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Title: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on October 28, 2017, 10:57:12 am
Treating Trump Derangement Syndrome — Part 1
By Rod Thomson

I suspect all of us who are on social media, or are known to have voted for Donald Trump, have felt the escalating malice and name-calling from Trump-haters, now nobly referring to themselves as #theresistance. Yeah, they’re the flippin’ French Underground fighting the Nazis.

What we are seeing is the worldview epidemic of Trump Derangement Syndrome, which can be defined as an irrational level of hatred of Donald Trump the man, the businessman, the husband, the father, the candidate, the President.

All hate all the time, to the point that many are professing upfront that they will never accept him as president (including sitting congressmen such as John Lewis) and plan marches against the Great Oppressor before he is even sworn in as president. Yes, the derangement reached the point that a businessman who had no effect on almost anyone’s life, and was given awards for his work with the inner city (see picture) was protested as an oppressor before he had any power whatsoever.

Since this contagion is spreading among one type of political person, and they live among us all, herewith are some treatment options you can try on those suffering from the disease. There’s no cure beyond a worldview revelation and some historic context, which will be difficult to realize while suffering under this, but there are treatments to lessen the severity of certain symptoms.

 

Symptom 1: Trump is an illegitimate president
The disease here forces its sufferers to undermine a newly elected United States President before he is inaugurated. This means making the case that the President of the United States is not really president. Dangerous to the country, delusional for the individual.

Treatment: Suggest that this overt anti-patriotism is unbecoming of Americans who have a history of pulling together after an election, even Republicans after the two elections of Barak Obama. No Republicans acted in such ways. Further, point out that the last newly elected Republican president that bitter Democrats did this to was Abraham Lincoln. Heads will spin. Spittle may fly. But Trump Derangement Syndrome is not contagious by touch. It’s an infection of the rational thought process.

Further treatment for this syndrome is listing all of the items that have been blamed for Trump’s win (none of which ever actually include Hillary Clinton.) The first thing blamed was the racist Electoral College. (Sorry, but you just need to understand that sufferers see everything as racist.) The popular vote is what should count! Hillary is our President! Well, no. The rules are the rules and we don’t change rules after a game is concluded because the losers don’t like the results. Then it was fraud in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Jill Stein was going to uncover it. There was fraud all right, but not committed by Trump voters. Then it was another try at FBI Director Jim Comey. If not for Comey, Hillary would have won. Well, if she hadn’t played the Nixon card and deleted 33,000 emails from her unsecured server that had classified documents and more on it, there would have been no need for Comey. And now finally, it’s the Russians.

Julio Gonzalez for State Representative
The disease comes with a fever.

 

Symptom 2: Putin/Russia hacked the election
Since Russia “hacked” the election on Trump’s behalf — or so the claim goes — then Trump will be in the back pocket of the Russians and will go easy on them.

Treatment: Very easy. Treat with context. Point out that he couldn’t go easier on them than Obama/Clinton did. After the embarrassing “reset” button — remind them how terrible they claimed relations were because of Bush to set the first context — point out that the Obama administration did nothing when Russia invaded and took over Crimea; nothing when Russia invaded eastern Ukraine and appears to have annexed it; and nothing in Syria despite the cries for help, allowing the Russians to go back in for the first time since the Cold War to help their old ally crush the rebels ruthlessly. This gave us the humanitarian disaster that is Aleppo.

Trump could hardly do worse than this record.

 

Symptom 3: Outrage over a foreign nation interfering with our elections
This is meant to keep focus on the nefarious Russian nemesis that now owns Trump and further the narrative that the Trump presidency is illegitimate. (Actually, Russia really is a problem that Obama’s weakness enabled and emboldened and is now leaving for his predecessor.)

Treatment: Easiest yet. Casually point out that the Obama Administration overtly worked to defeat Brexit and made threats that Britain would no longer enjoy its trade status under a Bexit approval. No outrage though by those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Add that Obama’s campaign team was sent to Israel to work on behalf of Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponent. Again, no outrage by those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. In 1996, the Clinton Administration tried to bolster the election of Boris Yeltsin by endorsing a $10.2 billion loan from the IMF that was to be linked to privatization, more open trade policies further steps toward capitalism. Yeltsin used the loan to bolster support among voters. And, once again, no outrage by those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. This symptom is a classic case of selective outrage and reveals mere partisanship and nothing higher.

It’s unknown the course this syndrome will take, but with treatment, we hope it can be managed and those suffering from it will over time regain their proper faculties.

Part 2 is here!


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on October 28, 2017, 11:00:23 am
Treating Trump Derangement Syndrome — Part 2
By Rod Thomson

Well Part 1 of our treatment options for Trump Derangement Syndrome was popular enough that we are jumping right in with Part 2. Plus, the symptoms keep multiplying. Treatments will need to keep up. This could be an ongoing process.

Most of us are now aware of the worldview epidemic of Trump Derangement Syndrome, which can be defined as an irrational level of hatred of Donald Trump the man, the businessman, the husband, the father, the candidate, the President. All things Trump. All hatred. That is Trump Derangement Syndrome.

One of the overt symptoms of those suffering falls under the hashtag #theresistence. When you see that you need to take immediate treatment steps to help the sufferers.

We saw that 66 members of Congress consciously chose not to attend the inauguration, which is unprecedented since perhaps Lincoln. A clear sign of the Trump Derangement Syndrome contagion spreading to the upper levels of government. But it is among friends, family and neighbors too. There’s no cure beyond a worldview revelation and some historical context, which will be difficult to realize while suffering under this. But there are treatments to lessen the severity of certain symptoms.

Part 1 dealt with three symptoms. We pick it up there.

 

Symptom 4: Fight the Oppressor!
The claim that Donald Trump was a great oppressor gained currency weeks before he was elected. A businessman with no power and who had no effect on almost anyone’s life, and was given awards alongside Muhammad Ali and Rosa Parks, was protested as a racist oppressor before he had any power whatsoever. That’s TDS.

Treatment: It’s important that those suffering from this symptom be treated with some honest context. While Trump had no power to oppress, President Obama did. And did.

Julio Gonzalez for State Representative
First, the Obama Administration sicked the most feared of U.S. institutions, the IRS, directly on his political opponents. Any group seeking tax exempt status that had Tea Party or Conservative in its name was targeted for denial through attrition. Dozens of those applied — a relatively quick and simple process — but were run through the wringer, some for years, until they ran out of money to keep filing. They never received that and so could not raise money to oppose President Obama’s 2012 reelection. Obama denied Americans their Constitutional rights to further his personal political career. That was oppressive.

Second, Obamacare fines people for not buying a product President Obama decided Americans should buy. That’s oppressive and would have been unconstitutional but for a politicized Supreme Court.

 

Symptom 5: Protests, threats of impeachment before he’s president
I wanted to start a pretend pool on how long it would take for sufferers of Trump Derangement Syndrome to call for impeaching Trump after the moment of inauguration. Measured in months, weeks, days, hours or seconds. Well, I was too late, because calls for impeachment began before he was sworn into office. No matter, there will be members of Congress who will call for it within days, weeks at the longest

Treatment: Inform the TDS sufferers that there are actually tight controls on impeachment, and they do not include vulgar behavior or ideas with which opponents disagree.

Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution, is helpful here: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

 

Symptom 6: 66 members of Congress boycotted the inauguration
Clearly, Trump Derangement Syndrome has affected the highest levels of our government — if not the actual strongest of our people. A rather astounding 34 percent of the Democrat members of Congress boycotted the inauguration and were cheered on by other fevered sufferers of TDS. It was a tragic moment for them and an embarrassment.

Treatment: Remind TDS sufferers that one of the greatnesses of the United States is the peaceful transition of power between political opponents. Since the Civil War, this has always been the case. The Obamas, the Clintons, the Carters, along with the Bushes, all participated in this American truth. All handled with dignity and class — which could not have been easy for Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama. But they did it.

We will update symptoms and treatment as they become visible and available.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 28, 2017, 12:10:28 pm

America with Trump in charge....



from The Washington Post....

The Daily 202: The GOP civil war is bigger than Trump.
A new study shows deep fissures on policy.


Don't buy into the spin that the Republican divide is more about personality than substance.

By JAMES HOHMANN | 7:54AM EDT - Thursday, October 26, 2017

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_925w/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/powerpost/201710/Images/1e2ee009a0b7bea9c500686bccc4201e-5568-3712-70-8-AFP_TQ15P.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/powerpost/201710/Images/1e2ee009a0b7bea9c500686bccc4201e-5568-3712-70-8-AFP_TQ15P.jpg)

THE BIG IDEA: Republican leaders are trying to downplay the significance of Jeff Flake's retirement speech by insisting that the party is unified and that critiques of President Trump are entirely about his personality — not his policies.

Asked about Flake's criticisms (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/10/25/daily-202-flake-and-corker-feel-liberated-to-speak-their-minds-that-should-terrify-trump/59efd11030fb045cba000a28) as he boarded Marine One for a trip to Texas yesterday afternoon, Trump responded that his meeting with Senate Republicans was “a lovefest”.

“We have, actually, great unity in the Republican Party,” the president said. “If you look at the Democrats with Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, that's a mess…. We're really unified on what we want to do.”

Asked for reaction (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/10/25/republicans-are-whistling-past-their-own-trump-inspired-civil-war) to what both Flake and Senator Bob Corker (Republican-Tennessee) said about Trump, Senator Rand Paul (Republican-Kentucky) told Fox News: “This is more of, like, a People Magazine saga.” Senator James Risch (Republican-Idaho) told CNN, “These things are all personality-driven, and it's unfortunate that this leaked out over into the public.” Senator Mike Lee (Republican-Utah) told MSNBC, “If we were all to chase every squirrel that comes running along in the form of a personal dispute or a mischaracterization of someone's integrity or intent, we would be very busy doing that and not focusing on the government.”

But that's not the case, and they all know it. In fact, there are profound ideological differences within the Republican coalition that have become much more pronounced in the Trump era. Flake's decision to not seek another term was as much about his refusal to abandon his core principles as his concern over Trump's fitness for office.

“It is clear at this moment that a traditional conservative who believes in limited government and free markets, who is devoted to free trade, and who is pro-immigration, has a narrower and narrower path to nomination in the Republican party — the party that for so long has defined itself by belief in those things,” Flake said in his Tuesday speech on the Senate floor.

On the same day Flake bowed out, the Pew Research Center released a fascinating 152-page report (http://www.people-press.org/2017/10/24/political-typology-reveals-deep-fissures-on-the-right-and-left) on the nation's political typology. Based on in-depth interviews with more than 5,000 American adults, the non-partisan group divided everyone across the political spectrum into eight groups, along with a ninth group of politically disengaged “Bystanders”. (That is a giant sample, and the methodology is airtight.)

Pew's typology studies, which it has conducted since the 1980s, are always a treat to read because they include a delicious trove of data to feast on. But they are expensive to conduct, so the last one came out in 2014. That's only three years, but it feels like a generation ago: before Donald.

The report highlights fissures under the Republican big tent on a host of issues. In many cases, the dividing lines are not necessarily new. But several of the areas which Republicans are most torn about have moved to the front burner because of Trump's disruptive campaign and presidency, from trade to immigration and America's role in the world.


(https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https%3A%2F%2Fpalomaimages.washingtonpost.com%2Fprod%2Fpewspectrum_tstmp_1509018368.jpg&w=750) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https%3A%2F%2Fpalomaimages.washingtonpost.com%2Fprod%2Fpewspectrum_tstmp_1509018368.jpg&w=908)

• Pew identifies four distinct GOP factions:

Core Conservatives, about 15 percent of all registered voters, are what we think of as traditional Republicans. They overwhelmingly support smaller government, lower corporate tax rates and believe the economic system is fundamentally fair. Seven in 10 express a positive view of U.S. involvement in the global economy “because it provides the U.S. with new markets and opportunities for growth.”

You might call this group the Jeff Flake Republicans. Flake grew up on a ranch that depended on the labor of undocumented immigrants, who he came to deeply respect as human beings. He was a Mormon missionary in South Africa, which made him worldly. As an ideological heir to Barry Goldwater and a devotee of Milton Friedman, he's a devoted free trader who has unabashedly embraced the “globalist” label to describe himself.

Country First Conservatives, a much smaller segment of the GOP base (7 percent of all registered voters), are older and less educated.  They feel the country is broken, blame immigrants for that and largely think the U.S. should withdraw from the world. Nearly two-thirds agree with the statement that, “If America is too open to people from all over the world, we risk losing our identity as a nation.”

Market Skeptic Republicans (12 percent of registered voters), leery of big business and free trade, believe the system is rigged against them. Just one-third of this group believes banks and other financial institutions have a positive effect on the way things are going in the country, and 94 percent say the economic system unfairly favors powerful interests. Most of them want to raise corporate taxes, and only half believe GOP leaders care about the middle class. They generally view immigrants negatively, they're not too focused on foreign affairs and they're less socially conservative than the first two groups.

New Era Enterprisers, the fourth group, are the opposite. They account for about 11 percent of registered voters: They're younger, more diverse and more bullish about America's future. They support business and believe welcoming immigrants makes the country stronger.

• Core Conservatives are the biggest faction (http://www.people-press.org/2017/10/24/political-typology-reveals-deep-fissures-on-the-right-and-left/0_fix) in the party, but they have historically punched above their weight because people in this category are more engaged with politics, more likely to vote and more likely to keep up with current events. (They also make up the lion's share of the donor class, so politicians have another incentive to cater to their interests.)

This helps to explain why 9 in 10 Core Conservatives say the Republican Party represents their values very or somewhat well, compared to only 3 in 4 Country First Conservatives and 6 in 10 Market Skeptic Republicans.

• Trump's core supporters tend to regard economic policy as a zero-sum game. Many believe that others must lose for them to win. Most Americans, however, believe that it's possible to have economic policies that benefit everyone in the country. Six in 10 Market Skeptic Republicans say that pretty much any economic policy will end up benefiting some at the expense of others, much higher than Core Conservatives.


(https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Feidosprev11.wpprivate.com%3A31151%2Frw%2FWashingtonPost%2FContent%2FEditorial-Opinion%2FImages%2F865970886.jpg&w=900) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Feidosprev11.wpprivate.com%3A31151%2Frw%2FWashingtonPost%2FContent%2FEditorial-Opinion%2FImages%2F865970886.jpg&w=1484)
Senator Jeff Flake speaks to reporters after announcing he will not seek re-election. — Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images.

• Looking through the crosstabs, here were seven other questions that divided the subgroups in striking ways:

Taxes: Two-thirds of Core Conservatives say there should be lower taxes both on large businesses and corporations. On the other side, only 24 percent of Market Skeptic Republicans support lowering tax rates on high-earning households and a 55 percent majority says taxes on large businesses and corporations should be raised.

Health care: 88 percent of Core Conservatives say it is not the government's responsibility to make sure all Americans have health-care coverage, compared to 72 percent of Country First Conservatives and 57 percent of Market Skeptic Republicans. But the New Era Enterprisers are split: 47 percent say it is the government's responsibility to ensure Americans have health care, while 50 percent say it is not.

Immigration: Three-quarters of Country First Conservatives say immigrants are a burden on the country, and two-thirds of that group say that the U.S. risks losing its identity as a nation if it is too open to people from around the world. But 70 percent of New Era Enterprisers view immigrants as a strength and two-thirds of them say America's openness is “essential to who we are as a nation”.

Role of government: Only 12 percent of Core Conservatives say that the GOP is too willing to cut government programs even when they have proven effective, compared to 36 percent of Country First Conservatives, 46 percent of New Era Enterprisers and 49 percent of Market Skeptic Republicans.

America's role in the world (http://www.people-press.org/2017/10/24/7-foreign-policy/7-2-2): Overall, 47 percent of Americans agree that “it's best for the future of our country to be active in world affairs”, but an identical percentage says “we should pay less attention to problems overseas and concentrate on problems here at home”. Support for global engagement has spiked among Democrats since 2014. While half of Core Conservatives say the U.S. should be active globally, 66 percent of Country First Conservatives and 72 percent of Market Skeptic Republicans say the U.S. should concentrate on problems at home and pay less attention to problems overseas.

Climate change: 7 in 10 Core Conservatives say there is no solid evidence of global warming. Only half of Country First Conservatives say that. On the other hand, two-thirds of both Market Skeptic Republicans and New Era Enterprisers say there is solid evidence of global warming.

Same-sex marriage: Nationally, 62 percent of Americans favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally while 32 percent still oppose same-sex marriage. Three-quarters of Country First Conservatives oppose same-sex marriage. But Core Conservatives are now closer to evenly divided — 43 percent support and 49 percent oppose. On the other side, 57 percent of Market Skeptic Republicans and 54 percent of New Era Enterprisers want to let gays and lesbians to marry legally.

• Bigger picture: The center is not holding. There is much less overlap in the political values of Republicans and Democrats than in the past. In 2004, 49 percent of Americans took a roughly equal number of conservative and liberal positions on a scale based on 10 questions. That was the same percentage as in 1994. Then, three years ago, 38 percent had a mix of liberal and conservative views. Now it's dropped to 32 percent (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/23/in-polarized-era-fewer-americans-hold-a-mix-of-conservative-and-liberal-views).


(https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https%3A%2F%2Fpalomaimages.washingtonpost.com%2Fprod%2FFT_17_tstmp_1509018624.jpg&w=750) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https%3A%2F%2Fpalomaimages.washingtonpost.com%2Fprod%2FFT_17_tstmp_1509018624.jpg&w=908)

• A good insight: Trump keeps talking about Hillary Clinton because it's the best way to hold his coalition together. Only about 4 in 10 Core Conservatives and Country First Conservatives say they agree with Trump on “all or nearly all issues”, compared to almost 6 in 10 Market Skeptic Republicans. The New Era Enterprisers are split almost evenly: 47 percent say they agree with Trump on many or all issues, while 53 percent say that they agree with the president on few or almost no issues.

In every GOP faction, though, voters strongly dislike Clinton at about twice the rate that they strongly like Trump. (Similarly, Democrats are held together right now by their near universal disdain for Trump.)


(https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.washingtonpost.com%2Fblogs%2Fthe-fix%2Ffiles%2F2017%2F10%2F2300-fix-pewGOPpoll1024-1024x488.jpg&w=750) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.washingtonpost.com%2Fblogs%2Fthe-fix%2Ffiles%2F2017%2F10%2F2300-fix-pewGOPpoll1024-1024x488.jpg&w=908)

“To appropriate a phrase from the late Rick James, reflexive partisanship is a helluva drug”, Aaron Blake observes on The Fix (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/10/24/the-gop-base-doesnt-truly-love-trump-in-fact-it-likes-pence-more). “And today's Republican Party is much more united on what it is against — namely, the Democrats and the mainstream media — than on what it's for…. Trump may not be great on their policies, and they may even think he's kind of a jerk, but he's with them on the most important thing: being not-the-other-side. It's arguably his most pronounced quality. And in an increasingly polarized country, it's what really matters.”

Read the full report here (http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/10/24165634/10-24-2017-Typology-release.pdf).

Take Pew's online quiz to see where you would fall on their political typology (http://www.people-press.org/quiz/political-typology).

With Breanne Deppisch and Joanie Greve.

• James Hohmann is a national political correspondent for The Washington Post. He is the author of The Daily 202 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/category/the-daily-202), The Post's flagship political newsletter, and the voice of its affiliated Big Idea (https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/daily-202-big-idea) audio briefing. Hohmann covered local news for The Post in the aughts and returned in 2015 after six years at Politico. He's also written for the Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News and San Jose Mercury News. A historian by training, Hohmann grew up in Apple Valley, Minnesota, and graduated with honors from Stanford University.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • The Daily 202: Flake and Corker feel liberated to speak their minds. That should terrify Trump. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/10/25/daily-202-flake-and-corker-feel-liberated-to-speak-their-minds-that-should-terrify-trump/59efd11030fb045cba000a28)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/10/26/daily-202-the-gop-civil-war-is-bigger-than-trump-a-new-study-shows-deep-fissures-on-policy/59f0eb7230fb045cba000a43 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/10/26/daily-202-the-gop-civil-war-is-bigger-than-trump-a-new-study-shows-deep-fissures-on-policy/59f0eb7230fb045cba000a43)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 28, 2017, 12:11:33 pm

More about America with Trump in charge....



from the Los Angeles Times....

Steve Bannon battles Republican leaders for the soul of their party

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PDT - Friday, October 27, 2017

(http://www.trbimg.com/img-59f2c8ba/turbine/la-1509083316-6bv1wtksdl-snap-image/1150) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-59f2c8ba/turbine/la-1509083316-6bv1wtksdl-snap-image)

REPULICANS control the White House and Congress, plus the majority of state legislatures and governorships, yet the GOP may be on the edge of implosion.

Every time a political party takes a shellacking in a big election, pundits wonder if the losers can ever recover. Since the extinction of the Whigs back in the 1850s, though, losing parties always do bounce back. The question now, however, is whether Republicans can survive a victory: Donald Trump's unexpected triumph last November.

A few GOP senators and a legion of establishment conservatives and veterans of past Republican administrations are in open rebellion against Trump, while many current Republican members of Congress privately express outrage and alarm at the president's antics. Trump has stolen their party and they want it back. But the usurper in the Oval Office has one very big advantage over his Republican adversaries: A majority of Republican voters continue to perceive him as a bold, straight-talking deal maker, not the dangerous clown that the establishment believes he is.

It is telling that Trump's loudest critics on Capitol Hill — Tennessee Senator Bob Corker and Arizona Senator Jeff Flake — are not running for re-election. They are free to say what they truly think about the braggadocious buffoon who is now leading their party. In contrast, those who want to continue in office maintain a timid silence. They know that if they publicly point out that the emperor has no clothes, the emperor's fans will run someone against them in the next GOP primary.

This worry is not unfounded. Trump's self-proclaimed “wing man”, Steve Bannon, has joined forces with right-wing billionaire Robert Mercer to identify and support challengers to every Republican senator found insufficiently slavish in his or her loyalty to the president. Bannon's key goal is to depose Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the ultimate representative of the GOP establishment, who is loathed by Trumpistas.

To borrow a phrase from the late, not-so-great Alabama Governor George Wallace, “There is not a dime's worth of difference” between establishment Republicans and the Trump administration on major policy issues. They all want to give tax cuts to rich people and large corporations, kill Obamacare, minimize regulation of the fossil fuels industry, loosen up rules for big-time financiers, sell off public lands to mining companies, give more money to the Pentagon, get tough on immigrants and do whatever they can to stifle abortion, same-sex marriages and efforts to deal with climate change.

This is not a sharp philosophical split like the one between the progressive Republican President Theodore Roosevelt and conservative power brokers in his party who were in thrall to Gilded Age robber barons. Nor is it like the 1964 battle between Nelson Rockefeller’s Eastern liberal Republicans and Barry Goldwater's upstart Western conservatives. There is almost no one in today's Republican Party who cannot make a valid claim to being a solid conservative — unless it is Trump, who, not so long ago, was a Democrat.

The battle is really over the definition of conservative. To the establishment Republicans, conservatism is a set of political principles that favors business over labor, industry over environmentalists, corporations over consumers, Wall Street over Washington, low taxes over big government, and the Pentagon over social programs. To the angry crowds flocking to Trump rallies and buying into the alternative reality being concocted by Fox News, Breitbart and right-wing talk radio, conservatism is more of an attitude. Like their fathers and grandfathers who were electrified by the race-baiting, anti-establishment, anti-elitist rhetoric of the aforementioned Governor Wallace when he ran for president in 1968 and 1972, the Trump conservatives feel as if the country they love is being overrun by brown-skinned immigrants, black-skinned protesters, morality-defying sexual deviants and godless urban hipsters. They are fearful and fuming and Trump is their unfiltered, unapologetic voice of rage.

Elected Republicans who do not share such attitudes may have to decide if keeping their jobs is worth the price of letting the party of Lincoln become a party in which George Wallace would feel very much at home.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-republican-battle-20171026-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-republican-battle-20171026-story.html)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on October 29, 2017, 09:51:16 am
Symptom 1: Trump is an illegitimate president
The disease here forces its sufferers to undermine a newly elected United States President before he is inaugurated. This means making the case that the President of the United States is not really president. Dangerous to the country, delusional for the individual.

Treatment: Suggest that this overt anti-patriotism is unbecoming of Americans who have a history of pulling together after an election, even Republicans after the two elections of Barak Obama. No Republicans acted in such ways. Further, point out that the last newly elected Republican president that bitter Democrats did this to was Abraham Lincoln. Heads will spin. Spittle may fly. But Trump Derangement Syndrome is not contagious by touch. It’s an infection of the rational thought process.

Further treatment for this syndrome is listing all of the items that have been blamed for Trump’s win (none of which ever actually include Hillary Clinton.) The first thing blamed was the racist Electoral College. (Sorry, but you just need to understand that sufferers see everything as racist.) The popular vote is what should count! Hillary is our President! Well, no. The rules are the rules and we don’t change rules after a game is concluded because the losers don’t like the results. Then it was fraud in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Jill Stein was going to uncover it. There was fraud all right, but not committed by Trump voters. Then it was another try at FBI Director Jim Comey. If not for Comey, Hillary would have won. Well, if she hadn’t played the Nixon card and deleted 33,000 emails from her unsecured server that had classified documents and more on it, there would have been no need for Comey. And now finally, it’s the Russians.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on October 29, 2017, 09:53:57 am
I hope you are enjoying this special thread I created just for you KTJ😁


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on October 29, 2017, 04:43:00 pm


(https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b32147d15b74197189002a3c8954adade29056de9699d709036cab19e8c92646.jpg)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on October 29, 2017, 06:43:30 pm
Symptom 2: Putin/Russia hacked the election
Since Russia “hacked” the election on Trump’s behalf — or so the claim goes — then Trump will be in the back pocket of the Russians and will go easy on them.

Treatment: Very easy. Treat with context. Point out that he couldn’t go easier on them than Obama/Clinton did. After the embarrassing “reset” button — remind them how terrible they claimed relations were because of Bush to set the first context — point out that the Obama administration did nothing when Russia invaded and took over Crimea; nothing when Russia invaded eastern Ukraine and appears to have annexed it; and nothing in Syria despite the cries for help, allowing the Russians to go back in for the first time since the Cold War to help their old ally crush the rebels ruthlessly. This gave us the humanitarian disaster that is Aleppo.

Trump could hardly do worse than this record.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on October 30, 2017, 10:33:53 am
Symptom 3: Outrage over a foreign nation interfering with our elections
This is meant to keep focus on the nefarious Russian nemesis that now owns Trump and further the narrative that the Trump presidency is illegitimate. (Actually, Russia really is a problem that Obama’s weakness enabled and emboldened and is now leaving for his predecessor.)

Treatment: Easiest yet. Casually point out that the Obama Administration overtly worked to defeat Brexit and made threats that Britain would no longer enjoy its trade status under a Bexit approval. No outrage though by those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Add that Obama’s campaign team was sent to Israel to work on behalf of Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponent. Again, no outrage by those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. In 1996, the Clinton Administration tried to bolster the election of Boris Yeltsin by endorsing a $10.2 billion loan from the IMF that was to be linked to privatization, more open trade policies further steps toward capitalism. Yeltsin used the loan to bolster support among voters. And, once again, no outrage by those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. This symptom is a classic case of selective outrage and reveals mere partisanship and nothing higher.

It’s unknown the course this syndrome will take, but with treatment, we hope it can be managed and those suffering from it will over time regain their proper faculties.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 30, 2017, 11:03:03 am

The first arrests should take place tomorrow (our time).

Excellent news, eh?

That should piss Trump off.

He is already going rabid on Twitter lashing out at everybody in general.

No doubt the first arrests will be those on the periphery.

They will then squeal their heads of to save their miserable skins.

Over time, the arrests will gradually move closer to the centre.

I look forward to the day when Trump's oldest son, his daughter, and his daughter's husband get arrested.

Trump will be absolutely rabid with rage, and his lashing out will be the greatest entertainment show on the entire planet.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on October 30, 2017, 11:19:02 am

Symptom 4: Fight the Oppressor!
The claim that Donald Trump was a great oppressor gained currency weeks before he was elected. A businessman with no power and who had no effect on almost anyone’s life, and was given awards alongside Muhammad Ali and Rosa Parks, was protested as a racist oppressor before he had any power whatsoever. That’s TDS.

Treatment: It’s important that those suffering from this symptom be treated with some honest context. While Trump had no power to oppress, President Obama did. And did.

Julio Gonzalez for State Representative
First, the Obama Administration sicked the most feared of U.S. institutions, the IRS, directly on his political opponents. Any group seeking tax exempt status that had Tea Party or Conservative in its name was targeted for denial through attrition. Dozens of those applied — a relatively quick and simple process — but were run through the wringer, some for years, until they ran out of money to keep filing. They never received that and so could not raise money to oppose President Obama’s 2012 reelection. Obama denied Americans their Constitutional rights to further his personal political career. That was oppressive.

Second, Obamacare fines people for not buying a product President Obama decided Americans should buy. That’s oppressive and would have been unconstitutional but for a politicized Supreme Court.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on October 30, 2017, 09:02:09 pm
Symptom 5: Protests, threats of impeachment before he’s president
I wanted to start a pretend pool on how long it would take for sufferers of Trump Derangement Syndrome to call for impeaching Trump after the moment of inauguration. Measured in months, weeks, days, hours or seconds. Well, I was too late, because calls for impeachment began before he was sworn into office. No matter, there will be members of Congress who will call for it within days, weeks at the longest

Treatment: Inform the TDS sufferers that there are actually tight controls on impeachment, and they do not include vulgar behavior or ideas with which opponents disagree.

Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution, is helpful here: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 30, 2017, 09:28:57 pm

Mate....you're fucked in the head.

Where are you living these days?

Perhaps your locality has something to do with it.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 31, 2017, 12:12:54 am

from the Los Angeles Times....

Scariest thing on this Halloween is the demise of fact-based reality

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PDT - Monday, October 30, 2017

(http://www.trbimg.com/img-59f6d229/turbine/la-1509347866-xtvek43s7i-snap-image/1100) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-59f6d229/turbine/la-1509347866-xtvek43s7i-snap-image)

IF YOU are a person who likes being frightened by the prospect of a zombie apocalypse, then Halloween is the holiday for you. Have fun being scared. But, if you truly are convinced that a zombie apocalypse could be a real thing, then we all have a problem.

A sane society depends on most people sharing a common understanding of reality, but American politics is driven by fears, many of which are unfounded. True or not, the things we fear are very likely to be the things that motivate us to vote for particular candidates.

For instance, if you fear global warming and people carrying guns in grocery stores, I can probably guess who you voted for in the 2016 presidential election, just as I could likely make an accurate prediction of your ballot behavior if you are someone who fears that federal agents will take your guns and immigrants will take your job.

Voting is an emotional act that feels as if it is a rational choice. If it scares you to think that the federal government is concocting so-called false flag events, like the Sandy Hook school shooting (http://www.latimes.com/topic/crime-law-justice/crime/shootings/sandy-hook-elementary-school-shooting-EVCAL00028-topic.html), or that every Muslim is capable of being turned into a terrorist, then it seems rational to vote for certain candidates over others, even though both those viewpoints are preposterous falsehoods promoted by charlatans to elicit an emotional reaction that is susceptible to manipulation.

Of course, there are fears that are justifiable. It is not irrational to worry about another economic meltdown caused by high rollers on Wall Street. It is not irrational to have angst about random mass shootings. It is not irrational to have some concern about a lunatic North Korean dictator lobbing a nuclear bomb at an American city. It is not irrational to fear for the safety of your teenager in a society where bullying, addictive drugs, gang shootings and pervasive pornography are common. It is harder to predict, though, how those particular fears will drive your political choices.

For many people, the fear of losing access to healthcare is a very real thing. But the way this frightening prospect steers voting depends on the particulars. A poor person who relies on Medicaid may make a different decision at the ballot box than a middle class voter who lives in a state where health insurance options are becoming scarce and unaffordable.

I have my own set of fears. Climate change is high on the list, although, because the worst effects of this genuine phenomenon are decades away, this is more a fear for my children and grandchildren than for myself. I do fear that Kim Jong Un will target a West Coast city with his missiles and that I might live in one of them, though I tell myself this hazard is still remote. I fear that our ignorant, brash president and his chaotic administration will bungle foreign policy so badly that the United States will be perceived around the world as an unstable, unreliable partner and America's strength and global influence will wither.

Beyond those worries, though, the fear at the top of my list right now is that our democracy is being dangerously and permanently subverted by fake news. This is not the fake news that President Trump (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/donald-trump-PEBSL000163-topic.html) complains about — the generally accurate and verifiable stories in the mainstream media that are critical of him. No, the fake news I fear is coming from a variety of sources — Russian hackers, Internet trolls, talk radio charlatans, right wing political operatives — and is being amplified by social media, Fox News and presidential tweets (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump). This manipulated view of reality has been sold to millions of Americans and it has made finding common ground nearly impossible. Even Republican politicians who know fact from fiction find themselves in thrall to this malign force because their constituents have bought into the mendacity.

I cannot yet see how we, as a country, will find a way out of this pit of lies. And that is as scary as anything on this spooky Halloween.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-halloween-20171030-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-halloween-20171030-story.html)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 31, 2017, 11:23:10 am

The television series House of Cards is being cancelled after the sixth season, 'cause it turns out that actor Kevin Spacey is yet another Harvey Weinstein/Donald Trump/Roger Ailes/Bill O'Reilly-style sexual predator & groper (and paedophile), but of the gay kind.


from the Los Angeles Times…

Amid Kevin Spacey fallout, ‘House of Cards’ to end with upcoming season (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-entertainment-news-updates-house-of-cards-to-end-with-upcoming-1509392365-htmlstory.html)


from The Washington Post…

‘Kevin Spacey has set gay rights back’: Actor blasted for response to sexual misconduct claim (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/10/30/kevin-spacey-has-set-gay-rights-back-actor-blasted-for-response-to-sexual-misconduct-claim)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 31, 2017, 11:32:36 am

Hilarious.....instead of The White House imitating House of Cards; for a change, the lead actor of House of Cards has been shown to be an imitator of the clown in The White House.

ie....a sexual predator, groper and sicko!!


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 01, 2017, 12:12:46 pm

Psssssssssst……wanna see something REALLY scary?


The “pussy-grabber” and general sexual pervert, Donald J. Trump, being allowed near young kids....that is really very scary alright!

But....that is not just merely scary, but is extremely disturbing. That's like letting a paedophile priest loose amongst the altar boys.



(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1111w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21669.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21669.JPG)
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump hand out treats at the South Portico of the White House. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1111w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21670.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21670.JPG)
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump pass out treats as they welcome children from the Washington area and children of military families to trick-or-treat.
 — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.


(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1111w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21671.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21671.JPG)
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump greet trick-or-treaters. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1111w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21672.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21672.JPG)
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump hand out treats. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1111w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21673.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21673.JPG)
President Trump talks to trick-or-treaters. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1111w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21678.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21678.JPG)
Children line up to receive Halloween goodies. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1111w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21675.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21675.JPG)
First lady Melania Trump reacts to a costume. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1111w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21680.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21680.JPG)
The president and the first lady hand out treats. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1111w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21686.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21686.JPG)
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump pose with trick-or-treaters. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1111w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21688.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21688.JPG)
The first couple pose with trick-or-treaters. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1111w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21677.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21677.JPG)
Omarosa Manigault talks with President Trump as he hands out treats. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1111w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21690-001.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21690-001.JPG)
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump pose for a photo with White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her family.
 — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.


(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1111w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21657.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21657.JPG)
Visitors wait in costume to receive treats from President Trump and first lady Melania Trump. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1111w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21653.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/10/31/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171030Trump21653.JPG)
The White House is decorated for Halloween. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on November 01, 2017, 07:43:24 pm
In case you hadn't noticed, nobody is reading your crap KTJ. 😁


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 01, 2017, 10:36:32 pm

from Fairfax NZ....

Every story has a plot — and a villain

By JOE BENNETT | 5:00AM - Wednesday, 01 November 2017

(https://resources.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/m/k/w/9/e/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.620x349.1mkveu.png/1509397377508.jpg) (https://resources.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/m/k/w/9/e/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.620x349.1mkveu.png/1509397377508.jpg)
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has announced the first indictments from his investigation
of Donald Trump and his links to Russia. — Photograph: Reuters.


A STORY is playing itself out in public right now and it has me in thrall. Like every story it has a plot.

Because there are millions of stories one would think there were millions of plots. But there aren't. There are only two. Between them they've formed the nub of every story since Adam and Eve, including Adam and Eve.

The first plot is the female plot, the triumph of love. All forces may be lined up against love but love does not bend. Love persists. And in the end love either wins or dies trying. And to die for love is considered a triumph (though no one ever asks the opinion of someone who's actually done it).

That love prevails is the plot of Cinderella, of the New Testament, of all Shakespeare's comedies. It is the only plot ever used by the most successful publishing house in history. Mills and Boon's formula is to put barriers in the way of love and then to make the lovers swat them aside, until on the last page they clinch and kiss or even, in the more risqué modern stories, code-coloured purple, I believe, make the beast with two backs. But the point of it all is that love prevails.

The male plot is just as simple: it's the triumph of justice. All crime novels are founded on it, all detective stories, all myths of heaven and hell, everything from Greek tragedy to the adventures of Tin Tin. The nub of the plot is that the malefactor cops it. He or she — and it's usually he — has been tempted, has succumbed and has broken the moral code of the cosmos. Whereupon the cosmos sets about putting things right. Justice can take a while to achieve but it is inevitable. The culprit, says Father Brown, can wander to the ends of the earth, but eventually, “I can bring him back with a twitch of the thread.”

To put things right the cosmos may use an external agent of justice, a wild west sheriff, say, or a bunch of little prigs called The Famous Five, but it can equally use the internal agent of conscience. After killing the king, Macbeth and his wife are hunted down by the king's son. But it's their own psyches that do the real hunting. In the end, Lady Macbeth can take the guilt no longer and flings herself from the battlements, while her husband discovers the hollowness of a foul-won victory. And thus justice prevails.

Both plots are founded on the principle that the world is the right way up, is a place where, despite countless threats to its supremacy, good triumphs.

All of which brings us to the story which is playing out in front of our eyes at the moment. It is an example of the male plot. It is the story of Trump and the special counsel.

If you don't see Trump as vile you have not been paying attention. His vileness has nothing to do with his political views, and everything to do with his character. He is utterly self-centred. He doesn't care who he tramples on. He preens. He lies. He's a self-confessed sexual predator. Violence delights him. He's driven by spite and vengefulness. All of which means that if the world is the right way up he should suffer. Yet he's been elected to the highest office on the face of the globe. What's happened to plot number two?

Enter the special counsel, Robert Mueller. Mueller was appointed to look into Trump five months ago, since when neither you nor I have heard him speak. He's been the silent tracker, loping, grey-haired, modest, the embodiment of integrity, with a jawbone as long as a forearm. We've heard Trump ranting and lying and boasting, but from Mueller, nothing. We've just had to hope that he was on the job.

And now it seems that he was. He is about to start laying charges. At the time of writing I don't know who's going to have his collar felt but I can hardly wait to find out. There are numerous candidates, because vile attracts vile.

There's the loathsome Manafort, Trump's campaign manager, who's made a career out of lobbying on behalf of murderous dictators. There's the duplicitous weasel General Flynn. There's Trump's chinless son, his shifty son-in-law or even his bovine press secretary.

Whoever it is should be the first of many. And the last of those many has to be Trump himself. For if Trump survives to see out his term of office without impeachment or imprisonment, then plot number two is a myth, an act of self-delusion, a tale we tell to console ourselves in a world that's the wrong way up.


Julian “Joe” Bennett is a writer and columnist living in Lyttelton, New Zealand. Born in England, Bennett emigrated to New Zealand when he was twenty nine.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/98391558 (https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/98391558)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 02, 2017, 05:17:10 pm

from The Washington Post....

Trump never misses an opportunity to miss the point

Trump cannot lead, so he attacks.

By JENNIFER RUBIN | 3:45PM EDT - Wednesday, November 01, 2017

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_960w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/01/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171101Trump21758.JPG&w=900) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_960w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/01/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171101Trump21758.JPG&w=1484)
President Trump, flanked by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, speaks during a meeting in
the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington on November 1st. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.


PRESIDENT TRUMP's incapacity for governing and absence of empathy make him uniquely unsuited for his job, especially at times of potential unity. He operates only with divisiveness and aggression; his intellect is entirely directed at how to avoid blame and create scapegoats, not to solve problems. So it has been in his cringe-worthy response to the terrorist attack in New York.

Trump does not vow to unite the country, nor seek to shield a community that might be targeted. He looks for targets and opportunities to wave the bloody flag. Without exception. Every single time. He did not call the governor or mayor (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/11/de-blasio-and-cuomo-say-trump-hasnt-bothered-to-call.html) but instead went nativist.

The Washington Post reports (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/11/01/new-york-attack-probe-expands-to-uzbekistan-as-possible-militant-links-explored):


Quote
Authorities said on Wednesday that the 29-year-old man accused of mowing down pedestrians and cyclists on a Manhattan bike path, killing eight people, had plotted for weeks before carrying out the attack in the name of the Islamic State.

Officials identified the suspected attacker as Sayfullo Saipov, a legal permanent resident of the United States who arrived in the country from Uzbekistan in 2010 through a diversity visa program. They said Saipov was influenced by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and its violent tactics after he came to the United States.

No vetting would have caught the suspect. None of Trump's three Muslim bans would have kept him out. But self-radicalization is not something Trump can “use” to stir fear of outsiders or to gin up his base; it's no good to him politically and, in fact, it suggests that good relations with Muslim communities are our best defense. Never mind all that. Trump will attack Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (Democrat-New York), who supported the Gang of 8 immigration reform to get rid of the diversity lottery program.

However, we do know that he “had never been the subject of an FBI investigation or a New York police intelligence investigation … [although] Saipov had been known to authorities. According to a law enforcement official familiar with the current investigation, Saipov's name had surfaced during an earlier Homeland Security probe into some of his friends.” Perhaps Trump should stop ordering  assaults on “sanctuary cities” and pursuing anti-immigrant policies, and instead focus on internal communication and community outreach.

Trump, of course, wants to get rid of diversity program. (Can we agree then his Muslim ban is worthless?) Oh, and he likes the idea of sending a green-card holder captured on American soil to Guantanamo Bay, where presumably he would not been given a public trial. Welcome to Trump's America.

The Washington Post reports (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/11/01/trump-says-he-may-send-new-york-attack-suspect-to-guantanamo-bay-and-is-terminating-diversity-visa-lottery-program):


Quote
Schumer responded with a statement that read, “I have always believed and continue to believe that immigration is good for America. President Trump, instead of politicizing and dividing America, which he always seems to do at times of national tragedy, should be focusing on the real solution — anti-terrorism funding — which he proposed cutting in his most recent budget.”

 At the U.S. Capitol, Schumer said Trump's handling of Tuesday's attack contrasted sharply with how former president George W. Bush responded to the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attack at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan.

“President Bush united us,” Schumer said. “He had us in the White House the next day saying how we would work together. All President Trump does is take advantage — horrible advantage — of a tragedy and try to politicize and divide. It doesn't work with New Yorkers, it doesn't work with Americans.”

But it's all Trump knows.

• Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn) blog for The Washington Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Trump blames N.Y. attack on weak laws, justice system (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-seizes-on-ny-attack-to-push-hard-line-immigration-and-vetting-policies/2017/11/01/345db05a-bf15-11e7-8444-a0d4f04b89eb_story.html)


 • Sending the New York terrorism suspect to Guantanamo is a horrible idea (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sending-the-new-york-terrorism-suspect-to-guantanamo-is-a-horrible-idea/2017/11/01/263a8ba8-bf40-11e7-8444-a0d4f04b89eb_story.html)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/11/01/trump-never-misses-an-opportunity-to-miss-the-point (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/11/01/trump-never-misses-an-opportunity-to-miss-the-point)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 02, 2017, 07:29:23 pm

from The Washington Post....

Trump is faithfully following the autocrat's playbook

The reaction to the Mueller investigation cannot be written off as normal partisanship.

By E.J. DIONNE Jr. | 7:57PM EDT - Wednesday, November 01, 2017

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_875w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/01/National-Economy/Images/319894295_0-5.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_2500w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/01/National-Economy/Images/319894295_0-5.jpg)
President Donald J. Trump speaks. — Photograph: Al Drago/Bloomberg.

DEMOCRACIES sometimes collapse suddenly. More typically, they waste away.

One major cause of institutional decline involves politicians putting their own immediate interests ahead of their obligations to democratic norms. We wake up one day and discover that a long series of individual choices has rotted out the constraints on authoritarian rule.

President Trump plainly feels no sense of stewardship when it comes to our political system or to any accepted standards of truth. From the moment he descended that escalator at Trump Tower in 2015, he made clear that he would say and do anything to advance his purposes and to eviscerate anyone who opposed him.

It should thus not surprise us that in anticipation of Robert S. Mueller III's actions this week, Trump rolled out an assault on the legitimacy of the special counsel's investigation (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/924635359480303616) and brazenly insisted that not he but Hillary Clinton (the holder of no public office) should be the subject of prosecutorial interest.

Trump's Distract-O-Rama ought to be met with derision and condemnation. Note that by securing a guilty plea from former Trump adviser George Papadopoulos (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-campaign-adviser-pleaded-guilty-to-lying-about-russian-contacts/2017/10/30/d525e712-bd7d-11e7-97d9-bdab5a0ab381_story.html) for lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russians to secure “dirt” on Clinton (https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/politics/george-papadopoulos-charges-and-plea-deal/2253) in 2016, Mueller confirmed the central premise of his probe. Yes, there was collusion between Russia and the Trump apparatus aimed at defeating Clinton.

We don't yet know for certain how high up engagement with the Russian project went. But media disclosures about contacts made by top Trump officials (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/newly-disclosed-email-sheds-light-on-trump-jr-meeting-with-russian-lawyer/2017/10/09/2d0fecb0-a9e3-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html) suggest the story won't stop with Papadopoulos.

As is his way, Trump lied right out of the box after Mueller's announcements by claiming that the charges brought against his former campaign manager Paul Manafort (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/newly-disclosed-email-sheds-light-on-trump-jr-meeting-with-russian-lawyer/2017/10/09/2d0fecb0-a9e3-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html) entailed behavior that long predated last year's presidential contest. In fact, the money laundering at the heart of the indictment was, according to prosecutors, ongoing in 2016 (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/30/us/politics/document-paul-manafort-rick-gates-indictment.html).

Trump's rampage against Clinton focuses on the 2010 purchase of Uranium One, a Canadian company with U.S. assets, by the Russian nuclear authority. The deal was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States when Clinton was secretary of state.

But the conspiracy side of this story was debunked long ago. As The Washington Post's Fact Checker, Glenn Kessler, reported this week (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/29/the-dossier-and-the-uranium-deal-a-guide-to-the-latest-allegations), Clinton, “by all accounts, did not participate in any discussions regarding the Uranium One sale” and the sale “does not actually result in the removal of uranium from the United States.”

Then on Wednesday morning, Trump moved to exploit the murderous New York City truck attack by casting blame on Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/11/01/extreme-right-gins-up-a-culprit-for-n-y-terror-attack-chuck-schumer) because the Democrat had backed the diversity visa lottery. Trump tweeted in response to the then-unconfirmed but later verified reports that the driver of the truck, Sayfullo Saipov, entered the United States from Uzbekistan under the program. Schumer, by the way, supported a bipartisan 2013 immigration reform bill that would have abolished the lottery.

It's essential to recognize that Trump is faithfully following the autocrat's playbook. He's trying to undermine a lawful inquiry that endangers his hold on power. He has suggested that his opponent in the last election deserves to be jailed. He's inventing stories about dark coverups by his enemies to sow confusion about the proven facts of his own team's skulduggery. And now he is blaming his foes for violence and disorder.

Even more alarming is the extent to which Republicans in Congress and Trump's media allies are falling into line behind their leader's efforts to obstruct and divert. As The Post's Philip Rucker and Robert Costa noted (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-resists-mounting-pressure-from-bannon-and-others-to-fight-mueller/2017/10/31/22b02ce0-be4b-11e7-97d9-bdab5a0ab381_story.html), “Republican lawmakers have mostly split into two camps: those who are wary of weighing in on Mueller's investigation and those who see it as a prime political target.”

Notice what's missing here: an unambiguous defense of Mueller's work. Few Republicans have stood up unequivocally on his behalf. And the pro-Trump media, from Fox News (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/10/31/how-conservative-media-reacted-to-the-mueller-indictments) to The Wall Street Journal editorial page (https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-manafort-indictment-1509402445) to radio talk show hosts (http://www.npr.org/2017/10/31/561070095/none-of-this-is-real-conservative-media-reacts-to-mueller-indictments), have willingly served as bullhorns for the president's anti-Clinton, anti-Mueller strategy.

What's going on cannot be written off as normal partisanship. The push to discredit and derail Mueller risks becoming an existential threat to our democratic values and republican practices. The interference by a foreign adversary in our electoral process is not a routine event. Resistance to uncovering what happened should not be seen as part of the everyday give-and-take of politics.

Republican patriots have to know that what's at stake matters far more than the quick passage of a tax bill. Don't they?


• E.J. Dionne writes about politics in a twice-weekly column for The Washington Post and on the PostPartisan (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan) blog. He is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, a government professor at Georgetown University and a commentator on politics for National Public Radio, ABC's “This Week” and MSNBC. He is the author of Why the Right Went Wrong (https://www.amazon.com/dp/product/1476763798).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-faithfully-following-the-autocrats-playbook/2017/11/01/4a7b0b70-bf43-11e7-97d9-bdab5a0ab381_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-faithfully-following-the-autocrats-playbook/2017/11/01/4a7b0b70-bf43-11e7-97d9-bdab5a0ab381_story.html)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 02, 2017, 11:25:50 pm

from The Washington Post....

The other huge scandal Mueller brought to light this week

Trump “hires the best”: a bartender, a cabana boy and a Meineke muffler salesman.

By DANA MILBANK | 9:34PM EDT - Wednesday, November 01, 2017

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_900w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/01/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171101Trump21760.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/01/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171101Trump21760.JPG)
President Donald J. Trump at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.

ROBERT MUELLER brought to light a huge scandal this week, and it has nothing to do with Russia.

He has introduced the world to Sam Clovis.

Clovis, we now know, was the Trump campaign official who oversaw George Papadopoulos and encouraged his efforts to meet with Russian officials. But what's more interesting than what Clovis is is what Clovis isn't.

For those who had not heard of Clovis before (which is pretty much everybody), he has been nominated to be the chief scientist at the Agriculture Department, a position that by law must go to “distinguished scientists”, even though he is, well, not a scientist. He is a talk-radio host, economics professor (though not actually an economist, either) and, most importantly, a Trump campaign adviser.

President Trump promised to “hire the best people”. And, as scientists go, Clovis is an excellent talk-show host. Among his scientific breakthroughs: being “extremely skeptical” of climate change, calling homosexuality “a choice”, suggesting gay rights would lead to legalized pedophilia, pushing the Obama birther allegation, and calling Eric Holder a “racist bigot” and Tom Perez a “racist Latino”.

Trump may want “extreme vetting” of immigrants, but he's rather more lenient with his appointees. On Wednesday, he named Robin Bernstein to be ambassador to the Dominican Republic. Bernstein speaks only “basic Spanish” (it's so hard to find Americans who speak Spanish), but she does have this — membership at Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club.

A group called American Oversight had the foresight to make records requests for résumés of those hired by the Trump administration, and the group searched for those who worked on the Trump campaign. Among the “best” Trump hires American Oversight found:


  • Sid Bowdidge, assistant to the secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy. Before working for the Trump campaign, Bowdidge, from 2013 to 2015, was manager of the Meineke Car Care branch in Seabrook, New Hampshire. He previously was service and branch manager for tire shops. I don't know what qualified Bowdidge for his position, but I do know this: He is not going to pay a lot for that muffler. (He had to hit the road, losing his job after it was discovered he had called Muslims “maggots”.)

  • Victoria Barton, congressional relations for Regions II, V and VI, Department of Housing and Urban Development. Prior to working for the Trump campaign, Barton was an office manager and, between 2013 and 2015, a “bartender/bar manager”. The expertise in housing policy possessed by Barton is no doubt invaluable to HUD Secretary Ben Carson, a retired brain surgeon.

  • Christopher Hagan, a confidential assistant at the Agriculture Department. Before working on the Trump campaign, he was, between 2009 and 2015, a “cabana attendant” at Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York. According to his résumé, he “identified and addressed customer's needs in a timely and orderly manner”. This is important, because you never know when somebody at the USDA is going to need a towel.

  • Nick Brusky, also a confidential assistant at the USDA. The Trump campaign worker previously drove a truck. He was a trustee in Butler Township, Ohio, at the same time, and, as Politico noted, his résumé lists coursework but no degree.

  • David Matthews, yet another confidential assistant at the Agriculture Department, developed scented candles while also serving as a “legal receptionist” before joining the Trump campaign.

Some of the other “best” people Trump has hired are well known. Lynne Patton, HUD regional administrator, previously arranged Trump golf tournaments and arranged Eric Trump's wedding, among other things. Callista Gingrich, just confirmed as ambassador to the Vatican, prepared for this by writing children's books, singing in a church choir — and being married to Trump ally Newt Gingrich.

Others now in high office are less known: an office page, the author of an anti-Clinton book, a Christian-school librarian, a couple of real estate brokers and a landscaper. Many don't appear to meet the educational qualifications for their positions. But they did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

One can imagine the chairman of an interagency task force going around the table asking each department what should be in the infrastructure bill:

“Transportation Department?”

Don't know, sir. I was an Uber driver before I joined the campaign.

“Army Corps of Engineers?”

Pass. I ran a coin-operated laundromat.

“Surely somebody here knows something about infrastructure?”

(Silence.)

I was a toll-taker on the New Jersey Turnpike before the campaign. Now I'm in charge of climate science at the EPA.

Anybody else?

I was a plumber. But they made me chief medical officer at NIH because I watched a lot of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’.

“What, they had no doctors for NIH?”

We had one chiropractor on the campaign, sir, but they needed him to run NASA.

“A chiropractor running NASA? What next, a musician at Strategic Command?”

Actually, sir, the Stratcom commander was a hairdresser.


• Dana Milbank writes about political theater in the nation's capital for The Washington Post. He joined The Post as a political reporter in 2000.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-other-huge-scandal-mueller-brought-to-light-this-week/2017/11/01/5e05a458-bf4c-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-other-huge-scandal-mueller-brought-to-light-this-week/2017/11/01/5e05a458-bf4c-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on November 04, 2017, 03:46:02 pm
Have a look back through all your posts. You'll notice they're all just mindless copy and paste spam attacks on either Trump or America. Have you considered that just maybe you might have a wee obsession?


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on November 04, 2017, 06:52:00 pm
Trump Derangement Syndrome:

A condition of hysteria, anger, and fear of Donald Trump as a result of a failure by the afflicted to avail themselves of alternative media sources to combat the misrepresentations and often outright lies of the leftist media.

I keep asking him for examples of actions or actual statements by Trump that prove him to be some "evil incarnate" but due to a sever case of Trump Derangement Syndrome he just keeps chanting he's a racist, a misogynist, he has his finger on the bomb, we're doomed, America is over....


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on November 04, 2017, 07:59:31 pm
Trump Derangement Syndrome:

A condition of hysteria, anger, and fear of Donald Trump as a result of a failure by the afflicted to avail themselves of alternative media sources to combat the misrepresentations and often outright lies of the leftist media.

I keep asking him for examples of actions or actual statements by Trump that prove him to be some "evil incarnate" but due to a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome he just keeps chanting he's a racist, a misogynist, he has his finger on the bomb, we're doomed, America is over....


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 04, 2017, 11:29:46 pm

from The Washington Post....

Conservative Republicans demand Mueller
recuse himself over uranium deal


The effort is unlikely to attract enough attention to pass, as Democrats and many Republicans
believe Mueller should be allowed to do his job free from political interference.


By KAROUN DEMIRJIAN | 7:42AM EDT - Friday, November 03, 2017

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_925w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/03/National-Politics/Images/Mueller_Drink_Promotion_78432-c9781-4410.jpg)
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller at the agency headquarters in 2013. — Photograph: Charles Dharapak/Associated Press.

THREE conservative House Republicans are expected to file a resolution on Friday calling on special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to recuse himself from his probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, accusing him of conflicts of interest.

Representative Matt Gaetz (Republican-Florida), who wrote the resolution, accuses Mueller of having a conflict of interest because he was serving as FBI chief when the Obama administration approved a deal allowing a Russian company to purchase a Canada-based mining group with uranium operations in the United States, according to a draft obtained by The Washington Post.

President Trump has often brought up the Uranium One deal in 2010 as a way to accuse Hillary Clinton of potential corruption and foreign collusion, despite scant evidence (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/10/26/the-facts-behind-trumps-repeated-claim-about-hillary-clintons-role-in-the-russian-uranium-deal) she was directly involved in the decision to allow it to proceed. Nine government agencies make up the government committee that reviews such deals, along with five other observer agencies; the FBI is not one of them (https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/international/foreign-investment/Pages/cfius-members.aspx).

The GOP also launched two congressional probes (https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-leaders-launch-new-probe-into-obama-era-uranium-deal/2017/10/24/2d7e0c5c-b8d6-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html) into the matter last month, questioning whether the FBI and Justice Department were looking into Russia's attempts to influence the U.S. uranium market.

Gaetz wants the deal to be investigated by a special counsel, and he doesn't think Mueller is the guy to do it.

“Someone who was involved in a deal cannot reasonably be trusted to scrutinize that probe,” Gaetz said in an interview.

Gaetz added that he doesn't trust Mueller because of his “close personal relationship” with former FBI Director James B. Comey. Similar complaints have been raised by other Republicans, though there is considerable dispute over whether the Comey-Mueller relationship was primarily professional.

Republicans, including Gaetz, have also called on the Justice Department to better investigate Comey's conduct in the FBI investigation into Clinton's emails, a matter several congressional committees are also probing (https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/trump-republicans-steer-russia-probes-in-new-directions/2017/10/27/ba818182-bb2f-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html).

As of late Thursday, Representatives Andy Biggs (Republican-Arizona) and Louis Gohmert (Republican-Texas), both members of the House's conservative Freedom Caucus, had signed on to Gaetz's effort. A spokeswoman for Gaetz said they expect to pick up more support from the Freedom Caucus, the bulk of whose members signed onto an earlier Gaetz bill calling on the attorney general to appoint a special counsel to look into Comey's actions.

But Gaetz may struggle to build wider support.

He admitted on Thursday that he does not expect any Democrats to support his Mueller resolution. And many Republicans who have questions about Clinton's role in the 2010 uranium deal still support Mueller's right to do his job free from political interference.

There have been no reports that Mueller is including the uranium deal in his investigation. Earlier this week, Mueller announced the first charges (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/muellers-moves-send-message-to-other-potential-targets-beware-im-coming/2017/10/30/f4fa5d7a-bd8c-11e7-8444-a0d4f04b89eb_story.html) of his probe against three members of Trump's campaign: former campaign manager Paul Manafort, his business partner Rick Gates, and campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.

Gaetz said that he spoke to Attorney General Jeff Sessions on September 28th and asked him to appoint another special counsel to look into the uranium deal, but that Sessions claimed his own recusal from all matters related to the 2016 campaign prevented him from weighing in on the matter. Staffers for deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein, Gaetz added, would not commit to making a decision on his request.


• Karoun Demirjian covers defense and foreign policy for The Washington Post and was previously a correspondent based in The Post's bureau in Moscow, Russia.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Democrats demand that Sessions explain his meeting with Papadopoulos (http://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/democrats-demand-that-sessions-explain-his-meeting-with-papadopoulos/2017/11/02/fd374a34-bffd-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html)

 • Russian ads, now publicly released, show sophistication of influence campaign (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/russian-ads-now-publicly-released-show-sophistication-of-influence-campaign/2017/11/01/d26aead2-bf1b-11e7-8444-a0d4f04b89eb_story.html)

 • VIDEO: What you need to know about the Uranium One deal (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-uranium-one-deal/2017/10/27/e978505a-bb71-11e7-9b93-b97043e57a22_video.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/conservative-republicans-demand-mueller-recuse-himself-over-uranium-deal/2017/11/03/809135bc-c07f-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/conservative-republicans-demand-mueller-recuse-himself-over-uranium-deal/2017/11/03/809135bc-c07f-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on November 04, 2017, 11:39:10 pm
haha Mueller's been working for the Russians helping sell them weapons grade uranium lol

cough cough collusion


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on November 05, 2017, 10:02:44 am
As several commentators have pointed out Russia and the US were sharing airspace in a hot war in Syria. So ofcourse there is going to be a lot of meetings between the two states in order to avoid friendly fire accidents and the like. Ofcourse when Trump takes the baton from Obama,most lefties go mental and see reds under the bed everywhere 😀


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 05, 2017, 12:43:27 pm

from the Los Angeles Times....

Trump is about to learn that China couldn't care less about America First

“In Xi's party address, he proclaimed a ‘new era’ for China. To put it in terms
the president might better understand, it may be the era of America Second.”


By DAVID ROTHKOPF | 4:00AM PDT - Friday, November 03, 2017

(http://www.trbimg.com/img-59fb9fde/turbine/la-1509662680-6ptdrguolx-snap-image/1111) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-59fb9fde/turbine/la-1509662680-6ptdrguolx-snap-image)
American President Donald J. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping walk together after their meetings at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida on April 7th, 2017.
 — Photograph: Alex Brandon/Associated Press.


DONALD TRUMP is reinventing the kowtow for the Twitter age. Last week, in fawning tweets, he celebrated Chinese President Xi Jinping's “extraordinary elevation” at the 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress, and in a TV interview he bragged that he and Xi had the best “president-president” relationship ever. It was over the top — especially in light of the fact that Xi is an authoritarian leader.

Clearly, Trump, a man not known for his humility, wants something. China is the most important stop on his 12-day, five nation Asia tour, which begins on Friday. In Beijing, Trump will be hoping for not only progress on North Korea and trade issues, but for a little of Xi's momentum, power and prestige to rub off on him.

At the close of the party congress last month, Xi was affirmed as a Chinese leader unequaled in stature by any since Mao Tse-tung. At the same time, at Xi's urging, the country's ruling body agreed to break with its long-standing policy of denying China's designs on a global leadership role. Instead, in a 203-minute address to the forum, Xi asserted that the People's Republic was ready to become a “mighty force” on the world stage.

Xi's ascendance and China's aggressiveness stand in stark contrast to Trump's struggles, Washington's paralysis and America's retreat from the pre-eminent international role it has played since the end of World War II.

Despite the role reversal, the Chinese will appear to stroke American egos, especially Trump's. Expect them to ply him with pomp and ceremony, setting up colorful photo ops that will play well on social media, and giving the president the quasi-royal treatment he craves. They may even offer up some business deals and the promise of unspecified cooperation with U.S. attempts to combat the nuclear threat of North Korea. But if you read deference into the show, you will be wrong.

China is still a poor country in many respects, but this year has seen it open its first overseas military base, increase its blue-water naval capability and expand Xi's trademark “One Belt, One Road” infrastructure initiative (which extends China's influence from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea). The People's Republic has been asserting its will on a wide range of issues, including trade and the question of who can claim the islands off its coast.

Xi and company know that Trump leads a country with greater military and economic resources than China, but they also know he has been able to get precious little accomplished as president. They understand the challenges he faces: special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, the threat of a stock market downturn and deep divisions within the Republican Party.

The Chinese have also discovered that Trump is as inconsistent as he is susceptible to flattery. Only a few months before his valentines to Xi, he was tweeting his displeasure at China — “They do NOTHING for us with North Korea” — and attacking past U.S. presidents as “foolish” for deals they did with Beijing. Xinhua, China's national news agency, responded to the outburst by urging Trump to stop his “emotional venting”.

However grand the welcome for Trump may be, the Chinese will be serving their own goals. Behind the scenes, they will flex their muscles in tough negotiations because they can, and they now believe they should. In the end, Trump is likely to make very little in the way of meaningful gains on any major issues during his stay.

As former Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and veteran China expert Robert Hormats said to me, “Xi sees China as leading the next phase of globalization and of the evolution of the global economic order. [He] believes the direction should be and will be guided more by Beijing than Washington.” This, Hormats believes, will change the dynamic in the U.S.-China relationship. In Xi's party address, he proclaimed a “new era” for China. To put it in terms the president might better understand, it may be the era of America Second.

The lasting message of Trump's trip could well be the one foretold by the obsequiousness of his tweets last week. If his visit is “historic”, as he predicted on social media, it will be because it is the first in which an American president discovers he has traveled all the way to Beijing to meet with the most powerful man in the world.


• David Rothkopf is a senior fellow at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His latest book is The Great Questions of Tomorrow (https://www.amazon.com/dp/product/150111994X).

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-rothkopf-trump-goes-to-china-20171103-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-rothkopf-trump-goes-to-china-20171103-story.html)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on November 05, 2017, 06:05:16 pm
Newsflash: He already knows they don't give a shit, unless it hurts their economy. No need for more Lefty media drivel.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 06, 2017, 06:23:47 am

Quote
Despite the role reversal, the Chinese will appear to stroke American egos, especially Trump's. Expect them to ply him with pomp and ceremony, setting up colorful photo ops that will play well on social media, and giving the president the quasi-royal treatment he craves. They may even offer up some business deals and the promise of unspecified cooperation with U.S. attempts to combat the nuclear threat of North Korea. But if you read deference into the show, you will be wrong.


Quote
The lasting message of Trump's trip could well be the one foretold by the obsequiousness of his tweets last week. If his visit is “historic”, as he predicted on social media, it will be because it is the first in which an American president discovers he has traveled all the way to Beijing to meet with the most powerful man in the world.





(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/TooFunny_zps2gz4suf2.gif~original) (http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/LaughingPinkPanther_zpsy6iu8yso.gif~original) (http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/ROFLMAO_Dog_zpsc4esrpyc.gif~original) (http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/LaughingHard_zpswco6umsu.gif~original) (http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/ItchyBugga_zpsebzrttez.gif~original)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 06, 2017, 06:26:31 am

Have you ever heard of the “Thucydides Trap”?

I somehow doubt Trump has heard of it, nor would he be capable of comprehending it.

Get in the beer & popcorn to watch the fun, because the Thucydides Trap is going to be sprung very soon.



Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on November 06, 2017, 05:05:44 pm

GO TRUMP BEND THOSE COMMIES OVER AND GIVE THEM ONE FOR ME ;D


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on November 06, 2017, 05:19:27 pm
hehehe ktj found some big word that dont mean shit ;D

The Thucydides Trap is not a formula


i doubt the us and china would go to war
because they both can destroy all life on this planet
neither us or china want to commit suicide


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 06, 2017, 06:37:22 pm

You use the word “us” like you are part of the decision making process.

You aren't....you're merely a nobody in Woodville, who the people in power in China and America have never heard of.

Like it or not, America is going to no longer be the world's top dog by the half-way point of this century, just like the Brits lost their crown to America by the middle of last century.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on November 07, 2017, 12:35:35 pm
So Trump wouldn't understand a term you just stumbled across. Out of Trump and yourself, who by the way is more educated?  Who is more successful?


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on November 07, 2017, 01:29:59 pm
Trump has already proved he's very intelligent,his IQ is much higher than 95% of the communist clowns,Yes he's very successful winner

(https://www.opednews.com/populum/uploadnic/xxx-jpg_506120_20160714-169.jpg)

Whereas the alt left, those self hating, victim mentality, virtue signalling, name and shame bullshitters
have proved over and over again that they are lowlife,waste of space,useless air breathing moron drongo loser babies "And that's on a good day" ;D


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 07, 2017, 02:20:16 pm

Ah, yes....Trump is so successful and so intelligent that he has been declared bankruptcy on SIX SEPARATE OCCASIONS.

REAL successful people aren't so incompetent that they, or their companies end up BANKRUPT on six separate occasions.
 


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on November 07, 2017, 02:24:27 pm
Remember the story about Trump going on romp with Russian hookers? What happened to that story?
Looking at the latest "explosive" lefty brain fart story on "the Russia link" it very much look like a desperate grasping at straws, again.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on November 07, 2017, 03:46:43 pm
So how does "unsuccessful "(in lefty fantasy land) Trump stack up in the wealth stakes against your holdings?😀


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 07, 2017, 07:15:56 pm

The only problem with your denials is that all six of Trump's bankruptcies are on record, online on American court records.

I suppose next thing you'll be telling us that the records of the America court system are a total fabrication?

Faaaaaaaaaark......you sure are a dumb simpleton, eh? Just like that boofhead from Woodville.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on November 07, 2017, 07:36:54 pm
Best not to make shit up, otherwise people might just label you as a bullshit artist.😀


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 07, 2017, 07:38:45 pm

You know, it's a huge pity YOU weren't one of the thousands of contractors and small business owners who got taken down by Trump's six company bankruptcies.

But then again, just like Trump, you have a FUCK-YOU attitude to other people because just like Trump you are a selfish twat.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on November 07, 2017, 08:01:40 pm
https://youtu.be/2ofeUHydHAs


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 07, 2017, 08:14:08 pm

It ain't over yet.

Robert Mueller's investigation is still in the early stages.

It will last for years as the former FBI director peels back one by one the rotten layers which surround Donald J. Trump and his criminal family.

Expect more prosecutions over time and the eventual arrest of Donald Jr., Ivanka and Jared, which will be guaranteed to cause Donald Sr. to go completely rabid.

Who knows, they may even be an arrest warrant waiting for the exact moment the next president of the USA is sworn in, when Donald J. Trump will no longer be immune from prosecution. Wouldn't that be absolutely delicious, eh? One or two terms as US President, followed by years in the slammer, joining his first-born son, his daughter and her hubby.



Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on November 07, 2017, 08:37:47 pm
Demented lefties scratching in the dirt for "Russian collusion" like a rabid meth addict scratching in the dirt for his burried stash 😀


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 07, 2017, 09:12:12 pm

A wee piece of information for the terminally STUPID: one of Trump's henchmen pleaded guilty some time ago to lying to the FBI about his meetings with the Russians on behalf of Trump, and it turned out in the released court documents that he was originally arrested way back in July, which means he was probably wearing a wire with all subsequent meetings with Trump's mob ever since. That isn't desperate dirt, that is FACTS presented to the court along with a guilty plea.

One really has to wonder who else Robert Mueller has managed to secretly turn, and who has subsequently been wearing a wire ever since. I betcha Trump is worried....he is spending a shitload of money on lawyers. If he hasn't done anything illegal, then there would be no need for lawyering up so extensively. Ditto for Donald Jr. and Jared who have likewise lawyered up to the teeth, thereby displaying that they are feeling guilty about something and shitting their pants that the Feds are going to gather the dirt and put them in the dock.

Donald J. Trump is protected from prosecution as long as he is president, but that can only be a maximum of two terms, so the Feds will no doubt be waiting with the arrest warrant for the moment the next President is sworn in, then Trump suddenly becomes liable to have the metal bracelet slapped onto his wrists.

Bring it on!!



Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on November 09, 2017, 06:57:35 pm
you and all the other libtards and and all the mainstream propaganda media
all said trump cant and wont ever win

and you are still bitching like a pussy

so it turns out you and all the others were and are so full of shit

put on your pink pussy hat and shut the fuck up you stupid moron


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 10, 2017, 07:03:15 pm

Hahaha.....under the NOBODY Donald Trump, America is being marginalised and is also becoming a NOBODY.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 10, 2017, 07:03:39 pm

Donald Trump....making America the laughing stock of the entire world.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 10, 2017, 07:04:30 pm

from the Los Angeles Times....

Trump is about to learn that China couldn't care less about America First

“In Xi's party address, he proclaimed a ‘new era’ for China. To put it in terms
the president might better understand, it may be the era of America Second.”


By DAVID ROTHKOPF | 4:00AM PDT - Friday, November 03, 2017

(http://www.trbimg.com/img-59fb9fde/turbine/la-1509662680-6ptdrguolx-snap-image/1111) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-59fb9fde/turbine/la-1509662680-6ptdrguolx-snap-image)
American President Donald J. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping walk together after their meetings at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida on April 7th, 2017.
 — Photograph: Alex Brandon/Associated Press.


DONALD TRUMP is reinventing the kowtow for the Twitter age. Last week, in fawning tweets, he celebrated Chinese President Xi Jinping's “extraordinary elevation” at the 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress, and in a TV interview he bragged that he and Xi had the best “president-president” relationship ever. It was over the top — especially in light of the fact that Xi is an authoritarian leader.

Clearly, Trump, a man not known for his humility, wants something. China is the most important stop on his 12-day, five nation Asia tour, which begins on Friday. In Beijing, Trump will be hoping for not only progress on North Korea and trade issues, but for a little of Xi's momentum, power and prestige to rub off on him.

At the close of the party congress last month, Xi was affirmed as a Chinese leader unequaled in stature by any since Mao Tse-tung. At the same time, at Xi's urging, the country's ruling body agreed to break with its long-standing policy of denying China's designs on a global leadership role. Instead, in a 203-minute address to the forum, Xi asserted that the People's Republic was ready to become a “mighty force” on the world stage.

Xi's ascendance and China's aggressiveness stand in stark contrast to Trump's struggles, Washington's paralysis and America's retreat from the pre-eminent international role it has played since the end of World War II.

Despite the role reversal, the Chinese will appear to stroke American egos, especially Trump's. Expect them to ply him with pomp and ceremony, setting up colorful photo ops that will play well on social media, and giving the president the quasi-royal treatment he craves. They may even offer up some business deals and the promise of unspecified cooperation with U.S. attempts to combat the nuclear threat of North Korea. But if you read deference into the show, you will be wrong.

China is still a poor country in many respects, but this year has seen it open its first overseas military base, increase its blue-water naval capability and expand Xi's trademark “One Belt, One Road” infrastructure initiative (which extends China's influence from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea). The People's Republic has been asserting its will on a wide range of issues, including trade and the question of who can claim the islands off its coast.

Xi and company know that Trump leads a country with greater military and economic resources than China, but they also know he has been able to get precious little accomplished as president. They understand the challenges he faces: special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, the threat of a stock market downturn and deep divisions within the Republican Party.

The Chinese have also discovered that Trump is as inconsistent as he is susceptible to flattery. Only a few months before his valentines to Xi, he was tweeting his displeasure at China — “They do NOTHING for us with North Korea” — and attacking past U.S. presidents as “foolish” for deals they did with Beijing. Xinhua, China's national news agency, responded to the outburst by urging Trump to stop his “emotional venting”.

However grand the welcome for Trump may be, the Chinese will be serving their own goals. Behind the scenes, they will flex their muscles in tough negotiations because they can, and they now believe they should. In the end, Trump is likely to make very little in the way of meaningful gains on any major issues during his stay.

As former Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and veteran China expert Robert Hormats said to me, “Xi sees China as leading the next phase of globalization and of the evolution of the global economic order. [He] believes the direction should be and will be guided more by Beijing than Washington.” This, Hormats believes, will change the dynamic in the U.S.-China relationship. In Xi's party address, he proclaimed a “new era” for China. To put it in terms the president might better understand, it may be the era of America Second.

The lasting message of Trump's trip could well be the one foretold by the obsequiousness of his tweets last week. If his visit is “historic”, as he predicted on social media, it will be because it is the first in which an American president discovers he has traveled all the way to Beijing to meet with the most powerful man in the world.


• David Rothkopf is a senior fellow at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His latest book is The Great Questions of Tomorrow (https://www.amazon.com/dp/product/150111994X).

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-rothkopf-trump-goes-to-china-20171103-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-rothkopf-trump-goes-to-china-20171103-story.html)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 10, 2017, 07:05:24 pm

from the Los Angeles Times....

Trump's Asia trip shows U.S. at risk of being sidelined
in the region's economic future


By DON LEE | 10:10AM PST - Thursday, November 09, 2017

(http://www.trbimg.com/img-5a0492e1/turbine/la-1510249180-9vd494hpgl-snap-image/900) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-5a0492e1/turbine/la-1510249180-9vd494hpgl-snap-image)
President Trump speaks at a business meeting on November 9th with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People
in Beijing. — Photograph: Fred Dufour/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.


FOR ALL of President Trump's efforts to build personal relations with leaders and to reassure allies during his first Asia trip, the most significant thing that has happened may have been what did not happen:

From Tokyo to Seoul to Beijing, the American president has been feted with maximum ceremonial honors — a “state visit-plus,” the Chinese called it. Asian leaders listened politely to his demands that they accept what he considers fairer trade terms and that they buy more American goods.

Nowhere in Trump's tour, however, have any of those leaders entered into serious negotiations or made significant concessions.

“Quite frankly, in the grand scheme of a $300- to $500-billion trade deficit, the things that have been achieved thus far are pretty small,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters in Beijing on Thursday, referring to the U.S. trade deficit with China. “In terms of really getting at some of the fundamental elements behind why this imbalance exists, there's still a lot more work to do.”

Instead of offering concessions, both the United States' historical allies, Japan and South Korea, as well as China, its most serious Pacific rival, signaled that they had taken Trump at his word: His “America First” policy means the United States will become less and less a player in the fastest-growing and most dynamic region in the world.

That reality was underscored on Thursday when trade ministers from the so-called TPP-11, the signatories to the Trans-Pacific Trade agreement minus the U.S., said at a meeting in Vietnam that they had agreed on how to revise the agreement to proceed without Washington. The Obama administration's effort to push the agreement through Congress failed last year, and Trump officially withdrew U.S. agreement to the pact shortly after he took office.

“When you sit out the game, the rest of the world moves on,” said Deborah Elms, executive director of Singapore-based Asian Trade Center, a research and consulting firm. Asian nations are enthusiastically cutting trade deals with each other and with European countries, she said.

With Washington abandoning the sweeping Asia-Pacific trade deal and more generally pulling back from the multilateral economic order that it established and nurtured for decades, China is pressing to become the dominant player in the region.

Its small neighbors, among them Malaysia and Singapore, are similarly proceeding to act alone, without the United States, their long-time big brother, at their side.

Japan has moved from its traditionally passive role and has exerted greater leadership on trade. It was Tokyo, for example, that took the lead in pushing forward on the TPP without the United States.

Analysts say Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who had spent considerable political capital to have TPP approved at home, hopes the U.S. will re-enter the agreement someday.

“Everyone talks about a vacuum in leadership and everyone talks about China filling that vacuum,” said Wendy Cutler, a top Obama administration trade negotiator who worked on the TPP. “In this instance, it's Japan filling that role.”

“You have these multiple paths to establishing the rules of trade and better integration of trade within Asia, and then you have the U.S., the outlier,” said Robert Holleyman, a Washington attorney and former deputy U.S. Trade Representative.

Holleyman was in Vietnam recently for meetings ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit on Friday in Da Nang, which Trump will be attending. What Holleyman said he kept hearing was a “consistent theme from other APEC economies that said, essentially, ‘Now that the U.S. has left Asia, we need to step forward and do this on our own’.”

“As an American, I hated to hear those comments. They were saying it as a matter of fact,” he said.

An economically sidelined U.S. in Asia would almost certainly weaken American companies and hurt exports, particularly of farm goods, as well as the prospects for returns on the massive investments U.S. firms have made throughout the region over the last 35 years, trade experts say. U.S. firms may face higher duties and other more onerous barriers than they would have if trade agreements that included America were in place.

To be sure, many in Asia as well as America still see the U.S. as an economic superpower in the region, and they may have found some encouragement in the way Trump has toned down his trade rhetoric during his trip thus far.

Asian leaders will be closely listening to the speech Trump is scheduled to give on Friday before American business leaders accompanying him on his tour. The president is expected to use the speech to outline U.S. involvement in the Indo-Pacific region, a reference that is meant to include India, the world's largest democracy.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has clashed with the Trump administration on the North American Free Trade Agreement, TPP and trade policy more generally, said it took heart from the fact that the president regarded Asia as important enough to make a visit lasting nearly two weeks — the longest of any American president in more than a quarter century.

But chamber officials also worry that Trump has yet to articulate a strategy for commercial engagement in the region. All that he has espoused is a consistent line that the U.S. wants fair and reciprocal trade to reduce America's large trade deficits with Asian countries and that he prefers negotiating bilateral deals rather than multilateral ones.

But no other country is lining up to sit down and bargain with the U.S. on trade.

Japan's Abe, for example, regaled Trump by taking him golfing at a swanky country club and treating him to hamburgers. He listened to Trump's expected criticisms of Japan's large trade deficit with the U.S. and his calls for Japan to make more cars in America and buy more U.S. military equipment. But Abe took no new actions.

“We had a lot of pronouncements, but there was not a move toward initiating formal bilateral trade negotiations. Prime Minister Abe again deflected, talking about a regional framework being best,” said Mireya Solis, a Japan expert and co-director of the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution.

There were a lot of symbolic gestures in China as well. President Xi welcomed Trump by shutting down the Forbidden City to give Trump a private tour and, for the first time for any American president, an official dinner inside the storied palace. As they've done in past presidential visits, the Chinese also announced billions of dollars in deals with American companies, including General Electric and Smithfield Foods, a Chinese-owned company based in Virginia.

But some of those deals were already in the pipeline, and Xi did not offer concessions on substantive issues on Trump's trade agenda, such as Chinese steel production or removal of barriers to U.S. imports to China. Tillerson, in his comments to reporters, said the “Chinese acknowledge much more has to be done.”

Xi, too, will be giving a speech in Vietnam, and could offer a stark competing vision in which the Chinese, not the Americans, will be portrayed as championing economic integration and engagement with the world, something considered unthinkable not long ago.

“I don't think the Chinese have to do very much. They're gaining strategic importance and geopolitical influence in the region by virtue of the fact that the United States is perceived, and, to some extent, is withdrawing from the region,” said Nicholas Lardy, a China economy specialist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Trump, he said, “can talk about Indo-Pacific, blah, blah, blah, but we're not engaged in trade, we're not negotiating any new trade agreements with any country in the region.”

The big worry for business leaders and trade analysts here and around the world is that Trump will eventually follow through on his threats to take punitive measures against trading partners he believes have acted unfairly.

That could include imposing broad tariffs on Chinese imports, if only to inflict some pain to win concessions.

To date, however, Trump has not matched his tough language with such tough actions.

“So far, although Trump's rhetoric makes it sound like he has a different kind of trade policy, in fact he's doing pretty much what his predecessors did,” said Clyde Prestowitz, an Asian economics specialist and former top trade negotiator in the Reagan administration.

Back in the 1980s, he said, the Reagan White House pressed the Japanese to open up markets in certain sectors, and subsequent administrations have followed a similar tack in China and elsewhere in Asia.

“I think it's more of the same old stuff,” Prestowitz said. “By now, the Asians have figured it out. They've realized his bark is worse than his bite.”


• Don Lee covers the U.S. and global economy out of Washington, D.C. Since joining the Los Angeles Times in 1992, he has served as the Shanghai bureau chief and in various editing and reporting roles in California. He is a native of Seoul, Korea, and graduated from the University of Chicago.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-trump-asia-trade-20171109-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-trump-asia-trade-20171109-story.html)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on November 10, 2017, 07:20:57 pm
haha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABANosNF1J8


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 10, 2017, 08:41:05 pm

from The Washington Post....

Why the cheery Trump trip to China may not be so successful

President Trump is expecting big things from China’s Xi Jinping, but will the Chinese president deliver?

By EMILY RAUHALA and SIMON DENYER | 10:44AM EST - Thursday, November 09, 2017

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1100w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/09/Foreign/Images/China_Asia_Trump_51908-0c2b2.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/09/Foreign/Images/China_Asia_Trump_51908-0c2b2.jpg)
From left, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan, President Trump and first lady Melania Trump visit the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
 — Photograph: Andy Wong/Associated Press.


BEIJING — When President Trump landed in Beijing on Wednesday, he was whisked through quiet streets to the Forbidden City, where he got a history lesson from President Xi Jinping and caught an opera at the Pavilion of Pleasant Sounds.

It was an apt opener. After twice tweeting (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/928286153672970240) out his gratitude (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/928519663780208640), Trump on Thursday met Xi at the tightly guarded Great Hall of the People, where, surrounded by corporate chief executives, he oversaw the signing of $250 billion in trade deals and continued to praise his authoritarian host (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/11/08/in-beijing-trump-lavishes-praise-on-chinese-leader-touts-great-chemistry-between-them).

The two-day trip was orchestrated to project the image of remote and absolute power that Xi enjoys and Trump admires. There were no protests, no questions from the press, no ordinary people — nothing but pleasantries and soothing tones.

Trump brought up North Korea but said Xi could solve it. He raised the trade deficit but said it was not China's fault. He said the Chinese people are very proud of Xi.

After all the sweet talk, the United States is expecting a lot in return from Beijing — but Xi, in the ascendant, may not budge. That could lead to disappointment in the United States and friction down the road in the relationship.

While both sides were pleased to see a high-stakes visit end without incident, there are questions about what was gained and what, perhaps, was lost.

“Talk about embracing the Leninist political system,” said Evan S. Medeiros, who heads the Eurasia Group's coverage of the Asia-Pacific region and was the National Security Council's Asia director in the Obama administration. “In Trump's effort to ingratiate himself with Xi, is he inadvertently ceding American primacy (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/xi-laid-down-his-cards-now-its-trumps-turn-to-play-his-hand-in-asia/2017/10/30/d34e176e-bd70-11e7-af84-d3e2ee4b2af1_story.html) to China?”

The United States, Medeiros argued, is the anchor power in Asia because of the rules, institutions and values it represents. “Trump fundamentally calls that into question when he's praising the Chinese political system — and not getting much in exchange.”

Xi, said analysts, may have calculated that the really tough negotiations with the United States, on a range of issues, still lie ahead — and that China can play a strong hand. Until then, he can sit tight.

“My expectation is that not much will come from China,” said Max Baucus, until the beginning of this year the U.S. ambassador to China. “And that is going to put Trump in a bit of a box.”

William Zarit, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, applauded the trade deals but also wondered what comes next, whether the Trump administration would be able to use the momentum to tackle tougher issues in the U.S.-China economic relationship (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinas-panda-shaped-solar-plant-and-the-trade-challenge-facing-trump/2017/11/06/ad632f56-c209-11e7-af84-d3e2ee4b2af1_story.html), such as market access for U.S. firms in China.

“The question remains: What is being done about these structural issues?” he asked. “We hope to see proactive measures by the Chinese to address the imbalances in the relationship, as pressure is building in the U.S. to take reactive reciprocal actions.”

As a candidate, Trump often lashed out at Beijing, blaming the Chinese economy for a host of U.S. ills.

But when Trump hosted Xi at the president's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, his tone changed.

In an apparent effort to secure Xi's help on North Korea, Trump has curtailed his criticism and shifted his focus to areas where he thinks he can win.

The focus on signing deals in front of the cameras — as opposed to, say, hammering out solutions to long-standing economic issues — makes some sense, experts said.

Trump lacks diplomatic experience and has been slow to make appointments to several key Asia roles.

“We haven't yet had the bandwidth in the U.S. administration or the time to have detailed conversations with the Chinese side on market access and other systemic issues,” said Timothy P. Stratford, managing partner of Covington and Burling's Beijing office and a former assistant U.S. trade representative.

“Unless you've had time to discuss these very difficult and complicated issues in some detail, you can't expect the two presidents to announce anything that is concrete and detailed and meaningful,” he said. “I fully expect these very tough discussions to begin in the next few months.”

Chen Dingding, a professor at Guangzhou's Jinan University, said the visit was a starting point — a first offer on the way to the next deal.

“What's the alternative? No trade deals? Often you can't get your best deal — you can get your second best, get your third and move from there.”

Both the Chinese and U.S. sides, of course, are casting Thursday's agreements as first rate. At a briefing after the meeting, Commerce Minister Zhong Shan said the deals were “a miracle”.

China's Communist Party-controlled press seems pleased, for now, with Trump's visit, for what he said and didn't say.

The Global Times, a newspaper known for its nationalist rhetoric, ran an editorial on Thursday (http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1074268.shtml) headlined, “What do most Chinese people like about Trump?”

The piece noted Trump's “frank” character and “pragmatic” approach to U.S.-China ties, mentioning specifically that he does not bring up human rights.

One of the main reasons China likes Trump is that Trump likes Xi, the paper argued. “He respects our head of state and has repeatedly praised President Xi Jinping in public.”

The paper noted in particular that Trump had been quick to call Xi after the recent 19th Party Congress. “This is respect for the Chinese system.”

The question is what happens if the friendly rhetoric changes — if Trump, for whatever reason, stops being so positive about Xi. With the mood in the United States turning increasingly skeptical about China and the benefits of the bilateral relationship, that has to be a real possibility, experts said.

“President Xi and the Chinese leadership will think that they have done an awful lot to give President Trump face: They've done a ‘state visit plus’, they've rolled the red carpet out with all the pomp and ceremony, they did all these business deals, and they come away thinking the relationship is on a solid footing,” said Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing.

“But President Trump may go home to a domestic political environment where people are disappointed he hasn't achieved more progress on trade and economics and North Korea,” he said, “and you may see a shift towards a much harder line.”


Amber Ziye Wang and Yang Liu in Beijing contributed to this report.

• Emily Rauhala is a China Correspondent for The Washington Post. She was previously a Beijing-based correspondent for TIME, and an editor at the magazine's Hong Kong office.

• Simon Denyer is The Washington Post's bureau chief in China. He served previously as bureau chief in India and as a Reuters bureau chief in Washington, India and Pakistan.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: China rolls out red carpet to welcome Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/fe03dc08-c50b-11e7-9922-4151f5ca6168_video.html)

 • VIDEO: Trump: ‘The entire civilized world must unite to confront the North Korean menace’ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/_video.html)

 • Trump's granddaughter gets praise and sympathy for singing for Chinese president (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/11/09/trumps-granddaughter-gets-praise-and-sympathy-for-singing-for-chinese-president)

 • China's panda-shaped solar plant is part of a bigger challenge facing Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinas-panda-shaped-solar-plant-and-the-trade-challenge-facing-trump/2017/11/06/ad632f56-c209-11e7-af84-d3e2ee4b2af1_story.html)

 • Taiwan worries about becoming a ‘bargaining chip’ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/with-trump-in-china-taiwan-worries-about-becoming-abargaining-chip/2017/11/09/ee3c0126-c4af-11e7-9922-4151f5ca6168_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/trump-thinks-his-china-trip-went-great-that-could-be-a-problem/2017/11/09/2aff59ea-c53d-11e7-a441-3a768c8586f1_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/trump-thinks-his-china-trip-went-great-that-could-be-a-problem/2017/11/09/2aff59ea-c53d-11e7-a441-3a768c8586f1_story.html)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 10, 2017, 08:44:58 pm

President Xi Jinping would have found Trump an easy idiot to amuse. He no doubt pandered to Trump's vanity by giving him plenty of pomp & ceremony (simple things amuse simple minds), while taking advantage of Trump's stupidity and short-attention span. It will probably take Trump a few months to realise he was played like a fiddle by the Chinese president. The twitter storm when Trump eventually wakes up will be highly amusing and entertaining.

Meanwhile, the Chinese are stepping right into the vacuum opened up by the idiot Trump's incompetency and narcissism.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on November 10, 2017, 08:50:10 pm
you're a wanktard with a trump derangement sickness get some help  :D


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 10, 2017, 08:56:08 pm

This is what I posted to reader comments about a story regarding Trump's visit to China which was published by The Washington Post earlier today…


So as expected, President Xi stroked Trump's huge ego by giving him some pomp & ceremony; and chucking the idiot a few toys; but in reality will give him nothing except for a few platitudes and ambiguous promises. I wonder how long before the Orange Goblin manages to work it out that he has been played by somebody who is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more intelligent than him? Talk about ENTERTAINMENT PLUS!!!


…my comment has attracted a shitload of “likes” from intelligent Americans.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 10, 2017, 09:00:25 pm

from the Los Angeles Times....

In Trump, China sees a straight shooter, a successful
businessman — and a symptom of American decline


By MATT DeBUTTS | 6:15PM PST - Thursday, November 09, 2017

(http://www.trbimg.com/img-5a03a0ca/turbine/la-1510187206-bifiq8fg1e-snap-image/900) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-5a03a0ca/turbine/la-1510187206-bifiq8fg1e-snap-image)
Beijing-based caricature artist Zheng Shenghui shows off his wares. — Photograph: Matt DeButts/Los Angeles Times.

FOR YEARS, Zheng Shenghui sold grinning caricatures of President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping from his small booth in Beijing's Happy Valley Amusement Park. These days, his drawings aren't so cheerful. After Obama left office in January, an angry, grimacing President Trump replaced him.

“I drew a frown because he's upset,” said Zheng, 35. “Trump wants it be the 1970s again, when America was No.1. But things change. He needs to understand the world keeps turning.”

Trump spent two nights in Beijing this week on the third leg of a five-country Asia tour before departing for Vietnam on Friday. Chinese state media called it a “state visit-plus,” underscoring the lavishness of his welcome. He met with Xi, received a military honor, toured the Forbidden City and enjoyed an opulent state dinner.

For his part, Trump, who during his campaign vilified China as an “economic enemy,” was a relatively polite guest. “Who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens?” he told a crowd of Chinese and American business executives, as Xi looked on. He called his relationship with Xi “a great one.”

But there have been many reasons for ordinary Chinese to look beyond the frowning caricatures of the American president.

Many in the country's elite see Trump's “America First” isolationism as an opportunity for China to rise on the global stage.

And for ordinary Chinese, too, Trump can be an appealing figure. While opinions are dizzyingly diverse — in a country of 1.4 billion people, it is difficult to generalize — Trump seems to elicit a surprising level of goodwill when his name comes up.

In a country that venerates business acumen, many admire his financial success. Still others take their cues from Chinese internet forums, where Trump is praised for his honesty. To them, “America First” is just a frank, honest assessment of the U.S. presidency's age-old priorities.

“People always preferred Trump over Hillary Clinton,” says Manya Koetse, editor-in-chief of What's-on-Weibo (https://www.whatsonweibo.com), a website reporting social trends in China, though she notes neither was perceived as an ideal candidate. “They thought Hillary was hypocritical. They like the businessman in Trump and his pragmatic side.”

Unlike other U.S. presidents, Trump isn't prone to lecturing China on human rights. When Liu Xiaobo, China's imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner, died in July, the White House released a statement saying Trump was “deeply saddened” to hear of Liu's death, but it held back from direct condemnation.

Trump, with his background in real estate, his successful reality TV show, and his how-to business books, also fulfills many Chinese stereotypes of a powerful leader. Chinese politicians often project an air of no-nonsense governance, prioritizing economic growth over humanitarian concerns. Xi has made the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” a key goal of his leadership.

Trump fits well into that mold.

“About 15 years ago, I purchased ‘The Apprentice’ box set,” said Li Guang, 35, a former software engineer, referring to Trump's former TV show. “What stuck with me was the line, ‘You’re fired’. It was the spitting image of the overbearing CEO-type. Now at 70 years plus, he hasn't lost a step. I admire the strong leadership.

“Trump is completely different from slippery career politicians,” he added. “He tells it straight, just like me.”

Li, like many Chinese, especially those who talk about politics on the internet, admire Trump's professed disregard for political correctness. Internet users have even spawned a new term, baizuo, or “white left,” to criticize Western-style progressives. While the definition varies, it often refers to Western-educated people who adopt feel-good positions to satisfy a feeling of moral superiority. It is a damning term, implying that someone has been brainwashed by politicians. Many internet users apply it to describe Western elites. They support Trump for what they see as standing up to them.

“Free trade, immigration, refugees, these are things that baizuo support,” said Luo Xing, 23, a recent college graduate in Beijing. After reading social media posts that praised Trump for his positions on these issues, Luo decided she liked Trump. But after studying abroad in England, she changed her mind.

“He's anti-feminist, anti-globalization. He discriminates against minority groups,” Luo said. Then she laughed. “Now I dislike him for some of the same reasons baizuo don't like him.”

Trump also finds common ground with many here in his support for restricting immigration from Muslim countries. Islamophobia is rising in China, fueled by news of terrorist attacks and unrest among China's predominantly Muslim Uighur minority. In recent months, the country has been racked by controversies surrounding the designation of a halal-only food delivery truck, as well as a video of a girl reciting the Koran in school.

“Many people online applauded Brexit, applauded the rise of the right in Europe,” said Koetse, referring to Britain's vote to leave the European Union. “You have strong anti-Islamic sentiment. Anyone who goes against the left and political correctness is applauded on Chinese social media.”

Trump has also drawn his share of critics. As in the U.S., he is a frequent target of ridicule. One Chinese transliteration of his name, chuanpu, is the same as the Chinese word for Sichuanese Mandarin, a famously colorful dialect of Chinese.

“Many think he's some sort of joke,” said Koetse.

It's not hard to find young people who disapprove of Trump.

“He's an opportunist,” said Gigi Zheng, 20, a university student in Beijing who compared him to former President Reagan, noting that Reagan used the phrase “Make American great again” long before Trump popularized it.

“He copied Reagan's slogan to cater to the white working class whose interests had been overlooked before. But what did they gain from his policies?” Gigi said.

“He doesn't care about people,” said Lu Dandan, a 27-year-old in Beijing. “I used to think America was a forgiving place. Now I'm not so sure.”

Criticism of Trump may be offset by the widespread popularity of his daughter Ivanka. Many Chinese admire her beauty, business success and apparent affinity for China. While President Trump did not send a personal message to the Chinese community for Chinese New Year, breaking with tradition, Ivanka celebrated the holiday at the Chinese Embassy in Washington. Her daughter Arabella, who is studying Chinese, sang a song in Mandarin.

Chinese audiences may also be insulated from Trump's most controversial behavior. The 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape that became public during last year's campaign, for example — in which Trump boasted about predatory sexual assault — was not widely covered in Chinese media. In January, Chinese government censorship guidelines, leaked online, instructed Chinese media outlets to handle Trump carefully. “Unauthorized criticism of Trump's words or actions is not allowed.”

Still, videos filter through.

After Trump's visit to Japan on Monday, a video circulated on Chinese social media of a joint press conference between Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Trump noted that Japan's economy was smaller than that of the U.S., then said, “We're going to try and keep it that way.”

Chinese internet users reacted with disbelief, and even a hint of admiration for his directness. Hen chuanpu, said one. “That's so Trump.”


Staff writer Jonathan Kaiman and special correspondent Gaochao Zhang in the Los Angeles Times' Beijing bureau contributed to this report.

• Matt DeButts is a frelance journalist based in Beijing and who is a special correspondent to the Los Angeles Times.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Trump, in Beijing, shifts blame for trade imbalance from China to his predecessors (http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-fg-trump-china-20171109-story.html)

 • Trump visits Vietnam after helping to reopen old war wounds at home (http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-fg-presidents-vietnam-20171109-story.html)


http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-trump-public-opinion-20171109-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-trump-public-opinion-20171109-story.html)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 11, 2017, 08:53:16 pm

Yep....the rest of the world doesn't need America and their idiot president Donald J. Trump.

The rest of the world is showing that they are prepared to chuck a few toys to Trump to amuse his simple, short-attention-span mind, while they carry on making deals as usual and ignoring the United States of America and their clown emperor with no clothes. Hilarious, really!!




from The Washington Post....

Trump says U.S. won't be ‘taken advantage of anymore’.
Hours later, Pacific Rim nations reach deal on trade without America.


The agreement represents a rebuke of the president,
coming near the end of his 12-day swing through Asia.


By ASHLEY PARKER | 10:36PM EST - Friday, November 10, 2017

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/files/2017/11/Vietnam_Trump_APEC_66592-082ce.jpg&w=1075) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/files/2017/11/Vietnam_Trump_APEC_66592-082ce.jpg&w=1484)
President Trump arrives to speak at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders' summit in Danang, Vietnam, on Friday. — Photograph: Associated Press.

DANANG, VIETNAM — President Trump delivered a fiery speech on trade here on Friday, declaring that he would not allow the United States to be “taken advantage of anymore” and planned to place “America first”.

And then, less than 24 hours later, 11 Pacific Rim countries collectively shrugged and moved on without the U.S.

On Saturday, the countries announced they had reached a deal to move ahead with the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade pact that Trump threw into question when he withdrew from it earlier this year.

The agreement represents something of a rebuke of Trump, coming near the end of his five-country, 12-day swing through Asia, and reflects the willingness of other nations to proceed without the buy-in of the United States.

A statement early on Saturday trumpeted a breakthrough on the “core elements” of the trade agreement. “Ministers are pleased to announce that they have agreed on the core elements of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership,” it read.

The deal was originally expected to be announced on Friday — the same day Trump addressed business leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit here, in a speech heavy on tough talk and protectionist rhetoric — but was delayed after Canada raised concerns.

The decision to move ahead with the TPP agreement, minus the United States, reflects how Trump's decision to withdraw from the deal created a vacuum other nations are now moving to fill, with or without the president.

In his speech on Friday, Trump struck an aggressive note (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/11/10/trump-talks-tough-on-trade-in-vietnam-wont-meet-with-putin), saying he believed the United States had for too long been the victim of poor trade deals.

“We are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of anymore,” he said. “I am always going to put America first, the same way that I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first.”

Instead, he said the U.S. was still a willing trade partner, but only for deals based on “mutual respect and mutual benefit.”

“I will make bilateral trade agreements with any Indo-Pacific nation that wants to be our partner and that will abide by the principles of fair and reciprocal trade,” he said.  “What we will no longer do is enter into large agreements that tie our hands, surrender our sovereignty, and make meaningful enforcement practically impossible.”

A senior administration official, asked if the new trade announcement foreshadowed the United States being left behind in the region, rejected the notion, pointing out that “the president is here visiting and is part of the dialogue, and has already spent a significant portion of time talking to his allies and like-minded partners in Japan and South Korea.”

“We'll continue that conversation with many parties here,” the official said. “So we absolutely are engaged on the economic side, and we'll continue to be so.”


• Ashley Parker is a White House reporter for The Washington Post. She joined The Post in 2017, after 11 years at The New York Times, where she covered the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns and Congress, among other things.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/11/10/trump-says-u-s-wont-be-taken-advantage-of-anymore-and-hours-later-pacific-rim-nations-reach-deal-on-trade-without-u-s-buy-in (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/11/10/trump-says-u-s-wont-be-taken-advantage-of-anymore-and-hours-later-pacific-rim-nations-reach-deal-on-trade-without-u-s-buy-in)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on November 12, 2017, 01:27:43 am
 sucker news
another nothing burger

antitrust should break up the amazon monopoly and probably will


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 12, 2017, 10:57:29 am

I could post a similar story by a different reporter published by the Los Angeles Times.

Ditto the Chicago Tribune.

Ditto The Boston Globe.

Ditto The Seattle Times.

Ditto The New York Times.

Ditto heaps of other mainstream (as opposed to the conspiracy theory bullshit such as Breithart, InfoWars.com, etc., run by stupid RETARDS) American newspapers.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on November 12, 2017, 11:57:43 am
Yep all loony left rags staffed by people with degrees in lesbian dance theory and the like 😀


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 12, 2017, 01:17:52 pm

I love it when America under Trump gets left out of trade deals.

Perhaps China should step right into the vacuum created by America's withdrawal from many things?

They're the new rising world superpower anyway, so they may as well claim the top-dog prize even sooner, eh?

The “Thucydides Trap” is edging ever closer, it's just that at the moment America's dumb president with the short-attention-span is too full of himself after being played by the Chinese to realise his country is rapidly becoming irrelevant on the world state. It's going to be hilarious when the idiot wakes up.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on November 16, 2017, 07:11:35 pm
So, how many new spam threads on Trump or America this week? 😁


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on November 17, 2017, 02:08:56 am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9puSV26D5Sc


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 18, 2017, 12:25:40 pm

from The Washington Post....

The Russia investigation's spectacular accumulation of lies

Politics, untethered from morality and religion, leaves widespread, infectious corruption.

By MICHAEL GERSON | 7:33PM EST - Thursday, November 16, 2017

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_950w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/17/Editorial-Opinion/Images/AFP_TW9E5-2590.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/17/Editorial-Opinion/Images/AFP_TW9E5-2590.jpg)
Donald Trump Jr. attends the White House Easter Egg Roll on April 17th. — Photograph: Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.

I SPENT part of my convalescence from a recent illness reading some of the comprehensive timelines of the Russia investigation (which indicates, I suppose, a sickness of another sort). One, compiled by Politico, runs to nearly 12,000 words (https://www.politico.com/trump-russia-ties-scandal-guide/timeline-of-events) — an almost book-length account of stupidity, cynicism, hubris and corruption at the highest levels of American politics.

The cumulative effect on the reader is a kind of nausea no pill can cure. Most recently, we learned about Donald Trump Jr.'s direct communications with WikiLeaks (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-trump-jr-communicated-with-wikileaks-during-2016-campaign/2017/11/13/947e64d4-c8bb-11e7-aa96-54417592cf72_story.html) — which CIA Director Mike Pompeo has called (http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/328730-cia-director-wikileaks-a-non-state-hostile-intelligence-service) “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia” — during its efforts to produce incriminating material on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election. But this is one sentence in an epic of corruption. There is the narrative of a campaign in which high-level operatives believed that Russian espionage could help secure the American presidency, and acted on that belief. There is the narrative of deception to conceal the nature and extent of Russian ties. And there is the narrative of a president attempting to prevent or shut down the investigation of those ties and soliciting others for help in that task.

In all of this, there is a spectacular accumulation of lies. Lies on disclosure forms. Lies at confirmation hearings. Lies on Twitter. Lies in the White House briefing room. Lies to the FBI. Self-protective lies by the attorney general. Blocking and tackling lies by Vice President Pence. This is, with a few exceptions, a group of people for whom truth, political honor, ethics and integrity mean nothing.

What are the implications? President Trump and others in his administration are about to be hit by a legal tidal wave. We look at the Russia scandal and see lies. A skilled prosecutor sees leverage. People caught in criminal violations make more cooperative witnesses. Robert S. Mueller III and his A-team of investigators have plenty of stupidity and venality to work with. They are investigating an administration riven by internal hatreds — also the prosecutor's friend. And Trump has already alienated many potential allies in a public contest between himself and Mueller. A number of elected Republicans, particularly in the Senate, would watch this showdown with popcorn.

But the implications of all this are not only legal and political. We are witnessing what happens when right-wing politics becomes untethered from morality and religion.

What does public life look like without the constraining internal force of character — without the firm ethical commitments often (though not exclusively) rooted in faith? It looks like a presidential campaign unable to determine right from wrong and loyalty from disloyalty. It looks like an administration engaged in a daily assault on truth and convinced that might makes right. It looks like the residual scum left from retreating political principle — the worship of money, power and self-promoted fame. The Trumpian trinity.


(https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_960w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/14/National-Politics/Images/SESSIONSH1007.JPG&w=950) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_960w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/14/National-Politics/Images/SESSIONSH1007.JPG&w=1484)
Attorney General Jeff Sessions raises his hand to be sworn in before the House Judiciary Committee.
 — Photograph: Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post.


But also: Power without character looks like the environment for women at Fox News during the reigns of Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly — what former network host Andrea Tantaros called (http://beta.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-andrea-tantaros-fox-lawsuit-20160823-snap-story.html) “a sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency and misogyny.” It looks like Breitbart News's racial transgressiveness, providing permission and legitimacy to the alt-right. It looks like the cruelty and dehumanization practiced by Dinesh D'Souza (https://twitter.com/dineshdsouza/status/930540135577395200), dismissing the tears and trauma of one Roy Moore (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/11/16/the-five-likeliest-ways-this-whole-roy-moore-saga-could-end-ranked) accuser as a “performance.” And it looks like the Christian defense of Moore (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/11/09/this-defense-of-roy-moore-is-amazingly-bad-from-start-to-finish), which has ceased to be recognizably Christian.

This may be the greatest shame of a shameful time. What institution, of all institutions, should be providing the leaven of principle to political life? What institution is specifically called on to oppose the oppression of children, women and minorities, to engage the world with civility and kindness, to prepare its members for honorable service to the common good?

A hint: It is the institution that is currently — in some visible expressions — overlooking, for political reasons, credible accusations of child molestation. Some religious leaders are willing to call good evil, and evil good, in service to a different faith — a faith defined by their political identity. This is heresy at best; idolatry at worst.

Most Christians, of course, are not actively supporting Moore. But how many Americans would identify evangelical Christianity as a prophetic voice for human dignity and moral character on the political right? Very few. And they would be wrong.

Many of the people who should be supplying the moral values required by self-government have corrupted themselves. The Trump administration will be remembered for many things. The widespread, infectious corruption of institutions and individuals may be its most damning legacy.


• Michael Gerson is a nationally syndicated columnist who appears twice weekly in The Washington Post.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: Inside the Twitter messages between Donald Trump Jr. and WikiLeaks (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/dd8f3cc4-c975-11e7-b506-8a10ed11ecf5_video.html)

 • VIDEO: What we learned, and didn't, from Sessions's latest Russia testimony (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/e052f3e0-cb1b-11e7-b506-8a10ed11ecf5_video.html)

 • VIDEO: Does Trump believe that Russia interfered with the election? (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/e370229a-c8d8-11e7-b506-8a10ed11ecf5_video.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-russia-investigations-spectacular-accumulation-of-lies/2017/11/16/741024bc-cb0e-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-russia-investigations-spectacular-accumulation-of-lies/2017/11/16/741024bc-cb0e-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 18, 2017, 02:06:59 pm

from The Washington Post....

Forget alternative facts. We're now in an alternate reality.

In the age of Trump, rules are ignored and standards of integrity are disqualified.

By DANA MILBANK | 2:48PM EST - Friday, November 17, 2017

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_925w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/17/Others/Images/2017-11-15/f_hatch-001.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/17/Others/Images/2017-11-15/f_hatch-001.JPG)
Senator Orrin G. Hatch (Republican-Utah) mediates a contentious markup of the Senate tax bill on Capitol Hill on November 15th.
 — Photograph: Melina Mara/The Washington Post.


IN THE BEGINNING, there were alternative facts. Now we are being governed in an alternate reality.

Heading toward approval of their tax bill (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/house-poised-to-pass-its-tax-bill-as-senate-plan-suffers-setbacks/2017/11/16/62d92fa4-cad7-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html) this week, House Republicans had a teensy problem: Their vaunted tax “cut” actually was a tax hike for millions of Americans. It lowered taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars on the wealthiest, but it raised the lowest tax rate and, official congressional arbiters determined, raised taxes on a good chunk of the middle class, as well.

Awkward! Particularly because a long-standing House rule (http://clerk.house.gov/legislative/house-rules.pdf), put in place by Republicans after Newt Gingrich's 1994 takeover (http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h2052.html), requires that any “income tax rate increase may not be considered as passed … unless so determined by a vote of not less than three-fifths of the members voting.”

So Republicans did the honorable thing: They snuck in a provision (https://rules.house.gov/bill/115/hr-1) that allowed them, with a simple majority vote, to declare that the three-fifths requirement “shall not apply”. Problem solved.

This is but one example of an unnerving trend in the Trump era: Ignore the rules and disqualify the referees who were put in place to enforce standards of integrity.

Just two months ago, President Trump promised (https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/13/trump-rich-people-tax-plan-242671) that “the rich will not be gaining at all” under the tax bill and “it'll be the largest tax decrease in the history of our country for the middle class.”

It is exactly the opposite. The bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation found (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/04/some-middle-class-americans-would-pay-higher-taxes-under-gop-bill-despite-trumps-promise) that the rich would get a handsome tax break under the House bill, but those earning $20,000 to $40,000 and $200,000 to $500,0000 would get an increase. On Thursday, the JCT, the official congressional arbiter of tax legislation, determined that the Senate version of the bill (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/16/senate-tax-bill-cuts-taxes-of-wealthy-and-hikes-taxes-of-families-earning-under-75000-over-a-decade) would give large tax cuts to millionaires but raise taxes on families earning between $10,000 and $75,000.

And so Orrin G. Hatch (Republican-Utah), author of the Senate tax bill, attempted to discredit the bicameral, bipartisan JCT. “Anyone who says we're hiking taxes on low-income families is mis-stating the facts,” he said.

And Hatch is the vice chairman of the JCT! The chairman is also Republican, as are a majority of the members.

Leaving aside Hatch's particular dispute (about whether to count a loss of Obamacare subsidies as a tax increase for those who opt out), there is no denying the larger point in the JCT's calculation: Whether you technically classify certain things as taxes or not, this “tax cut” would have the effect of making the rich richer and a large swath of the middle class poorer. Instead of acknowledging that, Republicans are attempting to disqualify the umpire they put in place.

Something similar is happening now with the nominations of judges. In all administrations since Dwight Eisenhower's (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/11/10/how-unusual-are-trumps-not-qualified-judicial-nominations) (except George W. Bush's) the American Bar Association (ABA) has vetted prospective judicial nominees' legal qualifications before they are nominated. Now the Trump administration is ignoring the ABA pre-screening, and the Senate Judiciary Committee is no longer waiting to have nominees' professional qualifications vetted before confirmation hearings. The New York Times reports that the White House is “weighing” telling future nominees not to cooperate (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/11/us/politics/trump-judiciary-appeals-courts-conservatives.html) with ABA evaluators. And this week, the White House issued a news release (https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/11/15/wsj-editorial-board-ruling-out-aba-judges) highlighting an editorial saying “the Senate continues to give the lawyers' guild too much sway.”

When the Trump administration and congressional allies aren't attacking the JCT and the ABA, they're attacking the CBO — the Congressional Budget Office, the bipartisan arbiter of how much legislation costs, now led by a Republican appointee. When White House budget director Mick Mulvaney (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/12/white-house-criticizes-accuracy-of-congressional-budget-office-misspells-inaccurately) earlier this year didn't like the CBO's “score” of health-care legislation, he asked: “Has the day of the CBO come and gone?” Trump ally Newt Gingrich wanted to “abolish” the “totally dishonest” umpire.

The White House did its utmost, as well, to undermine the Office of Government Ethics (https://www.newyorker.com/news/ryan-lizza/how-trump-broke-the-office-of-government-ethics), blocking its access to ethics waivers granted to former lobbyists in the administration. The director of the office ultimately resigned.

Now, some Republicans are attempting to do the same to the special counsel. After Robert S. Mueller III's recent indictments of Trump campaign advisers, three House members introduced a resolution calling for Mueller's resignation.

And of course, there is Roy Moore, who has responded to voluminous accusations of impropriety with children by attempting to discredit the press — dovetailing with Trump's “fake-news” attacks.

Should Moore make it to the Senate, we can expect worse. He openly defied the U.S. Supreme Court when he was a state judge, and he has made clear he believes the Constitution is subordinate to his interpretation of God's law (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/09/27/a-short-history-of-roy-moores-controversial-interpretations-of-the-bible).

As Trump and his allies lay waste to their own rules, the media, the CBO, the ABA, the JTC and the courts, let's ask ourselves: After they've disqualified all arbiters of truth, what will we have left?


• Dana Milbank writes about political theater in the nation's capital for The Washington Post. He joined The Post as a political reporter in 2000.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: Tense exchange between Hatch and Brown over tax cuts (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/9d3a421a-cb9e-11e7-b506-8a10ed11ecf5_video.html)

 • Catherine Rampell: And the biggest loser in the GOP's tax plan is … humans (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/and-the-biggest-loser-in-the-gops-tax-plan-is-humans/2017/11/16/9c238ac2-cb11-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html)

 • The Washington Post's View: This little-discussed part of the GOP tax bill proves what it's really about (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-little-discussed-part-of-the-gop-tax-bill-proves-what-its-really-about/2017/11/12/6f9883ee-c662-11e7-84bc-5e285c7f4512_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/forget-alternative-facts-were-now-in-an-alternate-reality/2017/11/17/52e53a56-cba0-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/forget-alternative-facts-were-now-in-an-alternate-reality/2017/11/17/52e53a56-cba0-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on November 18, 2017, 02:09:52 pm
Forget left wing media spam. We are now in the age where utopian neo-marxist twits simply make shit up for propaganda purposes 😁


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 18, 2017, 02:39:30 pm

The only problem with your bullshit is that if you click on those links with that story, a large proportion of them take you to US Government websites and documents which verify that what is written in the article is absolutely 100% correct.

Hahaha.....I guess this shows that YOU are as dumb as dogshit, eh?


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 18, 2017, 03:06:35 pm

from The Washington Post....

Law clerk by day, ghost hunter by night, now Trump's judiciary nominee

Brett Talley, a political speechwriter and horror author, has never tried a case in court.

By ROBERT O'HARROW Jr. | 2:52PM EST - Frday, November 17, 2017

(https://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1111w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/17/Interactivity/Images/crop_90ST-ghostwriter0031417569551-0262.jpg) (https://www.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/17/Interactivity/Images/crop_90ST-ghostwriter0031417569551-0262.jpg)
Brett Talley poses for a portrait at the District's Holy Rood Cemetery in December 2014. — Photograph: Matt McClain/The Washington Post.

BY DAY, he was a clerk to a federal judge, a Harvard Law School graduate at the start of his career. By night, he was a ghost hunter and a devotee of the macabre.

Brett Joseph Talley is now President Trump's nominee for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench as a U.S. District Court judge in Alabama.

Few in memory have been nominated with credentials quite like those of Talley, 36, an Alabama native, a political speechwriter, an author of horror books and a fledgling lawyer who has never tried a case (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/11/12/he-has-never-tried-a-case-but-trump-wants-to-make-him-judge-for-life).

In 2009 and 2010, he was a member of the Tuscaloosa Paranormal Research Group, a volunteer operation that since the early 2000s has held all-night vigils and used infrared cameras, handheld sensors and other devices to search for spectral entities in plantation mansions, abandoned hospitals and other buildings.

“He was a real help…. He was quiet and real smart,” David Higdon, the group's founder and leader, told The Washington Post. “We try to do everything scientific.”

Talley did not respond to requests for an interview.

In 2014, when he was a speechwriter on Capitol Hill, Talley took a Washington Post reporter ghost hunting in a District cemetery. As he paused at graves, Talley said he always maintained a level of skepticism during the paranormal outings.

“I tend to believe there's a good scientific explanation for the weird things people see and hear,” Talley said at the time. “But I'm open to the idea, and it's fun.”

Talley's nomination has been received with some skepticism.

In recent days, he has drawn heat (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/11/13/that-judicial-nominee-whos-never-tried-a-case-is-also-married-to-a-trump-administration-lawyer) from multiple Democrats in Congress for failing to disclose in a Senate questionnaire that his wife, Ann Donaldson, is chief of staff to the White House counsel. Critics said her position could present a conflict if issues related to the White House were to go before the district court.

Last week, an American Bar Association review committee gave him a rare “not qualified” rating because of his lack of legal experience. He is one of four Trump nominees to receive “not qualified” ratings this year, the first such ratings to be disclosed by the association in more than a decade.

In October, during a nomination hearing, some Democratic lawmakers questioned whether he could be an impartial judge, citing posts he made as a conservative blogger several years ago. One blog post he wrote after the Newtown, Connecticut, massacre was titled, A Call to Arms: It's Time to Join the National Rifle Association (https://happywarriordotme.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/a-call-to-arms-its-time-to-join-the-national-rifle-association).

Senator Dianne Feinstein (Democrat-California) said at the hearing: “I have never seen anyone in 24 years before this committee with the strong statements that you have made on weapons. And when I think of what just happened in Las Vegas, it makes it very difficult for me.”

Talley responded that he wrote the blog to stimulate discussion. “If I am fortunate enough to be confirmed, I will take an oath to set aside my own views and to do justice,” Talley testified.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (Republican-Iowa) recently praised Talley as a good choice, saying in a statement he “has a wide breadth of various legal experience that has helped to expose him to different aspects of federal law and the issues that would come before him.”

Largely overlooked in the controversy is perhaps the most remarkable detail in the professional history he gave the committee — that he was a member of the Tuscaloosa Paranormal Research Group for two years.

Talley was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1981. He attended the University of Alabama, where he earned top marks, and then went to Harvard Law, serving as an editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.

He graduated in 2007 and, while clerking for U.S. District Judge L. Scott Coogler in Tuscaloosa two years later, asked Higdon whether he could join the paranormal group.

Higdon recalled Talley as a bright and charming guy with a budding interest in the supernatural.

For all that, Higdon said he was a little wary with Talley, as he is with other volunteers. Higdon wanted to be sure Talley was joining in earnest. The group had about 15 members.

Many people believe in ghosts or supernatural events, which Higdon said accounts for the interest in groups like his across the country.

“I wouldn't have someone as a joke in my group. We do go out and have fun. But there's a time to get down to business,” Higdon said. “The whole time, I don't think he was doing it as a joke.”

The group went out once or twice a month to investigate old plantation mansions, abandoned prisons and other buildings they had heard might be haunted. Higdon said Talley joined them at least a dozen times.

The group does not try to banish ghosts, Higdon said, only to identify them.

“All we can do is say yea or nay — you have something, but we can't get rid of it,” he said.

He said Talley helped carry and unpack cases filled with thermal sensors, infrared cameras, tripods and K2 meters (https://www.ghoststop.com/K2-Deluxe-EMF-Meter-With-On-Off-Switch-p/emf-k2.htm), handheld electromagnetic field devices favored by paranormal investigators. Talley helped monitor the all-night investigations, Higdon said.

Just as Talley's interest in the horrific was blossoming, he left the paranormal group behind. He went to work for Judge Joel F. Dubina of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, headquartered in Atlanta.

About the same time, Talley was writing horror fiction, including novels. In 2011 his novel That Which Should Not Be (https://www.amazon.com/dp/product/1936564149) was published by JournalStone and was semifinalist for the Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Award.

In a Q&A with Talley at the Unlocked Diary website (http://theunlockeddiary.blogspot.com/2011/09/really-fun-guest-interview-and-free.html), an interviewer wrote that the book has “awesomestastic gooeyness oozing from every page to where you will be licking it off your fingers and savoring it for days to come.”

The interviewer asked Talley for his advice about the best way to get into trouble on a Friday night.

“I love old, abandoned buildings. Factories, insane asylums, that sort of thing,” Talley wrote in the exchange. “I am always trying to get people to go with me, but no one ever does. You have to watch out or you'll get arrested for trespassing.”

In 2012, Talley and Higdon co-authored Haunted Tuscaloosa (https://www.amazon.com/dp/product/160949573X), a short book of stories about ghostly doings in Alabama. At the time, Talley was working as a speechwriter for Republican Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.

Higdon said Talley wrote the book using Higdon's recollections and ideas. In the introduction, Talley raises questions about the line between personal experience and verifiable fact.

“In this book, there are children who died too early, professors who never left the classroom and even the spirit of a collie that still serves its master, long after his death,” Talley wrote in the introduction.

 “Some will criticize these stories, saying they are not real history,” he wrote. “But that raises a question. What is real history? Sure, we know the dates and the major players, but the color, the heart of the matter — that we see through eyewitnesses.”

Talley describes himself as a Christian in his Twitter profile (https://twitter.com/brettjtalley).

“I personally believe in good and evil,” he said in an online video interview (https://tinyurl.com/ybmmsx6e) about his books. “Sometimes good and evil are sort of shades of gray and they're all matters of perspective. And sometimes things that seem evil may be good.”

From 2013 to 2015, Talley worked as a speechwriter for Senator Rob Portman (Republican-Ohio). In a statement to The Washington Post, Portman said, “Brett Talley is one of the smartest, most talented lawyers that I know, and I have no doubt he will be a terrific district court judge for Alabama.”

Talley then took a job as deputy solicitor general in the office of the Alabama attorney general.

He and his wife, Ann, were married in 2015 in Tuscaloosa, where they met as undergraduates at the University of Alabama. She also attended Harvard Law School.

Talley came to Washington with the Trump administration in January, and he was named deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy.

In the recent hearing held by the Judiciary Committee, Senator Jeff Flake (Republican-Arizona) asked Talley about his background as a horror fiction writer.

“How does that come in?” Flake said, according to a video of the hearing. “That's an interesting background for a judge.”

Talley grinned broadly and said he would try to draw on his horror background when writing legal opinions.

“Well, Senator, I would hope that would at least make for some interesting opinions,” Talley said. “And I will try to sneak in some horror references if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed.”

Not everyone is amused.

A scientist and a historian of science told The Post that Talley's activities and writing raise subtle but powerful questions about his views on science and the value of verifiable facts. Robert N. Proctor, a historian at Stanford University, studies science and technology, and the cultural production of ignorance, which he has termed agnotology.

“I don't think it's a good sign that a judge would embrace the reality of ghosts. What other parts of modern science would he be willing to reject? Climate change? Darwin's theory of evolution?” Proctor said in an email. “The judge will presumably be ruling on 21st-century disputes, not questions from the Middle Ages.”

Higdon said he understands the skepticism about Talley's interest in the supernatural. He said that no one can prove ghosts exist.

But he recalled the intensity he felt on a night not long ago when he had an “oh-my-gosh moment” in an old hospital, when a “full-blown shadow person” crossed his path in a basement corridor.

He said that many respectable people have believed in ghosts and that people like him across the country remain hopeful.

“We hope one day we can prove it,” Higdon said. “It's faith.”


• Robert O'Harrow Jr. is a reporter on the investigative unit of The Washington Post. He writes about law enforcement, national security, federal contracting and the financial world.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Meet the ghost hunter and horror novelist who writes Senator Rob Portman's speeches (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/meet-the-ghost-hunter-and-horror-novelist-who-writes-sen-rob-portmans-speeches/2014/12/08/64b8bad2-7bd0-11e4-84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/law-clerk-by-day-ghost-hunter-by-night-now-trumps-judiciary-nominee/2017/11/17/518b66a8-ca51-11e7-b244-2d22ac912500_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/law-clerk-by-day-ghost-hunter-by-night-now-trumps-judiciary-nominee/2017/11/17/518b66a8-ca51-11e7-b244-2d22ac912500_story.html)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 19, 2017, 06:01:09 pm
(https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/disp/3a61a622116627.5630d0095841b.jpg) (https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/disp/3a61a622116627.5630d0095841b.jpg)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 21, 2017, 07:07:29 pm

Faaaaaaark.....talk about a “historic” idiot, eh?



from The Washington Post....

There is something truly historic about Trump

That is, his histrionics.

By DANA MILBANK | 6:41PM EST — Monday, November 20, 2017

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_875w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/20/Editorial-Opinion/Images/2017-11-20T171619Z_2136769504_RC1E480B9A70_RTRMADP_3_NORTHKOREA-MISSILES-USA-2583.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/20/Editorial-Opinion/Images/2017-11-20T171619Z_2136769504_RC1E480B9A70_RTRMADP_3_NORTHKOREA-MISSILES-USA-2583.jpg)
President Donald J. Trump speaks during a meeting with his Cabinet on Monday. — Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters.

PRESIDENT TRUMP is making history at a historic level. He tells us this himself.

“Good morning,” he said at the start of his Cabinet meeting on Monday. “We just returned from a historic, 12-day trip to Asia.”

We knew the trip would be historic because the White House announced in advance that it would be “very historic”. And the day after the president returned, he himself affirmed that it had indeed been “historic”.

This is not surprising, because, in Trump's telling, his first trip was historic, too. He said so before the trip (“a trip with historic significance”), during the trip (“historic and unprecedented … very historic … a truly historic week for our country”) and after (“full of historic and unprecedented achievements … it was truly historic”).

Technically, either trip could be categorized as historical, in the sense that both occurred in the past. But in the sense of being moments of great and lasting importance? Well, consider that on his latest voyage, the president arguably got the most attention when he called the nuclear-armed leader of North Korea short and fat. Nixon-goes-to-China it wasn't.

Yet there is something truly historic about Trump — his histrionics. He surely has no rival in trying to assert the historic nature of everything he does. A search of the White House website finds that the president and his team have declared their actions historic nearly 400 times in their first 10 months in office.

Trump has always asserted that he is the best and the greatest, but his attempts to write himself into the history books have truly been history-making.

Among the things Trump has called “historic”: His initiative on women's entrepreneurship. Pulling out of the Paris climate-change agreement. Executive orders on whistleblowers, financial services and the Antiquities Act. His apprenticeship initiative. The Clemson football team's 2016 season. And the launch of a ship named for Gerald Ford.

In his inaugural address, Trump declared his election the work “of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before”. In his first address to Congress, he announced “a historic effort” to deregulate and said he would introduce “historic tax reform”. After 11 weeks on the job, Trump reported that he had “achieved historic progress”. At the 100-day mark, his “historic progress” included “historic steps to secure our border”.

He predicted that his first Cabinet meeting would be “a historic Cabinet meeting” — and it was, as measured by the volume of praise heaped on him by his subordinates. He boasted in June that he had secured “historic increases in military spending”. (He hadn't.) At his last Cabinet meeting before Monday's, he declared that his “historic tax plan” would have a “historic cut”. (It didn't.) He announced “a historic immigration bill”. (We're still waiting.)

Some things are more historic than others. When Congress missed its “historic” chance to repeal Obamacare, Trump's executive order to undermine Obamacare was “truly historic”.

His approval of the Keystone XL pipeline and his executive action on energy were just plain historic, as were his historic actions on trade and his historic tax overhaul, and both the nomination and swearing in of Neil Gorsuch. But his executive orders on trade and his work for veterans were both “very historic”. Also “very historic” was his effort to “modernize critical IT systems”. But “there's never been anything so historic” as the recent hurricanes, the handling of which earned Trump high grades — from himself.

Vice President Pence is making even more historic strides to see historic occasions everywhere. He labeled a roundtable discussion on health care “historic”. So was the swearing in of the labor secretary, the confirmation of the education secretary, the swearing in of the ambassador to Israel, Trump's meetings with the Indian prime minister and the pope, Trump's air traffic control proposals and events such as the National Summit on Crime Reduction and Public Safety, the “Northern Triangle Conference” and the “Adriatic Charter Summit”. Pence even knows that Trump's yet-to-be-announced infrastructure spending “will be historic”.

Other White House officials have given “historic” designations to things such as the Congressional Picnic; HR 1004, the Regulatory Integrity Act of 2017; and HR 1009, the OIRA Insight, Reform and Accountability Act.

“Historic pace”. “Historic accomplishments”. “Historic visit”. “Historic gathering”. “Historic day”. “Historic act”. “Historic event”. “Historic speech”.

What actually is historic about this first year of the Trump presidency will be left to the historians. But so far, Trump's actual achievements have been few. What seems most historic about this moment:

Trump's hysterics.


• Dana Milbank writes about political theater in the nation's capital for The Washington Post. He joined The Post as a political reporter in 2000.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: Trump on Asia trip: ‘I am very proud of it’ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/29c9c64a-c9ad-11e7-b506-8a10ed11ecf5_video.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/there-is-something-truly-historic-about-trump/2017/11/20/dae6e70c-ce47-11e7-81bc-c55a220c8cbe_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/there-is-something-truly-historic-about-trump/2017/11/20/dae6e70c-ce47-11e7-81bc-c55a220c8cbe_story.html)



(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/TooFunny_zps2gz4suf2.gif~original) (http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/LaughingPinkPanther_zpsy6iu8yso.gif~original) (http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/ROFLMAO_Dog_zpsc4esrpyc.gif~original) (http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/LaughingHard_zpswco6umsu.gif~original) (http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/ItchyBugga_zpsebzrttez.gif~original)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on November 22, 2017, 04:49:01 pm
It's an not a.
You were saying about idiots?


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on November 23, 2017, 08:32:20 am
(http://www.stewwebb.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/DonaldTrump-Media-Twitter-Alt-Media-300x265.jpg)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 23, 2017, 03:01:37 pm

Donald Trump supports a paedophile....



from The Washington Post....

Trump boosts Moore in Alabama Senate race
despite sexual misconduct allegations


“We don't need a liberal person in there, a Democrat,” the president said about the seat.

By MICHAEL SCHERER, ASHLEY PARKER and DAVID WEIGEL | 9:53PM EST - Tuesday, November 21, 2017

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_925w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/21/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171121Trump22461.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/21/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171121Trump22461.JPG)
President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departed with his family to his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday.
 — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.


PRESIDENT TRUMP gave a boost on Tuesday to embattled Republican candidate Roy Moore (https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/woman-says-roy-moore-initiated-sexual-encounter-when-she-was-14-he-was-32/2017/11/09/1f495878-c293-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html) in the Alabama Senate race, warning against a Democratic victory and emphasizing that the former judge “totally denies” allegations of inappropriate relationships with teenage girls.

“We don't need a liberal person in there, a Democrat,” Trump said about Moore's opponent, former federal prosecutor Doug Jones, who has led in some recent polls in the state. “I've looked at his record. It's terrible on crime. It's terrible on the border. It's terrible on military.”

The comments came after a week in which other Republican leaders in Washington, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), had cut ties with Moore and called on him to exit the race. They also stood in contrast to Trump's own support for the Republican National Committee's decision last week to pull resources from the state, including 14 paid staffers and expertise in using party data to target voters and model the election result.

There were no signs on Tuesday that the RNC would reverse course, but a senior administration official said the president's comments could prompt a larger effort to close ranks behind Moore.

“Normally there would be an outside group dumping $2 or $3 million attacking Doug Jones's record,” the official said after the president spoke. “And now that the president has warned against having a liberal Democrat in that seat, that could be taken as signal to the outside groups.”

Trump spoke as sexual harassment and abuse scandals continued to roil the nation's political landscape. In Congress, new allegations of harassment emerged on Tuesday against Representative John Conyers Jr. (Democrat-Michigan), and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California) released a statement calling for an ethics investigation of the matter. Senator Al Franken (Democrat-Minnesota) also faces an ethics probe after admitting to grabbing at the chest of a woman for a photograph while she slept before he was in Congress.

Trump — who during the presidential campaign was accused by 11 women (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/my-pain-is-everyday-after-weinsteins-fall-trump-accusers-wonder-why-not-him/2017/10/21/bce67720-b585-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html) of unwanted touching or kissing and was caught on tape boasting of grabbing women's genitals without their consent — declined to comment directly on the allegations against Conyers or Franken but said he was happy that the misbehavior was becoming public.

“A lot of things are coming out, and I think that's good for our society, and I think it's very, very good for women, and I'm very happy a lot of these things are coming out, and I'm very happy it's being exposed,” he said on the South Lawn of the White House before leaving for Florida, where he will spend the Thanksgiving holiday.

As an aside, he noted that Moore's accusers had supported his campaign. “The women are Trump voters,” he said. “Most of them are Trump voters.”

Just before the president spoke, Moore campaign surrogates issued a statement in Montgomery, saying they had evidence that cast doubt on the allegations of Leigh Corfman, who says she was touched sexually by Moore when she was 14 and he was in his 30s. The evidence they presented did not contradict Corfman's story.

Ben DuPré, a longtime aide to Moore, displayed documents he said were from the Corfman family's divorce file. The Washington Post had obtained and reviewed a copy of the divorce file before publishing Corfman's story. He noted that her parents had concerns at the time, following a divorce, regarding Leigh's behavioral problems, a fact that is not contested.

DuPré also claimed that Corfman lived nearly a mile away from the intersection of Alcott Road and Riley Street in Gadsden, Alabama, where she says Moore picked her up. It was not clear what address DuPré was referring to. Corfman and her mother told The Post they lived at the time on Whittier Street, which is just around the corner from the alleged pickup point.

DuPré also pointed to a Breitbart article in which Corfman's mother is quoted saying that there was no phone in her daughter's room at the time. Both Corfman and her mother have said they had a phone on a long cord in the hallway that could be brought into Leigh Corfman's room.

The RNC broke ties with Moore on November 14th as the president was returning from Asia. There was, however, some disagreement inside the administration at the time about the best path forward. “All the right political people were not read into that decision,” said the senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly knew about the decision and was part of the discussion. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders later said the president supported the decision.

But over the past week, the White House position began to change. In a “Fox & Friends” interview on Monday morning, presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway tacitly supported Moore by talking about the importance of keeping Jones, whom she cast as a “doctrinaire liberal,” from winning Alabama's Senate seat — a message that was deliberate, one White House official said.

Conway alerted Trump in advance that she planned to make the argument against Jones, and the president agreed with the strategy, saying he was eager to see what the response was, the official said.

White House aides also realized that Trump had come around to that approach — stressing the importance of keeping the seat in Republican control — when he began making the argument privately.

Although his comments to the news media on Tuesday afternoon were unplanned, aides were not surprised when Trump made them.

In recent days, Trump had also begun expressing skepticism in private about the allegations against Moore. The president pointed to the presence of Gloria Allred — a well-known lawyer for sexual misconduct cases, who is representing one of Moore's accusers — as well as the timing of the accusations, so close to the election, as indicators of a political attack on Moore.

Democrats have dominated the broadcast airwaves in Alabama for weeks, spending more than seven times as much as Moore on television and radio ads, according to a Democrat and a Republican tracking the ad data.

The latest ad by Jones plays back criticism of Moore that Ivanka Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Senator Richard C. Shelby (Republican-Alabama) gave in the aftermath of allegations that Moore made unwanted advances on teenage girls.

Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter, is quoted as saying of the Moore allegations: “There's a special place in hell for people who prey on children.” Sessions is quoted from a congressional hearing where he was asked about the Moore story: “I have no reason to doubt these young women.” And Shelby, who has been critical of Moore, is quoted about his plan to write in another name on the ballot.

The ad targets Republicans and Republican-leaning voters who make up a majority of the state. The goal is to give them permission to vote for a Democrat in the December 12th special election.

“Most Alabamians haven't voted for a Democrat for U.S. Senate in a generation,” said Zac McCrary, an Alabama-based pollster for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “You are butting up against a generation of Republican muscle memory,”

At a short Tuesday afternoon news conference, Jones smiled faintly as a reporter read back Trump's criticism of him as a “soft on crime” liberal. As a federal prosecutor, Jones obtained convictions in the early 2000s of two members of the Ku Klux Klan for their role in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four young African American girls.

“I feel like my record speaks for itself,” Jones said. “I know my record on crime and criminal justice issues. I know my record on everything else. We've got three weeks to go, and people are going to make that judgment.”

Asked if he considered Moore to be a sexual predator, Jones said he was less interested in characterizing his opponent than in listening to the accusers.

“I believe the women. I think that answers the question,” he said. “I'm not going to call names.”

With three weeks to go until the vote, it is unclear if a Republican-leaning outside group will invest in the race to attack Jones.

Ed Rollins, chairman of the pro-Trump Great America PAC, said that while his group has not made any decisions about what money to invest in Alabama going forward, any future ads probably would be attacking Jones rather than overtly supporting Moore.

“We think it's always important that you get someone who is going to be a pro-Trump supporter,” Rollins said. “Obviously Alabamians are going to make up their mind. The only advertising we've done to date has been anti-Jones. We've not made any decisions, but if we did anything else, it would be along the same lines.”


David Weigel reported from Huntsville, Alabama. Sean Sullivan and David Nakamura in Washington contributed to this report.

• Michael Scherer is a national political reporter at The Washington Post. Michael previously reported for TIME since December 2007 and became their Washington Bureau Chief in 1913. He moved to The Post in August 2017.

• Ashley Parker is a White House reporter for The Washington Post. She joined The Post in 2017, after 11 years at The New York Times, where she covered the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns and Congress, among other things.

• David Weigel is a national political correspondent covering Congress and grassroots political movements. He's the author of "The Show That Never Ends," a history of progressive rock music.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: Trump discusses allegations against Moore (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/3dc2abf2-cf03-11e7-a87b-47f14b73162a_video.html)

 • VIDEO: Trump says he doesn't want Democrat to win in Alabama (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/86df639a-cefc-11e7-a87b-47f14b73162a_video.html)

 • Jennifer Rubin: If Charlie Rose and Roy Moore deserve banishment, why not Donald Trump? (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/11/21/if-charlie-rose-and-roy-moore-deserve-banishment-why-not-donald-trump)

 • A new poll makes it crystal clear: Sexual harassment is not a dealbreaker in today's Republican Party (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/11/21/a-new-poll-makes-it-crystal-clear-sexual-harassment-is-not-a-dealbreaker-in-todays-republican-party)

 • President Trump just endorsed Roy Moore, for all intents and purposes (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/11/20/the-white-house-just-effectively-endorsed-roy-moore)

 • What Trump has said about assault allegations against Franken, Moore, Clinton — and himself (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/11/17/what-trump-has-said-about-assault-allegations-against-franken-moore-clinton-and-himself)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-boosts-moore-in-ala-senate-race-despite-sexual-misconduct-allegations/2017/11/21/91fe5bf2-cf04-11e7-a1a3-0d1e45a6de3d_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-boosts-moore-in-ala-senate-race-despite-sexual-misconduct-allegations/2017/11/21/91fe5bf2-cf04-11e7-a1a3-0d1e45a6de3d_story.html)



Mind you, it's not really surprising that Donald Trump supports a paedophile (otherwise known as a kid-fucker), 'cause he is a self-confest sexual deviant/sicko himself, as recorded on the tapes which were exposed to the public prior to the election. In fact, one almost has to wonder if it takes a paedophile to support a paedophile. I wonder what else is hidden in Donald Trump's sexual-perversion past that hasn't yet seen the light of day? Kid-fucking perhaps?


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on November 25, 2017, 10:17:31 am
Have you booked in for therapy yet? 😁

How many compulsive spam Trump/America posts this week?


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 26, 2017, 01:24:21 pm

from The Washington Post....

The shrinking profile of Jared Kushner

Donald J. Trump's son-in-law takes on a quieter role behind
the scenes in the West Wing as risks mount from Russia probes.


By ASHLEY PARKER | 1:18PM EST - Saturday, November 25, 2017

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_975w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/25/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171101Trump21781.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/25/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171101Trump21781.JPG)
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner listens as President Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on November 1st.
 — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.


A MONTH AGO, President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser — made a surprise trip to Riyadh to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the fellow son of a world leader who is making waves with crackdowns and modernization efforts.

Kushner, 36, flew commercial, and the White House only announced the visit once he was already on the ground. There were no news releases touting the specifics of his meetings, which included two days of one-on-one and small private audiences with Salman, 32. White House officials said the trip was part of Kushner's effort as Trump's adviser to build regional support for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Just days after Kushner landed back in Washington, Salman launched a purge (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/saudi-arabia-detains-princes-ministers-and-billionaire-investor-in-extraordinary-purge/2017/11/05/ea0aa25c-c1fc-11e7-af84-d3e2ee4b2af1_story.html) of allegedly corrupt Saudi officials also seen as rivals to the prince and his father, King Salman. Kushner had no knowledge or advance warning of the move, and the topic was not natural for the two to discuss, a White House official close to him said. “Jared's portfolio is Israeli-Palestinian peace, and he respects what his lane is,” the official said.

The journey revealed Kushner as a figure who seems both near the center of power and increasingly marginalized at the same time. His once-sprawling White House portfolio, which came with walk-in privileges to the Oval Office, has been diminished to its original scope under Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, and he has notably receded from public view.

His still-evolving role in the investigations of Russian election interference and possible obstruction of justice also make him a potential risk to President Trump, even as he enjoys the special status of being married to the boss's daughter, Ivanka, and serving as one of the president's senior confidants. Kushner's family faces additional pressures over a troubled New York skyscraper at 666 Fifth Avenue, which he purchased in his role as head of his family's real estate business but from which he has divested since entering the administration.

In a rare interview in his West Wing office earlier this month — a silver bowl of Halloween candy still on the table — Kushner offered his own version of the fable of the fox, who knows many things, and the hedgehog, who knows one important thing.

“During the campaign, I was more like a fox than a hedgehog. I was more of a generalist having to learn about and master a lot of skills quickly,” he said. “When I got to D.C., I came with an understanding that the problems here are so complex — and if they were easy problems, they would have been fixed before — and so I became more like the hedgehog, where it was more taking issues you care deeply about, going deep and devoting the time, energy and resources to trying to drive change.”

This portrait of Kushner comes from interviews with Kushner himself, as well as 12 senior administration officials, aides, outside advisers and confidants, some of them speaking on the condition of anonymity to offer a more candid assessment.


(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_975w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/25/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171023Trump21436.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/25/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171023Trump21436.JPG)
Jared Kushner arrives before Trump and Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong speak at a news conference in the Rose Garden
at the White House on October 23rd. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.


Allies say Kushner's subtle shift into the background of the West Wing reflects his natural inclination to work hard and eschew the limelight. His enemies gloat that it stems from avoidable mis-steps that resulted from his political naivete.

Following recent reports, which the White House denied, that the president privately blames Kushner for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's widening probe, Breitbart, the conservative website, snarkily dubbed him “Mr. Perfect”. The nickname originated from promotional material Kushner's own family used, when trying to lure Chinese investors to their New Jersey real estate projects.

Some aides scoff at the notion that Kushner isn't still whispering to the president about official business. But one of Kelly's conditions for taking the job was that everyone, including Kushner and his wife, had to go through him to reach the president, and Kelly has made clear that Kushner reports to him, aides said.

The new hierarchy is part of Kelly's effort to sideline Kushner, said one Republican in frequent contact with the White House. Others say the order Kelly imposed has simply liberated Kushner to focus on his own portfolio — and eased some of the animosity his colleagues felt toward him.

Kushner said he welcomes the change. “The order allows this place to function,” Kushner said. “My number one priority is a high-functioning White House because I believe in the president's agenda, and I think it should get executed.”

He still maintains the broad portfolio he took on at the beginning of the administration that made him a punchline among aides on Capitol Hill: peace in the Middle East; matters regarding Canada, Mexico and China; and the Office of American Innovation, an in-house group that focuses on tackling longer-term government challenges.

He attends meetings of his innovation group once a week, often on a Tuesday or Wednesday for an hour-long check-in and progress update. The innovation office launched with great fanfare in March, but some aides recently said they could not pinpoint exactly what it has accomplished.

Kushner and his allies reject that assessment, saying the office is focused on long-term projects. They say, for example, that the group helped the Department of Veterans Affairs launch their electronic medical records initiative in June, with Kushner expediting the process by calling Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and asking him to send people from his department to help.

“If I ever get into a roadblock, we just elevate it to Jared,” said Chris Liddell, a senior White House official who works in the innovation office. “He's great at saying, ‘Can't we get so-and-so to come over?’ And we get it done on the spot.”


(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_975w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/25/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171016Trump21070.JPG) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/25/National-Politics/Images/Botsford171016Trump21070.JPG)
Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner listen as Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on October 16th.
 — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.


Kushner is one of the advisers helping on negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement, and he accompanied Trump on the first half of his Asia trip earlier this month.

But the main focus for Kushner, an Orthodox Jew, is working to bring peace to the Middle East — a task that has bedeviled negotiators far more experienced in the region for generations. What Kushner brings to the effort, say several senior White House officials, is personal relationships with players on all sides and a willingness to bet on long-shot outcomes.

Before Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with Trump at the White House in September, Kushner and Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt met him at the Mandarin Oriental for a two-hour breakfast. More recently, on Halloween, Kushner suggested that he and Greenblatt visit Saeb Erekat, the lead Palestinian peace negotiator, at the apartment in Virginia where he is recuperating from a lung transplant. After briefly considering, and then nixing, wine — Erekat is Muslim — Kushner ultimately brought chocolate.

“This is very much a human conflict and a human-to-human relationship,” Greenblatt said. “When you're able to touch somebody and talk about it, it's a meaningful engagement. It takes a certain personality, and Jared has that touch.”

Yet snags persist. A week ago, the Palestinians threatened to freeze all contact with the Trump administration after the State Department said the Palestine Liberation Organization's office in Washington could not remain open — a decision it backtracked on Friday (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-backtracks-on-decision-to-close-palestinian-office-in-dc/2017/11/24/705f7e7c-d175-11e7-a87b-47f14b73162a_story.html).

And Kushner's friendship with Mohammed bin Salman raised questions after the crown prince's anti-corruption campaign — which critics paint as an attempt to consolidate power but devotees say is part of his efforts as a reformer — as well as concerns from some that Saudi Arabia now feels further emboldened within the region.

The Mueller probe, meanwhile, is entering a new phase, with the special counsel announcing three indictments (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/manafort-and-former-business-partner-asked-to-surrender-in-connection-with-special-counsel-probe/2017/10/30/6fe051f0-bd67-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html) at the end of last month — including for Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort — while investigators begin to interview people close to the president's inner circle. Kushner has turned over documents to the House and Senate committees investigating possible collusion between Russia and Trump's campaign, although in a letter, the Senate Judiciary Committee recently complained (https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/senate-judiciary-panel-kushner-had-contacts-about-wikileaks-russian-overtures-he-did-not-disclose/2017/11/16/402586b4-cb05-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html) that Kushner had not been fully forthcoming — a charge his lawyer denies.

So far, Mueller has filed no court documents to suggest Kushner is in legal jeopardy, but people close to the case say investigators have been looking at his meetings with Russians before and after the election, as well as his role in discussions that led to the firing of FBI director James B. Comey.


(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_975w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/04/11/National-Politics/Images/2017-04-05T000432Z_1968698164_RC1D64447720_RTRMADP_3_MIDEAST-CRISIS-IRAQ-KUSHNER.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/04/11/National-Politics/Images/2017-04-05T000432Z_1968698164_RC1D64447720_RTRMADP_3_MIDEAST-CRISIS-IRAQ-KUSHNER.jpg)
Jared Kushner flies over Baghdad with military personnel in April. — Photograph: Reuters.

The news on Thanksgiving (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/flynns-lawyer-shuts-down-communications-with-trumps-team-a-sign-he-may-be-cooperating-with-mueller-probe/2017/11/23/75de75ea-d09b-11e7-81bc-c55a220c8cbe_story.html) that former national security adviser Michael Flynn's lawyers notified Trump's legal team that they could no longer share information about the Russia probe prompted speculation that Flynn may now be cooperating with Mueller — a potentially perilous sign for the president and his associates.

But friends say Kushner is even-keeled about the investigations. For him, they said, the most stressful moments came in May, amid news reports that he had tried to establish a secret back channel with Russia during the transition and that the FBI was probing his actions. He was frustrated, a White House official said, that he couldn't respond to the allegations until he went to be interviewed by Congress.

“Jared is an extraordinarily calm person,” said H.R. McMaster, the White House national security adviser. “I have never seen him distracted.”

He huddled with his lawyers for hours in the run-up to his testimony before Congress but is in less frequent daily contact now unless something from Mueller's probe specifically requires his attention, one White House official said.

Kushner's detractors point to his role in the Russia probe as another sign of his poor political skills and continued risk to the president. A Republican close to the White House said Kushner “has no judgment — never has and never will.”

But in some ways, Kushner appears more protected from the daily sniping that plagued the early months of Trump's presidency. Over the summer, a trio of advisers who were rivals to Kushner were pushed out of the West Wing: Stephen K. Bannon, then the president's chief strategist, who now runs Breitbart; Reince Priebus, the chief of staff; and Sean Spicer, the press secretary.

“He no longer is in an environment where he has an actual predator,” said one White House official, likening Kushner to Bannon's regular prey. “That has probably helped his working environment some.”

Kushner, with his whispery voice, has also proved one of the few people adept at absorbing Trump's anger. He can speak to Trump in a shared language of transaction from their days in the New York real estate world.

“I don't try to manage him,” Kushner said. “I try to give him my honest feedback. If he asks my advice on something, sometimes I'll give it, sometimes I'll say, ‘Let me go call a few people’, and then I'll give it.”


(https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_975w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/25/National-Politics/Images/Trump_China_29554-b952d.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/11/25/National-Politics/Images/Trump_China_29554-b952d.jpg)
Jared Kushner and national security adviser H.R. McMaster wait for President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to arrive for
a Chinese opera performance at the Forbidden City on November 8th in Beijing. — Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Associated Press.


McMaster said Kushner sometimes acts as a translator between the president and his senior advisers. “He helped a lot of us learn faster what's important to the president,” McMaster said. “His relationship with the president makes Jared valuable as an adviser to the president, and also as an adviser to the president's advisers.”

When Kushner's family first arrived in Washington, they agreed they would assess after six months whether they intended to stay. Trump himself has mused privately about the hit his daughter and son-in-law's reputation is taking because of their White House roles and about what a great and easy life they had back in New York. Others have questioned why someone like Kushner would put himself in Mueller's crosshairs by remaining in government.

But when the couple reassessed in July, they reached a decision. “We're here to stay,” Kushner said. “At the current moment, we're charging forward.”

He added, “My wife asked me the other day if we should be looking at new houses, so that's a good sign.”


• Ashley Parker is a White House reporter for The Washington Post. She joined The Post in 2017, after 11 years at The New York Times, where she covered the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns and Congress, among other things.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: How Jared Kushner rose to power (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/717886aa-425a-11e7-b29f-f40ffced2ddb_video.html)

 • When the Trump campaign and Russian actors overlapped (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/11/20/where-the-trump-campaign-and-russian-actors-overlapped)

 • ‘A long winter’: White House aides divided over scope, risks of Russia probe (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-long-winter-white-house-aides-divided-over-scope-risks-of-russia-probe/2017/11/19/497557c0-cbba-11e7-b244-2d22ac912500_story.html)

 • Kushner redevelopment plan for 666 Fifth Avenue deemed ‘not feasible’ by partner (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/kushner-redevelopment-plan-for-666-5th-ave-deemed-not-feasible-by-partner/2017/10/31/1214de9a-be54-11e7-97d9-bdab5a0ab381_story.html)

 • Enforcer or ‘choke point’? Kelly seeks to bring order to chaotic White House. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/enforcer-or-choke-point-kelly-seeks-to-bring-order-to-chaotic-white-house/2017/09/22/79783610-9fad-11e7-9083-fbfddf6804c2_story.html)

 • Analysis: Jared Kushner's quest for peace looks increasingly doomed (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/08/25/jared-kushners-quest-for-peace-looks-increasingly-doomed)

 • Jared Kushner turns out to be shadow diplomat on U.S.-Mexico talks (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/jared-kushner-a-shadow-diplomat-pulls-the-strings-on-us-mexico-talks/2017/02/09/aed2cf80-ef0b-11e6-9973-c5efb7ccfb0d_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-shrinking-profile-of-jared-kushner/2017/11/25/5baf7068-c103-11e7-af84-d3e2ee4b2af1_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-shrinking-profile-of-jared-kushner/2017/11/25/5baf7068-c103-11e7-af84-d3e2ee4b2af1_story.html)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on November 27, 2017, 12:40:01 am
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPe4MVTU8AE5wFB.jpg)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on December 18, 2017, 10:46:11 am
 ;D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwd-OG0_xGk


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on December 18, 2017, 09:45:53 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCSUdSv9Dzo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCSUdSv9Dzo)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on December 18, 2017, 10:03:05 pm

I am glad you posted that
now we can see you are a nazi jew hating soyboy
sadly you are still very stupid and so full of shit like a trans ass gobbler

is that bum fluff and dick cheese stuck between your teeth


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on December 18, 2017, 10:32:27 pm

(https://keeptalkinaboutthejews.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/trumpisrael2.jpg) (https://keeptalkinaboutthejews.wordpress.com/2017/09/27/zog-emperor-trump-could-get-us-all-killed)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on December 18, 2017, 10:34:58 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ_gDQM59Es (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ_gDQM59Es)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on December 18, 2017, 10:55:59 pm
Good job you hate everything

is there is no reason for you to live

Left brain out to lunch


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on December 18, 2017, 11:15:10 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrkPe-9rM1Q


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on December 19, 2017, 06:15:51 am
Hillary banked on " I have a vag, therefore you must vote for me". This failed.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on December 19, 2017, 01:44:58 pm
Our loony lefty is going nuts ;)

you gotta love how ktj has now embraced a conspiracy theory about the Ashkenazi Jews

these people are very smart they control the world both the left and right because they are the big money men in the world they have always controlled hollywood and msm they use it to program the minds of the people

they have very little to do with the real jews or trump even though to just exist he is forced to work with them
to get anything done
it was the same thing with obama,bush,clinton and every other world leader it is a very complex situation too hard for most to even fathom
as most people are too busy trying to make ends meet so they won't understand the big picture

these Ashkenazi zionist invented communism or took it over and used it as a means to an end   to sow disorder make money and power from it the theory is you create order out of chaos which they believe will
build them the world government which they will control


the video he posted although partly true is mostly misinformation with an anti trump bent a good conspiracy theory ktj move over alex jones lmao
but ktj bet you just love the influence jews had over communism  ;D


Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill, the Zionist, later helped the Jews to take control of Palestine.
But he was not uninformed about certain dark aspects of the Jews.

Jews in similar role in American Communism:

....I soon found out that Jews dominated the International Communist movement in modern times just as they had led Bolshevism in Russia early in the 20th century.

Jewish scribe Nathan Glazer stated matter-of-factly that in the 60s and 70s the Jews comprised half of all the active Communists in the United States and four out of five of its leaders.

Two Jews, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, led the Marxist-Oriented, Yippie Movement, and they were two of the five Jewish members of the revolutionary "Chicago Seven" group - tried for the violent disruption of the 1968 Democratic Convention.

I read a book called Behind Communism, and I was surprised to discover that at least 4 out of 5 of all those caught and convicted of Communist espionage and treason in the United States and Canada were Jews. More. 

See also: The Jewish Role in the Bolshevik Revolution

The percentage of Jews among the leaders of the Russian (Bolchewist) revolution and the Cheka death squads.

https://www.mosaisk.com/revolution/Winston-Churchill-Zionism-Versus-Bolshevism.php

Zionism versus Bolshevism:
A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People.

By the Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill.

(https://www.mosaisk.com/revolution/billeder/Winston-Churchill-Zionisten.jpg)



In 1920, Churchill wrote a long newspaper article of the recent Bolshevik seizure of Russia.

First he praised what he called the "national Jews" of Russia:

SOME people like Jews and some do not; but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world.

And it may well be that this same astounding race may at the present time be in the actual process of producing another system of morals and philosophy, as malevolent as Christianity was benevolent, which, if not arrested would shatter irretrievably all that Christianity has rendered possible. It would almost seem as if the gospel of Christ and the gospel of Antichrist were destined to originate among the same people; and that this mystic and mysterious race had been chosen for the supreme manifestations, both of the divine and the diabolical.

The National Russian Jews, in spite of the disabilities under which they have suffered, have managed to play an honourable and successful part in the national life even of Russia. As bankers and industrialists they have strenuously promoted the development of Russia's economic resources, and they were foremost in the creation of those remarkable organisations, the Russian Cooperative Societies. In politics their support has been given, for the most part, to liberal and progressive movements, and they have been among the staunchest upholders of friendship with France and Great Britain.


International Jews

"In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish efforts rise the schemes of the International Jews.

The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race.

Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world.

This movement among the Jews is not new.

From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxemburg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide revolutionary conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing.

It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster has ably shown, a definite recognizable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution.

It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworlds of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of the enormous empire.

There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creating of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistic Jews.

It is certainly the very great one; it probably outweighs all others.

With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews.

Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders...

Thus Tchitcherin, a pure Russian, is eclipsed by his nominal subordinate, Litvinoff, and the influence of Russians like Bukharin or Lunacharski cannot be compared with the power of Trotsky, or of Zinovieff, the Dictator of the Red Citadel (Petrograd), or of Krassin or Radek - all Jews.

In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more astounding. Table Leaders 

And the prominent if not the principal part in the system of terrorism applied by the extraordinary Commissions for combating Counter Revolution has been take by Jews, and in some notable cases by Jewesses. Table all members NKVD 

The same evil prominence was obtained by Jews in the brief period of terror during which Bela Kun (Cohen) ruled in Hungary.

The same phenomenon has been presented in Germany (especially Bavaria), so far as this madness has been allowed to prey upon the temporary prostration of the German people.

Although in all these countries there are many nonJews every whit as bad as the worst of the Jewish revolutionaries, the part played by the latter in proportion to their numbers in the population is astonishing.

    
"Protector of the Jews."

Needless to say, the most intense passions of revenge have been excited in the breasts of the Russian people.

Wherever General Denikin's authority could reach, protection was always accorded to the Jewish population, and strenuous efforts were made by his officers to prevent reprisals and to punish those guilty of them.

So much was this the case that the Petlurist propaganda against General Denikin denounced him as the Protector of the Jews. The Misses Healy, nieces of Mr. Tim Healy, relating their personal experiences in Kieff, have declared that to their knowledge on more than one occasion officers who committed offences against Jews were reduced to the ranks and sent out of the city to the front.

But the hordes of brigands by whom the whole vast expanse of the Russian Empire is becoming infested do not hesitate. to gratify their lust for blood and for revenge at the expense of the innocent Jewish population whenever an opportunity occurs.

The brigand Makhno, the hordes of Petlura and of Gregorieff, who signalised their every success by the most brutal massacres, everywhere found among the half-stupefied, half-infuriated population an eager response to anti-Semitism in its worst and foulest forms.

The fact that in many cases Jewish interests and Jewish places of worship are excepted by the Bolsheviks from their universal hostility has tended more and more to associate the Jewish race in Russia with the villainies which are now being perpetrated.


A Home for the Jews.

Zionism offers the third sphere to the political conceptions of the Jewish race. In violent contrast to international communism.

Zionism has already become a factor in the political convulsions of Russia, as a powerful competing influence in Bolshevik circles with the international communistic system. Nothing could be more significant than the fury with which Trotsky has attacked the Zionists generally, and Dr. Weissmann in particular.

The cruel penetration of his mind leaves him in no doubt that his schemes of a world-wide communistic State under Jewish domination are directly thwarted and hindered by this new ideal, which directs the energies and the hopes of Jews in every land towards a simpler, a truer, and a far more attainable goal.

The struggle which is now beginning between the Zionist and Bolshevik Jews is little less than a struggle for the soul of the Jewish people.

("Zionism versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People." ILLUSTRATED SUNDAY HERALD, London, February 8, 1920.)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on December 19, 2017, 01:46:59 pm
Hillary banked on " I have a vag, therefore you must vote for me". This failed.

Hillary was not very smart and she's a criminal they should lock her up
but i bet they wont lol


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on December 28, 2017, 09:37:27 am

A guide to SPIN DOCTORS (professional bullshit artists) on “spinning Donald J. Trump's lies”……


(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/12/1.gif) (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/12/1.gif)


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on December 28, 2017, 01:03:07 pm
Looks like Hillary getting a good washing in there 😁


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on December 29, 2017, 09:16:27 am
she needs more soapy suds it's a hard job removing all her shit
silly cow makes trump look like an angel


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on December 29, 2017, 10:08:11 am
How many refugees and how many dead in the Syria and Libya dumbocrat mess? Wonder why Hillary didn't want all those emails found.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on December 29, 2017, 11:16:53 am

Meanwhile, both Russia and Iran are taking advantage of the influence & power vacuum created in the Middle East by Donald J. Trump.

And elsewhere, China is also taking advantage of the influence & power vacuum created in Asia by Donald J. Trump.

I guess that's what happens when you have an idiot presiding over 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, eh?


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on December 29, 2017, 01:13:40 pm
meanwhile ktj hero falls in front of bus

A deafening media silence on the Obama-Hezbollah scandal
By David Harsanyi December 21, 201

(https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/iran-deal_obama.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=664&h=441&crop=1)

Politico published a jaw-dropping, meticulously sourced investigative piece this week detailing how the Obama administration had secretly undermined US law enforcement agency efforts to shut down an international drug-trafficking ring run by the terror group Hezbollah. The effort was part of a wider push by the administration to placate Iran and ensure the signing of the nuclear deal.
Now swap out “Trump” for “Obama” and “Russia” for “Iran” and imagine the eruption these revelations would generate. Because, by any conceivable journalistic standard, this scandal should’ve triggered widespread coverage and been plastered on front pages across the country. By any historic standard, the scandal should elicit outrage regarding the corrosion of governing norms from pundits and editorial boards.
Yet, as it turns out, there’s an exceptionally good chance most of your neighbors and colleagues haven’t heard anything about it.

Days after the news broke, in fact, neither NBC News, ABC News nor CBS News — whose shows can boast a collective 20 million viewers — had been able to find the time to relay the story to its sizeable audiences. Other than Fox News, cable news largely ignored the revelations as well.

Most major newspapers, which have been sanctimoniously patting themselves on the back for the past year, couldn’t shoehorn into their pages a story about potential collusion between the former president and a terror-supporting state.

Perhaps if President Trump had tweeted about the story, outlets would’ve squeezed something in.

Even when outlets did decide to cover the story, they typically framed it as a he-said/she-said. “Politico Reporter Says Obama Administration ‘Derailed’ Hezbollah Investigation,” reads the NPR headline. Did Josh Meyer of Politico say something about Obama or did he publish a 14,000-word, diligently sourced, document-heavy investigative piece? If you get your news from NPR, you’d never know.

Fact is, the Drug Enforcement Agency began its classified investigation (called Project Cassandra) into Hezbollah in 2008. It found that the Iranian proxy had laundered nearly a half a billion dollars and was moving cocaine to the United States. According to Politico, the Obama administration not only threw obstructions in front of investigators but failed to prosecute major players in the enterprise.

What makes the media blackout particularly shameful is that the story isn’t a partisan hit job. It was written by a well-regarded journalist at a major outlet. The story has two on-the-record sources — which is more than we can say for the vast majority of so-called scoops about the Russian “collusion” investigation. One of these sources, David Asher, was an illicit finance expert at the Pentagon who was tapped to run the investigation. There’s no plausible reason to ignore him or the story.
Then again, ignoring or diminishing Obama’s shady dealings with Iran isn’t new. Obama administration officials bragged to the New York Times Magazine last year that they’d created an echo chamber, relying on the ignorance, inexperience and partisan dispositions of reporters to convey their lies to the American people.
We saw this when the Obama administration claimed it was releasing 14 Iranian civilians on humanitarian grounds, when in fact it was releasing spies and weapons dealers. Or when Team Obama claimed diplomacy had won US hostages’ release, when it fact it had sent hundreds of millions of euros, Swiss francs and other currencies on wooden pallets in unmarked planes to Iran. The press was uninterested in those stories, too.

Establishment media personalities will often point out that none of us would have any knowledge of these incidents if not for their reporting. This is true. There are intrepid journalists at media institutions who aren’t swayed by partisan considerations.

The preponderance of editors, journalists, pundits and bookers, on the other hand, still coddle Democrats. They may do it on purpose or unconsciously, but it’s destroying their credibility. Because as David Burge once noted, “Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.”

https://nypost.com/2017/12/21/a-deafening-media-silence-on-the-obama-hezbollah-scandal/


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on December 29, 2017, 01:18:30 pm
but wait there's more Obama is a leftwing dumbass

Obama protected Hezbollah drug ring to save Iran nukes deal
By Ruth Brown and Danika Fears December 18, 2017

(https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/171218-obama-hezbollah-iran-deal-feature.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=664&h=441&crop=1)

The Obama administration stymied a sprawling investigation into the terror group Hezbollah — and its highly lucrative drug- trafficking networks — to protect the Iran nuclear deal, according to a bombshell report.

A team at the Drug Enforcement Administration had been working for almost a decade to bring down the Iran-backed militant organization’s sophisticated $1 billion-a-year drug ring, which laundered money and smuggled cocaine into the United States, Politico reported.

But the departments of Justice and Treasury repeatedly undermined agents’ efforts to arrest and prosecute key members of the criminal network — because the Obama White House feared upsetting Tehran ahead of the nuclear agreement, according to Politico.

Former Treasury official Katherine Bauer even admitted in little-noticed testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs last February that “under the Obama administration . . . these [Hezbollah-related] investigations were tamped down for fear of rocking the boat with Iran and jeopardizing the nuclear deal.”

When the Iran agreement took effect in January 2016, the investigation — dubbed Project Cassandra — was effectively dismantled.

“This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” said David Asher, an expert in illicit finance who helped found the project. “They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”

The task force worked for eight years out of a top-secret facility in Virginia, with the help of 30 American and foreign security agencies, to unravel the global crime syndicate that was funding Hezbollah’s jihadist operations.

Politico also reported that late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was in cahoots with then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah in cocaine trafficking and other activities meant to undermine US influence.

In 2007, Venezuela’s state-run Conviasa airline was ferrying drugs and cash from Caracas to Tehran via Syria each week, according to Politico.

DEA agents nicknamed the airline “Aeroterror” because the planes would come back carrying weapons, along with Hezbollah and Iranian operatives.

But the Obama administration never fought to have two major players in the scheme extradited to the United States to face charges when it had the opportunity, task force members charged.

Others the team sought to bring to justice were Abdallah Safieddine, Hezzbollah’s envoy to Tehran, and a shadowy operative nicknamed “Ghost,” whom it considered one of the biggest cocaine smugglers in the world.

“Hezbollah operates like the Gambino crime family on steroids, and [Safieddine] is its John Gotti,” ex-DEA agent Jack Kelly, who created the task force, told Politico. “Whatever Iran needs, Safieddine is in charge of getting it for them.”

Safieddine was ultimately linked to a massive drug-smuggling and money-laundering network allegedly led by Lebanese businessman Ayman Joumaa.

Agents discovered Joumaa had smuggled tons of cocaine into the States — then laundered $200 million a month by buying used cars from American dealers.

The cars were sent to Benin in West Africa, where satellite photos taken in 2015 showed rows upon rows of used cars in a lot.

But the Obama administration repeatedly thwarted efforts to prosecute Safieddine, Politico reported.

An Obama spokesman denied the operation was derailed for political reasons, noting several Hezbollah members were arrested.

Other administration officials suggested those involved were blind to the bigger picture.

“The world is a lot more complicated than viewed through the narrow lens of drug trafficking,” one official said. “So you’re not going to let CIA rule the roost, but you’re also certainly not going to let DEA do it either.”

https://nypost.com/2017/12/18/obama-protected-hezbollah-drug-ring-to-save-iran-nukes-deal/



Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on December 29, 2017, 01:23:14 pm

Trump has created a HUGE power & influence vacuum which is being exploited by other countries.

As America's influence in the world wanes, others are stepping into the breach.

See THIS THREAD (http://xtranewscommunity2.smfforfree.com/index.php/topic,15700.0.html).


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on December 30, 2017, 05:54:27 am
It doesn't matter what Trump does. Trump derangement syndrome means lefty crackpots will always go mental at ANYTHING he does.
It doesn't matter to lefties that Obama created one giant fuckup after another in the middle east. They are very quiet about all that, which just goes to show that lefties have mental problems.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: aDjUsToR on December 30, 2017, 06:10:13 am
"See THIS THREAD"

No thanks. I don't read lefty spam from lefty echo chambers.


Title: Re: Trump Derangement Syndrome. Treatment options.
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on December 30, 2017, 08:25:05 am

(https://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1111w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/12/21/Foreign/Images/APTOPIX_Philippines_Zoo_Christmas_11249-32aff.jpg) (https://www.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/12/21/Foreign/Images/APTOPIX_Philippines_Zoo_Christmas_11249-32aff.jpg)