Day: May 12, 2017

Closing Thought–12May17

DAMN!  I Wish I’d Said That!

Ever hear something that you like and thought that you had wish you had said it?

Like “I Think, Therefore I Am” or something similar.

Looks like our president Trump is claiming phrases as his own…..like when I tried to copyright “You’re fired”……well he is at it again…..

President Trump is making headlines because of an interview with the Economist, though probably not the ones he expected. One theme is on an odd claim he made about inventing the long-used phrase “priming the pump,” and another on the possibility of his releasing his tax returns—when he’s out of the White House. The details:

  • At one point, Trump asks the interviewer if he’s ever heard of the phrase “priming the pump,” which has been widely used in economic circles for at least the better part of a century. “Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just … I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It’s what you have to do.”
  • As the Hill reports, Merriam-Webster quickly pounced. “‘Pump priming’ has been used to refer to government investment expenditures since at least 1933,” it tweeted. Another said: “The phrase ‘priming the pump’ dates to the early 19th century.”
  • At the Washington Post, Philip Bump is baffled. He cites multiple examples of Trump himself using the phrase previously and thus floats the possibility that Trump was joking. Or maybe he just “slipped into his long-standing pattern of taking credit where it wasn’t due.”
  • On the tax returns, Trump was asked if he’d be willing to release them in order to get Democratic support for his tax plan, notes CNBC. “That’s a very interesting question,” he said. “I doubt it.” He added that “at some point I’ll release them” because “I’m very proud of them actually. I did a good job.” And later: “I might release them after I’m out of office.”

Click for the full transcript, which includes the president’s thoughts on “Trumponomics” as referring to “self-respect as a nation” and “trade deals that have to be fair, and somewhat reciprocal, if not fully reciprocal.”

Does he not know the power of the Google?

I know most Republicans have not had an original thought in decades…..and what thoughts they have are usually from someone else…..but this is just sad.

No I do not think this is news….but I do think that we should know how silly and ignorant our president can be.

Enough!  Time to shut it down…..go now have some fun and a couple of laughs.

More Foreign Policy by Trump

Trump is our president and I will admit that in the beginning I was impressed with some of his rhetoric pertaining to foreign policy and world affairs….but since taking office he has crapped on any positive statements that he may made in 2016.

Once he nominated Tillerson to run the State department and then his massive cuts to the State department and the firing of all the diplomats and “experts” in the different fields I have not seen anything that is positive with his policies…if anything he is crapping on this country.

The one good thing is that I am NOT alone there are many of us that see the decline in this country because of the bad foreign polies of the Trump administration…..

While Donald Trump delighted in launching 59 cruise missiles toward Syria while eating chocolate cake at one of his resorts, Syrians, as they have for years of living under conditions of extreme violence, feared the worst.

The devastatingly bloody conflict in Syria, which the US has already been involved in for years, has left nearly 500,000 dead and nearly 2 million injured. That means that more than 1 out of every 10 Syrians has been killed or wounded, and more than 85 percent of the country is living in poverty. According to the UN, more than 6 million Syrians are displaced within their own country, and nearly 5 million have fled the country altogether and are now refugees.

As the Trump administration appears poised to become increasingly involved in Syria and the greater Middle East, what is life like under the bombs?

Source: Dahr Jamail | Former US Intelligence Officers Scathingly Critique Trump’s So-Called Foreign Policy

Trump may not be the sharpest pencil in the box when it comes to foreign policy but he could do no better than a little research on the policies of Eisenhower….Ike did do some things in world affairs that were not the best choices but at least he did what he thought was best for peace and security in a changing world…..

Former president Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower was the supreme commander of Allied forces during World War II and he intimately knew the brutal, devastating nature of all-out war. Ike was a believer in maintaining overpowering military strength—including a stated willingness to use nuclear weapons—but more importantly, he was a strong advocate for peace and diplomacy. Before it is too late, let us hope President Trump can learn from the policies of Eisenhower.

Source: What Trump Could Learn from Eisenhower | The National Interest Blog

Ike did have his moments that I would not approve of today….but at least he saw the need and the positive aspects of diplomacy…..something Trump and his d/bag Tillerson have not yet grasp.

This is the world we get when we vote for arrogance and ignorance.

What Price War?

We hear about the cost of war but mostly it is about the human costs….the deaths and the injured……but seldom will anyone bother to look at the dollars and cents of the action.  Why?

Ask yourself….who pays for a war?  That is the question everyone should ask….especially those we send to DC to represent us and our interests.

Do you realize that since 9/11 the cost of the War on Terror has cost the country in the neighborhood of $5 trillion (yep that is trillion with a giant “T”)……and that total was from 2011, ten years into the WoT.

Five trillion dollars: that’s $16,000 per American; $64,000 for a family of four.

The final tally of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan will reach at least $3.7 trillion, and could go as high as $4.4 trillion, according to a study done by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. Borrowing the money needed to fight the wars will cost an estimated additional $1 trillion through 2020, according to the study.

Its “Costs of War” study group brought together some two dozen academics to account for the wars’ costs — along with their casualties — amid sloppy record-keeping on both fronts. The study says an “extremely conservative” death toll is 225,000, with 365,000 wounded. U.S. dead include 6,000 troops and 2,300 contractors.

The study’s estimate of $4 trillion also includes items not counted by the Pentagon, including homeland security, veterans care and various developmental efforts. Then there is the additional $1 trillion in interest payments on the war debt.

(Time)

War is expensive has anyone considered that one small point?

Never Has a Society Spent More for Less

When Donald Trump wanted to “do something” about the use of chemical weapons on civilians in Syria, he had the U.S. Navy lob 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield (cost: $89 million). The strike was symbolic at best, as the Assad regime ran bombing missions from the same airfield the very next day, but it did underscore one thing: the immense costs of military action of just about any sort in our era.

While $89 million is a rounding error in the Pentagon’s $600 billion budget, it represents real money for other agencies.  It’s more than twice the $38 million annual budget of the U.S. Institute of Peace and more than half the $149 million budget of the National Endowment of the Arts, both slated for elimination under Trump’s budget blueprint. If the strikes had somehow made us — or anyone — safer, perhaps they would have been worth it, but they did not

Source: The American Way of War Is a Budget-Breaker | By William Hartung | Common Dreams

I am personally sick and tired of the Repubs and their endless prattle about the deficit and then they pass a defense bill that expands the deficit…..they have a racket going…..convince the less educated that spending more money on war will somehow settle the deficit problem.

Only a mental midget would believe such poppycock.

“War Is Good Business…Invest Your Children”

The Folly of Wilsonism

A hundred years ago the US was in the process of mobilization of troops to send to Europe and join in the defense of freedom in World War One…..

Wilson had kept the US out of the fighting until he found the proper time to insert the US into the fray.

Wilson was the only president to have a PhD….he was a raging racist and a Democrat……..not many politicians today say that they admire Wilson…..Trump has Jackson, Nixon had Lincoln, Reagan had Coolidge and every Dem has JFK…..but poor Wilson has been left out….even though his actions in WW1 is what lead to the US becoming the world power that it is today.

But American Conservative takes a look at Wilson and his interventionism…..

In the midst of the commotion generated by the U.S. missile strikes against Syria’s Al Shayrat air base on April 6, Rex Tillerson’s statement at Sant’Anna di Stazzema, Italy, received less attention than it deserved. Visiting a memorial to victims of Nazi brutality in World War II, the secretary of state declared: “We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world.”

Americans should pause to consider the breathtaking sweep of this statement—particularly in light of President Trump’s missile attacks, launched in response to a chemical-weapons assault attributed to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. Tillerson apparently wants the United States to respond anytime noncombatants get targeted anywhere in the world by armies or governments engaged in war.

Not even Woodrow Wilson ever uttered a statement so Wilsonian in tone and breadth. The essence of Wilsonism stems from the 28th president’s discomfort with American overseas actions conducted in behalf of U.S. interests. But humanitarian interests—now that was a crusade worthy of his countrymen. Even before he took America into World War I, as he sought to put himself forward as an interlocutor for peace among the European belligerents, he made clear in sweeping language that he spoke for a moral authority far higher than mere nationalism. “I hope and believe,” he declared, “that I am in effect speaking for liberals and friends of humanity in every nation … I would fain believe that I am speaking for the silent mass of mankind everywhere.”

Source: The Folly of Wilsonism | The American Conservative

Just another of the professor’s mini history lessons…..knowledge is never enough….