Fear: Trump in the White House

[Pete F.]

A new book from a respected writer who has written about each of the presidents since Nixon.
Probably will start a massive Twitter storm.
Some excerpts are available online.
Maybe Trump will make it classified.

[Got Stripers]

Saw some of the quotes on the CNN news feed from Kelly, those alone will make Trump crazy, like the reported quote from Kelly saying they are living in crazy town.
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[spence]

And Mattis stealing papers off Trump's desk so he couldn't sign them in the name of national security

[Nebe]

Mattis- “explaining things to trump is like taking to a 6th grader”.

But he’s making Murika great again !
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[Got Stripers]

Supporters will dismiss it, claiming it is clearly someone trying to sell a book using fake news and until Kelly and others are out of this administration; they won’t comment. When you read some of the quotes and stories, it explains the crazy juvenile rhetoric we have heard from Trump. As an independent, I never liked either choice, but I never expected it to get this crazy and frankly a bit scary when you read some of those stories.
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[wdmso]

He has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes, But But But he's lying to sell a book at 75 years old Ok sure he is

[detbuch]

This is funny. What counts is not that the country is doing very well, not that stupid trade and international agreements are being renegotiated, not that NATO countries are going to contribute more money for their own protection, not that strong constitutional federal judges are being appointed, not that immigration is being more aggressively dealt with than before . . . but what counts is that another negative book about Trump has been published. And that some will not choose to discuss it.

Of course, some will cheer and revel in another revelation that Trump is a bad man.

[spence]

Originally Posted by detbuch

This is funny.

It's sad.

What counts is not that the country is doing very well,

Country was already doing very well.

not that stupid trade and international agreements are being renegotiated,

Even the WSJ blasted the MX plan as political and lacking in any economic thought. If the trade agreements were so bad before how did the country end up doing very well today?

not that NATO countries are going to contribute more money for their own protection,

This just isn't true. NATO members reaffirmed their existing commitments. Fail...

not that strong constitutional federal judges are being appointed,

Legislation from the bench.

not that immigration is being more aggressively dealt with than before . . .

Actually we're wasting money to deport immigrants that are contributing to our country and damaging kids and families just to look tough for the base. It's revolting.

but what counts is that another negative book about Trump has been published. And that some will not choose to discuss it.

Of course, some will cheer and revel in another revelation that Trump is a bad man.

It's another marker that this is a deeply flawed administration and the lack of Congressional oversight is evidence our government isn't working very well right now.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

It's sad.

It's funny that some are giddy over this sad book.

Country was already doing very well.

It's doing better now.

Even the WSJ blasted the MX plan as political and lacking in any economic thought. If the trade agreements were so bad before how did the country end up doing very well today?

Tax cuts and cuts in regulations made it better, and it will be even better with new trade agreements. Wall Street Journal blasted the sluggish previous economy. WSJ blasts a lot of things. Then it changes its mind. And goes back the other way. Depends on the spin factor, the mood, whose ox is being gored, and who the writer is. But it's always right . . . when you agree with it.

This just isn't true. NATO members reaffirmed their existing commitments. Fail...

Well they could renege (not unusual)--Stoltenberg (Secretary General of NATO) said that NATO "made conclusions at this summit which confirms our support for NATO, the importance of investing more and all our allies agreed that we need to deliver on our commitments. There is a new sense of urgency. And all allies agreed to redouble their efforts.”

Stoltenberg noted a change from previous commitments “Initiated by President Trump, last year, we agreed to develop national plans. We have clearly stated this year that we need credible national plans, and I expect all allies to follow up on their national plans. And the national plans are a very valuable tool to make sure that we deliver, and that we increase defense spending substantially.”

From CNN: "While other US Presidents have complained that other NATO members have not paid their fair share, Trump has made boosting allied defense spending a central plank of his engagement with the transatlantic alliance.

But now for the first time in years, a sixth country, Romania, has joined the ranks of NATO members who spend 2% of their country's GDP on defense. Romania now joins the US, Greece, the UK, Estonia and Poland in meeting that NATO defense spending target.

Canada pledges big boost to defense spending amid criticism
Several other countries have also made major jumps in defense spending, with Latvia and Lithuania now projected to increase what they spend from about 1.4% of GDP in 2016 to over 1.7% in 2017. Both Baltic nations are expected to reach the 2% target by 2018 . . .

Experts see concerns about Russia as the principle driving factor behind increasing defense budgets. The allies unanimously pledged to meet the 2% target by 2024 at the NATO summit in Wales in 2014 shortly after Russia's military invasion of Crimea.

But NATO officials have also credited Trump with drawing attention to the issue. "I welcome the focus of the President on increased defense spending" Stollenberg said at a news conference."


Legislation from the bench.

There will be less of that now.

Actually we're wasting money to deport immigrants that are contributing to our country and damaging kids and families just to look tough for the base. It's revolting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=JcZfjIS9HgI

It's another marker that this is a deeply flawed administration and the lack of Congressional oversight is evidence our government isn't working very well right now.

Spin, spin, spin . . .

[Slipknot]

Pete
Why don’t you read Tucker Carlson’s book Ship of Fools instead. It might open your eyes
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[nightfighter]

detbuch,
With all due respect from someone who voted against HRC; this President does or says something every day that gives me pause..... His administration has been a revolving door, with many heading into federal indictments. Those standing by are doing so for sake of country so as to not leave the station unmanned. I don't know that many foreign leaders are willing to align with him, nevermind sign a coerced trade agreement with him. His assessment of Korean military mass is based on nothing more than dollars he wants to move around to support his pet project of the moment. I seriously doubt you would find a senior military official willing to give him his full vote of confidence. I personally have no confidence in his international relations and believe he is being played for a fool by both Putin and Kim. His narcissism does not sit well with me.


So in my view, without even addressing so many issues within our borders, the country is not doing as well as you make it out to be. The stock market is not a true barometer, unless you are a one percenter. No one is perfect. I hope that you can attempt to consider some of the questioning put forward by some who are not politically motivated to anything other than what is good for Americans...

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by nightfighter

detbuch,
With all due respect from someone who voted against HRC; this President does or says something every day that gives me pause..... His administration has been a revolving door, with many heading into federal indictments. Those standing by are doing so for sake of country so as to not leave the station unmanned. I don't know that many foreign leaders are willing to align with him, nevermind sign a coerced trade agreement with him. His assessment of Korean military mass is based on nothing more than dollars he wants to move around to support his pet project of the moment. I seriously doubt you would find a senior military official willing to give him his full vote of confidence. I personally have no confidence in his international relations and believe he is being played for a fool by both Putin and Kim. His narcissism does not sit well with me.


So in my view, without even addressing so many issues within our borders, the country is not doing as well as you make it out to be. The stock market is not a true barometer, unless you are a one percenter. No one is perfect. I hope that you can attempt to consider some of the questioning put forward by some who are not politically motivated to anything other than what is good for Americans...

I just can't get stirred to fearing what Trump says. I don't particularly care about most of the things he says. And the constant framing by leftist and establishment types of what he says as being racist, sexist, etc., etc. annoys me even more than Trump's tweets. What little sense I can make of most of what he says is that, in his own ineloquent way, he is doing what other Presidents, or politicians, have done. Albeit they did it with elegant political speech (well worded, correct, persuasive, bullchit), or propaganda, used to move public opinion in their direction.

He doesn't seem to be a war hawk. His policies, economic and strategic, are more detrimental to Putin than were the policies of his predecessor. But, like the dealer he thinks he is, he is trying to persuade China, Russia, and NK to be partners in world prosperity rather than enemies. Who knows if he can succeed? It's a tall order. It takes a big ego to believe and try.

He is less intrusive into the personal lives of Americans than those who oppose him. He is nominating the kind of judges that this Republic needs if it is to survive as a Republic.

You have expressed, very well, a lot of opinions. But, like most objections to Trump, they are just opinions. If we are to believe what some other military leaders have stated, they are willing to give him more of a vote of confidence than they would have given to Obama, or to Bush. And I am not an admirer of the socialist West European leaders. They have aligned with Americans who believe in free trade without US tariffs while Europeans impose tariffs and make it harder to sell American manufactured goods in their countries at the same time they have open access to the American market. And they align with American leaders who will spend billions more to defend them than they do. In my opinion, they don't give a rats azz about America except as a cash cow and a bully protector. They respect our power, but not our people and our culture (lack of it according the them). Many of the average West Europeans, on the other hand, feel differently, more affectionately toward us, than their leaders do. I am more aligned with East European leaders who look to America and its traditional values rather than to their West European neighbors with their Progressive lack of historic or national values. There is a rise throughout Europe, even in Western Europe, of "conservatism." And those impelling this rise favor Trump more than the mainstream media will tell you.

Like you, I don't think the stock market is a true barometer. It has become too disconnected from the actual market to mean much anymore. The notion of selling stocks in a nascent business in order to supply it start up cash has been transformed into those stocks becoming actual commodities themselves. They can be bought and sold separately for profit rather than for investment in a company. Hence the huge disconnect with the extravagant rise in stock prices during an essentially stagnant business market in the previous decade. I cringe whenever Trump takes credit for rising stock prices. But that's what politicians do. Take credit for the ups and blame others for the downs. Making Trump out to be singularly guilty of that syndrome is denying that he is now a politician. In some sense, that is the idea. He is different. He is not rightly suited for the job. Sort of like Reagan was just an actor, a kind of stupid one. Trump is just a sleazy Real estate mogul loaded with all the corruptions that such folks are full of.

I don't care about all that stuff. I care about restoring our constitutional system of federated government. About reinvigorating the energy and power of the states and of the American people. Trump is just a stepping stone in that direction. All I deeply cared about in the 2016 election was getting a Congress that appointed the kind of judges that would reverse Progressive "interpretation" of the Constitution. Still some work to be done there. But there is, obviously, a frantic attempt by the Progressive left to derail that train.

It is the essence of that battle that is not being paid attention. It is not an advantage for the left to focus on that. It would either be a destruction of the Progressive agenda to have a vigorous, in depth, argument about that, or if the left won, it would be the fundamental transformation Progressives have worked for these past several decades--switching the American ideal of individual freedom into the Marxist ideal of collective power.

So, what must be given constant, impelling and persuasive attention, by the Progressive left, is Donald Trump. His reputed corruptive and dangerous personality, even though a constitutional President would not have the power to destroy a country by force of personal character. But Progressives think a President with an administrative state should have that power. And their attempt to bring this President down gives credence to the notion that a President somehow does have the power they want a President to have.

First you make the idea acceptable, believable, de facto true, then you codify it into law.

[scottw]

Originally Posted by Got Stripers

Supporters will dismiss it, claiming it is clearly someone trying to sell a book using fake news and until Kelly and others are out of this administration; they won’t comment.
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they aren't waiting to comment....



The book quotes Kelly as having doubts about Trump’s mental faculties, declaring during one meeting, “We’re in Crazytown.” It also says he called Trump an “idiot,” an account Kelly denied Tuesday.


“Don’t testify. It’s either that or an orange jumpsuit,” Dowd is quoted telling the president.

Dowd, in a statement Tuesday, said “no so-called ‘practice session’ or ‘re-enactment’” took place and denied saying Trump was likely to end up in an orange jumpsuit.

Mattis is quoted explaining to Trump why the U.S. maintains troops on the Korean Peninsula to monitor North Korea’s missile activities. “We’re doing this in order to prevent World War III,” Mattis said, according to the book.

The book recounts that Mattis told “close associates that the president acted like — and had the understanding of — ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader.’”

Mattis said in a statement, “The contemptuous words about the President attributed to me in Woodward’s book were never uttered by me or in my presence.”

A Pentagon spokesman, Col. Rob Manning, said Mattis was never interviewed by Woodward.

“Mr. Woodward never discussed or verified the alleged quotes included in his book with Secretary Mattis” or anyone within the Defense Department, Manning said.

Woodward reported that after Syria’s Bashar Assad launched a chemical weapons attack on civilians in April 2017, Trump called Mattis and said he wanted the Syrian leader taken out, saying: “Kill him! Let’s go in.” Mattis assured Trump he would get right on it but then told a senior aide they’d do nothing of the kind, Woodward wrote. National security advisers instead developed options for the airstrike that Trump ultimately ordered.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley denied Tuesday that Trump had ever planned to assassinate Assad. She told reporters at U.N. headquarters that she had been privy to conversations about the Syrian chemical weapons attacks, “and I have not once ever heard the president talk about assassinating Assad.”

She said people should take what is written in books about the president with “a grain of salt.”

[scottw]

Originally Posted by detbuch

This is funny. What counts is not that the country is doing very well, not that stupid trade and international agreements are being renegotiated, not that NATO countries are going to contribute more money for their own protection, not that strong constitutional federal judges are being appointed, not that immigration is being more aggressively dealt with than before . . . but what counts is that another negative book about Trump has been published. And that some will not choose to discuss it.

Of course, some will cheer and revel in another revelation that Trump is a bad man.

most successful sixth grader ever....

[RIROCKHOUND]

.....

[scottw]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

.....

wasn't he saying that the media so adored obama that he/his white house could "get away" with attacking woodward?....anyone else would be pillaried by the media for attacking such an esteemed member...as trump and his whitehouse will be if they attack woodward and his credibility

[JohnR]

Interesting events - have not decided whether or not to get it.

That Mattis and Kelly state they did not say those things. I'd tend to believe them. We do have a Narcissistic in the WH, though. Seems to becoming a trend.


The bits on the "Nervous Breakdown" might be true? Sure as hell will sell books to the unhinged.

[Nebe]

Originally Posted by JohnR

Interesting events - have not decided whether or not to get it.

That Mattis and Kelly state they did not say those things. I'd tend to believe them. We do have a Narcissistic in the WH, though. Seems to becoming a trend.


The bits on the "Nervous Breakdown" might be true? Sure as hell will sell books to the unhinged.

When you have Rex tillerson saying trump is a “#^&#^&#^&#^&ing mooron” in front of multiple people and then denying it, I believe this book a hell of a lot more than these guys back tracking and denying it...
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[spence]

Originally Posted by JohnR

That Mattis and Kelly state they did not say those things. I'd tend to believe them.

If they don't deny the remarks they pretty much are resigned to quitting so I could easily see two men with integrity doing what they think is in the interest of the country.

What's so disturbing about the book is the reoccurring theme of good people around the president working to protect the USA from Trump's leadership.

[PaulS]

We already know Kelly lies so why should he be believed here?

[scottw]

Originally Posted by spence

What's so disturbing about the book is the reoccurring theme of good people around the president working to protect the USA from Trump's leadership.

like John said...should sell well to the whacko left

[spence]

Originally Posted by scottw

like John said...should sell well to the whacko left

I thought John was thinking of picking up a copy?

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

If they don't deny the remarks they pretty much are resigned to quitting so I could easily see two men with integrity doing what they think is in the interest of the country.

What's so disturbing about the book is the reoccurring theme of good people around the president working to protect the USA from Trump's leadership.

Shocking, that you decided to conclude that their denials are fake. We're all stunned.

[scottw]

catchy book title....

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Shocking, that you decided to conclude that their denials are fake. We're all stunned.

If your news source is Fox, it has to all be make believe or just ask John Barron. The media is all involved in a plot to dethrone Trump.
"But what's truly worrisome for President Trump and his administration is that the portrait Woodward paints of a chaotic, dysfunctional, ill-prepared White House is all strangely familiar. It's the same vision of the White House that Michael Wolff wrote way back in January in "Fire and Fury." It's the same picture that Omarosa Manigault-Newman constructed in her memoir of her year in the White House. It's the same story that White House reporters at CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and virtually every other mainstream media outlet have told of the Trump White House.
Sure, Omarosa could be a disgruntled former aide trying to make money while exacting revenge on her enemies. Sure, Michael Wolff could have been misled by a few sources with scores to settle with Trump. Sure, reporters could get a detail or two wrong. Sure, Woodward could have cast a scene or two in ways that are less than favorable to Trump.
But how could all -- and I mean all -- of the reporting on this White House reach a striking similar conclusion? The portraits of Trump drawn by Wolff, Omarosa and Woodward are all eerily similar to one another -- a man hopelessly out of his depth in the job, but entirely incapable of understanding how desperately out of depth he actually is. A man motivated almost entirely by personal grievance. A man willing to humiliate people who work for him, to play staffers against one another, to scapegoat underlings to keep blame off of himself. Someone who has so much self-belief that he rarely adequately prepares for situations involving international diplomacy and national security. Top aides who view that their jobs are primarily keeping Trump from causing serious harm, and grousing every step of the way about the man.
The consistency in those storylines is virtually impossible to explain in any other way than this: It's true. To believe otherwise, you have to convince yourself that not only the entire daily media but also the likes of Wolff and Woodward all got together and agreed on how to portray Trump across tweets, stories and books. Which is, of course, beyond ridiculous."

[scottw]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

If your news source is Fox,

YAWN....

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by scottw

YAWN....

Documented lies of Donald Trump: since in office 4720 and counting
Documented lies of Bob Woodward since his career began: zero

You choose who to believe.

[spence]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Shocking, that you decided to conclude that their denials are fake. We're all stunned.

It’s logical
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[Got Stripers]

Originally Posted by nightfighter

detbuch,
With all due respect from someone who voted against HRC; this President does or says something every day that gives me pause..... His administration has been a revolving door, with many heading into federal indictments. Those standing by are doing so for sake of country so as to not leave the station unmanned. I don't know that many foreign leaders are willing to align with him, nevermind sign a coerced trade agreement with him. His assessment of Korean military mass is based on nothing more than dollars he wants to move around to support his pet project of the moment. I seriously doubt you would find a senior military official willing to give him his full vote of confidence. I personally have no confidence in his international relations and believe he is being played for a fool by both Putin and Kim. His narcissism does not sit well with me.


So in my view, without even addressing so many issues within our borders, the country is not doing as well as you make it out to be. The stock market is not a true barometer, unless you are a one percenter. No one is perfect. I hope that you can attempt to consider some of the questioning put forward by some who are not politically motivated to anything other than what is good for Americans...

A voice of reason, what he said!
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[Nebe]

Worth a read

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/o...esistance.html