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-   -   H.R. McMaster Out, John Bolton In (https://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=29364)

Michael Cantor 03-23-2018 12:11 AM

H.R. McMaster Out, John Bolton In
 
Vancouver is looking better and better. Sidney or Melbourne appeal also, but they're just too far.

McMaster's days were obviously numbered, but the announcement was obviously suddenly rushed through without any real prep (I believe that Bolton didn't know about it until it was done) in order to step on the headlines about the Karen McDougal CNN interview. What a tabloid piece of shit!

Our President is a fool, a liar, a thief, and a massive threat to the world. I've been more or less ignoring Tom Steyer's impeachment campaign as unrealistic until we have a majority in the House and Senate, but the events of the past few weeks have persuaded me to start talking it up now, even though it would probably require something huuuge (clear evidence that he's a Manchurian Candidate, or in debt up to his eyeballs to the Kremlin, combined with a move to fire Mueller) to do anything until after the '18 elections and a switch in leadership. (It takes a simple majority of the House to initiate an impeachment trial in the Senate, but two-thirds of the Senate to actually remove a President from office.) And the way Trump is packing the Cabinet with his buddies makes the 25th Amendment approach increasingly difficult

John Riley 03-23-2018 12:46 AM

We're stuck with him. If Democrats do take over the Congress in November he will do what all presidents do and turn his attention to foreign affairs. It makes perfect sense to me that Trump would warm up to the idea of winning himself a war. The idea of being a wartime president has to be natural to his ego, despite the fact he claimed to not be a neocon. I have a son in the military and now a war monger is Trump's advisor.

John Isbell 03-23-2018 05:42 AM

Trump is no bright spark, but he has a lizard brain, I'd say, like any demagogue, like say Erdogan or Duterte, for people's baser instincts. It's done well by him over the years and he's not yet faced nemesis.
John Dowd also resigned yesterday and Trump appointed DiGenova, a Fox News conspiracy theorist. This puts Mueller's investigation under increased jeopardy. We are entering a new phase of this presidency. November can't come fast enough.
As for the GOP in Congress, and the GOP base, let's just say I have revised my pre-Trump low opinion of them. And not up. This I suspect is how survivors of the French Revolution arrived at cynicism and contempt. Actual patriotism seems in short supply.

Cheers,
John

Catherine Chandler 03-23-2018 06:31 AM

The Bolton appointment is really terrible news. Even Canada will be "too close for comfort" once those ICBMs start flying (let's hope they don't! :eek:). Thinking about taking up permanent residence in Uruguay at this point.

Roger Slater 03-23-2018 07:55 AM

Can you sponsor me?

James Brancheau 03-23-2018 03:16 PM

Trump is pretty comprehensively disastrous. From big things to small, he leaves no corner uncorrupted. On the bright side, he's destroying the Republican party. Bolton is no surprise. He's hunkering down, thinking his idiot base will save him from indictment. Anyway, I truly believe he was elected in response to the first black president. Which indicts a good proportion of the US. I could be wrong. I doubt it.

John Isbell 03-23-2018 04:55 PM

Yes, that's where some of my cynicism comes in. His base seem desperate to believe in him.

Cheers,
John

Jim Moonan 03-24-2018 03:10 PM

John R : "It makes perfect sense to me that Trump would warm up to the idea of winning himself a war."

This is what is most chilling. And Bolton would be the one to make it happen.

Canada... Australia... New Zealand... I would rather move deep into the country, disconnect, and live a simple life separate from the disfunction of our culture and politics.

Julie Steiner 03-24-2018 05:21 PM

Um...isn't retiring into our own private bubbles, and not wanting to pay serious attention to political unpleasantness, exactly what got us into this mess?

Don't surrender your country, if you love it. Stay and fight to make it what it should be. (And by "fight" I mean do stuff that makes a real-world difference, like volunteering to register voters, working to promote important causes, etc.)

We may still lose. But I, for one, intend to go down swinging.

Jim Moonan 03-24-2018 06:48 PM

I didn't say I had my bags packed ;)

I would, in any event, rather live a simple life closer to nature and searching for something more. (For that matter I'd rather do almost anything else.) But here we are and here I'll stay.

This board topic presented me with an opportunity to vent. That's what I'm doing. But in real time I'm standing at attention, alert to the situation, trying to what I can to bend back the badness that blankets our country.


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