quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 08:43 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Nou ja, onwaar en allemaal randvoorwaarden. Onnauwkeurig was het wel een beetje, akkoord, nauwkeuriger was het geweest als ik had gezegd dat het zittende politici betrof en dat de DNC en DCCC er wat langer over gedaan hebben dan 'prompt'.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 08:47 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Typo in OP btw: Trade Reprensentative

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 08:54 schreef xpompompomx het volgende:
Trump is, kennelijk, een behoorlijke lafaard en trekt zijn keutel weer in:
White House: Trump's IQ jab at Tillerson was 'a joke'

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 08:54 schreef xpompompomx het volgende:
Trump is, kennelijk, een behoorlijke lafaard en trekt zijn keutel weer in:
White House: Trump's IQ jab at Tillerson was 'a joke'

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 08:54 schreef xpompompomx het volgende:
Trump is, kennelijk, een behoorlijke lafaard en trekt zijn keutel weer in:
White House: Trump's IQ jab at Tillerson was 'a joke'

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 09:37 schreef Re het volgende:
grappig, het woord kinetics te gebruiken... daar is over nagedacht

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 09:41 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Morongate.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 09:42 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
Zijn er dan nog redenen om niet anti-Trump te zijn?

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 10:02 schreef Zwoerd het volgende:

[..]

Voor sommigen zou het betekenen dat je je fout moet toegeven.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 12:17 schreef grrrrg het volgende:
Anit-Trump verzameltopic?

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 12:18 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

[..]

Zie wie de TS is en dat verklaart alles.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 12:32 schreef grrrrg het volgende:

[..]

Ik mag toch hopen dat de meest pro-Trump fan nu toch ook wel inziet dat die man zwaar gestoord is.
Of gaan die straks ook nog juichen als hij oproept tot een oorlog tegen Noord-Korea?

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 12:32 schreef grrrrg het volgende:

[..]

Ik mag toch hopen dat de meest pro-Trump fan nu toch ook wel inziet dat die man zwaar gestoord is.
Of gaan die straks ook nog juichen als hij oproept tot een oorlog tegen Noord-Korea?

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 12:32 schreef grrrrg het volgende:

[..]

Ik mag toch hopen dat de meest pro-Trump fan nu toch ook wel inziet dat die man zwaar gestoord is.
Of gaan die straks ook nog juichen als hij oproept tot een oorlog tegen Noord-Korea?

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 12:54 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
Trump Wanted Tenfold Increase in Nuclear Arsenal, Surprising Military

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op woensdag 11-10-2017 om 12:36:37 The Democrats want MASSIVE tax increases & soft, crime producing borders.The Republicans want the biggest tax cut in history & the WALL! reageer retweet

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 11:15 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:
<knip>

Damn right!

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 13:04 schreef Mystikvm het volgende:

[..]

Als je de tekst zo leest is het wel een enorme truth bomb. Hier gaat hij natuurlijk geen Trump-supporters mee converteren, maar hij mobiliseert wel een deel van de bevolking die zich altijd gemarginaliseerd voelt en niet met politiek bezig is. Dat hij blank is helpt enorm mee.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 13:11 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

[..]

Het punt is dat Trump supporters denken dat die het voor hun opneemt. Ze mogen zich dan gemarginaliseerd voelen, de realiteit is dat Obama meer voor de Republikeinse achterban heeft gedaan dan ze doorhebben..

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 13:20 schreef Mystikvm het volgende:

[..]

Ik bedoel dat hij de goede kant mobiliseert Jonge mensen die niet met politiek bezig zijn en het idee hebben dat hun stem toch niet gehoord zal worden.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 13:27 schreef Freak188 het volgende:
Wanneer geeft de GOP deze clown op? Dat lijkt me de meest prangende vraag. De man zelf is (zeker geopolitiek) uitgespeeld. Beetje dreigen met nukes....

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 13:46 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Maar dan krijgen we Pence en dat willen nog veel minder mensen.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 13:41 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

[..]

Op het moment begint GOP te morren en terug te snappen. Corker en Tillerson hebben vorige week een trend gezet, die aan een gebrek aan diplomatie doet denken, en dit is de schuld van trump himself, die zijn diplomaten doorgaans in de kou laat staan en hun werk aan het ondermijnen is met achterlijke twitterberichten. Een vertrouweling van de president vertelde onlangs aan de krant dat hij Trump vergeleek met een "fluitende theepot". Er valt met Trump geen land te bezeilen. Hij is is kwaad en gefrustreerd omdat de kritiek op zijn beleid alsmaar toeneemt. Hij slaat tegenwoordig wild om zich heen en heeft quasi alle bruggen verbrand. Deze "koning" moet zijn kroon inleveren!

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 14:00 schreef vipergts het volgende:

[..]

Het erge is ondanks dat de republikeinen zich onsterfelijk belachelijk hebben gemaakt en Trump heeft laten zien dat hij er alleen maar voor trump is dat die kiezer nog steeds niet van partij veranderd

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 14:00 schreef vipergts het volgende:

[..]

Het erge is ondanks dat de republikeinen zich onsterfelijk belachelijk hebben gemaakt en Trump heeft laten zien dat hij er alleen maar voor trump is dat die kiezer nog steeds niet van partij veranderd

quote:

Donald Trump’s planned state visit to the UK has been downgraded to a “working visit”, likely forming part of a multi-country tour, it has been reported.

It means the billionaire will not be a guest of the Queen, as was previously envisaged.

Theresa May’s offer of a state visit to the first-term President was greeted with the threat of mass protests by opponents.

Mr Trump’s visit will now take place without the glitz and pomp of a full state visit, the Evening Standard reported.

A state visit was also opposed by London mayor Sadiq Khan, who said he was “not sure it is appropriate for our government to roll out the red carpet” for Mr Trump.

Hundreds of thousands of people had signed a petition against the plan.[...]

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op woensdag 11-10-2017 om 12:47:10 It is about time that Roger Goodell of the NFL is finally demanding that all players STAND for our great National Anthem-RESPECT OUR COUNTRY reageer retweet

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 14:52 schreef BlackLining het volgende:
Dat geleuter over de NFL gaat toch ook maar door he hij blijft er maar over tweeten.

Nou heb ik liever dat hij zich met de NFL bemoeit dan met belangrijke zaken als Noord Korea en healthcare, maar toch.. Kom op man.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 14:34 schreef Belabor het volgende:
Zoals al gezegd word sinds de zomer: als Trump niet zo veel Republikeins stemvee achter zich had, dan was de Trump-exit al lang voltooid.

Het is wachten tot de bevolking het ook zat is, dan pas zal de GOP er met gestrekt been in duiken.

Mijn voorspelling was dat Trump er binnen de eerste twee jaar uit zou vliegen. Ik ben benieuwd.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 16:23 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

[..]

Als zijn belastingplan ook niet door gaat, is het uit met de pret. Dan trekt de GOP de stekker er uit. Want dit plan is een vette zak geld waard voor de Trumpeteers.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 16:24 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Waar trekken ze de stekker uit? En hoe?

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 16:34 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:
Of ze zullen de 25th Amendment gebruiken om hem tot aftreden te dwingen.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op woensdag 11-10-2017 om 15:55:44 With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country! reageer retweet

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 17:11 schreef Falco het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op woensdag 11-10-2017 om 15:55:44 With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country! reageer retweet

SOOW KOEKOEK! Het is duidelijk waar ie op hint. Een aanval op vrijheid van meningsuiting valt extra slecht in Amerika

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 17:11 schreef Falco het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op woensdag 11-10-2017 om 15:55:44 With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country! reageer retweet

SOOW KOEKOEK! Het is duidelijk waar ie op hint. Een aanval op vrijheid van meningsuiting valt extra slecht in Amerika

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 17:11 schreef Falco het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op woensdag 11-10-2017 om 15:55:44 With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country! reageer retweet

SOOW KOEKOEK! Het is duidelijk waar ie op hint. Een aanval op vrijheid van meningsuiting valt extra slecht in Amerika

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op woensdag 11-10-2017 om 15:45:22 Fake @NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a "tenfold" increase in our U.S. nuclear arsenal. Pure fiction, made up to demean. NBC = CNN! reageer retweet

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 17:55 schreef Montov het volgende:
Ook een grappige tweet:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op woensdag 11-10-2017 om 15:45:22 Fake @NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a "tenfold" increase in our U.S. nuclear arsenal. Pure fiction, made up to demean. NBC = CNN! reageer retweet

Is de derde zin een voorbeeld van de tweede zin?

Je hoopt maar dat de mensen aan de knoppen van de Amerikaanse kernwapens Trump ook niet meer serieus nemen net zoals de rest van de mensheid.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 17:22 schreef Janneke141 het volgende:
De vrijheid van meningsuiting is helemaal niet bedoeld voor media die het niet met je eens zijn.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 14:52 schreef BlackLining het volgende:
Dat geleuter over de NFL gaat toch ook maar door he hij blijft er maar over tweeten.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 16:47 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Kan, maar dan hebben ze, in tegenstelling tot meer dan de helft, ook in het Huis 2/3e van de stemmen nodig (en meer dan de helft van het kabinet)... qua hoeveelheid stemmen dus wel lastiger dan een "normale" impeachment.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 18:42 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

En waarom zouden de Dems daar zonder meer aan meewerken? Ik kan me voorstellen dat die geen zin hebben om de 25th te steunen wegens intern gedonder bij de GOP.

Kortom: De complete GOP zal dan moeten smeken bij de Dems.

Het zou echt een beestachtige ubertrollactie zijn. Dat wel

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 11:15 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:
Eminem:

SPOILER

This the calm before the storm right here
Wait, how was I gonna start this off?
I forgot… oh, yeah…
That’s an awfully hot coffee pot
Should I drop it on Donald Trump? Prob’ly not
But that’s all I got ‘til I come up with a solid plot
Got a plan and now I gotta hatch it
Like a damn Apache with a tomahawk
I’ma walk inside a mosque on Ramadan
And say a prayer that every time Melania talks
She gets a mou—ahh, I’ma stop
But we better give Obama props
‘Cause what we got in office now’s a kamikaze
That’ll prob’ly cause a nuclear holocaust
And while the drama pops
And he waits for shit to quiet down he’ll just gas his plane up and fly around ‘til the bombing stops
Intensities heightened, tensions are risin’
Trump, when it comes to giving a shit, you’re stingy as I am
Except when it comes to having the balls to go against me, you hide ‘em
‘Cause you don’t got the fucking nuts like an empty asylum
Racism’s the only thing he’s fantastic for
‘Cause that’s how he gets his fucking rocks off and he’s orange
Yeah, sick tan
That’s why he wants us to disband
‘Cause he can not withstand
The fact we’re not afraid of Trump
Fuck walkin’ on egg shells, I came to stomp
That’s why he keeps screamin’, “Drain the swamp!”
‘Cause he’s in quicksand
It’s like we take a step forwards, then backwards
But this is his form of distraction
Plus, he gets an enormous reaction
When he attacks the NFL so we focus on that in
-stead of talking Puerto Rico or gun reform for Nevada
All these horrible tragedies and he’s bored and would rather
Cause a Twitter storm with the Packers
Then says he wants to lower our taxes
Then who’s gonna pay for his extravagant trips
Back and forth with his fam to his golf resorts and his mansions?
Same shit that he tormented Hillary for and he slandered
Then does it more
From his endorsement of Bannon
Support from the Klansmen
Tiki torches in hand for the soldier that’s black
And comes home from Iraq
And is still told to go back to Africa
Fork and a dagger in this racist 94-year-old grandpa
Who keeps ignoring our past historical, deplorable factors
Now if you’re a black athlete you’re a spoiled little brat for
Tryna use your platform or your stature
To try to give those a voice who don’t have one
He says, “You’re spittin’ in the face of vets who fought for us, you bastards!”
Unless you’re a POW who’s tortured and battered
‘Cause to him you’re zeros
‘Cause he don’t like his war heroes captured
That’s not disrespecting the military
Fuck that! This is for Colin, ball up a fist!
And keep that shit balled like Donald the bitch!
“He’s gonna get rid of all immigrants!”
“He’s gonna build that thing up taller than this!”
Well, if he does build it, I hope it’s rock solid with bricks
‘Cause like him in politics, I’m using all of his tricks
‘Cause I’m throwin’ that piece of shit against the wall ‘til it sticks
And any fan of mine who’s a supporter of his
I’m drawing in the sand a line: you’re either for or against
And if you can’t decide who you like more and you’re split
On who you should stand beside, I’ll do it for you with this:
“Fuck you!”
The rest of America stand up
We love our military, and we love our country
But we fucking hate Trump

Damn right!

Eminem - The Storm Freestyle (Donald Trump Diss)

quote:

Undisclosed deal guaranteed Roy Moore $180,000 a year for part-time work at charity

Former Alabama judge Roy Moore, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, once said publicly that he did not take a "regular salary" from the small charity he founded to promote Christian values because he did not want to be a financial burden.

But privately, Moore had arranged to receive a salary of $180,000 a year for part-time work at the Foundation for Moral Law, internal charity documents show. He collected more than $1 million as president from 2007 to 2012, compensation that far surpassed what the group disclosed in its public tax filings most of those years.

When the charity couldn't afford the full amount, Moore in 2012 was given a promissory note for back pay eventually worth $540,000 or an equal stake of the charity's most valuable asset, a historic building in Montgomery, Ala., mortgage records show. He holds that note even now, a charity official said.

SPOILER

A Washington Post review of public and internal charity documents found that errors and gaps in the group's federal tax filings obscured until now the compensation paid to Moore, whose defeat last month of President Trump's choice for Republican nominee in the Senate race will likely embolden far-right challengers to the party's mainstream incumbents. Moore is the front-runner in the race to fill the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The charity helped Moore thrive - financially and otherwise - after his ouster from the state's Supreme Court in 2003 for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the courthouse. The group has filed scores of legal briefs in cases involving conservative Christian issues, but it was in many ways built around Moore himself.

At a time when Moore was running for other public offices in Alabama, the charity kept him in the public eye and helped establish a nationwide network of donors while he took on controversial positions against same-sex marriage, Islam and the separation of church and state. Over the years, it has provided him with health-care benefits, travel expenses and a bodyguard, documents show.

The Foundation for Moral Law's website routinely promoted Moore's speaking engagements and his book, "So Help Me God: The Ten Commandments, Judicial Tyranny, and the Battle for Religious Freedom." In his last two years as president, as fundraising dwindled, Moore's compensation amounted to about a third of the contributions to the group, tax filings show.

The charity has employed at least two of Moore's children, although their compensation is not reflected in tax filings. Moore's wife, Kayla, who is now president, was paid a total of $195,000 over three years through 2015.

Moore's charitable and political activities have also overlapped in significant ways. The former longtime executive director of the charity now serves as Moore's campaign manager. The charity retained the same fundraising firm used by three of Moore's most recent campaigns for state office, public records show.

An Internal Revenue Service audit of the Foundation for Moral Law's 2013 finances, provided by the charity, concluded that it left out information about fundraising and other activities on its public tax filings and also identified discrepancies between those filings and its internal books. The IRS wrote that the issues "could jeopardize your exempt status."



Seven charity and tax law specialists consulted by The Post said the nonprofit's activities raised questions about compliance with IRS rules, including prohibitions on the use of a charity for the private benefit or enrichment of an individual.

"The biggest issue is the benefit to Roy Moore," said Paul Streckfus, a former tax lawyer at the IRS and editor of the EO Tax Journal, when told of The Post's findings.

In interviews with The Post, Alabama Circuit Court Judge John Bentley, a longtime member of the charity's board and its former chairman, denied that the Foundation for Moral Law served Moore's personal or political goals. He said the group's officials did not intentionally do anything wrong.

But he said that he could not fully explain inconsistencies in audits and public tax filings, and that he and other board members did not provide enough oversight. He acknowledged the nonprofit was essentially run by Moore and his family.
"That's my fault," he said. "I should have been a lot more active than I was."

Roy and Kayla Moore did not respond to interview requests. Kayla Moore provided answers to detailed questions in a statement, and the charity gave The Post internal documents to clarify why Moore received the promissory note. The agreement that he would receive compensation of $180,000 a year, described in those documents, has not been previously reported.

'The Ten Commandments Judge'

A year after his election to the state Supreme Court in 2000, Moore drew national attention and controversy for installing a 2.6-ton monument of the Ten Commandments in the court's building. His ouster from the bench in 2003, after he refused to obey a federal court ruling to remove the monument, made him a hero among some evangelical Christians.

As he fought against litigation to move the monument, friends and allies created an organization they called the Roy Moore Legal Defense Fund and began raising money. The organization's first application to be recognized as a charity was rejected in 2004 because the IRS determined that it "operated for the benefit of private interests."

The group renamed itself the Foundation for Moral Law and broadened its mission, saying it would promote the idea that "our rights are given to us by our Creator." The following year, the IRS approved it as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) public charity, allowing contributors to deduct donations.

Moore became its chairman and traveled the country, giving speeches and making media appearances. He received no compensation at first, although the charity provided health insurance and covered travel expenses. The organization also gave him VIP-level security, paying for bulletproof vests and a bodyguard, a martial arts expert and cousin of former heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield, records show.

"Judge was traveling the country speaking. He needed protection due to threats," Kayla Moore said in her statement to The Post.

Political observers considered the nonprofit a showcase for the former judge.
"It was a platform for Roy Moore to advance himself on any possible front, whether it was political or oratorical," said William Stewart, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Alabama and a longtime observer of Moore's career.

Joining Moore at the nonprofit were two other state Supreme Court employees who also lost their jobs over the monument controversy. One of them, Richard Hobson -- now Moore's campaign manager in the Senate race -- became the charity's president. Moore's daughter, Heather, became its receptionist.

In an interview, Bentley, the board member, played down the hiring of Moore's family members, describing them as "cheap labor." He said he did not know exactly how much they were paid.

With donations pouring in -- more than $1.5 million in 2005 -- the charity bought a pre-Civil War office building in downtown Montgomery for $546,000 and began renovations costing hundreds of thousands more, records show.

The charity hired the Richard Norman Company, a fundraising firm in Virginia that raised money for conservative candidates. Months later, as Moore launched a campaign for Alabama governor, he turned to the firm for his political fundraising as well, drawing donors from across the country.

In an interview, founder Richard Norman said his firm kept the charitable and political operations separate. But he acknowledged that in both contexts Roy Moore's defiance of the federal government was a central selling point.

"He's known as 'The Ten Commandments Judge,'" he said. "That story was an important part of every fundraising appeal we did."

Moore lost the race.

Unusual payment plan

In 2007, Moore became the charity's president, committing himself to 20 hours a week, according to tax filings. The board agreed to pay him; the question was how much. They considered a figure as high as $500,000 annually, according to an internal letter the charity provided to The Post.


_{(A 2007 letter to charity board members from Chairman John Bentley describes how Moore will be paid. )}

On March 5, they decided to follow Moore's lead. "Judge Moore has recommended a salary of $180,000," Bentley, then the chairman, wrote to other board members.

They agreed to pay him in an unusual way. Moore would be paid whatever speaking fees and donations to the charity he could generate through what was called "Project Jeremiah," the group's ministry to pastors and preachers. But he was guaranteed $180,000 a year under the agreement, with the charity making up the difference if Project Jeremiah revenue fell short. If the charity did not have the cash in a given year, the debt to Moore would accumulate.

The Foundation for Moral Law created a separate bank account and earmarked donations to "Project Jeremiah" specifically for Moore, Bentley said.

"This is a very important project to restore a proper understanding of God to the preachers of our land, but I need your help!" Moore wrote in 2007 in a personal fundraising message about "Project Jeremiah" on the charity's website. "My resources are limited."

The salary agreement and "Project Jeremiah" were not disclosed in the charity's tax filings that year. Moore's compensation was reported as $105,500.

The charity's descriptions on public documents of its payments to Moore varied greatly. In some years, including 2007, he was described as an outside legal contractor, tax filings show, and in others he was paid as president. His reported compensation ranged from $55,392 to $105,500 -- and not until 2012 did the figure match the $180,000 the board had agreed to pay him.


_{(The charity's 2007 tax filings show Moore was paid as an independent contractor for legal services.)}

Martin Wishnatsky, a spokesman for the charity, said Moore was never a legal consultant, despite the statements in tax filings.

"Judge Moore never received separate amounts for 'legal work,'" Wishnatsky said in a statement. "That description was a shorthand for the services he provided to the Foundation that included overall supervision, educational programs, and participation in preparing amicus briefs on religious liberty and related issues."

IRS identifies problems

By 2011, attention to Moore's monument battle was waning. Donations to the Foundation for Moral Law were in a nose-dive, down by almost two-thirds from 2005. But the board stood by its pledge to give Moore $180,000 in compensation each year.

On Feb. 17, documents show, the board convened for an annual meeting in Gadsden, Alabama. There was only one item on the agenda: how to pay Moore for "arrearages of salary during the past four (4) years," according to the board's record of the meeting.

Lacking the ability to pay him cash, the board agreed to give Moore a promissory note worth $393,000 that Moore could cash in on demand, documents show. The board backed up its promise with a second mortgage on the charity's historic building. In effect, the board was giving him the opportunity to foreclose on its headquarters to collect what he was owed. It also authorized Bentley to increase the amount owed to Moore as needed.

Among the nine members on the board was Kayla Moore, who recused herself from the vote.

Later that year, while giving an opening statement on behalf of the charity in a legal dispute with a telemarketing company, Moore played down his financial arrangements.

"My salary does not come by way of a regular salary from the Foundation, but through a special project that I run so that I don't inhibit the Foundation," he told a jury in August, according to a transcript of the hearing in federal court in Ohio.

In December 2011, Bentley agreed to increase the amount of debt to Moore, anchored by the mortgage, to $498,000, records show.

The back-pay arrangement was not disclosed to the IRS on annual tax filings until Nov. 14, 2012, one week after Moore won an election to return to Alabama's Supreme Court. The tax filing, covering 2011, said he had been paid $393,000 in "retirement or other deferred compensation," reflecting the amount in the original note, although mortgage records show the higher figure.

For 2012, Bentley bumped up the indebtedness to $540,000, mortgage documents show. On tax filings for that year, the charity said he was paid $138,000 in "reportable" compensation and $42,000 in "other" pay -- for the first time reflecting the $180,000 total he was to receive each year under the agreement.


_{(From mortgage documents on file in Montgomery County Probate Office)}

Moore's full $180,000 compensation should have been disclosed each year, whether it was paid to him or accumulated as debt, said Marcus Owens, who led the tax-exempt organizations division at the IRS from 1990 to 1999.

"The treatment of the payments to him really is quite irregular," Owens said.

Eve Borenstein, an expert on nonprofit tax law, said the annual tax filings, known as a Form 990, are the public's only way to know how charities are spending donations and paying their employees each year.

"If people do not report what is intended to have sunlight on it, there's no point in having the form," she said.

Officials with the charity did not respond to questions about why its tax filings for the five years beginning in 2007 did not reflect the board's obligation to pay Moore $180,000 a year.

Kayla Moore became the charity's president when Moore returned to the Alabama Supreme Court in 2013, making $65,000 a year from 2013 to 2015. Roy Moore was kicked off the court for a second time last year for ordering state judges not to honor a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing same-sex marriage.

In February this year, the IRS concluded its audit of the charity's 2013 finances, according to the documents provided to The Post. The IRS identified problems that it said could threaten the group's tax-exempt status if not resolved.

The IRS wrote that the charity "did not identify its special fundraising activities." It also found that the group's tax filings contained figures that "did not reflect those recorded on your books of account." The document does not detail the activities or figures at issue.
In recent weeks, the Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group in Washington, accused the charity of openly promoting Moore's Senate campaign through a Facebook page titled "Foundation for Moral Law." Charities are prohibited by law from supporting or opposing political candidates.

Kayla Moore said in her statement to The Post that the Facebook page "is not an official page of the Foundation for Moral Law."

In an interview, Bentley said he could not account for all of the gaps and inaccuracies in tax filings, audits and other documents, in part because he had devoted so little time to overseeing the group's finances.

"I can understand why that would raise some concerns," he said.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 19:48 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

Stephen Found Trump's IQ Test Results

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 17:11 schreef Falco het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op woensdag 11-10-2017 om 15:55:44 With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country! reageer retweet

SOOW KOEKOEK! Het is duidelijk waar ie op hint. Een aanval op vrijheid van meningsuiting valt extra slecht in Amerika

quote:

President Donald Trump is expected to nominate Kirstjen Nielsen to run the Department of Homeland Security, possibly as soon as Wednesday, according to two administration officials and three outside advisers familiar with the process.

Nielsen served as White House chief of staff John Kelly’s top aide during his time as DHS secretary and moved with him to the West Wing as his principal deputy chief of staff when he was appointed in July, leaving the Cabinet post vacant.

The White House didn’t immediately comment. Nielsen did not respond to a request for comment.

SPOILER

People familiar with the search cautioned that, as with everything in the Trump White House, nothing is final until it's publicly announced.

Nielsen, 45, is a cybersecurity expert and an attorney with an extensive background in homeland security, including stints at the Transportation Security Administration and on the White House Homeland Security Council under President George W. Bush.

“She would be the first person to run the department who has actually worked there,” said a person close to the administration. “She has a deep familiarity.”

Nielsen developed a close working relationship with Kelly during the transition, in which she served as his “sherpa,” guiding him through the Senate confirmation process.

Considered a dark horse candidate for the post, she rose to the top of the list at Kelly’s recommendation — and after other candidates fell through.

Other people considered by the White House included House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who was passed over because Trump aides didn’t think he had the breadth of knowledge or management capability to do the job.

Nielsen’s no-nonsense style has rankled some in the White House, who had grown accustomed to a freewheeling West Wing under Kelly’s predecessor, Reince Priebus. But Nielsen has been instrumental in Kelly’s efforts to push Trump and his senior aides to use the disciplined policymaking processes of previous administrations, which has limited the flow of paper to the president as well as the stream of advisers who had breezed in out and of the Oval Office.

quote:

De koepel van Amerikaanse zenders heeft vandaag furieus gereageerd op de suggestie van president Donald Trump dat hij zenders die ’fake news’ brengen de vergunning zou willen afnemen. In een verklaring beklemtonen zij dat Trump hiermee ingaat tegen de Amerikaanse grondwet waarin onder meer de persvrijheid staat beschreven.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 17:11 schreef Falco het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op woensdag 11-10-2017 om 15:55:44 With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country! reageer retweet

SOOW KOEKOEK! Het is duidelijk waar ie op hint. Een aanval op vrijheid van meningsuiting valt extra slecht in Amerika

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 20:22 schreef Wespensteek het volgende:
https://www.telegraaf.nl/(...)naar-president-trump

[..]

Trump krijgt het nog zwaar de komende tijd.

quote:

"I know the capability that we have; believe me, and it is awesome, it is massive, and when they make up stories like that that's just made up," Trump said in the Oval. "They have their sources that don't exist; in my opinion they don't exist. They make up the sources."

quote:

President Trump has been confirmed as the keynote speaker at the upcoming Values Voters Summit in D.C. hosted by the anti-LGBT Family Research Council, marking the first-time ever a sitting U.S. president has spoken at the annual event.

“Values voters have waited eight years for a leader who puts America’s mission first and respects the values that made America into a great nation,” Perkins said. “Values voters are coming to our nation’s capital thankful to hear from a president who is fulfilling the promises that he campaigned on. Since the early days of the campaign, President Trump allied himself with values voters, promising to put an end to the 8 years of relentless assault on the First Amendment.”

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 21:17 schreef BlackLining het volgende:

[..]

Nee hoor, want hoe meer die media tegen hem ingaan, hoe mooier zijn achterban het vindt.

Figuren die op Trump stemmen hebben geen flauw idee hoe gevaarlijk dit is.

Je kunt alleen maar hopen dat politici zowel bij de Republikeinen als bij de Democraten meer en meer blokkades gaan opwerpen om hem het 'werken' onmogelijk te maken. En dan hopen dat Mueller een beetje opschiet zodat ie gewipt kan worden voordat het finaal mis gaat.

Edit: Volgens Washington Post, over dat NBC verhaal:

[..]



Wanne huilbaby toch ook zeg

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 21:37 schreef clumsy_clown het volgende:

[..]

_Bron

Wat.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 21:37 schreef clumsy_clown het volgende:

[..]

_Bron

Wat.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op dinsdag 14-06-2016 om 19:31:58 Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs. reageer retweet

SLIM SHADY PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH (FEAT. DONALD TRUMP) TRUMP PRAISES EMINEM

twitter:

LucasFoxNews twitterde op woensdag 11-10-2017 om 20:39:11 Mattis: NBC nuke story about Trump "absolutely false." Defense secretary says "This kind of erroneous reporting is irresponsible," statement reageer retweet

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 21:52 schreef BlackLining het volgende:
En tijdens de campagins..

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 21:44 schreef Wespensteek het volgende:
Maar zijn achterban zijn niet de mensen met wie hij moet samenwerken. Als ik de persoon Trump inschat zal hij zijn achterban meer gaan koesteren omdat hij aanbeden wil worden maar daarmee komt hij steeds meer in de problemen bij andere politici, beleidsmakers, journalisten en vertegenwoordigers van grote bedrijven.

quote:

In recent days, I’ve spoken with a half dozen prominent Republicans and Trump advisers, and they all describe a White House in crisis as advisers struggle to contain a president that seems to be increasingly unfocused and consumed by dark moods.

At first it sounded like hyperbole, the escalation of a Twitter war. But now it’s clear that Bob Corker’s remarkable New York Times interview—in which the Republican senator described the White House as “adult day care” and warned Trump could start World War III—was an inflection point in the Trump presidency. It brought into the open what several people close to the president have recently told me in private: that Trump is “unstable,” “losing a step,” and “unraveling.”

The conversation among some of the president’s longtime confidantes, along with the character of some of the leaks emerging from the White House has shifted. There’s a new level of concern. NBC News published a report that Trump shocked his national security team when he called for a nearly tenfold increase in the country’s nuclear arsenal during a briefing this summer. One Trump adviser confirmed to me it was after this meeting disbanded that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump a “moron.”

SPOILER

In recent days, I spoke with a half dozen prominent Republicans and Trump advisers, and they all describe a White House in crisis as advisers struggle to contain a president who seems to be increasingly unfocused and consumed by dark moods. Trump’s ire is being fueled by his stalled legislative agenda and, to a surprising degree, by his decision last month to back the losing candidate Luther Strange in the Alabama Republican primary. “Alabama was a huge blow to his psyche,” a person close to Trump said. “He saw the cult of personality was broken.”

According to two sources familiar with the conversation, Trump vented to his longtime security chief, Keith Schiller, “I hate everyone in the White House! There are a few exceptions, but I hate them!” (A White House official denies this.) Two senior Republican officials said Chief of Staff John Kelly is miserable in his job and is remaining out of a sense of duty to keep Trump from making some sort of disastrous decision. Today, speculation about Kelly’s future increased after Politico reported that Kelly’s deputy Kirstjen Nielsen is likely to be named Homeland Security Secretary—the theory among some Republicans is that Kelly wanted to give her a soft landing before his departure.

One former official even speculated that Kelly and Secretary of Defense James Mattis have discussed what they would do in the event Trump ordered a nuclear first strike. “Would they tackle him?” the person said. Even Trump’s most loyal backers are sowing public doubts. This morning, The Washington Post quoted longtime Trump friend Tom Barrack saying he has been “shocked” and “stunned” by Trump’s behavior.

While Kelly can’t control Trump’s tweets, he is doing his best to physically sequester the president—much to Trump’s frustration. One major G.O.P. donor told me access to Trump has been cut off, and his outside calls to the White House switchboard aren’t put through to the Oval Office. Earlier this week, I reported on Kelly’s plans to prevent Trump from mingling with guests at Mar-a-Lago later this month. And, according to two sources, Keith Schiller quit last month after Kelly told Schiller he needed permission to speak to the president and wanted written reports of their conversations.

The White House denies these accounts. “The President’s mood is good and his outlook on the agenda is very positive,” an official said.

West Wing aides have also worried about Trump’s public appearances, one Trump adviser told me. The adviser said aides were relieved when Trump canceled his appearance on the season premiere of 60 Minutes last month. “He’s lost a step. They don’t want him doing adversarial TV interviews,” the adviser explained. Instead, Trump has sat down for friendly conversations with Sean Hannity and Mike Huckabee, whose daughter is Trump’s press secretary. (The White House official says the 60 Minutes interview is being rescheduled.)

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 22:18 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

LucasFoxNews twitterde op woensdag 11-10-2017 om 20:39:11 Mattis: NBC nuke story about Trump "absolutely false." Defense secretary says "This kind of erroneous reporting is irresponsible," statement reageer retweet

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 22:43 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Schapen

[ afbeelding ]

Bron

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 22:49 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Het begint echt sekte-achtige trekjes te krijgen.

SPOILER

At his latest stop, Trump will argue that his tax reform framework will benefit truckers by lowering their tax rates, boosting manufacturing, and making it easier for families to pass their trucking businesses onto their children, the White House says.

“When your trucks are moving, America is growing. That is why my administration is taking historic steps to remove the barriers that slow you down,” he’s expected to say, according to excerpts provided by the White House. “America first means putting American truckers first.”

Trump has left it up to Congress to fill in many specifics of his plan, which leaves out details such as which income levels his new tax brackets would apply to.

Trump’s proposal includes cutting the top income tax rate, getting rid of the alternative minimum tax, and eliminating the federal estate tax. He also wants to encourage multinational companies to bring back, or repatriate, cash that they’ve kept overseas. All told, there’s more than $1 trillion in cash held abroad by S&P 500 companies, according to Deutsche Bank.

“We will eliminate the penalty on returning future earnings back to the United States and we will impose a one-time low tax on money currently parked overseas so it can be brought back home to America, where it belongs,” Trump is expected to say Wednesday, adding that his “Council of Economic Advisers estimates that this change alone would likely give the typical American household a $4,000 pay raise.”

The $4,000 in additional income estimate comes from a back of the envelope calculation by White House economics adviser Kevin Hassett based on companies returning 71 percent of their foreign profits over the course of eight years.

This estimate appears to assume that the returned profits would flow to workers in the form of higher wages. But many economists say much of it would likely be returned to investors in the form of stock dividends and buybacks.

WATCH LIVE: President Trump discusses tax reform in Harrisburg, PA

quote:

EXCLUSIVE: FBI opens investigation into Harvey Weinstein on orders from Trump's Justice Department

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 00:16 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Law & order
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4971192/FBI-Harvey-Weinstein-probe-ordered-Trump-Justice-Dept.html#ixzz4vEyALIjm

quote:

U.S. President Donald Trump has “lit the wick of war” with North Korea and his country will be made to pay with “a hail of fire”, a Russian news agency quoted North Korea’s foreign minister as saying on Wednesday.

Tensions between North Korea and the United States have risen in recent weeks over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.

North Korea has test-fired several missiles and conducted what it said was a test explosion of a hydrogen bomb as it advances toward its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

Speaking to Russia’s state-run TASS news agency, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said his country’s nuclear program guaranteed peace and safety in the region and would not be a matter of discussion.

“With his bellicose and insane statement at the United Nations, Trump, you can say, has lit the wick of a war against us,” TASS quoted Ri as saying. “We need to settle the final score, only with a hail of fire, not words.”

Ri has previously called Trump “President Evil” and his comments are likely to fuel an escalating war of words between the U.S. President and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“We have almost reached the last point on the journey toward our final goal - to achieve a real balance of power with the United States,” he said.

“Our principal position is that we will never agree to any talks in which our nuclear weapons will be the subject of negotiations.”

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 00:16 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Law & order
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4971192/FBI-Harvey-Weinstein-probe-ordered-Trump-Justice-Dept.html#ixzz4vEyALIjm

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 16:47 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Kan, maar dan hebben ze, in tegenstelling tot meer dan de helft, ook in het Huis 2/3e van de stemmen nodig (en meer dan de helft van het kabinet)... qua hoeveelheid stemmen dus wel lastiger dan een "normale" impeachment.

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 22:49 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Het begint echt sekte-achtige trekjes te krijgen.

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 01:22 schreef Tweek het volgende:

[..]

https://www.thedailybeast(...)stein-and-trump-kids

Omkoping van Trump dus.

Maar goed, waarom heeft Trump nooit wat gedaan aan zijn goede vriend Epstein?

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 09:02 schreef Puddington het volgende:
https://mobile.nytimes.co(...)tp://m.facebook.com/

Congres krijgt het niet voor elkaar om Obamacare af te schaffen dus gaat grote boze Donald het doen met een executive order.

Kerel snapt echt niet dat het systeem niet zo werkt

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 09:19 schreef Urb het volgende:

[..]

En dan die foute sheriff wel beschermen, blijft bizar allemaal.

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 09:27 schreef Szura het volgende:
FOX is een tumor

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 02:09:42 Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked. Not fair to public! reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 09:29 schreef xpompompomx het volgende:
Dit is natuurlijk wel erg slecht nieuws voor Faux:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 02:09:42 Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked. Not fair to public! reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 09:29 schreef xpompompomx het volgende:
Dit is natuurlijk wel erg slecht nieuws voor Faux:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 02:09:42 Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked. Not fair to public! reageer retweet

quote:

"Trump is in the right, don’t misunderstand," Limbaugh said on his show. "But no president should have dictatorial power over individual behavior. A president should not be able to tell the owners of a business how their employees are gonna act and what they’re gonna swear allegiance to and all that. That’s up to the owners to do, and it’s up to the owners to come up with a system of punishment if their employees violate company policy, like it is in any other business."

Limbaugh stressed that he thinks Trump's "motives are pure" but he said he doesn't "think that it is useful or helpful for any employee anywhere to be forced to do something because the government says they must. That scares hell out of me."

quote:

Op woensdag 11 oktober 2017 12:54 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
Trump Wanted Tenfold Increase in Nuclear Arsenal, Surprising Military

twitter:

KellyannePolls twitterde op maandag 13-03-2017 om 14:17:51 #FakeNewsAlert & why so many people don't trust what they read Headlines don't match story. Never made nexus. https://t.co/4iSZe0HIKr reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 10:23 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Conway denies ever saying 'fake news' as Trump attacks NBC

twitter:

KellyannePolls twitterde op maandag 13-03-2017 om 14:17:51 #FakeNewsAlert & why so many people don't trust what they read Headlines don't match story. Never made nexus. https://t.co/4iSZe0HIKr reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 10:25 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Waarom zo obvious liegen?

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 10:25 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Waarom zo obvious liegen?

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 10:25 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Waarom zo obvious liegen?

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 10:30 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

[..]

Alternatief feitje.

Goed om die weer eens te kunnen gebruiken.

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 12:38 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Senator Ben Sasse (R-Neb) wil weten of Trump terugkomt op het gedeelte van zijn eed waarin hij het 1e Amendement zou "bewaren, beschermen en verdedigen": https://www.huffingtonpos(...)e081e4b0eb18af062f71

Afgelopen zomer had Sasse al eerder aan Trump gevraagd of hij wilde stoppen met dat domme getwitter: "Niet normaal en beneden de waardigheid van het ambt van president"

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 12:54 schreef Puddington het volgende:

[..]

Tweets over "weak Sasse" incoming.

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 13:23 schreef Montov het volgende:

[..]

Ben Sissy, who is so PC because he is "weak", is acting like a Fake Democrat. We need honesty!

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 13:07:00 ...We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever! reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 13:55 schreef DustPuppy het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 13:07:00 ...We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever! reageer retweet

Zolang er nog mensen hulp nodig hebben, gast.

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 13:55 schreef DustPuppy het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 13:07:00 ...We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever! reageer retweet

Zolang er nog mensen hulp nodig hebben, gast.

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 12:38 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Senator Ben Sasse (R-Neb) wil weten of Trump terugkomt op het gedeelte van zijn eed waarin hij het 1e Amendement zou "bewaren, beschermen en verdedigen": https://www.huffingtonpos(...)e081e4b0eb18af062f71

Afgelopen zomer had Sasse al eerder aan Trump gevraagd of hij wilde stoppen met dat domme getwitter: "Niet normaal en beneden de waardigheid van het ambt van president"

twitter:

SkyNewsBreak twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 15:15:55 The U.S. State Department says the United States is withdrawing from UNESCO and the move will take effect from 31 December reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 15:17 schreef Houtenbeen het volgende:

twitter:

SkyNewsBreak twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 15:15:55 The U.S. State Department says the United States is withdrawing from UNESCO and the move will take effect from 31 December reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 15:19 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

[..]

Wat heeft dat nou weer voor zin?

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 15:19 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

[..]

Wat heeft dat nou weer voor zin?

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 15:21 schreef Puddington het volgende:

[..]

"I love the uneducated!"

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 15:19 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

[..]

Wat heeft dat nou weer voor zin?

twitter:

washingtonpost twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 15:28:36 U.S. withdraws from UNESCO, the U.N.’s cultural organization, citing anti-Israel bias https://t.co/28LR6CxGG0 reageer retweet

twitter:

SputnikInt twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 15:30:11 @UNESCO @StateDept #Israel reduced payments to @UN in response to a ruling in @UNESCO labelling Israel occupant country of Jerusalem … https://t.co/6CkGjGD7Mr reageer retweet

quote:

U.S. to Pull Out of UNESCO, Again
Worried about past dues and what it calls an anti-Israel bias, Washington is bailing on the group it helped found.

The United States plans to formally withdraw from UNESCO, the U.N.’s Paris-based cultural, scientific and educational organization, to save money and protest what it views as the organization’s anti-Israel bias.

The move, which could be announced as early as next week, marks America’s further estrangement from an organization that it helped establish after World War II to widen access to education and ensure the free flow of ideas. The United States will maintain its presence at UNESCO as an observer state.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made the decision several weeks ago, and told French President Emmanuel Macron Washington was considering leaving during a meeting with President Donald Trump in late September on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. Macron was seeking Trump’s support for a French candidate seeking the top job at UNESCO. (Foreign Policy).

SPOILER

The State Department wanted to delay its departure until after UNESCO selects a new director general this week. The two front runners are the former French culture minister, Audrey Azoulay, and a Qatari diplomat, Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari. China’s nominee and early frontrunner, Qian Tang, has seen his candidacy crater.

France is looking for more than just U.S. support for Azoulay: It also wants continued global engagement from an administration that has been reluctant to do so.

“We hope the U.S. will take the decision to stay within UNESCO,” France’s U.N. ambassador, Francois Delattre said in an interview Wednesday. “For us, it is important to have the United States on board, including at UNESCO at this critical juncture,” he added. “We consider the U.S. must stay committed to world affairs.”

The Reagan Administration decided to withdraw from the organization in 1984, at the height of the Cold War, citing corruption and what it considered an ideological tilt towards the Soviet Union against the West. President George W. Bush rejoined the organization in 2002, claiming it had gotten its books an order and expunged some of its most virulent anti-Western and anti-Israel biases.

“America will participate fully in its mission to advance human rights, tolerance and learning,” he said at the time.

But six years ago, the United States cut off more than $80 million a year, about 22 percent of its entire budget for UNESCO, in reprisal for its acceptance of Palestine as a member. The Obama administration said it had to cut funds because a 1990s-era law prohibits U.S. funding for any U.N. agencies recognizing Palestine as a state.

Despite the funding cut, the United States remains a member of UNESCO, and even has a vote on the executive board, which selects the new director general. But the United States has and it continues to be charged tens of millions in dues each year and has lost its voting rights in UNESCO’s principal decision-making body, which is known as the General Conference. That body approves UNESCO’s budget and establishes a range of programs dealing with education, science, and culture around the globe.

As a result of U.S. funding cuts, U.S. arrears have been swelling each year, surpassing $500 million that’s owed to UNESCO. Tillerson wants to stop the bleeding.

But the fundamental strain is over UNESCO’s approach to Israel. Last year, Israel recalled its ambassador to UNESCO in protest after Arab governments in the organization secured support for a resolution denouncing Israel’s policies regarding religious sites in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

And in July, UNESCO declared the old city in Hebron, a West Bank town that includes the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a Palestinian World Heritage Site, a move Israel claims negates Judaism’s links to the biblical town.

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 15:32 schreef Szura het volgende:
Israël heeft het Witte Huis overgenomen. Haley en engnek Miller met hun blinde Iran-haat, ze hadden net zo goed voor Netanyahu kunnen werken.

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 15:39 schreef Szura het volgende:
Crooked Donald

[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 15:42 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

[..]

Zo te zien wordt er al sinds 2011 niet meer betaald.

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 15:42 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

[..]

Zo te zien wordt er al sinds 2011 niet meer betaald.

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 15:44 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

[..]

Zie het stuk dat ik hierboven citeerde, heeft blijkbaar te maken met wetgeving die betalingen aan organen die Palestina erkennen verbiedt.

twitter:

RichardHaass twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 15:40:16 Trump foreign policy has found its theme: The Withdrawal Doctrine. US has left/threatening to leave TPP, Paris accord, Unesco, NAFTA, JCPOA reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 15:49 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

twitter:

RichardHaass twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 15:40:16 Trump foreign policy has found its theme: The Withdrawal Doctrine. US has left/threatening to leave TPP, Paris accord, Unesco, NAFTA, JCPOA reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 15:03 schreef Puddington het volgende:

Focus op je eigen grondgebied, aars.

quote:

The Adults in the Room
The timeworn metaphor has been used and reused ever since the earliest days of the Trump era, when Donald Trump was first putting together his cabinet. On December 4, after he named James Mattis to be his defense secretary, the website Politico asserted that “there’s finally an adult in the room.” In January, as Rex Tillerson was being confirmed as secretary of state, Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told his colleagues, “To me, Mr. Tillerson is an adult who’s been around.” In February, during Trump’s first visit to Mexico, the Financial Times quoted one source as saying that Tillerson and John Kelly (then secretary of homeland security) “represent the adult wing of the new regime.”1

Before long, the metaphor became a collective one: a small group of officials within the Trump foreign-policy team represented “the adults” or “the grownups in the room.” The membership in the club changed slightly from time to time. At first, the “adults” honorific was most commonly applied to the threesome of Tillerson, Mattis, and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. This summer, after Trump brought in Kelly to be his White House chief of staff, Kelly became not only a member but the leading figure in the Adults club, while, gradually, Tillerson’s problems and increasing marginalization as secretary of state have made him less central to the group. (New York Review of Books).

SPOILER

Phrases like “the adults” or “the grownups in the room” seem on the surface to carry intuitive meanings but raise all sorts of questions that deserve scrutiny. What does it mean to be an “adult” in Washington in general, or, in particular, under Donald Trump? What policies do the “adults” favor? Where do they come from, and what do they believe? Most importantly, what is the significance of the fact that most of Trump’s so-called grownups come from the military? To answer such questions, it helps to look at the history, both of the way the idea of “adults” has been used in Washington in the past and of the way military officers in the US have served in top civilian jobs.

The notion that some officials are “adults” or “the grownups in the room” is an old Washington trope dating back decades before the arrival of Donald Trump. It is linked to an opposing metaphor: in Washington parlance, others are said to be “in need of adult supervision.” These phrases go to the heart of the way those who work in Washington operate, see themselves, and, above all, talk about themselves. Washington insider newsletters like The Nelson Report and Washington columnists like The New York Times’s Thomas Friedman purvey the notion that some people are “adults” or “grownups” and others are in need of “adult supervision.” The phrases were meant to imply a judgment about an individual’s character or behavior: some people were deemed to be mature, while others were merely being juvenile.

Before Trump, this Washington lingo was usually a cover for policy differences. The “adults” were those who favored certain policies or approaches; those in need of “supervision” were the opponents of such policies. Thus, the metaphors amounted to a verbal sleight-of-hand, transforming political judgments into personal ones. Other, more neutral adjectives could usually have been applied to those who were approvingly called “adults” (“pragmatists,” “centrists,” and “moderates” come to mind), but the “adults” metaphor added an extra bit of sneer and insult to the opposing side.

The “adults” were usually those who didn’t stray too far from the political center, however that was defined at the moment. Bernie Sanders has never qualified as an “adult” in the Washington usage of the word, although he is old enough to collect Social Security; nor did Ralph Nader; nor did Rand Paul, though he is old enough to perform eye surgery. What made them deficient was not their character or their immaturity, but their views.

Following the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, the meaning of the words “adult” and “grownup” has undergone a subtle but remarkable shift. They now refer far more to behavior and character than to views on policy. This is where Kelly, McMaster, Mattis, and (to a lesser extent) Tillerson come in; “grownup” is the behavioral role that we have assigned to them.

For the first time, America has a president who does not act like an adult. He is emotionally immature: he lies, taunts, insults, bullies, rages, seeks vengeance, exalts violence, boasts, refuses to accept criticism, all in ways that most parents would seek to prevent in their own children. Thus the dynamic was established in the earliest days of the administration: Trump makes messes, or threatens to make them, and Americans look to the “adults” to clean up for him. The “adults,” in turn, send out occasional little public signals that they are trying to keep Trump from veering off course—to educate him, to make him grow up, to keep him under control. When all else fails, they simply distance themselves from his tirades. Sometimes such efforts are successful; on many occasions, they aren’t.

The back-and-forth between Trump and the “adults” has been evident on matters both big and small. Sometimes these involve questions of symbolic significance concerning the role of the president: when, at Trump’s first cabinet meeting, officials took turns in front of television cameras thanking Trump and singing his praises, as if the president were a Central Asian dictator, Mattis opted out, saying, “It’s an honor to represent the great men and women of the Department of Defense.” Sometimes these matters involve issues of sweeping importance: before Trump’s first trip to Europe, Tillerson, Mattis, and McMaster joined together to put into a draft of his speech a reaffirmation of Article V of the NATO treaty, committing the United States to the collective defense of Europe.2 Yet Trump ultimately cut the words from his speech. Then, after the understandable and predictable uproar, he turned around and made the commitment.

Trump’s blustering, threatening behavior has raised fears that he might do something impulsive, such as launch a nuclear attack. Those fears, in turn, have heightened the perception of the “adults” as watchdogs or guardians. In February, the Associated Press said that “for the first few weeks after the inauguration, Mattis and Kelly agreed that one of them should remain in the United States to keep tabs on the orders rapidly firing out of the White House.”3 Ever since, various versions of this story have appeared again and again, sometimes including McMaster or Tillerson, and usually without the time limits of the original story.

Mattis has had the (relatively) easiest time of it with Trump, while McMaster and, now, Kelly, have had the hardest, in part because of the nature of the different jobs they hold. As defense secretary, Mattis has a cabinet job that keeps him across the Potomac River, running the US government’s biggest department, and Trump seems to allow him considerably more latitude than the other “adults.”

Mattis, a former Marine Corps general who served as commander of America’s Central Command forces in the Middle East, has the satisfaction of knowing he has strong-to-intense support on Capitol Hill, where John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, let it be known at the start of the administration that he would serve as Mattis’s protector. Mattis has also been especially popular within the military. Before his appointment, he said that he would speak his mind when his views differed from those of Trump. He explained, for example, why he opposes the use of torture.

With greater job security than the other “adults,” Mattis seems to have assumed the role of reminding Americans and the rest of the world that the American government existed before Trump and will survive him. At a conference in Singapore in June, when asked if America were retreating from its role in the world, he invoked a quote routinely misattributed to Churchill about America: “Bear with us,” Mattis told the audience. “Once we have exhausted all possible alternatives, the Americans will do the right thing.”

In contrast, McMaster and Kelly work at staff jobs inside the White House, where they must deal with Trump day after day. After he was appointed White House chief of staff in late July, Kelly sought to impose order, controlling who gets to see Trump and restricting what materials are given to him. But there were quickly signs that Kelly’s discipline campaign could go only so far. He could not stop Trump from saying outrageous things in public on the spur of the moment; Trump’s outburst equating the two sides in the Charlottesville protests came at what was supposed to be a press conference on infrastructure, and it left Kelly staring at the floor. It was not long before some of Trump’s friends let it be known that the president was chafing against Kelly’s restrictions. In his recent book, The Gatekeepers, Chris Whipple writes that the position of White House chief of staff “is what may well be the toughest job in Washington—so arduous that the average tenure is a little more than eighteen months.”4 At this juncture, it seems extremely unlikely that Kelly will raise the average.

As national security adviser, McMaster has had to handle especially acrimonious disputes inside the White House over issues ranging from trade and immigration to America’s role in the world. At the same time, he has had to wrestle with personnel battles that extend beyond the usual ones among cabinet secretaries. He has had to deal with various White House figures, including Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, whom Trump set up as a mini-czar over foreign-policy issues ranging from the Middle East to Mexico and China. Above all, McMaster waged a months-long battle with Stephen Bannon, the leader of the populist wing of the administration, until Bannon finally departed in mid-August.

Tillerson has been the most baffling of the “adults.” He had years of experience running one of America’s leading corporations but is serving as a classic example of why such experience does not necessarily prepare one for a top cabinet post. He came to the position of secretary of state with more establishment credentials (or at least job references) than any of the other “adults”; luminaries of past Republican administrations, such as Robert Gates, Condoleezza Rice, and James Baker all supported him. Yet Tillerson has gone further than anyone else on the foreign policy team to create a radical break with the past. His determined, prolonged efforts to pare down the State Department—by supporting budget cuts, reorganizing positions out of existence, and, above all, choosing to leave major jobs unfilled—have left the nation’s leading diplomats shocked and demoralized, wandering around the silent halls past one empty office after another. Indeed, whether intentionally or not, Tillerson has done much to carry out Bannon’s populist call of last February for the “deconstruction of the administrative state.”

For all the attention given to the personal qualities of the “adults” (that is, their ability to preserve a modicum of stability within the administration amidst the Trumpian turmoil), their views have attracted far less scrutiny. It can be argued that what the “adults” believe about various foreign-policy issues is more important than it was for their predecessors in past administrations, because Trump himself seems to care little about policy, certainly not about its details or complexities. He operates in the public realm of words, tweets, and cable shows, leaving hard policymaking to underlings. Indeed, sometimes there seems to be a complete disconnect between Trump’s show-business presidency and what is actually transpiring inside the federal government, as when Trump issued a seeming ban on transgenders in the military on Twitter, while Mattis both limited its scope and delayed it from taking effect.

The “adults” have a record of beliefs and actions that, in any other administration, would stand out more. Kelly, now in the White House, was early on—as secretary of homeland security—a strong supporter of Trump’s order to limit immigration from Muslim countries into the United States. Tillerson seems to have an especially rosy view of Putin’s Russia, as well as an obvious aversion to issues of human rights and democracy. McMaster, along with Gary Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, last spring wrote the startling Wall Street Journal Op-Ed that gave a Hobbesian underpinning to Trump’s “America First” worldview: “The president embarked on his first foreign trip with a clear-eyed outlook that the world is not a ‘global community’ but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage.”5

It is the underlying foreign-policy views and experiences of the three “adults” with military backgrounds—Mattis, McMaster, and Kelly—that are the most important and the least covered. What counts above all are their views on issues concerning armed conflict. Because they come from the military, there have been occasional suggestions that they will somehow bring the United States into new wars.

As will be seen, there is solid ground for concern about their military backgrounds, but the simplistic fear that their military service might lead them to support the use of force seems misplaced. Most of America’s disastrous or ill-fated military interventions—Vietnam, George W. Bush’s war in Iraq, Libya—were spearheaded by civilians. The notion that military officers are Washington’s leading hawks dates back to the era when Air Force General Curtis LeMay tried to persuade President Kennedy to bomb Cuba. But the stereotype has less validity today, when military leaders seem intensely aware of the risks of stumbling into war. Before coming to the White House, McMaster was known primarily as the author of the book Dereliction of Duty, an account of America’s involvement in Vietnam. McMaster’s conclusion was blunt and stark:

The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times or on the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C…. The disaster in Vietnam was not the result of impersonal forces but a uniquely human failure, the responsibility for which was shared by President Johnson and his principal military and civilian advisers.6

The three “adults” from the military do seem to share a kind of collective view, based on their experiences in uniform. All of them fought on the ground in America’s post-September 11 conflicts. Mattis was the commander in charge of America’s wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Kelly served under Mattis in Iraq; his own son was killed in combat in Afghanistan. McMaster commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. In an essay about Afghanistan in 2012, McMaster wrote: “The difference between how the war is briefed in Washington, D.C., and in Kabul, versus how it is waged in the field, cannot be starker.”7

It is this perspective, the result of being longtime outsiders to Washington, that distinguishes the current group of “adults” from previous generals and admirals who moved into civilian posts. Most of the military leaders often mentioned as their predecessors—for example, Alexander Haig, the former White House chief of staff and secretary of state; or Brent Scowcroft, the two-time national security adviser; or Colin Powell, the national security adviser and secretary of state—rose to prominence largely through their long service in Washington. All of these predecessors had powerful civilian mentors who, over time, promoted them to senior positions (Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger for Haig and Scowcroft, Defense Secretaries Caspar Weinberger and Frank Carlucci for Powell).

But Trump’s “adults,” as a group, have been mostly soldiers, not staff officers in the Haig model. As a result, their disposition seems to be not so much to enter into new wars as to find ways to win the wars America has already entered—the wars in which they themselves have fought. If there is a single major issue on which they have clearly prevailed over Trump’s own initial instincts, it was the decision in August to send new American troops to Afghanistan.

In a perceptive description of the outlook of Mattis, McMaster, and Kelly, veteran defense correspondent James Kitfield wrote that they aim “to correct what senior military officers see as the mistakes of the Obama administration.”8 Those mistakes, from the military viewpoint, include the complete withdrawal of American troops from Iraq after a 2012 deadline, leaving a vacuum that was filled by the Islamic State; the setting of a time limit for Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan; and Obama’s failure to enforce the red line he drew against the use of chemical weapons in Syria. (The “adults” were instrumental in Trump’s decision to launch Tomahawk missiles against Syria last April when Bashar al-Assad’s forces again used such weapons.9)

Beyond this desire for successful outcomes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the ongoing war with ISIS, the views of Trump’s “adults” are more vague and less predictable. They seem to favor generally tougher approaches to Iran, particularly in comparison with the policies of the Obama administration. Mattis, in a long interview with a high school newspaper last spring, called Iran’s government “a murderous regime” and “certainly the most destabilizing influence in the Middle East.”10 So far, however, the Trump administration has not withdrawn from the nuclear agreement Obama negotiated with Iran.

Yet there is little that suggests what these three generals think about China or North Korea. Like US military officers in general, they tend to favor preserving and strengthening America’s existing military alliances. That, in itself, creates the sort of tension with Trump that was apparent during the president’s first visit to Europe.

The most troubling question about Trump’s “adults” is not so much what they believe but why most of them come from the military. There have never been so many military leaders at the top levels of America’s foreign-policy apparatus. Many in this country do not realize how strong the strictures have been in the past against military officers serving in senior civilian posts.

The reasons for the old rules start, above all, with concerns about civilian control of the military, but they go further, to the impact within the military itself. If military leaders are allowed to take top civilian posts, the argument goes, it opens the way for those officers to take a civilian (or “political”) route to military promotion. The classic example is Haig, who entered the Nixon White House in 1969 as a colonel and left in 1974 as a four-star general.

When Scowcroft became national security adviser in 1975, he chose to resign from the Air Force. “For a senior White House official to retain a military commission would, [Scowcroft] thought, divide his loyalty between his military superiors and the American president,” wrote his biographer, Bartholomew Sparrow.11 Twelve years later, the report of the congressional committees investigating the Iran-contra affair specifically urged that the job of national security adviser be held by a civilian. Nonetheless, since that recommendation, various presidents have appointed one or another active-duty or retired military officer to serve along with the civilians in top leadership ranks: Powell was Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser, Scowcroft was George H.W. Bush’s, and retired Marine Commandant James Jones was Obama’s.

With Trump, this pattern has been reversed. There are few civilians at the top of the national-security apparatus, while present or former military leaders occupy the positions of national security adviser, defense secretary, and White House chief of staff. Mattis this year became the first former military leader to serve as secretary of defense since George Marshall was appointed to the job in 1950.

The ascendance of Trump’s generals has raised alarms that the military might be trying to take over the country. “Is a Military Coup in the Cards?” blared one Newsweek headline this summer, after a video went viral showing Mattis telling some American troops, “Our country, right now, it’s got problems that we don’t have in the military. You just hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it.” It turned out that those remarks were not new; Mattis had, on other occasions, decried the political divisions in America and urged those in the military to “hold the line.”12

But for now there is scant evidence that the military is pushing to increase its political influence. Trump’s three generals didn’t seek out the civilian jobs they now hold, collectively or individually. Trump chose to put them there. The chances are that some of them won’t stay for long, either; there have already been occasional reports that McMaster or Kelly will be fired or quit. (It is a fair and continuing question whether the proper course for an “adult” in the Trump administration is to resign from it.)

The underlying, longer-term problem is the lack of civilian influence on foreign policy. Even if the generals leave, Trump may choose other military leaders to replace them, rather than appoint civilian leaders who might emerge as dissenters, challengers, or rivals. It is hard to remember now, but when Trump was creating his foreign-policy team, he talked with centrist Republicans (Mitt Romney), right-wing Republicans (John Bolton), and pro-Trump Republicans (Newt Gingrich) before rejecting all of them, along with various other foreign policy specialists, turning instead to Tillerson and the generals. Moreover, this dearth in civilian leadership will last longer than Trump’s initial choices and appointments: Tillerson’s failure to fill many State Department jobs means that there are fewer civilians in second-level positions gaining the valuable experience they could use to shape American foreign policy in the future.

In a recent insightful book based on her experiences in the Pentagon under Obama, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything,13 Rosa Brooks describes how the military has come to dominate American foreign policy overseas because it possesses the money and personnel to do what the State Department cannot. “It’s a vicious circle: as civilian capacity has declined, the military has stepped into the breach,” Brooks wrote.

Under Trump, this phenomenon is now spreading from US operations abroad to the top levels of leadership in Washington. After the racist violence in Charlottesville and Trump’s incendiary comments about it, the leaders of America’s five military services—that is, the individual members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—published statements condemning racist hatred. They had strong and legitimate military reasons to do so, in order to make certain there was no racial upheaval among the troops. Nevertheless, it was a little unsettling. In the past, America did not have to rely upon its military leaders to calm passions or make soothing statements, because those are the sorts of things that usually come from presidents and top civilian leaders. Such statements raise, momentarily, the specter of countries like Turkey or Egypt or Thailand, where the military assumes an obligation to step in for the good of the country when civilian governments have collapsed.

For now, such comparisons seem remote. But what has been most disturbing this year is the subtle link that is being created in American consciousness between the phrases “military leaders” or “generals” and the phrases “adults” or “grownups in the room.” Having military figures act as “adults” may somehow suggest that civilians lack the capacity to govern on their own, or even that civilians act like children. That, in Trump’s case, would be sadly accurate.

—September 28, 2017

1

See Mark Perry, “James Mattis’ 33-Year Grudge Against Iran,” Politico Magazine, December 4, 2016; Corker remarks to Senate Foreign Relations Committee, January 23, 2017; Demetri Sevastopulo and Stephen Woodman, “Rex Tillerson Promotes US Ties During Mexico Trip,” Financial Times, February 24, 2017. ↩
2

Susan Glasser, “Trump National Security Team Blindsided by NATO Speech,” Politico Magazine, June 5, 2017. ↩
3

Vivian Salama and Julie Pace, “Trio of Military Men Gain Growing Influence with Trump,” Associated Press, February 23, 2017. ↩
4

Chris Whipple, The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency (Crown, 2017), p. 11. ↩
5

H.R. McMaster and Gary D. Cohn, “America First Doesn’t Mean America Alone,” The Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2017. ↩
6

H.R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam (HarperCollins, 1997), pp. 333–334. ↩
7

H.R. McMaster, “Afterword,” in Daniel R. Green, The Valley’s Edge: A Year with the Pashtuns in the Heartland of the Taliban (Potomac, 2012), p. 217. ↩
8

James Kitfield, “Trump’s Generals Are Trying to Save the World. Starting With the White House,” Politico Magazine, August 4, 2017. ↩
9

That Assad’s regime used chemical weapons was confirmed in September by an independent UN commission. See “Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic,” released September 6, 2017. ↩
10

Transcript, James Mattis’s interview with the Islander, June 20, 2017. ↩
11

Bartholomew Sparrow, The Strategist: Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security (PublicAffairs, 2015), p. 179. ↩
12

Greg Jaffe and Dan Lamothe, “With a Drama-Filled White House, Mattis Has Shown Deft Political Touch,” The Washington Post, August 30, 2017. ↩
13

Simon and Schuster, 2016. See Kenneth Roth’s review in these pages, March 9, 2017. ↩

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 15:49 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

twitter:

RichardHaass twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 15:40:16 Trump foreign policy has found its theme: The Withdrawal Doctrine. US has left/threatening to leave TPP, Paris accord, Unesco, NAFTA, JCPOA reageer retweet

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 14:45:29 The Fake News Is going all out in order to demean and denigrate! Such hatred! reageer retweet

quote:

Indeed, the downgrading of the state visit has left us scenting blood. It is clear that authorities on both sides of the Atlantic are rightly fearful about the response Trump will get. These mass demonstrations, of course, will go far beyond the personality of Trump.

They will represent a passionate rejection of anti-Muslim hatred, immigrant-scapegoating and refugee-bashing, not just in the US, but here in Britain, too. They will offer a reminder that powerful vested interests – including plutocrats such as Trump – should be blamed for our social and economic woes, not those fleeing foreign violence and persecution. They will promote feminism and women’s rights in defiance of a self-confessed harasser of women. They will champion the cause of trans rights against the transphobe-in-chief, who has singled out this minority to be excluded from the US military. They will advance the cause of saving the planet from a climate change crisis exacerbated by Trumpism. They will challenge the warmongering of Trump’s administration, which threatens the lives of tens of millions of people. And they will seek to unite progressives from either side of the Atlantic in these common causes. The mirror image of Trumpism will be on the streets.

May’s government is weak, shambolic and crisis-ridden. The last thing it wants or needs is mass protests on the streets. As soon as Trump touches down on British soil, this is what will happen. That is their choice. The biggest carnival against hatred this country has ever seen awaits. From LGBT rights to women’s rights, from workers’ rights to anti-racism, we already know that protest works. Both May and Trump deserve to learn this instructive lesson.

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 15:49 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

twitter:

RichardHaass twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 15:40:16 Trump foreign policy has found its theme: The Withdrawal Doctrine. US has left/threatening to leave TPP, Paris accord, Unesco, NAFTA, JCPOA reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 09:29 schreef xpompompomx het volgende:
Dit is natuurlijk wel erg slecht nieuws voor Faux:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 02:09:42 Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked. Not fair to public! reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 10:11 schreef Ulx het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]

Trump: "I Have A Great Heart" For DACA Dreamers

twitter:

Alexruoff twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 19:44:03 Congressional ethics office report says there's evidence @RepChrisCollins shared nonpublic info on drug stocks https://t.co/WdBddXoHC4 reageer retweet

twitter:

Alexruoff twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 19:52:40 Tom Price refused to cooperate with congressional ethics inquiry into possible insider trading by fellow Republican Chris Collins reageer retweet

quote:

Mid-interview the “Retreat’ anthem started to play, and while others have stopped in their tracks to salute, stand to attention or pay their respects for the bugle, Trump sat with Hannity and continued to speak throughout it.

"What a nice sound that is," Trump said. "Are they playing that for you or for me?"

"They're playing that in honor of his ratings,” he said, referring to Hannity. "He's beating everybody.”

When it plays, soldiers stop and salute, and civilians place their hands on their hearts in a patriotic act observed by the military. But the president did neither for the sound that has served as a tradition since before the American Revolutionary War, in spite of his criticism of NFL players for protesting during the national anthem.

http://www.newsweek.com/a(...)-bugle-honors-683058

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 20:08 schreef Nintex het volgende:
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/watch-trump-forget-to-sign-health-care-executive-order-at-executive-order-signing/

Haha, hij vergeet weer eens een wet te tekenen.

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 20:17 schreef la_perle_rouge het volgende:
Heeft Trump al ergens met één woord of tweet over Californië gerept? 23 doden, 550 vermisten, 20.000 evacués en 3500 gebouwen (waaronder veel woningen) verwoest.
Is er al ergens een bewijsje dat de president hiermee begaan is? Ik heb een risje tweets doorgenomen, maar ik denk dat ik iets mis, want het kan toch niet zo zijn dat hij zich drukker maakt om media dan om deze humanitaire ellende?

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 20:08 schreef Nintex het volgende:
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/watch-trump-forget-to-sign-health-care-executive-order-at-executive-order-signing/

Haha, hij vergeet weer eens een wet te tekenen.

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 20:17 schreef la_perle_rouge het volgende:
Heeft Trump al ergens met één woord of tweet over Californië gerept? 23 doden, 550 vermisten, 20.000 evacués en 3500 gebouwen (waaronder veel woningen) verwoest.
Is er al ergens een bewijsje dat de president hiermee begaan is? Ik heb een risje tweets doorgenomen, maar ik denk dat ik iets mis, want het kan toch niet zo zijn dat hij zich drukker maakt om media dan om deze humanitaire ellende?

bron: https://www.volkskrant.nl(...)-vermisten~a4521388/

quote:

President Trump served notice Thursday that he may pull back federal workers from Puerto Rico, effectively threatening to abandon the U.S. territory amid a humanitarian crisis in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

“Electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricanes. Congress to decide how much to spend,” the president tweeted, adding: “We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!”

More than three weeks after Maria, more than 80 percent of the island is still without power. Just 63 percent of the island’s residents have access to clean drinking water, and only 60 percent of wastewater treatment plants are operating, according to FEMA.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 20:01 schreef Montov het volgende:

[..]

En dat is dan de leider van het leger. Oh lordy.

twitter:

charliespiering twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 20:36:25 John Kelly on his "frustrated face" https://t.co/u9mfhBOx3A reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 21:42 schreef Hdero het volgende:
Ik heb een vraag. Stel de VS verklaart de oorlog tegen Noord Korea, achter wie zal Poetin zich scharen? Zal Poetin voor de kant kiezen van Noord Korea, en zo ja, in hoe ver? Zal hij hen beschermen bij wijze van spreken of zal het beperkt zijn tot morele steun?

Ik vraag dit omdat de oorlog dan dichtbij Poetins eigen achtertuin zou belanden itt die in Irak, Afghanistan, en Syrië. Zal hij de eventuele Amerikasnse macht in die regio waarderen? Mij lijkt het allemaal toch link spel.

quote:

The country – we took it over and owed over $20 trillion. As you know the last eight years, they borrowed more than it did in the whole history of our country. So they borrowed more than $10 trillion, right? And yet, we picked up $5.2 trillion just in the stock market,” Trump told Sean Hannity. “So you could say, in one sense, we’re really increasing values. And maybe in a sense, we’re reducing debt. But we’re very honored by it. - Trump

[..]

This wasn’t just some verbal gaffe. Yesterday afternoon in Harrisburg, during a speech on taxes, he pushed a related point: “Very proudly, just in the stock market alone, we have increased our economic worth by $5.2 trillion, that’s right, since Election Day. $5.2 trillion. Think about that, that’s a quarter of the $20 trillion that we owe.”

This is gibberish. They’re the remarks of someone who doesn’t know what the national debt is. Or how the nation’s finances work. Or even how money works.

Let’s try to make this plain. When the government spends more than it takes in over the course of a year, it runs an annual budget deficit. When this happens repeatedly over the course of several years, the cumulative totals of these deficits serves as the basis for the national debt. Currently, the national debt is, as Trump noted, about $20 trillion.

This was, however, pretty much the only thing he got right. The president believes stock market gains over the last year or so are worth $5.2 trillion, and if he applies that money to paying off the debt, “in a sense” he’s reducing the debt by nearly a fourth.

[..]

Perhaps, some of you are thinking, we should cut the president some slack, since he’s still an amateur who doesn’t yet understand the basics of, well, much of anything. Maybe he simply needs more time to get up to speed on things like Government Finance 101. The trouble, however, is that if there’s one thing Donald Trump should understand, it’s debt. This has, after all, served as the backbone of his operations for many years.

quote:

Donald Trump styles himself a dealmaker, but so far in his presidency he hasn’t struck many deals on the international stage, besides a multibillion-dollar arms agreement with Saudi Arabia that might not be quite as massive as advertised.

Instead, the U.S. leader has consistently assumed the role of dealbreaker—withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate-change accord, exiting the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement, and reversing aspects of the U.S. opening toward Cuba. Just this week, the Trump administration ended American membership in UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural agency, over the organization’s alleged anti-Israel bias; indicated that the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico might conclude with the pact’s collapse; and signaled that it will decline to certify that the Iran nuclear agreement is in the interest of the United States, which will prompt a debate in Congress that could ultimately lead to the demise of the accord.

SPOILER

It’s not unheard of for American presidents to withdraw from international agreements or organizations; Ronald Reagan also quit UNESCO, citing its alleged anti-American bias. Nor is it unprecedented for American presidents to try to adjust the terms of U.S. involvement in those agreements and organizations, especially when they take the White House from the opposing party; Barack Obama renegotiated George W. Bush’s trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea.

But there may be no previous instance in modern American history when dealbreaking has been so central to an administration’s posture in the world. And the approach can’t entirely be attributed to Trump’s disdain for his predecessor’s policies; Obama brokered the TPP trade deal, the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear agreement, and the Cuban thaw, but it was George W. Bush who rejoined UNESCO and Bill Clinton, building on the work of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, who orchestrated NAFTA.

As Richard Haass, the president of the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on Thursday, “Trump foreign policy has found its theme: The Withdrawal Doctrine.”

Trump might point out that these are still the early days of his presidency—that he’s engaging in the kind of creative destruction that’s necessary to radically remake U.S. foreign policy, as he promised to do during his presidential campaign, and that he hasn’t had the chance yet to create something new in its place. In fact, that’s exactly what the president argued in an interview with Forbes published this week, in which he made comments that marked a dramatic departure from the broad strategy that American presidents have pursued since World War II to safeguard U.S. interests in the world, even as they’ve differed on specific tactics:

Doesn’t he feel a responsibility to honor agreements from previous administrations?

President Trump has a quick response: “No.”

It’s a dangerous precedent: an America where each administration, rather than building on the agreements of its predecessors, undoes each other’s deals—effectively undermining the authority of any American head of state. Again, Trump shrugs.

“I happen to think that NAFTA will have to be terminated if we’re going to make it good. Otherwise, I believe you can’t negotiate a good deal.. . [The Trans-Pacific Partnership] would have been a large-scale version of NAFTA. It would have been a disaster. It’s a great honor to have—I consider that a great accomplishment, stopping that. And there are many people that agree with me. I like bilateral deals.”

Of course he does. Trump has been doing bilateral deals his whole life. But bilateral deals are just that—one-on-one bargains carrying the implicit prospect of a negotiation that will create a winner and a loser. Doesn’t this fly in the face of our multilateral world?

“You can have it this way and do much more business. And if it doesn’t work out with a country, you give them a 30-day notice, and you either renegotiate or not."

Trump’s bilateral world, of course, explains why foreign aid gets cut. It comes with a huge downside. Deals score points, but deals don’t create long-term investments. It’s impossible to think of something like the Marshall Plan, which teed up more than six decades of peace and prosperity, coming out of the Trump White House. To that, he shrugs again.

“For me, it’s America first. We’ve been doing that so long that we owe $20 trillion, okay?”


“I tend to look at Trump as a real-estate mogul,” Fiona Hill, a Russia expert who now serves on Trump’s National Security Council, once told me. “You look at a building and say, ‘I’m just going to tear that down and build up something new.’ He’s not exactly Mr. Preservationist.”

The thing about creative destruction, though, is that it necessarily involves destruction. For example, there are widespread concerns—among Democrats, among America’s European allies, even among Trump’s own national-security advisers—that if Trump refuses to certify the Iran nuclear deal before Congress, even though the other world powers who are party to the agreement all concur that Iran is meeting its obligations under the accord, America’s credibility as a good-faith actor in international affairs will be gutted. Whether you’re Justin Trudeau renegotiating NAFTA or Kim Jong Un considering a diplomatic resolution to the crisis over your nuclear weapons, you’ll wonder whether you can trust the United States as a negotiating partner. You’ll also wonder whether you can trust any American president to honor the word of his predecessor.

“It makes sense to me that our holding up agreements that we have signed, unless there’s a material breach, would have an impact on others’ willingness to sign agreements,” Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Trump administration, recently told Congress, in reference to the impact that Trump’s actions on the Iran deal could have on a peaceful solution to the standoff with North Korea.

A foreign-policy doctrine of withdrawal also casts profound doubt on America’s commitment to the intricate international system that the United States helped create and nurture after World War II so that countries could collaborate on issues that transcend any one nation. If, for instance, the Trump administration decides to abandon a nuclear arms-control agreement that’s verifiably working—and that countries as diverse as America, Britain, China, France, Germany, Iran, and Russia all managed to agree to—what does that say about whether the U.S. still subscribes to the view that the world can jointly and diplomatically resolve challenges as knotty as nuclear proliferation? Trump’s threats to the Iran deal suggest that “the Americans have left the multilateral liberal order,” one European diplomat recently told the Daily Beast’s Spencer Ackerman.

Peter Wittig, the German ambassador to the United States, said something similar to me this summer, in mourning Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, which was signed by nearly all the countries in the world. Trump, “in this instance, gave [priority] to his domestic agenda over the ambition to display American leadership on the international stage,” Wittig said. In Europe, he added, “there’s a fear out there that America is wittingly or willingly embarking on a tectonic shift in our configuration in the world by leaving a vacuum, by tolerating a vacuum.”

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 22:09 schreef Wespensteek het volgende:

[..]

Het zal denk ik heel erg afhangen in hoeverre China en Rusland last krijgen van de gevolgen als de nucleaire installatie's van Noord-Korea worden aangevallen, zeker als er kernbommen worden gebruikt door de vs. De Chinese en Russische grens is niet ver weg van bijv. dat testcentrum in Noord-Korea.

quote:

Republican Sen. Todd Young of Indiana expressed misgivings about the massive tax reform plan from President Donald Trump and GOP leaders, casting more doubts on the Republican framework in its initial stages.

In an interview with the Indianapolis Business Journal, Young suggested he would not support any tax plan that added significantly to the federal deficit. He said he would not vote for any legislation that would “blow a hole in the budget.”

SPOILER

The senator said he would factor in increased economic growth due to the tax cuts when evaluating the impact of the final bill. Young did say, however, that he wouldn’t assume “unreasonable rates” of growth.

“We need to recognize there are growth effects of improving our tax environment. Otherwise, what’s the point of this process?” Young said. “But we can’t assume unreasonable rates of economic growth or we’re being fiscally irresponsible.”

So-called dynamic scoring assumes that tax cuts would increase economic activity, raising incomes and profits. The increased profits would then be taxed, increasing overall tax revenues the government takes in.

The Trump administration projects in their score of the tax plan’s outline that the cuts would lead to sustained 3% GDP growth, which would increase tax revenues and, they say, allow the plan to be deficit neutral. Most economists have cast doubt on the White House’s assumptions.

Young told the IBJ he would take multiple economists’ perspective into consideration when deciding whether to support the final plan, but cautioned that the framework was missing a number of key details.

Young’s hesitations reflect those from Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, who said last week he would not vote for a plan that “added one penny to the deficit,” but would also evaluate the plan’s potential effects on economic growth.

Young’s comments are concerning for GOP leaders, since the party only holds 52 seats in the Senate. Party leaders plan to use the process known as budget reconciliation, which would allow the eventual final tax bill bypass a Democratic filibuster and pass with a simply majority.

So far Corker, Young, and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky have all expressed misgivings about the tax framework.

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 20:17 schreef la_perle_rouge het volgende:
Heeft Trump al ergens met één woord of tweet over Californië gerept? 23 doden, 550 vermisten, 20.000 evacués en 3500 gebouwen (waaronder veel woningen) verwoest.
Is er al ergens een bewijsje dat de president hiermee begaan is? Ik heb een risje tweets doorgenomen, maar ik denk dat ik iets mis, want het kan toch niet zo zijn dat hij zich drukker maakt om media dan om deze humanitaire ellende?

bron: https://www.volkskrant.nl(...)-vermisten~a4521388/

twitter:

FoxBusiness twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 20:43:30 .@POTUS nominates Kirstjen Nielson as DHS Secretary https://t.co/tZAo2rNdu0 https://t.co/4nmmocqaHw reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 00:29 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

FoxBusiness twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 20:43:30 .@POTUS nominates Kirstjen Nielson as DHS Secretary https://t.co/tZAo2rNdu0 https://t.co/4nmmocqaHw reageer retweet

Nieuwe minister

quote:

Op donderdag 12 oktober 2017 22:54 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Trump bouwt niks op, hij breekt alleen maar af. Geen 'dealmaker' maar een 'dealbreaker'

Donald Trump, Dealbreaker

The president’s “foreign policy has found its theme,” one observer says.

[..]

quote:

Trump’s War on Knowledge
The date October 12 has been much on my mind this year. It was on this day in 1936 that the fascist forces of General Francisco Franco celebrated El Día de la Raza, the Hispanic world’s alternate version of Columbus Day. Some three months earlier, Franco had begun a right-wing insurrection against the elected government of the Republic. His Falangist army soon controlled a large part of the country, including Salamanca. It was in the central hall of that ancient city’s university, founded in 1218 and the most renowned institute of higher learning in the land, that the fascists commemorated their “Day of the Race.” In front of numerous dignitaries and emboldened by a mob of nationalist youth and legionnaires, Franco’s friend and mentor General José Millán Astray desecrated that temple of learning with six words: ¡Abajo la inteligencia! ¡Viva la muerte! (“Down with intelligence! Long live death!”). (New York Review of Books).

SPOILER

That phrase—so paradoxical, so absurd, so idiotic—would have been laughable had it not occurred in a Europe where Nazis were burning libraries and, along with their Italian allies, pushing innumerable artists, scientists, and writers into exile. In Spain, those words resonated no less ominously. Only weeks earlier, Federico García Lorca, one of the greatest writers in the Spanish language, a poet and playwright who had deployed the many angels of intelligence, had been executed in Granada by a nationalist death squad. Many more intellectuals were assassinated in the years that followed, along with peasants, workers, and students who had learned under the Republic to think and speak for themselves.

When I was growing up in Chile in the Fifties and Sixties, I was convinced that such a cataclysm could not happen to us. I was sure that intelligence was obviously to be hailed and death just as obviously to be deplored. The 1973 coup against the democratic government of Salvador Allende changed all that. Books were turned to ashes, musicians were shot, scientists and educators were tortured. Meanwhile, the military, inspired by the same fundamentalism and loathing that had raged in Franco’s Spain, derided intelligence and reveled in death. The intelligentsia, they insisted, was to blame for Chile’s upheavals and supposed decline.

Today, Chile is democratic and monuments are lifted to those who were martyred by the dictatorship. The generals who ordered such horrors are reviled and some have even been jailed for their atrocities. If I now feel compelled to evoke the words Millán Astray used eighty-one years ago in Salamanca, it is because they have gained a bizarre relevance in today’s America. The resurgence of nationalism in our time has not yet reached the homicidal extremes it did when Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco misruled their lands, but the United States still faces an assault on rational discourse, scientific knowledge, and objective truth. And this war on intelligence, too, despite the edulcorated pieties that come from those who carry it out, will lead to many deaths.

There has always been a disturbing strand of anti-intellectualism in American life—the very title of Richard Hofstadter’s 1963 book—but never has an occupant of the White House exhibited such a toxic mix of ignorance and mendacity, such lack of intellectual curiosity and disregard for rigorous analysis (despite his untested boast that his IQ is “one of the highest,” certainly higher than Obama’s and a host of other worthies’).

“The experts are terrible,” Donald Trump said during his campaign. “Look at the mess we’re in with all these experts that we have.” It is hardly surprising, then, that his administration is over-stocked with know-nothing fundamentalists. Across the board, he has appointed amateurs who are hostile to science and sport obscurantism as a badge of honor. Accordingly, the policies they have adopted are as stultifying as they are noxious. The contempt for evidence-based research was immediately apparent in Trump’s original wish list of budget proposals, which would significantly defund the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, NASA, the National Institutes for Occupational Safety and Health, and even the Census Bureau. Government websites at the White House, the EPA, and the Departments of State, Agriculture, Interior, Labor, Education, and Energy have been scrubbed of previously posted scientific positions that would contradict the new policy program. Advisory councils have been eviscerated or abolished—the Justice Department’s National Commission on Forensic Science, no less!—and government scientists have been muzzled and forbidden from attending national forums or international conferences. The administration is obstructing the collection of data and the publication and discussion of research, as if in expectation that inconvenient truths will magically melt away.

True, antagonism toward the knowledge elite is not a monopoly of the hard right. Pol Pot’s hatred of bourgeois professionals led to the killing fields of Cambodia. Mao Zedong set the Red Guards on millions of members of the cultural elite, unleashing immeasurable suffering. It is also true enough that many authoritarian regimes in our time display contempt for reason, scientific knowledge, and intellectual expertise: witness the Turkish government’s decision to strike evolution from the school curriculum, or Hungarian President Viktor Orbán’s campaign to close the liberal Central European University. But none of these incursions against reason has such encompassing power and reach as that of the American government. Nor will their destructive effects likely be as vast and enduring as the Trump administration’s.

Trump’s war on settled science and truth will have lethal consequences. An estimated 2.3 million American construction workers, miners, and road-crew laborers face life-threatening injury and illness because the Occupational Health and Safety Administration has delayed the enforcement of rules protecting them from silica dust, which is incontrovertibly linked to increases in cancer and lung disease. Deaths will rise among those who toil in shipyards and on construction sites because a regulation created by the Obama administration to reduce exposure to the carcinogen beryllium has been reversed. Miners are at greater risk because inspections in coal mines to identify hazards have been curtailed, and families in Appalachia will be further endangered because the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have been ordered to stop studying how pollutants produced by mountaintop-removal mining may lead to increased rates of cancer, birth defects and respiratory disease.

The lives of millions will be shortened because more than thirty regulatory rules safeguarding Americans from pollution have been rolled back: they will slowly die from increased heavy metal effluents in waterways; they will die if emission standards for vehicles are relaxed; they will die because chemical spills will be more frequent and our water, air, and soil less clean. And more children will get ill and die if parents opt out of immunization programs encouraged by the president’s reckless promotion of the completely debunked “theory” about a link between vaccination and autism, a belief seconded by Tom Price, until recently the head of Health and Human Services, who once said that “vaccines are the equivalent of human experimentation.”

The effects of this war on knowledge extend beyond the borders of the United States. The policy to cut the admission of refugees contradicts “expert” studies demonstrating that these desperate asylum seekers are net contributors to the US economy and less of a crime risk than the general population. Even these harms pale in comparison to the havoc that America and the planet must expect from climate change. Trump not only abandoned the Paris Climate Agreement; he found in Scott Pruitt the perfect person, approved by the fossil-fuel industry, to enact his suicidal anti-environmental policies on the domestic level. The dark prince of the EPA, a department he seems to wish to dismantle, is perhaps the most dangerously ill-informed of Trump’s appointees. He has already insisted that carbon dioxide is not the “primary contributor to the global warming that we see,” withdrawn requests for oil and gas companies to report sources of methane emissions, rejected a petition to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos, and gutted the climate science advisory council of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the body that studies rising sea levels and helps predict hurricanes.

¡Abajo la inteligencia! ¡Viva la muerte!

Still more urgently apocalyptic than these policies is the “oppressive ignorance”—to borrow Tom Nichols’s phrase from The Death of Expertise—President Trump has displayed when he threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea. Trump evidently neither knows nor cares that such an action would violate the Geneva Conventions, the conclusions of the Nuremburg Tribunal, and the UN Charter. It is frightening that this felonious stupidity has not aroused more revulsion among US citizens. Until recently, about eighty percent of Republicans who voted for Trump still supported him, and 55 percent of Americans believe he is “intelligent” (although that is the only favorable result for Trump in an otherwise dismal report card of negative views).

In our struggle against such benightedness, perhaps we can draw inspiration from the response of one of those present in Salamanca when Millán Astray launched his hymn to death, a response from the man who was, in fact, the intended target of the fascist general’s rage. Miguel de Unamuno, then Spain’s most eminent intellectual, answered his antagonist with the words: Venceréis, porque tenéis sobrada fuerza bruta, mas no convenceréis. (“You will beat us because you have more than enough brute force, but you will not persuade us.”) Even in those dire circumstances, Unamuno managed a play on words, opposing the verb vencer (to conquer) to the verb convencer (to convince). You will conquer but you will not convince.

Unamuno’s defiance was fearless: if he had not been escorted from the premises by General Franco’s wife, he faced a beating from fascist thugs. Today, without such immediate fear of violence, we can adapt Unamuno’s words. We must trust that the intelligence that has allowed humanity to stave off death, make medical and engineering breakthroughs, reach the stars, build wondrous temples, and write complex tales will save us again. We must nurse the conviction that we can use the gentle graces of science and reason to prove that the truth cannot be vanquished so easily. To those who would repudiate intelligence, we must say: you will not conquer and we will find a way to convince.

quote:

Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 00:46 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

"PUERTO RICO SHOULD BE ABANDONED??!!" Maxine Waters DESTROYS Ben Carson on Trump & Puerto Rico

Echt wat een zootje, deze administratie

quote:

Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 00:49 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

[..]

quote:

Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 00:46 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

"PUERTO RICO SHOULD BE ABANDONED??!!" Maxine Waters DESTROYS Ben Carson on Trump & Puerto Rico

Echt wat een zootje, deze administratie

quote:

Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 01:54 schreef Szura het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]

quote:

In Zinke’s absence, the ritual is repeated to raise an equally obscure flag for Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt.

quote:

In his first extended appearance before the White House press corps on Thursday, John F. Kelly, the former Marine general turned president’s chief of staff, came off as very un-Trumpian.

Mr. Kelly firmly embraced diplomacy with North Korea, sharply contrasting the president’s recent declaration that negotiations are a waste of time.

Employing a bit of jovial banter with the press, the chief of staff struck an easygoing tone in assuring reporters that he means “no disrespect to you all” — just hours after Mr. Trump again railed in a Twitter post against “Fake News” that was “going all out in order to demean and denigrate!”

And Mr. Kelly deftly tried to soften Mr. Trump’s morning musing that federal aid workers could not stay “forever” in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico.

Yet if Mr. Kelly’s rare moment in the news media spotlight was partly about presidential cleanup, it also was perfectly clear that he knew Mr. Trump would be watching.

SPOILER

With the cameras rolling, Mr. Kelly put in an enthusiastic plug for a border wall, lectured reporters about getting “better sources” and insisted that he had no intention of trying to control the president’s tweeting. He called Mr. Trump “a man of action” and “a straightforward guy.”

Such is the tightrope that a chief of staff in a Trump presidency must walk: simultaneously demonstrating a sense of calm and order inside the White House while being careful not to appear critical of the president’s lack of those very qualities.

“His goal seemed to be to reassure people that there’s a grown-up in the room with Trump,” said Chris Whipple, the author of “The Gatekeepers,” a book about White House chiefs of staff. “In the midst of all the chaos and the back-stabbing in the West Wing, he looks like a grown-up. He smiles. He seems reasonable. All of that is a plus.”

If there was any doubt that Mr. Kelly faces a difficult balancing act, the chief’s first task on Thursday was to beat back rumors that his own job is in immediate jeopardy. In doing so, he became the second top Trump official in a week to insist he is not about to be fired.

“Our country will stand with those American citizens in Puerto Rico until the job is done,” Mr. Kelly said firmly, adding that “the whole point is to start to work yourself out of a job.”

“I would just offer to you that although I read it all the time pretty consistently, I’m not quitting today,” Mr. Kelly quipped, referring to news reports that have suggested he is discouraged at the White House and on the outs with Mr. Trump. “I just talked to the president — I don’t think I’m being fired today. And I’m not so frustrated in this job that I’m thinking of leaving.”

Last week, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson faced a similar task after reports that he had called Mr. Trump a “moron.” But where Mr. Tillerson was awkward and brusque during a similar face-off with the press, Mr. Kelly was smooth and genial.

His only frustration, Mr. Kelly said, was repeatedly reading untrue stories about things Mr. Trump said, or of people who are about to be fired.

“That’s my frustration,” he said, “and I mean no disrespect to you all.”

Mr. Kelly also sought to avoid adding to the week’s clash between Mr. Trump and Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee. Asked about Mr. Corker’s harsh comments about the president, Mr. Kelly carefully gave a nod to Mr. Trump’s anger.

“There’s others that are, as the president will say, grandstanding,” the chief of staff said. “I’m not saying Senator Corker is that way; I’m just saying that some people grandstand and kind of enjoy the attention.”

When Mr. Kelly became chief of staff in July, he moved quickly to try to contain the turmoil of the president’s first six months with a new discipline inside the West Wing. Meetings became crisper, and walk-in access to the Oval Office was sharply curtailed.

Mr. Kelly acknowledged the value of those changes on Thursday, saying that “when we go in to see him now, rather than onesies and twosies, we go in and help him collectively understand what he needs to understand to makes these vital decisions.”

But he denied that his job is to control the president, and he chuckled about the idea that he wields an “iron hand” inside the West Wing.

“Just put some organization to it. Put a smile on my face,” Mr. Kelly said, lamenting that “you guys with the cameras always catch me when I’m thinking hard and it looks like I’m frustrated and mad.”

Mr. Kelly insisted that was not the case, though he said that being Mr. Trump’s chief of staff was not the best job he had had. (That title is reserved for the time he served as an enlisted Marine sergeant infantryman, he said.)

As if to underscore the point, when a member of the press corps started his question by offering “congratulations” to Mr. Kelly, he prompted laughter with a wry quip:

“For what?” he said.

10/12/17: White House Press Briefing

quote:

Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 04:53 schreef Szura het volgende:
Dus die gevoelloze psychopaat gaat nu het systeem maar saboteren:

http://www.politico.com/s(...)acare-subsidy-243736

Knettergek deze vent...

twitter:

AGSchneiderman twitterde op vrijdag 13-10-2017 om 04:51:57 #BREAKING Mr. President, stop using NY families as political pawns. We’ll sue to defend #ACA subsidies. https://t.co/rtsKkVFmbn reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 00:46 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

"PUERTO RICO SHOULD BE ABANDONED??!!" Maxine Waters DESTROYS Ben Carson on Trump & Puerto Rico

Echt wat een zootje, deze administratie

quote:

Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 00:55 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Hahahah, hardop gelachen. Helemaal vergeten dat Carson ook een minister is.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 01:19 schreef Szura het volgende:

[..]


Hij praat als een simpele ziel en er komt ook weinig zinnigs uit.

Deze regering van incompetente clowns

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 05:56 schreef Blue_Panther_Ninja het volgende:
Binnenkort gaat DJT 1 van de 5 verschillende muren kiezen!!

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 06:00 schreef Treinhomo het volgende:

[..]

Wordt-ie gefusilleerd ? [ afbeelding ]

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 06:00 schreef Treinhomo het volgende:

[..]

Wordt-ie gefusilleerd ? [ afbeelding ]

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 06:25 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Als hij een oorlog start en zo zijn land blijft verraden wel.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 01:13 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

President Trump Announces NEW Secretary of Homeland Security Nominee Kirstjen Nielsen 10/12/17

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 06:47 schreef la_perle_rouge het volgende:

Hij zou toch de president van ALLE Amerikanen zijn? MAGA en zo?

quote:

Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 07:50 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:
Krijgen al die hardliners toch hun zin: huidige systeem kapot, geen alternatief, iedereen mag het zelf uitzoeken.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 08:16 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

En het heet Trumpcare.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 08:20 schreef Szura het volgende:

[..]

Eerder Trump doesn’t care

quote:

Arthur B. Robinson, renegade chemist, failed politician, grandpa of the climate skeptics — and maybe, just maybe, our nation’s next scientist-in-chief — padded across the carpet of his homemade lab in a pair of white athletic socks. “This room, everything you see here, was built by my own sons with their own hands, including the concrete,” he said. Robinson raised and home-schooled six children in this tawny valley scratched into the hills near the town of Cave Junction, Oregon. Now his wife is dead and one of his daughters has moved away, but the rest of his kids — two veterinarians, a biochemist and a pair of nuclear engineers — remain nearby. They’ve got a lot to do: Feed the animals; maintain the lab; ward off cougars; publish their popular home-school curriculums; manage Robinson’s repeated, unsuccessful congressional campaigns; and, of course, perform high-stakes research into medicine and biochemistry.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 00:32 schreef BlackLining het volgende:

[..]

Uit Unesco.. Man man man

Moeten eigenlijk eens een pooltje starten voor wanneer ie uit de human rights tak van de VN stapt

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 09:02 schreef thesiren.nl het volgende:

[..]

Werd die niet voorgezeten door de saudi's nu? Misschien moeten we daar allemaal uitstappen zolang zij voorzitter zijn.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 09:11 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:
http://www.politico.com/s(...)eeting-russia-243692

Dit zal Mueller in elk geval inzicht geven in de mentale staat van zijn commander in chief.

Én hem impliciet aanzetten om het onderzoek te versnellen..

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 09:31 schreef xpompompomx het volgende:
Als ik Mueller was, zou ik er niet op ingaan en Trump lekker de hoorzittingen laten afwachten.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 09:25 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Ik zie Trump al vragen of Mueller er niet gewoon mee wil stoppen.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 09:49 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
Trump wil van Iran-deal af: het begin van een kettingreactie die kan escaleren

Waarom is die man er zo op gebrand om de wereld koste wat kost naar de klote te helpen?

quote:

Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 09:49 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
Trump wil van Iran-deal af: het begin van een kettingreactie die kan escaleren

Waarom is die man er zo op gebrand om de wereld koste wat kost naar de klote te helpen?

quote:

Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 09:52 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Omdat dat het tegengestelde is van wat die Keniaan deed natuurlijk.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 10:06 schreef AnneX het volgende:
Wat zegt dat over mij - excuse me - dat ik als een verslaafde stalker de verontrustende linkjes blijf lezen en zien, die jullie posten.
Its f*cking unbelievable.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 09:44 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

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Lijkt mij een afleidingstactiek, ik zou er ook niet in trappen. Zit Mueller straks met dezelfde advocaat (Scott Balber) te praten die juridisch "bewezen" heeft dat Trump niet van een orang oetan afstamt zoals Bill Maher beweerde.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 10:15 schreef Ulx het volgende:

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Trump pakken op meineed zou wel leuk zijn. Net zoals bij Clinton gebeurde.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 10:17 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

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Het lijkt mij bijzonder onwaarschijnlijk, zo niet wettelijk onmogelijk, dat een eventueel vrijwillig gesprek onder ede gaat plaatsvinden.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 10:15 schreef Ulx het volgende:

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Trump pakken op meineed zou wel leuk zijn. Net zoals bij Clinton gebeurde.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 10:19 schreef Ulx het volgende:

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Je mag toch niet liegen tegen een Grand Jury?

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 10:19 schreef Ulx het volgende:

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Je mag toch niet liegen tegen een Grand Jury?

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 10:38 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

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Trump komt niet voor een Grand Jury, die gaat gewoon praten met Mueller.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 11:22 schreef Ulx het volgende:

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"Gewoon" praten? Wat is daar het nut van?

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 11:31 schreef Ulx het volgende:
En Mueller weet dat, die weet ook dat Trump altijd op loyaliteit hamert. Waarom zou Mueller een vrijblijvend gesprek met Trump willen als hij ook een subpoena kan sturen en hem onder ede horen?

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 11:33 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

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Hij heeft meer aan een persoon die meewerkt dan een persoon die tegenwerkt,

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 11:35 schreef Ulx het volgende:

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Hoezo?

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 13-10-2017 om 11:36:54 The Democrats ObamaCare is imploding. Massive subsidy payments to their pet insurance companies has stopped. Dems should call me to fix! reageer retweet

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 11:42 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

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Nou, als Trump zich zeker voelt en gewoon vragen beantwoordt op zijn gebruikelijke, uitweidende wijze, helpt hem dat.

Als Trump op de 1e vraag zegt dat hij voor de 5th gaat helpt hem dat niet, net zoals het hem niet helpt als Trump zich in het nauw gedwongen voelt en alleen maar kortaf antwoord.

In eerste instantie is het doel van Mueller immers niet om Trump te veroordelen, maar om gewoon zoveel mogelijk informatie te vinden over mogelijke Russische inmenging. Dan heb je meer aan iemand die gewoon meewerkt en zoveel mogelijk informatie geeft. Dat lijkt me toch redelijk logisch.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 11:50 schreef archito het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 13-10-2017 om 11:36:54 The Democrats ObamaCare is imploding. Massive subsidy payments to their pet insurance companies has stopped. Dems should call me to fix! reageer retweet

Dit is ook wel een mooie, eerst ObamaCare 'vakkundig' slopen om vervolgens te zeggen dat het implodeert en dat de democraten hem maar moeten bellen om het te fixen.

Als een pyromaan mijn huis in de fik zet ga ik hem toch echt niet bellen om even te komen blussen.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 11:53 schreef Ulx het volgende:

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Mueller zit daar om uit te vinden of er strafbare feiten begaan zijn, en zo ja wie die pleegde en wie er van wist. Het boeit hem waarschijnlijk niet heel veel wat de gevolgen zijn voor Trump.

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En Trump die weigert mee te werken is politiek gezien niet heel handig. Clinton deed het.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 11:58 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Waarom zou Trump niet direct onder ede willen praten? Er is toch niets aan de hand?

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 12:03 schreef BlackLining het volgende:
Ik vraag me wel af of Mueller enig nut ziet in een gesprek met Trump. Die man gaat toch alleen maar rookgordijnen opwerpen met allerlei superlatieven en leugens.

Er is over het algemeen toch geen touw aan vast te knopen wat Trump zegt? En bij zulke zaken gaat het nou juist om details. Je kunt er donder op zeggen dat Trump vooral gaat zitten ontwijken en liegen. Ook onder ede.

En als hij het wel gaat doen heb ik serieus medelijden met Mueller. Je zult die wartaal maar moeten ontrafelen zeg..

Bill Clinton: "It depends upon what your definition of is is."

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 12:05 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

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Oke Ulx, laat maar weer.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 12:25 schreef Ulx het volgende:

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Ik zie werkelijk geen reden om een getuige op te roepen voor een vrijblijvend gesprekje met een kopje thee. Dan kan Mueller Trump net zo goed een mailtje sturen met een vragenlijstje. Mueller wil de waarheid weten.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 12:29 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

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Hij wordt dan ook niet opgeroepen op dit moment, de advocaten van Trump bieden het zelf aan.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 12:58 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

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Zien die de bui misschien hangen, en proberen ze zich in te dekken?

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 13:01 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

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Nee, ze willen waarschijnlijk gewoon een beeld scheppen van Trump die pro-actief meewerkt aan dit onderzoek. Als Mueller dan tijdens dat gesprek even kan zeggen dat Trump zelf niet onderzocht wordt zou dat extra mooi zijn.

Kijk, hij gaat natuurlijk op een gegeven moment sowieso bij het punt komen dat hij Trump wil ondervragen. Dan is het misschien makkelijker om zelf maar aan te bieden om er heen te gaan, dan kan je het hopelijk wat vrijblijvender houden dan wanneer je opgeroepen wordt.

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Hours after President Donald Trump threatened to withdraw federal and military assistance from Puerto Rico in a series of tweets Thursday, Gov. Ricardo Rosselló called the White House.

“I got confirmation that that was not going to happen,” the Puerto Rican governor told in an interview Thursday.

“The Stafford Act is very clear that once FEMA enters into a natural disaster such as this, they’re not leaving until the actions have been taken. I spoke to Gen. Kelly, and he reiterated that they were going to be here for Puerto Rico for the long haul.” (source)

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 13:17 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
FEMA gaat nu toch weer wel niet wel niet wel niet weg uit Puerto Rico

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 13:17 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
FEMA gaat nu toch weer wel niet wel niet wel niet weg uit Puerto Rico

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Yes No Song

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 13:22 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

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Yes No Song

Ik denk dat Trump een beetje teveel invloeden uit de crèche heeft..

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 13:33 schreef BlackLining het volgende:

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Volgens mij vooral van kabouter Plop.

Draai een keer in het rond, stamp met je voeten op de grond..

Trump at the day care

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Officials Couldn’t Believe How Botched Jared Kushner’s Clearance Forms Were

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, made so many omissions on the security clearance forms he submitted that the governmental body responsible for reviewing them is incredulous.

“I have never seen that level of mistakes,” Charles Phalen, the director of the National Background Investigations Bureau, told a House subcommittee hearing.

Kushner made over 100 errors and omissions on his disclosure forms. (more)

twitter:

lawfareblog twitterde op vrijdag 13-10-2017 om 14:13:02 A leader who is a demagogue may be an impeachment-worthy threat to democracy, writes Bob Bauer.… https://t.co/ibf68XxFpm reageer retweet

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 14:13 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Zou zijn schoonvader hem bij zijn huiswerk hebben geholpen?

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twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 13-10-2017 om 14:01:02 The wonderful people of Puerto Rico, with their unmatched spirit, know how bad things were before the H's. I will always be with them! reageer retweet

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 15:56 schreef BlackLining het volgende:

Ondertussen nog steeds niks over Californië.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 14:24 schreef xpompompomx het volgende:
Kushner heeft waarschijnlijk gewoon zijn reet afgeveegd met die formulieren, wetende dat hij onder ome Don toch wel die clearances zou krijgen.

twitter:

kaitlancollins twitterde op vrijdag 13-10-2017 om 16:33:39 Trump: "I don't have a schedule, but if I did have a schedule, I would say we are substantially ahead of schedule." reageer retweet

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 18:33 schreef Montov het volgende:
Ik vind dat Nintex veel te anti-Trump is geworden. Waarom constant de woorden van Trump belachelijk maken door ze hier te posten terwijl er ook inhoudelijke discussie kan worden gevoerd?

twitter:

SkyNewsBreak twitterde op vrijdag 13-10-2017 om 19:09:13 President Donald Trump has announced he will not recertify the 2015 nuclear deal between the United States and Iran reageer retweet

twitter:

SkyNewsBreak twitterde op vrijdag 13-10-2017 om 19:14:45 President Trump has said he will terminate nuclear deal if Iran cannot reach agreement with the U.S. Congress and and its allies reageer retweet

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It was “frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write and people should look into it”

twitter:

AFP twitterde op vrijdag 13-10-2017 om 20:13:45 #BREAKING Russian foreign ministry slams Trump's Iran strategy, says nuclear deal intact reageer retweet

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“We are getting near the beautiful Christmas season that people don’t talk about anymore,” Trump said while speaking at an anti-LGBT event(!!!). “They don’t use the word ‘Christmas.’ But now we are saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again."

twitter:

BBCBreaking twitterde op vrijdag 13-10-2017 om 19:50:44 EU's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini says "it's not up to any single country to terminate" Iran nuclear deal https://t.co/j0p9OGpgAe reageer retweet

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 20:34 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
En deze is weer terug van weggeweest:
https://www.huffingtonpos(...)d099e4b04d1d51814391

Gretchen Carlson Flips Out Over 'Festivus' Pole Sharing Space with Nativity Scene

twitter:

AP twitterde op vrijdag 13-10-2017 om 20:47:50 BREAKING: Iran's president says `we will continue to stick to' the nuclear deal, though warns nation can change its mind. reageer retweet

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 20:53 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Iran trekt zich er vooralsnog ook niet veel van aan

twitter:

AP twitterde op vrijdag 13-10-2017 om 20:47:50 BREAKING: Iran's president says `we will continue to stick to' the nuclear deal, though warns nation can change its mind. reageer retweet

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 18:36 schreef Montov het volgende:
Over Trumps woorden gesproken, ze zijn geheel volgens verwachtingen.

Trump botches reference to ‘president’ of Virgin Islands a day after Rick Perry called Puerto Rico a ‘country’
https://www.washingtonpos(...)erto-rico-a-country/

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 19:30 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

SkyNewsBreak twitterde op vrijdag 13-10-2017 om 19:09:13 President Donald Trump has announced he will not recertify the 2015 nuclear deal between the United States and Iran reageer retweet

twitter:

SkyNewsBreak twitterde op vrijdag 13-10-2017 om 19:14:45 President Trump has said he will terminate nuclear deal if Iran cannot reach agreement with the U.S. Congress and and its allies reageer retweet

Nieuwe sancties en Revolutionary Guards zijn vanaf nu terroristen.

Can't stump the Trump

twitter:

MSNBC twitterde op donderdag 12-10-2017 om 23:00:21 'Well it's America': Secy. Perry corrected after calling Puerto Rico a 'country': https://t.co/eiy7Y93XWs https://t.co/COLec2FvBt reageer retweet

Trump: Rick Perry wears glasses to seem smart

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 23:01 schreef Nintex het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]

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The late Professor William T. Kelley taught marketing at Wharton for 31 years and had Trump in his classroom. He said, “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had,” in a conversation with his close friend Frank DiPrima.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 23:01 schreef Nintex het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 23:21 schreef Arth_NL het volgende:

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Mensen die dit geloven moeten haast te dom zijn om te poepen.

twitter:

CNNPolitics twitterde op vrijdag 13-10-2017 om 16:43:56 Trump: “They don’t use the word Christmas because it’s not politically correct … We’re saying Merry Christmas again” https://t.co/9NrQgpwCxn reageer retweet

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Nevada's Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval ripped President Trump's decision to end key payments to insurers selling ObamaCare plans on Friday, calling the move "devastating.

The payments help low-income people afford co-pays, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs associated with health insurance policies.

“It’s going to hurt people. It’s going to hurt kids. It’s going to hurt families. It’s going to hurt individuals. It’s going to hurt people with mental health issues. It’s going to hurt veterans. It’s going to hurt everybody,” Sandoval, who has been critical of Trump's attempts to repeal and replace ObamaCare, told The Nevada Independent.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 23:24 schreef Nintex het volgende:

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 22:25 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

Trump Says He Met With ‘President of the Virgin Islands’ (Which is Part of The U.S.)

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“I met with the president of the Virgin Islands,” Trump told the crowd.
Trump who boasts around saying that he’s really intelligent doesn’t even realize that he is the president of the Virgin Islands and all other U.S. territories. Of course, there are also the British Virgin Islands — they don’t have a president.

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 23:30 schreef la_perle_rouge het volgende:

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Nog steeds niets over Californië, misschien weet hij ook niet dat hij daar de president van is?

https://nos.nl/artikel/21(...)odelijkste-ooit.html

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 23:44 schreef FlipjeHolland het volgende:
zou het hier misschien iets mee te maken hebben?

http://www.sacbee.com/new(...)rticle178705451.html

Californië is an enemy of the state! Sad!!!

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The complaint will seek a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction and permanent injunction requiring the cost-sharing reduction payments be made.

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Mueller's team interviewed Priebus on Friday

Former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus was interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on Friday, according to his lawyer, William Burck.

“Mr. Priebus was voluntarily interviewed by Special Counsel Mueller’s team today. He was happy to answer all of their questions," Burck said.

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Op zaterdag 14 oktober 2017 00:35 schreef svann het volgende:
Beleid van Obama terugdraaien lijkt bezigheid nummer één te zijn.
Is er eigenlijk iets wat hij bereikt heeft, behalve geweldige Twitter-stats?

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Op zaterdag 14 oktober 2017 00:40 schreef HendrikV het volgende:

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Ong net zoveel als Hussein.

Of kilt Trump geen onschuldige kinderen met drones in bijv pakistaan?

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Op zaterdag 14 oktober 2017 01:21 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

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Probeer het eens in het Nederlands?

En ja, Trump heeft op dag een van zijn ambtstermijn gezorgd voor 7 dode kinderen als dat je maatstaf is.

Trump's Tax Plan Will Help Truckers. . . .About 30 Of Them

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Diamond encrusted truck nuts

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Op vrijdag 13 oktober 2017 23:24 schreef Nintex het volgende:

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Staande ovatie van de lokale fractie van de SGP:

twitter:

CNNPolitics twitterde op vrijdag 13-10-2017 om 16:43:56 Trump: “They don’t use the word Christmas because it’s not politically correct … We’re saying Merry Christmas again” https://t.co/9NrQgpwCxn reageer retweet