The Trump presidency

[CrabbedOne]

On TNI What Trump Has in Common with the Last German Emperor

...
Kaiser Wilhelm was aggressive, thoughtless and extraordinarily maladroit. He earned a lengthy litany of criticisms. The Economist recently observed that he “grew up to be emotionally needy, bombastic, choleric, hyperactive and hypersensitive. His personality combined with the militaristic authoritarian culture of the Prussian court to create a monarch who was extraordinarily ill-suited to lead the most powerful country in Europe.”

Historian Thomas Nipperdey called the kaiser “gifted,” but also “superficial, hasty, restless, unable to relax, without any deeper level of serious, without any desire for hard work or drive to see things through to the end, without any sense of sobriety, for balance and boundaries, or even for reality and real problems, uncontrollable and scarcely capable of learning from experience, desperate for applause and success.”

That sounds an awful lot like the current occupant of the White House.
...

A little unfair Trump is a teetotaller. He's certainly energetic especially all puffed up bragging in front of a rally. He works hard in his way. His biographer reported him working the phones constantly. He ain't no Bismark for sure. A task suited to his short attention span. There's a rapacious greedy drive about the man.

The Kaiser also had far more serious tiny hand issues. He had a withered arm.

There is the same needy inadequacy lurking in Trump. Unable to back down when in error. It's what makes him so dangerous as President.

 

[bemused]

All these tech companies will be kissing his feet when he lowers the tax on their off shore cash piles.

 

[19force8]

And Clinton regularly talks to dead people .

Don't most of us talk to the dead occasionally? I know I do.

As an atheist I don't expect a conversation, but I understand that religious people sometimes do. So fucking what!

The reason to despise Clinton isn't that she communes with Eleanor Roosevelt. It's that she communes with the board of Walmart and just about any big business interest that will pay for her time.

 

[Old Spark]

Superbowl half time show -gaga wont be able to resist surely ?


Will Lady Gaga criticize Donald Trump in Super Bowl halftime show?

 

[CrabbedOne]

On TNI Why Russia Might Not Want a Deal with Trump

...
While Putin has more power than a U.S. chief executive to set the Russian foreign-policy agenda, there are nonetheless powerful “vectors” in Russian foreign policy that might mitigate against any rapid shift in relations. The Trump administration has hinted that it is interested in forging a better relationship with Russia in order to get Moscow’s help in offsetting China and isolating Iran. It is true that Russia has had historic frictions with both Tehran and Beijing—including a series of hot wars over the centuries. There still exists considerable mistrust in the Russia-Iran and Russia-China relationships. Yet powerful and influential actors in Russia will oppose sacrificing the beneficial partnerships that have sprung up in recent years in order to cultivate an uncertain degree of American goodwill. The Russian defense complex and energy industries have important and vital interests (including important and ongoing sales of equipment), producing income streams that cannot be easily substituted by improved relations with Washington. While U.S. sanctions have been problematic, Russia has also learned to live with them, and is not necessarily prepared to make major concessions on Syria or Ukraine in advance of vague promises of sanctions relief from the United States. A limited economic recovery—and the success of the state in privatizing a portion of the Rosneft state oil company despite Western sanctions—has strengthened the hand of those arguing against making any premature concessions or capitulations to the Americans.
...

The Russian security establishment regards the US with far greater fear than their Pentagon peers in viewing Russia. They know they are a shrunken power compared with the USSR. Russia has faced devastating invasions coming out of the West on a dangerous continent. It's why they feel the need of strategic depth in the Ukraine and maybe further. America's only real brush with a war on it's own soil was the Confederate revolt. Of course vast arsenals of ICBMs and so far ineffective missile shields should change that but these things run deep.

Trump's vision appears to be of a world of divided weak nation states that the mighty US can bully unilaterally to its great advantage. It's very plausible smaller nations working together is difficult and involves concessions. The US's great competitive advantage is wealth and scale. Economically he sees a world of new bi-lateral trade deals vastly tilted to favour the US. A zero sum game which Uncle Sam always wins. Not only that he frankly talks of war to seize resources from weaker states. A much greater US navy, a new nuclear arms race and a rerun of Reagan's Strategic Defence Initiative to cancel out the ICBM threat.

Putin also would like a weaker globalised system were his little pirate crew can ride the main chance but not that weak and Hobbesian. Because Russia is just one of the the bigger little guys with a nuclear zip gun they don't wish to rely on. The Trumpist schoolyard bully might be demanding tributes of dinner money and soon giving them dead legs. To the Russians such a world will be fundamentally threatening even if Trump approaches them now like a friendly snake. And could that all not just be an act by this oh so obvious trickster?

 

[CrabbedOne]

How's that gonna work out with Steve Bannon holding black masses in the White house basement?

Bannon's getting likened to a Rasputin like figure for the House of Trump.

The rumour about Bannon's strategically placed genital warts is one I just started.

 

[J Ed]

Bannon's getting likened to a Rasputin like figure for the House of Trump.

The rumour about Bannon's strategically placed genital warts is one I just started.

Surely Alex Jones would make a far better Rasputin

 

[bimble]

even if Trump approaches them now like a friendly snake. And could that all not just be an act by this oh so obvious trickster?

hmm. Trying to picture Mr Putin worrying about being outsmarted by Trump. Can't see it myself.

 

[Yossarian]

Surely Alex Jones would make a far better Rasputin

Or Ann Coulter.

 

[CrabbedOne]

 

[J Ed]

hmm. Trying to picture Mr Putin worrying about being outsmarted by Trump. Can't see it myself.

Could it be perhaps that international relations are more complex than soap opera style interactions between individual heads of state?

 

[bimble]

The new supreme court nominee chose this inspiring quotation for his yearbook (according to twitter).

 

[butchersapron]

The new supreme court nominee chose this inspiring quotation for his yearbook (according to twitter). View attachment 99766

Which is odd given Kissinger said it in 1975.

 

[bimble]

It's an odd one. Does look like this is what he chose for his yearbook (there are different photos from different angles so less likely to be photoshopped? ).

 

[2hats]

Which is odd given Kissinger said it in 1975.

That's Gorsuch's DOB.

 

[butchersapron]

It's an odd one. Does look like this is what he chose for his yearbook (there are different photos from different angles so less likely to be photoshopped? ).

It's not odd. It's fake. It doesn't even look real apart from the picture.

 

[rutabowa]

It's an odd one. Does look like this is what he chose for his yearbook (there are different photos from different angles so less likely to be photoshopped? ).

That is still pretty darned easy to photoshop tho ha

 

[butchersapron]

That's Gorsuch's DOB.

Ah right. Still looks a) nfake as fuck B) making an anti-Kissinger point if real.


Edit: it would also appear to mean he was quoting from a wiki cable release from before wikileaks existed.

 

[Casually Red]

Don't most of us talk to the dead occasionally? I know I do.

As an atheist I don't expect a conversation, but I understand that religious people sometimes do. So fucking what!

The reason to despise Clinton isn't that she communes with Eleanor Roosevelt. It's that she communes with the board of Walmart and just about any big business interest that will pay for her time.

Yeah..because that's my main reason for despising Hillary Clinton .

I've pointed out ..more than once ..that the main reason I despise her is because of all her dead victims . The ones she doesn't chat with . Genocides a bit worse than corruption in my book . And worse than bigoted travel bans . but not worthy of either petition or protest . Most liberal sensibilities view it as little more than a sad burden of leadership , and make a slightly strained face . Then tell you to change the record .
Her wall street shenanigans are way down the fucking list .

 

[rutabowa]

The amount of obvious bullshit floating around is pissing me off almost more than the impending arrival of a christian fascist state.

 

[brogdale]

Ah right. Still looks a) fake as fuck B) making an anti-Kissinger point if real.

Font looks rather modern.

 

[Lord Camomile]

Bandcamp have said they will donate 100% of their profits on Friday to the ACLU (thread here)

I did wonder if it was worth having a thread of companies and organisations to support, but I couldn't think of what the opposite of "boycott" is

 

[Pickman's model]

Bandcamp have said they will donate 100% of their profits on Friday to the ACLU (thread here)

I did wonder if it was worth having a thread of companies and organisations to support, but I couldn't think of what the opposite of "boycott" is

sponsor, patronise, support

 

[teqniq]

Yeah..because that's my main reason for despising Hillary Clinton..

Your main reason for despising Clinton is because you are a misogynist, one has only to look at your choice of photos when ranting about her and her relatives/associates to realise that there are some issues going on there. If you are going to vilify US war criminals you could start with Kissinger yet he doesn't even seem to be on your radar.

Most liberal sensibilities view it as little more than a sad burden of leadership , and make a slightly strained face . Then tell you to change the record .

Last time i checked I didn't have 'liberal sensibilities' and yet again I am not a fan. How do you know I have a 'slightly strained face' have you got a pair of special spectacles off the back of a cereal packet? The reason I said the record's stuck is obvious: You seek to drag Clinton into any thread at the slightest opportunity; it is an unhealthy obsession and this is a thread about the Trump presidency.

 

[Lord Camomile]

sponsor, patronise, support

The way you say it makes it sound like crass capitalism

 

[Pickman's model]

The way you say it makes it sound like crass capitalism

what do you consider the opposite of ostracism?

 

[treelover]

Don't most of us talk to the dead occasionally? I know I do.

As an atheist I don't expect a conversation, but I understand that religious people sometimes do. So fucking what!

The reason to despise Clinton isn't that she communes with Eleanor Roosevelt. It's that she communes with the board of Walmart and just about any big business interest that will pay for her time.

Eleanor Roosevelt was a great woman, well worth communicating with.

 

[teqniq]

Chicago doctor blocked from returning home sues Trump

A prominent Chicago doctor is stranded overseas by the travel ban imposed by President Donald Trump, and now he is taking on the president.

Dr. Amer al Homssi said he is "collateral damage" in Trump's immigration order, and is stranded in the Middle East where he traveled to get married 10 days ago. When the University of Illinois - Chicago doctor tried to return to the U.S. on Sunday, he said American authorities overseas blocked him from boarding the plane home....

 

[Casually Red]

Your main reason for despising Clinton is because you are a misogynist, one has only to look at your choice of photos when ranting about her and her and her relatives/associates to realise that there are some issues going on there. If you are going to vilify US war criminals you could start with Kissinger yet he doesn't even seem to be on your radar.

Last time i checked I didn't have 'liberal sensibilities' and yet again I am not a fan. How do you know I have a 'slightly strained face' have you got a pair of special spectacles off the back of a cereal packet? The reason I said the record's stuck is obvious: You seek to drag Clinton into any thread at the slightest opportunity; it is an unhealthy obsession and anyway this is a thread about the Trump presidency.

Piss off with this " deplorable " nonsense , it's a fucking joke . I've said nothing about Clinton any different to thatcher . Calling Thatcher a witch was perfectly fine . Nobody was shrieking misogyny over " ding dong " . Many of these pink hatters were singing it . It's your utter hypocrisy and partisanship posing as rightonness. Totally transparent .

If I was going to vilify all us war criminals I'd need a whole library . This particular genocidist Just happened to be running against the non genocidist trump . Most of these hypocritically outraged types would like to see that result overturned, similar to their brexit outrage . That's the context . Progressive neo Liberal Hypocrisy. And you're a good example of it .

 

[teqniq]