Tag:Diplomacy

There’s no question that Hillary Clinton is a smart woman. When it comes to geo-politics in particular, few can match her combination of knowledge,...

Well, the Twitter bug bit again. About 20 minutes ago, Trump fired his national security adviser, John Bolton via Twitter, cuz,of course he did. In his tweet, Trump explained that he advised Bolton that “his services were no longer required.” This tweet was obviously thumbed in by some other, anonymous moron in the Comms shop, since if His Lowness had done it himself, it would have read “And so I shit canned his sorry ass.” Now, you all know my deep disgust and revulsion with John Bolton, yet another of the endless bumper crop of chickenshit hawks that the GOP keeps pulling up out of the patch, more than happy to pontificate sonorously while other peoples sons and daughters are shipped off to die. That being said, I’m not doing my victory dance at the news, and treating myself to a large pepperoni, with extra cheese. Because I’m too scared shitless. Since day one of the national nightmare that is the Trump administration, our only solace was that there were “adults in the room,” who would act as :guardrails” against Trump’s more insane ideas. H.R. McMaster, John Kelly, Mad Dog Jim Mattis, Dan Coats, all had real world international diplomacy experience, grounded in reality. Even Trump’s Secretary of State pick, Rex Tillerson, had extensive international experience. All of them swept aside by the endless rising tide of Trump stupidity. And all for the same reason, because they restrained him. And now, Bolton. You can say what you like about John Bolton, and all of it should be bad, but you have to say one thing. At least John Bolton had experience, both political and geo political, that was grounded in reality. He may well have been a real tough son of a bitch when somebody else’s blood was on the line, but at least he understood the concepts. Apparently, Bolton’s final mortal sin was in insisting that having the leader of the Taliban at Camp David in the week leading up to 9/11 was a nightmare scenario that would bury Trump in the optics alone. Trump doesn’t like it when his toys are taken away. But now what? Well, lets just take a quick look at Trump’s high quality replacements for previous “adults in the room.” He has a chief of staff whose basic thought process is “Let Trump be Trump, I’m just an ‘acting’ COS, so I can always take a hike if the shit gets too hairy.” He’ll install a toadying, sycophantic Director of National Intelligence who will cherry pick intel that Trump wants to hear, and not the reality on the ground. His new Secretary of Defense is so independent that he just stole $3.6 billion from his own wallet to give to the mugger to build a wall around his own house. And he has a Secretary of State who is such an incompetent dumb fuck that he actually thought that it was a great idea for Dumblefork to cross an invisible line into North Korea, while the pie faced clown in the stove pipe pants laughed his ass off at Trump for doing it. In his “Get the fuck outta here” tweet firing Bolton, Trump promised to name a replacement sometime next week. Personally, I’d be perfectly happy to see the stock market do a header from the top […]

I’m still laughing. You know, I thought that the G20 meeting was supposed to be a serious matter, between serious world leaders. That swing-your-arm-back-a-foot, loud slap, thumb grab handshake between the two international pariahs, Putin and MBS that I was yesterday was the most juvenile display in the history of diplomacy. It looked like a couple of failed frat pledges who just scored a kegger to drown their sorrows. But such childish shenanigans aside, the spotlight was on the Cheeto Prophet, as it always seems to be at these moments. Trump once again made news by announcing that he was cancelling his one-on-one with Putin over the situation with Ukraine. Here is a guy who changed the GOP convention platform to bar giving the Ukraine lethal defensive weapons, but now he’s got his panties in a bunch over a fender bender between a Russian warship and a Ukrainian tugboat.The Russians immediately gleefully called “bullshit,” noting that Trump’s decision was much more likely caused by Trump’s domestic problems. But hey, at least they didn’t rub in the fact that they were the cause of those domestic problems. I was gratified to see that, as usual, the media pundits had their heads safely up their collective ass. Everybody was somberly opining that the reason that His Lowness cancelled the meeting with Putin was to avoid having to answer questions about Michael Cohen at the post powwow press conference. This is ridiculous, he already answered questions about Cohen before he got on Trump Force 1. His answer was basically, “So what?” What?” Trump couldn’t afford was having Putin standing at a podium answering questions about Michael Cohen. Look what happened in Helsinki. A reporter asked Putin if he did actually order his GRU to interfere in our election, and did they do so, and Putin answered “Yes, and yes.” Right now, Cohen’s accusations are publicly uncorroborated, the last thing Trump needs is his co-conspirator spilling the beans to the press. Putin is about to learn what everybody else already knows, namely, that Trump is your best friend until he’s not. Other foreign leaders already know this. When Justin Trudeau was staring adoringly at Trump like a kid watching his Dad show him how to change spark plugs, he was aces. But respond to Trump’s tariffs in kind, and suddenly he’s weak. Likewise with Macron, when he was busy showing off his war toys to Glorious Bleater, Macron was golden. But tell Trump that only idiots withdraw within their own borders, and suddenly it’s time for somebody else to “Make France Great Again!”Trumps problem is simple, the little light has finally gone on when the fridge door was opened. Cohen has finally shown a direct relationship between Trump and the Russian government, while he was running for President. Somebody finally took the plate with his bacon double cheeseburger away from him until he got it through his thick skull that doing everything but flush after he wiped Putin’s ass was making him look like a whiny little sycophant. He was going to have to put his big boy pants on and try to look tough when it came to Vladimir Putin. This is a ill planned course of action, for two reasons. First, it’s much too late. Trump has been slobbering all over Putin’s face like your […]

No more skirting the issue. No more beating around the bush. No more even pretending to give a shit. The sitting President of the United States just came out in a statement, and gave us the value of a human life. Or as many as may pile up. And that value is 450 billion dollars. The life whose value was just determined by the national disgrace that is Trump, is of course that of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Although it could just as easily be referring to a busload of Yemeni children, or jailed Saudi journalists or political opponents, take your pick. In the mercenary “America First!” world of Donald Trump, the going rate for Saudi inspired slaughter is a cool, non negotiable $450 billion. Bulk rate. In a truly stomach turning press release, Trump formally announced that even if the intelligence community had an audio recording of Crown Prince Mohamad Bin Salman ordering the execution and dismemberment of Khashoggi, Trump and his lick spittle son in law, Jared Kushner, are all in with Saudi Arabia. This disgusting missive begins with the usual Trump flair, “The world is a dangerous place!”, after which it launches into an infantile rant against Iran, cuz, like Iran and stuff. Then comes the meat and potatoes, the valuing human life like the trade in value of a 2012 Nissan Sentra; After my heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. This is a record amount of money. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States.  There you have it. Based on an if-we-can-find-enough-change-under-the-sofa-cushions promise, the price is set. Only even that is bullshit, since like every other number Trump has ever heard, it magically increases every time he says it. The original Saudi agreement to buy US military hardware was slightly less than half of that value. But even that is more than enough to allow the Saudi’s to get medieval on anybody it wants, including permanent US residents. And that pesky CIA report, you know, the one that confirms that MBS personally ordered the execution of Khashoggi? Well, screw that, Trump has that one covered; Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t! That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. So, stick that in your pipe and smoke it, CIA! You think that just because you have a cool, universally known acronym, you can try to confuse me with facts? And as for any of those little pissants in congress, making loud noises about having thoughts about going over Trump’s head, they just better think again; I understand there are members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction – and they are free to do so. I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and […]

Russian asset Donald Trump followed up on his disastrous visit to England, riddled by multiple faux pas by making it 10 times worse Thursday night, lying about it at a rally in Pennsylvania. Half the globe's television stations broadcast the...

Aww. Is Melania’s widdle man getting cranky again? Who else but Trumplethinskin could spend the weekend in the finest suite, in a schlock golf palace that he owns, playing endless rounds, tearing up the greens with his overloaded cart, and still cop a mope? Even teething toddlers aren’t this petulant, we’re talking a unique breed of […]

Since the day the Perpetual Motion Pie Hole that is Donald Trump announced his candidacy, he has taken the truth for a spin in his personal taffy pulling machine. His constant, often gratuitous lying has made him unbelievable on even something as simple as whether the sun is shining or not. Since the Russia investigation […]

Donald Trump’s ambassador to Germany seems to think his job is political campaigning, not diplomacy for the United States. Ambassador Richard Grenell said he hopes to use his position in Germany to “empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other...