As George Conway said the other day on Stay Tuned with Preet, Trump’s severe personality disorders are what is behind his disastrous foreign policy decisions. He is interested in one thing: himself. His decisions are driven by what is best for Donald.
I have seen some horrific, heart-wrenching videos on Twitter this weekend. They enrage me. I want to lash out at who is responsible.
Erdogan is responsible, the Turkish military is responsible and Trump is responsible.
But I also don’t want to be swept away by a tide of rage and blinding anger.
I am simply resolved: the only way to help the Kurds, the only way for the US to regain its respectability, the only way we can move forward, is to get Trump to step down. I don’t care how this gets done. We can’t let him further destabilize the world because it’s in his best interests.
And NO, dear Republicans, this situation is not that complicated. Erdogan wanted to push back the Kurds and Trump gave him the green light. The rest was very predictable. Experts predicted it the day Trump let it happen. Some things are not that hard to figure out. And ethnic cleansing is always wrong. Like pedophilia is wrong and rape is wrong. You are allowed and encouraged to let your humanity towards others be your guiding principle.
Talk show hosts come and go. But the world goes on and it only takes a little bit of selflessness on all of our parts to keep it from descending into chaos.
We know that what Trump has done is bad and inexcusable. It is not partisan or disloyal to say so. Otherwise, the message Republicans send to the country and the world is that Trump is the best they can do. He is their alpha and omega.
I said this is a message that Republicans are sending. Americans know that he will never represent us.
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It’s probably not a good idea to get all your news from one source. As before, check out international news services and papers as well to get a good consensus view of what is going on. And keep your eyes on the prize: defenestrating Trump. The videos will be hard to bear.
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
I did not know defenestration was an option! I was hoping for a perp walk, bankruptcy for him and his immediate crime family, and a prison stay in Leavenworth. But that’s just me…
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Donald K. Trump will you please go now?!?
Do we have to open the window first?
Happy 244th to the United States Navy!
Gosh that is a great one!
Isn’t it? Trump owes him for making his phallic symbol in NYC the tallest building after the Twin Towers went down. Or so he said…
At a major sportsbook, Hillary is now fourth favorite to win the Democratic nomination, behind Warren, the even money favorite, Biden, and then Buttigieg is barely ahead of her. She is ahead of Sanders, Kamala, and everyone else. Of course she is not going to run, but it is rather wrenching to see her as fourth favorite when she is not even in the race.
They have Democrats at 6-1 favorites to win the popular vote and a tad better than even money to win the electoral vote. This is a disgrace, it is an archaic system which is an affront to democracy. We could win by 4 million votes, and lose the EC, that’s what the odds are saying, At such a point, the country is essentially unsalvageable. I wonder if people will stop paying taxes, since they are not being represented through their votes.
Trump is certainly a great danger to democracy and stability around the world. The only people with the practical power to remove him, are the Republicans. It appears that massive personal tax cuts and keeping the Democrats out of power are more important to them than the other things. A tiny plus is that maybe the media won’t ever believe the Republicans again when they talk about national security, rule of law, supporting our allies. They did it for a hundred years, and somehow they got labeled “the party of national security,” “the party of law and order,” “the party of values.” People still do, they say, “What happened to the party of national security?” The truth is that they never really were any of what the purported to be. All they did was talk tough about all those things, most particularly when the Democrats were in power. There are tapes about Graham and many of the others blathering about how Clinton should be impeached for lying about sex, and what an awful thing it was, and that Congress has an absolute duty to investigate the Executive Branch. It doesn’t seem to faze them, though. Horses for courses.
William, I don’t think we can count on the media for anything other than making a buck, especially out of tragedy, scandal, and the death of democracy. Investigative journalists will be he last truth tellers but if there aren’t enough truth listeners, there goes the war. I heard yesterday the NYT was at it again with Schweitzer (sp) of Clinton Cash fame. Eric Boehler had some choice words for the NYT for pimping him the first time for his error riddled book. It was said he was pushing the Ukraine/Dem conspiracy this time. Mainlining Fox viewers scare the piss out of me, they are like the walking dead and there are far too many of them.
I was shocked that the sports book has Hillary on the board at all and doing so well. I am sure the media will never mention it because she is such a “loser.” Of course being behind Biden, Buttigieg and Warren is sad, but they are campaigning and she is not. Mika and Co were gushing over Warren’s gay marriage response at a town hall. I thought Warren’s follow up barb about marrying a woman “if you can find one” was a bit too arrogant and condescending. She made her point beautifully, she didn’t have to get insulting and undo it.
I wonder what the odds would be if evidence of trump’s illegitimacy was found and publicized…
Warren thinks she is right about everything. Hillary did not. Hillary has an incomparable grasp of the national and world scene, and is always searching for more facts to make better informed decisions. She would have been a wonderful president, but of course the Republicans and media would never leave her alone to do her job. Warren was a committed Federalist Society Republican, then became a committed very liberal Democrat. I think the biggest problem is that she seems intransigent, she is absolutely sure that she has the answers. As the campaign goes on, she is going to alienate various voters who would prefer more moderate positions on things like M4A. If she would move to a somewhat more centrist position on just some things, it would help, but she will not, it is not her nature. I really am very concerned about her chances to win, as unpopular as Trump is. I wish I were not.
I just saw a headline that a Commission studying the Electoral College, has concluded that it favors Republicans so much that the only fix is to abolish it. But of course Republicans will never allow that. We could well have a country where the minority have gamed the system so well that they have a permanent stranglehold on the wishes of the majority. You cannot have a viable democracy if the majority votes for one candidate, and then the opposite is installed, because of some ridiculous system which makes states more important than voters. A vote is a vote, no matter where it is from in this country. It is possible that this cannot be fixed, even if we were to occasionally win an election. States with very small populations are getting much more than a proportional share of electoral votes. Drastic non-violent measures are needed.
Cats and William,
Not one of the guys running don’t think THEY are right about everything, so don’t single Warren out!
I refuse to attack Warren for not responding to the question about marriage in a “politically correct” way. We’ve been politically correct the last 3 years with trump and he is wreaking havoc everywhere he turns. I never felt Warren was being condisending in her response but simply pushing back against those Christians who harshly judge people who are in same sex marriages. There is no polite way to make the point that the Christian right are wrong to impose their religious beliefs on others.
We talk about who is tough enough to take on trump. As far as I’m concerned Warren is showing us that she is fearless in the face of difficult questions and willing to speak out openly and freely.
You cannot beat trump by playing it safe.
Kathleen, it’s not as if I like any of the men in the race very much, either, though like Cats, I liked Inslee, but he had no chance, just like Bennett, another very decent person. I do like Beto, but apparently he has no chance, either. It is amazing that for all these candidates, we are basically down to two, even before one primary! It is probably the fault of the system set up, where there are so many candidates on the debate stage that the trailing ones really have no chance to move up. If there were five or so candidates, one might make an impression. By the time we get to that, it may be too late, with only people in the top 15% in some states getting delegates, thus eliminating all the votes for the lower-tier candidates, which instead will go to the top two.
As it is right now, Warren is moving ahead, she is the favorite of the voters from the Democratic Lett. The Middle is represented by Biden. No one else has made an impression. No one attacks Warren, and I’m not saying they should, but she should be vetted in terms of positions. Right now, it’s a free ride for her, her fellow Senators do not want to attack her and the fringe candidates like Bullock make no dent, and he is off the stage now, anyway.
I’m just concerned that Warren, who is rather politically doctrinaire, and who has not won any elections outside of Massachusetts, will have real problems when the Republicans, who have been saving their fire, start to run ads painting her as a Socialist who will take away your health care plan, and raise everyone’s taxes. That is not what we need, to have the Democratic candidate on the defensive the whole campaign, but that’s one thing Republicans are good at: witness Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, and then of course the ridiculous email issue. They’ve also got the fact that for some reason, Warren claimed Native American identity on some forms. I don’t care, but they are prepared to turn it into a scandal. Again, I have no problems with Warren winning, it would be rather interesting to see what she would try to do about corporate power.. But I do have great problems if we nominate someone who does not have broad enough appeal outside her regional comfort zone to carry the electoral college, and then we face an unthinkable four more years of Trump, or possibly Pence or Haley.
Bennett is pretty far from being a decent person. Ask any schoolteacher in Colorado.
Kathleen, I was personally objecting to Warren’s snippy response after what I considered a perfect one in answer to the “Bible’s” view on marriage issue. I don’t consider myself to be a PC Policewoman. I just prefer civility and grace to nasty, especially when it serves no purpose. I don’t like Warren but I agree she is a fighter, wicked smart and fast on her feet. However, I agree with William that she is going to piss off a lot of voters and as you know she is already working with a handicap being a woman. Unfair, but true. She can be arrogant and hardheaded which is not a good look on anyone, regardless of gender, and not characteristics I look for in a leader. I doubt that I will vote for her in the primary which is my right. Right now, Klobuchar is my number 1 and Harris my number 2. Inslee was the only male that impressed me and he is gone.
Cats,
I understand your concern that as a woman, she will be held to a higher standard than the guys. Hillary tried to comply with the impossible standard placed on her in 2008 and again in 2016 like some kind of “hair shirt” and she was still not able to please everyone, no matter how much she went against her grain in trying to do it. In fact, after the election, Hillary regretted not turning around and telling trump to “back off you creep” when he was stalking her on the stage during one of the debates (we all remember that!). Unfortunately, at the time, she was worried that people would be upset if she had the nerve to stand up for herself and would think of her as being too aggressive! I’m sick of that outdated towards women and it won’t ever end if we keep enabling it.
I don’t care if Elizabeth doesn’t appear to be concerned about pleasing everyone in how she expresses herself. This time around, I am holding her and all of the women running to the same standard as the men with regard to judging them as being “too this or too that”, while giving the guys a pass for far worse. I am more interested in which candidate has our best interests at heart, are willing to fight for what they believe in and more importantly, fight for us. That ability can only come from a combination of real experience fighting in the trenches, doing your homework and standing your ground. That’s going to require a toughness that is usually not accepted in women and I welcome it.