192
   

monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

 
 
old europe
 
  4  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 12:59 pm
@georgeob1,
georgeob1 wrote:
Or alternatively are you concerned about such thing only as they exist in our country?


Jingo!
blatham
 
  4  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 01:02 pm
@ehBeth,
Yup. It really hurt Harper even if it took a while. I think Trump will be able to get away with this for some time even knowing that the suppression of information will become much broader. Earlier, I linked to Jay Rosen and it's relevant http://pressthink.org/2017/01/send-the-interns/

The press are going to have to change the way they've been accustomed to doing things. Whistle blowers will have to be cultivated and protected for facts to get out into the sunlight. Attending to press releases will be almost worthless from here on out.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  2  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 01:04 pm
@farmerman,
Quote:
I would prefer "Her Babitude"

Better than mine.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  4  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 01:06 pm
@Walter Hinteler,
Quote:
Well, the National Day of Being Patriotic Four Days Ago Day- that was done a lot better here in Germany ...

That's a rather perfect historical precedent.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  4  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 01:08 pm
@old europe,
georgeob is trying to build his own wall here. A magnificent wall. A wall such as the world has never seen.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  2  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 01:10 pm
Swamp filling notes from all over...
Quote:
Eric LiptonVerified account
‏@EricLiptonNYT
House GOP on Approps Committee votes down measure would have required cabinet secretaries testifying to confirm compliance w conflicts rules
0 Replies
 
Baldimo
 
  0  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 01:23 pm
@ehBeth,
My bad, she. I apologize to Glitterbag for using the wrong pronoun.

Any input on the subject at hand?
revelette1
 
  4  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 01:24 pm
Conor Friedersdorf: How Trump's Speech to the CIA Endangered America

Every American, regardless of who they voted for in the election, should be furious with President Donald Trump for what he told the CIA during a recent meeting at its headquarters. I do not mean his digressions about the size of the crowd at his inauguration and the number of times he has appeared on the cover of Time magazine, although it does not inspire confidence to see the president waste fleeting time with national-security employees on his vanity rather than our security.

It’s his comments on Iraq that ought to make Americans apoplectic, for in the space of seconds, Trump managed to utter words that are 1) morally repugnant, 2) certain to be exploited as a recruiting tool by America’s terrorist enemies, and 3) likely to help foreign adversaries diminish America’s reputation and power. For the sake of an indisciplined, self-indulgent riff, Trump made Americans less safe.

Here are his words:

The old expression, ‘To the victor belong the spoils’––you remember I always used to say, ‘Keep the oil.’ I wasn’t a fan of Iraq. I don’t want to go into Iraq. But I will tell you, when we were in we got out wrong. And I always said in addition to that, ‘Keep the oil.’ Now, I said it for economic reasons. But if you think about it, Mike, if you kept the oil you probably wouldn’t have ISIS because that’s where they made their money in the first place. So we should have kept the oil, okay? Maybe you’ll have another chance.

When Trump made statements like this as a private citizen they could be safely ignored. Now that he is president they have immediate, global consequences. They reached, for example, a 27-year-old Iraqi who is fighting ISIS. Here is how he responded: “I participated in the attack against the Americans by attacking them with mortars and roadside bombs, and I’m ready to do it again,” he told war correspondent Borzou Daragahi. “We kept our ammunition and weapons from the time the Americans left for fighting ISIS. But once ISIS is gone we will save our weapons for the Americans.” Is America well served by a president who needlessly evokes that reaction?

Trump’s remark that “maybe you’ll have another chance” to seize Iraq’s oil surely reached young Americans pondering whether to enlist or re-enlist in the armed forces. They understand what a dismayed Bruce Riedel explained about Trump’s words:

Trump never says what “taking the oil” of Iraq really means: an endless occupation army in the Persian Gulf surrounded by enemies, without allies, and isolated hopelessly from the Islamic world. It would have to be an open-ended occupation, which would polarize America more than ever. It would reinvigorate the global jihad, and it would disgrace our fundamental values as a nation.

In fact, as James S. Robbins noted at National Review in 2005, Al Qaeda was trying to figure out how to bait the United States into sending soldiers to Iraq’s oil fields. As a jihadist magazine put it, “The U.S. will reach a stage of madness after the targeting of its oil interests, which will facilitate the creation of a new front and the drowning of the U.S. in a new quagmire that will be worse than the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Trump’s statement ought to make conservatives and Republicans particularly uncomfortable. It isn’t so long ago that many of them regarded “No Blood For Oil” as a deluded leftist slogan at best and an anti-American slur at worst. “In our petroleum-paranoid world, ‘No Blood For Oil’ was the common smear against removing oil-rich Saddam Hussein,” Victor Davis Hanson declared in a 2006 essay.

Hanson is now a Trump supporter.

In 2011, Rush Limbaugh, another Trump supporter, mocked Hillary Clinton when she gave public assurances that the United States was not invading Libya to seize its oil.

He felt that went without saying.

“I thought with Obama all that stuff about the American people being evil and greedy and stealing all of the world’s resources, I thought that all was gonna come to a screeching halt? Obama’s been around apologizing for all that, I thought with Obama as head of the regime the world was gonna stop thinking about us this way,” Limbaugh said. “But yet we’ve got the wacko websites like MoveOn.org and who the heck knows whoever else claiming that we’re going into Libya for the oil, and so Mrs. Clinton, (paraphrasing) ‘We don’t want these people to be right.’ (interruption) Well, I know, the Marines were in Tripoli and left. Is it reassuring, ladies and gentlemen, to know that our country’s foreign policy is in the hands of people who post comments at the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post? Because that’s essentially what’s happening. The lunatics that populate those websites, it’s their policies, their beliefs that are running American foreign policy. I mean that’s where you hear this claptrap about stealing the world’s oil. I guess that’s so much better than having foreign policy decisions made by some arrogant cowboy like George W. Bush.”

In fact, back in 2011, it wasn’t just “lunatics” at the Huffington Post or Daily Kos talking about America’s interest in Libyan oil. Trump was openly urging the Obama Administration to take Libya’s oil! Most Trump supporters I interviewed during the campaign, having heard him rail against the Iraq War, were totally unaware that he even made a YouTube video urging the Obama administration to send U.S. troops to Libya:

As I reported back in September, there have been many times over the years when Trump was more hawkish and interventionist than the Washington, D.C. establishment.

But urging a humanitarian intervention in Libya, as foolish as ensuing events made that seem, isn’t nearly so depraved and strategically bankrupt as urging the American military to steal foreign oil by force. Politifact conveyed this well last year:

...the United States does not have enough troops to protect all of Iraq’s oil fields from ISIS militants, let alone securing transportation routes and pipelines for export. "It would take a permanent, massive presence to protect a static target from the tanks and heavy weaponry of an enemy with all the time in the world," Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a terrorism analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said.

Military historian Lance Janda foresaw even more trouble: "It would draw endless numbers of enemies to attack us in the Middle East and draw us into a long-term ground war, which is precisely what Trump has said he wants to avoid.

These weren’t outlying critics. They represented a near-consensus:

When we floated Trump’s idea with a half-dozen foreign policy experts, we encountered wider and deeper revulsion than just about any topic we’ve ever asked about. “I wish I could tell you all the ways it would be illegal and not kosher,” said Steven R. Ratner, a University of Michigan law professor.

Trump’s idea is "so out of step with any plausible interpretation of U.S. history or international law that they should be dismissed out of hand by anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of world affairs," said Janda. "Insofar as Mr. Trump's proposals are coherent enough to be subject to analysis and judgment, they appear to be practically impossible, legally prohibited, and politically imbecilic," said Barnett Rubin, associate director of New York University’s Center on International Cooperation.

This is the idea that Trump chose to raise in a televised address to the CIA, the part of the U.S. government that inspires the most distrust and paranoia around the world. He could’ve talked about anything under the sun, and he chose to return to his inane, ignorant hobbyhorse about how we should steal Iraq’s oil—an agenda he perhaps doesn’t even intend to pursue, in which case America took the security and P.R. hit for naught.

Can Trump get it together to govern with even a modicum of competence?

So far this is what amateur hour looks like when it is voted into the White House on the strength of celebrity, bluster, and an opponent with decades of poor decisions and corruption as baggage.

Trump doesn’t appear to recognize his needless, totally avoidable error. America would benefit if the people around him demanded more discipline and told their erratic boss to stop shooting off his mouth. Its safety hangs in the balance
blatham
 
  3  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 01:28 pm
Today, Spicer is saying Trump believes in widespread voter fraud "based on studies and information he has."

He won't detail what studies or information.
No answer why, if this is so, he isn't having the JD investigating 3 to 5 million separate crimes.
0 Replies
 
farmerman
 
  2  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 01:30 pm
@revelette1,
Quoting the Dumpster,
Quote:
So we should have kept the oil, okay? Maybe you’ll have another chance.
MAYBE YOULL HAVE ANOTHER CHANCE??? and we thought Bush was nutz for going into Iraq??

what a dickhead the Donald is. He's gonna have to be reminded that CHINA and RUSSIA now have significant bucks in the oil game therein
revelette1
 
  2  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 01:37 pm
@farmerman,
I don't know who the author of article is, pretty sure he isn't a Hillary fan so it isn't a biased piece and can't be claimed as such.

I think the people he has managed to gather are all neocons/greedy CEO's on steroids but at least maybe they would know better than to let him to do half of things he spouts off? Can Trump be managed?

0 Replies
 
ehBeth
 
  3  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 01:49 pm
@Baldimo,
Sure.

I don't think glitterbag is faking her anger.

__

This isn't specific to glitterbag, but I know a fair number of retired CIA folks as a result of them attending National Defence College in Canada for spy training back in the 1970's. They're angry. The majority of them were Republicans until about 12 months ago. Their holiday parties were interesting. Bunch of old CIA snobs trying to figure out what to do with their politics - they've got nowhere to go and are pissed about it. They want Nancy Reagan back in the White House hosting nice parties with Hollywood stars to dance with (they don't quite say it that way, but the stories make it clear).
glitterbag
 
  4  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 02:10 pm
@Baldimo,
Baldimo wrote:

Are you implying that the only thing he had to say was to brag about his Time mag covers and berate the media? That's all he said? Did he pick on the CIA? Besides, weren't you an IT person for the govt? Did you work as an agent or just an IT geek?


No ye of limited experience, I was not an IT geek. My job was intelligence, and IT and shipping and mailroom were there to support the intelligence, not the other way around. Trump used a memorial to the dead as a prop and it was an outrageous insult to the men and women who work so hard to keep this country safe. The Memorial wall is not located in an auditorium, it's near the entrance but placed in an area set aside out of reverence. Some of stars represent lost lives in service so sensitive that their own families may not know when or how or if they died.

He said he loves the CIA more than anyone and will give them so much backing they will say "mr president, please no more backing". Does this sound like a man who appreciates the CIA? But screw all that, the intelligence community doesn't need a feel good bullshit session from Trump, they will do their job regardless of Trumps antics. His performance in front of that memorial was a profound display of his lack of respect for the American people. What's it going to take for you to understand it? Paintball parties at Arlington for the grandkids?

glitterbag
 
  3  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 02:14 pm
@blatham,
blatham wrote:

Quote:
Buried under a stack of presidential paperwork President Trump signed shortly after his inauguration was his first official proclamation, declaring last Friday a "National Day of Patriotic Devotion."

But by the time anyone found out about it, it was already over.

Trump proclaimed the day to honor his own inauguration, proclaiming a "new national pride" that would "strengthen our bonds to each other and to our country.


Is this true?????? I thought it was a joke????? Christ what's next, uniforms and little red books?
0 Replies
 
Leadfoot
 
  1  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 02:18 pm
@ehBeth,
Quote:
Bunch of old CIA snobs trying to figure out what to do with their politics - they've got nowhere to go and are pissed about it.

That was actually a brilliant piece of analysis.

I think it goes beyond just those guys
0 Replies
 
glitterbag
 
  4  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 02:38 pm
@ehBeth,
i would like to say in my defense, that I worked for NSA which is one of the other agencies located at Ft. Meade. I have had assignments at CIA, State, the Pentagon and the Situation Room. This just means I was on loan for a stretch of time, and that's not unusual because most Intell types who worked as long as I did also applied for similiar jobs and I wish I had applied for more of the nifty ones overseas.

I'm also a democrat....and I've been to the CIA parties, they were fun but I'm happy I was not a career CIA person, they have less choice in their assignments.

NSA also has a Memorial wall, and so far it's never been used as a prop for a preening narcissistic who seems to think adding more stars to the war is a ho hum deal. But for guy like baldy, who thinks it's ok to **** all over years of service and solemn sites, CIA and NSA and the 14 other agencies will continue to do our jobs without fanfare so you can run your mouth.........that's the America I live in, you ungrateful dewb.
Baldimo
 
  -1  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 02:41 pm
@glitterbag,
Quote:
No ye of limited experience, I was not an IT geek. My job was intelligence, and IT and shipping and mailroom were there to support the intelligence, not the other way around.

Thank you for clearing that up, I was under the wrong impression as to what you did. Where did I mention it was the job of the intelligence people to support the IT people? I work with IT people, so I know how it works.

Quote:
Trump used a memorial to the dead as a prop and it was an outrageous insult to the men and women who work so hard to keep this country safe. The Memorial wall is not located in an auditorium, it's near the entrance but placed in an area set aside out of reverence. Some of stars represent lost lives in service so sensitive that their own families may not know when or how or if they died.

Not to get into a battle of who is worse or better, but did you feel that same way back in 2009 when Obama did his first speech at the CIA in the same place and was cracking jokes about a gift shop? I'm going to guess that you didn't mind him making jokes in front of the monument, because he was a President you support.

Sorry for pointing out your double standard but this is why I call it fake outrage.
Quote:
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Well, thanks — thank you for the extraordinary welcome. And thanks for those of you who prepared, from the CIA gift shop, the t-shirts — (laughter) — the caps, the water bottles. (Laughter.) Michelle and the girls will appreciate that very much. (Laughter.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgbEE95A198

Quote:
But screw all that, the intelligence community doesn't need a feel good bullshit session from Trump, they will do their job regardless of Trumps antics.

I don't doubt the actual people who are CIA employees, I doubt the political appointments that are made to lead the CIA. We already know the CIA under Obama altered intelligence on ISIS to please Obama's views on how that fiasco was working.
http://www.businessinsider.com/intelligence-analyst-isis-allegations-2015-9

Quote:
His performance in front of that memorial was a profound display of his lack of respect for the American people. What's it going to take for you to understand it? Paintball parties at Arlington for the grandkids?

You will want to get off your high horse and go back over Obama's first speech to the CIA in April 2009. Like I said, false outrage.
0 Replies
 
ossobucotemp
 
  1  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 02:46 pm
@revelette1,
Friedersdorf lives in my old neighborhood, Venice Ca., a place that has changed mightily since I left there in early 1999. Don't know if he lived there back then. I remember reading some article by him and thinking him quite conservative, but that was just one article, subject of which I forget. I agree with him wholeheartedly on this one.
0 Replies
 
Baldimo
 
  -1  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 02:56 pm
@glitterbag,
Quote:
NSA also has a Memorial wall, and so far it's never been used as a prop for a preening narcissistic who seems to think adding more stars to the war is a ho hum deal.

So just like Obama did in April 2009, did he ever give a speech at the NSA? If he did, you just shot yourself in the foot. Obama is just as much a narcissist as any other President we have had. It's kind of a requirement to fill the job.

Quote:
But for guy like baldy, who thinks it's ok to **** all over years of service and solemn sites, CIA and NSA and the 14 other agencies will continue to do our jobs without fanfare so you can run your mouth.........

Do you really want to go there with me? Do you really think your service to this nation is any greater than mine? I've lost friends in Afghanistan, look up Extortion 17, those were my friends who died flying around 33 Navy Seals, I almost lost another friend the month before in a helicopter crash that left him with TBI and other issues. So if you think you can push your bullshit on me, you have another thing coming.

Quote:
that's the America I live in, you ungrateful dewb.

**** off Glitterbag. I served my nation just like you did. I've been shot at and had to take cover due to mortar and RPG attacks for the 9 months I was in Afghanistan, and I have seen the direct results of a terrorist attack and they weren't pretty. If you doubt by gratefulness to this nation then you can double **** off.
McGentrix
 
  -3  
Tue 24 Jan, 2017 02:59 pm
@Baldimo,
G-Bag is one of those posters that is better off ignored. She gets off on your negative feedback and the more you feed her, the shittier she gets.

It's up to you, but you'll be better off in the long run just hitting that button.
 

Related Topics

Obama '08? - Discussion by sozobe
Let's get rid of the Electoral College - Discussion by Robert Gentel
McCain's VP: - Discussion by Cycloptichorn
The 2008 Democrat Convention - Discussion by Lash
McCain is blowing his election chances. - Discussion by McGentrix
Snowdon is a dummy - Discussion by cicerone imposter
Food Stamp Turkeys - Discussion by H2O MAN
TEA PARTY TO AMERICA: NOW WHAT?! - Discussion by farmerman
 
Copyright © 2025 MadLab, LLC :: Terms of Service :: Privacy Policy :: Page generated in 0.47 seconds on 07/10/2025 at 11:18:12