We're Getting Down to Close Family Only. Bolton Out.

This timeline is so confusing (why won't Michael J. Fox use the Delorean and try to fix this?).

Normally, John Bolton being removed from any position of power would be good news.

However....

He was right about it being bonkers-stupid to invite the Taliban to Camp David, and yeah, who the hell replaces him? Every time Trump fires someone, he replaces, or pseudo-replaces, them with someone nuttier and less qualified, and we're already barrel-scraping with John Bolton.

It's so confusing. The dissonance.

Not surprised. Also not sorry he's gone. But yeah, considering who's still hanging in there, I'm also not comforted.

ElaineA said:

Worse, I can't help but think 45 is going to float Jared Kushner as Bolton's replacement.

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Or Don Jr, to gift him some gravitas for his 2024 run at the Presidency...

For some reason (not for my health!) I'm reading Glenn Greenwald's take on the firing, which I'm not going to link to because why? Amazing you can broadly agree with someone's basic points and still not be sure if they're a parody account or not.

There's currently a press conf. with Mike Pompeo and... Steve Minuchin. I understand Pompeo talking about Bolton but why is Minuchin there, choosing reporters, talking about Iran, etc. What's going on?*




I realize there's no actual answer to that question, but wtf.

I don’t think *rump understands what any of these positions are actually meant to do, beyond rubbing his belly and handing him hamberders?

cornflake said:

who the hell replaces him? Every time Trump fires someone, he replaces, or pseudo-replaces, them with someone nuttier and less qualified, and we're already barrel-scraping with John Bolton.

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Joe Arpaio, of course. Because *something* needs to be done about those mexicans before 2020.

Palin has foreign policy experience (Alaska being close to Russia and all) and is looking for a fresh start. I bet she's looking at her phone right now.

I actually doubt he'd go for Palin. Not because she's unqualified (which she is), but because she's a camera magnet and he doesn't want anyone to outshine him in the media he professes to hate.

You have to remember how this yet another clusterfuck started.

Being short of any major realisations to show for, *rump wanted to rush negotiations with the talibans, invite them on US soil - no less - to "close the deal" (whatever that means), and presumably make some announcement in time for 9/11.

Let this sink in for a moment.

-cb

cbenoi1 said:

You have to remember how this yet another clusterfuck started.

Being short of any major realisations to show for, *rump wanted to rush negotiations with the talibans, invite them on US soil - no less - to "close the deal" (whatever that means), and presumably make some announcement in time for 9/11.

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Yeah, that seems likely. Bolton is a freak-show of a human -- a yawning chasm filled with blood and greasy smoke, with skin stretched over it and a mustache glued on top. But he's been critical of *rump's attempts to cozy up to the Taliban on the one hand, and of *rump's reluctance to stroke Bolton's Bomb-Bomb-Bomb,Bomb-Bomb-Iran boner on the other hand.

More "brilliant" ideas for Bolton's replacement:
* Devin Nunes
* Tucker Carlson

I realize the latter is also a camera magnet but he's a *rump sycophant that *rump loves to watch and quote, so he's got that going for him.

Introversion said:

I actually doubt he'd go for Palin. Not because she's unqualified (which she is), but because she's a camera magnet and he doesn't want anyone to outshine him in the media he professes to hate.

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Plus she worked for McCain so that's probably enough of a hard pass for the cheeto.

BenPanced said:

Plus she worked for McCain so that's probably enough of a hard pass for the cheeto.

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Ooooh, good point. Yeah, that's a hard "no" from *rump then.

Welp, the National Security Mustache title will need to be passed to someone else. (I admit to getting giggles thinking of it being ripped off Bolton's face and slapped onto someone else...)

Yeah, they always go from bad to worse in this regime, and I shudder to think who is worse than this "worse."

My money's on the cloned Hitler nose from the Weekly World News headline about thirty years back. (It was growing a mustache, so you knew it was real.) Though it may be overqualified, having actually held a government position at some point in its existence.

Considering news have been quiet (by this administration's standards), someone loud and crazy. I think it's between Joe Arpaio and Alex Jones.

I've heard Diamond & Silk.

Or Randy Quaid.

Both seem relatively benign by comparison tho.

I'm betting on either Amon Goeth or Frank Booth.

Dennis Rodman. He knows Kim. Just not as much as *rump so that makes him okay.

-cb

I liked the bit where Bolton (says he) offered his resignation at night and Trump said we'll talk in the morning and then fired-by-tweet.

It’s like Trailer-Park Camelot. Such class, such sophistication on concrete blocks in two-foot-tall unmown grass, on display for your viewing pleasure.

ElaineA said:

I saw someone refer to Trump as the "alpha wolf" today, and I laughed out loud. The man is a total, complete coward. No pack of self-respecting, intelligent canines would ever consent to be led by him.

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LOL, actually the Alpha thing is a widely-discredited theory. Don't ask for cites, I'm at work! Trump is consistently cowardly though, one of the few reasons I sleep at all.

I've also seen some guys I thought were smart praise Cheetolini's dovishness today, which is Chapter 9999 in my 'what tf is going on with white progressive dudes on Twitter' saga.

The alpha thing is discredited for wolves anyway. The so-called alpha male and female are simply the parents of the pack, so their offspring defer to them the way kids generally defer to their parents. There's nothing especially pushy or domineering about them personality wise, though. They're simply wolves who lived long enough to leave home and were lucky enough to find a mate also roaming around and some empty territory.

Wolves can't force a pack to accept them, nor can a lone, recently dispersed young adult wolf force an unrelated pack to allow them to set up shop in their territory.

Also, unlike Donald Trump, male wolves are incredibly involved parents and wolf pairs mate for life.

Edited to fix duplicate in same post. Sorry, I posted from a work computer, and since the start of this semester, the AW site runs like molasses on the campus. I don't have this issue at home.