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You are here: Home / Politics / domestic terrorists / Rex Tillerson’s Speech at the Wilson Center

Reader Interactions

54Comments

  2. 2.

    rikyrah

    About the insults to the Native Americans yesterday, this just came to me:

    The insults were so overwhelming.
    He literally has no phucking home training.
    That damn picture of Andrew Jackson – I THOUGHT – was in the phucking Oval Office. So, someone HAD TO PHUCKING MOVE IT to the room where the ceremony was being held.
    It was THAT deliberate.

  3. 3.

    schrodingers_cat

    @rikyrah: Yes it was deliberate. The man’s existence and every action is a slap in the face of all who are not white, male, Protestant, wealthy and who voted for him.

    ETA: And anyone who still wants argue about Kelly’s nobility can STFU.

  4. 4.

    clay

    @rikyrah: Why would a picture of Andrew Jackson insult the Navajo? The Trail of Tears involved the Cherokee. Are you so racist that think all Native American tribes are the same?

    {sarcasm, in case it wasn’t clear, but I’m sure that some wingnut is formulating this argument as we speak}

  5. 5.

    Gretchen

    @rikyrah: I assumed they were in the Oval Office. You mean they actually went to the trouble to move it to another room? I knew they were evil, but that’s over the limit.

  6. 6.

    japa21

    Is there any Trump appointment that is not the worst ever to head whatever department he or she is head of? I know Watts was bad but not this bad.

  7. 7.

    Immanentize

    I am surprised at how tough on Russia Tillerson is being. He clearly will be leaving his position soon….

  8. 8.

    Yutsano

    @clay: Thank you for tagging that. I was about to go in whole hog blasting it.

    @japa21: Watts was a fucking genius compared to who’s heading the departments now. Not a single one has a clue what they’re doing. Except DeVos, since her goal is pure destruction.

  12. 12.

    oatler.

    Something about his Texas oil voice sends me into a weird fugue, like a nightmare I had last night but can’t remember.

  17. 17.

    Immanentize

    Ha ha ha ha — Must maintain civil society and the rule of law? Is he criticizing Trump directly?? I think not, but he is so friggin’ irony-proof.

  19. 19.

    Mary G

    There is ANOTHER Andrew Jackson portrait visible in the photos of the Christmas decorations the WH put out. No link for bigots.

  21. 21.

    gvg

    it surprises me he knows who Andrew Jackson is and what he stands for. I think his worship of AJ is coached and he never actually heard of the guy till he put together his campaign team. If someone looked it up, i bet he didn’t mention Jackson until recently. He just knows it gets some of his supporters admiration.

  23. 23.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    Here’s a fun news item:

    A Turkish-Iranian gold trader linked to both Mike Flynn and Rudy Giuliani has agreed to cooperate with U.S. prosecutors.
    Reza Zarrab was scheduled to stand trial earlier this month in New York, where the U.S. attorney had filed charges in an international corruption case, but his lawyer confirmed an agreement to exchange his testimony, reported Bloomberg Politics.
    Lawyers said the gold trader will testify against a Turkish banker accused of helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions.

  24. 24.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @gvg:
    Trump wasn’t always this mind-bogglingly stupid. He used to be merely a not-all-that-bright flaming asshole. He seems to have always been a hardcore ‘Hitler was only saying what everyone else was too afraid to say’ white supremacist. It really would not surprise me if he has long had a dimwit bigot’s admiration of the Real He-Man President.

  31. 31.

    Another Scott

    @Cheryl Rofer: Indeed “far more troops” is right. BBC:

    The number of US troops in Syria and Iraq is significantly higher than acknowledged by Pentagon officials, a US defence department report shows.

    Officially there are 503 US troops in Syria and 5,262 in Iraq.

    However, the Pentagon’s quarterly report puts number of troops as 1,720 in Syria and 8,892 in Iraq.

    US soldiers are there as part of the fight against so-called Islamic State (IS) and include trainers, advisers and special forces.

    US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said earlier this year that the number of troops operating in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan would be reviewed. However, only the troop numbers for Afghanistan have been publicly revealed.

    Pentagon spokesman Rob Manning said on Monday that security concerns and political sensitivities prohibited full disclosure for the time being, but he pledged to be “as transparent as” possible.

    […]

    “OMG!!1 We can’t let politics get in the way of letting the generals do what they want in secret!!11 You want ‘oversight’? !?! Why do you hate America so much (WDYHASM)?!?!!”

    (groucho-roll-eyes.gif)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  32. 32.

    Immanentize

    @Cheryl Rofer: Isn’t the point of the State Department to work hard every day to reduce military conflicts? State does not follow Defense. Rather the existence of a big DOD is proof of the need for more diplomacy, no?

  34. 34.

    TenguPhule

    @schrodingers_cat:

    The man’s existence and every action is a slap in the face of all who are not white, male, Protestant, wealthy and who voted for him.

    As for the Protestants, I’m sure he’s working on it.

  36. 36.

    TenguPhule

    @japa21:

    Is there any Trump appointment that is not the worst ever to head whatever department he or she is head of?

    FEMA. And only because Trump wasn’t allowed to appoint whoever he wanted due to Congressional requirements.

  37. 37.

    Chris

    @gvg:

    it surprises me he knows who Andrew Jackson is and what he stands for. I think his worship of AJ is coached and he never actually heard of the guy till he put together his campaign team. If someone looked it up, i bet he didn’t mention Jackson until recently. He just knows it gets some of his supporters admiration.

    I have a strong suspicion that, if the Andrew Jackson portrait was deliberate, it wasn’t on his end. More some Bannonite staffers setting things up going “tee hee hee, you know what would be HILARIOUS?”

  38. 38.

    Another Scott

    @Immanentize: Heh. Maybe, but I wouldn’t count on it. Tillerson and Trump have done everything in their power to hide what they’re doing, to shift responsibility to others, etc. Mattis at the Pentagon hasn’t seemed all that forthcoming, either.

    Yes, I’ve got my cynic cap on really tight this morning.

    In related news:

    Democratic congressional leaders have cancelled a meeting with President Donald Trump after he attacked them on Twitter.

    The Republican president said he did not think he could reach a deal with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer on funding the government.

    The Democrats said they would negotiate with Republican lawmakers instead.

    Good. Let him stew a little more…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  39. 39.

    TenguPhule

    @Immanentize:

    “De-nuclearization” of the Korean peninsula is a complete non-starter. Not.Gon.Ha.Pen

    I believe your interpretation and Trump’s interpretation of what those words mean are not even remotely similar.

  40. 40.

    Mnemosyne

    @Chris:

    I dunno — Trump seems to be neck-deep in the white supremacist swamp, and Jackson has been big with that crowd for a while. I’m pretty sure that once he was told what Jackson represents, Trump was all in.

  41. 41.

    TenguPhule

    @gvg:

    it surprises me he knows who Andrew Jackson is and what he stands for.

    Dude’s face is on money, obviously. Why else do you think Trump can only talk about presidents who are on currency?

  43. 43.

    Chris

    @Immanentize:

    Also, they have this exactly backwards: if conflicts are about to be wrapped up successfully, that would mean more attention paid to the State Department and less to the Defense Department, not the other way around. State is the department whose responsibilities become even greater after the conflict and in peacetime.

    Of course, try explaining that to the “the story is over as soon as the Death Star blows up, or at least as soon as the medals have been handed out” mentality that defines our view of foreign policy.

  44. 44.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Immanentize: I suspect that their thinking is that a big enough DOD will frighten the rest of the world into not being threats.

    But yes, it’s the State Department that does all the behind-the-scenes work to prevent having to use the military. Bob Gates, Defense Secretary under Obama and Director of Central Intelligence under George H. W. Bush, urged Obama to increase funding for State for that reason.

    I also think that the behind-the-scenes thing has confused folks like Trump and Tillerson who don’t care to understand how things are done. They don’t see it, so it’s not happening, right? I keep thinking of the hundred or more people from State, Treasury, the national labs, and other places who were necessary to negotiate the Iran nuclear agreement. But that was a bad deal anyway, right?

    I’m also reminded of a fiasco in which my management handed one of my programs over to one of their guys. It cratered within a month. I was working 11-hour weekdays and at least one day a weekend, but they had no interest in understanding what I was doing.

  46. 46.

    Chris

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m sure he’s been told, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if he’d forgotten it within the hour. For all that he’s neck-deep in the white supremacist swamp, Trump’s only real religion is his own narcissism. Which is why I’d lean slightly on the side of staffers, the kind of people who actually are devoted to the ideology, being behind this. I don’t think for a second that he objected if they ran it by him, of course.

  47. 47.

    Chris

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I doubt if he gives a shit. I suspect if asked, he’d just whine about political correctness and how we need to be more understanding and forgiving of our ancestors and their modern-day groupies.

  48. 48.

    lgerard

    @TenguPhule:

    Dude’s face is on money, obviously. Why else do you think Trump can only talk about presidents who are on currency?

    i am surprised Wilson isn’t his favorite….he was on the $100,000 bill

  49. 49.

    Librarian

    I just checked the video of yesterday’s event, and I’m pretty sure it took place in the Oval Office.

  51. 51.

    TenguPhule

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    I’m also reminded of a fiasco in which my management handed one of my programs over to one of their guys. It cratered within a month.

    This might involve literal craters,

  54. 54.

    Sherparick

    @Cheryl Rofer: I believe Rex and his boss believe this is a model, not a denunciation.

    “These plunderers of the world …., after exhausting the land by their devastations, are rifling the ocean: stimulated by avarice, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor; unsatiated by the East and by the West: the only people who behold wealth and indigence with equal avidity. To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.”

    Tacitus, quoting the British Chieftain Calgaucus, in “The Agricola,” Chapters 30-32.

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