What stupid shit has Trump done today?
- Thread starter Yossarian
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CRI
Registered Chooser
The proverbial cat could very well be straining at the strings of the proverbial bag
Michael Cohen is sending a clear message to Donald Trump by speaking 'real truth,' sources say - CNNPolitics
Michael Cohen is sending a clear message to Donald Trump by speaking 'real truth,' sources say - CNNPolitics
I called the NATO thing ages ago (on this thread) and was shot down for it.
Assuming Trump is working for Putin (and he very probably is), all Trump's foreign policy stupidity becomes sensible and reasonable as far as achieving the likely goals set out by Putin go.
CRI
Registered Chooser
I remember. It would take serious mental gymnastics to insist his intentions regarding NATO were ever benign, but hey.
The only arguments I seem to see against Shapiro's scenario being possible are, "It's ridiculous, couldn't happen," (Oh really?) and "the US can't leave NATO without a vote in the Senate, (like they're going to put up much of a resistance.)
Hope Shapiro's wrong, as does he, obvs.
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
tim
EXPLODED TIM! (Help me!!!)
Western politicians of all stripes have connections vwith Russia, because there is a lot of money bring funneled out of Russia. The Clinton campaign was also compromised by this.
- The Washington Post
CRI
Registered Chooser
Yes, seems drunk but incredibly threatening. First cop does zilch, leaving the woman at seriously at risk. It's only when her male companion steps in and physically tries to bar the assailant from harming her that the cops get interested. Absolutely awful.
Trump doesn't understand that the NATO thing is a commitment to what you will spend on YOUR OWN country's defence. The simpleton just massively increased military spending in the USA.
He thinks the USA are paying into some kind of slush fund that other "cheating" countries are using.
He really is the thickest man alive.
He thinks the USA are paying into some kind of slush fund that other "cheating" countries are using.
He really is the thickest man alive.
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
I'm not sure he really thinks that. What's important is that his base thinks that. Instead of tricking onto the fact that he's just using them, they're being distracted with the meme that they're the only ones who pay taxes, they're the only ones who work, and they're the only ones who keep the world safe. Not a bit of it is true, but it doesn't matter because "those eurotrash people are stealing our money." In the meantime, none of them is asking Trump any questions about Russia or anything else.
I'm reminded of something that went around a few years ago. The Republicans were criticizing Obama because he hadn't submitted a budget yet. They hit that meme day after day until I heard it endlessly repeated back by the people around me. The trouble is, the Constitution puts budgeting in the hands of the House of Representatives. Even if you showed them the relevant section of the Constitution, they would be back to repeating the same meme the next day. Facts do not matter. Only feelings matter.
Archimage
Kat Knapper
Will Trump Be Meeting With His Counterpart — Or His Handler?
A plausible theory of mind-boggling collusion.
On June 14, 2016, the Washington Post reported that Russian hackers had broken into the Democratic National Committee’s files and gained access to its research on Donald Trump. A political world already numbed by Trump’s astonishing rise barely took notice. News reports quoted experts who suggested the Russians merely wanted more information about Trump to inform their foreign-policy dealings. By that point, Russia was already broadcasting its strong preference for Trump through the media. Yet when news of the hacking broke, nobody raised the faintest suspicions that Russia wished to alter the outcome of the election, let alone that Trump or anybody connected with him might have been in cahoots with a foreign power. It was a third-rate cyberburglary. Nothing to see here.
The unfolding of the Russia scandal has been like walking into a dark cavern. Every step reveals that the cave runs deeper than we thought, and after each one, as we wonder how far it goes, our imaginations are circumscribed by the steps we have already taken. The cavern might go just a little farther, we presume, but probably not much farther. And since trying to discern the size and shape of the scandal is an exercise in uncertainty, we focus our attention on the most likely outcome, which is that the story goes a little deeper than what we have already discovered. Say, that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort told their candidate about the meeting they held at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer after they were promised dirt on Hillary Clinton; and that Trump and Kushner have some shady Russian investments; and that some of Trump’s advisers made some promises about lifting sanctions.
But what if that’s wrong? What if we’re still standing closer to the mouth of the cave than the end?
Excerpt:
It is often said that Donald Trump has had the same nationalistic, zero-sum worldview forever. But that isn’t exactly true. Yes, his racism and mendacity have been evident since his youth, but those who have traced the evolution of his hypernationalism all settle on one year in particular: 1987. Trump “came onto the political stage in 1987 with a full-page ad in the New York Times attacking the Japanese for relying on the United States to defend it militarily,” reported Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The president has believed for 30 years that these alliance commitments are a drain on our finite national treasure,” a White House official told the Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin. Tom Wright, another scholar who has delved into Trump’s history, reached the same conclusion. “1987 is Trump’s breakout year. There are only a couple of examples of him commenting on world politics before then.”
What changed that year? One possible explanation is that Trump published The Art of the Deal, which sped up his transformation from an aggressive, publicity-seeking New York developer to a national symbol of capitalism. But the timing for this account does not line up perfectly — the book came out on November 1, and Trump had begun opining loudly on trade and international politics two months earlier. The other important event from that year is that Trump visited Moscow.
During the Soviet era, Russian intelligence cast a wide net to gain leverage over influential figures abroad. (The practice continues to this day.) The Russians would lure or entrap not only prominent politicians and cultural leaders, but also people whom they saw as having the potential for gaining prominence in the future. In 1986, Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin met Trump in New York, flattered him with praise for his building exploits, and invited him to discuss a building in Moscow. Trump visited Moscow in July 1987. He stayed at the National Hotel, in the Lenin Suite, which certainly would have been bugged. There is not much else in the public record to describe his visit, except Trump’s own recollection in The Art of the Deal that Soviet officials were eager for him to build a hotel there. (It never happened.)
Trump returned from Moscow fired up with political ambition. He began the first of a long series of presidential flirtations, which included a flashy trip to New Hampshire. Two months after his Moscow visit, Trump spent almost $100,000 on a series of full-page newspaper ads that published a political manifesto. “An open letter from Donald J. Trump on why America should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves,” as Trump labeled it, launched angry populist charges against the allies that benefited from the umbrella of American military protection. “Why are these nations not paying the United States for the human lives and billions of dollars we are losing to protect their interests?”
Trump’s letter avoided the question of whom the U.S. was protecting those countries from. The primary answer, of course, was the Soviet Union. After World War II, the U.S. had created a liberal international order and underwritten its safety by maintaining the world’s strongest military. A central goal of Soviet, and later Russian, foreign policy was to split the U.S. from its allies.
The safest assumption is that it’s entirely coincidental that Trump launched a national campaign, with himself as spokesman, built around themes that dovetailed closely with Soviet foreign-policy goals shortly after his Moscow stay. Indeed, it seems slightly insane to contemplate the possibility that a secret relationship between Trump and Russia dates back this far. But it can’t be dismissed completely. How do you even think about the small but real chance — 10 percent? 20 percent? — that the president of the United States has been covertly influenced or personally compromised by a hostile foreign power for decades?
Russian intelligence gains influence in foreign countries by operating subtly and patiently. It exerts different gradations of leverage over different kinds of people, and uses a basic tool kit of blackmail that involves the exploitation of greed, stupidity, ego, and sexual appetite. All of which are traits Trump has in abundance.
Throughout his career, Trump has always felt comfortable operating at or beyond the ethical boundaries that constrain typical businesses. In the 1980s, he worked with La Cosa Nostra, which controlled the New York cement trade, and later employed Michael Cohen and Felix Sater, both of whom have links to the Russian Mafia. Trump habitually refused to pay his counterparties, and if the people he burned (or any journalists) got in his way, he bullied them with threats. Trump also reportedly circulated at parties for wealthy men featuring cocaine and underage girls.
User Data and Cookie Consent
A plausible theory of mind-boggling collusion.
On June 14, 2016, the Washington Post reported that Russian hackers had broken into the Democratic National Committee’s files and gained access to its research on Donald Trump. A political world already numbed by Trump’s astonishing rise barely took notice. News reports quoted experts who suggested the Russians merely wanted more information about Trump to inform their foreign-policy dealings. By that point, Russia was already broadcasting its strong preference for Trump through the media. Yet when news of the hacking broke, nobody raised the faintest suspicions that Russia wished to alter the outcome of the election, let alone that Trump or anybody connected with him might have been in cahoots with a foreign power. It was a third-rate cyberburglary. Nothing to see here.
The unfolding of the Russia scandal has been like walking into a dark cavern. Every step reveals that the cave runs deeper than we thought, and after each one, as we wonder how far it goes, our imaginations are circumscribed by the steps we have already taken. The cavern might go just a little farther, we presume, but probably not much farther. And since trying to discern the size and shape of the scandal is an exercise in uncertainty, we focus our attention on the most likely outcome, which is that the story goes a little deeper than what we have already discovered. Say, that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort told their candidate about the meeting they held at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer after they were promised dirt on Hillary Clinton; and that Trump and Kushner have some shady Russian investments; and that some of Trump’s advisers made some promises about lifting sanctions.
But what if that’s wrong? What if we’re still standing closer to the mouth of the cave than the end?
Excerpt:
It is often said that Donald Trump has had the same nationalistic, zero-sum worldview forever. But that isn’t exactly true. Yes, his racism and mendacity have been evident since his youth, but those who have traced the evolution of his hypernationalism all settle on one year in particular: 1987. Trump “came onto the political stage in 1987 with a full-page ad in the New York Times attacking the Japanese for relying on the United States to defend it militarily,” reported Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The president has believed for 30 years that these alliance commitments are a drain on our finite national treasure,” a White House official told the Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin. Tom Wright, another scholar who has delved into Trump’s history, reached the same conclusion. “1987 is Trump’s breakout year. There are only a couple of examples of him commenting on world politics before then.”
What changed that year? One possible explanation is that Trump published The Art of the Deal, which sped up his transformation from an aggressive, publicity-seeking New York developer to a national symbol of capitalism. But the timing for this account does not line up perfectly — the book came out on November 1, and Trump had begun opining loudly on trade and international politics two months earlier. The other important event from that year is that Trump visited Moscow.
During the Soviet era, Russian intelligence cast a wide net to gain leverage over influential figures abroad. (The practice continues to this day.) The Russians would lure or entrap not only prominent politicians and cultural leaders, but also people whom they saw as having the potential for gaining prominence in the future. In 1986, Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin met Trump in New York, flattered him with praise for his building exploits, and invited him to discuss a building in Moscow. Trump visited Moscow in July 1987. He stayed at the National Hotel, in the Lenin Suite, which certainly would have been bugged. There is not much else in the public record to describe his visit, except Trump’s own recollection in The Art of the Deal that Soviet officials were eager for him to build a hotel there. (It never happened.)
Trump returned from Moscow fired up with political ambition. He began the first of a long series of presidential flirtations, which included a flashy trip to New Hampshire. Two months after his Moscow visit, Trump spent almost $100,000 on a series of full-page newspaper ads that published a political manifesto. “An open letter from Donald J. Trump on why America should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves,” as Trump labeled it, launched angry populist charges against the allies that benefited from the umbrella of American military protection. “Why are these nations not paying the United States for the human lives and billions of dollars we are losing to protect their interests?”
Trump’s letter avoided the question of whom the U.S. was protecting those countries from. The primary answer, of course, was the Soviet Union. After World War II, the U.S. had created a liberal international order and underwritten its safety by maintaining the world’s strongest military. A central goal of Soviet, and later Russian, foreign policy was to split the U.S. from its allies.
The safest assumption is that it’s entirely coincidental that Trump launched a national campaign, with himself as spokesman, built around themes that dovetailed closely with Soviet foreign-policy goals shortly after his Moscow stay. Indeed, it seems slightly insane to contemplate the possibility that a secret relationship between Trump and Russia dates back this far. But it can’t be dismissed completely. How do you even think about the small but real chance — 10 percent? 20 percent? — that the president of the United States has been covertly influenced or personally compromised by a hostile foreign power for decades?
Russian intelligence gains influence in foreign countries by operating subtly and patiently. It exerts different gradations of leverage over different kinds of people, and uses a basic tool kit of blackmail that involves the exploitation of greed, stupidity, ego, and sexual appetite. All of which are traits Trump has in abundance.
Throughout his career, Trump has always felt comfortable operating at or beyond the ethical boundaries that constrain typical businesses. In the 1980s, he worked with La Cosa Nostra, which controlled the New York cement trade, and later employed Michael Cohen and Felix Sater, both of whom have links to the Russian Mafia. Trump habitually refused to pay his counterparties, and if the people he burned (or any journalists) got in his way, he bullied them with threats. Trump also reportedly circulated at parties for wealthy men featuring cocaine and underage girls.
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CRI
Registered Chooser
gosub
~#
I am attending the protest on Friday because I've seen Mr Trump tell domestic audiences several times in the last couple of weeks that under him the US is respected, I disagree. And wish to add to the numbers with a view to neutering the fucker in November.
This :Americans in UK warned to keep 'low profile' during Trump visit to me is bullshit.
This :Americans in UK warned to keep 'low profile' during Trump visit to me is bullshit.
Los Angeles Times - We are currently unavailable in your region
Flynn's judge is hanging on ... and on.
One has to wonder if they're using this delay as a hammer over his head so he keeps talking.
Since this guy was at some of the Russia meetings, he's more than likely to have serious shit on Trump and the Trump clan. Son in law first, then see if the slimy fucker rolls and fucks daddy in law?
Much as that sounds unthinkable, so did most of the Trump presidency before he got into the white house.
Flynn's judge is hanging on ... and on.
One has to wonder if they're using this delay as a hammer over his head so he keeps talking.
Since this guy was at some of the Russia meetings, he's more than likely to have serious shit on Trump and the Trump clan. Son in law first, then see if the slimy fucker rolls and fucks daddy in law?
Much as that sounds unthinkable, so did most of the Trump presidency before he got into the white house.
CRI
Registered Chooser
So Reuters is playing the stenographer role for the Trump regime again.
Low profile? Fuck off. Mind, I wouldn't be surprised to hear they're photographing people and using facial recognition tech to identify the "bad eggs," so would still advise caution.
CRI
Registered Chooser
Today's Executive Order
Just another step in the Trump Regime's efforts to bring the judiciary under their control. Nothing to see here.
Trump tightens control over regulatory judges
Just another step in the Trump Regime's efforts to bring the judiciary under their control. Nothing to see here.
Trump tightens control over regulatory judges
CRI
Registered Chooser
Hmm, Trump's nominee to fill Justice Kennedy's seat on the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, used to be a Law Clerk for Kennedy. It's being suggested that picking his protege was an inducement to Kennedy to step down when he did - months before the mid term elections that just could shift the political balance in the US Senate, resulting in actual scrutiny of candidates during approval hearings.
Kavanaugh ticks all the right wing boxes, but I'd imagine his 2009 article in the Minnesota Law Review gained him extra brownie points with Trump.
Kavanaugh ticks all the right wing boxes, but I'd imagine his 2009 article in the Minnesota Law Review gained him extra brownie points with Trump.
AnnO'Neemus
Is so vanilla
Surely the US military wouldn't let him get away with this?
I mean, this message sort of ties in with that other stuff about him visiting Moscow back in the day and after he returned he started being a bit political, taking out a newspaper ad way back when about why America is paying to defend Japan and asking why the US was footing the bill to defend allies.
And NATO is a similar thing, I suppose, to him at least, given the stuff about he sees things in transactional terms.
Because each of those points, why should the US pay to defend Japan, why should the US pay to support and defend its allies, and now NATO... I can imagine that he's thinking 'We're spending all this money, but what are we getting back in return?' and he can't see profits (although the arms trade makes plenty of those) he can't see the peace dividend - I'm talking the wider post-WWII settlement here, (I know there have been plenty of other wars and there's still conflict raging in some parts of the world).
He's thinking 'I'm spending all this money and what am I getting back in return' and he can't see the benefit. Because he's a greedy ignoramous.
Personally, I think the military-industrial complex is awful, and I wish the money spent on the arms trade could be spent on more useful, socially beneficial things... but on the other hand, the thought of him pulling the plug on NATO like the first action in a chain of motion that's a bit like one of those Rube Goldberg machines...
But surely the military wouldn't let him?
Rebel, coup, possible execution ... or let him.
CRI
Registered Chooser
‘Unmasking Antifa Act' includes 15-year prison term proposal
Full text of the bill is here. Plenty of time and inclination to ram this through both houses of Congress to be signed into law by Trump before the November elections, too.
So free speech and free assembly rights to be axed for people with specific political views, or who can be literally framed as such. Where have we seen this kind of thing before? (Hint, there is more than one answer.)
Haven't read the bill in detail, but it occurs to me, this law could potentially be used to imprison people like those who've challenged Trump Administration members and Congressmen while dining, shopping, etc.
"Injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates any person ... in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege," could apply in so so so many situs.
Thoughts on this?
(Edited to add - bear in mind, Trump just pardoned a load of right wing militiamen who occupied a federal wildlife refuge for 40 days - then comes this bill criminalising even milder action than that, so long as it's from someone with the opposite ideological views. Hmmmmm.)
Full text of the bill is here. Plenty of time and inclination to ram this through both houses of Congress to be signed into law by Trump before the November elections, too.
So free speech and free assembly rights to be axed for people with specific political views, or who can be literally framed as such. Where have we seen this kind of thing before? (Hint, there is more than one answer.)
Haven't read the bill in detail, but it occurs to me, this law could potentially be used to imprison people like those who've challenged Trump Administration members and Congressmen while dining, shopping, etc.
"Injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates any person ... in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege," could apply in so so so many situs.
Thoughts on this?
(Edited to add - bear in mind, Trump just pardoned a load of right wing militiamen who occupied a federal wildlife refuge for 40 days - then comes this bill criminalising even milder action than that, so long as it's from someone with the opposite ideological views. Hmmmmm.)
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CRI
Registered Chooser
Trump is peddling a false narrative about NATO being filled with freeloading Eurotrash countries that suck millions out of the US and only criticise in return. This is fresh meat for his supporters.
It's part of conditioning them to hate specific groups of people so that when US action harms them later (directly or indirectly) it will be seen as justifiable.
Even though his pronouncements on NATO are a crock of shit, hell use it to justify withdrawal from the alliance.
I'd like to think the military wouldn't just follow along, but . . .
Many white service personnel support Trump, to the hilt. They will follow their Commander in Chief even if asked to turn their guns on fellow citizens, let alone citizens in "former" allied nations. I have no doubt about this.
I have a nephew on active service in the US Navy. I'd like to think he'd not follow orders without question, but he's only one cog in the wheel.
They are white nationalist militia gun nuts.....Trump's kind of people. And the Obama admin stood up to them resulting in them being sentenced to the mandatory minimum stretch in prison. But now these deplorables are free and the rule of law has been dealt a setback.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
You didn't read the article did you?
There are many articles about this. The Hammonds didn't denounce the armed occupation and have a history of threatening federal employees trying to protect public land, in addition to setting it on fire. Unfortunately, the armed occupiers managed to avoid punishment.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
BBC TV News just now, the anchorman was repeating the idiot comments made by Trump towards Germany, and just as he passed it over to the reporter 'on the spot', said, 'well, this is going well so far'. 
12 out of 10 for sarcasm.
12 out of 10 for sarcasm.
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