Usa Thread

[buffalo_bill]

On 2/11/2023 at 11:13 PM, Coss said:

 

 

 

Bubi?

.

Yes

 

Airborne-High-Altitude-Wind-Turbine-1.bmp 611.2 kB · 1 download

 

[Coss]

...    part of his testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, Kahl explained that Iran’s nuclear progress since Donald Trump abandoned the international nuclear agreement has been “remarkable.” The Pentagon official added, “Back in 2018, when the previous administration decided to leave the JCPOA it would have taken Iran about 12 months to produce one bomb’s worth of fissile material. Now it would take about 12 days.”

the article is worth a read

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/scope-trumps-failed-iran-policy-comes-sharper-focus-rcna72927

 

also:

then Trump took office and got to work abandoning the policy for reasons he was never able to explain.

___

 

a few months into Trump’s term in the White House, when the then-president held a lengthy meeting with top members of his team: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary James Mattis, White House National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford. Each of the officials told Trump the same thing: It was in the United States’ interest to preserve the existing JCPOA policy.

The Republican expected his team to tell him how to get out of the international agreement, not how to stick with it. When his own foreign policy and national security advisers told him the policy was working, Trump “had a bit of a meltdown.”

___

 

[Coss]

Trump Picks an Enemy: Us (USA)

The Orange Caligula sides with Russia.

For a moment, set aside the buzz about an impending indictment, bank bailouts, and even how badly your March Madness bracket is doing.

Pay attention to this. Please.

Because on Earth 2.0, this would be the stuff of endless news cycles and nightmares. 

Here is Donald Trump channeling Kremlin propaganda, siding with Russia, even as he declares that our real enemy is . . . other Americans.

Despite the wishcasting punditry, the magical thinking of his rivals, and the fervent hopes of the Hollow Men of the GOP, this man is the presumptive nominee of the Republican party, and therefore possibly the next president of the United States. (The DeSantis bubble hasn’t burst. But it’s leaking.)

I don’t mean to alarm you. You should be alarmed.

Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 @RonFilipkowski

Trump says Russia is not a threat, our greatest threat is our American representatives, we need to reevaluate the purpose of NATO, and most of the people in the State Dept, DOD and Intel Services need to be fired so he can put the right people in. https://t.co/T6FCjIqMtr

7:17 PM ∙ Mar 16, 2023

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1,791Likes438Retweets

Let’s break this down:

 

*The Purge

 

TRUMP: The State Department, the defense bureaucracy, the intelligence services, and all of the rest need to be completely overhauled and reconstituted to fire the Deep Staters and put America first. 

We have to put America first. 

At a time of growing international tension, the former president is threatening a massive purge of the nation’s defense infrastructure. He proposes dismantling — and completely overhauling — the Defense Department, the nation’s intelligence agencies (our eyes and ears), and the country’s foreign policy capabilities.

Mass firings, the loss of centuries of experience. A purge of independent, adult voices, and anyone else who might tell the new president “no.”

More important though, after the purge of the “Deep Staters,” he would “reconstitute” the country’s destroyed defenses, presumably by stacking the agencies with his own loyalists.

All while Russia advances, China rattles sabers, and the Middle East boils.

*Dumping NATO

 

TRUMP: Finally, we have to finish the process we began under my administration of fundamentally reevaluating NATO's purpose and NATO's mission.

Don’t assume he’s bluffing.

His former national security director, John Bolton, has said that Trump would have pulled the United States out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization if he been re-elected in 2020. Via the Wapo:

During his presidency, Trump frequently sought to undermine the alliance, accusing its members of being “delinquents” and repeatedly telling aides he wanted to leave it. According to the New York Times, Trump told his top national security officials that he did not understand why the military alliance existed, and often described it as a drain on the U.S.

Retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, one of Trump’s former chiefs of staff, has also been described as saying that “one of the most difficult tasks he faced with Trump was trying to stop him from pulling out of NATO.”

For Putin, this would be a gift beyond the dreams of even his avarice. In other words: Make Russia Great Again.

*Blame America First

 

TRUMP: Our foreign policy establishment keeps trying to pull the world into conflict with a nuclear armed Russia, based on the lie that Russia represents our greatest threat.

Compare and contrast this line to a propaganda bleat from the Kremlin. Indistinguishable.

Once again, he blames America, not Russia. Trump accuses the U.S. “foreign policy establishment” of lying about Russia because it is trying to “pull the world into a conflict with a nuclear armed Russia.”

It is we who are the warmongers, trying to foment WWIII. It is the United States — not Putin — who is risking nuclear war. 

And, even as he suggests we should fear Putin’s wrath, he downplays the danger of a country waging a genocidal war against its neighbor.

*Our real enemy: other Americans

 

TRUMP: But the greatest threat to Western civilization today is not Russia… it is probably, more than anything else, ourselves and some of the horrible, USA-hating people that represent us.

Here we get the nub of Trump’s message. We should not fear Putin or Russia… but, rather, ourselves. Or, rather, we should fear other Americans.

Our real enemy is one another. 

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the essence of Trumpism. The Divider in Chief.

**

“If a Democratic president were to say these things—dismissing Russia as a threat, cowering before China, preaching moral equivalence, and blaming America for Russia’s war—every Republican presidential candidate would denounce that president as a gutless, soulless, Putin-loving traitor,” Will Saletan wrote this week. He was talking about Ron DeSantis, but how much more does it apply to the former president himself?

So far, though, Republicans have been reluctant to push back against the Orange Caligula himself. As our Joe Perticone noted in his newsletter Thursday:

It didn’t seem to matter to Republican critics of DeSantis that Trump not only advocates the same stance but was even impeached for withholding aid to Ukraine for political reasons—potentially encouraging Putin to see Zelensky as enjoying something less than full American support in the years leading up to the invasion.

Focusing their criticism on DeSantis allows these Republicans to attack a policy they wholeheartedly disagree with without incurring the wrath of their party’s 2024 frontrunner and de facto leader.

But it is hard to overstate what a departure this is from what the GOP once stood for. Writes David French:

Whereas Reagan was a man of strength, confidence and clarity in the face of a daunting military threat, DeSantis and Trump represent weakness, insularity and moral ambiguity in the face of a weaker power. Forty years after Reagan’s defiance, DeSantis and Trump personify the G.O.P.’s descent…

In the face of daunting odds, Reagan projected strength and moral clarity. Now, when NATO is clearly stronger than Russia, DeSantis and Trump project moral confusion and profound timidity.

**

Over at Defense One, Kevin Baron asks: “Who Else Would Trump and DeSantis Abandon?”

Well, now we know that Ron DeSantis won’t defend Europeans from Vladimir Putin’s war. Not to the end, at least. Neither would Donald Trump, as he’s made clear. 

Why then should anyone—especially their hawkish fellow Republicans—think that, if elected president, either of them would defend Taiwan from China? 

Their reticence to commit arms to stop an invasion on NATO’s borders invites even more unsettling questions. What about Australia? How about Japan? How about NATO’s eastern countries? Would they be willing to sign the orders for American soldiers to deploy and defend any U.S. allies? 

**

The good news: Despite some premature obituaries, conservatives have not yet completely surrendered. Based on past experience, it’s true, Republicans may fall into line behind the Appeasement Caucus.

But that hasn’t happened yet. And this is a fight worth having.

https://morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/trump-picks-an-enemy-us

[Coss]

and remember the meetings? 

 

 

 

 

 

[zzzz]

Justice is catching up to Trump. The latest is that Trump will be indicted next week. He will have to go in to get a mug shot and be finger printed.

According to Jimmy Carter, plutocracy has gotten so bad in the US that people were willing to take a chance on anyone new, like Trump, in hopes that things will turn around. But that is not what happened. One of the first things Trump did when he got into office was to cut taxes for the rich and support plutocracy.

 

 

[Coss]

I reckon this week coming will be good TV.

Trump is due to be indicted as you say, and he's already saying he's "gonna be arrested" and asking his supporters to "PROTEST PROTEST PROTEST ".

My money is on, a few dozen idiots outside wherever the court is.

_____

Writing from his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, Trump surprised his advisers by posting an all-caps message on his Truth Social platform Saturday morning that declared he “WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” His language, along with a fundraising pitch sent out by his 2024 presidential campaign, echoed rhetoric that Trump used in advance of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by his supporters.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/03/18/trump-protest-arrest-new-york/

_____

"PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!" he added, in an ominous echo of the words that preceded the deadly January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

He followed up in a second all-caps post, writing, "IT'S TIME!!!"

"WE JUST CAN'T ALLOW THIS ANYMORE," Trump wrote. "THEY'RE KILLING OUR NATION AS WE SIT BACK & WATCH. WE MUST SAVE AMERICA!PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!"

https://news.yahoo.com/time-trump-calls-supporters-protest-173042971.html

_____

[Mekong]

12 hours ago, Coss said:

My money is on, a few dozen idiots outside wherever the court is

More than a few dozen I reckon, strange a man accused of inciting a riot (Capitol Riots) making comments which could be construed of inciting a riot this week.

You’ll need a large bowl of popcorn 

[Coss]

 

[zzzz]

 

[Coss]

555

We all know who Tucker Carlson is right? Amongst some of his rantings are:  those that decry Hunter Biden and his laptop.

The following is from: The Guardian May 2022.

Tucker Carlson tried to use Hunter Biden to get his son into Georgetown

...As Tucker Carlson asked Hunter Biden for help getting his son into an elite Washington university in 2014, the Fox News host’s wife, Susie, reportedly wrote in an email: “Tucker and I have the greatest respect and admiration for you. Always!”...

...The existence of emails about getting Buckley Carlson into Georgetown has been known for some time, thanks to a laptop once owned by Hunter Biden that was obtained by Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and pushed to media in 2020...

... “The story here is that Tucker Carlson is the living embodiment of the unearned, privileged elitism that Tucker Carlson derides on his show every night. The Hunter Biden part is just gravy.”...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/19/tucker-carlson-hunter-biden-georgetown-emails

So that's why the contents of the Hunter Biden Laptop has not been made public, too much embarrassing stuff on there for the GOP.