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[Deleted member 541]

@scout86 I am not happy about his pick for Chief of Staff. I am a bit worried about it actually. Trump, since getting into the WH, has been disruptive, but since the G20, oh excuse me, the G19 his behavior has become a bit more unpredictable...... Why???????? I'm wondering what those hours spent with Putin, (behind closed doors) were really all about and what they talked about.

Putin surrounds himself with generals. Putin has Narcissistic behavior. Putin has pretty much made Russia an autocratic society. You start doing this by discrediting the press. Putin also rules the country with force....It's just all too familiar for me.

Trump, is now surrounding himself with generals. Trump is Narcissistic, Trump discredits the news. And if anyone watched the speech he gave to law enforcement, he ENCOURAGED law enforcement to NOT be gentle when arresting the bad guys, and stated that law enforcements hands are tied with our laws as they are?!?!?!?!?!?! Link Removed I'm also not thrilled with the new way that law enforcement can seize your property and money if you are suspected of being a drug addict/dealer, before a trial of your piers!!!!!! Jeff Sessions Is Aiding and Abetting Police Departments Who Want to Seize Property of People Convicted of No Crime

To many things scream that Trump has more on his mind than just being a republican. Remember he was a democrat for most of his life, then he switched. But does he really act like a republican? Does he really?

 

[hodge]

Yeah, he is a scary creature, @She Cat. I've had nightmares about him. They are as bad as the ones about my mom, who's also narcissistic and shares the blame for my having PTSD and also continues to support him. Gah.

He acts like someone who cares only about himself. Sadly, we cannot depend on him to make any good decision about anything. The only good thing I've seen him do was to allow those Afghani girls to come to the U.S. for their robotics competition. Other than that, nothing.

Almost 20 years ago I read a book that will never leave me. Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners. I was so taken by all his research and evenhanded way of explaining how ordinary Germans became accomplices in the Holocaust. It was truly horrifying, yet I think it is an object lesson for us now. Not that we are going to do another holocaust, just how ordinary people can be swayed toward horrible attitudes and actions. In Nazi Germany, as now, people were swayed by economic hardship and sought to blame others for their woes. We cannot let this continue or grow here. We just cannot go there. And Trump is tempting people to go there. I think he is truly evil. Banal, yes, but evil is often just banal.

 

[scout86]

@She Cat , I agree about his behavior. Fortunately, there's a big difference between our military and the Russian military. (Not that there's not the occasional wack job out there.) Our military has a long history and tradition of serving the country and the Constitution, not an individual. I think the situation is a bit different in Russia. I'd guess that Putin has had a role in making 'his people', those who work for him, who they are and what they are . They are playing a somewhat different game.Trump may have had that option with his civilian staff, but the soldiers and former soldiers are who they are. Their loyalty, for the most part, is going to be to the country, not an individual. And I think they are smart enough to know that there may be a time when the best interest of the country and the President aren't the same.

I don't know how much you know about these guys, but here's a few links. (Just wikipedia, but that's better than nothing.)
Sec. of Defense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Mattis
National Security Advisor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._R._McMaster
Chief of Staff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kelly

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Trump thinks it's cool to surround himself with generals for some weird reason of his own. I'm not at all happy with Trump as President, but our military is not like that of a authoritarian country and our constitution isn't either. I think we should take the risks seriously, and do what we can to stand up for what we think is right. I don't think we should take things for granted. At the same time, I'd rather the White House was full of a bunch of retired generals than people like the guy who just got hired as communications director (don't know if that's the right title. The guy that gave the unquoteable interview the other day.)

 

[Deleted member 541]

@scout86 I gather that you aren't impressed with the Smootch as the new White House communications director?!?!? LOL!!!!!!

I understand what you're saying about having the generals in the higher positions within the WH and the rest of them heading up the NSA and SOD. What I worry about is all of the changes within our laws, that are being passed without much fanfare and basically they strip us of our rights little by little. All of those "little by littles" add up to bigger shit and less rights.

Now there is talk in the news about Trump pulling Sessions from the AG and putting him in charge of Homeland Security, leaving the AG position open. That leaves a perfect opportunity for him to place someone without confirmation hearings. If that happens he can order the AG to fire Meuller. Setting the investigation back again...

The whole thing makes me sick and I just wish that--------------- Fill in the blanks!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!

 

[hodge]

So rumor has it that Trump moved Kelly from Homeland Security to White House Chief of Staff with the idea of then moving Sessions to Homeland Security. And then, presto, he could nominate a new AG without enraging the Senate by firing Sessions.

W's former ethics attorney, Richard Painter, whom I've grown to love, says this would be a stupid move, though: ‘Obstruction of justice’: Bush ethics czar trashes idea of shuffling Sessions to Homeland Security

JINX, @She Cat, lol

 

[Anarchy]

I beg to differ on the assessment of Putin. To me he looks like a very high functioning psychopath.

If the Russian guy, Alexander litvinienko, who was poisoned in London by being given polonium, a highly radioactive element - which is fairly strong evidence that it was a state sponsored assassination, polonium isn't easily available outside of state nuclear facilities - is to be believed...

Then Putin and his thugs rose to power on the back of blowing up inhabited apartment blocks in Moscow, and blaming the acts on Chechen separatists.

I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to sing the praises of the united state military, like the former KGB, it isn't forgiving towards people who pass on info about it's dirty deeds to the wider population; deeds like kidnap and "rendition" to secret torture sites, covering up massacres of civilians etc.

Such activities are not new, with very few exceptions, the main uses of the military up to 1917 were against civilians living within continental north America.

A state sector military is not there to defend all of the people, it is there to violently advance the interests of the ruling class, at home and abroad.

Foreign wars are not somehow innevitable results of historical forces, they are deliberate decisions of individual human beings.

The state with a military that is larger than numbers 2 to 10 world militaries added together, doesn't somehow find itself the innocent victim of aggression!

Those foreign wars are deliberate, and they serve to distract attention from increased exploitation of the ruled class at home - by taxes, inflation and other diversion of your resources into the hands of the ruling class.

Just as an illustration of the degree of distraction, look at all of the hype about isis in the media.

in northern Syria, there are three little "cantons" ( de facto independent counties, they're experimenting with a form of leftist anarchism based on the thoughts of Murray Bookchin), that go under the name of "Rojava" Rojava - Wikipedia . They have a frontier with Isis occupied territory, and hold isis at bay. Three counties in a country where the per capita annual GDP is equivalent to about us $5,100 , and they're holding Isis at bay!

Don't confuse "democracy" for your being part of that ruling class, you're not, you get to fund it, any money coming back, represents only a tiny fraction of what you and your fellow members of the ruled class have given up.

 

[hodge]

Yeah, a person would have to be a psychopath to order the murders of his enemies. I am more and more getting the impression that Trump is in this way over his head.

 

[Anarchy]

Stealing another member's words here, that psychopath beats narc every time.

 

[hodge]

Yeah, but I think there are ways in which Trump is also a psychopath. He's just not very bright and is incapable of sustained concentration. Otherwise, he would be even more dangerous.

 

[Deleted member 541]

@hodge its Trumps inability to hold or sustain concentration that I think makes him mor dangerous. He doesn't have any impulse control either. He reads something/ hears something/ someone tells him something, and before checking it out to see if it's right or wrong, he TWEETS what he's going to do to fix it.....:banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead:

 

[hodge]

Yeah, true, that. I really, really hope the rumor is true that he doesn't have the actual launch codes.

He can melt down all he wants on Twitter, but good God, don't let him have the launch codes!!!

 

[scout86]

To me he looks like a very high functioning psychopath.

That's exactly what my T says. (And it's hard to believe how much time we spend picking this stuff apart!.)

it isn't forgiving towards people who pass on info about it's dirty deeds to the wider population;

That actually might be the reason McMaster had so much trouble getting promoted to general. He wrote a book on the Vietnam war called "Dereliction of Duty" that some people loved and some people hated.

I think there are ways in which Trump is also a psychopath

There are a lot of similarities, for sure. Here's a link to an article, of all places, from Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/2014...fference-between-a-narcissist-and-a-sociopath Kind of an unscientific thumb nail sketch of similarities and differences.