Trump's Big CON: The Generals Decide How to Fight

"A few days after President Donald Trump gave his Pentagon chief the unilateral authority last month to send thousands of American troops to Afghanistan at his own discretion, the White House sent classified guidance that effectively limits the number of forces."

Read the Wall Street Journal, White House Limits Pentagon on Afghan Troop Level.

Remember: it's all 'bout the show, 'bout the show, stupid people!!! (Repeat til you get it).

Trump's Big CON: His Newest Republi-CON Media CONplex Enabler

Watch out Hedgehog News, Trump and his Republi-CON's sycophants have a new member.

"One America News is an obscure TV channel struggling to emerge from the cellar of the cable ratings, but it is nonetheless one of President Trump’s favorite media outlets. It’s not hard to see why: On One America newscasts, the Trump administration is a juggernaut of progress, a shining success with a daily drumbeat of achievements. . .


[S]ince its inception in 2013, and especially since Trump began his march to the White House, One America’s owner, Robert Herring Sr., a millionaire who made his money printing circuit boards, has directed his channel to push Trump’s candidacy . . .

OAN, based in San Diego, made its first splash in the opening weeks of the Trump campaign, when the channel became the first to carry Trump’s campaign speeches live and in full — a decision followed quickly by the owner’s directive that other candidates’ rallies not be given the same treatment, according to internal emails.

Since then, OAN has become a reliably sympathetic voice of the administration’s goals and actions. Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, has a deal to appear regularly on the channel. The network’s White House reporter, Trey Yingst, has become an administration favorite who was called on at the daily news briefings 27 times in Trump’s first 100 days in office. On Friday, OAN won a seat in the White House briefing room, albeit in the back row and shared with the BBC."

Read the Washington Post, An inside look at One America News, the insurgent TV network taking ‘pro-Trump’ to new heights.

The Donald just love his sycophants.

Read also Trump's Big CON: His Enablers.

Trump & The Repuli-CON's Big CON: Fiscal Responsibility

"Republicans finally seem to be figuring out that taking health care from the poor to pay for tax cuts for the rich isn’t exactly popular.

Indeed, less than 20 percent of people support the Senate’s plan, which would do just that. It has been enough to make some Republicans start considering what for them is the ultimate heresy: What if they didn't cut taxes as much as possible for wealthy investors? What if, instead, they used some of that money to cover a couple million more people and keep costs down a little more for everybody else — kind of, you know, like Obamacare does?

Now, as big a positional shift as that would be on health care, it actually wouldn't be one on taxes. That's because whatever taxes Republicans don't cut in their health-care bill, they can cut in their tax reform one.   . .

Why would they do that when it would mean their tax cuts would have to be temporary? Because it turns out that they can change the definition of 'temporary' to something that's a lot closer to permanent. The trick is that although their tax cuts have to be paid for past the budget window, there's nothing that dictates the length of that budget window. It's 10 years now, but it could be 15 or 20 or even 30 years if they wanted it to be — and some of them, like Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), do.

Not paying for their tax cuts would really solve their problem for how to pay for their tax cuts. Republicans could stop trying to throw 15 million people off Medicaid to cover the cost of cutting the tax on investment income from 23.8 to 20 percent for people making $250,000 or more. Or trying to come up with any tax loopholes they'd be willing to close — something that has eluded them so far — let alone a few trillion dollars' worth of them. Instead, they could get back to their Bush-era basics: passing a deficit-financed tax cut and then announcing how much they hate deficits whenever Democrats win back the White House. After all, why go through the unpleasant business of paying for things when you could skip all that and still get tax cuts that would last until almost the middle of the century?

Or, as Republicans call it, fiscal responsibility."

Read the Washington Post, Republicans say they might not cut taxes for the rich. Don’t believe them.

Trump's Big CON: His Mental Fitness is Our Greatest Threat

UPDATE:  "During a national security panel at last week's Aspen Idea Festival, retired general David Petraeus offered what the panel's host labeled perhaps the most robust defense of the Trump administration's foreign policy yet.

Then Petraeus was asked about Trump personally, and things took a turn.

As political affairs scholar David Rothkopf noted in an op-ed he wrote for The Washington Post on Tuesday, he asked Petraeus — after Petraeus argued that Trump had surrounded himself with a solid team that was instituting a measured, continuity-based foreign policy with plenty of successes — whether Trump himself was fit to serve as president.

Petraues's response was decidedly not 'yes.' Instead, he said Trump's fitness for the office was actually 'immaterial.'

I went back to the video to see if some context was missing from Rothkopf's op-ed. There isn't: It's as damning as it sounds. Here's a guy whom Trump considered nominating for secretary of state putting a pretty good face on the Trump administration — and then being unable to say whether the president is a mentally fit commander in chief. . .

This is a dance that many a Trump defender has been forced into — arguing that things aren't as bad with Trump as some would have you believe, and then punting when being asked to vouch for Trump personally. The latter is a much more difficult thing to do, because it means you are attaching your expertise to Trump's unpredictability and whatever he might do in the future.

But it's also important to emphasize just how low a bar this is. The fact that Petraeus can't even say that Trump is a fit commander in chief speaks volumes. And Petraeus seemed to be going out of his way on the panel to argue that U.S. foreign policy and national security are on the right path. He said repeatedly that we shouldn't get bogged down in Trump's 'discordant' tweets and public comments and should focus on actions. . .

[T]he argument from Petraeus seemed to be that Trump himself can only do so much damage and that the people around him would keep him in check — implying that Trump was, to his credit, allowing them to keep him in check. This is what some of Trump's biggest critics have hoped would be the case, and Petraeus suggested their wishes were coming true.

Then he was offered the chance to come out and say what he really meant. His nonresponse spoke volumes."

Read the Washington Post, David Petraeus’s damning nonresponse on Trump’s fitness to serve.

"Last week, at the Aspen Ideas Festival, I moderated a panel on U.S. national security in the Trump era. On the panel, former CIA director David H. Petraeus offered the most robust defense of President Trump’s foreign policy that I have heard. Central to his premise were two facts. First, he argued that Trump’s national security team was the strongest he had ever seen. Next, he argued that whereas President Barack Obama was indecisive to the point of paralysis, such as in the case of Syria, Trump is decisive.

Toward the end of the conversation, we turned to Trump’s erratic behavior and I noted that for the first time in three decades in the world of foreign policy, I was getting regular questions about the mental health of the president.

I asked Petraeus, a man I respect, if he thought the president was fit to serve. His response was, 'It’s immaterial.' He argued that because the team around Trump was so good, they could offset whatever deficits he might have. I was floored. It was a stunningly weak defense.

That is where we are now. The president’s tweeting hysterically at the media is just an element of this. So too is his malignant and ever-visible narcissism. The president has demonstrated himself to have zero impulse control and a tendency to damage vital international relationships with ill-considered outbursts, to trust very few of the people in his own government, and to reportedly rant and shout at staff and even at the television sets he obsessively watches.

Whether he is actually clinically ill is a matter for psychiatric professionals to consider. But when you take the above behaviors and combine them with his resistance to doing the work needed to be president, to sitting down for briefings, to reading background materials, to familiarizing himself with details enough to manage his staff, there is clearly a problem. Compound it with his deliberate reluctance to fill key positions in government and his wild flip-flopping on critical issues from relations with China to trade, and you come to a conclusion that it may be that Trump’s fitness to serve as president is our nation’s core national security issue.

Not only does the president diminish the office with his pettiness; he also shows disregard for constitutional principles including free speech, freedom of religion and separation of powers, and he operates as though he were above ethics laws. Daily he shows he lacks the character, discipline, intellect, judgment or respect for the office to be president of the United States."

[T]he stark reality is that objective analysis reveals that we have never before seen a president so unfit for office. Even President Richard Nixon at his moments of darkest paranoia was a professional public servant who understood the office and the stakes associated with it. One might, on this Independence Day week, have to go back to King George III to find a head of state who so threatened America. But there is no precedent for one whose character is so obviously ill-suited to the presidency."

Read the Washington Post, The greatest threat facing the United States is its own president.

Trump's Big CON: He Has No Plan, But Could He Tweet Us Into Nuclear War?

Other than claiming "It won't happen!", Trump has not plan or strategy regarding North Korea.

So his "reaction to North Korea’s missile test was to immediately reach for his phone and sound off with chest-thumping statements on Twitter.  This is a very reckless reaction, and one that risks miscalculation by adversary and ally alike. . .

Trump’s vague, blustery words, unattached to any strategy and without any plan to back up whatever he did mean, will undermine both our deterrence and our reassurance, which we have spent decades building. This could lead to miscalculation by North Korea or our allies. Such miscalculation could lead to war: Trump could literally tweet us into a nuclear war.

We know that Kim Jong Un is thin-skinned and will probably take Trump’s comment about 'this guy' as a personal insult. Or Kim may be confused — after all, just a few months ago, Trump said he would be 'honored' to meet with Kim under the right circumstances. To be clear, I don’t care at all about Kim’s feelings. But I do care about whether an offhand, hotheaded remark could provoke Kim to take actions that would have real consequences. Picking a Twitter fight with a nuclear-armed dictator is not wise — this is not reality TV anymore.

The White House has sent mixed messages about whether it wants Trump’s Twitter statements to be considered official statements. But it doesn’t matter how the White House wants to spin them — our adversaries and allies alike attach great weight to his every word, and they may calculate decisions based on what Trump says on Twitter.

Bluster and chest-thumping may feel good — but it will not make us safer. The threat posed by North Korea is serious, urgent and reaching a critical point. It requires a real, coordinated strategy in which the president works in concert with his national security team to protect the country." {Emphasis added.]

Read the Washington Post, How President Trump could tweet his way into nuclear war with North Korea.

Somebody needs to take The Donald's phone away!! NOW!!!

Read also the Washington Post:

Trump warns of ‘severe’ consequences for North Korea as Russia, China balk at tough U.S. talk, and

How to avoid the War of Trump’s Mouth, which offers the following advice that Trump would be wise to take:

"Of all the wars with odd names — the War of Jenkins’ Ear comes to mind — the potential one with North Korea may take its rightful place. It could be called the War of Trump’s Mouth for all the stupid and inconsistent things he has said about both China and North Korea. He needs to get the former to squeeze the latter, but he has gone about it the wrong way. China cannot be hectored.

China is the key here. It wants, above all, to keep North Korea as a buffer between it and South Korea. It does not want the regime in the north to collapse, sending thousands of refugees its way or uniting the two Koreas — and so talk in Washington of regime change is both counterproductive and just plain dumb. China prefers to live with Kim Jong Un rather than the chaos his collapse would cause in the region.

China also demands respect. . .

If China is going to tighten its noose around North Korea, it will be because it wants to avoid a war. Therefore, it has to believe that Trump is serious when he rattles his saber. But it’s hard to take Trump seriously about so many things. As China well knows, Trump early on seemed willing to abandon the one-China policy and recognize Taiwan, which Beijing considers a breakaway province. Trump backed off that pretty fast when China glowered its disapproval.

In many years and more than 50 trips to China, Henry Kissinger learned how much the Chinese crave respect and value patience. In all likelihood, they feel Trump shows little of either. He needs to lay off the tweets and slow down. Lives, not votes or ratings, are at stake."

Expect Trump to says soon: 'Nobody knew foreign policy could be so complicated'.

Trump's Big CON: His Secret Plan to Defeat ISIS

"Remember presidential candidate Donald Trump’s secret plan to defeat the Islamic State? And his boast that he knew more than the generals did about the Islamic State (thus implying he’d replace them once in office)? More campaign rhetoric crashing on the rocks of reality: The Trump administration just endorsed the core elements of former President Barack Obama’s counter-Islamic State plan, and Trump has decided that Obama’s generals weren’t so bad, either."

Read Foreign Policy, Trump’s ‘Secret Plan’ to Defeat ISIS Looks a Lot Like Obama’s.

Read also the Washington Post, Pentagon plan to defeat ISIS looks very much like Obama’s approach, which notes:

"The Pentagon is putting the final touches on a promised new counter-Islamic State strategy for Syria and Iraq, and it looks very much like the one the Obama administration pursued, according to senior defense officials."

Trump's Big CON: 'I'm the Jobs President'

UPDATE III:  "Mr. Trump himself declared upon taking office that his policies would produce 4 percent annual growth, and just this week said on Twitter to affirm that 'things are starting to kick in now.' . .

But the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s widely followed GDP Now expects the second-quarter growth figure to come in at 2.7 percent, more than a full percentage point below where it was in May, and a decline even since the beginning of the week. The New York Fed’s Nowcast is even more bearish, with an estimate of 1.9 percent for the quarter just ended and 1.6 percent for the current quarter."

Read The New York Times, Hopes of ‘Trump Bump’ for U.S. Economy Shrink as Growth Forecasts Fade.

UPDATE II:  "President Trump is touting data on the economy, telling his supporters that things are getting better for American workers. Not all professional forecasters share that enthusiasm, though, and many of them believe that this is about as good as it is going to get.

According to the average forecast among analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News, U.S. employers combined will add 165,000 workers to their payrolls a month this year, on net. That would be the slowest pace for hiring since 2010. Under President Barack Obama last year, the economy produced an average of 187,000 jobs a month.

When the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes its monthly report on hiring Friday morning with figures for June, data on the labor market will be available for the first half of the year. Through May, the average pace was 162,000 new employees a month.

That is slower than not only last year, but also the year before, when the economy added 226,000 jobs a month on average. In 2015, the monthly pace averaged 250,000."

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s job growth nightmare: His first year could be slower than Obama’s last.

UPDATE:  AS A candidate for the White House, Donald Trump blasted the Ford Motor Company for planning to shift production of its leading compact car, the Focus, to Mexico. He even went so far as to threaten a huge tariff on any and all U.S. cars formerly produced in this country that might be exported from Mexico back into the United States. After Mr. Trump’s election, Ford seemed to cave by announcing it would not be building the cars in Mexico after all.

So what are we to make of the surprising facts that Ford now plans to make the Focus in President Trump’s other trade nemesis — China — and that the Trump administration’s response is, essentially, “whatever”? Ford’s move just “shows how flexible multinational companies are in terms of geography,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross observed. You don’t say! . .

Is it too much to hope that the federal government will stop purporting to micromanage specific business-location decisions using either threats or bribes?"

Read the Washington Post, Ford’s shift to China offers the Trump administration a lesson in economics.

"Five months ago at a Boeing factory in South Carolina, President Trump proclaimed, 'We are going to fight for every last American job.'

On Thursday, workers at the North Charleston plant learned they’d soon face layoffs."

Read the Washington Post, Trump visited this Boeing factory to celebrate jobs. It just announced layoffs.

Read also:

Trump's Big CON: "More Coal Jobs", and

Trump's Big CON: Trump Lied About Stopping Jobs From Moving Overseas.

Trump's Big CON: The 'I Want The Credit, Don't Blame Me' President, Cont.

"Samsung unveiled plans Wednesday morning to open a new appliance factory in South Carolina, a move the electronics giant said will create 954 jobs in the Palmetto State over the next three years.

At a Washington event with company executives, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross praised the company for opening the $380-million plant in Newberry County and promoted President Trump's economic agenda, which includes nudging global firms to expand their manufacturing operations on American soil.

'President Trump and the Department of Commerce will continue to support these kinds of investments,' he said before news cameras at a hotel near the White House.

However, the Samsung deal was in the works before the election. The Commerce Department, meanwhile, was not directly involved in the negotiations, a department representative said. . .

Samsung first considered setting up shop in the United States about three years ago, the company said, and started talks with South Carolina last fall."

Read the Washington Post, Trump official celebrates a new Samsung factory that was planned before the election.

Read also:

It's HER Fault,

Trump's Big CON: The 'I Want The Credit, Don't Blame Me' President,

Trump's Sycophant Gingrich's Big CON: Political Hatred and Violence is the Other Party's Fault, and

Trump's Big CON: 'It's Obama's Fault'.

Trump's Big CON: He is The Middle School Bully President

UPDATE II:  The pushback starts:

"Thirty years ago, as Donald Trump gave what is widely considered to be the first campaign speech of his career, he criticized one country above all for cheating the United States in trade: Japan.

On Thursday, Japan took on the mantle of the global rules-based trading system, as it sidestepped a failing trade agreement with the United States to forge a historic new pact with the European Union.

Leaders from Japan and the European Union on Thursday announced their agreement in principle on the broad strokes of a trade deal that will cover nearly 30 percent of the global economy, 10 percent of the world's population and 40 percent of global trade.

The deal crafts a trading bloc roughly the same size as that established by the North American Free Trade Agreement, a 1994 deal between the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Coming on the eve of the Group of 20 meeting of global leaders in Hamburg, Germany, the announcement appeared to be a calculated rebuke of both the United States, which has spurned global trade agreements in favor of more protectionist policies under President Trump, and Great Britain, which voted to leave the European Union last year. . .

The deal will be a heavy blow to American producers of these goods, by making U.S.-made goods relatively more expensive and less competitive in the major markets of Japan and Europe.

Read the Washington Post, Japan and Europe counter Trump with colossal trade deal.

UPDATE:  Remember when Trump shoved a fellow NATO leader aside on his first summit.

He should expect pushback at this week's Group of 20 summit, not only will The Donald meet his master, he will get pushback from other world leaders.

Read the Washington Post, At G-20 summit, it looks more and more like Trump against the world.

"Trump is known for his tendency to deny his role in controversial events. . . While the nation is waiting to learn the truth about what Trump has or has not said and done, his stubborn denial reveals a lack of social reasoning typical of aggressive children.

Public accounts or explanations of negative events provide us with important insights about social-cognitive maturity. . .

Not only does Trump flatly deny almost every accusation leveled against him, but he also claims no personal responsibility for problems. Instead he blames others, most recently the media and the White House staff. Refusal to accept personal responsibility and a tendency to blame others are indeed trademarks of aggressive children. In fact, our research shows that aggressive children are much quicker to infer hostile intent in ambiguous situations and lash out in revenge. Blaming others is a self-enhancing defense mechanism: It protects positive self-views.

In addition to protecting his ego, Trump also tries to enhance his self-worth. What makes him look childlike are his unsubstantiated claims about his popularity. Despite the verifiable evidence, he repeatedly refers to his unprecedented electoral college victory and the unmatched size of crowds at his inauguration.

Trump’s use of self-enhancement tactics also helps explain why he feels he has been treated worse and more unfairly than any other president in history. Despite their (short-lived) popularity, most bullies are hypersensitive to negative feedback — and ironically feel mistreated.

Revealingly, in his interview with his biographer Michael D’Antonio, Trump says he is the same person as he was in first grade. He may well also be very similar to the person he was in middle school: Indeed, there are many parallels between Trump’s behavior and the facts and findings of developmental science on social reasoning and behavior."

Read the Washington Post, I study the psychology of adolescent bullies. Trump makes perfect sense to me.

Trump's Big CON: North Korea Will Not Develop a Nuclear Weapon Capable of Reaching the U.S., "It Won't Happen!"

UPDATE II:  Maybe The Donald left that secret plan at the golf course.

Early on July 4th, "Trump was spotted at his golf club in Virginia - his 36th day at a golf course as president".

Must be, because he promised he "would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done".

UPDATE:  How does a buffoon become president?

A political media allows an ignoramus to pontificate on things he knows nothing about. 

Here is a case study:

"We forget sometimes that President Trump’s political rhetoric was forged not over years of policymaking or in discussions with experts on foreign policy and domestic issues, but in weekly phone interviews with “Fox and Friends.” Before he declared his candidacy, the real estate developer and TV personality would appear on the program every Monday morning, weighing in on the issues of the day as the hosts offered their now-familiar lack of criticism of his musings. . .

[The timeline of The Donalds ignorant statements]

But, then, he’s already given himself an out on talking about what he intends to do. During a news conference in February, Trump insisted to reporters that, in essence, his plans for North Korea were none of their business.

'I don’t have to tell you. I don’t want to be one of these guys that say, ‘Yes, here’s what we’re going to do.’ I don’t have to do that. I don’t have to tell you what I’m going to do in North Korea,' he said. 'I don’t have to tell you what I’m going to do in North Korea. And I don’t have to tell you what I’m going to do with Iran. You know why? Because they shouldn’t know. And eventually, you guys are going to get tired of asking that question.'

The president’s current conundrum is twofold. First, there’s no easy solution. Second, Trump promised that there was one.

Had his policy been crafted by a team other than Fox’s early-morning talk show hosts, that second problem might not exist."

Read the Washington Post, Trump has never had a plan for dealing with North Korea.

His plan reminds me of the many other so-called secret plans he has.

But this plan may lead to a war in which millions of people are killed.

The Donald play a tough American President on American TV, but I guess North Korea hasn't been watching the show.

"Donald Trump made a bold pronouncement in the weeks before he became president that is not aging well.

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won't happen!
5:05 PM - 2 Jan 2017

The U.S. government confirmed last night that North Korea successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile, crossing a chilling threshold and underscoring Trump’s failure to change the trajectory of dictator Kim Jong Un’s nuclear program over the past six months."

Read the Washington Post, Missile test underscores the failure of Trump’s naive approach to North Korea., which noted that:

"If [Trump] "thought a show of force would deter North Korea, he thought wrong. If anything, the president’s previous saber-rattling has only driven the regime to accelerate its efforts to build a nuclear weapon capable of striking the mainland United States. . .

Trump administration officials have been saying for months now that 'the era of strategic patience is over,' a reference to Obama’s approach, but no one has explained what exactly will replace it."

Next up: It's Obama's fault!!

Read also Trump's Big CON: It's All About the Show, North Korea Edition.

Trump's Big CON: As the 'Repeal and Replace Fraud Shows, Life Is Not All Dessert, No Vegetables

UPDATE:  "With the Republican campaign to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act now set to enter its final, frenzied push, the Indianopolis Star reports that the Indiana GOP attempted a stunt that was supposed to provide Republicans with more ammunition against the law. But the stunt went awry:

    The Indiana Republican Party posed a question to Facebook on Monday: 'What’s your Obamacare horror story? Let us know.'

    The responses were unexpected.

    'My sister finally has access to affordable quality care and treatment for her diabetes.'

    'My father’s small business was able to insure its employees for the first time ever. #thanksObama'

    'Love Obamacare!'

    'The only horror in the story is that Republicans might take it away.'…

    By 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, the Indiana GOP’s post collected more than 1,500 comments, the vast majority in support of Obamacare. . .

[W]hile the rate of pro-ACA postings should obviously not be taken as a scientific indicator of public opinion, this episode also neatly captures another larger truth about why it is proving so hard for Republicans to repeal the law: It has helped untold numbers of people, and the GOP bill would largely reverse that.

This is admittedly a simple and obvious point, yet the extraordinary lengths to which Republicans are going to obscure this basic reality continue to elude sufficient recognition. If you think about it, pretty much every major lie that President Trump and Republicans are telling right now to get their repeal-and-replace bill passed is designed to cover it up."

Read the Washington Post, A GOP stunt backfires, and accidentally reveals a truth Republicans want hidden.

"'Cutting taxes' is a perpetually appealing prospect for voters, but taking away the things those taxes pay for is far more fraught. And as Republicans consider whether their health-care bill puts their anti-tax philosophy into practice, the route they take will say a lot about who’s really in control of their party. . .

It’s an [situation for the] party that used Obamacare repeal as its unifying standard for years, but there's a gap between campaigning and governance. 'Getting government out of people’s lives' is a popular piece of rhetoric, but “getting government benefits out of people’s hands” is far harder."

Read the Washington Post, Republicans face a moment of truth on taxes.

Trump's Big CON: The Puppet Will Meet His Master

UPDATE II:  "Foreign ministries around the world are filled with anticipation over what will happen when Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump meet for the first time at the G20 summit. But veteran U.S. spies who’ve studied manipulation tactics, particularly from their Russian counterparts, are confident they know what’s going to unfold.

Putin, a former KGB operations officer, will not just be practicing interpersonal diplomacy, they say. He’ll be putting his tradecraft as a spy to work. His main asset: Trump’s massive, delicate ego.

It won’t just be the expected flattery, from the spies’ perspective, though flattery is key to dealing with the “sociopathic narcissist” tendencies one ex-CIA interrogator sees in Trump. Putin is likely to stoke Trump’s ire, encourage him against his perceived enemies and validate his inclinations – particularly the ones that move U.S. policy in the directions Putin wants."

Read the Daily Beast, How Ex-Spies Think Putin Will Sucker ‘Sociopathic Narcissist’ Trump. 

UPDATE:  Read the Washington Post, Phone taps, power plays and sarcasm: What it’s like to negotiate with Vladimir Putin, which notes: "As President Trump prepares for his first face-to-face meeting this week with Putin, in Hamburg, those who have negotiated with the Russian leader caution that Trump must be ready for a shrewd, well-prepared and implacable adversary."

Read also the Washington Post, With friends like Putin, who needs enemies?, which correctly notes:

"American presidents have a long history of trying to play personal politics with Russian leaders. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was convinced that he could charm Joseph Stalin. Ronald Reagan trusted his rapport with Mikhail Gorbachev to such an extent that he imagined the two of them joining to eliminate all nuclear weapons. Bill Clinton spent long chunks of quality time with Boris Yeltsin. And George W. Bush, of course, believed that he was 'able to get a sense of [Putin’s] soul.'

This faith in the power of schmoozing has deep roots in American politics, where a lot depends on negotiation, dialogue and dealmaking. But Moscow doesn’t work that way. Russia’s long authoritarian traditions condition it to views its relations with other countries in terms of pure power.

Russia does not have friends. It has competitors and it has vassals. Vassals are countries that pay rhetorical tribute to Moscow and follow its lead on everything that matters — usually because they are deeply dependent on Russia for security, economic support or energy supplies. It’s no coincidence that its current vassal states — such as Belarus, Armenia and Kazakhstan — are themselves corrupt autocracies, which makes it easier for the Kremlin to work with them.

Competitors, by contrast, are to be combated or tolerated. Toleration is possible but it always comes at a price. Most importantly, such a competitor must effectively eschew any criticism of Russia’s domestic affairs and pledge to respect Russia’s freedom of action within its sphere of influence abroad. Once this principle is established, the two rivals can cooperate on other issues where they share common interests. This is the sort of relationship Russia cultivates with its frenemy China, and it is, presumably, how the Kremlin envisages its ideal policy toward the United States under Trump.

Putin wants Washington to accept its role as a meddler in Russia’s self-declared sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. . .

Putin also wants the United States to lift the sanctions imposed in retaliation for Russia’s annexation of Crimea, thus restoring Russia’s freedom to act within the post-Soviet space as it sees fit. . .

Meanwhile, Moscow continues to evade responsibility for its interference in the U.S. presidential election. . .

So yes, we could certainly have a closer relationship with Russia if we wanted one — what Trump might even call a 'friendship,' though Putin wouldn’t look at it that way. But such a deal would come at a huge cost. It would jolt our already shaky ties with our allies, allow Russia license to continue undermining Western democratic institutions and call into question our commitment to our own democratic values — not to mention it would reward Assad for the deaths of about half a million of his own citizens.

Russia doesn’t want us to be its friend; it wants us to be its enabler. Trump may be incapable of understanding this (and if he is, the result could be a disaster). But the rest of us should never forget it."

UPDATE:  "Putin, a former KGB officer who specialized in what the Russians call “political technology,” is the arch manipulator—“deft at psyching people out” as a former U.S. official put it—and his meetings with foreign leaders are frequently notable occasions. Putin brought his Labrador, Konni, to his first meeting with Angela Merkel, who has a lifelong fear of dogs. In his first meeting with Nicholas Sarkozy, he personally threatened to 'smash' the French leader 'to pieces,' leaving him dazed and confused in the press conference that followed. Famously, Putin bonded with George W. Bush over their shared Christianity by telling him a story about how his crucifix was blessed by his mother in Jerusalem and was subsequently the only item to survive a fire in the family Dacha. This tale infamously prompted Bush to say he saw into Putin’s soul. . .

Trump is no ordinary president. He is unique in every way. He is unique ideologically in that he is the only U.S. president to object to the postwar liberal international order, especially on trade, alliances and values. He is unique temperamentally, becoming a sycophant when praised and an enemy when slighted. His foreign counterparts will remember how he was manipulated by Saudi Arabia into siding with Riyadh against Qatar over the objections of his secretary of state. And he is unique in how he processes information. He has a short attention span, a limited interest in detailed briefings and a fondness for cable news. The pattern is fairly clear by now. Most of the time, his mainstream advisers can box him in, but it is hardest when he is center stage, either in a crisis or on a foreign trip. Poland and Hamburg provide the next test. "

Read Politico, Trump Wants a Do-Over in Europe.

The Donald will soon meet Putin.

But "Mr. Trump’s advisers have yet to devise a set of talking points for the closely watched meeting, a process made all the more difficult given the cloud of suspicion hanging over the president and his own propensity to go off-script.

It is rare and potentially risky for an American president to go into such a consequential meeting with another world leader — particularly one like Mr. Putin, a forceful and persuasive figure — with so little preparation on what policy objectives he wants to pursue, said Michael A. McFaul, who served as the United States ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama.

'Mr. Trump may not be preparing in terms of deliverables or outcomes that he seeks, but you can bet that Mr. Putin is,' said Mr. McFaul, who as the chief Russia specialist at the National Security Council in 2009 prepared Mr. Obama for his first meeting with then-President Dmitry A. Medvedev of Russia.

'The big danger with Trump and his instincts is that he often defines a ‘good meeting’ or a friendly encounter as a positive outcome of a meeting with a head of state, and with Putin — where we have a big agenda, and a lot of it’s adversarial — he’s got that backward,' Mr. McFaul said."

Read The New York Times, Trump to Meet With Putin at G-20 Gathering Next Week.

Read also the Daily Beast, Spies Fear Trump’s First Meeting With Putin, which states:

"Moscow believes its leader, ex-spy master Vladimir Putin, can extract major concessions from President Donald Trump when the two meet for the first time next week, European officials tell The Daily Beast.

The officials say their intelligence indicates Putin thinks he can outmaneuver Trump at the G-20 summit, playing on promises of cooperation on areas like counterterrorism to win concessions like a reduction in the raft of sanctions against Russia."

In other words, Our Child President is about to get spanked.

Read also Trump's Big CON: He is Putin's Puppet.

Trump's Big CON: His FAKE American Values

"As the nation was preparing to celebrate its storied independence from the British crown, the president secured his place as history’s greatest jester.

Or America’s first toddler president. Take your pick.

Trump did so by tweeting a doctored video clip of himself from several years ago in which he takes down wrestling magnate Vince McMahon and gives him a good pummeling. The new version superimposes the CNN logo on McMahon’s head. Get it? In the 28-second clip, Trump walks away from the fray unrumpled with nary a hair out of place."

Read the Washington Post, Bizarre. Absurd. Ridiculous. Embarrassing. Trump., which asked:

"To Trump supporters who find the wrestling video unobjectionable or, I suspect, hilarious in some cases, I would ask that they try to imagine the same video showing Barack Obama superimposing Fox News on someone’s face, punching him repeatedly and then smugly strutting away.

Very likely these same folks would have stormed the Mall demanding the president’s impeachment."

How patriotic (NOT), The Donald encouraging violence against the media!

Of course, he cares not a whit about the important role the media played in American independence:

"Newspapers were strongholds of patriotism . . . , and printed many pamphlets, announcements, patriotic letters and pronouncements."

The Donald is much more like King George, who sought to control and limit criticism of his rule. The Donald tries to bully, King George tried to tax.

Trump's Big CON: The Trump Con Artist Family Includes His Lawyer

"Over his career — before he ran for president but continuing once his campaign was underway — Trump managed to assemble around himself a group of shady characters worthy of the most notorious mob boss, and that has continued into his presidency. . .

Mueller is taking a good hard look at Flynn and Manafort, but they’re just two of the grifters and con artists who have always been drawn to Trump like iron filings to a magnet. To take one colorful new example, Trump recently hired Jay Sekulow to represent him in the Russia matter, even though Sekulow’s legal specialty is First Amendment religion cases. Sekulow, it turns out, presides over a network of 'nonprofits' that gets tens of millions of dollars in small contributions from conservatives, then shovels much of that money to him and his family. As Aaron Davis and Shawn Boburg report, over five years,


    $5.5 million was paid directly to Sekulow and five family members in salary or other compensation, tax records covering those years show. Another $7.5 million went to businesses owned by Sekulow and his sister-in-law for producing and consulting on TV, movie and radio shows, including his weekday program, “Jay Sekulow Live!” And $21 million went to a small law firm co-owned by Sekulow, records show.

That’s not to mention the private jet. Sekulow isn’t alleged to be part of the Russia scandal, and his grift is a common one in the conservative political world. But it’s an illustration of the kind of people Trump associates with.

[I]t’s important to remember that if Mueller does find evidence of crimes, he can and will pursue them whether or not they have any specific relationship to the 2016 campaign. Once he begins tugging on these strings, who knows what will be discovered — about Trump’s activities before becoming president, about what his associates have done, and about anything else. Mueller can go wherever the evidence leads. Which may be why one Trump associate after another, from his personal lawyer to his son-in-law, is lawyering up.

This investigation may start with questions specifically related to the 2016 campaign and obstruction of justice, but it will almost inevitably get wider and wider. For instance, the question 'What was the nature of Jared Kushner’s contacts with Russia?' leads to 'What are Jared’s financial connections to Russia?,' which leads to 'What’s up with that $285 million loan Kushner’s company got just before Election Day?'"

Read the Washington Post, Why the Russia investigation could be even bigger than you think.

Trump's Big CON: Stay Quit & Pledge Loyalty, Or Else

UPDATE II:   Remember what Presidential adviser Stephen Miller said on February 13, talking about the travel ban, the president’s power “will not be questioned”.

Need I say more.

UPDATE:  For more about the President's threats and blackmail:

Read the Daily Beast, Jared Kushner Told Joe Scarborough: Talk to President Trump About ‘Enquirer’ Dirt.

"President Trump exposed his own viciousness in those now-infamous tweets about Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, but the 'Morning Joe' co-hosts on Friday accused Trump of another, unseen act of malice.

'This year, top White House staff members warned that the National Enquirer was planning to publish a negative article about us unless we begged the president to have the story spiked,' Brzezinski and Scarborough wrote in The Washington Post. 'We ignored their desperate pleas.'"

Read the Washington Post, The strange saga of Trump and ‘Morning Joe’ now involves the National Enquirer.

This isn't a "strange saga", it's very scary.  Basically, you criticize me, I'll ruin you publicly.

This is something that was done in the Soviet Union.  No wonder Trump love Putin.

Read also the Washington Post, Why the National Enquirer loves Trump — and why that matters. 

Trump's Big CON: He Can't Be Happy, So When Will He Resign

"Maybe he needs therapy. Or a good cry. Perhaps he never felt loved as a child. Exercise might help. And I hear bonsai is a healthy outlet for redirecting anxiety and rage. Either way, healthy, happy people do not behave like this."

Read CNN, Healthy, happy people do not behave like Trump.

Which begs the question, how long until he resigns,.

Trump's Big CON: Our Ill-Tempered, Incompetent and Ineffective President

UPDATE V:  "If you want to look at the bright side of things, at least we’ve learned that the nation can survive for half a year without a sane, functioning presidency.

We’ve had nothing of the sort since Inauguration Day. The man who works in the Oval Office is a walking, talking, tweeting advertisement for Ritalin and perhaps some calming therapeutic activity such as yoga. We are fortunate, in a sense, that President Trump’s lack of focus and his anger-management issues keep getting in the way of his policy agenda, given that the agenda is so wrongheaded. But that is an awfully thin silver lining in a very thick cloud.

As I’ve written before, I’m not qualified to assess Trump’s mental health. But there are moments when it would be dishonest not to raise questions about his stability. If the commander in chief of the most powerful military force in history has a problem with impulse control, the whole world has a problem. . .

One doesn’t need a degree in psychology to wonder if the president suffers from some deep-seated insecurity. I can’t help but think about that Cabinet meeting this month in which the top officials of our government, one by one, obsequiously told Trump what a 'privilege' and a 'blessing' it was to serve him. . .

What’s truly alarming is the self-defeating nature of Trump’s spasms. At the moment, he is trying desperately to get GOP senators to agree on a health-care bill. . .

The obvious question: What happens if there is an international crisis and Trump’s delicate ego is threatened? Can those around him contain his worst instincts?"

They’d better be able to. Not since Richard Nixon’s final days in the White House have I been so worried about a president’s grip on reality.

Read the Washington Post, There Trump goes again.

And see what I said below: "just think, he has his finger on the nuclear button."

UPDATE IV:  "It is disturbing that the president of the United States keeps up his unrelenting assault on women. From his menstruation musings about Megyn Kelly, to his fat-shaming treatment of a former Miss Universe, to his braggadocio claims about grabbing women’s genitalia, the 45th president is setting the poorest of standards for our children. . .

The Donald Trump we knew before the campaign was a flawed character but one who still seemed capable of keeping his worst instincts in check."

Read the Washington Post, Donald Trump is not well.

UPDATE III:  "Donald Trump's tweet Thursday attacking MSNBC anchor Mika Brzezinski is just the latest in a long line of disparaging jabs he has hurled at prominent women."

Read CNN, Donald Trump's long history of disparaging women's appearances.

UPDATE II:  And The Donald hates the pretty ladies, or anyone for that matter, that talks back.

 "The hosts of 'Morning Joe' on MSNBC criticized President Trump's Twitter habit Thursday — 'that's your president of the United States lying to you,' Mika Brzezinski said of one tweet — and then, as if succumbing to involuntary spasms, Trump's thumbs tapped out whatever nasty, sexist thought popped into his head."

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s latest attack on Mika Brzezinski is dripping with sexism.

Mika Brzezinski responded to The Donald's outburst with a tweet that included this image:

I'm guessing The Donald is having a hissy fit right about now.

Read also the Washington Post, Trump’s ‘Morning Joe’ tweet shows his ‘viciousness’ has no limit, which stated:  "Anyone defending Trump’s sophomoric, misogynistic, immature, sexist, demeaning, unbecoming, unpresidential tweet is nothing less than repulsive."

No question about it, The Donald is incapable of self-restraint.

And just think, he has his finger on the nuclear button.

Then read the Washington Post, Donald Trump is in the small minority of Americans who thinks Trump’s tweets are good., which notes that "[i]n no group — even Trump supporters — did at least half say [his] tweets were effective and informative."

UPDATE: But The Donald loves the pretty ladies (as long as they don't talk back).

Read the Washington Post,  ‘I bet she treats you well’: Trump calls over Irish reporter, compliments her ‘nice smile’

"History suggests that presidents who have governed successfully have been both revered and feared. But Republican fixtures in Washington are beginning to conclude that Trump may be neither, despite his mix of bravado, threats and efforts to schmooze with GOP lawmakers. . .

In private conversations on Capitol Hill, Trump is often not taken seriously. Some Republican lawmakers consider some of his promises — such as making Mexico pay for a new border wall — fantastical. They are exhausted and at times exasperated by his hopscotching from one subject to the next, chronicled in his pithy and provocative tweets. They are quick to point out how little command he demonstrates of policy. And they have come to regard some of his threats as empty, concluding that crossing the president poses little danger. . .

One senior Republican close to both the White House and many senators called Trump and his political operation 'a paper tiger,' noting how many GOP lawmakers feel free 'to go their own way.'"

Read the Washington Post, Who’s afraid of Trump? Not enough Republicans — at least for now.

MAGA -- Stop Trump

UPDATE:  Read the Washington Post, How Trump’s nationwide voter data request could lead to voter suppression.

No kidding, and when Trump learns you didn't vote for him, watch his tweets!!

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s voter-fraud commission wants to know voting history, party ID and address of every voter in the U.S.

This is outrageous, and dangerous.

There is no meaningful voter fraud that justifies this commission, let alone the creation of the database which could be subject to abuse.

In addition, Trump is ill-tempered, with little self control or restraint, and inclined toward authoritarianism. So NOTHING good will come of this.

And it would be useless to try to reason with Donald Trump.

For evidence, see Donald Trump's diary: @realdonaldtrump

Also see my diary chronicling Trump's Big CON at: NoBullU.com

You can help MAGA -- Stop Trump!

Money collected will be used to file a lawsuit to stop this, and expose the commission as a fraud.

Trump's Big CON: His 2009 Time Magazine Cover is a FAKE!!

See these two Time magazine covers:

The one on the right is a FAKE!

Read the Washington Post, A Time Magazine with Trump on the cover hangs in his golf clubs. It’s fake., which begins:

"The framed copy of Time Magazine was hung up in at least four of President Trump’s golf clubs, from South Florida to Scotland. Filling the entire cover was a photo of Donald Trump.
'Donald Trump: The ‘Apprentice’ is a television smash!' the big headline said. Above the Time nameplate, there was another headline in all caps: 'TRUMP IS HITTING ON ALL FRONTS . . . EVEN TV!'

This cover — dated March 1, 2009 — looks like an impressive memento from Trump’s pre-presidential career. To club members eating lunch, or golfers waiting for a pro-shop purchase, it seemed to be a signal that Trump had always been a man who mattered. Even when he was just a reality-TV star, Trump was the kind of star who got a cover story in Time.

But that wasn’t true.

The Time cover is a fake.

There was no March 1, 2009, issue of Time Magazine. And there was no issue at all in 2009 that had Trump on the cover.

In fact,the cover on display at Trump’s clubs, observed recently by a reporter visiting one of the properties, contains several small but telling mistakes. Its red border is skinnier than that of a genuine Time cover, and, unlike the real thing, there is no thin white border next to the red. The Trump cover’s secondary headlines are stacked on the right side — on a real Time cover, they would go across the top.

And it has two exclamation points. Time headlines don’t yell."

Nothing better and more simply proves the point that I've tried to make: Donald Trump is a CON MAN!

Trump's Big CON: A Report Card

"Trump has been ruled by compulsions, obsessions and vindictiveness, expressed nearly daily on Twitter. He has demonstrated an egotism that borders on solipsism. His political skills as president have been close to nonexistent. His White House is divided, incompetent and chaotic, and key administration jobs remain unfilled. His legislative agenda has gone nowhere. He has told constant, childish, refuted, uncorrected lies, and demanded and habituated deception among his underlings. He has humiliated and undercut his staff while requiring and rewarding flattery. He has promoted self-serving conspiracy theories. He has displayed pathetic, even frightening, ignorance on policy matters foreign and domestic. He has inflicted his ethically challenged associates on the nation. He is dead to the poetry of language and to the nobility of the political enterprise, viewing politics as conquest rather than as service.

Trump has made consistent appeals to prejudice based on religion and ethnicity, and associated the Republican Party with bias. He has stoked tribal hostilities. He has carelessly fractured our national unity. He has attempted to undermine respect for any institution that opposes or limits him — be it the responsible press, the courts or the intelligence community. He has invited criminal investigation through his secrecy and carelessness. He has publicly attempted to intimidate law enforcement. He has systematically alarmed our allies and given comfort to authoritarians. He promised to emancipate the world from American moral leadership — and has kept that pledge.

For many Republicans and conservatives, there is apparently no last straw, with offenses mounting bale by bale. The argument goes: Trump is still superior to Democratic rule — which would deliver apocalyptic harm — and thus anything that hurts Trump is bad for the republic. He is the general, so shut up and salute. What, after all, is the conservative endgame other than Trump’s success?

This is the recommendation of sycophancy based on hysteria. At some point, hope for a new and improved Trump deteriorates into unreason. The idea that an alliance with Trump will end anywhere but disaster is a delusion. Both individuals and parties have long-term interests that are served by integrity, honor and sanity. Both individuals and the Republican Party are being corrupted and stained by their embrace of Trump. The endgame of accommodation is to be morally and politically discredited. Those committed to this approach warn of national decline — and are practically assisting it. They warn of decadence — and provide refreshments at the orgy.

So what is the proper objective for Republicans and conservatives? It is the defeat of Trumpism, preferably without the destruction of the GOP itself. And how does that happen?"

Read the Washington Post, The GOP’s hard, messy options for destroying Trumpism.

Don't have too much pity for their situation, Republi-CONs sowed the seed of Trumpism for decades. The article even admits with a conclusion: "they brought this fate on themselves and the country."

To understand how, read the older posts on this blog, and start with Trump's Sycophant Gingrich's Big CON: Political Hatred and Violence is the Other Party's Fault.