Donald Trump and the Deathly Fallout (Part 15)

[47of74]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

How true: "We don’t know where Trump stands. Neither does he."

 

Hell, I would rather have Joffrey Batheron or Ramsey Bolton in the White House.  Having those two fornicators would not be anywhere near as scary as Donald J. Putinfluffer is now. 

[apple1]

3 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Probably manufacturing centers too would be on the list for hostile powers.  I know with a John Deere plant that could be quickly retooled to make military equipment instead of farming / construction equipment that where I live in Iowa there was concern that we would be attacked sooner in the event of war because of all the manufacturing being done.

I remember when I worked down in the Quad Cities on a regular basis I had figured out a number of alternate   routes from Dubuque to the Quad Cities.  That was back when we had the 2008 floods so I wanted to have alternate ways of getting to work and back home in case 61 was flooded.  Or if there was a major accident where 61 was closed - one time I had gotten stuck on 61 for about 1/2 hour due to an accident but could have easily gotten around it and gotten to work on time if I had known what side roads to take. 

Back in Cold War days, Cincinnati was on the top 5 list because of GE Aircraft Engines.

[Howl]

He doesn't need to start a formal war.  Dropping the MOAB will very likely trigger bombings/shootings and other acts of terrorism from self-radicalized/lone wolf attackers and organized cells in this country, or against American citizens abroad. 

Meanwhile, Kim Jung Un is bat-shit crazy; he didn't have to assassinate some of his relatives, including his uncle, in extremely high positions -- he just ordered them killed with zero attempt to cover it up.  To think that he wouldn't do something bat-shit crazy in retaliation for US aggression or to be provocative is wishful thinking.  Keep in mind that Seoul is a metropolis of 10 MILLION people, about 35 miles from the DMZ with North Korea.  North Korea also has weaponized sarin warheads capable of reaching Japan and regularly trains its soldiers to operate in chemically contaminated environments.  

Just watched a documentary about North Korea a few nights ago (thanks PBS!).  It was a few years old, but pointed out that at least some of and maybe a lot of North Koreans, who venerate old age and wisdom, think Kim Jung Un is an upstart  little punk who isn't up to the job and basically a joke.  There was footage of people, including women, in heated shouting matches with uniformed soldiers, but the speculation was that a rebellion would not survive.  These are people subject to state propaganda literally every waking minute of their lives. 

[CTRLZero]

11 hours ago, JMarie said:

Ivanka and Jared went on a ski trip less than a month ago.  So even if they never went on the weekly jaunts to Florida, there's no way any regular boss would let them take two vacations in just the first fourteen weeks of the new year (let alone a ten day vacation).

I wondered about this myself.  Back on March 30, Ivanka stated "I will instead serve as an unpaid employee in the White House Office, subject to all of the same rules as other federal employees..."  [My bolding for emphasis.]  I guess "all" was in air quotes or means something else in the rarefied air of Trumpville.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

19 minutes ago, CTRLZero said:

I wondered about this myself.  Back on March 30, Ivanka stated "I will instead serve as an unpaid employee in the White House Office, subject to all of the same rules as other federal employees..."  [My bolding for emphasis.]  I guess "all" was in air quotes or means something else in the rarefied air of Trumpville.

 

In the Drumpfian world all=none. Alternative facts, don't ya know?

 

"‘Prediction professor’ lays out eight reasons Trump could be impeached"

Quote

American University Professor Allan Lichtman was one of the few professional prognosticators to call President Trump's win in November.

Using his system of “Keys to the White House,” which postulates that presidential elections are essentially a reflection on the party in power, Lichtman said Trump was headed for the presidency. Then, just before the election, he doubled down.

And he made a second prediction, too (though, this time, without the benefit of his keys) — that Trump will be impeached before his time in office ends.

Now, he's written a whole book explaining how that could happen, titled “The Case for Impeachment,” publishing on April 18. Lichtman lays out eight ways that Trump could get in trouble, set against the historic background of previous presidential impeachments. The Fix sat down with Lichtman at his office at American University in Washington to ask him about his most recent prediction. Our conversation, below, has been edited only for clarity and length.

...

Lichtman: I make very clear in The Case for Impeachment that I do not believe Trump should be impeached because he’s an unconventional president, because he’s breaking the molds of tradition, or even because he’s unpopular. Rather, Trump should be impeached if and when he becomes a serious threat to our constitutional order, to our freedoms and liberties, and to the national security of the United States.

And I outline eight areas of potential removal of Donald Trump, based on his early presidency and his many decades of history as a businessman. For example, Trump has repeatedly, as a businessman, flouted the law. He kind of began his career by getting in trouble with the Department of Justice, which had a very strong case against him that he’d broken the Fair Housing Act. Reporting indicated that he’d broken the Cuban embargo in the 1990s, when that was a serious crime. Reporting also indicated that he had broken laws with respect to the employment of illegal immigrants, ironically contradicting his own campaign, and there are certainly laws that he could now break, for example, laws that ban torture.

Over the course of his entire business career, he has a pattern of playing fast and loose with the law, and letting statutes of limitations run out, settling cases, protracting lawsuits, walking away from failed deals. He also has a pattern and practice of not telling the truth. That is not just something that started when he was a candidate.

His overriding pattern is Donald Trump first, and nothing else matters nearly as much. And when you’re not president, you can get away with that, you can walk away from things. But as president, you can’t. You are accountable for what you do and for what you say. And what is the ultimate accountability for a president? That accountability is impeachment.

Yes, it is always DJT first and nothing else matters.

[GreyhoundFan]

49 minutes ago, Howl said:

He doesn't need to start a formal war.  Dropping the MOAB will very likely trigger bombings/shootings and other acts of terrorism from self-radicalized/lone wolf attackers and organized cells in this country, or against American citizens abroad. 

Meanwhile, Kim Jung Un is bat-shit crazy; he didn't have to assassinate some of his relatives, including his uncle, in extremely high positions -- he just ordered them killed with zero attempt to cover it up.  To think that he wouldn't do something bat-shit crazy in retaliation for US aggression or to be provocative is wishful thinking.  Keep in mind that Seoul is a metropolis of 10 MILLION people, about 35 miles from the DMZ with North Korea.  North Korea also has weaponized sarin warheads capable of reaching Japan and regularly trains its soldiers to operate in chemically contaminated environments.  

Just watched a documentary about North Korea a few nights ago (thanks PBS!).  It was a few years old, but pointed out that at least some of and maybe a lot of North Koreans, who venerate old age and wisdom, think Kim Jung Un is an upstart  little punk who isn't up to the job and basically a joke.  There was footage of people, including women, in heated shouting matches with uniformed soldiers, but the speculation was that a rebellion would not survive.  These are people subject to state propaganda literally every waking minute of their lives. 

I saw that documentary too. It was quite good. That one woman shouting at the soldiers was so surprising. I can't imagine how horrible life is for most residents in NK.

 

Awww, poor Jeffrey Lord. He got a lot of push back for his ridiculous comparison of Agent Orange to MLK.  I truly despise him.

Quote

In the wee hours of Thursday morning, CNN’s Jeffrey Lord was still at it, tweeting out links to Martin Luther King Jr. speeches and professing his love and admiration for the slain civil rights leader.

“A hero unafraid to oppose judging by skin color,” Lord wrote in one tweet.

“I stand with Dr. King,” read another. “If you think that’s the wrong side of history, I disagree. Strongly.”

Lord, a conservative commentator employed by CNN to be a Donald Trump defender, had had quite a day.

It started with an appearance on one of the network’s early morning shows, during which he called President Trump “the Martin Luther King of health care.” King and Trump were the same, Lord said, in the sense that they both used moments of crisis to pass legislation.

In the words of one news anchor who heard the comparison: “Oh, boy.”

Lord’s remarks — and the wave of outrage they triggered — became fodder for a full day’s worth of high-decibel CNN entertainment, with various people in varying degrees of dudgeon brought on to excoriate him.

In appearances on three shows and in an column for CNN’s website, Lord dug in his heels to defend the Trump-King comparison, twisting himself into a rhetorical pretzel as hosts, guests and a chorus of social media users took turns pummeling him.

It a typical Lord moment, except it lasted all day and into the early morning Friday. Since joining the network as a paid analyst in June 2015, he has fashioned his full-throated and outlandish defenses of Trump into something of a brand. In turn, his critics online and his interlocutors on CNN have made a sport out of shooting him down.

At some point Lord’s defenses — rather than his initial remarks — became the main discussion topic. The night ended with a visibly frustrated CNN host Don Lemon cutting his show off several minutes early, leaving Lord, who stood by his statements through it all, to try to get the last word on Twitter.

...

But Lord was not done. Over the next hour or so, he took to Twitter to respond to his critics and advertise his apparent racial sensitivity. His last tweets came well after midnight, and included links to videos of King’s “I have a dream” speech and “I’ve been to the mountaintop,” King’s final public address before he was assassinated.

All the while, Lord continued to defend the remarks he began his day with, this time invoking the name of another civil rights legend.

“Think Gandhi,” he wrote.

Good grief. He is delusional.

[Cartmann99]

It's very early in the morning in North Korea at the time of this post. If they are going to test a nuclear weapon today, we probably have a few more hours to wait.

Here's a website with the current time in Pyongyang:

https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/north-korea/pyongyang

PYT (Pyongyang Time) is UTC/GMT +8:30 hours

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s base won’t abandon him — yet"

Quote

President Trump’s approval polling remains dreadful by historical standards. In the latest Marist poll, he draws only 39 percent approval, 49 disapproval (statistically insignificant from a month ago, when his numbers were 38 percent/51 percent). Gallup shows him with 40 percent approval, 54 percent disapproval (up, but not dramatically, from his low point). Overall, his RealClearPolitics average is 41.4 approval/51.6 percent disapproval. All this follows confirmation of his Supreme Court pick, now-Justice Neil Gorsuch, and a show of force against Syria. There are a few takeaways from this.

First, Trump is such a polarizing figure, even when compared with Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, that he is unlikely ever to rise above his election total (46.1 percent of the vote). While the press and political insiders inspect day-to-day events for hints as to whether this will help or hurt Trump, many voters (especially those disturbed by his election) do not. Even a significant event — such as the Syria missiles strikes — may have only minimal impact on ordinary voters, if not followed by a dramatic policy change.

...

So what, if anything, will cause the floor to drop out from under Trump? We can think of only two events, both largely beyond his control. First, the potential for an economic setback should keep the Trump team up at night. He won as with the pretense that he is a consummate businessman who would know how to make Americans successful, just like he did for himself. If he cannot do even that, voters may figure that they might as well go with steadier, more experienced and less ideologically erratic leaders. Second, the Russia investigation hangs like a cloud over him. Reports suggesting that British intelligence officials have evidence of “collusion” should be taken with a grain of salt. They do remind us, however, that U.S. intelligence agencies are not alone in their hunt for proof of Russian meddling. The presence of so many witnesses (Manafort, Flynn, Carter Page) who might provide information to the intelligence community could provide critical evidence. In other words, if Trump and his cohorts have lied, misled or concealed evidence of ties to Russia and/or cooperated with Russian officials, we think this would shake loose even devoted followers. Then again, if that happens, Trump would have bigger problems than keeping the alt-right in his tent.

Sadly, this is probably true. Hopefully the Russia investigation will start moving a bit faster.

[TeddyBonkers]

I want this to sound reassuring, so please take it in the spirit in which it is intended. North Korea "rattles its sabers" every spring and late summer. That's when American soldiers in South Korea are out in the field, doing their military training.  This saber ratttling might be louder this year than in others, but I hope that's all it is.

Source: Mr. Bonkers did a short tour in South Korea a number of years ago, and the Army is still sending families over to South Korea to accompany soldiers on long tours.

[GreyhoundFan]

"The Daily 202: Trump doesn’t know much about history. It’s making his on-the-job training harder."

Quote

THE BIG IDEA: Donald Trump believed he could convince China to pressure North Korea to stop its nuclear activities. Then President Xi Jinping tutored him on the history of the region.

“After listening for 10 minutes, I realized that it’s not so easy,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, recounting the session at Mar-a-Lago. “You know, I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power over North Korea. But it’s not what you would think."

This comment is funny because, in 2011, Trump claimed that he has read “hundreds of books about China over the decades,” including works by Henry Kissinger, American journalists and Chinese novelists. Looking to do more business with Beijing, he provided a list of 20 books about China to Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, that he said had helped him understand the country, its politics and its people. “I know the Chinese. I've made a lot of money with the Chinese. I understand the Chinese mind,” Trump said six years ago. His list had some surprising titles on it, including “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”

Color me skeptical that Trump has read anything by Amy Chua.

-- Even if he has, the fact our president needed an introductory tutorial on Sino-Korean relations to understand how hard it is to contain Pyongyang is just the latest illustration of one of his blind spots: He and his inner-circle have very little sense of history.

-- It is a cliché, but there is truth to it: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

-- Trump has committed several small but memorable faux pas since the inauguration:

He mentioned Abraham Lincoln during a fundraising dinner for the National Republican Congressional Committee last month. “Most people don't even know he was a Republican,” Trump said. “Does anyone know? Lot of people don't know that!” (Most likely, every person in the ballroom knew and has attended at least one Lincoln Day dinner.)

On Lincoln’s birthday in February, Trump tweeted out an obviously fake quote from the 16th president: “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count, it's the life in your years.” He later deleted it.

“Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice,” he said at a Black History Month event. (Douglass died in 1895.)

“Have you heard of Susan B. Anthony?” he asked at a Women’s History Month reception in March.

In January, Trump said Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) – who is best known for almost getting beaten to death as he marched on Bloody Sunday in Selma – is “all talk, talk, talk - no action or results.” There are things Lewis could be fairly criticized for, but no one who knows anything about the civil rights movement would agree that being “all talk” is one of them.

-- Those four gaffes were tailormade to go viral on social media, but the president has made other comments that perhaps better underscore his lack of depth on U.S. history. Only someone who doesn’t understand the ugly history of the 1930s, for example, could have so wholeheartedly embraced “America First” as a mantra, let alone made it a rallying cry in his inaugural address. The slogan was first popularized by Nazi sympathizers.

...

-- Trump has admitted that he is not intellectually curious. In a moment of candor, he told The Post’s Marc Fisher last summer that he has not read any biographies of presidents. He said he would like to someday but never has time. Then he explained that he does not need to read extensively because he reaches the right decisions “with very little knowledge other than the knowledge I [already] had, plus the words ‘common sense,’ because I have a lot of common sense.” Trump told Marc he is skeptical of experts because they can’t see the forest through the trees and lack his good instincts.

-- This is a break with many of his predecessors. Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton all invited elite historians for private dinners at the White House. Each thought deeply about his place in history as he mulled weighty decisions. Bush, who majored in history at Yale, heavily employed historical analogies in his speeches. John F. Kennedy even hired Arthur Schlesinger Jr. to be his in-house historian.

...

During a town hall-style event with young people in Malaysia in September, Obama blamed the flow of information bombarding news consumers on televisions, computers and smartphones for making it appear “as if the world is falling apart.” “Everybody is shouting and everybody hates each other,” Obama said. “And you get kind of depressed. You think, ‘Goodness, what’s happening?’”

Trump, of course, consumes most of his news from cable television and Twitter.

...

-- On the front page of today’s New York Times, Peter Baker recalls other good examples of just how much Trump was in over his head when he took office: “So much of this is new to Mr. Trump that only after he publicly accused Mr. Obama of having wiretapped his telephones last year did he ask aides how the system of obtaining eavesdropping warrants from a special foreign intelligence court worked. … He figured it would be easy to ban visitors from several predominantly Muslim countries and build a border wall while forcing Mexico to pay for it. He had never heard of the congressional procedures (known as reconciliation) that forced him to push for health care changes before overhauling the tax code…

...

Maybe if he stopped vacationing and golfing, he'd have time to read a little bit.

[GreyhoundFan]

Gee, I guess Agent Orange has something to hide..."Trump will keep list of White House visitors secret"

Quote

The Trump administration announced Friday that it will not follow former president Barack Obama's policy of voluntarily disclosing the names of most visitors to the White House complex, citing “grave national security risks and privacy concerns.”

The announcement — from an administration that has faced pointed questions about its commitment to transparency — marks a significant shift from the Obama White House, which released the names of nearly 6 million visitors, including scores of lobbyists.

Instead, the Trump administration said it would release information under far more limited circumstances: when Freedom of Information Act requests are filed for those visiting offices of the White House characterized under the law as separate agencies, such as the Office of Management and Budget.

Under the new policy, it will be up to the White House to decide whether to release the names of visitors coming to meet with the president, vice president and their senior staff, at least in the short term. Under a separate statute, much of that information can become public years after Trump leaves office.

Friday's announcement was harshly criticized by government watchdog groups.

“The only excuse for this policy is that the Trump administration has something to hide,” said David Donnelly, president and chief executive of Every Voice. “This kind of secrecy will allow big donors, lobbyists and special interests to have unknown levels of influence in the White House.”

“It's the exact opposite of 'draining the swamp,' " Donnelly added, referring to Trump's pledge to usher in a more ethical and less corrupt era in Washington.

The Trump administration was sued in federal court earlier this week by a coalition of watchdog groups to compel the release of the White House visitor logs. Under Obama, such records, which were published on a White House-maintained website, were typically disclosed 90 to 120 days after the visit.

...

Trump aides highlighted such loopholes under Obama and said the new policy is consistent with a legal distinction that Obama officials drew in a 2012 lawsuit. Despite the voluntary disclosure of visitor logs, the Obama administration maintained that the logs were White House records and therefore not required to be disclosed under FOIA.

Others have said that the records are subject to disclosure under FOIA because they are created by the Secret Service, which is an agency covered by the law.

As a private citizen, Trump was highly critical of the Obama administration's position in 2012, writing on Twitter: “Why is @BarackObama spending millions to try and hide his records? He is the least transparent President — ever — and he ran on transparency.”

The existence of the visitor logs burst back into the news last month when House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) went to the White House to review intelligence reports on which he later briefed the president. Nunes and White House officials declined to say whom Nunes had visited and who had cleared him onto the grounds, information that is typically contained in the logs, along with the length of the stay.

...

Gee, guess it's different when Cheeto is in the West Wing and doesn't want us to know who he's listening to. Suddenly, theose logs don't have to be released. How much longer do we have to deal with this charlatan?

[GreyhoundFan]

Good God: "Trump delights in watching the U.S. military display its strength"

Quote

Amid the often jarring inconsistency of President Trump’s foreign policy, one thing has always been crystal clear: He loves a big show of American military force.

“You gotta knock the hell out of them — Boom! Boom! Boom!” Trump said of Islamic State terrorists at a January 2016 rally in Iowa, punctuating each “boom” with a punch of his fist.

That same impulse has been apparent over the past 10 days as Trump pummeled a Syrian air base with cruise missiles, threatened military action against North Korea over its nuclear weapons program and praised the U.S. military’s first-ever use of a massive 11-ton bomb, nicknamed the “mother of all bombs,” to kill Islamic State militants in Afghanistan.

“So incredible. It’s brilliant. It’s genius,” Trump said Tuesday of the missile strike in Syria. “Our technology, our equipment is better than anybody by a factor of five.”

As he searches for a coherent foreign policy during his first months in office, Trump has celebrated but often inflated the effect of military actions. The massive shows of strength, at times, have seemed to be a strategy unto themselves.

“If you look at what’s happened over the last eight weeks and compare that really to what’s happened over the past eight years, you’ll see there’s a tremendous difference, tremendous difference,” Trump told reporters after the military unleashed the giant bomb on a largely unpopulated region of the Afghan wilderness. “This was another very, very successful mission.”

U.S. military officials estimated that the giant bomb killed 36 Islamic State fighters.

Trump’s full-on embrace of military force offers a sharp contrast to Barack Obama, who promised to end America’s wars and who worried publicly about escalation and overreach, often to the point of paralysis. Trump has taken the polar opposite approach, and for the moment he seems to be benefiting.

...

Even less clear is whether Trump, who has long been fascinated with the military and generals, fully appreciates the limits of his military-heavy approach.

...

Trump’s unpredictability — praised as an asset after eight years of Obama’s carefulness and caution — also could quickly become a problem if it causes allies to question America’s reliability in a crisis.

“Most people see this for what it is, which is Trump not having thought things through,” Chollet said.

For at least this week, though, Trump seems to be settling on a foreign policy philosophy, one that has been taking shape since his first days in office.

“The generals are wonderful, and the fighting is wonderful, but if you give them the right direction — boy, does the fighting become easier, and, boy, do we lose so fewer lives and win so quickly,” Trump said in a speech to the CIA headquarters the day after his inauguration. “And that’s what we have to do. We have to start winning again.”

Twelve weeks into his presidency, Trump now speaks as if the military has already scaled up. “What I do is I authorize my military,” he told reporters Thursday. “We have given them total authorization and that’s what they’re doing and, frankly, that’s why they’ve been so successful lately.”

He likes things that go boom. Sigh.

[AnywhereButHere]

I hope he has a plan (yes - I know that's a particularly unfunny joke) for when things go boom right back at him. 

He seems to forget that other people have toys too and can be goaded into using them. You don't need the hugest, brightest, bestest toys everrrr to do damage. I'm afraid we're going to pay a big price for this asshole's arrogance.

[JMarie]

Um, no.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/04/14/michele-bachmann-god-helped-trump-win-to-stop-transgender-bathr/22040490/

Quote

On April 1, she was a guest on a radio program called 'Understanding the Times with Jan Markell' where she said about Trump's win, "I think the American people...recognized that this was the last exit ramp for the country and if we were not going to see a political change, if Hillary Clinton was going to continue and double down on the policies of Barack Obama, I think people just saw no hope that the United States would return to a position of Judeo-Christian morality."

Quote

The former Minnesota Representative, who has long been an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage and other LGBTQ issues, then said on the radio program, "We know that [Trump's election] just wasn't in the natural. This was in the supernatural where God sovereignly, I believe, answered the prayers of believers beseeching him and he's given us a reprieve."

 

[Howl]

14 hours ago, TeddyBonkers said:

I want this to sound reassuring, so please take it in the spirit in which it is intended. North Korea "rattles its sabers" every spring and late summer. That's when American soldiers in South Korea are out in the field, doing their military training.  This saber ratttling might be louder this year than in others, but I hope that's all it is.

Source: Mr. Bonkers did a short tour in South Korea a number of years ago, and the Army is still sending families over to South Korea to accompany soldiers on long tours.

Thanks for talking us down off the ledge!  

 

13 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Maybe if he stopped vacationing and golfing, he'd have time to read a little bit.

Evan McMullin* was at a meeting early on (just before or after Agent Orange took office) where Trump referred to an article in the constitution that did not exist. Based on that meeting, a gobsmacked McMullin realized there was a very good possibility that Trump had never read the US constitution. 

Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo talks about this issue in an op-ed titled  Trump and the Problem of Militant Ignorance.  He starts off by comparing the  comparing the learning curves of Clinton, Bush and Obama when they entered office vs Trump.  Here's a snip from part way through the piece: 

Spoiler

What is endearing, terrifying and hilarious about Trump is not simply his ignorance, really his militant ignorance, but his complete lack of self-awareness about his ignorance. Trump told a reporter for The Wall Street Journal that his understanding of the problem of North Korea changed dramatically after hearing ten minutes of history from the President of China. Needless to say, Trump didn’t need to admit this. But neither was it candor.

So far the Trump Presidency has been a sort of Mr Magoo performance art in which the comically ignorant Trump learns elemental or basic things that virtually everyone in the world of politics or government already knew – things that the majority of adults probably know. Health Care: “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.” North Korea: “I felt pretty strongly that they had tremendous power. But it’s not what you think.” There are perhaps half a dozen examples equally stark.

Full text here:   Trump and The Problem of Militant Ignorance

 

*I think Evan McMullin is a super awesome decent guy.  However, he is a Mormon conservative who'd like to see Roe v. Wade over turned and that's where we part ways. 

 

[47of74]

I see man baby now wants a ride in the Queen's gold-plated carriage;

rawstory.com/2017/04/trump-demanding-ride-in-queens-gold-carriage-during-buckingham-palace-visit-report/

Quote

President Donald Trump is creating security concerns over his visit to meet with the Queen of England because he wants to ride in her golden carriage.

According to the Times of London,  the White House has let Buckingham Palace officials know that Trump is very interested in being part of a carriage procession up the Mall during his October visit.

British security services are balking, saying the president’s wish is presenting them with “monster” problems is helping to keep the U.S. president safe.

London Metropolitan Police have already been making plans for Trump’s visit, expecting tens of thousands of protesters to descend on the procession route. Their preference is for Trump to make use of a bullet and bomb-proof car that was previously used by former President Barack Obama.

 

[church_of_dog]

5 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

I see man baby now wants a ride in the Queen's gold-plated carriage;

rawstory.com/2017/04/trump-demanding-ride-in-queens-gold-carriage-during-buckingham-palace-visit-report/

 

Can't the majority of US citizens sign some kind of release of liability saying that we accept the risk?

[AmericanRose]

I just went on a vacation with my parents (why did I do that to myself) and per my mother:

* Trump was chosen by god (and he believes in god, which I had to laugh at).

* It's okay if he goes to Mar-a-Lago often and if Melania and Barron stay in NYC, because they should be where they're most comfortable.

* We need a wall (we don't want to make things easy for criminals, after all). She's okay with paying for it.

* We need to bring back coal, because nuclear energy is unhealthy.

She also told me that she doesn't understand why I get so angry, and that we need to "give him a chance".

I really don't think Trump could do anything to shake off his base. He shoots someone? They were going to shoot him, it was self-defense! Oh, they didn't have a weapon? Well... they shouldn't have been approaching him anyway! Oh, they were just a harmless bystander? Well... liberal media lies! The mental olympics astound me.

And then of course, there was "but agenda 21!" and "Obama gave away our Internet!"

[laPapessaGiovanna]

3 hours ago, church_of_dog said:

Can't the majority of US citizens sign some kind of release of liability saying that we accept the risk?

The only problem is that brits may not want their queen share the risk.

[47of74]

56 minutes ago, AmericanRose said:

I just went on a vacation with my parents (why did I do that to myself) and per my mother:

* Trump was chosen by god (and he believes in god, which I had to laugh at).

* It's okay if he goes to Mar-a-Lago often and if Melania and Barron stay in NYC, because they should be where they're most comfortable.

* We need a wall (we don't want to make things easy for criminals, after all). She's okay with paying for it.

* We need to bring back coal, because nuclear energy is unhealthy.

She also told me that she doesn't understand why I get so angry, and that we need to "give him a chance".

I really don't think Trump could do anything to shake off his base. He shoots someone? They were going to shoot him, it was self-defense! Oh, they didn't have a weapon? Well... they shouldn't have been approaching him anyway! Oh, they were just a harmless bystander? Well... liberal media lies! The mental olympics astound me.

And then of course, there was "but agenda 21!" and "Obama gave away our Internet!"

She sounds lovely.

I and my paternal units get along quite well.  That said, they both know where I stand and knows that if they were to spout off any of these claims that I would tell themselves to go fornicate themselves in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to their faces.   

[church_of_dog]

2 minutes ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

The only problem is that brits may not want their queen share the risk.

True, nor would I wish that on her.  Maybe she could offer to let him ride in the carriage "all by himself like a big boy".

[JMarie]

2 hours ago, AmericanRose said:

I just went on a vacation with my parents (why did I do that to myself) and per my mother:

* Trump was chosen by god (and he believes in god, which I had to laugh at).

* It's okay if he goes to Mar-a-Lago often and if Melania and Barron stay in NYC, because they should be where they're most comfortable.

* We need a wall (we don't want to make things easy for criminals, after all). She's okay with paying for it.

* We need to bring back coal, because nuclear energy is unhealthy.

She also told me that she doesn't understand why I get so angry, and that we need to "give him a chance".

I really don't think Trump could do anything to shake off his base. He shoots someone? They were going to shoot him, it was self-defense! Oh, they didn't have a weapon? Well... they shouldn't have been approaching him anyway! Oh, they were just a harmless bystander? Well... liberal media lies! The mental olympics astound me.

And then of course, there was "but agenda 21!" and "Obama gave away our Internet!"

I recently visited with a friend who is a lifelong resident of the Rust Belt.  There, it was common for people to work their entire adult lives at the coke and steel mills.  Most of the mills started closing in the 1980s, and the area has never recovered.  There is a much higher incidence of cancer and heart and lung disease among the residents, even those who only lived there but didn't work at the mill.  Pollution levels are still beyond the acceptable levels, even decades later.  I asked my friend if Trump's promise to bring back jobs was a realistic one.  She laughed and shook her head no.

[Childless]

21 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Good God: "Trump delights in watching the U.S. military display its strength"

He likes things that go boom. Sigh.

Sort of like Kim Jong Un.

[Cartmann99]

Reuters is saying that North Korea attempted to launch a missile:

Quote

North Korea attempted to launch a missile on Sunday near Sinpo, on its east coast, but it is believed to have failed, South Korea's military said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-missile-idUSKBN17H0NL

Looks like we will have to wait for more information. 

Edited to add info from CBS News:

"North Korea attempted to launch a missile that is believed to have failed, a U.S. official confirmed to CBS News.

The official said the missile was not an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which North Korea has claimed to possess but has never successfully tested. 

It’s unclear why the missile failed.

The Yonhap news agency in South Korea first reported the failed launch, citing the South Korean military. "

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/north-korea-attempts-fails-missile-launch/

[AmericanRose]

2 hours ago, JMarie said:

I recently visited with a friend who is a lifelong resident of the Rust Belt.  There, it was common for people to work their entire adult lives at the coke and steel mills.  Most of the mills started closing in the 1980s, and the area has never recovered.  There is a much higher incidence of cancer and heart and lung disease among the residents, even those who only lived there but didn't work at the mill.  Pollution levels are still beyond the acceptable levels, even decades later.  I asked my friend if Trump's promise to bring back jobs was a realistic one.  She laughed and shook her head no.

I  had to Google Rust Belt real quick, but apparently my family lives within it too. Difference being that they're nowhere near a coal mine, even an old one (and never have been), but there is a nuclear plant nearby.

Ironically, she's also against wind farms. But she's never been a miner and has never known a miner, and Trump promised he would bring those jobs back, so obviously coal is best!