Quote:
Conservative commentator Glenn Beck on Thursday ripped President Trump’s recent policy reversals, saying Trump "looks like another Republican who said stuff and didn't mean it."
The president this week flipped to new positions on four different policy issues, backing off of campaign promises on the usefulness of NATO, whether to label China a currency manipulator, Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen and the Export-Import Bank.
“Tonight, at least, it looks like the president is on the verge of beginning to look like another Republican who said stuff, didn’t mean it and turned into Reince Priebus or Paul Ryan, and that’s not good,” Beck told CNN’s Anderson Cooper, referring to the White House chief of staff and Speaker of the House, respectively.
Beck opposed Trump throughout the campaign, supporting Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) during the GOP presidential primary and briefly considering backing Democrat Hillary Clinton in the general election before deciding not to support either major-party candidate.
In October, Beck told Time magazine that backing Trump would not be moral.
"The Donald Trump mentality, which is the alt-right, this vicious, angry, make-them-pay, fall-in-line-or-you’ll-pay-for-it, that mentality is not going away,” Beck said at the time. “He will play to a very small crowd of rabid fans.”
But Beck seemed pleasantly surprised with Trump's new direction in his Thursday interview.
"My worst nightmare was that the president would ... go down this populist 'burn it to the ground' ideology," said Beck.
"The good news is he's not going that way."
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, after months of scathing criticism of the president, similarly said Thursday that Trump "is finally doing what we've been hoping" in terms of the policy and posture changes.
The Hill
Glad Scarborough and Beck are pleased. I'm relieved to see some flexibility and willingness to dump long-held positions on Trump's part. The evangelicals and the climate change deniers seem to have him pretty well chained up though. He'd have to be Houdini to escape from their clutches. A flea bath might work.
I just want to add this. I served for 20 years in the US Army - 12 of those years were as an NCO. I worked briefly in communications as a satellite communication repairer but mostly in Medcom as a pharmacy tech and pharmacy NCO. Not front line jobs, but I did deploy for 8 months (and only 45 days actually in theatre - 6 months I was in Landstuhl Germany) with an Evac Hospital as Desert Storm was drawing down.
I don't talk about my military service not because I'm not proud of it, but on the contrary because my military service is a very personal part of my life experience - to me, its one of those things you have to have lived that has almost no meaning at all in translation. I mention it here because the suggestion was made that someone here "can't talk about military matters", or some such. If it was referring to me, I say stuff it.
Two of the conversations I had during my time in the Army seem to surface in my memory when speaking of fear. One was with a medal of honor recipient. The other was with a 'master jumper' - an 82nd Airborne trainer. The thing both conversations had in common was that when I asked them about their experience with fear, both said that yes, they felt fear and that they didn't trust men who thought themselves fearless. I think of those conversations when I try to communicate with men who bluster about war.
@Finn dAbuzz,
Quote:Oh what crap, but I guess it does make you and snood feel clever. What Christian believes in a shock and awe Christ?
I'mm sure you're correct, finn. There's really no intersection between movement conservatives of the evangelical sort who think war and torture and killing are a proper aspect of their faith.
On the other hand, from American Conservative...
Quote:The connection between America’s wars in the Middle East—and its wars more generally—with the more fundamentalist forms of Christianity in the United States is striking. Opinion polls suggest that the more religiously conservative one is, the more one will support overseas wars or even what many might describe as war crimes. Fully 60 percent of self-described evangelicals supported torturing suspected terrorists in 2009, for example. That is somewhat puzzling, as Christianity is, if anything, a religion of peace that only reluctantly embraced a “just war” concept that was deliberately and cautiously evolved to permit Christians—under very limited circumstances of imminent threat—to fight to defend themselves...
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/old-testament-army/
@snood,
Presidents, (and prime ministers,) who have served in the military are less gung ho about military engagement than draft dodgers like Trump and Dubya.
@snood,
snood wrote:
I just want to add this. I served for 20 years in the US Army - 12 of those years were as an NCO. I worked briefly in communications as a satellite communication repairer but mostly in Medcom as a pharmacy tech and pharmacy NCO. Not front line jobs, but I did deploy for 8 months (and only 45 days actually in theatre - 6 months I was in Landstuhl Germany) with an Evac Hospital as Desert Storm was drawing down.
I don't talk about my military service not because I'm not proud of it, but on the contrary because my military service is a very personal part of my life experience - to me, its one of those things you have to have lived that has almost no meaning at all in translation. I mention it here because the suggestion was made that someone here "can't talk about military matters", or some such. If it was referring to me, I say stuff it.
Two of the conversations I had during my time in the Army seem to surface in my memory when speaking of fear. One was with a medal of honor recipient. The other was with a 'master jumper' - an 82nd Airborne trainer. The thing both conversations had in common was that when I asked them about their experience with fear, both said that yes, they felt fear and that they didn't trust men who thought themselves fearless. I think of those conversations when I try to communicate with men who bluster about war.
Holy crap...It took you 8 years to make NCO???
There's a really weird tendency of some to presume a political decision is good simply on the basis that the decision was made. What makes it even more weird is that this seems to happen most acutely in situations that are deeply complex and even when fraught with enormous peril (ie war).
My notion here is that this arises from a deep discomfort with complexity and thus the attempt to frame the world as simple and to imagine events as being easily manageable - if decisions are made. A bomb "sends a message" and a foreign government will then change course 180 degrees. Or, if you just use the correct language ("radical Islamic terrorism") then existing negative situations will, rather magically, be mitigated.
None of us like to face how powerless we are as individuals. And none of us feel comfort in facing how powerless our political leaders are in world events. But some people clearly have a great appetite for such simplicities.
@blatham,
Quote:There's a really weird tendency of some to presume a political decision is good simply on the basis that the decision was made.
Yeah, there's that - and often exacerbated by the tribal thinking that says if the decision was made
by one of ours it was a good decision.
Let's understand, please, that the Trump WH decision to cut off public access to visitor logs has nothing to do with security. That's just the deceit used as a cover story. The real reason is here...
Quote: The White House announced Friday that it would cut off public access to visitor logs revealing who is entering the White House complex and which officials they are meeting, breaking with the Obama administration’s practice and returning a cloak of secrecy over the basic day-to-day workings of the government.
The decision — which White House officials said was necessary for reasons of national security — was the latest attempt by President Trump, who has promised to “drain the swamp” in Washington, to shield his activities from scrutiny. It effectively bars the public from knowing which activists, lobbyists, political donors and others are gaining access to the president and his aides on a daily basis.
NYT
It is more than a little disconcerting that so many American thought (and still think!) that Trump is a "populist" who gives a damn about any of them. That so many were so easily conned is a pretty clear demonstration of how close America is to some really unhappy proto-facism or even the thing itself.
@snood,
Quote: often exacerbated by the tribal thinking that says if the decision was made by one of ours it was a good decision.
Yes. I was thinking of adding that aspect to my post but decided to keep it short. The present polarity and the long-germinating extremism of the right in the US (and in some parts of Europe) definitely does exacerbate those tendencies I was pointing to. That polarity/extremism is, in itself, further evidence of the desire for simplicity - we good/they evil, period.
This week's winner in our world-famous "Well, duh!" category
Quote:The cancellations came quickly and in rapid succession. Within days of President Trump’s first executive order restricting travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries, a number of European travel groups pulled their plans, amounting to a loss of 2,000 overnight stays for Hostelling International USA.
The ban would complicate travel for citizens of the countries cited — among them Iran, Syria and Libya. But Canadians and Europeans and others were dropping their plans, too. As group organizers put it, people suddenly had an unsettling sense that the United States wasn’t as welcoming a place as it once was.
The result was a wave of withdrawals. “Getting those cancellations all at once, that was startling,” said Russ Hedge, chief executive of HIU, which oversees 52 hostels across the country. “We’ve never seen something like that.”
WP
Ok, to prevent a chaotic rush where people might get trampled. please now begin queuing up at the line of asterisks if you'd like to express your personal opinion that America is better off without all those snowflake tourists with their dirty liberal dollars.
*************************************
@blatham,
Quote:It is more than a little disconcerting that so many American thought (and still think!) that Trump is a "populist" who gives a damn about any of them.
You said a mouthful there. There were other, less savory, more psychological motives, I think - like voting for the someone their lizard brains told them would restore and protect white primacy. But I cannot figure how someone could look at
this man and decide he's someone who wants to serve the interests of poor to middle class people - serve the common good.
@blatham,
There's a lot of horror stories about European tourists being hassled by American customs/immigration officers. This is just the latest.
Quote:British travellers to the United States face the uncomfortable choice of handing over personal information, including social media passwords and mobile phone contacts, or running the risk of being denied entry to the country, under a new “extreme vetting” policy being considered by the Trump administration.
Tourists from the UK and other US allies including Germany and France, could be forced to reveal personal data, as well as disclose financial information and face detailed ideological questioning, according to Trump administration officials quoted by the Wall Street Journal. While US citizens have established rights against unlawful searches at the border, the extent to which foreign travellers can resist requests to hand over personal information is unclear.
The US customs and border patrol told the Guardian: “All international travellers arriving to the US are subject to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) inspection. This inspection may include electronic devices such as computers, disks, drives, tapes, mobile phones and other communication devices, cameras, music and other media players and any other electronic or digital devices.
“Keeping America safe and enforcing our nation’s laws in an increasingly digital world depends on our ability to lawfully examine all materials entering the US,” it added. The CBP said it strives to process arriving travellers as efficiently and securely as possible while ensuring compliance with laws and regulations governing the international arrival process. It did not answer specific questions about social media accounts and devices.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/09/uk-tourists-to-us-may-get-asked-to-hand-in-passwords-or-be-denied-entry
There are other places to visit that are a lot more stress free, holidays are supposed to be relaxing. A lot of people see visiting America as too problematic.
This hasn't gained a lot of mention here but it looks like Dem activism at townhalls continues unabated
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/shame-on-you-jeff-flake-town-hall-arizona
Good. America is better than Trump. And it sure as hell is better than modern conservatism. An energized Dem base is absolutely vital.
@Finn dAbuzz,
Finn dAbuzz wrote:
Then I hereby bequeath France with America's leadership role when it comes to Climate Change. Show us how it's done!
Well, the lessons from the French is that over and beyond the need to invest in renewable energy sources like wind and solar -- that still require costly subsidies to be profitable -- there are a few low-hanging fruits like good public transport systems, good house insulation, low-consumption cars, and yes, a rational use of nuclear power.
@izzythepush,
Yes. It's so short-sighted and idiotic. But there are political advantages in developing a voter base that fears the outside world and who then believe only one sort of person or ideology can protect them from corrupting influences.
From Trump's buddy, Alex Jones
Quote:“The Word Is” President Obama’s Daughters “Aren’t Even His Kids”
Media Matters
Just one more reason why I have so much respect for Trump as a national leader. You'd want your own kids to reach for this sort of intellectual and moral standard.
YIPPEE...Isis' strength in Afghanistan, thought to be about 700, was lessened by almost 15% after use of the MOAB
The death toll has risen to 100 (up from 36) and is estimated to go higher after further battle damage assessments of the area are conducted.
Dear military contractors...MAKE MORE MOABS PLEASE.
@blatham,
blatham wrote:
From Trump's buddy, Alex Jones
Quote:“The Word Is” President Obama’s Daughters “Aren’t Even His Kids”
Media Matters
Just one more reason why I have so much respect for Trump as a national leader. You'd want your own kids to reach for this sort of intellectual and moral standard.
An understandable and , from anyone else but you, appropriate reaction. However, I wonder if you are even dimly aware of your own rather flagrant hypocrisy here. You peddle moral judgments here about matters you clearly don't know or have the ability to verify with abandon.
