U.S. Politics 2017 (split fm US Election: 2016)

[Brad Sallows]

Not sure whether there is a better place to put this.  A long read, but some may be interested.

There's a Logic to Trump's War On the Media by David Greenberg, at The American Prospect.

"Sometimes this adversarial posture was channeled into hard-hitting, critical reportage. During the ensuing decades, however, it increasingly appeared as gratuitous scandal-mongering, snide and captious television punditry, or overblown feeding frenzies over small-bore pseudo-scandals. The result was to damage the press corps’ standing with not only conservatives but voters of all stripes."

"Finally, Trump’s tweeting helps him set the agenda. It puts journalists in a reactive position. Thousands of them chase after his tweets—retweeting them, responding to them, fact-checking them, ridiculing them, taking umbrage at them, using them as the basis for columns, hot takes, and idle chatter..."

"...it [Twitter] has also increased the emphasis on snark, as purportedly neutral Washington reporters—men and women who are expected to banish any hint of editorializing from their news stories—dispense with professionalism to spin out sassy, hostile, nit-picking, pompous, and ill-informed opinions, whether about Trump or anything else that pops up on their phones."

 

[The Bread Guy]

Well, now ...

Statement from the Press Secretary

Today (9 May 2017), President Donald J. Trump informed FBI Director James Comey that he has been terminated and removed from office.  President Trump acted based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

“The FBI is one of our Nation’s most cherished and respected institutions and today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement,” said President Trump.

A search for a new permanent FBI Director will begin immediately.

... while in other news, "Trump to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the White House"

 

[tomahawk6]

Comey had to go after misleading Congress.He was an Obama appointee and I think until Trump fires all Obama appointee's he wont get a handle on the bureaucracy. It hasnt helped that the Democrats are stonewalling Trump nominee's.He should have filled all the executive level appointments.

 

[Journeyman]

~sigh~  As much as I try to avoid this thread.....  :not-again:

It hasnt helped that the Democrats are stonewalling Trump nominee's.

Interesting boogeyman, those Dems.  However, you do  know that Republicans have a majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, thus controlling both houses of Congress;  they have since 2014.

Simplified: 
Republicans are also stonewalling Trump's nominees. <-- note: no judgement on why even Republicans would say "WTF?" about some nominees.


/US Civics 101

 

[tomahawk6]

The rules of the Senate can work for the minority as well as the majority. The Senate process can be tedious. Perhaps you should read up on them ?

 

[Journeyman]

Perhaps you should read up on them ?

Yep, perhaps one of us should.   

 

[Lumber]

This is what I found:

Unanimous consent of the time and date for debate must be agreed upon by all senators.[4] If even one senator does not agree, a hold is placed on the nomination.[4] Once the nomination is considered by the Senate, unlimited debate is allowed until two-thirds of the Senate vote to invoke cloture, closing debate.[1] Following a vote of cloture, the Senate conducts a simple majority vote on whether to confirm, reject or take no action on the nomination

Since the Republicans only hold a bare majority, I can several different ways the Democrats could stonewall nominations.

However, given that the first line indicates a requirement for unanimous consent, I don't see how the opposition parties of any Congress in history hasn't been able to permanently stonewall nominations they REALLY disagree with. They could just continue to prevent the debate from happening at all? And wouldn't they if they REALLY hated the nominee?

 

[The Bread Guy]

And now, for a touch of levity ...

A Message From Interim FBI Director, Kid Rock

Greetings, fellow Americans —

Last night I got a call on my hot tub phone from my friend and Kid Rock’s Chillin’ The Most Cruise 2015 bunkmate, President Donald Trump. I expected this was in regards to the five grand he owes me due to an ice luge incident from the aforementioned cruise. It was not — although I believe him when he says he’s good for the cash.
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No, instead the president asked me to take the wheel of the FBI until they found somebody to be the full-time director. I set down my Cristal, motioned to Rina and Loni to put their robes on, and told D-Money I would be honored and jacked to take the job.

Now, listen, I know you’re probably a little confused about all of this craziness and uncertainty in the news. You’re scared and a little freaked out, wondering what this means for you, for your family, and for Kid Rock’s Chillin The Most Cruise 2018. Well, don’t freak out, peeps — you can rest easy in knowing that the Kid will not sell out.

No, I’m not gonna stop being me just because I picked up this fancy part-time gig. “FBI director” is just going to be another job title on my resumé, like “breakdancer” or “rap-rock musician” or “cruise namesake.” And yes, I’m gonna keep wearing my hat.

The transition of power will be as smooth as my transition from rap-rock to rap-country rock. Plus, the FBI’s motto, Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity, is almost word-for-word the same as my own personal motto: Bawitdaba.
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In short, the FBI will not change me; I will change the FBI. I once told you that I wanted to be a “cowboy, baby.” That’s still true. Only now instead of smelling pigs from a mile away I will smell… I guess crime and other bad stuff? Sorry, haven’t had orientation yet.

And as far as any current investigations go, I’m probably not gonna sweat those. It’s only eleven more months until the ninth annual “Kid Rock’s Chillin’ The Most Cruise” and my plate’s already getting pretty full organizing that — it’s going to be insane!

Keep chillin’,
Kid

 

[Fishbone Jones]

:rofl: Oh shit, there's going to be thousands of SJWs, ANTIFAs and dems losing their losing their lunch, running blindly into walls and immigrating to France when they read that!!!!

That's a hoot. :rofl: :rofl:

 

[Altair]

So trump talked about classified information regard a ally's intel (Believed to be Israel) to the Russian ambassador, potentially putting said ally's asset in danger.

According to the Washington post, the information talked about was under Codeword classification, above top secret.

I wonder how this effects the 5 eyes, and if intel sharing with the US is about to turn into a one way street. As in they will take any intel shared by the americans but wont share any of their intel with them.

This is one case where Trump is making the lives of American citizens more dangerous.

 

[The Bread Guy]

So trump talked about classified information regard a ally's intel (Believed to be Israel) to the Russian ambassador, potentially putting said ally's asset in danger ...

Like this guy says, "Do not believe anything until the Kremlin denies it™" ...

"Moscow dismisses reports Trump revealed secret information to Russia as political pressure"

 

[Rifleman62]

Altair:

So trump talked about classified information regard a ally's intel (Believed to be Israel) to the Russian ambassador, potentially putting said ally's asset in danger.

According to the Washington post, the information talked about was under Codeword classification, above top secret.

I wonder how this effects the 5 eyes, and if intel sharing with the US is about to turn into a one way street. As in they will take any intel shared by the americans but wont share any of their intel with them.

This is one case where Trump is making the lives of American citizens more dangerous.

Can you say Hillary Clinton's unprotected basement server operating for her term as S of S?

Don't forget the Washington Post's 30: ​The Post's story, written by four reporters, said it had gathered "the private (unprecedented unnamed)accounts of more than 30 officials at the White House, the Justice Department, the FBI and on Capitol Hill, as well as Trump confidants and other senior Republicans, [to] paint a conflicting narrative centred on the president's brewing personal animus toward Comey."

Do you know who owns the WP and what his intent is?

By the way, 30 unnamed confidents and senior officials say Altair will be promoted immediately and deployed to Africa. Start packing.

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

Altair:
Can you say Hillary Clinton's unprotected basement server operating for her term as S of S?

Don't forget the Washington Post's 30: ​The Post's story, written by four reporters, said it had gathered "the private (unprecedented unnamed)accounts of more than 30 officials at the White House, the Justice Department, the FBI and on Capitol Hill, as well as Trump confidants and other senior Republicans, [to] paint a conflicting narrative centred on the president's brewing personal animus toward Comey."

Do you know who owns the WP and what his intent is?

By the way, 30 unnamed confidents and senior officials say Altair will be promoted immediately and deployed to Africa. Start packing.

The hillary Clinton thing is a strawman...

That said, if Russia is an enemy than Trump telling them classified info is worse than Clinton.

It's starting to look like time to end this farce known as the Trump presidency

 

[FJAG]

David Brooks: When the world is led by a child-president who hasn’t mastered three basic things every adult is supposed to

At certain times Donald Trump has seemed like a budding authoritarian, a corrupt Nixon, a rabble-rousing populist or a big business corporatist.
But as Trump has settled into his White House role, he has given a series of long interviews, and when you study the transcripts it becomes clear that fundamentally he is none of these things.

At base, Trump is an infantalist. There are three tasks that most mature adults have sort of figured out by the time they hit 25. Trump has mastered none of them. Immaturity is becoming the dominant note of his presidency, lack of self-control his leitmotif.

First, most adults have learned to sit still. But mentally, Trump is still a 7-year-old boy who is bouncing around the classroom. Trump’s answers in these interviews are not very long — 200 words at the high end — but he will typically flit through four or five topics before ending up with how unfair the press is to him.

His inability to focus his attention makes it hard for him to learn and master facts. He is ill informed about his own policies and tramples his own talking points. It makes it hard to control his mouth. On an impulse, he will promise a tax reform when his staff has done little of the actual work.

Second, most people of drinking age have achieved some accurate sense of themselves, some internal criteria to measure their own merits and demerits. But Trump seems to need perpetual outside approval to stabilize his sense of self, so he is perpetually desperate for approval, telling heroic fabulist tales about himself.

“In a short period of time I understood everything there was to know about health care,” he told Time. “A lot of the people have said that, some people said it was the single best speech ever made in that chamber,” he told The Associated Press, referring to his joint session speech.

By Trump’s own account, he knows more about aircraft carrier technology than the Navy. According to his interview with The Economist, he invented the phrase “priming the pump” (even though it was famous by 1933). Trump is not only trying to deceive others. His falsehoods are attempts to build a world in which he can feel good for an instant and comfortably deceive himself.

He is thus the all-time record-holder of the Dunning-Kruger effect, the phenomenon in which the incompetent person is too incompetent to understand his own incompetence. Trump thought he’d be celebrated for firing James Comey. He thought his press coverage would grow wildly positive once he won the nomination. He is perpetually surprised because reality does not comport with his fantasies.

Third, by adulthood most people can perceive how others are thinking. For example, they learn subtle arts such as false modesty so they won’t be perceived as obnoxious.

But Trump seems to have not yet developed a theory of mind. Other people are black boxes that supply either affirmation or disapproval. As a result, he is weirdly transparent. He wants people to love him, so he is constantly telling interviewers that he is widely loved. In Trump’s telling, every meeting was scheduled for 15 minutes but his guests stayed two hours because they liked him so much.

Which brings us to the reports that Trump betrayed an intelligence source and leaked secrets to his Russian visitors. From all we know so far, Trump didn’t do it because he is a Russian agent, or for any malevolent intent. He did it because he is sloppy, because he lacks all impulse control, and above all because he is a 7-year-old boy desperate for the approval of those he admires.

The Russian leak story reveals one other thing, the dangerousness of a hollow man.

Our institutions depend on people who have enough engraved character traits to fulfill their assigned duties. But there is perpetually less to Trump than it appears. When we analyze a president’s utterances we tend to assume that there is some substantive process behind the words, that it’s part of some strategic intent.

But Trump’s statements don’t necessarily come from anywhere, lead anywhere or have a permanent reality beyond his wish to be liked at any given instant.

We’ve got this perverse situation in which the vast analytic powers of the entire world are being spent trying to understand a guy whose thoughts are often just six fireflies beeping randomly in a jar.

“We badly want to understand Trump, to grasp him,” David Roberts writes in Vox. “It might give us some sense of control, or at least an ability to predict what he will do next. But what if there’s nothing to understand? What if there is no there there?”

And out of that void comes a carelessness that quite possibly betrayed an intelligence source, and endangered a country.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/david-brooks-when-the-world-is-led-by-a-child-president-who-hasnt-mastered-three-basic-things-every-adult-is-supposed-to

:cheers:

 

[Brad Sallows]

>That said, if Russia is an enemy than Trump telling them classified info is worse than Clinton.

Depends entirely on the information shared.  Russia isn't an "enemy".  (Nations have neither absolute friends nor absolute enemies.)  I suppose the '80s decided it didn't want its foreign policy back.  That said, there's a difference between knowing exactly what you said and not having a clue about what might have been pulled from your servers.

“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters.  I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.”

Apparently it goes with the job.

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

>That said, if Russia is an enemy than Trump telling them classified info is worse than Clinton.

Depends entirely on the information shared.  Russia isn't an "enemy".  (Nations have neither absolute friends nor absolute enemies.)  I suppose the '80s decided it didn't want its foreign policy back.  That said, there's a difference between knowing exactly what you said and not having a clue about what might have been pulled from your servers.

“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters.  I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.”

Apparently it goes with the job.

I agree that Russia isn't an enemy, which is part of the irony since many on the right (and on this site) seem to want to reinforce Latvia from the Russian invasion which isn't coming but also defend Trump by saying Russia isn't bad.

The Trump-Russia connection is becoming like the Clinton email and Clinton foundation scandals- nothing can exactly be connected but it seems more and more suspicious by the hour

 

[tomahawk6]

The US and Russia are fighting IS.Its not uncommon to share intelligence.Essentially this is another WaPo fake news story. The media used to source a story before running it. Now they just make it up.

 

[The Bread Guy]

The US and Russia are fighting IS.Its not uncommon to share intelligence ...

... and the info-sharing conveyor belt is so much more efficient when there's a "media photographer"in the room working for an agency that, at least in the past, has been used as a cover for intelligence officers -- but I'm sure that's all changed now that The Wall is down and the KGB is history ...

 

[Altair]

The US and Russia are fighting IS.Its not uncommon to share intelligence.Essentially this is another WaPo fake news story. The media used to source a story before running it. Now they just make it up.

Sharing intel is not uncommon. But if trump shared intel given by the Israelis that was top secret/codeword classification which could compromise active field agents that's another thing entirely. Israel did not give permission for this intel to be shared. Trump blurted it out in a meeting with the russian ambassador.

Intel agencies worldwide are probably reviewing whether or not to share sensitive intel with the US knowing that the US President might just leak it to the Russians.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Folks, nothing to see here, we can move right along now that we can get to the bottom of this ...
"Putin offers transcript of Trump meeting with Lavrov"

And in case you think CNN is "fake news", here's some sources we trust you'll trust ...
"Putin ready to provide records of Trump-Lavrov talks to prove no secrets were leaked" (RT RUS state media)
"Russia ready to provide transcript* of Lavrov-Trump talks" (TASS)
Meanwhile, an advance view of the transcript, via @DarthPutinKGB, attached.

* - I guess someone in the Kremlin Info-machine's still ... finessing any tape or audio recordings made during the meeting.