Analyzing the Transition of Power After The U.S. Election and Beyond Into Future Global Politics

1131416181943

Comments

  • Exactly. They always want to meddle, influence.

    Hm. The first country I think of reading this, is not Russia.

    You are Russia @Thunderfinger :-)
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,480
    First country I think of is Russia. You say apple pie, I say caviar.

    You want to list where the U.S. has meddled and intervened, go ahead. I am not absolving the U.S. for anything my country has done wrong, past or present, including meddling with, interfering with other counties. But for sure, that does not in any way make Russia's actions okay, the way they treat their citizens, the abuse of power, their meddling and interfering in the world acceptable. It doesn't. Holding up something else to take away focus on first topic is very ... well, very much like a slick politician, @Thunderfinger. Are you sure you aren't running some secret global ararchy cabinet behind the scenes these days? ;)


  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited December 2016 Posts: 12,480
    You cannot make this stuff up.

    Trump: I ain't afraid of no Electors.
    But then he files suit:

    Trump's lawyers cite Iranian Constitution, "Rutherfraud" Hayes and Kanye West in Electoral College lawsuit filing.



    and some states trying to force the Electors


    https://newrepublic.com/article/139309/electoral-college-wants

    and ... Trump met with tech leaders today. With his children present of course. (Plenty of comments about his kids being in on all these meetings, "This is weird". Well, it is a lot more than weird, it is wrong.)
    I'd love to have an accurate transcript of what was said.

    "So right now everybody in this room has to like me—at least a little bit," said Donald Trump to tech leaders today

  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,480
    OK, some of Trump's remarks from his meeting with tech leaders:

  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited December 2016 Posts: 12,480
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,804
    400,000 dead in Aleppo & millions fled thanks to Assad & Putin. Yeah, PUTIN, Trump's bromancer. Trump is on his way to Hitler-land all right. And now you can see it's not hyperbole.
    Uh, unless you're a sociopath or whatnot....
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited December 2016 Posts: 12,480
    I don't want to harp on the recounts, but I found this article of interest as it gives specifics as to the number of votes not counted in Michigan. So if you are interested in seeing these details, here is the article and some copy from the transcript (I only put partial here and bolding, underlining is mine). We do not have a uniform way of counting votes in the U.S. Machines are far too often a problem, if we want accuracy. If not interested, just skip this.

    https://www.democracynow.org/2016/12/13/greg_palast_by_rejecting_recount_is
    Says in part:
    Greg Palast, reporter for Rolling Stone. His new film is The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

    Investigative reporter Greg Palast has just returned from Michigan, where he went to probe the state’s closely contested election. Trump won Michigan by fewer than 11,000 votes out of nearly 4.8 million votes cast. Green Party presidential contender Dr. Jill Stein attempted to force Michigan to hold a recount, but a federal judge ordered Michigan’s Board of Elections to stop the state’s electoral recount. One big question remains: Why did 75,335 ballots go uncounted?

    This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue our update on the presidential election to look at the results of the recount effort in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Wisconsin’s Election Commission announced Monday, after its recount, Republican Donald Trump’s margin of victory widened by about 162 votes. In Pennsylvania, a federal judge Monday rejected a request to recount paper ballots and scan some counties’ election systems for signs of hacking. Hours later, state officials certified the results of the election, with Trump winning by less than 1 percent of the vote. Former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein had requested recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, three states where Donald Trump narrowly beat Hillary Clinton. A federal judge had already ordered Michigan’s Board of Elections to stop the state’s electoral recount. Trump won Michigan by fewer than 11,000 votes out of nearly 4.8 million votes cast.

    We turn now to Rolling Stone investigative reporter Greg Palast, who went to Michigan to investigate the vote. He filed this report for Democracy Now!

    GREG PALAST: Officially, Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes. But a record 75,335 votes were never counted. Most of these votes that went missing were in Detroit and Flint, Michigan, majority-black cities. How could this happen? Did the Russians do it? Nyet. You don’t need Russians to help the Michigan GOP. How exactly do you disappear 75,000 votes? They call them spoiled votes. How do you spoil votes? Not by leaving them out of the fridge. Most are lost because of the bubbles. Thousands of bubbles couldn’t be read by the optical scanning machines.
    ***
    GREG PALAST: The machines in Michigan and Wisconsin can’t read these bubbles. But a much better machine, the human eyeball, can easily read what the voter intended. Both Michigan and Wisconsin, you have to pay the state millions of dollars to have humans read the ballots. This woman, Jill Stein, raised the money for the human count of these uncounted ballots. According to Stein, this human review was finding a whole lot of...
    DR. JILL STEIN: Votes that were blank, many of which were in communities of color that are historically Democratic. So, obviously, this was a—this was a concern for him.
    GREG PALAST: Enough votes that Mr. Trump would lose. So, then, a GOP politician came to Mr. Trump’s rescue.
    This is Trumpville, rural Michigan. And this is their hero, the man who shut down the recount. Bill Schuette is the Republican attorney general of Michigan. He issued an order saying that no one would be allowed to look at the ballots in over half the precincts, 59 percent, in the Detroit area—the very place that most of the votes had gone missing.
    ***
    GREG PALAST: Back in Detroit, there was another explanation. Some of the votes missing resulted when 87 machines, responsible for counting thousands of ballots, broke down.
    ***
    GREG PALAST: And then there are voters who never got to vote in the first place.
    DR. JILL STEIN: Whether it’s because of the chaos in—you know, some polling centers are closed, and then some are moved, and there’s all kinds of mix ups. So, a lot of people are filling out provisional ballots in the first place, or they were being tossed off the voter rolls by Interstate Crosscheck.
    GREG PALAST: Crosscheck is a list that was created by Donald Trump’s operative, Kris Kobach, to hunt down and imprison voters who illegally voted or registered in two states in one election.
    FRED WOODHAMS: Michigan participates in the Interstate Crosscheck, like a number of other states, so we do match voters who may be registered in another state.
    GREG PALAST: Do you know how many names are on it?
    FRED WOODHAMS: There’s a lot of names.
    GREG PALAST: There’s a lot of names. Yeah, I’d say there’s a lot of names. Here’s Michigan: 499,092 Michiganders are on this suspect list.
    ***
    GREG PALAST: Well, you know, people are looking for Russians, but what we had is a real Jim Crow election. Trump, for example, in Michigan, won by less than 11,000 votes. It looks like we had about 55,000 voters, mostly minorities, removed by this racist system called Crosscheck. In addition, you had a stoppage—even before the courts ordered the complete stop of the vote in Michigan, you had the Republican state officials completely sabotage the recount. They said, in Detroit, where there were 75,335 supposedly blank ballots for president—75,000—they said you can’t count 59 percent of the precincts, where most of the votes were missing. There were 87 machines in Detroit that were—that didn’t function. They were supposed to count about a thousand ballots each. You’re talking about a massive blockade of the black vote in Detroit and Flint, enough votes, undoubtedly, to overturn that election.

    And you saw a mirror of this in Wisconsin, where, for example, there were many, many votes, thousands of votes, lost in the Milwaukee area, another African-American-heavy area. And there, instead of allowing that eyeball count of the votes that are supposedly blank, they said, "Oh, we’ll just run them back through the machines." It’s like betting on an instant replay. It’s the same game. They just put them through the bad machines again. This is not just a bad way to count the ballots; it’s a way to not count African-American ballots.

    And I want to emphasize that, Amy, which is that when we use the term "recount," we’re actually talking about ballots that were never counted in the first place—way over 75,000 in Michigan. There are enough ballots uncounted that if you looked at them with the human eye, because the machines—these are terrible machines which can’t read your little bubble marks next to the candidate’s name on the piece of paper. If the human eye looks at these things, it’s easy to tell that someone voted for a presidential candidate.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited December 2016 Posts: 12,480
    Aleppo, @chrisisall, is scorched earth right now and the evil atrocities are hard for people to comprehend but are happening. On comments, on twitter, a good portion seem to blaming the U.S. for this. Not all, nor the majority, but some do. I have not studied the history of this area, our role or Russia in depth there; I admit I have not researched Assad. But aside from what the U.S. has or has not done, Assad and Russia both are clearly killing citizens, not just "rebels." Children, women, everybody. Their own citizens have nowhere to go, are being slaughtered in the most hideous ways by their own government forces as well. Two convoys sent to remove citizens and wounded were attacked by Assad forces and stopped. I think another attempt is being made now. Nowhere is safe for the people there.

  • "The people who cast the votes decide nothing; the people who count the votes decide everything" -- attributed to Joseph Stalin. Here's the best accounting I can find for the origin & attribution of the phrase and some of its variants: http://www.snopes.com/stalin-vote-count-quote/
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited December 2016 Posts: 12,480
    The Trump family is not hiding their intentions to promote their business, increase their wealth, milk connections, now and via the White House. This will not stop unless Trump is forced to stop.

    I don't remember if I posted that Ivanka had a current business deal meeting with a large corporation in Japan the same day (I think exact same day) she sat in with, was part of, Trump's meeting with Prime Minister Abe. Ridiculous she was part of the meeting in the first place (as was her husband). That was totally inappropriate.

    It is doubtful he will do any sort of separation from his businesses. Not genuinely. And he does not seem to care to hide that.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    edited December 2016 Posts: 17,804
    Not cool...
    http://gothamist.com/2016/12/15/mayday_steer_away_from_the_iceberg.php
    "Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig told reporters on a call this afternoon that his group, the Electors Trust, which has offered free legal support to electors, has spent $20,000 paying for security for its lawyers because of threats."

    Fascism in action. L-)
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,804
    Our new rescue cat Daffy Zeus does not approve of @bondjames' Fantasy Trump Island.
    m9BO6ZZ.jpg?1
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited December 2016 Posts: 12,480
    Fantasy Island is very apt, sad to say. Like Trump would tweet: "Sad!"

    Seriously, death threats are not to be in any way tolerated by our society. I knew the Electors would be under extreme pressure, from both sides. They are brave - in a way they probably never figured they would have to be brave, literally for their lives and livelihood - just by doing their job. And the country is counting on them. I hope all death threats are tracked down and prosecuted fully.

    Your linked article says:
    "You can disagree with me any time you want, but when you threaten me and my family because I don't politically agree with you, that's not a constitutional republic, that's not the United States, that's 1930s Germany,” he told the Press.

    His defection also prompted proposals from Texas's governor and lieutenant governor for a state law binding electors to the popular vote. A group called the Hamilton Defenders, which has raised $18,000 to challenge state laws binding electors, has put money towards Suprun's security, Lessig said. Laws binding electors exist in 29 states, and Democratic electors in Colorado and California have filed lawsuits challenging them.

    Donald Trump allies are also threatening career reprisals against Republicans considering defection, according to an anonymously sourced report in Salon.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,480
    A momentary break with this little heartwarmer ...
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,804
    A momentary break with this little heartwarmer ...
    We've had trees like that.
    :x
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,480
    I had a small adorable Norfolk pine like that. Great memories. :)
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,480
    And back to your daily dose of Trump's embarrassments:

  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited December 2016 Posts: 12,480
    Trump's pick for ambassador to Israel:
    http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-israel-ambassador-david-friedman-232717

    Trump's Israel advisers appear to have moved him to adopt hard-right positions regarding the country, including removing language calling for a two-state solution in the Republican Party platform. They also have said Trump should not pressure Israel to make peace with the Palestinians.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited December 2016 Posts: 12,480
    In no uncertain terms, President Obama disagrees with Donald Trump regarding Russian interference in our recent election and is stating so more strongly.
    http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/kellyanne-conway-josh-earnest-trump-russia-232696

    [As a reminder, since I have not explained this in awhile - when I type something like this:
    *** in between quotes, it means I am skipping parts of the article.]
    In part:

    Kellyanne Conway: “That is incredibly disappointing to hear from the podium of the White House press secretary,” she told Fox News, referring to Earnest’s prior comments from Wednesday. “Because he basically — he essentially stated that the president-elect had knowledge of this, maybe even fanned the flames. It’s incredibly irresponsible, and I wonder if his boss, President Obama, agrees.”

    White House press secretary Josh Earnest:
    Asked to respond to Trump’s aide at the daily White House press briefing Thursday afternoon, Earnest was fully prepared to do so. His only concession was that it was “hard to know to where to start.”
    ***
    "It might be time to not attack the intelligence community but actually be supportive of a thorough, transparent, rigorous, nonpolitical investigation into what exactly happened, and to cooperate with it and to support it. But they’re probably not that interested in advice from me,” Earnest said. “That is advice that I have to offer based on years of experience, and I think it would serve them well to follow it.”

    White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes expressed skepticism that something of this magnitude would happen without Russian President Vladimir Putin’s knowledge.

    “Everything we know about how Russia operates and how Putin controls that government would suggest that, again, when you’re talking about a significant cyber intrusion like this, we’re talking about the highest levels of government,” he told MSNBC. “And ultimately, Vladimir Putin is the official responsible for the actions of the Russian government.”
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited December 2016 Posts: 12,480
    More on Ivanka going to the highest bidder. But now Eric Trump may shut down the bidding since it was reported widely.


    Ozan M. Ozkural, a London-based investment manager, found a creative way to gain one-on-one access to the new first family: He bid nearly $60,000 to have a cup of coffee with Ivanka Trump for a charity event she was hosting.Mr. Ozkural wanted to meet with Ms. Trump — who is considering playing an informal role in her father’s administration — to gain insight into topics like President-elect Donald J. Trump’s possible future dealings with Turkey and other nations where Mr. Ozkural invests, he said.

    “The nature of my business, we talk to a lot of different governments, a lot of politicians and lawmakers across the world,” Mr. Ozkural said in an interview on Thursday, adding that he recently had a conversation with the president of Argentina. “You end up getting a better sense of what the modus operandi will be.”
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    Wouldn't it be great if Ivanka was really a Russian spy and the government takes her and Donny Boy down. I'm also very drunk! :D
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited December 2016 Posts: 12,480
    It almost would not surprise me, @Murdock. And I am completely sober. ;)
    Sorry to say, but the actual facts of what is being said and done by Trump and his entire team (including his family), and incoming administration picks, is pretty much beyond what people could have imagined. A certain portion really thought he would start acting presidential, that everything else he had said and done up to the election was just to get elected; don't take him literally. He has no incentive to change (from his perspective) and I don't believe he will.

    Well, it will make for one helluva movie at some point (assuming we have a decent civilization left in the U.S. after we clean up this mess).
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    It should have been Cheeseburger Freedom Man who won! =))
  • I kindly like to refer people to the Dutch newsmagazine television program "Nieuwsuur" from public broadcaster NOS. It's a bit comparable to CBS News' "60 Minutes", and offers investigative in-depth reports and interviews related to the current (geopolitical) news.

    Some of the segments are done by the Nieuwsuur-reporters who are based in Washington DC and New York City. Most of them are entirely in English. So it's possible to get some insight in news matters from a Dutch perspective.

    The video embedded at the bottom of this news article was released on television early this week and is actually a report about Donald Trump's conflicts of interests, following the news that the new Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, is putting all his financial assets in a full blind trust:
    http://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2148245-tillerson-zal-ontdekken-dat-de-wereld-anders-is-als-minister.html?title=tillerson-zal-ontdekken-dat-de-wereld-anders-is-als-minister

    During the video New York Times reporter Eric Lipton and former advisor to President Obama, Norman Eisen, are giving their views on the conflicts of interests that will most certainly arise once Donald Trump assumes office as President of the United States next month.

    I just hope some people take some time in watching the embedded video. Because I do think that most people in here would like to get a president who doesn't follow Nixon's footsteps.

  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,804
    I just watched the 2hr final address by Obama... man, I have NEVER seen such an onscreen inner battle between the man and his feelings vs. the elected official and his duties to the office & his people.
    He walked a fine line between giving us hope for the next administration and warning us of it. Not an easy thing, but he handled it as well as anyone could possibly, realistically do.
    I've been pretty critical of this President in the past year, but I can say with no hesitation that I will miss Obama more than any other President in my lifetime. The hardest job on Earth has taken his toll on him, and I salute him for his sacrifice and efforts.
    =D>
  • Here's the full address @Chrisisall :-):


    Please skipp the first 30 min's (although it's fascinating to see what goes on behind the scenes....). But like you, I will massively miss this guy. The USA had one of the most intelligent, intellectual guys in office since Reagan and Kennedy.

    And on a positive note.......Don't be afraid :-). I wouldn't be surprised if Trump will have some more difficulties at the end of his first term than Obama had at the end of 2012.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited December 2016 Posts: 12,480
    I agree, @chrisisall. And thanks for posting the speech, @Gustav.

    Trump. This is a president-elect, who shows no signs of changing as president, who will cause massive trouble with other countries ... via tweeting. It would be hilarious, if it were not so seriously detrimental. Things like this could get deadly. Repercussions, ripple effects, etc.


    (I see he actually changed this tweet later to correct his misspelling. But the original, with mispelling, was captured by many.)


    Trump (of course) claims credit for the China's statement they will return the drone. His ego driven, immature tweeting is far more dangerous than just the obvious embarrassment to our country.


    Yes. He actually said that "There's a new sheriff in town." His supporters will eat this up.
    The reality is that this is beyond sad. It is as though every day he is tearing our country apart, continuing to stoke divisiveness, and endangering us in so many ways; domestically and internationally.

  • edited December 2016 Posts: 11,119
    Let's laugh a bit ;-). One thing is for sure......with Trump as president we will get a lot of comedy:


  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,480
    His everyday actions and comments alone would be amusing, if not actually detrimental. You cannot make up the stuff that is actually being said by him. You read something, then you have to check to see if it's a parody ... but no, they are really his own words. #historyinthemaking #notinagoodway

    But thanks for giving us some SNL humor here, @Gustav. :)
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,804
    A new sheriff in town???? This sad MFer has to go.
This discussion has been closed.