Hope this is not true

https://theintercept.com/2017/12/04/trump-white-house-weighing-plans-for-private-spies-to-counter-deep-state-enemies

Quote :

"TRUMP WHITE HOUSE WEIGHING PLANS FOR PRIVATE SPIES TO COUNTER “DEEP STATE” ENEMIES THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials and others familiar with the proposals. The sources say the plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency. The creation of such a program raises the possibility that the effort would be used to create an intelligence apparatus to justify the Trump administration’s political agenda."

12/9/2017 9:04:25 PM

I've been at a conference this week with 6000 members of the Reform (progressive) Jewish movement, the largest denomination of Jews in America and Canada. Elizabeth Warren spoke to us Friday morning, and she said something along the lines of Israel is the only ones who have any business saying where the capital of Israel is. And she's absolutely right.

As for the conversation on the last page as to why Israel even exists...there used to be such a thing as a Jewish refugee. Jewish refugees went extinct in 1948, because now there is a home. No matter what happens anywhere else, Jews have a home. And with anti-Semitism and white nationalism on the rise in Germany, France, Poland, and good ol' US of A, this is the most important time since 1948 to remember that.

As for the accumulation of land since 1948, that's a different thing altogether that you can go to the Israel/Palestine thread to find out more. But the existence of Israel as a sovereign nation is unquestionable and what Trump has to say means nothing to them.

12/10/2017 2:38:45 AM

does it not matter if that home belonged to an arab person before they were pushed out?

12/10/2017 3:31:18 AM

^^^If that ever happens I guarantee it turns into one of the below

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel

12/10/2017 8:30:21 AM

After listening to Nikki Haley I get it now. Jake Tapper doesn't get it. Liberals don't get it because they only see negotiation as giving the other side what they want. Art of the deal negotiating requires you to start from a point of strength.

By taking Jerusalem off the table, he establishes the idea that there is little hope for the Palestinians to work something out with him. You go in looking, unreasonable, then when you negotiate from that position of strength, you are giving up what you took before negotiation began as "compromise".

At the very least, this will work just as well as the old strategy.

12/10/2017 12:23:18 PM

Quote :

"does it not matter if that home belonged to an arab person before they were pushed out"

We've gone around in circles in the Israel/Palestine thread about this. Not going to get into it here.

Quote :

"Liberals don't get it because they only see negotiation as giving the other side what they want. Art of the deal negotiating requires you to start from a point of strength. "

You're saying liberals don't want to negotiate, but then saying Trump is smart for taking the biggest bargaining chip off the table? What the hell do you expect anyone to negotiate about after that?

12/10/2017 1:45:59 PM

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/09/us/politics/donald-trump-president.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1&mtrref=www.cnn.com&gwh=0EB76C28B87E9CD3E680F7C6139632FC&gwt=pay

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/11/politics/donald-trump-tv-analysis/index.html

Quote :

""Before taking office, Mr. Trump told top aides to think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals.""

[Edited on December 11, 2017 at 5:32 PM. Reason : a]

12/11/2017 5:30:18 PM

Going after Gillibrand with some major league innuendo..

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/940567812053053441

[Edited on December 12, 2017 at 8:38 AM. Reason : Amazes me how a woman can vote for this guy, but that’s just me]

12/12/2017 8:38:15 AM

He literally sexually harassed a sitting US senator for 44 million followers to see.

Unreal.

12/12/2017 9:38:30 AM

He’s terrified of her. I know very little about her but he couldn’t take losing to a woman in 2020 and she is going to run in the primary. Notice he hasn’t gone after Bernie or Booker who also called on him to resign.

12/12/2017 9:58:48 AM

TV/entertainment is probably the best way to describe DC right now. It's the only way.

Because only in a sitcom or an hour long drama on ABC/CBS...hell even the CW, would we see these kinds of plots.

12/12/2017 10:11:39 AM

don’t fall for it

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-watches-4-hours-tv-every-day-fox-cnn-2017-12

Quote :

"Before entering the White House, Trump reportedly told aides to think of each day as an episode in a TV show in which he "vanquishes rivals," according to the report."

this is very serious and shouldn’t be viewed as entertainment

[Edited on December 12, 2017 at 10:21 AM. Reason : .]

12/12/2017 10:19:14 AM

I hope and pray that the Democrats find a very good, moderate, sensible candidate to run in 2020. A moderate might sway the blue-collar Democrats who got Trump in office back the other way.

I think I'm pretty sure I'd vote for Biden if he ran.

^No POTUS should have 4 hours of leisure time per day to watch TV.

[Edited on December 12, 2017 at 10:25 AM. Reason : sdfas]

12/12/2017 10:24:34 AM

moderate candidates are why the party has lost 1000+ seats and the US presidency in the past years

12/12/2017 10:41:53 AM

^

12/12/2017 10:43:02 AM

^^^leisure time does not bother me, that job has to be the most stressful on earth and quite frankly, any president has an army of people doing things for them 24 hours a day.

^^it infuriates me how correct your statement is. what kills me the most is if independents are the typical "swing" vote, how on earth are they not okay with a moderate candidate?

12/12/2017 10:51:10 AM

4-8 hours of watching tv every day sure is some leisure time

12/12/2017 10:53:41 AM

i just think it's a weak point to hit any president on, particularly when you have no insight into what the actual job entails absent reporters' cameras

the reason i was getting after trump on the golf thing, for instance, wasn't because he was playing golf but because he criticized obama specifically for doing just that

[Edited on December 12, 2017 at 10:56 AM. Reason : a]

12/12/2017 10:55:40 AM

Quote :

"Going after Gillibrand with some major league innuendo.."

Nah its political innuendo. Everyone in NY already knows Gillibrand will "do anything"/ switch any position to win. She was a conservative back in 2009 and endorsed Hillary in the primary. Immediately after the 2016 election, she became a Bernie supporter because thats whats hot right now. She's empty and a complete fraud. She's a used care salesperson.

12/12/2017 11:51:27 AM

Earl defending Trump? Shocking::

12/12/2017 2:16:05 PM

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/12/donald-trump-lawyer-special-counsel-russia-investigation

Quote :

"Donald Trump’s lawyers are calling for the appointment of a second special counsel to investigate the special counsel overseeing the federal inquiry into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia."

12/12/2017 2:17:58 PM

Quote :

"i just think it's a weak point to hit any president on, particularly when you have no insight into what the actual job entails absent reporters' cameras"

so you think it’s ok for the most powerful person on the planet, with one of the hardest jobs on the planet, to spend hours watching loons on Fox News/Fox Business?

12/12/2017 3:31:50 PM

well i certainly question the choice of what he watches, absolutely

but that is a far different argument to make than just the fact that he's watching something at all

12/12/2017 3:49:08 PM

4-8 hours? And he's the president? And he has time to watch 4-8 hours? Of crap TV?

12/12/2017 3:55:19 PM

it may seem like im defending him but all of this attacking him over every little thing is actually his main source of strength.

hell, cnn was literally saying trump accused her of trading sex for campaign contributions. its frustrating because you people in power think twisting his words is the best way to defeat him. when will the lies end?

12/12/2017 3:57:48 PM

i think you guys are reading too much into something about which you don't know anything. just a few questions i might ask:

1) while watching tv, is he also reviewing or signing documents?
2) is there anyone in the room with him discussing things with him while the tv is on
3) is he watching 4-8 straight, contiguous hours? is it broken up throughout the day?
4) how many hours does trump sleep? less than 8? what's the difference in downtime between sleeping and watching tv?

5) how much leisure time per day does the average president have, irrespective of how it's spent?

6) is trump taking phone calls while watching the tv muted?

7) if the job is so stressful, would you not want a president taking as much down time as possible?

there are probably ample more. i listen to music like 6 hours a day. doesn't mean i'm not working while it's on. it's a stupid criticism to make and just undermines the overall argument further regarding the fact that he's a terrible president

[Edited on December 12, 2017 at 4:00 PM. Reason : a]

12/12/2017 3:59:30 PM

i assume that being president requires at least as much work as a regular job, and >4 hours of tv per day is worthy of criticism for someone just working a regular job

12/12/2017 3:59:41 PM

It's pretty clear from his tweeting that he spends a huge amount of time watching TV, and it's clear from his gross lack of knowledge about literally anything, in any interview or talk he's done as president, that he spends literally zero time trying to learn or understand what the role of US President actually is.

12/12/2017 4:07:44 PM

^^^

#1, 2, & 6: You think it's appropriate for the POTUS to have the TV on whilst discussing or (suppressing the urge to laugh) actually doing presidential work?

#3: doesn't matter

#4: there's a huge difference between sleep and looking at a screen. One is restorative, the other keeps your eyes and brain active so that you can't recover from stress and exhaustion.

#5: not much

#7: I don't imagine a president gets more than 5 hours of sleep each night. If there was that much time available to relax, he would sleep more. It's why we're supposed to elect a president who intends to take on the stress and work through it, not one who constantly needs a respite. It's also why we're supposed to elect people who have worked similar jobs before (ie, governors, senators, generals, secretaries of state) and not people whose stress level is based on how much money they make.

12/12/2017 4:51:23 PM

sorry but aside from the fact that he's watching fox news as opposed to anything worthwhile, none of you have grounds on which to justify your criticisms. if any of you have worked in the white house or even politics before i'd defer to you but i'm presuming none of you do.

you're just picking something else to hate about on trump, which is fine because he's a deplorable human being but with so much shit to criticize him on, picking up on his television habit is petty

my overall point really isn't even on trump, it's on the fact that you are all criticizing something related to something you have absolutely zero insight into - the daily working requirements, routines and lives of people in the white house. maybe you are all 100% correct, but without any legit experience or evidence here all i'm hearing is more whining about trump

12/12/2017 5:32:38 PM

It's a valid criticism of him because it falls in line with his shitty diet and his incessant golfing. He's a straight up rich grandpa retiree that yells at the TV all day. Is it petty to criticize him? Sure. But he's the fucking president and his daily routine is about as far from presidential as it gets.

I'm not the president, but I can assure you that I spend the vast majority of my day working, commuting, and responding to emails, and all I have left over time-wise is an hour at the gym and meals. The only people I know who have the time to watch 4-8 hours of TV every day are old or unemployed.

12/12/2017 5:41:03 PM

so you're saying a system where the people at the top work less than the people at the bottom is unfair? Do tell me more...

12/12/2017 5:49:36 PM

If we're going to criticize how he spends his time, let's at least start with something concrete: https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/02/21/trump-has-been-office-hours-here-how-spent-them/HafdByYuDbbKgY8GphZPAO/story.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/27/donald-trump-white-house-twitter-cable-news-sleep

[Edited on December 12, 2017 at 5:54 PM. Reason : a]

12/12/2017 5:53:05 PM

^^^^

That's silly reasoning.

There's been multiple credible reports on how trump spends his time, that jibe very well with the outside observations of how Trump spends his time.

It's not baseless nitpicking, it's trying to understand why Trump seems to know nothing about the technical aspects of his job.

12/12/2017 6:26:28 PM

I don't think the issue is a disagreement about how he spends his time (i believe he spends whatever amount of time the press is saying he spends on watching tv), the issue is a disagreement on whether the portion of his time spent viewing television is abhorrent in the context of the requirements of the job. and my point simply is that no one here knows what the job is like, what the job takes and whether it takes X number of minutes/hours to do everything, particularly considering he has a staff of hundreds doing a ton of the actual work anyway, like any other president.

it is a ridiculous thing to criticize him on in the grand scheme of things, UNLESS there are people who have actually done the job or have worked in the white house sitting here saying the same thing, in which case i would have to defer to them.

as for trump not knowing the technical aspects of the job, he doesn't care and THAT is a far more reasonable thing on which to criticize him than on whether he watches 4 to 8 (that's kind of a wide range, btw, 100% swing?) hours of television, again, particularly when he very well could be doing actual work during time as well

[Edited on December 12, 2017 at 6:57 PM. Reason : a]

12/12/2017 6:54:08 PM

Trump has endorsed the loser twice in Alabama.

In ALABAMA

-100 credibility

12/12/2017 10:40:35 PM

Today's FRQ:

Do you think a democratic senate in 2018 would hurt or help Trump's odds in 2020? Why?

12/12/2017 10:43:23 PM

also this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz8fI0iPDac

you can't say he said something he didn't see just because you interpreted it as a metaphor. you can't even ban dog whistles either. thats why they are called dog whistles. john podesta shouldn't be afraid to eat pizza for the rest of his life either.

12/13/2017 1:23:29 AM

^yes but in looking at what is said some might say that the thing said is what someone said and by saying that I think it is appropriate to consider what they say.

12/13/2017 6:06:34 AM

I don't care how much TV he watches. He could watch TV all day and pin his eyelids open to keep watching it all night, and I wouldn't care, as long as an intelligent, cohesive, and defensible policy was coming out of the White House. Certainly if all he did was watch TV, that would be an improvement on the status quo, when he does other things.

I believe my favorite line from that article was:

Quote :

"“I do not watch much television,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One in November. “I know they like to say — people that don’t know me — they like to say I watch television. People with fake sources — you know, fake reporters, fake sources. But I don’t get to watch much television, primarily because of documents. I’m reading documents a lot.”"

12/13/2017 7:37:47 AM

^LOL "I'm reading documents a lot. Because documents."

In other news, his middle east policy is settling in nicely

Quote :

"Just in: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Wednesday his government will not accept any role for the United States in the Mideast peace process “from now on,” in response to President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Abbas made the announcement during a meeting of top officials from Islamic nations in Turkey that is expected to carve out a unified stance against Trump’s move. Also at the meeting is Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who said Wednesday that “Iran is ready to cooperate with all Muslim countries without any precondition to defend the legitimate rights of Palestinians.”"

https://apnews.com/73dd147b8c3246748211783baf502ebe/Palestinian-president-says-no-role-for-US-in-peace-process

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-israel-iran/iran-urges-muslim-nations-to-defend-palestinians-after-trump-move-idUSKBN1E715H?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

[Edited on December 13, 2017 at 9:16 AM. Reason : a]

12/13/2017 9:16:15 AM

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/13/570499146/white-house-nomination-of-alabama-lawyer-brett-talley-will-not-be-moving-forward

12/13/2017 3:56:38 PM

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/12/12/trump-lows-ever-hit-rock-bottom-editorials-debates/945947001/

Wow, what a scathing editorial... gg USA Today!

12/13/2017 5:18:13 PM

Trump is sexist and a lot of the things he says are sexist but you can't just characterize every attack on a woman as sexist just because its on a woman.

I'm a feminist and I'm afraid we have reached the point where any criticism of any woman in politics is considered sexist. This devalues all claims of sexism and puts us at risk of electing subpar female politicians because they are female. Gillibrand was a blue dog conservative democrat and completely flipped many positions to gain support in the past. She has literally demonstrated that she will change any political position to win and Trump said nothing about sex in that tweet.

Quote :

""Cruz is going down. He's going down. He's having a hard time. He looks like a nervous wreck,” Trump told a crowd in Las Vegas Thursday. “He's going down. He had his moment. He had his moment. He had his moment and he blew it.”"

I'm sure if Cruz was a woman, they would have called this sexism. "OMG TRUMP SAID CRUZ GIVES BLOWJOBS"

The problem is that they are mischaracterizing his statement. MSM is reporting that Trump called gillibrand a whore, prostitute, and slut. None of those things were anywhere in his words unless you mean a metaphorical "political whore" which is not what they mean.

[Edited on December 13, 2017 at 7:52 PM. Reason : K]

12/13/2017 7:51:32 PM

You really need to just stop.

12/13/2017 9:49:15 PM

Regarding the TV. I work in IT, and I have some colleagues who work nearly around the clock to get their job done. Sure, they kinda do it to themselves, and the teams are understaffed, but it's IT. These guys don't get 4 hrs of leisure time to watch tv. And it's just IT.

You just can't think of the presidency as an 8-5 job where you get to go home at the end of a hard day's work and kick your feet up. When you decide to become president, you're making at least a four year commitment to what should probably be the hardest job in the world. You give it your all for four or eight years, knowing that when it's done, you're time to relax has come. But until then, it's balls to the wall. Should he be able to watch 4 hours of tv here and there? Sure. Should it be whatever garbage he wants to watch? Sure.

But it isn't just the tv. It's the golf. It's the vacations.

Shit there are some days I can't get my day-to-day work done due to customer meetings, internal meetings, training courses, etc. And again, it's just IT. I can't begin to know or understand what a president's typical day is like, but I couldn't imagine it being anything other than being filled with security briefings, economic briefings, UN updates, notifications for new bills from Congress, one-on-one meetings with Congressmen and women, phone calls with foreign dignitaries, cabinet meetings, I mean the list could go on and on. Then there are the disaster tours (I'd like to note that he hasn't toured the CA wildfires), foreign trips, state of the union addresses, meeting with his press secretary to ensure they mouth off the correct amount of BS.

So tell me, are there really four hours a day for the president to watch garbage TV?

12/13/2017 11:50:34 PM

I used to laugh at that JCE dude but since he left, I've seen the mentality he was describing in most of the users left behind here.

"The way I think is correct and anyone who thinks in a different way is just lazy, evil, an idiot, or a troll on the internet specifically targetting me with opinions that piss me off"

It takes a special kind of snowflake for the last part.

12/14/2017 12:51:20 AM

Was that in response to my post, or just in general.

12/14/2017 7:35:08 AM

that's bait

12/14/2017 8:35:10 AM

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/national-security/donald-trump-pursues-vladimir-putin-russian-election-hacking/?utm_term=.c01d9633714d&wpisrc=nl_popup&wpmm=1

No need to criticize his television habits, everything else about him is bad enough:

Quote :

"U.S. officials declined to discuss whether the stream of recent intelligence on Russia has been shared with Trump. Current and former officials said that his daily intelligence update — known as the president’s daily brief, or PDB — is often structured to avoid upsetting him. Russia-related intelligence that might draw Trump’s ire is in some cases included only in the written assessment and not raised orally, said a former senior intelligence official familiar with the matter. In other cases, Trump’s main briefer — a veteran CIA analyst — adjusts the order of his presentation and text, aiming to soften the impact. “If you talk about Russia, meddling, interference — that takes the PDB off the rails,” said a second former senior U.S. intelligence official. "

Quote :

"In one of her first encounters with the president, an Oval Office meeting in preparation for a call with Putin on Syria, Trump appeared to mistake Hill for a member of the clerical staff, handing her a memo he had marked up and instructing her to rewrite it. When Hill responded with a perplexed look, Trump became irritated with what he interpreted as insubordination, according to officials who witnessed the exchange. As she walked away in confusion, Trump exploded and motioned for McMaster to intervene. McMaster followed Hill out the door and scolded her, officials said. Later he and a few close staffers met to explore ways to repair Hill’s damaged relationship with the president. Hill’s standing was further damaged when she was forced to defend members of her staff suspected of disloyalty after details about Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak — in which the president revealed highly classified information to his Russian guests — were leaked to The Post. "

Quote :

"“I told Rex we’re not giving the real estate back to the Russians,” Trump said at one point, referring to Tillerson, according to participants. Later, Trump marveled at the potential of the two sites and asked, “Should we sell this off and keep the money?”"

Quote :

"Putin, who had shown such restraint in late December 2016, reacted to the new sanctions with fury, ordering the United States to close two diplomatic properties and slash 755 people from its staff — most of them Russian nationals working for the United States. Rather than voice any support for the dozens of State Department and CIA employees being forced back to Washington, Trump expressed gratitude to Putin. “I want to thank him because we’re trying to cut down on payroll,” Trump told reporters during an outing at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. — remarks his aides would later claim were meant as a joke. “We’ll save a lot of money.” "

12/14/2017 11:21:17 AM