Hail To The Chief (Read Mod Warning In OP)

HellSquirrel wrote: »

Jan 20th - Trump's Inauguration. National Park Service shows aerial images of Trump's crowd vs Obama's crowd eight years earlier. National Park Service halted from tweeting (may have been internal concern about a hack, may have been that they were told not to tweet embarrassing photos).

I'm sure every President wants embarrassing photos tweeted out from their agencies.

Jan 21st- White House Press Sec gives first press briefing by lying spectacularly and provably on the unbelievably petty point of how large Trump's crowds were. Scolds press for reporting on the topic
Jan 22nd - "Alternative Facts" are invented by Kellyanne Conway to excuse Spicer (i.e. downright lies).

I agree it was petty to get involved in a debate about physical attendance when it's clear it wasn't anywhere near Obama's numbers in 08. Spicer doubled down on the TV + Internet viewers as did Conway which was again foolish because there's no data backing it up.

Jan 23rd - First day, cancels TPP, invokes the Mexico City Proposal, banning American foreign aid going to anyone involved in abortion. First steps against ACA. Also upsets China, albeit deservedly, by saying that the USA will protect its interests in not allowing nations to claim and fortify islands in international waters. On the other hand, makes China very happy by pulling out of the TPP, leaving China the main power in Pacific trade

Trump has campaigned on canceling the TPP - You don't know what's going to happen so it's all speculation on your part.

Jan 24th - Second day; freezes the EPA's funding and disallows any further grants. USDA [Department of Agriculture] and the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] are no longer to release "public facing documents", including sharing research (USDA's research arm specifically is targeted. The EPA in general is targeted), releasing fact sheets, papers, communicating on or off the record with journalists or saying anything related to the grants freezes on social media.

"Putting a temporary freeze on grants and contracts is not entirely unusual for a new president. Of course, it depends how long the freeze lasts. In Trump’s case, it seems that the freeze was imposed because the new administration didn’t conduct its assessment of the EPA’s work before taking office. When the Obama administration stepped in, no such freeze was necessary, according to Scott Fulton, EPA general counsel under Obama. "The assessment was done before the inauguration as opposed to after," he told E&E News.

http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/25/14388928/environmental-protection-agency-grant-freeze-temporary-donald-trump
If the review is done by Friday, all should go back to normal by next week."

Allows frozen Dakota Pipeline to go forward, over the objections of the Native American people living there. They don't want it there for fear of it ruining their water source. It's claimed to be perfectly safe. When asked why it therefore isn't being put through the city in a more direct line, the answer is for fear of oil spills. Oh, and Trump has finances tied up in the Pipeline because of course he does.

Trump disagrees with Obama, shock horror.

Starts process of moving American embassy from Tel Aviv to the "undivided capital of Israel", Jerusalem. This flies against the international order regarding Israel/Palestine as, after Israel annexed the rest of Jerusalem in 1980, other nations refused to recognise it as being wholly Israel's without a negotiation and deal with Palestine. This includes refusing to move embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This is not going to go down well with Palestinians. I personally have never been particularly knowledgeable about Israel/Palastine and don't really have a "side", but even I see that that is foolishly heavy-handed.

So the Trump administration wants to get along with Israel. Not news, campaigned on it. Obama was pro Palestine.

-Spicer answers that he's "Not sure" what will happen to LGBT non-discrimination law for federal workers because "I don't think we're that far through the list of executive actions yet".

Do you really think Trump is going to attack LGBT groups?

Jan 25th - Revokes visas from seven countries. Out of said seven countries and out of all the terrorist attacks on US soil only one have come from any of those countries and he was a naturalised US citizen by the age of two. Oddly enough, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan are not on the lists. Presumably because SA owns quite a lot of US debt.

Temporary bans until vetting procedures are in place. Campaigned on it ( again )

○ Drafts executive order allowing for the reopening of CIA "black sites" - foreign soil prisons for terrorist suspects to be detained and interrogated without pesky American anti-torture laws getting in the way.
○ Executive order for the monument to vanity , sorry, Great Wall.
○ Introduces measure for massive investigation into "voter fraud" (still saying that he really won the popular vote, and the just under 3 million extra votes were obviously illegals). Ironically, Steve Bannon is registered to vote in two states. Bless.

Campaigned on the wall. Are you against border security stopping the influx of drugs into the US? 50m people die every year from drug overdoses.

If there's no voter fraud what's the problem? If he's wrong after the investigation ends he should apologize.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/26/hillary-clinton-received-800000-votes-from-nonciti/

Article isn't something I'd put a tonne of faith in but still.

Jan 26th - Doubles down on torture working. Moderately entertainingly, indications are that Trump's people are using a private server and Trump's still tweeting from an account with a gmail backup and an unsecured Android. World waits cynically for announcement that this is perfectly legal and okay. Announces funding cuts to Sanctuary Cities (although fortunately can't hit them for that much). At this stage, something like fourteen government bodies, mostly to do with the environment, have gone rogue in communications.

They're using a state issued domain, not a private server. Hillary Clinton's server was family run.

He campaigned on cutting funding to Sanctuary Cities. You know illegals cost the US $133 Billion a year right?

The twitter accounts do signify a problem if they're made by employees, is there any proof they are?

Jan 26 cont. Trump supporters, including Mr. Bannon, argue that the media should stop reporting on Donald Trump and go sit on the naughty chair because, apparently, we won lol.

What Bannon said was they should listen and learn because they don't understand America. After spouting non stop that Hillary was 90% to win the election all year perhaps, somewhere in there, he has a point?

In the words of my people, gwan ta fcuk with your pussying excuses about "oh, but give him a CHANCE!" and "What has he actually DONE that's bad?" and "At least he's gotten more done in a week than Obummer did in eight years*!!". Yeah, that's because it's always been easier to destroy than build.

Most of what you're complaining about is changes in policies and him delivering what his supporters wanted, clearly things you disagree with. The fighting over the inauguration size was stupid, aswell as the lack of transparency over environmental stuff, trying to silence anyone is wrong, we'll know more by tonight. If he does go down that road I'll call him out on it. Media stuff is meh, after being told over and over again you can't win then to portray nobody attended his inauguration is very insulting. He was wrong but I can understand where he's coming from.

Remember when Trump talked about bringing back jobs, GOOD jobs to America?

Strange then that his administration is looking to cut 10,000 good jobs already, not important ones though, just EPA ones, you know the people whose job it is to keep lead out of the drinking water, to see that companies don't dump toxic waste wherever they want

The leader of President Trump's U.S. EPA transition team wants to see the agency's 15,000-person staff axed to about 5,000 employees.

"I think getting down to 5,000 in the first term is a goal," said Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who headed the Trump team preparing for the administration changeover at EPA.

With his transition tenure over, Ebell cautioned that he was speaking for himself, but he pointed to Trump's comments as a presidential candidate that he wanted to eliminate EPA. Trump has since said that he wants to "refocus the EPA on its core mission."

"President Trump during the campaign identified the EPA as a major obstacle to economic recovery and growth and he said that he wanted to either abolish it or leave a little bit," Ebell said today in an interview. "He's not going to abolish it in a year; he's going to take a while or leave a little bit. The first thing that's going to need to be done is to start downsizing the agency."
...

Ebell's goal would cut EPA's staff to about a third of its current size. "I think it's a very steep goal," he said. "If you're going to get anywhere, you've got to have high aspirations."

Ebell, a vocal critic of the EPA's policies under President Obama, said he sees some obvious places for cuts.

Much of EPA's budget passes through the agency toward clean water and clean air programs that are run by the states. "That raises the question," Ebell said. "What are all these people in the EPA air and safe drinking water offices doing?"

And he said the Obama administration's move to put air staff into a climate program was an indication that they weren't needed in the air office. "It seems to me that there are real opportunities for cuts there," he said.

http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060049052

Jelle1880 wrote: »

Do you live in China ?
Just because they have one political party doesn't mean they are fascist. I think you genuinely don't know what fascism entails.

http://thediplomat.com/2015/03/no-china-isnt-fascist/

Have a read through that.

And nobody is saying China is doing the right thing, you seriously need to stop making up narratives to suit your own idea. That is the only embarrassing thing here.

It's more just authoritarian. China has elements of being liberal and normal until you do something like criticise the Government or protest about something. Then you'll rapidly find out just where the illusion of liberty ends.

MightyMandarin wrote: »

Just remember though, Mexico is gonna pay for this wall guys. Just remember that.

Well at least we've gotten past the stage of "Do you really believe he's going to build a wall?"

Progress, and all that.

Gotta say i admire the donalds stance on isis and agree they are dirty sneaky rats. I have confidence that he can use his power to destroy isis or do significant damage to them. Heres hoping the donald, putin and assad can pull together and defeat this cancer on the world

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Ah sure if you can't have a bit of a laugh along the way what's the point in anything?

In the state department is it not uncommon when a new administration takes over for there to be overhauls - From what I've read it's required they submit letter of resignations? I read here reports of resigning but no reports of Trump's team telling people they were no longer required.

"Two senior administration officials said Thursday that the Trump administration told four top State Department management officials that their services were no longer needed as part of an effort to "clean house" at Foggy Bottom."

Greg Starr, director of diplomatic security, also followed through on his planned resignation. He had come back from retirement after the 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi and promised to stay through the end of the Obama administration.
"This had been on course for over a year," another official said. "He came out of retirement and promised to stay out (of) the administration. If Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders were elected, he would still be retiring."

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/26/politics/top-state-department-officials-asked-to-leave-by-trump-administration/index.html?sr=twpol012617top-state-department-officials-asked-to-leave-by-trump-administration0652PMVODtopLink&linkId=33814657

Here's a link to what the State press department said about people leaving.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3HXu_nWYAUfGM_.jpg

Out with the old, in with the new?

Michelle Bond had been in her post since 2015, with her predecessor having stayed in the role through the majority of the Obama administration despite being a Bush appointment. Joyce Anne Barr had been in the role since 2011, with her predecessor also having been in the role for several years of the Obama presidency despite being a Bush appointment. This amount of top management resigning all together early in a presidency seems unprecedented:

Eliot Cohen, a top official in George W. Bush's State Department and a professor at Johns Hopkins University, told Business Insider that he had "never heard of anything like this before."

"Competent deputies probably exist, but you don’t lose this much experience and get over it quickly," Cohen said in an email. "This is not like business, where you can just bring in new people and shake things up. It's a blow."

For all your efforts trying to write off CNN as fake news, you can't turn around now and try to use it quoting an unnamed to back up your side of the story - whether it is true or false.

This is very much not good, for all involved.