In case you missed it yesterday, the Never-Trump traitors and their Democrat financiers have been exposed. This includes McMuffin, Kristol, Rubin, and many others, all in cahoots with the far left Obama groups.
“Ken Vogel at The New York Times has revealed that #NeverTrump Republicans and Democrat operatives have sided with each other as a way to “neutralize” President Donald Trump. Vogel wrote:
In the past year, however, influential liberal donors and operatives have gone from cheering these so-called Never Trump Republicans to quietly working with — and even funding — them. Through invitation-only emails and private, off-the-record meetings, they have formed a loose network of cross-partisan alliances aimed at helping neutralize President Trump, and preventing others from capitalizing on weaknesses in the political system that they say he has exploited.
While this network has mostly eschewed electoral politics, some involved see the potential for it to help form an ideological — and possibly financial — platform to back candidates, including a centrist challenge to Mr. Trump in 2020, possibly from within the G.O.P. or even a third party.
The network — composed of overlapping groups led by Democrats such as the donor Rachel Pritzker and several veteran Obama administration operatives, as well as leading Never Trump Republicans like Evan McMullin, Mindy Finn and William Kristol — aims to chart a middle path between a Republican base falling in line behind Mr. Trump and a liberal resistance trying to pull the Democratic Party left.
Jerry Taylor, president of the moderate think-tank Niskanen Center and a Republican, said that if any Republican has concerns about Trump “there’s no reason you shouldn’t be willing to work with a Democrat who is equally concerned about these same matters.”
The Niskanen Center has meetings attended by the well-known #NeverTrump Republicans along with some Democrats like Ian Bassin, a lawyer who worked in Obama’s White House. Bassin founded Protect Democracy, a watchdog group, and “has sued the Trump administration and that has brought on staff members and advisers — including Mr. Taylor — from conservative or Republican backgrounds.”
Former Oklahoma Republican Rep. Mickey Edwards also attends the meetings and has joined those “cross-partisan coalitions” against Trump, “including working with the former Obama administration lawyers Neal Katyal and Joshua Geltzer to file a legal brief in March in a court case opposing Mr. Trump’s proposed restrictions on travel from predominantly Muslim countries.”
These donors and operatives from both sides have a group called Patriots and Pragmatists and they believe they’ll have their largest meeting in San Francisco soon:”
————————–
The question I asked and Ricky still hasn’t answered……
And when you have time Ricky, perhaps you can answer the question below. You seem frequently shocked that any Christian could vote for Trump. So maybe you could explain how it is climbing in bed with these people is somehow a better choice?
———————
“Here’s the thing. WHAT ON EARTH could these people have in common other than their hatred for Trump? Does it bother anyone that these supposed conservatives, who should hold ideas of limited government and fiscal responsibility, have sided with Democrats? You know, the party that booed God, has no problem with murdering unborn human beings, and wants the government involved in every detail of our life?”
———————-
“I’ve posted a few times on the efforts on the part of some European countries, Germany, in particular, to continue to trade with Iran despite US sanctions (see here | here). This, of course, is nonsense. German, and European, companies that are hit with sanctions are cut off from US markets and, more importantly, their bankers are subject to sanctions, too. Two important things happened today that, hopefully, will hammer home to Europe that their plan to resist US sanctions on Iran won’t work.”
_____________
“Also today, Saudi Arabia declared that German firms are ineligible for government contracts:
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has ordered that no more government contracts be awarded to German companies, in a sign of continued irritation over Berlin’s foreign policy in the Middle East, German magazine Der Spiegel reported on Friday.
Citing no sources, it said the move was likely to hit major companies such as Siemens (SIEGn.DE), Bayer (BAYGn.DE) and Boehringer Ingelheim as well as carmaker Daimler (DAIGn.DE).”
“The latest executive order news coming out of the White House addresses some long overdue questions about government workers and their unions. Efforts to not only shrink the size of government but to remove ineffective or misbehaving workers have largely been stymied by union agreements which were crafted over decades with nobody at the bargaining table looking out for the taxpayer. Other goodies for the labor groups allowed most of their union work to be done on government time and using government resources. These executive orders will be changing some of those processes. (Government Executive)
President Trump issued a series of executive orders Friday that could gut federal employee unions’ ability to negotiate with agency leaders and represent workers, as well as reduce the time it takes for an agency to fire people for poor performance or misconduct.
Billed as the first step toward broad civil service reform, senior administration officials announced in a call with reporters on Friday afternoon three executive orders aimed at making it easier to fire poor performers and ordering harsher treatment of union representatives.
“Today, the president is fulfilling his promise to promote a more efficient government by reforming civil service rules,” said Andrew Bremberg, director of the president’s Domestic Policy Council. “Every year, the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey shows that less than one third of federal employees believe poor performers are adequately addressed by their agency. These executive orders make it easier to remove poor performing employees, and ensure that taxpayer dollars are more efficiently used.”
Some of the biggest (and best) changes address policies which we’ve been carping about here for years. The first one shortens the period of Performance Improvement Plans (where the misbehaving or underperforming worker is given time to straighten up and fly right) to 30 days across all agencies. Under the old system, these PIPs could last up to half a year.”
A spy is an American under the control of Russian intelligence who secretly works to harm the American people. An informant is someone who cooperates with the FBI to protect the people from the spy. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? https://t.co/Cr6togqA6L
The rule of law, limited government, American global leadership, personal decency: They are, Sir, old swamp values. And yet, there are those who love them.
And again, delivering what others always promised, but never delivered. And yet some traitors still want to remove him for a Dem-lite, Never-Trump candidate. No thanks, he’s getting stuff done..
“President Trump’s critics were apoplectic last week when the president referred to MS-13 gang members as “animals.” Of course, no one should be dehumanized. Yet many of the same people expressing outrage that Trump would dehumanize vicious gang members have no problem dehumanizing innocent, unborn children.
Trump has stood up for the humanity of the unborn child like no president in recent memory. And this is why so many Christian conservatives stick with him. Witness the foot-stomping standing ovation the president received Tuesday night at the annual Campaign for Life gala of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List. Not only was Trump reportedly the first president to address this incredible organization in its 26-year history, he used the occasion to deliver on yet another pro-life promise, one that his Republican predecessors could not, or would not, fulfill: He announced a new rule to stop indirect taxpayer funding of abortion through the Title X family planning program.
“When I ran for office, I pledged to stand for life, and as president, that’s exactly what I have done,” Trump declared. “Today, we have kept another promise. My administration has proposed a new rule to prohibit Title X funding from going to any clinic that performs abortions.””
Meanwhile, I would like a President who is smart enough to know the truth and honest enough to tell the truth.
I watched this portion of @realDonaldTrump's speech at the Naval Academy today, and can't let it go. In just 2 minutes he makes at least 6 factual errors. Watch the clip and then read the rest of this thread: https://t.co/4QrUFktStp
Most Never Trumpers could have lived with Trump’s moronic daily comments, his sloth and unpreparedness, his protectionism and the way he has made himself and the US an international laughingstock.
However, when he began to attempt to subvert the rule of law by attacks on the Justice Dept., the FBI and the Special Counsel, that was too much for us. We will oppose him and we will not vote for Republican stooges like Nunes who support this lawlessness. Some like Kristol and others will try to form bi-partisan efforts to support the rule of law. I view the whole thing as a repeat of the Eastern Front in World War II. I will simply sit back and watch the Dems and The Trump Cult battle it out, trading lie for lie, idiocy for idiocy.
I think Kristol is wasting his time trying to generate a primary challenge for Trump. We have seen this week that many Republicans still believe in Birtherism or pizza pedophilia or Seth Richerism or protectionism, and most believe in the Deep State, Silent Coup, Spygate, Obama’s ”tapps”, etc. No rational candidate stands a chance running against a world class con man among such a voter pool.
I wish Kristol, Rubin, Edwards and the others well. I am just going to sit back and laugh.
“However, when he began to attempt to subvert the rule of law by attacks on the Justice Dept., the FBI and the Special Counsel, that was too much for us.”
🙂 Good one.
Now that I’m done laughing, I’ll point out that this is hogwash, and you know it. The leaders of the DoJ, FBI, and SC brought it on themselves with their improper, unprofessional, and probably in many cases, criminal behavior. You just can’t stand that they were exposed for the frauds those “leaders” are.
AJ, Read the article @ 9:32. It explains to you what has happened. Warning: Open-minded exposure to that article may be dangerous to your cult membership.
Question for Trumpkins: The Trump Campaign had very few foreign policy advisers. Why did Trump choose three (Page, Papadopolous and Flynn) who had such questionable relationships with Russia?
AJ, Any answer to the 10:28 question? Let’s see some Trumpkin originality. You guys should be able to come up with something without waiting for help from Hannity, Tomi Lahren or Diamond and Silk.
While the Cult is pondering the question, I will help it with another question:
Since the Deep State/Silent Coup was so opposed to Trump, why did its members publicize negative reports about Hillary before the election while going to great lengths to keep the Trump/Russia connection quiet until after the election?
If you are a Trump Cultist who believes in the Deep State/Silent Coup, there is an obvious answer: Mike Pence is the leader of the Deep State/Silent Coup. The conspirators must have worked to help Trump to win the election only to turn on him immediately after the election in hopes of elevating Pence to the Presidency.
See! It all makes perfect Trumpian sense. The Cult should shift its search for “traitors” to the Vice Presidential residence and ask these important questions?
1. Where was Pence on the night Seth Rich was killed?
2. Where is Pence’s birth certificate?
3. Does Pence like pizza and where in Washington does he buy it?
4. Is Pence a secret globalist?
We have seen in this thread that it wouldn’t bother some people who profess to be Christians to be allied with pro-aborts and their campaigns, it’s just that it’s too inconvenient to do so.
SolarP, I can defend your man on that one: Trump is very cheap and would not pay a bribe if it was not necessary. He already had the opioid user vote locked up.
That’s a good point, Ricky. A story about Trump something something abortion *really does* mean we should support pro-abort candidates. It’s simple logic, really.
I don’t support pro-abortion candidates. I have never voted for a single Democrat. I never will. Trump is pro-abortion. He was publicly pro-abortion for most of his life until his new “Republicanism” forced him to change. Most importantly, he was pro-abortion in his own life.
I’ve already given you a perfectly plausible and reasonable explanation of fbi,cia,nsaa and its silence about any pre election Trump issues. They are more concerned with maintaining their own power and exposure doesn’t further that aim. Had they anticipated a Trump presidency, they might have behaved differently.
There is in fact no effort afoot by Trump to thwart the rule of law. An the claim that this is somehow a ‘bridge too far’ coming from a reaganite is laughable. Iran contra springs to mind.
Debra
Your heroes are people who would support pro-abort candidates. There’s nothing Trump has ever done that would make most principled pro-life Christians align with pro-aborts. When you bring up Trump for that purpose, it’s called “deflection.”
SolarP @ 12:24 Without question. We established a while back that they tend to live in Trumpland. I have no doubt that there are 80,000 of them in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
So we have seen in this thread those who wish Kristol and McMullin well in their efforts to raise up pro-abort candidates to defeat Trump.
We have also seen, alluding to an earlier thread and recalled in this one, those who think that if an entire state votes 55-45 for a candidate (say, Donald Trump), that means every single demographic in that state–i.e., minorities, Catholics, storm door repairmen, opioid users–ALSO voted 55-45 within their group. That’s, um, not how this stuff works.
Debra, You are the only Trumper that responded, but your answer doesn’t make any sense. You have said that the bureaucrats thought Hillary would win (on that point, you are correct) and they wanted to maintain power (a plausible proposition).
However, if you were right, the bureaucrats would have favored Hillary before the election (to curry favor with Hillary since they thought she would win) and shift to favoring Trump after the election to try to get on his good side. Instead, they did just the opposite and made everyone mad. The explanation for that is that they are basically honest, though not perfect, bureaucrats forced to deal with two crooked candidates.
SolarP 12:38 You are exactly wrong. Blacks, the highly educated and young people in Pennsylvania and elsewhere are more likely to vote for Dems and abuse opioids than others in their states. Lightly educated, middle-aged whites are more likely to abuse opioids and vote for Trump.
I have voted for democrats before, even though I am firmly anti abortion; it has almost always been a disappointment. As president, Trump has done nothing to further the cause of abortion—on the contrary, he would be glad to deny funding to PP I think.
If someone is going to think so strictly *pragmatically,* and not on principle, as to support pro-abort candidates for the purpose of ousting Donald Trump, I can’t for the life of me figure out why Trump’s personal history with abortion would bother such a person. So when that pro-abort supporter chides others for supporting Trump, it’s kind of weird.
From CBN via Drudge:
”
In a last-second surprise appearance before a pastors conference in Washington DC, Vice President Mike Pence outlined how the Trump administration has championed causes important to the evangelical community and implored them to continue to, “share the good news of Jesus Christ.”
“Other than the service of those who wear the uniform of the United States especially our cherished fallen, the ministries that you lead and the prayers that you pray are the greatest consequence in the life of the nation,” the vice-president told those attending the 2018 Watchman on the Wall conference sponsored by the Family Research Council.
“Keep preaching the good news. Keep preaching in season and out of season as the Bible says. ………..”
“Question for Trumpkins: The Trump Campaign had very few foreign policy advisers. Why did Trump choose three (Page, Papadopolous and Flynn) who had such questionable relationships with Russia?”
I’ll take a shot. First off there were many more than those 3, and you know it, but that doesn’t make what you think is your point, so you ignore it. And apparently you’re too lazy to Google it.
Here’s at least 4 more from 2016, and there were others added thru the Nov. 2017 election.
“Trump’s team of foreign policy advisers, led by Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, consists of counter-terrorism expert Walid Phares, energy consultant George Papadopoulos, former Defense Department inspector general Joe Schmitz, managing partner of Global Energy Capital Carter Page and former Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg. Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed the names to CNN.”
——————–
Now as to the second part, how should I know? I’m not a mind reader.
Care to enlighten us?
The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. There’s no deep state just bureaucratic inertia and self interest. The FBI mention a renewed Clinton because it concerned a candidate directly whereas the Russian connections were not directly tied to the candidate. Until as Ricky pointed out, Trump opened his mouth.
Single country boycotts don’t work. The US has boycotted Cuba for 50 years with no success except giving the Castros an excuse for problems. If the US goes on its own on Iran, they would give the ayatollahs an excuse for any problems.
To threaten Germany won’t work. The EU has an economy the same size as the US. The EU (ie Germany) can ignore US threats in favour of closer ties to Russia and China. It’s not 1950 or 1990, the EU has options and they can’t be threatened into compliance.
I have fairly strong views against men attending baby showers. However, once I understood that the event would involve hauling several hundred pounds of stuff several hundred yards in 97 degree heat, I understood how our involvement was appropriate if not necessary.
1. So AJ can not answer the question @ 10:28. I do not really fault him as the question is difficult and some of the logical answers are profoundly disturbing. When considering such questions about Trump’s actions, I gravitate toward answers that suggest gross incompetence rather than treachery. However, it is good to remember that the FBI agents working on Operation Crossfire Hurricane and Christopher Steele assembling The Dossier were probably all asking themselves the question posed @ 10:28 as they went about their work. Maybe Mr. Mueller will answer the question for us in his report.
2. If you favor facts over myths, then you will agree with HRW’s point @ 9:49. However, if you believe in a “Deep State” or a “Silent Coup”, then your only logical conclusion (though it is hilarious) must be that those bureaucrats favored Pence over both Hillary and Trump. See 11:58.
3. The real key to understanding the actions of the FBI in 2016 and early 2017 is to understand Comey. Comey was not an ordinary bureaucrat prone to simply protecting his turf and his position. He is an idealist who tends to react against the powerful and the wealthy. Consider:
A. It was Comey’s decision to prosecute Martha Stewart because she lied to investigators, not for the insider trading itself.
B. It was Comey who rushed to the hospital to thwart the efforts of the Little Bush White House to get Attorney General Danforth’s signature on a questionable order.
C. Comey left Little Bush’s Attorney General’s office because he believed the Bush Administration was going beyond what the law allowed in the wake of 9’11.
D. No other FBI Director would have given Hillary the public scolding that Comey did in July, 2016.
Comey has a little bit of Don Quixote in him, so things were bound to go badly when Comey had to start working with a President (Trump) who seldom tells the truth and acts as if he thinks no rules apply to him.
“Joshua Holt, who traveled to Venezuela from Utah in 2016 to marry a Spanish-speaking Mormon woman but soon found himself jailed and later branded the CIA’s top spy in Latin America, has been set free by the anti-American Maduro government.
He says he was “overwhelmed with gratitude.”
Holt and his wife, Thamara Caleno, arrived Saturday evening at Washington Dulles International Airport for a tearful reunion with his parents, Laurie and Jason Holt. A few hours later President Trump welcomed them to the White House, saying it was a “very tough ordeal.” He said Holt had been through more than “most people could endure.”
Mr. Trump said there have been 17 prisoners released since he became president. He specially mentioned Egyptian-American charity worker Aya Hijazi, calling her a “fantastic young woman,” and the three men recently released from North Korea.
The Utah man’s mother, Laurie Holt, thanked Mr. Trump and the lawmakers for her son’s safe return, adding: “I also want to say thank you to President Maduro for releasing Josh and letting him to come home.”
I agree that inertia and self interest are endemic to the bureaucracy. And I would also say that most bureaucrats are cheerfully protected by their unions and tend to be Democrats (though I have known some Republicans and a few confused Libertarians in those positions). But no one rises to the more influential roles of leadership through inertia, so we are left with self-interest, ambition, some intelligence, and a good bit of egotism. These are all qualities I think Comey displayed. Comey was in no way a whistle-blower. He had options. He had access to congressional oversight committees. His leaks were both illegal and purely ego-driven in my opinion. Trump is a non-establishment political outsider, and a very abrasive one. Practically no one on the inside likes him, and that is what we have seen reflected in the bureaucratic leadership—including Comey and the FBI, and to some extent in the Mueller investigation.
The most immediate danger to the rule of law right now is the politically and personally motivated opposition of never-Trumpers and Democrats who are determined to overthrow the will of the people reflected in the last election. But probably the biggest danger to the rule of law in the US has been the propensity for Republicans and Democrats alike to ignore the welfare of the country by bartering away the sovereignty of the people in the name of international free trade—which is anything but free.
You are correct that Comey is ambitious and has an ego. He doesn’t toot his own horn in his book, but you have to assume he is also extremely intelligent. However, if you read his book you will see that he is also very idealistic and patriotic. He is the ultimate whistle blower. The House “Intelligence” Committee under the leadership of the dumb and corrupt Nunes is the ultimate kangaroo court and most thinking people in Washington understand that sad fact.
You are not correct in saying that most Democrats and Never Trumpers want Trump removed from office. Comey has said he wants Trump to serve out his term. So has Lawrence Tribe. Most Never Trumpers feel the same way. We know that his cult would have an absolute meltdown if he was impeached and convicted. We know that an election gave us Trump, and that if Trump is to be removed, it needs to be by an election.
What we want is for Mueller to be allowed to do his job. As I have said from the beginning, I predict that will end with Mueller giving Trump a scolding like the one Comey gave Hillary in July, 2016. Trump can then Tweet back his defiance. The cult can then vilify Mueller. However, if we are to remain a nation of laws rather than a banana republic, Mueller must be allowed to finish his work. If it turns out Trump really is a dumbed-down version of the Manchurian Candidate, we will have to deal with that unfortunate situation.
“To threaten Germany won’t work. The EU has an economy the same size as the US. The EU (ie Germany) can ignore US threats in favour of closer ties to Russia and China. It’s not 1950 or 1990, the EU has options and they can’t be threatened into compliance.”
“A European Union official’s threat this month that Europe would block any attempt by the United States to reimpose sanctions on Iran showed a new level of desperation to deter President Donald Trump from leaving the Iran nuclear deal in May. But with their access to the U.S. financial system hanging in the balance, European banks know that, in the end, the EU must satisfy Trump’s demands to fix the deal or be prepared to fully comply when U.S. sanctions return.
The latest salvo from Denis Chaibi, the head of the Iranian task force at the European External Action Service, echoed previous threats from David O’Sullivan, the EU ambassador to the United States, that if America tried to reimpose its secondary sanctions on Iran, the EU would revive 1990s-era blocking regulations ordering European businesses not to comply.
Unsurprisingly, supporters of the Iran deal in the United States use these threats as evidence that the accord, along with Euro-Iranian commerce, could survive regardless of a U.S. decision to exit it. They point to a recent survey of international business managers as proof that blocking legislation could work.
When first asked what European and Asian companies would do if Trump brought back U.S. sanctions on Iran, only 4 percent of respondents thought businesses would ignore U.S. sanctions. But when asked whether European regulations to “prevent U.S. authorities from penalizing your company over Iran business” would positively affect their decision to invest in Iran, 54 percent said yes.
If such an antidote to America’s secondary financial sanctions existed, European threats to ignore U.S. sanctions might be credible. But these threats are based on outdated understandings of America’s Iran sanctions policy.
In 1996, Congress passed the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, which in part threatened a menu of U.S. sanctions against any foreign entity that invested in Iran’s energy sector. Europe responded by issuing blocking regulations and threatening action against the United States at the World Trade Organization.
Back then, the United States took Europe’s threats seriously because of how the U.S. law was drafted. It required then-President Bill Clinton to impose meager sanctions that a foreign company could painlessly ignore. At the time, the upside of trade with Iran far outweighed the downside of U.S. sanctions. Facing certain embarrassment, Clinton backed down.
But this changed in 2010 when Congress passed a new law leveraging America’s greatest strength against the fulcrum of global commerce with Iran: financial transactions.
After years of blacklisting most financial institutions in Iran for their involvement in various illicit activities, Congress recognized that it also needed to punish third parties for doing business with these criminal enterprises. Thus, it declared that any foreign bank that maintained a correspondent banking relationship with a designated Iranian bank would forfeit its banking relationships in the United States.
In 2011, the United States extended this prohibition to transactions conducted with the Central Bank of Iran and, in 2012, to transactions conducted in connection with a wide range of Iranian economic sectors and activities.
If Trump decided to enforce these sanctions again, banks around the world would immediately be at risk of losing their correspondent accounts in the United States.
Blocking regulations might shield a company from American-levied fines, but they cannot shield a British bank from losing its access to the U.S. financial system. This time around, the downside of U.S. sanctions would far outweigh the upside of Iranian trade.”
Ricky, I didn’t say never-Trumpers want Trump removed from office, I think you want to prevent him from fulfilling his promises—by hook or crook.
And I have more respect for real whistleblowers like Edward Snowden than for disgruntled bureaucrats like Comey who follow the law and prosecut when it suits them. You display little respect for the law yourself when you diminish the importance of Congressional oversight when it suits you. But that’s okay. I think we all do it to some extent.
Debra
We took Mother to the new Star Wars movie this afternoon. It was pretty good and full of double-crosses.
Which reminded me of this:
Yes they have a deal in mind. It is a great deal… for #ZTE & China. #China crushes U.S. companies with no mercy & they use these telecomm companies to spy & steal from us. Many hoped this time would be different. Now congress will need to act. https://t.co/ETMUCe9ia6
For the last month or so Rubio has been sending out an economic nationalist or even a protectionist message. Rubio (who is still the candidate of the Republican Establishment) is now speaking your language.
Meanwhile we have seen that Trump can always be bribed or flattered or threatened out of his proposed tariffs. In the end, we may have to trade candidates. However, I need you to get Trump to clean up his act a little before we discuss an exchange.
I was wondering when ZTE was going to make the news again. It’s interesting that Marco Rubio is wielding the stick this time. I’ll read more after work.
This may be an area where Kristol and his bi-partisan outreach can help. I don’t think conservatives and Democrats will ever agree on a platform or a candidate, but we can work together to increase the number of Americans who have some ability to distinguished between reality and fable. Some Dems blame the CIA for most of the ills of the world and think Little Bush staged 9/11. As we have seen, some Trumpkins still are Birthers or Pizza Pedophilers or Obama Tappers. Trump spins new ridiculous fables every week. Intelligent folks on both sides of the aisle need to work together with media sources to build trust in the honest media and skepticism of the far leftist and Trumpist garbage.
“Last week, a judge in New York ruled that a 30-year-old man must move out of his childhood home on June 1 after his parents served him with several notices asking him to go. The ruling inadvertently exposed a hidden truth: The boys are not all right.
A generation of damaged boys are turning into impaired men and, as seen by the mocking coverage of this case, we’re treating this development like a joke, encouraged to ridicule and condemn them for it.”
——————————
“A Pew Research poll from 2016 showed that men age 18-36, exactly Michael Rotondo’s demographic, were more likely to be living at home with their parents than alone, with a roommate or with a partner. That’s a startling statistic, especially as the same isn’t true for women. We can’t blame this stagnation on the entitlement of the millennial generation when half of that generation is living their lives as intended.
Part of the problem is we’ve been encouraging girls at the expense of boys. The language of empowerment we use around girls is absent from how we talk to boys. The expectation that males will succeed just because they are male has been smashed, just like feminists wanted, but now what? To shrug our shoulders and not care what happens to a generation of young men is to produce a generation of Michael Rotondos, adrift and living at home as they enter their 30s.
It doesn’t help that this demographic is also finding it so hard to get, and stay, employed. An Economic Policy Institute report from February found that men are absent from the workforce in large numbers. This is a big change from the past. The report noted that “in 1979, only 6.3 percent of prime-age men did not work at all over the course of a year, but that number nearly doubled to 11.9 percent in 2016.” The telling thing is that there isn’t widespread concern about this; instead there is a celebration that women are outpacing men at school and at work.
A 2010 study by psychologist Judith Kleinfeld in the journal Gender Issues found that boys’ issues were going unaddressed. Boys, the study found, had “higher rates of suicide, conduct disorders, emotional disturbance, premature death and juvenile delinquency than their female peers, as well as lower grades, test scores and college attendance rates.”
It’s no wonder a generation of boys are growing into fearful adults who would rather live in their childhood room, and sleep on their old Superman sheets washed by Mom, than take a chance in a world for which they are unprepared.
The rising prominence of Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson is a development of this. He has been described as a “father figure” to this group of lost boys. His controversial speeches, which are attended overwhelmingly by men and offer direction on getting their lives in order — to literally “clean up their room” — is taking the place of parents who have failed to instruct their children to do the same.
The fact that Peterson’s YouTube videos go viral to a majority male audience, and his book “Twelve Rules for Life: An Antidote for Chaos” is a bestseller, is significant. Despite some of his questionable ideas (such as if white privilege even exists), Peterson is speaking directly to men about something that has become a rarity in our “Future is Female” world.
We tell girls they are amazing and unstoppable by virtue of their gender while telling boys they have to somehow overcome their gender to be great. The result is a slumping male, unsure how to live his life, forced to watch YouTube videos to figure it out.”
@6:50 pm Excellent article on the issue with ZTE. Rubio Republicans and the Democrats are absolute right on this one I think. Trump should not revive this dangerous predatory company. That is actually worth a Congressional investigation.
It is very interesting to see the switch in Rubio. I know he was badly burned in the election (as were some others) by Trump’s uncouth style and personal insults, but even then I was hoping he would toughen up and not quit the Senate race as he seemed inclined to do. He’s still young and potentially has another shot at the presidency. His new tune is appealing, however, bait and switch is a favorite political strategy of many politicians, so we’ll see.
You’re right. America isn’t raising men its raising entitled boys unwilling to do any hard work and thus women and immigrants suceed ahead of them. And when they see women and immigrants ahead of them they become bitter. I have very little sympathy for these boys. They expect the world on the same platter as their father and are now upset that they must compete against women and immigrants. Snowflakes . .
And yes I see them in my classroom. Upset they are behind girls , rescued by parents, they hope by whining they will get their way. Watching the lack of effort and daily sense of entitlement, I almost embarrassed by my gender and fear turning into a grumpy old man complaining about the new generation.
A country doesn’t raise its boys. That is not the job of a country. It is the job of parents. In particular, it is the job of fathers since fathers should be the primary role models for boys.
My wife and I have raised one boy, and my wife gets most of the credit for how he turned out. In a month he will begin to raise a boy. I pray he will do a good job and be a good role model.
Wandering Views 
In case you missed it yesterday, the Never-Trump traitors and their Democrat financiers have been exposed. This includes McMuffin, Kristol, Rubin, and many others, all in cahoots with the far left Obama groups.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/05/collusion-never-trump-republicans-coordinate-electoral-efforts-with-democrats/
“Ken Vogel at The New York Times has revealed that #NeverTrump Republicans and Democrat operatives have sided with each other as a way to “neutralize” President Donald Trump. Vogel wrote:
In the past year, however, influential liberal donors and operatives have gone from cheering these so-called Never Trump Republicans to quietly working with — and even funding — them. Through invitation-only emails and private, off-the-record meetings, they have formed a loose network of cross-partisan alliances aimed at helping neutralize President Trump, and preventing others from capitalizing on weaknesses in the political system that they say he has exploited.
While this network has mostly eschewed electoral politics, some involved see the potential for it to help form an ideological — and possibly financial — platform to back candidates, including a centrist challenge to Mr. Trump in 2020, possibly from within the G.O.P. or even a third party.
The network — composed of overlapping groups led by Democrats such as the donor Rachel Pritzker and several veteran Obama administration operatives, as well as leading Never Trump Republicans like Evan McMullin, Mindy Finn and William Kristol — aims to chart a middle path between a Republican base falling in line behind Mr. Trump and a liberal resistance trying to pull the Democratic Party left.
Jerry Taylor, president of the moderate think-tank Niskanen Center and a Republican, said that if any Republican has concerns about Trump “there’s no reason you shouldn’t be willing to work with a Democrat who is equally concerned about these same matters.”
The Niskanen Center has meetings attended by the well-known #NeverTrump Republicans along with some Democrats like Ian Bassin, a lawyer who worked in Obama’s White House. Bassin founded Protect Democracy, a watchdog group, and “has sued the Trump administration and that has brought on staff members and advisers — including Mr. Taylor — from conservative or Republican backgrounds.”
Former Oklahoma Republican Rep. Mickey Edwards also attends the meetings and has joined those “cross-partisan coalitions” against Trump, “including working with the former Obama administration lawyers Neal Katyal and Joshua Geltzer to file a legal brief in March in a court case opposing Mr. Trump’s proposed restrictions on travel from predominantly Muslim countries.”
These donors and operatives from both sides have a group called Patriots and Pragmatists and they believe they’ll have their largest meeting in San Francisco soon:”
————————–
The question I asked and Ricky still hasn’t answered……
And when you have time Ricky, perhaps you can answer the question below. You seem frequently shocked that any Christian could vote for Trump. So maybe you could explain how it is climbing in bed with these people is somehow a better choice?
———————
“Here’s the thing. WHAT ON EARTH could these people have in common other than their hatred for Trump? Does it bother anyone that these supposed conservatives, who should hold ideas of limited government and fiscal responsibility, have sided with Democrats? You know, the party that booed God, has no problem with murdering unborn human beings, and wants the government involved in every detail of our life?”
———————-
Well?
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1,192 handshakes, 90 minutes rolled into 1.
https://twitter.com/joshdcaplan/status/1000072025342345221
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Warning shots. The Germans will cave.
https://twitter.com/joshdcaplan/status/1000162433732837376
—————————
https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2018/05/25/germany-playing-kissy-face-irans-mullahs-going-cost-german-companies-plenty/
“I’ve posted a few times on the efforts on the part of some European countries, Germany, in particular, to continue to trade with Iran despite US sanctions (see here | here). This, of course, is nonsense. German, and European, companies that are hit with sanctions are cut off from US markets and, more importantly, their bankers are subject to sanctions, too. Two important things happened today that, hopefully, will hammer home to Europe that their plan to resist US sanctions on Iran won’t work.”
_____________
“Also today, Saudi Arabia declared that German firms are ineligible for government contracts:
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has ordered that no more government contracts be awarded to German companies, in a sign of continued irritation over Berlin’s foreign policy in the Middle East, German magazine Der Spiegel reported on Friday.
Citing no sources, it said the move was likely to hit major companies such as Siemens (SIEGn.DE), Bayer (BAYGn.DE) and Boehringer Ingelheim as well as carmaker Daimler (DAIGn.DE).”
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Making it easier to fire those that need firing.
Once again, Trump’s doing what others have promised, but failed to deliver.
https://hotair.com/archives/2018/05/26/trump-makes-easier-fire-deficient-govt-workers-finally/
“The latest executive order news coming out of the White House addresses some long overdue questions about government workers and their unions. Efforts to not only shrink the size of government but to remove ineffective or misbehaving workers have largely been stymied by union agreements which were crafted over decades with nobody at the bargaining table looking out for the taxpayer. Other goodies for the labor groups allowed most of their union work to be done on government time and using government resources. These executive orders will be changing some of those processes. (Government Executive)
President Trump issued a series of executive orders Friday that could gut federal employee unions’ ability to negotiate with agency leaders and represent workers, as well as reduce the time it takes for an agency to fire people for poor performance or misconduct.
Billed as the first step toward broad civil service reform, senior administration officials announced in a call with reporters on Friday afternoon three executive orders aimed at making it easier to fire poor performers and ordering harsher treatment of union representatives.
“Today, the president is fulfilling his promise to promote a more efficient government by reforming civil service rules,” said Andrew Bremberg, director of the president’s Domestic Policy Council. “Every year, the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey shows that less than one third of federal employees believe poor performers are adequately addressed by their agency. These executive orders make it easier to remove poor performing employees, and ensure that taxpayer dollars are more efficiently used.”
Some of the biggest (and best) changes address policies which we’ve been carping about here for years. The first one shortens the period of Performance Improvement Plans (where the misbehaving or underperforming worker is given time to straighten up and fly right) to 30 days across all agencies. Under the old system, these PIPs could last up to half a year.”
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And again, delivering what others always promised, but never delivered. And yet some traitors still want to remove him for a Dem-lite, Never-Trump candidate. No thanks, he’s getting stuff done..
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-proving-to-be-the-most-fearlessly-pro-life-president-in-history/2018/05/23/c72f2886-5e8a-11e8-a4a4-c070ef53f315_story.html?utm_term=.fc47401be616
“President Trump’s critics were apoplectic last week when the president referred to MS-13 gang members as “animals.” Of course, no one should be dehumanized. Yet many of the same people expressing outrage that Trump would dehumanize vicious gang members have no problem dehumanizing innocent, unborn children.
Trump has stood up for the humanity of the unborn child like no president in recent memory. And this is why so many Christian conservatives stick with him. Witness the foot-stomping standing ovation the president received Tuesday night at the annual Campaign for Life gala of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List. Not only was Trump reportedly the first president to address this incredible organization in its 26-year history, he used the occasion to deliver on yet another pro-life promise, one that his Republican predecessors could not, or would not, fulfill: He announced a new rule to stop indirect taxpayer funding of abortion through the Title X family planning program.
“When I ran for office, I pledged to stand for life, and as president, that’s exactly what I have done,” Trump declared. “Today, we have kept another promise. My administration has proposed a new rule to prohibit Title X funding from going to any clinic that performs abortions.””
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Meanwhile, I would like a President who is smart enough to know the truth and honest enough to tell the truth.
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Ah yes….. having been exposed as the frauds they are, the little piggies are a squealin’ this morning. 🙂
Love it! 🙂
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Still avoiding the question, huh Ricky?
🙂
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I’ll answer the question.
Most Never Trumpers could have lived with Trump’s moronic daily comments, his sloth and unpreparedness, his protectionism and the way he has made himself and the US an international laughingstock.
However, when he began to attempt to subvert the rule of law by attacks on the Justice Dept., the FBI and the Special Counsel, that was too much for us. We will oppose him and we will not vote for Republican stooges like Nunes who support this lawlessness. Some like Kristol and others will try to form bi-partisan efforts to support the rule of law. I view the whole thing as a repeat of the Eastern Front in World War II. I will simply sit back and watch the Dems and The Trump Cult battle it out, trading lie for lie, idiocy for idiocy.
I think Kristol is wasting his time trying to generate a primary challenge for Trump. We have seen this week that many Republicans still believe in Birtherism or pizza pedophilia or Seth Richerism or protectionism, and most believe in the Deep State, Silent Coup, Spygate, Obama’s ”tapps”, etc. No rational candidate stands a chance running against a world class con man among such a voter pool.
I wish Kristol, Rubin, Edwards and the others well. I am just going to sit back and laugh.
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Interesting Twitter thread documenting the FBI players meeting in London, and trying to hide that they did, and with who they met..
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“However, when he began to attempt to subvert the rule of law by attacks on the Justice Dept., the FBI and the Special Counsel, that was too much for us.”
🙂 Good one.
Now that I’m done laughing, I’ll point out that this is hogwash, and you know it. The leaders of the DoJ, FBI, and SC brought it on themselves with their improper, unprofessional, and probably in many cases, criminal behavior. You just can’t stand that they were exposed for the frauds those “leaders” are.
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AJ, Read the article @ 9:32. It explains to you what has happened. Warning: Open-minded exposure to that article may be dangerous to your cult membership.
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Question for Trumpkins: The Trump Campaign had very few foreign policy advisers. Why did Trump choose three (Page, Papadopolous and Flynn) who had such questionable relationships with Russia?
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Maybe the stooge Nunes has laryngitis.
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Maybe he’s waiting for the un-redacted version, ya’ know, the one that doesn’t hide the truth behind blacked out boxes…. 🙂
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AJ, Any answer to the 10:28 question? Let’s see some Trumpkin originality. You guys should be able to come up with something without waiting for help from Hannity, Tomi Lahren or Diamond and Silk.
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Hilarious. And then they threw their hats in the air!
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It looks like we have another opioid tragedy to blame on Trump and his cult followers:
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/mussles-in-the-puget-sound-have-tested-positive-for-common-opioids/
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While the Cult is pondering the question, I will help it with another question:
Since the Deep State/Silent Coup was so opposed to Trump, why did its members publicize negative reports about Hillary before the election while going to great lengths to keep the Trump/Russia connection quiet until after the election?
If you are a Trump Cultist who believes in the Deep State/Silent Coup, there is an obvious answer: Mike Pence is the leader of the Deep State/Silent Coup. The conspirators must have worked to help Trump to win the election only to turn on him immediately after the election in hopes of elevating Pence to the Presidency.
See! It all makes perfect Trumpian sense. The Cult should shift its search for “traitors” to the Vice Presidential residence and ask these important questions?
1. Where was Pence on the night Seth Rich was killed?
2. Where is Pence’s birth certificate?
3. Does Pence like pizza and where in Washington does he buy it?
4. Is Pence a secret globalist?
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To Ricky’s list, I would add:
5. Where is the proof Donald Trump DIDN’T supply opioids to junkies in exchange for votes?
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We have seen in this thread that it wouldn’t bother some people who profess to be Christians to be allied with pro-aborts and their campaigns, it’s just that it’s too inconvenient to do so.
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SolarP, I can defend your man on that one: Trump is very cheap and would not pay a bribe if it was not necessary. He already had the opioid user vote locked up.
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SolarP @ 12:12
And we have seen many slavishly defend this man:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11978814
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That’s a good point, Ricky. A story about Trump something something abortion *really does* mean we should support pro-abort candidates. It’s simple logic, really.
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I guess some people believe there’s an “opioid user vote”?
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I don’t support pro-abortion candidates. I have never voted for a single Democrat. I never will. Trump is pro-abortion. He was publicly pro-abortion for most of his life until his new “Republicanism” forced him to change. Most importantly, he was pro-abortion in his own life.
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I’ve already given you a perfectly plausible and reasonable explanation of fbi,cia,nsaa and its silence about any pre election Trump issues. They are more concerned with maintaining their own power and exposure doesn’t further that aim. Had they anticipated a Trump presidency, they might have behaved differently.
There is in fact no effort afoot by Trump to thwart the rule of law. An the claim that this is somehow a ‘bridge too far’ coming from a reaganite is laughable. Iran contra springs to mind.
Debra
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Your heroes are people who would support pro-abort candidates. There’s nothing Trump has ever done that would make most principled pro-life Christians align with pro-aborts. When you bring up Trump for that purpose, it’s called “deflection.”
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Sorry about the disjointed sebtences—im on the road and my phone has a mind of it’s own. :–)
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SolarP @ 12:24 Without question. We established a while back that they tend to live in Trumpland. I have no doubt that there are 80,000 of them in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
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Without question your logic in putting that conclusion together was laughable. No pollster would have the courage to even formulate such a hypothesis.
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So we have seen in this thread those who wish Kristol and McMullin well in their efforts to raise up pro-abort candidates to defeat Trump.
We have also seen, alluding to an earlier thread and recalled in this one, those who think that if an entire state votes 55-45 for a candidate (say, Donald Trump), that means every single demographic in that state–i.e., minorities, Catholics, storm door repairmen, opioid users–ALSO voted 55-45 within their group. That’s, um, not how this stuff works.
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Debra, You are the only Trumper that responded, but your answer doesn’t make any sense. You have said that the bureaucrats thought Hillary would win (on that point, you are correct) and they wanted to maintain power (a plausible proposition).
However, if you were right, the bureaucrats would have favored Hillary before the election (to curry favor with Hillary since they thought she would win) and shift to favoring Trump after the election to try to get on his good side. Instead, they did just the opposite and made everyone mad. The explanation for that is that they are basically honest, though not perfect, bureaucrats forced to deal with two crooked candidates.
Have a safe trip.
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SolarP 12:38 You are exactly wrong. Blacks, the highly educated and young people in Pennsylvania and elsewhere are more likely to vote for Dems and abuse opioids than others in their states. Lightly educated, middle-aged whites are more likely to abuse opioids and vote for Trump.
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Ricky 12:43: Where o where do you get this info on the opioid voting bloc?
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Sorry, I meant blacks, the highly educated and young people are less like to abuse opioids than others in their states.
Debra, I am not driving, so I have no excuse, but I must rush off to ferry presents to a baby shower.
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I have voted for democrats before, even though I am firmly anti abortion; it has almost always been a disappointment. As president, Trump has done nothing to further the cause of abortion—on the contrary, he would be glad to deny funding to PP I think.
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If someone is going to think so strictly *pragmatically,* and not on principle, as to support pro-abort candidates for the purpose of ousting Donald Trump, I can’t for the life of me figure out why Trump’s personal history with abortion would bother such a person. So when that pro-abort supporter chides others for supporting Trump, it’s kind of weird.
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This and @12:53 is Debra. :–)
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I prefer no name calling.
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From CBN via Drudge:
”
In a last-second surprise appearance before a pastors conference in Washington DC, Vice President Mike Pence outlined how the Trump administration has championed causes important to the evangelical community and implored them to continue to, “share the good news of Jesus Christ.”
“Other than the service of those who wear the uniform of the United States especially our cherished fallen, the ministries that you lead and the prayers that you pray are the greatest consequence in the life of the nation,” the vice-president told those attending the 2018 Watchman on the Wall conference sponsored by the Family Research Council.
“Keep preaching the good news. Keep preaching in season and out of season as the Bible says. ………..”
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“Question for Trumpkins: The Trump Campaign had very few foreign policy advisers. Why did Trump choose three (Page, Papadopolous and Flynn) who had such questionable relationships with Russia?”
I’ll take a shot. First off there were many more than those 3, and you know it, but that doesn’t make what you think is your point, so you ignore it. And apparently you’re too lazy to Google it.
Here’s at least 4 more from 2016, and there were others added thru the Nov. 2017 election.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/03/21/donald-trump-names-foreign-policy-advisors/zoneTaCSlynydDc1WgMjqK/story.html
“Trump’s team of foreign policy advisers, led by Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, consists of counter-terrorism expert Walid Phares, energy consultant George Papadopoulos, former Defense Department inspector general Joe Schmitz, managing partner of Global Energy Capital Carter Page and former Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg. Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed the names to CNN.”
——————–
Now as to the second part, how should I know? I’m not a mind reader.
Care to enlighten us?
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The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. There’s no deep state just bureaucratic inertia and self interest. The FBI mention a renewed Clinton because it concerned a candidate directly whereas the Russian connections were not directly tied to the candidate. Until as Ricky pointed out, Trump opened his mouth.
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Single country boycotts don’t work. The US has boycotted Cuba for 50 years with no success except giving the Castros an excuse for problems. If the US goes on its own on Iran, they would give the ayatollahs an excuse for any problems.
To threaten Germany won’t work. The EU has an economy the same size as the US. The EU (ie Germany) can ignore US threats in favour of closer ties to Russia and China. It’s not 1950 or 1990, the EU has options and they can’t be threatened into compliance.
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I have fairly strong views against men attending baby showers. However, once I understood that the event would involve hauling several hundred pounds of stuff several hundred yards in 97 degree heat, I understood how our involvement was appropriate if not necessary.
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1. So AJ can not answer the question @ 10:28. I do not really fault him as the question is difficult and some of the logical answers are profoundly disturbing. When considering such questions about Trump’s actions, I gravitate toward answers that suggest gross incompetence rather than treachery. However, it is good to remember that the FBI agents working on Operation Crossfire Hurricane and Christopher Steele assembling The Dossier were probably all asking themselves the question posed @ 10:28 as they went about their work. Maybe Mr. Mueller will answer the question for us in his report.
2. If you favor facts over myths, then you will agree with HRW’s point @ 9:49. However, if you believe in a “Deep State” or a “Silent Coup”, then your only logical conclusion (though it is hilarious) must be that those bureaucrats favored Pence over both Hillary and Trump. See 11:58.
3. The real key to understanding the actions of the FBI in 2016 and early 2017 is to understand Comey. Comey was not an ordinary bureaucrat prone to simply protecting his turf and his position. He is an idealist who tends to react against the powerful and the wealthy. Consider:
A. It was Comey’s decision to prosecute Martha Stewart because she lied to investigators, not for the insider trading itself.
B. It was Comey who rushed to the hospital to thwart the efforts of the Little Bush White House to get Attorney General Danforth’s signature on a questionable order.
C. Comey left Little Bush’s Attorney General’s office because he believed the Bush Administration was going beyond what the law allowed in the wake of 9’11.
D. No other FBI Director would have given Hillary the public scolding that Comey did in July, 2016.
Comey has a little bit of Don Quixote in him, so things were bound to go badly when Comey had to start working with a President (Trump) who seldom tells the truth and acts as if he thinks no rules apply to him.
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Douthat understands that Free Speech is not enough to save a society that is turning its back on God.
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Trump seems pretty good at getting American prisoners released.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joshua-holt-american-held-hostage-in-venezuela-arrives-in-washington-live-updates/
“Joshua Holt, who traveled to Venezuela from Utah in 2016 to marry a Spanish-speaking Mormon woman but soon found himself jailed and later branded the CIA’s top spy in Latin America, has been set free by the anti-American Maduro government.
He says he was “overwhelmed with gratitude.”
Holt and his wife, Thamara Caleno, arrived Saturday evening at Washington Dulles International Airport for a tearful reunion with his parents, Laurie and Jason Holt. A few hours later President Trump welcomed them to the White House, saying it was a “very tough ordeal.” He said Holt had been through more than “most people could endure.”
Mr. Trump said there have been 17 prisoners released since he became president. He specially mentioned Egyptian-American charity worker Aya Hijazi, calling her a “fantastic young woman,” and the three men recently released from North Korea.
The Utah man’s mother, Laurie Holt, thanked Mr. Trump and the lawmakers for her son’s safe return, adding: “I also want to say thank you to President Maduro for releasing Josh and letting him to come home.”
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I agree that inertia and self interest are endemic to the bureaucracy. And I would also say that most bureaucrats are cheerfully protected by their unions and tend to be Democrats (though I have known some Republicans and a few confused Libertarians in those positions). But no one rises to the more influential roles of leadership through inertia, so we are left with self-interest, ambition, some intelligence, and a good bit of egotism. These are all qualities I think Comey displayed. Comey was in no way a whistle-blower. He had options. He had access to congressional oversight committees. His leaks were both illegal and purely ego-driven in my opinion. Trump is a non-establishment political outsider, and a very abrasive one. Practically no one on the inside likes him, and that is what we have seen reflected in the bureaucratic leadership—including Comey and the FBI, and to some extent in the Mueller investigation.
The most immediate danger to the rule of law right now is the politically and personally motivated opposition of never-Trumpers and Democrats who are determined to overthrow the will of the people reflected in the last election. But probably the biggest danger to the rule of law in the US has been the propensity for Republicans and Democrats alike to ignore the welfare of the country by bartering away the sovereignty of the people in the name of international free trade—which is anything but free.
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Debra @ 9:51.
You are correct that Comey is ambitious and has an ego. He doesn’t toot his own horn in his book, but you have to assume he is also extremely intelligent. However, if you read his book you will see that he is also very idealistic and patriotic. He is the ultimate whistle blower. The House “Intelligence” Committee under the leadership of the dumb and corrupt Nunes is the ultimate kangaroo court and most thinking people in Washington understand that sad fact.
You are not correct in saying that most Democrats and Never Trumpers want Trump removed from office. Comey has said he wants Trump to serve out his term. So has Lawrence Tribe. Most Never Trumpers feel the same way. We know that his cult would have an absolute meltdown if he was impeached and convicted. We know that an election gave us Trump, and that if Trump is to be removed, it needs to be by an election.
What we want is for Mueller to be allowed to do his job. As I have said from the beginning, I predict that will end with Mueller giving Trump a scolding like the one Comey gave Hillary in July, 2016. Trump can then Tweet back his defiance. The cult can then vilify Mueller. However, if we are to remain a nation of laws rather than a banana republic, Mueller must be allowed to finish his work. If it turns out Trump really is a dumbed-down version of the Manchurian Candidate, we will have to deal with that unfortunate situation.
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A nation of con artists and their dupes.
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“To threaten Germany won’t work. The EU has an economy the same size as the US. The EU (ie Germany) can ignore US threats in favour of closer ties to Russia and China. It’s not 1950 or 1990, the EU has options and they can’t be threatened into compliance.”
Wrong HRW.
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
“A European Union official’s threat this month that Europe would block any attempt by the United States to reimpose sanctions on Iran showed a new level of desperation to deter President Donald Trump from leaving the Iran nuclear deal in May. But with their access to the U.S. financial system hanging in the balance, European banks know that, in the end, the EU must satisfy Trump’s demands to fix the deal or be prepared to fully comply when U.S. sanctions return.
The latest salvo from Denis Chaibi, the head of the Iranian task force at the European External Action Service, echoed previous threats from David O’Sullivan, the EU ambassador to the United States, that if America tried to reimpose its secondary sanctions on Iran, the EU would revive 1990s-era blocking regulations ordering European businesses not to comply.
Unsurprisingly, supporters of the Iran deal in the United States use these threats as evidence that the accord, along with Euro-Iranian commerce, could survive regardless of a U.S. decision to exit it. They point to a recent survey of international business managers as proof that blocking legislation could work.
When first asked what European and Asian companies would do if Trump brought back U.S. sanctions on Iran, only 4 percent of respondents thought businesses would ignore U.S. sanctions. But when asked whether European regulations to “prevent U.S. authorities from penalizing your company over Iran business” would positively affect their decision to invest in Iran, 54 percent said yes.
If such an antidote to America’s secondary financial sanctions existed, European threats to ignore U.S. sanctions might be credible. But these threats are based on outdated understandings of America’s Iran sanctions policy.
In 1996, Congress passed the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, which in part threatened a menu of U.S. sanctions against any foreign entity that invested in Iran’s energy sector. Europe responded by issuing blocking regulations and threatening action against the United States at the World Trade Organization.
Back then, the United States took Europe’s threats seriously because of how the U.S. law was drafted. It required then-President Bill Clinton to impose meager sanctions that a foreign company could painlessly ignore. At the time, the upside of trade with Iran far outweighed the downside of U.S. sanctions. Facing certain embarrassment, Clinton backed down.
But this changed in 2010 when Congress passed a new law leveraging America’s greatest strength against the fulcrum of global commerce with Iran: financial transactions.
After years of blacklisting most financial institutions in Iran for their involvement in various illicit activities, Congress recognized that it also needed to punish third parties for doing business with these criminal enterprises. Thus, it declared that any foreign bank that maintained a correspondent banking relationship with a designated Iranian bank would forfeit its banking relationships in the United States.
In 2011, the United States extended this prohibition to transactions conducted with the Central Bank of Iran and, in 2012, to transactions conducted in connection with a wide range of Iranian economic sectors and activities.
If Trump decided to enforce these sanctions again, banks around the world would immediately be at risk of losing their correspondent accounts in the United States.
Blocking regulations might shield a company from American-levied fines, but they cannot shield a British bank from losing its access to the U.S. financial system. This time around, the downside of U.S. sanctions would far outweigh the upside of Iranian trade.”
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Ricky, I didn’t say never-Trumpers want Trump removed from office, I think you want to prevent him from fulfilling his promises—by hook or crook.
And I have more respect for real whistleblowers like Edward Snowden than for disgruntled bureaucrats like Comey who follow the law and prosecut when it suits them. You display little respect for the law yourself when you diminish the importance of Congressional oversight when it suits you. But that’s okay. I think we all do it to some extent.
Debra
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PS. Looks like the baby shower went .
:–)
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It went well, Debra.
We took Mother to the new Star Wars movie this afternoon. It was pretty good and full of double-crosses.
Which reminded me of this:
For the last month or so Rubio has been sending out an economic nationalist or even a protectionist message. Rubio (who is still the candidate of the Republican Establishment) is now speaking your language.
Meanwhile we have seen that Trump can always be bribed or flattered or threatened out of his proposed tariffs. In the end, we may have to trade candidates. However, I need you to get Trump to clean up his act a little before we discuss an exchange.
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I was wondering when ZTE was going to make the news again. It’s interesting that Marco Rubio is wielding the stick this time. I’ll read more after work.
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Some frightening images are coming out of flood ravaged Ellicott City, Maryland.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5777789/Maryland-hit-flash-flooding-torrential-rain-turns-streets-raging-rivers.html
——————–
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/weather/bs-md-flooding-memorial-day-weekend-20180527-story.html
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This may be an area where Kristol and his bi-partisan outreach can help. I don’t think conservatives and Democrats will ever agree on a platform or a candidate, but we can work together to increase the number of Americans who have some ability to distinguished between reality and fable. Some Dems blame the CIA for most of the ills of the world and think Little Bush staged 9/11. As we have seen, some Trumpkins still are Birthers or Pizza Pedophilers or Obama Tappers. Trump spins new ridiculous fables every week. Intelligent folks on both sides of the aisle need to work together with media sources to build trust in the honest media and skepticism of the far leftist and Trumpist garbage.
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America is failing it’s boys. We don’t raise men anymore.
https://nypost.com/2018/05/26/deadbeat-son-is-a-sign-of-americas-failure-to-raise-boys/
“Last week, a judge in New York ruled that a 30-year-old man must move out of his childhood home on June 1 after his parents served him with several notices asking him to go. The ruling inadvertently exposed a hidden truth: The boys are not all right.
A generation of damaged boys are turning into impaired men and, as seen by the mocking coverage of this case, we’re treating this development like a joke, encouraged to ridicule and condemn them for it.”
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“A Pew Research poll from 2016 showed that men age 18-36, exactly Michael Rotondo’s demographic, were more likely to be living at home with their parents than alone, with a roommate or with a partner. That’s a startling statistic, especially as the same isn’t true for women. We can’t blame this stagnation on the entitlement of the millennial generation when half of that generation is living their lives as intended.
Part of the problem is we’ve been encouraging girls at the expense of boys. The language of empowerment we use around girls is absent from how we talk to boys. The expectation that males will succeed just because they are male has been smashed, just like feminists wanted, but now what? To shrug our shoulders and not care what happens to a generation of young men is to produce a generation of Michael Rotondos, adrift and living at home as they enter their 30s.
It doesn’t help that this demographic is also finding it so hard to get, and stay, employed. An Economic Policy Institute report from February found that men are absent from the workforce in large numbers. This is a big change from the past. The report noted that “in 1979, only 6.3 percent of prime-age men did not work at all over the course of a year, but that number nearly doubled to 11.9 percent in 2016.” The telling thing is that there isn’t widespread concern about this; instead there is a celebration that women are outpacing men at school and at work.
A 2010 study by psychologist Judith Kleinfeld in the journal Gender Issues found that boys’ issues were going unaddressed. Boys, the study found, had “higher rates of suicide, conduct disorders, emotional disturbance, premature death and juvenile delinquency than their female peers, as well as lower grades, test scores and college attendance rates.”
It’s no wonder a generation of boys are growing into fearful adults who would rather live in their childhood room, and sleep on their old Superman sheets washed by Mom, than take a chance in a world for which they are unprepared.
The rising prominence of Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson is a development of this. He has been described as a “father figure” to this group of lost boys. His controversial speeches, which are attended overwhelmingly by men and offer direction on getting their lives in order — to literally “clean up their room” — is taking the place of parents who have failed to instruct their children to do the same.
The fact that Peterson’s YouTube videos go viral to a majority male audience, and his book “Twelve Rules for Life: An Antidote for Chaos” is a bestseller, is significant. Despite some of his questionable ideas (such as if white privilege even exists), Peterson is speaking directly to men about something that has become a rarity in our “Future is Female” world.
We tell girls they are amazing and unstoppable by virtue of their gender while telling boys they have to somehow overcome their gender to be great. The result is a slumping male, unsure how to live his life, forced to watch YouTube videos to figure it out.”
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@6:50 pm Excellent article on the issue with ZTE. Rubio Republicans and the Democrats are absolute right on this one I think. Trump should not revive this dangerous predatory company. That is actually worth a Congressional investigation.
It is very interesting to see the switch in Rubio. I know he was badly burned in the election (as were some others) by Trump’s uncouth style and personal insults, but even then I was hoping he would toughen up and not quit the Senate race as he seemed inclined to do. He’s still young and potentially has another shot at the presidency. His new tune is appealing, however, bait and switch is a favorite political strategy of many politicians, so we’ll see.
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AN
You’re right. America isn’t raising men its raising entitled boys unwilling to do any hard work and thus women and immigrants suceed ahead of them. And when they see women and immigrants ahead of them they become bitter. I have very little sympathy for these boys. They expect the world on the same platter as their father and are now upset that they must compete against women and immigrants. Snowflakes . .
And yes I see them in my classroom. Upset they are behind girls , rescued by parents, they hope by whining they will get their way. Watching the lack of effort and daily sense of entitlement, I almost embarrassed by my gender and fear turning into a grumpy old man complaining about the new generation.
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A country doesn’t raise its boys. That is not the job of a country. It is the job of parents. In particular, it is the job of fathers since fathers should be the primary role models for boys.
My wife and I have raised one boy, and my wife gets most of the credit for how he turned out. In a month he will begin to raise a boy. I pray he will do a good job and be a good role model.
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