Trump: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

[jgarden]

..... The other reason Trump hasn't filled a lot of positions is because Congress has deliberately been slow-walking his appointments. You leave departments without leadership and all kinds of things don't get done. Blaming Trump for this is ridiculous. Blaming Trump for wanting to clean up the inefficiencies and sloth of many government workers is also ridiculous. Those people are stabbing every taxpayer in existence in the back and almost literally giving us all the finger. And you think Trump wanting to make government run efficiently is a bad thing....

Trump’s lack of State Department appointments can hurt Israel, experts say
July 11, 2017

Crystal Nix-Hines, the Obama administration’s UNESCO envoy, left on Jan. 20. The Trump administration’s failure to replace her is part of a broader slowdown in naming top State Department positions. According to reports, fewer than 10 of the approximately 200 State Department positions that require nomination and confirmation have been filled.

“The issue of staffing at the State Department is critical — at UNESCO and in the myriad other areas where U.S. leadership is crucial,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the Anti-Defamation League’s CEO, told JTA. “While there was a good-faith effort by Ambassador Nikki Haley and other members of the administration at UNESCO last week, the fact that there was no ambassador on the ground had an impact.”

..... Trump has also been slow to nominate: A June 29 count by the Washington Post showed that of the 200-plus State Department positions filled by nomination, Trump had formally nominated just 20 and that the Senate had confirmed eight.

https://www.jta.org/2017/07/11/news...ment-appointments-can-hurt-israel-experts-say

The reality is that most of these positions remain vacant because nobody has been nominated to fill them - the inefficiency can be traced right back to the lack of nominations coming from the White House!

The Trump Administration has yet to nominate an ambassador to South Korea - of all places!

The last Ambassador was Mark Lippert, who served during the presidency of Barack Obama. The position has been vacant since Donald Trump took office as President of the United States on January 20, 2017. leaving Marc Knapper, the formerly Deputy Chief of Mission under Lippert to serve as the Chargé d’Affaires ad interim in the absence of a nominated ambassador.

 

[kmoney]

You gotta have a sense of humor to get it.
It's hilarious when you see what he did there.
I got choked laughing so hard.

Having a sense of humour has nothing to do with it.

 

[patrick jane]

Having a sense of humour has nothing to do with it.

It was hilarious.He's just showin Lil Kim that his rants won't work like they did with other Presidents.

 

[Tambora]

Having a sense of humour has nothing to do with it.

I loved it!

 

[Tambora]

It was hilarious.He's just showin Lil Kim that his rants won't work like they did with other Presidents.

One thing I like about Trump is that he will not back down to peer pressure.
I love it that he gets right back into people's faces.

He's got that Teddy Roosevelt 'bully onward!' spirit.

 

[Tambora]

It was hilarious.He's just showin Lil Kim that his rants won't work like they did with other Presidents.

I guarantee ya that if the quote had been reversed where Kim said the same to Trump, the left would be posting it and laughing about it.
And of course Cartoon Boy would post a gif of it.

 

[patrick jane]

Having a sense of humour has nothing to do with it.

We've got like 4 carrier groups over there just floating around Kim, he knows Trump means business.

 

[patrick jane]

I guarantee ya that if the quote had been reversed where Kim said the same to Trump, the left would be posting it and laughing about it.
And of course Cartoon Boy would post a gif of it.

Oh yeah, and it would be the highlight of every left wing late night show.

 

[Tambora]

Oh yeah, and it would be the highlight of every left wing late night show.

Yep.

 

[jgarden]

Trump: ..... The Bad and The Ugly
***************************************************
- took 4 months before he appointed an ambassador to Mexico

- took 5 months before he appointed an ambassador to China

- took 8 months before he appointed an ambassador to Canada (a country with which America shares 55250 miles of border)

- took 10 months before he appointed an ambassador to Russia

- has yet to appoint an ambassador to the European Union

- has yet to appoint an ambassador to the Organization of American States

- has yet to appoint an ambassador to:
Australia
Argentina
Austria
Belarus
Belize
Belgium
Bolivia
Cuba
Dominican Republic
Eritrea
Finland
Germany
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Ivory Coast
Luxembourg
Morocco
Norway
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
South Korea
Sudan
Sweden
Tanzania
Venezuela
Yemen

- 10 nations not on the above list had to wait until this November before receiving a US ambassador

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambassadors_of_the_United_States

 

[annabenedetti]

Great post.

And still it’s only the tip of the iceberg.

And keep those cartoons coming.

 

[Danoh]

The reality is that most of these positions remain vacant because nobody has been nominated to fill them - the inefficiency can be traced right back to the lack of nominations coming from the White House!

The Trump Administration has yet to nominate an ambassador to South Korea - of all places!

The last Ambassador was Mark Lippert, who served during the presidency of Barack Obama. The position has been vacant since Donald Trump took office as President of the United States on January 20, 2017. leaving Marc Knapper, the formerly Deputy Chief of Mission under Lippert to serve as the Chargé d’Affaires ad interim in the absence of a nominated ambassador.

The man is definitely proven himself one heck of a case study in incompetence surpassed only by how god awful his self-deluded supporters continue to prove their own incompetence at having thoroughly vetted him has been.

For such a vetting is never too late but for the long self-deluded.

 

[kmoney]

It was hilarious.He's just showin Lil Kim that his rants won't work like they did with other Presidents.

What did Kim's rants accomplish in the past?

 

[kmoney]

We've got like 4 carrier groups over there just floating around Kim, he knows Trump means business.

Trump calling Kim fat and ugly has nothing to do with the ongoing conflict.

 

[kmoney]

I guarantee ya that if the quote had been reversed where Kim said the same to Trump, the left would be posting it and laughing about it.
And of course Cartoon Boy would post a gif of it.

I don't know if you were including me in that but when I mentioned world leaders acting like children I was including Kim. I don't want any world leader taking cheap shots like that.

 

[kmoney]

One thing I like about Trump is that he will not back down to peer pressure.
I love it that he gets right back into people's faces.

He's got that Teddy Roosevelt 'bully onward!' spirit.

You call it not backing down. I call it sinking to his level. Why would you want a President engaging in cheap insults?

 

[patrick jane]

What did Kim's rants accomplish in the past?

Obama was scared of Kim and let him do what he wants

 

[annabenedetti]

This is how a superpower commits suicide

As an official from one of America’s key partners in the region put it to me earlier this year: “Is this how superpowers commit suicide?” It appears the answer is yes.

While America continues to maintain a significant military edge over its closest rivals, it’s gradually losing the main battle that is defining this century: trade and investment. Meanwhile, China is busy shaping the world in its own image with verve and vigor. In a surreal twist of events, a communist regime has now emerged as the unlikely guardian of globalization and multilateral diplomacy.

Soft power catastrophe

Since Trump’s ascent to power, America’s standing in the world has experienced a virtual collapse. According to the Pew Research Center, international confidence in American leadership has declined significantly in the past year. This has been most acutely felt in the Asia-Pacific region, the new center of gravity in global geopolitics.

Among America’s Asian allies, such as South Korea and Japan, confidence in the American president’s ability to make the right judgment has dropped by as much as 71 percent and 54 percent, respectively. In Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, it dropped by 41 percent. This is nothing short of a disaster for American soft power.

Despite his tough talk, Trump struggled to secure any major concessions during his visit to China, which refused to budge on core economic and geopolitical areas of disagreement, particularly over North Korea and the South China Sea. Failing to impose his will on the host nation, Trump even ended up giving Beijing “great credit” for its ability to take “advantage of another country for the benefit of its own citizens.” Trump blamed his predecessors for America’s ballooning trade imbalance with China.

. . . .

In short, allies have shown their willingness to move past America and actively construct a post-American world, partly to expand regional trade as well as to keep China’s rising influence in check.​

 

[annabenedetti]

 

[WizardofOz]

Obama was scared of Kim and let him do what he wants

Trump’s North Korea strategy: A lot like Obama’s

Despite warning that U.S. patience with Kim Jong Un 'is over,' the president is so far relying on sanctions and diplomatic pressure to try to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.