Amerika du hast es besser

[Peiresc]

Fröhliches Verhandeln mit Kim. Wird wahrscheinlich von Kushner vorbereitet werden.

[Peiresc]

Tillersons Entlassung erfolgte ja mehr oder weniger durch einen Tweet. Die Abschlussfloskel lautete:

Congratulations to all!

Weiß jemand, was damit gemeint ist? Erpel, Du?

Eine Floskel ist eine nichtssagende Redewendung, die man aus Höflichkeit gebraucht.

Also ich halte zwei Bedeutungen für denkbar:

erstens: Gratulation, Alter, den Sch...Job bist Du los.

zweitens: Gratulation an die Verbleibenden, den Miesepeter sind wir los.

Also, ich bin da auch ein bisschen im Zweifel. Nur in einem bin ich mir völlig sicher. Mit Höflichkeit hat das absolut nichts zu tun. Eher mit Feigheit.

[Peiresc]

Minority Report

https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/final_-_minority_status_of_the_russia_investigation_with_appendices.pdf

Status of the Russia Investigation

One year ago, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) initiated its investigation of Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S. election and pledged to follow the facts wherever they would lead. With yesterday's announcement that the Majority will be prematurely shutting down the Russia investigation and issuing a report at odds with the consensus of the Intelligence Community and the overwhelming evidence produced during our own probe, they have broken that commitment.

21 Seiten lang. Er hält fest, was der Untersuchungsausschuss alles nicht getan hat und was für Fragen er nicht beantwortet hat. Ich habe das natürlich nicht systematisch verfolgt, aber der Vogel ist IMHO mit der Bannon-Anhörung abgeschossen (vgl. #2011).

[ErpelderNacht]

Tillerson hatte sich Anfang Oktober selbst ins Aus gestellt, als er Trump einen "Moron" nannte. 

Vom 05.10.2017: 
http://archive.is/bIncJ

Tensions escalate after Tillerson calls Trump 'moron'

Discord between President Donald Trump and his chief diplomat is at an all-time high, spilling into public view in recent days and peaking with a NBC News report Wednesday that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump a "moron" in a Pentagon meeting.Trump was aware before Wednesday's report that Tillerson had referred to him as a "moron" at the Pentagon this summer, a source familiar with the conversation told CNN, but it's unclear whether Trump discussed the remark with Tillerson. Trump was not present at the Pentagon meeting. A White House source also confirmed to CNN that Trump knew about the insult prior to Wednesday.

In einem bin ich mir völlig sicher. Mit Höflichkeit hat das absolut nichts zu tun.

Das kann sich natürlich kein Vorgesetzter gefallen lassen. und seit damals gab es Gerüchte über seine Entlassung und Ersetzung durch Pompeo. 06.10.2017:

https://twitter.com?/JackPosobiec/status/916295316390989824
#Rexit - President Trump considering replacing Tillerson with Pompeo

Irgendwann kam sogar CNN darauf: 

http://archive.is/bhnUl?
01.12.2017:

White House considering replacing Tillerson with Pompeo
The White House is contemplating a scenario to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with CIA Director Mike Pompeo within the next few months, multiple government officials tell CNN.

Das alles war also längere Zeit bekannt.

[Typee]

Das alles war also längere Zeit bekannt.

Dass Tillerson damit Recht hatte, auch. 

[Peiresc]

Tillerson hatte sich Anfang Oktober selbst ins Aus gestellt, als er Trump einen "Moron" nannte. [...] Das alles war also längere Zeit bekannt.

Ja, der Präsident ist für seine reifliche Überlegtheit bekannt.


Nun wieder ernst: es ist natürlich nicht der Grund für die Entlassung. Aber nicht unmöglich, dass Trumpy jetzt mehr Selbstbewusstsein hat: egal was er tut, so hoch der Schnee. Die Republikaner werden keine Gesetzgebung gegen seine Zölle veranstalten. Wahrscheinlich können die Koch-Brüder mit ihnen (den Zöllen) leben.

The narrative of Trump unglued is not totally wrong but misses the reason why - he was terrified of the job the first six months, and now feels like he has a command of it.
So now he is basically saying "I've got this, I can make the changes I want."

Das einzige was ihn wirklich aufhalten wird, wäre:



In diesem Distrikt hatte Trump 20 Punkte Vorsprung vor Clinton.

[Peiresc]

Nun wieder ernst: es ist natürlich nicht der Grund für die Entlassung.

Der wird vermutlich von David Frum richtig erkannt.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/exodus-rex/555473/
BTW, da fällt mir ein: vor wenigen Tagen hatte Trump (oder Nikki Haley, da bin ich mir nicht mehr sicher) zu neuen Sanktionen gegen Nordkorea aufgerufen, weil Kim seinen Halbbruder im Ausland mit Nervengas hatte umbringen lassen. Ich habe nichts davon vernommen, dass die Administration ähnlich über Russland denken würde.

[Peiresc]

The Art of Deal-Making:

President Trump said at a fundraising dinner that he made up facts during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Trump told those at the dinner that he insisted that the U.S. had a trade deficit with Canada, but did not know if that was the case, according to leaked audio of the speech obtained by the Post.

"Trudeau came to see me. He's a good guy. Justin. He said 'No, no, we have no trade deficit with you, we have none. Donald, please,'" Trump said. "Nice guy, good looking guy, comes in – 'Donald we have no trade deficit.'"

"I said, 'Wrong Justin, you do.' I didn't even know. ... I had no idea. I just said 'You're wrong.' You know why? Because we're so stupid. ... And I thought they were smart. I said, 'You're wrong Justin,'" Trump continued.

"He said, 'Nope we have no trade deficit.' I said, 'Well in that case I feel differently,' I said 'but I don't believe it.' I sent one of our guys out, his guy, my  guy, they went out,  I said 'check because I can't believe it,'" he said.

"'Well sir you're actually right. We have no deficit but that doesn't include energy and timber ... And when you do we lose $17 billion a year.' It's incredible."

The U.S. trade representative office states that the United States does, in fact, have a trade surplus with Canada, according to The Post.

Trump also implied during the speech that he could pull U.S. troops stationed in South Korea if he didn't strike a trade deal favorable to the U.S. with the country, the newspaper reported.

"We have a very big trade deficit with them, and we protect them. We lose money on trade, and we lose money on the military," Trump said. "We have right now 32,000 soldiers between North and South Korea. Let's see what happens."

Das ist dann wohl eher schlicht. Löffelverbiegen ist ein ehrliches, kunstvolles Handwerk.

[Peiresc]

Wenn sich il Presidente jetzt von dem Tillerson-Alpdruck befreit sieht, wird er sich vielleicht auch noch von anderem befreien:

Bill Kristol @BillKristol
This is RUMINT, but pretty credible RUMINT: Trump preparing to fire Sessions, name Pruitt Acting AG (which he can be since he already holds a Senate confirmed position), and Pruitt fires Mueller. And McMaster likely to be replaced by Bolton. Shulkin also on way out, FWIW.

15:02 - 14. März 2018

Das hat zweifellos eine gewisse Logik. Die House-Untersuchung zu Russland ist ja "ergebnislos abgebrochen".

Trey Gowdy widerspricht seinem Verein übrigens: die Russen waren/sind Anti-Clinton.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/13/gop-rep-gowdy-says-russia-hurt-hillary-clinton-campaign.html
Was qualifiziert ihn?

Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, is the only Republican on the committee who read the underlying surveillance court documents from which the GOP memo was drawn.

Was qualifiziert ihn noch? Ach so, ja: er tritt nicht mehr zur Wiederwahl an.

[Peiresc]

Übrigens als Nachfolger von Gary Cohn scheint Lawrence Kudlow im Gespräch. Ich hoffe das bleibt einem erspart.

Nix da. Kudlow kam bei uns übrigens schon mal vor, #180.

If appointing CNBC commentator Larry Kudlow to run the National Economic Council is President Donald Trump's answer, what was his question?
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/15/17120702/larry-kudlow-trump-nec-economist-cable

er ist (oder zumindest: war bisher) ein glühender Freihandelsvertreter. Ein bisschen Fehlprognose gehört einfach dazu bei der Ökonomie, aber

Kudlow supports NAFTA and dismissed signs of the 2007 crash even as it gathered force — as late as July 2008, he was saying America was in "a mental recession, not an actual recession." He's been dead wrong for decades on both taxes and inflation, and he claimed that invading Iraq would generate an economic boom in the United States.

Doch ein bisschen Konsistenz ist schon drin in dieser Personalentscheidung. Er scheint im Grundsatz gut zu Navarro zu passen (#2152).

[Peiresc]

Tillerson hatte sich Anfang Oktober selbst ins Aus gestellt, als er Trump einen "Moron" nannte. [...] In einem bin ich mir völlig sicher. Mit Höflichkeit hat das absolut nichts zu tun.
Das kann sich natürlich kein Vorgesetzter gefallen lassen. und seit damals gab es Gerüchte über seine Entlassung und Ersetzung durch Pompeo.

Dieser Rückblick ist wohl eher einfältig. Politico rekapituliert die Außenpolitik des letzten Jahres:

Trump quit the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement; Tillerson was against leaving the pact. Trump pulled the plug on America's participation in the Paris climate accord; Tillerson favored honoring America's commitment to the agreement. The president wanted to trash the Iranian nuclear deal; Tillerson urged the president to certify Iran's continued compliance and to stick to its terms. The president slapped steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, including from several of our major allies; Tillerson argued against them. Trump called into question America's security commitments to our NATO allies, Japan and South Korea; Tillerson hit the road several times to tell our allies to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Trump unnecessarily pissed off the leaders of Australia and Mexico in rude phone calls; Tillerson had to clean up the mess the president left behind. Trump has folded to Vladimir Putin like a cheap card table; Tillerson showed spine in calling the Russians to the carpet for their many transgressions; the president has slavishly supported Saudi Arabia's reckless policies toward Lebanon and Qatar; Tillerson pushed for a more balanced and nuanced policy. Trump made an ill-advised decision to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel; Tillerson recoiled at the notion. The president seemed ready to unleash the mongrel dogs of war against North Korea; Tillerson was a tireless advocate of diplomacy and dialogue and for his efforts was publicly knee-capped by Trump and completely cut out of the loop on his decision to meet with Kim Jong Un. On all of these issues, Tillerson was tilting at windmills because, as Trump often reminded the American people, his voice is the only one that matters on foreign policy. Given all this policy daylight between the two men and the indignities Tillerson suffered at the small hands of Trump, it's a mystery why the Texas oilman stayed on for as long as he did.

Fucking moron, wennschondennschon. Und der Ausblick:

And don't expect Pompeo to be a voice for diplomacy and restraint. He seems inclined by experience, ideology and politics to reach for military over diplomatic solutions and he saw what happened when Tillerson, in Trump's eyes, got too big for his britches. Is it realistic to assume that the president, under Pompeo's sway, will have a sudden religious conversion on the importance of diplomacy, expertise, the State Department, alliances, multilateral cooperation and America's continued leadership of what is left of the liberal international order? Don't bet on it. When was the last time the president ever admitted he made a mistake, that he was wrong, or that he should have done things differently? The problem was never really Rex Tillerson; it was always Donald Trump.

kyrie eleison.

[Peiresc]

Theranos. Theranos ist eine Startup-Firma mit einer Fake-Technologie. Unser Neutrino-Schubart ist ein absoluter Anfänger und Stümper gegen die. 

Theranos's key technology, the Edison, didn't really work, and Theranos wasn't actually using it to perform its blood tests, relying instead on older Samsung equipment. They offered lower prices than the competition not because they had an innovative new product, but because they were a money-losing startup burning cash raised from venture capitalists.

This scheme worked because Theranos was deeply tied in with the American political, business, and media establishment — counting former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz as board members, and maintaining enough clout that Hillary Clinton's campaign was unwise enough to schedule a high-profile fundraiser with Holmes months after the publication of Carreyrou's exposé.

Ein Skandal beträchtlicher Größenordnung, aber ein Skandal wie manch andere. Warum ist das wichtig: James Mattis war im Aufsichtsrat, $150.000 / Jahr, und er hat auch eine Rolle bei der "Implementierung" gespielt. Jetzt zum eigentlichen Problem:

But nobody wants to talk about it. Not just Trump and his co-partisans in Congress, but the Democratic Party opposition is also inclined to give Mattis a pass. Everyone in Washington is more-or-less convinced that his presence in the Pentagon is the only thing standing between us and possible nuclear Armageddon.

It's an absurd, intolerable situation, but that's life in America in 2018 — and a perfect illustration of how Trump's unfitness for office exerts a corrosive influence throughout American life.
https://www.vox.com/2018/3/16/17124288/mattis-theranos-board-trump

Bitte, Gen. Mattis, treten Sie nicht zurück.

[Peiresc]

North Korea has been uncharacteristically silent on the meeting. The North Korean government has yet to acknowledge offering the meeting and North Korea's state-run media, typically a mouthpiece for the Kim regime, has made no mention of it, prompting some questions as to whether the meeting would happen at all.

Kim ist von seinem eigenen Propaganda-Erfolg umgerissen. Ideale Bedingungen für einen Erfolg des Unternehmens.

NK: Let's have a summit
POTUS: Okay!
WH STAFF: WTF
NK: We weren't serious
WH STAFF: Neither was he
POTUS: I totally am
WH STAFF: WTF
NK: WTF

----

George Nader,

Middle East expert and analyst who consulted with the Trump administration [...],involved in several foreign policy meetings during the Trump transition and at the White House last year

ist mehrfach wg. Kinderpornographie verurteilt worden. Das Weiße Haus, der Hort der Resozialisation.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/16/george-nader-child-porn-467776

----

national security adviser H.R. McMaster isn't getting fired, he's getting Tillersoned – kept in a state of perpetual limbo about his future in the administration, aware that his unpredictable boss could keep him around indefinitely or terminate him at a moment's notice.

----

TheHill meldet:

OJ Simpson: Colin Kaepernick 'made a mistake' taking a knee

Warum ist das eigentlich eine Schlagzeile? Ist es nicht wahrhaft beschämend, dass man einen Verbrecher wie einen Prominenten behandelt, um ,,die amerikanische Flagge zu ehren"?

-----

Kelly acknowledged to the reporters it's likely that Trump is talking to people outside the White House and that reporters are then talking to those people. Kelly cast Trump's own conversations as a significant contributing factor to stories about the staff changes.
Axios

Troll-in-Chief, Leaker-in-Chief.

-----

Und die immer gefährlicher werdende Stormy-Daniels-Geschichte lasse ich mal außen vor.

-----

usw. usw.

[ErpelderNacht]

Dann schauen wir uns mal an, was im Memo drinsteht.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/02/02/the-full-nunes-memo-annotated/?
http://archive.is/mnXGN

Subject: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Abuses at the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation

Purpose

This memorandum provides Members an update on significant facts relating to the Committee's ongoing investigation into the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and their use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) during the 2016 presidential election cycle. Our findings, which are detailed below,
1) raise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain DOJ and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and
2) represent a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the FISA process.

Kein Wunder, wenn dem FBI die Veröffentlichung nicht gefällt, stellt sie deren Arbeit in ein schlechtes Licht.

On October 21, 2016, DOJ and FBI sought and received a FISA probable cause order (not under Title VII) authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page from the FISC. Page is a US citizen who served as a volunteer advisor to the Trump presidential campaign. Consistent with requirements under FISA, the application had to be first certified by the Director or Deputy Director of the FBI. It then required the approval of the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General (DAG), or the Senate-confirmed Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division.

21.10.2016 - zweieinhalb Wochen vor der Wahl wurde ein Antrag auf Abhören vom ehemaligen Wahlteammitglieds Trumps  Carter Page bantragt, unterschrieben von leitenden Angestellten des FBI und des DOJ.

The FBI and DOJ obtained one initial FISA warrant targeting Carter Page and three FISA renewals from the FISC. As required by statute (50 U.S.C. 1805(d)(1)), a FISA order on an American citizen must be renewed by the ISC every 90 days and each renewal requires a separate finding of probable cause. Then-Director James Comey signed three FISA applications in question on behalf of the FBI, and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe signed one. Sally Yates, then-Acting DAG Dana Boente, and DAG Rod Rosenstein each signed one or more FISA applications on behalf of DOJ.

4) According to the head of the counterintelligence division, Assistant Director Bill Priestap, corroboration of the Steele dossier was in its "infancy" at the time of the initial Page FISA application. After Steele was terminated, a source validation report conducted by an independent unit within FBI assessed Steele's reporting as only minimally corroborated. Yet, in early January 2017, Director Comey briefed President-elect Trump on a summary of the Steele dossier, even though it was — according to his June 2017 testimony – "salacious and unverified." While the FISA application relied on Steele's past record of credible reporting on other unrelated matters, it ignored or concealed his anti-Trump financial and ideological motivations. Furthermore, Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information.

Comey selbst bestätigte, dass das Pipi-Dossier unglaubwürdig war und es wurde trotzdem für den FISA-Antrag herangezogen. McCabe, das ist der, der kürzlich kurz vor der Veröffentlichung des Memos zurücktrat, sagte unter Eid, dass es vor einem Kommittee im Dezember 2017, dass es ohne das Pipi-Dossier keine Genehmigung vor dem zuständigem Geheimgericht (FISC) für Carter Pages Überwachung gegeben hätte. Das ist eine große Sache.

Geht grad durch die Medien, selbst die deutschen: McCabe wurde vorzeitig und damit ohne volle Pensionsansprüche gefeuert.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/974859881827258369?
@realDonaldTrumpAndrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI - A great day for Democracy. Sanctimonious James Comey was his boss and made McCabe look like a choirboy. He knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI!

Fehlt nur noch Rosenstein, der letzte aus der korrupten FBI-Führungsriege, die die FISA-Warrants unterschrieben hatten. Alle anderen sind jetzt weg. Der hält sich nur noch wegen Mueller. Aber das wird auch nicht mehr lange dauern.

[ErpelderNacht]

Und bezüglich Mueller noch eine Fundsache: 
Das war einer derjenigen, die die Lüge von Saddam Husseins Massenvernichtungswaffen stützten und so George Bush Junior zur Rechtfertigung des Irak-Krieges verhalfen. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK5T_rZmVyg?

Mueller hat also eine Glaubwürdigkeit von Null.