Trump II

[scyth]

The intelligence was good, the politicians not.

the same situation here - you do not know what the actual intelligence is ... you only hear public statements that are serving current political goals

[Schewe]

Jeff, most people myself included, agree the Russians hacked the Hillary campaign emails.

What about Podesta's emails? What about the bots and trolls being run by the FSB or Russian Military Intelligence? What about the generation and spreading of fake news?

Ya think any of that might have had an impact?

As for campaign dirty tricks, that's to be expected from domestic sources, not by forgiven powers. Big difference...

So, nothing Russia did had an actual negative impact on Hillary's campaign while giving Trump's campaign a positive impact?

NBC deliberately conspired with Hillary to release the tape of Trump telling Bush about "grabbing" women.

Wow, bombshell, got any actual proof of that allegation?

Care to share sources and url's?
(other than like Beigtbart or InfoWars)

[Alan Goldhammer]

After Lincoln's election, however prior to his inauguration, more then half of the South succeeded.  There is nothing he could have done to prevent this since he was not in power yet. 

Also, the war was not a fault of Lincoln, but more likely a fault of John Brown's failed revolt, which happened prior to Lincoln's presidency.  John Brown taught the South one thing, that the North was serious, and, being such, the South massively increased their militia, which was an absolute joke beforehand.  So, when it came time for succession, the South was very well prepared. 

The gears started moving before Lincoln even came into the picture; civil war was inevitable. 
[\quote]
Goes back much further to the compromises over the admission of new states as either free or slave.  There was also the big fight led by Senator Calhoun of SC as to whether states could nullify Federal laws if they so chose.

Although the military machine of the North was far superior, the South's military leadership trumped all the north had.  Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Nathan Bedford Forest outed every singe general of the north, with significantly smaller forces, up until 1864 when Lincoln finally appointed Grant lieutenant general. 

Even so, Lee was still a better general then Grant, but Grant and Sherman were good enough where the superior numbers of the North finally kicked in. 

If not for John Brown and Robert E. Lee resigning from the Union Army, the war would have lasted no more then 6 months.

Lee made numerous military mistakes during the course of the war.  Had McClellan been a better general the war could have ended in 1863 when he launched the peninsula campaign.  The Confederate generals in the western campaigns were all horrible and made numerous strategic blunders and once Grant had captured all the key spots it was pretty much over.

Best book to read is "A Savage War" by Williamson Murray and Wayne Wei-Siang Hsieh.  Covers all the battles, tactics and personalities in depth.

[mecrox]

I would say we want the Russians to neither interfere or influence our elections by using sneaky methods.  We reserve the right to do those things ourselves.

The bigger issue is that the Russians have successfully poisoned relations between a national leader and the intelligence agencies on which that leader relies to supply the information from which to make rational and wise decisions. This is quite a coup as well as extremely damaging. It may have been the Russian aim all along.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

The bigger issue is that the Russians have successfully poisoned relations between a national leader and the intelligence agencies...

This above is a perfect example of the new "not-my-fault" generation of snowflakes, always a "victim" of something or somebody else.

If the relationship is indeed poisoned, either the President or the agencies should accept the blame, not somebody else.

[mecrox]

This above is a perfect example of the new "not-my-fault" generation of snowflakes, always a "victim" of something or somebody else.

If the relationship is indeed poisoned, either the President or the agencies should accept the blame, not somebody else.

I don't think it has anything to do with that at all. Either the Russians have done this as part of an intentional plan or they haven't. Blame doesn't come into it. What to do about it does, if that's what the Russians have done. Just saying that looking only at the election may be missing the larger point, which is an attempt to incapacitate an opponent or rival state not just for the short time of an election and its immediate aftermath but for the years of office which follow. Nice game play, Vladimir - quite probably (imho).

[Alan Klein]

Wow, bombshell, got any actual proof of that allegation?

Care to share sources and url's?
(other than like Beigtbart or InfoWars)

Quote
NBC deliberately conspired with Hillary to release the tape of Trump telling Bush about "grabbing" women.

The Russians confirmed it to me. 

[Alan Klein]

The bigger issue is that the Russians have successfully poisoned relations between a national leader and the intelligence agencies on which that leader relies to supply the information from which to make rational and wise decisions. This is quite a coup as well as extremely damaging. It may have been the Russian aim all along.

The problem is that anti-Trump forces are at work in the government.  The Russians are coincidental. The leak about Flynn lying was only one of many and leaks will continue until they can force out Trump.  The Russian hack is only an excuse, a Trojan horse.  If it didn't happen, another one would be made up.  Since it's pretty apparent Trump never colluded with the Russians, the anti-Trump forces are using obstruction of justice as the new avenue for attacks.  It will never end until they "get" him.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... The Russians are coincidental....

Indeed.

Whatever the Russians did is simply business as usual and reciprocal. They spy on us, we spy on them. They try psychological warfare on us, we try that on them. Heck, we spy on our friends, let alone "enemies." And our friends spy on us (e.g., Israel). We hack their systems, they hack ours. And that's just government. Not to mention private citizens who for breakfast penetrate NASA, snack at the Dept. of Defense and have dinner at NSA. All for fun and because they can. Just like climbers clime mountains "because they are there."

We've been interfering for years in other countries' elections, more or less overtly, and if that did not work, we simply assassinate the candidate we don't like, or invade. And now we are in full display of righteous indignation. As if we just a year or so ago didn't overthrow a legitimate president of Ukraine. But of course, we are the good guys, so it doesn't' count.

Liberals whining about DNC emails is like a thief complaining about a good Samaritan who called the police after witnessing a crime.

[Tim Lookingbill]

All I want to know is who are the over 80K folks viewing this discussion on LuLa?

It can't be all photographers. Is it students? How can a topic on Trump among all the 100's of others online with this one buried on a photographer's site's off topic forum get this much attention?

How are folks finding this thread?

[Alan Klein]

Alan, you need to study history more. 

After Lincoln's election, however prior to his inauguration, more then half of the South succeeded.  There is nothing he could have done to prevent this since he was not in power yet. 

Also, the war was not a fault of Lincoln, but more likely a fault of John Brown's failed revolt, which happened prior to Lincoln's presidency.  John Brown taught the South one thing, that the North was serious, and, being such, the South massively increased their militia, which was an absolute joke beforehand.  So, when it came time for succession, the South was very well prepared. 

The gears started moving before Lincoln even came into the picture; civil war was inevitable. 

Throw on top of this, most Americans at the time thought of themselves as citizens of their state first, and country second. Remember, it was "The United States Are" before the war, and then it became "The United States Is" after.  This caused Robert E. Lee, who was against succession and slavery very much so, and arguably the absolute best commanding officer in the army at the time, to fight for the South because he felt his allegiance was to his state, VA, which ended up succeeding. 

Although the military machine of the North was far superior, the South's military leadership trumped all the north had.  Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Nathan Bedford Forest outed every singe general of the north, with significantly smaller forces, up until 1864 when Lincoln finally appointed Grant lieutenant general. 

Even so, Lee was still a better general then Grant, but Grant and Sherman were good enough where the superior numbers of the North finally kicked in. 

If not for John Brown and Robert E. Lee resigning from the Union Army, the war would have lasted no more then 6 months. 

The South left during Lincoln's interregnum because they knew what his policies would be.  Regardless, Lincoln could have left the South go or at least wait and see if he could work something out with them to get them back into the foal.  Instead he sent a naval force to Ft Sumter and the South attacked claiming they were defending themselves.  Whatever you want to believe.  The point is what was his rush? 

In any case, we're getting away from my original point about mandates.  Lincoln only won with 40% of the popular vote. That's the least by any president in America history. His minority Republican party only won because the majority Democrats were split between the northern Democrats and Southern Democrats.  Yet, he felt his 40% was mandate enough to try to force the southern states to do what they didn't want to do and a civil war started.  No one talks about his mandate today.  He is proclaimed an America icon.  Now I'm not comparing Trump to Lincoln.  So let me make that point right away.  Yet, here some are trying to say Trump's 46% popular and 57% majority electoral vote (higher than Kennedy's, Clinton's and Carter's and others) is not enough for the president to do his rather mild campaign promises.  Well, he is certainly entitled to do it constitutionally, plus anything he does improperly is defended by our constitution.  I just wanted to put to rest the president's right to fulfill his views and not feel obligated to fulfill his opposition's platform.  She lost. 

[Alan Klein]

All I want to know is who are the over 80K folks viewing this discussion on LuLa?

It can't be all photographers. Is it students? How can a topic on Trump among all the 100's of others online with this one buried on a photographer's site's off topic forum get this much attention?

How are folks finding this thread?

The real photographers are out busily shooting pictures. 

[LesPalenik]

All I want to know is who are the over 80K folks viewing this discussion on LuLa?

It can't be all photographers. Is it students? How can a topic on Trump among all the 100's of others online with this one buried on a photographer's site's off topic forum get this much attention?

How are folks finding this thread?

Tim,
It's not 80K folks. I would guess the actual number of posters and lurkers is in low hundreds, if not less. Many of them are the same (regulars).

Here are the crude (and in some way possibly misleading*) stats for the following 4 threads:

THREAD                      Pages     Posts   Views   Views/Post
Trump II                        184      3670   87044     23
Climate                          18        354     8234     23
Humor                           25        498    51369   103
Real cost of Adobe SW       3          40     2132     53

Interestingly, Trump and Climate get about the same number of views per post (23), while Humour trumps them all.

* - some frequent viewers trigger one page view for each new post, others may read multiple posts per single page view, while others may occasionally read the same post multiple times, and thus generate additional views

[James Clark]

Liberals whining about DNC emails is like a thief complaining about a good Samaritan who called the police after witnessing a crime.

You sure picked an odd way to say "Conservatives whining about leaks is like a thief complaining about a good Samaritan who called the police after witnessing a crime." (Which is a far better analogy anyway)

[Tim Lookingbill]

Tim,
It's not 80K folks. I would guess the actual number of posters and lurkers is in low hundreds, if not less. Many of them are the same (regulars).

Here are the crude (and in some way possibly misleading*) stats for the following 4 threads:

THREAD                      Pages     Posts   Views   Views/Post
Trump II                        184      3670   87044     23
Climate                          18        354     8234     23
Humor                           25        498    51369   103
Real cost of Adobe SW       3          40     2132     53

Interestingly, Trump and Climate get about the same number of views per post (23), while Humour trumps them all.

* - some frequent viewers trigger one page view for each new post, others may read multiple posts per single page view, while others may occasionally read the same post multiple times, and thus generate additional views

I appreciate the effort in coming up with the numbers and guesses of who they comprise, Les, but I can't agree with you on who you think they are.

From what I've gathered over the years posting in other lengthy LuLa threads (Digital Darkroom/Colour Management forums), there doesn't seem to be a lot of folks who log in going by threads with high view numbers but very low numbers viewing posted image examples that demonstrate points about the topic.

It's still a mystery to me where these high view numbers come from only on certain topics where the average view is less than 1000.

[Alan Klein]

Alan, I agree with you on the mandate with Trump and that the Dems are just making up stuff to try and weaken his presidency, but history is history. 

Fort Sumter was an offensive attacked by the South that Lincoln did not provoke.  Lincoln only sent provisions; he sent no troops, arms or animation and announced this publicly and to the governor of SC prior to any ships being sent.  The South saw their opportunity and took it.  (Not to mention, the leading commander of Fort Sumter taught at West Point, and one of his best armory students was the person who lead the attack against him.  His student knew all that the teacher had to offer, and I am sure wanted to prove it.) 

Also, let us not also forget that nearly everyone thought of the South's succession as only temporary and that no bloodshed would be had.  A sitting senator said that you could clean up all of the blood spilt with a single pocket handkerchief at the onset of the war.  Those like Sherman, who knew it would be a very bloody battle, were ostracized to the point of insanity. 

This being said, how could Lincoln have not sent provisions?  How could have Lincoln prevented the war without allowing the South to succeed? 

The war was inevitable.  Nothing done in the 1860s, even the 1850s, could have prevented it. 

Also, no blood was shed at Fort Sumter.  It was not until Bull Run (personally I prefer Manassas even though I'm not southern, the name has more flare), about six month later, that blood was actually spilled.  So doing nothing would have been kind of weird and cowardly. 

I have to wonder where does your 40% vote come from?  Lincoln was not even on the ballots of most of the Southern states.  If he was, if those in the South who against succession were for able to vote for Lincoln, what would his number have been? 

Anyway, I've got work to do, images to raw process, a cigar to enjoy, rum to be had and True Grit to watch. 

No, not the original; this is a rare case where I think the remake out does the original, and by a great deal at that.  Maybe because I love cinematic lighting and Roger Deakins is one of the best DPs there has ever been. 

Here's Lincoln's margin in 1860.  I'm assuming that included the Southern votes.
303/180 Electoral votes
59.41% Electoral
39.65% Popular

1864 ( I don't know how the Southern votes worked during the war.  Do you?
233/212 Electoral Votes
90.99% Electoral
55.03% Popular

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin

[Alan Klein]

Something you can give Trump credit for, getting Otto Warmbier returned to America.  Unfortunately, those bastard North Koreans destroyed his brain.  When his father was asked whether he thought the previous administration could have done more, Fred Warmbier replied: “I think the results speak for themselves.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/higher-education/doctors-say-us-student-freed-by-north-korea-has-brain-damage/2017/06/15/c5082bfc-522e-11e7-b74e-0d2785d3083d_story.html

[Schewe]

Well, at least the Senate has some issues with the Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election...good for them.

Senate Approves Russia Sanctions, Limiting Trump's Oversight

A new bipartisan deal prohibits the president from rolling back sanctions without Congress’s approval.

In an overwhelming vote of 97-2, the U.S. Senate approved a new round of sanctions on Russia in response to the nation’s likely interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as well as its involvement in the Syrian civil war. The deal also prevents President Trump from loosening or rolling back restrictions on Russia without Congress’s approval, representing one of the most significant GOP-enforced checks on the president to date. Only two GOP senators, Utah’s Mike Lee and Kentucky’s Rand Paul, voted against the sanctions. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, a democrat, was absent for the vote.

The decision comes amid an ongoing investigation to determine whether members of the Trump administration colluded with Russian officials to influence the results of the election—and could signal a growing bipartisan concern over Trump’s reported sympathy toward Russia. On Tuesday, ahead of the vote, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Trump administration “has been too eager—far too eager, in my mind—to put sanctions relief on the table.” He added that the new sanctions will “send a powerful, bipartisan statement that Russia and any other nation who might try to interfere with our elections will be punished.”

The bill will still need to be approved by the House and will end up on Trump's desk for signing, the sweeping bipartisan support suggests the deal is unlikely to be vetoed...

[mecrox]

The problem is that anti-Trump forces are at work in the government.  The Russians are coincidental. The leak about Flynn lying was only one of many and leaks will continue until they can force out Trump.  The Russian hack is only an excuse, a Trojan horse.  If it didn't happen, another one would be made up.  Since it's pretty apparent Trump never colluded with the Russians, the anti-Trump forces are using obstruction of justice as the new avenue for attacks.  It will never end until they "get" him.

Step back and look at the bigger picture. The open societies of the West are at a disadvantage in cyber warfare used by hostile states and, as yet, no real answer has been found. The UK authorities have just fingered North Korea as the origin of the cyber attack which crippled many hospitals here a few weeks ago. I would be amazed if using hacking and all manner of things to turn the organs of a state against one another in order to weaken it wasn't a primo goal of Russian policy when dealing with the USA or Europe. And in Trump, the Russians have found the perfect scenario. The more they hack, brief and sow discord, the more unstable and ineffectual the USA becomes. The result is a greater likelihood of policy errors its enemies can take advantage of.

My guess is that the US authorities are going after Trump using the election because it is the best way of cornering him. But the bigger picture is that he lacks the personal and intellectual skills to be more than a very dangerous and unstable president. He may also be sitting on thoroughly unsavoury financial dealings from his past which make him vulnerable to all sorts of pressure. His refusal to release his financial returns or put his businesses into a blind trust more or less confirms it. The world will be a safer place for all of us when he's gone. Concentrating on the election is simply a way for Trump supporters to avoid having to look at all the other things going on. Thank god there still are some "US authorities" left who won't be browbeaten. If it wasn't for a core of decent, dedicated public servants still in place we'd all be sunk.

[Alan Klein]

Forcing out a sitting president because you you don't like him and assume there are corrupt things going on although you have no proof is a terrible thing to do.   It weakens our republic and straightens our enemies.   It distracts us from dealing with important issues.

Also remember what goes around comes around.