Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[RedSpawn]

In the US political kindergarten,

• Democrats believe that they are goodies but Republicans are deluded stupid ignorant evil baddies with no redeeming grace.
• Republicans ditto but Democrats ditto.
• Americans ditto but Russians ditto.

 

Let me qualify that I am oversimplifying here, but it's to illustrate a key point.

 

The Democratic ideals in their purest forms push toward a welfare state.

 

The Republican ideals in their purest forms push toward a warfare state.

 

I want to be clear, I am not suggesting that one state is morally superior to the next.

 

If we become a welfare-state===> Problem -- too many lazy or displaced, comfort-driven, employable citizens will drop out of the labor force and receive entitlements (they don't need) and will compromise the financial solvency of this nation and thus compromise our sovereignty. This state also tends to create too much business regulation and bureaucracy which hampers the growth of the economy and stifles competition in the marketplace.

 

If we become a warfare-state===> Problem -- we create a "war" economy where we seemingly need to instigate and incite very costly wars without just cause (as in the case of "no weapons of mass destruction"). Eventually, the nation becomes dependent on this war economy and government military expenditures to "balance out" the crazy booms (highs & bubbles) and busts (lows & recessions) of our national economy. This war economy also compromises the financial solvency of our nation by increasing the public debt because war is never free. The penalty of war is death, disease, and debt.

 

Also, with a persisting war economy we financially feed the "military industrial complex" (MIC) which shows no signs of reducing its empire size. It will continue to need larger and larger budget appropriations to function. The MIC will seemingly become larger, more combative, and more ominous and yes, more intrusive into our own personal lives under the Patriot Act. The goal of the Patriot Act is to root out terrorism by providing us "more comfort (security & surveillance)" in exchange for "our relinquishing some of Constitutional rights & liberties" such as protection from illegal searches and seizures of our intellectual property such as e-mails, text communications, etc under the 4th Amendment.

 

A warfare economy creates a "surveillance state" which directly conflicts with the values and spirit of our Constitutional republic birth.

 

A welfare economy creates a nation of dependents which directly conflicts with the values of liberty, free will, and freedom.

 

That's why we need both Democrats and Republicans to come to the table in the House and Senate and debate it out because when we discuss our concerns as civil men and follow rules of procedure, we will reach a compromise and hopefully create NEITHER of the states I have mentioned above.

 

I would like feedback on this one. Thanks.

[barmar]

I focused in on the difference between "colluding with" and "manipulated by". The latter has always seemed more likely than the former. Depending on details, either might well be illegal. Still, there is a difference.

Literally speaking, this is true. But I don't think they could have been manipulated if they weren't working with them in some way to begin with. So while they might not have gone to the Russians and asked them to help win the election, they put themselves in the position where the Russians could trick them.

[barmar]

Seems Donald is trying to use the same budgeting tactics he used for his casino, airline, and university.

It's even worse, because the money he's counting twice is a fantasy to begin with. Hardly any economists believe the idea that the tax cuts will spur that much growth.

 

It would be more realistic if the revenue column of the budget included stealing a leprechaun's pot o' gold. :)

[RedSpawn]

It's even worse, because the money he's counting twice is a fantasy to begin with. Hardly any economists believe the idea that the tax cuts will spur that much growth.

 

It would be more realistic if the revenue column of the budget included stealing a leprechaun's pot o' gold. :)

 

Agreed.

 

Please review my posting#6151 about welfare state versus warfare state.

 

http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/23/trump-proposes-3-6-trillion-cut-to-welfare-state/

 

So here we go. . . To correct the $2 trillion arithmetic error, we are going to cut welfare spending by $3.6 trillion and increase military (war spending) by. . . $(insert figure here).

 

Question: How much are we going to spend on NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE and RETRAINING OUR WORK FORCE FOR GLOBAL COMPETITION over the next 10 years in light of all of these tax cuts and increased military appropriations?

 

As a nation we are better than this. We deserve a more thoughtful analysis of how to inject tax cuts responsibly and accomplish more pressing objectives (like rebuilding our infrastructure and retraining our work force to compete in this new global economy where technology changes at an exponential rate). This is way too partisan of a response for an enormous error the media uncovered just yesterday!

[billw55]

So none of you lefties want to discuss the Manchester bombing.

I'll talk about it if you want. You may of course decide for yourself if I am a lefty, if you haven't already.

 

So what 's on your mind about Manchester?

 

 

 

[Winstonm]

In the US political kindergarten,

• Democrats believe that they are goodies but that Republicans are deluded stupid ignorant evil baddies with no redeeming grace.
• Republicans ditto but Democrats ditto.
• Americans ditto but Russians ditto.

This is simply inaccurate. I am registered Democrat and I have no problems with opposing positions that can be argued successfully or supported with data - I have long favored John Kasich as a conservative who is smart and honest, although I disagree with some of his positions and conclusions.

 

What most people do not like - cannot tolerate, actually - is the extremes of either party, those who hold a religious-like faith in their ideological belief system to a degree that anyone who does not concur is considered the enemy to be defeated, certainly not an opposing equal who holds a view with which compromise might be found.

[Winstonm]

More state secrets revealed by Trump.

 

U.S. President Donald Trump told his Philippine counterpart that Washington has sent two nuclear submarines to waters off the Korean peninsula, the New York Times said, comments likely to raise questions about his handling of sensitive information.

 

And on top of that he praised the strongman for his crusade against drugs in which it has been estimated 9000 people have been executed without benefit of arrest or trial, including, it has been rumored, that some Duterte personally murdered.

[kenberg]

Literally speaking, this is true. But I don't think they could have been manipulated if they weren't working with them in some way to begin with. So while they might not have gone to the Russians and asked them to help win the election, they put themselves in the position where the Russians could trick them.

 

We are probably close to agreeing here. Often bad choices are due to wishing that something is true when really you know that it isn't true. People in the employ of the Russian government are not our friends. But golly gee this suggestion sounds nice. Time to watch out. Trump isn't stupid,. and his advisors aren't dumb either. not really. But strange things happen.

 

I mostly go through life in a relaxed manner. I am not important enough or rich enough for anyone to plan a really good con on me. People near the seat of power have a big problem. They are warned about the lusty blondes who appear out of nowhere, but some even fall for that. There are many variants.

 

I have come to think that being unimportant is an extremely desirable trait.

[billw55]

In fairness, I can't really consider it a secret that we have nuke subs near North Korea. Anyone with any sense would realize that.

[Winstonm]

We are probably close to agreeing here. Often bad choices are due to wishing that something is true when really you know that it isn't true. People in the employ of the Russian government are not our friends. But golly gee this suggestion sounds nice. Time to watch out. Trump isn't stupid,. and his advisors aren't dumb either. not really. But strange things happen.

 

I mostly go through life in a relaxed manner. I am not important enough or rich enough for anyone to plan a really good con on me. People near the seat of power have a big problem. They are warned about the lusty blondes who appear out of nowhere, but some even fall for that. There are many variants.

 

I have come to think that being unimportant is an extremely desirable trait.

 

From former CIA Director John Brennon's testimony yesterday:

 

“I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals,” Brennan said.

 

Later on in his testimony, Brennan provided a longer explanation on how someone could be working with Russia without knowing it, saying he had seen it “manifest in many different of our counterintelligence cases.”

 

“They have been able to get people – including inside of CIA – to become treasonous, and frequently, individuals who go along that treasonous path do not even realize they’re along that path until it gets to be a bit too late,” Brennan explained. “And that’s why my radar goes up early when I see certain things that I know what the Russians are trying to do, and I don’t know whether or not the targets of their efforts are as mindful of the Russian intentions as they need to be.”

 

Before he knows it, the useful idiot has become the treasonous idiot.

[PassedOut]

Let me qualify that I am oversimplifying here, but it's to illustrate a key point.

 

The Democratic ideals in their purest forms push toward a welfare state.

 

The Republican ideals in their purest forms push toward a warfare state.

 

I want to be clear, I am not suggesting that one state is morally superior to the next.

 

If we become a welfare-state===> Problem -- too many lazy or displaced, comfort-driven, employable citizens will drop out of the labor force and receive entitlements (they don't need) and will compromise the financial solvency of this nation and thus compromise our sovereignty. This state also tends to create too much business regulation and bureaucracy which hampers the growth of the economy and stifles competition in the marketplace.

 

If we become a warfare-state===> Problem -- we create a "war" economy where we seemingly need to instigate and incite very costly wars without just cause (as in the case of "no weapons of mass destruction"). Eventually, the nation becomes dependent on this war economy and government military expenditures to "balance out" the crazy booms (highs & bubbles) and busts (lows & recessions) of our national economy. This war economy also compromises the financial solvency of our nation by increasing the public debt because war is never free. The penalty of war is death, disease, and debt.

 

Also, with a persisting war economy we financially feed the "military industrial complex" (MIC) which shows no signs of reducing its empire size. It will continue to need larger and larger budget appropriations to function. The MIC will seemingly become larger, more combative, and more ominous and yes, more intrusive into our own personal lives under the Patriot Act. The goal of the Patriot Act is to root out terrorism by providing us "more comfort (security & surveillance)" in exchange for "our relinquishing some of Constitutional rights & liberties" such as protection from illegal searches and seizures of our intellectual property such as e-mails, text communications, etc under the 4th Amendment.

 

A warfare economy creates a "surveillance state" which directly conflicts with the values and spirit of our Constitutional republic birth.

 

A welfare economy creates a nation of dependents which directly conflicts with the values of liberty, free will, and freedom.

 

That's why we need both Democrats and Republicans to come to the table in the House and Senate and debate it out because when we discuss our concerns as civil men and follow rules of procedure, we will reach a compromise and hopefully create NEITHER of the states I have mentioned above.

 

I would like feedback on this one. Thanks.

Very few, if any, republicans see their philosophy in its purest form as a "warfare state," and democrats have helped the ballooning of the military industrial complex too. Remember that Eisenhower, who warned against it, was a republican. And the democrats that I know think more in terms of a "safety net" than what you call a "welfare state." Between your two extremes, I have no hesitation in calling the notion of a welfare state morally superior to that of a warfare state.

 

I've been in business all my life, and I know that the marketplace is efficient in producing the goods and services needed by the population. It doesn't do any good to promise everyone an abundant life if there are insufficient goods and services available to meet that goal. But the marketplace is not geared toward ensuring the equitable distribution of the goods and services produced, as we can clearly see these days. So, as a society, we need to provide for both a dynamic marketplace and a reasonable safety net.

 

We also have to face up to the fact that--with advancing technology--the business community will not be creating enough good jobs to support a middle-class life style for all the competent, hardworking folks who want and need those jobs. Something will have to give. Walls won't fix it.

 

I do agree that the military industrial complex needs to be brought to heel (and not just by fixing the accounting). We need a strong defense, though, especially given our bumbling history of enraging folks around the world, but we should stop engaging in unilateral military actions. If North Korea (or Iran) attacks us or an ally with a nuclear weapon, they should know that the response will be powerful. But our launching a preemptive attack--as the US did in Iraq--will only lead to worse problems down the road. (However, exaggerating the problem with a fake $6.5 trillion scandal doesn't help.)

 

I've paid a lot of taxes over the years, and I've never had a problem with that. I think that the notion that we need more tax cuts is just plain stupid--stupid and irresponsible. I know that free-lunch crowd salivates at every mention of a tax cut, but there is no free lunch.

[RedSpawn]

So none of you lefties want to discuss the Manchester bombing.

 

CNN didn't report on the bombing til 2 1/2 hours after the fact. They were too busy speculating on a possible Russia/Trump collaboration to steal the election. Russia has been in and out of recession for years. They are too incompetent to steal any US election.

 

I am not a lefty, however, I am a forensic political junkie. I am known to reference our founding document, the Constitution, when our governmental institutions start to violate our rights and civil liberties and the principles our founding fathers believed in. I give praise where praise is due and I will identify incompetence, malfeasance, corruption, and graft when I see it on either side of the aisle (Blue or Red). I am not a party faithful.

 

With respect to the Manchester bombing, it is a tragedy; however, it will give license for the UK to conduct even more surveillance especially on a Muslim community that has grown from 5.0% in 2001 to 8.68%+ in 2011. This will create more malcontents who might be more susceptible to the ideologies of terrorism since they will receive disparate treatment by citizens and the government.

 

As we (the US) continue to destabilize portions of the Middle East to mitigate the threat of global terrorism, there will be more displaced Muslims seeking refuge in Europe and the UK. This will create even more civil unrest and disturbances because UK citizens will question their neighbors' loyalties based on religion and race (appearance) and resistance to assimilation efforts.

 

I know that the BREXIT is related, in part, to the fact that the UK wants better border control and vetting of travelers (immigrants) who cross its borders and reside/migrate in the United Kingdom. They do not want to outsource that function to a slow-moving, compromise-driven European Union. The UK wants the ability to identify "problem people" quickly and hopefully prevent terrorist acts like this.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/24/manchester-attack-latest-detectives-hunt-terror-network/

 

Finally, I am not shocked that CNN didn't report on the bombing until 2 1/2 hours after the fact. They should rename the CNN acronym to mean Crisis News Network. Sad, but true.

[RedSpawn]

Very few, if any, republicans see their philosophy in its purest form as a "warfare state," and democrats have helped the ballooning of the military industrial complex too. Remember that Eisenhower, who warned against it, was a republican. And the democrats that I know think more in terms of a "safety net" than what you call a "welfare state." Between your two extremes, I have no hesitation in calling the notion of a welfare state morally superior to that of a warfare state. . .

 

 

Thanks for the cogent response and feedback. It seems we have a lot of common ground.

 

We also have to face up to the fact that--with advancing technology--the business community will not be creating enough good jobs to support a middle-class life style for all the competent, hardworking folks who want and need those jobs. Something will have to give. Walls won't fix it.

Amen! After these Senate Intelligence Hearings with Comey, the politicians in the Senate and House need to acknowledge the obvious and get on that debate floor and come up with some ideas to address this before the chickens come home to roost. We can not afford to take an ostrich approach to this problem as the global economy waits for no one.

 

(However, exaggerating the problem with a fake $6.5 trillion [accounting] scandal doesn't help.)

Why are so many people calling the DoD problem a fake $6.5 trillion scandal when internal auditors & inspector generals within the United States government consistently provide a disclaimer of opinion on their annual audit reports (from 2002 to 2015)? These auditors and inspectors are effectively stating that a reader can't rely on the financial statements coming out of the Department of Defense. They are saying that the DoD's accounting entity size and unsupported year-end accounting adjustments are so large that they cast a material shadow over the consolidated U.S. financial statements. As such, the internal auditors refuse to provide an opinion for the consolidated U.S. government financial statements taken as a whole.

 

I am not seeing the "fake"ness of this. It just isn't as sexy and fluid as a Russia/Trump collusion story. If this accounting problem was ONLY a computer problem it would have been solved in less than 2 years like the Y2K bug conversion issues. Intelligent, competent information technology consultants could resolve this problem rather quickly. It would not take 15+ years to accomplish this. There are savings locked away in the DoD and Donald Rumsfeld knew this. That's why he said the enemy is much closer to home and has a disease called institutional inertia--they resist change and transparency. He even called the bureaucracy a national security threat. Hmmm.

 

But let's go to a more credible source than my conjecture. Let's review Donald Rumsfeld actual speech on 09/10/2001. Click on the link below:

 

http://www.asbl.com/documents/Donald_Rumsfeld_Speech_About_Bureaucratic_Waste.pdf

 

Read this speech please and tell me if you would ever expect a Secretary of Defense, Republican or Democrat, to turn on his own department and release a speech like this just to curry political brownie points?

 

The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America. This adversary is one of the world’s

last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents,

oceans and beyond. With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of

men and women in uniform at risk.

 

Perhaps this adversary sounds like the former Soviet Union, but that enemy is gone: our foes are more subtle and implacable today. You may think I’m

describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world. But their day, too, is almost past, and they cannot match the strength and size of this adversary.

The adversary’s closer to home. It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy. Not the people, but the processes. Not the civilians, but the systems. Not the men and women in

uniform, but the uniformity of thought and action that we too often impose on them.

 

In this building, despite this era of scarce resources taxed by mounting threats, money disappears into duplicative duties and bloated bureaucracy—not because

of greed, but gridlock. Innovation is stifled—not by ill intent but by institutional inertia. --Donald Rumsfeld, United States Secretary of Defense 2001-2006 [bold mine]

 

Does that sound like an accounting sleight of hand, "legacy" computer system problem or potentially something more sinister and intractable as money "disappears" down a Matrix-like rabbit hole?

 

Why would Rumsfeld want to highlight such a money-driven problem at the Department of Defense and use such harsh vernacular about his own department if this was just an everyday, run-of-the-mill governmental problem? And why would he label it a national security threat and liken it to Old Russia?

[PassedOut]

Why are so many people calling the DoD problem a fake $6.5 trillion scandal when internal auditors & inspector generals within the United States government consistently provide a disclaimer of opinion on their annual audit reports (from 2002 to 2015)? These auditors and inspectors are effectively stating that a reader can't rely on the financial statements coming out of the Department of Defense. They are saying that the DoD's accounting entity size and unsupported year-end accounting adjustments are so large that they cast a material shadow over the consolidated U.S. financial statements. As such, the internal auditors refuse to provide an opinion for the consolidated U.S. government financial statements taken as a whole.

 

I am not seeing the "fake"ness of this. It just isn't as sexy and fluid as a Russia/Trump collusion story. If this accounting problem was ONLY a computer problem it would have been solved in less than 2 years like the Y2K bug conversion issues. Intelligent, competent information technology consultants could resolve this problem rather quickly. It would not take 15+ years to accomplish this. There are savings locked away in the DoD and Donald Rumsfeld knew this. That's why he said the enemy is much closer to home and has a disease called institutional inertia--they resist change and transparency. He even called the bureaucracy a national security threat.

I'm not saying there's no problem. I'm just saying that (for example) if a stack of numbers includes both positives and negatives, it's an exaggeration to present the sum of the absolute values as the total.

[jogs]

I'll talk about it if you want. You may of course decide for yourself if I am a lefty, if you haven't already.

 

So what 's on your mind about Manchester?

 

In the last census(2011) Manchester was 16% Muslim. So why was the left so shocked by this bombing?

 

Europe was made little attempt to absorb and assimilate Muslims. Muslims have a 12 to 20% unemployment rate. Also twice as high as the norm in many areas. A lot of unhappy Muslims.

[jogs]

I am not a lefty, however, I am a forensic political junkie. I am known to reference our founding document, the Constitution, when our governmental institutions start to violate our rights and civil liberties and the principles our founding fathers believed in. I give praise where praise is due and I will identify incompetence, malfeasance, corruption, and graft when I see it on either side of the aisle (Blue or Red). I am not a party faithful.

 

 

The meaning of our rights and civil liberties has been a moving target since 1787. When I was a child in San Francisco(the most liberal city in America) Chinese weren't to live north of Boardway or west of Powell. Today illegal immigrants seem to have the same rights as American citizens. Don't forget in 1787 our founding fathers only gave those rights to wealthy white males.

[Cyberyeti]

In the last census(2011) Manchester was 16% Muslim. So why was the left so shocked by this bombing?

 

Europe was made little attempt to absorb and assimilate Muslims. Muslims have a 12 to 20% unemployment rate. Also twice as high as the norm in many areas. A lot of unhappy Muslims.

 

You seem to have trouble with your figures, but why let facts get in the way of a racist rant.

 

Nobody who has any understanding of the figures or the geography would do anything other look at the figures for greater Manchester, it is just one large conurbation.

 

The figures for this are 232787/2682528 which is about half what you're claiming (8.7%) I don't know what figures you were using.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_Greater_Manchester source, scroll down to religion sction

 

I would need to know what definition was being used for unemployment, and how that figure compared with equivalent economic class white people, I suspect not that dissimilar.

[y66]

Twenty-three million.

 

That’s how many fewer people will be insured by 2026 under the health care bill passed by the House, the Congressional Budget Office said. The law could make insurance economically out of reach for sick people, while reducing the deficit by $119 billion over a decade — far less than projected.

 

The Senate wants to rewrite the bill, but even the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, above, is sounding uncertain about securing the votes to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

“This budget makes huge promises that it can’t possibly deliver,” Jimmy Kimmel said. “It’s basically the Fyre Festival of budgets.”

[Winstonm]

In fairness, I can't really consider it a secret that we have nuke subs near North Korea. Anyone with any sense would realize that.

 

Probably so.

[billw55]

In the last census(2011) Manchester was 16% Muslim. So why was the left so shocked by this bombing?

 

Europe was made little attempt to absorb and assimilate Muslims. Muslims have a 12 to 20% unemployment rate. Also twice as high as the norm in many areas. A lot of unhappy Muslims.

I see. Setting aside the question of accuracy of your data, what conclusion do you reach from this information? And what response do you propose?

 

 

 

 

[RedSpawn]

The meaning of our rights and civil liberties has been a moving target since 1787. When I was a child in San Francisco(the most liberal city in America) Chinese weren't to live north of Boardway or west of Powell. Today illegal immigrants seem to have the same rights as American citizens. Don't forget in 1787 our founding fathers only gave those rights to wealthy white males.

 

Agreed.

 

It makes me wonder is there some global pact where we seemingly "relax" the enforcement our immigration laws as a result of the persisting war theatre and all of the destabilization we do across the world.

 

Qualification: I know the media has released statistics showing that deportation is on the rise under the Trump administration but then CNN contests that.

 

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/18/15326330/trump-immigration-arrest-deportation-statistics

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/28/politics/trump-deportations-slow/index.html

 

Hmmmm. . .

 

Interesting link talking about immigration

 

http://www.globalissues.org/article/537/immigration

 

US immigration policies, (especially noticeable during the economic boom at the end of the 1990s) are interesting in that they are really designed to bring in immigrants with a certain level and type of education to help enhance the nation, economically. While at first thought this seems reasonable, there are a few ramifications:

•A disproportionate representation of that ethnic population becomes part of the American culture;

•As a result it affects the stereotypical image of such minorities seemingly in a positive way as always being hard-working but also as only interested in the pursuit of financial gains, for example.

•However, a strange twist occurs: ◦Some politicians use such stereotyped groups to show how other immigrant populations in the US who have been around longer should follow newer immigrant’s examples

◦Some even using that as a basis to argue for a further cut in social welfare subsidies for example, unfairly blaming such people solely for their economic problems.

◦So, as an unfortunate example, South Asian Americans are inadvertently looked upon negatively by many in the Black and Latino communities, and vice versa.

[Winstonm]

There is a reason we keep talking past each other when speaking of Trump. This may be why:

 

 

Trumpists feels as though the country “broke up” with them during the Obama era. They felt, and still feel, alienated by the left’s identity politics (“political correctness”), disparaged by the left’s opposition to traditional values (anti-gay rights, anti-abortion, anti-feminism, and religious faith), and weirdly threatened by the left’s view of government as an institution designed to solve problems that capitalism either creates or fails to solve.

 

All of this, plus the anger and hurt of feeling dumped, explains why Trumpists love Trump: he shares their bitterness and resentment. As long as he keeps giving all those self-righteous, contemptuous “elitists” the finger, a gesture that started with his birtherism, it doesn’t matter what else he says or does, how many lies he tells, how many mistakes he makes, or how many detrimental policies he advocates or enacts. All that matters is that he keep disrupting and subverting the arrogant, oppressive establishment—or “deconstruct[ing] the administrative state,” as Trump’s white nationalist advisor Steve Bannon put it.

 

Trumpists’ politics are ultimately rooted in raw emotion, not principles or thoughtful ideology. Much credit goes to such macho, anti-intellectual, grievance-stoking propagandists as Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and—until his recent termination by Fox News—Bill O’Reilly. Female commentators like Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin have also won their hearts (not minds) by routinely bashing the whiny, controlling, effeminate liberals.

- Ken Levy, Counterpunch

 

It seems we do not speak the same language.

[MrAce]

https://www.facebook...hc_ref=NEWSFEED

 

The replies were great but the two which got the most likes (7.7K) was

 

"Note to the rest of world: most of us do not claim this idiot and hopefully soon he will go away and we can begin repairing our relationships with you..." http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif

 

and 15K went to

 

"Dear, rest of the world we are sorry we have sent this incompetent buffoon out for you to see...but don't worry, he'll be locked up soon enough!!! "

[diana_eva]

juncker is an idiot too fwiw, so don't feel too embarassed, at least not about the slapping

 

i'd be a lot more concerned about the utter ignorance displayed in his nato speech

[blackshoe]

politicians and the staff they hire can be unbelievably stupid.

Too true.