Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[BasilValentine]

Smugglers are sawing through new sections of Trump's border wall

"Smuggling gangs in Mexico have repeatedly sawed through new sections of President Trump's border wall in recent months by using commercially available power tools, opening gaps large enough for people and drug loads to pass through, according to U.S. agents and officials with knowledge of the damage.

The breaches have been made using a popular cordless household tool known as a reciprocating saw that retails at hardware stores for as little as $100. When fitted with specialized blades, the saws can slice through one of the barrier's steel-and-concrete bollards in minutes, according to the agents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the barrier-defeating techniques.

After cutting through the base of a single bollard, smugglers can push the steel out of the way, creating an adult-size gap. Because the bollards are so tall — and are attached only to a panel at the top — their length makes them easier to push aside once they have been cut and are left dangling, according to engineers consulted by The Washington Post."[...]

Reminds me of the heartwarming story months ago about the theft of razor wire from the wall. Apparently it is in great demand in Tijuana and other border towns, where it now tops the walls and fences of many private homes, gardens, and businesses. The Mexicans are enhancing their walls and the U.S. is paying for it. Typical Trump deal.

[Todd]

The Nonintervention Delusion

What War is Good For


The piece was scribbled before Trump's unambiguously good decision to remove US troops from northern Syria, so the bit about the original shit Syria policy being successful is now dated.  The article is riddled with hollow enthymemes, poor metaphors, the continuing misuse of the Rwandan Genocide as some type of lesson learned (when the even worse outcome that followed is ignored), and a paean to permanent war with approving babble about indefinite US troop deployments.  It's a new take on the White Man's Burden by an aide to warmonger extraordinaire John McCain.  Members of the GMG Big Brain Brigade will likely approve.

[drogulus]

     A presidential loathing for Ukraine is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry

U.S. and Ukrainian officials would spend months in pursuit of a Trump-Zelensky meeting. In their fruitless attempts to make it happen, Perry, Volker and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, would encourage the Ukrainians to accede to demands by Trump and his personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, that they open investigations that would benefit Trump politically.

     I guess we'll have to allow that Sondland, Volker and Perry were trying to help Ukraine get the aid, and the dirty deal part was the means they used. Only a sufficiently dirty deal could move Trump off his base TrumPutin orientation. Sondland, Volker and Perry had no stake in the Biden/Crowdstrike nonsense. Others did, like Rudy and the Mystery Guest who thinks Ukraine is part of Russia, just like Mr. No Puppet.

[BasilValentine]

Our Romanian friends will be happy to know that Trump's fixer Giuliani has been working to undermine corruption investigations in that country while, once again, attempting to impugn the actions of Hunter Biden. Seems he has been extorting money from the whole of Eastern Europe trading on his relationship with Trump:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofs7b6w1Pts

[drogulus]

Our Romanian friends will be happy to know that Trump's fixer Giuliani has been working to undermine corruption investigations in that country while, once again, attempting to impugn the actions of Hunter Biden. Seems he has been extorting money from the whole of Eastern Europe trading on his relationship with Trump:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofs7b6w1Pts

     I watched the 60 Minutes interview with Maria Butina in which she claimed she was not a spy. That's literally true, she was a Russian agent of a different kind, an influence agent. Often such agents are unwitting initially (to be witting is to be "conscious"). At some point it becomes clear that the agent is being used for a larger goal. By that time it's too late to back out.

     She waves away the idea that Putin associate Torshin was her controller:

Stahl: "So you wrote him a message and you said, "You are an influential member of [Putin's] team." Your words."

Butina: "It doesn't suggest he's close to Putin in any way."

Stahl: "But was he an influential member of Putin's team?"

Butina: "I don't know."

      Rudy has an excellent motive for a semi-hemi-demi conscious agent, and that is money, the limelight, and being close to the center of power. Even I might be tempted to hand Ukraine to Putin on a silver platter for all of that.

     I get richer, Putin has a free hand, sanctions get lifted, and I get to start a new project that shows with geometric logic that another country has horrible corrupt people in it. Let's say it's Finland. Why not? It could be Finland, or some other horrible country. We should investigate very strongly how horrible the Finns are.

[drogulus]

     Surprise: Trump allegedly got his Ukraine conspiracy theory from the Russia-tied criminals on his campaign

So we have two men who have been convicted of offenses related to their Russia ties, have both lied to investigators about their interactions with Russian interests, and who apparently played a significant role in pushing a theory to Trump that Russia did not actually interfere in the 2016 election. They instead pointed the finger at Russia's nemesis, Ukraine, and that has apparently stuck with Trump for more than three years. Flynn's alleged effort to push Trump to be skeptical of the U.S. intelligence community in which Flynn served seems to have proven particularly long-lasting, despite Flynn's conviction and his predilection for conspiracy theories such as Pizzagate.

And now Trump has pushed the theory so far, despite its baselessness, that it has put him on course for impeachment. Given that Russia's goal has always been more about destabilizing the West rather than necessarily supporting Trump, it's about the best that the Kremlin could have hoped.

     

[Florestan]

Our Romanian friends will be happy to know that Trump's fixer Giuliani has been working to undermine corruption investigations in that country while, once again, attempting to impugn the actions of Hunter Biden. Seems he has been extorting money from the whole of Eastern Europe trading on his relationship with Trump:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofs7b6w1Pts

I am Romanian. This is yesterday's news for me, the infamous Giuliani letter has been discussed, criticized and outright condemned by journalists and the then-opposition-now-governing National Liberal Party months ago. Anyway, it's highly interesting that Puiu Popoviciu contacted Hunter Biden first and the latter, after not being able to help him even during his father's office as VPOTUS, refered the matter to Louis Freeh who in turn hired Rudy Giuliani. Now, had Hunter Biden been an honest person he'd have declined to have anything at all to do with the matter. He didn't. It's very hard for me to believe he did not take any money from Popoviciu. As far as I'm concerned, he's no better than Giuliani, just more discreet in handling the matter.

[drogulus]

I am Romanian. This is yesterday's news for me, the infamous Giuliani letter has been discussed, criticized and outright condemned by journalists and the then-opposition-now-governing National Liberal Party months ago. Anyway, it's highly interesting that Puiu Popoviciu contacted Hunter Biden first and the latter, after not being able to help him even during his father's office as VPOTUS, refered the matter to Louis Freeh who in turn hired Rudy Giuliani. Now, had Hunter Biden been an honest person he'd have declined to have anything at all to do with the matter. He didn't. It's very hard for me to believe he did not take any money from Popoviciu. As far as I'm concerned, he's no better than Giuliani, just more discreet in handling the matter.

     Why was Hunter unable to help?  Or, why was he unwilling to "handle the matter"? Handing the issue off to a former head of the FBI might have been a safe way to stay out of trouble. Or maybe I'm giving Hunter too much credit, and he's dishonest in a way that did him no good.

     

[JBS]

     Why was Hunter unable to help?  Or, why was he unwilling to "handle the matter"? Handing the issue off to a former head of the FBI might have been a safe way to stay out of trouble. Or maybe I'm giving Hunter too much credit, and he's dishonest in a way that did him no good.

   

It would seem he was hired for his putative stringpulling abilities, then he discovered that there were no strings available for him to pull.

If that's so, he at least had the minimal honesty not to string his client along with empty promises (pun not planned in advance)

[Florestan]

     Why was Hunter unable to help?  Or, why was he unwilling to "handle the matter"? Handing the issue off to a former head of the FBI might have been a safe way to stay out of trouble.

The safest way to stay out of such sordid matters is to politely but firmly refuse to have anything at all to do with it. Anything at alll, that is not even refering the matter to a third party.

Or maybe I'm giving Hunter too much credit, and he's dishonest in a way that did him no good.

This hypothesis cannot and should not be discarded a priori.

[drogulus]

The safest way to stay out of such sordid matters is to politely but firmly refuse to have anything at all to do with it. Anything at alll, that is not even refering the matter to a third party.

This hypothesis cannot and should not be discarded a priori.

     I'm more interested in generating a plausible notion of what Hunter did than an excuse for what that might be. Maybe he's Al Capone. Maybe he's the worst sleazeball ever, though from the look of it he's more of a medium size sleazeball.

[Florestan]

     I'm more interested in generating a plausible notion of what Hunter did than an excuse for what that might be.

I reiterate what I wrote above: it's very hard for me to believe he did not take any money from Popoviciu. My Romanian experience has taught me that corruption has no party. Biden, Giuliani, all the same to me.

[drogulus]

I reiterate what I wrote above: it's very hard for me to believe he did not take any money from Popoviciu. My Romanian experience has taught me that corruption has no party. Biden, Giuliani, all the same to me.

     It's hard for me to believe that everyone is guilty of what the worst guy does. But then I find most things hard to believe. It's a superpower.

[drogulus]

     It looks like Trump and Giuliani's efforts to intimidate and bully the former Ukrainian ambassador went much farther than publicly known

Arsen Avakov, the Ukrainian Minister of the Interior, spoke to Giuliani in February about Biden and the 2016 election and subsequently warned Yovanovitch it would be "dangerous" for Ukraine to get into domestic US politics.

When a lawmaker asked Yovanovitch why Avakov tied Giuliani to Ukraine getting involved in the US, she said it related to the issue of the "black ledger."
   
The "black ledger" is a handwritten list of $2 billion of allegedly illicit payments the pro-Russia Party of Regions made to people including former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The revelation of those payments led to Manafort's resignation from the campaign.

     TrumPutin 2020 is about rewriting TrumPutin 2016. Hillary plotted with horrible Ukrainians to besmirtch Russia and the good Ukrainians working with super innocent Paul Manafort on their beautiful project to make Ukraine not a country.

[Florestan]

     I find most things hard to believe.

One of the few exceptions being MMT, of course.

[BasilValentine]

I am Romanian.

Yes, I know. Who did you think I meant?

[drogulus]

One of the few exceptions being MMT, of course.

     Considering that MMT is often first encountered as a series of myths not worth believing, it's not an exception at all.

[Karl Henning]

Biden, Giuliani, all the same to Poju, too.

[JBS]

Biden, Giuliani, all the same to Poju, too.

May I point out that in working for Popoviciu, Hunter Biden and Giuliani were in effect "the same thing"?

[SimonNZ]

Nearly two-thirds of US voters say Trump has not made them better off
FT-Peterson poll casts doubt on whether economic arguments will boost president's campaign

and:

Donald Trump Responds To "Fake" And "Lousy" Polls Calling For His Impeachment: "I Have the Real Polls"

"Polls from Fox News, NBC/WSJ and MSN have shown that nearly 50% of voters want Donald Trump impeached, but the former host of The Celebrity Apprentice made it clear that he feels that those numbers are not real.

During one of the many eventful interviews on the White House lawn, Trump spoke to reporters about the polls saying, "You're looking at the wrong polls. I have the real polls. The CNN polls are fake. The Fox polls have always been lousy. I tell them they ought to get themselves a new pollster."

In the polls from Fox News and NBC/WSJ at the end of October, 49% of voteres said that they wanted Trump impeached and removed from office. Meanwhile, a MSN poll showed that 52% supported Senate voting to removing Trump from his presidential throne if he was impeached. MSN all revealed that 62% of the country said America isn't doing so well and is headed in the wrong direction. On top of that, 55% aren't too happy with Trump and the work he is doing as president.  Over at Fox, a poll said 52% saw the impeachment inquiry as legitimate and 42% wanted him to be removed from the White House if there is enough evidence to do so."[...]