{"id":34684,"date":"2018-12-09T17:37:14","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T01:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=34684"},"modified":"2018-12-09T17:44:44","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T01:44:44","slug":"squatchs-open-thread-09-december-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/12\/09\/squatchs-open-thread-09-december-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Squatch’s Open Thread 09 December 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is late Sunday afternoon and I am trying to get this out so I can start on Monday’s OT.\u00a0 It has been raining very hard all day but the previously predicted sleet\/snow did not materialise.\u00a0 We have not yet heard from TC so I don’t think he has his internet up and working yet.\u00a0 My pot luck supper at my church went well and everyone, so I was told, was satiated by all the good food.\u00a0 I took a blueberry pie which was very well received.\u00a0 Personally, I had fresh fruit for dessert.\u00a0 I hope your weekend is going well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/span><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s took me 4:53 (average 6:44). To do it, click here<\/strong><\/a>. How did you do?<\/span><\/p>\n

TC’s took me 4:26 (average 6:07). To do it, click here<\/strong><\/a>. How did you do?<\/span><\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Politico\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>—\u00a0The Senate is on the verge of an extraordinary rebuke of Donald Trump\u2019s foreign policy, underscoring a bipartisan willingness to encroach on the president\u2019s powers as commander in chief.<\/p>\n

From forcing Trump to impose sanctions on Russia to raising questions about his nuclear trigger finger, lawmakers are repeatedly asserting themselves in an area long dominated by the executive branch.<\/p>\n

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And now the fury is so great on Capitol Hill over the Saudi murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi \u2014 and the Trump administration\u2019s tepid response \u2014 that senators are deliberating over whether to pull U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen.\u00a0 …<\/div>\n
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Trump has \u201cforced members of the Senate to clarify that many of us continue to believe that we are a country that is safe and secure and prosperous when we put our values first and our interests second, not the other way around,\u201d said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.\u00a0 …<\/div>\n
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Trump\u2019s disdain for multilateralism, insults to U.S. allies and transactional approach to dealings with other countries have long alarmed top Republicans and Democrats alike. Trump\u2019s attempts to gain favor with Russian President Vladimir Putin also upset many in both parties.\u00a0 …<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The congressional reprimands of Trump also have taken other, often symbolic forms.<\/p>\n

One example came when the GOP chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker of Tennessee, convened a\u00a0hearing<\/a>\u00a0to examine the president\u2019s authority to use nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

The hearing indicated that lawmakers did not trust Trump\u2019s judgment, especially as he was exchanging heated rhetoric at the time with the nuclear-armed leader of North Korea.\u00a0 …<\/p>\n

Senate Republicans, including Corker and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), pushed legislation earlier this year that would give Congress the authority to sign off on tariffs linked to national security, in a sign of their unease with Trump\u2019s protectionist tendencies.<\/p>\n

Click through for the rest of the details.\u00a0 I for one am very glad to see that the Senate is moving to contain this infantile resident of the WH.\u00a0 While members of the Senate agree “that we are a country that is safe and secure and prosperous when we put our values first and our interests second”, Trump does not.\u00a0 The Liar-in-Chief has no redeemable positive values or qualities.\u00a0 He is driven by money and his personal image.\u00a0 If you want to get a picture of some of that, read David Cay Johnston’s book “The Making of Donald Trump”.\u00a0 When I read about 4 chapters at lunch (they are short), Johnston filled in detail about things I already knew about.<\/span><\/p>\n

Huffington Post<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — After a decisive vote the last week<\/a>, the Senate is readying for debate on a bipartisan bill cutting off U.S. support for Saudi Arabia\u2019s horrific war in Yemen. Thus begins the fight to eviscerate President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s corrupt bargain with the vicious and volatile Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).<\/p>\n

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The immediate impetus for the Senate action was the grisly murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi operatives at the direction of MBS \u2015 and Trump\u2019s mendacious and morally repulsive embrace of the crown prince<\/a> in the killing\u2019s aftermath.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world is a very dangerous place!\u201d Trump proclaimed<\/a>, before proceeding to lie about the CIA\u2019s findings that MBS directed the murder; obfuscate the compelling evidence marshaled to support the findings; spout Saudi slanders against Khashoggi; grossly inflate the worth of a phantom Saudi arms purchase; falsely claim that the Saudis could easily arm their Air Force elsewhere; and concoct a counterfactual dependence on Saudi oil.<\/p>\n

Effectively, Trump licensed the murder of journalists and human rights advocates while further subcontracting U.S. policy in a combustible region to an unstable autocrat devoid of psychological or external constraints. The danger of this devil\u2019s pact is enhanced by MBS\u2019s apparent ability to mesmerize Trump, who personalizes foreign policy and gorges on flattery, and the president\u2019s equally incompetent, unqualified and ethically challenged son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Both compound their infinite geopolitical ignorance by conflating governance with venality, making them ripe for a ruthless autocrat whose country is awash in cash.<\/p>\n

Click through to get a picture of just how compromised Trump is when it comes to the Middle East.\u00a0 One could say that Saudi Arabia and Russia are playing him like a violin.\u00a0 When Trump says \u201cI have no financial interest in Saudi Arabia\u201d, he is being deceptive.\u00a0 He may not have properties there, but the Saudi’s pump money into his other properties\/businesses.\u00a0 His son-in-law, Kushner who is a senior and trusted adviser, is also compromised by the Saudi’s. Their venality has made them very gullible and exposes them to so much corruption, yet Trump thinks he is in control.\u00a0 This is only part of US foreign policy, but it demonstrates why the Congress, on a bipartisan basis, is willing\u00a0to “encroach on the president\u2019s powers as commander in chief” as noted in the previous article.<\/span><\/p>\n

New Yorker<\/strong><\/span><\/a> —\u00a0The outgoing chief of staff, John Kelly, departed the White House with the nation\u2019s nuclear codes hidden in his pants, General Kelly has confirmed.<\/p>\n

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Kelly, whose illustrious military career spanned five decades, called his absconding with the nuclear codes \u201cmy greatest act of service to my country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters from his home, Kelly said that he had planned the heist of the nation\u2019s nuclear codes with the pinpoint timing of a clandestine military mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went into the Oval Office on Friday when I knew Trump would be distracted because \u2018Fox & Friends\u2019 was on,\u201d he said. \u201cThen, when he started tweeting something that one of the hosts told him to do, I slipped the codes into my pants, as quick as lightning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, when Trump realises that they are gone, if he realises, he’s not going to look there.\u00a0 Wrong gender!<\/span><\/p>\n

My Universe<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Posted to Care2 Here<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is late Sunday afternoon and I am trying to get this out so I can start on Monday’s OT.\u00a0 It has been raining very hard all day but the previously predicted sleet\/snow did not materialise.\u00a0 We have not yet heard from TC so I don’t think he has his internet up and working yet.\u00a0 […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-politics","category-35-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}