The suzerain Trump

[Animavore]

We don't have to stand by and watch at all. For instance most or all of the other countries in the Paris agreement have extended a massive middle finger to Trump and have made it clear they're going ahead without America with cleaning up the World. Even within America majors and governors are letting the baby-carrot fingered one know that they are going ahead with their green energy plans. I'm not actually sure who Trump and his oil-snorting henchmen are going to sell their fossil too.

Things like that have made me less worried than I was.

At the moment I'm seeing the next four years marked by political deadlocking, and increased activism and civil disobedience, rather than a Trump take over. Even among Trump supporters the dust is starting to fall from their eyes. Just today I was reading an article from some of Trump's women supporters who didn't realise Pence was planning on defunding Planned Parenthood (not sure how they didn't know, probably got caught up in the circus so much they weren't paying attention to what was actually going on). I think when they turn on him, Trump is going to (metaphorically) have an ending similar to Scar in The Lion King.

I'm trying to stay optimistic.

[Brian Peacock]

That is the problem; the rest of the world has to stand by and watch this orange elephant tramp around the place.

What would you like us to do? Attack? Fund a proxy gorilla war? Hack the Pentagin to fix things to suit us? Nope, we just have to content ourselves with leading by example and hoping the rest will catch up rather than fall behind.

[Animavore]

Shamelessly stolen from the other site.

OBAMA’S PARTING SHOT MIGHT BE A PERMANENT SAVE
Alan Jude Ryland | December 21, 2016 | 78 Comments



President Barack Obama announced yesterday what he called a permanent ban on new oil and gas drilling in federal waters in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans in a bold move to preserve an environmental legacy that cannot be so quickly undone by Donald Trump, his successor. The announcement would ban offshore drilling in roughly 98 percent of federally owned Arctic waters (about 115 million acres), an area home to endangered species including polar bears and bowhead whales. The block would also protect 3.8 million acres of coral canyons off the Atlantic Coast which stretch from Norfolk, Virginia, to the Canadian border and protect unique deepwater coral and rare species of fish.

Obama invoked an obscure provision of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, a 1953 law which permits him to act unilaterally––legal experts expressed confidence that the ban will withstand legal challenges by the incoming administration. (The president-elect has claimed that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, has openly derided Obama’s environmental regulations, and has made fossil fuel mining and oil drilling a cornerstone of his economic program.)

Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

While it is unlikely that Trump will let the ban go unchallenged, the specific language of the law, which states that the president of the United States “may, from time to time, withdraw from disposition any of the unleased lands of the Outer Continental Shelf” for “any public purpose” may well have built a firewall around the sitting president’s economic’s policies.

According to a senior official within the administration who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, nowhere does the law say that a future president can reinstate those areas. The official drew a comparison between Obama’s use of the 1953 oil drilling law and the president’s authority to designate national monuments, granted under the 1906 Antiquities Act. No presidentially designated monuments have been removed by later presidents, he said. He further noted that former presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, George Bush and Bill Clinton invoked the 1953 law to protect portions of federal waters and that none of those designations have been undone by later administrations.

Jason Hutt, a lawyer with Bracewell who has worked on behalf of energy companies against Obama’s environmental policies, agrees: “The statute does not say, ‘A president can reinstate,’” he said. “It only seems to be one-directional.”


http://secondnexus.com/politics-and-eco ... 044efee13a

[Tero]

We are putting up a tremendous resistance, starting with the inauguration.

[Animavore]

That is the problem; the rest of the world has to stand by and watch this orange elephant tramp around the place.

What would you like us to do? Attack? Fund a proxy gorilla war? Hack the Pentagin to fix things to suir us? Nope, we just have to content ourselves with leading by example and hipung the rest will catch up ratger than falling behind.

I don't see why not. Give America a taste of its own medicine. Invade America, overthrow their government, and put in our own, puppet leader who is more receptible to our way of life.



(I - jest(?) )

[Animavore]

I don't even know who the fuck these people are, but I like them already.

The Radio City Rockettes dancers are pushing back after being told they must perform at Donald Trump’s inauguration, TheWrap has learned.

The announcement by parent company Madison Square Garden Company boss James Dolan on Thursday quickly spread through social media and sparked outrage among some Rockettes and members of the Broadway community.



Phoebe Pearl, a Rockette, wrote on her private Instagram account, according to Perez Hilton:


“I usually don’t use social media to make a political stand but I feel overwhelmed with emotion. Finding out that it has been decided for us that Rockettes will be performing at the Presidential inauguration makes me feel embarrassed and disappointed. The women I work with are intelligent and are full of love and the decision of performing for a man that stands for everything we’re against is appalling. I am speaking for just myself but please know that after we found out this news, we have been performing with tears in our eyes and heavy hearts. We will not be forced! #notmypresident”

http://www.thewrap.com/radio-city-rocke ... rformance/

[Jason]

Analysis: It looks like Trump is serious about starting a trade war with China

President-elect Donald Trump plans to create a National Trade Council within the White House, to be run by economist Peter Navarro of the University of California at Irvine.
The elevation of trade policy to the same heights as the National Security Council in the White House hierarchy appears to demonstrate Trump’s seriousness about focusing on an overhaul of the systems under which goods flow into and out of the U.S...

...Many economists were troubled by the paper’s apparent assertion that simply by exporting more and importing less, the U.S. GDP would grow dramatically. Experts said that prediction flies in the face of basic economic theory about what contributes to GDP growth.
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/markets/ ... spartandhp

This is much more troubling than any of his nuclear proliferation talk - which is probably just silly posturing that will affect no one.

[pErvinalia]

He's already pissed off Chaina over Taiwan. With his thin skin I can easily see him getting into a precarious situation regarding Taiwan and then inevitably the South Chaina Sea.

[Tero]

Trump sons were doing a Hillary thing but...nothing doing...Trump enraged.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/23/politics/ ... index.html

[Hermit]

His loyal and devoted fan base scare me more. I've never seen such a gormless bunch of gullibles in all my life. Fucking Kool-Aid all over the place.

Yup. Trump's elevation to the presidency is the manifestation of a much deeper malaise. To adapt some words by George Carlin: Think of how stupid the average US citizen is, and realise 46.1% of them are stupider than that.

[Tero]

Trump is going to be easy for all those CEOs to manipulate. He will want to change military suppliers from toilets to jet fighters. If Trump gets the impression he "negotiated it", he will sign any deal.

[JimC]

Latest news I heard is that he wants to increase the number of US nuclear weapons. The claims of peaceful Trump are looking rather threadbare...

[Brian Peacock]

The biggest question for 2017 and beyond is how Mr Trump’s personality, judgment and behaviour will impact and shape America and the way it is governed. Election has not obviously changed him. He remains by turns shameless, impulsive, vain, threatening, slapdash, abusive – and much else. The personality matters; it shapes his judgment. It also matters because he appears to recognise so few boundaries between his private interests and his public responsibilities.

This is one of those moments when those who report politics and analyse policy need to summon fresh rigour to their tasks. Mr Trump’s election will not mean politics as usual. His victory, the election of an authoritarian and demagogue in the world’s most important democracy, has raised fundamental questions of whether America is in some sense falling apart, its historic norms now unsustainable, perhaps to the extent that it is a failed state. Serious people are even asking how far and in what ways it is appropriate to consider Mr Trump a fascist or whether the republic itself can endure.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... angerously

[pErvinalia]

It's interesting to note that since Trump won the election Philipines president Dutuerte has gone even more crazy. He's not going to be outdone by the Merkin' nutbag!

[Brian Peacock]

The United Nations security council has adopted a landmark resolution demanding a halt to all Israeli settlement in the occupied territories after Barack Obama’s administration refused to veto the resolution.

A White House official said Obama had taken the decision to abstain in the absence of any meaningful peace process.

The resolution passed by a 14-0 vote on Friday night. Loud applause was heard in the packed chamber when the US ambassador, Samantha Power, abstained.

All remaining members of the security council, including the UK, voted in support. Egypt, which had drafted the resolution and had been briefly persuaded by Israel to postpone the vote, also backed the move.

Friday’s vote was scheduled at the request of four countries – New Zealand, Malaysia, Senegal and Venezuela – who stepped in to push for action a day after Egypt put the draft resolution on hold.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... ettlements

This is a shrewd (not to mention long overdue) move. Trump pushed the Jewish financial conspiracy theory during his campaign - it'll be interesting to see which tack he takes now, and whether he can stick to that course.