Give him credit: at least he* isn't using a private email server to handle information that his political opponents will retroactively classify years later in an ultimately successful attempt to manufacture a scandal that torpedoes his presidential run. Can you imagine how disqualifying that would be?
*Process may not affect cisgender men and/or Republicans. Some restrictions may apply. Void where prohibited. Consult your doctor if scandal lasts for longer than four hours.
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
• North Korea as a permanent nuclear power that can strike its neighbors, but not the mainland US • NK can always break back out to an ICBM that can reach the US • NK gives up most chem/bio weapons (sorta like Syria) • Little or no way to know if NK cheats
President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!
This makes no sense with Trump's rhetoric from his campaign or most of his presidency. Why would Trump care about specific foreign companies in general? The US president wouldn't normally be concerned with that. And one that's not essential to any particular US interest or the global economy? Why would Trump care about protecting a Chinese tech company, given that CHAI-na has been "stealing our jobs"? Why would he want to help out a company that's in trouble because it violated US sanctions? Ok, well, Trump might not care about that, depending on the sanctions. He wouldn't care about sanctions on Russia, for example. But the sanctions they violated were related to Iran! Sanctions he claims aren't tough enough!
So how could it make sense?
A Trump building project in Indonesia is receiving millions from Chinese government. How is this not emoluments? https://t.co/TGQiFSqsk3 via @SCMP_News
So on seeing some more discussion on this I've resonated with a couple points.
This is a rational move by Kim Jong Un. North Korea can point to Iran and say, "Who can trust you to stick to your deals?"
In dick measuring, getting a meeting with the United States President is an increase in cup size. Being the guy who cancels it means an increase to the point where NK might as well just use Un's dick as a catapult to lob nukes at the mainland USA. At least from the POV of tinpot dictators the world over.
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Peering from the top of Mount Stupid
A bit more context: -60% of the State Dept's top-ranking career diplomats have left since Trump took office -7 of the 9 senior leadership positions in the State Dept are vacant -16 of the 22 asst secretary positions are empty -50 ambassadorships are vacanthttps://t.co/stoTa2vMao
PS2/ If you're wondering why a presidential *candidate* would set up a secret meeting with Egypt's president 60 days before a national election, remember that in September 2016 Trump by his own admission thought he'd lose. He was trying to see if he could make money off his run.
Now Trump has his balls in a vice and has to deliver the kind of global instability that raises oil prices. He's surrounded by psychopaths like Bolton and death cult Dominionists hell bent on the return of their death god that cosplays as the Lamb of God to murder all the sinners and brown people and sweep them all up into heaven for eternal divine handjobs. And some crooks.
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Peering from the top of Mount Stupid
The oil aspect has gotten lost in the sauce, at least in the popular press. I'm glad Avenatti has brought it back into the field of view. I think it's central to the whole saga, though, the germ of what Putin really wants out of his efforts. Here's sort of a bullet point list of what I think happened -
Exxon buys prospect land in Russia, a LOT of it. Russia allows it because they need Exxon's wherewithal to exploit the resource.
Sanctions are applied to Russia for Crimea/Ukraine, preventing Exxon from getting to the oil.
Someone suggests Tillerson, Ex-Exxon CEO, should head State, to facilitate dropping of sanctions and getting at the oil.
Unexpectedly, Tillerson turns out to possess a fair degree of integrity, and won't play ball with the slimey bastards.
Tillerson gets cashiered.
I remember writing about the 19% months ago, but I can't be bothered to look it up. Here's hoping the money trail to the Qutari gentlemen turns out to be an interesting one to follow.
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
Unexpectedly, Tillerson turns out to possess a fair degree of integrity, and won't play ball with the slimey bastards.
I think you're just about spot on with the rest, but I read this part less charitably (I admit I may be incapable of charitably viewing anything anyone connected to the Fake Administration does). I suspect Tillerson just didn't get the deal he thought he would, and thus had a convenient, sudden bout of integrity.
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"Her eyes in certain light were violet, and all her teeth were even. That's a rare, fair feature: even teeth. She smiled to excess, but she chewed with real distinction." - Eleanor of Aquitaine
Originally Posted by Walker Bragman, walking upper-middle-class brocialist self-parody
Ban all Muslims from entering the U.S.? Not a chance.
[...]
Basically, we will not have immigration reform, but we will not have people rounded up in the streets and deported.
We have the Muslim ban, although it's not a ban but he says it fulfills his promise about the ban and it is a ban, but really it's not a ban
We have effectively stopped accepting Syrian refugees, and greatly reduced accepting refugees from Muslim and non-white countries.
The guy who calls undocumented immigrants rapists now says they're not even people, they're animals. They are being rounded up in the streets. ICE is holding parents and children in custody for months on end, and separating even young children from their parents and holding them hundreds of miles away. Now he complains that it's not harsh enough, and "we have to break up families". He wants to warehouse children on military bases. And he's rescinding legal status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have lived here for years or decades and built lives here, and unless they "self-deport" eventually ICE will come for them too.
It turns out the racist piece of shit really was a racist piece of shit.
It is interesting to me how many folks who write constant jaded jeremiads about Democrats expressed views like that. So many great cynics who see through all that centrist Democrat pandering got totally played by centrist pandering from a Republican while dismissing his racism as just pandering.
Coincidentally, this article was approvingly cited by a certain somebody who whines that this forum is now a circle jerk (because what he really wishes is that it were a circle jerk for his opinions). I guess because we needed to own the neolib shills or something.
The White House eliminated the position of cybersecurity coordinator on the National Security Council on Tuesday, doing away with a post central to developing policy to defend against increasingly sophisticated digital attacks and the use of offensive cyber weapons.
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
The White House eliminated the position of cybersecurity coordinator on the National Security Council on Tuesday, doing away with a post central to developing policy to defend against increasingly sophisticated digital attacks and the use of offensive cyber weapons.
Why does this government hate national security?
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Peering from the top of Mount Stupid
Speaking to the Economic Club of New York on Thursday, Trudeau said that Canada, the U.S. and Mexico had agreed on a “broadly acceptable” proposal on the auto issue. Trudeau made clear, though, that there were other hurdles to overcome.
He said a deal that includes the “sunset clause” the U.S. is demanding, which would automatically terminate NAFTA in five years if the three countries did not re-endorse it, is not “much of a deal at all.” He said they must still settle on a system for resolving trade disputes. And he cautioned later that “there’s a lot of fine-tuning to do.”
At least Trump's open about a sunset clause rather than applying his own surprise sunset clause.
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Peering from the top of Mount Stupid