Is there any end to the narcissistic depravity of this so-called President?

Asking for a friend.

Because Putin's aggressive foreign policy is for domestic (Russian) consumption.

And it works for his popularity.

I think Trump abandoned the Kurds cuz of proof of Trump/Kushner complicity in the Khashoggi murder.

Remind me which Saudi consulate that Khashoggi was murdered in.

Remind me which Middle Eastern Crown Prince bragged about “having Jared Kushner in (his) back pocket.”

——

For further evidence of what info Erdogan has on Trump and Kushner, remember Michael Flynn’s lobbying work. And remember that the Saudis (and the Emiratis) led the brutal blockade against Qatar, which pushed Qatar closer to Turkey - and also Iran. Which country is Iran’s biggest ally? Oh right, Russia. And remember the Qatari connection to 666 Fifth Avenue.

Blackmail, bribery, and extortion all around...

Slave-owners were by definition dictators. The White Nationalist POTUS acts as a dictator.

No coincidence.

No matter what happens next, (enough) Democrats did their job today.

And good on for them for that.

You know someone's innocent when they tweet at the top of their lungs, "I DID NOTHING WRONG!"

The UK election offers a valuable lesson: hardline Far Left activism can be politically fatal.

Especially when paired with credible accusations of anti-Semitism as well as being utterly divorced from the traditional base of your party, particularly outside of college-educated urban areas.

The truth damns them all and they know it. They're co-conspirators.

Time and time again, Republican politicians have put wealth and power over everything else.

They care only about staying on the good side of their Trump-cultist primary voters, their super-rich donors, 45 himself, and increasingly, Trump and other Republicans' various foreign patrons such as those in Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, etc etc. and so on and so forth.

They've got their dictatorial President who champions everything from tax cuts for the rich, cutting social programs for the poor, slashing any and all regulations of business, stacking the federal courts with far-right ideologues, cracking down on immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, Muslims, and the rest of the "least of these" that these so-called Christians love to hate, giving the Religious Right the "right" to discriminate against LGBTQ folks and others based on "religious freedom" - all while President Tremendous Deals distracts everyone with his Twitter tantrums while party elites like Mitch McConnell get their way on the aforementioned causes and others.

Those waiting on basically any of them to "see the light" will be waiting indefinitely.

Re: Putin, note that he is from St.Petersburg - Russia's most "European" city.

Yet he grew up in the poor, burned out ruins of the post-WWII “Leningrad.” Putin desperately wants to be taken seriously as a Great Man, and Russia as a Great Power - a Great European Power - but Russia is not that powerful in and of itself. And Putin, rather than owning up to the harsh reality, has decided that it’s better to exploit the weaknesses of the European powers (and the USA, of course - the “Main Enemy”) in order to drag them down to Russia’s level.

On a related note: Putin wanted to be a KGB officer from a very early age. Yet while stationed in Dresden in the 1980s, he was by all accounts a decidedly average paper-pusher in the KGB. I think Putin has a massive inferiority complex about this, and about being left helpless in the face of the Berlin Wall coming down and the East German regime’s collapse (“Moscow is silent”), not to mention, the collapse of the Soviet Union itself (“one of the greatest geopolitical catastrophes.”). To this day, he’s nursing his grudges, remembering the slights, the “traitors” past and present, real and imagined. Putin clearly relies on his intelligence services for information and advice of all kinds - the paradox of a man who values the lies and secrecy of Machiavellian espionage services and secret police over any truth or transparency.

Botton line, while Putin is a shrewd tactician and brutal authoritarian, he’s every bit as petty and corrupt as his friends/assets in the White House and elsewhere, even if he’s smarter than most of them (especially 45 - low fucking bar though!). He’s not at heart that powerful a leader; his foreign policy is often calculated based on what is perceived by the Kremlin to be politically popular WITHIN Russia. Translation: sticking it to the US, the UK, the EU, NATO, and the independent non-Russian countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, he’s figured out our country’s neuroses and pathologies and has learned how to play them accordingly (Not that we were hiding them - it doesn’t take a KGB officer to know the power of racism, sexism, and conspiracy theories, especially if uttered daily by a bloviating Reality TV star...).

Anyway, that’s basically my take on Vladimir Putin. Stream of consciousness, I know.