a natural corrective as the populists are unlikely to be able satisfy the expectations they have created. However, we should not underestimate the ability of Trump and the like to create distractions and manipulate things to their advantage, particularly if the other side fails to settle on a coherent alternative.

I think people tend to underestimate the extent to which democracy and the rule of law are vulnerable. Ultimately, these don't depend on pieces of paper but on the willingness of most people in the system to abide by and support the rules (both letter and spirit). When one party controls all of the arms of government it depends on a critical mass within that party being prepared to stand up for these principles. Nixon was forced to resign in the 70s because key members of his own party refused to support him. It's hard to be optimistic that that would happen today.

I agree with your points, with Trump's dismissal of the CIA report into Russian cybercrime being one example of the dangers of a new man refusing to accept as true what he doesn't like.
My guess is that Trump did not expect to win the election and realised, particularly after meeting Obama in the White House, that he doesn't have the competence to do it. That is why he turned to the experienced people he said during the campaign were responsible for a 'broken America' while for their part, those who have agreed to sit at the high table have done so because they think they will never have a better chance than now to shape American policy to their interests, the assumption being that Trump will be more concerned with his image and making speeches than the detail of policy. How this pans out is another guess, as like Brexit it is still too early to tell how these people will get along with each other, and if the Administration is divided or united.

[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/business/news/donald-trump-lockheed-martin-tweet-f35-stock-shares-value-hit-drops-latest-a7470046.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-says-hes-too-smart-for-daily-intelligence-briefings-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/business/news/donald-trump-lockheed-martin-tweet-f35-stock-shares-value-hit-drops-latest-a7470046.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-says-hes-too-smart-for-daily-intelligence-briefings-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 (http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/288648-trumps-family-would-get-a-71-billion-windfall-from-estate-tax-plan) while adding about $9 trillion to the national debt all while making sure foreign leaders help the family make a tidy sum of money (http://www.newsweek.com/2016/12/23/donald-trump-foreign-business-deals-jeopardize-us-531140.html) 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 (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/us/politics/ivanka-trump-shinzo-abe.html?_r=0), 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.

http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/sites/default/files/styles/sidebar_2/public/content/images/2016/12/13/AFP-KANYE-TRUMP.jpg

[bluesoul]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xCTQ3brk6w

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 (http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/288648-trumps-family-would-get-a-71-billion-windfall-from-estate-tax-plan) while adding about $9 trillion to the national debt all while making sure foreign leaders help the family make a tidy sum of money (http://www.newsweek.com/2016/12/23/donald-trump-foreign-business-deals-jeopardize-us-531140.html) 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 (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/us/politics/ivanka-trump-shinzo-abe.html?_r=0), 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]

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/09/08/us/08firstdraft-trumpnixon/08firstdraft-trumpnixon-tmagArticle.jpg

[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.

[Stavros]

The New York Times reports on some of the first actions of the Trump Presidency -items deleted from the White House website:

The Department of Labor’s report (https://www.dol.gov/asp/policy-development/lgbt-report.pdf) on lesbians, bisexuals, gays and transgender people in the workplace? Gone.

The White House’s exposition on the threat of climate change (https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-record/climate)and efforts to combat it? Gone.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/us/politics/donald-trump-inauguration.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-abc-region&region=span-abc-region&WT.nav=span-abc-region&_r=0

[holzz]

concentration camps, work camps, and slavery camps for anybody who isn't white, male, or middle-aged (or elderly like he is...) oh, and he'll get a select number of women to grab by the pussy. about 500 from each state, who are high in the looks scale, will be rounded up.

i'd love it if he makes an executive order to allow Muslims to stay and shut those SJW fuckers up...lol. I'm not American, so it doesn't really bother me.

[peejaye]

Made me laugh when he said he's going to make America "safe" & he's going to eradicate terrorism! Good luck chum!

[Laphroaig]

concentration camps, work camps, and slavery camps for anybody who isn't white, male, or middle-aged (or elderly like he is...) oh, and he'll get a select number of women to grab by the pussy. about 500 from each state, who are high in the looks scale, will be rounded up.

i'd love it if he makes an executive order to allow Muslims to stay and shut those SJW fuckers up...lol. I'm not American, so it doesn't really bother me.

Like it or not, and whether for good or bad, Trump's Presidency will have a global impact. Climate change, relations with the UK, Russia and China, what happens to NATO, are just a few examples that could have an effect, direct or indirect, on you. No matter what nationality, it should "bother" everyone...

[trish]

His tiny hands be reachin' across the ocean.

[nysprod]

The New York Times reports on some of the first actions of the Trump Presidency -items deleted from the White House website:

The Department of Labor’s report (https://www.dol.gov/asp/policy-development/lgbt-report.pdf) on lesbians, bisexuals, gays and transgender people in the workplace? Gone.

The White House’s exposition on the threat of climate change (https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-record/climate)and efforts to combat it? Gone.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/us/politics/donald-trump-inauguration.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-abc-region®ion=span-abc-region&WT.nav=span-abc-region&_r=0

To me, this clearly illustrates how the trump administration functions:

The LBGT page is likely the work of virulent anti-gay vp pence who, along with preibus, are charged with the day to day running of the government...I seriously doubt trump was even aware of that page from the labor dept

On the other hand, there's a high probability the white house page on climate was the work of trump

[Stavros]

I wonder how many people noticed this press release that accompanied the second Executive Order President Trump signed on the 23rd of January 2017 (full text of the EO ca be accessed in the link below), the portion I have put in bold.

At a time when the anxiety over the future of pensions is growing in the UK -it has been part of the labour disputes on the London Underground and the Southern Rail franchise- it seems that pensions could become a battleground in the USA as the Trump administration takes the axe to Federal jobs -and note I am not arguing one way or the other about the size of the Federal payroll.

Presidential Memorandum Regarding the Hiring Freeze (https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/23/presidential-memorandum-regarding-hiring-freeze)

President Trump issued a memorandum which imposes a hiring freeze on the executive branch to counter the dramatic expansion of the federal workforce in recent years and the costs attendant to that expansion.
The Federal workforce has expanded significantly during the last two Administrations, from approximately 1.8 million Federal civilian employees during the Clinton Administration to approximately 2.1 million as of 2016 (an approximately 17 percent increase). Meanwhile, Federal employee health and retirement benefits continue to be based on antiquated assumptions and require a level of generosity long since abandoned by most of the private sector. Those costs are unsustainable for the Federal government, just as they are proving to be unsustainable for state and local governments with similar health and retirement packages.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/23/president-trump-takes-action-signs-series-presidential-memoranda-dealing

[Laphroaig]

The reality, Donald Trump - Week one.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38768272

Day One: American carnage

In retrospect, this was the calmest day of them all.

With his hand resting on two Bibles - one his own, the other used by Abraham Lincoln in 1861 - Donald John Trump was sworn in as US President, the first man to hold the office without either political or military experience.

Earlier in the day, Barack Obama was captured through a window leaving a letter for his successor in the top drawer of the Oval Office desk. What did it say? We don't know and President Trump won't say.

Addressing the nation at the ceremony, President Trump spoke in fairly bleak terms of rusted-out factories, poverty-stricken families and crime-blighted cities, vowing to end "this American carnage"

"This was not a message to the American people as a whole - many of whom likely feel the past resident of the White House, Barack Obama, reflected their beliefs and their diversity," our correspondent Anthony Zurcher wrote.

"This was a speech for the angry, the frustrated, the American voters who turned out in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida and Ohio to shake their fist at the status quo and take a chance on a man who was unlike any presidential politician who came before him."

As the Obamas left for a holiday in Palm Springs, a new era in politics began. Take a deep breath now...

Day Two: My crowd's bigger than your crowd

While many protests were held on inauguration day around the world, including one in Washington that spiralled into violence, Saturday 21 January saw a remarkable global expression of opposition to the Trump administration and its perceived world view.

Millions of people turned out to demonstrate at "Women's Marches" in cities around the world to make their voice heard on women's reproductive rights, gender, sexual and racial equality.

But as protests continued, President Trump gave an extraordinary press conference at the CIA headquarters, telling staff that the media had fabricated a "feud" between him and the intelligence agencies, despite previously tweeting they were acting as if the US was Nazi Germany.

Standing in front of the CIA's hallowed memorial wall, which honours agency employees who died in service, he also complained about reporting of the crowd size at his inauguration, and unflattering comparisons to the turn-out at Barack Obama's own ceremony in 2009.

What followed saw "post-truth" politics kick into high gear.

Trump dispatched his combative new press secretary Sean Spicer to lambast the media in a televised briefing.

He said no-one had any crowd estimates from the inauguration before then giving his own crowd numbers - saying that the space holding 720,000 people was full when the oath was taken. This, he claimed, "was the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period. Both in person and around the globe".

He also falsely said the number of people taking Washington's subway system on the day had been higher than during Barack Obama's second inauguration in 2013.

Day Three: A fact is no longer a fact. And that's a fact.

In a television interview on Sunday, Trump counsellor Kellyanne Conway defended Spicer's inaccurate claims, thereby introducing the world to the term "alternative facts", which is how she described what he said.

"Alternative facts are not facts. They are falsehoods," NBC presenter Chuck Todd replied.

The internet, of course, delivered an outpouring of #Spicerfacts.

Meanwhile, the president himself was praising Barack Obama at a ceremony to swear in senior members of his team.

While there, he said he would soon begin negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) with his Canadian and Mexican counterparts.

"Mexico has been terrific. The president has been really very amazing," he said.

More on Mexico was to come later in the week from the president. (Hint: They stopped being so amazing.)

Trump also finally responded to Saturday's mass protests against him.

Day Four: It's business time

The first working day of the Trump administration kicked off with meeting between the president and business leaders, during which Trump announced his aim to cut regulations for US-based businesses by 75%.

A clutch of executive actions followed. He pulled the US out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, a key part of Obama's efforts to engage and divert attention to the Asia-Pacific. Australia swiftly said it wanted to try to keep the deal alive with a so-called 'TPP 12 minus one'.

Trump also banned federal money going to international groups which perform or provide information on abortions.

The US president's order shows he "wants to stand up for all Americans, including the unborn," his press secretary Sean Spicer said.

"As long as you live you'll never see a photograph of 7 women signing legislation about what men can do with their reproductive organs," Guardian social editor Martin Belam said on Twitter. More than 260,000 people re-tweeted his thoughts.

If the day wasn't busy enough in Trump news, a group of US ethics lawyers had filed a lawsuit against the president, alleging he is violating a constitutional ban on accepting payments from foreign governments through his hotels.

Mr Trump described the lawsuit as "totally without merit".

Oh, and he implemented a hiring freeze on some federal government workers.

Day Five: Mmmm, oil

The barrage of executive actions continued on Tuesday, with two orders signed to back controversial oil pipelines - Keystone XL and the Dakota Access project - if American steel is used.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, whose land abuts the proposed route of the Dakota Access pipeline, called Mr Trump's decision a violation of "law and tribal treaties".

Environmentalists said Trump was proving as dangerous to the climate as they had feared. Oil industry groups applauded.

Separately, Sean Spicer sparred again with reporters, this time over Trump's claims that millions of illegal voters cast ballots in the election despite no evidence suggesting so.

It was also announced the FBI Director James Comey would stay in his position under the Trump administration.

Mr Comey, of course, is blamed by many Democrats for Hillary Clinton's election loss. He announced the FBI was looking into new Clinton emails just days before the election, before soon after saying it found no evidence of criminality.

Just a reminder: it's only Tuesday.

Day Six: When torture became OK

A visit to the Department of Homeland Security saw two more executive orders signed. One calls for "a large physical barrier" - the infamous wall - to be build on the US's southern border.

The other toughened policy on illegal immigrants -"aliens" - including by withholding funding from so-called "sanctuary cities" that protect undocumented immigrants within their boundaries.

In an interview with ABC News that aired on Wednesday evening, Trump said he believed waterboarding works, stating "we have to fight fire with fire".

But Mr Trump also said he would consult Defence Secretary James Mattis and CIA director Mike Pompeo - both of whom have indicated they oppose the method - and "if they don't want to do it that's fine".

A draft executive order - that the Trump team disavows as a White House document - also surfaces. It calls for a review into whether the "black sites" programme should be reintroduced and would scrap Mr Obama's move to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Another draft executive order emerges suggesting Trump would suspend the Syrian refugee programme and stop issuing visas from several Muslim-majority countries deemed to pose a threat to the security of the US.

White House officials declined to comment on the document.

But hey, it's almost the weekend.

And on the seventh day, Donald annoyed Mexico

Plans for an upcoming meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Donald Trump fall apart after the US President insists Mexico must pay for the border wall.

Mr Pena Nieto cancels the meeting after Trump says it would better not be held if Mexico refuses to cough up.

The White House then suggests a new 20 percent tax on Mexican imports could fund the barrier, but this is rubbished by Mexico's Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, who says that such a move would only shift the costs burden onto US consumers.

While the US-Mexico drama unfolds, UK Prime Minister Theresa May arrives in the US, joking that "opposites attract" and saying she wants to "renew the special relationship" between the UK and America.

Separately, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright vows to register as Muslim if Trump creates a register of Muslim-Americans.

Day Eight: The British are coming!

On Friday morning, CNN hosted Gregg Phillips, a conspiracy theorist who has repeatedly said millions of people vote illegally in the US, and has just as often declined to provide any evidence whatsoever for that claim.

Forty-two minutes later, Trump tweeted his support for Phillips.

Thousands of people marched on Washington to protest against abortion, and Vice-President Pence became the first sitting VP to address the demonstrators, saying, "Life is winning in America."

Amid rumours that he would lift sanctions on Russia, Mr Trump hosted his first international leader when British Prime Minister Theresa May came to visit. Mr Trump joked about revoking the "special relationship" after the BBC asked him a pointed question about his stance on abortion, torture and other hot topics.

Just before close of business, he attended the swearing-in ceremony for James Mattis as Secretary of Defense. There, he announced two new executive orders: one ordering "new ships, planes, resources and tools" to build up the military, and one creating new vetting measures to combat radical Islamic terrorism.

"We only want to admit into America those who support our country and love deeply our people," he said.

[broncofan]

Here is an interview with the lead Democrat in the House Oversight Committee. He makes some very good points and I think it's worth a read about the nature of the investigations underway and some which might be pending.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/02/schiff-flynn-trump/516741/

Schiff: You have to remember the context of this. The Russians had just interfered in the American elections in a way to help elect Donald Trump. The president of the United States, Barack Obama, then sanctions Russia for that interference. And then Trump’s team, through Flynn, reaches out to the Russian ambassador and potentially says, “Don’t worry about those sanctions. We’re going to take care of business. We’re not going to bite the hand that fed us.” That’s something that needs to be investigated. That’s hugely consequential.

And the broader context is: We’re in a competition with Russia right now. They are championing autocracy all over the world. We are promoting democracy. It is not communism vs. capitalism anymore, but it is authoritarianism vs. representative government. And it’s the Russian goal to take down Western liberal democracy. In that hugely consequential struggle, if we’re being undermined by our own administration—by General Flynn having secret talks with the Russians about undermining then-President Obama’s policy—that ought to matter to every American.

[broncofan]

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/issa-trump-russia-probe-special-prosecutor-235387

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/25/top-republican-says-special-prosecutor-should-investigate-russian-meddling-in-trumps-election/?utm_term=.02c87dadec35

I'm putting this here because it's not really a policy thing and I am interested in the outcome of the Russia investigations. .

This is big news or it could be big news because a Republican congressman is saying that a special prosecutor should be appointed to investigate the contacts between Trump campaign and Russia. A special prosecutor is someone who is independent of the president and would have a mandate to get all of the facts. It's significant because so far Republicans have not been interested in pursuing this issue.

[broncofan]

The relevant stuff is at the 7 minute mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MzVZE-Mk0U

[Stavros]

In spite of the audience applause I don't see Republicans agreeing to a special prosecutor, they are more likely to back Trump if he decides to arrest the editors of the New York Times and the Washington Post and shut down those newspapers, given that they are the 'enemy of the American people'. Having already refused those papers entry to an informal briefing with Calamity Sean, President Trump has said papers should 'name their sources' on the same day Reince Prebus refused to name a source concerning allegations of the Trump team's talks with Russian government officials. Journalists in the past have gone to prison to protect their sources, so it would not be the first time. To what extent the Second Amendment has been violated I do not know, presumably the Trump team will issue legal requirements that the Media provide sources for all its stories, though surely this would also mean the phoney claims reported by Trump and Breitbart would also be subject to that law, so it could all just be the usual rhetorical crap that flows from the White House these days.

[broncofan]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/us/politics/jeff-sessions-russia-trump-investigation-democrats.html

At his confirmation hearing Sessions said he did not have contact with the Russians. He apparently did talk to Kislyak, the Russian ambassador in September. It's not clear in what capacity he spoke to Kislyak or what they spoke about. I think given the context of his comments it might not be perjury if he was not speaking to him as a Trump surrogate but rather as a member of senate armed services committee, although strictly speaking, what he said was false.

Anyhow, right now there is pressure on him to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. The leverage of him potentially perjuring himself might lead to a compromise position; appointment of a special prosecutor and mute the calls for him to resign as attorney general altogether.

[Stavros]

At his confirmation hearing Sessions said he did not have contact with the Russians. He apparently did talk to Kislyak, the Russian ambassador in September. It's not clear in what capacity he spoke to Kislyak or what they spoke about. I think given the context of his comments it might not be perjury if he was not speaking to him as a Trump surrogate but rather as a member of senate armed services committee, although strictly speaking, what he said was false.
Anyhow, right now there is pressure on him to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. The leverage of him potentially perjuring himself might lead to a compromise position; appointment of a special prosecutor and mute the calls for him to resign as attorney general altogether.
Really Broncofan? The Greeks called it sophistry, using words to say more, or less than what they mean. Did Sessions meet the Russian ambassador twice in 2016? Yes. It is as simple as that. To argue he met the Ambassador in his capacity as a member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee or when visiting with a delegation from the Heritage Foundation does not obscure the fact that yep, he did meet the Russian ambassador. When asked at his confirmation hearings Sessions could easily have said yes, and explained the context of the meetings but he decided to tell lies, probably because Congress is a swamp that he and Donald Trump are clearing out, or have decided is irrelevant as Trump rules by Executive Order. Not one other member of the Armed Services Committee has ever had a meeting with the Russian Ambassador, whereas members of the Foreign Relations Committee have -give that a thought for a moment. But here you are dealing with the Government's senior lawyer, and he doesn't see the problem.

George W Bush's (http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/george-w-bush) chief ethics lawyer has said Jeff Sessions (http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/jeff-sessions)' denial he had contact with a Russian ambassador during the Presidential campaign was "a good way to go to jail".
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/george-w-bush-ethics-lawyer-jeff-sessions-russia-talks-good-way-go-to-jail-richard-painter-sergey-a7607616.html

Lock him up? Or are we back to the central theme of the Trump Presidency -'We can do what we want, and say what we want because we don't care what you think about it'.

[trish]

Sessions was all for impeaching a standing president for lying to Congess - and that was just about a blow job, not working with the Russians to influence an American election and agreeing to turn a blind eye toward the Russian takeover of Ukraine.

[Stavros]

There was an interesting take on the Trump-Russia situation on last night's edition of the BBC-2 programme Newsnight.
A Russian analyst at the Royal United Services Institute (a think-tank for the UK military) argued that Russian strategy in place is to undermine liberal democracy -much as this was the strategy during the Cold War- but whereas in the past the USSR could use existing Communist Parties to get its message across, Russia under Putin has identified alt-right, nationalist and anti-globalization parties as its next best friend, with the aim to break down large trading blocs like the EU and the free flow of capital, goods and services associated with globalization, and return the world to a network of individual nation-states which would restore Russia's status as a major power. Globalization (this is my take) has exposed Russia as a large state with rich resources but weak markets, a fact Putin cannot change in the current set-up. Crucially, Russia had not been seen as a major power in recent years. In this context, Trump is music to Russian ears because they share the same goals of economic nationalism.
However, the Russian became engaged in the US election as they have in others, because they expected Hillary Clinton to win, thus most of their interventions were not so much intended to boost the Trump campaign but oriented to smearing Clinton's reputation, with the assumption that after the election she would not be able to shake off Wikileaks and any other revelations the Russians might have thereby weakening US democracy from within. The irony is that Trump is less hostile than Clinton, but they don't really know what to do with him, and so far has not won their favour with the proposed military build-up. The analyst thinks Trump may not lift sanctions in the near future.
So do they have dirt on Trump? The view was that Hotels in Russia have long been used by the regime to spy on, and implicate foreign dignitaries in scandals, as they are ideal locations in which to practice the dark arts, and while we don't know if they do have anything scandalous it is tempting for some to think they do, and let's face it, not much happens in Russia with people like Trump that is not recorded, it is that kind of a country.

My own view is that Trump evidently wanted in on the lucrative hotel scene in Russia, particularly Moscow which has a deficit of good hotels, and this began as early as the 1980s when Gorbachev became General Secretary; apart from a marketing adventure with Trump Vodka he doesn't seem to have been very successful in Russia, the problem is like many before and since, he was dazzled and overwhelmed in the 1990s by the fabulous wealth accrued by the Oligarchs, many of whom splash the cash with gay abandon, and wanted in on that river of riches, so the 'scandal' may lie in the associations he has had with individual Russians rather than the Government, much as Paul Manafort had dodgy dealings with the president of the Ukraine, in effect laundering Yanukovich's bribes. I could of course be wrong, but I think in time we may either find out, or just be treated to a drip-drip of names nobody outside Russia has heard of, all exposing Trump as the man we know anyway, doing deals in any way they come and go to enrich himself without much regard for the background of the people he is dealing with (his problem with Felix Sater in New York is an example of this).

[broncofan]

I'm not sure if this goes here but I've posted twice in the thought for the day section and I've now had a third thought. I look at Trump's incoherent, dangerous tweets and the more than one hundred thousand people who "like" them and wonder what is going on.

People who voted for Trump must not have thought he could make America great again but rather be harboring such a deep-seated loathing of other human beings that they would elect one of the most incompetent and corrupt members of their species to hold the most powerful office in this country.

Do they not see him tweet that Pelosi or Schumer should be investigated because they met with Russian officials at one point and see how incoherent that point is? Did Pelosi or Schumer run in elections where their opponents were hacked by the Russian government? Did they mislead Congress under oath about it? Why does he not know he cannot order investigations but that the Justice Department does it? Why can't he spell the word "tap"? Why is he tweeting about the Apprentice?

Trump supporters explain again what you like about him? Is it just the infliction of misery on others using this ignorant vessel?

[trish]

Donald’s supporters always claim that he says what he thinks; but I don’t believe it. He says all the nasty, stupid shit they say to each other and are too embarrassed to say outside their fetid little bubbles. His strategy to power has been to monopolize the media with so many idiocies that real newsworthy stories get shoved aside. It’s like a denial of service attack on our attentions. Look away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GeCPanRHU0

[filghy2]

Given Trump's office has declined to clarify his remarks, the phone-tapping allegation is most likely based on something he saw in the right-wing media, just like the 3 million illegal voters and the 'something that happened in Sweden last night'. It was apparently mentioned in a recent Breitbart report. That's all it takes for something to be an accepted fact in the right-wing parallel universe. Most of the people liking his tweets probably exist in a bubble where they only choose to see or hear things that support their pre-conceptions.

[broncofan]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/03/neil_gorsuch_s_arrogant_frozen_trucker_opinion_sho ws_he_wants_to_be_like.html

The Gorsuch hearings have been interesting so far. I read that Franken made reference to a frozen trucker case in which Gorsuch issued a dissenting opinion. The opinion is in fact absurd. Gorsuch does not believe in something called Chevron deference. Under Chevron deference, an administrative agency is allowed to interpret a statute and a court will uphold its interpretation unless the agency's interpretation is arbitrary and capricious. Gorsuch believes that deferring to an agency's interpretation invades on the province of the judiciary and that judges should be able to decide whether their interpretations are correct from a neutral rather than deferential posture. This of course seems to undercut the entire purpose of having agencies, but nevermind, let's get to his wise decision.

A trucker was operating a trailer in subzero temperatures. The truck would not move with the trailer attached and its heater was not working. The trucker waited three hours for assistance before feeling his chest and legs go numb and then decided to abandon the trailer. There is a statute that protects workers who refuse to operate machinery for health and safety reasons. The agency decided in this case that the trucker's decision to drive away without the trailer was tantamount to a refusal to operate and he should be protected by the statute. Two judges agreed but Gorsuch, applying no deference to OSHA's interpretation of a health and safety statute, decided that by driving the truck away sans trailer, he was operating the machinery. Since he was operating machinery, he could not be covered by a statute that protected people who refuse to operate machinery for safety reasons.

My point is that more than an ideological conservative Gorsuch is a thoroughly unreasonable person. Somehow a man refusing to tow a trailer that stalled his truck in subzero temperatures is not covered by a statute that protects people who refuse to operate machinery for safety reasons.

[broncofan]

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/schiff-there-is-more-than-circumstantial-evidence-now/520509/

Some strong hints from Schiff that he has direct evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump associates. A rebuke of Nunes, the chair of the house intelligence committee who shared information with Trump that he thought supported the claim that Trump was wiretapped by Obama. It didn't provide that support but it was out of bounds for him to share that information with Trump and not with the intelligence committee. It's also not clear whether the information he made public was classified which would undermine his claim to being concerned about agency leaks. Anyhow, bad behavior from the Republican Nunes, and striking confidence from Schiff, although we'll find out soon enough what he's basing it on.

[broncofan]

This doesn't really go here but I couldn't figure out where to put it. I recommend this article.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/03/navalny-protests-russia-putin/520878/?utm_source=atltw

In Putin's response to these Russian protests, you see echoes of Trump's response to protests in the U.S. Actually, it's the other way around, but I am more familiar with Trump's false claims of paid protesters and all sorts of defamatory assertions about his opponents. Obviously the situation is worse in Russia, as Navalny, the organizer of the protests had to reach his audience through youtube as all of the media in Russia is state controlled.

Many protesters were arrested and various people fighting Putin's corruption have now been thrown in jail on trumped up charges. Ioffe seems encouraged that people turned out to protest throughout Russia and not just in Moscow. But when going out in the street to express opposition is an act of courage and in Russia it is, you know you have a long way to go before your country has stable institutions and a democratic government.

Even though we are miles away from ever getting this bad, the Republicans have a lot to answer for in providing cover and defense for the completely amoral Putin regime. Those who pretend that opposition to Russia is really a second-coming of McCarthyism really aren't paying attention to the people who die mysteriously, to the extraordinary corruption, and the complete blackout on all legitimate forms of media.

[filghy2]

It's interesting that Republican supporters views on Putin changed very sharply with the ascendancy of Trump last year
http://www.vox.com/2016/9/9/12865678/trump-putin-polls-republican What does that say about these people?

[trish]

That they have zero intellectual integrity. They can't even be honest with themselves, let alone honest with those with whom they argue.

[broncofan]

We can't make mistakes. Go ahead Ken.
I'm Chuck.:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWl37CWjgr0

[bluesoul]

i was in austria for a few months, and this guy told me "your fear only salts the meat". i'm still trying to use it in a sentence and apply it to my everyday vocabulary. like "that video proves trump can fuck anything up. really salts my meat" does that sound right?

stay tuned as i come up with the perfect "salts my meat" use

[bluesoul]

stay tuned as i come up with the perfect "salts my meat" use

when i first heard trump had removed steve bannon from his national security post, i was very excited. but then i learned that he will still maintain the highest security clearance in the west wing and he'll still be advising the new (but actually former) national security advisor and i got pissed again.

really salts my meat

https://i.giphy.com/9GlQodYpm2P6g.gif

[Jericho]

That GIF Salts My Fucking Meat....Puts me right off, it does!

[broncofan]

Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who ran in the special election in the sixth district of Georgia failed to win outright with a majority and so there will be a runoff between him and Handel. He did a lot better in each county than Hillary did on November 8, and it was a small moral victory for Democrats though not the big victory we hoped for. He also had to contend with Trump attacking him two or three times on twitter. Ossoff has lived in the district his entire life but shortly before the election moved two minutes outside the district to live with his girlfriend who is in medical school. This is enough for Republicans to call him a carpetbagger.

Republicans also seem to be mathematically challenged. I've heard a number of Republicans say that he was not able to garner a majority even with 11 Republican candidates. Dilution of the Republican field would explain why someone could win a plurality but it is not easier to win a majority simply because the rival party has many candidates. In fact, one of the reasons a majority is required is to prevent someone from winning simply because his opponents cannibalize each other's votes. So Republicans get an F in math as well as science.

[broncofan]

http://thehill.com/policy/international/china/329326-trump-lawsuit-now-includes-china-trademarks-report

The Trump corruption scandal is something a lot of people have begun to just shrug their shoulders over. For instance, when he congratulates Erdogan for consolidating power it's not clear whether he's doing it bc he has business there or bc he admires autocrats. Despite people's collective indifference there is at least one emoluments suit wending its way through the federal courts.

The case for corruption regarding China is very strong. Ivanka recently received trademarks in China for Trump business, something Donald had tried to obtain for ten years and failed until recently. It occurred just as Donald began to have cozier relations with the Chinese. This looks exactly like Trump's concessions to China on currency manipulation and the One China policy have led to a business benefit. I still am not certain what the judicial sanction would be for violating the emoluments clause...it can be like a restraining order or injunction but the President, unless he's removed from office still has to conduct foreign policy. Does it attack the property interest one obtained through corruption?

[bluesoul]

Republicans also seem to be mathematically challenged.

i noticed this as well when i read the donald's tweet (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/854676780527079425) after hearing the news about those results. confusing at first until i realized it's the republican zero sum mentality: you didn't get the results we said you wanted, therefore you lose.

if ossoff holds onto his own voters she needs to not only keep her own but also win over all 60% of republican voters who didn't choose her

also, does anyone think this tweet (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/719630780499128320) might have something to do with milkshakes?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXfBNaMU3Sg

[sukumvit boy]

"How Trump Could Get Fired " article in the current issue of The New Yorker describes the forces that could end this presidency before 2020 .
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/08/how-trump-could-get-fired

[broncofan]

I watched some of the Clapper and Sally Yates hearings today conducted by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee. Unless they have revealed something later on, they mostly confirmed what we already know. Michael Flynn spoke to the Russian ambassador and indicated that the sanctions against the Russians for their interference in our election might be lifted, that Yates warned the W.H when Pence began telling the public otherwise. Specifically, she told them that she had information that Flynn misled Pence and that this gave the Russians compromat on Flynn, the former NSA. The white house fired Sally Yates four days later for not defending their executive order on immigration, and did not seek Flynn's resignation until about 20 days after Yates' disclosure to white house counsel when the post covered the story. In that twenty day period he continued to be involved in sensitive national security matters.

The Republicans in the hearing did their best to pretend the hearing was really about leaks, the process of unmasking, and Yates' decision not to defend Trump's executive order. Yates and Clapper were asked whether they had ever unmasked any Trump associates, to which Yates said no and Clapper said yes. Clapper explained that the process of unmasking is done in a legal way, pursuant to federal law, in which a request is made to provide the name of a U.S person who is talking to a foreign subject being surveilled. The person requesting the name of the U.S person then provides the reason they want the name unmasked and how that unmasking helps them understand the nature of the foreign agent's actions.

They were both asked whether they leaked information and both answered no.

Yates was grilled with a series of question about why she did not defend Trump's executive order. The stupidest questions were asked by Senator Kennedy, who argued that because the order is not unconstitutional until the court rules it is, she had no right to opine on its constitutionality. He is right that it is the judiciary whose judgment is binding, but if she cannot defend the order in good faith on the merits, then she did the appropriate thing. She is not allowed to provide a defense that distorts the facts or the law, so if she believes any defense of the order requires that, she was right to make her views known. Anyhow, she did a great job of fending off the partisan attempts to smear her conduct.

Disappointingly, the questions of Senators Cruz, Cornyn, and Grassley indicate that the investigation is really not being conducted in a bipartisan manner. Yates' judgment on the executive order, which was later borne out to be sound, was not the subject of the investigation, and the Republicans feigning outrage over unmasking is equally dishonest. There is no indication the unmasking process was misused. There were leaks which are the proper subject of questions but they only established that neither Clapper nor Yates leaked classified information nor authorized anyone else to do so.

[Stavros]

Message to all you bad hombres-don't mess with the Commandante!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/james-comey-fired-fbi.html?_r=0

[flabbybody]

Comey reopened the FBI Hillary email investigation 10 days before the election. Without that, she might've won. He GAVE ELECTION to Trump
Is this about Comey getting some new shit on the Russian-Trump thing?
Stavros, tonight's cable news coverage is making no sense. They were totally blindsided.
Need your insight

[broncofan]

Anyone who believes the explanation provided by Rosenstein, Trump, and Sessions is an idiot. The handling of Hillary's emails had nothing to do with Comey's firing as it occurred BEFORE Trump decided to keep Comey on. Whether he fired Comey because Comey had the temerity to continue investigating him or because he really thinks Comey would find something is tough to say.

The rational person would say that such a guilty looking act would only be taken by someone who is about to be found out, but Trump isn't rational and has the mind of a dictator. He would object to simply being investigated. But it doesn't look good for the rule of law, that someone can be fired simply for doing their job and investigating other executive branch officials.

Not only was media blindsided, but a lot of fbi staff were blindsided I've read. It was up to Sessions and his deputy to concoct reasons to fire Comey.

[broncofan]

Firing the head of the fbi for investigating your associates should be an impeachable offense, whether it was necessary to protect his interests or not. The reasons provided by Trump are not genuine, as he supported the inappropriate actions of Comey and was gracious in their meeting when he decided to keep him on. Without going into too much detail, even people Rosenstein cited in his memo have said that they think the reasons provided by Team Trump are pretextual (see Donald Ayer's public statements). It does not matter whether the firing was necessary to protect Trump or simply a response to Comey's perceived disloyalty for continuing to investigate Trump, it is obstruction of justice.

[filghy2]

People are making comparisons with the Saturday night massacre in which Nixon had the Watergate special prosecutor dismissed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Massacre

At least in that case the AG and deputy AG had the integrity to resign rather than do Nixon's bidding. What are chances that any prominent Republican will take a similar stand in this case?

[trish]

Comey’s fumbling public speculations during the election, although despicable, were applauded by Trump, his campaign and his supporters. Had Trump and his administration actually thought Comey’s conduct unprofessional, proving him unfit to direct the FBI, then why did Trump praise his conduct at the time and why did his administration not move to displace Comey when Trump took office in January?

In addition to this three and one-half month delay, the timing of Comey’s ousting is intriguing: 1) One day after Sally Yates made mince-meat out of Trump’s allies at her Senate hearing. 2) The very day subpoenas are to be issued in the FBI investigation into possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia.

If not an attempt to stall and divert the FBI investigation, at the very least Comey’s firing is another attempt to steer the media and dominate the headlines. Not sure, however, that it was well thought through.

Because of Comey’s conduct during the campaign, Trump thought Comey was in his pocket. But Comey was embarrassed by his behavior, wanted to restore his reputation, and was therefore under public pressure to conduct the current investigation with a degree of bipartisanship, if not objectivity. I think Trump just recently realized that Comey never was in his pocket.

The firing may hurt Trump temporarily in the media, but it will kill the independence of the FBI and pre-determine the results of its investigation in favor of Trump.

[Stavros]

Comey reopened the FBI Hillary email investigation 10 days before the election. Without that, she might've won. He GAVE ELECTION to Trump
Is this about Comey getting some new shit on the Russian-Trump thing?
Stavros, tonight's cable news coverage is making no sense. They were totally blindsided.
Need your insight

The keywords to use: Data Laundering and the connections between the Alfa Bank in Moscow, Cambridge Analytica (based in Cambridge, UK) and SCL with the additional claims of (illegal) Russian funding in the US election campaign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCL_Group

The claim is that elections can be swayed if you have as minute a degree of information on voters as you can get -in particular targeting the undecided -data miining is Cambridge Analytica's role; while SCL provides the 'fake news' stories that pump up the waverers to make them choose, and although admittedly a weak strategy consider the margins of victory in the swing states that defeated Hillary Clinton: for example in Michigan she lost by 10,704 votes, in Wisconsin she lost by 22,177 votes, in Pennsylvania 67,416 votes (see link from The Hill below). However, at least one source, without any backup argues that it is too odd that the swing states were won by margins of 1% or less, and claims
it points to some hacker having nudged these four states into Trump’s column by no more and no less than the one percent he needed, so as not to arouse suspicion by giving him too large of a win in any of the states he was supposed to lose. But if so, it’s the pattern of all of these states being won by the same one percent that stands out as suspicious, because that’s just not how numbers work to begin with
http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/rigged-election-donald-trump-won-every-surprise-swing-state-by-the-same-1-margin/118/
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/308353-trump-won-by-smaller-margin-than-stein-votes-in-all-three

The FBI has been investigating 'unusual' activity between the Alfa Bank and the Trump Campaign:
The FBI is examining why a computer server for a Russian bank led by oligarchs with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin had a disproportionate interest in reaching a server used by the Trump Organization during the US presidential campaign.
-The Alfa Bank in fact is not that close to Putin, but this may be because it is one of the richest in Russia and thus has been able to evade even his grubby fingers, or it could be that this 'distant' relationship is an ideal one when the Russian President wants to use their assets for foreign adventures. Thus:
Heat Street (https://heatst.com/world/exclusive-fbi-granted-fisa-warrant-covering-trump-camps-ties-to-russia/) reported last November that the FBI had sought and obtained a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court after presenting evidence "of a server, possibly related to the Trump campaign, and its alleged links to two banks; SVB Bank and Russia's Alfa Bank."

Two months later, the BBC reported (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38589427) that the FBI — part of a counterintelligence task force led by the CIA — requested the FISC warrant to investigate the banks after former CIA Director John Brennan received a recording of a conversation about Kremlin money potentially going into Trump campaign coffers.

McClatchy (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article127231799.html) then followed up less than week later, reporting that investigators were "examining how money may have moved from the Kremlin to covertly help Trump win." McClatchy didn't mention Alfa Bank or computer servers and couldn't independently confirm the existence of a FISC warrant.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/fbi-alfa-bank-trump-organization-servers-2017-3

It has also been alleged that Cambridge Analytica was heavily involved in the Brexit campaign in the UK and that there are links between it and the Republican campaign against Hillary Clinton -CA initially backed Ted Cruz before switching to the eventual Republican nominee. (Warning: this is a very long article)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy

There is clearly enough here to warrant the FBI investigation that began before the November 2016 election, and if it can be proved that money was passed from Russia to the Trump Campaign, that illegal data mining was used to enable the Trump campaign to target undecided voters -the assumption is that data mining in some circumstances is illegal -for example, how did Cambridge Analytica obtain Facebook data?- impeachment would surely be on the cards. However, that would depend on how the Republicans in Congress view these developments, and whether they are ready to throw their Commander-in-Chief under the bus.

And of course, there may be a lot of smoke here, but no fire. But when Comey re-opened the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email traffic, there were no complaints from the Republicans, so their sudden conversion to political morality rings hollow. The Commander-in-Chief didn't even have the balls to call Comey and speak man-to-man to tell him he was fired.

[broncofan]

I think nothing new has been revealed to the public about the Trump Russia investigation for some time. That doesn't mean the FBI does not have something.

Comey just released a statement saying he believes the FBI director can be fired for any reason or no reason at all. It's a funny statement, because in at-will employment dismissal for no reason (assuming that's a coherent concept) is legitimate, but there are some illegitimate reasons. It would probably be illegitimate if he was fired because the President asked him to make public statements exonerating him and he refused or because he wanted to expand an investigation into matters that directly impact the president. In short, it should be illegal to fire someone because you expect loyalty when they are supposed to be independent.

His statement, which I don't have a link to yet but read on twitter, is gracious but confirms that he is probably an honest but not very intelligent man. If he believes he was fired for doing his job and not for inchoate concerns about his competence, then he should at some point tell us what sorts of actions the president demanded or pushed back against that may have led to his firing.

[broncofan]

One thing to consider is that the longer there is scrutiny the greater chance there is that the fbi comes upon scandal that was not what anyone had in mind. Maybe Trump's personal businesses are financed with a lot of dirty money. It's possible he thinks he can exert more influence over someone else for cheap pr victories. Trump is a very vain person as I'm sure we've all noticed. The range of improper bases for the decision is broad.

There's also the possibility of explosive things like the fisa warrants into Alfa Bank showing direct trails of money between Trump campaign and the Russian government, but I actually think if something big had materialized already, firing the director would not keep it buried. As improper as Trump's actions have been and as feckless as the person he plans to hire ends up being, if there were strong evidence of collusion, more people than just the director would probably know about it, and cutting off the head would not quash it.

[Stavros]

On the one hand, alarm bells may have been ringing when subpoenas were issued to associates of Mike Flynn to appear before a Grand Jury; and the Bells were ringing when James Comey asked for more funding to maintain the investigations into the potential collusion between the Russians and the Republican Presidential campaign;
On the other hand, according to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Mr Comey was sacked because he had committed 'atrocities' -a flamboyant word for the Director of the FBI making decisions she believes should have been made by the Attorney General-, even though the letter from Deputy AG Rosenstein criticized Comey but did not recommend removing him from office.

It could come down to the simple fact that for months the Commandante has been fuming over the high profile of James Comey and could not bear to think of someone receiving more media attention than himself, the peril of spending your late night hours flipping through multiple cable channels and shouting at the TV.

As for the links, there is some confusion over the ownership of Cambridge Analytica and its links to the Russians via Vincent Tchenguiz and others associated with him, such as Dmitry Firtash, who in turn is linked to Paul Manafort while the SCL connection gives you Mike Flynn, and so on. A tangled web if ever there was one, and the difference being the legal right to mine, launder and manipulate personal data, and the actual effectiveness of it, given that 'Lyin' Ted Cruz' was the Republican darling when this started. If you want to, you can try and work it out from these profiles, but in the end, we are back to the 'Ayn Rand'-based free market agenda being promoted by Nigel Farage, Steven Bannon, and people like that and their determination to break the mould of politics to create their Brave New World.

http://www.bluedotdaily.com/cambridge-analytica-the-company-that-stole-the-election-that-youve-never-heard-of/
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/211152/trump-data-analytics-russian-access
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage

[broncofan]

We have now heard a little bit more about Trump's claim that he was given assurances by Comey that he was not under investigation. He said that at a dinner he had with Comey where Comey was basically vying to retain his position as director of the FBI, he asked Comey whether he was under investigation. Sarah Huckabee Sanders says that she doesn't believe this is a conflict of interest but one doesn't have to know DOJ protocol to know that the question is highly improper.

Comey may think it is noble to fall on his sword but it is inconsistent with his demand that rank and file continue to uphold rule of law. If Trump is being dishonest about conversations they had then Comey should correct the record. Any other undue pressure Trump put on Comey should also be revealed if he cares about upholding the rule of law. One gets a sense that there is a group of people who hold Comey in high regard but I wonder what they see that is never evident in his public appearances.

The President now claims that he did not fire Comey because of the Rosenstein memo but because Comey is a grandstander. Apparently Rosenstein did not like being blamed for Comey's firing and that explains the backtracking. But Rosenstein's pressure on Trump to provide another explanation for why he fired Comey will not save his reputation as he must have known when he wrote that memo that it was being used to hide Trump's real reasons for dismissing Comey. If he does not resign or appoint a special prosecutor, he has disgraced himself. But I expect he will be as spineless as everyone else has been here.

[Stavros]

“He’s a showboat, he’s a grandstander"

-Hard to believe the person being referred to is the ex-Director of the FBI. There are times when you want a President to sound graceful, to sound, dare one say it, 'Presidential'. The current occupant of the White House is a cheap showman incapable of grace, unable to even pretend he believes his fellow citizens are his equals, incapable of a simple statement of modest regret at 'having' to sack one of the most senior law enforcement officers in the country.

Every time you think this vulgar ignoramus can't go lower, he finds new depths to sink to, taking the Presidency and the USA with him.

[Stavros]

Jonathan Freedland, writing in The Guardian argues there is now a clear case for impeachment, based on the fact that the President has broken the law. We now wait for Congress to do its duty.

What, then, of those actions by Trump that don’t simply violate an unspoken norm, or rely on a self-censoring sense of shame, but break the law? Surely Trump can be brought to account over those?

There is no shortage of such deeds. In the last 24 hours or so, he has provided evidence of two more. First, he told an NBC interviewer that (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/11/donald-trump-james-comey-firing-russia-investigation), despite the version spun by his aides, his motive for firing Comey related to the FBI’s investigation into collusion between his campaign and Russia. That is a clear admission of obstruction of justice. On Friday morning, he tweeted a threat to Comey who, he suggested (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/863007411132649473), had “better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”. That’s intimidation of a witness. Both would surely count as what the constitution calls “high crimes” and therefore grounds for impeachment.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/12/donald-trump-has-no-shame-that-makes-him-dangerous

[broncofan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBFzd6q6kHI

Laurence Tribe, leading constitutional scholar discusses the various bases on which Trump could be impeached. We don't know if there was anything impeachable in the underlying conduct being investigated, but there are at least two bases for impeachment. 1. the admission with Lester Holt that he was at least thinking about Russia when he fired Comey. He did not have to think Comey would find anything, just that he based the dismissal on his annoyance at being investigated (something I said in my first and second post on the subject...) 2. His question to Comey about whether he was being investigated at a dinner with Comey, in addition to his request for loyalty.

Although his tweet about Comey was highly inappropriate, I doubt even a Democratic Congress would impeach him for that alone because it ostensibly just demanded the truth about their conversations by threatening that he could prove what he said. It's not as though he was threatening blackmail with a tape about some unrelated matter to coerce Comey to speak a falsehood.

[broncofan]

It's not as though he was threatening blackmail with a tape about some unrelated matter to coerce Comey to speak a falsehood.
Although few will want to admit it, the essence of witness intimidation is, "if you tell the truth, there will be consequences" not "if you tell a lie, I can prove it" as indecorous as Trump's tweet was.

DC also allows the recording of conversations without the consent of the party being recorded, something that many localities do not, so I don't think Trump was restricted from recording the call. But if he did record Comey, those tapes might end up getting subpoenaed and we will know what was asked and agreed to.

[broncofan]

Although few will want to admit it, the essence of witness intimidation is, "if you tell the truth, there will be consequences" not "if you tell a lie, I can prove it" as indecorous as Trump's tweet was.

Slight contradiction though. If there are no tapes I think it's witness intimidation, because he would be playing off a person's natural infirmities of memory to suppress their testimony by pretending there's a recording that contradicts them. The purpose in that case would be to bluff them into thinking their recollection is contradicted by recording when it's not and to prevent them from speaking the truth. But if there is a recording I don't think a warning about it, however unseemly is witness intimidation.

[Stavros]

Slight contradiction though. If there are no tapes I think it's witness intimidation, because he would be playing off a person's natural infirmities of memory to suppress their testimony by pretending there's a recording that contradicts them. The purpose in that case would be to bluff them into thinking their recollection is contradicted by recording when it's not and to prevent them from speaking the truth. But if there is a recording I don't think a warning about it, however unseemly is witness intimidation.

Thank for altering me to the legal situation on tapes in Washington DC, but as Freedland points out in his article, it is often not the question of legality that applies, but the indifference to established modes of conduct, of which taping people without their knowledge is one, not least in a White House where it helped destroy a previous President.

The irony is that he may well have tapes, thereby taking one criminal allegation away that could be used in impeachment.
The man is obsessed, mostly with himself and how he appears on tv and in the media. One thing that probably keeps him awake at night is the simple fact that when they are seen together, John Comey towers over him at 6'-6". Nobody should ever make the Commandante look small.

And, according to Buzzfeed (health warning?) he also eavesdrops on his own staff in Florida:
In 2016, BuzzFeed News reported (https://www.buzzfeed.com/aramroston/sources-donald-trump-listened-in-on-phone-lines-at-mar-a-lag?utm_term=.lm5qyXv7q#.bn58Vdqp8) that at Mar-a-Lago, Trump frequently eavesdropped on his staff members’ phone calls.
“At Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach resort he runs as a club for paying guests and celebrities, Donald Trump had a telephone console installed in his bedroom that acted like a switchboard, connecting to every phone extension on the estate, according to six former workers,” BuzzFeed reported. “Several of them said he used that console to eavesdrop on calls involving staff.”
http://heavy.com/news/2017/05/is-it-legal-to-for-donald-trump-secretely-record-tape-conversations-washington-dc/

Another simple fact: the job is too big for the man. Some people are natural leaders, some grow in the office, but on this occasion you have a man with no knowledge of US history; who has not read, and does not even understand the Constitution he has sworn to protect, preserve and defend; has no known diplomatic skills, but who does brag about himself as a winner and can't move on from the election he won in the College but not in the street, which is why he is prepared to spend millions of tax payer dollars 'proving' that the popular vote was fixed through voter fraud.

Never mind, with US investors and firms (and the Commandante himself) being given more access to markets in China, and a $100 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia in the bag the Commandante will soon be drinking tea with an unelected nutcase and mass murderer, perhaps to work out how they can start a war against Iran, because there aren't enough wars right now, and for a man with no empathy, you might as well spend millions of dollars on bombs, send US troops to Afghanistan for another 16 years, and get stuck in to Somalia, rather than spend a dime of that money on education.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-saudi-arabia-visit-means-war-with-iran-a7732861.html

[Stavros]

This week's crisis:
The White House has insisted that reports about Donald Trump (http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-leak-russia-classified-information-sources-method-denial-white-house-isis-intelligence-a7737791.html)'s meeting with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador are false - but has not denied he leaked classified information.

According to the Washington Post, Mr Trump revealed highly classified information about Isis to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during a White House meeting last week.
In a brief appearance outside the White House, HR McMaster, the President's national security advisor, said “the story that came out tonight, as reported, is false."

But the article concludes:
However, the Washington Post did not report that Mr Trump disclosed sources and intelligence-gathering methods. Instead, the article explained that Mr Trump revealed classified information from which sources and methods could be inferred. Conspicuously, none of of the President's spokespeople denied he had leaked classified information.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-leak-russia-classified-information-sources-method-denial-white-house-isis-intelligence-a7737786.html

And the killer line from another article -
US law permits the president to de-classify information at his or her own discretion
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-leak-classified-information-russia-response-democrats-republicans-president-latest-a7737781.html

[broncofan]

https://www.lawfareblog.com/bombshell-initial-thoughts-washington-posts-game-changing-story

This article does a nice job of summarizing the implications of the leak to the Lavrov and Kislyak. The important aspects of this story are that it is code word information, which includes the most protected of state secrets, that he revealed that ISIS planned attacks in the U.S. and how we plan to thwart them, and most significantly the city that our source is from. The city our source is from could get that person killed.

Finally, the information we received was pursuant to an intelligence sharing agreement with another state, the identity of which the post is not reporting on, but the other state did not give us permission to share this intelligence with Russia.

It's hard for someone not familiar with this kind of protected information (myself) to know how significant this leak was but one can judge from everyone's reactions. Even Republicans are showing extreme concern which gives us some sense of how serious the matter is since they have not responded to previous scandals.

Stavros, this is also the information I am hearing, which is that Mcmaster's statement was a carefully worded non-denial. He denied that Trump revealed sources and methods but not information that could reveal those. As you indicate, the President's ability to de-classify info is being used as a defense of the legality of his actions but it doesn't wash since he didn't have a reason to de-classify. Nor does the strict legality of his actions protect him against the claim that he has violated the oath of his office.

[broncofan]

And the killer line from another article -
US law permits the president to de-classify information at his or her own discretion
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-leak-classified-information-russia-response-democrats-republicans-president-latest-a7737781.html
What's especially comical about this defense is that it is effective even if you don't know you're de-classifying state secrets in the form of a boast:). According to national security lawyers, if any other person had revealed this information to a non-ally state they would be facing a long jail sentence, but since the President can use his discretion and wisdom to de-classify, his actions did not violate a statute (again, the President's obligations extend beyond not violating statutes). The information he shared is apparently not even known to our allies.

[Stavros]

Call it irony or a paradox, but the one person who doesn't need security clearance before having access to raw intel is the President of the USA. If they had to have security clearance, how would multiple bankruptcies and associations with figures who have been in and out of gaol get past the vetting process when running for the the White House -and would Hillary Clinton not have been challenged on that damn email server?
This was published online last July=
https://news.clearancejobs.com/2016/07/25/kind-security-clearance-president-get/

Yet again we are faced with the simple fact that this President doesn't know how to do the job, and his infantile need to brag to people about his inside knowledge and receive praise and adulation in return. If it is the case that Mossad was the source of the intel, this raises questions which many would not like to answer. Mossad has close connections to one Arab monarchy, no prizes for guessing which one not least because it has been bankrolled by the Americans since some time around 1958, and Mossad has been a covert partner of intelligence with Saudi Arabia, and in the war between that revolting Kingdom and Egypt in the Yemen in the 1960s US supplies of arms to the Kingdom were shipped through Israel to the Gulf of Aqaba and on to the Yemen to avoid the Suez Canal.

More worrying is that the Russians could share this intelligence with both the Syrian and the Turkish government, the latter deeply concerned at the thousands of US troops embedded with the Kurds in northern Syria. The opportunity for someone to make mischief out of the President's blunder is very real, and one hopes that people are not killed as a result.
And while Russia is the achilles heel of the Commandante, the Middle East, as usual, beckons all to its graveyards, and there are plenty of them, official and unofficial.

[broncofan]

https://takecareblog.com/blog/a-few-cheers-for-the-appointment-of-a-special-counsel

So Rosenstein appointed Special Counsel. The appointee is Robert Mueller, former FBI director who at first glance seems to be well respected. This article discusses his remit, and how he is expected to carry out his duties. He can be fired by Rosenstein for cause, and Rosenstein can be fired by Trump and replaced with someone more willing to fire the special prosecutor but we'll have to see whether Trump would dare. I mean he would dare, but we'll see how this plays.

[broncofan]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-ambassador-told-moscow-that-kushner-wanted-secret-communications-channel-with-kremlin/2017/05/26/520a14b4-422d-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html?pushid=5928b4602e12651d000 00008&tid=notifi_push_breaking-news&utm_term=.e7cf211c0a80

Kushner tried to set up a secret communications channel with the Russians in December during the transition. This information came to light through intercepts of Kislyak reporting this revelation to his superiors. According to the Post it's possible though unlikely that Kislyak revealed misinformation knowing he was being listened to.

Apparently Jared wanted to be able to use secure Russian facilities to communicate. This is the most eye-opening information I've seen in a while. What possible legitimate purpose would Jared have of setting up a secret line of communication between the administration and the Russian government, even going so far as to request access to Russian communications gear at its embassy?

I'm not going to speculate any further about this, but it's a very good starting point.

Edit: I like some of the quotes from intelligence officials in this article http://www.businessinsider.com/jared-kushner-wanted-secret-talks-russia-trump-2017-5

[broncofan]

I didn't have the perspective of seeing the response to this revelation, but is this the end of the line for Jared? His security clearance would have to be revoked if they can confirm this information, right?

[trish]

Hell, I think Donald's security clearance should be revoked!

[Stavros]

Kushner tried to set up a secret communications channel with the Russians in December during the transition. This information came to light through intercepts of Kislyak reporting this revelation to his superiors. According to the Post it's possible though unlikely that Kislyak revealed misinformation knowing he was being listened to.
Apparently Jared wanted to be able to use secure Russian facilities to communicate. This is the most eye-opening information I've seen in a while. What possible legitimate purpose would Jared have of setting up a secret line of communication between the administration and the Russian government, even going so far as to request access to Russian communications gear at its embassy?
I'm not going to speculate any further about this, but it's a very good starting point.
Edit: I like some of the quotes from intelligence officials in this article

Broncofan, ask yourself the one most obvious question: Why Russia? It is not an enquiry into secret channels of communication with Suriname, or Cyprus, or Scotland. An answer to the question is also obvious:money, how to get it, and where to get it from, particularly if you boast about being rich after being made bankrupt as the presenter of the US version of The Apprentice tv programme has done. Or you could search for information on names such as Paul Manafort, and Felix Sater. In the case of the latter, you may get a taste of the criminal elements that directly or indirectly link the President and his son-in-law to organized crime in the US and Russia, with a still obscure roster of tenants in the Soho Tower where it is alleged apartments may have been purchased as part of a money-laundering operation based in Kazakhstan. I don't know if Jared Kushner is squeaky clean, his father was not, but it may just be that he sees himself as a powerful man who needs to protect the President and Father-in-Law as well as their investments in a wide range of countries where democracy is neither a thing of the past nor probably the future. Curiously, John Boehner has pointed out that Impeachment is a political, not a legal act, and we have yet to see the full FBI allegations to get to the 'what did he know, and when did he know it' phase, whereupon we will probably be told the President had no idea any of these things were going on....not even for a control freak who spies of on his own employees...again and again one asks the other question --why did the Republican Party allow this man to run for office on their ticket when they could have done due diligence and told him to go far, far away?

Our investigation also may explain why the FBI, which was very public about its probe of Hillary Clinton’s emails, never disclosed its investigation of the Trump campaign prior to the election, even though we now know that it commenced last July.

Such publicity could have exposed a high-value, long-running FBI operation against an organized crime network headquartered in the former Soviet Union. That operation depended on a convicted criminal who for years was closely connected with Trump, working with him in Trump Tower — while constantly informing for the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ), and being legally protected by them.

Some federal officials were so involved in protecting this source — despite his massive fraud and deep connections to organized crime — that they became his defense counsel after they left the government.
https://whowhatwhy.org/2017/03/27/fbi-cant-tell-trump-russia/


http://www.salon.com/2017/04/23/trumps-organized-crime-ties-bring-blackmail-to-the-white-house/

http://www.nationalmemo.com/felix-sater-ex-trump-adviser-ukraines-nuclear-plants/

[broncofan]

Broncofan, ask yourself the one most obvious question: Why Russia?. I don't know if Jared Kushner is squeaky clean, his father was not, but it may just be that he sees himself as a powerful man who needs to protect the President and Father-in-Law as well as their investments in a wide range of countries where democracy is neither a thing of the past nor probably the future.
http://nymag.com/nymag/features/57891/index1.html

Thank you for those links. Very useful to know what kind of people Trump works with. I'm including a link that I think provides a bit of insight on Kushner. Though written back in 2009, it's the best description of Jared I've seen for anyone curious.

It's a well-written article in that its aim is not singularly to make one dislike Charlie Kushner or Jared, but that is the inevitable result of learning more about them, including their family feuds, their sense of entitlement, their vanity, and audacity. It's a long article but if you get to the end, I think it's important to look back to Jared's initial reaction to his father being sent away. We all have blind spots when it comes to family, but if this is your response to the sequence of events described herein, something is very wrong. I like looking back at this quote at the end, because it is such a delusional response to the abusive way Charlie treated his siblings and the blackmail of his brother in law which was really designed to destroy his sister's marriage.

And, the crimes notwithstanding, he sees his father as a victim. “His siblings stole every piece of paper from his office, and they took it to the government,” Jared maintained. “Siblings that he literally made wealthy for doing nothing. He gave them interests in the business for nothing. All he did was put the tape together and send it. Was it the right thing to do? At the end of the day, it was a function of saying ‘You’re trying to make my life miserable? Well, I’m doing the same.’ ” (Charlie’s brother Murray and sister Esther wouldn’t return calls.)

The article also does a good job of describing Jared's strengths and weaknesses as a businessman. The purchase of the Observer, though probably a vanity purchase, may have been smart in that it got him access to powerful circles but his purchase of 666 is an albatross. He overpaid by hundreds of millions of dollars. His admission to both Harvard and NYU law were based on corruption which is described here. It's depressingly common but given how hard other students work to get accepted to those schools, despicable.

In the end, I get the sense that Jared is not that different from his father in law Donald Trump, except without the bombast. He's vindictive, not as bright as he thinks he is, doesn't mind taking on projects he's not qualified for (look at how he treated seasoned media ppl at the observer), and unbelievably vain. Maybe the financial travails of Trump and Kushner, their similar vanity and tolerance for dealing with underworld types led them to the same place.

[Stavros]

Thanks for the link, I read the whole article, never having heard of the Observer before. I don't see any criminal intent in Kushner's behaviour based on what we know so far, but there may be an ignorance of politics as a day-to-day activity at the highest level, because governing the USA is not like running a business, I do think these people are oblivious to the concept of accountability, as if they had never heard anyone use the expression 'the Buck stops here' with regard to the Presidency.

As to whether or not having experience in business prepares one for the Presidency, there have been six with a business background before-Harding, Hoover, Truman, Bush 1 & 2, and Jimmy Carter. Harding may be the closest analogy, being a newspaper man in Ohio, and known in the beltway during his time in the White House as 'Warren Hardon' because of his uncontrollable sexual urges. Thereagain, Citizen Kane springs to mind, and we know how that ended.

A curious fact about 666 Fifth Avenue, the property owned by Mr Kushner -purchased with money borrowed from Barclay's and USB (do these people ever buy property with their own money?)- is that the restaurant on the top floor used to be called Top of the Six and is where Martin Scorsese filmed the lunch scene between Leonardo di Caprio and Matthew McConaughey near the opening of The Wolf of Wall Street.

[Laphroaig]

Donald Trump has clearly heard of the phrase "the buck stops here", but he (and Ivanka) obviously believe it refers to the $$$'s rolling into the White house for them...

[broncofan]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/explanations-for-kushners-meeting-with-head-of-kremlin-linked-bank-dont-match-up/2017/06/01/dd1bdbb0-460a-11e7-bcde-624ad94170ab_story.html?utm_term=.e3b3593ee466

About two weeks after Kushner requested a secret line between himself and the Kremlin, he met with the head of a bank called VEB, a man named Sergey Gorkov. While VEB claims that it met with Kushner as the head of his family's real estate business, the White House has claimed that Kushner met with him as a member of the transition team to coordinate with various business leaders worldwide.

VEB bank was directly affected by the sanctions Obama placed on the Russian economy following its incursion into Crimea into 2014. Kushner needs a source of funds for his building on 666 5th ave. which is financially distressed. Their meeting could have involved a quid pro quo of financing for Kushner and sanctions relief for VEB, which is restricted from selling equity to Americans or borrowing from American institutions. Gorkov flew to Japan to meet with Putin immediately after meeting with Kushner.

According to experts, VEB is used as a slush fund for the Russian government, helping it finance projects the government does not want on its official books. One of its employees in the Manhattan office was convicted for espionage in the U.S. and recently released so there is the connection between Russian intelligence and this bank.

Kushner has indicated he will cooperate with authorities, but I'm afraid if there is not corroborating evidence somewhere recorded and Kushner did not actually borrow money (which in itself is not even prohibited by the sanctions) Kushner will be able to lie about what was said. But there continues to be an increasing number of contacts and coincidences for the administration to explain away. The more they talk on the record, the greater is their chance to contradict themselves or the record.

[bluesoul]

Donald Trump has clearly heard of the phrase "the buck stops here", but he (and Ivanka) obviously believe it refers to the $$$'s rolling into the White house for them...

i was on a plane just a couple of hours ago with a girl- and we're sitting next to each other- and i look to her and i ask her "drink?" she goes "sure" so i order us a bottle of wine. next she asks what i do and i tell and her and she tells me what she does (real estate) and we laugh and yap yap. "so, what do you think of trump?" i ask?
"oh fuck trump. but fuck trump" hahahaha!

if you don't get it, maybe you should be got.

it wasn't the best bottle of wine, but we polished it together. great flight.

are we home yet?

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=broncofan;1770593
Kushner has indicated he will cooperate with authorities, but I'm afraid if there is not corroborating evidence somewhere recorded and Kushner did not actually borrow money (which in itself is not even prohibited by the sanctions) Kushner will be able to lie about what was said. But there continues to be an increasing number of contacts and coincidences for the administration to explain away. The more they talk on the record, the greater is their chance to contradict themselves or the record.[/QUOTE]

Isn't the interest here related to the Logan Act and the contacts a Presidential-Elect team can have and do with foreign governments? From today's Guardian:

There’s one other example of Kushner’s Trump-like qualities that now seems pertinent: the boldness of a private citizen not yet in public office who allegedly discussed with a foreign banker the creation of a back-channel to the ruthless leader of a US adversary. “That makes no sense in terms of normal White House protocol and procedure,” said professor Jeffrey Berry, a political scientist at Tufts University.

At worst, Berry added, such a proposal could expose Kushner to prosecution under the Logan Act, the law that forbids anyone who is not in or authorized by government (in this case the Obama administration) from negotiating with a foreign power on behalf of the US. “There’s no reason for him to be talking to a Russian banker about US policy,” Berry said.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/03/jared-kusher-trump-russian-web

[Stavros]

It came as no surprise to many of us that not long after the attacks in London over the weekend (Saturday 4th June 2017) the natural instinct of the President of the USA was to insult and abuse the UK and its democratically elected representatives. He then followed that up with a typically inane tweet in which he pointed out the killers used a van and knives, but did not point out that many more would have died (as was the case in Paris) had they used guns, because in the UK it is exceedingly difficult to legally purchase the automatic weapons his Presidency has enabled any nutcase with the money to buy over the counter across the USA.

But look further and you discover that when a bomb murdered 80 and injured over 300 people in Kabul last Wednesday the event produced not a tweet from the President of the USA. The bomb was attributed to the 'Haqqani Network', a criminal organization allied to the Taliban based in North Waziristan in the 'Tribal areas' between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Moreover, the Haqqani Network does not just fund its operations from extortion and drug rackets, it is funded from the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services-Intelligence).
https://www.counterextremism.com/threat/haqqani-network

There is a clear link here which raises the 'uncomfortable questions' about Terrorism that Theresa May says we now need in the UK, something Jeremy Corbyn has pursued with regard to an as yet unpublished report into the financing of terrorism commissioned by David Cameron when he was Prime Minister. As Corbyn put it (though his comment doesn't go far enough)

“Yes, we do need to have some difficult conversations, starting with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that have funded and fuelled extremist ideology.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/05/theresa-may-urged-not-to-suppress-report-into-funding-of-jihadi-groups

The link is not just between arms sales from the UK to Saudi Arabia, a cause of devastation in its illegal war in the Yemen, but between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and thus the financial links between Saudi Arabia and terrorism in Pakistan, Afghanistan and also in Kashmir. And then there are the links between the President of the USA to this terror network through his personal financial ties to Saudi Arabia, and the USA's political alliance with the Kingdom in spite of multiple examples of the links between the Kingdom and terrorist atrocities across the world and, indeed, in the USA itself.

Consider remarks the Presidential candidate made at a rally in Alabama in 2015:
Saudi Arabia — and I get along great with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/18/us/politics/trumps-business-ties-to-middle-east-precede-him.html

At some point in the future, and as Jeremy Corbyn said in the article quoted above, democracies like the UK and the USA must ask themselves what they receive in return for their relationship with Saudi Arabia, not just because of the financial links between the Kingdom and terrorist groups across the world, but also because of the Wahabi ideology that has encouraged the very same violence we see on our streets.

But if you follow the money you will understand that some things are more important than individual liberty, freedom and human rights, at least for as long as our elected representatives hold hands and dance with dictators and mass murderers.
It doesn't have to be like this.

For an up to date if lengthy perusal of the President's men and their dodgy deals, see
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/donald-trump-conflicts-of-interests/508382/

[Jericho]

For those who've not seen the the Trumplets in question.

1012687

[Stavros]

The gossip from Westminster is that the government is reconsidering its invitation to the President for a state visit this year, and he may take the initiative and cancel/postpone the visit because he knows he is not popular here and it would not look good to his fan base to see him being treated badly, even if that is all he deserves. In any case we must still hope he will be thrown out of office before Christmas.

[broncofan]

For those interested in Trump's personal grift, here is an article about a new chain of hotels his sons are opening up independently. He is entering the low to mid-priced hotel chain market with a hotel called American Idea, with various American themed branding to profit off of the nationalism of his campaign (reminiscent of America First etc.). It just keeps getting worse.

I watched his tweets about the attack on his twitter. Embarrassing and galling. I would love it if you guys would revoke his invitation, but as Stavros said the possiblity of a chilly reception is enough to keep him away probably.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/05/business/trump-organization-american-idea-hotel-chain.html

[broncofan]

That article I posted is not that consequential in the sense that there's nothing illegal about his family making money off his political success. The manner in which it's done just doesn't seem right.

But what is interesting, for those who have time, James Comey will be testifying on Thursday of this week, 7 am pacific time, 10 am eastern time, 3 pm in London etc.

I won't be able to watch live but I will be catching a replay. Trump had apparently tried to use executive privilege to block Comey's testimony but was not able to, I believe because he's already written and spoken about the nature of his conversations with Comey, therefore he can't block the response. But he has said he will be tweeting responses to Comey's testimony as it happens. You can't make this shit up....we're living in a nightmare.

Edit: As Thursday is also the date of the election in the UK some of you may have other things on your mind!

[Stavros]

T But he has said he will be tweeting responses to Comey's testimony as it happens. You can't make this shit up....we're living in a nightmare.
Edit: As Thursday is also the date of the election in the UK some of you may have other things on your mind!

We can still multi-task in the UK and anyway after Sunderland which tends to announce its vote before midnight, the real action doesn't get going until 3am. We will need something to fill he gap while politicians relentless repeat their arguments designed to prove they have won.

As for tweets, last night an adviser (not really sure what he does) in the White House, Sebastian Gorka appeard yet again on the BBC-2 Newsnight programme to dismiss tweets as irrelevant. Curiously, he tweets like a zombie himself, yet the line, echoed by KellyAnne Conway appears to be that real policy is what matters and the President's tweets are a trivial sideshow, which doesn't really explain why they keep flooding out like diarreoah. Gorka was born in the UK to Hungarians who fled the Soviet invasion in 1956 but ended, via a stint as an advisor to Viktor Orban, in Cornell and became a US citizen. He can't believe there are real people who don't accept that the current incumbent of the White House is the saviour of mankind.

[broncofan]

I learned about Gorka a few months ago. Some national security analysts I follow on Twitter call him a "fake terrorism doctor" because he believes he's an expert on Middle Eastern culture yet doesn't know Arabic, he has not published much of note in respectable outlets, but is trying to convince people that Islamic fundamentalists are the great threat to western civilization while downplaying the threat of authoritarianism. The only linchpin for his views is animus towards Muslims and his style is comically bombastic.

Conway may say that about his tweets but I'm not sure what policies Trump has to be proud of. He has not passed his disaster of a health care bill, has not passed tax reform, his executive order on Muslim travel has been repeatedly struck down as unconstitutional, he has not built his wall, and he has no foreign policy doctrine. He said he was going to be an america first isolationist and then got into a game of nuclear chicken with North Korea, bombed Syria, but is not sure to what end, other than his crocodile tears over chemical weapons.

Meanwhile, I think his tweets are extremely relevant because as he says it's how he communicates with his constituents and how he conducts diplomacy termed loosely. He insulted Sadiq Khan right after a horrific attack, has indirectly insulted both Trudeau and Merkel on his account. So he is using his twitter account to alienate, to embarrass, and to sow anger against us even among our allies.

If he tweets about Comey during his hearing, he may well incriminate himself. I cannot imagine that the counsel he has hired (apparently four different firms turned him down) would be in favor of allowing him to comment. I will be following both the UK election and a repeat of the Comey hearings later Thursday so it's an exciting day.

[Stavros]

I think the point was that Gorka did not want to respond to the President's tweets because they were so clearly distorting what Sadiq Khan actually said, and Gorka will always defend the Commandante regardless as to if he is right or wrong, just as Skittles and his brother have also joined in to insult the Mayor of London on daddy's behalf. In any case the key point is that if Gorka wants an in depth discussion of policy, he will struggle to get his boss to do it because tweets and rambling speeches to his fans are the only time he seems to talk about policy. In addition, in that BBC interview, Gorka made it clear that Human Rights is now to be dismissed as 'political correctness', some sort of left-wing gimmick that gets in the way of uncompromising action when action, not talking -or the law- is required to defeat one's enemies.

Then there is the argument being put by the Knight First Amendment Institute in which the
Institute argues that the law requires Trump make his [Twitter] account available to everyone regardless of whether they criticize him. It has said it is considering pursuing a case against the president on behalf of two users who were blocked by him.
http://fortune.com/2017/06/06/trump-twitter-first-amendment/

Defending Daddy
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-eric-donald-jr-saidq-khan-london-mayor-attacks-terrorism-us-president-a7776721.html

[broncofan]

I think the point was that Gorka did not want to respond to the President's tweets because they were so clearly distorting what Sadiq Khan actually said,l (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-eric-donald-jr-saidq-khan-london-mayor-attacks-terrorism-us-president-a7776721.html)
I gotcha.

[broncofan]

http://www.npr.org/2017/06/07/531643428/comey-opening-statement-for-senate-intelligence-hearing-annotated

This is Comey's opening statement about his interactions with Trump. It confirms what Donald Trump said about Comey assuring him on three occasions that he personally was not being investigated. It also asserts that Trump asked for his loyalty, asked him to drop the Flynn investigation, and asked him to release a statement saying that he (Trump) was not being investigated. Although it demonstrates extremely improper behavior in my view, because he is using his authority to compromise the integrity of an FBI investigation and was likely fired him for not being Trump's personal pr person, it probably will not be enough for Congress to act. In fact, the Republicans will probably treat it as exculpatory in that it indicates that Trump himself was not being investigated so could not obstruct an investigation into himself.

Apparently the FBI has a policy about a "duty to correct". If they make a statement about whether there is an investigation under way, they then have a duty to correct if that changes, which is why Comey did not want to say Trump was not being investigated. This indicates he may have thought the investigation could lead to Trump and did not then want to have to make a public statement saying Trump was being investigated. We'll see if there is anything more specific we get tomorrow, but this is what we have so far. Inappropriate conduct, misunderstanding of the appropriate relationship between fbi and President even after explained to him, and an attempt to exert improper influence over an independent law enforcement agency. Not sure what I expected. It's enough for me to conclude he fired Comey for not being his puppet.

Edit: here's a decent article by CNN discussing what the legal outcome should be. You have experts on both sides of the fence, discussing whether he had "corrupt intent" when he suggested Comey should end the Flynn investigation. I agree with the last expert, Vladeck, who said that while that may be a more difficult question, Trump's firing of Comey is more unambiguous. Comey was fired for not acceding to a series of requests about an investigation that touched Trump personally.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/07/politics/obstruction-of-justice-comey-testimony/index.html

[broncofan]

In summary I think Trump committed obstruction, both in his request about Flynn and in his firing of Comey. I also am not sure whether I'm reading too much between the lines, but I think Comey's reluctance to publicly announce Trump was not under investigation was based on him thinking there was a real prospect that he eventually would be. I know the Republicans will see this as a victory because there's nothing here about the underlying conduct of Trump or his associates, but I think it paints the picture of a corrupt politician exerting improper influence over a subordinate and firing him for not succumbing to it.

I want to point out that all of this comes on the heels of the NSA director Rogers and the director of national intelligence Coats refusing to answer a question in front of Congress about whether Trump asked them to interfere in the Russia investigation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/06/07/outrageous-contempt-of-congress/?utm_term=.101d0b12e7b7

[Stavros]

Some useful talking points in the post above.

On the one hand, was the campaign run by arrogant 'business people' who either did not know election law or stretched it to its limits, and used Russian money sent for a non-political purpose which was then -illegally- used in the campaign? Would the legal case then need to prove intent to deceive with regard to the use of those funds? And suppose the candidate did not know what his subs were doing with the cash -and didn't ask? After all, Nixon did not know all the details of the Watergate burglary and its cover-up.

On the other hand, moneybags is famously ignorant about most things, but not money, not least because a lot of it is not his own. With a mind that seems to delight in complex financial calculations and an allegedly breathtaking knowledge of the tax code, and a business that is a labyrinth of companies where money flows in and out and though eluding scrutiny, I can imagine an investigation being bewildered to the point of being unable to conclude what is legal and what is not, who owns this, and who owns that, quite apart from who owes how much and to whom.

As for the obstruction of justice, the Guardian and Independent seem to think the case is clear, a BBC journalist in Washington DC on the radio this morning said it is not. Morally, it all stinks, but has any of it been illegal? And what, ultimately, will Congress to about it? Looks like we are in for a hot night in the UK, which would make a change from the miserable weather outside.

[Stavros]

I cannot recall a senior figure in the American political system delivering a judgement of a sitting President as devastating as this:

Comey said of his own dismissal: “The administration chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/fbi) by saying that the organisation was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader.

“Those were lies, plain and simple, and I’m so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them, and I’m so sorry the American people.
He told the panel: “It’s my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation. I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted. That is a very big deal.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/09/trump-comey-leaker-senate-testimony

Will the evidence Mr Comey made in secret session be made public?

[broncofan]

Will the evidence Mr Comey made in secret session be made public?
I wish I knew. I think they do not make it public until they have concluded their investigation. The question of whether Trump's acts were illegal is strangely mooted by the fact that impeachment is a political and not legal act. But illegality is probably a decent test for the political question since Trump cannot be tried for a crime while President.

Here are the statutory terms of obstruction of justice: "whoever corruptly or by threatening communications endeavors to influence or impede the due administration of justice" is guilty of obstruction of justice. Digging into the operative words we can throw away threatening and focus on corruptly and then focus on influence.

Republicans made much of the fact that Trump said he "hoped" Comey could drop the Flynn case. They suggest that if he did not order Comey and then directly threaten him with dismissal it is not obstruction. But the statute only requires him to attempt to influence the investigation and therefore the question is whether this attempt was made "corruptly".

I would be interested to see how this is defined in cases but I assume the difference between corrupt and non-corrupt intent hinges on whether he made the request based on a bonafide belief that Flynn is innocent or because he prefers that outcome regardless of whether it is true. His words "Flynn is a good guy" speak less to the issue of whether Flynn committed a specific illegal act than what Trump thinks of him as a person. He is saying I know this man and can vouch for him, you should let him go even if he did cross the letter of the law. The entire manner of the conversation, the fact that he ordered others out of the room, sounded like he was asking a special favor.

You combine this with the request for loyalty, the threats about having tapes, and the dismissal of Comey, and to me it's clear that he did corruptly attempt to influence an investigation, not out of propriety but self-interest. So I suppose I agree with the Guardian and Independent...the truth is that with impeachment being a political process the standard might now be flagrant illegality. The problem with him is systemic; a lack of humanity, of fairness, of appropriateness, of morality...it doesn't occur because on this day or that day he did something foolish or careless. He's a bad egg.

[broncofan]

The problem with Trump's actions are not just in the specific laws he breaks but in the general threat he poses to rule of law. Everything he does is with corrupt intent and it is a common thread through each controversy. The emoluments, the nepotism, the obstruction are all intended to lever government to provide favorable outcomes to himself and those he bestows his grace upon.

The way we all tend to think about these controversies is just too granular and specific as it is his entire approach to governance that threatens the integrity of institutions. Institutions exist independent of his needs or of their expedience to him.

[Stavros]

Will the Commandante be asked to give evidence to the Senate Intelligence Committee? Only three sitting Presidents have given evidence to Congress, Lincoln, Wilson and Ford, and of those three, only two actually went to Congress, Wilson received the Committee in the White House, where they were invited to stay for lunch, and apparently not asked to swear an oath of loyalty to Woody beforehand...

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/PresidentVicePresident_TestifyBeforeCommittee.htm

[Stavros]

And the latest to give Sunday more interest than Nadal trashing Wawrinka's attempt to win a tennis match-

Donald Trump (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) has told Theresa May in a phone call he does not want to go ahead with a state visit to Britain until the British public supports him coming.

The US president said he did not want to come if there were large-scale protests and his remarks in effect put the visit on hold for some time.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/11/donald-trump-state-visit-to-britain-put-on-hold

On that basis, put off for an eternity...

[Stavros]

Today, I came across Amy Suskin's Weekly List, in an article in The Independent (linked below). It is a remarkable record, with compelling links to follow. And yet, it strikes me that the President and his team seem to have worked out to the nearest micro-millimetre the limits of the law, and may just be on the right side, however suspicious the stories are, such as the two here which I took from Weekly List links via the Independent article

-Most Trump real estate now sold to secretive buyers
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/06/13/trump-property-buyers-make-clear-shift-secretive-llcs/102399558/?#_=_

-A company that owns buildings with Donald Trump and the family of Jared Kushner is a finalist for a $1.7 billion contract to build the FBI’s new headquarters.
https://apnews.com/0b8ee973efe047e4ac0f6cb966799bb6/Trump-partner-said-in-running-to-build-FBI-headquarters?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP

The Weekly List is here-
https://medium.com/@Amy_Siskind

Independent article is here-
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-government-changes-weekly-list-activist-amy-siskind-viral-social-media-washington-a7808131.html

[broncofan]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/07/11/donald-trump-jr-may-have-just-crossed-the-legal-line-on-collusion/?utm_term=.47e9abd7c18c

If people are remotely honest we're about done here. I recommend moving immediately to Donald Jr's email in the middle of the page. He posted it on his twitter about an hour ago. He must be releasing it before someone else.

All the way back in June, before the DNC's emails were released, Trump Jr. got an email saying that the Russian government had incriminating info on Hillary and that the information is part of "Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." He concludes by saying "I can send this to your father". What are the chances, if this man was already talking about sending information to Trump about Russia's efforts on behalf of Trump that Trump did not know the Russian's hacked the DNC on his behalf. Recall that Donald Trump continuously denied the Russians did this on his behalf during the entire campaign and the semi-denials continue to the present.

Edit: I'm sure there are other shoes to drop, but you don't need anything else. This is more than Trump in half jest asking for the Russians to find Hillary's remaining emails. This is insider info that the Russians were working on his behalf to interfere with the election very early on. Consider this in light of his feigned ignorance about it later on and you have obvious consciousness of guilt and obvious guilt. The second purpose of Donald Jr's meeting with this Russian attorney was about the Magnitsky Act, so the Russians were trying to gauge very early on what they would get in return.

[broncofan]

My guess: They will subpoena Rhona Graff's emails. Rhona is Trump's secretary at Trump Towers and Goldstone said he can get in touch with Donald through Rhona. I bet if Mueller has not subpoena'ed them yet they will now and there is probably something incriminating in there.

[sukumvit boy]

Craig Unger , "Trump's Russian Laundromat" in the New Republic and Charlie Rose Show http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2017-07-17/charlie-rose-on-btv-07-17-2017-craig-unger-video



http://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate

[Stavros]

If, as Harold Wilson once said, 'a week is a long time in politics', two weeks away in the fleshpots of the south could turn out to be an eternity, though it would appear that even the President of the United States of America has yet to exhaust his list of people and institutions to insult and abuse. A real American once presaged our present times and the present President:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

Promises, Promises. On one day the instruction to Congress, with regard to the latest incarnation of American Health Care, was: Let it Fail.
I am not one to put words (or anything else, willingly or reluctantly) into President Obama's mouth, but just as he said nobody should want his successor to fail, one wonders if Let it Fail is not a dereliction of the duty of the incumbent President...? Maybe someone leaning on the nearest Ash tree suggested a different tack, hence : Holidays? Sort it first, guys, come on! Vamos! (Ok I made that one up).

I would repeat what the Senate Majority leader said if I could understand it. I am puzzled because I can understand Jennifer Lawrence when she speaks, but not Mitch, yet both are from Kentucky. Only an American can help with this conundrum, though I am biased and believe that whereas Mitch appears to be a waste of space, Ms Lawrence has yet to fill mine, even though an open-ended invitation nestles in her 'in-tray'...

Apparently the President just doesn't get it, after all, health insurance for the average working American is $12 a year, so what's the problem?

Then, interrupting my persistent visits to King's Cross- on the plaza of which at lunchtime you can buy, as street food, a delicious Polish snack which may be called Pierogi but don't quote me on that- was the news, Part One, that Skittles at an intriguing moment in the Presidential Campaign, 2016 had been invited to meet a Russian lawyer with links to the Kremlin, to share information damaging to Mrs Hillary Clinton, and replied he would love to hear it. We were told, in Part One, that the meeting took place in the Tower of Choice for corrupt Russian oligarchs, and indeed, involved a Russian as well as the Foreign Secretary, Jared Kushner, and the then campaign manager Paul 'Ukraine Millions are Mine'- Manafort. In Part Two, there was another Russian, there may yet be a Part Three with another Russian, who knows?

Russians were all over the place. Not least in Germany, where the President of the United States of America met the President of the Russian Federation -first a hearty handshake, then a formal meeting. And so it went. Only it later transpired there had been another meeting at which the President of the United States of America, who does not parlez-vous as they say in Luxembourg, spent nearly an hour with Vladimir but nobody (outside Moscow and Wikileaks) knows what they talked about -orphans? Perhaps. Money? Surely not! -?

On my return to Bardland, I now find that the President of the United States of America, having spent the last 18 months insulting and abusing the CIA, the FBI, the Supreme Court, Congress, the Democrat Party and its candidates, the Republican Party and its 'candidates'; POW's, the disabled, women, the Media, the Media and the Media, the Mexicans, the Mayor of London, Meryl Streep, China, the French, Iran- well, the list seemed to go on and on- is now denouncing the people he has appointed to conduct the business of government, even if that is merely the Attorney General.

With Skittles and the Foreign Secretary due to appear before a Congressional Committee next week, the opportunity now presents itself for the President of the United States of America to rake over his relatives if they don't polish his insatiable ego and kick the Russian ball into the grass.

Problem is the Dutch are producing a fascinating set of films- Zembla- the first of which underlines the extent to which, in the late 1990s, a failed businessman desperate for capital loans American banks would not agree to lend, sought and received financial assistance from Russia, and let's just say the kind of Russians who are pushy rather than Pushkin, more 'borrow to him' than Borodin, keen to live in Manhattan and Florida, and, in a manner of speaking, 'clean their laundry' in interesting American propositions...so while the Boss may not have any business in Russia, and no investments or loans there -the Russians got plenty on him...

But let's be fair and balanced. In a week when it emerged that the famous American entrepreneur Rupert Murdoch is alleged to have 'suggested' to Prime Minister May that Michael Gove should be part of her governing team (it is of course entirely coincidental that Mr Gove was one of the first European 'journalists' to interview the President of the United States of America after his inauguration and that Mr Murdoch was also in the room); the Leader of the House of Commons, responsible for the management of the government's agenda in Parliament, told the Mother of, that Jane Austen, is
'One of our greatest living authors'...

hmmm....the resurrection of dead American voters determined to vote Democrat, the resurrection of Emma's mum...and the President thinks he has problems...

Americans, your guv'nor thinks your health insurance cost $12 a year-
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-healthcare-cost-year-interview-president-does-not-know-how-it-works-a7851611.html

Andrea Leadsom, Leader of the House of Commons, take a bow:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/20/andrea-leadsom-jane-austen-britain-greatest-living-author

And for the aficionados, the Dutch films:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bEdMuKq30I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK3Wuqnxt-w

[sukumvit boy]

Great post Stavros , nice to see you back.:wiggle::party:

[sukumvit boy]

Trump declares "Made in America Week" yet Ivanka's line of products are made in Indonesian sweat shops and Donald hires foreign workers for his hotels . This guy has an absolute genius for shooting himself in the foot !
http://www.democracynow.org/2017/7/21/as_trump_touts_made_in_america

[broncofan]

The calls from Republican hacks to fire Sessions and Rosenstein so that they can be replaced by puppets who will fire Mueller almost makes one completely lose faith in the ability of people to be rational. Both Mueller and the man who appointed him, Rosenstein, could not have had more bipartisan respect until they decided to make principled decisions. Rosenstein, despite his complicity in the firing of Comey, acted appropriately when he appointed independent counsel and Mueller has done nothing but run a professional investigation.

Now we are beginning to hear from hacks that Mueller has conflicts, none of which were worth mentioning until he assembled a competent investigative team and that Rosenstein is really a Democrat dressed as a Republican because he's from Baltimore.

One can almost predict with certainty that every time incriminating information is discovered about Trump and his associates there will be a fabricated accusation against Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or Susan Rice. Mueller is a man who has done nothing but take his role as independent counsel seriously and for that there are fabricated charges that he's not really independent or that his team is leaking even though they've been incredibly opaque.

If you type "fire Mueller" into the search box on twitter, whether you have an account or not, you will be exposed to the most mind-numbingly dishonest and deranged comments you will ever see. There is literally no man or woman who could have been hired as independent counsel, taken the job seriously and not been subjected to a campaign of slander. The rule of law doesn't die simply because a small cabal decides it should, but because millions of people decide for reasons of their own that they will allow it. I have no doubt that hardcore supporters of Trump want Mueller gone not because he is acting improperly but because of the risk that he will be effective.

[Stavros]

If Jared Kushner has nothing to hide why did he appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee in closed session, when he was not even under oath?

He has declared there was no collusion with Russia between him or the campaign, and that I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector.

Collusion in the sense of a deliberate and determined attempt to act with the Russian government to influence the US election is not yet proven, but the President, his family and campaign team's claims ring hollow when denials about any meetings with Russians later became confirmations, with a lack of clarity on what was said and when to whom. The mere fact that the President's campaign team had contact with Russians is in itself worthy of explanation. The President has business interests in India, and rich Indians might see opportunities to invest in the US, and the US might want to cultivate relations with India because of China, Afghanistan, Russia and so on and the Family Business has interests in Turkey and Scotland yet none of these countries were involved in the Presidential campaign, or attempted to become involved during the transition.

The Logan Act makes it clear the transition team should respect the authority of the existing President and not engage in foreign policy initiatives before Inauguration Day, on that there appears to be clear violations if Kushner discussed Syrian policy with Russian Ambassador Kislyak in December 2016, assuming he knew who Kislyak was, sometimes you wonder about Kushner's intelligence.

Kushner may not have received financial backing for his real estate business from the Russians, but he has had dealings with them, specifically the sale of the old New York Times building in Manhattan to Prevezon Holdings and a partner called Lev Leviev who is a billionaire from Russia who lives now in Israel where he keeps a photo of Vladimir Putin on his desk. The concern over the sale was based on the claims made some years ago by a Russian called Sergei Magnitsky who claimed in 2009 that Russian state money was being stolen by certain people and laundered in the US though property deals, of which it was believed the old New York Times deal was an example. The truth may not be known because the case, prosecuted by Preet Bhara (fired by the President earlier this year) was settled out of court, but Kushner also did other deals with the Russian Leviev and a company called Africa Israel Investments which are also or were under investigation over claims of money laundering.

Magnitsky after blowing the whistle on corruption in high places in Russia was arrested, charged and sent to prison where he died in mysterious circumstances. As a result the US imposed sanctions on Russia, the very sanctions that it is alleged the President's campaign/family have discussed lifting with Russians in those meetings they once said never happened but late said they did.

Whatever the truth of this, it is clear that Russian money became important to the President and his family, if not directly in Kushner's case. It became as important as Arab money because the President was a failed businessman on the verge of bankruptcy in the late 1990s and thus turned to Russian oligarchs and Arab billionaires to sell them property in New York and Florida, in the case of New York's residential sales, 'no questions asked' about who was taking ownership of the apartment or where the money came from. Thus no surprise the President has said he will not allow the Russia investigation to probe the family business.

There is also the other case of Kushner, desperate for funding for his gamble on 666 Fifth Avenue seeking financial backing from Qatar, and not getting it. Curious that Kushner and his friend, Yousef al-Otaiba, the Ambassador to the USA from the United Arab Emirates are believed by Rex Tillerson to have been instrumental in persuading daddy to support the Saudi Arabian led boycott of Qatar, surely Mr Kushner does bear a grudge against them? It is even believed Otaiba wrote some of the speech the President gave supporting the boycott of Qatar.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/jared-kushner-qatar-loan-trump-saudi-arabia-hard-line-a7834536.html
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/jared-kushner-qatar-666-fifth-ave

There is also the curious case of Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater (the mercenary company famous for its Kill Arabs with Impunity campaign in Iraq after 2003) and supporter of the President meeting a buddy of Vladimir Putin in the Seychelles with the intention of creating a 'back channel' between DC and Moscow, the meeting allegedly arranged by someone in the United Arab Emirates...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/blackwater-founder-held-secret-seychelles-meeting-to-establish-trump-putin-back-channel/2017/04/03/95908a08-1648-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html?utm_term=.f2d33d9ff64b

And there is more on this to come, as it drips in day by day, and there is nothing the President can do at the moment.

Some background on Kushner and Lev Leviev here-
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/24/jared-kushner-new-york-russia-money-laundering

[Stavros]

Curious that 45 decided to turn the national Jambooree of the Boy Scouts of America into a political rally to glorify himself rather than celebrate the scouting movement and its values, and as if prepared, they all booed when Obama's name was mentioned and as 45 said:

By the way, just a question, did President Obama ever come to a jamboree? And we’ll be back. We’ll be back. The answer is no, but we’ll be back.

Maybe someone should tell 45 that President Obama addressed the centenary Jamboree of the Boy Scouts and was himself a scout in his youth, which 45 was not. However, we do know that the rich New Yorker did make a handsome contribution to the Boy Scouts in 1989 when his charitable foundation gave them $7. Seven dollars is a generous gift on any level, and worthy of praise...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/trumps-mistake-at-the-boy-scout-jamboree/534774/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/25/donald-trump-speech-boy-scouts-jamboree

[broncofan]

Today Trump said on twitter "Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers!". Yesterday he called him our "beleaguered attorney general", something which someone obviously wrote for him.

The speculation is that this pressure campaign is designed to encourage Sessions to resign because he will not fire special prosecutor Mueller. Even if it means only what it says it does, it's hard to believe we have a President stating that the independent justice department should prosecute his former opponent for crimes which she has been exonerated for.

So why hasn't Trump fired Sessions when it is already obvious that if Sessions resigns, it will have been at the behest of Trump? My theory is that he's asked Sessions to fire Mueller (not sure if Sessions can since Mueller was appointed by Sessions' deputy after Sessions recused himself), Sessions said no, and now Trump is nervous about firing him. If he fires him then he may have a second Justice Department official accusing him of obstruction. Just a theory...but it's obvious now Trump is working to get Mueller fired, first through Sessions and then by a replacement A.G if he can push Sessions out without firing him.

[broncofan]

My theory is apparently obvious as everyone else on twitter has the same "theory";). Oh well. Who here thinks the maneuvering by Trump this time definitely indicates underlying guilt? I was sort of on the fence the first time, but this is too strange. He's going way too far out on a limb just to avoid the hassle and dark cloud of being investigated.

[Stavros]

My theory is apparently obvious as everyone else on twitter has the same "theory":wink:. Oh well. Who here thinks the maneuvering by Trump this time definitely indicates underlying guilt? I was sort of on the fence the first time, but this is too strange. He's going way too far out on a limb just to avoid the hassle and dark cloud of being investigated.

Guilt by association, with the potential to be regarded as treason, or misprision of treason.

Consider:
-Russia attacked the US during the election campaign, it did so through non-military means such as 'cyber-warfare' including the hacking of the DNC email servers, the use of Cambridge Analytica to glean personal information on US voters with social media accounts flooding them and the mainstream media with 'bots' all designed to weaken the case for Hillary Clinton; and the possibility they hacked into election machines in polling stations.

-Why? Because Hillary Clinton represented a hostile coalition of states opposed to Russia's annexation of the Crimea, and Russia's attempt to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, opposing the invasion of the eastern borders and fomenting civil war, indeed there are now two self-proclaimed 'independent republics' in the East.

-Why was the Republican candidate so favourable to the Russians?
A) because he became the primary opponent of Hillary Clinton in the USA, and thus by default an ally of Russian preference in the election;
B) he made it known he disagreed with the position taken by the Obama administration on sanctions and to some extent on Russia's position regarding the Crimea and Ukraine, and because he believed Russia was taking a more aggressive stand on Daesh in Syria than Obama, again offering Russia more support than the Obama administration of which Hillary Clinton had been a major figure.

-How did the Republican candidate express his political preference?
-A) He asked Russia, in public, twice -once in a speech then later that day in a 'tweet'- to intervene directly in the US election to provide illegally obtained information to smear the reputation of a fellow American and 'enemy of the Russians', Hillary Clinton, knowing or not knowing that they were already involved.
B) There is now clear evidence that when the Russians offered 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton, the response of the President's campaign team was positive, even though this clearly showed them agreeing to meet with a representative of the Russian government intervening in the US election.
Does this amount to treason?
Had it happened in the Cold War, say, in the 1970s when Brezhnev was General Secretary of the Communist Party, how would Americans have reacted if one of the two main candidates for the Presidency had openly asked Brezhnev to help him smear his opponent?

-Is there more to this than dirty tricks in politics? Yes, because it is no secret that Russian money poured into the USA in the 1990s and the 2000s, that it was used to buy real estate, from Florida to New York, and that apartments in Manhattan and other real estates were sold to people who had been involved in criminal activities, Sergei Magnistsky claimed it was embezzled from the Russia treasury.

-Bear in mind that Vladimir Putin climbed the greasy pole of influence in Moscow when a middle ranking official of the KGB/FSB having realised that while Yeltsin had no control over the 'sale of the century' when a few ambitious men helped themselves to the most lucrative sectors of the Russian economy -to some extent Yeltsin encouraged it to enrich himself- the racket could not continue without damaging the state, society and economy. He positioned himself as a trusted adviser to Yeltsin, but in doing so acquired all the information he needed on who had benefited from the chaos of the 1990s. Once in Power, Putin moved first against the foreign companies that had entered the Russian economy, notably the three oil companies, Shell, BP and Exxon. On the one hand they were forced to sell many of their assets, but not so much to prejudice their investments, and in order to retain their capital investment and technological expertise.
-Putin also had access to information on Americans who made early moves in Russia to enrich themselves and while the current President at that time failed to establish hotels and other businesses in Russia, he did make enough contacts to acquire Russian money for his own investments in the USA which American banks would not lend to him at a time when he was considered a flop and a risk too far.

-If there is one thing this President wants to cover up and protect, it is the truth about his money, his assets, his tax returns, his loans and favours, and the two who he has benefited most from are the Russians and the Arabs.

-So, you have the money trail that links Manhattan to Moscow, and you have the treason trail that links Russian government intervention in a US election with one of the candidates for office. But, for any of this to produce the result that his opponents want, the President must lose the loyalty of his party in Congress and above all, the voters.

[blackchubby38]

Today Trump said on twitter "Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers!". Yesterday he called him our "beleaguered attorney general", something which someone obviously wrote for him.

The speculation is that this pressure campaign is designed to encourage Sessions to resign because he will not fire special prosecutor Mueller. Even if it means only what it says it does, it's hard to believe we have a President stating that the independent justice department should prosecute his former opponent for crimes which she has been exonerated for.

So why hasn't Trump fired Sessions when it is already obvious that if Sessions resigns, it will have been at the behest of Trump? My theory is that he's asked Sessions to fire Mueller (not sure if Sessions can since Mueller was appointed by Sessions' deputy after Sessions recused himself), Sessions said no, and now Trump is nervous about firing him. If he fires him then he may have a second Justice Department official accusing him of obstruction. Just a theory...but it's obvious now Trump is working to get Mueller fired, first through Sessions and then by a replacement A.G if he can push Sessions out without firing him.

I'm conflicted over this whole thing.

One of the reasons why I voted against Trump was because I had a funny feeling that he was going to appoint Sessions as A.G. As a person who believes the war on drugs is failure, he was the last person that I wanted to see get that job So I wouldn't mind Sessions being fired or him resigning.

On the other hand, I don't like the fact that Sessions is being attacked for basically doing the right thing, by an individual who feels that he wasn't loyal to him. So I almost want to see Sessions tell Trump to go hell and say if you're going fire me, then do it already. Instead of acting like a teenage girl and gossiping about me behind my back and on Twitter.

[trish]

If a candidate publicly asks a foreign state to intervene in a Federal election by hacking into his opponent’s servers and if subsequently seventeen U.S. security agencies (including the FBI, CIA and NSA) demonstrate to the satisfaction of the security community that that same foreign state complied with that request, then that request was a treasonous bid illegally gain power over the executive branch of government.

Certainly 45’s supporters (most of whom are old enough to remember the Cold War) are of a different opinion. But how about Donald himself? If he thought it was a treasonous act, would he have been so blatant about it?

Mostly through his real estate dealings here and abroad, but also through his association with the Miss Universe contest, Trump had developed close ties with many wealthy oligarchs. I think he envied them: the way they make money, wield influence and power. I think he wishes to emulate them and Putin. I wonder what they make of Donald. I imagine he’s something of a joke.

Even if Donald knowingly colluded, offering say to dropped certain sanctions against Russia for their assistance (via computer hacks into voting machine networks and Democratic email servers) in the election, I’m not sure Donald himself views that a treason. It’s just opposition research!

What scares Donald is that supporter’s will eventually come to see that he’s not all that. That he’s a little rich boy starving for love and attention. His life is nothing without an audience.

On some level Donald knows he’s failure. I believe he’s less concerned about treason than he is about people seeing him for what he is. Mueller’s investigation into his finances will uncover just how much he’s really worth, how much cheated and connived to accumulate his money, achieve his notoriety and gain the White House.

[Ben in LA]

1020069

Discuss.

[Stavros]

So look at the costs:
-A Rand Corporation study commissioned by the military and published in 2016 concluded:
Considering the prevalence of transgender service members among the active duty military and the typical health-care costs for gender-transition-related medical treatment, the Rand study estimated that these treatments would cost the military between $2.4 million and $8.4 million annually.
-Cost of providing erectile dysfunction medicines to the military: $84 miilon a year.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/26/the-military-spends-five-times-as-much-on-viagra-as-it-would-on-transgender-troops-medical-care/?utm_term=.00797f5c569b

In 2011 it was estimated that the cost of air conditioning for US troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan was
$20 Billion a year...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2008422/U-S-military-spends-cool-20billion-air-conditioning-annually-Iraq-Afghanistan.html

Dwarfed by the billions wasted in failed procurement projects by the army and air force -
The Army's biggest budgetary mis-step was a family of networked air and ground vehicles collectively called the Future Combat System. Although prime contractor Boeing managed to keep the program on schedule and on budget through a series of restructures, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates decided in 2009 that the project wasn't ready for prime-time and canceled it after a staggering $19 billion had already been spent. Bloomberg Business News subsequently reported that the service had wasted $32 billion on doomed weapons projects since 1995.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2011/12/19/how-to-waste-100-billion-weapons-that-didnt-work-out/#b555f311cb53

[filghy2]

I think we can expect to see more of this kind of thing from Trump. It's pretty clear that he's planning to sack Mueller and try to shut down further investigations into Russian links - it only awaits manufacturing the right pretext. His strategy to discourage the Republicans in congress from taking any meaningful action is likely to be to double down on appealing to the prejudices of the Republican base. I'd like to think this won't work, but unfortunately I can't entirely dismiss to possibility that it will.

[sukumvit boy]

The Trump White House tests a nation's capacity for outrage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/us/politics/attorney-general-bush-trump.htm

[bluesoul]

an army veteran who voted for the guy who says she shouldn't serve

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/07/27/army-veteran-who-voted-for-guy-who-says-she-shouldn-serve/9YNbUbfm6V8z883h8BV6GO/story.html?s_campaign=bostonglobe%3Asocialflow%3Af acebook

lesson: make stupid votes; win stupid leaders

[bluesoul]

trump just encouraged cops "not to be nice" with suspects (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-trump-ms-13-street-gang-20170728-story.html)



“When you see these towns, and you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you see ‘em thrown in, rough. I said, ‘Please don’t be too nice,’” he said. “Like when you guys put somebody in the car, when you’re protecting their head—the way you put the hand over, like, don’t hit their head, and they’ve just killed somebody, don’t hit their head? I said, ‘You can take the hand away, okay.’” Just as chilling, his words were met with applause and cheers.

[Fitzcarraldo]

http://worldofwonder.net/breaking-news-anthony-scaramucci/

[Stavros]

One of the basic engines of US government is the relationship between the President and Congress. One of the problems generated by the increasingly polarised House and Senate, is that the President is seen as an outsider. Budget proposals from the White House are these days ignored, while the failure to 'repeal and replace Obamacare' underlines the extent to which even the Republican Party is divided, unable to pass legislation in a chamber where it has a majority.

What makes the dismissal of Reince Priebus interesting in this context is that it means that the President has cut a direct link he had with Congress and the Republican Party, I believe now only Mike Pence can be that link, which he has used to break tied votes in the Senate. I am not sure what Paul Ryan's role is here, as he seems to be marginal to the Presidency and an ineffective leader in the House. Instead of being described as a 're-set' this looks like a retreat into the White House bunker, with the President appointing another military man to his senior staff. As tax reform is the next major issue he wants Congress to consider, presumably beginning in September or October, who is going to bridge the gap between the White House and Congress, not least when, as with health care the Republicans cannot agree among themselves what tax reform should include or exclude? This suggests that unless a tax reform bill can be put together than satisfies enough people it too could fail. Either way, the President seems to be more isolated in his first year than has been the case with most recent Presidents.

This may suit his claims that the 'System' is broken and enable him to continue attacking members of Congress and claim he intends to 'drain the swamp' but in practical terms the problem is that he has yet to 'win a deal' on his favoured policies, and with the Russia investigation expanding, this first year could be a year of failure -indeed he has stated more than once that existing health care should be allowed to fail, which is an astonishing position for a President to take on one of the most important policies that affects people every day. There is a view that Stephen Bannon wants the system to collapse because the long term aim is to create a new one, but in the meantime, the administration is not looking competent, and it remains to be seen if the new team in the White House can form a working partnership or be just as divided as the previous one.

In a curious way, because the two systems are different, there are deep divisions among the Tories in the UK over the exit from the EU in its emerging details, and divisions in Labour too. We seem to be living in an age when parties that were once solid representatives of a particular view offering voters a clear choice, are now incoherent, divided, and lacking in any imagination or policies that address the future needs of the people. Whether or not system reform would resolve these divisions I do not know.

[blackchubby38]

trump just encouraged cops "not to be nice" with suspects (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-trump-ms-13-street-gang-20170728-story.html)


Its truly amazing that even when he tries to deliver the right message, like one about going after violent gangs, Trump can't help himself and turn the whole thing into a stand up act.

[bluesoul]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF2ZAEi4kUo

[bluesoul]

the smoochi is already out? WTF?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/31/us/politics/anthony-scaramucci-white-house.html

[trish]

Awe - so soon?

[Stavros]

When it goes wrong, send in the military. Who's next?

[bluesoul]

it's come to that point where we "consider resigning" but take the job anyway to help the people we consider resigning over.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/31/politics/kelly-comey-phone-call-angry/index.html

[blackchubby38]

When it goes wrong, send in the military. Who's next?

I'm hoping its Steve Bannon. The guy really has no business having the position that he does in the White House.

[bluesoul]

btw as fun as is it to watch this clusterfuck in the trump administration happen, i think the most important story is the us/russia sanctions.

1). us puts a stop on monies russia was supposed to get from the us. in the trillions (ouch)
2). diplomats sent back to mother russia thanks to congress.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/22/politics/congress-deal-russia-sanctions/index.html

trump panics. how do we know this? he doesn't tweet

putin retaliates:

1). 755 diplomats kicked out of russia
2). no more use of a state of the art gym (fuck!!!!)
3). no more use of awesome warehouse (double fuck!!!)

vlad's is mad. in fact his exact words are "i've been let down" and there's even a sad picture of vlad to go with it.

what is trump gonna do? well, for one, he remains mum. and two, he does nothing. what's the worst that can happen? war? more sanctions?

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/07/russia-expulsion-putin/535413/

and this is all happening as trump's administration and staff unravel at the seams.

i like to use james woods as a barometer of what is happening to the right and even he seems to be unraveling at the seams lately:

https://twitter.com/RealJamesWoods/status/889529609091502084

yup: it's that bad

[bluesoul]

okay. am i missing something? is this guy secretly trying to completely fuck up the right wing on purpose or could he seriously be this much of an ass?

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/892147656319004672

[Fitzcarraldo]

https://gfycat.com/DamagedShowyEeve

[Stavros]

I'm hoping its Steve Bannon. The guy really has no business having the position that he does in the White House.

The gossip this side of the pond is that Rex Tillerson is fed up and wants to go. He was furious when Jared Kushner persuaded Daddy No 2 to support Saudi Arabia's attack on Qatar without running this major foreign policy decision by him, and as the former CEO of Exxon, organised as a company along military lines, can't cope with the multiple layers of 'authority' in the White House which to him suggests there is none -unless, as has been discussed today Kelly can introduce the much needed discipline that will make it look like the Presidency is run by adults. The rogue factor is the President himself, who shortly goes on holiday (to pocket another $10 million courtesy of the tax payer). The Twitter feeds may become the barometer of change.

[bluesoul]

the mooch always had nice things to see about the don. remember 05 back when he had a wife?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZOeqL2ZSWA

[sukumvit boy]

A little levity , Saturday night Live...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbpUcfpbnrs

[filghy2]

the smoochi is already out? WTF?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/31/us/politics/anthony-scaramucci-white-house.html

I assume this was John Kelly's doing. At least he's had the good sense to realise that the Mooch was going to be a disaster, whereas Trump clearly did not.

[bluesoul]

yup: it's that bad

i should've said: it's that good

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-dictated-sons-misleading-statement-on-meeting-with-russian-lawyer/2017/07/31/04c94f96-73ae-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html?utm_term=.52ef668667a8

[blackchubby38]

The gossip this side of the pond is that Rex Tillerson is fed up and wants to go. He was furious when Jared Kushner persuaded Daddy No 2 to support Saudi Arabia's attack on Qatar without running this major foreign policy decision by him, and as the former CEO of Exxon, organised as a company along military lines, can't cope with the multiple layers of 'authority' in the White House which to him suggests there is none -unless, as has been discussed today Kelly can introduce the much needed discipline that will make it look like the Presidency is run by adults. The rogue factor is the President himself, who shortly goes on holiday (to pocket another $10 million courtesy of the tax payer). The Twitter feeds may become the barometer of change.

I get the sense that Tillerson was going to leave before he went on vacation. But then the rumors started and that's why he came out and said that he was staying on as Secretary of State. So I'm wondering if Kelly being hired as Chief of Staff was a direct result of Tillerson possibly wanting out.

[Stavros]

Emily Maitlis has given the BBC Newsnight programme the background to her interview with Scaramouche. She was preparing a report from the White House when she realized Sean Spicer's replacement was wandering around the grounds taking selfies. She walked over and ask him if he would give them an interview and he immediately said yes without clearing it with anyone in the white building behind him and not asking in advance what questions she would be asking him. Self confidence, is one way of looking at it. Plain stupid is another. Where do they find these people?

[Fitzcarraldo]

thenib.com/normal-presidency-stuff?t=recent

[Stavros]

Another day, another revelation -when will the 'whole of the truth' about this one meeting be told? And what else is there to be revealed?

The White House has confirmed Donald Trump (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) played a role in drafting a misleading statement about his son’s meeting with a Russian lawyer.
On Tuesday, the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, contradicted Trump’s attorney, Jay Sekulow, who said the president had had no involvement (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/07/31/trumps-lawyer-repeatedly-denied-trump-was-involved-in-trump-jr-s-statement-but-he-was/?utm_term=.45e0d584ea49).
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/01/trump-russia-statement-richard-painter-obstruction-justice

[broncofan]

The keywords to use: Data Laundering and the connections between the Alfa Bank in Moscow, Cambridge Analytica (based in Cambridge, UK) and SCL with the additional claims of (illegal) Russian funding in the US election campaign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCL_Group

The claim is that elections can be swayed if you have as minute a degree of information on voters as you can get -in particular targeting the undecided -data miining is Cambridge Analytica's role; while SCL provides the 'fake news' stories that pump up the waverers to make them choose, and although admittedly a weak strategy consider the margins of victory in the swing states that defeated Hillary Clinton: for example in Michigan she lost by 10,704 votes, in Wisconsin she lost by 22,177 votes, in Pennsylvania 67,416 votes (see link from The Hill below). However, at least one source, without any backup argues that it is too odd that the swing states were won by margins of 1% or less, and claims
it points to some hacker having nudged these four states into Trump’s column by no more and no less than the one percent he needed, so as not to arouse suspicion by giving him too large of a win in any of the states he was supposed to lose. But if so, it’s the pattern of all of these states being won by the same one percent that stands out as suspicious, because that’s just not how numbers work to begin with
http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/rigged-election-donald-trump-won-every-surprise-swing-state-by-the-same-1-margin/118/
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/308353-trump-won-by-smaller-margin-than-stein-votes-in-all-three
.
https://www.apnews.com/a250d1088af44a3b8b55275dc97de608

This ties Flynn to Cambridge analytica. We'll find out more about that. There's been a grand jury investigation into Flynn for some time now and of course the big news is that Mueller impaneled another grand jury.

[broncofan]

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/345261-senate-blocks-trump-from-making-recess-appointments-over-break

Some bipartisan agreement here. Are they finally on to him?

[fred41]

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/345261-senate-blocks-trump-from-making-recess-appointments-over-break

Some bipartisan agreement here. Are they finally on to him?

This opinion piece by Krauthammer in the Daily News gives some of the other examples of 'democracy' pushing back against Trump- http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/guardrails-hold-article-1.3381996
Just hope this can hold up in what is only the eighth month of a Bizarro World presidency. Hard to imagine a whole term of this presidential buffoonery.

[Stavros]

This ties Flynn to Cambridge analytica. We'll find out more about that. There's been a grand jury investigation into Flynn for some time now and of course the big news is that Mueller impaneled another grand jury.

The problem with Cambridge Analytica is that when you look at who is or has been associated with it, you find the President and his team -notably Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort-, Ted Cruz, Robert Mercer, Vincent Tchenguiz, Dmitry Firtash and Stephen Bannon.

What they all have in common is the 'first mover advantage' in the latest forms of 'cyber-influence', to give it a name. In the past it was the Clinton administration that was seen to have an 'early mover advantage' when using the internet to get its messages across, particularly to those people who used it a lot, many of them young and first time voters. Communications technology has changed radically since the 1990s in terms of access both ways, and the claim -as stressed by Comey in his Senate hearing- is not that the President's team colluded with but that they co-ordinated their campaign with the Russians, as both wanted the same thing: to defeat Mrs Cliinton.

Kushner's role may emerge as another obstacle to the resolution of the 'Russia Problem' because he was in charge of the 'digital' side of the campaign that recruited Cambridge Analytica and used its methods via the Russians to smear Hillary Clinton by targeting individual voters in key precincts in States like Wisconsin and Illinois-

Kushner’s crew was able to tap into the Republican National Committee’s data machine, and it hired targeting partners like Cambridge Analytica to map voter universes and identify which parts of the Trump platform mattered most: trade, immigration or change. Tools like Deep Root drove the scaled-back TV ad spending by identifying shows popular with specific voter blocks in specific regions–say, NCIS for anti-ObamaCare voters or The Walking Dead for people worried about immigration. Kushner built a custom geo-location tool that plotted the location density of about 20 voter types over a live Google Maps interface.
http://www.newsweek.com/did-russians-target-dem-voters-kushners-help-613612

A lot of this was done in the USA using data mined from the RNC, but the data from the DNC was hacked by the Russian based Guccifer network and is thus the link between the Americans and the Russians which the candidate himself appealed for when twice in one day he begged the Russians to hack the Democrats and help him defeat his American competitor for the White House. The role played by Wikileaks in this also needs more investigation.

Presidents enter the White House in their first time with baggage -usually, it is a political record as Vice-President, Governor, Senator, possibly military (Washington, Grant, Eisenhower come to mind). In this case the baggage consists of an uneven record as a businessman, a reputation for self-promotion shaped by fantasy, and the mentality of the 'win at all costs' which explains why existing links to the Russians were drafted in to help co-ordinate the campaign. It may be that the campaign looked closely at precisely where the margins of legality and illegality were and ensured they never crossed the lines; as for 'accepted' norms, the campaign joyously trashed all of them -previously unacceptable insults, abuse, ridicule, lies -these became part of the tenor of the campaign unlike anything seen or heard since the 19th century.

At some point, however, this elaborate plan to win the White House will be exposed for what it was. The sooner the better.

[Stavros]

Every week some drama seems to engulf the Presidency, to the extent that there is no speculation -wild speculation?- that this Presidency may not even last the year. In addition to various removals, the dismissal of Stephen Bannon may have been all but inevitable when the full text of his interview revealed a disagreement on North Korea with his own President, but primarily because, as the host of the show in Slumdog Millionaire barks when expressing his annoyance with contestant Jamal Malik -It's my fucking show!- the President is said to have -

fumed privately to confidants that Mr Bannon was getting too much attention. Mr Trump has also been displeased by Mr Bannon's high profile in the media, which has largely credited him as the mastermind of the Trump campaign.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/steve-bannon-fired-removed-trump-white-house-breitbart-white-nationalism-alt-right-latest-a7901121.html

Again, the failure of health care reform, the challenge in the courts to the Muslim ban, the dismissal of FBI Director Comey and the unscripted comments on the riots in Charlottesville have so alienated supporters he needs in Congress it is hard to see what he can do to repair it.

And, now four Presidential advisory committees -on infrastructure, manufacturing, strategic policy and arts and humanities- have either been disbanded or in the case of arts and humanities, abandoned by its members who released a statement on their collective resignation among which it said:

“We cannot sit idly by, the way that your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions,”...“Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions.
“You released a budget which eliminates arts and culture agencies. You have threatened nuclear war while gutting diplomacy funding. The administration pulled out of the Paris agreement, filed an amicus brief undermining the Civil Rights Act and attacked our brave trans service members. You have subverted equal protections, and are committed to banning Muslims and refugee women & children from our great country.
“This does not unify the nation we all love.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/18/donald-trumps-arts-humanities-council-resigns-en-masse-fallout/

I guess the President must now re-group, but while in the past this has been seen as a moment when his closest advisers have attempt to tighten up the White House staff, introduce more discipline and 'joined-up government' the problem that won't go away is the glaring fact that the President is incompetent, and will not be tamed by his staff, so that his freedom to tweet and give unscripted speeches and spontaneous comments is a guarantee that this farce will roll on -until someone decides enough is enough. But when? And who will make the decision? As someone who proclaims his own greatness and never loses, resignation would seem to be the logical conclusion.

[filghy2]

Anyone with progressive inclinations should be grateful that Trump is such a lazy, undisciplined, impulsive incompetent. Just imagine what a smarter, more focussed President with the same policy inclinations could achieve with majorities in both houses.

[Stavros]

We now know that on Day One of his Presidency, 45 discovered the letter written shortly before by President 44. President 45 has described the letter as 'long. It was complex. It was thoughtful' -and is here in full:

"Dear Mr. President -

Congratulations on a remarkable run. Millions have placed their hopes in you, and all of us, regardless of party, should hope for expanded prosperity and security during your tenure.
This is a unique office, without a clear blueprint for success, so I don’t know that any advice from me will be particularly helpful. Still, let me offer a few reflections from the past 8 years.
First, we’ve both been blessed, in different ways, with great good fortune. Not everyone is so lucky. It’s up to us to do everything we can (to) build more ladders of success for every child and family that’s willing to work hard.
Second, American leadership in this world really is indispensable. It’s up to us, through action and example, to sustain the international order that’s expanded steadily since the end of the Cold War, and upon which our own wealth and safety depend.
Third, we are just temporary occupants of this office. That makes us guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions – like rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties – that our forebears fought and bled for. Regardless of the push and pull of daily politics, it’s up to us to leave those instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we found them.
And finally, take time, in the rush of events and responsibilities, for friends and family. They’ll get you through the inevitable rough patches.
Michelle and I wish you and Melania the very best as you embark on this great adventure, and know that we stand ready to help in any ways which we can.
Good luck and Godspeed,
BO"
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/barack-obama-donald-trump-white-house-letter-inauguration-letter-a7927461.html

[broncofan]

It's almost as though Barack Obama anticipated the exact ways Trump would fail. Maybe he's not the only one but he listed very specific priorities of the President that Trump has already undermined.

Mueller is currently investigating an original draft of a letter written by Trump prior to firing Comey. I have not seen the draft, but it would be sound evidence of his mental state when he fired Comey. What Mueller comes back with in the obstruction of justice investigation and how Congress responds will determine whether our rule of law has been preserved, or is either temporarily or permanently suspended.

And of course, Trump's statement about the letter's length and complexity only shows that he did not understand that it was implicitly a statement of distrust. It's quite short and easy to summarize. Preserve equality of opportunity, don't undermine the current international order by abdicating our leadership role, and understand that you were elected for a term and have limits to your power and must have fidelity to the constitution, including the hard-won freedoms embedded in our amendments to it.

[broncofan]

I have not seen the draft, but it would be sound evidence of his mental state when he fired Comey. What Mueller comes back with in the obstruction of justice investigation and how Congress responds will determine whether our rule of law has been preserved, or is either temporarily or permanently suspended.

White House Counsel told him not to publish the letter, portions of it were redacted, and eventually Rosenstein wrote the final draft with fabricated reasons that were not Trump's. When the draft is eventually made public we will see specifically what Trump's tirade was. This news is apparently two days old, but I still don't see why this by itself should not sink him. I'm not going to state arguments again on this bc it's redundant but...

Anyway, for those who have not read about it. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/us/politics/trump-comey-firing-letter.html

[Stavros]

I don't know a lot about the DACA or 'dreamers' policy on illegal immigrants that was introduced by the Obama administration and flagged for removal by the President yesterday. Neither does he. One wonders what, other than his bank accounts and the tax codes he does know. Maybe that is why the Attorney General announced the change in policy, and his President passed the buck to Congress...

The blame-averse president told a confidante over the past few days that he realized that he had gotten himself into a politically untenable position. As late as one hour before the decision was to be announced, administration officials privately expressed concern that Mr. Trump might not fully grasp the details of the steps he was about to take, and when he discovered their full impact, would change his mind, according to a person familiar with their thinking who was not authorized to comment on it and spoke on condition of anonymity
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/us/politics/trump-daca-dreamers-immigration.html

ps Am I right in thinking the Politics & Religion section has been moved down the Table of Contents to second-from-bottom?

[Ben in LA]

ps Am I right in thinking the Politics & Religion section has been moved down the Table of Contents to second-from-bottom?
Ive honestly never paid attention to that. I think it should be a bit higher as well.

Meanwhile on DACA, all trump is doing is pandering to his base. The sooner those people realize "the jobs immigrants took away from you" aren't coming back, the better.

[filghy2]

The 'Dreamers' are exactly the kind of immigrants the US economy needs - young, well-educated and motivated https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/the-very-bad-economics-of-killing-daca/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body

This makes a nonsense of earlier talk about revamping the immigration system on economic lines (like Australia and Canada). It seems the real agenda is lower immigration by whatever means.

[Ben in LA]

The 'Dreamers' are exactly the kind of immigrants the US economy needs - young, well-educated and motivated https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/the-very-bad-economics-of-killing-daca/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body

This makes a nonsense of earlier talk about revamping the immigration system on economic lines (like Australia and Canada). It seems the real agenda is lower immigration by whatever means.
"Make America [predominately] white again" because "immigrants are stealing our jobs" (but not the outsourcing and/or mechanization of industry.

[Stavros]

It's time Americans for you to dig deep into your pockets and support your President by buying his Medallions, only $45 a shot.

He needs your cash.

1027383

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/donald-trump-selling-presidential-medals-campaign-website-article-1.3474658

[sukumvit boy]

In connection with the release of his latest book ,"Spies Like Us" John le Carre (David Cornwell) has been asked about his views with regard to the 'Russian connection' and Donald Trump. He recommends one should 'follow the money' and consider the time honored Russian tactic of "kompromat"
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/books/review/john-le-carre-ben-macintyre-british-spy-thrillers.html?smid=tw-share

[sukumvit boy]

Sorry for my error above, his latest book is "A legacy of Spies"

[sukumvit boy]

It's time Americans for you to dig deep into your pockets and support your President by buying his Medallions, only $45 a shot.

He needs your cash.

1027383

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/donald-trump-selling-presidential-medals-campaign-website-article-1.3474658
LOL, going to rush right out and get one , I wonder does it come in lifelike orange ?

[Stavros]

I have had a good laugh over the last two days at the expense of the President of the USA. I know one ought not to, but amusement is in short supply this side of the pond where policy-making continues to resemble a train without a driver on a track without a destination.

So, having seen Ann (Do you like my hair?) Coulter in pugnacious form on the BBC defending her Man after Charlottesville, she now has turned on him, as have other Republicans who, in spite of what he said at the first tv debate of Republican candidates, have just woken up to the fact that he is not really their guy after all.

Thus, the New Republic reports:
[Coulter] has a new book out titled In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! (https://www.amazon.com/Trump-We-Trust-Pluribus-Awesome/dp/0735214468) In this tome, she says, “There’s nothing Trump can do that won’t be forgiven. Except change his immigration policies.” So what does Trump do? Change his immigration policies, dropping hints (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/25/us/politics/donald-trump-presidential-race.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0) that he’ll accept the very type of amnesty that he once denounced when it was advocated by Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
https://newrepublic.com/minutes/136290/ann-coulter-furious-donald-trumpand-good-reason

In answer to a question from The Daily Beast:
Is Trump's apparent apostasy fixable?“Only if he is willing to begin intensive therapy next week, after his presidency.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/ann-coulter-on-trump-i-bet-on-a-loser

And now it seems she was suspcious all along. Right.

It took Ronald Reagan six years to betray his disciples, who turned their perception of betrayal into the Project for a New American Century, and the long term plan to create a pro-American region-wide democracy in the Middle East starting with regime change in Iraq...it has taken the latest version of the Republican Party's messiah complex barely six months. And of course the President denies it all and says there is no deal. I think. Even Theresa May can be more convincing when she is covering up her incompetence.

What comes next?

[trish]

I heard yesterday that Ann Coulter was taken aback by 45's recent twists and turns concerning DACA. She tweeted, "At this point, who DOESN'T want Trump impeached?" I only just learned (thanks to your post Stavros) that her new book is titled: "In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!" OMG! That's hysterical. I'm off to my favorite bookstore right now not to buy it. I urge everyone to do the same.

Ann should've known that Donald never made a deal he didn't renege on. Everyone in the White House knows it. Every contractor whoever worked for him knows it. Every New York banker knows it. Every House Republican knows it. Pelosi and Schummer should keep it in mind too. At this point nobody knows what's going to happen with DACA. I can't imagine the thick cloud of anxiety hovering over the dreamers until this thing is settled; I hope in their favor. Godspeed.

[bluesoul]

coulter is a bad calibration of the situation. i actually don't mind her- mainly because she's such an extreme (alleged) right winger as opposed to the real right winger (the guy from some widwestern town that owns 4 guns and will shoot you or me on site because we're on his property). she's like pepe on speed (i'm talking 90s speed that was about $400 a pop). coulter also has an agent who (interestingly enough) manages a lot of actors. is she an actor? no. coulter is a celebrity. a media person who needs to maintain a certain amount of media attention to retain (not only) her credibility as a bitch, but her "i can say whatever i want and not really have the same consequences you other asswipes get" status: read as YOU

i've been to a party where ann was pretty "normal" if you can call it that. she still touted the whole right winger "kick them all out" crap, but besides that, i'd say she was cool. i'd have put on a white hood and burnt a cross with her- but then again, that's not me. i'm not into cross burning and white hoodies never go with my style :D

keep it trill

https://twitter.com/Pandas4Trump/status/908513050327621632

[trish]

Trump was ecstatic about the press coverage of three month extension on the debt ceiling. He called Pelosi and Schumer to sing about how FOX praised them and MSNBC praised him. He never knew bi-partisanship could be so rewarding! But it wasn’t the progress that impressed Donald. It was the perception that the ‘liberal’ press praised him.

DACA is going to be different. It’s already different. The flak Donald is going to take (and is already getting) from his base and their right-wing radio stations, and their propaganda/conspiracy-weaving engines will be intolerable for someone like Trump to bear. I predict this brief flirtation with partisanship will go sour and die. Here's hoping I'm wrong.:cheers:

[bluesoul]

whatever. i'm just glad it's giving some trump supporters (bwahahaha) something to think about. most are up an arms. it's great to witness this- coupled with the "current" protests in st.louis. i'm sure melania ain't sleeping in some sexy red lingerie- although then again- she might be. and i'm just overthinking all this.

where were we? weekend. money. booze. and our country. one of these are going down- and fast.

[broncofan]

http://www.businessinsider.com/mueller-trump-russia-hannity-roger-stone-gorka-meltdown-twitter-2017-10

On Friday we heard that Mueller had filed charges against someone. Tomorrow we should find out who. The usual right wing nuts, Gorka, Hannity, and Stone have been spreading all sorts of malicious nonsense trying to de-legitimize Mueller and distract from the Russia investigation. The supposed scandals of Hillary Clinton are not scandals at all but the usual type of innuendo directed at her.

[Stavros]

The charges against Paul Manafort and Robert Gates can be found in full in this Guardian link:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/30/paul-manafort-rick-gates-indictment-full-text-robert-mueller

Basically, Manafort and Gates lobbied in the US on behalf of the Government of the Ukraine and the Party of the Regions without registering as paid lobbyists, which is illegal; they laundered money they acquired in the Ukraine and as a result defrauded the US tax authorities and banks from whom they acquired loans on property purchased with laundered money, these amounting to a conspiracy against the USA that obstructed the work of the Department of Justice and the Treasury. Note that the charge says
Paul J. Manafort Jr, and Richard W. Gates III, together with others.. (those others not named).

One question that will arise is -did the Republican Candidate who appointed Manafort to lead his campaign team know that Manafort had close political and financial links to the former government of the Ukraine and its President Viktor Yanukovich, that he did not declare these links and their financial character to the relevant authorities in the USA, and was there any conduit of money and/or intelligence between Manafort, his disgraced associates who in 2014 absconded from justice to live in Russia, and the government of Russia?

[broncofan]

The charges against Paul Manafort and Robert Gates can be found in full in this Guardian link:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/30/paul-manafort-rick-gates-indictment-full-text-robert-mueller

Basically, Manafort and Gates lobbied in the US on behalf of the Government of the Ukraine and the Party of the Regions without registering as paid lobbyists, which is illegal; they laundered money they acquired in the Ukraine and as a result defrauded the US tax authorities and banks from whom they acquired loans on property purchased with laundered money, these amounting to a conspiracy against the USA that obstructed the work of the Department of Justice and the Treasury. Note that the charge says
Paul J. Manafort Jr, and Richard W. Gates III, together with others.. (those others not named).

One question that will arise is -did the Republican Candidate who appointed Manafort to lead his campaign team know that Manafort had close political and financial links to the former government of the Ukraine and its President Viktor Yanukovich, that he did not declare these links and their financial character to the relevant authorities in the USA, and was there any conduit of money and/or intelligence between Manafort, his disgraced associates who in 2014 absconded from justice to live in Russia, and the government of Russia?
This is a very good summary and question. I think George Papadopoulos' plea agreement, which is much less reported right now, is also a very good lead for two reasons. He lied to the FBI about communications with a Russian agent regarding emails and he looks to be a cooperating witness. Maybe this looks better than it is. But here's the stipulation of his offense...I haven't read the agreement part of it yet.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/george-papadopoulos-stipulation-and-plea-agreement

Edit: the agreement does not specify the nature of his cooperation if any, only that he agrees to plead guilty. The most interesting information is in the stipulation laying out what he lied to investigators about.

[Aticus100]

I’m just so shocked. I didn’t see any of this coming.

[slave2u]

One question that will arise is -did the Republican Candidate who appointed Manafort to lead his campaign team know that Manafort had close political and financial links to the former government of the Ukraine and its President Viktor Yanukovich, that he did not declare these links and their financial character to the relevant authorities in the USA, and was there any conduit of money and/or intelligence between Manafort, his disgraced associates who in 2014 absconded from justice to live in Russia, and the government of Russia?

trump's answer will be 'crooked hilary is to blame. bigly mad. bigly sad'.
or 'fake news.bad'

[Stavros]

What strikes me about what we know so far, going back to the beginning around the time the campaign began officially in 2016, is the number of people in the presidential campaign and then after the inauguration, who have lied, not just to each other or the press, but to law enforcement agencies. If you add in the clear links between people in the campaign and foreign governments -Ukraine and Russia-, you could say this reveals the amateurish nature of their campaign, their lack of experience in politics -except that Manafort as a lobbyist would surely know what is legal and what is not. This suggests contempt, that these people had decided the FBI, the Department of Justice, the CIA were all part of a 'corrupt' 'broken system' and could be disregarded as if lying to them was of no consequence. Flynn lied, Sessions lied, the President's family members lied, Manafort lied, Gates lied, Papadopoulos lied and yet we have denials from the White House who ought not to even be saying anything right now. Where in all this was the Republican Party establishment, eg Reince Priebus, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell? And we have only just started.

As for Manafort's lawyer barking outside the court that all his client wanted to do was to develop democracy in the Ukraine -you have to marvel at the guy's brazen cheek. By the time Yanukovich ran away to Moscow after the Maidan Revolution in 2014, he and his cronies are estimated to have robbed the Ukraine of two-thirds of its wealth. Democracy had nothing to do with it. We await the next indictments with interest.

[filghy2]

Where in all this was the Republican Party establishment, eg Reince Priebus, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell?

It seems they just want to change the subject and go back to their main priority of passing tax cuts for the wealthy. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/30/16571678/paul-manafort-indictment-mueller-investigation-republican-reaction

[broncofan]

I have read various reports that more indictments are likely to be coming soon, that Papadopoulos likely wore a wire between July and October 5, and that the high level official mentioned in the stipulation of facts for Papadopoulos' plea is really Manafort. These are things being whispered by mostly credible journalists on twitter but may not be certain enough to print. For instance, Papadopoulos' cooperation has been called "proactive" which according to federal prosecutors is a euphemism for wearing a wire. This much is likely to be true.

But if Manafort was the source that Papadopoulos told about his meeting with a Russian government official regarding incriminating emails then the head of Trump's campaign knew about Russian hacking as of April 2016. This also means Trump is virtually certain to have known. Which means at the best, he lied to the public about an espionage campaign against the United States and never notified the FBI about a vital matter of national security concern. He stood up in debates and dissembled about China and a 400 pound hacker. Even when he was showed intelligence data proving the link he continued to subvert and undermine these agencies.

[Stavros]

For those interested, Seth Abramson was one of the first to identify Papadopoulos as a potential source on the Russian links, he even goes as far as to claim he was, 'in effect' a Kremlin agent. His twitter feed is here-

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson

[broncofan]

Great find Stavros. Let's just say there are a lot of people on twitter you can follow who will feed you bs, but Abramson seems one of the most responsible in his process and his deductions. Also recommend. He tells you when he's speculating, which given what's public is necessary, and he makes sensible deductions.

[broncofan]

Actually shouldn't say also recommend since you're not necessarily recommending it. I've found his tweet storms to be very good. For instance, this one about the lies Sarah Huckabee Sanders told in her press conference are very good, especially for his clarification about Hillary's purported involvement with Fusion GPS.

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/925064821137199104

[Stavros]

Actually shouldn't say also recommend since you're not necessarily recommending it. I've found his tweet storms to be very good. For instance, this one about the lies Sarah Huckabee Sanders told in her press conference are very good, especially for his clarification about Hillary's purported involvement with Fusion GPS.


All good points. The crunch may come if Mueller begins to look at any links between Russia and the Campaign that pass through Felix Sater and Manhattan real estate, as the President has said he will not allow Mueller to investigate his family business. The problem is that while 'collusion' in the sense of an agreed plan between the campaign and the Russians to work together to smear Hillary Clinton directly through planted Facebook/social media may not be proven, that kind of Russian interference was part of the Russian plan and welcomed by the campaign team who, it may transpire knew of it but did nothing to stop it. The meeting in New York attended by Manafort, Kushner and members of the family may turn out to be axis on which this turns, for if it leads to an indictment of Eric or Donald junior, Mueller will either be sacked, or the President issue an official pardon. Question is, where is Michael Flynn in all this? What becomes clear is the insatiable venom Republicans have had for the Clinton family ever since Bill was elected President. I think they hate them more than they hate Obama. Their genuine fear that Hillary was a winner led them to view any attack on her as an advance for them, yet seem not have cared if it came from a foreign source, such was their hostility to their fellow American. A campaign and a Presidency based on resentment, revenge and arrogance. Not a sound base on which to govern a country.

[filghy2]

A campaign and a Presidency based on resentment, revenge and arrogance. Not a sound base on which to govern a country.

Unfortunately, over 80% of Republican voters still seem to think it is a sound basis for governing. Unless that changes Trump will probably stay safe, at least until after the mid-terms.

[filghy2]

Meanwhile, here's the view from the lunatic fringe https://www.salon.com/2017/11/01/alex-jones-the-russia-investigation-is-a-plot-to-make-robert-mueller-the-first-king-of-america/

[Stavros]

Meanwhile, here's the view from the lunatic fringe

And yet, while
Right-Wing media hedgehog Alex Jones is at it again. After the latest slew of revelations in the Russia investigation that seems to be closing in on the Trump administration, Jones said in a recent edition of his show that is all conspiracy created to make special investigator Robert Mueller, wait for it, King of America.
-the question is if Ivanka Kushner is the Princess Royal, as she is known around the White House, who is the King? Not Robert Mueller.

[filghy2]

Question is, where is Michael Flynn in all this?

This article suggests that it's pretty clear that Flynn failed to register as a foreign lobbyist and that he lied to the FBI, two of the things the others were charged with. The possible reasons he hasn't been charged yet are that they are still investigating other possible charges or that they are making a plea bargain. https://www.salon.com/2017/11/01/mueller-indictments-beg-why-manafort-why-papadopoulos-why-now/

[broncofan]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/sessions-rejected-russian-proposal-campaign-adviser-source-says-n817001

Once again, it does not lead to a substantive charge related to the conspiracy that interests everyone but points to the most flagrant instance of perjury yet. Look at Lindsey Graham's question and then at Session's denial, which again is kind of non-responsive to the question, but still willful suppression of incriminating information about others.

He's asked whether anyone in the campaign talked about meeting Russians and his answer was effectively no when the reality is yes and he knew it was yes. It should not matter that he shifted the premise of the question. He does not get to answer made up questions only the ones put to him. Definite perjury.

[filghy2]

It looks like the next shoe may be about to drop. https://www.vox.com/world/2017/11/5/16609292/mueller-michael-flynn-russia-charges-nbc

Meanwhile, the latest Paradise Papers leaks reveal that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has business links to Putin cronies. It's amazing who many links the Trump Administration has to a country that their own party has generally viewed as USA's strategic rival.

[broncofan]

It looks like the next shoe may be about to drop. https://www.vox.com/world/2017/11/5/16609292/mueller-michael-flynn-russia-charges-nbc

Meanwhile, the latest Paradise Papers leaks reveal that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has business links to Putin cronies. It's amazing who many links the Trump Administration has to a country that their own party has generally viewed as USA's strategic rival.
Often in ways that were deeply counterproductive and paranoid. Now they find themselves justifying corruption, espionage, interference with our democratic processes. Just to watch the laudatory things that asshole Sean Hannity says about Julian Assange is an amazing reversal. It really is the twilight zone here.

[Stavros]

It all goes back to the 1990s when Russia was like the US in the late 19th century. It was called the 'Sale of the Century' and at least one book of that name explained how the absence of finance laws, and the patronage of Boris Yeltsin made some people rich overnight, quite a few of them Communist Party apparatchiks who were in secondary positions of influence they were able to use to elbow less savvy superiors aside to commandeer the country's assets. And the money went one way, and then another, and not all of the Americans who forged links were shall we say, 'quality people'. Who knows how much Russian money has flowed through London on its way to Florida and New York, and how much of it was legal, a tax dodge, or the proceeds of organized crime? Putin was there, lurking in Yeltsin's shadow, and he didn't like what he saw, even as he then or later took his cut. Foreign firms that purchased handsome assets in oil and gas today have smaller portions of the pie; as for the 'entrepreneurs' and their 'comms people', my guess is Putin has a small book which he keeps in his breast pocket.

How does that song go, 'there's a man goin' round takin' names...'

Or is it, you ain't seen nothing' yet!

[filghy2]

It's amazing to see Trump fawning over Xi Jinping in China. After previously accusing the Chinese of 'raping' the US economy via the trade deficit, he now says that they are not to blame. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/12/doanld-trump-fawns-over-xi-global-power-strong-man-game The guy clearly has a serious strong leader fetish. The Chinese also clearly understand that the best way to handle Trump is to flatter him.

This is not to say that starting a trade war with China would have been a good idea, but the idea that all will be great if we just have a few autocrats making deals is equally misguided. When in history has that ended well?

Trump is correct that the trade deficit is mainly the US's responsibility, but not for the reasons he thinks. The US has a trade deficit because it does not save enough, so it has to borrow from abroad. The joke is that if tax reform does what is claimed, and attracts more foreign investment, then the trade deficit will blow out further.

[buttslinger]

Just like Bush II was not the president that used to be a businessman, he was the businessman who just happened to be president.....Trump is not the president who used to be a rich clown, he's the clown that just happens to be president.
I can only pray there is a huge bulletin board in Bob Mueller's office with all the pictures of Trump, the kids, Manafort, Flynn, Sessions, etc....placed in order with strings connecting them all just like in the movies.
The USA survived the Civil War, two World Wars, I guess we'll survive this.
But I'm not sure we'll be older and wiser, I think we'll just be older.
Goddam shame is what it is. Unbelievable.


https://preview.ibb.co/m9cisb/Execution.jpg (https://ibb.co/c8UJQw)

[broncofan]

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-secret-correspondence-between-donald-trump-jr-and-wikileaks/545738/

Wikileaks repeatedly emailed Trump Jr. during campaign and told him how and when to promote their site. They corresponded back and forth. Also asked him to provide them with any incriminating info about his father that he already knew would come up because it would make them seem impartial and make their reveals against Hillary that much more credible.

Assange also asked Trump to contest the election and once it was over to make him ambassador to Australia.

[broncofan]

Should have said Australia's ambassador to U.S. But just read the article. This one's definitely worth it...don't know what it means in the end, but in another time this would be very incriminating.