What Happens When a Bad-Tempered, Distractible Doofus Runs an Empire?
By Miranda Carter June 6, 2018

One of the few things that Kaiser Wilhelm II, who ruled Germany from 1888 to 1918, had a talent for was causing outrage. A particular specialty was insulting other monarchs. He called the diminutive King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy “the dwarf” in front of the king’s own entourage. He called Prince (later Tsar) Ferdinand, of Bulgaria, “Fernando naso,” on account of his beaky nose, and spread rumors that he was a hermaphrodite. Since Wilhelm was notably indiscreet, people always knew what he was saying behind their backs. Ferdinand had his revenge. After a visit to Germany, in 1909, during which the Kaiser slapped him on the bottom in public and then refused to apologize, Ferdinand awarded a valuable arms contract that had been promised to the Germans to a French company instead.

Not that this deterred the Kaiser. One of the many things that Wilhelm was convinced he was brilliant at, despite all evidence to the contrary, was “personal diplomacy,” fixing foreign policy through one-on-one meetings with other European monarchs and statesmen. In fact, Wilhelm could do neither the personal nor the diplomacy, and these meetings rarely went well. The Kaiser viewed other people in instrumental terms, was a compulsive liar, and seemed to have a limited understanding of cause and effect. In 1890, he let lapse a long-standing defensive agreement with Russia—the German Empire’s vast and sometimes threatening eastern neighbor. He judged, wrongly, that Russia was so desperate for German good will that he could keep it dangling. Instead, Russia immediately made an alliance with Germany’s western neighbor and enemy, France. Wilhelm decided he would charm and manipulate Tsar Nicholas II (a “ninny” and a “whimperer,” according to Wilhelm, fit only “to grow turnips”) into abandoning the alliance. In 1897, Nicholas told Wilhelm to get lost; the German-Russian alliance withered.

About a decade ago, I published “George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I,” a book that was, in part, about Kaiser Wilhelm, who is probably best known for being Queen Victoria’s first grandchild and for leading Germany into the First World War. Ever since Donald Trump started campaigning for President, the Kaiser has once again been on my mind—his personal failings, and the global fallout they led to.

Trump’s tweets were what first reminded me of the Kaiser. Wilhelm was a compulsive speechmaker who constantly strayed off script. Even his staff couldn’t stop him, though it tried, distributing copies of speeches to the German press before he’d actually given them. Unfortunately, the Austrian press printed the speeches as they were delivered, and the gaffes and insults soon circulated around Europe. “There is only one person who is master in this empire and I am not going to tolerate any other,” Wilhelm liked to say, even though Germany had a democratic assembly and political parties. (“I’m the only one that matters,” Trump has said.) The Kaiser reserved particular abuse for political parties that voted against his policies. “I regard every Social Democrat as an enemy of the Fatherland,” he said, and he denounced the German Socialist party as a “gang of traitors.” August Bebel, the Socialist party leader, said that every time the Kaiser opened his mouth, the party gained another hundred thousand votes.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/what-happens-when-a-bad-tempered-distractible-doofus-runs-an-empire

The FEC, and the public, had no idea where the cash went until Wednesday, when Make America Great Again quietly amended a 2016 quarterly FEC filing to note a very conspicuous transaction. The PAC now says that it refunded $50,000 to one of its donors, Florida real-estate developer Michael Dezertzov (who also goes by Michael Dezer). Dezertzov has partnered with Trump on a number of high-profile real-estate projects, and made bank selling Trump condos to, among others, wealthy Russian buyers.

The refund of Dezertzov’s contribution came on Aug. 18, 2016, according to Make America Great Again’s amended FEC filing. The next day, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort resigned under scrutiny of his own business dealings with wealthy Russian businessmen.

We still don’t know what Make America Great Again did with the remaining $60,000 that disappeared from its balance sheets.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-original-donald-trump-super-pac-just-announced-a-curious-reimbursement?ref=scroll

The NBC News “poll shows that Democrats enjoy a 10-point advantage on congressional preference, with 50 percent of registered voters wanting a Democratic-controlled Congress, versus 40 percent who want a GOP-controlled one.”

That 10-point difference is up three points from April, and it’s despite the improving economy.

“By a whopping 25-point margin, voters say they’re more likely to back a congressional candidate who promises to serve as a check on President Donald Trump,”

The poll also finds that “a majority — 53 percent — say they’re less likely to vote for a candidate who supports the president on most issues.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/trump-sinks-scandals-new-poll-reveals-americans-want-turn-congress-blue/

Trump requested Saudi oil support before Iran nuclear decision



A day before U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, one of his senior officials phoned Saudi Arabia to ask the world’s largest oil exporter to help keep prices stable if the decision disrupted supply.

Riyadh, Tehran’s arch rival, has long been a close Washington ally, but direct pressure on a member of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) over oil policies is rare. Washington last pressed Saudi Arabia to increase output in 2012.

Riyadh has said that even though prices have spiked to over $80 per barrel, the highest since 2014, the market has yet to recover from a long slump. Until the phone call, Saudi officials had been saying it was too early to raise output.

Riyadh took this line partly because higher crude prices could help the stock market float of a stake in state oil giant Saudi Aramco expected to take place in 2019, Saudi industry sources had told Reuters.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/trump-requested-saudi-oil-support-iran-nuclear-decision-sources/

“If you’re a (feminist) and you support the porn industry,” the president’s attorney said, “you should turn in your credentials.”

The New York Times‘ Maggie Haberman noted on Twitter that Giuliani’s comments about sex work aren’t just an example of him “trashing Daniels for Trump,” and that he spent his “early mayoralty closing down sex shops in NYC.”

Giuliani argued that Daniels is “not just generally un-credible,” but that she’s “un-credible from the point of view of wanting to get money.”

“She’s a con artist,” he said.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/rudy-giuliani-doubles-stormy-daniels-attack-telling-feminists-think/

Trump’s lies are so fast and furious — the Washington Post estimates that he has told five or six of them a day since he took office — that I got curious about what the very first lie he told when he started running for president, so I went back and had a look at his announcement for president in June of 2015.

I have to say, we should have seen him coming: a fake candidate, running a fake campaign, making a fake announcement for president in front of a fake crowd. That was Donald Trump on June 16, 2015, the day he descended the escalator in Trump Tower and announced that he was running for president. The lying began with the very first words out of his mouth as a candidate for president: “Wow. Whoa. That is some group of people. Thousands. This is beyond anybody’s expectations. There’s been no crowd like this.”

He had a row of American flags behind him, and he faced a crowd of what could have been, because of the size of the lobby of Trump Tower, only several hundred spectators. Who were they, these cheering “thousands?” Many in the crowd had been hired from a New York-based casting agency for movie extras, Extra Mile Casting. Four days previously, the agency had put out a casting call: “We are looking to cast people for the event to wear T-shirts and carry signs and help cheer him in support of his announcement,” the agency’s email said. “We understand this is not a traditional ‘background job,’ but we believe acting comes in all forms and that is inclusive of this school of thought,” the agency explained.

CNN would later report that on the street outside Trump Tower, “campaign volunteers flagged down pedestrians to hand them the campaign T-shirts and invite them inside for the announcement.”

https://www.salon.com/2018/06/06/donald-trump-has-been-lying-since-day-one/

Donald J. Trump
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Isn’t it Ironic? Getting ready to go to the G-7 in Canada to fight for our country on Trade (we have the worst trade deals ever made), then off to Singapore to meet with North Korea & the Nuclear Problem...But back home we still have the 13 Angry Democrats pushing the Witch Hunt!

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1004693718945984512

(CNN)President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had a testy phone call on May 25 over new tariffs imposed by the Trump administration targeting steel and aluminum imports coming from Canada, including one moment during the conversation in which Trump made an erroneous historical reference, sources familiar with the discussion told CNN.

According to the sources, Trudeau pressed Trump on how he could justify the tariffs as a "national security" issue. In response, Trump quipped to Trudeau, "Didn't you guys burn down the White House?" referring to the War of 1812.

The problem with Trump's comments to Trudeau is that British troops burned down the White House during the War of 1812. Historians note the British attack on Washington was in retaliation for the American attack on York, Ontario, in territory that eventually became Canada, which was then a British colony.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/06/politics/war-of-1812-donald-trump-justin-trudeau-tariff/index.html

Donald J. Trump
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The Fake News Media has been so unfair, and vicious, to my wife and our great First Lady, Melania. During her recovery from surgery they reported everything from near death, to facelift, to left the W.H. (and me) for N.Y. or Virginia, to abuse. All Fake, she is doing really well!

6:48 AM - 6 Jun 2018

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1004359335399641089

Donald J. Trump
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...Four reporters spotted Melania in the White House last week walking merrily along to a meeting. They never reported the sighting because it would hurt the sick narrative that she was living in a different part of the world, was really ill, or whatever. Fake News is really bad!

6:54 AM - 6 Jun 2018

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1004360833407815680