quote:Trump complained that the treatment of the heretofore obscure Republican, who seemed to be auditioning for the job with his harsh treatment of special counsel Robert Mueller in a congressional hearing, was unfair. But Twitter users pointed out that the lawmaker had been exposed for padding his resume.
Addressing Trump’s complaint that Ratcliffe would be going through months of slander and libel, the president was informed, It is called VETTING you idiot.
And for not having any experience in intelligence.
Trump’s setting records for withdrawn nominees because of lack of vetting.
*Are you unfailingly loyal to Donald J. Trump? " " SIR YES SIR!!" " Good enough. You're in."
quote:In this crowded and enervating week of news, it would have been easy to miss two small but consequential signs of the damage President Donald Trump and his team have done to America’s standing in the world. Two of America’s closest treaty allies have announced military efforts explicitly designed to exclude the United States. Australia is seeking to cement its status as the security partner of choice for Pacific nations by establishing an expeditionary training force. And the United Kingdom wants to create a multinational force to ensure freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.
It’s not a coincidence that allies are striking out on their own. Countries in the Pacific worry that the U.S. is forcing them to choose between their economic connections to China and their security relationships with the U.S. And while forcing this choice, the U.S. is also publicly calling the security guarantees into questionPresident Trump did so before arriving in Japan for the G20 summit. Meanwhile, European allies blame Trump-administration tactics for Iran’s decision to lash out at shipping in the Gulf. That’s why British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt stressed that the purpose of the multinational force was to dissociate European governments from U.S. policy toward Iran. Hunt explicitly said, It will not be part of the U.S. maximum pressure policy on Iran because we remain committed to preserving the Iran nuclear agreement.
quote:The survey by Pew Research Center, conducted July 10-15 among 1,502 adults, finds that Republicans’ views on this question have changed markedly since last year. About half of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (51%) now say it would be too risky to give presidents more power, down from 70% last year.
The share of Republicans who say presidents could operate more effectively if they did not have to worry so much about Congress and the courts has increased 16 percentage points since then, from 27% to 43%.
Among Americans who describe themselves as conservative Republicans, the results are even more dramatic: last year, only 26% of these voters wanted to see a more powerful president, freed from having to worry so much about the co-equal branches of government. This year, among self-identified conservative Republicans, that number doubled to 52%.
In other words, it’s become increasingly common in GOP circles not just to support Donald Trump, but also to be hostile toward checks and balances that our system of government imposes on him.
Bye-bye Constitution. It was good while it lasted.
quote:The Trump administration has known since at least April that alleged white supremacists were responsible for every single act of race-based domestic terrorism in the U.S. in 2018, yet not only took no action to combat the growing right wing violent extremism, but actually substantially reduced or even eliminated funding and programs that combat white supremacist extremism, violence, and terrorism — and then blocked the data from reaching the hands of Congress.
That's definitely reasonable. If true, there was some serious fucking up going on in that prison and maybe higher up. There's a report the guards skipped checking him during the night.
quote:I told [Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo] Abe, great guy, I said, ‘Listen, we have a massive deficit with Japan,' he said. They send us thousands and thousands millions! of cars, we send them wheat. Wheat! That’s not a good deal. And they don’t even want our wheat, they do it to make us feel that we’re okay, you know, they do it to make us feel good.
The U.S. trade deficit with Japan was $56.8 billion in 2018, as the United States exported $120.4 billion worth of goods and services to Japan, while importing $177.1 billion.
Contrary to the president’s claims, however, the Office of the United States Trade Representative says that top exports to Japan in 2018 included mineral fuels ($8.8 billion), machinery ($8.2 billion), optical and medical instruments ($7.5 billion), aircraft ($6.5 billion), and electrical machinery ($4.8 billion).
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