Rudy Giuliani says he’s not sure collusion is a crime
He didn’t do it. And if he did, he didn’t mean to do it. And if he mean’t to do it, well…it’s not a crime.
What in the good name of Ruben Loftus-Cheek? It’s like they’re trying to continuously pile on fucking awfulness after fucking awfulness, in hopes we can’t keep up with every dick move, or that we’ll just shrug and go “whatever, SOP”.
And just how would Munchin try to weasel a second tax-cut after the Senate Dems kibosh this toxic-as-shit idiocy?
I think it’s a fine idea to have capital gains tax be on real gains and not on nominal gains - so long as the capital gains tax is raised so that there’s no overall effect on revenue. But of course then it wouldn’t be a tax cut…
North Korea is working on new missiles
Shocked. Shocked, I say!
Heh.
Gotta see the Pompeo spin on this.
the art of the deal, in action.
Two lines from Shogun come to mind:
In the American system, the people are sovereign. Trump’s version of “winning” seems to be identical to Putin’s. So, once [del]Putin[/del] Trump wins, there’s no worry about the three apex courts in [del]CCCP[/del] Russia convicting them of any wrong-doing.
Hah! In related news, Trump said he’s willing to meet with Iran’s leader without any pre-conditions. Hey, this cluster with North Korea shows that Trump is willing to meet without even having any post-conditions!
At the risk of sounding like a concern troll, I don’t see this as unusual or unexpected, or even alarming. I would expect North Korea to keep some of its cards on the table.
I’m still very, very skeptical that Trump can deliver a deal, but I don’t see a dead deal just yet. Yes, Trump has over-sold his ‘success’ in the first meeting, but I’ll give him some rare credit in that the talks went forward and there might be at least some concessions in the future. But any concessions are gradual.
Has anyone?
I’m surprised the US has yet to breach their suspension of military exercises, even amidst these negotiations.*
I wonder if it’s because the military is one of the few sane arms of government left.
*“Negotiations” that - gradual or no - will go nowhere, I’ll easily wager.
To break up the doldrummy doom and gloom a bit (also no fucking clue where else to post this) - Ruth Bader Ginsburg reiterated today* that she plans to keep on boogie’in along until at least 90 - another five years.
Rad.
*Coulda sworn a couple months ago she might’ve said this. Heck, she should, anyway. Phone up Trump each time about it.
(Heh - in some photos, she looks like a wizened Masha Gessen.)
Don’t know where I saw it, but someone posted something about signing up to become an organ donor for RBG. I’m totally down with that. I don’t even have to be dead if she needs something! She needs a liver? It’s hers! A lung? My heart? Skin? Hers! Hers! Hers! I’ll set up monthly donations of blood if she feels she needs it.
Pompeo looked it up on Wikipedia and was able to reassure Trump that while Iran has elections, the person he’d be meeting would be a dictator.
What the hell happened to Pompeo. He was CIA, neutral, cool and pragmatic I thought. Now he’s a zombified tool for Agent Orange. He’s so damn lightweight that the last time he went to “negotiate” with Kim, he got blown off so Kim could inspect some potato plants.
My sense is that people like Pompeo, Kelly, Mattis, Nielsen, Cohn take the job hoping that they can be guardrails for and reason with Trump, only to find out that the only possible way they can keep their jobs for that purpose is to explicitly display fealty to Trump and mimic his rhetoric and behavior. And in the end, to no effect. They end up tainting otherwise good reputations and make Trump worse by normalizing and enabling him. I wonder if we all might have been better off had they just let Trump surround himself with sheer idiots and let everything blow up in his face, and just letting Mike Pence (who, like him or loathe him, is sane) come in and clean up the mess.
The confusing part is, why meet with Iran when they’ve just taken what was the best negotiating tool (the Iran deal) off the table? Is Trump going to meet with Iran just to promise he won’t bomb Tehran…yet? That’s a non-starter, just like scrapping the weapons program entirely is a non-starter for North Korea. It’s about the sanctions, which are even more dangerous to Iran’s regime’s continued existence right now than they are to North Korea’s. Iran doesn’t want an actual war with the US but they are probably much more prepared to take hostile action against US interests in the region than North Korea was.
For some definition of sane. At some point, religious fervor crosses the line. I don’t know that Pence has done so, but I think he can at least see it from where he is.
I think it is possible he’d like to be Nehemiah Scudder, except that he’d likely not do the sex with acolytes thing (unless the Mrs was in the room with him).
Yeah. Again, he creates a disastrous situation, says only he can fix it, has a bullshit “summit” that’s all smoke and mirrors, declares a win, and then makes it even worse. Just like China, North Korea, the EU, everything.
Winning. Art of the deal. The Great Dealmaker. :rolleyes:
The one possible silver lining of this, is that it would probably lead to an increase the the official inflation rate (although not actual inflation). As it stands now the only thing that is tied to this rate are benefits for the old, the infirm, and the poor, or as Reps would call them the dregs of society. So it is in their best interest to fudge the numbers to make inflation appear as low as possible, lest some undeserving wretch be able to pay their medical bills. But if capital gains are indexed to this value then suddenly every last increase in price will be carefully hoarded and accounted for lest the worthy among us lose a single penny.
It just occurred to me that we now accept as normal the phrase “This Morning the President Tweeted…”. Its frightening. Even past presidents I loathed had people that helped them craft public statements that were then communicated via press release, press conferences, or other means. The current moron in chief has no filter. I know I’m stating the obvious, but we are in bizzaro world. Will we ever get back to normal once he leaves office?