Leaving the Table

WaPo reports: President Trump was livid. Why, he asked his advisers in mid-July, should he go along with what he considered the failed Obama-era policy toward Iran and prop up an international nuclear deal he saw as disastrous?

He was incensed by the arguments of Secretary of State Rex ­Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and others that the landmark 2015 deal, while flawed, offered stability and other benefits. He did not want to certify to Congress that the agreement remained in the vital U.S. national security interest and that Iran was meeting its obligations. He did not think either was true.

By Pogo, a Trail Mix Contributor

This, folks, is what we got.  What possible benefit could having the ability to monitor Iran’s nuclear program and discuss concerns with our colleagues in the deal have? Hmmmm. I really hope that brain of his is as good as he says, all appearances to the contrary.

(BTW, he’s bluffing)

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48 thoughts on “Leaving the Table”

  1. “he’s bluffing”

    pogo, bluffing about what?  dumping the deal? destroying norks and the rest of the world?

    or  that he’s as smart as he says he is?

  2. but I don’t think he’s bluffing about this when he said (according to vanity fair ):  “I hate everyone in the White House! There are a few exceptions, but I hate them!”

  4. nor do I think he’s bluffing about this threat as reported this a.m. in wapo:

    President Trump served notice Thursday that he may pull back federal relief workers from Puerto Rico, effectively threatening to abandon the U.S. territory amid a staggering humanitarian crisis in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

    Declaring the U.S. territory’s electrical grid and infrastructure to have been a “disaster before hurricanes,” Trump wrote Thursday that it will be up to Congress how much federal money to appropriate to the island for its recovery efforts and that recovery workers will not stay “forever.”

    In a trio of tweets, Trump wrote” “We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!”

    Three weeks since Maria made landfall, much of Puerto Rico, an island of 3.4 million people, the vast majority of the island remains without power. Residents struggle to find clean water, hospitals are running short on medicine and commerce is slow with many businesses closed.

    [..continues…]

     

    heartless bastard

  6. patd,

    Reading the Puerto Rico comments made me think of Che Guevera, whom BBC Radio featured in their “history segments” (which I love) recently.

    Watch for it: Somebody somewhere will seize the opportunity somehow. And I won’t blame that person a bit.

     

     

  8. What are the odds there are countries, rogue agents or bad hombres who have or have the knowledge to build nuclear weapons that 1) we don’t know about or 2) our government is deliberately keeping us ignorant about?

     

     

  9. There’s a good bit of smelly about the Las Vegas shooting…..don’t know exactly what stinks but something does.

  10. trump going nuclear, mother nature going nuclear…one hot and radioactive planet.  With the generals in place, I do not fear nuclear winter although I have friends who worry about that everyday trump is in office.   To me, trump’s furtive attacks on values and institutions are meant to cover his election heist and undo as much of Obama as he is able until stopped.   The much hated dems?   Demanding answers from peanut session, the little man over at justice who met with the ruskies and lied about it to us citizens.  He is to protect us, not set us up.

    nunes running amok in the house covering-up for his boss, putie.

    It will take us some time to rout-out the ruskies.

  11. The smell in Vegas?  Perhaps it is the tacky decor of the shooters room that stinks…garish, trumpian.  The epitome of guns, glitz and gambling covered with the residue of desperation…stinktown for losers.   Something the visitor’s bureau wishes to forget.

  12. Trump’s tweet re sending additional funds to LV to assist their police department followed by another about cutting off aid to PR reminded me once more of an unassailable fact.  We have a racist in the WH.  There is a reason he is supported by the KKK, Neo-Nazis, red state under educated, and a base that crawled out from under rocks in Nov of 2016.

    Most people don’t realize that housing in Las Vegas was legally segregated until 1971.  It is still largely segregated De Facto if not De Jure.  Puerto Rico has all those darn brown people who speak like furriners even if they are Americans.

    Donald J. Trump likes white people.  He’s not so sure about those who speak a language other than English, and he definitely doesn’t like people who get their tans at birth instead of out of a bottle.

     

  13. The shooter in LV and trump have so much in common and I think that is what scares me…when given access to weapons of mass destruction?  So tempting to shoot, bomb or fly into a mountain.  LV cultivates the gambler, the narcissist and guns.  Look at OJ walking through the hallways with a gang and guns.  Bellhops move suitcases of guns everyday…gun shows everywhere.   And now it has bitten vegas in the worst of ways killing innocents.  Unlike the shooter, let us hope we can stop trump from actually carrying through his threats since it seems we have more of a warning. trump is a dotard.

  14. Jamie, please allow me to associate myself with your 9:32 comment.  I posted something similar, albeit much briefer, at WaPo this morning.  Your comment does much more justice to the subject than did mine.

  16. How to call SFB an asshole…  let me count the ways…

    Flatus…  so sorry about the Indians.  Guess they shot their wad in that long winning streak.  I had a bet with a friend on the series.  I was not a happy camper when I had to hand over that dollar to him this morning at breakfast.

    Go Astros!  Get me my dollar back!

  17. Don Asmussen
    15 mins · 

    Smelling the smoke of other people’s homes burning and reading stories about our president trashing Puerto Rico and complicating people’s access to health coverage … is really making me wonder about this 34%. How many miners are there again?

  18.  

    A little good news to lighten the palate.  Mr. & Mrs P busily cleaning up the DC nest in the Arboretum

     

  19. Hey KGC…  I hope you and Mr. C stay safe.  Sending love and light to not only your, but everyone in harm’s way in California.

  20. npr: Trump Hints At A Limit On Federal Aid To Puerto Rico; San Juan Mayor Responds

    [….]

    After Trump’s most recent comments, Cruz responded via Twitter, “@POTUS It is not that you do not get it; you are incapable of fulfilling the moral imperative to help the people of PR. Shame on you!”

    She added, “your comments about Puerto Rico are unbecoming of a Commander in Chief they seem more to come from a “Hater in Chief.”

    […continues…]

  21. more from that npr story linked above:

    Here’s how the situation stands in Puerto Rico, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s latest update:

    Some 64 percent of Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority’s customers have potable water
    10 percent of power customers have electricity
    Approximately 86 percent of the grocery stores are open
    392 miles of Puerto Rico’s 5,073 miles of roads are open
    60 percent of waste water treatment plants are working on generator power

    FEMA says there are currently some 19,000 federal civilian personnel and military service members — including more than 1,400 FEMA personnel — working in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In addition to the federal effort, 22 states have responded to calls for aid in Puerto Rico.

    Officials in Puerto Rico have said it could take $5 billion to get the island’s electrical infrastructure up and running again. The recovery effort comes after the government-owned electricity utility PREPA filed for bankruptcy in July — and after Puerto Rico itself filed for bankruptcy, facing more than $120 billion in debt, as NPR’s Samnatha Raphelson has reported.

  22. in addition to elon musk trying to help, according to this excerpt from forbes  story “Billionaire Elon Musk In Discussions with Puerto Rico About Rebuilding Storm-Ravaged Power Grid”:

    Google asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for licenses to use 30 solar-powered internet-transmitting balloons to help restore cell service in Puerto Rico. On Saturday, the FCC granted an experimental license for Project Loon, run by Alphabet, Google’s parent company, to use balloons to help restore Internet service to people in remote places. The FCC said 83% of phone towers in Puerto Rico are out of service, with telecom companies AT&T, T-Mobile and Claro scrambling to install temporary cell phone toweres.

    Project Loon is a network of balloons that provides connectivity to users on the ground. The balloons were designed to bring Internet connectivity to rural and remote areas, but Google has also used them for disaster relief efforts.

    Google’s help, however, is only temporary. Luis Romero, vice president of the Puerto Rico Telecommunications Alliance, told Wired the balloon plan is “very limited and very short term.” Romero says that even in metropolitan areas, such as the capital of San Juan, the fiber has to be totally replaced.

  23. all you folks out there completely dependent on the grid and all things technology take heed of what’s happening in puerto rico and in the fire burning region of californy… a microcosm of some of what to expect when cyber attacks against our infrastructure, utility systems go national.

  24. excerpt from  abc news: “Republican senator asks Trump if he’s ‘recanting oath’ over war with press”

    Trump’s threat to pull NBC’s license drew Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., into the fight. The centrist Republican Sasse is a frequent right-wing opponent of the president.

    Sasse released a statement asking if the president was recanting his oath of office due to his challenge of the First Amendment.

    “Mr. President: Words spoken by the President of the United States matter,” the brief statement reads. “Are you tonight recanting the oath you took on January 20th to preserve, protect, and defend the First Amendment?”

  26. I have no respect for John Kelly after this ridiculous press appearance

    I can only imagine what PG must have over him

  27. Major problem with this government released stat:

    64 percent of Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority’s customers have potable water

    This is fine as far as it goes for the major city and nearby areas, but majority of PR citizens got their water from cisterns that were destroyed in the storm.  Many are drinking out of rivers and polluted clean up sites with the possible illnesses from that activity.

  31. Renee
    I am very, very proud of our Indians. They have every right to be exhausted and at the end of their endurance after winning 102-games in the regular season and then going for that supreme winning effort in game two. I’m proud to be wearing an old, well-worn, Indians Tee-shirt today; it fits, you know, to a T.

    Okay, I’m in for Houston along with you

  32. KGC – the kelly presser was a typical SFB forcing his little puppets to get up and dance for the audience.  This one followed the same script as all the others.  It was important for the moron to embarrass any of his minions who gets better press than he does.  And it works.

    The word about Gale (and me) going to Florida has traveled all over the building.  Many are in awe of what a few RC volunteers can do.  Many are also reluctant to follow us when I say there is a great need for volunteers of any skill to join the “RedCross.org  click volunteer”.  I explain that any skills they have are good, and they will learn many more if they do anything, including showing up at a chapter meeting.

    If you are a white supremacist and people are dying because of your intentional neglect do you? A. help them? B. tell them to die because they are not white males who are PG?  Of course SFB chose B.  A creative lawyer might be able to work a murder case on him.

  34. XR – 29th sounds good.  There is the Kelly-Tillerson-Mattis suicide pact to consider.  Two of the three have done the dancing dunce theater so far.  All of kelly statements all state “right now”.  Nothing about the future.

  36. Flatus & Renee – I suffered through the last 3 games of the Indians and Yankees – but not so much as you might think, being that I have been a Yankees fan since about 1959 and an Indians fan only since about 1993.  I was a Red Sox fan when I was in NE in the 80s, except when they were playing the Yankees.  In a sense, I couldn’t lose this year.  I’m back into a Yankees cap for the duration of their run this year. I gotta agree with Flatus, I’m proud of what the Indians have done this year.  (I wonder if they wish CC was still wearing tribe colors instead of pinstripes last night).

  37. My Dodgers start playoffs on Saturday

    NLCS Game 1: Cubs/Nationals at Dodgers, 5:08 p.m. PT (TBS)

  41. As long as the Yankees keep winning I will always have a favorite team in the playoffs, Yesterday it was the Indians, now it is Houston,

    I was raised on Cardinal baseball on the radio with Harry Carey. Then Harry got caught with the boss’s wife and move to Chicago and I moved to KC and started following the newly created Royals.

    I learned baseball from my father.  Cheer for the cardinals, cuss Charlie Finley and the Athletics(who made a temporary stop in Kansas City on their way to California) and hate the Yankees.

    I’m not sure why he hated the Yankees but in the 70’s and eighties I found my own reasons.

  42. I hoped the Indians would win. I can’t cheer for either the Yankees or Houston. Go Vikings !

  43. The deadbeat pussypincher might be able to roll kelly and tillersonovitch, but he’d be a fool to mess with Mattis. The latter would eat the bastard for a morning snack, and pick his teeth with trump’s bones.

  44. Great News !

    90+ year old uncle DB informed Sweetie and I that no one over the age of 70 is a hypochondriac.

    We feel so relieved.

  47. We’re fine. Thank you, Mr Pogo. Just passing on the wisdom of Uncle DB. (actually Sweetie’s uncle)

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