StefanAVFC Posted January 15, 2017 Share Posted January 15, 2017 1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said: I'm a big believer in the 'lump of outrage hypothesis', ie there's a physical and psychological limit to the amount of outrage each person can feel. This is why we're posting in 'US Politics' but there's no thread called 'Eritrean Politics'. I share your opinions of Trump, but I think rationing your displeasure is a good idea. If that sounds patronising, I don't mean it to, it's genuinely good that you care, but there's probably another 8 years to go yet. On the White House press corps, the people who were the main beneficiaries of them working in the same location as the White House Press Secretary were previous administrations. White House correspondents tended to be good at transcribing what powerful people said, and not particularly good at investigating things. After all, asking too many difficult questions meant the Press Secretary wouldn't let you fire one off in the next press conference. So White House correspondents tend to be timeservers and sycophants, and the real, adversarial journalism happens back at head office, not in the White House's skirts. Trump's style appears to be very vindictive (he recently got involved in the race for Ohio Republican Party state chair, because he didn't like the incumbent over something the chair had done at the convention), so presumably his action here is meant to 'punish' journalists for daring to disobey him. It's not likely to help him; if anything, it's more likely to help them rediscover their backbones. Ergo, I don't think it's a worthy target for your anger. Good post and has made me rethink. However, the biggest thing about Trump so far is the precedent he has set at every **** turn. Attacking Muslims, fine. Attacking Mexicans, fine. Inciting violence against his opponent, fine. Mocking a disabled reporter, fine. Ridiculous, misogynistic comments, fine. Calling a leading civil rights activist as 'all talk', fine. Attacking a media outlet as fake news at an official conference, fine. Where do we stop with normalising this stuff? I'm probably over the top with my outrage because he keeps doing these things, and people keep saying 'eh' and he moves on to the next one. He is like Mr Burns in the Simpsons where he has every single disease, so none of them are hurting him. Trump has so many negatives, that not a single one can stick. I think it's ridiculous that we need to ration our outrage and displeasure when literally every day is something new. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted January 15, 2017 Share Posted January 15, 2017 (edited) I certainly agree that he's not 'normal' and that the press especially need to be pressured not to 'normalise' his administration when it is acting in what seem to be unusual and harmful ways. They should certainly be focusing in on how weird it is for an American president to be publicly calling all of its intelligence services 'liars', how the Israeli government appears to be urging its diplomats to share no information with the Trump administration as to do so represents a security risk, and focusing relentlessly on his endless nepotism and conflicts of interest. But all of that will be done, if it is done at all, back at HQ. In terms of our anger, I agree that even needing to ration it seems unfortunate, but another, more positive, way to look at it might be 'never interrupt your enemy when he's in the process of making a mistake'. Edited January 15, 2017 by HanoiVillan 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 15, 2017 Share Posted January 15, 2017 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted January 15, 2017 Share Posted January 15, 2017 I can't bring myself to like it, but it's him, on the nose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StefanAVFC Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 (edited) https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-01-15/trump-calls-nato-obsolete-and-dismisses-eu-in-german-interview Quote Quoted in German by Bild from a conversation held in English, Trump predicted that Britain’s exit from the EU will be a success and portrayed the EU as an instrument of German domination designed with the purpose of beating the U.S. in international trade. Quote The Times quoted Trump as saying he was interested in making “good deals with Russia,” floating the idea of lifting sanctions that were imposed as the U.S. has sought to punish the Kremlin for its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and military support of the Syrian government. Quote Repeating a criticism of NATO he made during his campaign, Trump said that while trans-Atlantic military alliance is important, it “has problems.” “It’s obsolete, first because it was designed many, many years ago,” Trump said in the Bild version of the interview. “Secondly, countries aren’t paying what they should” and NATO “didn’t deal with terrorism.” The Times quoted Trump saying that only five NATO members are paying their fair share. So we have a Pro-Russia, anti-EU, anti-NATO US president. This was within a week of his own incoming defence secretary saying this: Quote Mattis, who served as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander of Transformation from 2007 to 2009, called the alliance “the most successful military alliance probably in modern history, maybe ever.” Mattis dodged questions about whether he’s concerned with the president-elect’s criticisms of the alliance, except he said Mr. Trump has “shown himself to be open.” As part of his opening statement, Mattis said that Russia poses a threat to NATO. “I think right now the most important thing is that we recognize the reality of what we deal with Mr. Putin and we recognize that he is trying to break the North Atlantic alliance and that we take the steps -- the integrated steps, diplomatic, economic, military and the alliance steps, the working with our allies to defend ourselves where we must,” he said. What the actual **** is going on Edited January 16, 2017 by StefanAVFC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuthority Posted January 16, 2017 VT Supporter Share Posted January 16, 2017 (edited) On 1/14/2017 at 18:12, LondonLax said: That is quite incredible if true. That situation cannot go on for very long surely, how could the country operate? The intelligence services can operate without "Presidential" oversight. They'll go about their job quietly, but I imagine what will happen is that lines of communication between the various senate & house oversight committees will become blurred and confused. Eventually the right hand won't know what the left is doing as no-one will be on the same page. If it comes to 8 years of that anything is possible. Including ending up with an essentially "rogue" intelligence department with it's favored congressmen and senators. Edited January 16, 2017 by TheAuthority Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StefanAVFC Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 http://thememoryhole2.org/blog/greatagain-deletions Quote Only 5 of Trump's 12 statements on important issues remain on his website >>> When Trump's official website as President-elect (greatagain.gov) launched, it contained policy statements on a dozen important issues. Now it contains five. Even the ones that remain have been buried. Greatagain.gov used to have a prominent heading at the top of every page on the site. It was called "Making American Great Again," and if you hovered over it, a drop-down menu would appear with links to all 12 statements (divided into three subcategories). If you go to the current site, you'll see that most of the original clickable headings are there - "The President-Elect," "The Vice-President Elect," "News," and "Serve America" - but the heading "Making American Great Again" has disappeared. The con is on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amsterdam_Neil_D Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 (edited) 3 hours ago, StefanAVFC said: The con is on. They are entering the Con-Cycle whereas the UK is is leaving it for a while. The 40 years of Jam tomorrow was a big con on an industrial scale to make sure the majority of the population never received any real benefit and ended up "Just about managing", This was not the "Jam" promised but working yourself to death to require loans or 2nd jobs just to keep from drowning meant "Brexit" was rightly voted for. Are we to enter into another long con, I suspect so but the population are wiser and more willing to jump ship. Yes, the con is on but it is nothing new, we are just watching someone else deal with it. Edited January 16, 2017 by Amsterdam_Neil_D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
choffer Posted January 16, 2017 VT Supporter Share Posted January 16, 2017 Possibly bindunne but I'm not trawling through the last hundred or so pages to find out.... 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted January 16, 2017 Author Share Posted January 16, 2017 Quote Trump’s Plan to Neuter the White House Press Corps, and Neuter Our Democracy http://robertreich.org Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted January 16, 2017 Administrator Share Posted January 16, 2017 @choffer Right click. Add "site:villatalk.com" to the search. It's not been posted before 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuthority Posted January 16, 2017 VT Supporter Share Posted January 16, 2017 4 minutes ago, limpid said: @choffer Right click. Add "site:villatalk.com" to the search. It's not been posted before Well you learn something new everyday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 (edited) 19 hours ago, StefanAVFC said: https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-01-15/trump-calls-nato-obsolete-and-dismisses-eu-in-german-interview So we have a Pro-Russia, anti-EU, anti-NATO US president. This was within a week of his own incoming defence secretary saying this: What the actual **** is going on That's not anti-EU. He is simply pointing out what the EU factually is on the geo-political stage. European countries on their own carry zero weight but by joining together they have a heft in people&dollar terms the equal of all and hence they are a competitor of the US and China. That the EU is now dominated by Germany is simply 20:20 vision. Now saying that the EU is dead is simply a political point of view, which many have, though there is plenty of room to construct a viable counter narrative. Anti Nato: The members of NATO need to pay their fair share and it has become antiquated and strictly speaking could well and maybe should have been disbanded post USSR. They protest in public but behind closed doors they celebrate as NATO has been searching for a nail like crazy since the end of the USSR. In case you haven't been paying attention, turrurururururism is the never-ending nail and now NATO get to play that game too. Yup, sounds anti-NATO to me. A quid-pro quo involving a reduction in global nuclear arms in exchange for removing sanctions placed on Russia due to their wholly logical response to a US geo-political screw up par excellence! That sounds like a win to me. Edited January 16, 2017 by villakram Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 2 hours ago, maqroll said: http://robertreich.org Reporters embedded with troops == good/bad? Reporters only permitted to be embedded with troops == good/bad? Political reporting in the US right now reflects the second option, restricting oneself to the "main stream" legacy media. White House reporters due to the carrot and stick waved by politicians and the corporate shell game are an insult to actual journalism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted January 16, 2017 Author Share Posted January 16, 2017 (edited) 32 minutes ago, villakram said: Reporters embedded with troops == good/bad? Reporters only permitted to be embedded with troops == good/bad? Political reporting in the US right now reflects the second option, restricting oneself to the "main stream" legacy media. White House reporters due to the carrot and stick waved by politicians and the corporate shell game are an insult to actual journalism. I agree with that, but it's beside the point, which is even with just a little bit of finesse, Trump could have them all eating out of his hand, but he's already taken an adversarial position against them.. and this ban proposal would be the first step towards a broader press clampdown. Nothing about the proposal is worth dismissing, it is extremely disturbing. Edited January 16, 2017 by maqroll Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 Late last night I was channel hopping and stumbled across an episode of some American Celebrity Apprentice thing, with Trump. One of the contestants was a really tall black guy with lip rings and a nose ring thing (maybe called Denis?). Anyway, in the chit chat it became apparent that for some reason Trump had let the guy use or borrow his jet. The conversation went something along the lines of: Trump: So hey yeah, so I let you use the jet. What you think? 'Dennis': Yeah, it was good. Trump: Yeah you can get anything you want with a plane like that, yes? Dennis: Yeah, ha ha. Trump: Yeah, you know what I mean. Anything you want. He knows. I'm beginning to think this Trump character might be a wrong 'un. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 Denis Rodman? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 7 minutes ago, snowychap said: Denis Rodman? There you go, that's him, googled him once I had the second name and yes, Denis Rodman. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 And people say he's a racist. He lent a plane to a black guy. He was right all along, Trump loves "the blacks". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LondonLax Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 1 hour ago, villakram said: Reporters embedded with troops == good/bad? Reporters only permitted to be embedded with troops == good/bad? Political reporting in the US right now reflects the second option, restricting oneself to the "main stream" legacy media. White House reporters due to the carrot and stick waved by politicians and the corporate shell game are an insult to actual journalism. Trump isn't considering doing this to encourage a more critical press, he's doing it to give a bigger platform to the less critical alternative media outlets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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