monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

And now back to regular programming.

The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold tells the story of his deep reporting into Trump and his charity.
LINK HERE

consistency is for suckers

"Deporting 2 or 3 million people might be impossible" http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/is-donald-trump-deportation-plan-impossible-233041

Yeah, well no freaking kidding. Of all the dumb ideas, that's the biggie. Though to be fair, building that many boxcars and concentration camps would have a temporary infrastructure/economy uptick.

Putin has repeatedly proven himself to be a stronger, more ethical leader than 0bama.

15,479 Syrian Refugees Have Been Admitted This Year – 606% More Than 2015; 98.8% Are Muslims

This is funny. Well, if you find high scumbaggery from this guy humorous and I do. Here's Giuliani on Obama's move re Russia
LINK

The thesis is that Obama made this move as a petty jab at Trump. The evidence being that he could have done it before knowing, after all, that Russia certainly had been hacking etc.

But...but...Rudy, you're guy says he doesn't believe it. Says there's no evidence for that. It could have been a 400 guy in a basement in New Jersey. And...Rudy... you yourself are now saying that Trump should not trust the intel reports while Obama is still in office. You said he should get new intel from a new team and then hit Russia way harder here you are saying it which kind of makes no sense at all.

And given your guys position on Russia and Putin and the "we need to get over" the whole hacking thing, and not to mention the ties between people around Trump's circle to Russia (let's start with Manafort and Tillerson) then it might be possibly the case that the sitting President deemed any actual action by Trump re Russia's hacking to be...um...unlikely. Just maybe.

If you needed another example (and how dumb do you have to be to not have figured this one out yet) of how right wing trolls are incentivized through right wing media systems, here it is. It's how Coulter became a multi-millionaire. It is part of Sarah Palin's scam that made her a multi-millionaire after she twigged on this profitable con and quit her Alaska governorship half way through. Or Glenn Beck. Or Mark Levine, etc etc.
LINK

The publisher here is Simon and Schuster but more specifically through their Threshold imprint which is run by Mary Matalin see here

CI is just a money grubbing Republican at heart... all he wants is that filthy lucre!

I personally like to see transparency no matter how I get it, I want to know how my elected officials are behaving.

Kids and adults around the world are hacking into anything and everything they can. It is not only the Russians.

Wow, I'm just amazed at your insight... You know, maybe you should have run for president. But then it appears as though you probably don't need to. Apparently you ready know what goes on behind the scenes internationally and at the White House and at all levels of intelligence community briefings both here and abroad. And of course you must have a grand plan for handling our enemies like Russia, China, Iran North Korea, based on your insight. Why, I'm shocked the government hasnt already been ringing your doorbell... at the very least you should have Secret Service protection so that the Russian government can't scoop you up and pump you for the information and insight you must possess.

Why do you think Blatham is implying that he is qualified for politics? Your criticism is misdirected. The main thrust of what he posts is generally aimed at Trump's own words, his own contradictions, his inability to state a coherent thought as well as his outright lies about things. This is easy. Its low hanging fruit for Liberals.

Reasons why the Clintons should go to jail.

And people said that Ronald Reagan made a mistake when he supposedly accidentally left mic open and made comments about Russia being the evil empire and that the missiles were on their way.

What blather is not privy to is Trumps thoughts and motivations. One of the reasons Trump was elected was because people underestimated him, labeled him, placed him in a specific pigeon hole. Trump doesn't play checkers he plays chess and frankly from all the evidence he appears to be three and four moves ahead of most.

People need to be careful of that low hanging fruit... It may just turn out to be not so tasty as you thought it might be.

It should be common knowledge by now that Trump lies and contradicts himself. He can't be trusted, because he is a liar and scammer of many people and companies. That's not a 'liberal' thing. It's a personality thing about Trump that proves he's a racial bigot, liar and scammer of people and companies. He has a history of it.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-contradictions-213869

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/even-trumps-charity-is-a-scam/2016/09/14/9463468a-79ee-11e6-bd86-b7bbd53d2b5d_story.html?utm_term=.995161dad382

http://www.politicususa.com/2016/03/31/ninety-one-percent-donald-trump-false.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-is-a-bigot-and-a-racist/2015/12/01/a2a47b96-9872-11e5-8917-653b65c809eb_story.html?utm_term=.8f8732f35ac4

Trump was correct on this point - we do live in a world in which hacking, particularly of unsecured networks, is ubiquitous. Your completely unsupported and unqualified statement about Trump's supposedly shallow understanding fully reveals your lack of objectivity. Prominently omitted from your post was any reference to the astounding lack of security on Both the DNC and Hillary Clinton private servers, neither of which met even the commonly applied standards that businesses use to protect their data.

Here again the most evident eleement of your "analysis" is its selectivity and findamental bias. Indeed you appear to be obsessivly looking for issues in cases where there are none. while you ingnore glaring fault involving others whom you support.

Obama made no statements and took no visible action when the security & personnel data of nearly all government emplouees were hacked over a year ago by the Chinese, or in several prior cases of alleged Russian hacking of government systems.. However, now, in the last days of his failed presidency he is making a fool of himself by his loud protests for the Russian hacking of the DNC server and leaking of John Podesta's e mail. (This after his prior affirmation that no national security information had been obtained from Hillary's totally unsecure server and that there was no suspicion of any Russian hacking of it - all while others claimed it was indeed a likelihood or a near certainty)

Little of the released evidence from the DNC hacking was new : the collusion between the Hillary Campaign and the DNC and among the two with liberal media outlets had been separatetly revealed earlier. In short it had no material effect on the election. However, now the hapless Obama, who ignored Russia's assault on Ukrane, the seizure of Crimea & a major part of Armenia, and its ongoing military intervention in Syria -- all of which have severely harmed the interests of the United States -- has suddenly discovered a "serious" Russian threat ..... to the DNC !!!!. This is a pathetic, ludicrous reaction on the part of a neurotic president with just weeks left in office who has suddenly become aware that his legacy in office is one of major setbacks for the country, both domestically and externally , and the elimination of his political party as a major political force for at least the next decade, and appears to be making a desperate effort to save face.

Trump is entirely correct in brushing the matter off. Whether he will take serious efforts to improve our ability to cope with these cyber threats and retailiate effectively and sheaply, remains to be seen. However we already know beyond doubt that the current incompetent in the White House didn't do that.

[/quote]

Bullshit!

cicerone wrote: It should be common knowledge by now that Trump lies and contradicts himself.



You don't think Trump lies and contradicts himself?

You remind me of a Hillary supporter who claims that someone is talking bullshit when they accuse Hillary of the same.

Reason.com

Don’t Abolish The Electoral College, Abolish The Popular Vote
The popular vote doesn't matter, so why continue pretending that it does? It only causes confusion and frustration. There's better ways.

It was the perfect ending to the strangest election in modern American history. Donald Trump was officially elected as the next president of these United States on December 19, winning by a wide margin in the Electoral College despite having lost the national popular vote six weeks earlier.

Trump's unexpected victory and loss in the popular vote unleashed a torrent of hot takes from Democrats and liberals calling for the abolition of the Electoral College. Their frustration is somewhat understandable, even if their motivations are purely political—after all, Democratic candidates have now won the popular vote in four of the five presidential contests held this century, but have lost three times in the Electoral College.

The basic argument goes something like this: the Electoral College is a relic of an age when democracy was still developing—an age when senators weren't even elected by popular vote—and that Article II, Clause II of the U.S. Constitution should be dumped into the rubbish bin of history. "Yes, Mr. Trump won under the rules, but the rules should change so that a presidential election reflects the will of Americans and promotes a more participatory democracy," opined the New York Times editorial board.


In response, there's been nearly as many Republicans and conservatives leaping to defend a system that has worked in their favor. The Electoral College was designed to prevent coastal elites from large states from getting to pick the president, they argue, and it is thus working perfectly well.

The Founding Fathers who designed the Electoral College were certainly skeptical of direct democracy and the mob-like factions that it could create. "The people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn," warned James Madison in Federalist #63. I think they were right to be concerned. That's not to say that they would look at the current state of affairs and conclude that everything is working exactly as it should.

Because, let's be honest here, it's not. This election—for reasons that go far beyond the Electoral College—brought out the worst of America. That's at least in part because of the illusion of electoral agency. People cried over Clinton's loss because they believed she should win, yes, but also because they believed they had helped her win—millions of people in California, New York, and other deep blue states wrongly believed their support would affect the outcome of the presidential race. It didn't, and learning that fact is painful.

In response, many of those same people want more agency in the process—more "participatory democracy," as the Times put it. That's why there are calls for the popular vote to be the only thing that matters.

More democracy isn't the cure for these problems. From Plato to John Stuart Mill to Bryan Caplan, there's no shortage of political thinkers who have exposed the deep cracks in the idea. In a new book, "Against Democracy," Georgetown University political philosopher Jason Brennan adds to the list. Voters are irrational, ignorant, and incompetent, he argues, and placing limits on democracy makes just as much sense as letting attorneys sort through a pool of jurors to dismiss those who are disqualified. Brennan envisions a system where only coolly rational and educated individuals, those least likely to be affected by the emotional and partisan elements of politics, vote—though he's not clear on whether others would be excluded or whether he wishes they would just stay home.

I'm not sure it is possible to implement Brennan's epistocracy in the United States in any broad way, but the existence of the Electoral College gives us an opportunity to see what less democracy in presidential races might look like. It's hardly a bad thing.

With the prospect of Campaign 2020 kicking off before the headaches of Campaign 2016 have faded, allow me to suggest a better way forward. Keep the Electoral College, with some minor tweaks, and abolish the popular vote.

Yes, get rid of the popular vote. For all the money, time, and attention paid to the presidential race, the actual votes cast on Election Day are basically meaningless. In non-swing states, votes are literally meaningless. Even in states where a small number of votes could change the outcome of the election, your vote and mine are still so insignificant as to be practically worthless, as Reason editor in chief Katherine Mangu-Ward explained in detail in 2012.

The only reason to hold popular votes for president, as the system functions now, is to select the "electors" from each state who will participate in the Electoral College.

Here's a better way. Hold a national lottery to determine the 538 electors (drawing an appropriate number from the voter rolls of each state) and then let those people choose the president.


"Undemocratic!" you might be tempted to cry out.

Well, yes, but not really much less democratic than the system we currently use and, arguably, more democratic than the original design of the Electoral College, in which Electors were not bound in any way to the results of the popular vote in their states. The Founders envisioned a system in which well-read elites would be responsible for choosing the president, in theory as a check against the masses. With a lottery-based system, we'd be returning to that original idea, but with a populist twist.

The benefits of such a model, I'd argue, far outweigh the miniscule loss of casting a meaningless vote for president.

Consider: Almost everyone would get to ignore the election, if they want, because they don't have to pretend to care about it as a form of signaling. The Electors would be the only ones whose votes matters—the lottery to pick them would have to be held a few months before Election Day, I suppose—and everyone else could get on with their lives (or try to influence the Electors, if they are so inclined).

For starters, there would be unmeasurable benefits in the form of freeing people of the mental and emotional anguish created by presidential campaigns like the one we just experienced.

This model would seriously alter presidential campaigning as we know it, but mostly in a positive direction. There would be no need for broad appeals to races or classes, no more vapid identity politics, no more absurdly expensive (and months-long) campaigns, no more endless dissection of polls and un-skewing of cross-tabs.

In return for getting rid of all that cable news talking head fodder, we'd get something better. Each candidate would know exactly who they had to convince to win—a single mother from Toledo, a retiree from Albuquerque, a CEO from Seattle, and so on—and the 538 Electors would have tremendous power to force a discussion on the issues they cared about. It would be a months-long town hall debate—a real one, not one made for television—with the Electors standing in for all Americans.

There are other benefits too. With the presidential race truly out of the average voter's hands, those who want to be engaged in politics could (and would) focus on other races. More scrutiny of congressional, gubernatorial, and state legislative races would be welcome and would be possible only if we restore the presidential circus to its proper place.

Weighed against the questionable, miniscule, and illusory benefits of the presidential popular vote, the better choice seems clear. Let the Electoral College, with some tweaks, rule.

Eric Boehm is a reporter at Reason.com