Even people around me, who are generally quite skeptical of such pronouncements, seem to have been snowed under by the storm of innuendo and rumor. The commercial media have descended to "Ancient Aliens" levels of journalism: "It [U]could[/U] be so. Therefore, it [U]must[/U] be so." :davieddy:

[url]http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/12/garry_kasparov_on_why_vladimir_putin_hates_chess.html[/url]

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;450523][url]http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/12/garry_kasparov_on_why_vladimir_putin_hates_chess.html[/url][/QUOTE]

The legal phrase "assumes facts not in evidence" springs to mind. The evidence of the evil Rooskies "hacking the election" is pathetically weak - cf. my [url=http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?p=450245#post450245]recent post[/url] in the Crypto SF, especially the Ars Technica link at the end.

[url=https://theintercept.com/2017/01/04/washpost-is-richly-rewarded-for-false-news-about-russia-threat-while-public-is-deceived/]WashPost Is Richly Rewarded for False News About Russia Threat While Public Is Deceived[/url] | The Intercept

Specifically mentions [i]Slate[/i] as a known purveyor of fake news in this (Trump bad; Rooskies evil) arena:
[quote]It is no coincidence that many of the most embarrassing journalistic debacles of this year involve the Russia Threat, and they all involve this same dynamic. Perhaps the [url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/01/that-secret-trump-russia-email-server-link-is-likely-neither-secret-nor-a-trump-russia-link/]worst one was the facially ridiculous, pre-election Slate story[/url] — which multiple outlets ([url=https://theintercept.com/2016/11/01/heres-the-problem-with-the-story-connecting-russia-to-donald-trumps-email-server/]including The Intercept[/url]) had been offered but passed on — alleging that Trump had created a secret server to communicate with a Russian bank; that story was so widely shared that even the Clinton campaign ended up hyping it — a tweet that, by itself, was re-tweeted almost 12,000 times.
[i]
Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank. [url=https://t.co/8f8n9xMzUU]pic.twitter.com/8f8n9xMzUU[/url]

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) [url=https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/793250312119263233]November 1, 2016[/url]
[/i]
But only a small percentage of those who heard of it ended up hearing of the [url=http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/10/was_a_server_registered_to_the_trump_organization_communicating_with_russia.html]major walk back[/url] and debunking from other outlets. The same is true of [url=https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/the-guardians-summary-of-julian-assanges-interview-went-viral-and-was-completely-false/]The Guardian story from last week[/url] on WikiLeaks and Putin that ended up going viral, only to have its retraction barely noticed because most of the journalists who spread the story did not bother to note it.[/quote]

[url]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/10/donald-trumps-first-attempt-to-ignore-the-law/[/url][QUOTE]President-elect Donald Trump intends to name his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as a senior adviser to his White House — a move that would put to the test a 1967 anti-nepotism law and provide a Trump White House already rife with ethical questions a bona fide legal showdown.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;450753]President-elect Donald Trump intends to name his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as a senior adviser to his White House — a move that would put to the test a 1967 anti-nepotism law and provide a Trump White House already rife with ethical questions a bona fide legal showdown.[/QUOTE]

Bill Clinton put Hillary in charge of health care, back in the 1990s. She wasn't a cabinet member and didn't collect a salary. The courts said it was OK.

The Washington Post article even cites and links to that very case, but curiously doesn't mention Hillary Clinton by name and only refers very obliquely to "a 1993 D.C. Circuit Court decision". That's somewhat disingenuous, as if trying to disguise the facts of the matter.

Nearly every President including Obama has quite openly relied on their spouse as an unpaid pillow-talk counselor, and Hillary would certainly have done the same. Trump is probably the first in a long time who will [I]not[/I] do so, instead relying on his children and son-in-law.

There are plenty of real issues to be concerned with, this is a non-issue. Kushner seems like a level-headed smart guy who may be able to rein in some of Trump's impulsiveness. Let's wish him luck.

President John F. Kennedy had his brother Bobby Kennedy as Attorney General.

@GP2: Ivanka and her hubby Jared do appear to be a much-needed moderating influence on Trump ... my only real qualm on Kushner is his apparent strong support for the Israeli apartheid state and its ongoing illegal settlements projects.

==================

[url=http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/01/09/russia-trump-election-flawed-intelligence/]Russia, Trump & Flawed Intelligence[/url] | New York Review of Books
[quote]On Friday, when the report appeared, the major newspapers came out with virtually identical headlines highlighting the agencies’ finding that Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered an “influence campaign” to help Donald Trump win the presidency—a finding the agencies say they hold ‘with high confidence.’ A close reading of the report shows that it barely supports such a conclusion. Indeed, it barely supports any conclusion.
...
That is the entirety of the evidence the report offers to support its estimation of Putin’s motives for allegedly working to elect Trump: conjecture based on other politicians in other periods, on other continents—and also on misreported or mistranslated public statements.[/quote]
Note that author Masha Gessen is most clearly not a fan of The Putin (having quite literally [url=https://www.amazon.com/Man-Without-Face-Unlikely-Vladimir/dp/1594486514/]written the book on him[/url]), but not being an MSM Establishment-propaganda stenographer, actually has the temerity to ask 'what is the evidence to support this so-called consensus of opinion?'

[QUOTE=ewmayer;450784]Establishment-propaganda stenographer, actually has the temerity to ask 'what is the evidence to support this so-called consensus of opinion?'[/QUOTE]

Personally, I'm interested in what "The Donald" can achieve.

Creating chaos can sometimes be useful.

Glenn Greenwald on the latest [url=https://mishtalk.com/2017/01/11/mccain-gave-fbi-dossier-on-trump/]eruption of fake news[/url] - see the article for multiple background-reading inline links contained therein:

[url=https://theintercept.com/2017/01/11/the-deep-state-goes-to-war-with-president-elect-using-unverified-claims-as-dems-cheer/]The Deep State Goes to War with President-Elect, Using Unverified Claims, as Democrats Cheer[/url] | The Intercept
[quote]Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss as well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason with each passing day, are willing — eager — to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry and damaging those behaviors might be.

But cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies to unilaterally subvert the U.S. election and impose its own policy dictates on the elected president is both warped and self-destructive. Empowering the very entities that have produced the most shameful atrocities and systemic deceit over the last six decades is desperation of the worst kind. Demanding that evidence-free, anonymous assertions be instantly venerated as Truth — despite emanating from the very precincts designed to propagandize and lie — is an assault on journalism, democracy, and basic human rationality. And casually branding domestic adversaries who refuse to go along as traitors and disloyal foreign operatives is morally bankrupt and certain to backfire on those doing it.

Beyond all that, there is no bigger favor that Trump opponents can do for him than attacking him with such lowly, shabby, obvious shams, recruiting large media outlets to lead the way. When it comes time to expose actual Trump corruption and criminality, who is going to believe the people and institutions who have demonstrated they are willing to endorse any assertions no matter how factually baseless, who deploy any journalistic tactic no matter how unreliable and removed from basic means of ensuring accuracy?

All of these toxic ingredients were on full display yesterday as the Deep State unleashed its tawdriest and most aggressive assault yet on Trump: vesting credibility in and then causing the public disclosure of a completely unvetted and unverified document, compiled by a paid, anonymous operative while he was working for both GOP and Democratic opponents of Trump, accusing Trump of a wide range of crimes, corrupt acts and salacious private conduct. The reaction to all of this illustrates that while the Trump presidency poses grave dangers, so, too, do those who are increasingly unhinged in their flailing, slapdash, and destructive attempts to undermine it.

For months, the CIA, with unprecedented clarity, overtly threw its weight behind Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and sought to defeat Donald Trump. In August, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell announced his endorsement of Clinton in the New York Times and claimed that “Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” The CIA and NSA director under George W. Bush, Gen. Michael Hayden, also endorsed Clinton, and went to the Washington Post to warn, in the week before the election, that “Donald Trump really does sound a lot like Vladimir Putin,” adding that Trump is “the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited.”

Almost immediately after it was published, the farcical nature of the “dossier” manifested. Not only was its author anonymous, but he was paid by Democrats (and, before that, by Trump’s GOP adversaries) to dig up dirt on Trump. Worse, he himself cited no evidence of any kind, but instead relied on a string of other anonymous people in Russia he claims told him these things. Worse still, the document was filled with amateur errors.

It is not hard to understand why the CIA preferred Clinton over Trump. Clinton was critical of Obama for restraining the CIA’s proxy war in Syria and was eager to expand that war, while Trump denounced it. Clinton clearly wanted a harder line than Obama took against the CIA’s long-standing foes in Moscow, while Trump wanted improved relations and greater cooperation.

Nobody should crave the rule of Deep State overlords.

Yet craving Deep State rule is exactly what prominent Democratic operatives and media figures are doing. Any doubt about that is now dispelled.[/quote]
The rumor in question is a cartoonishly lurid "Trump likes Russian hookers to pee on him and is now a willing puppet of The Putin because of it" - it appears the popular internet troll/anarchist website 4chan is now taking credit for having created the story out of whole cloth as a joke. According to their version of the tale, the folks at 4chan somehow got a professional dirt-digger hired first by the Repub establishment and later the Dems to bite, said oppo researcher shopped it around to the MSM but even the fake-news promulgators at the likes of NYT ad WaPo deemed it beneath their abysmal 'journalistic standards', so the dude eventually managed to convince perpetual national embarrassment and perma-warmonger, Arizona senator John McCain, to 'alert the FBI and ask them to look into it'.

The most hilarious aspect of this latest salvo in the ever-more-desperate-and-pathetic orchestrated campaign by the Deep State, using the MSM and the post-election-butthurt-afflicted-Dems as eager patsies and fake-news amplifiers, is that even were the story true, what makes these morons think someone as brashly and unapologetically crass as The Donald would be so shamed by revelations of fairly tame kinkiness (as these things go, especially among the billionaire class) that he would allow himself to be blackmailed by the evil Rooskies over it? I mean, they already blew their wad on this front with the release of the "pussy grabbing" scandal-tape. Analogously to "you already made him out to be the new Hitler during the campaign and still lost, so where do go from there?"

Trump, unsurprisingly, has pooh-poohed the whole pee-pee rumor. It must be amusing for him to see his opponents so eagerly and publicly discredit themselves.

Inauguration Speech
 

So, I watched the Inauguration Speech by DT today real-time on PBS America.

One thing I found a bit strange is he said "The United States of Americans" instead of "The United States of America".

At first I thought I had misheard. But then it occurred two more times. And someone beside me said also they heard "Americans".

May we live in interesting times....

another possible trump abbreviations please rescind economics degree stupid idiots don't ever need this. or president