According to Rawstory, Trump dumped Bolton due to opposing views regarding peace talks with everyone, including the Taliban, Iran and North Korea. Trump wants that damn Nobel Peace prize. The black guy got one, so Trump will even befriend the Taliban. Bolton wanted to bomb anyone needed to extend American influence in the Middle East.
But, sources report that Trump also believed that Bolton leaked the stories about “nuking hurricanes,” which, admittedly, should embarrass anyone:
Those sources, who were directly involved, said Trump was driven to distraction by his belief that Bolton or those close to him had leaked a story about the president asking whether nuclear weapons could be used against hurricanes.
“Driven to distraction” might be the most perfectly worded description. First, it demonstrates that Trump can and does focus himself. That might initially seem silly – given the reports we’ve heard about a lack of reading and “pictures” as analysis – but we do know that Trump focuses like a telescope on two things; secrecy and loyalty. If Trump were to be distracted from secrecy and loyalty, he would upend the White House to get back in “focus.”
In that respect, it is easy to see why Trump would be furious about the leak. Would you be happy if someone told reporters about this type of meeting?
“I got it. I got it. Why don’t we nuke them?” Trump asked, according to one source who was present. “They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?”
The stupidity is well-documented and doesn’t need further analysis here. The important thing to note is that every White House leaks, no matter how much it bothers the man at the top. But, this White House’s need for absolute silence shames itself.
There is a link between Trump’s obsession with tamping down leaks and Trump’s equally-established insistence upon “loyalty.” Both obsessions scream that there exists a pathological need to “hide” deep inner truths.
This need to hide may also explain why so many positions in the administration remain unfilled, or unutilized. The smaller the circle, the smaller the organization, the easier one can hide the truth. Moreover, continually revolving people through various positions keeps any one person from ever seeing much of the “whole picture,” again, as protection from too much truth.
So what is there to hide?
With Trump, the safest bet is to always follow the money. At this point, even Republicans know that Trump intends to cast his net for every dollar he can get off being president. What remains hidden is the underlying basis for this need.
Is it nothing but insane greed, measuring himself – as always – in dollar figures? Not giving a shit about history or the country? It very well could be.
Might it be darker? Is something else driving this process? A need to “pay back” debts owed? Trump has always surrounded himself with dubious international figures, and all things powerfully Russian or Saudi relate to criminality. One never fully “pays” off a debt to such leaders. The need could be related. It is extremely difficult to tell at this point.
We do not have anything close to the truth. No modern president has kept his conflicts so obvious, yet opaque, none rejected Congress’s subpoena power so universally, nor insisted upon employees signing non-disclosure agreements. No president confiscated notes from the one person present when speaking to an adversary.
There exists an important related issue to watch in the upcoming months. This need to have virtually no one know the entire story might well be playing out before our eyes. Rumors abound that Trump is considering replacing Pence on the ticket. Trump’s pathological need to control “the truth” by operating with the smallest, tightest group he can get away with, might well reveal itself in dumping Pence. If Pence gets replaced, despite being “embarrassingly loyal,” I submit it is evidence that there is an even darker level of “truth” yet to be explored.
Bolton got thrown over the side – that was only a matter of time, precious few last long, especially people known to think beyond blind loyalty. Right now, no one outside the family has lasted longer than Pence. Given the recent past, Pence would be wise to not commit himself to anything concrete over the next year. Because I suspect that this possible darker layer threatens anyone who remains at Trump’s side, day to day, never mind year to year. No one lasts long. We need to ask deeper questions about why.
****
Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected], and Twitter @MiciakZoom
Playing with the most feared and, shown by example, expedient people at sweeping bothersome other people into a final going away system, like total emulation, whether in pieces and in a big oven, or the burned out automobile at the base of a cliff it just rolled over, ANYONE risks that internationally, and Trump steps right into the fray, one click against him by any of the proven freaks out there, that he treats like loving cousins, (maybe just short of kissing cousins), and the SS cannot protect him and his family against suicide assassins completely … apparently, along with his normal stupidity, it never seems to penetrate that these people are NOT our buddies, and they have ways to make that abundantly clear ….
He should slow down the rhetoric and install replacements for his swamp that actually know stuff … think HE would ever do that? I don’t either … 🙂
He’s going to run into problems if he tries to replace Pence with one of his kids – there’s a requirement (which I’m sure he doesn’t know) that the VP be from a different state than the president. And the fundies will have a harder time justifying voting for Himself without Pence on the ticket.
I had forgotten about that requirement. But, I am not the only one that speculated he might try to put Ivanka on the ticket. After all, she and Jared rented a place in DC for the last 2 years, Trump MAY still keep an official address in NY, no rule has ever stopped him in the past …
I doubt he’d go that far, but only bc he probably thinks he cannot get away with it. If he thought he could, he likely would.
The only problem with that point, PJ, is that it ONLY applies to the Electoral College. Additionally, that fact means that the ELECTORS would have to choose whether to cast their vote for EITHER the President or the Vice-President.
Per the 12th Amendment’s first clause:
“The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;”
The ORIGINAL way of selecting the Vice-President was basically whoever came in 2nd place in the “Electoral College” voting process. Originally, the Electoral College only had names of potential Presidents put before the electors. Whoever got the most votes became President and whoever came in second place became Vice-President (which led to the Presidency of “Federalist” John Adams and the Vice-Presidency of “Republican” Thomas Jefferson from 1797 to 1801).
While it’s usually overlooked in the results, the Electoral College continues to cast separate votes for President and Vice-President whereas when we step into a voting booth (or whatever equivalent system exists in your locale) and the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates for each party are listed on a single line. In pretty much every election, both the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates get the same number of electoral votes but in 1976, Gerald Ford received 240 electoral votes while his running mate, Bob Dole, picked up 241 (that discrepancy was the result of an elector casting his Presidential vote for Ronald Reagan but voting for Dole as VP).
As to the residency issue, that first came up in 2000 when Dick Cheney’s selection as the GOP’s VP was contested since Cheney used his Wyoming residence as his official address (even though he’d been living in Texas for most of the decade since he’d left Congress; he hadn’t spent more than a few months of any single year–and a few weeks at most in some years–as a full-time resident of Wyoming).
But, again, the Constitution does NOT state the Presidential and VP candidate must come from different states–only that the ELECTORS cannot vote for candidates who BOTH come from the same state that they live in.