Thanks Binoy,

Don't we all love a circus ?! Maybe not all of us .....

Some more exciting news from the new Barnum & Bailey's:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=9191

Trumpf must surely be the most misunderstood and mistreated president in US history, maybe in all of world history. Treated worse than Kennedy, Lincoln, Richard III, Julius Caesar (but who knows yet ?), Mithradates, and all of those kings in the Old Testament who were captured, skinned and hung from trees, like the king of Aa.

And every day brings new surprises :). Wouldn't be dead for quids !

Joe

Over the last few decades in theology if you wanted to deny truth, twist Scripture or promote perversion instead of looking for a true believer to defend/argue the truth you would employ a 'scholar'. Often the term 'scholar' is a cover for heretic. You find them many in religious departments of national broadcasters and theological colleges. Same seems to have happened with politics. Scholar is suppose to be a specialist, not someone blinded by their own failed narratives. Binoy's TDS on display yet again.

Trump only has a Bolton problem among those who choose to believe Bolton's fairy-tales.

And those people would never be Trump supporters anyhow...thus no problem for Trump.

Hi Binoy

Fact Check.

Many of the claims made by Bolton are said to be false ... by many people who were in the room. Notable is Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, who said 'in many matters and discussions Bolton was deliberately excluded because he leaked, twisted things and did things contrary to the administrations objectives.'

A white ant.

Many of Boltons past claims congratulating Trump's great foreign policy success are contradicted by Bolton, in his book, where many of his current claims disparage Trump's foreign policy successes.
Take your pick, but Bolton is contradicting himself.

Inconsistant.

Not all discussions have been claimed to be classified. What is classified is any material that would expose US Agencies methods and expose contacts. That might not necessarily mean naming names or processes but discussion of the basis on which decisions were made might inadvertently reveal those methods or contacts.
Bolton would know that.

A possible security risk.

It will be the Department of Justice, Bill Barr, who will determine if Bolton broke the law in relation to classified material.
it won't be Trump or an Archieve analyst like Kornbluh, nor as you suggest the CIA.

While the Department of Justice failed to stop the publication of Bolton's book, it can still prosecute and, in my opinion, likely succeed in prosecuting Bolton for breaching the relevant laws.

Boltons focus or Hong Kong was, in the grander scheme of relations with china, meddling in China's internal affairs. Worthy of rebuke .. but a twitter campaign? really?

Only anti Trumpers sees Trump as 'a Star Struck lover of authoritarianism'.

Every President , in their first term, 'has an eye on' re-election. In this regard rump however has focused on filfiulling his previous election promises
.
Please quote circumstances, with evidence, where Trump corruptly sundered the Office of President.
While it is not your claim, you have repeated that claim without proof. ie. repeated it as an unsupported aspersion. Ok but you did not say that it was such.

You as an academic should know better, and I think you do.

Slippery Binoy...

'

yep those with TDS will always make up their own truth to be the 'truth' they still want it to be. CNN spent 3 years lying about Russian collusion followed by Ukraine collusion. Now they blame the virus on China on him. Really being on the democrat side requires having a badge of lying consistently.

Bolton is more than likely one of the first Dominos & as such the rest can't afford to let him topple for obvious reasons !

There were reportedly 2 million invitations sent out for attendees at/to the Trump rally?

If those who showed are indicative of current support? Then bring on the November elections.

And see runner's most recent commentary proved, just not as he/she obviously envisaged?

But hey, That's the hugely divided USA, so expected the entirely unexpected, like say, a late run by Bernie and a win against all the odds?
Alan B.

mhaze,
>Trump only has a Bolton problem among those who choose to believe Bolton's fairy-tales.
Unfortunately for Trump, people who believe fairy tales are his base.

So what if a million phony requests were sent in ? The people who genuinely wanted to turn up would have turned up, regardless.

In fact, if they had been told that a million people might come, surely they would have been even more enthusiastic about turning up ?

How many did turn up eventually ? Around 6,200.

Bring on the elections :)

Joe

“Organizing for Action” (OFA).
Just received an email about this organisation headed by former POTUS Obama.One of the lines in this lengthy report says;
OFA is behind the strategic and tactical implementation of the resistance to the Trump Administration that we are seeing across America, and politically active courts are providing the leverage for this revolution

“Trump is very similar. He just fired all of the inspectors general who were put into place to monitor corruption and malfeasance in executive offices. They were beginning to inquire into this fetid swamp that he’s created in Washington, so he fired them all. And like any tin-pot dictator, he went out of his way to humiliate the senior Republican senator, Charles Grassley, who had spent his career setting this system in implementation. Not a peep from the Republican Party. They’ve disappeared as a party. It’s worse than the old Communist Party. The leader gives an order; we [fall] on our knees.”

“There has never been a figure in political history who was so passionately dedicated to destroying the projects for organized human life on earth in the near future.”
“That is not an exaggeration. People are focused now on the protests; the pandemic is serious enough that we will emerge from it at terrible cost. The cost is greatly amplified by the gangster in the White House, who has killed tens of thousands of Americans, making this the worst place in the world [for the coronavirus]. We will emerge [from the pandemic, but] we’re not going to emerge from another crime that Trump has committed, the heating of the globe. The worst of it is coming — we’re not going to emerge from that.”

“Take Richard Nixon. Pretty rotten guy, but when the time came that he had to leave office, he left office quietly. Nobody is expecting that with Trump. He doesn’t act like a human being. He’s off somewhere else. He [doesn’t] even make appointments that can be confirmed by the Senate. Why bother? I don’t like somebody, I’ll throw them out. One Republican, Lisa Murkowski, dares to raise a small question about his nobility, [and he] came down on her with a ton of bricks — I’m going to destroy you.
It’s not fascism. It’s what I said before: tin-pot dictator of some small country where they have coups every couple of years. That’s the mentality.”
http://jacobinmag.com/2020/06/noam-chomsky-donald-trump-coronavirus-george-floyd-protest

Individual,

Christ, I would hope so, that as many people as possible are concerned about the direction that the US is going, i.e. down the plug-hole. Thank god for patriots like Obama, I wish them and the US well.

Joe

From the other side of he aisle Republican Steve Schmidt,

"Donald Trump has been the worst president this country has ever had. And I don't say that hyperbolically. He is. But he is a consequential president. And he has brought this country in three short years to a place of weakness that is simply unimaginable if you were pondering where we are today from the day where Barack Obama left office. And there were a lot of us on that day who were deeply skeptical and very worried about what a Trump presidency would be. But this is a moment of unparalleled national humiliation, of weakness.
"When you listen to the President, these are the musings of an imbecile. An idiot. And I don't use those words to name call. I use them because they are the precise words of the English language to describe his behavior. His comportment. His actions. We've never seen a level of incompetence, a level of ineptitude so staggering on a daily basis by anybody in the history of the country whose ever been charged with substantial responsibilities."

"It's just astonishing that this man is president of the United States. The man, the con man, from New York City. Many bankruptcies, failed businesses, a reality show, that branded him as something that he never was. A successful businessman. Well, he's the President of the United States now, and the man who said he would make the country great again. And he's brought death, suffering, and economic collapse on truly an epic scale. And let's be clear. This isn't happening in every country around the world. This place. Our place. Our home. Our country. The United States. We are the epicenter. We are the place where you're the most likely to die from this disease. We're the ones with the most shattered economy. And we are because of the fool that sits in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk."

These people are telling it as it is and people are finally waking up.

'Thank god for patriots like Obama, I wish them and the US well.'

if ever anyone needed evidence of TDS syndrome Joe provides clear evidence.

An excellent essay Binoy.

Nothing like stirring Trump's OLO Troglodytes :)

Even these Trogs will agree its undeniable President Trump of the "high IQ" boast likes to win.

Trump's such a winner that he’s won the Russian Intelligence Award for Russia’s Most Valuable Agent of Influence, with special mention for "Damage to American Democracy" and "Trashing the Western Alliance”.

For Russia's best agents, involved in Operation Trump, The Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" and even the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_St._Andrew are insufficient.

Each Russian has been awarded the ultimate accolade, “Hero of Trump's Dump”.

More see: http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2020/06/trump-russias-top-agent-of-influence.html

Binoy missed a few gems about Trump here: http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2020/06/donald-trump-does-have-incredibly-high.html

Cheers

Pete,

One problem for whoever comes after Trumpf in January is that he's filled his own fetid swamp with his cronies and fellow-crooks and driven out anybody with integrity, that it may take some time to restore some sort of competent and sober administration, in order to slowly regain world moral leadership again.

DTS ! Drain the Trumpf Swamp ! ASAP !

Joe

Hi Joe

Yes if Biden wins and as with any change in Presidency, the 1,000s of political appointments know they will be replaced.

Many of Trump's own troglodytes, that so many OLO commenters look up to, will eventually do time in the gaols they belong.

Another thought - will Trump pardon Assange for Wikileak's Democrat dirt digging support for Trump's 2016 (and 2020?) campaigns?

Cheers

Pete

What's the Australian equivalent of OFA ?

Hi individual

Nothing as organised as the “Organizing for Action” (OFA), I reckon.

Maybe Australia's ABC and other federal public servants loose groupings perhaps?

More information about OFA is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizing_for_Action

OFA is "A nonprofit and community organizing project that advocates for the agenda of former U.S. President Barack Obama. The organization is officially non-partisan, but its agenda and policies are strongly allied with the Democratic Party.

It is the successor of Obama's 2012 re-election campaign and of Organizing for America, which itself succeeded Obama's 2008 campaign.

Founded after Obama's re-election, the group seeks to mobilize supporters in favor of Obama's legislative priorities. OFA is registered as a 501(c)(4) organization, which may advocate for legislation but is prohibited from specifically supporting political candidates.

Chairman Jim Messina (Obama's 2012 campaign manager) and Michelle Obama announced the formation of OFA on January 18, 2013. White House official Jon Carson left the Obama administration to become the executive director. Campaign senior adviser David Axelrod serves as a consultant.

Funding

Jim Messina has stated that the group would not be accepting corporate donations and would disclose donation amounts, and OFA executive director Jon Carson and Messina have both stated that OFA is a non-partisan, grassroots issue advocacy group.

In March 2013, OFA said that it would begin to publish its donors list (including donation amounts) on a quarterly basis.

In May 2014, the organization halved its staff and announced that it would stop requesting large contributions."

COMMENT

But OFA may now have grown again in membership and funding to fix Trump.

Cheers

Steele

Fact: it is the US President's prerogative to appoint or dismiss all the Federal Prosecutors.

They actually work for him.

They are not part of the third arm of the system of the separation of power, ie The Judiciary.

All Presidents, Republican or democrats, have replaced Prosecutors who work against them. It is not part of the accepted role of Federal Prosecutors to oversee the activities of Presidents or as it is known The Executive Arm of Government.

. That role is, as we have seen for the last couple of years, the Congress, through Impeachment.

Ignorance based commentary about Trump and of the US system doesn't help you anti Trumpers. It undermines you.

Plantagent,
Over many years of written and oral debate, both formal or informal, I have come to have attained a little wisdom.

An area for you to improve upon, in presenting your view, you might drop your intemperate language in referring to those with who you disagree.

It, like Binoy's and Steele's, obvious paucity of knowledge of facts and reliance on unsubstantiated assertions, does not help convince people of the righteousness of your case.

These act against convincing not only those who do not share your view, but also those who might be wavering or uninterested.

Such tactic's resound of shrillness and win no friends

Sorry about the lecture but you would improve the prospects of convincing readers or listeners, if you followed this good sense, in debate.

Dear imajulianutter,

To paraphrase your good self;

'Ignorance based commentary about Trump and of the US system doesn't help you Trumpers. It undermines you.'

My first post was a quote from Chomsky. Apologies if that wasn't clear. It did not mention Federal Prosecutors at all, nor have I.

You appear to be confusing Federal Prosecutors with Inspectors General who are independent, nonpolitical law enforcement officers.

“In the United States, an inspector general leads an organization charged with examining the actions of a government agency, military organization, or military contractor as a general auditor of their operations to ensure they are operating in compliance with generally established policies of the government, to audit the effectiveness of security procedures, or to discover the possibility of misconduct, waste, fraud, theft, or certain types of criminal activity by individuals or groups related to the agency's operation, usually involving some misuse of the organization's funds or credit.”
Wikipedia

Other presidents have fired the odd Inspector General but the only one who tried it wholesale was Reagan and he pulled back after stiff opposition.

Obama did dismiss one, the Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service in 2009.

But Trump recently fired the inspector general of the State Department, one of many.

He got rid of the Intelligence Community inspector general, “whose release of a CIA employee’s whistleblower complaint prompted impeachment proceedings.”

He moved aside acting Department of Defense Inspector General Glenn Fine and replaced him with one of the White House Counsel who helped with his impeachment defense.

 The acting inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Resources was “fired after issuing a report critical of the administration’s handling of pandemic testing”.

The Inspectors General were created after Watergate in order to “increase government accountability and prevent waste, fraud and abuse in agencies and programs.”

Obviously a corrupt president would want to silence them through intimidation and firings.

Now hopefully this will give you cause to go and do some basic research rather than inflicting us with “Ignorance based commentary about Trump and of the US system”.

Some good points SteeleRedux, Joe, Alan B., Aidan and individual

Here are some excellent comments from James Palmer's "China Brief" on Trump's many foreign "policy" failings:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/24/trump-administration-division-china-deeper-than-ever-trade-deal-peter-navarro-john-bolton-xinjiang-coronavirus/

"Trump Has Had a Bad Week on China Policy"

"Six months on, the status of the U.S.-China trade deal remains murky. On Monday, U.S. trade advisor and China hawk Peter Navarro called the deal “over” in a TV interview, only to have President Donald Trump contradict him hours later after markets dipped. Trump attempted to put the onus of the breakdown in relations on China, but the state of the global economy makes fulfillment of even the “phase one” terms, which governed the first two years, unlikely.

Meanwhile, in a week that typified the administration’s inconsistent attitude on China, Trump has also doubled down on anti-Chinese racism, repeatedly using a racist term to describe the coronavirus. That gives easy ammunition to Beijing, seeking to position itself as the global defender of the Chinese diaspora against anti-Asian racism stirred by the pandemic. The wild swings coming out of Washington make it difficult to form coherent policy, but they also stir further mistrust in Beijing, where officials find it hard to grasp that the administration can be as chaotic as it is and instead see plots or deceit.

Political revelations. The rhetoric followed the release of former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s book, which alleges that Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him win reelection, sided with Xi on China’s description of its concentration camps for ethnic minorities, and dismissed the plight of the Uighurs in Xinjiang. Trump signed the Uighur Human Rights Act last week after congressional pressure but admitted in an interview that he delayed sanctions in order to push through the trade deal—as FP’s Amy Mackinnon reported last year. Today it emerged that the White House had asked a senator to hold up another China sanctions bill.

'DTS ! Drain the Trumpf Swamp ! ASAP !'

yeah we know Joe replace it with the Clinton connections and Kavanaugh accusers. You really have lost your moral compass. TDS does that to you.

Steele, you are correct, I erred. Thankyou for the polite correction.

IG’s are similar to Prosecutors.
They are appointed by presidents. They are his employees.
It is not their task to investigate him or his administration. Their task is limited to inspecting the activities within the agency they oversee.

If they are showing political bias then they would’ve expected to be sacked.

Given the state of many of the US Agencies where many jare filled with the deep state actors similar to Comey and his swamp mates, there is a fair chance they would’ve been acting against the administration and not genuinely overseeing as they should.

Trump did promise to ‘Drain the Swamp’. This is part of his manifesto ... approved by the US voters.

There is a council of IG’s with oversight of Integrity and efficiency and more broadly holds a government to account. None have been sacked.,

Trumps actions are reasonable, given the disgraceful actions of the Democrats and other deep state actors during the last 4 years.

The fact is despite 4 years of investigation and allegation nowhere has Trump been found to be corrupt or dictatorial, by anyone.

Obviously politically motivated IGs should be sacked for not doing their job properly and wasting everybody’s time on a presidential witch-hunt.

Runner,

That's either-or thinking: of course, I take for granted that draining any swamp means that pretty soon there's no swamp - that mechanisms are put in place, checks and balances, like the Federalist planners intended, which hinder the development of any swamp, any appointment of cronies and family members, and that can at least partly ensure any appointments are totally transparent.

Frankly, as an Australian I don't really care who wins elections or gets appointed in the US, AS LONG AS they are competent and not corrupt (so setting a high bar, admittedly) and that their election or appointment is open to scrutiny.

Of course, it's your right to believe otherwise, and to champion the re-election of an incompetent and corrupt sleaze-bag like Trompf, if his moral standards match yours :)

Joe

'Of course, it's your right to believe otherwise, and to champion the re-election of an incompetent and corrupt sleaze-bag like Trompf, if his moral standards match yours :)'

you obviously have recently become concerned about US corruption after 8 years of Obama. As I said before Joe, hatred blinds. You certainly prove that. I doubt also that you are in a position to judge my moral standards but feel free as I doubt your compass is accurate.

Well said Joe :)

____________________________________

More of James Palmer's excellent Foreign Policy article http://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/24/trump-administration-division-china-deeper-than-ever-trade-deal-peter-navarro-john-bolton-xinjiang-coronavirus/

"Divided team. There have always been factions within Trump’s administration on China: the business-first approach of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin; the racism of advisors such as Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon; the full-blown hawkishness of Navarro; the human rights-led policy of Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger.

As Bolton’s book shows, Trump—who has praised the 1989 Tiananmen massacre as showing “strength” couldn’t give a damn about human rights in China.

As in the rest of his foreign policy, personal need and flattery have shaped [Trump's] attitude toward Beijing."

Runner,

So you do believe otherwise ? Or would you propose a third alternative to probity and honesty on one hand, and croneyism and incompetence on the other ?

Joe

Dear imajulianutter,

My politeness is hopefully always extended to those who do not denigrate those who disagree with their opinions whether specifically or in general.

Trump stripped 5 inspector generals who were leading their departments of their jobs over a 6 week purge. There are more likely to come.

The President gets to nominate people to the role of Inspector General but it is the Senate which ultimately confirms the positions.

Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson did exactly what he was suppose to do by law with the whistle blower complaint he received.

“Not later than the end of the 14-calendar-day period beginning on the date of receipt from an employee of a complaint or information under subparagraph (A), the Inspector General shall determine whether the complaint or information appears credible. Upon making such a determination, the Inspector General shall transmit to the Director a notice of that determination, together with the complaint or information.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3033

Trump called the complaint fake which it demonstrably wasn't and afterwards claimed he had lost faith in Atkinson. How on earth is that preserving the checks and balances of government? Clearly for Trump retaining confidence is protecting him from scrutiny.

Even Republican Senators were concerned. Senator Burr said “"Like any political appointee, the Inspector General serves at the behest of the Executive. However, in order to be effective, the IG must be allowed to conduct his or her work independent of internal or external pressure. It is my hope the next nominee for the role of ICIG will uphold the same important standards laid out by Congress when we created this role”

This is a corrupt and venal politician who had a mandate to make changes which would have benefited many ordinary Americans but instead has looked after himself and his class.

Dear loudmouth2,

runner's particular brand of faux Christianity relies on a deep subservience to an authority figure. Trump messianic projections has runner on his knees in adulation because he pushes buttons directly wired to runner's unconditional worship matrix. Trump Derangement Syndrome writ large.