Donald Trump, the road that might not lead to the White House!

[CrabbedOne]

On TNI Trump Can Stand Up to China Without Sparking War

...
This week, Beijing breathed a sigh of relief when Secretary of State–designate Rex Tillerson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee January 11 that “I don't know of any plans to alter the One China position.” Better still was Trump’s public comment earlier in the week, while standing next to Chinese billionaire Jack Ma that Ma’s Alibaba, might be able to create one million new jobs for Americans by selling U.S.-made products through the massive Chinese e-commerce platform. It’s also worth noting that Trump himself has never called for direct confrontation with China—merely tough negotiations.

“When dealing with China,” Donald Trump declared in his 2016 campaign book Great Again, “we should stand up to them and remind them that it’s bad business to take advantage of your best customer.” In the same book, he wrote of his admiration for China’s negotiating skills, and said he wanted to appear “unpredictable” to the Chinese. In this, he has richly succeeded. His tweets have caused the Chinese state media to issue unusually defiant warnings that Beijing is “invulnerable” to a trade war and that “core” issues of sovereignty are “non-negotiable.”
...

The Chinese state press haven't taken Tillerson's threats to restrict their access to the islands they've cheekily built in the South China sea rather badly. Pointing out he better read up on nuclear combat before getting real with that one.

 

[J Ed]

Hungary defends planned crackdown on foreign-backed NGOs

Hungary’s populist rightwing government has offered a robust defence of its plans to curtail foreign-backed civil society groups and suggested the change in the US administration means a new era is at hand.

In comments that will alarm many non-government organisations, an official spokesman for Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, confirmed there would be changes to the rules governing civil activists, many of whom he accused of behaving like de facto politicians.

Several groups have voiced fears that Orbán – who has previously declared plans to create an “illiberal state” – will launch a crackdown in the coming months, emboldened by the forthcoming inauguration of Donald Trump as US president

 

[Idris2002]

Interesting question for me is why the Anglo deep state wants to scrag the orange better one so badly

His domestic agenda is as pro capital as might be wished so I'm guessing it's more to do with the specifics of oil/war policy, Saudi relationships etc

Also I wonder How much value they see simply in establishing the principle that they have a veto over election results that they and the ruling class fractions they represent don't like

Or just fear that the loose Orange cannon might queer the pitch for everybody in ways that will be unpredictable in their specifics, but will be predictably bad?

 

[hot air baboon]

Also I wonder How much value they see simply in establishing the principle that they have a veto over election results that they and the ruling class fractions they represent don't like

...but it wasn't his turn....

 

[mikey mikey]

Chuck Todd to BuzzFeed editor: You published ‘fake news’

“I know this was not your intent,” Todd told BuzzFeed's Ben Smith during a segment on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily," adding, "I’ve known you a long time, but you just published fake news. You made a knowing decision to put out an untruth."

 

[Yossarian]

Chuck Todd to BuzzFeed editor: You published ‘fake news’

The contents may be extremely iffy, but this was a real dossier apparently compiled by a real person that some real intelligence agencies gave to a real Donald Trump, a real President Obama, and some other real people, so Todd might need to check his definition of either "fake" or "news."

 

[brogdale]

Or just fear that the loose Orange cannon might queer the pitch for everybody in ways that will be unpredictable in their specifics, but will be predictably bad?

Yeah; the fear of losing control would seem to be a credible motivation for the deep state to react in this way, but did they?
I was under the impression that Steele's pissy report was commissioned by party political opponents during the campaign, (firstly Democrat, then latterly a GOP figure), and has languished with the media for months. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it's eventual emergence was not down to those close to the Oligarchs; it's enabled Trump to refute serious allegations by associating and subsuming them with pretty ludicrous, eye-catching sleaze. Also the timing, coming just days before inauguration, was pretty inept if designed to wound...Trump was able to stand up in the pressa and say "hey, I won".

I always assumed Trump's GOP political opponents would have moved after they had used him to cover their demolition of Obamacare & lowered taxes.

 

[mikey mikey]

The contents may be extremely iffy, but this was a real dossier apparently compiled by a real person that some real intelligence agencies gave to a real Donald Trump, a real President Obama, and some other real people, so Todd might need to check his definition of either "fake" or "news."

So if I report something that I have not verified but I report it as a fact, then that is not "fake news".

THAT is worth remembering.

 

[Yossarian]

So if I report something that I have not verified but I report it as a fact, then that is not "fake news".

THAT is worth remembering.

"Donald Trump Paid Russian Hookers to Pee in Obama Hotel Bed" - fake news.

"Dossier Alleges Trump Paid Russian Hookers to Pee in Obama Hotel Bed" - real.

 

[Yossarian]

When Donald Trump was coming out with all his birther shit, that wasn't fake news, and this sketchy dossier is easily as reliable as the birther crazies he was getting his information from.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

So if I report something that I have not verified but I report it as a fact, then that is not "fake news".

THAT is worth remembering.

The report exists and has been distributed. If say, I had made up the existence of such a report ( e.g. North Korea has video evidence of Trump abusing a dolphin whilst on a business trip to the country) and then fabricated an account of it's distribution (e.g. this has been seen by the pope and Angela Merkel), that would be 'fake news'. As it stands, this is the real reporting of an existing document and it's readership; you can and should question the veracity of the content, but you shouldn't dismiss it as 'fake news'.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[J Ed]

When Donald Trump was coming out with all his birther shit, that wasn't fake news, and this sketchy dossier is easily as reliable as the birther crazies he was getting his information from.

Yes it was 'fake news', and this is fake news too. We, or rather they, are all Donald Trump now.

 

[mikey mikey]

Donald Trump spouted fake news all the time. Which is a shame, cos there was enough on Hilary to make sticking to the facts just as effective.

They can make all the shot up in the world about Donald. I could not give a fuck.

What concerns me is this crap is trying to ensure the Cold War returns, even if Hilary didn't get to restart it herself.

The latest story anout C-SPAN is another attempt at the same.

US public affairs network C-SPAN interrupted by Russian news channel

Have a look BTL. A lot of folks are seeing through this BS.

Of course, they are all Putin-Bots or conspiracy theorists or Trump supporters or whatnot.

 

[J Ed]

The deep state is now that one weird person in the comments section on Tea Party websites repeatedly commenting that Obama is actually a gay prostitute.

 

[mikey mikey]

The report exists and has been distributed. If say, I had made up the existence of such a report ( e.g. North Korea has video evidence of Trump abusing a dolphin whilst on a business trip to the country) and then fabricated an account of it's distribution (e.g. this has been seen by the pope and Angela Merkel), that would be 'fake news'. As it stands, this is the real reporting of an existing document and it's readership; you can and should question the veracity of the content, but you shouldn't dismiss it as 'fake news'.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

Your poetry is better than your semantics.

 

[J Ed]

Yeah; the fear of losing control would seem to be a credible motivation for the deep state to react in this way, but did they?
I was under the impression that Steele's pissy report was commissioned by party political opponents during the campaign, (firstly Democrat, then latterly a GOP figure), and has languished with the media for months. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it's eventual emergence was not down to those close to the Oligarchs; it's enabled Trump to refute serious allegations by associating and subsuming them with pretty ludicrous, eye-catching sleaze. Also the timing, coming just days before inauguration, was pretty inept if designed to wound...Trump was able to stand up in the pressa and say "hey, I won".

I always assumed Trump's GOP political opponents would have moved after they had used him to cover their demolition of Obamacare & lowered taxes.

The Deep State Goes to War With President-Elect, Using Unverified Claims, as Democrats Cheer

is worth reading to get a sense of the timeline, the mechanism by which the deep state has attempted to legitimise the dodgy dossier.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Your poetry is better than your sematics.

And both are better than your posts.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[Yossarian]

The Deep State Goes to War With President-Elect, Using Unverified Claims, as Democrats Cheer

is worth reading to get a sense of the timeline, the mechanism by which the deep state has attempted to legitimise the dodgy dossier.

Think Greenwald's best point there was that those treating the dossier as fact to damage Trump are going to look pretty silly when parts of it are disproven - and when Trump uses that to counter more fact-based allegations further down the line. "This stuff about massive conflicts of interest is just like that stuff about the golden showers..."

 

[CrabbedOne]

The China-Russia dynamic has been compared to 30s Germany and its near east. A rising energy hungry country that can't feed itself next to a vast land with lots of poorly cultivated land and loads of hydro-carbons. Of course Red-ish China isn't Nazi Germany with its whacky grand strategic theory of racial struggle. Except perhaps for some neocons who rather fixate on starving an economically powerful Beijing of resources. Some conclude Chinese lebensraum even achieved peacefully must be thwarted by a US partnership with Russia. If you scratch at these things there's often baser motives or a complete fruitcake involved. It's a crude, Monopoly board view that overestimates the US ability to control such powerful potential adversaries.

It's typical of how post-Marxist neocons are prone to misinterpret a world that's actually far more complex and best approached with a deep plan and cautious incrementalism typical of the Iranians. In fact the world is mostly run by flawed men under pressure doing essentially random shit.

Our misbegotten series of 21st Century interventions rather fall in that category. I've seen energy security cited as maybe the fifth justification for going to Baghdad the Pentagon could come up with. Basically an afterthought for fighting another nice big tank war in open desert as foreseen in QDR 98. US Big Oil itself generally hated the idea of the Iraq war correctly seeing it as bad for a business that needs longterm stability. US energy majors were too risk adverse to get in quickly; the Russians weren't. The oil contract terms the Iraqis extracted were tough and far from the sweet deals made with the KSA in the 30s. Tillerson finally did a big deal with the KRG a couple of years ago. It was seen as destabilising very much against US interests like much of Exxon policy. That really hasn't gone so well so far. Trump, once a supporter, is simultaneously critical of the Iraq war and sulks that we didn't steal Iraq's oil which would mean a multi-trillion dollar permanently harried US occupation; the guy ain't Napoleon. Unfortunately the American electorate picked him as Commander in Chief.

The US also initially confronted Imperial Japan using its fundamental resource vulnerability. That led to a desperate Japanese naval gamble at Pearl Harbour. Fast forward that to a nuclear age that began soon after and it might not end so well for Uncle Sam.

 

[hot air baboon]

I was under the impression that Steele's pissy report was commissioned by party political opponents during the campaign, (firstly Democrat, then latterly a GOP figure)

Jeb Bush was named by a BBC reporter- then hastily retracted but whose father was a former CIA director ofcourse

Former MI6 spy known to U.S. agencies is author of reports on Trump in Russia

I see Christopher Steele was posted to Paris - wonder if he was there when the Princess Diana job went down

 

[not-bono-ever]

.

 

[Pickman's model]

Think Greenwald's best point there was that those treating the dossier as fact to damage Trump are going to look pretty silly when parts of it are disproven - and when Trump uses that to counter more fact-based allegations further down the line. "This stuff about massive conflicts of interest is just like that stuff about the golden showers..."

so much for living in the post-truth era then

 

[JimW]

Strikes me that a bonus for the deep state in this is the further deligitimisation of democratic institutions making the future technocracy more palatable.

 

[brogdale]

Think Greenwald's best point there was that those treating the dossier as fact to damage Trump are going to look pretty silly when parts of it are disproven - and when Trump uses that to counter more fact-based allegations further down the line. "This stuff about massive conflicts of interest is just like that stuff about the golden showers..."

Yep, the oligarchs will have seen the pissy dossier in that threat as opportunity mgt bullshit mind-set. And, thus far, it seems to have worked like a dream for them.

 

[J Ed]

Fantastic interview of Nancy Fraser by Doug Henwood on the pitfalls of 'progressive neoliberalism' in the context of the US election.

 

[eoin_k]

Sure. But, according to rumour (we have nothing else, of course), he has a track record of uncovering dirty business. He was supposedly the first to alert British intelligence to the Litvinenko murder (before he was even dead) and brought FIFA corruption to the attention of the CIA. Of course, it may be that he was right twice and wrong once. Or it may be that intelligence bods are not mad if they take someone who has been right twice seriously.

As ViolentPanda pointed out up the thread, the best black propaganda often contains a grain of truth. It seems entirely plausible to me that the most salacious aspects of the present case are entirely true. But given that it currently seems impossible for any of us to assess whether or not this is case with the available information, all we can really do is try to make sense of how different parties are trying to spin it and how this plays out. Whatever the facts of what did or didn't happen in a Moscow hotel room, it seems unprecedented that so much of the media, the political establishment and the intelligence community of the US and Britain are trying to delegitamise a republican president elect, without any firm evidence available in the public domain.

 

[Raheem]

As ViolentPanda pointed out up the thread, the best black propaganda often contains a grain of truth. It seems entirely plausible to me that the most salacious aspects of the present case are entirely true. But given that it currently seems impossible for any of us to assess whether or not this is case with the available information, all we can really do is try to make sense of how different parties are trying to spin it and how this plays out. Whatever the facts of what did or didn't happen in a Moscow hotel room, it seems unprecedented that so much of the media, the political establishment and the intelligence community of the US and Britain are trying to delegitamise a republican president elect, without any firm evidence available in the public domain.

There's Watergate, of course.

 

[eoin_k]

There's Watergate, of course.

Nixon was no longer president elect, and Watergate had a fairly firm evidence base established through investigative journalism.

 

[not-bono-ever]

.

 

[Raheem]

Nixon was no longer president elect, and Watergate had a fairly firm evidence base established through investigative journalism.

OK so, given enough criteria, its unprecedented. But I don't see that its fundamentally different to Watergate. The "firm evidence base" at the time that went public was pretty similar. It was based on anonymous sources, someone digging around trying to get people to talk to them.