Jacky Rosen brings the receipts to shame Marco Rubio

 

Little Marco bares his soul - and it's ugly.

That'll cost him

UPDATE 11:47 am:

I hope it's not too late.  It's disgraceful and inexcusable that we didn't give them what they needed at the outset.  I expect the invasion would have been repelled with minimum loss of life.

Nobody's jealous of us now

Wouldn't be happening if Trump were president, right?

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

Now that you mention it...

Washington motto: Don't look back

[T]he ghosts of history are never all that welcome in Washington. It’s a place that has a hard time looking back and an even harder time doing anything to rectify past mistakes. The capital has a case of “permanent historical amnesia.”

[...]

Which made it all the more notable when the Senate met on Thursday to take a key procedural vote on a measure to repeal the two-decade-old authorization that provided the legal basis for Bush’s invasion of Iraq. [...] “The last time we’ve had a stand-alone vote on the floor,” for something like this Iraq repeal measure, [Democratic Senator Tim] Kaine noted, “is probably before anybody in the Senate was born. It’s just something that we’ve abdicated.”

[...]

This scheduling offered not only a chance to reassert Congress’s constitutional power to declare war but also the nearly irresistible opportunity to make a political point about the historic folly of that particular war. In their remarks before the Senate overwhelmingly voted, 68–27, to invoke cloture and clear the way for a vote next week.

  New Yorker

But, does the House have to agree?

Two decades ago, Bush and the Republicans were nearly united in their embrace of a brash militarism that sought to topple Saddam and transform Iraq and the broader Middle East in the process. [...] [B]acklash to the conflict arguably gave rise to the Presidencies of both Barack Obama—who first rose to fame as an antiwar state legislator—and Donald Trump. Trump is a Bush-basher of long standing, and he often framed his takeover of the Republican Party as an explicit repudiation of the extended Bush family and its internationalist legacy. Trump has said Bush “lied” to start the war, that he should have been impeached for how badly it was conducted, and that, over all, Bush had a “failed and uninspiring Presidency.”

There's one point on which I'm in agreement with Trump.

Much as the Vietnam War did for a previous generation, the failures in Iraq shattered American confidence, shaped future debates over the use of military force, made the concept of democracy promotion itself suspect, distracted from rising threats posed by the revisionist great powers Russia and China, and splintered the previously unquestioned Republican commitment to a robustly internationalist American foreign policy.

[...]

DeSantis, back in the pre-Trump era of 2015, publicly bashed Obama for not providing enough arms to Ukraine. His flip-flop is so telling. There may still be Bush-style internationalists left in Washington, but it says everything about the trajectory of the Party’s foreign-policy thinking that both of its 2024 front-runners think that’s not where the primary voters they seek stand.

[...]

In a remarkable statement dismissing the [Russian invasion of Ukraine] as little more than a “territorial dispute,” DeSantis seemed to signal how much he thinks Republican sentiment has shifted since the Bush era. You don’t have to support the disastrous invasion of Iraq to acknowledge that Russia’s barbaric war of aggression against its neighbor Ukraine is wrong, and yet that is where both Trump and DeSantis have now landed. [...] DeSantis’s comments to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson [...] drew strong pushback from the remaining Republican hawks in the old Bush mold. The Wall Street Journal editorial board called it his “first big mistake.” Lindsey Graham called it a “Neville Chamberlain approach” of appeasement. Nikki Haley pointedly observed that DeSantis was just “copying” Trump with his new position.

[...]

Many officials other than Bush himself, of course, have admitted the invasion was a mistake, “a grave and costly error,” as the former Bush speechwriter David Frum wrote in The Atlantic this week. I believe there is a straight line that leads from that debacle to the political mess we are in today.

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

Democrats tit-for-tat to Hunter Biden: Jared Kushner

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

This is what happens when you have phony principles

A US judge has asked the Biden administration to weigh in on whether Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, should be granted sovereign immunity in a civil case brought against him in the US by Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist who was killed by Saudi agents in 2018.

John Bates, a district court judge, gave the US government until 1 August to declare its interests in the civil case or give the court notice that it has no view on the matter.

The administration’s decision could have a profound effect on the civil case and comes as Joe Biden is facing criticism for abandoning a campaign promise to turn Saudi Arabia into a “pariah”.

The US president is due to meet the heir apparent to the Saudi throne later this month when he makes his first trip to Riyadh since entering the White House.

  Guardian

And he should never have said that. He knew the US is bound to Saudi Arabia by the decisions of our real rulers - huge corporations.

While Saudi Arabia said it held a trial against the hit squad responsible for the grisly murder, the proceeding was widely condemned as a sham, and some of the most senior members of the team have been sighted in a state security compound in Riyadh.

Other possible avenues of justice have been stymied for political reasons. A Turkish prosecutor in March ended a long-running trial in absentia against Khashoggi’s killers, in a move that was seen as part of the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s attempts to improve relations with Prince Mohammed.

The Saudi prince has taken responsibility for the murder on behalf of the Saudi government but has denied any personal involvement in planning the assassination.

This business of "taking responsibility" by political players is such bullshit. You haven't taken responsibility for something until you correct it or pay a price for it.

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

Come again?

Since when is a governor allowed to negotiate with foreign governments on policy?

Also, Cabeza de Vaca means head of a cow.  Also, I believe one of the earliest notables on Galveston Island was named Cabeza de Vaca.

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

Minority rule

The Cuban immigrant population in Florida has controlled the fate of Cuba for decades. 

While Biden ended or reversed a number of Trump-era policies upon taking office, including the U.S. exit from the Paris climate deal and the so-called Muslim travel ban, former President Obama's former vice president has kept in place Trump-era restrictions on Cuba following Obama's openings to the island nation.

The administration has said it's reviewing the country’s policy on Cuba and hasn’t publicly ruled out changes. But the retention of Trump's policies so far also follows deeply disappointing results for Democrats among Latino voters in Florida, where Cuban Americans are a vital voting bloc.

  The Hill

Did they vote for Obama?

Democrats’ troubles in Florida were put into stark relief in November when Trump carried the state for a second time, helped out by big gains in the Miami area, a traditional Democratic stronghold where roughly 7 in 10 residents are Latino. In 2016, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won Miami-Dade County by nearly 30 percentage points, while Biden carried it last year by less than 8 points.

Trump’s better-than-expected performance in Miami-Dade came down to several factors. For one, he campaigned there for years and embraced Spanish-language outreach efforts. At the same time, Spanish-speaking voters in South Florida found themselves targeted by disinformation campaigns in the lead-up to the 2020 election.

And Cubans pay the price.

“You have to ask yourself: what do we get for going back to the pre-Trump approach to Cuba?” one Florida Democratic strategist said. “The answer is nothing. The Cuba issue doesn’t play anywhere in the country but Florida, and here I think it’s a liability to say ‘let’s normalize relations with Cuba.’ ”

“It’s not going to win you any votes, but it will lose you votes,” the strategist added. “I think this is kind of an admission of that.”

It's still wrong to punish Cuba.

Biden vowed on the campaign trail to reverse the Trump administration’s policies on Cuba, arguing that the former president’s hard-line stance had “done nothing to advance democracy and human rights” and had instead made the situation on the island worse.

But since taking office in January, neither Biden nor his administration has signaled a willingness to return to the Obama-era policies of detente. At a briefing in March, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that “a Cuba policy shift is not currently among President Biden’s top priorities.”

[...]

In perhaps the clearest sign to date that Biden has no immediate plans to reverse his predecessor’s Cuba policy, the State Department renewed a determination made under the Trump administration that Cuba is “not cooperating fully with United States antiterrorism efforts.”

Such bullshit.

Nelson Diaz, the chair of the Miami-Dade Republican Party, said that any effort by the Biden administration to reverse Trump’s policies on Cuba would “prove to us that they are communist sympathizers or socialists.” By sticking to the line set by the Trump administration, Diaz said, Biden may be able ease the concerns of at least some Cuban Americans.

Cuban Americans are an even smaller minority than are Republicans in general, and yet, they're controlling our foreign policy with regards to Cuba. It's as ridiculous as it is wrong.

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

"Israel has a right to protect itself"

A week of relentless Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip has destroyed power lines, smashed water pipes beneath roads and left human waste spilling out of the ground.

With 188 Palestinians having been killed, and families trapped under rubble, fears are mounting of a deepening humanitarian crisis in the enclave, where 2 million people live under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade in place for 14 years.

Six of Gaza’s 10 electricity lines are down and supply has been more than halved, according to Mohammed Thabet, a spokesperson for the Gaza Electricity Distribution Company. “There are some border areas completely cut off from electricity,” he said. Repair crews were unable to fix the lines due to continued attacks.

Throughout its intense bombing campaign, Israel has blocked access to the territory, including for aid workers, and prevented fuel from entering, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

  Guardian

The Israeli army spokesperson’s office said the strikes targeted Hamas’s “underground military infrastructure”. As a result of the strike, “the underground facility collapsed, causing the civilian houses’ foundations above them to collapse as well, leading to unintended casualties”, it said.

  Guardian

Seriously? Too bad your house is above the basement?

On Sunday, air-raid sirens sounded for the seventh consecutive day across southern Israel as Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza launched more rocket attacks into the country – and reaching further – than in the entirety of the 2014 war.

As the UN security council met in a specially convened session, foreign ministers and ambassadors called for a ceasefire and for both sides to respect international humanitarian law, but there was no sign of even a temporary truce to allow medics in Gaza to recover people – alive and dead – from under collapsed buildings.

[...]

The latest outbreak of violence began in East Jerusalem last month, when Palestinians clashed with police in response to Israeli police tactics during Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers.

[...]

In a televised address, Netanyahu said Israel’s attacks were continuing at “full force” and would “take time”. Israel “wants to levy a heavy price” on the Hamas militant group, he said, flanked by his defence minister and political rival, Benny Gantz, in a show of unity.

And the Palestinian civilians are in the way.

In his staunch defence of Israel, Joe Biden is sticking to a course set decades ago as a young senator, and so far he has not given ground on the issue to the progressive wing of his party or many Jewish Democrats urging a tougher line towards Benjamin Netanyahu.

Biden has even been prepared to face isolation at the UN security council, at the potential cost of his own credibility on multilateralism and human rights.

  Guardian

That would be a grave mistake.

He was a staunch defender in the Senate for decades, supporting the Israeli bombing of a suspected nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, for example, and labelling himself “Israel’s best Catholic friend”.

His foreign policy outlook is based on the foundation of adhering to and strengthening America’s traditional alliances.

[...]

American Jews have grown increasingly sceptical of Netanyahu and his policies. A Pew Research Center survey published last week found that only 40% thought the prime minister was providing good leadership, falling to 32% among younger Jews. Strikingly, only 34% strongly opposed sanctions or other punitive measures against Israel.

The liberal Jewish American lobby, J Street, has growing influence in the Democratic party and has urged Biden to do more to stop the bloodshed and the Israeli policies that have helped drive the conflict.

“We’re also urging the administration to make clear publicly that Israeli efforts to evict and displace Palestinian families in East Jerusalem and the West Bank are unacceptable, as is the use of excessive force against protesters,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the group’s president.

[...]

US evangelicals such as Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo helped shape Trump policy on Israel. They are not a force in the Democratic party but a consideration in red and purple states Biden will have to win in next year’s midterm congressional elections to maintain a majority.

Maybe. But leadership in painting Netanyahu with reality and doing the right thing for Palestinians should be overriding.

Biden worked hard to cultivate the progressives during the campaign and afterwards, setting up policy workshops with them, but the current crisis has brought that honeymoon [to] an end.

What she said.

Daniel Levy, the head of the US/Middle East Project thinktank, agreed that the political ground is shifting under Biden’s feet. “It is premature to suggest that the special treatment Israel receives in American politics and policy, and that has previously traversed Republican and Democratic administrations, is definitively over,” Levy said. “Yet the dynamics are pushing in that direction and the signs of change are already visible – the question is how far and how fast those will move.”

Not fast enough.

A third United Nations Security Council emergency meeting in a week – amid the deadly Israeli offensive in Gaza – has again ended with no concrete outcome after the United States blocked a joint statement calling for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

The meeting on Sunday came after the US reportedly twice blocked over the last week resolutions that would have condemned Israel’s military response and called for a ceasefire.

  alJazeera

The assault has displaced about 34,000 Palestinians from their homes, the UN Middle East envoy, Tor Wennesland, told an emergency meeting of the UN security council, where eight foreign ministers spoke about the conflict.

Efforts by China, Norway and Tunisia to get the UN body to issue a statement, including a call for the cessation of hostilities, have been blocked by the US, which, according to diplomats, is concerned it could interfere with diplomatic efforts to stop the violence.

  Guardian

Jesus wept.

25th amendment now

In hundreds of highly classified phone calls with foreign heads of state, President Donald Trump was so consistently unprepared for discussion of serious issues, so often outplayed in his conversations with powerful leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and so abusive to leaders of America's principal allies, that the calls helped convince some senior US officials -- including his former secretaries of state and defense, two national security advisers and his longest-serving chief of staff -- that the President himself posed a danger to the national security of the United States, according to White House and intelligence officials intimately familiar with the contents of the conversations.

  CNN

And yet, they all covered for him, until they got fired at least. There are a lot of people to share the blame for this.

The calls caused former top Trump deputies -- including national security advisers H.R. McMaster and John Bolton, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and White House chief of staff John Kelly, as well as intelligence officials -- to conclude that the President was often "delusional," as two sources put it, in his dealings with foreign leaders. The sources said there was little evidence that the President became more skillful or competent in his telephone conversations with most heads of state over time. Rather, he continued to believe that he could either charm, jawbone or bully almost any foreign leader into capitulating to his will, and often pursued goals more attuned to his own agenda than what many of his senior advisers considered the national interest.

And yet, they all covered for him.  Or just kept their mouths shut.

CNN's sources said there were calls between Putin and Trump about Trump's desire to end the American military presence in Afghanistan but they mentioned no discussion of the supposed Taliban bounties.

You don't think Putin was going to tell him they were doing it. Do you? Shit, I'd believe anything at this point. Except, the calls were listened to, so they wouldn't be talking about them over the phone. Of course, we don't know that Trump doesn't have a back channel to the Kremlin.

By far the greatest number of Trump's telephone discussions with an individual head of state were with Erdogan, who sometimes phoned the White House at least twice a week and was put through directly to the President on standing orders from Trump. [...] Meanwhile, the President regularly bullied and demeaned the leaders of America's principal allies, especially two women: telling Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom she was weak and lacked courage; and telling German Chancellor Angela Merkel that she was "stupid."

I bet that went over big.

Trump incessantly boasted to his fellow heads of state, including Saudi Arabia's autocratic royal heir Mohammed bin Salman and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, about his own wealth, genius, "great" accomplishments as President, and the "idiocy" of his Oval Office predecessors, according to the sources.

Of course he did. He says those things to anyone he's talking to.

In his conversations with both Putin and Erdogan, Trump took special delight in trashing former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and suggested that dealing directly with him -- Trump -- would be far more fruitful than during previous administrations.

[...]

Like Bolton, CNN's sources said that the President seemed to continually conflate his own personal interests -- especially for purposes of re-election and revenge against perceived critics and political enemies -- with the national interest.

There's no conflating going on. He's simply pursuing his own personal interests. He doesn't give a shit about the national interests.

The sources did cite some instances in which they said Trump acted responsibly and in the national interest during telephone discussions with some foreign leaders.

Only if it coincided with his own.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment before this story published. After publication, White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews said, "President Trump is a world class negotiator who has consistently furthered America's interests on the world stage. From negotiating the phase one China deal and the USMCA to NATO allies contributing more and defeating ISIS, President Trump has shown his ability to advance America's strategic interests."

One person familiar with almost all the conversations with the leaders of Russia, Turkey, Canada, Australia and western Europe described the calls cumulatively as 'abominations' so grievous to US national security interests that if members of Congress heard from witnesses to the actual conversations or read the texts and contemporaneous notes, even many senior Republican members would no longer be able to retain confidence in the President.

Then why the fuck is this person still working for Trump and will he/she be brought up on charges of aiding and abetting abominations grievous to US national security interests?

The insidious effect of the conversations comes from Trump's tone, his raging outbursts at allies while fawning over authoritarian strongmen, his ignorance of history and lack of preparation as much as it does from the troubling substance, according to the sources. While in office, then- Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats expressed worry to subordinates that Trump's telephone discussions were undermining the coherent conduct of foreign relations and American objectives around the globe, one of CNN's sources said.

And why was Coats not filing a whistleblower claim?

And in recent weeks, former chief of staff Kelly has mentioned the damaging impact of the President's calls on US national security to several individuals in private.

And, fuck you, too, John Kelly. You're an accomplice for not reporting it to Congress.

In addition to Merkel and May, the sources said, Trump regularly bullied and disparaged other leaders of the western alliance during his phone conversations -- including French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison -- in the same hostile and aggressive way he discussed the coronavirus with some of America's governors.

Of course he did. He's an asshole.

But his most vicious attacks, said the sources, were aimed at women heads of state. In conversations with both May and Merkel, the President demeaned and denigrated them in diatribes described as "near-sadistic" by one of the sources and confirmed by others. "Some of the things he said to Angela Merkel are just unbelievable: he called her 'stupid,' and accused her of being in the pocket of the Russians.

Typical narcissistic projection.

The calls "are so unusual," confirmed a German official, that special measures were taken in Berlin to ensure that their contents remained secret.

[...]

Merkel remained calm and outwardly unruffled in the face of Trump's attacks —"like water off a duck's back," in the words of one source -- and she regularly countered his bluster with recitations of fact.

[...]

The official described Trump's behavior with Merkel in the calls as "very aggressive" and said that the circle of German officials involved in monitoring Merkel's calls with Trump has shrunk: "It's just a small circle of people who are involved and the reason, the main reason, is that they are indeed problematic."

Publish them!

Trump's conversations with May, the UK Prime Minister from 2016 to 2019, were described as "humiliating and bullying," with Trump attacking her as "a fool" and spineless in her approach to Brexit, NATO and immigration matters.

"He'd get agitated about something with Theresa May, then he'd get nasty with her on the phone call," One source said. "It's the same interaction in every setting -- coronavirus or Brexit -- with just no filter applied."

I have to say, her fawning and kowtowing did not help her situation vis a vis Trump.

Prime Minister May, in contrast [to Merkel], became "flustered and nervous" in her conversations with the President. "He clearly intimidated her and meant to," said one of CNN's sources.

The man is a misogynist. Always has been. In addition to being an asshole and a narcissist.

The calls with Putin and Erdogan were particularly egregious in terms of Trump almost never being prepared substantively and thus leaving him susceptible to being taken advantage of in various ways, according to the sources -- in part because those conversations (as with most heads of state), were almost certainly recorded by the security services and other agencies of their countries.

In his phone exchanges with Putin, the sources reported, the President talked mostly about himself, frequently in over-the-top, self-aggrandizing terms: touting his "unprecedented" success in building the US economy; asserting in derisive language how much smarter and "stronger" he is than "the imbeciles" and "weaklings" who came before him in the presidency (especially Obama); reveling in his experience running the Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow, and obsequiously courting Putin's admiration and approval. Putin "just outplays" him, said a high-level administration official.

Any other country's leader could outplay him if they weren't afraid of US power.

While Putin "destabilizes the West," said this source, the President of the United States "sits there and thinks he can build himself up enough as a businessman and tough guy that Putin will respect him."

[...]

"He [Trump] gives away the advantage that was hard won in the Cold War," said one of the officials -- in part by "giving Putin and Russia a legitimacy they never had," the official said. "He's given Russia a lifeline -- because there is no doubt that they're a declining power ... He's playing with something he doesn't understand and he's giving them power that they would use [aggressively]."

While they pay Taliban soldiers to kill American soldiers.

The frequency of the calls with Erdogan -- in which the Turkish president continually pressed Trump for policy concessions and other favors -- was especially worrisome to McMaster, Bolton and Kelly, the more so because of the ease with which Erdogan bypassed normal National Security Council protocols and procedures to reach the President, said two of the sources.

[...]

Two sources described the President as woefully uninformed about the history of the Syrian conflict and the Middle East generally, and said he was often caught off guard, and lacked sufficient knowledge to engage on equal terms in nuanced policy discussion with Erdogan. "Erdogan took him to the cleaners," said one of the sources.

[...]

Despite the lack of advance notice for many of Erdogan's calls, full sets of contemporaneous notes from designated notetakers at the White House exist, as well as rough voice-generated computer texts of the conversations, the sources said.

Locked up with that "perfect" phone call to the president of Ukraine?

According to one high-level source, there are also existing summaries and conversation-readouts of the President's discussions with Erdogan that might reinforce Bolton's allegations against Trump in the so-called "Halkbank case," involving a major Turkish bank with suspected ties to Erdogan and his family. That source said the matter was raised in more than one telephone conversation between Erdogan and Trump.

Bolton wrote in his book that in December 2018, at Erdogan's urging, Trump offered to interfere in an investigation by then-US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman into the Turkish bank, which was accused of violating US sanctions on Iran.

And he finally did.

Berman's office eventually brought an indictment against the bank in October 2019 for fraud, money laundering and other offenses related to participation in a multibillion-dollar scheme to evade the US sanctions on Iran. On June 20, Trump fired Berman -- whose office is also investigating Rudy Giuliani, the President's personal lawyer.

[...]

In addition to rough, voice-generated software transcription, almost all of Trump's telephone conversations with Putin, Erdogan and leaders of the western alliance were supplemented and documented by extensive contemporaneous note-taking (and, often, summaries) prepared by Fiona Hill, deputy assistant to the President and senior NSC director for Europe and Russia until her resignation last year. Hill listened to most of the President's calls with Putin, Erdogan and the European leaders, according to her closed-door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee last November.

[...]

White House and intelligence officials familiar with the voice-generated transcriptions and underlying documents agreed that their contents could be devastating to the President's standing with members of the Congress of both parties -- and the public -- if revealed in great detail. (There is little doubt that Trump would invoke executive privilege to keep the conversations private. However, some former officials with detailed knowledge of many of the conversations might be willing to testify about them, sources said.)

I won't hold my breath.

In one of the earliest calls between Putin and Trump, the President's son-in-law Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were in the room to listen — joining McMaster, Tillerson, Hill, and a State Department aide to Tillerson.

"The call was all over the place," said an NSC deputy who read a detailed summary of the conversation -- with Putin speaking substantively and at length, and Trump propping himself up in short autobiographical bursts of bragging, self-congratulation and flattery toward Putin. As described to CNN, Kushner and Ivanka Trump were immediately effusive in their praise of how Trump had handled the call -- while Tillerson (who knew Putin well from his years in Russia as an oil executive), Hill and McMaster were skeptical.

Hill — author of a definitive biography of Putin -- started to explain some of the nuances she perceived from the call, according to CNN's sources — offering insight into Putin's psychology, his typical "smooth-talking" and linear approach and what the Russian leader was trying to achieve in the call. Hill was cut off by Trump, and the President continued discussing the call with Jared and Ivanka, making clear he wanted to hear the congratulatory evaluation of his daughter and her husband, rather than how Hill, Tillerson or McMaster judged the conversation.

[...]

The Kushners were also present for other important calls with foreign leaders and made their primacy apparent, encouraged by the President even on matters of foreign policy in which his daughter and her husband had no experience. Almost never, according to CNN's sources, would Trump read the briefing materials prepared for him by the CIA and NSC staff in advance of his calls with heads of state.

"He won't consult them, he won't even get their wisdom," said one of the sources, who cited Saudi Arabia's bin Salman as near the top of a list of leaders whom Trump "picks up and calls without anybody being prepared," a scenario that frequently confronted NSC and intelligence aides. The source added that the aides' helpless reaction "would frequently be, 'Oh my God, don't make that phone call.'"

Our government is broken. Perhaps irrevocably.

The common, overwhelming dynamic that characterizes Trump's conversations with both authoritarian dictators and leaders of the world's greatest democracies is his consistent assertion of himself as the defining subject and subtext of the calls -- almost never the United States and its historic place and leadership in the world, according to sources intimately familiar with the calls.

[...]

"Everything was always personalized, with everybody doing terrible things to rip us off — which meant ripping 'me' — Trump — off. He couldn't -- or wouldn't -- see or focus on the larger picture," said one US official.

[...]

"With almost every problem, all it takes [in his phone calls] is someone asking him to do something as President on behalf of the United States and he doesn't see it that way; he goes to being ripped off; he's not interested in cooperative issues or working on them together; instead he's deflecting things or pushing real issues off into a corner," said a US official.

[...]

It was like the United States had disappeared. It was always 'Just me'."

What a surprise.

Can't wait for Project Lincoln's next ad.

UPDATE:

It's worse than unpatriotic.

Bolton book bits

During a one-on-one meeting at the June 2019 Group of 20 summit in Japan, Xi complained to Trump about China critics in the United States. But Bolton writes in a book scheduled to be released next week that “Trump immediately assumed Xi meant the Democrats. Trump said approvingly that there was great hostility among the Democrats.

“He then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win,” Bolton writes. “He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome. I would print Trump’s exact words but the government’s prepublication review process has decided otherwise.”

[...]

Bolton’s 592-page memoir, obtained by The Washington Post, is the most substantive, critical dissection of the president from an administration insider so far, coming from a conservative who has worked in Republican administrations for decades and is a longtime contributor to Fox News. It portrays Trump as an “erratic” and “stunningly uninformed” commander in chief, and lays out a long series of jarring and troubling encounters between the president, his top advisers and foreign leaders.

  WaPo

And where was Mr. Bolton during the impeachment hearings? That's right. Holding out against testifying.

Bolton recounts numerous private conversations Trump had with other leaders that revealed the limits of his knowledge. He recalls Trump asking Kelly if Finland is part of Russia. In a meeting with then-British Prime Minister Theresa May in 2018, a British official referred to the United Kingdom as a “nuclear power,” and Trump interjects: “Oh, are you a nuclear power?” Bolton adds that he could tell the question about Britain, which has long maintained a nuclear arsenal, “was not intended as a joke.”

[...]

During a NATO summit in the summer of 2018, Bolton recounts a moment when Trump had decided to inform U.S. allies that the United States was going to withdraw from NATO if allies didn’t substantially increase defense spending by January.

“We will walk out, and not defend those who have not [paid],” read a message Trump dictated to Bolton. [The DOJ] filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block [Bolton's book's] publication by alleging that it contains classified material. Bolton’s attorney has said the book does not contain classified material and that it underwent an arduous review process.

[...]

Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday that the tome still contained classified information.

[...]

The request for electoral assistance from Xi is one of many instances described by Bolton in which Trump seeks favors or approval from authoritarian leaders. Many of those same leaders were also happy to take advantage of the U.S. president and attempt to manipulate him, Bolton writes, often through simplistic appeals to his various obsessions.

[...]

In May 2018, Bolton says, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan handed Trump a memo claiming innocence for a Turkish firm under investigation by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York for violating Iranian sanctions.

“Trump then told Erdogan he would take care of things, explaining that the Southern District prosecutors were not his people, but were Obama people, a problem that would be fixed when they were replaced by his people,” Bolton writes.

Bolton says he was so alarmed by Trump’s determination to do favors for autocrats such as Erdogan and Xi that he scheduled a meeting with Attorney General William P. Barr in 2019 to discuss the president’s behavior. Bolton writes that Barr agreed he also was worried about the appearances created by Trump’s behavior.

And Bolton believed that?

Bolton cites personal conversations with Trump confirming a “quid pro quo” on Ukraine that Trump had long denied, including an August meeting in which Trump allegedly made the bargain explicit.“He said he wasn’t in favor of sending them anything until all Russia-investigation material related to Clinton and Biden had been turned over,” Bolton writes.

[...]

[H]e writes that he found Trump’s decision to hold up military assistance to pressure newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “deeply disturbing,” and that he tried to work internally to counter it, reporting concerns to Barr and the White House Counsel’s Office.

Asking the fox to guard the henhouse. Shows how clueless Bolton was/is.

In the memoir, Bolton describes the president's advisers as frequently flummoxed by Trump and said a variety of officials — including Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Bolton himself — all considered resigning in disgust or frustration.

Yes, we can see how disgusted Mike Pompeo has been.

Even some of the president’s most loyal advisers hold a dim view of him in private, he writes.

[...]

“He second-guessed people’s motives, saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government,” Bolton writes, always looking to “personal instinct” and opportunities for “reality TV showmanship.”

Tell us something we can't see for ourselves.

After Trump completed a phone call with South Korea’s president ahead of the 2018 Singapore summit with North Korea, Pompeo and Bolton shared their disdain for the president’s handling of the conversation, he writes. Pompeo, having listened in on the call from the Middle East, told Bolton he was “having a cardiac arrest in Saudi Arabia.” Bolton shared his similar disappointment with the call, describing it as a “near death experience.”

[...]

Bolton attributes a litany of shocking statements to the president. Trump said invading Venezuela would be “cool” and that the South American nation was “really part of the United States.” Bolton says Trump kept confusing the current and former presidents of Afghanistan, while asking Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to help him strike a deal with Iran. And Trump told Xi that Americans were clamoring for him to change constitutional rules to serve more than two terms, according to the book.

Well, some of them are.

He also describes a summer 2019 meeting in New Jersey where Trump says journalists should be jailed so they have to divulge their sources: “These people should be executed. They are scumbags,” Trump said, according to Bolton's account.

Bolton describes in depth the feuding and backbiting among Trump’s cadre of advisers, as well as referring dismissively to Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s efforts to get involved in domestic and foreign policy issues. Almost every adviser — including Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, former defense secretary Jim Mattis and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley — comes under the scalpel. By contrast, Bolton seems to hold himself in high regard and admits few mistakes of his own.

LOL. What a surprise.

For Trump, Bolton writes, one singular goal loomed above all: securing a second term.

“I am hard pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations,” Bolton writes.

Bolton says Trump said he wanted out of Afghanistan during his second year instead of his third year so he could blame his predecessor for the war. Screaming about the border wall in a meeting with top advisers in 2018, Trump described why illegal immigration had to go down and the wall had to go up, according to Bolton’s book.

“I got elected on this issue and now I’m going to get unelected,” Trump said, startling those around him.

[...]

Though Trump approved of a proposal from Bolton to publicly declare the United States recognized [Venezuela's Juan] Guaidó rather than [elected president Nicolas] Maduro, within 30 hours Trump was already worrying that Guaidó appeared weak — a “kid” compared to “tough” Maduro — and considering changing course. “You couldn’t make this up,” Bolton writes.

In describing his White House experience on Russia-related issues, Bolton presents a picture of a president who is impulsive, churlish and consistently opposed to U.S. policy designed to discourage Russian aggression and to sanction Putin’s malign behavior.

[...]

He describes in detail the events leading up to the widely panned Helsinki summit in July 2018, when Trump sided with Putin against U.S. intelligence agencies over Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

[...]

Soon after he arrived at the White House, Bolton said Kelly gave him a warning. “You can’t imagine how desperate I am to get out of here,” Kelly said, according to Bolton’s book. “This is a bad place to work, as you will find out.”

Throughout the book, he describes Trump and top advisers repeatedly slashing each other, lying to each other and maneuvering to gain advantage.

At one point, Bolton says he learned that Kushner was going to be calling the finance minister of Turkey because he was also Erdogan’s son-in-law.

“I briefed Pompeo and Mnuchin on this new ‘son-in-law channel’ and they both exploded. Pompeo was furious, Bolton writes, “because this was one more example of Kushner’s doing international negotiations he shouldn’t have been doing (along with the never quite ready Middle East peace plan).”

For extended periods of time, Trump kept telling different advisers they were in charge of border policy, according to Bolton’s book. One day in 2018 in the Oval Office, Kelly purportedly learned that Kushner was calling Mexican authorities when he barged into the Oval Office and said so.

“Why is Jared calling Mexicans?” Kelly asked loudly, according to the book. “Because I asked him to. How else are we going to stop the caravans?” Trump responded.

In November 2018, Trump came under fire for writing an unfettered defense of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, littered with exclamation points, over the killing of Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. But according to Bolton’s book, the main goal of the missive was to take away attention from a story about Ivanka Trump using her personal email for government business.

“This will divert from Ivanka,” Trump said, according to Bolton’s book. “If I read the statement in person, that will take over the Ivanka thing.”

[...]

Describing the conflict in Afghanistan, Trump said: “This was done by a stupid person named George Bush.”

[...]

When Bolton recounts the Trump-Kim meeting in Singapore, the first summit of U.S. and North Korean leaders in history, Bolton castigates Trump’s diplomatic efforts, saying the president cared little for the details of the denuclearization effort and saw it merely as a “an exercise in publicity.”

He describes it extensively — including what Kim and his advisers say, and what Trump and his advisers say in return, giving a fly-on-the-wall account of a historic event.

“Trump told . . . me he was prepared to sign a substance-free communique, have his press conference to declare victory and then get out of town,” Bolton wrote.

Which is exactly what we witnessed.

In the months following the summit, Bolton described Trump’s inordinate interest in Pompeo delivering an autographed copy of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” on CD to Kim during Pompeo’s follow-on visit to North Korea. Trump had used the term “Little Rocket Man” to criticize the North Korean leader but subsequently tried to convince Kim that it was a term of affection.

“Trump didn’t seem to realize Pompeo hadn’t actually seen Kim Jong Un [during the trip], asking if Pompeo had handed” the CD, wrote Bolton. “Pompeo had not. Getting this CD to Kim remained a high priority for several months.”

I'm sure Sir Elton is flattered.

"Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear." - Mark 4:9

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

UPDATE:

I had been wondering why Trump was suddenly coming down hard on China over coronavirus and assumed it was just because he was trying to deflect criticism, but now I'm thinking there was more to it than that.  He knew what Bolton's book would say about him being China's bitch.

There ought to be a law

Jesus fucking Christ, this guy is the fucking Secretary of Defense.

The whole administration is a bunch of toadies doing a batshit narcissist's bidding.

UPDATE 8pm:

UPDATE:

"Could have been."  Some people have no pride.

It never hurts to know more

Educate yourself.

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

Because you can't trust US

The White House has given the green light to a Turkish offensive into northern Syria, moving US forces out of the area in an abrupt foreign policy change that will in effect abandon Washington’s longtime military partners, the Kurds.

  Guardian

What did the Kurds do to deserve this?

Kurdish forces have spearheaded the campaign against Islamic State in the region, but the policy swerve, after a phone conversation between Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday, means Turkey would take custody of captured Isis fighters, the White House said.

And what did Trump get in return? Or is that phone call buried in the code-word server?

Footage aired on Kurdish news agency Hawar purportedly showed US armoured vehicles evacuating key positions near the towns of Ras al-Ayn and Tal Abyad in the border region. Erdogan himself also confirmed the development in remarks to reporters on Monday morning in Ankara.

[...]

A statement from the Turkish foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, said that Ankara had “supported the territorial integrity of Syria since the beginning of the crisis and will continue to do so … [We are] determined to ensure survivability and security of Turkey by clearing the region from terrorists. We will contribute to bringing safety, peace and stability to Syria.”

Something tells me that will be done by increasing military activity. You have to destroy the village to save it.

The decision represents the latest in a series of erratic moves by Trump, who is fighting impeachment at home, apparently taken without consultation with, or knowledge of, US diplomats dealing with Syria, or the UK and France, the US’s main international partners in the country.

There's a surprise. He's going to take the world down with him.

Brett McGurk, a former US special envoy for the fight against Isis, said: “The White House statement tonight on Syria after Trump spoke with Erdoğan demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of anything happening on the ground.

McGurk pointed out that the US is not holding any Isis detainees. They are being held by the SDF “which Trump just served up to Turkey”.

“Turkey has neither the intent, desire, nor capacity to manage 60,000 detainees, which State and [Pentagon inspectors general] warn is the nucleus for a resurgent Isis. Believing otherwise is a reckless gamble with our national security,” McGurk warned on Twitter.

[...]

“Today, President Donald J Trump spoke with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey by telephone,” [the White House statement] said. “Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into northern Syria. The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the Isis territorial ‘caliphate’, will no longer be in the immediate area.”

The statement suggested that in return for US acquiescence in a Turkish offensive, Erdoğan had assured Trump that Turkey would take over the detention of Isis militants captured by the SDF, on the battlefield.

Are we meant to believe that was the only thing Trump got?

The custody of Europeans and other foreign fighters has long been one of Trump’s preoccupations, and he has lambasted European governments for not taking responsibility for their own nationals in Isis’ ranks.

[...]

Syria experts have warned that the US abandonment of the SDF would lead to another, new front in the eight-year Syrian conflict, and could push the Kurds into seeking an arrangement with the Assad regime in Damascus. The Kurdish leadership has long been in talks with Damascus to ensure a level of Kurdish autonomy in north eastern Syria in the event of a US pullout.

Two weeks ago, at the UN general assembly, the US special envoy for the global coalition to defeat Isis, James Jeffrey, stressed that the US had an agreement with Turkey on a safe zone, in recognition of Ankara’s security concerns, that obviated the need for an Turkish incursion.

Which Trump just ripped up with one phone call.

Another outcome of the Trump-Erdoğan call is that the Turkish leader is expected to visit the White House next month.

Trump would like to get to know Turkey's strongman better. He needs dictator friends at this difficult time for him.  I wonder if Erdoğan will bring those body guards with him to beat up protesters again.

UPDATE:




The monster they created is loose, and he's busting up the lab.



UPDATE:

I believe this is called (perhaps unwitting) confirmation

"Somebody", if you're listening...

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

UPDATE:

Senator Chris Murphy also spoke with Zelensky

UPDATE:

Like Giuliani, but not quite as directly, Trump confirms...



"Somebody", if you're listening.

UPDATE:  Ukraine is "ready".

Disgusting twit's disgusting tweets

And he's finally heard he's in more trouble...

Zero for 21??



Right.  So you'll be releasing a transcript?



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

Washington Post reporting the whistleblower complaint is indeed about Ukraine

A whistleblower complaint about President Trump made by an intelligence official centers on Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the matter, which has set off a struggle between Congress and the executive branch.

Two and a half weeks before the complaint was filed, Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, [...] who was elected in a landslide in May.

[...]

That call is already under investigation by House Democrats who are examining whether Trump and his attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani sought to manipulate the Ukrainian government into helping Trump’s reelection campaign. Lawmakers have demanded a full transcript and a list of participants on the call.

  WaPo

If there's a reliable transcript, it will be Ukrainian.

“As the 2020 election draws closer, President Trump and his personal attorney appear to have increased pressure on the Ukrainian government and its justice system in service of President Trump’s reelection campaign, and the White House and the State Department may be abetting this scheme,” the chairmen of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees wrote [in letters to the White House and State Department], citing media reports that Trump had threatened to withhold $250 million in aid to help Ukraine in its ongoing struggle against Russian-backed separatists.

[...]

The Democrats’ investigation was launched earlier this month, before revelations that an intelligence official had lodged a complaint with the inspector general.

Before revelations to the public? Perhaps the IG tipped off the Dems?

On Thursday, the inspector general testified behind closed doors to members of the House Intelligence Committee about the whistleblower’s complaint.

Over the course of three hours, Michael Atkinson repeatedly declined to discuss with members the content of the complaint, saying he was not authorized to do so.

This administration just keeps refusing to testify to Congress, which, as I understand it, is a Constitutional matter, and why Congress just keeps letting them go without consequences is beyond me.

He and the members spent much of their time discussing the process Atkinson followed, the statute governing his investigation of the complaint and the nature of an “urgent concern” that he believed it represented, according to a person familiar with the briefing, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

[...]

Atkinson made clear that he disagreed with a lawyer for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, who had contradicted the inspector general and found that the whistleblower complaint did not meet the statutory definition of an urgent concern because it involved a matter not under the DNI’s jurisdiction.

[...]

In a Sept. 17 letter to intelligence committee leaders, Atkinson wrote that he and Maguire “are at an impasse” over how the whistleblower could contact the congressional committees. Ordinarily, a matter of urgent concern that the inspector general deems credible is supposed to be forwarded to the intelligence oversight panels in the House and Senate.

[...]

Atkinson wrote that he had requested permission from Maguire to inform the congressional intelligence committees about the general subject matter of the complaint, but was denied.

[...]

Maguire, Atkinson wrote, had consulted with the Justice Department, which determined that the law didn’t require disclosing the complaint to the committee because it didn’t involve a member of the intelligence community or “an intelligence activity under the DNI’s supervision.”

Barr's DOJ sure is creative.

Atkinson told lawmakers that he disagreed with that analysis [...] and also that it was urgent “in the common understanding of the word,” the person said.

Atkinson told the committee that the complaint did not stem from just one conversation, according to two people familiar with his testimony.

Following the meeting, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the committee, warned of legal action if intelligence officials did not share the whistleblower complaint.

I bet they're real scared.

Schiff described acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire’s refusal to share the complaint with Congress as “unprecedented” and said he understood the Justice Department was involved in that decision.

[...]

Someone, Schiff said, “is trying to manipulate the system to keep information about an urgent matter from the Congress … There certainly are a lot of indications that it was someone at a higher pay grade than the director of national intelligence.”

Let's see....who's at a higher pay grade than the director of national intelligence?

Maguire is scheduled to testify before the Intelligence Committee in a public session next Thursday.

I think we know how that will turn out.

It's way past time to impeach Trump, et al.

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

UPDATE:



UPDATE:

Like Giuliani, but not quite as directly, Trump confirms...



"Somebody", if you're listening.

America is broken

As the president’s top aides prepared for a high-stakes meeting on the future of Afghanistan earlier this month, one senior official was not on the original invite list: national security adviser John Bolton.

[...]

Eventually, Bolton secured a spot at the meeting after one of his aides appealed to White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, according to a U.S. official. During the meeting, Bolton and the president exchanged opposing views over policy options on Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.

[...]

The attendance of the top security aide would normally be critical, but the omission was no mistake, senior U.S. officials said. Bolton, who has long advocated an expansive military presence around the world, has become a staunch internal foe of an emerging peace deal aimed at ending America’s longest war, the officials said.

His opposition to the diplomatic effort in Afghanistan has irritated President Trump, these officials said, and led aides to leave the National Security Council out of sensitive discussions about the agreement.

  WaPo

It's good Trump disagrees with Bolton on the issue, but is this how you handle such a situation? Christ.

The fight over Afghanistan represents just one of several clashes between Bolton and other members of the administration, with several new ones on the horizon.

On Monday, Trump expressed a willingness to a meet with Iran’s president, ruled out any plans for regime change in the country and said discussions were underway to see if other nations could extend a “letter of credit” to bolster Iran’s ailing economy. Bolton for years has spoken in support of regime change in Iran and has pressed for more sanctions even as the risk of military conflict between the two adversaries grows.

[...]

In a recent standoff, Bolton asked for a copy of the draft agreement the United States is trying to strike with the Taliban. But the U.S. envoy leading the negotiations, Zalmay Khalilzad, denied the request, saying Bolton could read the agreement in the presence of a senior official but not leave with it in hand, U.S. officials said.

[...]

On Thursday, Trump said in a Fox News interview that he plans to draw down the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 8,600 and “then we make a determination from there as to what happens.” Bolton is not fighting that partial withdrawal decision, but U.S. officials said he remains deeply opposed to Khalilzad’s emerging deal. The agreement would see the partial removal of U.S. troops in exchange for the Taliban renouncing al-Qaeda and preventing the group from recruiting, fundraising, training and other activities.

And they're going to go for that?

U.S. officials also expect the agreement to advance talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government and an eventual cease-fire that would lead to a full U.S. and NATO withdrawal possibly by the end of next year. They have conceded that thorny questions about a residual U.S. counterterrorism presence remain unresolved. Khalilzad continued negotiations with Afghan and Taliban officials this week, but any agreement will require Trump’s final approval.

[...]

Despite his differences with Trump, [Bolton] has found a way to achieve some of his lifelong goals, defunding various United Nations organizations and ripping up international treaties he views as a constraint on American power, such as the Reagan-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. He has also had a leading role on Russia policy, holding several meetings with his Russian counterpart Nikolai Patrushev in Moscow and elsewhere.

[...]

Trump is expected to make a decision on the path forward on Afghanistan in the coming days as he aims to fulfill a promise of ending America’s “endless wars.”

We may finally get out of Afghanistan simply because that's the only campaign promise he's able to keep in time for the 2020 election.

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