An excellent article by Andrew Bacevich on Trump and the Middle East conundrum....
While first conceding that Trump might have actually been onto something when he said he knows more about ISIS than the generals he proceeds to express a pessimistic outlook that I share with him. Just hope we are both wrong.
To a very considerable extent, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, preferred candidate of the establishment, because he advertised himself as just the guy disgruntled Americans could count on to drain that swamp.
Yet here’s what too few of those Americans appreciate, even today: war created that swamp in the first place. War empowers Washington. It centralizes. It provides a rationale for federal authorities to accumulate and exercise new powers. It makes government bigger and more intrusive. It lubricates the machinery of waste, fraud, and abuse that causes tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to vanish every year. When it comes to sustaining the swamp, nothing works better than war.
Were Trump really intent on draining that swamp—if he genuinely seeks to “Make America Great Again”—then he would extricate the United States from war. His liquidation of Trump University, which was to higher education what Freedom’s Sentinel and Inherent Resolve are to modern warfare, provides a potentially instructive precedent for how to proceed.
But don’t hold your breath on that one. All signs indicate that, in one fashion or another, our combative next president will perpetuate the wars he’s inheriting. Trump may fancy that, as a veteran of Celebrity Apprentice (but not of military service), he possesses a special knack for spotting the next Grant or Sherman. But acting on that impulse will merely replenish the swamp in the Greater Middle East along with the one in Washington. And soon enough, those who elected him with expectations of seeing the much-despised establishment dismantled will realize that they’ve been had.
curlew wrote:And soon enough, those who elected him with expectations of seeing the much-despised establishment dismantled will realize that they’ve been had.
That and all the poor whites who are going to go from the acknowledged Obamacare healthcare frying pan into the Trumpcare (or no-care) fire. But I guess if you have negative net worth, it doesn't matter if you get a $250,000 hospital bill after a car wreck. It just goes into the non-performing category.
I was thinking about all this recently --- what kind of people would he need to pick to drain the swamp?
We all think they need to be outside of banking/outside of Washington, but where do you start?
If he doesn't at least somewhat keep to some of his promises, all that will guarantee is a massive democratic victory, probably in the house in two years and the presidency in four.
I don't know enough about the treasury guy, but it is not enough to simply write him off because he worked at Goldman, just like I haven't written Trump off yet even though he won't stop tweeting! Need to see what they actually come in and do before I give thumbs up or down.
No doubt, Benko. My only major issue with him right now is...STOP tweeting! He is going to be the president! Not some pop star who thinks people give a shit what they are doing every minute of the day.
...or at least limit your tweets to non-petty stuff!
Cortopassi wrote:No doubt, Benko. My only major issue with him right now is...STOP tweeting! He is going to be the president! Not some pop star who thinks people give a shit what they are doing every minute of the day.
...or at least limit your tweets to non-petty stuff!
I understand and agree. Though one thing I didn't understand until well today. Perhaps this is obvious, but e.g. his tweet about banning flag burning and taking away their citizenship. He knew full well that the supreme court would not allow that. Not sure but perhaps it was just his way of bringing up the topic.
And Kelly Ann (sp?) saying public things about how his supporters would be annoyed if he choose Romney for sec't of state. That was not some undisciplined thing she did. He orchestrated the whole thing.
Not that he doesn't make mistakes, but I think most things he does are intentional (whether wise or not), not him reacting all over the place. And he's still learning the politics thing.
Cortopassi wrote:No doubt, Benko. My only major issue with him right now is...STOP tweeting! He is going to be the president! Not some pop star who thinks people give a shit what they are doing every minute of the day.
...or at least limit your tweets to non-petty stuff!
This is a feature, not a bug. He hates the MSM [with good reason] so uses twitter to spread his propaganda rather than have it distorted by the media.
I think he uses his inflammatory statements to distract the media, sort of like how you give a toddler a toy to keep her from getting near a hot stove. It's amazing how well it works, too.
Re the flag burning tweet, I was thinking that the Facebook guy who had such a hard time giving up his citizenship to avoid taxes would have loved the idea. Trump could not possibly be so clueless as to believe everything he's tweeted. (I hope!)
TennPaGa wrote:
I agree and disagree. That is, while I think some of Trump's provocations *are* well-thought out, I also think alot of the tweeting stuff is, in fact, "reacting all over the place", to use your term. But I also think that's just how he is, mainly because it served him well in life.
I would agree that the flag-burning tweet was intentional, and not reactive. But I just can't fathom what the intention would be. "Bringing up the topic" doesn't really seem like much of a reason, and I haven't seen any evidence that this was his rationale.
I also think that's just how he is, mainly because it served him well in life.
You could certainly be right because I certainly don't understand why he would be doing it otherwise. On the other hand if you listen to people who've known him for decades or listen to him in one on one interviews you don't get the impression of a thin skinned hothead. An example of someone who knew him briefly, but still:
“You know, it’s funny. The rhetoric I saw him using during the campaign is not the Trump I knew, you know? He was always a gentleman, he was always kind,” said McGrath, who appeared on Trump’s former NBC reality show in 2011. http://www.thehill.com/blogs/in-the-kno ... ump-i-knew
I can't help thinking that e.g. if I read Scott Adams blog more perhaps it will all make sense.
What is it called when the government buys GM, tries to give it to the unions, and breaks bankruptcy law to stiff the bondholders?
That's not exactly capitalism, nor is it something to emulate or celebrate, nor is it sustainable long term policy. I'd like to think there was a better way to save GM, if that was to be government policy.
All the wealth that exists in this country is the result of capitalism. Now the zombies want to live off it while despising what made it. Like rebellious trust fund kids.
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
It seems that Obama's job creation record, like investment portfolio performance, depends very much on what you pick as a start date. The 800K figure comes from picking the start date to be February of 2010, which was the low point of manufacturing jobs after the Great Recession. The current total has leveled off the past couple of years, and remains below the level at the beginning of 2009 - when Obama took office.
You can't blame Obama for the loss of manufacturing jobs during the recession as that ship sailed before he took office, but I rather think that the overall shape of the graph can be attributed to free trade. He did not start that but he is a big advocate of that philosophy.
Apparently the swamp is global. If you ever wanted evidence that government insiders around the world are all running the same script, this should work:
Mr. Renzi’s supporters have taken to calling his opponents in the internet-born, populist Five Star Movement “Trumpisti.” They accuse their opponents’ numerous blogs and websites of flooding the Facebook accounts of young people with anti-Renzi, pro-Russian fake news.
TennPaGa wrote:
I generally like Bacevich's take on things (and I generally like The American Conservative's view as well).
I must say that Trump's picks for Secretary of Defense (James Mattis) and National Security Advisor (James Flynn), and the apparent top choices for Secretary of State (Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and David Petraeus) do not leave me feeling optimistic for the change in foreign policy I was hoping Trump would bring about.
Exactly.
I saw something on Fox News last night that really disturbed me. They were interviewing a veteran who had done 3 tours in Iraq and he said how demoralized he had become during Obama's two terms as we gave up everything that had been gained. With Trump's election and new cabinet picks however, he now felt optimistic that the effort would prove to not have been in vain after all. Apparently he thinks Trump and company are going to go back and finish the job.
I seem to recall that one of the things that got Trump into hot water with the Republican establishment and the likes of Romney and the Bush family were his statements about being lied into the Iraq war and what a huge mistake it was. I also heard him talk often about the waste of 2 trillion dollars on wars in the middle east and how we could have used that money to rebuild our own infrastructure several times over. I couldn't have agreed more and it's a big part of the reason I actually went to the polls and voted for the first time in 12 years.
And now I see the names you have noted above and wonder what the heck is going on. I'm beginning to think that the mind of Donald Trump and the whole MAGA (Make American Great Again) thing is a huge blank slate and we really have no idea what is going to be painted on it.
Several months ago, MRCTV sent a camera crew to the southern counties of West Virginia to document the impact of EPA regulations on communities that have historically relied on the coal industry for their livelihood. What the team found was devastating.
The effect of shuttered coal mines and the loss of thousands of coal jobs have trickled down into nearly every facet of these communities, crippling local businesses, destroying housing markets, and forcing desperate families from their homes. Thousands are without work, while still thousands more live under the constant threat of job loss and economic ruin. Local charities struggle to meet the needs of their communities. While the media are focusing on macro issues like "climate change," hardworking Americans are left to wonder how they will keep food on the table and lights on in houses they're struggling to hold on to.
Through up-close footage and a compelling series of brutally honest interviews, "Collateral Damage" exposes in stark detail the real, human impact of President Obama's promised and delivered assault on the coal industry, and on the hardworking American families of Appalachia.
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
curlew wrote: I also heard him talk often about the waste of 2 trillion dollars on wars in the middle east and how we could have used that money to rebuild our own infrastructure several times over.
Correction, I heard on the news last night that the figure for the middle east wars is more like 6 trillion dollars. With our national debt now at 20 trillion that means almost a third of it is due to the cost of the pointless Bush/Obama wars.
And I hear commentators say we can't afford the tax cuts that Trump is proposing. Well, I'm hoping Trump already knows where he can save 6 trillion dollars. That's the impression he gave me in the campaign. We shall see.
Several months ago, MRCTV sent a camera crew to the southern counties of West Virginia to document the impact of EPA regulations on communities that have historically relied on the coal industry for their livelihood. What the team found was devastating.
The effect of shuttered coal mines and the loss of thousands of coal jobs have trickled down into nearly every facet of these communities, crippling local businesses, destroying housing markets, and forcing desperate families from their homes. Thousands are without work, while still thousands more live under the constant threat of job loss and economic ruin. Local charities struggle to meet the needs of their communities. While the media are focusing on macro issues like "climate change," hardworking Americans are left to wonder how they will keep food on the table and lights on in houses they're struggling to hold on to.
Through up-close footage and a compelling series of brutally honest interviews, "Collateral Damage" exposes in stark detail the real, human impact of President Obama's promised and delivered assault on the coal industry, and on the hardworking American families of Appalachia.
Not true. This is why coal has gone bust:
"Four coal-fired power plants owned by Houston-based NRG Energy have been turned into natural gas plants, the company said this week." Houston Chronicle 12.23.2016
No one wants coal or nukes. The growth is in natural gas, wind, solar. Clean tech shares have rocketed upward recently. PUW up 37% year over year.
Those two viewpoints are not necessarily contradictory. There is no question that regulations have put pressure on utility companies to reduce coal usage, but natural gas prices have certainly helped hasten the switch. And, the regulations may not change under Trump; he has specified "clean coal" as part of his energy plans, not just "coal". Reducing coal use, though, is not a bad thing. Burning coal causes a lot of issues apart from global warming, e.g. particulate pollution locally and acid rain in eastern states. And, jobs in coal mines are notoriously dangerous.
Either way, what's happened to West Virginia is very sad and likely won't change unless that state can start investing in an industry to replace coal. That would be a useful job for Rand Paul. Depopulating the state by having its residents move elsewhere in search of jobs is hardly a good solution. Hillary's talk about "retraining" was a pile of crock, IMHO.
