[sharon j]

Interesting discussion here

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2017-January-26, 08:25, said:

The correct action for a serious charge of voter fraud is a thorough investigation led by people of unquestioned integrity.

So now that he's POTUS, anything he pulls out of his ass has to be considered a "serious charge", worthy of spending lots of money on a thorough investigation? No justification required, just his suspicion?

Police have to have "reasonable cause" to detain someone for questioning, get a search warrant, etc. If he tweeted that Ken Berg is a terrorist, with no supporting evidence, would that be enough to send you to Guantanamo?

[y66]

Vampyr, on 2017-January-26, 09:25, said:

Trump had said if he lost it would be due voter fraud, and now he has won but is claiming it is due to fraud the that he (seemingly!) lost the popular vote.

When is he going to claim that it was voter fraud that stopped him from winning the 95% margins that dictators in one-party states achieve?

One thing is pretty important -- those of you who live in states with onerous voter-registration laws have to start or join organisations that will assist people getting registered.

Good idea. The Brennan Center For Justice is a good place to start.

[Winstonm]

The guy in the WH that most scares me is not Trump but Bannon. Like a background ghost of Dick Cheney, only intelligent rather than simply belligerent.

Edit: I would not put it past Bannon to introduce a double-agent-like fake leaker from inside the WH, with the sole purpose of discrediting main stream news sources as reliable. I think the executive actions to shutdown agency information also has Bannon's fingerprints all over it.

This is what made me think about a possible fake leaker and its ramifications.

[johnu]

barmar, on 2017-January-23, 16:05, said:

Are there Trump supporters here who can say how they're reacting to his claims about the inauguration attendance? How do you maintain your trust in someone who spouts such total BS?

I can state with authority that there were nearly 2 million people at the Trump inauguration which breaks all attendance records. You have to take out a magnifying glass to see clearly, but all the white spaces you see are actually 1 million+ Klansmen standing so close together that their white sheets all blend together. There are also a 1/2 million Trump Super-supporter A-Listers (ie the SA's) standing in formation on the brown spaces surrounding the white spaces. You also have to look very closely since for unknown reasons, they all decided to wear the same colored brown suits that day.

[hrothgar]

Oh look... Trump just sacked the senior career staff at the state department...

[ldrews]

Quote

Oh look... Trump just sacked the senior career staff at the state department...

I thought I read that those sacked were political appointees, not career civil servants. Isn't that standard procedure whenever a new administration of a different party comes into power?

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2017-January-26, 10:30, said:

So now that he's POTUS, anything he pulls out of his ass has to be considered a "serious charge", worthy of spending lots of money on a thorough investigation? No justification required, just his suspicion?

Police have to have "reasonable cause" to detain someone for questioning, get a search warrant, etc. If he tweeted that Ken Berg is a terrorist, with no supporting evidence, would that be enough to send you to Guantanamo?

Here is the problem as I see it: Until now, people have always treated what the POTUS says as serious. They pay close attention to his exact words. If there is a slight unexpected nuance they analyze it in detail to see if it means a shift in US policy. The same is done woth other major leaders. Well, that's gone. Trump pulls something out of his ass or out of the sky or wherever, he tweets it and people say "Well, that's just the way he is, don't take him seriously". It comes at us so fast it is impossible to keep up with it. I gather i that in an interview with the Washingrton Post he was talking about health care and said that he would arrange it so that everyone would have insurance. The his various nominees for this and that explained he didn't mean that literally. Then he explained that he did.

I think it is a very bad thing for nobody to have any idea of when, if ever, they can take what he says both literally and seriously.

So I am thinking this stuff with voter fraud could be a test case. I am assuming that most Rs and most Ds in the House and in the Senate are not total morons. If they are, the game is over. So suppose that they are not. I doubt very much that they believe that there were 3 to 5 million fraudulent votes cast, unless the lower number in 3 to 5 million is just 3 rather than 3 million. I suggest pushing on them here. The choices, and I think that they can see this, are (1) fund a fake investigation, chaired by Priebus, with a conclusion known from the start, that he would have won the popular vote if not for massive fraud or (2) do an honest investigation carried out by individuals dedicated to getting the truth, whatever it is. . Doing (2) will require a lot of time and money, and it will require getting people involved who are very broadly trusted. The key identifying feature of a type (2) investigation is that nobody will be able to predict with certainty what their conclusion will be.

I am thinking that at least a fair number of Rs would gag at (1), and would see that the consequences of (2), while not known with certainty, are apt to make them look very foolish for pursuing such a waste of time and money.

I am certainly open to other options. But I think that reasonable people of any party can see that having a president spouting random BS is not good for the country. Saying that "yes we will do an investigation but it has to be a serious one rather than an indulgence in one man's fantasy" could bring people of various political views face to face with reality.

[kenberg]

At the risk of boring everyone, I want to cite another conservative, this time the very conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer

An excerpt:

Quote

No more, declared Trump: "From this day forward, it's going to be only America First."

Imagine how this resonates abroad. "America First" was the name of the organization led by Charles Lindbergh that bitterly fought FDR before U.S. entry into World War II — right through the Battle of Britain — to keep America neutral between Churchill's Britain and Hitler's Reich. (Then came Pearl Harbor. Within a week, America First dissolved itself in shame.)

Not that Trump was consciously imitating Lindbergh. I doubt he was even aware of the reference. He just liked the phrase. But I can assure you that in London and in every world capital they are aware of the antecedent and the intimations of a new American isolationism. Trump gave them good reason to think so, going on to note "the right of all nations to put their own interests first." America included.

Yes! Even adolescent Ken, more interested in girls, cars and mathematics (in some order) than in history, learned about Lindbergh and the America First movement. Of course it reverberates. With me, and I am sure very strongly in Europe. Rightly or wrongly, CK says "Not that Trump was consciously imitating Lindbergh. I doubt he was even aware of the reference." So we have people in London and elsewhere wondering what the hell to make of this channeling of Lindbergh while at home people are saying we should not take him literally, or not take him seriously, or something. . Well, it is time to decide just how we should take him. I see him as a guy who loves to shoot off his mouth, thinking first be damned. Bad enough as a candidate, seriously awful as a president.

[Winstonm]

The best political move for Democrats is to assure the Republicans own and be shown to be responsible for creating this monstrosity.

Just in case there is doubt that Bannon is the most frightening figure in the WH.

[hrothgar]

ldrews, on 2017-January-26, 20:04, said:

I thought I read that those sacked were political appointees, not career civil servants. Isn't that standard procedure whenever a new administration of a different party comes into power?

As usual, you're providing us with "alternative facts"

I have a number of friends who are career foreign service officers. I asked them for some specific examples of what is going on. Here is a direct quote:

Quote

career FSO Tom Countryman, acting Undersecretary for Arms Control. En route Rome for a non prolif meeting. Literally on the plane in the air. Lands, gets told to turn around and come home, and be gone from the Department by tomorrow. Tom is a superb, skilled, expert, professional career FSO. You don't do this.

https://www.state.go...biog/174947.htm

[Trinidad]

So as I understand, Trump's plan is to finance the wall to Mexico by a 20% tariff on import from Mexico. Now, who is paying that tariff, the Mexican exporter or the US importer? So, who will be paying for the wall?

Rik

[Zelandakh]

hrothgar, on 2017-January-26, 22:32, said:

As usual, you're providing us with "alternative facts"

I have a number of friends who are career foreign service officers. I asked them for some specific examples of what is going on. Here is a direct quote:

https://www.state.go...biog/174947.htm

My understanding is that he was recently critical of Syria in the State Department's blog, although the entry appears to have been removed.

Quote

...an independent international panel established by the UN Security Council in 2015, concluded this year that Syrian Arab Armed Forces used chlorine barrel bombs on civilians in three separate attacks in Syria in 2014 and 2015.

That is likely to have been a "good reason" for him to be rebuked or even fired. Ironically this entry was just as offensive to the outgoing administration in defending their "red line" position.

[helene_t]

Trinidad, on 2017-January-27, 03:17, said:

So as I understand, Trump's plan is to finance the wall to Mexico by a 20% tariff on import from Mexico. Now, who is paying that tariff, the Mexican exporter or the US importer? So, who will be paying for the wall?

Rik

Probably half-half or thereabouts since the mexican peso will decrease in value and/or mexican exporters will have to lower their prices.

Of course the mexicans will retaliate so everyone will lose except for smuglers, bermuda-based reexporters and similar.

[kenberg]

helene_t, on 2017-January-27, 04:51, said:

Probably half-half or thereabouts since the mexican peso will decrease in value and/or mexican exporters will have to lower their prices.

Of course the mexicans will retaliate so everyone will lose except for smuglers, bermuda-based reexporters and similar.

And the price of blueberries from Mexico will go up. We mustn't overlook that.


The plan is to simplify our trading relations with other countries. We won't have any.

[Al_U_Card]

kenberg, on 2017-January-27, 07:12, said:

And the price of blueberries from Mexico will go up. We mustn't overlook that.


The plan is to simplify our trading relations with other countries. We won't have any.

So they will send their blueberries here to Canada? Win some, lose some...

Either way, it is the consumer who will pay in the end.

As for the State dept. business,
The Atlantic
Hotair's Jphn Sexton
and
CNN too!

all say, if you read past the 1st paragraph. that it is pretty much typical especially given that Patrick Kennedy was responsible for both Benghazi security arrangements AND trying to reclassify Hillary's e-mails. I suppose once he saw that he wasn't being renewed, he "resigned" in a show of.... well, whatever.

[Al_U_Card]

ldrews, on 2017-January-26, 20:04, said:

I thought I read that those sacked were political appointees, not career civil servants. Isn't that standard procedure whenever a new administration of a different party comes into power?

Pretty much it. ALL dept. has career underlings that do the non-politicized real work. The appointees are just there to steer things for the party in power.

[Zelandakh]

kenberg, on 2017-January-27, 07:12, said:

The plan is to simplify our trading relations with other countries. We won't have any.

Let's reserve judgement on that. The first major test comes this week with Theresa May's visit. She badly needs a trade deal to show that Brexit does not need to be a disaster for business. Trump in turn needs to show what "America First" means practically. There is also the secondary story of whether Don + Theresa can be the new Ron + Maggie. If the negotiations go well and Britain gets what it wants at the same time as DT being able to claim that he has secured American jobs, that would obviously be a positive signal for future re-negotiations of trade treaties.

On the Mexico front, there is an easy solution that will probably satisfy everyone. I am sure that Mexico buys lots of stuff from the US. I can imagine a deal in which America agrees to give Mexico some part of that for free and in return Mexico agrees to pay for the border improvements. That the numbers on each side of that contract match would obviously be a complete fluke. Everyone is happy, noone has to lose face, trade is secured. DT gets to claim that Mexico "caved" because of his tough stance on import tariffs without actually having to do anything that would negatively affect trade or relations.

We are still at the early days of this story. Don't be so quick to believe all the bluster flying around!

[ldrews]

Quote

As usual, you're providing us with "alternative facts"

I have a number of friends who are career foreign service officers. I asked them for some specific examples of what is going on. Here is a direct quote:

Quote
career FSO Tom Countryman, acting Undersecretary for Arms Control. En route Rome for a non prolif meeting. Literally on the plane in the air. Lands, gets told to turn around and come home, and be gone from the Department by tomorrow. Tom is a superb, skilled, expert, professional career FSO. You don't do this.


https://www.state.go...biog/174947.htm

Quote

Acting Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security
Term of Appointment: 09/27/2011 to present

As I said, a political appointee.

[kenberg]

Zelandakh, on 2017-January-27, 07:42, said:

On the Mexico front, there is an easy solution that will probably satisfy everyone. I am sure that Mexico buys lots of stuff from the US. I can imagine a deal in which America agrees to give Mexico some part of that for free and in return Mexico agrees to pay for the border improvements. That the numbers on each side of that contract match would obviously be a complete fluke. Everyone is happy, noone has to lose face, trade is secured. DT gets to claim that Mexico "caved" because of his tough stance on import tariffs without actually having to do anything that would negatively affect trade or relations.

I prefer things to be a little more straightforward. But this gives me an excuse for a musical interlude.


https://www.youtube....h?v=KwwckZbrXck