Yet more current fallout in a dangerous world, after the stupid GOP nominated a deranged amateur as leader of the free world.
But, hey, Trump will be seeing all the headlines today and thinking, “Nailed it again. They’re talking about me.”
What a walking disaster. Truly frightening.
I guess some men really do just want to watch the world burn. The moment you think Trump and his allies have hit bottom, the dig a bit deeper. I really am at a loss to understand how anyone with a modicum of common sense and understanding of politics could possibly imagine supporting this modern-day Know Nothing. I’m going to go with the theory that Cruz’s speech last night was just his usual sour grapes, and that the Trump “campaign organization” was simply fooled. This is because there is no “organization,” it’s just Trump “knowing” things. Save us from ignorant men with lots of money.
Ron Paul: I finally dig Trump. He is the man.
Ayn Rand: So nice and white.
run that statement as an ad in the Northeast.
Be advised that Ashcroft could be speaking in Philadelphia next week.
This fiasco alone should convince thinking American Voters (which excludes Republicans) that Donald “the draft dodging coward and asshole loser” Trump is not qualified to be President of the United States, or anything else, other than what he is…a fraud and a loser.
It’s all good and well to commit to kicking Russia’s ass out of Estonia should they invade. The promise to do so serves a purpose. But look where they’re at on a map. Land support involves movements through Latvia, drawing them into a shooting war also. Air wars are notoriously tricky without land support as assistance. Leaving aside Trump’s bluster and idiocy NATO’s nuts are in a vice if Russia puts their shared defense policy to the test. NATO’s expansion to former Soviet bloc nations always held forth the promise of grave consequences if US-Russia relations went to hell.
Don’t ever become a diplomat
Yes, Trump wants vindictive, self-righteous “law and order” at home, and “who cares unless they are a direct threat to us?” abroad. I see “Saddam wasn’t so bad” suddenly sounds about right as a model for him. I get that now.
There’s an important layer of durp underlying the durp that no one is addressing, either because they think the stupidity is self-evident (it isn’t) or because they don’t know any better (proving the previously mentioned lack of self-evidence).
The premise of Trump’s statement, that the Baltic states, or NATO countries in general, have “unmet obligations” to the United States is pure, unadulterated durp, fashioned out of nothing more than the greater Trumpian durp narrative of an America that’s being played for saps by dirty ferriners.
To the extent he thinks anything, he seems to think that NATO countries are supposed to cut Umerika monthly checks for “protection” and they’re all in arrears. And in so saying, he’s demonstrating the black hole depth of his aggressive, transgressive, disqualifying ignorance. He has no idea what NATO is, who’s in it, what the treaty says, or what role the alliance has played in stabilizing a continent and a world that had been marching toward Armageddon since 1600. None. Zero. Zip.
And so, in standard Trump “callow sophomore who never does the reading trying to bullshit his way through when called upon in class” fashion, he reached back into his standard durpological narrative, grabbed a handful and smeared it around.
A man running for POTUS who knows literally nothing about NATO. It’s just staggering.
By tomorrow, his foreign policy team, if I can use that term for the halfwit nobodies he’s brought on, will be telling us he was referring to NATO countries’ perennial failure to meet the purely aspirational guideline on percentage of GDP they should be spending on defense. But a) that’s not an obligation to the US, but rather to the alliance, b) there’s no actual obligation, just a feelgood guideline, and c) I guarentee you Trump’s never heard of it or, if ever told of it, wasn’t listening.
Latvia is a NATO member as well (so is Lithuania).
Jonathan Chait has a very disturbing article about Trump’s relationship to Russia. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/donald-trump-working-for-russia.html
Putin has successfully boosted right-wing nationalists in Europe and is trying the same thing with Trump. Given Trump’s strong economic ties to Russia, his lavish praise of Putin and the presence of Manafort in the campaign it seems Putin has a very willing partner. Trump’s latest interview confirms this still more. I’m surprised this issue is not getting more attention. We may finally have an actual Manchurian candidate.
Franklin Foer has an article about this too: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/07/vladimir_putin_has_a_plan_for_destroying_the_west_and_it_looks_a_lot_like.html
So cover your statuary’s titties. 
Of course they are. But the U.S. and NATO don’t have a large standing army and air force stationed in Estonia prepared on short notice to deter a Russian invasion. Lacking that their recourse would involve standing up that force in Latvia, whereby they also become a target of Russian aggression.
Illegally disengaging the U.S. from its treaty obligations around the world and staining the nation as an untrustworthy and mercenary isolationist power is a bizarre way for Trump to execute his “America First” policy.
I would hope that all Americans from Eastern Europe or with roots in or ties to that region would be afraid, very afraid of a Trump presidency. The threat of Putin is not some “Palin front yard” joke. It is a real and present danger. And Trump would not stop his “friend”.
Hey, remember Melanoma’s father Viktor Knavs was a registered Communist and was a Tito apparatchik.
Bottom line – Trump would transform the U.S. military into international mercenaries.
Hey, Trump is proud to say he will rip up NAFTA as well in a second once he is elected. Of course more than a few on the left applaud that illegal idea as well.