The Trump Presidency

[Marauder06]

When it comes to international relations, I'm very consequentialist: "What happens if we don't?"

I deeply resent us giving any money at all to the Palestinian Authority. I think they're corrupt, they are dishonest, and they mean to do us harm. Their interests are fundamentally at odds with our own.

And they are better than the alternative.

If we (and numerous other countries, including Israel) were not propping up the PA, Hamas would murder them and take over the West Bank like they did in Gaza. That would directly threaten both Israel and Jordan, both of whom are important regional allies for us. It would spark another war with Israel, which would result in thousands of Palestinian casualties and be a propaganda nightmare for the Israelis.

Those things are not in our national interests. If we don't financially back the PA, they fall, and even if by some miracle they didn't, we'd lose the very limited leverage we have over them.

So, we give them money. And from a purely consequentialist perspective, I'm OK with that.

 

[Etype]

Well, "the tone" came across as pretty pointed. I would like to think we all respect each other on this site, even if our political ideologies differ.
Reed

It was pointed, but conveyed neither respect nor disrespect.

Your deft use of the word hero leads me to believe I've triggered some sort of an emotional response through my recital of observations- don't let the interwebs get to you.

 

[DA SWO]

Getting a bit personal aren't ya hero?
Reed

I was going to reply that if the EPA was the largest employer of Vets that the Vet Community should be ashamed of itself.
Details sometimes matter.

 

[Etype]

And placed a gag order on the EPA. I find it concerning that you think these are good things. Guess who the largest employer of Veterans is?
Reed

I was going to reply that if the EPA was the largest employer of Vets that the Vet Community should be ashamed of itself.
Details sometimes matter.

I think its also important to note that just because the fed gov't is the largest employer of vets, it doesn't mean that they have an innate requirement to maintain this position.

 

[Marauder06]

Interesting. First heard for me on news about leaving the UN:

A bill has already been introduced in Congress to remove the US from the United Nations

 

[Ooh-Rah]

Good to see he was so grateful

Manning slams Obama he commuted her jail sentence

Chelsea Manning slams Obama for compromises | Daily Mail Online

 

[Salt USMC]

Interesting. First heard for me on news about leaving the UN:

A bill has already been introduced in Congress to remove the US from the United Nations

Yeah, liberal social media was all over this story last week. This same bill has been introduced in almost every session of Congress since Bush 1, and almost always dies in committee. This one probably will as well. At least, I hope it will. This is one issue where traditional conservatives and I agree: removing the US from the UN, and willingly forgoing our seat on the security council, would be a bonehead move of epic proportions.

 

[Salt USMC]

Alright, I think everyone can appreciate the Bad Lip Reading of the inauguration. It's not their best work, but it's still worth a laugh.

"Hadouken. Hadouken to your face."

 

[Ranger Psych]

Contractors are like leasing for business: You have your base of what you need, you augment for durations as you need it, and if you have a permanent need.... then you actually purchase(hire) what you need permanently.

Leaving the UN. I support it, if it coincides with the US being capable of permanently leaving the planet. "Fuck this, we're out" of a national, epic, proportion circa Titan AE.

 

[TLDR20]

Apparently many grants and other funded research was frozen yesterday by the .gov. Many of our friends at Duke had their research funding frozen.

For those of you that don't know, most Ph.D research is funded via grants from the government, while a small amount is funded in other ways. Often these grants also pay a stipend for living expenses, as a science or engineering Ph.D is a 60-80 hr/week commitment. This is from first hand reports of people who have had their funding frozen.

I haven't seen this on the news yet...

 

[Ranger Psych]

 

[Ooh-Rah]

Bill de Blasio defies Donald Trump on sanctuary cities | Daily Mail Online

Here is my understanding of the whole "Sanctuary City" thing:

- Local police are not expected to drive a van around neighborhoods and "ask for your papers".

- If someone is arrested, and it is found that they are illegal (can we use that word again now?), they are expected to turn that person over to ICE

- Local mayors disagreed with this for numerous reasons. To include:
- The potential of ripping families apart
- The potential of 'illegals' no longer willing to talk to the police or act as a witness to a crime
- The loss of a huge voter pool. <kinda sarcastic here, but not really>

- Obama had used an executive order giving mayor's permission to ignore that law

- Trump used an executive order to reverse Obama's order and force cities to follow the law again

Am I missing something?

While I can see how this law could be abused, on the surface I am okay with it. Especially since it is only logical to assume that after Obama made the law null, it became much easier for "bad dudes" to act more brazen as they were not afraid of consequences that did not include deporting them.

 

[AWP]

I think it is cool they invited a pimp to the inauguration. (above and to the viewer's right from Laura Bush)

 

[Blizzard]

In re: executive orders, there really needs to be some action to curb or eliminate them. There is no explicit authorization for them in the Constitution, although it's widely assumed and accepted that the President has this privilege and courts have largely upheld this. However, they are so widely abused. We've reached a point where major policies are enacted via executive order. They're not used for administrative expediency, they're used to circumvent the legislative process. That's unsat. At a bare minimum, all executive orders should expire with the term of the president that signed them.

 

[Etype]

I think it is cool they invited a pimp to the inauguration. (above and to the viewer's right from Laura Bush)

#alljobsmatter

 

[ThunderHorse]

Well...this could get interesting: Mattis, Pompeo stunned by CIA 'black sites' report

 

[TLDR20]

This is garbage:

EPA science under scrutiny by Trump political staff

 

[Ooh-Rah]

Well...this could get interesting: Mattis, Pompeo stunned by CIA 'black sites' report

In the same way that no one will ever convince me that the NSA has really done anything different since they 'turned off' their surveillance of the U.S, nobody is going to convince me that we are not still using "black sites" in some capacity and that we are not using "enhanced interrogation" as well.

I'm just not buying it.

 

[reed11b]

Bill de Blasio defies Donald Trump on sanctuary cities | Daily Mail Online

Here is my understanding of the whole "Sanctuary City" thing:

- Local police are not expected to drive a van around neighborhoods and "ask for your papers".

- If someone is arrested, and it is found that they are illegal (can we use that word again now?), they are expected to turn that person over to ICE

- Local mayors disagreed with this for numerous reasons. To include:
- The potential of ripping families apart
- The potential of 'illegals' no longer willing to talk to the police or act as a witness to a crime
- The loss of a huge voter pool. <kinda sarcastic here, but not really>

- Obama had used an executive order giving mayor's permission to ignore that law

- Trump used an executive order to reverse Obama's order and force cities to follow the law again

Am I missing something?

While I can see how this law could be abused, on the surface I am okay with it. Especially since it is only logical to assume that after Obama made the law null, it became much easier for "bad dudes" to act more brazen as they were not afraid of consequences that did not include deporting them.

The primary problem for me is that the USSC has ruled repeatedly that the Fed can not force local goverment to enforce it's laws. This is not a liberal led ruling either.
Reed

 

[Il Duce]

In the same way that no one will ever convince me that the NSA has really done anything different since they 'turned off' their surveillance of the U.S, nobody is going to convince me that we are not still using "black sites" in some capacity and that we are not using "enhanced interrogation" as well.

I'm just not buying it.

You should buy it. The IC agencies are like any other government agencies - the lawyers have a huge say, leaders are risk averse, and the budget rules everything. It's really, really hard to bury something illegal and expensive in a federal agency with the expectation the people running it aren't going to go states evidence on you the minute investigators start sniffing around.

Charges of incompetence, fraud-waste-abuse, parochialism, budgeting malfeasance - I expect there to be more smoke where there's fire with those. The idea we've got all this really expensive secret awesome illegal shit on the down-low I think should require a much higher burden of proof.