The Donald Trump Thread

Why is the latest NK ICBM launch such a big deal? They've already launched at least two satellites into orbit which overfly the U.S. several times each day. Launching a 200 kg satellite proves the capability of ICBM does it not?
ICBMs usually need to land where they're directed don't they with the payload surviving the descent and any attempt to stop them? Also I suspect that the big deal is that what is being launched is beIng billed as a weapon by NK.
 

On the flip side:

Trumpocalypse: A Nightmare From Which There’s No Normal Exit

Based on his initial forays as Trump’s media guru—complete with anticipated bluster about shaking things up and firing leakers—Scaramucci seems to be functioning more as de facto White House chief of staff than the president’s communications director. That said, “The Mooch” is ideally suited to a job which will require ever grander public deceptions of mounting implausibility as multiple investigations into President Trump’s 2016 relations with the Kremlin start to bear fruit.

Scaramucci has already indicated the White House position there with his pronouncement that the president still refuses to accept the united judgement of our Intelligence community that Russian spies interfered in our 2016 election. In a unintentionally comedic twist, Scaramucci further stated on CNN, “You know, somebody said to me yesterday—I won’t tell you who—that if the Russians actually hacked this situation and spilled out those e-mails, you would have never seen it.” A few moments later, Scaramucci admitted that the anonymous source for this bombshell intelligence assertion was in fact the president himself!

Trump’s battle royal with our Intelligence community, which the president initiated in his first days in the Oval Office, continues unabated and promises to deliver his political undoing. The position of America’s most senior and experienced spies on the 2016 election is abundantly clear. Last week, John Brennan, CIA director from 2013 to 2017, declared Trump’s unwillingness to admit the obvious about the Kremlin’s role “disgraceful,” while Jim Clapper, the most experienced American spymaster of his generation and Director of National Intelligence from 2010 to 2017, explained that the president’s actions amount to “making Russia great again.”

For his part, Mike Hayden, a retired Air Force general who headed both NSA and CIA, a veteran spymaster who’s nobody’s idea of liberal, termed Russia’s interference in last year’s election “the most successful covert influence operation in history.” Hayden subsequently explained that the early June 2016 meeting between Don Trump, Jr. and Russian representatives to obtain kompromat on Hillary Clinton was a classic Kremlin intelligence operation. “My God, this is just such traditional tradecraft,” Hayden stated about that controversial meeting. Let me add that every IC veteran I know agrees with Hayden in all his statements about Team Trump in 2016.

This, then, is what the White House is up against. What the IC knows about 2016 has been shared with investigators in Congress and, most importantly, with prosecutors working for Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who’s been appointed special counsel to get to the bottom of Trump’s ties to the Kremlin. It’s obvious, based on his increasingly angry and hysterical tweets, that the president is terrified of what Mueller and his investigators will find.

In that case, Trumpism now stands for nothing more than the president and his coterie and their continuing power. His 2016 campaign must then be judged a fraud on the voters, some of whom continue to display a cult-like devotion to Trump, ignoring his actual policies.

Regardless, the president has now created an utterly self-made political crisis which promises to surpass Watergate in its damage to our democratic system. Unlike President Nixon, who ultimately demurred from a scorched-earth political death-match, Donald Trump plans to fight for his survival, whatever the cost—to himself, to his fans, and to our country.
 
Wow, Scaramucci is out. That was quick. Nope, no chaos here.

And you can relax because Jesus is at work in the White House...

WASHINGTON – A spiritual awakening is underway at the White House.

Some of the most powerful people in America have been gathering weekly to learn more about God's Word, and this Trump Cabinet Bible study is making history.

They've been called the most evangelical Cabinet in history – men and women who don't mince words when it comes to where they stand on God and the Bible.

Ralph Drollinger of Capitol Ministriestold CBN News, "These are godly individuals that God has risen to a position of prominence in our culture."
...
Health Secretary Tom Price, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Agriculture Secretary Sunny Perdue, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo are just a few of the regulars.

"It's the best Bible study that I've ever taught in my life. They are so teachable; they're so noble; they're so learned," Drollinger said.

In Pence, Drollinger sees many similarities to biblical figures like Joseph, Mordecai and Daniel – all men who rose to the number two position in governments at different times in history.

"Mike Pence has respect for the office. He dresses right - like it says Joseph cleaned himself up before he went to stand before the Pharaoh," Drollinger told CBN News.

"Mike Pence has uncompromising biblical tenacity and he has a loving tone about him that's not just a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal," he continued. "And then fourthly, he brings real value to the head of the nation."

Like others, Drollinger often compares President Trump to biblical strongman Samson.

"I just praise God for them," he said. "And I praise God for Mike Pence, who I think with Donald Trump chose great people to lead our nation."

http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/politic...whos-at-the-heart-of-this-spiritual-awakening

...A possible validation of Alex's recent interest in the historical Jesus questions?
 
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We Are Now in Cold War 2.0: Putin has given up on the White House—and that’s terrible news for Trump

Above all, Putin wanted his American superfan, once in office, to lift the sanctions that Congress placed on Russia due to its aggressive war on Ukraine, which are doing real damage to Russia’s ailing economy. Sanctions relief is an obsession in Moscow these days, and most of the strange, secretive relations between Team Trump and the Kremlin during 2016 revolve around Russia’s ardent desire to escape the West’s painful sanctions regime.

Above all, Putin wanted his American superfan, once in office, to lift the sanctions that Congress placed on Russia due to its aggressive war on Ukraine, which are doing real damage to Russia’s ailing economy. Sanctions relief is an obsession in Moscow these days, and most of the strange, secretive relations between Team Trump and the Kremlin during 2016 revolve around Russia’s ardent desire to escape the West’s painful sanctions regime.

These numbers are mysterious, however, since there are nowhere near 755 American diplomats serving in Russia. As recently as 2013, the State Department employed 1,279 people at its missions in Russia; of those, 301 were Americans while 934 were local-hires, what Foggy Bottom calls Foreign Service Nationals. Although few Americans realize it, these FSNs (as they’re known in diplo-speak) outnumber Americans at most of our embassies around the world.

Since there aren’t 755 American diplomats to kick out of Russia, this means Moscow wants the State Department to fire the lion’s share of its FSNs in the country. The Kremlin thereby means to cripple our diplomatic operations in Russia. It bears noting that Obama’s end-of-2016 retaliation against Putin required the sending of 35 Russian diplomats—in reality, they were all spies—back home. Russia’s response involves more than twenty-fold the number of State Department employees.

To call Putin’s push-back excessive is charitable. This sends an indelible message to Washington that the Kremlin seeks no parley with America. We are now unquestionably in Cold War 2.0—and perhaps worse. After all, you only shut down the other side’s diplomatic facilities in your country when you’re in an actual war with them. None of this bodes well for peace and international harmony.

That said, the person who ought to be really worried here is Donald Trump. He was elected with clandestine Kremlin help and he regularly hoisted fulsome praise on Vladimir Putin—and now it’s all fallen apart. Only six months into his presidency, Moscow has assessed that Trump is a naif, an incompetent weakling who cannot deliver what Russia needs. He is therefore expendable.

As stereotypical Chekists, Putin and his retinue wanted chaos in America in 2016 and that surely Trump has delivered, with myriad assistance from Russia’s intelligence agencies. The mounting political crisis that the president has put himself in will eventually be his undoing, and the Kremlin is content to watch the unfolding mess in Washington consume American politics for months, perhaps years to come.

Now that Trump is expendable to Moscow, he ought to worry that leaks unflattering to him and his entourage may go public. We know that Russian hackers pillaged Republicans as well as Democrats in 2016, while only the latter have been disseminated by Kremlin fronts. Not to mention Trump’s decades of shadowy financial dealings with Russian oligarchs, which the Kremlin surely knows all about. Putin is biding his time and, right now, he’s holding most of the important cards. He may ultimately decide Trump’s political fate, which now resides in Moscow’s hands.
 

Trump White House Colludes With Fox News to Embrace Disinformation

The Trump administration has started employing Chekist-style tactics to protect itself from KremlinGate

We’re officially losing the propaganda war with Russia. This isn’t entirely news. Two years ago, I explained how the Obama administration, facing a deluge of Kremlin lies aimed at the West, refused to fight back. This shirking of battle in the propaganda war which Vladimir Putin is waging against America and our allies may be the most consequential what-if of our 2016 election.

Hillary Clinton’s backers have pointed questions about why a Democratic administration proved so timid about resisting the Kremlin’s weaponized lie machine – as well they should. Recently, more troubling questions have emerged about why the Trump White House is even more derelict than its predecessor about this important national security matter.
 
4chan is freaking out over a 19th century book featuring a boy named “Baron Trump”

"The third book, titled “The Last President”, is even more spookier than the first two. Baron Trump time-travels to New York City using a time machine he found in Russia. The date is November 3rd and the City of New York is in a “state of uproar”, following the election of an enormously opposed outsider candidate. Socialists and anarchists organize violent riots across the country"
 
4chan is freaking out over a 19th century book featuring a boy named “Baron Trump”

"The third book, titled “The Last President”, is even more spookier than the first two. Baron Trump time-travels to New York City using a time machine he found in Russia. The date is November 3rd and the City of New York is in a “state of uproar”, following the election of an enormously opposed outsider candidate. Socialists and anarchists organize violent riots across the country"

Hahaha wow... started off with some very interesting synchs and went off into some high octane speculation! Good stuff :)
 
This is the first article I've seen on this blog so I don't have any sense of its reliability - the author is a novelist and a military history expert. But this article is entertaining. It says that the leaks about the Trump administration that have been in the news have been false information planted to catch leakers. Each suspect was given a different version of events. Conflicting stories in the news come from leakers with a different versions. Now Trump can control the intelligence community because he has sufficient evidence to send some of them to jail.

http://www.thomaswictor.com/leakers-beware/
 
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