Trump

[WaspInWales]

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post reports that Trump has (surprisingly) called upon Israel to halt its illegal new settlements in Palestine: http://live.jpost.com/Israel-News/Polit ... nts-480446

That is surprising. Haven't seen the story on other sites though.

Something isn't adding up. He selects an ambassador to Israel opposed to the two-state solution and then one of his advisers apparently phones a newspaper in Israel to criticise new settlements and say the tangerine dream is committed to the two-state solution?

Hmmm.

[WaspInWales]

Smells of some kind of PR bollocks to me. After all the shit Trump has got about the 'Muslim ban' and comments to Iran, it seems like a softer approach to 'prove' he's empathetic to the Palestinians.

That said, I don't know if this story surfaced before or after Iran-Tweet-gate (that's for Mikey)

[rowan]

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post reports that Trump has (surprisingly) called upon Israel to halt its illegal new settlements in Palestine: http://live.jpost.com/Israel-News/Polit ... nts-480446

That is surprising. Haven't seen the story on other sites though.

Something isn't adding up. He selects an ambassador to Israel opposed to the two-state solution and then one of his advisers apparently phones a newspaper in Israel to criticise new settlements and say the tangerine dream is committed to the two-state solution?

Hmmm.

Seems he is more concerned with the announcements of the illegal settlements than he is with the illegal settlements themselves. The Israeli government has a particularly juvenile mentality and likes to thumb its nose at the international community, especially in the wake of a rebuke such as that it received just recently when the UN adjudged their settlements illegal. But their gleeful announcements of defiance and outright rejection of international law are making Trump look even worse than he already did and getting in the way of his plans for the Middle East, whatever they may be. Meanwhile, a nudge wink has undoubtedly already been received by serial war criminal Bibi to carry on as usual - just a tad more quietly

[WaspInWales]

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post reports that Trump has (surprisingly) called upon Israel to halt its illegal new settlements in Palestine: http://live.jpost.com/Israel-News/Polit ... nts-480446

That is surprising. Haven't seen the story on other sites though.

Something isn't adding up. He selects an ambassador to Israel opposed to the two-state solution and then one of his advisers apparently phones a newspaper in Israel to criticise new settlements and say the tangerine dream is committed to the two-state solution?

Hmmm.

Seems he is more concerned with the announcements of the illegal settlements than he is with the illegal settlements themselves. The Israeli government has a particularly juvenile mentality and likes to thumb its nose at the international community, especially in the wake of a rebuke such as that it received just recently when the UN judged their settlements illegal. But their gleeful announcements of defiance and outright rejection of international law are making Trump look every worse than he already did and getting in the way of his plans for the Middle East, whatever they may be. Meanwhile, a nudge wink has undoubtedly already been received by serial war criminal Bibi to carry on as usual - just a tad more quietly

Yeah, the tone of some of the comments on that article seemed to be 'don't announce, just build'.

Absolutely depressing.

[cashead]

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post reports that Trump has (surprisingly) called upon Israel to halt its illegal new settlements in Palestine: http://live.jpost.com/Israel-News/Polit ... nts-480446

That is surprising. Haven't seen the story on other sites though.

Something isn't adding up. He selects an ambassador to Israel opposed to the two-state solution and then one of his advisers apparently phones a newspaper in Israel to criticise new settlements and say the tangerine dream is committed to the two-state solution?

Hmmm.

If you just remember that he probably doesn't know what the fuck he's doing, it suddenly makes sense.

The man's an irrational narcissist, who expects everyone to call him the most smartest, cleverest, bigliest cool guy and that we love, love, love him, only to find that the majority of people, many of which are his own citizens, have just turned around and collectively said "ah, go fuck yourself, you orange shitbird."

[morepork]

He has set in motion his support of settlements with his cabinet picks. His handlers are just trying to clean up mess that his twitter account shat in his bed. He is most definitely not in charge of this issue. It may be that he eventually recognises statements of intent made by property and media magnates insulated by expensive properties in the Upper West Side are no substitute for actually thought out foreign policy but by jebus, it will require an especially steep learning curve. Luckily he has his own personal army of fuck trophies and their spouses to negotiate this professional minefield. In the meantime Google and Facebook are burrowing ever deeper into the foundations of national security...

[kk67]

A flat-track bully. What a surprise. Eventually, he will not be able to avoid responsibility for his actions. Just a serial bullshit artist that isn't half as bright as he thinks he is.

Yup. Just a commercially driven, self interested narcissist.
Perfect for the Yanks. They love that sh*t because they're thick and misunderstand their own history.
It makes them feel better about being a young nation that loves autocrats while they pretend that all people are created equal.
A concept born from a twat who was screwing his slaves and pretending he was liberal.

[rowan]

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post reports that Trump has (surprisingly) called upon Israel to halt its illegal new settlements in Palestine: http://live.jpost.com/Israel-News/Polit ... nts-480446

That is surprising. Haven't seen the story on other sites though.

Something isn't adding up. He selects an ambassador to Israel opposed to the two-state solution and then one of his advisers apparently phones a newspaper in Israel to criticise new settlements and say the tangerine dream is committed to the two-state solution?

Hmmm.

If you just remember that he probably doesn't know what the fuck he's doing, it suddenly makes sense.

The man's an irrational narcissist, who expects everyone to call him the most smartest, cleverest, bigliest cool guy and that we love, love, love him, only to find that the majority of people, many of which are his own citizens, have just turned around and collectively said "ah, go fuck yourself, you orange shitbird."

I don't think anything has changed, and am pretty sure the silent majority remain firmly behind him because they don't actually give a toss about foreign policy and how much human carnage their nation plays a part in - most often in the lead role. But they'e not called the silent majority for nothing, and that's why many of us were taken unawares by the election result. It's the same here in Turkey. Living in downtown Istanbul you would think Erdogan was the most despised man in the country, when in reality the majority of Turks are actually behind him.

[cashead]

The silent majority that lost the popular vote by 3,000,000

[rowan]

Good article, pretty much what I've been saying all along:

As new details are coming out about what appears to have been a disastrous raid on an al-Qaida compound in Yemen last weekend that resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL, the 8-year-old American daughter of deceased al-Qaida recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki, and a number of civilians, many liberals are condemning President Donald Trump’s decision to approve the first major counterterrorism operation of his administration.

I definitely don’t know whether it was wise to proceed with the operation or if more questions should have been asked. Though the plans for the raid were developed during the last days of the previous administration and postponed for operational reasons, it’s certainly possible that Barack Obama, as opposed to Trump, would have held off. I certainly also find it alarming that Trump, Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, and Michael Flynn are the ones in the position to make these calls. (It should be pointed out that Defense Secretary James Mattis, who many Trump critics hoped would be a check on the president’s worst impulses, was also at the meeting where the decision to proceed was made, according to the New York Times.)

But I also know that I didn’t see this level of outrage after Awlaki’s 16-year-old son was killed in a drone strike in 2011, or when Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs brushed aside criticism of that strike by saying that the boy “should have [had] a far more responsible father.” I wonder if those blaming Trump for the death of Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens, felt Obama was equally responsible for the death of Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler, killed after a U.S.-Kurdish raid on an ISIS prison in Iraq went haywire in 2015. I know that the previous administration approved raids based on what turned out to be faulty intelligence, including the failed attempt to rescue hostages James Foley and and Steven Sotloff in 2014.

I wonder if those who find it outrageous that the Trump administration wants to, as the Times puts it, “speed the decision-making when it comes to such strikes,” found it equally problematic when the same paper reported that Obama had “embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties” that “in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants.”

I certainly heard relatively little outrage from the left about the drone strike on an al-Qaida compound in Pakistan in 2015 that killed an American and an Italian hostage, or the U.S. bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, that same year that arguably constituted a war crime, or the ongoing Obama administration support for Saudi Arabia’s brutal, civilian-targeting air campaign in Yemen.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/ ... _dt_tw_top

[Sandydragon]

Meanwhile, back to the ban on migrants from certain middle eastern countries. It appears that Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway used the Bowling Green massacre as justification for the ban on muslims from these countries on entering the US. Just one problem, that massacre never happened.

So, this policy was never about protecting the US from a known threat (and sorry it isn't the same thing as Obama did a few years ago no matter how hard the Trump team try and spin it). Rather this is the giant Oompa Loompa using dog whistle politics to get votes and repaying those voters by stopping immigration. I dont think that anyone in the Trump team will come out and admit that they are just pandering to their racist voters but thats the nub of the matter.

[Digby]

Meanwhile, back to the ban on migrants from certain middle eastern countries. It appears that Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway used the Bowling Green massacre as justification for the ban on muslims from these countries on entering the US. Just one problem, that massacre never happened.

So, this policy was never about protecting the US from a known threat (and sorry it isn't the same thing as Obama did a few years ago no matter how hard the Trump team try and spin it). Rather this is the giant Oompa Loompa using dog whistle politics to get votes and repaying those voters by stopping immigration. I dont think that anyone in the Trump team will come out and admit that they are just pandering to their racist voters but thats the nub of the matter.

it's brazen to come out and make the stand so much about Islamic extremism, especially given the white shooter up in Canada that even the orange one must have heard about. or maybe the orange one went with the Fox reports that the shooter in Quebec was Moroccan rather than waiting for such trifling details as the facts

[rowan]

Interesting:

[WaspInWales]

[morepork]

Interesting:

Yeah, ex-Goldman Sachs employee decries social welfare and subsidized health care, extolls "Judeo-Christian" values, and promotes political incorrectness (the new PC) as a vehicle for change. That's really fascinating.

Not.

[Sandydragon]

Meanwhile, back to the ban on migrants from certain middle eastern countries. It appears that Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway used the Bowling Green massacre as justification for the ban on muslims from these countries on entering the US. Just one problem, that massacre never happened.

So, this policy was never about protecting the US from a known threat (and sorry it isn't the same thing as Obama did a few years ago no matter how hard the Trump team try and spin it). Rather this is the giant Oompa Loompa using dog whistle politics to get votes and repaying those voters by stopping immigration. I dont think that anyone in the Trump team will come out and admit that they are just pandering to their racist voters but thats the nub of the matter.

it's brazen to come out and make the stand so much about Islamic extremism, especially given the white shooter up in Canada that even the orange one must have heard about. or maybe the orange one went with the Fox reports that the shooter in Quebec was Moroccan rather than waiting for such trifling details as the facts

I have no problem with a political leader making a hard call when there is evidence to support it, but Trumps approach (notwithstanding its inept implementation) is almost designed to create more harm than it does good. This is a sop to the useful idiots who voted for him, nothing more.

[WaspInWales]

The latest executive order signed by the tiny handed tyrant orders a review of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations.

Some fuckers on Wall Street believe the regulations to be too restrictive. I thought that was the whole point???

I wonder how Trump and his cronies and their companies/ties stand to benefit from this decision?

[morepork]

The latest executive order signed by the tiny handed tyrant orders a review of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations.

Some fuckers on Wall Street believe the regulations to be too restrictive. I thought that was the whole point???

I wonder how Trump and his cronies and their companies/ties stand to benefit from this decision?

THIS is what he is in there to do. Hang to your pensions muthafukers because JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are riding into town to snatch them away and gamble.


"A second directive he signed will effectively halt an Obama-era Labor Department rule that requires brokers to act in a client’s best interest, rather than seek the highest profits for themselves, when providing retirement advice." EXCELLENT IDEA THESE PEOPLE CAN BE TRUSTED COMPLETELY

"The meeting underscored the degree to which the architects of Mr. Trump’s economic strategy are now some of the people he denounced in his campaign, which ended with a commercial that described “a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations.”

The advertisement included an image of the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, which has become a virtual feeder for top Trump administration officials. Steven Mnuchin, his nominee for Treasury secretary, is a former Goldman Sachs trader and a hedge fund manager. Gary Cohn, the chairman of his national economic council, was Goldman’s No. 2 executive, and Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, is a former Goldman banker." WELL BLOW ME DOWN WITH A FEATHER. THOSE NICE FINANCIAL PEOPLE ARE RALLYING FOR THE WORKING MAN

There's more in there, including efforts to make oil company dealings with foreign governments more opaque.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/busi ... tions.html


It's like someone took the corpse of trickle down economics, shot it up with adrenaline and crack, and is taking it for one last spin on the dance floor. People are going to get so fucked over.

[WaspInWales]

The latest executive order signed by the tiny handed tyrant orders a review of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations.

Some fuckers on Wall Street believe the regulations to be too restrictive. I thought that was the whole point???

I wonder how Trump and his cronies and their companies/ties stand to benefit from this decision?

THIS is what he is in there to do. Hang to your pensions muthafukers because JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are riding into town to snatch them away and gamble.


"A second directive he signed will effectively halt an Obama-era Labor Department rule that requires brokers to act in a client’s best interest, rather than seek the highest profits for themselves, when providing retirement advice." EXCELLENT IDEA THESE PEOPLE CAN BE TRUSTED COMPLETELY

"The meeting underscored the degree to which the architects of Mr. Trump’s economic strategy are now some of the people he denounced in his campaign, which ended with a commercial that described “a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations.”

The advertisement included an image of the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, which has become a virtual feeder for top Trump administration officials. Steven Mnuchin, his nominee for Treasury secretary, is a former Goldman Sachs trader and a hedge fund manager. Gary Cohn, the chairman of his national economic council, was Goldman’s No. 2 executive, and Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, is a former Goldman banker." WELL BLOW ME DOWN WITH A FEATHER. THOSE NICE FINANCIAL PEOPLE ARE RALLYING FOR THE WORKING MAN

There's more in there, including efforts to make oil company dealings with foreign governments more opaque.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/busi ... tions.html


It's like someone took the corpse of trickle down economics, shot it up with adrenaline and crack, and is taking it for one last spin on the dance floor. People are going to get so fucked over.

Fucking hell!!!

As funny as the commercial sounds, it's this kinda alt-shit that is influencing the right masses and is no doubt going to be turned into a meme at some point by the left masses.

So, basically, we're gonna see another boom and bust right?

[morepork]

G-S will run a few more cities into the ground with shit investment advice and come away with vast sums of money. The public will pick up the tab. Again.

[Len]

G-S will run a few more cities into the ground with shit investment advice and come away with vast sums of money. The public will pick up the tab. Again.

Good. Will teach them for voting for somebody who is quite obviously a cunt.

[Digby]

G-S will run a few more cities into the ground with shit investment advice and come away with vast sums of money. The public will pick up the tab. Again.

Good. Will teach them for voting for somebody who is quite obviously a cunt.

Will it teach them a lesson, or will they simply become angrier and listen to a still stronger self-serving nationalist voice?

[Sandydragon]

G-S will run a few more cities into the ground with shit investment advice and come away with vast sums of money. The public will pick up the tab. Again.

Good. Will teach them for voting for somebody who is quite obviously a cunt.

Will it teach them a lesson, or will they simply become angrier and listen to a still stronger self-serving nationalist voice?

Of course not. First rule of modern politics, it's always someone else's fault.

[Digby]

Good. Will teach them for voting for somebody who is quite obviously a cunt.

Will it teach them a lesson, or will they simply become angrier and listen to a still stronger self-serving nationalist voice?

Of course not. First rule of modern politics, it's always someone else's fault.

I used to wonder how people voted so happily for Hitler, and now we've some practical demonstrations in our lifetime of how society progresses down just that road.

[WaspInWales]

Will it teach them a lesson, or will they simply become angrier and listen to a still stronger self-serving nationalist voice?

Of course not. First rule of modern politics, it's always someone else's fault.

I used to wonder how people voted so happily for Hitler, and now we've some practical demonstrations in our lifetime of how society progresses down just that road.

Well, as long as we learn from history...