"I am asking the chairs of the House and Senate committees to investigate top secret intelligence shared with NBC prior to me seeing it," Trump said in a post on Twitter.Politicizing intelligence undermines the credibility of the intelligence services.
Reuters
Trump to seek probe of secret report he says was given to NBC
Also
President-elect Donald Trump dismissed a controversy over Russian hacking during the 2016 U.S. election campaign as a "political witch hunt," the New York Times reported on Friday before U.S. intelligence agencies were to brief him on the matter.Trump calls Russian hacking controversy a 'witch hunt': NYT
President-elect Donald Trump, who insulted rivals during his 2016 campaign with nicknames such as "Crooked Hillary" and "Little Marco," has a new nemesis: U.S. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, a man he derides as a "clown."ROFLMAO.
Democratic leader Schumer emerges as Trump's newest punching bag
18 comments:
Somebody is probably going to jail for a while...
He'll probably lock up the reporter if he/she doesnt spill it...
Locking up a reporter wouldn't be the most ideal way of starting a presidency.
Trump should stay off twitter. The more he tweets against the "intelligence", the more he looks like he's pro-Putin and anti-US intelligence agencies. He should leave this stuff to his team. The more public Trump is, the more people think he's Putin's stooge. It's all ridiculous, but people can be made to believe all kinds of ridiculous things.
This is gonna be an entertaining farce. Honestly, one of Trump's better qualities is how funny he is whether he's being intentional about it or not. He still thinks of himself as a showman.
Locking up a reporter wouldn't be the most ideal way of starting a presidency.
Trump should stay off twitter. The more he tweets against the "intelligence", the more he looks like he's pro-Putin and anti-US intelligence agencies. He should leave this stuff to his team. The more public Trump is, the more people think he's Putin's stooge. It's all ridiculous, but people can be made to believe all kinds of ridiculous things.
I usually agree with you, John, but I think you may not be familiar with the dynamic in the US. Trump is not speaking to everyone but rather populists and they absolutely love it.
Conversely, a majority of Democrats believe that Russia hacked the voting machines so that Trump's election is illegitimate even though this is baseless and even Obama has said so.
Conspiracy Theorists: Poll Shows Majority of Democrats Falsely Believe Russia Hacked Election Results
Narratives are targeted. The US deeply divided and coming apart at the seams. If this continues it will go off the rails.
Reason has gone on holiday. That's not surprising since Americans have also largely given up on science as an arbiter of truth.
Now it is choose your own narrative or make one up.
The Deep State will put an end to Trump quickly. Every branch of the banana-republic tree is put to get him.
Tom, in all things to do with domestic American politics I bow to your judgement, and I'll do so here.
The way it's pretty much being propagandised here in the UK is Trump is Putin's patsy, his useful idiot. Things of course look a lot different in the US. I accept that. So Trump may in fact be making all the smart moves.
Noah, there is certainly a concerted effort to do him in. And when I say concerted, it's basically conspiratorial. They've really gotten together to fuck him. I don't know if it's possible to survive such a concerted attack. They're making it clear that they're going to be at war with him for every second of every day of his presidency. This is unprecedented. It makes you want to get behind the Donald!
Noah, there is certainly a concerted effort to do him in. And when I say concerted, it's basically conspiratorial. They've really gotten together to fuck him. I don't know if it's possible to survive such a concerted attack. They're making it clear that they're going to be at war with him for every second of every day of his presidency. This is unprecedented. It makes you want to get behind the Donald!
Well the GOP establishment did that Obama in spades and he survived, even though he was crippled politically by obstruction and constant attack questioning his legitimacy as an American citizen.
Trump will not survive.
Plus Obama bought into all the debt phobia and had the "sequestration!" put upon him... and he was unlucky as the Fed kept rates at zero his entire two terms... Obama era will probably be unique in that respect no other Prez has had to endure 0 rates his entire tenure...
So he is forever associated with a period of economic under-performance...
Tom: "Well the GOP establishment did that Obama in spades and he survived..."
True, but Trump isn't facing anything like that. He's facing something indescribably worse. Obama had one of the major parties against him, but he had the other major party for him. He also had the institutions of government willing to govern as he saw fit.
In Trump's case, the great institutions of the nation have decided, in concert, with the establishment parties that they cannot and will not work with this president. That's the point I was trying to make. Apologies, if I didn't make myself clear. The great institutions of the nation have decided to concoct a story, or at the least allow themselves to be fooled by evidence that can only exist if you twist it hard enough and look at it in the right light, and the two establishment parties and the bulk of the media are disseminating it in order to kneecap Trump with it. That really is unprecedented.
I think that the difference is that Obama wanted to work with the establishment as a bipartisan president.
Trump ran against the bipartisan establishment and won. Now he has a job to do that he knows they will do all in their power to oppose. Apparently, he thinks he is up to the job.
Trump is going straight to the people. He knows damn well that as President he has no power over Congress, or the public purse. He has the luxury of a R majority in the Senate and House, which will help him initially.
If, however, he keeps up his dialogue with the American people which he does with his tweets, and he can deliver on jobs, he can sway how the people react in mid-term elections in 2018. The Democrats are playing with fire. People will get out and vote them out of office to prove a point to the elites who think they can dictate the future of the country to their detriment. The hoi polloi has caught on that their vote matters. And it’s a simple matter for Trump to tell his supporters to throw the bums out if they are not doing what their constituents want.
John, you wrote, “In Trump's case, the great institutions of the nation have decided, in concert, with the establishment parties that they cannot and will not work with this president.”
The great institutions, as you call them, and the establishment parties have to adjust to the idea that the new sheriff in town has already undercut their importance. They dont exist without the people’ votes, and Trump is building up a populist strength.
The smartest thing Trump can do is to keep on tweeting. And proof positive of it working are all the journos and think tank poobahs complaining about it, calling it unseemly for a president, claiming that he is destroying respect for America around the world, or that he is too green around the political ears and reckless. To that I say bullshit. They guy knows precisely what he’s doing, and I think it’s a breath of fresh air. And shithowdy, it's going to be entertaining.
"Well the GOP establishment did that Obama in spades and he survived, even though he was crippled politically by obstruction and constant attack questioning his legitimacy as an American citizen."
Obama blew it from the gitgo with his timid cabinet picks and failure to make job recovery his first priority.
Keynes warned Rossevelt in 1933: recovery before reform; don't scare off business when you're trying to get them to invest.
Obama did it the other way around. He went for healthcare reform and used up all his political capital. Obama swept into office with the highest first term approval rating and he had the whole country on his side. He could have been bold had he understood how the federal monetary system works. Instead, we got the 'we're broke" talk, and the tighten our belts story. He was not ready for primetime, and I deeply regret the two years of my life I threw away getting him elected. (From Sept 2006 thru Nov 2008.)
Tom, I don't see BO as working with the establishment as much as being their tool. Wall St. has been exceptionally well-served, as has the military complex, the insurance rackets, the drug companies. Everybody else ... not so much.
John, we're on the same page if the "great establishment" is the same thing as the Deep State (the military industrial complex and financiers that have been running things since Truman).
MRW, until now people's votes have been irrelevant, the establishment got the candidate they wanted because they owned both parties. The election of Trump is at best a phyrric victory. The demonization of Russia and Trump is at a fever pitch similar to Iraq's non-existent WMDs.
I don't see BO as working with the establishment as much as being their tool. Wall St. has been exceptionally well-served, as has the military complex, the insurance rackets, the drug companies. Everybody else ... not so much.
I believe that BO was conflicted. He was a politician that rose swiftly out of Chicago politics, which is not a wholesome environment to put it mildly. He clearly knew the score about who pays the bills and what they expect. On the other hand, he was an idealist who believed that he could positively affect US politics through bipartisanship by bringing the two sides together to cooperate where they could, meaning political compromise. I think he was naïve in the later belief and hung on to it much too long instead of adapting to reality on the ground.
He needed backers to get electing to his first term and know he would also need backers for reelection. He probably wasn't anymore craven about this than others. In the American system, corruption is built in owing to campaign finance, lobbying and the revolving door. The bribery is just legalized.
I said a long time ago that I felt the US Deep State has always had a plan to combat "Prez gone crazy". Trump is going down that path, lashing out at everyone that disagrees with him and fostering a crazed conspiracy theory laden administration. He's not a stable person, and his most ardent supporters are nuts too.
There is a lot to dislike about the US govt machine that has been in place for the last 30 years but I feel like Trump is simply the wrong guy to lead this overthrow. He is not about country he is about bizniss, which is neoliberalism on steroids. We cannot solve our problems by treating our country as US Inc..
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