Political Roundtable Part XVIII

[montestewart]

I love the irony in "the american people got it right," the american people not even amounting to a plurality.

[gtn130]

I love the irony in "the american people got it right," the american people not even amounting to a plurality.

"the will of the people"

[Doug_Blew]

I will say it again and again. We have elections for a reason. Trump won it. Stop trying to overturn this fact. Get a good candidate and beat him in 2020. Use this dirt against him if you like.

What in the Flyin Fuke does this have to do with the election? Next you're going to tell us the earth is flat - get over it. Trump said so, and we elected him. Or something about global warming not existing - nah, you're not that stupid.

I bring up elections because that's how you unseat a president, which is clearly your goal. That's why you brought up the susceptible to bribery stuff. You think this can get him impeached.

You seem to think that investigating whether or not Trump's lawyer paying off a porn star is a technically campaign finance law violation is significant. It's not. It doesn't change anything. It's outright laughable that you are going to focus on campaign finance regulations with the Clintons are worth over $100M thanks to very shady circumvention of campaign finance law over the years. But I'm tired of arguing about it. Go on believing that this time you'll finally get him.

I don't think this will be the one that gets him. But it would be hilarious if he goes down for paying off a porn star.

I haven't heard from John Edwards since he went through something similar...

Former vice presidential nominee John Edwards was indicted Friday on charges of using illegal campaign donations to conceal his mistress from voters, a stunning fall from grace for a politician once considered a serious contender for the White House.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/john-edwards-indictment-expected-today/2011/06/03/AGQwEuHH_story.html?utm_term=.19f2ff09dc08

[FAH1223]

Read on Twitter

The only thing wrong with the U.S. economy is the failure of the Republican Party to play Santa Claus.
-Jude Wanniski, March 6, 1976

The Republican Party has been running a long con on America since Reagan’s inauguration, and somehow our nation’s media has missed it – even though it was announced in The Wall Street Journal in the 1970s and the GOP has clung tenaciously to it ever since.

In fact, Republican strategist Jude Wanniski’s 1974 “Two Santa Clauses Theory” has been the main reason why the GOP has succeeded in producing our last two Republican presidents, Bush and Trump (despite losing the popular vote both times). It’s also why Reagan’s economy seemed to be “good.”

Here’s how it works, laid it out in simple summary:

First, when Republicans control the federal government, and particularly the White House, spend money like a drunken sailor and run up the US debt as far and as fast as possible. This produces three results – it stimulates the economy thus making people think that the GOP can produce a good economy, it raises the debt dramatically, and it makes people think that Republicans are the “tax-cut Santa Claus.”

Second, when a Democrat is in the White House, scream about the national debt as loudly and frantically as possible, freaking out about how “our children will have to pay for it!” and “we have to cut spending to solve the crisis!” This will force the Democrats in power to cut their own social safety net programs, thus shooting their welfare-of-the-American-people Santa Claus.

Think back to Ronald Reagan, who more than tripled the US debt from a mere $800 billion to $2.6 trillion in his 8 years. That spending produced a massive stimulus to the economy, and the biggest non-wartime increase in the debt in history. Nary a peep from Republicans about that 218% increase in our debt; they were just fine with it.

And then along came Bill Clinton. The screams and squeals from the GOP about the “unsustainable debt” of nearly $3 trillion were loud, constant, and echoed incessantly by media from CBS to NPR. Newt Gingrich rode the wave of “unsustainable debt” hysteria into power, as the GOP took control of the House for the first time lasting more than a term since 1930, even though the increase in our national debt under Clinton was only about 37%.

The GOP “debt freakout” was so widely and effectively amplified by the media that Clinton himself bought into it and began to cut spending, taking the axe to numerous welfare programs (“It’s the end of welfare as we know it” he famously said, and “The era of big government is over”). Clinton also did something no Republican has done in our lifetimes: he supported several balanced budgets and handed a budget surplus to George W. Bush.

When George W. Bush was given the White House by the Supreme Court (Gore won the popular vote by over a half-million votes) he reverted to Reagan’s strategy and again nearly doubled the national debt, adding a trillion in borrowed money to pay for his tax cut for GOP-funding billionaires, and tossing in two unfunded wars for good measure, which also added at least (long term) another $5 to $7 trillion.

There was not a peep about the debt from any high-profile in-the-know Republicans then; in fact, Dick Cheney famously said, essentially ratifying Wanniski’s strategy, “Reagan proved deficits don't matter. We won the midterms [because of those tax cuts]. This is our due.” Bush and Cheney raised the debt by 86% to over $10 trillion (although the war debt wasn’t put on the books until Obama entered office).

Then comes Democratic President Barack Obama, and suddenly the GOP is hysterical about the debt again. So much so that they convinced a sitting Democratic president to propose a cut to Social Security (the “chained CPI”). Obama nearly shot the Democrats biggest Santa Claus program. And, Republican squeals notwithstanding, Obama only raised the debt by 34%.

Now we’re back to a Republican president, and once again deficits be damned. Between their tax cut and the nearly-trillion dollar spending increase passed on February 8th, in the first year-and-a-month of Trump’s administration they’ve spent more stimulating the economy (and driving up debt by more than $2 trillion, when you include interest) than the entire Obama presidency.

Consider the amazing story of where this strategy came from, and how the GOP has successfully kept their strategy from getting into the news; even generally well-informed writers for media like the Times and the Post – and producers, pundits and reporters for TV news – don’t know the history of what’s been happening right in front of us all for 37 years.

Republican strategist Jude Wanniski first proposed his Two Santa Clauses strategy in 1974, when Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace and the future of the Republican Party was so dim that books and articles were widely suggesting the GOP was about to go the way of the Whigs. There was genuine despair across the Party, particularly when Jerry Ford began stumbling as he climbed the steps to Air Force One and couldn’t even beat an unknown peanut farmer from rural Georgia for the presidency.

Wanniski was tired of the GOP failing to win elections. And, he reasoned, it was happening because the Democrats had been viewed since the New Deal as the Santa Claus party (taking care of people’s needs and the General Welfare), while the GOP, opposing everything from Social Security to Medicare to unemployment insurance, was widely seen as the party of Scrooge.

The Democrats, he noted, got to play Santa Claus when they passed out Social Security and Unemployment checks – both programs of the New Deal – as well as when their "big government" projects like roads, bridges, and highways were built, giving a healthy union paycheck to construction workers and making our country shine.

Democrats kept raising taxes on businesses and rich people to pay for things, which didn't seem to have much effect at all on working people (wages were steadily going up, in fact), and that added to the perception that the Democrats were a party of Robin Hoods, taking from the rich to fund programs for the poor and the working class.

Americans loved the Democrats back then. And every time Republicans railed against these programs, they lost elections.

Wanniski decided that the GOP had to become a Santa Claus party, too. But because the Republicans hated the idea of helping working people, they had to figure out a way to convince people that they, too, could have the Santa spirit. But what?

“Tax cuts!” said Wanniski.

To make this work, the Republicans would first have to turn the classical world of economics – which had operated on a simple demand-driven equation for seven thousand years – on its head. (Everybody understood that demand – aka “wages” – drove economies because working people spent most of their money in the marketplace, producing demand for factory output and services.)

In 1974 Wanniski invented a new phrase – "supply side economics" – and suggested that the reason economies grew wasn't because people had money and wanted to buy things with it but, instead, because things were available for sale, thus tantalizing people to part with their money.

The more things there were, he said, the faster the economy would grow. And the more money we gave rich people and their corporations (via tax cuts) the more stuff they’d generously produce for us to think about buying.

At a glance, this move by the Republicans seems irrational, cynical and counterproductive. It certainly defies classic understandings of economics. But if you consider Jude Wanniski’s playbook, it makes complete sense.

To help, Arthur Laffer took that equation a step further with his famous napkin scribble. Not only was supply-side a rational concept, Laffer suggested, but as taxes went down, revenue to the government would go up! Neither concept made any sense – and time has proven both to be colossal idiocies – but together they offered the Republican Party a way out of the wilderness.

Ronald Reagan was the first national Republican politician to fully embrace the Two Santa Clauses strategy. He said straight out that if he could cut taxes on rich people and businesses, those tax cuts would cause them to take their surplus money and build factories, and that the more stuff there was supplying the economy the faster it would grow.

George Herbert Walker Bush – like most Republicans in 1980 who hadn’t read Wanniski’s piece in The Wall Street Journal – was horrified. Ronald Reagan was suggesting "Voodoo Economics," said Bush in the primary campaign, and Wanniski's supply-side and Laffer's tax-cut theories would throw the nation into such deep debt that, he believed, we'd ultimately crash into another Republican Great Depression.

But Wanniski had been doing his homework on how to sell “voodoo” supply-side economics.

In 1976, he rolled out to the hard-right insiders in the Republican Party his "Two Santa Clauses" theory, which would enable the Republicans to take power in America for the next forty years.

Democrats, he said, had been able to be "Santa Clauses" by giving people things from the largesse of the federal government. From food stamps to new schools to sending a man to the moon, the people loved the “toys” the Democrats brought every year.

Republicans could do that, too, the theory went – spending could actually increase without negative repurcussions. Plus, Republicans could be double Santa Clauses by cutting people's taxes!

For working people it would only be a small token – a few hundred dollars a year on average – but would be heavily marketed. And for the rich, which wasn’t to be discussed in public, it would amount to hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts.

The rich, Reagan, Bush, and Trump told us, would then use that money to import or build more stuff to market, thus stimulating the economy and making average working people richer. (And, of course, they’d pass some of that money back to the GOP, like the Kochs giving Paul Ryan $500,000.00 right after he passed the last tax cut that gave them billions.)

There was no way, Wanniski said, that the Democrats could ever win again. They'd be forced into the role of Santa-killers by raising taxes, or anti-Santas by cutting spending. Either one would lose them elections.

When Reagan rolled out Supply Side Economics in the early 80s, dramatically cutting taxes while exploding spending, there was a moment when it seemed to Wanniski and Laffer that all was lost. The budget deficit exploded and the country fell into a deep recession – the worst since the Great Depression – and Republicans nationwide held their collective breath.

But David Stockman came up with a great new theory about what was going on – they were "starving the beast" of government by running up such huge deficits that Democrats would never, ever in the future be able to talk again about national health care or improving Social Security.

And this so pleased Alan Greenspan, the Fed Chairman, that he opened the spigots of the Fed, dropping interest rates and buying government bonds, producing a nice, healthy goose to the economy.

Greenspan further counseled Reagan to dramatically increase taxes on people earning under $37,800 a year by doubling the Social Security (FICA/payroll) tax, and then let the government borrow those newfound hundreds of billions of dollars off-the-books to make the deficit look better than it was.

Reagan, Greenspan, Winniski, and Laffer took the federal budget deficit from under a trillion dollars in 1980 to almost three trillion by 1988, and back then a dollar could buy far more than it buys today. They and George HW Bush ran up more debt in eight years than every president in history, from George Washington to Jimmy Carter, combined.

Surely this would both starve the beast and force the Democrats to make the politically suicidal move of becoming deficit hawks. And that's just how it turned out.

Bill Clinton, who had run on an FDR-like platform of a "New Covenant" with the American people that would strengthen the institutions of the New Deal, strengthen labor, and institute a national health care system, found himself in a box.

A few weeks before his inauguration, Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin sat him down and told him the facts of life: he was going to have to raise taxes and cut the size of government. Clinton took their advice to heart, raised taxes, balanced the budget, and cut numerous programs, declaring an "end to welfare as we know it" and, in his second inaugural address, an "end to the era of big government."

Clinton was the anti-Santa Claus, and the result was an explosion of Republican wins across the country as Republican politicians campaigned on a platform of supply-side tax cuts and pork-rich spending increases. State after state turned red, and the Republican Party rose to take over, ultimately, every single lever of power in the federal government, from the Supreme Court to the White House.

Looking at the wreckage of the Democratic Party all around Clinton by 1999, Winniski wrote a gloating memo that said, in part: "We of course should be indebted to Art Laffer for all time for his Curve... But as the primary political theoretician of the supply-side camp, I began arguing for the 'Two Santa Claus Theory' in 1974. If the Democrats are going to play Santa Claus by promoting more spending, the Republicans can never beat them by promoting less spending. They have to promise tax cuts..."

Ed Crane, then-president of the Koch-funded Libertarian CATO Institute, noted in a memo that year: "When Jack Kemp, Newt Gingrich, Vin Weber, Connie Mack and the rest discovered Jude Wanniski and Art Laffer, they thought they'd died and gone to heaven. In supply-side economics they found a philosophy that gave them a free pass out of the debate over the proper role of government. Just cut taxes and grow the economy: government will shrink as a percentage of GDP, even if you don't cut spending. That's why you rarely, if ever, heard Kemp or Gingrich call for spending cuts, much less the elimination of programs and departments."

Two Santa Clauses had gone mainstream. Never again would Republicans worry about the debt or deficit when they were in office; and they knew well how to scream hysterically about it as soon as Democrats took power.

George W. Bush embraced the Two Santa Claus Theory with gusto, ramming through huge tax cuts – particularly a cut to the capital gains tax rate on people like himself who made their principle income from sitting around the mailbox waiting for their dividend or capital gains checks to arrive – and blew out federal spending.

Bush, with his wars, even out-spent Reagan, which nobody had ever thought would again be possible. And it all seemed to be going so well, just as it did in the early 1920s when a series of three consecutive Republican presidents cut income taxes on the uber-rich from over 70 percent to under 30 percent.

In 1929, pretty much everybody realized that instead of building factories with all that extra money, the rich had been pouring it into the stock market, inflating a bubble that – like an inexorable law of nature – would have to burst.

But the people who remembered that lesson were mostly all dead by 2005, when Jude Wanniski died and George Gilder celebrated the Reagan/Bush supply-side-created bubble economies in a Wall Street Journal eulogy:

"...Jude's charismatic focus on the tax on capital gains redeemed the fiscal policies of four administrations. ... Unbound by zero-sum economics, Jude forged the golden gift of a profound and passionate argument that the establishments of the mold must finally give way to the powers of the mind. ... He audaciously defied all the Buffetteers of the trade gap, the moldy figs of the Phillips Curve, the chic traders in money and principle, even the stultifying pillows of the Nobel Prize."

In reality, his tax cuts did what they have always done over the past 100 years – they initiated a bubble economy that would let the very rich skim the cream off the top just before the ceiling crashed in on working people. Just like today.

The Republicans got what they wanted from Wanniski's work. They held power for thirty years, made themselves trillions of dollars, and cut organized labor's representation in the workplace from around 25 percent when Reagan came into office to around 6 of the non-governmental workforce today.

Over time, and without raising the cap, Social Security will face an easily-solved crisis, and the GOP’s plan is for force Democrats to become the anti-Santa, yet again. If the GOP-controlled Congress continues to refuse to require rich people to pay into Social Security (any income over $128,000 is SS-tax-free), either benefits will be cut or the retirement age will have to be raised to over 70.

The GOP plan is to use this unnecessary, manufactured crisis as an opening to “reform” Social Security - translated: cut and privatize. Thus, forcing Democrats to become the Social Security anti-Santa a different way.

When this happens, Democrats must remember Jude Wanniski, and accept neither the cut to disability payments nor the entree to Social Security “reform.” They must demand the “cap” be raised, as Bernie Sanders proposed and the Democratic Party adopted in its 2016 platform.

And, hopefully, some of our media will begin to call the GOP out on the Two Santa Clauses program. It’s about time that Americans realized the details of the scam that’s been killing wages and enriching billionaires for nearly four decades.

Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and author of over 25 books in print.

[stilldropin20]

What in the Flyin Fuke does this have to do with the election? Next you're going to tell us the earth is flat - get over it. Trump said so, and we elected him. Or something about global warming not existing - nah, you're not that stupid.

I bring up elections because that's how you unseat a president, which is clearly your goal. That's why you brought up the susceptible to bribery stuff. You think this can get him impeached.

You seem to think that investigating whether or not Trump's lawyer paying off a porn star is a technically campaign finance law violation is significant. It's not. It doesn't change anything. It's outright laughable that you are going to focus on campaign finance regulations with the Clintons are worth over $100M thanks to very shady circumvention of campaign finance law over the years. But I'm tired of arguing about it. Go on believing that this time you'll finally get him.

I'm f'g tired of it too - because we have something new every week. By itself, I agree there's nothing impeachable there. But every f'n week there's some f'n shyt that we have to deal with from this gdpos President that you're gleeful about like a little girl in a brand new skirt waving ponpons. So yeah, it's f'n tiresome as hell. Whether or not he can be impeached is irrelevant as far as my saying anything. I'm gonna speak up regardless because I give a f'n shyt.

The only reason there is something “new “every week is because the existing deep state keeps leaking almost complete garbage nonsense with a skewed perception to make Trump look bad. And the liberal media runs with it all week long and in the case of collusion , all damn year long. 14 straight months of it 24/7.

And then 7 to 10 of you guys run with it on real Gm. Like it’s Gospel. The leaks were skewed the media got it wrong and you guys have had it wrong.

The only credible argument I’ve seen is that you simply don’t like trump and by “you,” I mean the liberal posters on this board. You guys just simply don’t like him, his style, how he negotiates and perhaps even his policies. But I think you guys are mostly just caught up in style and delivery to be honest.


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[Zonkerbl]

I think the current scandal is evidence that the abuse allegations are something Porter wouldn’t want to have become public and thus made him susceptible to blackmail. I admit it’s effed up though. I have a top secret clearance and I’ve done all sorts of stupid ****.

Say it ain't so, Zo!

Yep. Got charged with a felony. Threw myself on the mercy of the court, got anger management counseling, visits from a social worker, the whole nine yards. Most terrifying 18 months of my life. Almost ended my economics career before it started.

People from Ohio do stupid **** when they’re young. If not for the FBI’s generous forgiveness of my stupidity I’d probably be in Russia right now.

[bsilver]

I think the current scandal is evidence that the abuse allegations are something Porter wouldn’t want to have become public and thus made him susceptible to blackmail. I admit it’s effed up though. I have a top secret clearance and I’ve done all sorts of stupid ****.

Say it ain't so, Zo!

Yep. Got charged with a felony. Threw myself on the mercy of the court, got anger management counseling, visits from a social worker, the whole nine yards. Most terrifying 18 months of my life. Almost ended my economics career before it started.

People from Ohio do stupid **** when they’re young. If not for the FBI’s generous forgiveness of my stupidity I’d probably be in Russia right now.

Some try to make an argument that Porter wouldn't be susceptible to blackmail because the allegations were already known. That's really a poor argument because one of purposes of the background check is to look for patterns of behavior. If he's a serial abuser, then he's much more likely to do it again, which brings blackmail into play.

Don't know what you did Zonk, but they must have figured it was very very unlikely to happen again.

I went through a CIA clearance about 25 years ago, and the adjudication process dragged on for 17 months because I did poorly on the polygraph. Having a definite reaction to the question, "do you intend to do harm to the CIA?" was not helpful. Finally got the clearance and am now retired. Not sure if these White House clearances require a poly. Would love to see Kushner getting grilled on all the lies (so called omissions) on the SF86.

People like Porter and Kushner are unlikely to get their clearance. It sets a bad precedent for the security professionals who make these decisions to grant the clearance when they would routinely not grant clearances to others who had similar issues. So, to protect themselves against Trump, they leave the case in adjudication indefinitely, hoping the individual finally gives up. They're probably desperately hoping Kushner gets indicted and goes away.

In my case, they finally granted the clearance because it got escalated because the position was being held for me, so the higher ups forced security to make a decision. Before starting work, I had one last interview. The security specialist said he never met anyone who botched the "harm the CIA" question.

[stilldropin20]

I think the current scandal is evidence that the abuse allegations are something Porter wouldn’t want to have become public and thus made him susceptible to blackmail. I admit it’s effed up though. I have a top secret clearance and I’ve done all sorts of stupid ****.

Say it ain't so, Zo!

Yep. Got charged with a felony. Threw myself on the mercy of the court, got anger management counseling, visits from a social worker, the whole nine yards. Most terrifying 18 months of my life. Almost ended my economics career before it started.

People from Ohio do stupid **** when they’re young. If not for the FBI’s generous forgiveness of my stupidity I’d probably be in Russia right now.

Here’s the thing though. If the FBI already knew you did that stupid stuff, it’s really only the FBI who could blackmail you. Foreign countries will not be able to blackmail you because it something that is already known.

In the case of Rob Porter some foreign country was putting pressure on him to do something or another he could simply inform the FBI who already knows. So I’m just not following the susceptibility to blackmail narrative.


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[Wizardspride]

Induveca....

Read on Twitter

[gtn130]

Induveca....

Read on Twitter

Funny that this came out almost simultaneously as Nate denying that Wikileaks has any association with Russia

[TGW]

More proof that corporate democrats like Ralph Northram are horrible and are just Republican-lite:

https://theintercept.com/2018/02/13/virginia-dominion-energy-bill/?menu=1

ELECTIONS STILL MATTER: VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS STUN STATE ENERGY MONOPOLY IN LATE-NIGHT REJECTION
David Dayen
February 13 2018, 1:00 p.m.
DOMINION ENERGY, THE utility monopoly in Virginia, suffered a rare loss on the floor of the state House of Delegates late Monday night, when their ability to double-charge ratepayers for infrastructure improvements was stripped out of a controversial bill.

The bill, which sailed through the Senate and is expected to pass the House of Delegates on Tuesday, would let Dominion and other utilities in the state use excess profits to pay for the upgrades, like modernization of the energy grid or renewable generation. Because Dominion could also use those upgrades as a rationale to increase its base power rates, critics charged that utilities could get ratepayers to pay twice for the same infrastructure. Virginia’s State Corporation Commission and the state Office of the Attorney General agreed.

Senate populists tried to put a restriction on the double-dipping in their version of the bill, but lost. But the House of Delegates, with all 49 Democrats joining six Republicans, were successful in passing such an amendment in the 100-member chamber.

The move is a major victory for Virginia’s large freshman class of Democratic legislators, many of whom campaigned against Dominion in their races and refused to take campaign contributions from them. It’s an act of defiance against the state’s most powerful corporate donor, as well as the Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, who endorsed the overall bill. While the legislation still has problems — Delegate Lee Carter called it “a steaming pile of garbage” to The Intercept yesterday — Dominion losing a vote of any kind in the Virginia legislature, even an amendment vote, is a political earthquake.

“I’ve never seen Dominion lobbyists look so sad,” a senior Democratic lobbyist told The Huffington Post, which earlier reported the news.

If the House version passes as expected, it would have to be reconciled with the Senate version, with the opportunity for quietly dropping the amendment still possible. But Dominion and Northam had contended that double-dipping already wasn’t allowed in the Senate version. The House amendment merely clarified that point. So it’s tricky politically to justify removing it.

“If there is a double dip in this bill, passing the amendment will fix the problem,” said House of Delegates Democratic Leader David Toscano in a floor speech before the vote.

Northam’s spokesperson Ofirah Yheskel reacted to the amendment by saying the office was “reviewing the legislation and will continue to work with the General Assembly to pass the best product we can for Virginians.”

The Republican majority, after mostly voting against the amendment, moved to reconsider it once it passed and voted for it en masse in a voice vote, avoiding being on the record for allowing a power company to charge customers twice for the same thing.

The overall bill still restricts the SCC from altering utility rates for up to six years at a time, while also limiting oversight of what type of infrastructure projects a utility can build. It remains to be seen whether the grassroots organizing that led to Dominion’s historic loss on the amendment will be able to overcome support for the entire bill.

Thank goodness for the progressives in the Virginia House of Delegates WHO ACTUALLY WORK for the people, unlike that scumbag Northram who's just a puppet of Dominion Power.

[verbal8]

In the case of Rob Porter some foreign country was putting pressure on him to do something or another he could simply inform the FBI who already knows. So I’m just not following the susceptibility to blackmail narrative.

The same way those at the Trump Tower meeting informed the FBI?

[stilldropin20]

Say it ain't so, Zo!

Yep. Got charged with a felony. Threw myself on the mercy of the court, got anger management counseling, visits from a social worker, the whole nine yards. Most terrifying 18 months of my life. Almost ended my economics career before it started.

People from Ohio do stupid **** when they’re young. If not for the FBI’s generous forgiveness of my stupidity I’d probably be in Russia right now.

Some try to make an argument that Porter wouldn't be susceptible to blackmail because the allegations were already known. That's really a poor argument because one of purposes of the background check is to look for patterns of behavior. If he's a serial abuser, then he's much more likely to do it again, which brings blackmail into play.

Don't know what you did Zonk, but they must have figured it was very very unlikely to happen again.

I went through a CIA clearance about 25 years ago, and the adjudication process dragged on for 17 months because I did poorly on the polygraph. Having a definite reaction to the question, "do you intend to do harm to the CIA?" was not helpful. Finally got the clearance and am now retired. Not sure if these White House clearances require a poly. Would love to see Kushner getting grilled on all the lies (so called omissions) on the SF86.

People like Porter and Kushner are unlikely to get their clearance. It sets a bad precedent for the security professionals who make these decisions to grant the clearance when they would routinely not grant clearances to others who had similar issues. So, to protect themselves against Trump, they leave the case in adjudication indefinitely, hoping the individual finally gives up. They're probably desperately hoping Kushner gets indicted and goes away.

In my case, they finally granted the clearance because it got escalated because the position was being held for me, so the higher ups forced security to make a decision. Before starting work, I had one last interview. The security specialist said he never met anyone who botched the "harm the CIA" question.

It was 15 years ago for porter So again I’m still not following this propensity to do it again narrative as a susceptibility to blackmail kind of issue. So that should just not be an issue. The issue is that that type of behavior is not only not cool it’s entirely unacceptable and once it becomes some kind of publicly known thing you have to fire the guy because you cannot promote that type of behavior in the White House. They fired the guy. Any normal media would cover this differently and more fairly. They would say that this dirt on Porter got leaked, it became publicly known, and congratulations to the president for doing the right thing and firing the man. If this were Barack Obama CNN would have covered it differently. That Obama was a hero to women for firing this man and not excepting this kind of behavior. Because this is Donald Trump, instead they just spin it up into some more negative garbage. all part of their death of 1000 cuts.

And frankly the American people see right through this. CNN is hemorrhaging viewers. People are not watching. They cannot stand it. It’s really beyond ridiculous at this point. It’s been reported that Massive layoffs are ahead at CNN. And CNN does not care. They are determined to stay this course.

As for Kushner, Rob Porter and anyone else, it’s the president of United States that ultimately determines the classification of any various material, source or method. the president of United States pretty much determines who can see what and why. In the curious case of this particular president, No other person on the entire planet has been more thoroughly vetted than Donald Trump. And I think I can say ever.

He has been vetted. He is the president. The people of the United States trust him with those decisions. Yet some deep state, unelected and what is likely previously appointed by the previous administration employees have been leaking inconsequential garbage that is leaked in is skewed way from the beginning and the liberal media ready to run with that nonsense is the only reason why there any trust issues between some people and the president of the United States. This is a man that has been in the public guy since I was 7 years old. He is vetted.

But he has deep stators and the FBI thinking they somehow know better than him. It reminds me of a time on a sub, Way back when, that a newcomer, douche bag in ops thought that the sub couldn’t go somewhere and do something based on some weird principal this new comer had. And back then I remember listening to this guy for about an hour I’m thinking good point. But then I walked away and thought “who the phuck does this guy think he phucking is? “

That case needs no further explanation, in this case, the American people have phucking spoken


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[Zonkerbl]

I wholeheartedly endorse the whole MSM frenzy that is treating Trump exactly the same way the alt-right derposphere treated Hillary. Trump deserves everything he gets and more and I have absolutely zero sympathy, particularly because there is actual evidence that Trump committed actual crimes - his own words.

This whole battle between right wing and main stream media is intriguing to me. You all might remember that I asked earlier in this thread what is the penalty for lying now. As annoying as the stream of lies from the alt-right is, it's supercharged the demand for fact checking from the non-insane media. So as crazy as this sounds I think the whole Breitbart stream-of-lies industry has been good for professional journalism.

Now all we have to do is secede from the idiots and let them stew in their own juices. Let them base all their policy decisions on what their billionaire overlords tell them the Bible says. I'm sure that will work out for them just fine.

[Zonkerbl]

In the case of Rob Porter some foreign country was putting pressure on him to do something or another he could simply inform the FBI who already knows. So I’m just not following the susceptibility to blackmail narrative.

The same way those at the Trump Tower meeting informed the FBI?

I wonder if that's it, that he didn't disclose to the FBI voluntarily what happened, but they had to find out about it after interviewing his exes. That's a huge nono. Now it's not the blackmailability but the willingness to lie to the FBI part that's really at issue.

[Pointgod]

I wholeheartedly endorse the whole MSM frenzy that is treating Trump exactly the same way the alt-right derposphere treated Hillary. Trump deserves everything he gets and more and I have absolutely zero sympathy, particularly because there is actual evidence that Trump committed actual crimes - his own words.

This whole battle between right wing and main stream media is intriguing to me. You all might remember that I asked earlier in this thread what is the penalty for lying now. As annoying as the stream of lies from the alt-right is, it's supercharged the demand for fact checking from the non-insane media. So as crazy as this sounds I think the whole Breitbart stream-of-lies industry has been good for professional journalism.

Now all we have to do is secede from the idiots and let them stew in their own juices. Let them base all their policy decisions on what their billionaire overlords tell them the Bible says. I'm sure that will work out for them just fine.

The crazy thing is that the media covers Trump like any other President. They are basically falling over themselves to give him credit. He read from a teleprompter, omg presidential. He’s appealing to his base while alienating 80% of America, he’s a man of his word. The fact is that Trump looks so bad to the mainstream media is that Trump is a complete **** up and his administration is one of the most corrupt and dysfunctional in history. Meanwhile the alt right has to rely on made up lies and conspiracy theories to hate on Hillary. And every single criticism of Hillary can be applied to Trump tenfold so screw the alt right.

[cammac]

As a outsider to the USA and country that has strict gun laws with the gun violence we do have in the vast majority of cases are weapons smuggled in from the USA. The USA has become completely immune to gun violence and the reality is that major events are no longer news worthy in that it makes headlines for a day or two then disappears from public consciousness. The NRA & there surrogates the Republican Party have done a remarkable marketing job in anesthetizing the American people to the horror of gun violence. They get judges on the bench who follow a idiotic part of the constitution that was conceived in a era where flintlocks was a form of protection not assault rifles.

But the events of yesterday will just be a cloudy image by the weekend till next time.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/2/14/1713789/-Yep-Your-Prayers-Are-Noxious-And-That-s-Biblical
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/2/14/1741437/-A-reminder-of-the-NRA-s-top-ten-funded-elected-officials-in-both-the-House-and-the-Senate
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/2/14/1741482/-How-you-know-nothing-will-change-Rubio-kicks-the-too-soon-wagon-into-gear

JUST ADDED THIS
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2015/12/4/9850572/gun-control-us-japan-switzerland-uk-canada

[montestewart]

In the case of Rob Porter some foreign country was putting pressure on him to do something or another he could simply inform the FBI who already knows. So I’m just not following the susceptibility to blackmail narrative.

The same way those at the Trump Tower meeting informed the FBI?

I wonder if that's it, that he didn't disclose to the FBI voluntarily what happened, but they had to find out about it after interviewing his exes. That's a huge nono. Now it's not the blackmailability but the willingness to lie to the FBI part that's really at issue.

Dad may have lied about multiple affairs, cocaine addiction, cross dressing, and losing his job. But CNN. Mom's a serial liar who told her kids for years that their father was a good man. They're all liars, but which one is a man? Read my posts from 13 months ago to find out. What's the tallest IQ ever? Let's just say this post is ten feet tall. Yeah boy, sometimes I even surprise myself!

[gtn130]

As a outsider to the USA and country that has strict gun laws with the gun violence we do have in the vast majority of cases are weapons smuggled in from the USA. The USA has become completely immune to gun violence and the reality is that major events are no longer news worthy in that it makes headlines for a day or two then disappears from public consciousness. The NRA & there surrogates the Republican Party have done a remarkable marketing job in anesthetizing the American people to the horror of gun violence. They get judges on the bench who follow a idiotic part of the constitution that was conceived in a era where flintlocks was a form of protection not assault rifles.

But the events of yesterday will just be a cloudy image by the weekend till next time.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/2/14/1713789/-Yep-Your-Prayers-Are-Noxious-And-That-s-Biblical
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/2/14/1741437/-A-reminder-of-the-NRA-s-top-ten-funded-elected-officials-in-both-the-House-and-the-Senate
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/2/14/1741482/-How-you-know-nothing-will-change-Rubio-kicks-the-too-soon-wagon-into-gear

Yeah it's awful. Basically after Sandy Hook the battle was lost forever. Nothing will ever move the country off this position. The NRA is a terrorist organization

[cammac]

A few days ago if I remember correctly that Nate was pontificating one of the excuses about Trump not putting sanctions on Russia was to foster co-operation between the two countries in Syria.
Now the USA in self defense with allies have killed up to or more than 200 Russians, Wagners ( Russian Blackwater ) and Syrian Army. It is difficult to get exact numbers because Putin controls the media in Russia and getting independent journalism is difficult and dangerous for those involved .

In “self-defense,” the U.S. launched a large-scale artillery and air assault to repel the attackers. Using F-15s, F-22s, AC-130 gunships, Apache helicopters, MQ-9 unmanned drones, and artillery, U.S. forces killed an estimated 100 attackers, according to some Russian media reports, and destroyed numerous tanks and artillery pieces. Among the reported fatalities, according to a Pentagon official, were Syrian Arab Army soldiers enlisted in the “ISIS Hunters” unit, as well as Russian mercenaries working for Wagner, a private military company under the command-and-control of the Russian Ministry of Defense that has been tasked with re-taking oilfields from ISIS.

For instance, Igor Girkin, known by his nom de guerre of Col. Igor Strelkov, a former Russian intelligence operative who commanded separatist forces in east Ukraine before he was sidelined by rivals, took to the social-media platform Vkontakte to claim that no regular Russian forces were in the area, but that “2 tactical divisions of Wagner” “were hit by strikes from American aviation. One is practically totally destroyed, and the second is smashed 'to smithereens.’” Strelkov, who is based in Moscow, estimated that as many as “100” Wagner mercenaries were killed. And while he once inadvertently furnished the first real evidence that pro-Russian separatists downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014, after they mistook the commercial airliner for a Ukrainian military cargo plane, he cannot be counted as a credible source.Today, Bloomberg News appeared to corroborate the Vzglyad allegations, reporting that “[m]ore than 200 mercenaries, mostly Russians” were killed in the episode, citing an unnamed U.S. official and “three Russians familiar with the matter.”

Thus far, Moscow has not even acknowledged a single loss, much less responded in kind to the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition. Instead, a Russian defense official couched the official response in more broadly anti-American terms: that the attack ”demonstrated that the true goal of continuation of the unlawful presence of USA forces on Syrian territory is not a battle with the international terrorist group ISIS, but a capture and hold of economic assets under its control that belong only to the Syrian Arab Republic.”

PMCs have the same attraction to Putin that all proxies, mercenaries, or contractors have to all states: deniability and low-cost. They are expendable, easily written off as patriotic “volunteers” and not state actors, whose demise needn’t be counted as wartime losses, and whose possibly lethal behavior lowers the risk of escalation with the enemy. Dead mercenaries avoid the unwanted press and attention that comes with young army conscripts returning home in zinc-lined coffins.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/did-the-us-really-kill-200-russians-in-syriaor-just-a-few?ref=wrap