Work the
Phones (w/New Slant): Save Campaign Promises
(Seeking help
from Mexico and Australia)
Three current “hot” items issues are here piecemeal in this post: (1) Mueller’s cases building against
Trump; (2) Trump’s international phone calls – the wall and limiting legal
immigration, and (3) the War in Afghanistan – the U.S. is not winning
that war.
Short Video Introduction to Set the Scene as It Were - note that during those phone calls that Flynn (since having been fired) and Bannon were also present — so who leaked the transcript to press? LOL LOL LOL
My
Personal Introduction: I
strongly believe that die-hard loyalists still sticking with and defending Trump
do so not because they actually believe and trust him or even somewhat disagree
with his performance in office to date – which has been pretty awful very poor
according to all historical measurements and standards, but is much more tuned
to their hatred for and about Hillary Clinton, the DEMS, and a need to follow
their own views and opinions and those they see and hear across rightwing Talk
Radio and placed like FOX – therefore avoiding criticizing Trump at all costs
by their pretense otherwise.
In short: Those loyalists are by any
definition hypocrites not only regarding any of their public statements and
such, but more so to themselves.
Mueller’s
case against Donald J. Trump is about obstruction of justice and it is building
up Steam by his ordering of a Grand Jury.
Right after Mueller
was appointed Special Counsel in May, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe told
several of the highest-ranking managers of the bureau they should consider
themselves possible witnesses in any investigation into whether President
Donald Trump engaged in obstruction of justice, according to two senior federal
law enforcement officials.
McCabe told
colleagues that he too is a potential witness in the probe of whether Trump
broke the law by trying to thwart the FBI's Russia investigation and the
investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian
government to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
Two senior federal
law enforcement officials also have confirmed the new revelations illustrate
why they believe the potential case against Trump is stronger than outsiders
have thought, with one of them adding: “What you are going to have is the
potential for a powerful obstruction case. You are going to have the former Director
testify, then the acting director, the FBI CofS, the general counsel, and then
others, one right after another. This has never been solely about “the word of
Trump against what Comey has/or had to say. This is more like the FBI vs. Donald
J. Trump.”
Trump and
his supporters have long argued that it would be difficult, if not impossible,
for the special counsel to bring an obstruction case against Trump. The case
would rely on the word of one man versus another, that of the president of the
United States versus the director of the FBI he fired. But this was never the
case.
Including
Comey, as many as 10, and possibly more, of the nation’s most senior law
enforcement officials are likely to be questioned as part of the investigation
into whether Trump committed obstruction of justice and that is according to
two government investigators with first-hand knowledge of the matter.
Comey’s
notes on his conversations could also be used as evidence.
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This is an extract of
Trump’s later call to the Mexican president re: the Wall and penalty for not
paying for it:
Mexican President ENRIQUE PEÑA NIETO
to TRUMP: “To tell you the truth, Mr. President, I feel quite
surprised about this new proposal that you are making because it is different
from the discussion that both of our teams have been holding.”
Note: The proposal that caught Peña Nieto
by surprise and was addressing was a tariff on goods imported from Mexico
to the United States. Trump agreed that a tariff had not been discussed
in talks between White House adviser Jared Kushner and Mexican Foreign Minister
Luis Videgaray but said Peña Nieto should have expected it, based on Trump's campaign
rhetoric.
TRUMP to PENA NIETO: “Enrique, if I can interrupt — this
is not a new proposal. This is what I have been saying for a year and a half on
the campaign trail. I have been telling this to every group of 50,000 people or
25,000 people — because no one got the people in their rallies as big as I did. But I have been saying I wanted to tax people
that treated us unfairly at the border, and Mexico is treating us unfairly.”
(Note:
Astonishing how Trump wove that aspect into their conversation … seeking to
fluff himself again about winning and how he did).
Other
elements in those two international phone calls (Aussies and Mexico) can be
read here from the Washington post in
the transcripts.
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War in Afghanistan – Now Trump’s War: The U.S. has been unsuccessful in curbing
Afghanistan's drug trade (re: SIGAR (Special
Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction). Some $8.6 billion has
been spent trying to stop their opium
production and trading (which BTW is the largest in the world and it growing
now faster ever).
SIGAR’s IG said in their
report:
“No matter which metric you use, the anti-opium effort has been a real
failure,” Gen. John F. Sopko, SIGAR’s
IG, told NBC News last year. That money is part of an estimated $119.7
billion spent by the U.S. in an attempt to rebuild Afghanistan.
SIGAR, which
scrutinizes U.S. spending there, told NBC News last year how much of this money
has been wasted on such things as useless aircraft, unnecessary facilities, and
buildings that literally melted in the rain.
They also said:
“Add that to the fact that the Afghan government is cobbled together from the
winners and losers and it is shows large division.” (Re: Senior fellow Shashank
Joshi at RUSI (the Royal United Services Institute).
So what now,
um, Mr. Trump?
1. Some of
Trump's advisers want to send several thousand additional troops to
Afghanistan.
2. Others favor
the U.S. reducing its role in the war all together.
Joshi at RUSI believes that the
former would not work adding: “Why would more troops make a difference now when over
100,000 did not during the Obama surge?” — (Note: This may be closer to
Trump’s view) since “withdrawal is clearly his instinct, but he clearly wants
to wash his hands of the war as most American generals offer that as a way to stop
the bleeding, but and that might not be enough for Trump, since he likes
winning.”
My Summary: Trump is weakest on foreign policy and the evidence supports
that: his phone calls about policy that takes him back to the election and how
he won, and avoiding hard decisions while copying other ideas like the Aussie
merit immigration system, and North Korea hanging over everyone’s head with
nuclear threats – and of course old Vlad Putin and that mess waiting to be
resolved and yet can’t be admitted to by Trump – ergo: he is still in deep
denial about the whole Russian thing – astonishing, isn’t it?
Related closing tidbit:
Retired Marine General John Kelly, Trump’s new W/H CofS,
is focused on ending chaos in the White House.
Trump world’s vicious backstabbing is not in any event
the administration’s most important problem. A devotion to lying is a far
graver danger to this presidency, and military efficiency from Kelly will not
dispel it.
Recent and Serious Example: The Washington Post’s
report on Don Jr’s Russian lawyer meeting and conflicting statement have been recently
confirmed by the White House that in fact the president was the prime mover
behind those misleading statement (in fact, he drafted the response for release
about the purpose of the meeting – adoption – not dirt on Hillary Clinton) as
to whether the Russian lawyer was in fact peddling derogatory information about
Clinton simply and clearly now ratifies the pattern of deceit and misdirection
on all matters Russian.
Thus, behaving as if you are guilty won’t convince
others that you are innocent.
However, Trump seems convinced that he can survive
whatever comes his way as long as he keeps his much-celebrated political base
with him. But this is not as easy as it sounds for either Trump or his party
because his base is fundamentally divided.
Stay tuned
is my best advice at this point – the onus is now on SC Robert Mueller.
Thanks for stopping
by.
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