Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-22-2016, 11:08 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(11-22-2016, 10:48 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Well, he seems to have backed off another of his campaign promises.  He apparently isn't going to lock up Hillary.

I'm not sure that was a campaign promise.  I don't think there were many who expected it to be done.  If it looked like he would actually push prosecution, Obama would have pardoned her, anyway.

True enough.  Then again, I don't think getting Mexico to pay for his wall was a serious promise either.  It was just a way to inflame his base.  I couldn't treat the numbers he was throwing up for tax cuts seriously either.  Those too have been seriously changed since the election.  Frankly, I'm quite happy that a lot of what he said during the campaign was empty, but it doesn't give me a good feel for what he really is going to do.

[Warren Dew]

He said early on in the campaign that what he was presenting were initial bargaining positions, and that he expected to have to rein it in. That might not have gotten widely reported.

I think it's a reasonable bet that what he will do is in between the current situation and what he promised. With respect to legislation, Congress gets more say than he does anyway.

Edit: agreed about Mexico paying for the wall. Although, paying for the wall might be cheaper for Mexico than seeing NAFTA disappear.

[radind]

https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-...ail-system

The Comy FBI statement.

[Eric the Green]

(11-22-2016, 11:08 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(11-22-2016, 10:48 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Well, he seems to have backed off another of his campaign promises.  He apparently isn't going to lock up Hillary.

I'm not sure that was a campaign promise.  I don't think there were many who expected it to be done.  If it looked like he would actually push prosecution, Obama would have pardoned her, anyway.

You mean if Trump "threatened" again to lock her up. Before Jan 20, Trump can't lock her up, and after Jan.20 Obama can't pardon her.

[Galen]

(11-22-2016, 11:08 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(11-22-2016, 10:48 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Well, he seems to have backed off another of his campaign promises.  He apparently isn't going to lock up Hillary.

I'm not sure that was a campaign promise.  I don't think there were many who expected it to be done.  If it looked like he would actually push prosecution, Obama would have pardoned her, anyway.

Trump may not seek charges but Sessions and the FBI might still be inclined to do it.  Even if they don't do it over the e-mails there are still several Clinton Foundations investigations they may put the Clinton family in jail.

[Eric the Green]

(11-22-2016, 03:52 PM)Galen Wrote:

(11-22-2016, 11:08 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(11-22-2016, 10:48 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Well, he seems to have backed off another of his campaign promises.  He apparently isn't going to lock up Hillary.

I'm not sure that was a campaign promise.  I don't think there were many who expected it to be done.  If it looked like he would actually push prosecution, Obama would have pardoned her, anyway.

Trump may not seek charges but Sessions and the FBI might still be inclined to do it.  Even if they don't do it over the e-mails there are still several Clinton Foundations investigations they may put the Clinton family in jail.

I imagine they would have to wait until they had packed the Courts with their cronies.

[Galen]

(11-22-2016, 04:07 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-22-2016, 03:52 PM)Galen Wrote:

(11-22-2016, 11:08 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(11-22-2016, 10:48 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Well, he seems to have backed off another of his campaign promises.  He apparently isn't going to lock up Hillary.

I'm not sure that was a campaign promise.  I don't think there were many who expected it to be done.  If it looked like he would actually push prosecution, Obama would have pardoned her, anyway.

Trump may not seek charges but Sessions and the FBI might still be inclined to do it.  Even if they don't do it over the e-mails there are still several Clinton Foundations investigations they may put the Clinton family in jail.

I imagine they would have to wait until they had packed the Courts with their cronies.

I thought you had me on ignore.  You sent a private message just to make sure that I knew you were ignoring me.  Truth is, I was kind of happy about it since it would limit the amount of idiocy I would have to endure.

It seems more likely that he would not want to spook Obama into pardoning them first.

[Eric the Green]

Yeah, let's see if the congress really is interested in corruption. What are the odds of this passing, you suppose???

Rep Katherine Clark (D-MA) Introduces Bill Requiring Pres and VP Place Assets In Blind Trust

By vintagetele
Sunday Nov 20, 2016 · 10:41 PM PST
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/20...lind-Trust

Donald Trump has run against DC corruption and has promised to “drain the swamp.” Katherine Clark from the 5th district of MA intends to hold him accountable. On Nov. 17th She introduced H.R. 6340. From her site:

Current law prohibits federal office holders from engaging in government business when they stand to gain profit. The President and Vice President are currently exempt from this statute. Clark’s Presidential Accountability Act removes this exemption and requires the President and Vice President to place their assets in a certified blind trust or disclose to the Office of Government Ethics and the public when they make a decision that affects their personal finances.

This bill has some teeth too. From section 2 of the bill:

“(f) A violation of subsection (a) shall constitute a high crime and misdemeanor

for the purposes of Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution.
I am calling my rep tomorrow and asking them to sign on to this.

katherineclark.house.gov/...

[Eric the Green]

The first of many, many more diplomatic tensions to be stoked by Galen's choice for president:

Trump's First International Diplomatic Incident

By Lib Dem FoP
Tuesday Nov 22, 2016 · 3:07 AM PST
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/...c-Incident

Trump has caused his first diplomatic incident with an ally through his failure to understand international relations and how they are conducted. Last night (2 am London time) Trump tweeted:

Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!

Farage is the interim leader of UKIP, a party with one M.P. in the Commons and a Member of the European Parliament. British diplomatic appointments are not made on a political basis. The BBC’s North American correspondent explains why this is causing consternation in Downing Street and diplomatic circles:

The future head of state of one nation telling another country who they should appoint as their ambassador is unusual enough; when it is two nations that are meant to share a special relationship it is a breach of nearly every rule of diplomatic protocol.

At a stroke it puts tension into the Trump/Theresa May relationship before they have even met.

The prime-minister's office can say no more than it has full confidence in the current ambassador.

It also leaves the current holder of the post, Sir Kim Darroch, in an awkward position as he seeks to forge closer contacts with the new administration. His position has been undermined by the future president.

Appointments as Her Majesty’s Ambassador to other countries are not politically based and are not subject to the vagaries of changes of politics. The most important posts are always held by highly experienced career diplomats. The current Ambassador to the United States, appointed from January this year, is Sir Nigel “Kim” Darroch KCMG who joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1976. He last two posts were as National Security Advisor to the Cabinet Office and before that he was the UK’s Permanent Representative to the EU.

As ever, to understand Trump’s statement, you need to look at what his own interests are in making it. Farage was a close ally during and in the run up to the November election. Trump made supportive comments about the Leave campaign in the EU referendum and compared his own to the Brexit mob. (I mistyped the start of “movement” there but decided the mistype was probably more appropriate.). In this case the root is his golf course on the Menie Estate in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. He has waged a long campaign against the Scottish Government’s decision to allow a small offshore wind farm several miles from the course. He has lost the case in all levels of the UK courts, including the Supreme Court. He has one further recourse, to the EU’s European Court of Justice however the main thrust of the Brexiteers under Farage was to “take our country back” and return decisions like this to the sole juresdiction of the UK. It looks like he has abandoned that and has decided to use extra-legal means. Farage was the first foreign person with any sort of official status to meet with Trump and guess what was discussed:

At the meeting, Farage spoke to the new president-elect about putting the bust of Winston Churchill back in the Oval Office, while Trump encouraged Farage to oppose wind farms, which he felt marred the views from his Scottish golf courses.

Andy Whigmore, a communications officer for one of the groups campaigning to leave the EU who was at the meeting alongside Farage, told the Daily Express: “We covered a lot of ground during the hour-long meeting we had.

“But one thing Mr Trump kept returning to was the issue of wind farms. He is a complete Anglophile and also absolutely adores Scotland, which he thinks is one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

“But he is dismayed that his beloved Scotland has become over-run with ugly wind farms, which he believes are a blight on the stunning landscape.”

Like Trump, Farage is a rich businessman masquerading as “a man of the people”. He is again interim leader of UKIP while they select yet another replacement. The last has just resigned the party after leaving the leadership 18 days after being elected to the post. Another candidate also left the party after an incident in the European Parliament (EP) with another UKIP MEP resulted in him spending several days in hospital. UKIP constantly complains about the failure of proper auditing of the EU’s accounts yet itself has now been told to repay £146,000 given to the EP group it dominates which was intended for use on Parliamentary business.

The European Parliament investigation claims that the UKIP-dominated grouping - the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe - broke rules banning the use of the funds on "financing of national political parties, financing of national election campaigns and candidates or referendum campaigns".

In a statement the European Parliament Bureau said: "The activities of the ADDE which were found to breach the rules for European party financing, were nine opinion polls held in the UK ahead of the 2015 general elections as well as ahead of the EU referendum in 2016, and a report on these polls.

"The expenditure linked to the services of three consultants was considered non-eligible by an external auditor and by the Parliament's administration."

The UK’s Election Commission is now investigating whether this breached election law. Farage himself received criticism for his use of similar funds, intended to enable him to report back his work as an MEP to his constituents, to finance UKIP itself. (The rules at the time were so badly worded that he was able to escape sanctions.)

At the root of this of course is Trump’s failure to understand that foreign Ambassadors represent the interests of thier country with the US Government through the State Department. They are not Trump’s personal representatives to the foreign government. Writing in the right-wing Daily Telegraph, a former British ambassador explains the dilema of trying to penetrate the Trump obscurism and seeming lack of any policy:

It follows that it looks wise to use any possible opening to get close to Mr Trump and his inner team and find out fast what they’re contemplating. Most of this will have to be led by the Washington embassy, as they are paid to find out exactly how to drill down through the US system and identify the right phone numbers to call. But every little helps. If Nigel Farage or anyone else can get in to see Mr Trump and spend an hour with him in current circumstances, surely that’s not a problem – it’s a national asset?

Not so simple. If Donald Trump had a close senior business partner friend in the UK, that person might be a very handy way to get key private messages fed in to the President-elect: in political terms that interlocutor has no big axe to grind. But Nigel Trump [sic: I presume he means Farage] enters the fray with voluble personal and political agendas of his own.

Is he to be relied on to engage with Donald Trump or anyone else and get across private high-level UK official policy ideas in a disciplined way, or is he going to be tempted to spin the conversation for his own purposes? And can he be trusted to convey back to London exactly what Donald Trump says, no more and no less?

Much of this of course is also Farage trying to find a role for himself after leaving the leadership of UKIP and indeed to find a role for UKIP in British politics after the Brexit decision.

Tuesday, Nov 22, 2016 · 4:52:24 AM PST · Lib Dem FoP
At Foreign and Commonwealth Office questions at lunchtime, Boris Johnson (the Foreign Secretary and erstwhile registered candidate for the 2016 Presidential elections- by reason of his being born in the USA) told the Commons that there was no vacancy and that the current Ambassador was “doing a good job”.

Conservative MP Sir Simon Burns says it is "extremely generous" of Donald Trump to suggest who should be our ambassador to the US, although highlighting the fact that there is no vacancy.

"In that measure of fraternity," he says, "might the foreign secretary suggest that the best person to fill the vacancy of ambassador to the UK next year would be Hillary Clinton?"

Jeremy Vine, the BBC journalist who also has his own show on BBC Radio 2 which mixes current affairs and music had another suggestion. He tweeted:

Follow
Jeremy Vine ✔ @theJeremyVine
If we are now allowed to suggest other countries’ ambassadors, please @realDonaldTrump can you make Bruce Springsteen your ambassador to UK

[Marypoza]

The Boss would make a good ambassador

[Eric the Green]

Deepak Chopra on Trump as the shadow

http://onlinedigitaleditions2.com/commonground/?pn=36

[Eric the Green]

[Eric the Green]

Those Who Failed to Recognize Trump as 'Greater Evil' Made a 'Bad Mistake': Chomsky

"I didn't like Clinton at all, but her positions are much better than Trump's on every issue I can think of"
byDeirdre Fulton, staff writer
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/11...ke-chomsky


Leftist scholar Noam Chomsky has a message for voters who refused to cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton to prevent Donald Trump from winning the White House: You made a "bad mistake."

On both moral and practical levels, Chomsky told Al Jazeera's Medhi Hasan, the choice was clear.

"Do you vote against the greater evil if you don't happen to like the other candidate?" asked Chomsky, who spoke out during the election against Trump's candidacy—and in fact predicted his rise six years ago. "The answer to that is yes."

With an argument similar to the one made by political scientist Adolph Reed prior to the election, Chomsky insists that voters did not have to ignore Clinton's serious shortcomings in order to recognize Trump as the much more serious threat.

"I didn't like Clinton at all, but her positions are much better than Trump's on every issue I can think of," the professor emeritus of linguistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) told Hasan. Chomsky supported Bernie Sanders during the Democratic presidential primary.

(Watch video at website):


Chomsky also objected to philosopher Slavoj Zizek's post-election argument that Trump's victory would "shake up" status quo. "Terrible point," Chomsky said of Zizek's take. "It was the same point that people like him said about Hitler in the early 30s."

"He'll 'shake up the system' in bad ways," Chomsky said of the president-elect. "What it means is now the left—if Clinton had won, she had some progressive programs. The left could have been organized, to keeping her feet to the fire. What it will be doing now is trying to protect rights...gains that have been achieved, from being destroyed. That's completely regressive."

Indeed, Chomsky further warned in the aftermath of the election: "The outcome placed total control of the government—executive, Congress, the Supreme Court—in the hands of the Republican Party, which has become the most dangerous organization in world history."

The GOP "is dedicated to racing as rapidly as possible to destruction of organized human life. There is no historical precedent for such a stand."

[Eric the Green]

Put my hands over my eyes, shake my head, rub tears from my cheeks....

Let's get this all straight:

"A president can't HAVE conflicts of interest"-- Donald Trump

"When the president does it, that means that it's not illegal" -- Richard Nixon

"You don't think it could include murder..." Senator on Watergate Committee asking John Ehrlichman

"I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue, and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters" -- Donald Trump

Where does this go from here? How many murder victims will there be?

[Marypoza]

(11-27-2016, 12:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

-- nice one Eric

[Warren Dew]

(11-28-2016, 05:20 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: "A president can't HAVE conflicts of interest"-- Donald Trump

I've seen a lot of progressives complaining about this, but I haven't seen links to or even direct quotes from whatever interview or press conference it occurred in.  To me, it sounds like he was saying "the president needs to avoid conflicts of interest", which seems rather benign.

[Eric the Green]

Our wonderful president whom supposed "libertarians" support, has a new proposal to violate our civil rights:

Trump suggests loss of citizenship or jail for those who burn U.S. flags

By John Wagner November 29 at 10:55 AM


President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened loss of citizenship or jail for those who burn the American flag, saying such protests — which the Supreme Court has declared to be free speech — should carry “consequences.”

Trump offered his thoughts in an early-morning post on Twitter, saying, “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag.”

Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!
3:55 AM - 29 Nov 2016
51,285 51,285 Retweets 142,220 142,220 likes

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post...litics_pop

[Eric the Green]

“As far as the potential conflict of interests,” Trump said, “the law is totally on my side, meaning, the president can’t have a conflict of interest.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016...nal-crisis

[pbrower2a]

(11-29-2016, 05:31 PM)I wonder what consequences Donald Trump wants for people who X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(11-29-2016, 03:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Our wonderful president whom supposed "libertarians" support, has a new proposal to violate our civil rights:

Trump suggests loss of citizenship or jail for those who burn U.S. flags

By John Wagner November 29 at 10:55 AM


President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened loss of citizenship or jail for those who burn the American flag, saying such protests — which the Supreme Court has declared to be free speech — should carry “consequences.”

Trump offered his thoughts in an early-morning post on Twitter, saying, “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag.”

Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!
3:55 AM - 29 Nov 2016
 51,285 51,285 Retweets   142,220 142,220 likes

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post...litics_pop

RE: 142,220 likes

This makes me want to strip some scum of their Citizenship.

As Jesse Jackson says, "I am more concerned about people burning crosses than about people burning the flag!"

Burning the Flag of the USA is a puerile,. asinine, and pointless form of protest. It just does not look good. I am sure that there were plenty of emaciated people at Dachau, Buchenwald, and Mauthausen delighted to see Old Glory instead of the Cross-of-Satan flag. Hunger, beatings, and fear of outright murder came to an end. One could again pray, speak, write, and read as one wished. One needed not be able to name the forty-eight states of the time or recognize why the American flag has thirteen stripes.


Burning the US flag is not as objectionable as making it stand as a symbol of loyalty to a pathological regime. We may have such a regime, one in which unquestioning loyalty to political leaders and a harsh class system are the mandated measures of patriotism.

Should I protest or demonstrate, then I will do so out of patriotism, knowing that such characteristics as

 1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
  2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
  3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause 
  4. Supremacy of the Military  
 5. Rampant Sexism
  6. Controlled Mass Media
  7. Obsession with National Security 
  8. Religion and Government are Intertwined  
 9. Corporate Power is Protected
10. Labor Power is Suppressed 
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
 14. Fraudulent Elections

are unmitigated pathology.

[Galen]

(11-29-2016, 03:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Our wonderful president whom supposed "libertarians" support, has a new proposal to violate our civil rights:

Trump suggests loss of citizenship or jail for those who burn U.S. flags

My preference for Trump stems from a desire to avoid war with Russia.  I have to admit watching the collective freakout from the Left is just a bonus.