Betrayal
The Trump scandal has grown weirder and more dangerous than any of us could have imagined. At the time of the election we thought we were just getting incompetence and ignorant arrogance, but it has turned out we elected a gang of criminals who are getting rich by treating our government as a resource for their businesses. Everything you hate about corporate greed -- you got it. It is so clear and yet so hard to put your finger on, because every day the crisis has morphed into some new form of crazy emergency. The simple technique Trump uses is to drown the truly important information in details that demand our attention.
David Corn has an important article at Mother Jones that makes this point. I will just feature one paragraph from his piece, the core point:
David Corn has an important article at Mother Jones that makes this point. I will just feature one paragraph from his piece, the core point:
In 2016, Vladimir Putin’s regime mounted information warfare against the United States, in part to help Trump become president. While this attack was underway, the Trump crew tried to collude covertly with Moscow, sought to set up a secret communications channel with Putin’s office, and repeatedly denied in public that this assault was happening, providing cover to the Russian operation. Trump and his lieutenants aligned themselves with and assisted a foreign adversary, as it was attacking the United States. The evidence is rock-solid: They committed a profound act of betrayal. That is the scandal. Donald Trump Is Getting Away With the Biggest Scandal in American HistoryEach day we can argue over football players kneeling or Cabinet members abusing their positions, who's playing who in the North Korea talks, whether Sessions should have recused himself or not, the horror in Flint or Puerto Rico or Raqqa, people without security clearances handling classified information and negotiating with foreign leaders, families broken up in heartbreaking scenes, school shootings and the greedy cynicism of the NRA, nepotism and the entanglement of personal business with government activities, why the guy can't spell, what has happened to Melania or what were the real reasons for dropping the ZTE sanctions -- several things every single day -- and the chaos keeps us from seeing the real story. Many of these things, taken separately, would be crises in another presidency, these would be historical controversies; it even works on the legal level, no one has the time to investigate these multitudes of daily crimes and press charges. By the sheer volume of distraction Trump keeps the public from understanding what is going on; the real story is in Corn's paragraph quoted above.
posted by JimK at 9:27 AM
330 Comments:
Patriotism, Samuel Johnson told us long ago, is the last refuge of a scoundrel. President Trump just made it the last refuge of the jilted.
Here, on the South Lawn of the White House on Tuesday afternoon, there was to have been a celebration honoring the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles , but it turned out very few Eagles actually wanted to be celebrated by Trump. So Trump, to spare himself the snub, disinvited the team because, he said, they disagree with him about standing for the national anthem — even though all members of the Eagles stood for the anthem all season long.
Instead, Trump declared a “Celebration of America.” He ordered the U.S. Marine Band and the U.S. Army Chorus to “loudly and proudly play the national anthem” — or, presumably, face court-martial if they played pianissimo.
The result was one of the oddest White House events in recent memory. It lasted six minutes from “Oh, say, can you see” to the last “my home sweet home” in “God Bless America,” and Trump’s three-minute speech was interrupted at the beginning by a heckler.
“Stop hiding behind the armed services and the national anthem to attack your fellow citizens,” called out the man, who had taken a knee. At this point, several booed the heckler, but the confusion created the appearance that the president was being booed.
Trump used his solemn patriotic address to give a campaign speech from the White House: urging the election of a Republican Senate candidate from Pennsylvania, taking credit for low unemployment and boasting that he has the approval of deceased Americans.
After invoking “fallen heroes who never made it back home,” Trump said of those forebears: “Many of them are looking down right now at our country, and they are proud.”
In addition to channeling the dead, Trump channeled monarchs of yore, referring to himself in the third person: “The Philadelphia Eagles . . . disagree with their president because he insists that they proudly stand for the national anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military,” the man who received five draft deferments said in a written statement.
The real reason for Trump’s cancellation: Few players were planning to come to his party. “It’s a cowardly act to cancel the celebration because the majority of the people don’t want to see you,” tweeted wide receiver Torrey Smith, who played for the Eagles last season. “To make it about the anthem is foolish.”...
Before the event, the White House put out a statement saying “the vast majority of the Eagles team decided to abandon their fans.” But the 1,000 or so who came to the event were a suspicious group of football fans: almost all in business suits and only a few wearing Eagles paraphernalia. One attendee said all workers in the White House complex were invited to attend the event but were told to hide their credentials — the better to impersonate Eagles fans.
One of the few who did show support for the Eagles was the heckler. “Let’s hear it for the Eagles!” he shouted, as audience members booed him.
A man claiming to be the heckler, software developer Brendan Martin, later told me his civil disobedience was a way of “showing solidarity with my fellow citizens.” Said Martin: “It’s the job of elected officials to stand up to this out-of-control president, but if they won’t I will.”
The Eagles organization, for its part, shrugged off Trump’s antics, issuing a mild statement saying that “watching the entire Eagles community come together has been an inspiration” and calling an off-season practice for Tuesday.
Essentially, the team just ignored Trump. If only we all could do the same. But it’s hard to fly with the Eagles when the president is acting like a turkey.
know you guys don't much outside of your world view, but here's some thoughts on the baker ruling from an evangelical magazine, if you're interested:
The case of a Christian baker refusing to design a cake for a same-sex wedding became, in the eyes of many, the most-anticipated Supreme Court decision of the year because justices had a chance to finally resolve America’s ongoing struggle to balance sincerely held faith convictions and LGBT protections.
But in Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the court’s 7–2 ruling did not establish a new precedent outright allowing or barring Christian business owners from serving customers based on their faith convictions. Instead, the narrow decision favored baker Jack Phillips over a state agency that the high court ruled had demonstrated an unconstitutional hostility toward his Christian beliefs.
CT asked religious liberty experts to weigh in on what the complicated ruling actually means for conservative Christian business owners in the wedding industry:
Thomas Berg, professor of law and public policy at the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota):
This is the court’s first tangle with the issue of religious vendor refusals and LGBT rights, and the justices obviously wanted to proceed slowly. But there are other cases coming, including the Washington florist currently before the court. The justices will have to accept another one for review if they want any control over what this opinion means.
The court indicates that the interests of both LGBT people and religious objectors must be taken seriously—a central theme of the amicus brief that University of Virginia professor Douglas Laycock and I filed for the LDS Church and other groups. But the court doesn’t say exactly what that means. Does it just mean no outright hostility to a religious belief? Or might it mean that the interests of traditionalist Christians in following their faith while in business must be weighed significantly in the balance?
The latter would give more protection. And note that the court does say that one piece of evidence of state hostility is if the decision-makers tell you to leave your beliefs behind when you “do business in this state.” However, Masterpiece makes it clear that protections from antidiscrimination law in the commercial sphere will be narrow—limited to objections tied to a specific event like a wedding—because LGBT people have a strong interest in receiving full service in the market.
At a very general level, the decision indicates that the Court will take a flexible view toward whether a law is “neutral and generally applicable toward religion” under the free exercise clause test that has been used since 1990. The state clearly cannot win just by showing that the text of a law does not single out religion. The court will look at the background of the law—including both lawmakers’ explicit statements and the nature of their reasoning—to find even “subtle departures” from neutrality. That could strengthen the free exercise clause across the board, not just in cases involving LGBT rights.
Michael W. McConnell, director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution:
Justice Kennedy's opinion in favor of the Christian baker, for a 7-2 majority, was scrupulously cautious in refusing to comment on possible future cases or broader implications. But no one should mistake the principle.
If a state recognizes the right of shopkeepers to refuse service on the basis of secular principles, it cannot punish others who refuse service on the basis of religious principles. The case might be different if all bakers were required to bake all cakes expressing all ideas—but Colorado did not have such a rule.
Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission:
The decision was right and good, regardless of whether it was as broad and sweeping as it could possibly be. The court here decided that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission treated the religious beliefs of Jack Phillips with impermissible hostility and animus. Along the way, the majority opinion asserted strongly that courts must treat people of faith neutrally and that any kind of animus or hostility is itself a violation of religious liberty.
Over the last few years, we have seen serious questioning by some of the value of religious liberty and even open contempt expressed in the Senate toward the religious beliefs of nominated judges and other administration officials. This makes Justice Kennedy’s comments on the value of religious liberty on behalf of himself and 6 other justices all the more welcome. The concurring opinions of Justices Gorsuch and Thomas were even more insistent and provided a robust defense of religious liberty and the government’s duty to protect, not police, the free exercise of religious belief.
So while it’s unclear what this decision will mean for similar cases and others in the wedding industry, Jack Phillips was still victorious today. And further, we should be thankful for the court’s demand that the cases of others who work in the wedding industry must be considered and decided neutrally, fairly, and without hostility or animus.”
Michael V. Hernandez, dean and professor of the Regent University School of Law:
This was a typical Roberts court opinion, decided on the most narrow grounds possible to obtain a consensus. Although it is encouraging that seven justices voted to overturn Phillips’ fine, the opinion leaves the most pressing issues (broad protection of religious liberty and freedom of speech) unresolved. It upholds only the principle that the application of antidiscrimination laws must be neutral, generally applicable, and not grounded in animus to religious belief.
State actors are now on notice that they may not target traditional religious belief and expression explicitly in word or in deed. If state officials cloak their opposition to traditional religious belief in neutral terms and actions, the next battle will be over whether free speech protection extends to traditional Christian beliefs on these issues. Only Justices Thomas and Gorsuch explicitly indicated that they would extend that protection to conservative Christian wedding cake bakers.
It is shocking, but not surprising, that Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor asserted in dissent that the overt animus of members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was irrelevant because a state statute protecting gay rights trumps the constitutional protection of religious liberty. The implications of their extreme view are truly staggering and frightening.
Eric Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel at religious liberty firm Becket:
Becket urged the court to decide the case on the basis of the free exercise clause, and that is what the court did. And because of that, this case has broad implications for other religious liberty conflicts, involving not just wedding vendors, but many other religious people too.
The decision breaks new doctrinal ground in a couple of places … For example, Justice Kennedy adopts the two-Justice part of Lukumi and turns it into newly binding precedent in this passage: “Factors relevant to the assessment of governmental neutrality include ‘the historical background of the decision under challenge, the specific series of events leading to the enactment or official policy in question, and the legislative or administrative history, including contemporaneous statements made by members of the decisionmaking body.”
What this means as a practical matter is that in a variety of situations it will matter much more what the legislators, adjudicators, and government officials say about the religious beliefs and practices in question, and much less what those same officials think about whether those religious beliefs and practices offend someone. The court used a fairly broad definition of what constitutes hostility toward religion, so referring to “hateful beliefs” could get an anti-discrimination law invalidated. And saying that someone was offended will be no justification for a law.
The main takeaway from today’s decision is that both the Constitution and the Supreme Court are saying that we should all try and get along in this fractious country of ours. We at Becket strongly believe it’s worth a try.
The ruling was "narrow." The Court did not like the way the commission considered the religious argument in this one particular instance. No precedent is set.
I am curious, actually. If someone had to prove in court that their religion prohibited baking a cake for a gay couple, how would they do that? There is no scripture on the point, obviously. And if they brought in preachers to assert the argument, the other side could bring in just as many preachers saying the opposite.
I cannot imagine how anyone would persuade a court that they should be allowed to engage in otherwise-illegal discrimination on religious grounds, unless their religion literally says you can't do business with a certain class of people. Since it's the opposite of what Jesus said, I do not expect this to be an easy case to make.
Zach Wahls was a 19-year-old engineering student when he testified to the Iowa state House of Representatives about his moms. “In classroom discussions, the question always comes to, well, can gays even raise kids,” he said in 2011, speaking before a panel of lawmakers weighing a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in the state. “And the conversation gets quiet for a moment because most people don’t have an answer. And then I raise my hand and say I was raised by a gay couple and I’m doing pretty well.” Wahl told the committee that he was an Eagle Scout who had started his own small business. “If I was your son, Mr. Chairman,” he said. “I believe I’d make you very proud.”
Wahls became a viral star. He went on Ellen. He spoke at the Democratic National Convention. And on Tuesday, he won his Democratic primary for a deep-blue Iowa state Senate seat, all but assuring the 26-year-old of a spot in the chamber next year.
A few other things stand out from yesterday's primaries:
Millennials Are Entering Politics
Wahls is part of a deliberate youth movement in the party that has been egged on by groups like Run for Something, which recruit, train, and back millennial progressives. This trend is particularly pronounced among women candidates. Outgoing Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) was elected to the House at 28, but no woman in her twenties has ever been elected to Congress. (New York GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik was 30 when she won her seat four years ago.) There’s a decent chance that could change next year. In Iowa, Democratic state Rep. Abby Finkenauer, 28, won her primary to take on Republican Rep. Rod Blum, and Katie Hill, the 29-year-old director of a homeless non-profit, leads her top Democratic challenger in the race to take on Republican Rep. Steve Knight in California’s closely watched 25th district.
The youth movement has been happening for a while now, dating back to last year, when 31-year-old Jon Ossoff raised more money than any House candidate in history in a losing Georgia special-election campaign. Millennial candidates scored big wins in Virginia House of Delegates races last fall and Rep. Conor Lamb, the Democrat who won a special election in March for a House seat in western Pennsylvania, is just 33. Last month, Democrats nominated millennials in two Texas swing districts. In April, they backed 31-year-old Lauren Underwood in a competitive Illinois district. Like Finkenauer or Hill, she’d be the youngest member of Congress if elected....
...Women Are Taking Over the Democratic Party
Perhaps the clearest trend is that women keep on winning. Here’s a fun fact from the Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman:
"Fact: so far, there have been 65 Dem House primaries w/ at least one woman & one man (and no incumbent) on the ballot. Women have won 45 (and were the top vote-getters in 2 more heading to runoffs). Men: just 18.
8:40 AM - May 25, 2018"
We saw more of that last night. In Iowa, which has never elected a woman to the House of Representatives, Finkenauer was joined by Cindy Axne, an activist who won the Democratic primary to take on Rep. David Young. The most notable example, though, was in Montana, where Kathleen Williams, a former state representative, won the Democratic nomination to take on Rep. Greg Gianforte, the Republican who famously attacked a reporter and lied about it to the cops on the eve of his 2017 special-election victory. Williams was outraised by two different male rivals, but cleared the field by two points.
No Native American woman has ever served in Congress. But last night in New Mexico, Deb Haaland, a longtime political consultant, won the open Democratic primary in the deep-blue first district, all but assuring that will change in January too. (Another American Indian woman, Paulette Jordan, faces much steeper odds as the Democratic nominee for governor of Idaho.)
We’ve known 2018 was poised to be the year of the woman candidate for a long time. But it’s all the more striking given what’s happening on the other side of the political spectrum, where the biggest story of the night—apart from not locking Democrats out of any California primaries—was a Republican congresswoman being forced into a primary runoff because she criticized the president for bragging about sexual assault.
"The ruling was "narrow." The Court did not like the way the commission considered the religious argument in this one particular instance. No precedent is set."
yes, but gays were the ones trying to set a precedent by saying everyone must participate in their practices, regardless of their religious beliefs
the precedence is that promoting gay practices as normal does not overrule all other rights
that would seem obvious but lunatic fringe gay advocates actually thought that
"I am curious, actually. If someone had to prove in court that their religion prohibited baking a cake for a gay couple, how would they do that?"
they would only have to say they believe that
anything else would involve religious interpretation by the government
clearly unconstitutional
that's the way it is for gays
how do you prove you are gay and are entitled to protected class status?
there's no way to prove you're gay
just like jack in 3's Company
(you young kids, just take my word for it)
btw, I haven't heard anyone say that "their religion prohibited baking a cake for a gay couple"
they say it's against their religion to bake one for a gay "WEDDING"
I would say most Christian bakers baking gay birthday cakes or gay graduation cakes or gay retirement party cakes
the only issue is when they are requested to bake a cake contributing to a practice they consider immoral
"There is no scripture on the point, obviously."
well, no Christian that would say you couldn't bake a cake for gays
but you might well make a case that you shouldn't bake a cake for a gay wedding
let me know if you'd like the scriptural references
but whether someone interpretation of scripture is right is for a judge to say
not since the days of Henry the VIII
"I cannot imagine how anyone would persuade a court that they should be allowed to engage in otherwise-illegal discrimination on religious grounds,"
because the discrimination is against behavior not individuals
"unless their religion literally says you can't do business with a certain class of people."
that's not what Masterpiece Bakery said
they actually didn't even discriminate based on behavior
they simply said they wouldn't participate in the promoting the behavior
just like when a musical artist refusing to play for Donald Trump's inaugural
"there's no way to prove you're gay"
Actually that's pretty simple. But no one really wants to see all the pictures. And gay people shouldn't have to let the court into their bedrooms to do it.
How do you prove you're straight? Maybe you've been faking it all these years.
Or you could be one of those pedophile priests. That would explain your fastidious anonymity, your religious ranting, and your anti-gay animus.
I mean, I don't want to profile anyone, but the religious right has a way of attracting loud, anti-gay people who turn out to be pedophiles.
At some point you gotta wonder about the odds.
While several reports of this decision have reiterated the term "narrow" frequently, they all fail to consider how the Christian right is bound to interpret this - which is absolutely as wide as they can possibly stretch it, stealing Supreme Court and other judicial seats from Democratic presidents at every chance they get.
This isn't just about wedding cakes, and the religious right won't let it end there. Like in Roe v. Wade, this is just the beginning of an all out assault to push back gay marriage as far as they can.
Phillips doesn't have to make a cake for gay couples because of his "deeply held religious beliefs."
Here are just some of the reasons why that is problematic:
1: How do you distinguish between "deeply held religious beliefs" and your garden variety fag hater using "religion" as a shield? It's not that the court can't make this determination, just that it could be difficult, and painful. A court finally decided that Mohammad Ali was a true conscientious objector. Other people just went to jail.
2: The court decision mentioned animus towards religion on several occasions. It was completely blind to animus towards gay people frequently promoted by "religious" people. Here are but a few examples:
2A: Roger Jimenez, a Sacramento preacher told his congregation “The tragedy is that more of them didn’t die. “The tragedy is — I’m kind of upset that he didn’t finish the job! Because these people are predators! They are abusers!” after the Pulse Night Club shooting - a gay bar where 49 patrons were murdered, and 53 were wounded.
Jimenez may well have "deeply held convictions," but he is also undeniably hateful and hurtful, and rhetoric like his only serves to stoke more vitriol towards gay people.
3D: A gay guy gets hit by a car out in front of a Christian hospital. "We noticed the ring on your finger - can we contact your wife and let her know you're going into surgery?"
"Please call my husband - he will be worried about me."
"Oh, I'm sorry, we won't treat you - we can't be seen condoning gay marriage."
3E: "Yes, I know spouses are allowed during visiting hours, but we don't condone gay marriage because of our deeply held beliefs, so we can't let you see him."
3F: "Yes, we do serve gay people at our restaurant, but not MARRIED gay people due to our deeply held beliefs. The chef puts a lot of effort into each one of his personalized creations, and he can't be inconvenienced by knowing that some married gay people are eating his food."
3G: "Yes, we can bury you in our cementary when you die, but we can't put your partner here because that would be undermining our deeply held Christian beliefs."
3H: And if Hobby Lobby can deny women contraception based on their religious beliefs, what's to stop any employer from banning married gay people or gay people altogether?
3I: And by the same token, barring gay people from hotels? Swimming pools? Parks? Movie theaters? Anything else?
That's where the religious right is hoping to take all this.
This ruling is just the knife edge conservatives are looking for to continue marginalizing gay people in every way they possibly legally can. Make no mistake. History has shown they have the will and deep enough pockets to drag every single case they can to the Supreme Court, (you know, the one they've been stacking with conservatives) even if it is only a pyrrhic victory.
4: Eventually, and this may be a long time from now, people will look back and see what this case was actually about.
It wasn't about religious freedom.
The counterpoint to the Masterpiece Barkery case is the Azucar Bakery case. Bill Jack got his knickers in a twist when the Colorado commission first pinged Masterpiece Bakery for not selling the gay couple a wedding cake. Bill Jack, upset at the Masterpiece decision and the imposition on his "Christian beliefs" (even though he was not involved in any way) decided to go to the Azukar Bakery and try to force them to make a cake for him with an anti-gay message - two grooms with a red "X" through them and a couple of bible versus to tick off the "religion" box. Leviticus is a chapter every gay in the US knows very well. It is the one Christians like to use to point out their "tolerance," because so far, they haven't killed all the gays yet, which their bible, and some internet posters, say is perfectly acceptable.
Jack wasn't making a point about religious freedom. If he wanted to do that he could have chosen to highlight other cases where religion is more clearly being infringed - like "Travelling Muslims shouldn't be banned for their religion" or "Plural marriage is a biblical marriage too." These are areas where people are being restricted for their sincere religious beliefs. But he didn't choose to do that.
Jack chose the favorite target of the Christian right these days - gays. Not because their religous freedom was being infringed, but because, like many Christians, he wanted to impose his own terms on who gets married and how, on all of the rest of us - and let everyone know that gays and their marriages aren't welcome here.
The Azucar Bakery didn't deny Jack's order because he was a Christian, but because they wouldn't have put such a hateful message on a cake for anyone - whether they were relgious or not - it wasn't the customer that was the problem, but the message. The Azucar bakers, unlike Mr. Jack, understand the difference between "free speech" and "hate speech."
Masterpiece Bakery on the otherhand, was fine making the cake - they just wouldn't sell it to a gay couple. It wasn't the cake that was the problem, but the people. And THAT is the very definition of discrimination. Religious "justification" only excuses that in the minds of the people who don't understand that they are NOT free to impose their religious beliefs on others. Just because they can pick some verses in the bible to "justify" their position, doesn't make it morally right.
Right now, a lot of Christians are content to spread their word, their faith, and impose their beliefs on everyone else by nearly any means necessary. I say "nearly any means" because fortunately, we no longer live in a time where they are free to run around the continent and force people to convert to Christianity or die.
There are already Christians who bemoan how "conservative" Christians treat gay people, and even Pope Francis is trying to figure out a way to treat gay people with more dignity. A move that is long overdue, but welcome nonetheless.
If the long arc of history teaches us anything, it is that what Christians felt justified doing to people in the name of religion in one century can often be the source of shame for Christians in the next.
"Actually that's pretty simple. But no one really wants to see all the pictures. And gay people shouldn't have to let the court into their bedrooms to do it.
How do you prove you're straight? Maybe you've been faking it all these years.
Or you could be one of those pedophile priests. That would explain your fastidious anonymity, your religious ranting, and your anti-gay animus.
I mean, I don't want to profile anyone, but the religious right has a way of attracting loud, anti-gay people who turn out to be pedophiles.
At some point you gotta wonder about the odds"
gee, fella
I didn't think I was saying something all that controversial
I really don't take seriously the notion of some huge deprivation just because someone who doesn't agree with what you're doing doesn't want to help you celebrate it
just think if we could work for who we want to
we could call it "freedom"
you may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one
"Masterpiece Bakery on the otherhand, was fine making the cake - they just wouldn't sell it to a gay couple. It wasn't the cake that was the problem, but the people."
that's actually a lie
Philips actually offered to sell any of his stuff to these guys, he just said he couldn't participate in the celebration of something he considered wrong by designing a cake for it
Philips would love nothing more than if these people would turn from what is immoral and he could make them a cake to celebrate their rebirth
it was the act he was being asked to support that he objected to, not the people
"religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression"
Anthony Kennedy
who, with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, will be gone from the SCOTUS before January 2021
that's right..."philosophical"
"just think if we could work for who we want to
we could call it "freedom"
Yes we would. But in many places, you can still be fired if your employer finds out you're gay or trans.
We call that "discrimination."
"Masterpiece Bakery on the otherhand, was fine making the cake - they just wouldn't sell it to a gay couple. It wasn't the cake that was the problem, but the people."
that's actually a lie
No. But apparently it wasn't precise enough to avoid nitpicking. And you're trying to score points by playing up the semantics.
I will clarify:
"Masterpiece Bakery on the other hand, was fine making the WEDDING cake - they just wouldn't sell it to a gay couple. It wasn't the WEDDING cake that was the problem, but the people."
Masterpiece bakery designs and sells WEDDING cakes all the time. It's WHAT THEY DO as their regular business - in fact it's what distinguishes his business from the local grocery store and allows him to charge a premium for what he does. In fact, if he didn't do that, it might be hard for him to stay in business - as chances are the local grocery stores are likely to undercut him on price for GENERIC cakes. That's capitalism 101.
It wasn't like these guys went in there trying to force him to fix their transmission.
If you're fine with a regular cake for your wedding, you can just go to Giant and pick one out from the glass case.
For most couples though, you're wedding is a VERY important day and you want to celebrate it in style. So you go to someone who does custom cakes, you know, like for weddings. That's de rigueur for weddings these days, (and has been for a long time) and very often, beyond the skills and offerings of your local grocery store.
Masterpiece didn't want to make / design / sell the WEDDING cake because the purchasers were gay. That's all there is to it, and the owner didn't give them any other options. "Wedding Brownies" aren't a thing, and it's quite clear that the owner wouldn't sell them those either if he thought they would be considered "Gay Wedding Brownies."
It would be reasonable for the owner to make the WEDDING cake, but refuse to put two dudes on the top of it - something that would actually distinguish it from a "straight" wedding cake, and make it a fabulous GAY wedding cake. The owner could sell the gay couple two sets of plastic "bride and groom" characters (presumably he only sells those in heterosexual pairs to everyone - no matter who they are), so the couple could take two grooms and put them on their cake themselves, and give the two brides to their lesbian friends.
But Masterpiece didn't offer a reasonable compromise like that. They were more like the "Soup Nazi" from Seinfeld:
"No cake for you!!"
The Colorado baker from Masterpiece Cakeshop who refused to make a custom cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding has won his case in the Supreme Court.
While it’s discouraging to see any example of discrimination against LGBTQ people being supported by the courts, it’s not necessarily as big of a blow as you may initially assume: the Supreme Court’s decision came with a whole lot of asterisks.
For starters, the Supreme Court’s decision about the cake baker came with a whole lot of asterisks.
For starters, the ruling is ultra-specific to this particular circumstance, and will not carry a significant precedent like many other Supreme Court decisions do. “The outcome of cases like this in other circumstances must await further elaboration in the courts,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy.
By the same token, Kennedy’s majority opinion also maintains a commitment to gay rights. “Our society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity or worth,” wrote Kennedy. “The exercise of their freedom on terms equal to others must be given great weight and respect by the courts.”
He also reiterated that as a “general rule,” business owners couldn’t deny equal services to LGBTQ customers.
Apparently, the justices were concerned that Colorado’s civil rights commissioners demonstrated “hostility” towards the baker’s religious beliefs. In other words, they believe commissioners demonstrated intolerance of the baker’s intolerance and came down on him too harshly for feeling the way he did.
Kennedy particularly objected to one of the Colorado commissioner’s comment that it was “despicable” for the baker to use religion as an excuse to discriminate. The justice felt like that was a comment meant to “disparage his religion” and even make it seem insincere.
Again, that doesn’t mean that the commission didn’t have the right to enforce the law – just that it should have done so in kinder words. Basically, he’s advocating that the government demonstrate a bedside manner when dealing with religious people so that it doesn’t give the appearance of discrimination occurring on both sides.
Those who don’t like this ruling cannot simply blame it on the court’s right-leaning wing. The decision was 7-2, with Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer also signing on. Many court-watchers feel that the fairly meaningless verdict was the result of some behind-the-scenes compromise to not take a firm stance on this issue yet.
Though the decision may embolden other business owners related to the wedding industry like florists, caterers and dressmakers to decline service to same-sex couples, in no way does it actually validate their right to discriminate. More likely than not they’ll have to bite their tongues and do the job anyway – as will the civil rights commissioners who may be tempted to call these entrepreneur jerks for putting up a stink in the first place.
A new NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll finds that Democrats lead among registered voters nationally in the House generic ballot matchup by 50 percent to 40 percent.
But even more tellingly, the poll finds that by a whopping margin of 48-23, voters are more likely to support a congressional candidate who promises to be a check on Trump. And by 53-31, they are less likely to vote for a candidate who has supported Trump’s positions more than 90 percent of the time.
These numbers get more striking when you look at how they break down in all of the House districts that the Cook Political Report designates as competitive. According to the good folks at NBC, who sent over these numbers:
By 52-19, voters in competitive House districts are more likely to support a congressional candidate who promises to be a check on Trump.
By 55-28, voters in competitive House districts are more likely to support a congressional candidate who has opposed Trump most of the time.
It should be noted that the vast, vast majority of these seats are held by Republicans. The seats that this poll designates as competitive are the ones that Cook Political Report rates as Toss Ups, Lean Democratic and Lean Republican. Cook puts 25 seats in the Toss Up categories — 23 GOP-held, and two held by Democrats. Cook puts 27 in the Lean Republican category and seven in the Lean Democratic category — and of that 34, 31 are held by Republicans.
And so, in a whole lot of competitive seats mostly held by Republicans, majorities are more likely to vote for the candidate who will act as a check on Trump and will oppose him on most of his policies.
The poll’s other findings underscore the point. Nationally, Democrats enjoy a large enthusiasm gap: 63 percent of them are extremely interested in the midterms, while among Republicans, that number is only 47 percent. And John Harwood brings us this breakdown of the generic ballot matchup:
"Democrats have built that edge on their leads among independents (7 percentage points), voters under 35 (20 points), white college graduates (24 points), Latinos (24 points), and African-Americans (81 points). Republicans retain a narrow edge among whites (3 points) and a large one among white men who have not graduated from college (37 points)."
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/trump-gets-more-credit-for-economy-but-it-is-not-helping-gop-poll.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/06/07/voters-really-really-want-a-check-on-trump-this-new-poll-confirms-it/
Re: The bigoted cake baker.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Philips actually offered to sell any of his stuff to these guys, he just said he couldn't participate in the celebration of something he considered wrong by designing a cake for it".
Baking a cake is in no way "participating" in the wedding. Only the couple being married and the person performing the ceremony can be honestly said to be participating in the wedding. Baking a cake is "participating" in a wedding in the same way that the gun shop owner that sold the rifle to the school shooter "participated" in the shooting.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Philips would love nothing more than if these people would turn from what is immoral and he could make them a cake to celebrate their rebirth".
Nonsense. He knows there is nothing immoral about that which does not hurt others. His sole motivation was to spit in their faces and tell them he looks down on them because putting them down makes him feel superior.
The idea that it is somehow the "proper balance of rights" to allow a cake baker to refuse to do the same thing he does all the time for a couple merely because they're gay is preposterous. Research shows discrimination and the constant beating of the message that gays are inferior harms the mental health of gays and lesbians leading to alcohol and drug problems, mental health issues, lower work productivity, and suicide. Now, no doubt that fact thrills Wyatt/Regina to death, but clearly society cannot justify doing that to gays and lesbians who harm no one in order to allow bigots the trivial thrill of feeling superior to people who are their equals. Obviously the proper balance of rights here is that the cake baker do the same trivial action he has done many, many times without complaint for that gay couple instead of the gay couple bearing the constant psychological assault on them that bigots love so much.
The supreme court was clearly afraid to rule on this case and so made an excuse not to make a real decision on it. The justices' excuse was that the Colorado commissioners said negative things about how religion has been used to discriminate in the past, i.e. to excuse slavery and the holocaust. Trouble with that excuse is that the commissioners criticism of how religion has been used to justify discrimination was true, accurate, and fair. What the supreme court essentially said is that when you are evaluating a case like this you are not allowed to say anything negative about religion regardless of how true and appropriate it is to the case. The supreme court doesn't get much more pathetic and biased than that. Perhaps as good anonymous said, it was a matter of some behind the scenes compromise between liberal and conservative justices - how else could you explain liberals siding with such bizarre "logic"?
Demon-Possessed Trump Critics Feeding Off ‘Essence’ of Children
"In a bizarre — okay, for a rational person, not from him — interview with a guy named John Abiskaron, Alex Jones and his guest declared that those who reject Trump are possessed by demons and are psychic vampires who feed off the essence of young children. After raping them, of course."
Funny how no Republicans are criticizing him. Guess they have to save their energy for screaming about the relatively mild c*nt word. Again and again, there's no comparing what liberal say about Republicans with what Republicans say about liberals. Liberals call names for things like tearing apart innocent families while Republicans demonize liberals for opposing such abhorrent actions.
Trump supporter and conservative media personality Alex Jones accuses people who don't support Trump of raping children.
He's clearly a man after Wyatt/Regina's own heart as they lied and said a transwoman they don't know "can prey on young girls in the ladies' room as much as possible," in this thread at May 14, 2017 5:26 PM
Trump is lying to obstruct an ongoing investigation into his conduct.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), never one to take on Trump directly, nevertheless acknowledged on Wednesday that there was no evidence of a planted spy in the Trump campaign, as Trump has repeatedly claimed. This was a repeat of previous discredited Trump accusations designed to undermine the Russia investigation (e.g. wiretapping Trump headquarters, misleading the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court).
Someone should ask Ryan a few follow-up questions, since he, after all, has been allowing Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and company to help float one crackpot accusation after another (e.g. the Nunes memo propounding on a false accusation about the warrant application to conduct surveillance on Carter Page; the non-scandal about unmasking):
"Why do you allow Nunes to remain on the House Intelligence Committee? Is he carrying out his duties responsibly?
Why didn’t you address the complaints of Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), who determined that House Republicans leaked Warner’s text messages to Washington lobbyist Adam Waldman as part of an effort to reach dossier author Christopher Steele? Wasn’t this a shocking breach of trust and abuse of the intelligence oversight process? Why didn’t you remove Nunes or report him to the ethics committee?
Are you concerned that the president repeats myths, asserts them as facts and uses them as a basis for reckless accusations against the intelligence community? If a president intentionally engaged in such activity, would that be an abuse of his powers?
Have you asked Trump why he engages in this conspiracy-mongering? Have you objected in any fashion to this tactic? Have you counseled him to stop this conduct?
The first article of impeachment for President Richard Nixon listed among his offenses “making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States” about the Watergate break-in to claim that no wrongdoing had been found (shades of “No collusion!”). It also included “endeavouring to cause prospective defendants, and individuals duly tried and convicted, to expect favoured treatment and consideration in return for their silence or false testimony, or rewarding individuals for their silence or false testimony.” If Trump engaged in conduct of either type, should he be impeached?
Under what circumstances would you ever call upon the House Judiciary Committee to consider Trump’s possible impeachment?
Why didn’t the House Intelligence Committee look for collusion, which was supposed to be the focus of its investigation? If the committee members did not do their job, should a select committee or independent commission now be impaneled?
The House has not conducted hearings on receipt of foreign emoluments, conflicts of interest or self-enrichment in the executive branch, nor has it demanded a full accounting from Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt for his alleged misuse of taxpayer funds, his government position and his office staff. Why not? Is the public entitled to conclude that you have no interest in the House’s exercise of its oversight responsibilities?"
When Republicans such as Ryan, Rooney and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) have figured out that the president repeatedly spreads falsehoods to throw law enforcement on defense, detract from the FBI’s and the Justice Department’s credibility and thereby undermine the Russia investigation, it is long past time to recognize that he is abusing his office — and that the GOP House majority is not fulfilling its constitutional obligations. We will not be able to do anything about the former unless we get rid of the latter.
Hear! Hear! Good Anonymous!
The first article of impeachment for President Richard Nixon listed among his offences “making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States”
Trump has taken this to exponentially greater depths than the crook Nixon did. The magnitude of Trump corruption cannot be overstated.
In a positive sign that the head of the EPA can't destroy the environment with total impunity:
Judge Orders EPA to Share Evidence for Pruitt’s Global Warming Denial Claims
A Washington D.C. judge ordered Friday the Environmental Protection Agency must comply with a legal request to produce scientific evidence backing the EPA administrator’s claims about climate change.
The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, filed a Freedom of Information Act Request to the EPA, which seeks the release of studies and documents that support EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's claim that human activity is not the largest factor causing global climate change.
If the case proceeds as scheduled, the EPA will have to produce research to back Pruitt's claim in the coming months.
“Measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something that’s very hard to do,” Pruitt said on CNBC weeks after being sworn as EPA administrator. “There’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact...”
Despite Pruitt’s assertion, 97 percent of climate scientists agree human activity is the driving force behind climate change. “I expect the documents will show the scientific case for Pruitt’s claim is not only thin, but positively anorexic,” Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University told Scientific American. “They may reveal even greater contacts with the climate denial community than has already been shown.”
He then added: “This could also strengthen the challenges to some of the deregulatory actions by the administration, showing they have no valid basis.”
You've lost the battle of public opinion Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous:
Most Americans oppose businesses refusing to serve gay people: Reuters/Ipsos poll
72% of Americans disagree that business owners have the right to refuse LGBTQ customers on religious grounds. Only 14% think business owners have the right to discriminate against gays.
Sean Hannity talks to the popular vote losing pussy grabber everyday and gives him advice. Last night he advised everyone that is a witness or subject of the investigation into Trumpgate to destroy all their evidence, smash their phones into tiny little bits, acid wash their hard drives, and so on.
If he were Trump's lawyer he would be disbarred for this. Hannity knows what we all know - Trump and his people are guilty of a wide range of serious criminal activities and if the Mueller investigation into Trumpgate isn't severely disrupted or ended all those crimes are going to come to light.
BREAKING: Arizona Appeals Court Upholds LGBT Protections In Ruling That Cites SCOTUS Cake Decision\
Hahahahahahahahahaha, Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous!
In the first lower court ruling applying Masterpiece Cakeshop, the Arizona Court of Appeals rejected the argument that business owners have a license to discriminate against same-sex couples in Brush & NIB Studio v City of Phoenix.
This case was brought by the Alliance Defending Freedom. This shows that the Supreme Court’s decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop did not change the long-standing rule that businesses that are open to to the public must be open to all.
Appellate Judge Lawrence Winthrop, writing for the court, rebuffed their claim that this was about free speech. Instead, he said, this is simply about conduct.
"While such a requirement may impact speech, such as prohibiting places of public accommodation from posting signs that discriminate against customers, this impact is incidental to properly regulated conduct," the judge wrote. [Gee, that's just what Priya Lynn said, I wonder why????]
"Simply stated, if appellants, as an economic entity, want to operate their for-profit business as a public accommodation, they cannot discriminate against potential patrons based on sexual orientation," Winthrop said.
The judges also rejected their claims that the ordinance substantially burdens their religious beliefs.
"Appellants are not penalized for expressing their belief that their religion only recognizes the marriage of opposite-sex couples," Winthrop said. And he said they can refuse to create wedding-related merchandise for same-sex couples as long as they refuse to provide the same service for opposite-sex couples.
"What appellants cannot do is use their religion as a shield to discriminate against potential customers," he said.
Winthrop said, however, nothing in Thursday's ruling forces the women to endorse same-sex marriages — or even to keep silent about their views.
"Although appellants are prohibited from posting discriminatory statements about their intent to refuse services for same-sex weddings, they may post a statement endorsing their belief that marriage is between a man and a woman," the judge said. "Or they may post a disclaimer that the act of selling their goods and services to same-sex couples does not constitute an endorsement of their customers' exercise of their constitutional right to marry or any other activities."
Winthrop cited a long line of federal court rulings from across the country which have upheld laws barring places of "public accommodation" — which includes commercial businesses open to the public — from refusing services based on whether the client is gay.
"In light of these cases and consistent with the United States Supreme Court's decisions, we recognize that allowing appellants to refuse service to customers based on sexual orientation would constitute grave and continuing harm," Winthrop wrote. [Gee, that's just what Priya Lynn said, I wonder why????]
ALL CAPS!!
Breaking:
The Trump Justice Department just told the courts to dismantle pre-existing conditions protections and other consumer protections.
Trump is absolutely raping the American public. He is the most evil president the States has ever had.
"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane." - Martin Luther King Jr.
And despicable Republicans like Trump try to co-opt MLK and pretend he would have been on their side.
Africa? The United States is a shithole country.
"Africa? The United States is a shithole country"
so, why stay?
oh that's right
you can't come here at all
you're a foreign troll, just like the 13 Russians who were indicted by Inspector Mueller
Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she'd leave if Trump was elected
and yet, she sticks around, attacking our Constitution on a daily basis
Hillary recently said she considered moving to New Zealand after Trump won
then she found out she's still have to pay for all the damage she did to the hotel room that night
"The Trump Justice Department just told the courts to dismantle pre-existing conditions protections and other consumer protections"
I've never heard that the courts answer to DOJ
I thought it was the other way around
did you dream this?
The anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination has long served as a stark reminder of all that was lost on that day in 1968, and of what American politics might have become had the New York senator survived that turbulent year. Wednesday’s 50th anniversary of the tragedy saw a deluge of tributes remembering a man both haunted by history and driven by the vision of an America redeemed.
Esquire’s Charles Pierce this week describes Kennedy as a man uniquely capable of standing against the “foul gales” that were then rising in American politics. Pierce believes, as do I, that Kennedy’s election to the presidency could have healed a nation pushed to a breaking point by a cacophony of cultural tremors. Despite campaigning against the bleak backdrop of Vietnam, torched American cities, heightened racial tensions and political assassinations, RFK would have stitched together the shredded fabric of American culture and healed the soul of a country that remains, as Pierce writes, “perpetually redeemable.”
In a new book, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham reminds readers of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s belief that for all of this country’s failings, the trend of American civilization is forever upward. That is an invaluable reminder during a time when the president proclaims his power unrestrained by Madisonian checks and balances, including ignoring federal subpoenas, killing Justice Department investigations, obstructing justice to protect his personal interests and even pardoning himself. The president’s hapless lawyers seem to have convinced Donald Trump, like Richard M. Nixon before him, that “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
But that twisted interpretation of presidential authority is dead wrong. Even in President Trump’s America, no man is above the law.
It may come as little relief to those unsettled by the commander in chief’s autocratic impulses that this president will likely face the same fate as Nixon if he acts upon his lawyers’ ignorant legal opinions. But perhaps take comfort from Meacham’s insight in “The Soul of America” that “to know what has come before is to be armed against despair.”
History does, in fact, show that a president cannot pardon himself. Days before Nixon resigned in 1974, the Justice Department issued an opinion that echoed centuries of American and English law by declaring, “Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the president cannot pardon himself.“
The history of Bill Clinton’s presidency also undermines recent claims from Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani that Trump is legally entitled as president to ignore a subpoena from Robert S. Mueller III. But do not take my word for it. Read instead Giuliani’s own words from 1998. “You gotta do it. I mean, you don’t have a choice,” the former U.S. attorney said of Clinton’s legal options if he received a federal subpoena to testify to Whitewater investigators...
...Other claims of unchecked presidential authority by Trump and his lawyers are so preposterous that they warrant little discussion here. What Time magazine describes as the White House’s “increasingly broad claims of presidential impunity” would likely be struck down in a unanimous opinion by the Supreme Court. And even Trump’s most timid quislings on Capitol Hill would never suggest (like Giuliani) that Trump could have murdered former FBI director James B. Comey and escape indictment as long as he was in office. Perhaps there are constitutional excesses that even Trump apologists will not yield to in their unending efforts to defend Trump.
On the same day Americans marked a half-century since Kennedy’s death, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) defended the FBI investigation into Trump’s campaign and told reporters that no man is above the law. Ryan’s performance may have met only the bare-minimum standard for political courage. But as one who still sees America as perpetually redeemable, forgive me for believing this president’s worst instincts will be checked, our country’s rule of law will be preserved and the upward arc of American civilization that FDR once spoke of will again be restored.
""The Trump Justice Department just told the courts to dismantle pre-existing conditions protections and other consumer protections"
I've never heard that the courts answer to DOJ
I thought it was the other way around
did you dream this?"
No, she didn't dream it. IQ45 did.
Trump Administration Takes New Aim At Obamacare’s Pre-Existing Protections
"The Trump administration on Thursday officially threw its support behind a new, seemingly far-fetched legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act, arguing that the law’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions are unconstitutional...."
And here it is:
https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ACA.Azar_.filing.pdf
stupid said:
"The Trump Justice Department just told the courts to dismantle pre-existing conditions protections and other consumer protections"
smart said:
I've never heard that the courts answer to DOJ
I thought it was the other way around
did you dream this?
IQ1 said:
No, she didn't dream it. IQ45 did.
truth:
The Trump administration declared that it will no longer defend the Affordable Care Act from a challenge filed by 20 states because it agrees that the law's individual mandate is unconstitutional and that key parts of the act — including the provisions protecting those with pre-existing conditions — are invalid.
so Trump didn't tell the court to dismantle Obamacare
it simply said it won't fight against a case it agrees with
the courts are free to rule anyway they want, the DOJ doesn't "tell" them what to do
I can understand a foreign troll getting this wrong but I presume IQ1 is an American
"Trump is hurtling toward a Nixonian ending"
right now, America is booming and, for the first time in this millenium, there are more jobs available than people unemployed and the unemployment rate among minorities in the lowest ever
as anyone around in the Nixon era can tell you, that's not how it was
Just as fiery volcanoes have erupted in Guatemala and Hawaii, a volcano of another kind looks set to blow in Washington: The "investigation" into alleged Trump campaign collusion with Russia, amid new revelations of possible FBI and Justice Department deceit and misconduct and the anticipated release of the Inspector General's report.
It might not end like the investigators had hoped.
The Mueller investigation is unraveling fast. For more than two years, both the FBI and the Special Counsel's office have investigated the alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.
They have found nothing. In Mueller's case, the big fish is Manafort. But he has not tied anyone in the Trump campaign, including Manafort, to any efforts by the Russians to meddle in the 2016 presidential election with the Trump campaign. Manafort's charges have nothing to do with that, and show how absurdly broad Mueller's investigation has been.
He cast a net on the waters and caught nothing.
Meanwhile, revelations that the FBI spied on a major presidential campaign using information supplied and paid for by that campaign's political opponents has the potential to send FBI and DOJ officials to prison.
This is the kind of shameful behavior you see in Zimbabwe, Venezuela and other tin-pot, one-party dictatorships. But not in the world's oldest true democracy. In our country, such behavior is illegal — considered both election tampering and a subversion of our democracy.
This enormously complex U.S. intelligence scandal is difficult to follow, even for the media who do so for a living. But the revelations have been adding up. As they do, they create an ever-clearer picture of massive political corruption at the DOJ, FBI and CIA.
That is, "deep state" collusion by our three main intelligence agencies, not collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.
As much as anyone, former CIA Director John Brennan, an admitted former Communist sympathizer whose questionable past behavior clearly should have disqualified him from a senior intelligence post in the U.S., worked assiduously to undermine the campaign and later the very presidency of Donald Trump.
On whose behalf was he doing this? His own? Or someone else's? Was it part of an Obama administration scheme to torpedo any chances that Trump would win the election?
Indeed, in recent weeks, the rationale for the Trump investigation — alleged concern about Russia hacking our election — has been shredded.
What's left is a major scandal, SpyGate as some call it. It makes Watergate look like a two-bit burglary conducted by political amateurs. Which is what it was.
That rumbling you now hear? It's the volcano of political corruption that now is shaking the earth and set to erupt in Washington, D.C.
"This shows that the Supreme Court’s decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop did not change the long-standing rule that businesses that are open to to the public must be open to all."
that's because no one in that case sought to do that
they only sought to not be forced to contribute to immoral behavior
Phillips offered to sell the two gays anything other than a cake made to celebrate their immoral union
and if they said they were buying a wedding cake for their straight sister's wedding, he would have gladly done so
and if the straight sister came in to buy a cake for her brother's gay wedding that would also be turned down
the shop was open to all people, just not for all uses
this is no different than a singer refusing to sing at a Trump rally if they don't support Trump
Poll shows why the GOP has given up touting its unpopular tax plan
There was a congressional special election in Pennsylvania a few months ago that Republicans expected to win. After all, the race was in the state’s 18th district, which Donald Trump had carried the year before by 20 points.
What’s more, going into the March election, the GOP and its allies believed their recently passed tax cuts would give the party an added boost, and the month before voters went to the polls, Republicans blanketed local airwaves with ads touting the GOP tax plan.
But as Pennsylvania’s special election drew closer, Republicans abruptly switched gears – because they discovered the commercials about tax breaks weren’t working. The Democrat ended up narrowly winning the race.
This was not an isolated incident. There’s plenty to chew on in the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, but this stood out for me:
[Would you] be more likely or less likely to vote for a candidate who supports Donald Trump’s tax reform bill?
More likely: 36%
Less likely: 42%
CNBC’s John Harwood added that in the most competitive House districts, that six-point margin becomes as 12-point margin against the Republican tax package.
This explains a lot.
GOP officials assumed their unpopular tax plan would gain support as the year continued, and Republicans could effectively use the tax cuts as a life-preserver as the midterms approached. But with five months remaining before the elections, the party has largely given up even mentioning their only meaningful legislative accomplishment since taking the reins of federal power.
Remember, as the GOP tax breaks were clearing Capitol Hill last year, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) looked ahead to the 2018 midterms with some confidence. “If we can’t sell this to the American people, we ought to go into another line of work,” he said at the time.
Several months later, if McConnell meant what he said, he probably ought to start updating his resume.
Postscript: In case this isn’t obvious, I’m only reflecting this morning on the latest polling on the Republican tax plan, not the substantive merits of the policy. That said, it remains true that the GOP tax cuts are awful on a substantive level, too.
@realDonaldTrump "When will people start saying , "thank you, Mr. president, for firing James Comey?"
As soon as you're convicted for it, crooked Donny.
Maggie Haberman is full of crap
In September 2016, when HRC got pneumonia, it made the front page of the NYT two days in a row. There were three separate stories.
This new stuff about Trump's tearing apart imigrant families hasn't made the front page at all.
----------------------------------------------------
India's biggest psychiatric body declares homosexuality is not an illness
The Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS) has declared that ‘gayness should not be treated as an illness’.
The IPS is India’s largest body of mental health professionals with about 3,000 members. It issued the new policy this week. The IPS set up a special task force in 2016 to examine the emotional needs of LGBTI people.
IPS’ president, Dr Ajit Bhide confirmed the news in a video on social media.
‘Certain people are not cut out to be heterosexual and we don’t need to castigate them, we don’t need to punish them, to ostracize them,’ he said in the video.
‘It is a step in the right direction… whatever your sexual orientation, whatever your sexual preference, as long as there is no other party being hurt, an individual should be allowed to practice.’
The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.
Trump Upset That He Can't Watch Porn In The White House
This was after Trump lawyer Giulianni made disgusting comments about Stormy Daniels. "“I respect women — beautiful women and women with value — but a woman who sells her body for sexual exploitation, I don’t respect,” Giuliani said.
He continued: “Tell me what damage she suffered. Someone who sells his or her body for money has no good name.”
Brzezinski said these comments from Giulani made her “blood boil,” as she “was shaking when I heard them.”"
I have the utmost respect for sex workers. Its pathological lying conmen like Giulianni that I have no respect for. And notice that he said he respects only "beautiful women" - what a pig he is!
Trump’s disdain for American families’ access to health care is matched only by his disdain for the rule of law.
Last night, the Jeff Sessions Department of Justice announced, outrageously, that it will not defend the ACA against a frivolous suit brought by GOP-led states because it “has become unconstitutional.”
The lawsuit is so absurd, and the DOJ’s refusal to defend the law so obscenely political, that career DOJ attorneys refused to sign on to the DOJ move—an almost unprecedented scenario.
The Trump Administration is demonstrating again that they will go to any length to strip Americans of their health care and allow insurance companies to punish their customers for getting sick—especially the 130 million Americans who have pre-existing conditions.
A CAP analysis shows that, thanks to Trump and his friends in Congress deliberately sabotaging the Affordable Care Act, health care premiums are already set to skyrocket for families by a national average of $1000 this year—far more than the typical working class family will save annually from Trump’s tax scam.
As icing, as if to make sure nobody misses their disdain for Americans having health care, Trump’s allies in the House of Representatives also passed a rescission package which will undermine funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
I know I don't have to live there, but that evil bastard Trump removing protections for people with pre-existing conditions is pretty upsetting. Agent orange and his souless minions are truly turning the United States into a shithole country.
If I had lived all my life in the States I'd have died several times over already.
Trump calls for Russia to be reinstated to G-7, threatens allies on trade
QUEBEC CITY — President Trump on Friday said Russia should be readmitted to the Group of Seven leading economies, breaking with other world leaders who have insisted that Moscow remain ostracized after its 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Trump’s comments, made just hours before he arrived in Canada for the annual G-7 summit, have further scrambled talks with other leaders, most of whom were already fuming about the U.S. leader’s protectionist trade policies.
U.S. intelligence officials believe Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and part of this year’s G-7 summit was supposed to focus on protecting democracies from foreign meddling. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is investigating Russian interference efforts, including whether Trump’s campaign colluded in any way with Russian officials, a probe that has become an obsession for the president.
Trump’s suggestion that Russia be readmitted to the G-7 was heavily criticized by political opponents back home, including Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who said Trump was “turning our foreign policy into an international joke.”
“We need the president to be able to distinguish between our allies and adversaries, and to treat each accordingly,” Schumer said. “On issue after issue, he’s failed to do that.”
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) also spoke out against Trump’s suggestion, saying in a statement that “Vladimir Putin chose to make Russia unworthy of membership in the G-8 by invading Ukraine and annexing Crimea. Nothing he has done since then has changed that most obvious fact.”
McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was among the first lawmakers to call for Russia’s ejection from the G-8.
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Former Fox Analyst: Trump Is In Putin’s “Grip”
“When I first learned of the Steele dossier, it just rang true to me, because that’s how the Russians do things. And before he became a candidate or president, Donald Trump was the perfect target for Russian intelligence. Here is someone who has no self-control, a sense of sexual entitlement and intermittent financial crisis. I mean, that’s made-to-order for seduction by Russian intelligence. I hope I am wrong.
“But when you look at Trump’s behavior patterns, his unwillingness ever to criticize Vladimir Putin, his slow-rolling sanctions, his unwillingness to create problems with Russia, even though as he attacks NATO, disrupts the relations with the E.U., how can you not draw the conclusions that Donald Trump, the president of the United States, is frightened of Vladimir Putin and his grip.” – Former Fox News analyst Ralph Peters, speaking last night on CNN.
Putin recently bragged about what a close relationship he has with Trump. And by "close relationship", he means Trump is his bitch.
The conflict between the Establishment Clause, which prohibits any endorsement of religion and the Free Exercise Clause, which says people must be free to practice their religion, are opposing tenets that our society must sort out and make reasonable compromises. Clearly, churches cannot claim immunity to secular laws (although some zealots claim that God’s law trump’s Man’s law). Human sacrifice is murder, even if it is done at the command of a deity. No matter how religious you are, don’t try it. You will end up in jail…or in a lockup for the criminally insane.
So where should the line be drawn? What sort of illegal behavior should be excused on the basis of religious belief?
The guiding premise, it seems to me, should be to maintain an orderly society that is viewed as tolerant and just, where people feel they are all treated equally. Allowing businesses or individuals to deny services to some group(s) of people contradicts the whole idea of equality.
Special counsel Robert Mueller on Friday hit embattled ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort with a third superseding indictment, charging him and a shadowy Russian operative with obstruction of justice.
Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik “knowingly and intentionally” tried to secure false testimony from two potential witnesses in the investigation into Russian election meddling, Mueller charged in the federal Washington, D.C., court filing.
Kilimnik, widely believed to be a former agent for the Kremlin’s top intelligence agency, GRU, has been working for Manafort in various capacities since they lobbied for Russian-backed ex-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in the early 2000s.
Since Feb. 23, Mueller alleges Manafort and Kilimnik have tried to get in touch with two people connected to the so-called Hapsburg group, a consulting firm made up of Kremlin-friendly European politicians.
The new charges relate to a filing made by Mueller earlier this week accusing Manafort of witness tampering.
Prosecutors allege Manafort and Kilimnik “repeatedly” contacted the two witnesses to influence their testimony.
Remember, Jesus died so you wouldn't have to sell cakes to homos.
"Remember, Jesus died so you wouldn't have to sell cakes to homos."
No, that was our veterans who died to defend our Constitution so that you wouldn't have to make cakes to celebrate immorality.
Jesus died so that homosexuals could be forgiven, if they repent.
"Special counsel Robert Mueller on Friday hit embattled ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort with a third superseding indictment, charging him and a shadowy Russian operative with obstruction of justice."
This is a sign that Mueller is starting to panic. He's now search through everyone's cell phones and found nothing.
Mr. Mueller’s allegations of witness-tampering are “rather thin.” The FBI declaration in support of a witness-tampering charge is long on detail and short on information. “Drill down into the exhibits and you will see that only one, Exhibit N, is evidence of communications between Manafort and the witnesses he is alleged to have contacted in a tampering effort.”
Drill deeper and it gets even thinner. Study that exhibit and you will see that Mr. Manafort was successful in speaking to one witness, identified as Person D1, for only a minute and 24 seconds. He attempted to connect on three other calls, but did not succeed. Another witness said Mr. Manafort wanted to give Person D1 a link to a newspaper account about his indictment, and another tweet saying “we should talk.”
Direct evidence of witness-tampering against Mr. Manafort is mostly vapor. Saying "we should talk" is hardly the stuff that true witness-tampering charges are made of. More to the point, if the entire conversation in which Manafort participated lasted for less than a minute and a half, he would have to be a very, very fast talker to have accomplished anything.
If Mr. Mueller is the lawyer that his friends and sometime colleagues say he is, why would he be showing such a weak hand, dealing with evidence thin enough to read a newspaper through, at such a critical juncture in the attempt to get a scalp?
This is a sign that they are feeling pressure. Whatever the source of the pressure, they have an increased sense of urgency, they have an increased sense of urgency to move quickly.
Panic is never a picnic. Buy Mueller can’t blame the rest of us for wanting to know what he’s got. Indicting Paul Manafort again, or even sending him to jail to sweat out the needed evidence, won’t satisfy. The reason he’s having so much trouble finding evidence of collusion between Donald Trump and the Russians to cook the 2016 election may be because...
wait for it....
there isn’t any!
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "No, that was our veterans who died to defend our Constitution so that you wouldn't have to make cakes to celebrate immorality.".
I hate to break it to you sweetheart, but the vast majority of Americans naturally know there is nothing immoral about gays and lesbians who are hurting no one.
And 72% of the veterans who died to defend your constitution didn't want businesses refusing to serve gay people
Only 14% of Americans are anti-gay bigots like you, your kind is dying out.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
This comment has been removed by the author.
Trump Threatens To End Trade With United States' Closest Allies
“We’re like the piggy bank that everybody’s robbing ― and that ends,” the president said.
He later said, “It’s going to stop, or we’ll stop trading with them. And that’s a very profitable answer, if we have to do it.”
Hahahahahahahaha! Oh would I LOVE to see him try to stop all trade between the States and the world!
This buffoon is stupid enough to think the world takes him seriously, lol!
Trump disrupts G-7 gender equality meeting by arriving late
LA MALBAIE, Quebec (AP) -- President Donald Trump arrived late for a gender equality meeting at an international summit, prompting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to kick it off without waiting for "stragglers" to arrive.
Trump created a distraction when he walked in late for Saturday's breakfast meeting during the Group of Seven summit of leading industrialized nations being held in Quebec.
He missed Trudeau's introductory statement and entered the room while Gender Equality Advisory Council co-chair Isabelle Hudon was speaking.
Security personnel had to open a path for Trump through a throng of journalists and cameramen. The camera clicks for Trump almost drowned out Hudon.
French President Emmanuel Macron stared at Trump after he sat down.
Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland later tweeted photos of the women's empowerment meeting, showing Trump's empty chair.
Trudeau had made the issue of gender equality a priority for the gathering. He said gender equality must "cut through" everything the G-7 does.
Trump laughably claimed on the campaign trail "Nobody has more respect for women than me, nobody" - just like he's the "least racist person you'll ever meet",lol!
Clearly he doesn't give a damn about women's equality. And the pig (and Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous) tried to pretend Samantha Bee was attacking herself and her own gender by referring to his heartless complicit daughter as a c*nt.
Trump sexually assaulted 19 women (that we know of), admitted to sexually assaulting women and entering the dressing room of Miss teen USA contestants while they were dressing and some were nude. Not to mention the many, many times he's referred to women as c*nts.
Trump was snubbed at the G6 against 1 summit in Quebec. The G6 leaders mocked him, expressed their disdain for him, and agreed to make future political and trade agreements without Agent Orange.
And oblivious Trump laughably claimed his relationship with G6 leaders is "10 out of 10", lol!
Trump has made the States an international pariah that's under the control of Russia. Trump isn't president of the United States, Putin is.
Why do Trump supporters not care about his constant attacks on the free press and all other American democratic institutions?
Because Liberals don't like it and when intolerant white people fear democracy may benefit marginalized people, they abandon their commitment to democracy."
The Trump effect: New study connects white American intolerance and support for authoritarianism
"I hate to break it to you sweetheart, but the vast majority of Americans naturally know there is nothing immoral about gays and lesbians who are hurting no one"
yeah, gays are forsaking life-creating relationships and, a few decades back, introduced an invariably deadly virus to our society
but, hey, they're not doing that much harm
hate to break it to you, but the Constitution those veterans died to defend guarantees freedom of religion, even if 72% of people disagree with your point of view
and, btw, your use of imprecise phrases like "didn't want businesses refusing to serve gay people" is a lie
they are very few cases of anyone refusing to serve gay people
and Phillips of Masterpiece said he would when the two homosexuals were in his place
what he has refused to do is make a cake celebrating an immoral act
but if homosexuals want him to serve them in any other way, he's available
"Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!"
you should just admit you're lying
you'll feel much better
"JUNE 09, 2018 6:58 PM
Blogger Priya Lynn said...
This comment has been removed by the author."
you should just admit you're lying
you'll feel much better
"Trump Threatens To End Trade With United States' Closest Allies
“We’re like the piggy bank that everybody’s robbing ― and that ends,” the president said.
He later said, “It’s going to stop, or we’ll stop trading with them. And that’s a very profitable answer, if we have to do it.”
Hahahahahahahaha! Oh would I LOVE to see him try to stop all trade between the States and the world!"
we'll start with hypocrite Canada, who places large tariffs on dairy products from the US
truth is, since we have such a large trade deficit, the rest of the world has much more to lose than us
Trump has said he will drop all tariffs against any country that drops all of theirs
"This buffoon is stupid enough to think the world takes him seriously, lol!"
you mean like the Chinese that just this week offered to buy 70 billion dollars of stuff if Trump would drop the tariffs on them
that sounds serious
I think people don't take Puerile Priya seriously!!
"Trump disrupts G-7 gender equality meeting by arriving late"
oh dear
call Ashley Judd
"French President Emmanuel Macron stared at Trump after he sat down."
that must've scared the hell outta him!
"Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland later tweeted photos of the women's empowerment meeting, showing Trump's empty chair."
what? is trying to make a commercial for Trump's re-election?
"Trudeau had made the issue of gender equality a priority for the gathering. He said gender equality must "cut through" everything the G-7 does."
I'll bet he did
"Samantha Bee was attacking herself and her own gender by referring to his heartless complicit daughter as a c*nt."
yeah, like those black cops that liberals say have internalized racism in Baltimore
"Trump sexually assaulted 19 women (that we know of),"
actually, you don't know that at all
"Trump was snubbed at the G6 against 1 summit in Quebec. The G6 leaders mocked him, expressed their disdain for him, and agreed to make future political and trade agreements without Agent Orange."
that must've scared the hell outta him!
have you compared the economies of the G6 to the Big G1?
"Why do Trump supporters not care about his constant attacks on the free press and all other American democratic institutions?"
uh, here's the Committee to Protect Journalism
https://cpj.org/reports/us2013-english.pdf
they seem to think Obama was attacking press freedom
"JUNE 09, 2018 7:30 PM
Blogger Priya Lynn said...
The Trump effect: New study connects white American intolerance and support for authoritarianism"
Puerile Priya is full of such studies
notice her use of imprecise terms when Puerile interprets a "study"
FCC Gets Caught Lying About Supposed ‘Cyberattack’ On Its Net Neutrality Comments
"As if it weren’t obvious enough that Ajit Pai and the FCC were dead-set on ending net neutrality regardless of public opinion, new internal emails obtained through Freedom of Information Age requests showed that the FCC fed a blatantly false story to the media to try to conceal its pro-industry agenda, reports TechDirt.
The FCC’s website has famously crashed twice in recent years. The first occasion was when the FCC took public comments before instituting net neutrality rules – Americans were overwhelmingly in favor of it. The second time happened just last year when the FCC was contemplating repealing net neutrality – Americans did not like that idea.
Chief information officer of the FCC, David Bray dismissed the idea that Americans were coming out in droves to file objections to a net neutrality repeal. Instead he contended that nefarious parties attacked the website to overwhelm the servers. That excuse seemed fishy, and the media never got the evidence they requested to substantiate that claim, but the FCC ultimately stuck with that story.
Thanks to emails Gizmodo secured via FOIA, we now have proof that the FCC’s own security team concluded that its site was not the target of a cyber-attack. The emails also show that Bray acted as an “anonymous source” from within the FCC by contacting reporters and suggesting that the only reason the commission wasn’t releasing proof of a cyber-attack is they were afraid of inspiring copycats.
That wasn’t true at all, though. Nor was the claim that the 2014 crash was also the result of a similar cyber-attack that the FCC had supposedly decided not to disclose. These lies were meant to change the narrative so that the FCC could pretend the feedback on net neutrality was compromised rather than abundantly at odds with what the FCC leadership wanted to do.
Once news outlets like the Wall Street Journal started reporting this story as fact, FCC emails show that leadership then started sharing these articles with critics and other reporters alike in order to push that narrative further. That was their proof, in lieu of producing actual evidence they knew they couldn’t produce.
No doubt, some of you reading this are saying, “Of course they lied about it! Chairman Pai is being investigated by his own agency for corruption!” Granted, we may not be naïve enough to believe that our government officials are telling the truth, but that doesn’t mean we should give up our hopes and demands for honesty and transparency.
The bottom line is that the Republican-led FCC always intended to throw a bone to cable/internet companies. They probably considered the commenting period a formality, and then had to devise a way to discredit it once citizens came out in force to voice their opinions on this matter.
Senate Democrats made a last attempt to preserve net neutrality with a narrowly successful vote in May. Alas, unless the House approves the same bill and Donald Trump decides not to veto it, net neutrality will formally end on June 11."
""“I respect women — beautiful women and women with value — but a woman who sells her body for sexual exploitation, I don’t respect,” Giuliani said."
What a convenient memory lapse, Rudy.
Melania Trump - the First Lady in our nude photo shoot
Sixteen years ago we profiled Donald Trump's then-girlfriend Melania Knauss. Now his wife, Melania featured in our naked profile shoot on his customised Boeing 727 wearing handcuffs, wielding diamonds and holding a chrome pistol...
http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/donald-trump-melania-trump-knauss-first-lady-erections
When Russia is the centrepiece of "America First", rest assured Putin has something much worse than a pee-pee tape.
@JuliaDavisNews "#Russia's state TV hosts struggle to contain their grins of deep satisfaction, as they point out: "Trump never mentioned Crimea" when he expressed his desire to restore Russia to the G7(G8). They wonder out lead whether it's time to resurrect their "joke" - "Trump is ours"
@joshscampbell "In my years as an FBI agent, I never encountered an innocent subject who actively worked to obstruct an investigation that would have proved their innocence.
Trump is coming out for relaxed standards on asbestos and has denied that it is toxic. Guess who makes most of it? Russia makes 58% of the world's asbestos.
@JoeBiden "Putin's Russia invaded its neighbours, violated our sovereignity by undermining elections, and attacks dissidents abroad. Yet our president wants to reward him with a seat at the table while alienating our closest democratic allies. It makes no sense.
@SteveSchmidt "It does if you consider the unthinkable. If he behaves like a Russian asset maybe it's because he is one.
Elagabalus • 3 hours ago
I’m an American but I’m rooting for Canada.
bearLvrFL Elagabalus • 2 hours ago
I second that emotion. I'm on the side of Justice and Fairness.
J Ascher Elagabalus • 2 hours ago
I'm considering emigrating to Vancouver, BC or thereabouts if things get significantly worse.
Dramphooey Elagabalus • 2 hours ago
I am disgusted and embarrassed by this administration trying to treat our allies as satellites. Trump and Bolton want a Warsaw Pact, not an alliance of free peoples. They make me sick and angry.
In less than a month there is an event I wanted to go to at which there will be a lot of Canadians. I don't even know how I can look them in the face.
"I’m an American but I’m rooting for Canada"
can we call you a traitor?
"I second that emotion. I'm on the side of Justice and Fairness."
Canada has much higher tariffs on American goods than America has on Canadian goods. So, if you second that emotion. I'm on the side of Injustice and unfairness.
You should try to get in the habit of thinking logically.
"I'm considering emigrating to Vancouver, BC or thereabouts if things get significantly worse."
Sorry, Baby Justin, Little Lord Hypocrite, announced this week that he will seek ways to halt the flow of immigrants from south of the border. You see, it's only America that is horrible if they control their border.
"I am disgusted and embarrassed by this administration trying to treat our allies as satellites. Trump and Bolton want a Warsaw Pact, not an alliance of free peoples. They make me sick and angry."
Actually, we've been treating them as satellites for decades by not demanding the pay their equal share. Trump is treating them as grown-ups,
and they're throwing a temper tantrum!
"In less than a month there is an event I wanted to go to"
You can't always get what you want
"at which there will be a lot of Canadians. I don't even know how I can look them in the face."
but if you try sometimes
you'll find
you can stay home, get high and watch the tube!
You wouldn't mind that, would you?
Diplomacy cannot be dictated by "fits of anger", French President Emmanuel Macron has warned after the G7 summit in Canada ended in acrimony.
And oblivious Trump says his relationships with G6 leaders is "10 out of 10", lol!
Trump hates Justin but has nothing but praise for Putin.
Who got more bang for their buck: Thomas Jefferson for the Louisiana Purchase or Vladimir Putin for the Trump Purchase?
--------------------------------------
John Kelly: The WH Is A “Miserable Place To Work”
President Trump has gone overseas to embark on some of the most consequential diplomatic negotiations of his tenure, threatening an all-out trade war with allies and seizing a chance to make peace with a nuclear-armed menace. But back home, he left behind a West Wing where burned-out aides are eyeing the exits, as the mood in the White House is one of numbness and resignation that the president is growing only more emboldened to act on instinct alone.
Mr. Trump, a former reality television star, may soon be working with a thinned-out cast in the middle of Season 2, well before the midterm elections. Several high-profile aides, including John F. Kelly, the president’s chief of staff, and Joe Hagin, a deputy of Mr. Kelly’s, are said to be thinking about how much longer they can stay. Last week, Mr. Kelly told visiting senators that the White House was “a miserable place to work,” according to a person with direct knowledge of the comment.
White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro: "There's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad-faith diplomacy with president Trump and then tries to stab in hin the back in the way out the door. And that's what bad-faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press converence.'
To review:
"There's a special place in hell for Trudeau, but Kim, Duterte, and Putin are righteous dudes."
Got it.
Moron Trump and his moron advisors are all stunned and surprised that Canada won't just be their lap dog and take it on the chin while turning the other cheek, lol! The truth is that Justin didn't say anything in that news conference that he hasn't told trump previously in private and in public statments. Trump's just a whiney little bitch.
You’ll have noticed that in no way has the Great Fabricator indicated HOW sexy Justin purportedly double crossed anyone, whereas in the press conference, sexy Justin was clear and specific as to major points of disagreement and the reasons why.
Clearly to Traitor Trump and his sycophants, “double cross” means “doesn’t roll over like Traitor Trump does for his Russian master. “
It was unclear why Trump and his aides have suddenly begun speaking of Trudeau this way. Until Trump advisor Kudlow explained: Trump is attacking Trudeau because he is trying to show Kim that he is tough. Trudeau’s Saturday criticism of Trump’s trade policy, Kudlow said on CNN, had made Trump look weak just before the president departed for his talks with Kim.
The Trump administration’s supposed problem with Trudeau was the Saturday news conference in which the prime minister politely offered the same criticism of Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs that he had been uttering all week. Trudeau said again that the “national security” tariffs were an insult when applied to a close ally, that Canada would not be “pushed around” on trade, and that he would impose retaliatory tariffs “with regret” if necessary.
Remember when Republicans warned against a female president because she might be irrational, vindictive, and prone to mood swings? Ohhh, the irony, hahahahahahahaaha!
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"Robert De Niro has been an outspoken critic of Trump, even saying in May he barred the president from visiting any locations of his swanky restaurant, Nobu."
I thought liberals were so invested in the idea that public businesses have to serve anyone who walks in the door. I guess they just mean any homosexual who waltzes in!
"Diplomacy cannot be dictated by "fits of anger", French President Emmanuel Macron has warned after the G7 summit in Canada ended in acrimony."
chill out, Emmanuel
"And oblivious Trump says his relationships with G6 leaders is "10 out of 10", lol!
Trump hates Justin"
uh, he said it was "10 out of 10" and then that snivelly brat, Justin, came out with a nasty statement
let's face it, Baby Justin was intimidated by Trump in person but after Trump left, and he felt safe, he had to save face and came out with an attack on the US
Canada will be in a mess unless they stop charging huge tariffs on American imports
we're not putting up with that crap anymore
"but has nothing but praise for Putin."
Trump has a trio of characters to manipulate and Putin is one of them. We'll see what the results are but he's already accomplishing more than Obama ever did.
"Who got more bang for their buck: Thomas Jefferson for the Louisiana Purchase or Vladimir Putin for the Trump Purchase?"
has Vlad gotten anything so far for his supposed "purchase"?
"John Kelly: The WH Is A “Miserable Place To Work”"
Canada's a miserable place to live
"President Trump has gone overseas to embark on some of the most consequential diplomatic negotiations of his tenure, threatening an all-out trade war with allies and seizing a chance to make peace with a nuclear-armed menace."
yes, while Baby Justin makes the world safe for tariffs on milk
"But back home, he left behind a West Wing where burned-out aides are eyeing the exits, as the mood in the White House is one of numbness and resignation that the president is growing only more emboldened to act on instinct alone"
according to who?
Trump was elected, these staffers weren't
staffers are there to enact the agenda of the elected individual
if they aren't on-board, they can leave
"Mr. Trump, a former reality television star, may soon be working with a thinned-out cast in the middle of Season 2, well before the midterm elections. Several high-profile aides, including John F. Kelly, the president’s chief of staff, and Joe Hagin, a deputy of Mr. Kelly’s, are said"
are said by who?
"White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro: "There's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad-faith diplomacy with president Trump and then tries to stab in hin the back in the way out the door. And that's what bad-faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference."
Trump made him look small, Baby Justin had to do something to try to save face
"Moron Trump and his moron advisors are all stunned and surprised that Canada won't just be their lap dog and take it on the chin while turning the other cheek, lol!"
Baby Justin needs to grow up and speak honestly in person.
"The truth is that Justin didn't say anything in that news conference that he hasn't told trump previously in private and in public statments."
were you in those private meetings?
"You’ll have noticed that in no way has the Great Fabricator indicated HOW sexy Justin"
sexy? is walking around with a dumb look on your face "sexy" to homosexuals in Canada?
"It was unclear why Trump and his aides have suddenly begun speaking of Trudeau this way. Until Trump advisor Kudlow explained: Trump is attacking Trudeau because he is trying to show Kim that he is tough."
Baby Justin might want to keep in mind that Trump is on a mission that has implications for the entire world while Baby Justin is getting tough in Trump's absence to defend tariffs to prop up his pathetic country's economy
Baby Justin: free trade is a two-way street
you may not get it now
but you will
"Trudeau said that Canada would not be “pushed around” on trade, and that he would impose retaliatory tariffs “with regret” if necessary."
when you have a huge trade surplus with someone, "retaliatory tariffs" is an oxymoron
it's like lighting a cannon that blows up in your face
yeah, you're a tough guy, Baby Justin
just like Jeb Bush
"Remember when Republicans warned against a female president because she might be irrational, vindictive, and prone to mood swings?"
so you're saying Baby Justin acts like a girl?
maybe that's why Canadian homosexuals think he's "sexy"
even with that dumb look on his face
"June 10, 2018 3:02 PM
Comment deleted
This comment has been removed by the author.
June 10, 2018 5:39 PM"
mental illness has no cure
no reparative therapy can help
Call it “Sitting Bull in a china shop.”
A stunning picture. Live. Real. Raw. Tense. Wit’s end fury.
At the focal point in the picture: Total calm.
Arms crossed, suit-coat slightly rumpled. Seated. Eyes open, passive, unseeing. Mouth set contentedly.
President Trump, leader of the free world, G-1, sits in a room surrounded by utterly powerless and exhausted G-6, like weary parents whose child has gone through all 17 stages of an airport meltdown tantrum and has — finally — decided to just sit on the floor.
Arms crossed. Unmovable.
The picture — dispatched to the world by a fed up German diplomat inside the Canadian china shoppe — is marvelous for so many reasons. Not the least of which is that it’s the latest attempt by Mr. Trump’s detractors desperate to embarrass him — only to have it backfire.
No doubt if you are a self-regarding elite globalist enthralled with being loved by European leaders, then, sure, you will be shredded with rage over this picture showing an obdurate U.S. president — sitting arms crossed, uncaring — as the entire cabal of global leaders tries in vain to curb him, force him into line.
How dare the president of the United States shirk the august authority of the global puppet masters!
What Mr. Trump’s detractors are too dumb to understand is that it is precisely for these reasons that this picture brings Mr. Trump’s supporters to their feet cheering the president’s defiance in the face of such pearl-clutching wrath and fury.
And by “Mr. Trump’s supporters,” I simply mean regular patriotic Americans who want an American president to represent America’s interests instead of everybody else’s.
In the picture, America’s Sitting Bull president looks straight ahead, past all the global glares. He is surrounded as if the subject of some kind of opioid addiction intervention.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel — hands planted on the table between them — leans toward Mr. Trump, glowering intensely. Off to the side is Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — arms crossed, deep bags under his eyes from sleepless nights — staring off in drained frustration.
To be fair, this picture does not depict the first time this century that American interests were at striking odds against those of Germany and Japan. But — lucky for Ms. Merkel and Mr. Abe — we Americans are a forgiving people. We moved on before and will move on again.
As he opens talks with North Korea in hopes of eliminating another Axis of Evil without firing a shot, the entire global intelligentsia is left sputtering and gasping over his highly undiplomatic behavior — I’m sorry, “behaviour” — in the Land of Loons.
Well, it’s probably worth remembering at a moment like this that every single ticking time bomb around the world today — from Iran to Syria to Russia to Afghanistan to North Korea — every single one of them is the work product of all the great global diplomatic geniuses like Angela Merkel and John Kerry and Barack Obama.
All of these great diplomats either caused the problems that Mr. Trump inherited or they ignored them so long that they festered into a much worse and much more dangerous problems.
Like North Korea. After years of “strategic indifference,” as the haughty diplomats call it, North Korea is now a nuclear nation with long range missiles helmed by a short, fat, murderous little jarhead, a hermit-crab of a despot.
All the great diplomats before have failed.
Let’s see what President Sitting Bull can do.
On the eve of President Trump’s historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, world leaders are uneasy about what may transpire in Singapore, and U.S. foreign policy experts are openly divided.
But what about the people who have the most to gain—or to lose—regarding tensions between the United States and North Korea? In a poll of South Koreans and Americans , the two groups dovetailed:
A vast majority of Americans (70 percent) say that Trump should meet with North Korea’s leader. In South Korea, this optimism is even higher, at 81 percent.
Delusional progressives are powerless to stop it. Ineffective never-trump laughingstock are dwindling into oblivion.
After every curve-ball has been thrown at him from every conceivable direction, Donald Trump will win 40 states, and do so in a most extraordinary way.
He will have made Americans believe in American greatness once again!
He already is.
Here’s why:
5. Foreign Policy Dominance
In every move President Trump has made in terms of foreign policy, wildly, he has kept consistent on two levels. He has kept his campaign promises. He has also delivered an America First policy without apology. I use the word apology purposefully. The previous administration apologized for America endlessly. The lack of appreciation for the country that gave Barack Obama everything he ever deemed of value in his life took a psychological toll on our people. But decades of policies allowing trade, security, and immigration imbalances took tolls on our welfare. From NATO to the G7, Saudi Arabia, to Israel, North Korea to Iran, from Russia to China, Trump’s unapologetic stance of advocating for his nation’s best standing is reversing that psychological effect. And he now lives rent free in the minds of all who believed America was weak.
4. Stronger Might, Less War, Safer World
Unrelenting in his belief that a strong America makes a safer world, President Trump has also for the most part kept his campaign promises to not send America’s best into theaters of combat that don’t serve our purpose. He has a budget that is bulking up our fighting hardware. He has deployed missiles. He’s coordinated with our allies. He’s responded to the actions of state sponsored terrorists. He has ISIS all but obliterated. Almost none of it requiring more human boots on the ground. Meanwhile rogue nuclear powers are having their bluffs called, phony agreements torn up, and their futures reconsidered—because America is dealing from strength, not desperation.
3. His Base Is Strongest Of The Era
At two years into his term the base of support he grew to support his candidacy stands almost unmoved from his inauguration at 87%. The only President in the modern era that bests him was George W. Bush in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. His support is largely based upon promises kept in numbers of areas but his particularly aggressive appointments of judges in the appellate system, as well as the Supreme Court of The United States have already secured pro-life, and pro-religious liberties wins. If he does not have the chance to place another appointment to the Supreme Court before the 2018 mid-terms, this becomes an especially effective campaign focus for 2020. The difference then will be that he has a record of delivering on this promise to demonstrate—whereas in 2016 never-Trumpers never believed he’d fulfill this promise. But proving people wrong has been one of President Trump’s most endearing features since gaining office.
2. He Will Garner Record African American Support
Driven largely on great home-ownership numbers, George W. Bush garnered the modern era’s greatest numbers of African American voters. It was all of 11%.
The lock-hold that the American left has handcuffed the African American vote with is both cultural and economic. And while President Trump will — like all GOP Presidents in the era — not likely gain the majority of African American votes, even an increase of 15-20% of their overall votes would trigger a seismic landslide. Consider that Bush was able to improve the lives of many by increased home-ownership. Consider that President Obama oversaw a rapid decline in the lives of African Americans. Then consider that no group has benefitted more from Trump reforms, deregulation, and job creation initiatives than the nation’s African Americans. But also consider the cultural impact President Trump is making on the issue of prison reform, cracking down on dangerous gang activity (of which minorities are the overwhelming majority of victims,) and pardoning African Americans wrongfully imprisoned, and there is a cultural shift occurring that no one is yet reporting. That he is even reaching out to the very sports figures who have opposed him and embracing cultural figures and giving them audience to hear their hearts and minds in order to achieve justice on some social level—is a picture that African American communities are unaccustomed to seeing. President Obama’s went to black churches, put in affected speech patterns, and bemoaned conditions. By contrast President Trump invites them to the White House, listens to their legitimate complaints and plots solutions. I would not be surprised if he were to break 30% of African American support in 2020.
1. Jobs
When people used to not have the dignity of work, they will be exceedingly hesitant to turn to options that will adversely affect that reality. With the economy growing 4-6% annually (which is possible by 2020,) and unemployment bouncing below 4%, along with the greatest number of workforce participants in two decades, people simply vote their pocketbook. Over the course of our history people’s economic realities have continued to be some of the most reliable indicators of electoral success. That he continues to push records and new thresholds of success for people vis-a-vie wages, vertical job opportunities, and exploding entrepreneurial environments there will be great hesitation to change horses midstream.
Donald Trump will be overwhelmingly re-elected almost irrespective of who the Democrats decide to run.
He campaigned on promises he could keep.
He’s now keeping the promises he made.
He will in all likelihood be given a chance to make and keep more promises to the people who gave him the chance the first time.
This ain’t rocket science!
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she favors a U.S.-Russian summit, seeking to point global diplomacy forward after a meeting of Group of Seven leaders.
Russian President Vladimir Putin wasn’t invited to the G-7 summit in Canada, although U.S. President Donald Trump suggested he be readmitted. Austria is encouraging the U.S. to hold a summit with Putin in Vienna, a White House official said last week.
“I’m certainly in favor of that,” Merkel said in a German television interview. “I wish for that to happen -- that two presidents meet for an extended period of time.”
Merkel’s comment was one of two nods to Trump during her hourlong ARD interview after returning from the G-7. She also said the U.S. president wasn’t wrong in pressing Germany to increase defense spending.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday revived Ohio's policy of purging infrequent voters from its registration rolls to fight voter fraud by liberals.
In a 5-4 decision with the court's conservatives in the majority, the justices overturned a lower court ruling that Ohio's policy violated the National Voter Registration Act, a 1993 federal law that forbids removing voters from registration lists for failing to vote.
Liberal voters purged from registration rolls who sued to challenge the policy in the Republican-governed state said the practice illegally erased thousands of voters from registration rolls and disproportionately impacted Democratic candidates.
The state argued that the policy was needed to keep voting rolls current, clearing out people who have moved away or died.
The court's four liberal justices furiously dissented from the decision.
Under Ohio's policy, if registered voters miss voting for two years, they are sent registration confirmation notices. If they do not respond and do not vote over the following four years, they are removed from the rolls.
President Donald Trump's administration backed Ohio in the case, reversing a stance taken by Democratic former President Obama the Worst's administration against the policy.
The challengers criticized what they called Ohio's "use it or lose it" policy that they said violated liberal voters' right to choose when to vote.
Liberals have accused states of taking steps, including laws requiring certain types of government-issued identification, intended to suppress the vote of liberals, who generally favor Democratic candidates.
A 2016 Reuters analysis found roughly twice the rate of voter purging in liberal neighborhoods in Ohio's three largest counties as in conservative neighborhoods.
Ohio points out that voters are not purged from registration rolls for not voting but for failing to respond to a notice mailed by the state to them and then not casting a ballot for four more years.
The case was one of several pivotal election-related disputes the justices are resolving during their current term, which runs through June. They have yet to decide two high-profile cases out of Wisconsin and Maryland that could impact future elections involving claims that state or congressional district maps were illegally drawn to favor one party over another, a practice called partisan gerrymandering.
"Hahahahahahahaha! Oh would I LOVE to see him try to stop all trade between the States and the world!
This buffoon is stupid enough to think the world takes him seriously, lol!"
Well, last week, China took him seriously enough last week to offer 70 billion to the US.
Sorry, China. You'll have to do better than that.
Merkel took him seriously enough to agree that Germany will have to start contributing more to NATO.
And Mexico?
They're getting "flexible":
Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said on Monday the only way countries re-negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will find a solution is through “sufficient flexibility” to narrow differences.
Guajardo said U.S., Mexican and Canadian negotiators will be “engaging strongly” in July to reach an agreement that is “feasible, workable and benefits the three nations involved.
“The only way we will find that solution is if countries involved have sufficient flexibility to be able to find that narrow strip where we have to land,” he said.
“An agreement that does not give us certainty, does not give us rules that have to be obeyed and mechanisms to settle disputes will not be of help for the business community.”
He said there was a “high chance” there will be an agreement on renegotiating NAFTA, but the timing depends on how flexible each country can be.
The United States, Canada and Mexico have been in months of negotiations to rework NAFTA, which President Donald Trump says harms his country.
So Trump is back to lying again and claiming Canada has a trade surplus with the U.S. Its the other way around. Taking into account both goods and services the U.S. has an 8.5 billion dollar trade surplus with Canada.
Major Freudian Slip
OOPS: State TV Host Hails Summit Of “Two Dictators”
On Fox News this morning, Fox & Friends co-host Abby Huntsman had a bit of slip in discussing the U.S.-North Korea Summit when describing the the two leaders, Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump.
Huntsman was narrating footage of President Trump’s arrival and trying to give the historic context of the meeting when she slipped up and gave an unexpected description. Or at least, unexpected on Fox.
“This is history. We are living — regardless of what happens in that meeting between the two dictators, what we are seeing right now, this is history.” Two dictators? Oh.
All of the defences of mango Mussolini's actions at the G7 amount to the same thing: blowing up the Western alliance to own the libs.
France blasts "incoherent" Trump after G7 fiasco:
French President Emmanuel Macron's office: "We spent two days to obtain a text and commitments. We will stand by them and anyone who would depart from them, once their back was turned, shows their incoherence and inconsistency. Let us be serious and worthy of our people. We make commitments and keep them.”
Josh Marshall: "Worth noting the obvious. Trump and his associates are going bonkers because Trudeau humiliated Trump simply by not giving in to his demands and his threats. That's the entirety of this story. Full stop."
Roland Paris, foreign affairs adviser to Mr. Trudeau: “Big tough guy once he’s back on his airplane,” he wrote on Twitter. “Can’t do it in person, and knows it, which makes him feel weak. So he projects these feelings onto Trudeau and then lashes out at him. You don’t need to be Freud. He’s a pathetic little man-child."
Justin isn't having tDump's nonsense and calls him on it. Fat Donny leaves in a huff with his tail between his legs to go hang with his new bff in Singapore. Its hilarious 'cause Trump thought he could bully the leader of the free world, lol!
"Donald Trump was the dumbest godamn student I ever had" - Wharton professor William T. Kelly, who had Trump in class.
@speakerryan: "Just now House Republicans voted to cut $15 billion in wasteful government spending - the largest rescission package in history."
He's celebrating the fact that they cut $7 billion from children's health insurance. That's what he calls "wasteful government spending." Again and again Republicans prove they are totally heartless and evil.
FACISM is a form of Right -Wing ideology and is the opposte of Communism & Socialism.
Early signs of Fascism:
- Protects corporate interests
- Extreme patriotism is expected
- Supports extreme wealth inequity
- Promotes religion within government
- Allows corporate controlled mass media
- Limits middleclass labour power by severely suppressing unions
- Motivates citizens to support excessive worldwide military occupation
This comment has been removed by the author.
@RobReiner: "When an American president attacks our closest allies and embraces a hostile enemy power who is trying to destroy our democrac y and democracies around the world, we can only conclude that he has been compromised and is in a conspiracy to commit treason."
" On 9/11, thousands of Americans on 238 airliners were diverted to Canada as part of Operation Yellow Ribbon. Canada cared for them for days, the small town of Gander took in 7,000 people alone. In our hour of need, Canada was there.
And this orange maggot calls them an enemy"
The reason the planes were diverted was that the Americans were too chickenshit to allow them into their own airspace. Apparently the cities and towns in Canada where these aircraft landed were somehow more expendable... safer to divert them here than to run the risk of letting them land on American soil.
So Trump is back to lying again and claiming Canada has a trade surplus with the U.S when its the other way around. Taking into account both goods and services the U.S. has an 8.5 billion dollar trade surplus with Canada. Trump, or as he is better known as, Cadet bone spurs, hilariously thought he could bully the leader of the free world and now he has egg all over his face, lol!
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'An Unprecedented Scandal': How Newspapers Around the World Reacted to Trump's Behavior at the G-7 Summit
Here’s how media in the G-7 countries reacted to the president’s performance.
Canada
The editorial board of the Toronto Star, Canada’s highest-circulation newspaper, said,”He sulked his way through the first part of the meeting, gave his delegation the OK to sign the summit’s pallid final communique, then threw a hissy fit and tore it up as soon as he was back on Air Force One. […] It was both dishonest and amateurish.”
The Globe and Mail’s editorial board wrote, “Relations between two of the world’s closest allies are now at a perilous low. The fault rests entirely with Mr. Trump and his advisers. Our government has been patient with the President and his protectionist agenda. So too have Canadians, but this is getting tiresome. We are a polite people, but the President will learn that, when roused, we don’t roll over at the request of an insulting bully, no matter how big.”
Germany
A columnist for Der Spiegel, a German weekly news magazine, said the events of the summit amounted to “an unprecedented scandal: Never has there been such a step in 40 years of the G-7’s history, and never has a participant so duped his partners before.”
Another Der Spiegel commentator wrote: “The G-7 debacle shows the real problem with Donald Trump’s politics is Donald Trump. His behavior follows no order, no logic, instead just the desire to be the best, most important and biggest. The collapse of the West, the destruction of decades of friendship is simply a product of his unprecedented ego trips.”
France
The editorial board of Le Monde, one of France’s biggest daily, said: “One thing is clear: the president of the United States, Donald Trump, is better disposed to the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, a man whose dynasty has locked his country and his people into a megalomaniac madness, than to his European, Japanese and Canadian allies […] This kind of behavior has no precedent in the practice of diplomacy between allies. The Europeans must learn lessons from it now.”
Libération‘s New York correspondent said, “Donald Trump was ready with a smile for the G-7’s traditional family photo, but for his supporters, this calm image matters less than the offensive attitude of an American president against the world, defending ‘America First’.” The writer also warned that Trump’s taste for confrontation seemed to be contagious, noting a hardening in French President Emmanuel Macron’s tone towards the U.S.
"So Trump is back to lying again and claiming Canada has a trade surplus with the U.S. Its the other way around. Taking into account both goods and services the U.S. has an 8.5 billion dollar trade surplus with Canada."
we're talking about commodities, Puerile Priya
obviously, like all countries, Canada has need of the kind of services only we can provide
just to get decent health care, wealthy Canadians usually go south!
"Two dictators?"
Trump a dictator? He has shown deference to the checks and balances in the Constitution, sought approval from Congress for changes, and obeyed court orders, unlike his predecessor.
Further, he has not done a thing about nonstop demonstrations against him by the radical resistance.
Let us know when the dictator part kicks in.
All of the defences of mango Mussolini's actions at the G7 amount to the same thing: blowing up the Western alliance to own the libs.
France blasts "incoherent" Trump after G7 fiasco:
French President Emmanuel Macron's office: "We spent two days to obtain a text and commitments. We will stand by them and anyone who would depart from them, once their back was turned, shows their incoherence and inconsistency. Let us be serious and worthy of our people. We make commitments and keep them.”
"Justin isn't having tDump's nonsense and calls him on it. Fat Donny leaves in a huff with his tail between his legs to go hang with his new bff in Singapore. Its hilarious 'cause Trump thought he could bully the leader of the free world, lol!"
Wow, so sad...
""Donald Trump was the dumbest godamn student I ever had" - Wharton professor William T. Kelly, who had Trump in class."
I wonder how many students he's had who ran billion-dollar corporations AND had a top-rated TV show AND became the President. Let us know what the really smart ones accomplished, Professor.
And try not to resent others so much.
It hasn't done much for Puerile Priya
Japan
The editorial board of the Japan Times, the country’s largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper, wrote, “If U.S. President Donald Trump’s objective is to make himself the center of attention at every international event, he is succeeding. If he aims to undermine the legitimacy of international institutions, he is making progress. If, however, he seeks to make America great again, his actions are working at cross purposes to his goal. Those are the inescapable conclusions to be drawn from last weekend’s Group of Seven leaders summit.”
The Asahi Shimbum‘s editorial board warned Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to take stock of the new world order, writing “Japan could end up lagging behind the radical changes occurring in the landscape of international relations if Abe continues to maintain a foreign policy agenda fully dependent on the Trump White House. […] Abe should confront and act on the obvious fact that Japan cannot protect its own interests by simply following the United States.”
Italy
A writer for the daily newspaper La Stampa, “If anyone still had any doubts, it is now clear that the goal of the American president is to change the world order. That’s what he was elected to do. The question what he wants to replace it with, and if the new model can really offer everyone more opportunities than the current one he intends to demolish.”
The U.K.
Britain’s left-leaning daily, The Guardian said in an editorial that the events of the summit marked “a watershed for the 21st-century democracies. It is the moment when Donald Trump’s disruption of the international order moved from annoying threat to damaging reality.”
“The US is the cornerstone of the post-1945 international order. If Mr Trump wishes to remove that cornerstone everything else is threatened. That has not yet happened. The thankless task of doing what can be done to mitigate Trumpian disruption must continue. But a fissure is growing. And it got wider in Quebec.”
The right-leaning Daily Telegraph’s editorial board said, “There is something to be said for his refusal to subscribe to the conventional diplomatic niceties. Invariably, final communiques are couched in bland terms to cover up differences that always exist between participants. Mr Trump decided to make those apparent rather than pretend otherwise.”
“On the other hand, one point of these meetings is to present a united approach on behalf of the economically developed democratic nations whose shared outlook and values frame the very concept of what has come to be known as “the West.” Mr Trump’s somewhat petulant and disruptive behaviour in Quebec calls into question whether such a political construct can be said to exist any longer under the current U.S. president.”
Observer
4 minutes ago
The growing center of world trade and economy is Asia, NOT the US. The world's powers will go their own way and ignore us thanks to President Infant.
"JUNE 11, 2018 1:53 PM
Blogger Priya Lynn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JUNE 11, 2018 1:53 PM
Blogger Priya Lynn said..."
mental illness has no cure
no reparative therapy can help
"@RobReiner: "When an American president attacks our closest allies and embraces a hostile enemy power who is trying to destroy our democrac y and democracies around the world, we can only conclude that he has been compromised and is in a conspiracy to commit treason.""
who needs the opinion of a meathead
"JUNE 11, 2018 2:07 PM
Blogger Priya Lynn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JUNE 11, 2018 2:09 PM"
mental illness has no cure
no reparative therapy can help
Instead of wasting your work day posting stupidity and lies get back to doing the job duties you're paid for lazy Wyatt/bad anonymous.
For the most part people see a post where every line is a paragraph, know its you at a glance, and ignore it anyway.
While lashing out at Canada, Trump accidentally shares his genuine beliefs
By the U.S.A's most watched and trusted journalist: Rachel Maddow
We know Donald Trump and his team took their animosity toward Canada in a rather hysterical direction over the weekend. What we don’t know is why.
At a press conference from the G-7 summit British Columbia on Saturday, a reporter asked the American president about frayed relationships with allied leaders. Upon learning that the reporter was with CNN, Trump whined about the news organization for a while, before bragging about his personal closeness with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emanuel Macron, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“I would say that the level of relationship is a 10,” he boasted. “We have a great relationship. Angela and Emmanuel and Justin. I would say the relationship is a 10.”
Soon after, the Canadian leader hosted a press conference in which he repeated the same things he’s said publicly and privately for quite a while, at which point Trump turned to Twitter and inadvertently suggested that CNN reporter he chastised was on to something.
“Based on Justin’s false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers and companies, I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market!
“PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, ‘US Tariffs were kind of insulting’ and he ‘will not be pushed around.’ Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!”
Members of Trump’s White House team, taking their misguided cues from their boss, piled on yesterday. Larry Kudlow, the director of the White House’s National Economic Council, called Trudeau’s comments a “betrayal,” adding that the prime minister “stabbed us in the back” and delivered a “slap in the face.” (How one might simultaneously stab someone in the back and slap someone in the face is unclear.)
Peter Navarro, a top Trump adviser on trade, added on Fox News, in apparent reference to the Canadian prime minister, “There’s a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with Donald J Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door.”
It’s worth unpacking some of this, because amid the nonsense, the White House accidentally said something interesting.
The oddity about the broader dynamic is that Trudeau did largely the opposite of what Team Trump claimed In his press conference. Indeed, the prime minister tried to downplay differences among G-7 members, and he offered no meaningful criticisms of Trump or his administration. The White House’s tantrum against one of America’s closest allies seemed wholly unconnected to real-world events.
But take another look at Trump’s tweets and note that he said his tariffs are “in response to” Canada’s trade policy on dairy products. This is one of those rare instances in which Trump made a mistake by accidentally sharing his genuine beliefs.
Because when the president announced his tariffs on steel and aluminum, the official line was that the policy was necessary on national security grounds. By way of Twitter, Trump effectively admitted that his stated rationale was a lie.
And that may yet take the debate in an interesting direction. As Jon Chait noted, “[I]f there was any possible way for his tariffs to fail in court, it would be because he decided to blurt out an explicit confession that his motive is not the one he is legally obligated to base it on.”
Trump World can’t even throw a dishonest tantrum about an imaginary problem without screwing up in important ways.
Postscript: For what it’s worth, the United States already negotiated a pretty good post-NAFTA trade deal with Canada, in which Canada made some real concessions, including on dairy imports. It was called the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), which Trump killed, despite not knowing what it is.
The question for this White House is simple: if Obama could negotiate a good trade deal with Canada, and make real progress on issues important to many U.S. industries, why can’t Trump? Is it because maybe the Republican president just isn’t much a deal-maker?
Loser Trump's tariffs on U.S. allies haven't gotten him any concessions and only retaliatory tariffs in return so in a vain attempt to save face his supporters laughably call that a "victory".
Hahahhahahahahahahahaha!
The leader of the free world won't bend over for Trump!
Trump and his advisors left the G6 +1 meeting hysterical after no one would kiss his ring and they gave him the spanking he so richly deserved instead.
There was blood coming out of his eyes, blood coming out of his...wherever.
"For the most part people see a post where every line is a paragraph, know its you at a glance, and ignore it anyway."
I don't know about "people" but you obviously read them. That's why you're so angry all the time.
"By the U.S.A's most watched and trusted journalist: Rachel Maddow"
I always liked her. She has a bouncy personality. And I think that guy, Chris Hayes, is just her in disguise.
But, if she's the most trusted, why are FOXNews ratings so much higher?
"We know Donald Trump and his team took their animosity toward Canada in a rather hysterical direction over the weekend. What we don’t know is why."
Why...hmmmm...let's see
Trump says everything is good
Baby Justin gives a press conference
Trump says everything is not good
The only logical conclusion is that Baby Justin lied about what happened.
“PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, ‘US Tariffs were kind of insulting’ and he ‘will not be pushed around.’ Very dishonest & weak."
there you go!
poor Baby Justin
think of what's become of others who crossed Trump:
Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Hillary Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, et al
Remember when Republicans had a platform other than "be awful to people"?
Me neither.
Trump makes a fool out of himself and the U.S. at the G7 Summit
Trump apparently decided to practice his (non-existent) diplomatic skills before the summit with Kim Jong-un on our closest allies at the G-7 meeting. To call it a disaster would be an understatement of epic proportion. He blew the whole thing up, made an ass of himself and embarrassed the entire country.
After agreeing to the joint communique that always accompanies the end of these meetings, Trump got his panties in a bunch over a very mild and perfectly reasonable statement from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and refused to sign it, then he ducked out early and left all the other leaders there on their own. They were probably happy about that, I imagine, but it’s quite an embarrassment to the country to have him throw a tantrum like this in front of the world and our closest allies.
What Trudeau said to the press was quite reasonable. “I highlighted directly to the president that Canadians did not take it lightly that the United States has moved forward with significant tariffs on our steel and aluminum industry,” and that we had done that on ridiculous national security grounds, as if Canada could ever be a threat to us in any way. “Canadians, we’re polite, we’re reasonable,” Trudeau said, “but we also will not be pushed around.” That’s all it takes to make Trump’s fragile ego go on high alert and for him to react like a 8-year old screaming, “I’m rubber and you’re glue!” It’s downright humiliating as an American to have this man be our public face and voice.
And then to make things worse, they dialed the idiocy up to 11 on the Sunday talk shows. Trump’s chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, bizarrely claimed that Trump had to go after Trudeau because Kim Jong-un would see it as weakness if he didn’t. Then his top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, went on TV and said that Trudeau’s statement that Canada would put sanctions on American goods in response to the new tariffs from the United States was a “betrayal” and that he had “stabbed him (Trump) in the back.”
What universe do these people live in? If we put tariffs on them, they’re going to put tariffs on us — and they are completely justified in doing so. If you go up and punch someone in the mouth and they punch you back, you can’t claim that they’re the ones who are doing something wrong. You started this crap, not them. You violated NAFTA, not them. This is just classic bully behavior, start the hostilities and violence and then pretend to be the victim of it.
What makes this all the more bizarre is that while he’s done absolutely everything he can to antagonize and alienate our allies and isolate America from them, he’s lavished praise on our enemies and on some of the world’s most brutal tyrants, from the regime in Saudi Arabia to Putin to that fascist thug in the Philippines. It’s like he’s turned the world upside down and is deliberately trying to undermine not only the United States but the entire world order. One could be forgiven for thinking that he truly is a Manchurian Candidate, his actions defy explanation that much.
De Niro Apologizes To Canada For “Idiotic” Trump
Robert De Niro, fresh off the Tony Awards stage where he verbally attacked the U.S. president, is now apologizing for Donald Trump’s behaviour following the G7 summit.
De Niro, speaking Monday in downtown Toronto where he’s launching a major development alongside celebrity chef Nobu Matsuhisa, called Trump’s behaviour “a disgrace.”
“I just want to make a note of apology for the idiotic behaviour of my president,” De Niro said, winning big cheers from the dozens who turned up for the groundbreaking ceremony.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Sunday expressed regret over eating at Chick-fil-A, because of the chicken company’s CEO’s personal views on gay marriage.
Dorsey tweeted a screenshot from his phone that showed a purchase he had made at Chick-fil-A using a mobile application. After a liberal backlash, however, Dorsey apologized for eating at the popular fast food restaurant.
At issue was Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy’s 2012 support for defining marriage as between a man and a woman, which he described as “the biblical definition of a family.”
Look, all of Harvey Weinstein's buddies are working hard to get Donald Trump re-elected:
Robert De Niro stunned the crowd at the Tony Awards Sunday by sending a profanity-filled message to President Donald Trump.
“I just want to say one thing,” De Niro said from the stage at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, before introducing a performance by Bruce Springsteen. “Fuck Trump. It’s no longer down with Trump. It’s fuck Trump.”
Other than your fantasies, Robert, let us know your objections.
Solomon Lartey spent the first five months of the Trump administration working in the Old Executive Office Building, standing over a desk with scraps of paper spread out in front of him.
Lartey, who earned an annual salary of $65,969 as a records management analyst, was a career government official with close to 30 years under his belt. But he had never seen anything like this in any previous administration he had worked for. He had never had to tape the president’s paers back together again.
Armed with rolls of clear Scotch tape, Lartey and his colleagues would sift through large piles of shredded paper and put them back together, he said, “like a jigsaw puzzle.” Sometimes the papers would just be split down the middle, but other times they would be torn into pieces so small they looked like confetti.
It was a painstaking process that was the result of a clash between legal requirements to preserve White House records and President Donald Trump’s odd and enduring habit of ripping up papers when he’s done with them — what some people described as his unofficial “filing system.”
Under the Presidential Records Act, the White House must preserve all memos, letters, emails and papers that the president touches, sending them to the National Archives for safekeeping as historical records.
But White House aides realized early on that they were unable to stop Trump from ripping up paper after he was done with it and throwing it in the trash or on the floor, according to people familiar with the practice. Instead, they chose to clean it up for him, in order to make sure that the president wasn’t violating the law.
Staffers had the fragments of paper collected from the Oval Office as well as the private residence and send it over to records management across the street from the White House for Lartey and his colleagues to reassemble.
“We got Scotch tape, the clear kind,” Lartey recalled in an interview. “You found pieces and taped them back together and then you gave it back to the supervisor.” The restored papers would then be sent to the National Archives to be properly filed away.
Lartey said the papers he received included newspaper clips on which Trump had scribbled notes, or circled words; invitations; and letters from constituents or lawmakers on the Hill, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“I had a letter from Schumer — he tore it up,” he said. “It was the craziest thing ever. He ripped papers into tiny pieces.”
Lartey did not work alone. He said his entire department was dedicated to the task of taping paper back together in the opening months of the Trump administration.
One of his colleagues, Reginald Young Jr., who worked as a senior records management analyst, said that during over two decades of government service, he had never been asked to do such a thing.
“We had to endure this under the Trump administration,” Young said. “I’m looking at my director, and saying, ‘Are you guys serious?’ We’re making more than $60,000 a year, we need to be doing far more important things than this. It felt like the lowest form of work you can take on without having to empty the trash cans.”
The White House did not comment on the president’s paper-ripping habit. According to Young and Lartey, staffers in the records department were still designated to the task of taping together the scraps as recently as this spring.
Lartey and Young described a system that stands in stark contrast to how records management was conducted under the Obama administration, which ran a structured paperwork process.
“All of the official paper that went into [the Oval Office], came back out again, to the best of my knowledge,” said Lisa Brown, who served as President Barack Obama’s first staff secretary. “I never remember the president throwing any official paper away.”
Brown described a regimented process for dealing with presidential records. She said all paper that was going to the president “would go in a folder with labels — one color for decision memos, for example, and another one for letters. Documents would go out to the president and then come back to the staff secretary’s office in the same folder for distribution and handling. It was a really structured process.”
Brown said Obama had an eye on preserving documents for history — even ones he was not technically required to send to the National Archives. “I remember the day he sent down to me his race speech from the campaign, handwritten,” she said. “All of the campaign material didn’t need to come into the White House or go to Archives.”
Trump, in contrast, does not have those preservationist instincts. One person familiar with how Trump operates in the Oval Office said he would rip up “anything that happened to be on his desk that he was done with.” Some aides advised him to stop, but the habit proved difficult to break.
Despite the president’s apparent disregard of the Presidential Records Act, sources said, aides around him have tried to take an overly inclusive approach to what would be considered a presidential record.
Anything that’s not purely personal — even just a note handed to an aide at a rally that was passed on to Trump — has been considered a record deemed worthy of being sent to records, where staffers could make sure the White House was being compliant with the law.
That team is now smaller, after many of the career officials were cleared out earlier this year.
Lartey, 54, and Young, 48, were career government officials who worked together in records management until this spring, when both were abruptly terminated from their jobs. Both are now unemployed and still full of questions about why they were stripped of their badges with no explanation and marched off of the White House grounds by Secret Service.
Irene Porada, the head of human resources who personally terminated both men, did not respond to an email requesting comment. A White House spokesman also did not respond to a request for comment about the terminations.
Young agreed to speak to POLITICO after this reporter contacted him to inquire about his termination. He then put this reporter in touch with Lartey, whose story of his dismissal — and the work he was asked to do during his final year of work under the Trump administration — corroborated Young’s account.
Both men originally agreed to speak to POLITICO for a story about why they believe they were unfairly terminated from jobs they expected to hold onto until they retired. Both said they were forced to sign resignation letters without being given any explanation for why they were being dismissed.
In the course of explaining what their work at the White House entailed, however, both described in detail the process of taping back together scraps of paper that the president had ripped up and thrown out. Both said they were happy to discuss the oddity of a job they began to view as a sort of punishment.
They did not, however, approach a reporter with the intent to leak embarrassing information about the president.
Lartey said he was fired at the end of the work day on March 23, with no warning. His top-secret security clearance was revoked, he said. Later, five boxes of his personal belongings were mailed to his home.
“I was stunned,” he said. “I asked them, ‘Why can’t you all tell me something?’ I had gotten comfortable. I was going to retire. I would never have thought I would have gotten fired.” He signed a pre-written resignation letter that stated he was leaving to pursue other opportunities. But he is still unemployed.
Young, who was terminated April 19, said he fought back and had his official status changed from “resigned” to “terminated.”
“I was coerced to sign a resignation letter at that time,” he said. “Then they escorted me to the garage and took my parking placard.”
He described the firing as traumatic and frustratingly Kafkaesque. “The only excuse that I’ve ever gotten from them,” he said, “was that you serve at the pleasure of the president.”
the last three posts are a pathetic waste
clear sign that Trump has driven the left insane
The U.S. Supreme Court gave states more power to purge their voting databases, upholding an Ohio system that could become a model way to reduce liberal votes for other Republican-controlled states.
The justices, voting 5-4, said the system was a legitimate effort to identify people who should be removed from voter rolls.
Republicans, including the Trump administration, are calling for stepped-up efforts to prevent voter fraud by liberals, while Democrats say that push is a thinly veiled campaign to stop liberals from casting ballots.
Ohio will now be able to use the system for its November election, when Senator Sherrod Brown will be among 26 Democrats in danger of losing their Senate seats.
Ohio is perennially a battleground state, with very close votes in presidential elections, and has given its electoral votes to the eventual winner in 28 of the last 30 elections. Today's action greatly increases the chance the GOP will win in 2018 and 2020!!
The popular vote losing pussy grabber is desperate to be seen as a tough guy and he can't take it that Western world leaders aren't scared of him. It was hilarious when Trump imposed tariffs on American allies and then in his best tough guy impression oh-so-seriously said that they better not impose retaliatory tariffs against the the States. And of course they all did retaliate with dollar for dollar tariffs on U.S. goods.
He thinks the leaders of western democracies should roll over for him and it really gets his goat that they won't do so.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous just admitted Republicans can't win a presidential election without preventing liberals from voting.
So true, we saw that with Trump losing the popular vote and getting elected on a technicality.
Its a short term strategy though that is destined to be a losing one though. The percentage of the population that is white is diminishing rapidly. Republicans won't be able to keep winning elections by appealing solely to racists and trying to limit the number of Democrat leaning minorities who vote.
The American future is brown and Democrat baby!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
That's why year after year the dwindling percentage of Republican voters like Trump's attacks on democracy and the free press - they know Republicans can't win an honest democratic election, only through corruption and dictatorship can they retain power.
Democracy will win in the end, though. Ultimately Americans will support democracy rather than facism.
Its refreshing though, to have Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous finally admit a Republican presidential candidate can no longer gain the support of the majority of Americans.
Keep it up Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous, you might find you like telling the truth for a change.
So, the two Dictators meet tonight in Singapore. Kim Jong Un is going to lead Trump around by the nose. He'll blow sunshine up Trump's skirt and flatter him and Trump will roll over and let Kim dictate what's going to happen.
In the end Trump will make a bunch of concessions and get nothing in return but empty promises from North Korea to do something Trump wants "down the road". And "down the road" will never come.
So, when hypocrite Trump violated the Iran nuclear deal he made a big deal about how Obama only dealt with the nuclear weapons issue and ignored Iran's bad behavior on human rights.
So, what's Trump do with North Korea? He says there will be NO discussion of human rights with Kim who treats his people as bad as the Nazis did.
Trump is so full of shit! He can't come even remotely close to negotiating a nuclear deal with Kim thats anywhere near as good as the one he violated with Iran.
"The popular vote losing pussy grabber is desperate to be seen as a tough guy"
why would he be? everyone already thinks he's tough
btw, you seem to like talking about grabbing pussies
why?
"and he can't take it that Western world leaders aren't scared of him."
that's funny because they regularly make statements like "he scares me"
"It was hilarious when Trump imposed tariffs on American allies and then in his best tough guy impression oh-so-seriously said that they better not impose retaliatory tariffs against the the States. And of course they all did retaliate with dollar for dollar tariffs on U.S. goods."
funny how everyone says the US should never retaliate because it will start a trade war but if anyone else retaliates, liberals think they're a hero
admit, you just hate America
it's envy and resentment
Trump has made it clear he will drop all tariffs on other country that does the same
Baby Justin is scared
what's he going to tell Canadian dairy farmers
"He thinks the leaders of western democracies should roll over for him and it really gets his goat that they won't do so.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!"
my guess is he's not giving those losers a second thought tonight
"anonymous just admitted Republicans can't win a presidential election without preventing liberals from voting"
I did?
I thought we were just preventing the fraudster liberals
"So true, we saw that with Trump losing the popular vote and getting elected on a technicality."
suddenly, everyone is waking up to is that Dems need a 10 point generic lead to have a chance at taking the House because their support is concentrated in a few small areas
"Its a short term strategy though that is destined to be a losing one though. The percentage of the population that is white is diminishing rapidly. Republicans won't be able to keep winning elections by appealing solely to racists and trying to limit the number of Democrat leaning minorities who vote.
The American future is brown and Democrat baby!"
got news for you, Trump is making a major push to the black community and it's working
historically, as minorities move up the economic ladder, they stop voting Dem
Dems will win few elections without 90% support from blacks
and they are increasingly asking what have the Dems done for them?
the answer is trap them in dangerous neighborhoods with failing schools
"Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!"
I'm going to copy every time Puerile Priya has said this and post it all on Dem loser day in November
"That's why year after year the dwindling percentage of Republican voters like Trump's attacks on democracy and the free press - they know Republicans can't win an honest democratic election, only through corruption and dictatorship can they retain power."
they just won one in Nov 2016
"Democracy will win in the end, though. Ultimately Americans will support democracy rather than facism."
democracy is already winning
Trump won and the elitists are on the run!!
"So, the two Dictators meet tonight in Singapore. Kim Jong Un is going to lead Trump around by the nose. He'll blow sunshine up Trump's skirt and flatter him and Trump will roll over and let Kim dictate what's going to happen.
In the end Trump will make a bunch of concessions and get nothing in return but empty promises from North Korea to do something Trump wants "down the road". And "down the road" will never come."
you mean like Obama and the Iran giveaway?
yeah that was great:
here you go, ayatollah
100 billion to fund terrorists if you'll agree to not make any nukes for 7 years
This is Justin Trudeau last year at a Pride parade, wearing rainbow socks, high fiving a little girl in a Wonder Woman costume.
Americans are very jealous right about now.
The most anti-gay American president ever refuses to acknowledge pride month, let alone be seen at a Pride parade. Not to mention him passing laws and signing executive orders that allow and promote the denial of services to LGBT people and the firing of them from their jobs for a harmless characteristic.
“Web Of Elite Russians” Met With NRA Before Election
Several prominent Russians, some in President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle or high in the Russian Orthodox Church, now have been identified as having contact with National Rifle Association officials during the 2016 U.S. election campaign.
The contacts have emerged amid a deepening Justice Department investigation into whether Russian banker and lifetime NRA member Alexander Torshin [photo] illegally channeled money through the gun rights group to add financial firepower to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential bid.
For lying morons like Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous: Its against U.S. law for a foreign country to contribute to Trump's election campaign.
The underlying issue being the Dotard owned by Russia.
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Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "you mean like Obama and the Iran giveaway? yeah that was great: here you go, ayatollah 100 billion to fund terrorists if you'll agree to not make any nukes for 7 years".
The Iran deal ensured Iran couldn't move forward with its nuclear program for TWENTY years. And of course there's your standard Republican lie about the deal - that 100 billion was IRAN's MONEY in first place, it was seized by the U.S. and the U.S. just agreed to give back the money it stole from Iran. There was a vast array of intrusive and in country inspections on all of Iran's nuclear sites and access to any sensitive military site in the country without notice. Lying Republicans pretended this would allow Iran time to hide its nuclear weapons activity, but radiation testing would make it obvious if they had violated the agreement despite advance notice that the sites would be inspected shortly.
Without a doubt Kim Jong Un will NOT give Trump access to the country to inspect its sensitive military sites. The barking Yam hasn't got a hope in hell of negotiating a nuclear non-proliferation agreement with North Korea that is 1% as tight as the one on Iran was. Then, like the fool he is, he'll be left desperately grasping for an explanation of why the iron-clad Iran deal wasn't sufficient but the feckless North Korea deal is.
You said it yourself Wyatt/Regina - "Trump is a moron".
And let's not forget the idiocy of Trump's violating the Iran deal in that now it has its $100 billion back and there are NO RESTRICTIONS WHATSOEVER ON IT MAKING NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
Somehow to idiots like Trump and Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous that's supposed to be an improvement!
So now instead of Iran being unable to restart its nuclear program for 20 years and the deal being renewed when that 20 years is up, Iran can restart its nuclear program IMMEDIATELY.
Trump and Wyatt/Regina are F*cked in the head!
As the Democratic Party remains in the coma it entered in November 2016, President Trump is performing his greatest magic trick.
And he’s doing it right under their noses.
Anyone who thinks Trump’s decision to pardon boxer Jack Johnson and commute Alice Johnson's unfair sentence wasn’t part of a greater plan is delusional.
Donald Trump is wooing black voters.
He doesn’t really have to do much.
He does it by inviting the presidents of some of nation’s historically black colleges to gather in the Oval for a photo op, and watch them do it, because their schools are struggling or dying.
He does it by freeing the Johnsons — freeing the history of Jack and commuting the sentence of Alice.
Anyone who thinks that Trump didn’t gain some black votes by those actions last week doesn’t understand the power of connecting with the disconnected.
In Detroit, and other urban areas – where we can’t get more than 14% to 20% of registered voters to turn out for a municipal election — and where many people still love Kanye West or R. Kelly — Trump may be resonating.
And now he’s considering pardoning Muhammad Ali, who doesn’t need his support, but that won’t stop Trump from claiming that he saved his reputation.
Trump’s now working on his re-election campaign.
Oh, you missed that? Most people did. When Trump announced, it was barely a blip on the national radar. He announced it while being federally investigated and waving off charges that his family is benefiting from his being in office. He had raised $10 million by April.
And the NAACP didn’t march.
And the Urban League didn’t put out a statement.
And in Detroit, no one said a word.
While the Democratic Party is sleeping, focused on winning November’s midterms rather than uniting behind a single 2020 candidate to challenge Trump, the president is wooing black voters with the help of Kim Kardashian, who’s married to the Mad Rapper and has 60 million Twitter followers, many of whom are black.
Donald Trump is succeeding at something few people thought possible. He is getting some black people to compare him to Barack Obama. Obama didn’t get Alice Johnson out of jail. Obama didn’t pardon Jack, even though Ken Burns asked him to and produced an entire documentary explaining why.
Donald Trump isn’t killing the Republican Party.
He is killing the Democratic Party.
He is singlehandedly making people forget the strength and resilience and heart of the party that once tried to define itself as the place for the little guy, for the left-outs, for the have-nots.
He is doing it by making people believe that he, whom Forbes describes as the first billionaire president in U.S. history, cares more about the little guy than Democrats do.
Trump is wooing black voters by accepting the friendship of people like the comedian Steve Harvey, and Kanye.
By pardoning the Johnsons, Trump ramped up his efforts to woo black voters. I can imagine he thought pardoning Ali would connect him with many more.
Instead, he should ask Kim Kardashian for the names of about 100,000 other people, mostly black, in prison for long terms that were inhumane. There are plenty of folks who could deserve what he gave Alice Johnson.
Donald Trump, who’s not the best businessman and maybe not the best husband, is the best modern reality star of all time.
And now he’s performing his biggest trick: convincing people that he cares more about black people than the Democratic Party. This, after he convinced poor people that he's better for them than any party.
If they’re not careful, the Democrats will look up and realize that the black base they’ve taken for granted for decades, might not be as enthusiastic as in the past. It’s not that they might vote for Trump. But they may not vote against him.
That gives Trump his second term.
And Trump's second biggest magic trick, after being elected, will be complete.
Foreigners are not putting America First. That’s why Trump needs to quit the group and make his own G-8 — the Great Eight — with more sympathetic world leaders:
Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, who enjoys “a great relationship” with Trump as he deploys extralegal killing squads.
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, who is “very open” and “very honorable” in running the most repressive regime on Earth.
Egyptian dictator Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, who established himself as a “fantastic guy” with his bloody crackdown on dissidents.
The Saudi regime, which has been “tremendous” as it purges business leaders and critics.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is “getting very high marks” as he jails opponents.
China’s premier, Xi Jinping, who did something “great” in making himself president for life.
And, of course, Russian President Vladimir Putin, “getting an A” for his leadership and receiving a congratulatory call from Trump after his “election.”
There is no room in this G-8 for Britain, France, Germany, Italy or Japan — and certainly not Canada. Canadians say “ Sorry ” for everything. But Trudeau not only failed to apologize to Trump, he won praise from his political opponents for defying Trump. This is a clear and present danger to the United States. Given Canadians’ well-known instability — their currency is called the “ loonie ” — there can be only one solution: We are going to build a wall from Maine to Alaska — and Ottawa is going to pay.
Iran got 100 billion from Obama the Worst for an agreement to stop building nukes for a short time.
North Korea has agreed to complete denuclearization and gotten nothing from Trump.
Oh, and they returned all american captives.
The left is quickly running out of excuses for why Donald Trump's economic policies have caused a boom rather than the bust that they predicted with such great certainty.
Last year, when the U.S. economy began to percolate with faster growth, the media and other Trump haters argued that this simply reflected a pickup in worldwide growth: Trump was riding the wave of what economists were calling "synchronized growth."
But now what do they have to say? The latest indicators are that, as a Wall Street Journal headline reported on June 3: "Global Economic-Growth Story Fades." Japan's growth rate is estimated to have slowed to slightly negative in the first quarter. The European Union was at an anemic 0.4%. The pace of global growth is expected to be much slower over the next two years, according to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Then there is the outlier: the United States. Here at home, growth is sizzling. Almost all economists now predict a growth rate of above 4% for the second quarter of 2018, and Dan Clifton of Strategas, one of the best forecasters of recent times, believes we may hit 5% later this year. He points to the surge of investment capital flowing into the United States and how the increased business spending points to several more quarters of this torrid growth. Meanwhile, the rest of the world treads water.
So much for synchronized swimming.
G1 doing great, G6 doing eh.
Then there is the argument that Trump's policies have nothing to do with the American prosperity burst. Politico's economics reporter recently published a column insisting that the "GOP tax cut is not why (the) economy is booming." He contemptuously added, "Economist are rolling their eyes at candidates' claims (that Trump's policies inspired faster growth)." Which economists?
As it happens, this is the same gang that was dead wrong about the likelihood of growth in the first place. Now they argue that the tax cuts are just kicking in and can't account for the increased economic activity. But this ignores the anticipatory effect: Businesses are anticipating the tax bill's lower rates on their profits and investments and making decisions accordingly.
Whatever the cause, it is undeniable that America has a new spring in its step. After a decade of malaise, the American economy is the envy of the world today. A recent Bloomberg article reports: "The U.S. dethroned Hong Kong to retake first place among the world's most competitive economies, thanks to faster economic growth and a supportive atmosphere for scientific and technological innovation, according to annual rankings by the Switzerland-based IMD World Competitiveness Center."
But the ultimate judges of all this are the American people — the voters. They know something big is going on here.
In the years before the 2016 election, about 3 in 10 voters described the economy as good or great. This year, 7 in 10 do. That surge in optimism began immediately after Trump's election and hasn't subsided. The same trend is true for the confidence of small businesses and manufacturing businesses. Up, up and away.
Perhaps the best news of all is to think that maybe Trump's critics are right that the economic thrust from the tax cut hasn't even kicked in yet. If that's true, then buckle up, because we're in for a hell of a ride.
new TTF feature - fun Trump fact of the day:
unemployment is now at 3.8%
only twice in the last half century has it been this low
one month in 2000
a couple of years in the late 60s
that's your fun Trump fact of the day
please join us again tomorrow
for another fun Trump fact!!
way to support the mission of teaching the facts!!!!!!!!!!
I distinctly remember how I felt before I came out in 2015 -- scared that I would lose friends, sponsors, and my fair chance at an Olympic gold medal. But I actually gained a lot from coming out as gay.
My family, friends, and fans all backed me up. I felt completely free for the first time in my life, and a few months ago, I became one of the first openly gay men to compete in the Olympics. Now I'd like to give back.
I'm partnering with the Democratic Party to support elected officials who fight for people like me. On June 25th, I'm headed to the DNC's LGBTQ Gala in New York City, and I want you and a friend to join me -- no matter if you're an ally or a member of the LGBTQ community.
Chip in $3 and you'll automatically be entered for a chance to attend with a friend -- the DNC will send you two tickets to the gala, cover your hotel and travel, and you and I will even get to take a photo together.
As a member of the LGBTQ community, I want to make sure that we elect representatives who care about us and fight for equality each and every day. That's why I am so excited to attend the gala and hear from rockstar keynote speakers like Virginia Delegate Danica Roem and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.
Will you join me? If you enter to win, the DNC will cover hotel, travel, and gala tickets for you and a friend -- so you can just sit back and enjoy the event.
Chip in $3 to be automatically entered for a chance to attend the LGBTQ Gala and meet me.
Good luck!
Gus
Gus Kenworthy
Olympic Medalist
P.S. -- This is your chance to attend the DNC's LGBTQ Gala and meet me! All you have to do is chip in $3 and you'll be automatically entered to win.
Trump is making steady progress with black voters
they've begun to notice that Dems run all the country's major cities where crime, drugs, and poverty in black neighborhoods is rampant while everything is hunky-dory in the non-black neighborhoods
Trump is presiding over the lowest black unemployment rate in history, he and his valiant Secretary of Education are standing up to teachers' unions to fight for school choice for urban blacks, he has asked Colin Kapernick to provide him with the names of any blacks who have been treated unfairly for pardon consideration
and, last night, they saw Dennis Rodman join Kanye West in wearing a MAGA hat
the Democratic Party is doomed
doooooooomed....
Two weeks from tonight it's our biannual entertainment where we get to hear perennial election loser Dana Beyer make excuses for losing to a redheaded pipsqueak that doesn't even show up to vote half the time.
Dana is trying Trump tactics calling the opponent by a derogatory nickname: Delegate No-show.
And Dana will still lose!
Just doesn't have that magic Trump touch.
Dana's candidacy is doomed
doooooooomed....
and I don't think JW is going to be in any mood to hire Dana for his staff!
"Two weeks from tonight it's our biannual entertainment where we get to hear perennial election loser Dana Beyer make excuses"
that's gonna be a rollckin' good time!!
see you at the pint-raising wake for Dana's political career!!
No nation on the Earth - including North Korea - should negotiate with the USA on any matter. Whatever deal you think you negotiated, the other side was negotiating in bad faith and will not agree to anything. USA is not a reliable partner.
Republican Steve Schimdt: "TRUMP disgraced the Presidency and the United States at the G7 summit. From his slov enly appearance to his unpreparedness, ignorance and arrogance, he beclowned himself. The Republican majority is filled with wowards who are servile supplicants to the most unfit POTUS ever."
Republican Steve Schmidt: "Letter to an American. Please read. We are connected to our Allies through shared values and the immense sacrifices that have been made to preserve freedom and liberty. Trump disgraces himself, his office, our history and our nation with his vile conduct.
American soldiers died precisely to prevent the destruction of American democracy that Trump is perpetuating. Trump is anti-freedom.
Rex • 9 hours ago
America used to be a nation that others wanted to emulate and even move to.
I seriously doubt that is the case anymore.
Amanda B. Rekendwith Rex • 7 hours ago
It used to be a nation that truly valued education and also the rule of law.
Now, not so much.
jeffg166 Rex • 9 hours ago
People are looking to Canada.
The_Wretched jeffg166 • 9 hours ago
We won't all fit unless Canada annexes a tier of northern US States.
jeffg166 The_Wretched • 9 hours ago
It could happen. I don’t think they will have to annex anyone. We’ll go willingly.
The_Wretched jeffg166 • 8 hours ago
Give it another couple of years of Trumplandia and there'll be votes on it.
matrem Mike_in_the_Tundra • 9 hours ago
“Please take us.”
As Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous pointed out, Republicans keep trying to decrease the number of people able to vote - because they hate democracy, freedom, and pluralism.
The G7 question: How do we USA-proof the West?
Scott Gilmore: The United States has gone from bulwark of the western alliance to a threat. It’s time for a strategy to contain the U.S. and defend ourselves.
This may be remembered as the most unusual G7 summit in history.
In the last week the president of the United States has started a trade war with five of the other six members, called Canada a national security threat, and reportedly yelled at French President Emmanuelle Macron over the phone. The day before the summit is to begin, there were leaks coming out of the White House that the president is looking for further ways to “punish” America’s erstwhile allies, and may send the vice president in his place.
When the G7 was still called the G8, and included Russia, summit diplomacy could be complicated. The policy differences between Moscow and the rest of the members were often stark, and negotiating a joint communiqué at the conclusion required some masterful wordsmithing. two people, after having read it, taking away the same meaning.)
In that context, the summit was seen as a way to engage and constrain a disruptive and unpredictable Russia. But eventually the differences between Moscow and the rest of the assembled countries became too great (the final straw being the annexation of Crimea)—Russia was kicked out.
Now, the G7 is forced to deal with another rogue member: the United States.
In the context of the last 50 years of global politics, this is an incredible development.
Within that framework, The U.S. engaged a western agenda for decades that prioritized three things: expanded global trade, collective security and democracy. But in the span of 18 months this has all changed.
President Donald Trump has completely upended the post-cold war security strategy. He came to office denigrating the importance of the NATO. The U.S. then violated the Iran nuclear deal, against the pleas of all its European allies. It was no surprise when Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany recently conceded the days when Europe could rely on Washington are over.
The West’s democratic agenda is also in tatters. Trump has refused to admit Moscow has been covertly disrupting western elections (including his own), he congratulated Putin after rigging the Russian election, and he celebrated China’s Xi Jinping for being declared de facto “president for life”. This week Trump’s Ambassador to Germany told the far-right news platform Breitbart he wants to “empower” the nationalist conservative movements that are growing in Europe.
But the biggest change in Washington’s role has been on issues of trade. Trump began his presidency by pulling out of the Trans Pacific Partnership. He then forced a renegotiation of NAFTA. And in the days leading up to the G7 summit, he sparked a tariff war with all of the U.S. largest trade partners.
As the West faces an increasingly aggressive Russia, the largest refugee crisis in recent history, and an expansionary China, the game plan is in tatters. What’s worse, Washington, once the western alliance’s star quarterback, is now intentionally throwing interception after interception.
Until now, we have depended on the U.S. as a key part of the western alliance. Now we have to see it as a threat. The unexpected, astounding, and until now unspoken question that has been on the mind of the rest of the world leaders gathered in Quebec this week is this: How do we USA-proof the west?
We can begin by shifting our diplomatic efforts away from the traditional hub and spoke model (with Washington at the centre) towards a more interlaced bilateral system. The G7 used to be an excellent forum to coordinate western policy—but now it will be difficult or even impossible to speak frankly in front of Trump. By necessity, the other leaders have likely already increased the amount of time they spend talking one-on-one with each other, trying to decipher Trump and then deal with him.
The West can also redouble its efforts to strengthen multilateral organizations like the UN and the WTO. Ironically, we once made this a priority because this was a way to constrain Russia. Now, for the same reasons, these institutions can help constrain the U.S.
And, we can defend the free trade agenda from Trump by adopting a policy of automatic collective reciprocity: any trade penalty meted out on a western ally will be returned in kind, by all the allies. If Trump adds a tax on steel imports from Canada, then all of the other allies should coordinate and apply the same reprisal in return.
No one wins a trade war, but this strategy, at least, will prevent Trump from pitting one country against another, as he has tried with Mexico and Canada. If we do not hang together, he will ensure we hang separately.
Most importantly, we can simply acknowledge that reliance on the U.S. has been a potentially fatal flaw in our post-cold war alliance. This has left us vulnerable to the States' infamously erratic domestic politics, and threatens to unravel seven decades of work to build a secure, prosperous and stable coalition of democracies. But it’s not too late to fix it and USA-proof the West.
DOJ Ends Asylum For Victims Of Domestic Violence
Axios reports:
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Monday afternoon that domestic violence and gang violence will no longer serve as sufficient reasons to automatically grant an immigrant asylum. The evil of Republicans knows no bounds, they are happy to see people die to get the votes of racists.
There is and has been for years a net loss of illegal immigrants to the U.S. as increasing numbers have returned to Mexico due to its improved economy. There is no "illegal immigrant" problem in the U.S. - Republicans are just bullshitting about it to try and get votes.
Looks like NRA was laundering Russian Money for Trump's campaign
We know from previous reporting that one aspect of Robert Mueller’s investigation is looking at the possible funneling of money to aid the Trump campaign through the NRA during the 2016 election. McClatchy is now reporting that there were several meetings between NRA officials and some of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies.
Several prominent Russians, some in President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle or high in the Russian Orthodox Church, now have been identified as having contact with National Rifle Association officials during the 2016 U.S. election campaign, according to photographs and an NRA source.
The contacts have emerged amid a deepening Justice Department investigation into whether Russian banker and lifetime NRA member Alexander Torshin illegally channeled money through the gun rights group to add financial firepower to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential bid.
Other influential Russians who met with NRA representatives during the campaign include Dmitry Rogozin, who until last month served as a deputy prime minister overseeing Russia’s defense industry, and Sergei Rudov, head of one of Russia’s largest philanthropies, the St. Basil the Great Charitable Foundation. The foundation was launched by an ultra-nationalist ally of Russian President Putin.
The Russians talked and dined with NRA representatives, mainly in Moscow, as U.S. presidential candidates vied for the White House. Now U.S. investigators want to know if relationships between the Russian leaders and the nation’s largest gun rights group went beyond vodka toasts and gun factory tours, evolving into another facet of the Kremlin’s broad election-interference operation.
Why does this matter? Because the NRA was Trump’s largest single financial supporter during the campaign, spending around $30 million to promote his candidacy. And because there is some public evidence that Russian interests donated a whole lot of money to the NRA at the same time. If it can be shown that the NRA was basically a go-between, a way to launder Russian money so it could be used to support Trump — foreign spending on behalf of American political candidates is strictly illegal — that’s not just a huge scandal for him, it could also mean NRA executives being charged with major felonies.
And bear in mind that several of the prosecutors hired by Mueller are experts on money laundering and tracking the flow of money through dummy corporations, foreign banks and other institutions. If money was given to the NRA for that purpose, they’ll figure out exactly how it was done and they will certainly bring charges. That would only deepen the scandal of all the things Putin and Russian interests were doing to give Trump an advantage in the campaign.
And irony alert: Russia’s gun control laws are considerably more strict than American laws. The NRA would lose their minds if Russia’s laws on guns were proposed here and call it a fascist government that must be fought against.
So, after the leader of the free world spanked Trump at the G6 +1 meeting in Quebec the barking yam has been repeating his favourite lie that the U.S. has a trade deficit with Canada.
The truth is that Canada buys 8.4 billion more goods and services from the States than the States buys from Canada - it is Canada that has a trade deficit with the States, it is (according to Trump's boneheaded "logic") the States that is using Canada as its piggy bank.
These are the American governments own figures on trade with Canada.
Trump's almost as big a liar as Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous who said "there are many situations where its appropriate to lie"...yes, all too many of such situations for them.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "pleasingly plump with [hilarious delusions of] victory".
Lol, that's quite a euphemism there. You're not "pleasingly plump", you're morbidly obese, which is a good thing. :)
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Gonzoline • 2 hours ago
We'll make 'em not want to sell us all those natural resources we need! That'll show 'em! Yeah! USA! USA!
Tonight, on Fox: "Because of Canada's continued very mean and totally un-justified retaliation to our attempt at bullying, the US military no longer has the fuel it needs to conduct routine operations. President Trump's slightly less inarticulate spokesperson has just announced that, in the interest of national security, fuel purchases will be strictly rationed going forward. In other news, emails, witch hunt, something something deep state."
June 12 marks the 51st anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, the landmark Supreme Court decision that declared all laws against interracial marriage unconstitutional.
In 1958, Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were married in the District of Columbia. The Lovings were entirely unwelcome in their home state of Virginia after the wedding; they were charged with violating the state’s anti-miscegenation statute, which banned all interracial marriages.
The Lovings were found guilty and sentenced to a year in jail, but the trial judge agreed to suspend the sentence if the Lovings agreed to leave the state of Virginia and not return for 25 years.
The couple and their lawyers took the case to the Supreme Court, a legal process that upended their lives as well as the lives of their three children for almost a decade.
The court’s 1967 ruling concluded that Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage violated both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, invalidating all state laws that banned interracial marriage.
Republican Candidate Normalizes Pedophilia Because The Bible
Re: Loving vs Virgina
The bigots (being the mental giants that they are) tried to justify banning same sex marriage on the same failed grounds the state of Virginia used to try to justify banning interracial marriage, lol!
In other words the bigots absurdly claimed that it was "equal treatment" to ban either because the ban applied equally to both races (or sexes). The court rightfully rejected that bigoted idiocy (both times) Hee Hee Hee!
So, just as I said last night, Kim Jong Un lead Trump around by the nose, blew sunshine up Trump's skirt and Trump ended up making big concessions in exchange for vague meaningless promises on the part of North Korea to "denuclearize" some time down the road. And "denuclearize" hasn't been defined.
Trump repeatedly asserted that it was non-negotiable that North Korea had to commit to "complete, verifiable and irreversable dismantlement" (CVID) of North Korea's nuclear arsenal. But of course they didn't do that and Kim just restated his position after his summit with South Korean president Moon. In exchange for nothing Trump made the major concession to stop joint South Korea/USA military exercises that North Korea hated so much.
This was inevitable. Fatuous Trump couldn't care less about the details of any process to denuclearize North Korea, his sole motivation is to make himself appear to be a big deal maker, the actual results of the big show don't matter at all to him.
So, I just read that Trump also pledged to withdraw American troops from South Korea. Oh, man-oh, man-oh, man-oh-man, did he ever get played!
Parliament Unanimously Condemns Attacks On Justin Trudeau By Trump And White House Officials
Reuters reports:
Canada’s House of Commons on Monday unanimously condemned the personal attacks on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by U.S. President Donald Trump and his surrogates as the famously polite nation simmered over the weekend broadsides by its U.S. ally.
Lawmakers gave unanimous consent for a motion backing Canadian steel and aluminum, hit by U.S. tariffs, as well as the supply management system that supports key agriculture sectors, and gave a standing ovation for the government’s response to the Trump administration’s verbal attacks on Trudeau. The motion in parliament, introduced by the opposition New Democrats, rejected “disparaging ad hominem statements by U.S. officials which do a disservice to bilateral relations.”
You got to hand it to Trump and his collection of idiots - they managed to completely unite Canadian conservatives and liberals.
Lying Larry Kudlow falsely claimed Justin "stabbed us in the back", that the U.S. had negotiated "in good faith", that Justin had "done a great disservice to the whole G7", and "it was a betrayal.
Immediately after those lies Kudlow had a heart attack - it was god's punishment on him and a warning to Trump and his other toadies not to lie about the leader of the free world again.
Kudlow's heart attack put the fear of god into Trump advisor Peter Navarro who disgustingly said there was "a special place in hell" for Justin Trudeau.
WH Trade Adviser Regrets “Inappropriate Language” About Canadian PM Justin Trudeau: I Own My Mistake
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Tuesday walked back his comments over the weekend saying that there was a “special place in hell” for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, acknowledging that his language was “inappropriate.”
In lashing out emotionally he projected personal weakness and instability, insecurity even. And on a policy level it is the same story. The Trump regime is weak, and the American political institutions that house him are weak.
the American economy is twice the size of our closest competitor, China
also, we were the only nation smart enough to pull out of the Paris climate accords
global warming alarmism is now over
A team of scientists at Harvard University and a company called Carbon Engineering announced this week that they’ve figured out a low-cost, industrial-scale method of pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Needless to say, it sounds like an exciting technology, which would, as The Atlantic’s Robinson Meyer notes, “transform how humanity thinks about the problem of climate change.”
To be fair, though, plenty of humans have argued that innovation, rather than widespread state-compelled behavior modification or top-down economic regimes like the ones the Left has proposed over the years, would eventually deal with climate change. This conviction was based on the historic propensity of those human beings to hatch advances in efficiency and technology when left to their own devices. They always do.
If the industrial-scale de-carbonization stabilizes temperatures — and it now seems inevitable that it’ll be a big part of the solution — the Malthusian notions that dominate the modern Left will once again lose out to capitalistic innovation. This was inevitable when Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon were betting on resource scarcity, Al Gore was producing chilling Oscar-winning science-fiction films, and contemporary Chicken Littles were telling us the human race was doomed.
“This opens up the possibility that we could stabilize the climate for affordable amounts of money without changing the entire energy system or changing everyone’s behavior,” Ken Caldeira, a senior scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, told The Atlantic.
That’s fantastic news, because, despite decades of sensational predictions and “education” on the topic, our behavior hasn’t really changed. Americans simply weren’t prepared to surrender their prosperity, freedom, comfort, cars, red meat, travel, air conditioners, etc. to global warming fears, no matter what they told pollsters. Nor would anyone else, for that matter.
It now seems likely that we’re going to be able to reach environmentalists’ carbon-cutting goals at a fraction of the price. The paper claims that companies will be able to remove a metric ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for as little as $94. The cost of averting less than one degree of warming by 2100, according to some, would have cost around $2 trillion every year for a century — which doesn’t include the economic toll it would extract from the world’s economy.
In the near future, in addition to continued gains in efficiency, your community may have a choice between paying for giant, expensive fields of intermittently useful windmills and solar panels or a plant that cleans the air by converting hydrocarbon into liquid fuel. I wonder which one rational people will choose.
For many environmentalists, all this will be welcome news. I doubt it will be for the politically motivated climate warriors, whose aim has always been social engineering in the cause of curbing capitalistic excesses. Even if decarbonization is successful, they will demand we continue to mandate inefficient renewable energies. They will demand tax dollars be used to prop up the clean-energy industry. They will continue to demand we ban fracking. They will continue to propose creating fabricated markets that artificially spike the cost of fossil fuels to pay for supposed negative externalities.
But, as a political matter, it’s going to be a lot more difficult to sell those policies when they can no longer claim the apocalypse is nigh.
After all, we’ve been told for a long time that the Earth was on the precipice of disaster. Every year was our very last chance to save it. It wasn’t enough to merely concede that warming was probably happening, but a person had to adopt whatever policy proposals Democrats were pushing in toto. Tradeoffs didn’t exist in this world. Future innovations didn’t exist. Only the apocalypse beckoned.
The entire climate-change debate had been predicated on the idea that only dramatic intrusions into energy consumption and regulating citizens’ contemporary habits — not only by wealthy nations but also emerging countries whose people were finally benefiting from cheap energy — would stop us from heading towards the abyss. You could be poorer, less free, and do almost nothing to change the trajectory of warming.
We can’t have complete certitude about the future, of course, but you’re not a techno-utopian to trust that humans typically find ways to adapt. You’re not Pollyannaish to point out that, by nearly every quantifiable measure, the state of humanity has improved over the years we were busy panicking about global warming — people are safer, live longer, and are freer. They’ve cut poverty, illiteracy, infant mortality, and so on.
Plenty of those gains rely on the availability of cheap, dependable energy — as does our own growth and wealth. That is why rejecting the climate change panic-mongers might have been one of the smartest things American voters have done over the past two decades.
"If the industrial-scale de-carbonization stabilizes temperatures — and it now seems inevitable that it’ll be a big part of the solution...
This opens up the possibility that we could stabilize the climate for affordable amounts of money without changing the entire energy system or changing everyone’s behavior....
It now seems likely that we’re going to be able to reach environmentalists’ carbon-cutting goals at a fraction of the price...
The paper [by "A team of scientists at Harvard University and a company called Carbon Engineering"] claims ...
your community may have a choice...."
What's this?
You suddenly believe "temperature" and "climate" are in need of "stabilization?"
It's good to see those elite Harvard scientists with their stupendous unproven claim have gotten through to you so you finally believe what 97% of climate scientists have been telling you about the destabilization of our climate for decades now.
Better late than never, glad to see you coming around.
"Reporters crowded into a Singapore auditorium Tuesday, expecting President Trump to walk out and announce the results of his historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Suddenly, two huge screens on either side of the empty podium came to life. Soaring music boomed over the speakers, and the reporters were bombarded with a montage portraying North Korea as some sort of paradise.
Golden sunrises, gleaming skylines and high-speed trains. Children skipping through Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang. North Korean flags fluttering between images of Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal and the Lincoln Memorial.
In a split-screen shot, Kim Jong Un waved to an adoring crowd while President Trump stood beside him with his thumb in the air. The pair appeared over and over again, like running mates in a campaign video.
The film went on like this for more than four minutes, with brief interludes of missiles, soldiers and warships interrupting the pageantry. Some journalists, unable to understand the Korean-language narration, assumed they were watching one of Pyongyang's infamous propaganda films. “What country are we in?” asked a reporter from the filing center.
But then the video looped, playing this time in English. And then Trump walked onto the stage and confirmed what some had already realized.
The film was not North Korean propaganda. It had been made in America, by or on the orders of his White House, for the benefit of Kim.
“I hope you liked it,” Trump told the reporters. “I thought it was good. I thought it was interesting enough to show. ... And I think he loved it.”...
The nearly five-minute movie even had its own Hollywood-style vanity logo: “A Destiny Pictures Production,” though a film company by the same name in Los Angeles denied any involvement in making it, and the White House has not yet responded to questions about it..."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/06/12/reporters-thought-this-video-was-north-korea-propaganda-it-came-from-the-white-house/
"It's good to see those elite Harvard scientists with their stupendous unproven claim have gotten through to you so you finally believe what 97% of climate scientists have been telling you about the destabilization of our climate for decades now.
Better late than never, glad to see you coming around."
oh, you mean the 97% of climate scientists who decided to do a paper about how bad global warming is?
yeah, deciding what results you want before you begin is not scientific
I've always said the planet is warming but not as much as the alarmists say and the causes and implications are uncertain
but, given this new method, you won't even be able to push the hyperbole any more
what will really be alarming to you is if we do this and nothing changes
and we can see that even the facts won't stop you from pushing one-world government control of all activity
but you won't get any support now
it's so amusing to watch the former leftist pacifists ranting because Trump cancelled military games and may withdraw troops from the Peninsula and is not being confrontational with a guy Obama the Worst allowed to develop ICBMs with nuclear missiles that could strike the US
so, you guys really liked living on the brink of nuclear war all this time?
why didn't you just say so?
Here's the best joke of the summit of the two dictators.
The "agreement" has no structure, no verification, no dates, no specifics, no nothing. Asked about how he will verify nuclear removal by North Korea Trump says "I don't have to verify" because "I have one of the great memories".
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!
The mango Mussolini couldn't be any more foolish if he tried! Oh, the guy is severely brain damaged, lol!
Good anonymous said "It's good to see those elite Harvard scientists with their stupendous unproven claim have gotten through to you so you finally believe what 97% of climate scientists have been telling you about the destabilization of our climate for decades now.
Better late than never, glad to see you coming around."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "oh, you mean the 97% of climate scientists who decided to do a paper about how bad global warming is? yeah, deciding what results you want before you begin is not scientific".
None of those papers decided what results to find in advance, they all started off with no pre-conceived notions of what would be found and went where the evidence took them - there is global warming at a rate fifty times faster than the climate has ever changed in the past and only human burning of fossil fuel explains it." None of your global warming denialists have even attempted to make a credible case that some, let alone the majority of the papers showing these conclusions are faulty - because they are sound science and they can't.
Deciding your conclusions in advance and then filtering evidence only for that which supports your pre-determined conclusions is what christians do when they're trying to prove the bible is true. Real scientists don't do that.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "I've always said the planet is warming but not as much as the alarmists say and the causes and implications are uncertain".
Nope, you haven't "always" said that. You went on and on for decades about how the planet either wasn't warming, or was actually cooling, again and again pointing to isolated short term cases of record cold temperatures while ignoring the average global temperature rise over long periods of time. Then on one occasion you said "I agree the planet is warming" and then a few days later posted several stories about isolated short term cold spells and mocked the idea that the planet is warming.
As is typical for you, you assert to be the truth whatever you think is useful to your argument in the short term, even if it completely contradicts what you recently said. Nothing new that you're still lying, after all, you did say "there are many situations where its appropriate to lie".
You don't even believe "not as much as the [experts] say and the causes and implications are uncertain". You know that you can do a simple experiment and put air in two containers, one with signficantly more CO2 than the other, apply warm light to it, and the container with more CO2 will heat up more than the one with less.
You know that based on that that it necessarily follows that more CO2 in the atmosphere will make the planet warmer than it would otherwise be.
You know that in the past century or so since mankind began creating vast amounts of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels the planet has warmed 50 times faster than it has during periods of natural climate change in the past prior to the industrial revolution.
You know that you can't conceive of any plausible scenario that would explain a current rate of climate change that is 50 times faster than has happened prior to the industrial revolution other than the greenhouse effect of more CO2 in the air from the man-made burning of fossil fuels.
Go ahead, try to think of a different reason why the temperature would be currently changing 50 times faster than it has naturally in the past, think for a long time about it, try to find some global warming denialist scenario that accounts for that and also somehow explains how the extra CO2 in the air has not caused a greenhouse effect that experiments a high schooler can do show extra CO2 causes.
I dare you.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "A team of scientists at Harvard University and a company called Carbon Engineering announced this week that they’ve figured out a low-cost, industrial-scale method of pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.".
No, they did not say they've figured this out on an "industrial scale", they said they hope it can be done on an industrial scale.
By all means let us hope that this idea that fuel can be made by sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere is true. Based on all of this sort of thing we've seen in the past its doubtful, but let's hope.
Exxon worked on creating fuel from algae that also sucked CO2 out of the atmosphere. It worked small scale but when they tried to ramp it up to industrial scale it was a failure. That's probably going to be the case with this as well.
Also, keep in mind what the scientist Keith said it was important to still stop emitting carbon-dioxide pollution where feasible. “My view is we should stick to trying to cut emissions first. As a voter, my view is it’s cheaper not to emit a ton of [carbon dioxide] than it is to emit it and recapture it.”
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "it's so amusing to watch the former leftist pacifists ranting because Trump cancelled military games and may withdraw troops from the Peninsula and is not being confrontational with a guy Obama the Worst allowed to develop ICBMs with nuclear missiles that could strike the US so, you guys really liked living on the brink of nuclear war all this time?".
Lol! Trump was the one that put us on the brink of nuclear war by provoking North Korea with all his bellicose talk and threats of "pushing my big button". Now morons like Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous want to give Trump credit for stepping back from the brink he brought us to in the first place, hahahahaha!
Sorry pumpkin, it doesn't work that way, Trump doesn't get credit for walking back from a crisis of his own making.
Similarly, only a fool would cancel the military exercises and withdraw American troops from the peninsula without getting something from North Korea in return. A real leader would have demanded concrete steps towards nuclear disarmament be completed before giving Kim Jong Un so much of what he desperately wants. Kim has given up nothing and gotten a great deal in return for flattering Trump. Kim will never take any real steps towards denuclearization as long as Trump is dumb enough to keep giving in without demanding something in return first.
Trump the fool absurdly complained the restrictions on Iran's nuclear program and the verification procedures weren't stringent enough (they were) and now he's idiotically removed ALL those restrictions and all compliance verification from Iran so they can resume their nuclear program immediately, which they have already done thanks to Trump!
To spite Obama Trump has taken us from a situation where Iran couldn't start a nuclear weapons program for 20 years and we could have renewed the agreement every 20 years to a situation where Iran has an unrestricted and unmonitored program to create nuclear weapons immediately. Trump's violation of the Iran nuclear agreement could not have been more disasterous and foolhardy!
Trump has stabbed Iranian moderates in the back and shifted the Iranian balance of power to hardliners who said the U.S. couldn't be trusted and was Iran's enemy!
Hey Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous:
If you honestly don't believe the global warming we've seen is caused by the greenhouse effect from extra CO2 in the atmosphere then it necessarily follows that this project to make gasoline by sucking CO2 out of the air (if successful) will NOT have any effect on global warming regardless of how much CO2 it removes from the air.
That's just another one of the inconsistencies in what you assert you "believe" about global warming.
Admit it, the truth is you know increasing amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere is causing global warming and that excess CO2 in the atmosphere is caused by humans burning fossil fuels.
Just admit it.
You know its true.
Trump:
"Iran has given up all its enriched uranium, 98% of its centrifuges, dismantled all its nuclear sites, and given us full and complete access across the country to monitor compliance for 20 years - we shouldn't give them anything in return! Let's violate that agreement so they can make nuclear weapons without opposition from us!"
"North Korea has given up none of its enriched uranium, none of its centrifuges, hasn't closed any of its nuclear sites (other than the one that had collapsed from bomb testing and was useless anyway), none of its ICBMS or nuclear bombs, hasn't allowed us any access to monitor compliance - we should give them a bunch of what they wanted anyway!)
Oh, yeah, he's the "great" deal maker all right...
"If you honestly don't believe the global warming we've seen is caused by the greenhouse effect from extra CO2 in the atmosphere then it necessarily follows that this project to make gasoline by sucking CO2 out of the air (if successful) will NOT have any effect on global warming regardless of how much CO2 it removes from the air.
That's just another one of the inconsistencies in what you assert you "believe" about global warming."
actually, I don't believe, and haven't asserted, anything about global warming
I've always thought the evidence was inconclusive
I believe something about GW alarmists though:
they draw conclusions without any facts
and their motive is to promote a one-world governmental authority
"Oh, yeah, he's the "great" deal maker all right..."
the negotiations are just getting started
but, obviously, the nonchalance of Obama the Worst left us with little leverage
what Trump has accomplished thus far is a miracle
Finally, a president with the guts to stand up to Canada
Trump, while discussing why he trusts Kim, admitted: "I may be wrong. I may stand before you in six months and say, "Hey, I was wrong." I don't know that I'll ever admit that, but I'll find some kind of an excuse."
Every now and then Trump let's who he really is slip from his mouth, lol!
Republican Erick Erickson: Obama would have been impeached for Kim summit
Conservative writer Erick Erickson on Tuesday blasted President Trump for his friendly exchange with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, declaring that Republicans would have likely called for impeachment if former President Obama had done the same.
Erickson slammed Trump's actions in recent days — sparring with U.S. allies at the Group of Seven (G-7) summit in Canada before praising Kim in Singapore — as “offensive” and “unacceptable.”
"If Obama had done what Trump just did, Republicans would be demanding his impeachment,” Erickson wrote.
In the piece titled “If Obama Had Done This,” Erickson notes that Trump's meeting elevates North Korea's status in the world while Trump comes “home with just a participation trophy.”
"Having the American President abdicate his leadership of the G7 to flirt with a communist monster is unacceptable," Erickson wrote. "Diplomacy to get rid of North Korea's nukes would be great. But that's not what happened.”
"Instead, we gave the North Koreans a considerable PR win in Asia, gave them credibility in South Korea, and came home with just a participation trophy."
Trump ramped up a trade feud with key allies, including Canada and France, last week as he prepared to head to the G-7 summit, accusing some of Washington's closest partners of taking advantage of the U.S. on trade.
He called on Friday for the G-7 to readmit Russia to the group, though that proposal was swiftly shot down by most members. Russia was suspended from the G-7 — previously known as the G-8 — in 2014 after Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine.
"The whole design of this is offensive," Erickson wrote of the G-7 tensions moving into the North Korean summit. "The President pees in the punch bowl of the G7, insists the Russians come back into the organization, then flies off to Singapore to make kissy face with a man who routinely murders his own people."
Conservative Ben Shapiro Blasts Right Wing “Triumphalism” About Kim Summit: The Nuclear Agreement Is Weak
“If you thought of the flag that was next to the American flag as a Nazi flag rather than a North Korean flag, everybody would see the concern. This is slave state with 25 million prisoners and gulag system hundreds of thousands people wide. The president’s praise for the dictator of North Korea was disquieting. The triumphalism that seems to be appearing in so many places this morning, where everybody is excited that President Trump met with Kim, that’s not justified by the outcome yet.
“The piece of paper that got signed yesterday is frankly weak. This is not a strong piece of paper. I’m deeply skeptical that Kim Jong Un and President Trump are going to be besties and that this will suddenly change the world.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said at 5:52 PM "I've always said the planet is warming". At 10:35 PM they said "actually, I don't believe, and haven't asserted, anything about global warming... I've always thought the evidence was inconclusive".
Gee, that's quite the self contradiction there in the span of a few hours (but oh so typical).
So,were you lying at 5:52 when you said "I've always said the planet is warming", or are you lying at 10:35 when you say "I don't believe, and haven't asserted anything about global warming"?
The truth is you were lying both times. Once again, you happily contradict yourself within a matter of hours when you think that suits your immediate spin-doctoring - a clear and common example of your utter lack of integrity.
A number of months ago you posted an article about a couple of scientists who said the amount of warming caused by the increase of CO2 in the air wouldn't be as great as was the concensus of scientists was saying. At that time I said "So, you have accepted the fact that extra CO2 in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect that makes the planet warmer than it would otherwise be." You angrily responded that NO, you haven't, you don't believe that and you were only pointing out that even if people accepted these "fallacious ideas" about global warming they needed to accept it wouldn't be a big deal. You posted one bit of research you claimed was "proof" that global warming wouldn't be bad and then later said you didn't believe the very "proof" you presented!
Same thing now, you post an article saying there is no fear of global warming because scientists will be able to suck the CO2 out of the atmosphere and create gas. If you believed your own assertion then you necessarily had to accept that more CO2 in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect that warms the planet. If you don't accept that extra CO2 causes a greenhouse effect then you were lying when you said due to this process "global warming alarmism is now over". Either way, you're contradicting yourself and showing you have no credibility.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "I believe something about GW alarmists though: they draw conclusions without any facts".
Get real, we know you don't believe that. You just feel obligated to say it to identify yourself as a member of the Republican tribe.
If that was true there'd be a never ending list of global warming denialists irrefutably showing the errors in the conclusions of over 10,000 climatology papers showing the planet is warming 50 times as fast as it had changed prior to the industrial revolution and humans are the case. There is no such flood of refutations because the science is sound and went where the evidence took it.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "and their motive is to promote a one-world governmental authority".
No doubt you're also convinced Hillary runs a pedophile ring in the basement of a Pizza place that doesn't have a basement where they sacrifice the victims to Satan. Your tin-foil hat must be leaking, lol! Better fix it and add some more layers - hurry, do it quick!
I said "Oh, yeah, he's the "great" deal maker all right..."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "the negotiations are just getting started but, obviously, the nonchalance of Obama the Worst left us with little leverage what Trump has accomplished thus far is a miracle".
Lol, by all accounts what Trump has "accomplished" thus far is nothing. And it will take more years than he has to accomplish a tiny fraction of what Obama did with the Iran nuclear deal, if he can even do that! Kim Jon Un has basically just repeated his same vague "committment" to "denuclearize" at some unspecified point in the future that he made when he met months ago with South Korean president Moon - literally nothing new has happened.
There's no specifics, no dates when concrete actions will be taken, not even a must-have definition of what "denuclearization" means! But the moron Trump has promised Kim a lot of what he wanted, along with Russia and china, a removal of U.S. forces from South Korea and an end to joint military exercises with South Korea. Now Kim has months, perhaps years of making no concessions with no threat from the U.S. And even China has now promoted eliminating economic sanctions against North Korea and has started to relax them. What Trump has "accomplished" is literally worse than nothing! North Korea has made these same sort of empty promises on four occaisions in the last couple of decades and its never gone any further than that - there's no reason to believe this time will be any different.
You really should give up trying to defend the indefensible Wyatt/Regina, attempting to do so just makes you look incredibly stupid/dishonest. Trump looks like a fool and a hypocrite on the Iran nuclear deal and the North Korea nuclear non-deal. Its obvious he made a terrible decision to violate the Iran nuclear deal just because he wants to destroy anything Obama has done despite the fact that undoing Obama's work is extremely destructive for the world.
poor Puerile Priya
so upset that the whole anthropogenic GW theory will soon be irrelevant
how then will we promote a world-wide regulatory scheme?
what will be the excuse?
when I said:
"I don't believe, and haven't asserted anything about global warming"
I was responding to this statement:
"If you honestly don't believe the global warming we've seen is caused by the greenhouse effect from extra CO2 in the atmosphere then it necessarily follows that this project to make gasoline by sucking CO2 out of the air (if successful) will NOT have any effect on global warming regardless of how much CO2 it removes from the air.That's just another one of the inconsistencies in what you assert you "believe" about global warming."
see how Puerile Priya lies by taking things out context?
it's a common technique by the Princess of the Puerile
yes, the globe is warmer than it was 150 years ago
but the process has paused for long stretches during that 150 years
while carbon emissions have continued unabated
there are theories about how that could be and still leave the theory that it is caused by human related carbon activity but they are not conclusive
the evidence just isn't that strong
that's not to say it's wrong but it's hard to determine because the research is so biased with predetermined conclusions
in any case, it's all academic now that this new technology has been developed
oh, and the extent and effects of global warming have been greatly exaggerated by the alarmists
as for North Korea, Kim Young Fathead agreed to complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, has returned Americans detained, and destroyed a testing facility
we agreed to stop holding military exercises whose goal is to kill KY Fathead and withdraw troops from the peninsula - basically, nothing that can't be reversed if he doesn't abide by his agreement
a team will begin negotiating the details
KY Fathead could fail to hold up his end but we are doing nothing irreversible like transfer huge sums the Fathead could use to destabilize the world like Iran has done
if the negotiations fail to produce an agreement to verifiably eliminate nukes in NK, we have given nothing that can't be reversed
but the fact that the American left have suddenly become foreign policy hawks because they hate Trump so intensely is a sight to behold
and voters are beholding it
Your big news of the week — and possibly the year and beyond, depending on how it ultimately shakes out — is that President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un announced a general agreement that includes the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in exchange for the U.S. offering up "security guarantees" while ending joint military exercises with South Korea.
And, as a reminder of just how stunning these developments are in a Trump news cycle full of stunners on an almost-daily basis, just look back at the headlines of August 2017 that warned of nuclear war due to Trump's vow to bring down “fire and fury the world has never seen” after North Korea conducted another missile test while threatening to nuke Guam.
The devil is in the details around this agreement announced Tuesday, and past agreements with the North Koreans have resulted the same net worth as a losing lottery ticket.
But again, when compared to where we were 10 months ago, to think that no missile tests have been conducted since December, that Kim Jong Un is speaking on friendly terms with South Korea and the U.S., that a roadmap to a denuclearized peninsula is now agreed to, it's very difficult to not say the past 24 hours haven't been arguably the best 24 hours for Trump since the tax bill was signed — if not the best since election night.
So how did our political media handle the story? In some cases, but not nearly enough, fairly well in laying out the facts and asking the right questions around the specifics of the agreement or Trump's praise of Kim, a dictator accused of human right violations. All fair.
Yet, as is always the case, there are too many of the usual suspects who exist in the Fourth Estate only to provide comfort food to their audiences and readers out of fear alienating them for the crime of actually praising the president’ accomplishments.
The reflex to the negative is built into the DNA now, for as long Trump is in office. And that usually means getting provocative in providing "coverage" of an historic event.
And that said, here's your colorful to, shall we say, interesting quotes from the media in the past 24 hours:
“Is it worth even bringing up ... that the president of the United States turned 72 this week? We think Kim Jong Un is 34. Again, somebody who has been trained, who has come through a dynastic situation. Does that give him necessarily an advantage here?” (MSNBC's Chris Jansing on Monday)
"Two larger than life showmen [Trump and Kim] have turned a summit about life and death into a sort of reality show in Singapore." (CNN's Erin Burnett)
"Disconcerting to say the least to see POTUS shaking hands with the thug Kim Jong Un and saying he’s 'honored.' Will only be worth it if Mike Pompeo is right about what he sensed in his NK meetings. We’ll know soon enough," (Fox News analyst Brit Hume.)
"President Trump wrote a book on deal-making and we know Kim Jong Un is aware of it. Dennis Rodman says he presented the book, 'The Art of the Deal,' to a government official in North Korea last year. So Kim may have got a look inside the Trump playbook in advance." (CBS Evening News anchor Jeff Glor; in a related note, "The Art of the Deal" was written more than three decades ago, when Kim was 2-years-old)
“Just because something hasn't happened before, doesn't mean it's historic." (Presidential historian Jon Meacham on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," on the historic, first-ever meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader)
“I can kind of understand with North Korea because you butter up somebody to get them to the negotiating table. And if he [Trump] succeeds, God bless him. If he succeeds in reducing the nuclear threat in North Korea." (CBS "Late Show" host Stephen Colbert, a staunch Trump critic)
“This is not gonna work,” Chris Matthews responded to Colbert. “This is not just lunch. No, it’s not gonna work.”
"One particularly interesting thing about the menu, as I was thinking as you were reading all that out, Don. The poor North Korean people. If they knew what was being dished out there. They can't even imagine the types of foods that you've rolled off your tongue." (Jonathan Wachtel, former communications director at the U.S. mission to the U.N., to CNN's Don Lemon.)
"Trump and Kim Each Got a Win from the Summit. But Did the World?" (Time Magazine headline)
“For the love of God, Mr. President, don’t get us all killed." (HLN's S.E. Cupp before the summit began on Monday)
"I don't think that there is a bar high enough that the president can hit that they will deem as a success. No matter what he does, no matter what results he gets. There's always something about the process or the intrigue that didn't meet up to their standards." (Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer to Fox News)
"If Obama had had the last 24 hours that Trump has had, the GOP would be demanding his impeachment." (The Resurgent's Erick Erickson on Twitter)
"Claims of achievements from this summit are nonsensical. Trump got nothing except empty promises. Kim Jong Un achieved global standing for his evil regime and got military exercises canceled. The sycophantic panting and exultations across the GOP and Trump media are delusional." (MSNBC contributor and former John McCain presidential campaign manager Steve Schmidt)
Add it all up and, at first glance, it may be difficult for the average person watching at home or reading online to know what to make of this summit in terms of success or failure.
Unless, of course, those watching and reading have a brain and the ability to draw conclusions on their own.
All too often, we don't give news consumers the credit they deserve in being able to cut through the noise and come to their own conclusions.
Example: 59 newspaper endorsements right before the 2016 election.
Result: Hillary Clinton landed 57 of those 59 endorsements.
Next result: The Democratic challenger gave a concession speech days later after the votes were counted.
Lesson: Some in our media, particularly of the political variety, believe being louder and more provocative means getting through to more people after such clips and posts go viral. The key is influence. As we've seen time and again, that influence is only a fraction of what it once was due to the cacophony, the confusion.
A Pew Research analysis last week found that nearly seven in 10 Americans are fatigued by the news cycle.
Not surprising.
And after three days of summit talk that is dominated by opinion, the fatigue just got even stronger, while media influence over opinion is a relic of the past.
“Anyone can make war, but only the courageous can make peace,” a triumphant President Donald Trump told a news conference Tuesday afternoon in Singapore.
A politician who prides himself on his deal-making ability has secured the biggest moment of his young presidency—the opening touches on a landmark deal with North Korea, and the beginning of detente with Kim Jong-un.
Only a half-year ago, the president was still calling Kim “rocketman”; this week, he toasted their “special bond.”
Polling shows this is popular.
In a survey conducted by the Charles Koch Institute and RealClearPolitics, 70 percent of Americans said the two leaders should meet. 81 percent of South Koreans said the two should meet.
A majority of Americans want U.S. troops to come home from the Korean Peninsula if certain objectives are achieved—namely, denuclearization.
“Americans and South Koreans support more peaceful approaches,” writes William Ruger on the survey.
But denuclearization need not be the be-all and end-all—so say the voters. Assiduous politicians, Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have likely taken notice.
“Tellingly, a strong majority (62 percent of Americans and 55 percent of South Koreans) favor further diplomatic engagement even if North Korea doesn’t wind down its nuclear program,” writes Ruger.
While before the summit, Democratic leaders—Sens. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi—openly worried that Trump would give too much away, some Obama and Kerry alumni are quietly lauding the administration’s efforts.
“Let’s take a step back: does the #TrumpKimSummit make war on Korean Peninsula less likely?” asked Perry Cammack, now at the Carnegie Endowment. “I suspect the answer is yes.”
The Trump presidency and his recent moves continue to attract surprise defenders, and broad popular support.
Dennis Rodman, the former NBA player who has befriended Kim, took to CNN, weeping and wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. He said: “Obama didn't give me the time of day.”
“There are a lot of esoteric takes about the Trump-Kim summit that sidestep the rather important question of whether the talks reduce the likelihood of nuclear war,” said Nate Silver, the founder of FiveThirtyEight.
Restrainers, after months of setbacks including the appointments of John Bolton and Gina Haspel, as well as the secession from the Iran deal, are ebullient.
Pompeo, with eyes on a future presidential run, has been remarkably noninterventionist in preference and language. Pompeo now shares in Trump’s victory.
“I commend President Trump for seizing this opportunity for increased diplomatic engagement and remind him that the U.S. wins as long as we avoid an unnecessary war on the Korean Peninsula,” said Edward King, president of Defense Priorities.
He noted: “There is no doubt about America’s enduring security, which is guaranteed by our overwhelming conventional and nuclear capabilities. Our unmatched deterrent will keep us safe indefinitely from North Korea.”
And at a time Trump is bleeding some allies—namely Justin Trudeau of Canada, and to a lesser extent, Emmanuel Macron of France—the summit won him back some praise.
“We welcome that President Trump and Kim Jong Un have held a constructive summit. This is an important step towards the stability of a region vital to global economic growth and home to thousands of British Nationals and important UK interests,” said British foreign secretary Boris Johnson.
When Ignorant, Loudmouthed Amateurs Shouldn’t Do Diplomacy
Trump provided a perfect example of why you don’t put an ignorant amateur who doesn’t think he needs to prepare into delicate negotiations when he emerged from his brief meeting with Kim Jong-un and announced that we would no longer participate in “war games” with the South Korean military.
First, it quickly became obvious that Trump doesn’t understand the difference between “war games” and routine joint military exercises. That’s because there really is no difference, which is why Vice President Mike Pence, members of Congress and the Pentagon were sent scrambling to “clarify” Trump’s remarks, making clear that we would continue to hold readiness exercises with the South Korean military. But worse than his ignorance on this is the way he characterized it, using the same language that North Korea uses for them:
Donald Trump has said the US will stop joint military exercises with South Korea, saying it will save “a tremendous amount of money” and noting the war games are “very provocative”, in what appears to be a major concession to North Korea following his summit with Kim Jong-un…
“I think it is very provocative,” he said. “You have a country that is right next door.”
Oi vey. So now when these talks break down and we return to a hostile posture toward North Korea — and we will, inevitably — Trump has now admitted that our exercises with the South Korean military are a deliberate attempt to provoke Kim. Brilliant, Donald. This is why you don’t just ad lib this crap. This is why you take time to prepare. This is why you listen to the experts on North Korea at the CIA and the State Department. But Trump doesn’t, because, in his own mind, he is omniscient and no one could possibly teach him anything. All evidence to the contrary, of course.
Trump and Kim Cook Up a Nothingburger
I’m not a big fan of the term nothingburger, but I can’t really think of a better way to describe the “agreement” signed by Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. It literally does nothing and says little more, just a promise to “work toward” denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Here’s the closest it gets to anything of substance:
Convinced that the establishment of new U.S.–DPRK relations will contribute to the peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula and of the world, and recognizing that mutual confidence building can promote the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un state the following:
The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new U.S.–DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.
The United States and the DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.
That’s it. A pledge to someday possibly consider thinking about maybe appointing a commission to contemplate thinking more about denuclearization. It’s like two siblings pledging to their mother that they’ll get along from now on. There isn’t even a hint of an agreement that would be necessary to denuclearize the peninsula. And the problem is that the process here has been reversed. For decades, Kim and his father and grandfather have wanted a face-to-face meeting with an American president because it puts him on an equal plane with the most powerful country in the world. We have dangled that as a possibility, but only if we could get an ironclad agreement and major concessions. Trump has stood that on its head, giving him what he wants without any actual concessions made by Kim.
Not only have we been here before, we’ve been much further with Kim and his family before. In 1985, we got them to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty. That didn’t last. In 1992, North and South Korea signed the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, agreeing not to test, produce, posses, or deploy nuclear weapons, and agreeing to mutual verification inspections. North Korea then refused to follow through.
In 1994, former President Carter went to North Korea and negotiated something called the “Agreed Framework,” in which North Korea agreed to stop enriching plutonium and shut down its nuclear reactors in exchange for food and fuel. We all know how long that lasted. In 2006, there were six-party talks between North Korea, the US, Russia, Japan, China and South Korea. Nothing ever came from them and they collapsed in 2009. In 2012, Obama ratcheted up the sanctions in hope of pushing Kim Jong-Un into making a deal, but he had just taken over after his father died a year earlier and he had to consolidate his power, so he refused any pressure.
We’ve been here before, and much further than this. We’ve had actual agreements on denuclearization signed and ratified and they were as useless as the paper they were printed on. Now Trump thinks he should get a Nobel prize for what was little more than a photo op with no actual agreement made whatsoever. The art of the deal? Not even close.
Lawsuit: Justice Dept. hiding information on why and how McCabe was fired
Andrew McCabe is a key witness in the obstruction of justice case against Donald Trump. Its no surprise that Trump began a series of attacks on McCabe and had him fired just two days before he was to be eligible for his pension - it was a signal to anyone who would testify against Trump that they would be punished for attempting to do so and also an attempt to smear McCabe in order to discredit his testimony.
Now the Justice Department has refused to release details of why McCabe was fired, what was the Departmental guidelines that justified that firing, and what process was followed to do so. Its obvious the whole thing was a sleazy sham undertaken solely to protect Trump from the justice he deserves to face.
Iran deal comparisons cloud Trump's North Korea summit
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump's triumphant assertions about the success of the unprecedented Singapore summit are being met with skepticism and outright derision from critics seizing on the contradiction between his violation of the Iran nuclear deal and his willingness to accept vague pledges from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
"While I am glad the president and Kim Jong Un were able to meet, it is difficult to determine what of concrete nature has occurred," said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He said he wanted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who will lead the follow-on negotiations, to explain details of what the administration has in mind.
The top Democrat on that panel, Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, who also opposed the Iran deal, took issue with Trump's zeal as well as his announcement of the suspension of U.S.-South Korea military exercises. "In exchange for selfies in Singapore, we have undermined our maximum pressure policy and sanctions," Menendez said.
For Iran deal proponents, though, the Singapore summit was evidence of Trump's lack of preparedness and poor negotiating skills.
Victor Cha, a Georgetown University professor and former National Security Council director for Asia in President George W. Bush's administration, lamented that the summit results "left a lot to be desired." But he also maintained that the Trump-Kim meeting had reduced the chance of conflict even if it was only a "modest start." [Priya: Of course it was Trump who escalated the chance of conflict in the first place with his bellicose talk of how big his button is]
Kelsey Davenport, the nonproliferation policy director at the Arms Control Association, which supported the Iran deal, called the summit result "mediocre."
"The vague language on denuclearization is not a breakthrough, it is a boilerplate reiteration of past statements," she said, adding: "It is far too early in the process for Trump to declare success."
In the case of the Iran deal, even the most generous assessors of the Singapore summit sought to remind the White House that intense diplomacy preceded the agreement with Tehran.
"Pompeo will now have to undertake the kind of arduous, multiyear negotiations with Pyongyang that former secretary of state John Kerry undertook with Tehran," Cha and Koreas expert Sue Mi Terry said in a paper for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Trump has assailed Obama's deal with Iran as the 'worst ever,' but he now faces substantial challenges to achieve as much as Obama did."
Iran itself cautioned North Korea against taking Trump at his word.
"We are facing a man who revokes his signature while abroad," the semi-official Fars news agency quoted government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht as saying on Tuesday.
Democrats blast Trump for concessions he granted in U.S.-North Korea summit
WASHINGTON — Democratic congressional leaders blasted President Trump on Tuesday for granting concessions to North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un in exchange for a deal to work toward “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” that offered scant details on how to achieve it.
As Republican leaders reacted with cautious optimism, Democrats said Trump gave up leverage by meeting with Kim and by agreeing so quickly to halting joint U.S. military "war game" exercises with South Korea. Trump announced the concession after the historic meeting in Singapore, calling the exercises “tremendously expensive” and “very provocative” to North Korea.
“What the United States has gained is vague and unverifiable at best,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “What North Korea has gained, however, is tangible and lasting. By granting a meeting with Chairman Kim, President Trump has granted a brutal and repressive dictatorship, the international legitimacy it has long craved.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement, “In his haste to reach an agreement, President Trump elevated North Korea to the level of the United States while preserving the regime’s status quo.”
As negotiations advance, House Speaker Paul Ryan said, the only acceptable outcome is "complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization."
"We must always be clear that we are dealing with a brutal regime with a long history of deceit," said Ryan, R-Wis. "Only time will tell if North Korea is serious this time, and in the meantime we must continue to apply maximum economic pressure. The road ahead is a long one, but today there is hope that the president has put us on a path to lasting peace in the Korean peninsula."
After hours of talks, the joint statement said that Trump "committed to provide security guarantees" to the North Korean government, while Kim "reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." It did not define "security guarantees," nor what "complete denuclearization" entails.
Similar agreements in the past have not lasted.
Trump called the meeting “the beginning of an arduous process,” and said he will invite Kim to the White House “at the appropriate time.”
"Kim Jong Un has gained much from step one, including an apparent promise from the president regarding important U.S.-South Korea defensive military drills," said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif. "Throughout, we must press Beijing and others to continue complying fully with all sanctions against the North Korean regime. Kim Jong Un should not receive a dime of relief until he fully and verifiably denuclearizes.” [Priya: China has already called for an end to sanctions and started relaxing its sanctions on North Korea]
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., wasn't sure what to make of the summit.
“While I am glad the president and Kim Jong Un were able to meet, it is difficult to determine what of concrete nature has occurred,” said Corker.
Absent commitments, the agreement was "less of an accomplishment" than any previous deals with Pyongyang, said Sen. Bob Menendez, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's top-ranking Democrat. Trump has undermined the U.S. policy of maximum pressure and sanctions "in exchange for selfies in Singapore" and "critical" defensive military exercises with South Korea "in exchange for promises to make promises."
It was North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons that brought the U.S. to the bargaining table in the first place, something American policy was opposed to for decades. Kim Jong Un wouldn't be taking photo-ops with Trump as an equal if North Korea hadn't developed nuclear weapons. Experts say there is no way North Korea is ever going to give up its nuclear weapons given what they have gotten them so far.
When China amended its constitution so Xi could remain in power, Trump expressed that he thought the move was “great” and floated the idea that the U.S. make a similar move, met by wild applause from Trump’s supporters.
Rodrigo Duterte has been the center of controversy for allowing thousands of suspected drug dealers to be murdered on the spot. Most of the world has condemned these executions without trial as a straight up human rights abuse, but Trump called Duterte to congratulate him on the strategy and invite him to the White House. Later, Trump suggested the U.S. could tackle its own opioid problem by instituting a similar policy.
Meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman, Trump ignored calls to denounced the country’s obvious human rights problems and instead heap praise. Trump’s own commerce secretary insisted things couldn’t be that bad since he didn’t see any protests, but that’s blatantly ignoring the fact that Saudi Arabians are legally forbidden from protesting.
And then, of course, there’s Russia’s Vladimir Putin who Trump has praised for his intelligence, kindness and strength. Years ago, Trump even asked Putin to be his “new best friend.” Trump has defended Putin at nearly every turn, and he refuses to condemn Russia for meddling in the election after every other faction of the U.S. government agrees that it happened and will happen again.
Compare all of that to Trump recently dismissing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “meek and mild.” He used to insult Barack Obama for similar traits. Trump respects leaders with absolute power who can make decisions based on whim without facing accountability or being undermined by other officials. As Trump sees it, a leader who can get away with anything is doing something right.
That’s a problem because the U.S.’s form of government is antithetical to that philosophy. We traditionally engage in diplomacy and negotiate with our allies to work out mutually beneficial deals. It’s remarkable how a man who wrote put his name on the book The Art of the Deal thinks there’s no value in compromise and instead is willing to throw a hissy fit and make existing agreements worse for everyone so he can claim he hasn’t been taken advantage of.
Our system was created to spread power amongst many and with deliberate checks and balances to keep our rulers in line. No doubt Trump would love it if instead of being called out on his lie that he actually would have won the popular vote if not for rampant voter fraud by undocumented aliens that the government would participate in rigging the election as they do for Putin. Remember how Trump called Putin to congratulate him on his sham victory even after his staff specifically instructed him not to?
It’s no wonder that a Fox News reporter just referred to the summit with Kim Jong-un and Trump as a “meeting between the two dictators.” It wasn’t a mistake so much as a Freudian slip!
Its abundantly clear from the barking wigstand's actions, statements, and attacks on American democratic institution that he's deeply envious of dictators like Putin and Turkey's Erdoquan and that he hopes to assume the same dictatorial role over the U.S. that they have in their countries.
Thank you for spreading the excellent work of Carbon Engineering, a cutting edge Canadian firm working with Harvard's finest fact-based scientists using some of Bill Gates' money.
Scientists at a company part-owned by Bill Gates say they've found a cheap way to convert CO2 into gasoline
EU and Gates Foundation pledge €500 million for innovations in agriculture
while
Trump Pulls U.S. Out of Paris Climate Agreement
"Trump provided a perfect example of why you don’t put an ignorant amateur who doesn’t think he needs to prepare into delicate negotiations"
yeah, he might, unlike all the geniuses before him, actually make peace
"when he emerged from his brief meeting with Kim Jong-un and announced that we would no longer participate in “war games” with the South Korean military.
First, it quickly became obvious that Trump doesn’t understand the difference between “war games” and routine joint military exercises.""
big deal, yeesh
"That’s because there really is no difference, which is why Vice President Mike Pence, members of Congress and the Pentagon were sent scrambling to “clarify” Trump’s remarks,"
one sign of the inflammatory voices in our national conversation, that need to be pushed to the fringes to allow us to move forward, is the way they characterize thise they disagree with
so everyone who doesn't belong to their tribe and takes any action is "scrambling"
you hear it over and over
so, the places Puerile Priya copies these posts from are, clearly, fringe
"Donald Trump has said the US will stop joint military exercises with South Korea, saying it will save “a tremendous amount of money” and noting the war games are “very provocative”, in what appears to be a major concession to North Korea following his summit with Kim Jong-un…
“I think it is very provocative,” he said."
well, that's obvious
suspending them now, while the negotiation process is going on, makes sense
"Oi vey. So now when these talks break down and we return to a hostile posture toward North Korea — and we will, inevitably — Trump has now admitted that our exercises with the South Korean military are a deliberate attempt to provoke Kim."
that's fine
"This is why you listen to the experts on North Korea at the CIA and the State Department."
are these the expurts that said North Korea was years from developing a nuclear ICBM that could hit the US?
are these the expurts that told GW Bush that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction?
yeah, Trump should listen to the expurts to make sure nothing bad happens...
"I’m not a big fan of the term nothingburger, but I can’t really think of a better way to describe the “agreement” signed by Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. It literally does nothing and says little more, just a promise to “work toward” denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."
yes but, shrewdly, unlike every agreement with NK before, it gives them nothing we can't take back
the military exercises can resume at any time
troops won't leave and sanctions won't be lifted until, as Trump pointed out, we are assured the nuclear threat has been removed
as for sanctions, we have a veto on the UN Security Council so nothing can happen without our permission
and Trump has made sure China is held accountable if they violate the UN sanctions
"Not only have we been here before, we’ve been much further"
actually, past attempts gave aid and financial assistance without a guarantee that NK would follow through
Trump won't give any aid and he said sanctions will only be lifted when the denuclearization is complete to his satisfaction
Kim Dumb Fat will get skinny if he doesn't follow through
"Lawsuit: Justice Dept. hiding information on why and how McCabe was fired"
there was an IG report released on why McCabe was fired
he lied to his superiors at the FBI and leaked classified information to the press
it's possible he'll be indicted
he claims Comey colluded with him in these crimes
they are in dispute but, still, why he was fired is common knowledge
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous have cheered on every anti-democratic move Trump has made and his every effort to subvert American democracy and make himself a dictator like Putin.
In this thread at April 01, 2017 5:16 PM Wyatt/bad anonymous said "I did vote for [Trump], reluctantly, just to keep the SCOTUS free from the gay agenda".
Perverts Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous are happy to turn the U.S. into a dictatorship under Trump solely to oppress gays and as they say, to force gays to live in the shadows.
These are the evil people who expressed delight at the thought of gays being imprisoned and executed for being gay:
"in the U.S., you can be executed for doing nothing in Iran, you have to commit a serious crime, like homosexuality"
And inthis thread: at December 11, 2013 2:10 PM Wyatt/Regina/Bad anonymous expresses support for India recriminalizing gay sex.
And then these perverted absurdly claim that gayness is immoral! Their hypocrisy knows no bounds!
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous hilariously said "yeah, he might, unlike all the geniuses before him, actually make peace".
You said yourself Trump is a moron. He said himself he doesn't prepare, hates to read, and goes by feel. There's not a hope in hell he's going to achieve as much as any of the people who came before him. He's too stupid, unprepared, impulsive, and prone to making terrible decisions to salve his all too delicate ego.
Note how he violated the Iran Nuclear deal solely because Obama hurt his fee-fees.
Trump absurdly tried to excuse his petty motivations by falsely claiming the deal didn't include enough restrictions and didn't consider factors other than nuclear compliance like human rights.
In fact the document was 159 pages with an additonal five appendices and is the most spacious text of a multinational treaty since Wordl War II. IAEA inspectors spend 3,000 calendar days per year in Iran, installing tamper-proof seals and collecting surveillance camera photos, measurement data and documents for further analysis.
In contrast, Trump, demonstrating his hypocricy, refused to bring up human rights violations with the most abusive regime on the planet which routinely publicly executes hundreds of political prisoners a year, has hundreds of thousands of people in gulags where they are worked to death for "crimes" like falling asleep at official celebrations, or listening to western music. They even imprison the children of prisoners and there are prisoners their that are the third generation of the original "perpetrators".
And what is fool Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous heaping praise on Trump for?
A vague few paragraphs about making promises to make promises while Trump has agreed to stop joint military exercises with South Korea to the great fear of South Korea and great delight of North Korea, China, and Russia.
And now China is calling for the end to sanctions on North Korea and is relaxing its own restrictions on Kim, taking the pressure off of him and removing what incentive he had to actually follow through and make some real concessions.
Trump is too much of an unprepared, moronic, ego driven buffoon to ever get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. He's only going to make things worse in the long run, that's obvious.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous posted "Scientists at a company part-owned by Bill Gates say they've found a cheap way to convert CO2 into gasoline".
That's really quite an exaggeration to say their method is "cheap". They estimate $100-$600 per ton of CO2 reclaimed which when you consider the trillions upon trillions of tons of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere over the past 100 years in particular, we are talking a massive hundreds of trillions of dollars undertaking on a global industrial scale that would take decades of that level of spending at the very least to remove the excess CO2 in the atmosphere.
And then, given that you're converting that carbon into fuel to be burned, you're just pumping all the CO2 you removed from the atmosphere back into the atmosphere and there is no net reduction in CO2 in the atmosphere. And what of the accumulation of pollutants other than CO2 that burning fuel creates?
There are feedback loops we've started with global warming already where sea ice has melted reducing the reflectivity of heat into the atmosphere which will continue to warm the planet even if we stop adding more CO2 to the atmosphere, deforestation that's doing the same thing while adding CO2 to the atmosphere. The existing global warming has started the worst feedback loop of all, the permafrost is melting around the world releasing methane gas that is twenty times more effective at creating a greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide and its estimate there is as much methane in the melting permafrost as all of the CO2 now in the atmosphere - that's a massive, disasterous greehouse effect feedback loop that isn't going away.
And, as we know from past efforts like this, like removing CO2 from the atmosphere to create biofuel from algae, that which works small scale often fails to work on a large industrial scale.
So, while on the surface this research sounds promising, we are a very long way from out of the woods - don't bother holding any parades yet.
Plus, you've always claimed you don't believe added CO2 from burning fossil fuels creates a greenhouse effect that warms the planet, so you are dishonestly declaring this as some sort of solution or breakthrough when you don't believe it actually is. You claim you don't believe CO2 causes a greenhouse warming effect on the planet so this is just another example of your dishonesty.
Antarctica’s ice sheet is melting at a rapidly increasing rate, now pouring more than 200 billion tons of ice into the ocean annually and raising sea levels a half-millimeter every year, a team of 80 scientists reported Wednesday.
The melt rate has tripled in the past decade, the study concluded. If the acceleration continues, some of scientists’ worst fears about rising oceans could be realized, leaving low-lying cities and communities with less time to prepare than they had hoped.
The result also reinforces that nations have a short window — perhaps no more than a decade — to cut greenhouse-gas emissions if they hope to avert some of the worst consequences of climate change.
Antarctica, the planet’s largest ice sheet, lost 219 billion tons of ice annually from 2012 through 2017 — approximately triple the 73 billion-ton melt rate of a decade ago, the scientists concluded. From 1992 through 1997, Antarctica lost 49 billion tons of ice annually.
The study is the product of a large group of Antarctic experts who collectively reviewed 24 recent measurements of Antarctic ice loss, reconciling their differences to produce the most definitive figures yet on changes in Antarctica. Their results — known formally as the “Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-Comparison Exercise” (IMBIE) — were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
“The detailed record shows an acceleration, starting around 2002,” Beata Csatho, one of the study authors and a glaciologist at the University at Buffalo, said in an email.
Csatho noted that comparing the first and last five-year periods in the record reveals an even steeper acceleration. “Actually, if you compare 1997-2002 to 2012-2017, the increase is even larger, a factor of more than 5!!” she wrote.
For the total period from 1992 through the present, the ice sheet has lost nearly 3 trillion tons of ice, equating to just less than 8 millimeters of sea-level rise. Forty percent of that loss has occurred in the past five years.
The rapid, recent changes are almost entirely driven by the West Antarctic ice sheet, which scientists have long viewed as an Achilles’ heel. It is known to be losing ice rapidly because it is being melted from below by warm ocean waters, a process that is rendering its largest glaciers unstable...
The best thing Trump can do now with North Korea is get the hell out of the way and leave the negotiating to career civil servants with the vast expertise, experience, emotional self control, dedication, and committment to detail that something like this takes to be successful.
But, oh, Trump fired all those experienced people and replaced them with buffons like himself with no experience or expertise, like Pruitt, Ben Carson, Betsy Devos, etc. And he's left unfilled hundreds of other government positions needed, particularly in the state department needed to pull something like this off in the same kind of detail there was in the Iran Nuclear Deal. And, like the pompous idiot he is, he says "I'm the only one that matters", and "No one but me can do it", which means he won't let the people with the necessary skill, experience, and demeanor do the job only they can and bring about peace.
Face it Wyatt/Regina - Trump is going to be an epic fail and he's already demonstrating that.
In a tweet that should rattle Republicans who have been fawning over President Trump’s performance at the Singapore summit and unnerve Democrats who chose to equivocate for fear of being labeled as anti-diplomacy, Trump declared Wednesday morning, “Just landed – a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!” Republicans would condemn this ludicrous happy talk if uttered by a Democrat. Then again, no Democrat — even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — would be likely to say such a blatantly false, foolish thing.
Trump now gives the back of his hand to queries about starvation and forced labor camps: All he has to go by is “today and by yesterday and by a couple weeks ago because that’s really when this whole thing started.” He defines the Cold War term “useful idiot,” a Westerner easily mesmerized by propaganda and a willing dissembler of tyrant’s lies.
Before Wednesday morning’s tweet, former acting CIA director John McLaughlin predicted, “After all, Trump, who seems to live mostly in the moment and shows little understanding of causality, may simply have been seduced by the prospect of a great TV moment — which, let’s face it, it was. And he will spin that like a carnival barker in the coming days.” (Apologies to carnival barkers.) He explained:
"In round one, Kim racked up win after win. After years of isolation and well-deserved shunning by the international community, he got a coming-out party hosted by the leader of the world’s greatest power proclaiming he’s “honored” to meet him. Kim’s biggest score, though, was Trump’s pledge to end U.S.–South Korean military exercises on the peninsula and a presidential pledge to consider ending the U.S. troop presence. This is something North Korea and China have wanted for years, and it is an absolutely stunning giveaway of U.S. leverage with no price asked. Trump will regret this."
Like my colleague Josh Rogin, McLaughlin judged this as a major win for China. “Not only has China wanted to end U.S. military exercises and presence on the peninsula, but it also wants to weaken ties between the United States and its South Korean ally,” McLaughlin wrote. “Further, it wants to reduce U.S. influence in Asia, something on which Trump got a head start by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership his first week in office.” He added that “by calling the U.S. exercises ‘provocative,’ Trump used language Pyongyang and Beijing normally use, and they will throw this back at him if Washington ever wants to start these again. I’m convinced that China counseled Kim on this strategy and on how to deal with Trump in the two meetings Kim has had with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in recent weeks.”
Now the question is whether both Democrats and Republicans will denounce the president’s crazy talk by making clear that the United States condemns Kim’s human right atrocities, should continue its military exercises with South Korea, should leave U.S. troops in South Korea for the foreseeable future and should push forward with sanctions. Republicans looked foolish on Tuesday tripping over themselves to commend the president. Now they risk reinforcing his delusional thinking and impairing American security. As Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) gamely admitted, these Republicans are so terribly scared to “poke the bear” that I remain doubtful they will do anything.
the attempts of Puerile Pri to make peace with NK seem like a catastrophe are laughable
and how about this?:
"That's really quite an exaggeration to say their method is "cheap"."
well, the guys at Harvard think it is
but, who are we to believe?
scientists at Harvard, or a couch potato in Saskatchewan?
you know when straights get caught in the metoo movement, they are banished
when gays get caught sexually harassing, they're back on the screen in months
that kind of behavior is expected of homosexuals:
It appears that actor Kevin Spacey is returning to the big screen after he was accused by fifteen men of sexual harassment, assault and rape.
The new movie, Billionaire Boys Club, which comes out July 19, follows the members of the 1980s Los Angeles Ponzi scheme crime ring, with Spacey as the story’s murdered con man.
Spacey's costars are all young men in their 20s.
YIKES!!
Scott Pruitt’s Mentor Says EPA Chief May Need To ‘Leave’ As Republican Support Ruptures
It’s a bad sign when even GOP Sen. James Inhofe is questioning the EPA administrator’s future.
Scott Pruitt’s longtime mentor all but joined the chorus of voices calling on the Environmental Protection Agency administrator to resign as an unrelenting series of public corruption accusations stretches into a three-month fiasco.
In a radio interview Wednesday with right-wing pundit Laura Ingraham, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who counts Pruitt as a friend and protégé, said the EPA chief “has really done some things that surprised me” and said it may be time for him to “leave that job.”
“All these things that are coming out are really not good things,” Inhofe said. “I’ve kind of taken the position that if that doesn’t stop, I’m going to be forced to be in a position where I’m going to say, ‘Well, Scott, you’re not doing your job.’ And hopefully that will change.”
Ingraham, a Fox News host and influential booster of President Donald Trump, said Pruitt was “hurting the president” with extravagant spending and embarrassing personal revelations that he ordered aides to buy him a used Trump hotel mattress and track down his favorite moisturizing lotion at a hotel.
“I see these things, they upset me as much as they upset you, and something needs to happen to change that,” Inhofe said. “I hate to say this, I’ve got so many good friends in common with him, but everything you say is true. He’s got to get off these little things that are distracting and keeping him from doing the job that he’s supposed to be doing.”
Ingraham responded that it was “death by a thousand cuts.”
"well, the guys at Harvard think it is
but, who are we to believe?
scientists at Harvard, or a couch potato in Saskatchewan?"
The Canadian firm, Carbon Engineering LTD holds the patent, not Harvard.
The British Columbian Canadians at Carbon Engineering thank you for touting their prowess in the field of removing greenhouse gases from Earth's atmosphere because those gases are causing Earth's climate to change.
"Carbon Engineering (CE) creates clean fuel out of air.
Founded in 2009, CE is a Canadian-based clean energy company leading the commercialization of groundbreaking technology that captures CO₂ directly from the atmosphere, and synthesizes it into clean, affordable transportation fuels. From a pilot plant in Squamish, B.C., CE has been removing CO₂ from the atmosphere since 2015 and converting it into fuels since December, 2017.
CE is privately owned and is funded by private investors, including Bill Gates and Murray Edwards, and with support from governments. CE grew from academic work conducted on carbon management technologies by Professor David Keith’s research groups at the University of Calgary and Carnegie Mellon University.
CE has been well supported within the clean-tech innovation system. To date, CE has led projects funded by Sustainable Development Technologies Canada (SDTC), British Columbia Innovative Clean Energy Fund (BC ICE), Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation (CCEMC), Industrial Research Assistantship Program, and the US Department of Energy (DOE).
Intellectual property (IP) is crucial to CE’s growth strategy. All IP is owned by CE and is managed by Fish and Richardson, a leading global IP firm."
http://carbonengineering.com/company-profile/
Trump’s Justice Department finally did something so lawless that even GOP leaders are recoiling
Can Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III make a legal argument so stupid that even Mitch McConnell won't embrace it?
Last Friday, one day after the Justice Department filed a brief refusing to defend the Affordable Care Act, a senior DOJ attorney with over 20 years of experience at the department resigned in an apparent act of protest. The lawyer, Joel McElvain, was one of three career lawyers who withdrew from the case rather than signing their name to the Trump administration’s arguments — a highly unusual move by career Justice Department officials.
Then, on Tuesday of this week, the top Republican on the Senate committee overseeing health care also dumped cold water on the Trump administration’s effort to undercut Obamacare through litigation. “The Justice Department argument in the Texas case is as far-fetched as any I’ve ever heard,” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TX) said in a statement.
He’s not wrong.
Indeed, on this occasion, even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) appeared unamused by the Trump administration’s antics. The crux of the Trump DOJ’s arguments in this matter is that various provisions of the Affordable Care that currently protect people with preexisting conditions must be repealed by a federal court. McConnell spoke out against this, claiming with no small amount of confidence that no one in the Senate supported this agenda.
“Everybody I know in the Senate — everybody — is in favor of maintaining coverage for pre-existing conditions,” said McConnell. (This is, of course, a lie.)
Set aside, for a moment, the fact that McConnell’s statement is untrue — and that most Senate Republicans supported legislation as recently as last fall that would have allowed insurance companies to charge so much to some people with preexisting conditions that these individuals would not longer be able to afford insurance. The fact that McConnell feels the need to distance himself from the Trump administration’s legal arguments is highly significant, as is Alexander’s stronger statement against the lawsuit.
For the moment, at least, some important members of the Republican coalition are not willing to “put their reputations on the line” to bolster the Texas litigation. Indeed, both Alexander — who said that “there’s no way Congress is going to repeal protections for people with pre-existing conditions who want to buy health insurance” — and McConnell, who falsely claimed that Republicans universally are in “favor of maintaining coverage for pre-existing conditions,” directly contradicted the Trump administration’s arguments in Texas.
It’s hard to argue that Congress would prefer a law that doesn’t protect people with preexisting conditions when top Republican leaders make the opposite claim.
Just as importantly, some very important conservative legal elites, at least for the time being, care more about preserving their reputations than they do about propping up the Texas litigation.
As both NFIB and King were making their way through the federal courts, a site known as the Volokh Conspiracy — a highly influential conservative legal blog that is widely read by legal elites — became a hub for arguments promoting the two suits. Indeed, Obamacare opponents recruited Randy Barnett, a Volokh Conspriacy blogger, to be one of the leading evangelists for NFIB despite the fact that Barnett was initially skeptical of the legal arguments at the heart of that case.
This time around, however, the Volokh bloggers aren’t biting. Ilya Somin, a Volokh blogger and libertarian law professor, wrote a lengthy piece poo pooing the Texas plaintiffs’ severability arguments shortly after the suit was filed. Earlier this week, Jonathan Adler, another professor and Volokh blogger who was one of the leading cheerleaders for the King litigation, wrote a similar piece criticizing the Texas plaintiffs’ arguments.
In the end, the Texas plaintiffs are still unlikely to prevail. Chief Justice John Roberts — with whom this buck will ultimately stop — made it abundantly clear in his King v. Burwell opinion that he is sick and tired of politically motivated lawsuits attacking Obamacare using dubious legal arguments. Nevertheless. the law’s supporters could have two very stressful years before Roberts gets around to reversing the lower court decisions repealing the Affordable Care Act.
And don’t forget: There’s always a danger that Trump could change the makeup of the Supreme Court.
Breaking: Trump Fixer Michael Cohen to Cooperate with Mueller Investigation
As attorneys for Michael Cohen rush to meet Judge Kimba Wood’s Friday deadline to complete a privilege review of over 3.7 million documents seized in the April 9 raids of Cohen’s New York properties and law office, a source representing this matter has disclosed to ABC News that the law firm handling the case for Cohen is not expected to represent him going forward.
Cohen, now with no legal representation, is likely to cooperate with federal prosecutors in New York, sources said. This development, which is believed to be imminent, will likely hit the White House, family members, staffers and counsels hard. After the federal raids on Cohen’s properties, President Trump lashed out in a tweet, writing, “Attorney-client privilege is dead!”
The conventional wisdom is that even if Trump is impeached there won't be enough Republican votes in the Senate to convict him. That really is far from certain. Mueller has been leak free on what he has on Trump as is Justice Department policy, so we don't know what he has, but given the vast amount of smoke that has been uncovered so far, over 20 indictments and a number of convictions it may well be that when Mueller finally does deliver his report on Trumpgate the revelations will be so explosive that Republicans will turn on Trump and convict him. Its far from a done deal that Republicans will refuse to convict Trump.
MSNBC: Michael Cohen’s Arrest Is Imminent
Longtime Donald Trump confidante Michael Cohen has received word from federal prosecutors that they are preparing to arrest the New York City lawyer, MSNBC’s Katy Tur reported Wednesday.
Hee Hee Hee!
The best part of all of this, is it's the Southern District of New York and there could be state crimes involved, for which bankruptcy king cannot pardon Cohen or himself.
If this is all a hoax and a made up story, how come Mueller is finding so many people to charge with crimes? And surely if Mueller is trying to frame Trump, the courts who are independent of Mueller will never convict anyone for these sham charges. Ooops, three people have already been convicted! How to explain that?!
All of Mueller's charges should have been and will be dismissed on summary judgment if he's making all this stuff up. So, why's Trump so anxious and constantly demanding the investigation end if its all fake news? He should have nothing to worry about! Unless he's guilty...
The truth is Trump and all his supporters know he's guilty of a vast array of crimes. They wouldn't be so eager to discredit and stop the investigation if he wasn't. Hee Hee Hee!
"it may well be that when Mueller finally does deliver his report on Trumpgate the revelations will be so explosive that Republicans will turn on Trump and convict him"
so sad
Puerile Priya has no idea how our system works
Mueller's job is not to investigate Trump
if there is cause, and no one has seen any yet, he would be investigated by the House
if they decide the evidence indicates guilt in a serious crime, they would impeach him
the Senate would then try him
if it found him guilty of sufficient crime, he would be removed from office
of course the Republicans would do it if he were guilty of something serious
but every indication is, there's nothing
Folks, just ignore Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous's post. I'm constantly correcting him on how the American political and justice systems work and he's constantly making baseless assertions about it and telling lies about it.
In sum, I'm right, he's wrong, that's the way it always go.
This is the guy who says "there are many situations where its appropriate to lie", "He lied, so what?", and "most people lie all the time.".
Clearly by his own admission, you can't trust a word he and his beard ("wife") say.
"Folks, just ignore anonymous's post. I'm constantly correcting him on how the American political and justice systems work and he's constantly making baseless assertions about it and telling lies about it."
yes, of course, our foreign troll, Priya the Puerile, would like you to ignore me pointing out the ignorance of Priya the Puerile
kind of like when the Wizard of Oz said ignore that man behind the curtain
since PtP is "constantly correcting him on how the American political and justice systems work", let's see one instance
shouldn't be hard to find since it's "constant"
OK, Priya the Puerile, your credibility is at stake
let's see one time when you "constantly correcting him on how the American political and justice systems work"
otherwise, it will be another instance where everyone sees you have lied
3 and a half hours
still no instance cited by Priya the Puerile
c'mon, PtP
find something
we'd hate for people to think you're unimaginative, in addition to being a liar!
yes, Priya
let us see one instance of this "constant" occurrence
Hee Hee Hee!
Even the President can't PARDON anyone for STATE CRIMES.
Ooooo what a big bad bully you are, Fatso.
Do your own fucking research into the many times Priya Lynn has corrected your erroneous claims.
Try to learn instead of showing us all what a fool you are.
"Mueller's job is not to investigate Trump"
Oh yes it is:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/967231/download
APPOINTMENT OF SPECIAL COUNSEL TO INVESTIGATE RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE WITH THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AND RELATED MATTERS
By virtue of the authority vested in me as Acting Attorney General, including 28 U.S.C. §§ 509, 510, and 515, in order to discharge my responsibility to provide supervision and management of the Department of Justice, and to ensure a full and thorough investigation of the Russian govemmenfs efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, I hereby order as follows:
(a) Robert S. Mueller III is appointed t() serve as Specia] Counsel for the United States Department of Justice.
(b) The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct the investigation confinned by then-FBI Director James 8. Corney in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017, including:
(i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and
(ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and
(iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).
(c) If the Special Counsel believes it is necessary and appropriate, the Special Counsel is
authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters. (d) Sections 600.4 through 600. l 0 of Title 28 of the Code of Federal Regulations are
applicable to the Special Counsel.
WASHINGTON ― As President Donald Trump and his supporters in the media and on Capitol Hill accuse the “deep state” of conspiring against his 2016 election, the Justice Department’s internal watchdog is about to serve up a hefty dose of reality.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Thursday will release a report 17 months in the making that focuses on the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation during the 2016 election. The report is expected to criticize then-FBI Director James Comey for his unusual July 2016 press conference in which he faulted Clinton’s “extremely careless” handling of classified information, but said no reasonable prosecutor would pursue charges.
The inspector general also is likely to question Comey’s decision to send two letters to Congress in the final days of the 2016 campaign, setting the media aflame with speculation that Clinton could be indicted.
In his recent memoir, Comey wrote that hiding Clinton email news ahead of the election would have made her election “illegitimate.” He conceded that his belief that Clinton was sure to win may have influenced his thinking.
Amid the unfolding special counsel investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, Trump and his supporters have been waging war against the FBI and Justice Department. The new the report is sure to give them material to use in their criticism.
But the report will also serve up a reminder: Despite Republican suggestions that anti-Trump forces within the FBI worked against Trump, all of the bureau’s public actions during the campaign hurt Clinton and helped Trump.
If the “deep state” really was trying to stop Trump’s election, it did a terrible job. Trump was elected president.
Kochs don't like IQ45's racist immigration hardliner there.
Its decision to withhold that support is the latest sign that the powerful network of wealthy donors and well-connected conservative activists is seeking to strike a more independent tone this election, after years of being closely intertwined with Republican campaigns and causes now that it has become the Party of Thugs.
Michael Avenatti Tells Colbert: ‘Moron’ Michael Cohen Will Be Arrested, Then Flip On Trump
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