The Many Faces of US Politics...

[seafoid]

Trump does a U-turn on NATO

Get used to those words.

2 Guardian headlines

Trump admits Nato no longer obsolete
Trump tones down China criticism

He makes it up as he goes along

[armaghniac]

On Twitter, US drops 'mother of all bombs' on ISIS target in Afghanistan!
Biggest non nuclear bomb around, apparently.

Let's hope there were no civilians there. 

[seafoid]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1Lb1c2WML8

[Eamonnca1]

POTUS

• Two brain-melting interviews were published today, one with the Wall Street Journal, the other with Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo.
In the WSJ interview, the president reversed himself on the following positions:

• China's Currency

Then: The Chinese are "currency manipulators," artificially depressing their currency so as to keep positive trade balances.

Now: "They are not."

Thing is, he's right. The Chinese stopped keeping the yuan low six years ago and have been propping it up as their economy as slowed.

• Low Interest Rates

Then: Blasted the Federal Reserve forit. Said it was politically motivated and would lead to hyperinflation.

Now: "I do like a low interest-rate policy."

• Fed Chair Janet Yellen

Then: Replace her

Now: Open to reappointing her. "I like her, I respect her."

• Export-Import Bank

Then: It's unnecessary.

Now: Small companies are "really helped" by it.

This one's really going to ruffle feathers across the GOP as they've been trying to kill it off for a while. It makes loans to int'l businesses to promote US exports and was in the budget cuts leaked in February.

• Strength of the Dollar

Then: Calls National Security Adviser Mike Flynn at 3 AM to ask him if stronger or weaker is better.

Now: "Dollar is getting too strong, and partially that's my fault because people have confidence in me."

Fox News/Bartiromo
• The president blamed "obstructionist" Democrats for the understaffing of the government. On March 1 he told Fox & Friends that the over 500 empty positions requiring executive nominations were going to go unfilled "because they're unnecessary." Of 553 key positions requiring Senate confirmation, 478 so far have no nominee. As of Tuesday, only 22 nominees had been confirmed.

• Obliquely threatened FBI Director James Comey's job.

• Claimed Comey "saved Hillary Clinton" because "she was guilty on every charge." "Director Comey was very, very good to Hillary Clinton, that I can tell you. If he weren't, she would be, right now, going to trial."
What charges? She was never charged with a single thing.

• When asked if he'd then push for her prosecution, since he brought up Clinton and he's so convinced of her guilt, suddenly changed the subject: "No, I don't want to talk about that."

• Reversed course on dropping health care as he had said the week of the failed vote.
This is because if the savings from kicking millions off health care don't go through, then the massive tax cuts the GOP wants to make later this year will balloon the deficit and they won't be able to pass them with only 51 votes. But he won't say that. Probably because he doesn't understand Ryan's scheme.

• Claimed health care reform wasn't a failure and blasted the "fake news" for reporting that the effort failed by the deadline that he himself had set.

• Tied his infrastructure package to health care reform, because he has no idea about anything.

• Said definitively "we're not going into Syria." I thought he didn't like to telegraph his intentions or take options off the table?

• Castigated the Obama administration for doing exactly what he had said to do at the time — not attacking Syria in 2013 in retaliation for the gas attack that killed over 1,000 in Damascus.

• Was surprised that China couldn't just tell North Korea what to do. This was after he told China to tell North Korea what to do, and President Xi gave him a ten-minute lecture of the thousands of years of history between the Chinese and Koreans. "I realized it's not so easy. I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power" over North Korea. But it's not what you would think."

• Related a thoroughly amusing anecdote about the time he had dinner with President Xi.
"I was sitting at the table. We had finished dinner. We're now having dessert. And we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you've ever seen and President Xi was enjoying it.

So what happens is I said we've just launched 59 missiles heading to Iraq and I wanted you to know this. And he was eating his cake. And he was silent."
Silent? Because he probably thought you were a f**king psychopath for bragging about this over cake.

This is what f**king BOND VILLAINS DO.

"Try the cherries, I had them flown in from Macedonia this morning. By the way, I've just killed half of Copenhagen."

Also, stop promoting your goddamn properties. And no one is impressed that you think you impressed the president of China.

• He additionally reversed course on NATO after meeting with the Secretary General. You know, that "obsolete" band of freeloading hippies over in Europe that he wanted to leave behind. Well now "they made a change and they do fight terrorism. It's no longer obsolete."

The one and only time that NATO invoked the Article Five common defense clause was after the U.S. was attacked in 2001. They've been fighting terrorism for a long time, and sure the families of soldiers from NATO member country that died in Afghanistan are happy to hear you shut the hell up about this.
Health Care Reform

• The president is attempting to use ACA subsidy payments as leverage on Democrats to come to the negotiating table. The government is set to pay out $7b to insurers to offset the medical bills of low-income customers. If the future of the payments are even in question, more insurers are going to drop out for 2018 which will damage more marketplaces and literally hurt — or kill — people. Even the Chamber of Commerce, which wants the ACA gone, does not want this line of attack followed.

If it's not clear to everyone yet let me spell this out. Despite his constant boasts to that effect, the president is not a negotiator. In order to have a negotiation you need to understand the issue, know your position and it's very helpful to have a grasp of your opponent's position. He has no negotiating skills. What he has is what he believes will most benefit him, and then the force of either his personality or a phalanx of lawyers to bury people who can't afford to oppose him. He is a bully, and one who doesn't care who he has to hurt in order to make himself look good.

• On Monday, Health & Human Services suggested to the New York Times that they'd be continuing the payments. On Tuesday they reversed course, ripped the Times and said no decision had been made. What happened? The president himself reamed Secretary Price and dictated a HHS statement blaming the Democrats for any and all problems.

State Department
• Turns out Secretary Rex Tillerson met with Russian President Vladimir Putin after all. But you won't see any photos because he ditched his press pool again.

• Carol Morello of the Washington Post was trying to get the Secretary to answer some questions about Russia & Syria at a photo op when she was slapped down by Sergei Lavrov, the Foreign Minister of a country where journalists are routinely imprisoned or murdered. "Who was bringing you up? Who was giving you your manners?" He demanded over the microphone. Sitting opposite him, Secretary Tillerson smirked.

The Sleepiest Cabinet Secretary
• Housing & Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson was trapped inside an elevator for 20 minutes this morning as he was touring the Courtside Family Apartments in Miami.

The administration's budget cuts repair funds for public housing by 32%. Tens of billions of dollars in backlogged repairs already plague the country's 1.2 million public housing units, according to a 2010 HUD report.

EPA
• Administrator Scott Pruitt has requested 24/7 armed protection. According to Myron Ebell, who led Trump's EPA transition team, Pruitt is at risk from his own employees—and "the left." This would necessitate hiring ten new security officers, doubling the size of the security staff.

The man who should be protecting the nation's natural resources and its citizens from environmental threats is actively dismantling those protections while demanding increased protection of his own personal safety. The irony is nauseating.

• Meanwhile, the EPA is proposing eliminating two programs that protect children from lead paint poisoning. In 2014 a CDC report found 243,000 children had blood lead levels above the danger threshold. But f**k 'em, right Scotty? One program certifies renovators who work in older buildings, and does education & outreach. That costs $2.56mm/yr. The other is $14.05mm/yr in grants to state & tribal programs to address lead-based paint issues. The EPA argues that states can do this work — and then eliminates the money they need to do the work.

The States
• North Carolina's going to need its own section soon. Legislators there are miffed over being cajoled into repealing HB2 (except it wasn't really a repeal, the new law does much the same stuff), in part by the ACC & NCAA's removal of any championship events from the state. A new bill filed this week would require that if the ACC ever boycotts the state again, UNC & NC State would be withdrawn from the conference.
Short-sighted, mean, & petty is pretty much par for the course for NC legislators at this point. Administrators from the schools were not contacted prior to the bill's filing. Had they been, I'm sure that they would have explained how the state and the schools have far more to lose under such a scheme than the ACC does.

Paul Manafort
• The former campaign chair and advisor to dictators around the world has been confirmed to have received $1.2mm in off-the-books payments in 2007 & 2009 from the regime of Ukrainian president & Putin puppet Viktor Yanukovich. The payments are listed in a ledger that surfaced last August, and Manafort called it a fabrication. Now he is acknowledging that he received payments directed through shell companies registered in Belize that match amounts in the ledger, but that it was all on the up-and-up.

This has been Day 83 in Trumpistan. Good night!

[moysider]

On Twitter, US drops 'mother of all bombs' on ISIS target in Afghanistan!
Biggest non nuclear bomb around, apparently.

Let's hope there were no civilians there.

Unfortunately the day is long gone worrying about civilians? 100 years ago in WW1 when there was some pretence of a 'soldier war'.

This bomb looks like something designed for purpose and has been on hold for years. Specific to be effective to generate a blast wave that will be devastating in caves. Compressed air in caves will .......

[mrdeeds]

On the brink of nuclear war. Good Friday so.

[stew]

On the brink of nuclear war. Good Friday so.

Will never happen, the Chinese will take this **** UN out before that happens.

Liberals are such drama queens, Obama shoukld have put manners on this **** years ago, come to think about it, Bush should have taken out his predecessor, this is a bipartisan clusterfuck.

[seafoid]

On the brink of nuclear war. Good Friday so.

Will never happen, the Chinese will take this **** UN out before that happens.

Liberals are such drama queens, Obama shoukld have put manners on this **** years ago, come to think about it, Bush should have taken out his predecessor, this is a bipartisan clusterfuck.

Trump.is with the swamp. Nothing like bombs to distract people from political failure.

Syria is a Russian satellite. NK is a Chinese satellite. Why doesn't he bomb Saudi?

[J70]

On the brink of nuclear war. Good Friday so.

Will never happen, the Chinese will take this **** UN out before that happens.

Liberals are such drama queens, Obama shoukld have put manners on this **** years ago, come to think about it, Bush should have taken out his predecessor, this is a bipartisan clusterfuck.

What should Obama and Bush have done?

Go in and take them out like they did with Saddam?

[johnneycool]

On the brink of nuclear war. Good Friday so.

Will never happen, the Chinese will take this **** UN out before that happens.

Liberals are such drama queens, Obama shoukld have put manners on this **** years ago, come to think about it, Bush should have taken out his predecessor, this is a bipartisan clusterfuck.

Look how well the removal of Colonel Gadaffi went in Libya

What should Obama and Bush have done?

Go in and take them out like they did with Saddam?

[Keyser soze]

On the brink of nuclear war. Good Friday so.

Will never happen, the Chinese will take this **** UN out before that happens.

Liberals are such drama queens, Obama shoukld have put manners on this **** years ago, come to think about it, Bush should have taken out his predecessor, this is a bipartisan clusterfuck.

Loony.

[seafoid]

Kushner is Trump's son in law

https://twitter.com/sparksjls/status/853285559044890625

[seafoid]

@realDonaldTrump  9 oct. 2012


Now that Obama's poll numbers are in tailspin – watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran.  He is desperate.

[Íseal agus crua isteach a]

The United States government has always been the biggest terrorists in the planet if you're to go by civilian deaths. 

[heganboy]

"always" is a bit of a stretch for a country founded July 2nd 1776.
Yes it's July 2nd on purpose...