Daily Review 14/02/2017

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, February 14th, 2017 - 37 comments
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Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

37 comments on “Daily Review 14/02/2017 ”

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  1. Anne 1
    14 February 2017 at 5:43 pm

    Love it. Where did that ‘poem’ come from?

  2. Andre 2
    14 February 2017 at 5:44 pm

    First one down. Flynn’s gone.

    http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/13/politics/michael-flynn-white-house-national-security-adviser/index.html

    But there’s really some questions around the Chump’s part in those Russia calls. Flynn going away doesn’t mean those questions should also go away.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-greene/shouldnt-we-be-asking-abo_b_14726004.html?section=us_politics

    • mickysavage 2.2
      14 February 2017 at 6:10 pm

      Drain that swamp …

    • Anne 2.3
      14 February 2017 at 6:44 pm

      Okay so he lasted about 3 weeks. Who is next on the list? I can see a future scenario when the entire inner “cabinet” has been forced to resign and Trump is the only one left. Then what…?

      • Andre 2.3.1
        14 February 2017 at 8:38 pm

        The names I see mentioned are Sean Spicer, for not effectively communicating and looking weak and being played by a girl on SNL, Steve Bannon because Trump doesn’t like the “President Bannon” insinuations that Trump isn’t calling the shots.

        He’ll always have Jared and Ivanka so no chance of him being the only one left.

        • Anne 2.3.1.1
          14 February 2017 at 8:40 pm

          Oh well, it was a pleasant dream while it lasted. 🙂

          Mind you, pretty sure Jared and Ivanka have things to hide so he might still have them but they may not be in the cabinet.

          • Macro 2.3.1.1.1
            14 February 2017 at 9:47 pm

            Ivanka is facing her own problems

            Ivanka’s proximity to the administration has nonetheless come under increased scrutiny as her brand has begun to fall under the weight of her father’s political profile.

            The dust-up over Ivanka’s brand has, in many ways, proved to be an early microcosm of the looming conflict of interest questions surrounding Donald Trump and his family’s empire as he governs from the Oval Office.

            Ivanka said she would take a leave of absence from her business when her father was sworn in as president.

            “I will take a formal leave of absence from the Trump Organization and my eponymous apparel and accessories brand,” Ivanka wrote on 11 January.

            “I will no longer be involved with the management or operations of either company.”

            But according to ProPublica, she was still listed as running Trump businesses on at least some active liquor licenses associated with the family’s properties.

            Richard Painter, a White House ethics lawyer under George W Bush, said by acting as a de facto government employee, Ivanka was running the risk of mixing official business with her commercial enterprises.

            “If she wants to sit in as a woman business leader, I guess she can,” Painter said.

            “But she can’t be getting into stuff at the White House that affects her businesses … She better stay an outsider.”

  3. Macro 3
    14 February 2017 at 5:59 pm

    Of course as Kellyanne says Mr. Flynn had the “full confidence of the president.”
    But of course he would!

  4. Anthony Rimell 4
    14 February 2017 at 6:05 pm

    http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/national/housing-advocate-pastor-standing-for-labour-against-brownlee/

    I’m pleased to be standing in Ilam against Gerry

    I’m glad to see the Greens have chosen David Lee. I look forward to working together to #changethegovernment

    • mickysavage 4.1
      14 February 2017 at 6:08 pm

      Good luck Anthony. Send in a guest post if you like about your campaign and the important local issues.

      • Anthony Rimell 4.1.1
        14 February 2017 at 6:59 pm

        Thanks mickysavage. Will do.

        • greywarshark 4.1.1.1
          15 February 2017 at 12:14 pm

          Anthony Rimell
          Kia kaha in 2017. May the best man win, and it definitely can’t be Gerry so hope the L&G can shake up Chch certainties and complacencies enough. So go for it with probably best wishes of the majority here.

      • swordfish 4.1.2
        14 February 2017 at 10:33 pm

        Very sorry to see you miss out in New Lynn, Micky.

        Don’t expect you to comment, for obvious reasons, but personally I’m always sad to see a highly popular local community leader … one who’s spent his entire life in the region, has a nuanced understanding and extensive network of contacts within the area, and has proven electorally popular with local constituents time and time again … snubbed in favour of an outsider parachuted into a seat from 400kms away. All the more so when they’re an affluent academic parachuted into a largely working class Westie electorate.

        Which isn’t to deny Russell’s talents and expertise … but would’ve been more appropriate as a List MP.

    • McFlock 4.2
      14 February 2017 at 7:20 pm

      Good luck – I hope you get many opportunities to embarrass the heck out of him.

  5. Macro 5
    14 February 2017 at 6:28 pm

    On another WTF topic!

    McCaskill and Carper said they were concerned about media reports that Trump is still using his old Android phone to send Twitter messages.

    McCaskill and Carper said that if a foreign power was able to hack that phone, it could be turned into an always-on listening post in the president’s pocket.

    “The national security risks of compromising a smartphone used by [the president] are considerable,” the senators wrote.

    Remember the attacks on HC over the use of private email server and the calls to “Lock her up!”….

    • marty mars 5.1
      14 February 2017 at 7:37 pm

      “But security analysts have slammed Trump’s method of handling the news as reckless and potentially dangerous.

      After the phone call, Trump and Abe began discussing details of the incident at the table in plain view of everybody else, CNN reported.”

      “…DeAgazio’s photos show Trump himself using an Android device at the table – a device that could easily be hacked by the wrong people.

      Previous reports have suggested Trump’s personal phone is old and unsecured.”

      http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11800505

      The Dump is so mindlessly idiotic that he won’t even understand why people think this is such a bad way to run the presidency.

    • joe90 5.2
      14 February 2017 at 9:23 pm

      But her emails…..

      The whole fucking campaign was about Hillary's emails and now Trump's team is violating the Presidential Records Act by using Confide. pic.twitter.com/93GZPsCnmI— Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) February 14, 2017

      Upset about damaging leaks of his calls with world leaders and other national security information, Trump has ordered an internal investigation to find the leakers. Staffers, meanwhile, are so fearful of being accused of talking to the media that some have resorted to a secret chat app — Confide — that erases messages as soon as they’re read.

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/upheaval-is-now-standard-operating-procedure-inside-the-white-house/2017/02/13/d65dee58-f213-11e6-a9b0-ecee7ce475fc_story.html?utm_term=.4aedfb8e3d49

      • Macro 5.2.1
        14 February 2017 at 9:36 pm

        Yep the whole shambles is coming apart at the seams…

        At the time of his departure, Flynn appeared to have been losing a power struggle inside the White House in which the established institution and processes of the national security council (NSC) were being sidestepped by a small group of Trump advisors, led by Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist and former head of Breitbart News, which has been a platform for the far right.

        Alongside him are Stephen Miller, another rightwing ideologue, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and advisor. They have set up the Strategic Initiatives Group, a parallel institution to the national security council inside the White House, which produces policies, in the form of quick-fire executive orders and memoranda, without consultation with the staff experts on the National Security Council (NSC).

        Ignored at best, berated at worst, the NSC career staff began leaking copiously about Trump’s erratic phone calls with other world leaders and other missteps, infuriating the president, who ordered leak investigations, further deepening the discontent and dysfunction inside the White House. Any successor to Flynn would face the same struggle for influence and the president’s ear as he did.

        My bold.
        We can see how this is going to go well – what could possibly go wrong…

  6. joe90 6
    14 February 2017 at 8:58 pm

    On the bright side – Trump and his bumbling mob could well be so incompetent they couldn’t run an autocracy if they tried.

    The ac­cep­ted wis­dom in Wash­ing­ton is that we’re fa­cing the threat of au­thor­it­ari­an­ism with the ad­min­is­tra­tion of Don­ald J. Trump. The pres­id­ent’s self-ag­grand­iz­ing nature, im­puls­ive per­son­al­ity, and iras­cible man­ner (ex­pressed in a tor­rent of angry tweets) raise le­git­im­ate wor­ries about his pres­id­ency. George Or­well’s clas­sic 1984 is again a best­seller, bought by lib­er­als fear­ful of the rise of to­tal­it­ari­an­ism in Amer­ica. But what if the op­pos­ite is the case? Trump’s in­com­pet­ence, his in­ex­per­i­enced staff, and his ad­min­is­tra­tion’s slap­dash ways could make him a his­tor­ic­ally weak pres­id­ent. What if, be­neath all the bluster, we find out that Pres­id­ent Trump is less than the sum of his tweets?

    […]

    As Politico’s lead story put it Fri­day: “Be­ing pres­id­ent is harder than Don­ald Trump thought.” If that’s true, it’s a sign that the pres­id­ent may be in a weak po­s­i­tion to gov­ern ef­fect­ively. That weak­ness would carry neg­at­ive con­sequences on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage, with Amer­ica’s tra­di­tion­al role as glob­al lead­er at risk. And it runs counter to the idea that we’ve entered a har­row­ing new age of auto­cracy, as Dav­id Frum’s pro­voc­at­ive At­lantic cov­er story puts it. If the first three weeks of the ad­min­is­tra­tion are any in­dic­a­tion, the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion may be more of a tragi-com­edy than a hor­ror story.

    https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/647956?unlock=G88OFNB1G8S2QWF2

  7. mauī 7
    14 February 2017 at 9:07 pm

    Bugger, when the dam engineer isn’t sure if the Oroville dam holding back water the size of Lake Benmore is going to hold.

    I wonder if we should start rethinking our water storage and how long we can maintain it for.

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/oroville-dam-failure-scott-cahill

  9. adam 9
    14 February 2017 at 11:02 pm

    Like this video, loving the Jimmy Dore show. Why Brexit not so bad for working people.

  10. Antoine 10
    15 February 2017 at 5:15 am

    Hope y’all not adversely affected by the Port Hills fire

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