45th President of the United States, Donald Trump. Vol 2

[RobDickinson]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department...

article said:

In the run-up to the Trump inauguration the man inside the D.O.E. in charge of the nuclear-weapons program was required to submit his resignation, as were the department’s 137 other political appointees. Frank Klotz was his name, and he was a retired three-star air-force lieutenant general with a Ph.D. in politics from Oxford. The keeper of the nation’s nuclear secrets had boxed up most of his books and memorabilia just like everyone else and was on his way out before anyone had apparently given the first thought to who might replace him. It was only after Secretary Moniz called a few senators to alert them to the disturbing vacancy, and the senators phoned Trump Tower sounding alarmed, that the Trump people called General Klotz, on the day before Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States, and asked him to bring back the stuff he had taken home and move back into his office. Aside from him, the people with the most intimate knowledge of the problems and the possibilities of the D.O.E. walked out the door.

article said:

This was a loss. A lunch or two with the chief financial officer might have alerted the new administration to some of the terrifying risks they were leaving essentially unmanaged. Roughly half of the D.O.E.’s annual budget is spent on maintaining and guarding our nuclear arsenal, for instance. Two billion of that goes to hunting down weapons-grade plutonium and uranium at loose in the world so that it doesn’t fall into the hands of terrorists. In just the past eight years the D.O.E.’s National Nuclear Security Administration has collected enough material to make 160 nuclear bombs. The department trains every international atomic-energy inspector; if nuclear power plants around the world are not producing weapons-grade material on the sly by reprocessing spent fuel rods and recovering plutonium, it’s because of these people. The D.O.E. also supplies radiation-detection equipment to enable other countries to detect bomb material making its way across national borders. To maintain the nuclear arsenal, it conducts endless, wildly expensive experiments on tiny amounts of nuclear material to try to understand what is actually happening to plutonium when it fissions, which, amazingly, no one really does. To study the process, it is funding what promises to be the next generation of supercomputers, which will in turn lead God knows where.

article said:

They allegedly demanded to know the names and salaries of the 20 highest-paid people in the national-science labs overseen by the D.O.E. They’d eventually, according to former D.O.E. staffers, delete the contact list with the e-mail addresses of all D.O.E.-funded scientists—apparently to make it more difficult for them to communicate with one another. “These people were insane,” says the former D.O.E. staffer. “They weren’t prepared. They didn’t know what they were doing.”

article said:

The C.F.O. of the department at the end of the Obama administration was a mild-mannered civil-servant type named Joe Hezir. He had no particular political identity and was widely thought to have done a good job—and so he half-expected a call from the Trump people asking him to stay on, just to keep the money side of things running smoothly. The call never came. No one even let him know his services were no longer required. Not knowing what else to do, but without anyone to replace him, the C.F.O. of a $30 billion operation just up and left.

article said:

Meanwhile, inside the D.O.E. building, people claiming to be from the Trump administration appear willy-nilly, unannounced, and unintroduced to the career people. “There’s a mysterious kind of chain from the Trump loyalists who have shown up inside D.O.E. to the White House,” says a career civil servant. “That’s how decisions, like the budget, seem to get made. Not by Perry.” The woman who ran the Obama department’s energy-policy analysis unit recently received a call from D.O.E. staff telling her that her office was now occupied by Eric Trump’s brother-in-law. Why? No one knew.

:O

[anonymous-user]

mikal83 said:

DELETED: Comment made by a member who's account has been deleted.

Was tried in 1982!

It didn't help the junta much.

[spaximus]

jjlynn27 said:

I agree, that's totally wrong.



Bad media.

They are not all like that and that is my point. Keep on telling the same story and are they likely to listen to a different view or just keep on supporting him?

Treat people like idiots and then get surprised when they act like ones?

[Eddie Strohacker]

spaximus said:

They are not all like that and that is my point. Keep on telling the same story and are they likely to listen to a different view or just keep on supporting him?

Treat people like idiots and then get surprised when they act like ones?

I agree with this. Easy to pick out the wkers in any cohort, they are as a body ordinary people who wish not to be overlooked just like the rest of us. It's the vessel offering that to them who's at fault, not those who reasonably overlooked his shortcomings in pursuit of better days.

[minimoog]

Eddie Strohacker said:

Easy to pick out the wkers in any cohort,

Well we do get plenty of practice.

[Countdown]

spaximus said:

They are not all like that and that is my point. Keep on telling the same story and are they likely to listen to a different view or just keep on supporting him?

Treat people like idiots and then get surprised when they act like ones?

They might not all be like that, but a sizeable number are.

And they didn't suddenly become idiots because they were treated like them. It's the other way round.

[Alpinestars]

spaximus said:

jjlynn27 said:

I agree, that's totally wrong.



Bad media.

They are not all like that and that is my point. Keep on telling the same story and are they likely to listen to a different view or just keep on supporting him?

Treat people like idiots and then get surprised when they act like ones?

An idiot who's treated like an idiot is an idiot.

[Gandahar]

When the title said 45th I didn't realise it meant number of sackings in the first 7 months. I am so dumb at times.

I have to say sacking ScarfaceMooch might be a big mistake.

He was slightly eccentric, to put it mildly, but then again, so is Donald. He could have been the one taking up all the media slings and arrows from Donald and he was so mental he seemed like he would enjoy it, unlike wimpy Prince VWbus and Old Spicey

Now we have a 4 star ex Marine in there. I hope he is locked and loaded, in the pipe 5 by 5, on the express elevator to hell, going down. At least it's a dry heat in the WH though.

The slight problem is the one man he needs to get saying "Sir, yes, Sir" and 20 pushups, rather than tweets is his boss. His crazy boss.Is that going to happen. No, Sir, No.

This will not end well.

[Efbe]

Alpinestars said:

An idiot who's treated like an idiot is an idiot.

But an idiot that isn't treated ike an idiot is still an idiot.

[Tryke3]

Efbe said:

Alpinestars said:

An idiot who's treated like an idiot is an idiot.

But an idiot that isn't treated ike an idiot is still an idiot.

Lets just make it easy for everyone. And idiot is and always will be an idiot

[Gandahar]

My worry is with the entire US being sidetracked with currently White House and ACA repeal and also then tax changes, funding the government, $1 trillion infrastructure changes the "bad hombres" of the world are making hay the same colour as Donald's thatch, whilst pre occupied.

Iran is not much of an issue, but North Korea really is getting that way, and Russia always knows how to slip in when they can.

Donald might need some huge international conflict just to end up looking good.

[Tartan Pixie]

Eric Mc said:

Nothing Trump has done has had any significant effect on the economy so far.

Always look out for the quiet ones

Both Steven Mnuchin (treasury secretary) and Gary Cohn (National Economic Council) are former Goldman Sachs employees and they're strongly in to the idea of deregulating everything they can, including the regulation intended to prevent another 2008 style financial crisis known as Dodd Frank. They also wrote the Trump tax plan.

Bannon is ex Goldman and there's one or two others inside the white house circle too. Given the president's inability to read anything longer than a tweet this gives a small cabal of bankers free reign to make all the economic running. Should a Goldman alumni succeed Janet Yellen next year as is looking distinctly possible then the quip about 'government by Goldman Sachs' will have become a reality.

[RobDickinson]

Read the link above, the Trump administration basically just ignored a very complex $30bn 110,000 employee government department.

One that deals with nuclear threats, weapons and all Americas government funded 'big' science.

The effects of that wont be felt this month or this year but for the next decade or two.

Trump put a guy in charge of it who wanted to get rid of the entire department (as one of 3), yet he had no clue what it done.

This is just one government department....

[Gandahar]

Tartan Pixie said:

Eric Mc said:

Nothing Trump has done has had any significant effect on the economy so far.

Always look out for the quiet ones

Both Steven Mnuchin (treasury secretary) and Gary Cohn (National Economic Council) are former Goldman Sachs employees and they're strongly in to the idea of deregulating everything they can, including the regulation intended to prevent another 2008 style financial crisis known as Dodd Frank. They also wrote the Trump tax plan.

Bannon is ex Goldman and there's one or two others inside the white house circle too. Given the president's inability to read anything longer than a tweet this gives a small cabal of bankers free reign to make all the economic running. Should a Goldman alumni succeed Janet Yellen next year as is looking distinctly possible then the quip about 'government by Goldman Sachs' will have become a reality.

Well they are quiet because after 7 months nothings happend.

And if you think the healthcare was long winded wait to you see how these quiet ones do on massive tax reform.

Now I do agree with massive tax reform on the corporate level for the US, their corporate tax rate is probably too high, but considering the US will not want to borrow more AND wants $1 trillion in infra structure spending, I bet the tax reduction talks are going to be done diddly fun diddly fun.

The quiet ones?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WScEJKNMdgI


Is it me or does he look like Donald Trump Jnr ?

[Gandahar]

This is a good repost

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/01/transgend...

40 years in the navy, This made me laugh from wiki

"He graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Government."

I bet he did not know that might come in useful all these years later Master of Arts degree in National Security and Strategic Studies beats my O level in domestic science also.

In comparison I believe Donald could not do service as he had something wrong with his big toe ??????

[jjlynn27]

spaximus said:

They are not all like that and that is my point. Keep on telling the same story and are they likely to listen to a different view or just keep on supporting him?

Treat people like idiots and then get surprised when they act like ones?

How would you treat someone who wears 'Proud to support muslim ban' hoodie?

Or;

[RobDickinson]

Making America great again seems to involve a lot of hate for people who are not white bible bashing Christians.

[RDMcG]

There is likely to be a debt debacle in about a month or so as the US hits its debut limit. Mulvaney is a massive hardliner on budget and id going to resist any attempt to raise the limit, thus going through another self-imposed debt crisis and the usual panic about not being able to pay the bills....

The hits keep on coming

[RobDickinson]

In just the last week or so we have had...

Boy scout leader forced to apologize
Police and even Trumps DEA chief denounce his brutality advice
Priebus fired by twitter
Scaramucci fired
Trump dictating a press statement 'by' jnr over Russian connections
Law suit over Seth Richards fake news story
Trump lies about call from Mexican PM
Calls the White house a dump
Fails yet again to repeal Obamacare
Head of the Coast Guard (and others) denounce his transgender statements

I must have missed a whole bunch?

[Colonial]