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📝 Must Read Op-Ed and Profiles

As a former member of an American cult, I know why so many white Christian women fervently support Trump

For traditional Christian housewives, the fear might be basic: contradict your husband’s opinion and you’ll be out of food and shelter. But for much of Trump’s base, the fear is all gross ego

The bold new plan to stop wars: A peace advocate makes her case

"War and military occupation haven’t made us more secure. They’ve made us more hated in many parts of the world.”

My sentiments exactly. Sometimes I’ve had trouble articulating my extreme frustration with Mueller and Congress. Reading this editorial by Elie Honig, I couldn’t help but jump up and exclaim, “Yes! You’ve nailed it!”

It’s time for Robert Mueller to lose the mystery, drop the double-speak and stop the riddling. He needs to tell the American public where he stands – straight, clear and in plain English.

I understand what Mueller has tried to do. He has been careful. He understands the stakes of his investigation, and he has erred on the side of caution – the far, far, side of caution, it turns out, to the point of obscuring his own factual findings and legal conclusions. He has tried so hard to color inside the lines that he hasn’t completed the picture.

Because Justice Department policy counsels against indicting a sitting president, Mueller “determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment.” Mueller took it a step further: not only did he not indict (consistent with the policy), but he declined even to say whether he found sufficient evidence to indict.

Instead, Mueller gave us an ambiguous, Yoda-like pronouncement: “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment.” Ultimately, Mueller declared to head-scratching effect that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

Mueller’s reticent approach contrasts with the one taken by Independent Counsel Ken Starr in his 1998 report on President Bill Clinton. Starr found “substantial and credible information” that Clinton “lied under oath” and “endeavored to obstruct justice” – and he referred the case to Congress to consider “eleven possible grounds for impeachment.” Starr can be fairly criticized for going into gratuitous, prurient detail about the relationship between Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, but he was clear about his legal conclusions.

Mueller’s approach has proven problematic on two levels. First, while it seems clear Mueller intended to hand the ball off to Congress, they’ve fumbled it. Mueller stated in his report: “The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.”

Translation: Congress, your turn. Yet we are three months out from public release of the report, and Congress has not opened a formal impeachment inquiry, heard substantive public testimony from a single fact witness or even gone to court to enforce the subpoenas that the White House has repeatedly defied.

Second, Mueller’s reticence has left a yawning gap in the understanding of the American public, which Trump and Barr have eagerly filled with distortion. Trump has claimed repeatedly and incorrectly that Mueller found “no obstruction” and granted “total exoneration.” Mueller’s report concludes otherwise, but not clearly or forcefully enough to foreclose Trump’s persistent spin. And both Trump and Barr misleadingly have repeated the “No Collusion” mantra. Yet Mueller makes clear in the report that he found insufficient evidence to charge a criminal conspiracy, but did not evaluate anything under the non-legal rubric of “collusion” – and, indeed, found dozens of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, some of which Trump officials members lied about.

Mueller has served his country honorably and heroically in the military and law enforcement for decades. We know that he does not want to testify beyond the four corners of his report – “the report is my testimony,” he stated in May. But sometimes what a person wants and what he must do are two different things. Now, as perhaps his final act in public life, Mueller owes it to Congress, the American public and his own legacy to do away with niceties and give it to us straight.

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Let’s hope he does…but most of his workmates and others have suggested Mueller will be ‘by the books.’ Mueller may have served his country by discovering over a dozen examples of obstruction of justice, and his opinion about what Barr did to distort that would be very important. Mueller may be ‘by the books,’ but he has had significant skin in the game and I agree he must do more explaining.

We know Mueller has been practicing for the questions, and likely how to handle and counter Rep Jim Jordan’s aggressive, endless conspiratorial points-of-view. Wouldn’t it be great if Mueller can go out on his last Act as a fighter for justice and rule of law
and not someone who equivocates and gives a balanced, yet opinionated answer?

Half the country wants him to spill please.

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Vet everything you see. Disinformation is ratcheting up, and more and more nations (and perhaps even corporations) are getting involved!

It’s not just the Russians anymore as Iranians and others turn up disinformation efforts ahead of 2020 vote

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/07/25/its-not-just-russians-anymore-iranians-others-turn-up-disinformation-efforts-ahead-vote/?utm_term=.116d9604398f

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Maureen Dowd is no doubt a provocative voice for the NYT, dismissing Clinton’s run for better or worse…but she does come down on the left’s attempt at being exceptionally single-minded about use of Impeachment because it is the (Constitutionally) right thing to do…

At this juncture, whether Pelosi is actually waiting out the clock and/or giving Dems as much room to investigate the crimes/misdeeds of T even if it is an untenable win to do so (IMHO) because it will give T more wiggle room to blame the Dems.

We are up against the worst kind of despotic leader, ill-informed, impulsive, racist liar in the history of this country. We’ve never seen his ilk in modern times, although it has been said that Andrew Jackson was equally vile, and Nixon was almost impeached before he resigned, he committed terrible crimes.

What is the winning strategy for the Dems…what is it that out of 24+ contestants can they present as an alternative to T’s grip. They must work with integrity, and smartly build their case.

Worth a read…

The attempt to impeach Trump is one of the rare cases in which something obviously justified is obviously stupid.

Unbelievably, Pelosi — long a G.O.P. target for her unalloyed liberalism — is derided by the far left for her pragmatism. But she has been through enough Washington wars to know that idealism, untempered by realism, is dangerous.


An impeachment could return Trump to power. The highchair king from Fifth Avenue would exult in his victimhood and energize his always-ready-to-be aggrieved followers.

It could also lead to Democrats losing the House as their moderates fall and help Republicans hold the Senate. No Republicans would vote for impeaching Trump and some Democrats might refuse as well. Even if the House acted, Mitch McConnell would smother it in the Senate, just like he did Merrick Garland.

The progressive Puritans think we must honor the Constitution and go for it because it’s the right thing to do.

You can argue that impeachment, morally and constitutionally, is the right thing to do. But you also have to recognize that, historically and politically, it is not the right thing to do because it will lead to disaster.

…

It’s better to pull out Trump by the roots in the election and firmly repudiate him. The Democrats should focus on the future, not the benighted past that we have been relegated to under Trump.

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That is a must read editorial. I wish there was some way to persuade every American to read it. It expresses everything I am feeling. I’m weary of the outrage that Trump renews within me every day.

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Maureen Dowd is probably one of my least favorite writers at the NYTimes, just below Bret Stephens.

She won a Pulitzer once for slut shamming Monica Lewinsky in the 90’s so I guess that earns you a column for life? She’s not offering a much of an argument here. The Democrats are just formalizing an investigative into impeachment, which better serves their constitutional oversight responsibility.

Dowd only offers slippery slope fallacies in the loss of “chocolate, high heels, parties and fun” to an unknown “straw-woman” who I’m sure Dowd imagines wears pumps daily and has a lovely home in Martha’s Vineyard.

Only a woman insecure about her own place in the history of would lash out with such a ridiculous opinion piece attacking “new intersectional feminism” as a puritanical movement. We all want to get rid of Trump and it’s going to take all of us. Dowd is not helping and in fact I would say she’s aiding the opposition. To quote Donald Rumsfeld — ‘You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.’

And last time I checked, “chocolate, high heels, parties and fun” are widely available everywhere and mainstays of American life. :roll_eyes:

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I knew to post her writing would set-off critiques of her snarky and perhaps supercilious (arrogant) argumentive style. I agree with you @Pet_Proletariat that she’s talking to a demographic that the NYT features and it has less to do with what strategies are being rendered. I agree that Impeachment inquiry is a must…and leverages the Dem’s power.

Perhaps I thought it worth posting because of the all-or-nothing approach that the impeachment gamit might ultimately send us over a cliff should all avenues to getting taxes, emoluments-related paperwork and subpoenas get shoved back in the Dems faces. Yes, we need to ‘fight with the army we have…’ and a great quote.

Because T has upended the game, it is not going to be politics as usual. We can not effectively speak truth-to-power, nor impeach with every right we have Constitutionally. Yes, we can do so…but ultimately we need to outmaneuver T, Barr and his power base.

I still believe half the nation sees that he’s not the man who should run this country.
I pray there is a democratic (little d) through line to carry us into the next presidency.

Yes, Maureen Dowd is just trying to be very clever…and I take all your points as being true. :grinning:

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I don’t understand where this argument keeps coming from. The congressional legislative powers are vast and broad giving them the ability to investigate anything, it’s Article I of our constitution. :woman_shrugging:t2: It’s not all or nothing and it never has been. Congress can open hearings and subpoena and investigate anything and everything.

An impeachment investigation is where we should have been three months ago when the Mueller report first came out. Even though Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she doesn’t want to run out the clock, it may happen anyways but at least she can now say to voters at least I opened an investigation into the crimes of the President. Better than doing nothing and letting the Executive branch accumulate more power through inaction. Our government simply does not work without checks and balances.

So sorry if I don’t find it cute or cheeky when someone weakly argues against exercising the constitutional duties of Congress. The impeachment of President Clinton started with one hearing on the Star Report and that’s not what’s happening here. What the House Democrats are doing is more a kin to the slow collection of criminal evidence like they did with Watergate.

What a lot of commentators leave out of this argument is the impact on future elections and the national security threat actually President Trump poses. If our president can and/or is being blackmailed or coerced in some way by a foreign power, isn’t it the constitutional duty for Congress to protect us from that threat?

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I agree. Congress does have power, they want to use it.

But…

Congress is getting stopped (illegally) at every subpoena and the WH wants those requests get ‘tested’ and fought in in the courts, and therefore run out the clock.

Yes, impeachment inquiries should have been started a while back, but Nadler wanted to build a public case for it with hearings on live tv. WH has stopped all of those possibilities, and they want to run out the clock. T is winning by blocking inquiries.

And as previous impeachments have shown that Clinton won stronger support afterwards, so conversely with a full impeachment, it could make T stronger and R’s stronger. Getting the public support on it such as in the case of Nixon, vis-a-vis what the revelations of taped conversations from Nixon and the public not having it, changed the game.

Rule of law and Constitutional norms are suffering now…big time. Now, or yesterday would have been great to start up the impeachment inquiries. And not using their Constitutional powers would be a nod to T to continue to defy the election laws, and block Congress forever more.

The calculated risks are many - Pelosi says if you can not win, do not try impeachment. Nadler/Pelosi agree on using Article 1’s powers to get all you can NOW in terms of evidence against T. The Dems are trying to maintain their power base, yet not alienate any undecided, or R’s perhaps, or non-voters since the election is 16 months away.

For the broader public who do not watch news or adhere to the righteous cause of getting T out, the bread-and-butter issues are most important. There is very little appetite from them to get a full impeachment hearing going. This is going to play out when we hear the Dem candidates debate. It is not a favorable stance to impeach him (despite the absolute power they have, and however righteous the cause)

I am not sure if we are arguing the same point…the Dowd article was cheeky, and provocative. It was meant to stir up the Dems to get their 2020 election strategies on and find common ground for defeating T.

I agree that it is very serious if T is beholden to Russians/Saudi’s and he’s selling out the store. That of course is hugely important and should the Dems uncover it, we’d all be super grateful and would need to act on it ASAP.

Clinton won support because the Republicans rammed it through with scorched earth tactics. The public took notice. Even if Dems run out the clock, it’ll still be damaging and embarrassing for the President before the next election. I think we’re right where we need to be and I don’t understand the overreactions coming from columnists.

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It’s the best true-crime thriller in decades, I’m surprised more people aren’t into this work. :woman_shrugging:t2:

Ms. Jurecic is the managing editor of Lawfare.

The first half of the report — on efforts by the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election — is a spy thriller, a high-stakes caper with greed, dirty deals and intrigue straight out of a Cold War potboiler. The second half — on President Trump’s efforts to obstruct Mr. Mueller’s investigation — is a Shakespearean drama about deception and power. But at its core, the 448-page volume is a detective story.

Like most good detective stories, the report actually tells two stories at once. First, there is the tale of what happened: The Russian government worked to reach out to Mr. Trump’s circle and, once he began running for president, his campaign; then, when the F.B.I. and later Mr. Mueller began investigating, Mr. Trump repeatedly sought to undercut the probe.

But nestled in the citations and prosecution or declination decisions for each section, there is the second story, which is closer to what most people think of when they think of a detective novel — the drama of how Mr. Mueller and his team came to uncover that first narrative and what they made of it. Examining footnotes, the reader can trace which information came from which witness — and discover, for example, that Don McGahn, then the White House counsel, provided Mr. Mueller’s office with hours of interviews about the conduct of the president.

Detective stories are usually about order and the collapse of order: The world is shattered by an act of violence, and the detective sets about making things right by turning the crime into something that can be explained. As Ms. Kakutani writes, “At the end of detective stories, order is usually restored with the solving of a crime, and with the identification and prosecution of the perpetrators.”

The Mueller report does provide a framework for understanding just what has happened to America in 2016 and the years since.

More than a tale about the restoration of order, though, the Mueller investigation is also about the limits of what can be known…

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If you’ve seen The Great Hack on Netflix about the work that Cambridge Analytica did and their role in the 2016 election, figured prominently is Brittany Kaiser who was someone who helped configure the data which helped to persuade the undecided, yet maleable voters. As described here, is Kaiser looking to recast her role in her vital position.

She’d like to be remembered as a whistleblower and a human rights advocate. You decide.

For Kaiser — at the time a 30-year-old Democrat from Texas who’d become business development director for Cambridge Analytica, a firm created to elect Republicans — the massive wave of critical news reports about the company threatened to deliver catastrophic damage to her reputation and even made her fear possible arrest.

So she did something drastic: Kaiser fled to Thailand, and she let a crew of filmmakers tag along.

What followed was a highly public — and still unfinished — quest for moral redemption that has played out across the globe and, now, in a Netflix documentary called “The Great Hack,” released July 24. It includes images of Kaiser up to her shoulders in a giant pool under an impossibly blue sky in Thailand, uncertain what to do. And it later depicts Kaiser, in a far more determined frame of mind, testifying before the British Parliament about the many unsavory deeds of her former employer and warning of the ongoing privacy threats posed by Facebook, whose dealings with Cambridge Analytica resulted in July in more than $5 billion in U.S. fines.

But two important elements are missing from the film. The first is Kaiser’s private meetings with British and U.S. prosecutors, including those from then-special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s office, which she recently detailed in interviews with The Washington Post. In these she also explained her visit with Assange in 2017 and how close she came during the hottest days of the Cambridge Analytica scandal to turning over the entirety of her hard drive to WikiLeaks for publication online.

The second missing element is a decisive moment of reckoning for Kaiser, during which she fully acknowledges her role in matters she now regards as wrong and possibly illegal. She repeatedly calls herself a “whistleblower” but viewers of the film may wonder: Why didn’t she blow the whistle a little sooner — ideally before Cambridge Analytica’s misdeeds had become front-page news worldwide?

…

“She knew before the story blew up that the rights of Americans had been violated,” said David Carroll, an associate professor of media design at the New School in New York and a hero in the film for his dogged legal battle to gain access to the data Cambridge Analytica had collected on him. He is among those who would think better of Kaiser had she spoken up about her qualms with Cambridge Analytica before the scandal erupted.

> “Once that’s out, it’s hard to be a whistleblower,” Carroll said. “You’ve missed your chance.”

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“Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.” Rest in peace, Toni Morrison.

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The Uncanny Power of Incompetent Men

Inspired by the legendary ineptitude of the U.K.’s new prime minister, Boris Johnson, you too can use your incompetence to succeed beyond your wildest imaginings

https://forge.medium.com/what-boris-johnsons-incompetence-can-teach-you-about-leadership-72a52e471e66

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White Supremacists Own Domestic Terrorism

as conclusively shown in this infographic by the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness. This is a real eye-opener. Once you are on the page (via the link below), click on the infographic to enlarge it.

https://www.njhomelandsecurity.gov/analysis/domestic-terrorism-in-2018

Of the 25 “race-based extremists” who perpetrated domestic terrorist incidents in 2018 all 25 were “white supremacists.” See the first 25 boxes in the infographic.

This article by Yahoo News lead me to the infographic. You may be interested in that article as well, but basically it describes this chart so if you want to cut to the chase, just view the chart. The article also makes the point that our Department of Justice appears reluctant to make this information available. However, the state of New Jersey has stepped up and published the facts.

And here’s an excellent companion editorial from the Washington Post with more statistics documenting the surge in domestic terrorism by white nationalists.

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From a FB feed

Powerful, President George W. Bush’s chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson, has a message for people who are excusing President Trump’s racism:

“I had fully intended to ignore President Trump’s latest round of racially charged taunts against an African American elected official, and an African American activist, and an African American journalist and a whole city with a lot of African Americans in it. I had every intention of walking past Trump’s latest outrages and writing about the self-destructive squabbling of the Democratic presidential field, which has chosen to shame former vice president Joe Biden for the sin of being an electable, moderate liberal.
But I made the mistake of pulling James Cone’s ‘The Cross and the Lynching Tree’ off my shelf — a book designed to shatter convenient complacency. Cone recounts the case of a white mob in Valdosta, Ga., in 1918 that lynched an innocent man named Haynes Turner. Turner’s enraged wife, Mary, promised justice for the killers. The sheriff responded by arresting her and then turning her over to the mob, which included women and children. According to one source, Mary was ‘stripped, hung upside down by the ankles, soaked with gasoline, and roasted to death. In the midst of this torment, a white man opened her swollen belly with a hunting knife and her infant fell to the ground and was stomped to death.’
God help us. It is hard to write the words. This evil — the evil of white supremacy, resulting in dehumanization, inhumanity and murder — is the worst stain, the greatest crime, of U.S. history. It is the thing that nearly broke the nation. It is the thing that proved generations of Christians to be vicious hypocrites. It is the thing that turned normal people into moral monsters, capable of burning a grieving widow to death and killing her child.
When the president of the United States plays with that fire or takes that beast out for a walk, it is not just another political event, not just a normal day in campaign 2020. It is a cause for shame. It is the violation of martyrs’ graves. It is obscene graffiti on the Lincoln Memorial. It is, in the eyes of history, the betrayal — the re-betrayal — of Haynes and Mary Turner and their child. And all of this is being done by an ignorant and arrogant narcissist reviving racist tropes for political gain, indifferent to the wreckage he is leaving, the wounds he is ripping open.
Like, I suspect, many others, I am finding it hard to look at resurgent racism as just one in a series of presidential offenses or another in a series of Republican errors. Racism is not just another wrong. The Antietam battlefield is not just another plot of ground. The Edmund Pettus Bridge is not just another bridge. The balcony outside Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel is not just another balcony. As U.S. history hallows some causes, it magnifies some crimes.
What does all this mean politically? It means that Trump’s divisiveness is getting worse, not better. He makes racist comments, appeals to racist sentiments and inflames racist passions. The rationalization that he is not, deep down in his heart, really a racist is meaningless. Trump’s continued offenses mean that a large portion of his political base is energized by racist tropes and the language of white grievance. And it means — whatever their intent — that those who play down, or excuse, or try to walk past these offenses are enablers.
Some political choices are not just stupid or crude. They represent the return of our country’s cruelest, most dangerous passion. Such racism indicts Trump. Treating racism as a typical or minor matter indicts us.” — Michael Gerson

And another piece of his writing…

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The 1619 Project

The 1619 Project (named for the year the first slave ship arrived in America) is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.

Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true.

In order to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation.

We asked 16 writers to bring consequential moments in African-American history to life. Here are their poems and stories.

Myths about physical racial differences were used to justify slavery — and are still believed by doctors today.

America holds onto an undemocratic assumption from its founding: that some people deserve more power than others.

For centuries, black music, forged in bondage, has been the sound of complete artistic freedom. No wonder everybody is always stealing it.

What does a traffic jam in Atlanta have to do with segregation? Quite a lot.

Why doesn’t the United States have universal health care? The answer has everything to do with race.

Slavery gave America a fear of black people and a taste for violent punishment. Both still define our criminal-justice system.

The sugar that saturates the American diet has a barbaric history as the ‘white gold’ that fueled slavery.

A vast wealth gap, driven by segregation, redlining, evictions and exclusion, separates black and white America.

Their ancestors were enslaved by law. Today, they are graduates of the nation’s preeminent historically black law school.

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All Brian Fisher wants is to make it through Season 2 of HBO’s “Westworld.”

Fisher, 65, retired from Silicon Valley to Alicante, Spain, where he imagined he’d spend his time catching up on television and enjoying the beach. But now, he jokes, he can’t seem to do either — and for that, he blames President Trump.

“You think, ‘Well, I’ll have my coffee and see what happened overnight in the States,’ ” he said, before describing a morning ritual that includes copious cable news and scrolling through the news alerts on his phone. “I can barely find time to go out to the beach. I live on the beach in Spain — that’s the whole point — but by the time I finish the news, it’s already getting dark.”

Fisher is not alone. Mary Ingham, 52, described a similarly disrupted television viewing routine, spurred on by the negative impact she fears the president is having on her 7-year-old niece. “I used to go home at the end of the day and watch ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ ” Ingham said. “Now I go home and watch MSNBC. Then when I wake up, well, my TV is already tuned to it.”

Interviews with more than a dozen voters, at the Iowa State Fair here and elsewhere, reveal a Democratic electorate wearied by Trump’s near-constant stream of incendiary behavior and racially tinged — and at times overtly racist — invective.

Democratic hopefuls are making a pitch seemingly geared directly at these voters, promising to offset their anxieties and concerns with a return to normalcy via a president who is everything they believe Trump is not — measured, predictable, responsible. Or, at its most reductive, they’re offering an unofficial pledge to Make America Boring Again.

Former vice president Joe Biden casts Trump as a historical anomaly — “an aberrant moment in time” — and argues for taking the country back to when politics was a little less combustible and government a bit more basic.

Another Democratic candidate, Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, more overtly captured the sentiment in a tweet that went viral, racking up more than 37,000 retweets as he spoke to those voters’ most primal desire.

“If you elect me president, I promise you won’t have to think about me for 2 weeks at a time,” Bennet wrote earlier this month. “I’ll do my job watching out for North Korea and ending this trade war. So you can go raise your kids and live your lives.”


Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) speaks to Iowa voters on the Soapbox stage at the Iowa State Fair on Aug. 11, 2019, in Des Moines. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

In an interview, Bennet said his tweet reflected a sentiment he has been hearing from voters, but rejected the notion that he’s lobbying to be the nation’s next mundane commander-in-chief. “No! No! No!” he said. “I don’t want a boring president either, but I’d like to have a president who is competent again to do the job.”

I totally agree with Bennet on this point and hope that whoever wins the Democratic primary will make it a key talking point in their campaign. Drop the daily drama!

And here’s an excellent companion editorial about how destructive it is for the U.S. to have a DQP (Drama Queen President):

President Donald Trump is showing what happens when the United States abandons its decades-long role as a guarantor of stability and instead chooses to act as an agent of global disruption.

A series of economic and political shocks are fomenting disorder across the planet and straining an international political system that Trump deliberately set out to undermine.

  • Stock markets are tumbling as warning signs flash of a global recession exacerbated by fears deepened by the US-China trade war.
  • Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan are locked in a dangerous new standoff.
  • The post-Cold War arms control regime is breaking down.
  • South Korea and Japan – the foundation of US influence in Asia – are reviving age-old animosity.
  • Concern about a Tiananmen Square-style crackdown by Beijing in Hong Kong is growing as Trump looks the other way.
  • Iran and the US just narrowly avoided spiraling into a disastrous war partly precipitated by the President’s maximum pressure campaign.
  • And the European Union – for years a crucial co-sponsor with the US of world stability – is seeing one of its three most influential members, Britain, heading for the exits, with enthusiastic encouragement from the White House.

Trump did not cause all these crises. But his actions or unwillingness to temper them did deepen the discord in many cases. And his refusal to play the kind of stabilizing leadership role expected of a US president is fomenting power vacuums and may convince key protagonists in each drama that they may not face the kinds of consequences they might normally expect from Washington.
…
"Someone needs to remind the Potus … that diplomacy is a tool of national security - and that ignoring it will bring about a world of diminished US influence, greater conflict, less freedom and prosperity, and increased demands on the US military," [Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations] tweeted.

Right on, Richard!

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