When reminded that London mayor Sadiq Khan had called him “ignorant”, Trump retorted, “let’s do an IQ test”, thereby again revealing his ignorance by not understanding what an IQ test is intending to measure. In any case, I would place money on Sadiq Khan beating Donald Trump in an IQ test and hope that the contest can be arranged in the near future.
When I first heard about this, I had the same thought.
Ignorance is lack of knowledge, not “intelligence.”
Are you serious? Trump supporters are fine with that, and the rest of you already know he’s full of shit but put up with it because bodily removing presidents from office is generally frowned upon.
One word: Iraq.
Apparently the Big Orange Cheese is finding it difficult to hire legal help:
Four top law firmsreportedly turned down requests to represent President Trump in the investigation into ties between his administration and Russia.
bolding mine
Wow. You know you’re no good when even lawyers want nothing to do with you.
Sadiq Khan’s left shoe could beat Trump in an IQ test.
And the Republicans (so far) are okay with it, too. Do the Repubs even HAVE a last straw? If Trump addressed both houses of Congress with his XXXL underpants on his head, would *anyone *even comment on it? Now I need brain bleach.
“The lawyers and their firms cited a variety of factors…” Um… have to wash my hair that night. Taking the dog to the vet. Getting my toenails cleaned. Haven’t got a thing to wear. Mama won’t let me. All very good reasons.
Lawyers will happily take on scumbag, guilty, asshole clients, as long as they:
- Listen to advice, and know when to shut up
- Pay their bills
Two strikes for the Trumpster.
Everybody knows that the Bird is the word! Poppa Ooo Mao Mao, Poppa Ooo Mao Mao Mao…
Number two trumps number one. Sure, they hate to hurt their batting average by taking on a client hell-bent on self-destruction. But the guy who won’t pay, they just can’t abide by.
Are you kidding? Trump supporters are practically begging to be “played” at this point. Between the “take Trump seriously but not literally,” and Trump’s redupation of essentially every campaign pledge and promise that he rallied his supporter over, from draining the swamp to jailing Hillary Clinton, Trump has demonstrated that his only art is bullshitting.
So, sales to allies generally come in the form of negotiated or subsidized agreements where the buyer agrees to purchase a certain weapon system, and pay for logistics and maintenance support for the operational timeframe. The US government gives export approvals and may provide certain benefits to the seller such as tax breaks or additional domestic purchase agreements, and in some cases may outright buy hardware and transfer it to the foreign power although this generally required Congressional approval since it requires the use of discretionary monies. There are also transfer and end user agreements intended to assure that information and technology is not transferred to third parties or reverse engineered for domestic manufacture unless licensed, and there may be a whole other host of associated ‘offset’ agreements for basing, military and intelligence cooperation, et cetera. The State Department has to review the agreement to assure that it doesn’t violate any current treaty stipulations and that all export licenses are complete. It is not the sort of thing the White House on its own can carry out in the span of a couple of days. This sounds more like a commitment to agree to approve weapon sales that were already in discussion from the past presidential administration; certainly none of the defense contractors have put out notices announcing billions of dollars in new sales as you would expect them to do. Furthermore, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) is required to make a public announcement of approvals of foreign weapon system sales above some dollar amount (in the tens of millions of dollars). Here are literally the only two notices on the DSCA website following the announcement of this “agreement”:
Transmittal No: 16-77
WASHINGTON, Jun. 5, 2017 - The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for a blanket order training program for the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) and other Saudi forces. The estimated cost is $750 million. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale on June 2, 2017.
Transmittal No: 16-84
WASHINGTON, Jun. 5, 2017 - The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for AN/TPQ-53(V) radar systems and related support. The estimated cost is $662 million. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale today.
That is it. Those are the only approval determinations since the announcement of an agreement.
Of course, you can also go the other route and set up your own private espionage agency and shift black funds to sell weapons in contravention to export restrictions. That worked out pretty well for the Reagan Adminstration. I mean, it was a huge scandal, but almost nobody went to prison except the guy who stole the “John Poindexter St.” sign in protest. But this bus of clowns isn’t bright enough to pull off an actual conspiracy.
Well, given his history, I suspect they all know that they’re not going to get paid. Never mind conflicts of interest or appearance of defending the indefensible; if the client isn’t going to pay his bills, the firm isn’t interested.
Stranger
Wait. Tillerson is traveling with media people? That’s a surprise.
No, nobody likes being played, but it’s far, far worse, and far more difficult, to *admit *having been played. Even to admit it to oneself. And it’s worse by far to admit it to those who never were played, and spent some effort trying to explain it.
It’s far more attractive to grab at any rationalization available, even if it’s just a way to say “Yeah, but *your *guys did yada yada” or “You’re being dismissive of opinions that differ from your own and it doesn’t help you”. Fortunately for the GOP, they have leaders and a propaganda network with many years of practice in coming up with cover stories that work on their rationalization-hungry base.
Funny, that’s what my ex-wife said, too.
Forbes.
Holy shit.
You don’t seem to understand.
Republicans can do anything… Absolutely anything, up to and including shooting someone in the face while drunk.
It just does not matter.
In a just and rational world there would be parallel investigations-- treasonous dealings with the Russians, and financial shenanigans–racing to see who could impeach him first. In this world, with Republicans in charge, we’ll be lucky if anything gains traction.
I think you just quoted up their 2020 Campaign slogan.
Sure, they have last straws. If he was black/a democrat, his sizable ass would be in trouble.