US Politics: Redefining National Security

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

I find this story to be the scariest thing yet. How can you not have the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Director of National Intelligence in on all the meetings of the National Security Council? They are now "invite only" to the meetings

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

47 minutes ago, Tempra said:

China cannot call the debt because the bonds it holds are not put bonds.  They are payable upon maturation.

Even if they were put bonds China still couldn't "call them in" unless the USA agreed to it. Which, in case of a trade or military conflict between them and China, they obviously wouldn't agree to. 

It is the USA who can use that debt (or defaulting on it, rather) to mess up China, not the other way around. In a borrowing situation, it is the lender who carries the risk... 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

36 minutes ago, Lany Freelove Cassandra said:

I find this story to be the scariest thing yet. How can you not have the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Director of National Intelligence in on all the meetings of the National Security Council? They are now "invite only" to the meetings

Let's keep the Military and Intelligence communities out of National Security discussions that seems like a good plan.

[Martell Spy]

s

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I find this story to be the scariest thing yet. How can you not have the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Director of National Intelligence in on all the meetings of the National Security Council? They are now "invite only" to the meeting

 

It's okay. He can have his sons there instead, so they can fill him on what effects US foreign policy will have on the Trump clan bottom line.

 

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Very eloquently put! Even as someone who has invoked Godwin's law before in order to describe the factors that led to his election, I have to totally agree regarding the thoughtless executive orders of the last few days. He may have risen on an eerily similar sentiment of disappointment in the system and through his advisors he is a very real threat to democracy, but at least he doesn't have any kind of coherent plan. Still doesn't make it any less terrifying... 

Yeah, I'm pretty astounded by just how big of a cluster fuck this was. And I knew something like this was coming. I do wonder, is it more frightening if he could keep the trains running on time? Efficiency in the wrong hands is truly terrible, but chaos can cause a lot of cruelty and Human suffering, even beyond what evil men planned.

[sToNED_CAT]

3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Let's keep the Military and Intellgece community out of National Security discussions that seems like a good plan.

I'd wait with similar comments before the whole story comes out. After dossier fiasco, Vermont power grid "russian hack", and the reports of State officials resigning (they were defact fired), no one should trust MSM, before knowing all facts... For example the article itself says "they will attend meetings when discussions are related to their “responsibilities and expertise”, which might be often or even always. What the article doesn't mention is that size of NSC exploded during Obama admin - it had like 400 memebers - that's clearly results in unworkable body with high probability of leaks. Curious no one had ever problem with that.

It also makes sense that Bannon is invited - he's defacto Trump's political advisor, he is there to advise on political effects of various NS regulations like currently refugee ban...

And if you bothered to look for the current composition of NSC, you'd have realized that "military and intelligence community" is not kept out at all.

[Martell Spy]

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"no one should trust MSM, before knowing alt facts."

Fixed that for you.

 

 

[sToNED_CAT]

40 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Fixed that for you.

After last few weeks, the credibility of CNN and Washington Post is pretty much on the same level as Breitbart, so even when fixed it's OK.

[LongRider]

1 minute ago, sToNED_CAT said:

After last few weeks, the credibility of CNN and Washington Post is pretty much on the same level as Breitbart, so even when fixed it's OK.

[Liffguard]

3 hours ago, Lany Freelove Cassandra said:

I find this story to be the scariest thing yet. How can you not have the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Director of National Intelligence in on all the meetings of the National Security Council? They are now "invite only" to the meetings

Not only are they out, but Bannon is in. This is extremely disturbing.

[IheartIheartTesla]

So this whole immigration ban fiasco came about because the current Administration how no idea how to , well, administer. The green card stuff, I heard they already overturned it, although that was just Reince on the Sunday talk shows. Basically the clowns in charge have no idea how to change decree into policy, so a lot of half assed measures, chaos and enormous latitude to people on the ground to interpret it any way they see fit.

And we are only in week 1.

[LongRider]

2 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

So this whole immigration ban fiasco came about because the current Administration how no idea how to , well, administer. The green card stuff, I heard they already overturned it, although that was just Reince on the Sunday talk shows. Basically the clowns in charge have no idea how to change decree into policy, so a lot of half assed measures, chaos and enormous latitude to people on the ground to interpret it any way they see fit.

And we are only in week 1.

Could Prez Trumpenstain even run a business?  He claimed he was perfect for the job because he wasn't a politician and that Washington should be run like a business.  I'd say the so far the 'government like a business' idea in action has pretty much flamed out into as you note, chaos.  How will we pull ourselves up out of this nosedive?

[Martell Spy]

It looks like we've gone from Orwell to Kafka. This is truly hideous.

 

Quote

 

“We saw elderly people and disabled people,” he said. 
Then two wheelchair-bound people—an 88-year-old man and his 83-year-old wife, both of whom have green cards, according to their granddaughter—came out. Their granddaughter, Pegah Rahmani (an American citizen who lives in Fairfax, Va.) doubled over to hug them. She told The Daily Beast that her grandmother had recently had a stroke and her grandfather was legally blind. 

“They really weren’t treating them very nicely,” she said, of their time in detention. “They took a lot of their stuff.”

That included medication; neither of the feeble octogenarians had access to their meds, much less to lawyers. 

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/29/trump-s-border-patrol-defies-judge-u-s-senator-at-dulles-airport-at-his-first-constitutional-crisis-unfolds.html

Trump’s Border Patrol Defies Judge, U.S. Senator at Dulles Airport as His First Constitutional Crisis Unfolds

Legal immigrants and refugees from seven majority Muslim countries found themselves detained as they landed at Washington Dulles International Airport as President Trump’s half-baked Muslim ban went into effect over the weekend.

 

 

[Relic]

I want to address these false statements ive been reading here and other places online which claim that "Europe is over run". As an American who has been traveling around Europe for the last 15 months or so I have seen ZERO proof of such. Zero. In fact I haven't as much as seen a single crime occurring, nor have seen as much as two people yell at one another on the street (aside from the one time a crazy drunken police officer slammed his car into about 50 other parked cars in Prague, which i witnessed with my own two eyes). I have been to the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Italy, Croatia, Montenegro, Hungary, and Bosnia ...all without seeing one single bit of evidence which collaborates these idiotic Foxnews-like assertions of doom and gloom in Europe.

Yes, the economy isn't where people want it to be, and yes we have seen a handful of cowardly and utterly reprehensible acts of murder on television, but the claim that Europe is somehow over run by hordes of barbarians is preposterous. Life here is light years better than in the States. 

[The guy from the Vale]

4 minutes ago, Relic said:

I want to address these false statements ive been reading here and other places online which claim that "Europe is over run". As an American who has been traveling around Europe for the last 15 months or so I have seen ZERO proof of such. Zero. In fact I haven't as much as seen a single crime occurring, nor have seen as much as two people yell at one another on the street (aside from the one time a crazy drunken police officer slammed his car into about 50 other parked cars in Prague, which i witnessed with my own two eyes). I have been to the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia, Montenegro, Hungary, and Bosnia ...all without seeing one single bit of evidence which collaborates these idiotic Foxnews-like assertions of doom and gloom in Europe.

Yes, the economy isn't where people want it to be, and yes we have seen a handful of cowardly and utterly reprehensible acts of murder on television, but the claim that Europe is somehow over run by hordes of barbarians is preposterous. Life here is light years better than in the States. 

Can't compare to the situation in the states because I haven't been there in years, but you're correct in that the howlings of doom and gloom are almost entirely unfounded. There were some spectacular, singular events - but even in all their spectacle, they were not inherently worse than any other stuff.

[Arakan]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/29/merkel-explains-geneva-refugee-convention-to-trump-in-phone-call?CMP=fb_gu

 

You gotta love Mrs Merkel . In contrast to other European leaders she still has a backbone. Proud of my chancellor in those times. 

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, sToNED_CAT said:

I'd wait with similar comments before the whole story comes out. After dossier fiasco, Vermont power grid "russian hack", and the reports of State officials resigning (they were defact fired), no one should trust MSM, before knowing all facts... For example the article itself says "they will attend meetings when discussions are related to their “responsibilities and expertise”, which might be often or even always. What the article doesn't mention is that size of NSC exploded during Obama admin - it had like 400 memebers - that's clearly results in unworkable body with high probability of leaks. Curious no one had ever problem with that.

It also makes sense that Bannon is invited - he's defacto Trump's political advisor, he is there to advise on political effects of various NS regulations like currently refugee ban...

And if you bothered to look for the current composition of NSC, you'd have realized that "military and intelligence community" is not kept out at all.

The director of National Intelligence is there on a per-invite basis, as are the chairman of the JSC. 

The problem with this (which you'd know if you'd ever been in any kind of meeting system or professional environment) is that often you as a major stakeholder not being there except on invite is a real, real problem if you're actually needing information or can provide context that others lack. Steve Bannon is there as a chicken; he's not there to provide data, he's there to listen and provide decisions. That makes sense given his role, though it's a pretty horrible role (an unconfirmed, unvetted advisor is not a particularly democratic position). But not having the director of national intelligence there to communicate and be able to provide their input to things that others deem 'not important' is a major issue - because they simply don't have the context to make a particularly credible claim to what is or isn't important. If, for instance, intel has word of an attack on some processing plant and the context is to talk about, say, a major celebration at a processing plant, very few people will likely think 'oh, let's make sure DNI is around'. Same goes for JSC and foreign affairs. 

As to the 'whole story', you can go to lawfare and read the XO yourself. It's not that hard. In that, his major objection is that Bannon really shouldn't be involved in it at all, period, especially when he's a political appointee and he'll be in on military councils. 

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

So this whole immigration ban fiasco came about because the current Administration how no idea how to , well, administer. The green card stuff, I heard they already overturned it, although that was just Reince on the Sunday talk shows. Basically the clowns in charge have no idea how to change decree into policy, so a lot of half assed measures, chaos and enormous latitude to people on the ground to interpret it any way they see fit.

And we are only in week 1.

How confident are you that they did not do it this way on purpose? It's a pretty standard bargaining technique: come out with something outrageous and then when you get called on it, dial it down to what you wanted in the first place.

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, Altherion said:

How confident are you that they did not do it this way on purpose? It's a pretty standard bargaining technique: come out with something outrageous and then when you get called on it, dial it down to what you wanted in the first place.

That works behind closed doors, because people don't see the chaos. 

In public forums it can work - the adage that the most satisfied customer is the one that was initially treated badly and then got what they asked for is possible - but that only works if you get what you want. If you start out extreme and have to walk it back while dominating news cycles and are causing protests every single way, having judges actually stay you on day one and have lots of bad imaging, it's not a good rollout regardless. 

it's a bad rollout too when some people are refusing to comply with the order, others are not, and yet others didn't comply with the original order as written regardless. Unless your goal is to undermine faith in all government including your own, it's simply a bad move. 

[mormont]

8 minutes ago, Altherion said:

How confident are you that they did not do it this way on purpose? It's a pretty standard bargaining technique: come out with something outrageous and then when you get called on it, dial it down to what you wanted in the first place.

If it was done on purpose, it was for a wholly different reason: it's because Bannon and Trump want a fight with the courts and the press. I can completely believe that as a motive.

[Dr. Pepper]

I have to wonder if there will come a point when the Altherions of the country will stop trying so hard to twist things up in order to attempt to justify the Trump admin.