Trump 43: King of Chaos

[formergothardite]

3 hours ago, Howl said:

NOTHING is normal in the US political climate because the dynamics have changed with Trump, twitter, constant chaos the 24-hour (or less!) news cycle, social media manipulation, Russians! and  I'll add in Mitch McConnell's relentless rat fuckery in the US Senate. 

ITA. This isn't normal politics. We are at a whole new place. At this point we are dealing with a cult where the leaders are openly being corrupt but the cult members don't care because their great leaders can do no wrong.  The GOP has spent decades getting us to this point. Perhaps they viewed Trump as a liability back in the 2016 election, but now they have realized he gives them what they have been working towards for so long. To turn on him will be to give up their decade long goals, something they won't do. They don't care about corruption, or the constitution, or him breaking the law and they know that regular republican citizens don't care either. The non-Trump republicans will keep voting republican no matter what comes out. 

Very, very few things will get them to turn on Trump right now and his corruption becoming public knowledge isn't one of them. 

[JMarie]

Clearly, he has never purchased a box of cereal.  Or any other groceries.

https://www.wral.com/fact-check-trump-says-again-that-americans-need-id-to-buy-groceries-they-still-dont/18696828/

 

Quote

President Donald Trump said again on Friday that Americans need identification to buy groceries, which remains not true.

"You know, if you want to go out and buy groceries, you need identification. If you want to do almost anything you need identification. The only thing you don't need identification for is to vote, the most important single thing you're doing -- to vote," Trump said at a campaign rally in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Trump added: "You know why? Because they cheat like hell, that's why." Voter fraud is exceedingly rare, and there is no evidence of mass cheating by Democrats.

Friday wasn't the first time that Trump claimed Americans need identification for their grocery purchases. He said the same at a Florida rally in July 2018.

The day after the Florida rally, his then-press secretary, Sarah Sanders, told reporters that Trump was referring to purchases of "beer or wine." But three months after that, Trump told the conservative Daily Caller that ID is required "if you buy, you know, a box of cereal."

 

[47of74]

God what a fuck stick 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Day 1,000 of the Trump presidency: ‘I think now we have to pray’"

Spoiler

Wednesday was the 1,000th day of Donald Trump’s presidency. He spent it the usual way, by saying unusual things.

“It’s a lot of sand,” Trump said.

He was sitting in the Oval Office next to the president of Italy, and referring to the battleground between the Turkish military and Syrian Kurds.

“They’ve got a lot of sand over there. So there’s a lot of sand they can play with.”

A thousand days.

“Thank you for the very interesting remarks you just made,” the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, said through his interpreter.

“I have so many Italian friends,” Trump said to Mattarella. “I can’t tell you how many Italian friends.”

Rudy Giuliani’s name was all over the news Wednesday, for privately exerting influence on U.S. policy toward Turkey and Ukraine. A business associate of Giuliani’s was arrested Wednesday for allegedly taking part in a campaign-finance scheme. It was the fourth such arrest of a Giuliani associate in the past week.

Giuliani, for his part, believes that the “deep state” is out to get him while Hillary Clinton runs free. The president has co-signed this view. “Such a one sided Witch Hunt going on in USA,” Trump recently tweeted. “Deep State. Shameful!”

A thousand days.

An impeachment inquiry is underway in the House of Representatives, which on Wednesday voted 354 to 60 to oppose Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria. Over on the Senate floor, Republican John Cornyn (Texas) dismissed the impeachment inquiry as a “divisive and ultimately futile effort.” Then Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) took the microphone.

“I want to talk about a very different topic,” Blunt said, “and that is the Stanley Cup.”

All day, C-SPAN had an online channel labeled “House Intelligence Committee Stakeout.” It was footage of a stairwell at the Capitol, morgue-like in its yellow dimness. Every now and then, a person walked up or down the stairwell, carrying a binder. Behind closed doors, a 37-year veteran of the State Department was testifying that U.S. diplomacy was being politicized to benefit Trump.

“I still ask the FBI: Where is the server?” Trump was saying in the Oval Office, referring to Russia’s hacking of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election. “How come the FBI never got the server from the DNC? Where is the server? I wanna see the server. Let’s see what’s on the server.”

Trump called the U.S. withdrawal from northern Syria a “strategically brilliant” decision that keeps “our soldiers totally safe.”

His former ISIS adviser, veteran national-security official Brett McGurk, took to Twitter with a sharp rebuke: “Trump has no idea what’s happening.”

A thousand days.

The joint news conference with President Mattarella began 54 minutes late in the East Room of the White House.

“To me it will always be called ‘Columbus Day,’ ” Trump began, referring to the Italian heritage of the explorer. “Some people don’t like that. I do.” Then he called his own election “corrupt.” And, for at least the fourth time in as many hours, Trump referred to the Kurds as “no angels.”

“Who is an angel?” he said. “There aren’t too many around.” The United States, he continued, has no place in a conflict between Middle Eastern countries.

“I firmly believe that if President Trump continues to make such statements this will be a disaster worse than President Obama’s decision to leave Iraq,” tweeted Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

To which Trump replied at the news conference: “Lindsey Graham would like to stay in the Middle East for the next thousand years.”

A thousand years. A thousand days. Either way, a lot of sand.

About 3 p.m., Trump met with congressional leaders in the White House Cabinet Room to talk about the situation abroad. The meeting devolved. There was some confusion about whether Trump called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a “third-rate politician” or a “third-grade politician.” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who has served in Congress since 1981, said afterward that he’d never seen such disrespect from a president.

“A nasty diatribe,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called Trump’s behavior during the meeting.

“Measured and decisive,” is how Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, later described it in a tweet.

“I think now we have to pray for his health,” Pelosi said back at the Capitol. “For this was a very serious meltdown on the part of the president.”

At about the same time, Fox Business anchor Trish Regan released a copy of an official letter sent by Trump to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Oct. 9. It said, in part:

Let’s work out a deal! . . . [History] will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don’t happen. Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool! I will call you later.

Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.), who left the Republican Party in July, reacted to the letter on Twitter by typing: “This is insane.”

 

[47of74]

I didn't think I could despise anyone more than Bush the Younger.  Holy fuck I was wrong.

Quote

President Trump said Wednesday that he had arranged the meeting at the request of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Speaking at a joint press conference with Italian President Sergio Mattarella, he described the encounter as “beautiful in a certain way,” adding that he expressed condolences “on behalf of our country. ”

He then admitted that he tried to get the family to meet Sacoolas, who was waiting in an adjacent room. “I offered to bring the person in question in,” he said. “And they weren’t ready for it.”

Trump, it seems, thought he could convince the Dunns to meet the woman who killed their son, and would do so by opening a side door through which she would walk. The whole scene would be captured by a pool of photographers who had been summoned for the meeting, a family spokesman charged.

But the Dunns would have none of it and refused to meet her. Dunn family spokesman Radd Seiger said that the family felt “ambushed” when the “bombshell” was dropped that Sacoolas was next door.

Fuck you Trump.

[Audrey2]

2 hours ago, 47of74 said:

God what a fuck stick 

 

That looks to me like the kind of letter an average 5th grader could come up with. Note that I said average, and not even advanced or articulate.

[AmazonGrace]

Man not smart does history 

 

[AmazonGrace]

Man not smart does military secrets.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/16/politics/trump-us-nuclear-weapons-turkey/index.html

Trump appears to confirm open secret about US nuclear weapons in Turkey
 

Spoiler

 

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump appeared to confirm Wednesday that US nuclear weapons are being housed at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, making him the first US official to publicly acknowledge what has been considered an open secret for years.

Most experts believe that the US maintains 50 Cold War-era B-61 "gravity" bombs in Turkey. The weapons are part of NATO's deterrence strategy and decisions about them have to be made by a unanimous vote of all 28 member states.

While sitting alongside the Italian President in the Oval Office, Trump was asked if he is concerned about the safety of "as many as 50 nuclear weapons at Incirlik Air Base" given the ongoing Turkish incursion into Syria -- a situation that has prompted bipartisan condemnation from members of Congress and suggestions that the weapons should be moved to another location.

We're confident, and we have a great -- a great air base there, a very powerful air base. That air base alone can take anyplace. It's a large, powerful air base," Trump responded, apparently acknowledging that US nuclear weapons are being stored in Turkey.

"And, you know, Turkey -- just so people remember -- Turkey is a NATO member. We're supposed to get along with our NATO members, and Turkey is a NATO member. Do people want us to start shooting at a NATO member? That would be a first. And that's all involved having to do with NATO," he added.

Read More

However, Turkey's military offensive against Kurdish forces in northern Syria following Trump's announced withdrawal of US troops from the region has called its status as an American and NATO ally into question.

And despite Trump's comments to the contrary, Turkey's actions have prompted officials at the State Department and Department of Energy to conduct an urgent review to assess removing nuclear weapons from Incirlik and at what speed, if so, a source briefed on the matter told CNN.

CNN's has contacted the State Department for comment.

The review was first reported by The New York Times.

While it remains unclear as to whether the administration will move forward with a plan to relocate those assets, sources tell CNN that members of Congress on both sides of the aisle support exploring the possibility, as several lawmakers believe the move is long overdue.

The US has long had nuclear weapons in Turkey, most notably Jupiter missiles that John F. Kennedy secretly withdrew from the country following the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the Soviet Union and America climbed down from the brink of a nuclear confrontation.

Incirlik, a joint US-Turkish air base, was established in the 1950s in southeastern Turkey. The base played a critical role in the fight against ISIS, as the US launched strikes into nearby Syria.

Questions about the safety of US nuclear weapons stationed in Turkey have been consistently raised dating back to a 2016 failed coup against Erdogan, and the matter has been virtually under constant review by US military officials in recent years.

But those concerns have taken on a new urgency in the wake of Turkey's actions in Syria

"The next question to Trump (and DoD) should be why is the United States continuing to store nuclear weapons in Turkey given that Turkey is an increasingly unreliable ally" and "the proximity of the weapons to a war zone," Kingston Reif, the director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the nonpartisan Arms Control Association, told CNN.

The number of bombs at Incirlik has decreased over the past two decades from 90 in 2000, according to Hans M. Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the nonprofit Federation of American Scientists, who notes that roughly 40 were sent back to the US around 2005 as part of the George W. Bush administration's unilateral nuclear reduction in Europe.

"The remaining 50 bombs are for use by US jets, even though Turkey never allowed the US Air Force to permanently base fighter-squadrons at Incirlik. Jets would have to fly in during a crisis to pick up the weapons or they would have to be shipped to other locations before use. As a result, the nuclear posture at Incirlik has been more a storage site than a fighter-bomber base during the past two decades," Kristensen wrote on Wednesday.

CNN's Barbara Starr and Ryan Browne contributed to this report.

 

 

[Howl]

This. THIS. 

Indeed it was an open secret until Trump just idiotically confirmed it; a woman who specialized in this area of military nuclear weaponry was interviewed on NPR a day or two ago.  She noted that these are small nukes to be deployed by fighter jets, they are very secure at Incirlik Air Force Base in Turkey but at this point every single terrorist on the planet is now having a wet dream about those nukes.  What could go wrong? 

It takes a lot of advance planning to move a nuclear weapon or forty to a more secure country and a staggering amount of security.  Would another country agree to host them? Would they be brought back to the US? 

Total insanity.  Twitter is confused about whether this is peak cray or getting close to the bottom when there. is. no. bottom. 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is not a surprise, but it ticks me off: "Trump has awarded next year’s G-7 summit of world leaders to his Miami-area resort, the White House said"

Spoiler

President Trump has awarded the 2020 Group of Seven summit of world leaders to his private company, scheduling the summit for June at his Trump Doral golf resort outside Miami, the White House announced Thursday.

That decision is without precedent in modern American history: The president used his public office to direct a massive contract to himself. The G-7 summit draws hundreds of diplomats, journalists and security personnel and provides a worldwide spotlight.

The announcement that the president’s club would host the international summit comes as Trump is in the midst of twin crises that are consuming his presidency — a hasty and confused American retreat in Syria and a growing impeachment inquiry in Congress.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who announced the decision, said the administration was not worried about the appearance of a conflict of interest, while he touted what the president’s resort has to offer.

“Doral was far and away the best physical facility for this meeting,” Mulvaney said. He said that the administration examined 10 sites before choosing this one. Mulvaney quoted an anonymous site selection official who he said told him, “It’s almost like they built this facility to host this type of event.” Mulvaney did not say what other sites were vetted.

Mulvaney said it was Trump’s idea to pursue the idea of hosting the event at his resort.

“What about Doral?” he said, recounting the president’s comments in the White House dining room.

Eric Trump, the president’s son and the day-to-day leader of Trump’s businesses, did not immediately respond to questions about how much the president’s company would charge the U.S. or foreign governments during the event. He also did not immediately respond to questions about whether the Trump Organization would ask taxpayers to pay for upgrades to the site. One obvious concern for next year: There will be at least eight world leaders coming to this event, but at present Doral has just two “presidential suites.”

The choice of Doral was denounced by good-government groups on Thursday, including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. That group filed suit against Trump for allegedly violating the Constitution’s “emoluments clause,” which prohibits presidents from taking payments from foreign governments.

“This is unbelievable. Given the potential consequences the president is facing for abusing the presidency for his own gain, we would have thought he would steer clear of blatant corruption at least temporarily; instead he has doubled down on it,” the group said in a statement. “The president is now officially using the power of his office to help prop up his struggling golf business.”

The G-7 summit rotates among sites chosen by the seven member countries, as well as by the European Union. The last time it took place in the United States, in 2012, President Barack Obama held it at the government-owned retreat at Camp David in Maryland. Before that, President George W. Bush held it at the exclusive, isolated resort of Sea Island, Ga., in 2004.

This year, Trump had hinted repeatedly that he intended to award the event to himself. At this year’s G-7 summit, in August in Biarritz, France, Trump said his aides had examined other sites and come back to tell him that Doral was the best. The site is set among office parks in an inland area near the Miami airport.

“They went to places all over the country, and they came back and they said, ‘This is where we’d like to be,’ ” Trump said then. “It’s not about me. It’s about getting the right location.” He particularly praised the club’s ample parking.

The Doral club is a major part of Trump’s portfolio. It provides him more revenue than any other hotel or golf club, and he took out $125 million in loans to buy it.

But, in recent years, this keystone property has fallen into decline, with profits falling 69 percent in three years. An expert hired by the Trump Organization blamed the drop on Trump’s politicized brand.

Trump’s properties have hosted U.S. government officials before, and his company says it does not seek to make a profit off that business. But even so, Trump’s properties can be expensive. At his Mar-a-Lago Club, for instance, the government paid Trump’s company $546 per night for each staffer staying in the club’s guest rooms and $1,000 for a single night of drinking by White House aides at one of Mar-a-Lago’s bars.

In this case, Eric Trump recently said that if Doral was the choice, Trump would not overcharge his own government.

“It actually would have saved the U.S. a tremendous amount of money in that they wouldn’t be paying for massive amounts of rooms with some hospitality company that’s going to milk the hell out of the U.S. government,” Eric Trump said at a forum put on by Yahoo Finance last week.

For the Trump Organization, the event would bring guests to fill unfilled rooms, as well as a glut of global publicity.

The summit will also come to Doral at a particularly good time — June, when Miami is steamy and its business usually drops off sharply. In 2017, the hotel reported that June was its second-slowest month, with just 38.3 percent of its rooms occupied. Only August, at 31.1 percent, was slower.

Trump has visited his own properties more than 100 times as president — sometimes bringing along foreign leaders. Those visits have resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in revenue for his businesses, as the U.S. government — and other governments — pay for their personnel to accompany him.

But this is something on a different scale: Seven foreign leaders, plus hundreds of other foreign personnel, would be housed at Trump’s resort. Trump is already facing lawsuits for allegedly violating the Constitution’s ban on receiving “emoluments” from foreign governments.

By doing this, he could be inviting a huge increase in the very line of business that these lawsuits are scrutinizing.

Trump bought the 57 year-old Doral golf resort in 2012, taking out $125 million in loans from Deutsche Bank to finance the purchase. He then poured money into renovating it — relying heavily on a crew of Hispanic stoneworkers that included some undocumented immigrants, according to members of the crew.

Since 2015, however, the 643-room club’s revenue and profits have nose-dived, according to figures that the Trump Organization provided to Miami-Dade County last year.

“They are severely underperforming” other resorts in the area, tax consultant Jessica Vachiratevanurak, who had been hired by Trump, told a county official last year in a bid to lower the property’s tax bill. Vachiratevanurak said the club’s net operating income — a key figure, representing the amount left over after expenses are paid — had fallen by 69 percent as of 2017.

The Trump Organization says the real problems scaring visitors away are the Zika virus and hurricanes. The Doral club’s revenue rebounded slightly in 2018, according to Trump’s presidential financial disclosures, though it is unclear whether profits went up or down.

In recent years, Doral has turned to Trump’s political allies to replace some of its lost revenue. This past weekend, for instance, it hosted a pro-Trump group called American Priority. Shown at that event was a violent video showing Trump shooting, stabbing and beheading members of the media and some Democratic opponents, according to the New York Times.

Earlier this year, the club also booked a golf tournament hosted by Shadow Cabaret, a Miami area strip club — then canceled it after The Washington Post reported about the tournament, and the charity beneficiary pulled out.

The selection of Doral as the site of the G-7 seems to signal the collapse of promises made by both Donald Trump and Eric Trump at the start of the Trump presidency — when they pledged to create separation between Trump’s private business and his new public office.

“I will be leaving my great business in total,” Donald Trump said then.

“There are lines that we would never cross, and that’s mixing business with anything government,” Eric Trump said in 2017.

So I guess taxpayers are going to be footing the bill for upgrades to the resort.

[47of74]

About the only way relations with Turkey could be more in the toilet now is if fuck face had insulted Atatürk in his letter. I’m surprised that duck didn’t take the opportunity to do so.

[GreyhoundFan]

Some good points from Eugene Robinson: "Trump is spinning out of control. We must stop pretending otherwise."

Spoiler

The most powerful office in the world is occupied — and being abused — by a man who is entirely unfit and is spinning dangerously out of control. Everyone needs to stop pretending otherwise.

And it’s all getting worse.

President Trump’s train wreck of a performance on Wednesday, at a meeting with congressional leaders, represented a new low on a scale that seems to have no bottom. “I pray for the president all the time . . . I think now, we have to pray for his health,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said later, because “this was a very serious meltdown on the part of the president.”

Trump began by complaining about having to attend a meeting initiated by his own White House aides, according to published accounts. The subject was Trump’s sudden decision to move U.S. military personnel in Syria aside, allowing Turkish troops and affiliated militias to sweep across the border and attack the Kurds, who had been loyal U.S. allies.

The president then tried to make the case that he did not actually condone the Turkish invasion. Attendees were given copies of a truly bizarre and alarming letter Trump had sent to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Oct. 9. Just four short paragraphs long, the letter begins, “Let’s work out a good deal!” It ends by telling Erdogan, “History will look upon you favorably if you get this done the right and humane way. It will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don’t happen. Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool! I will call you later.”

That is how the president of the United States communicated with a powerful foreign leader at a moment of crisis. We have all witnessed more sophisticated attempts at persuasion on kindergarten playgrounds. Erdogan reportedly threw the letter in the trash.

During the White House meeting, Trump went on to denigrate Jim Mattis, the decorated and highly esteemed Marine Corps general who served as Trump’s defense secretary before resigning last year over Syria policy. Mattis is “the world’s most overrated general,” Trump announced, according to the New York Times. “You know why? He wasn’t tough enough. I captured ISIS. Mattis said it would take two years. I captured them in one month.”

Anyone in touch with reality knows that none of this is true. The territory held by ISIS — the Islamic State — was reclaimed by Kurdish fighters with the aid and guidance of U.S. troops and intelligence operatives. Shortly before the meeting, the House voted 354 to 60 to condemn Trump’s abandonment of the Kurds, with most Republicans joining their Democratic colleagues in expressing outrage.

Perhaps that vote was what set Trump off. “You’re just a politician,” he told Pelosi. Then he amended his assessment: “You’re not a politician, you’re a third-rate politician.”

That’s what Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) heard; Pelosi thought she heard him say “third-grade politician.” In any event, she and House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) rose to their feet and walked out.

They pressed Trump and his aides to explain what the plan was for fighting the Islamic State now that the Kurdish firewall is gone. They didn’t get an answer because there is no plan. The president doesn’t have the foggiest idea what he is doing.

Trump is in so far over his head that he doesn’t know which way is up. He also is intellectually, psychologically and morally unsuitable for the high office he holds. Those two problems — incompetence and unfitness — reinforce one another in the worst possible way, and have sent the presidency into a tailspin that puts the nation and the world in mounting peril.

Impeachment is no longer optional, given what we already know about Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. But the prospect of facing a Senate trial — for which Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is already making plans — can only boost Trump’s anxiety. His outbursts and tweetstorms are becoming more frequent and less tethered to the world of facts, events and consequences. Madness is a term laypeople use, not doctors. We must use it now.

I once was confident that our institutions and processes were durable enough to easily survive Trump. Now, I’m less sure. “Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool!” — a letter saying these things, on behalf of the United States government, was actually sent to the government of Turkey. Good Lord.

Senators, pay attention. You may prefer to let voters judge Trump in next year’s election. But you must realize, at this point, that we may not have that long.

 

[fraurosena]

Mattis reacts to Trump’s slight of him.

That’s nice. He’s standing up for himself, with a great oneliner. But he should have spoken out much earlier. He knew all along who Trump is and kept his mouth shut. Only now he’s been personally slighted is he saying something. And it’s a rather mild rebuke at that. Mattis should start talking about everything he knows. Only then will he get a little bit of respect from me. A little bit.

[Howl]

Military funds were withheld from Ukraine this spring, after Mattis' departure from DoD, so he doesn't have exposure from that, but I do wonder if he had other exposure.  It's been said that he hated, truly hated, all the political maneuvering and machinations in DC. I don't think he was very good at the political side of things. 

He has said he would speak up when the time was right.  If the WH fucking over the Kurds by giving Erdogan a greenlight for genocide isn't the time, I don't know what is. 

[fraurosena]

Hold on to your eye-balls before reading this, as the irony it contains is sure to make them roll painfully far back.

Presidential Proclamation on National Character Counts Week, 2019

[My comments] in the quote.

Quote

Since our Nation’s founding, we have recognized that the good character of our people is vital to maintaining our freedom. The strength of our Union and the defense of our precious liberty require both constant vigilance and moral clarity.  During National Character Counts Week, we reaffirm our commitment to developing and demonstrating admirable qualities to enrich our lives and the lives of others.  In doing so, we are confident that we can positively influence the next generation of our Nation’s leaders and inspire them to lead lives of virtue and integrity. [I don't think you know what clarity means, let alone moral clarity.]

As history teaches us, no person or piece of legislation is capable of securing and advancing freedom for a nation that fails to instill moral principles in its people.  Parents, mentors, and educators have been instrumental in forming and developing values in our young people for generations, and cultivating character is critical for our Nation’s youth.  Building strong character in our youth helps provide them with a moral compass that will help them navigate life’s many challenges and decisions, and we have an obligation to set a great example for the next generation.  To advance this goal of developing a solid foundation for social responsibility in our young people, First Lady Melania Trump is promoting the importance of the values of kindness, compassion, and respect through her BE BEST initiative. [Nice, but what does this initiative actually do? What actions has she actually taken?]

Our American story is rich with famous examples of those with outstanding character, including President Washington’s admirable humility, President Lincoln’s strong will and honesty, and President Eisenhower’s courage.  [All sadly lacking in the current occupant of the oval office] Character worthy of our Nation’s praise is also found in the lives of ordinary Americans.  From the service members of our Armed Forces and law enforcement officials to public servants and educators, our communities are filled with patriots who demonstrate selflessness, honor, respect, and devotion to duty as they perform their daily responsibilities.  These virtues are also found in volunteers who reach out to those in need, members of the clergy who pray for the brokenhearted, children who befriend the bullied, and all those who extend compassion and kindness to others.  These Americans fortify our Nation’s ideals and influence future generations by leading lives governed by principle and conviction.  By their example, they remind us that character is developed consciously through exemplary effort and respect for others. [Their example, yes. Certainly not yours.]

Throughout this week, and each day of our lives, may we strive to demonstrate good character through our thoughts, discourse, and deeds in our homes, schools, workplaces, and houses of worship.  Let us set an example for others of the timeless values of respect, compassion, justice, tolerance, fairness, and integrity.  May we never forget that our Nation is only as strong as the virtue and character of our citizenry. [And not, in your case, that of its highest representative.]

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim October 20 through October 26, 2019, as National Character Counts Week.  I call upon public officials, educators, parents, students, and all Americans to observe this week with appropriate ceremonies, activities, and programs. [And what will you do? Go golfing again, I suppose, and tantrum tweet against your perceived enemies.]

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this eighteenth day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand nineteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fourth.

DONALD J. TRUMP

 

[Dandruff]

So it's going to be "Do as I say, not as I do" week?

[AnywhereButHere]

21 minutes ago, Dandruff said:

So it's going to be "Do as I say, not as I do" week?

As ever was. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s season of weakness: A president who prizes strength enters key stretch in a fragile state"

Spoiler

President Trump, whose paramount concern long has been showing strength, has entered the most challenging stretch of his term, weakened on virtually every front and in danger of being forced from office as the impeachment inquiry intensifies.

Trump now finds himself mired in a season of weakness. Foreign leaders feel emboldened to reject his pleas or to contradict him. Officials inside his administration are openly defying his wishes by participating in the impeachment probe. Federal courts have ruled against him. Republican lawmakers are criticizing him. He has lost control over major conservative media organs. Polling shows that Americans increasingly disapprove of his job performance and support his impeachment.

Many of Trump’s Republican allies revolted over his decision to withdraw U.S. troops in Syria, which triggered a bloody Turkish invasion that killed Kurdish fighters and civilians.

Trump bragged about sending a “very powerful letter” warning Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan not to invade Syria. “Don’t be a fool!” Trump wrote. But Turkish officials leaked word that their leader had thrown the letter in the trash, and Erdogan then took Trump to task for his “lack of respect.”

“Are we so weak, and so inept diplomatically, that Turkey forced the hand of the United States of America? Turkey?” Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), the Republican Party’s 2012 presidential nominee, said in a speech Thursday denouncing Trump’s Syria decision as “a bloodstain in the annals of American history.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wrote an op-ed criticizing the pullout, a rare rebuke of Trump.

“America’s wars will be ‘endless’ only if America refuses to win them,” he wrote, referencing Trump’s frequent argument that his critics want to keep U.S. troops abroad indefinitely.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Trump “shows strength at all the wrong times, and then when he needs to show strength, he shows abject weakness.”

“When he got on the phone call with Erdogan, he was weak as could be,” Schumer said Thursday on MSNBC. “He should have told Erdogan: ‘You can’t do this. America’s not going to let you do this.’ Instead, he green-lights Erdogan, and then a few hours later sends this ranting, rambling letter that shows ersatz toughness — and to show you the effect, Erdogan ignored the letter.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s claim of brokering a major trade “deal” with China after months of acrimonious negotiations has been undermined in Beijing, where Chinese officials for the past week have refused to confirm key elements of the supposed agreement — a clear sign of continuing disagreement between the two parties.

“It’s deflating when the curtain is pulled back and the Wizard of Oz is a little guy,” said David Axelrod, who served as senior adviser in the Obama White House. “If your whole predicate is strength and everywhere you turn there are signs of weakness, it is a danger.”

Axelrod added: “His psyche is invested in this facade of the strongman and yet he seems to be heeled by strongmen.”

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham rejected the notion that Trump’s position has been weakened in recent weeks, writing in an email, “This Administration continues to deliver real results for this country.”

Trump has defended his Syria decision, arguing that it was wise for him to teach the Turks and Kurds a lesson in “tough love.” He has also accused House Democrats, as well as the media, of betraying the American people with an impeachment inquiry he argues was designed to overthrow the results of the 2016 election.

“The economy’s booming, our people are prospering, our country’s thriving and our nation is stronger than ever before,” Trump told a roaring crowd of 20,000 at a campaign rally Thursday night in Dallas. “But the more America achieves, the more hateful and enraged these crazy Democrats become. Crazy. They’re crazy.”

Still, Trump’s supremacy is being challenged inside his own realm. With his administration engulfed by crisis, Trump can no longer control the forces once solidly arrayed behind him.

A variety of administration officials, including high-ranking political appointees, have trekked to Capitol Hill to offer damaging revelations during day-long depositions before impeachment investigators.

By testifying, these officials have decided to ignore the Trump White House’s unequivocal refusal to participate in a “totally compromised kangaroo court,” effectively ripping off the muzzles the president placed over their mouths.

Trump is being humbled by the judiciary as well. A federal appeals court in Washington ruled against the president this month in an extended legal battle over access to his financial data, deciding that Congress could seek eight years of Trump’s business records from his accounting firm.

The mounting crises for the administration — including self-dealing accusations over Trump’s decision to host next year’s Group of Seven summit of world leaders at his own Florida resort — have weakened the president’s hold on his party. During Trump’s past controversies, most Republican lawmakers publicly defended the president even if they privately expressed frustration, but now some are speaking out in utter exasperation.

“I think it’s not a good thing to have the appearance — you know, in the law, there’s a canon that says, ‘Avoid the appearance of impropriety,’ ” said Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.). “I think that would be better if he would not use his hotel for this kind of stuff.”

They are not alone. One of Trump’s greatest political advantages has been the uniformly positive coverage he receives in conservative media, but the firewall of loyal defenders on which he has long relied is cracking.

Trump has been angry with Fox News Channel because he deems the straight reporting, polling and some of the punditry it airs insufficiently adulatory.

After a Fox poll this month found that a record 51 percent of Americans support his impeachment and removal from office, Trump erupted. He lamented on Twitter that Fox is “much different than it used to be in the good old days” and complained that it “doesn’t deliver for US anymore.”

The Drudge Report, arguably the most influential website in conservative media, in recent weeks has run a deluge of negative headlines about Trump in all caps or bright-red type.

Trump is scrambling to keep his political coalition intact. He posted a video Friday on Twitter slamming Romney as a “Democrat secret asset” who had merely been “posing as a Republican” — an ironic charge about Romney, a lifelong Republican, coming from Trump, a former Democrat.

The president’s message, typed in all caps, conveyed his urgency: “REPUBLICANS MUST STICK TOGETHER AND FIGHT!”

Trump has long striven to show strength and to declare himself a winner, even if doing so requires fabrications. In the 1990s, when his businesses failed and declared bankruptcy several times, Trump recast his role as that of a wily businessman outmaneuvering the bankers trying to take him down.

“All of his books and anecdotes and television appearances are oriented toward a narrative about him being strong and winning,” said Timothy O’Brien, a Trump biographer and executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion. “He absorbed this from his father at his father’s knee. Fred had a very binary view of the world, that there were winners and losers and there wasn’t any in-between.”

Trump has some ready assistants in perpetuating his narrative of winning. Just a few hours after acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s admission of a quid pro quo with Ukraine that brought fresh peril to the administration, which Mulvaney later recanted, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) took the stage at Trump’s Dallas rally.

“Since you elected him, he has done nothing but win and win and win and win and win,” Patrick said. “Name a topic! The economy. The stock market. The strongest military. Oil and gas industry. Moving our embassy to Jerusalem. Every issue. The Supreme Court.”

It’s a message that continues to resonate with the president’s most ardent supporters, who remain a bulwark against his falling fortunes.

Watching from the arena floor Thursday, Rod Taylor, a 54-year-old mechanic, was convinced.

Asked whether the recent controversies weakened Trump, Taylor responded: “Hell no. He’s the strongest president we’ve ever had.”

“Every time somebody says he’s weak, he turns it around,” Taylor added.

Trump’s handling of this impeachment period contrasts with that of the last president to face impeachment, Bill Clinton, two decades ago. Clinton’s strategy then was to show the American people that he was focused on doing his job as president and was not distracted by the proceedings on Capitol Hill, much as they gnawed at him.

Clinton paid particular attention to foreign affairs, striving to fortify alliances, whereas Trump strained alliances with his Syria decision and, in the estimation of critics, got played by Erdogan.

“The world leaders rallied behind Bill Clinton,” longtime Clinton friend Terry McAuliffe recalled. “I remember talking to Clinton, one of the first calls he got was from [South African President] Nelson Mandela.”

McAuliffe, a former Virginia governor, added: “What people loved about Clinton is they knew he was getting out of bed every single day to fight for them. . . . Here Trump gets out of bed every day and does angry tweets. It’s totally different.”

Some of Trump’s former advisers are exhibiting less restraint than in earlier periods when it comes to speaking about the president.

John Bolton, who departed as national security adviser last month, is writing a book about his time working for Trump and has retained the same agents who represented former FBI director James B. Comey for his tell-all, Matt Latimer and Keith Urbahn. He also recently gave a speech criticizing the president’s efforts to woo North Korea’s authoritarian leader, Kim Jong Un, and strike a nuclear deal with the rogue nation.

Former defense secretary Jim Mattis, who for months had steadfastly refused to criticize the sitting president, poked fun of Trump during a roast Thursday night at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner. Mattis noted that Trump had called him “the world’s most overrated general” during a meeting with congressional leaders the day before.

“I’m honored to be considered that by Donald Trump because he also called Meryl Streep an overrated actress,” Mattis said, invoking the three-time Academy Award winner. “So, I guess I’m the Meryl Streep of generals.”

Mattis went on to mock the president’s taste for fast food. “I think the only person in the military that Mr. Trump doesn’t think is overrated is Colonel Sanders,” Mattis said, referring to the Kentucky Fried Chicken founder whose likeness graces the chain’s iconic chicken buckets.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Wow: "Trump says his Doral golf resort will no longer host next year’s G-7 summit, bowing to criticism"

Spoiler

President Trump announced abruptly Saturday night that he would no longer host next year’s Group of Seven summit at the Trump National Doral near Miami, bowing to criticism for having selected his own property as the venue for a major diplomatic event.

Trump was buffeted by two straight days of allegations of self-dealing and exasperation from lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including some Republican allies who said the selection of Doral as the venue for a gathering of world leaders was indefensible.

The decision — while it lasted — was an unprecedented one in modern American politics: The president awarded a massive contract to himself. The White House promoted Doral as the single best venue in all of the United States to host the G-7 next June, and the summit would have brought thousands of guests in the offseason to a resort that is struggling financially.

But in a rare reversal in the face of public pressure for a president who prides himself in rarely folding or admitting failure, Trump said Saturday that he and his administration would search for a new location.

Trump blamed his decision on “Irrational Hostility” from Democrats as well as the media and, in a trio of tweets issued late Saturday, defended his Florida property.

“I thought I was doing something very good for our Country by using Trump National Doral, in Miami, for hosting the G-7 Leaders,” he wrote. “It is big, grand, on hundreds of acres, next to MIAMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, has tremendous ballrooms & meeting rooms, and each delegation would have … its own 50 to 70 unit building. Would set up better than other alternatives. I announced that I would be willing to do it at NO PROFIT or, if legally permissible, at ZERO COST to the USA. But, as usual, the Hostile Media & their Democrat Partners went CRAZY!”

The president added, “Therefore, based on both Media & Democrat Crazed and Irrational Hostility, we will no longer consider Trump National Doral, Miami, as the Host Site for the G-7 in 2020. We will begin the search for another site, including the possibility of Camp David, immediately. Thank you!”

On Thursday, White House acting chief of staff Mick Muvlaney trumpeted Doral as the single best property in all of the United States to host a gathering of this nature. He said that after the president first recommended Doral be considered, an advance team from the White House scouted it along with several other locations and recommended Doral.

“I was aware of the political, sort of, criticism that we’d come under for doing it at Doral, which is why I was so surprised when the advance team called back and said that this is the perfect physical location to do this,” Mulvaney told reporters.

Mulvaney’s announcement of Doral sparked immediate criticism — not only from Democrats, but also from some Republican lawmakers who ordinarily defend the president’s actions.

“I think it’s not a good thing to have the appearance — you know, in the law, there’s a canon that says, ‘Avoid the appearance of impropriety,’ ” said Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.). “I think that would be better if he would not use his hotel for this kind of stuff.”

Doral has been struggling in recent years. The property saw its net operating income decline 69 percent from 2015 to 2017, according to documents that the Trump Organization filed with Miami-Dade County.

Hosting the G-7 would have been a major boon for the company, filling the hotel in June, a month when the resort is typically less than 40 percent full. Tourism in South Florida generally is not as high in the summer as in the winter, in part because of the region’s heat and humidity.

The White House had said that Trump’s resort would only charge “at cost” for the summit, but never spelled out what that cost would be. The questions were still unanswered on Saturday, when Trump pulled the plug.

Beyond questions about the ethics of a president awarding a massive summit to himself, there were also security questions: How could anyone seal off a sprawling resort set among neighborhoods and office parks?

The White House had said that 11 other sites were examined as possible locations, but never gave details about them. In his tweet, Trump seemed to indicate he might hold a summit at a site that wasn’t on that list: Camp David, the famous presidential retreat in rural Maryland. Then-President Obama held the G-7 there in 2012, the last time the leaders gathered in the United States.

Trump’s suggestion of Camp David was especially odd considering Mulvaney dismissed the site at his Thursday news briefing as an especially poor summit location.

“I understand the folks who participated in it hated it and thought it was a miserable place to have the G-7,” Mulvaney told reporters. “It was way too small. It was way too remote. My understanding is this media didn’t like it because you had to drive an hour on a bus to get there either way.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump wants to make reality TV. But now the cast is ignoring his directions."

Spoiler

It has always been appealing to talk about Donald Trump as the reality television president. For all his documented racism, and despite the many accusations of sexual assault, no jab at his unfitness for the job has seemed more ubiquitous than the reminder that he was previously famous as the guy who fired Cyndi Lauper on the tacky boardroom set of “The Celebrity Apprentice.” It’s a dynamic that was palpable this past week, when Trump invited the parents of Harry Dunn, the 19-year-old Brit killed in a traffic accident by American diplomatic wife Anne Sacoolas, to the White House. Without telling the grieving parents beforehand, he had Sacoolas waiting in the next room for a surprise emotional catharsis, to be played out in front of cameras ready to capture the moment. 

This is the ultimate old-school reality TV idea, recognizable to anyone who has ever indulged. It’s mid-’90s, daytime-trash gold — that box in the corner of the screen where we see a guy’s girlfriend waiting to burst onto the set and confront him for sleeping with her sister. It’s that moment on a “Real Housewives” reunion episode when a minor character is trotted out just to catch one of the stars in a lie. Since Trump clearly was looking to sell reconciliation, not conflict, my mind went to a more contemporary example from the most recent season of “Queer Eye,” when Karamo, the near-caricaturishly kind and sincere lifestyle adviser, brings the man he’s making over to a restaurant for a surprise. The guy who shot him and put him in a wheelchair for life is waiting to meet him.

The very temptation to compare such constructed, formulaic theatrics to the drama playing out on the global stage doesn’t just indict Trump: It’s also a condemnation of the rest of us, the viewers who voted him into office. We fell for the spectacle. A few months after Trump’s inauguration, Emily Nussbaum detailed in the New Yorker the way his “Apprentice” persona — the man in the power suit calling the shots, never challenged — was a cardboard cutout that could, at least, appear presidential, however free of substance it might be. Implicit in that point is the dynamic that makes any reality television production work: participants willing to engage in the spectacle shaped around them, and an audience willing to suspend disbelief in the face of that spectacle. Whether you loved or hated Trump, he was watchable because we’d seen all the bits before.

It’s easy now to point out that for the past three years Trump has been going back to that same playbook. Reality television, as noted by media critics like Nussbaum, political reporters like John Cassidy and the Bravo god himself, Andy Cohen, is the language he knows — a flip book of insults and set pieces ready-made for conflict or humiliation, or just fireworks. But it might be more helpful, or at least more hopeful, to point out all the ways the show breaks down around him: moments when he expects the production to play out exactly as he wants, but participants and viewers refuse to give him any moral or narrative authority. Often these are interactions with normal people, people who want nothing from him, who won’t be made to mean what they don’t want to mean. They are not contestants, they are citizens, and that is a distinction Trump seems unable to make. When he forces them into the show, their humanity in the face of the formula turns the familiar grotesque.

We saw this during Trump’s interaction with Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn, who refused to meet — let alone reconcile — with the woman who had struck and killed their son while she was driving on the wrong side of the road. As they explained later, they had always been willing to meet with Sacoolas, but they wanted to do so at the right moment, with proper preparation, prior knowledge and trained mediators on hand. What they didn’t want was to confront her without warning. That apparently hadn’t occurred to Trump, who reportedly thought he could fix things. 

I can almost understand his reasoning, if only because it’s worked before, at least on screen. I watched that scene where Karamo introduces his charge to the man who shot him, and I enjoyed it, just as I do every “Housewives” reunion, just as I spent my childhood enjoying “The Jerry Springer Show.” Of course, I’m aware of the wild ethical pitfalls and the predictability, the obvious construction of a moment demanding a particular emotion. As a fan, there’s discomfort in watching it play out, but there’s also the pleasure of engaging with a manufactured world where everyone has shown up for the attention. They’ve left normality, and in some ways they’ve left free will, in favor of the show. 

Or I can tell myself that. Those who walked onto the “Jerry Springer” set did so ready to behave in a way that would make the security guards sprint out from the wings. Nobody is more aware of the requirements of their job than a Real Housewife — part of what they’re selling is the certainty that they’re in on the whole thing, so they must deserve whatever comes to them. Even with “Queer Eye,” a show I choose to believe is much less cynical, you can’t feel the emotion Karamo is pushing unless his makeover subject seems to buy fully into the conceit of his own forced catharsis.

This is why the campaign was such a perfect setting for Trump’s reality plotlines and why he always longs to be back within its familiar parameters. He’s comfortable when everyone can believably be accused of being in on the show, and therefore when nobody demands better. Like a reality episode, the stakes of a campaign, and of so much political discourse, feel both hysterically huge and also detached from real consequences. Similarly, when Trump solicited praise from his Cabinet as if he was back on “The Apprentice,” or even had wandered into a “Bachelor” rose ceremony, it felt appropriate — an empty, made-for-TV contest, full of people who would do anything for the star’s approval and a random title, a sea of Bret Michaels and Gary Buseys, fitted with muted blue ties. There are sides to pick, humiliations to gawk at, things to feel, a spectacle so obvious and complete that it’s hard to think anyone deserves anything different.

But Trump cannot make compelling spectacle out of those who don’t want to be a spectacle, and that’s when the show starts to break down. The Dunns didn’t want to meet Sacoolas. They didn’t want to be paraded in front of cameras. They brought to the White House no desire for anything other than justice. Afterward, when their spokesman said that they felt “ambushed,” that a “bombshell” had been dropped, those words nodded pretty explicitly at the reality show construction of the moment, but they didn’t feel exciting or juicy; they were simply describing an act of cruelty — lives interrupted and manipulated. 

I had a similar feeling when the White House sent Vice President Pence to view the crowded migrant detention facilities at the border. Somehow, officials seemed to think that if Pence performed sincerity and authority, those suffering around him would conform to that desired affect. Instead, Pence stood with his arms folded and appeared unmoved as humans inside cages screamed: “No shower! No shower!” Only a week later, Trump himself met with Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad and tried to play the situation like he was congratulating a triumphant “Apprentice” contestant who would, as these moments have always played out, bask in the glory of a powerful man offering praise. When Murad wanted to talk about why she’d won the prize, for speaking out about her rape and torture at the hands of the Islamic State, Trump could only keep stumbling toward the emotion he wanted — “So you escaped,” he prodded her limply. He appeared unable to muster up even the performance of humanity; that wasn’t what he’d showed up to do.

It’s no accident that Trump’s most excruciating interpersonal failures come in these moments, when he must encounter humans who aren’t politicians or who don’t cover politicians, who aren’t celebrities or pundits, who are not planning to give themselves over to a show of any kind. When they recoil from him, it is so genuine, so unambiguous, that he retains no illusion of control. And the longer he has to govern, the more these moments will occur; these three examples were all from the past four months.

The idea of Donald Trump, president, has always hinged on the suspension of disbelief. No one was ever supposed to think that he was kindhearted or sincere, just that the people he was antagonizing weren’t, either, and that there was some value, some authority or at least some entertainment in his making them twist in the wind. As that conceit ages, calcifies and begins to crack, he’s running out of options.

More-skilled reality TV practitioners have been dealing with participants who fight against the formula for years. Pushing against the cage is now often part of the show — look at the 2019 Bachelor, Colton, trying to flee the set in heartbreak as the camera pulls back to reveal the crew members working to corral him. But Trump carries on as though it’s 2003 and nobody on TV or watching TV knows any better. His most dedicated devotees will always suspend their disbelief, of course, but even they keep trying to turn the conversation to Nancy Pelosi, to Hillary Clinton, to CNN — figureheads already embroiled in the show, enemy participants long ago stripped of their humanity. These supporters are working very hard to pretend that there’s anything still compelling in a very tired bit. For the rest of us, the viewing experience is too cynical to even be a guilty pleasure.

 

[fraurosena]

The name is Mark Esper, not Esperanto. 

'We have secured the Oil.'  What's this about? Are you messaging MBS? ?

No words about the nukes? Have they been secured yet? Or is ISIS going to get their hands on them? Do you even care?

'Bringing soldiers home', my ample ass. You're simply relocating them... to Saudi Arabia. 

Edited October 20, 2019 by fraurosena

[fraurosena]

Good grief.

 

[AnywhereButHere]

3 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Good grief.

 

Well, of course. The US is hospitable as hell under his watch! 

[Dandruff]

4 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Good grief.

 

"Honestly" and "hospitality" aren't words I associate with the orange one.

[fraurosena]

We make fun of him and snark about him on a daily basis. We get angry, and frustrated and Rufus knows we're all waiting for him to be impeached and removed from office, get criminally indicted and put into prison for all of his crimes. But after seeing this video, I hope he literally rots from the inside out. Slowly, and excruciatingly painfully. Because this innocent young boy has to go through such horrific torture because of Trump's moronic and imbecilic impulsivity and obsequiousness to dictators.

Fuck him. Sideways. With a two foot, pointy pole. 

I advise you to not turn on your sound when watching this. ?