(10-13-2017 10:45 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 10:25 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 10:12 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  FTR, the person that Lad’s comments reminded me of was Soros, but Hillary is no a bad fit either.

Trump may be President, but Hillary is the long time politician. Both of them dealt with powerful and rich people, both het and overseas.

Hard to see how a guy who gets audited annually commits financial crimes that don’t get him in tax trouble too. I think there is more hope than analysis there.

Back to the genesis of this portion of the discussion, I would guess that the only person who can persuade him no to run if he wants to is Melania, not some nebulous accusation by Mueller that will be litigated for years. JMHO. Time will tell.

Money laundering is usually done through businesses with lots of cash transactions.

And real estate often has very large cash transactions.

In fact, as one article o linked to, a Russian oligarch bought a Trump property for many, many millions over its worth...

And I wouldn’t really use the fact that trump pays his taxes as evidence he hasn’t been involved with financial crimes. Maddoff paid his taxes too...

I have deal with a lot of real estate purchases and sales over the last 50 years, ranging from 4figures to 7 figuresand have yet to do one in cash.

Likewise the income to his properties is primarily credit card or check.

Of course, I don’t know all of Trump’s businesses. Maybe the golf clubs take in a lot of cash.

Truthfully, I think money laundering would be peanuts to Trump.

But, who knows. Maybe he runs prostitution rings, and a tape showing that will mysteriously show up at the NYT.

My prediction from way early in this thread holds. There will be nothing on Trump. There will likely be some minor indictments of minor people (Flynn). No collusion by anybody.

Read this, one of the articles I posted earlier. Talks about shell companies and how they use cash to purchase real estate to launder money, and how that happened at Trump SoHo with a Kazakh who was helped by Felix Sater, a Trump associate: https://qz.com/1023003/the-kazakh-corrup...-industry/

Or, for more evidence of how cash transactions in real estate are things (especially when shell companies are involved), here is an article about how Manafort did that for three homes in New York: http://www.wnyc.org/story/paul-manaforts...purchases/

Not sure why you think these cash purchases don’t occur just because you haven’t witnessed one. Just read about shell companies and cash real estate purchases.

(10-13-2017 10:45 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 10:25 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 10:12 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  FTR, the person that Lad’s comments reminded me of was Soros, but Hillary is no a bad fit either.

Trump may be President, but Hillary is the long time politician. Both of them dealt with powerful and rich people, both het and overseas.

Hard to see how a guy who gets audited annually commits financial crimes that don’t get him in tax trouble too. I think there is more hope than analysis there.

Back to the genesis of this portion of the discussion, I would guess that the only person who can persuade him no to run if he wants to is Melania, not some nebulous accusation by Mueller that will be litigated for years. JMHO. Time will tell.

Money laundering is usually done through businesses with lots of cash transactions.

And real estate often has very large cash transactions.

In fact, as one article o linked to, a Russian oligarch bought a Trump property for many, many millions over its worth...

And I wouldn’t really use the fact that trump pays his taxes as evidence he hasn’t been involved with financial crimes. Maddoff paid his taxes too...

I have deal with a lot of real estate purchases and sales over the last 50 years, ranging from 4figures to 7 figuresand have yet to do one in cash.

Likewise the income to his properties is primarily credit card or check.

Of course, I don’t know all of Trump’s businesses. Maybe the golf clubs take in a lot of cash.

Truthfully, I think money laundering would be peanuts to Trump.

But, who knows. Maybe he runs prostitution rings, and a tape showing that will mysteriously show up at the NYT.

My prediction from way early in this thread holds. There will be nothing on Trump. There will likely be some minor indictments of minor people (Flynn). No collusion by anybody.

But notice how the tangent of 'collusion' has disappeared to the emergence of broadly hinted but still nebulous 'financial crimes'.

Kind of tells me that Mueller and the 'resistance' are actually promoting and advocating the witch-hunt and chasing down rabbit-holes that many said would be the final result.

But, a special prosecutor never met a rabbit-hole he (edited to ad 'or she', since I dont want to get the tar and feather of being a pig-headed sexist) didnt want to explore......

(10-14-2017 12:19 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 10:45 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 10:25 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 10:12 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  FTR, the person that Lad’s comments reminded me of was Soros, but Hillary is no a bad fit either.

Trump may be President, but Hillary is the long time politician. Both of them dealt with powerful and rich people, both het and overseas.

Hard to see how a guy who gets audited annually commits financial crimes that don’t get him in tax trouble too. I think there is more hope than analysis there.

Back to the genesis of this portion of the discussion, I would guess that the only person who can persuade him no to run if he wants to is Melania, not some nebulous accusation by Mueller that will be litigated for years. JMHO. Time will tell.

Money laundering is usually done through businesses with lots of cash transactions.

And real estate often has very large cash transactions.

In fact, as one article o linked to, a Russian oligarch bought a Trump property for many, many millions over its worth...

And I wouldn’t really use the fact that trump pays his taxes as evidence he hasn’t been involved with financial crimes. Maddoff paid his taxes too...

I have deal with a lot of real estate purchases and sales over the last 50 years, ranging from 4figures to 7 figuresand have yet to do one in cash.

Likewise the income to his properties is primarily credit card or check.

Of course, I don’t know all of Trump’s businesses. Maybe the golf clubs take in a lot of cash.

Truthfully, I think money laundering would be peanuts to Trump.

But, who knows. Maybe he runs prostitution rings, and a tape showing that will mysteriously show up at the NYT.

My prediction from way early in this thread holds. There will be nothing on Trump. There will likely be some minor indictments of minor people (Flynn). No collusion by anybody.

But notice how the tangent of 'collusion' has disappeared to the emergence of broadly hinted but still nebulous 'financial crimes'.

Kind of tells me that Mueller and the 'resistance' are actually promoting and advocating the witch-hunt and chasing down rabbit-holes that many said would be the final result.

But, a special prosecutor never met a rabbit-hole he (edited to ad 'or she', since I dont want to get the tar and feather of being a pig-headed sexist) didnt want to explore......

Go back and read my old posts, please. As I have said again, and again, and again, I would be shocked if Trump himself was found guilty of colluding with Russia. Instead, I find it much more likely that people within his campaign did (like Jr who was thrilled to get an offer of dirt on Clinton from a Russian source) and I will actually be shocked if they don’t find that.

The investigation was always about the Trump campaign, not just the Teflon Don himself.

Collusion has not disappeared, it is just that Trump has now been responsible for so many shocking, bewildering, and terrifying acts (firing Comey, sparring with NK, bungling Maria, Charlottesville response, and so on) that public attention can only stay on one thing. And the only reason I brought up financial crimes in relation to the Nueller investigation, as opposed to results about collusion, is I wanted to give my opinion on what I think a likely outcome will be.

Go ahead and try be the exact kind of partisan hack you’re trying to rail against in your recent posts, because that is what you’re doing by trying to, I don’t know, shame me, because I offered my thoughts on what the likely outcome of the Trump presidency would be, based on information available to me. It’s frustrating that you seem to be confusing someone’s opinion of what a likely outcome will be with someone’s opinion of what the outcome should be.

(10-14-2017 07:44 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Collusion has not disappeared, it is just that Trump has now been responsible for so many shocking, bewildering, and terrifying acts (firing Comey, sparring with NK, bungling Maria, Charlottesville response, and so on) that public attention can only stay on one thing.

How did Trump bungle Maria? There is this narrative that the response was bungled, but that implies that it could somehow have been done better. How? And with what resources?

There are all these narratives about "shocking, bewildering, and terrifying acts" that simply don't have any facts underneath them. I'm asking about one very specific one in an area that I happen to know something about. The facts are not that the response to Maria was mishandled in any significant way. The facts are that the situation has been handled about as well as possible with available resources. There are legitimate questions of what resources should we maintain to deal with such crises, but those are long-term issues.

If you want to claim that Maria was mishandled, then you need to identify some specific items that could have been handled better. People are without power and are sick or dying. That's because it was a hurricane, not because the response was mishandled.

(10-14-2017 07:56 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-14-2017 07:44 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Collusion has not disappeared, it is just that Trump has now been responsible for so many shocking, bewildering, and terrifying acts (firing Comey, sparring with NK, bungling Maria, Charlottesville response, and so on) that public attention can only stay on one thing.

How did Trump bungle Maria? There is this narrative that the response was bungled, but that implies that it could somehow have been done better. How? And with what resources?

There are all these narratives about "shocking, bewildering, and terrifying acts" that simply don't have any facts underneath them. I'm asking about one very specific one in an area that I happen to know something about. The facts are not that the response to Maria was mishandled in any significant way. The facts are that the situation has been handled about as well as possible with available resources. There are legitimate questions of what resources should we maintain to deal with such crises, but those are long-term issues.

If you want to claim that Maria was mishandled, then you need to identify some specific items that could have been handled better. People are without power and are sick or dying. That's because it was a hurricane, not because the response was mishandled.

Don’t act like i don’t have specific examples.

The administration dragged their feet inn waiving the Jones Act, batting foreign vessels from entering Puerto Rican ports. We were slow in sending in federal and military aid and supplies and are understaffed on the island (Trump even cited the big ocean as being why this occurred). I understand that’s FEMA is understaffed because they are dealing with Harvey and Irma issues, but because PR is an island and therefore cannot be reached people from surrounding states like Texas and Florida were, the response must come from the federal government and a fast, massive, and focused response is necessary to get sufficient supplies to the island, no?

And that doesn’t touch on the public relation issues Trump has caused, from throwing paper towels to the wealthier Puerto Rican’s in an area that was not hit as hard, to the discussion of PR’s debt and how that may impact support and relief, to his funding with the mayor of San Juan.

edit: oh yeah, I also left out the fact that FEMA scrubbed stats on access to water and electricity from their website.

I think Lad’s responses exemplify the mindset of the Resistance, a determination that no matter what Trump does, it is wrong.

Collusion was a false bogeyman usd to justify an investigation, one which always ranges far afield from its stated subject and which always finds somebody to indict for something. (Scooter Libby). Now as it becomes more and more apparent that the investigation will not find collusion, the hopes of the Resistance turn to financial crimes, sex crimes, crimes nfidelity, cheating at golf, anything, repeat, anything to demonstrate that the election of 2016 was, if not a fraud, then a mistake, and HC should be our President, because she is the mirror opposite of him, wise, honest, caring, etc. Getting kind of old.

As I have said before, Lad is one of the more open minded and fair posters on the left, so you have to wonder what world the more hidebound among them live in.

FTR, once again, Trump has done some things I like and some I don’t, and he has sometimes done them in ways I like, and sometimes in ways I don’t. Overall, I think we are Better With Him. JMHO.

(10-14-2017 08:38 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Don’t act like i don’t have specific examples.
The administration dragged their feet inn waiving the Jones Act, batting foreign vessels from entering Puerto Rican ports. We were slow in sending in federal and military aid and supplies and are understaffed on the island (Trump even cited the big ocean as being why this occurred). I understand that’s FEMA is understaffed because they are dealing with Harvey and Irma issues, but because PR is an island and therefore cannot be reached people from surrounding states like Texas and Florida were, the response must come from the federal government and a fast, massive, and focused response is necessary to get sufficient supplies to the island, no?
And that doesn’t touch on the public relation issues Trump has caused, from throwing paper towels to the wealthier Puerto Rican’s in an area that was not hit as hard, to the discussion of PR’s debt and how that may impact support and relief, to his funding with the mayor of San Juan.
edit: oh yeah, I also left out the fact that FEMA scrubbed stats on access to water and electricity from their website.

I'm not "acting like" you don't have specific examples. I'm making a statement of fact that you don't.

The Jones Act as it applies to Puerto Rico is something that the island has wanted repealed for a long time. Raising it now is mostly a grandstanding play to never let a crisis go to waste. The problem is not a lack of hulls to move stuff to the island. The problems are an inability to offload ships because of damaged port facilities and equipment, and an inability to move stuff from the ports to the rest of the island because of damaged infrastructure. Neither of those has anything to do with the Jones Act.

By the way, the Jones Act does not bar any vessel from entering Puerto Rican ports. Foreign ships enter all the time. I've been there on one. What it says is that they can't carry cargo from US ports to be offloaded in Puerto Rico. So to be impacted, you'd have to have a foreign flagged ship that went to a US port, loaded cargo, and then attempted to bring that cargo to Puerto Rico. The number of ships fitting that profile is not going to be very big, and there are plenty of qualifying US flag ships to pick up the slack. I'm no fan of the Jones Act, it's a protectionist type of statute for the benefit of the US maritime industry, and I think that industry would do better without it (it could hardly be doing worse). But blaming it for even a microscopic part of the problem here is absurd.

We were not slow in sending in military aid and supplies. Trump is right, the ocean is big, and for the first week or so there was a big-ass hurricane squarely between the US and PR. Plus ships had to be loaded, and in some cases crewed up, before they could be sent. Sending people and assets, no matter how well-intentioned, into the middle of a crisis without proper planning and coordination will inevitably do far more harm than good.

What you've got here is about as fast, massive, and focused a response as is possible. It's not instantaneous, but the reality is that instantaneous is not possible. It takes time to assess what the specific problems are, and then get resources to address those specific problems lined up and on the way. The most useful assets are probably the Navy's amphib ships--with their helicopters to deal with the broken transportation infrastructure--and hospital ship. Those had to delay until the storm cleared their transit route and until they could be loaded, made ready for sea, and dispatched. What would you have them do instead? Sail off into a storm half loaded and ill-prepared to deal with the situation, just so we could say we did something for show?

We do not maintain, as a matter of policy, huge task forces ready to be anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat, to deal with disasters of all sorts. Nobody does. The cost would be astronomical. That means when a disaster hits, you're looking at a couple of weeks to mobilize resources. And in this case most of the available resources were in places that either 1) had just gone through other hurricanes themselves or 2) were in the potential path of this hurricane. That pretty well limits your options.

To give an example. I have an LHD available in Norfolk. I can load it with a portable hospital, or portable electric generation equipment, or more helicopters. Which do I send? Until the storm clears and I know what the problems are, how do I plan a response?

(10-14-2017 09:02 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I think Lad’s responses exemplify the mindset of the Resistance, a determination that no matter what Trump does, it is wrong.

Collusion was a false bogeyman usd to justify an investigation, one which always ranges far afield from its stated subject and which always finds somebody to indict for something. (Scooter Libby). Now as it becomes more and more apparent that the investigation will not find collusion, the hopes of the Resistance turn to financial crimes, sex crimes, crimes nfidelity, cheating at golf, anything, repeat, anything to demonstrate that the election of 2016 was, if not a fraud, then a mistake, and HC should be our President, because she is the mirror opposite of him, wise, honest, caring, etc. Getting kind of old.

If there was absolutely no evidence to warrant an investigation into the campaign’s collusion with Russia, there wouldn’t be an investigation. This is very similar, IMO, to Clinton’s email investigation or Benghazi investigation, in so much that there was/is enough preliminary information to warrant further investigation.

Again, I do not think it is apparent that the investigation will not find evidence of collusion within the campaign - just look what came out about the meeting with the russian lawyer! You seem to Ben misunderstanding my thought so if you keep going on about how I am norm interested or suspicious of collusion within the Trump campaign.

(10-14-2017 09:25 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-14-2017 08:38 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Don’t act like i don’t have specific examples.
The administration dragged their feet inn waiving the Jones Act, batting foreign vessels from entering Puerto Rican ports. We were slow in sending in federal and military aid and supplies and are understaffed on the island (Trump even cited the big ocean as being why this occurred). I understand that’s FEMA is understaffed because they are dealing with Harvey and Irma issues, but because PR is an island and therefore cannot be reached people from surrounding states like Texas and Florida were, the response must come from the federal government and a fast, massive, and focused response is necessary to get sufficient supplies to the island, no?
And that doesn’t touch on the public relation issues Trump has caused, from throwing paper towels to the wealthier Puerto Rican’s in an area that was not hit as hard, to the discussion of PR’s debt and how that may impact support and relief, to his funding with the mayor of San Juan.
edit: oh yeah, I also left out the fact that FEMA scrubbed stats on access to water and electricity from their website.

I'm not "acting like" you don't have specific examples. I'm making a statement of fact that you don't.

The Jones Act as it applies to Puerto Rico is something that the island has wanted repealed for a long time. Raising it now is mostly a grandstanding play to never let a crisis go to waste. The problem is not a lack of hulls to move stuff to the island. The problems are an inability to offload ships because of damaged port facilities and equipment, and an inability to move stuff from the ports to the rest of the island because of damaged infrastructure. Neither of those has anything to do with the Jones Act.

By the way, the Jones Act does not bar any vessel from entering Puerto Rican ports. Foreign ships enter all the time. I've been there on one. What it says is that they can't carry cargo from US ports to be offloaded in Puerto Rico. So to be impacted, you'd have to have a foreign flagged ship that went to a US port, loaded cargo, and then attempted to bring that cargo to Puerto Rico. The number of ships fitting that profile is not going to be very big, and there are plenty of qualifying US flag ships to pick up the slack. I'm no fan of the Jones Act, it's a protectionist type of statute for the benefit of the US maritime industry, and I think that industry would do better without it (it could hardly be doing worse). But blaming it for even a microscopic part of the problem here is absurd.

We were not slow in sending in military aid and supplies. Trump is right, the ocean is big, and for the first week or so there was a big-ass hurricane squarely between the US and PR. Plus ships had to be loaded, and in some cases crewed up, before they could be sent. Sending people and assets, no matter how well-intentioned, into the middle of a crisis without proper planning and coordination will inevitably do far more harm than good.

What you've got here is about as fast, massive, and focused a response as is possible. It's not instantaneous, but the reality is that instantaneous is not possible. It takes time to assess what the specific problems are, and then get resources to address those specific problems lined up and on the way. The most useful assets are probably the Navy's amphib ships--with their helicopters to deal with the broken transportation infrastructure--and hospital ship. Those had to delay until the storm cleared their transit route and until they could be loaded, made ready for sea, and dispatched. What would you have them do instead? Sail off into a storm half loaded and ill-prepared to deal with the situation, just so we could say we did something for show?

We do not maintain, as a matter of policy, huge task forces ready to be anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat, to deal with disasters of all sorts. Nobody does. The cost would be astronomical. That means when a disaster hits, you're looking at a couple of weeks to mobilize resources. And in this case most of the available resources were in places that either 1) had just gone through other hurricanes themselves or 2) were in the potential path of this hurricane. That pretty well limits your options.

To give an example. I have an LHD available in Norfolk. I can load it with a portable hospital, or portable electric generation equipment, or more helicopters. Which do I send? Until the storm clears and I know what the problems are, how do I plan a response?

You’re making a lot of assumptions about my thought process on this, from a few sentences. I’ll provide you some more detailed thoughts in a bit so you can address actual things I’ve said.

(10-14-2017 09:30 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(10-14-2017 09:02 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I think Lad’s responses exemplify the mindset of the Resistance, a determination that no matter what Trump does, it is wrong.

Collusion was a false bogeyman usd to justify an investigation, one which always ranges far afield from its stated subject and which always finds somebody to indict for something. (Scooter Libby). Now as it becomes more and more apparent that the investigation will not find collusion, the hopes of the Resistance turn to financial crimes, sex crimes, crimes nfidelity, cheating at golf, anything, repeat, anything to demonstrate that the election of 2016 was, if not a fraud, then a mistake, and HC should be our President, because she is the mirror opposite of him, wise, honest, caring, etc. Getting kind of old.

If there was absolutely no evidence to warrant an investigation into the campaign’s collusion with Russia, there wouldn’t be an investigation. This is very similar, IMO, to Clinton’s email investigation or Benghazi investigation, in so much that there was/is enough preliminary information to warrant further investigation.

Again, I do not think it is apparent that the investigation will not find evidence of collusion within the campaign - just look what came out about the meeting with the russian lawyer! You seem to Ben misunderstanding my thought so if you keep going on about how I am norm interested or suspicious of collusion within the Trump campaign.

The evidence to warrant the investigation was twofold:

A. Hillary lost when she was a shoo-in. why? How?
B. Russia stole emails and published them. Why?

Mankind has always searched for explanations of inexplicable events. That is what we are doing now.

(10-14-2017 09:45 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-14-2017 09:30 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(10-14-2017 09:02 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I think Lad’s responses exemplify the mindset of the Resistance, a determination that no matter what Trump does, it is wrong.

Collusion was a false bogeyman usd to justify an investigation, one which always ranges far afield from its stated subject and which always finds somebody to indict for something. (Scooter Libby). Now as it becomes more and more apparent that the investigation will not find collusion, the hopes of the Resistance turn to financial crimes, sex crimes, crimes nfidelity, cheating at golf, anything, repeat, anything to demonstrate that the election of 2016 was, if not a fraud, then a mistake, and HC should be our President, because she is the mirror opposite of him, wise, honest, caring, etc. Getting kind of old.

If there was absolutely no evidence to warrant an investigation into the campaign’s collusion with Russia, there wouldn’t be an investigation. This is very similar, IMO, to Clinton’s email investigation or Benghazi investigation, in so much that there was/is enough preliminary information to warrant further investigation.

Again, I do not think it is apparent that the investigation will not find evidence of collusion within the campaign - just look what came out about the meeting with the russian lawyer! You seem to Ben misunderstanding my thought so if you keep going on about how I am norm interested or suspicious of collusion within the Trump campaign.

The evidence to warrant the investigation was twofold:

A. Hillary lost when she was a shoo-in. why? How?
B. Russia stole emails and published them. Why?

Mankind has always searched for explanations of inexplicable events. That is what we are doing now.

If anything, the revelation that Trump Jr. intentionally accepted a meeting with a foreign national in which he was excited about potentially receiving dirt/opposition research from a known foreign national, should be enough to explain why the investigation is not a complete sham, which you seem to imply it is. Again, and again, the investigation is into the entire campaign, not just POTUS, and between Trump Jr.’s actions, all of Manaforts sketchy Russian connections, and Flynn’s calls to Russian officials, there isn’t ample reason to dig deeper and understand what went on.

And that doesn’t even touch understanding how Russia utilized resources like social media sites and Wikileaks to attempt to influence the general public. Some of the stories being published about Facebook and twitter deleting data associated with potentially Russian purchases ads or backed groups is really disconcerting.

(10-14-2017 09:39 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  You’re making a lot of assumptions about my thought process on this, from a few sentences. I’ll provide you some more detailed thoughts in a bit so you can address actual things I’ve said.

I'm making exactly zero assumptions about your thought process. So far, I've seen zero indications that you have one.

(10-14-2017 10:28 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-14-2017 09:39 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  You’re making a lot of assumptions about my thought process on this, from a few sentences. I’ll provide you some more detailed thoughts in a bit so you can address actual things I’ve said.

I'm making exactly zero assumptions about your thought process. So far, I've seen zero indications that you have one.

Yep, I’m just an empty head who doesn’t think anything through.

I appreciate the obviously high esteem you must hold me in. I thought better of you.

(10-14-2017 10:39 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(10-14-2017 10:28 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-14-2017 09:39 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  You’re making a lot of assumptions about my thought process on this, from a few sentences. I’ll provide you some more detailed thoughts in a bit so you can address actual things I’ve said.

I'm making exactly zero assumptions about your thought process. So far, I've seen zero indications that you have one.

Yep, I’m just an empty head who doesn’t think anything through.
I appreciate the obviously high esteem you must hold me in. I thought better of you.

I'm sorry, but all you've done here is regurgitate a bunch of talking points. I'm trying to get you to focus on actual facts of the situation.

It is horrible, awful, terrible that people are without power, sick, or dying. But that's because of the hurricane, not because of some inadequate response. If the response is inadequate, then tell me how and why. I mean specifics, not regurgitated platitudes.

If you want to attack the response, then tell me how it could have been better. It took X days for the hospital ship to arrive. How quickly should it have arrived? And how would you have gotten it there that quickly, staffed and ready to go?

(10-14-2017 10:45 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-14-2017 10:39 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(10-14-2017 10:28 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-14-2017 09:39 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  You’re making a lot of assumptions about my thought process on this, from a few sentences. I’ll provide you some more detailed thoughts in a bit so you can address actual things I’ve said.

I'm making exactly zero assumptions about your thought process. So far, I've seen zero indications that you have one.

Yep, I’m just an empty head who doesn’t think anything through.
I appreciate the obviously high esteem you must hold me in. I thought better of you.

I'm sorry, but all you've done here is regurgitate a bunch of talking points. I'm trying to get you to focus on actual facts of the situation.

It is horrible, awful, terrible that people are without power, sick, or dying. But that's because of the hurricane, not because of some inadequate response. If the response is inadequate, then tell me how and why. I mean specifics, not regurgitated platitudes.

If you want to attack the response, then tell me how it could have been better. It took X days for the hospital ship to arrive. How quickly should it have arrived? And how would you have gotten it there that quickly, staffed and ready to go?

You asked for examples of how ton was bungled originally, not a full blown essay explaining what and why. I simply have not had tome (or resources - on my phone) to provide the level of detail you apparently expected from the beginning. I provided specifics of ways in which Trump had mismanaged the responses so far, but you want much more than just specifics, you want a detailed analysis of why those specifics are examples of mismanagement. Will provide when I’m not typing with my thumbs and can more efficiently copy links to information.

(10-14-2017 10:53 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  I provided specifics of ways in which Trump had mismanaged the responses so far, but you want much more than just specifics, you want a detailed analysis of why those specifics are examples of mismanagement.

No, you didn't provide that. You've provided statements that aid did not get there sooner. That does not constitute mismanagement. Mismanagement is not that people are sick or dying or without electricity, it's that those things could have been prevented by different management.

Mismanagement is Governor Blanco telling New Orleans to shelter in place for Katrina, when the emergency plans called for total evacuation. And that has to be judged based upon what was known at the time, not upon 20/20 hindsight. We could have sailed an amphib task force from Norfolk as soon as the hurricane was certain to hit PR. It would have sailed right through that hurricane, might have made it, might not have made it, or most likely would have made it with some critical and necessary capabilities reduced. Was it mismanagement not to do so? Almost certainly not.

So if you want to allege mismanagement, don't tell me that things are bad, tell me that things would have been better with different management decisions. And explain why those decisions should have been taken based upon the information at hand when they were taken.

There are always mistakes made in disaster relief operations. It's not possible to go into a situation where everything is destroyed and guess right about every move to make, and the order in which to make them. From what I've been able to tell, we probably had too much aid coming in too quickly, and the transportation infrastructure bottlenecked as a result. What's not often possible is to plan where the bottlenecks will come, before the event, and deal with them then. Trying to guess that is always a huge part of disaster recovery planning.

I get that so many people died, so many people are sick, so many people went without power for so long. But none of those are mismanagement. Mismanagement is if X had been done instead, fewer people would be dying or sick or without power. What I'm asking you is what is X? Because without X, you don't have mismanagement.

And no, I'm not asking for your hyperbolic "full-blown essay." I just want you to tell me what X is.

I'll use the hospital ship as an example. It sailed from Norfolk on Sep 29, arriving San Juan on Oct 3. The storm had hit PR on Sep 20, IIRC. During that 9-day interval, the hurricane was basically in the path from Norfolk to San Juan, threatening the NC outer banks on the 27th. Sailing before the 28th would have been problematic because of the storm, unless the ship had taken a circuitous route to the east which would have probably delayed its arrival until about the time that it actually did.

Now we have two hospital ships, one on each coast, so there is almost always going to be some significant distance to travel to get to an operation area. While in home port, they are in a reduced manning status. My understanding is that Comfort had fewer than 100 full time crew, and had to crew up to over 800 for the trip. So 700 people had to be brought in, and given some time to take care of things where they were before they travelled. Also the ship had to be fueled and provisioned to assist. And because the Norfolk area had been affected by Irma and was in the potential path of Maria, there were some necessary limitations on advance preparations. Not to mention that there had to be some damage assessment after the storm hit PR in order to determine that Comfort was truly needed.

Would it help if we had half a dozen Comforts so one could have been closer? Sure, but that's a lot of money.
Would it help if Comfort could go faster than 17 knots? Sure, but that's a lot of money too.
Might Comfort have been able to go sooner if it were maintained in a fully crewed and fully provisioned state 24/7/365? Sure, but that's a lot of money too.
Would it have made sense to sail Comfort into the teeth of the storm in order to get it there quicker? Probably not.
So how was this mismanaged? I agree it would have been great to have Comfort there on Sep 21 or 22. With a couple of LHA/LHD's full of helos to go pick up people inland who had no transport. But there was no realistic way for that to happen.

(10-14-2017 11:18 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I get that so many people died, so many people are sick, so many people went without power for so long. But none of those are mismanagement. Mismanagement is if X had been done instead, fewer people would be dying or sick or without power. What I'm asking you is what is X? Because without X, you don't have mismanagement.

And no, I'm not asking for your hyperbolic "full-blown essay." I just want you to tell me what X is.

First, I originally used the word bungled when describing Maria for a reason. Notice I chose not to use mismanage, which was intentional, because I believed the issues were more than just management, yet that is all you're focusing on. I gave very specific examples for the issues Trump caused himself in the public relations department where he was not leading in an appropriate manner. I notice you have not responded to any of the public relations issues I brought up - which were definitely bungles on Trump's part.

So to mismanagement, you make a lot of points I agree with, and I have never once suggested that all of the heartache and despair the people of PR are dealing with are due to mismanagement of the disaster. I've grown up dealing with hurricanes my entire life, and I understand all of the work and coordination that goes into proper responses. And because of that, I very much understand why response on an island is much more difficult than in the continental US, and why it is that much more important to be moving at the fastest pace possible and to not shift focus from response and recovery efforts.

So let's talk about recovery issues I see. I will fully admit that my thoughts on this come from a person who is not an experienced disaster responder, so there is a good chance that I am overly optimistic about what responses are possible, and perhaps I may even think that some things could be done that aren't possible.

So as you stated, Maria made landfall at 6:15 AM on Sept 20, and we had an idea that it would be a catastrophic storm a few days before that, and in my opinion, because of the size of PR, we should have been actively prepping for a complete disaster (I believe the decision to send the hospital ship was not made until almost a week after Maria made landfall).

Along with the medical ship you mentioned, the USS Kearsarge group was deployed to PR (after being reassigned from Harvey support), but I believe that is it at the moment. I have to imagine there are more groups available for deployment than just that. There are naval bases in Jacksonville and Pensacola that could have had support and response ships prepared to sail immediately after Maria hit. In fact, a base like Pensacola could have had ships in the water, on the way there, since the estimated track did not ever have Maria heading too far west. I believe the initial response, prior to the hospital ship being sent, was to just send three ships towards PR.

PR's immediate needs were, and still are, infrastructure repair and recovery. So while your example of the hospital ship from Norfolk is a good example of one type of appropriate response, the bottleneck, as you mention, has been infrastructure. Ports were able to reopen relatively quickly (the biggest port of PR was reopened 6 days after landfall), and the airport in San Juan was opened at least 4 days after landfall. But supplies moved slow because of a lack of people to operate equipment necessary for distribution, infrastructure was damaged, making it difficult for regular vehicles to transport supplies, power was unavailable for places like supermarkets that could be used to store and distribute the goods, and fuel was scarce to run generators. Those are all things that extra boots on the ground, with off-road equipment and fuel tanks could begin addressing immediately.

We only have 5,000 troops and National Guards on the ground today, for a country of more than 3.4 million people. How can we not spare more troops and equipment?
There are more than 1.2 M active duty members in the military - more boots on the ground with yellow-iron equipment, or heavy duty off-road vehicles means a better chance to reestablish connection with areas that are currently cut off from utilities. We should find a way to put more boots on the ground, and while it is expensive, it is necessary. The government exists, in part, to insure domestic tranquility, and I can't think of a better way to do that, then to come to the full-throated aid of American citizens stuck on an island.

Also, there is still no joint task force established by the military to command and oversee the response (like there was for, say, Katrina). There is a general who has been assigned to coordinate the disaster response, but that is just coordination and not execution (my understanding is that the task force allows for more control and direct action). And while that's good, it still took 8 days to name someone. In my opinion, the fact that PR is an island that is so isolated from the US mainland, there should have been a task force set up a few days before landfall, in preparation for potential disaster. While it was hard to foresee the final extent of the devastation, it was clear that a disaster was on the horizon because of Maria's size and strength.

So what is my X? My X is, in short, we should have been more prepared and acted with more urgency immediately after landfall. Preemptively organizing a central command structure in the military and then sending more than 5,000 troops to assist, while leveraging more resources from other bases not near the track of Maria to get those boots on the ground fast, is what should have been done.

But hindsight is 20/20, so it's easy to sit here today and say all that. However, there has not seemed to be an urgency to the effort to help PR, and that is disconcerting.

(10-14-2017 07:44 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(10-14-2017 12:19 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 10:45 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 10:25 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(10-13-2017 10:12 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  FTR, the person that Lad’s comments reminded me of was Soros, but Hillary is no a bad fit either.

Trump may be President, but Hillary is the long time politician. Both of them dealt with powerful and rich people, both het and overseas.

Hard to see how a guy who gets audited annually commits financial crimes that don’t get him in tax trouble too. I think there is more hope than analysis there.

Back to the genesis of this portion of the discussion, I would guess that the only person who can persuade him no to run if he wants to is Melania, not some nebulous accusation by Mueller that will be litigated for years. JMHO. Time will tell.

Money laundering is usually done through businesses with lots of cash transactions.

And real estate often has very large cash transactions.

In fact, as one article o linked to, a Russian oligarch bought a Trump property for many, many millions over its worth...

And I wouldn’t really use the fact that trump pays his taxes as evidence he hasn’t been involved with financial crimes. Maddoff paid his taxes too...

I have deal with a lot of real estate purchases and sales over the last 50 years, ranging from 4figures to 7 figuresand have yet to do one in cash.

Likewise the income to his properties is primarily credit card or check.

Of course, I don’t know all of Trump’s businesses. Maybe the golf clubs take in a lot of cash.

Truthfully, I think money laundering would be peanuts to Trump.

But, who knows. Maybe he runs prostitution rings, and a tape showing that will mysteriously show up at the NYT.

My prediction from way early in this thread holds. There will be nothing on Trump. There will likely be some minor indictments of minor people (Flynn). No collusion by anybody.

But notice how the tangent of 'collusion' has disappeared to the emergence of broadly hinted but still nebulous 'financial crimes'.

Kind of tells me that Mueller and the 'resistance' are actually promoting and advocating the witch-hunt and chasing down rabbit-holes that many said would be the final result.

But, a special prosecutor never met a rabbit-hole he (edited to ad 'or she', since I dont want to get the tar and feather of being a pig-headed sexist) didnt want to explore......

Go back and read my old posts, please. As I have said again, and again, and again, I would be shocked if Trump himself was found guilty of colluding with Russia. Instead, I find it much more likely that people within his campaign did (like Jr who was thrilled to get an offer of dirt on Clinton from a Russian source) and I will actually be shocked if they don’t find that.

The investigation was always about the Trump campaign, not just the Teflon Don himself.

Collusion has not disappeared, it is just that Trump has now been responsible for so many shocking, bewildering, and terrifying acts (firing Comey, sparring with NK, bungling Maria, Charlottesville response, and so on) that public attention can only stay on one thing. And the only reason I brought up financial crimes in relation to the Nueller investigation, as opposed to results about collusion, is I wanted to give my opinion on what I think a likely outcome will be.

Go ahead and try be the exact kind of partisan hack you’re trying to rail against in your recent posts, because that is what you’re doing by trying to, I don’t know, shame me, because I offered my thoughts on what the likely outcome of the Trump presidency would be, based on information available to me. It’s frustrating that you seem to be confusing someone’s opinion of what a likely outcome will be with someone’s opinion of what the outcome should be.

So mentioning the *fact* that an amorphous 'collusion' investigation has ballooned into a (well beyond the legally mandated scope) investigation of amorphous 'financial' crimes is now being a "partisan hack". Interesting point of view.

Im just opining that anyone can intertwine normal course of business facts with an ominous underlying tone to make those facts sound like the most sketchy thing since Goebbels and pals.

The structure of the points brought up re: Trump has this same structure. I've seen it and dealt with this structure of crap first hand in full force (albeit going the opposite way to make Solyndra seem to be an evil cabal of insider self-dealing poop for the Democrats).

So based on experience, feel free to color me skeptical. I will be neutral on the investigation(s) until solid fing facts are presented without all the eerie organ music that I hear in my mind reading these items.

If the *facts* (absent the horror movie organ music in the articles) lead me to believe that collusion occurred, tell me where to sign up to help out with the ouster of power.

As for the other item that I mentioned that has seemingly made me into a "partisan hack", I don't think you can deny that the investigation of collusion has now seemingly morphed into one on 'financial crimes', which is *well* beyond the legal scope of the Mueller team.

But, to quote the movie "American Wedding", 'polish my n-ts and serve me a milkshake' since I am *amazingly* surprised to see this veer off in this tangent. Looks like we are headed into the American Sportsmen Special Prosecutor Edition where our intrepid guides will seek *anything* they can ferret out, much in a manner that led to the Whitewater investigation's crowning achievement of Monica Lewinsky.

But this shouldn't be news to you, since OO, 69/75, and myself told you *exactly* this was the direction the special prosecutor and his investigation would take. My only question at this point is in which rabbit-hole direction some underling will be indicted, because, by God when you *investigate* with this vigor *someone* needs to be indicted for *something* (Canon 2 of the Guild of Special Prosecutors).

So pardon my 'partisan hack' statement that this is apparently exactly what is currently happening. But, I guess that anything that doesnt go well out of its way to castigate Trump needs to be classified as a 'partisan hack' these days?