The Donald Is Getting In Way Over His Head

The stuff with this Republican Party President Trump is really starting to hit the fan, so to speak, this week.

For all the breaking of the Emoluments Clause and contacting and connecting with Russia and Russians all through the 2016 election campaign, what's been said to, if not even already shown to have taken place with this man and now the Ukraine, likely pushes things off any balance there supposedly was. I am referring, of course, to the following:

Trump Repeatedly Pressed Ukraine President to Investigate Biden’s Son

And note, please, right off the bat. This is not from the Washington Post or The New York Times or any other supposed "Left Wing rag" or source but none other than Rupert Murdoch's own solidly Right Wing, very Republican-supporting Wall Street Journal. Just some of their points and reporting:

President Trump in a July phone call repeatedly pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden ’s son, according to people familiar with the matter, urging Volodymyr Zelensky about eight times to work with Rudy Giuliani on a probe that could hamper Mr. Trump’s potential 2020 opponent.

“He told him that he should work with [Mr. Giuliani] on Biden, and that people in Washington wanted to know” if his lawyer’s assertions that Mr. Biden acted improperly as vice president were true, one of the people said. Mr. Giuliani has suggested Mr. Biden’s pressure on Ukraine to fight corruption had to do with an investigation of a gas company for which his son was a director. A Ukrainian official this year said he had no evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Biden or his son Hunter Biden.

But wait. It gets better. It's not just The Donald. Rudy jumped in this mess, too.

Mr. Giuliani in June and August met with top Ukrainian officials about the prospect of an investigation, he said in an interview. After the July call between the two presidents, the Ukrainian government said Mr. Trump had congratulated Mr. Zelensky on his recent election and expressed hope that his government would push ahead with investigations and corruption probes that had stymied relations between the two countries.

Mr. Trump only recently emerged from the nearly two-year investigation by Robert Mueller into whether his campaign sought help in the 2016 election from a different country: Russia. While Mr. Mueller said in his report this spring that he didn’t establish a conspiracy between Moscow and the Trump campaign, Mr. Trump’s efforts to seek Ukraine’s help in damaging a potential political opponent are certain to revive criticism that the president welcomes campaign help from foreign countries.

Mr. Trump on Friday defended his July call with Mr. Zelensky as “totally appropriate” but declined to say whether he had asked the Ukrainian leader to investigate Mr. Biden. At the same time, he reiterated his call for an investigation into Mr. Biden’s effort as vice president to oust Ukraine’s prosecutor general. “Somebody ought to look into that,” he told reporters.

In recent months, Mr. Giuliani has mounted an extensive effort to pressure Ukraine to do so. He said he met with an official from the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office in June in Paris, and met with Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Mr. Zelensky, in Madrid in August. Mr. Giuliani said in an interview this month that Mr. Yermak assured him the Ukrainian government would “get to the bottom” of the Biden matter.

That's not bad enough for this President. He apparently had to also add a monetary quid pro quo to this offer--and with our government's tax money, to boot. Your and my tax dollars, Mr. and Mrs. America.

The August meeting came weeks before the Trump administration began reviewing the status of $250 million in foreign aid to Ukraine, which the administration released earlier this month. Mr. Giuliani said he wasn’t aware of the issue with the funds to Ukraine at the time of the meeting.

And as usual and ever, this President isn't even bright enough to know when he's in over his head. Far over his head, as it turns out. Check this out, coming up.

Mr. Trump is to meet with Mr. Zelensky in person for the first time next week, at the United Nations General Assembly gathering in New York.

Whattya' bet The Donald now cancels that meeting? Wait for it.

What isn't to loathe of this man in the White House is to love, love, love--for sick humor.

Links:

Trump's Russian connections span 30 years

Trump's oldest son said a decade ago that a lot of the family's assets came from Russia

The Many Dangers of Donald Trump

What we have is a problem, a person, who attacks or wants to attack virtually anything and everything--all institutions, virtually all nations, including our allies, everyone and everything, as i said except some dictators like Russia's Vladimir Putin, North Korea's Kim Jong Un and the Philippines' Duterte.

This article, coincidentally, just broke yesterday from Bloomberg.

Trump Continues Destruction of the U.S. Government

Think about it. Think about all the people and organizations and nations this man, this Republican President has verbally attacked. The list is stunning.

• Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and that simply because she doesn't agree with him completely, as he attacks everyone who doesn't
• Robert Mueller, a Republican, simply because he, Mr. Mueller, was doing his job
• "The Squad", four Congresswomen who happen to also be of minorities (besides just also being women) because, again, they disagree with him
• Member of the House of Representatives Frederica Wilson, D-Florida, because her recollection and description of a meeting and conversation with a widow of a fallen US soldier
• He famously and horribly attacks the media and repeatedly, First Amendment be damned
• In fact, he infamously attacked a reporter with a disability (see link to video below)
• China, and repeatedly, over trade, keeping in mind they are one of our two largest trading partners, second only to the UK
• Members of NATO, our allies
• the G20, again, our allies
• The UK's Prime Minister Theresa May, one of our biggest and oldest allies
• Fox News. Yes, he even attacked Fox. They didn't agree with him totally so he went after even that lapdog of his

The New York Times rather famously compiled this list. Because it's now dated, it's no longer complete.

The 598 People, Places and Things Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter: A Complete List

Here's what just one of the results of his attacks has resulted in and cost the nation.

Markets fall sharply as Donald Trump attacks China over trade talks

So, questions.

WHO DOES THIS? 

I mean, besides a 3 year old, who does this? 

Worse, what leader of any nation does this? And can you believe this is OUR leader? Or at least, he's supposed to be.

And then, how do you lead by attacking all the time? And how does one lead by attacking virtually everyone that doesn't already agree with you completely?

How is this productive? 

How is this good for the nation? Good for the people? Good for our futures, both the peoples' and nation's?

If this were the average person on the street, if it were, say, someone at our office we were supposed to work with, we'd certainly avoid them, at least, if we didn't also think they were crazy, legitimately.

Then, how is this good for our nation? It can't possibly be argued it's good for us in any way. 

I ask again, now, as others have rightly asked, what kind of a precedent is this for our nation and for our government? There's no way this is good.

All I can say is, as ever in the last two years of this nightmare, 

THANKS, REPUBLICANS!

Bad as all this is, as bad a President and leader as this man has been, this is what concerns me most.

2020 Election: Why Trump's Second Term Would Be Irreversible

Vote, folks.

And may God, if there is one, and common sense and logic and intelligence and education and maturity and anything and everything good, one day rule again.

And very soon.

Additional links:

A list of Trump's attacks on prominent women

Donald Trump mocks reporter with disability

Trump attacks CNN's Don Lemon over debate question

Trump launches bizarre attack on US allies

The 23 people, places and things Donald Trump has attacked

Trump casually Jokes About His Chaotic Destruction of the US Government

Trump's chaotic leadership drives people to the exits

Trump Should Stop Coddling Misbehaving Dictators

Trump threatens to retaliate against countries like Japan, Canada, Uruguay that issued travel warnings

The Trump Administration Killed a Self-Driving Car Committee — And Didn't Tell Members

The Trump administration wants to dismantle the Office of Personnel Management

EPA dropped salmon protection after Trump met with Alaska governor

Quote of the Day -- On This President

"Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration. When prime-time hosts — who have never served our country in any capacity — dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller — all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of “deep-state” machinations — I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit."

--Retired Lt. Col. Ralph Peters

From the article:

Fox News contributor quits, 

slams network as 'propaganda machine 

Great News Day Yesterday!

The last 12 to 24 hours have brought some pretty fantastic news, frankly, and on two fronts. First, out of the Koreas, North and South.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has agreed to suspend nuclear and missile tests while engaged in negotiations with South Korea, Seoul's government announced Tuesday morning. According to the office of South Korean president Moon Jae-in, Kim has agreed to hold an inter-Korean summit on the border between the two Koreas in late April, the first of its kind since 2007.

South Korea also said that Kim expressed willingness to begin talks with the United States about "denuclearization and normalizing relations"; President Trump has said that North Korea must be willing to denuclearize before negotiations begin.

"The North Korean side clearly stated its willingness to denuclearize," Moon's office said. "It made clear that it would have no reason to keep nuclear weapons if the military threat to the North was eliminated and its security guaranteed."

Now we just need our President to not exacerbate the situation with any tweeting or comments. Good luck to us all and God help us on that. It's starting to look like, of the two, our President Trump and their Kim Jong Un, Mr. Un is the sane one. Let's hope they both are.

Then there is this, regarding the Russia investigation of this President and his White House.

Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg spent much of Monday on a media tour, granting interviews to CNN, MSNBC, NY1, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other outlets as he declared his intention to ignore a subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller.

The subpoena, which Nunberg supplied to multiple outlets and then held in his hand as he appeared on television, demanded he turn over all documents he had from November 1, 2015 to the present that related to President Trump and former Trump campaign officials Carter Page, Corey Lewandowski, Hope Hicks, Keith Schiller, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, and Steve Bannon.

In his multiple interviews, Nunberg said that it would take too much time to sort through that "ridiculous amount of documents," and that he would ignore the subpoena's demands and an order by Mueller to appear before a grand jury on Friday.

"Screw that," he said on CNN. "Why do I have to go? Why? For what?" Nunberg essentially dared Mueller to hold him in contempt of court and jail him. "Let him arrest me," Nunberg told the Washington Post.

But by Monday night, the ex-Trump aide had begun to change his tune. Nunberg told the Associated Press that he is "going to end up cooperating" with the special counsel, although he would like Mueller's team to narrow the subpoena's scope of inquiry. After a day of publicly proclaiming his intent to defy Mueller, Nunberg appeared to back away from his plan to fight.

Here are just a few of the quotes from Mr. Nunberg yesterday:

• "Trump may well have done something during the election with the Russians."
• "You know [Trump] knew about [his son's Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer]. He was talking about it a week before. ... I don't know why he went around trying to hide it."
• "I was told that [Russian pop star Emin Alagarov] had offered to send women up to Trump's room [while he was in Moscow] but Trump didn't want it. He's too smart for that."
• "I believe [former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser] Carter Page was colluding with the Russians. ... Carter Page is a weird dude."

Finally, this.

Cochran to resign from Senate next month

Another Republican, Senator Thad Cochran, is to resign from Congress. Unfortunately, it's because of poor health which I would wish on no one but hey, at least another Republican will be out of office. That's the upside to an otherwise unfortunate situation.

Incredible. An incredible--and good--day.

Maybe great, even. Here's hoping it continues.

Link:

Wake Up To Politics