[y66]

From Taoiseach and Trump had ’disagreement’ over trade by Marie O'Halleran at the Irish Times via Matt Yglesias (tweeting from Dublin):

Quote

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and US president Donald Trump had a “disagreement” on the balance of trade surpluses at their meeting in Shannon, Co Clare.

Mr Varadkar told the Dáil: “I have met President Trump three times now, so I think I have the measure of him, perhaps a little bit more than those who have not.”

The Taoiseach met Mr Trump when he arrived at Shannon for his visit to his golf resort at Doonbeg in early June.

Mr Varadkar was responding to opposition leaders about the US president’s trip to Ireland as part of his visit to mark the 75th anniversary in France of the D-Day landings in Normandy.

He said they discussed trade, Brexit and climate change.

Asked about State spending at properties owned by Mr Trump, the Taoiseach said he was not aware of any Government spending at any Trump organisation properties either in Ireland or the US.

They had a disagreement about trade and Mr Trump “counts the merchandise surplus but doesn’t have regard to the services and that is very much how he sees things, in terms of physical goods and not services.

“So we had a disagreement as you can imagine on that, with me pointing out that in the modern economy it is more about services than it is about merchandise and that the US has a very significant services surplus over us which more than balance out the merchandise surplus we have over them.

“I also pointed out that measurements are distorted by the fact we have such large US companies here in Ireland.”

He said he also explained “why EU membership is good for Ireland, why Brexit is bad for the UK, why I think Brexit is bad for Ireland and why I think Brexit is bad for the EU, and also have explained the peace process - a hard border and what that would mean and why we are doing all we can to avoid it”.

He did not have any private discussions with anyone in the Trump delegation “just an exchange of pleasantries, but the time and opportunity wasn’t there to have any one-to-one conversations with any of his delegation”.

Apparently, the Taoiseach does not play golf.

[y66]

I watched some of the reparation hearing yesterday. I enjoyed Coates' rebuttal of McConnell's comments. Not sure where Coleman Hughes is coming from but his thinking is a lot closer to mine than Coates'.

[kenberg]

 barmar, on 2019-June-20, 09:11, said:

I wonder how much of that there would be among people who hope to use a college education as a way to escape poverty?

I expect that most of those you've seen were people who were born with a silver spoon, so they're going to have a good life even if they just sleep through college.

That said, it seems like any higher education assistance program could have stipulations that the student actually put in the work, such as taking a certain number of credits and maintaining a minimum GPA. I think lots of scholarship programs do things like this.

I assumed that the silver spoon kids were largely what Richard was thinking of when he was expressing his dissatisfaction with free tuition, and I agree that it's a problem.

[hrothgar]

 barmar, on 2019-June-20, 09:11, said:

I expect that most of those you've seen were people who were born with a silver spoon, so they're going to have a good life even if they just sleep through college.

Some of them did, many of them didn't

[johnu]

Sick SOB's infest White House and government agencies

Trump Administration Argues Detained Migrant Children Don't Need Toothbrushes, Soap

Quote

The Trump administration went to court this week to argue that migrant children detained at the United States-Mexico border do not require basic hygiene products like soap and toothbrushes in order to be in held in "safe and sanitary" conditions. Trump's team also argued that requiring minors to sleep on cold concrete floors in crowded cells with low temperatures similarly fulfilled that requirement.

Quote

"You're really going to stand up and tell us that being able to sleep isn't a question of safe and sanitary conditions?" U.S. Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon asked Fabian.

Other judges also expressed outrage.

"Are you arguing seriously that you do not read the agreement as requiring you to do anything other than what I just described: cold all night long, lights on all night long, sleeping on concrete and you've got an aluminum foil blanket?" U.S. Circuit Judge William Fletcher asked Fabian. "I find that inconceivable that the government would say that that is safe and sanitary."

Presumably Dennison appointed judges would have agreed with the government position.

The next time one of the Confederate states makes waves about wanting to secede from the Union (again), the Blue states should do everything in their power to make that happen.

[PassedOut]

 johnu, on 2019-June-20, 19:43, said:

Sick SOB's infest White House and government agencies

Trump Administration Argues Detained Migrant Children Don't Need Toothbrushes, Soap

Presumably Dennison appointed judges would have agreed with the government position.

The next time one of the Confederate states makes waves about wanting to secede from the Union (again), the Blue states should do everything in their power to make that happen.

Brings into focus the fact that Trump and his followers are truly evil, through and through.

[Winstonm]

 johnu, on 2019-June-20, 19:43, said:

Sick SOB's infest White House and government agencies

Trump Administration Argues Detained Migrant Children Don't Need Toothbrushes, Soap



Presumably Dennison appointed judges would have agreed with the government position.

The next time one of the Confederate states makes waves about wanting to secede from the Union (again), the Blue states should do everything in their power to make that happen.

The sickest SOB is in the office of Attorney General, making the DOJ the enforcement arm of the president. How do you like them apples?

[barmar]

It's kind of easy to understand the administration's position on this. They've said all along that family separation is intended as a deterrant to illegal immigration. The worse they make it, the more the potential migrants should be deterred. They'll just say "You don't want your kids living in crappy conditions like this? Don't cross the border."

it's the same kind of evil that dropping atomic bombs on innocent civilians was.

[Winstonm]

 barmar, on 2019-June-21, 09:25, said:

You cannot possibly believe this. I deleted it so you could have a chance to rethink and possibly delete your original.

You might want to consider first things like Pearl Harbor before making any comparisons.

[hrothgar]

For a change, looks like Trump actually got one right

(I'm referring to his decision to stop the planned military strikes against Iran this AM)

[y66]

From Bobby Ghosh at Bloomberg:

Quote

What we’re seeing unfold in the Persian Gulf is a confrontation between a U.S. president who doesn’t know when he’s winning, and a Supreme Leader who doesn’t know when he’s losing. If Donald Trump changes his mind again and orders an attack on Iranian targets, he will have played into Ali Khamenei’s hands.

It’s too early to exhale after Trump’s decision to cancel a military strike last night. If he could order the jets scrambled once – without giving Congress or American allies much time to consult and advise – he can do so again. The next time, he may not call it off.

But that would be to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Trump seems to have lost sight of the fact that his “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign against the Islamic Republic is working: Iran’s economy is feeling great pain, and its isolation is deepening. For all of its proclamations of resistance and resilience, the regime in Tehran is plainly alarmed.

In its panic, it has started to lash out in ways that hurt its own interests, and erode the sympathy it has enjoyed in international circles since Trump pulled the U.S. out of the nuclear deal last year. The threat to resume uranium enrichment, and to exceed agreed limits, is already losing Iran the support of the Europeans, as are the attacks on neutral shipping near the Persian Gulf. Khamenei’s humiliation of the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who made a good-faith effort to mediate an end to the confrontation, has cost Iran more goodwill. The shooting down of an American drone was yet another demonstration of the regime’s capacity for self-harm.

And Trump was, for once, playing his cards reasonably well. He stated his openness to negotiations and his desire to avoid war. He dismissed the tanker attacks as “very minor” and attributed the downing of the drone as the work of a “loose and stupid” individual. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also let the Iranians know that if their future actions caused the death of an American service member, it would trigger reprisals.

This is exactly the right response to Iran’s provocations: To brush them off and allow the regime to damage itself in the court of world opinion, even as it is continually weakened by sanctions. For the first time since Trump torched the nuclear deal, it was just conceivable that he would be able to show the Iranian regime up for what it is: A danger to its neighbors and the wider world.

[johnu]

 hrothgar, on 2019-June-21, 15:46, said:

For a change, looks like Trump actually got one right

(I'm referring to his decision to stop the planned military strikes against Iran this AM)

Seems even more frightening to me. Why did he sign the attack order in the first place? Presumably because Chickenshithawks Bolton and Pompeo temporarily convinced Dennison to attack like they've been trying to do for months. And why did Dennison change his mind? It is well documented that Dennison can't make up his mind, or more precisely, makes up his mind for minutes at a time before being influenced by the last person he talks to to change his mind again. The likely reason is that somebody(s) with moderate views on Iran managed to get his attention in the hours before the strike and get him to change his mind. What if these last minute arguments were unsuccessful? We could be in a shooting war with Iran right now.

[Winstonm]

 hrothgar, on 2019-June-21, 15:46, said:

For a change, looks like Trump actually got one right

(I'm referring to his decision to stop the planned military strikes against Iran this AM)

I'm betting someone at Fox News called it off.

[hrothgar]

 johnu, on 2019-June-21, 19:11, said:

Seems even more frightening to me. Why did he sign the attack order in the first place? Presumably because Chickenshithawks Bolton and Pompeo temporarily convinced Dennison to attack like they've been trying to do for months. And why did Dennison change his mind? It is well documented that Dennison can't make up his mind, or more precisely, makes up his mind for minutes at a time before being influenced by the last person he talks to to change his mind again. The likely reason is that somebody(s) with moderate views on Iran managed to get his attention in the hours before the strike and get him to change his mind. What if these last minute arguments were unsuccessful? We could be in a shooting war with Iran right now.

Yes, the process is terrible, but I am still thankful that things ended up where they did

[kenberg]

I realize that talking of Trump is largely a waste of breath, but the Iran non-strike brings me to comment. Here is a quoted tweet from WaPo:

Quote

"We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die," Trump wrote Friday on Twitter, embellishing several of the events in question. "150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it."

Sure, it's the Post so just dismiss it as fake news but I suppose others saw the tweet as well. So where are we?

If we take this literally, it seems that ten minutes before the strike it occurred to DT that a military strike on Iran might lead to some deaths. A normally intelligent ten year old would understand that a military strike might lead to some deaths. It is really not possible that this occurred to Trump just ten minutes before the actual strike. Is it?

Ah yes, but in the 2016 campaign we were frequently told by supporters that it is a mistake to take Trump literally. Well, that has turned out to be very true, and perhaps even beyond anyone's wildest dreams or nightmares. The world watches as we move toward what would be a horrific war and our president announces that ten minutes before the strike he realized that someone might get killed so he called it off. If taken at his word he sounds like a moron, but of course no one takes him at his word at all, not on this, not on anything. Maybe the drone was in international waters, maybe not, the one thing that is clear is that nobody is going to form an opinion on this matter by listening to Donald Trump. The man's words on any matter at all are simply irrelevant.

Trump supporters love this, for reasons I cannot imagine. Trump Derangement Syndrome they call it. People getting upset simply because, at a time of national peril, our president lies with a straight face and them lies some more.

This is where we are. Whether the issue is what day of the week it is, or a matter of grave national importance, nobody with an ounce of sense believes anything that our president says. I realize his supporters see this as one of Trump's strengths. I don't.

[Winstonm]

I think what disturbs me most is the media acts like a built-in megaphone to broadcast and amplify presidential lies. Take just the last few days "announcement", blindly repeated by most media, that "millions" were to be deported starting Sunday.

Never could have happened. Was never going to happen. But instead of the newscasters explaining that this was just presidential BS, they blindly reported the lie.

[johnu]

It's almost impossible to rank the lies that Dennison has made since there have been more than 11000 since 2016, but certainly one of the most ridiculous ones were during the 2016 election when candidate Putin's Puppet said he was going to drain the swamp.

Of course, everybody knows Dennison appointed an unprecedented number of fellow conmen, grifters, crooks, and corporate bagmen to his administration so the "Drain the Swamp" promise doesn't hold water so to speak.

However, a recent development makes clear that Dennison is trying to drain the desert. You heard that right, drain the desert.

Court Nixes Federal Approval For Cadiz Pipeline To Suck Water Out Of The Mojave To Sell

Quote

The 43-mile pipeline planned by Cadiz Inc. would cut through Mojave Trails National Monument and other public lands in southern California to suck ground water out of the desert aquifer and sell to cities. It would pump an estimated 16 billion gallons a year from the fragile desert ecosystem.

Quote

The Obama administration rejected the argument and ordered a full environmental review. That decision was reversed by the Trump administration following the appointment of David Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for Cadiz, as deputy Interior secretary. He’s now secretary of the Interior.

Wow, a former Cadiz lobbyist is greasing the wheels of a megaproject for his former client. Who could have seen that one coming

[Winstonm]

Quote

In an interview that aired Sunday morning on "Meet the Press", host Chuck Todd asked Trump "if you could have one do-over as president, what would it be?"

To which Trump replied, "it would be personnel," before lashing out at his former attorney general.

"I would say if I had one do-over, it would be, I would not have appointed Jeff Sessions to be attorney general. That would be my one...that was the biggest mistake."

What this exchange shows is the incredible corruption Bill Barr has brought to the AG office.

[Winstonm]

How do you spell corruption? Like this:

Quote

President Donald Trump Individual-1 wants to hold next year’s G7 summit at his Doral golf resort near Miami.

Trump Individual-1 visited the Doral resort for the first time in his presidency this week after holding a rally in Orlando to attend a fundraiser for his re-election campaign, the Washington Post reported. It marked the 126th visit to one of his properties since he was inaugurated.

[Chas_P]

 Winstonm, on 2019-June-23, 09:45, said:

Quote

President Donald Trump Individual-1 wants to hold next year’s G7 summit at his Doral golf resort near Miami.

Trump Individual-1 visited the Doral resort for the first time in his presidency this week after holding a rally in Orlando to attend a fundraiser for his re-election campaign, the Washington Post reported. It marked the 126th visit to one of his properties since he was inaugurated.

But I read that he saw his shadow while entering Air Force One down there. That means six more years in The White House.