The Trump Presidency

Already have: US fascist propaganda. You swallow it, you repost it here.
How many times have I suggested that to you? At least ten. And it still doesn't even cross your mind.

Yep. So? That's rather obvious to someone like me, who has more of a clue than you have about what I'm posting.

That is not what matters. In the first place, it's false - directly.
1)I presuppose nothing about you. I know nothing about you except what you post, and that is right here in front of me.
2) I present, at least for the first three or four repetitions of your latest mistake, evidence - lots of it, much of it quotes from you. The bulk of my posting then becomes an attempt to direct your attention to it as evidence, in the face of your refusal to acknowledge its existence as evidence, or the existence of the argument it supports.

Like this:

No, your point was that a fascist Republican administration headed by a guy like Trump would be more reliably isolationist and "multipolar" than an administration headed by Clinton, because

- and this was your posted justification, complete with videos you posted as your idea of persuasive evidence

- Clinton was an insane warmonger, a borderline psychopath willing to start a nuclear war with Russia in pursuit of her bloody agenda of killing people, held in check only by her corruption and greed.

You also posted that Trump was speaking, in your opinion, as an isolationist, and a peacemaker with Russia, and thus somebody less likely to be warlike and more likely to abet multipolar world politics and mutually beneficial US foreign policies, rather than the unipolar US imperial and war-backed regime promoted by the insane Clinton.

In other words, you repeated back to me the long-familiar (to an American) propaganda feed framing of the rightwing think tanks and Republican dominated mass media in the US. Complete with a couple of the videos they typically put out when they're gunning for Clinton, which they have been doing since 1992.

So are you agreeing with me, then? Because that is a list of comparatively weak and ineffectual projections of force, well illustrating the comparative situation of the two countries. Afghanistan, for example, which was intentionally manipulated by the US to be "Russia's Vietnam", was fought right on the Soviet border.

Again, btw, you post rightwing Republican propaganda in front of people familiar with it for decades: the exaggeration of the Soviet "threat", its presentation as a rival power looming in military and economic strength over the planet and threatening all that is good and true and American, was a staple of the political scene when Reagan - the first Trump - was campaigning. Note the consequences.

And Reagan had less Congressional support for the crazy.

 

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As a interested outsider in Australia this thread has produced much entertainment and keept my 2 remaining brain cells active

I find it a little disturbing when the contestants play the man and not the subject

But hey it's not my call what gets allowed

As to this slight detour playing in the wings we have now playing out the choice of Trumps pick for the Supreme Court

My knowledge in this area would fit on a postcard so I find it strange my impression of The LAW being neutral is shattered when I see arguments along the lines of is the judge from the left or right

Are there no neutral central judges in America?

PS I suspect this is a problem in all countries / Supreme Courts

 

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from reading his bio he seems quite appropriate, which is rather extraordinary due to Trumps radical approach...

 

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That's bad news. Brooks has been completely wrong about almost everything for his entire career - anyone betting on politics in the US could have made almost as much money betting against every single prediction Brooks ever made, without bothering to evaluate them, as the small fortune Brooks has been paid for making them (also without bothering to evaluate them).

Brooks also wrote, just yesterday in the NYT, that the Trump administration is not a Republican administration. That's not a joke: [quote = "David Brooks"] In the first place, the Trump administration is not a Republican administration; it is an ethnic nationalist administration. [/quote] So that's what we're calling core Republicans now - "ethnic nationalists"? Who just sort of happen, by coincidence you know, just this last time, because the Democratic Party is full of lefties who call people bad names, in spite of the fact that they are really "independents", to be the elected Congressional representation and elected Executive leadership and 50 million strong core loyal voting bloc of the Republican Party again this year for the fiftieth consecutive year.

But for beauty in everting exegesis, the shadow between the lines of Brooks's penultimate paragraphs (NYT 1/31) commends itself to us even more:

It's so reasonable in tone, it takes minute for the reality it is the negative of to reregister in mind:

those cabinet picks he's referring to as "exceeding expectations" are the likes of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (for Justice!), and Betsy DeVos, and Steve Mnuchin, and Ben Carson, and Rick Perry, and Mitch McConnel's wife. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/trump-cabinet-tracker/510527/

that collection of Senators he imagines disappearing Trump for him and re-establishing the Brooksian respectability continuously enjoyed by the Republican Party up until suddenly a few months ago (when this weird bad thing happened, that no one saw coming), these Senators he describes as "honorable", include Tom Cotton (nuf said), a guy who was angling to be VP under Trump (Corker) http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2016/07/05/corker-campaign-trump-tuesday/86703034/, a guy who tried to pin approval of "enhanced interrogation" on Democrats to avoid W administration accountability (Lamar Alexander), and so forth.

 

Yes.

The ones nominated by Democratic Presidents, such as Obama's blocked nomination last year, tend to be politically neutral or centrist.

Oh, check into it a bit - Trump will never let you down.

He's generally described as very much like Scalia - a reputation for being very bright, very articulate, engagingly personable, and consistently producing bright and articulate and personable justifications for things like the Citizens United ruling.

 

dup

 

Ok.

This might yet be the biggest joke, the one that will have them rolling in the aisles kind of joke, and it's all on Dopey Donald.
Steve Bannon got to the White House without facing the Senate, as is the president's wont.
But he won't get his bastardly bum on a seat at the NSC just yet, cause the Don forgot about how his chum doesn't fall into one of the acceptable categories, being a civilian, so will need to face the Senate after all.

Ha Ha. I bet he really doesn't want to do that.

 

I do not really fear them. But if they endanger peace in such a serious way that a civil war starts, I will not visit that country before the civil war ends. In this sense, I would be harmed. Of course, I know that there are other terrorist activities of that dangerous level, like in the Ukraine, where the Bandera fascists have been supported by the West, and this has caused a civil war. If this would stop, this will be good for me too. I have lived some time in the Ukraine, liked it, but actually I would not visit it, too dangerous.

I'm anyway in Europe only to visit my mother, and have the possibility to avoid the consequences simply by emigration. Note also that I do not want to participate in any movement which tries to overthrow the existing government to rule the country, neither using democratic nor other means. In this sense, I'm not a danger for any regime, democratic, fascist, communist, islamic, whatever. What I care about is my personal freedom. I prefer a country where I have more personal freedom.

No to all parts. It would not matter anyway. If people like me would be considered as subhumans in a particular state, I would simply emigrate.

 

I had to laugh... sorry.. your naivety is staggering... simply emigrate .....with a gun at your head you don't go no where... sorry...
So you live currently in Germany and due to the rise in Neo Nazism they close the borders to keep people out but also shhh don't tell any one... they close the borders also to keep the people in.
"When you dig a hole too deep try digging up instead of down" ~ Homer Simpson
Best of luck!

 

The point being? In a civilized discussion, you simply would have accepted that my evaluation differs from your.

It means, the criterion for putting it into the "you are stupid" wastebasket is applicable. That's all.

I have a completely different impression.
1) You have only the posts. But you speculate a lot about what is the cause of my errors and similar ...
2) You support your speculations very very seldom with explicit quotes.

So what? First of all, it does not matter at all what you think about this evidence. We disagree about the reliability, live with it. It does not prove that I'm wrong. I'm used to work with unreliable sources. Then, I have often enough clarified that I'm not at all certain about what Trump will really do. There was some certainty only about Clinton, given that the world already knows that she is a warmonger, given her role in the Libyan and Syrian war. So, the choice was between known evil and something unknown and almost unpredictable. So your presentation (speculation) about what I think appears heavily distorted.

Again: There is a simple method to avoid such things: Not to speculate about what I think and why, but simply to quote what I have written and to present counterarguments.

Not really. As if Nicaragua had been that far away from the US. But this is, of course, no important disagreement.

The point being? Everybody in the Soviet empire was aware that there is not much economic strength. But that the military strength is comparable. If some rightwing Republican propaganda has said the same things, so what? You don't get the point that this does not matter at all for somebody who considers all the Western press writes as unreliable propaganda, which can be used to extract meaningful information only with the necessary precautions?

First, there is no rise in Neo Nazism in Germany, second, the borders are not closed. Then, even if you look at Nazi Germany: Hitler got power in January 1933, and already in March 1933 it became quite clear what follows. There were anti-Jewish laws, Nürnberger Gesetze, 1935, the famous Kristallnacht progrom 1938. Nonetheless, until October 1941, German policy officially encouraged Jewish emigration.
Then, I would not say I live in Germany. I spend some time in Germany, but also much time outside Germany, and already would have a place to emigrate.

 

Oh, well then it should be easily to prove your point. So let's see it.

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The unfortunate fact for you is Brooks is a widely respected conservative journalist. Unlike many partisans on the left and right, he isn't a dittohead.

Actually, you are being more than a little dishonest as his your custom. Below is a link to what Brooks actually wrote:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/opinion/the-republican-fausts.html?_r=0

This is more of what Brooks wrote, "
Many Republican members of Congress have made a Faustian bargain with Donald Trump. They don’t particularly admire him as a man, they don’t trust him as an administrator, they don’t agree with him on major issues, but they respect the grip he has on their voters, they hope he’ll sign their legislation and they certainly don’t want to be seen siding with the inflamed progressives or the hyperventilating media.

Their position was at least comprehensible: How many times in a lifetime does your party control all levers of power? When that happens you’re willing to tolerate a little Trumpian circus behavior in order to get things done.

But if the last 10 days have made anything clear, it’s this: The Republican Fausts are in an untenable position. The deal they’ve struck with the devil comes at too high a price. It really will cost them their soul.

In the first place, the Trump administration is not a Republican administration; it is an ethnic nationalist administration. Trump insulted both parties equally in his Inaugural Address. The Bannonites are utterly crushing the Republican regulars when it comes to actual policy making." - David Brooks

Brooks made a point, Trump isn't your typical Republican. He is in fact an ethnic nationalist. Facts matter Iceaura, and your cherry picking is intellectually dishonest. But unfortunately, that's your motus operandi.

That's gobbledygook and so forth.

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I'll try splitting the difference to note that Brooks is still, in his own right, a useful indicator. When he manages to stop bawling existentially and wallowing in his own tragic humanity, David Brooks manages to offer up glimpses of the craven corruption driving a powerful, even institutional range of what we might call mainstream conservatism.

Then again, my point is actually to link out to the Daily Kos takedown↱ built from the NYT article comment section, so, you know.

It's David Brooks. Whether we find anything important in any particular rubbish bin depends more on what we find valuable than any fluctuation in the market for used chewing gum.
____________________

Notes:

Rudyard. "David Brooks roasts his Republican Party for their deal with the devil. But the COMMENTS. . . !". Daily Kos. 31 January 2017. DailyKos.com. 1 February 2017. http://bit.ly/2kPLGJV

 

When you see conservative writers and commentators like Brooks be critical of the Republican Party and its elected officials as Brooks has been, it's a clear sign something is very rotten in Denmark.

 

I don't disagree, but it's also worth noting that Mr. Brooks has suffered something of an existential crisis over the last couple years, with the scuttlebutt saying he's rattled by a combination of facing up to aging, the decline of his political identity, and a divorce all at once.

Over the period, Brooks has been aching to have a piece of the GOP but unwilling to actually twist the knife and slice away; he keeps trying to take them to task from a forgiving standpoint. In a way, he's kind of like Speaker Ryan, and that presents an interesting question: How long before Mr. Brooks gives up the ghost and hops on the trolley, or will he actually hold out throughout? That latter I can respect, but in the meantime he is too aware of the non-Republican audience to pull off his chat with the team, and the result is really, really awkward.

 

I'll post a tidbit link because I was getting frustrated of how long my alcohol was taking to be delivered.

https://ca.yahoo.com/news/jenna-bush-hager-uses-dads-113607486.html


:EDIT:

Maybe wrong thread...

 

Trump's demise may occur as Brooks has predicted; I wouldn't be surprised if it did. And that may be one of the reasons Trump and his advisers are so secretive and even paranoid.

https://newrepublic.com/article/138911/hes-making-list-trump-paranoid-dangerous-nixon

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...d_the_paranoid_style_in_american_fascism.html

 

I think Brooks explained the Republican dilemma. It's a doozy exacerbated by the very undemocratic structures upon which the Republican Party has come to rely upon. At what point does it break or does it break? Brooks thinks it will break. He thinks Republicans in Congress will find the courage to toss the Trump. He might be too optimistic. I'm not certain. But I wouldn't be surprised if they did, especially if Trump continues down this road he has embarked upon.

If Trump begets a trade war or two as he appears intent on doing, that could be the straw which breaks the camels back. Joe Sixpack, Trump's base, will not be too happy when the price he pays for his TVs, clothing, beer, trucks, and everything else he buys goes through the roof and when his retirement savings drops through the floor.

 

If only it was that simple - from Snopes:

CLAIM: President Trump needs Senate confirmation in order for Steve Bannon to sit on the National Security Council.

UNPROVEN

A legal expert told us the law does not require Bannon to be confirmed by the Senate to sit on the National Security Council Principals committee.

...

While placing Bannon on the NSC has no doubt been controversial, Harvard Law Professor Larry Tribe said there is no reason to believe Bannon needs to go before the Senate first, telling us in an e-mail that:

[N]othing in the Constitution or in any Act of Congress makes membership in what has been called the Principals Committee, which is formally and structurally not part of the National Security Council but an advisory group hitched to the Council by an invisible cord, a position that mandates the Senate’s advice and consent.
​

http://www.snopes.com/steve-bannon-need-senate-confirmation-hearing-sit-nsc/​

 

Brooks always has an explanation...

Because the only way for Mr. Brooks to continue to reassure the deluded shut-ins who buy his bullshit is by telling them one of his three standard lies.

The first and happiest lie is that Republican Party is doing just great! This is Mr. Brooks' favorite lie, but one which the actual day-to-day atrocities of the Republican Party have kept him from rolling out lately.

Mr. Brooks second and most reliable lie -- the lie that tries to explain away the daily Republican atrocities any idiot can see right in front of them -- is that any acts of obstruction or vandalism or treason you think you're seeing being committed the Republican Party can be easily explained away as "the extremes on Both Sides" ruining everything for everyone: a condition that will be rectified right quick once the Sensible Center (translation: Joe Lieberman) rises up and reasserts itself. Upon this lie Mr. Brooks and a number of his fellow Beltway frauds have built an entire, very profitable cult (The High and Holy Church of Both Siderism.) It is a lie that Mr. Brooks deployed relentlessly during the 2016 presidential campaign and it is a lie about which I have already written several hundred more times than is good for my mental health.

Mr. Brooks third and most reassuring lie of all is that, whatever you may have thought about the Republican Party in the past (a "past" during which Mr. Brooks was busy reassuring you that everything was just fucking fine so please stop talking about it), as of today the Republican Party has turned the corner, purged itself of any weirdness and is about to do great things!

...

But what happens when the lies run out?

Ah, there's the rub.

What happens when Mr. Brooks can no longer pretend that the current crisis simply doesn't exist or is the byproduct of Extremes on Both Sides? When the rough beast finally slouches all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to be born?

Well then comes the Biggest Lie of All! The whopper that unrepentant con men like Mr. David Brooks only uncork for the rarest occasions.

From Mr. Brooks in The New York Times today:
In the first place, the Trump administration is not a Republican administration; it is an ethnic nationalist administration...
Yes, the administration of the fascist man-baby who ran as a Republican, was cheered by giant crowds of Republican base voters, who won virtually every Republican primary by wide margins, who was nominated at the Republican National Convention, who was elected as a Republican and who has had his ass kissed by an endless procession of Republican elected officials...

...is not Republican.

Says David Brooks.​

Right?

Excellent take down of the lovely David Brooks at driftglass - http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2017/01/david-brooks-two-inches-to-right.html.

 

Even Worse

We got an interesting update, yesterday, from NBC News↱:

In what an official said was the first military raid carried out under President Donald Trump, two Americans were killed in Yemen on Sunday — one a member of SEAL Team 6 and the other the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, the New Mexico-born al Qaeda leader who himself was killed in a U.S. strike five years ago.

The raid in southern Yemen, conducted by the supersecret Joint Special Operations Command, was intended to capture valuable intelligence, specifically computer equipment, according to a senior U.S. military official. Three al Qaeda leaders were killed, according to U.S. officials.

Contrary to earlier reporting, the senior military official said, the raid was Trump's first clandestine strike — not a holdover mission approved by President Barack Obama. The mission involved "boots on the ground" at an al Qaeda camp near al Bayda in south central Yemen, the official said.

"Almost everything went wrong," the official said.​

And, you know, it's not like there is some rule against top-shelf bureaucrats doing other things while something important is happening; governing is a big job. Still, though―

Defense Secretary James Mattis had to leave one of Washington's biggest annual social events, the Alfalfa Club Dinner, to deal with the repercussions, according to the official. He did not return.​

―really? The first military act of the new administration, and apparently cooked up within the administration compared to something that has spent months in development and planning, and SecDef is at the Alfalfa Club dinner the president is apparently skipping in order to oversee the job?

(Even President Barack Obama managed to attend the dinner in honor of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, but skipping out on the dinner isn't really the biggest of deals; indeed, Bill Clinton skipped the dinner after his '93 inaugural.)​

I had suggested↗ I didn't expect the Trump administration to be happy with the optics, but this is even worse an outcome than it looked like at the time. Indeed, there is an alternative interpretation of the optics:

Karen Greenberg, director of Fordham University's Center on National Security, said the girl's death will be a boon to al Qaeda propagandists.

"The perception will be that it's not enough to kill al-Awlaki — that the U.S. had to kill the entire family," she said.

‡​

Nawar al-Awlaki is the second of Anwar al-Awlaki's children to be killed by U.S. forces. Two weeks after Anwar was killed in late 2011, his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, was also struck in a drone strike. U.S. officials said the younger al-Awlaki was in the wrong place at the wrong time — that he was with their intended target, an al Qaeda leader.

Intentional or not, Greenberg said, the deaths of three al-Awlaki family members will enhance the al Qaeda narrative. She noted that as part of propaganda efforts, terrorist groups have begun to circulate photographs of children reputedly killed by U.S. forces. Photos of Nawar al-Awlaki alive and dead are already circulating widely in Arab media.​

She said, "Don't cry, Mama, I'm fine." That's the legend already in effect.

If there is one thing Donald Trump can do ... okay, look, for years Republicans and conservatives have used this phrasing about a clash of cultures or civilizations; it verges on genocidal, which it's supposed to, but doesn't actually go that far, because it's not. But if, for instance, one wants to make certain our so-called War Against Terror becomes just that, it seems well enough to suggest that President Trump's action was very successful.

It occurs to wonder whether Secretary Mattis was informed of the raid at all before it started.

†​

Max Boot is on a tear. There's actually a point to that, so here is kind of the serious version, from Kevin Powers↱ for the Huffington Post:

With the dust settling, we’re looking at high civilians casualties―including women and children. It has been reported that some of the women were combatants. We’re also looking at one SEAL killed in action, multiple wounded and the total loss of a $72 million dollar aircraft. It’s not clear what the objective was, nor whether any real intelligence was gathered or any high value targets were engaged. The San Diego Union-Tribune and a few other outlets reported the mission targeted the al-Dhahab family, said to be allies of al-Qaeda, but also the in-laws of al-Awlaki. So that raises the question, was this a mission just to wipe out the remaining al-Awlakis?

This is troubling because during the campaign, Trump promised to kill terrorists and their families. Given the number of dead civilians being between 30 and 59, but the death of an 8-year-old girl is confirmed, it would seem as though Trump was serious and literal ....

.... Given the confusion and the high cost of the operation and no clearly definitive objective or goal, there are a number of questions the Trump administration needs to address surrounding this operation.

First and foremost, given Trump’s very public distrust and rocky relationship with the Intelligence Community, who delivered the Intel? Did it come from the CIA? Did it come from JSOC or another agency? Did Trump trust the source? If the raid was first planned by the Obama administration, was the most up-to-date intelligence provided to make the most informed decision? Did Trump―who skipped daily briefings during the transition―understand what was happening?

Who advised the raid be carried out? Where did General Flynn and General Mattis stand on the raid? What about General Dunford? Was there Intelligence about the number of potential armed hostiles? What about the children? Did the SEALs know there were women and children at the target location? Were the SEALs ordered to carry out a full kill mission? These kind of raids have been fairly routine in the past decade, did the SEALs also have the most recent information they needed before they embarked?

Furthermore, what was Steve Bannon’s role in the decision-making process? A highly-controversial figure and someone who is openly out to, in his own words “destroy the state,” did he advise Trump to order the raid? Why? What Intelligence and experience does Bannon have that would give him the wherewithal to advise such a high-risk raid?

(Boldface accent added)​

It's not so much that Boot isn't serious. Well, okay, here's the thing:

Bannon’s ascendancy has been crowned by his inclusion in the high-level Principals Committee of the National Security Council, while the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of national intelligence have been excluded. (Now the CIA director has been added to the committee—but his ostensible boss, the director of national intelligence, is still excluded.) To put a political operator like Bannon, who was chairman of Trump’s campaign, in the midst of decision-making about the gravest issues of war and peace is an extraordinary step. President Obama was criticized, and rightly so, for even letting David Axelrod sit in as an observer on a few Principals Committee meetings, but Axelrod was never invited to join the group as a participant.

This is a sign of the new pecking order in the White House, with Bannon, the New York Times wrote, looming “above almost everyone except the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.” Even Mike Flynn, the retired three-star who is the national security adviser, appears to be getting elbowed aside by Bannon and his allies, who are likely the sources of unflattering leaks about Flynn’s supposedly “stumbling performance” and the extent to which Trump is supposedly unhappy with him.​

That particular article is called, "The Bannon Administration?"↱

The one called "Sorting Out the Yemen Raid"↱ is simply wallows in vice:

The first military operation of the Trump presidency did not go as planned, but, in this case, no blame attaches to the president. It was simply one of those things that happen amid the “fog of war” ....

.... In spite of President Trump’s bluster about targeting the relatives of terrorists, the civilian deaths were undoubtedly accidental—an unfortunate byproduct of the fact that terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda hide among non-combatants, including women and children. But that is not the message that will go out to much of the Muslim world. Already, rumors are circulating that at least 59 people were killed in the raid and that the Americans killed an innocent eight-year-old girl because they were bent on exterminating the entire al-Awlaki clan. The danger of such collateral casualties is that they can wind up creating more terrorists than they eliminate.

Nevertheless, it’s important to take risks in the battle against terrorists and Trump deserves credit for approving the raid. The challenge now will be to manage the “battle of the narrative” about what happened, which will in many ways be even more important than the actual events. The president has unfortunately handicapped himself in this struggle because of his record of telling falsehoods and by the perception, which his rhetoric creates, that he is animated by anti-Muslim animus. This is one area where Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis will be forced to take the lead even if he lacks a megaphone of the kind that the president commands.​