If You Think This Week Was Bad

[boutons_deux]

... Just Wait Till Next Week

As the dog days of summer roll on, each week will bring more and greater horrors.

It was only a couple of nights ago that Donald J. Trump,

the likely illegitimate president of the United States,

described the media for the umpteenth time as “the enemy of the people,”

so you’d be forgiven for wondering if the grudge-carrying, violent misogynist charged with murdering employees of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis

was inspired by the

grudge-carrying, violence-inciting misogynist who occupies the Oval Office. The truth is, we’ll probably never know.

But the fact that so many of us leapt to that conclusion tells you just how toxic our political environment has become,

yet how inured we are to its poison.

It’s just what is.

What we do know now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, is that

the violent, corrupt, authoritarian regime that seized the executive branch in 2016 with the help of a foreign adversary

is being protected in its psychopathic debauchery by the other two branches of government, the legislative and the judiciary.

it wasn’t Trump who corrupted Congress and the courts;

the corruption already in place in those hallowed halls helped make possible his election.

And I don’t mean to suggest that every member of Congress and the Supreme Court is corrupt—

just every representative and senator who has hitched his or her star to Trump’s power train, plus Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy (and perhaps a couple of others on that highest of benches).

old Swing-Vote Kennedy swung with the wrecking ball,

handing the super-wealthy and right-wing Christian zealots (both Trump’s domestic patrons) resounding victories

at the expense of women, Muslims, and working people of all colors and creeds.

And so the American people are being shown

displays of authoritarian dominance:

The tearing of babies from their asylum-seeking mothers.

The president’s taunting of the press at campaign rallies.

Strings of tweets deriding a black member of Congress as a “low-IQ individual.”

A demand for stringent work requirements for people so broke they need government assistance in buying food.

The targeting of former government employees by current government employees.

whether he felt that the knock on the door that took place

during their interview was an intimidation tactic, Schwab replied “absolutely.” Think about that.

If those DHS agents intentionally timed their visit to take place during Schwab’s interview—three months after he resigned—

that means they’re surveilling him.

http://prospect.org/article/if-you-t...till-next-week

[boutons_deux]

Clear and Present Danger

We’re far past the point where it matters whether President Trump is a ignorant and destructive fool or operates as some sort of agent of the Russian Federation.

The upshot appears to be the same.

The Washington Post reports that President Trump has

tasked the Pentagon with analyzing withdrawing US troops from Germany.

Quoting the nominal explanation the Post was given:

“Trump was said to have been taken aback by the size of the U.S. presence, which includes about 35,000 active-duty troops, and

complained that other countries were not contributing fairly to joint security or paying enough to NATO.”

This is in advance of the NATO summit next month which will be followed shortly after by a summit with Vladimir Putin.

The German troop presence news comes after we learned that in April

Trump tried to persuade President Macron of France to leave the European Union.

Days ago Trump told a crowd in North Dakota that

“the European Union, of course, was set up to take advantage of the United States, to attack our piggy bank.”

Trump apparently

‘joked’ about pulling the US out of NATO with the Prime Minister of Sweden.

More strikingly,

he told G-7 members in Canada earlier this month that “NATO is as bad as NAFTA.”

What The Times of London calls a “senior EU diplomat” says of these comments and gambits,


“we are more and more concerned they are not just incidents. It starts to look like a very worrying pattern”

and refers to

“an American doctrine in which there are no friends, only enemies” with no “rules-based order”.

“It is very dangerous,” the source told the paper.


Some of this comes from Trump’s longstanding protectionist views which I would argue are rooted in his zero sum concept of deal-making.

But the role of Russia,

the efforts to liquidate NATO and

the continuing and aggressive courtship of Putin show it is part of some broader agenda.

Someone, eventually, will have to place some check on Trump’s power.

For the moment, the entire cadre of political appointees in the administration and the leadership of Congress appears entirely inert and passive, if not outright supportive.

It is important to remember that

the President has zero cons utional authority over trade policy.

That is 100% on loan from Congress.

It’s remarkable that this is all happening before our eyes and no one

We’re in a lot of danger.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog...esent-danger-3

[ducks]

you better move soon trump will win again in 2020 unless a miracle occurs for the democrats

[ducks]

what moore is going to say shoot the people that work for trump
or is Maxine going to say that?

[koriwhat]

you better move soon trump will win again in 2020 unless a miracle occurs for the democrats

all i know is if is the same with the democRATS come 2020 then i will be ushering in trump for his 2nd term. sick of the left that has controlled this nation for the past 3+ decades. being on the fence even when i did vote isn't something i will be doing come 2020 if push comes to shove. this is what the left has done; they have pushed those who really don't give a for politics to really start giving a in order to stop their nonsense.

[SnakeBoy]

Amazing how bouton's is now representative of mainstream democratic thought.

Big Dog ed ya'll up

[pgardn]

Amazing how bouton's is now representative of mainstream democratic thought.

Big Dog ed ya'll up

And Chris is mainstream conservative.

Science is a CULT.
DEEP STATE in your closet.

[SnakeBoy]

And Chris is mainstream conservative.

Science is a CULT.
DEEP STATE in your closet.

difference is that is true