Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

SEOUL, Dec. 25 (Yonhap) -- South Korean and U.S. officials had significantly narrowed differences in recent negotiations over how to share the upkeep costs for American troops stationed here, but the working-level progress fell apart as the U.S. leadership rejected it, sources said Tuesday.

Seoul and Washington have held a series of talks since March over how much financial cost South Korea should bear for 28,500 troops of U.S. Forces Korea amid U.S. President Donald Trump's call for a sharp rise in Seoul's share.

Earlier this month, the two sides tried to reach a final deal on the issue during the 10th round of negotiations held in Seoul and narrowed differences to a gap of about 100 billion won, but the progress fell through as the U.S. leadership opposed the idea.

A government source said, "We are nearly back to square one."

The two couldn't even schedule the timing of the next round of meetings, as both apparently needed time for policy coordination and consultation within their own governments.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

In the fall of 1968, Donald J. Trump received a timely diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that led to his medical exemption from the military during Vietnam.

For 50 years, the details of how the exemption came about, and who made the diagnosis, have remained a mystery, with Mr. Trump himself saying during the presidential campaign that he could not recall who had signed off on the medical documentation.

Now a possible explanation has emerged about the documentation. It involves a foot doctor in Queens who rented his office from Mr. Trump’s father, Fred C. Trump, and a suggestion that the diagnosis was granted as a courtesy to the elder Mr. Trump.

The podiatrist, Dr. Larry Braunstein, died in 2007. But his daughters say their father often told the story of coming to the aid of a young Mr. Trump during the Vietnam War as a favor to his father.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

WASHINGTON—Think Mexico isn’t going to pay for the southern border wall? Think again, the White House says.

President Trump’s request to Congress for $5 billion to build a portion of the wall has triggered a spending battle that has partially shut down the government. But the president is pushing back on concerns that U.S. taxpayers ultimately will bear that burden, which runs counter to a central promise Mr. Trump made during the 2016 election that Mexico would fund the project.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

In a New York Times op-ed last Friday, we wrote that William Barr, who served as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush and has been nominated by President Trump for that post again, had seriously damaged his credibility by sending an unsolicited and poorly reasoned memo to the Justice Department and the White House arguing that Special Counsel Robert Mueller “should not be permitted to demand that the President submit to interrogation about alleged obstruction.” At the National Review, Andrew McCarthy says that our op-ed is “surprisingly vapid” and that the Barr memorandum’s legal advice is “sound.” We explain below why McCarthy’s arguments are mistaken.

...

Need we remind anyone that this is not just any appointment? If George W. Bush had nominated Barr, and it was subsequently disclosed that Barr had earlier argued that the president is somehow immune from being questioned about obstruction of justice by a special counsel, we probably would have kept our mouths shut. But we are talking about a nomination by Donald Trump here. This president has made it clear that he does not take seriously limits on his power. He issued an order to fire the special counsel, and would have gone through with it if his White House counsel had not threatened to resign. And with his memo, Barr was not simply expressing his opinion on a matter of public importance. He was clearly sending a signal to the president that as attorney general, he would be even more supine than the traditionally deferential White House counsel.

Trump doesn’t respect the law, but he does recognize that when his subordinates resign, there are political as well as operational costs that are not always worth enduring. For that reason, it is especially important that the president be surrounded by officials who will check him when he oversteps his constitutional authority. Barr may well be capable of standing up to Trump. But the memo makes us skeptical.

 

[hunterbro]

For him or against. I could care less, but I have never seen such persistent obsession. The type of far left behavior that lost Democrats the election. It's truly astonishing. People want something (left or right) that is a little more to the middle.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

TRUMP RUINS EVERYTHING
https://claytoonz.com/2018/12/26/trump-ruins-everything/

Imagine your kid calls into the NORAD Santa Tracker to talk to one of the trackers about Santa’s whereabouts and instead, your child gets the president of the United States. Wow! How exciting that must be…unless that president is Donald Trump. Then it’s horrifying.

One unfortunate seven-year-old’s dumb luck got him the president, who said, “Are you still a believer in Santa? Because at 7, it’s marginal, right?” Why, why, why would he say that? Oh yeah. Because he’s the dumbest, rudest, most idiotic president in the history of presidents.

The child didn’t call for reassurance about the existence of Santa Claus. It’s like Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin telling Wall Street not to worry because the banks haven’t run out of money. Mnuchin told the banks they needed to worry about banks running out of money and Trump told a small child that her parents may have been lying to her for her entire life.

By saying it was “marginal” at her age, Trump was saying that she’s at the age where children usually catch on to the whole Santa thing. But children should learn the truth about Santa from their parents, not the president of the United States. How would he feel if someone called Eric and told him there’s no Santa?

Mike Huckabee, the father of Trump’s main spokesgoon defended Trump and said, “It wasn’t like he was boiling the little girl’s bunny rabbit in a pot on the stove or something.” So, how many times in the past has Trump boiled a child’s rabbit?

Stock market, economy, relationship with our allies, trust in our nation, the entire government, even Christmas….Donald Trump ruins everything.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]