Donald Trump

[Abby Normal]

I fail to see how sucking up to Putin, while criticizing his own intelligence community, can help portray him as a strong leader. Putin must be laughing his socks off.
This is even weaker than Obama.

We shouldn't be surprised, naturally Trump will pander to Russia so as not to jeopardize his own business interests in that country.



We are in for a highly entertaining four years.

Trump is a lot of things, but he is no ones puppet that's for sure.

Obama has been Putins lap dog for years though.

[Wickerman]

Trump is a lot of things, but he is no ones puppet that's for sure.

Obama has been Putins lap dog for years though.

I cannot recall Obama ever defending Putin, especially against his own intelligence department.

[Ginger]

I cannot recall Obama ever defending Putin, especially against his own intelligence department.

Obama has yet to realize (or simply will not admit it to himself) that Putin can play him like a violin.

[Wickerman]

If Putin was satisfied with the status quo (Obama), he wouldn't have needed to get involved in hacking the system.
Clearly, he preferred to see the Democrats gone - which speaks against your accusations of a weak Obama/Democratic government. Clinton was expected to provide more of the same.

What should be troubling the American voter is why Putin got involved, and what the benefits are going to be to his scheme.

[Pcdunn]

I agree, Jon, and the obvious reason is that Trump has financial ties to the former Soviet Union, uses their banks, and presumably will benefit from keeping good diplomatic ties with Russia and Russia's leader.

But it's no use arguing with the true believers...

[Ginger]

If Putin was satisfied with the status quo (Obama), he wouldn't have needed to get involved in hacking the system.
Clearly, he preferred to see the Democrats gone - which speaks against your accusations of a weak Obama/Democratic government. Clinton was expected to provide more of the same.

What should be troubling the American voter is why Putin got involved, and what the benefits are going to be to his scheme.

From Putin's perspective, far better a friendly US government, than a hostile, yet incompetent, one. One of the thngs I'm looking forward to from a Trump presidency is normalized relations with Russia. There's absolutely no reason for the current Cold War mentality.

[Harry D]

Why do people act like US presidents have dictatorial powers and don't have their strings pulled by the global elite like everyone else?

[Wickerman]

Putin has an established record of meddling in the politics of nations who oppose Russia. This meddling is not intended to assist a strong foreign leader.
It is only to help form a weaker government, one more conducive to the expansive agenda of the Kremlin.

Putin was directly opposed to Clinton gaining the White House. He knew he wouldn't get a leader he could manipulate with Clinton.

Putin got what he wanted.

One of the thngs I'm looking forward to from a Trump presidency is normalized relations with Russia.

When were relations with Russia ever normal?

[Svensson]

1860-something, when the US purchased Alaska from Russia for 7 million bucks

[Mayerling]

1860-something, when the US purchased Alaska from Russia for 7 million bucks

U.S. Secretary of State William Seward arranged the purchase of Alaska in 1867 for what was $7.2 million dollars of the money in that time (probably billions now). It was not a popular move, because Americans saw most of Alaska as a frozen wasteland. However, the Congress (despite hating Seward's boss, President Andrew Johnson - whom it impeached and almost removed a year later) knew the British were also interested in buying it and expanding their interest (with the newly organized Canada) in North America. So they agreed to purchase it. Alaska got several nicknames (like "Icebergia") with the general U.S. public, but one has stuck, but gotten a kind of afterglow due to the natural resources of the state: "Seward's Folly". Not so much a real folly anymore. However there was some fall-out for Seward's other expansionist ideas. Our navy did grab Midway Island for the U.S. (which is why we had a battle for it in 1942 with the Japanese). It was a convenient supply station for the Navy. But Seward wanted to purchase the Danish West Indies too (it would have cost more, as Denmark's territory was in a warner, and better climate than most of Alaska). Congress refused. It was not until the fear that Wilhelmine Germany would grab the islands in World War I and use it for u-boot attacks on American shipping, that President Woodrow Wilson finally purchased the islands (now the U.S. Virgin Islands) from Denmark. Seward here was fifty years ahead of his time about owning them.

The reason for the thaw in U.S./Russian relations was odd and complex. From the early years of the Republic the Russian government had curiosity about us, as we were a democracy and they the most autocratic government in Europe. But we really had limited contact (the Russian settlements in what was then their territory of Alaska were too far away from the U.S. to matter. However, our first major diplomats in Russia was John Quincy Adams, and he liked to take evening strolls in St. Petersburg. He discovered so did the Tsar Alexander I. The two became friends, and though their countries were on opposite sides (in a way) in the period 1812 - 1815 (Alexander as a leader of the coalition against Napoleon that ends at Waterloo; Adams as a representative for the U.S. government fighting Alexander's erstwhile ally Britain), the friendship survived until Alexander died in 1825 during Adams' Presidency. Adams's authored Monroe Doctrine also was opposed to Russian expansion south on the west coast of the U.S., as well as French and British designs, but although one fort was built in California by the Russians, expansion was never really pushed.

The diplomatic post in Russia was something of a "Siberia" used by U.S. Presidents getting rid of men they considered pests. Andrew Jackson sent the eccentric state rights critic John Randolph of Roanoke to Russia in 1831, but he disliked St. Petersburg and came straight home. Jackson, having seen the idiotic lack of abilities in James Buchanan, sent him to replace Randolph. Buchanan did go - and proved an able diplomat (his best services to the U.S. were as our Minister to Russia in the 1830s and to Great Britain in 1853 - 1857). Lincoln got rid of our first Civil War Secretary of War, the corrupt Simon Cameron, just as a Cameron-sponsored purchasing scandal was about to erupt. Cameron remained in Russia, while Lincoln found the far abler Edwin Stanton to take over a vital cabinet post.

Russia in the 1860s was quite close to the U.S. Reason for this was the Crimean War. Russia was defeated (after two and a half years) by the Anglo-French-Ottoman coalition). It was an unusual event for Russia to lose a war at that time (it would be repeated however in 1905 and 1918). But Tsar Alexander II, a reformer, came to the throne and he ended the form of life called serfdom by 1860. The U.S. narrowly avoided becoming an ally of the Russian Empire in the Pierce Administration. During the Crimean War, the British found that reports of losses at Balaclava, etc., and of the horrors Florence Nightingale found at the military hospital at Scutari, were causing a falling off of volunteers to fight the Russians. The leaders of the colonies in British North America, particularly the maritimes like Nova Scotia, came up with an astoundingly nervy scheme - why not tap the young idiots in the U.S. as cannon fodder (to the right of 'em, or the left of 'em). With the assistance of their hitherto will-liked Minster to the U.S., Sir John Crampton, they actually set up inauspicious (they thought) induction centers in Cincinatti, Philadelphia, and New York City (then basically Manhattan). Problem with this scheme (besides not noting the U.S. was no longer a colony of Great Britain) was that from 1846 to 1855 thousands of Irish citizens had gotten to the shores of the U.S. for safety from the terribly mishandled Potato Famine. Bitter (for good reason!!) at the British Government's malign neglect [you should read Cecil Woodham-Smith's study on the famine to see what I mean] these new Irish-American citizens organized parts of their political body to keep an eye on the British. As a result they saw what Crampton and three fools of his consuls were up to and told the Pierce Administration. Not one of our best Presidencies by a long shot, in this case President Pierce and his Secretary of State William Marcy acted with vigor - they gave Crampton and those consuls their papers and sent them home. It ended the recruitment fiasco.

During the early part of the American Civil War the Russian Empire did little, as it was busy rebuilding from it's own war losses. During the war it's fleets suffered the same normal problems the land giant always had - two of the fleets were in iced-in ports in Europe (Archangel) and in Siberia (Vladivostok). Alexander II (normally a good guy) did show a typical violent reaction to the acts of a rebellion in his lands when he sent troops who put down the 1863 Polish revolt with great severity. This caused one of the Russian foes in the Crimea, Emperor Napoleon III, to make stinging comments about Russian tyranny, and how he joined with those who sympathized with the Poles natural desire to rule themselves (a so-called "Napoleonic Idea", which Napoleon III trotted out from time to time when it might profit France to "free" an enslaved people - Italy from Austria in 1859-1860; the Confederacy from the Union in 1861 - 1865). Note, however, Louis Napoleon never thought of sending troops and military aid to Poland (he would need the willing cooperation of his recent foe Austria or of the Kingdom of Prussia, both of which ruled chunks of Poland - neither would have agreed).

Alexander noted this typical butting in of Napoleon III, and considered how to react. Then he got an idea. In the fall of 1863 Alexander II made common cause with Abraham Lincoln, in the wake of the Emancipation Proclamation regarding southern slave ownership. It mirrored what he did with the Russian serfs. Sending a message which Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward gratefully accepted, Alexander sent his Archangel fleet to visit Boston and New York City in November 1863. The British and French were suddenly in a state of shock: suddenly Alexander was quietly informing both of them that he now had ice-free ports he could use to send his fleet against their shipping and coastlines! The British had been allowing Confederate agents to buy raiders like the great CSS Alabama to sink U.S. merchant shipping. Napoleon III had toyed with working with Britain to act as arbitrators to enable the Confederacy to get it's independence. Now both faced two angry foes uniting to threaten them in the future. The message was received, and both British and French governments were less openly friendly to the South in the Civil War afterwards.

It was this background that allowed Seward to negociate the purchase of Alaska.

Jeff

[Abby Normal]

http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/03/news/economy/ford-700-jobs-trump/index.html

God what a jerk and a puppet!!
(that was sarcasm by the way)

[Pcdunn]

http://google.com/newsstand/s/CBIwmq6mxjI

So if you're worried about governmental corruption, why do you want to dismantle an (existing) independent ethics committee? Trump says, yes, we should-- but not right away-- and the Party obeys him? Well, he looks better that way, I suppose, and probably wants the axing of "Obamacare" to be the first thing they do.

[Mayerling]

http://google.com/newsstand/s/CBIwmq6mxjI

So if you're worried about governmental corruption, why do you want to dismantle an (existing) independent ethics committee? Trump says, yes, we should-- but not right away-- and the Party obeys him? Well, he looks better that way, I suppose, and probably wants the axing of "Obamacare" to be the first thing they do.

Probably right, but now the Republicans and Tea Partyists have a problem. Too many people and doctors and insurance companies are finding it quite useful. Want to take it apart go right ahead - see how quickly all those nice red governments on the state maps turn blue, and how soon a set of investigations into Republican fascistic plots starts. That is just about how I feel at this point.

[Abby Normal]

http://google.com/newsstand/s/CBIwmq6mxjI

So if you're worried about governmental corruption, why do you want to dismantle an (existing) independent ethics committee? Trump says, yes, we should-- but not right away-- and the Party obeys him? Well, he looks better that way, I suppose, and probably wants the axing of "Obamacare" to be the first thing they do.

another example of the the republican politicians in congress being out of touch.
Trump was right to to put the kabosh on this misguided attempt.
I don't think he said it he wants to dismantle it either. It does need a hard look at by both sides though. It will be interesting to see what happens with this.

[Steadmund Brand]

I love that Trump told NY Sen. Chuck Schumer he likes him more than the GOP leaders, And I believe that, they are both New Yorkers and "speak the same language"... and I do believe Trump is far more liberal than people think... Look, I don't agree with many of his cabinet picks, and his Tweets have to stop (or at least stop making news) but I think a President Trump is going to shock many people on both sides of the isle, The "Liberals" who claim he is a Nazi will soon find he is far more liberal than any President we ever had (him personally, not his administration for sure) and "conservatives" will be sickened by his liberal attitude towards many things.... notice I put liberal and conservative in quotes... that is because those most vocal on either side do not represent the terms.... the SJW liberals are insane and so uneducated and locked in their own little bubble it makes me embarrassed to be a "liberal" and the "EXTREME" conservative, those very hateful bigoted "deplorable" do not in any way represent the right, it is a small percentage, unfortunately they are loud and proud, and really give the party a terrible name, I am in the Buffalo NY area and if you want proof of this attitude just look into what Carl Paladino said....that is pure racism, no excuse, but I, even as a Buffalo Liberal will never..NEVER say that he represents the party as a whole (where as these SJW's do, because one A$@-Hole is a bigot they claim ALL are...insane) .....I say this as someone who has always been left leaning on social issues but right leaning on most policy....a Democrat I will admit, but far more center than what either "party" has become....and, my hope is that Trump can really reach across, he will never win over the SJW's because facts don't matter to them, but, if he can start disagreeing with the GOP, like he just did, it will prove politics doesn't have to be "us against them, all or nothing"... it may take an outsider to make this happen....again, this is my hope, I just fear his, talk before thinking things thru attitude will cause more global problems....but I have to believe he will be reigned in on that once in the Oval Office....

Steadmund Brand