US Presidential Candidates

Our military works in with the US a lot, and has similar systems. The first career check is at Major, no matter how competent and hard working you are, if you don't have politicial and networking skills that's it.
The next is full Colonel where you get Command College or not.
I was working in our Army Headquarters when the then Chief of Army appointed three spin doctors or publicity specialists to promote the army's image. Yeah right, just one member of the army.

Aaaaand.... from the party that had to hold their eighth investigation into Benghazi after the first seven told them the administration hadn't done anything scandalous...


No expressed intent to investigate the National Security Advisor having illegal contact with the Russians. After MONTHS of everyone up to and including the CIA and NSA telling everyone that there was a serious problem with the Russians and this administration.

Because it's "been handled". Which when dealing with another Republican means "we made the guy go away and get out out of the media spotlight now shut up... we have a very important investigation into a cartoon character to conduct"



(I wish that last part was a joke.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... 901f7ee20f




(Although apparently there are today signs that the pressure may be building enough to get Chaffetz off his backside and doing his job)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... ?CMP=fb_gu


At what point do the great billowing clouds of smoke mean "fire" in the eyes of conservatives here, exactly?

biochem wrote:If the MILITARY was doing it's job in picking generals. Trump should be able to pick ANY general (or admiral if Navy) for national security advisor. If this guy is so bad how did our military let him rise so high?

And yet we know that in the military - like any large organization - not everyone who rises to the top is competent. And Flynn had been fired from his position before (although according to some things I've read, Flynn was fairly competent during most of his military career and went off the deep end/rose to his level of incompetence afterwards).

On another subject:

PeterZ, as you may recall we had a discussion earlier in the thread on conflicts of interest. We now have an example of why that's problematic for a president.

When he was till President-Elect, Trump spoke with the president of Taiwan and stated the US' stance towards One China was negotiable. A few days ago, he backed down on this.

Trumps has been fighting legal battles over trademarks in China for years. In one particular case, over construction services, Trump has been fighting for the trademark for over a decade and has lost multiple times. The, in September, the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board agreed, to invalidate the previous trademark holding, after years of denying Trump.

Now, as the article states, this may have nothing to do with Trump's candidacy and victory. On the other hand, it's quite possible the Chinese reversed stance to curry favor in general and, more specifically, that Trump was told explicitly or implicitly that it would allow this to go through (the decision could be challenged until today, IINM) as well as favor him in future trademark disputes (of which there are a lot, and he has a large number of trademarks up for renewal in China this year) if he backed down on One China and possibly for future favors.

So the US President may have made this decision legitimately or in favor of his business interests. The thing is that we have no way of knowing which it is, which is exactly why conflict of interest is important and why Trumps refusal to divest is very problematic.

gcomeau wrote:Aaaaand.... from the party that had to hold their eighth investigation into Benghazi after the first seven told them the administration hadn't done anything scandalous...

No expressed intent to investigate the National Security Advisor having illegal contact with the Russians. After MONTHS of everyone up to and including the CIA and NSA telling everyone that there was a serious problem with the Russians and this administration.

Because it's "been handled". Which when dealing with another Republican means "we made the guy go away and get out out of the media spotlight now shut up... we have a very important investigation into a cartoon character to conduct"

(I wish that last part was a joke.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... 901f7ee20f

(Although apparently there are today signs that the pressure may be building enough to get Chaffetz off his backside and doing his job)

Well, per Rand Paul, investigating your own party is pointless...

Eyal, I am not as woried about those sorts of decision. It's fine to scrutinize them. Characterize them as you will, just as the media does. I am more worried about insisting that any president MUST forsake any company he spent his life building to become president. That nearly requires anyone wanting to become president to follow a government tract to achieve that goal. This will serve to insulat all candidates in the cocoon of the government establishment and the donors that fund them.

All this leaking going on right now suggests the interests of the establishment is not aligned with the goals of this administration. That's a conflict of interest I am much more concerned about.

PeterZ wrote:Eyal, I am not as woried about those sorts of decision. It's fine to scrutinize them.

THEY CAN'T BE SCRUTINIZED.

That's the whole freaking point. This is a blank check for the corruption of the presidency. There is no possible way to prove the motivation behind maneuvers like this short of getting a recording of the Chinese telling Trump in plain language "hey, One China policy for Copyright concessions? Trade?"

Which is never going to freaking happen.

This is Carte Blanche Corruption.

Characterize them as you will, just as the media does. I am more worried about insisting that any president MUST forsake any company he spent his life building to become president. That nearly requires anyone wanting to become president to follow a government tract to achieve that goal.

So basically, you think the Founders had it all wrong then.

You know, the guys who wrote Article II Section I of that Constitution thing that required the President to receive only a fixed federal salary and no other compensation from either foreign powers OR domestic state interests in order to avoid the corruption of the office? They just didn't know what they were talking about on that one when they thought it was so important the President NOT be getting paid for anything except being President that they put it right in the founding document of the nation? And allowing a free channel for the flow of money into the president's personal bank account from absolutely *anyone* who wants to pay him off is just no problem whatsoever???

This will serve to insulat all candidates in the cocoon of the government establishment and the donors that fund them.

How many times does it have to be pointed out to you that this is an OPEN CHANNEL from those donors to the President? This isn't insulating him from them it's building them a 10 lane expressway straight to him. ANY of those donors are now able to directly pay off the President of the United States simply by initiating a business deal with any of his companies and making sure he's <wink, wink> aware of it.

All this leaking going on right now suggests the interests of the establishment is not aligned with the goals of this administration. That's a conflict of interest I am much more concerned about.

All the leaking suggests the White House is in chaos being run by a bunch of amateurs who have no clue what the hell they're doing and people are so worried they're talking.


(Side note: Hey, anyone remember the ancient times when Republicans were so incredibly worried about how hard and important it was to be President that the Harvard educated Constitutional Law professor, and prior State and US Senator was "extraordinarily dangerously inexperienced" in government and it was an OUTRAGE that those irresponsible Democrats nominated someone so incredibly unprepared for the position? Wow, I can remember it like it was only 8 years ago...)

PeterZ wrote:Eyal, I am not as woried about those sorts of decision. It's fine to scrutinize them. Characterize them as you will, just as the media does. I am more worried about insisting that any president MUST forsake any company he spent his life building to become president. That nearly requires anyone wanting to become president to follow a government tract to achieve that goal. This will serve to insulat all candidates in the cocoon of the government establishment and the donors that fund them.

All this leaking going on right now suggests the interests of the establishment is not aligned with the goals of this administration. That's a conflict of interest I am much more concerned about.

While I think Trump could have done more to separate himself from his business, he did face a unique challenge in that there's no way for him to fully divest without liquidating much of his company. Since his brand is one of his biggest assets, it's impossible for anyone doing business with the company not to know it's connected to Trump and that Trump will know about the arrangements. Given he won the election despite those entanglements, I think there's a solid argument against the usual practice of divestment. I just hope people recognize that his arrangements mean SFA as far as removing conflicts of interest. Does anyone actually believe his son won't keep him in the loop?

PeterZ wrote:Eyal, I am not as woried about those sorts of decision. It's fine to scrutinize them. Characterize them as you will, just as the media does.

That's the thing - you can't. I can think of a few pieces of evidence in such a situation which could prove conclusively or at least with high confidence that such a quid quo pro exists but there's no way to conclusively disprove it. That's why conflict of interest laws exist - to prevent the possibility from arising.

I am more worried about insisting that any president MUST forsake any company he spent his life building to become president. That nearly requires anyone wanting to become president to follow a government tract to achieve that goal. This will serve to insulat all candidates in the cocoon of the government establishment and the donors that fund them.

I'll start by putting my own biases on the table - I don't really see a major problem with requiring everyone running for President to have some sort of public service experience. In fact, I'll go further - I think the concept that governence is something that anyone can do without any need for prior experience to be downright dangerous. And if the donor class is a problem, a better solution would be to find ways to limit the influence of money in politics rather than making it easier to bribe the President (actually, in the given situaiton, it's almost impossible to prove he isn't being bribed).

noblehunter wrote:While I think Trump could have done more to separate himself from his business, he did face a unique challenge in that there's no way for him to fully divest without liquidating much of his company. Since his brand is one of his biggest assets, it's impossible for anyone doing business with the company not to know it's connected to Trump and that Trump will know about the arrangements. Given he won the election despite those entanglements, I think there's a solid argument against the usual practice of divestment. I just hope people recognize that his arrangements mean SFA as far as removing conflicts of interest. Does anyone actually believe his son won't keep him in the loop?

I agree that the nature of Trump's business makes divestment especially problematical for him.
Bluntly, however, that's his problem. He's not entitled to be President, nor is it the logical end point of any career track in a way that it's unfair a given person would not achieve it. Neither is Trump uniquely qualified for the Presidency; there are certainly many people who could do the job as well or better, and most of them will not have the chance to become President to to a variety of circumstances. In addition, there are plenty of jobs which may require you to make sacrifices to be eligible (anything with a security clearance comes to mind).
Given that, I see no rationale to give Trump any special exemptions which enable corruption.

Unfortunately, he is uniquely qualified to be President at this time. He's the only one that meets the requirement of being selected by the Electoral College.

I have an issue with saying the President must do something that is not codified by law. While there might be grounds under the Emoluments clause to require Trump to dissolve his foreign business ties, there doesn't seem to be anything covering his domestic business.

If these entanglements were sufficient cause to deny him the Presidency, he wouldn't have been elected. As such, I think some restraint is warranted on the subject. None of this was kept secret or hidden from voters. They knew who and what they were voting for (poor souls).

Which is not to say that we shouldn't hammer Trump for his conflicts of interest. More that we shouldn't portray his refusal to divest as an inherent betrayal of the Republic.

Or maybe I'm just tone policing. Feh.

Eyal wrote:
I'll start by putting my own biases on the table - I don't really see a major problem with requiring everyone running for President to have some sort of public service experience. In fact, I'll go further - I think the concept that governence is something that anyone can do without any need for prior experience to be downright dangerous. And if the donor class is a problem, a better solution would be to find ways to limit the influence of money in politics rather than making it easier to bribe the President (actually, in the given situaiton, it's almost impossible to prove he isn't being bribed).

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/237-millionaires-in-congress/
There didn't seem to be a problem with the Clinton's being broke when the left the White House and amassing $21 million by 2009. They did this while Hillary was a public servant. We also have Alcee Hastings with a net worth of negative $4.7 million. He is either hiding assets or getting serious loans he doesn't have the assets to repay. That sounds like a man ripe for being influenced or is already being influenced with money. There are 237 millionaires in congress in 2009. That number grows to 268 by 2012.

That's the sort of opportunity to amass wealth while in public service that troubles me. It is easy to bribe public servants now. Making it more difficult to become a public servant if wealthy doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

My preference is that public servants cannot grow wealthy while a public servant. That smacks too much like third world kleptocracies. Lived and worked in Indonesia and I don't want to import any of their bad habits here.