Breitbart News issued a scathing response to Donald Trump’s speech on Afghanistan, accusing the president of becoming little more than a puppet of generals in the White House after he pledged to boost troop levels to try to counter the growing strength of al-Qaida and Taliban fighters.

One headline on the far-right news site, which has been re-energized as the de facto mouthpiece of former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, was aimed at a familiar target, the president’s national security adviser: “His McMaster’s Voice: is Trump’s Afghanistan policy that different from Obama’s?”

Bannon left the Trump administration last week, a year after he left Breitbart to supervise Trump’s surge to the White House on a tide of populist, nationalist and isolationist opinion.

On Monday night, Breitbart also made sarcastic reference to “President McMaster” and “General Jared [Kushner]” and warned that Trump’s support base would be the “biggest loser” from the switch in strategy, which it called a clear “flip-flop” that contradicted a campaign pledge to limit US intervention abroad.

Trump’s speech represented the triumph of the Washington “swamp”, meaning the Republican political establishment, editor Raheem Kassam wrote. The speech, according to a report by Adam Shaw, “confirmed the fears of many on the right that without a strong nationalist voice in the West Wing, the president would revert to the same old fare that Americans had voted to reject in November”.

Erik Prince, the founder of the military contractor formerly known as Blackwater and a proponent of a plan to privatize US involvement in central Asia, told the site the troop increase proved that the “presidency by its nature lives in a bubble”.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/22/breitbart-news-donald-tr...

 

“Having some understanding of the levers that a president can exercise, I worry about, frankly, the access to the nuclear codes,” Clapper told CNN, pointing to the current stand-off with North Korea.

If “in a fit of pique he decides to do something about Kim Jong-un, there’s actually very little to stop him. The whole system is built to ensure rapid response if necessary. So there’s very little in the way of controls over exercising a nuclear option, which is pretty damn scary.”

Clapper did not mention Richard Nixon, who was involved in a tense stand-off with North Korea in 1969, after the regime shot down a US spy plane. Nixon is reported to have gotten drunk and ordered a tactical nuclear strike, which was only averted by his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger.

Nixon’s biographers Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan quoted a top CIA official, George Carver, as saying: “The joint chiefs were alerted and asked to recommend targets, but Kissinger got on the phone to them. They agreed not to do anything until Nixon sobered up in the morning.”

Clapper joined a growing chorus of alarm over Trump’s erratic behaviour. The Republican chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, Bob Corker, said last week that Trump “has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful”.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/23/ex-intelligence-chief-tr...

scary

 

Imagine looking in the mirror and seeing the face of Donald J. Trump—stocky body, orange hair, pompous smile, pockets lined with gold. Imagine the shock of being told, like Peter as the cock crowed, that you are “one of them,” and that “you were with him,” yet defiantly denying it as you screamed, “I never knew the man!”

And despite all your protesting, the voice of your accusers only grew louder. Fight as you may, there’s no getting over the fact that you, by virtue of being an American, possess the habits, inclinations, and appearance of our commander-in-chief.

Does this all sound like a bad dream (minus the pockets lined with gold)? As Rod Dreher is wont to say, Trump is not the cause of our present woes, he is a symptom of them—the symptom of something that runs much deeper in the American character. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited American in the 1830s, he met a whole lot of people, Americans like you and me, who acted a whole lot like Donald Trump.

While reading Democracy in America, I often wince as Tocqueville describes his everyday encounters with Americans. Certainly, there is a genius to the American character that Tocqueville lauds (industry, voluntary associations, religious fervor, etc.), yet his litany of vices hits unusually close to home given that he penned his travel journals nearly two centuries ago.

For example, he devotes two whole chapters to the national vanity of Americans and the accompanying currents of anxiety, agitation, and monotony that enable it. He begins Chapter 16 of his second volume in near “Trumpian” terms by describing how foreigners have a challenging time talking with Americans because, “They badger you at every moment to praise them; and, if you resist their insistent demands, they praise themselves.” While most would consider this trait to be a vice, Donald Trump flipped conventional logic on its head by taking every opportunity to praise his wealth, health, and Y-UGE victory in the electoral college.

read more:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/face-it-trump-is-the-man...

 

US President Donald Trump has fired back at former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, bringing up his testimony before Congress, after Clapper told CNN that Trump was unfit to be president and should resign.

“James Clapper, who famously got caught lying to Congress, is now an authority on Donald Trump. Will he show you his beautiful letter to me?” the president tweeted Thursday morning. It was not immediately clear which letter he was referring to.

James Clapper, who famously got caught lying to Congress, is now an authority on Donald Trump. Will he show you his beautiful letter to me?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 24, 2017

The “lying to Congress” part was apparently a reference to the 2013 Congressional hearing, where Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) asked Clapper if the National Security Agency collected data on millions of Americans.

“No, sir ... not wittingly,” Clapper answered.

Soon thereafter, Edward Snowden’s revelations showed that the NSA did, in fact, collect data on millions of Americans.

READ MORE: Obama on Clapper's spy lie: 'He should have been more careful'

Clapper has since said he misunderstood the question and misspoke. However, Wyden said that the DNI had been given the question in advance and knew it was coming.

On Wednesday, Clapper went on CNN and blasted Trump for “divisiveness and complete intellectual, moral and ethical void,” suggesting that he is unfit to be president.

“How much longer does the country have to, to borrow a phrase, endure this nightmare?” Clapper said, adding that Trump should quit.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/400778-trump-blasts-clapper-lying-to-congress/

 

Methinks that the "beautiful letter" from Clapper is a private letter sent by Clapper to Trump praising Trump for bringing in a breath of fresh air by opening a window and using a broom, in the establishment's stale romper room... It appears that Clapper has given up on the Russia/Trump angle...

Trump has changed American politics forever. Just when you thought the tone couldn’t fall lower, it did. Now the psychiatric profession has broken its own 50-year guideline called the ‘Goldwater Rule.’

Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater successfully sued a magazine in 1964 for questioning his mental state, after psychiatrists assisted in the piece.

The Goldwater rule prohibits psychiatrists from giving professional opinions about public figures without personally conducting an examination.

When you cover politics, you come to understand that almost everything said in politics is, well, just politics. You can rarely obtain a neutral opinion because everyone is biased in favor of their political stance. Hence the Democrats are driving the 25th Amendment assault on Trump.

No matter how worthy the opponent you must always treat political attacks with great wariness.

With Trump, there is yet another factor at play. He stood as the “anti -Washington establishment” candidate. And he won.

Imagine how they felt, all those politicians and ambitious bureaucrats who had come up the traditional way, to see such a crass, boorish outsider take the top job. All while he was talking about ousting them from their complacent plutocracy – by “draining the swamp.”

The Republican establishment didn’t want Trump either.

Former Presidents George W. Bush and his father George H. W. Bush came out earlier this month and criticized Trump over his Charlottesville comments.

When George W. Bush enters the fray, then you know the “Trump is not fit to govern campaign” is rapidly losing credibility.

If Dr. Lee of Yale University, who is working with the Democrats, says that President Trump could “present a danger,” then what does she think George W. Bush did?

Bush invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Sixteen years later, that interminable Bush war is still going strong in that benighted country.

Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, based on the false claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD). That conflict spread across the region and still it continues. Every time a jihadist fanatic attacks innocent civilians in a western city, you can trace the tragedy to Bush’s misguided reaction to September 11.

While all this was going on, President Bush could barely make a speech without mangling his sentences. To put it very kindly, he was far from the brightest man to achieve high office.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/400995-trump-mental-health-establishment/

 

And what about the Libyan excursion led by Ms La Femme Clinton...? and all the other mad discreet adventures during the Obama years that were crazy but appeared sane because the words fitted the expectations while the actions were quite hypocritical? US history is full of this crazy stuff... Did we think that Reagan was sane? Not on this watch...

As the summer film season draws to a close, Hollywood film bosses are set for some serious soul-searching: entering its penultimate weekend, the US summer box office is heading for its lowest return in more than a decade.

When the ticket stubs for summer are totalled up, they will paint a bleak picture: takings are expected to be down by as much as 15% year-on-year to an estimated $3.8bn. The heroics of summer hit Wonder Woman have failed to shore up a take for the period – the Hollywood summer typically runs from the first Friday in May to the Labor Day holiday in early September – that is $600m lower than last year.

The true scale of the potential problem facing the industry can be seen in the precipitous drop in movie attendance this summer, down 52% year-on-year to 385 million at the time of writing. It is the lowest level of attendance since the summer of 1992, when Batman Returns ruled the US box office.

So what has caused one of the most dire summers in modern US film history? And what can Hollywood do about it?

Superheroes fill the sky

Superheroes have continued to be invincible at the box office with Wonder Woman, the second instalment of Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-Man: Homecomingaccounting for almost a third of the US summer box-office take.

“Superhero flicks are the only thing firing on all cylinders in terms of a specific genre right now, so don’t expect to lose those codpieces and breastplates just yet,” says Jeff Bock, senior box-office analyst at industry analyst Exhibitor Relations. “In fact, withWonder Woman shattering the glass ceiling this summer, plan on a whole new wave of female heroism over the next few years.”

The superhero genre has flourished and Hollywood has started to develop a potentially dangerous overdependence on its continued success. It is striking to recall that, little more than a decade ago, more often than not superhero films were box-office kryptonite.

By 2019, it has been estimated that there will be something like 25 superheroes appearing in individual and ensemble films, raising the question of when the superbubble will burst. “About then, we must be hitting peak superhero,” says David Hancock, a film analyst at data firm IHS Markit.

This year, Warner Bros is looking to ape Marvel’s Avengers success by bringing together its DC Comics heroes – Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman – in an ensemble film, Justice League. This follows the introduction of the antihero cast of characters in the Will Smith-led Suicide Squad, which Universal is quasi-copying with its “dark universe” of monster films, ranging from this summer’s The Mummy to forthcoming attractions The Invisible Man, Dracula and vampire hunter Van Helsing.

“Is 25 too many? You bet it is,” says Bock. “But right now, Hollywood is stuck in a rut and it needs a safety net – superhero flicks fit that bill right now.”

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/aug/26/even-superheroes-may-not-sa...

 

Heroes are demi-gods or super-humans given the task to save the world from nasties. The Greeks and mostly the Romans invented the concept, because lest face it, we, clever monkey humans, need to dream that only something that is super-human can save us from our own ineptitude at solving whatever. This is why soldiers are trained like little heroes, with beef-up physical ability and a brainwashing to deal with "situation" in microseconds within the rule-book of heroism. Most of our other enlarged petty squabbles for dramatic purposes, from domestic "tensions" to dealing with psychological drama fill the daily fare on TV and subscription networks — and to say the least, in this brain alone have lost traction a long time ago. Why would I burden myself with a fake-believe drama of someone whose potatoes are not cooking the way they should? I've got my own potatoes to deal with, and as the amount of information increases with the digital age of deceit, I feel like a super-hero myself dealing with all this daily crap. I have my own illusions that what I do makes a small difference... And it does make a difference to me, even if it has zero influence on the running of the universe. 

The Donald is not a "super" hero. But we'd like the person he is impersonating the job of, to be. This is not going to happen. It has never happen, even since the George Washington legend was created in order to supercharge our silly human dealings with heroism, with cascades of commands.

Hollywood is losing traction. For too long it has been the US voice of deceit, in a parallel universe. Many simpletons still like the idea of goodies and baddies fighting it out, as long as the goodies always win, despite their Achilles heels... But it's getting harder and harder to see who the real goodies are, considering everyone does a lot of bad things. Hell becomes an eternal pathway to an illusive heaven. And we have to pick a side, as to which dork we are more comfortable with. But do we have to chose or just hypocritically weave between the bullets of crap?

We need to dream we are better than this...