Liberal Forum

GailyBee » 02 Aug 2017 3:31 pm » wrote:Many of his former supporters are beginning to see the light = $$$
The realization that he doesn't give any size **** about whether or not they have health care is starting to make inroads through the 'make amerika great again' sludge in their brains.

Misty » 02 Aug 2017 3:50 pm » wrote: There are still a lot of dead-enders and it seems like most of them post here on this forum.

Russia slaps the U.S., but Trump won't slap back. Sad

By Max Boot

On Sunday, Vladimir Putin announced that the U.S. diplomatic mission in Russia would have to shed 755 members.

Most of those, admittedly, will be local support staff; of roughly 1,200 people employed by the U.S. government in Russia, 333 are U.S. citizens and 867 are foreign nationals, most likely Russians.

So this isn’t quite the mass expulsion of U.S. diplomats that was portrayed in initial news reports.

It’s “merely” a mass layoff of Russian workers who will now suffer because of the whims of their president.

But it’s still a substantial slap at the United States — far more serious than President Obama’s expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats in retaliation for the Kremlin meddling in the U.S. election.

Putin’s action is a sign that he has given up hope that the Trump administration will lift sanctions on Russians and otherwise conciliate the Kremlin, as Michael Flynn, who would later be named and then deposed as national security advisor, apparently hinted to the Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak before the inauguration.

U.S.-Russia relations, far from improving as Trump had promised, are in the depths of an icy freeze that is reviving talk of a new Cold War.

So far, Trump hasn’t conceded that dismal reality.

His silence suggests he remains wedded to the fantasy that Putin is an admirable leader and a potential American ally in Syria and beyond, and his long-standing affection for the Russian dictator seems to have only grown stronger after the two men spent hours bonding with one another in Hamburg.

Just imagine if Rosie O’Donnell, “Crooked Hillary,” the “failing New York Times” or one of the president’s other supposed enemies had insulted him, however slightly.

He would surely have gone ballistic on Twitter by now.

But there is not a word about Russia or Putin in Trump’s Twitter feed, nor in his public comments, save for his ritualistic (and increasingly unconvincing) denials of any collusion between his campaign and Russia in the election.

The only official U.S. response to Putin’s act was a perfunctory State Department statement saying the expulsion was “regrettable and uncalled for.”

Vice President Mike Pence is talking tough on Russia while in Estonia, but Trump continues his streak of never speaking ill of Putin, a streak all the more remarkable given how many other people Trump routinely disparages.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a recipient of the Order of Friendship from Putin, also has been thunderously silent about this unwarranted affront to the department he leads.

Trump, to be sure, has agreed to sign a bill imposing further sanctions on Russia but only because he had no choice — it passed both houses by veto-proof margins.

The legislation removes presidential discretion to lift sanctions, an extraordinary repudiation that indicates how worried lawmakers of both parties are about this president’s fondness for Russia’s dictator.

Trump dragged his feet as much as possible and tried to water down the legislation, but contrary to White House claims, he did not manage to substantially alter the bill.

Putin went ahead with his retaliation once the Senate and the House rejected administration entreaties to go easy on Russia.

Now the question is whether the administration will do anything at all to respond to Putin’s enforced downsizing of the U.S. mission in Russia.

If Trump were so inclined, there is much he could do, from slowing down the issuance of visas to Russians who want to visit the U.S., to freezing the bank accounts of Putin and his oligarch friends (it would be poetic justice to freeze 755 accounts), to adopting a Pentagon proposal to ship anti-tank missiles and other potent weaponry to the Ukrainian armed forces resisting Russian aggression.

Will Trump do any of this?

Doubtful.

The only anti-Russian measures he has taken are those that have been forced on him by Congress.

The administration isn’t hesitating to impose personal sanctions on the dictator of Venezuela, just the dictator of Russia.

Mexican president denies calling Trump to praise border work.

As Mr. Trump welcomed his new chief of staff John Kelly to the Cabinet table on Monday, Mr. Trump took time to applaud the work Kelly had done during his time leading the Department of Homeland Security.

"At Homeland, what he has done has been nothing short of miraculous," Mr. Trump said of Kelly.

He went on, saying, "As you know, the border was a tremendous problem and they're close to 80 percent stoppage.

And even the president of Mexico called me -- they said their southern border, very few people are coming because they know they're not going to get through our border, which is the ultimate compliment."

But Nieto denies that ever happened.

In a statement released by the Mexican Foreign Ministry, Nieto "has not recently spoken to President Donald Trump over the telephone."

Misty » 02 Aug 2017 4:11 pm » wrote:WTF is wrong with this guy?
He's either imagining that people are calling him, or he's lying through his teeth.
Neither of which is a good scenario.

First the Leader of the Boy Scouts and now the president of Mexico.

Misty » 02 Aug 2017 4:11 pm » wrote:First the Leader of the Boy Scouts and now the president of Mexico.

Misty » 02 Aug 2017 4:01 pm » wrote:I becomes clearer every day that Putin has something on Sir Tweets-A-Lot.

Termin8tor » 02 Aug 2017 4:14 pm » wrote:

This is her lie, and she's sticking to it!

Huey » 02 Aug 2017 4:18 pm » wrote: That's ok. While the twitter twits are distracted with the zirconium shiny object a new FBI director was confirmed, new legal immigration laws are being debated, the congress is slowly pivoting toward tax debates, NK is flexing more might with subs while we successfully test THADS system, we had a successful ICBM launch, and the list goes on.

So let these idiots be distracted with stupid ****.

Misty » 02 Aug 2017 4:11 pm » wrote:WTF is wrong with this guy?
He's either imagining that people are calling him, or he's lying through his teeth.
Neither of which is a good scenario.

First the Leader of the Boy Scouts and now the president of Mexico.

The Dumpster Fire is out of control!



His tiny, shaky hand is on the nuclear trigger, as we speak. The Mad Dwarf of N. Korea is going to get blasted. WWIII!
With his staff of military generals, you just know we are on a war footing.
And all the shills working for Goldman Sucks, you just know Wall street will create another financial disaster.

And our Intel agencies do not trust the man. He could get "jack in the boxed"!
I've got a bad feeling, a real bad feeling!

REX TILLERSON REJECTS $80 MILLION FROM CONGRESS TO FIGHT RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA BECAUSE IT WOULD ANGER MOSCOW

Congress has given $80 million to the State Department to fight Russian propaganda and misinformation, but Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly is reluctant to put it to use.

A former senior State Department official told Politico that Tillerson’s spokesman, R.C. Hammond, suggested using the money to counter Russian disinformation and propaganda would rile Moscow.

“Hammond said the secretary is in the process of working through disagreements with Russia, and this is not consistent with what we’re trying to do,” the official said.

Tillerson and President Donald Trump have been working to mend relations with Russia from their “all-time low point” (in Tillerson’s words) after U.S. intelligence agencies issued a report early this year concluding that the Kremlin worked to interfere in the 2016 election.

Key intelligence agencies found Moscow used a widespread misinformation campaign to achieve its ends.

The Trump campaign is under investigation over whether it helped these efforts.

Trump has repeatedly called the report’s findings a “hoax” and a “ruse” for Democrats to explain why they lost the election.

The money to combat Russian misinformation was set aside by Congress late last year for the State Department’s Global Engagement Center.

The unit was created in the spring of 2016 to combat propaganda from the Islamic State militant group (ISIS).

But its mission was expanded, along with the fresh funding, at the end of last year in light of Russia’s election meddling and to counter messages from governments in such nations as China, Iran and North Korea.

Trump quietly signs Russia sanctions bill.

President Trump quietly signed legislation Wednesday that imposes new limits on his ability to lift sanctions against Russia and also adds new sanctions against North Korea and Iran.

Trump signed the bill without cameras, sending out a statement later in the morning saying that despite his belief that parts of the measure were unconstitutional, he was signing it into law for the "sake of national unity."

He had little choice about signing the bill after nearly unanimous votes in both houses of Congress approved it, all but guaranteeing any veto would be overridden.

Misty » 02 Aug 2017 9:31 pm » wrote:
The same man who made a big show of every Executive Order he signed, signs this bill in a quiet closed door ceremony.

Because Russia.

GailyBee » 02 Aug 2017 3:31 pm » wrote:Many of his former supporters are beginning to see the light = $$$

The realization that he doesn't give any size **** about whether or not they have health care is starting to make inroads through the 'make amerika great again' sludge in their brains.

Misty » 02 Aug 2017 3:50 pm » wrote: There are still a lot of dead-enders and it seems like most of them post here on this forum.

Cedarswamp » 02 Aug 2017 9:42 pm » wrote:You suffer from collusion delusion.

President Trump has launched a "real news" video series on his Facebook page, part of his longstanding effort to dismiss the news provided by the mainstream media.

The inaugural episode, published Sunday, features Trump's daughter-in-law Lara boasting about the president's accomplishments in front of a background of Trump campaign logos.

"I bet you haven't heard about all the accomplishments the president had this week because there's so much fake news out there," says Lara Trump, who is married to Eric Trump.

"Watch here for REAL news!" says a post on the president's personal Facebook page.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/02/media/t ... 149PMStory

Misty » 02 Aug 2017 9:59 pm » wrote: Actually no.
I have said all along that I believe that it probably has much more to do with money than collusion, and it looks like Mueller is going down that road.

Whatever it is, it's becoming more and more obvious that Putin has something on him.
I hope it's the pee tape.