Is this trip really necessary?

[Sue U]

By now you savvy news consumers have all heard about Trump's big announcement scheduled for today declaring that he will move the U.S. American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv (where literally the entire rest of the world parks its diplomats) to Jerusalem -- the city that both Israel and the Palestinian Authority claim as their capitals.

So, apart from the fact that the Trump administration's modus operandi in general is "What unnecessary crisis can we provoke this week?", I have to ask: Is Trump deliberately trying to provoke a terrorist attack he thinks he can use to wag the dog? Is he deliberately destroying whatever tenuous hold the U.S. had on being an "honest broker" in Mideast affairs? Is he deliberately undermining the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace? Is he just casually throwing Jared Kushner under the bus? What the actual fuck?????

[Lord Jim]

He's willing to blow any prospect for a mid-east peace process, inflame anti-Americanism in the Muslim world, and further tank our influence in the region in order to try and win a news cycle...

Because that's just the kinda guy he is...

He'd much rather have the press talking about this than Deutsche Bank...

That, and he likes to do things unilaterally just for the sake of showing that he can do them, no matter how ill-advised or counter-productive the consequences...

Honey Trump don't give a fuck...

[Big RR]

Pretty much sums it up.

[Guinevere]

And that *should* be enough for the "Country over Party" folks in the GOP to actually do something -- but its not. Shame on all of them.

[Big RR]

I agree, although I don't know what they can do other than raise their voices against it; FWIW, it seems like a lot of congressional dems are also pretty quiet (except for the ones who previously sup[ported it). Shame on them too.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Trump's SOP. Prudent = cowardly loser in his lexicon. I watched the prelude to the cabinet meeting an hour or two prior to the announcement, and he was boasting that ISIS had been defeated in Iraq and Syria, SFSG; and he then praised the US military who brought it about. Huh? Well they certainly played a part, so it's not a huge stretch. And he then turned to Gen Matthis on his left and said "And because of all the stuff I gave you." Leaving aside the fact that as a non-taxpayer he played no part in the 'giving', he just cannot help himself.

[rubato]

I can't find any way to explain his decisions as based on a rational strategy to achieve understandable goals. He just reacts in the moment.

I'm not being hyperbolic when I say he is psychotic.


yrs,
rubato