The Trump administration 3

kropotkin1951 wrote:

You mean like Regan and Bush the Lesser?

A difference would be that with Reagan(to take just one of your examples), while he may have been disengaged from the everyday process of governing, the policies put in place under his watch were pretty much the ones that he had promised to implement. Sure, he probably didn't have much idea about how the contras(for example) were being funded, but he knew that he wanted them funded, and said so, and as a result, they got funded. 

Whereas Trump says stuff like "I want to break up the big banks", when it's pretty obvious that not only is he not going to be personally involved in such a process, no one in his administration is even going to begin to consider implementing the policy. For all the impact that such statements have, they might as well just have been uttered by a babbling drunk on the street corner somewhere, rather than by the POTUS.  

I remember Regan and I remember a man who looked like he was suffering from some type of dementia in his second term. I do not subscribe to the idea that he was a truth teller he was a McCarthyite who lied about his fellow screen actors and helped destroy many careers. Prior to being President he was a master of spin especially in his time as Governor. 

Reagan was first elected to the Board of Directors of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) in 1941, serving as an alternate member. After World War II, he resumed service and became third vice-president in 1946.[40] The adoption of conflict-of-interest bylaws in 1947 led the SAG president and six board members to resign; Reagan was nominated in a special election for the position of president and was subsequently elected.[40] He was chosen by the membership to serve seven additional one-year terms, from 1947 to 1952 and in 1959.[40] Reagan led the SAG through eventful years that were marked by labor-management disputes, the Taft–Hartley Act, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings and the Hollywood blacklist era.[40]

Secret FBI informant in Hollywood

During the late 1940s, Reagan and his then-wife, Jane Wyman, provided the FBI with names of actors within the motion picture industry whom they believed to be communist sympathizers. Though he expressed reservations, he said, "Do they expect us to constitute ourselves as a little FBI of our own and determine just who is a Commie and who isn't?"[41]

Reagan testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee on the subject as well.[42] A fervent anti-communist, he reaffirmed his commitment to democratic principles, stating, "I never as a citizen want to see our country become urged, by either fear or resentment of this group, that we ever compromise with any of our democratic principles through that fear or resentment."[42]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan#SAG_presidency

Top Democrat 'Has Seen No Evidence of Trump-Russia Collusion' (and vid)

https://on.rt.com/8aub

"Referring to a briefing Feinstein attended at the CIA headquarters in Langley on the alleged Russia meddling on Tuesday, host Wolf Blitzer asked:

'Do you have evidence that there was in fact collusion between Trump associates and Russia during the campaign?'

'Not at this time,' Feinstein replied.

"Well, that's a pretty precise answer,' Blitzer said, quickly bringing the interview to an end."

Barack Obama 'personally warned Donald Trump not to hire Michael Flynn'

Former Attorney General Sally Yates is also expected to testify on her warnings about the former national security adviser

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/obama-trump...

Turning Gen Flynn Into Road Kill

https://t.co/yX4bNiG7Cd

"Although no actual evidence was presented, two ex-Obama administration officials destroyed the reputation of retired Lt Gen Michael Flynn, portraying him as a liar and potential traitor, reports Robert Parry."

New Conflict of Interest Uncovered For Trump's Son-In-Law Jared Kushner (and vid)

https://therealnews.com/t2/story:19029:New-Conflict-of-Interest-Uncovere...

"A major backer of the Kushner family's real estate empire, is the nephew of an Israeli billionaire, who's now under investigation in the US, and other countries for corruption..."

No problem. Just as long as he's not Russian.

Trump claims credit for inventing an 80 year old term.

https://twitter.com/OliviaMesser/status/862626327136002049

At least it's a more serious sounding allegation than the fact Trump got two scoops of ice cream. I wonder if it's true?

I'm looking into it, it appears the immediate response was to simply deny the allegations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjizB6IL1ok (53s)

Of course, to those who already believe Trump is involved with Russia those denials are less credible than the accusations. I guess it would be fair to assume that for those who already believe the media hates Trump, the Russiagate allegations are false, and "unnamed sources" is code for "something I just made up to get clicks," the accusations would be considered less credible than the denial.

Edited to add: I'm having a tough time finding much after the initial response (of course we all know the official story from Trump often changes, just like his estimation of his net worth, so I was hoping to find a contradiction in a later refutation), however, the Seth Rich story seems to have sucked all the oxygen out of the air on the Trump side. How convenient.

josh wrote:

Trump admitted it in a tweet this morning.

I didn't do it!

He didn't do it!

Ok, I did it.

He didn...

it was Israel from the latest news reports.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin offers transcripts of meeting to the US Congress.

Trump Meets Russians

Russia President Vladimir Putin offered Wednesday to turn over to Congress records of U.S. President Donald Trump's discussions with Russian diplomats in which Trump is reported to have disclosed classified information.

...The White House has played down the importance and secrecy of the information Trump gave to the Russians, and that had been supplied by Israel under an intelligence-sharing agreement. Trump himself said he had "an absolute right" as president to share "facts pertaining to terrorism" and airline safety with Russia.

​Having to go hat in hand to the Russians to find out what's going on in the White House is not likely to generate much goodwill for Trump amongst Congressional leaders.

Let me tell you some day about the book on him I read back in the days before 9/11 (book was published in 2000). Putin is a very interesting man. Not the sort of person you'd want to get on the bad side of.

Most interesting is the argument that at this point the Democrats are better off with Trump as president, and the Republicans would be better off without him, because Pence would be a far better rubber stamp, and as things are going right now the executive branch is completely hamstrung.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/us/politics/right-and-left-react-to-c...

Big deal for Trump to handle. Erdogan's security detail stomps a demonstration in the USA.

I could have died

They don't allow copying of bits of the article, but the incident took place outside the Turkish embassy in Washington, and involved Turkish bodyguards beating the crap out of a number of the demonstrators.

It's obviously an infraction of the law. But what will Trump's reaction be? I don't think he'll be able to tweet this one away.

On the other hand, Turkey is in NATO, and right now the USA cannot afford to lose them as an ally in Syria.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

I think that Trump has gotten so bad that we should start bombing the American people to save them from him.

As long as your in the lead jet in the first wave Im down with that. (Oh and need I point out, again, you supported him in the election. So go fuck off.)

CrossTalk: Appeasing the Saudis (and vid)

https://www.rt.com/shows/crosstalk/388900-trump-saudi-israel-military/

"The destinations on Donald Trump's first official foreign trip include Saudi Arabia and Israel. On the campaign trail he was highly critical of Washinton's military adventurism in the Middle East. Now it appears he is saying quite the opposite. Be prepared for wars Trump once condemned." *

CrossTalking with Riaz Karim, Mahan Abedin, and Mohammed Marandi

*and Canada's participation in them...

To be fair -- and I'm not specifically picking on kropotkin1951 here -- saying "I hope Clinton loses" wasn't meaningfully different from saying "I hope Trump wins".

A bit like saying "I'm not hoping the coin comes up Heads... I just really really hope it doesn't come up Tails!"

While Trump was signing a US $110 billion military hardware deal with Saudi Arabia, Rex Tillerson was out front trying not to laugh while he shook his finger at Iran:

Tillerson Lectures Rouhani

Speaking Saturday in Saudi Arabia where President Donald Trump is travelling, Tillerson said President Hassan Rouhani now has the opportunity to end Iran's role in supporting "destabilizing forces that exist in this region."

He also expressed his hope that Iran will put an end to its ballistic missile testing and restore "the rights of Iranians to freedom of speech, to freedom of organization, so Iranians can live the lives they deserve."

​I wonder if any of the US media will notice the hypocrisy in Tillerson lecturing Iran about citizen​'s freedoms from a platform in Saudi Arabia. Not likely.

I suppose it's fair to ask:  which of the following countries is the weird, rigid, dogmatic, anachronistic, anti-democratic one?

a) Saudi Arabia

b) The Democratic People's Republic of Korea

What's kind of funny to me is that these days, Saudi oil isn't the necessary Mother's Milk that it was in the 1970's, yet they're still "good people".

Rouhani's Election Win in Iran Chance 'For Trump to Chose Diplomacy Over War

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani easily won his bid for a second term in Friday's election, securing 57 percent of the vote in a victory over his main challenger, the conservative Ebrahim Raisi.

Raisi, who secured 38 percent of the vote, is "one of four judges who sentenced thousands of political prisoners to death in the 1980s, regarded by reformers as a symbol of the security state at its most fearsome," Reuters writes. 

Voter turnout was strong; over 40 million—roughly 70 percent of those eligible—turned up at the polls.

"Our nation's message in the election was clear: Iran's nation chose the path of interaction with the world, away from violence and extremism," Rouhani, a key figure behind the historic U.S.-Iran nuclear deal, said in a post-win televised speech....

How Times Change (see #43 for the reasons)

https://twitter.com/SteveRattner/status/866015622257311745

"Saudi Arabia and many of the countries that gave vast amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation want women as slaves and to kill gays. Hillary must return all money from such countries!"  - Donald J Trump

I suspect for many Trump supporters the response to his about-face on Saudi Arabia will be 'the Deep State made him do it'.