Trump’s Foreign Policy Philosophy Hard to Pin Down
Masood Farivar, Voice of America
Is President-elect Donald Trump a foreign policy realist or idealist? Is he bringing Richard Nixon’s hard-edged realpolitik to his foreign policy or following in the footsteps of the more idealistic Ronald Reagan?
The question has become a parlor game among Washington's policy pundits.
Trump’s frequent invocation of Reagan’s “peace through strength” mantra and campaign pledge to rebuild America’s “depleted” military has invited comparisons to the Republican icon credited with winning the Cold War.
His advocacy of a foreign policy based on America’s national interests has led some to liken it to Nixonian realism, while his aversion to foreign interventions has won him the label of a non-interventionist and even isolationist.
Don’t Fence Trump In
Trump has professed no great power doctrine and his advisers discourage applying labels to his vision of the world.
“I’m not going to be put into the little academic, graduate school box because I think it doesn’t suit, and it doesn’t apply in a rapidly changing world,” said K.T. McFarland, Trump’s incoming deputy national security adviser, when asked to describe the Trump doctrine.
While Trump’s call for “peace through strength” reflects Reagan’s view of deterrence, “there are parts of Nixon and (Henry) Kissinger that Donald Trump has also advocated,” McFarland said at the U.S. Institute of Peace, alluding to Trump’s interest-based approach to world affairs.
Trump’s Speeches
A foreign policy neophyte, Trump has shied away from declaring any grand foreign strategy during the campaign, though he did give two major speeches devoted to foreign policy and national security.
In the first speech, delivered at the realist-leaning Center for the National Interest in Washington in April, Trump outlined what he called a “coherent foreign policy based on American interests” and called for “getting out of nation building,” creating stability and quashing “radical Islam.”
“Containing the spread of radical Islam must be a major foreign policy goal of the United States and indeed the world,” Trump said. “Events may require the use of military force, but it’s also a philosophical struggle, like our long struggle in the Cold War.”
In the second speech, at Youngstown University in Ohio in August, Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric about terror, warning countries around the world that they’d be judged based on their commitment to the U.S. goal of fighting terrorism.
“All actions should be oriented around this goal, and any country which shares this goal will be our ally,” Trump told a rally of supporters.
‘Strategic Surprise’
It was a theme that Trump would repeat, in one iteration or another, throughout the campaign, but his advisers say Trump’s pre- and post-election pronouncements on foreign policy, often delivered off the cuff, should not be read as policy prescriptions.
“Actually, he didn’t say a lot about foreign policy and national security on the campaign trail, and what he did say really doesn’t add up to a policy,” said James Carafano, director of foreign policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation who advises the Trump transition team on foreign affairs. “That’s very frustrating because the people want to know what’s this guy going to do.”
With the new administration yet to take office, McFarland, too, cautioned that Trump’s foreign policy is in an early stage of development.
“That’s what a new administration does: It takes time to rethink things and to come up with policies,” she said.
If history is any guide, Trump could quickly find himself facing a set of foreign policy crises different from the issues he campaigned on. Political scientists have a term for an unexpected world event that drives a new president into uncharted territory: “strategic surprise.”
For former President George W. Bush, who campaigned on pursuing a “humble foreign policy,” the strategic surprise came September 11, 2001.
For President Barack Obama, who vowed to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the “Arab Spring” protests in North Africa and the Middle East marked a strategic surprise, leaving his administration more deeply mired in the region than he’d hoped.
What international crisis might alter the trajectory of the Trump administration’s foreign policy agenda has become a guessing game, with the number of scenarios exceeded only by the variety of foreign policy labels attributed to Trump.
A game-changing terrorist attack on American interests is one possible candidate. Another contender: an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) launch by North Korea.
“I think the world is not necessarily going to allow President Trump to do everything he’s planned on,” said Blaise Misztal, director of the national security program at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. “I think you’re going to see a triangulation between what he’s said, what he’s advised to do, and what is actually feasible on the world stage.”
Flip Flopping on Issues
While Trump has flip flopped on some issues, NATO and torturing terrorists, for example, he’s held steady on others. Among them: terrorism, trade, China and Russia.
In the weeks since his election, he’s reiterated his pledge to make terrorism a focus of his foreign policy, talked tough on trade, challenged the “One China” policy, and iterated again a desire to reset relations with Russia even as he embraced intelligence findings that Moscow interfered in last year’s presidential election.
Brian Katulis of Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank, said the “most radical shift” Trump will likely undertake will be “engagement and involvement” with Russia, something Obama unsuccessfully attempted during his first term in office.
But former CIA director Michael Hayden said Trump is likely to reconsider his approach to Russia once he learns from intelligence agencies and allies that Russia and Syria are not committed to fighting IS.
“I’m personally very, very skeptical of any convergence between American and Russian interests in this part of the world,” Hayden said. “In fact, I’d offer the view that American and Russian interests are actually heading in different directions.”
Another major change: downplaying a postwar American foreign policy tradition of promoting democracy and freedom around the world.
“Trump has signaled as a candidate and in the transition a proclivity to appreciate authoritarian and repressive leaders around the world,” Katulis said. “And this may be the biggest departure that is historic, that there really won’t be as much of a values-based approach that focuses on human rights democracy and freedom in other countries. And that I think puts the United States itself on shaky territory.”
But McFarland played down those concerns, saying “the three bedrocks of (postwar) American foreign policy” — American leadership, American values and international alliances — will remain under the Trump administration.
Unpredictability
There is usually some continuity between administrations on foreign policy, but “that rule actually may not apply under Trump,” Katulis said.
“We’re dealing with something here that is just fundamentally different and off the charts,” Katulis explained.
That 'something' is Trump’s well-known unpredictability. Trump has criticized President Obama for telegraphing his policy moves and has vowed to remain unpredictable. But experts say unpredictability can be dangerous in the international arena where both allies and adversaries expect a certain degree of predictability from the United States.
"Predictability is the cornerstone of deterrence," said Clarke. "You need to be predictable if you’re the United states, both in what your allies know you’ll do and in what your adversaries know you’ll do and how you’ll respond."
Comments
Remember the Trump strategic advisor Bannon had formed propaganda companies in France...UK and Germany....to push the elections of European populists ie right wing nationalists.....
But wait.....appears Europeans are pushing back on Bannon and Russian propaganda.......
Kremlin & @wikileaks thought France election done deal w Le Pen & Fillon as frontrunners.
Now panicking over surging non-Putin poodle Macron
European media is now asking the following valid question after watching Trump the last weeks...
He had been bashing China for years and badly bashing them during the campaign and now in the WH...supported by his rewets.....for stealing American jobs and taking US money in unfair trade.....
THEN suddenly in a single phone call he SO backtracks it is amazing.....
European question:
Did the Chinese President simply remind Trump Chinese banks hold 350M USDs of Trump debt they can call anytime basically placing him in immediate bankruptcy...?
Valid question since it appears there was no recording of the phone call....
NOW Trump has been lying about the cost of his "Wall" that he claims Mexico will pay for BUT in the end the US taxpayers will.....
HE claimed it will cost only 15B USDs....has gone up suddenly overnight it seems....
Friday Morning Briefing: Trump's Mexican wall just got $9.6 billion more expensive -
http://reut.rs/2kzTzoX
That makes it now roughly 25B USDs and getting closer to the Mexican estimate of 35-45B USDs....which will be roughly 250 USD per American man woman..child and dogs.....
Trump WH is picking up downhill speed now.....
First true ethnics violation of the Emoluments Clause of the US Constitution....by Trump himself who has not effectively separated himself from his own companies as he can fire the current boss and he partakes in the profit streams....that is not a true separation from his companies as required by the Office of Government Ethnics....
PROOF: The 1st publicly known payment on behalf of a foreign government to a Trump property since he became POTUS.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-hotel-saudi-arabia-234878
Let's see...Trump WH distancing themselves this morning from their very own NSA Flynn for his apparent lying to Pence.....over his calls to the Russian Ambassador...
BUT WAIT...both Pence and Flynn have had primary source intel on this problem now for weeks based on their security clearances and the DIBs....and both have not say a single word....SO WHO is actually lying Pence or Flynn OR BOTH.....
Republican House Oversight committee chairmen being attacked by his own Republican town hall over Trump...
Hundreds chant “Do your job!” at House Republican in charge of investigating Trump http://www.vox.com/2017/2/9/14572
394/jason-chaffetz-utah?htm_campaign=vox&utm_content=entry&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
Again, #Chaffetz says he wants Trump to release his tax returns, "but it is not required by law."
At rowdy town hall, ex-teacher asks Chaffetz — chair of House oversight — “what’s your line in the sand” for Trump?
Crowd at Chaffetz event screaming "Let them in!" at the fire marshall, who has capped capacity despite some open seats and hundreds outside.
APPEARS that now even Trump supporters are getting tired of Trump actions and apparent ties to Russia and Russian money....
If Flynn still has a WH job this time today, you know Trump cares more about what the Kremlin thinks than US law and American interests.
IF he remains THEN you know that the Trump WH has officially sanctioned lying as a standard FP......so how do world leaders then begin to "trust" Trump...they do not....especially anything he says and or tweets.....
Flynn directly violated the Logan Act and did this in the face of the fact Trump was not even President nor was Flynn officially natsec advisor so who was he speaking for...certainly not himself....
AND there are no Russian connections into the Trump WH or there has never been Russian oligarch black money flowing into Trump businesses?????
Trump and his merry band still refuse to believe Putin would engage in influence and hacking operations against the West especially the US...
BUT WAIT........
Main goal of building the FBS's agents network in the EU was to infiltrate & incline European Muslim diaspora in Germany & France 4 the FSB
REMEMBER there is an ever mounting pile of evidence the Russian FSB is in bed with and actively supporting IS.....as well as is Iran...for it's use against western nation states in order to destabilize them....
REMEMBER Trump and his merry band and do not believe Russia is engaged in global influence operations and hacking also aimed at the US....
Former FSB colonel says he helped send Russian spies posing as Chechen refugees to Germany.
https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/zdfzoom/zdfzoom-putins-kalter-krieg-10…
BUT WAIT...I thought Trump has stated all those refugees in Germany are terrorists...NOT Russian spies....?????
Did he not critique Merkel for it????
ZDF's source is a former head of FSB CT department, run the operation since 2002. Says the network consist 400 agents, 50 officers.
Since 2002 FSB falsified persecution documentation to allow legally claim political asylum in the EU countries.
http://www.dialog.ua/news/110660_1486661508
Trump and his merry band do not believe climate change is largely man made.....
French presidential candidate bluntly calls on US climate change researchers purged by Trump regime to come to France.
BTW....great places to work and live in France...they should take up France on their offer...have great research centers especially into alternative forms of energy largely underdeveloped in the States....
EU just released a study on how many well paying jobs are being generated by large scale alternative energy developments....
A THIRD of all German energy needs are being now met by alternative energy ....lowering energy costs to the state and public consumers and protecting the planet in the process....
Japan's love of tiny cars sore spot as Trump, Abe meet
http://reut.rs/2ktrbSN
Those BIG US SUVs gas hogs do not sell well in Japan.....and Trump wants to increase US exports of vehicles...????
Exactly what the German government stated when Trump bashed BMW...MB and VW...
Looks like the Trump proclaimed being the best negotiator in his book "The Art of the Deal" got taken to the cleaners by the same Chinese he has bashed for years now.....
"President Trump at the request of the Chinese President to honor our one China policy"........
Appears to me Trump "caved"....."at the request"...WHEN he promised to be tough on the Chinese to taking thousands of US manufacturing jobs and manipulating their currency and damaging the US.....sounds like a "cave" to me...
Russia, Iran Supporting Taliban to ‘Undermine’ U.S. Mission in Afghanistan
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-iran-supporting-taliban-…
Who is Dugin, hero of the alt-right? John Dunlop told us long ago: Aleksandr Dugin's Foundations of Geopolitics
https://shar.es/19skhu
Dugin is the ultra nationalist ideologue who whispers into the ears of Putin....
BTW..."alt-right" equally translates into the actual terms white supremacist and or white nationalist...
BTW...Dugin is the favorite Russian commenter often mentioned by the US Nazi Party and KKK....and often visits them when he travels on his US issued visa to the US....
I highly suggest that ALL Americans take the time to read the 29 page US 9th District Federal Appeals Court decision ESPECIALLY Trump and his merry band...
A true testament to the theory of checks and balances and the rule of law..ESPECIALLY a key paragraph talking about the rule of law and the responsibilities of the courts to ensure the rule of law..even against Presidential overreach such as Trump is doing.
For those that do not believe that Syria and Ukraine are not intertwined.....
In Syria they also walked the streets initially in a very peaceful manner demanding...the rule of law and good governance...and then Assad and Putin and Iran have unleased genocide...starvation.....ethnic cleansing and a massive killing machine on those that demanded those simple demands...
Just a side comment for this thread....in Ukraine they strive for the rule of law....something hard for the former Eastern/central European countries under the Soviet rule and then Russian rule in the face of institutionalized Soviet style corruption.....YET they still try....
It was the underlying battle cry of the Maidan.......AND in countless Syrian towns and villages...
We in the US often forget the cries about protecting the rule of law and how many around the world want to emulate the US concept of the rule of law..AND good governance......and since the election of Trump it appears that he and his merry band actually want to do away with both......
The following is the perfect example of why the US judicial system ensures the rule of law and what we often call checks and balances on power grabbing...by any of the three branches of US government....including itself.
If you want to see what an irritated US independent judiciary looks like, read the entire 29 pages.........
You and most of the planet, Sen. Lugar | "Former GOP senator wishes Trump was ‘better informed’ about nukes"
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/gop-senator-wishes-trump-bette…
https://www.carnegieendowment.org/2017/02/09/int
elligence-sharing-with-russia-practitioner-s-perspective-pub-67962
Sharing intel with Russia. Good time to be thinking about this as POTUS wants to get ISIL with them.
Pence should be furious. Looks like Flynn deceived him and sent him out to give false statements.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/national-securit…
NOW Trump's campaign anti Chinese rhetoric and his anti Chinese tweets catches up with him....AND NOW he apparently abandons all of his campaign rhetoric that earned him votes from his "common man on the street wanting jobs".....
Again the serious question.....WHAT Trump FP????
After previous prevarication, Trump agrees to follow one-China policy in a call with President Xi Jinping.
https://wpo.st/94aa2
An American President being force by foreign leaders to adhere to the rule of law and to hold to previously signed treaties...agreements and international relations...
Trump ZERO....Federal Courts THREE....Trump's own Muslim Ban and he called it exactly that over and over and now suddenly it is not a ban.....gets shot down by a decision of 3 to nothing...in a three judge panel...and in 29 long legal pages....that he exceeded the powers that Trump assumed and the word is assumed he had.......
BUT then still is blasting the judiciary who guards over the rule of law WHICH Trump appears to not fully understand...ESPECIALLY since he has been hauled into both State And Federal Courts over 4000 times and still has pending Federal Court cases....
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 5h
5 hours ago
SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!
PROBLEM for Trump is his rhetoric did not match the necessary legal standards to prove that the EO was all about security and not about Muslims....
HIS own DoJ lawyers could not point to a single pending attack that would be stopped NOR to any actual figures of attacks on Americans inside the US being carried out by immigrants from the seven banned Muslim nations....
BUT WAIT...in the following we might even have a former Marine General questioning the rule of law instead of defending the President who gave him a job....
QUOTE
The appeals court opinion was written by Judge Michelle Taryn Friedland, who was appointed by President Barack Obama; Judge Richard Clifton, who was appointed by President George W. Bush; and judge William C. Canby Jr., who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter. It was detailed, but it does not represent a final judgment on Trump’s immigration ban.
U.S. District Judge James L. Robart had last Friday granted the states of Washington and Minnesota only a temporary restraining order on the ban, and the parties are set to file briefs through next Saturday on the East Coast arguing for a more permanent, preliminary injunction. The appeals court judges noted their ruling was a “preliminary one,” and they were deciding only whether the government had “made a strong showing of its likely success” in getting the restraining order thrown out.
The ruling, though, is critically important — as Trump’s ban on refugees lasts only 120 days, and his ban on those from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen lasts only 90 days. The judges also said that while the states of Washington and Minnesota had made serious allegations — and the impact of the order was “immediate and widespread” — the government had not pointed to any substantive evidence to support its need for the ban.
“The Government has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the Order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States,” the judges wrote. “Rather than present evidence to explain the need for the Executive Order, the Government has taken the position that we must not review its decision at all.”
The states have alleged that the executive order harms their businesses and universities, preventing some students and faculty from traveling abroad for fear of being stranded and diminishing the sales tax revenue they receive.
Legislators and others who had opposed the ban hailed the judges’ ruling and urged Trump to back down.
“President Trump ought to see the handwriting on the wall that his executive order is unconstitutional,” said U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “He should abandon this proposal, roll up his sleeves and come up with a real, bipartisan plan to keep us safe.”
Sen Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said, “If the President were serious about bringing our country together and keeping us safe, he would rescind this arbitrary and discriminatory order and recall what makes our country great.”
Federal immigration law undeniably gives the president broad authority to bar people from coming into the U.S., stating that if the president finds “the entry of any aliens” would be “detrimental” to the country’s interests, he can impose restrictions. But lawsuits across the country have alleged that Trump’s particular order ran afoul of the Constitution in that it intentionally discriminated against Muslims.
At a hearing Tuesday, Justice Department lawyer August Flentje vigorously disputed that the measure was intended to target Muslims. In their ruling, the judges did not reveal their opinion on that question, though they noted Washington and Minnesota had “offered evidence of numerous statements by the President about his intent to implement a ‘Muslim ban’ as well as evidence they claim suggests that the Executive Order was intended to be that ban.”
Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani recently said publicly: “So when [Trump] first announced it, he said, ‘Muslim ban.’ He called me up. He said: ‘Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.’ ” On the campaign trail, Trump himself called for a “complete and total shutdown” of Muslims entering the U.S.
The appeals court judges had questioned both sides skeptically at Tuesday’s hearing, seeming particularly interested in what evidence Trump relied upon in implementing his order, and what limits the Justice Department saw on the president’s authority to set immigration policy. While Flentje urged them to restore the measure completely, he also at one point offered a fallback position. The judges, he suggested, could limit Robart’s order so that it only applied to foreigners previously admitted to the country who were abroad now or those who wished to travel and return to the United States in the future.
They declined to do even that, saying, as written, the president’s executive order could apply even to green card holders — which it once seemed to do, though the White House counsel later issued guidance saying it did not. The judges said the Justice Department had “offered no authority establishing that the White House counsel is empowered to issue an amended order superseding the Executive Order,” and “in light of the Government’s shifting interpretations of the Executive Order,” they were not convinced that guidance would hold.
Trump and his supporters have pressed the case that the short-term stoppage on refugees and immigrants from the seven countries is necessary for national security reasons, and they have leveled blunt criticism at the courts. Trump went so far as to suggest on Twitter that if an attack were to happen, the judiciary were to blame. On Wednesday, he denounced arguments about his order as “disgraceful” and said “a bad high school student” would understand the broad authority the law gives him to impose immigration restrictions.
A day earlier, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told Congress he thought judges might be considering the issue from an “academic” perspective instead of the national security lens through which he views the world.
“Of course, in their courtrooms, they’re protected by people like me,” Kelly said.
Federal courts in New York, California and elsewhere already had blocked aspects of the ban from being implemented, although one federal judge in Massachusetts declared that he did not think that challengers had demonstrated that they had a high likelihood of success. The case before the 9th Circuit, though, was much broader than the others, because it stemmed from a federal judge’s outright halting of the ban.
Amazingly the Trump WH never even slows down on their lying and disinformation statements designed to distort and or deflection events they do not like or threaten themselves.......ESPECIALLY the FBI/IC investigation of key Trump and Trump himself...connections to Russian black money and Putin close advisors...
WH Trump natsec advisor Flynn evidently did not believe the NSA/FBI were monitoring 24 X 7 X 365 all communications into and out of the US Russian Embassy AND that is really stunning as he was the Director once of DIA.....
BUT WAIT...he got fired from that position for cause...poor management skills....being a General does not make necessarily a great director or manager as some people think....
BUT WAIT..when it was initially leaked about the calls ....his and the Trump WH cover story was he was wishing the Ambassador a Merry Christmas.....BUT WAIT...since he is under FBI investigation for those calls and other items ...SUDDENLY he vaguely...maybe.....thinks it possible...might have happened...cannot clearly recall..that he spoke about the sanctions being leveled on Russia.....
National security adviser Flynn discussed sanctions with Russian ambassador, despite denials, officials say
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/national-security-adviser-flynn-…
QUOTE:
National security adviser Michael Flynn privately discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with that country’s ambassador to the United States during the month before President Trump took office, contrary to public assertions by Trump officials, current and former U.S. officials said.
Flynn’s communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were interpreted by some senior U.S. officials as an inappropriate and potentially illegal signal to the Kremlin that it could expect a reprieve from sanctions that were being imposed by the Obama administration in late December to punish Russia for its alleged interference in the 2016 election.
Flynn on Wednesday denied that he had discussed sanctions with Kislyak. Asked in an interview whether he had ever done so, he twice said, “No.”
On Thursday, Flynn, through his spokesman, backed away from the denial. The spokesman said Flynn “indicated that while he had no recollection of discussing sanctions, he couldn’t be certain that the topic never came up.”
Officials said this week that the FBI is continuing to examine Flynn’s communications with Kislyak. Several officials emphasized that while sanctions were discussed, they did not see evidence that Flynn had an intent to convey an explicit promise to take action after the inauguration.
Flynn’s contacts with the ambassador attracted attention within the Obama administration because of the timing. U.S. intelligence agencies were then concluding that Russia had waged a cyber campaign designed in part to help elect Trump; his senior adviser on national security matters was discussing the potential consequences for Moscow, officials said.
The talks were part of a series of contacts between Flynn and Kislyak that began before the Nov. 8 election and continued during the transition, officials said. In a recent interview, Kislyak confirmed that he had communicated with Flynn by text message, by phone and in person, but declined to say whether they had discussed sanctions.
The emerging details contradict public statements by incoming senior administration officials including Mike Pence, then the vice president-elect. They acknowledged only a handful of text messages and calls exchanged between Flynn and Kislyak late last year and denied that either ever raised the subject of sanctions.
“They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia,” Pence said in an interview with CBS News last month, noting that he had spoken with Flynn about the matter. Pence also made a more sweeping assertion, saying there had been no contact between members of Trump’s team and Russia during the campaign. To suggest otherwise, he said, “is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the candidacy.”
Neither of those assertions is consistent with the fuller account of Flynn’s contacts with Kislyak provided by officials who had access to reports from U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies that routinely monitor the communications of Russian diplomats. Nine current and former officials, who were in senior positions at multiple agencies at the time of the calls, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.
All of those officials said Flynn’s references to the election-related sanctions were explicit. Two of those officials went further, saying that Flynn urged Russia not to overreact to the penalties being imposed by President Barack Obama, making clear that the two sides would be in position to review the matter after Trump was sworn in as president.
“Kislyak was left with the impression that the sanctions would be revisited at a later time,” said a former official.
A third official put it more bluntly, saying that either Flynn had misled Pence or that Pence misspoke. A spokesman for Pence did not respond to a request for comment. The sanctions in question have so far remained in place.
The nature of Flynn’s pre-inauguration message to Kislyak triggered debate among officials in the Obama administration and intelligence agencies over whether Flynn had violated a law against unauthorized citizens interfering in U.S. disputes with foreign governments, according to officials familiar with that debate. Those officials were already alarmed by what they saw as a Russian assault on the U.S. election.
U.S. officials said that seeking to build such a case against Flynn would be daunting. The law against U.S. citizens interfering in foreign diplomacy, known as the Logan Act, stems from a 1799 statute that has never been prosecuted. As a result, there is no case history to help guide authorities on when to proceed or how to secure a conviction.
Officials also cited political sensitivities. Prominent Americans in and out of government are so frequently in communication with foreign officials that singling out one individual — particularly one poised for a top White House job — would invite charges of political persecution.
Former U.S. officials also said aggressive enforcement would probably discourage appropriate contact. Michael McFaul, who served as U.S. ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration, said that he was in Moscow meeting with officials in the weeks leading up to Obama’s 2008 election win.
“As a former diplomat and U.S. government official, one needs to be able to have contact with foreigners to do one’s job,” McFaul said. McFaul, a Russia scholar, said he was careful never to signal pending policy changes before Obama took office.
On Wednesday, Flynn said that he first met Kislyak in 2013 when Flynn was director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and made a trip to Moscow. Kislyak helped coordinate that trip, Flynn said.
Flynn said that he spoke to Kislyak on a range of subjects in late December, including arranging a call between Putin and Trump after the inauguration and expressing his condolences after Russia’s ambassador to Turkey was assassinated. “I called to say I couldn’t believe the murder of their ambassador,” Flynn said. Asked whether there was any mention of sanctions in his communications with Kislyak, Flynn said, “No.”
Kislyak characterized his conversations with Flynn as benign during a brief interview at a conference this month. “It’s something all diplomats do,” he said.
Kislyak said that he had been in contact with Flynn since before the election, but declined to answer questions about the subjects they discussed. Kislyak is known for his assiduous cultivation of high-level officials in Washington and was seated in the front row of then-GOP candidate Trump’s first major foreign policy speech in April of last year. The ambassador would not discuss the origin of his relationship with Flynn.
In his CBS interview, Pence said that Flynn had “been in touch with diplomatic leaders, security leaders in some 30 countries. That’s exactly what the incoming national security adviser should do.”
Official concern about Flynn’s interactions with Kislyak was heightened when Putin declared on Dec. 30 that Moscow would not retaliate after the Obama administration announced a day earlier the expulsion of 35 suspected Russian spies and the forced closure of Russian-owned compounds in Maryland and New York.
Instead, Putin said he would focus on “the restoration of Russia-United States relations” after Obama left office, and put off considering any retaliatory measures until Moscow had a chance to evaluate Trump’s policies.
Trump responded with effusive praise for Putin. “Great move on the delay,” he said in a posting to his Twitter account. “I always knew he was very smart.”
Putin’s reaction cut against a long practice of reciprocation on diplomatic expulsions, and came after his foreign minister had vowed that there would be reprisals against the United States.
Putin’s muted response — which took White House officials by surprise — raised some officials’ suspicions that Moscow may have been promised a reprieve, and triggered a search by U.S. spy agencies for clues.
“Something happened in those 24 hours” between Obama’s announcement and Putin’s response, a former senior U.S. official said. Officials began poring over intelligence reports, intercepted communications and diplomatic cables, and saw evidence that Flynn and Kislyak had communicated by text and telephone around the time of the announcement.
Trump transition officials acknowledged those contacts weeks later after they were reported in The Washington Post but denied that sanctions were discussed. Trump press secretary Sean Spicer said Jan. 13 that Flynn had “reached out to” the Russian ambassador on Christmas Day to extend holiday greetings. On Dec. 28, as word of the Obama sanctions spread, Kislyak sent a message to Flynn requesting a call. “Flynn took that call,” Spicer said, adding that it “centered on the logistics of setting up a call with the president of Russia and [Trump] after the election.”
Other officials were categorical. “I can tell you that during his call, sanctions were not discussed whatsoever,” a senior transition official told The Post at the time. When Pence faced questions on television that weekend, he said “those conversations that happened to occur around the time that the United States took action to expel diplomats had nothing whatsoever to do with those sanctions.”
Current and former U.S. officials said that assertion was not true.
Like Trump, Flynn has shown an affinity for Russia that is at odds with the views of most of his military and intelligence peers. Flynn raised eyebrows in 2015 when he appeared in photographs seated next to Putin at a lavish party in Moscow for the Kremlin-controlled RT television network.
In an earlier interview with The Post, Flynn acknowledged that he had been paid through his speakers bureau to give a speech at the event and defended his attendance by saying he saw no distinction between RT and U.S. news channels, including CNN.
A retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, Flynn served multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — tours in which he held a series of high-level intelligence assignments working with U.S. Special Operations forces hunting al-Qaeda operatives and Islamist militants.
Former colleagues said that narrow focus led Flynn to see the threat posed by Islamist groups as overwhelming other security concerns, including Russia’s renewed aggression. Instead, Flynn came to see America’s long-standing adversary as a potential ally against terrorist groups, and himself as being in a unique position to forge closer ties after traveling to Moscow in 2013 while serving as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Flynn has frequently boasted that he was the first DIA director to be invited into the headquarters of Russia’s military intelligence directorate, known as the GRU, although at least one of his predecessors was granted similar access. “Flynn thought he developed some rapport with the GRU chief,” a former senior U.S. military official said.
U.S. intelligence agencies say they have tied the GRU to Russia’s theft of troves of email messages from Democratic Party computer networks and accuse Moscow of then delivering those materials to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, which published them in phases during the campaign to hurt Hillary Clinton, Trump’s Democratic rival.
Flynn was pushed out of the DIA job in 2014 amid concerns about his management of the sprawling agency. He became a fierce critic of the Obama administration before joining the Trump campaign last year.
Director of Duke Islamic Studies Center: Trump aide Gorka, who has had career as counterterror expert, is no expert
Pentagon journal explores what would happen if a president called for Muslim internment camps via @DanLamothe
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/02/09/pentagon-j…
Trump knows absolutely nothing about nuclear weapons treaties....and does not even consult his NSC nor IC....relies on his close advisors..Bannon...Flynn...and Pence.....
Breaking: @POTUS told Putin that New START treaty was bad deal. Wrong! Places cap on #nukes aimed at each other.
http://armscontrolcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/NewSTARTFactshe…
ANOTHER leak out of the Trump WH....this was the same WH that turned off the recorder for the duration of the Trump/Putin telephone call......
CRITICAL
"Trump paused to ask his aides in aside what the treaty was." No NSC staff/intel input b4 Putin-Trump phone call
Reuters reports Trump "denounced" New START in call with Putin. If true, confirms his limited knowledge about nukes.
http://news.trust.org/item/20170209171124-868gh/?source=reTheWire
Leaker indicates Trump blasted Obama for his nuclear treaties......
Sources say Trump paused call with Putin to ask what New START Treaty was. More on Putin-Trump discussion on nukes:
http://reut.rs/2lsLoZ9
Reuters: Trump told Putin the U.S.-Russia nuclear arms START treaty was a bad deal—after asking aides what it was
http://reut.rs/2k7xFuI
This is the core reasoning behind all these off the wall Trump tweets....deflection from the following narrative that was pounding Trump and his WH......
Mysterious Disappearance of the Biggest Scandal in Washington
Whatever happened to the Trump-Russia story?
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/02/russia-trump-putin-scandal-…
NOW we have serious ethnic violations by both Trump and his WH surrogate Conway.....
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Feb 8
My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!
Conway may have broken key ethics rule by touting Ivanka Trump’s products, experts say
President Trump’s official counselor, Kellyanne Conway, may have broken a key ethics rule Thursday morning when she told TV audiences to “go buy Ivanka’s stuff.”
Federal employees are banned from using their public office to endorse products, regulations state.
Conway, speaking to “Fox & Friends” viewers from the White House briefing room, was responding to boycotts of Ivanka Trump merchandise and Nordstrom’s discontinuation of stocking her clothes and shoe lines, which the retailer said was in response to low sales and which Trump assailed as unfair.
“I’m going to give it a free commercial here,” Conway said of the president’s daughter’s merchandise brand. “Go buy it today.”
Conway and officials from the White House and the Office of Government Ethics did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.
Attorneys, including Campaign Legal Center general counsel Lawrence Noble, said Conway’s endorsement directly conflicted with OGE rules designed to separate government policy from private business dealings.
“Conway’s encouragement to buy Ivanka’s stuff would seem to be a clear violation of rules prohibiting misuse of public office for anyone’s private gain,” Don W. Fox, former general counsel and former acting director of OGE, told The Post.
“This is jaw dropping to me,” Fox added. “This rule has been promulgated by the federal Office of Government Ethics as part of the Standards of Conduct for all executive branch employees and it applies to all members of the armed forces as well.”
Enforcement measures are largely left to the head of the federal agency — in Conway’s case, the White House. One lawyer said a typical executive-branch employee who violated the rule could face significant disciplinary action, including multiday suspension and loss of pay.
Conway’s endorsement comes as the Trump administration faces growing scrutiny over whether its taking fears of conflicts of interest seriously.
Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday to lash out at Nordstrom for dropping Ivanka’s line, saying his daughter had “been treated so unfairly” by the store.
“They’ve crossed a very, very important bright line and it’s not good,” said Peter Schweizer, who has worked closely with Trump aide Stephen Bannon and authored the book “Clinton Cash,” which was critical of donations to the Clinton Foundation. “To encourage Americans to buy goods from companies owned by the first family is totally out of bounds and needs to stop.”
“Clearly, the Trumps feel some of this is related to politics. But whether that’s true or not, these marketing battles need to be fought by Ivanka and her company. They cannot and should not be fought by government employees and the White House,” Schweizer said. “It’s time to move beyond the mindset and the role of a businessman and assume the mantle of commander of chief.”
Trump critics quickly seized on the endorsement. Robert Weissman, president of liberal advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement, “Conway’s self-proclaimed advertisement for the Ivanka Trump fashion line demonstrates again what anyone with common sense already knew: President Trump and the Trump administration will use the government apparatus to advance the interests of the family businesses.”
CRITICAL QUOTE
“They’ve crossed a very, very important bright line and it’s not good,” said Peter Schweizer, who has worked closely with Trump aide Stephen Bannon and authored the book “Clinton Cash,” which was critical of donations to the Clinton Foundation. “To encourage Americans to buy goods from companies owned by the first family is totally out of bounds and needs to stop.”
Trump spent the Vietnam War partying in NYC. "When I graduated from college, I had a net worth of perhaps $200,000"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/20/what-dona…
Trump now attacks a VN veteran who survived torture for years in Hanoi Hilton......and was shot down defending the US....
WHEREAS Trump dodged the VN draft using the excuse he had a bone spur...and recently in an interview he stated he could not remember which foot...AND then stated in the same interview "his worse battle was fighting off women"......
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 3h
3 hours ago
Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media. Only emboldens the enemy! He's been losing so....
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 3h
3 hours ago
...long he doesn't know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in - bogged down in conflict all over the place. Our hero..
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 3h
3 hours ago
..Ryan died on a winning mission ( according to General Mattis), not a "failure." Time for the U.S. to get smart and start winning again!
BUT WAIT....Trump did not tweet the following did he...
1. JSOC lost a 78M USD Osprey
2. JSOC had three wounded
3. JSOC had one KIA
4. JSOC raid team killed a 8 year old child a US citizen who had not been vetted for killing by the US President as per Federal regulations and who was not a "radical Islamist"....
5. JSOC killed an undetermined number of civilians rumored to be 18
6. JSOC killed an extremely important local tribal chief WHO was not AQ
7. HERE is the kicker that Trump did not tweet about....
CENTCOM released a 10 year old AQ training video that even I held.....so if this was to be the "highly successful intelligence example THEN CETCOM was trying to cover up for their CinC.....
THEN there was total chaos as to whether Yemen would allow further JSOC raids into Yemen.....
BTW..SecDef will always say the raid was a "winner"....that is his job.....
Ah...that Trump Putin bromance needs now a serious reality check.....THIS is what doing deals with Russia gets you these days in Syria.....
Just another country that sought "a good deal" with Putin.
Turkish troops & equipment, destroyed by Syrian regime air strikes near alBab. Killed FIVE wounding SIX TAFs.....
Assad and Putin are both defending and supporting Is inside Syria..WHEN will Flynn...Bannon and then Trump realize that rather simple fact of life....
They have not been attacking IS for years now.....
WHEN the Trump WH finally wakes up to this EU development THEY will bash it even more ............
Why US Companies Must Prepare for the EU’s New Data Security Law's.
http://www.cmswire.com/information-management/why-us-companies-must-pre…
Many Americans might be surprised at what privacy rights they surrendered to the US government since 9/11 in the name of fighting the GWOT...THAT Europe believes are critical to being called a democracy....surrendered rights which are now being used against them not the jihadists....
What can be said about this man who has a seat on the NSC...and is the Trump personal strategic advisor?????
Steve Bannon Believes The Apocalypse Is Coming And War Is Inevitable
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/steve-bannon-apocalypse_us_5898f02ee4b04…
So if you are a European leader would you actually trust and or mistrust the current Trump WH and NSC when you see the Trump tweets...the Trump lies and these articles....?????
Remember Foreign Embassies based in DC also report this to their governments...on a daily basis....not to mention CNN running in the background...
The world’s biggest shipping company is voicing alarm at Trump's trade war
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-08/world-s-biggest-ship…
That from Trump proposed 1T USD import border tax has a large and serious number of well known global economists and businessmen who are far more wealthy that Trump stating it will indeed spark a trade war and then led to a global recession the size not previously seen since the 30s...
Close Trump advisor now tries to state he is not a middleman for the Russians after presenting a major speech about Russian US relations recently in Moscow and the Russians claiming he was a close associate to Trump during that speech....was paid as a political consultant by the Russian American Association...Page has so far refused to state just how much he earned on that speech....
Now somewhat late comes this statement....
Carter Page takes to the airwaves - Trump Associate Denies Being Middleman for Russia - ABC News -
http://abcn.ws/2jzW2AZ
Page..Manafort...Stone....are under US IC investigation for their Russian/Ukraine contacts before and after the election as is Flynn....
After the Muslim Ban was announced, a major Shia newspaper in Baghdad depicted Trump doing ISIS’ work for them. Because Trump did in fact support and rives the IS narrative that the West is against all Muslims.......
The ability of Trump to conduct his version of what he envisions FP to be is getting harder as it confronts true global ground reality and the concept of having 2nd...3rd...and 4th order of effects on everyone of his views is starting to haunt him.....
Officials Warn White House on Terrorist Designation for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards by WaPo
Desginating the Muslim Brotherhood As Terrorists Is Complicated by The Cipher Brief
Big-Name Brands Unwittingly Funding Islamic Extremists by The Times
BET that Trump and his merry band of Bannon/Flynn NSC did not realize what many of us have known since 2009.....all jihadi websites since 2009 tie into Google or FB or now Twitter click bait ads to drive revenue.....
The Washington Post: Why 'spheres of influence' bring war closer
http://www.unian.info/world/1768136-the-washington-post-why-spheres-of-…
JSMITH...this should interest you as it is a direct effect of the Trump Muslim Ban EO FP move...AND it impacts both jobs...taxes and employee salaries.
Tourism into the US has become over the last ten years a dynamic and cash flow earning business worth in the BILLIONS....hotels...restaurants..car rentals..air flights..airport taxes....food purchases etc....ALL worth at the last estimate a total of 23B USDs ever single year.....
Tourism into USA collapsed (-6,5℅) after Trump travel ban past month
AND it will get worse as many simply do not trust the US in following the rule of law....and their values which many outside the US take for granted as being "American", but evidently US citizens no longer care about...
It's "character assassination" to imply Sessions is racist comes out of the WH and the Senate thrown at Democrats.
Yet, KKK under Duke celebrated his selection as does the American Nazi Party in Nebraska..with major announcements in their media outlets....
BUT WAIT....Duke also praises the moves made by the Trump Muslim Ban EO and praises the "white values voiced by Trump"....AND duke went further by saying it is great that Trump is now pushing what Duke has said for years....
And not a single Trump pushback tweet....silence is an indicator of approval is an old saying......
BUT WAIT...now the Republican Ted Cruz is channeling for the KKK it seems...."Democrats are now the Party of the KKK"
By The Way mentioned in the article...the term "Dixicrats" is now the same thing as the Republican Party since virtually all southern Democrats jumped to the RP with the passing of the civil Right Acts...in Johnson's days.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ted-cruz-%E2%80%98the-democrats-…
The day after Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was rebuked while making a speech critical of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Sen. Ted Cruz blasted Democrats, saying their party is the one rooted in racism.
“The Democrats are the party of the Ku Klux Klan,” Cruz (R-Tex.) said in an interview on Fox News on Wednesday. “You look at the most racist — you look at the Dixiecrats, they were Democrats who imposed segregation, imposed Jim Crow laws, who founded the Klan. The Klan was founded by a great many Democrats.”
Cruz isn't the first Republican to associate Democrats with the Ku Klux Klan.
In 2013, Virginia state Sen. Stephen Martin said that the Democratic Party created the hate group. Martin later released a statement saying he “regretted the carelessness and inaccuracy of his comments,” according to PolitiFact.
Although there is some historical link between Democrats and the KKK, to say that the hate group was founded by the Democratic Party is misleading, J. Michael Martinez, author of “Carpetbaggers, Cavalry and the KKK,” told PolitiFact. Angry Southern whites during the 1860s and 1870s were Democrats, and some of them joined the KKK, which was more of a grass-roots creation.
Members of the KKK in the South acted as a “strong arm” for Democratic politicians during the Reconstruction Era, and Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was associated with the KKK, spoke at the 1868 Democratic National Convention, Carole Emberton, an associate professor of history at the University of Buffalo, told PolitiFact.
But, Emberton also said that the party lines of the 1860s and 1870s “are not the party lines of today.” By the 1960s, the Democratic Party was the party of the civil rights movement.
Similar claims also have been debunked by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based hate watch group.
Last year, David Neiwert, a contributing writer for the group, wrote that describing the KKK as a “leftist” organization is false.
" Yes, in the South of the 1920s, the Klan was a militaristic and terroristic wing of the Jim Crow-loving Democratic Party there, in no shape, form, or fashion was this the 'leftist' wing of the Democratic Party. When the members of the Klan were Democrats, as in the 1920s, as well as in the '40s when they were called 'Dixiecrats,' they were conservative Democrats,” he wrote.
Neiwert's article was in response to CNN conservative analyst Jeffrey Lord's statement calling the KKK “a leftist terrorist organization.”
The Dixiecrats Cruz referred to was a splinter group of conservative white Southern Democrats who opposed the national party's growing intervention in race relations. They even ran a rival campaign in the 1948 presidential election, pitting then-South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond against the Democratic incumbent, President Harry S. Truman.
The rest of Cruz's comments on Fox News focused on defending Sessions, whom he called an “honorable, decent person” and who has faced repeated accusations of racism.
“The charges that she was making of Jeff Sessions are demonstrably false. They're slanderous, they're ugly," Cruz said of Warren.
Cruz was referring to Warren's decision to read statements that figures such as the late senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and the late Coretta Scott King had made in the past against Sessions.
The Democrat from Massachusetts was reading a letter written by the wife of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. when, in an extraordinarily rare move, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) interrupted her, saying she'd violated Senate rules.
The specific rule in question, Rule 19, says senators are not allowed to “directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming of a Senator.” In a 49-to-43 vote, the Senate upheld the ruling that Warren violated the rarely invoked rule.
The statements from Kennedy and Coretta Scott King were both in opposition to Sessions's nomination for the federal judgeship in 1986. At that time, Kennedy was a senior member of the Judiciary Committee.
During the debate Tuesday night, Warren read Kennedy's statement that called Sessions “a disgrace to the Justice Department.”
Warren had just started reading the letter from Coretta Scott King when she was interrupted.
“Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters. For this reprehensible conduct, he should not be rewarded with a federal judgeship,” Coretta Scott King wrote, referring to controversial prosecutions when Sessions was the U.S. attorney for Alabama.
Cruz said what happened Tuesday night demonstrates the Democratic Party's desperation and anger. He added that the Democrats are not angry at Republicans; they're mad at the voters because of the outcome of the election.
“When the left doesn't have any more arguments, they go and just accuse everyone of being a racist,” Cruz said, “and it's an ugly, ugly part of the modern Democratic Party.”
Democrats have since rallied behind Warren. Some began using #LetLizSpeak on Twitter and posted copies of King's letter to Facebook. Others criticized McConnell, saying he selectively enforced the more-than-200-year-old rule and pointed out other instances in which it could've been used, but wasn't.
In 2015, for instance, Cruz accused McConnell of lying during a debate over whether to fund the Export-Import Bank, a little-known government agency that helps fund risky investments abroad. Cruz was not found to be in violation of Rule 19 then.
Politico congressional reporter Burgess Everett reported that McConnell convinced his colleagues to stand down.
Would highly recommend reading as right now the EU and NATO is far more active in countering Russian propaganda and Russian influence operations than the entire Trump WH NSC with a former JSOC natsec.....who does believe anything ever happened and certainly it was not the Russians....
EU Mythbusters
✔
@EUvsDisinfo
RAPID FIRE CONSPIRACY THEORIES - part 3 of the brilliant @EuromaidanPress series "A guide to Russian propaganda"
A response from a US businessman in Germany...attempting to push US exports into EU.....
Simply stunning that Trump is more critical of Nordstrom than a dictator like Putin and the Russian hacking done to tilt the 2016 election.
And I am talking to myself????
BTW he fully understands Putin as he sits 60 miles from the Polish border..sometimes reality speaks far greater words that does a Trump tweet......
BTW he is doing far more to create and hold US manufacturing jobs than all the US media shows from the Trump WH and lies that companies are generating jobs based in his personal efforts.....
Take the Intel announcement Trump takes credit for....was announced also back under Obama and Intel never fulfilled that announcement then....so why now..especially if you know where Chandler AZ sits and what available educated and fully trained employees there are available in and around Chandler... there are ...none...
Let's see...what I have posted here pertaining to the so called Trump FP as the world sees it since he arrived in office.....
1. Bashes NATO and calls it obsolete....
2. Bashes Germany's Merkel on immigrants a German decision not Trump's
3. Top Trump economic advisor bashes German economy and the Euro
4. Bashes the need for UN and congress brings in a law to take the US out of UN
5. Incoherent Trump phones calls with Australia...France...Mexico and Ukraine
6. Apparently believes the fighting in eastern Ukraine is a border dispute between Russia and Ukraine ALHOUGH Russian active duty troops are commanding Russian mercenary units a full 250 miles inside eastern Ukraine
7. Declares his first JSOC raid into Yemen a "flaming success"
8. Tells France to protect NATO and rambles on about money owed the US
9. Tweets aggressively against the US judicial system which guarantees the rule of law
10. Has an ongoing bromance with Putin that no one seems able to explain outside of Trump himself
11. Trump's wife is suing for damages as she claims she would use the WH in order to sell her own branded products and photos..a total first in 250 years for a First Lady
12. Trump defends his daughter against Nordstorm from the Office of the President and even on the US taxpayer funded US President twitter site
13. Threatened to send in federal marshall's/FBI into Detroit
14. Threatened to send US troops into Mexico for those "bad hombres"
15. Told the US repeatedly Mexico will pay for the wall but in the end you and I will pay on average 130USDs for each man...women..child.....
16. Hung up on the Australian PM because he was "fatigued"....
17. Threatened the use of torture and black interrogation sites again....
18. Total chaos on his Muslim Ban EO with federal courts ruling against him and now he even states he should have waited a "few months"...backtracking it seems...
19. Kicked off the JCoS and the ODNI from the NSC and allows a white nationalist into the NSC.
20. Allows a known white supremacist into the WH Press Corp
21. Threatens USC Berkeley to pull federal funds for blocking a speech by this very same white supremacist
22. A massive list of blatant Trump lies revealed in many of his tweets and statements ie the "underreported terror attacks"....
23. Constant bashing of US news media outlets ie NYT and Wapo and CNN....
24...AND the famous Trump myth that he won the general election and there were 3-5M illegal votes cast for Clinton....
25. Remember the inaugural crowd size myth and lies....and massive Trump tweets
26. intensive research into the so called Trump step down from his companies has indicated he still is in control and thus drives the business interests of his companies from the Oval Office...FULLY indicated in the tweet yesterday against Nordstrom when they dropped his daughters product lines for low to virtually no sales...
27. Last but not least...Trump's repeated tweet bashing of China and their currency....
AND oh BTW....that so called 1T USD Trump proposed "border tax" outside of being illegal will on fact crash the US economy which even Forbes now fully and suddenly recognizes....
Should I continue????
ALL of the above is the basis in the normal world when a President formulates his global FP.....economics...politics.....and militarily....
Now go back and check every posting...and each of those posts parallels this list that is normally what is used to formulate FP....
So yes I do follow closely what Trump tweets...says and does as it in the end effects me....ESPECIALLY if you realized that the CBR has been demanding since the Muslim Ban that even Americans arriving back into the US on US valid passports give up their FB..Twitter....email accounts and passwords....WITHOUT a FISA court order...basing their actions on a Muslim Ban EO that the Federal Courts have basically stopped.....
I travel a lot so it does effect me...maybe not you but certainly CBP and INs always ask me as an American citizen what I have been up to and I am not a Muslim...brown or black but a white US male far older than many asking me those questions and have served in three wars along the way and they have not....and I have bleed red blood for the US and most of those in CBP/INS have not.....so yes I take Trump far more seriously than many Americans do as words are in fact often actions....
This has nothing to do with Clinton..the election....and everything to do with a sociopathic narcissistic individual...who is running amuck in the WH in our name.....
Open for responses....
Thanks to the abolition of the Smith Mundt Act, RFE/RL and VOA can or at least up until the election did indulge in rampant anti-Trump, pro-Hillary Clinton propaganda, disguised as quotes from neocon or pro-Kiev government sources of course. Which is exactly how they accuse RT of putting out pro-Kremlin spin via 'experts' and 'foreign policy analysts'.
Another thread, more Outlaw talking to himself. :)