Trump Dump: Internal Policy (Thread I)

[Alyrium Denryle]

Seems I can't actually sticky this damn thing. Son of a bitch...

[Simon_Jester]

This is a mix of foreign and domestic policy issues, so I'm going to cross-post it on both threads in hopes of getting a unified discussion rolling:

[K. A. Pital]

Stickied. Term of sticking will be until this loses relevance... that is, when Trump goes.

Thanks much for all the merging, Aly!

[TheFeniX]

As seen above, you can still vote without a ID; it's just provisionally.

So, unless you have the money and time to spend on getting a valid ID, your vote has a chance to be tossed out if there's lack of due-diligence (or someone has an axe to grind).

Requiring someone to spend money to vote is a poll tax. I'm not legally required to own or carry photo ID: the government has no right to require it for me to exercise a basic right of the system. If they want to require photo ID: They need to use tax dollars to offer it "for free" and with little hassle.

Second, the list of acceptable photo IDs is essentially a condensed version of acceptable ID at airports:

Airports are government run? Flying is a right? They do a shitload of their running around the bill of rights specifically because they pull their gestapo bullshit on private property.

In North Carolina, there are only four acceptable forms of identification you can use to buy alcoholic beverages:

Liquor stores are government run? Getting hammered is a right?

You're comparing a fundamental right in a democracy to the ability to buy intoxicants from a private business. Besides, at least in Texas, it's not a requirement to card someone. It's just illegal if that person turns out to be underage to purchase.

I guess North Carolina discriminates against black people purchasing alcohol. Where's the NAACP lawsuit against this?

You focused on the ID laws and ignored all the other shady shit they pulled to disenfranchise black people. Sidenote: requiring people to deal with the DMV to cast a vote should be considered a warcrime.

Either way, voter ID laws are bullshit and a poll tax. I shouldn't have to prove who am I using elective state-issue ID. The state should have to prove who I am. And if voter fraud was actually as big a deal as Republicans make it out to be, this system would catch a whole shitload of fraudsters, thus giving them the evidence they need. Gee, wonder why they don't bother and instead just "toss that guys vote in the trash after he leaves."

[mr friendly guy]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-06/i ... n=business

What happens if Donald Trump's America starts producing everything at home?
ANALYSIS
By business editor Ian Verrender
Updated about 3 hours ago

There's a conflict at the heart of Donald Trump's radical economic agenda.

Unlike conventional leaders, the new President was elected on the twin platforms of being a champion of the working class and a friend of big business.

At some stage, he's going to have to choose between the two unless, as is likely, Congress chooses for him.

With Republicans dominating both houses, the odds are firmly stacked in favour of Corporate America.

That risks further alienating an already restless middle America.

Trying to boost employment through business-friendly policies is not exactly revolutionary.

Our own Government has a similar trickle-down strategy. Mr Trump, however, has taken it to an entirely new level.

Whereas the Turnbull mantra of jobs and growth at least gives a nod to the future by acknowledging the importance and impact of innovation, Mr Trump appears determined to deliver America to some point in the past, to a time that perhaps never existed.

While Mr Trump may have a clear view of his destination, it is the means of transport that is certain to land him in trouble.

Until last week, big business loved the idea of deregulation and slashing tax rates. A huge infrastructure spend was seen as icing on that potentially very rich cake.

But delivering on his campaign rhetoric to a dejected working class that he would bring industry home, involves raising protectionist barriers and isolating US firms or, at the very least, making it far more difficult for them to straddle the globe.

America's industrial heartland may have been depleted by globalisation but its firms have done quite nicely out of it.

That's where things will begin to get tricky for the new administration and where the conflict threatens to undermine the new President's power.

The country's biggest and best firms rely on a free flow of, not just global capital, but global expertise.

When it comes to worship, return on investment takes precedence over religion and race, and the immigration ban sounded a warning sign to Wall Street that the new administration may spell trouble.

What would Trump's 'America First' look like?

Let us just pretend for a moment that he pulls it off; that the new President slaps massive import duties on Chinese goods (and Japanese and German for that matter too) and forces his country to start producing everything at home via the magic of 'America First'.

Let us also ignore the potential for a global recession as a trade sensitive and debt laden Chinese economy spirals out of control through the loss of American income.

Initially, Americans — even those employed in the newly reopened factories — would find themselves unable to afford the goods to which they have become accustomed.

That would spark demands for wage rises. And that would encourage firms to push even further into the world of automation, robotics and artificial intelligence as they desperately seek ways to cut costs.


Where once corporations scoured the globe for low-cost labour, and duly shifted their operations, they now seek ways to eliminate labour altogether, particularly in manufacturing but to a greater extent into the world of professional services.

It's a trend that will have as much impact on workers in China, India and South East Asia as America and Europe.

Where the likes of Mr Trump and former UKIP leader Nigel Farage fed on the insecurities and indignation of those whose lives had been laid waste and forgotten as industries left town, they now face the harsh reality of never being able to deliver on their promises of economic salvation.

Billionaires jolted by political turmoil

A fortnight ago in Davos, Switzerland, the world's wealthiest gathered for their annual gabfest.

For years a celebration of the wonders of free trade and the enormous profits to be made from Asia's burgeoning middle classes, this year's was a far more sombre affair.

Jolted by the political turmoil of 2016, and the potential ructions in global trade, the billionaires convention was consumed and concerned by the concept of inequality — of income and wealth distribution.

One of their main concerns was the impact of new technology, particularly artificial intelligence (or AI as it is commonly referred), which has the capacity to lay waste to vast numbers of jobs in areas like financial services, health care, accounting and even the law.

For many at the conference, the penny appears to have dropped.

Innovation cannot be stopped

A population with high levels of household debt, low income with little potential for wages growth, and reduced working hours may not have the means to buy goods and services. That means crimped profits.

Salesforce.com chief executive Marc Benioff summed up the fears.

"It's happening at a rate and a capability that we are worrying about how it will impact the everyman, the broad range of workers around the world ... there is no clear path forward."

Not everyone was so downbeat. Not surprisingly, IBM boss Ginny Rometty was not at all perturbed, and predicted AI would not be a job killer.

Innovation cannot be stopped. Technological breakthroughs long have driven economic development, and with each change there have been winners and those left behind.

But the pace is accelerating and with the potential for mass social dislocation.

Like America, Australian manufacturing has long been in decline. As old jobs evaporate, new ones have taken their place.

The vast majority of Australians are now employed in service industries like retail and finance, and it is by far the biggest part of our economy.

But as the high-cost industries that paid high wages have departed, many of the new jobs that replaced them have been less secure and lower paid.

Wealth and income has become increasingly concentrated, particularly in the past decade after central banks inflated financial and property markets through ultra-low interest rates.

Those low rates also encouraged household borrowing as the developed world en masse brought forward future spending to make up for low productivity.

We are now in a world of excess capacity, low inflation and extraordinary debt — both private and government — with the prospect of massive disruption in labour markets and governments incapable of supporting displaced workers.

That is an unsustainable mix. And it is a conundrum that few political leaders globally are even interested in addressing. Certainly not the new president of the United States.

[Lost Soal]

Trump Twitter

Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting.

Trump literally cannot accept that he is not popular.
I considered posting a new NY Times piece but won't because it is too scary to give it any credibility.

[Crazedwraith]

He's also said to blame the judges if there are any terror attacks.

[bilateralrope]

Donald Trump 'didn't realise he was promoting Steve Bannon to National Security Council when he signed order'

Amid signs that Donald Trump began his presidency with the same chaotic operation that marked his campaign, a report has claimed he was not even aware he was elevating Steve Bannon to a senior security post when he signed one of several executive orders.

Since Mr Trump’s inauguration on January 20, reports have emerged of a White House West Wing marked by confusion and unpreparedness - alongside intense turf battles being fought by his top officials.

One of the results of this has been a number of leaks from the White House, about the various maneuverings of such top officials, and their varying ascendance and descent.

A report in in the New York Times, which paints a picture of chief-of-staff Reince Priebus trying to assert greater control, says he has set in place a set of checks and processes before new policies and Executive Orders are issued. This was done following the backlash over the haphazard and chaotic rollout of the order halting the refugee programme and suspending travel for people from seven Middle Eastern and North African countries.

It said Mr Trump would be looped in on the drafting of orders much earlier in the process. Remarkably, the report says, Mr Trump was not fully briefed on details of the order he signed giving his chief strategist, Mr Bannon, a seat on the National Security Council.

Mr Bannon, the former editor of Breitbart News, is a white nationalist who has pushed Mr Trump to take up such issues - both during the presidential campaign and since entering the White House.

Mr Bannon has no experience in government or in foreign policy.

As a result, many were startled when Mr Bannon was elevated to the National Security Council’s principals committee, the top interagency group for discussing national security.

The order, issued last month, also appeared to demote the director of National Intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in regard to their position on the NSC.

The order said that the two officials will attend the principals committee meetings only when “issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed”.

Donald Trump 'wasn't briefed' on Executive Order he signed appointing Steve Bannon to National Security Council

The President is reportedly fuming at not being fully briefed on Steve Bannon joining the Council

Donald Trump ‘was not briefed’ on an Executive Order he signed placing an ex-far right website owner on America’s National Security Council.

The President is reportedly fuming because he wasn’t told the piece of paper he signed would put Steve Bannon on the crucial committee.


According to the New York Times, not being fully briefed on the appointment is "a greater source of frustration to the president than the fallout from the travel ban."

Bannon, the former CEO of far-right website Breitbart, is Trump’s ‘chief strategist’ in the White House - and is the first political appointee to be made a primary member of the Council.

The Executive Order originally removed Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - the highest ranking serving military officer - from the permanent Council, but the White House later indicated it was to walk back on the move.

Bannon, 62, is a skilled propagandist and darling of the so-called ‘alt-right’ - a term used to describe a movement of racist, anti-Muslim and white supremacist people on social media, which got behind Trump’s candidacy.

Prior to Trump's election, Bannon had no experience in public service or national security.

He was instrumental in developing Trump’s executive order banning travel to the US from Muslim countries, and was reported to have insisted last night that the ban would apply even to people with lawful permanent residence in the US.

He took over Breitbart, which has become a platform for the so-called Alt-Right, in 2012, following the sudden death of founder Andrew Breitbart.

While the site was always a right-wing fringe website, there was a shift in focus under Bannon’s leadership.

Former Breitbart editor-at-large Ben Shapiro told the Daily Wire, a conservative website: “Andrew Breitbart despised racism. Truly despised it. With Bannon embracing Trump, all that changed.”

It was reported this morning that the President's top team hold late night meetings in the dark because they can't work out how to turn on the lights in the White House cabinet room.

Washington DC history is full of legends of crucial decisions being made in dimly lit, smoke filled rooms.

But in the Trump team's case, the gloom is apparently down to them not being able to get their head around the technology.

And according to the New York Times , the lights are just one of the teething troubles the new President's team suffer.

They report that at late-night meetings, "aides confer in the dark because they cannot figure out how to operate the light switches in the cabinet room.

Trump put Bannon on the council because he didn't read the executive order. He's angry at his staff for not properly briefing him on the contents of the EO. I predict more of his staff trying to get him to sign executive orders he hasn't read.

[Zaune]

So, apparently he's now threatening to defund the entire state of California in retaliation for a proposed bill to elevate 'sanctuary city' laws statewide. Source.

President Donald Trump is prepared to deprive the State of California of federal funding if it votes to become a sanctuary state, he said in a Fox News interview.

"If we have to, we'll defund," he said. "We give tremendous amounts of money to California."

California Democrats in the Senate stepped up their fight against the president last week, advancing legislation that would provide statewide sanctuary for immigrants and keep local law enforcement from cooperating with federal authorities.

The president told Fox he is very much opposed to sanctuary cities, which he called "ridiculous."

"They breed crime, there's a lot of problems," he said.

In a 2016 analysis by WalletHub that ranked most and least federally dependent states, the Golden State came in at number 46 on the list.

However, the University of California receives at least $9 billion in an assortment of grants, financial aid and research—all of which could be imperiled if Trump made good on a threat he made last week to deprive the university of funds in response to protests that roiled the school.

Trump tweet


California is "out of control" in many ways, and voters agree "otherwise they wouldnt have voted for me," he added. Trump lost California, which leans left politically, by a wide margin to former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

"I don't want to defund the state or city, I don't want to defund anybody, I want to give them the money they need to properly operate a city or a state," Trump said.

That said, "if they're going to have sanctuary cities we may have to do that - certainly that would be a weapon."

California is threatening to stop paying federal taxes in retaliation.

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) – The state of California is studying ways to suspend financial transfers to Washington after the Trump administration threatened to withhold federal money from sanctuary cities, KPIX 5 has learned.

Officials are looking for money that flows through Sacramento to the federal government that could be used to offset the potential loss of billions of dollars’ worth of federal funds if President Trump makes good on his threat to punish cities and states that don’t cooperate with federal agents’ requests to turn over undocumented immigrants, a senior government source in Sacramento said.

The federal funds pay for a variety of state and local programs from law enforcement to homeless shelters.

“California could very well become an organized non-payer,” said Willie Brown, Jr, a former speaker of the state Assembly in an interview recorded Friday for KPIX 5’s Sunday morning news. “They could recommend non-compliance with the federal tax code.”

California is among a handful of so-called “donor states,” which pay more in taxes to the federal Treasury than they receive in government funding, according to the latest available figures from the non-profit think tank Tax Foundation.

Whether you think sanctuary city laws are a good idea or not, this is how serious and credible secessionist movements get started.

[Simon_Jester]

There's a very very good reason why California shouldn't secede.

Where would their drinking water come from?

Trump put Bannon on the council because he didn't read the executive order. He's angry at his staff for not properly briefing him on the contents of the EO. I predict more of his staff trying to get him to sign executive orders he hasn't read.

Yeah.

It's actually a good sign if Trump didn't mean to appoint Steve Bannon to the National Security Council... But it's a really really bad sign that he's apparently capable of putting Steve Bannon on the National Security Council, and taking the Joint Chiefs of Staff off the Council... without being aware that he is doing it.

I have this image of the Trump administration consisting of a dueling series of people sliding documents under Trump's nose to sign that, unbeknownst to him, cancel out other documents slid under his nose by other people, in a struggle to gain advantage and effectively use Trump is a big dumb thwacking stick.

[The Romulan Republic]

Trump may know fuck-all about running a government, but I doubt he'd have been able to run all his businesses at all if he'd been that incompetent.

It may be that he's gotten completely overwhelmed by a job he's not prepared for, but my bet is that he knew full well what he was doing when he put Bannon on the Council, and is bullshitting everyone, again.

Its a pretty lame con, since it doesn't make him look good, but part of Trump's approach is to just throw out so much contradictory bullshit that no one knows what to believe, to obfuscate the facts.

Edit: Its also possible, I suppose, that Bannon pissed the thin-skinned asshole off somehow, and so he's throwing Bannon under the bus.

[Zaune]

There's a very very good reason why California shouldn't secede.

Where would their drinking water come from?

Desalinisation plants on the coast? Besides, the remaining 49 states trying to play literal hydraulic empire would be a great way to annoy the Californians into doing something drastic, and even a totally non-violent secession will involve some rather delicate negotiation about the status of assets the DoD really doesn't want to lose.

[mr friendly guy]

These videos from David Pakman might explain Trump's tendency not to read. The allegation is that he isn't that great at it, so prefers not to. And he even admits he just signs forms, not reads them.

[Simon_Jester]

There's a very very good reason why California shouldn't secede.

Where would their drinking water come from?

Desalinisation plants on the coast? Besides, the remaining 49 states trying to play literal hydraulic empire would be a great way to annoy the Californians into doing something drastic, and even a totally non-violent secession will involve some rather delicate negotiation about the status of assets the DoD really doesn't want to lose.

Right now, California consumes vast amounts of water drawn from all over the rest of the American West. This is mainly because they 'got there first' in terms of staking out very large claims to water rights.

If California were an independent country, the states that are actual sources of the water would almost certainly not agree to have such a large proportion of their limited rainwater poured into a foreign country. And it honestly wouldn't be fair to ask them to.

Trump may know fuck-all about running a government, but I doubt he'd have been able to run all his businesses at all if he'd been that incompetent.

Well, he has repeatedly run businesses into the ground.

I think we're seeing a great example of how people who are very skilled in one or two specific areas, and who are aggressive enough about it to Dunning-Kruger their way through life, can get amazingly far while being amazingly deficient in other areas. Trump is very good at convincing people that he's right/smart/authoritative, if they believe in his tough-guy mystique, something a lot of people have weird subconscious urges to believe: "This guy is tough, he must know what he's doing."

The combination of a psychopath's willingness to lie and bully, combined with a charismatic narcissist's gift for persuading people, PLUS having so massively much startup capital that he could always, always afford to hire other people to be smart on his behalf... I can see how that lets someone at least stay afloat as long as he has as a businessman.

The problem being that because he's a narcissist, he thinks it's all him that's providing this great leadership. That his successes are the results of himself, not the results of other people around him compensating for his limitations. Which makes it difficult for him to even begin to handle a new job where suddenly his limitations are ten times more important than they ever were before, because the situations he's making decisions about have grown much more complicated than real estate.

It may be that he's gotten completely overwhelmed by a job he's not prepared for, but my bet is that he knew full well what he was doing when he put Bannon on the Council, and is bullshitting everyone, again.

I suspect he DID know he was putting Bannon on some kind of group of advisors, but he didn't comprehend the implications of that. I wouldn't bet on Trump even knowing what the National Security Council WAS a year ago, or maybe even a month ago, beyond maybe 'uh, it's a council of people who talk to the president.'

[Zaune]

Right now, California consumes vast amounts of water drawn from all over the rest of the American West. This is mainly because they 'got there first' in terms of staking out very large claims to water rights.

If California were an independent country, the states that are actual sources of the water would almost certainly not agree to have such a large proportion of their limited rainwater poured into a foreign country. And it honestly wouldn't be fair to ask them to.

I dare say. Indeed, California's water rights probably need to be renegotiated at some point regardless of whether they actually go through with secession, and if their agricultural sector has to take a hit as a result then they're just going to have to suck it up.

I was merely trying to point out that if the US were to threaten to cut off the hypothetical Republic of California's water entirely, either as leverage or purely out of spite, California has ways to hurt the US very badly indeed in retaliation.

[Simon_Jester]

Zaune, what I think you're not getting is that even not having secure water rights is an incredibly serious problem. The entire California economy is based on the assumption that disproportionate amounts of water will be funneled into the state from other places.

We've already seen this in other parts of the world. Water rights disputes in desert areas can be incredibly acrimonious, and entire nations can be severely compromised by them.

This makes California, quite simply, not tenable as an independent country, unless it also controls the regions that provide it with water. It will constantly be at a disadvantage, and the leverage it has in return will never be as strong as "our hand is on your water-tap." That doesn't mean it has no leverage in return... but it does have significantly less.

So let's not focus on California secession. Let's focus on the more plausible event- California passive resistance, California refusal to cooperate with federal directives. California seceding is not a credible outcome.

[Lord Revan]

If California was able to "get away with" passive resistance, I wouldn't call other states trying the same an unlikely outcome, after all Trump seems to be loosing popularity at a rapid pace.

[Ziggy Stardust]

How long until the Republican ditch their "state's rights" mantra when it's blue states defying the federal government?

[SpottedKitty]

How long until the Republican ditch their "state's rights" mantra when it's blue states defying the federal government?

Do they actually have to? They've never seemed to have any problem before, believing as many as six contradictory things before breakfast.

[The Romulan Republic]

About as much trouble as the Confederates had switching to states' rights after they lost control of the Federal government, I imagine.

[Elheru Aran]

Breaking: Betsy DeVos confirmed as Secretary of Education, Mike Pence casting tie-breaker vote in a historic first (tie-breaker vote on a Cabinet nominee).

What do you want to bet Sessions is going to get in the same way?

[TheFeniX]

Breaking: Betsy DeVos confirmed as Secretary of Education, Mike Pence casting tie-breaker vote in a historic first (tie-breaker vote on a Cabinet nominee).

Beat me to it:

DeVos, a Michigan-based Republican activist, former state party chairwoman and fundraiser, spent her career campaigning for school vouchers, which would send tax money to families to help them pay for private and often religious schools. As the wife of the billionaire heir to the Amway fortune, she contributed millions of dollars to candidates who supported vouchers, including several of the senators expected to vote to confirm her.

She would be the first secretary of Education since the department was created in 1979 to have never attended public school or to have sent her children to one, the Education Week Research Center found.

A rich silver-spoon fuck who not only never had to dirty her hands with the system but also has zero understanding of even the basics on how it works.

My feelings in a word: Fuck.

My only bright light at the end of the tunnel, and it's dim, SUPER fucking dim, is throwing this shit in my Trump supportin' "Man of the people" dumbfuck brother's face. This woman is goddamn cancer for education and pretty much anyone with a teaching certificate is more qualified for the job, even he had to admit that.

I can only hope the woman is so unblieveably shitty in her job she is either ignored or fought again because her ideas are completely moronic and/or voucher programs mean more big bad fed govt money going out.

[The Romulan Republic]

God damn it. I really thought they might be able to block her. Just one more Republican voting against her, or even abstaining, would have done it.

Fuck Pence too.

[FaxModem1]

Miami New Times

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2017 AT 1:47 P.M.
BY TIM ELFRINK
Marco Rubio
Marco Rubio
Photo by Gage Skidmore / Flickr

Remember over the summer when Marco Rubio waxed eloquent about how he and his fellow U.S. senators would be a strong "check and balance" on Donald Trump? Hahahaha! That was a funny one, Marco.


Rubio now has a sterling 100 percent voting record backing all of President Trump's nominees and plans, according to FiveThirtyEight's Trump tracker. He did his latest solid for the Don today by voting to confirm Betsy DeVos as secretary of education over protests from basically every public school teacher in the nation.

But Rubio's help in DeVos' razor-thin approval is especially unsurprising. It turns out DeVos — a multibillionaire with zero educational experience — and her family have been especially generous donors to Rubio's campaign coffers. In fact, Rubio accepted more DeVos cash than any other senator who backed her nomination today.


That's a decent chunk of cash, even in a GOP Senate where DeVos rained nearly $1 million. And as the CAP noted, DeVos hasn't been shy about why she donates so heavily to Republican causes.

“I have decided, however, to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence,” DeVos told the New Yorker in November. “Now I simply concede the point. They are right... We expect a return on our investment.”

To be fair, in that quote DeVos was referring to her wish for a conservative-dominated government, but her point still dovetails nicely with what happened: A major party donor was confirmed by the same people she funded, over loud objections from the people she'll be in charge of.

DeVos is hellbent on tearing down public education and replacing it with charter schools and private religious schools. She says her larger goal is to "advance God's kingdom," which is an interesting take on a philosophy that critics say hurts disadvantaged kids.

In this case, Rubio didn't even put up a front about resisting Trump's pick like he did when grilling Secretary of State Rex Tillerson before ultimately voting for him. Despite protesters' marches on his district offices and enough phone calls to fill his D.C. inbox, Rubio voted yes — a key vote in a 50-50 deadlock broken by Vice President Mike Pence.

Wonder why?

So, if this is true, she bought the votes.

[Highlord Laan]

Miami New Times


So, if this is true, she bought the votes.

It is Wednesday, the sky is blue, it is cold in the winter, and entrenched scumbags continue to entrench scumbags.

If anyone is surprised by this, they are naive. If anything thinks anything will be done about it, they are stupid.