The US Presidency 2019

[Remius]

And today another,

Bet you these get settled with non disclosure agreements.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Bet they don't.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Alberta is starting to simmer with separation talk

https://www.thebeaverton.com/2019/08/majority-of-canadians-support-countrys-separation-from-jason-kenney/

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I love the Beaverton. I think their TV program starts here this week.

Here's some real numbers.
Now, these are just stats, from polls. I'm not attributing great accuracy or honest collection. I also don't know how the poll was conducted, or how it was worded. These are just the results.

25% of Albertans agree with leaving Canada, second only to Quebec at 28%
https://abacusdata.ca/has-canada-been-worth-it-views-on-leaving-confederation/

Angus Reid has it at 50% of Albertans think Alberta separation is a real possibility ( Feb 19)
http://angusreid.org/western-canada-separatism/

 

[Retired AF Guy]

Bet you these get settled with non disclosure agreements.

Bet they don't.

Some background on the McCabe and Strzok cases:

  Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok are both suing the Justice Department

By Andrew Prokopandrew@vox.com Aug 8, 2019, 7:00pm EDT

Former FBI officials Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok, who were each fired by the Trump administration after facing intense criticism from the president, both filed lawsuits against the Justice Department this week alleging unlawful political retaliation.

McCabe filed his lawsuit Thursday, arguing his January 2018 demotion from the deputy FBI director position and his March 2018 firing from the FBI were “politically motivated and retaliatory.” He added that they harmed his “reputation, professional standing, and dramatically reduced his retirement benefits.”

Just two days earlier, Strzok had filed his own suit, arguing that his firing from the FBI in August 2018 was “because of his protected political speech” and violated his First Amendment rights. Both men are seeking reinstatement of their positions and lost pay.

Both McCabe and Strzok had spent decades in the FBI before becoming involved in the politically charged investigations related to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump — and then in their individual controversies.

Even before Trump fired FBI Director James Comey and went to war with his own Justice Department in 2017, the president was fixated on McCabe due to his wife Jill’s previous unsuccessful campaign for a state Senate seat as a Democrat in Virginia. Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA), a longtime close ally of the Clintons, had helped her raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for her campaign.

McCabe rose to acting FBI director after Comey’s firing, and was in that role for the first few months of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. He returned to the deputy role once Chris Wray was confirmed by the Senate as Comey’s replacement.

But McCabe became embroiled in a leak investigation as the Justice Department sought to find the source behind an October 2016 Wall Street Journal story about internal deliberations about an investigation into the Clinton Foundation. McCabe had in fact authorized these leaks, and the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, concluded he lacked candor when asked about them by investigators.

Strzok, meanwhile, was assigned as the lead FBI agent to Mueller’s team. But he didn’t last long there. Stzrok had been having an affair with his FBI colleague Lisa Page, and they had exchanged thousands of politically charged text messages — including many disparaging comments about then-candidate Trump — on FBI devices. While investigating those leaks, Horowitz’s team found those Strzok-Page messages, and Mueller quickly removed Strzok from his team.

Both McCabe and Strzok came under intense criticism from conservative commentators, Republican members of Congress, and the president himself.

    FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!
    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2017

    FBI Agent Peter Strzok, who headed the Clinton & Russia investigations, texted to his lover Lisa Page, in the IG Report, that “we’ll stop” candidate Trump from becoming President. Doesn’t get any lower than that!
    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2018

Eventually, both McCabe and Strzok were fired, in somewhat strange circumstances.

First, McCabe had let it be known in 2017 that he was planning to retire — but only once he became fully eligible for his pension, in March. But, a little more than 24 hours before he became eligible, the Justice Department fired McCabe, citing the inspector general’s findings in the leak investigation. The timing is certainly curious, and the consequence is that McCabe won’t be able to draw his pension for several years.

Second, Strzok had been moved to the FBI’s human resources division as the Justice Department reviewed his conduct with regard to those politically charged text messages. On August 8, 2018, an FBI official in the Office of Professional Responsibility decided that he shouldn’t be fired, but rather demoted and suspended for 60 days. But then, the very next day, Strzok was fired immediately, without being given a chance to appeal the decision.

Now both McCabe and Strzok have filed lawsuits arguing that politics was the real reason behind both of the firings.

Link

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Former FBI officials Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok, who were each fired by the Trump administration after facing intense criticism from the president, both filed lawsuits against the Justice Department this week alleging unlawful political retaliation.

   

Fired by the Justice Dept., which they would argue is the Trump administration. That, though is disingenuous and decietful. Now, did Trump have anything to do with it? That'll be for the court to decide.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>The Atlantic offers a good article on White Identity Politics

It reads about the same if you substitute black, hispanic, feminist, aboriginal, gay, etc for white.  The author has discovered what people were saying immediately after the last election - after decades of being treated as an identifiable group, a bloc of whites seemed to vote like one*.  The key difference the interviewee noted is that the "ex-European" faction is protecting status that pretty much every other group still feels it has to attain.

The underlying question to answer is whether division of political power and privileges is zero-sum.  If it is not, and people can be convinced that it is not, then the path forward is easy.  If is it zero-sum, then the US - in which the political "prize" is huge - will continue to see more strongly expressed division than nearly all other countries.

*Given that vote counts moved away from the Democrat and Republican candidates toward the Green and Libertarian candidates between 2012 and 2016, "seemed" is a necessary qualifier.

 

[brihard]

   

Fired by the Justice Dept., which they would argue is the Trump administration. That, though is disingenuous and decietful. Now, did Trump have anything to do with it? That'll be for the court to decide.

It’s certainly part of the executive branch, and he was high enough to be fired by an appointed deputy director, so there’s merit to the claim.

Trump nominated the director for appointment. That director appointed the deputy who then fired Strzok. It’s certainly conceivable that there was political influence in his firing. Disingenuous? Not at all. Deceitful? Only if the claim is known not to be true by those making it. Given how much Trump et al railed against Strzok and alleged corruption while calling for him to be fired, there is certainly a case to be made for political retaliation.

As you say- it’s ultimately for the court to decide, if the administration doesn’t settle.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>We also did not have near the religious zealotry that existed when the US created things like manifest destiny, god given rights and all that.

At the time of founding, the US didn't have the religious zealotry some people imagine.  You might find it ironic that writers on the left and slightly extreme right (libertarians) have done much of the heavy lifting to dispel that myth. 

The idea of the US as two strong opposing factions suffers from the fact that the factions are not immutable; the identities change over time.  Canada escapes more divisive politics because the provinces still have a lot of power; in the US, the presidency holds an enormous amount of power.  The bigger the stakes; the bigger the fight.  (Western separatists in Canada are nowhere near achieving a critical mass for defection.)

As power increasingly accrues to a federal government, I'd expect politics to become increasingly adversarial.  This is what we observe in the US.  What progressives want ("more government") militates strongly against peace.  For collegial government to resume, progressives have to "lose".  If they "win" (achieve a more or less permanent but small majority which can control the presidency and House), I suppose the US will fracture.

 

[FJAG]

It's imbedded in their society and has been since day one.  Every so often it bubbles up.  The revolution had two camps.  A good chunk of the loyalists got out of dodge and moved to Canada but some stayed.  Then the Civil War breaks out North vs South but it was really about Slaves anyway you look at it and ways of life.  Intersperse immigrant resentment here and there in the last few hundred years, civil rights clashes in the 60's etc.  They are now back at it.  like a cycle.  Race is still an issue, immigrants are an issue, left vs right.  You now have a POTUS who has used all of those wedge issues to his advantage, stable genius in that regard for sure.  The problem right now is how normalised the language is on both sides now. 

We never had a race war per se.  Racism exists yes but Canada never had a slave society like the US did.  We also had a system where three cultures had to co-exist or face annexation or another revolution or civil war or whatever.  The Brits had to accommodate the French.  The French had always had to coexist with Indigenous peoples and that extended when the Brits took over.  It was not perfect but at least we don't have near what is happening south of us.  Canada's history is what makes us different.  That isn't to say that attempst to assimilate minorities or that armed conflicts didn't happen but they were smaller scale and localised. 

We also did not have near the religious zealotry that existed when the US created things like manifest destiny, god given rights and all that.  We did have some but not nearly what the US had and still has.

You make some excellent points.

On the "manifest destiny, god given rights" issue, I've just been re-watching the 1996 PBS series "Ken Burns Presents: The West" on Netflix. It leaves me shaking my head at how one people could/can treat others (in this case specifically Native Americans, Mexicans and Chinese in that order) in the name of progress and God.

:cheers:

 

[FJAG]

The cost of Trump's new Air Force One has skyrocketed nearly $2 billion from the original estimate

Ellen Ioanes Aug. 5, 2019, 4:07 PM


The new Air Force One will cost the Pentagon $5.2 billion, according to the Defense Department's first formal acquisition report for the aircraft.
In 2016, it was estimated that the new aircraft would cost $3.2 billion. A year later, President Donald Trump said he negotiated the planes' cost down by $1 billion.
The converted Boeing 747s are set to be delivered in 2024, although Trump has requested that they be delivered in 2021.
Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
According to Air Force Magazine, President Donald Trump's new Air Force One fleet will cost a total of $5.2 billion, up from the 2016 estimate of $3.2 billion.

Two Boeing 747-8s are being converted into VC-25s, the model used for VIP transport. They will serve as the "flying White House" starting in 2024, although Trump requested that they be ready for use in 2021.

Trump had boasted that he struck a deal with Boeing to lower the cost of renovating the jets, which were originally built for a now defunct Russian airline, by $1 billion. Boeing will be paid $3.9 billion to build the jets for the White House. The additional $1.3 billion comes from associated costs, like building hangars for the new jets. INSIDER reached out to the Air Force for comment on the new budget estimate but did not receive a response by press time.

The new estimate is the first time the Pentagon has actually provided a complete budget for the project; the number was included in its first formal acquisition estimate for the project, Air Force Magazine reported.

While Trump has said his new designs for Air Force One were for the benefit of future presidents, there's been little discussion about what the upgrades actually are, besides a new paint job.

In a June interview with George Stephanopoulos, Trump showed off four variations of the same red, white, and blue paint jobs for the new Air Force One, departing from the baby-blue color scheme that has been in use since the Kennedy era.

INSIDER previously reported that the new paint job looks quite a bit like the one on Trump's personal jet, a Boeing 757.

"It's going to be the top of the line, the top in the world. And it's going to be red, white, and blue, which I think is appropriate," Trump said.

In the same interview, Trump said the new Air Force One "is going to be incredible."

"We added things," he said, without elaborating.

https://www.businessinsider.com/air-force-one-pentagon-52-billion-2019-8

 

[kkwd]

RUSSIA! RUSSIA! RUSS ...... RACISM! RACISM RACISM! Seems the New York Times needs to refocus their efforts in light of the dud the Mueller report was. Don't you love it when a paper has a plan, go for one thing with tremendous effort.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/new-york-times-chief-outlines-coverage-shift-from-trump-russia-to-trump-racism

Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York Times, said recently that, after the Mueller report, the paper has to shift the focus of its coverage from the Trump-Russia affair to the president's alleged racism.
"We built our newsroom to cover one story, and we did it truly well," Baquet said. "Now we have to regroup, and shift resources and emphasis to take on a different story."

The town hall was spurred by angry reaction, both inside and outside the Times, to a headline that many on the Left faulted for being insufficiently anti-Trump. After the El Paso shootings, when the president denounced white supremacy, the Times published a page-one story with the heading, "Trump Urges Unity Vs. Racism."

 

[mariomike]

RUSSIA! RUSSIA! RUSS ......

Not a "witch hunt"?
https://www.google.com/search?biw=1280&bih=641&ei=2c1XXY6FDsy5ggfQ1ZuoCQ&q=trump+%22witch+hunt%22&oq=trump+%22witch+hunt%22&gs_l=psy-ab.3...6344.9835..10340...0.0..0.211.387.0j1j1......0....1..gws-wiz.x_1HnlzrWXQ&ved=0ahUKEwjO1f_F0InkAhXMnOAKHdDqBpUQ4dUDCAo&uact=5#spf=1566035429521

RACISM! RACISM RACISM!

Not a "hoax"?
https://www.google.com/search?biw=1280&bih=641&ei=5c1XXeSeDebH_QauspHQAw&q=%22white+supremacy%22+hoax&oq=%22white+supremacy%22+hoax&gs_l=psy-ab.3...39502.49529..51423...0.0..0.370.3061.1j20j0j1......0....1..gws-wiz.......35i39j0i67j0i131j0j0i20i263.ce1CGfk098s&ved=0ahUKEwikpdvL0InkAhXmY98KHS5ZBDoQ4dUDCAo&uact=5#spf=1566035482515

 

[Remius]

Looks like Fox News might be heading into fake news territory for Donald Trump...



https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/19/politics/donald-trump-fox-news/index.html

 

[kkwd]

Edit: removed .jpg

Why didn't you just link to the original WaPo opinion piece?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/21/trump-just-nixed-denmark-trip-does-he-fear-contrast-with-obama/?noredirect=on

Some observers have offered another possible explanation: Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, plans to visit Denmark at the end of September, and Trump feared the contrasting optics.

“Trump was scared of the likely contrast,” opined David Frum. “Trump knows Obama is bigger than he is, around the world as well as in the United States. That knowledge tortures Trump.”

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I thought we weren't doing memes in the politics threads. It's about to get crowded in here, because I have lots.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>Why didn't you just link to the original WaPo opinion piece?

What would be the point?  It's an opinion of Trump's state of mind written by someone who is not Trump and doesn't like Trump.  There is a universe of potential opinions; why waste time on one?

I saw a forgettable movie about a long car chase (that was the whole movie) years ago.  Cary Elwes did an amusing send-up of a news anchor endlessly speculating about what was going on with the drama-in-the-making.  That is pretty much the state of reporting on Trump.  I can't conceive of wasting time trying to fathom someone that erratic.  It's all a bit Walter Mitty - people imagining things they want to imagine.

 

[garb811]

I thought we weren't doing memes in the politics threads. It's about to get crowded in here, because I have lots.

No change to the rules.

Milnet.ca Staff

 

[kkwd]

>Why didn't you just link to the original WaPo opinion piece?

What would be the point?  It's an opinion of Trump's state of mind written by someone who is not Trump and doesn't like Trump.  There is a universe of potential opinions; why waste time on one?

I saw a forgettable movie about a long car chase (that was the whole movie) years ago.  Cary Elwes did an amusing send-up of a news anchor endlessly speculating about what was going on with the drama-in-the-making.  That is pretty much the state of reporting on Trump.  I can't conceive of wasting time trying to fathom someone that erratic.  It's all a bit Walter Mitty - people imagining things they want to imagine.

I agree with all of your points. I just posted it to help out a fellow member, he posted a meme that didn't make any sense.

 

[Remius]

Interesting take in the Atlantic.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/08/trump-denmark/596557/

The second to last paragraph hits the nail on the head I think.

Michael Jarlner, the international editor for Politiken, agrees. “What Denmark has learned with the cancellation is that this really is about the Arctic: The U.S. wants full control,” he says. “And that puts us in a very difficult situation, trying to balance between the three major players there.”

 

[brihard]

Apparently Mr Trump’s feelings are hurt that buying Greenland was described as ‘absurd’. This is beginning to devolve into a tantrum.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49423968

US President Donald Trump has called the Danish leader "nasty" after she rebuffed his idea of buying Greenland.
He lashed out hours after Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she was "sorry" that Mr Trump had abruptly called off a state visit to Denmark.
She has dismissed the suggestion of such a land deal as "absurd".
Queen Margrethe II invited Mr Trump to visit Denmark on 2 September, and the manner of his cancellation has stunned the Scandinavian nation.
What did the US president say?
Speaking to reporters on the White House lawn on Wednesday afternoon, Mr Trump took umbrage at Ms Frederiksen's remarks.

"I thought that the prime minister's statement that it was absurd, that it was an absurd idea was nasty," he said.

"I thought it was an inappropriate statement. All she had to do is say no, we wouldn't be interested."

He added: "She's not talking to me. She's talking to the United States of America. You don't talk to the United States that way, at least under me."
Mr Trump pointed out that US President Harry Truman once considered making an offer for Greenland, which is an autonomous Danish territory.

He continued to make digs at Denmark online.

What did the Danish PM say?
Earlier on Wednesday, Ms Frederiksen reiterated that Greenland could not be bought.
She told reporters the idea of selling the resource-rich Arctic island had "clearly been rejected" by its leader, Kim Kielsen, "a position I share of course".

Ms Frederiksen also said the American president's visit would have been an "opportunity to celebrate Denmark's close relationship to the US".

"This does not change the character of our good relations and we will continue our dialogue on how we can deal with challenges we are facing," she said, adding that the invitation to Mr Trump "remains open".

She has said Mr Trump's no-show was a matter of regret because "our preparations were well under way".

How did we get here?

While praising Denmark as a "very special country", Mr Trump said in a tweet on Tuesday that his planned visit would no longer go ahead because Ms Frederiksen had "no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland".

Mr Trump had earlier confirmed reports that he was interested in buying Greenland. When asked on Sunday if he would consider trading a US territory for the island, he replied: "Well, a lot of things could be done."

"Essentially it's a large real estate deal," he said.

On Monday, the US president tweeted a jokey image showing a tall golden skyscraper among the homes of a small village on the island.

How have Danes reacted?

The cancellation was described as a "farce" by the leader of the populist Danish People's Party, Kristian Thulesen Dahl.

"What is this man thinking of though? And with grounds that are worthy of an April Fools' joke," he tweeted.

Danish Conservative MP Rasmus Jarlov accused Mr Trump of lacking respect for his country.

Former foreign minister Kristian Jensen said Mr Trump's move had resulted in "total chaos".

A spokeswoman for the leftist Red-Green Alliance, Pernille Skipper, said: "Trump lives on another planet."

Pia Kjaersgaard, the populist former speaker of the Danish parliament, said it showed "rude behaviour to the Danish people and the Queen, who invited him."

Why might Greenland appeal to the US?

Mr Trump has reportedly taken an interest in Greenland, in part, because of its resources, such as coal, zinc, copper and iron ore.
But while Greenland may be rich in minerals, it relies on Denmark for two-thirds of its budget revenue. It has high rates of suicide, alcoholism and unemployment.

The US has long seen the island, which sits along a direct route from Europe to North America, as being strategically important. It established the Thule air force and radar base there at the start of the Cold War, which now covers space surveillance and forms the northernmost part of the US ballistic missile early warning system.

Meanwhile, new Arctic sea routes are opening up as climate change is blamed for the accelerating thaw of ice in the region.

China has recently been taking an interest in the area, too.