Cabbage News Network Week # -7

[kmusser]

Stickied until the inauguration: Status of cabinet picks: (note, except for Bannon and Priebus, picks are unofficial until the inauguration, and afterwards will require senate approval before going into effect) http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/politics/donald-trump-administration.html

Last week

• Trump is ignoring intelligence briefings (Pence is not) (source)
  
• GSA is looking into issues with Trump's DC Hotel lease regarding conflict of interest (source)
  
• FEC reports campaign finance violations (source)
  
• NYT documents Trump's financial conflicts of interest internationally (source) BBC has more (source) WP has more on his stock holdings (source)
  

Sunday 11/27

• DJT tweets baseless allegations of widespread election fraud.

Monday 11/28

• DJT tweets threats at Cuba because reasons
  
• DJT and team continue to simultaneously argue there was widespread voter fraud and that recounts are unnecessary. (source)
  
• Dems call for investigatations into DJT finances (source)

Tuesday 11/29

• DJT tweets shit on the 1st amendment, floats idea of stripping people of citizenship
  
• SPLC documents post-election hate incidents (source)

Wednesday 11/30

• DJT announces news conference for 12/15 to discuss his business arrangements
  
• Trump/Pence bribe a factory in Indiana to stay put with tax breaks. (source)
  
• Supreme Court hearing arguments on whether immigrants can be detained indefinitely/ have due process rights (source)
  
• FBI gets expanded hacking abilities (source)
  

Thursday 12/1

• DJT issues vague threats at companies that attempt to offshore (source).
  

Map of the week:

from http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/usp/news/commuter-data-reveals-us-megaregions-1.665740. Their algorithm did a few weird things, but still a cool looking map.

What is this?

This is the first of what will be a weekly post summarizing news about the Trump/Pence administration. My goal is to post only news/investigative journalism pieces, no op-eds, the only opinions/snark here will be mine (you’re welcome to post your own in the comments, though note that insults at your fellow commenters will be summarily deleted). I don’t know how long I’ll keep this up, but I hope to at least make it through the first 100 days, speaking of which I’ll specifically be on the lookout for actions related to implementing Trump’s 100 day plan. If you feel I’ve missed some important news, by all means let me know and I’ll add it (provided it follows the news, not opinion, rule and comes from a reliable source). Sources I check regularly include New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Al-Jazeera, Trump’s twitter, and my own social media feeds.

Comments

[kmusser]

Additional commentary on the recounts. As much as I dislike it I have no doubt that the election results were valid. Despite voter suppression efforts and articles to the contrary voter turn out was not down significantly. And while there may have been vote tampering attempts, our election system is very tamper resistant due to our lack of system. Not only each state, but each county runs the election more or less independently. Even within a county multiple voting systems are often used, those using electronic machines are using a dozen or so different vendors. While tampering a single precinct might not be too hard, our system is so decentralized that tampering enough to make an actual difference in the election result would be extremely difficult. I'm still in favor of the recounts because I think anything to increase confidence in the vote is a good thing, and if there was tampering, those guilty should be prosecuted - but don't expect a change in results.

[tirani.livejournal.com]

Overall voter turnout was not down. Minority voter turn out in GOP states where efforts to suppress the minority vote via voter id laws, along with other tactics, (I'm looking at you North Carolina) was SIGNIFICANTLY down.

[kmusser]

I have yet to see a reliable source on that, and considering NC is still counting votes I wouldn't really expect one until they're done.

[tirani.livejournal.com]

You should have waited for this evening to post, this afternoon he shit all over the PRC protocol by taking the phone call of the President of TAIWAN. Seriously.

http://www.npr.org/2016/12/02/504202547/trump-speaks-to-taiwans-president-in-move-likely-to-anger-beijing

[kmusser]

I haven't figured out what to make of his flippant phone calls to other world leaders yet. One of the things I'm trying to do here is separate out news from speculation, and while the phone calls are certainly unusual it's not obvious at this point whether they'll have any impact other than making diplomats lives more difficult.