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The Trump presidency

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On Bloomberg British Complain After Trump Spokesman Cites Wiretapping Report
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After Spicer’s briefing on Thursday, the U.K. GCHQ issued a statement flatly dismissing the Fox pundit’s reporting.

“Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct ‘wire tapping’ against the then President Elect are nonsense," the statement said. “They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.”

The White House wouldn’t confirm whether the British government asked for Spicer to retract his remarks, or whether it was under consideration.
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This would make a very odd Bond movie.
 
On The Atlantic Sebastian Gorka and the White House's Questionable Vetting
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Staffing remains a quandary for the Trump administration. First, many of the people who would typically staff a Republican administration have been ruled out. Some have ruled themselves out, saying they won’t work for Trump because of moral or policy differences; the White House has ruled others out on the basis of past statements they have made about Trump. (This includes, reportedly, multiple candidates for top jobs at the State and Defense departments who the respective secretaries have recommended, only to have the White House reject them.)

Second, there are no Trumpist think-tanks, nonprofits, and other organizations that the administration can draw on for staffing, because his brand of Republicanism is so new. Other strains of GOP thought could draw on that informal network—even libertarians, a sometimes marginalized portion of the party, have a set of nongovernmental organizations—but Trump does not.

That leaves the administration with a motley bunch of the people who are left. Some of those are opportunistic hangers-on who might never have made it to the White House before but spot an opening. Within that crew, many still can’t make it. In February, Politico noted that the administration had dismissed six executive-branch hires who failed to pass background checks. Others are true believers in Trumpism who are also flawed, like Flynn; Flynn aide Robin Townley, who was rejected for a National Security Council job because he failed to get security clearance; and now, perhaps, Gorka.

Despite the apparently loose standards of vetting in the White House, a huge number of executive-branch jobs remain unfilled. As they work to fill those jobs, officials in the Office of Presidential Personnel might want to make sure they ask prospective candidates whether they have any ties to Nazi-affiliated groups. You know, just in case.
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While perpetually lashing out at the bureaucracy Trump appears unable to fill a large number of executive-branch positions that are intended to give the President some sinews of political control over the government machine. This is like a huge multinational corporation having no middle management.

His team appears deeply suspicious of people who had served Obama and very prone to hire from a narrow pool of hard right political hacks who turn out to be both completely unqualified and to have a baggage of dodgy connections.

This reminds me of the chaotic period of the CPA's rule in Baghdad from 03-04. It's a regime decapitation.
 
On New Republic The Roots and Risks of Trump’s Dysfunction
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Bannon’s hostility toward the federal government and Trump’s reliance on a few loyalists point down a dangerous path. Bannon and Trump could be happy to preside over a deeply dysfunctional government, as long as they can blame someone else, be it career civil servants, the “deep state,” or holdovers from the Obama administration. The administration could split into two: A small cadre of loyalists in the White House feuding with the very government they are supposed to oversee. Bannon’s “Leninist” desire to deconstruct the administrative state could be a slogan for a presidency that’s happy to forgo the running of government in order to provide the ideological drama of an outsider president battling the saboteurs and subversives.

Such an outcome might be satisfying to Bannon, but it’s hard to square with any push for a productive agenda, be it building a wall on the Mexican border or renegotiating trade agreements. To be sure, there have been presidents who have been able to combine feuding with career bureaucrats with actual policy change. Thomas Wright cites the example of Richard Nixon, who engineered the opening to China through covert negotiations that circumvented both the State Department and the Pentagon. But as Wright notes, “t requires people with the technical brilliance of Nixon and Henry Kissinger to do such a thing.”

Trump has shown little of Nixon’s command of policy, and moreover, Nixon’s achievement came at a price. The very secretiveness that allowed him to outsmart the military industrial complex also fueled his war against leaks, ultimately leading to his undoing in the Watergate scandal. With Trump, we might have the worst of all possible worlds: Nixon’s paranoia without his achievements.
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Trump as a really stupid version of Nixon.
 
In New Republic What Trump Might Do When He Realizes He’s Losing
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We can hope that he lays failure at the feed of the conservatives driving the agenda, and that the GOP descends further into civil war. There remains, perhaps, a faint and receding possibility that he will try to revive his presidency by pursuing the kinds of economic-nationalist, great-man-of-history legacy projects (universal health care, infrastructure spending) that figured heavily in his campaign.

But this is most likely wishful thinking, when there is a path-of-least-resistance that would satisfy Trump’s lust to impose his will, win, and be feared. Faced with roadblocks in every direction, and loath to become another Carter, it is unnervingly plausible to imagine him turning to the military levers of power over which he exerts singular control, and unleashing hell.
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Failing Donald Trump as Jimmy Carter.

Where does he go if through his own inept, foot dragging, leadership his domestic agenda stalls and usual insulating wall of bullshit starts to fail? Well there's that trade war to immiserate China that Bannon and some of his cabinet picks lust for or a more direct path to a likely disastrous hot war with Iran.

Pious old Jimmy Carter actually got a lot done ramming through a pretty conservative agenda of cuts that Reagan usually is credited with. He also was badly embarrassed by the Iranian revolution and started US support for the Muhj war. It was the beginning of a tilt into the Greater ME that has not gone well.
 
On CNBC Trump doesn't want trade wars, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin says
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At a news conference with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, Mnuchin said that President Donald Trump recognizes the importance of trade for economic growth, but wanted it to benefit more U.S. workers and companies.

"It is not our desire to get into trade wars," Mnuchin said. "The president does believe in free trade but he wants free and fair trade."


The two finance ministers met for the first time ahead of a weekend meeting of top Group of 20 finance officials in Baden-Baden, Germany, amid worries about a pivot by the Trump administration towards greater trade protectionism.

Both ministers said the dialog was constructive, and said they would work together through differences to promote growth and prosperity.

"It was a good start," Schaeuble said of the meeting, adding that it was a positive sign for international cooperation and the G20 process, which Germany is hosting this year.

"We have found a good basis to talk openly about issues where we don't have the same stance from the outset," Schaeuble said.
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On FP's The Editor's Roundtable (The E.R.) Are We on the Verge of a Full-On Trade War With China?

A podcast talking about Trump and trade.

Points out Trump is surrounded by anti-China nuts like Navarro and seems to be stuck in the 80s (perhaps the 1880s given his crude mercantilist posturing) in the way he views the country. Economically it's no longer some easily bullied basket case 3rd world country. Recounts a meeting with Trump and Wall St grandees. Trump proudly announces he's going tackle China's currency fixing head on and asks the assembled Masters Of The Universe opinions. Nobody thinks this at all wise. Cue confusion in the Trump Team as it was assumed these guys were all onside for trying to bugger about with the world's largest economy. Basically if China catches cold everybody else's economy gets knockdown Bird Flu.
 
On Reuters Missing from Trump's grand Navy plan: skilled workers to build the fleet
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He declined to give further details. But those interviewed for this story say there are clearly two big issues - there are not enough skilled workers in the market, from electricians to welders, and after years of historically low production, shipyards and their suppliers, including nuclear fuel producers, will struggle to ramp up for years.

To be sure, the first, and biggest, hurdle for Trump to overcome is to persuade a cost-conscious Congress to fund the military buildup.

The White House declined to comment. A Navy spokeswoman said increases being considered beyond the current shipbuilding plan would require “sufficient time” to allow companies to ramp up capacity.

The two largest U.S. shipbuilders, General Dynamics Corp (GD.N) and Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc (HII.N), told Reuters they are planning to hire a total of 6,000 workers in 2017 just to meet current orders, such as the Columbia class ballistic missile submarine.

General Dynamics hopes to hire 2,000 workers at Electric Boat this year. Currently projected order levels would already require the shipyard to grow from less than 15,000 workers, to nearly 20,000 by the early 2030s, company documents reviewed by Reuters show.

Huntington Ingalls, the largest U.S. military shipbuilder, plans to hire 3,000 at its Newport News shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia, and another 1,000 at the Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi this year to fulfill current orders, spokeswoman Beci Brenton said.

Companies say they are eager to work with Trump to build his bigger Navy. But expanding hiring, for now, is difficult to do until they receive new orders, officials say.

"It’s hard to look beyond" current orders, Brenton said.
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Well here are some good blue collar jobs that may get put down to Trump.
 
Jeff Robinson said:
Bills being introduced under this fascist serial rapist scumbag criminal:

Bills being introduced in US while Trump distracts us
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I'm not that keen on comments along the line of one thing being a distraction from other more important things. All Trump administration and GOP congressional actions from 3 am tweets to Executive Orders, from lying to then vilifying the press to supporting bills that risk destroying the planet, all are part of a whole piece.

The Town Hall meetings have included challenges to US Senators and Representatives on proposed legislation included in the article. 1/3 of Senators and all members of the House are facing primaries around this time next year, to decide if they remain the party's nominee, then elections in November 2018. The idea being they may reconsider if they think they'll be clearing their desks in Washington in 18 months time.

Remember, it's the congress that proposes and passes legislation, not the President. He either signs or vetoes it. It's Republican legislators, no doubt with Trump's encouragement/blessing, who've proposed these bills.
 
coley said:
Trumps heid in a jar of vinegar? What's not to like:D
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the heads still alive
 
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Tillerson says diplomacy with North Korea has ‘failed’; Pyongyang warns of war

TOKYO — The Trump administration made a clear break Thursday with diplomatic efforts to talk North Korea out of a nuclear confrontation, bringing the United States and its Asian allies closer to a military response than at any point in more than a decade.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that 20 years of trying to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear program had failed and that he was visiting Asia “to exchange views on a new approach.”

Soon after Tillerson’s remarks, in a sign of mounting tensions, the North Korean Embassy held an extraordinary news conference in Beijing to blame the potential for nuclear war on the United States while vowing that its homegrown nuclear testing program will continue in self-defense.

What was that bullshit talked about Trump being a better pick than Clinton because she was a warmonger bent on taking the US into war?
 
coley said:
The only trouble being is, that he's firing more civil servants than creating blue collar jobs.
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Congress still has to approve spend on the military. If it does get through, wouldn't be surprised if as much of the materials and labour are outsourced to other countries, or after gutting labour protection laws, those "good blue collar jobs" become nearly minimum wage with zip health and safety protection. Or, perhaps the good old prison industrial complex will step up with some good old fashioned slave labour. Remember all the guff Trump said about negotiating the best deals?
 
CRI said:
...What was that bullshit talked about Trump being a better pick than Clinton because she was a warmonger bent on taking the US into war?
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I'm not known around here as an apologist from the Trump Administration, but can anyone really say that the current, and longstanding policy has worked?

Truth is, even Bernie Sanders would have had to re-visit the NK policy had he been elected, the current policy just is not working and it unravels further every month.
 
kebabking said:
I'm not known around here as an apologist from the Trump Administration, but can anyone really say that the current, and longstanding policy has worked?

Truth is, even Bernie Sanders would have had to re-visit the NK policy had he been elected, the current policy just is not working and it unravels further every month.
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Completely irrelevant though as he failed to convince crucial voters at the heart of the Democratic Party, so he wasn't picked to run. Romney, Rubio, Cruze, any of the other "also rans" of the Republican Party would also have probably handled this situation better than the Trump Administration, but they didn't cut it either.
 
CRI said:
Congress still has to approve spend on the military. If it does get through, wouldn't be surprised if as much of the materials and labour are outsourced to other countries, or after gutting labour protection laws, those "good blue collar jobs" become nearly minimum wage with zip health and safety protection. Or, perhaps the good old prison industrial complex will step up with some good old fashioned slave labour. Remember all the guff Trump said about negotiating the best deals?
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Well you have to think of the whole budget as an opening bid. Just because Trump proposes it it does not mean Congress will do that.

He's going to face a lot of opposition in Congress. They have their own constituents to think of and many may like Trump's grandstanding but really dislike some of the policy he's presenting. Defence hawks think the hike in spending on defence is far too small. I can see things like the petty savings on Meals On Wheels being seen as not worth the political capital. There's the chaos of Trumpcare and his stupid wall to factor into all of this. As always with Trump much of it makes little sense e.g. a supposedly homeland security obsessed President cutting the Coast Guard. What comes out the other end of a deliberative process may look rather different. It's quite likely to get snarled up in bickering and Trump will probably be completely unable to handle even constructive criticism. He's proving to be a really ham fisted governing politician.

On LAT Here's why the dramatic budget cuts that Trump proposed are unlikely to survive intact
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More immediately, though, Congress will need to pass a measure to keep the government running past April 28, a self-imposed deadline when funding for the current fiscal year runs out.

That is shaping up to be a more imminent showdown because Trump has requested $3 billion in supplemental funds for his promised border wall with Mexico and other immigration actions.

Democrats are refusing to fund the border wall. Even Republicans want Trump to keep his promise to have Mexico pay for it. And that could lead to a spring funding stalemate that risks a government shutdown.

Even though there might be line items to like — for example, many in Congress would like to beef up military spending — not as many want to make Trump's proposed cuts pay for it.
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White, Irish, and undocumented in America

An estimated 50,000 undocumented Irish immigrants live in the United States -- they make up a small percentage of the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants living there, the majority of whom were born in Mexico.

"It is easier being illegal here when you're white," Shauna, an undocumented Irish immigrant, tells CNN. "It's not easy, of course, you have that paranoia but there isn't the racial element. It's a bit easier to stay under the radar."

Something tells me these folks won't be very high on the list for a rap on the door from ICE.
 
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