It isn't "Bed of Nails". It's the "Big Lie."
It's Mr Burns having every possible disease at once in a stable equilibrium.
At work and haven't read the whole post, just really glad this quote got promoted to the main page. When I read it yesterday I thought, "I need to hold on to that".
The other problem talking (and thinking) about Trump is that if one pushes too hard on the idea that, "everything he does really is worse than you would expect" when he does one thing that's merely normal-bad it takes some of wind out of the sails of that argument.
I'd say two things about that: (1) It's hard to talk about Trump without making him sound like a caricature of himself, and yet, once you turn him into a caricature it's hard to convince anybody who disagrees. (2) It's easy to slide from observations to (implied) predictions. "Trump plans to appoint Flynn to a national security post. That's awful, he's a terrible person." Is a (correct) observation. But it's easy for the mind to jump to, "maybe he will try to implement a ban on Muslims." If the prediction turns out to be false, it's tempting to think that the original observation is also false and that Flynn isn't as terrible as he sounded. But that would be wrong; he can still be terrible and not do all of the bad things that one might fear.
[Having written that I see that I could have saved myself some effort if I'd just started with the final sentence.]
Since we're analogizing anyway, I think there's something else going on in addition to the bed of nails effect. In Brazil during their period of hyperinflation in the 80s prices changed so fast that many items were priced in points that you had to look up in a table printed in the newspaper, showing how many cruzados (or whatever - they went through a bunch of currencies) corresponded to a point, inflation being so bad that prices were literally changing day to day. My ex's mother had a tendency towards drama, so when she said something outrageous we'd talk about "applying the table" to correct it down to something not-crazy. I think there's something similar going on with a lot of Trump supporters. He says absurd shit that he cannot possibly mean, so they apply the table to allow for his natural tendency to say insane shit, correcting his statements down to something less than utterly batshit crazy.
From talking to a few Trump supporters it's clear that at least for some his crazy and evil statements are taken not to mean anything like what he actually said. "I know more about ISIS than the generals" becomes "I am very concerned about ISIS and will attack them vigorously." "Build a wall and make Mexico pay for it" becomes "take serious steps against illegal immigration."
I think that the truth of it is that there is a table of corrections for Trump's words, and he won't do (and doesn't believe) half the crazy shit he says. His supporters know this and project their desires onto the table, reading him as meaning what they want to hear even as he says stupid crazy bullshit. Everyone else sort of has to believe in the table simply because he's taken so many inconsistent positions that he cannot possibly simply mean what he's said, and each crazy utterance reinforces the fact that there has to be a table, so the statement need not be taken at face value.
5: I can't prove this, but I think his supporters want the stuff he says to literally happen. The "applying the table" stuff is probably Republicans who opposed him in the primaries, but slowly came around to voting for him in the general.
he can still be terrible and not do all of the bad things that one might fear
The "good news", I suppose, is that enough of the bad things are already happening that one can readily say, "There are signs that he could do X, but even if he doesn't, he's already doing Y. And neither of those is acceptable."
he won't do (and doesn't believe) half the crazy shit he says
On the other hand, he says and, presumably, believes a hurricane of crazy shit, because one would have to in order to survive in such a repellent, corrupt skin.
I've never heard of that Brazil points thing. That's amazing.
6: I think there are tranches, if you will, of his supporters: 1. Clinton-haters, who genuinely might have stayed home or voted for some other Dem; 2. reluctant supporters, who preferred somebody else, but have been fully co-opted; 3. full-throated supporters who don't expect any results, but are just happy their guy will be in charge, screwing over everyone they hate; and 4. the the deplorable, who don't care if he means anything he said, they recognize an opportunity when it arises.
1. is a pretty small slice IMO, and they're worthless; they value their grudge against HRC more than their country, and fighting Trump now would be an admission of just how ugly that is. Expect them to pretend that everything is SOP.
2. is a really big chunk, but will use whatever BS excuses the rightwing media produces to minimize his failures and dishonesty ("the table", I suppose). If/when he definitively fails, they'll pretend they never supported him (see Gulf War/Bush).
3. is also a big chunk, and they are un-disappointable. Trump could lose Texas to Mexico in a ground war and they would insist that he was a winner.
4. is the scariest, of course. Trump could let them down, but they're going to push for everything they can get until they're stopped by some other force. Mere disappointment wouldn't suffice to stop them (possibly--just possibly--a Trump who had instantly moved to the center after winning, who appointed a bipartisan cabinet, etc. might have done it, but who knows?).
1 is Comey's target, 2 is old school Republicans, 3 is Fox News watchers, 4 is Neo-Nazis.
Another nail: the Trump Foundation has admitted to the self-dealing in its IRS form. They also had to confirm in writing that they wouldn't use its money to pay the Trump University settlement.
I think the breakdown in 10 is pretty good. The desire of people in group 3 to see their enemies suffer is a big driver for that group, IMO. These are the guys who roll coal and the like.
I think the problem is that at least Brazil had a consensus reality that everyone could agree on - the value of points in the table might change day to day, but everyone could agree on the same table. With Trump, we can all believe that some of his stuff may be corrected by a table, but no one is sure exactly what's in the table and what is real.
I think a big piece of Trump's support comes from people who don't like feeling uncomfortable about the things they might say or think -- who are offended by the idea that they should reflect on how their words might be taken by other people.
Trump demonstrates that we can say absolutely anything. The ability to do that is people want back when they seek to Make America Great Again.
The thing that Rather points out -- that's how the media was overwhelmed by Trump. Which falsehood do you spotlight? Which loathsome statement do you examine at length? There's only so much time in a day, or in a broadcast.
I think that Rather is close but not quite right. The problem is that the media are used to covering scandals that happen to people that know they've done something wrong, and tries to cover it up and minimise it. There is a kind of back and forth rhythm to the coverage that is familiar to all the players.
Take this hypothetical example:
Day 1: BREAKING NEWS! Johnny Cash shot a man in Reno just to watch him die!
Day 2: Cash: no I didn't, I've never even been to Reno.
Day 3: Witness describes seeing Johnny Cash in a hotel lobby in Reno.
Day 4: Cash: yes, I went there, I must have forgotten. But I never shot anyone.
Day 5: Reno PD leaks that they are looking for "a growly voiced guy wearing black and carrying a guitar".
Day 6: shooting "was an accident", Cash claims.
Day 7: Analysis- what does this mean for Cash's commercial prospects? Our special report from inside Folsom Prison.
And so on.
But with Trump, the problem is that he says these things out in the open and doesn't even try to cover them up. So it's more like:
Day 1: BREAKING NEWS: Johnny Cash shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. "Yes I did", says Cash.
Day 2: ....
I mean, where does the story go from there?
Especially since it's more like:
Day 1: BREAKING NEWS: Johnny Cash shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. "Yes I did", says Cash.
Day 2: BREAKING NEWS: Cash admits taking shot of cocaine and shooting his woman down.
Day 3: BREAKING NEWS: Cash falls into ring of fire.
Day 4: BREAKING NEWS: Cash criticises Jon Stewart for changing name from Sue
5, 10, and 18 all seem accurate and thoughtful to me. There was an intersting NYT column analyxing Italy's recovery from Berlusconi
Basically, focus on policy failure and actual fraud rather than personality.
To that end, there are reports in the Argentine press that T asked Argentina's president to check on some permitting problems with DJT buildings in Buenos Aires during the phone call between heads of state. I would be very interested in any legislative effort to get a hold of the recording and then follow up, because emoluments. My plan is to find the most credible report I can and email rep and senator asking that they consider joining an ethics inquiry or starting one. Any better way to proceed?
If we start arguing about a goddamn analogy I swear I am going to have a goddamn emotional breakdown. This is not Trump's America. This is unfogged. There are rules. Has the whole world gone crazy?! AM I THE ONLY ONE AROUND HERE WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THE RULES?! THERE IS AN ANALOGY BAN!!
21: Thank you, urple. for standing up for decency in a fallen world.
So you're saying it's like that time in The Big Lebowski where Walter Sobchak says "Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules." (I mean, not exactly like that, but close enough?)
Urple's sweater sweater preferences differ considerably frm Sobchak's, completely different situatoin.
at least Brazil had a consensus reality that everyone could agree on - the value of points in the table might change day to day, but everyone could agree on the same table
Literal truth. From Tooze's stats book:
To guard against accusations of fraud, the [consumer-price survey] returns from the municipal officers were to be counter-signed by local committees representing employers and labour in each town. [...] This procedure for agreeing the return was vital, since the overriding priority at the municipal level was to obtain a consensual basis on which to make local wage adjustments.Establishing consensual reality was a prerequisite for the survival of the Weimar Republic. Turns out it's a prerequisite for every republic, but lots of us have dropped the ball.
4,5: What is your support for the proposition that he'll do anything other than his most extreme terrible things? Who has he brought into his inner circle to be the voice of restraint? What has he done so far that is less-bad than expected?
18 is great. I think 20 last should be sat on until you have some idea what the Trump-Pence dynamic is.
One week later Cash tweets: "NYTimes lies. Says I admitted to shooting a man in Reno. I never said that. Unfair!"
23: It's more like the photographic negative of when the captain in Pirates of the Caribbean says that the Pirate's Code isn't really rules, it's more like guidelines.
Berlusconi would still be in office today if not for the coup against him by the EU Commission in 2011. I'm not convinced that lessons from the opposition to him will serve us well.
21: it's not an analogy! It is a hypothetical example used to illustrate a process! They are different things!
26.Last Bolton, who literally wants to bomb Tehran, is not yet Secretary of State, hopefully will not be. Manafort, who is most deeply controlled by Russia, is not prominent. He's apparently not planning to prosecute Clinton. Theft and bluster, avoidance of any action where objectively assessed failure is a plausible outcome.
Kleptocracy and haphazard civil rights and environmental abuse.
28: That shooting a man in Reno thing, that's just locker-room talk.
Everybody shoots people in Reno. It happens.
16.last is easy: HRC's emails!
The difference in coverage between Comey's October Surprise and Trump's fraud settlement was breathtaking, and should have led to mass suicide among journalists.
21: it's not an analogy! It is a hypothetical example used to illustrate a process!
No it isn't.
36.last: How do you know that didn't happen?
"Trump University and Presidential Impeachment" is available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2841306
You're the one who wanted to quit the act, ya Brexit voter, so shut it.
I was reading someone on FB (forget who, sorry) who was analogizing Trump's election to W's win in 2000. It was the first presidential election I was old enough to vote in, and while I certainly didn't like W for all the standard reasons, I had no sense that he would in any way be catastrophic. And then it was. This time, it feels absolutely catastrophic, and I can't figure out whether I'm now residing digitally in a liberal bubble away from mainstream Americans who follow politics moderately ot whether this round is different now that I've seen a glimpse of what horrible governance looks like. Does it not look like a disaster to "normal" folks?
It does not. At xfit this morning, talk turned to college students who felt like they couldn't go home for Thanksgiving, post-election. I think everyone present today would have voted for Clinton, but several of them felt like the students were being melodramatic. "Can't you put politics aside and focus on family and food!"
should have led to mass suicide among journalists.
Journalists were the ones who did it.
The news today about Trump leaning on the President of Argentina to get some building permits approved for a Trump Tower in Buenos Aires was fun. Corrupt as hell. And yet, I'm sure nothing will come of it, except for some accelerated building permits in Buenos Aires.
44 and the people literally heiling his surragates were two of the most recent things that contributed to this post.
Back in Bush 1.0's day, the Republicans still considered the Nazis to be the bad guys.
45 The literal heiling just blows my mind. The shits really are coming out of the woodwork.
You calculate the expected value of a presidency by assessing the various hypothetical outcomes of the presidency (assigning each hypothetical outcome a numerical grade from 0 to 100, where 0 is the end of life on earth and 100 is utopia), then assigning a probability to each outcome (0<p<1), multiplying each hypothetical outcome by its probability value and then summing the results.
On this measure, Trump is so much worse than GWB 2000 that it's laughable even to compare them.
the people literally heiling his surragates
That video was scary as shit. It was like it was a clip from the beginning of a movie about what happens when a wave of fascism sweeps over America.
Rats have a well-known Nazi fetish.
The shits really are coming out of the woodwork.
I mean, we already knew this, but it is even more clear that (at the appointed levels) anyone drawn into the Trump administration is a truly awful person. If it somehow wasn't clear before, now we know that for all Trump appointees, the flaw is there.
44. There's either a recording or it's official business on an unsecured line in which case the NSA has it, and there's explicit constitutional language forbidding at least similar beavior, maybe forbidding exactly this. Seriously, trying to start a legislative inquiry seems like a completely worthwhile step. I can't be the first person with this idea...
Obviously you can translate the result into rat orgasms if you want. Like any scientific result.
54: Are you thinking of the House Oversight Committee?
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/elijah-cummings-trump-financial-arrangements-231342
I've been calling for days, gotten through once.
Seriously, trying to start a legislative inquiry seems like a completely worthwhile step.
Republicans will never go for it. Its not like this was a case of poor decision making surrounding the hosting of an email server.
Is the minority on the House Oversight Committee empowered to do anything about anything?
Let's elaborate 58. There is almost no crime that Trump could commit that would lead to his impeachment by the current congress, as long as he gives them what they want (tax cuts for the rich, deregulation for friendly industries, a share of the looting for their friends and allies). If he doesn't play along or even thinks about getting serious about some of the "populist" ideas he flirted with in his campaign, then Republicans in congress will quickly get very serious about these "conflicts", and Trump will be impeached.
At least, that's their plan.
In the minority, the House Oversight Committee can hold hearings, all of which are apparently required to be covered in depth on Fox News and Breibart.
Trump might also be impeached if he just flat out sells out the U.S. to Russia or something.
the people literally heiling his surrogates
To be clear, this was only about 200 people. It was a hotel conference room. Not a giant stadium. You can find 200 people who'll do anything.
I mean, he would also be impeached if he did something that made him genuinely unpopular with the republican base. (They'd still have Pence to give them what they want.) But I'm not sure what exactly Trump could do at this point to make himself unpopular with the Republcian base.
You want a toe? I can get you a toe.
But I'm not sure what exactly Trump could do at this point to make himself unpopular with the Republcian base.
Use medicaid to pay for an abortion for a pregnant transgendered man.
"I could stand in the middle of Reno and shoot somebody (just to watch him die) and I wouldn't lose voters."
Note that they post it online as "Seig Heil" which is their way of saying they're like Nazis but also dumb as fuck. Maybe that's the true definition of neo-Nazi.
But I'm not sure what exactly Trump could do at this point to make himself unpopular with the Republican base.
Decide not to prosecute Hillary Clinton.
70: A few may be disappointed but most will coo with admiration, "He's so Presidential!" "And those nasty liberals said he was vindictive!"
I can't tell if 70 is a joke. You realize he announced today that he doesn't plan to prosecute Hillary, right?
At the risk of being boring: having Republicans control all three branches of government but being unable to usher in an economic golden age. It's always the economy. People won't literally go hungry for Trump. This is why he's expected to spend the first few years raiding the treasury and tossing a suitable number of dollars at voters, right (say one to every thousand he takes for himself)? Then presumably a war if that's not enough stimulus. It's tedious and predictable as hell.
Yes, I do realize. Soon they'll find out that he doesn't plan to build a physical wall.
John Scalzi continues to be good.
I'm not sure what to pull from that as an excerpt, so I'll just recommend the whole thing.
44. There's either a recording or it's official business on an unsecured line in which case the NSA has it, and there's explicit constitutional language forbidding at least similar beavior, maybe forbidding exactly this. Seriously, trying to start a legislative inquiry seems like a completely worthwhile step
This is something I've been curious about. What exactly is the legal status of PEOTUS, viz a viz laws that apply to POTUS? Is there a subset that automatically apply to PEOTUS as well? Is there an entirely separate set of laws that are similar to some of the laws that apply to POTUS? Is there anything formal at all?
viz a viz
Let's not enact the decline of civilization here, too, please.
The middle "a" wasn't supposed to be italicized.
Wait, Trump also announced today that he now thinks climate change is real and manmade after all?? Ok, on top of the Clinton thing, that's almost enough to make me think he may be realizing that being president is going to suck, and he's trying to manueiver congress into impeaching him.
To be clear, the expected value of a Pence presidency is only very marginally higher than the expected value of a Trump presidency. (It does have lower error bars, though.)
Much more likely than 79 is: Trump just wants everyone to talk about his "evolving" views on climate change today, instead of continuing to look at his conflicts of interest, tax frauds, etc.
76 last- IANwhatever but I doubt it (aside from SS protection but candidates get that too). He's not even formally elected until the EC votes are counted, right?
Fuck you Scalzi, I shop at Men's Wearhouse (not Warehouse).
In my defence, kind of, I was multitasking while posting.
On climate change, unless he's said something else other than the NYT comments, it's nowhere near as strong as saying it's real and man-made. He said there's "some connectivity", "something" between human activity and climate change. It's definitely a softening of the official position, to the extent you could discern one from his previous pronouncements, but it's hardly an endorsement of the science.
81 is probably right.
I think Rather has a point about effective opposition. There's nothing wrong with having more than one line of attack, but if there are too many, even good arguments get lost in the shuffle. Opposition to appointments should really be calibrated to likelihood of success, which is then also a function of the politics. If the opposition is going to beat no more than 5% of the appointments, it's worth choosing wisely.
An actual shift on climate change by Trump would have to take the form of not putting a global warming denialist in charge of the transition for the EPA. But he already put Myron Ebell in that slot.
So, any bullshit he says to the Times about "some connectivity" or "something" is just him talking out of his ass, again.
I do think it was a bit gangster of the Times to run with that quote, though. I mean, obviously he doesn't mean it and probably doesn't really care either way, but its important to a lot of his supporters, so putting that on the front page of the NYT will help to undermine their confidence in him.
But he hasn't put anybody in any slot. I think there's a 30% chance he ends up appointing completely different people come January, based on whoever flattered him best.
57 and 61 are helpful, thanks to both of you.
Oversight committee still good to know about, but both an Argentine spokesperson who says he was on the call and the embassy deny that the building came up during the conversation.
Through all my wild years, my mad existence, I grabbed her pussy.
So keep your distance.
I don't know any more of the song than those lines.
Did anybody notice that flap when Trump was going to skip the NYT thing because he said they had changed the plans? And then he looked stupid because it turned out they hadn't changed the plans? And then there were leaks that said Preibus had been the one to tell Trump that they changed the plans?
Who ever those leakers seemed very eager to hang Preibus out to dry. I'm guessing people from Bannon's camp. This may be evidence that the two halves of the new West Wing really can't stand each other, and will do what they can to undermine each other. It's going to be interesting watching how that plays out.
Who ever those leakers seemed very eager to hang Preibus out to dry. I'm guessing people from Bannon's camp. This may be evidence that the two halves of the new West Wing really can't stand each other, and will do what they can to undermine each other. It's going to be interesting watching how that plays out.
Yeah, I've been wondering how this is going to play out. Trump's closest advisers belong to two very different groups that hate each other on both ideological and personal levels. Plus for some period he's also going to be getting advice from Obama! It's really hard to predict the effect of all this on Trump, and he's very unpredictable to start with.
I mean, in the NYT interview itself he basically walked back all of his campaign promises. Who saw that coming?
Who saw that coming?
Preibus, apparently, who tried to stop him.
But Bannon wanted him to go ahead with it? I mean, maybe he did, I guess. It's just hard to know what to think of any of it.
Maybe Priebus was just more cognizant that Trump was likely go stream-of-consciousness for the interview and wanted more prep time.
Whatever his reasoning, it's quite telling that his way of getting Trump to do what he wanted was to lie to him about what someone else had done.
I'm serious guys. Let's get on the dark net and make fake news stories. Ryan called Trump a baby fisted tyrant. Priebus said hand size is indicative of penis size.
Trump seems to be doing a pretty good job of sowing discord among the ranks himself.
I wonder if anyone had the foresight to invest in cocaine futures.
If a deregulated contraband futures market doesn't exist, the dark web is an astounding disappointment.
It's really hard to predict the effect of all this on Trump, and he's very unpredictable to start with.
He seeks approval from the wealthy and the well-heeled and the powerful, and he desperately craves admiration. So he'll go along with whatever he last heard from the latest person from whom he desires fulsome praise and unconditional approbation. Until someone else comes along whose approval he seeks, who tells him to do the exact opposite!
So, yeah, very unpredictable (in a predictable sort of way).
It's 5 am. Why is everybody sleeping?
115 Second or third career?
I'm at work too.
There's a guy in a Trump sweat shirt busy not breaking stereotypes.
I'll be drunk soon in a hotel bar (meeting a friend who's leaving town).
Anyone read that NY Times Trump transcript? Holy shit we're so screwed. The planet is fucked.
I'm at my desk doing administrative work in service of a project that is sloppy, worthless science from start to finish, a waste of public funds and everyone's time - above all mine.
||
Is anybody else enjoying the fiasco in Korea? It's awesome at almost a Propaganda Due level. I'm wondering how Trump will counter in order to keep America in the lead on the batshit crazy cultish weirdness front. Maybe he'll try to make Scientology the national religion or something.
|>
As if he even knows where Korea is.
To an extent, the US has outsourced its crazy cultish weirdness to Korean suppliers already. Twelve serving members of Congress crowned the Reverend Sun Myung Moon in a basement of the Dirksen Building in 2004.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jun/24/usa.religion
An Illinois congressman, Danny Davis, wore white gloves and carried a purple cushion bearing a medieval-style "international crown of peace", which was placed on Mr Moon's head... The event was an "innocent ceremony," Mr Davis told the Guardian. "It was a banquet to give out awards. I didn't have any way of knowing Reverend Moon would say he was the messiah, or whatever he said."Yes, Congressman, that is indeed what he said.
Samsung is getting terrific word of mouth publicity at the airports.
124 He doesn't need to know where it is to bomb it.
Where does everyone think the likeliest places for Trump to destabilize delicate geopolitical situations?
1. The Baltics/Russia (an early casualty of Trumpian know nothing Putinophilia)
2. PRC/ROC (as if Trump could ever grasp the nuanced diplospeak required to keep this precarious balancing act going, besides, how much does Trump owe to the Bank of China?)
3. DPRK/ROK (will ROK go nuclear if Trump tries to extort more money for American protection - after Obama had already done so too - apparently there's already a constituency for this path in ROK.
4. Japan/PRC? (Why the fuck not? And see #3)
5. Russia/Ukraine (because it can always get worse)
5. Some crazy shit in Latin America no one even thought if but some combination of base level American FP competence and rehional hegemony was keeping a lid on things but we barely noticef until Trump)
6. Something else.
7. See 6. 8 see 7. Etc.
Thoughts?
I seem to have missed the fiasco in Korea. Are you referring to this or this?
... so far away.
127 forgot to mention tearing up a painstakingly negotiated settlement with Iran on day 1. Of 1460.
While I was doing arithmetic in my head, chris got down to the more important business of pwnage.
127: India/Pakistan probably belongs on that list. As do the Balkans.
Maybe Greece/Turkey/Cyprus?
Random thought: what are the odds of Trump starting his own religion? I am picturing a cross between a multi-level marketing scam, The Secret and TV evangelism.
127: Trump could become enraged by the Philippines being insufficiently deferential and start a war with them, with China as a backer.
134 Damn. I meant to put India/Pakistan right after Korea. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if we see a nuclear exchange between them within 3 years.
Surely that is in reserve for his time as an wise elder statesman, after he condescends to step down.
Everything belongs on that list. The entire world order rests on the assumption that Americans will (eventually) turn up and kick ass if you do anything crazy anywhere they care about.
139 i guess we just gotta go with wherever he's got hotels or golf courses.
Seriously, if he makes this bastard Defense Secretary, it'll all happen at once.
The recent Phillippines/US divergence arose from Duterte calling Obama a son of a whore, apparently just at random. With Obama gone he can just randomly wander back into the fold. He and Trump should get along famously.
137 in fact that's one of the places I'm most concerned about. Trump has the most hotels I India and has been cozying up to Modi. Combine that with the extreme Islamophobic commentary of his NatSec picks and Pakistan must really be feeling out in the cold right now.
Hey you guys this drunk (or lightly buzzed) commenting works wonders!
The downside of 143 is that Trump might encounter the concept of 'death squad'.
137: actually India/Pakistan is looking fairly good. Pakistan's internal security is improving, the COS and PM seem relatively sensible, attacks in Kashmir are down. I'd say there's more reason to feel optimistic about the region now than at any time since the 1980s.
147 That's good to hear.
146 I'm sure Bolton can fill him in.
Seriously, if he makes this bastard Defense Secretary, it'll all happen at once.
Really? Read the quotes; Mattis comes across fairly levelheaded. What's funny is that Petraeus is in the running for State; he lost his last job, famously, because he sent classified information via an unsecured civilian email address.
149 But it wasn't his server. That makes all the diff.
I do believe an attractive woman just made a pass at me in this here hotel bar. One of your compatriots by the sound of her, ajay.
151: Before you get too excited, apply the table.
Second 149. And Petraeus is definitely level-headed, and one of the best-qualified people to hold the anti-ISIL coalition together (thing Barry forgot).
Random thought: what are the odds of Trump starting his own religion?
Pretty slim, as it would involve acknowledging a power greater than himself.
Actually I wouldn't be that surprised at something in Latin America going bad. The combination of a good economy and a relatively good set of governments and the US not fiddling meant things went really well for 10 years plus, so everyone's habituated to it being basically stable.
Now, though, the economy sucks, Venezuela has become a country where basic anti-malarial precautions don't happen and people flee the cities to try subsistence gold mining, Brazilian politics is in turmoil and the Rio police haven't been paid for months and are doing things like bursting into city hall and demanding military rule, the Mexican drug war is as bad as ever and whatever half-arsed effort at building a wall they come up with is likely to make it worse.
And the Donald's so far off the ball he spent his call with the Argentine president getting the Trump Golf and Corruption Resort Plaza, Buenos Aires took care of.
I feel like the US doesn't care enough about Latin American anymore to interfere. Unless Trump has business interests that are affected...
How soon before one of his hotels is the target of a major terrorist attack? And how much US tax dollars will be spent securing and protecting his properties?
I feel like they're just big targets for anti-American rage of all kinds. I wouldn't mind pissing on one myself.
Syria. Allying with Assad puts us at odds with Israel and Turkey. But is the 'secret' plan for ISIS.
127: I predict an invasion of the Island of Grenadine islands, part of the nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Three points in its favor: (1) It's a fight our armed forces can win. (2) They're very close and share a name with Grenada, the ultimate triumph of the US armed forces in the twentieth century according to Reaganites. (3) Trump and his kids can oversee the action from his own hotel and golf course on Canouan Island, right in the middle.
. . . and 158 explains how it will get started. Decades later it will be determined that the terrorist attack was financed by CNN and Fox News to boost ratings.
134 - Greece/Turkey (with or without Cyprus) seems very plausible at the moment, given that you could easily have belligerent authoritarian governments in both countries real soon now.
161 - I thought Syria was a given.
164: indeed. I just put Cyprus in there because I assume it would get involved somehow. Though both the UK and Russia have interests in Cyprus not becoming involved in a war.
Another point in Mattis' favour:
During a lengthy interview with the New York Times on Tuesday, Donald Trump suggested that he may change his mind on waterboarding after calling for the United States to employ the torture practice on the campaign trail.
Trump told the New York Times that he has been discussing waterboarding with retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, who Trump is considering to serve as Secretary of Defense.
"He said, 'I've never found it to be useful,'" Trump told the Times.
Trump added that Mattis prefers to build trust with terrorism suspects and reward good behavior.
"I was very impressed by that answer," Trump told the Times, adding that torture is "not going to make the kind of a difference that a lot of people are thinking."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/donald-trump-waterboarding-change-mind
I imagine Trump is probably rather afraid of Mattis. Trump did go to a military school, after all.
Actually I wouldn't be that surprised at something in Latin America going bad....
I was going to say things have already gone bad, but then I read you saying exactly that in your next paragraph. So how do you envisage things getting worse? Outright war, civil or other?
I kind of prefer my presidents' desire to torture people not to be contingent on its reported utility, but, this is Trump, so I'll take what I can get.
I feel like the US doesn't care enough about Latin American anymore to interfere. Unless Trump has business interests that are affected.
This is true, and continues to surprise me from the perspective of the Global Great Game. For all the scare-mongering you hear about China, you would think someone would notice the massive undertaking they've been engaged with as far as building influence in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Well, maybe Obama's noticed. He just got back from Peru. But it seems completely absent from the public conversation.
167: Mattis, from that description, seems to know exactly what he's doing. "No, Mr President, you see, all the Washington intellectuals think torture works. The New York Times was fine with torture. Rich East Coast lawyers like Alan Dershowitz and John Yoo like torture. But take it from me - I'm an outsider, I'm retired, and I've actually been out there and done things in the real world, I'm straight-talking and gruff and kind of crazy - torture isn't what you want to do. What you want to do is build trust, reward good behavior... basically, you have to make deals. But only a really good dealmaker would be able to talk a terrorist into giving up information. None of these CIA guys have any idea how to make good deals. You need to be someone who can make the best deals. That's how you beat terrorists."
1. The unpredictability is striking, compared to Bush or more recent Republican candidates. Two weeks in he's contradicted (sort of!) almost all the important stuff he said during the campaign. Conversely he's still saying and doing so much horrible stuff that it's hard to know what to focus on, like people have said. As for his transition team and names floated for appointments, a few are just as bad as we feared, like Bannon, but some are just garden-variety-Republican bad, like Romney for State.
2. Garden-variety-Republicans are a big part of the problem. If the Democrats had a house or two of Congress, I'd feel much better. He'd be getting sane bills and budgets and vetoing them or compromising and signing half-crazy versions of them. When there's an actual smoking gun about the graft and stuff, impeachment would at least be on the table. (Sure, Pence would be awful too, but (a) IMO not quite as bad as Trump and (b) impeachment would have a chastening effect.) There would be an opposition party leader who matters enough to be recognized. Progress wouldn't actually be made on most fronts, but we wouldn't regress too much either. But that's not the case. The Republican leadership and Trump can tell which side their bread is buttered on even if they hurt each others' feelings now and then. They'll give each other free rein as long as they possibly can.
167, 171 Read the rest of the interview though. Trump says it didn't actually change his mind.
"And when he said that, I'm not saying it changed my mind."
For all the scare-mongering you hear about China, you would think someone would notice the massive undertaking they've been engaged with as far as building influence in Latin America and the Caribbean.
And Africa. And the UK, for that matter. They've basically got our government in their back pocket at this stage.
The Philippines also, in a big way. And, while I'm no fan of the TPP, its apparent downfall is a huge win for China as well.
176: Yep. With that in mind, my kids started Chinese conversation lessons earlier this year. It's going to be a lot more useful than Japanese in the next decade or so.
168: A good old fashioned military coup somewhere important? Brazil's political crisis goes further out of kilter? Some sort of random squid, like one of those massive prison risings but political this time? As I say, one of the worrying things is that everyone's used to it being OK.
How about destabilization caused by forced repatriation of immigrants from the United States? This is particularly a problem with the focus on deporting immigrants with criminal records.
The unprecedented surge in unaccompanied children at the U.S.-Mexico border was preceded by a sharp increase in the number of deportations to Central America of convicts, many of them gang members.
Between fiscal years 2010 and 2012, almost 100,000 convicts were repatriated to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras -- exceeding the total of criminal deportations in the previous six years.
Immigrant-rights activists say the spike in criminal deportations likely played a key role in spreading gang violence in the three Central American countries -- the situation many children cite as a reason for coming to the United States.
176: Howard French wrote a great book on China's influence in Africa. It's more direct than other places: at any given time there are a million PRC nationals on the continent, working in construction or managing businesses (and in some cases, settling down).
Mattis at Defense would require a change in law. Former officers have to be seven years out of uniform to be Secretary. That means the House would get an indirect veto on the appointment.
That means the House would get an indirect veto on the appointment.
Least reassuring bulwark ever?
It's more direct than other places: at any given time there are a million PRC nationals on the continent, working in construction or managing businesses
When the PRC offers to build a stadium/performing arts center/resort hotel for a country in the Caribbean, typically they bring in their own people to do it. They set up huge camps of Chinese laborers to build these projects. So the countries end up getting the (often very poorly constructed) public works, but the local labor market doesn't seen any benefit from their construction. Its a weird situation.
typically they bring in their own people to do it. They set up huge camps of Chinese laborers to build these projects
Rumour has it that this could be the case when the Chinese rebuild the Bradwell nuclear power station in Essex.
Wow. Given that shit quality of Chinese infrastructure projects down here, I wouldn't want them building my nuclear reactor.
They're not. They have a 10ish% equity stake in the project, the rest belonging to the French nuke industry. But I guess, if you're not convinced your anti-nuke arguments will work, and for some reason the fact that the government has guaranteed the French (and limited partners) a stupidly high price for the power isn't good enough....why not GO TRUMP? Hating foreigners works for everyone else after all and with funny skin and eyes BETTER.
And the UK, for that matter. They've basically got our government in their back pocket at this stage.
How so, Ginger Yellow? That's a genuine question. I'm not up on this.
124. Some damn foolish thing in the Balkans.
The French make pretty good nukes, actually. My father was a nuclear engineer, and he always had good things to say about French nuclear power.
Pennsylvania nuclear power maybe has problems.
The town I'm looking at moving to is right by the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant, which was shut down a couple years ago, on account of the leakage and such. So, the town lost its biggest employer, which is why there is lots of cheap housing available. At the same time, as part of the shutdown agreement, the utility had to pay a lot of money to a regional economic redevelopment fund. And part of what that fund is doing is providing subsidies to incentivize companies to create (relatively) high paying technology jobs in the area.
I'm still waiting to find out if one of those jobs is going to go to me, or if maybe the company would prefer someone cheaper for their (relatively) high paying technology job opening.
188: I thought they had a stake in this one as part of a deal with the Conservatives to actually build the next one.
This reflects my understanding: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/15/hinkley-point-chinese-firm-to-submit-essex-nuclear-plant-plans
With Hinkley Point being the first one, with a 1/3 share, while Bradwell is the one they'll build. I think that's what Ume was referencing in 186.
Although, you know, based on my friend's experience with the electrical system on a '78 Jaguar, I might trust the Chinese to build a nuclear reactor more than the British.
Yeah, the Chinese have built a lot of nuclear plants in China that seem to be working fine. And while I'm willing to believe, per Buttercup, that they aren't exactly "racist" in the Western sense, somehow I suspect anything they build in Britain is going to be of much higher quality than things they've built in Africa or the Caribbean. And in any case, the French are the world's preeminent experts in nuclear power, so as long as they're involved the systems should at least work fine technically.
I thought most of the opposition was more from a national security perspective. Critical infrastructure, being built and run by essentially a foreign government (state-owned enterprise, anyway) that is rapidly increasing its power projection and isn't always on friendly terms with the west.
Meh, this feels like the same thing we saw when a company associated with one of the Gulf monarchies bought a British company that had some concessions running services at American ports and everyone in the US freaked the fuck out. (What's that? You don't remember that dire threat to American national security? Interesting.)
Nah, I do remember that.
I figured this is more like how the Chinese and the US are mutually super paranoid about each other's tech stacks, to the point that the US is loath to use Chinese-designed hardware--wonder if that'll change to Chinese-manufactured as well--while having Chinese equivalents to American components at all levels has long been a Chinese goal. ("Reflections on Trusting Trust" is quasi-relevant to this.)
Or maybe a better analogy is Stuxnet.
I doubt it'd ever matter in practice, f it came to the point where it'd matter, things would have to be awful. But thinking about worst cases is relevant to national security, right?
Yeah, fair enough. In any case, now that Trump is going to kill the TPP, it looks like China's alternative free-trade agreement is more likely to move forward. Make America great again!
(Not that that's particularly relevant to any of this, but it seems to be lurking in the background. Make America autarkic again!)
198-200: China is a different order of threat from the GCC. And planting weaknesses in critical infrastructure is AIUI central to their strategic thinking.
COSCO had its talons in the American port system long before anyone in the GCC did. Which isn't necessarily dispositive of anything, I realize.
201: It'll be really funny when we learn that rich nations without mercantilistic empires can't tariff themselves into further prosperity.
But the reconfiguration is interesting. Australia has been getting economically closer to Australia for a while now; no reason they wouldn't join. Wonder what the Philippines will do.
I knew Australia was federal, but that there is a different order of states' rights.
Australia is so close Australia, you guys. You wouldn't even believe it. Wake up, sheeple.
Uh, I invoke reflexivity--it worked for Ayn Rand, anyway. Obvs meant Australia moving closer to China. Great editing there, me.
Once they realize that Australia = Australia, the whole country immediately becomes an Ayn Rand paradise.
Strategically, something like TPP is a great idea. Why did Obama have to make it so shitty?
212: Did he actually make it shitty? AFAIK most of the controversial parts of TPP have been standard in international trade agreements for a while now, and this just the first time anyone outside of those circles has noticed what's up.
Anyway, now that the Great Chinese Mineral Boom is over I figure the underlying White Australia constituency will be on the upswing.
He had wide latitude to adopt or discard any portion he liked. The parts I find egregious are IP and dispute resolution. Are those standard? They're certainly extraneous to the strategic aims of the treaty.
The parts I find egregious are IP and dispute resolution. Are those standard?
Yes, AFAIK. But I'm hardly an expert on this.
215: Are they? To the extent those things create corporate constituencies in favor if the US system they might be worth more than actual economic benefits for normal people.
The US is a net exporter of IP. Strong protections are bad for everyone else, all other things being equal. The strategic benefits are the locking in of economic and, secondarily, diplomatic relationships. It gives everyone an interest in everyone else's continued well-being. Too bad it was crap.
As I understand it, some of the IP parts of TPP are new to the US. International "harmonization" of IP laws is strategy to take the strongest IP restrictions, which aren't necessarily the US ones, and make them law everywhere via the generally less democratic processes of treaty negotiation and approval.
211: It really does. Unexpected pwnage is the worst pwnage.
188/195: Dalriata has it right. Hinkley Point is the one the UK government has pushed the Chinese to take a large equity stake in to keep the project afloat, with the payoff being permission to build Bradwell on their their own terms. China wants to demonstrate that they can meet stringent British regulatory standards, so that other countries will also be willing to have them build plants.
Japan is also working really hard to sell reactors overseas, given that after Fukushima it's going to be a very long while before public opinion will allow them to to build another one at home (all but three of the country's 54 reactors are still offline for safety checks since the tsunami). They've just signed an agreement to transfer nuclear technololgy to India, with the aim of getting into the reactor construction business there before China can.
" the Chinese have built a lot of nuclear plants in China that seem to be working fine" - I think this deserves to be treated with a bit of caution. China, like other dictatorships, has a problem with openness. When a bit fell off their first ever domestic reactor in 1998 and shut it down for months, they didn't report it until 1999. (The Soviets had an actual meltdown and the first anyone outside knew about it was when radiation alarms at another reactor 1500 miles away downwind in Sweden started going off.) I'm sure they couldn't cover up another Chernobyl but I am also pretty sure that there have been more radiation releases in China than the zero that have made it into Wikipedia.
189: The UK government is desperate for Chinese money for infrastructure investment (things like the HS-2 high-speed rail link and the "Northern Powerhouse" as well as nuclear energy). Britain has the remnants of prestige but needs cash badly, and China is happy to buy the family silver.
Which is more austerity insanity. Britain could afford these things easily.
156: there is some pretty hair-raising stuff happening in Venezuela.
https://warisboring.com/venezuela-prison-bosses-wield-power-behind-bars-and-in-the-streets-17c10a800875#.r0np106zj
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/05/venezuela-is-falling-apart/481755/ (this one is from May this year but things have not turned round since then)
There are food shortages https://www.ft.com/content/cdbcd9d2-a950-11e6-809d-c9f98a0cf216 and the economy is on the skids https://www.ft.com/content/55ebfe26-a665-11e6-8b69-02899e8bd9d1
The upside for them of a Trump administration might be a war in the Middle East causing an oil spike (which would also benefit his mate Putin). Other than that, things not looking good. If the whole country collapses, what happens? Does Colombia step in?
There's a lot of ruin in a nation. Ask Zimbabwe.
How the hell can a country with a GDP per capita of 40,000 USD need money from a country with a GDP per capita of 7,000 USD?
Correct. I'm not prepared for the level of work effort required to actually look up the number of the comment I'm referring to.
If only Americans remembered the value of a strong work ethic.
Ah, OK. In that case 227 is the wrong question: the right question is "why is a country with a GDP percap of $7,000 investing its money in the infrastructure of a country with a GDP percap of $40,000, rather than in its own?"
To keep it away from the Chinese government, either now or in the future, I assume.
I believe the investment in this case is coming from a Chinese state-owned enterprise, though.
Finance the current account deficit?
221 to 232/227. This is a showroom model to open up markets all over the world to China. That's a not-insensible long-term investment.
Especially if you build in trojans at the same time.
Strategically, something like TPP is a great idea. Why did Obama have to make it so shitty?
God, this. I am theoretically in support of free trade, but this whole process was an exercise in moneyed interests making an end run around the democratic process. My own personal concern was related to the spread and entrenchment of IP maximalism, but on a broader level, the problem with the process was that it only interests represented were those of a narrow range of industrial capitalists.
Labor wasn't at the table, for example. Of course, many of labor's interests run counter to the goals of capital-driven free trade, so the inclusion of their perspective would have resulted in a curtailed scope of agreement, and would have required concessions to labor in other areas to get them to go along with it. But that's a difficult, expensive process, and results in a deal that capital doesn't see as quite so appealing, so they decided to skip that part, thereby placing labor - and by extension the working class - in opposition to the agreement. They thought they could get away with this because of the institutional weakness of labor and the political disempowerment of the working class. They almost pulled it off too, except they weren't as clever as they thought they were. Because they didn't want to bother with compensating those who would be damaged by their policy, Trump got his issue, and with it, margin enough to win in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
And now, geopolitically, America is fucked. That trade agreement could have brought us closer to allies around the Pacific. It didn't even have to be a strong agreement; a far more modest platform that could have been built upon in future years would have been quite suitable. But American capital - and Obama - flew it too close to the sun and so they got burned. Now, countries around the world are looking at the electoral hairball American democracy just coughed up, and China is looking like a better strategic partner every day.
