The Next President of the United States

[MintTrav]

Trump just appointed Linda McMahon, co-owner of the WWE.

Yep, this is happening.

Haha, whatever next?

Well, this - Scott Pruitt for the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt doesn't believe in all that climate change stuff and, as Attorney-General of Oklahoma, has sued the EPA unsuccessfully several times over those damned restrictions on the energy industry. He is currently one of a group of AGs suing it over limitations on greenhouse emissions imposed by the Clean Power Plan. One of the leading thorns in the side of the agency is now in charge of it, so conflict is inevitable. We can expect a lot of objections to this appointment.

[MintTrav]

Josh Earnst‏ @NotJoshEarnest

After finishing 2nd in Time's Person of the Year, Hillary Clinton will have Jill Stein request a recount.

[MintTrav]

Trump just appointed Linda McMahon, co-owner of the WWE.

Yep, this is happening.

Her qualifications to run a Dept of 3,300 employees and a budget of over $700m:

- Running the WWE, just one (unorthodoox) company
- 15 months on Connecticut State Education Board
- Two unsuccessful runs for the Senate
- Donating $6m to the campaign of the candidate who couldn't be bought

[MintTrav]

Some left-wing sites have come up with a way that the Democrats could still get their man, Merrick Garland, onto the Supreme Court.

More Republican Senators were up for re-election this time than Democrats. When the Senate reconvenes on 3 January, the Democrats will hold the majority for a few minutes, until the new Senators are sworn in, so they could approve Garland, which will then be a done deal.

It's been getting a lot of traction on both left-wing and right-wing sites, the latter claiming it can't happen, which is probably the case.

http://bipartisanreport.com/2016/12/07/liberals-push-brilliant-procedural-move-to-confirm-obama-scotus-nominee-details/

[neeko]

Statistic du jour from the US - average life expectancy fell between 2014 & 2015!!  78.9 > 78.8 years.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-life-expectancy-declines-for-the-first-time-since-1993/2016/12/07/7dcdc7b4-bc93-11e6-91ee-1adddfe36cbe_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_lifeexpectancy-12am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.2433a3d8ce42

Can't blame this one on trump though.

[MintTrav]

'The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency.....

Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.......

"It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected."........

Agency briefers told the senators it was now “quite clear"' that electing Trump was Russia’s goal.'

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of-russian-hacking-during-presidential-campaign/2016/12/09/31d6b300-be2a-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?utm_term=.05291d5a86b0

[MintTrav]

Click to see full-size image.

The new favourite for Sec of State, Rex Tillerson, with a friend.

These two are already in business together in a joint venture.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2014/03/20/will-exxons-bromance-with-the-kremlin-help-keep-putin-in-check/#1bf87b3243dd

http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-candidate-for-state-has-close-ties-to-vladimir-putin-1481033938

[doubleup]

I'm pretty sure now that Trump is way below the aptitude level to run any country.



http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-china-taiwan-one-china-policy-trade-nuclear-north-korea-a7468671.html

In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, he said: “I don't know why we have to be bound by a 'One China' policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.”

First he has basically said that he'll sell out the Taiwanese (and by extension any of his allies) for a deal with a non-ally and, more importantly, what does "not being bound" mean?  What can it possibly gain the USA?  They already trade with Taiwan.  The only regional change of a recognition of Taiwan as independent would be a war between China and Taiwan.

[MintTrav]

The full interview with Chris Wallace of Fox.

He also said he is open-minded on climate change, because nobody really knows whether it is real.

[TightEnd]

In rare bipartisan statement, McCAIN, GRAHAM, SCHUMER & REED say reports of Russian interference in election "should alarm every American"

Click to see full-size image.

[DaveShoelace]

The thing that irks me about this outrage about the Russian thing is the fact that everyone is up in arms that Russia interfered by spreading the truth. Nobody has denied anything that came out of the WikiLeaks emails, IMO doesn't really bode well for the Democrats that this is their line of complaint.

Also, is it really that bad that Trump could actually improve relations with Russia? My biggest problem with Hillary was she kept talking about possibly going to war with them. I think I'd still rather her be in the charge of the nuclear button tbh but of all the things you could attack Trump for, this seems the easiest one for him to rebut.

[doubleup]

They didn't "spread the truth" - they intermingled doctored emails along with real ones.  They also hacked the Republicans, but didn't leak anything they found there.  They could be holding that back to smear later if they think it is in their interests.

[DaveShoelace]

They didn't "spread the truth" - they intermingled doctored emails along with real ones.  They also hacked the Republicans, but didn't leak anything they found there.  They could be holding that back to smear later if they think it is in their interests.

Ah, thus far I have not seen any emails that have been contested as being doctored.

Not saying Russia did something righteous btw, just saying it's one of the weaker ways to attack Trump because it makes the Dems look worse.

[AndrewT]

The thing that irks me about this outrage about the Russian thing is the fact that everyone is up in arms that Russia interfered by spreading the truth. Nobody has denied anything that came out of the WikiLeaks emails, IMO doesn't really bode well for the Democrats that this is their line of complaint.

Also, is it really that bad that Trump could actually improve relations with Russia? My biggest problem with Hillary was she kept talking about possibly going to war with them. I think I'd still rather her be in the charge of the nuclear button tbh but of all the things you could attack Trump for, this seems the easiest one for him to rebut.

Except Russia don't want to be friends with the US out of the goodness of their heart - it's so that when Russian tanks roll into Estonia the US won't do anything about it.

The thing that prevented the Cold War from becoming hot is that Russia genuinely thought that the Americans would press the button if push came to shove.

[DaveShoelace]

The thing that irks me about this outrage about the Russian thing is the fact that everyone is up in arms that Russia interfered by spreading the truth. Nobody has denied anything that came out of the WikiLeaks emails, IMO doesn't really bode well for the Democrats that this is their line of complaint.

Also, is it really that bad that Trump could actually improve relations with Russia? My biggest problem with Hillary was she kept talking about possibly going to war with them. I think I'd still rather her be in the charge of the nuclear button tbh but of all the things you could attack Trump for, this seems the easiest one for him to rebut.

Except Russia don't want to be friends with the US out of the goodness of their heart - it's so that when Russian tanks roll into Estonia the US won't do anything about it.

The thing that prevented the Cold War from becoming hot is that Russia genuinely thought that the Americans would press the button if push came to shove.

Yes I'm with you, again I'm saying that from an American voters point of view, not coming to blows with Russia (and to a lesser extent not intervening in other people's conflicts overseas) is largely viewed as a positive.