The questions special counsel Robert Mueller supposedly wants to put to President Trump make one thing clear — it would be folly for the president to sit for an interview with these jumped-up G-men.

It’s not just that the questions badly undercut the claims that Mueller is not targeting the president. If, as the saying goes, a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich, Mueller appears to be building out of Trump a Dagwood special.

It’s also that for the president to sit down for an interview would be to acknowledge Mueller’s authority to begin with. Yet the more Mueller shows his hand, the more illogical his authority starts to look.

That’s because the only authority the Constitution clearly grants to investigate a sitting president is the impeachment process. Before this fight is over, Trump may yet want to use that argument.

Read more:

https://nypost.com/2018/05/01/muellers-questions-prove-trump-shouldnt-talk/

United States President Donald Trump has abruptly changed his story on what he knows about a pre-election hush money payment to the American porn star who claims to have had an affair with him.

• Trump said money paid to his lawyer Michael Cohen was a monthly retainer
• He said the payment was "to stop a false and extortionist accusation" of an affair
• Mr Trump previously said he didn't know about the $US130,000 payment to Ms Daniels

Mr Trump reversed his denial that he had any knowledge of the $US130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels.

He had previously said the payment was entirely done by his lawyer Michael Cohen, but now Mr Trump says Ms Daniels was paid for "false and extortionist" claims.

On Twitter, Mr Trump said Mr Cohen received a monthly retainer "from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement".

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-03/donald-trump-money-for-lawyer-stor...

See toon at top.

If Donald Trump does not wish to collaborate in the destruction of his presidency, he will refuse to be questioned by the FBI, or by a grand jury, or by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his malevolent minions.

Should Mueller subpoena him, as he has threatened to do, Trump should ignore the subpoena and frame it for viewing in Trump Tower.

If Mueller goes to the Supreme Court and wins an order for Trump to comply and testify before a grand jury, Trump should defy the Court.

The only institution that is empowered to prosecute a president is Congress. If charges against Trump are to be brought, this is the arena, this is the forum, where the battle should be fought and the fate and future of the Trump presidency decided.

The goal of Mueller’s prosecutors is to take down Trump on the cheap. If they can get him behind closed doors and make him respond in detail to questions—to which they already know the answers—any misstep by Trump could be converted into a perjury charge.

Trump has to score 100 on a test to which Mueller’s team has all the answers in advance while he must rely upon memory.

Why take this risk?

By now, witnesses have testified in ways that contradict what Trump has said. This, plus Trump’s impulsiveness, propensity to exaggerate, and often rash responses to hostile questions, would make him easy prey for the perjury traps prosecutors set up when they cannot convict their targets on the evidence.

Read more:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/memo-to-trump-defy-rober...

George Bernard Shaw did most of his "interviews" by asking the questions in advance and in writing. He responded in writing...  Here Mueller has gone beyond the brief of finding a Russian link to the Trump victorious election. THERE IS NONE. Having found no link to Russia, Mueller is justifying his continuous employ as a dirt examiner — dirt that has nothing with the original brief. We all know that DumbDumb is an idiot, a sex symbol in his own mind and a nutcase.

Only Congress can decide what to do with this problem which has plagued the USA since the first President.

Some people took the law into their own hands and shot a few of them. Other Presidents like Clinton and Obama appeared "sane" when they were totally insane. President Bushes, senior and junior, were insanely devious, yet Junior got re-elected on a sea of obvious lies and very dumb populism. What got DumbDumb pass the post? God knows. We actually know god intimately: his name is Rupert. Not Putin.

Donald Trump is extremely familiar with gambling. Before becoming the president of the United States, Trump was a real estate magnate with casino properties in gambling cities like Atlantic City, Las Vegas and elsewhere. And he's never dropped the gaming mentality. Indeed, playing his foes against each other is what got him into the White House in the first place.

In the dispute over steel and aluminum tariffs, Trump proved again this week that he sees politics in much the same way as he does casinos: as a big game in which he wants to write the rules and be the croupier at the same time.

Trump already abandoned the playing field of the World Trade Organization (WTO), with its clear provisions for tariffs and procedures for resolving disputes, back at the end of March. At the time, he threatened the European Union and other trading partners with high tariffs on steel and aluminum if they didn't voluntarily reduce their exports to the U.S. He issued an ultimatum, which he extended by a month this week.

Read more:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/trans-atlantic-trade-war-and-t...

Are the German media waking up to the way the "game" is played?

"You support me on destroying the deal with Iran, and I give you a free pass..." Nothing to do with export/import at this level...

The United States, as many observers have noted, appears to be undergoing an historic process of “strategic decline”. In order to stave off deterioration in its political and economic power, the US is resorting to greater dependence on militarism and aggression.

For that to work, a policy of ramping up provocations against other nations is a necessary concomitant. Because militarism and aggression need a pretext of conflict.

This is the unavoidable conclusion from several international interfaces. The US is resorting to more aggression as a means of asserting its power against perceived global rivals and to shore up its debt-ridden, decrepit capitalist economy.

READ MORE: Iran Will Not Surrender to US Pressure, Even Threats of War — Rouhani

Those rivals are explicitly identified by Washington as Russia and China, as well as to a lesser extent Iran, Lebanon's Hezbollah, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela. All are viewed as impediments to American ambitions for global hegemony.

The violence in Gaza this week by Israeli military can be seen in the context of a wider policy in Washington of provocation. The shooting dead of over 60 unarmed Palestinians in a single day by Israeli snipers and the maiming of thousands of others, including women and children, was arguably a deliberate attempt to incite greater violence across the Middle East.

It seems no coincidence that the atrocity was carried out on the very day that the US controversially opened a new embassy in the contested city of Jerusalem, despite widespread international warning against the move as a violation of Palestinian rights.

US President Donald Trump has embraced the right-wing Israeli leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu to articulate an extreme partisan view of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in which Palestinian rights are non-existent.

The gratuitous use of lethal force, while American dignitaries gathered a short distance away in Jerusalem, seems to have been a calculated attempt to provoke a violent reaction.

If the US and Israel incited armed response from Lebanon's Hezbollah or Iran — parties that have long-denounced American imperialism in the Middle East — then the ensuing chaos plays well for Washington. It would give the US and Israel an excuse to step up military force against these rivals. That could take the form of more US-backed Israeli air strikes on Iranian and Hezbollah bases in Syria, despite those bases being legally present.

For the US, the main objective of provoking greater instability and conflict is to undermine Russia and its recently regained stature as a major international power in the Middle East, owing to its successful military intervention in Syria at the end of 2015 to defeat US-backed regime-change proxies.

READ MORE: Iran Deal Debacle Historic Shot for Russia to Strengthen Role in Mideast — Prof

Russia's intervention in Syria ordered by President Putin has served to accelerate the sense of strategic decline for the US. The American policy of regime change in the Middle East as seen in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere was abruptly stopped in its tracks by Russia's military deployment in Syria. The American bingeing on regime-change was halted too by Iranian and Hezbollah fighters legally requested by the Assad government to defend the state.

The defeat of foreign terrorist proxies in Syria was a major setback for the US and its British, French and Turkish NATO allies, as well as for American client regimes in Israel and Saudi Arabia which colluded in the covert regime-change assault.

To salvage this momentous defeat, and more generally, strategic decline, the US seems to have embarked on a desperate policy of provocation with the assistance of its client regimes.

The aggressive way that Trump pulled the US out of the international nuclear accord with Iran last week caught many observers and European allies by surprise with his hardline, obstreperous manner.

Everyone knew Trump despised the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action

(JCPOA) signed in 2015 by President Obama. But few expected Trump to violate the deal with such bellicose threats to intensify economic sanctions on Tehran, as well as on European states doing business with Iran.

Vilifying Iran as a terrorist state and ranting against Tehran over alleged secret nuclear-weapons building, Trump was ostentatiously adopting the Israeli position of demonizing Iran.

The Trump administration's warnings to Europe in particular that its firms and banks would be penalized for continuing to do business with Iran, as is their right under the JCPOA, seemed to be a calculated provocation to crash the accord and incite Iran to resume past nuclear activities, which Trump, as well as Israel, has intimated would be met with military attack.

READ MORE: Donald Against Donald: Tusk 'Thanks' Trump for Iran Nuclear Deal Failure

So far, Trump's provocations over the Iran deal have failed. Iran and the other signatories — Russia, China and the European Union — have agreed to continue implementing the accord.

However, given this failure, so far, to sabotage the JCPOA it can be expected that the US and its regional partners will try to ramp up provocations. The Israeli air strikes on Iranian bases in Syria the day after Trump announced the US pullout from the accord appear to have been a deliberate attempt at antagonizing Iran even further. So too were Saudi claims that a missile attack on Riyadh from Yemen were "an act of war by Iran" owing to its alleged support to the Houthi rebels.

The renewed belligerence from the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East appears to be a systematic effort to stoke conflict.

Syria, Iran and Lebanon, as well as Iraq and Yemen, are in the firing line for embroiling the region in further chaos.

Ultimately, however, the bigger targets for US-induced instability are Russia and China, which Washington views as "great power competitors".

The American supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine earlier this month — the first such supply after years of non-lethal military aid to the Kiev regime — has rankled Russia. The deployment of US military advisors to oversee use of Javelin anti-tank missiles is a move that will likely escalate the violence in Eastern Ukraine on Russia's border.

And, of course, the ongoing buildup of NATO offensive forces from the Balkans to the Black Sea along Russia's Western flank presents an even bigger vista of provocation. The relaunching of the US Second Fleet in the Atlantic after years of being mothballed is evidently part of a massive NATO mobilization.

Elsewhere, increasing American deployment of warships in the South China Sea over alleged "freedom of navigation" concerns near Chinese territorial waters is another manifestation of Washington's foreign policy of provocation.

Trump's superficial diplomatic engagement with North Korea is now being tested with Pyongyang's warning this week that it is not going to give up nuclear weapons unilaterally on the say-so of Washington.

It remains to be seen if Trump's apparent flurry of diplomacy with North Korea will give way to the previous pattern of American belligerence and threats of war.

If the US is indeed operating a systematic foreign policy of provocation, as seems the case, then we can expect the recent detente with North Korea to be quickly abandoned.

After decades of proclaiming itself a benign global power, the stark conclusion is that the US is clearly emerging as a scourge on international peace.

US foreign policy? There seems little else to it other than the US being increasingly wired for provocation and war.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201805171064551559-us-policy-provocat...

"Beware of the wounded beast. the pain stops it from being nice..." Russian proverb.

Read from top

Interview with Joschka Fischer

'The U.S. President Is Destroying the American World Order'

In an interview with DER SPIEGEL, former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer talks about the danger of war against Iran, the deterioration of trans-Atlantic relations under U.S. President Donald Trump and the serious need for Germany to invest massively in the European Union's future.

Interview Conducted By Mathieu von Rohr and Christoph Schult

DER SPIEGEL: Mr. Fischer, you were -- together with your French and British colleagues -- among the first to embark on negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program in 2003. The 2015 agreement was to some extent your legacy. How did Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Iran deal affect you?

Fischer: I don't take this personally, but I am very concerned about the disastrous consequences of Trump's decision. They will be much more dramatic than portrayed in most of the comments so far. The aim of the agreement was to prevent a second disaster after the Iraq War, namely a large-scale land war in Iran. After the Iraq War, the Iranians tried in vain to divide Europe and the United States. Donald Trump has now managed to do just that.

DER SPIEGEL: Are you afraid that there will now be a war against Iran?

Fischer: I can't imagine that Trump could want that. One of the reasons Trump came into power was the frustration over these unwinnable, endless wars.

DER SPIEGEL: His national security adviser John Bolton wrote ...

Fischer: Enough with Bolton!

DER SPIEGEL: You remember Bolton from your time as foreign minister.

Fischer: I know him very well. He is one of the people responsible for the Iraq disaster.

DER SPIEGEL: Bolton once wrote: "To stop Iran's bomb, bomb Iran."

Fischer: Bolton has only one answer to everything: bombing. I wouldn't pay too much attention to that. But if Iran starts enriching uranium again, we would certainly be in a very dangerous situation. The confrontation between Iran and Israel has already begun militarily in Syria.

DER SPIEGEL: Back then, before the invasion of Iraq, you famously told the Americans: "I am not convinced." Does the current crisis in trans-Atlantic relations remind you of 2003?

Fischer: The situation is much more dramatic today. The danger of a military clash between Israel and Iran in Syria is exacerbated by the U.S.'s withdrawal from the agreement. It is true that the current crisis is a result of the original sin of the invasion of Iraq. Iran's rise to hegemony would not have been possible without the active help of George W. Bush and the American neocons. And without the collapse of Iraq, the rise of the "Islamic State" in Syria would not have come this far.

DER SPIEGEL: To what extent has Trump damaged the trans-Atlantic relationship?

Fischer: We are experiencing a new era. The trans-Atlantic relationship can no longer be taken for granted. But it would be foolish of us to give it up of our own accord.

DER SPIEGEL: German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that we can no longer truly rely on the U.S.

Fischer: It's even worse than that. The American president is deliberately destroying the American world order. I was used to NATO being attacked by the left wing of the Green Party, but not by the American president! From an economic policy point of view, Trump is challenging Germany's business model, which has been geared toward exports from the very beginning. Many are saying that we shouldn't put up with that. I find this reaction understandable, but also kind of cute. What can we do? Given the current balance of power, sometimes all you can do is gnash your teeth..

DER SPIEGEL: You recently wrote a book in German with the dark title "The Descent of the West." Is the West finished?

Fischer: There is every indication that this will happen. The West was the trans-Atlantic area, and its founding fathers were Britain and the United States. The West cannot survive without them, and certainly not with a weak, divided Europe. This is why Europeans must become stronger, much stronger.

DER SPIEGEL: Is the withdrawal from the Iran Agreement the moment in which Europe must finally decide to develop its own foreign policy?

Fischer: That is easy to say, but somebody has to actually do it. A few countries would have to take the lead. Germany and France play the key role in the EU, and without Germany it would be impossible. If we continue to believe that we must remain in the slipstream of world history, Europeans will not be able to act.

DER SPIEGEL: So, what should Germany do?

Fischer: The Federal Republic of Germany was probably the greatest success of American foreign policy. Since 1949, a stable, flourishing democracy has emerged under the patronage of the U.S. After two world wars, we Germans have recognized that we cannot do world politics. It almost destroyed us as a nation, both politically and morally. America was responsible for our protection, and we got used to it. Driving in this slipstream was comfortable and understandable from a historical point of view, but that is now over.

DER SPIEGEL: So, is Trump right when he asks the Germans to spend more on the military?

Fischer: It isn't about Trump. Hillary Clinton would have been just as critical of this as president. We have to do it for ourselves. We have been investing too little in our security for years. What are the things I've read within the past week? German armed forces pilots are losing their licenses because they cannot fly enough hours due to helicopter deficiencies. Submarines cannot sail because spare parts are missing. We only have four combat-ready Eurofighters. What a shame! If you ask me whether we can defend ourselves, the clear answer is no.

DER SPIEGEL: The majority of Germans do not want to spend more money on the military.

Fischer: That's a problem, but we have to do it. We must have a minimum of defense capacity, otherwise Europe will suffer. Do you think I find it appealing to say that we need to do more for our defense? We are too big and important to skimp on defense.

DER SPIEGEL: Proponents of trans-Atlantic ties have fallen into disrepute in certain circles. Some Germans want closer relations with Russia.

Fischer: That is palpable. The great achievement of Konrad Adenauer (the first postwar German chancellor) was that, against the background of his own biography, including the experience of two world wars, he drew the consequence that Germany had to abandon its position as an eternally shaky stalk in the middle of Europe. He said we belong to the West. This is the secret of Germany's success. If we say goodbye to this, we will be saying goodbye to the greatest achievement made by West Germany after our major national disasters. It is completely incomprehensible to me that a party like the CSU (the Christian Social Union, the Bavaria sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Party) is now starting to waver. The special relationship with Russia is an old dream of both the German conservatives and the German left, but it has never worked.

DER SPIEGEL: With Germany showing a lack of willingness to spend more money on defense and the United States withdrawing at the same time, some German politicians on the left and on the right are saying our only option is to come to terms with Russia.

Fischer: Submission instead of building a defensive capability? I do not share this view. Yes, we should strive for a good relationship with Russia. But not on our knees. That won't impress anyone in Moscow. The question at the heart of the conflict over Ukraine is whether we are prepared to accept that Russia obtains its status as a superpower through zones of influence. If the nationalists in Europe define zones of influence again, we will end up in a vicious cycle. That would be the end of the European Union.

DER SPIEGEL: Is Trump's withdrawal from the Iran agreement a wake-up call for Europe?

Fischer: My impression is that we are gradually realizing that the "black zero" (Germany's balanced budget strategy) won't save us.

DER SPIEGEL: The black zero presents a danger to Europe?

Fischer: It doesn't endanger Europe, but it is holding up progress. We must transform our financial power into political power in the interest of Europe. It's no use just managing savings accounts, beancounter style. In this respect, my advice is to invest massively in Europe.

DER SPIEGEL: In defense?

Fischer: In all areas, and above all politically. Sure, Germany has its interests, and won't be writing any blank checks. But this notion that "they only want our money" is counterproductive.

DER SPIEGEL: "They only want our money," is the answer Emmanuel Macron has received so far from Germany to his ideas for reforming the EU.

Fischer: Yes, this is the return to the German Michel (the 19th century caricature of the German national character). It's a step forward, compared to the spiked helmet (of the Prussians) and the steel helmet (of the National Socialists), but it's a mistake given the dramatic geopolitical situation.

DER SPIEGEL: What would be the right answer?

Fischer: Big, rich Germany -- together with France -- should pay. Why does the EU even exist? Because ever since Adenauer, all chancellors have made late-night compromises possible by putting money on the table. We must turn our economic strength into power in the interest of Europe.

DER SPIEGEL: Aren't you afraid this will drive voters to the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party?

Fischer: Emmanuel Macron prevented Marine Le Pen from winning in France with explicitly pro-European political platforms. You can't just keep quiet at such historical watershed moments -- you have to explain them. This doesn't just apply to the chancellor. All parties were silent on Europe in the election campaign for the German parliament -- or did you hear something that I didn't? The only people who talked about it were AfD politicians. That's the problem! In Macron's case, Europe comes from the heart. He knows that if Europe is not involved in shaping the new world order, not only in terms of power politics, but also in terms of technology, then it's over.

DER SPIEGEL: How do you explain that Merkel still hasn't responded to Macron's proposals?

Fischer: She can't do anything about the election result. The great tragedy of the federal election is that Christian Lindner (who allowed negotiations to form a government between Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats, his business-friendly Free Democratic Party and the Green Party to collapse, leading to months of delays in creating a new government) did not understand after the election that this is not just about saving the FDP, but that Germany needs a new constellation like the Jamaica coalition (named for the colors affiliated with the aforementioned parties). In view of his age and potential, Lindner should have pushed this forward. Then we would be in a very different position today. The Grand Coalition (the current government that includes Merkel's Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats) creates the impression that it is already exhausted before it has really even gotten going. They are simply tired of each other.

DER SPIEGEL: This week, the Europeans and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif jointly announced their intention to preserve the Iran deal. How could that work?

Fischer: Probably not at all! I'd like it to happen, but I can't imagine how. They cannot protect German companies in view of their close ties. Many have huge investments in the United States and are dependent on the U.S. market.

DER SPIEGEL: The EU has reactivated a law that could impose penalties on companies that comply with U.S. sanctions against Iran ...

Fischer: A German automobile company that does not deliver to Iran because the U.S. market is too important for it is being punished again. How's that supposed to work?

DER SPIEGEL: That would mean the deal is dead?

Fischer: It's going to be difficult. I'm very skeptical about it.

DER SPIEGEL: In hindsight, was it a mistake to concentrate only on the nuclear program in the negotiations with Iran instead of including Tehran's aggressive role in the Middle East and the missile program?

Fischer: The Iranian regime would never have agreed to that. It was right to concentrate on the nuclear program, because that posed the greatest threat of war, and now it's coming back. We have never been under any illusions about the character and intentions of the Iranian regime. Our aim was to involve Iran peacefully while delaying and controlling the nuclear program.

Read more:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/former-german-foreign-minist...

Read from top... The sad thing is that the same crap would have happened with La Madam Clinton, except the narrative and the madness would have been different... with more lies in it.

The House Judiciary Committee has questioned Google chief executive Sundar Pichai over why, when you search the word "idiot" in Google images, a picture of US President Donald Trump comes up. 

"How does that happen? How does search work so that that would occur?" Democratic representative Zoe Lofgren asked. 

Mr Pichai answered earnestly that Google stores billions of pages in its index, takes the keyword, matches it against the pages and then ranks them.

He said "things like relevance, freshness, popularity, how other people are using it" play a part in how items are ranked so that, at any given time, that rank will show the best results for the Google search.

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-12/google-ceo-explains-why-searching-idiot-turns-up-trump-pictures/

Read from top.

Donald Trump is not the first president to be called unhinged, by political enemies and medical professionals alike. But some of his predecessors had mental health conditions including social anxiety, bipolar disorder and even psychopathy, say experts.

In the summer of 1776, the American Revolutionary War was going so badly for the rebels that George Washington apparently attempted suicide by redcoat.

As his militiamen fled in panic at Kip's Bay, Manhattan, the 44-year-old supreme commander lapsed into a catatonic state, according to biographer Ron Chernow.

Washington just sat on horseback staring into space as dozens of British soldiers charged at him across a cornfield.

The future first US president's aides grabbed the reins of his mount and with some difficulty managed to spirit him to safety.

One of his generals, Nathanael Greene, later said the Virginian was "so vexed at the infamous conduct of his troops that he sought death rather than life".

Washington's suspected emotional breakdown illustrates how even the greatest of crisis leaders can snap under pressure.

Fast forward nearly two-and-a-half centuries, and the mental state of his political descendant is under somewhat less forgiving examination.

Presidential psychiatry has been all the rage ever since Donald Trump entered the White House.

There's even a publishing subgenre devoted to putting the 45th president on the shrink's couch.

Such titles include The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, Rocket Man: Nuclear Madness and the Mind of Donald Trump, A Clear and Present Danger: Narcissism in the Era of Donald Trump, and Twilight of American Sanity: A Psychiatrist Analyzes the Age of Trump.

But Mr Trump - who maintains he is "a very stable genius" - is by no means the first US leader to find himself written off as a lunatic.

John Adams, the second president, was described by arch-rival Jefferson as "sometimes absolutely mad".

The Philadelphia Aurora, a mouthpiece of Jefferson's party, assailed Adams as "a man divested of his senses".

Theodore Roosevelt, the contemporary Journal of Abnormal Psychology theorised, would "go down in history as one of the most illustrious psychological examples of the distortion of conscious mental processes".

While Roosevelt campaigned in 1912 to return to the presidency, prominent US historian Henry Adams said: "His mind has gone to pieces… his neurosis may end in a nervous collapse, or acute mania."

After Woodrow Wilson had a stroke, his critics claimed the White House had become an insane asylum, pointing out the bars installed on some first-floor windows of the executive mansion.

But as John Milton Cooper recounts in his Wilson biography, those bars had in fact been fitted during Teddy Roosevelt's presidency to keep his young sons from breaking windows with their baseballs.

And yet, according to a psychiatric analysis of the first 37 commanders-in-chief, Adams, Roosevelt and Wilson did have actual mental health issues.

The 2006 study estimated that 49% of presidents suffered from a malady of the mind at some stage in their life (a figure said by the researchers to be in line with national rates). 

Twenty-seven per cent of them were found to be affected while in office.

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47671986

Read from top. Even Obama was a loony...