President Trump’s trip to Europe was truly historic.
He left our most important allies there so uncertain about America’s commitment to their security from Russia and to shared values on trade and climate change that German leader Angela Merkel was prompted to tell her countrymen that Europe’s days of relying on America are “over to a certain extent,” and therefore Germany and its European allies “really must take our fate into our own hands.”
No U.S. president before had ever put a crack in the Atlantic alliance on his inaugural tour. Historic.
.. We’re the new U.A.E.: the United American Emirate.
.. We have an emir. His name is Donald. We have a crown prince. His name is Jared. We have a crown princess. Her name is Ivanka. We have a consultative council (Congress)
.. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay no price, bear no burden, meet no hardship, support no friend, oppose no foe to assure the success of liberty — unless we’re paid in advance.
.. The Trump doctrine is very simple: There are just four threats in the world:
- terrorists who will kill us,
- immigrants who will rape us or take our jobs,
- importers and exporters who will take our industries — and
- North Korea
no matter how unsavory you are as a foreign leader, you can be the United American Emirate’s best friend if you:
1.) Pay us by buying our weapons. I warn you, though, Saudi Arabia has set the bar very high, starting at $110 billion.
2.) Pay us in higher defense spending for NATO — not to deter Russia, which is using cyberwarfare to disrupt every democratic election it can, but to deter “terrorism,” something that tanks and planes are useless against.
.. Now, if you do any one of these six things the United American Emirate’s commitment to you — and it’s ironclad — is that you can do anything you want “out back.” You can deprive your people of whatever human rights you like out back. You can be as corrupt as you want out back. You can steal as many elections as you like out back. Just keep the arms purchases coming, the NATO dues rising, the phony trade concessions flowing and the compliments gushing — or be Vladimir Putin — and anything goes.
.. But how much is Germany spending to absorb one million Syrian refugees so they won’t be joining ISIS? How much security is that buying the world? The U.S. took 18,000 Syrians.
.. “Let all who enter this embassy know: We don’t do alliances any more. We only do Master Limited Partnerships
Trump Uses and Betrays His Collaborators
Spicer was determinedly dour and looked miserable. He was puffy, pinched and pale. And little wonder: Trump has sucked the lifeblood out of him.
.. Washington is abuzz with speculation about when Spicer will be shown the door, but it doesn’t really matter. His credibility, and his dignity, have already been defenestrated.
.. Trump has a long history of walking out of disasters unscathed. It’s those around him — the Spicers of the world — who are destroyed.
- Trump entities filed for bankruptcy protection six times. Investors, lenders and workers took hits — and Trump moved on.
- Trump was caught on tape boasting to Billy Bush about sexually assaulting women — and Billy Bush lost his job.
- Corey Lewandowski and
- Paul Manafort poured themselves into Trump’s campaign and were unceremoniously dumped.
- Michael Flynn is out and potentially in legal trouble.
- The FBI’s Comey arguably handed Trump the election — and learned of his dismissal from TV.
- Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein tarnished his sterling reputation in just two weeks.
- Vice President Pence has been “unflagging in his loyalty,” only to be made “the public face of official narratives that turn out to be misleading or false.”
- Trump humiliated Steve Bannon by publicly downplaying their association.
- Trump repaid House Speaker Paul Ryan’s loyalty by winking at calls for Ryan’s ouster.
- Attempts to defend Trump by aides Reince Priebus and Kellyanne Conway and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have left them sounding clownish.
.. avoided answering questions by saying no fewer than 22 times how very “clear” he or Trump had been about this or that.
.. And, as many a Trump loyalist has discovered, you are useful to Trump until you are not — and then you are cast aside.
y Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador
President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.
The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.
.. Trump “revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.”
.. describing details of an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft... officials expressed concern about Trump’s handling of sensitive information as well as his grasp of the potential consequences... “Trump seems to be very reckless and doesn’t grasp the gravity of the things he’s dealing with, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security... Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. “I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day,”.. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State’s territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat... Moscow would be keenly interested in identifying that source and perhaps disrupting it... But the two nations have competing agendas in Syria, where Moscow has deployed military assets and personnel to support President Bashar al-Assad... given the clues Trump provided, “I don’t think that it would be that hard [for Russian spy services] to figure this out.”.. At a more fundamental level, the information wasn’t the United States’ to provide to others... Senior White House officials appeared to recognize quickly that Trump had overstepped and moved to contain the potential fallout... the National Security Council continues to prepare multi-page briefings for Trump to guide him through conversations with foreign leaders, but that he has insisted that the guidance be distilled to a single page of bullet points — and often ignores those.
Judas, Tax Cuts and the Great Betrayal
the two leading Republicans in Congress are apparently O.K. with that cover-up, because the Trump ascendancy is giving them the chance to do what they always wanted, namely, take health insurance away from millions of Americans while slashing taxes on the wealthy.
.. For generations, Republicans have impugned their opponents’ patriotism.
.. circumstantial evidence that a hostile foreign power may have colluded with a U.S. presidential campaign, and may retain undue influence at the highest levels of our government. And all those self-proclaimed patriots have gone silent, or worse.
.. revival of the term “America First,” the name of a movement opposed to U.S. intervention in World War II. What isn’t often mentioned is that many of the most prominent America-firsters weren’t just isolationists, they were actively sympathetic to foreign dictators; there’s a more or less straight line from Charles Lindbergh proudly wearing the medal he received from Hermann Göring to Trump’s cordial relations with Rodrigo Duterte