American Politics Thread: Orange is the new POTUS (Archive)

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

See, I go back and forth on this too. There's less and less to be completely sure of with this administration. I mean you listen to him and you wonder how he can tie his shoes, but then you read Kasparov dissect these decisions and explain their effect in terms of an authoritarian's basic playbook and much of it does seem to have a purpose. It's seriously not clear how much of it the apparent incompetence is deliberate.

Whether his campaign's success was due to brilliant techniques or not, I cannot find any competency in his actual administration that would lead me to believe he's capable of planning something like this

[Senator Clay Davis]

Here is the full draft memo.

https://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/uploads/cho...ement....0.pdf

[chemgear]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...=.b40c3029877f

On Friday, President Trump and his entourage will jet for the third straight weekend to a working getaway at his oceanfront Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla.

On Saturday, Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr., with their Secret Service details in tow, will be nearly 8,000 miles away in the United Arab Emirates, attending the grand opening of a Trump-brand golf resort in the “Beverly Hills of Dubai.”

Meanwhile, New York police will keep watch outside Trump Tower in Manhattan, the chosen home of first lady Melania Trump and son Barron. And the tiny township of Bedminster, N.J., is preparing for the daunting prospect that the local Trump golf course will serve as a sort of northern White House for as many as 10 weekends a year.

Barely a month into the Trump presidency, the unusually elaborate lifestyle of America’s new first family is straining the Secret Service and security officials, stirring financial and logistical concerns in several local communities, and costing far beyond what has been typical for past presidents — a price tag that, based on past assessments of presidential travel and security costs, could balloon into the hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of a four-year term.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

I think you're both giving the leaky administration way too much credit. As seen on Twitter

"What a move! Is he a chess champion?"
"No. He's literally gnawing on the pieces"

Finding leaks by giving different information to different people and seeing what comes out is rather basic stuff. You can get the idea just by watching film or TV.

Of course proper execution is not that trivial, but if you don't really care about possibly firing the wrong people and not finding all the leaks, you can do this simply to create paranoia among the staff, which in itself can cut down on leaks.

EDIT:
Of course if your administration is considered so incompetent and crazy that getting fired by them is not a black mark on someones career, and if the people you fire are mostly just glad to get out of the madhouse...

[Fozzie_DeBear]

Underestimating Trumps resiliency has gotten the US into this mess...whether he is doing it deliberately or accidentally is irrelevant.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

See, I go back and forth on this too. There's less and less to be completely sure of with this administration. I mean you listen to him and you wonder how he can tie his shoes, but then you read Kasparov dissect these decisions and explain their effect in terms of an authoritarian's basic playbook and much of it does seem to have a purpose. It's seriously not clear how much of it the apparent incompetence is deliberate.

I think you've got a QB who can't help but fumble the football, and a coach who knows this, and so runs a whole offense based on fumbling the ball downfield, with the intention of having every play be sheer chaos that might result in 20-30 yards of positive yardage through fumbles and bobbles and kicks that the defense can't possibly anticipate. But sometimes the opposition scoops it up and runs it back for a touchdown; which is fine, because you don't need to play defense then, you just get the ball on offense again. But then it turns out that the coach actually didn't care about the football game at all; while everyone was freaking out about all the fumbles, he slipped back into the locker room and robbed everyone's lockers.

[puckedoff]

Its not like he pushed anyone in front of a train

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by octothorp

I think you've got a QB who can't help but fumble the football, and a coach who knows this, and so runs a whole offense based on fumbling the ball downfield, with the intention of having every play be sheer chaos that might result in 20-30 yards of positive yardage through fumbles and bobbles and kicks that the defense can't possibly anticipate. But sometimes the opposition scoops it up and runs it back for a touchdown; which is fine, because you don't need to play defense then, you just get the ball on offense again. But then it turns out that the coach actually didn't care about the football game at all; while everyone was freaking out about all the fumbles, he slipped back into the locker room and robbed everyone's lockers.

This is both hilarious and rings pretty true... Who's the coach in this scenario though? Bannon? Because I don't have any reason to think he's some brilliant nefarious mastermind either. It could be the GOP establishment (wherein robbing lockers is them getting as much of their agenda enacted into law as quickly as possible), but they don't have any direct control over what Trump and his team do.

That all being said, Itse is right; the conspiracy theories being floated as plausible here are devious but they wouldn't take much actual skill to attempt. Giving the press false stories or planting them with suspected leakers isn't hard at all.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by chemgear

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...=.b40c3029877f



On Saturday, Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr., with their Secret Service details in tow, will be nearly 8,000 miles away in the United Arab Emirates, attending the grand opening of a Trump-brand golf resort in the “Beverly Hills of Dubai."

Emoluments clause screams hello!!!

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by puckedoff

Its not like he pushed anyone in front of a train

But he could, and his supporters wouldn't care.

It was be the biggest push ever, I mean there is pushing in front of a train and how Trump would push someone in front of a train. There really is no precedent for how well he would push, it would be the greatest push of any President. People would be talking about the push and how great that push was and just how brave Trump would be for actually have the guts to do the pushing. Plus, fake news.

[Flash Walken]

It will be a great push. In some ways it may be even greater.

[I_H8_Crawford]

Obama was too weak, that's why he never pushed anyone in front of a train.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

This is both hilarious and rings pretty true... Who's the coach in this scenario though? Bannon? Because I don't have any reason to think he's some brilliant nefarious mastermind either. It could be the GOP establishment (wherein robbing lockers is them getting as much of their agenda enacted into law as quickly as possible), but they don't have any direct control over what Trump and his team do.

That all being said, Itse is right; the conspiracy theories being floated as plausible here are devious but they wouldn't take much actual skill to attempt. Giving the press false stories or planting them with suspected leakers isn't hard at all.

Yeah, I was getting at Bannon as coach, but I don't see him as brilliant either... certainly I think he fancies himself a nefarious mastermind. The metaphor would work better if the coach, through his own scheming, directed the QB to do something that the QB then did wrong and ended up drawing attention back to the coach just as he's sneaking into the locker-room.

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

I read an article in the new York times yesterday postulating that one of the problems Trump was having was the inability to force staffers around him to sign NDAs, and that for a guy deathly afraid of public humiliation, these leaks are weighing in him heavily. That Trump's press conference that went completely off the rails was an attempt by Trump to reassert control over the perception of him and his administration after his Public spokes people and Twitter have been ineffective at changing the perception of his bumbling administration.

Mitch McConnell further speculated that Trump's approval record wouldn't be so dismal if he could bring himself to stick to the script. For McConnell to say that publicly I think points to to two things 1) that there is friction between Republicans and Trump and 2) that McConnell is laying the groundwork to appear in opposition to Trump for the eventual impeachment

The McConnell begging Trump to stay on message plays to their true goals I think. The Republicans have no interest in impeachment for any reason. They've proven they have no intention of governing in any sort of bipartisan fashion and an impeachment only damages their brand. Regardless of what Don does they won't act until it's either too late or they manage to dig so deeply the only way out is the other side.

[Regulator75]

[photon]

Little bit of info on your phone crossing the border, I didn't know Canada they could charge us with obstruction if we don't put in our password.

Might start backing up my phone to my laptop and wiping my phone when I travel, then restoring when I get to my destination. Not that I necessarily have anything to hide, but I hate facilitating such things.

https://news.vice.com/story/how-to-s...ing-the-border

[Titan]

Originally Posted by photon

Little bit of info on your phone crossing the border, I didn't know Canada they could charge us with obstruction if we don't put in our password.

Might start backing up my phone to my laptop and wiping my phone when I travel, then restoring when I get to my destination. Not that I necessarily have anything to hide, but I hate facilitating such things.

https://news.vice.com/story/how-to-s...ing-the-border

They can demand and search your computer too, though.

[opendoor]

Not to mention if they do get to the point where they're searching your phone and it's completely empty it's going to raise a lot of questions.

[puckedoff]

^ Good rule of thumb is if they are allowed to search your anus then pretty much nowhere you hide it is safe.

[dino7c]

Trump is the biggest asshat on earth...but some of the media does deserve some criticism for jumping to conclusions on a daily basis.

The guy who had no chance at winning the election is on the brink of being impeached...fool me ounce

If the election were held today Trump would probably win again

sad but true