US Politics

[RabzonKhan]

Trump clearly has dramabaaz pumping in him hehe. Anyone that uses twitter/social media as much as he has and continues to do....is just setting themselves up for hypocrisy related fact checking.

But he understood there is much bigger problem for him if confronted with military grade (forget CIA grade) evidence of what Assad did and he still chose to do nothing (for the sake/optics of improving Russian relations etc)....because simply put at the very basic level....there are US military bases and larger interests that simply cannot afford chemical warfare in the region (even if its "just" phosgene instead of sarin as claimed earlier).

It is why even though I do not support regime change and other neocon agenda...I am willing to extend him support to this level to draw and enforce a red line esp after the agreement previous admin (Obama) made with russia/assad concerning chemical weapon stockpiles/use.

I am very dissapointed in Tulsi Gabbard and bunch of others spouting their "disappointment" etc.. to be honest. US "establishment" is not always 100% wrong no matter which perspective you may be viewing them from. Assad is no saint and Putin is no angel. They definitely do need to be managed within a threshold....even while allowing optics of "greater good" (i.e strategic fight againt ISIS etc) to proceed.

I wanted to ask both you and @RabzonKhan about it earlier....but forgot....thanks for your views.



Will have to give some more time to analyse this. I have a suspicion that all is not wunderbar in the Russia-Iran-Assad triangle. Assad was desperate earlier (so a complete sop under his leash)....he decided to strain against the leash (and fling his poop wherever he wanted for whatever reason) as he has felt more assured and just got a big fat smack from the park ranger...and the leash handler/owner may not be happy about it....but maybe he also kinda wanted it to happen deep down ( so the mutt is back to being more controllable/servile as before)...so he didn't have to do it. Lets wait and see how this all plays out. We can speculate now....but only confirm in hindsight.

I based my opinion on the fact that without Russian help the bloodsucking dictator would be history.

And there is tons of circumstances evidence that shows Russia was definitely involved:

1. In 2013 the Russians signed an agreement with the Obama administration to act as guarantor for securing, destroying and continuing to monitor that there are no chemical weapons in Syria. In other words, they must have had pretty good information on their chemical weapons.

2. Russia has a military base at the Shaayrat base, note, this is the same base from where the Syrian planes flew. How is it possible that the Russians will not know that there is a stockpile of siren gas in the base, absolutely impossible. Link

3. And according to a senior US official after Syria’s chemical weapon attack a Russian drone was flying over the hospital where the victim of the attack were being treated. Hours after the drone left, a Russian-made fighter jet bombed the hospital in what American officials believe was an attempt to cover up usage of the chemical weapons. Link

 

[RabzonKhan]

The Russia story just keeps getting worse for President Trump

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-Large April 12, 2017

Washington (CNN)Two stories dealing with Russia's meddling in the election broke Tuesday night. And both were full of bad news for President Donald Trump.

The first, an exclusive to CNN, revealed that a number of Democratic and Republican lawmakers on the House and Senate intelligence committees who have seen classified documents see no evidence that Obama administration officials did anything unusual or illegal, further suggesting Rep. Devin Nunes, R-California, misled Trump (and the public) when he described documents relating to the unmasking of Trump campaign officials caught up in an incidental collection operation by the intelligence community.

"Their private assessment contradicts President Donald Trump's allegations that former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice broke the law by requesting the "unmasking" of US individuals' identities. Trump had claimed the matter was a 'massive story.'"
The second, broken by The Washington Post, reveals that the FBI obtained a secret

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court court warrant in August 2016 aimed at monitoring the communications of one-time Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page. The key paragraph:
"The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page's communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials."

Scroll up. Read that one again. It's a "wow." Page has denied any wrongdoing. What's become clear over the first few months of the Trump White House is that we aren't in the midst of a "he said-she said" when it comes to the campaign's ties to Russia. It's more of a "he alleged-he said, he said, she said, he said, he said" sort of situation.

As in, on the one hand, we have Trump asserting that the whole story of Russia's attempts to influence the election via connections within his campaign apparatus is "fake news," and grasping at the idea that somehow, some way he will be eventually proven right in his baseless claims that then-President Barack Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump Tower.

On the other, we have FBI Director James Comey, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, the heads of both the House and Senate intelligence committees -- both Republicans -- and lots and lots of other prominent voices within the intelligence community insisting the Russian investigation is entirely justified and that no evidence exists for Trump's claims.

It's not a fair fight -- and shouldn't be presented as one. And that has zero to do with partisanship and everything to do with the facts as we know them.

The best path forward for President Trump as it relates to Russia is to pivot from his current this-is-all-fake-news stance to one in which he embraces both the congressional and Justice Department investigations into the Russian meddling into the election. Given the amount of smoke surrounding Trump's campaign and Russia, it's no longer really a question whether it merits an investigation into whether there's some fire at its center.

Simply because that's the path Trump should take, of course, doesn't mean it's the one he willchoose. In fact, for someone who prides himself on zigging when everyone thinks he should zag, Trump likely won't follow this path. But all that ensures is that the Russia story will just keep getting worse for him and his administration. Link

Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House intelligence committee is gone, thank goodness, but unfortunately, Mike Conaway the new chairman, totally lacks logic and is a pro-Trump guy.

Few months ago he gave an interview to a Dallas newspaper, he compared the use of Mexican entertainers to the Russians hacking of the election. According to the genius:

“Democrats brought in Mexican soap opera stars, singers and entertainers who had immense influence in those communities into Las Vegas, to entertain, get out the vote and so forth,” “Those are foreign actors, foreign people, influencing the vote in Nevada. You don’t hear the Democrats screaming and saying one word about that.”

Asked whether he considers that on par with Russian cyber-intrusions that aimed to damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Conaway said: “Sure it is, it’s foreign influence. If we’re worried about foreign influence, let’s have the whole story.”

 

[cloud4000]

I based my opinion on the fact that without Russian help the bloodsucking dictator would be history.

And there is tons of circumstances evidence that shows Russia was definitely involved:

1. In 2013 the Russians signed an agreement with the Obama administration to act as guarantor for securing, destroying and continuing to monitor that there are no chemical weapons in Syria. In other words, they must have had pretty good information on their chemical weapons.

2. Russia has a military base at the Shaayrat base, note, this is the same base from where the Syrian planes flew. How is it possible that the Russians will not know that there is a stockpile of siren gas in the base, absolutely impossible. Link

3. And according to a senior US official after Syria’s chemical weapon attack a Russian drone was flying over the hospital where the victim of the attack were being treated. Hours after the drone left, a Russian-made fighter jet bombed the hospital in what American officials believe was an attempt to cover up usage of the chemical weapons. Link

Remember Putin is an old KGB hand. You know how these intel guys work: they are professional liars. Putin is very good at it.

 

[RabzonKhan]

What’s going on with our president, over the past week, Pres. Trump has flip-flopped on many issues. Once upon a time, he campaigned as a noninterventionist, well, he fired 59 Tomahawks at Syria and dropped MOAB (mother of all bombs) on a ISIS terrorist base in Afghanistan, he no longer considers Chinese as currency manipulating “cheaters”, NATO is not “obsolete” but is a relevant alliance, did not defend Russia’s position on Syria and now he calls the media “honorable people”.

I'm loving it!

 

[cloud4000]

What’s going on with our president, over the past week, Pres. Trump has flip-flopped on many issues. Once upon a time, he campaigned as a noninterventionist, well, he fired 59 Tomahawks at Syria and dropped MOAB (mother of all bombs) on a ISIS terrorist base in Afghanistan, he no longer considers Chinese as currency manipulating “cheaters”, NATO is not “obsolete” but is a relevant alliance, did not defend Russia’s position on Syria and now he calls the media “honorable people”.

I'm loving it!

May be he's sobering up on what being POTUS actually entails. It's all about compromise, incremental changes. I can only imagine what some of his hardcore supporters think about his flip-flopping, but it's a bit early to say they are going to rebel.

 

[VFY]

You cannot overthrow Assad without also overthrowing Khamanei. Otherwise the job is half-done.

 

[Nilgiri]

What’s going on with our president, over the past week, Pres. Trump has flip-flopped on many issues. Once upon a time, he campaigned as a noninterventionist, well, he fired 59 Tomahawks at Syria and dropped MOAB (mother of all bombs) on a ISIS terrorist base in Afghanistan, he no longer considers Chinese as currency manipulating “cheaters”, NATO is not “obsolete” but is a relevant alliance, did not defend Russia’s position on Syria and now he calls the media “honorable people”.

I'm loving it!

Trump is compromising where he sees maximum mileage at little cost...I expected him to do it.

This is right out of the Andrew Jackson and W.T Sherman playbooks.

You have to put the extreme position down initially so there is a favourable exchange in the long term...its pretty business-like if you ask me.

Being PC to start with means you pander to lots of people (and lessen your own USP esp in a crowd of PCers)....but there is no overall impulse to the status quo.

BTW the "honorable" comment on the media was more a tongue in cheek thing hehe.

NATO compromised (on budgeting and more optics on ISIS) with Trump, so Trump naturally changed how he labels them as well.

Same with China (greater access to their financial services market, and cooperation on the norks in return for Trump not attacking them openly)...but they remain along with 5 other countries on a watchlist of currency problem-makers which leaves more negotiating down the road as the US economy stabilizes in 1 - 2 years.

Overall Trump has to deliver one major thing: jobs and economic revival to the rust belt. If he keeps those states red, his 2nd term is assured (because the southern, midwestern bedrock of his support will always be assured given the dems are moving further away from what those folk vote for). The rest is open for creative compromises where needed.

 

[T-72M1]

Trump is compromising where he sees maximum mileage at little cost...I expected him to do it.

This is right out of the Andrew Jackson and W.T Sherman playbooks.

You have to put the extreme position down initially so there is a favourable exchange in the long term...its pretty business-like if you ask me.

Being PC to start with means you pander to lots of people (and lessen your own USP esp in a crowd of PCers)....but there is no overall impulse to the status quo.

BTW the "honorable" comment on the media was more a tongue in cheek thing hehe.

NATO compromised (on budgeting and more optics on ISIS) with Trump, so Trump naturally changed how he labels them as well.

Same with China (greater access to their financial services market, and cooperation on the norks in return for Trump not attacking them openly)...but they remain along with 5 other countries on a watchlist of currency problem-makers which leaves more negotiating down the road as the US economy stabilizes in 1 - 2 years.

Overall Trump has to deliver one major thing: jobs and economic revival to the rust belt. If he keeps those states red, his 2nd term is assured (because the southern, midwestern bedrock of his support will always be assured given the dems are moving further away from what those folk vote for). The rest is open for creative compromises where needed.

but even a 4D chess grandmaster like Trump can make mistakes, came close to a big one with the Syrian firework display, and that danger still looms.

 

[gambit]

You have to put the extreme position down initially so there is a favourable exchange in the long term...its pretty business-like if you ask me.

You cannot be a 'moderate' unless you must FIRST be in the 'extreme'. From one extreme, you can at least infer the other extreme, if you are not able to study and understand it. Only then, can you moderate your RESPONSES according to the situation at hand.

You believe in honesty, but will you tell your friend that his tie is clashes with his suit ? Maybe you will, but if you CHOSE not to, then you have moderated your response from that absolute belief of being honest.

Clump is a political animal in the truest sense of the phrase.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/21/politics/trump-religion-gospel/

"I don't like to analyze myself," Trump told biographer D'Antonio, "because I might not like what I see."

And that animal -- if you are willing to use the Native American belief of having a totem (spirit) animal -- would be a chameleon for Dump.

Frump's lack of moral convictions is evident throughout his life and that gives him the freedom to change his political colors, views, and finally -- responses to situations. Bump is THE businessman. Whether he is a good businessman and deal maker as he portrays himself to be is for a different debate and one that would involve intimate details of his business empire to assess his business acumen at the technical level. But if we are talking about the man's basic nature, Chump is all business and nothing else.

Maybe at this time in American political life, a chameleon businessman is needed and Stump just happened to be the most attractive. Americans -- even his supporters -- do find him distasteful, but it seems the collective instinct here is that 'we' can overlook Crump's moral lacking and let his business skills to work, hopefully, to our benefits.

 

[gambit]

http://www.refinery29.com/2016/11/128994/secret-voter-donald-trump-hillary-clinton

"I’m a lot more scared of what Hillary does than what Trump says..."

Here is where people, from American Hillary Clinton supporters to interested observers from other countries, really DO NOT understand how much Hillary Clinton is disliked by Americans.

American conservatives are generally not as vocal about their politics as their liberal cousins, never mind Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. The result is that foreigners confused being vocal with being popular. They think that all those American liberals marching in the streets protesting Trump equals to overwhelming anti-Trump sentiments among the American electorate. So when Trump won, they were shocked and in their despair, they insult Americans in general.

News for the foreigners...

Trump may usually display an elementary school vocabulary, but he is far from stupid. He may not be an intellectual in the sense that Eurosnobs placed themselves over the hoi-polloi, but he is shrewd enough to understand people's desires and anxieties. He understands that the broken John Deere tractor is more important than debating Nietzche in the university quad, so he appropriately tailored his campaign.

Underestimate Trump at your peril.

 

[LA se Karachi]

State Department Posts on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Raises Ethics Concern

by Tracy Connor

A glowing description of President Donald Trump's Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago — calling it the "winter White House" — has been posted on two State Department websites, drawing criticism from ethics watchdogs and Democrats.

The item, published ahead of an early April meeting with China's president at the Palm Beach club, recounts the club's history and Trump's purchase and gilded redecoration of the property where he's spent half his weekends since taking office.

Under the heading "A Dream Deferred" — drawing on a famous line from the Langston Hughes poem "Harlem" — it says the original socialite owner wanted Mar-a-Lago to be a retreat for American presidents but notes it didn't happen until Trump won the election.

The text appears on the website for Share America, a State Department platform intended to "spark discussion and debate on important topics" and on the website for the U.S. Embassy in the United Kingdom.

Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was among those taking to Twitter to question whether the posts violated government ethics rules.

A State Department spokesman declined to comment on the posts. But three ethics watchdogs who reviewed the posts told NBC News they are troubling.

"They represent violations of a federal ethics regulation which prohibits the use of public office to endorse a product or enterprise," said Kathleen Clark, a professor at Washington University Law.

"Calling it the 'winter White House' appears to suggest that Mar-a-Lago has an official governmental role, which would appear to provide a governmental endorsement."

Jordan Libowitz of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said the post "reads almost like an ad for Mar-a-Lago."

"If they weren't trying to drive business there, you have to wonder what they were doing," said Libowitz, who has previously sued Trump over other alleged ethics violations.

John Wonderlich of the Sunlight Foundation said it didn't matter that the context for the posts was Trump's meeting with China's Xi Jinping.

"Publishing promotional materials for the President's private business is clearly inappropriate, whether he is using it for official business or not," he said. "There is only one White House. If you're telling the story of Mar-a-Lago, it's the president's private business."

Mar-a-Lago has been a lightning rod for those accusing the Trump administration of conflicts of interest.

While Trump has turned over control his businesses to his sons, critics have pointed out that initiation fees were doubled to $200,000 after his election and that the president's frequent appearances there could provide unique access to him for those who can pay.

As NBC News has reported, since his January inauguration, Trump has spent seven of 14 weekends at Mar-a-Lago and at least 28 percent of his term traveling to or staying at the estate.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...rump-s-mar-lago-raises-ethics-concern-n750406

 

[F-22Raptor]

 

[F-22Raptor]

American democracy is winning... so far


On the 100th day of his presidency, Donald Trump again attacked the media and stoked the embers of divisiveness that fueled his election. But on the very same day, Americans -- even the majority who disapprove of Trump's presidency -- could find reasons to celebrate.

No, Trump has not turned out to be any less inflammatory as a president than he was as a candidate. And it's far too early to claim the US has averted disaster. But the American people's reaction to Trump's election has proven much stronger than anyone expected.

And with the 100-day marker signaling the end of the beginning of his presidency, Americans, and a closely-watching world, can take note: America's system of democracy is strong. It's strong enough to stand up to a man with visceral authoritarian tendencies and who came to power surrounded by conspiracy-minded ideologues vowing to "deconstruct" the system.

As Trump spoke before a large crowd (not an "all-time record," as he claimed) in Pennsylvania, journalists gathered in Washington to highlight the importance of a free press for the survival of democracy.

Trump was the first president to stay away from the White House correspondents' dinner since 1981, when Ronald Reagan couldn't attend because he was recovering from an assassination attempt. Reagan sent his regrets.

Trump insulted the press, calling them "enemies of the people" -- a phrase favored by Stalin -- in the hopes that people will ignore the news that is not to his liking, including approval ratings that are lower than any modern president's at this point in his term.

Complaining about his failure to achieve very much, Trump also called the American system "archaic," or bad for the country.

The reality is rather the opposite. The system is working surprisingly well.

From the day he took office, it became clear that Americans who saw Trump as a threat to the country's fundamental values would not sit home and mope -- or run off to hide in Canada.

Incensed to see a man who bragged about sexual assault become president, women on Inauguration Day organized marches in every state of the union. And they succeeded, with millions taking to the streets in what may have been the biggest single day of demonstration in US history. That sent a powerful message to Congress and helped energize the nation.

By then, Trump's disdain for the First Amendment, his constant efforts to discredit the media, his blatant efforts to cash in on the presidency, his verbal attacks on refugees and immigrants and his entourage of conspiracy theorists and climate deniers had already sounded the alarm. Many started calling themselves "the resistance," a term more commonly used during times of foreign occupation, and a sign that they view Trump not as a president with whom they disagree, but as a genuine and severe threat to the country.

Popular resistance to Trump started paying off immediately. When the White House issued an executive order banning immigrants from seven Muslim majority countries from entering the country, spontaneous demonstrators swarmed airports across the country. Lawyers with laptops sitting on airport floors drafted legal documents. Attorneys general and state prosecutors filed emergency cases before judges in several states.

Incredibly, Trump's orders were blocked. The president was furious. And when he rewrote the plan, it was blocked again.

The separation of powers worked. Independent judges did their job. The federal system worked. Independent states challenged the federal government. The Constitution worked. The Founding Fathers, who might have been turning in their graves hearing Trump's multiple verbal assaults on the freedoms they espoused, would have been happy to see their design hold up under fire.

A free press has shone a bright light on the Trump team's secret ties to Russia. Because of journalists, we learned that Mike Flynn, Trump's dangerous choice for National Security Advisor, lied about meetings with Russian officials and was paid as an agent of Turkey. Trump replaced him with Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, a widely praised addition to a foreign policy team that now includes some well-qualified, reasonable figures.

In the meantime, multiple congressional investigations and an FBI probe are looking into Russia's involvement in the election and the possible links with Trump's campaign. The Republican-led congressional side of the investigations is far from impressive, but it is occurring. In most countries, this would be unimaginable. The FBI and Congress, investigating a foreign government the president praised repeatedly on the campaign trail and in the early days of his administration, are seemingly open to following the evidence as far as it leads, even if it leads to Trump himself.

But perhaps nothing is more astonishing that Trump's failure to make progress on most of his signature promises, even though his party controls all three branches of government.

In the meantime, multiple congressional investigations and an FBI probe are looking into Russia's involvement in the election and the possible links with Trump's campaign. The Republican-led congressional side of the investigations is far from impressive, but it is occurring. In most countries, this would be unimaginable. The FBI and Congress, investigating a foreign government the president praised repeatedly on the campaign trail and in the early days of his administration, are seemingly open to following the evidence as far as it leads, even if it leads to Trump himself.

But perhaps nothing is more astonishing that Trump's failure to make progress on most of his signature promises, even though his party controls all three branches of government.

So far, the presidency has proven a difficult and frustrating exercise for Trump. No wonder he said the job is harder than he expected. But it's early yet. One hundred days still leaves more than 90% of a presidential term.

History will record that the Trump presidency was a major test for American democracy and its system of government. The good news is that Americans are actively defending their rights. Democracy is winning. So far.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/30/opinions/american-democracy-strong-opinion-ghitis/index.html

 

[Vergennes]

 

[F-22Raptor]

Note to President Trump: Andrew Jackson wasn't alive for the Civil War


In audio posted on Monday, President Trump said Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, was "really angry" about what was happening with the Civil War.

There's one major problem with that statement: Jackson died in 1845, nearly 16 years before the Civil War began.

Let's dissect the full quote, sentence by sentence.

"I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later, you wouldn't have had the Civil War."

This is in the vein of imagining various alternate histories of the United States.

"He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart."

Jackson was known for his temper and his loyalty to his friends, so this is OK.

"He was really angry that-- he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War."

Jackson did not, because Jackson was dead.

"He said, 'There's no reason for this.'"

See above.

Trump's quote came during an interview with the Washington Examiner's Salena Zito. The two discussed Trump's visit to Tennessee in March, during which he toured the Hermitage, laid a wreath at Jackson's tomb and called him the "people's president."

SiriusXM revealed the quote in audio of the interview, which will air on SiriusXM P.O.T.U.S.'s Main Street Meets the Beltway show later on Monday. The Examiner story only mentions Jackson to note that the seventh president's portrait now hangs in the Oval Office.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...drew-jackson-wasnt-alive-civil-war/101149060/

Thought this was hilarious.

"How do you like me now?"- W