Donald Trump has a sickening fetish for cruelty -USA Today

[LudwigPastorius]

These are not the actions of a well-adjusted person. Trump clearly has a maudlin fetish for cruelty – given his pattern of humiliating both friend and foe, the president's brain is occupied with little else than Electoral College results and revenge fantasies. Trump is basically a 71-year old kid cackling in delight as he melts ants under his magnifying glass. Only these ants are attorneys general, senators, FBI directors and governors.

Naturally, Trump's supporters think toying with peoples' dignity is a show of strength – but it is the exact opposite. He's a weak leader who wastes what little political capital he has settling personal scores. With apologies to Winston Churchill, Trump remains an immodest man with much to be modest about.

And it's just a matter of time before he's under Vladimir Putin's magnifying glass.

More here: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/08/05/trump-has-fetish-cruelty-christian-schneider-column/537483001/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Trump is a weak person's idea of a strong-man. . . . nt

[SHRED]

11. Nailed it.

[gilpo]

19. Like Ryan is the idiot's idea of a smart man

[gilpo]

20. Or maybe used to be

https://www.democraticunderground.com/108420999

[Rhythm]

22. Among other things...

[stuffmatters]

2. I've said for a sometime Repugs are the Plantation Party, the party of cruelty, sadism, oppression

There's a reason they simply cannot grasp even concepts as fundamental as The Social Contract much less that a woman's body is
her property not theirs.

[calimary]

3. Call me crazy, but I can't help wondering if Russia had a hand in that latest round of leaks

from trump's calls to other world leaders. That followed rather quickly after he was forced to sign the sanctions bill.

I can't stop thinking that maybe Putin's going to start making him pay for not being the obedient vassal his Russian mentor paid for.

I think Vlad is going to expect to get the results he paid for when he helped trump win last November. Now that his boy isn't living up to the assurances he gave to his benefactor, I suspect problems could easily arise.

[LudwigPastorius]

4. If Putin has the reported kompromat on Trump, he can take him down at any time.

My guess is that Putin wants to make a move on eastern Ukraine while Trump is still in office, because he knows he'll do nothing. Maybe he'll even try to annex Abkhazia and parts of Moldova.

[pangaia]

14. You got it.

And he does not want to stop there.
Not by a long shot. Estonia, Latvia, Belarus.


Romania? Bulgaria?

[LudwigPastorius]

16. You're right. With Trump's previous whining about NATO,...

he's already practically invited Putin into Eastern Europe.

[pangaia]

17. I know people in Estonia, Latvia, Romania

..umm. Georgia...Finland......

It's not a good situation at all..

And ROK, Japan.....

[Fritz Walter]

23. Lets go to the map

Specifically, Kaliningrad. A tiny spit of land on the Baltic Sea, west of Lithuania, north of Poland.

It's Russian. A remote possession, but still flying the white, blue and red flag of Российская Федераци.

According to Wikipedia, before World War II, it was called Königsberg, a Prussian/German land, which was...

... renamed Kaliningrad in 1946 after the death of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Mikhail Kalinin, one of the original Bolsheviks. The survivors of the German population were forcibly expelled in 1946-1949, and the city was repopulated with Soviet citizens. The German language was replaced by the Russian language.

My close friends in Lithuania are painfully aware of what happened in the 20th Century. They were the first Soviet republic to evict their Soviet occupiers, and have struggled ever since to rebuild their millennium-long identity.

Kaliningrad is an all-too-painful reminder of Putin's penchant for rebuilding the USSR and raping lands and citizens in his as yet unbridled quest for wealth and power.

I've been there. I've seen how Putin's buddies turned churches into foundries and sanitariums. When they watched Drumpf stealing the election, they knew exactly what they were in for.

We must not turn our backs on this NATO ally.

[pangaia]

24. Thank you for adding..

Most of the friends/people I know/people I know of, are classical musicians or somehow connected with the arts... they... they continue with their lives, often traveling... it is not easy for them... some are a bit well-known....

Also, a number of Russians, in St Petersburg, mostly, but also in Perm, Novosibirsk, couple in Moscow. Some living in western parts of Europe...Interesting discussions sometimes. We definitely learn from each other. :&gt )

[Ilsa]

25. Nikki Haley and other republicans will decry the invasion,

offer help through NATO. Then trumpty-dumpty will sit on the wall and define an opposite policy, all because Pooty told him what he'd leak if he didn't.

[Dream Girl]

5. Interesting thought. When it came out, I kept saying to myself, "who leaked this?"

Something is rather odd about it coming out so much later. The theme was weakness, many of the other leaks are about abuse of power, fraud, etc. but this was obviously intended to show him as weak and kind of echoed what Medvedev (sp) said when he trolled him right before.

[marylandblue]

8. I think Preibus allies leaked it

[StepnKretchit]

7. You are not crazy.

President Trump is not only being grabbed by his private parts, those parts are in a vise.

[Harry Also]

6. Wow

Just wow. Spot on.

[July]

9. And yet he can only toy with their dignity if they let him.

Yes, there may be a price to pay for standing on one's dignity -- but then, at the least, one is left with one's dignity.

[Doreen]

10. He is not a weak leader. He is not a leader at all.

A weak leader is someone who tries but just does not have what it takes. Rump does not try anything good just ruling, hate, fear, unfairness, insults, hate ( yes I said it again ), discrimination, and evil. Please do not consider him what he is not and never will be....a leader.

[democratisphere]

12. Expect nothing less from a psychopath.

[Doitnow]

13. Mornings when I take a walk, I tune in usually to Democracy Now, but

KPFK being a low voltage station often has lots of static. So, I listen to Bill Handel because we've lost all liberal talk here in the L. A. area, and he's the least obnoxious of all the right wing talk shows now. Well, Handel must have taken lessons from Dump 45, because all his "jokes" tend to have truly cruel endings---and he even includes his wife and kids whom he often derides on air. What is with such people who take pleasure in other people's misfortune or pain? Really sick!

[Bleacher Creature]

15. Come on Vlad, release the damn tapes!! NT

[dalton99a]

18. Our Caligula

[DinahMoeHum]

21. "Oderint dum metuant"

Let them hate, provided they fear.

(attributed to Caligula)

[RKP5637]

26. His followers see him as strong. I seem him as a weak individual and easily manipulated. n/t