Is he Right, Left, or is He Nothing at All? Trump thread continued.

[TheClaws]

My bet is on nothing.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3024189-In-the-dim-corner-we-have-Trump-In-the-dictator-corner-we-have-Kim-Or-is-that-mixed-up

This was a good laying out of kushners financial woes and how he may have (corruptly/treasonously) sought to address them:

Jared Kushner financials vs. his foreign policy role www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/jared-kushner-financials-vs-his-foreign-policy-role-1048495683609

Thanks Pain. Will save these for later.

I still haven't got past the Spicer part. That is appalling.

Trump Administration Moves to Open Arctic Refuge to Drilling Studies

Nooooo! Just no!

This is also happening

The Hill
The Hill @thehill
#BREAKING: Trump Interior Secretary recommends shrinking seven national monuments: report hill.cm/vMl5xgP

lionheart - same same. Back to hiding in my Brexit- and Trump-free nuclear fall-out shelter. And wishing that something magical would happen so that Trump would disappear in a puff of smoke (with no actual physical harm done to anyone) and we could revert to the old normal, bad as it might have been..

It's the UN General Assembly meeting this week. Lots of world leaders. Trump will be giving a speech.

An interesting week.

It is a hard pill to swallow

Chris Gardner @chrissgardner
What pariah? Sean Spicer getting mobbed in #Emmys lobby. Posing for pics, drinking beer, soaking up all attention after onstage appearance

This is a really interesting article and thread:

Paul Mozur‏Verified account @paulmozur

Facebook as a geopolitical actor. Our look at how it has developed a diplomatic wing to foster growth overseas.

Facebook Navigates an Internet Fractured by Governmental Controls

www.nytimes.com/2017/09/17/technology/facebook-government-regulations.html

Facebook made what became a propaganda channel for Chinese state-media to court advertisers. It also had been in talks with a local partner.
In Africa Free Basics sometimes operates more like a subsidy for Facebook services, cementing Facebook's dominance there.
Pushback has come from Europe, where memories of Cold War surveillance have spurred deeper vigilance about privacy.
And there is some indication developing countries around the world are following Europe's cues, copying its rules to keep big tech in check.
One in five minutes spent online are spent on Facebook. Much of that happens overseas in languages that Facebook management doesn't speak.
So government discomfort that Facebook algorithms are determining information flows very natural. Lack of transparency also big concern.
Problems like fake news+propaganda exacerbated by populations just getting online for the first time, and therefore more credulous.
Russian ad buys in US election just one example of Facebook's huge global political influence. Vietnam has spies on Fbook reporting people.
Indonesia's president traveled to Mecca to show he was Muslim after a campaign on Facebook portrayed him as a Chinese Christian/communist.
Philippines President Duterte used fake images of drug violence to build support for his violent crackdown there. Examples are everywhere.
So what's happening now is Facebook sending envoys across the world to talk to governments and try to prevent any regulatory crackdowns.
In some ways Facebook feels like a cyber country trying to keep up its relationships with real countries. Except Facebook isn't a country...

Cyprus 'selling' EU citizenship to super rich of Russia and Ukraine

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/17/cyprus-selling-eu-citizenship-to-super-rich-of-russia-and-ukraine?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=244052&subid=23040383&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

Trump Administration Moves to Open Arctic Refuge to Drilling Studies

That's very worrying

How to Read Bob Mueller’s Hand

Based on what we know so far, here’s a former federal prosecutor’s expert read on where the Russian investigation is heading.
By RENATO MARIOTTI

www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/18/how-to-read-bob-mueller-hand-215616

I feel like my brain has been in a boil wash, followed by a high spin, and is now hanging on the line, drying.

Vacantly.

Thanks Pain. That was well worth reading.

I read the earlier Renato Mariotti Twitter threads with interest and hope.
But now, seeing it all fleshed out in the Politico article Pain has linked to above, I'm feeling less hopeful and much more frustrated!

I feel like a child - "I want it, and I want it NOW!"

Patience is a virtue, so they say...

A Beast piece.

House Democrats break campaign fundraising record

Bloody hell -- ''whose street, our street’ from the police.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/18/hundreds-of-police-officers-in-st-louis-chant-after-breaking-up-protests

And virtue is a grace. (Sorry - couldn't resist it.)

Cozie
I've also reminded myself of my father's oft repeated mantra - "If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well"
So my faith in Bob Mueller continues!

Yes to Mueller.

And then there is this:

verrit.com/despite-attacks-hillary-clinton-and-her-voters-refuse-to-be-silenced/

This email I got today might shed some light on this:

According to an email I just received, Donald Trump won the election
because he was having an IQ boosting brain supplement.

Steve Hawking, the email says, has "admitted to using the smart pill to triple his memory"

It all sounds too good to be true. I keep asking myself, why would someone email this to me, a complete stranger, and offer me a discount?

But, having said that, the use of scientific words like "memory" and "brain" makes me think this is a genuine peer reviewed phenomenon from the academic community.

What do you think? Advice puh-lease!

Many moons ago, someone - I forget who - likened Mueller's face to something like 'one of those 'carved in wood' figurines you put on the porch to frighten millenials'.

That man is ........craggy. (And a Washington insider/Director of the FBI for - what - 12 years?) His brain must be humming right now but I'd just let it hum.

The Spicer thing doesn't surprise me. If you think about it, society today has gotten to a point where we often make 'celebrities' out of people who in earlier times would have been vilified. Trump himself is an example, isn't he? A ruthless, amoral tycoon turned TV reality host/media personality and then elected president based on racist and misogynistic hate speech. When you get down to brass tacks, he's no different than the Kardashians and that 'Hot Felon'-turned-model. (Except Trump certainly didn't get where he is based on his looks!!)

I felt sick at my stomach when I read the post about 'studying' drilling in ANWAR. They don't need to 'study', they already know what's there, it's just a first tiny step towards drilling to see if anyone's looking. Next it'll be Yellowstone with a geo-thermal energy plant smack in the middle or the Smokies dug up for a coal mine!!

I'd ignore it, Oh. Anything that might 'offer me a discount'. discount??? Did they want your cc details?

A study will hopefully take some time. Across. Just keep your eye on it in case it goes under the radar.....

2018.

I don't know if Spicer was normalised. He went in as a figure to be mocked. At least in my opinion. Not sure why he did it at all. Maybe they paid him too much?

It was yet another criticism of Trump on that night. But, again, that was my point of view. Not sure how Trumpettes saw it.

But that's it cozie, it seems that things are going under the radar, or at least the 'blips' are smaller. I believe 100% that Trump/Russia needs to be investigated, but where's the media shouting about the Graham-Cassidy ACA bill? Now this ANWAR 'study'. They're in the news, but not as 'headline' as Mueller because they are serious issues, not as 'wow-factor' as an investigation.