No, of course not. It’s always selective based on their own opinion.

What? Attacked for feeding ducks? I hope they also criticized him for building a walkway and having the water level lowered, rather than just letting them die from exhaustion and drowning, as Mother Nature would have wanted.

Exactly…Reality TV is all it is. Ratings!!!

Giuliani said Kim was begging for the meeting, but it’s the other way around. Trump is desperate for the photo op. It won’t even matter what happens – he know that his supporters will see the photo as a reason to laud him and vote for him again.

That’s a really important point – high oil prices directly benefit Putin and Russia. Saudi Arabia, who have the cheapest processing cost and the most, easily accessible oil, have been keeping prices low deliberately to hurt Russia as part of the US and others not making too much noise about their human rights abuses and help in Yemen. I wrote about the damage low oil prices was doing to the Russian economy some time ago. Putin really wants prices to go up!

It’s strange that I capitalized the noun ‘nukes’ twice…I guess it’s my German studies infiltrating me brain. 😉

I should have said I don’t think they’re the only problem. All the causes you’ve outlined in the past are important. My pick for #1 is Comey, though I admit my ranking changes from time to time.

Congress (and the Senate) is pretty good at saying there are three co-equal branches of government when the majority are in the opposition party to the president. However, when they;re the same party, they become a rubber stamp no matter what that president does and appear to abdicate all responsibility.

A prime minister has no more power than anyone else in a parliamentary system when it comes to voting. S/he is just first among equals.

That reminds me – our unmarried, female, atheist (former Mormon), prime minister is due to give birth today. I should be keeping an eye on the news.

He’s giving the Supreme Leader exactly what he wants- a seat at the table…legitimization. Past Presidents didn’t play the carrot/stick game; since he was building Nukes, they wouldn’t give him a carrot. Now that he’s got Nukes (and will never relinquish them) why is this meeting even important. Well, it gets Trump out of the G-7 climate change talks. For POTUS, it’s more important to make nice with a tyrant than seek solutions to a dying planet. Some say making nice might stop a nuclear war, but starting a nuclear war has never been NK’s intent. They just wanted/needed a very BIG deterrent. Now they have their deterrent AND their place at the table. Kim 1, Trump 0.

I think Putin is able to control Trump because he has something on him. This latest idea already mentioned in the thread where he suggests it’s time to have Russia back in the G7 has to have come from Russia. Trump would NOT have thought of that on his own. I’d be surprised if he even knew the G7 and the G8 are the same things.

And, of course, letting Putin back into the G7, making it the G8 again, would be the first step to acceptance of his annexing of Crimea.

Like Peters, Clapper, Comey, and several others who have spoken out on the matter, Trump is acting like Putin has kompromat on him. There are three other possibilities I can see, but they’re all less likely:
1. He has kompromat on Ivanka.
2. Putin has made promises about deals for hotels, golf courses etc in Russia if Trump behaves.
3. Trump’s allegiance is to Russia and not the USA.

I suspect that the kompromat is to do with money or sex or both. I expect most people think the same.

I personally wouldn’t use the word shill because to me it means his primary allegiance is to Russia and he’s doing all this for a higher purpose (in his own mind). Different cultures use words differently, so I don’t know if this is a cultural misunderstanding or you have a different idea of Trump’s motives to me.

I agree that Trump is ignorant, but not stupid. However, I also think his personality plays a big part in this.

Trump believing he can rely on his instincts for the meeting with Kim is a made to measure extreme example for one half of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. (Obviously, the half where people don’t know enough to realize how little they know and thus have misplaced confidence.)