[QUOTE=kladner;446889]Democratic Party.[/QUOTE]

Calm down!

I was looking forward to taco trucks on every corner. That would have been awesome. I've always liked the food truck experience.

:tu:

[QUOTE=only_human;446895]I've always liked the food truck experience.[/QUOTE]

Indeed. I used to have to walk three blocks down from my office to the mall which had a "Taco Bell", to buy two bean burritos.

My business partner called me "Burritto butt" because I farted a lot, but he always placed an order for a burrito when I went for food.

just saying

I really regret not being able to get a paper copy of this one.

The real power struggle that I will be watching now is between these three groups:

A. Donald Trump and close long term associates like his two eldest sons.
B. The group of wise, experienced and long term thinking GOP leaders, e.g. John Boehner, Reince Priebus
C. The (admittedly bit large) group of opportunistic GOP elected officials who joined the Donald Trump bandwagon early on because they saw no other way.

It is my view that Donald Trump is a one trick pony who only excels at selling $400K apartments at $500K prices. ('It is such a beautiful apartment, you haver never seen something like it, it is SO good, SO good') All his speeches are the same, he mentions a topic and says that it is going to be 'SO good, SO good'. Obama by the way did the same during his campaigns, but better, his keyword was 'hope'.

Technically Donald Trump couldn't be hired to be the presidents spokesperson, therefore his own spokesperson, because to answer questions from journalists during press conferences a concise understanding of the topics is requested and never has Donald Trump ever shown to be even near a required level of understanding of any topic on politics and administration.

There are some scenarios possible:

- a scenario wherein Group B and C get to a power sharing agreement whereby group B remains in charge and group C gets all the goodies. Group B controls and steers group A, mainly by keeping them out of harms way and restricting their access to the media to prepared messages without follow up questions.

When Donald Trump ran his own imperium he quickly hit a very hard brick wall. he then continued on to be a sales poster child for the banks that took over the remains of the imperium they had financed.

- a scenario wherein group A thinks they no longer need to defer to groups with more insight and will hit a very hard brick wall very soon, running the administration to a total disaster by not leaving enough (=all) room for group C. Group B will scheme the downfall from behind.

- a scenario wherein group C uses the opportunity to go after group B first and try to take away their positions, leaving group A operating in a power vacuum with predictable results.

- scenario wherein an outside force (the Russians, Chinese, Ayatollahs or whatever) starts up an early challenge and a power sharing agreement between groups A, B and C arises from actions of the three respective groups.


From an earlier post of mine:

[QUOTE=tha;428041]I am still of the opinion Trump will [STRIKE]not be the Republican nominee[/STRIKE], will [STRIKE]not be elected US president[/STRIKE], and would be impeached by the US congress with bipartisan support in his first year in office if he somehow ended up there anyway. But I am amused and relieved by US generals openly discussing a running up to a coup scenario in the media already.[/QUOTE]

By the way, if I was an American citizen and eligible to vote I would have voted for Barbera Bush as a 'write in' or 'write through' candidate. I really couldn't have voted for a ticket that has Tim Kaine on it.Tim Kaine was imposed on Hillary by Barack Obama as a safeguard against backstabbing after the elections. Having to swallow Tim Kaine on their ballot was very hard for both Hillary and Bill Clinton.

The American political establishment - both major parties, but especially the Dems - and its MSM mouthpieces are in full-blown McCarthyite red-scare hysteria mode. It would be merely amusing and sad, were it no such an extremely dangerous path to embark on. Some links from several well-respected websites, albeit ones on the "Russian stooges" sites claimed in a Thanksgiving WaPo front-page article (more background on that is provided in the St. Clair interview linked below):

First three links are all from Counterpunch - note that CP cofounder Jeff St. Clair is anything but a Trump fan, but neither is he a party tribalist of any kind:

o [url=www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/14/questions-for-the-electors-on-russian-hacking/]Questions for the Electors on Russian Hacking[/url] | Andrew Cockburn

o [url=http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/25/smear-mongering-a-mea-culpa-for-the-age-of-mccarthyism-2-0/]Smear-Mongering: a Mea Culpa for the Age of McCarthyism 2.0[/url] | Chris Floyd

Note that Floyd appears to have a made a few minor clarifying changes to his italicized 'about the author' field at bottom of the article. :)

o [url=www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/13/the-corporate-medias-assault-on-free-speech-an-interview-with-jeffrey-st-clair/]The Corporate Media's Assault on Free Speech: an Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair[/url] | Mike Whitney

This from NC, which was the first of the smeared sites to send a retraction demand to WaPo:

o [url=www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/12/washington-post-backlash.html]Washington Post Backlash: Black Agenda Report, Counterpunch, and Paul Craig Roberts Join Us in Second Demand Letter Retraction and Apology for Defamatory "Propaganda" Story[/url] | naked capitalism

Good post Ernst. I have been following this latest Red scare with interest. Now that FBI and CIA both agree that the Russians were involved in hacking the election, we still don't have a single shred of evidence in the public domain.

[URL]http://www.juancole.com/2016/12/demonization-personally-propaganda.html[/URL]

Here is some context:
[URL]http://www.juancole.com/2016/12/interfered-peoples-elections.html[/URL]
Then there is this: [URL]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/10/13/the-long-history-of-the-u-s-interfering-with-elections-elsewhere/[/URL]
The writer does betray his bias with this: "While the days of its worst behavior are long behind it,..."

And this: [URL]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/12/16/saddam-hussein-should-have-been-left-to-run-iraq-says-cia-officer-who-interrogated-him/?utm_term=.3d4676400dee[/URL]
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.

It seems that we are accelerating down a well-lubricated incline. :max:

[url=https://www.thenation.com/article/why-are-the-media-taking-the-cias-hacking-claims-at-face-value/]Why Are the Media Taking the CIA’s Hacking Claims at Face Value?[/url] | The Nation