Thomas Wright, in Foreign Policy — “Mike Flynn, Jim Mattis, and Rex Tillerson don’t have much in common with each other — or Donald Trump. But together they might revolutionize American foreign policy”:
Understanding Donald Trump’s foreign policy is truly an exercise in separating the signal from the noise. Trump says and does so much, often on a whim, that it can overwhelm the senses. There is so much that he knows so little about — Taiwan, for instance — that it is hard to say if small actions are part of a coherent strategy or if he’s simply winging it.
But now that the president-elect has announced his picks for key foreign-policy positions, his foreign policy is starting to become clear or at least clearer. Though Trump’s own foreign-policy views are captured by his “America First” slogan, his administration will be split between three national security factions — the America Firsters, the religious warriors, and the traditionalists — each of which distrusts the others but also needs them to check the third. The question is what effect this power struggle will have on U.S. foreign policy, particularly amid a crisis — and whether Trump, over time, will insist on asserting his personal will against the other factions with which he has surrounded himself…
Few people think of Trump as a foreign-policy thinker. He has been on every side of numerous issues, including climate change, Syria, North Korea, Iraq, and nuclear weapons. However, it is indisputable that Trump has a small number of core beliefs dating back three decades about America’s role in the world. His overarching worldview is that America is in economic decline because other nations are taking advantage of it.
Three beliefs stand out. Trump has been a staunch critic of America’s security alliances since 1987 and has demanded that U.S. allies transfer vast sums of money to the United States in exchange for protection. He has opposed every trade deal the United States has signed since World War II and advocated for the widespread use of tariffs. And he has a soft spot for authoritarian strongmen, particularly of the Russian variety. This appears to date back to 1990 when he visited Russia and came back deeply disillusioned in Mikhail Gorbachev and convinced that Moscow should have emulated China’s repression in Tiananmen Square. Trump has been consistent on each of these issues for 30 years. For a detailed analysis of his statements and writings on these topics, see here and here. Trump repeatedly raised these views in the campaign, even when it was politically risky to do so (as in his praise of Vladimir Putin).
The big question has been whether and how Trump may act on these beliefs and convert them into policy…
Librarian
Oh bullshit. If he “revolutionizes” foreign policy, it will be because of his incompetence and stupidity.
SiubhanDuinne
I haven’t clicked yet on the link to the whole article, but reading just that excerpt I can’t claim to feel reassured.
Mike G
Why weren’t articles like this written BEFORE the election to give voters an insight into his possible actions?
Trump’s “policy” seems to be “whatever whims and ignorant bits of pseudo-knowledge are in my head at this moment”.
rikyrah
revolutionize=war war war
cmorenc
THIS aspect of Trump’s foreign policy is even scarier than his extremely shallow knowledge and understanding of it. Think how he might react to the first really large-scale demonstrations against some noxious misadventure he gets the US into, or how eager he will be, the first time there is a scary incident such as any attempt by a self-radicalized Muslim to attempt a suicide attack, to undertake extremely repressive, xenophobically bigoted measures – recall that he hasn’t exactly expressed any disapproval of the internment of US citizens of Japanese ethnic origin in WW2.
schrodinger's cat
He is going to piss away America’s good name and prestige earned post WWII.
Alain the site fixer
Blowing up 50+ years of relations and norms in international policy is, by definition, revolutionary. Not conservative. No prudent. Even with great success in these policy areas of concern to Trump, that won’t happen without very much downside in all kinds of areas that we don’t see now. It’s going to suck. Praying for a miracle to open eyes and hearts of electors because that’s the only hope.
m.j.
Trump.
The unpresident.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mike G:
Well, they were (see the links in the article AL provided above) although admittedly the mainstream media didn’t bother much if at all. The voters who pulled the lever for Trump almost certainly don’t read Politico, and I guarangoddamtee they don’t read publications from the Lowy Institute.
raven
@schrodinger’s cat: Uh, methinks that’s been done more than once since the end of WW2
.
cmorenc
It’s perverse, but I’m actually thinking we’ll all be lucky if Trump’s approach to trade and tariffs leads to the same result as did the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill in 1930, coupled with the plutocratic recklessness he’s about to set loose on Wall Street and the federal government. It will inflict lots of pain on his core supporters and the rest of us innocent bystanders alike, but it’s about the only way many of them will wake the fuck up (as happened with the 1930s depression). Ditto the 2008 recession, coupled with Republican malfeasance during the second Bush admin that finally accumulated too high and deep to be rationalized and bullshitted away.
schrodinger's cat
@raven: True, but T is going to do it on an epic scale. Its going to be Yuge. Upending NATO for one and playing kissy kissy with Vlad for another.
Doug R
What kind of “businessman” hates trade deals?
raven
@schrodinger’s cat: Remember when Tricky Dick was the only one who could open the door to China? What I recall most is that he loved the discipline of the Chinese youth!
Shalimar
I assume “revolutionize” in this case is used in the same sense that Hitler revolutionized German-Jewish relations.
Baud
@Doug R: A lying one.
Mnemosyne
I guess “revolutionize” is one way to refer to Trump’s plan to outsource our foreign policy to Russia.
mike in dc
“should have emulated…Tiananmen Square”? F*ck that guy. No wonder he wants to leave Assad in power. Can we at least be the party of “no more supporting dictators, autocrats and tyrants, even if it’s expedient and the alternative is messy”? I’m not saying invade everyone and knock them off, but at least stop being nice to them.
BlueDWarrior
@Mike G: like other people said, we’re dealing with people who thought Katie Couric was sandbagging Palin by asking her about her reading habits. I think we have continue to disabuse ourselves of the notion that these peopke will be reached with logic.
Patricia Kayden
@Librarian: If “revolutionizes” = utterly destroys, then I can get with that argument. Apart from loving Russia, antagonizing China and making all of his products overseas, what cohesive foreign policy has Trump advocated? He claimed some nonsense about ISIS which will not pan out and is not intelligent enough to implement a successful foreign policy.
I expect him to start a war with the first country whose leader criticizes him.
dr. bloor
This caught my eye first, and I stopped reading. Donald Trump has only one belief: what’s good for Donald Trump, full stop.
After thirty years in clinical psychology, the inability of otherwise highly intelligent people to recognize narcissism and sociopathy is the single-most baffling feature of human nature I’ve run across.
cynthia ackerman
@Librarian:
Agreed. He does not know policy from a hole in the ground. He knows Id.
If his incoming cabinet is still intact in July I will be surprised.
The last one standing — America Firsters, God humpers, traditionalists (whatever that means), or Mouseketeers — still won’t have as much effect on our future as the utter chaos wraught by Mr. Unpredictable.
lollipopguild
We are going to be governed by people who see life as a “game” where as long as they and theirs are winning and always stay ahead they do not care what happens to anyone else. This is not ” everyone dies” but they do not care if a lot of us go away and do not bother them anymore.
Stan
There is no cohesive policy* and there isn’t going to be one. That in itself is extremely risky, as we are already seeing. We will blunder into a lot of crises and people are going to get killed.
Let us hope for a mutiny in the US military when these crises start developing and he starts giving crazy orders.
*The one exception where I think we WILL see a coherent policy is Palestine. As if they couldn’t be fucked any worse. It just got a lot worse. I just told my evangelical friends that after the rapture, we’re splitting all their stuff.
Mnemosyne
@dr. bloor:
I think people who possess reasonably normal amounts of empathy have a hard time dealing with someone who lacks empathy. They keep expecting the other person to act “normal” when they’re not capable of it.
I’m still waiting to hear back from my NPD sister-in-law about whether she’s going to let me take my nieces to Disneyworld in March. I’ve finally come to the conclusion that being transparent and consistent is my only hope, because there’s no way I can out-manipulate a narcissist. All I can do is tell her what the proposed week is and who’s going and see what happens.
dr. bloor
@Stan:
I appreciate the sentiment, but this would be an extremely bad turn of events.
Cassandra
@Mike G: I agree. I don’t think he has ever had a coherent thought in his life. Well, he hasn’t really needed to up til now.
SciNY
I hope it’s not even 1% as bad as I fear it will be. But the history of authoritarian regimes isn’t much comfort. It’s not an exaggeration to say we may be looking at the 21st C. version of Reconstruction, in which democratic institutions failed to protect the most vulnerable and live up to their promises of a decade before. Except we are now in an age of massive militarization, viral social media, and technologically enabled vulnerability to foreign manipulation. Plus weapons that can destroy us many times over. And corporations and industries that can do the same passively, by allowing climate change driven by the post-1850s Industrial Era. So we may be forced to survive as refugees and asylum seekers before it gets better. If it ever does, at least on this blue planet of ours.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Doug R:
A shitty one.
dr. bloor
@Mnemosyne: That’s actually exactly right. But honest to God, if Lucy offers to hold the football for you for the eleventeenth time…
Gvg
What is really scary is a lot of GOP voters have been for years admiring dictators. I don’t think they understand enough history to be scared by this article. In fact a lot of this type of info was out there before the election and it didn’t torpedo his election. A lot of the other candidates also had lessor degrees of this and many of the Congressmen are about as bad. It is significant that Bush wasn’t removed from office when the torture news came out. I think he would have been even in Nixon’s time.
Something happened to that party before this. I think it was around Gingrich’s time. They quit vetting their own and let anyone run and we got a bunch of know nothings.
EBT
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/12/16/13972394/most-common-words-hillary-clinton-speech
Ruckus
@Librarian:
That sentence is getting a lot of use these days. It covers every move he makes and every word he utters. The bumper sticker writes itself.
“It’s His Incompetence and Stupidity.
It’s a Shame You Couldn’t Recognize This.”
dr. bloor
@Gvg:
John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience is an excellent read, in case you haven’t already. Did anyone else involve in that goatfuck actually learn the lessons it offered?
germy
@dr. bloor:
Three professors of psychiatry call for ‘neuropsychiatric evaluation’ of Trump out of fears he’s mentally ill
Ruckus
@dr. bloor:
It would be an extremely bad turn of events, but at that point which would be worse, going along or mutiny? Of course that is an unanswerable question, one would have to know the surrounding facts and understand the most likely outcome to know. But it wouldn’t be the first time that not following an order would be the best possible thing to do.
BillinGlendaleCA
@germy: Sadly, that’s not Obama’s call, it is the call of either congressional leaders or Trump’s cabinet under the 25th Amendment, Section 4. No, I don’t see either of those groups exercising that option.
Bailey
@Mike G:
Would that have mattered? To his voters, not likely.
Ruckus
@germy:
He may not be mentally capable, (and I don’t think he is capable, and not just in mental issues), but what law is there to do anything about it? He’s over 35 and born here. What other limitations are there?
Yarrow
So the cost of things, from clothes to smartphones is going to skyrocket.
Frank Wilhoit
The US does not have, has never had, and cannot have a foreign policy. There is no one in Washington who could find any given country on a globe if you spotted them forty minutes and a jeweller’s loupe. There is no one who understands, on any level, that there is such a place as the rest of the world. Every mention of any overseas actor is an allegory for a domestic faction. Every statement of “foreign policy” is code-talk for some domestic policy. Examples on request, but you can easily supply your own.
Ruckus
@Gvg:
Worse than knowing nothing, they know stupid and evil only too well.
Yarrow
@rikyrah:
Saw someone on Twitter yesterday commenting that this is how he’ll bring those jobs back to the rust belt – manufacturing the equipment we need for war.
germy
@Yarrow: Make America Great hats and Lock Her Up shirts are cheap (made in China)
dr. bloor
@germy: The developmental history alone would be worth the price of admission. You don’t end up at the New York Military Academy because your parents think you’re West Point material.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
A useful phrase to use is “Without objection,” and then go on to spell out exactly what you plan to do when. That should cover you in case she gets all passive-aggressive and fails to give explicit permissions, or tries to say at the last minute that Saturday won’t work and could you come Monday instead.
I have no idea if the use of those two words have any legal bearing in your case (probably not) but we used to use that formulation a lot when I worked as a low-level bureaucrat and needed to go on record with a proposal. It forces the recipient to take the trouble of objecting or changing things; crickets from her end is assumed to be acceptance/approval.
germy
@dr. bloor:
Problem child.
Gvg
@Ruckus: my fear is an order to use nukes for trivial reasons on civilians, not that nuclear bomb effects are ever contained. That’s a war crime and I think an armed anyone present would be justified in killing him on the spot. Well then what? We may well be relieved and pardon this person but from then on we would have a kind of praetorian guard kind of effect. But if he try’s something really unforgivable, it can cause blowback for all our citizens for….a long time. What if he does order nukes and the order is followed? We would be at war with the whole world and our influence gone plus many of us wouldn’t support “our” country’s action. I have never played these kind of what ifs before. We have never elected an insane child before. How could people have voted for this nut?
EBT
@germy: What kind of fuck up do you have to be that a klansman thinks you are a problem child and sends you to reform school?
debbie
@m.j.:
Ha! Today he tweeted that China’s snatching that drone was “unpresidented.”
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
That scares you and me and probably everyone else reading or commenting on this blog, but most unfortunately it is not unconstitutional.
germy
@EBT: Frightening to contemplate.
Yarrow
@cynthia ackerman:
One thing authoritarians do is change their cabinets frequently. The chaos keeps the other members of the cabinet on guard and also keeps the press occupied so they don’t look at other things to happen. Expect this sort of chaos from Trump. He’s an authoritarian.
frosty
@schrodinger’s cat: He is going to piss away America’s good name and prestige earned post WWII.
germy
@debbie: He really is subliterate.
Another Scott
@Ruckus: Yup.
Remembering the run-up to the Iraq invasion might be instructive. W and lots of people around him were raring to “take Saddam out” from the time they took office in 2001. Even with the world’s largest military and a weakling of an opponent, it took years to actually do the invasion. Things like basing rights, overflight rights, having enough transport available to pre-position stuff before the actual war begins, etc., etc.
Donnie can’t just snap his fingers and have the Pentagon rain Hellfire down on people who make fun of his tiny hands and his being Putin’s Puppet.
And as broken as the Teabagger-led Congress has been, they still have to appropriate money for military action. If there’s no money, then Donnie can’t do squat.
And if NATO or our other allies refuse to go along, or refuse to let their territory be used, then there would be even more difficulty in Donnie trying to lash out. (Remember the problems Turkey caused in not letting its territory be used for the Iraq invasion.)
There’s no doubt that Donnie and his minions are dangerous people. But there are some safeguards built into the system that will constrain (at least the pace of) his actions. Let’s not panic and convince ourselves that there’s nothing that can be done. We have to fight them every day and not convince ourselves that we’re doomed.
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Yeah? What about the Fuck Your Feelings tees?
dr. bloor
@EBT: The kind of fuck-up that the rest of the fuck-ups just elected to the most powerful office in the land.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: Bangladesh.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne: Made in Taiwan.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gvg:
If the President nukes civilians, it’s not a war crime.
/
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
@germy:
Youse guys!
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: How do you not nuke civilians? Nukes aren’t precision instruments.
Yarrow
@Gvg:
I asked Adam Silverman if this could be prevented somehow and it appears the answer is no. There have been occasions where there has been a buffer between the president and actually using the nuclear weapons – I think during Nixon’s time that was the case. Maybe the last of Reagan’s presidency because of his Alzheimer’s. But ultimately they can’t really stop him. Someone could step in and tell whoever is actually doing it not to do it, but he is the Commander in Chief, so…
EBT
@dr. bloor: Like Carlin said terrible politicians come from american families in american towns that attended american schools. Garbage in, Garbage out.
Steve in the ATL
@Another Scott: I’ve had just about enough of your reasonable, measured responses. We want shrill! In all caps!
Baud
@Yarrow: Our “both sides” media would explain that Truman was a Democrat.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Shit, I dunno. Maybe not push the button in the first place?
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: Brilliant!
Another Scott
@germy: Snopes says ‘merca
Which probably means the Northern Mariana Islands…
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who really doesn’t know, but it would be irresponsible not to …)
germy
Remember when everyone was super-concerned about Hillary’s “tone”?
WaPo
Yarrow
@Baud: Indeed.
I watched Obama’s press conference yesterday. The media people all seemed to be asking versions of the same question – “But, Russia! Can you please tell us what’s going on and let us know just how up to his eyeballs Trump is in this?” And President Obama wouldn’t do it. Upon reflection it has occurred to me that perhaps the media is scared. They’ll be first up against the wall in this new Trump world. He’ll do what he can to shut the media down and shut them up and there will be no Big Daddy to protect them. I think in their own weak way they were begging Big Daddy Obama to step in and make the bad man go away.
Another Scott
@Steve in the ATL: :-)
Hey, I thought HRC was going to win in a landslide, so don’t listen to me for what will, you, know, actually happen!!11
CHEERS,
Scott.
Baud
Nukes and Russia are why I hope Pence gets elevated to the top spot soon. His horribleness is within traditional lines.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yarrow:
During the campaign, didn’t Trump speak approvingly of the fact that Kim Jong-un arrested and summarily executed his uncle? Is it too much to hope that he may turn on his children, in-laws and siblings and resurrect the firing squad?
frosty
@frosty: First time block quote screwup like that one. Sorry ’bout that, chief. I don’t even think I can blame FYWP.
debbie
@Yarrow:
It’s too early to assume they’ll have much access, period. I bet he’ll stick to Twitter as much as possible.
Yarrow
@Baud: Yeah, Pence is horrible but he’s not insane. There’s a difference. Trump has already tweeted against average citizens. That’s horrific. Once he has nuclear weapons, what’s going to stop him from nuking Los Angeles because they’re all liberals out there and they won’t perform for his inauguration or give him an Emmy?
germy
@Baud: If Pence gets a promotion, I can start smoking again. He says cigarettes don’t cause cancer.
Baud
@Yarrow:
In these dark times, this fact makes me happy. Thank you, Hollywood.
germy
Yarrow
@debbie: I’m not suggesting they’ll have access. I’m saying the first one that writes or does a report about him that says unflattering things, he’ll call them out on Twitter and suggest someone do bad things to them. The equivalent of asking people to send them death threats. And then someone will do something.
The other thing I’m expecting is that if a reporter does an unflattering piece on him or criticizes his policy, he’ll send police or military or someone to threaten them. For real. And he’ll claim that criticizing him is un-American and against the law and no one can do it and then bring a lawsuit on them. Meanwhile asking his Russians to doxx that person.
I think there will be lawsuits against the press and violence against individual members of the press.
Baud
@germy: Oops. (or maybe not? …. But probably.)
Another Scott
@Yarrow: Really?
Aren’t things serious enough without saying things like that?
(sigh)
Maybe Donnie will blow up the Moon like Carl Sagan planned to do!!111: (Note, it’s the Daily Mail, so the headline, and the breathless reporting, has little relation to reality.) :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
dr. bloor
@germy: It’s also why I am slightly less disgusted by his kids sticking close to him. We can’t undo the mugging; if all we lose in the deal is the cash in our wallet, that’s the best possible outcome.
Baud
@dr. bloor: Hell, bribary would probably produce saner policy outcomes than leaving them to their own judgement.
germy
@Yarrow:
did you hear about that newsweek reporter who went on bowtie carlon’s fox show? He said some things the deplorables didn’t like, and now his family is getting death threats.
Also, since he has a seizure disorder, one of them emailed him a strobe attachment. He’s off twitter right now.
EBT
@Yarrow: Someone gave Eichenwald a seizure yesterday already.
debbie
@germy:
No, Kurt Eichenwald’s still on Twitter. I follow him. He’s still getting plenty of hate from commenters.
SiubhanDuinne
@cynthia ackerman:
I feel as though I mentioned this a week or two ago, but maybe worth bringing up again: Isn’t it odd that very few of the Cabinet picks have actually been announced by Trump himself? Put aside the “beauty pageant” weirdness of having potential appointees parade through the lobby of Trump Tower, and the fact that leaks are as plentiful as feral cats — it strikes me as really odd that what “official” announcements there have been so far have been via press release, or possibly through a surrogate on TV, or maybe a tweet — but I don’t recall that any of them has been presented to the American people by the PEOTUS himself, with a nice introduction and résumé of the candidate’s qualifications.
Like so much else, I guess there are no rules or laws about unveiling staff and Cabinet picks, but Trump’s approach comes across as a way to say “Fuck your traditions” for no good reason except that he can.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: True, the system of our government is designed to NOT move fast.
Yarrow
@germy: @EBT: Yep. I heard that. And Trump didn’t even point them in Eichenwald’s direction. Just imagine if Trump suggests someone “teach that reporter a lesson” or “we should let him know that isn’t okay” or “he should be worried about his kids if he’s doing that” or “he’s un-American. Let’s make sure he knows that.” Just vague enough that he can say he didn’t tell anyone to do anything. Just specific and obvious enough that they think they know what Dear Leader wants them to do.
dr. bloor
@germy: The founders envisioned the Electoral College as keeping subversives like Bernie Sanders out of office, not wealthy landowners like Donald Trump.
germy
@debbie:
Chris
I’m genuinely unsure which of the first two I’m more scared of.
The America Firsters would end “the West” as we’ve understood it since 1945 and basically punt the whole of whatever’s left of it to Putin, a terrifying thought in its own right. The religious warriors are less likely to want to kill NATO and hand the world to Putin, but they’re also the kind of lunatics who would’ve agreed with MacArthur in Korea and with LeMay in Cuba, so if they’re running the show, buy stock in nuclear fireballs. (And their effect on our domestic policies is likely to be even worse. Those people are McCarthyites on fucking steroids).
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
His account may still be active, but I believe he said yesterday (or the night before) that he himself would not be reading comments or putting up his own tweets for a while except under the aegis of law enforcement.
What people are saying and doing to him just sickens me.
Yarrow
@Another Scott: Honestly, I don’t know what Trump will do. I thought the comment about how he’s mad because they won’t perform for him or give him an Emmy was kind of funny. :( But I do think he’s thin-skinned and erratic enough that he could do just about anything.
Like I said above, I had a discussion with Adam Silverman about the issue of just how much protection there is from a crazy president using nukes and the short answer seems to be, “not much.” I think the assumption is that the president won’t be crazy and will use good sense and be thoughtful in his (or her) actions. Oops.
germy
@Yarrow: Didn’t he suggest at a rally that Josh Earnest was “getting orders from someone else”?
SiubhanDuinne
@Yarrow:
“Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”
germy
@dr. bloor: But Bernie is a wealthy landowner. He and his wife just bought their third house.
Yarrow
@germy: Maybe. I haven’t seen it if so. Isn’t it obvious that Josh Earnest is getting orders from someone? He’s a spokesperson. It’s not like he’s speaking only for himself.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: They take “As Soon As Possible” literally.
Baud
@germy: That’s why the framers included DWS-like persona in the secret constitution, whose job it is to prevent landed socialists from capturing the White House.
debbie
@germy:
Well, that didn’t show up in my feed. Glad he’s fighting back, though. These fucking cowards.
cynthia ackerman
@Yarrow:
Agreed.
However, my comment was meant to allude to attrition due to frustration/conflict from below, not from above.
The dupes he has appointed will find it very hard to keep up with changes he makes despite their own authorities.
EBT
@SiubhanDuinne: I hope mob justice on the lot of them.
germy
@Yarrow: The implication was that Earnest wasn’t following orders from the “reasonable” Obama, but from a foreign power.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
God, I miss Peter O’Toole!
germy
@debbie: He had a doubly-phallic name.
debbie
@Yarrow:
Don’t forget Katie Tur.
Yarrow
@cynthia ackerman: Whether the cabinet members leave out of frustration or he fires them, the end result is the same. And really, it comes from the same place. His distrust in the people who work for him and need for control will create chaos. Some people will quit out of frustration. Some people will hold their ground and get fired when they cross him. Same result – chaos and turnover.
debbie
@germy:
And a mouth to match.
Aleta
@Mike G: Before the election, I wanted to see some articles that would foresee T’s effect on military families. It would still be important. For example: the Tr candidate for EPA wants to dismantle the EPA or weaken its powers? My understanding is that the EPA is cleaning up or monitoring/testing Superfund sites on many military bases. Locating the extent of chemical spills and, I believe, keeping records of exposure. For example Moffitt Field/NASA Ames has major contamination that spread under its past housing and under other buildings (a lot of it originated outside the air base).
EPA’s Superfund Websites Can Save Veterans’ Lives
(Same page has EPA’s Superfund List of Military Installations.)
Even at sites where the EPA is not involved, I read that their standards are used by the DOD. It’s said that the DOD has been resistant to people’s needs, so the EPA work is important.
Also: http://www.basefamilyhousing.info/
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
“Work to rule,” or, as I prefer to call it, “Malicious compliance.”
Yarrow
@germy: Ah, well, I must have missed that. And that’s hilarious. Talk about projection. That’s another classic Trump thing. Look at what he accuses other people of doing and then go look for where he’s doing that himself. It’s a real “tell” that he has. An enterprising reporter could make quite a name for themselves doing such a thing. No need to dig much. Trump will tell them what to look for.
Yarrow
@debbie: Yes, of course. I had forgotten Katie Tur. That was horrible. It will only get worse from here.
The press really should stand up for themselves now while they can. Send a pool reporter to cover his rallies. Make sure the reporter and camera person have very good security with them. And everyone else stay home. Don’t give him the attention he wants. Refuse to go if they have to stay in the press pen. Stand up now. Because they won’t be able to later.
The press is just dumb that they don’t do these things. They will come to regret it. But like I said – dumb.
JPL
Trump is tweeting again..
Earlier today his staff was taking credit for getting the drone back, and now he doesn’t want it.
According to Ali Vitali Trump said we will “untheft” the jobs theft happening in our country.l
This is not normal
Yarrow
@JPL: Untheft? Is like like “unpresidented” that he said earlier?
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Yarrow:
“Who will rid me of this stupid reporter? Sad!”
SiubhanDuinne
@Yarrow:
So much of what he does, if you try to criticise it item by item, makes you (the critic) come across as shallow, petty, vindictive, and churlish. But in the aggregate, these add up to a horrifying total.
I’m thinking specifically of his reaction in 2015 to not having been named TIME’s “Person of the Year” and then his reaction in 2016 that he should have been “Man of the Year,” not “Person of the Year.”
Of and by itself, it’s just a kind of “shrug, that’s Trump for you,” but add it in to all the other evidence we have of pathological narcissism and it sounds not only delusional but somewhat ominous.
debbie
@JPL:
He’s strategering better than W!
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: I’ve determined that’s he’s white America’s crazy racist uncle.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@SiubhanDuinne, @Steeplejack (tablet):
D’oh!
JPL
@Yarrow: Untheft was used at the rally in Alabama, so his crew won’t be able to fix it easily.
Yarrow
@SiubhanDuinne: Well, I was just making a joke. Sort of.
I think his reaction to being named Person of the Year and not Man of the Year is indicative that he’ll never be happy. There will always be someone, some organization, some group, some country that’s done him wrong. Which should terrify us all.
@Baud: America’s crazy racist uncle with actual power and nuclear weapons.
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
Oh yes.
One of my favourite ways to spend a cold, rainy winter Saturday is to watch Becket and The Lion in Winter back-to-back. If anyone was born to play Henry II, it was O’Toole.
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
Hers is one 2016 campaign memoir I will read with great interest!
Aleta
Here’s something: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda
Yarrow
@efgoldman: I don’t think we know the answer to that question, do we? We haven’t seen tax returns. We haven’t seen any list of what he does or doesn’t own. Any debts or mortgages. We simply have no idea.
germy
@efgoldman: Someone here said during the campaign that drumpf didn’t want to release his tax returns because of how little wealth he actually possessed, and Sanders didn’t want to release his returns because of how much wealth he actually possessed.
SiubhanDuinne
@Steeplejack (tablet):
Low-hanging fruit.
dr. bloor
@efgoldman: Well, he’s pissed about having to pay taxes on it. That’s close enough.
Anne Laurie
@SiubhanDuinne:
It’s all ‘trial balloons’ and CHA (covering his arse). If (when) it turns out his latest choice is ineligible for any number of reasons, it’s not Donald’s fault — some crappy intern or underling made a very bad no good choice for which they have now been FIRED!!! Yugely!
Too tired to look up the details, but remember when he got zinged for some really horrible racist tweets back last summer? “Not my fault! Naughty intern!”
SiubhanDuinne
@Yarrow:
Yes, this, a thousand times.
Forever aggrieved.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Did you ever read “Hellraisers”? Naughty boys, all.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@SiubhanDuinne:
Well, monkey No. 2 still hates it when monkey No. 1 gets there first.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Possibly one of the truest and most profound comments ever made.
SiubhanDuinne
@Anne Laurie:
Like you, I can’t be arsed to look it up, but I do recall that shifting blame to interns/low-level staffers was his SOP.
(Was it maybe when he tweeted the photo of Hillary against a background of a six-pointed star and lots of money? “Oh, no, that’s not at all anti-Semitic!” said Jared, who promptly deleted it.)
Anne Laurie
@germy:
Many someones, here and elsewhere on the web.
The irony is that Bernie Sanders is possibly more qualified as a “landholder”, under Founding Father rules. Sanders (& his wife) own at least three substantial properties (in two different states), whereas Trump probably owns… a lot of overleveraged debts, and some naming rights. Because that’s how the tax advantages work for “real estate developers”.
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
Never heard of it, but sounds yummy. Just downloaded to my Kindle app, and will read it as soon as I’ve worked my way (for the umpteenth time) through DLS’s Have His Carcase.
Thanks!!
germy
@efgoldman:
It also requires some deep-pocketed benefactors; progressive versions of the Kochs.
Can we get rich left-coast celebrities to put their money where their mouths are?
Baud
@efgoldman: We’ve circular firing squaded our way into a Trumpocalypse. Need to change.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: Will Rodgers was actually quite effective as Mayor(though honorary) of Beverly Hills. He managed to get quite a bit for that small town, including a rather nice Post Office from the feds.
Yarrow
@germy: Doubt it. They’re artists. Not all that organized. Plus, not generally Koch bros. rich.
Botsplainer
@cynthia ackerman:
Yeah, the over/under on the first resignation is March 1, 2017.
Yarrow
@Botsplainer: How many will even be confirmed by then?
Hey, question for the blog commenters – do you think Congress will hold confirmation hearings? I understand they are customary not required. So why would they do them?
Baud
@Yarrow: The Senators have interests they want to protect. They’ll want assurances from the nominee.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I’m not giving up my spot in the circular firing squad, I’m a Democrat!
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman:
Bernie’s not a member of the corrupt Democrat Party.
Baud
@efgoldman: I blame BillinGlendaleCA.
El Caganer
@Yarrow: With a few honorable exceptions, I’m not too sympathetic to the press. They were his Dr. Frankenstein, providing all that free media juice that powered him up.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Hey, I ain’t Presidenting.
Botsplainer
@germy:
That is going to lead to some truly hard choices for those people. George Soros funds the stuff that needs to be funded, but he is just one guy.
Hollywood liberals have been funding a relatively predictable set of causes for years, gone to galas, done endorsements. And those causes suck A LOT of air out of the room with returns that quite frankly are uneven and inadequate. There are also powerful constituencies that want to see their primacy of interests maintained.
Who do we say needs to take a back seat for a while to organization? Animal welfare? HIV prevention and cure? LGBT rights? Crippled kids? And how many agents are going to counsel their clients to fund the same efforts for voting registration and expansion as Soros?
Johannes
@SiubhanDuinne: O’Toole was a magnificent Henry II (when I wrote a journal article tracing the Catholic Church sex abuse crisis to the Becket-Henry conflict, I heard O’Toole and Burton in all the source materials.
Mind you, he was pretty great in The Stunt Man Too.
El Caganer
@Botsplainer: Trouble is, when Congress is done picking apart the social safety net, it’s going to put the burden on private funders to provide for people in need. Just as an example, supposedly there’s another big cut in SNAP benefits in the works, which will strain the food system even more than it is already.
PIGL
@rikyrah: except China isn’t going to finance all those wars. And I doubt that Europe will either .
Botsplainer
“If Tiny Tim is to die, then let him do it and decrease the surplus population”.
#MAGA
PIGL
@schrodinger’s cat: I think you’ll find a lot of it’s been pissed away already that’s certainly how I would read Obama’s Nobel Prize.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie: O’Toole and Harris used to tell the greatest drunk stories, often about each other, on Letterman
Baud
@Botsplainer: I think that’s in the GOP platform.
SiubhanDuinne
@Johannes:
And My Favorite Year, too also.
Botsplainer
@El Caganer:
Welcome to the reason why the social safety net arose – inadequate ability (and to be fair, inclination) of most private religious charity to meet the needs of an immiserated populace. Now we have to be in triage mode and something has to take a back seat.
My inclination is homelessness. I’m being fairly Leninist about it, but right now, resources committed to that are best moved elsewhere.
Botsplainer
@Baud:
I’m watching the Scott version right now, and just went through the segment about the Cratchit toast to Scrooge. Didn’t care for this adaptation’s shifting of the discussion of whose money paid for the feast, but Dickens was a very brilliant man when it came to economics. He recognized that business is a collaborative effort, that labor matters and the rewards should spread across the enterprise.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Just glancing at the prologue of Hellraisers (the book Debbie recommended, which has just whooshed into my iPad Kindle app), I’m guessing that the entire thing is going to be full of great drunk stories!
Bad boys, bad boys, whattcha gonna do?
Baud
@Botsplainer: He was a commie before being a commie was cool.
O. Felix Culpa
@SiubhanDuinne: Love DLS! Gaudy Night is my fave. Re-read it every couple of years.
Jeffro
@El Caganer:
You’re not suggesting that Republicans care about “strains” in the safety net, I hope? They could give a flying fuck about the safety net. Every dollar that doesn’t go there is another dollar they can vacuum up and leave in the offering plate of their home Ayn Rand altar.
Jeffro
Trump’s foreign policy:
1) I don’t know what I’m doing…
2) …but I like dictators, billionaires, and people who talk really tough – BIGLY tough! – especially against the Chinese and Ay-rabs…
3) …so there’s a good chance that I’m going to get your sons and daughters killed in some not-at-all-thought-out show of force, America.
Did I miss anything?
I guess we’ll see, the first time he decides that all those nukes are just sitting around doing nothing and that he can really ‘get results’, ‘shake things up’ by dropping one – a small one, mind you – on wherever he feels ISIS headquarters is in March.
Another Scott
@Jeffro:
Unfortunately, I think Donnie’s thought processes are more along those lines, as edited. It’ll be interesting to see how Twitter blows up when people start telling him “No” – even most of the crazy Teabaggers don’t want to blow up the world.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Botsplainer
@efgoldman:
Correct about the deductibility. Those millions of dollars would need to shift to aiding the revitalization of working class advocacy, and stars, athletes, moguls, publicists and agents have to be sold on it for it to happen.
Capital has relentlessly fled to fund the right wing. Entertainment and sports money is the main reliable large source of funding available to causes on the center left to left.
The other thing that needs to happen is less union respect for injunctions on picketing and strike activity. This includes the now prohibited but fine old practice of refusing to cross someone else’s picket line AND calling general strikes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Johannes: Oooohh! Fun article. I shall read it.
frosty
@SiubhanDuinne:
Beat me to it!
SiubhanDuinne
@O. Felix Culpa:
Me too! I’m currently going through the four DLS books with Harriet and then moving on to the four Jill Paton Walsh sequels, based on the DLS characters (Thrones, Dominations; A Presumption of Death; The Attenbury Emeralds; and The Late Scholar). I’ve read them all, multiple times, but never the eight straight through in chronological order.
Gaudy Night is not only my favorite DLS, it is among my all-time top favorite novels of any genre. I read it at least once a year. It never pales.
Emerald
@SiubhanDuinne:
One of my faves is from 2008 called Dean Spanley from Australia. Rest of the cast us great too. O’Toole’s last scene in it with no dialogue is just meltworthy.
SiubhanDuinne
@Emerald:
Haven’t seen it, will have to look it out, thanks!
SiubhanDuinne
@Johannes:
From the summary, the article looks extremely cool! Thanks!
(I never cease to be amazed at the variety and depth of expertise Balloon Juicers bring to the table. Seriously, is there any subject, any specialty, that a Juicer can’t speak to? Just astonishing and wonderful.)
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: A lot of very good generalists too. People who have what someone once said was the point of a liberal art education, the ability to make at least one intelligent remark about just about any topic at cocktail party.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@Aleta: Thank you so much for posting this. I’ve put this on my Facebook page, and intend to start a group that follows the guidelines laid out here. I owe this to my grandchildren.
SWMBO
@SiubhanDuinne: When they catch him/her, try him/her and convict him/her, I hope they get sentenced to any for profit prison in Texas.
Sab
@Baud:
@SiubhanDinne: I am an ignoramus from ohio.Who is DLS
Gvg
Dorothy L. Sayers who wrote the Lord Peter Whimsey mysteries long ago.
catclub
@Mike G: This. Over and over again.
jonas
What’s the over/under on Trump ending his term with the US facing international sanctions for a whole array of war crimes, human rights offenses, illegal manipulation of currency/financial markets, etc.?
cynthia ackerman
@jonas:
He should have all that in the bag by sunrise on 1/21.
Mike in Pasadena
@Doug R: a bankrupt one
Ella in New Mexico
@Mike G: It was all out there, written by multiple people, just begging to be considered
The flaw in assuming it would/should have made a difference boils down to one thing: Trump voters rely on simple, black and white answers and proposals. They don’t read long form.
J R in WV
@Yarrow:
None of your hypotheses seem outlandish to me. There is no limit to the crazy that Trump may commit. I just hope the Rs don’t hesitate to fire him when the time comes.
But of course, Trump could arrest, imprison and execute Republicans who submit Articles of Impeachment, so there’s that too.
No limits Presidency!!
No One You Know
@germy: This must be true! I read it on the Internet.
/
However, I’m still not sure that it predicts electoral college behavior…Humans are involved.