We have put a great team together for our talks with North Korea. Meetings are currently taking place concerning Summit, and more. Kim Young Chol, the Vice Chairman of North Korea, heading now to New York. Solid response to my letter, thank you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2018
And, as long as I'm reading Trump's Twitter feed, this is rich:
Democrats mistakenly tweet 2014 pictures from Obama’s term showing children from the Border in steel cages. They thought it was recent pictures in order to make us look bad, but backfires. Dems must agree to Wall and new Border Protection for good of country...Bipartisan Bill!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2018
ADDED: Here's a link to a PJ Media story if you need background on that second tweet. Attackers of Trump made a photo go viral and then it turned out the photo was from the Obama era.
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39 comments:
Q (Eric Trump) has not provided any messages for about a week.
I'l care about the 2014 Obama era pictures when Joy Reid denounces them.
Trump is dragging the entire left wing establishment along behind him.
It is amazing that he gets as much done as he does.
With all the torpedoes circling back; you'd think progressives would stop putting them in the water.
Silly Democrats.
Never challenge Trump to a "steel cage" match.
"!Trump is dragging the entire left wing establishment along behind him."
Esp liked the faux outrage about those photos of illegal immigrant children - that turned out to have been taken during the Obama Administration.
"It is amazing that he gets as much done as he does."
After Korea, I expect that something will be done about Iran. I think that there is a definite chance to flip it away from clerical control over the next several years. Probably some missed chances while our govt was run by dithering Obama and Iranian born Valerie Jarrett. Many of the city dwellers want the days of the Shah back, when the women could dress in Paris fasions, instead of black tents, head to toe (even some talk about restoring his grandson to his throne). The theological center of Shi'a Islam seems to be shifting west to Iraq, as Muslim religiosity seems to be cratering in urban Iran, thanks to the intertwining of religion and authoritarian government there. Of course, there will likely be blood, as the Mullahs import their shock troops from the countryside to beat the cities back into submission. The end of the regime could come quickly there, and if it does, then there is a decent chance that the Middle East will be one at least a little more peaceful, without Iran stirring things up as they have increasingly done (esp with the US under Obama funding them so generously).
After that, what then? Trump has picked a lot of low hanging fruit, esp domestically. It was maybe easier than it should have been, after the inept, but radically leftist, Obama Presidency that had left us mired in his 8 year recession through his and the Dems' feckless economic policies. The problem is that progress will not appear to be as rapid, as a result. Will Trump even bother to run for reelection in two years? Maybe a plodder like Pence might be better at the next four years, and Trump can get back to doing interesting stuff.
It’s Korea’s moment
BTS became the first K-pop act in charts history to top the Billboard 200 as the group’s Love Yourself: Tear opened at Number One. The album sold 135,000 total copies in its debut week, including 100,000 traditional copies, as BTS officially conquered America.
As Billboard notes, Love Yourself: Tear is also the first album sung predominantly in another language – in this case, Korean – to top the Billboard 200 in over 12 - Rolling Stone
Something that came to my mind, as I was writing about Trump maybe solving both the North Korean and the Iranian issues, is that in the lifetimes of most here, the Democratic Presidents leave the world in turmoil, while the Republic can ones leave less major strife when they leave office.
- FDR and Truman - two major wars, Trump possibly finally getting a peace treaty for the second one, 70 years later.
- Eisenhower - 8 years of peace and prosperity.
- JFK and LBJ - Cuban Missle Crisis, Bay of Pigs, Vietnam War.
- Nixon and Ford - ended Vietnam War.
- Carter - Iranian revolution, followed by hostage crisis there.
- Reagan and Bush (41) - fall of Soviet Union, Desert Storm defeat of Iraq
- Clinton - set stage for 9/11 attacks, refused to confront Sadam Hussain.
- Bush (43) - victories in Iraq and Afghanistan
- Obama - pulled out of Iraq, causing vacuum, regime change in Lybia, causing another vacuum, pushed Moslem Britherhood to power in Egypt, then toppled by military, destabilized Syria, but w/o regime change, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of refugees, many of whom immigrated to Europe, threatening western culture there. Etc. Didn't confront N Korea, and subsidized Iranian backed terrorism throughout the Middle East, with $150 billion bribe.
- Trump? So far, reproachment with Saudi Arabia and likely peace talks in Korea. We shall see.
Of course, there will likely be blood, as the Mullahs import their shock troops from the countryside to beat the cities back into submission.
This is where preference cascades come in. Who knew that Nicolae Ceaușescu would go so quickly ?
Authoritarian states look solid but they are fragile. In China, so far, they are making people rich and that buys peace.
Iran might have fallen by now if Obama had not propped them up.
I guess ARM and our resident dullard didn't see this thread.
I guess ARM and our resident dullard didn't see this thread
Those idiot Tweeters using the Obama-era picture of kids in cages reminded me that the "R" in ARM stands for "retarded".
And don't forget. They claimed the photo proved Trump is Hitler. So, logically OBAMA IS HITLER! OBAMA IS HITLER!
There's a second photo from 2014 also making the rounds. It juxtaposes the children of illegal immigrants sitting and lying on the floor of an ICE detention facility with a Holocaust-era photo of what are presumably Jewish children in concentration camp uniforms peering out from behind a barbed wire fence.
Apparently, Godwin's Law is no longer in operation, since multiple retweeters have applauded the explicit comparison of Trump to Hitler.
https://www.facebook.com/ProuDemocrat/photos/a.1776190499331636.1073741829.1695168340767186/2163972883886727/?type=3&theater
Why is it “rich”? That sounds like it is Trump who is bullshitting.
I don’t understand the surprise that the meeting was on again. Was it ever really off? Sometimes it’s like raising kids.
Gee I wonder if this thread will reach 350 comments. Nah. They were told what was going to happen and right now it is. Schmoozing. Get the signatures. Pass out the coins, go home.
This journolist fiasco in evidently going to be an episode in Six Ways from Sunday: The Three Stooges Go to DeafCon One, the hit farce now filming on location in DC and NYC. It's rumored that the movie is a culture test and that preview audience members who laughed were arrested by trained British Social Defense teams and taken to undisclosed locations. It's further rumored that the majority think this detention is an audience participation part of the movie and copy the stiff motions and threats of the guards ["You slags will bloody well be polite."] while the minority keep asking for the "blue pill" - whatever they mean by that.
They actually did this twice over the weekend.
The first one was the one mentioned by the president in his tweet.
The second one was a photo of a bus developed for infants and toddlers (all of the seats were car seats) and represented as recent. The story was from 2016.
They actually did this twice over the weekend.
The first one was the one mentioned by the president in his tweet.
The second one was a photo of a bus developed for infants and toddlers (all of the seats were car seats) and represented as recent. The story was from 2016.
Trump made the judgement that the North Koreans wanted -- needed -- a negotiation way more than we did, and he was right. The left-wing extremists in the news media and Congress, not so much.
Trump's innovation is to bargain with the Norks in the same language they use. Threats of force expressed in hyperbolic language. The way to see what is actually happening is to ignore what is said and concentrate on what is done. Contact with the Norks never ended. All that changed was what Trump said, which changes from second to second. Don't focus on what is said, but on what is done.
Bruce Hayden: "...while the Republic can ones leave less major strife when they leave office."
Autocorrect-o aside, interesting to observe Bush I and II represent the exception to your rule. Bush I and II's confrontations with Deep State implant Saddam Hussein began to fray that 20th Century arrangement American voters had come to trust: Democrat Presidents start wars, Republicans like Ike or Nixon end them.
Here is another example of the left tripping on their own dicks:
Hogg should’ve done his homework before bullying grocery chain. He just burned all his pals on the left
“We would never knowingly disappoint our customers or the communities we serve. As a result, we decided earlier this week to suspend corporate-funded political contributions as we re-evaluate our giving processes,” Publix announced Friday.
The supermarket chain has a record of also contributing to left-wing political organizations including the YWCA, which is a member of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and which supports same-sex marriage. Publix has also previously contributed to United Way chapters and the Susan G. Komen foundation, both of which are vocal supporters of Planned Parenthood.
According to campaign finance records maintained by OpenSecrets.org, the supermarket chain has also donated to six House Democrats and a whopping 13 Senate Democrats this election cycle alone, including feminist Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kristen Gillibrand.
@Bruce Hayden:
I think your summation is interesting for some of the conclusions you seem to have reached and for what was left out.
Clinton - set stage for 9/11 attacks, refused to confront Sadam Hussain.
I am not sure how "refused to confront Sadam Hussain" makes sense. The Clinton administration's sanctions campaign was part of the prelude to the 9/11 attacks. Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act. He bombed the country for several weeks. You also left out some of Clinton's biggest foreign policy blunders (e.g. eastward NATO expansion, nation-building in the Balkans).
- Bush (43) - victories in Iraq and Afghanistan
I honestly believe only someone with a partisan agenda could reach such a bizarre conclusion. When was this "victory" in Afghanistan? Can you name the month and year it occurred and what your metric for "victory" is?
As for the egregious lie that Iraq was ever "won," that meme became ubiquitous on talk radio and cable TV circle precisely to provide an ex post facto defense of the Iraq War blunder. It is repeated with such casualness, it deserves to be confronted every time it is asserted.
By the surge's own standards, it failed. A reduction in violence was not the ends of the surge but the means by which it would achieve its true ends: political reconciliation. The latter never materialized. And the reduction in violent incidents had a great deal to do with (a) the completion of ethnic cleansing in mixed areas around Baghdad and the center of the country, and (b) the so called Anbar Awakening, during which tribal sheikhs turned against insurgent forces (many foreign) and thus denied the insurgency campaign of the local support it thrives on. The surge certainly was a smart tactical change that took account of changes on the ground but on the strategic level the Iraq War remained loss. The government of Iraq never attempted to integrate the fighters of the Anbar Awakening into Iraq's security forces, and many of their remnants would later go on to form part of ISIS.
The SOFA that included a complete troop withdraw was negotiated by the Bush administration. They certainly wanted a residual troop presence, but the negotiations broke down over refusal by the Iraqi government to grant legal immunity to US soldiers. That point had been a major source of protest in Iraq, and obviously the US was not willing to potentially submit their service members to prosecution by Iraq's fledgling, rudimentary judicial system. But imagine for a moment that a small residual troop had been left behind. It is foolish to imagine they could have done much to prevent the rise of ISIS, which rose out of the destabilization of Syria. Even when there were tens of thousands of US troops in Iraq, a violent insurgency was occurring throughout many parts of the country.
- Obama - pulled out of Iraq, causing vacuum, regime change in Lybia, causing another vacuum, pushed Moslem Britherhood to power in Egypt, then toppled by military, destabilized Syria, but w/o regime change, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of refugees, many of whom immigrated to Europe, threatening western culture there. Etc. Didn't confront N Korea, and subsidized Iranian backed terrorism throughout the Middle East, with $150 billion bribe.
Some of this is fare, and some of it isn't. The removal of US troops did not cause a "vacuum" in Iraq. The "vacuum" in Iraq is that it is a pseudo-nation in which its largest constituencies do not want to live together in the same political space. A few thousand US troops are not going to solve that problem. Ever.
The Muslim Brotherhood was not "pushed to power." They were elected by Egyptians who given the choice want to live in an Islamic society. They don't want separation of church and state. It's not the society I would ever want to live in, but luckily I am not Egyptian, and it's not my business.
Libya and Syria are certainly disasters nearly on par with Iraq. But much of the blame for the Syrian quagmire was largely (with US acquiescence) Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, who were the primary backers of Sunni jihadist guerilla fighters in Syria. But also recall the critique's of Obama's policies in these areas from his right. He was criticized for "leading from behind." That is, not taking an even more active approach in Libya. John McCain wanted more arming and support for the Free Syrian Army and a no-fly zone.
North Korean policy was adrift during the Obama administration, but I completely disagree with the assessment of the JCPOA, which I think is a rare positive in Obama's foreign policy.
- Trump? So far, reproachment with Saudi Arabia and likely peace talks in Korea. We shall see.
US-Saudi relations never reached a level before 2018 would require a rapprochement. The US sold Saudi Arabia over a hundred billion dollars in arms under Obama. The NSA began cooperating with their internal security service, and the US backed them in their foolish, destructive war in Yemen. Trump has merely doubled down on all of these (bad) policies.
North Korea remains a potential positive development, but of course nothing substantive has been achieved yet, and the devil is in the details. Cautious optimism and a wait and see attitude are what's called for.
I am not sure how "refused to confront Sadam Hussain" makes sense.
Madeline Halfbright was asked what they did about terrorism. She replied, "Of course we were concerned about terrorism. We had meetings every week about it."
Remember the embassy bombings in Africa ? And the Cole?
Watch the miniseries "The Path to 9/11" now that Disney has finally allowed it to be reproduced. I guess that is proof that Hillary is over, finally.
"As for the egregious lie that Iraq was ever "won," that meme became ubiquitous on talk radio and cable TV circle precisely to provide an ex post facto defense of the Iraq War blunder."
Actually, it became "ubiquitous" when O and Biden needed to rationalize withdrawal.
The actual war was won. The surge was a success. The war against ISIS has been mostly won.
But "reconciliation" did fail. The Iraqi government did not "integrate" the Sunnis. "Mistakes were made" to enable ISIS. The "country" remains a hodgepodge.
Compared to pre-2003, the current situation is better for us and for most of them. But the cost was high.
Social justice adventures including elective regime changes and opening abortion fields are a first-order forcing of immigration reform (e.g. refugee crises, trail of tears) in lieu of emigration reform.
re: Iraq War blunder
Obama's premature evacuation that enabled the progress of Islamic State, followed by global wars from Africa to the Middle East to Asia to Eastern Europe, and, of course, mass immigration reform above and below the Mediterranean, and the people left behind.
And the our "honest and unbiased" reporters deleted the tweet of the kids in the cafe rather than leave any evidence that the Obama Administration ever did anything less than wonderful.
@Michael K:
None of your examples have anything to do with a failure to confront Saddam Hussein. As for terrorism, I also don't think it's fair to say the Clinton administration did not confront the problem. They just failed in their effort. Afghanistan and Sudan were bombed in retaliation less than two weeks after the bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Clinton was also in the last two months of his presidency when the USS Cole was bombed.
@Sebastian:
The actual war was won. The surge was a success. The war against ISIS has been mostly won.
At what point was the war won? By the surge's own definitions of success, it failed.
As for terrorism, I also don't think it's fair to say the Clinton administration did not confront the problem. They just failed in their effort.
You are far too generous. Clinton did his aspirin factor attack as an example of
wagging the dog" so obvious a movie as made of it. The Cole bombing and the barracks bombing in Saudi were almost ignored.
He fired Louis Freeh over a dispute about whether FBI should be involved in investigating.
I know Freeh has been criticized because Ruby Ridge and Waco were on his watch but I think DoJ and BATF were more at fault.
I was not a Bush fan and his nation building has been a fiasco where tried but Al Gore would still be trying to serve an arrest warrant for Osama.
Well. They(Iraq) did hold three elections. Successful by the look of them. certainly free from corruption and ballot box stuffing than say any Chicago election. A low bar I admit, but still.
What are the odds that Senior Adviser Curvy Blonde and her Nancy Boy Husband are on the "team". No tellin how much money can be made in a re-unified Korea.
Hell, I was thinking more of something like a tag-team of B-52s circling that Peeyingyang place. I'm guessing that now we are heading for some nation-building, Trump-style. Prolly the same sitchyation down ere in Vinnyzewayla!
MAGA!
"At what point was the war won?"
With the defeat of Saddam, initially. With the "imposition" of a more democratic system to replace his regime, later.
Two of the stated goals of the war achieved.
"By the surge's own definitions of success, it failed."
Not sure what the surge's "own definitions" mean. But it clamped down on the Sunni uprising, with Sunni help, preventing the falling apart of the country and giving political reconstruction a second chance. That was a modest but real success. Of course, it did not solve all problems in Iraq. And it was only part of a series of moves, including by Iraqi actors, that make attribution of success or failure to a single campaign a bit difficult.
Iraq is an Arab country where the state conducted an election the result of which was a surprise. That counts for something.
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