That depends. Is sound and effective governance of the country on the Republican Party agenda? With what priority? We saw something much like this scene when W&Cheney took power - a basic lack of concern for governing, with other priorities guiding all appointments, executive actions, etc. Before them, Reagan's administration got their licks in (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_G._Watt).
Like I said pretty damning of an administration's ( any) to use that method for selecting people for such senior roles. IMO
The leaking of information about Flynn revealed classified information, which is against the law. This is the real story, which reveals that a shadow government of leftist and some on the right is working agains the white house. The full transcript has not been released by the media, even of they have it. They have only released cherry picked excerpts, to alter the context, so the audience will infer the wrong conclusion. Those in the white house will not provide the entire transcript, because it is classified and that will break the law. If they did that to counter the fake stream media, that same media will finally see god and becoming righteous about classified information. The result is the perpetuation of misinformation. This is why Trump decided he needed to take the fight to the media. They are not infallible or trusted. Trump made a point in his press conference, which was his conversation with the president of Australia and others was also released. He said, this may have been a test balloon, to see what he is up against. He hinted that the shadow government of leftist, gave him justification for draining the intel swamp. Trump is not going to modify and upgrade ObamaCare. He is going to repeal and replace. The reason you do it this way is because of the shadow government of leftist loyalist who would remain in place, within the health care bureaucracy. If you only modify it, you will not be able to weed out those who will attempt to undermine the modification so it too is a piece of crap, which there are accustomed to. If you repeal and replace, you need to bring in you own people at the very top, who can then more thoroughly, drain the swamp. The EPA and the department of education may also be repealed and replaced, so they can systematically drain those swamps. The more light you can shine the darker the shadow will appear. As far a picking his cabinet, Trump is not following the political path of the left and the left media, which has not worked out for the country. If you were picking a basketball team that you wish to win the championship, you will go out of you way to make it diversified, based on all the protected leftist groups, that vote left. Nor would you only surround yourself with a team of sycophants, who will tell you what you want to hear. Instead you will look for the best talent, period, no matter which demographics if comes from. Diversity would be an affect and not a cause. They also need to be loyal, on the same page, self assured enough to give you honest feedback, while also being able to work, autonomously. Leaders need these skills. Obama was a smart guy, but he was handicapped in his job by the leftist need for a diversity of sycophants, imposed by the leftist philosophy. Politics is the game of kiss ass and two faces, which such people not the best choice for a winning team.
How do you know? Trump is not going to replace Obamacare. The only people who could do that would be the Republican Congress, and Obamacare is their plan from 1993 - they don't have another one. The interesting thing is whether or not they will repeal it. They've got the votes, the President, right now - no excuses. They've even got the bills written already. In recent years there have been something like 50 bills introduced to repeal the ACA - but that's when it was safe to do that, because Obama would have vetoed them if they had passed. Now, the consequences will be visited upon them - and their voting base. Remember all those government-paid scooters the older Trump voters were wheeling around at the rallies, same as they had at the T-Party rallies back before everybody admitted the "T-Party" was just renamed Republicans? No more spare parts and batteries - and no more deals on upgraded catheters, small dollar copays on the meds, etc. It's free market insurance for the Trumpies - and they've already remortgaged. I'm thinking it might be delayed for a bit.
Holy fuck, you really believe this conspiracy nonsense, don't you! What "shadow government"? If anything, the closest to a shadow government we have are these fuckers who BUY their way in without a single goddamn qualification! Not to mention, the only ones that seemed intent on keeping things a piece of crap are the Republican Congressmen who refused to even ATTEMPT to work in good faith on a better solution, and focused on cock-blocking all day long. Because he's done such a great job draining the swamp... oh, wait, he just made it bigger with his fatcat corporate buddies! If I was picking a basketball team, I'd pick players that actually have played the game and have a good record... how do you align that methodology with DeVos, who has NEVER had a damn thing to do with public schools in her life? Which is exactly what they have done... even the Republicans in Washington speaking out about these appointees fall in line like the good lap dogs they are when it comes times to vote, no matter their "powerful rhetoric"... Which is why the Senate refused to even HOLD a hearing on Obama's Supreme Court nominee, even though it was LEGALLY his position to fill... oh, wait, no, they wouldn't hold a vote because they wanted to put another conservative, bible-thumping, anti-womens rights FUCKWIT in from "their side"... ... wow, you are fucking insane...
Pity I can't copy and paste the mental image/video you just gave me.................(sound track to follow)
One wonders: Did you intend the double entendre, or, are you just getting careless in your use of the language?
Where is your evidence the leaked information was classified? Why would it be classified? What harm would be caused to the country if it were leaked? Why is exposing a potential criminal act against the law? Where is the basis for that claim? You don't know who exposed the real story here. So you invent all this conspiracy nonsense as you are wont to do. The leaker could have been Pence or one of his staffers. You don't know, but you immediately blame it on "leftists" and a "shadow government". Hey, you are a right winger. You don't need little things like evidence and reason. You just know stuff. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Because that's what right wingers do. They just "know" stuff. They don't need evidence. They don't need reason. They just know stuff. As others have pointed out, then why hasn't he done it? He promised his people, i.e. you, that he would do it on day one. It's long past day one, and he hasn't done it. Now he has said, maybe later this year or next year. It doesn't take that long. His party controls both houses of Congress. It's simple to repeal a bill. Republicans did it some 50 plus times while Obama was POTUS. The fact is Obamacare was Republican care for more than a decade before Democrats got behind it and supported it. It was created in a Republican think tank and supported by congressional Republicans right up until the day Democrats endorsed it. Republicans have got their privates in a meat grinder. They don't have a better plan and they cannot live up to their rhetoric. Right wing rhetoric meets reality and it isn't pleasant. That's why Republicans haven't repealed Obamacare. If Republicans screw up Obamacare it's on them. That's why they haven't repealed it. Right wing conspiracy theories aside, then why has Trump done all the things you accuse "leftists" of doing? Trump has filled virtually all of his cabinet with his billionaire friends. Trump has included all the people who filled the swamp on his cabinet. Moreover, his policies don't drain the swamp. His policies fill it. He has done nothing to drain the special interest money out of Washington. He has done nothing to stop lobbyists and influence selling. In his closest advisers were/are lobbyists. His campaign manager was a lobbyist for Russian interests. Additionally, there is no evidence Trump hires the best talent. In fact the evidence runs contrary to that assertion. The man went through 3 campaign staffs in as many months. Less than a month into his administration he has fired his national security adviser for an act of moral turpitude. He lied. Trump's Labor Secretary nominee, Andrew Pudzer was forced to withdraw his nomination because he hired an illegal alien and failed to pay his taxes. His Secretary of Education nominee, DeVos, who famously argued for guns in schools to protect school children from grizzly bears, barely squeaked by a confirmation vote in body in which Republicans are the majority. Obama is a smart guy. But that's not what you said about him for the last 8 years. Again, there is no evidence to support Obama was handicapped by diversity. In fact, I'm sure he would say the exact opposite. Obama was however handicapped by a Republican Party which had committed itself to oppose anything Obama was for even to the detriment of the country, e.g. multiple Republican attempts to cause a debt default.
What? And you know all of this how? Wait, are you now releasing classified information? Because you just took it further than the media even did! And considering Trump was discussing a national security event and risks in a restaurant full of people with phones and cameras, I really don't think you are in any position to be criticising anyone about what is classified and what is not.. If the point was to show that he was certifiable, then yes, he made that point very well.. Bigly in fact! Australia has a President? And he denied the conversation took place as reported. Are you now suggesting Trump lied and that the leaks about that conversation were in fact a representation of what went down? Riiigghhtttt... With a nice dose of paranoia to boot. Swell! You should be careful wellwisher, they may be monitoring your internet and compiling a list! *Gasp* You never know, I could be a spy for this "shadow government of leftist loyalist"! Trust no one! So who is going to drain Trump's swamp? Because right now, he is filling his up "bigly". Is that why the guy he picked for housing, for example, is a surgeon whose only experience with public housing is that he stayed in public housing once? Is that why his education pick could not even answer basic questions? Is that why his national security adviser had to be told to resign after he was sprung talking to Russia and undermining US interests and the US Government and then lying about it repeatedly? Because it's all working out so well, eh? I mean, that's really showing "skill"...... And Trump's White House is one of sycophants who are afraid to tell him no.
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Click for an anthem. Well, the information is most likely classified↑. Then again, anyone who calls Edward Snowden a hero―and there are many in this country―won't be able to complain on Flynn's behalf. Greenwald's↱ headline at The Intercept, for instance, ran, "The Leakers Who Exposed Gen. Flynn’s Lie Committed Serious―and Wholly Justified―Felonies". That's about the only reality Trumpsters have that doesn't sound absolutely awful, right now. And this is the challenge of leaks. To wit, virtually any leak against political opposition will find some sympathy in the marketplace, and where the president's complaint falls flat is that the alternative is exactly to walk straight into a cycle of vested interest. When the conflict of interest appears to undertake its phase transition from potential to actual, we enter whistleblower territory, and that will be a powerful defense against some of the legal implications of leaking classified information. I do wonder, though, about the idea of Donald Trump knowing, yet playing the game, anyway. We're missing something in the caluclation. I think it's that it might not matter if he's impeached insofar as he might well have already done his job as far as the Russian interests are concerned. Consider how pissed off his supporters will be when he is removed from office. The damage will be extraordinary because, well, think if it had been Nixon. In the end it would have been hard to hold out in his support, but back then even Republicans gave a damn about notions like reality, tomorrow, and the state of the Union. And Donald Trump? "For surely it is not the rich who contribute to patriotism. They are cosmopolitans, perfectly at home in every land. We in America know well the truth of this. Are not our rich Americans Frenchmen in France, Germans in Germany, or Englishmen in England? And do they not squandor with cosmopolitan grace fortunes coined by American factory children and cotton slaves? Yes, theirs is the patriotism that will make it possible to send messages of condolence to a despot like the Russian Tsar, when any mishap befalls him." ―Emma Goldman↱ He'll do just fine. Meanwhile, did you hear the bit about how Carson was flabbergasted to see one of his aides removed from the premises for being fired by someone in the administration for insufficient loyalty to Trump, and they didn't bother to tell the HUD nominee they were firing his aide↱? When I was a kid, the bosses showing up and suddenly removing people like that was a symbol we used of how the Soviets and other such tyrannies "disappear" people. For all the self-imposed, mewling and even bawling pretense of fear the right-wing tinfoil crowds have put on over the last several years, it's interesting how, as everyone else is checking down―(Am I seeing this? Are you seeing this? Okay, so, this is happening?)―they're standing in the middle of the flaming house with their eyes closed, insisting, "Gawd, it's cold in here! What are you talking about? I don't see anything!" And if we leave them to perish in the flames, their best friend―who did nothing to help―will blame everyone else for not putting out the fire fast enough. And these are the United States of America, so that will become a legitimate argument: It's your fault for not saving the person who didn't have to die except I accidentally set him on fire while trying to commit arson in your house! History will likely blame the Democratic Party and liberalism for the Trump presidency. Remember that on pretty much any count, the Republican Party argument is the lazy, belligerent one, and that makes it attractive to people who want to feel empowered without putting much effort into it. I tend to treat Wellwisher, these days, as if he's a pesky bot. There is very little point in addressing the virtual persona directly. It is unreliable and not intended for genuine discussion. Those who have been around Sciforums for a long time―say, all the way back to the ownership transition, perhaps―have come along with us on a strange journey in which conscious and deliberate decisions were undertaken to effectively protect certain ranges of otherwise inadequate or disqualified discourse because without that particular lowering of the bar, diversity would crash. These years later, we see the result; this place is deeply influenced by a constant flood of unreal, right-wing excrement. Seriously, if the bullshit was kicked out, how many conservatives would we have left? What, like three? Actually, that's probably not fair. I wonder who, and what range of methods and ideas, might have have filled the void, as nature abhors a vacuum. Except that might be the problem. In '95, Michael Lind↱ attempted to explain the death of intellectual conservatism, and it is worth noting a retort by David Gordon↱ of the Mises Institute; not only does it seethe with a familiar, fallacious, self-righteous, accusatory vector―"Alas, Protestant fundamentalists did not accept tutelage from those whom Lind deems their intellectual betters"―but generally complains about terminology in order to wind up with an astounding paragraph: If one ignores Lind's value loaded descriptions, a striking point emerges. He has correctly seen that most American conservatives are fed up with the leadership that has been foisted on them. "The complaint of `paleo-conservatives' that their movement was being taken over by opportunistic (and in many cases weird) foreigners was not completely without foundation" (p. 47) Lind also notes another vital point. "One by one, every leading conservative publication or think tank over the past decades has come to depend on money from a few foundations - Olin, Smith- Richardson, Bradley, Scaife" (p. 46). Lind errs in thinking that these foundations have promoted a movement toward the so-called far right, but the judgment of someone who thinks that the natural home of conservatism after 1955 was the Democratic Party is hardly to be trusted. That last sentence is astounding. Thoroughly intended for a sympathetic audience, we might also note how strikingly wrong it turns out to have been. It's hard to tell what's going on with American "conservatives" as a generalization in terms of outlook and rhetoric; part of their problem is a bizarre relationship with the concept of diversity that appears to have fallen into incoherent anarchy. I can't quite explain how important the snark of decades past is, an idea that this or that but only because "women" or "liberals" say so, or some such. In the twenty-first century, especially, we have seen an emergence of a right-wing because-I-say-so argument that has essentially led Republicans to Donald Trump. The thing about "intellectual conservatism" is that, like anything we might so pair with the word intellectual implicitly demands some degree of formalism. And right now formal anything simply isn't any sort of in thing to do among American conservatives. (Have you noticed they've even been changing Christianity to suit their needs? Public displays of piety for the sake of being seen; refusing Caesar what is Caesar's; demanding God's judgment for their own hands? It's true that these temptations of earthly lust exist, and will ensnare many people along the way, and I would love very much to say this isn't supposed to be how it goes except, well, yeah, actually, it kind of is. But then again, I live in a country that disdains formalism, which is why it is so popular to trim the salvation talk to John 3.16, and, you know, if I say, "Mars Hill", we're almost back to Anne Hutchinson↱, which might actually be what this is all about, anyway.) It's difficult to take seriously, except that time and circumstance have made it clear that to some degree we must; ____________________ Notes: Hutchinson, Thomas. "Trial and Interrogation of Anne Hutchinson (1637)". History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts. 1767. Swarthmore.edu. 19 February 2017. http://bit.ly/2kXa6RJ Goldman, Emma. "Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty". Anarchism and Other Essays. New York & London: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1911. DWardMac.Pitzer.edu. 19 February 2017. http://bit.ly/2lxfQV5 Gordon, David. "Big Money, Small Thinkers". The Mises Review 1(1). Spring, 1995. Mises.org. 19 February 2017. http://bit.ly/2lkjLm7 Greenwald, Glenn. "The Leakers Who Exposed Gen. Flynn’s Lie Committed Serious―and Wholly Justified―Felonies". The Intercept. 14 February 2017. TheIntercept.com. 19 February 2017. http://bit.ly/2lpoIMt Sands, Darren. "Source Says Dr. Ben Carson 'Baffled' At Firing Of HUD Staffer". BuzzFeeed. 17 February 2017. BuzzFeed.com. 19 February 2017. http://bzfd.it/2lkbU8g
