PGT: President-Elect Donald J Trump

[DuffMan]

I wonder how bad Health Care will turn out to be with Trump.
He seems willing to ram anything through as fast as possible, even against his anti- ACA parties wishes. This will be a disaster, in his words, a terrible, terrible thing. So glad I won't be personally affected with his recklessness.

[octothorp]

So just to go through the flow of information:

Starting sometime in early 2016, a private contractor from western europe (rumoured Mi-6) with ties to Moscow, working first for a Republican primary rival and then for a democrat supporter, began investigating Trump. In July, that contractor delivered findings to the FBI as well as to their own country's intelligence. When it became apparent that the FBI was not going to go public, he began to circulate redacted copies into media circles in October. In November, McCain got wind of this, made contact with the investigator through third channels, got his own copy, and provided them to Comey. Somehow, Buzzfeed got an unredacted copy of it, so not simply those that were making the media rounds, but either directly from the source, or someone in the McCain chain, or someone in the FBI.

Entirely separately, sometime in august or before, someone in an eastern european intelligence agency got wind of the Russians having compromising information on Trump; they informed someone within the US intelligence community. This information was passed along to Paul Wood of the BBC. (Timeline here is not as solid, it's vague whether August was when Wood found out, or when the intelligence guy found out.)


It's really difficult to write both these off, unless you believe that multiple people in these chains are lying and involved, but were providing information only to news sources who were not going to leak it without vetting it; or that there was a disinformation campaign by Russia going back to early in the year trying to make it look like Trump was compromised (maybe because Russia really wanted Clinton), but again, not actually taking the steps to see that the information was released to the public (which they could have easily done through their 'hacking' identities).

[CaptainCrunch]

I think that this was all a big plot by Hillary, Bill and Donald to gain Hillary near dictatorial control over the presidency.

Here's how it works

Hillary runs on one side, Donald runs on another side.
The Donald runs a mean spirited campaign, he makes fun of the handicapped, threatens to deport everyone. Acts like a fool during the debate
Hillary runs against him with a pretty lazy forgettable campaign, this is important.
Hillary, Bill and Donald's campaign workers stuff the ballot boxes, its important that nobody remembers her campaign, except that she's the nice one.
Donald wins
The nation goes crazy with rage, nobody admits to voting for Donald because stuffed ballot boxes.
Then Bill and Hillary phone their buddy Vlad the Putin, and get him to manufacture a hacking crisis. Donald creates some questionable transactions and possible conflict of issues with the Russians. He gets impeached.

Hillary emerges as the hero of the hour running for president. the republican party at this point is broken because of impeachment. Hillary wins the presidency overwhelmingly.

Hillary changes the constitution to eliminate term limits. Everyone is onboard because the last few elections have been crap shows.

Hillary suspends elections at the presidential level, nobody cares at this point.

Hillary's daughter changes her name to Hillary Clinton II, the succession plan is in place.

The Clinton's Donald and Putin meet at the Bilderbergers top secret Burger restaurant with senior UN officials to take over the world.

We're through the looking glass people

[killer_carlson]

I dunno...

I think that countries who hate democracy or the West must try to undermine democratically called elections at the federal level on a regular basis. Trying to show democracy in a bad light or as some sort of scam has to be in Chapter 1 of the Dictator's Handbook.

I suspect that the attempt and efforts are nothing new, except that someone got caught this time.

I would be curious if more comments and anecdotes of previous attempts or initiatives comes out soon.

[Fozzie_DeBear]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

I dunno...

I think that countries who hate democracy or the West must try to undermine democratically called elections at the federal level on a regular basis. Trying to show democracy in a bad light or as some sort of scam has to be in Chapter 1 of the Dictator's Handbook.

I suspect that the attempt and efforts are nothing new, except that someone got caught this time.

I would be curious if more comments and anecdotes of previous attempts or initiatives comes out soon.

Russia messed with Brexit, Ukraine etc.

You'll enjoy this

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

I dunno...

I think that countries who hate democracy or the West must try to undermine democratically called elections at the federal level on a regular basis. Trying to show democracy in a bad light or as some sort of scam has to be in Chapter 1 of the Dictator's Handbook.

I suspect that the attempt and efforts are nothing new, except that someone got caught this time.

I would be curious if more comments and anecdotes of previous attempts or initiatives comes out soon.

Do people seriously think this is a thing? It's about as ridiculous as the whole "they hate us for our freedom" garbage.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Tillerson is having a bad performance in the afternoon. Rubio very well could be the deciding vote, so be interesting to see what he does.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Tillerson is having a bad performance in the afternoon. Rubio very well could be the deciding vote, so be interesting to see what he does.

It's the Republicans. You know they're going to cave.

[flambers]

Originally Posted by DuffMan

I wonder how bad Health Care will turn out to be with Trump.
He seems willing to ram anything through as fast as possible, even against his anti- ACA parties wishes. This will be a disaster, in his words, a terrible, terrible thing. So glad I won't be personally affected with his recklessness.

Just check the status of the current Health Care System under the previous administration.

Basically its extremely expensive.

I bet, President Elect will fix the issues.

(can't get any worse)

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by flambers

Just check the status of the current Health Care System under the previous administration.

Basically its extremely expensive.

I bet, President Elect will fix the issues.

(can't get any worse)

really?

[photon]

Trump's transition team pulls Mattis from a hearing about Congress making a waiver around the law preventing military people from being defense secretary.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...entagon-chief/

The House Armed Services Committee has canceled a hearing Thursday in which retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis was to address the unconventional nature of his nomination for defense secretary because President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team decided against him appearing, two congressional staff members said.

Mattis was to testify in the afternoon on his need for Congress to pass legislation that would exempt him from a law that prevents recently retired military officers from serving in senior civilian jobs in the Pentagon. The legislation states that retired military personnel must be out of uniform for seven years. The original law, adopted in 1947, had a 10-year moratorium and was created to ensure that civilians control the military.

Two committee staff members, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Mattis was willing to appear before the House committee. Separately, Mattis’s confirmation hearing also is scheduled for Thursday morning before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Why would they do that?

Seems the waiver itself has some questions around it compared to the other time this was done.

Youngsmith said Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee have several concerns when comparing the legislation that allowed Marshall to hold the position and the proposal that would open the door for Mattis.

For one, the legislation for Mattis does not currently name him specifically, and instead provides the waiver only to “the first person appointed” as defense secretary. If for someone reason Mattis is not approved, the new law would still be on the books, Youngsmith said. Marshall’s waiver specifically named him.

As a retired senior officer drawing a military pension, Mattis also is still subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the set of laws that guide behavior in the military. Among the laws are provisions that forbid contempt toward officials and disregarding orders or regulations. If Mattis is going to be defense secretary, Democrats believe he explicitly should be named as exempt from military law, Youngsmith said.

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday, two national security experts testified that Mattis has the acumen to be defense secretary but argued that they do not think there should be another general after him serving in the position for at least 20 years.

But this is probably why they should give in on this one.

One of the witnesses, Eliot Cohen of Johns Hopkins University’s strategic studies program, argued that Mattis would be “stabilizing and moderating force, preventing wildly stupid, dangerous or illegal things from happening,” in Trump’s administration.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

It's weird a guy like Tillerson keeps saying evidence of climate change or global warming is inconclusive. I'm shocked.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by KootenayFlamesFan

It's weird a guy like Tillerson keeps saying evidence of climate change or global warming is inconclusive. I'm shocked.

Did he say that?

I thought he said that CO2 emissions cause it, we have difficulty predicting the consequence of it.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Do people seriously think this is a thing? It's about as ridiculous as the whole "they hate us for our freedom" garbage.

I think he meant Regimes as opposed to countries.

There are plenty of undemocratic regimes in the world that seek to undermine democracies in an attempt to suppress revolutions at home.

I don't think that's what Putin is doing here (or his rationale, at least). This is straight up Cold War tactics. Soviet Union would do this all the time.

[photon]

Trump may say things about replacing Obamacare, but unless Republicans have some amazing idea they've kept hidden for six years it's not going to work out.

https://www.thenation.com/article/tr...-on-obamacare/

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Cappy

I think he meant Regimes as opposed to countries.

There are plenty of undemocratic regimes in the world that seek to undermine democracies in an attempt to suppress revolutions at home.

I don't think that's what Putin is doing here (or his rationale, at least). This is straight up Cold War tactics. Soviet Union would do this all the time.

Right, but the motive isn't a hatred for democracy, it's a wish to consolidate power.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Originally Posted by GGG

Did he say that?

I thought he said that CO2 emissions cause it, we have difficulty predicting the consequence of it.

A couple times.

[photon]

Fox News defends CNN against Trump's calling them fake news. We're truly through the looking glass now.

Fox News anchor Shepard Smith defended CNN on Wednesday after Donald Trump accused the network of being “faking news” at a news conference for reporting on the existence of a Russian dossier of unverified allegations about the president-elect.

“President-elect Trump today told CNN’s Jim Acosta that his organization amounts to fake news. CNN’s exclusive reporting on the Russian matter was separate and distinctly different from the document dump executed by an online news property,” Smith said, drawing a distinction between CNN’s reporting and that of BuzzFeed News, which released the entire contents of the Russian dossier.

“Though we at Fox News cannot confirm CNN’s report, it is our observation that its correspondents followed journalistic standards,” Smith said. “Neither they, nor any other journalists, should be subjected to belittling and delegitimizing by the president-elect of the United States.”

http://www.thewrap.com/fox-news-defe...ke-news-claim/

[GGG]

Originally Posted by KootenayFlamesFan

A couple times.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.f930e751f192

I don't read his responses that way. He is saying Human's Caused, consequences of warming difficult to predict, need to do something, we should keep a seat at the table, problem needs to be addressed globally.

That's about the most liberal position on climate change a republican has ever taken.

[nik-]

Shepard Smith is on Fox News, but he's the least Fox News thing about that network. He's always been willing to go against the greater network narrative, so it's not really indicative.