Probably because most democratically elected dictators aren't dictators at first.Originally Posted by Loki
Probably because most democratically elected dictators aren't dictators at first.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
What's the point of posting on a forum if you're just going to engage in shadow-boxing?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
The problem with that fragmentation is that it actually can destroy our system of government and the rule of law.
Congratulations America
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.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
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.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
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.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
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.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
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 light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
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
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
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
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
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.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
FYI, only a third of Republicans voted to impeach Nixon (in the House Judiciary Committee).
Hope is the denial of reality
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.
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.
Also, he woulld get convicted in the Senate. The House impeaches, the Senate convicts.
Last edited by LittleFuzzy; 02-13-2017 at 06:55 PM.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
I assume that you mean he wouldn't get impeached in the Senate?
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."
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
LOL! Either way around works!
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Just started watching that show, quite funny.
With a gif that short, why even make it a gif?
Because I wanted a gif.
Also, your president is Trump.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
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