Carol D. Leonnig, Craig Timberg, and Drew Harwell report Odd markings, ellipses fuel doubts about the ‘rough transcript’ of Trump’s Ukraine call: President Trump said Wednesday that his controversial July call with his Ukrainian counterpart was transcribed “word-for-word, comma-for-comma,” an assertion that fueled growing questions about the nature and completeness of an official memorandum about…
Foreign Affairs
Authoritarianism, Elections, Fellow Traveler, Fifth Columnist, Foreign Affairs, Herrenvolk, Never Trump, Politics, Russia, Trump, Unfit
The Fifth Columnist at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
While a fellow traveler – however detestable – is merely someone who sympathizes with an adversarial foreign power, a fifth columnist is someone who actively cooperates – colludes, one might say – with a hostile foreign state. For all the talk of no collusion (styled as NO COLLUSION in a bigoted authoritarian’s tweets), Trump at…
America, Foreign Affairs, Trump, Trump-Russia, Tyranny
The Friend of America’s Enemies
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Fellow Traveler, Fifth Columnist, Foreign Affairs, Trump, Trump-Russia
‘Foreign powers infecting the White House like malware’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Foreign Affairs, History, Propaganda, Putin, Trump, Trump-Russia
Trump Parrots Putin’s Lies About the Soviet Afghanistan Invasion
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
America, Foreign Affairs, Putin, Russia, Trump-Russia
We Unhelpful Many
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Over at The Atlantic, Danielle Pletka of the conservative American Enterprise Institute scolds critics of Trump, as she believes The Anti-Trump Hysteria Isn’t Helping: President Donald Trump’s press conference with Russia’s Vladimir Putin was a debacle. The president went from an anodyne prepared statement to a question-and-answer session that ping-ponged between stunning and appalling (with…
China, Economics, Economy, Foreign Affairs, Health, Lifestyle, Trade, Trump
A Metaphor for Trump’s Trade Policy
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Wisconsin businesses are bracing themselves for European Union retaliation against Trump’s trade tariffs (“Harley-Davidson motorcycles, dairy products, ginseng, cranberries and other Wisconsin goods are likely to feel the sting of retaliation from steep tariffs announced Thursday by the White House on foreign metals”). Meanwhile, there’s no better visual metaphor for the difference between Trump’s trade…
Foreign Affairs, Trump
Assessing Trump’s North Korea Policy
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Daniel Dale, a reporter for the Toronto Star, wrote to Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, to get Lewis’s opinion on Trump’s handling of relations with North Korea. (Lewis has a Twitter account with the handle @ArmsControlWonk; Dale is using the word file as a reference to a project…
America, Foreign Affairs, Military, Putin, Russia, Trump, Trump-Russia
The Return of the Second Fleet
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Russia, ruled by a dictator and oligarchs friendly with Trump, has made herself a political and military adversary of the United States. One reads that The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect the East Coast and North Atlantic from Russia: The U.S. Navy has reactivated a fleet responsible for overseeing the East Coast and North…
Authoritarianism, Foreign Affairs, Putin, Russia
Frontline: Putin’s Revenge (Part 1)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Foreign Affairs, Politics, Trump, Writing
Lauren Duca humbly presents…
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Chris Cillizza, formerly of the Washington Post, presently of CNN, eternally a buffoon, wrote today that he thought Trump’s United Nations address was “much more poetic” than Trump’s prior speeches. From this, one can say that CNN wastes at least as much money as Cillizza’s salary & benefits. (There are, probably, vile limericks that are…