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Politics The Official Donald Trump Administration Thread

Started by what, Jan 20, 2017, in Life Add to Reading List

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Xmipod

Jan 30, 2018

Enigma said

Speech was too d--- long, that’s what it was.
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Man cant even admit it was a great speech

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VVebber Banned

Jan 30, 2018
Does Trump’s intervention to keep sanctions off Russia place us in a constitutional crisis?
The appearance of the American president having loyalty to a foreign adversary is dangerous.

Yes, the appearance of our president not wanting to start WWIII by pissing off the only other main nuclear power is extremely dangerous. Man, I'd feel so much safer with Hillary Clinton in office, who was considering a military response to alleged Russian cyber intrusions.

It's a good thing history usually undercuts propaganda:

The Russian Obsession Goes Back Decades

Just consider the accusations that have been leveled at the president:

He has betrayed the Constitution, which he swore to uphold.
He has committed treason by befriending Russia and other enemies of America.
He has subjugated America’s interests to Moscow.
He has been caught in fantastic lies to the American people, including personal ones, like his previous marriage and divorce.

President Donald Trump?

No, President John F. Kennedy.

What lots of Americans don’t realize, because it was kept secret from them for so long, is that what Trump has been enduring from the national-security establishment, the mainstream press, and the American right-wing for his outreach to, or “collusion with,” Russia pales compared to what Kennedy had to endure for committing the heinous “crime” of reaching out to Russia and the rest of the Soviet Union in a spirit of peace and friendship.

They hated him for it. They abused him. They insulted him. They belittled him. They called him naïve. They said he was a traitor.

All of the nasties listed above, plus more, were contained in an advertisement and a flier that appeared in Dallas on the morning of November 22, 1963, the day that Kennedy was assassinated. They can be read here and here.

Ever since then, some people have tried to make it seem like the advertisement and flier expressed only the feelings of extreme right-wingers in Dallas. That’s nonsense. They expressed the deeply held convictions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, the conservative movement, and many people within the mainstream media and Washington establishment.

In June 1963, Kennedy threw down the gauntlet in a speech he delivered at American University, now entitled the “Peace Speech.” It was one of the most remarkable speeches ever delivered by an American president. It was broadcast all across the communist Soviet Union, the first time that had ever been done.

In the speech, Kennedy announced that he was bringing an end to the Cold War and the mindset of hostility toward Russia and the rest of the Soviet Union that the U.S. national-security establishment had inculcated in the minds of the American people ever since the end of World War II.

It was a radical notion and, as Kennedy well understood, a very dangerous one insofar as he was concerned. The Cold War against America’s World War II partner and ally had been used to convert the United States from a limited-government republic to a national-security state, one consisting of a vast, permanent military establishment, the CIA, and the NSA, along with their broad array of totalitarian-like powers, such as assassination, regime change, coups, invasions, torture, surveillance, and the like. Everyone was convinced that the Cold War — and the so-called threat from the international communist conspiracy that was supposedly based in Russia — would last forever, which would naturally mean permanent and ever-increasing largess for what Kennedy’s predecessor, President Dwight Eisenhower, had called the “military-industrial complex.”

Suddenly, Kennedy was upending the Cold War apple cart by threatening to establish a relationship of friendship and peaceful coexistence with Russia, the rest of the Soviet Union, and Cuba.

Kennedy knew full well that his actions were considered by some to be a grave threat to “national security.” After all, don’t forget that it was Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz’s outreach to the Soviets in a spirit of friendship that got him ousted from power by the CIA and presumably targeted for assassination as part of that regime-change operation. It was Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s outreach to the Soviets in a spirit of friendship that made him the target of Pentagon and CIA regime-change operations, including through invasion, assassination, and sanctions. It was Congo leader’s Patrice Lamumba’s outreach to the Soviets in a spirit of friendship that got him targeted for assassination by the CIA. It would be Chilean President Salvador Allende’s outreach to the Soviets in a spirit of friendship that got him targeted in a CIA-instigated coup in Chile that resulted in Allende’s death.

Kennedy wasn’t dumb. He knew what he was up against. He had heard Eisenhower warn the American people in his Farewell Address about the dangers to their freedom and democratic way of life posed by the military establishment. After Kennedy had read the novel Seven Days in May,which posited the danger of a military coup in America, he asked friends in Hollywood to make it into a movie to serve as a warning to the American people. In the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Pentagon and the CIA were exerting extreme pressure on Kennedy to bomb and invade Cuba, his brother Bobby told a Soviet official with whom he was negotiating that the president was under a severe threat of being ousted in a coup. And, of course, Kennedy was fully mindful of what had happened to Arbenz, Lamumba, and Castro for doing what Kennedy was now doing — reaching out to the Soviets in a spirit of friendship.

In the eyes of the national-security establishment, one simply did not reach out to Russia, Cuba, or any other “enemy” of America. Doing so, in their eyes, made Kennedy an appeaser, betrayer, traitor, and a threat to “national security.”

Kennedy didn’t stop with his Peace Speech. He also began negotiating a treaty with the Soviets to end above-ground nuclear testing, an action that incurred even more anger and ire within the Pentagon and the CIA. Yes, that’s right — they said that “national security” depended on the U.S. government’s continuing to do what they object to North Korea doing today — conducting nuclear tests, both above ground and below ground.

Kennedy mobilized public opinion to overcome fierce opposition in the military, CIA, Congress, and the Washington establishment to secure passage of his Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

He then ordered a partial withdrawal of troops from Vietnam, and told close aides that he would order a complete pull-out after winning the 1964 election. In the eyes of the U.S. national-security establishment, leaving Vietnam subject to a communist takeover would pose a grave threat to national security here in the United States.

Worst of all, from the standpoint of the national-security establishment, Kennedy began secret personal negotiations with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Cuban leader Fidel Castro to bring an end to America’s Cold War against them. That was considered to be a grave threat to “national security” as well as a grave threat to all the military and intelligence largess that depended on the Cold War.

By this time, Kennedy’s war with the national-security establishment was in full swing. He had already vowed to tear the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds after its perfidious conduct in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. By this time, he had also lost all confidence in the military after it proposed an all-out surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, much as Japan had done at Pearl Harbor, after the infamous plan known as Operation Northwoods, which proposed terrorist attacks and plane hijackings carried out by U.S. agents posing as Cuban communists, so as to provide a pretext for invading Cuba, and after the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the military establishment accused him of appeasement and treason for agreeing not to ever invade Cuba again.

What Kennedy didn’t know was that his “secret” negotiations with the Soviet and Cuban communists weren’t so secret after all. As it turns out, it was a virtual certainty that the CIA (or NSA) was listening in on telephone conversations of Cuban officials at the UN in New York City, much as the CIA and NSA still do today, during which they would have learned what the president was secretly doing behind their backs.

Kennedy’s feelings toward the people who were calling him a traitor for befriending Moscow and other “enemies” of America? In response to the things that were said in that advertisement and flier about him being a traitor for befriending Russia, he told his wife Jackie on the morning he was assassinated: “We are heading into nut country today.” Of course, as he well knew, the nuts weren’t located only in Dallas. They were also situated throughout the U.S. national-security establishment.
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Enigma Civil liberties > Police safety

Jan 30, 2018

Xmipod said

Man cant even admit it was a great speech
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It was the 3rd longest state of the union speech in modern US History lol. Idc who’s giving the speech, after about an hour, i lose interest.

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Xmipod

Jan 30, 2018

Enigma said

It was the 3rd longest state of the union speech in modern US History lol. Idc who’s giving the speech, after about an hour, i lose interest.
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Kon

Jan 30, 2018
I only saw the very end of it, anyone got a basic recap?

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Enigma Civil liberties > Police safety

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Kon said

I only saw the very end of it, anyone got a basic recap?
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It was pretty much your typical republican presidential speech with some trumpism sprinkled in there. A lot of talk about the economy, tax cuts that passed, illegal immigration, etc. Nothing too notable about his or the democrat’s response speech. Both parties will say their guy did good.

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Jan 30, 2018
Good speech. Interested in seeing how this one gets nitpicked by the left.

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Enigma Civil liberties > Police safety

Jan 30, 2018
Fact-checking outlets had their hands full tonight with this one:

Last edited: Jan 30, 2018

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VVebber Banned

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Imagine if Politifact had fact checked half as many of Obama's and Hillary's statements as they do Trump's.

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Caine

Jan 31, 2018
I think he's an awful president but it was a good speech and one of the best and most positive things I've ever heard him say.

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Enigma Civil liberties > Police safety

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President was caught on a hot mic assuring a Republican Senator that he was going to release Nunes’s infamous memo that allegedly proves FBI bias in the russia investigation. So far, trump’s own DOJ & FBI have advised congress & the White House to not release th memo because it prints a false narrative, contains false information & some classified information.

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Trump wants to be an authoritarian so bad.

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Enigma said

Trump wants to be an authoritarian so bad.
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Sign Language said

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Assuming those quotes are true (I know you don’t believe them but assuming they are) do you really take no issue with president asking the director of the FBI for loyalty; questioning the deputy director of the FBI who he vote for & then asking the deputy attorney general if he’s on his team. Like.... that’s pretty troubling, no?

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Enigma said

Assuming those quotes are true (I know you don’t believe them but assuming they are) do you really take no issue with president asking the director of the FBI for loyalty; questioning the deputy director of the FBI who he vote for & then asking the deputy attorney general if he’s on his team. Like.... that’s pretty troubling, no?
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Asking for loyalty ain’t that big of a deal. Asking the deputy director who he voted for isn’t classy and shouldn’t have been asked but it’s not the end of the world. Asking the deputy attorney general if he’s on his team isn’t really a big deal.

Authoritarianism won’t arise from this. Our country will be fine. Relax man. Go listen to NPR, smoke some weed (luckily you are in Cali), and wait to blow your wad until 2020 when Kamala Harris announces she’s running.

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Sign Language said

Asking for loyalty ain’t that big of a deal. Asking the deputy director who he voted for isn’t classy and shouldn’t have been asked but it’s not the end of the world. Asking the deputy attorney general if he’s on his team isn’t really a big deal.

Authoritarianism won’t arise from this. Our country will be fine. Relax man. Go listen to NPR, smoke some weed (luckily you are in Cali), and wait to blow your wad until 2020 when Kamala Harris announces she’s running.
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In the grand scheme of the president being investigated, you don’t think that’s even the slightest bit troubling? I just have a really hard time believing if Clinton won & she asked Comey for loyalty & then “coincidentally” fired him some time later, it wouldn’t be brushed off as “not that big of a deal.”

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Enigma said

In the grand scheme of the president being investigated, you don’t think that’s even the slightest bit troubling? I just have a really hard time believing if Clinton won & she asked Comey for loyalty & then “coincidentally” fired him some time later, it wouldn’t be brushed off as “not that big of a deal.”
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Not that troubling to me. Even if this were Clinton, i would be saying pretty much the same thing. You can’t prove that him asking for loyalty was tied to him being fired.

Guess we have different definitions of troubling.

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Jan 31, 2018
Definitely a good speech. Hard to really stand against the things he was saying.

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Sign Language said

Not that troubling to me. Even if this were Clinton, i would be saying pretty much the same thing. You can’t prove that him asking for loyalty was tied to him being fired.

Guess we have different definitions of troubling.
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Not in definitely at least but the White House struggled to give justification for Comey’s firing. First they said that the president fired Comey due to his handling of the Clinton email investigation (something trump praised Comey for prior to the election lol). Then they said trump simply was taking the advice from the DOJ. Then they said Trump had actually been contemplating firing Comey for months & the DOJ recommendation set it in stone. Then trump himself gave an interview to NBC where he said he had already made the decision prior to getting a recommendation from the DOJ. When trump was asked why he fired Comey, he said this:

“When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won. … So everybody was thinking, they should have won the election. This was an excuse for having lost an election."

He literally admits to firing Comey because he was leading the russia investigation which again, leads back to the refusal of being “loyal.” It’s not the FBI Directors job to be loyal to any president.

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