Earlier this afternoon, the Vice President, with the Secretary of State behind him, announced a ceasefire he had gotten Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan to agree to. The President then did an impromptu press gaggle on the tarmac of the Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport where he ran with this news. The President spun the Vice President’s announcement of what Turkey supposedly agreed to as great for the Kurds, the Turks, the US, and civilization itself.
There's no apparent basis for Trump's claim just now that "everybody" has been trying to get this Turkey deal for "10 years," unless he means Turkey's government. (He habitually claims that previous administrations couldn't have achieved deals they never tried to achieve.)
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 17, 2019
Trump now says it was "more than" 15 years people have tried to get this deal. This is some of the fastest lieflation in recent memory. https://t.co/04GFSKQYaR
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 17, 2019
Trump concludes of his deal with Turkey: "Civilization is very happy."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 17, 2019
This comment about “having to have it cleaned out” is an excuse and rationalization for ethnic cleansing!
Referring to Kurds living along Turkish border in Syria, Trump says of Turkey, "they had to have it cleaned out." pic.twitter.com/W8J7IFctO3
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 17, 2019
TRUMP: "What Turkey is getting now is they are not going to have to kill millions of people." 😳 pic.twitter.com/JXKfam96hv
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 17, 2019
The Turks, however, have their own understanding of what was agreed to and it is not a cease fire.
#BREAKING 'Pause of Turkey's operation in Syria is not cease-fire, cease-fire can only happen between two legitimate sides': Turkish foreign minister
— Anadolu English (@anadoluagency) October 17, 2019
Cavusoglu added that a “safe zone” would need to be established at 32 kilometer (roughly 20 miles) depth from east of Euphrates to the Iraqi border. (Which is what Turkey wanted initially.)
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) October 17, 2019
The ceasefire that the Vice President announced at his press conference in Turkey is not one. Moreover, it doesn’t actually bind the proxy extremist groups that Turkey has turned loose in the area and who have been committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in their fight with the Kurds. I’m honestly not even sure this binds the Kurds. And, as a result, we can predict what will happen.
As the Kurds move through this now supposedly temporarily pacified battlespace, to both collect the dead, the wounded, those trapped behind their enemy’s lines and to make it to the new lines 20 miles from the Turkish border, they will come into contact with the Syrian extremist groups that the Turks are using as proxies and a force multiplier. Those Syrian extremists, not bound by the agreement, will initiate hostilities with the Syrian Kurds and Arabs that make up the Syrian Democratic Forces because part of this Turkish operation was to colonize the buffer area they have just been granted by the President via the Vice President and Secretary of State. And the Syrian extremists that Erdogan is using as a proxy force are not going to want to have to let the Syrian Kurds and Arabs trying to get clear of the new buffer area take their property and possessions with them. Those are spoils of war that belong to those extremists who are going to set up shop in the buffer zone with whomever else Erdogan relocates there.
That’s right, you’re not crazy, you’re not hallucinating Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo, on orders from the President, just ceded 20 miles of Syria to Turkey. Land that Syria’s Kurds have long claimed as a homeland where they deserve self determination and recognition as a nation-state. This was done unilaterally. Without consulting with the Syrians. Or the UN. Or Congress. Or seemingly anyone else. I’m sure Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs got asked for their opinions though. The President definitely knows how to get a real estate deal done!
Once the Kurds and Arabs of the SDF come into contact with the Syrian extremists that Erdogan is using as a proxy force and force multiplier, those extremists will attack. And the Syrian Democratic Forces will defend themselves. And once they do that, the Turks will claim that the temporary cessation of hostilities was violated by the Kurds and the SDF, and the Turkish military will restart offensive operations. I give it 12 hours, tops, before we’re back to where we were before the Vice President’s press conference today.
But civilization is happy, so good job everyone!
Mr. President, please help yourself to a Nobel Peace Prize. Take it out of petty cash.
Open thread!
ThresherK
No comment on the obvious ridiculousness, but: I was this many years old when I learned the Kurds had a flag and that is what it looks like.
Mike in DC
Fortunately there are only 191 other countries in the world for our president to ruin our relationship with.
jl
Thanks for the info. But I really need to see the powerpoint. Then, I am sure, it will make some sense.
Where is the missing slide deck!?
schrodingers_cat
I am not an expert on US history but T is the worst President bar none in the history of this country.
jl
There is a good point here, ethnic cleansing wouldn’t produce war and humanitarian crimes if the population being cleansed would just run off far away real quick fast like a bunny. So, that could be a Trumpster contribution to international law?
zzyzx
I read this hoping that, maybe, just maybe, the deal was less bad than I thought it was. The headline wasn’t promising and it’s not like Trump has a good track record but maybe.
Sigh.
It’s worse.
I follow the Israeli-Palestinian conflict enough to know that “We will give you guys a few days to leave this area when you have nowhere else to go,” is not an order that goes well for anyone.
Brachiator
As always, Trump crafts a lie that he has achieved what no other president before ever achieved. All hail the great and powerful Oz! Uh, I mean Trump.
The only thing worse than this are Trump supporters, who equal Trump in their ability to come up with rationalizations. I heard someone claim that a wise and crafty Trump has got the US out of the region and tricked Putin into getting stuck in a Middle East quagmire. The Kurds, apparently will just have to suck it up.
MattF
But… Lou Dobbs says it’s a ceasefire, so that’s that. Turkish foreign minister is sadly mistaken.
Adam L Silverman
@ThresherK: Please hit my Patreon on the way out.//
gene108
@schrodingers_cat:
Not sure about worst. He has competition.
But he is definitely the most corrupt, bar none.
Gravenstone
Bringing this up from the tail end of the prior thread.
Barely subtext, Trump sees the Kurds as sub-human. An infestation that Turkey has expressed the “need” to root out and eliminate, by whatever means they deem necessary.
Marcopolo
Just learned a new term: lieflation. Thanks DD.
Just called Blunt & Hawley yesterday but between this, Mulvaney’s comments, Trumps awarding of the G7 to himself, and Sondland’s statement I’m back to the phone after posting this (202-224-3121). I think making a small donation to the fund for flipping the Senate might also feel good.
Also, someone please make all this crap stop. I do not like living inside the pages of 1984.
nasruddin
Not only is Pence dirty and implicated, he’s completely incompetent, as he has just demonstrated.
Perhaps in the same world-class incomptence ring as Mr Trump.
He would not be a better president. And with no charisma, we’d be 50 independent countries by the time his caretaker regime ran out its clock.
HumboldtBlue
Well, at least we still have our proud and able ally in Italy on our side isn’t that right President Mozzarella?
Also, it appears the United States and Italy have been allied since Ceasar roamed the streets of Rome.
jl
@Gravenstone: Except when Trump says the opposite. Every week used to be infrastructure week. But that got old, so every day is opposite from yesterday day now.
FlipYrWhig
@Gravenstone: He had no idea who they were before, and now thinks they’re basically Mexicans. I am very sure Erdogan gave him the idea, probably in those words. It’s all a displaced wish-fulfillment of what he’d love to do to the border with Mexico.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: Perhaps any country, organization, corporation, and/or group that has a president.
Adam L Silverman
@Marcopolo: We have an opening to transfer you to Brave New World, will that work for you?
jl
@Adam L Silverman: Way back in the day, that included cricket clubs, at least in the English North American colonies.
PeakVT
Why does everything have to be horrible at all at once?
I’ve been in agreement with Atrios that Shrub was actually worse, but Trump is working hard to catch up.
SiubhanDuinne
From Trump’s letter to Erdoğan last week:
From Trump’s comments about Erdoğan today:
Jay
Pretty sure that the Syrian Arab Army, the Russian Areospace Forces, Hezboallah, and the Iranian Republican Guard are not okay with cedeing more Syrian territory to Turkey.
They still havn’t forgiven the Aillies for cedeing Hattay Province to Turkey during WWII to keep them neutral, especially the former Armenian inhabitants of Hattay Province who wisely fled to other parts of Syria, Lebanon, and North America.
On the bright side, Turkey’s rebranded ISIL and al-Quida proxies arn’t going to fare well against the SDF and YPG with out Turkish drones, airstrikes, artillary, tanks and Turkish Special Forces backing them up.
Mary G
Every time I think he can’t get any lower, they do. Yesterday Ertogan told the world that he read Twitler’s stupid letter, balled it up, chucked it into the bin/trashcan, and went ahead with the invasion anyway. Pence sits down with Ertoganj, and there is a large Turkish flag behind him, not the customary American flag. There is a teeny tiny American flag on the table between them, just to emphasize the insult.
The whole world is watching America get pantsed and doing nothing about it, indeed praising the guy they gave the store to. Putin probably fell off his horse laughing so hard.
MattF
@Gravenstone: Trump wants the credit for defeating ISIS, but those pesky Kurds seem to think that being the ones on the ground who did the fighting and the dying gives them a claim for that. Then, along come the Turks, who are ready to do the chore of eliminating the Kurds. Problem solved!
Adam L Silverman
@jl: To the Queen!
dmsilev
Let’s just be very clear. At the absolute best, this is the language of ethnic cleansing. I could make a reasonable case that he’s arguing for genocide.
Jay
@Mary G:
Bear, Puitipuit rides a bear, shirtless,
Know your memes. ; )
Mary G
@dmsilev: He is condoning genocide at a minimum. Now we get to watch the Republicans praise his great and unmatched wisdom.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: Yep, which is why I added this, just above that clip, in the post:
JAFD
Good evening, fellow Jackals !
Went to hospital, thru MUGA test, now have Note From Doctor saying ‘Dear Homelad Security (or whom it may concern) Please excuse JAFD for setting off your geiger counters. We made him radioactive, In The Name Of Science.’
Also got flu shot, and got poked and questioned by PCP, who was back from bout of the Egyptian Flu (it turned her into a mummy) (she’d never heard that one before).
Rotten weather in New Jersey today, overcast, damp, very windy. Scrubbed planned post-medical errands, headed home and made hot cuppa.
Stay well !
SiubhanDuinne
@HumboldtBlue:
I felt so sorry for the Italian translator yesterday, trying desperately to make sense of Trump’s insalata di parole.
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: way past time for this mutherfucker to be hauled out of the WH in cuffs and thrown in some dark hole with the entirety of his administration.
Zzyzx
Are there any reputable organizations that we can donate to to help? Is there anyone who can help them at all?
Ksmiami
@Mike in DC: I want them all hung for treason
schrodingers_cat
With these actions our President has emboldened every petty tyrant in the world.
MattF
@SiubhanDuinne: Google Translate says the Italian translation of ‘what the fuck’ is ‘che cazzo’.
John Revolta
@Jay: This is correct. Let’s keep our despots straight.
It’s Kim riding the horse!
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Of course, this president is himself a petty tyrant. Emphasis on the “petty.”
Roger Moore
@sukabi:
Poetic justice requires that the dark hole he is thrown in be a privately operated prison run by the lowest bidder. He will be denied a toothbrush, soap, and a clean water because those haven’t been legally shown to be required items for hygiene.
mrmoshpotato
@Adam L Silverman: @Marcopolo: I hear The White Mountains are nice this time of year.
Jay
mrmoshpotato
@PeakVT: Because horrible people are in charge. Any more questions?
SFAW
@gene108:
Yeah. I’d like to see “the Corrupt and Lawless Trump Administration” in every news story about them, from now until the Traitor-in-Chief runs screaming/puling from the Oval Office forever. I’d like to see that phrase used so much that the media have to use “CALTA” to save time, every fucking day.
ETA: What’s interesting is that I apparently have Obama’s time machine. I just Googled “the Corrupt and Lawless Trump Administration” and “CALTA,” and apparently I typed that five hours ago, in this very thread. Cool! Now if only I could figure out a way to undo the 2016 results ….
Jay
@Zzyzx:
For Americans, it’s difficult. It is up to the whims of Dolt45 and his Appendages, to decide which organizations are an NGO Aid Organization, and which are “terrorist financiers”, and they have been known to retroactively reclassify them.
There are reputable aid agencies for the Royhinja, but it would be very risky for an American to donate.
mrmoshpotato
@Mary G: I wonder if the Russkis are in awe of all this. Or embarrassed at all the “Daddy Vladdy! Daddy Vladdy! Did I do good?”
Does Dump give Alaska back to Russia for Christmas?
smintheus
This should be Trump’s epitaph:
Patricia Kayden
@schrodingers_cat: By far. It’s not even a competition. The only question is how much damage Trump will do to the Republican Party even when he’s long give from office. They will never live him down. He’s a disgrace.
cain
@Mary G:
Yet the slighest gesture by Obama and it’s a huge shit show from Republicans. They never gave a damn about any of that. It’s just attacking for attacking sake. What a bunch of crap. Literally disrespect to the office of the President by a foreign power and you don’t hear a squeak from Republicans. The balloon juice of the right is tepid air instead of the noxious green fumes they normally reserve for Democrats.
Jay
Patricia Kayden
@Jay: So there’s no ceasefire as Trump is claiming. Just another lie.
Another Scott
Oh, and there’s still no FY21 budget, either. TheHill:
(Emphasis added.)
It’s potentially going to be an interesting next few weeks, for lots of reasons…
Cheers,
Scott.
burnspbesq
The only things left on Erdogan’s wish list that Trump hasn’t given him are the deportations of Gulen and Enes Kanter.
mrmoshpotato
@JAFD: Good news! You can munch on frozen pizzas now without cooking. They’ll cook after you eat them.
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
But the month is young …
MisterForkbeard
@Jay: You mean, the Kurds are rejecting the fake pause where they give up everything but are moved by the United States (which has no significant forces in the reason) rather than being outright and immediately killed by the Turks? Huh.
It’s kind of like they think it’s a bum deal.
sdhays
@MattF: You misspelled Loud Obbs. //
mrmoshpotato
@schrodingers_cat:
Seems to be the bastard’s MO.
SiubhanDuinne
@MattF:
I shall add that to my Lexicon of International Invective. “Che cazzo?” is definitely the look on her face.
Jay
@Zzyzx:
Sister Golden Bear
Reposting for the day-time crew.
Hecker’sterrorist’s vetoDeath Threats From God’s Gentle People Force School District To Rescind Trans-Inclusive Policy
Bathrooms, it’s always about the damn bathrooms…
trollhattan
@schrodingers_cat:
A whole lot of dead presidents and one living one are collectively saying, “Whew, at least now I know my name will never again come up as ‘worst president ever.'”
Jay
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
Video for the ages.
hueyplong
@trollhattan: Spiro Agnew, reached on his spit in hell, expressed cautious optimism about his place in future VP rankings.
Jay
mrmoshpotato
@Patricia Kayden: The Russthuglicans don’t deserve to live him down. He’s the result of 40 years of seeing what pig-ignorant imbeciles a party of power-drunk idiots will vote for.
Jay
Stuck in moderation,
Ohio Mom
@JAFD: I like the way you casually slip in that you just had a heart function test. Whatever the results are, here’s hoping it is something relatively easy to fix. Keep us posted.
On the topic of the post, I have nothing to add except I made calls to my Teapartier Congressional Rep and my worthless Senator (Portman) this morning to reiterate that Trump must be impeached — I’m trying to call every day but sometimes life gets in the way.
I have always believed Trump would not last his full term but I did not take into account how violent the last stages of his presidency would be. It’s a little scary frankly.
burnspbesq
@Sister Golden Bear:
You could always pee on their shoes and shit in their swimming pools.
Emerald
@gene108: Nah, he’s the worst. Buchanan did nothing, which was bad. This fool is actively destroying every part of the government and our foreign relations that he can destroy.
Plus, the rampant corruption.
He’s the worst. No contest. (Except I agree with Jimmy Carter and the Clintons that he’s illegitimate and was never actually elected. We’ll see how, or if, History treats that little difficulty.)
Sister Golden Bear
@burnspbesq: Tempting. But then I’d be sent to a men’s prison because “gender is assigned at birth and can never be changed” according to these folks.
And yes, that happens regularly, especially for poor trans WOC who can’t afford to change their name and gender of their legal ID.
Marcopolo
@Adam L Silverman: Back from calling.
Off the top of my head I guess I’d rather be dosed with Soma than have a wire cage with a rat in it strapped to my face. YMMV.
sukabi
@Roger Moore: right there with you. ? grrrrr
mrmoshpotato
@burnspbesq: Just floating that idea out there, eh?
Marcopolo
@Ohio Mom: thank you for calling.
Evil_Paul
This was pretty much my first question when I heard the news an hour ago: Cease fire? Kurds will abandon disputed territory in 120 hrs? HAVE THE KURDS AGREED TO THIS?
I mean, it’s not like they’re fighting for this strip of land because it’s their only safe zone in a two hundred mile radius! It’s not like they haven’t been prepping for this conflict for the last few years and fighting like hell for the last week and a half! I’m sure they’ll be happy to climb out of their their carefully constructed defensive positions, abandon the towns and villages they’ve been living in for three years, and become refugees…AGAIN!!!
And never mind the Syrian and Russian government forces…
Seriously, I don’t know if there’s anything like a workable solution for the region’s problems, but at least Obama’s strategy included the radical concept of “Try not to make it worse!”
Doug R
Modern day trail of tears.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Brachiator:
Idiots
Jay
MattF
WaPo:
Oopsie.
Shalimar
So Erdogan is “a tough man, a strong man.” He’s just ass-kissing with verbiage from his embarrassingly inept letter. Which makes me wonder what was in Kim Jong Un’s love letters. Why do I suspect they we just crayon drawings of gjant penises with “Trump” written over each one?
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: Did they vote for Jill Stein?
Jay
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
The ISIL members from Russia are mostly Chechens, Dagestani’s and Intuguish, and the whole reason they are in Syria, is that Russia is not a healthy environment for their kind.
There are “moderate” Chechens, Dagestani’s and Intuguish in Georgia, the Baltics and Ukraine, because Russia is not a healthy environment for even their kind.
Most of the Foreign Fighters in ISIL are other Middle Easterners, North Africans and from the Sahel. They will move to Mali, Algeria, Tunisia, Lybia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Somalia, Egypt, Yemen and other places where unending conflict has created ISIL franchises.
catclub
@mrmoshpotato:
probably not, at least as long as it has two GOP senators.
…. I wonder where Murkowski is on the furrowed brow spectrum.
Jay
trollhattan
Speaking of delusion run amok.
catclub
@Emerald: I always rate Bush Jr. worst on the hundreds of thousands of pointlessly dead Iraqis scale.
I guess Trump is trying to catch up on that scale, but still behind.
Also note that Bush Jr admin pioneered stonewalling, ignoring, subpoenas from a House controlled by Democrats.
catclub
@Evil_Paul:
The US does have a tradition of abandoning the Kurds to the nearest angry strongman. Trump just does it it in the worst possible way.
J R in WV
@PeakVT:
Shrub W did kill more innocent people in war crimes, with the wonderful assistance of Dick [Killer!] Cheney during his terms, but Trump still has part of the current term and the whole next term to catch up with those totals should he win reelection in November, 2020. But for sheer blatant evil, crazed incompetence, and incompetent financial corruption for personal benefit, hard to beat Mr Trump.
JAFD
@Ohio Mom: Actually, I had a fairly serious heart attack, 51 weeks ago this evening. The MUGA test results today were pretty good, considering my age, etc. Father Time will beat me someday, but think I’ve still got some good years left.
And again, thanks to all you Jackals for moral support, thoughts and prayers, et cetera.
schrodingers_cat
Finally saw Gully Boy this weekend. This is one of the best numbers in the movie.
Bolo Azadi, Give me Freedom. Original JNU protest version
Gully Boy version
catclub
@J R in WV: Dick Cheney may well have gotten away with some competent financial corruption a la Halliburton.
Martin
US Presidents have been working on this since Constantine.
Gravenstone
@MattF: Mulvaney, meet Bus?
catclub
@trollhattan:
says the PM who has NEVER (not sure, but he has lost all the crucial ones) won a vote in Parliament
J R in WV
@John Revolta:
There was a good picture of Kim riding a really pretty horse, with all four feet off the ground. But there have been many pictures of Crime Lord Putin riding horses, bare chested. Am thankful Kim’s shots were not bare chested!
ETA: I’m expecting that the combination of the active volcano on the northern border with China and the white house is symbolic of the rider’s control of natural sources of power and viollent change. When these horseback rides have happened before, there have been big newsworthy post ride events. So people expect missile launches and big test explosions, but really, who knows/??
catclub
@Gravenstone: I would say the knives may be out for Mulvaney making the lives of the co-conspirators more difficult, but this does not sound like Trump is upset with him. He said all the right things for audient #1.
Roger Moore
@MattF:
This is the problem with lying all the time: you can’t remember what the truth is supposed to be today. They were planning on holding off the “quid pro quos are awesome” defense until after the “there was no quid pro quo” defense was thoroughly discredited. Now they’re going to have to practice their “quid pro quos are awesome” in a hurry while getting ready to switch to “Hillary would have done much worse quid pro quos if she had been elected”.
trollhattan
@catclub:
He’s gaslighting the holy hell out of them hoping they won’t notice. Lotsa luck, Boris, I don’t think they’re falling for it this time, either.
schrodingers_cat
@PeakVT: If you are not a white male, T is worse. Period.
Mary G
@PeakVT: @J R in WV: Don’t forget that he muses about nuking ten million people to end the war in Afghanistan. He’d be number one then!
Mary G
catclub
@Roger Moore: I think they will have a good chance with quid pro quos are awesome, argument. Because they are used all the time – but in the goal of advancing US policy, not the goal of political favors for Trump. Spelling out that difference will be lost on many.
rikyrah
I knew that you would be on it. Thanks, Silverman for the post.
chopper
@Jay:
well of course. why should they agree to being ethnically cleansed?
barb 2
The religious extremist — End of Timers — are so delighted and jumping for joy. They want this region of the world to explode into a massive blood bath so that their “christ” will return (see Daniel & Revelations). I grew up in a religious cult — end of timers. As a young kid I remember every time there was some sort of blood shed in the Middle East there would be prayers of joy by the church elders. “Prepare for the return of Jesus Christ.” As a kid I could see holes in this religion.
And look at who the Sec. of State is — an End of Timer. Religion on the Sec. of State website. A whole lot of dots are connecting. There are code words these creeps use.
Thank you, Adam, for giving us all a deeper understanding of what is happening plus the military outlook. I knew if I clicked on Balloon Juice you would have a post up about this current mess.
MattF
I’m not a Mitt fanboy, but he’s laying it all out pretty clearly here.
Ohio Mom
@JAFD: Happy almost anniversary then! I like that the test results were as good as can be expected, all things considered. Rock on.
@J R in WV: I’ve entertained Atrios’ contention that Bush remains the worst president; it’s hard to argue with the death toll. But I have evolved to an opinion similar to yours, Trump beats out everyone else in corruption, ignorance,
mental illness, and poor manners.
Gelfling 545
@Brachiator: Well, he may have achieved something here that no other president has. And that we must pray that no future one will.
barb 2
Heard on MSNBC –Trump,Turkey to the Kurds — Stay, give up your guns so we can kill you faster. Trump gives Turkey what they want and HE declares victory??? Pure Evil. The reporters on the ground are disgusted.
Putin is so pleased with his puppet. “Kurds are incredibly happy”! so says Trump.
dmsilev
The WaPo’s Live update of impeachment inquiries is just amazing. For just _this afternoon_, we have:
The morning was this:
Plus some minor odds and ends like the GOP claiming to be Outraged! at Adam Schiff.
PeakVT
@J R in WV: I think Trumpolini makes us (us liberals, that is) feel … degraded, for lack of a better word – his boorish behavior, blatant corruption, blithering ignorance, monumental incompetence, naked racism, etc. all depress our opinions of our country and to some degree our selves. Shrub both knew the conventions of presidential behavior and is probably pretty likeable one-on-one (if you can get beyond his policies, like Ellen apparently has). He made us mad, he made us sad, he made us poorer, but he did not make us feel the way Trump has. Or at least that’s me, if not we.
Anyway, I hope Shrub remains the actual worst of the two and the Syria situation doesn’t devolve further.
Yutsano
@trollhattan: If he doesn’t have the DUP he’s ungestuppt. There aren’t enough Labour MPs and former Conservative MPs to get him over 320. And he hasn’t won a substantial vote in Parliament yet. He’s also running out of time. He really has only until Saturday or he asks for an extension or resigns. Or he breaks the law and hopes the ensuing chaos will cause the UK to fall out of the EU with no deal. Guess which option he really wants?
Roger Moore
@catclub:
I think the “quid pro quos are awesome” argument will be a tougher sell than the expect for a couple of reasons. First of all, it’s pretty clear that cutting a deal that’s intended to help the president personally is very different from cutting a deal that’s intended to help the country as a whole. Yes, Trump’s fanatical supporters will be happy to ignore that point, but given that nothing whatsoever would convince them this isn’t very important. Second, and perhaps more important, is that there’s blood in the water and the sharks in the media are circling. They’ve been willing to cut Trump slack in the past because he’s good for ratings, but he’s obviously in trouble now. Everyone in the news is imagining themselves as the next Woodward and Bernstein, and there’s a real danger the people at the top will decide impeachment will be even better for ratings than Trump’s normal craziness.
Mary G
@Mary G: That was an oped in the FTFNYT by William McRaven, retired from command of Special Ops, I used one of the free clicks to read it, and it’s scathing:
I’m still afraid a lot of the military are Trumpsters, hope I’m wrong.
Roger Moore
@Ohio Mom:
I think the ultimate question will be how much Bush’s lawlessness paved the way for Trump. If you see Trump’s corruption and general craziness as sui generis, you’ll tend to see him as the worst. If you see him as following the path set by Bush, but doing it publicly instead of trying to hide it, you have to put a lot of the blame for Trump on Bush.
PeakVT
@schrodingers_cat: I admit I am, and that I don’t know enough about what non-white-males are experiencing now.
RSA
@mrmoshpotato:
Tripods would be an improvement.
Gin & Tonic
@Jay: The people you’re trying to refer to are the Ingush.
misterpuff
@Adam L Silverman: Soma for Maga. Fair Deal.
debbie
My head is going to explode.
@Roger Moore:
Please. The blame has to be placed on the puppetmaster, Dick Cheney.
schrodingers_cat
@PeakVT: I am not male, but I am an immigrant and we have been in his cross-hairs since he descended down that elevator.
J R in WV
@JAFD:
So… does this mean you’re running for president?
I spent about 5 hours at my family doctor’s office this morning and early afternoon. It took two experienced RNs to coax the three tubes of blood Dr Bill needed for his lab to work with three sticks. Each elbow, then the back of my right hand. No big deal, needles don’t bother me so much.
Then I went to an Indian buffet lunch, then hit up bakery, fish shop, liquor store, gas station, Kroger’s to resupply…
Was pooped when I got home, but the two new puppies and the adult dog all greeted me along the driveway, and chased the car up to the house. When I opened the door, all three puppies put their heads into the car, wagging hard.
It was so reassuring to have total puppy support when I got home!!
sdhayss
@Mary G: I’m really curious how many people in the military will have the scales fall from their eyes over their support for Republicans over Dump. I was not expecting it to be many, but this makes me wonder. It’s so obviously wrong – even if you think that the US should have extricated itself completely from Syria, we didn’t need to do it in a way that completely screwed over the Kurds. And we didn’t need to do it in a way such that our forces weren’t ready to leave before Turkey started invading. Or without securing the captured ISIS fighters. The recklessness should open a few eyes.
Or so I tell myself when I’m feeling optimistic about humans….
debbie
@Mary G:
This is what brings me the closest to tears. Anything else just ticks me off (like Mulvaney).
ETA: I had the thought yesterday that when the next 9/11 happens, the rest of the world will probably shrug, Meh.
sdhays
@Mary G: I’m really curious how many people in the military will have the scales fall from their eyes over their support for Republicans over Dump. I was not expecting it to be many, but this makes me wonder. It’s so obviously wrong – even if you think that the US should have extricated itself completely from Syria, we didn’t need to do it in a way that completely screwed over the Kurds. And we didn’t need to do it in a way such that our forces weren’t ready to leave before Turkey started invading. Or without securing the captured ISIS fighters. The recklessness should open a few eyes.
Or so I tell myself when I’m feeling optimistic about humans….
Mnemosyne
@MattF:
Mulvaney and Trump honestly don’t see why it’s wrong to use their positions for personal profit. They’ve been doing it all their lives, so why are losers whining about it now?
Matt McIrvin
@PeakVT:
When I see Trump doing horrible things part of me can’t help but think: that’s me doing that. I should be ashamed of myself, personally, for being a citizen of the country that elected him, and in some ways similar to him (an aging white male who frankly got a leg up in life for being that). It doesn’t really matter that I never voted for him or supported him.
It makes some people think about emigrating. I really don’t because I see it as a stain that will never be eradicated. Moving somewhere else would just bring the stain there.
I’m not sure these feelings are really useful, though, because I don’t think they lead to greater activism. To some extent it’s the opposite because they just leave me feeling depressed and ashamed, which isn’t something that motivates you to go out in the world and do good things. The depressed feelings may be part of what the really gross right-wing trigger-the-libs propaganda is trying to achieve.
Roger Moore
@debbie:
I’m have to disagree. The buck stops at the top. The ideas may have been Cheney’s, but the legal authority and moral responsibility for decision making still lay with Bush. If he abrogated his responsibility by delegating everything to Cheney, he still deserves the ultimate blame for failing to use his power responsibly. Yes, obviously the idea man deserves a big chunk of the blame, but Bush is ultimately responsible for everything done under his auspices.
sdhays
@Mnemosyne: I don’t think they can comprehend anything else. I think they think ObamaCare must have enriched Obama and Democrats (never mind there there’s no evidence of that). They couldn’t possibly be sincere about wanting universal health care coverage!
CliosFanBoy
@schrodingers_cat: I am an expert and HE IS!!!!!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@HumboldtBlue:Italy was there for the US at the Battle of Cannae!
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’d like proof he even sent it.
sdhays
@sdhays: Just to add: I wonder what the prevailing attitude is in the military with Dump admitting that they’re being sent to Saudi Arabia on a contract. It’s pretty brazen, and it’s pretty clear that when Dump says that “we’re getting paid”, he doesn’t just mean that the US Treasury is getting compensated for fighting Saudi Arabia’s wars for them.
Matt McIrvin
@debbie: I don’t know. For me, hearing about actual atrocities seems to wash away any dark feelings I might have about whole populations collectively deserving them. They never do.
I mean, even with the original 9/11 attacks, one could say, and people certainly did, that in some extremely abstract and inhuman sense the US “had it coming”. Osama bin Laden himself had this whole moral theory worked out in his videos about how, since the US is democratic, every individual in it is a legitimate target for retributive killing. But even a lot of people who had nothing but contempt for bloody American actions during the Cold War and its various hot wars usually didn’t think all those individual passengers and office workers and children deserved to be murdered.
Also, I think many people already know that Trump was not the majority choice of Americans to be President.
Roger Moore
@sdhays:
It doesn’t really matter if it’s the US government that’s getting paid or Trump personally. People don’t volunteer for the military because they want to earn money for Uncle Sam. The do it to protect their country. Being told outright that they’re being treated as mercenaries who will be sold to anyone with a fat wallet and the best interests of the country be damned is not a good look no matter who’s profiting.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@J R in WV: Yes, to be fair to the Shrub and Darth “I have no heart” Cheney they did have legitimate crises they had to react to. So far almost all of this is Trump’s own creation.
debbie
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, some may have thought that, but I remember the Masai warriors who wanted to gift America with their cattle, the only tangible thing they had to give. They thought that much of this “shining beacon on the hill.” That will never happen next time.
WereBear
@JAFD: Glad to hear!
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
Well, if we can believe Erdoğan, he received it and immediately threw it in the trash. But I was more (once again) bemused at the way Trump can hold in his head/say out loud complete 180° contradictory polar opposites.
Letter: Tough guy = Bad!
Today: Tough man = Great!
mrmoshpotato
@catclub: Ah yes.
sdhays
@Roger Moore: That’s what I would think. But having it rubbed in your face that the President is getting paid personally for your sacrifice has got to be even worse. To be honest, I would expect that probably a good number of people wouldn’t be able to cope with that idea, at least while deployed. It’s stressful enough without feeling like your leadership is completely betraying you.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Who knows? They’re both pathological liars. I wouldn’t put it past Erodogan to lie about the letter just so he could look like he tossed it (America) into the garbage.
schrodingers_cat
@CliosFanBoy: Do you have a suggestion of a book/s used in a survey course of American history? I think that there are several gaps in my knowledge, since I didn’t have much American history in school.
Gin & Tonic
So now Mulvaney is trying to walk back his “quid pro quo, of course it was a quid pro quo, everybody does it.”
Ohio Mom
@Mary G: I think I’m supposed to say, “Late to the party McRaven but welcome any way, make yourself comfortable.” But I’m having a hard time imagining doing so.
Making it to the rank of general means McRaven had lots of education. He couldn’t see that this is exactly where the Republican Party has been heading for decades now?
He couldn’t get past his prejudices to take a clear look at the Democratic Party — “I don’t like Democrats”. What rotten judgement this clock striking the right hour for once has.
mrmoshpotato
@MattF: Annals of Republican history, Mittens.
mrmoshpotato
@debbie: Gotta include Rumsfeld and Powell with Cheney.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
My historically minded friends recommend Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” but I’ve never gotten around to reading it.
Another Scott
Twitter:
Sounds like a plan!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Jeffro
I’m trying to process everything that went down today:
– WH chief of staff admits to the fabled ‘quid pro quo’ that they were all denying not even a week ago…
– …and they were doing this to Ukraine to dig up dirt on a domestic political opponent…
– …AND to try and further the craziest of all conspiracy theories, the blessed ‘Crowdstrike server’…(THESERVERTHESERVERWHEREISTHESERVER?)
– …which would also absolve Putin of putting trumpov into power, validate trumpov’s 2016 ‘win’, etc etc.
– ALSO: we had an American VP running cover for both his boss and a NATO ally that’s starting up some serious ethnic cleansing against one of our best anti-ISIS allies
– …while we were also having to bomb our own facilities, to keep them from falling into the hands of said NATO ally.
– AND: the president*s chief of staff announced that the prez has awarded…himself!…the contract to host the G-7 summit, thereby boosting the revenue of his failing resort tremendously…
– …and naturally, there is no evidence that any sort of search or RFP whatsoever was done before deciding to put the G-7 at Doral…
– …and no, you filthy libs, you’re not going to get any papers of any kind on that non-search or non-RFP.
Is that it or did something happen while I was dropping my kid off at soccer practice?
debbie
@Jeffro:
As you were backing out of the driveway, Mulvaney started walking back his previous remarks.
Jeffro
@debbie: Any comment yet from the WH on the McRaven piece in the NYT?
Mary G
@Ohio Mom: McRaven was an admiral. He’s quoting another guy.
debbie
@Jeffro:
No, he’s far too busy fluffing himself.
satby
@JAFD: happy to hear the rest results were satisfactory JAFD! Take care of you.
Jeffro
@Mary G: @debbie: The McRaven piece is better than nothing, but it could (and should) have been published over two years ago, after trumpov had been in office a while and was already banging on the Special Counsel and lining his pockets with the trumpov DC hotel. We are way, waaay past this kind of “won’t someone step up” kind of piece and a vague call to action for someone to step up.
We need people who will bang on the Senate GOP – “when the time comes, convict and remove this clown from office before he hurts our nation any worse”.
We need people who will stand up and say, “Most any of these Dems are fine with me and none of them is remotely a danger to the Republic, unlike trumpov every hour on the hour”
We need people who will call marches and rallies and general strikes. Boycotts of major corporations (and small businesses too, why not) that donate to any level of the GOP.
I thank McRaven for stepping up when so many aren’t, but this is not nearly the magnitude of what’s needed now.
Roger Moore
@debbie:
I’m not overly fond of “A People’s History of the United States”, at least not as a primary textbook. It is nice as a corrective to the flaws with conventional history textbooks, but it swings so far in the opposite direction that it distorts history at least as much as the books it’s intended to correct. If I wanted to recommend a book in that general space, I would suggest Lies My Teacher Told Me, which is simultaneously less polemical than Zinn’s book and more direct about exactly what it’s doing.
Duane
Mick Mulvaney decided to remove all doubt of his intelligence and opened his stupid mouth today. Temporary COS is right. Keep talking bright guy.
debbie
@Roger Moore:
I’ll have to take a look at that! The first thing my college freshman history professor said was, “Everything you learned in high school about the United States is a lie.” I used a lot of the information he provided to torture my sophmore Lincoln-loving high school professor. Good times!
Immanentize
@JAFD:
Hey Dude. Most excellent approach
Julia
@schrodingers_cat:
Jill Lepore’s “These Truths”, one volume overview. Just came out in paperback.
Ohio Mom
@Mary G: Ooops, reading comprehension fail. Though you can take most of what I said and apply it to the admiral.
Dan B
@Jay: The wikipedia summary of Dubin’s book is chilling in how far we are into the first phases of a fascist Russian empire. It’s all there in a book from 1997: Brexit, racist division in the US, gas and oil politics to threaten Europe, division of “Atlanticism” -ie. NATO.
TS (the original)
@Mary G:
Most appear to be republican – probably quite a few are never trumpers – but I have little doubt they are happy with what McConnell has been doing on the sidelines in relation to the judiciary.
Dan B
@burnspbesq: These upright Christianists and their sex panicked brethren are allowing two different sexes to use bathrooms in all their homes! They should be arrested post haste to protect “the children”!
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore: Bush’s post-invasion Iraq was the model for Trump’s America. Two-bit grifters and fanatics swarming in to put their ideas into practice on what they imagine as a blank-slate society, with an undercurrent of resentment-driven brutality to the locals.
Duane
Trumpov’s having a Hate Rally in DFW tonight. People will cheer about today’s events. It’ll be a doozy!
Ryan
USA. PRO ethnic cleansing. Awesome.
schrodingers_cat
@Julia: I did get that suggestion before. I am looking for something that would be like a freshman/sophomore college level history. So I can pick and choose and if and suggestions for further reading would also be nice.
@Roger Moore: @debbie: I have taken a look at it and it seemed more like a polemic. I want something that’s not ideological.
sgrAstar
@Ohio Mom: points of clarification:
1. McRaven is not a general- he’s a four star admiral.
2. McRaven is not a republican.
3. McRaven has been speaking out against trump for some time.
lumpkin
Just as I expected, after getting slapped around a bit by Erdogan, trump has rolled on to his back and begun piddling himself. What a weak, pathetic failure of a human being.
Just Chuck
@J R in WV: you forgot treason. We’ve never before had a president who was an outright traitor.
chopper
@mrmoshpotato:
anals of gop history, maybe.
Philbert
Our schoolbook history is generally designed to get us to join the military.
mrmoshpotato
@chopper: Anuses of GOP history?
Actually, ‘History of GOP anuses’ is better.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
Weird as this may sound, I would actually start with a college-level textbook to get the basics, and then look at the polemics to see what the basic textbook left out. The more polemical books do depend on a certain level of historical knowledge that you might not have yet.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: That’s exactly what I am asking suggestions for, I do not want a polemic like the People’s history as my introduction.
J R in WV
@mrmoshpotato:
Powell was first a worm in Vietnam, when he was in charge of covering up the MyLei massacre, with women and children killed and raped by a platoon of US troops. He was a worm the rest of his life, too.
Fuck LBJ, Fuck General Powell.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
You might want to take a look at America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States, by David Reynolds. Good one volume study of US history
J R in WV
@Just Chuck:
Well, technically, lawyers have told me time and time again that if there isn’t a war, there can’t be treason. I’m personally thinking that if we were attacked at Pearl Harbor, and an admiral helped the Japanese Imperial Navy to conduct that surprise attack, that admiral would have been nailed as a traitor, even if there was no state of war the moment he did his deed.
So I believe that the cyber-attack was an undeclared act of war, that has done great harm to the nation, and therefore the traitor sitting in the oval office is a traitor, and every act he commits is treason. But the lawyers will disagree, unfortunately.
I’m with you, though!
JAFD
@J R in WV: I belong to the Calvin Collidge Athletic Club.
We do not choose to run.
JAFD
@schrodingers_cat: History. How the heck did we get here ? What about the past are we interested in ?
Two suggestions: Read Bruce Catton’s This Hallowed Ground, then James MacPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom. Two best-selling one-volume histories of the Civil War, written about thirty-five years apart. What can they tell about what happened in those thirty-five years ?
Samuel Eliot Morison finished the Oxford History of the American People with the election of Lyndon Johnson – before Vietnam was a major issue, and when the Civil Rights acts were a recent marker of progress, and published it soon thereafter. It is a great work, yet illustrates the way judgment about the past can change, and the way America viewed its history from the heights of self-satisfied power. Worth reading, IMHO (But am prejudiced, as I read through it the day before my AP AmerHist exam…)
Barney
Trump called the Kurdish PKK “worse than ISIS”. I don’t think that got enough play in the news reports I saw. Because, let’s face it, ISIS was, up until now, everyone’s choice for “worst people in the world” – genocidal, psychopathic, unable to be reasoned or negotiated with.
Trump didn’t just throw the Kurds under the bus – he stuck them up against the wall, and shouted “ready, aim …”. This brown-nosing of his new favourite strongman is vile. He’s cheering on war crimes and pretending the world wanted them for years.