Mitch McConnell’s Conflict of Interest
October 14, 2018 at 5:37 pm | Posted in Abuse of Office, Conceited, Dysfunctional Politics, Fairness, Presidential election | Leave a commentTags: conflict of interest, Elaine Chao, Merrick Garland, Mitch McConnell, President Chump, Trump, U.S. Constitution
Mitch McConnell at the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo by Gage Skidmore.
Mitch McConnell has a conflict of interest.
Elaine Chao, Trump’s Secretary of the Department of Transportation.
His wife, Elaine Chao, is Secretary of Transportation in President Chump’s Cabinet. Hence she is a member of the Trump Regime.
This explains why McConnell suddenly stopped barking at Trump, and now wags his tail instead.
This is a clear conflict of interest: a member of Congress is the spouse of a member of the executive branch. That undercuts the effectiveness of the Constitution’s deliberate separation of powers, which was intended to have each of the three branches of government prevent abuses and mistakes by the other two branches.
Instead of trying to temper the effects of his conflict of interest, McConnell has embraced them.
When Mitch McConnell refused to do his duty when Merrick Garland was nominated for the Supreme Court, he had abandoned most of his principles, but not all of them.
Now he has abandoned the rest.
Merrick Garland. This photograph was provided to the press by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2016 on the occasion of Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States by US President Barack Obama. At the time Garland was chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, having served as a federal judge on the court since 1997.
The New York Times Should Sue President Chump
October 8, 2018 at 8:08 pm | Posted in Abuse of Office, Conceited, Disinformation, Dysfunctional Politics, Enemies of Freedom, Enemies of Planet Earth | Leave a commentTags: Charles Harder, David A. Fahrenthold, David Barstow, Paul Farhi, President Chump, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner, The New York Times, Trump, Washington Post
Upside-down version of Trump Sr. at Citizens United Freedom Summit in Greenville South Carolina May 2015, photo by Michael Vadon.
President Trump is his official name, but President Chump is his descriptive name.
Chump’s lawyer, Charles Harder, recently threatened that Chump might sue the New York Times for its explosive revelations about Chump’s tax dodges, and those of his father. Tuesday, October 2. David Fahrenthold’s article in the Washington Post is a useful summary, and includes two enlightening videos.
Also galling to Chump was the Times’ evidence that he was not at all a self-made man, but had a huge financial leg up, from his father.
As Paul Farhi notes in an article in the Washington Post, Chump often threatens to sue and then does not sue – exactly the behavior expended of a habitual bully such as himself.
My own reading is that Chump is especially unlikely to sue in this case, because doing so would subject his tax forms to scrutiny by a judge and a jury, and would force the revelation to the public of at least summaries of what he wants to hide.
The shenanigans in Chump’s tax forms are the reason that he never delivered on his repeated promises during the 2016 Presidential campaign that he would release his tax forms.
The New York Times should sue President Chump for libelling the professional integrity and due diligence of its reporters and editors, and the consequent damage the Times’ credibility and reputation, and to the credibility and reputation of the reporters and editors who worked on the story.
If the Times sued Chump, much of what Chump wants to hide would be revealed.
To sue would be the patriotic thing for the New York Times to do, as well as the direct way to undo Chump’s damage to the Times.
Besides defending the Times’ reputation, taking Chump to court would reap widespread public good will, and probably a significant number of new online subscribers.
Kavanaugh’s Rage Is Not Evidence of His Innocence
October 4, 2018 at 5:54 pm | Posted in Abuse of Office, Conceited, Disinformation, Dysfunctional Politics, Judicial Misjudgment, Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: Anthony Kennedy, Brett Kavanaugh, Brittney Martin and David A. Fahrenthold, Christine Blasey Ford, David Ignatius, E.J. Dionne Jr., Eugene Robinson, Lori Rozsa, Molly Roberts, Sarah Kaufman, Shamus Khan, Suniya S. Luthar, US Supreme Court, Washington Post
Photo in 1887 of the actor Richard Mansfield, by Henry Van der Weyde (1838-1924; London,
There is intense disagreement about Brett Kavanaugh’s fitness to become one of the Justices on the Supreme Court.
During the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on September 27, 2018, the committee and the world tried to decide whether to believe Christine Blasey Ford’s assertion that a drunken Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her at a party when she was 15 years old, or whether to believe Kavanaugh’s denial.
Both Ford and Kavanaugh showed strong emotions during the hearing.
This post is about the interpretation of Kavanaugh’s rage, frustration, and dread.
Some Senators and others have interpreted Kavanaugh’s rage as evidence of his innocence. It is not.
About the diverse interpretations, see this article by Lori Rozsa , Brittney Martin and David A. Farenthold.
Kavanaugh’s rage is because the unwritten rules of entitlement that he absorbed as a teenager were violated: he was not allowed to escape being held accountable for acts for which only the less privileged were supposed to be held accountable.
Those rules said that anyone of his social class, of his wealth, with his connections, with his accomplishments and talent, would never suffer the consequences of breaking the rules that apply to lesser mortals.
These unwritten rules are exposed by Shamus Khan, in a revealing article in the Washington Post. Khan explains why Kavanaugh lies so readily, and so self-righteously. Khan also notes that privilege also makes some kids callous – a notable feature of Kavanaughs judicial rulings, of his work for George W. Bush. It would also lower his internal barriers to sexually abusing others. As noted in an article by Suniyah S. Luthar, those same unwritten rules, combined with greater resources, explain the surprising fact that rich kids are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol than are middle class kids or disadvantaged kids. That was another striking feature of the Kavanaugh’s behavior during high school and college.
Parenthetically, similar violations of expectations of special status underlie the rage of white supremicists and of male supremicists.
Kavanaugh also exhibited frustration. Based on media reports and on the current distribution of power between the two political parties, Kavanaugh had become convinced that his bid for a judgeship on the Supreme Court was unstoppable. But now his ascension to the Supreme Court is leaking away, and he doesn’t know how to stop the leak.
At the hearing, Kavanaugh also radiated dread. He knows that his wife and his daughters will no longer look up to him and trust him. He knows that friends and colleagues will re-evaluate him.
It is not just Kavanaugh’s past behavior that is at issue. His present behavior is problematic.
During the Senate hearing, Kavanaugh lied repeatedly, while under oath.
Eugene Robinson and David Ignatius give valuable insights about Kavanaugh’s lies and character.
Molly Roberts shows why it is quite believable that Christine Blasey Ford vividly remembers who attacker was, and who was laughing, while having difficulty remembering other details about the party at which Kavanaugh assaulted her.
Kavanaugh tried to evade answering inconvenient questions by attempting to change the subject (as Trump does). Kavanaugh tries to change a troublesome question about himself into an analogous question about his questioner.
Here is an example of his Kavanaugh’s deflection of an inconvenient question, as quoted from an article in the Washington Post by Sarah L. Kaufman
“He went back to being combative, even at times overly hot, inappropriate and rude. He challenged Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) on her questions about whether he’d ever drunk so much his memory was affected. “Have you?” he said.”
A qualified judge would never have put up with a deflecting, topic-changing non-answer like that.
Kavanaugh also tried to claim that the accusations against him were part of a conspiracy. That was another misleading attempt at changing the subject. The time-line of Ford’s accusation refutes Kavanaugh’s claim, as is demonstrated by an editorial in the Washington Post.
Altogether, Kavanaugh’s behavior at the hearing was behavior he would not tolerate from any party who was appearing before him at a trial at which he was the Judge.
Kavanaugh lied repeatedly during the Senate hearing. He lied while under oath. E.J. Dionne Jr. has provided a superb account of Kavanaugh’s lies, and why Kavanaugh is unfit to be a judge. His article has links to extensive compilations of Kavanaugh’s lies. Eugene Robinson also has a penetrating account of Kavanaugh’s lies at the hearing, and how it shows Kavanaugh’s unfitness for serving as a judge.
Kavanaugh’s unjustified sense of entitlement, his lies in the Senate hearing, and his tactic of avoiding answering unwelcome questions by trying to change the subject, are all un-judgelike. They disqualify him from the Supreme Court.
His presence on the Supreme Court would further degrade respect for the Supreme Court’s decisions.
His defects also disqualify Kavanaugh from serving a a judge on any court, including the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is the court he now serves on.
Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, why have you so sullied your judicial legacy, by recommending someone as unfit as Brett M. Kavanaugh?
Trumpkin Chumpkin for Halloween
September 16, 2018 at 1:00 pm | Posted in Abuse of Office, Conceited, Disinformation, Dysfunctional Politics, Enemies of Freedom, Presidential election | Leave a commentTags: and Trudeau, and Xi Jinping, Dana Milbank, Donald Trump Jr., Halloween, Hillary Clinton, John Baron, John Barron, John Miller, Macron, Merkel, New York Times, President Chump, President Obama, Putin's chihuahua, Rodrigo Duterte, Sergey Kislyak, Sergey Lavrov, Trump, Washington Post
A Trumpkin, a President Chumpkin, full of lies, cruelty, arrogance and ignorance. By thepoliblog .
Note the Trumpkin Chumpkin’s realistic features:
Lies issuing from both sides of his mouth.
Cruel teeth. This abominable person separates children from their parents, and then locks them up in a pantry, for later consumption.
Demented eyes, each looking anywhere except at the facts.
A nose for what his “base” wants to hear, regardless of its falsity.
President Chump tried to pin the label of treason on the anonymous White House official who wrote the OpEd in the New York Times.
Chump, it might be treason to your brand, but it is not treason to the United States.
Chump, treason is what occurred when you talked with Sergey Lavrov and Sergey Kislyak in what had formerly been the Oval Office of the White House, in May 2017. You pollute every person and every organization you touch. As long as your presence continues to pollute the White House, the Oval Office is transformed into the Offal Office, the Awful Office.
From President Chump’s mouth to Putin’s ear, via Lavrov and Kislyak.
Treason is Donald Jr’s “I love it!” in anticipation of the June 9, 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in 2016, where he expected to obtain damaging information that Russia had obtained about Hillary Clinton. Given Don’s expectations, his participation was treasonous, because he his statement indicates that he would have been willing to broadcast information obtained by Russian Intelligence Services: information whose broadcast was desired by Russian Intelligence Services, and whose broadcast would have constituted Russian interference in an American election. Don was therefore hoping to collude with a foreign power.
Treason is also Trump fabricating a cover-up story for Donald Jr about that meeting: Trump had Don Jr. claim that the discussion in Trump Tower was about American adoptions of Russian children, not about Don Jr. expected the meeting to discuss, nor about what it actually did discuss.
Treason is Presudent Chump attempting to abort and otherwise impede an investigation of Putin’s interference in the US Presidential election in 2016.
Treason is candidate Trump calling out, “Russia, if you’re listening …” In that July 27, 2016 statement, Trump begged for collusion by Russia, to help Trump win the Presidential election.
An instructive article by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post chronicles the remarkably many people who President Chump has accused of treason. Recall the story of the Emperor with no clothes, who had been flattered into believing that he was stunningly dressed. If that Emperor had been President Chump, he would have charged with treason the person who yelled out the truth.
President Chump often screams “Fake News!”, to devalue unfavorable news.
What a hypocrite!
He deliberately generates fake news. Pretending to sometimes be John Miller, sometimes be John Barron, and sometimes to be John Baron, he told lies about himself to the news media.
President Chump accused President Obama of spending to much time playing golf!
What a hypocrite!
Candidate Chump and President Chump tries to pin the label lyin’ on Hillary Clinton and on everyone else who opposes him.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who is the biggest liar of them all?
Lets return to President Chump’s inability to distinguish between loyalty to himself and loyalty to the country.
This inability is due in part to Chump’s fragile ego. To preserve his self-esteme, Chump hides the fragility of his ego from himself by being an ego-maniac, who sees the world as revolving about himself.
But Chump’s inability to distinguish between loyalty to himself and loyalty to the country also because President Chump is the President who would be King.
Chump thought that being the President meant being a non-hereditary King – not a constitutional monarch, but like Henry VIII. Henry VIII didn’t have to to distinguish between loyalty to himself and loyalty to his country.
Chump boasts that while a student he didn’t read the assigned texts. He is proud of having gotten through by guessing, and takes that to be proof of a superior intelligence. So Chump didn’t know that the US President is not a King.
Chump’s desire to be an old-school King is why he admires authoritarian leaders like Putin, Duterte, and Xi. It is also why Chump thinks that Obama, Merkel, and May are weak.
Chump’s preference for authoritarian leaders is one reason for Chump having become Putin’s chihuahua.
Another reason is that Russian investors close to Putin bailed Trump out of his company’s latest bankrupcy. Putin bought Trump, and Trump knows it.
President Chump’s preference for authoritarian leaders is why he – unlike previous Presidents – is not the leader of the free world. The present leaders of the free world are Merkel, Macron, and Trudeau.
Disloyal Americans in Congress
August 19, 2018 at 3:58 pm | Posted in Abuse of Office, Conceited, Disinformation, Dysfunctional Politics, Enemies of Freedom, Presidential election | Leave a commentTags: Beth Kreydatus, Bob Goodlatte, Carl Bernstein, cyber-defense, Devin Nunes, disloyal Americans in Congress, E.J. Dionne Jr., Freedom Caucus, interference in elections, Jennifer Rubin, Jim Jordan, Joe Scarborough, Kathie Sowell, Margaret Sullivan, Mark Meadows, Matt Gaetz, Max Boot, Putin, Robert Mueller, Rod Rosenstein, Rudi Guliani, Washington Post
Jim Jordan (R-OH) in the 114th Congress.
In a recent Congressional hearing, Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) shouted at Rod Rosenstein, “Why are you keeping information from Congress?”. This question referred to Robert Mueller’s special investigation of Putin’s interference in the Presidential election in 2016. Mueller’s investigation had been approved by Rod Rosenstein.
Jim Jordan’s question was loaded, like “When did you stop beating your wife?”
A question is loaded if it is being used as a vehicle for making an un-proven assertion, usually a derogatory assertion. The question is being used in a sneaky attempt to implant the assertion into the minds of those who hear the question.
Jim Jordan’s question was dishonorable. Indeed, Jim Jordan is both dishonorable and disloyal.
Jim Jordan is posturing at due diligence in Congress, in part to deflect attention to the fact that he either did not exercise sufficient due diligence to learn about Richard Strauss’ widely known sexual abuse of wrestlers at Ohio State University , or else that he knew about it but chose not to do anything about it.
Here are some legitimate questions. They are not loaded questions, because they assert about Jim Jordan only what his actions have proved about him.
– Jim Jordan, why are you opposed to the investigation of the well-established fact that Putin interfered in the Presidential election in 2016?
– Jim Jordan, why are you opposed to the United States and it allies learning from Mueller’s investigation how we and our allies can combat Putin’s future attempts at manipulating public opinion and elections in our country?
Your opposition amounts to obstruction of justice, and delays the improvement of our cyber-defenses.
– Jim Jordan, why are you obstructing justice?
– Jim Jordan, since you are obstructing justice, and are delaying the US’s defense against Putin’s manipulations, why should anyone believe your claim that you didn’t know about Richard Strauss’ sexual abuse of wrestlers at Ohio State University?
– Jim Jordan, when did you cease to be a patriotic American?
As an institution, Congress is worthy of respect. But not all Congressional Representatives are worthy of respect.
Jim Jordan is not worthy of respect.
The same is true of the notorious Devin Nunes, and of Bob Goodlatte, Mark Meadows and Matt Gaetz, who collude with Jim Jordan.
Each of these disloyal Americans in Congress proritizes partisan advantage over justice, and also proritizes partisan advantage over the election-based legitimacy of the United States Government.
This has been eloquently stated by Kathie Sowell and by Beth Kreydatus in their letters to the Editor of the Washington Post.
These disloyal Americans in Congress are opposed to investigating attacks on our electoral integrity, and therefore on the legitimacy of our government.
They are opposed to obtaining the information that is needed for developing defenses of our electoral integrity, and therefore of the legitimacy of our government.
Their loyalty is to their party, in its current degenerate form. Their loyalty is not to their country.
They are colluding in a Trump-Putin disinformation campaign.
None of them merit security clearances.
None of them deserve to be re-elected next November.
They should be impeached, or at least censured.
A “Freedom Caucus”? They are the exact opposite.
Disloyal Americans in government are also found outside of the House of Representatives: Rand Paul in the Senate, by President Chump, Rudi Giuliani (formerly a hero, now a heel), and their cronies in the Administration.
The headline of a Washington Post article by Max Boot: “Trump is ignoring the worst attack on America since 9/11 … we are at war without a commander in chief.”
An astute and careful commentator, E.J. Dionne Jr., notes “And Republicans should bear in mind that disrupting Robert S. Mueller III’s probe serves Putin’s interests, not just Trump’s.”
In an insightful article about the attempt by Jim Jordan and cronies to impeach Rod Rosenstein, Jennifer Rubin quotes Norman Eisen (a former White House ethics counsel ) and Fred Wertheimer (founder of Democracy 21): “Key House Republicans are abusing their offices and the public trust to blindly provide protection for [President] Trump. They are doing so instead of working to get to the bottom of the worst foreign attack on American elections in our history.”
In an update that is included in the online article, Jennifer Rubin then noted: “In case it wasn’t clear that this is all about Jordan’s political aspirations, he [Jim Jordan] indicated today that he is running for speaker[of the House of Representatives].”
You may remember Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who uncovered crucial information about the break-in at the Watergate by Nixon’s team. Margaret Sullivan, of the Washington Post, reports that “Earlier this month, Bernstein said on CNN that he had never seen anything like the political reaction to Trump’s kowtowing to Russian President Vladimir Putin at a news conference following their Helsinki meeting: “We’ve never had a moment in our history like this where serious people of both parties are questioning the loyalty of the president of the United States. Unprecedented.””
“The GOP, AWOL as the U.S. is attacked“. That is the headline of an important article by Joe Scarborough in the Washington Post. Scarborough’s article is well worth looking at. It is a masterful concise summary that includes all of the most important facts.
The active disloyalty of Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, Bob Goodlatte, Mark Meadows and Matt Gaetz, and their ilk must be distinguished from the passive disloyalty of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan. The passively disloyal deliberately refuse to legislatively forestall Trump’s likely attempt to fire Mueller, much as he fired Comey over “the Russian thing”, and removed Brennan’s security clearance to silence a voice that was pointing out Trump’s errors.
Malware on Google Scholar
July 31, 2018 at 5:54 pm | Posted in Scams and Malware | Leave a commentTags: Facebook, Google Maps, Google Scholar, malware, YouTube
Centipede Scolopendra cingulata – Ventral side of head, showing mandibles. Frouzet, Languedoc-Roussillon, France, photographed 31 May 2006 by Fritz Geller-Grimm.
On 2018-07-30, I used Google Scholar to see what had been published on a rather specialized topic in physics.
The web page of results was useful, so I tried to save it into my folder on that topic.
But the anti-malware program on my computer refused to place a copy of that web page into that folder. Instead, the anti-malware program said that the web page of results carried malware, and would be placed into a quarantine folder. So malware can lurk even on a scholarly site such as Google Scholar.
The users of Google Scholar are few, so it is unlikely that they would be the target of the type of malware motivated by omnivorous greed. The users of Google Scholar are more likely to be the target of those who want to pilfer research techniques, computer codes, and unpublished results, or who want to pretend to be personnel at academic or industrial research institutions, or who want to obtain entry into the specialized computer networks that some researchers use, possibly to seize immediate or future control of those computers, or to hold for ransom the data and codes that reside on them.
Centipede, rear pair of legs (in Greece), photographed 6 August 2009 by NNeilAlieNN.
If malware can lurk in Google Scholar, it can also lurk on Google maps, Facebook, YouTube, and on other social media. The only time my computer was infected by a virus was when I downloaded classical music from YouTube.
It would be cumbersome for individual users to have to scan for malware every web page they visit, every email, and every tweet.
It would be much more feasible, and much more efficient, if Google, Facebook, YouTube, and the like frequently ran disinfecting scans over their entire content files. The disinfecting would be most effective if it occurred at random times.
Malware statistics on 2011-03-16 (Panda Security), 21 March 2011, translated to English by Kizar, from ‘Malware statics 2011-03-16-es.svg’ .
Did Bannon Suggest Trump’s Concentration camps for Kids? #128
June 23, 2018 at 9:51 pm | Posted in Abuse of Office, Conceited, Disinformation, Enemies of Freedom, Judicial Injustice | Leave a commentTags: Breitbart, concentration camps for kids, forcible separation of kids from parents, racial and ethnic supremacists, Steve Bannon, Trump
Detained children in a wire mesh compartment, showing sleeping mats and thermal blankets on floor. Photo provided by Custom and Border Protection to reporter on tour of detention facility in McAllen, Texas. Reporters were not allowed (BY WHAT RIGHT!?!) to take their own photos. Photo on 17 June 2018, provided by the U.S. Customs and Border Control.
Not all concentration camps are death camps. But they all concentrate people who are considered to be unwelcome, and they all are miserable places to inhabit.
Listen to this audio recorded by ProPublica, and accessible via Wikipedia.
So Trump’s camps for kids who were forcibly separated from their parents are indeed concentration camps.
Did Steve Bannon suggest Trump’s concentration camps for kids?
Bannon was responsible for suggesting Trump’s failed ban on visitors from particular predominantly Muslim countries.
Bannon is also known for suggesting actions that will excite Trump’s “base”.
Bannon also thinks strategically, and Trump has stated that one goal of ripping kids from their parents was to force Democrats to vote for funding his base-pleasing wall. (Extortion!)
So the idea of concentration camps for kids smells like Bannon.
Like Bannon’s suggested ban on visitors from Muslim countries, the executive order for concentration camps for kids has produced a dramatic defeat for Trump.
If Bannon is indeed responsible for it, he will have been responsible for both of the major defeats so far during Trump’s presidency.
Bannon also boasted of having made Breitbart into a vehicle for spreading the ideas of the racial-ethnic supremacists. That problably led to Trump’s claim – after the debacle in Charlottesville – of moral equivalence between the supremacists and their opponents, a claim that shredded Trump’s reputation.
Bannon is a font of bad advice.
What was said of Lord Byron applies even more strongly to Bannon: he is mad, bad, and dangerous to know.
Steve Bannon speaking at the 2017 CPAC in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo by Gage Skidmore.
Posters and Chants Against Depravity
June 21, 2018 at 7:37 pm | Posted in Abuse of Office, Climate change, Conceited, Crime and punishment, Disinformation, Dysfunctional Politics, Enemies of Freedom, Enemies of Planet Earth, Fairness, Global warming, Presidential election | Leave a commentTags: concentration camp, disloyalty, Fox and Friends, Fox News, human rights, inadvertant agent of a foreign government, Jeff Sessions, mistreatment of children, President Chump, Putin, Rupert Murdoch, Sean Hannity, Trump, Un-American, un-Constitutional
President Trump = President Chump
Dump President Chump
No More Concentration Camps for Kids
Trump
Made America Ashamed Again
Trump the Chump
Toxic for America
Fox News
Fux News
Murdoch of Mordor
Murders the News
Fox and Fiends
Font of Fake News
Hannity Is Insanity
Disloyal Donald
Putin’s point-man in the White House
Trump is Cruel and Unusual
Punishment for the United States
Trump is Evil
President Chump Undermines America
President Chump
Inadvertent Agent of a Hostile Government
The Soviets had a name for people like Chump:
Useful Idiot!
Rupert Murdoch
America’s Most Toxic Immigrant
These slogans were all created by thepoliblog.WordPress.com,
who hereby declares them to be in the public domain.
Canada, Mexico, and NAFTA
June 7, 2018 at 6:51 pm | Posted in Abuse of Office, Conceited, Disinformation, Fairness | Leave a commentTags: Canada, fair trade, free trade, Mexico, NAFTA, President Chump, Trump
In the San Juan de Dios Market in Guadalajara, Jalisco, MEXICO. Photo by Christian Frausto Bernal (Tepic, Nayarit, MEXICO), on 26 June 2006.
It is possible to preserve NAFTA in effect, if not in name, despite Trump’s attacks and despite his divide-and-conquer tactics.
President Chump is a more accurate terminology than President Trump, so that is what he will be called in what follows.
To preserve NAFTA in effect, the most important thing is to forestall President Chump’s divide-and-conquer tactic.
Chump prefers one-on-one negociations, because in one-on-one negociations he is better able to bully and to lie.
Canada and Mexico should agree beforehand that in all negociations on trade with the US, their positions will be coordinated, even during negociations between the US and only one of those countries.
Before any further trade negotiations with the US, Canada and Mexico should agree on an initial combined list of features that they want to have in their agreements with the US. They should jointly announce those initial goals, while stressing their understanding that the list may be revised as a result of the negotiations with the US.
They should then announce that even during any one-on-one negotiations with the US, the currently-negociating non-US negotiator will accept only what is also accepted by the not-currently-negotiating non-US negotiator. It should be explicitly announced that the two countries will always synchronize their agreements with the US, much as a person’s smart phone and computer are often kept synchronized even when each is used separately.
Let A and B be abbreviations for the two non-US negotiators.
During all trade negotiations with the US, A should insist that it will accept only changes that are also accepted in side-discussions between A and B, even if that forces a prior agreement between B and the US to be updated before A‘s negotiations with the US can continue.
Britain and the EU can similarly defeat Chump’s divide-and-conquer attempts in negotiations with with them.
At all times, keep in mind that Chump wants to bully you, that he is psychopathic liar, famous for falsely promising whatever his target wants to hear, and that divide-and-conquer helps him to get away with both bullying and with lying.
To counter a would-be-bully, remind him of his inadequacies and insecurities. Do so at every opportunity.
Practice, so that whenever you shake Chump’s hand, you have grip of steel. With his small hands, Chump won’t be able to exert as much force. The goal is to make his orange face turn red, and then white.
Ask Chump whether he admires his brother, and wants to follow in his brother’s footsteps. (On second thought, research that topic before deciding whether to ask those questions. But there are other ways of keeping him off balance.)
By limiting the damage that flea-brained Chump can do to international trade, you will be doing a great service to the US and to the world, as well as to your own country.
“Flea-brained” is a precise description in Chump’s case, because a flea hops first here, then there, and never thinks carefully before the next hop.
Trump Has Admitted His Guilt
June 1, 2018 at 2:50 pm | Posted in Abuse of Office, Crime and punishment, Disinformation, Enemies of Freedom, Presidential election | Leave a commentTags: 2016 Presidential election, Jeff Sessions, Paul Waldman, President Chump, President Trump, Putin, Washington Post
Men in Bramhall stocks, Bramhall, England, 1900, unknown photographer.
Trump has admitted his guilt, without realizing that he has done so.
This point was made recently by Paul Waldman, in an article in the Washington Post.
Quoting from that aricle, “According to a January New York Times story, when Sessions decided to recuse himself, “the president erupted in anger in front of numerous White House officials, saying he needed his attorney general to protect him.” (Emphasis added.)
There would be no need for the Attorney General to protect Trump from the investigation of Putin’s interference in the the Presidential election in 2016, if Trump had not done something illegal in connection with that election.
The Attorney General’s job is to protect the American people from crime, not to protect the President – or anyone else – from the consequences of illegal actions.
About the nature of Trump’s crime, we know only that it pertains to Putin’s interference in the Presidential election in 2016. That is the topic that always presses Trump’s buttons, and elicits his most feverishly desparate reactions.
Further evidence of Trump’s knowledge of his own guilt occured in Trump’s meeting with Sessions in March 2017. According to Paul Waldman’s article, “[Trump’s] grievance was with Mr. Sessions: The president objected to [Session’s] decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Mr. Trump, who had told aides that he needed a loyalist overseeing the inquiry, berated Mr. Sessions and told him he should reverse his decision, an unusual and potentially inappropriate request.” Why would Trump need “a loyalist overseeing the inquiry”, if he wasn’t scared about some fact connected to this particular topic?
See also the previous post on this blog.
I know it won’t happen, but for such a hypocrite I cannot resist: “Lock him up!”
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