同情特朗普

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浏览附件698570

上任不到200天 川普民调跌至33%新低
2017-08-02 19:47:05 世界日报

　　川普总统在就任未满200日之际，民意再创新低；昆尼别克大学民调中心(Quinnipiac)2日公布的新民调反映，川普的施政满意率跌至33%，为该机构历次民调的新低。

　　新民调发现，逾六成(61%)的民众不满意川普的施政，只有33%的人满意。有超过六成的人觉得川普"不诚实"、"缺乏领导能力"和与自己的价值观相左，逾五成的民众认为川普滥用职权、言行丢人现眼和罔顾一般民众的需求。

　　在各项政策的表现上，川普不论是在外交、经济、反恐、移民还是健保方面，获得的评价都是贬大于褒。其中在健保方面，只有不到三成(28%)的民众肯定川普的作为，近七成(65%)的人表示否定。

　　昆尼别克民调中心副主任马洛伊(Tim Malloy)说："川普在多项议题上的民调都创新低，以至于很难说哪一项民调对他而言是最大警讯"。

　　民调也显示，共和党支持者对川普的支持仍旧坚定，77%的共和党支持者满意川普的施政，17%的共和党支持者表示不满意。而在没有大学学历的选民中，仍有半数的人支持川普。

　　民调另外还反映，近七成(69%)的民众认为川普应该停发推文，以免节外生枝。

　　由盖洛普民调机构(Gallup)公布的新民调也显示，多达60%的民众对川普的施政不满，只有36%的人满意。

 

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Trump现在有点难，弄不好会来个大动作。

 

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Washington (CNN)On Wednesday, the White House acknowledged that President Donald Trump told two lies.

The first came when he claimed, at a Cabinet meeting on Monday, that the President of Mexico had called him recently. Said Trump: "Even the President of Mexico called me. Their southern border, they said very few people are coming because they know they're not going to get to our border, which is the ultimate compliment."

The second came last week in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the transcript of which was published Tuesday night. In the interview, Trump boasted: "I got a call from the head of the Boy Scouts saying it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them, and they were very thankful."
Neither of those phone calls actually happened, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders admitted in her daily press briefing Wednesday.

When Trump said the President of Mexico had called him, he was referencing a conversation the two men had at the G20 meeting in Germany, which ended July 8.

As for the Boy Scouts "call," what Trump meant was that "multiple members of the Boy Scouts leadership following his speech there that day congratulated him, praised him and offered quite powerful compliments following his speech," Sanders explained.
Despite those admissions, Sanders blanched at the idea Trump had purposely misled. "I wouldn't say it was a lie," she said. "That's a pretty bold accusation. The conversations took place, they just simply didn't take place over a phone call."

But, here's the thing: This is not so easily dismissed as Sanders would like.

Why? Because this is a pattern of conduct with Trump. Throughout his candidacy -- and his presidency -- he has said things that are not provable, at best, and not true, at worst.

He saw Muslims celebrating on the rooftops in northern New Jersey on September 11, 2001. Evidence that President Barack Obama might not have been born in the United States had been brought to his attention. Three to 5 million people voted illegally in the 2016 election. His inauguration crowd was the largest ever recorded. Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign.

And those are just the falsehoods that have drawn the most attention. The Washington Post's Fact-Checker counted 836 false or misleading claims in Trump's first six months in office, an an average of more than four a day. The New York Times' "Trump's Lies" database shows that the President lied or made a false claim in each of his first 40 days in office.

Against all of that untruth, telling two fibs about phone calls seems minor. In both cases, Trump was exaggerating to the point of lying to make himself look good.

Trump's border policies are working so well that even Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, no friend of Trump's, had to acknowledge it. That, in Trump's mind, is proof positive that all the chatter about him not being able to make good on his campaign promises is, to coin a phrase, fake news.

Trump's claim that the head of the Boy Scouts called him to tell him how amazing his speech was came after the Wall Street Journal reporters and editors interviewing him suggested the reception Trump had received at the Jamboree last Monday was somewhat "mixed." Trump can't have that image; he is cheered, loudly, wherever he goes. Period.

In both cases, it's possible that Sanders' version of events is right. That Trump may have made up the phone calls but that the idea he meant to convey in each situation was fundamentally accurate.

It's also possible, of course, that it isn't true. That Trump heard what he wanted to hear or made it up entirely in order to make himself look or feel better.

The broader point here is that these misstatements, while minor as compared to something like, say, what role Trump played in the crafting of his eldest son's statement responding to the reporting of a meeting with a Russian lawyer, still matter.

They matter because they reveal -- or maybe re-reveal -- that Trump views the truth as a very subjective thing. On matters small and large, he bends reality to fit how he wants it to be. The Boy Scouts DID love him and so he said the head of the group called him to tell him he was the best ever. Whether it actually happened or not is, to Trump, not all that important. It felt like it happened. He was telling the truth as he sees it.

Of course, the truth as you might see it isn't the same thing as the plain, old truth. And if Trump is willing to lie about something so minor as phone calls, what else is he willing to stretch -- or break -- the truth about?

That's why the deceptions revealed Wednesday matter. And they (should) matter a lot.

 

[一方水土]

真替他担心度了十七天假回来后，那个总统职位还在不在了

浏览附件698918

 

[Teddy]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/pol...and-jury-trump-russia-probe-article-1.3381717

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury for Trump-Russia investigation, and it has already issued subpoenas
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury and issued subpoenas — clear signs the investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election and Moscow’s ties to the Trump campaign is heating up.

The move means that Mueller, who oversees the federal probe, “believes he will need to subpoena records and take testimony from witnesses,” according to The Wall Street Journal, which broke the story on Thursday.

Grand juries have the power to subpoena documents, get testimony under oath and seek indictments if there is evidence of a crime.

Mueller has already taken advantage of the added firepower.

 

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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/pol...and-jury-trump-russia-probe-article-1.3381717

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury for Trump-Russia investigation, and it has already issued subpoenas
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury and issued subpoenas — clear signs the investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election and Moscow’s ties to the Trump campaign is heating up.

The move means that Mueller, who oversees the federal probe, “believes he will need to subpoena records and take testimony from witnesses,” according to The Wall Street Journal, which broke the story on Thursday.

Grand juries have the power to subpoena documents, get testimony under oath and seek indictments if there is evidence of a crime.

Mueller has already taken advantage of the added firepower.

真替他担心度了十七天假回来后，那个总统职位还在不在了

 

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We now know how the Trump presidency will end. Let's hope we survive: Burman
The outlines of the end are becoming more clear, as Robert Mueller’s investigators dig away. Expect things to be vicious.

It will end badly for Donald Trump as the special counsel closes in, but he has a loyal vice-president sure to pardon him, predicts Tony Burman. (Alex Brandon / The Associated Press)

By Tony BurmanForeign Affairs Columnist
Thu., Aug. 3, 2017

How will the Donald Trump presidency end? It will end badly, so let me count the ways:

1. America is hurtling towards a constitutional crisis that will rock its institutions to the core.

2. Its president and his business empire will soon be exposed as beholden to Russian oligarchs and mobsters.

3. Trump will try to fire special counsel Robert Mueller to prevent this from becoming known, but Congress will intervene.

4. His only remaining hope will be a 9/11-scale disaster or contrived war that he can exploit.

5. If we are lucky enough to survive all of the above, Trump will resign before he is impeached — but only in exchange for a pardon from his servile vice-president, Mike Pence.

Yes, this scenario is anything but far-fetched.

One lesson we have learned from the slow-motion train wreck of this Trump presidency is that precise predictions are impossible to make. That is true, except for one thing.

We are now getting a much clearer sense of where this high-stakes drama is heading. The details may change but the contours of this epic chapter in American political history are beginning to emerge.

Although it has been another head-spinning week, perhaps the most important disclosure was a Washington Post story (notwithstanding reports that Mueller empanelled a grand jury to probe Russia’s ties to the 2016 campaign). The story suggested how centrally involved Donald Trump has become in the expanding inquiry about his secret connections with Russia.

The story revealed that, contrary to previous public assurances, Trump himself dictated a misleading statement about the nature of a meeting with a Russian lawyer during the campaign.

Mueller, a former FBI head, is examining Russian interference in the 2016 election, including potential obstruction of justice and allegations of cover-up. But much to Trump’s horror, Mueller’s investigation is expanding to include the history of connections between Trump’s controversial business empire and Russian government and business interests.

In this latter category are some of the most corrupt Russian oligarchs and mobsters, involved in widespread money laundering, who rose to prominence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

On the surface at least, one of the most perplexing questions still unanswered from last November’s shocking election result has been Trump’s persistent refusal to single out Russia or President Vladimir Putin for dramatically interfering in the American presidential election.

This has prompted many people in the U.S. and abroad, not only his critics, to ask the question: “What does Russia have on Trump?”

Increasingly, it appears that the Mueller investigation will help answer that question by examining the close but largely secret relationship between the Trump empire and Russian financial interests.

According to leaks, it has only been in recent days that Trump has realized that this Mueller probe, if not stopped, may even include an examination of his tax returns that he has been so stubborn to keep secret.

A revealing preview of what Mueller is undoubtedly discovering was featured as the extensive cover story of September’s issue of the U.S. magazine New Republic. Written by investigative journalist Craig Unger, the story was titled: “Married to the Mob: What Trump Owes the Russian Mafia.”

Unger was stark in his conclusions: “Whether Trump knew it or not, Russian mobsters and corrupt oligarchs used his properties not only to launder vast sums of money from extortion, drugs, gambling and racketeering, but even as a base of operations for their criminal activities. In the process, they propped up Trump’s business and enabled him to reinvent his image. Without the Russian mafia, it is fair to say, Donald Trump would not be president of the United States.”

More than anyone, Trump knows what Mueller will discover. He knows the legal peril that he and his family are in. He also knows that his presidency is certain to end — in some way — if that story ever becomes public.

We should remember this when we see how Trump acts in the weeks to come. Like a cornered rat, he will fight to protect his interests. In every conceivable way, he will work to stop Mueller’s probe, to challenge Congress if it intervenes, to undermine the press and judiciary if they get in the way and — yes — even to engage in reckless military adventures if he thought that would strengthen his position.

This next stage of this Trump story will no longer be a diverting reality show. It will be the moment when Americans — and the rest of us — will learn if U.S. democracy is strong enough to stop him.

https://www.thestar.com/news/insigh...onger-be-a-diverting-reality-show-burman.html

 

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Donald Trump’s phone-call leaks are a threat to America
Opinion: If world leaders can’t trust America when they’re on the phone with the President, what are they supposed to do?
Andrew MacDougall
August 3, 2017

President Donald Trump speaks on the phone with Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull in the Oval Office of the White House, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2017 in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Andrew MacDougall is a London-based columnist and commentator. He was a director of communications to Stephen Harper.

The leader-to-leader phone call I’ll always remember from my time in Ottawa is the one where a G20 president asked Prime Minister Stephen Harper about the quality of the women in Toronto.

Suffice it to say the Privy Council Office didn’t include that tabloid tidbit in their readout of the call. Then again, PCO never included very much detail about any leader call—and that was entirely by design.
As President Donald Trump is now discovering after the Washington Post published full transcripts of his calls with Malcolm Turnbull of Australia and Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico, having a verbatim record of your exchanges with counterparts in the public domain is an uncomfortable place to be.

The anti-Trump commentariat will delight in today’s news and the embarrassment it causes. But place me with the dearly departed Anthony Scaramucci on this one, at least figuratively: the White House needs to f–king kill the leakers who handed out this information. Transparency is important—but a threat to the privacy of these discreet conversations threatens America’s ability to play its traditional leading role in global affairs.

Let me explain. First and foremost, a call between two leaders is the most sensitive type of diplomacy conducted by nations. The principals don’t usually get on the phone to sort out the easy bits; they call each other at times of acute stress, or with a particular, often delicate, ask.

Even if, say, one country takes the decision to not help the other, it’s rare for that rejection to be made explicit in public communication, especially among allies. “The two leaders had a frank and honest exchange on (INSERT ISSUE HERE)” is usually code for “one told the other to get stuffed.” Here, diplomacy allows the saving of face, but also the freedom to speak one’s mind.

Other times, global diplomacy is like high school, where leaders call each other to whine about someone else. Imagine, if you will, Angela Merkel’s prep calls ahead of the recent G20 summit in Hamburg, where Trump was the known roadblock to agreement. Surely, there were airings of grievances about the president; it would have instead been boiled down to “the two leaders discussed the upcoming G20 Summit.”

No matter the subject, the public communications around these calls are really just marketing. Each side puts out their version of the call, highlighting the areas of concern most relevant to their populations. With friends, steps are taken to ensure no contradictory sentiments are released.

If two leaders can’t approach these conversations bluntly, with the full expectation their words will be kept private, they will hesitate to speak unvarnished truths or to make direct demands. This opens the world up to misunderstandings on important subjects. Who will want to call the United States now to have a candid chat on a tough issue? How effective can diplomacy be without this essential tool in its toolkit? If these leaks keep happening, America will lose even more influence than Trump is already throwing away.

Besides, the transcripts that were published don’t actually tell us anything new about this President and his personality. Transcript Trump is just as unfocused, uninformed, braggadocious, and crass as Twitter Trump. One can practically hear Turnbull speak in his four-year-old voice as he explains Australia’s approach to migration.

Canada even features briefly, with Trump telling the Mexican president that Canada “is no problem” with respect to the NAFTA renegotiation, and that the United States has a “very fair relationship with Canada.” You can bet Canadian diplomats have taken note and will be ready to throw the President’s words back in U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer’s face at the negotiating table.

The transcripts are also damaging to Trump politically. At one point in their conversation, Trump begs Peña Nieto not to go to the press with his demand that Mexico was refusing to pay for Trump’s vaunted border wall. “The press is going to go with that and I cannot live with that. You cannot say that to the press because I cannot negotiate under those circumstances,” he said. Some art of the deal. For a bully, Trump doesn’t seem to know how to use his presidential pulpit. Does Trump seriously think Peña Nieto is going to tie one hand behind his own back so the man who called his countrymen rapists and criminals can get better terms?

One can only imagine how Trump’s base is reacting to this supplicant version of their man, which is why we should expect a full-volume chant of “find the leakers” from Trump and his surrogates in the coming days. The fact that Trump has yet to tweet about the release of the transcripts suggests a serious pursuit of the leakers by new chief of staff John Kelly is under way.

But then, this leaky White House is Trump’s own fault. It’s the inevitable consequence of Trump running as an outsider in his own party and then pledging to drain the swamp; the swamp knows how to fight back. Trump has also encouraged staffers to grapple for power and influence inside his own administration, sending mixed messages about policy and employment certainties. Little wonder, then, that this ship has been full of holes.

Regardless, these phone calls need to remain private to be effective. After all, if anyone caught wind of the full details around that G20 leader’s remark to Stephen Harper, Canada’s place on the world stage would be badly damaged—and rightly so. Even if you loathe this particular president, these leaked transcripts are an assault against leaders’ base-level right to speak freely—and ultimately hurt the country, too.

 

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(CNN)There was a line of thinking in Washington this week that President Donald Trump might scale back his rhetoric on the ongoing special counsel investigation into Russia, the result of a new White House chief of staff in John Kelly and a reshuffled legal team.

INCORRECT!

In a campaign-style rally in West Virginia on Thursday night, Trump not only leaned into his previous attacks on the Russia investigation but took them even a step farther.

He referred to the "totally made-up Russia story." He called it a "total fabrication." He insisted Democrats are behind the whole thing because they are looking for "an excuse for the greatest loss in the history of American politics." He argued that "what the prosecutors should be looking at are Hillary Clinton's 33,000 deleted emails." He made the totally specious argument that no Russians were in the crowd to suggest he couldn't have won the election because of Russia. He mocked Democrats' electoral results, telling them "try winning at the voter booth."

And then, Trump said this:

"They can't beat us at the voting booths, so they're trying to cheat you out of the future and the future that you want. They're trying to cheat you out of the leadership you want with a fake story that is demeaning to all of us, and most importantly, demeaning to our country and demeaning to our Constitution."

That's important. Especially this line: "They're trying to cheat you out of the future and the future that you want."
There's a lot going on in that sentence so let's unpack it a bit.

First, "they." Trump is ostensibly referring to Democrats here. But, he means it in a wider sense too. "They" are the media, the establishment, the intellectuals -- all the people who tell people in Trump's crowd (and in his America) they don't matter.

Second, the idea that "they" are "trying to cheat you out of the future and the future you want." Two of the most powerful sentiments in life (and in politics) are hope and grievance. And Trump is tapping into both of them.

He alone understands the hopes and dreams of the audience, he suggests. But, those hopes and dream are being cheated away from them by people who mock them, scorn them and focus on all the wrong things -- like Russia.

Logically, the argument doesn't make much sense. How is the federal probe into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election robbing people in West Virginia of their hopes and dreams, exactly?

But Trump has never been a politician whose fundamental appeal is logical. He is a "heart" politician, someone uniquely able to make people feel something , which affects how they think about their world. And, this line of argument -- "They" = bad, you = good, 'They' are focused on Russia, which = bad for you" -- works for people who already likely believe that people in big cities or reporters or the practitioners of politics as usual are scheming against them.

Step back and what's clear is that no one -- not Kelly, not Trump lawyer Ty Cobb, not anyone -- is going to convince the president to lay off the Russia rhetoric. He believes it -- in his bones. This is a hoax investigation being run by people out to get him and abetted by a media that hates him.

Rather than staying quieter as the special counsel investigation gets more serious, Trump seems likely to head in the other direction -- growing increasingly outspoken about the problems he sees with it.

Through any conventional lens, this is a terrible strategy that leaves Trump open to political and legal peril. But, this is Trump. He steers into dangerous waters rather than taking the safe course. It got him to the White House. But can it keep him there?