US General Election 2016

{{According to the Washington Post Trump is considering stopping the WH press briefings on the basis they cant tell the truth!}}}

'As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!......Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future "press briefings" and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???'- Trump

{{I dont know if there is or not anything in the collusion allegations- but Trump is certainly acting like a criminal in a panic he is about to be caught.}}

He also just treathened a congressional witness on the matter.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/12/donald-trump-threatens-james-comey-fbi-tapes

If there was a democratic majority in both houses of congress Trump would not have deared to go on like this. I Guess we have to hope Republicans can grow a back bone and stand up for democracy..

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-fbi-idUSKBN1881YJ
Trump warns ousted FBI chief not to leak to media, threatens 'tapes'

Tapes???? How can Trump NOT be comparing himself to Nixon and Watergate? He would have been in his late 20's at the time, and now he seems to be drawn to the same mistakes like a moth to a flame...

{{Listening to Trump give a speech- in-between the bits where he goes on about himself for no good reason he can sound like an actual President- but he keeps talking about how many blacks/hispanics/voted for him, how it was more than anyone said ect and his choice of words can be, unfortunate, at times.
When talking for example about inner cities, and when you have just mentioned 'the blacks' perhaps best not in the next breath to say "they haven't evolved well'. (meaning about inner cities but without properly expression of context by the usual rules of English because of how he forms sentences ) }}

I'd say in the last 20 years most inner cities have evolved extremely well; the problem is displacement of what used to be affordable housing to....nowhere. Most cities have rules about a certain fraction of new development must be devoted to low income housing, but it doesn't come close to fully addressing the problem. The British approach of council housing seems much more humane, but I think that comes from an overall different social arrangement.

{{There is unfortunately a similar problem here- and not just in the inner cities. Thatcher came up with the very popular at the time policy of allowing people to buy their council house if they had lived in it for x amount of time, and if they had been there a long time (and back in the 80's people were, hell in my council scheme there were folk living in the house that they had grown up in and had been their parents council house originally) you got it at a ridiculously knocked down price.

My parents took advantage of it, so did many of our neighbours in the scheme.
Everyone thought it was great.

Problem was Thatchers government at the time, and every  government since has not matched building new council houses for very one sold.

On top of that within ten years almost everyone I knew whose parents had bought their council house house (my family included) sold up for a nice profit and bought a private market house in a nicer place.

So in a very short space of time council houses went from the norm to live in and freely available, to hard to get to and replaced by a 'home owners' ideal from Thatcherism that has sadly never gone away.

Now we have a serious housing crisis. And new houses are too expensive for first time buyers to get on the ladder unless they are fortunate enough to have help from someone (usually parents).

In the meantime a massive market in private rented accommodation sprung up, with crappy housing, tiny flats, and dodgy landlords that come with such territory.

And worse of all to my mind the replacement of a 'most folk live in a council house' mentality, with 'home owning aspiration' and the huge upshot in rented accommodation, means folk dont tend to stay in one place they way they once did for as long.
The sort of council house community I grew up in, where you freely wandered into your neighbours back kitchen with a knock and a shout and a New Years party involved most of the scheme, everyone of which you knew by name, squeezed into your house are a thing of the past. }}}

{{Just saw Lindsey Graham on the congress committee looking into Trump/Russia- just out a meeting with the new Special Prosecutor guy- apparently their investigations will now be very difficult, as they cant subpoena stuff or call all the witnesses they might want to because it was cross over into the the new guys investigations.
But its the reason why is interesting- the Prosecutor is proceeding on the basis it is a criminal investigation.
So it would be unfair to bring to light publicly stuff that may be part of a criminal trial later.

But that must mean to call him in at all there must be something pointing to criminal activity by someone related to Trump or his team, or Trump himself. Otherwise why would he be treating  as a criminal investigation at all?}}

He was called in to finally put the matter to rest. I've seen articles which purport to hearing rumors of deeper connections between the Trump team and Russia, but don't know if I believe them. If they exist, they were probably along the lines of Trump wanting to hit the ground running with Russia rather than campaign interference. I see no real problem with that.

So today Donald Trump travels to Saudi Arabia (arguably the center of the Muslim world) to lecture them on Muslim Extremism (arguably a topic he knows nothing about).  

What could possibly go wrong?

halfwise wrote:He was called in to finally put the matter to rest.  I've seen articles which purport to hearing rumors of deeper connections between the Trump team and Russia, but don't know if I believe them.  If they exist, they were probably along the lines of Trump wanting to hit the ground running with Russia rather than campaign interference.  I see no real problem with that.

I think the big question is about collusion and coordination. Look at the dates when the emails stemming from the cyber-attack on the Clintion campaign and ask which person it served to release them at just those times. The big question is if Trump was stupid enough to order some underling to collude and coordinate with the Russians in this. We already know that people like Flynn were in touch with the Russians during the campaign and later lied about it.

The Development around the Comey fireing is interesting as well..

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/podcasts/the-daily/the-daily-more-comey-memos-more-revelations.html?

Yeah, there's some smoke, but there's also a good chance that because Trump was willing to talk to the Russians, they independently decided to help him. That seems very likely to me, and equally likely that Trump is driven so crazy by the rumours that he'd do stupid stuff like firing Comey out of a sense of revenge. I have zero difficulty believing he's that stupid.

In a choice between Trump doing something crafty like encourage the Russians to troll the election or doing something outrageously stupid, there's no contest.

It's the timing, I think, after the Access Holywood video was spread in the media, that hints at collusion.

Although, funny thing is the most damning evidence so far is Trumps own actions in relation to the alegations. That New York Times link shows just what was the reasons behind Comey's sacking, and it's not good for Trump.

Not collusion so much as reaction. Russians would watch the media and play things for Trump - to them it was probably all shits and giggles. I'm sure it's even more shits and giggles for them watching Trump shoot himself in the foot trying to squash the allegations. It must be a wonderous thing for them to behold the trainwreck they initiated play itself out without their needing to raise another finger.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/us/politics/trump-russia-comey.html?

Context:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/podcasts/the-daily/the-daily-more-comey-memos-more-revelations.html?

Pot.. kettle.. mostly Trump calling anyone else a "nut-job"

The most interesting thing to me about the appointment of Mueller as special counsel is the unknowns of where the twists and turns will take the investigation. Tax returns? Shady business deals? Infidelities? The possibilities are endless!

Remember with Bill Clinton, Ken Star started out investigating a penny-ante real estate deal (Whitewater), and traveled the long way around through Vince Foster to Paula Jones to Monica Lewinsky and finally ended up with an impeachment for perjury.  So who can even guess where this is going with Trump....

halfwise wrote:So today Donald Trump travels to Saudi Arabia (arguably the center of the Muslim world) to lecture them on Muslim Extremism (arguably a topic he knows nothing about).  

What could possibly go wrong?

its popcorn time folks.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-russia-vladimir-putin-secret-backchannel-michael-flynn-campaign-a7742231.html

it wont be long now.  I reckon they will have changed the locks while he is away.

{{Absolutely disgusted at the arms deal done by Trump, as well as allowing the sale of weapons to Saudi Obama would not give them because of their human rights record and sensitivities in the region- Trump has sold them. This to a country with one of the worst human rights records in the region, appalling track track on treatment of women, is the spiritual and philosophical home of the branch of Islam we now call ISIS, and is part of a massive proxy war in Yemen causing untold civilian deaths and suffering.

And the official reasons for doing so- "to help Saudi fight the malign threat of Iran."


The timing of this is appalling. Did no one in America see the election in Iran yesterday? Did they not see the lines of people waiting to vote so that they had to extend the voting hours? Did they not see all the young people, the women who came out to vote? Did they not see the endorsement of moderate PM Rohani (educated at Glasgow Uni incidentally) in a landslide? Did they not hear the voices of all those talking of a more open Iran, checks and balances on even the Republican Guard and accountability?

Iran is healing itself from within via a young enthusiastic generation, often led by woman, who are sick of sanctions, and fighting, and not being part of the wider world and want a more modern moderate country to live in.

All it needs right now is encouragement and time.

Giving the Saudis the latest weaponry to threaten them with threatens the peaceful Iran that is beginning to emerge from the old.
Right now Iran is the more moderate country in terms of treatment of its own people, by far. In Iran the election result was greeted by female drivers sounding their car horns as a mark of how far they have come and how far they hope yet to go- you wont see that in Saudi. Yet they are who America think should have billions of the latest weaponry?

I cannot overstate how angry the stupidity of this makes me.}}}}

I wonder how much of this is the new State Department policy and how much is Trump?

Whether or not you agree with the US cosying up to the Saudis, Trump at least hasn't had any of the major diplomatic gaffes I was expecting. Maybe if we surround him by Muslims in the White House he might start behaving more presidential.

{{No his daughters are taking up the slack- praising the Saudi's incredibly enough for their womens rights! Of course the fact the Saudi are slushing huge sums of money into her charity has nothing to do with it I'm sure- wonder if all the Trump family sell their principles at the sight of dollars?

Lets make a comparison shall we-

Exhibit A- Iranian women going to vote on Friday-



Exhibit B Saudi women, um not doing anything really as they arent allowed too, probably got killed for this photo in fact, stoned to death seeing as Saudi still do that to women-



Remind me again why Saudi are our friends and Iran our enemy? }}

It was whoever had the most oil at the beginning of the Cold War.

It doesn't help that Iranian leaders promote their people to chant "death to America", though one of the greatest bits of reporting I read was when an American joined in one of the rallies, was welcomed with open arms, and the chanting continued in the same party atmosphere. I need to find that article...

We also get tons of Iranian students in our universities...never yet met a Saudi.

I've always wanted to visit Iran! I think it's kind of like the "Russia" of the Middle East -- a vibrant fee-thinking people who've learned to adapt to living under a less-than-tolerant government. If we're looking towards World Peace, I'm pretty sure both Iran and Russia ultimately need to be at the table, whatever our current governments are saying.

The first gaffe was geographical, not political. Trump doesn't realize Israel is part of the Middle East. US ambassador to Israel can be seen face-palming.

https://www.popsugar.com/news/Donald-Trump-Middle-East-Comment-Israel-43565034