edgarblythe
 
  3  
Reply Thu 19 Jul, 2018 09:33 pm
@Lash,
Lash wrote:

It could be true, but I think a more plausible explanation would be that trump is personally drawn to charismatic strongmen, wants to associate with them, and to be their bud. I'm not sure he's self-aware or intelligent enough to check himself on where this can lead or how it appears to others.

I think also he had great hopes of bursting into the world scene and cutting through a bunch of bullshit, and making some great, substantive changes that he, rightly or wrongly, believes would leave him with some fabulous legacy. This is most likely at the base of a lot of his moves (Russia, NK, trade).


His reckless disregard for what comes out of his mouth has hurt him (so far) more than anything he's actually done--as far as we know.

I have said on a2k more than a couple of times that I often post articles I find interesting, even though I don't always subscribe to them.
Real Music
 
  1  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 12:01 am
@edgarblythe,
I am definitely not a fan of Joe Lieberman. I seem to remember that he had openly endorsed the republican presidential nominee John McCain over the Democrat nominee Barack Obama. I also seem to remember that there were serious discussion about Lieberman running as McCain's running mate prior to the selection of Sarah Palin. No matter what anyone say, Lieberman is not a democrat. I don't recall Lieberman's politics back when he was Al Gore's running mate. His politics may have been different back then. I don't know for certain. I do know that I don't like the Lieberman who openly supported John McCain while openly opposing Barack Obama. I don't like Joe Lieberman's policies. I also don't like Lieberman as a person.
Lash
 
  1  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 04:26 am
@edgarblythe,
I didn’t want you to think I was being critical of you posting that article. Just adding my two cents.

I’m not defending trump—I just find it hard to believe he’d be ballsy or stupid enough to agree to disadvantage his own country for Putin’s benefit, but recent quotes by trump are making me confront the possibility.

Amazing how Pence avoids association with this firestorm.

0 Replies
 
edgarblythe
 
  1  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 08:41 am
@Real Music,
Real Music wrote:

I am definitely not a fan of Joe Lieberman. I seem to remember that he had openly endorsed the republican presidential nominee John McCain over the Democrat nominee Barack Obama. I also seem to remember that there were serious discussion about Lieberman running as McCain's running mate prior to the selection of Sarah Palin. No matter what anyone say, Lieberman is not a democrat. I don't recall Lieberman's politics back when he was Al Gore's running mate. His politics may have been different back then. I don't know for certain. I do know that I don't like the Lieberman who openly supported John McCain while openly opposing Barack Obama. I don't like Joe Lieberman's policies.
I also don't like Lieberman as a person.

I have long believed Gore would have made a better president than Bill Clinton or those who followed. But I was upset that he actually picked Lieberman, a man I have zero liking for.
0 Replies
 
edgarblythe
 
  4  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 08:43 am
Trump is a bigger disaster than anyone could have imagined. But Republicans have dug in to protect him.
0 Replies
 
edgarblythe
 
  3  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 08:44 am
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/the-trump-putin-summit-and-the-death-of-american-foreign-policy?mbid=social_facebook

Unlike Putin, Trump did not brief his own diplomats on the Helsinki meeting. The American Secretary of State, national-security adviser, and Ambassador to Moscow, who attended the lunch after Trump and Putin’s private session, have been publicly silent on the substance of the meetings, leaving it to the Russians, for now, to make claims about what was actually said and done behind closed doors between the two Presidents. Even as Putin was publicly talking of “agreements” in Moscow on Thursday, the U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, gave a radio interview to the conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt. The bulk of their conversation concerned a meeting that Pompeo is hosting next week to promote “religious freedom” internationally. The Secretary of State was neither asked about nor chose to elaborate on what happened in Helsinki, and the only question about Russia concerned whether Pompeo had been alerted, before the Helsinki summit, to the Justice Department indictments of a dozen Russian military-intelligence officers in connection with the 2016 Russian hacking on Trump’s behalf. “I can’t talk about that, Hugh,” Pompeo said.

The information provided to America’s top diplomats, those whose job it is to deal with Russia, was just as sparse and potentially incomplete. The Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Russia, Wess Mitchell, on Tuesday briefed the State Department group that has been pulled together to discuss Russia policy before and after the summit. There was no mention of any agreements. “There is no word on agreements,” a senior U.S. official told me. “There is no information on the U.S. side about any agreements.” So was Putin lying? Was Trump? Was it possible there was a misunderstanding, and that Trump thinks he made no commitments and Putin thinks he did? “It is terribly disturbing,” the senior official said. “The point is that we don’t know.”

A U.S. Ambassador in Europe, who has extensive experience dealing with Russia, told me that he and other State Department officials who would need to know have received no post-summit briefings, or even talking points about what happened, both of which would be standard practice after such an important encounter. “Nothing,” he told me. “We are completely in the dark. Completely.”

At the same time, the fragmentary evidence that has emerged, from the Russian comments and Trump’s various interviews, suggests there is reason for serious concern. In an interview on Fox, Trump questioned America’s commitment to the nato alliance’s Article 5 mutual-defense provision, disparaging the new nato member Montenegro as an “aggressive” little country that just might provoke us into “World War Three.” The criticism seemed to parrot Putin’s thinking on nato and Montenegro—where Russia mounted an unsuccessful coup attempt last year in an effort to block the country’s nato accession. The exchange left viewers justifiably wondering if this was part of the agenda in the private Trump-Putin talks. Trump has also, in his tweets and other interviews, alluded to substantive discussions with Putin on issues such as Syria, where Trump is already on record as saying he wants to withdraw U.S. troops. If Trump, in fact, struck a secret deal with Putin in Helsinki to pull back U.S. troops from Syria, or otherwise limit the American presence, that would prove deeply controversial among many in his own party.

While Trump’s comments gave cause for concern, another public uproar emerged over Trump’s suggestion that he was taking seriously Putin’s demand to interrogate the former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, and a number of congressional staffers. McFaul and the staffers were involved in imposing sanctions on corrupt Russian officials after successful lobbying by the U.S.-born businessman Bill Browder, who has emerged as one of Putin’s chief international foes. Was the handing over of a former American Ambassador to Moscow and congressional staffers to Russian officials also discussed—or even agreed to by Trump—in the private session? The White House said it was “considering” Putin’s proposal, while the State Department called demands on McFaul and others “absurd” and a non-starter. Finally, on Thursday afternoon, the White House said Trump “disagrees” with the proposal, which, it nonetheless insisted, had been made by Putin “in sincerity.”
0 Replies
 
revelette1
 
  2  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 08:59 am
I don't know if the following belongs here, if it does not, I apologize.

States purged 16 million voters from the rolls before the 2016 election

Quote:
States purged more than 16 million voters from the rolls between 2014 and 2016. That number, calculated in a new report published Friday by the Brennan Center for Justice, is a significant increase from previous years and an indication that large numbers of eligible voters are likely being disenfranchised by inaccurate and unlawful voter roll maintenance.

The report comes just a few weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Ohio’s voter purge system, clearing the way for more states to move forward with the types of purges that disproportionately impact low-income and minority voters.
Real Music
 
  2  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 09:01 am
@revelette1,
That is very disturbing.
revelette1
 
  2  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 09:05 am
@Real Music,
Yes it is, but not surprising, the highest court in the land of US has been gearing up to total republican/conservative control, which in turn controls the country. With Trump's election, with all those supreme court justice getting up in years, I basically saw no hope. I mean they are on the bench for life. Probably why the elite republican establishment will not turn on Trump no matter what Trump does. Obama says we shouldn't mope, but, gosh, we are powerless. We can't go against the Supreme Court.
0 Replies
 
Lash
 
  1  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 09:08 am
@revelette1,
The Russians didn’t do that.
revelette1
 
  3  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 09:10 am
@Lash,
I'm not going to bite that bait. It doesn't really matter anymore.
Lash
 
  -2  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 09:19 am
@revelette1,
You mean you’re going to keep your head in the sand about the reality of corruption in your own country and keep trying to blame all the ills in America on Russia and one buffoonish Johnny come lately.
revelette1
 
  4  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 09:25 am
@Lash,
Lash do you really want to cover this ground again? I know your side, we should have voted for Bernie because Bernie would have beat Trump. Maybe, maybe not. In the end, it came down to the general election, no matter how "corrupt" the DNC and the Clinton supposedly were, they would have been better by far than Trump for a host of reasons but the main one being the pick of the supreme court justices. Trump is going to fill them up political conservatives.

Sorry should have ignored the larger bait.
0 Replies
 
edgarblythe
 
  1  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 10:49 am
Real Music
 
  2  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 10:54 am
@edgarblythe,
That is a good video. There were a lot great points made.
0 Replies
 
Lash
 
  1  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 10:59 am
@edgarblythe,
Enraging, but sadly, not surprising.
0 Replies
 
revelette1
 
  2  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 12:49 pm
Perhaps there were good points made. However we are talking the mid-terms in red or purple states. The chances of progressives getting elected are small. If the Koch brothers want to invest their money in democrats in those states, I say, take it. At least it will keep republicans from confirming any more conservative judges while Trump is in office. Personally I am a little surprised at this move from them. Maybe they are unhappy with Trump trade wars?
0 Replies
 
Lash
 
  -1  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 02:08 pm
The Kochs are turning Ds into Rs. Jesus ******* Christ. Get a clue.
Lash
 
  -1  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 02:11 pm
If that’s an example of Democrat critical thought, it explains why they’re clinging weakly to the waterline in a neglected geriatric toilet.
0 Replies
 
revelette1
 
  3  
Reply Fri 20 Jul, 2018 05:50 pm
@Lash,
We are coming up mid-term elections, the only chance we have of putting a break on Trump is taking over congress or at least getting more democrats in, with the deck stacked against democrats, we need all the help we can get. Desperate times calls for desperate measures.
 

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