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[scottw]

Originally Posted by spence

Because his crooked father taught him how to cheat very well...that line is ending.
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More Triggered Nonsense
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[Sea Dangles]

Originally Posted by spence

Because his crooked father taught him how to cheat very well...that line is ending.
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I feel bad that you ended up with this anger. Some day you will look back and understand why He is the greatest president of our lifetime. Enjoy the fruits of His labor.
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[scottw]

dempcraps are working very hard to re-elect him!!!

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by scottw

dempcraps are working very hard to re-elect him!!!

they are indeed, and they don’t see it at all. Shhhh...
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[Pete F.]

Floridaman has accomplished little good and his ill considered attempts at policy will have long term effects on our place in the world.

Keep claiming he is a stable genius, he is as far from that as one can get.

When this passes the name Trump will end up in history books, used like Quisling and Benedict Arnold.

Trump’s self-absorption is total; his inability to accurately perceive external reality is profound. Because this renders our president deeply antisocial and anti-historical, his worldview begins and ends with “Trump.”

As a result, he entered office unable to appreciate America’s objective strengths in conducting our foreign relations. These matchless blessings included friendly neighbors; peerless economic vitality; our leadership of important global institutions; the strength of our alliances and multilateral relationships; and a reputation, for all our faults, as a democracy which embraces political freedom and human rights. Encased in his feral inner landscape, Trump saw these assets as vulnerabilities.

Thus Trump’s view of the post-World War II global order is essentially dystopian. The world’s liberal democracies built a system in which America promoted global stability by advocating democracy, free trade, and international institutions which facilitated cooperation and ameliorated conflict. But Trump saw it as trap in which America was played for the sucker by its “allies,” cheated by trading partners, menaced by Muslims, and invaded by foreigners spreading crime and taking jobs.

To repel these presumptive “threats,” Trump offered his own distinctive and boundless grandiosity—casting himself as a one-man solution, a peerless negotiator who would subjugate our foes (frequently, in fact, our allies) through the sheer force of his unique personality. He would make Mexico pay for his wall; seize Syrian oil; rip up unfair trade deals; force those chiselers in NATO to pay up; and exert his will without the trouble of maintaining alliances or exercising considered global statesmanship

Blinded by his insoluble inability to accurately process external reality, Trump had no design for realizing his most fantastical promises—let alone any grasp of the long-term consequences to America stemming from his zero-sum instincts. In his fantasies of greatness, Trump-as-Superman was strategy enough.

For nearly three years, we have seen the consequences of this worldview. He disparages our intelligence agencies when they reach conclusions which displease him. He treats the State Department with contempt, compelling an exodus of career professionals and eviscerating our diplomatic capacity. He replaces the language of democracy with venality and vulgarity, He greets the world’s autocrats as his geopolitical kin. The global image of America has become the gargoyle visage of a bigot and bully.

Inevitably, Trump’s craving for attention and inability to transcend his own impulses leads to verbal incontinence, intellectual incoherence, and contradictory actions. Nor is this likely to change: Trump’s subjective and ever-shifting sense of reality and addiction to instantaneous self-gratification leave him utterly incapable of thinking strategically.

For Trump, there is no strategic through-line. While the Chinese think in epochs, Trump thinks in fragments of news cycles dissociated from each other, his frequently self- cancelling behaviors driven by his oscillating needs of the moment. He threatens North Korea’s dictator with “fire and fury”; then conducts vapid kabuki summits and “falls in love” with Kim Jong-Un’s “beautiful letters.”And when Kim, unimpeded, treats America with accelerating contempt while developing a nuclear arsenal which could eradicate Seattle, Trump browbeats our South Korean allies about the cost of their defense, and compels the Japanese to wonder whether North Korean missile tests will require developing their own nuclear capacity.

In Trump’s mind, he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize; in reality, he has made the region a far more dangerous place.

https://thebulwark.com/trumps-person...oreign-policy/

[Sea Dangles]

Thanks for sharing. The country has a lot to consider.
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[Jim in CT]

Trump has accomplished “little good”.

In which a 50 year low in unemployment, an all time
low in black unemployment, and continuing to rout jihadists, is “little good.”

If Obama was president he’d have won a second Nobel in economics.

He’s also appointing judges who are likely to put personal
agendas aside and use the constitution as he rulebook, rather than using the bench as a platform for activism.

He’s doing a LOT of good. He’s just an unbelievable
jerk.
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[Jim in CT]

Pete, your article says Trump replaces the language of democracy with vulgarity. I agree he’s very very undiplomatic. My question is, so what? What actual harm has this caused? Is Canada going to sign a treaty with the jihadists? Leaders may not
like Trump, but I don’t see any evidence that it changes the way they view America at all. Not in the least.

Everybody said Obama’s apology tour was going to improve our standing in the world, and everyone says that Trump’s “America First” will ruin our relationships with everyone. I see little evidence that either happened.
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[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Pete, your article says Trump replaces the language of democracy with vulgarity. I agree he’s very very undiplomatic. My question is, so what? What actual harm has this caused? Is Canada going to sign a treaty with the jihadists? Leaders may not
like Trump, but I don’t see any evidence that it changes the way they view America at all. Not in the least.

Everybody said Obama’s apology tour was going to improve our standing in the world, and everyone says that Trump’s “America First” will ruin our relationships with everyone. I see little evidence that either happened.
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You could have just read the whole article that I linked
but here is some more since you asked.
As far as the "evidence" you require, diplomacy and foreign policy are skills not science, not seeing evidence means you likely need to look beyond right wing media.

Or read a foreign paper: https://www.kyivpost.com/?s=trump&ti...es&authors=all

But these head-spinning spasms of psychic subjectivity aggravate dangers in every corner of the globe. Trump threatens Iran with “obliteration like you’ve never seen before,” then withdraws American troops from Syria, licensing Iran to pursue its goals in the region. He confuses our allies and emboldens our enemies, both of whom understand that his emotional lability translates into geopolitical incompetence. Vladimir Putin can barely conceal his laughter—and sometimes does not try.

Writing in the Atlantic, William Burns summarizes Trump’s dysfunction:

However sound his instincts on some policy issues—such as pushing back against predatory Chinese trade practices—Trump has badly undermined American influence through his erratic unilateralism, disdain for expertise, and obsession with diplomacy as an exercise in narcissism. It is exactly the wrong prescription for this plastic moment in world affairs, when we are no longer the only country calling the shots, and when diplomatic tools to cajole and coerce friends and foes alike are more important than ever.

The results are predictably grim. Partners are insecure and hedging, worrying about the ‘brain death’ of crucial alliances. Adversaries feel the wind in their sails, with Russian state television crowing over dysfunction in Washington and vulnerability in Kyiv. The international landscape is hardening against us, and our diplomatic toolkit is being emptied by design and disuse…

Why shouldn’t authoritarian rivals conclude that the only thing that matters is the vanity of an eminently manipulable president? Why shouldn’t allies lose confidence in the requests of our diplomats when they can be overturned by the next tweet?

Why, indeed?

But there is no one left around Trump to point out these obvious problems. Because he is psychologically unable to abide dissent or respect expertise, Trump has replaced professionals with sycophants—degrading our State Department and demoralizing its best people. The epitome of these enablers is the pompous puppet Mike Pompeo, our shrinking secretary of State, who has survived this long only through abject subservience.

Pompeo is the opposite of James Mattis; he chooses sycophancy to serve himself. In his imagined future, he is not simply a future Republican senator from Kansas, but Trump’s eventual successor. Unlike Trump, Pompeo is sane: quite deliberately, he has catered to Trump’s narcissism, fronting for Trump as he trashes the State Department and repeatedly commits gross political malpractice.

The result of Pompeo’s calculating cowardice is baneful—a dearth of sound advice and institutional engagement which empowers Trump’s mindless solipsism. Pompeo countenanced Trump’s love affair with Kim. He choked down Trump’s betrayal of the Kurds. He watched as Trump publicly contemplated canceling our mutual defense treaty with Japan; threatened to pull U.S. troops out of South Korea; mocked our NATO allies as deadbeats; and dismissed the E.U.

Little wonder that Trump has said “I don’t think I’ve had an argument with Pompeo.” Why would he need to? Pompeo never disagrees with him, thereby encouraging Trump to pretend that the intellectual, moral, and strategic Sahara of his foreign policy is as grand as Trump needs to believe – freeing Trump to do his worst, unimpeded.

But it is Pompeo’s performance with respect to Ukraine which best encapsulates Trump’s degradation of diplomacy and perversion of policy. He stood aside as Trump attempted to blackmail the new Ukranian president into serving his personal political interests, allowing Trump to subcontract the dirty work to Rudy Giuliani. Pompeo licensed Trump to bully and then fire Ambassador Marie Jovanovich. He listened to Trump’s coercive call to President Zelensky, thereby acquiescing in the corruption of American aid. And then, when all this was done, Pompeo pretended to ABC’s Martha Raddatz that he knew nothing about the call before admitting, ten days later, that he had heard it all.

In sum, Mike Pompeo has pretzeled himself to be the flawless lackey Trump demands: spineless, mendacious, unprincipled, and disloyal to his own subordinates. As two seasoned former American diplomats write of Pompeo’s tenure: “At the very least, Pompeo enabled the smear campaign to go unchallenged, acquiesced in the Giuliani back channel with Ukraine and failed to say a word in defense of Bill Taylor, George Kent or Marie Jovanovich. These are breathtaking acts of craven cowardice and beneath the dignity of any Secretary of State.”

All of which perfectly captures the Trump effect: His immutable character disorder moves those who serve him to adopt the corrupt and cowering ethos of minions in a banana republic.

[Sea Dangles]

Thanks PeteF, that clears it all up. Great job and thanks for sharing with us.
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[scottw]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

You could have just read the whole article that I linked

nobody reads what you link

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by scottw

I can't read

Fixed it for you

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

You could have just read the whole article that I linked
but here is some more since you asked.
As far as the "evidence" you require, diplomacy and foreign policy are skills not science, not seeing evidence means you likely need to look beyond right wing media.

Or read a foreign paper: https://www.kyivpost.com/?s=trump&ti...es&authors=all

"You could have just read the whole article that I linked"

No one has the time to do that.

"As far as the "evidence" you require, diplomacy and foreign policy are skills not science, "

In other words, there is no tangible evidence that Trumps obnoxious personality is actually harming America on the world stage, certainly not to the degree to negate the economic gains we are enjoying.

Obama was supposed to make everyone love us, he toured the world and told them all how we're nothing special. The he made a pitch to the International Olympic Committee for Chicago to host the Olympics, and we were eliminated in the first round.

The likeability of the POTUS, probably doesn't mean much, because America is so much more than one person. I find it hard to believe that foreign leaders make big decisions based on how much they like the current occupant of the White House. If they did, the entire civilized world would have imposed sanctions on us.

Find a soapbox that has some substance to it?

[scottw]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Fixed it for you

I read fine...though I'll admit to struggling to decipher some of the gibberish here

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

"You could have just read the whole article that I linked"

No one has the time to do that.

"As far as the "evidence" you require, diplomacy and foreign policy are skills not science, "

In other words, there is no tangible evidence that Trumps obnoxious personality is actually harming America on the world stage, certainly not to the degree to negate the economic gains we are enjoying.

Obama was supposed to make everyone love us, he toured the world and told them all how we're nothing special. The he made a pitch to the International Olympic Committee for Chicago to host the Olympics, and we were eliminated in the first round.

The likeability of the POTUS, probably doesn't mean much, because America is so much more than one person. I find it hard to believe that foreign leaders make big decisions based on how much they like the current occupant of the White House. If they did, the entire civilized world would have imposed sanctions on us.

Find a soapbox that has some substance to it?

And you call my posts gibberish

[Pete F.]

new Quinnipiac national poll on 2020 general election shows every prospective Democratic nominee beating Trump :

Biden 51%, Trump 42%
Sanders 51%, Trump 43%
Warren 50%, Trump 43%
Bloomberg 48%, Trump 42%
Buttigieg 48%, Trump 43%
Klobuchar 47%, Trump 43%
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[scottw]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

new Quinnipiac national poll on 2020 general election shows every prospective Democratic nominee beating Trump :

Biden 51%, Trump 42%
Sanders 51%, Trump 43%
Warren 50%, Trump 43%
Bloomberg 48%, Trump 42%
Buttigieg 48%, Trump 43%
Klobuchar 47%, Trump 43%
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that's what hillary said

[Sea Dangles]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

new Quinnipiac national poll on 2020 general election shows every prospective Democratic nominee beating Trump :

Biden 51%, Trump 42%
Sanders 51%, Trump 43%
Warren 50%, Trump 43%
Bloomberg 48%, Trump 42%
Buttigieg 48%, Trump 43%
Klobuchar 47%, Trump 43%
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This is great news, obviously the #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&s will roll.👍🏿
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[Pete F.]

From the law-and-order party to the I'm-voting-for-the-guy-who-calls-the-FBI-scum party...

...in 48 months.

What a *powerful* set of principles the GOP had.
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[Sea Dangles]

This next election will certainly be a great opportunity to finish draining the swamp.
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[Got Stripers]

Originally Posted by Sea Dangles

This next election will certainly be a great opportunity to finish draining the swamp.
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With Mulvaney, Jared, Ivanka and Miller advising Trump what could possibly go wrong. Maybe in another four years, he could finally get all the required cabinet heads appointed and cleared. He knows how, oil executives run the EPA, get some bankers to control the money, Miller of course will be in line to run homeland security and we probably will get Rudy to be our Russian ambassador; assuming he can keep himself out of jail.

You want to drain the swamp, don't put more scumbags in it, think more along the lines of term limits and better regulations on lobbyists and campaign contributions.

[Sea Dangles]

I appreciate your perspective
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[Pete F.]

Can this be right ?

If a Democrat is President, lying about a blow-job is grounds for impeachment

If a Republican is President, betraying his country's defence policy again Russia...isn't

What am I missing here ?

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Can this be right ?

If a Democrat is President, lying about a blow-job is grounds for impeachment

If a Republican is President, betraying his country's defence policy again Russia...isn't

What am I missing here ?

Generally, Presidents are in charge of defence policy.

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Generally, Presidents are in charge of defence policy.

In this case Floridaman withheld aid appropriated by Congress, after the statutory requirements set by Congress were met and still continues to hold 35 million in aid.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

In this case Floridaman withheld aid appropriated by Congress, after the statutory requirements set by Congress were met and still continues to hold 35 million in aid.

Temporary withholding funds for assuring that they are not wasted on corruption should not be cause for impeachment, nor even be considered a crime. Nor should lying about getting a blow job--unless it was under oath. But even then, a lesser slap on the wrist would be appropriate.

On the other hand getting the blow job could put the President under threat of blackmail which could be used to influence how he would apply or skew defense policy. It can be argued that any misstep of the President could be used as a means to influence his decisions on any policy, defense or otherwise. The point being, not that it would necessarily be impeachable, but that there need not be a distinction between missteps in regard to the effect on defense policy.

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Temporary withholding funds for assuring that they are not wasted on corruption should not be cause for impeachment, nor even be considered a crime.
The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 provides that the president may propose rescission of specific funds, but that rescission must be approved by both the House of Representatives and Senate within 45 days. They asked WTF is going on and were told nothing, why not?
Nor should lying about getting a blow job--unless it was under oath. But even then, a lesser slap on the wrist would be appropriate.

On the other hand getting the blow job could put the President under threat of blackmail which could be used to influence how he would apply or skew defense policy. It can be argued that any misstep of the President could be used as a means to influence his decisions on any policy, defense or otherwise. The point being, not that it would necessarily be impeachable, but that there need not be a distinction between missteps in regard to the effect on defense policy.

I have no idea what you are trying to say in the last paragraph, I tried to parse it?
Are you saying his actions were because he was incompetent and therefore the missteps should not be impeachable?

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

I have no idea what you are trying to say in the last paragraph, I tried to parse it?
Are you saying his actions were because he was incompetent and therefore the missteps should not be impeachable?

The last paragraph was not specifically about Trump. It was a general comment pointing out that any inappropriate action by any President could be used (e.g. blackmail) against him to skew his handling of defense policy. So there would be no need for a distinction between a blow job or most any other misdeed that a President committed in terms of its potential impact on his defense policy.

Ergo, as for your implied comparison between the Trump and Clinton impeachment, they can both be considered a possible impact on defense policy. And, in my opinion, neither amount to an impeachable offense.

Although, clearly, Trump is not ultimately guilty of withholding funds. And he did, on a few occasions, explain why he temporarily did And Clinton, clearly, lied under oath.

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Although, clearly, Trump is not ultimately guilty of withholding funds. And he did, on a few occasions, explain why he temporarily did

It's not clear at all, and the testimony conflicts with your statement.

Also the documents that would prove one way or another are being withheld as part of Floridamans obstruction, so just what do you think the documents say?

This is the stuff that people in previous administrations have been indicted for and likely will this time also.

Cooper, during Oct. 23 testimony before the three House committees leading the impeachment inquiry into Trump's Ukraine dealings, also said that she had been told Trump had repeatedly expressed concerns about Ukraine and military aid to the country — weeks before the aid was frozen.

Cooper told impeachment investigators that she and other Pentagon officials had answered questions about the Ukraine assistance in the middle of June — so she was surprised when one of her subordinates told her that a hold had been placed on the funds after an interagency meeting in July 18.

“I got, you know, I got a readout from the meeting — there was discussion in that session about the — about OMB [Office of Management and Budget] saying that they were holding the Congressional Notification related to” Ukraine, Cooper testified, according to the transcript.

Cooper, according to the transcript of her testimony, described the hold as "unusual."

Cooper said that she attended a meeting on July 23, where "this issue" of Trump's "concerns about Ukraine and Ukraine security assistance" came up. She said in that meeting, the president's concerns were "conveyed" by acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.

Asked by lawmakers if the president was authorized to order that type of hold, Cooper said there were concerns that he wasn't.

"Well, I'm not an expert on the law, but in that meeting immediately deputies began to raise concerns about how this could be done in a legal fashion because there was broad understanding in the meeting that the funding — the State Department funding related to an earmark for Ukraine and that the DOD funding was specific to Ukraine security assistance. So the comments in the room at the deputies' level reflected a sense that there was not an understanding of how this could legally play out. And at that meeting the deputies agreed to look into the legalities and to look at what was possible," she said, according to the transcript.

At the next meeting with national security personnel, she said she told attendees "there were two legally available mechanisms should the President want to stop assistance" — a presidential rescission notice to Congress or for the Defense Department to do “a reprogramming action.”

“But I mentioned that either way, there would need to be a notification to Congress,” she said, according to the transcript.

Asked if that happened, Cooper said, "That did not occur."

In all the relevant inter-agency discussions, Cooper testified, it wasn't just Defense Department officials who believed the aid should flow to Ukraine.

"It was unanimous with the exception of the statements by OMB representatives, and those statements were relaying higher level guidance," she said, according to the transcript.

Investigators have zeroed in on the testimony of several key figures in the Ukraine affair — including Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, and George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state who worked on Ukraine and five other countries — to support the allegation that the Trump administration froze aid intended for Ukraine as part of an attempt to pressure the country to open probes that would benefit Trump politically.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

It's not clear at all, and the testimony conflicts with your statement.

I said the he is ultimately not guilty of withholding the funds. The funds were delivered. If there is still some relatively small amount left, there may still be a reason for that. I don't know.