The Trump presidency

[killer b]

those 'people are freaking out at...' articles are always worthless clickbait farmed from twitter aren't they?

 

[chandlerp]

How do we know she has her shoes on?

 

[Ranbay]

People are freaking out over a photo of Kellyanne Conway in the Oval Office

Imagine if there was photo of Michelle Obama feet up shoes on in a couch in the oval office. Fox & Friends would have 5 Aneurysms on their hands.

Don't take this piss, she lost her legs in the Bowling Green Massacre

 

[8den]

How do we know she has her shoes on?

There's another photo where you can see the heels.

 

[Idris2002]

Seriously, who the fuck are they talking to in that article? The only people who give the slightest shit about how someone else has their steak are boorish snobs, and everyone else - everyone - thinks they're wankers.

"Only a fool would despise tomato ketchup" - actual real Iris Murdoch quote.

 

[Idris2002]

There's another photo where you can see the heels.

Hooves, 8den. Those are hooves.

 

[8den]

those 'people are freaking out at...' articles are always worthless clickbait farmed from twitter aren't they?

Any article that includes the word twitter should say "here's something only 1/10th of the world care about"

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Naked Capitalism Col. Wilkerson: Trump’s Proposed $54 Billion Increase in the Military Budget Not for National Security

...
PAUL JAY: Well, the argument they’re giving is that the American armed forces, their hardware, the cyber warfare and such, it all needs to be modernized. General McMaster who’s going to be advising Trump, he’s been pushing for a new tank, newer(?) armored vehicles, lots of rhetoric around the need to have a major overhaul and modernization suggesting somehow that Russia and China are actually more modernized than the United States is.

LARRY WILKERSON: All of which is nonsense. I wouldn’t be talking about tanks. I wouldn’t be talking about aircraft carriers. I wouldn’t be talking about bombers. I wouldn’t even be talking about F35 stealth fighters. I’d be talking about things like 3D printing, robotics, artificial intelligence, and other technologies that are coming on so fast that they’re going to make all these legacy systems, which are extremely expensive, and make them for the military-industrial complex, of course, a lot of money, passé. Just look at the underwater dimension, for example. 3D printing a submarine that’s unmanned, and that’s the future, Paul – not manned flight, not manned unmanned. You put a submarine under the ocean and hang a few smart torpedoes, smart mines on it, and you go out – and by the way, for the price of an Nimitz class carrier, a Ford(?) class carrier, you can build about 150,000 of these submarines, and you go out and kill that $14 billion Ford class aircraft carrier, or you kill a $4 billion, $5 billion ballistic missile class submarine, Ohio-class submarine. That’s the new technology.

And by the way, those technologies are going to be in the hands of state and non-state actors sooner rather than later. These are the kind of things we should be looking at. These are huge cost-savings technologies – they’re deadly, dangerous technologies. We need to have protocols and standards, international law and other things in place for their use. Cyber warfare, as you were talking about, going after people’s networks – nowhere, of course, is there anyone more vulnerable than ourselves to that kind of warfare.

These are the items, the technologies of the future, not aircraft carriers, not stealth fighter planes. Perhaps not even submarines based on what I just said about unmanned submarines taking them out.

So, you know, I would rather see the Pentagon thinking along those lines, developing systems along those lines, and getting a lot leaner in the process rather than getting more money, which is just going to kind of make them very comfortable with their current ways, all of which are dangerous for our future.

PAUL JAY: You were Chief of Staff for Colin Powell. You got a pretty good look at a very senior level of how military policy is established. How much is this driven straight, banally(?), just about money-making? The military-industrial complex lobbies, they get expensive weapons systems, but they fund various members of the Senate and Congress and so on. I mean, how much is this just rather banal ways of having weapons systems to make people that own these manufacturers wealthier?

LARRY WILKERSON: It’s a huge part of it now. In the late 1970s, Paul, when I was a major working on the high–mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle, now called commonly the Hummer, I was told by the Congress to go back to Fort Benning at the time and I had a $400 million program and they said you gotta have a bigger program, gotta have a bigger program, it’s gotta be in every state you can get it in. I went back and developed a $9 billion program for a 59,000-vehicle buy, and sold the program. That was in the late ’70s. It’s mushroomed majorly since then. Now we have helicopters and fighter planes and ships and other things built, a component of which is built in every state. We have a hundred Senators behind them. We have countless representatives behind them. I’m not saying that when the president says he wants a war he goes to the Congress and they say, well, here it is, but I am saying that when they make a decision to support him, when the president even makes a decision to go to war, all this money, all of this commercial interest, all of these jobs, are very much in their minds.
...

My bold, military-industrial and real swampy!

Note what he's saying about drone subs. Cheap very quiet Hunter Killers to make countries relying on stuff like Trident very nervous. Swarms of such things probably are the future.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

On Bloomberg Trump: Nobody Knew Health Care Could Be So Complicated

Except everybody in Congress.

Or, anyone who has to try to navigate it without health insurance.

Or, anyone who has to try to navigate it with health insurance.

Or, just about anyone for that matter.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

We didn't have cable out in the sticks, but it was about that time I think you started to get things like 700 Club, PTL and that preacher who wanted to build the Crystal Cathedral. I'd been to some pretty wack-out revival meetings and the odd charismatic church service, but these TV preachers were weirder, more sinister. My dad was a postman then and was disgusted at how many poor people send gobs of money to them (most people used postal orders then, so he knew.) Even when the TV preachers got caught in financial or sex scandals, it didn't seem to make a difference.

I get the sense the TV preachers may no longer be such a big deal, but that "Prosperity Theology" has trickled down to local churches and communities. I hope you are right, but do you think there is a real chance of peeling these people away from this toxic, self-serving brand of Christianity?

I don't know if they can, but perhaps the people who don't usually engage in politics can be. The majority of people don't vote and they have to be dragged off the couch somehow.

 

[8den]

Or, anyone who has to try to navigate it without health insurance.

Or, anyone who has to try to navigate it with health insurance.

Or, just about anyone for that matter.

Honestly who knew. If only somebody warned us.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Or, anyone who has to try to navigate it without health insurance.

Or, anyone who has to try to navigate it with health insurance.

Or, just about anyone for that matter.

Except, perhaps, the billionaire offspring of millionaires, who've never given it as much as a second thought.

 

[camouflage]

On Naked Capitalism Col. Wilkerson: Trump’s Proposed $54 Billion Increase in the Military Budget Not for National Security
My bold, military-industrial and real swampy!

Note what he's saying about drone subs. Cheap very quiet Hunter Killers to make countries relying on stuff like Trident very nervous. Swarms of such things probably are the future.

The original term in the speech was "Military Industrial Congressional Complex".

The war-machine here has it's own interests and imperatives, successful war-fighting is just another special-interest not really aligned with the far more important role of feeding the war-machine. Personally I'm fine with it, considering US foreign policy and its impacts on the world why would we want them to make more cost-effective and efficient weapons and doctrines that are better at bringing about their desired outcomes? "F-35? wonderful machine, really clever, keep putting money into that". If they're stuck under their own massive immovable object of inflexible overly-expensive entrenched military industry then good. Fuck em.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Poltico ‘He’s a Performance Artist Pretending to be a Great Manager’

...
So while smart, experienced political professionals have called the start to the Trump presidency unprecedented in the annals of the office, it is not unprecedented in the annals of Trump. Trump has managed in the Oval Office in Washington pretty much exactly the way he managed on Fifth Avenue in New York, say people who worked for him at different points over the last 45 years as well as writers of the best, most thoroughly reported Trump biographies. In recent interviews, they recounted a shrewd, slipshod, charming, vengeful, thin-skinned, belligerent, hard-charging manager who was an impulsive hirer and a reluctant firer and surrounded himself with a small cadre of ardent loyalists; who solicited their advice but almost always ultimately went with his gut and did what he wanted; who kept his door open and expected others to do the same not because of a desire for transparency but due to his own insecurities and distrusting disposition; who fostered a frenetic, internally competitive, around-the-clock, stressful, wearying work environment in which he was a demanding, disorienting mixture of hands-on and hands-off—a hesitant delegator and an intermittent micromanager who favored fast-twitch wins over long-term follow-through, promotion over process and intuition over deliberation.

“I think he’s the same Donald Trump as the Donald Trump I knew when I was working with him,” said former Trump Organization executive vice president Louise Sunshine, who worked for Trump for 15 years starting in 1972. “Same management style. He’s always created competition and chaos.”

“I don’t think he manages,” said Artie Nusbaum, one of the heads of the construction company that built Trump Tower. “I think he just lets it all happen.”

“He gets an idea in his head and just says, ‘Do it,’” said Barbara Res, a Trump Organization executive vice president in the ‘80s and ‘90s. “There’s no direction. The idea isn’t built up or fleshed out. He just says, ‘Let’s do this.’ It’s like a stream-of-consciousness thing with him.”

“He’s not a great manager,” O’Brien said. “He’s a performance artist pretending to be a great manager.”
...

We used to call such critters "Seagull Managers". Trump's a frigging Albatross round the neck of America.

 

[camouflage]

On Poltico ‘He’s a Performance Artist Pretending to be a Great Manager’
We used to call such critters "Seagull Managers". Trump's a frigging Albatross round the neck of America.

trump has great biographies, the best biographies.

 

[coley]

Works pretty well Stateside. The association of lower decile labor labour to being exploited 19th century slaves is sticky. Thanks to their crazed healthcare arrangements even comfortably professional Americans are dependent on their employers in a way Europeans are not. It's plagued by far too many predatory lawyers. I quite like it but it's a land of the differently free.

"it's a land of the differently free"
Best comment so far

 

[killer b]

I love how smart experienced political professionals are suddenly the good guys. Like their smart, experienced, professional administration of government hasn't led directly to the situation we currently find ourselves in.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Even congressional Repubs didn't know it could be so complicated. They screamed for years repeal and replace, but still no replacement plan at all. They are in a bind of their making.

They knew it was bloody complicated to replace. That much is obvious. They've been trying to fix US healthcare since at least Nixon. The plan was to make Obamacare fail on the Dems watch.

 

[coley]

I was a student in the 70s and 80s when Billy Graham was doing his crusades. It seemed to me that it was the merger of church and corporation. They turned far-right religion into big business and introduced the idea that to be a good Christian you had to be a good consumer.

What developed from there, is this idea called "Prosperity Theology." It provides a superior moral justification for hating on people lower down on the economic ladder. Its a repackaged social Darwinism. This has been corrosive to our entire culture.

I'd go so far as to say that we aren't going to make progress on major social issues until we reclaim religion from the right and answer their ideas with a more left-leaning take on the bible.

"What developed from there, is this idea called "Prosperity Theology." It provides a superior moral justification for hating on people lower down on the economic ladder. Its a repackaged social Darwinism. This has been corrosive to our entire culture"
That's something I noticed a lot during the Campaign, not that is a totally American issue but over there it comes across as often raw hatred rather than the condescension which characterises it here.

 

[bimble]

Side by side tally here of each instance since Election Day in which the president’s tweets seem to be repeating something he's just seen on tv.
It's almost possible to feel sorry for him, an old man glued to cable tv, regurgitating whatever he's just seen on the screen.
Trump tweets and the TV news stories behind them - CNNMoney

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Politico Manafort’s Ukrainian ‘blood money’ caused qualms, hack suggests

And then he went to work for Trump.

 

[8den]

They knew it was bloody complicated to replace. That much is obvious. They've been trying to fix US healthcare since at least Nixon. The plan was to make Obamacare fail on the Dems watch.

I cannot comprehend Republicans and Trump saying "we're going to let Obamacare fail and democrats take the fall for it"

If a health care plan fails, people can't get proper treatment and get sick and die.

They're really saying they want that?

 

[Idris2002]

"it's a land of the differently free"
Best comment so far

Positive liberty > Negative "liberty"

 

[coley]

I keep seeing "think pieces" about white working class people who supported Trump, including ones who still back him even when it's likely to harm them personally (e.g. Likely deportation of the "pillar of the community" in West Frankfort, Florida woman who'll die with ACA and doesn't believe Trump will really get rid of it, etc.)

I'd like to see more like this one. In poor Black Belt region, both fears and prayers over Trump - people who'll be impacted the most by Trump's policies, didn't vote for him, didn't vote or were discouraged/prevented from voting. This is where Democrats need to be targeting their efforts. They're already more predisposed to voting Democrat by a long shot, and there won't be a need to compromise by sliding into centre/right policy stances (e.g. ban abortion, crack down on immigration, lower taxes, cut public services, spend more on the military, etc.) to bring them on board.

Sometimes, I think people forget that the "working class" isn't just the "white working class."

Makes sense, but also the Dems need to reach out to those who just switched off because of HC, the Buffoon didn't win the election, the Dems lost it by default.

 

[coley]

We never win anymore, win, win, win, we have to win.

Word Salad. They are going to straighten it out apparently.

Fuck your six trillion dollars, what about all those who have died thanks to the likes of this Bastard and his Neo liberal cronies?

 

[Pickman's model]

We never win anymore, win, win, win, we have to win.

Word Salad. They are going to straighten it out apparently.

what is the point of spending everything on defence if you end up defending a toxick wasteland caused by your evisceration of environmental protection?

 

[8den]

Makes sense, but also the Dems need to reach out to those who just switched off because of HC, the Buffoon didn't win the election, the Dems lost it by default.

No, Hilary did win the election by 3million votes. And considering how widespread gerrymandering and voter suppression was it's unlikely either democrat could have won.

 

[coley]

On Naked Capitalism Col. Wilkerson: Trump’s Proposed $54 Billion Increase in the Military Budget Not for National Security
My bold, military-industrial and real swampy!

Note what he's saying about drone subs. Cheap very quiet Hunter Killers to make countries relying on stuff like Trident very nervous. Swarms of such things probably are the future.

And thats the not too distant future, drones taking out tanks, its the future and we are still going to build two swanky carriers and replace trident??
Somebody needs to have a word

 

[CrabbedOne]

I cannot comprehend Republicans and Trump saying "we're going to let Obamacare fail and democrats take the fall for it"

If a health care plan fails, people can't get proper treatment and get sick and die.

They're really saying they want that?

The GOP have been blocking any sensible reform of the hugely profitable and murderous US healthcare bureaucracy for decades why change now?

Trump did say, with his usual logical inconsistency, that ACA collapsing would be nice politically but it probably doesn't work with the voters. He seems quite upset that for procedural reasons they have to sort out something on healthcare before he can pass his easy peasy tax reforms. As they need to know how much his promised wonderful future of universal Trumpcare would cost. Trump clearly has no idea of the mechanics of it. That's he seems to think is Congresses problem. It's that huge upwardly redistributive carrot of lower taxes that drew a lot of well off voters to stomach Trump. Poor folks healthcare being the way of their promised bung will just make them madder than Hell about it. They'd have dismantled Medicaid and Medicare as well if it knock a point of estate taxes. A lot are convinced that they are some version of The Elect poor people are justly hated by God. The dusky "Moochers" just a little bit more.

 

[coley]

what is the point of spending everything on defence if you end up defending a toxick wasteland caused by your evisceration of environmental protection?

Money, lottsa money.