Trump 25: Stephen King’s Next Horror Story

[Howl]

Trump AGAIN insulted the intelligence community. #Sad # Stupid.  Putin tells Trump he (Putin) didn't interfere with the election.  Trump wets his pants with happiness and kisses Putin's hand.  Now back to the really important stuff:  Where the hell are the three million missing votes?

Anyway, back in January, 2017, the CIA, FBI and NSA came to this conclusion:

We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. 

Trump:  "I mean, give me a break, they are political hacks, so you look at it, I mean, you have [former CIA Director John] Brennan, you have [former Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper and you have [former FBI Director Jim] Comey. Comey is proven now to be a liar and he is proven now to be a leaker.  So you look at that and you have President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he had nothing to do with them [sic]."

At this point, my WTF meter is permanently pegged in the red zone and smoke is coming out of the gauge.  Technically, this should be in the Russia thread, but it's all the same now.   Putin must have so much sexual and financial kompromat on Trump, it must be its own damn division within the Russian intelligence division.  OR  Trump is pathetically flattered that Vlad chose him as the elect, and as a narcissist, he sees Putin as the ultimate source of flattery for his insatiable ego --  or (likely) both!  Another aspect may be that Putin has promised  something to Trump that would make Trump rich beyond his wildest dreams of avarice. 

[GreyhoundFan]

8 hours ago, candygirl200413 said:

*proceeds to drink all the vodka I can get my hands on*

I am measuring my balcony to see if there is room for a still, so I can just manufacture my own adult beverages and save money.

 

 

[fraurosena]

 

 

[onekidanddone]

13 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Oh my, he's really found his twitterthumbs in the night again. 

My first reaction:

Ugh. Enough already with the Russia love. Yuk. We know you had some time together with your crush, Putin. You don't have to gush about it on twitter like a schoolgirl. Blech!

My second reaction:

Where exactly are always playing politics?

My third reaction:

Asshat, when you're a politician, you are by definition always surrounded by politics. Stop complaining about it, you fucking chose to be in this role. 

My reactions:

He is as fucking  incoherent as always. "There always playing politics" What the fuck does that even mean? YOU are the fucking President that is what Presents DO they are politicians.  "I want to solve North Korea....." Huh? 'Solve'?  Solve what? All these countries are different and pose different problems.  Lastly, is he America First or is he global?  Because it seems as if  wants to some nation building here. I will never understand how people can read these and think he is not insane or suffering from some kind of brain disorder.   Don't get me started on the tweet saying he and NK leader can be friends and how he won't call Kim "fat".  Wonder what Sean Shit For Brains is going to say about this.  What kind of an ass is  he going to make of himself defending tis weekends tweets.

I suppose I could go to Twitter and read responses to TT spew, but I just can't deal.

[GreyhoundFan]

Another completely unqualified nominee: "He has never tried a case, but Trump wants to make him judge for life"

Spoiler

Brett Talley, a 36-year-old lawyer whom President Trump nominated for a lifetime federal judgeship, has practiced law for only three years and has yet to try a case.

Before his nomination in September, he had been unequivocal about his political views. “Hillary Rotten Clinton might be the best Trumpism yet,” says a tweet from his account, which has since been made private. “A Call to Arms: It’s Time to Join the National Rifle Association” was the title of a blog post he wrote in January 2013, a month after a gunman in Newtown, Conn., killed 27 people before taking his own life.

Talley, who also writes horror novels on the side, moved a step closer to becoming a federal district judge in his home state of Alabama on Thursday. Voting along party lines, the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which Republicans outnumber Democrats, approved Talley’s nomination, which now goes to the Senate for a full vote.

Talley is the latest federal judicial nominee to draw scrutiny for what some say is his limited experience in practicing law and the level of partisanship he had shown on social media, on his political blog and on several opinion pieces he had written for CNN. He has also received a “not qualified” rating from the American Bar Association, which vets federal judicial nominees.

The vote on Talley’s nomination comes as Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) continue to intensify efforts to place conservative jurists, some of whom are young, on the federal bench. As Trump said as he stood next to McConnell during a news conference in October, the judicial nominations are the “untold” success stories of his presidency.

“Nobody wants to talk about it. But when you think about it, Mitch and I were saying, that has consequences 40 years out, depending on the age of the judge, but 40 years out,” Trump said. “So numerous have been approved. Many, many are in the pipeline. The level of quality is extraordinary.”

In a statement defending Talley’s nomination, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he does not believe “extensive trial experience” is the only factor in deciding on a nominee’s qualifications.

“Mr. Talley has a wide breadth of various legal experience that has helped to expose him to different aspects of federal law and the issues that would come before him,” Grassley said.

Talley graduated from Harvard Law School in 2007. Shortly after, he became a law clerk in Alabama, spending two years in a federal district court and another two at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. He worked as a political speechwriter for three years, first for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012 and then for Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) from 2013 to 2015.

In April 2015, Talley became an Alabama deputy solicitor general, a position he held for nearly two years until he became deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department in January.

Talley’s lack of experience in the courtroom and his partisan commentaries, however, were repeatedly questioned by Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.

“Your overall qualifications and preparation for becoming a lifetime-appointed federal judge are a concern to me,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said, according to her written questions to Talley.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) did not mince words, asking questions like: “How can you claim to be qualified for a lifetime appointment to supervise federal trials on a daily basis when you have never yourself tried a single case?” and “Do you think it is advisable to put people with literally no trial experience on the federal district court bench?”

In response, Talley said he had previously argued motions in federal district court on behalf of the state of Alabama, often through written briefs than in person. He also said he had argued cases before the 11th Circuit appeals court and the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals.

Talley said it would be “inappropriate” for him to comment on the decision to recommend him for the federal bench — a decision made by two U.S. senators from Alabama, Richard C. Shelby and Luther Strange.

“Federal judges come to the bench from a variety of legal backgrounds, each with something to learn and something to contribute,” Talley wrote. “I have worked in all three branches of the federal government, in state government, and in private practice.”

In his previous job in Alabama, he said, he was “one of the highest-ranking lawyers in the state, handling the most sensitive and most important legal matters Alabama faced.”

Feinstein, the top Democrat on the committee, also spent a good portion of her 14-page questionnaire asking Talley about partisan statements he’d made in the past, including tweets such as:

“The press cares when you lie to the American people. Unless you are @HillaryClinton #LochteGate”

“The worst part of #NeverTrump is that they are helping Hillary win the election. Their self-righteousness while doing it is a close second.”

Talley had written political commentaries for CNN, including a 2016 article in which he said Clinton “has committed acts that would have resulted in the prosecution of ordinary citizens.” In the blog post in which he called on his readers to join the NRA, he criticized gun-control advocates, who, he said, “have exploited” the Newtown mass shooting to advance an agenda to strip people of their Second Amendment rights.

“These politicians either do not know or do not care that an armed, responsible citizenry is the last and greatest bulwark against tyranny that a nation can have,” Talley wrote in his blog, Government in Exile. “They certainly do not care about our right to bear arms, enshrined in the Constitution and reaffirmed by recent Supreme Court rulings.”

Talley said the post was meant to attract opposing views and encourage constructive discussion. He also said that he would recuse himself in cases in which his impartiality is questioned, as required by federal statute, and that his personal views on the Second Amendment and other issues “will have no bearing on how I would rule in a case.”

“Rather, I would be duty-bound to apply relevant Supreme Court and circuit precedent to the facts before me,” he wrote.

Talley is one of five judicial nominees whom the Judiciary Committee approved Thursday.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights questioned his ability to be fair, particularly in presiding over cases with political overtones.

“Brett Talley is entirely unqualified for a federal judgeship because he lacks the breadth and depth of experience necessary for the job, and he has demonstrated ideologically extreme views that call into question his temperament and judgment,” Vanita Gupta, president and chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement.

In a Tuesday letter to Grassley and Feinstein, the American Bar Association did not raise questions about Talley’s temperament but said his lack of trial experience was a concern.

Carrie Severino, counsel for the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, criticized the American Bar Association, saying the group is not a nonpartisan organization.

“The ABA is a liberal interest group. They have a long history of giving lower ratings to Republican nominees,” she told the Los Angeles Times.

The bar association gave a “not qualified” rating to four Trump judicial picks. Two, Talley and Leonard Steven Grasz, an Omaha lawyer nominated to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, were unanimously deemed to be unqualified. Two others, Charles Goodwin and Holly Teeter, nominees for federal district judgeship in Oklahoma and Kansas, respectively, were rated as “not qualified” in a split decision.

Previously, the association, which has been vetting judicial candidates since 1989, unanimously rated only two other judicial candidates as unqualified, both of whom were nominated by then-President George W. Bush.

Another Trump judicial nominee, Jeff Mateer, attracted controversy over earlier speeches in which he said transgender children are proof that “Satan’s plan is working,” described same-sex marriage as a harbinger for “disgusting” practices such as polygamy and bestiality, and advocated conversion therapy. He also had previously admitted discriminating based on sexual orientation.

This makes me nauseous. He's going to get a free pass by the Repugs in the Senate, and we'll be stuck with him for the next 40 years.

[JMarie]

On 11/11/2017 at 8:18 PM, Cartmann99 said:

Isn't this where the mom tells the boys to quit squabbling, or nobody gets ice cream? 

"I try so hard to be his friend"?  A grown-up wrote this?  A grown-up who is also the President?  Seriously?  It sounds like something from a Lifetime movie, right before the psycho roommate/girlfriend/coworker begins lunging at the others with a kitchen knife.

[fraurosena]

What-the-actual-fuck!?!  

 

The presidunce requested Duterte to sing a love song for him. And Duterte complied. 

[GreyhoundFan]

An interesting perspective piece from the WaPo: "Trump sounds ignorant of history. But racist ideas often masquerade as ignorance."

Spoiler

The racial story is often told from assuming lips.

All year, that story has been told from the prevailing assumption that President Trump, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and other allies of the Trump administration who have rhetorically rewrote the Civil War are “startlingly ignorant” about American history — not to mention the American present.

The latest backlash and accusations of ignorance came in response to Kelly saying on Fox News last month that “the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War.” There were “men and women of good faith on both sides,” including the “honorable” Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, Kelly said. The next day, Sanders gave her defense of Kelly during a news briefing. “There’s pretty strong consensus” that “a failure of compromise” sparked the Civil War. Defenders of Confederates and their statues rallied all year long from Charlottesville to Knoxville, from the White House to the defeated gubernatorial campaign of Ed Gillespie.

“Not a good day for Sarah Huckabee Sanders or the places that taught her history (looking at you Central High and Ouachita Baptist),” an Arkansas editor mourned in her home state. “Kelly’s understanding of American history and the Civil War is piss-poor and willfully ignorant,” a Salon writer raged.

Historians have been no less troubled about “this profound ignorance,” as Yale historian David Blight termed it. Likewise politicians. Rep. Cedric L. Richmond (D-La.), head of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Kelly “needs a history lesson.”

But what if they are not the ignorant ones? What if we are the ignorant ones, for assuming they are ignorant? What if the real “national crisis” is not Trump’s ignorance, but rather our own ignorance of how racist ideas propagate themselves in American society?

I say we, because I instinctively think Trump and his officials are ignorant about race. But then I remember America’s enduring racial history — the Civil War and all those other bloody conflicts for unrestricted slaveholders’ rights and discriminators’ rights that have been covered up with post-racial pictures of honorable all-Americans striving for “states’ rights” and “law and order.”

Ignorance is the byproduct of the racist coverup, not the source. The Trumps of the political past and present conceal slavery and discrimination with their messaging out of political self-interest, not ignorance. They know that uncomfortable racial history. They repeat it as otherwise well-meaning Americans cringe and avoid it.

It is comforting to assume that Sen. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina was ignorant when in 1837 he characterized slavery as a “good — a positive good.” It is comforting to assume that Sen. (and future Confederate president) Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was ignorant when he said in 1860 that the “inequality of the white and black races” was “stamped from the beginning.” It is comforting to assume that Sen. Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi was ignorant when he claimed in 1938 that an anti-lynching bill would increase black-on-white rape “a thousandfold.” It is comforting to assume that Trump is ignorant when he fumes about voter fraud, when he ignores climate change and condones police violence, when he asks about the Civil War: “Why could that one not have been worked out?”

We do not know what Sanders and Kelly and Trump really understand about U.S. history, any more than we know what the figures from the past whose line they’re pushing today knew. We only know what they say. We assume since what they say is ignorant that they themselves are ignorant; that their comments spring from a well of ignorance.

And the backlash against that presumed ignorance energizes education as the solvent. Knowledgeable historians and commentators jumped to tell the Trump administration about all those whipping compromises on — and of — black bodies, from three-fifths of “all other persons” in the 1787 Constitution to zero-fifths of a citizen in the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott ruling. We reminded Trump what President-elect Abraham Lincoln told a North Carolina congressman on Dec. 15, 1860: “You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted.” We asked Kelly: How were Confederates of “good faith” when they caused the bloodiest war in U.S. history to ensure that their slaveholding rights would never be restricted? We informed Sanders that the Confederacy was only willing to compromise on a new constitution founded “upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition,” as Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens outlined March 21, 1861, as he still proclaims from his defended statue in the U.S. Capitol.

We keep sharing facts for a Trump administration that is broadcasting alternative facts and does not seem to care about the truth. We keep writing up history for a Trump administration that is writing an alternative history and does not seem to care about the real past. We keep wondering why Trump officials are so ignorant when we should be asking: Why is the White House writing into existence an alternative history with alternative facts about the Civil War?

What is the Trump administration’s political motive for reproducing false ideas that make Americans ignorant about their history? Why did Texas conservatives adopt a social studies curriculum that ranks “sectionalism, states’ rights and slavery” as the causes of the Civil War, thereby marginalizing slavery? Who is this history directed toward? What purpose does it serve?

Are Trump officials seeking to disrupt our conceptions of historical right and wrong to make the current, Trump-supporting defenders of the Confederacy feel they are right and not wrong? Are they seeking to inflame condescension in Trump’s smarter-than-thou opponents, while they present Trump the billionaire as one with the ignorant people? And why are Trump critics expecting Trump to describe a substantial part of his coalition — and their Confederate heroes — as bad people?

Revising racial history for the political present is an American pastime. Slaveholders and their historians claimed the “Negro-Races” had always “been Servants and Slaves, always distinct from, and subject to, the Caucasian,” as pioneering Egyptologist George R. Gliddon wrote to Calhoun. “The friendliness that existed between the master and slave … has survived war,” proclaimed Atlanta Constitution editor Henry W. Grady in his 1890 propagandizing of the “separate but equal” New South. In 1956, 101 members of Congress signed the Southern Manifesto that charged the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling for “destroying the amicable relations between the white and Negro races that have been created through 90 years of patient effort.” The historical line still goes that the civil rights movement destroyed the amicable relations, like the Civil War then, like the #BlackLivesMatter movement today.

No one outside of the White House knows what animates Trump’s fascination with rewriting Civil War history. But we will never know if we don’t ask the question; if we assume Trump officials are rewriting from the pen of ignorance.

With murders we seek out the motives. Why don’t we seek out the motive whenever Trump murders the truth?

What racist Americans say from their bully pulpits should not interest antiracists as much as why they say what they say. Who are they trying to attract or manipulate? What discriminatory policies are they trying to conceal?

American ignorance does not rein in the White House. The White House reigns over American ignorance.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

John Oliver's season finale focused on the dumpster fire that is this administration:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

How very true: "Trump’s real constituency isn’t the white working class at all"

Spoiler

The focus on President Trump’s political strength among white working-class voters distracts from a truth that may be more important: His rise depended on support from rich conservatives, and his program serves the interests of those who have accumulated enormous wealth.

This explains why so few congressional Republicans denounce him, no matter how close he edges toward autocracy, how much bigotry he spreads — or how often he panders to Vladimir Putin and denounces our own intelligence officials, as he did again this weekend.

The GOP leadership knows Trump is tilting our economy toward people just like him, the objective they care about most.

To borrow from the president, he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and still not lose House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) as long as they have a reactionary tax bill to push into law.

Last Tuesday’s elections demonstrated how fed up large parts of the nation are with Trump and how mobilized his opponents have become. The returns ratified polls showing the overwhelming majority of Americans rejecting his stewardship.

Rather than just celebrate the good news, Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans should move next to undermine Trump’s key asset. He needs to be exposed as a fraud whenever he says he has the backs of the “forgotten men and women” whose living standards have been shattered in the new economy.

Admittedly, doing this will be harder for conservatives than for progressives. After all, many conservatives have defended trickle-down economics for decades. But there is a wing of conservatism that has criticized the GOP for exploiting the votes of working-class Americans for years, even before Trump, while delivering them a whole lot of nothing.

This was the argument of the 2008 book “Grand New Party” by Ross Douthat, now a New York Times columnist, and Reihan Salam, an independent-minded conservative policy analyst. They proposed that Republicans become “the party of Sam’s Club.” But the existing party’s tax proposals confirm that the GOP is the party of Prada. And Prada may be a trifle downscale to capture the radical redistribution upward that these tax cuts would bring about. It is Exhibit A for how far Trump and his party will go to entrench an economic oligarchy.

Trump’s willingness to help Republican leaders pay off their largest contributors is the clearest explanation for why they debase themselves through their complicity with him. If you think this is harsh, consider the words of Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.): “My donors are basically saying, ‘Get this done or don’t ever call me again.’ ”

I bet they are.

As Gary Cohn, Trump’s top economic adviser, told CNBC’s John Harwood: “The most excited group out there are big CEOs, about our tax plan.”

They should be. The bills now before the House and Senate don’t simply favor the well-off over the middle class and the poor. They advantage certain kinds of extremely rich people over Americans who work for salaries and wages, including some rather affluent people who draw those old-fashioned things called paychecks. Even Karl Marx would be astonished at how far Republicans are willing to go to benefit capital over labor.

All sorts of deductions used by the middle and upper-middle classes are being thrown over the side to pay for a cut in the nominal corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, which is especially helpful to the biggest stockholders — and, in the House version, to relieve those struggling millionaire and billionaire heirs and heiresses from the horrible burdens of the estate tax. (The Senate version would reduce but not eliminate the tax.)

Repealing various tax breaks might be justified if these proposals actually simplified the tax code to make it fairer. But in many ways, this concoction makes the code even more complex with all its special provisions for “pass-through” income and the like. That’s another big lie in this deal: The GOP never cared about simplification. It just wants to further the interests of its flushest friends.

Oh, yes, and Republicans, who would demand that Hillary Clinton disclose every penny of her high school earnings from lawn mowing or babysitting, won’t think of asking Trump to release his tax returns so we can know how many benefits he might sign into law for himself.

The Trump regime is not all that innovative. It hides its policies behind divisive rhetoric about kneeling National Football League players — NFL owners would profit from the bill, by the way — and immigrants. This is the sort of thing right-wing authoritarians have done for decades. It never turns out well.

 

[AnywhereButHere]

A commentator on MSNBC this morning called Trump the "cheapest date on the international stage". It's true. In China, they showed him the Forbidden City and fed him, Duterte serenaded him (gag), Putin snarkily strokes him (idiot misses the snark of course), and let's not forget the glowing orb ceremony, and he gives away the store. So much for grand negotiating skills. Unless we're considering the sandbox negotiation of calling someone "short and fat". Because that worked so well in Kindergarten.

[Rachel333]

So Donald Trump Jr e-mailed with wikileaks. From The Atlantic,

Quote

“Hey Don. We have an unusual idea,” Wikileaks wrote on October 21, 2016. “Leak us one or more of your father’s tax returns.” Wikileaks then laid out three reasons why this would benefit both the Trumps and Wikileaks. One, The New York Times had already published a fragment of Trump’s tax returns on October 1; two, the rest could come out any time “through the most biased source (e.g. NYT/MSNBC).”

It is the third reason, though, Wikileaks wrote, that “is the real kicker.” “If we publish them it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality,” Wikileaks explained. “That means that the vast amount of stuff that we are publishing on Clinton will have much higher impact, because it won’t be perceived as coming from a ‘pro-Trump’ ‘pro-Russia’ source.” It then provided an email address and link where the Trump campaign could send the tax returns, and adds, “The same for any other negative stuff (documents, recordings) that you think has a decent chance of coming out. Let us put it out.”

Trump had to know about this, and even if he says he didn't he can't claim that he didn't even know his own son the way he has distanced himself from people like Papadopoulos.

[GreyhoundFan]

"The clown goes abroad"

Spoiler

We are running a terribly unwise experiment: What happens when you replace U.S. presidential leadership with the slapstick antics of a clown?

On Saturday, President Trump issued the following statement: “Why would Kim Jong Un insult me by calling me ‘old,’ when I would NEVER call him ‘short and fat?’ Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend — and maybe someday that will happen!”

There is a natural tendency to become inured to Trump’s gushing stream of nonsense. Resist the urge. Read that statement again. The president of the United States, in the midst of a trip to Asia, taunted the nuclear-armed dictator of North Korea in a manner most sixth-graders would consider juvenile.

There was a time when the world looked to the U.S. president to speak clearly in defense of freedom, democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights. I refer to the entirety of modern U.S. history before January, when Trump assumed the high office he now dishonors.

His Asia tour has been at times a disaster, at times a farce. What was the most shameful moment? Perhaps when he announced that he has a “great relationship” with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has encouraged police and vigilantes to fight the trade in illegal drugs by assassinating suspected traffickers without the bother of arrests or trials. At least 7,000 and perhaps as many as 13,000 people have been slain.

The White House claimed that human rights came up “briefly” in a private meeting between the two leaders, but Duterte said it didn’t come up at all. In fact, during a gala dinner, the buffoonish Duterte serenaded Trump with a Philippine ballad that includes the lyric, “You are the love I’ve been waiting for.”

The spectacle was simply appalling. One might argue, however, that Trump’s kowtowing to Russian President Vladimir Putin was even worse.

The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that the Russian government directed a multipronged campaign to meddle in the 2016 election, with the aim of helping Trump win. Putin denies having committed this hostile act, and Trump, for some reason, takes the former KGB officer at his word.

“He said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One, flying over Vietnam from Danang to Hanoi. “Every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that.’ And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it.”

Putin’s office claimed that Trump didn’t raise the issue at all. It is astounding that we have to wonder whether the White House or the Kremlin is telling the truth.

Unbelievably, Trump described former U.S. officials who say Putin is lying — fired FBI director James B. Comey, former CIA director John Brennan and former director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. — as “political hacks.” Trump later said grudgingly that he has confidence in U.S. intelligence agencies “as currently constituted” — now that they are led by Trump appointees.

Someday we will learn why Trump, usually so full of bluster, becomes as deferential as a puppy dog whenever he’s around Putin. Maybe special counsel Robert S. Mueller III will provide the answer.

It is reasonable to assume that all the governments whose leaders Trump encountered during the trip have consulted psychologists for advice on how to push Trump’s buttons. The host nations all came up with the same answer: pomp and circumstance.

“It was red carpet like nobody, I think, has probably ever seen,” Trump said — ridiculously — of the overall welcome he received. And yes, there were red carpets everywhere. And glittering banquets. And opportunities to review the troops.

Chinese President Xi Jinping laid it on thickest, personally taking Trump and the first lady on a tour of the Forbidden City and hosting a state dinner — Trump called it “state-plus-plus” — in the cavernous Great Hall of the People. Xi clearly understands how much Trump loves flattery and ceremony, as opposed to substance.

Meanwhile, as Trump incomprehensibly pursues a policy of “America first” neo-isolationism — refusing even to adequately staff the U.S. diplomatic corps — China moves globally to fill the vacuum. Japan and South Korea wonder whether the U.S. nuclear umbrella still protects them. And the nations Trump abandoned when he nixed the Trans-Pacific Partnership have moved forward to form a trade pact of their own — without us.

This is what happens when a very big nation is led by a very small man.

I'm just shaking my head that the TT was sent abroad to "represent" us. A third grader would have done a better job.

[GreyhoundFan]

I love Dana Milbank: "An absolutely not-made-up dossier on Trump’s early years"

Spoiler

“I just asked him again, and he said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they’re saying he did. . . . I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it. . . . I think he’s very insulted by it, if you want to know the truth. . . . I think that he is very, very strong in the fact that he didn’t do it. . . . President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he had nothing to do with that.”

That was President Trump on Saturday, defending Russian President Vladi­mir Putin against the unanimous view of the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in the U.S. elections.

Though Trump later claimed he was only relaying Putin’s thoughts, he made it pretty clear that he sides with the Russian leader against “political hacks” from U.S. intelligence agencies behind “this Democratic-inspired thing.”

The obvious conclusion: Trump knows full well that Russia meddled, but he’s worried the special counsel’s investigation, which has already ensnared Trump campaign aides, will implicate him. But there’s another explanation: Maybe the president of the United States is just incredibly credulous.

We already know Trump has a tendency to repeat the last thing he heard, and he has a well-documented history of believing all kinds of cockamamie theories. What if it’s not just that he’s being “played” by Putin, as former intelligence officials say, but that he’s a willing organ?

The following dossier on Donald Trump’s early years was given to me Monday by a man on a park bench in Lafayette Square. The man said he absolutely did not make up these events and exchanges. I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it. He did not do what you’re thinking he did. I think he’s very insulted by it, if you want to know the truth.

Source A reports that, as a young boy at Madam Dowdy’s Primary School for the Very Rich, Donald did not accept the unanimous view of the other children that Santa Claus did not exist — even though many children had caught parents and servants putting gifts under the tree. Donald spoke with his chief governess and reported back to the children: “She is very, very strong in the fact that she didn’t put gifts under the tree. I believe that when she says that she meant it.”

Source B reports that, as a teenager at New York’s Academy for the Affluent and Bonespur Military Prep, Donald was unlucky with the ladies. They would frequently decline when he asked them on a date, or a second date. Donald told friends he accepted what the girls told him: “She said it’s her, not me. She said she just doesn’t have time for a relationship right now. I really believe that when she tells me that, she means it.”

Multiple sources report that in freshman year of college, Trump got a C on his final history paper when he argued that “the Greeks told the Trojans they absolutely did not have warriors in the horse. I really believe that when they said it was just a peace offering, they meant it.”

Source C has learned that Trump, even as he pursued his career in real estate, continued to insert himself when he felt that a public figure was not being granted proper credulity. He wrote to the Watergate select committee: “The president very strongly, vehemently says he had nothing to do with the break-in. I think he is very, very strong in the fact that he didn’t do it.”

Later, after the O.J. Simpson trial, Trump argued: “I really believe that when he says he wants to find the real killer, he means it. I think he’s very insulted by people saying he did it, if you want to know the truth.”

Trump, Source C continues, even offered to defend Bill Clinton during impeachment proceedings: “He said he did not inhale. He said he did not have sexual relations. I really believe that when he says that he means it.”

Trump was so shocked to learn in 1998 that Clinton did not really believe those things that he was momentarily lost, and he began to rethink his innate credulity. But, as luck would have it, his timing was perfect: A former KGB officer who was about to become president of Russia would restore Trump’s faith in humanity.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"President Trump has made 1,628 false or misleading claims over 298 days"

Spoiler

For some reason, our year-long project analyzing, categorizing and tracking every false or misleading claim by President Trump had seemed like quite a burden in the past month. Well, the numbers are in and now we know why: In the past 35 days, Trump has averaged an astonishing nine claims a day.

The total now stands at 1,628 claims in 298 days, or an average of 5.5 claims a day. That puts the president on track to reach 1,999 claims by the end of his first year in office, though he obviously would easily exceed 2,000 if he maintained the pace of the past month. (Our full interactive graphic can be found here.)

As regular readers know, the president has a tendency to repeat himself — often. There are now at least 50 claims that he has repeated three or more times.

Trump’s most repeated claim, uttered 60 times, was some variation of the statement that the Affordable Care Act is dying and “essentially dead.” The Congressional Budget Office has said that the Obamacare exchanges, despite well-documented issues, are not imploding and are expected to remain stable for the foreseeable future. Indeed, healthy enrollment for the coming year has surprised health-care experts.

Trump also repeatedly takes credit for events or business decisions that happened before he took the oath of office — or had even been elected. Fifty-five times, he has touted that he secured business investments and job announcements that had been previously announced and could easily be found with a Google search.

But with the push in Congress to pass a tax plan, two of Trump’s favorite talking points about taxes — that the tax plan will be the biggest tax cut in U.S. history and that the United States is one of the highest-taxed nations — have been moving up the list.

Trump repeated the falsehood about having the biggest tax cut 40 times, even though Treasury Department data shows it would only rank eighth. And 50 times Trump has claimed that the United States pays the highest corporate taxes (19 times) or that it is one of the highest-taxed nations (31 times). The latter is false; the former is misleading, as the effective U.S. corporate tax rate (what companies end up paying after deductions and benefits) ends up being lower than the statutory tax rate.

We also track the president’s flip-flops on our list, as they are so glaring. He spent the 2016 campaign telling supporters that the unemployment rate was really 42 percent and the official statistics were phony; now, on 33 occasions he has hailed the lowest unemployment rate in 17 years. It was already very low when he was elected — 4.6 percent, the lowest in a decade — so his failure to acknowledge that is misleading.

Fifty-seven times, Trump has celebrated a rise in the stock market — even though in the campaign he repeatedly said it was a “bubble” that was ready to crash as soon as the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates. Well, the Fed did raise rates three times since the election — and yet it has not plunged as Trump predicted. It has continued a rise in stock prices that began under Barack Obama in 2009.

Again, the president has never explained his shift in position on the stock market. But he couldn’t stop talking about it during his trip to Asia.

We maintain the database by closely reading or watching Trump’s myriad public appearances and television and radio interviews. The interviews are especially hard to keep up with, in part because the White House does not routinely post on them on its website. Moreover, Trump tends to seek out right-leaning interviewers who rarely challenge him or question him when he repeats false claims that have already been fact-checked. The interviews thus often contain a torrent of misleading claims, and we despair that supposed journalists are not confronting the president about his rhetoric.

So we were amused to see a foreign leader fact-check the president on his Asian trip. On Nov. 13, Trump met with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe when he started to repeat one of his favorite false claims that the United States has “deficits with almost everybody.”

“Except us,” interjected Turnbull.

“Except with you,” Trump agreed, adding: “You’re the only one.” He then suggested he should check the figures, but Turnbull assured him, “It’s real.”

Indeed, the United States has a goods trade surplus of $13 billion and services trade surpluses of $15 billion with Australia, largely because of a Free Trade Agreement, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

We assume Trump was joking when he said Australia was the “only one.” But for the record, the United States also has trade surpluses with the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Belgium, Singapore, Hong Kong, Chile, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries, according to the International Trade Commission.

I think this should be part of the presidential seal for the TT:

[GreyhoundFan]

This is a good analysis: "Trump’s Asia trip was mostly free of incidents — until it wasn’t"

Spoiler

MANILA — President Trump departed for a five-country, 12-day swing through Asia facing one overarching question: Could he avoid what The Onion satirical website jokingly predicted would be a “bizarre, easily avoidable international incident”?

The answer, it turned out, was no.

After an eight-day stretch of mostly good behavior, Trump wandered off script this past weekend in Vietnam as he headed into the final leg of his visit. Chatting with reporters on board Air Force One, the president suggested that he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assertions that Russia had not meddled in the 2016 presidential elections and, on foreign soil, disparaged three former U.S. intelligence agency heads as “political hacks.”

The next day, Trump took to Twitter to criticize the “haters and fools” who dared to question his attempts to improve relations with Russia and antagonized North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by essentially calling him “short and fat” in another tweet.

In many ways, the president is similar to a tea kettle, with an almost physical need to let off steam after a period of contained pressure — and White House aides are now largely resigned to his periodic eruptions. So as Trump departed from his team’s carefully laid plans, senior administration officials presented a public face of calm.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not flinch when Trump began recounting Putin’s denials to the White House press corps — “I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it,” the president said — and no one from the West Wing made any effort the explain or clarify his initial remarks. 

In a news conference the next day, however, Trump was asked exactly what he meant, and explained that he ultimately believes his own intelligence agencies — which have concluded Russia did, indeed, meddle — over Putin’s claims to the contrary. 

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, meanwhile, all but shrugged when asked about Trump’s tweet insulting Kim with schoolyard taunts, saying that Trump alone “put it out.”

“They are what they are,” Kelly said of the tweets. “But like, you know in preparation for this trip, we did the staff work, got him ready to go and then at each place we brief him up on whatever the next event is and all that. The tweets don’t run my life — good staff work runs it.”

And in fact, for the better part of the president’s trip through the region, staff work did seem to win out. 

The Trump that the five nations encountered, especially initially, was something of a Trump-lite — a more polite, restrained version of the leader he often presents back home. It was the result, perhaps, of some combination of travel-induced exhaustion, savvy flattery on the part of the Asian leaders and a visit carefully choreographed by White House aides to leave little down time for mischief-making. 

With national security adviser H.R. McMaster taking the lead, Trump’s staff briefed him in the run-up to the trip, and then used the flights between countries to focus him again on his upcoming meetings and objectives, walking him through everything from who he’d be meeting with to what his goals were, White House officials said.

Trump himself largely played the role of honored and delighted tourist. He autographed a white-and-gold “Make Alliance Even Greater” hat in Japan; shook hands with Putin while gamely donning a midnight-blue silk shirt in Vietnam, in keeping with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit tradition; and engaged in an even more elaborate group handshake at Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in the Philippines, with unintentionally comedic results.

Here in Manila, Trump seemed briefly befuddled by the traditional group handshake, which required the leaders to cross their right arm over their left and grip the hands of their fellow participants on both sides. Photos from the moment depict the president struggling to perform the ritual, before finally straining to reach the hand of the far shorter Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on his left and completing the greeting with a wincing grimace. 

But Trump mostly acted the good sport, in part because his trip was greased by Asian leaders all playing to his ego and his fondness for grand gestures.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe organized a day of golf for Trump, serving him an American burger in the Kasumigaseki clubhouse before nine holes. The two men then hit the green with Hideki Matsuyama, a world-ranked Japanese golfer, and photographers captured a relaxed Trump waving from his golf cart and bestowing Abe with a fist bump.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, meanwhile, treated Trump to a state dinner he said was in celebration of “the first anniversary of President Trump’s victory,” and featured painstaking native touches — ancient 360-year-old soy sauce, chocolate-covered persimmons personally picked and dried by South Korea’s first lady, and black tea with hydrangeas harvested from the mountain village where the country will host the 2018 Winter Olympics. 

“President Trump’s election victory one year ago is already making America great again,” Moon said, echoing Trump’s campaign slogan. 

And Chinese President Xi Jinping similarly dazzled Trump with what he dubbed a “state visit plus” — “He actually said, ‘state-plus-plus,’ which is very interesting,” Trump gushed later — that included a Peking opera performance (scenes from “The Monkey King” and “A Tipsy Beauty”), a military honor guard welcome ceremony, and cannon fire. 

Trump, then, responded in kind, heaping praise back on his host nations. 

When asked by reporters about an embarrassing tumble Abe took into a sand trap during their afternoon of golf, Trump said he had not witnessed the fall in real time. And though he did watch the aerial footage later, he said he told the Japanese prime minister he couldn’t be sure it was him — though if it was, he was simply impressed with Abe’s acrobatics.

“I said, ‘I will not ask if that’s you, but if it was, I’m very impressed because you’re better than any gymnast I’ve ever seen,’ ” Trump recounted.

In China, Trump was similarly effusive, touting his “incredibly warm” feelings toward Xi and the “great chemistry” between the two men. He also marveled over his enthusiastic reception: “They say in the history of people coming to China, there’s been nothing like that,” Trump said. 

And despite repeatedly attacking China during his campaign and promising to label it a currency manipulator on the first day of his presidency, Trump refrained from pushing his hard line on trade while on Chinese soil, going so far as to say he didn’t blame China for taking advantage of the United States. 

He also acquiesced on Xi’s demand that the two men take no questions from reporters at a joint news conference — a win for the Communist leader, who has sought to limit free speech and the press in his country.

In Manila, on his penultimate day of the marathon swing, Trump declared it “a very fruitful trip,” saying the countries he’d visited had rolled out the “red carpet like, I think, probably nobody has ever received.”

“That really is a sense of respect, perhaps for me a little bit, but really for our country, and I’m very proud of that,” he said. 

Trump still displayed trademark flourishes but at times seemed to offer a more muted version of himself. He took evident relish in dumping a wooden box full of fish food into a Koi pond at a Japanese palace, even if he was following Abe’s lead, if less gracefully. 

He attempted a “surprise” trip to the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea but was thwarted by foggy weather, which forced the Marine One presidential helicopter to turn back. And he couldn’t help but plug his private golf course during a muscular foreign policy speech in Seoul to South Korea’s National Assembly that focused on the “menace” of North Korea.

“The women’s U.S. Open was held this year at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey and it just happened to be won by a great Korean golfer, Sung Hyun Park, and eight of the top 10 players were from Korea,” the president said, to appreciative laughter. “Congratulations. Now that’s something. That is really something.”

Even in the moments where Trump went rogue, like when he insulted North Korea’s leader on Twitter, he seemed willing to perform a complete about-face if given the opportunity. 

Asked at a news conference at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi about the second half of his Kim tweet, in which Trump lamented that he tries “so hard to be his friend,” the president said a friendship with the North Korean dictator was “certainly a possibility.” 

“Strange things happen in life,” Trump mused.

He might as well have been talking about his entire trip. 

"Strange things happen in life" Yes, they do. The strangest is that a toddler ascended to the presidency.

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

got him ready to go and then at each place we brief him up on whatever the next event is and all that.

OMG, it makes him sound like a dog prepping for a show. Are we waiting for Brandon from "Lucky Dog" to give him a green collar? He's never going to get there. But it is fun to picture him at the ranch with Brandon leading him around on a lease, trying to get him to heel.

[GreyhoundFan]

Interesting reading: "These are the GOP officials who have spent the most at Trump properties"

Spoiler

Since President Trump won last year’s election, his company — the Trump Organization — has experienced an increase in one particular line of business: hosting fundraisers and receptions for Republican lawmakers.

These events have mostly happened at Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington, which opened last year. The luxe hotel has a large ballroom, two smaller banquet rooms and a BLT Prime steakhouse. It was designed to attract campaign fundraisers, even if Trump had not won the White House.

He did. And Trump made the controversial decision to maintain ownership of his businesses as president, even as he handed day-to-day control to his adult sons.

That arrangement has made 2017 a fascinating experiment: How would the fundraising circuit change now that legislators had the option of spending their campaign dollars with an incumbent president?

Between Election Day 2016 and the end of September of this year, federal political committees reported paying at least $1.27 million to Trump entities, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

Not a dollar has come from any Democrats.

Among congressional Republicans, 40 have spent campaign or leadership PAC money at Trump properties, including the D.C. hotel and other hotels and golf clubs throughout the country. The Trump Organization declined to comment.

The president’s business has not upended the established fundraising business in Washington: GOP legislators, for instance, have still spent more campaign and PAC money at the Charlie Palmer steakhouse on Capitol Hill than at all the Trump properties in 2017.

Below are the 10 national Republican officials who have spent the most at Trump properties since Election Day 2016 — and the congressional candidate who has spent the most at the president’s venues.

President Trump

$534,864 spent at Trump-branded properties since Jan. 1, 2017

Among Republican politicians, Donald Trump’s best customer this year — by far — has been Donald Trump.

President Trump, who began fundraising for his 2020 reelection on Inauguration Day, has spent heavily at Trump Organization properties through his campaign and two affiliated committees since Jan. 1. His campaign has paid $482,371 for rent at Trump Tower in New York. It paid $22,700 for stays at the Trump hotel in D.C. It spent $2,596 on “office supplies” from Trump Ice, a bottled-water company.

In addition, the Republican National Committee spent $176,738 at Trump properties this year, including $122,000 to host a fundraiser headlined by the president at the Trump hotel in Washington in June.

Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Tex.)

$16,602 spent at Trump-branded properties since Election Day 2016

Arrington is a freshman representative from West Texas. In January, he held a reception in the Franklin Study, a meeting room at Trump’s D.C. hotel, for 100-plus supporters who had come to see Arrington be sworn in.

The Trump hotel “happened to offer the best combination of size, price point, along with a convenient and historic location,” said Kate McBrayer, a spokeswoman for Arrington.

Arrington’s campaign spent more than $16,000 on the reception. At the time, it set a record: the most expensive event ever held by another GOP politician at the new Trump hotel.

Ten months later, the record stands. No other GOP lawmaker has reported holding an event this expensive at Trump’s D.C. hotel.

Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.)

$15,221 spent at Trump-branded properties since Election Day 2016

This summer, MacArthur’s campaign paid to rent a room for a fundraiser at Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, N.J. The event’s headliner was Trump, who was spending the weekend at his home on the course.

MacArthur raised more than $700,000 at the event, according to news reports.

Just days after the fundraiser, Trump undercut MacArthur’s key legislative achievement — a House bill to repeal President Barack Obama’s health-care law — by publicly calling it “mean.” MacArthur’s staff did not respond to requests for comment.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.)

$12,545 spent at Trump-branded properties since Election Day 2016

In June, Rohrabacher held a fundraiser in the Franklin Study at Trump’s Washington hotel that drew about 75 people.

A video of the event, posted on Instagram, shows Rohrabacher talking about a major issue for him: marijuana legalization. “Why are we trying to ruin the lives of a million people because they had a . . . joint and ended up with criminal record?” Rohrabacher asked the crowd. His campaign paid for the event.

Joel Pitkin, a spokesman for Rohrabacher’s campaign, said the event raised about $100,000. He said the site was not chosen as a favor to Trump.

“Not because he’s the president but just because his hotels and his properties are set to a standard that is very elegant,” Pitkin said.

Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.)

$9,277 spent at Trump-branded properties since Election Day 2016

Shuster’s campaign committee spent a combined $9,277 at the D.C. hotel and its BLT Prime steakhouse in March, April and early May. Campaign finance filings say the expenditures were for “event catering,” “meeting expense” and “event facility rental.” It was not clear whether the payments were for a single event or multiple events.

A few weeks later, Trump lent his support to an idea that Shuster had been pushing for years — privatizing the U.S. air traffic control system. In an East Room ceremony, Trump signed a memo and a letter to Congress endorsing the idea, as Shuster looked on.

“I have a feeling Shuster’s going to get the first pen. What do you think?” Trump asked the other Republicans gathered. Trump handed Shuster the pen as a souvenir. The plan later stalled in Congress.

Shuster did not respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.)

$7,585 spent at Trump-branded properties since Election Day 2016

McCaul, who advised Trump on homeland security issues during the 2016 race, used campaign funds to pay for a Christmas reception last December at the BLT Prime steakhouse at Trump’s D.C. hotel.

Around the same time, Trump was considering McCaul as a candidate for homeland security secretary. Lizzie Litzow, a spokeswoman for McCaul, said McCaul did not choose the venue because it was owned by Trump.

“This venue was considered among others around town and picked for reasons such as the size, location and schedule,” Litzow said.

The homeland security job went instead to John Kelly, who later became White House chief of staff. McCaul remains in the House.

Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.)

$6,707 spent at Trump-branded properties since Election Day 2016

Walden, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, used campaign funds to pay for a fundraiser at BLT Prime in March and a meeting there in June.

Walden did not respond to requests for comment.

Fundraising records show that while he was one of the top spenders at the president’s hotel, Walden’s campaign also spent thousands at a number of other D.C. fundraising hot spots. He spent $7,729, for instance, at Mastro’s Steakhouse.

Rep. Roger Williams (R-Tex.)

$3,286 spent at Trump-branded properties since Election Day 2016

Williams used campaign money to pay $3,286 for a “meal/meeting expense” at BLT Prime in May.

Williams did not respond to questions about that expenditure.

Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.)

$2,154 spent at Trump-branded properties since Election Day 2016

Kelly, one of Trump’s most vocal supporters in the House, has spent $2,154 from his campaign and his leadership PAC on events at Trump’s D.C. hotel and BLT Prime. In May, Kelly told the Washington Examiner he was frustrated with what he described as other Republicans’ insufficient support of Trump: “My request of my colleagues is, all the time, you keep pushing back against him. Why?”

“The congressman hosted several events for supporters who were excited to visit the venue,” said Thomas Qualtere, a spokesman for Kelly. Qualtere did not respond to follow-up questions asking about the nature of the events and Kelly’s reasons for choosing the Trump hotel.

Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.)

$1,850 spent at Trump-branded properties since Election Day 2016

Kennedy, a freshman senator, spent $1,850 of his campaign’s money on lodging at the Trump hotel in Washington in late August, according to campaign finance reports.

Kennedy’s staff did not respond to questions about this expenditure.

Omar Navarro (R)

$8,451 spent at Trump-branded properties since Election Day 2016

Navarro is a long-shot candidate from Los Angeles who is trying to unseat a frequent Trump critic: Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.). Navarro also tried to beat Waters last year but lost in a landslide.

This year, Navarro’s campaign has shelled out $8,451 — about one-tenth of the campaign’s total spending — for expenses at Trump properties. He has paid for overnight stays at Trump’s Las Vegas hotel and for two fundraisers at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.

“I support the president 100 percent,” Navarro said in an interview. “I’m going to do business with places that my political views are aligned with.”

Navarro’s most recent fundraiser was held in the chandeliered Grand Ballroom at the Trump club. The event drew about 50 people. In his speech, Navarro sounded many Trumpian notes, deriding establishment politicians and promoting the idea of building a wall between the United States and Mexico.

“Not only do we have to build that wall, we have to also make sure there are [not] tunnels under that wall so people don’t go under that wall,” said the 28-year-old candidate, prompting cheers.

He was backed up by former Maricopa County, Ariz., sheriff Joe Arpaio, whom Trump pardoned earlier this year after he was convicted of criminal contempt over his department’s treatment of immigrants.

“Who is my hero? Donald Trump,” Arpaio told the group in the largely empty ballroom.

The tab for the night, paid to the president’s club: $4,132.

I just keep going back to the thought that if ANY Dem did this crap, Gowdy, Nunes, and the rest of that lot would be holding 24/7 hearings faster than the blink of an eye.

[AnywhereButHere]

I guess the Jackhole needs more sleep. Or less access to Twitter. Or heavy medication. A brain. A heart.

God knows, in all seriousness, we need less mass shootings.

For real though, as a president, you really need to check yourself before you post stupid shit on Twitter! 

https://www.google.com/amp/www.newsweek.com/president-trump-tweets-about-wrong-mass-shooting-after-california-rampage-711811%3famp=1

 

[fraurosena]

Yep, he's  at it again, @AnywhereButHere. He's back at one of his favorite subjects, hating on CNN.

I wonder which tactics were used to force him to watch CNN?  

[AnywhereButHere]

30 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Yep, he's  at it again, @AnywhereButHere. He's back at one of his favorite subjects, hating on CNN.

I wonder which tactics were used to force him to watch CNN?  

I remember when I was in France a few years ago, the only English language news channel in our hotel was CNN. The same 5 or 6 stories in a loop. Poor Caligula must have been tortured if that was his experience!

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s extraordinary 12-day adulation tour"

Spoiler

As President Trump ends his Asia trip, he might sum up the 12-day journey with a revision of the remark attributed to Julius Caesar: Veni, vidi, blandivi. I came, I saw, I flattered.

Trump’s trip was closer to a pilgrimage than a projection of power. The president rarely explained details of U.S. policy. Instead, he mostly asked other leaders for help, lauded their virtues and embraced their worldviews.

Along the adulation tour, Trump spoke of his “really extraordinary” relationship with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe; his “incredibly warm” feeling for Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he called “a very special man”; his “great relationship” with the “very successful” Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte; and his empathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose nation is “an asset to our country, not a liability.”

And the president praised himself at nearly every stop, telling reporters on the way home that the trip had been “tremendously successful” with “incredible” achievements.

Trump’s trip may indeed prove to be historic, but probably not in the way he intends. It may signal a U.S. accommodation to rising Chinese power, plus a desire to mend fences with a belligerent Russia — with few evident security gains for the United States. If the 1945 Yalta summit marked U.S. acceptance of the Soviet Union’s hegemony in Eastern Europe, this trip seemed to validate China’s arrival as a Pacific power. As Xi put it to Trump, “The Pacific Ocean is big enough to accommodate both China and the United States.”

Trump voiced a clear desire for accommodation with an aggressive Russia, too. Much was made of his regurgitation of Putin’s denial that he had conducted a covert action against America during last year’s presidential campaign. “President Putin really feels — and he feels strongly — that he did not meddle in our election.”

Remarked one former senior CIA official: “When the Art of the Deal meets the KGB, the KGB wins.”

But far more important than Trump’s credulous response to Putin was his eagerness for Moscow’s help in bolstering the United States’ global position. Trump has noisily drawn a red line on North Korea, for example, but he evidently needs Russia’s help, in addition to China’s, to deliver without going to war. To get Moscow’s help on North Korea, and Syria, too, Trump seems willing to give Putin a pass.

Here’s how Trump put it during a news conference in Hanoi, which may have been the most important statement of the trip: “People don’t realize Russia has been very, very heavily sanctioned,” Trump said. “It’s now time to get back to healing a world that is shattered and broken. . . . And I feel that having Russia in a friendly posture, as opposed to always fighting with them, is an asset to the world.”

Trump’s ingratiating comments come at a time of American strategic disorientation. “We’re adrift,” said one prominent congressional Republican staffer, expressing a view that’s increasingly heard from nonpartisan analysts at the Pentagon, think tanks and universities. At a time when Russia, China and Iran are all rapidly advancing their military capabilities, the Trump administration has declaratory policies of military strength — but hasn’t yet made the necessary decisions about how it intends to actually combat these potential adversaries.

A blistering summary of the administration’s overdue obligation to make strategic decisions to deter Russia and China, as opposed to glad-handing them, came in a little-noted Oct. 27 letter from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Stricken with cancer, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee holds nothing back these days.

“We now confront the most complex security environment in 70 years,” McCain wrote. “Misplaced priorities and acquisition failures have left us without critical defense capabilities to counter increasingly advanced near-peer competitors. . . . We no longer enjoy the wide margins of power we once had over competitors and adversaries. We cannot do everything we want everywhere. We must choose. We must prioritize.”

McCain suggested what many analysts have been saying quietly for months. The most worrying thing about Trump isn’t his impulsive military threats (though there’s reason to be concerned there, too). The deeper fear is that in national security, this administration is an empty suit. It doesn’t make decisions. It doesn’t set priorities.

Trump is a vain man who flatters others so that he will be stroked himself. If there’s a strategic concept underlying his approach, it may be realism married to acquiescence. The Asia trip left me feeling that we’re watching an American retreat, accompanied by a shiny brass band.

I agree with the author. The TT only cares about being flattered, he doesn't comprehend the intricate workings of the rest of the world, and he has no desire to understand.

[fraurosena]

Surely that's the understatement of the year, Keith!

'Not a healthy man', indeed.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Trump’s extraordinary 12-day adulation tour"

  Hide contents

As President Trump ends his Asia trip, he might sum up the 12-day journey with a revision of the remark attributed to Julius Caesar: Veni, vidi, blandivi. I came, I saw, I flattered.

Trump’s trip was closer to a pilgrimage than a projection of power. The president rarely explained details of U.S. policy. Instead, he mostly asked other leaders for help, lauded their virtues and embraced their worldviews.

Along the adulation tour, Trump spoke of his “really extraordinary” relationship with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe; his “incredibly warm” feeling for Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he called “a very special man”; his “great relationship” with the “very successful” Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte; and his empathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose nation is “an asset to our country, not a liability.”

And the president praised himself at nearly every stop, telling reporters on the way home that the trip had been “tremendously successful” with “incredible” achievements.

Trump’s trip may indeed prove to be historic, but probably not in the way he intends. It may signal a U.S. accommodation to rising Chinese power, plus a desire to mend fences with a belligerent Russia — with few evident security gains for the United States. If the 1945 Yalta summit marked U.S. acceptance of the Soviet Union’s hegemony in Eastern Europe, this trip seemed to validate China’s arrival as a Pacific power. As Xi put it to Trump, “The Pacific Ocean is big enough to accommodate both China and the United States.”

Trump voiced a clear desire for accommodation with an aggressive Russia, too. Much was made of his regurgitation of Putin’s denial that he had conducted a covert action against America during last year’s presidential campaign. “President Putin really feels — and he feels strongly — that he did not meddle in our election.”

Remarked one former senior CIA official: “When the Art of the Deal meets the KGB, the KGB wins.”

But far more important than Trump’s credulous response to Putin was his eagerness for Moscow’s help in bolstering the United States’ global position. Trump has noisily drawn a red line on North Korea, for example, but he evidently needs Russia’s help, in addition to China’s, to deliver without going to war. To get Moscow’s help on North Korea, and Syria, too, Trump seems willing to give Putin a pass.

Here’s how Trump put it during a news conference in Hanoi, which may have been the most important statement of the trip: “People don’t realize Russia has been very, very heavily sanctioned,” Trump said. “It’s now time to get back to healing a world that is shattered and broken. . . . And I feel that having Russia in a friendly posture, as opposed to always fighting with them, is an asset to the world.”

Trump’s ingratiating comments come at a time of American strategic disorientation. “We’re adrift,” said one prominent congressional Republican staffer, expressing a view that’s increasingly heard from nonpartisan analysts at the Pentagon, think tanks and universities. At a time when Russia, China and Iran are all rapidly advancing their military capabilities, the Trump administration has declaratory policies of military strength — but hasn’t yet made the necessary decisions about how it intends to actually combat these potential adversaries.

A blistering summary of the administration’s overdue obligation to make strategic decisions to deter Russia and China, as opposed to glad-handing them, came in a little-noted Oct. 27 letter from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Stricken with cancer, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee holds nothing back these days.

“We now confront the most complex security environment in 70 years,” McCain wrote. “Misplaced priorities and acquisition failures have left us without critical defense capabilities to counter increasingly advanced near-peer competitors. . . . We no longer enjoy the wide margins of power we once had over competitors and adversaries. We cannot do everything we want everywhere. We must choose. We must prioritize.”

McCain suggested what many analysts have been saying quietly for months. The most worrying thing about Trump isn’t his impulsive military threats (though there’s reason to be concerned there, too). The deeper fear is that in national security, this administration is an empty suit. It doesn’t make decisions. It doesn’t set priorities.

Trump is a vain man who flatters others so that he will be stroked himself. If there’s a strategic concept underlying his approach, it may be realism married to acquiescence. The Asia trip left me feeling that we’re watching an American retreat, accompanied by a shiny brass band.

I agree with the author. The TT only cares about being flattered, he doesn't comprehend the intricate workings of the rest of the world, and he has no desire to understand.

Imho, it's more a case of "veni, vidi, blanditus fui". He is stupid enough to not second guess the meanings and intentions behind all the flatterings. He's a shallow, superficial individual with no ability to understand when he is being played.

[LeftCoastLurker]

3 hours ago, AnywhereButHere said:

I guess the Jackhole needs more sleep. Or less access to Twitter. Or heavy medication. A brain. A heart.

God knows, in all seriousness, we need less mass shootings.

For real though, as a president, you really need to check yourself before you post stupid shit on Twitter! 

https://www.google.com/amp/www.newsweek.com/president-trump-tweets-about-wrong-mass-shooting-after-california-rampage-711811%3famp=1

 

Well of course he won't correctly comment...CALIFORNIA...nuff said.