President Trump: Making America Great Again...

[PaloAltoCougar]

Trump is on track to spend more on travel in 2017 than Obama did in 8 years. Truly, a man of the people!

http://thehill.com/homenews/administ...ion-report?amp

"He is not vacationing when he goes to Mar-a-Lago. The president works nonstop every day of the week, no matter where he is," a White House spokeswoman said in February.

Then why does he go to Mar-a-Lago if he's not vacationing there?

On a more positive note, my initial reaction to the Kelly hiring is very positive. I'm optimistic he won't tolerate Trump's unedited Tweets, Mooch's vulgarisms and cockiness, or even the unbridled access currently enjoyed by JaVanka. I doubt very much a Four-star Marine General will take much crap from any of them. Worst case, Trump will be looking at a Chief-of-Staff hat trick before Christmas.

[frank ryan]

Scaramucci Friend Taunts ‘Unemployed’ Reince, Threatens to Leak Dirt

This is like jr high with mean girls.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/scaramu...s-to-leak-dirt

[Walter Sobchak]

Article on the DOE and the hostility it faces from the Trump administration... long read.

Why the Scariest Nuclear Threat May Be Coming From Within the White House
<http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/...-michael-lewis>

Donald Trump’s secretary of energy, Rick Perry, once campaigned to abolish the $30 billion agency that he now runs, which oversees everything from our nuclear arsenal to the electrical grid. The department’s budget is now on the chopping block. But does anyone in the White House really understand what the Department of Energy actually does? And what a horrible risk it would be to ignore its extraordinary, life-or-death responsibilities?

On n the morning after the election, November 9, 2016, the people who ran the U.S. Department of Energy turned up in their offices and waited. They had cleared 30 desks and freed up 30 parking spaces. They didn’t know exactly how many people they’d host that day, but whoever won the election would surely be sending a small army into the Department of Energy, and every other federal agency. The morning after he was elected president, eight years earlier, Obama had sent between 30 and 40 people into the Department of Energy. The Department of Energy staff planned to deliver the same talks from the same five-inch-thick three-ring binders, with the Department of Energy seal on them, to the Trump people as they would have given to the Clinton people. “Nothing had to be changed,” said one former Department of Energy staffer. “They’d be done always with the intention that, either party wins, nothing changes.”

By afternoon the silence was deafening. “Day 1, we’re ready to go,” says a former senior White House official. “Day 2 it was ‘Maybe they’ll call us?’ ”

“Teams were going around, ‘Have you heard from them?’ ” recalls another staffer who had prepared for the transition. “ ‘Have you gotten anything? I haven’t got anything.’ ”

[...]
A month after the election Pyle arrived for a meeting with Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, Deputy Secretary Sherwood-Randall, and Knobloch. Moniz is a nuclear physicist, then on leave from M.I.T., who had served as deputy secretary during the Clinton administration and is widely viewed, even by many Republicans, as understanding and loving the D.O.E. better than any person on earth. Pyle appeared to have no interest in anything he had to say. “He did not seem motivated to spend a lot of time understanding the place,” says Sherwood-Randall. “He didn’t bring a pencil or a piece of paper. He didn’t ask questions. He spent an hour. That was it. He never asked to meet with us again.” Afterward, Knobloch says, he suggested that Pyle visit one day each week until the inauguration, and that Pyle agreed to do it—but then he never showed up, instead attending a half-dozen meetings or so with others. “It’s a head-scratcher,” says Knobloch. “It’s a $30-billion-a-year organization with about 110,000 employees. Industrial sites across the country. Very serious stuff. If you’re going to run it, why wouldn’t you want to know something about it?”

[...]

As I drove out of Hanford the Trump administration unveiled its budget for the Department of Energy. ARPA-E had since won the praise of business leaders from Bill Gates to Lee Scott, the former C.E.O. of Walmart, to Fred Smith, the Republican founder of FedEx, who has said that “pound for pound, dollar for dollar, activity for activity, it’s hard to find a more effective thing government has done than ARPA-E.” Trump’s budget eliminates ARPA-E altogether. It also eliminates the spectacularly successful $70 billion loan program. It cuts funding to the national labs in a way that implies the laying off of 6,000 of their people. It eliminates all research on climate change. It halves the funding for work to secure the electrical grid from attack or natural disaster. “All the risks are science-based,” said John MacWilliams when he saw the budget. “You can’t gut the science. If you do, you are hurting the country. If you gut the core competency of the D.O.E., you gut the country.”

But you can. Indeed, if you are seeking to preserve a certain worldview, it actually helps to gut science. Trump’s budget, like the social forces behind it, is powered by a perverse desire—to remain ignorant. Trump didn’t invent this desire. He is just its ultimate expression.

[Topper]

Then why does he go to Mar-a-Lago if he's not vacationing there?

On a more positive note, my initial reaction to the Kelly hiring is very positive. I'm optimistic he won't tolerate Trump's unedited Tweets, Mooch's vulgarisms and cockiness, or even the unbridled access currently enjoyed by JaVanka. I doubt very much a Four-star Marine General will take much crap from any of them. Worst case, Trump will be looking at a Chief-of-Staff hat trick before Christmas.

If anybody can turn around the nuthouse, he can. If not, we'll see implosion after implosion.

[All-American]

Article on the DOE and the hostility it faces from the Trump administration... long read.

Why the Scariest Nuclear Threat May Be Coming From Within the White House
<http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/...-michael-lewis>

Why on earth does the department of energy oversee our nuclear weapons?

[Topper]

Why on earth does the department of energy oversee our nuclear weapons?

It has since the inception I believe. It starts with the premise that the Department of Energy should regulate and administer nuclear material, so it has control over weapons grade material as well.

[creekster]

Why on earth does the department of energy oversee our nuclear weapons?

Jimmy Carter formed the DOE by combing several federal Panels and coMissions and along them was found the responsibility to manage all fissile materials. Hence they control power plants and weapons materials.

[All-American]

President Trump: Making America Great Again...

Jimmy Carter formed the DOE by combing several federal Panels and coMissions and along them was found the responsibility to manage all fissile materials. Hence they control power plants and weapons materials.

Let me rephrase. Why on earth SHOULD the department of energy oversee our nuclear weapons?

[Commando]

Let me rephrase. Why on earth SHOULD the department of energy oversee our nuclear weapons?

Probably b/c they have the personnel, infrastructure, and knowledge to safely handle those materials.

[Topper]

Let me rephrase. Why on earth SHOULD the department of energy oversee our nuclear weapons?

Ask Jimmy Carter. I did not know or remember what creekster revealed. But, I suppose the logic is, if you have one agency tracking and keeping track of the fissile material, it makes it easier to ensure that the energy based material isn't converted to weapons grade, which can be done easily. If I understand correctly, fissile material has signatures identifying where it was created and these signatures are visible from long distances unless shielded.

It allows perhaps more civilian oversight than if it were housed in the Department of Defense? Or do to the knowledge accumulating better in one department than spread out?

[Jeff Lebowski]

Probably b/c they have the personnel, infrastructure, and knowledge to safely handle those materials.

Exactly.

[frank ryan]

It's Kid Rock's Party Now: The GOP Is About Annoying Liberals, Not Conservatism

https://www.buzzfeed.com/janecoaston...news#.ulPzByze

[Topper]

It's Kid Rock's Party Now: The GOP Is About Annoying Liberals, Not Conservatism

https://www.buzzfeed.com/janecoaston...news#.ulPzByze

If you could have a fiscal conservative bent, with libertarian social politics, AND annoy liberals, that would be ideal.

[PaloAltoCougar]

I haven't written anything negative about Trump in a long time, like, since yesterday, so I'll simply post this fine picture of the man whose doctor assured us would be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency."

[Topper]

I haven't written anything negative about Trump in a long time, like, since yesterday, so I'll simply post this fine picture of the man whose doctor assured us would be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency."

You are a disgusting person, PAC. Shame on you. That is the vision of eye pollution.