Sanctimony in action. Unbelievably shallow.
PDT’s reply.
Yet the media, most of the academic world, large slices of the American voting population would go back to the most incompetent presidency in history. Eight years of decline and not a single accomplishment I can think of during all of the years he was in office. Now he even wants to claim the recovery is due to him. And in a sense it is, since DJT could only have become president because Obama had preceded him.
This is taken from Instapundit:
SLATE NOW HIRING BLIND PHOTO EDITORS: I, for one, support hiring physically challenged people. Or perhaps that thing on the left side of his desk is actually the Weather Control/Time Warp device he bought from Dick Cheney.
On the one hand:
Longtime Trump Org CFO granted immunity...
'Narrow in scope'...
Manhattan D.A. Eyes Criminal Charges...
'We don't know quarter of what's in pocket of Mueller'...
RUDY TAKES SHOT AT PRESIDENT FOR 'FLIPPING' COMMENTS...
LEAK: Aides expect to go rogue on pardon...
DRAMA: George Conway tweets again...
Mueller Muzzles Manafort...
BUCHANAN: We are headed for hellish year...
DAN RATHER: STAY TUNED...
Kavanaugh argued the president can be impeached for lies, cover-ups and refusing to testify...
Dems' midterm strategy: Stop talking about Trump...
But then on the other:
| STOCKS RECORD HIGH... |
Before I add my own comment, you are advised (urged) to look at this post at Reddit: Connecting some dots. You are guaranteed not to read it in the papers.
Now to Manafort and Cohen, which is, in essence: “Look Michael, see what we did to Paul. Well we can do the same to you.” And they can. And they will, if he does not cooperate 100%. So what is the issue? This is how Manafort fits in:
The trial of Manafort, who chaired Donald Trump’s campaign in mid-2016 when Trump was selected as the Republican presidential nominee, never dealt with possible collusion between the campaign team and Russia or efforts to obstruct justice that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating.
But they got their man. So how does Cohen fit in: Cohen testifies Trump told him to commit crime by paying off women. This, by the way, is not illegal:
U.S. President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen testified on Tuesday that Trump had directed him to commit a crime by arranging payments ahead of the 2016 presidential election to silence two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump.
This is what’s illegal:
“Today he (Cohen) stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election,” Davis said in a statement.
And only if that was the reason is it even technically illegal, and only because the payment was not declared as an election expense. If he merely wished to avoid having to deal with his wife over the question of adultery, say, then it is not illegal for him to have paid these women to keep things to themselves.
We are dealing with some of the sleaziest people you will ever see and I don’t in this case mean Stormy Daniels. Meanwhile it is very likely that Cohen will say whatever he is told to say:
Cohen, 51, made the statements as he pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges in federal court in Manhattan, including tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations.
If they can get him out, they will get him out. All of it right before your righteous eyes.
MEANWHILE: Unless you have been paying close attention, you won’t even know who this is: JUDGE GIVES NO JAIL TIME TO IMRAN AWAN, ATTORNEY CLAIMS HE WAS BUILDING ‘WOMEN’S SHELTER’. The major points in the story:
- Former IT aide Imran Awan received no jail time Tuesday after a federal judge said he had “suffered enough.”
- His lawyer said his “destitute” client was building a charity hospital, but reports show that the land was also used for a real estate development and was allegedly stolen from farmers.
- Former Democratic chiefs of staff wrote letters of support for Imran, despite IT-violation findings by the House inspector general and Capitol Police.
Here is an anodyne version of why he was up on charges:
Imran and his family were banned from the House computer network in February 2017 after the House’s top law enforcement officer wrote that Imran is “an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives, possibly threatening the integrity of our information systems,” and that a server containing evidence had gone “missing.” The inspector general said server logs showed “unauthorized access” and procurement records were falsified.
The best bit in the story is that Imran actually thanked the prosecutors! He also no doubt has more material than Julian Assange that if he leaked it out could put half the Democrat caucus away for a very long time.
And I like this from some comment somewhere:
Mueller’s novel and idiotic theory is that Trump’s blackmail payoff was an illegal campaign contribution to himself.
I wonder if that really is the scope of it.
The world may really be about to change. From Donald Trump saves coal from renewables surge from The Weekly Standard and published in The Australian.
No country has a greater abundance of hydrocarbon energy than the US. The corollary is that no country was as big a loser from participating in the Paris Agreement and its intention to progressively decarbonise the world’s hydrocarbon superpower. On July 10, the Energy Information Administration forecast that next year the US would produce 12 million barrels of oil a day and overtake Saudi Arabia to be the world’s No 1 producer. When it comes to the politics of energy, the interests of the US and European green ideology are irreconcilable.
Trump understands this. “Our country is blessed with extraordinary energy abundance, which we didn’t know of even five years ago and certainly 10 years ago,” the President said last year. Those remarks were not only a paean to America’s energy resources, they were a full-dress rejection of the policies of his predecessor and of the Democrats’ goal of Europeanising US energy policy.
“We have nearly 100 years’ worth of natural gas and more than 250 years’ worth of clean, beautiful coal,” he said. “We are a top producer of petroleum and the No 1 producer of natural gas. We have so much more than we ever thought possible. We are really in the driving seat. And you know what? We don’t want to let other countries take away our sovereignty and tell us what to do and how to do it. That’s not going to happen. With these incredible resources, my administration will seek not only American energy independence that we’ve been looking for so long, but American energy dominance.
“And we’re going to be an exporter — exporter. We will be dominant. We will export American energy all over the world … These energy exports will create countless jobs for our people, and provide true energy security to our friends, partners and allies all across the globe.”
For the first time since 1992, when George HW Bush went to the Rio Earth Summit, a US president was outlining a global energy strategy diametrically opposed to the tenets underlying the UN climate process. Trump was establishing a rival pole based on energy realism and energy abundance.
On just this alone, PDT can lift the American economy into a prolonged period of rising growth and higher incomes. It’s amazing that no one else has the strength and courage to do the same anywhere else.
There are two views on North Korea that you can find if you look. The easiest to find is the left-media take that nothing happened, and it’s all a well-worn charade. But then there is this, which I will come to first before looking at the other. This is the positive view, taken from Ace of Spades.
The big news this morning is not only has the summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un taken place but as we were sleeping the two signed an historic agreement whereby the North has agreed to scrap its nuclear weapons program as part of an overall denuclearization of the entire Korean peninsula.
If you were merely to look at this only through the lens of how the Democrat-Left-Media complex judges success, via optics and feelings alone, then this is the biggest thing since Live Aid. But in reality, this truly has the potential to be one of the biggest foreign policy milestones since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Make no mistake; North Korea has been a belligerent, inscrutable and unpredictable enemy that has overtly and covertly stirred up trouble for nearly 70 years and so an extreme degree of caution and wariness is advised in any dealings with them; the foibles and follies of the past three administrations in particular bear this out as their policies have ranged from farcical to disastrous in terms of American interests and global security. I believe that PDT and his new team of Pompeo and Bolton know this going in.
Beyond all the platitudes and proclamations, when you get down to the granular level, the make or break in all of this relies on verification. North Korea is going to have to open up and submit to an inspection process that is antithetical to its nature as the world’s most closed, secretive nation. Can it do this? Will it do this? I suppose the fact that Kim’s willingness to meet face to face with an American president for the first time, and outside of his own country is something of a tell. He is the X factor in all of this. There may be things going on in Pyongyang as well as in his mind that tell him a rapprochement with the US, and more importantly, a concomitant distancing to whatever extent that is possible with China is in his and his nation’s best interests.
That is how you have to see it. Since memories of the rockets that were being launched not all that long ago have receded and will never be brought to mind by the media, the fact that we are now looking at a possibility of genuine peace is extraordinary. But here is the other side, brought to you via Bloomberg.
Donald Trump’s historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was unquestionably a success — for Kim.
By credibly threatening the U.S. with nuclear war, he won a one-on-one meeting with the American president — a longtime strategic goal of his family’s regime. And that’s not all.
Trump tossed in a suspension of military exercises with South Korea, while China suggested revisiting economic sanctions that the White House credits for the summit. Meanwhile, the president showered Kim with praise, calling the dictator who leads one of the planet’s most oppressive and brutal regimes “smart” and “very talented,” declaring the meeting “a great honour” and saying he trusts Kim.
Less clear is what the U.S. got in return. American officials said before the meeting they would insist that Kim agree to the “complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement” of his nuclear weapons arsenal. The phrase appears nowhere in Trump and Kim’s statement.
Also missing: basics such as a timetable for Kim to give up his weapons, verification procedures or even a mutual definition of denuclearization. . . .
So far, Trump hasn’t shown he’ll avoid the same trap he’s accused his predecessors of falling into: giving North Korea too much without getting anything in return. While the president repeatedly described the document he and Kim signed as “comprehensive,” at 426 words it is anything but — and there is no indication of when or how Kim will follow through on any of his promises.
Fair enough, but the mingy dogs of the left will never say a good word about something done that benefits even their worthless hides, if it is done by someone whose approval they refuse to grant. But we shall see. These are all issues, but with Trump, Bolton and Pompeo on the watch, there is genuine reasons to hope for the best.
UNDERSTANDING THE ATMOSPHERICS: From a comment at Powerline:
Not a formally educated engineer or scientist, but I understand how things work (passed with flying colors the IC2/3 petty officer test without ever going to “A” school. I just looked at the gear and figured out how it worked.)
The one thing I understood very, very quickly (playing around with ham radio as a pre-teen) was signal to noise ratio. Anyone that understands that concept knows what Trump is doing. Lawyers rarely learn this skill. Their avocation (skill set) is to dissect every comma and period for meaning. To skilled/gifted science/engineering types finding the signal and ignoring the noise is easy peasy with Trump.
In other words take him seriously, but not literally — but that is like garlic to a vampire for a lawyer — most lawyers rank way down the scale from vampires
This is also why I know for a fact that man is not controlling the temperature of the atmosphere by using a quick study of signal to noise ratios of temp data over the long term. If you understand that concept and look at the data (even the climate hysterics data) you see for sure that man has nothing to do with climate — except maybe to move to one that suites you.
Trump blasts Canada’s Trudeau for ‘false statements’…
Rough talks sour G7 mood; Confrontations…
Trump refuses to back declaration calling for tariff reductions…
Holds rare solo news conference, defends bashing press…
Comes with this:
TRUMP APPROVAL TOPS OBAMA AND REAGAN AT SAME TIME IN PRESIDENCY…
I actually cannot understand why anyone with sense would have preferred Hillary to PDT but by now, if you are not completely persuaded that Trump is our last chance for the West to hold itself together, then your political judgement is good for nothing. Like this in particular:
“The EU understands that the only way with Trump is strength,” said one European official. “If you give in now, he will come back tomorrow for more.”
Hope things continue with his meeting with Kim (the other Kim) on Tuesday.
Go on. Play it!
With this from Media blackout: Trump’s 60-point accomplishment list of ‘American Greatness’.
In his first 500 days in office President Donald J. Trump has achieved results domestically and internationally for the American people.
AMERICA’S ECONOMY IS STRONGER: The American economy is stronger today and American workers are better off thanks to President Trump’s pro-growth agenda.
AMERICA IS WINNING ON THE WORLD STAGE: President Trump has re-asserted American leadership on the world stage and is achieving results for the American people.
AMERICA’S COMMUNITIES ARE SAFER AND MORE SECURE: President Trump has worked to secure our borders, enforce our immigration laws, and protect the safety and security of American communities.
AMERICA’S GOVERNMENT IS MORE ACCOUNTABLE: Since taking office, President Trump has worked to ensure government is more accountable to the American people.
From my far-left Californian ex-mate who represents every aspect of the insanity projected by anyone with TDS. Which brings me to this, which is not at all sympathetic, but at least gets discussed: Trump turns North Korea into an attack on the Democrats claiming they are ‘rooting against us in our negotiations’. The sub-headings:
The actual tweet from the President:
Which part of any of this is untrue?
The reply from the North Koreans.
N.K. NEWS
N. Korea says open to talks with U.S. anytime
2018/05/25 08:18
SEOUL, May 25 (Yonhap) — A top North Korean official said Friday his country is still willing to talk with the U.S., responding to President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to pull out of his planned summit with the North’s leader.
Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan issued a statement carried by the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). It came hours after Trump announced the surprise decision to withdraw from his summit with Kim Jong-un set for June 12.
“We express our willingness to sit down face-to-face with the U.S. and resolve issues anytime and in any format,” he said in the statement.
Kim said the U.S.’ decision to cancel the upcoming talks demonstrates how serious the animosity between the North and the U.S. remains, which he said underlines the urgent need of a summit between the leaders of the two countries.
He said that the North Korean leader has made all-out efforts to prepare for the summit with the U.S., saying his meeting with Trump will serve as a good start.
“Despite all of this, the U.S.’ unilateral decision to scrap the talks causes us to reconsider whether all of the efforts and the path we have taken is really the right one or not,” he said.
Kim said that the North remains open to talks with the U.S.
“Our commitment to doing our best for the sake of peace and stability for the world and the Korean Peninsula remains unchanged, and we are open-minded in giving time and opportunity to the U.S.,” he said.
In a publicly disclosed letter to the North Korean leader, Trump said Thursday night (Seoul time) that the cancellation was due to the “tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement.”
Trump apparently pointed to the remarks by Choe Son-hui earlier Thursday in which the North’s vice foreign minister lambasted U.S. Vice President Mike Pence for bringing up a Libya-style approach in ridding the North of its nuclear program and threatened to walk away from the summit with the U.S.
“I want to conclude that President Trump’s stance on the North-U.S. summit does not meet the world’s desire for peace and stability both in the world and on the Korean Peninsula,” Kim said.
“The tremendous anger and open hostility that President Trump mentioned is just a backlash in response to a unilateral denuclearization being pushed ahead of the planned North-U.S summit,” he added.
(END)
We still don’t know how this will end, but the fact remains that leaving any issue of importance in the hands of the left is such stupidity that only people on the left are that stupid. And there are apparently quite a lot of them, not one of whom has any useful suggestion on how to stop North Korea from possessing nuclear weapons.
I should also add this for additional detail: Kim’s boom or bust: North Korea responds to Trump’s call for ‘action’ with video they claim shows the demolition of a nuclear test site after urging U.S. to rethink summit cancellation, offering to meet ‘any time, any way’.
Law of Markets 