A Futile and Stupid Gesture: The History of the First Trump Presidency & Q-Anon

Preibus is out. Who fires their chief of staff six months into a presidency?

This is the craziest corporation, no wait, country in the world. The turnovers will hit you one day as I am always told after every termination cycle.
 
Fwiffo said:
Preibus is out. Who fires their chief of staff six months into a presidency?

This is the craziest corporation, no wait, country in the world. The turnovers will hit you one day as I am always told after every termination cycle.
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i always assumed he had to take preibus as a token of his "support" for the party. i'm sure he's as fed up with them as the rest of us are. some interesting things coming out of the bannon wing of the presidency lately.
 
Rambo said:
i always assumed he had to take preibus as a token of his "support" for the party. i'm sure he's as fed up with them as the rest of us are. some interesting things coming out of the bannon wing of the presidency lately.
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Rest of "us" ? I didn't know you are a populist voter. I actually thought Preibus was one of the few party members who were loyal or at least amenable to Trump's candidacy. He, as GOP chair, certainly could have quashed a lot of things in the primaries but perhaps he was always gutless.

That said, it's still bad optics. Preibus is an ally of Ryan and the House has been mostly co-operative. What of the future? Sick the general on him? How long till Pence starts having misgivings? Pence I reckon is playing for the long run and hoping he emerges like Gerald Ford.

Sessions looks like he's next, but as I said, you can't keep firing people until you get results. It isn't an option in democratic governments. At some point you must will people together and lead.
 
Rambo said:
i'm not a voter at all. but who isn't tired of these useless assholes at this point?
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Were you hoping the entire agenda would be implemented in the first hundred days? Some very bad (and some good) things could happen but that wouldn't be the nature of democratic institutions.

The Chief of staff for me is like a right hand man. You don't fire them. They usually burn out on their own - unless someone can cite me a case where one got fired. I'm sure it wasn't a six month tenure.

I am not shocked since I think I posted on here a Time article that Preibus was barging into meetings during spring time just to remain relevant, and the oval office doors were open on both ends with people and advisors meandering in without any control.
 
My feeling was that Trump either did not know how to make use of a CoS or did not care to make use of Preibus as CoS. Preibus was an olive branch to the GOP establishment, and since the establishment failed Don, Don saw little need for an olive branch anymore.
 
InstaHate said:
My feeling was that Trump did not care to make use of Preibus as CoS. Preibus was an olive branch to the GOP establishment, and since the establishment failed Don, Don saw little need for an olive branch anymore.
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This
Fwiffo said:
Were you hoping the entire agenda would be implemented in the first hundred days? Some very bad (and some good) things could happen but that wouldn't be the nature of democratic institutions.

The Chief of staff for me is like a right hand man. You don't fire them. They usually burn out on their own - unless someone can cite me a case where one got fired. I'm sure it wasn't a six month tenure.

I am not shocked since I think I posted on here a Time article that Preibus was barging into meetings during spring time just to remain relevant, and the oval office doors were open on both ends with people and advisors meandering in without any control.
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Im completely indifferent on the agenda since it was mostly GOP backed dogma. I think Reince was a token appointment and nothing more. Trump's at least smart enough to realize that McConnell and Ryan are on the way out. I've already read calls for McConnell to step down today. Of course, I've also read about McCain being "principled" today, so take that for what you will.
 
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Mr Trump thanked Mr Priebus for his "service and dedication to his country"."We accomplished a lot together and I am proud of him." Mr Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon also served as "equal partners" under the President, but speaking at a conservative gathering the pair denied there was ongoing tension between the them. Behind the scenes conflicts at the White House boiled over with the selection of Mr Scaramucci as communications director.
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The Only Person With Sense In the Trump Administration
2017 JULY 29


is Steve Bannon. (Yes, he’s a nasty nativist as well.)

In the last few days Bannon has suggested increasing the top marginal rate to 44% and regulating Google and Facebook.

Both of these are good ideas. I’m sure that Bannon’s regulations of Facebook and Google might not be what I’d want, but the bottom line is that these are now the primary media organizations of the world: what people read or see is mostly determined by Google or Facebook: their algorithms and employees.

For example, 3 months ago Google put out a new algo to reduce fake news. Result?

In the three months since Google implemented the changes to its search engine, fewer people have accessed left-wing and anti-war news sites. Based on information available on Alexa analytics, other sites that have experienced sharp drops in ranking include WikiLeaks, Alternet, Counterpunch, Global Research, Consortium News and Truthout. Even prominent democratic rights groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International appear to have been hit.

Hey! What a surprise. Major corporation does something which makes people who tend to think badly of major corporations be read less!

The bottom line is simple: two companies control most of what people read, and that should be under democratic control. And that’s before we even get to how Google and Facebook have systematically taken control of advertising, directing more and more of the profit to them, and removing it from actual content creators.

This is similar to the problem of railroads before major highways and trucking: farmers could only get crops to market thru railroads, so railroads took almost all the profits. We have forgotten, but farmers hated the railroads with a sickly passion, and for good reason.

Google and Facebook determine who gets read. That has political and economic repercussions which are massive. (And Facebook’s CEO quite clearly wants to be President.)

Bannon is right, whether you like his other politics or not.

As far as the Trump admin goes Ivanka and Jared are the ones who try to mitigate the nasty social stuff (often failing) and Bannon is the only one who wants ordinary Americans to do well.

You can despise all three, with good reason, but understand the reality.

Oh, and “fake news”? It exists, but the hysteria around it is being ridden heavily by people you want nothing to do with. And no fake news so far has ever equaled the New York Times lies which helped sell the Iraq war.

Fake news hysteria among elites is really “our monopoly on lies is being taken away from us! Only approved lies should be allowed!”
 
'Nativism' is a good thing and long overdue in Western countries undermined by 'globalism'.

Trump has surrounded himself with too many Goldman Sachs people. Unbelievably he is even thinking of putting one in charge of The Federal Reserve.

So much for draining the swamp....
 
Rambo said:
Im completely indifferent on the agenda since it was mostly GOP backed dogma. I think Reince was a token appointment and nothing more. Trump's at least smart enough to realize that McConnell and Ryan are on the way out. I've already read calls for McConnell to step down today. Of course, I've also read about McCain being "principled" today, so take that for what you will.
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Does that mean the Senate backed Jeff Sessions is also on the chopping block?
 
This is the real scandal that's brewing, mark my words this is the one that will expose the sordid machinations of the Democrats:

http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/29/w...-pay-suspect-even-while-he-lived-in-pakistan/

She has the look of an uptown junky to me - allegedly, she may just be vegan. The Pakistan connection is everything. No one in their right mind would outsource IT services to Pakistan nationals.

What mischief is this?
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...e-759pm:homepage/story&utm_term=.603d8097ac34

Trump dictated son’s misleading statement on meeting with Russian lawyer

On the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Germany last month, President Trump’s advisers discussed how to respond to a new revelation that Trump’s oldest son had met with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign — a disclosure the advisers knew carried political and potentially legal peril.

The strategy, the advisers agreed, should be for Donald Trump Jr. to release a statement to get ahead of the story. They wanted to be truthful, so their account couldn’t be repudiated later if the full details emerged.

But within hours, at the president’s direction, the plan changed.

Flying home from Germany on July 8 aboard Air Force One, Trump personally dictated a statement in which Trump Jr. said that he and the Russian lawyer had “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children” when they met in June 2016, according to multiple people with knowledge of the deliberations. The statement, issued to the New York Times as it prepared an article, emphasized that the subject of the meeting was “not a campaign issue at the time.” The claims were later shown to be misleading.

The extent of the president’s personal intervention in his son’s response, the details of which have not previously been reported, adds to a series of actions that Trump has taken that some advisers fear could place him and some members of his inner circle in legal jeopardy.

As special counsel Robert S. Mueller III looks into potential obstruction of justice as part of his broader investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, these advisers worry that the president’s direct involvement leaves him needlessly vulnerable to allegations of a coverup.

“This was . . . unnecessary,” said one of the president’s advisers, who like most other people interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations. “Now someone can claim he’s the one who attempted to mislead. Somebody can argue the president is saying he doesn’t want you to say the whole truth.”

Trump has already come under criticism for steps he has taken to challenge and undercut the Russia investigation.

He fired FBI Director James B. Comey on May 9 after a private meeting in which Comey said the president asked him if he could end the investigation of ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats told associates that Trump asked him in March if he could intervene with Comey to get the bureau to back off its focus on Flynn. In addition, Trump has repeatedly criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from overseeing the FBI’s Russian investigation — a decision that was one factor leading to the appointment of Mueller. And he has privately discussed his power to issue pardons, including for himself, and explored potential avenues for undercutting Mueller’s work.

Although misleading the public or the news media is not a crime, advisers to Trump and his family told The Washington Post that they fear any indication that Trump was seeking to hide information about contacts between his campaign and Russians almost inevitably would draw additional scrutiny from Mueller.

Trump, they say, is increasingly acting as his own lawyer, strategist and publicist, often disregarding the recommendations of the professionals he has hired.

“He refuses to sit still,” the presidential adviser said. “He doesn’t think he’s in any legal jeopardy, so he really views this as a political problem he is going to solve by himself.”

Trump has said that the Russia investigation is “the greatest witch hunt in political history,” calling it an elaborate hoax created by Democrats to explain why Clinton lost an election she should have won.

Because Trump believes he is innocent, some advisers explained, he therefore does not think he is at any legal risk for a coverup. In his mind, they said, there is nothing to conceal.

The White House directed all questions for this article to the president’s legal team.

One of Trump’s attorneys, Jay Sekulow, declined to discuss the specifics of the president’s actions and his role in crafting his son’s statement about the Russian contact. Sekulow issued a one-sentence statement in response to a list of detailed questions from The Post.

“Apart from being of no consequence, the characterizations are misinformed, inaccurate, and not pertinent,” Sekulow’s statement read.

Trump Jr. did not respond to requests for comment. His attorney, Alan Futerfas, told The Post that he and his client “were fully prepared and absolutely prepared to make a fulsome statement” about the meeting, what led up to it and what was discussed.

Asked about Trump intervening, Futerfas said, “I have no evidence to support that theory.” He described the process of drafting a statement as “a communal situation that involved communications people and various lawyers.”

Peter Zeidenberg, the deputy special prosecutor who investigated the George W. Bush administration’s leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity, said Mueller will have to dig into the crafting of Trump Jr.’s statement aboard Air Force One.

Prosecutors typically assume that any misleading statement is an effort to throw investigators off the track, Zeidenberg said.

“The thing that really strikes me about this is the stupidity of involving the president,” Zeidenberg said. “They are still treating this like a family-run business and they have a PR problem. . . . What they don’t seem to understand is this is a criminal investigation involving all of them.”

Advocating for transparency
The debate about how to deal with the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting began weeks before any news organizations began to ask questions about it.

Kushner’s legal team first learned about the meeting when doing research to respond to congressional requests for information. Congressional investigators wanted to know about any contacts the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser had with Russian officials or business people.

Kushner’s lawyers came across what they immediately recognized would eventually become a problematic story. A string of emails showed Kushner attended a meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in the midst of the campaign — one he had failed to disclose. Trump Jr. had arranged it, and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort had also attended.

To compound what was, at best, a public relations fiasco, the emails, which had not yet surfaced publicly, showed Trump Jr. responding to the prospect of negative information on Clinton from Russia: “I love it.”

Lawyers and advisers for Trump, his son and son-in-law gamed out strategies for disclosing the information to try to minimize the fallout of these new links between the Trump family and Russia, according to people familiar with the deliberations.

Hope Hicks, the White House director of strategic communications and one of the president’s most trusted and loyal aides, and Josh Raffel, a White House spokesman who works closely with Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, huddled with Kushner’s lawyers, and they advocated for a more transparent approach, according to people with knowledge of the conversations.

In one scenario, these people said, Kushner’s team talked about sharing everything, including the contents of the emails, with a mainstream news organization.

Hicks and Raffel declined to comment. Kushner attorney Abbe Lowell also declined to comment.

The president’s outside legal team, led by Marc Kasowitz, had suggested that the details be given to Circa, an online news organization that the Kasowitz team thought would be friendly to Trump. Circa had inquired in previous days about the meeting, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The president’s legal team planned to cast the June 2016 meeting as a potential setup by Democratic operatives hoping to entrap Trump Jr. and, by extension, the presumptive Republican nominee, according to people familiar with discussions.

Kasowitz declined to comment for this article, as did a Circa spokesman.

Consensus overruled
Circumstances changed when the New York Times began asking about the Trump Tower meeting, though advisers believed that the newspaper knew few of the details. While the president, Kushner and Ivanka Trump were attending the G-20 summit in Germany, the Times asked for White House comment on the impetus and reason for the meeting.

During breaks away from the summit, Kushner and Ivanka Trump gathered with Hicks and Raffel to discuss Kushner’s response to the inquiry, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. Kushner’s legal team joined at times by phone.

Hicks also spoke by phone with Trump Jr. Again, say people familiar with the conversations, Kushner’s team concluded that the best strategy would be to err on the side of transparency, because they believed the complete story would eventually emerge.

The discussions among the president’s advisers consumed much of the day, and they continued as they prepared to board Air Force One that evening for the flight home.

But before everyone boarded the plane, Trump had overruled the consensus, according to people with knowledge of the events.

It remains unclear exactly how much the president knew at the time of the flight about Trump Jr.’s meeting.

The president directed that Trump Jr.’s statement to the Times describe the meeting as unimportant. He wanted the statement to say that the meeting had been initiated by the Russian lawyer and primarily was about her pet issue — the adoption of Russian children.

Air Force One took off from Germany shortly after 6 p.m. — about noon in Washington. In a forward cabin, Trump was busy working on his son’s statement, according to people with knowledge of events. The president dictated the statement to Hicks, who served as a go-between with Trump Jr., who was not on the plane, sharing edits between the two men, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

In the early afternoon, Eastern time, Trump Jr.’s team put out the statement to the Times. It was four sentences long, describing the encounter as a “short, introductory meeting.”

“We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up,” the statement read.

Trump Jr. went on to say: “I was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance, but was not told the name of the person I would be meeting with beforehand.”

Over the next hour, word spread through emails and calls to other Trump family advisers and lawyers about the statement that Trump Jr. had sent to the Times.

Some lawyers for the president and for Kushner were surprised and frustrated, advisers later learned. According to people briefed on the dispute, some lawyers tried to reach Futerfas and their clients and began asking why the president had been involved.

Also on the flight, Kushner worked with his team — including one of his lawyers, who called in to the plane.

His lawyers have said that Kushner’s initial omission of the meeting was an error, but that in an effort to be fully transparent, he had updated his government filing to include “this meeting with a Russian person, which he briefly attended at the request of his brother-in-law Donald Trump Jr.” Kushner’s legal team referred all questions about the meeting itself to Trump Jr.

The Times’ story revealing the existence of the June 2016 meeting was posted online about 4 p.m. Eastern time. Roughly four hours later, Air Force One touched down at Joint Base Andrews. Trump’s family members and advisers departed the plane, and they knew the problem they had once hoped to contain would soon grow bigger.
 
TLDR:
Trump is unnecessarily dishonest (again) about something stupid (again) but not illegal (again).

Of course, "not illegal" is a low bar for anyone, especially a world leader.

As some pundit pointed out, Trump is really tarnishing the symbolic facet of the US presidency, and while it would be one thing if there was a trade off (substantive vs symbolic), there isn't and nor should their be (a president should be providing both symbolic and substantive leadership). Until Trump, US presidents have always endeavored to do both, and by and large, have done so successfully.
 
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http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-says-u-s-losing-afghan-war-tense-meeting-generals-n789006

"'We aren't winning,' Trump complained, according to these officials. 'We are losing.' One official said Trump pointed to maps showing the Taliban gaining ground, and that Mattis responded to the president by saying the U.S. is losing because it doesn't have the strategy it needs. The White House declined to comment on internal deliberations.

'The president's national security team is developing a comprehensive, integrated strategy for South Asia that utilizes all aspects of our national power to address this complex region,' said Michael Anton, spokesman for the National Security Council. 'That strategy has been worked carefully in the interagency process and while no decision has been made the president's team continues to develop options for him that address threats and opportunities to America arising from this vital region.'"

I hope for Manton's sake it's a winning strategy and not a losing one.
 
Clearly, the KKK and white supremacist stuff is evil and resulted in death and destruction that is unacceptable. Could that have been avoided through effective crowd control and policing?

The destruction of Confederate statues, as an outsider, but one who has read several tomes on the Civil War, absolutely a bad move. That is your history, what is going on is the attempt, no different to ISIS, to erase history. A statue of General Lee say's a lot, about loyalty, about someone who went to war for his State, despite his better self. It should remain to teach all those about history and where they came from and where we are going.

If we judge history by our moral standards now and everything else must be destroyed, we will like Saudi Arabia, destroy everything historic. That does seem to be the plan.
 
Lord Buckley said:
Clearly, the KKK and white supremacist stuff is evil and resulted in death and destruction that is unacceptable. Could that have been avoided through effective crowd control and policing?
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Reports that police deliberately funnelled the alt-right group's past antifa crowds. Then failed to intervene when it all kicked off.

Why does Trump need to specifically mention the KKK anyway? It is just a stick with which to beat him. When he does their bidding, the response is Trump was too slow or Trump did not mean it. Aim is guilt by association. Keep mentioning Trump and the KKK in the same sentence.
 
Lord Buckley said:
Clearly, the KKK and white supremacist stuff is evil and resulted in death and destruction that is unacceptable. Could that have been avoided through effective crowd control and policing?

The destruction of Confederate statues, as an outsider, but one who has read several tomes on the Civil War, absolutely a bad move. That is your history, what is going on is the attempt, no different to ISIS, to erase history. A statue of General Lee say's a lot, about loyalty, about someone who went to war for his State, despite his better self. It should remain to teach all those about history and where they came from and where we are going.

If we judge history by our moral standards now and everything else must be destroyed, we will like Saudi Arabia, destroy everything historic. That does seem to be the plan.
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I'm from the South. I also own rebel flags. And I was a history minor with reams of reading material on the civil war you may enjoy. I can tell you unequivocally the statues need to go. The history argument is completely fucking retarded. The history has been written, its in every text book, it isn't going away. Put the statues in museums and move on.

Kingstonian said:
Reports that police deliberately funnelled the alt-right group's past antifa crowds. Then failed to intervene when it all kicked off.

Why does Trump need to specifically mention the KKK anyway? It is just a stick with which to beat him. When he does their bidding, the response is Trump was too slow or Trump did not mean it. Aim is guilt by association. Keep mentioning Trump and the KKK in the same sentence.
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The police were awful there. But Trump is a piece of shit. Every sentient being knows the correct response is "Nazis are bad". It's simple enough a third grader would know what to say. There is no counter argument to this.

Edit: You actually said why does Trump need to mention the KKK. Christ I'm dying laughing today. Between this and his retarded speech right now.
 
doghouse said:
I'm from the South. I also own rebel flags. And I was a history minor with reams of reading material on the civil war you may enjoy. I can tell you unequivocally the statues need to go. The history argument is completely fucking retarded. The history has been written, its in every text book, it isn't going away. Put the statues in museums and move on.



The police were awful there. But Trump is a piece of shit. Every sentient being knows the correct response is "Nazis are bad". It's simple enough a third grader would know what to say. There is no counter argument to this.

Edit: You actually said why does Trump need to mention the KKK. Christ I'm dying laughing today. Between this and his retarded speech right now.
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What statues are they talking about?
 
doghouse said:
Edit: You actually said why does Trump need to mention the KKK.
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Yes. Why specifically mention the KKK? Media expects some sort of Pavlovian response. There were not huge numbers of KKK. It was an alt-right event.

Yes - nobody mentions antifa. They can do as they please without a police response in many instances. Antifa rentamob came prepared to instigate violence.
 
I think the destruction of the statues is not a good thing. As has been pointed out, that's history.

But I think the removal of the statues is, by and large, a good thing. At least those of the leaders (as opposed to those memorializing dead soldiers). There is a difference between celebration and remembering, and statues of CSA leaders are a celebration. That's what statues of individuals are.

The best option is museums. I assume there are history museums in Germany filled with Hitler busts and swastika flags.

Someone tried to tell me that nobody cared about those statues until now, not even blacks. I think this is a widespread misconception. Many white Americans cared, just not enough to really do anything (probably getting as far as "yeah, those aren't good). Black Americans absolutely cared, but most, in my experience*, felt their voices wouldn't be heard and that there were more important issues to worry about than statues.

* active member of an association of under represented minorities in STEM and business disciplines. I attend their conferences twice a year. It's about 80% black for whatever reason, and then maybe 20% Hispanic. This topic was specifically discussed--since Trump's election, all not structured sessions have veered towards the sociopolitical
 
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