Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[PTTG??]

So here's where this leaves the hypothesis that Trump's administration is more competent than it appears:

He's clearing house with questionably-legal pronouncements, finding people (such as the previous AG) who won't be his enforcers, or might leak information. These people are then systematically removed.

Starting today, he will start stocking the Supco. His appointees will be those he has leverage over. Expect at least one more justice to die of "natural causes," such as polonium poisoning.

Once he has a foundation in the supreme court, then he sets to work with the serious business of screwing the entire nation.

The main way we can resist is to ensure that local areas won't work with the feds. We still have two years before we even have a chance to clear his legislative support.

[Sergarr]

So I've seen a few hysterical people across the internet freaking out about Trump firing the acting-Attorney General, saying that he's tearing down the separation of powers, the checks and balances, etc.

Am I mistaken in thinking that the AG is answerable to the executive branch, not the judicial branch? I thought the Supreme Court was the one to watch as far as judicial went, not the AG.

Nah, that's pretty much it. AG's just the head of the DoJ, which is an executive branch department and by extension mostly under the president's jurisdiction. Doesn't strictly speaking have anything to do with judiciary anything, nor much to do with checks and balances.

Probably just folks getting confused by the name of the title and assuming it's not executive branch stuff, tbh.

That seems to be happening a lot of these days. People read headlines and assume that they have enough information to both provide their own commentary and to spread it further. It's like a rumor-mill, except a thousand-times faster. Terrifying.

So here's where this leaves the hypothesis that Trump's administration is more competent than it appears:

He's clearing house with questionably-legal pronouncements, finding people (such as the previous AG) who won't be his enforcers, or might leak information. These people are then systematically removed.

Okay, I don't go further than that, because here's a problem with that conspiracy theory: those people in question were already temporary holdovers from Obama administration, and in fact, the AG in question was due to be relieved of duty by tomorrow.

Starting today, he will start stocking the Supco. His appointees will be those he has leverage over. Expect at least one more justice to die of "natural causes," such as polonium poisoning.

Once he has a foundation in the supreme court, then he sets to work with the serious business of screwing the entire nation.

What if he doesn't do that, what conclusion would you make?

The main way we can resist is to ensure that local areas won't work with the feds. We still have two years before we even have a chance to clear his legislative support.

The general problem with that approach is that the "feds" have full control over the army and have all legal rights to invade a rebellious province and subjugate it. Well, maybe not exactly "full legal rights", but, well, CIA torture prisons.

[TheBiggerFish]

That's the problem - if it was a democratic election, instead of the EC, it would have been Hillary.

[Starver]

Eh, I wouldn't really say the two are equivalent. The House of Lords has no real power, and if they ever started getting uppity what power they do have would swiftly be taken away.

It's mainly an old twat's club for politicians' donors and friends.

It's a less useful "check and balance" with it heading towards an appointed-only House (discussions about this abound elsewhere, and you probably already know my feelings about HoL make-up), but even the blatently political appointees (ex-party leaders and big-shots) tend to take their job seriously and raise genuine concerns where there are concerns being missed in the HoC-led populist approach.  They have a very big voice when it comes to saying "Are you sure you want this?" and can often add sanity-checks to any headlong rush into bad legislation attempts...

Their "nuclear option" is a bit watered down, but the mere threat of the chaos that might arise from digging their heals in tends to discourage most Other Place recklessnesses from progressing too far without at least cursory modification.

[smjjames]

As I said, we lack sufficient data points to determine the true extent of Trump's actions. What was the old saying? "Don't attribute to malice what can more easily be attributed to incompetence."?

Yeah, a bit over a week isn't enough time to really tell his intentions, all of it atm just points to sheer incompetence rather than malice.

As this Vox article says, when a real crisis erupts, that incompetency will be a major problem.

[hector13]

Starting today, he will start stocking the Supco. His appointees will be those he has leverage over. Expect at least one more justice to die of "natural causes," such as polonium poisoning.

I'll say this for the anti-Trump crowd, at least their conspiracy theories are more entertaining. Definitely spicier than anything to do with Obama's birth certificate.

Also it's somewhat ironic that Trump gets accused of being divisive by people who seem to be constantly fomenting unrest and who have a general 'Let's do all we can to resist our democratically-elected president!' attitude.

The crimes of one side in an argument does not absolve the other side of doing the same things. Would you say Trump is not being divisive?

[Frumple]

Starting today, he will start stocking the Supco. His appointees will be those he has leverage over. Expect at least one more justice to die of "natural causes," such as polonium poisoning.

I'll say this for the anti-Trump crowd, at least their conspiracy theories are more entertaining. Definitely spicier than anything to do with Obama's birth certificate.

Oh, don't worry, the anti-obama stuff was just as spicy, probably even moreso. If there's actually a difference it's that the birther bullshit was about all they could get anyone outside the alt-right & co media sphere to notice, so it was much easier to hear about it.

... also I'm pretty sure most of us are either thinking PTTG's stuff is something approaching satire or just some degree of insanity. The other difference would be that a notable amount of the anti-obama crowd, uh. Didn't. Think that sort of thing. Seeing one say with a dead serious face and complete sincerity that obama was poisoning political opponents and another not looking or being even the least bit skeptical is/was... not terribly uncommon, insofar as conversations tend to drift towards discussion of clandestine political executions. Which is less unusual than you'd think among that particular bundle of demographics.

[Strife26]

That's the problem - if it was a democratic election, instead of the EC, it would have been Hillary.

And if it was based on the last name with the highest scrabble score instead of the EC it would have been Johnson.

[smjjames]

The WH is trying out a new thing with skype virtual chat tomorrow which wil have regional and local reporters from stations who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford coming to Washington DC. I looked and the participants are a reporter from a Fox affiliated station in Cleveland, a controversial (and highly anti-immigrant) talk show host, a newspaper representative from Kentucky, and someone from Rhode Island. Not sure if the Rhode Island one is a conservative outlet or liberal.

One problem though is that it appears to be that they might (or will, or are) pre-screen the questions, which isn't how things are supposed to work. The idea of reaching out to regional and local reporters is fine, and a great use of newer technology, but the pre-screening of questions is going down the wrong road.

[PTTG??]

It's actually impossible to parody Trump. For instance, he is actually inviting both SUPCO finalists to the White House so he can give one the red rose, and I would be utterly shocked if he didn't confront the runner-up with some specific reason for not "winning." The man is a clown, in the sense of one who garbs himself in a distorted, horribly mirrored image of reality which inspires both befuddlement and revulsion.

In my defense on the polonium front, I am doing the Trump the favor of writing conspiracy theories wherin he is competent and has a plan, which is certainly requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief.

[Folly]

...but the pre-screening of questions is going down the wrong road.

And yet not at all surprising from an administration that blames the "fake news" for most of their problems.

[Neonivek]

Meanwhile, back in Trumpland...

Well... This is getting more and more creepy...

Well, I dunno it seems normal to me. I mean, she refused to defend her boss policy after all.

Firing someone for doing their job, because their (important) job conflicts with what their boss wants to do...

Then hiring someone specifically so they will butcher the intent of that job and support their boss regardless.

It would be like if someone created someone whose only job is to make sure that building a tower won't crush anyone... Then when they say "No, that tower will crush someone" the boss fires them and hires someone and they go "Yes, don't worry. We will get that tower up!"

It really doesn't build confidence... Even further it says bad things when a person will fire anyone who says something they don't like.

[smjjames]

It's actually impossible to parody Trump. For instance, he is actually inviting both SUPCO finalists to the White House so he can give one the red rose, and I would be utterly shocked if he didn't confront the runner-up with some specific reason for not "winning." The man is a clown, in the sense of one who garbs himself in a distorted, horribly mirrored image of reality which inspires both befuddlement and revulsion.

I thought the whole 'inviting both nominees to Washington' thing was a clever way of disguising who would be the nominee, I'm guessing because any movements get leaked out pretty fast. Though you do have a point on making the other nominee very disappointed by bringing him to the WH and then not selecting him.

I'm still wondering what he has planned in mind for the other person though....

[Shub-Nullgurath]

Firing someone for doing their job, because their (important) job conflicts with what their boss wants to do...

Then hiring someone specifically so they will butcher the intent of that job and support their boss regardless.

It would be like if someone created someone whose only job is to make sure that building a tower won't crush anyone... Then when they say "No, that tower will crush someone" the boss fires them and hires someone and they go "Yes, don't worry. We will get that tower up!"

It really doesn't build confidence... Even further it says bad things when a person will fire anyone who says something they don't like.

If a prosecutor refuses to prosecute a case, they get disbarred. She's refused to represent her client (the US government) in the court of law, why should he not get rid of her?

[Egan_BW]

Reluctant PTW.