Trump: Russia Controls Germany Thanks to Gas Pipeline! Merkel and Keystone XL Say Otherwise

1. John 2018-07-11 08:21

   More trumpster magic thinking for the dumpster.
   They are making tariffs on trade flows that do not exist.
   https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-11/world-s-most-pointless-tariffs-target-cleanest-fuel-and-trout

   They’ve no idea what they are doing in their trade war. They have no plan. Even if they had a plan, it becomes a nullity after the first shot is fired.
   “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” – Eisenhower
   “No war plan survives contact with the enemy.” – Helmuth von Moltke, the Elder
   “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” – Mike Tyson
2. John 2018-07-11 08:31

   Co-opting the earlier posted-thought that some government growth is beneficial – especially when its a public investment to grow private jobs, and thus the economy.
   Government regulations for organic foods grows private jobs and provides food consumers want but find difficult & expensive to purchase in our congressional-corporate-farm-industrial complex dominated economy.

   Europe, for generations, provides the world’s highest food purity and quality. Those nations do so because of public demand and to help their economies.
   https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-07-11/trump-s-usda-is-killing-rules-that-organic-food-makers-want
3. Donald Pay 2018-07-11 09:33

   Great head fake by Trump, but no one but the cult will believe it.

   Let’s discuss Uranium One, owned by the Russian state-owned enterprise Rosatom. This, of course, has some conservatives whining their fake concern because Hillary Clinton had a small part in approving the sale of Uranium One from a Canadian company, to the Russian-owned company. Uranium One mines uranium in Wyoming.

   Despite all the panty-twisting among conservatives, and the calls for a fake “investigation” of Hillary over this issue, they have yet to put much pressure on Trump to shut down Uranium One, which continues to mine American uranium. Trump, of course, could have acted on this issue on day one of his administration, but he had other concerns that day, including forcing Sean Spicer to go out and lie for him about the number of people who viewed his inauguration. It’s been a year and a half, and that great conservative cult hero has yet to say peep to Putin about shutting down that mine.
4. jerry 2018-07-11 09:41

   trump and the Confederates think that Putin is not the enemy, but just some kindly competitor.

   “MSNBC’s Peter Alexander played some cringe-worthy video.

   Trump said, “I have NATO, I have the UK, which has been somewhat turmoil, and I have Putin. Frankly, Putin may be the easiest one of all, who would think?”

   Trump has treated Putin like he’s Trump’s co-president.

   Alexander asked, “Would you say Vladimir Putin is a friend or foe?”

   Trump replied, “I really can’t say right now. as far as I’m concerned, a competitor. a competitor.”

   So there ya have it. Stop spending so much on defense, Putin is our friend. Bring home the troops and use the Navy boats as coral reefs. Eliminate Elsworth and put in a skateboard park.
5. marvin kammerer 2018-07-11 11:12

   i’m all for eliminating elsworth, it has nothing to do with natl.security, just another way for our congressional crowd to siphon more federal bucks from our natl.treasury.it also helps the pentagon to keep supporting goofy weapons like the F35 7 B21BOMBER. remember the pentagon is the only major part of our federal budget the has not been audited as demanded by law.
6. mike from iowa 2018-07-11 12:37

   https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/angela-merkel-donald-trump-immigration_us_5b2bbc25e4b00295f15a1d5d

   Why should Drumpf care. He has openly been trying to undercut Merkel and get her out of power. Most likely as a favor to Putie Puppet Master.
7. leslie 2018-07-11 14:55

   We need an accounting of what trump’s drunken spending spree has cost the last year and what the trump organizations have profited personally leveraging taxpayer airplanes, security, rally after rally, gas prices, tax cuts, stress to the system from incompetence, lack of planning, hurricane response, mass resignations, deportations, climate change and corruption. $500 M soy tariff loss in SD nears GOP EB5 $600 M churning in SD. Just one the SD crony CON JOBS.
8. Debbo 2018-07-11 16:03

   So Canada controls us? Obviously. I shouldn’t have questioned. Do we call ourselves the United States of Canada now? And will Trudeau please please pretty please take over now!?! He can send pres Child Abuser and his pals to Guantanamo. I’m more than ready to be Canadian. I’ve been precticing my “eh” and “aboot” and “dawlors” daily, so I’m ready.
9. mike from iowa 2018-07-11 16:25

   I have some Canadian coins US banks won’t honor so I could move to Winnipeg, Manitoba and die a Guess Who fan from iowa.

   The reason Drumpf fears talks with Putin less than the other world leaders is he knows the rules with Putie. Putie speaks, Drumpf salivates like Pavlov’s and OldSferbrains dogs and wets the carpet so Putin can beat him with a rolled up Pravda paper. Wait til Putie takes Donnie to the Russian vet too get tutored, or was that neutered? Drumpf can’t hear when he is salivating all over.
10. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2018-07-11 17:29

    John takes me harmlessly off-topic with his quotes about plans and their vulnerability to reality. There’s an interesting almost-paradox (quasidox?): the fact that no plan survives contact with the enemy does not justify not making a plan. Planning is an exercise in critical thinking. It’s practice, envisioning possibilities and responses.

    Trump doesn’t seem to plan. He doesn’t envision “what ifs” or counterresponses. He just scratches his itch of the moment, throws things at the wall, then tweets off to the next random firestorm, into which too much of the press and America all too gladly follows him with great distraction.
11. Porter Lansing 2018-07-11 17:55

    In problem solving there are two planning groups necessary. The group that envisions all the things that can go wrong. And the group that envisions all the paths forward, planning for all the obstacles possibly encountered. On my team of ten planners I’ll have one from the first group and nine from the second group.
    (Too many from the first group inevitably leads to the plan, “It won’t work. Let’s not even start.”)
12. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2018-07-11 19:38

    That exchange between Jerry and Marvin brings up a policy debate that an intelligent Trump (oxymoron) could invite with his current foreign policy tack. Pretend with me for a moment a conscientious President were in Brussells with our NATO allies and on his way to a summit with Putin. A conscientious President could advance a coherent, pro-America agenda with the following strategy:

    1. Explain to our allies that to reduce the threat the growing U.S. federal debt poses to the global economy and U.S. independence from China, we are hoping to reduce our defense spending.
    2. Assure our allies we are not planning to remove our troops and leave them defenseless; rather, we remain committed to their security and to reciprocating the great aid they continue render us in Afghanistan and in anti-terrorism efforts.
    3. Encourage our allies to continue their efforts to boost their defense spending, just a little, to give the U.S. room to step down its own military spending and create a more balanced NATO alliance.
    4. Help our allies absorb their slightly increased defense costs by immediately lifting our wrong-headed tariffs against their aluminum, steel, and other products, apologize for our error, and assure them that we will step back from all of our escalatory trade war actions, in the interest of ensuring maximum economic growth in our alliance’s economic sphere.
    5. Go to Putin and dicker for further nuclear arms limits that will help us meet our defense spending reduction goals. Offer to can Ellsworth to make both Putin and Marvin happy. Squeeze as much savings as we can from reducing our mostly deterrent and dormant nuclear weapons (except for the ones we need to blow up asteroids!). Praise Putin profusely and publicly for helping reduce the global nuclear threat by setting a good example for all other nuclear nations.
    6. Then turn to Putin and say, quietly, “All right, now let’s talk turkey. The U.S. is going to reduce its military spending by 25%. Instead of spending nine times as much as you on our military, we’re only going to spend seven times as much. Meanwhile, our NATO allies, who are already spending three times as much as you on their militaries, are each going to tick up their independent military readiness. So if you really think you’re going to seize any of Europe by force, think again. You’re going to face individual NATO members who will be able to better hold off your invasion until NATO brings its full overwhelming force to bear on your s**t-can tanks and planes. Plus, nobody in our alliance is going to be spending more than 2.5% of GDP on defense, while you’re burning up 4.3% of your much more oil-dependent and thus less stable and less sustainable GDP on a military capability that’s already inferior to ours. You’re marching toward 1991 all over again, with a Russian economy hobbled by high military expenditures and corruption facing down a united West that can beat you with one hand tied behind its back and still have money to buy pizza, blue jeans, and rock and roll records. We’re not your enemy, and you don’t want us to be your enemy. Pull your troops out of Ukraine, back off from Europe, and go focus your military efforts on fortifying your southeastern border against your real threat, 1.4 billion Chinese who see a lot of empty real estate in Siberia.”

     
    I think I’ve just thought farther ahead and more coherently about foreign policy in the last few minutes than Donald Trump has in his lifetime. I’ve certainly just written more on the topic than he ever has. He can’t get past 280 characters.
13. mike from iowa 2018-07-11 19:55

    Nice knowing you, although we have never met, Cory. OldSferbrains will attempt to have you declared an enemy of the walkaway state and label you as dangerous. And he will do it in his customary off topic manner without manners.

    Excuse me, it is nearing my bedtime and I have some serious reading to do before lights out.
14. Robert McTaggart 2018-07-11 20:58

    The Germans are not using energy only when the sun is shining or when the wind is blowing. Thus the dependence on coal or gas.

    I suspect that underlying all of this is that Trump wants Germany to buy liquefied natural gas from the oil and gas interests of the United States, not from Russian pipelines.
15. jerry 2018-07-11 21:19

    Very good points you bring out there Cory. The problem with having peace is that then what? How do you stand down trillions of dollars in assets for Wall Street investments? There is only so much of that military hardware you can pass onto the civilian military police. How many Abrams tanks can they use? Aircraft carriers? Only in Wyoming.
16. o 2018-07-11 21:22

    The last line brings up the topic of defense spending. Is Trump’s goal to drum up more business for the billionaire’s in the war industry, or is his goal to have other countries pay more to allow the US to spend less? If NATO all come up to 2% of their GDP, would the US then shrink our spending to 2% – down from 3.5%? A country could pay for a LOT of health care with that redefinition of national investment.
17. Adam 2018-07-11 22:06

    Vladimir Putin may as well be U.S. President as he’s played a significant roll in molding yesterday’s conservatives into today’s Grade A self-destructionists.

    The radicals on the right have ENORMOUS influence on the rest of the conservative base – because it’s a political party with an ideology for SUCKERS!

    Trump represents Putin on the world stage more vigorously than he does the American people, and he is going burn in hell for all eternity when his life on Earth is over. And you what else? – his supporters are going have a harder time than the rest of us in avoiding a similar fate IF they don’t get their sh!t together pretty darn soon here.
18. Jason 2018-07-11 22:24

    Cory,

    Did Putin threaten to cut off natural gas supplies to Europe?

    The answer is yes.

    Is the US a main exporter of oil?

    The answer is yes.

    What happens when NATO nations have to man up and spend their obligated money on defense instead of their healthcare?

    It’s time the US stops spending money on other Countries and spend it on the US legal citizens.
19. Debbo 2018-07-12 00:54

    Putie’s threat is always that he’ll cut off oil and gas supplies. The US is now the #1 oil producer, ahead of Saudi Arabia. But, are we ready to get our oil and LNG to Europe ASAP? I think not. How much time do we require to gear up enough to keep Europe humming? Perhaps the US energy sector ought to be focused on that, rather than sabotaging renewables.
20. Rorschach 2018-07-12 08:35

    Will Canada control us when Keystone II is built, or do they control us already after Keystone I?
21. jerry 2018-07-12 09:32

    The records show that foreign ownership will control the Keystone II when built, mostly by China. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/01/23/level-of-foreign-ownership-unclear-in-energy-sector-as-pm-seeks-more-cash-memo_n_9054716.html

    So we have Russia controlling our political apparatus, while China and Saudi Arabia control our energy. Looks like we will need NATO to come in and save our captive behinds.
22. Jason 2018-07-12 09:53

    Jerry, your article doesn’t say foreigners will own the keystone II pipeline. Your reading comprehension is terrible.
23. jerry 2018-07-12 09:57

    China, for one owns the source, the tar sands. Saudi Arabia owns the Port Arthur refinery…the only place the tar sands can be refined. Russia made the pipe, along with India that goes under the ground that is protected by militiamen who order county sheriffs around. Sweet.
24. Jason 2018-07-12 10:02

    Prove China owns all of the tar sands Jerry.
25. Rorschach 2018-07-12 10:04

    The Keystone pipeline(s) are wholly owned by TransCanada Corporation, which as the name suggests is a Canadian corporation.

    Unlicensed security guards only boss around county sheriffs on the Dakota Access Pipeline, Jerry.
26. mike from iowa 2018-07-12 10:12

    Jason, you can’t be this stoopid, can you?

    Jason
    2018-07-12 at 09:53

    Jerry, your article doesn’t say foreigners will own the keystone II pipeline. Your reading comprehension is terrible.

    Keystone is owned by CANADIANS. CANADIANS are foreigners. Trash-CANADA is a CANADIAN CORPORATION! Flying Spaghetti Monster save us from evil and dumb.
27. mike from iowa 2018-07-12 10:16

    https://www.google.com/search?q=+does+china+own+tar+sands&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1-ab

    Take your pick of articles depicting ownership of Canada’s oil sands. China owns some, but their invested 15 billion was ill-timed.

    Koch bros own some. Several foreign nations do as well.
28. jerry 2018-07-12 10:19

    TransCanada is a public corporation that TransCanada is the largest shareholder in, and owns the general partner of, TC PipeLines. The company was founded in 1951 in Calgary.

    The unlicensed security guards are paid by someone. Maybe militia was to strong a word to describe guns for hire.

    Meanwhile, the controlling interest of the tar sands themselves, seems to be China, with a 40% controlling share, no different than the controlling share of TransCanada on the pipeline itself.

    The kicker is Port Arthur, Texas and how it was sold to Saudi Arabia after trump was appointed by Putin. The largest refinery in America, foreign owned by the country that supplied the hijackers on 9/11. Funny how things turn out.
29. mike from iowa 2018-07-12 10:24

    Putin’s threats to cut off nat gas to Europe go at least as far back as 2009.

    US is a large oil exporter. The ban on exporting was lifted in 2015, long before Jason’s blowhard Russian puppet was installed as MIcro-Wienered Czar by Putin.
30. Jason 2018-07-12 10:32

    So China owns a minority interest. Trump is still laughing.
31. marvin kammerer 2018-07-12 12:42

    proud to have been of service,and until congress ,including our feckless 3,demands an accounting 0f the pentagon, we have to seriously question the spending for freedom & the lives of our young women & men in uniform. i suspect there is more criminal activity going on behind the pentagon’s walls than most places in the world.
32. marvin kammerer 2018-07-12 12:56

    i could be proven wrong by an honest auditing of the pentagon’s expenditures.then we could see how badly we need or do not need all our bases around the world. there are about 800 of them . some might call it imperialism !
33. Adam 2018-07-12 14:00

    Folks, Trump is aligning U.S. foreign policy with Vladimir Putin’s international agenda. This inherently suggests that Trump is CURRENTLY (not just leading up to the 2016 election) colluding and coordinating his actions with Russian advisors.

    That’s the real story here. It’s time for the American people to get their heads on straight.
34. Debbo 2018-07-12 14:17

    “Maybe militia was to strong a word to describe guns for hire.”

    Jerry, I think the word you’re looking for is “mercenary.” Same as Eric Prince’s Blackwater “contractors,” more accurately known as “mercenaries.”

    To be fair, the average security guard is someone looking to make ends meet. The people who attack nonviolent resistance with dogs, other weapons and various and sundry violence are definitely Mercenaries.
35. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2018-07-12 17:10

    Adam is right. By electing Donald Trump, we have isolated ourselves from our best friends and customers. Russia is getting us right where they want us—alone and out of the global picture.
36. mike from iowa 2018-07-12 17:26

    Whoa, mercenary me, oh
    I don’t kill no folks for free, no
    Best clients is US government
    Voters wonder how their money’s spent, oh

    Yeah, we get paid real good to kill
    To do our job is such a thrill, oh
    If we get caught we can’t be sued
    Protected by congress feels mighty good.

    Whoa, Mercenary me yeah, yeah, yeah,
    Nothing beats a job like mine, see
    Don’t waste time burying enemy
    Requirements only retired miltary, oh

    Whoa Mercenary me
    Whoa Mercenary me
    Whoa Mercenary me

    Apologies to the late great Marvin Gaye Jr.
37. mike from iowa 2018-07-12 18:48

    Blackwater founder makes new pitch for mercenaries to take over Afghan waBlackwater founder makes new pitch for mercenaries to take over Afghan war.

    Blackwater’s chief is a brother to Uneducation secretary Betsy Devolved.
38. mike from iowa 2018-07-12 18:49

    http://thehill.com/policy/defense/396714-blackwater-founder-proposes-mercenary-takeover-in-afghanistan-amidst-mueller-probe

    Here is the link.
39. Debbo 2018-07-12 23:25

    Yeah, little Eric Prissy Prince and Betsy DeVoid of All Humanity make quite a pair of mercenary-type individuals. No morals makes them a perfect fit with pres Child Abuser.

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