From the Washington Post, July 29, 2018:
The Pentagon is analyzing the cost and impact of a large-scale withdrawal or transfer of American troops stationed in Germany, amid growing tensions between President Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to people familiar with the work.
The effort follows Trump’s expression of interest in removing the troops, made during a meeting earlier this year with White House and military aides, U.S. officials said. Trump was said to have been taken aback by the size of the U.S. presence, which includes about 35,000 active-duty troops, and complained that other countries were not contributing fairly to joint security or paying enough to NATO.
Word of the assessment has alarmed European officials, who are scrambling to determine whether Trump actually intends to reposition U.S. forces or whether it is merely a negotiating tactic ahead of a NATO summit in Brussels, where Trump is again likely to criticize U.S. allies for what he deems insufficient defense spending.
…
European officials are hoping to emphasize Western unity at the NATO summit July 11 and 12. But Trump remains displeased that many NATO countries fail to spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, a target alliance members agreed to reach by 2024. The United States spends about 3.58 percent of its GDP on defense.
Although several U.S. administrations have called on Europe to spend more, Trump is particularly focused on the balance sheet. He has been especially critical of Merkel, on defense and a range of other issues.
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Last week, White House frustration was on display in a contentious meeting in Washington between Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, and German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen. Von der Leyen said German budget projections called for increasing defense spending to 1.5 percent of the country’s GDP by 2024. The White House was disappointed with Germany’s efforts, according to officials.
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The U.S. military had been drawing down its presence in Europe for years before Russia’s annexation of Crimea from neighboring Ukraine in early 2014 prompted a change in posture, with Washington seeking to deter Moscow from further encroachments. U.S. and allied forces began rotating brigades through the eastern members, and the U.S. started returning equipment such as tanks and helicopters to the theater.
…
From “the Hill”:
The Department of Defense is reportedly analyzing the ongoing costs of keeping thousands of U.S. troops stationed in Germany as President Trump considers reducing forces in the region.
The Washington Post reports that Pentagon officials stressed that the audit is limited to internal research so far and does not involve any members of the military’s top brass.
The analysis comes after Trump reportedly was taken aback during a White House meeting earlier this year upon learning of the size – 35,000 troops – of the U.S. deployment in the country.
The president has frequently complained that NATO countries, including Germany, do not contribute their fair share of defense spending to the alliance.
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com)
From the Reuters piece about the House testimony of Rod Rosenstein, deputy head of the FBI, on June 28, 2018:
Republican Trey Gowdy angrily demanded Rosenstein wrap up the investigation.
“If you have evidence of any wrongdoing by any member of the Trump campaign, present it to the damn grand jury,” he said. “If you have evidence that this president acted inappropriately, present it to the American people … Whatever you got, finish it the hell up.”
Oh, the profanity– “damn” and “hell” in the same breath.
This is the same Trey Gowdy who dragged the Benghazi investigation out for, uh, how many years? Let’s face it, Trey doesn’t care about justice or Don’s malfeasance. He’s worried about how this will look in the midterm elections coming up…
Trump Bellows
Trump brands Sen. Heitkamp ‘liberal Democrat,’ but she’s not – Associated Press – Thursday, June 28, 2018:
“You need a senator who doesn’t just talk like they’re from North Dakota but votes like they’re from North Dakota,” Trump bellowed. “That’s what you need and that is Kevin Cramer.”
Newsweek (Brendan Cole – Newsweek – Wednesday, June 27, 2018) reports that Donald J. Trump is worshipped as a god by a man in India. His name: Bussa Krishna; he lives in the village of Konne near Hyderabad. He is said to have set up a shrine in his home and for the last three years, he has said prayers to Trump several times a day. He plans to build a larger structure next to his house, which wags will call the Trump Temple. There is really nothing else to be said– the utter absurdity of the situation speaks for itself. We should mention that the Hindustan Times says that this sort of thing is not unusual in polytheistic India, where most people are Hindus, and there is free choice of whom one wishes to worship.
I would like to say, however, that people here in the US are forming a cult of Trump. There are definite signs of cultish behavior among some his followers, who include perhaps a third of the total adult population of the US. Members of the cult tend to be white, uneducated, and readily susceptible to propaganda. This is becoming ugly.
(image of Ganesha courtesy of pixabay.com and Jills)
Michael Wolff’s assessment of Stephen Miller (from his book “Fire and Fury”): ” …other than being a far-right conservative, it was unclear what particular abilities accompanied Miller’s views. He was supposed to be a speechwriter, but if so, he seemed restricted to bullet points and unable to construct sentences. He was supposed to be a policy adviser but knew little about policy. He was supposed to be the house intellectual but was militantly unread. He was supposed to be a communications specialist but he antagonized almost everyone.”
Stephen Miller has been an aggressive, antagonistic right wing troll since he was in high school and started speaking on conservative radio at 16. In college, he repeatedly attacked liberal people and causes. He was said to have mentored the white supremacist Richard Spencer. The former senior vice president of Duke, his alma mater, said: ” [he] seemed to assume that if you were in disagreement with him, there was something malevolent or stupid about your thinking—incredibly intolerant.”
(The quotes and details above were sourced from the Wikipedia article about Stephen Miller. It is revealing.)
Stephen Miller represents the most anti-immigrant, racist, and white nationalist elements in the current government. He has President Trump’s ear and has been whispering policy. The particular policy, separation, the one Trump has just reversed, was developed a year ago by a small committee on which Stephen Miller sat. It wasn’t intended to be universally unpopular but it managed to be condemned by everyone, from Republican mothers like Laura Bush to the Pope.
“I will guarantee his safety… And we’ve talked about that from the beginning. He will be safe. He will be happy. His country will be rich. His country will be hardworking and very prosperous. They’re very great people…”
The expression on Kim’s face in this photo is either completely obscure or else one of doubt– as if he doesn’t believe what you are saying, nor should you believe what he says.
What President Trump is saying in the above quote is an absurd blanket guarantee that Kim will be “safe”– not that we won’t attack him, not that we are declaring the willingness to sign a permanent peace treaty, but that we will protect him from such things as regime change, food poisoning, or a Chinese coup.
In addition, he is offering that North Korea itself will be safe and rich, without suggesting how that could happen. He doesn’t say that he is offering them a real estate deal on a luxury hotel by the beach, although that could be on offer. He is simply using words that fit into his propaganda context without any foundation in mechanisms or logistics.
If we guarantee Kim’s safety, that implies that we would protect him from regime change, that is a coup or a popular uprising. That puts us in the position of protecting the head of the government with the worst human rights record in the world, according to the UN. Worst in the world: that’s saying a lot.
That is the essential ugliness of President Trump’s detente with Kim Jong Un: he is a homicidal tyrant. We could tolerate the declaration of non-aggression and the agreement to “denuclearize” Korea, but we can’t swallow Mr. Trump’s sucking up to Kim, his fulsome praise, his buddy-buddy attitude.
We do need to guarantee peace on the Korean peninsula, but we don’t need to be friends with Kim Jong Un.
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com)
Here is the only argument that carries any weight with people who have the aggressive attitude championed by Stephen Miller towards immigration of any kind: it’s more expensive to separate the adults from the children than it is to keep them together, even if you’re going to deport them all anyway. It’s easier to deport a minor when they are in the custody of an adult who is also being deported.
That’s the kind of argument that will make the operation of Miller’s railway back to Mexico for those captured at the border smoother and quieter. At the same time, ICE employees tasked with removal of legal permanent residents who have had any interaction with the law are working from a list and plucking people seemingly at random from the bosom of their families. The Kafkaesque nature of these detentions rivals the Stalinesque nature of the mass convictions and mass deportations of chained and shackled humanity.
This behavior ignores the essential nature of immigration, to our disadvantage: US citizens are not reproducing at a rate sufficient to even keep the population level. If it were not for immigrants, the population of the US would be declining. The average age of US citizens continues to rise, even as their longevity has soared– although longevity has suffered a hit recently.
Thus, the behavior of this presidential administration is self-defeating even while its popularity with the credulous 1/3 of the people has remained strong. A ruinous trade war and expensive subsidies to coal-fired and nuclear power plants are only a few examples of the self-defeating policies of this administration.
Why do I feel like I’m yelling down a well? There’s a big echo and no sound is escaping.
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com and Free-Photos)
It ceased to matter long ago whether Trump’s claims bore any resemblance to the truth. At least a third of Americans can reliably be counted on to believe some version of Trump’s whoppers and Trump well knows this. Pointing out that the President is either lying or has no idea what he’s talking about has, in consequence, come to mean exactly nothing. That alone spells the end of democracy. If facts don’t matter, if reason doesn’t count, if truth telling and accountability are out the window, no deliberation, no debate, no evaluation of candidates and policies is possible. That was exactly Trump’s goal. The first and only important victim in tyranny, as the ancient Greeks pointed out, is truth. And so we have escalating tariffs against Canada (with whom the US has a sizeable trade surplus) and ramped up policing and incarceration (when crime rates have never been so low) and all the rest of the assaults on common sense and decency (making cosy with thugs, dictators, gangsters and pimps).
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com and alefolsom)
(photo of the beach at Cassandra, Greece courtesy of pixabay.com and vasiliskritos)
(quoted in an article in the Guardian about James Hansen, the climate scientist who predicted 30 years ago in an appearance before Congress that we would continue to heat up, like a frog in a pot of water over a fire. In 1988, humans produced 20 bn tons of carbon as carbon dioxide; in 2017, it was 32 bn tons. )
Conrad Theodore Seitz 