I would imagine that at this point; Trump is beginning to realize that the problems of the Middle East are extremely chaotic and complex…and won’t be solved by campaign rhetoric.
Support the Kurds who have been loyal US allies for 25 years despite being royally fucked over countless times - if they officially give up the Rojava project make sure to reward them in Iraq, Eastern Syria.
Curb Turkey and their neo-Ottoman ambitions.
Decide whether to thwart the Iranian push to the Mediterranean and try to pry the Kurds away from tacitly accepting it.
If you’re not going to ovethrow Assad and take sides any more in the shia sunnis millennia long struggle, at least confine him to a statelet around Latakia and Tartus and say to the Russians to leave Eastern Aleppo alone as it sunni and deeply religious and will not go over to Alawites easily.
I’m not saying this is a good scenario, but at least it’s A scenario. It seems the only thing the President-elect did during the phone call with Putin was to acquiesce to Putin’s renewed bombing campaign because literally as Putin hang up Russian planes took off.
But hey, Vladimir said they’ll be bombing “terrorists” so it must be okay.
And Bolton is itching to bomb Iran, so this will definitely get interesting…
Regarding the Electoral College Debate, Some of you might like this excerpt. @ActivitiesGuy, @countingbeans, and @Drew1411. This doesn’t get into the math of things, but it makes sense to me.
WSJ, The Electoral College Is Anything But Outdated, by Larry Arnn, President Hillsdale College.
In a deeply divided nation, a candidate shouldn’t be able to win by appealing only to urban sophisticates.
… the Electoral College continues to recognize that Americans vote by state—in the same way that they elect the Senate and the House, and the same way that they voted those many years ago to ratify the Constitution.
But now there is a national movement to require that electors support the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote. The proposal, called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, has been passed by 10 states and the District of Columbia. Implementing this practice would be a disaster.
Consider for a minute why the Electoral College was invented. Although it is odd, it is also a plain expression of the Constitution, part of the structure that has made America’s founding document the best and longest lived in history.
The Constitution reflects the paradox of human nature: First, that we alone among earthly things may exercise our own volition; second, that sometimes we exercise such power badly. This is why we require laws to protect our rights, as well as restraints upon those who make and enforce those laws.
The Constitution is paradoxical most of all about power, which it grants and withholds, bestows and limits, aggregates and divides, liberates and restrains. Elections are staggered, so as to distribute them across time. The founding document also divides power across space; the people grant a share of their natural authority to the federal government, but another share to the states where they live.
This innovation is most directly responsible for the greatness of the United States. Think what the Founders achieved: They invented a way of governing, and they extended it without benefit of kings or colonies across a vast continent, bigger than they could imagine, until they got to the other side 30 years later. The magnificent Northwest Ordinance granted free government to the territories, then representative and independent state government thereafter. Ruled from Washington, the nation could never have settled this land in freedom nor made it so strong.
The practical political equality that the American people have achieved depends entirely upon their ability to spread political authority across a vast area. In American political life, it matters how many people are in favor of a given thing. It also matters where they live.
Mr. Trump joins John Quincy Adams,Rutherford B. Hayes,Benjamin Harrison and George W. Bush as the only presidents who won without the popular vote. After 2000, this is the second time in recent years—a product of the deep and wide division in America between the urban and the rural, the sophisticated and the rustic, the cosmopolitan and the local.
It is a shame that the winner this year, Mr. Trump, lost the popular vote by a whisker. But it would be as much or more a shame if Mrs. Clinton had prevailed despite massively losing the geographic vote, the vote across space, the vote that reflects the different ways that Americans live.
We forget that it is a historical rarity to have an executive strong enough to do the job but still responsible to the people he governs. The laws in the U.S. have worked that miracle for longer than anywhere else. Remember that the Electoral College helps establish the ground upon which the American people must talk with each other, while ensuring that they are not ruled as colonies from a bunch of blue capitals, nor from a bunch of red ones.
Since this is a Predictions thread…
I’m wondering when Trump will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
2017? 2018?
Yeah, I agree with the post election speach wasn’t bad, but he’s starting to act butt-hurt on his last international tour.
Obama is ultra liberal and those of us who could see through the varnish in 2008 knew that. He is the person we thought he was. And his failure of his policies even his core acomplishments is evident and he is defending his legacy to the teeth on this last trip.
I do believe he is committed to a peaceful transfer of power, but he is also likewise committed to preserving his “legacy”. Which begs the question how do you have such a fragile Legacy if that Legacy was largely good and popular with the American people?
If your legacy can be undone in 100 days it wasn’t much of a legacy.
His legacy won’t be undone.
He was an empty suit that spoke well when reading a teleprompter.
Probably because everyone is asking what he did to America…
It’s like your ex getting knocked up by a drug dealer right after you dumped her.
Puff, I agree with the main point of the article that it woudl be a shame if we just went to popular vote and the geographic vote was ignored, specifically the part where he mentions “while ensuring that they are not ruled as colonies from a bunch of blue capitals, nor from a bunch of red ones”
Which is exactly the point. All the people in NY are ignored because of NYC. The winner-take-all of the state makes that happen. If it was by congressional district (like Maine and Nebraska) they are no longer automatic. As I expressed, I still think it is important to give weight to low population states and giving 2 electoral votes to the state winner would do that. The other 438 would be decided by congressional district.
I haven’t actually done the analysis but based off the maps that I’ve seen I think that would still have Trump winning this election. I could be wrong on that so if somebody actually wants to actually do the math (or finds an article who has looked at it) I’m all ears.
Edit: I do agree with beans that it isn’t changing, but we’re here to discuss so I wanted to chime in. I think there is a better way but getting an amendment passed related to this is not realistic right now (or ever?)
I think he is focused like a laser beam on crushing ISIS. And quite honestly I don’t think that will be rocket science.
Edit: As a matter of fact they started out as small gang of Middle Eastern thugs. And if Obama acted early instead of calling them the JV team he could have decimated them before they gained traction. Even now they are not much larger than a 50,000 member gang including 12 year olds with guns and a bad attitude. How long do you actually think they would stand if the full force of the US military were brought down on them? That is using satellite technology, smart bombs etc. The will is now there to erase them from the planet and predict this will be done over the next one to two years.
LOL…very funny. I remember thinking that when Obama won that very same prize right after being elected to the Presidency from that point forward the award meant nothing any longer. Funny even Obama was puzzled that he had won it.
What a bunch of clowns.
All he really has of significance is Obama care which is about to be gutted like a perch.
I always called him “Professor and Chief”. He wanted to sit around and contemplate the problems of the world instead of taking action when and where it was needed. When he drew a line in the sand and our enemies crossed he simply took a deep breath and drew another line.
No question he’s a smart individual but he was in way, way over hid head as POTUS.
One think I predict Trump will be is a man of action. Like any business person he will set goals and then work like a dog to achieve them. As long as the goals are good…and most of Trumps are…he will be a good President.
Trump has already shown a willingness to listen - he literally just purged all lobbyists from his team after criticism
That is tricky though. Crybullies determining who he chooses is just as bad as if he simply made unilateral decisions without accepting any input.
|| Federalist No. 68 ||
The Mode of Electing the President
From the New York Packet
Friday, March 14, 1788.
Author: Alexander Hamilton
To the People of the State of New York:
THE mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded. [1] I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent. It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished for.
It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.
It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.
Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty.
Another and no less important desideratum was, that the Executive should be independent for his continuance in office on all but the people themselves. He might otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was necessary to the duration of his official consequence. This advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of representatives, deputed by the society for the single purpose of making the important choice.
All these advantages will happily combine in the plan devised by the convention; which is, that the people of each State shall choose a number of persons as electors, equal to the number of senators and representatives of such State in the national government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as President. Their votes, thus given, are to be transmitted to the seat of the national government, and the person who may happen to have a majority of the whole number of votes will be the President. But as a majority of the votes might not always happen to centre in one man, and as it might be unsafe to permit less than a majority to be conclusive, it is provided that, in such a contingency, the House of Representatives shall select out of the candidates who shall have the five highest number of votes, the man who in their opinion may be best qualified for the office.
The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says: “For forms of government let fools contest That which is best administered is best,” yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.
The Vice-President is to be chosen in the same manner with the President; with this difference, that the Senate is to do, in respect to the former, what is to be done by the House of Representatives, in respect to the latter.
The appointment of an extraordinary person, as Vice-President, has been objected to as superfluous, if not mischievous. It has been alleged, that it would have been preferable to have authorized the Senate to elect out of their own body an officer answering that description. But two considerations seem to justify the ideas of the convention in this respect. One is, that to secure at all times the possibility of a definite resolution of the body, it is necessary that the President should have only a casting vote. And to take the senator of any State from his seat as senator, to place him in that of President of the Senate, would be to exchange, in regard to the State from which he came, a constant for a contingent vote. The other consideration is, that as the Vice-President may occasionally become a substitute for the President, in the supreme executive magistracy, all the reasons which recommend the mode of election prescribed for the one, apply with great if not with equal force to the manner of appointing the other. It is remarkable that in this, as in most other instances, the objection which is made would lie against the constitution of this State. We have a Lieutenant-Governor, chosen by the people at large, who presides in the Senate, and is the constitutional substitute for the Governor, in casualties similar to those which would authorize the Vice-President to exercise the authorities and discharge the duties of the President.
Sure, I agree and saw that as well. I didn’t see about the international tour, I haven’t bothered keeping tabs on that.
I wonder who he’s talking about
I’m sure he’s talking about Russia. I don’t entirely buy that Trump is some plant that speaks Russian agit-prop and has Putins hand up his butt.
I do think that Russia really does not like Hillary Clinton though. @Bismark or @smh_23 posted an article a while back written by a Russian scholar/politician detailing why they really don’t like her. That they were willing to go to such lengths to affect her electability is actually pretty amazing. It is also, as Trump said, and unmistakable sign that Russia/Putin has no respect what so ever for her or Obama. Why that is I will leave to the more educated or intellectually inclined to speculate upon.
I mean, shit, most Americans don’t like or trust her either.
That is bullshit. First of all, it’s not just ISIS, it’s radical sunni islam.
ISIS are simply a physical manifestation of radical sunni islam at a specific geographical location.
You think a bunch of of terrorist driving white Toyota Hiluxes and waving black flags in the middle of a desert are somehow impervious to Coalition airstrikes?.
ISIS are just a really nasty sunni militia, lavishly financed by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar and Kuwait (and sometimes Turkey), constantly replenishing it’s ranks with volunteers from Western Europe, North Africa, the Caucasus and Pakistan.
So the ISIS are simply one of the many heads of the hydra and you cannot simply bomb it into oblivion (unless you bomb Saudi Arabia that is) because the Saudi financed mosques spew hate in suburbs of London, Paris and Munich, not to mention north of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
So to reiterate, it’s not a problem with a simple solution - carpet bombing a specific patch of desert around Mosul.
I work in construction - I’ve worked throughout ME, in Russia, former Soviet central Asian republics and have met many “mini-Trumps” - real estate developers with a penchant for grandeur.
Consequently, I believe that the character traits that make a good real estate developer make one singularly unqualified to be a C-in-C.
Let me try to explain this in terms of a possible Trump roadmap for tackling ISIS - “where’s ISIS? Around X? Then bomb X. Russians say that they bomb ISIS? Give them what they want to keep bombing ISIS. Also give Assad a break. No more X, no more ISIS, no more terrorists. Bang, mission accomplished”. This doesn’t address the root of the problem - radical islam and the Gulf monarchies who are actively funding it.
I remember reading somewhere a fascinating study explaining that if Trump treats geopolitical rivals like fellow real estate developers he’ll get conned immediately - see his correspondence with Putin so far.