You’re right about paying attention to the effect different movements have on something else, be it foreign policy or economic.
Otherwise, the media could never figure out that a lot of what he says and/or positions is to achieve the best beginning point at the bargaining table.

Well, he’s selling his brand.

So, he wants to look fully open minded so has Al Gore and Leo DiCaprio up to Trump Tower to talk about global warming.

He has Romney up to talk about whatever, Secretary of State?

He has Kissinger up.

He took the call from Taiwan and, thus, showed China that he is no pushover. When China took the scientific ocean drone, Trump suggested that they should just keep it: So, they remain a thief, and he doesn’t want to get military on them.

He talked with Bill Clinton and said nice things about the conversation; so, he looks like he is trying to bring the country together.

His .GOV Web site has his version of the news on the transition, e.g., looks well done and has bios on each of his nominations. So, he looks serious.

He noticed that winning the election was not enough support for his brand so did a thank you tour where, again, he could get 30,000 people to show up. There he repeated many of the promises he made in the campaign. So, he continued to keep up his support.

He has continued to Tweet, on the newsie Hillary propaganda on the Ruskies as why she lost and, now, on the attack in Berlin by Ali Abdul Jihad al Fatwah bin Big Truck with a remark about how civilization needs to wake up, get smart, or some such.

For what he’s going to do, to me, first cut, it looks like a lot of common sense. Second cut, for a lot of that stuff, he’s going to have to look into the macro economics and push the projects ahead in about the right order and at about the right speed monitoring that he doesn’t shoot some big parts of the economy in the gut, overheat other big parts of the economy, etc.

There are a lot of latrines in the world, and I believe that Trump will decline a lot of opportunities to go to war in them.

For the Jihaders, his “We will get/keep the radical Islamic terrorists the Hell out of our country.” or some such — I believe that we very much can and that he definitely will.

Keeping Jihaders out of the US looks radical only because for the past 8 years we were so eager to let them in. The strange part is not that we want them out but why we were so eager to let them in.

This will be an interesting year (2017) as we see what Trump does. If someone in his inner circle would drill into his head the way to make fun of MSM’s fake news line where he’s outside the box will pay off for him in several ways.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/12/16/13/3B70EE8300000578-4039350-image-m-4_1481894508831.jpg

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The Russian sanctions which precluded Exxon’s involvement in the Artic JV happened some time ago.

The Russians went forward — piecemeal — with other competitors who cut a better deal for Russia.

That opportunity is no longer in play.

Hard to believe the CIA meets with NBC when they refuse to brief the House Intel Committee after a written request.

BRC
http://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com

I was listening to one of the reporters on te radio today and the interviewer asked them that clearly this involved Humint and Putins inner circle so why would they want to expose those contacts. The reporter said they (NBC) had meetings about this issue among themselves and with the IC, and did it anyways because they felt it was important.

As you have said before, things have changed and there are new or no rules. To me this doesn’t feel like some typical Russian espionage. Yes there has always been spies and stealing info, but I don’t recall Russia ever actively trying to weaponize that info and influencing elections. If you think Russia just wants a little Chaos, I think you are vastly underestimating them.

At the end of the day, I suspect this all comes down to money. And the half trillion dollar arctic oil well. Obama blocked that deal, and I bet HRC would have too. I don’t know what DJT thoughts on the matter are but you can be damn sure what Rex has on the agenda.

Money seems to be a theme with DJT and his cabinet of billionaire globalists. While I have my issues with career politicians like the current treasury secretary, i feel like they can at least be called patriots and would put America and Americans above personal business dealings.

Demographically the largest item was the no show or Obama voters, young and minority. Hum, so the e-mail content Pissed off those two groups! The mails laughing at Religious Voters, Jewish and Catholic , energized those votes. So from a content of the hack Putin is brilliant for writing these! Oh you mean we are not talking about content here?

I don’t care who hacked, (maybe how) but I do care about the info. What is the difference between a fat Russian in his moms basement or a guy in a garage who calls himself deep throat?

and the assertion that the entire IC is unanimous in their conclusion that the Russians hacked our election is pure baloney.

One of my theories on this, which I espoused to my naif wife last night [1], was that this is simply laying the groundwork for the public for when we get our hands caught in the cookie jar again with some other country. Then the writers and the idiots on the street think ‘oh it’s ok they do it to us’. It honestly makes no sense at all strategically, for any other reason that I can think of, to make such a public disclosure other than the obvious point of trying to cast doubt and get a dig on the Trump administration. Obviously there is this shit going on all of the time. Perhaps if this had been brought out prior to what we had done with Merkel there would have been less trouble with that.

And of course one other thing. If you are sophisticated enough to hack these types of things you are also good enough to make it look like someone else was doing it or at least draw attention away from yourself.

Lastly as far as knowing for sure that Putin was behind it since anyone who has ever visited the spy museum in Washington DC (worth a visit) even knows how trustworthy is a spy telling a spy something anyway? Who knows how many levels of manipulation are going on in those communications?

[1] I got her into the habit of watching the Lester Holt every night with me.

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There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that the Russians were involved to the extent they could be in the American elections and have been for years. We did and do the same thing to them as you pointed out elsewhere.

Why would it come as a surprise to anyone that Putin — former KGB guy — would take an interest in this?

I am extremely skeptical that anyone in the IC actually “knows” this type of thing as it involves HumInt and they would be unwilling to expose such a source.

I would take it a little more seriously if it were reported in a more reputable press organ, like the Nat’l Enquirer?

Still, what could they actually do other than to engage in classic propaganda?

They didn’t tell HRC to blow off the Rust Belt or to call Trump supporters “deplorabes.”

As an aside, I believe HRC could have won had she done some specific things differently chief amongst them to actually work harder and to get away from attacking DJT and focus on policy.

Clearly, between the two candidates Trump is and was the one most likely to invigorate the American military which is the single greatest threat to Russia’s global hegemony and expansionist ambitions, so I am a little non-plussed as to why Putin would seek to support Trump v HRC.

That doesn’t make much sense to me.

I suspect the Russians got exactly what they want — chaos and an overblown sense of their power. Two things they always seek.

Merry Christmas!

BRC
http://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com

Well this isn’t going away so get comfortable. This is from this morning:

“U.S. intelligence officials now believe with “a high level of confidence” that Russian President Vladimir Putin became personally involved in the covert Russian campaign to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.”

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-officials-putin-personally-involved-u-s-election-hack-n696146

Putin is incredibly smart and strong politician. He knows exactly what he is doing. We are going to need a leader to stand up to him over numerous issues. Is this going to be Trump? Or Putins comrade, Tillerson? My worry is that Putin is playing chess, and Trump is playing checkers and tweeting about the bad review Vanity Fair gave his restaurant. Even the American people (Republicans) are now enamoured with Putin.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d8f061e86cd445167d2f193f48dc0ffe5f8ad48a65a34fefd313e4ea0b530d58.jpg

This cult of personality for both Trump and Putin is going to have some real consequences. I seriously hope this is all part of Trumps masterplan because it seriously looks like he is being played like a Russian fiddle.