President 'The Donald' Trump and Surprising Consequences - Mod warning in OP

listermint

Mr.Micro wrote: »

No she was not a good candidate. If she was so great, Trump would not have been left standing. She was beaten, narrowly by Trump when a better candidate would have beaten him by a mile.

Yes the whole collusion and hacking scandal by a foreign nation and the misinformation misdirection and lies from the other side really are a swinging indictment of Clinton's campaign....


Oh but to mention the FBI last minute intervention.

Why were they not dumping the information about trump investigation ....

Akrasia

listermint wrote: »

Yes the whole collusion and hacking scandal by a foreign nation and the misinformation misdirection and lies from the other side really are a swinging indictment of Clinton's campaign....


Oh but to mention the FBI last minute intervention.

Why were they not dumping the information about trump investigation ....

Hillary lost the election in the primary, not the General Election. The way the entire DNC treated it like a coronation instead of a fair contest turned a lot of people against establishment candidates and the fact that she was tainted by investigations meant she was always vulnerable to last minute revelations and dirty tricks.

Sanders would have won that election and the world would have some hope instead of the constant sense of dread and disgust

Christy42

Akrasia wrote: »

Hillary lost the election in the primary, not the General Election. The way the entire DNC treated it like a coronation instead of a fair contest turned a lot of people against establishment candidates and the fact that she was tainted by investigations meant she was always vulnerable to last minute revelations and dirty tricks.

Sanders would have won that election and the world would have some hope instead of the constant sense of dread and disgust

Errr she won the national vote in the actual election and you are arguing she had lost it by July?

I get the national vote does not count but it shows the thing was incredibly close. Combine this with the fact that she lost several percentage points over the last few days and she was definitely in with a shout after the primaries (in fact rightly a massive favourite).

(I am using the polls which were only off by 1-2% in the end).

I still disagree the man who would have been labelled a communist would have won (I also think the dnc tricks were pointless and stupid and she would have won the primary in any case).

Peregrinus

She won the popular vote and was very unfortunate not to win the election. I don't think any candidate has ever won the national vote by so large a margin - whether you count it in percentage terms or in absolute numbers of votes - and still lost the election. Trump won by the skin of his teeth, really. Quite possibly the late-breaking releases from the FBI helped in this, but we'll never really know whether they made the difference.

In the end, he won. And Hillary goes down in history as the woman who faced a candidate so monumentally unqualified, so wholly unfit for office, as Trump, and lost to him. Working out whether that means that she herself was a poor candidate or that the American political system is dysfunctional is left as an exercise for the student.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Peregrinus wrote: »

In the end, he won. And Hillary goes down in history as the woman who faced a candidate so monumentally unqualified, so wholly unfit for office, as Trump, and lost to him. Working out whether that means that she herself was a poor candidate or that the American political system is dysfunctional is left as an exercise for the student.

Both, really.

Really Interested

Trump is wining again his surporters have moved the narrative back to HC.

It matters not what HC did what matters is did DT get involved with a foreign power to get the election.

There is also a question did the Obama administration illegally monitor the Trump team, not did they monitor them did they illegally do so.

Zubeneschamali

Really Interested wrote: »

It matters not what HC did what matters is did DT get involved with a foreign power to get the election.

Well sure, but the FBI are investigating that, and there is little point in us discussing nothing else, since we don't have the evidence yet.

Really Interested

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Well sure, but the FBI are investigating that, and there is little point in us discussing nothing else, since we don't have the evidence yet.

This is a tread about DT he is president so discus anything about him. Including gossip, allegations and his madness.

I for one have believed since last year he was in league with the Russians, I als assumed that the FBI had his team under servailance since at least the Alfa bank server thing broke. I also believe that the surveillance was legal and that's Trumps biggest problem if it is confirmed the surveillance was legal (we know a number of applications to FISA court) then there must be some evidence of contact with Russia.

Hence why Trump at first deflects to illegal surveillance then said oppps so deflect to HC or anything else.

Peregrinus

"How in God's name did Trump ever get elected?" is a legitimate question for this thread, and in discussing that question some reference to the strengths and weaknesses of (a) Hillary Clinton and (b) every other challenger for the Republican nomination is obviously pertinent. Trump beat them all, despite the fact that there are extruded cornstarch snacks that would make a better president than Trump.

But the fact is that, through the mysterious workings of an inscrutable but probably malicious providence, he was elected, and at this point how this happened is probably a secondary question. The primary question is, what will the result be?

borderlinemeath

Clinton had it all against her from the off.

She won the nomination because the DNC felt she was owed it after losing in 2008.
She had a ton of baggage from her time in the Obama administration, aside from the email business.
She's married to Bill.
The dems were on the back of 2 terms in office. With only 2 real sides to choose from it's natural that swing voters would look for change without even looking at the consequences. Although in their defence the GOP have never, ever had a candidate as bad as Trump - and I'd wager they never will again. They'll push from within after seeing what happens when they go off script.
And in spite of all that she was winning all the opinion polls, so the Russians stepped in and she's in the headlines with an FBI scandal.

Yet even with all of that she won the popular vote by a large margin. It's tough, and it's no wonder she virtually disappeared after the election. Imagine being the shoo-in that the media made her out to be and got beaten by EC system and lost to Trump of all people? It was like the worst reality tv show ever.

Yourself isit

Really Interested wrote: »

But I thought that by electing Trump no neocon values.

Fewer. But bush wasn't a neo-con to begin with. Eventually the deep state wins.

Mr.Micro

listermint wrote: »

Yes the whole collusion and hacking scandal by a foreign nation and the misinformation misdirection and lies from the other side really are a swinging indictment of Clinton's campaign....


Oh but to mention the FBI last minute intervention.

Why were they not dumping the information about trump investigation ....

Such partisan behaviour by the FBI is troubling. Which is why I do not think we will get to the bottom of all this alleged Russian collusion. When the Intel agencies start choosing sides, it's a worry. The whole issue may fester during Trump's term in office, but I think he will continue, hoping for, or creating other big and small diversions, be they real or not. It's working so far.

Manic Moran

MightyMandarin wrote: »

However, I think he was more defending the fact that if Hillary was this anti-christ character portrayed by the Republicans, how was she so popular among Americans in general?.

Was she? Despite the fact that some folks would vote for a broomstick if it was running on the D ticket, (Yes, Rs are the same way) I would wager a large portion of it was also because a lot of folks (reasonably enough) simply did not want to countenance Trump getting into office and were well motivated to get to the polls to stop it. After all, Clinton was not the only candidate suffering from a significant level of active dislike. The same arguments about people voting, not for a candidate, but against what the opposition represented for the future four years, applies to her as much as Trump. That's not evidence of popularity in itself, it could also be reflective of the unpopularity of the other guy.

CNNs National Security editor just put up a post about the makeup of the NSC now that Brannon's gone, going down a couple of levels. He likes what's there.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/05/opinions/steve-bannon-white-house-national-security-bergen/

MightyMandarin

Report: Bannon threatened to quit after he was booted from NSC

The trainwreck administration rumbles on. I knew he wouldn't be ok with being demoted.

Billy86

220 Cities Losing All Passenger Train Service per Trump Elimination of all Federal Funding for Amtrak’s National Network Trains

The National Association of Rail Passengers denounced the budget outline released by the Trump Administration, which slashes investment in transportation infrastructure. These cuts to Amtrak, transit, and commuter rail programs, and even air service to rural towns, would not only cost construction and manufacturing jobs, but place a disproportionate amount of pain on rural and working class communities.

“It’s ironic that President Trump’s first budget proposal undermines the very communities whose economic hardship and sense of isolation from the rest of the country helped propel him into office,” said NARP President Jim Mathews. “These working class communities — many of them located in the Midwest and the South — were tired of being treated like ‘flyover country.’ But by proposing the elimination of Amtrak’s long distance trains, the Trump Administration does them one worse, cutting a vital service that connects these small town economies to the rest of the U.S. These hard working, small town Americans don’t have airports or Uber to turn to; they depend on these trains.”

"What’s more, these proposed cuts come as President Trump continues to promise that our tax dollars will be invested in rebuilding America's infrastructure,” continued Mathews. “Instead, we have seen an all-out assault on any project — public and private — that would advance passenger rail. These cuts and delays are costing the U.S. thousands of good-paying construction and manufacturing jobs in America's heartland at this very moment"

Sold a con, like we said. Maybe they can all just get 20+ mile taxis to and from the jobs they're actually able to hold on to?

demfad

Peregrinus wrote: »

"How in God's name did Trump ever get elected?" is a legitimate question for this thread, and in discussing that question some reference to the strengths and weaknesses of (a) Hillary Clinton and (b) every other challenger for the Republican nomination is obviously pertinent. Trump beat them all, despite the fact that there are extruded cornstarch snacks that would make a better president than Trump.

But the fact is that, through the mysterious workings of an inscrutable but probably malicious providence, he was elected, and at this point how this happened is probably a secondary question. The primary question is, what will the result be?

I think how Trump got to be elected is a huge question that is worth a thread on its own (IMO). Underlying all this has been an error by the West after the cold war to assume that they had won and authoritanarianism would not return/had been eliminated. That allowed Putin and other authoritarians to stand as equals with leaders of democratic countries. This enabled them to spread his influence, money and corruption via oligarchs around the world.

We also need to look at issues such as:

• Citizens United case: billionaires now allowed to fund elections via SuperPAC. An unexpectedly result of this was a large amount of candidates (puppets) in Republican primary allowing the loud mouth reality TV star to shine.
• Investigative media fail: Limited media resources for investigative journalism since crash.
• Media diversion:Media easily led into blanket prolonged coverage of Clinton emails etc.
• Voter registration Act gutted: Harder for people to vote especially minorities with some gerrymandering evidenced in swing states.
• Targetted propaganda: Mercers/Bannon funded groups like Government Accountability Institute which created 'investigative' propaganda over 10 years targetted at the Clintons. "Clinton Cash" even made it to Cannes.
• Big data: Trump's team won this war. SCL has been in the business of election manipulation for 25 years. Its off-shoot with Cambridge Analytica seemed to have a major influence on SM particularly in swing States.
• Russian Election hacking:Russia/Wikileaks hack and dump tying up investigative media and adding to the 'crooked Hilary' narrative.
• Over 3000 people/groups hacked including DNC and RNC servers. May extend to amalgamating laundered hacked voter information with legit data. May extend even to hacking the Wiener laptop for the 'October suprise' knockout.
• Another reason is the manipulation of establishment disillusionment. Trump was no accident.
  \/ \/ \/ \/

Until Election Day in 2016, Mercer and Hanley two of the richest men in America paid Caddell to keep collecting polling data that enabled them to exploit the publics resentment of elites such as themselves.

Caddell's original goal was to persuade his sponsors to back an independent candidate, but they never did. In 2014, Caddell and two partners went public with what they called the Candidate Smith project, which promoted data suggesting that the public wanted a "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" figure -an outsider- as President.

During the next year or so, Caddell's poll numbers tilted more and more away from the establishment. Caddell's partner Bob Perkins, an advertising executive and a former finance director of the Republican Party, told me, "By then, it was clear there wouldnt be a third-party candidate. But we thought that a Republican who harnessed the angst had a real chance." At one point, Caddell tested all the declared Presidential candidates, including Trump, as a possible Mr. Smith. "People didn't think Trump had the temperament to be President," Caddell said. "He clearly wasn't the best Smith, but he was the only Smith. He was the only one with the resources and the name recognition." As Bernie Sanders's campaign showed, the populist rebellion wasn't partisan. Caddell worried, though, that there were dark undertones in the numbers: Americans were increasingly yearning for a strong man to fix the country.

Caddell circulated his research to anyone who would listen, and that included people inside the Trump campaign. "Pat Caddell is like an Old Testament prophet," Bannon said. "He's been talking about alienation of the voters for twenty-five years, and people didn't pay attention but he's a brilliant guy, and he nailed it." The political consultant and strategist Roger Stone, who is a longtime Trump confidant, was fascinated by the research, and he forwarded a memo about it to Trump. Caddell said that he spoke with Trump about "some of the data," but noted, "With Trump, it's all instinct‚¬he is not exactly a deep-dive thinker."

Manic Moran

I don't see how Bannon quitting is anything but a good thing. Bring it on.

Manic Moran

Billy86 wrote: »

Sold a con, like we said. Maybe they can all just get 20+ mile taxis to and from the jobs they're actually able to hold on to?

One does not take the Amtrak national network to commute to work, and much though I love trains, and hope to one day take the California Zephyr through the Rockies, there's no getting around the fact that Amtrak long-haul is, and always has been loss-making. Although I personally hope the decision is reversed enough to keep the service, even loss-making, it's not an entirely out of logic position to cut its funding. One can do every second day, like the Sunset Limited, and still get 95% of the business.

One point in the article is slightly misleading, the Caltrain commuter rail electrification. This is not particularly a Trump move, the electrification project is a part of the California High Speed Rail $100bn boondoggle that California Republicans have been trying to kill for years (And in fairness, some high profile Democrats as well, to include LT Governor Gavin Newsome). The electrification budget is part of the Hight Speed Rail package, killing the package killed electrification. A pure commuter electrification package is much more likely to succeed. CA Rail infrastructure needs serious work, but at the commuter, not the long distance level.

demfad

Manic Moran wrote: »

I don't see how Bannon quitting is anything but a good thing. Bring it on.

Nunes has (temporarily) recused himself from House Intel Investigation. He is going to be making an appearance before the House Ethics Comittee for publicising the existence and some contents of classified (possibly FISA) documents. This will be a warning to any other Trump loyalists on that committee. It doesn't pay.

Hopefully we wont have to wait to long to see what Sally Yates has to say under oath....

In other news....Rebekah Mercer trending on US twitter....!

For Forks Sake

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/06/politics/devin-nunes-stepping-aside-russia-intelligence-committee/index.html?sr=fbCNN040617devin-nunes-stepping-aside-russia-intelligence-committee0151PMVODtopLink&linkId=36252817

(CNN)House intelligence chairman Devin Nunes announced Thursday he was temporarily stepping aside from leading the investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 elections.

Nunes cited a series of ethics complaints filed against him alleging that he violated terms of discussing classified material following his clandestine meeting at the White House just over two weeks ago

Billy86

For Forks Sake wrote: »

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/06/politics/devin-nunes-stepping-aside-russia-intelligence-committee/index.html?sr=fbCNN040617devin-nunes-stepping-aside-russia-intelligence-committee0151PMVODtopLink&linkId=36252817

Sounds great, but here's a quote from the guy replacing him in defense of the Russian hacks...

"Harry Reid and the Democrats brought in Mexican soap opera stars, singers and entertainers who had immense influence in those communities into Las Vegas, to entertain, get out the vote and so forth,†Conaway told The Dallas Morning News this week. “Those are foreign actors, foreign people, influencing the vote in Nevada. You don’t hear the Democrats screaming and saying one word about that.â€

For Forks Sake

Billy86 wrote: »

Sounds great, but here's a quote from the guy replacing him in defense of the Russian hacks...

"Harry Reid and the Democrats brought in Mexican soap opera stars, singers and entertainers who had immense influence in those communities into Las Vegas, to entertain, get out the vote and so forth,†Conaway told The Dallas Morning News this week. “Those are foreign actors, foreign people, influencing the vote in Nevada. You don’t hear the Democrats screaming and saying one word about that.â€

It certainly isn't the solution by any means, but Nunes' antics meant he was never going to be able to chair that investigation

Billy86

For Forks Sake wrote: »

It certainly isn't the solution by any means, but Nunes' antics meant he was never going to be able to chair that investigation

Absolutely true, I'm just skeptical if they have basically been stalling while trying to get a 'like for like' replacement, as opposed to the Senate where Richard Burr has thus far appeared to be doing a great job.

aloyisious

Has there been any info put into the public domain on whom Nunes met for his W/H briefing & s it a coincidence that Bannon was pulled off the NSC list after that?

Re Bannon, I see that Gens' Flynn and McMaster were both Lt Gens on retirement from the army. There's no obvious rank or service branch factor on how they individually viewed Bannon as being fit, or not, for membership of the NSC.

Re Syria, I presume the media are being used to hint to Pres Putin on how the Trump Admin now see Assad, along with whatever back routes are being used between Washington and Moscow to reach a deal on Assad and Syria.

I'm more than a little worried about the Trump Admin's talking about regime change, given what happened in Iraq after the US forced a regime change there, and how that benefitted neighbouring countries, the region and the "benevolent" nations.

Akrasia

Well, they've gone and used the nuclear option of ending the senate filibuster so they can railroad their supreme court nominee through.

Shows how utterly hypocritical these people are considering their hysterical reaction when Dems proposed doing this to get Garland last year...

Rjd2

aloyisious wrote: »

Re Syria, I presume the media are being used to hint to Pres Putin on how the Trump Admin now see Assad, along with whatever back routes are being used between Washington and Moscow to reach a deal on Assad and Syria.

I'm more than a little worried about the Trump Admin's talking about regime change, given what happened in Iraq after the US forced a regime change there, and how that benefitted neighbouring countries, the region and the "benevolent" nations.

I think Syria for him is simply to complicated. He has previously stated USA should steer clear many times, but now seems to be leaning towards intervening, something many hoped he wouldn't do.

Le Pen has criticised the idea of trying to remove Assad which won't surprise anyone due to how reliant she is on Putin for money, but it highlights how much of a hot potato this is for him as plenty of his more vocal supporters won't be keen on such a move whatsoever.

https://twitter.com/Marine2017_EN/status/850079979027275776


But heh American intervening in Libya and Iraq worked out grand, with an experienced political rational man like Trump there is nothing for Syria to worry about.:(

Leroy42

He won't do anything in Syria. Listen to his press conference yesterday, the man hasn't a clue.

It was obvious he would be asked about Syria and he had nothing to say. His line of "I won' tell you lot" is childish.

Nobody is saying he has to let us know the details, but an overall policy would be nice. I've already been on to Putin, I've already been onto our generals, I've already been in touch with our assets in the region etc.

Even if US don't want to get directly involved, there really is not much stopping them from setting up a safe zone within Syria (get Russia to help) and start to bring the refugees back. The King of Jordan said that most refugees want to go home, so instead of spending billions bombing the place, spend the money on setting up camps and safe zones. Provide water and education. Provide healthcare and housing. Instead of creating more reasons for people to hate the US, make people love them (and of course make sure that everything is drenched in a covering of USA etc)

He has already fixated himself on North Korea, after tomorrows meeting (or is it today?) he will have to either get agreement from China to act of get US to act.

Zubeneschamali

Leroy42 wrote: »

He won't do anything in Syria. Listen to his press conference yesterday, the man hasn't a clue.

For Trump. it is much, much worse them that.

RobertKK

I hope Trump isn't stupid enough to take military action against Syria.

It was a really bad idea when Hillary Clinton wanted it, it is still a really bad idea today.

aloyisious

RobertKK wrote: »

I hope Trump isn't stupid enough to take military action against Syria.

It was a really bad idea when Hillary Clinton wanted it, it is still a really bad idea today.

I don't think he will, unless he "mouth's" himself into a corner where he has to do something. It'll be a helluva lot worse than losing one SEAL in Yemen and he gave Obama some stick for that, even though that Op took place nine days after he took charge in the Oval Office. Hopefully H R McMaster will cool Don's head.