The Trump presidency

[bluescreen]

Attacking climate science, constricting abortion rights, resuming halted construction of the two most protested oil pipelines in American history, threatening martial law in Chicago, promoting unfounded conspriracy theories, rolling back ACA, enacting a federal regulation/hiring freeze, appointing unqualified family members to cabinet positions, and declaring he will not divest from conflicting investments... and we're not even a week in.

The impeachment of this barbarian tyrant can't come soon enough.

Excuse me. He was democratically elected.

 

[bluescreen]

.

 

[bluescreen]

The whole opening up federal lands for oil and gas exploration thing: Loads of bought and paid for leases on private lands that are just sat there with drilling rigs in the yards and experienced workers drawing unemployment, working in other fields or the clever ones employing the boom money to skill up in other fields\ pursuits. Price is not there. Its not worth drilling for oil and gas onshore at the moment other than the sweet spots our places where people got rinsed paying for infrastructure like pipes that is not returning enough investment. If oil hits $100 then those places will be first in the cue for new rigs. The federal land thing will be exploited to get cheap land but not to get produce more oil and gas.

There is lots of coal that is being shuttered in because gas is cheap and gas plants have advantages over coal. Increasing US coal consumption is largely outside the gift of a US president, ok he can lift sulphate and mercury emissions standards and maybe people will risk building new plant, but thats a lot of money to lay down and have a dem turn up in even 8 years and put in a load of restrictions that end up shutting the station before its recouped investment.

From conversations with oil people I know a couple have said the KXL pipeline struggled to make minimum subscription. This is all from things they claim to have $100\$130 a barrel oil and this could change.

These are thoughts and anecdotes. Just to pass them on to people who may be interested.

Wish I could rid myself of the though that he will subsidise extraction FOR NO REASON (well, not really for no reason, nothing to do with who funds the GOP).

 

[TomUS]

Keith Olbermann: Donald Trump Is Not Of Sound Mind And Must Resign | The Huffington Post

I like Olbermann. He used to live in one of Trump's buildings....Trump Palace, but sold his condo at a loss last yr because he couldn't stand to live in the crazy man's building.

 

[mojo pixy]

I didn't hear people comparing Cameron to Thatcher.

I did, till there was something of his own to insult him with, namely pig-fuckery.

 

[bimble]

have we had this yet?
Yesterday's executive order regarding 'sanctuary cities' included this: Every week, the public will be informed of a list of all the crimes done by "aliens".

 

[CrabbedOne]

On TNI The Big Lie and Foreign Policy

...
Another consequence of directing the big lie to domestic audiences is that this audience will become that much worse of an ill-informed constituency, incapable of engaging in the kind of well-informed debate that serves as a check against ill-advised foreign policies and can muster solid support for well-advised ones. The difficulty in generating that kind of well-informed discussion is hard enough amid fake news and post-truth nonchalance about accuracy. Willing and relentless use of lying by those in power makes the difficulty even greater. The problem is already great regarding domestic issues on which the people have some basis for making direct and independent observations. For example, two-thirds of Trump voters erroneously believe that unemployment increased during Barack Obama’s presidency, even though it significantly decreased. The problem will be at least as great on matters of foreign relations on which the public has less basis for direct observation and follows more what their leaders say.

A subtler but potentially significant consequence is that the leaders who propagate a big lie, by being so committed to sustaining the message contained in it, come to believe the lie themselves. And when this happens, foreign policy and its execution become based directly, not just indirectly by way of a duped public, on falsehood. We saw a bit of this with the more fanatical of the promoters of the Iraq War. One of the most fanatical of them, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (who, in the words of an anonymous official who worked with him, “has an unfortunate ability to delude himself because he believes so passionately in things”), came to believe that the mythical alliance between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda, manufactured as a propaganda point to gain public support for the invasion, actually existed, and even after the invasion he was wastefully directing resources to try to find evidence that it existed.
....

As the age of the Fibber In Chief dawns democracy seems to be developing fatal flaws.

 

[elbows]

I glimpsed that piece when it first came out and I still couldn't imagine he'd be elected. Reading it now and seeing how many of those things he's already done, or at least started on (having broken protocol and assuming authority practically since election day.)

Some dismissed St Louis writer Sarah Kendzior for being alarmist in her predictions, having closely studied the rise of authoritarianism in central Asian countries and knowing the signs very well. Fuck me though, she's been almost 100% right so far. Today, she posted this:

Every goddamn thing I predicted is coming true. And it wasn't that hard to predict: Trump announced his intentions and the rest is obvious to anyone who studies authoritarianism, knows Trump's team, and has a basic knowledge of the US government.

Now I'm only hoping people listen to me on nukes, because yes, he will use them. And yes, I am getting fed up with people acting shocked. Along with a few dozen others, I warned of this over and over, begging people to take the threat seriously. I said in November you had two months. There is not a 2018. There is not a 2020. What you'll be left with in 2017 will be unrecognizable.

I've no doubt Trump lacks some or all of the 'moral' thought process that would cause many leaders to think twice before using nukes. But this is hardly the only factor and even then there is a big difference between being more willing to use them and actually using them. Throw in the stupid timescales presented and I end up with a rather low opinion of this message/prediction (By Sarah, not CRI). Surely it is possible to avoid complacency on this issue without having to resorting to stupid predictions that only inject more disconnected fear into the equation? Or at the very least wait till he shows signs of having a target in mind!

 

[elbows]

Plus I would at least wait and see if this sort of thing, where he talks tough but says he will defer to the opinions of others within his team, actually turns out to be the way the regime operates / a way for him to explain why his tough words arent met by equally tough action. The following is in relation to waterboarding.

"I will rely on Pompeo and Mattis and my group and if they don't want to do it that's fine. If they do want to do then I will work toward that end.

"I want to do everything within the bounds of what you're allowed to do legally but do I feel it works? Absolutely I feel it works."

(from President Donald Trump says he believes waterboarding works - BBC News )

 

[hash tag]

Of course waterboarding works. Torture somebody and they will tell you anything that you want to hear, whether it's true or not!

Torture

"Torture is illegal: outlawed internationally since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. And 156 countries have signed the UN Convention against Torture. All forms of cruelty and humiliation are also outlawed."

From 2009 specifically about the states How to Argue Against Torture

 

[Pickman's model]

All forms of cruelty and humiliation are also outlawed."

at what point will trump find being president of the united states humiliating?

 

[Pickman's model]

Plus I would at least wait and see if this sort of thing, where he talks tough but says he will defer to the opinions of others within his team, actually turns out to be the way the regime operates / a way for him to explain why his tough words arent met by equally tough action. The following is in relation to waterboarding.



(from President Donald Trump says he believes waterboarding works - BBC News )

Torture, waterboarding failed to extract any key evidence in hunt for Osama bin Laden: U.S. Senate report

Waterboarding didn't work, committee report finds

 

[brogdale]

Of course waterboarding works. Torture somebody and they will tell you anything that you want to hear, whether it's true or not!

Torture

"Torture is illegal: outlawed internationally since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. And 156 countries have signed the UN Convention against Torture. All forms of cruelty and humiliation are also outlawed."

Appeaser May will find that any extradition to a regime under which the defendant might face torture would contravene the UK's own HRA.

 

[Casually Red]

Donald Trump Is Still Using His Unsecured Personal Cell Phone

Donald Trump won the White House by, among other things, relentlessly attacking his opponent for her reckless use of private communications devices while serving in public office. By campaign’s end, the one thing Americans knew about Hillary Clinton, beyond all else, was that she had done some bad things with her emails.

But when Trump threatened to send federal troops to occupy Chicago Tuesday night, many Twitter users noticed something alarming.

Follow
Steve Kopack

✔@SteveKopack
Where did Trump's last two tweets come from? Android. So, is he still posting from his personal phone?

2:29 AM - 25 Jan 2017

I don't believe there even is such a thing as " federal troops " . The Feds as far as I'm aware are the FBI . Sending in the FBI to deal with a murderous gangster crime wave is hardly unprecedented . Back in the 20s and 30s it was the Italians and the Irish shooting up Chicago, today it's from within the African American community . It's gangsters shooting up the place no matter what the ethnicity involved and it's the FBIs traditional role to deal with it . This " troops " thing is just more scaremongering and sensationalism. Starting to wear a bit thin .

 

[camouflage]

And two major pipelines approved despite the lawful objections of protestors? this isn't about HC any more, she's yesterday's news, this is about someone who's very rapidly using presidential orders to undermine every enviromental protection enacted over decades in order to promote the last gasp,of the FF industry and its associated billionaire class.

When I say "Clintonist", I mean the faction within US politics that she represented. She herself is as over as Mao or any other long-gone political personality whose name one sticks an ist or ism on the end of to describe those who carry the ethos forward. RESIST definitely looks like the start of a kind of guerilla-media campaign, your George Soros funded colour-revolution type affair (Purple, some say). Regime change is obviously the objective. Fuck knows at this point who'll be the 'new Clinton' should they succeed and sweep whoever to power. I think of this whole thing as the Great American Rightwing Civil Aggro of the late Twentyteens (Globalist versus Nationalist factions).

 

[Pickman's model]

I didn't hear people comparing Cameron to Thatcher.

strange. lots of people did.

 

[hash tag]

With his perceived attitude to women May has already sold out by going to meet him. A little issue like this won't matter.
Is it me, or has he signed off on lots of stuff before he has barely got his feet under the desk? Some of the stuff I thought he would never do because others would make him see reason. Perhaps he is trying to get all his pledges done in record time so that he can resign in a year or two and get back to his business " well I got it all done, what more is there left for me to do?".

 

[Crispy]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/us/politics/trump-bernhard-langer-voting-fraud.html

There was voter fraud because (deep breath)

His friend (who is not his friend), a famous German golfer was turned away from voting (because he's German), whilst people who "looked like they shouldn't have been allowed to vote" because they were probably from Latin American countries.

Therefore, a major investigation is required.

And it sounds like Trump's embellishing/altering the anecdote 2nd hand anyway.

 

[camouflage]

With his perceived attitude to women May has already sold out by going to meet him.

To be fair to her, that's not really how it works when your the national leader. She can't not talk to another leader because of their attitude toward women unfortunately. Her primary calculation is gonna be "what can I get for us" on balance, over a whole range of considerations. Look at our relationship with Saudi Arabia.

 

[Pickman's model]

To be fair to her, that's not really how it works when your the national leader. She can't not talk to another leader because of their attitude toward women unfortunately.

i see that only the head of her majesty's government is meeting mr trump, not her majesty. so it's not head of state to head of state, the queen's got out of meeting that awful little man.

 

[camouflage]

i see that only the head of her majesty's government is meeting mr trump, not her majesty. so it's not head of state to head of state, the queen's got out of meeting that awful little man.

The queen doesn't lead, she reigns.

 

[bimble]

Her apparent enthusiasm is shameful though.

 

[hash tag]

Has Boris gone or has she played safe and left him at home?

 

[hash tag]

To be fair to her



Be fair to her; WHY?

 

[camouflage]

Her apparent enthusiasm is shameful though.

View attachment 99400

She can bow and scrape and poodle to whoever runs the US because our special relationship as good as any man Prime-minister can.

 

[bimble]

 

[camouflage]

hash tag, because you're judging a female PM by different standards than you'd judge a male one.

"Der furher ist der fuhrer."
- Downfall.

 

[hash tag]

To be fair, I wouldn't be fair to either of them!

 

[not-bono-ever]

Boys and girls. I may have lost whatever subliminal, residual belief in the current democratic model that was left hidden away in the dank depths of my fetid mind. Mrs NBE wants to smash things up as well.

 

[hash tag]

Do unto others
As they've done to you
But what the hell is
This world coming to?

Blow the universe
Into nothingness
Nuclear warfare
Shall lay us to rest

Fight fire with fire
Ending is near
Fight fire with fire
Bursting with fear

We all shall die

Time is like a fuse
Short and burning fast
Armageddon's here
Like said in the past

Fight fire with fire
Ending is near
Fight fire with fire
Bursting with fear

We all shall die

Soon to fill our lungs
The hot winds of death
The Gods are laughing
So take your last breath

Fight fire with fire
Ending is near
Fight fire with fire
Bursting with fear

Fight fire with fire
Fight fire with fire
Fight fire with fire
Fight fire with fire

Fight fire with fire
Fight fire with fire
Fight fire with fire
Fight fire with fire
Fight