Jedno sasvim novo i drugačije Presidency..

We have now liberated the Twitter account, previously suppressed unfairly in the aftermath of my resignation as National Security Advisor. More to come.....

— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) November 22, 2019

Huffpost wrote:

It’s no shocker that President Donald Trump isn’t fond of George Conway, his constant Twitter critic and husband of White House strategist Kellyanne Conway. What is shocking is how far he was willing to go to express his displeasure during his already careening “Fox & Friends” interview on Friday morning. It began when co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked the president about George Conway’s recent assertion that Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was setting herself up to be Trump’s next vice president. “First of all, Kellyanne is great,” Trump said. “She is married to a total whack job. She must have done some number on him. I don’t know what Kellyanne did to that guy because I don’t even know him. I met him for a second. The president continued to throw his loyal adviser’s husband and marriage under the bus. “He’s got to be some kind of a nutjob because she must have done some bad things to him because that guy is crazy,” Trump said.

Thank you President Trump for putting the silly rumors to rest. As I’ve said from day one, I look forward to supporting President @realDonaldTrump and @VP Pence in the next election. pic.twitter.com/lGFEDpHBOx

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) November 22, 2019

Many of those young people will see and hear clips of that man, like his interview on Fox & Friends this morning.  And they will shake their heads in virtual disbelief.

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) November 22, 2019

"This is Conan, right now probably the world's most famous dog"

Trump introduces the dog who helped take down Baghdadi at the White House. pic.twitter.com/QhliOIqEYG

— Zach Purser Brown (@zachjourno) November 25, 2019

pic.twitter.com/11nzKwOCtU

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2019

https://www.ft.com/content/ab46ddd8-14e3-11ea-8d73-6303645ac406


Trump, Obama and their battle with the ‘blob’
The Nato summit underlines a surprising continuity in US foreign policy

GIDEON RACHMAN

Both men would detest the thought. But, in crucial respects, the foreign policies of Donald Trump and Barack Obama are looking strikingly similar.

The wildly different styles of the two presidents have disguised the underlying continuities between their approaches to the world. But look at substance, rather than style, and the similarities are impressive.

Both Mr Obama and Mr Trump have sought to disengage the US from the Middle East — a policy that has caused much tut-tutting in the Washington establishment, the group derisively labelled “the blob” in the Obama White House. As they pulled back from the Middle East, both presidents focused on Asia instead. Mr Obama strove to make a “pivot” to Asia the signature foreign-policy of his period in office. And Mr Trump has also made his two biggest foreign policy plays in Asia — through a trade war with China and nuclear talks with North Korea. Increasing suspicion of China and growing concern about the Korean nuclear programme were also themes of the late Obama years.


The two presidents have both had to appeal to an electorate that is profoundly war-weary. As a result, both Mr Obama and Mr Trump tried to cut back on America’s global military commitments in ways that have alarmed not just the blob, but America’s allies too.

That concern underpins the uneasy atmosphere as the Nato alliance gathers for a summit in the UK this week. Mr Trump’s vocal discontent with Nato is often portrayed as a stark departure from the American norm. But it was actually Mr Obama’s defence secretary, Robert Gates, who warned in 2011 that the future of the alliance would be “dismal” if Europeans continued to rely on the Americans for their security.

The similarities between the two presidents’ instincts has become clearer since Mr Trump sacked the bellicose John Bolton as his national security adviser in September. The crucial disagreements between Mr Trump and Mr Bolton concerned the president’s eagerness to pursue negotiations with Iran, North Korea and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The hawkish Mr Bolton was appalled. But Mr Trump is determined to press ahead. The result is that, after his warlike “fire and fury” phase, Mr Trump is now pursuing a diplomacy-first strategy that is strongly reminiscent of Mr Obama.

Foreign policy caution inevitably leads to clashes with the blob — Mr Obama was attacked for “weakness” and Mr Trump has been lambasted for “isolationism”. The debate over Afghanistan illustrates the point. Both Mr Obama and Mr Trump came to office very sceptical of the case for continued military involvement. Both presidents were then persuaded to send more troops — only to start pulling them out again, later in their presidencies.

The story of two cancelled air strikes underlines their joint caution. Mr Obama’s last-minute decision in 2013 to cancel a bombing raid on Syria, intended to punish President Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons, was widely denounced by the Washington establishment. When Mr Trump ordered some air strikes on Assad regime targets in 2018, in response to another chemical attack, he got bipartisan praise in Washington for correcting Mr Obama’s “error”.

But these raids were just one-off gestures that did nothing to change the trajectory of the war in Syria. More recently, Mr Trump also made a last-minute decision to ignore his advisers and cancel an air strike, this time on Iran, after balking at the likely level of casualties.

Mr Trump’s reluctance to attack Iran was significant. It underlines the fact that his tough-guy rhetoric disguises a strong preference for diplomacy over force. The fact that Mr Trump and Mr Obama arrived at similar policies of pullback from the Middle East is crucial — given that the region has long dominated US foreign policy.

On other issues, however, there are important differences between the two presidents. Mr Obama believed in the importance of international agreements, while Mr Trump is highly sceptical of them. He has pulled the US out of the Paris climate treaty and a host of other international accords.

The Trump administration’s ardent protectionism also represents a break not just with Mr Obama, but with every other US presidency since 1945. However, Mr Trump seems to be in tune with the spirit of the times. The leading candidates for the Democratic nomination are now also embracing protectionism and a more hostile attitude to China.

This bipartisan embrace of protectionism is the economic equivalent of the Obama-Trump convergence on pulling back from the Middle East. Both policies are products of a declining confidence in America’s ability to emerge triumphant in economic or military competition with foreign rivals. The result is the adoption of more defensive and inward-looking policies.

Since the Trump and Obama camps revile each other, it remains a political and psychological necessity for both sides to ignore any convergence between their foreign policies. But when historians look back at the two presidencies, they will surely notice the underlying continuities. In their very different ways, both Mr Obama and Mr Trump have reduced America’s global commitments — and adjusted the US to a more modest international role.

Pelosi Says House Will Begin Drafting Impeachment Charges Against Trump

The speaker said she was instructing House committee chairmen to move forward with articles of impeachment against President Trump, escalating a partisan confrontation that could lead to a vote by Christmas


WASHINGTON — Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced on Thursday that the House of Representatives would begin drafting impeachment articles against President Trump, pushing ahead with a rapid timetable that could set the stage for a vote before Christmas to charge him with high crimes and misdemeanors.

Wrapping her announcement in the words of the Constitution and the nation’s founders, Ms. Pelosi said it had become clear over the course of two months of investigation that Mr. Trump had violated his oath of office by pressing a foreign power for help in the 2020 election. Allowing Mr. Trump to continue in office without remedy, she said, would come at “the peril of our republic.”

“His wrongdoing strikes at the very heart of our Constitution,” Ms. Pelosi said in a formal address lasting less than six minutes, delivered against a backdrop of American flags from the balcony outside her office in the Capitol. “Our democracy is what is at stake. The president leaves us no choice but to act because he is trying to corrupt, once again, the election for his own benefit.”

Ms. Pelosi’s hastily arranged announcement came a day after the House Judiciary Committee began formal impeachment proceedings against Mr. Trump, convening a hearing where three constitutional scholars invited by Democrats said Mr. Trump had engaged in conduct that clearly met the definition of impeachable offenses under the Constitution.

The decision follows a two-monthlong inquiry by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee that concluded that Mr. Trump abused his power by pressuring President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to announce investigations into former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and other Democrats, while withholding a White House meeting and $391 million in vital military assistance.

“The facts are uncontested,” Ms. Pelosi said. “The president abused his power for his own personal political benefit, at the expense of our national security.”

She added: “Sadly, but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our founders and a heart full of love for America, today I am asking our chairmen to proceed with articles of impeachment.”

Returning to the ceremonial speaker’s hallway where she first announced in late September that Democrats were launching the inquiry, Ms. Pelosi sent a clear signal that she was confident they would have the votes they needed to impeach Mr. Trump, making him only the third president in American history to face removal by Congress. The proceedings, unfolding less than a year before the 2020 election, will play out amid profound partisan divisions, with Democrats pressing forward amid intense Republican opposition.

Before her announcement, Mr. Trump seemed to welcome the coming fight, calling Democrats “crazy” in a pair of tweets that urged them to get the process over with quickly so he could defend himself in the Republican-controlled Senate.

“If you are going to impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair trial in the Senate, and so that our Country can get back to business,” he wrote.

Afterward, the White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, wrote on Twitter that Ms. Pelosi and Democrats “should be ashamed.”

“@realDonaldTrump has done nothing but lead our country — resulting in a booming economy, more jobs & a stronger military, to name just a few of his major accomplishments,” she wrote.

Ms. Pelosi limited advance notice of her announcement to a tight circle of advisers, but there have been clear signs this week that Democrats were preparing to move forward with impeachment articles. On Wednesday, after the legal scholars told the Judiciary Committee the facts of the case met the standards for impeachment, the committee’s chairman, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, said explicitly that Mr. Trump’s conduct fit his three-part test for impeachment, and indicated his panel would press ahead with that in mind.

The Judiciary Committee is expected to announce a hearing in the coming days for Intelligence Committee lawyers for present their findings. People familiar with the matter believe the Judiciary panel is on track to begin publicly debating and voting on articles by the end of next week.

In saying that she was instructing “chairmen” to draft the charges, Ms. Pelosi  left open the possibility that the other five panels that have investigated Mr. Trump and his administration — including the Intelligence Committee that drew up the Ukraine report and the Ways and Means Committee that has pressed for the release of the president’s tax returns — could also play roles, a break with past practice.

On Wednesday, Mr. Nadler’s team made clear it was considering building charges going beyond the Ukraine matter, related to obstruction of the House’s inquiry. A lawyer for the chairman, Norm Eisen, also asked the witnesses to also evaluate whether possible obstruction of justice by Mr. Trump laid out by Robert S. Mueller, the special counsel who investigated whether the Trump campaign had ties to Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, was also impeachable. The Democratic caucus, and Ms. Pelosi, though, may  decide to keep the case more narrowly focused on Ukraine.

The Intelligence Committee report released Tuesday laid out a broad framework for what articles of impeachment might look like. It found that the president had abused his power, endangered national security for his own personal benefit by seeking foreign interference in the 2020 election and obstructed Congress by ordering critical witnesses not to testify.  

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/us/politics/pelosi-impeachment.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

“I knew there were no nuclear weapons... the intelligence did not show that that was the case so I knew it was a misrepresentation to the public... In my view, that was not an impeachable offense.”

Good lord we need to get this ghoul out of public office ASAP.

— cabral (@axcomrade) December 8, 2019

It looks like MAGA Twitter found this tweet, so let me be clear: Trump is a corrupt idiot who should be impeached for crimes against humanity and for a multitude of emoluments clause violations. Nancy Pelosi being a ghoul doesn’t change that.

— cabral (@axcomrade) December 9, 2019

Trump is considering skipping presidential debates next year because he thinks the debate commission is unfair. @maggieNYT @anniekarni https://t.co/7Wbvk7Wnmn

— Alan Rappeport (@arappeport) December 12, 2019

prognoza: Tranp neće učestvovati ni u kakvim predizbornim debatama sa dem. protivkandidatom.

Летећи Полип wrote:Ni ja više ne bih išao na gostovanja i debate. Mejnstrim mediji više nisu ono što su nekad bili.


Mislim, hajte vi kod Vučićevića i Jovćevićke na debatu.

Gargamel wrote:

Летећи Полип wrote:U pravu si. Ova zapadna ekipa je kudikamo gora.