The Donald Trump Thread


There were a couple of alleged attacks on US warships in the middle of October, and a US missile destroyer responded by obliterating a number of houthi controlled radar stations. I assumed that this was what Spicer was talking about. I did think his briefing was a bit blurry and got Iran's recent Ballistic Missile launch mixed up with the new Saudi warship incident. A UAE warship had been destroyed with a missile in a similar attack in the previous week to the attack on the USA warships. Interesting to note that some analysis of the UAE ships damage pointed the finger at a Chinese type missile. Not that you can blame the Houthi's trying to attack the USA, as the USA is directly aiding the Saudi attacks on them. Russia apparently moved a couple of destroyers into the area immediately after the radar station attack - it seemed to me in response, and to deter any continuation of the USA attacks.

Saudi of course was aiding the rebels in Syria, in response Iran was aiding the rebels in Yemen.

I haven't been following the middle east too closely the last couple of weeks, but it seems to me that Russia doesn't quite have Iran's back at present, at least not in the way it has for the last few years.

Saudis recent agreement to reduce oil production and thus allow oil prices to increase does help Russia - which was interesting. And Russia had knackered Saudi in Syria, with Russia even going so far as to form an alliance with Turkey, who had previously been working with Saudi.

Honestly, unless you're at this 24/7, you miss the moves that occur elsewhere on the board.
 
Look at this from Russia's Sputnik...

"Tehran has continued testing nuclear-capable missiles despite the nuclear arms deal signed between Iran and the US, China, France, the UK, Russia, and Germany. "

That's a real change of tone from Russia, following Flynn's statement at Spiders briefing yesterday.

https://sputniknews.com/us/201702021050290979-trump-nothing-off-the-table/

In the same briefing, Spicer clearly said there would be a further briefing by the NSA at 4:00pm EST to go into more detail about Flynns warning to Iran... indeed he refused to answer what "put on notice" meant, saying something along the lines of not wanting to preempt the NSA briefing where things would be made clearer... but as far as I could see, that 4pm NSA briefing never went ahead. At least I couldn't find any references to it. Which I thought was a little puzzling... maybe he meant the 4th, rather than 4pm
 
Howard Stern: Trump wants to be loved, presidency will be 'detrimental' to his mental health.
"I personally wish that he had never run, I told him that, because I actually think this is something that is gonna be detrimental to his mental health too, because, he wants to be liked, he wants to be loved," Stern said. "He wants people to cheer for him."

"I don't think it's going to be a healthy experience. And by the way, he's now on this anti-Hollywood kick. He loves Hollywood. First of all, he loves the press. He lives for it. He loves people in Hollywood. He only wants hobnob with them. All of this hatred and stuff directed towards him. It's not good for him. It's not good. There's a reason every president who leaves the office has grey hair."(...)

"I like Donald very much personally. I was shocked when he decided to run for president, and even more shocked that sort of, people took it seriously," Stern said.

"I remember saying to him when he announced his presidency, I remember being quite amazed, because I remember him being for Hillary Clinton," Stern added.

"And I remember him being very--I mean he was pro-abortion. So the new Donald Trump kind of surprised me."
DT was actually a lot more fun in that clip.
 
Even more swamp draining - Trump's main advisor makes shit up about a non-existent massacre: http://www.vox.com/world/2017/2/2/14494478/bowling-green-massacre

Another example of the most ridiculous and juvenile of distortions this administration just can't leave alone. It is utterly confounding that this has become such a regular feature of the Trumpian discourse. Shame it is fused with a truly despicable attempt to shut down legitimate journalism by branding it "fake news" ... a tactic of delegitimisation commonly applied in totalitarian states.
 
Another example of the most ridiculous and juvenile of distortions this administration just can't leave alone. It is utterly confounding that this has become such a regular feature of the Trumpian discourse. Shame it is fused with a truly despicable attempt to shut down legitimate journalism by branding it "fake news" ... a tactic of delegitimisation commonly applied in totalitarian states.

Who decides which brand of "journalism" is "legitimate", and how? Are only alternative news which may be branded and sigmatised? Only, maybe, only right-wing and/or pro-Trump alternative news? And why did everyone forget is it is "legitimate" mainstream jornalists who were first to use pejorative label "fake news", and now tasting their own medicine? And - most importantly - why almost no one understands that the very notion of "fake news" is just an excuse to dismiss opposing viewpoints without a second of scrutiny?!! And that mutual hostility between Left and Right is reaching such epic proportions and wild intensity that prospect of an actual civil war is more real every day?!!

Well, maybe it is how it should be? All waves of humanisation and liberation appeared after episodes of nightmarish slaughter (1960s - 1970s cultural revolution would not have happened without the horror of World War 2, for example). Do we need another tormentous lesson like this? Each day, the last sparks of hope for achieving some mutual dialogue without preceeding it with large-scale destruction is disappearing...
 
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Who decides which brand of "journalism" is "legitimate", and how? Are only alternative news which may be branded and sigmatised? Only, maybe, only right-wing and/or pro-Trump alternative news? And why did everyone forget is it is "legitimate" mainstream jornalists who were first to use pejorative label "fake news", and now tasting their own medicine? And - most importantly - why almost no one understands that the very notion of "fake news" is just an excuse to dismiss opposing viewpoints without a second of scrutiny?!! And that mutual hostility between Left and Right is reaching such epic proportions and wild intensity that prospect of an actual civil war is more real every day?!!

Well, maybe it is how it should be? All waves of humanisation and liberation appeared after episodes of nightmarish slaughter (1960s - 1970s cultural revolution would not have happened without the horror of World War 2, for example). Do we need another tormentous lesson like this? Each day, the last sparks of hope for achieving some mutual dialogue without preceeding it with large-scale destruction is disappearing...

This isn't about deciding what's 'fake news' and what's not, nor is it about scoring cheap little schadenfreude points against liberals. This is about a senior administration official, literally stating that an event took place that didn't, as a way of justifying a recent diktat.
 
why almost no one understands that the very notion of "fake news" is just an excuse to dismiss opposing viewpoints without a second of scrutiny?!! And that mutual hostility between Left and Right is reaching such epic proportions and wild intensity that prospect of an actual civil war is more real every day?!!
We're on the fucking Disney ride, brother! Do you think any one of us wouldn't stop this thing if there was even the slightest possibility? Arnold wasn't kidding. People are not sleeping. Lots of them.
 
This is a no win. Trump continues and he rips the heart out of everything. Trump is stopped and there is a civil war. My neighbor hangs with a bunch of Trumpies. They have full body armor. Kevlar helmets. Armor piercing bullets. Lot's are ex-military or else just effed up gun nuts. They are ready to fight. I shit you not, this is the tattoo he just got this week:

Praise be to the Lord my Rock,
who trains my hands for war,
my fingers for battle.
 
Who decides which brand of "journalism" is "legitimate", and how? Are only alternative news which may be branded and sigmatised? Only, maybe, only right-wing and/or pro-Trump alternative news? And why did everyone forget is it is "legitimate" mainstream jornalists who were first to use pejorative label "fake news", and now tasting their own medicine? And - most importantly - why almost no one understands that the very notion of "fake news" is just an excuse to dismiss opposing viewpoints without a second of scrutiny?!! And that mutual hostility between Left and Right is reaching such epic proportions and wild intensity that prospect of an actual civil war is more real every day?!!

Well, maybe it is how it should be? All waves of humanisation and liberation appeared after episodes of nightmarish slaughter (1960s - 1970s cultural revolution would not have happened without the horror of World War 2, for example). Do we need another tormentous lesson like this? Each day, the last sparks of hope for achieving some mutual dialogue without preceeding it with large-scale destruction is disappearing...

I am not at all convinced that the Chinese cultural revolution was a good thing.
 
ForeignPolicy.com: Trump Has Already Blown It

The president could have started a foreign-policy revolution. Instead, he triggered a foreign-policy revolt.

The White House announced an unlawful ban on Muslim immigrants, and rolled the new policy out as ineptly as possible. I mean, seriously: They shut the door on hundreds of extensively vetted refugees on Holocaust Remembrance Day (thereby invoking memories of the country’s callous response to Nazi persecution in the 1930s), and then they doubled-down by deliberately excluding any mention of Jews from the official statement on the day itself. One guess about which of their supporters Trump and Bannon were trying to appeal to with that slick move.

Meanwhile, he is openly flirting with a trade war that would damage the entire world economy, including ours, yet with no apparent purpose or endgame in mind. After telling us that he knows “much more” than the generals, his “secret plan” for dealing with the Islamic State turns out to be “ask the Defense Department to come up with one,” as if nobody at the Pentagon had given any thought to the matter. Trump’s rash and ill-considered Muslim ban was a blunder here as well, as it will make Iraqis even more reluctant to cooperate with us, and they’re the ones who are currently fighting and dying to drive the Islamic State from the cities it still controls. And his national security advisor, Michael Flynn, has started saber-rattling with Iran. Instead of getting us out of fruitless conflicts in the Middle East, Trump and Bannon’s obsession with Islam makes a true and costly “clash of civilizations” more likely.

Meanwhile, what has been the impact of these brilliant strategic moves? For starters, foreign leaders who like the United States are learning that being nice to Trump can hurt them at home (and earns them no favors in Washington anyway). Our adversaries — from the Islamic State to Beijing to Iran — have been handed powerful new arguments with which to embarrass, delegitimize, and undermine America’s image and reputation. And perhaps most remarkable of all, a president elected by the smallest percentage of the popular vote in history has seen his approval ratings continue to fall, even as an unlikely opposing coalition of opponents begins to form against him. If you’re still among his supporters, this cannot be an encouraging sign.

Or consider this. For the past 15 years or more, people like me have been consistently and at times powerfully critical of American neoconservatives. I still regard their views on U.S. grand strategy and U.S. Middle East policy as dangerous and wrong, and I believe they bear considerable responsibility for the continuing fiasco we are dealing with in the Middle East. If William Kristol, Eliot Cohen, or David Frum got close to wielding power again, I’d worry that their advice might be taken seriously and I’d do what I could to challenge their analysis and their prescriptions. But as of today we’re on the same side, because the threat that Trump, Bannon, and their incompetent cronies pose to our constitutional order and core political values overrides our continuing differences on other foreign-policy questions. The neocons may change their tune if Trump does decide to attack Iran — we’ll see — but for now their concerns are justified and their warnings should be heeded.

It takes a danger of considerable magnitude to get realists and neoconservatives to agree on anything, but we agree on Trump. And you can add to that unlikely coalition the traditional left, the largely apolitical civil service, the heads of a growing number of major corporations, and many dedicated foreign-policy professionals Trump might have won over but didn’t even bother to try.

The solutions part of the article seems hyperbolic to me (Impeachment? Coup? Really?) but the first part was an interesting read.
 
ForeignPolicy.com: Trump Has Already Blown It

The president could have started a foreign-policy revolution. Instead, he triggered a foreign-policy revolt.





The solutions part of the article seems hyperbolic to me (Impeachment? Coup? Really?) but the first part was an interesting read.

Two weeks in, and he's blown it... lol... so much crap in that article I gave up after a few paragraphs... and they wanted me to pay 7.99 a month for impartial reporting, what a joke.
 
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