You Will Anyway: The Clueless President

Thursday, April 12, 2018

The Clueless President

President Trump on Thursday instructed top administration officials to explore re-entering the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) — a trade pact he pulled the U.S. out of last year while calling it a “disaster.”

The Hill

Because of course he did. He has no policy beliefs, no understanding of global politics, or anything required to be president.

Speaking after a trade meeting with Trump, Republican senators said the president told White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to look into joining the deal, which 11 other Pacific Rim nations signed in March.

“The president multiple times reaffirmed in general to all of us and looked right at Larry Kudlow and said, ‘Larry, go get it done,'" Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), a vocal proponent of free trade, told reporters at the White House.

And, if they meet tomorrow and tell him he should pull out again, that's what he'll do. He's clueless.

In early March, the 11 other nations signed the renamed Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership in Chile after spending the better part of the last year reworking the deal.

[...]

Trump told lawmakers he now believes the TPP “might be easier for us to join now” because the 11 other nations are close to finalizing a deal without the United States, according to the Nebraska senator.

He'll say that by doing what he did, he got a better deal.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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"What we have is a foreign policy which is essentially a marketing strategy for selling weapons." -- Jill Stein

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"What matters in journalism isn't politics, which are as universal and inescapable as breathing. What matters -- along with a fundamentally adversarial attitude toward government, without which "journalism" is simply public relations -- is integrity, transparency, evidence, coherence, and principle. These are the principles on which we should evaluate the quality of journalism, and their absence is why some journalists are so desperate to get you to focus on something else." ~ Barry Eisler

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Life, as Explained in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"

GUILDENSTERN: What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.

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ROSENCRANTZ : The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute.

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GUILDENSTERN: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!

PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

GUILDENSTERN: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.

PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.

GUILDENSTERN: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.

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GUILDENSTERN : We act on scraps of information... sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct.

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PLAYER: Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.