Category: President Donald Trump

Michigan Supreme Court rejects lawsuit to take Trump off the ballot

I think this is good idea, I will explain after the quote.

Via CNN:

The Michigan Supreme Court has rejected an attempt to remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 primary ballot based on the US Constitution’s “insurrectionist ban.”

The outcome, which was generally expected, is a victory for the former president, though an effort to remove him could be renewed for the general election. Wednesday’s decision contrasts with the recent ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court, which kicked Trump off its primary ballot because of his role in the January 6 Capitol riot. That decision has been paused pending an appeal.

[…]

The Michigan Court of Claims judge who first got the case said state law doesn’t give election officials any leeway to police the eligibility of presidential primary candidates. He also said the case raised a political question that shouldn’t be decided in the courts.

His decision was upheld by the Michigan Court of Appeals, which said: “At the moment, the only event about to occur is the presidential primary election. But as explained, whether Trump is disqualified is irrelevant to his placement on that particular ballot.”

The order from the Michigan Supreme Court was unsigned, and the court did not release a vote count.

I know, I said that I would not be writing about Trump. However, this to me, is less about Donald Trump, and more about election law and the constitution.

The reason I believe that this is a good thing, not because I support Trump; I do not hate the man, I just did not like the way he acted, while he was in the White House. However, I feel that the voters should decide who wins the Primary election and not the courts.

I have never believed that the Government should ever decide election. Because that basically is federalized elections. Let the people decide, not the court. This is why I felt that the Supreme Court should have never gotten involved in the 2000 election, with Bush vs Gore.

So, for once, Michigan made a good decision.

Others: Townhall, The Hill, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, HotAir, The Daily Beast, The Messenger, Washington Times, Axios, Vanity Fair, NBC News, NPR, Bloomberg, Fox News, USA Today, Blaze Media, UPI, Breitbart, Reuters, PoliticusUSA, DNyuz, RedState, Raw Story, Twitchy, Detroit Free Press, ABC News, The New Civil Rights Movement, Semafor, Mother Jones, Michigan Advance, National Review, WFLA-TV, CBS News, New York Times, Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, Denver Post, Talking Points Memo, The National Pulse+, Election Law Blog and The Post Millennial

Stalking of a Trump Law Office is just wrong

You know I’m no fan of Donald J Trump, but this here is totally ridiculous.

This story comes from Powerline Blog, with a Hat Tip to InstaPundit. Who are Pro-Trump Bloggers, but I think this is totally wrong. Check this out: Law Firm’s Withdrawal Reflects Chilling Reality [Updated]

“Porter Wright is a mid-sized law firm with offices in eight cities across the country. But apparently it lacked the courage to stand up against the Twitter mob. The ‘Lincoln Project’ doxxed the two Porter Wright lawyers who signed the Pennsylvania complaint, tweeting their pictures, addresses and telephone numbers, and encouraging leftists to harass them.”

Remember, the alleged goal of the “Lincoln Project” is to return America to its pre-Trump decency. They should instead call themselves the McCarthy Project.

Plus, from John Hinderaker: “We can imagine a future, someday, when law firms will be able to represent Republicans without having to explain or apologize for it. Just like the law firms that represent Islamic terrorists.” I believe he means, “just like the law firms that represent Islamic terrorists for free.”

The thing is, like most institutions in America, big law firms are run by people who care more about the opinions of their social peer group than about their institutional or civic responsibilities. Unfortunately, not only are the people who run most of our institutions garbage, but so are the peer groups they let guide them.

Okay, this is where I step off of the anti-trump train for a Moment of clarity. You may dislike Trump in a big way as do I. However, when you go around doxing people who are simply doing their jobs, you have a serious problem and it’s not with Trump.

The last time I checked in this country every United States citizen and that includes the President of the United States has a right to bring grievances to a court to get a decision made that they feel will bring them Justice.

Not to mention the fact that, the last time I checked in this country revealing someone’s personal information with the intent of causing them harm; whether that be physical violence or otherwise, is basically a federal crime and is a felony. There are many people that have gone to jail in this country for doing just such a thing.

Again I am no fan of Donald J. Trump I think he was the worst president that we’ve ever had since possibly Bush. But the doxxing of people who are simply doing their jobs, by an organization who simply does not like Trump and wants to engage in Internet terrorism to get their job done; is no better than Al Qaeda, Isis and the mafia.

Thoughts on Trump, His covid-19 diagnoses and reelection

Before I begin here, I just wanted to inform my readers that I did vote Libertarian this time around and it was, I felt for a good reason. I was not about to vote for Trump this time around. When I voted for him in 2016;  I thought he would do a much better job than Obama and I was wrong and I apologize to everyone for even remotely thinking he was going to a decent, honorable and a statesman type of President.  This was my error and I own it.

On Trump’s COVID-19 diagnoses:

I am truly sorry that Trump caught COVID-19. I hope that he fully recovers and serves out his term. I have seen the posts wishing that Trump dies; and I find that to be reprehensible. The worst was here, I will not comment on it, just go read. It is truly awful.

On Trump’s reelection chances:

Good luck with that. Let me show you something.

This was a map, made up of a composite of Trump votes in 2016 in Michigan:

Click here to see polling results here in Michigan.

It’s going to be bad.

Till next time,

-Pat

 

Tucker Carlson 2024? Nope, Won’t happen.

I honestly had to chuckle when I read this…:

Tucker Carlson in 2018

Tucker Carlson’s audience is booming — and so is chatter that the popular Fox News host will parlay his TV perch into a run for president in 2024.

Republican strategists, conservative commentators, and former Trump campaign and administration officials are buzzing about Carlson as the next-generation leader of Donald Trump’s movement — with many believing he would be an immediate frontrunner in a Republican primary.

“He’s a talented communicator with a massive platform. I think if he runs he’d be formidable,” said Luke Thompson, a Republican strategist who worked for Jeb Bush’s super PAC in 2016.

While practically every Republican eyeing a 2024 presidential run is professing loyalty to Trump the person, Carlson has become perhaps the highest-profile proponent of “Trumpism” — a blend of anti-immigrant nationalism, economic populism and America First isolationism that he articulates unapologetically and with some snark. At the same time, he’s shown a rare willingness among Republicans to bluntly criticize Trump when he believes the president is straying from that ideology.

In another twist, Carlson has established a friendship with Donald Trump, Jr., according to a source familiar with their relationship. Trump Jr. has drawn his own share of presidential buzz.“Tucker Carlson Tonight” is currently the most watched cable news program in history, according to the second quarter ratings released this week. And on Fox News’ YouTube channel, Carlson’s segments from the past quarter have drawn well over 60 million views and are among the most popular videos in the eight years since the network began posting on the platform.

His popularity with the base would instigate a debate over the future of the party — essentially whether Trump was an aberration or a party-realigning disrupter — a fight that will be all the fiercer if Trump loses in November.

“Let me put it this way: If Biden wins and Tucker decided to run, he’d be the nominee,” said Sam Nunberg, a former top political aide to Trump who knows Carlson. But Nunberg said he doesn’t believe Carlson will run because “he’s so disgusted with politicians.” — Source: Tucker Carlson 2024? The GOP is buzzing – POLITICO

Now here is why this would never work. Tucker is an ideologue and he is quite hardcore with his beliefs. He would never appeal to anyone ever remotely anywhere near the center. I personally find his commentary and speaking style horrifyingly annoying. Personally, I think he sounds like a smart aleck rich kid, who thinks he knows everything.  Don Imus summed him up, by calling him a “bow tie wearing faggot.”

In reality, Don Imus was not referring to his sexuality, he was referring to what he was, which was and still is, an entitled white rich kid, who is a bit of a smart aleck. The problem with that perception of him is, that the perception of him is rooted in reality. See here from Wikipedia:

Carlson was born Tucker McNear Carlson in San Francisco, California. He is the elder son of Richard Warner Carlson, a former “gonzo reporter“[3] who became the director of the Voice of America, president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the U.S. Ambassador to the Seychelles.[4] Carlson’s paternal grandparents were Richard Boynton and Dorothy Anderson, teenagers who placed his father in an orphanage where he was adopted when he was two years old by the Carlsons. Richard Carlson’s adoptive father was a wool broker.[5][3][6]

Carlson’s mother was artist Lisa McNear (née Lombardi). He also has a brother, Buckley Peck Carlson (later, Buckley Swanson Peck Carlson), who is nearly two years younger.[7]

In 1976, Carlson’s parents divorced after the nine-year marriage reportedly “turned sour.”[7][8] Carlson’s father was granted custody of him and his brother. Carlson’s mother left the family when he was six, wanting to pursue a “bohemian” lifestyle.[4][9] She eventually split her time between Beaufort County, South Carolina and Cazac, France, where she had little contact with Carlson’s family and later married artist Michael Vaughn.[10][11][12][13]

Dick Carlson was said to be an active father who had a specific outlook in raising his sons:

I want them to be self-disciplined to the degree that I think is necessary to find satisfaction … you measure a person on how far they go, on how far they’ve sprung. My parents, the Carlsons, they instilled a modesty in me that, at times, gets in my way … I know it’s immodest of me to say it, but it’s difficult sometimes when you want to beat your own drum and say what you really think.

In 1979, Carlson’s father married divorcée Patricia Caroline Swanson, an heiress to Swanson Enterprises. Swanson is the daughter of Gilbert Carl Swanson and the niece of Senator J. William Fulbright.[4][14] This was the third marriage for Swanson, who legally adopted Carlson and his brother.[12][14]

When Carlson was in first grade, his father moved him and his brother to La Jolla, California and raised them there.[15][16] In La Jolla, Carlson attended La Jolla Country Day School and grew up in a home overlooking the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club.[17] His father owned property in Nevada, Vermont, and islands in Maine and Nova Scotia.[17][3]

Carlson attained his secondary education at St. George’s School, a boarding school in Middletown, Rhode Island. He then went to Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he graduated in 1991 with a BA in history.[4] After college, Carlson tried to join the Central Intelligence Agency, but his application was denied, after which he decided to pursue a career in journalism with the encouragement of his father.[18][4]

So, to say that he was typical kid from the city; would be a very bad statement to make. To be absolutely clear, I do not hate Tucker Carlson, I just happen to know that he is simply a product of his environment, as am I. We could have some very different outlooks on life, the World as a whole and so forth.

So, in closing, let me say this; While Trucker Carlson might be good for the Conservative wing of the Republican Party, he would be a disaster in an general election. I just hope that Tucker or some of his people, and someone from the GOP reads this.

Others: (click at own risk) Washington Post, Lawyers, Guns & Money, The Week, Raw Story, No More Mister Nice Blog, Alternet.org and Business Insider

DOJ seeks to Suspend Certain Constitutional Rights During Coronavirus Emergency

This is worse than what Michigan’s Governor is doing!

Via Politico:

The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers that comes as the coronavirus spreads through the United States.

Documents reviewed by POLITICO detail the department’s requests to lawmakers on a host of topics, including the statute of limitations, asylum and the way court hearings are conducted. POLITICO also reviewed and previously reported on documents seeking the authority to extend deadlines on merger reviews and prosecutions.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on the documents.

The move has tapped into a broader fear among civil liberties advocates and Donald Trump’s critics — that the president will use a moment of crisis to push for controversial policy changes. Already, he has cited the pandemic as a reason for heightening border restrictions and restricting asylum claims. He has also pushed for further tax cuts as the economy withers, arguing that it would soften the financial blow to Americans. And even without policy changes, Trump has vast emergency powers that he could legally deploy right now to try and slow the coronavirus outbreak.

The DOJ requests — which are unlikely to make it through a Democratic-led House — span several stages of the legal process, from initial arrest to how cases are processed and investigated.

In one of the documents, the department proposed that Congress grant the attorney general power to ask the chief judge of any district court to pause court proceedings “whenever the district court is fully or partially closed by virtue of any natural disaster, civil disobedience, or other emergency situation.”

The proposal would also grant those top judges broad authority to pause court proceedings during emergencies. It would apply to “any statutes or rules of procedure otherwise affecting pre-arrest, post-arrest, pre-trial, trial, and post-trial procedures in criminal and juvenile proceedings and all civil process and proceedings,” according to draft legislative language the department shared with Congress. In making the case for the change, the DOJ document wrote that individual judges can currently pause proceedings during emergencies, but that their proposal would make sure all judges in any particular district could handle emergencies “in a consistent manner.”

The request raised eyebrows because of its potential implications for habeas corpus –– the constitutional right to appear before a judge after arrest and seek release.

“Not only would it be a violation of that, but it says ‘affecting pre-arrest,’” said Norman L. Reimer, the executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “So that means you could be arrested and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the civil disobedience is over. I find it absolutely terrifying. Especially in a time of emergency, we should be very careful about granting new powers to the government.”

Reimer said the possibility of chief judges suspending all court rules during an emergency without a clear end in sight was deeply disturbing.

“That is something that should not happen in a democracy,” he said.

The department also asked Congress to pause the statute of limitations for criminal investigations and civil proceedings during national emergencies, “and for one year following the end of the national emergency,” according to the draft legislative text.

And….:

Another controversial request: The department is looking to change the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure in some cases to expand the use of videoconference hearings, and to let some of those hearings happen without defendants’ consent, according to the draft legislative text.

“Video teleconferencing may be used to conduct an appearance under this rule,” read a draft of potential new language for Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5(f), crossing out the phrase “if the defendant consents.”

“Video teleconferencing may be used to arraign a defendant,” read draft text of rule 10(c), again striking out the phrase “if the defendant consents.”

I have always suspected something like this might happen, irregardless of which party is in power. Now, it does say that the Democrats likely will not allow this to happen. But, you never know. I just find it amazing that a Republican lead Justice Dept. would do such a thing.

As Rick Moran at PJ Media said:]

Regardless, I’ll stick with Ben Franklin: ” They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Indeed.

Others: Outside the Beltway, Letters from an American, PJ Media Home, Raw Story, Redstate, Daily Kos, The Hill, Reason, The Moderate Voice, Rolling Stone

 

God Bless David Harsanyi

Never though I would ever write that headline here…. Especially seeing Harsanyi is an atheist.

But, when he’s right, he’s right.

Mr. Harsanyi is responding to this:

Harsanyi had something to say about that, seeing he is Jewish. He writes at National Review:

When fellow Hungarians came for my grandfather — he was one of the first to be deported from the country — they sent him to sweep mines on the Eastern Front before handing him over to the Germans at Mauthausen and then Gunskirchen.

At some point he perished, no doubt, in a vile and undignified manner, perhaps succumbing to starvation or typhoid or dysentery, or maybe he was shot in the head and left in a shallow unmarked grave. We don’t know. His wife and son, the latter of whom he would never meet, would never find out how he died, despite decades of trying. His loss, like the deaths of millions of other powerless and now anonymous victims of that age, would have repercussions that reverberate today.

When “they” came for James Comey, on the other hand, he landed a massive book deal, made millions on the speaking circuit, wagged his finger at his former boss through social media to his million followers, and spent some quality time with family. He never once had to worry about state-sanctioned violence. Comey, a man powerful enough to oversee a cooked-up investigation into a presidential candidate, merely lost a job.

Like Comey, all the alleged victims on Wittes’s ludicrous list served at the pleasure of the president and could be fired by Donald Trump for almost any reason he desired, just as they could have been fired by Barack Obama or Jimmy Carter or FDR. Many of the people on the list, in fact, have been investigated by the inspector general, who found that they acted either incompetently or potentially illegally.

Government bureaucrats aren’t endowed with a God-given right to work in the executive branch of the United States government. Most of these “victims” will find lucrative work elsewhere. None, I confidently say, are going to be thrown into camps. If you don’t like who Trump fires, or how he fires them, you can always vote for another candidate.

It might come as a surprise to those who, through hyperbole, demean the real victims of history, but Nazi Germany didn’t hold impeachment hearings for their leaders in 1938, there was no institutional anti-Hitler media in 1939, and most people in 1940 did not publicly accuse Hitler of being a seditious criminal and madman. Those who did, such as Martin Niemöller, ended up in Sachsenhausen and Dachau, not the green room at CNN.

God bless him. It is about time that someone spoke out against that sort of nonsense.

 

I cannot believe I actually voted for this man

Here is the letter, that President Donald Trump wrote to Nancy Pelosi. I am not a fan of hers either. But, this is some seriously stompy foot stuff here. 😒

Click here to read the letter, it’s a PDF file.

The President is on shaky ground. and he knows it.

Via New York Magazine’s Intelligencer

GOP and Dem Senators introduce bill to force a vote on selling arms to the Saudi’s

I am with The American Conservative on this one, it is about time. For years, the United States has been fighting Al-Qaeda and ISIS, all the while ignoring the fact that these terrorists are in fact Saudi’s and Sunni Muslims.

Via NBC News:

WASHINGTON — Two senators plan to introduce a bill Monday designed to force a vote on current and future U.S. arms sales and other military support to Saudi Arabia, saying it was time lawmakers checked President Donald Trump’s attempts to bypass Congress on foreign policy.

The bill, sponsored by Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who both sit on the Foreign Relations Committee, marks the latest counterpunch by lawmakers who strongly oppose selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and who are outraged at the Trump administration’s recent decision to sidestep Congress on an arms deal worth billions of dollars.

“The process we are setting in motion will allow Congress to weigh in on the totality of our security relationship with Saudi Arabia, not just one arms sale, and restore Congress’s role in foreign policy-making,” Murphy said in a statement.

Last week, a bipartisan group of senators, including Murphy and Young, proposed nearly two dozen resolutions that would require votes on each of the arms sales that make up the $8.1 billion weapons package to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan announced by the Trump administration on May 24. By law, arm sales require congressional approval but the Trump administration avoided any review by lawmakers for the controversial deal by declaring a national security “emergency,” citing the threat posed by Iran.

Daniel Larson at the American Conservative writes:

Murphy and Young have been two of the most consistent and active opponents of our government’s despicable Yemen policy, and they have been fighting to reassert Congress’ role in matters of war for the last several years. Young, a Republican from Indiana, has been one of a handful of senators from his party to break ranks with the administration and vote to end U.S. involvement in the war on Yemen. It is encouraging to see many members of Congress are standing up against executive overreach and abuse of power. The Murphy-Young legislation is just the latest example of how the president’s obnoxious subservience to the Saudis and the UAE has provoked growing dissatisfaction and resistance among our representatives in Washington. Murphy and Young’s bill complements the bipartisan effort to stop Trump’s bogus arms sale “emergency,” and it goes beyond that…

[…]

Congress should use every tool available to it to challenge the administration’s unconditional support for the Saudis. Each time they succeed in passing new measures against arms sales and the war on Yemen, they increase the number of people in Congress and the public willing to speak out and criticize the noxious U.S.-Saudi relationship. Thanks to the Trump administration’s contempt for Congress and the Constitution and their equally strong enthusiasm for the Saudi government, that relationship is in worse shape than it has been in decades, and there is a large and growing backlash against our government’s continued backing for the Saudis and their crimes.

Agreed. If we are going to hold Iran accountable, we should hold the rest of the Arab world accountable as well and this includes the Saudi Government as well. Good to see that both sides are coming together, if just for this one issue.

The Neocons in the Trump Administration are steering America into another war

This also includes the Saudi Government as well. I say this, because of this piece of news here, via YNetNews.com:

A state-aligned Saudi newspaper is calling for “surgical” U.S. strikes in retaliation against alleged threats from Iran.

The Arab News published an editorial in English on Thursday, arguing that after incidents this week against Saudi energy targets, the next logical step “should be surgical strikes.”

The editorial says U.S. airstrikes in Syria, when the government there was suspected of using chemical weapons against civilians, “set a precedent.”

It added that it’s “clear that (U.S.) sanctions are not sending the right message” and that “they must be hit hard,” in reference to Iran, without elaborating on what specific targets should be struck.

The newspaper’s publisher is the Saudi Research and Marketing Group, a company that had long been chaired by various sons of King Salman until 2014 and is regarded as reflecting official position.

It seems that John Bolton is behind much of this:

Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton wants the United States to go to war with Iran.

We know this because he has been saying it for nearlytwodecades.

And everything that the Trump administration has done over its Iran policy, particularly since Bolton became Trump’s top foreign policy adviser in April of 2018, must be viewed through this lens, including the alarming US military posturing in the Middle East of the past two weeks.

Just after one month on the job, Bolton gave Trump the final push he needed to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement, which at the time was (and still is, for now) successfully boxing in Iran’s nuclear program and blocking all pathways for Iran to build a bomb. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – as the Iran deal is formally known – was the biggest obstacle to Bolton’s drive for a regime change war, because it eliminated a helpful pretext that served so useful to sell the war in Iraq 17 years ago.

Since walking away from the deal, the Trump administration has claimed that with a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, it can achieve a “better deal” that magically turns Iran into a Jeffersonian democracy bowing to every and any American wish. But this has always been a fantastically bad-faith argument meant to obscure the actual goal (regime change) and provide cover for the incremental steps – the crushing sanctions, bellicose rhetoric, and antagonizing military maneuvers – that have now put the United States closer to war with Iran than it has been since at least the latter half of the Bush administration, or perhaps ever.

And Bolton has no qualms about manipulating or outright ignoring intelligence to advance his agenda, which is exactly what’s happening right now.

In his White House statement 10 days ago announcing (an already pre-planned) carrier and bomber deployment to the Middle East, Bolton cited “a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” from Iran to justify the bolstered US military presence. But multiple sources who have seen the same intelligence have since said that Bolton and the Trump administration blew it “out of proportion, characterizing the threat as more significant than it actually was”. Even a British general operating in the region pushed back this week, saying he has seen no evidence of an increased Iranian threat.

Pat Buchanan observes:

After Venezuela’s army decided not to rise up and overthrow Nicholas Maduro, by Sunday night, it was Iran that was in our gun sights.

Bolton ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln, its carrier battle group and a bomber force to the Mideast “to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.”

What “attack” was Bolton talking about?

According to Axios, Israel had alerted Bolton that an Iranian strike on U.S. interests in Iraq was imminent.

Flying to Finland, Pompeo echoed Bolton’s warning:

“We’ve seen escalatory actions from the Iranians, and … we will hold the Iranians accountable for attacks on American interests. … (If) these actions take place, if they do by some third-party proxy, whether that’s a Shia militia group or the Houthis or Hezbollah, we will hold the … Iranian leadership directly accountable for that.”

Taken together, the Bolton-Pompeo threats add up to an ultimatum that any attack by Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, or Iran-backed militias — on Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE or U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria or the Gulf states — will bring a U.S. retaliatory response on Iran itself.

Did President Donald Trump approve of this? For he appears to be going along. He has pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions. Last week, he canceled waivers he had given eight nations to let them continue buying Iranian oil.

Purpose: Reduce Iran’s oil exports, 40% of GDP, to zero, to deepen an economic crisis that is already expected to cut Iran’s GDP this year by 6%.

Trump has also designated Iran a terrorist state and the Republican Guard a terrorist organization, the first time we have done that with the armed forces of a foreign nation. We don’t even do that with North Korea.

Iran responded last Tuesday by naming the U.S. a state sponsor of terror and designating U.S. forces in the Middle East as terrorists.

[…]

Today, Trump’s approval rating in the Gallup Poll has reached an all-time high, 46%, a level surely related to the astonishing performance of the U.S. economy following Trump’s tax cuts and sweeping deregulation.

While a Gulf war with Iran might be popular at the outset, what would it do for the U.S. economy or our ability to exit the forever war of the Middle East, as Trump has pledged to do?

In late April, in an interview with Fox News, Iran’s foreign minister identified those he believes truly want a U.S.-Iranian war.

Asked if Trump was seeking the confrontation and the “regime change” that Bolton championed before becoming his national security adviser, Mohammad Javad Zarif said no. “I do not believe President Trump wants to do that. I believe President Trump ran on a campaign promise of not bringing the United States into another war.

“President Trump himself has said that the U.S. spent $7 trillion in our region … and the only outcome of that was that we have more terror, we have more insecurity, and we have more instability.

“People in our region are making the determination that the presence of the United States is inherently destabilizing. I think President Trump agrees with that.”

But if it is not Trump pushing for confrontation and war with Iran, who is?

Said Zarif, “I believe ‘the B-team’ wants to actually push the United States, lure President Trump, into a confrontation that he doesn’t want.”

And who makes up “the B-team”?

Zarif identifies them: Bolton, Benjamin Netanyahu, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.

Should the B-team succeed in its ambitions — it will be Trump’s war, and Trump’s presidency will pay the price.

Buchanan also writes:

After an exhausting two weeks, one is tempted to ask: How many quarrels, clashes and conflicts can even a superpower manage at one time? And is it not time for the United States, preoccupied with so many crises, to begin asking, “Why is this our problem?”

Perhaps the most serious issue is North Korea’s quest for nuclear-armed missiles that can reach the United States. But the reason Kim is developing missiles that can strike Seattle or LA is that 28,000 U.S. troops are in South Korea, committed to attack the North should war break out. That treaty commitment dates to a Korean War that ended in an armed truce 66 years ago.

If we cannot persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons in return for a lifting of sanctions, perhaps we should pull U.S. forces off the peninsula and let China deal with the possible acquisition of their own nuclear weapons by Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

Iran has no nukes or ICBMs. It wants no war with us. It does not threaten us. Why is Iran then our problem to solve rather than a problem for Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and the Sunni Arabs?

Nor does Russia’s annexation of Crimea threaten us. When Ronald Reagan strolled through Red Square with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988, all of Ukraine was ruled by Moscow.

The Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro was established decades ago by his mentor, Hugo Chavez. When did that regime become so grave a threat that the U.S. should consider an invasion to remove it?

During the uprising in Caracas, Bolton cited the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. But according to President James Monroe, and Mike Pompeo’s predecessor John Quincy Adams, who wrote the message to Congress, under the Doctrine, while European powers were to keep their hands off our hemisphere — we would reciprocate and stay out of Europe’s quarrels and wars.

Wise folks, those Founding Fathers.

Bolton must go, if Trump wants to remain President. because those who elected him, who do not subscribe to the neocon foreign policy doctrine, will vote for someone else or not at all.