"Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said he remains convinced Clinton is ahead, somewhere in the range seen among the polling aggregators.
“There has been a closing that’s completely natural,” Sabato said. “Every four years, you have two national party conventions that produce a bounce of varying sizes. Clinton got a substantial bounce this year that lasted for a full month. It’s usually gone around Labor Day, and by then we’ll be where we should be, which is right around four to five points” for Clinton.
In a separate question in the Reuters/Ipsos poll that included alternative-party candidates, Clinton and Trump were tied at 39 percent. Seven percent supported Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, and two percent supported Jill Stein of the Green Party." Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-idUSKCN1182PT
———-
Well, pilgrims… Larry Sabato is the same fellah I watched on the TeeVee as he reported from a Republican Party convention in Richmond that George Allen, the tobacco chewing, spittoon using faux bubba who had just been nominated for governor of Vajinnyah would never be elected. Never! Well, fellow pilgrims, he was elected governor and then he was elected to the US Senate and would have been re-elected if he had possessed enough mother wit to abstain from calling a reporter a monkey because he was "a person of color." Sooo … I am unimpressed with the Sage of Charlottesville's opinion.
Actually, I think that HC's many faults as a candidate are steadily diminishing her chance of being president and commander in chief, as she correctly states the natures of the job. I would now give her a 65% chance of winning.
Accordingly, this is a moment in which to consider the pluses and minuses of a notional Donald Trump in the White House:
Pluses.
IMO he is a risk averse entrepreneurial deal maker and closer. He is loud mouthed but I would judge him to be timid. I knew many such in my decade long business purgatory. If you want to see his clones, watch "Shark Tank." These monstrously wealthy people are all risk averse. They are not in any way interested in backing concept companies, prototypes, and even functioning businesses unless they have thriving sales and low costs. Trump is like that and would, IMO, avoid war, the ultimate risk.
He identifies with the United States as a country rather than identifying with a larger utopian world wide "market" under US domination. This may have to do with his personal history in having emerged from recent immigrant beginnings. From my POV people with a recent immigrant past tend to be like that.
IMO he would successfully re-negotiate the various trade deals that have cost the US dearly in jobs and manufacturing.
He would also IMO re-negotiate international defense agreements that have in their present form outlived their usefulness.
IMO once you get beneath the public rhetoric Trump's immigration policy would be much like Obama's.
Minuses.
He does not listen well and is really not looking for unsolicited advice or disturbing information.
He is incurious and knows little of the world outside his narrow experience of deal making and project construction.
He knows little of the nature of government and the US constitutional limits on the power of the presidency. IMO he would have to make someone like Pence de facto manager of the Executive Branch of the federal government because he could not make the machine run.
He does not seem to understand that in business terms there are no quantifiable profit centers in government, only cost centers. Taxes and fiat money are not profit centers. They are part of the costs inflicted by government.
His business experience does not include successful day to day management of a large and continuously functioning organization. It is hard to imagine him managing General Electric for example. I doubt that he has the persistence and self discipline to do that.
pl
The latest IBD/TIPP poll has them virtually tied, with Gary Johnson at 12% and Stein at 3%.
http://www.investors.com/politics/clinton-and-trump-are-tied-in-latest-ibdtipp-poll/
The two-party results are basically the same as the Reuters poll captioned above. I’m only citing this one because the Libertarian candidate is climbing rapidly – I’ve got my fingers crossed for Johnson.
IMO, it would be entertaining. He would decide early on what activities he would focus on, such as renegotiating deals and hand pretty much all else to surrogates. The personal attacks and tweet storms would rain down on anyone who he viewed as obstructing his programs.
I take comfort in Pat’s description of a risk averse president. 8 years without starting a major war? What will we do with all our leisure time? If he wins, it might be a good time to dump DoD stocks out of the old portfolio!
George Catlet Marshall, he is not.
I doubt he will make the trains run on time either.
But he does seem to have a good grasp of our problems at home and abroad, and being a hands on executive type, should be able to hire the people to work things out.
For sure, he is the man for the job of making sure the stable gets mucked out.
The establishment has good reason to fear and loath him, he is coming for some of them when he takes office.
I think if it happens, we will find out just how many divisions the vaunted Deep State can bring to the battlefield.
My guess is, going up against a shrewd president, not that many.
Does the fact Trump has never held an elected office temper one’s confidence in predictions of what his election would yield?
Sir
Considering the pluses and minuses that you note of a Trump presidency I would take him in a heartbeat.
The pluses of risk aversion in meddling other people’s affairs and having the primary focus on American national interests is exactly what is needed. His minuses can easily be overcome by appointing a team of good managers who can keep the trains run on time.
In comparison the Borg Queen would be an unmitigated disaster. Either she’s mentally incapacitated or she’s corrupt beyond redemption. Her proven track record of belligerence in foreign affairs is an existential threat to us. And the fact that she is fully bought and paid for by the globalist elites would mean that our working and middle classes will continue to be on the path to destitution.
Babel Fish
“…hand pretty much all else to surrogates.” Agreed. That would be Paul Ryan (and the House “Freedom” Caucus) and Mitch McConnell. And best of luck to us all after that.
DC
I doubt Gary Johnson or Jill Stein will garner as many votes as is being projected right now.
I never got the huge bump after the Dem convention. Dems and Republicans are pretty evenly split nationally and there are only so many indys, so that bump suggested a lot of GOP support for HRC and that’s just not believable to me at this point, not after his success in the primaries. It will be a close race and a lot will depend on the debates.
Currently 538 has Clinton’s chance of winning about 70%.
which presidents have had one or more of the minuses 1 – 5??
what has been the worst case outcomes of same???
the question is an ignorant one …. apologies if it is also a stupid one.
These polls from the Labor Day Weekend are all over the map!
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/updates/
Throw a dart at the board!
One potentially huge minus for a Trump presidency is his total lack of experience in the machinery of politicking and governance. Even if he seeks to be risk averse, he will have to be reliant on the many political operatives and bootlicks in and around DC with their own agendas in both domestic and foreign agendas. For all his bluster, Trump is not a very good administrator/manager: I always got the impression that he gets by on his excellent PR skills and some capable and loyal underlings that makes up for his lack of managerial talent even while running his business. At least based on how he ran his campaign so far, he completely lacks capable and loyal assistants in the realm of politics and, while he has had enough experience in business to be at least somewhat competent, his inexperience in politics and policymaking will spell trouble, a lot of it, for at least the first two years.
His willingness to reopen trade deal does not mean other countries will want to do so. I suspect that he could find a way to abrogate at least some of those deals, but it is not clear that will bring back many jobs. US Manufacturing output is back above what it was in 2000, but we now have about 30% fewer manufacturing jobs than in 2000. We now have higher output, with fewer workers, so it is not really clear that the loss of jobs was all about the trade deals.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/billconerly/2014/09/02/reshoring-or-offshoring-u-s-manufacturing-forecast-2015-2016/#4811e0597419
I wonder if the first two minuses that Col. Lang attributes to Trump are also applicable to HRC.
I know (admittedly, not especially well–just acquaintances that I ran into in academic world) some people who were involved in the “Hilarycare” fiasco from the inside, and they absolutely hated the “dictatorial” and “secretive” style that HRC and her cabal ran the whole affair–to which they attributed most of its failure. HRC does not listen, and while she is very wonkish, that just means that she is excellent at compiling all facts and figures to browbeat others that she is right. (Continuing my theme of finding analogues between HRC and some German dictator from decades ago, I’m told that the latter was also a wonk: he was so obsessed with facts and figures that he “knew” what was going on with every aspect of German war effort than any general or bureaucrat, and could always badger them with how much detail he could spit out about numbers of tanks or stocks of fuel and raw materials–even though the dispositions of the actual stuff looked very different.) Basically, HRC is a different, perhaps even more obnoxious variant of the incurious person who listens to no one and brooks no disagreement. (I suspect the same is true now.) While she may be more informed on the machinery of US government, that makes her a schemer who is constantly looking for ways to expand her political power through clever manipulatino of legal loopholes–perhaps even more dangerous than Trump’s dangerous ignorance.
Col. et al–As you focused on the foreign policy/foreign adventure probabilities of a Trump presidency, I would like to submit this reasoning that I came across today. Yes, his opinion is definitely NOT in favor of Trump but I found the questions interesting…especially the conspiracy theory question. What would that kind of a Presidency be like…if you basically do not believe that most people are good and that history can be explained by conspiracy theories, how then as President, would you try to influence history? John Wilson is much less convinced of a “peace dividend.” For your consideration:
John K. Wilson is the author of Trump Unveiled: Exposing the Bigoted Billionaire (www.trumpunveiled.com), to be published on Sept. 1 by OR Books. His previous books include The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh’s Assault on Reason, Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest, and Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies.
What kind of military/foreign policy do you think Trump would follow as president?
Trump’s approach is violent isolationism, which is likely to cause numerous wars. It’s well known among Trump’s critics that he’s lying when he says that he opposed the war in Iraq before it began, and pretends that he was a leader of the anti-war movement. What’s less publicized is the fact that Trump had consistently supported, from 1991 to 2003, invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam Hussein—the very thing that he now says was a horrible idea and a key reason why Hillary Clinton shouldn’t be elected president. That means Trump is not only far to the right of Clinton, but he’s also far to the right of Dick Cheney. Trump wasn’t reluctant to start a war in Iraq; he was only disappointed that we hadn’t invaded Iraq long ago. The Never Trump movement understands that Trump generally follows the conservative line on judicial appointments and domestic policies, and that Congress can check his deviations. It’s foreign policy where Trump provokes fear from the right, not because he’s a pacifist, but because he’s an unpredictable lunatic, and the presidency today has vast unchecked powers beyond the borders of the United States.
What do you think a President Trump would have done if he’d been in office on 9/11?
Because Trump’s foreign policy is to the right of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, he would have done everything they did, and maybe more. Would Trump have responded to 9/11 with nuclear weapons? It’s possible. He absolutely refuses to rule out using nuclear weapons to kill vast numbers of innocent people if it suits his military desires or goals of revenge.
How do you think his penchant for talking up conspiracy theories would play out in a Trump presidency?
Some of the worst moments in the history of American presidents were caused by paranoia: the Watergate break-in and the cover up was an outgrowth of Nixon’s paranoia, and how his mentality spread throughout the White House. Trump has already created his own version of Nixon’s Enemies List by banishing numerous news outlets from his events. Trump’s paranoia is far worse than Nixon’s, and Trump goes far beyond paranoia to a general belief in conspiracy theories even when they don’t involve him. Trump became the leader of the birthers not merely because he wanted to appeal to the racist far right, but also because he genuinely embraces conspiracy theories. Conspiratorial thinking is dangerous for many reasons. It shows irrational reasoning and someone largely incapable of weighing evidence and determining actual causes for problems. Science, to a conspiracy nut, is just another conspiracy, which is why Trump always calls climate change a “hoax.” Conspiracy theorists also tend to see enemies everywhere. Since Trump has vowed to destroy America’s enemies, and he regards any critics as his personal enemy, there is a danger that Trump will be a traditional authoritarian leader, conflating criticism with treason. Many people imagine that the American system of checks and balances prevents a terrible abuse of presidential power. But the truth is that we’ve never tested it by electing a conspiracy nut as president.
Trump does not need experience in the minutiae of Government. He needs to have experience in hiring and managing people that do have that experience – which I think he may have.
As a revered female director of a very large bank told me when I asked her what she does: “My job is to make sure that the people who work for us can succeed at what they have to do”.
My concern with HRC is the reverse – a tendency perhaps to try to micromanage stuff she is interested in and ignore the rest.
walrus
Maybe, but I don’t think so. My experience indicates to me that the truly ignorant elevated to high position fear and disregard the skilled whom they themselves may have hired. pl
laura
IMO that is all baloney. He no more has ideology than any of his kind of business people have. pl
kao_hsien_chih
Maybe she learned something from her experience in HillaryCare. I’ve read numerous reports where peers and staffers talk about what a great listener she is. That’s unusual to find in a pol. Probably has pluses and minuses in a president though, depending on whom he/she’s listening to.
> We now have higher output, with fewer workers…
Isn’t that what “productivity” is about? Isn’t productivity supposed to be a good thing?
Of course, jobs lost to productivity in sector X are supposed to be regained in a newly created and better-paying sector Y, no? Like iron workers and machine tool operators become even better paid computer programmers, for instance.
I remain to be convinced.
Sir,
As someone as the bayonet end, as it were, of Obama’s immigration policies, I can tell you in the strongest possible terms you could not be more wrong on their policies being mostly the same.
DC,
Johnson is Hillary Clinton with weed legalization.
He does not listen well and is really not looking for unsolicited advice or disturbing information.
He is incurious and knows little of the world outside his narrow experience of deal making and project construction.
This may not be such a minus, given the mind-set of the political science “technocracy” in ascendance. Of course, they’ll continually peck at any sense of inadequacy in order to goad him into acting rash. But we really don’t need any more world building.
tyler
I don’t see the difference. DT says he will deport criminal aliens. Obama is doing that. DT says he will stop “catch and release.” Well, this will require a lot more detention facilities. Who is going to pay for that? The Mexican president said that they will help with improvements in border security. There already is a lot of barrier. How much more is he going to build, the whole border? This is going to create an ecological nightmare out in the Sonoran Desert as well as costing a whole lot of money. Lastly and most importantly he said in his Phoenix speech that after his administration stabilizes the border situation, they will then sort through the 11 million or 16 million or however many to decide what to do with them by category and on an individual basis. Giuliani said the same thing today on TV. To me that indicates that the talk about deporting them all is just political BS. pl
Possible, but something that the voters have the right to demand some demonstration thereof. Most “peers and staffers” who have claimed such publicly are known political allies and current and former subordinates who are in line for high positions in the administration should HRC win presidency, as far as I know. I heard about the HilaryCare experiences in private settings where my acquaintances had no reason to be dishonest. The way HRC ran the State Dept (email server being one example of several) doesn’t inspire too much confidence.
Your story regarding the female director brought to mind an interview I saw with one of Trump’s long time female managers who was now out on her own in the development business. The reporter asked “what’s it like to have Mr. Trump as a boss?” Her reply was immediate and emphatic. “He’s not a boss, he’s a LEADER!” She explained that Trump assigned his people a project and them gave them complete authority to manage it. She said his role was as a mentor and cheerleader to his team members. He would check in to encourage his people and ask if there were any further resources they needed, and how he could help with any problems, but did not micro manage.
The Reagan immigration fix plan was dual, border control plus amnesty. they did the amnesty and failed to secure the border. it may be impossible to secure such a long border in all places. Maybe, the best sol’n is a union of Mexico and the USA. It would make for a shorter and more defensible southern border. Mexico may already have built a wall down there around Guatemala. I think the Col. explored a Union in one of his posts.
Trump is picking up on the Reagan failure and saying secure the border first and we’ll talk about naturalization later. The fence/wall may simply not work, but it’s worth a try. I learned that multiple rows of concertina wire and a minefield are worthless unless they’re under observation and subject to fire. We’re not East Germany, w’re not going to shoot people trying to breach a wall. Don’t know what the answer is, if there is any.
Trump likes to win. Yes, he’s slow pay- no pay and a con artist. But, if elected, he’ll make his mark. He already has on the GOP with the Thiel speech. He humulated the NeoCons by cutting Dubya down to size for not “keeping us safe.” After all 9.11 happened on his watch. He’s said we should get along with Russia. And he’s not inside the loop that (wink) ISIS is there to help with Syrian regime change. He actually thinks it needs to be destroyed. Imagine that! For sure, many generals and admirals have tried to get his ear, but he has chosen to listen to Flynn! And that’s important.
Is it any wonder that the Borg is scared shxtless he may win?
As far as effectiveness, he knows how to use a bully pulpit and shame those opposing him. He is a born master persuader and hypnotist. He wiped out a deep Republican field. He has paced his supporters and is in sympatico with them. That’s the first part of Hypnosis. The second part is leading the subject to a greener pasture. And he can do that. He’s not going to round up 11 million or 30 million people and deport them. There are too many firearms in this country to do such a thing, even if somebody wanted to do it. Plus, who would do all the work if the illegals went home? But for sure getting rid of the violent offenders is a no brainer.
Yes, Hillary is a good listener. But even after all the advice, she doesn’t weigh it properly. She’s an inveterate, incorrigible, and unrepentant war monger. She has no empathy. Lives mean nothing to her. She has a history from Serbia, Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, to Syria. She always chooses death and destruction. She has no Hukima or wisdom.
I think he’ll get in, in fact, I’m going to put a bet at one of the sports betting sites that do politics. Just wish had done it sooner when he was really down in the polls.
Sir,
Obama is not “deporting them”. He is claiming that voluntary returns and NTAs are “deportations”, which they are not. Illegals are going to these processing centers and getting a court date and taken to the bus stop in Phoenix to a “relative” in the country. They are not being deported. There is absolutely next to zero interior enforcement going on with ICE. They are zeroed in on illegal handbags and counterfeit NFL merch.
They built a wall in California across tougher terrain than the Sonoran. We put a man on the moon, we can put a wall across a desert. I can show you the wall they’ve already built across part of it.
Trump referencing Operation Wetback and Eisenhower tells me he realises that removing the “sea the fish swim in” by shutting off the spigot to sanctuary cities and reversing the Morton Memos will mean he won’t have to report 20 million plus (the number is well above 11 million). Most of them will leave on their own.
Tyler
If Obama is not deporting them why are the illegals’ advocates denouncing him as the “deportation president?” With regard to the barrier system, I have no doubt that we cam build one that a gnat would have a hard time getting through, but is it really a good idea? pl
Will
I did but nobody but me liked the idea. pl
Sir,
The same reason BLM claims the police are racists shooting innocent black babies like Mike Brown: emotional rhetoric used as a lever to try and get more power.
Yes, a wall would,be a significant improvement. One can compare stats between where there is an Israeli style wall in California with the free for all that exists in Arizona and parts of Texas and see that a wall works.
james Loughton
The government of the US is not Trump’s business. It cannot be run in that way. Trump runs his business on the basis of “whatever makes me money.” If you want that you will see Grant’s second administration, Teapot Dome, etc. pl
Tyler
I have no doubt that an Israeli style wall would work, but I am not an Israeli and do not want to see such a wall here. in re deportations – http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/04/politics/donald-trump-immigration-deportations-rudy-giuliani/index.html pl
Steve,
Possibly not. But I am sure that some of our job losses, perhaps a lot of them, were straight-up job exporting. And for what?
2 tiny little examples: Stanley Thermos bottles used to be made in Tennessee. I have a few-couple of those Tennessee Stanleys. Then they were outsourced to China. They still say “Stanley” but they also say “made in China” nowadays. The couple of new China “Stanleys” that I have looked at are lighter and “junkier” to the feel. Maybe they keep stuff just as war must as long in the field. I have not done the experiments.
Maybe they are just as tolerant to light accidental abuse in the field. Again, I have not done the research. But really now . . . were Americans too dumm to make a Stanley?
Or Etch-A-Sketch. Who here remembers Etch-A-Sketch? I had one as a child. They were made by Ohio Arts somewhere in Ohio. I remember reading that Ohio Arts in Ohio was profitable till the day it was murdered. It just wasn’t quite profitable “enough”. So somebody bought Ohio Arts and outsourced the Etch-A-Sketch to China. Is the China Etch-A-Sketch as good? Better? Less good? I really don’t know. But once again . . . after decades of making Etch-A-Sketches in Ohio, are Americans suddenly too dumm to make an Etch-A-Sketch?
I wonder how many other jobs were straight-up exported from America to wherever in 10,000 separate little batches of a few to a few hundred jobs apiece as America’s “Mittelstand”-sized companies were systematically dismantled in America and the parts and pieces systematically re-mantled in Free Trade-istan?
I don’t see any reason to believe a word Trump says about immigration. It’s all a line of bullshit used to mobilize a solid base. In essence, he takes the alt-right crowd and the white supremacists as gullible rubes easily manipulated by his over the top rhetoric. He has no history of abstaining from using immigrants, legal or illegal, to pursue his goals of money and notoriety. See how easily he switched from vigorously pursuing the deportation of all illegal immigrants to just pursuing the criminal element. He hides this retreat behind his bombastic rhetoric so as not to disappoint his true believers. Even this rhetorical retreat is only for the purpose of garnering more votes among the mainstream Republicans. I have no doubt he would back off his big, beautiful wall when Mexico fails to dole out the pesos to pay for it.
Having vented my spleen sufficiently, I have to say there is nothing really wrong with Trump’s current stated immigration policy. Secure the border. There’s probably better way than a 2,000 mile long 30 to 60foot high wall, but there should be little sensible opposition to the general principle of secure borders. Deporting the criminal element. Good. Rigorous backround checks for refugees, we already do that. The one other thing I wish he would emphasize is coming down hard on businesses that employ illegal aliens. Removing the incentive of employment from illegal immigrants, including those who overstay their visas, would bring about a massive wave of self-deportation. There are over a million Canucks and Brits here illegally, having overstayed their visas. They’re probably taking jobs that Americans would do. Besides, getting all those damned Québécois off the Adirondack Northway would be a good thing.
One wonders what she listens “for” when she listens great, and how she listens great. Is she listening to get broadly and deeply informed about things and stuff? Or is she calculating who can be which chess piece in the ongoing game, who might become an opponent, who might be trouble, who is a good little doggie and a bad little doggie, who might be a future whistleblower?
To what ends does she apply her skills of great listening?
Sir,
And I counter with: http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/09/04/pence-trump-immigration-plan-no-amnesty-no-path-legalization/
We are arguing semantics though. “Mass deportations” is a phrase vulnerable to Holocaust and Ellis Island Schmaltz with the Left framing the issue as Poor Migrant Border Crossers having their doors kicked in by tactical leather wearing deportation agents.
Enforcing the law likely focus tested better.
You would want that wall if you saw some of the human monsters walking across the desert. Raping the very old or very young seems to be a popular past time in Old Mexico, to say nothing of those killed by illegal aliens.
Sir, I have seen with my own two eyes the border crossings at Lukeville and Sonoita, AZ where, after the official crossing closes for the night, people are coming over, one after another, all night long, through holes in the fence that are maybe 100 yards at most from the official crossing. Some individuals came over with backpacks and returned without them later in the night. This was 25 years ago, maybe things have changed. If not, surely we can do better than that.
Vast tracks of the Sonoran Desert, which I know very well having worked for the BLM out of the Tucson station, don’t need a wall because they are not crossable by ordinary humans. I have found the skeletons in the desert (some with 50lbs packs of cannabis or other narco contraband). Lawrence of Arabia would find them challenging. Trump has alluded to this. Rather, strategically located sections of wall would do the trick.
To misquote Ross Perot, “that giant sucking
sound ” you hear is the helium escaping from
the blimp Hilldenberg as it circles the air field
at Lakehurst New Jersey. The ignition is and
will be self inflicted.
Edward,
I’m sure the House and Senate will kneel in submission to Hilary.
Col.,
Helping Mexico tackle the drug cartels certainly can’t hurt in reducing immigration to the US.
I could see a Trump presidency coming out sort of like John Tyler AKA “His Accidency”. Tyler was a nominal Whig (WINO?) and pretty much governed against his party in the Congress. The Whigs were subsequently frozen out of the White House until another nominal Whig, Taylor was elected (and he also flirted with “third way” politics). Though in Taylor’s case of course he was replaced by party man VP Filmore (maybe a precedent for Pence?) Unfortunately for Filmore he kind of vacillated on running in his own name which in part resulted in Webster holding onto significant delegates in the 52 convention and eventually neither got the nomination, rather the third nominal Whig candidate Scott.
Which brings up Filmore’s 56 run. He seems to have had little interest in the slavery question, or at least was more interested in running a national campaign built around old-Whig values. So he attempted to use nativism (anti-immigration?) as a unifying national issue via an “American” Party designed to co-opt the Know Nothing movement.
Eric Newhill
“If not, surely we can do better than that.” Did I say we should not do better? Bave you been to places like Bethlehem in the West Bank where a forty foot masonry barrier runs through the center of the town. It is there because the Israelis consider themselves to be at war with the Palestinian people. are we at war with the Mexican people? pl
Tyler
Lay off the bullshit about monsters walking across the desert. I listened to what Giuliani said today and Pence hasn’t gotten the word yet. pl
Edward Amame,
I don’t know much about Mitch McConnell’s career or approach to politics.
I gather he is thought of as a creditable political strategist ( as against a mere strategerist) and a creditable political tactician ( as against a mere tacktickerician).
With that in mind, I found his recent announcement ( as described on the Naked Capitalism blog) that TTP would NOT be considered or taken up unTIL the NEXT Congress was fully seated and under way. I wonder if this is a political chess gambit on his part to see who else responds in a tag-team way and makes a supportive move. Naked Capitalism noted with pleasure that Senator Sanders immediately voiced strong support for Majority Leader McConnell’s decision to keep TTP OFF the Floor until the NEXT Congress. We already know that Davos Man Hillary and Davos Man Kaine support TTP and if she ( and/or then he) becomes President, She and/or then he will finesse their way to pretending that certain little tweaks have been performed on TTP such that it is now fit to sign as soon as Congress passes it. Whereas Trump might very well be as opposed to TTP as he now claims he is.
One wonders if McConnell is signaling to us Bitter Berners and other Free Trade Treason opponents that a President Trump means ” bye bye TPP”.
One wonders if McConnell is sending signals meant to invite us to vote for Trump in order to keep TPP Clinton and TPP Kaine out of the White House.
James,Your statement brought to my mind two things I had read or heard years ago.Andrew Carnegie once said that he he lost all of his resources ,capital,etc,but kept his people, he would get all that he had lost back in a few years……………….James Reston wrote a column in the “Washington Post” as Jimmy Carter was leaving office and said the main reason Carter failed was that He could not bring himself to delegate.Reston wrote that Carter had to wash and dry every dish himself……………..Ive always suspected that Trump was an excellent delegator.However that is in the world he knows.Im not so sure about in this new world he is trying to enter………….His children certainly seem to be sharp.
I don’t think Johnson and Weld would bomb Iran or beef with Russia like Hillary will.
Trump? He has good instincts but could get coopted by the neocons like Bolton.
dc,
We should as Lady Rothschild what she was listening for in the Hamptons this weekend. She sure wasn’t listening to the folks in Louisiana or the unemployed. I suspect the crowd was doing a their own version of “You’re so vain” – because they think the campaign is all about them….
steve g,
The high pitched whining from the NE is from all that escaping helium. “How dare a Republican talk about black unemployment, how dare he talk about the black family!” The very flammable hydrogen induced explosions are the five dead cops in Dallas and a number of their now deceased compatriots in other cities. The race based agit-prop that is BLM shows no sign of deflating.
Sir,
Why? They’re not just some poor guy looking for a job picking berries. I worked on a guy who was wanted for murder in California by hacking two people to death with a machete.
It’s not just that, but it keeps the cartels from doing things like dumping a mom and kids in the middle of nowhere so we pull resources to go rescue them so they can run dope or guns or whatever across.
A wall would prevent a lot of this human misery I’ve gotta deal with.
DC,
I believe a more appropriate example would be Apple’s iphone. The components are made by subcontractor Foxconn in China with what was essentially slave labor. That allowed St. Steve Jobs to become a billionaire. You should look up his wife and her charitable activities. Advocating livable wages for makers of Apple products doesn’t seem to be one of them.
TTG,
I don’t dispute most of what you have said. I just believe there is another interpretation.
The “great one” has long been a nationalist…in his life as a critic of power. That is on record. He used illegal immigrants…in his life as a businessman in a crooked system. The result is that he is on the verge of shifting from critic to one who actually wields power.
And how does he intend to wield such power? He has told us he views himself as a negotiator. He has mostly decried the use of “executive order”. He has chastised his “own” in the Republican party for not understanding realities across the aisle. He wishes to be a “deal maker”.
Since he is not leading a military coup, his bombast becomes vital. The campaign becomes a means of presenting high opening demands. With the intention of reshaping a hostile arbitrators presumptions about the likely outcome.
Of course, modern political campaigns are meant to be seductive affairs…not negotiations. It is interesting watching him juggle these two aims.
Best,
Paul
“”Besides, getting all those damned Québécois off the Adirondack Northway would be a good thing.””
Still chuckling. Laughed out loud when I first read Dave Barry calling them “Snowbacks”. Given my mostly French Canadian heritage, I feel like I have the right to smile at that quote. Lived in Burlington, VT for the last three years of my work life. When we crossed over at Crown Point, we got to enjoy their driving antics from both sides of Lake Champlain.
We do dearly miss the restaurants in Montreal. Jacksonville is a culinary wasteland.
tyler
As I just wrote to you off SST, a wall of the kind that the Israelis have built for hundreds of miles is a military defensive system. If you try to get over that wall somewhere other than at an authorized portal, the IDF kills you. Is that what we want? At various points along their wall they use it as a barrier across which they fire mortars, tank guns, recoilless rifles and anti-tank missiles like TOW at targets they like that are often in civilian towns full of families who have little kids in the buildings being shot at. Having been in Bethlehem when it was being shelled by IDF main tank guns I can testify to the truth of that occurrence. Let me describe the technique. if you are the IDF, you set up in an Israeli village or in a bermed up dirt fort. Then you put an armor piercing round from a tank gun through the wall of a house followed by an HE round through the same hole so that the HE bursts inside the house. IMO the militarization of our border defenses will lead to such results. pl
Certainly more qualified for the job than Obama was!
JL, that must be a classic, it feels, since I could add my own variation on this topic. … On the other hand, that one categorized people, I was “the fox”. Pretty sly of him.
Why did she move on, if he was such a perfect leader? He made her realize she can lead herself? But that’s not really something for the public or the hip VIP life style section for the curious?
I have absolutely no doubt the move from TV celebrity to crowned/coronated leader of a him might be a final goal considering his age.
But the projection of his project to “make America great again”, no doubt, allows completely different projections then the one’s of his precursor in the office.
TTG:
The one other thing I wish he would emphasize is coming down hard on businesses that employ illegal aliens.
Arizona tried to do that a decade ago with the Legal Arizona Workers Act (LAWA). The history of court challenges to LAWA, like U.S. Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting, and the very infrequent instances of enforcement against businesses is instructive. In the words of a recent study, “If the Arizona state government is unwilling or unable to enforce immigration enforcement laws there is little hope that the federal government will do so.”
https://www.nilc.org/issues/litigation/usccwhiting/ ,
http://www.texasgopvote.com/economy/aftermath-arizona-s-immigration-laws-008737
Eric, during my earliest times on the US Web I was attracted to conspiracy circles. I will never forget that at one point even Chinese troops surfaced on the Mexican border, supposedly threatening a take over.
“Some individuals came over with backpacks and returned without them later in the night.”
That may not really be the important “fishes” one would like to catch? or do you believe? Seriously? In case you are referring to drugs.
Laura, no one knows better then me, it isn’t easy to keep it short and sharp.
Or book, I know them, by the way. “The image of the enemy”:
http://www.orbooks.com/about-us/
And while you might do the author a little disservice, it is worth mentioning that he was a student of Barak Obama and already wrote a book on him. His first? Before Obama’s coronation.
They also offer a book on Hillary:
My Turn, Finally:
http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/my-turn-by-doug-henwood/
Your view is charitable in that it doesn’t include some of your previously stated objections. In the spirit of not repeating, I will wonder out loud.
Who is currently in Trump’s trusted, expert network? Except for the trusted part which includes only his children, we already have a growing list of names associated with subject-area advisors. Shall we vet these gentlemen and a few women? General Flynn is a pragmatic isolationist, yes, no?
Does it matter at all that confidence in Trump’s ability can either lean into the myth he has promoted himself, or, alternately, take into account the concrete details of his career that has proceeded from building to (highly leveraged) brand arbitrage to reality TV star to messianic candidate?
(I note that Trump’s *extremely risky* combination of supply-side tax cuts, mass deportation, protectionism, big government infrastructure and defense deficit spending, and, deregulation. could not be realized with the two houses of Congress in opposite hands. Just sayin’. )
We were stationed at Plattsburgh AFB in the ’70s and had the same experience with restaurants and drivers. The K-Mart used to get overrun every weekend.
LeaNder
“Chinese troops surfaced on the Mexican border, supposedly threatening a take over” Is that something like “Russian soldiers with snow on their boots? in “The Daughter of Time?” pl
Well, I meditate on your comment … 😉
Now it is Target. The young folk we talked to in Montreal were pissed that they had finally opened Targets in Canada but the clothing goods (in their opinion) were much more cheaply made than those available in NY or VT.
I am now getting the Jones for creton and some poutine. Darn.
Colonel, if I may, I think slowly you are overcoming the loudness, spontaneousness Unrehearsed, opinionated reflections of Donald Trump. If so I am with you, at the end of the day we all have to make a decision between 2 bad choices, I will vote for no more “ wars of choice”, rather than wasting my vote to protest against Borg. Thank you for this good news analysis.
kao_hsien_chih
She famously did a “listening tour” in her NY Senate campaign. I don’t know that she hasn’t been doing that in her pres campaign this year. Her press coverage to date has been insinuation and bogus reports on ginned-up scandals.
different clue
I can’t answer your questions. But she did get high marks from her colleagues in her Senate days and re-elected by large margins.
About HRC not listening, I heard the same from somebody worked for her at state, on one occasion Holbrooke left the meeting with SOS on protest.
Fred
Trump makes a grand entrance in the Hamptons
While a fund-raiser for Donald Trump in the Hamptons this past weekend was kept on complete lockdown, the Republican presidential candidate certainly made his presence felt out East.
Trump was fêted at the Southampton home of billionaire distressed-asset investor Wilbur Ross and wife Hilary Geary Ross.
We’re told that as the police cordoned off the entire area on Great Plains Road, Trump made a grand entrance.
“His helicopter, of course with TRUMP emblazoned on the side, seemed to hover over Southampton for an eternity, and nobody was left in any doubt as to who was arriving,” one resident sniffed.
Top donors invited to the $25,000-a-head fund-raiser (or $100,000 to join the host committee) included sugar titan Pepe Fanjul, Richard LeFrak, Jets owner Woody Johnson and SkyBridge Capital guru Anthony Scaramucci…
http://pagesix.com/2016/07/11/trump-makes-a-grand-entrance-in-the-hamptons/
Some — but nowhere close to all — of the Republican Party’s biggest contributors cut large checks to Donald Trump in his first wave of fundraising, new documents filed Friday night with the Federal Election Commission show.
A dozen individuals cut checks of $449,400, the maximum allowed: Darwin and Katrina Deason, of Texas; Anne and Carl Allen, also of Texas; Andy Beal of Texas; Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of Bob Mercer, one of the biggest donors in Republican politics, of New York: beverage tycoon John Ferolito of New Jersey; Diana and Llwyd Ecclestone of Florida; Leandro Rizzuto of Florida; and Richard and Hannah Buchan, also of Florida.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/15/politics/donald-trump-fec-report-names/
Get the stable mucked out.
I like that.
And get the raccoons out of the attic.
Shrillary represents the establishment/ruling class that has enriched themselves and messed up the country big time.
I especially got a kick out of the 50 “big names” in national security who are “terrified” of Trump, but don’t seem to care that Hillary exposed national secrets to hostile actors over and over and over and – from her FBI Q and A – is either senile, stupid or a massive liar.
And these 50 “big names?”
How’s their track record?
It would be really hard to do worse than the last 16 years.
You sure you meant 65 and not 55?
65% is 2 to 1, pretty much over.
LeaNder, of course I’m referring to drugs. That *is* what’s in the backpacks. Human “mules” come across the border with drugs, deposit them in a pre-arranged location and then return to Mexico, all in the same night. every night – or, as I said, that’s what was happening 25+ years ago. If you shut off the holes in the old broken fence so they can’t do this so easily, then they are forced to try to make runs through the official crossings where US Govt personnel are trained and ready to intercept the cargo. The same goes for illegal immigrant smuggling.
There is no conspiracy theory coming from me (actually not sure what you’re referring to). I worked the vast tracts of federal land between Tucson and the Mexican border. Once there was a wild fire at the base of some mountains. We found 400 lbs of marijuana burning – it had been left there for pickup, but got caught in the fire. I got shot at once by some guys that were, no doubt, scouts for the drug carrying mules. Tyler could tell you all about how things haven’t changed much, I’m sure based on comments of his that I have read. I have set up water stations along illegal immigrant trails so they wouldn’t succumb to dehydration and exposure in their trek across the desert. I have found the skeletons of those who didn’t make it. In a way, the wall would be beneficial to these poor people as well. It might keep them from trying crazy dangerous methods of entering the country illegally.
TTG:
P.S.:
I think I did this a few years ago, but it’s also instructive to look at the parties challenging the LAWA in the SCOTUS. They divide into groups that advocate for illegals and groups that advocate for the businesses that make money by hiring illegals. The later group is a significant chunk of the US business community and a significant chunk of the core constituency of the GOP.
https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publishing/preview/publiced_preview_briefs_pdfs_09_10_09_115_Petitioner.authcheckdam.pdf
IN THE Supreme Court of the United States
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES et al.
,
Petitioners,
v.
CHRISS CANDELARIA
et al.,
Respondents.
BRIEF FOR THE PETITIONERS
PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDING
Petitioners, which were plaintiffs/appellants below,
are
Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America;
Arizona Contractors Association;
Arizona Chamber of Commerce;
Arizona Employers for Immgration Reform;
Arizona Farm Bureau Federation;
Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce;
Arizona Landscape Contractors Association;
Arizona Restaurant and Hospitality Association;
Arizona Roofing Contractors Association;
Associated Minority Contractors of America;
Chicanos Por La Causa;
Somos America;
Valle Del Sol, Inc.;
National Roofing Contractors Association;
and
Wake Up Arizona! Inc.
I would say that we are both not at war with some Mexican people and at war with others. I laid a lot of concrete block and Saltillo tile with Mexican nationals here on work visas. Great guys. Skilled hard workers, for low pay (I was one of the workers, not the boss setting the pay level). When the work dried up or they had made enough, they returned to their families in Mexico. They didn’t cause any trouble as far as I know while they were here.
I’ve also sat on the beach in Mexico in off-the-beaten-track locals and had a good time. That doesn’t feel like war at all.
OTOH, you’ve got the cartels and allied gangs and the La Raza crowd. These may not be salient to someone in VA, but they are a big time problem in CA, AZ, TX and NM and, only to a marginally lesser extent, in NV, CO and some other states into which they are expanding. The gangs are homicidal and peddle dangerous drugs like methamphetamine and heroin. The La Raza crowd wants to reclaim “Aztlan” for Mexicans by sheer overwhelming numbers. They do not seek to be assimilated Americans. They exhibit disdain for the “pinches gueros”.
I suppose something similar could be said of the Israel/Palestinian situation. In both situations there is the ideology of reclamation of historic land, with a possible revenge component, by and for an aggrieved ethnicity – coupled with the shockingly violent actions of a so-inclined subset of the population.
One problem in talking about Mexico is that there are many different cultures in the mix and the federal govt seems to be in control of only a couple of them (The cosmopolitan Mexico City culture being the most notable). The cartels rule El Norte. In the South and in the mountains there are peasants living like they did 200 years ago.
What could Mexico city be doing about the cartels and illegals from the south. Nothing? If so, then we are not at war with the official govt. If they could be doing something, but aren’t because they are benefitting from the situation, then maybe we are in some level of conflict with Mexico City. It’s good Trump met with Pieto. Talking is always a good start.
How do different tribes of people, culturally at odds, bearing animosity for perceived past injustices, with one side wanting what the other side has, come to an amicable fair settlement? Talk and when talk fails, build a well defended wall. Unless you judge the costs – e.g. gangs/cartels, economic pressure on working class Americans, cultural invasion of the SW to be smaller than the moral/ethical cost of building The Wall. But maybe that calculation also involves an underestimate of the movement to reclaim the US SW for Mexico.
LeaNder
Try “Tonypandy” instead. pl
Eric Newhill
Well, if you think this is an existential struggle for Aztlan’a posession, then, should we not get on with fighting the war on the border with full firepower? pl
Laura, who is John K.Wilson ????
She certainly didn’t listen during the days before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 to one of her own constituents who also happened to be probably the most informed person in the world with regard to that country’s weapons of mass destruction status.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-ritter/hillary-clinton-iraq-war-vote_b_9350340.html
A few highly publicized “show” trials with harsh sentences handed down to employers of illegals would work wonders in stopping the flow. The word would get out to the street down there. The problem is would the big corporations that are benefitting from illegal immigrant labor be treated as harshly as bubba who hires a couple of men to hang drywall? If they were and a few executives did a perp walk to prison, that would really help shut off the flow.
HUMBUG!!! Trump is not messianic…speaking of which, did you vote for Obama???
Think calculated risk — or maybe political triage.
LeaNder…I thought I was pretty clear that the author had a serious bias…however, I still thought the questions and answers were about issues I had not really considered before. Just an offering…
Eric Newhill, The border has changed a lot in 25 years. It is tighter and harder to cross. Not impossible but much harder. There are many more border patrol agents and they are very active every night.
Sir, The other day I was re-acquainting myself with Black Jack Pershing’s military incursions of a hundred years ago. IMO, the current situation is more of a law enforcement situation than a military one.
I think Trump could and would work out a mutually beneficial agreement with Mexico city. There are a lot issues on the table. There must be an opportunity for trade-offs via sticks and carrots. That must be attempted before any major wall construction and, most certainly, before any shooting commences. Though a joint US/Mexico operation to wipe out the cartels in El Norte might not be a bad idea.
My sense of Trump is that he is one who asks for the sun and stars knowing he will negotiate down to just the moon. The wall would be one such initial pre-negotiation posturing.
As for possession of the US SW, it’s ours today regardless of any history. The solution to keeping it that way lies within the cultural values of the US citizenry. The white multi-cults are accepting of blame and shame and are happy to maintain a most optimistic outlook of what happens when culturally very different tribes live in the same geography. As long as we have a consensus like that, the invasion will continue. Some people are getting fed up already, but not enough to stop it yet. Or maybe we’ve reached a tipping point now. If so, then immigration levels will be lowered and de-incentivizing for immigrating will occur and the SW is preserved as US owned. If not, the trend will continue until, some day in the distant future, long after you and I are beyond the concerns this plane of existence, there will some kind of a revolution and a return of the land to Mexico. I live and work in totally unrelated areas now and beyond an abstract notion of nationalism, don’t really have skin in that game. Nothing in human endeavors last forever and the only constant is change itself.
I would not be in favor of war and nation building in Mexico, a la Iraq. We do not seem to be good at it; if anyone is.
rjj–He is an academic (U of Illinois?) who has written the following books. Yes he is a liberal and not a Trump fan but I still think his observations MAY be of value as he raises concerns worth considering! John K. Wilson is the author of Trump Unveiled: Exposing the Bigoted Billionaire (www.trumpunveiled.com), to be published on Sept. 1 by OR Books. His previous books include The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh’s Assault on Reason, Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest, and Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies.
Just because one’s day job is in the groves of academe doe not mean one is not a hack. From the titles you mention, he is an ideologue.
I visited his Amazon page, and if you cannot predict his stand on any question, check your pulse.
Grain of sand time.
Maybe I should add that spending a fair amount of my youth with my father’s people, Armenians, including living with my grandparents who survived that genocide (barely), that I have an ingrained pessimism about human nature, multiculturalism and all that. I’ve tried to shake it in order to be a better person, but it keeps coming back. In the interest of fair disclosure, that background colors a lot of my opinions and, of course, I’m prone to seeing evidence that supports my ingrained biases. So that’s a fair disclosure for anyone who might take what I say into consideration.
Just by the titles, he sounds like another left wing propagandist hack….
synonomous with most academics, these days.
Walrus, doesn’t the Trump campaign itself give you pause when you say “He need to have experience in hiring an managing people that do have that experience”? That is exactly what I do not see. Hillary’s campaign people are NOT part of the news story and Trump’s are. Shouldn’t a really competent businessman have a team that is unremarkably competent? I don’t see his great managerial skills…but I would like to know that he has them.
I agree…but I still think that any reasonable voter should at least try to consider what a President who believes in conspiracy theories would be like. Because Trump has promulgated such theories repeatedly. It might pay to believe him and ask how would that color their responses..would they continue to read those sites or listen to the intelligence community?
And, if his (admittedly provocative) assessment of Trump being a violent isolationist is even somewhat valid? What would that look like on the ground in the Oval Office and how would that translate into military action?
If we can spend time gaming out Hillary’s proclivities, shouldn’t some thought be given to these? Dismissing out of hand might not be entirely wise. Just saying…the truth is usually somewhere in the middle, not out at either end of the continuum but you must consider the ends to find the middle.
Laura, apparently he is not exactly an academic, but more like a higher education groupie and media wannabe — not that there’s anything wrong with any of thaaaaaat.
https://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/9A9B0683-AC07-4A4F-B2A8-86B1B1DE7F03/0/WilsonJ.pdf
John K. Wilson received his Ph.D. in higher education from Illinois State University in 2014. He is the co-editor of AcademeBlog.org, the editor of Illinois Academe, and the author of Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies (Paradigm Publishers, 2008). Correspondence to: John K. Wilson, 1205 N. Walnut, Normal, IL 61761, USA. Email: collegefreedom@yahoo.com
“violent isolationist”
My dear lady, you can’t be serious. Would that be like a chaste groupie?
I do not trust trump in that he is a bit all over the place, but he has said in this campaign some of the most sane things I’ve heard, for example,
“When asked what he thinks Putin is doing in the Middle East, Trump stated, “Well, we spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives, wounded warriors all over, and Putin is now taking over what we started, and he’s going into Syria, and he frankly wants to fight ISIS, and I think that’s a wonderful thing. You know, I said that a year ago and everybody said oh, that’s terrible. If he wants to fight ISIS, let him fight ISIS. Why do we always have to do everything. But he wants to go in. He wants to fight ISIS. Now, he wants to keep, as you know, he wants to keep your leadership, your current leadership, Assad in Syria. Personally I’ve been looking at the different players, and I’ve been watching Assad, and I’ve been pretty good at this stuff over the years, cause deals are people. And I’m looking at Assad and saying, ‘Maybe he’s better than the kind of people that we’re supposed to be backing.’ Because we don’t even know who we’re backing.””
If Frau Clinton has said anything as intelligent, I’d love to hear it.
I know I’ll attacked for being silly here, but Trump beat 16 of the best that the Republican party could produce at this time. Now these so-called proffessionals are all pissy and took thier ball home with them. The “Lamest 16” as I like to call them couldn’t ever win because they’d be falling all over themselves to grovel at Queen Hilary’s feet.
I believe that Hillary is just plain evil and would only finish the ruin of this nation that Obama has started. I can remember just 8 years ago all the intellectuals fainting during his speeches because his retoric was so soaring. Now we all struggle with just a couple of positive GDP points a year and everybody is now working part time. Obama plain lost the war with Islam and Hillary just plain protected ISIS until it is a real threat to the west.
People need to face reality, Republicans are cowards and Democrats are just evil. So, a guy like Trump might just be what this country needs at this moment.
Fred,
Be careful to use the term “slave labor”. Different society, market, and cost of living. Do you know how much is minumum wage for Chines workers? how much is an average skilled laborer make in China? And most of all, how better off an American worker earning minimum wages living with US cost of living, comparing to a FoxConn worker with China cost of living?
Maybe quality is the problem. Not that it was poor, on the contrary it may have been too damn good. I have a Frigidare refrigerator, made in Dayton Ohio and purchased in 1987. Other than some easily replaced worn out fans, is still going strong.
Conspiracies are the norm rather than the exception.
Chuck, Obama started the ‘ruin of this nation’? You are either ignorant or a partisan. Go away, don’t come back until you can try to be objective.
Reagan and everyone that followed failed in degaussing the jobs magnet through E-verify. Business interests piss & moan about the ‘burden’ it places on them and the politicians cave.
Sorry Laura, I am sometimes very, very unfair. … The three points you make are interesting. The first is online in the excerpt, the myth he opposed the Iraq war:
http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/trump-unveiled-john-k-wilson/
Could be, I have a slightly Pavlovian response to two things: The “unveiled” in the title, followed by Trump the Narcissist in the introduction.
Concerning Chapter 4: Paranoid Trump, the point you end on. Does he compare Trump to Nixon? I can see he gambles with some of the topics, but does that tell us something about him?
If you ever want to be unfair to me, be my guest. 😉
Thanks Eric. No harm meant. I got the mules idea.
Sorry about the association, I am quite interested in the topic. The alternative base I spent some time in apparently followed the grand theory of CIA involvement. Apart from that it was quite open to all type of fiction. Could well be the story about the Chinese at the border was spread with intend. But I somewhat doubt considering the quite apparent love for all type of fiction coupled with a special state of mind.
The place may have seen better times earlier. In the end it was for me only some type of self-awareness trip, not least due to the group dynamics … Easy grasp versus collective objection and/or following the leader’s assessment.
I’ll try to keep that in mind.
A recent story caught my attention, no idea why it made into a feature of here. Maybe since it involved weapons?
It is there because the Israelis consider themselves to be at war with the Palestinian people. are we at war with the Mexican people?
Excellent point. (Appreciate the dispassionate observation. So fed up with the tendency to overly dramatic over-simplification and lack of accuracy.)
Furthermore, Israelis are occupying Palestinian land. See http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/brwh1939.asp. Specifically, the language under Section 1. “The Constitution”, which few Americans know, realize, or give a shit about.
Fred
I doubt that too. But Hillary would provide a brake on those two.
different clue
Here I am scratching my head. A bitter Berner considering handing over the keys to the whole deal to McConnell, Ryan, Norquist, etc. And the SCOTUS to the extreme right for a generation or more.
Mike,
It would appear that planned self-destruction is the final stage of planned obsolescence. Self-destructolescence. ” This Fridge, should you decide to accept it, will Self-Destruct in Five Years.”
Just a couple of points…Sabato was wrong about Allen, but he has a good record overall. And in regard to Trump and not getting into conflicts abroad, I still am concerned about his comments on nuclear weapons, such as “Nuclear, just the power, the devastation, is very important to me.” That an wondering why we haven’t used them. General Hayden was very clear about his concerns regarding Trump in this area- noting that the system is geared to operate quickly, and the time frame for decision-making is getting shorter.
All
“I believe in a foreign policy based on our national interests that focuses on American security and regional stability instead of using our military to create democracies in countries with no democratic history and couldn’t care less about democracy,” -Donald Trump.
We only face one existential threat and that is a nuclear exchange with Russia. IMO, Trump’s clear message is what every American should want after decades of meddling in other people’s affairs with disastrous consequences for them and huge costs for us. The Borg Queen’s track record of belligerence is dangerous for our safety.
Messianic does Mr. Trump’s massive ego justice. He has come to save all of us by the dint of his god-like intelligence. After all, who but a God-like character would deem himself to be his number one advisor?
And when he attained his full strength and was [mentally] mature, We bestowed upon him judgement and knowledge. And thus do We reward the doers of good. (Surah 28.14)
Meanwhile, today Mr. Trump has outlined, after a fashion, an unaffordable plan to make the military-industrial complex a bit more richer, spread mayhem, and, otherwise, help himself to the death-dealing toys he has yet to manhandle.
Okay, we will have to agree to disagree.
Edward Amame,
If Trade Traitor Clinton is permitted to become President, she will find a way to conspire with her Wall Street Coalition of Country Club Republicans and Catfood Democrats to pass and sign TPP after some cosmetic “changes” to it. One of the basic parts of TPP which will be preserved will be ISDS and its system of International Secret Corporate Kangaroo Courts to “decide” investor “disputes” against sovereign legitimate governments in favor of the “disputing” “investor”. The Corporate Kangaroo Courts will then levy fines against our National Federal Government in the amount of the money “alleged” to have been “lost” by the “disputing investor” because our laws or regulations would not allow that “investor” to rip off all the money or sow all the pollution that “investor” would like to do.
If a President Clinton is allowed to place America under rule by anti-national extra-territorial Korporate Kangaroo Kouncils, then the matter of who is or isn’t on the Supreme Court is an irrelevant side show.
A Bitter Berner has decided that the Survival of National Sovereignty and National Existence is more important than who is or isn’t on the Supreme Court. If America is reduced to a mere Crown Jewel in the Corporate Globalonial Plantationist Empire, what difference will it make any more if there even is or isn’t a Supreme Court at all? That’s what a Bitter Berner has decided is at stake.
Tony,
“be careful” or what, the BLM Blitzkrieg will come after me? The average wages for the semi-skilled labor doing this work in China is ~$6/hour. It’s cheaper in Thailand. It’s still slave labor. Maybe Mr. Jobs’ widow can unionize them so they can actually have a wage that will enable them to buy house, car send a kid to college.