Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

The current and future danger posed by Putin puppet Donald "Tovarich" Trump to our national security is more in focus than ever, following the intelligence briefing by now former DNI Joseph Maguire alerting the White (Supremacist) House to active Russian interference in our elections:

Trump responded not by rejecting Russia’s interference or pressing his officials to work harder to deter it, but by telling Maguire and another senior career intelligence official present that they were being “played,” according to a senior White House official.

Five days later, Trump announced that Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany and a presidential loyalist, would step in as the new acting director of national intelligence. Maguire was told to vacate his office at the DNI’s headquarters in Virginia by 10 a.m. the next morning, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Current and former national security officials were appalled but not surprised by Maguire’s unceremonious dispatch. “[I]n this administration, good men and women don’t last long,” retired Adm. William H. McRaven, who led the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and is one of Maguire’s closest friends, wrote in an opinion piece for The Washington Post on Friday. [snip]

Grenell, who has no experience in the intelligence community, is close to Trump and his children. The president delights in his boosterism on Fox News and Twitter, where Grenell frequently clashes with the president’s critics and with journalists.

Current and former intelligence officials see Grenell’s appointment, which he has said will last only until a permanent director is confirmed by the Senate, as a signal that Trump intends to exert more political control over the intelligence community.

A House intelligence committee official worried that Trump “has installed a new acting DNI to protect himself and interfere politically in the crucial work of the intelligence community, leaving our elections more vulnerable to foreign interference than ever.”

The decision to move another Trump loyalist, Kash Patel, into a senior advisory position at the intelligence director’s office further cemented that impression.

Patel, a former aide to Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and most recently the top counterterrorism official on the National Security Council, has infuriated CIA and FBI personnel over his efforts to prove a conspiracy in the intelligence community to bring down the president by investigating his campaign’s possible ties to Russia in 2016.

And when the Russians aren't meddling, you can be sure Republican Machiavelli Moscow Mitch McConnell is:

Democrats are denouncing Republicans' now-confirmed meddling in next month's primary for Senate in North Carolina after it was revealed that a top GOP super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell funded an outside group that spent millions to boost a liberal candidate over national Democrats' preferred contender.

Faith and Power PAC, a super PAC that formed earlier this year, has spent nearly $3 million boosting state Sen. Erica Smith, who is running in the primary against Cal Cunningham, a veteran and former state senator backed by the Senate Democrats' official campaign arm. The two are running in a five-person primary to face GOP Sen. Thom Tillis in November.

It was clear the group was tied to Republicans when it began spending in early February, but the new FEC disclosure filed late Thursday confirmed its sole funding came from the Senate Leadership Fund, which is run by McConnell's allies.

We have no dog in that fight, but apparently McConnell is doing what he can to stir up trouble among Democrats where they're running against a vulnerable Republican Senator.

Another opportunity for the world to see what a dimwitted clown we have as "president":

President Donald Trump butchered several Indian words during a speech on his first official visit to the country.

Trump addressed a massive public rally Monday in Gujarat, the home state of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, and struggled to pronounce several words, reported BBC.

The U.S. president bungled his pronunciation of Ahmedabad, the city where he was speaking, and the name of Indian philosopher Swami Vivekananda.

BBC’s Rajini Vaidyanathan reported that crowds began leaving midway through Trump’s speech, which came after Modi spoke.

He's all yours, Modi.

Meanwhile, R.I.P. Katherine Johnson:

Katherine Johnson, one of the history-making, barrier-breaking NASA mathematicians depicted in "Hidden Figures," died Monday, the administrator of NASA said.

She was 101.

"Johnson helped our nation enlarge the frontiers of space even as she made huge strides that also opened doors for women and people of color in the universal human quest to explore space," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement.

As usual, we strongly recommend a visit to Infidel 753's link round- up for a far greater selection of worthy reads.  We never fail to find multiple objects of interest and/ or amusement.

QOTD -- Don't Know Much About History (Or Anything Else)

“'Hey, John, what’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?” Trump asks his then-Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, as the men prepare to take a private tour of the USS Arizona Memorial, which commemorates the December 1941 Japanese surprise attack in the Pacific that pulled the United States into World War II.

“'Trump had heard the phrase ‘Pearl Harbor’ and appeared to understand that he was visiting the scene of a historic battle, but he did not seem to know much else,” write the authors, later quoting a former senior White House adviser who concludes: “He was at times dangerously uninformed.'” -- excerpt from a new book,"Very Stable Genius," by Washington Post writers Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, quoted in an article by fellow Post writer Ashley Parker. "Dangerously uninformed?"  The man's a complete nitwit.

Trump Continues To Undermine U.S. Security

Like a shamelessly crude guest that pees in the punchbowl, incompetent sociopath and Kremlin asset Donald "Not Exonerated" Trump told his Japanese hosts while at the G-20 summit in Osaka that the U.S.-Japan defense treaty needs to change because it's "unfair" to the U.S. The treaty obligates the U.S. to defend Japan in case of an attack, but is not reciprocal. That's apparently all Trump knows about the treaty, which also gives the U.S. military bases on Japanese soil, including Okinawa and the Yokosuka naval base, allowing the U.S. to deter potential military action by hostile nations. As the article states,

"An end to the security pact is widely seen as raising the risk of forcing Washington to withdraw a major portion of its military forces from Asia at a time when China’s military power is growing."

Put another way, for the tangible bases and infrastructure support provided by Japan, they get a promise to defend them against the very remote likelihood of an attack. Sounds like a good deal for the U.S., but don't tell that to the ignorant Dealmaker-In-Chief.

BONUS: Exhibiting his deference to North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Un, Trump suggests a photo-op with him at the Demilitarized Zone to "shake hands."  Always a showman/ conman, he believes that his twisted personality will charm dictators (who already have his number).

QOTD: Ignoramus

"It is not unfair to point out that President Trump, on many important subjects, is just an ignoramus.

A vivid illustration of this unfortunate fact came this week in London, when it was revealed that Prince Charles, a knowledgeable environmentalist, had tried to educate the president on climate change — and utterly failed.

'I believe that there’s a change in weather, and I think it changes both ways,' Trump told 'Good Morning Britain” host Piers Morgan in an interview broadcast Wednesday. 'Don’t forget it used to be called global warming. That wasn’t working. Then it was called climate change. Now it’s actually called extreme weather, because with extreme weather, you can’t miss.'

Good Lord, it’s breathtaking that anyone could pack so much ignorance into so few words." (our empahsis) -- Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Eugene Robinson in today's Washington Post.

Where to begin? Equating weather with climate. Confusing global warming and climate change. Not understanding the basics of the issue. It's clear that, even if he were not in the pocket of the fossil fuel interests, he hasn't learned a damn thing about the issue, and more importantly, doesn't care to.

BONUS:  Exhibit 2. The moon is part of Mars. Do tell:

For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon - We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2019

BONUS II:  Wrapping things up --

So this week Trump continued his feud with a dead man, picked a new one with Bette Midler, attacked a royal family member, said Ireland should build a wall on its border with N. Ireland, that he didn't serve in Vietnam b/c it was far away, & the moon was part of Mars. Cool cool.

— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) June 7, 2019

Read And Weep

The expression "carrying coals to Newcastle" has long pertained to any further, redundant, exhausting illustration of the unfitness and the sheer, numbing ignorance of Donald "Rump" Trump. However, it bears chronicling for posterity, I guess.

This world-class boob, "elected" by other boobs with an assist from an America- hating tyrant, was recently interviewed by Washington Post writers.  As you would expect, the brain rot is there for all to see:

On global climate change and the recent National Climate Assessment warning of the dire consequences of inaction:

“One of the problems that a lot of people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we’re not necessarily such believers."

“As to whether or not it’s man-made and whether or not the effects that you’re talking about are there, I don’t see it.”

“If you go back and if you look at articles, they talk about global freezing. They talk about at some point, the planet is going to freeze to death, then it’s going to die of heat exhaustion.”

Keyword: "exhaustion."

On air and water pollution:

“You look at our air and our water and it’s right now at a record clean. But when you look at China and you look at parts of Asia and you look at South America, and when you look at many other places in this world, including Russia, including many other places, the air is incredibly dirty, and when you’re talking about an atmosphere, oceans are very small. And it blows over and it sails over. I mean we take thousands of tons of garbage off our beaches all the time that comes over from Asia. It just flows right down the Pacific. It flows and we say, ‘Where does this come from?’ And it takes many people, to start off with.”

Keyword: "blows."

On "raking" to prevent forest fires:

“You go to other places where they have denser trees, it’s more dense, where the trees are more flammable, they don’t have forest fires like this because they maintain. And it was very interesting I was watching the firemen, and they were raking brush. . . . It’s on fire. They’re raking it, working so hard. If that was raked in the beginning, there would be nothing to catch on fire.”

Keyword: "dense."

The author of the aforementioned National Climate Assessment has an epic takedown of Dolt 45 and his spokesliars lies;  you can check it out here.

Meanwhile, is Mueller filing more indictments? Is the Mueller report out? Is it 2020 yet?

Cadet Bone Spurs Salutes!

We have this image, above, that exemplifies draft-dodging demagogue and pathological liar Donald "Rump" Trump's habit of fawning over dictators, and now their generals. It's a screen shot from the video below. The excited narration of the video is by North Korean state media and is a reminder that the June 12 Singapore "summit" conferred international leadership status on dictator Kim Jong Un that he had previously lacked. Rump, meanwhile, looked like a maître d' escorting an honored guest around. If he had gotten to his knees in front of the North Korean delegation it couldn't have been more symbolic.

North Korean TV has aired its first footage of the #TrumpKimSummit. Look out for the handshake/salute confusion 55 seconds in. pic.twitter.com/JS5yEUprgz

— BBC Monitoring (@BBCMonitoring) June 14, 2018

Our Stupid "President" Quote Of The Day

"The surest indication of how not smart Trump is that he thinks his inability or lack of interest in acquiring knowledge doesn’t matter. He said last year that he reaches the right decisions 'with very little knowledge other than the knowledge I [already] had, plus the words common sense, because I have a lot of common sense and I have a lot of business ability'. How’s that working out? There’s a reason why surveys show more support for Trump’s impeachment than for his presidency. From his catastrophically ill-conceived executive order on immigration to his catastrophically ill-conceived firing of Comey, his administration has been one disaster after another. And those fiascos can be ascribed directly to the president’s lack of intellectual horsepower." -- (emphasis added) neo-conservative writer and contrarian Max Boot, writing in Foreign Policy magazine. Conservative hawk Boot is a strident critic of neo-fascist demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump, proving once again that even a blind squirrel sometimes finds a nut.

We only play psychiatrists here on the blog, but it seems as though his pathological narcissism, his lack of self-awareness, and his sociopathic behavior grow out of that "lack of intellectual horsepower," and puts us, and our democratic institutions, in great danger.

Climate Change, Handshakes And A Giant Toddler

The Age, Australia

The WH line is the president pulled out of a major climate change treaty without discussing or considering whether climate change is real.

— Rick Klein (@rickklein) June 2, 2017

We're hearing that the firm handshake from French President Macron apparently damaged the fragile ego of unstable narcissist Donald "Rump" Trump enough to exit the Paris Climate Accord. No one in the White (Supremacist) House will even say whether or not Rump believes in climate change (whether he does or not, he has to stick with his denialist base). The pettiness and recklessness of this mentally unfit clown damages us as a nation every day.

Have We Mentioned Lately That Trump's A Moron?

Nitwit Giant Toddler Donald "Rump" Trump took time from his busy schedule of tweeting and reporting to his Russian handlers to give an interview to The Economist last week. Keep in mind, this is the dolt Republicans are so desperate to protect.

Wonkette has as good a summary as anyone.  [Spoiler alert: he's an embarrassing, self- absorbed moron.]

(Image: Thanks, Wonkette.)

Giant Toddler Trump Would Be "Honored" To Meet With Murderous Dictator Kim

Well, he certainly has an well- established affinity for autocrats and dictators, doesn't he?

First, of course, there was Russian autocrat and puppet master Vladimir "Vlad the Invader" Putin (and Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi!). Then, more recently autocrat Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and budding Turkish autocrat Tayyip Erdogan. Some thought he really crossed the line when he invited Philippine President/ self- confessed murdering thug Rodrigo Duterte to the White House (Rump thinks he can't be that bad because he said Duterte has "high approval ratings").

But this is perhaps the most appalling example of foreign- policy- by- blurt yet, even by the low standards of dictator- admiring neo- fascist Donald "Rump" Trump:

President Donald Trump said he would meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un amid heightened tensions over his country’s nuclear weapons program if the circumstances were right. 

“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it,” Trump said Monday in an Oval Office interview with Bloomberg News. “If it’s under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that.”  (our emphasis)

"Honored," said one dangerous Giant Toddler to the other dangerous Giant Toddler. The same Kim who, it is estimated, has murdered over 300 people since coming to power five years ago, including his uncle and half- brother, some by anti- aircraft gun. The same Kim whose regime routinely threatens to rain nuclear hell on the United States and its allies South Korea and Japan.

We're going to go out on a limb here and say that nobody in the State or Defense Departments, or in the National Security Council for that matter, had an inkling this would suddenly and capriciously pop out of the nitwit's mouth today. They'll be back- filling and damage- controlling for the next few days or weeks now (on cue!). We're also certain the South Korean government will be delighted to hear that the Ignoramus- in- Chief wants to meet with Kim and perhaps cut a deal without their presence, as will Japan and China. In the meantime, this is a big propaganda victory for Kim; Kim's regime will think that the U.S. "blinked" and will therefore assume that its tactics of ratcheting up its bluster and brinkmanship have worked splendidly and should therefore continue.

We're also going to go out on a limb and say Rump thinks he's a very clever negotiator, and that he "alone can fix it." Whatever the ramifications of this latest example of Rump freestyling American diplomacy, it's clearly a fixture and not a bug in Rump's chaotic, incompetent style of doing business.  Unfortunately, American foreign policy isn't supposed to be handled like a business deal in Manhattan, another lesson perhaps to be learned the hard way.

(Image: Little Caesar/ Giant Toddler)

Don't Know Much About History

As we just said, lie, bluff, lie, bluff:

In an interview set to air Monday, President Donald Trump mused about the Civil War and former President Andrew Jackson, saying he does not know why the Civil War couldn’t “have been worked out.” Speaking with Salena Zito on Sirius XM radio, Trump said the Civil War wouldn’t have happened if Jackson had been president at the time. “He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War. He said, ‘There’s no reason for this,’” Trump said, incorrectly stating that Jackson reacted to the Civil War. Jackson died in 1845, while the war did not start until 1861. Trump added: “People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why? People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?” (our emphasis)

That's someone who is profoundly and serenely ignorant, who is at the same time "ignorant of his ignorance" (h/t Josh Marshall). To give him credit for even the simplest thought is to raise the bar waaay too high.

Quote And Tweet Of The Week

What accounted for the Giant Toddler's reversal on pulling out of NAFTA?

Newly-sworn-in Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue brought to the Oval Office an illustration of the areas that would be hardest hit if the U.S. pulled out of the compact, particularly in agriculture and manufacturing. It highlighted that many of those who would suffer from a trade war – especially exporters – live in “Trump country,” the counties that voted most overwhelmingly for him last November. 

“It shows that I do have a very big farmer base, which is good,” Trump recalled in an interview with The Washington Post last night. “They like Trump, but I like them, and I’m going to help them.”

It's not just that he's so insecure he keeps talking about the election, it's that he lacks the self awareness to know how that looks.

— Schooley (@Rschooley) April 28, 2017

What. A. Deranged. Fool.