US General Election 2016

{{ Even if you are right Eldo, and I dont know either I'm just speculating on an official story that seems unnecessary dodgy at points, I still dont buy Russia knew about it and were in collusion with Assad on it. Or the drone/hospital narrative. Thats really got my bullshit detector twitching.

More worrying watched Spicer trying to explain the Trump admin position on it and was a car crash- what came out of it was they hadn't a clue what they were doing or what happens next. Which I suspect is half true- Trumps military guys know what they are doing, Trump and his WH dont. }}}

I haven't really done any reading on how close Assad and Russia are collaborating so I wouldn't know.

Didn't watch the whole press conference but Spicer's Holocaust comment was quite possibly the dumbest thing he's said to date, which is really saying something ... and then the "clarification" made it even worse.

{{{ So heres how I think Trumps current thinking goes- 'I blew stuff up and people love me, I'm going to blow more stuff up!"
Today he dropped a ginormous bomb in Afghanistan, the only thing a step up from it is a nuke.
He is threatening North Korea, and has pivoted to wanting to remove Assad in Syria.

But heres a sobering report buried on Fox News-

'The U.S. military confirmed Thursday a "misdirected" airstrike from the U.S.-led coalition this week killed 18 allied fighters battling the Islamic State terror network in northern Syria.....The strike hit an SDF position instead, killing 18 fighters on Tuesday, the U.S. officials said. "The Coalition's deepest condolences go out to the members of the SDF and their families."
It was the third time in a month U.S.-led airstrikes may have killed allies or civilians.'

So how long till they hit some Russians, especially now the Russians have cut the communication line warning each other of each other of strikes in the country? Then what? }}}

What a plonker.    Trump thinks he can get a ride in the Queen's gold plated carriage.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-demands-ride-queen-114140573.html

Though other heads of state (from China, etc) have been treated to the carriage ride, I'd see this as something offered, not asked for.  They may ask for a "carriage ride" down the mall, and even ask to ride with the Prime Minister; but to ask for a ride with the Queen while specifying the vehicle is crass.

its gold and we know he loves gold plated things.

Mrs Figg wrote:its gold and we know he loves gold plated things.

Exactly!

Plus, he probably sees his life as a Cinderella rags-to-riches story (w/o the rags) and feels he deserves this.

so who do you believe, the London Times or the White House via the Washington Post?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2017/04/16/white-house-says-report-about-president-trump-wanting-a-golden-carriage-ride-is-completely-false/?utm_term=.ca38388bcf4f

I suspect some member of Trump's staff a preliminary and purely theoretical schedule by someone in London, and it got out.

{{{ I see Tillerson has changed tact on Iran- now the Iran deal is not bad because Iran are not complying with it- he now accepts apparently they are- no, the deal is bad for America because its not in US interests as Iran is the worlds no1 state sponsor of terrorists.

Except its not, America is and has been since at least the Cold War. I know when America fund groups opposing governments (including democratically elected ones) they dont like to think of of it as supporting terrorism but it is exactly the same as what other countries are doing.
Also the US has never been shy about supporting Saudia who fund loads of antiwestern terror groups as well as having a medieval mind set towards women, homosexuality and imaginary super deities.

In the end I dont see America doing anything about the Iran deal- no matter Trumps rhetoric on the subject. As Ive said before if the US pulls out the deal so what? The only people who suffer from that are the US. }}}

Well, the deal does concern weaponry which affects the balance of the entire mideast, not sure how you can say only the US is affected.

{{{ Thats not what I meant- I was talking about the Iran deal itself, not any potential consequences of it- the US pulling out of the deal makes no difference as everyone else is sticking by it. Russia, UK, France ect will all continue to trade and normalise diplomatic channels with Iran.

The US would just be putting itself out on the sidelines to mutter threats no-ones listening to. Dumping the Iran deal would just be the US cutting off its nose to spite its face. As Trump is fond of saying, stupid. }}}

There's more than enough writings make fun of Trump, but this one points out a silver lining: maybe as Trump realizes how complex the world is and explains his discovery in the same baby steps it took him to work through the realization, he may enlighten those who actually believed fixing problems would be easy.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/trump-realizes-being-president-is-hard/523617/

Or...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/19/donald-trump-north-korea-armada-gaffe?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/04/21/daily-202-what-trump-s-giving-to-charity-or-lack-thereof-foreshadowed-about-his-presidency/58f9b8abe9b69b3a72331eaf/?

Yep. The New York elite class who Trump desperately wants to be seen as a part of has long given him the cold shoulder because he never donates; and the elite social scene is built around "balls" and "galas" to benefit this or that.

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-trade-merkel-germany-eu-2017-4?IR=T

We need to send that to him via twitter.

And so it comes at last.  The US Environmental Protection Agency has shut down its climate change website, containing all its climatic data and educational resources.

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/04/28/epa-website-climate-science-trump-administration/?preview_id=2632418

Those scientists feverishly downloading data since Trump's election were not paranoid at all, and far better at predicting the future than their detractors give them credit for.

It will be interesting to see what Pruitt's people actually do. In theory federal archiving laws should keep the data from disappearing entirely, but they have every right to put whatever spin they want on the homepage, like every administration before them. Are you seeing pushback from the meteorological community now Halfy? Are there rogue climate science websites I should know about?

Let's just say Pruitt is not so crazy to demand a private security force of 10 agents: lots of people would love to take a pot shot at him.

The people I know are researchers, who loathe him.  The actual weather forecasting community is a mixed bag: not so invested in climate research, so a significant fraction are actually climate change deniers.  I can understand this because there is a lot of minutia in climate science which is hard to explain without making people go cross-eyed, so it's reasonable for thinking people to have doubts.  And the non-scientists don't help by exaggerations along the lines of "we're killing the planet with greenhouse gasses!" (actual climate scientists are usually too circumspect with careful qualifying statements to get people excited).  I don't mind this statement at all if discussing toxic pollution, but greenhouse gas is merely changing the planet somewhat faster than we can keep up. It's not a threat to life, just the status quo.  It's still in our best estimates a socio-economic catastrophe in the making, but the hyperbole makes it open season for the doubters.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/29/trump-blames-constitution-for-first-100-days-chaos-presidency?

His misunderstanding of the constitutional limits on his power is on par with not realizing that Lincoln was a Republican. Both things any school child could have clarified for him.

halfwise wrote: Both things any school child could have clarified for him.  

Yet for some reason the constitution doesn't allow school children to run for president. Ironic!

Trump just managed to state Andrew Jackson was "really angry" about the civil war. Andrew Jackson died 16 years before the civil war started.