https://www.wired.com/2016/11/trumps-transition-team-tied-anti-gay-pseudoscience/?mbid=social_fb

Quote :

"How tied up is Trump with this group? Ken Blackwell, Trump’s transition team’s domestic policy chair, is an FRC senior fellow. Kay Cole James, who co-leads the transition team in management and budget affairs, is a former FRC vice president. James’ co-lead, Ed Meese, has written for FRC. Brietbart’s Ken Klukowski, head of the team’s “Constitutional rights” policy, served as director of FRC’s Center of Religious Liberty. Trump’s nominee for secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, comes from a family of FRC donors."

Breitbart isn't the only fringe group of nuts Trump is empowering it seems.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/01/us/politics/trump-conflict-of-interests.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

Good graphic representation of Trumps conflicts. The Deutche Bank one is interesting.


[Edited on December 1, 2016 at 11:01 AM. Reason : ]

12/1/2016 10:51:35 AM

Now that more details are coming out, this is a good analysis of the Carrier situation:
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-carrier-deal-2016-12

12/1/2016 12:36:35 PM

That seems like a horrible and unsustainable precedent to set (paying off companies does not equal policy is my point for those who didn't follow).

Did he just want a "win" for the news?

[Edited on December 1, 2016 at 1:34 PM. Reason : Clarification ]

12/1/2016 1:30:51 PM

Seems like that's a big 'Well, Duh' to me.

This way he can wave this 'victory' all around while most of his other promises slowly get rolled back or reversed altogether.

12/1/2016 1:48:59 PM

^^^thanks for the link, that was a surprisingly good analysis of it.

^^i guess the broad point is if the price to govt of a job is "only" $875 per year that's a good price. Why wouldn't we keep offering incentives to keep jobs here as long as the return is good. The point made late in the column is a valid one, the US govt had tons of leverage over UTC in this instance whereas many other times that won't be the case so what happens then.

^im not a trump supporter but that "headline" mattered to 800 families

[Edited on December 1, 2016 at 2:05 PM. Reason : .]

12/1/2016 2:03:19 PM

Not disputing he did some good, but you know damn well his team is going to prop that up as a much bigger success than it really is. Anything to distract from his cabinet appointments, twitter gaffes, and the conflict of interest issues.

12/1/2016 3:06:19 PM

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-01/trump-s-carrier-victory-is-the-u-s-economy-s-loss

BVs editorial board take.

12/1/2016 4:44:08 PM

^ they're 100% right, but trump supporters and middle america don't care about macroeconomics and they hate globalization.

They think, naively, that we could seal our borders and be self sufficient and no factory would go out of business.

Plus the negatives there only exist theoretically, despite any past scenarios where it's borne out, and the positives are displaced in space and time from their current position-- so it doesn't help them feed their family today. Those 1000 workers couldn't be happier now.

I don't think you are going to convince people that they need to re-build their life at the age of 40 to learn a new skill and career so that the broader global economy reaches a more efficient equilibrium, when the government can pay a few hundred dollars per worker to maintain the status quo that's worked their entire life.

This is the essence of why populists messages work-- when people realize they can have someone who'll tilt the scale in their favor and ignore any broader or long-term consequences, they'll take it.

Where the long term effect comes into play is what UT does: do they accept slimmer margins, and lower executive pay to keep wages up and prices down, or do they just keep trying to pass these costs on? Only the former will have an impact on the structural problems driving inequality (and no company would be this egalitarian).

12/2/2016 2:40:36 AM

How's that swamp draining going?


Treasury Secretary - former Goldman-Sachs executive with strong ties to Hollywood (after accusing Hillary of being owned by Wall Street)

Transportation Secretary - Mitch McConnell's wife and Washington insider in her own right

HHS Secretary - 6-term congressman

HUD - Ben Carson ran for president (against Trump, obviously) then afterwards when approached for a cabinet position said he doesn't have enough experience to work for the federal government. LOLZ. Plus he's a doctor...why is he getting HUD and not Surgeon General? I guess if you're only going to appoint one black guy it's going to be for HUD.

Commerce Secretary - a billionaire who wants to raise tariffs on China (aren't republicans for lower taxes?)

U.N. Ambassador - SC governor and a Never-Trump republican

AG - an unapologetic racist, who was already denied federal judgeship because he's a racist.

Chief of Staff - chairman of the RNC

And of course, my absolute favorite, Education Secretary Betsy DuVos. Another billionaire, whose brother started Blackwater, believes taxes taken from the public should be spent on subsidizing the cost of private schools which don't accept 95% of the people who would be paying for it. Specifically she's a big fan of funding religious schools, the kind which don't take kids like you and me. Her family has been deep inside the pockets of the republican party since the 70's, and I don't think she's stepped foot inside a public school in her entire life.

12/2/2016 2:46:44 AM

All of this so we could have conservative judges.

12/2/2016 9:24:12 AM

called the president of Taiwan

let's see how China reacts

12/2/2016 4:37:21 PM

^ people are making too big a deal out of that. His cabinet picks and advisors are a bigger issue that we have actual influence over

12/2/2016 6:15:36 PM

Taiwan makes a ton of stuff. If he's all for bilateral trade deals, this makes sense to talk with them directly.

Let Beijing figure it out.

12/2/2016 8:15:51 PM

https://twitter.com/danpfeiffer/status/804852491913338880

Likely a lie, but trump is saying the call was unprompted to him. It's possible they were just ignorant to the implications or they're playing coy in public. Either way, this is part of the normal spectrum of global politics... we should expect trump to stumble around for a while and hope the rest of our govnernment can keep things from blowing up.

12/2/2016 8:33:40 PM

I feel every post in this thread about a tweet could lead with likely a lie.

12/2/2016 9:01:43 PM

Based on the public reports of who he's spoken to, looks like trump is trying to redraw the battle lines on our traditional friends and enemies, under the premise that we don't have to be on good trading terms with anyone.

Essentially the nationalist, isolationist platform he ran on. The same ideology that prompted people to say trump is dangerous and could lead to a new world war.

It will be interesting to see his approach to Saudi Arabia under the same paradigm. You would predict for him to essentially treat them like he talks about china and Iran, but we'll have to wait and see.

12/2/2016 9:16:05 PM

I'm not a fan of Trump, but re-examining our foreign policy relationships is something that is long overdue. The bipartisan consensus on foreign policy is one of the root causes of many of our troubles internationally for the last 40 years.

If they weren't important trade partners there is no way we would be ignoring the horrific human rights abuses happening in China and Saudi Arabia. It's easy to be principled and embargo Cuba when they offer fuck all.

Look, I don't want a trade war with China, but there are legitimate reasons to look at whether they should have most favored nation status.

This whole kerfluffle over talking to the President of Taiwan is silly, and had it been Obama the media and everyone on the left would be heaping praise on him while the Republicans suddenly became hugely concerned with what an affront it is to our friends in Beijing.

12/2/2016 10:06:15 PM

So when does he get his Nobel Peace Prize?

12/2/2016 10:38:06 PM

Quote :

"called the president of Taiwan "

I am kind of pleasantly surprised by the responses of the liberal(s) in this thread to this. Obviously, talking with Taiwan is 10x less worse than resuming diplomatic relations with Cuba. So kudos to moron in this thread right now.

12/2/2016 10:53:05 PM

Okay, this gets dumber...

http://shanghaiist.com/2016/11/18/trump_taiwan_expand.php

This article from 2 weeks ago mentions trumps kid meeting with business development in Taiwan. It's reported that trumps team arranged the call with Taiwan.

So it's looking like trump risked a diplomatic incident to further his personal business dealings.

It wasn't pure hapless ignorance
It wasn't being manipulated by Taiwan
It wasnt calculated political manuevering

It was just plain old corruption and manipulation trump has been engaging in literally his entire life.

I'm starting to get a feel for "trumps razor" now.



[Edited on December 3, 2016 at 12:06 AM. Reason : ]

12/3/2016 12:00:34 AM

12/3/2016 12:17:29 AM

Now dutuerte is saying trump said using viglilante death squads to control drugs is "the right way".

Gonna be a long 4 years. The best we can hope for is Americas reputation not being completely trashed.

12/3/2016 12:39:57 AM

Sarah fucking Palin making principled conservative (and coherent, Wow!) arguments against Trumps "carrier deal."

http://www.youngcons.com/sarah-palin-but-wait-the-good-guys-wont-win-with-more-crony-capitalism/


My simple liberal brain just exploded

12/3/2016 7:24:37 AM

^^ lol I wouldn't listen to anything that nutjob says.

12/3/2016 8:04:35 AM

Quote :

"This is the essence of why populists messages work-- when people realize they can have someone who'll tilt the scale in their favor and ignore any broader or long-term consequences, they'll take it. "

hmm, kinda like leftist, redistributive policies in general.

12/3/2016 9:48:57 AM

Quote :

"... when people realize they can have someone who'll tilt the scale in their favor and ignore any broader or long-term consequences, they'll take it."

Disregarding the populist messaging aspect, this would also apply to tax cuts for the rich, financial deregulation, etc.

12/3/2016 10:41:43 AM

^^ you mean the exact reason we aren't a direct democracy and the framers put multiple buffers between the people and power?

12/3/2016 11:18:09 AM

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/02/world/trump-calls-to-world-leaders.html

12/3/2016 11:30:30 AM

Quote :

"hmm, kinda like leftist, redistributive policies in general."

Except, you know, those have been empirically proven to not only help people out of poverty more than any other policies, they have also improved the economy and society as a whole every time they've been implemented. This isn't up for a debate, it's a proven fact. Welfare as an investment works. Social safety nets like Medicaid and Medicare work. High rate of taxation on upper income brackets work. You have literally decades of proof that these policies work. And what happens when you try conservative fantasies like supply side and regressive taxation? Massive economic failure. See: Kansas, or what happened after 8 years of Dubya, or shitty economic performance during basically every Republican administration of the last half century.

Another aside, remember that CEO who sent out a letter to his employees that if Obama won a second term and eliminated the Bush tax cuts/implemented Obamacare, he would be laying a bunch of them off? Well that never happened and a couple years later he sent out another letter announcing pay raises and bonuses for his entire company, citing better than expected financial performance. Remember when Romney promised unemployment would be below 6% at the end of his first term? Unemployment is at 4.6%. Republicans would be planning to add him to Mt. Rushmore if he even got 6%.

[Edited on December 3, 2016 at 3:02 PM. Reason : .]

12/3/2016 2:33:07 PM

Your anecdotes are irrelevant to my point, which is along the lines of:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing...

12/3/2016 9:34:16 PM

Looks like he intends to move forward with the 35% tariffs for companies that outsource.

12/4/2016 12:44:56 PM

So people will have jobs but everything will be more expensive.

12/4/2016 12:47:26 PM

Remember when the Obama Admin was (barely) trying to prosecute big banks and ALL conservatives were whining about how it was a "shakedown?" This is so much worse.

12/4/2016 1:48:28 PM

That's what I expect of the whole administration.. take something Obama tried to do, rename, add some token "conservative" spin/aspect to it and ram it through Congress. Trumpcare! Trumpfrastructure "pickaxe ready projects!". TTPP Trump transpacific partnership newly "renegotiated" now with less impact on real estate developers.

12/4/2016 3:39:48 PM

Ask known potential conflicts of interest for Trump

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38069298

12/4/2016 7:06:22 PM

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-taiwan-phone-call-was-weeks-in-the-planning-say-people-who-were-involved/2016/12/04/f8be4b0c-ba4e-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?postshare=3611480902304781&tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.580160cc6875

So according to this, the Taiwan thing was part of a specific intention to rile up China.

This could make sense with trump buddying with Russia, who traditionally is on China's side.

Also seems like If you wanted to start a world war, this is how you do it. The American Revolution was started because of tariffs.

12/4/2016 10:51:32 PM

Also, this smear campaign against china is verrryy similar to the bush admin and Iraq before 9/11. Congress had to shut him down a few times before 9/11 happened and bush eventually could use terrorism to promote the Iraq war.

Looks like trump is trying to provoke china and use this as justification to escalate a conflict.

It seems equally likely though trump is haplessly incompetent and trump wants people to think this. Tweeting about snl is going to make more people watch it and think he's a good, which might cause people to be less worried about him. But he could just be an emotionally unstable idiot.

12/4/2016 11:04:26 PM

Looks like I'm not the only one thinking along those lines https://twitter.com/jbarro/status/805643465992212480

12/5/2016 12:26:53 AM

Why would Trump want a war with China? You're getting paranoid my friend.

12/5/2016 2:54:50 AM

I don't know if he wants a war with china.

I don't think anyone knows what trump really wants, his campaign promises seem mostly empty, he doesn't release transcripts of his phone calls, his spokespeople don't really elaborate on what his tweets mean-- not even Paul Ryan knows.

But these are actual serious issues to be flinging around in public for a president elect. I can't imagine foreign countries seeing how unstable Trump is, are taking these statements too lightly.

If in fact Trump's team knows of the message the phone call sends, combined with his tweets, it seems like he wants to prepare Taiwan for an armed conflict with China.

12/5/2016 3:14:11 AM

Quote :

" it seems like he wants to prepare Taiwan for an armed conflict with China."

that or he wants to put some hotels there

[Edited on December 5, 2016 at 6:40 AM. Reason : obama sold them over a billion in weapons for what you talkin about]

12/5/2016 6:39:55 AM

^ I don't see any reason to believe he won't use the presidency to try and further his business interests. Not sure why people think he is some changed man now that he is president. It didn't stop Bill Clinton from being a womanizer and it won't stop Donald Trump from blurring every ethical line there is to further his business interests.

Quote :

"Why would Trump want a war with China? You're getting paranoid my friend."

At the very least his twitter account is fucking embarrassing. He needs to stop that shit and act like a god damn adult. Sad!

[Edited on December 5, 2016 at 8:28 AM. Reason : X]

12/5/2016 8:25:55 AM

Agreed! I think most of us if we said what we were thinking immediately in reaction to things would say a lot of dumb stuff we would regret later. None of us are the president however. Dude needs to get off twitter and any form of media where his initial reaction to things can be seen.

12/5/2016 9:37:26 AM

-15

http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/02/technology/fcc-cable-box-trump/index.html?iid=ob_homepage_tech_pool

How in the hell is this a threat to innovation? If anything, it would allow companies like TiVo to flourish and provide attractive set top boxes that work with any provider. You could have a media player, dvr, blu ray player, etc all in one.

It would be nice if the PS5 could replace what...4 physical boxes on somebody's entertainment stand with just one?

12/5/2016 2:53:16 PM

Not really a big deal since the industry is sort of already heading in that direction in response to consumer demand. DirecTV Now, SlingTV, PS Vue, etc... are all ways to access traditionally live cable content without a leased box. With Comcast you can request a CableCard and use something like an HDHomeRun to access all your channels via an app on different devices, plus you can stream via their website and mobile apps. As soon as Netflix announces Netflix Live, it's going to a fait accompli. Leased set top boxes and DVRs are a dying breed no matter what the FCC does or doesn't do.

12/5/2016 3:05:08 PM

I get that.

But it just furthers this stereotype that Republicans are backwards moving when it comes to things like tech.

I mean, I've never used a dvr, because i've never had cable, and I hope more people cut the cord because cable companies have been taking advantage of everyone for so long, but I still don't like this move.

12/5/2016 3:13:40 PM

^^ that's mostly true. My main wish is for ad skipping. It should be like YouTube where you can always skip after the first X seconds of an ad.

I see the Cable Box thing as one of the steps towards a la carte though.

[Edited on December 5, 2016 at 3:19 PM. Reason : ]

12/5/2016 3:19:06 PM

What is the point in continuing the lie about millions of illegals voting thus Clinton winning the popular vote? And how are real politicians like Pence and Preibus ok with indulging this?

I know adultswim always says give him a chance and stop being paranoid but it's hard not to see his as a nod towards authoritarianism. Create a false mandate based on a lie while at the same time sow doubt in to the electoral process and weaken the system thus making it easier to hold and manipulate. It's right out of the authoritarian handbook.

Or maybe Trump is just an idiot. In any case we are so fucked as a country if we continue just make shit completely up. Again this is different than not following through on campaign promises. This is complete and utter lies.

[Edited on December 6, 2016 at 7:55 AM. Reason : And I do blame some on the left for clinging to every Clinton story (true or not) as well]

12/6/2016 7:54:20 AM

OMG, Trump is such a baby boy.

I noticed Boeing stock jumping around a bit today so I checked the news. Their CEO gave an interview this AM that very lightly criticized Trumps proposed trade policy. Naturally Trump hate-tweeted threatening to scrap a government contract with them.

Again, seeing nothing from him to believe he will be anything but a reactionary disaster for the next four years.

12/6/2016 2:06:22 PM

Whether consciously or just intuitively, trump knows acting crazy causes people to give in to you just to shut you up. This works better a lot of times than trying to have level-headed, reasoned discussions.

The issue is going to be what happens when someone pushes back? Does Trump follow through on the crazy and burn everything in sight, or does he drop back to reasoned discussion? There's hasn't been any glimpse of reasoned discussion so far from him but we'll see I guess...

I wonder too if he uses the presidency to hurt companies' stocks and business because they criticize him, doesn't this open him up to lawsuits?


[Edited on December 6, 2016 at 5:16 PM. Reason : ]

12/6/2016 4:50:58 PM