In Case It Wasn’t Clear Yet, Steve Bannon Is Our PresidentQuote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
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In Case It Wasn’t Clear Yet, Steve Bannon Is Our PresidentQuote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
That pretty much covers every type of public gathering. Guess Buckingham Palace should get the bill for cleaning up after the tourists go.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Actually pretty much all event organisers typically do have a duty to clean up their mess so no this would not be shocking to anyone else.
No, it sounds like any old horseshit put in place to try to stop people protesting things either the GOP or Trump's team of idiots don't like.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Tens or hundreds of thousands of people protesting without using a road? Use the pavement? What?
RB: "We're gonna build the biggest roads, believe me! Their sidewalks are gonna be YUGE."
This refers not to all roads but to Interstates [our equivalent is Motorways] and roads over 55mph [our equivalent is National Speed Limit]. If I wanted to protest I sure wouldn't do so by standing on the M6!Quote:
Originally Posted by Timbuk2
Yes you can use pavements, or you could use roads more suitable for pedestrian usage like those in city centers where cars are restricted to travelling at much lower speeds.
I'm sure many of you have read this already, but in opposition to my relatively optimistic view that American institutions are resilient to this:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...ocracy/513872/
Frum is hardly a leftist demagogue who will predict the end of American democracy because the GOP holds power. He is a thoughtful conservative who appears to be genuinely concerned about a Trump autocracy. Worth reading.
This changes everything.
In fact most Tea Party protests took it as a sign of pride to make sure their protest area was spotless afterwards.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
some protests. I'd love to you see prove most. Protip: Google Images would not be a good place to start to defend your claim.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
just like some protests from all walks of life for all sorts of reasons can sometimes be spreadheaded by a group that can get everyone to pack out what they packed in.
In fact that was one of the things that CNN took shit for during the BLM / police shooting protests. Editing when speakers would talk about not trashing their own neighborhoods.
I've been to football games that created more trash than our Gasparilla parade. One of the largest parades in the country. One is not representative of the whole.
Is this coming from the same person who lumped the whole of our armed services into a single monolithic group?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
I know a few veterans - none of them have taken credit for allowing Keystone to lapse. So please, while we are providing evidence for bold, baseless claims, I'd be interested to see where you are drawing your facts from.Quote:
and a lot of that had to do with being tired of the way things are. A largely "politicians are all the same mentality".
None of them expected that he would be so hostile against so many citizens so quickly. The veterans take credit for being the tipping point for Obama allowing Keystone to lapse. I could see that mentality of protecting average citizens spreading like wildfire if Trump were to move aggressively against protesters, especially if the pipeline fight reignites first.
Pretty sure the football stadium operators will have a duty to clear up the mess that was created rather than leave it to the city to do so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
For how far? and how do you hold a football stadium responsible for the trash thats spread over what is commonly a mile wide circle? Cause our college down here would love a solution that doesn't put the bill on them. And calling for police to escort ~60,000 fans off property goes no where considering the police's first task is to get those people out of and away from the stadium as fast and orderly as possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
A possible path for the future? Sure. But not a plausible one, I think. As he said fairly early on, it is a path which requires the rest of the government to tacitly endorse whatever shenanigans Trump wants to get up to. And I don't see that happening for four years. I can already name five GOP senators who are questioning or otherwise being critical of Trump. Have they turned on him entirely? No. But the man hasn't been in office a full two weeks yet. This is his "honeymoon period," and prominent figures in his own party are already being critical. Frum also highlights how weariness in some things, like reports of lies or financial misconduct, will work in his favor but neglects the same weariness will also undermine those things which Frum talks about firing up the base, like BLM protests. If Trump does even worse in four years than he did in November (which is fairly normal when Presidents run for reelection) than it would be very hard for him to hold onto the White House. It would genuinely take a major improvement for the lower and middle class labor markets to get that sort of result (Frum himself suggests that in his scenario) but who here thinks that's likely to be in the cards over the next four years. Any economic indicators pointing at such a result? I'm not aware of any.Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
I actually agree with you. I don't think Frum thinks this is a likely scenario - I just think he finds it frighteningly possible, albeit not a high probability one.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
I am less sanguine about Congressional pushback, especially if Trump lets them enact whatever agenda they want on top policy priorities with the exception of his pet vanity/populist projects. I am somewhat more confident in the professionalized bureaucracy and our legal system providing substantial checks on executive power; most countries Frum uses as examples simply didn't have the same entrenched and well developed systems that the US has - remember that Hungary and Poland are relatively new to democracy and Venezuela never really had one.
That being said, I share your hope that some prominent center-right Senators will wield the real power for this presidential term, essentially dictating which portions of Trump's agenda (at least that part which requires legislative backing) will go forward. I find this encouraging, but I wonder just how much they're willing to compromise their principles for power.
This is what Robert Reich had to say on Facebook in response to the below Washington Post article and, predictably I'm sure, I agree completely. Republicans want to keep him in office so they can get the spoils of their electoral win, but fuckinay. Can't they do that with Pence, FFS?
WP Article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/no-gday-mate-on-call-with-australian-pm-trump-badgers-and-brags/2017/02/01/88a3bfb0-e8bf-11e6-80c2-30e57e57e05d_story.html?utm_term=.e11780b631e5
Quote:
Trump’s personality disorder is relatively harmless when, for example, at this morning’s National Prayer Breakfast he asked attendees to "pray for former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger," who replaced him as the host of NBC’s The Celebrity Apprentice, because the show’s ratings haven’t reached the level they did with Trump as the star.
But the disorder is dangerous when Trump tweets, as he did late last night, that a deal between the U.S. and Australia to resettle refugees is “dumb” -- after berating Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on the phone, accusing Australia of seeking to export the “next Boston bombers,” boasting about the magnitude of his electoral college win, and then, 25 minutes into what was planned as an hour-long call, abruptly ending it by telling Turnbull “this was the worst call by far” of the calls he had with foreign leaders.
Australia is one of our closest allies. We share intelligence with Australia, support one another diplomatically and have fought together in wars including in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Officials say Trump has behaved similarly in conversations with leaders of other countries, including Mexico – deriding them, while boasting about his electoral win, the size of the crowd at his inauguration, and the mandate he has from the American people.
Friends, he’s seriously nuts, and the consequences are really dangerous. I don’t know whether it’s through impeachment or the 25th Amendment, but I do know that adults in both parties have to get this man-child out of the presidency before he blows us all up.
Trump is just a symptom. Though it might be reasonable to expect opposition or obstruction from within the GOP ranks--or from prominent players in the GOP establishment machine--on some specific matters of policy or on some of the most unseemly expressions of Trump's character flaws, I don't think we're likely to see a concerted effort from the GOP to forcefully reject--or otherwise deal with--the deeper issues and the underlying attitudes that ultimately brought about the Trump presidency. The illness underlying the symptom, if you will. If anything, prominent Republican politicians seem to be increasingly inclined to embrace that illness as it can help them sustain their political momentum and the edge they currently have over the democrats--as well as over their more moderate peers, whose approval ratings probably take a major hit whenever they dare criticize Trump. Why would they--as a collective--go any further when this illness can be made to work in their favour, to help them make other changes they've been dying to push through for decades?Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
Whether or not he gets impeached, or beaten, or JFK:d, by the end of Trump's presidency he will have helped establish a new normal that may well give rise to another leader cast in the same mold--or perhaps one more cracked--a couple of terms down the line. I think Frum was mistaken to cast Trump as the antagonist at the heart of his near-future dystopia. Trump won't be that autocrat--but he'll set the stage for the one who will be, and if he can't do it with the help of the government he'll do it with the help of a greater power, namely the people.
The last paragraph is spot on.
The illness that brought about the Trump Presidency. Right. Aimless, I know you don't believe it but conservativism has not become just a modern mask for xenophobic racism. I know you've been painting all of it, whether in Poland, the UK, your own Scandinavia, and here, with that brush but you're doing the same thing that Lewk does with his "liberals" ideation.
There are a lot of factors which brought Trump to the Oval Office. Unintended consequences of revamped GOP nomination rules, the classic see-saw of party incumbency, middle class stagnation, media editorial mismanagement, etc. The "illness" you think of was and is not a very big part however visible it is to you.
Is it possible that Trump will establish a new normal? Maybe but I would consider it unlikely. It's something people are going to get tired of very quickly. About the only pernicious thing we've seen that I think might have staying power is the attitude toward truth and lies and that only works due to a media fragmentation that I don't think can be laid at anyone's door
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...w-archive-1933
Not to Godwin this, but most dictators don't seem like dictators at first. Neither is there an obvious cut-off point where it becomes clear that a country is descending into dictatorship.
Probably because most democratically elected dictators aren't dictators at first.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
What's the point of posting on a forum if you're just going to engage in shadow-boxing?Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
The problem with that fragmentation is that it actually can destroy our system of government and the rule of law.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
Yes. But unless someone manages to come up with a paradigm-changer for journalism in a 24/7 internet-enabled media market, I don't see a way to stop that with the human predilection for confirmation bias. The best I can come up with are things which will destroy a free press and free speech themselves and those will also destroy our system of government and the rule of law. Most of our countries are already in the early to middle stages of a "bread and circuses" environment which would not be unfamiliar to an ancient reader of Juvenal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...president.html
Report: Steve Bannon Had to Be Reminded He Wasn’t the President Amidst Travel Ban Infighting
Chief White House strategist Steve Bannon tried to order Department of Homeland Security secretary John Kelly to not issue a waiver exempting green card holders from President Trump’s travel ban executive order, according to a new report in the Washington Post. Per two Trump administration officials who spoke with the Post’s Josh Rogin, Kelly ultimately rebuffed the attempt, telling Bannon that he only takes orders from the president. The president never weighed in, and Kelly went ahead and issued the waiver, which was made public on Sunday night. That waiver ended two full days of confusion and chaos around the question of whether or not permanent U.S. residents from the seven predominantly Muslim nations included in the ban would be allowed to reenter the country. The White House itself then confirmed that green card holders were exempt from the order on Tuesday.
According to Rogin’s sources, Kelly, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, and then Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson also banded together during a 2 a.m. phone call among White House staff on Sunday to oppose the haphazard way the president’s executive order had been conceived and implemented by the White House’s growing Breitbart wing, Bannon and White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller. Then during a larger meeting later on Sunday, Trump reportedly decided to temporarily suspend the issuing of executive orders until a better process — one that included more input from more White House officials — could be implemented.
If Rogin’s reporting is accurate, it indicates that Bannon seems have lost an important early power struggle, though not for lack of trying. Last weekend, CNN reported that the DHS had finished a legal analysis of the travel ban order on Friday and concluded that it did not apply to green card holders, but that the White House, and more specifically Bannon and Miller, had overruled that conclusion. On Friday and Saturday, Trump administration officials ended up sending mixed signals as to whether or not permanent residents were to be allowed onto planes to the U.S., as well as whether or not they would face extra screening, or have to apply for a waiver somehow, to gain re-entry to the U.S. As a result, many of these travelers were stranded and detained, ultimately for no reason.
According to the Post report, it was on Saturday that Kelly decided to just issue the waiver exempting all green card holders from the ban, and that’s when Bannon — who has previously indicated that he would like to get rid of all legal immigration — attempted to intervene, apparently for the second time, by showing up at Kelly’s office and ordering him to not go through with the waiver. Rogin’s reporting also ties in with this week’s TIME cover story asserting that Bannon’s contributions to the tumult of the new administration’s first few weeks “has rattled the West Wing and perhaps even dismayed the President,” and that the controversy was leading to a slowing of the pace of the new administration’s agenda.
(Rogin did not contact the White House prior to publishing this story, and per a series of updates on the original post, press secretary Sean Spicer has since denied major aspects of the story. According to Spicer, there was no confrontation between Bannon and Kelly, Bannon never visited Kelly’s office, Tillerson and Bannon did not participate in a 2 a.m. call that night, and it was not President Trump who approved a temporary suspension of the issuing of executive orders, but Chief of Staff Reince Priebus — and it was just new procedures he approved, not a suspension. Rogin appears to be standing by his reporting, regardless.)
Though some in the White House have tried, there is virtually no way to spin the disastrous rollout of the travel ban as a success — unless confusion, mass protests, and inner-circle backstabbing was the desired outcome. Several reports have indicated that the travel ban order was hastily and incompetently written, barely reviewed, and implemented and communicated with next to no planning. So far, the blame seems have landed on the Trump administration’s Breitbart wing. And while there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of Bannon or Miller’s influence diminishing, there are at least some indications that other White House cabinet members are pushing to confront them.
Then again, it’s also important to realize that, as The Atlantic’s Rosie Gray points out, most of these unnamed Trump officials are leaking negative stories about Miller and Bannon in an attempt to limit their influence in the White House. Understanding that, the fact that they are being widely and specifically scapegoated for the travel ban fallout likely illustrates how powerful they have already become.
This post has been updated to take note of White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s denials of major aspects of the story, per updates to the original Washington Post article. Josh Rogin seems to be standing by his reporting, otherwise.
Some upstart taking this guy out of the inner circle under treason charges would make for a fucking cool movie down the line, but as its been pointed out numerous times, there is a serious lack of backbone in DC right now.
One reason I haven't been upset about Bannon as the rest of you is that I just don't see him as someone who is going to remain in the White House administration all that long. Yes, Trump is inexperienced, ignorant, and is going to delegate (needs to delegate). But since he's still Trump, that means those advisors and holders of delegated authority are always just one step away from being fired. Trump's ego won't permit someone to share his spotlight, and his thin skin won't let someone who generates sufficient/important enough criticism of Trump himself keep doing so for too long. Bannon's a lightning rod in both regards.
You should be less complacent, fuzzball. The President seems rather easy to manipulate via flattery & telling him what he wants to hear, which is what Bannon proves adept at.
Though the fact that Bannon has already not gotten his way on green cards (let alone the courts stopping the ban altogether) is very reassuring.
'very' is pushing it.
The further Bannon gets pushed back from power the better.
So how do you guys think Trump's spat with the intelligence community and Flynn's unsanctioned discussions with the Russian ambassador are going to develop over the coming weeks?
http://observer.com/2017/02/donald-t...ssian-embassy/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.c33724fc1b28
Americans help me out here; hypothetically, if the CIA tomorrow confirmed the contents of the Steele* dossier, what would the procedure be? What would happen?
Would Feds in windbreakers lead him out of the White House in handcuffs? Would the CIA put a hood over his head, fit him for an orange jump suit and drag him off to a black site for an ironic waterboarding session? Would he first need to be impeached by congress, then face criminal proceedings or would he just be impeached and that would be the end of it? What about others in the White House suspected of being complicit?
What would the ramifications be? Would there be moves to change the constitution to prevent something like that form happening again? Would the GOP survive in it's present form? What about the fraction of Trump supporters who would, undoubtedly and indoctrinated into anti-establishment conspiratorial thinking, refuse to believe it?
* 'Christopher Steele' is the best spy name ever
He would need to be impeached by the House and then removed from office by a supermajority vote of the Senate. A criminal trial might proceed thereafter (but realistically, you probably could not find an untainted jury pool at that point). That would require enough members of the House to secure an impeachment be shown the intelligence evidence against him, and all such evidence would then have to be presented (and defended against as in criminal proceedings) in the Senate. I.e. it would all be public record and all sources/methods of gathering the intelligence would have to be revealed
I couldn't begin to predict what the ramifications would be. Considering how unlikely it is that the intelligence community wants all that aired in public, impeachment on such grounds is unlikely. It's far more likely that another excuse would be used and enough powerful/influential members of the House and Senate informed of the intelligence material to convince them of the necessity. And in that case, the ramifications are even harder to predict.
FYI, only a third of Republicans voted to impeach Nixon (in the House Judiciary Committee).
And there was never any doubt about Clinton's guilt in the perjury charges and the senate didn't vote guilty. Unless there is some crazy off the wall 'Pence was the plan all along' plot that's been done there is no way Trump would get impeached in senate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
I dunno, Lewk. Being in collusion with a semi-hostile foreign power seems like the sort of thing which might actually upset all the patriotic and law & order types the GOP likes to appeal to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
Also, he woulld get convicted in the Senate. The House impeaches, the Senate convicts.
I assume that you mean he wouldn't get impeached in the Senate?Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
All this talk of impeachment due to collusion with the Russians etc keeps making me think of 24's Day 5 with Trump as President Logan.
Actually, I meant to type "would" rather than "wouldn't."Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
LOL! Either way around works!