Trump 22: Not Even Poe Could Make This Shit Up

[AmazonGrace]

If you put Rick Perry in charge of the nukes you can do anything. 

[sawasdee]

Also in the Repug debates - I can't remember if said outright or heavily implied - "why have nukes if you don't use them?".

LOTS of reasons , Donald - lots. But you'd have to be marginally intelligent to have read and understood them.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"The worst negotiator ever"

Spoiler

President Trump pitched his candidacy to a large degree on his negotiating prowess. He advertised himself as a closer, the author of “The Art of the Deal,” and derided U.S. negotiators for making “dumb” deals. We don’t win anymore, he claimed over and over. As the Economist recollected:

Mr Trump was carried to victory by telling voters that incompetent and corrupt elites either blundered or conspired to send manufacturing jobs out of America, when they could have stayed. He did not just attack such free-trade deals as the NAFTA pact with Mexico and Canada, or the forthcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) between America and 11 other Asia-Pacific countries. He claimed—with no evidence—that America had hired “stupid” negotiators who failed to read what was in trade deals, while devious foreign officials “know where every comma is”. Politicians, he added, had colluded in this betrayal of America because “they get massive campaign contributions from others that want to make deals with China, and want to make deals with Mexico.”

He has been in office for nearly seven months, and we have yet to see his negotiating prowess. He has pulled out of the Paris climate agreement (apparently under the mistaken belief that it required us to do a bunch of things that hurt our economy) and withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

With regard to NAFTA, the administration (wisely, in our view) downgraded its demands from a total rewrite to a short list of middling concerns. (“The United States Trade Representative Office published the Trump administration’s detailed objectives for renegotiating the North American free-trade agreement. Contrary to President Donald Trump’s rhetoric about NAFTA in the past, the objectives document’s overall tone is very much in line with a much-needed modernization of NAFTA.”) We’ll see whether he reaches even those reduced objectives.

Middle East peace? Even Jared Kushner has figured out that isn’t happening anytime soon.

NATO funding? Trump still seems to think NATO countries are supposed to pay that money to us or to some NATO checking account. The Post’s Glenn Kessler reported in May: “At the moment, only five of the 28 members exceed the guideline — with the United States leading the way at 3.6 percent. The other members that exceed the guideline are Greece, Estonia, Britain and Poland, but the perceived threat from Russia has prompted other nations to bolster their defense spending. In 2016, median spending by NATO members on defense was 1.21 percent of GDP, but it’s still eight years away from the deadline. The guideline is not legally binding.” (American presidents before Trump urged NATO members to spend more; and NATO members before Trump arrived on the scene were making some effort to boost spending. “The alliance as a whole increased defense spending for the first time in two decades in 2015. And [in 2016], 22 of 28 NATO members increased their defense budgets. If the U.S. is removed from the equation, the group increased its spending by 3.8% in 2016. Including the U.S., overall spending rose by 2.9%.”)

The recent leaks of tapes of conversations between Trump and leaders of Mexico and Australia demonstrated again how inept he is when it comes to international diplomacy. His “dealmaking” skills amount to whining and threatening. Career diplomats Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky observe:

Despite his bluster in both conversations on the building of the border wall that Mexico is going to pay for and the agreement to take a limited number of refugees from Australia, it’s stunning how quickly the master of the “Art of the Deal” backs off his opening positions and implicitly concedes that they were just ploys.

After the Mexican President adamantly but courteously opines that “Mexico cannot pay for that wall,” Trump responds “but you cannot say that to the press,” all but admitting that he knows Mexico won’t pay for the wall. He is far more concerned — even obsessed — that the Mexican President not undermine his political position at home.

And by the end of his very tough talk with [Australian Prime Minister Malcolm] Turnbull, who keeps pressing Trump on Obama’s commitment to take the 1,250 refugees who had tried to enter Australia by boat, Trump succumbs, arguing to save face that it’s a “disgusting deal” but he’d honor “my predecessor’s deal.”

Trump isn’t coming close to “winning.” (“These calls demonstrate in stunning fashion that, however unpleasant the conversations, both [Mexican President] Enrique Pena Nieto and Turnbull got what they wanted and, in the process, the best of Trump.”)

Now that international leaders have figured out that he’s all bark and no bite, they’ll likely be even harder to persuade in future negotiations. As disagreeable as he may be, the president has gotten a reputation as a patsy. His temper tantrums and empty threats might work in New York real estate, but these techniques are ill-suited to the international stage.

And domestically, Trump was entirely unconvincing in the health-care debate. He never mastered the details nor was able to cajole lawmakers to get behind him. His technique amounted to adolescent bullying and content-free cheerleading. Likewise, he couldn’t stop Congress from passing by a veto-proof majority tough new sanctions on Russia — but he did manage to give Vladimir Putin what he wanted (a Syria cease-fire) with nothing in return. He gives a bevy of autocratic regimes (e.g. Turkey, China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt) huge PR wins by public fawning without obtaining anything in return.

Trump lashes out on Twitter against foes and critics (as he did again this morning), but it has become the telltale sign of weakness. He cannot close a deal to save his political life — or hold his own with more experienced negotiators. He’d do better to stay off the phone and on the golf course, leaving international dealings to more convincing and better-prepared subordinates.

Yes, it would do all of us better if he just stayed off the phone and on the golf course.

[sawasdee]

The Russians are completely disinterested in internal US politics - that's a given /s. And they never interfere by using social media /s.

And one of the biggest Twitter hashtags at the moment is 'firemcmaster'.

So at least one of his Cabinet is doing something right. I'd love to know what has prompted this particular twitter war by Russian bots.

ETA And I'm sure the intelligence services are telling the TT that this campaign originates in Russia, but will he believe them? Or want to believe them? Or will he think - or opt to think - that this is his 'base' talking?

Or is he just needing cover from his Russian overlords in order to sack one of the more competent (not a high bar) members of his administration?

[Cartmann99]

4 hours ago, JMarie said:

Will Jeffress be going to North Korea to help "take out Kim Jong Un"?

It will be a special live broadcast of Trump TV. Jeffress will help Trump beat Kim with a burnt steak, and Kayleigh McEnany and Tomi Lahren get into a screaming fight over which one of them gets to be the mother of Trump's next child.

 

[Penny]

@Cartmann99 Can we leave Jeffress there along with Taliban Dan, Rick Perry, Greg Abbott and all the Trumps? None of them could stand being stranded in a foreign country.

[AmazonGrace]

European Officials Say That Unstable Trump Is Obsessed With Barack Obama

By Jason Easley on Wed, Aug 9th, 2017 at 3:52 pm

Six European officials who had interactions with Trump and his White House describe the president as a threat to global security who is obsessed with Obama.

Spoiler

 

Six European officials who had interactions with Trump and his White House describe the president as a threat to global security who is obsessed with Obama.

Buzzfeed News reported:

But behind the mocking, there is growing fear among international governments that Trump is a serious threat to international peace and stability.

….

They also believe Trump’s foreign policy is chiefly driven by an obsession with unravelling Barack Obama’s policies. “It’s his only real position,” one European diplomat said. “He will ask: ‘Did Obama approve this?’ And if the answer is affirmative, he will say: ‘We don’t.’ He won’t even want to listen to the arguments or have a debate. He is obsessed with Obama.”

The officials also described meetings between Trump and other world leaders as useless because Trump doesn’t know anything, and all he does is bombard the world leader with questions about their GDP.

Trump wants to be Obama. He is trying to erase Barack Obama’s legacy because he needs to be the popular president. Trump is probably still fuming over the jokes that Obama told about him during the White House Correspondents Dinner years ago. Donald Trump is obsessed with Obama, and it is driving him crazy that he is failing where Obama was successful.

 

 

Donald Trump is not well, and he is obsessed because Obama was the kind of president that he will never be.

[candygirl200413]

The thing that is also making me the most pissed is how Tillerson has NO idea what the fuck he is doing, since we still don't have a majority of ambassadors (especially in a place like South Korea where we don't).

I follow my Governor, rep and my democrat senator and you'll see the comments people leave for them everytime they want to share something to us and they're like "This is why I'm so glad Trump is in charge because you'll be a wuss if you were facing North Korea" (even though NK was never mentioned). It's mind blowing.

[Howl]

34 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

It will be a special live broadcast of Trump TV. Jeffress will help Trump beat Kim with a burnt steak, and Kayleigh McEnany and Tomi Lahren get into a screaming fight over which one of them gets to be the mother of Trump's next child.

Thank you for making me laugh so hard, although I imagine Trump slapping Kim with a dead fish, maybe a red herring.  Fish slapping is an ancient art, you know. 

 

[AnywhereButHere]

Beating the dead Twitter horse...

Twitter should not be the main vehicle for policy making for any nation.

Adults, especially leaders of countries, should not use Twitter as their main form of communication or information.

If you do not have the attention span or decision making horizon of longer than 5 minutes, you should not be president of anything let alone a country.

Twitter is asinine and useless. Even Twitter itself knows this! They had to create a way to link serial posts by users, because there is no way to communicate anything of substance in 140 characters or less. I hope this Twitter dad goes the way of cell phones. They got smaller and smaller over the years until people realized they needed actual phone sized phones, and we went bigger again. Maybe we needed Caligula to show us that Tweets are ridiculous. Paragraphs are your friend. 

[apple1]

I just cannot understand how inappropriate use of social media could easily get me (nobody important, believe me) fired from my job, but it seems that NOBODY can do anything about such use by the person holding the position that USED TO BE described as "leader of the free world".

And to all of you who are not Americans - I can only say once again - I am so embarrassed. (understatement)

[AmazonGrace]

Ignore Our Crazy President, U.S. Government Tells North Korea

By Jonathan Chait

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/08/ignore-our-crazy-president-u-s-tells-north-korea.html

Spoiler

 

President Trump brought the United States and North Korea to the precipice of war by warning that any further threats would be met with a nuclear attack. (“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”) North Korea proceeded to test this warning by immediately issuing a new threat, to attack Guam. This forced the United States into the unenviable position of either instigating a massive war with horrific casualties or surrendering its credibility. The administration has wisely chosen Option B.

“Don’t read too much into it,” sources tell Politico’s Josh Dawsey. The New York Times has much more detail. Trump improvised his threat without advance consultation with his advisers, none of whom support it. The paper he was holding when he made the statement was about the opioid crisis. Trump “was in a bellicose mood” when he made the statement, due to a Washington Post report that morning about North Korea having miniaturized a nuclear warhead.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis have issued more normal-sounding statements intended to supersede the president’s improvised one. (Mattis’s statement redraws the red line, threatening reprisal in return for North Korean actions, rather than threats.) The message of this cleanup is that Trump’s statements do not necessarily represent the position of the U.S. government – a reality most American political elites in both parties already recognize, but which needs to be made clear to other countries that are unaccustomed to treating their head of state like a random Twitter troll.

It is humiliating for the world’s greatest superpower to disregard its president as a weird old man who wanders in front of microphones spouting off unpredictably and without consequence. But at this point, respect for Trump’s capabilities is a horse that’s already fled the barn. New chief of staff John Kelly has supposedly instilled military-style order and message discipline into the administration, but Trump is unteachable. Minimizing the havoc means getting everybody to pretend Trump isn’t really president.

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonardelli/this-is-why-european-diplomats-think-donald-trump-is?utm_term=.mhbNm20Km2#.dsZ1VLbMVL

 

Quote

On one level, the officials said, he is something of a laughing stock among Europeans at international gatherings. One revealed that a small group of diplomats play a version of word bingo whenever the president speaks because they consider his vocabulary to be so limited. “Everything is ‘great’, ‘very, very great’, ‘amazing’,” the diplomat said.

 

Six months and this is what CNN is reporting now. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Donald Trump is not well, and he is obsessed because Obama was the kind of president that he will never be.

Hell, Warren G. Harding would be an improvement over Agent Orange.

[Destiny]

If there is a god, fucking Cheeto will drop his phone in the toilet like nowish.

He’s on another twitter rant by the way.

[GreyhoundFan]

Good one from Dana Milbank: "The Trump cleanup patrol just had its biggest job yet"

Spoiler

I had dreams of fire and fury like the world has never seen. But now I will sleep well, because Rex Tillerson told me I should.

There is no “imminent threat” from North Korea, the secretary of state said Wednesday. “The American people should sleep well at night.”

It was the latest and largest cleanup effort undertaken by President Trump’s aides since this administration took power. Their unorthodox message to an anxious nation and a panicky world: Don’t take seriously what the president of the United States says.

On Tuesday, Trump delivered remarks about North Korea — words we now know to have been off the cuff — that pushed the world toward a nuclear standoff last seen in the Cuban missile crisis: “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States.” If it does make threats, the president said, “they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

Many noted that the wording echoed Harry Truman’s warning at the time of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. But then came Tillerson, a former ExxonMobil chairman, to assure us that there is nothing to see. It has become a familiar exercise: walking back, cleaning up and outright contradicting crazy things uttered by the man with the nuclear codes.

Early on, Trump announced that he had undertaken “a military operation” to get “really bad dudes out of this country, and at a rate that nobody’s ever seen before.”

The U.S. military is rounding up immigrants? Mexican officials freaked out. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, now White House chief of staff, drew cleanup duty: “No — repeat, no — use of military force in immigration operations. None,” he said.

Trump, during his visit to Brussels, shocked allies and caught his aides by surprise when he struck from his speech to NATO the usual commitment to the alliance’s collective defense — this, after calling NATO “obsolete.” Days later, Vice President Pence reassured jittery allies: “Our commitment is unwavering. . . . An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us.”

Trump, appearing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, upended the long-standing U.S. commitment to a “two-state” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “I am looking at two-state, and one-state,” he said. Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was put on walk-back patrol the next day. “We absolutely support a two-state solution,” she said.

The cleanup patrol has a domestic operation, too. When Trump, after a bipartisan budget deal was reached, tweeted the notion that “our country needs a good ‘shutdown’ in September,” White House budget director Mick Mulvaney was hustled out to contain the damage: “We’ve averted a shutdown. . . . That’s the story now, not what might happen in September.”

After Trump tweeted that “Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower,” Sean Spicer, who was White House press secretary, famously explained that “the president used the word ‘wiretaps’ in quotes to mean, broadly, surveillance and other activities.”

And, when Trump attacked the “FAKE NEWS media,” which he proclaimed “the enemy of the American People,” Pence swabbed the decks, saying: “Rest assured, both the president and I strongly support a free and independent press.”

The cleanup patrol has a broad membership. Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, took a turn after Trump declared: “The Germans are bad, very bad. See the millions of cars they sell in the U.S.? Terrible. We will stop this.”

Cohn said: “He said they’re very bad on trade but he doesn’t have a problem with Germany.” Cohn explained that Trump’s “dad is from Germany.”

Asian allies became restless after Trump, during the campaign, said Japan should protect itself from North Korea, or pay the United States for providing security. After taking office, he jettisoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership and told South Korean officials that it would be “appropriate if they pay” for a $1 billion U.S. missile defense system. This time, it was the duty of the national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, to reassure South Koreans that the United States would continue to pay.

And Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, as part of an extended cleanup tour in the region, announced: “Our commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea and Japan, to include the employment of our most advanced capabilities, is ironclad.”

The Pentagon also had to reassure U.S. ally Qatar that Trump didn’t really mean it when he called Qatar a sponsor of terrorism. The U.S. military, which has thousands of troops in Qatar, praised the country for its “enduring commitment to regional security.”

There have been other such cleanup actions, and there will inevitably be many more, as Trump’s advisers try to convey to the world a perverse message: Rest assured, sleep well — and pay no attention to the president’s yammering.

Incredible, isn't it?

[Audrey2]

5 hours ago, AnywhereButHere said:

Twitter should not be the main vehicle for policy making for any nation.

(snip)

Paragraphs are your friend. 

I don't think that Trump is capable of holding a thought long enough to create a paragraph, nor is he capable of writing a coherent paragraph. 

[candygirl200413]

I was reading how some GOP politicians are realizing their fuckface mistake and my rage just grows. Lie in the bed that you made supporting this man who is going to destroy everything. Like so many people want to live in ignorance and don't care but everyone is going to be affected by his disastrous shit eventually.

[GreyhoundFan]

The picture at the beginning of the article is worth a look: "Inflatable Trump chicken takes roost outside White House"

Spoiler

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump may be out of town, but one plucky protester is keeping an eye on the White House.

A giant inflatable chicken bearing the unmistakable hairstyle of the commander in chief transfixed tourists and television cameras in the nation’s capital Wednesday afternoon.

Twitter users quickly posted dozens of images of the irate-looking fowl with a golden pompadour seemingly glaring down at the White House from a nearby green space known as the Ellipse. The chicken even appeared clearly in the background of a major news network’s live interview.

The Trump chicken balloon has appeared in Washington before, most recently before a protest in April to pressure Trump into releasing his tax returns. It even has its own Twitter account: @TaxMarchChicken.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

WTDH? "In a new poll, half of Republicans say they would support postponing the 2020 election if Trump proposed it"

Spoiler

Critics of President Trump have repeatedly warned of his potential to undermine American democracy. Among the concerns are his repeated assertions that he would have won the popular vote had 3 to 5 million “illegals” not voted in the 2016 election, a claim echoed by the head of a White House advisory committee on voter fraud.

Claims of large-scale voter fraud are not true, but that has not stopped a substantial number of Republicans from believing them. But how far would Republicans be willing to follow the president to stop what they perceive as rampant fraud? Our recent survey suggests that the answer is quite far: About half of Republicans say they would support postponing the 2020 presidential election until the country can fix this problem.

Here’s how we did our research:

The survey interviewed a sample of 1,325 Americans from June 5 through 20. Respondents were recruited from the Qualtrics online panel who had previously reported identifying with or leaning toward one of the two major parties. We focus on the 650 respondents who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party. The sample has been weighted to match the population in terms of sex, age, race and education.

After a series of initial questions, respondents were asked whether Trump won the popular vote, whether millions of illegal immigrants voted, and how often voter fraud occurs. These questions evoke arguments frequently made by Trump and others about the integrity of the 2016 election.

Then the survey asked two questions about postponing the 2020 election.

• If Donald Trump were to say that the 2020 presidential election should be postponed until the country can make sure that only eligible American citizens can vote, would you support or oppose postponing the election?
• What if both Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress were to say that the 2020 presidential election should be postponed until the country can make sure that only eligible American citizens can vote? Would you support or oppose postponing the election?

Roughly half of Republicans believe Trump won the popular vote — and would support postponing the 2020 election.

Nearly half of Republicans (47 percent) believe that Trump won the popular vote, which is similar to this finding. Larger fractions believe that millions of illegal immigrants voted (68 percent) and that voter fraud happens somewhat or very often (73 percent). Again, this is similar to previous polls.

Moreover, 52 percent said that they would support postponing the 2020 election, and 56 percent said they would do so if both Trump and Republicans in Congress were behind this.

Not surprisingly, beliefs about the 2016 election and voter fraud were correlated with support for postponement. People who believed that Trump won the popular vote, that there were millions of illegal votes in 2016, or that voter fraud is not rare were more likely to support postponing the election. This support was also more prevalent among Republicans who were younger, were less educated, had less factual knowledge of politics and strongly identified with the party.

Of course this is still hypothetical.

Of course, our survey is only measuring reactions to a hypothetical situation. Were Trump to seriously propose postponing the election, there would be a torrent of opposition, which would most likely include prominent Republicans. Financial markets would presumably react negatively to the potential for political instability. And this is to say nothing of the various legal and constitutional complications that would immediately become clear. Citizens would almost certainly form their opinions amid such tumult, which does not at all resemble the context in which our survey was conducted.

Nevertheless, we do not believe that these findings can be dismissed out of hand. At a minimum, they show that a substantial number of Republicans are amenable to violations of democratic norms that are more flagrant than what is typically proposed (or studied). And although the ensuing chaos could turn more Republicans against this kind of proposal, it is also conceivable that a high-stakes and polarized debate would do the exact opposite.

Postponing the 2020 presidential election is not something that Trump or anyone in his administration has even hinted at, but for many in his constituency floating such an idea may not be a step too far.

Wow, just wow.

[Childless]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

WTDH? "In a new poll, half of Republicans say they would support postponing the 2020 election if Trump proposed it"

  Reveal hidden contents

Critics of President Trump have repeatedly warned of his potential to undermine American democracy. Among the concerns are his repeated assertions that he would have won the popular vote had 3 to 5 million “illegals” not voted in the 2016 election, a claim echoed by the head of a White House advisory committee on voter fraud.

Claims of large-scale voter fraud are not true, but that has not stopped a substantial number of Republicans from believing them. But how far would Republicans be willing to follow the president to stop what they perceive as rampant fraud? Our recent survey suggests that the answer is quite far: About half of Republicans say they would support postponing the 2020 presidential election until the country can fix this problem.

Here’s how we did our research:

The survey interviewed a sample of 1,325 Americans from June 5 through 20. Respondents were recruited from the Qualtrics online panel who had previously reported identifying with or leaning toward one of the two major parties. We focus on the 650 respondents who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party. The sample has been weighted to match the population in terms of sex, age, race and education.

After a series of initial questions, respondents were asked whether Trump won the popular vote, whether millions of illegal immigrants voted, and how often voter fraud occurs. These questions evoke arguments frequently made by Trump and others about the integrity of the 2016 election.

Then the survey asked two questions about postponing the 2020 election.

• If Donald Trump were to say that the 2020 presidential election should be postponed until the country can make sure that only eligible American citizens can vote, would you support or oppose postponing the election?
• What if both Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress were to say that the 2020 presidential election should be postponed until the country can make sure that only eligible American citizens can vote? Would you support or oppose postponing the election?

Roughly half of Republicans believe Trump won the popular vote — and would support postponing the 2020 election.

Nearly half of Republicans (47 percent) believe that Trump won the popular vote, which is similar to this finding. Larger fractions believe that millions of illegal immigrants voted (68 percent) and that voter fraud happens somewhat or very often (73 percent). Again, this is similar to previous polls.

Moreover, 52 percent said that they would support postponing the 2020 election, and 56 percent said they would do so if both Trump and Republicans in Congress were behind this.

Not surprisingly, beliefs about the 2016 election and voter fraud were correlated with support for postponement. People who believed that Trump won the popular vote, that there were millions of illegal votes in 2016, or that voter fraud is not rare were more likely to support postponing the election. This support was also more prevalent among Republicans who were younger, were less educated, had less factual knowledge of politics and strongly identified with the party.

Of course this is still hypothetical.

Of course, our survey is only measuring reactions to a hypothetical situation. Were Trump to seriously propose postponing the election, there would be a torrent of opposition, which would most likely include prominent Republicans. Financial markets would presumably react negatively to the potential for political instability. And this is to say nothing of the various legal and constitutional complications that would immediately become clear. Citizens would almost certainly form their opinions amid such tumult, which does not at all resemble the context in which our survey was conducted.

Nevertheless, we do not believe that these findings can be dismissed out of hand. At a minimum, they show that a substantial number of Republicans are amenable to violations of democratic norms that are more flagrant than what is typically proposed (or studied). And although the ensuing chaos could turn more Republicans against this kind of proposal, it is also conceivable that a high-stakes and polarized debate would do the exact opposite.

Postponing the 2020 presidential election is not something that Trump or anyone in his administration has even hinted at, but for many in his constituency floating such an idea may not be a step too far.

Wow, just wow.

I remember my mother going on a rant about how Obama was going to cancel the 2016 election and instill himself as dictator (yeah, I sometimes wonder, or maybe hope, that I'm adopted).  That was blasphemous, but apparently it's all a-okay if the one doing it belongs to your party.  I've never met bigger hypocrites than conservatives.

[47of74]

With the Orange Toxic Megacolon making it harder to sue nursing homes for abusing people, it makes me glad that none of my Grandparents lived long enough to see said Megacolon conning his way into the White House.  Especially my Grandpa who fought in WW II. 

[Audrey2]

@47of74, Exactly. The Greatest Generation (WW2) generation would never have allowed Trump to be President if they had voting power. They fought a dictator once, and they wouldn't allow one to take over their country. Sadly, so many are gone that we've started to forget.

[47of74]

[mention=21952]47of74[/mention], Exactly. The Greatest Generation (WW2) generation would never have allowed Trump to be President if they had voting power. They fought a dictator once, and they wouldn't allow one to take over their country. Sadly, so many are gone that we've started to forget.

My paternal Grandparents sure as hell wouldn't be down with the nuclear penis measuring that our and the North Korean idiots are doing.

Grandpa because he saw war first hand. And Grandma because her brother is MIA in Korea. I don't think she'd want any other families to go through all that.

[GreyhoundFan]

"With ‘fire and fury,’ Trump revives fears about his possession of nuclear codes"

Spoiler

As with most things Trump, the furor over the “fire and fury” has divided the nation in two — those who believe the president is a loose cannon, impulsively blurting whatever flits through his mind, and those who believe his inflammatory talk is a wily combination of politically savvy instincts and a gut-driven populism that simply aims to please.

When President Trump went off script Tuesday to deliver a startling threat to North Korea — “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen” — it was as if the nation relived the most lurid themes of the 2016 campaign in one chilling moment.

Last fall, Hillary Clinton’s ­campaign used as one of its final weapons a TV ad featuring a longtime nuclear missile launch officer who warned against voting for Trump: “I prayed that call would never come. Self-control may be all that keeps these missiles from firing.”

Then, quick-fire, a series of clips of Trump on the stump: “I would bomb the s--- out of them.” “I want to be unpredictable.” “I love war.”

“The thought of Donald Trump with nuclear weapons scares me to death,” Bruce Blair, the retired launch officer, says in the ad. “It should scare everyone.”

It very nearly did: Voters made clear last fall that they trusted Clinton vastly more than Trump on the use of nuclear weapons — by 57 percent to 31 percent in a Fox News poll in October, for example.

But Trump voters often said that their reasons for supporting him outweighed their sense that he could be dangerously impulsive — and they repeatedly expressed confidence that the national security apparatus would keep him in check.

Now, facing a reality test of that theory, Americans are coming to conclusions both predictable and surprising.

Trump’s critics tend to view his “fire and fury” threat as evidence of a president gone over the edge.

“Trump is fulfilling expectations of someone who lashes out dangerously at real and perceived challengers,” said Blair, who is now a research scholar at Princeton University. “He is raising the risk of a conflict that escalates to nuclear war. He has proven time and again to be . . . unable to apply a deft hand at diplomacy.”

But the president’s defenders see him working from the gut, with admirable instincts to protect the nation and take pride in American power.

Fred Doucette, a longtime Trump supporter who is assistant majority leader in New Hampshire’s House of Representatives, watched Trump’s appearance Tuesday. He was disappointed Trump didn’t declare a national emergency on opioid abuse but was pleased to hear the president deliver a strong message to North Korea.

“The president spoke in a language that Kim Jong Un understands — and, personally, I think they should follow up on that and show them that we mean business,” said Doucette, 52, a Navy veteran and retired firefighter and paramedic. “I assume the president spoke with his generals and his Cabinet first.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the president’s remarks were no harbinger of imminent nuclear war but rather tough talk designed to send Kim a clear message. “Americans should sleep well at night,” Tillerson said.

Doucette said he does exactly that. “When the phone rings at 3 a.m., I want Donald Trump to be the president that answers that phone call,” he said. “I sleep well at night with President Trump, very well.”

Last fall, 10 former Air Force nuclear launch officers issued an open letter warning that Trump “should not be entrusted with the nuclear launch codes . . . He has shown himself time and again to be easily baited and quick to lash out, dismissive of expert consultation and ill-informed of even basic military and international affairs.”

But on Wednesday, those officers were no longer united in their view of Trump.

“The reaction to this is not wholly rational,” said one of the signatories, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because his employer had not authorized him to speak publicly. “A lot of people are caught up on Trump the character — and he is erratic — without thinking about whether there’s historical precedent for this kind of language. I’m actually a little relieved that Trump is crawling inside the North Koreans’ helmets. I would not have chosen those words, but he did put the fear of God into them.”

But another of the former “missileers” said Trump’s fiery rhetoric was evidence of exactly what he had warned about last fall. “He speaks impulsively, and he acts impulsively, and I don’t know what restraints there are on President Trump,” said Mark Lussky, a retired lawyer who served on a missile combat crew from 1972 to 1976. “He doesn’t know how to back down on anything.”

At the core of the anxiety over Trump’s remarks is the worry that the president made his threat without consideration of what might follow. The sheet of paper he held in his hand was about opioid abuse, not the conflict with North Korea. Yet the White House was quick to issue assurances that, as press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, although Trump’s “words were his own . . . the tone and strength of the message were discussed beforehand” by Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and members of the National Security Council.

Presidents don’t usually improvise comments on global crises. “What would be ‘normal’ in the Bush or Obama or Clinton administrations would be for the combination of strategic communications people and policy people — including the national security adviser — to develop, in consultation with the State Department and the Defense Department, a messaging strategy with top lines that they felt the president needed to emphasize,” said a senior diplomat who served in all three administrations.

To many Trump critics, the president’s remarks were of a piece with what seems like a casual attitude toward wielding the unfathomable power of the United States’ arsenal. On the campaign trail, he said that any Iranian vessels that “make gestures at our people . . . will be shot out of the water.” Trump, who attended a military academy as a teenager and repeatedly avoided the draft for the Vietnam War, had hoped to add tanks and heavy military equipment to his inaugural parade in January but was overruled.

Trump was dining with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago in early April when he authorized an airstrike on a Syrian airstrip. As he later described the moment, “We’re now having dessert. And we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen, and President Xi was enjoying it. And I was given the message from the generals that the ships are locked and loaded, what do you do? And we made a determination to do it, so the missiles were on the way.”

The Clinton campaign ran ads focused on Trump as commander in chief throughout October, including one spot that showed Trump asking, “Why can’t we use nuclear weapons?”

“One of the great concerns voters had, particularly independent voters, was the threat of somebody that impulsive, that erratic, that unprepared, having control over the nuclear codes,” said Jim Margolis, the campaign’s media adviser.

Some of those voters acknowledged Trump’s erraticism yet voted for him anyway.

“There may have been a presumption that if elected, Trump would settle down, become more presidential, less crazy in his taunts, and that the cocoon of security advisers around him would keep him in check,” Margolis said. “Clearly, that presumption was wrong.”

Another anti-Trump spot, made by a super PAC run by former senator Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), targeted Ohio voters and evoked the famous 1964 “Daisy” ad for President Lyndon B. Johnson that capi­tal­ized on fears that his Republican challenger, Barry Goldwater, was too reckless to be trusted with nuclear codes.

Bradley’s ad showed the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb detonating, and it showed TV host Chris Matthews telling Trump that “nobody wants to hear” a presidential candidate talk about using nuclear weapons.

“Then why are we making them?” Trump replies.

Doucette is an idiot.