Oh really ?
The Trump Presidency | Biden Inaugurated
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Oh really ?
That's right - hilarious!
Using my powers of deduction you're living in your mum's basement, spending most of your time masturbating and spending time on your PS4.
My powers of deduction are better than yours.
Logging out for now. Work beckons.
Look forward to reading some angry Liberal responses, most of which will be mud-slinging disguised as an argument.
Look forward to reading some angry Liberal responses, most of which will be mud-slinging disguised as an argument.
Fair enough, I can't judge you for that. I thought it was just a kid being a kid at the time, and it seems he has matured since then.
...President-elect Donald Trump is about to learn the nation’s ‘deep secrets’
One of the most important phases of the transition to power for President-elect Donald Trump includes briefings on U.S. intelligence capabilities and secret operations as well as separate descriptions of the extraordinary powers he will have over the military, especially contingency plans to use nuclear weapons, according to officials.
In 2008, after then-President-elect Obama was given one sensitive intelligence briefing at a secure facility in Chicago, he joked, “It’s good that there are bars on the windows here because if there weren’t, I might be jumping out.”
Though Trump has been given some intelligence briefings on threats and capabilities, there are a series of separate briefs scheduled for the president-elect into what Obama has called “our deep secrets.”
Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said she could not provide any information on the schedule for the briefings. Previous presidents received them over the course of the entire transition.
First is a detailed look at technical and human intelligence sources and methods that provide critical information on Special Access Programs — the most sensitive top-secret undertakings — for drone strikes and other intelligence operations. This would include the disclosure, if Trump wants the names, of the dozens of officials abroad paid by the CIA, to the tune of millions of dollars. Though entitled, presidents normally have not asked for names unless the secret relationship involves a particularly important CIA asset.
Other methods include the most sensitive technical capabilities of the National Security Agency to intercept communications abroad, store them and make them instantly available to analysts and operators.
Trump will learn that the president is considered “The First Customer” by the intelligence community, which has a tradition of responding to any and every presidential request.
A second briefing will be on the covert actions undertaken by the CIA that are designed to change events abroad without the hand of the United States being revealed publicly. There are currently about a dozen such “Findings” — intelligence orders signed by the president. Some are broad authorities to conduct lethal counterterrorism operations in dozens of countries. Others are narrow, such as support for clandestine efforts in a single country to stop genocide or payments to political opposition or rebels.
Under law and procedures, such covert-action orders are issued by the office of the president, and Obama’s orders will continue unless Trump, as president, changes them. Normally, the president-elect will review current covert actions and decide before the inauguration whether he wants to continue, modify or cease any. He also could add new covert operations after taking the oath.
Obama received his briefing on covert action Dec. 9, 2008.
Under law, the president can decide to launch new covert operations but must inform the Senate and House intelligence committees. For particularly sensitive operations, the president has to see only that the Gang of Eight is informed. The eight are the two party leaders of both the Senate and House, plus the chairman and ranking member of the intelligence committees.
Among the most important “Findings” are counter-proliferation operations designed to prevent a country from obtaining a nuclear weapon or a nuclear weapon delivery capability.
Other operations are offensive aggressive cyberattacks involving stealthy computer hacking designed to break into computer systems of foreign governments. Previously, they have been called the Computer Network Attack (CNA) and are among the most highly secret undertakings of the U.S. government.
In addition, Trump will receive information on domestic counterterrorism overseen by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. After the 9/11 attacks, the FBI was turned loose to stop the next attack. Efforts to penetrate banks, communications and foreign corporations in the United States have been significantly expanded.
Trump will also be given information about “Continuity of Government,” which are the plans and procedures designed for implementing the line of presidential succession. That could be in case of a terrorist attack or other emergency in which the president dies or could not carry out the duties of his office.
A third briefing will be on nuclear-war plans and options. The “football,” a briefcase carried by the military aide to the president, includes authentication codes designed to ensure that any launch order comes only from the commander in chief.
The “football” also contains a book of options benignly called the “Presidential Decision Handbook.” This top secret/code-word book, known as the “Black Book,” of about 75 pages has separate contingency plans for using nuclear weapons against potential adversaries such as Russia and China.
The president can select nuclear strike packages against three categories — military targets, war-supporting or economic targets and leadership targets. There are sub-options, and the menu allows a president to withhold attacks on specific targets.
Two officials said that the “Black Book” also includes estimates on the number of casualties for each of the main options that run into the millions, and in some cases over 100 million. Officials who have dealt with nuclear-war options said that learning the details can be horrifying and that there is a “Dr. Strangelove” feel to the whole enterprise.
President-elect George W. Bush did not receive his briefing on nuclear options until five days before inauguration in 2001.
Top White House officials say that presidents in the past have had no love and little interest in getting the nuclear war plans briefing and almost recoil at the prospect of having such authority. Under practice as the commander in chief, the president can employ U.S. military forces as he sees fit.
The system of authentication and options is designed for quick response to attack in an emergency. A president might have to make a decision in a matter ofminutes with little or no time to consult the secretary of defense, military leaders or the National Security Council.
In addition, Trump will receive briefings from the Pentagon on current military operations, including the deployments in the ongoing wars in Afghanistan, against the Islamic State and other Special Operations actions abroad.
After one of the briefings in 2008, Obama told a close adviser that it was perhaps one of the most sobering experiences of his life. He said, “I’m inheriting a world that could blow up any minute in half a dozen ways, and I will have some powerful but limited and perhaps even dubious tools to keep it from happening.”
In an Oval Office interview on July 10, 2010, Obama confirmed that he had made that sort of comment.
“Events are messy out there,” he said. “At any given moment of the day, there are explosive, tragic, heinous, hazardous things taking place.” He acknowledged that as president it was his responsibility to deal with all these problems. “People are saying, ‘You’re the most powerful person in the world. Why aren’t you doing something about it?’ ”
The power of the presidency has two sides. On one, it is an extraordinary concentration of constitutional and legal authority. On the other, as Obama said, it can be limited and dubious.
Soon, Trump will experience both the power and its limits.
Evelyn Duffy contributed to this report.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...f9bc40-a847-11e6-8fc0-7be8f848c492_story.html
Macroevolution is widely accepted by the scientific community. You may have had lots of people inform you otherwise but that doesn't make you well informed.
Micro/Macro evolution are terms used to differentiate between evolution at different scales. The idea that you can have one without the other is, if you'll pardon my French, fecking stupid. Evolution is just a sequence of minute changes. If you pile up enough matchsticks, then eventually you get a mountain of matchsticks. People struggle with this micro/macro concept purely because they either can't reconcile it with their religious beliefs or because they can't wrap their heads around the numbers and scale involved. When it's the latter, I can completely sympathize and wouldn't call them idiots. It's a mind-boggling process that truly changes how you see the world once you come to really understand it. For the former however, its just wilful ignorance, and that pisses me off.
Lots of things aren't universally accepted. Modern medine as a force for good is not universally accepted. The moon landings having actually happened is not universally accepted. Liverpool being a vile scumpit of a football team is not universally accepted. That does not stop any of these things from being true, it just means some people are really not very intelligent.
Trump in July 2015 - "I would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done,”
"I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off.”
Trump after winning - Discussions with advisers about how many days of the week he is required to spend in the White House.
"I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off.”
Trump after winning - Discussions with advisers about how many days of the week he is required to spend in the White House.
Jamies Winston and Evolution. I must be in the Trump Presidency thread.
It's an astonishing argument to have to have. Forgive my frustration. Evolution by natural selection has, literally, the best evidence base of any single scientific theory in existence and is not a liberal or illiberal position. It is not a controversial position. I don't expect to have to provide debate the existence of gravity, or tectonic plates. I'm not sure what you want me to do? Explain the fundamentals of evolutionary theory to you? I'd say start with the 157 year old book's detailed and meticulously explained theory which you feel needs the prefix "neo" and then follow the decades of published and peer reviewed research that follows. If you really want to debate this, set up a thread and I'll gladly see you there.
Frankly, I'm confused.
Mods: Apologies for off topic conversation. I shall desist now.
As someone who's to the right of center, and certainly to the right of the Caf on economic issues. As someone who constantly babbles on about the budget consequences of some of the more generous policy proposals that candidates on the left come up with, I'm just here to say that no one does deficit increases like the US Republican Party.
What we have on the table right now, with tax cuts and proposed increases in infrastructure and defense spending is almost certain to bust the budget wide open at a pace we haven't seen before. Pathetic and depressing stuff.
What we have on the table right now, with tax cuts and proposed increases in infrastructure and defense spending is almost certain to bust the budget wide open at a pace we haven't seen before. Pathetic and depressing stuff.
So they'll probably shelve one of those at least. Wonder which one...
I have and I'll read 'In Trump we Trust' as soon as I'm done with current Library book list. Maybe you are lazy asking for proof, but then complaining about people who ask you to google as not helpful makes you uberlazy.
You think it's fun trolling liberals here, well good for you. I'm not a liberal, I'm a Lutheran/Methodist christian all my life. I've been a choir boy, organist and a voting member in a Connecticut church. I'm aligned towards center left, but I just believe my religious views shouldn't impact anyone else but me. I'm concerned about the nationalistic noise coming out from all corners of the world.
I have and I'll read 'In Trump we Trust' as soon as I'm done with current Library book list. Maybe you are lazy asking for proof, but then complaining about people who ask you to google as not helpful makes you uberlazy.
You think it's fun trolling liberals here, well good for you. I'm not a liberal, I'm a Lutheran/Methodist christian all my life. I've been a choir boy, organist and a voting member in a Connecticut church. I'm aligned towards center left, but I just believe my religious views shouldn't impact anyone else but me. I'm concerned about the nationalistic noise coming out from all corners of the world.
I'm not religious at all but I will say a big "amen" to that!
My guess is infrastructure that is nowhere near his hotels.
Roger Stone is apparently up in arms that Trump has chosen Priebus over Bannon. This will get interesting.
And you just know most of the press will now stop asking for his tax returns.
Not sure they would want that total media war. That could lead to transformation to Fox News like outlets but oppositely polarized, and ran by far more capable people.
Haha...looks like Lenski has forced some the ID crowd to grudgingly accept a tiny tiny pill of truth.
After watching the Leslie Stahl interview on Trump on 60 Minutes, its actually easy to see why Trump doesn't have any time for the likes of CNN and the NY Times. They are basically running nothing but negative stories about him with little interest in being balanced. Fox on the other hand, are being far too nice to him.
He'll be under permaaudit.
Why should they not hold a bigoted, moronic sexist to account? He's got incredibly kind treatment throughout the process for a man who's campaign won partly on interference from Russia and whose personal actions paint him as a disgusting, vile person.
Because they're mean for reporting on his actual words and positions, rather than pet theories that he's been nice all along.
They certainly should, but the networks have really gone overboard - especially CNN - with attempting to fixate on those things instead of actually bringing more policy into the debate. Jerry Springer tabloidism sells more advertising, so obviously identity politics like race, gender, immigration etc are going to get covered more. In the few instances where Journos have had normal interviews with Trump, it has actually been quite interesting.
It's on my bucket list to get you and @PedroMendez to give me lectures on your economic policy positions
How can you genuinely bring proper policy into the debate when even you yourself are arguing that Trump's current policy is mostly unfounded and that he'll change it all within a couple of months?
If the rumours of Trump not knowing areas he needs to hire/replace staff are true, then it's quite clear that he just fundamentally does not understand the scale of the job he is about to undertake, and that any pledge he's made is essentially a load of shite.
And it's Trump himself who turns it onto non-policy - when he got asked genuine policy-related questions in the debates, he'd divert it onto how he'd knock the hell out of ISIS, how his son was good with computers, how corrupt his opponent was, and other such incoherent nonsense.
The man ranges somewhere between clueless and dangerous. Perhaps both. The former could be dangerous if he is manipulated by the wrong people. The latter is even more worrying, and the fact he's now in office should not mean that news organisations tone down that rhetoric and pander to him.
We can be here all day just listing the racist, xenophobic and misogynistic things he said during this campaign or those type of things that were in his past. The truth is not always somewhere in the middle.
Read somewhere the second and most of the third generation of Hispanics don't identify themselves with their roots and they split the vote between Douche and Turd.
I'd prefer the networks focus more on policy than to feed into the tabloid phenomenon surrounding Trump's bombastic statements.
It would be pointless to continue fixating on any of that. The people have spoken and Trump won the EC. The campaign is over, time to move towards governance.
But, he rarely talked about policy. His campaign was 90% bombastic statements.
The media kept saying the Trump supporters are the bad guys and we can see they got that wrong as well.
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All of this stuff does not just end once the election is over.
The fact that he did so well with women and Latinos proves that all the hoopla about his "racist, misogynist, xenophobic....statements etc" wasn't actually a big factor against him since those were the groups that actually helped elect him.
In what way is it 'tabloid phenomenon' when they are reporting on words that have been directly said by the man himself? He's said degrading things about women, including groping them - this could be indicative of his and his parties attitude to women during his Presidency. That's important.
He's made derogatory comments about Muslims, Mexicans, and accused the black President of being non-American born, presumably on no other basis than the colour of his skin. Thus, that could affect policy towards minorities. That's important.
If Trump can come up with consistent, workable policies that he looks like he might even think about sticking to, then they'll be discussed. They are being discussed, too: his plan to build a wall continues to receive rightful scrutiny.
Trump may be President-elect but the stances towards his bigotry and hatred should not be reduced compared to what it was pre-election - he remains the man he was then, and it should be the duty of the American press to hold him to account for his actions.
A good bit of it does. If Trump does something to warrant it to continue then it will obviously not go away, but until such time, anyone who harps on this is just living in the past.
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