I thought you were a big Hillary guy?

What does being for Hillary have to do with 'liberals' being unaware of big voices in the Democratic party talking about the corrupt intersection of government and companies?

And if you do think that they were unaware even with folks like Warren, Sanders, etc. talking about it. What makes you think they'll think Trump has it right (considering some of his plans already seem to be boondoggles for business)?

It means they nominated nominated somebody who conducts their dealings with big business in much the same way as Trump seems to. So you can say there are certain Democrats (one of them is actually an independent) who oppose it but it would be like arguing Rand Paul or Mike Lee speak for the Republican party when they really don't.

Sanders is now officially a Democrat and in the Senate Democratic leadership, along with Senator Warren). And the comparison with Paul or Lee is off... it's better to argue that Sanders and Warren are more akin to John McCain. No, they don't speak for the Democratic Party as a whole, but they speak for a very large portion of it - who may be getting their choice (Rep. Keith Ellison) as head of the DNC.

You also don't necessary support everything about the candidate you end up voting for. I ended up making a choice of who is best, not who is perfect. There's a lot about Hillary I would change, but she was still the best choice for me.

If the choices are "Negotiate or leave" or just "leave" I'm glad there are forthcoming options for you! I hope your company and your jobs stay.

Well that didn't work out so well. Apparently Pelosi crushed Ryan.

Eh, was likely just an attempt to gain greater statewide appeal cause he's going to run for Governor probably.

Ryan got more votes than he should have under smooth waters. This sort of thing doesn't happen easily, and even less so from a "hail mary" guy out of the blue.

Yeah, that's a pretty significant number given the circumstances.

Personally, I have less problem with Pelosi, as she knows how to obstruct, than I do with the rest of the leadership team. They need to get younger.

dola

The new Commerce Secretary:


Did he just say Trump lied a lot during the campaign?

A politician lied a lot during a campaign. In other news...

Obama Mocks Trump For Suggesting He Can Bring Back Carrier Jobs - YouTube

I don't see jobs being brought 'back' - he's bribed a company into keeping a small handful (no idea exactly what that bribe entailed yet - its been partially revealed but not fully) in the country ... whether you think that's a good thing or a bad thing depends on your perspective.

I fear it will encourage other companies to play hard-ball and threaten to leave unless they've given tax breaks and such, time will tell how it plays out .. but this is being presented as saving 700-1,000 jobs and as such is a fantastic piece of PR by both Trump and the company in question, as it could have been displayed as them moving the 1,000 jobs being cut to another country as equally easily (and if Hillary had come in and the same had happened I'd have expected that to have been the note being played personally).

They are still moving 1,200 jobs to Mexico. Originally it was going to be all 2,200, but they are keeping 1,000 in Indiana.

When does the swamp get drained? Feels like it's just filling up more and more with some of these picks.

The networks already have stories on a ball bearing factory down the street which wants Trump to save their jobs as well. Gonna be a lot of deals that need to be made.

http://www.pid.gov.pk/?p=30445

I'm pretty sure I could script a Trump Chat bot in about 20 minutes that could fool anybody.

I'm not thrilled that the Mattis nomination essentially cedes civilian control of the military, but at least he should be a strong and much needed voice for NATO.

It's an interesting pick because Mattis is a real strong NATO guy and Trump says it's obsolete. Pretty enormous gap in their defense strategies.

There's also likely to be incredible stories leaking out about clashes between Flynn and Mattis.

He's probably going to be in the administration, so relevant I guess.

Medical examiner 'threatened' by Clarke over jail deaths

We need a new deal, then.

But of course!

How did even you remember that!? :D

Have to laugh at all these people getting worked up over how Trump addresses various foreign leaders. We're the ones for years that don't always know where we stand in regards to other foreign leaders. I'm alright with them not having a clue where we stand in regards to them for a change.

I think it's fine if you're not being looked to to lead. Which we generally are as the whole "leader of the free world" deal. But hey, if we don't want to do that anymore and would like these countries (or the UN!) to take the forefront in running the show...

Certainly, you make a fair argument and my post was a **wink wink** at some level. But Trump did run on a platform where basically he said that the other countries need to start making decisions (and backing up those own decisions on their own) rather than using the U.S. to prop up their stance or expecting the U.S. to fix their problems for them. I don't think that's going to change much, even if he's shaking hands and smiling in front of the cameras. I'd say Israel (and some countries with ISIS issues) is probably about the only ally outside of our continent who shouldn't be worried about any changes in support by the U.S. in a Trump administration.

As for the bad guys? Everyone is still well aware of who they are and Mr. Trump isn't going to change that with a few back rubs along the way. I'd like to see less of us sending trillions of our money overseas just to keep people happy. Trump would definitely be the candidate to do that if anyone would.

There is more to geopolitics than just who the US considers friends and enemies.

A lot is made of the US paying other countries - but are people aware of the amount that other countries pay to fund the US military? - of the ones I know about Japan pays $2bn/year (a deal which Hillary Clinton brokered), South Korean pays $800m/year and on top of this most countries with bases help fund their construction and such which is not inconsiderable (and often uses US companies for the construction).

How much do allies pay for U.S. troops? A lot more than Donald Trump says - LA Times

Trillions?

Wait, wait, wait, wait a gosh darn, cotton pickin minute here. Lance Bass is gay?

Countries that do that are usually third world shitholes with despots trying to make a name for themselves. Telling important strategic allies that you may or may not support them does not seem like a strong strategy for the leader of the free world.

Trump wants to build luxury hotels in Taiwan’s Taoyuan: mayor | Taiwan News

This Trump trope is going to get really old. Pres does something, his business gains, lather rinse repeat.

Yeah this seems more like a business call than a President call.

Apparently it came from Taiwan and was encouraged by one of Cheney's confidants.

Taiwan news is reporting Trump called them.

I wonder if both stories are true. Perhaps Taiwan called and then Trump called back?

Maybe it was one of those weird things where one of them made the call, but never heard a ring, and then the other one just answered and they were like "whoa, I never even heard it ring. Did it ring on your end? Weird."

He told Siri to call Thailand, but you know how those things are with any kind of accent

SNL does a sketch about Trump tweeting. Minutes later Trump tweets about how unfunny SNL is. Can't make it up.

To be fair, that's probably the most accurate tweet he has ever sent

Armed man arrested near D.C. pizzeria targeted by fake news - POLITICO

eh, guess the Post has more details: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.065ed0bcc877

Super curious how you're defining that. Because if you're talking about foreign aid spending, it would take twenty years at current spending levels to even approach a single trillion in aid spending.

Our annual budget is a bit over $4 trillion. Of that, we spend about $50 billion on foreign aid. If you're doing the math, that's about 1.25% of our annual spending. Of *that*, just 36%, about $18 billion, is earmarked for economic assistance. The largest recipient of economic aid is Afghanistan, at about $1 billion per year.

The rest? Military assistance. And 75% of that goes to Israel and Egypt, our two biggest allies in the Middle East and the countries on whom we lean the most heavily to maintain stability in the region. Buuuut...it's like food stamps. We give that money to Egypt and Israel, sure, but they have to spend it on contracts with American defense corporations. It's essentially a government subsidy for our defense contractors in the name of "securing Israel."

So you could cut every penny of economic aid for underdeveloped countries because "we have to take care of our own first," and you'd cut .0045% of our federal budget. Meanwhile, people in those countries now go hungry over about one half of one percent of our federal budget. Yay America? Yank the Israeli and Egyptian aid, and you're going to piss off the Jewish vote and the fundamentalists who believe that the American/Israeli relationship is sacred and we're supposed to support them because Armageddon will happen eventually. We can agree that's a "third rail" that isn't getting touched, so that three quarters of one percent of our federal budget doesn't get touched.

Now...if you want to lump in American foreign adventurism and the concomitant military spending that it takes to support efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 16 years, or the proposed escalation of efforts in Syria, then, sure - you're talking trillions and not billions.

But if the money "to keep people happy" you're talking about is the military and economic aid we send overseas, we're not even going to spend $1 trillion on that in the next generation, let alone trillions, plural.

My current guess with Trumps stance with China - he's happy to take a trade war and the negatives which go with that in return for having an 'enemy' to blame things on and also being able to use the increased tensions to fuel military spending and increased demand for weapons (which will drive US jobs as the industrial military machine in the US is huge).

It's an incredibly horrific play to make imho because the risks involved are untenable to my morals - but I can see it going down well with his supporters so long as it remains purely a 'Cold War' and their preferred luxuries remain cheap ...

Not to mention what that type of thing (as in trade war, and expansion in military spending that drives deficits) would do to the economy. Nothing like turning the keys of the car you've had for a while to a new owner who revs the engine up and then smashes the car into a wall.

I don't think he cares about the military-industrial complex, but agree on the first half. I do wish that people stopped pretending it was a one way street though - after about 30 years of continuous progress towards openness and Western ideals China has grown increasingly insular and centralized in the last 5 years under its current administration. As suspect as the Trump call was for other reasons, even the Taiwan kerfuffle illustrates that - I'm kind of past the point where we need to tip toe around on eggshells and pretend Taiwan isn't a real country deserving of full diplomatic recognition in 2016.