Trump 36: We Shall Overcome

[Howl]

 

[fraurosena]

Really? They didn't sign it? Wow, how astonishing. Not.

50 Nations Reach Cyber Crime Agreement – Trump & Putin Refuse To Sign

Quote

These days, Mr. Trump does not seem to be falling in line with what other world leaders are doing or trying to do what is in the best interest of our country or for our relations with the rest of the world. Trump made a visit to Paris, France, on Saturday, which included meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. However, he declined to join the other world leaders for a World War I memorial at a U.S. cemetery because of the rain.

On Monday, it was reported that 50 nations and over 150 tech companies pledged to do more to fight criminal activity on the internet including interference in elections and hate speech. However, the U.S., Russia, and China were not among the 50 that were part of the pledge.

According to The Associated Press:

‘The group of governments and companies pledged in a document entitled the “Paris call for trust and security in cyberspace” to work together to prevent malicious activities like online censorship and the theft of trade secrets.’

The document is supported by EU countries, Japan, and Canada, and is also being supported by tech giants including Microsoft, Facebook, and Google. At the front of the initiative is French President Emmanuel Macron. The Associated Press reported:

‘Speaking at the Internet Governance Forum organized at the Paris-based U.N. cultural agency UNESCO, Macron said it’s urgent to better regulate the internet. The French leader also said that Facebook had accepted to let a team of French officials observe the way it monitors and removes hate speech content.’

Macron spoke about the initiative, saying that the goal is:

‘(to) elaborate precise, concrete joint proposals about the fight against hate speech and offensive content.’

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also spoke at another summit focusing on new technologies in Paris city hall. He said:

‘One of the things we have to do as a society as tech leaders but also as government is reassure people that the innovation, technology … is going to empower them in ways they will feel part of the world we’re building, of the workplaces we’re creating.’

Corrupt Trump and Putin cannot pledge to fight election interference when they are knee-deep in the crimes themselves. As most Americans know by now, last May, Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to oversee the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. There is plenty of evidence pointing to the fact that the Trump campaign and Russian officials were in communication before the election. There is also strong speculation that more indictments are going to come in the near future.

In addition, let’s not forget that Mr. Trump is guilty of his own cyberbullying on a daily basis it seems. It is clear that Trump has been the largest bully of the press, and even referred to them as “the true enemy of the people,” which has escalated into a hostile and dangerous climate for reporters these days.

Mr. Trump slings insults on a daily basis, and people saw the irony when First Lady Melania started a anti-cyberbullying campaign of her own, and now the fact that the U.S. won’t sign on to a pledge to fight cyber crime kind of makes Melania’s campaign null and void. The so-called president of the United States is as corrupt as they come.

 

[fraurosena]

Oh dear, somebody's upset about what happened in France... 

 

 

[fraurosena]

Macron really got to him, didn't he?

 

[Howl]

The French are on a Twitter tear: 

And the French military is not afraid of a little rain: 

 

[formergothardite]

We have two more years of him acting like a petulant child who isn't getting his way. I sure as hell hope we don't have six more years of this. 

[fraurosena]

I was hoping this would happen!

CNN files lawsuit against Trump administration over Jim Acosta's press credentials

Quote

CNN has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for revoking correspondent Jim Acosta's press credentials, the network said in a statement on Tuesday.

"The wrongful revocation of these credentials violates CNN and Acosta's First Amendment rights of freedom of the press and their Fifth Amendment rights to due process," a statement from CNN reads.

The network filed the suit in a Washington, D.C., district court, according to the statement, saying they have asked for "an immediate restraining order requiring the pass be returned" to Acosta.

The "hard pass" was revoked on Wednesday after a contentious back and forth with Trump during a news conference.

NBC News has reached out to the White House for comment.

 

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

54 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Macron really got to him, didn't he?

 

Some of the replies are hilarious lol

Someone noticed that he managed t offend both French and Germans with one tweet.

Spoiler

 

[fraurosena]

 

Foreign countries are increasingly using Trump as a foil — or a punchline

(note: many tweets embedded in the above article, not included in quote below)

Quote

President Trump promised during the 2016 campaign that the United States would be respected again. The most visible example of how that is not entirely coming to pass came two months ago at the United Nations, when foreign leaders audibly laughed at Trump’s bogus claim to unprecedented achievements.

But it’s hardly the only example. Increasingly, when Trump graces the world stage, he is being trolled, not-so-subtly rebuked, or used as a foil in ways that suggest foreign countries see Trump less as someone worthy of fear and respect, and more as a tool they can use for their own purposes.

This sort of thing is often coming from allies and official sources.

In recent days, both French President Emmanuel Macron and the French army have cast Trump in a not entirely flattering light. Macron seemed to pretty directly rebuke Trump during a speech Sunday, even as the U.S. president was still in Paris for World War I remembrances. In a speech, Macron described nationalism — a term Trump embraced for the first time a few weeks ago — as a “betrayal of patriotism.” Macron also decried the “selfishness of nations only looking after their own interests.” The remarks could have been directed at any of the nationalist leaders of the world, but it wasn’t difficult to draw a line between them and Trump’s very recent nationalist declaration.

Macron also seemed to rebuke Trump without naming him at the same U.N. General Assembly mentioned above. While the laughter got the most attention, Macron delivered a speech that appeared to rebuke Trump’s emphasis on “sovereignty.” “I shall never stop upholding the principle of sovereignty,” Macron said, “even in the face of certain nationalism which we’re seeing today, brandishing sovereignty as a way of attacking others.”

Likewise, the French army trolled Trump on Monday for skipping a ceremony at France’s Aisne-Marne American Cemetery. It was a decision for which inclement weather had been cited, despite other world leaders showing up in the rain. The French army tweeted a photo of rain-soaked soldiers navigating an obstacle course and added text that translates to: “There is rain, but it does not matter. We remain motivated.”

That was the second foreign military this month to tweet about Trump in a way he probably won’t like. The Nigerian army a couple weeks back seized upon Trump’s comments about U.S. troops at the U.S.-Mexico border treating thrown rocks as though they were firearms. The Nigerian army tweeted the video of Trump and said, “Please Watch and Make Your Deductions” — apparently using Trump’s words to justify its use of deadly force in such a situation a few days earlier. (The tweet was soon deleted.)

The apparent trolling of Trump has extended to other allies. In June at the Group of Seven, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau presented Trump with a framed picture of a hotel Trump’s grandfather ran in Canada, which was reportedly a brothel. (Trump denies it was a brothel.)

Early in Trump’s presidency, Sweden’s deputy prime minister also appeared to have some fun at Trump’s expense by reenacting a photo of Trump signing a bill surrounded by white men. She was surrounded by only women, who stood in similar positions as the men in Trump’s photo. “We are a feminist government, which shows in this photo,” Deputy Prime Minister Isabella Lövin said at the time. “Ultimately it is up to the observer to interpret the photo.”

Around the same time, the Swedish Embassy in the United States tweeted at Trump after he appeared to refer to a nonexistent terrorist attack in their country.

Nordic leaders also seemed to possibly be trolling Trump in May 2017, when they took a photo reminiscent of the viral photo of Trump and the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Egypt with their hands on a glowing orb. The Nordic leaders denied that it was intended as such, despite the parallels.

Any of these examples could be a coincidence. The totality of them suggests Trump is viewed as something of a foil — and occasionally as a punchline — by foreign leaders whose constituencies largely aren’t fans of Trump’s.

Trump has enjoyed being something of a bull in a china shop on the world stage. Whatever leaders think of him, they’ll be reluctant to run afoul of the leader of the world’s most powerful country. Often their approach, like that of politicians in Washington, is to tolerate Trump’s odd style, attacks and controversies. But, given that Trump is historically unpopular on the world stage, that also means neglecting a potentially powerful tool for use in domestic politics. They seem to be finding creative ways to make their points.

But these aren’t ways you’d generally expect an American president to be treated. And it’s certainly not an overwhelming amount of respect.

 

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, formergothardite said:

We have two more years of him acting like a petulant child who isn't getting his way. I sure as hell hope we don't have six more years of this. 

Two years or six, I fear I don't see him stepping down and refusing to leave the White House.  What scares me is what he will do between the time he is a lame maggot duck and January 20th 2021.  Start a war? Nuke California, sign some executive order nullifying the 22nd amendment.  Yea, I am a little off the rails with worry. 

[GreyhoundFan]

A good one from Dana Milbank: "Donald Trump knows the true meaning of sacrifice"

Spoiler

“We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.”

—Canadian soldier John McCrae,
remembering the sacrifice of fellow
World War I troops.

“We’re getting drenched.”

—President Trump, noting his own
sacrifice during World War I centennial
observance Sunday.

On Veterans Day, Americans recall the sacrifices of those who served our country.

We think of the bayonet charge of Maine’s 20th Regiment on Little Round Top, the young men battling through rain and poison gas in the Argonne, the soldiers in the frozen Ardennes Forest in the Battle of the Bulge.

And we think of President Trump, battling rain for not one but two days in France this weekend.

Other presidents had made sacrifices. George Washington camped with his frozen troops in Valley Forge. William Henry Harrison died after a two-hour inaugural address in the rain.

But these were as nothing compared with the elements Trump battled in Paris.

On Saturday, the White House, citing “logistical difficulties caused by the weather,” canceled Trump’s trip to a memorial at Belleau, where 2,000 U.S. Marines died a century ago. It was raining — and Trump opted to remain at the U.S. ambassador’s residence, watching TV and tweeting.

The next day, when other world leaders marched down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe for the centenary of the Armistice ending World War I, Trump instead took his motorcade. The reason this time: security. Once again, it was raining, and Trump stayed dry in his armored limousine.

These were brave decisions, because they meant Trump would have to endure the hurtful images of other world leaders visiting other memorials around France despite the rain, then marching in soggy solidarity without him. His excuses for skipping the war memorial earned ridicule because the cemetery was just an hour’s drive (less than half the time the White House claimed) and Trump had previously boasted about ordering his pilots to fly him despite bad weather — to a campaign rally.

But Trump’s behavior, not unlike Washington’s winter at Valley Forge, should be seen in a patriotic light — a selfless sacrifice for the good of the country. Consider the international disgrace the United States would have suffered if his hair were to have become matted by rain without adequate measures to protect it. Or if wind gusts had whipped his mane into an orange tornado swirling above a sparse white scalp. A soaking could have been calamitous. (This explains why he sent his bald chief of staff, John F. Kelly, in his place.) Trump, therefore, absorbed the losses at Belleau Wood and on the Champs-Elysees to prevail later, at Suresnes American Cemetery, after receiving hair spray reinforcements.

Such shrewd strategic thinking has been Trump’s hallmark since high school at New York Military Academy, where he received “more training militarily” than many get in the actual military. Bone spurs sadly kept him from Vietnam, but he said that avoiding STDs was “my personal Vietnam” and that he was “a great and very brave soldier” in this cause.

Some say Trump doesn’t know the meaning of sacrifice, particularly because he resisted lowering flags after the death of John “Not a War Hero” McCain. But as Trump himself told one Gold Star family, “I’ve made a lot of sacrifices.” And the Paris voyage highlighted Trump’s powers of self-abnegation, coming after he abandoned a $100-million military parade he ordered to honor himself.

He endured French President Emmanuel Macron’s “very insulting” proposal that Europe build up its own military. He endured a topless woman disrupting his motorcade with the words “fake peacemaker” on her chest. He endured mockery in the French press for confusing the Balkans with the Baltics. He endured Macron’s speech declaring that “nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism.” And he endured the obvious impression that other leaders didn’t want him at their “Peace Forum,” which began as Trump left.

Through it all, Trump kept his powder dry — and his hair. In the end, his sacrifice was rewarded.

It was still raining Sunday afternoon when Trump went by motorcade to Suresnes. But this time Trump did not retreat. He heroically cast aside his umbrella and spoke — for 10 moist minutes.

He recalled the sacrifice of Americans in the Great War (“through rain, hail, snow, mud, poisonous gas, bullets and mortar, they held the line”). And he invoked his own sacrifice, telling a group under a tent: “You look so comfortable up there, under shelter as we’re getting drenched.”

The lectern dripped. His overcoat glistened. And yet his hair, under protective lacquer, held firm — like the burning bush that was not consumed.

The valiant polymers that fell defending his hair from the rain seeped into the soil at Suresnes. Now it truly can be said, as the poem goes, that there’s some corner of a foreign field that is forever Trump.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

Holy backtracking, Batman! 

 

Don't you love irony?

 

[47of74]

It’s gonna rain!

[fraurosena]

Here's the official CNN filing against the presidunce and his administration:

If you want to read it, I recommend clicking on the documentcloud link, as that doc is adjustable in size and therefore more readable. Be aware that the whole thing is 92 pages long. The first two or three pages contain the most important information, the rest goes into detail (but is rather interesting nonetheless if you cut through all the legal refs).

[GreyhoundFan]

"For Trump, even disaster response is colored in red and blue"

Spoiler

Days after Hurricane Florence rammed into the North Carolina coast, President Trump was on his way to comfort those who lost homes or loved ones. He met with the state’s Democratic governor; he sat for a briefing; he paused to ask residents in New Bern: “Hi, everybody, how’s your house?”

When Hurricane Harvey pummeled Texas last year, he traveled to Houston, and when Hurricane Michael hit Florida and Georgia last month, he and the first lady quickly went to the Gulf Coast.

But as California has convulsed in tragedy — a mass shooting and an outbreak of wildfires that included the deadliest in the state’s history — the president has not only offered little comfort; he has also heaped on criticism. He’s blamed the forest fires on “gross mismanagement,” threatened to withhold federal payments and instructed officials there: “Get Smart!”

The disparity in the responses to red states and blue states is one that continues to exacerbate the nation’s partisan complexion, injected now even into natural disasters.

A president who prizes and craves loyalty more than any other attribute, Trump has divided states into ones that voted for him and the ones that didn’t, and found that last group wanting. In California, that has meant state officials are having to fight not only killer fires but also the combustible rhetoric coming from Oval Office.

“There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor,” Trump tweeted early Saturday, as fires consumed portions of the state in the north and the south. “Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!”

Not until 14 hours later did he express sympathy for the victims.

California officials responded by pointing out that the latest fires have not started in forests but in suburban areas, fueled by scrub grasses and chaparral dried by the state’s long-standing drought, and driven by blowtorch winds. Moreover, the vast majority of forest land in California is owned and controlled not by the state but by the federal government, under Trump’s control.

“Forestry management in this country is something we should debate; it’s something we should talk about,” said Michael Brown, who served as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the George W. Bush administration. “But in the middle of the fire? That’s not the time to debate it; that’s not the time to make the point.

“It detracted from what firefighters and California and other governors — red states and blue states — are doing to help protect California.”

White House officials did not respond when asked why Trump often appears to be more publicly critical of Democratic areas that suffer natural disasters, compared with more conservative states.

On Monday night, Trump announced he had agreed to sign the major federal disaster declaration that California officials had requested 24 hours earlier.

“Wanted to respond quickly in order to alleviate some of the incredible suffering going on,” he tweeted. “I am with you all the way.”

Since he took office, Trump has made 111 trips to 26 states that he carried in 2016, while traveling 47 times to 10 states that he lost, according to figures compiled by Mark Knoller of CBS News.

Six of those visits have been to areas hit by natural disasters. In 2017, Trump traveled to Texas twice after Hurricane Harvey, and once each to Puerto Rico, severely damaged by Hurricane Maria, and a post-Irma Florida. This year, Trump has made two hurricane-related trips: to the Carolinas after Hurricane Florence, and to Florida and Georgia post-Hurricane Michael.

The current California wildfires are the third to have occurred without a presidential visit. Trump has been to the state once since taking office, to survey prototypes of the wall he wants to build along the southern border.

In addition to his visits, Trump’s remarks represent another way in which he’s treated less-friendly areas differently than disaster zones more supportive of him.

Ahead of natural disasters, a review of his tweets indicate, he warns the public to evacuate and to listen to local officials (“I encourage everyone in the path of #HurricaneHarvey to heed the advice & orders of their local and state officials”). Afterward, he praises the cleanup work (“Right now, everybody is saying what a great job we are doing with Hurricane Florence — and they are 100% correct”). And later, he credits local Republican officials for advocating on behalf of their state (“Lake Okeechobee and all of the hurricane money were a passion for Rick Scott, who called endlessly on behalf of the People of Florida”).

His treatment of California and Puerto Rico stands out for its post-disaster negativity.

In Puerto Rico, he got into a tit-for-tat argument with San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz as recovery efforts were underway. Later, when he visited the U.S. territory, he was criticized for tossing paper towels into the crowd, as if making victims compete for the goods. He since has downplayed the number of deaths attributed to the hurricane and is now working on plans to stop providing disaster relief funds for the island.

“The people of Puerto Rico are wonderful but the inept politicians are trying to use the massive and ridiculously high amounts of hurricane/disaster funding to pay off other obligations,” he wrote last month on Twitter, an accusation for which there is no proof.

When it comes to California, at which Trump leveled blame even before praising firefighters, the disasters are striking at the epicenter of the anti-Trump resistance movement. Attorney General Xavier Becerra has sued the Trump administration dozens of times, attempting to block efforts to penalize sanctuary cities or to roll back environmental protections, among other things. In the midterm elections, Democrats won back numerous seats from Republicans, including in the longtime conservative bastion of Orange County.

The president has repeatedly blamed the state — falsely — for allowing millions of fraudulent ballots in 2016, which he says led to his loss of the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Trump’s latest comments about fighting wildfires resurrect ones he previously made during a series of fires in August and during comments in a Cabinet meeting last month.

“I say to the governor, or whoever is going to be the governor, of California: You better get your act together,” Trump said. “Because California, we’re just not going to continue to pay the kind of money that we’re paying because of fires that should never be to [that] extent.”

Gov. Jerry Brown (D) said during a Sunday news conference that Trump’s emphasis on forest mismanagement missed the larger cause of the devastation. Fire experts insist that the intensity of recent fires has been exacerbated by climate change, the existence of which Trump has denied.

“Managing all the forests everywhere we can does not stop climate change,” Brown said. “And those who deny that are definitely contributing to the tragedies that we are now witnessing and will continue to witness in the coming years. The chickens are coming home to roost; this is real here.”

The upside for California, which perennially delivers more in tax receipts to the U.S. government than it receives in federal money, is that Trump’s treatment of it has yet to flow from word to action.

“Tweets are not outcomes,” said W. Craig Fugate, who was FEMA director during the Obama administration. “My observation is that FEMA has not been doing anything different in this administration than what we did in the Obama administration when it comes to presidential declarations.”

On Friday, within 24 hours of making the request, California secured federal assistance to support communities affected by the fires. Brown requested a presidential major disaster declaration on Sunday; Trump announced Monday night that he had approved it.

Congressional Democrats plan to demand $720 million for wildfire relief in California, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said Monday — adding that lawmakers will also have to appropriate more money for ongoing hurricane recovery in Texas, Florida and elsewhere, including Puerto Rico. Trump has signaled to lawmakers that he wants to stop sending disaster aid to Puerto Rico, a circumstance first reported by Axios and confirmed to The Washington Post by a person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose confidential deliberations.

“The threat to cut off federal funding while the fires are very much burning is unconscionable for the president of the United States to say,” said Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.). “It’s adversarial at the very worst time. Every state in the nation and every territory of the United States should be able to count on a sympathetic president who is trying to do everything he or she can in times of natural disaster, and it should be true whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat, or the state is red or blue.”

 

[fraurosena]

But there was enough money to send those troops to the border to protect the US from a caravan of poor asylum seekers, there was enough money to give a yuge tax cut to the super rich, and enough money to spend on weekly golf trips.

U.S. Budget Deficit Jumps to $100 Billion at Start of Fiscal Year

Quote

The U.S. recorded a $100.5 billion budget deficit in October, an increase of about 60 percent from a year earlier, as spending grew twice as fast as revenue.

The deficit widened from $63.2 billion in the same month last year, the department said in an emailed statement on Tuesday. October marks the start of the U.S. fiscal year.

Receipts totaled $252.7 billion last month, up 7 percent from a year earlier, while outlays climbed 18 percent to $353.2 billion, according to the department.

A ballooning U.S. budget shortfall -- fueled by tax cuts, spending hikes and an aging population -- is driving the Treasury Department to raise its long-term debt issuance. Waning support for U.S. government debt from the Fed, combined with President Donald Trump’s deficit-boosting tax cuts, are weighing on the debt load that he inherited from Barack Obama.

In Trump’s first full fiscal year that ended in September, the budget gap grew to $779 billion, the highest level since 2012.

 

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"For Trump, even disaster response is colored in red and blue"

  Reveal hidden contents

Days after Hurricane Florence rammed into the North Carolina coast, President Trump was on his way to comfort those who lost homes or loved ones. He met with the state’s Democratic governor; he sat for a briefing; he paused to ask residents in New Bern: “Hi, everybody, how’s your house?”

When Hurricane Harvey pummeled Texas last year, he traveled to Houston, and when Hurricane Michael hit Florida and Georgia last month, he and the first lady quickly went to the Gulf Coast.

But as California has convulsed in tragedy — a mass shooting and an outbreak of wildfires that included the deadliest in the state’s history — the president has not only offered little comfort; he has also heaped on criticism. He’s blamed the forest fires on “gross mismanagement,” threatened to withhold federal payments and instructed officials there: “Get Smart!”

The disparity in the responses to red states and blue states is one that continues to exacerbate the nation’s partisan complexion, injected now even into natural disasters.

A president who prizes and craves loyalty more than any other attribute, Trump has divided states into ones that voted for him and the ones that didn’t, and found that last group wanting. In California, that has meant state officials are having to fight not only killer fires but also the combustible rhetoric coming from Oval Office.

“There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor,” Trump tweeted early Saturday, as fires consumed portions of the state in the north and the south. “Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!”

Not until 14 hours later did he express sympathy for the victims.

California officials responded by pointing out that the latest fires have not started in forests but in suburban areas, fueled by scrub grasses and chaparral dried by the state’s long-standing drought, and driven by blowtorch winds. Moreover, the vast majority of forest land in California is owned and controlled not by the state but by the federal government, under Trump’s control.

“Forestry management in this country is something we should debate; it’s something we should talk about,” said Michael Brown, who served as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the George W. Bush administration. “But in the middle of the fire? That’s not the time to debate it; that’s not the time to make the point.

“It detracted from what firefighters and California and other governors — red states and blue states — are doing to help protect California.”

White House officials did not respond when asked why Trump often appears to be more publicly critical of Democratic areas that suffer natural disasters, compared with more conservative states.

On Monday night, Trump announced he had agreed to sign the major federal disaster declaration that California officials had requested 24 hours earlier.

“Wanted to respond quickly in order to alleviate some of the incredible suffering going on,” he tweeted. “I am with you all the way.”

Since he took office, Trump has made 111 trips to 26 states that he carried in 2016, while traveling 47 times to 10 states that he lost, according to figures compiled by Mark Knoller of CBS News.

Six of those visits have been to areas hit by natural disasters. In 2017, Trump traveled to Texas twice after Hurricane Harvey, and once each to Puerto Rico, severely damaged by Hurricane Maria, and a post-Irma Florida. This year, Trump has made two hurricane-related trips: to the Carolinas after Hurricane Florence, and to Florida and Georgia post-Hurricane Michael.

The current California wildfires are the third to have occurred without a presidential visit. Trump has been to the state once since taking office, to survey prototypes of the wall he wants to build along the southern border.

In addition to his visits, Trump’s remarks represent another way in which he’s treated less-friendly areas differently than disaster zones more supportive of him.

Ahead of natural disasters, a review of his tweets indicate, he warns the public to evacuate and to listen to local officials (“I encourage everyone in the path of #HurricaneHarvey to heed the advice & orders of their local and state officials”). Afterward, he praises the cleanup work (“Right now, everybody is saying what a great job we are doing with Hurricane Florence — and they are 100% correct”). And later, he credits local Republican officials for advocating on behalf of their state (“Lake Okeechobee and all of the hurricane money were a passion for Rick Scott, who called endlessly on behalf of the People of Florida”).

His treatment of California and Puerto Rico stands out for its post-disaster negativity.

In Puerto Rico, he got into a tit-for-tat argument with San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz as recovery efforts were underway. Later, when he visited the U.S. territory, he was criticized for tossing paper towels into the crowd, as if making victims compete for the goods. He since has downplayed the number of deaths attributed to the hurricane and is now working on plans to stop providing disaster relief funds for the island.

“The people of Puerto Rico are wonderful but the inept politicians are trying to use the massive and ridiculously high amounts of hurricane/disaster funding to pay off other obligations,” he wrote last month on Twitter, an accusation for which there is no proof.

When it comes to California, at which Trump leveled blame even before praising firefighters, the disasters are striking at the epicenter of the anti-Trump resistance movement. Attorney General Xavier Becerra has sued the Trump administration dozens of times, attempting to block efforts to penalize sanctuary cities or to roll back environmental protections, among other things. In the midterm elections, Democrats won back numerous seats from Republicans, including in the longtime conservative bastion of Orange County.

The president has repeatedly blamed the state — falsely — for allowing millions of fraudulent ballots in 2016, which he says led to his loss of the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Trump’s latest comments about fighting wildfires resurrect ones he previously made during a series of fires in August and during comments in a Cabinet meeting last month.

“I say to the governor, or whoever is going to be the governor, of California: You better get your act together,” Trump said. “Because California, we’re just not going to continue to pay the kind of money that we’re paying because of fires that should never be to [that] extent.”

Gov. Jerry Brown (D) said during a Sunday news conference that Trump’s emphasis on forest mismanagement missed the larger cause of the devastation. Fire experts insist that the intensity of recent fires has been exacerbated by climate change, the existence of which Trump has denied.

“Managing all the forests everywhere we can does not stop climate change,” Brown said. “And those who deny that are definitely contributing to the tragedies that we are now witnessing and will continue to witness in the coming years. The chickens are coming home to roost; this is real here.”

The upside for California, which perennially delivers more in tax receipts to the U.S. government than it receives in federal money, is that Trump’s treatment of it has yet to flow from word to action.

“Tweets are not outcomes,” said W. Craig Fugate, who was FEMA director during the Obama administration. “My observation is that FEMA has not been doing anything different in this administration than what we did in the Obama administration when it comes to presidential declarations.”

On Friday, within 24 hours of making the request, California secured federal assistance to support communities affected by the fires. Brown requested a presidential major disaster declaration on Sunday; Trump announced Monday night that he had approved it.

Congressional Democrats plan to demand $720 million for wildfire relief in California, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said Monday — adding that lawmakers will also have to appropriate more money for ongoing hurricane recovery in Texas, Florida and elsewhere, including Puerto Rico. Trump has signaled to lawmakers that he wants to stop sending disaster aid to Puerto Rico, a circumstance first reported by Axios and confirmed to The Washington Post by a person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose confidential deliberations.

“The threat to cut off federal funding while the fires are very much burning is unconscionable for the president of the United States to say,” said Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.). “It’s adversarial at the very worst time. Every state in the nation and every territory of the United States should be able to count on a sympathetic president who is trying to do everything he or she can in times of natural disaster, and it should be true whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat, or the state is red or blue.”

 

The sad irony is that Paradise, which was the town East of Chico, California that burned, is in a ruby red area with a Republican congressman. The area around Redding, which burned in July and August, is also represented by a Republican. I'm sure that Trump doesn't know that large swaths of California are Republican, and it's not just the blue areas that have forest fires.

[Howl]

Ya learn something new about a narcissist every day:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Five days of fury: Inside Trump’s Paris temper, election woes and staff upheaval"

Spoiler

As he jetted to Paris last Friday, President Trump received a congratulatory phone call aboard Air Force One. British Prime Minister Theresa May was calling to celebrate the Republican Party’s wins in the midterm elections — never mind that Democrats seized control of the House — but her appeal to the American president’s vanity was met with an ornery outburst.

Trump berated May for Great Britain not doing enough, in his assessment, to contain Iran. He questioned her over Brexit and complained about the trade deals he sees as unfair with European countries. May has endured Trump’s churlish temper before, but still her aides were shaken by his especially foul mood, according to U.S. and European officials briefed on the conversation.

For Trump, that testy call set the tone for five days of fury — evident in Trump’s splenetic tweets and described in interviews with 14 senior administration officials, outside Trump confidants and foreign diplomats, many of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

“He was frustrated with the trip. And he’s itching to make some changes,” said one senior White House official. “This is a week where things could get really dicey.”

During his 43-hour stay in Paris, Trump brooded over the Florida recount and sulked over other key races being called for Democrats in the midterm elections that he had claimed as a “big victory.” He erupted at his staff over media coverage of his decision to skip a ceremony honoring the military sacrifice of World War I.

The president also was angry and resentful over French President Emmanuel Macron’s public rebuke of rising nationalism, which Trump considered a personal attack. And that was after his difficult meeting with Macron, where officials said little progress was made as Trump again brought up his frustrations over trade and Iran. 

“He’s just a bull carrying his own china shop with him when­ever he travels the world,” presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said.

Meanwhile, Trump was plotting a shake-up in his administration. He told advisers over the weekend that he had decided to remove Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and that he also was seriously considering replacing White House chief of staff John F. Kelly, who scrambled early this week to try to save Nielsen’s job.

The senior White House official, who speaks to the president regularly, said Trump has been grousing lately about getting rid of Kelly. “But he’s done this three or four times before,” this person said. “Nothing is ever real until he sends the tweet.”

During Sunday’s flight to Washington from Paris, aides filed into the president’s private cabin to lobby him against the leading contender to replace Kelly, Nick Ayers, who is Vice President Pence’s chief of staff. These aides told Trump that appointing Ayers would lower staff morale and perhaps trigger an exodus. But the president has continued to praise Ayers, who also enjoys the support of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, according to multiple White House officials.

First lady Melania Trump shared her husband’s irritation and impatience with some of the staff. On Tuesday, amid reports that the president had decided to oust deputy national security adviser Mira R. Ricardel over tensions between her and other administration officials, the first lady’s office issued an extraordinary statement to reporters calling for her firing.

“It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House,” said Stephanie Grisham, the first lady’s spokeswoman.

Melania Trump said in an October interview with ABC News that the president had people working for him whom she did not trust and that she has let her husband know. “Some people, they don’t work there anymore,” the first lady said.

In her role as No. 2 to national security adviser John Bolton, Ricardel berated colleagues in meetings, yelled at military aides and White House professional staff, argued with Melania Trump regarding her recent trip to Africa and spread rumors about Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, according to three current and two former White House officials.

Kelly has sought for months to oust Ricardel, calling her a problematic hire in the West Wing, and Mattis has told advisers that he wants her out as well, the officials said.

A National Security Council spokesman did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Grisham’s statement was remarkable because it is so unusual for a first lady or her East Wing staff to weigh in on personnel matters elsewhere in the White House, particularly in the realm of national security.

Last week, the tumult began even before Trump took off for Paris. After directing Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign, controversy swirled around acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker’s qualifications for the job, business entanglements and previous public opposition to the Russia investigation.

As Trump walked out of the White House residence to board the Marine One helicopter on Friday morning, he paused to answer questions from the press corps and snapped when CNN correspondent Abby Phillip asked whether he wanted Whitaker to rein in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

“What a stupid question that is,” Trump said. “What a stupid question. But I watch you a lot. You ask a lot of stupid questions.”

Later, aboard Air Force One, Trump again lost his cool, this time during his phone call with May. He berated the British prime minister on Iran, trade and Brexit, among other topics. The White House did not announce that the call took place nor did it provide an official readout, but U.S. and European officials said in interviews that Trump’s mood was sour and his conversation with May was acrimonious.

On his flight there and throughout the weekend, Trump was preoccupied by political developments back in the United States. He watched TV with rapt attention as late-counting votes resulted in the Senate race in Arizona and a number of House contests to slip out of Republican hands, and as a recount got underway in Florida. He also complained about the lack of congressional funding for his promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Trump sent political aides in Washington scrambling to prepare detailed briefings for him on the still-to-be-called races. He aired baseless allegations of voter irregularities on Twitter — writing from the plane that elections attorney Marc Elias was the Democrats’ “best Election stealing lawyer” but that he would send “much better lawyers to expose the FRAUD!”

Still, the president told aides he felt disconnected from the action in his suite at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Paris — even as he consumed countless hours of television news on the trip. 

“Trump needs adulation, so heading into the midterms, holding these rallies, he was cheered and it became narcissistic fuel to his engine,” Brinkley said. “After the midterm, it’s the sober dawn of the morning.”

Trump was awake Saturday well before dawn, if he got much sleep at all, tweeting at 4:52 a.m. Paris time a two-part defense of Whitaker as “highly thought of” and “outstanding.” Later in the day, he scuttled plans to attend a ceremony honoring the military sacrifice of World War I at an American cemetery outside the French capital, citing bad weather.

Trump was told that morning by Deputy White House Chief of Staff Zachary D. Fuentes that the Secret Service had concerns about flying Marine One through the rain and fog from Paris to the cemetery 50 miles away, and that a motorcade could be lengthy and snarl traffic in the area, according to one senior White House official.

Trump chose not to make the trip, and Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, and Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, attended in his stead.

But Trump quickly grew infuriated by a torrent of tweets and media coverage suggesting that the president was afraid of the rain and did not respect veterans.

Former secretary of state John F. Kerry, a decorated Navy veteran of the Vietnam War, tweeted: “President @realDonaldTrump a no-show because of raindrops? Those veterans the president didn’t bother to honor fought in the rain, in the mud, in the snow — & many died in trenches for the cause of freedom. Rain didn’t stop them & it shouldn’t have stopped an American president.”

Trump told aides he thought he looked “terrible” and blamed his chief of staff’s office, and Fuentes in particular, for not counseling him that skipping the cemetery visit would be a public-relations nightmare. 

Trump was still litigating the episode on Tuesday, when he tweeted from the White House that he suggested driving to the cemetery and “Secret Service said NO, too far from airport & big Paris shutdown.”

On Sunday, he got angry at Macron for his remarks at a ceremony honoring the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. The French president denounced rising nationalism around the world and called it a “betrayal of patriotism,” with two of the world’s leading nationalists — Trump and Russian President Vladi­mir Putin — in attendance.

Trump told advisers he considered Macron’s comment a personal insult, and it came on the heels of a disagreement between the two leaders over Macron’s call for a “true European army.” At their bilateral meeting on Saturday, Trump appeared subdued and almost sullen.

Once he was back home in Washington, Trump unloaded on his French counterpart, likening Macron’s call for a European army to Germany’s military expansion in World War I and World War II. Trump tweeted Tuesday morning, “How did that work out for France? They were starting to learn German in Paris before the U.S. came along. Pay for NATO or not!”

Trump also lashed out over trade agreements — “Not fair, must change!” he tweeted — that he argued make it easy for the United States to sell French wines but difficult for France to sell American wines.

And then he attacked Macron for his unpopularity in France — while providing a bit of sloganeering advice.

“The problem is that Emmanuel suffers from a very low Approval Rating in France, 26%, and an unemployment rate of almost 10%,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “He was just trying to get onto another subject. By the way, there is no country more Nationalist than France, very proud people-and rightfully so!.. MAKE FRANCE GREAT AGAIN!”

 

[47of74]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Five days of fury: Inside Trump’s Paris temper, election woes and staff upheaval"

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As he jetted to Paris last Friday, President Trump received a congratulatory phone call aboard Air Force One. British Prime Minister Theresa May was calling to celebrate the Republican Party’s wins in the midterm elections — never mind that Democrats seized control of the House — but her appeal to the American president’s vanity was met with an ornery outburst.

Trump berated May for Great Britain not doing enough, in his assessment, to contain Iran. He questioned her over Brexit and complained about the trade deals he sees as unfair with European countries. May has endured Trump’s churlish temper before, but still her aides were shaken by his especially foul mood, according to U.S. and European officials briefed on the conversation.

For Trump, that testy call set the tone for five days of fury — evident in Trump’s splenetic tweets and described in interviews with 14 senior administration officials, outside Trump confidants and foreign diplomats, many of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

“He was frustrated with the trip. And he’s itching to make some changes,” said one senior White House official. “This is a week where things could get really dicey.”

During his 43-hour stay in Paris, Trump brooded over the Florida recount and sulked over other key races being called for Democrats in the midterm elections that he had claimed as a “big victory.” He erupted at his staff over media coverage of his decision to skip a ceremony honoring the military sacrifice of World War I.

The president also was angry and resentful over French President Emmanuel Macron’s public rebuke of rising nationalism, which Trump considered a personal attack. And that was after his difficult meeting with Macron, where officials said little progress was made as Trump again brought up his frustrations over trade and Iran. 

“He’s just a bull carrying his own china shop with him when­ever he travels the world,” presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said.

Meanwhile, Trump was plotting a shake-up in his administration. He told advisers over the weekend that he had decided to remove Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and that he also was seriously considering replacing White House chief of staff John F. Kelly, who scrambled early this week to try to save Nielsen’s job.

The senior White House official, who speaks to the president regularly, said Trump has been grousing lately about getting rid of Kelly. “But he’s done this three or four times before,” this person said. “Nothing is ever real until he sends the tweet.”

During Sunday’s flight to Washington from Paris, aides filed into the president’s private cabin to lobby him against the leading contender to replace Kelly, Nick Ayers, who is Vice President Pence’s chief of staff. These aides told Trump that appointing Ayers would lower staff morale and perhaps trigger an exodus. But the president has continued to praise Ayers, who also enjoys the support of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, according to multiple White House officials.

First lady Melania Trump shared her husband’s irritation and impatience with some of the staff. On Tuesday, amid reports that the president had decided to oust deputy national security adviser Mira R. Ricardel over tensions between her and other administration officials, the first lady’s office issued an extraordinary statement to reporters calling for her firing.

“It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House,” said Stephanie Grisham, the first lady’s spokeswoman.

Melania Trump said in an October interview with ABC News that the president had people working for him whom she did not trust and that she has let her husband know. “Some people, they don’t work there anymore,” the first lady said.

In her role as No. 2 to national security adviser John Bolton, Ricardel berated colleagues in meetings, yelled at military aides and White House professional staff, argued with Melania Trump regarding her recent trip to Africa and spread rumors about Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, according to three current and two former White House officials.

Kelly has sought for months to oust Ricardel, calling her a problematic hire in the West Wing, and Mattis has told advisers that he wants her out as well, the officials said.

A National Security Council spokesman did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Grisham’s statement was remarkable because it is so unusual for a first lady or her East Wing staff to weigh in on personnel matters elsewhere in the White House, particularly in the realm of national security.

Last week, the tumult began even before Trump took off for Paris. After directing Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign, controversy swirled around acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker’s qualifications for the job, business entanglements and previous public opposition to the Russia investigation.

As Trump walked out of the White House residence to board the Marine One helicopter on Friday morning, he paused to answer questions from the press corps and snapped when CNN correspondent Abby Phillip asked whether he wanted Whitaker to rein in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

“What a stupid question that is,” Trump said. “What a stupid question. But I watch you a lot. You ask a lot of stupid questions.”

Later, aboard Air Force One, Trump again lost his cool, this time during his phone call with May. He berated the British prime minister on Iran, trade and Brexit, among other topics. The White House did not announce that the call took place nor did it provide an official readout, but U.S. and European officials said in interviews that Trump’s mood was sour and his conversation with May was acrimonious.

On his flight there and throughout the weekend, Trump was preoccupied by political developments back in the United States. He watched TV with rapt attention as late-counting votes resulted in the Senate race in Arizona and a number of House contests to slip out of Republican hands, and as a recount got underway in Florida. He also complained about the lack of congressional funding for his promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Trump sent political aides in Washington scrambling to prepare detailed briefings for him on the still-to-be-called races. He aired baseless allegations of voter irregularities on Twitter — writing from the plane that elections attorney Marc Elias was the Democrats’ “best Election stealing lawyer” but that he would send “much better lawyers to expose the FRAUD!”

Still, the president told aides he felt disconnected from the action in his suite at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Paris — even as he consumed countless hours of television news on the trip. 

“Trump needs adulation, so heading into the midterms, holding these rallies, he was cheered and it became narcissistic fuel to his engine,” Brinkley said. “After the midterm, it’s the sober dawn of the morning.”

Trump was awake Saturday well before dawn, if he got much sleep at all, tweeting at 4:52 a.m. Paris time a two-part defense of Whitaker as “highly thought of” and “outstanding.” Later in the day, he scuttled plans to attend a ceremony honoring the military sacrifice of World War I at an American cemetery outside the French capital, citing bad weather.

Trump was told that morning by Deputy White House Chief of Staff Zachary D. Fuentes that the Secret Service had concerns about flying Marine One through the rain and fog from Paris to the cemetery 50 miles away, and that a motorcade could be lengthy and snarl traffic in the area, according to one senior White House official.

Trump chose not to make the trip, and Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, and Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, attended in his stead.

But Trump quickly grew infuriated by a torrent of tweets and media coverage suggesting that the president was afraid of the rain and did not respect veterans.

Former secretary of state John F. Kerry, a decorated Navy veteran of the Vietnam War, tweeted: “President @realDonaldTrump a no-show because of raindrops? Those veterans the president didn’t bother to honor fought in the rain, in the mud, in the snow — & many died in trenches for the cause of freedom. Rain didn’t stop them & it shouldn’t have stopped an American president.”

Trump told aides he thought he looked “terrible” and blamed his chief of staff’s office, and Fuentes in particular, for not counseling him that skipping the cemetery visit would be a public-relations nightmare. 

Trump was still litigating the episode on Tuesday, when he tweeted from the White House that he suggested driving to the cemetery and “Secret Service said NO, too far from airport & big Paris shutdown.”

On Sunday, he got angry at Macron for his remarks at a ceremony honoring the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. The French president denounced rising nationalism around the world and called it a “betrayal of patriotism,” with two of the world’s leading nationalists — Trump and Russian President Vladi­mir Putin — in attendance.

Trump told advisers he considered Macron’s comment a personal insult, and it came on the heels of a disagreement between the two leaders over Macron’s call for a “true European army.” At their bilateral meeting on Saturday, Trump appeared subdued and almost sullen.

Once he was back home in Washington, Trump unloaded on his French counterpart, likening Macron’s call for a European army to Germany’s military expansion in World War I and World War II. Trump tweeted Tuesday morning, “How did that work out for France? They were starting to learn German in Paris before the U.S. came along. Pay for NATO or not!”

Trump also lashed out over trade agreements — “Not fair, must change!” he tweeted — that he argued make it easy for the United States to sell French wines but difficult for France to sell American wines.

And then he attacked Macron for his unpopularity in France — while providing a bit of sloganeering advice.

“The problem is that Emmanuel suffers from a very low Approval Rating in France, 26%, and an unemployment rate of almost 10%,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “He was just trying to get onto another subject. By the way, there is no country more Nationalist than France, very proud people-and rightfully so!.. MAKE FRANCE GREAT AGAIN!”

 

Maybe the reason he didn't go to the cemetery was that his babysitters aides were worried someone would have flown one of these and he would have started World War III....

My almost seven month old niece acts with more maturity than the orange fornicate does.

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

@47of74 -- actually, the Dumpy baby did fly in Paris:

[fraurosena]

CNN got it's first request granted; there will be a hearing today.

 

[fraurosena]

Diwali is a Hindu festival.

It's celebrated on November 7.

[fraurosena]

Although I am a pacifist at heart, giving the Taliban everything it wants without getting anything of consequence in return just because you want to get out of the war in Afghanistan, is categorically the most cowardly and utterly stupid thing to do in Afghanistan.

Trump appears ready to cut and run in Afghanistan

Quote

The situation in Afghanistan is murky no longer – because it has, to a large extent, spiraled out of control. Rather than seeking a win-win scenario in which the United States might forge a deal with the Taliban for a more peaceful country, U.S. officials instead seem hell-bent on delivering to the Taliban everything the Taliban wants: Negotiations, political clout, release of prisoners – and the Taliban couldn’t be happier.

These are high times for the Taliban. Their striking capabilities remain fully intact, yet they’re being invited to the negotiating table to talk peace. The insurgent group has been offered almost everything they’ve asked for, without any strings attached.

They have been on a killing spree, and the number of dead doesn’t account for much. That’s how tragic the situation in Afghanistan has become. The numbers – irrespective of how large or small – are no longer enough to move us.

The events from Sunday, where dozens of Afghan special forces troops were killed and a loyal and peaceful province appears about to be ravaged, shouldn’t surprise us. The failure of the security apparatus the U.S. forces helped build is apparent.

Negotiating peace with the Taliban when the casualties are piling up each passing day should alarm us.

If U.S. policymakers aren’t in a position to require the Taliban to shed violence before being invited to the negotiating table, the Taliban have no reason to dial back the slaughter.

And as the Taliban ups the ante, the United States appears to be preparing to ask the Afghanistan government to delay the presidential elections scheduled for April – to ensure the U.S. has enough room to negotiate with the Taliban.

Why would the United States risk appearing so desperate to strike a deal with the Taliban? It might be because the losses in Afghanistan are becoming embarrassing for the Trump administration, which appears to be envisioning a quick exit.

Here’s a reminder: The United States abandoned Afghanistan after the USSR left the country, and the aftermath of that abandonment is no secret. There’s a big memorial in Manhattan for any who forgot.

The United States left Iraq when the country needed the U.S. presence for rehabilitation and reconstruction. What followed there wasn’t sweet, either.

Wherever there’s a vacuum, there’ll be the likes of bin Laden and Baghdadi eager to step in.

Give them the room to play – and time – and they will reward you with new nightmares.

There’s no question Afghanistan needs a political breakthrough. Negotiations could end the stalemate, but it just isn’t logical that one party to the negotiations is not only able to launch terror strikes at will, but does so in the midst of the talks.

The United States engaging in direct talks with the Taliban also undermines democracy in Afghanistan, something for which U.S. forces have fought valiantly for more than 17 years, but which the Trump administration appears willing to abandon.

The insurgents, of course, want to take the Kabul government out of the negotiations equation, and the United States apparently is laying the framework to appease them.

National security is a tricky business.

The challenge for the United States is it sometimes requires more brain than brawn.