Wednesday, July 26, 2017

What an utter shambles

To Reader JC:  as usual, your political judgement is guided by testosterone, gullibility and believing only Right wing spin on Clinton or Obama stories.  No one in their right mind thinks that Trump's threats to Sessions for doing an ethical thing, when Sessions was loyal from the start, makes moral or political sense.   Even that other regular blowhard at Catallaxy, Fisk, understands that.   As for going after Clinton when the FBI has already determined there is no point?   You actually want the American Presidency to look like a vengeful tin pot dictatorship that tries to jail its enemies, do you?   Yes, because "winning", or some such idiocy.

And as for those at that other blog who can't even see the inappropriateness of Trump giving a campaign speech to a boy scout jamboree - as I have said before, this is, in miniature, what it must have been like during the popular rise of Hitler - normal people not being able to make sense of the developing cult status around a weirdo figure.   (Actually, if anything, I suspect if I had shared the problems Germany faced, I would find the Hitlerian appeal easier to grasp - he probably worked ten times harder than Trump, for one thing.)   In any event, polling shows that he is not doing well with the population overall - which just make the pockets of undying devotion to him, like Kates and Catallaxy, just the stupidest places on the planet.

There has never been anything like the incredible infighting and leaks from within the White House from day one.   I see there are rumours that Tillerson wants to resign, and who could be surprised at that?    Environment and science positions are filled (when they are filled at all) by people who are antagonistic to both:
In the past  month, the last few scientists have exited the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s (OSTP) Science Division. The OSTP is staffed at approximately a third of the level it was during the Obama administration; President Trump has yet to name a head of the office. Last week, the State Department’s top science and technology adviser, Vaughan Turekian, resigned amid a swirl of rumors that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was planning on shuttering his entire science and tech operation. There have been a number of non-scientist appointments in posts with major scientific elements, including the appointment of Samuel Clovis to be undersecretary in charge of the Agriculture Department’s research, education and economic efforts. Clovis, who has virtually no science background, will oversee efforts on vital issues ranging from the spread of diseases to the effects of pesticides...

Speaking of the need for qualified scientists in top jobs, Arati Prabhakar, the former head of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), put it succinctly when she told me, “These positions demand deep expertise and thoughtful leadership. Anything less risks the future.”
Of course, it is not just science under siege. More broadly the administration attacks facts and evidence wherever they do not suit their policy views. All evidence-based communities are under attack — the intelligence community, law enforcement, think tanks and journalists. Attacks come in all forms — disregard for data, ad hominem attacks on the messengers and their motives, deflections and false analogies.
Trump's downfall will ultimately be his narcissistic complete lack of loyalty to anyone other than his immediate family, as well as his utter unreliability on any issue and lack of judgement, due in large part to his most trusted source of facts being morning show sycophants on Fox News.  If smarmy suck up Steve Doocy said he thought a nuclear strike on North Korea was a good idea, Trump would be picking up the phone to the Pentagon. 

His departure can't come soon enough.



  

9 comments:

not trampis said...

I think I might introduce a regular Kates spot. the 'very best' of Kates each week and his wonderful apologetics for Trump!

John said...

not trampis

How dare you, even in quotation marks, associate Kates and 'very best'. Kates is crazier than an amphetamined cut snake.

I'm amazed at the capacity of Trump supporters to rationalise away his flaws. So where is the action against North Korea? Trump promises so much and does so little.

anon said...

Stepford, are you deranged? Crooked trashed 30,000 emails and had the hardrive washed so it couldn't be used again. Crooked's a crook and she should be facing jail time.

Comey gave her a pass because he's also corrupt.

Also, you shouldn't be complaining about Catallaxy commenters when you have Homer Paxton posting comments here. Stepford, percentage wise, you have a bigger problem with that maniac. Remember that.

lastly, the am3rican Left is tormenting Trump. !2 months later and still no evidence of Wussian collusion.

not trampis said...

JC doing a Katesy impression.

One word JC Muller. If there is something there he will find it. given we now know of four meetings that 'never' existed before and any alleged meeting was a lie there seems to be plenty of material to work from.

not trampis said...

by the way genius, any moderate techie could get any e-mails that were trashed ,washed or whatever.

Yet another subject you know bugger all about.

anon said...

It's Mueller, not Muller, you deranged maniac.

You bring out the very worst in me, Paxton.

not trampis said...

it has an umlaut you twerp. so it is Muller. Mueller is an anglicized form og the name.

don't go poking into issues you do not understnd

Steve said...

JC, it's just a Right wing fever dream that there must have been something really, really important in the deleted emails.

In fact, if there was anything important between government officials, it would still be on their computer too.

Maybe, gee whiz, maybe they were in fact private emails about her and Democrat party matters that have no security implications at all, like she said, you gullible twit:

"Clinton told the FBI that she directed her legal team to provide any work-related or arguably work-related emails to State; however she did not participate in the development of the specific process to be used or in discussions of the locations of where her emails might exist," the FBI concluded in its investigative summary of the case.

Comey testified that the FBI "didn't find any evidence of evil intent and intent to obstruct justice."

To determine which emails were work-related, a member of Clinton’s legal team did four things: she automatically deemed any email sent from or to a .gov and .mil address as related to work; she searched the tens of thousands of emails for names of senior State Department officials, lawmakers, foreign leaders and other government officials; she conducted a keyword search for work-related terms; and she looked at the sender, recipient and "subject" of every email for other potentially work-related emails, but she did not read the contents of those emails.

In December 2014, Clinton’s legal team provided about 30,000 emails -- totaling 55,000 pages -- to the State Department.

"[Clinton] then was asked by her lawyers at the end, 'Do you want us to keep the personal emails?' And she said, 'I have no use for them anymore.' It's then that they issued the direction that the technical people delete them," Comey told lawmakers.

not trampis said...

Steve,

JC has no idea of what alleged offence Clinton did. If NSW police can get deleted e-mails i am sure the FBI is capable of doing it.

Catallaxy clowns never let the evidence get in the way of a good conspiracy!

If Trump is innocent of anything to do with the russians why does he want the investigation shut down?