Politikk, religion og samfunn President Donald J. Trump - Quo vadis? (Del 1)

[Hardingfele]

 

[Asbjørn]

Et etterretningsmareritt:
Russian Ex-Spy Pressured Manafort Over Debts to an Oligarch | Time

When the U.S. government put out its latest sanctions list on Dec. 19, the man named at the top did not seem especially important. Described in the document as a former Russian intelligence officer, he was accused of handling money and negotiations on behalf of a powerful Russian oligarch. The document did not mention that the man, Victor Boyarkin, had links to the 2016 campaign of President Donald Trump.

A months-long investigation by TIME, however, found that Boyarkin, a former arms dealer with a high forehead and a very low profile, was a key link between a senior member of the Trump campaign and a powerful ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In his only interview with the media about those connections, Boyarkin told TIME this fall that he was in touch with Trump’s then-campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, in the heat of the presidential race on behalf of the Russian oligarch. “He owed us a lot of money,” Boyarkin says. “And he was offering ways to pay it back.”

When he joined the campaign in the spring of 2016, Manafort was nearly broke. The veteran political consultant had racked up bills worth millions of dollars in luxury real estate, clothing, cars and antiques. According to allegations contained in court records filed in the U.S. and the Cayman Islands, he was also deeply in debt to Boyarkin’s boss, the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who was demanding money from Manafort over a failed business deal in Ukraine and other ventures.

Boyarkin says it fell to him to collect the debt from Manafort. “I came down on him hard,” he says. But the American proved elusive. In a petition filed in the Cayman Islands in 2014, lawyers for Deripaska, a metals tycoon with close ties to the Kremlin, complain that Manafort and his then-partner had “simply disappeared” with around $19 million of the Russian’s money.

When he reappeared in the headlines around April 2016, Manafort was serving as an unpaid adviser to the Trump campaign. He wanted his long-time patron in Moscow to know all about it.

In a series of emails sent that spring and summer, Manafort tried to offer “private briefings” about the presidential race to Deripaska, apparently, as one of the emails puts it, to “get whole.” Reports in The Atlantic and the Washington Post revealed those emails in the fall of 2017. Among the questions that remained unanswered was the identity of Manafort’s contact in Moscow, the one referred to in one of the emails as “our friend V.”

 

[Hardingfele]

^ Suverent at han var kampanjesjef og at han valgte Pence som VP.

 

[noruego]

Det er klart, skal man drenere sumpen trengs det fagfolk. Hva nå enn Trump sin personlige befatning og rolle var og er så kan man ikke ta fram at han har hyret fremstående eksperter på korrupsjon, både nasjonalt og på internasjonalt nivå.

 

[Zomby_Woof]

Uvanlig teknikk okke som. Drenere myra ved å grave seg en egen brønn midt i.

 

[Asbjørn]

Ja, merkelig sammentreff, det der:
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/04/5683...d-change-to-party-platform-on-ukraine-support

Diana Denman, a Republican delegate who supported arming U.S. allies in Ukraine, has told people that Trump aide J.D. Gordon said at the Republican Convention in 2016 that Trump directed him to support weakening that position in the official platform.

Ultimately, the softer position was adopted.

"Offering ways to pay it back", ja.

 

[Larson]

Uvanlig teknikk okke som. Drenere myra ved å grave seg en egen brønn midt i.

Man kan vel argumentere for at Trump drenerte myren. Han drenerte en skikkelig stor en til Washington.

 

[Gjestemedlem]

Litt interessant om demokratenes alternativer til trump. O’Rourke møter sterk motstand fra ytre venstre i det demokratiske partiet.

Why the Bernie Sanders Movement Must Crush Beto O’Rourke

..

O’Rourke’s burgeoning image as the next Obama is the very reason socialists reject him. “I think they are suspicious of Beto because he has taken oil and gas money, he’s becoming the darling of big donors, and Obama likes him,” says historian Michael Kazin. “Beto is a lot like Obama, true;” writes Breunig, “it’s perhaps time for left-leaning Democrats to realize that may not be a good thing.” Of course, given that 95 percent of Democrats approve of Obama, this message has fairly limited utility as a line of attack.

The response to O’Rourke’s leftist critics is tellingly devoid of ideological content. “There are plenty of progressives who might run — from Beto and Bernie to Kamala and Booker and others,” says Jon Favreau, a former Obama speechwriter Pod Save America host. “And I think it’s more productive to focus our time and energy talking about why we support the candidates who inspire us.” Notice that Favreau is bracketing all the candidates he names as “progressives.” That is accurate, but it also elides the distinction — between the socialist candidate (Sanders) and liberal ones (everybody else) — that the Sanders left finds so crucial.

Contrast Favreau’s big tentism with this rebuke of O’Rourke by Jilani: “He has become a uniting figure for Democrats, beloved by all and loathed by none. What kind of Democratic politician can be so adored? Maybe one who rarely, if ever, challenged the powerful.” Liberals like Favreau are aiming to unite the party. To a leftist like Jilani, O’Rourke’s ability to appeal across the breadth of the party is a reason to reject him. Turning the primary into a faction fight is not a pitfall to be avoided but the very goal.

Baffled liberals, many still nursing wounds from 2016, see the passionate intensity of the Bernie movement as a personality cult, propelled by unthinking devotion to him (or spite at the party that they believe rigged the primary against him). It is anything but. The socialist left belongs to Sanders simply because there is no other presidential candidate who meets their exacting ideological criteria. They see O’Rourke as a threat to their project because, in important ways, he is.

 

[Hardingfele]

By Richard Cohen
Richard Cohen
Columnist focusing on politics
Columnist
December 31, 2018

I drove past the White House the other day. It had been a while, and the place seemed smaller, somewhat tawdry, almost haunted. I imagined bats winging in and out , spider webs in the corners, and the president upstairs in the family quarters, talking back to the TV, railing against Nancy Pelosi, the Federal Reserve, Robert S. Mueller III, Emmanuel Macron, Theresa May, Jim Mattis, Jeff Sessions, Stormy Daniels and . . . who am I forgetting? Oh, yes, Barack Obama for, well, everything.

The car slowed. I thought I heard a wail from the upper floor: President Trump going mad.

Or maybe I am. I would not be surprised. Trump has that effect on people. It’s hard to believe we’re into another year, and he’s still the president of the United States. The shock of it has not worn off. He has never achieved normalcy. Often, when I see him on TV, I react with a kind of nausea: Him! How? I know, the electoral college. I know, a slice of three states. Yes, yes, but how did we elect such a dummy, such a liar, such a baby, such a fool, such a dirty man? He walks the same halls Abraham Lincoln did. He sleeps where the Roosevelts did. He bathes where the visiting Winston Churchill did. Would Churchill have ever visited this president?

Trump has soiled America. He has not made it greater but, in a word whose need is now apparent, worser. The America that previous presidents boasted about — Ronald Reagan’s “shining city on a hill” — is now a slum among nations. The goodness of the American people, another refrain of presidents past, is now a mere memory. But American goodness was always like the banner that tour guides held up: Follow me. Follow the United States because we saved Europe from the Nazis and Asia from Imperial Japan — and then Europe again, this time from the Stalinist thugs of Soviet communism. We saved Berlin with an airlift and eradicated polio with a vaccine. We thought we were good people. We thought we were great people.

Trump wants to make America great again. It is an old presidential refrain. John F. Kennedy used it over and over again in his 1960 campaign against Richard M. Nixon. “This is a great country,” he’d say. “But I think it could be a greater country . . . I think it’s time America started moving again.”

The amazing thing is that the previous administration had been Dwight D. Eisenhower’s. Looking back now, that era is known for a kind of kitschy middle-class affluence: the huge cars, the creep of suburbia, the martinis of “Mad Men” and, in general, a sense that things were pretty good — for white men in particular. But, overall, with no war and a thriving economy, things may never have been better.

But the reason the brief Kennedy presidency still shines — despite the steady involvement in Vietnam and the messiness of his private life — is not just his image of high glamour but the urgency of his rhetoric. His call to follow his own example, his call to do good, his call to government service was compelling. Contrast it with Trump’s disparagement of federal workers. Kennedy asked; Kennedy asked not. Presidents have measured themselves against him ever since.

Not Trump, though. He is a rhetorical pratfall. His soul is dark. His vision is to shrink the traditional American spirit. He offers the world no moral leadership and slaps the back of authoritarians such as Vladimir Putin. He lies with every breath — not because he must, as Eisenhower did about the downing of Francis Gary Powers in his U-2 spy plane — because it’s the easier course. There’s not a parent out there who wants his or her child to be like Trump.

Trump’s one certain achievement will be to leave his successor an America that will become greater just by his leaving office. A president who does not lie, who does not try to buy the silence of a porn star, who makes his taxes public, who leaves moneymaking behind, who does not turn his political party into a beer-hall collection of ideological goons, who rages at the murder of a journalist by a foreign country, who respects the importance of a free press . . . such a president will make America greater just by showing up.

Now, though, as I pass the White House, it looks sad, the home of a hoarder — lies and scandals and crimes spilling out of the closets and Trump tweeting some inanity. It’s a madhouse that I’ve conjured. It’s a madman we’ve elected.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...58c33d6c8c7_story.html?utm_term=.6152f9d1a0cf

 

[skranglefant]

^ Litt mer piss & spite i den gryta og jeg hadde savna Hunter S. litt mindre.
Tenk hva HST kunne hatt å fråde over de siste par årene

 

[HC]

^ Litt mer piss & spite i den gryta og jeg hadde savna Hunter S. litt mindre.
Tenk hva HST kunne hatt å fråde over de siste par årene

Yep, synd at Hitchens ikke holdt ut litt lengre også.

 

[Audiophile-Arve]

Folk som ikke kan oppføre seg under innflytelse av alkohol burde slutte å drikke......

Hva med de som har prøvd, uten at det funka?

Du mener de som ikke kan oppføre seg selv uten å drikke ?
Det er jo Donald det !

Det finnest i dag medisin mot sånt. Tilrettelegging kan også vurderast. Hugs å jatte med dei fram til andre tek hand om dei.

 

[Hardingfele]

Det er blitt tvitret i stor takt i romjulen. Man kan finne mye rart. Her er to jeg virkelig smilte over. En direkte løgn og et forsøk på bortforklaring når det gjelder "Mexico will pay for the wall".

 

[erato]

Det er vel kanskje litt for mye å forvente at en realitystjerne og middelmådig eiendomsutvikler skal vite hvordan det amerikanske statsapparatet virker?

 

[Disqutabel]

Det er vel kanskje litt for mye å forvente at en realitystjerne og middelmådig eiendomsutvikler skal vite hvordan det amerikanske statsapparatet virker?

Men det burde kanskje kunne forventes at man var interessert i å lære det, dersom man skulle våkne en morgen og oppdage at man er president?

 

[erato]

Det er vel kanskje litt for mye å forvente at en realitystjerne og middelmådig eiendomsutvikler skal vite hvordan det amerikanske statsapparatet virker?

Men det burde kanskje kunne forventes at man var interessert i å lære det, dersom man skulle våkne en morgen og oppdage at man er president?

Åpenbart, og det er også åpenbart at ironi og sarkasmer fortsatt funker dårlig på internett.....

 

[Asbjørn]

Lesverdig:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/opinion/trump-evangelicals-cyrus-king.html

A lot of attention has been paid to the supposed paradox of evangelicals backing such an imperfect man, but the real problem is that our idea of Christian nationalism hasn’t caught up with the reality. We still buy the line that the hard core of the Christian right is just an interest group working to protect its values. But what we don’t get is that Mr. Trump’s supposedly anti-Christian attributes and anti-democratic attributes are a vital part of his attraction.

This isn’t the religious right we thought we knew. The Christian nationalist movement today is authoritarian, paranoid and patriarchal at its core. They aren’t fighting a culture war. They’re making a direct attack on democracy itself.

They want it all. And in Mr. Trump, they have found a man who does not merely serve their cause, but also satisfies their craving for a certain kind of political leadership.

 

[Hardingfele]

Om et par uker begynner republikanernes vakre pas de deux der danseren "Vi må utvise budsjettansvar" svinger seg med "Reagan beviste at budsjettunderskutt ikke betyr noe".

Get ready to see it on your TV. The GOP is about to kick back into Two Santa Clauses mode and restart the scam they’ve been running since Reagan.

It’ll predictably begin in the first week or two of January, probably first on “Meet the Press” and other Sunday shows that feature “serious thinkers” and only rarely challenge Republicans. It’ll simultaneously roll out on Fox, on right-wing hate radio, and in the conservative media.
SPONSORED

And there are more than a few “Third Way” Democrats eager to go along with it.

At its core, the strategy is simple and elegant: When Republicans are in power, run up as much debt as possible, mostly by borrowing and giving that cash to the Republican donor class through tax cuts and corporate subsidies; when Democrats have political power, Republicans suddenly become hysterical about the debt and demand that Dems keep taxes low while cutting social spending.

If successful, not only will Republicans (and corporate-funded Dems) block any genuinely progressive spending legislation in 2019 or 2020, but they’ll prevent any possibility of debt-free college, Medicare for All, or a Green New Deal in the entire next presidential term, clear through 2024 or beyond.

For this remarkably successful 38-year-long GOP head-fake strategy, you can thank a guy named Jude Wanniski.

Odds are you’ve never heard of Jude, but without him Reagan never would have become a “successful” president, Republicans only rarely would have taken control of the House or Senate, and neither George Bush would have been president.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/th...-about-to-reboot-itself/#.XC0yuNJM-F4.twitter

 

[Disqutabel]

Det er vel kanskje litt for mye å forvente at en realitystjerne og middelmådig eiendomsutvikler skal vite hvordan det amerikanske statsapparatet virker?

Men det burde kanskje kunne forventes at man var interessert i å lære det, dersom man skulle våkne en morgen og oppdage at man er president?

Åpenbart, og det er også åpenbart at ironi og sarkasmer fortsatt funker dårlig på internett.....

Eg tog'an, men trodde bare at jeg fulgte opp, liksom...

 

[Hardingfele]

Vanskelig å sette skille mellom virkelighet og satire i våre dager. Trump tok et statsråd med en plakat på bordet. Etter møtet snakket han med pressen. Det ble en lang enetale med mye rart, men når eksperten på alle ting er Trump selv bør man ikke forvente mer:



Denne plakaten har han brukt før. Han liker den!



Under samtalen med pressen hadde han en spennende beskrivelse av sine generaler:

 

[Hardingfele]

Litt mer virkelighet fra Trump. Daniel Dale kommenterte hele pressemøtet:

https://twitter.com/ddale8

Verden fikk høre nytt om Russland og Afghanistan.

 

[erato]

Burde de ikke heller ha bygd en mur?

 

[Daniel62]

Burde de ikke heller ha bygd en mur?

Du får spør ham ....

 

[AndersR]

Med den logikken burde jo USA invadert Mexico isåfall.
Koster sikkert mindre enn å bygge en mur også.

 

[Trane]

Burde denne egentlige bli postet i tråden om nyord ?

Presidential Harassment

Finnes det ?
Er det overhodet mulig ?
Og det fra overgriperen selv ?
Eneste Presidential Harassment jeg har sett er den som kommer fra presidenten.

 

[AndersR]

Desperately needed presidental harassment?

 

[Zomby_Woof]

Musikalsk innslag:

 

[Pink_Panther]

Spørs om ikke dette musikkstykket passer bedre.

 

[HC]

Burde denne egentlige bli postet i tråden om nyord ?

Presidential Harassment

Finnes det ?
Er det overhodet mulig ?
Og det fra overgriperen selv ?
Eneste Presidential Harassment jeg har sett er den som kommer fra presidenten.

Vis vedlegget 523925

Hvorfor har han Trump i anførselstegn?

 

[otare]

Jeg prøver å forstå begrepet "Presidential Harassment". Ut fra mine, riktignok begrensede, engelskkunnskaper kan det bare bety 1 av 2 ting:

Trakassering som er "Presidential", altså ekstremt høytstående - m.a.o. trakassering på et høyt plan. Sier ingen ting om hvem som utfører den eller hvem den er myntet på.
Presidential Harassment - altså trakassering som utføres av presidenten.

Hvordan kan det ellers forstås? Trakassering av presidenten kan det vel ikke bety, eller er mine engelskkunnskaper så dårlige?

 

[Daniel62]

Joda, det kan det.
På norsk kunne Erna sagt: Statsministermobbing.
Kan tolkes den vegen også.

 

[otare]

Jeg skjønner jo at det er det han mener, men skulle det ikke i så fall stått "President harassment" eller "harassment of the president"?
Den siste formuleringen faller kanskje bort grunnet twitters begrensning av antall tegn, men likevel?

 

[erato]

Den siste formuleringen faller kanskje bort grunnet twitters begrensning av antall tegn, men likevel?

Eller på grunn av at presidenten ikke er i stand til å snakke sammenhengende i flere tegn? For øvrig er jeg enig i din fortolkning.

 

[Asbjørn]

GOP i kongressen har også begynt å bruke nyordet "presidential harassment" om alle forsøk på å sette grenser for Trumps "agenda" eller å granske affærene hans. Noen har snakket sammen om PR-strategi for en håpløs sak.

Aftenposten Innsikt har forøvrig en interessant artikkel av Miranda Carter om de påfallende likhetene mellom keiser Wilhelm II og keiser Donald I. Den norske utgaven er ikke på nett, men originalen i New Yorker er: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/c...d-tempered-distractible-doofus-runs-an-empire

 

[Hardingfele]

^ Trumpistene:



Trump:



USAs allierte:

 

[Pink_Panther]

Apropos trumpistene, hvor har det blitt av dem? Mulig de sitter og skammer seg...….

 

[Hardingfele]

Apropos trumpistene, hvor har det blitt av dem? Mulig de sitter og skammer seg...….

Det skjedde noe rundt mellomvalget. Trump hadde klart å innbille mange om at det ville komme "a red wave" pga hans innsats i ulike valgmøter. Den uteble -- det gikk som forventet i Senatet og katastrofalt dårlig for republikanerne i Representantenes hus, i tillegg til at man mistet en del guvernørseter. Med sistnevnte forsvant også drømmen om å kunne avholde en Constitutional Convention, for å kunne skrive om grunnloven.

Q-anon, som jeg tror troller trumpistene, lovet også at Trump, straks etter valget, ville arrestere demokrater og ikke-patriotiske element i styre og stell. Og sa at dette ville skje i forbindelse med begravelsen til Bush Sr.

I tillegg er det aktiv kommunikasjon på ulike fora om hvor lite Trump har gjort for vanlige amerikanere, mens han har gjort sitt for seg selv og de rikeste.

Kanskje vanskelig å mobilisere vilje til å fortelle oss at vi "må tenke selv", når man er blitt såpass grunnlurt?

 

[Pink_Panther]

Tenkte mer på våre lokale helter.

 

[WayAhead]

TRUMP: https://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/Hot+Topics/Donald+Trump


Morning Headlines

Donald Trump

TOP Trump reportedly said 'f--k' several times during a meeting with Nancy Pelosi, and later… Business Insider UK07:04

TOP Record-Breaking Number Of Americans Want To Get Out Of U.S. Forever HuffPost (US)08:46

AP Fact Check: Trump’s Afghanistan Comments Inaccurate Voice of America09:27

CNN's Anderson Cooper Delivers Scorching Fact-Check Of Donald Trump's Shutdown Boast HuffPost (US)09:26

 

[erato]

Mer løgn for de som fortsatt tror at Donald bryr seg om fakta:

President Donald Trump claimed without evidence on Friday that past presidents have privately confided to him that they regret not building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. But at least three of the four living U.S. presidents — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — did no such thing.


https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/04/trump-former-presidents-border-wall-1082562