A second Trump-Putin meeting would be madness

[dalton99a]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/20/opinions/trumps-invite-to-putin-opinion-ghitis/index.html

A second Trump-Putin meeting would be madness
By Frida Ghitis
Updated 1:54 PM ET, Sat July 21, 2018

(CNN) Donald Trump is President, but he is not king of America; the country is not his private property.

When he was running his "Trump Organization," he was free to hold secret meetings -- even with his enemies -- to ignore everyone's advice and then tell no one what transpired. But the US is not a wholly-owned subsidiary of Trumpworld, and the country needs answers about what happened in Helsinki. So far, we have virtually nothing. All we have is a new plan likely to make it all worse with another meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On Thursday, America's top intelligence official, Director of National Security Dan Coats happened to be on stage, on camera, when he was informed by NBC's Andrea Mitchell that the White House had just tweeted yet another bombshell: Trump had invited Putin to visit the White House this fall. His reaction -- a deep breath, exhalation, nervous laughter -- confirms the danger. "That's going to be special," Coats said, to more nervous laughter in the audience.

Coats had already said he was not consulted about Trump's Helsinki summit and would have advised against it. After hours spent with the Russian President, Trump went on to disparage the conclusions from Coats and other intelligence agencies: that Putin not only led attacks on US democracy in 2016 but continues to do so and plans further interference in US elections this fall, when Putin presumably will be Trump's guest.

This, to put it mildly, is a travesty.

....

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. And that's exactly why it will happen.

Nothing Trump does is sane.

[NCjack]

2. A Putin visit makes sense. He is well past retirement age, and

this gives him a government paid trip to look around for a little cabin in Kentucky or Wisconsin.

[RainCaster]

3. This is perfect - right before the elections

A great reminder to all of us about who really owns the Marmalade Shart Cannon.