The Washington Post - Trump administration faces an increasingly adversarial Congress - in both parties

January 30 at 7:51 PM

 

Senior Republicans are warning him away from a national emergency declaration to build a border wall.

 

The top Senate leader is directly rebuking his national ­security policy in Syria and Afghanistan.

 

And Democratic committee chairs are threatening subpoenas for his top officials.

 

For an administration that had largely been accommodated by Republican lawmakers during its first two years, President Trump is facing an increasingly adversarial Congress eager to assert itself on matters of foreign policy and oversight.

 

Senate Republicans - fresh off a bruising fight over the longest government shutdown in history - are sending fresh signals of discontent, challenging the administration on foreign policy and imploring it to stay out, for now, of talks to avert another shutdown next month.

 

And in the House, where Democrats came into power largely on a promise to serve as a check on the president, several Cabinet secretaries have already declined to testify before committees on contentious topics such as the impact of the shutdown and the administration’s abandoned policy of separating migrant families. ...

 

Ive noticed that recently, since the shutdown ended. Eraly on there were a few murmurings as a few GOP people did not like Trump, that seemed to generally fade in the media, but lately its almost like a slow campaign starting up. If 2020 election was in 4 months time, I feel this discontent would be rampant

There is so many Trump downsides on CNN today, but I like this one. Its more about the rest of the article than Foxconn. The fake promises of job creation

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/30/politics/trump-foxconn-manufacturing/index.html

The New York Times - An Angry Trump Pushes Back Against His Own ‘Naive’ Intelligence Officials

Jan. 30, 2019

 

WASHINGTON — President Trump lashed out at the nation’s intelligence agencies on Wednesday, accusing them of being “passive and naive” about the dangers posed by Iran, and defending his handling of Afghanistan, North Korea and the Islamic State.

 

A day after the agencies issued their annual assessment of global threats - warning of malefactors like China and the Islamic State - Mr. Trump reignited a long-simmering feud with his own government, reacting as if the report was a threat to him personally.

 

“Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!” he declared on Twitter in an indignant early morning post.

 

In another, Mr. Trump said, “The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong!”

 

Normally, the “Worldwide Threat Assessment” is an annual bureaucratic exercise, a dispassionate survey of the threats facing the United States - some longstanding, some new - that the White House accepts without much comment. ...

 

TRUMP COMES OUT STRONGLY AGAINST INTELLIGENCE

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Using some of his harshest rhetoric in recent memory, President Donald J. Trump came out strongly against intelligence on Wednesday morning.

“I’ve listened to these people with so-called intelligence go on and on, and, quite frankly, it’s a waste of time,” he said. “I know a lot more than people with intelligence do.”

Trump added that he has stopped receiving intelligence briefings at the White House, arguing, “I can do my job without any intelligence whatsoever.”

He said that he has chosen, instead, to seek advice from his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and from his elder children, Ivanka, Eric, and Donald, Jr. “You won’t find a trace of intelligence in anything they say,” he boasted.

At a briefing for the White House press corps, the President’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, denied that Trump’s war on intelligence was a new development. “Intelligence has never played a role in Donald Trump’s life,” she said.

Great post!

Batman: Trump has announced he is pulling out or is wanting to pull out of nuclear pact to join the nuclear arms race.

Thats a hard one. He doesnt like the pact, Russia is apparently not complying

Rikkitic:The truth is finally revealed: God is on their side.

Un-f***ing believable! Just when you think the whole situation can't get any crazier, you get this!

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the 'Founding Fathers' - the guys wrote the Constitution - specifically frame it to separate Church from State?

I know Trump is actually the son of Christ (true fact) but to claim that a Deity intervened in the 2016 election is going way too far.

(BTW: Another true fact: Trump was born in Jamaica. Look it up)

Batman: Trump has announced he is pulling out or is wanting to pull out of nuclear pact to join the nuclear arms race.

As much as I dislike Trump, this is kinda-sorta fake news. For starters, the Russians have already effectively pulled out of it with some of their recently revealed weapons being in violation. However, they in turn are only following suit because whilst the INF treaty forbids land based missiles within a certain band of effective ranges, it does not forbid air or sea launched missiles in those same ranges. And of course, if you have an air or sea launched missile already it is a relatively trivial matter to make it launchable from land. And that's pretty much exactly what happened. The US had several missiles that were only not in violation because there weren't any in land launchers. For example, the nuclear armed Tomahawk - which to be fair has since been retired from the Navy.

Anyway - it's a long story, but it didn't start with Trump.

Rikkitic:Comparisons of America with the fall of the Roman Empire are a bit hackneyed so I have mixed feelings about posting this, but on reflection I still think it is worth a look.

 

Definitely worth a read.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm constantly gobsmacked by the mind-numbingly stupid behavior of supposedly intelligent U.S. citizens, and while reading these posts I find myself muttering, 'OMG! Unbelievable! Incredible! What's wrong with these people? How could this happen?' etc etc.

The science of Clio-dynamics that's described in the linked article goes a long way toward providing a logical analysis of the mass insanity that's rampant in the U.S. today.

geekIT:

 

Rikkitic:Comparisons of America with the fall of the Roman Empire are a bit hackneyed so I have mixed feelings about posting this, but on reflection I still think it is worth a look.

 

 

Definitely worth a read.

 

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm constantly gobsmacked by the mind-numbingly stupid behavior of supposedly intelligent U.S. citizens, and while reading these posts I find myself muttering, 'OMG! Unbelievable! Incredible! What's wrong with these people? How could this happen?' etc etc.

 

The science of Clio-dynamics that's described in the linked article goes a long way toward providing a logical analysis of the mass insanity that's rampant in the U.S. today.

 

I agree. I also wonder why this thread is used by only a few of us. Makes me wonder why

gzt: There was some debate in the beginning of this topic. The last mildly pro-trump policy supporters appearing here were not constructively engaged with as I recall. That's probably why. It's been a while..

Yep, I remember them, no I mean others. I would assume that the vast majority of people here or anywhere outside of the US would be anti Trump, and there are many quite active contributors here, just seems odd that there aren't more. His actions do affect the world, not just the US. Maybe there are more Trump supporters than I am expecting, or maybe many don't really care, after all, its off topic. I do recall one user saying this is a crazy thread, referring to the posts made.