The Trump presidency

[CRI]

Just saw this NBC News presidential approval rating poll with the headline, "More Than Half Disapprove of Donald Trump’s Job Performance."

So only 43% of the 11K plus people polled said they strongly or somewhat approved of his performance one month into the job. 55% somewhat or strongly disaproved.

When you break it down by gender and ethnicity, it gets more interesting.

The most disapproving are Black women (81%) followed by Hispanic women (75%).

His greatest backers are still white men (58%) and white women (44%)

Biggest difference in an ethnic group is Hispanic people with 42% of men and only 21% of women backing him. No idea why.

Also in the report

- People in urban areas disapprove of him more than those in rural areas, with suburbans in the middle (no surprise there.)

- Whites with college degrees were less fond of him than those without (again, no surprise.)

- 88% of Republicans approved of his performance, so no chance "moderate" GOP legislators will try and keep him in check if they want to keep their seats next time.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Crooked Timber Decent conservatives

...

• According to recent polling, while Donald Trump is the most unpopular newly-elected president in polling history, he is the most popular among Republicans, easily beating Ronald Reagan. Republicans and Republican leaners overwhelmingly believe (or say they do) that Trump is trustworthy, caring, well-informed and a good manager. The only favorable quality they are unwilling to ascribe is that of an even temper.

...

It matters so little what he actually does. He can shamble across the world stage creating chaos. He can shred basic rights and freedoms. I can hear the manic chants of "Four more Years!" already. To do otherwise would require a Trump voter to admit responsibility.

 

[bimble]

Nigel Farage was busy yesterday. Holding forth on Fox News about Sweden and about Fake News (with tagline under his face saying 'a leader in British politics')' then dinner with the president.

 

[J Ed]

Nigel Farage was busy yesterday. Holding forth on Fox News about Sweden and about Fake News (with tagline under his face saying 'a leader in British politics')' then dinner with the president.
View attachment 101155

He really does have the smile of a labrador

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Informed Comment Did White House interfere with FBI Probe of Russia Ties?

...
The brazen attempt to interfere with an active investigation reminded some of President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal, during which Nixon tried to use the CIA to quash the FBI investigation of the Watergate burglary.

The outrageous breach of protocol has fueled calls for Priebus’ resignation.

“This is plainly a White House that has no compunction about asking the federal law enforcement apparatus to run its errands, and to operate as barroom bouncers on call whenever the jefe feels inconvenienced,” wrote Esquire‘s Charles P. Pierce. “At least Nixon hired his own investigators when he got pissed at newspaper leaks. These clowns tried to turn the FBI into the Plumbers. It’s going to get really crowded in D.C. parking garages pretty soon.”
...

Probably not; just trying to massage the message.

Though Trump may be genuinely spooked about the Russian thing. The McMasters appointment after the Radical Islamic Terrorism obsessed Flynn's ouster is a clear signal of that. Like Mattis a man who sees Russia as an aggressive near-peer adversary to be treated with great caution. As the Moscow Times piece upthread makes clear taken by Russian officials as a sign of Trump's probable insincerity on the usual new President's attempt at a reset with Russia. It may be all smoke and no fire but Trump's big Putin loving mouth has made him an easy target and detente politically much more difficult.

Still the emotive alt-realist side of Team Trump may be the dominant part as McMasters hasn't been granted the usual direct access to the Oval Office that comes with heading the NSC. Effectively a downgrade of the organisation. While the far out of their depth Breitbarters attempt to sideline the realists by creating alternative structures. It's their hysterical, race-baiting American Carnage worldview that won the Trump election after all and they mean to win the next race at all costs. Not that of steadfast servants of what is still the world's greatest empire constrained by painfully fact based views of present dangers.

 

[J Ed]

How could a party with this sort of mentality ever lose?

DNC leaders unhappy with party activists’ aggressive tactics to pick new chairman

Democratic Party activists who tried unsuccessfully to sink Hillary Clinton’s nomination at last year’s convention are at it again, pestering national party members ahead of next week’s vote on a new chairman.

Party leaders are eager to incorporate the energy of progressives who buoyed Sen. Bernard Sanders’ presidential campaign last year — but less enthusiastic about the activists’ rough edges that continue to irk many Democratic National Committee members.

They say the phone calls to lobby for Rep. Keith Ellison, the choice of progressives, over Tom Perez, viewed as the establishment choice, are out of control.

“It was over the top, and I contacted Keith, and Keith tried to stop it, to his credit. It took a while,” said Marcel L. Groen, chairman of the Pennsylvania Democrats. “I want their enthusiasm and energy, but I do want it harnessed. I am not interested in anarchy.”

Mr. Groen said he is a fan of both Mr. Ellison and Mr. Perez, the Obama administration’s former labor secretary — but the pro-Ellison effort convinced him to go public with his support for Mr. Perez.

“Let’s say you were completely uncommitted,” he said. “You don’t want 300 people calling you and telling you what to do.”

 

[J Ed]

More on Ellison and Perez, and the behind the scenes machinations which propelled Perez.

Be clear about what happened to Keith Ellison

On the Monday after the 2016 election, Keith Ellison announced that he intended to run for DNC chair. At the time of his announcement, Ellison had the support of prominent establishment Democrats (Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer) and prominent left-wing Democrats (Bernie Sanders, Raúl Grijalva). He was the clear frontrunner. His challengers were mostly insignificant or bygone figures that nobody thought posed a threat to his bid.

Around a week after he announced, the New York Times reported that Obama’s people were not happy with Ellison and that they were scouring the benches for someone to beat him:

But after steadily adding endorsements from leading Democrats in his bid to take over the party, Mr. Ellison is encountering resistance from a formidable corner: the White House.In a sign of the discord gripping the party, President Obama’s loyalists, uneasy with the progressive Mr. Ellison, have begun casting about for an alternative, according to multiple Democratic officials close to the president.
The Obama people did not rally around an existing candidate in the field that they thought was better. They went out and recruited someone. The point of this recruitment was to beat back the left faction that Ellison represented. They considered many potential avatars for this anti-Ellison effort and eventually settled on Tom Perez.

On December 15, Tom Perez came into the DNC race. Around the same time, the establishment forces mounted a brutal smear campaign against Ellison, placing stories all over the place about how he was (or still is) an anti-semitic, Farrakhan-loving, Nation of Islam guy.

This effort ultimately paid off with Perez narrowly winning the DNC chair election over Ellison.

During and after the DNC chair race, many moderate pundits and posters took the position that who wins the DNC chair does not really matter and also that infighting between left and right factions of the Democratic party is unhelpful in the times of Trump. But this, bizarrely enough, wasn’t self-criticism of the moderate establishment wing of the party. No, it was criticism that was and continues to be lobbed at the left-wing sorts who backed Ellison.

Before this gets turned into another thing where the establishment Democrats posture as the reasonable adults victimized by the assaults of those left-wing baddies, let’s just be very clear about what happened here. It was the establishment wing that decided to recruit and then stand up a candidate in order to fight an internal battle against the left faction of the party. It was the establishment wing that then dumped massive piles of opposition research on one of their own party members. And it was the establishment wing that did all of this in the shadow of Trump, sowing disunity in order to contest a position whose leadership they insist does not really matter.

Perhaps surprising that the DNC didn't think about questioning Ellison's place of birth or alleging links with Jeremiah Wright.

 

[8den]

He really does have the smile of a labrador

I've never heard of a labrador grinning sadistically.

 

[Ranbay]

http://newsthump.com/2017/02/26/pre...dinner-unless-comedians-promise-a-safe-space/

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Lawyers, Guns & Money The Gorka Dissertation, Part II

Fun with Whitehouse Radical Islamic Terrorism "expert" Gorka's ramblings and awesome use of page filling graphics:

This guy's Power Point must be as riveting as watching a moist Bannon slow dry out.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Ob Bloomberg Trump's Deportation Plan Is Economic Suicide

...
n 2014, the latest year for which numbers are available, there were 11.1 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., according to the Pew Research Center. That’s down from a peak of 12.2 million in 2007. The numbers have shrunk primarily because Mexicans are no longer coming over the border in the numbers that they used to; as of 2014, there were 5.8 million undocumented Mexicans in the U.S., compared to 6.9 million in 2007.

There are a lot of reasons for the decline, not least the upsurge of good jobs in Mexico that have resulted from the North American Free Trade Agreement. But that decline has had a pronounced effect on any number of U.S. industries that rely on manual labor: farms, building construction and factories among them.

“We’re really near full employment, and are likely facing a tight labor market for the next decade or so,” said Donald Grimes, a senior research specialist at the University of Michigan. “The only place firms are going to be able to find workers will be migrants.”

Frank Gasperini, the president and chief executive of the National Council of Agricultural Employers, told me that of the 1.5 million seasonal agricultural workers, somewhere between 50 and 80 percent are immigrants, depending on who’s counting. With the labor market so tight, he said, many farms are as much as 50 percent short of the workforce they need. Farmers have adapted by planting fewer acres with only the most high-margin crops, like grapes and almonds. Less profitable crops, like olives, have been pared back. (The California drought has also influenced these decisions.)

Gasperini insists that farmers don’t purposely hire undocumented workers, but c’mon. They certainly know that many of their workers are in the U.S. illegally — and that a wholesale effort by the government to round them up and send them back would be devastating. Native-born citizens, Gasperini said, simply don’t want to pick crops, so farmers would have to either plant fewer acres or pay significantly higher wages to lure legal immigrants. The result would be two-fold: higher prices at the grocery store and an increase in imported fruits and vegetables. Oh, and what country would most likely be exporting those fruits and vegetables to the U.S.? Mexico. Somehow, I don’t think that’s the result Trump has in mind.
...

One of the big losers out of NAFTA were small already very poor Mexican farmers who could not compete with larger well subsidised US Agri-Business. They often went bust and ended up paying Coyotes to ferry traffic them North pick crops. The US financial crisis made that dangerous trip less attractive.

Trumps policies aimed at making the US a very hostile place for hated on immigrants ironically enough will probably benefit the properly documented ones who compete with illegals as some will likely see higher wages as farmers desperate to hire up incentives. That is if larger producers don't turn to automation as they have in the past. Either way most Trump voters would not touch such arduous field work with a barge pole. All they'll notice is higher grocery prices and more of their food being Mexican produced. The exception may be smaller farmers who'll go bust and be reduced to being migrant labour themselves.

 

[teqniq]

White House press pool now consists of Hello magazine and the Beano

 

[CRI]

Trump Administration Seeks to Loosen Hiring Requirements to Beef Up Border Patrol
According to an internal memo, laxer standards are needed to expand the number of Border Patrol agents, but that could come at a cost in security.

That includes a request to potentially loosen congressionally-mandated requirements such as a polygraph, as well as an entrance exam and background check.

And some current and former DHS officials and outside experts are concerned that lowering standards could allow the influx of less-qualified candidates who may be susceptible to corruption. CBP is uniquely targeted by drug-trafficking and other transnational organizations seeking out agents they can bribe — with money or sexual favors — to allow drugs, undocumented immigrants, or other contraband across the U.S.-Mexico border.

This is going to be really, really nasty.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

A bit of perspective: the Obama White House tried to exclude Fox News from various press briefings etc., in 2009. The NYT and others, stood in solidarity with Fox.

There followed, beginning in earnest more than two weeks ago, an intensified volley of White House comments describing Fox as “not a news network.”

In a sign of discomfort with the White House stance, Fox’s television news competitors refused to go along with a Treasury Department effort on Thursday to exclude Fox from a round of interviews with the executive-pay czar Kenneth R. Feinberg that was to be conducted with a “pool” camera crew shared by all the networks. That followed a pointed question at a White House briefing this week by Jake Tapper, an ABC News correspondent, about the administration’s treatment of “one of our sister organizations.”

The first real shot from the White House, however, came when aides excluded “Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace” — which they had previously treated as distinct from the network — from a round of presidential interviews with Sunday morning news programs in mid-September.

Behind the War Between White House and Fox

The Obama administration made a deliberate effort to exclude Fox News from a press pool during the height of its war with the network, newly released documents show.

At the time, in the fall of 2009, the administration dismissed the matter as simply a mistake. “There was no plot to exclude Fox News, and they had the same interview that their competitors did. Much ado about absolutely nothing,” the Treasury Department said in a statement. But internal e-mails obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch show that the attempted exclusion from an interview with federal pay czar Ken Feinberg was part of a deliberate strategy. The attempt failed when the other networks refused to go along unless Fox was included.

White House Targeted Fox News

 

[CRI]

So, "your papers, please," is now a thing inside the US. Very worrying.

Dem seeks answers on agents IDing passengers as they left domestic flight

At John F. Kennedy International Airport on Wednesday night, federal agents reportedly stood at the jet bridge and requested government-issued identification from every single traveler before they deplaned a Delta flight from San Francisco, which is an unusual step for domestic flights.

 

[CRI]

Immigration Agents Discover New Freedom to Deport Under Trump

The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, said on Tuesday that the president wanted to “take the shackles off” of agents, an expression the officers themselves used time and again in interviews to describe their newfound freedom.

“Morale amongst our agents and officers has increased exponentially since the signing of the orders,” the unions representing ICE and Border Patrol agents said in a joint statement after President Trump issued the executive orders on immigration late last month.

Two officials in Washington said that the shift — and the new enthusiasm that has come with it — seems to have encouraged pro-Trump political comments and banter that struck the officials as brazen or gung-ho, like remarks about their jobs becoming “fun.” Those who take less of a hard line on unauthorized immigrants feel silenced, the officials said.

Rounding up and forcibly deporting people, fun? Christ.

 

[CRI]

Seems to be a lot of whining on social media about the DNC elections, trying to re-run the Clinton-Sanders bun-fight. But also plenty thumbs up amongst Black and Latinx Dem commentators, and pointing out as Deputy, Ellison keeps his seat in the House. Can't afford to risk losing any seats at this stage. Thought these tweets were quite apt about the situ.

 

[CRI]

After the Environmental Protection Agency was set up, the government commissioned freelance photographers to collect images of environmental damage to create an archive before clean up efforts started to take effect. There's a piece featuring these on the Popular Science website. Just a reminder of what could be around the corner again once the decades of protective measures start rolling back. Sobering stuff. I'm surprised any of my generation is still alive.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Muhammad Ali's son detained at Florida airport, questioned on religion

 

[coley]

Immigration Agents Discover New Freedom to Deport Under Trump

The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, said on Tuesday that the president wanted to “take the shackles off” of agents, an expression the officers themselves used time and again in interviews to describe their newfound freedom.

“Morale amongst our agents and officers has increased exponentially since the signing of the orders,” the unions representing ICE and Border Patrol agents said in a joint statement after President Trump issued the executive orders on immigration late last month.

Two officials in Washington said that the shift — and the new enthusiasm that has come with it — seems to have encouraged pro-Trump political comments and banter that struck the officials as brazen or gung-ho, like remarks about their jobs becoming “fun.” Those who take less of a hard line on unauthorized immigrants feel silenced, the officials said.

Rounding up and forcibly deporting people, fun? Christ.

And that's the existing staff, once they start employing and deploying the 'less well qualified' things will get much worse,
And as it happens, once the bully boys are in the ascendency those with any sense of decency or compassion will walk or be pushed.

 

[coley]

Things warming up nicely
Trump White House scrambles to check scandal over FBI inquiry into Russia ties
The Tangerine Twat replaced by Pence within the next 6 months?

White House attempts to write the story off as a confabulation were undermined, however, by expressions of alarm on Capitol Hill. In an appearance on HBO on Friday, Republican congressman Darrell Issa, a fiercely partisan warrior, called on the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who was a member of the Trump campaign, to recuse himself from justice department investigations of the affair.

“You’re going to need to use the special prosecutor’s statute and office,” Issa said. “You can’t just give it to your deputy. That’s another political appointee.”

 

[Anudder Oik]

The Tim Pool Videos are fascinating. I think he's doing well. He's the guy that has accepted a challenge and 2000 dollars to go and investigate the claims that there are no go areas, etc in Sweden.

He's finished in Malmo and will move onto Stockholm next.



Media Tweets by Tim Pool (@Timcast) on Twitter

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Wonder how much further the US will fall in the rankings, in the coming years.

2016 World Press Freedom Index | Reporters Without Borders

 

[Ming]

Muhammad Ali's son detained at Florida airport, questioned on religion

Ali's one of my all time heroes and the right hated him. Doesn't surprise me they're targeting his son. I loved that clip were Bush 2 (a draft dodging coward) put his dukes up to an old Ali at a press conference and Ali just looked at him with complete contempt.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Reuters Trump budget plan boosts Pentagon, trims State Dept, EPA: officials

...
A second official said the State Department's budget could be cut by as much as 30 percent, which would force a major restructuring of the department and elimination of programs.

The officials requested anonymity because the draft budget had not been made public yet.

Trump, in a speech to conservative activists on Friday, promised "one of the greatest military buildups in American history."

Some defense experts have questioned the need for a large increase in U.S. military spending, which already stands at roughly $600 billion annually. By contrast, the United States spends about $50 billion annually on the State Department and foreign assistance.

The amounts that Trump is proposing to add to the Pentagon budget and trim elsewhere are not yet publicly known.
...

You could argue State was already chronically underfunded compared with the very porky and wasteful DoD.

“If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately. So I think it’s a cost benefit ratio. The more that we put into the State Department’s diplomacy, hopefully the less we have to put into a military budget as we deal with the outcome of an apparent American withdrawal from the international scene.” - One General Mattis in March 2013. Whatever happened to that guy?

 

[bimble]

The Tim Pool Videos are fascinating. I think he's doing well. He's the guy that has accepted a challenge and 2000 dollars to go and investigate the claims that there are no go areas, etc in Sweden.

He's finished in Malmo and will move onto Stockholm next.



Media Tweets by Tim Pool (@Timcast) on Twitter

Er. I got as far as the bit where the man tells him that 80% of the people who came in to Germany and Sweden recently 'are Isis'.

 

[Ranbay]

The Tim Pool Videos are fascinating. I think he's doing well. He's the guy that has accepted a challenge and 2000 dollars to go and investigate the claims that there are no go areas, etc in Sweden.

He's finished in Malmo and will move onto Stockholm next.



Media Tweets by Tim Pool (@Timcast) on Twitter

Watched it last night and follow him on twatter, I got what the guy was saying, everyone else just took from him 80% of people are in ISIS..

 

[CrabbedOne]

Er. I got as far as the bit where the man tells him that 80% of the people who came in to Germany and Sweden recently 'are Isis'.

On DW German intel agency notes dramatic increase in Islamic extremism

...
"We receive between two and four credible tips on planned terrorist activity in Germany each day," Maassen said. "We have to recognize that we are living in a different situation now than was normal."

The BfV explained that part of the reason for the uptick was the heavy press coverage of terror plots, as well as the increased ease in connecting with extremists online. It also cited an increased danger in young people being radicalized online, saying that then their friends and relatives might not be able to see what is happening.

"These are social groups that find each other, let's say through their mosque community, and the people who see them in the real world don't necessarily notice any change in behavior," according to Maassen.

Of the 1,600 Islamists living in Germany, Maassen said that about 570 of them were considered "dangerous," that is, capable of plotting an a terror attack.
...

This is quite a big uptick from 100 in 2013. With somewhere over five million Muslims in Germany that percentage might be a little smaller than 80%.

There is some evidence of AQ and IS outreach in Germany. It can't be denied refugees have been involved in some attacks and there have been attacks on Muslims. These things have downsides and no policy here is risk free. Trump's hysterical Muslim ban certainly isn't; it's loaded with negative consequences. On the other hand Germans, apart from AFD supporters, have sensibly tended not to blame all refugees.

There's a sensible argument for more refugee screening as has been practiced to an extreme degree of thoroughness by the US. It's a more than two year process even for greatly endangered Iraqi translators who served alongside the US military. Looking at some Swedish examples I think that would not be a bad thing. The Swedes are certainly letting in some Beards with very dodgy form that could be picked up on easily in a short interview.

 

[bimble]

Yes, for sure, it's stupid to try to argue that there are no problems at all. Arguably the more some folk try to pretend there are no issues whatsoever the more other people will be moved to march around waving the 'rapefugee' flags.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Arms Control Wonk REASONS FOR THE GREAT UNRAVELING OF THE ARMS CONTROL ENTERPRISE

...
The blame game interests me less than how to pick up these pieces. My point here is that the righteous indignation against Vladimir Putin might be leavened a bit by recognition that there’s plenty of blame to be spread around. Putin has much to answer for, but deconstructionists in the Republican Party have succeeded in creating the conditions they long warned against. Now that the demolitionists are free to roam the White House as well as the Kremlin, we are in for a particularly rough ride.

Building a new enterprise to reduce nuclear dangers and weapons will require a change of heart about nuclear diplomacy among Republicans, perhaps chastened by Team Trump. At its essence, conservatism is, after all, not tearing down what has previously been built until there is something better to replace it. A free-for-all isn’t better than treaty restraints and norms to reduce nuclear dangers. If Republicans allow deconstructionists free rein, the United States is left with only two options: watching and complaining while nuclear dangers grow, or sending more U.S. troops into harm’s way.

Nice bit of background on decades of US undermining of Arms Control deals while loudly blaming other parties as the post-Cold War world slipped out of control.

Now it's all in the tiny hands of an ignoramus apparently firmly convinced any deal that is not a monument to his own ego made by himself must be a bad one. It's Putin who wanted to extend START. I'd point any advocates of creative destruction to it's last outing attempting to remake an unsatisfactory status quo in the ME only to make it considerably worse. Trump not being a conservative should be taken very literally. He appears quite prone to create all sorts of mayhem.