Current Affairs Donald Trump POS: Judgement cometh and that right soon

[BirkenheadBlue]

That was me. Glad to be proven wrong!

Fair play mate. She’s absolutely eating his lunch at the moment.

 

[riddick]

I’d just like to reserve this moment to give a nod to those who thought Pelosi wasn’t the right choice for Speaker...

Good call...

That was me. Glad to be proven wrong!

Will gladly raise my hand as well. Just thought the older politicians are how we got here which was the problem imo.

She played this masterfully.

 

[BirkenheadBlue]

Will gladly raise my hand as well. Just thought the older politicians are how we got here which was the problem imo.

She played this masterfully.

If 2020 goes according to plan then I think the time would be right for her to start the transition to someone younger, but for this 2yr period, with Trump in the WH, I think her experience and savvy will be absolutely essential.

 

[abelard]

Who had Iran-Contra on their reading list as the presidential scandal we were going to have to relearn about?

I was (at the risk of sounding like a self-aggrandizing douchebag...) once at a luncheon with about half a dozen current and former members of what mezzrow & friends would call the 'Deep State': Assistant Secretaries, Deputy Ambassadors, Members of the Policy Planning Staff etc. This was about two years ago, when Trump had just refused to approve Elliot Abrams as his Secretary of State, apparently because he'd been a vocal Anti-Trumper during the Presidential campaign.

These men and women, from both parties, were positively gushing about Abrams, and raving about his competence and suitability. For them, Trump's refusal to select him confirmed all their worst fears about the direction of the new administration.

To be sure, Abrams is an absolute monster, and indisputably somebody who, in a world governed by law, would be sitting behind bars in the Hague. He spent the 1980s personally overseeing the extermination of tens of thousands of peasants by the Guatemalan and Salvadorian militaries and their paramilitary death squads, and fought tooth and nail to prevent the Democrat-controlled Congress from investigating.

That, not the mechanisms by which it was funded, would be the real scandal, if the United States was indeed a respectable country.

But to these men and women, many of them active liberal members of the resistance, Abrams was a heroic figure, and a role model.

My point is that while liberals' twitter id will interpret this move as yet more of Trump Behaving Badly, and will briefly tweet about it for a day or so before moving on to the next outrage, the deep bipartisan admiration of people like Abrams is indicative of something far more profound and sinister about the nature of the United States.

Trump is extremely harmful, to be sure, but relative to this, he is also fairly superficial. Fussing over his latest breech of decorum isn't wrong, per say, but it tends to miss the forest for the trees (not to accuse anyone on here, mind), and fosters an assumption that without him, everything would otherwise be just fine - an assumption that played no small part in bringing him to office in the first place.

 

[Tubey]

I’d just like to reserve this moment to give a nod to those who thought Pelosi wasn’t the right choice for Speaker...

Good call...

It was an open goal though. Once Trump said he'd be proud to shut down government and take sole responsibility for it, all she had to was sit back and watch.

It's more about Trump's idiocy than her competence.

 

[verreauxi]

I guess I'm now wondering what TX Bill's favorite cult movie is?

 

[verreauxi]

I’d just like to reserve this moment to give a nod to those who thought Pelosi wasn’t the right choice for Speaker...

Good call...

Also me. So yeah, also wrong.

 

[peteblue]

It was an open goal though. Once Trump said he'd be proud to shut down government and take sole responsibility for it, all she had to was sit back and watch.

It's more about Trump's idiocy than her competence.

Finally someone on here gets it. Attacking Trump merely makes him stronger, just leave him to his own devices and people will either see him succeed or fail, if he fails then his support will fall away. As Margaret Thatcher once said of Arthur Scargill, just give him enough rope and he will hang himself. (Note, this is not meant to open up discussion about either Thatcher or Scargill).....

 

[JimmyJeffers]

I was (at the risk of sounding like a self-aggrandizing douchebag...) once at a luncheon with about half a dozen current and former members of what mezzrow & friends would call the 'Deep State': Assistant Secretaries, Deputy Ambassadors, Members of the Policy Planning Staff etc. This was about two years ago, when Trump had just refused to approve Elliot Abrams as his Secretary of State, apparently because he'd been a vocal Anti-Trumper during the Presidential campaign.

These men and women, from both parties, were positively gushing about Abrams, and raving about his competence and suitability. For them, Trump's refusal to select him confirmed all their worst fears about the direction of the new administration.

To be sure, Abrams is an absolute monster, and indisputably somebody who, in a world governed by law, would be sitting behind bars in the Hague. He spent the 1980s personally overseeing the extermination of tens of thousands of peasants by the Guatemalan and Salvadorian militaries and their paramilitary death squads, and fought tooth and nail to prevent the Democrat-controlled Congress from investigating.

That, not the mechanisms by which it was funded, would be the real scandal, if the United States was indeed a respectable country.

But to these men and women, many of them active liberal members of the resistance, Abrams was a heroic figure, and a role model.

My point is that while liberals' twitter id will interpret this move as yet more of Trump Behaving Badly, and will briefly tweet about it for a day or so before moving on to the next outrage, the deep bipartisan admiration of people like Abrams is indicative of something far more profound and sinister about the nature of the United States.

Trump is extremely harmful, to be sure, but relative to this, he is also fairly superficial. Fussing over his latest breech of decorum isn't wrong, per say, but it tends to miss the forest for the trees (not to accuse anyone on here, mind), and fosters an assumption that without him, everything would otherwise be just fine - an assumption that played no small part in bringing him to office in the first place.

This is a good post matey

 

[LinekersLegs]

To be sure, Abrams is an absolute monster, and indisputably somebody who, in a world governed by law, would be sitting behind bars in the Hague. He spent the 1980s personally overseeing the extermination of tens of thousands of peasants by the Guatemalan and Salvadorian militaries and their paramilitary death squads, and fought tooth and nail to prevent the Democrat-controlled Congress from investigating.

That, not the mechanisms by which it was funded, would be the real scandal, if the United States was indeed a respectable country.

Have to admit I know very little about either Abrams or even the death squads - any particular authors/reading you’d recommend on the subject?

 

[Huyton Layne]

That was me. Glad to be proven wrong!

Me too. I misunderstood the immediate role. Thought it was about being the face of the Dems and attracting votes. Turns out it was playing poker with a child and she seems to have that game down.

 

[abelard]

Have to admit I know very little about either Abrams or even the death squads - any particular authors/reading you’d recommend on the subject?

Sure - Greg Grandin is probably the most engaging. The Last Colonial Massacre is a very good history of postwar Guatemala, but Empire's Workshop would likely have more on Abrams.

Walter LaFeber's Inevitable Revolutions would also be good - try to find the most recent edition.

Some more academic books would include Brian D'Haeseleer's The Salvadorian Crucible or Russell Crandall's The Salvador Option.

The National Security Archive also has a project on Guatemala, and I suspect their website would have a pretty good overview: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/project/guatemala-project

 

[BirkenheadBlue]

It was an open goal though. Once Trump said he'd be proud to shut down government and take sole responsibility for it, all she had to was sit back and watch.

It's more about Trump's idiocy than her competence.

Utterly disagree.

She definitely had the better hand, but she played it well and held the caucus together when it would have been very easy to pay the ransom for the hostages that trump took

 

[LinekersLegs]

Sure - Greg Grandin is probably the most engaging. The Last Colonial Massacre is a very good history of postwar Guatemala, but Empire's Workshop would likely have more on Abrams.

Walter LaFeber's Inevitable Revolutions would also be good - try to find the most recent edition.

Some more academic books would include Brian D'Haeseleer's The Salvadorian Crucible or Russell Crandall's The Salvador Option.

The National Security Archive also has a project on Guatemala, and I suspect their website would have a pretty good overview: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/project/guatemala-project

Thanks!

 

[LinekersLegs]

Utterly disagree.

She definitely had the better hand, but she played it well and held the caucus together when it would have been very easy to pay the ransom for the hostages that trump took

The whole messaging of “no, we won’t discuss any compromise deals or your SOTU until the government is open” pretty straightforward but hard to carry out in practice.
If