Donald Trump is compromised by Russia. "Russia owns him"

Trump dances to Putin’s tune, putting US democracy and the global order in jeopardy- South China Morning Post

Donald Trump is Vladimir Putin's Foreign Minister, says an ex-Army intelligence officer. He calls it "reason enough to impeach", by David Brennan published in Newsweek.com

Democratic activist Jason Kander* has added his support to impeaching President Donald Trump, arguing that the commander in chief has been compromised by Russian backing and is now actively advancing Moscow's foreign policy goals.

Kander—who served as the Secretary of State for Missouri, a member of the Missouri House of Representatives and founded the anti-voter suppression "Let America Vote" organization—said Sunday that Trump's alignment with Russian policy is "reason enough to impeach."

Jason Kander is a former US Army Intelligence officer and former Missouri Secretary of State 

The former Army intelligence officer said on Twitter that Trump "has no strong convictions on foreign policy other than when he's advancing Russia's agenda or defending [Russian President Vladimir] Putin." 

Kander claimed that in both Syria and in Ukraine, "Trump basically switched which side we were on in a war. He switched us to the Russian side. Counter to America's interest, over and over, he does what's best for Russia."

The U.S. has pursued a relatively complex and fluid strategy in Syria since the civil war there broke out in 2011. Washington initially supported and armed opponents of President Bashar al-Assad, later pivoting to focus on fighting ISIS.

Russia has supported Assad's forces throughout the conflict and the Kremlin has been critical of U.S. involvement in the country. As the war dragged on into Trump's tenure, the U.S. dropped its goal of unseating Assad though continued taking action against government forces.

Trump wants U.S. forces to withdraw from the country entirely, despite warnings this would leave American allies there near-defenseless against possible Syrian, Russian and Turkish attacks.

In Ukraine, meanwhile, the U.S. is still supporting Kiev against the Russian-backed separatist forces occupying the country's eastern Donbas region. Washington has sent military aid and training missions to the country to help bolster Ukrainian forces against the Russian threat.

In Ukraine, meanwhile, the U.S. is still supporting Kiev against the Russian-backed separatist forces occupying the country's eastern Donbas region. Washington has sent military aid and training missions to the country to help bolster Ukrainian forces against the Russian threat.

Though Trump's most pressing current scandal centers around his delay of aid to Ukraine, the U.S. is still supporting Kiev in its fight against Russia. However, the current furore could well damage ties between Ukraine and the U.S., particularly if support for the country is politicized.

Kander argued that the president "is obviously compromised." He added: "Why are we acting as though there's any chance in the world he's not?

"It doesn't even matter if there's Russian money in his businesses or whether there's a pee tape," Kander said, referring to unproven salacious reports about the president's visit to Moscow in 2013. 

"At this point, he's EITHER afraid they'll undermine his legitimacy by admitting they helped him win OR that they won't help him win next time. Either way, Russia owns him!

"At every step of the way, he is executing Russian foreign policy. He is basically Putin's foreign minister. They have him. It's over," Kander said.

*Jason Kander volunteered for a tour in Afghanistan, where he served as an intelligence officer. While serving, his main responsibilities included investigating groups and individuals suspected of corruption, espionage, drug trafficking, and facilitating Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Donald Trump cannot get away with being ignorant about the consequences of his horrible behavior

https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-trump-s-gop-defenders-need-to-recognize-the-clear/article_bd70bdbb-cf2a-5d17-a0c1-74aa87905f51.html
Opinion echo editorial published in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, in Missouri and in Southern Illinois.

"The US president’s unpredictability is dangerous in an increasingly unstable world." Kevin Rafferty, published in the South China Morning Post. 

Illustration by Craig Stephens- His greedy and dangerous mission is to remake the world in his own image

ST. LOUIS- Donald Trump either deliberately chooses not to acknowledge the supremacy of federal law or is shockingly ignorant of the limitations it imposes on him. His recent Twitter barrages, coupled with statements to reporters and supporters, reflect the thoughts of someone who believes laws and the Constitution are for suckers and losers. He soon could be in for a very rude awakening.

By now, Americans are well-acquainted with details of the whistleblower complaint about his July 25, phone call with Ukraine’s president, during which a discussion of U.S. military assistance prompted Trump’s request for “a favor” involving the collection of dirt against Trump’s top political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. The president’s closest advisers now face potentially huge personal legal bills as a House impeachment inquiry threatens to envelop them. Among them are Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

The nation is on edge, largely because Trump’s base includes well-armed gun fanatics, white supremacists and devotees who take his words as divinely inspired guidance. So when Trump tweets a warning that his removal would provoke “a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal,” the implications are deadly serious.

“I have visited nations ravaged by civil war ...,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., responded on Twitter. “This is beyond repugnant.” Kinzinger is a veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Illustration published in The New York Times

Trump suggests Rep. Adam Schiff should be tried for treason for remarks critical of Trump made while Schiff chaired a House Intelligence Committee meeting last week. He refers to the whistleblower, whose anonymity is protected by federal law, as a traitor and spy.  (Maine Writer: But, guess what? It's Donald Trump who will eventually be tried and convicted for committing treason while his disingenuous pal, Russia's Vladimir Putin, smiles with pride at his accomplishment.)

Trump told reporters that the White House is looking into the whistleblower’s identity and background. 

Moreover, Trump openly questioned in a tweet why he, as president, is not “entitled to interview & learn everything about” the whistleblower. The promise under federal law of anonymity is what allows government employees to step forward with credible allegations of waste, fraud and abuse without fear of retaliation.

Kinzinger is hardly the only Republican to challenge the president. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, normally a staunch Trump defender, has defended the whistleblower’s credibility and publicly split with Trump about protecting the person’s anonymity. Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has used all kinds of innovative maneuvers in the past to thwart Democrats, has stated that he would not attempt to block a full Senate trial if House proceedings yield an indictment of Trump.

Those Republicans who choose to ignore the president’s abuses and defend his antics — including Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri — seem not to fully grasp the stakes. Trump is telling far right extremists to gird themselves for civil war. 

If this isn’t a step too far, where do his defenders draw the line?

Expert journalism from South Korea - Donald Trump's chaos foreign policy

https://lasvegassun.com/news/2019/jul/11/who-believes-the-presidents-crazy-stories/

Who believes the president’s crazy stories? By Donald Kirk

Seoul, South Korea

Sometimes you have to wonder why Donald Trump spins so many untruths and half-truths and why or whether he thinks he can simply get away with that stuff forever.

That’s why a couple of his recent boasts seemed so unnecessary, so easily questioned, so pointless. The one I liked most was his claim that we would have been at war right now if Barack Obama’s stay in the White House had been extended or if someone like Obama had been elected. That was a jibe against not only Obama but also Hillary Clinton, who would probably have been reasonably firm about North That’s why a couple of his recent boasts seemed so unnecessary, so easily questioned, so pointless. The one I liked most was his claim that we would have been at war right now if Barack Obama’s stay in the White House had been extended or if someone like Obama had been elected. 

That was a jibe against not only Obama but also Hillary Clinton, who would probably have been reasonably firm about North Korea.

At least twice I heard him say that the Korean standoff had been “a fiery mess” when he took over from Obama — indeed, “We would have been at war with North Korea.” In nearly two and a half years as president, he boasted, “We have had peace.”

It’s very difficult to disprove a hypothetical. One cannot say for sure that we would not have been at war, though I seriously doubt it. It was Trump’s reference to “a fiery mess,” though, that seemed especially noteworthy. Who was it who was threatening “fire and fury” before the U.N. Security Council in 2017? And who was adding to the fury by calling Kim Jong Un “little rocket man”?

In fact, we were far from going to war under Obama. It was in the first year of Trump’s presidency that tensions escalated crazily and war clouds seemed visible on the horizon. That year, 2017, after Trump’s inauguration in January, Kim ordered multiple tests of nuclear warheads and long-range missiles. The U.S. countered by military exercises in which special forces, Navy SEALs and Marines staged mock assassination raids on the North Korean leader in annual war games.

Even so, nobody quite thought war was about to break out in 2017. We are so accustomed to mini-crises and near-crises that it’s hard to convince folks, Korean or foreigner, that we should rush to the bomb shelters or get out of the country on the next plane.

Trump himself that year did his best to fan the flames. I attended one memorable speech that he gave at the National Assembly in Seoul in November 2017 in which he declared, “North Korea is a country ruled as a cult.” At the center: “a deranged belief in the leader’s destiny to rule as parent-protector over a conquered Korean peninsula and an enslaved Korean people.”

Strong stuff — and it got better as Trump warmed to the topic. “The regime has pursued nuclear weapons with the deluded hope that it could blackmail its way to the ultimate objective,” he orated. “That objective we are not going to let it have.”

South Korea, he told Assembly members, “will never allow what’s going on in North Korea to continue to happen.” Why? “The North Korean regime has pursued its nuclear and ballistic missile programs in defiance of every assurance, agreement and commitment it has made to the United States and its allies.”

You have to believe Kim Jong Un must be familiar with every accusation Trump made. Maybe that’s why he decided it was time to try a little reconciliation, beginning by sending a team to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in February 2018. 

Simultaneously, he stressed his “byungjin” policy on the need for economic as well as military-nuclear prowess.

Which brings us to the next overstatement — flat-out nonsense that Obama “wanted to meet, and Chairman Kim would not meet him,” and “the Obama administration was begging for a meeting, they were begging for meetings constantly.”

Initially, I wondered if some secret messages had been ricocheting back and forth. I had never heard of such goings-on, but you never know. By now, however, I’ve seen enough denials from the likes of Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, and James Clapper, his director of national intelligence, to be sure there’s nothing whatsoever to this claim.

So why does Trump bother to make up stories? How do such foolish fabrications advance the cause of anything? One answer may be that he’s hiding under a cloud of falsehoods to cover up the danger of falling for the blackmail of which he accused North Korea.

It’s because Kim has so effectively wielded the nuclear club that Trump pleaded with him to agree to more talks between negotiators. Perfect. Now Kim can go on demanding what he’s been demanding all along — an end to sanctions, maybe a “peace treaty,” a year and seven months after Trump vowed, right here in Seoul, “We will not permit America or our allies to be blackmailed or attacked.”

Donald Kirk has been a columnist for the Korea Times and South China Morning Post, among other newspapers and magazines. 

He wrote this for InsideSources.com.