Trump era: Fascist dawn, or road to liberation?

[angelburst29]

Pneumonia again, like with Hillary? And his wife hospitalized with viral bronchitis.
Seems like the patology, besides the brain, negatively affects the lungs as well.

I should not say this but I just can't bring myself to sending them a get well card (Unless there is one out there that includes psychopathy as an illness).

Your comment brought to mind, something Barbara Bush remarked in an 2003 interview:

Did Barbara Bush say she didn't want to waste her 'beautiful mind' on the casualities sustained during the war in Iraq?

Barbara Bush ‘Beautiful Mind’ Quote
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/barbara.asp

Former First Lady Barbara Bush said of the war in Iraq: “Why should we hear about (body bags and deaths)? It’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?”

(Fill in blank)?

 

[JGeropoulas]

Trump Mulling Reneging on Another Campaign Pledge, Thanks to Ivanka and Jared Kushner
Posted on Zero Hedge
_http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-19/trump-mulling-reneging-another-campaign-pledge-thanks-ivanka-and-jared-kushner

The global warming activist democrats in Trump's White House, led by Ivanka and Jared Kushner, are trying to convince the President to reneg on yet another campaign pledge, against the advice of Steve Bannon.

According to Bloomberg, a pro Paris bloc in his administration, which targets greenhouse emissions, is recruiting energy companies to lobby the President to remain in the controversial agreement that he specifically said was a waste of money during the campaign.
...
Both Steve Bannon and EPA head, Scott Pruitt want out of the agreement. But, since Trump's fashion designer daughter wants to keep her liberal NYC friends, the President is said to be weighing his options.
...
The administration will decide what to do before late next month, when world leaders gather for the Group of Seven summit in Italy, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said.
...
Not every energy executive is on board. Coal baron Robert E. Murray has been outspoken in criticizing the deal, arguing it’s "just a way for other countries to get American money."

Sec. of State, Rex Tillerson, warned that backing out of the deal might cause (Europe) to retaliate by boycotting US businesses.

 

[JGeropoulas]

There is little-to-no dirt on Kushner; only Roger Stone's claim that he's leaking White House info to the press (ie, behind Trump's back). I find that unlikely. It's his father-in-law! Kushner's own father, however, is certainly one interesting mobster...

Democratic Donor Receives Two-Year Prison Sentence

New York Times, March 5, 2005

Charles Kushner, a multimillionaire real estate executive, philanthropist and one of the top Democratic donors in the country, was sentenced on Friday to two years in federal prison after pleading guilty to 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign donations.

Mr. Kushner, 50, built a construction business begun by his father into a private real estate empire that owned more than 25,000 apartments, millions of square feet of commercial and industrial space and thousands of acres of developable land.

But Mr. Kushner also became embroiled in a bitter family feud over the business and how proceeds were distributed. That dispute, plus his growing prominence as a political financier, helped lead to his downfall. The intrafamily acrimony was such that Mr. Kushner retaliated against his brother-in-law, who was cooperating with federal authorities, by hiring a prostitute to seduce him. He then arranged to have a secretly recorded videotape of the encounter sent to his sister, the man's wife.

I lean more toward "like father, like son" and "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" viewpoint, especially after reading this: https://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,43985.msg710478.html#msg710478

Peter Kaplan was a great student of character…and my understanding of Kushner's character was formed by closed-door conversations with Peter. He told me that Kushner was smart, ambitious, and full of hubris…(and that) "Jared has ice in his veins."…"

Kushner told me about his Holocaust background, his grandparents who barely survived, and his regard for Israel. When I got back (from a fact-finding trip to Hebron) Kushner couldn't wait to hear what I had seen.. But when I started talking about the "occupation", the room went cold as the poles, and Kushner gazed right through me with those unsmiling dark little eyes.

 

[JGeropoulas]

Pneumonia again, like with Hillary? And his wife hospitalized with viral bronchitis.
Seems like the pathology, besides the brain, negatively affects the lungs as well.

Would make perfect sense for psychopaths because breath=life & creation, non-breath=death & entropy.

 

[angelburst29]

There is little-to-no dirt on Kushner; only Roger Stone's claim that he's leaking White House info to the press (ie, behind Trump's back). I find that unlikely. It's his father-in-law! Kushner's own father, however, is certainly one interesting mobster...

Democratic Donor Receives Two-Year Prison Sentence

My impression of Roger Stone is that he is always "stirring the pot", so to speak, "planting seeds" to add to the chaos?

Oliver Stone blasts Trump: “He’s taken off handcuffs on war machine and turned it over to glorified Generals”
http://theduran.com/oliver-stone-blasts-president-trump-hes-taken-off-handcuffs-on-war-machine-and-turned-it-over-to-his-glorified-generals/

It seems, by indications in this article, that Jared Kushner's Father was into dirty politics (among other things) and very vindictive in "settling scores" with his rivals? By extension, Jared has involved himself in taking care of "family business" by kicking Chris Christie out the door?

The feud between Jared Kushner and Bannon is not the first personality conflict Kushner has had with members of the Trump team. The first demonstration of Kushner's powerful influence over Trump was evidenced in his firing of Trump transition team chairman New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and his loyalists, who included former U.S. Representative Mike Rogers and Matthew Freedman. For Kushner, the firings were an ultimate payback for Christie. While the U.S. Attorney for Northern New Jersey, Christie successfully prosecuted Kushner's father for tax evasion, witness tampering, and illegal campaign contributions. Christie wanted a three-year prison sentence for the elder Kushner but he ended up serving a year at a federal penitentiary in Alabama.

Jared Kushner: A Suspected Gangster Within the Trump White House
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/04/17/jared-kushner-suspected-gangster-within-trump-white-house.html

Jared Kushner has been acting like "a bull in a china shop" with the NSC and I'm wondering if that might be "by design" with Trump backing him, sort of like running "counter interference" - due to Trump being blocked from fulfilling his campaign promises and dragging the process in getting his nominations to fill positions?

Officials say Kushner taking unprecedented role to interfere in foreign policy matters.

New Front In White House Civil War as Kushner Asserts Authority at NSC
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/new-front-in-white-house-civil-war-as-kushner-asserts-authority-at-nsc/

White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner is leading an unprecedented effort to meddle in the White House's National Security Council, causing mayhem for senior staff who say the president's son-in-law is interfering in key foreign policy debates, according to Trump administration officials who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.

Kushner has taken aggressive action to micro-manage the NSC, overshadowing even recently installed National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster,
according to sources both inside and outside the White House who described Kushner's behavior as highly unusual and damaging to the country's national security infrastructure.

Never before has a White House permitted such a figure to intervene in the NSC, which is traditionally given leeway to investigate foreign policy matters and bring advice to the president.

Sources who spoke to the Free Beacon described wide-ranging frustration at the NSC over Kushner's influence over some of the most important foreign policy portfolios, such as Iraq, Israel, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and China, among others.

Senior NSC staff are finding their hands tied when it comes to performing even perfunctory duties, such as talking points and statements on high profile issues that must go through Kushner for approval. Sources who spoke to the Free Beacon described this level of involvement as kneecapping the NSC and contributing to its difficulties formulating policy.

"Kushner is meddling in a lot of things," according to one NSC official who spoke to the Free Beacon only on background. "Such direct control of foreign policy from the West Wing has never happened before. It just creates a lot of drama. People just don't know how to deal with it. We're respectful of his position, but it's confusing the policymaking process."

Officials working at the NSC, State Department, and Department of Defense "are not happy that Jared is so powerful in foreign policy," said one White House official. "They are expected to implement the president's agenda, but have no input or ability to get ideas in front of Jared. It's a one-man show and that's creating a lot of frustration."

The installation of Dina Powell, a confidant of Kushner's wife Ivanka, to the NSC is said to have been orchestrated by Kushner in order to solidify his power over the foreign policy organization, sources said. This helps Kushner keep tabs on the NSC's day-to-day operations, another move that is said to be causing conflict between the NSC and the West Wing.

Kushner, in many ways, has even overshadowed McMaster, who sources described as seeking to avoid infighting in the White House. This has only minimized his power on the NSC, officials said.

On the other hand, Bannon's team is said to be more respectful and willing to defer to the organization as West Wing staffers have traditionally done under past administrations.

"Jared has been pegged as the ‘shadow secretary of state,'" said the White House official. "But in a way he's kind of also the shadow national security adviser and secretary of defense."

The situation has weakened the NSC and caused internal confusion as to what exactly the administration's policy is when it comes to a range of key issues.

The Free Beacon highlighted this issue in a report earlier this year about the Trump administration's inability to provide direction over key aspects of the Iran nuclear deal, specifically the U.S. sale of airplanes to Tehran.

"On routine issues, we still don't know what our policy is," said the NSC official. "So when we get basic requests from foreign counterparts, we can't weigh in authoritatively."

Update 4:01 p.m.: Following publication of this article, a White House spokesperson told the Free Beacon the NSC was running smoothly.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," the spokesperson said. "The NSC is running beautifully under the leadership of General McMaster who has installed an exceptional team to execute on behalf of the president."

 

[Voyageur]

Have been trying to catch up on this Jared Kushner business, and aside from what I've read and watched so far, and with a random look from within Canada, it escaped my notice that Kushner flew to Calgary, Alberta in January and hung out with Justin Trudeau and his Ottawa team for a few days (in retreat). In February, when Trudeau was in Washington, he spent the evening with Trumps daughter, Ivanka at a Broadway musical:

Broadway musical Come From Away, the Canadian show about the Newfoundland town that took in stranded Americans on Sept. 11, 2001. It was his second olive branch to her in just over a month.

- _https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/03/16/daughter-diplomacy-trudeaus-unorthodox-play-for-donald-trumps-approval.html

The link was from the Star, so the usual gossip and innuendos were described. Of the Calgary trip, this is what was written:

A top adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump plans to hold talks in Canada on Tuesday with members of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's team, a source familiar with the matter said on Monday.

Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, will travel to Calgary, Alberta, where Trudeau and his cabinet are holding a two-day retreat focused largely on the new U.S. administration.

The talks will make him the first member of the Trump administration to travel abroad and underlines the 35-year-old son-in-law of the president's importance in the White House.

It may also be in part due to the lack of cabinet members who can take part in such a mission, with Rex Tillerson not yet approved by the Senate as secretary of state. Neither is WIlbur Ross, his trade secretary pick.

The federal ethics watchdog ruled at the weekend that a 1967 nepotism law did not apply to the President himself, opening the way for Kushner to be sworn in as his senior advisor.

He and his wife Ivanka Trump are moving into a new home in Kalorama, the upscale D.C. section where they will become neighbors of the Obama.
[...]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4148118/Top-Trump-aide-plans-talks-Canada-Trudeau-team-source.html#ixzz4exOBkIFL

This past week, it was Trump shouting out a few remarks about milk and dairy farmers in Wisconsin and how Canada was bad - no substance to what he said as Wisconsin has more dairy cows than all of Canada and is awash in milk they can't get rid of, or so some U.S. dairy farmers have mentioned.

Ultimately, the renegotiation on NAFTA and the other primary agreement is a given. In this respect, the Trudeau government has already pulled brown-bag (BB) ex-PM Mulroney out from whatever he does these days to advise the government on NAFTA/agreements. Mulroney was one the original architects (he claimed) for the original agreements. Of this, Shelley Ann Clark describe the original negotiations from Canada's side, _https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2n1UaW-94U and if this had some true bearing, what a cold calculated mess.

Back to BB Mulroney

'Mulroney back on Parliament Hill as NAFTA broker' - http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/mulroney-back-on-parliament-hill-as-nafta-broker-1.3357441

April 6, 2017 6:16PM EDT

OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Trudeau and his cabinet praised former prime minister Brian Mulroney for giving them useful advice during a closed-door meeting Thursday on the upcoming renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

It was part of an unprecedented display of non-partisan co-operation, a healing of old political wounds and unity in the name of managing a new, wildly unpredictable U.S. presidency.

There was also a hint of deja vu. A smiling Mulroney, who departed politics more than a quarter century ago, said it was "as if I never left" as he exited the hallway from the Centre Block's cabinet room.

The show among nations goes on...

 

[Glenn]

'Mulroney back on Parliament Hill as NAFTA broker' - http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/mulroney-back-on-parliament-hill-as-nafta-broker-1.3357441

Quote

April 6, 2017 6:16PM EDT

OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Trudeau and his cabinet praised former prime minister Brian Mulroney for giving them useful advice during a closed-door meeting Thursday on the upcoming renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

It was part of an unprecedented display of non-partisan co-operation, a healing of old political wounds and unity in the name of managing a new, wildly unpredictable U.S. presidency.

There was also a hint of deja vu. A smiling Mulroney, who departed politics more than a quarter century ago, said it was "as if I never left" as he exited the hallway from the Centre Block's cabinet room.


The show among nations goes on...

Pretty sad that they are bringing this old boot (Mulroney)back into the limelight.

And 'healing of old political wounds' is just for show, as they are on the same team. Puppets for the same masters. Mulroney left as one of the most hated Prime Ministers of all time, and left the party in ruins.

Trudeau and his team must be pretty rudderless to have to bring this guy out of retirement. Trudeau to me., has shown himself to be only a pretty face, and an empty head. A lot were glad to get rid of Harper, but Trudeau has done nothing of substance to change anything, and has in fact shown himself to be a willing puppet to Washington, NATO etc. So another case of, new boss, same as the old boss.

As far as NAFTA goes, I am not sure what leverage they have anyway. I guess they don't trust Trudeau with whatever negotiations that might come up.

 

[angelburst29]

What could go wrong?

Washington D.C. To Hold Massive “Coordinated Terror Attack” Drill This Wednesday
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-24/washington-dc-area-hold-massive-drill-preparation-complex-coordinated-terror-attack-

April 26th is shaping up to be a busy day.

As we reported on Friday, that’s when Operation Gotham Shield, an exercise involving FEMA, Homeland Security and a myriad of law enforcement and military agencies and which simulates a nuclear bomb blast over Manhattan, is set to conclude.

Then, as we learned earlier, April 26 is also when the entire Senate will be briefed by Donald Trump and his four top defense and military officials on the situation in North Korea at the White House, an event which Reuters dubbed as “unusual.”

April 26 is also when the USS Carl Vinson is expected to finally arrive off the coast of the Korean Penninsula.

Now, in a statement from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, the regional association reports that “law enforcement officials and other first responders will participate in a full-scale exercise on April 26 designed to prepare for the possibility of a complex coordinated terror attack in the National Capital Region.”

The statement adds that emergency managers who work together at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) planned the exercise to help protect residents by preparing for an attack involving multiple target locations and teams of perpetrators.

The exercise will be conducted across a widespread geographical area. According to the release, the regional exercise will be staged at six sites in the District of Columbia, suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia, and will involve hundreds of police, fire, and emergency medical service personnel and volunteer actors.

The locations include neighborhoods in the northeast and southeast quadrants of the District of Columbia, Prince George’s County, and Arlington and Fairfax Counties. Residents in those neighborhoods will be notified ahead of time to expect the exercise.

According to Scott Boggs, Managing Director of Homeland Security and Public Safety at COG, “Law enforcement officials practice and exercise their skills on their own regularly because that’s the best way to ensure we are always ready to respond quickly and professionally. On April 26, we’ll go one step further and stage a very realistic emergency event involving multiple sites and actors posing as the casualties. However, there is no reason for residents to be alarmed because the exercise will occur in a controlled environment.”

The is scheduled to take place near or at George Mason University, and last from 8;30am until 4:30pm.

The statement also advises that the only media availability will be in a one hour block before the exercise, from 7:30am – 8:30am on April 26.

Full statement below (link).

Full-scale exercise focused on preparing for complex terror attacks to include National Capital Region first responders, emergency managers. ETC.

Top Trump administration officials will hold a rare briefing on Wednesday at the White House for the entire U.S. Senate on the situation in North Korea.

Entire U.S. Senate to go to White House for North Korea briefing
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-usa-senate-idUSKBN17Q1LR

All 100 senators have been asked to the White House for the briefing by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Monday.

US President Donald Trump said Saturday he will be holding a big campaign rally for supporters on April 29, the night of the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, DC.

Trump Plans 'Big' Rally for Night of White House Correspondents' Dinner
https://sputniknews.com/us/201704231052896055-trump-correspondents-dinner-rally/

The rally, marking Trump's 100th day in office, is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. next Saturday in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The White House hasn't yet provided additional details about the event.

In February, Trump announced via Twitter that he would skip the annual dinner at the Washington Hilton, which he had attended (and been roundly mocked during) in past years as a guest alongside high-ranking lawmakers, political journalists and celebrities. His staff also turned down invitations to be guests at the event, for the first time since its inception in 1921.

A Fox News correspondent and anchor was named as the Trump administration’s new lead foreign policy spokesperson, the US Department of State said in a media note on Monday.

Fox News Anchor Named as Trump’s Chief Foreign Policy Spokesperson
https://sputniknews.com/us/201704251052960880-fox-news-anchor-trump-spokesman/

Veteran Fox News correspondent and anchor Heather Nauert has been named as the Trump administration’s new lead foreign policy spokesperson.

"The Department of State is pleased to welcome Heather Nauert as the new State Department Spokesperson," the note stated. "Nauert comes to the Department with more than 15 years of experience as an anchor and correspondent covering both foreign and domestic news and events."

Among other roles at Fox, Nauert reported on the morning news show "Fox and Friends."

She was previously a network correspondent for ABC News.

 

[shijing]

It looks like Trump has been making dinner plans with problematic people the last couple of days, according to the 1600 Daily:

MORNING:
10:00AM: President Trump has a video conference with NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station
11:30AM: President Trump has a working lunch with ambassadors of countries on the United Nations Security Council

AFTERNOON:
2:30PM: President Trump signs a proclamation on Holocaust Remembrance
3:00PM: President Trump hosts a credential ceremony for newly appointed ambassadors to Washington, D.C.
4:30PM: President Trump meets with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford
5:30PM: President Trump participates in a reception with conservative media
6:30PM: President Trump has dinner with Senator John McCain, Mrs. Cindy McCain, and Senator Lindsey Graham

MORNING:
11:20AM: President Trump gives remarks at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s National Days of Remembrance
11:35AM: President Trump participates in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s National Days of Remembrance

AFTERNOON:
1:45PM: President Trump meets with Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin
2:15PM: President Trump has a meeting on tax reform
3:00PM: President Trump participates in a farmers’ roundtable and signing of the Executive Order Promoting Agriculture and Rural Prosperity in America
5:30PM: President Trump meets with National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster

 

[NormaRegula]

With regards to McCaine and Graham, it might be a case of holding your enemies closer. Who knows? The both of them are scum. I'm sure they still despise Trump despite their collective swoon when the bombs recently hit Syria.

H. R McMaster is also a war-mongering creep and should never have been placed as National Security Advisor.

Oh, well. I hold very little hope that Trump is playing a clever game of chess with the PTB. I'm just waiting for the comets to hit as a suitable finale to this freak show. Must admit, it is interesting to observe from a distance. Kinda like a really bad movie that you can't stop watching.

 

[goyacobol]

With regards to McCaine and Graham, it might be a case of holding your enemies closer. Who knows? The both of them are scum. I'm sure they still despise Trump despite their collective swoon when the bombs recently hit Syria.

H. R McMaster is also a war-mongering creep and should never have been placed as National Security Advisor.

Oh, well. I hold very little hope that Trump is playing a clever game of chess with the PTB. I'm just waiting for the comets to hit as a suitable finale to this freak show. Must admit, it is interesting to observe from a distance. Kinda like a really bad movie that you can't stop watching.

At least when Trump was on The Apprentice he could just say "you're fired". Not so easy now is it? Of course that wasn't really quite a "reality show". I know how you feel this "reality" looks almost surreal rather than real, a "bad movie that you can't stop watching". I think we are learning by watching but maybe not exactly what we might be expecting. That makes it difficult to "anticipate" which may be good I think.

 

[angelburst29]

What could go wrong?

Washington D.C. To Hold Massive “Coordinated Terror Attack” Drill This Wednesday
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-24/washington-dc-area-hold-massive-drill-preparation-complex-coordinated-terror-attack-

April 26 is also when the entire Senate will be briefed by Donald Trump and his four top defense and military officials on the situation in North Korea at the White House, an event which Reuters dubbed as “unusual.”

Now, in a statement from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, the regional association reports that “law enforcement officials and other first responders will participate in a full-scale exercise on April 26 designed to prepare for the possibility of a complex coordinated terror attack in the National Capital Region.”

The exercise will be conducted across a widespread geographical area. According to the release, [bthe regional exercise will be staged at six sites in the District of Columbia, suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia, [/b] and will involve hundreds of police, fire, and emergency medical service personnel and volunteer actors.

... the exercise will occur in a controlled environment.”

Entire U.S. Senate to go to White House for North Korea briefing
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-usa-senate-idUSKBN17Q1LR

All 100 senators have been asked to the White House for the briefing by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Monday.

Trump Plans 'Big' Rally for Night of White House Correspondents' Dinner
https://sputniknews.com/us/201704231052896055-trump-correspondents-dinner-rally/

The rally, marking Trump's 100th day in office, is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. next Saturday in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The White House hasn't yet provided additional details about the event.

Since reading about this Drill planned in our Nation's Capital, I have had a really uneasy feeling? Something feels out of place to me? Maybe, it's my false assumption that, next to the Pentagon, Washington, D.C. has been outfitted with the same high profile security measures and personnel to handle a variety of breeches and scenarios? There's even a "no-fly-zone" over the Nation's Capital and the Pentagon, other than "authorized use." So why - in a highly secure and sensitive area, is a “full scale” Drill (chaos) permitted - that involves hundreds of volunteer actors, emergency medical service workers, firefighters and police officers, conducted across a widespread geographical area? In this case - six cities in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area including cities in Maryland and Northern Virginia. I don't have a map in front of me but isn't Maryland and Northern Virginia - the two main routes into Washington?

Then there's the statement, "the exercise will occur in a controlled environment” O.K.? Meaning ... in the environment of 6 D.C. cities and in two States, Maryland and Virginia. Sounds more like a controlled "lock-down" in the form of "a Drill" that's a diversion tactic of some kind?

While all of this is going on, Trump has requested that all 100 Senators meet him in the White House, instead of the Senate, for a meeting. This request is considered "a first" and breaking normal protocol. Also, take in consideration, this date is only 3 days away from Trump's first 100 days in the White House, an accomplishment - which several in the media have expressed, "would be met with assassination" prior to that 100 day marker?

I can only speculate but is Trump afraid of an assassination attempt, if he goes to the Senate, instead of insisting on the White House? Going back in history, wasn't Julius Caesar assassinated in the Senate House?

Shijing Posted some interesting information:

Quote from: April 24, 2017
4:30PM: President Trump meets with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford
6:30PM: President Trump has dinner with Senator John McCain, Mrs. Cindy McCain, and Senator Lindsey Graham

Quote from: April 25, 2017
5:30PM: President Trump meets with National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster

Joseph Dunford and H. R. McMaster are top Pentagon brass, while Senator's John McCain and Lindsey Graham are his strongest adversaries. I would also add, U.S. Secretary of Defense James "Mad Dog" Mattis to the list - of those who have worked against Trump's policies and Presidential nomination pledges. There are other's but I consider these 5 to be main players working against Trump.

Democrats in the US House of Representatives said that US President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office have been a failure because he has broken campaign promises about healthcare, jobs and the economy among other issues.

US House Democrats Call Trumps First 100 Days a 'Failure' Due to Broken Promises
https://sputniknews.com/us/201704261053036568-us-trump-promises/

"It really has been a 100 days of failure quite frankly for this Administration outside the appointment of Mr. [Neil] Gorsuch as the 9th member of the Supreme Court which took the changing of the Senate rules," Representative Joe Crowley told reporters. "Nothing in terms of jobs and our economy, and nothing to show for in terms of health care, and absolutely nothing to show for draining the swamp."

[...] On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer issued a statement praising Trump's "historic accomplishments" during the first 100 days of his presidency.

According to the White House, Trump has signed more Congressional Review Act resolutions, approved more executive orders and worked with Congress to enact more laws than any other US president has done during his first few months as president.

Depending on how you look at it, it was the Pentagon that staged the bombing of the Syrian airbase and dropping the "Mother of all bombs"? Trump was probably given "short notice" of the planned events, barely enough time to contact Russia and the military? Then Trump, as President is put in the position of taking credit for the deeds - which is against his stated Policies (making him out to be a fool) and giving the World another fresh example - to hate the United States? If - Trump were to be assassinated - the World would rejoice because he bombed Syria and Afghanistan in his first 100 days?

I pray this day passes without incident, including the next three?

 

[angelburst29]

According to Israeli media reports, Donald Trump is attempting to schedule a visit to Israel during his first foreign trip as president.

Trump Seeks to Add Israel Visit to First Overseas Trip as President Next Month
https://sputniknews.com/politics/201704261053035531-us-israel-trump-visit/

US President Donald Trump is attempting to schedule a visit to Israel during his first foreign trip as president, a visit that could coincide with the 50th anniversary of the 1967 war, Israeli media reported on Wednesday.

An Israel trip could be added to Trump’s plans to attend a NATO summit in Brussels on May 25, the Times and other Israeli media outlets reported.

Israel Radio quoted a senior diplomatic official who said the chances of a presidential visit were about 80 percent.

A visit before the NATO summit would coincide with Israel’s celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War, in which Israel captured Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip from Arab armies.

The war itself took place in June 1967, but commemorative events are expected to begin on May 23. The conflict began on that date when Egypt closed the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli bound shipping.

US delegation due on Thursday to prepare trip; president, who has never been to Israel, set for stay of one night, shortly before or after Israel’s 50th Jerusalem Day celebrations.

Trump expected in Israel last week of May; Nikki Haley to visit in June
_http://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-expected-in-israel-in-last-week-of-may-nikki-haley-to-visit-in-june/

Trump administration delegation is expected to arrive in Israel on Thursday to oversee technical arrangements for a visit by President Donald Trump to Israel in the last week of May.

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely confirmed on Wednesday afternoon that preparations for Trump’s visit were at the advanced stage, although it has not yet been finalized, and told Army Radio, “There’s a feeling that we have a real friend in the White House.”

The visit will be Trump’s first ever trip to Israel. Channel 2 said he is expected to stay for one night only, and that it is not yet clear whether he will visit the Palestinian areas. The president hosted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in February and is set to host Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on May 3.

The advance delegation will hold talks at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, and visit possible sites for the president’s itinerary.

On the eve of May 23 and on May 24, Israel will mark Jerusalem Day, celebrating 50 years since the reunification of the city under Israeli control in the 1967 Six Day War. Israel extended sovereignty to East Jerusalem and the Old City and claims the entire city as its capital; the Palestinians seek East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestinian state. The Channel 2 report, noting the resonance of the date for Israelis and Palestinians, said Trump’s visit would not be on Jerusalem Day itself.

The TV report also said that Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, will visit Israel in June. Haley has become a particularly popular member of the Trump administration in Israel and in the pro-Israel community in the US for her repeated castigations of anti-Israel bias at the UN.

No US president has visited Israel in the first months of his term. Richard Nixon was the first serving president to visit, in 1974. Jimmy Carter came in 1979, after brokering the Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt. Bill Clinton visited a record four times, and George W. Bush came twice.

The last serving US president to visit Israel was Barack Obama, who came to Jerusalem for just a few hours to attend the funeral of former president and prime minister Shimon Peres last September. He previously made an official visit to Israel in March 2013. Obama did not visit Israel, however, on his first trip to the Middle East in 2009, which included a landmark outreach speech to the Muslim world delivered in Cairo.

Trump, whose first scheduled foreign trip as president is a visit to Brussels on May 25, is looking to expand on that trip by arriving in Israel on May 21 or in the days after, other Hebrew media reports said.

His trip to Israel will also coincide with an important decision Trump will have to make on whether to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as he promised in his election campaign.

During his election campaign Trump vowed that if victorious he would relocate the US Embassy to Jerusalem, a highly symbolic move valued by Israel as confirmation of the city as its capital, but strongly opposed by Palestinians and the Arab world which want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

However, following meetings with Arab leaders, Trump has appeared to back away from the move, saying only that he was still considering it.

At the end of last year, Obama signed a waiver to prevent moving the embassy to Jerusalem. It was the eighth time that Obama signed the waiver, which must be renewed every six months. This latest waiver expires at the end of May.

Congress passed a law in 1995 mandating the move of the embassy to Jerusalem, but allowed the president to exercise a waiver, citing the national security interests of the United States. Obama’s predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton also signed such waivers.

David Friedman, Trump’s designated US ambassador to Israel, is also a strong supporter of the move, saying in December following the announcement of his nomination that he was eager to begin working from “the US Embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.”

Trump has never visited Israel before.

Last May, during his election campaign, Trump said he planned to visit Israel before the November 18 elections, but the visit never happened.

The then-presumptive GOP nominee backed out of a visit to Israel in December 2016.

At the time of the cancellation, Trump was under heavy criticism for rolling out his proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the US, following deadly terror attacks in Paris and California.

 

[angelburst29]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on tensions on the Korean Peninsula (all times local):

The Latest: Trump makes brief stop in North Korea meeting
https://apnews.com/166c5cb417e94908ab68b03b4a02b0e6/The-Latest:-Senators-arrive-for-extraordinary-Korea-briefing?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP

5:10 p.m.

The White House says President Donald Trump did not attend the entire meeting with senators who gathered to discuss the crisis in North Korea.

An administration official says Trump attended only the first five minutes of the meeting. He delivered opening remarks before handing it over to his national security team.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, presided over the full meeting.

The official spoke anonymously because the details of the meeting have not been made public.

The meeting lasted about one hour and discussed various financial and military options available for pressuring North Korea to end its nuclear program.

 

[angelburst29]

WASHINGTON — President Trump summoned all 100 members of the Senate for a briefing by his war cabinet on the mounting tensions with North Korea. An American submarine loaded with Tomahawk missiles surfaced in a port in South Korea. Gas stations in the North shut down amid rumors that the government was stockpiling fuel.

The Drumbeats Don’t Add Up to Imminent War With North Korea
_https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/world/asia/trump-administration-north-korea.html

Americans could be forgiven for thinking that war is about to break out. But it is not.

The drumbeat of bellicose threats and military muscle-flexing on both sides overstates the danger of a clash between the United States and North Korea, senior Trump administration officials and experts who have followed the Korean crisis for decades said. While Mr. Trump regards the rogue government in the North as his most pressing international problem, he told the senators he was pursuing a strategy that relied heavily on using China’s economic leverage to curb its neighbor’s provocative behavior.

Recent American military moves — like deploying the submarine Michigan and the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson to the waters off the Korean Peninsula — were aimed less at preparing for a pre-emptive strike, officials said, than at discouraging the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, from conducting further nuclear or ballistic missile tests.

“In confronting the reckless North Korean regime, it’s critical that we’re guided by a strong sense of resolve, both privately and publicly, both diplomatically and militarily,” Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., the Pentagon’s top commander in the Pacific, told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.

“We want to bring Kim Jong-un to his senses,” he said, “not to his knees.”

There are other signs that the tensions fall short of war. Mr. Kim continues to appear in public, most recently at a pig farm last weekend. South Koreans are not flooding supermarkets to stock up on food. There is no talk of evacuating cities and no sign the United States is deploying additional forces to South Korea. Nor is the American Embassy in Seoul advising diplomats’ families to leave the country.

All those things happened in the spring of 1994, when President Bill Clinton was considering a pre-emptive strike on a North Korean reactor to prevent the North from extracting plutonium that it could use to make a bomb. That is the closest the United States has come to a military clash with North Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

“The reality is not as tense as the rhetoric on both sides would lead you to believe,” said Joel S. Wit, an expert on North Korea at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

None of this is to say there is no risk of miscalculation that could escalate into hostilities. Mr. Trump’s penchant for provocative statements introduced an element of unpredictability to a relationship in which the uncertainty has historically been on the North Korean side. How Mr. Kim reacts is the major variable in a complicated equation.

North Korea is also steadily adding to its nuclear arsenal and edging closer to testing an intercontinental ballistic missile, tipped with a warhead, that could hit the United States. Intelligence estimates vary on how quickly that could happen, but some say within three years: a timetable that would put a successful test within Mr. Trump’s term in office.

“No previous president has ever been in that situation,” said Victor D. Cha, director of the Asian studies program at Georgetown University, who advised the administration of George W. Bush on North Korea. “I don’t think we’re going to war, but we’re in a different phase.”

Mr. Cha said he viewed the briefing for senators as part of an effort by the White House to signal the seriousness of North Korea to an American public that regards it as a distant, complicated issue. But others criticized the president for being theatrical, with some saying he was using the senators as a prop to burnish his 100-day record.

There was very little, if anything, new,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “It is still unclear what our strategy and policy is.”

Even some Republican senators complained afterward that they had learned little and wondered why they needed to pile into buses for the trip from Capitol Hill to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, where they were seated in an auditorium.

“I’m not sure I would have done it,” said Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. He said he was not sure why the briefing had been timed for this week and begged off further comment, adding, “All I can say is, it was fine.”

White House officials said they had been responding to a request from Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and that Mr. Trump had proposed moving the site of the briefing. He spoke to the senators for less than three minutes, mainly promoting his efforts to persuade President Xi Jinping of China to put more economic pressure on North Korea.

Mr. Trump then turned the briefing over to Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson; Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis; the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats; and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr.

Analysts said it was too early to assess Mr. Trump’s claim that the Chinese were finally cooperating with the United States. Previous presidents believed they had made headway with Beijing, only to have China’s actions fall short of expectations.

The reports of closed gas stations in North Korea were intriguing, analysts said, because they suggested that the North was bracing for a suspension of fuel shipments from China. The Chinese have yet to take such a step, though they have curtailed purchases of North Korean coal.

In a separate briefing for reporters, the White House said Mr. Trump had decided on a strategy that would include diplomacy to persuade China to keep up pressure on its neighbor, as well as military preparations.

A senior White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, declined to discuss the nature of the military preparations or the timetable for seeing a change in North Korea’s behavior. He also said the administration was considering returning North Korea to the government’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

On Thursday morning, the National Security Council will hold a principals committee meeting to weigh economic and military options.

Admiral Harris told lawmakers that North Korea’s recent setbacks in its missile launches would not slow the country’s efforts to achieve its nuclear goals.

“With every test, Kim Jong-un moves closer to his stated goal of a pre-emptive nuclear strike capability against American cities, and he’s not afraid to fail in public,” he told the House Armed Services Committee in a hearing on security challenges in the region.

Admiral Harris welcomed China’s role in influencing the North, but also singled it out for criticism. “While recent actions by Beijing are encouraging and welcome, the fact remains that China is as responsible for where North Korea is today as North Korea itself,” he said.