Progressive Discussion Tuesday 4-11-17

Trump’s daughter helped sway the president to launch Syria strike
04/11/17
By Steve Benen
It’s not exactly a secret the Pentagon encouraged Donald Trump to launch last week’s attack in Syria, but according to one of the president’s adult sons, Ivanka Trump played a key role, too.
Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Syria was influenced by his daughter, Ivanka, being “heartbroken and outraged” at the country’s alleged chemical weapons attack, one of the president’s sons told a British newspaper. […]

Trump’s 33-year-old son, Eric, told The Daily Telegraph on Monday that the strike was influenced in part by Ivanka, who he said she was “heartbroken and outraged” by the chemical attack.
Eric Trump, speaking to the British newspaper while visiting a Trump-branded golf course in Scotland, explained the behind-the-scenes situation at the White House. “Ivanka is a mother of three kids and she has influence,” he explained. “I’m sure she said, ‘Listen, this is horrible stuff.’ My father will act in times like that.”

He will? Really?

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this is the fact that Eric Trump was willing to say this out loud and on the record. Had one of the president’s critics levied this as an accusation – Trump launched missiles in part because one of his inexperienced kids influenced his thinking on matters of national security – it might have seemed a little excessive.

And yet, Eric Trump was comfortable describing the family dynamic this way, as if it weren’t embarrassing at all.

Remember, Ivanka Trump has no background in international affairs or security matters. The fact that she has a job and an office in the West Wing, after saying she wouldn’t join the White House staff, is itself curious, and that was before her brother suggested she’s advising the president on U.S. policy in Syria.

To appreciate the significance of this, imagine if Jill Stein’s voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin had backed the Democratic ticket, and Hillary Clinton were president right now. Then imagine the Democratic president had just launched a provocative military strike in the Middle East, despite campaign rhetoric to the contrary, because Chelsea Clinton – who had just been given a West Wing job for reasons no one can explain – made an emotional appeal to her mother.

Do you suppose that might generate some political controversy?

Postscript: In the same interview, Eric Trump added, “If there was anything that [the strike on] Syria did, it was to validate the fact that there is no Russia tie.” That may be another quote he’ll end up wishing he didn’t say.

That Eric was clueless enough to say that to a reporter shows how absolutely clueless he is, and how he just assumes anything anyone does in the family is ok by the divine right of kings.

Ivanka and Jared neither one have any experience and yet he listens to their counsel as if they were sages. Had Hillary listened to Chelsea and publicly scolded Assad much less drop 59 bombs the entire right would have been livid with outrage. Yet, Tweety listens to Ivanka, ignores Congress, and everything is just hunky-dory as far as the right is concerned.

Eric's words may very well come back to bite him, but this entire situation is going to bite us all big time. And the worst is yet to come.

Dan Rather

It is with sadness that I do not know where to begin. Today in a briefing, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer issued a statement that is so far beyond the pale, so tone deaf and blind to history and our precarious moment in world affairs, that it is with only a heavy heart that I even bring attention to it. There can be no joy in such incompetence.
In trying to make the case for the Administration's policy in Syria and vis a vis Russia which is confused to be generous, and wildly chaotic to be more precise, Mr. Spicer said, “We didn’t use chemical weapons in World War II. You know, you had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.” He continued, “So you have to, if you are Russia, ask yourself: Is this a country and a regime that you want to align yourself with?” When asked to clarify, Mr. Spicer said, "“I think when you come to sarin gas, he (Hitler) was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing.” Mr. Spicer went on to mention "Holocaust centers," in an apparent reference to the Nazi concentration camps.
This line of rhetoric is so unhinged, so amateurish, so lacking in the context and perspective necessary for statesmanship and diplomacy that I do not see how Mr. Spicer can be allowed to continue in his current position. But in the end, this is less about him and more about an Administration that is inserting itself in a civil war and now is plunging into a drastic reformulation of American foreign policy without any clear sense that they have a plan. When you try to explain such a situation, it is understandable that your words don't make sense.
A bar, already set low, continues to drop.

Shouty Spice is a complete moron. I did read a funny comment on FB though. It read something like this...

Pepsi: We have managed to create the worst PR disaster of 2017
United: Wait, hold my beer....
Spicer: Don't worry guys, I've got this!

Sorry if you weren't ready for funny on this yet lol