I would say that Washington politicians are shameless, except that this is beyond shameless. You have to be totally divorced from reality to do this.

In the comments to an article at Consortium News by Ray McGovern yesterday, a writer outlined some crucial points about Putin.

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/03/07/progressive-journalists-jump-the-s...

‘Progressive’ Journalists Jump the Shark on Russiagate
March 7, 2018 - By Ray McGovern

COMMENTS
nonsense factory
March 7, 2018

This essay is not about political power, although inevitably it dovetails into such. This is about another meaning of power.

From Webster's New 20th Century Dictionary Unabridged, Second Edition:

power, n. [old French pooir, from an old infinitive podia, from LL. n potter, to be able, used for posse, to able, from potis, able and esse, to be]
...5. physical force or energy; as in electric power.

Malcolm Gladwell, a gifted writer, popularized the idea of "tipping points". This concept is not limited to any one aspect of civil or even military life. It applies to animate and inanimate subjects.

How crazy is Donald Trump, or more appropriately, how far outside of the mainstream of US politics is he?

This week over at The Intercept, Robert Mackey posted a piece about Trump's policy proposal to use the US military as the muscle to seize the oil resources of Middle Eastern countries.

His article recounts the many occasions that Trump has touted this policy in interviews and suggests that we can "better understand what Trump really is," by viewing him through this lens.

To give you a flavor of the commentary that Mackey is referring to, here is a condensed version of some of Trump's word salad that Mackey quotes from an appearance on the Bill O'Reilly show (emphasis mine):

"In the old days, when you had wars, you win, right? You win. To the victor belong the spoils. So when we go to Iraq, we spend $1.4 trillion so far and thousands of lives are lost, right? And not to mention all the poor guys and gals with one arm and no arm and all the problems, right? ... I like the old system better: You won a war, you stay there, and you keep the oil. And you know, then those people will not have died in vain. Forget the money we spent, they will not have died in vain. ... You stay and protect the oil, and you take the oil and you take whatever is necessary for them and you take what’s necessary for us and we pay our self back $1.5 trillion or more. We take care of Britain, we take care of other countries that helped us, and we don’t be so stupid."

Mackey goes to some effort to demonstrate that Trump is a lunatic version of Smedley Butler's nightmare.