W.J. Astore
America’s MAGA President, Donald Trump, has generated enormous criticism for his news conference with Vladimir Putin. Typical of this is James Fallows at The Atlantic, who wrote that “Never before have I seen an American president consistently, repeatedly, publicly, and shockingly advance the interests of another country over those of his own government and people.” A “national nightmare,” opined The Washington Post. A “train wreck,” said NBC News, that made Russians “gleeful.”
Is Trump advancing the interests of Russia? Is this an example of high crimes and misdemeanors, perhaps even rising to treason?
Methinks not. Trump, if he is advancing Russian interests, is doing so indirectly. Because only one thing matters to Trump: his own interests. With Trump, it really is all about him.
Consider the accusations of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Trump is never going to side with his intelligence agencies on this issue. He thinks that, by doing so, he’d be admitting that maybe he didn’t win fair and square over “Crooked Hillary.” He refuses to countenance Russian meddling, not because he’s a Putin stooge, but rather because he’s an egomaniac. He’ll admit to nothing that diminishes, however slightly, his victory — and his ego.
Russia doesn’t matter to Trump. Indeed, America doesn’t matter to Trump. With Trump, it’s really all about him. Recall how he visited the CIA and boasted about himself while standing before the wall that commemorates fallen CIA officers. Recall how he declared the military would follow his orders regardless of their legality. He rashly accuses Democrats of not caring about the troops or border security whenever they oppose his policies. He does best with foreign leaders, like the Saudis and Israelis, who are at pains to flatter him. He apparently can’t stand Angela Merkel because she doesn’t play the flattery game.
Trump lives in his own reality, a narcissistic swirl of fabrications, falsehoods, and lies. He’s happiest when he’s commanding the scene, when people are kowtowing to him, when he can boast about himself and advertise his businesses (during this latest trip, he went to a Trump golf course in Scotland and waxed about its “magical” qualities).
In short, Trump is not treasonous. He simply has no concept of public service. He has no capacity to serve any cause other than himself.
Readers, what do you think of the treason accusations against Trump?
Bracing Views 
Couldn’t agree more. And it seems like the rest of the world is slowly beginning to acknowledge that, as more irony and even sarcasm is creeping into other political leaders’ comments.
As for many commentators within the US, they seem to pounce on such opportunities to whiten their own shortcomings. Personally, I found this the most revealing press comment about the ‘Helsinki’ road show : https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/07/melania-trump-meets-with-first-lady-of-finland. And if I knew how to insert a picture (if that is possible at all), I’d offer the Friday July 13th front page of Scottish newspaper Daily Record, which I think sums up pretty accurately feelings on both sides of the Atlantic.
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This reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live skit: is it a floor wax (treason) or a dessert topping (narcissism)? 45’s identity is as a so-called “successful businessman,” and it’s clear now that Putin has the goods that can destroy that grand illusion – what else could cause such obsequiousness? 45 can’t let that happen and will, as we just saw, sacrifice America to preserve his businesses. By denying Russia’s military information warfare attacks on our country, 45 not only betrayed his oath to defend our country but also provided “aid and comfort” to an enemy — the definition of treason. So, yes, it’s both: a floor wax AND a dessert topping!
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Thanks. It’s possible the Russians have “the goods,” but it’s not something like “the pee tape.” Trump’s base would laugh at that. “The goods” (assuming they exist) are most likely financial, hence Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns. But it’s also possible there are no “goods,” and that Trump is simply too consumed by his own ego to recognize when he’s been had.
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I still say Trump committed treason when he said in 2016 that he wouldn’t respect the election result if it came up Clinton.
Which it did, but… stupid undemocratic Electoral College.
Anyway, the part of all this that makes me most uncomfortable is this new wave of nationalism that seems to be infecting the public discourse. It seems like the powers-that-be have decided that fanning flames of outrage against Russia and casting it as America’s #1 big bad enemy is their best way forward.
Which is awfully convenient, as blaming some foreign other for all our problems avoids dealing with the very real disintegration of our democratic system and, probably, our society as a whole. Trump was the candidate Americans have been warned about by writers and thinkers for more than a century. He represents the culmination of a particular strand of American identity that is going to get the country killed, sooner or later.
Americans do not agree any more on the basic principles underpinning a decent society. DC is an engine for hoovering up tax revenues and filtering them to special interests, with each party controlled by a coalition of those (and many hedge bets by supporting both). Representative democracy has failed at the federal level. And amidst all the Twitter posts and op-ed pieces, the basic fact of the GOP and DNC being locked in what looks like a stalemate, but is in fact functional collusion meant to keep the money flowing, remains unchallenged.
I loathe Russia’s electoral interference, but it simple wasn’t decisive in the way the DC hacks and their media pets want us to believe. I also loathe what Russia has done geopolitically – although in that, I understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. The ‘West’ has gone back on so many promises and agreements (then claims the moral high ground, of course) that someone like Putin playing dictator-for-life was probably inevitable. But Russia’s military spending is 1/10th of the US, and aside from its nuclear arsenal it poses no real threat to the US, or even Europe if you get right down to it. Occupying anything but a slice of a neighbor is likely beyond Russia’s capabilities.
Inequality, both economic and political, is what is destroying America. Not Russia, not terrorism, not immigrants. The real reason everything is so screwed right now is that we haven’t reformed to the degree we must, and the delicate fabric of our society is tearing apart as a result.
Oh well. As a science fiction writer with an interest in history (past and future), the times make for good inspiration.
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“Inequality, both economic and political, is what is destroying America.” Well put. A government should be judged on how it serves the people — all the people. People deserve affordable housing, affordable health care, affordable education. If we can’t house our people, help them when their sick, and educate them, who cares about Russians or Chinese or immigrants etc.? If we can’t protect them from drinking poisoned water (lead in the Flint water supply), who cares about terrorism?
Our national priorities are all wrong.
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“Treason accusations against Trump?” I don’t think so, but narcissist YES! I got to thinking about that over-the-top portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud of Louis XIV in ermine coats & silk stockings, but if you study it, it’s probably the most blatant piece of “commercial art” in history! All his prized and well paid craftsmen are represented; furniture, carpets, tapestries, architecture. Keep in mind at the time Versailles as a giant department store: everything was for sale! I doubt Trump such luck to turn around a bad economy as Louis 14 was left.
Moving onto Russia, and the outrageous comments in the Western press, I question today: Hasn’t Russia ALWAYS been the ultimate prize for the greedy West? Napoleon tried, and froze to death instead. Many question today who (really!) bankrolled the Bolsheviks. Then Hitler, amassing the largest standing army in history, only to be beaten back to Berlin. They can’t seem to give up!
That’s why they hate Putin; he put a stop to Western plundering of their resources. Trump let it slip with Merkel. He’d prefer Russia keep it’s oil & gas in the ground then sell it Germany today. We’ll steal it later! Putin’s too savvy to slip up: said it outright Bill Browder gave the Clinton Campaign $400,000,000! I doubt out of generosity, as he stole 1.5Bil$ from Russia, untaxed in Russia or West. They don’t call her ‘Crooked Hillary’ for nothing!
Now the real fireworks start, a few weeks after July 4 and mere days from Bastille & closing of Russia’s World Cup.
They say “The Victors write the history”. True, but we never did get the real PRIZE!
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My favorite comment regarding the most recent Helsinki photo-op meet-and-greet (I would hardly call it a “summit”) comes from the Australian Caitlin Johnstone who passes along a quote from Senator “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb … Bomb, Bomb Iran” himself:
“President Trump must be willing to confront Putin from a position of strength and demonstrate that there will be a serious price to pay for his ongoing aggression towards the United States and democracies around the world,” said Senator John McCain in a statement, more determined than ever to start World War Three before he finally fucking dies [emphasis added]. “If President Trump is not prepared to hold Putin accountable, the summit in Helsinki should not move forward.”
As a veteran of the Nixon-Kissinger Fig Leaf Contingent (Vietnam 1970-72) I have never forgiven the North Vietnamese for releasing John McCain from captivity. I admit that we Americans killed millions of Vietnamese — as well as Cambodians and Laotians — with our savage, saturation bombing campaigns. As well, I can understand the normal human desire for justice and revenge. But sending John McCain back to us so that he could infect our country for decades with his ceaseless foaming-at-the-mouth war-agitating — which has predictably led to even more savage, saturation bombing by the American military, killing and rendering homeless even more millions of hapless foreign peasants — well, I consider that just plain mean. Fortunately for America and the world-at-large, cancer of the brain seems about to do what cancer of the heart and soul should have done at least four decades ago. If only John McCain’s night nurse could read to him the opening stanza of Alexander Pushkin’s famous poem, Eugene Onegin:
My uncle, what a worthy man,
Falling ill like that, and dying;
It summons up respect, one can
Admire it, as if he were trying.
Let us all follow his example!
But, God, what tedium to sample
That sitting by the bed all day,
All night, barely a foot away!
And the hypocrisy, demeaning,
Of cosseting one who’s half alive;
Puffing the pillows, you contrive
To bring his medicine unsmiling,
Thinking with a mournful sigh,
“Why the devil can’t you die?”
Anyway, Ms Johnstone makes some telling points in her article: Two Big ‘Russia! Russia!’ Stories Released Days Before Trump-Putin Summit, Russia Insider (July 17, 2018). The subtitle reads: “There is a long history of sabotaging or attempting to sabotage summits and other détente-like initiatives.”
Good for Presidents Putin and Trump. As British Prime Minister Winston Churchill put the case for diplomacy: “It is always better to jaw-jaw than to war-war.”
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Caitlin Johnstone reiterates the most important caveat about public gullibility in the face of U.S. media “group-think” mendacity sourced from anonymous bureaucratic bunglers:
“As we learned in the lead up to the Iraq invasion, whenever you see all mass media outlets converge upon a single narrative, it’s time to crank your skepticism levels up to eleven.”
… and …
“Remain skeptical of everything you hear about Russia at all times, because I will say it again: it is the US intelligence community’s job to lie to you.
In my opinion, two more articles merit consideration in the context of the Putin-Trump meeting in Helsinki.
(1) Helsinki Is the Latest Offensive in Trump’s War on the Establishment:
“a remarkable continuity of thought and strategic vision notwithstanding all of the noise and contradictions used to disarm and confuse his opponents.”, by Gilbert Doctorow, Russia Insider (July 17, 2018)
… and …
(2)
It’s Now Clearer Than Ever: It’s Trump vs the War Party. “This isn’t about Trump, his personality, or his other policies. It’s about whether a bunch of unelected bureaucrats are going to be granted a veto power over who sits in that chair in the Oval Office”, by Justin Raimondo, Russia Insider (July 17, 2018).
I have my own views regarding what little anyone actually knows about what presidents Putin and Trump discussed, but the full-on corporate media campaign to discredit diplomacy before it can even begin ought to tell the story of what absolute terror even the smallest prospects for Peace arouse in the international corporate-bureaucratic war-for-money establishment. It seems to me that Donald Trump the reputed “businessman” simply wants to sell American weapons (designed to fight the remnants of the FDR New Deal by preemptively depleting the U.S. treasury) and overpriced liquefied natural gas to foreign customers who need or want neither of these commodities, especially since the U.S. primarily pushes them in service to the interests of the medieval Sordid Arabians and fanatical Zionist settlers presently occupying and ethnically “cleansing” historic Palestine. The U.S. has practically nothing to offer Russia, but the Russians rightfully view the United States as a demented, moronic monkey running around with a live hand grenade and so they must humor the belligerent beast until, somehow, they can encourage it to wander off to a safe distance where it can only kill itself.
Perpetual “war” has bankrupted the United States in service to an “empire” whose principle beneficiaries do not include most of the American people and certainly not the working class and poor. President Donald Trump may or may not actually understand or care about this but he does understand the Electoral College, winner-take-all elections (where only 51% of the vote actually counts), and Gerrymandered congressional districts: all eighteenth-century American inventions that account for the Republican party’s present dominance of all three branches of the U.S. government. The Russian Czars had nothing to do with this thoroughly anti-democratic and corrupt American electoral system, any more than the democratically elected Russian president Vladimir Putin did almost two years ago in 2016. As a matter of fact, an international corporate oligarchy owns and operates the U.S. government like a combination subsidiary fast-food franchise and traveling-circus puppet show. Donald Trump seems to have won the U.S. presidency under the delusion that the U.S. president actually dictates and executes national policy. The international financial oligarchy and its hired minions in the U.S. government bureaucracy and corporate media wish to disabuse President Donald Trump of this delusion. Perhaps the recently re-elected Russian President Vladimir Putin can explain to President Donald Trump how modern democracies actually operate. What, if anything, “President” Donald Trump might do with this information remains an open question. But as long as his political enemies keep stupidly shouting, “Russia! Russia!” “Bad! “Bad!” It probably doesn’t matter to his re-election prospects what a real democracy might actually look like. As the international financial oligarchy likes to say about the deeply indebted North American Marketing Territory and U.S. Dollar Printing Press:
Buy some Republicans. They’ll shout “Gawd Bless!”
Then rent some Democrats. They’ll lose for less.
Or, as the ancient Chinese curse admonishes: “May you live in interesting times.”
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Russian President Vladimir Putin probably knows all this and doesn’t need me to explain the United States to him; but if I could, I’d like to read him one of my own compositions in the style of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. Perhaps he might get a laugh out of it:
Tag-Team Twosome
(after the style of Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin)
Two years later on, The Donald,
now the White House resident,
Connoisseur of “food” from Ronald,
Golden Arches president,
Watches TV, Tweets and twitters,
Giving half the world the jitters,
Fingers of his tiny hands
(Stroking military glands)
All too near The Big Red Button.
“Fire and Fury,” piss-poor prose,
Kim Jong-un a “bloody nose.”
Swills his Diet Coke, a glutton.
Tax cuts for the One Percent.
Working poor can’t pay the rent.
Meanwhile, You-Know-Her, defeated
By a TV game-show host
Can’t accept. Claims she was cheated.
Voters, hating her the most,
Given two repulsive “choices”
(Neither who will heed their voices)
Chose the “newer,” “fresher” fraud.
Democrats heard straight from GAWD
(Passed down through the corporations,
Tell Aviv and Wall Street, too):
“Ask the oligarchs their view.
Then solicit bribes (‘donations’).
Last: blame Vladimir for Don.
Stick to that and don’t move on.”
Take a poll. See if it’s raining.
Just don’t go outside. It’s wet.
Then back to non-stop campaigning.
Them or Them is what you get.
“Them” means Genghis Khan, gorilla,
Or, the also-Right Attila:
Hen, not Hun, the Scourge of Good.
Nests in Money’s neighborhood.
Lays eggs for the Khan’s consumption.
Clucks and glares to look real tough.
Never quite right-wing enough.
Lacking any grit or gumption,
“Fights” to lose. The Right will win.
Tag-Team Twosome: Out or In.
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright © 2018
Yes, President Putin. When you said that it didn’t matter which candidate wins the Presidency of the United States because the policies always remain the same, you pretty much summarized the unflattering case. Still, whatever incremental adjustments that President Donald Trump might possibly make towards some kind of detente between nuclear powers would help at least a little. As you know, President Trump has to find a way to manage a badly bloated U. S. empire in decline. Whether President Trump recognizes this and has any plans to retreat — gracefully or gracelessly — while he still has time, who knows?
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Absolutely beautiful analysis. Simple, concise and 100% on target. Thanks much. Sharing this everywhere I can.
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Agree with everything you have written Prof Astore.
IMHO, most politicians and MSM have gone bonkers… totally hysterical.
Here is one voice of reason….
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/07/17/curb-paranoia-anti-trumpers/YoTT6wfNNHIYStlIg41YWP/story.html
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Off the subject, over the years I’ve had many Russian friends/clients; both aristocrats & common people. Last night, history proves, 100ya was the brutal murder of Czar Nicolas II and his beautiful family.
In respect to them, mostly gone, I must mention it, though I’m sure a laugh – a cynical one – would emit. Russians have GREAT senses of humor; it’s not the STUPID Western one.
Sadness is taken up by their WONDERFUL Orthodox Church! We don’t have such an organization – thus our troubles.
The laugh from heaven, from what I know? OK, Putin is no handsome Czar, but maybe a lot smarter, than the poor display MSM put on.
SORRY SUCKERS
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“WONDERFUL Orthodox Church”. Hm, certainly wonderful Orthodox church music, I cannot forget the sublime ‘Gospodi Pomiluj’ sung by three young voices straight from heaven in a church in St Petersburg, 18 yrs ago. I will forever search for a recording that would equal that purity.
But the church itself? Nothing bad about the ‘average believers’ or the religion as such, but I’ve had close professional contact with their hierarchy in 2000.
As head of a western support office for local NGOs, I was asked by an Orthodox bishop and his ‘advisors’ to co-finance a ‘physical rehabilitation’ centre (for the poor & needy, of course) in Bishkek. When with a Kyrgyz colleague I visited the site, it turned out to be – beyond any possible doubt – an unfinished brothel. With a red pluche bar so far the only finished room and a discreet back entrance for two cars, from which VIP visitors could emerge inside the building without being seen from the street. And the bishop one of its future co-owners, as we were proudly told by his ‘staff members’ who showed us around.
Refusing to finance that without having the liberty to say why – which could have endangered the life of my local colleague – was one of the closest calls in my life and arguably my best improvised diplomacy ever.
The other suggested project – not financed either – was less spectacular. Would we please finance a ‘mountain sanctuary where poor little falcon chicks fallen from their nest and miraculously saved by church officials’, would be reared to adulthood. This evidently would be about stealing eggs from wild falcon nests, rearing them and selling the grown-up – and trained – birds for a fortune to falcon hunters, mostly in Saudi Arabia & the Emirates.
Orthodox NGO workers in St Petersburg were not surprised at all when I told them about this and while of course there also were excellent development project run by the church,they told me how they had been blackmailed and threatened by church officials. I suppose that repression during Soviet times allowed for the church hierarchy to be taken over by organised crime.
I’ve always suspected that when the Vatican was improving relations with Jews and Muslims but did not manage to do that with the (Russian) Orthodox church, this was due to the fact that they were dealing not with religious leaders but organised crime. Not that the Vatican itself does not have criminal links, but probably not at quite such a blatant level.
Gospodi pomiluj (Lord have mercy), indeed …
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You have such wonderful stories. Time for a memoir!
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Given the Russophobic hysteria currently making the United States look like a troop of bewildered baboons in the late stages of Alzheimer’s dementia, a reminder of just two years ago when all this silly shit started:
A Pestilential Debate
(after the style of Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin)
His knowledge seems a little spotty,
as compared to You-Know-Her’s.
His mouth, untrained, reeks of the potty
while she has learned to couch her slurs
in technocratic jargon tilted
towards the blank, opaque, and stilted
wonkish bureaucratic noise
never overheard when boys,
in locker rooms misogynistic,
taunt the less-than-macho dude
(with All-About-Him’s attitude,
self-centered, vain, and narcissistic,
pointing to his own brass balls):
“Why don’t you go play with your dolls?”
But You-Know-Her in pantsuit chubby
has an albatross to bear.
To wit: her horn-dog, errant hubby
Bill who makes bizarre look square
when throwing stones from houses glassy
filled with bimbos young and sassy;
interns with thong underwear
on the make for an affair
with Big Dog Bill, the sugar daddy.
White House Oval Office walls,
carpets in the White House halls,
dresses blue, the girl unclad, he
sprayed them with his DNA.
His “territory” marked that way.
Comes now Donald, keen to rumble
with the inbred DC tribe.
Not to whisper, not to mumble,
but to vent his vicious vibe:
Culture War, the right-wing staple
fallible as all things papal
Always worked before. But now?
Could be things have changed? But how
did You-Know-Her’s campaign co-opt
the filthy rich, the quagmire fights,
the corporations’ free-speech rights?
What can Republicans adopt
that Clinton Democrats have not
already stolen from their pot?
Polls now tell us that it’s over
When, just yesterday, they screamed
that more e-mail leaks had drove her
numbers down so that it seemed
she’d have to blame some Russians quickly:
“Vladimir made me look sickly.”
Not that Parkinson’s disease
that Don says she’s got. Oh, Please.
Lavrov smirks at our erections.
Interviewed the other day,
what did Russia’s FM say?
“So many pussies in your elections.”
Not to choose the Hen or Hun.
Just the pussy, both in one.
Gotterdammerung the Second,
now the Twilight of the Girls.
Wagner surely never reckoned
On a Valkyrie in pearls:
venal, nouveau riche, and jaded
skin and soul both wrinkled, faded,
picking heroes from the banks
Not from those who die in tanks
fighting dogs-of-war jihadis:
mercenary proxy tools,
hopeless, jobless, angry fools
funded by her friends, the Saudis,
Turks, Israelis, NATO, too.
Think she’s got a plan? Poor you.
Still, the Russians must have done it.
What they did, whenever, where.
Donald had it lost, then won it?
How’d that happen? Who would dare
commit the crime of journalism?
Speaking truth, fomenting schism
in the land where group-think reigns,
orthodoxy favors chains.
Feeding rubes some information
might cause thinking. Can’t have that.
Vote Mosquito! No, vote gnat!
Sturm und drang! Such consternation!
Must we watch this TV show?
Who’s to care and what’s to know?
In Bosnia she dodged a sniper’s
bullets. Really. Hey! Don’t laugh!
Then appeared two fake Pied Pipers
(John Podesta’s e-mail gaff):
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders
You-Know-Her’s twin subcommanders
one for rats and one for kids.
“Lead them to their doom,” she bids.
Campaign strategy uncovered
on computers in her home,
right next to the soap and comb,
not a byte left undiscovered.
Easy for the novice nerd
To record her every word.
“Change the subject fast,” she threatens,
“or I’ll slime the messenger.”
Anything to save the cretins
lining up to work for her.
Nuland, Flournoy, Rice, and Power:
see the witches fume and glower.
Can’t wait to unleash the bomb.
Spread the fallout, Nome to Guam.
Never fired a shot in anger,
Never heard the angry bee
whizzing by, too fast to see,
raised in sheltered peace and languor.
By the thumbs stuck up their butts
Something sick surrounds these nuts.
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2016
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Take the capital letter “T” off the front of the second letter of this article’s title and you can better appreciate the group-think orgy of hyperbolic fear and loathing expressed almost universally by America’s entrenched bureaucratic incompetents, media sycophants, and corporate/military grifters who stand to lose — “Bigly” as President Donald Trump would say — should any U.S. president act on the basis of common-sense reason: specifically, getting along better with the Russian Federation and its popularly elected leadership. Can’t have any of that.
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Oops. In the first sentence of my comment above, I should have typed “off the front of the second word,” instead of “letter.” New keyboard, old fingers.
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If only the internet were full of comments like those found here. As I have been reading them I’ve been hitting the “open link in new tab” button repeatedly to follow up after leaving here.
I think previous comments have covered the field but let me add I think Trump admires autocrats because that is where his heart is, he knows he deserves to be one. What a great time he had in Saudi Arabia!
But he has to deal with pests like Congress and the press. If only he could be a CEO in the White House, have orders obeyed immediately and do his famous deals where he can crush those he is dealing with using whatever method works.
Putin is a very smooth operator, an autocrat who makes it look so effortless with the appearance that all Russians are behind him. His sessions taking questions make him out to be the soul of good common sense. Honestly, he deserves an Oscar for playing the part as he does. Sure, Trump is confident Americans think he is as great as he knows he is, but it just isn’t working out like it should.
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One of my favorite writers, “an American playwright, novelist and satirist based in Berlin,” has, as usual, put his finger on the pathetic pulse of pious partisan pretensions to profundity along the Potomac. See: Trump’s Treasonous Traitor Summit
or, How Liberals Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the New McCarthyism, by C.J. Hopkins, the Unz Review (July 18, 2018).
Yes, fellow Crimestoppers, the so-called and self-styled “Resistance” to President Donald Trump — most notably those calling themselves “Democrats” — have moved so far to the right (thanks to the corporate-money-grubbing likes of Bawl and Pillory Clinton and Barack Obama) that they now make Tricky Dick Nixon and Tailgunner Joe McCarthy look like paragons of polite persuasion. As C. J. Hopkins puts the case:
And so, once again, Western liberals, and others obsessed with Donald Trump, having been teased into a painfully tumescent paroxysm of anticipation of some unimaginably horrible event that would finally lead to Trump’s impeachment (or his removal from office by other means) were left standing around with their hysteria in their hands. It has become a sadistic ritual at this point … like a twisted, pseudo-Tantric exercise where the media get liberals all lathered up over whatever fresh horror Trump has just perpetrated (or some non-story story they have invented out of whole cloth), build the tension for several days, until liberals are moaning and begging for impeachment, or a full-blown CIA-sponsored coup, then pull out abruptly and leave the poor bastards writhing in agony until the next time … which is pretty much exactly what just happened.
Mr Hopkins makes other notable observations, but I think the following two paragraphs convey the gist of his essay:
(1) Then, just in time for the corporate media to milk it throughout the weekend, special counsel Robert Mueller, III released a 29-page indictment accusing a bunch of Russian spies of, well, basically, being Russian spies. The indictment alleges that these Russian spies destroyed the campaign of Hillary Clinton, who everyone knows is supposed to be President, by “hacking” the Democratic Party’s servers and stealing and disseminating emails revealing both Clinton and the Democratic Party to be the soulless neoliberal hypocrites most people already knew they were. The indictment of these Russian intelligence officers (and no Americans, nor any other parties who can ever actually be brought to trial, requiring special counsel Mueller to offer evidence to support his allegations) was followed up by a chorus of voices demanding that the summit be cancelled and that Trump slink home in complete disgrace to confess his crimes to a vindicated nation, and then presumably fire his entire administration, resign, and appoint Hillary Clinton President.
… and, finally, …
(2) God knows where we go from here. It’s hard to believe the ruling classes can keep teasing liberals, and other Trump-obsessives, over and over and over like this, without eventually impeaching or shooting the guy … but then again, maybe they can. Perhaps they intend to continue conducting this experiment all the way up to 2020, just to see how paranoid and mindlessly conformist they make the majority of the Western public. In any event, if they decide not to impeach him, and then try him for treason, or just kill him, or whatever, the Democrats at least have a new campaign slogan that they can use in 2018 and beyond … “NEXT TIME VOTE FOR WHO WE TELL YOU TO, YOU RUSSIA-LOVING NAZI SCUM!” It kind of has a ring to it, doesn’t it?
On the other hand, for those who could care less about whichever corporate/Saudi/Zionist tool occupies the White House while posing as “the decider,” or some such nonsense, Paul Jay of The Real News Network has an interesting interview entitled: “Trump a Symptom of a System in Decay.” For some reason the Internet link does not go straight to the interview but pauses at another link which does. I’d like to follow up with more on this, but that will take some time. As Paul Jay says:
“There we have it. Not whether elites shall rule, but which section of the elites. So why should we get caught up in a fight between different sections of the American oligarchy? Why do we need to side with one section or the other? Why should we get caught up in a fight between the American oligarchy and the Russian oligarchy? We need to look at these issues from the interests of the people and not get caught up in the propaganda wars of the oligarchs.”
Anyway, much more of interest at: “https://therealnews.com/stories/trump-a-symptom-of-a-system-in-decay”. Cut and past this address into any browser search engine and that should eventually get you to the interview. Well worth the time, in my opinion.
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Tizzy over treason! To me, Trump is what he is: a bloviating, bullying, buffoon. He’s careless and often clueless, with a very bad comb-over (he could learn a thing from Putin about balding with honor). Of course he’s going to look bad when negotiating with someone like Putin. Trump is all false sizzle, all braggadocio, all boastfulness. He knows only one subject really well: Donald Trump.
It doesn’t make him a treasonous puppet. It just makes him what he is: a celebrity, a self-promoter, a wannabe autocrat, an opportunist without apparent scruples or morals.
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Yes, and I HATE the titles: “Liberal” vs “Conservative”. What’s ‘liberal’ about armies invaliding sovereign countries? What’s ‘conservative’ about a country that spends more on war material than their own poor & infrastructure? THIS IS WHY BILLARY LOST!
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I have noticed one thing that stands out about our President Agent Orange, not only does he have trouble reading a teleprompter, or notes he is a total disaster when he attempts to speak extemporaneously. His thought process drifts and he ends up using the most simplistic phrases and the repetition of the same words. Bombastic statements are used to cover up this lack of intellect and mental cohesion of thought.
President Agent Orange at his press conference with Putin resembled a child in grade school who forgot to study for his oral test, he looked completely intimidated. Putin on the other hand looked like a Professor who had mastered the subject matter, exuding confidence in every word and gesture. Agent Orange had the same look as Bush the Younger when he was informed in the class room of the 9/11 attacks – a deer caught in the headlights.
I have known people in my life who are intelligent, but who can be tongue tied or just intimidated about speaking in public. Agent Orange’s problem is much deeper.
CNN and MSDNC are spinning, hopping, weeping, wailing and gnashing their teeth. One expert after another demanding impeachment or something even darker. You have the impression that if some General took the troops to the WH and deposed Agent Orange they would be celebrating a victory.
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You ended your blog with:
In short, Trump is not treasonous. He simply has no concept of public service. He has no capacity to serve any cause other than himself.
I was born and raised a Catholic. Today, I am an agnostic. I did come across an interesting story.
Papal confidantes rue prosperity gospel, distorted ‘American dream’
https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2018/07/18/papal-confidantes-rue-prosperity-gospel-distorted-american-dream/
In a follow-up to their much-discussed July 2017 article condemning an alliance between conservative U.S. Catholics and Evangelicals as an “ecumenism of hate,” papal confidantes Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro and Presbyterian pastor Marcelo Figueroa have published a new essay in which they criticize the “prosperity gospel” and its influence on the idea of the “American Dream.”
In their latest essay in the influential Rome-based Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica, the authors argue that the prosperity gospel, which traces its origins to the Unites States in the late 19th-century, views wealth and success as synonymous with true religious conviction, and consequently, sees “poverty, sickness and unhappiness” as a lack of faith.
The article hits the nail on the head with this sentence >> “There can be no compassion for those who are not prosperous, for clearly they have not followed the rules and thus live in failure and are not loved by God.”
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Another Toxic Legacy of the Agent Orange-Pastor Pence Regime is the fact that, according to 2016 exit polling, 80% of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump. This was in spite of the overwhelming evidence of Trump’s inveterate lying, his misogynistic comments and behaviors, his racist statements and proposed policies, his frequent attempts to humiliate real and imagined opponents.
The prosperity gospel is a nice fit here – Using the prosperity gospel Agent Orange since he is rich and famous must be a recipient of god’s blessings and favors. It follows then, “There can be no compassion for those who are not prosperous, for clearly they have not followed the rules and thus live in failure and are not loved by God.”
If there is one point in the Agent Orange-Pastor Pence Regime that sits supremely on the summit is a total lack of compassion and empathy for anyone.
I would not want it construed that I believe the Clinton’s have any compassion or empathy, but they are good actors with Bill getting the Oscar for his performances. I feel your pain.
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Amen, ML. Well put.
The Bible says the chances of a rich man gaining heaven is like threading a camel through the eye of a needle. The “prosperity” evangelicals are now building some very big needles …
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I might add, ML, that while Bill Clinton was great at “feeling your pain,” Hillary was not. She didn’t have that glibness, that note of sincerity (even if smarmy), that charisma. Her lack of Bill’s ability to connect with people (however expedient that connection may have been) cost her the election, not Russian hacking.
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FINALLY! YOU SAID IT! Not ‘Putin’ & “KGB/FSB” characters, just an unlikeable candidate. The ‘Edsel’ I always dubbed her: all of Ford’s money couldn’t make it fly. Something wrong….
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I knew it was bad when her first campaign ad tried to “humanize” her as a grandma. And when her campaign referred to people like us as “everyday people” (as opposed to what, exactly?). Then, of course, the infamous “basket of deplorables” gaffe, made worse by her saying these people (everyday variety?) were irredeemable. Small wonder so many people were turned off by her campaign.
Trump is an autocrat wannabe, but guess what? So was Hillary. It’s just that Hillary is much better informed. Honestly, I couldn’t vote for either one. Trump was obviously a con man (still is) and a narcissist, and Hillary was stuck on herself to the same degree but in a different way.
Please, please, let’s see some better candidates for 2020.
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Because only one thing matters to Trump: his own interests. With Trump, it really is all about him.
Yup, yup, a thousant times yup. Trump is playing a long game and it has nothing to do with being President.
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