quote:

Originally posted by HuskySig:

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

quote:

Originally posted by 18DAI:
I bet Devin Nunes as AG would wipe the smiles off their faces. I know it would put a smile on mine. Regards 18DAI

Nunes isn’t a lawyer.

Why does that matter? I’m sure he could spend a few nights at a Holiday Inn Express and do just fine.

Well, let’s not get too crazy.

The AG is a lawyer, always has been. The Secretary of Defense is a General, the Secretary of Treasury is a banker, the Surgeon General is a doctor, the Secretary of State is a diplomat, the Secretary of Labor is a worker, and so forth. See?

Trump Time

Townhall.com
Debra Saunders

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump has the White House running on fast forward. He is pushing the once crusty and creaky foreign policy apparatus to move at the speed of Twitter.

Is Trump's at-a-blur pace for better or worse?

Consider Trump's action-packed Thursday.

At 3 a.m., the president and first lady shared a triumph at Joint Base Andrews as they greeted three buoyant American prisoners released by the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in advance of June's big meeting between Trump and Kim.

"This is a wonderful thing that he (Kim) released the folks early. That was a very big thing," Trump exclaimed. Fast is good.

Hours later, Trump tweeted more big news: "The highly anticipated meeting between Kim Jong Un and myself will take place in Singapore on June 12th. We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!"

That's right. Trump scheduled a summit that leaves his national security staff and the hollowed-out State Department bureaucracy about a month to prepare for complicated negotiations involving highly technical issues. It would have been nice if Trump were this quick at filling vacant positions in Foggy Bottom.

Did he schedule the summit too fast?

"Yes," answered Ty Cobb, a foreign policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan now with the National Security Forum. In Cobb's experience, summits follow extensive preparation over minute details -- all resolved before a summit begins, so that the summit itself is simply a ceremony. Trump is leapfrogging over the usual order.

And yet, Cobb finds himself thinking maybe Trump has found a smart approach with North Korea. Cobb said he had just finished a panel discussion with two other national security veterans, and all three "were struck at the success this president has had relying on his instincts instead of the bureaucracy."

Americans pretty much had become used to the glacial pace of statecraft. Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are ripping up the old playbook.

While Trump was announcing U.S. withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear pact on Tuesday, Pompeo was already on to the next thing. "At a Key Moment, Trump's Top Diplomat Is Again Thousands of Miles Away," read a disapproving headline in The New York Times.

The Times didn't look all that hot when Pompeo returned from Pyongyang with three freed prisoners in tow.

In December, when Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel -- and said he would move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to the Holy City -- D.C.'s chattering class expected the move to take years.

Wrong. On Monday, some six months after Trump's declaration, the United States will open the new embassy -- and thus make good on a promise in legislation enacted in 1995.

Yes, the new Jerusalem embassy will be carved out of an old compound -- a few rooms inside what has been the U.S. consulate office in Arnona, a suburb of Jerusalem.

"It's not real," scoffed former Obama Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher. "This is like changing the sign on a hotel."

Tauscher added there will not be enough room for most of the staff stationed at the long-standing embassy in Tel Aviv, so "I don't think that the embassy is moving."

Cobb posited that past administrations would have moved at a snail's pace to relocate the embassy. Various staffs would have picked through all the angles, he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and then "would have reached a compromise decision that satisfies no one."

James Carafano, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, offered that he would have recommended against the embassy move. "Nobody really cares about the embassy," Carafano said, "not even the Palestinians. It's all symbolic."

Trump? He "does it anyway," Carafano continued -- to show the Palestinians that Trump is serious about their leaders' need to change.

If year two of Trump's foreign policy seems to be moving fast, Carafano added, it's because Trump is an intuitive decision-maker. In the first year, America didn't see these rapid-fire moves because, "You can't be an intuitive decision-maker if you don't know the issues." But now Trump is up to speed.

Trump brought Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton on board, said Carafano, "to get the government to move on Trump time."

Trump time -- those two words no doubt send shivers through the saggy spines of foreign policy solons.

Cobb sees an executive "overturning decades of tradition and caution." Is he worried? "Yes, we're all worried about that," said Cobb. But to Trump's credit, "it's worked out so far."

Despite all the doomsday predictions, Carafano noted, "He hasn't started World War III yet. That's good."

Link

on the previous page was a post about Comey and his buddy Benjamin Witte.

Witte runs Lawfare Blog. If you read anything from those people, recognize it may well be a lie.

When James Baker (former FBI General counsel) recently resigned, he went straight to work for Lawfare

Susan Hennessey is Lawfare executive director.

A recent tweet from Hennessey:

"This is a hugely significant story. DOJ and the IC do not trust the HPSCI chair to protect sources and methods that directly risk human lives. Nunes simply cannot continue to serve in the role and Speaker Ryan is wrong to not remove him and appoint a suitable choice like Conaway"

Hennessey also said “the intelligence oversight system is based on trust. Without trust it is irretrievably broken. The [Intelligence Community] and [Department of Justice] don’t trust Nunes and he cannot perform his job functions.”

https://amgreatness.com/2018/0...e-mob-targets-nunes/

The conspiracy against Donald Trump recognizes what a powerful role that Devin Nunes is playing. Nunes is taking action to knock down the walls of phony secrecy that DoJ has used to hide the truth.

Nunes is an American hero. Rare that you can say that about a politician.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

quote:

Originally posted by HuskySig:

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

quote:

Originally posted by 18DAI:
I bet Devin Nunes as AG would wipe the smiles off their faces. I know it would put a smile on mine. Regards 18DAI

Nunes isn’t a lawyer.

Why does that matter? I’m sure he could spend a few nights at a Holiday Inn Express and do just fine.

Well, let’s not get too crazy.

The AG is a lawyer, always has been. The Secretary of Defense is a General, the Secretary of Treasury is a banker, the Surgeon General is a doctor, the Secretary of State is a diplomat, the Secretary of Labor is a worker, and so forth. See?

By that logic, a dog catcher should be a dog...

Just because it’s traditionally been one way, doesn’t mean quality people without the requisite experience couldn’t do a good job with the right people around them. I’m beginning to think the most important skill anyone can have is people management. Empowering those below you seems to generate better results than the best person at whatever field trying to lead. Subject matter experts tend to poor leaders because they lack critic skills in other areas.

I can’t disagree with much about the subject, but Secretaries of State John Kerry and Bill Clinton’s wife were diplomats before they got the job—?
And most Secretaries of Defense were not previously generals. Unfortunately. Sometimes, at least.
(Added: Based on the biographies of the 26 Secretaries of Defense since the office was established, it seems that only Marshall and Mattis were generals. Some evidently never even served in the armed forces.)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sigfreund,

And I don't think there is an actual requirement that the AG be a lawyer.

flashguy

“Both of them whine pretty regularly. They both like to ask the same questions and sometimes their tone needs to be adjusted a little bit. So I think that having kids has prepared me for the job that I have right now,” Sanders responded to the Daily Caller question: “What’s more difficult: Dealing with your children on an onerous day or dealing with [CNN reporter] Jim Acosta?”



Nice shot

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
I can’t disagree with much about the subject, but Secretaries of State John Kerry and Bill Clinton’s wife were diplomats before they got the job—?

Hey, they were qualified to be secretaries!

quote:

Secretaries of State John Kerry and Bill Clinton’s wife were diplomats before they got the job—?

...evidence suggests they were actually what they had been in previous public life....fraudulent poseurs..

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:
And I don't think there is an actual requirement that the AG be a lawyer.

flashguy

There is no “actual requirement” that there be an AG that I know of. Washington had one, so everyone since has had one. Washington’s AG was a lawyer, so all of them since have been.

Congress has probably assigned duties to the DOJ, so I suppose that might impose a requirement to have one.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
The Secretary of Defense is a General

I'm not sure that's the case.

Outranks all the generals, admirals, etc. but doesn't need to bother with all that basic training, etc. Here's a list

Looking over that list, I think more have been lawyers than generals/admirals.

quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
The Secretary of Defense is a General

I'm not sure that's the case.

Outranks all the generals, admirals, etc. but doesn't need to bother with all that basic training, etc. Here's a list

Looking over that list, I think more have been lawyers than generals/admirals.

I see my gift for subtle sarcasm is wasted here.

You may recall that General Mattis required Congressional waiver to be SecDef, and I believe General Marshall did as well. Military officers are not favored for SecDef, civilian control of military and all that.

Let's move on, please.

Many will enjoy the lengthy article about Robert Mueller which appeared this morning at Link.

It begins:

quote:

Other than the president himself, perhaps no public figure is more debated and discussed these days than Special Counsel Robert Mueller. On the Right, former Speaker Newt Gingrich has called him “the tip of the deep state spear aimed at destroying or at a minimum undermining and crippling the Trump presidency.” On the Left, best-selling author J.K. Rowling has tweeted: “If someone, somewhere, isn’t rushing Robert Mueller Christmas angels into production right now, I will be bitterly disappointed.”

Could both sides be off-base? As we enter the second year of Mueller’s sprawling investigation, with no apparent end in sight, Hanlon’s Razor teaches us to “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” What if Mueller were not some sort of avenging angel, but rather just a bumbling bureaucrat? To put it somewhat differently, why assume that the same folks who brought us Amtrak, the U.S. Post Office, and Healthcare.gov somehow knocked it out of the park with the Office of Special Counsel?

Whatever else one might say about Washington DC, it has never been accused of being a meritocracy. Rather, it has always been a place where people trade on connections. Until President Obama came into town and shook things up a bit, for centuries our federal government was mostly overseen by a bipartisan old-guard of WASP privilege.

This has GOT to be yet another stick in the eye of Onumb-nutz and his supposed "legacy". Clinton and Dubyuh should probably feel shame as well, as they were about as useful as tits on a boar hog in this arena, despite Congress voting 93-5 and 374-37 declaring Jerusalem as the Capital (Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995).

And this taking place on Israel's 70th birthday to boot. GREAT timing!!!

http://www.foxnews.com/politic...-capital-israel.html

This is an AWESOME accomplishment of President Trump...

quote:

Originally posted by erj_pilot:
This has GOT to be yet another stick in the eye of Onumb-nutz and his supposed "legacy". Clinton and Dubyuh should probably feel shame as well, as they were about as useful as tits on a boar hog in this arena, despite Congress voting 93-5 and 374-37 declaring Jerusalem as the Capital (Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995).

And on Israel's 70th birthday to boot. GREAT timing!!!

http://www.foxnews.com/politic...-capital-israel.html

This is an AWESOME accomplishment of President Trump...

From the comments section of that article: "Message to Palestinians;
PUT DOWN YOUR ROCK AND PICK UP A BOOK!"


I would add the need to pick up any other book.

quote:

Originally posted by erj_pilot:
The level of hatred the Palestinians have for the Israelis is really incomprehensible to most Americans. Case in point...way back in the late 80's I was working on a project with a colleague from another department (I was at UT Health Science Center at the time; my accounting days). I had never really met this gentleman, and he was a gentleman...VERY nice man from somewhere in the Middle East.

At the close of our first meeting, I told him it was going to be a pleasure working on this project with him and as we shook hands and parted, I said "shalom". He whipped around and his tone and facial expression TOTALLY changed as he wagged his index finger at me and said, "No...do not say that word to me. It is the word of my country's enemy". I just stood there wide-eyed and just said, "Okaaay? My apologies..." It was at that point that I understood, to a degree, the hatred Palestine has for Israel.

I got to my desk and just wondered that if someone said "Proshchay" to me in Russian or "Zaijian" in Chinese (goodbye), would I be offended. I'd have to say no...

If you haven't, read "The Roots of Muslim Rage - Why so many Muslims deeply resent the West, and why their bitterness will not easily be mollified" by Bernard Lewis in The Atlantic 1990.

It's a little dated but offers some valuable insights.

Guy, this thread is about President Trump. If you want to talk about Palestinians, then, for God's sake, use the existing thread on the subject:

https://sigforum.com/eve/forums...0601935/m/1130037144

I am asking everyone who posts to this thread to STOP and THINK if what they are about to post REALLY belongs in this thread. Look at the number of pages in this thread. Imagine trying to read it from the beginning.

Think before you post, please.

Is there guidance on items about items about the various investigations, as opposed to the Trump administration?