#it was always all saber rattling... and... it's been a powerful weapon; keeping policies like this in place

[medicinemane]

Seriously, you don't know just how long I've been shaking my fist at the screen any time this policy comes up because I've wanted it changed

This isn't just me reblogging a standard "contact your representatives" about something I care about but also... it's more of a "oh god would you stop trying to bring the 50th version of SOPPA back"

Where as this is something that I've been following every day, and I can directly draw a line for you between this policy and dead civilians

So that's why I care so much

[nebris]

The Year American Hegemony Ended

The United States has been the world’s greatest power since 1945, when that mantle—half-passed from London to Washington after the First World War—firmly landed in American hands after the Second World War. Since 1991, when the Cold War ended with Soviet collapse, America has been the world’s hegemon, to use the proper term, the force whose power could not be seriously challenged on the global stage.

For 26 years now—a happy generation—America has been able to do whatever it wanted, to anyone, at any time of our choosing, anywhere on earth. Notwithstanding the decline of major sectors of the American economy, our military has covered the globe with deployments as the Pentagon has divided our planet into “geographic combatant commands” to formalize our hegemony. Our allegedly deep defense thinkers have hailed this as our viceroys enacting Washington’s benevolent imperial will anywhere we desire.

It needs to be said that plenty of the planet has been happy to acquiesce in American hegemony. While we’re hardly the pure-hearted hegemon we imagine ourselves to be, the United States appears like a relatively positive force on the global stage, compared to other options. Even among skeptics regarding America’s global dominance, few pine instead for hegemony under, say, Beijing and its Communist party bosses.

Nevertheless, 2017 gave unmistakable signs that American hegemony, which has been waning for a decade, has now ended. A new age has dawned, even though it’s still early and the sun is far from full. As commander-in-chief, in his first year in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump has ranted and raved on Twitter almost daily, with no effect save to confuse our allies about what exactly is going on in Washington. De facto, America has two foreign and defense policies: what the president says and what our national security bureaucracy does. The gap between presidential rhetoric, much of it unhinged, and actual policy toward the world grew throughout 2017.

It’s no wonder, then, that North Korea seems anything but cowed, despite a year of Trumpian rants at Pyongyang. The Kim dynasty keeps rattling its nuclear saber at will, firing off missiles over the Pacific to showcase its power, and Washington’s demands that they cease have had no impact. While the Trump administration propagates the fantasy that North Korea will never become a nuclear power, that troublesome country has plainly had atomic weapons for years. That this unreality-based policy might end badly for everyone—even a merely conventional war on the Korean peninsula will mean millions of refugees and casualties—is obvious and constitutes one of the major what-ifs for the coming year.

The National Security Strategy recently rolled out by the White House with fanfare, however, appreciates none of these new geopolitical realities. It imagines a world where American power, while now confronted by Russia and a rising China, remains above fundamental challenge. Predictably, the president’s release of “his” NSS had barely any connection to the actual document. To be fair to Trump, the NSS always is a political write-up, not really any kind of strategy, and the relationship between its wish-list and actual Beltway policy is often tenuous; the current administration has decided to sever any NSS connection to reality altogether.

It should be noted that President Trump inherited a hegemon in decline. His predecessors did plenty of damage before the current Oval Office occupant decided to inflict more. Bill Clinton’s well-intentioned if often mishandled humanitarian interventions in the Balkans gave the illusion that America knew how to “nation build” broken societies at modest cost in lives and treasure.

We did not, as is demonstrated by the multi-decade debacles in the Greater Middle East initiated by George W. Bush in the aftermath of 9/11. In overreaction to jihadist terrorism, Washington decided to recreate that troubled region by, in effect, handing a broken Iraq to the mullahs in Tehran. The magical transformative powers of the U.S. military on foreign societies turned out to be as much a fantasy as the Bush experiment with mortgage loans for everyone. In a similar vein, the less said about our never-ending war in Afghanistan—which amounts to an effort to coercively make that country what it has never been, politically and socially—perhaps the better.

The loss of American prestige associated with the Iraqi and Afghan debacles is difficult to overstate. Plenty of the world was content to go along with American hegemony so long as it was somewhat competent. No fair-minded strategist, surveying what the Bush administration did in the Muslim heartland, could look at Washington’s defense and foreign policy elites, the architects of grand failures, with any comfort.

Not that Barack Obama made things better. Although he entered the White House with a mandate to undo the damage wrought by his predecessor, he mostly failed to do so. It’s difficult to not have sympathy for President Obama, who when he realized the extent of the Iraq horror he inherited, wanted to abandon the biggest failure in America’s history abroad. It’s less easy to excuse Obama’s missteps in Afghanistan, where a half-hearted “surge” failed to change any facts on the ground that really mattered.

Still, Obama’s biggest failures came elsewhere. His willingness to participate in the overthrow of the Gadhafi regime in Libya on dubious humanitarian grounds birthed violence and crisis graver than existed there in the first place. Worse, taking out the former rogue Gadhafi after he had abandoned his weapons of mass destruction and was cooperating with America’s war on terrorism, sent an indelible message that Washington’s word is no good—so never, ever give up your WMDs. Pyongyang, among others, watched and learned.

Then there’s Obama’s mishandling of Russia, with fateful consequences. His abandonment of his own “red line” in Syria in 2013 was easily read as a grave strategic error, since Obama in effect outsourced U.S. policy in the Middle East to Moscow—the results of which are painfully clear today. Obama’s reticence to do much about Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine a few months later is a matter of record, while his strange unwillingness to confront the Kremlin over its rancid spy-propaganda offensive against the West in 2015 undoubtedly encouraged aggressive Russian interference in America’s election the following year.

Putin and other malefactors got the message that Obama’s America would not stand up to troublemakers who could push back. Diffident messaging is never good for the hegemon’s reputation, especially when it’s already blighted due to incompetence and imperial overstretch. In 2017, in stark contrast, Donald Trump led the country in the opposite direction, with unceasing bluster about American strength and willingness to go it alone, anytime Washington wants to, damn the consequences.

Trump’s screw-the-world style in foreign affairs was on display this month with the White House’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. This pleased the Israeli right-wing and major donors to President Trump, yet in no way enhanced American power or prestige: quite the opposite. Reaction from the Muslim world was predictably furious, while the Trump administration made everything worse at the United Nations. There, Nikki Haley, our ambassador, publicly threatened members who didn’t vote with Washington against a UN resolution condemning our embassy move. This was American diplomacy at its most heavy-handed and tone-deaf, and it failed dismally. Virtually the whole world voted against Trump, with even most of NATO siding against Washington. This was a major diplomatic defeat for the alleged global hegemon.

President Trump is all about “strength” and he loves to tweet about our military, his own draft-dodging notwithstanding. In a sense, Trump is a perfect fit for our era, when all America has left is raw military power. Our economy has been in decline for decades, our divided society displays unmissable rot, and our politics are a partisan shamble in the aftermath of 2016. What America has left is its military, which is the ultimate underpinning of hegemony.

However, just how much military overmatch the Pentagon has left, after a near-generation of down-punching in the Middle East against fourth-rate foes without strategic success, is now America’s great imponderable. We have spent trillions of dollars on Iraq, Afghanistan, and killing jihadists all over, and the price in military obsolescence and declining morale is evident to anyone who wants to see.

Our Air Force, which hasn’t faced a serious peer competitor in the skies since the middle of the Second World War, is shedding pilots at an alarming rate, while it has far too few F-22 fighters to maintain air dominance worldwide, which Washington has taken as a given for decades. However, our Navy is in even worse shape, with a staggering number of admirals under a cloud for participation in an appalling corruption-cum-espionage scandal, while our fleet in 2017 demonstrated that it has lost grip on basic navigation at sea, with fatal results. Considering the U.S. Navy has been the guarantor of freedom of navigation on the world’s seas since 1945, the protector of international trade and the backbone of American hegemony, its sad decline has far-reaching consequences.

That said, our Army is equally unready for battle against a peer. In its shadow war in eastern Ukraine, Russia’s ground forces have demonstrated killing capabilities far beyond what America and NATO can do. The combination of Russian long-range artillery and electronic warfare has obliterated whole Ukrainian battalions, and right now they would do the same to the U.S. Army. Grave underinvestment in field artillery and electronic warfare hangs over our army. Russia has excelled at artillery for centuries, and that arm is the great killer on the modern battlefield. Armies that go into battle outgunned by the Russians historically get blasted off the field with heavy casualties. Right now, the U.S. Army is frantically playing catch-up so it can take on the Russians as equals if it comes to a fight

Our army’s opening performance has often been subpar, as demonstrated by defeats like Kasserine Pass and Task Force Smith. However, America always had time on our side to turn it around. We may not if the battlefield is in the Baltics, which the Russians may overrun in a couple days, before the U.S. Army has a chance to stop the invader. These are the scenarios that keep Pentagon planners up at night as we enter the new year.

Above all, Trump’s go-it-alone attitude is precisely the wrong take as American hegemony disappears. Some empires decline slowly, others fall fast after a major defeat; history is filled with both outcomes. Since 1945, Washington has presumed that it can deploy our military anywhere, at the time and place of our choosing, thanks to our dominance of the world’s skies and oceans. Even in a worst case, we could always get our forces home. This should no longer be assumed. The world has changed, American hegemony has collapsed, and if it’s not careful Washington may find out the hard way. Let’s hope cooler and wiser heads prevail in 2018.

John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, he’s also been a Navy officer and a War College professor. He’s published four books and is on Twitter at @20committee.

http://observer.com/2017/12/president-trump-inherited-a-hegemon-in-decline-inflicted-more-damage/

[politicalfilth-blog]

What The Hell Really Happened This Week: Seth Rich and Russia

We Are Change

Luke brings us his latest Weekly News Wrap-up video.

Welcome back all you spiritually awakened human beings. Sorry that I haven’t been around recently, life is like a roller coaster, recently things have been down, but life must go on.

Today we begin with Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s aide being arrested. The former DNC chair who resigned in disgrace when it was discovered that she colluded with Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders during the 2016 elections. Her former aide was arrested after being accused of bank fraud while trying to flee the country for Pakistan.

The Daily Caller is reporting that she even planned to continue paying her aide while he lived in Pakistan.

Imran Awan her aide may be connected to the death of Seth Rich. Seth Rich is believed to be the DNC leaker. Washington area detective Rod Wheeler told his Twitter followers that there might be connections to the unsolved Seth Rich Murder.

Mr. Awan’s arrest came just one day after reports that the FBI had seized numerous “smashed hard drives” and other computer equipment from Awan’s previous residence. Now where this case will go and what dot’s will be connected, we still have no idea. There is a lot of speculation around this case, let me know what you think.

Moving on to the most talked about news story this week. The one where Donald Trump stated that Transgender individuals could no longer serve in the military.

John McCain who previously had slammed Obama’s move to allow transgenders in the military has now flip-flopped and is slamming Trump’s transgender ban.

I am going to state something that is very controversial; it shouldn’t only be transgendered that aren’t allowed in the military but also homosexuals, heterosexuals, and even metrosexuals. No one should join the U.S. military.

I know way too many of my personal friends that were hurt not only physically but also mentally. They were lied to, cheated and screwed over by the U.S. military industrial complex. No one should be joining, and there shouldn’t be so many senseless wars out there. Don’t listen to me though. I’m just someone who spreads fake news, according to the mainstream media.

In other war related news, Donald Trump made a very important move that shocked the military community when he said that he would no longer support the “moderate” rebel groups. The U.S. will no longer arm or fund these groups inside of Syria.

They claim they will only focus on ISIS. It looks like he is finally doing the right thing. It’s important to note that not only did the U.S. arm them, but they also paid them salaries through covert CIA programs.

The mainstream media is now claiming that this is a win for Russia. You would think that not funding radical Islamic terrorists, the sworn enemies of the west, those that commit terrorist attacks, would be basic common sense. Now Trump is not perfect he still has ties to Saudi Arabia, but I see this as a move in the right direction.

ISIS appears to be on the ropes and loosing badly. They are facing total defeat and right after the United States stopped financing and arming them, what a surprise.

Great, we can finally co-operate with Russia, no more proxy wars between superpowers with nuclear weapons. Sorry, I was too optimistic, as Donald Trump is ready to sign a new Russia sanctions bill designed to punish them for meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. Russia is promising to respond if they pass this bill.

Now in mind blowing, what the hell is going on news, seemingly out of nowhere, Donald Trump is claiming that Russia conspired against him during the 2016 presidential campaign.

This is where it gets confusing, as is often the case with Donald Trumps moves. Whenever he takes one step forward, he takes one back, jumps sideways, left and right a few times. Confuses the crap out of everyone including myself, which may just be part of his strategy to keep everyone off balance, so they don’t know what he is doing.  He’s either a master at strategy or he doesn’t know what he is doing.

Russia has just signed a deal with Syria, to maintain an airbase and to pledge to stay there for the next half a century. China has also announced that it plans to invest $2 billion in rebuilding Syria. Obviously, they are seeking economic opportunities inside of Syria.

In other disastrous foreign policy news that are right on the doorsteps of China, we have North Korea. The U.S. has come out stating that they are prepared to use ‘overwhelming force’ in North Korea. This coming right after North Korea tested another ballistic missile, and the U.S. continues to rattle its sabers by flying two B-1 bombers over South Korea. The North Korean’s keep responding to Washington’s aggression with more aimless aggression.

Now let’s talk about how everyone is a complete slave on this planet and how the shackles of the corporate oligarchy are being tightened over virtually everything we do and online.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is pushing for more civil forfeiture. Which means the police can just confiscate whatever you own. Something which they have used to rob people of their cars, property and even their homes.

He wants all police departments to have this extraordinary power, which would let police take assets of anyone they deem suspicious or under legal scrutiny. So now that Jeff Sessions is under legal scrutiny, perhaps it’s time to start seizing his assets. Sadly, the law does not work that way.

Honolulu has decided to make it illegal for people to look at their cell phones when crossing the street. You will get fined; this is for your own good since the government truly cares about you and does not see you as a tax slave, made to pay for their very existence. At some point I see the government giving out tickets for picking your nose since you might get a nosebleed. The government does not care about you; they just want you as another revenue source to finance their criminal organizations.

It’s not just bad here, it’s bad all over the world. Like in Turkey where the government has created a new Taxi service that doubles as a surveillance tool. They spy on you and will give that information to the government, who will probably imprison, torture or execute you.

In more government execution news, China is now forcing their Muslim Minority to install spyware on their phones. That way they can see everything they are doing and also scan their devices for terrorist propaganda. Apple has removed an app that allowed Chinese users to get around censorship filters.

Russia is also considering banning the use of proxies and VPN’s. So that the good, caring government can see everything that you are doing through your IP address and you will have no way of masking your identity. Of course, they are only doing it for your safety.

Now finally some good news, Bolivia has declared ‘Total Independence’ from the World Bank and IMF.

  Uruguay has started selling marijuana directly from pharmacies, a move that will likely lower crime, reduce drug cartels and black markets. Overall this will likely improve life for those in Uraguay. I always like to end this news cast on a positive note.

If you do appreciate us, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. We will have a lot more coming and please support us on Patreon. …. oh wait, Patreon has been caught removing accounts of users that they disagree with so please note that we have a backup at wearechange.com/donate

The post What The Hell Really Happened This Week: Seth Rich and Russia appeared first on We Are Change.

from We Are Change https://wearechange.org/what-the-hell-weekly-wrapup-seth-rich-russia/

[oldguardaudio]

How about some FAKE NEWS from the Mullet Wrapper? As the first president in U.S. history with no prior military or government experience, Trump has clearly never studied “deterrence theory”

Mullet Wrapper @ Hoax And Change

Oliver Stone agrees with Pres Trump and Putin – election intervention is FAKE NEWS

FAKE NEWS uncovered at HoakAndChange.com

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Missile test underscores the failure of Trump’s naive approach to North Korea

North Korea fires ballistic missile ahead of G-20 summit

BY JAMES HOHMANN with Breanne Deppisch and Joanie Greve

THE BIG IDEA: Donald Trump made a bold pronouncement in the weeks before he became president that is not aging well.

The U.S. government confirmed last night that North Korea successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile, crossing a chilling threshold and underscoring Trump’s failure to change the trajectory of dictator Kim Jong Un’s nuclear program over the past six months.

— “The latest missile flew higher and remained in the air longer than previous attempts — enough to reach all of Alaska,” Anne Gearan and Emily Rauhala report on our front page. “The launch follows a string of recent actions by Pyongyang, including a salvo of missiles last month and three tests in May. Kim has now launched more missiles in one year than his father and predecessor in the family dynasty did in 17 years in power. North Korea has also conducted five nuclear weapons tests since 2006, including two last year.”

— Experts say the missile was a “real ICBM” and showed technical sophistication that Western experts believed North Korea was years away from mastering. “North Korea’s apparent accomplishment puts it well ahead of schedule,” Joby Warrick explains. “The Hwasong-14 tested Monday could not have reached the U.S. mainland, analysts say, and there’s no evidence to date that North Korea is capable of building a miniaturized nuclear warhead to fit on one of its longer-range missiles. But there is now little reason to doubt that both are within North Korea’s grasp.”

— The U.S. Army and South Korean military responded last night with a show of force, launching their own missiles into South Korean territorial waters along the country’s eastern coastline. U.S. Pacific Command called this a direct response to “North Korea’s destabilizing and unlawful actions.” (Dan Lamothe has more.)

— The past three presidents have tried to negotiate, only to learn that Pyongyang can never be trusted. Reflecting the hubris of someone who believes he alone can fix things, Trump’s “it will not happen” tweet came two months after Barack Obama warned him privately that North Korea would likely be the single most urgent problem he confronted as president. Several aides from the last administration also told their incoming counterparts that the missile program should be their top national security priority.

— Trump naively thought he could persuade China to pressure North Korea to stop its nuclear activities. Then President Xi Jinping tutored him on the history of the region when they met at Mar-a-Lago in April. “After listening for 10 minutes, I realized that it’s not so easy,” the president admitted afterward, recounting the history lesson. “You know, I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power over North Korea. But it’s not what you would think.”

— During the transition, Trump appeared to embrace “the madman theory” of foreign policy. The president-elect believed he could use his reputation for unpredictability to unnerve and intimidate America’s adversaries into making concessions that they would not otherwise make. Some people close to Trump thought, for example, that North Korea might come to the table out of fear that the American president might just be crazy enough to take preemptive military action. (I wrote last December about why  this was both risky and likely to fail, as it did when Richard Nixon first tried it during Vietnam.)

— During the campaign, Trump also expressed openness to South Korea and Japan developing their own nuclear weapons. “They’d probably wipe them out pretty quick,” Trump said during a Wisconsin rally in March 2016, musing flippantly about a thermonuclear confrontation with North Korea. “If they fight, you know what, that’d be a terrible thing. … But if they do, they do. Good luck, enjoy yourself, folks.”

Economy of deceit: How North Korea funds its nuclear weapons program | Loopholes

— As the first president in U.S. history with no prior military or government experience, Trump has clearly never studied “deterrence theory”: If he thought a show of force would deter North Korea, he thought wrong. If anything, the president’s previous saber-rattling has only driven the regime to accelerate its efforts to build a nuclear weapon capable of striking the mainland United States.

North Korea’s ability to bomb American population centers – whether Seattle, San Francisco or Los Angeles – would dramatically change the Washington calculus and massively constrain our ability to use military force. That’s the whole point of these tests. “The fear is not that Mr. Kim would launch a pre-emptive attack on the West Coast; that would be suicidal, and if the 33-year-old leader has demonstrated anything in his five years in office, he is all about survival,” David Sanger writes on the front page of today’s New York Times. “As he looks around the world, he sees cases like that of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya — an authoritarian who gave up his nascent nuclear program, only to be deposed, with American help, as soon as his people turned against him. That is what Mr. Kim believes his nuclear program will prevent — an American effort to topple him. He may be right.”

“There is no good option here,” former acting CIA director Michael Morell said on “CBS This Morning.” “There is no military option here to destroy the nuclear program (or) his missile program. There is no option to do that that wouldn’t start a second Korean War and wouldn’t raise the possibility of him using nuclear weapons against his neighbors. The risks are extraordinarily high in a military standoff.”

As Jim Mattis put it in March, “A conflict in North Korea would be probably the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetimes.” “The bottom line is it would be a catastrophic war if this turns into a combat if we’re not able to resolve this situation through diplomatic means,” the secretary of defense said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Trump calls for more action against North Korea

— Trump administration officials have been saying for months now that “the era of strategic patience is over,” a reference to Obama’s approach, but no one has explained what exactly will replace it.

After visiting the demilitarized zone in April, Vice President Pence first announced that “the era of strategic patience is over” and declared that “all options are on the table.” “North Korea would do well not to test (Trump’s) resolve — or the strength of the armed forces of the United States in this region,” said Pence, whose dad fought in the Korean War.

North Korea has repeatedly tested Trump’s resolve during the intervening three months and not suffered any discernable consequences. During a joint statement in the Rose Garden last Friday with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Trump reiterated the talking point: “The era of strategic patience with the North Korean regime has failed.” He added that he wants “peace, stability and prosperity” for the region but said ambiguously that the U.S. will “always” defend itself and its allies.

Last week, the Trump administration put in place sanctions on a China-based bank accused of laundering money for the North Korean government. In a statement over the holiday weekend, the White House also implicitly threatened to reassert U.S. complaints about Chinese economic practices that Trump has largely set aside in recent months as he has sought to engage Xi.

While China pledges cooperation with the United States over North Korea, Beijing has not fundamentally shifted away from a strategy that balances pressure on the Kim regime with keeping the regime afloat, said Chris Steinitz, a research scientist at the federally funded, nonprofit Center for Naval Analyses. “It’s kind of how China looks at everything. They have a very long view,” Steinitz told my colleagues Anne and Emily. “They will wait. They will bide their time. They have a lot of priorities.”

Don’t forget that the U.S.-Sino relationship involves far more than North Korea: China yesterday vowed to step up its air and sea patrols after a U.S. warship sailed near a disputed island in the South China Sea, and last week the United States announced a new arms deal with Taiwan. “The bromance is over,” Evan Medeiros, a former adviser to Obama on Asia policy, told Simon Denyer and Thomas Gibbons-Neff. “The honeymoon is clearly over, but the next phase is less clear.”

— In response to the missile test, Trump yesterday ridiculed Kim and ratcheted up rhetorical pressure on China to apply more pressure. He did this on Twitter:

Russia and China join forces over North Korea

The president offered no additional specifics. His aides, meanwhile, called for an emergency public session of the U.N. Security Council. The international response will also certainly be high on the president’s agenda at the Group of 20 economic summit this week. “Global action is required to stop a global threat,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement yesterday afternoon. “Any country that hosts North Korean guest workers, provides any economic or military benefits, or fails to fully implement UN Security Council resolutions is aiding and abetting a dangerous regime. All nations should publicly demonstrate to North Korea that there are consequences to their pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

Many Democrats called on the administration to offer a clearer strategy. “Instead of vague Twitter bluster, President Trump should answer North Korea’s dangerous test with a coherent strategy of direct diplomacy with Pyongyang and increased economic sanctions pressure from China,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations East Asia subcommittee, said in a Facebook post yesterday.

— U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, for her part, grumbled that she had to work on the Fourth of July – a tone-deaf comment considering both the gravity of the threat and the reality that tens of thousands of American soldiers serve vigilantly every holiday without ever complaining:

Why does North Korea hate the U.S.? Look to the Korean War.

— Is Trump’s mental health “immaterial”? At the Aspen Ideas Festival last week, during a panel on U.S. national security in the Trump era, former CIA director David Petraeus defended the president’s foreign policy. He said Trump’s national security team is the strongest he had ever seen, and he argued that Trump is far more decisive than Obama, who he said was indecisive to the point of paralysis.

David Rothkopf, who teaches at Columbia University and was previously chief executive at Foreign Policy magazine, was moderating the panel. He noted that, for the first time, he’s getting regular questions about the mental health of the president. He asked Petraeus if he thought the president was fit to serve. “It’s immaterial,” he reportedly replied, arguing that because the team around Trump is so good, they can offset whatever deficits he might have.

“I was floored. It was a stunningly weak defense,” Rothkoph writes in an op-ed for today’s Post. “Daily he shows he lacks the character, discipline, intellect, judgment or respect for the office to be president of the United States. In normal times, this would be worrying. But look at the news. … A confrontation is coming that will be a test of character pitting North Korea’s unhinged leader, Kim Jong Un, against our leader. … There is no precedent for one whose character is so obviously ill-suited to the presidency.”

At the end of the Aspen session, a gentleman approached Rothkoph and asked why he made the conversation so ad hominem by questioning Trump’s fitness. “I explained that when we have a system in which the chief executive is endowed with so much power, we regularly find that our fate in crises turns on the character of the president,” he writes.

Welcome to the Daily 202, PowerPost’s morning newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter.

Ann Wagner speaks to supporters at her campaign office last fall. She’s decided to not risk her safe suburban St. Louis House seat. (Jeff Roberson/AP)

GET SMART FAST:​​

Missouri Rep. Ann Wagner (R) announced that she will not challenge Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) in 2018, opting to stay in the House. She’s the latest high-profile recruit to pass on running against a Democratic incumbent in a red state after concluding that the political environment will be bad for Republicans next year. (Washington Examiner)

U.S.-backed fighters breached the wall of Raqqa’s Old City in Syria, marking new progress in a weeks-long battle to wrest Islamic State militants from their most important strongholds. (Liz Sly)

The United States has lifted the in-cabin ban on laptops and other large electronic devices on U.S.-bound flights from Dubai and Istanbul, Emirates and Turkish Airlines said this morning. The announcements come three days after restrictions were lifted on Etihad Airways’ hub Abu Dhabi International Airport. (Reuters)

Popular cyclist Peter Sagan was disqualified from the Tour de France after he appeared to elbow fellow racer Mark Cavendish off his bike during the final sprint. It’s unclear whether Cavendish, who suffered serious injuries in the crash, will be able to continue. (Marissa Payne)

Chicago is implementing a new graduation requirement for its high school students. Before receiving their diplomas, each student must show that they’ve secured a job or acceptance into college, a gap-year program, or the military. (Emma Brown)

SpaceX aborted a second launch of its Falcon 9 rocket, shuttering another attempt just 10 seconds before liftoff. Elon Musk said his company will conduct a full review of rocket and launch pad systems before trying again. (CNBC)

The Canadian government will apologize and pay nearly $8 million in compensation to a former Guantanamo Bay inmate, who pleaded guilty to killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan when he was 15. The former prisoner, Omar Khadr, spent 10 years behind bars. His case gained international attention after some dubbed him a child soldier who was questioned under “oppressive circumstances.” (The Guardian)

Prosecutors asked a Brooklyn judge to silence Martin Shkreli, the pharmaceutical-industry executive currently on trial for securities fraud. The feds say the boisterous businessman has embarked on a “campaign of disruption” that has made it difficult to find an impartial jury. They either want the judge to silence Shkreli or the jury to be semi-sequestered for the remainder of his case. (Renae Merle)

The $19 billion bid to clean up the Chesapeake Bay and restore its health could be derailed by a dam. A new report finds that the Conowingo Dam, which sits at the top of the bay in Maryland and blocks massive amounts of sediment, is filling up 15 years earlier than expected – and could cease protecting the bay within the next three years. (Darryl Fears)

The Irish prime minister’s socks stole the show during his press conference with Canadian leader Justin Trudeau. Leo Varadkar’s socks were decorated with Canadian Mounties and maple leaves in honor of his guest. (The New York Times)

A Michigan man burned down his garage while attempting to remove a bees’ nest with fireworks. Homeowner Mike Tingley had hoped that the fireworks would act as a smoke bomb to spur the bees’ departure. (AP)

One Kentucky town is expecting up to 100,000 visitors for this summer’s solar eclipse. The expected rush of guests has earned Hopkinsville, Ky., the nickname “Eclipseville.” (The Wall Street Journal)

Archeologists in Mexico City have unearthed a massive tower of human skulls believed to have been displayed in a 16th century Aztec temple – raising a host of new questions about the nature of Aztec human sacrifice and their gruesome displays of power. (Cleve R. Wootson Jr.)

Tribalism alert: A new poll finds that 9 in 10 Republicans think Trump is more trustworthy than CNN. A nearly identical proportion of Democrats hold the opposite view. (Axios)

Susan Collins made her traditional visit yesterday to the Fourth of July parade in Eastport, Maine. (Murray Carpenter/The Washington Post)

HEALTH-CARE LATEST:

— Most GOP senators, home for recess with the health-care bill in limbo, seem to be hiding from their constituents. David Weigel, Murray Carpenter and Julia O’Malley report from around the country: “[Republicans] are spending the Fourth of July recess fending off protesters, low poll numbers and newspaper front pages that warn of shuttered hospitals and 22 million people being shunted off their insurance. … When Congress broke for the long holiday, just four of the Senate’s 52 Republicans — Collins, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) — announced appearances at Fourth of July parades. … After the parades, there will be few chances for Better Care Reconciliation Act critics to face their senators during the recess … Activists are encouraging one another to get more ambitious — and creative.”

— “It is a tough summer for Senate Republicans, who are trying to combine a long-promised repeal of the Affordable Care Act with a replacement that has, in legislation drafted so far, been as popular as sunburn,” the New York Times adds in its version of the same story. “Many lawmakers seem to have given up on town hall-style meetings and parades. … While the receptions they receive may vary, judging by those in the streets on Tuesday, the primary subject will not.”

— The reactions that the senators who braved parades received is revealing:

Constituents of Collins, who has tried to moderate the bill, expressed gratitude for her stance against the original version. Collins said after her parade: “There was only one issue. That’s unusual. It’s usually a wide range of issues. … I heard, over and over again, encouragement for my stand against the current version of the Senate and House health care bills. People were thanking me, over and over again. ‘Thank you, Susan!’ ‘Stay strong, Susan!’”

Cruz, who opposed the original draft of the legislation and has strived to pull the bill to the right, heard many complaints from constituents while visiting a liberal-leaning town. The Texas Tribune’s Patrick Svitek reports: “Cruz, who has a knack for confrontation with his political opponents in Washington and far outside it, had to speak over the demonstrators for most of his speech at an Independence Day ceremony, twice pausing to address the commotion. They were countered by a similarly vocal group of Cruz supporters, who sought with varying success to drown them out with chants of ‘USA!’”

— Activists are making their displeasure with the idea of repealing Obamacare heard in other, more creative ways. The Indianapolis Star’s Ryan Martin reports: “The Indiana Republican Party posed a question to Facebook on Monday: ‘What’s your Obamacare horror story? Let us know.’ The responses were unexpected. ‘My sister finally has access to affordable quality care and treatment for her diabetes.’ ‘My father’s small business was able to insure its employees for the first time ever. #thanksObama’ ‘Love Obamacare!’ ‘The only horror in the story is that Republicans might take it away.’”

— A major concern popping up in voter interviews relates to the CBO’s projection that, under the original Senate bill, premiums for a mid-level insurance plan would rise by 20 percent next January. The Wall Street Journal’s Stephanie Armour and Kristina Peterson report: “That means many people who don’t get insurance through work would see their premiums increase just a few months before the midterm elections. …  Premiums would fall in later years, in part because less-comprehensive plans would be offered by that time. This highlights what some Republicans privately concede is a Catch-22 as GOP Senate leaders work to assemble a bill they can bring to the floor when Congress returns to Washington: Both passing a bill and not passing one carry political peril. … The fate of Republican health-care efforts now may hinge on whether GOP leaders can persuade enough Republican senators that forging ahead is their best political bet.”

— A few GOP senators had a very good reason for missing parades: John McCain and Lindsey Graham visited Kabul with a bipartisan Senate delegation on Tuesday. The Arizona senator called for more U.S. troops and aggressive military action, as well as pressure on neighboring Pakistan, in order to create a “winning strategy” and end the 16-year war, Pamela Constable reports. Elizabeth Warren and two other senators are on the trip. Graham said he plans to tell the president that “he needs to pull all our troops out” or add even more than the 3,000 to 4,000 troops U.S. military officials have asked for. But Graham also stressed that the Trump administration needs to put more effort into understanding and influencing regional leaders. “Rex needs to come here quick,” Graham said, referring to the secretary of state who has not yet visited the region.

Vladimir Putin awards Chinese leader Xi Jinping the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle the First-Called during a ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow yesterday. (Sergei Ilnitsky/AFP/Getty Images)

PREVIEWING TRUMP’S PUTIN MEETING:

— As Trump prepares for his meeting with Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg on Friday, he finds himself severely constrained – and facing few options in his talks with the Russian president that will leave him politically unscathed. Abby Phillip and Carol Morello have a curtain-raiser: “If Trump attempts to loosen sanctions against Russia … Congress could defy him by pursuing even stronger penalties. And if he offers platitudes for Putin without addressing Russia’s election meddling, it will renew questions about whether Trump accepts the findings of his own intelligence officials. … There is also a risk that Trump could choose to freelance in the meeting, diverting from the more balanced objectives that his advisers have laid out for the bilateral relationship. If Trump prioritizes his desire to build camaraderie with Putin as he has with other world leaders, it may put him at a stark disadvantage with a former KGB operative known for his unflagging focus on Russia’s primacy…

“Among the foreign policy experts who support Trump’s push for improved relations with Russia, there is growing frustration that the current political climate and Trump’s actions have made that goal all but impossible. Rex Tillerson has tried to ward off Congress from imposing more sanctions on Russia for its involvement in Ukraine, saying that getting tough now could hamper cooperation on other issues like fighting the Islamic State.”

Bottom line: “The president is boxed in,” said Nicholas Burns, who was U.S. ambassador to NATO under President George W. Bush. “Why would you give Putin any kind of concession at the first meeting? What has he done to deserve that? … If you try to curry favor, offer concessions, pull back on the pressure, he’ll take advantage. He’ll see weakness in a vacuum.”

— Our David Filipov has a preview from Moscow this morning on what Russia hopes to gain from the meeting with Trump: “From Moscow’s point of view, since Trump took office, the relationship has gone from abysmal to worse, amid growing tensions over the increasingly assertive role of the U.S. military in Syria. Heading into Friday’s meeting, Moscow has dismal hopes of any marked improvement … The most deliverable item on Putin’s agenda will be the Kremlin’s demand that Washington return two Russian diplomatic compounds shuttered in retaliation for Moscow’s election meddling … No one in Moscow expects any progress anytime soon on recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the lifting of U.S. sanctions, the U.S. abandonment of regime change in Syria, the acknowledgment of Russia’s ‘sphere of influence’ in Ukraine or a reduction of support for the NATO military alliance … Moscow observers believe that even if Trump wanted to make progress on these issues, his political situation at home would make it impossible.”

— Trump has asked his aides to draft a list of concessions that he could offer to Putin during their meeting, Thomas Wright of the Brookings Institution writes for Politico: “Less clear is what Trump wants in return. [Putin] is the arch manipulator —‘deft at psyching people out’ as a former U.S. official put it—and his meetings with foreign leaders are frequently notable occasions. Putin brought his Labrador, Konni, to his first meeting with Angela Merkel, who has a lifelong fear of dogs. In his first meeting with Nicholas Sarkozy, he personally threatened to ‘smash’ the French leader ‘to pieces,’ leaving him dazed and confused in the press conference that followed. One former [Bush administration] official who dealt with Putin told me there is a risk that Putin might trick Trump into doing a deal on Syria and Ukraine in the meeting. The agreement might only last a few days … [But] such a scenario would likely expose divisions within the Trump administration, it would discredit the president, and it could also heighten his suspicion of his own government who Trump would perceive as undermining his partnership with the Russian president.”

— The White House confirmed yesterday that Trump’s meeting with Putin is going to be an official bilateral meeting, rather than an informal pull-aside. CNN’s Jeremy Diamond notes that it will be the first in-person meeting between the two leaders and the first official bilateral meeting between a US and Russian president in nearly two years: “‘It is planned as a fully-fledged, ‘seated’ meeting,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday, according to the state-run TASS news agency. National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton also confirmed that the two leaders will sit down together for a bilateral meeting. The format remained an open question through this weekend. Homeland security adviser Thomas Bossert said Sunday on ABC’s ‘This Week’ that the parameters of the meeting had not yet ‘been set.’ An informal pull-aside — the setting in which Obama and Putin met at the G20 last September — would have sent signals to Russia that it must do more to change its behavior to engage on a higher level diplomatically with the U.S.”

— Post columnist David Ignatius argues that working with Russia might be the best path to peace in Syria: “The Euphrates marks the informal ‘deconfliction’ line between the Russian-backed Syrian regime west of the river, and the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led SDF to the east. U.S.-Russian agreement on this buffer zone is a promising sign. It allows, in effect, for the U.S. and its allies to clear the Islamic State’s capital, Raqqa, while Russia and the Syrian regime take the city of Deir al-Zour … The line keeps the combatants focused on the Islamic State, rather than sparring with each other. What Trump and Putin should discuss at the Group of 20 summit is whether this recent agreement on the separation line is a model for wider U.S.-Russian cooperation in Syria. Russian-American cooperation on Syria faces a huge obstacle right now. [And against all the] negatives, there’s only one positive argument: Working with Russia may be the only way to reduce the level of violence in Syria and to create a foundation for a calmer, more decentralized nation that can eventually recover from its tragic war.”

Activists dressed as Theresa May, Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin squeeze an inflated globe during an event to protest the upcoming G20 summit. (Focke Strangmann/European Pressphoto Agency)

— Trump’s decision to visit Poland ahead of the G-20 summit — instead of more powerful allies like Germany, France or Britain — is making waves across Europe. The New York Times’ Rick Lyman reports: “For Mr. Trump, the stop in Poland on Thursday is something of an appetizer before the main course, a visit to a friendly right-wing, populist government with a kindred approach on any number of key issues, from immigration to global warming and coal mining. Opponents worry that the visit will be seen as a tacit endorsement of a Polish government that has been criticized by its E.U. partners for moves to co-opt the news media, its political opponents and, most recently, the courts. Some fear that the visit may further widen a fissure between East and West in the European Union, which Mr. Trump has disparaged previously, and embolden leaders like (Jaroslaw) Kaczynski and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, who has been similarly criticized for a light authoritarianism.”

— For her part, Angela Merkel also faces a difficult test in Hamburg this week: defending the principles of economic and political integration, whose critics now include not just the presidents of Turkey and Russia, but also the United States.Isaac Stanley-Becker reports: “It is an unsettling scenario for Germany, a nation that owes its modern existence to transatlantic ties. Merkel … recognizes that the U.S. now stands apart from Europe on multilateral cooperation, particularly when it comes to the environment. To make the E.U. strong enough to stand on its own is among the main reasons she is asking German voters for a fourth term in a September election. But achieving her ambition, and fortifying Europe in the face of a combative Russia and inward-looking U.S., will be a new challenge for the unassuming tactician who disclaims grand visions. ‘People are expecting her to stop the world from moving in this protectionist direction, and to stand up for democracy,’ said Hans Kundnani, a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund. ‘But the idea that the German chancellor can replace the [U.S] president is nonsense.’”

— “Trump’s unpopularity abroad is forcing leaders to consider their own political positions, before getting too close to the [U.S. president] — even if they seek to preserve Washington’s still vital global role as the guarantor of liberal market economics and democracy,” CNN’s Stephen Collinson explains. “But increasingly, top foreign policymakers from Germany to Iraq and Canada to Asia are contemplating a period when US leadership that many took for granted may be less evident in global affairs. … [Canadian] Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland profoundly thanked the U.S. for being ‘truly the indispensable nation’ that had ensured 70 years of peace and prosperity in a speech to parliament last month. But she acknowledged that halcyon period was ending[:] ‘The fact that our friend and ally has come to question the very worth of its mantle of global leadership, puts into sharper focus the need for the rest of us to set our own clear and sovereign course,’ Freeland said.”

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt speaks to the media at the White House last month. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

TRUMP AGENDA THWARTED BY STATES, COURTS:

— A federal appeals court on Monday blocked the EPA’s 90-day suspension of new emission standards on oil and gas wells, delivering a possible setback to the Trump administration’s broad legal strategy for rolling back Obama-era rules. Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson report: “In a 2-to-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the [DC] Circuit concluded that the EPA had the right to reconsider a 2016 rule limiting methane and smog-forming pollutants emitted by oil and gas wells but could not delay the effective date while it sought to rewrite the regulation.  The EPA … had argued that the stay [Scott] Pruitt imposed last month was not subject to judicial review, because it did not constitute final action on the rule. But the court rejected that interpretation … The ruling could affect myriad agencies that have delayed the Obama administration’s regulations, some for long periods. And it underscores the extent to which activists are turning to the courts to block [Trump’s] most ambitious policy shifts.”

— Forty-four states have now refused to provide certain types of voter information to Trump’s voter fraud panel, after vice chairman Kris Kobach sent a letter requesting a bevy of voter information, which he said will eventually be made public. CNN’s Liz Stark and Grace Hauck report: “State leaders and voting boards across the country have responded to the letter with varying degrees of cooperation … But the commission … seemed to misunderstand voter privacy laws nationwide. Every state that responded to the commission’s letter said it could not provide Social Security numbers, for example. Others said they consider information such as birth dates and party affiliations to be private. What’s more, Kobach asked states to supply the information through an online portal. Many states have rejected this specific request, noting that the commission should file a voter information request through established state websites, as any other party would.”

Chris Christie’s controversial beach trip

STATE BUDGET BATTLES:

— Republican governors across the country are facing standoffs with their legislatures over budgets.

— Live by the New York media market, die by the New York media market: None of the governors have gotten nearly as much attention as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who signed a budget agreement early yesterday after he was photographed lounging on one of the beaches closed to the public. Robert Costa reports: “The scene … again revealed the indifferent defiance that has both lifted and hobbled Christie’s political career. That attitude thrust him into stardom and then out — and into President Trump’s inner circle and then to its edge. … Christie has not been humbled by his waning support or inclined to keep a lower profile as he serves out his final months. Instead, he has been as dismissive and as unflinching as ever.”

— The scandal, which has been dubbed “Beachgate” in New Jersey, threatens to only worsen Christie’s approval rating, which has trended sharply downward since the Bridgegate scandal first broke. The numbers have earned Christie the moniker “America’s most unpopular governor” and forced pundits to all but write off the possibility of a Republican victory in New Jersey’s gubernatorial election later this year. Philip Bump charts his political fall:

— As a sign of how toxic he’s become, Christie’s Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, the Republican nominee to succeed him in this November’s off-year election, felt compelled to criticize her running mate on social media:

— The deal in New Jersey was mainly held up because of the governor’s demand that state’s largest health insurer, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, put $300 million of its reserves toward an opioid treatment program. The New York Times’ Kate Taylor and Annie Correal report: “Although the final deal was described as a compromise, Mr. Christie got little of what he wanted. Instead of having to hand over some of its reserves, Horizon accepted some new, relatively minor requirements, including submitting to annual independent audits. The deal also imposed a cap on Horizon’s reserves … It was clear on Tuesday that what was likely to linger in people’s minds was not the details of the budget debate, but the image of the governor and his family enjoying a perfect day at a beach, while the public was barred.”

Bruce Rauner delivers his State of the State address in Springfield this January. (Ted Schurter/The State Journal-Register via AP)

— While Christie was forced to compromise with his legislature, Illinois Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s simply moved on without him. The state Senate just overrode his veto and will raise the income tax to balance the budget and avoid a downgrade in Illinois’s credit rating, the Chicago Tribune’s Monique Garcia and Kim Geiger report: “The measures now await action in the House, where 15 Republicans broke ranks with the governor over the weekend to approve the budget package. … Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, the Republican governor’s chief nemesis in a budget battle that’s consumed state government for more than two years, said he expected the package of bills to eventually become law. … Rauner did not appear in public Tuesday and has not taken journalists’ questions for weeks. He announced his veto via Facebook.” (Rauner already faces a difficult re-election next year. Unlike in many Senate races, there is no shortage of Democrats chomping at the bit to run against him.)

— In Maine, both Republican Gov. Paul LePage and Democratic legislators are claiming credit for ending their own state shutdown early Tuesday. The Portland Press Herald’s Penelope Overton and Kevin Miller report: “Members of both parties rushed to claim victory for ending the impasse while telling voters they had stood strong on the issues that mattered most. Those included getting state employees back to work, a $162 million increase in public education funds, and elimination of both the 3 percent income-tax surcharge on the state’s wealthiest residents and a 1½ percentage point increase in the lodging tax … While Republicans took pride in standing firm, Democrats claimed it was they who ended the shutdown by conceding on issues such as the lodging tax in exchange for getting state employees back to work, securing $4.2 million in additional funding for Head Start and the Maine Clean Elections Fund, and fending off cuts to education funding and behavioral health services.”

Daniel De la Torres, left, watches the National Independence Day with his cousins yesterday in Washington, DC. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)

WAPO HIGHLIGHTS:

— “Independence Day celebration in nation’s capital begins on a note of unity,” by Rachel Chason, Ellie Silverman and Mary Hui: “Americans, enduring a time of painful political division, still came together by the thousands in the nation’s capital Tuesday to celebrate the messy, maddening and marvelous independence they have shared for 241 years. In the shadow of a Capitol many view as more frustrating than functional, citizens of every hue and party found unity in the red, white and blue of hats, socks, face paint — and at least one cape. In a marathon day of marching bands, beach music and portable toilets, partisans didn’t so much put their causes away for the Fourth of July — with ‘Make America Great Again’ caps and ‘Resist’ signs sharing space in the crowd — as find ways to celebrate side by side in spite of them.”

— “Despite bravado and big promises, the economy that President Trump is touting this week looks a lot like the one he lambasted as a candidate: a slow, largely steady grind that has chipped away at the damage done by the 2008-2009 recession but failed to produce the prosperity of decades past,” Damian Paletta and Ana Swanson report: “Now, as he approaches the six-month marker of his presidency, Trump faces several new warning signs that key areas of the economy could be losing steam, including in industries he specifically promised to revitalize. Automobile sales, the heart of the manufacturing economy, are in a months-long swoon. Both General Motors and Ford on Monday reported that their sales had slid 5 percent in June as the industry’s workers continue to be hit with layoffs. U.S. factory output fell in May … [and] construction of new homes fell to an eight-month low.” Economist Lindsey Piegza said she believes there is a sense of “pessimism fatigue”: “There’s a sense where, it’s not fantastic, but this may be as good as it gets, so let’s celebrate mediocrity.”

— “The winning entry in Iran’s Trump cartoon contest shows a drooling president wearing a jacket made of U.S. dollars,” by Adam Taylor: “Iranian artist Hadi Asadi has beaten hundreds of other contestants to win first place in a ‘Trumpism’ cartoon contest held in Tehran — his winning caricature depicting President Trump as a flame-haired man wearing a suit made of dollar bills, drooling onto a pile of books … Organizers claim that artists from 75 countries took part in the contest, where 1,600 artworks were considered — including four from the United States. Many of the cartoons compared Trump to Hitler — a deliberate theme at the event, which used a logo based on the Nazi emblem.”

SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED READ:

Lawmakers celebrated the Fourth of July:

From the president’s daughter:

And a less unifying message from the president’s son:

From the ex-U.S. attorney who was fired by Trump:

From a HuffPost reporter:

From the British Embassy:

From a Rolling Stone reporter:

The president talked up the country’s “great jobs numbers” and the price of gas:

He also offered support for Charlie Gard, a terminally-ill baby in the U.K. A hospital is threatening to turn off his life support because of his poor prognosis, and his parents would like permission to bring him to the U.S. for an experimental treatment:

People from the fever swamps of the Internet attacked CNN for tracking down the Reddit user who posted the wrestling video that the president tweeted over the weekend. The user has since apologized. The op-ed editor at the New York Post is trying to keep the focus on the stories that matter: how White House social media editor Dan Scavino came across the video and why the president shared it.

As a New York Times reporter notes:

GOOD READS FROM ELSEWHERE:

— The New Yorker, “America’s Future Is Texas,” by Lawrence Wright: “For more than a century, Texas was under Democratic rule. The state was always culturally conservative, religious, and militaristic, but a strain of pragmatism kept it from being fully swept up in racism and right-wing ideology. Economic populism, especially in the rural areas, offered a counterweight to the capitalists in the cities. But in the nineteen-seventies the state began shifting rightward … [Tom] Craddick was the first Republican speaker since 1873. With his election to the post, the coup was complete. ‘But it wasn’t just about winning elections,’ he told me. ‘We had a redistricting plan.'”

— Politico, “Inside the White House’s policy-making juggernaut,” by Nancy Cook and Andrew Restuccia: “Under director Gary Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs banker, the once-staid and process-oriented [National Economic Council] has become a central force in the vicious policy battles playing out in President Donald Trump’s White House. While Cohn has stocked the NEC with strong policy hands – a relative rarity at the top levels of Trump’s team – he’s also made it a target for conservatives in the West Wing who fear that Cohn is pushing the president to moderate his campaign promises.”

— BBC, “The day a mysterious cyber-attack crippled Ukraine,” by Christian Borys: “This time last week, an online attack brought chaos to Ukraine’s banks, hospitals and government, before spreading worldwide. The evidence suggests that money was not the aim – the real intention was disguised. Could it be a sign of something more serious to come?”

— The New York Times, “Coast Guard Faces Challenges at Sea, and at the Budget Office,” by Ron Nixon: “Halting drugs is becoming increasingly difficult for the Coast Guard, which has operated with flat budgets even as its mission has expanded.”

HOT ON THE LEFT:

“Guns And KKK Members At Gettysburg Confederate Rally, But No Foes To Fight,” from HuffPost:“A few hundred armed militia group members, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Ku Klux Klaners, supporters of [Trump], and other self-described patriots descended upon the Gettysburg battlefield Saturday to defend the site’s Confederate symbols from phantom activists with the violent far-left group Antifa. Although many came expecting violence ― even after Antifa made it clear its adherents never planned to show up ― the only bloodshed came when a lone militia group member accidentally shot himself in the leg. Saturday’s rally in Gettysburg showed pro-Confederate activists increasingly agitated, armed, and itching for a fight ― even when there is no one to clash with them.”

HOT ON THE RIGHT:

“Oregon Republicans shrug off politics, extend benefits to undocumented children,” fromStatesman Journal: “Oregon Republicans took the lead in arguing for spending $36 million on health care for undocumented Oregon children during a Monday session. The ‘cover all kids’ Senate Bill 558 passed the body on a 21-8 vote. The bill now proceeds to the House where it’s likely to find favor with the majority Democrats. Senate Republican Leader Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day, said he’ll take a shellacking for his ‘yes’ vote on the bill from constituents who believe extending benefits encourages illegal immigration. ‘I can hear the town hall questions; I can write them,’ he said.”

  DAYBOOK:

Trump will travel to Warsaw today to kick off his second trip abroad as president.

Pence has two phone calls on his schedule today: one with the president of Afghanistan and another with the high representative of the E.U.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: 

NPR tweeted out the Declaration of Independence in its entirety, and this was themost retweeted line: “A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

  NEWS YOU CAN USE IF YOU LIVE IN D.C.:

— “It’s a fitting way to return to the office, with clouds, as well as on-and-off showers,” the Capital Weather Gang forecasts. “We’ll likely see more showers throughout the day. While it won’t be raining everywhere at all times, it’ll happen enough to make you wish you had brought an umbrella along. Shower activity could be occasionally moderate to heavy, especially across our western or southern suburbs, so please use extra caution if you get caught in a heavier downpour. Highs are held in check, settling in the mid-80s or so. Notably, humidity remains moderate, and that won’t be changing anytime soon.”

— D.C. authorities are investigating at least six shootings and a stabbing that took place last night, Justin Jouvenal reports.

— The Nationals beat the Mets 11-4, their 1,000th regular season victory as a team, Chelsea Janes reports.

— The official Nats scorekeeper, David Vincent, died Sunday from stomach cancer. Chelsea writes a nice tribute: “He was 67 years old, and I will miss him.”

— Washington Wizards forward Otto Porter Jr. has been offered a four-year, $106 million contract by the Brooklyn Nets. The Wizards are expected to match the offer, which does not become official until Thursday, in order to keep Porter on the team. (Tim Bontemps)

— The Republican running in Virginia’s attorney general race, John Adams, is trying to strike a delicate balance in his campaign. Laura Vozzella reports: “A former Naval officer and federal prosecutor trying to unseat Attorney General Mark Herring (D), Adams is running as both blunt conservative and strict adherent to the rule of law. The premise of his campaign is that Herring is neither – that the sitting attorney general has bent the law to advance a liberal agenda, starting just 12 days into his term, when he refused to defend the state’s constitutional ban on gay marriage.”

— The plan to temporarily relocate Kimball Elementary school students to Adelaide Davis Elementary as Kimball undergoes reconstruction has some locals running scared. Joe Heim and Clarence Williams report: “The ‘swing’ school sits in a working-class Southeast neighborhood of well-kept single-family homes. But it is a block from a public housing complex, Benning Terrace, that for decades has been plagued by crime and regarded as one of the city’s more dangerous places. To locals, it’s known as Simple City. Or Simp. Or Baby Vietnam.”

— A female firefighter in the Arlington County Fire Department helps to organize a girls-only summer camp meant to get more teenaged women interested in the profession, Dana Hedgpeth reports.

VIDEOS OF THE DAY:

Dogs offered a fireworks PSA on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show:

A PSA From Dogs About Fireworks

The Consumer Product Safety Commission blew up mannequins and watermelons on the National Mall to demonstrate the danger posed by fireworks:

Mannequins, watermelon explode in fireworks safety video

Trump said that he has never heard the term “second lady”:

Trump says he has never heard the term ‘second lady’

The doctored footage that the president tweeted out of beating up the CNN logo comes from an actual WWE fight in 2007:

Trump’s real wrestling match

The Post’s fact-checker team annotated the White House’s spin on health-care:

Annotating the White House spin on health care

A gun control group released a rebuttal ad to the NRA spot that caused controversy:

Everytown for Gun Safety: ‘Freedom’

Police rescued a pit bull trapped inside a hot car in Florida:

Florida police rescue pit bull trapped in hot car

How about some FAKE NEWS from the Mullet Wrapper? As the first president in U.S. history with no prior military or government experience, Trump has clearly never studied “deterrence theory” How about some FAKE NEWS from the Mullet Wrapper? As the first president in U.S. history with no prior military or government experience, Trump has clearly never studied “deterrence theory”

[libertariantaoist]

A few libertarians and other principled opponents of the warfare state assured us we likely would sleep easier with Donald Trump, rather than any neoconservative or humanitarian interventionist, in the White House. How’s that working out? Not so well. I’m hoarding melatonin and buying stock in Lunesta.

In its opening days, the Trump administration has rattled the saber at Iran, China, and North Korea. This is hardly comforting, considering that pronouncements from Trump and his closest advisers could have come from the foreign-policy establishment he supposedly upended. If this is disruption, I’d hate to see what an embrace of The Consensus would look like. The possible appointment of Elliott Abrams, the quintessential neoconservative — architect of and apologist for mass murder in the Middle East — as deputy secretary of state is just one more sign that Peaceniks for Trump have been gulled.

What about Trump’s position on Russia? they will ask. What about it? Not taking Bill O’Reilly’s bait (transcript here) doesn’t count as being pro-peace, especially when Trump had his UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, warn that sanctions against Russia won’t be removed until Vladimir Putin relinquishes Crimea. Haley’s declaration was a reversal of Trump’s earlier, better (though flawed) position that sanctions would be tied to a mutual reduction of both countries’ nuclear arsenals. Now we’re back to the Obama position. One need not defend Russia’s move on Crimea (even if most inhabitants favored it) to see the context: the U.S.-engineered coup (backed by neo-Nazi elements) against Ukraine’s elected president in favor of a neocon favorite — not to mention the larger context, the decades-long expansion of NATO to the Russian border and incorporation of former Russian allies into the U.S-led sphere. Provocation begets counter-moves, which in the Ukrainian case were hardly surprising, considering the historical and strategic importance of Crimea to Russia. The Soviet Union is not being reconstructed.

As we’ll see, whatever good Trump has in mind regarding relations with Russia will be undercut by other attitudes he harbors, particularly his bellicosity toward Iran, Russia’s ally. When it comes time to choose between detente with Russia or confrontation with Iran, I have no confidence Trump will make the right choice.

It is fascinating, I will concede, to see the elite’s and its news media’s hysteria over Trump’s reference to America’s lack of innocence when discussing Putin’s alleged homicidal conduct. Presidents are not supposed to refer to such things (even if they are true). Unfortunately, Trump does not appear disturbed by the U.S. government’s lethal record and did not vow to change things. Moreover, “[t]he president wasn’t just suggesting that government is a morally gray business that always involves some violence and wrongdoing,” Jacob T. Levy writes. “In his comments, he seemed to give up on the idea that there is such a thing as wrongdoing at all.”

Trump’s amoralism aside, are we all really supposed to believe — or is it pretend — that government’s hands were not blood-stained from day one in America, notwithstanding sugared words? Is that what the civil religion requires — that we ignore the crimes against American Indians, Africans, Filipinos, Japanese, Germans, Koreans, Vietnamese, Latin Americans, Afghans, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Yemenis, Libyans, Somalis, and Syrians? And those are just direct victims of official U.S. atrocities. The list of atrocities merely enabled by American presidents and their henchmen is much longer. (For two examples see the cases of Bangladesh and East Timor.) The list of regime changes (Iran, 1953, most relevantly) and assassinations is also long. (I have not ventured into the government’s many domestic crimes, such as biological, chemical, and psychological experimentation on unwitting Americans.) A self-styled exceptional nation, a global empire, and the world’s arms merchant is bound to get its hands soiled.

That even hinting at this bloody history is forbidden tells us a lot about “secular” America. Trump’s blasphemy was especially egregious because he was discussing Russia, the anti-America. (For a more reasonable, realistic take on Russia, see the British conservative writer Peter Hitchens’s “The Cold War Is Over.”) The news media and the high priests of America’s civil religion could not condemn Trump’s insult to the Holy National Church — the American State — in harsh enough terms. (For details on America’s civil religion, see chapter 2 of William Cavanaugh’s The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict.) Trump may want to strip the citizenship from and imprison those who burn the sacred flag, but that’s not enough for the defenders of the American faith, who contradictorily accuse him of endorsing both moral equivalence and moral relativism. (He can’t be doing both.) He must show he believes that America (i.e., the American State) is innocent — that all violence committed in its name was done so in a holy cause, unlike that of other nations (excluding Israel, of course, the other exceptional nation).

Not that Trump — who tries hard to look like a serious man who knows what he’s talking about — shows any sign of understanding this history (remember, he wants to make America great again) or of having any inclination to reverse course. When O’Reilly asked Trump to defend his statement that “We’ve got a lot of killers [too],” — O’Reilly had accused Putin of being a “killer” and therefore unworthy of Trump’s respect — all Trump could do was feebly name the “mistake” of the 2003 Iraq invasion (which he favored in the run-up). O’Reilly replied that mistakes are not comparable. Trump said: “A lot of mistakes, but a lot of people were killed. A lot of killers around, believe me.” Again, Trump didn’t condemn those killers. But also, Iraq was no mistake. It was a war of aggression and a violation of the Nuremberg principles. (Trump once said Americans were lied into Iraq, but then wimpily backed down when confronted by an offended veteran in South Carolina.)

Trump’s reply to O’Reilly was so bad it destroyed what might have been a valuable teaching moment. Instead, Trump looked like an idiot. He certainly did not help his objective to “get along with Russia.”

What he should have said is that the dramatic indignation at Putin’s crimes (whatever they are; evidence of his complicity is scant, although the number of killings is ominous and his regime is hardly liberty-friendly) is highly selective, that the U.S. government has a record of embracing brutal rulers (Egypt’s al-Sisi and Turkey’s Erdogan some to mind), and that Russia has a nuclear arsenal to match America’s, so the two countries ought to cooperate in getting rid of those monstrous weapons. When O’Reilly said, “I don’t know of any [American] government leaders that are killers,” Trump might have pointed out that, to take but one recent example, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Barack Obama drew up a list of people to be killed by drones every week. Trump might have also said that the botched raid in Yemen put him in the class of “government leaders that are killers.”

As noted, after Russia, it’s all downhill with Trump. He and his closest advisers are obsessed with Iran, which represents no threat to Americans and with whom, by the way, the U.S. government is tacitly allied in Iraq against the Islamic State. Iran has no nuclear-weapons program — never had one — and not much of a military, yet it has been continually threatened and subjected to covert warfare by the United States and Israel, the Middle East’s sole nuclear power. Saudi Arabia also has missiles that could hit Iran. So Iran’s claim that the mid-range missiles it’s testing are for deterrence is credible, and they violate no UN resolution. But Trump used the missile test as an occasion for saber-rattling: once again an American president has said that for Iran “all options are on the table.” If Trump is supposed to be such a disrupter of establishment foreign policy, why doesn’t he see that his demonization of Iran is absurdly dangerous and contrary to the interests of most Americans? Is it in part because the Israeli government needs to demonize the Islamic Republic in order to divert attention from its continued usurpation of Palestinian-owned land? Does it have something to do with keeping close relations with Saudi Arabia, the cradle of “radical Islamic terrorism”?

Now Trump is carrying his anti-Iran animus over to pathetic Yemen, scene of a two-year-old U.S.-enabled Saudi onslaught and siege, which is inflicting mass starvation among other unspeakable consequences. There is no excuse for the United States’ helping Saudi Arabia and its gulf allies to pulverize the poorest country in the Middle East. While on the one hand, the United States strikes at al-Qaeda there (the recent botched raid killed many noncombatants and cost one American Navy SEAL’s life), on the other it helps al-Qaeda by enabling the Saudi war on the Houthis, who are misleadingly portrayed as Iran’s agents. (The Houthis have in fact acted contrary to Iran’s wishes.) Trump national-security adviser Michael Flynn recently described a Houthi attack on a Saudi warship as an “Iranian action,” and press secretary Sean Spicer went further by charging, until corrected, that the attack was on an American ship. What advantage does Trump see in a confrontation and perhaps war with Iran?

Isn’t the incoherent and seemingly pointless intervention in Yemen just the sort of irrational policy Trump criticized in his campaign, however inarticulately? (Maybe it’s not really pointless: see Gareth Porter’s “Trump’s Hard Line on Iran Will Give Saudis Free Hand in Yemen.”) Enabling this destruction is yet another stain on America, and it supports Trump’s statement about the country’s lack of innocence — yet he’s the one now carrying it on.

We must also wonder if he has overlooked the fact that Russia, with which he says he wants to cooperate, is Iran’s ally and benefactor and that Iran is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s ally. Laying off Assad and concentrating on the Islamic State, which Trump says he wants to do, will benefit Iran, just as the intervention in Iraq does. Then what? Has no adviser pointed out the collision course Trump is on?

Contrary to assurances from Trump’s pro-peace cheerleaders, his narcissism, petulance, and conceit provide strong grounds to fear his conduct of foreign policy. He has vowed to make America so powerful (at what price?) that “no one will mess with us.” But rather than being reassuring, that kind of talk should make us worry about what he will do when he believes that some head of state is testing him. Russia and Iran are not the sorts of countries that take well to being assigned their place in the world by any American president.

I’m not one for quoting Madison, but among his keenest insights was that war is the gravest of all threats to liberty because it contains the germs of all the others. Or as Randolph Bourne put it, “War is the health of the State.” Therefore stripping the U.S. government’s capacity to operate a global empire and to wage war anywhere everywhere should be our priority. Trump’s taunting of the foreign-policy establishment is so far unmatched by deeds; on the contrary, his conduct to date undermines the better parts of his message. Trump provides no reason to expect anything else.