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TubbersUK

TubbersUK's Journal
TubbersUK's Journal
December 18, 2016

Latest Trump Tweet


Donald J. TrumpVerified account
‏@realDonaldTrump
We should tell China that we don't want the drone they stole back.- let them keep it!




https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/810288321880555520
December 16, 2016

Trump's Israel ambassador is pro-settlement bankruptcy lawyer

Source: The Guardian

David Friedman is fervent critic of two-state solution, backs an undivided Jerusalem as Israels capital and once represented Trumps failing hotels

snip

David Friedman, who had more recently served on the president-elects advisory team on the Middle East, said that he looked forward to delivering Trumps pledge to recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital and moving the US embassy there. The move would be a highly controversial, symbolic and potentially explosive gesture in the Middle East, as the status of Jerusalem is one of the issues in long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Friedman serves as president of the American Friends of Bet El Institutions, which funds settlements in the West Bank. He disagrees with the general international consensus that the settlements are illegal and he opposes a ban on settlement construction on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. And he has long supported an undivided Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

snip

Friedman, like Trump, is an admirer of Vladimir Putin. Also like the president-elect he has portrayed the Russian leader as fighting the Islamic State in Syria, although very little of the Russian war effort has actually been focused on Isis.

Vladimir Putin gets it. He may be a thug, as he was recently described by Senator Rubio, but he knows how to identify a national objective, execute a military plan, and ultimately prevail, Friedman wrote in November last year.



Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/15/trump-israel-ambassador-david-friedman?CMP=share_btn_tw



Further right than Netanyahu and, no surprise, another Putin admirer.
December 11, 2016

If Berlusconi is like Trump, what can America learn from Italy?

If Berlusconi is like Trump, what can America learn from Italy?


Among the political figures who congratulated Donald Trump on his surprise election victory was the politician to whom the billionaire real estate mogul and reality television star has most often been compared: Silvio Berlusconi.

The rightwing former Italian prime minister and billionaire media mogul, who was dogged by claims that he used an underage prostitute at his infamous “bunga bunga” parties and counted Vladimir Putin as a close ally and friend, said the comparisons between the two were “obvious” and that Trump would rule with “authority and equilibrium”.

If it’s true that Berlusconi and Trump, two showmen who have railed against immigrants, mocked women and targeted press freedom, are indeed cut from the same cloth, it may also be the case that few will understand liberal Americans’ consternation in coming years like the Italians.

Here, then, are some warnings – and a few words of advice.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/21/if-berlusconi-is-like-trump-what-can-italy-teach-america?CMP=share_btn_tw

December 8, 2016

Trump originals say they're getting frozen out

Source: Politico

Early Trump campaign operatives angst about their future as the Republican establishment muscles its way in.

They’ve been with him from the beginning – when no one believed he could win, and when the Republican Party establishment wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.

But now, as President-elect Donald Trump builds out his administration, the group of loyalists who helped launch his campaign and powered its stunning early victories are growing worried they won’t be getting plum jobs.

snip

Several say they feel alienated from the transition effort -- especially from Priebus, an establishment figure who will be White House chief of staff. Priebus collided bitterly earlier this year with Lewandowski, who as Trump’s first campaign manager hired many of the originals, and played a major role in his June firing.

“None of us are exactly Cabinet-level,” said one staffer who is among those pining for a job, but so far hasn’t been given any promises. “Most of us just want to do a good job and help the country, but apparently we don't play the game very well.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-original-operatives-frozen-out-232383

December 8, 2016

Trump team scrambles for A-list Inaugural performers: 'They are willing to pay anything

Source: aol

Donald Trump's inaugural committee is scrambling to lock in A-list Hollywood performers for the parties celebrating him — and having a rough time booking big names, two insiders tell TheWrap.

Both said that Trump inaugural committee members have contacted them in recent days offering cash or even a government appointment if they could deliver marquee names.

"They are willing to pay anything," one of the insiders told TheWrap. "They told me, 'We'll pay their fees.' Most of these artists' fees are in the six to seven figures." The insider said the Trump negotiator also offered to pay him for delivering top talent, saying, "Name your price."

"I couldn't do it," the insider said. "Not even for a billion dollars."

Trump's team issued a denial to TheWrap.

Read more: http://www.aol.com/article/2016/12/07/trump-team-scrambles-for-a-list-inaugural-performers-they-are/21622912/

December 7, 2016

The Real Art Behind Trump-SoftBank $50 Billion Deal

The president-elect’s tweets notwithstanding, the plan was likely to happen no matter who won the election

Job creation in Donald Trump’s America goes like this: A Japanese company animated by visions of a robot apocalypse, looking to invest billions it got from the Saudi Arabian government, decides to bet big on the U.S. Mr. Trump then takes credit—though the plan likely would have unfolded even without the input of the president-elect.

Emerging from a meeting Tuesday with Japan’s richest person, SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son, the president-elect tweeted that the company will invest $50 billion in the U.S. to create 50,000 jobs.

“Masa said he would never do this had we (Trump) not won the election,” he tweet-added.


But those billions were likely to end up in the U.S. no matter who won. SoftBank announced the $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund nearly a month before the election, when most pundits expected Mr. Trump to lose. Given its size, the fund was likely to put most of its money in the U.S., still home to the world’s most-promising technology companies. Last quarter, 60% of the money raised by companies backed by venture capital was in the North America, according to a report by KPMG and CB Insights.

The $50 billion might also include leverage.


Things could change with a Trump administration. Though Mr. Trump declared on the campaign trail that he was against a deal between AT&T and Time Warner , Mr. Son might at least explore rekindling a T-Mobile-Sprint romance.


One caveat, though: Sprint and T-Mobile have 80,000 employees between them. Job cuts resulting from a merger would likely cancel out part of the job creation SoftBank is supposed to bring. That’s the real art of the deal.


http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-real-art-behind-trump-softbank-50-billion-deal-1481102030?mod=e2tw
December 6, 2016

White House: Trump's $4 billion figure on Air Force One is questionable

Source: Reuters

The White House said on Tuesday it does not know where President-elect Donald Trump got his figure of more than $4 billion to replace the Air Force One plane that transports presidents, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

Trump urged the federal government on Tuesday to cancel an order with Boeing Co to develop a new Air Force One, saying costs were more than $4 billion and "out of control."

"Some of the statistics that have been cited, shall we say, don't appear to reflect the nature of the financial arrangement between Boeing and the Department of Defense," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-airplane-white-house-idUSKBN13V2DB?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=584704d604d3016c00ed4fd5&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

December 6, 2016

The city getting rich from fake news

The city getting rich from fake news

Many of the fake news websites that sprang up during the US election campaign have been traced to a small city in Macedonia, where teenagers are pumping out sensationalist stories to earn cash from advertising.


"The Americans loved our stories and we make money from them," he boasts, making sure I see the designer watch he's fiddling with. "Who cares if they are true or false?"


Goran - not his real name by the way, he's not confident enough to reveal that - is one of scores, or probably hundreds of Macedonian teenagers who are behind a cottage industry in the small city of Veles which churned out fake pro-Trump news during the US election campaign.


After copying and pasting various articles, he packaged them under a catchy new headline, paid Facebook to share it with a target US audience hungry for Trump news and then when those Americans clicked on his stories and began to like and share them, he began earning revenue from advertising on the site.





http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38168281
December 5, 2016

Ivanka Trumps meeting with Al Gore highlights the questionable role she'll play in Washington

Source: Washington Post

Then, on Monday, the Trump transition's communications team had an unexpected update for reporters.

"One of the first meetings that's coming up here shortly," Jason Miller said on a conference call, "Ivanka Trump will be meeting with Al Gore at Trump Tower to discuss climate issues." (Gore wasn't expected to meet with the president-elect, but subsequent reports indicate that he did after his meeting with Ivanka.)

Last week, Politico reported that the president-elect's oldest daughter wanted to act as something of a "climate czar" for his administration, championing climate issues as the first daughter of the United States. The Times suggested that Ivanka Trump might end up being "the most powerful first daughter in history," which is a lower bar than it might seem at first. (The competition is limited.) But the broader point is the same: Trump may see herself as a "strong inside force" within the Trump administration, as former Hillary Clinton aide Anne-Marie Slaughter put it to the Times.

The problem, of course, is that Ivanka Trump is supposed to be running the family business, acting as an outside control ensuring that there's at least something of a firewall between the actions of the president-elect and the effects on his pocketbook.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/05/ivanka-trumps-meeting-with-al-gore-highlights-the-questionable-role-shell-play-in-washington/?postshare=2161480978818036&tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.3b02a36434b9

December 5, 2016

Trumps Taiwan phone call was long planned, say people who were involved

Trump’s Taiwan phone call was long planned, say people who were involved


Donald Trump’s protocol-breaking telephone call with Taiwan’s leader was an intentionally provocative move that establishes the incoming president as a break with the past, according to interviews with people involved in the planning.

The historic communication — the first between leaders of the United States and Taiwan since 1979 — was the product of months of quiet preparations and deliberations among Trump’s advisers about a new strategy for engagement with Taiwan that began even before he became the GOP presidential nominee, according to people involved in or briefed on the talks.


Trump sent a pair of Twitter messages Sunday that echoed his campaign-stump blasts against China.

“Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the U.S. doesn’t tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea?” he asked. “I don’t think so!”


The United States does impose a tax on Chinese goods — 2.9 percent for non-farm goods and 2.5 percent for agricultural products.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-taiwan-phone-call-was-weeks-in-the-planning-say-people-who-were-involved/2016/12/04/f8be4b0c-ba4e-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?utm_term=.e4897ae60dc5

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Gender: Female
Home country: UK
Current location: UK
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