Trump 32: Pissing off the World, One Country at a Time

[AmazonGrace]

This is insane.  

 

[fraurosena]

7 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

This is insane.  

 

Well shit! The presidunce has created new jobs then. 

[Destiny]

19 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

This is insane.  

 

What the actual fuck?

[fraurosena]

I’ll just leave this here.

 

[AnywhereButHere]

15 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

So he changed his  mind in the plane a couple of hours later?  Or had already planned to withdraw from the agreement to get back at Trudeau while he agreed?

Next week, when he has the big summit, why the heck would Kim Jong Un believe a word that he says?`

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-backed-out-of-g7-statement-to-avoid-looking-weak-before-kim-summit-aide-says/ar-AAysw7G?li=BBnb7Kx

Quote

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump pulled out of the Group of 7 joint communique Saturday night because he wanted to avoid a show of weakness before his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a White House official said Sunday.

Trump agreed with the language in the communique from the summit in Canada Friday and Saturday, but took offense at criticism of U.S. tariffs by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at his news conference after Trump left early.

The president "is not going to let a Canadian prime minister push him around ... on the eve of this," top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on CNN's "State of the Union."

"He is not going to permit any show of weakness on the trip to negotiate with North Korea, nor should he," Kudlow said. "Kim must not see American weakness."

The decision to back out of the communique was "in large part" because of the upcoming North Korea summit, Kudlow said.

He said Trump agreed with the fairly generic trade language in the communique drafted by the G7 leaders, who are traditionally America's closet allies.

But when Trudeau said Canada would be forced to retaliate for U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum and would not agree to a sunset provision in a new North American Free Trade Agreement, "he really kind of stabbed us in the back," Kudlow said.

"We were very close to making a deal with Canada on NAFTA ... then we leave and he pulls this sophomoric political stunt for domestic consumption," Kudlow said of Trudeau.

"It's a betrayal, essentially a double-crossing," Kudlow said.

Trump said on Twitter that he would not sign the communique, calling Trudeau "very dishonest & weak" for his trade criticism.

Oh, I think Kim has already seen American weakness. How does anyone (actually does anyone) in his administration think this guy is dealing from any position of strength and keep a straight face while endorsing that position? The world already knows this guy is an idiot. 

[47of74]

Well, Canada, I guess it's time to build a wall along your southern border so no one from that cesspool country can get in, and get the United States to pay for it.
Once again, I'm so sorry, Canada and Canadians. I still feel that you are our closest allies and the country most like the United States. Many of us here in the United States join you in having that sick feeling towards the U.S. President, and we still respect and like Trudeau. We all have not been taken over by the MAGA virus, just some of us. Unfortunately, those infected with the MAGA virus are the loudest voices now, led by Mr. MAGA himself.

If I could I’d be a Canadian tomorrow. Fuck Face is turning the US into a shithole. If the US wants to jump off a cliff fine but I have no desire to hold their hands on the way down.

[Howl]

 

[JMarie]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/10/politics/trump-macron-european-union-china-trade/index.html

Quote

President Donald Trump told French President Emmanuel Macron in April that the European Union is worse than China on trade during a conversation that portended the tense end to this year's G7 summit.

In a meeting at the White House during Macron's visit to Washington in April, he suggested the United States and France should work together to resolve shared trade problems with Beijing, prompting Trump to make his remark, a person in the room told CNN.

The source previously told CNN that Trump told Macron during their recent meeting in Washington that there are too many German cars in the United States. The source did not say that Trump explicitly said he wanted all German-made cars out of the US. Trump focused his conversation with Macron on German trade for about 15 minutes in the one-hour meeting.

Trump has been on a tear about German trade and cars in particular, bringing up the issues with other European leaders with whom he has met over the last few months, the source said.

Interestingly enough, he owns three German cars (3 Mercedes).

https://autowise.com/donald-trumps-most-unusual-car-collection/

[Smoochie]

50 minutes ago, JMarie said:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/10/politics/trump-macron-european-union-china-trade/index.html

Interestingly enough, he owns three German cars (3 Mercedes).

https://autowise.com/donald-trumps-most-unusual-car-collection/

Of course he does.  Like he and Ivanka having their clothing line manufactured in China, it's do as I say, not as I do.  Rules, laws and truth do NOT apply to the Trump family, just everyone else. 

[AmazonGrace]

 Fewer incoming bribes 

 

[JMarie]

Because he's just a gigantic child

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/06/11/trump-rips-up-papers-staffers-tape-together/23456128/

Quote

White House officials enlisted records management employees to tape back together papers from President Donald Trump's office that he constantly rips up, according to a new report from Politico.

An entire department of records management employees pieced materials back together "like a jigsaw puzzle," former employee Solomon Lartey told Politico, so the administration won't break the law. 

The Presidential Records Act says every document during a presidency is publicly owned and must be filed and saved as historical record at the National Archives.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Because of the notes, I can't quote, but this is a good read: "‘Within the first minute I’ll know’: Trump’s confident G-7 news conference, annotated"

[47of74]

The Fuck Face Doctrine as explained by an official with access to said Fuck Face;

Quote

“No,” the official said. “There’s definitely a Trump Doctrine.”

What is it?, I asked. Here is the answer I received:

“The Trump Doctrine is ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”

It struck me almost immediately that this was the most acute, and attitudinally honest, description of the manner in which members of Trump’s team, and Trump himself, understand their role in the world.

 

[Don'tlikekoolaid]

The things I want to say would get me arrested.  I hope the Singapore meeting is not the disaster it could be.  Two mentally ill dictators who dislike each other, cannot take criticism and have world destroying weapons! What could go wrong!   And now that deadbeat Rodman has shown up!  What a shitshow!

[JMarie]

1 hour ago, Don'tlikekoolaid said:

The things I want to say would get me arrested.  I hope the Singapore meeting is not the disaster it could be.  Two mentally ill dictators who dislike each other, cannot take criticism and have world destroying weapons! What could go wrong!   And now that deadbeat Rodman has shown up!  What a shitshow!

Maybe Rodman's the translator??

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

Well, duh, the orange maggot is a coward. What else would you expect?

So, let's all join Robert de Niro when he says...

As a special treat for @Destiny, I've added the non-bleeped version, so she can hear her most favorite word in all it's glory.

[Destiny]

Well, duh, the orange maggot is a coward. What else would you expect?
[/url] So, let's all join Robert de Niro when he says...
As a special treat for [mention=11277]Destiny[/mention], I've added the non-bleeped version, so she can hear her most favorite word in all it's glory.

This makes me happy. Thank you!

[GreyhoundFan]

Another one that made me think of @Destiny

 

[CTRLZero]

12 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Another one that made me think of @Destiny

Oh, now, that's just brilliant.  Where can I get one? 

[Destiny]

19 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Another one that made me think of @Destiny

 

Separate from the sentiment that we all know I fully support, the art is awesome. How cool is that???

[fraurosena]

The presidunce is beset by trolls. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump may go without a chief of staff. That should worry all of us."

Spoiler

President Trump continues to muse about the possibility of replacing White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly with . . . no one. And that should worry all of us, if for no other reason than why he thinks he could do it.

“A Republican in frequent touch with the White House said one of the clear manifestations of Trump’s newfound unilateralism can be seen in the comments he’s made to aides and confidants,” my colleague Ashley Parker reported on Monday. “When his current chief of staff, John F. Kelly, departs the White House, Trump has told them, he may prefer the model of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who did not name an official chief of staff.”

It is no secret that Kelly is miserable trying to be the responsible adult in a White House that runs according to presidential impulse, and that he has his eye on the exit. Nor could it help that his boss views the chief of staff’s job as entirely dispensable.

But Trump, to put it mildly, is no LBJ.

Johnson came to the job unexpectedly — with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy — but not without preparation. “He had a vast store of knowledge. He’d been in Washington 30-plus years. On any legislation, he knew the substance of it,” says Joseph A. Califano Jr., who was Johnson’s domestic policy chief. Johnson also had long relationships with all the key political players in Washington and beyond.

Perhaps even more importantly, and differing greatly from the hurly-burly of the Trump White House, Johnson and everyone around him had a clear, fixed idea of precisely what he wanted to get accomplished. As Califano put it: “Everyone on the staff knew what the priorities were.”

So how did Johnson manage without a chief of staff?

While no one held the title — which had originated with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, as a carryover from his military days — Johnson always had a designated aide who handled the flow of information into the Oval Office. For much of his presidency, that duty fell to special assistant W. Marvin Watson. Califano recalled that Johnson would leave the office each evening with a stack of what was called his “night reading” — memos of no more than two or three pages submitted by his top aides, which the president would consume while either getting a massage or lying in bed. He was to check one of three boxes on each: “approve,” “disapprove,” or “see me.”

“Anything I sent him, I got an answer the next morning. It was amazing,” Califano said.

It is hard to imagine that kind of system working for Trump. For one thing, it would cut into his nightly cable news watching. For another, he does not like to read — preferring, for instance, that his daily intelligence briefing be delivered orally.

But Trump should also take pause from the fact that LBJ’s decision-making was far from perfect. Johnson’s presidency will be remembered as much, if not more, for the tragedy of Vietnam as for its domestic legislative achievements. There, his faith in his knowledge and his instincts failed him.

“In Washington, he knew every card in the deck, but in the world, he didn’t,” James Reston of the New York Times wrote, “He knew very little about Vietnam. He was not very comfortable with what he called the “fancy-pants” characters in the State Department and the Foreign Service, who knew a great deal more than he did about the philosophy and escape-hatch boundaries for guerrilla warfare in Indochina, but he had a strong personal conviction.”

Does that sound familiar? Johnson’s is indeed a leadership model that Trump should study — because it holds a lesson on where a go-it-alone leader may end up taking the country.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump can profit from foreign government business at his hotel if he doesn’t do favors in return, Justice Dept. argues"

Spoiler

Top lawyers for Maryland and the District contend that President Trump’s financial interest in Washington’s Trump International Hotel allows him to unfairly profit in violation of a constitutional ban on payments to federal officials from foreign governments.

Justice Department lawyers say the president is not breaking the law when foreign officials book rooms at his hotel in the capital because he is not trading favors in exchange for a benefit.

The competing arguments came during a federal court hearing Monday in Maryland as attorneys parsed the definition of the anti-corruption emoluments clause, a once-obscure provision that now is a pivotal issue in several lawsuits taking aim at the president’s business dealings.

U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte is expected to decide this summer whether the case brought by D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) and Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) can move forward after a hearing that touched on land deals involving George Washington and on dictionary definitions from the 1770s.

Messitte sounded skeptical of the Justice Department’s narrow definition of the ban, asking the government’s lawyer whether the clause would apply to foreign governments’ booking rooms and touting their patronage at Trump’s hotel to “get in good” with the president.

“That’s not covered?” Messitte asked.

The constitutional clauses in question are something of a blank slate, having rarely been tested in court in more than 200 years. One clause bars federal officers from taking gifts, or emoluments, from foreign governments. The other prohibits presidents from taking side payments from individual states.

Both aim to ensure independence and guard against undue influence by other governments.

The emoluments clause has never been the subject of a major court case and has never been taken up by the Supreme Court, leaving great uncertainty about what it means — and to whom, exactly, it applies — in the 21st century.

Although Trump has said he gave up day-to-day management of his businesses, he still owns them and can withdraw money from them at any time.

The case involving Trump’s Washington hotel cleared an initial hurdle in March after Messitte ruled that the plaintiffs had legal standing to sue the president. The judge said Monday that he would try to rule by the end of July on whether there is a valid legal claim to allow the case to move forward.

In court in Greenbelt, the two sides presented competing interpretations of the word “emolument” based on past practice, the text and a survey of dictionaries from the founding era of America’s government.

Justice Department lawyer Brett Shumate said a violation does not exist unless there is a quid pro quo — a benefit given with expectation of a payback. There must be a bribe, an official action or something akin to an employment contract with the foreign government, Shumate said.

Messitte pointed out that most historical definitions appeared to favor the interpretation by the District and Maryland. “How do you contend with those percentages?” the judge pressed.

He also challenged the president’s lawyer to explain how the government’s definition of emolument differs from bribery, an impeachable offense.

The judge then raised the case of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell (R), whose public-corruption conviction was thrown out by the Supreme Court in 2016. Messitte noted how difficult it is to prove bribery in a criminal case and suggested that the clause was intended to avoid even the appearance of corruption and undue influence.

The attorneys general for Maryland and the District took a broader view than the federal government, arguing that the clause is a strict ban on the acceptance of a “profit, gain or advantage” — in Trump’s case, through his hotel. The prohibition applies, they said in court papers, even when the president does not personally perform a service and when he accepts profits through a business he owns.

Accepting that view and definition, the Justice Department said, would mean that presidents George Washington (in a federal land purchase), Ronald Reagan (in collecting his California state pension) and Barack Obama (in accepting book royalties) violated the emoluments clause. “The implications are simply staggering and should be rejected,” Trump’s lawyer said.

Attorneys representing Maryland and the District rejected the comparisons to past presidents.

Trump has “affirmatively encouraged foreign governments to augment his considerable wealth by doing business with his businesses,” Maryland Solicitor General Steven M. Sullivan told the judge. “He has profited and is profiting on an unprecedented scale from foreign and domestic governments” in violation of the emoluments clause, Sullivan said.

The state attorneys general say Trump could have sidestepped the lawsuit if he had fully disclosed his finances and taken more steps to resolve possible conflicts of interest.

Last year, Trump vowed to donate some profits from foreign governments to the U.S. Treasury. The Trump Organization said it donated $151,470 in February but declined to explain how it came up with the amount.

As part of the lawsuit, Frosh has said he and Racine would seek the president’s financial documents and tax returns. If the case is allowed to continue, Racine said, they could seek records related to the hotel’s operations and its business with foreign governments.

The case is one of three suits targeting Trump over emoluments.

In another one, 200 Democrats in Congress asked a U.S. district judge to force Trump to seek congressional approval before accepting emoluments. The judge has not ruled on the merit of the suit.

A third case, brought by the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, was dismissed for lack of standing when the group failed to convince a judge that it was directly being harmed. It is under appeal.