openpolitics.com

Lately, Trump’s stupendous instability has actually been looking like a plus. There he was, telling Democrats that he didn’t want to cut taxes on the rich. Trying to find a way to save the Dreamers

.. Better insane than sorry.

.. Then came the U.N. speech, and the reminder that the one big plus on Pence’s scorecard is that he seems less likely to get the planet blown up.

.. Nikki Haley, our U.N. ambassador, argued that the president’s speech was a diplomatic win because “every other international community” has now started calling Kim “Rocket Man,” too.

.. Does this sound like a triumph to you, people? It’s perfectly possible Kim takes it for a compliment since he does like rockets. And I’ll bet he likes Elton John songs, too.

.. But about the “totally destroy North Korea” part: I believe I am not alone in feeling that the best plan for dealing with a deranged dictator holding nuclear weapons is not threatening to blow him up.

.. We tell ourselves that the president is surrounded by men who are too stable to let him plunge us into a war that will annihilate the planet. But Trump’s U.N. speech was a read-from-the-teleprompter performance, not a case of his just blurting out something awful. People in the White House read it and talked about it in advance.

 .. The president also kept saying he was always going to “put America first,” which is of course true. But at a U.N. venue, it was a little like going to the first meeting of the PTA and repeatedly pointing out that you only care about your own kid.

.. He tried to be super-nice at a luncheon with African leaders, assuring them, “I have so many friends going to your countries trying to get rich.”

.. The big takeaway, however, was that the president of the United States had threatened to destroy a country with 25 million people.

Comments:

We can survive an ultra conservative president who is not totally insane and who listens to advisors…at least until 2020. It’s not at all clear that we or the rest of the world can survive the insanity of the Child in Chief now in the Oval Office.

.. There’s little doubt that Democrats stand to gain politically from the train-wreck presidency of impulsive and short-sighted Trump. But the Democrats must choose country before party. A sane, hard-line conservative like Pence is better for the nation than an irrational narcissist who could plunge the entire world into war.

.. A president Pence would give the right just what they wanted a twitterless occupant of the Oval Office. If anyone would like to know how a Pence would run the 50 states just look at how he ran the state he was governor of.

.. Trump, while not exactly the devil I know, is at least fairly predictable in that his main concerns are self preservation and self enrichment.

.. It is time for this fantasy of impeachment to stop. An election is not “fraudulent” because a foreign power releases information that persuades Americans to vote one way or another. Absent evidence that Russia actually hacked the voting machines and changed votes, or that Trump personally colluded with Russia to influence the elections, there is no shot at impeachment, and such evidence seems unlikely to emerge. Russia should pay a price for its actions, and the Democrats – and I am one- should forget about Hillary, stop the apocalyptic rhetoric, stop fantasizing and demonstrating, and concentrate on winning state, local, and. Congressional elections in the short term, and the next presidential election after that.

..  Threats like these only ADD to Kim’s determination to escape the fate of Iraq and Libya. The US has a “big stick.” It should “speak softly.”

.. 70 percent of the voters in Pennsylvania were Democrats and yet Pennsylvania is represented by a majority of Republicans.

.. That’s called gerrymandering.

.. In Pence’s favor he does not have a legion of “supporters” who back him no matter what he does or says. Pence doesn’t seem to have won allies either as a governor or a representative from Indiana. Trump supporters seem to tolerate him, but reserve their adoration for Trump himself.

.. there will be no easy end to the Trump/Pence administration. Their crimes against the people of the US will linger for generations. They will not go quietly by vote or impeachment.

.. As awful as he is, I’ll still take Trump over Pence. Trump is so ignorant and unhinged that he’s not helping the Republicans destroy our own country with their selfish, hate-the-people agenda. Pence would be the driving force that would allow the destruction to move ahead unchecked. We’d lose Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, women’s reproductive rights, and religious freedom. (The Republicans and their extreme-right-wing Christian supporters believe in religious freedom only for themselves and want their beliefs turned into law.)