Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

Speaking of the Clinton Foundation and 'pay for play"...how is THIS not exactly what Trump accused the Clintons of doing?

http://time.com/4607439/donald-trump-inauguration-sons-nonprofit-texas/

The 'charity' running the event was founded just a few weeks ago by Trump's sons. Donate $1M, get facetime with Trump. Total discretion, no identities will be revealed.

[Wild Hoss]

Honestly, you know, I don't know. The US clearly needs to hit back, and there's no doubt at all it has the capacity to do so quietly and electronically. But, in the end, this is America and Americans do like to bomb people. There aren't much in the way of civilian targets to accidentally hit anymore, so the risk of collateral damage could be low. Could the US level that base? Or, more generally, could it inflict a severe financial punishment? Harder now if the price of oil is going to go up. But, at some point, maybe you really do have to get over the gentlemantly instincts of Obama in this case and must flex some muscle already. If you can do it without killing any Muslims, that much more power to you for it. And maybe it's worth hitting them in public, and behaving like a poked bear. Of course it has to be done before January 20, presumably.

Dunno. The solution to violence is never ``more violence'', but what Russia has just don't wasn't quite violent in a conventional way. Interesting times/interesting measures?

IDK that Obama is being "gentlemanly" so much as being aware that we have a lot to lose, and little to gain.

If economic catastrophe befalls Russia, does Putin suffer? On the reverse of that...are we willing to put up our power grid, 401Ks, air traffic control systems (and God knows what else is vulnerable to high-level cyber attacks) as collateral for action against Putin in Syria? Or anywhere else?

One advantage the guy in the mud hut has v the guy in the glass house is when the time comes to start throwing stones.

[Da Geezer]

Does anyone here think it might be prudent for Congress to actually hear any evidence of the "hacking of the election" by the Russians before committing an act of war against them?

Yesterday, I heard a fellow draw a useful distinction relative to the alleged Russian activity. He said that the campaign was one thing, and the election was another. There is zero evidence (and no one is claiming there is) that anyone "hacked" voting machines or affected the election in any way. There is the allegation that "the Russians" were behind the Wikileaks material that was dripped out over the last couple of months of the election. Obama knew about all of these allegations and deemed them too insignificant to make an issue of.

Why didn't Obama bring this "evidence" to light when Wikileaks was at the height of their process of releasing Podesta's emails?

Why do the "intelligence agencies" refuse to bring evidence to the proper House oversight committee?

In exactly the same way as the Intelligence Agencies provided Bush43 the "information" that he wanted to justify invading Iraq, so now they provide the Dems with the desired talking points to delegitimize Trump. Big difference of scale, but little difference in the way the deep state behaves.

[froot loops]

Just because you haven't seen the evidence doesn't mean the people who have security clearance haven't seen the evidence. It is most likely you will not see the evidence as it will compromise the way the intelligence is being gathered.

When Trump says you have to catch hackers in the act he is full of it. That is nonsense.

[iam416]

It seems like the Russians also tried to hack the RNC, but the RNC's security software blocked the emails intended to achieve those ends. At least according to the WSJ.

So, RNC/DNC-wise, it appears the hackers were indiscriminate.

[froot loops]

It sounds like their main effective security was a spam detector. The phishing email they got went into the spam folder.

Cybersecurity is going to be a big thing going forward. All that money they raised and the closeness to the tech sector didn't buy them great security.

[hack]

IDK that Obama is being "gentlemanly" so much as being aware that we have a lot to lose, and little to gain.

If economic catastrophe befalls Russia, does Putin suffer? On the reverse of that...are we willing to put up our power grid, 401Ks, air traffic control systems (and God knows what else is vulnerable to high-level cyber attacks) as collateral for action against Putin in Syria? Or anywhere else?

One advantage the guy in the mud hut has v the guy in the glass house is when the time comes to start throwing stones.

Sure. Very sensitive to that. I think hacking those crucial systems is probably a lot harder than Podesta's email (The RNC was hacked too. The Russians just weren't interested in kneecapping Trump's campaign). I think it's clear however that the advantage of a proxy war/digital war/colonial powers on a third-party battleground sort of conflict with Russia comes with the advantage that the US can potentially withstand a lot more punishment than Putin can. Then again, Russians can withstand a lot more punishmen than Americans, and have the advantage of policy continuity.

Without question however, it's time for some Stuxnet type action.

[Hannibal]

LMAO. You guys are running fully with the Manchurian Candidate angle. Waking up from your haze of denial is going to be very painful.

[Wild Hoss]

LMAO. You guys are running fully with the Manchurian Candidate angle. Waking up from your haze of denial is going to be very painful.

...as will your experience be, waking up from yours.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Trump's commitment to infrastructure spending questioned

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/will-trump-live-up-to-his-infrastructure-promises/2016/12/20/bcdbc700-c68c-11e6-acda-59924caa2450_story.html

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tried to tamp down expectations last week, telling reporters he wants to avoid “a $1 trillion stimulus.” And Reince Priebus, who will be Trump’s chief of staff, said in a radio interview that the new administration will focus in its first nine months with other issues like health care and rewriting tax laws. He sidestepped questions about the infrastructure plan.

In a post-election interview with The New York Times, Trump himself seemed to back away, saying infrastructure won’t be a “core” part of the first few years of his administration. But he said there will still be “a very large-scale infrastructure bill.”

He acknowledged that he didn’t realize during the campaign that New Deal-style proposals to put people to work building infrastructure might conflict with his party’s small-government philosophy.
“That’s not a very Republican thing — I didn’t even know that, frankly,” he said.

[Dr. Strangelove]

All 50 States and DC have now been certified

Clinton: 65,844,610 (48.2%)
Trump: 62,979,636 (46.1%)
Other: 7,804,213 (5.7%)

[hack]

GOP Smeagols becoming Gollums at a remarkable rate now that they see they can see how this is going to work.

[froot loops]

They may sidestep the infrastructure plan but he's promised 4 percent growth and the Fed is forecasting 3 rate hikes next year. It ain't going to grow with rich guy tax cuts. The problem with the slow economic recovery has been it has pretty much been a private sector recovery, the local government jobs shed during the financial panic have not come back. The key is holding this clown to his promises, he's the one who made the promises, he needs to deliver.

He's the one promising the jobs. That carrier deal he was touting is not even a drop in the bucket.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Trump, his sons, and the 'non-profit' fundraiser backers all retreat after pay-to-play accusations. $1M will no longer get you a private audience with Trump as previously advertised.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/offer-of-trump-access-at-fundraiser-is-pulled-back-but-family-ties-remain/2016/12/20/ec185520-c6ea-11e6-bf4b-2c064d32a4bf_story.html

[Da Geezer]

One paragraph from an interesting article about regulations and how effective various S+P 500 firms are at lobbying.

But the news here is in the next steps. The Vogel and Hood team analyzed corporate lobbying and turned out company-by-company ratings of its effectiveness. They put into the calculations the amounts that firms spend on government relations, the size of government-relations staffs, the expertise of the outside lobbyists hired, and the number of lobbying registration reports filed. Each company can then be ranked in the hierarchy of Washington influence.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rust-belt-is-right-to-blame-obama-1482098189