John Brennan: I will speak out until integrity returns to the White House

[fleur-de-lisa]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/john-brennan-i-will-speak-out-until-integrity-returns-to-the-white-house/2018/05/31/afbccafa-64e8-11e8-a69c-b944de66d9e7_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.94e458ebc484

The esteem with which I held the presidency was dealt a serious blow when Donald Trump took office. Almost immediately, I began to see a startling aberration from the remarkable, though human, presidents I had served. Mr. Trump’s lifelong preoccupation with aggrandizing himself seemed to intensify in office, and he quickly leveraged his 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. address and his Twitter handle to burnish his brand and misrepresent reality.

Presidents throughout the years have differed in their approaches to policy, based on political platforms, ideologies and individual beliefs. Mr. Trump, however, has shown highly abnormal behavior by lying routinely to the American people without compunction, intentionally fueling divisions in our country and actively working to degrade the imperfect but critical institutions that serve us.

Although appalling, those actions shouldn’t be surprising. As was the case throughout his business and entertainment careers, Mr. Trump charts his every move according to a calculus of how it will personally help or hurt him. His strategy is to undercut real, potential and perceived opponents; his focus is to win at all costs, irrespective of truth, ethics, decency and — many would argue — the law. His disparagement of institutions is designed to short-circuit legitimate law enforcement investigations, intelligence assessments and media challenges that threaten his interests. His fear of the special counsel’s work is especially palpable, as is his growing interest in destroying its mandate.

For more than three decades, I observed and analyzed the traits and tactics of corrupt, incompetent and narcissistic foreign officials who did whatever they thought was necessary to retain power. Exploiting the fears and concerns of their citizenry, these demagogues routinely relied on lies, deceit and suppression of political opposition to cast themselves as populist heroes and to mask self-serving priorities. By gaining control of intelligence and security services, stifling the independence of the judiciary and discrediting a free press, these authoritarian rulers followed a time-tested recipe for how to inhibit democracy’s development, retard individual freedoms and liberties, and reserve the spoils of corrupt governance for themselves and their ilk. It never dawned on me that we could face such a development in the United States.

Good article. Much more at link.

[Scarsdale]

1. THAT will take too long.

Look at all the damage this worthless shithead has already caused. The gop will never go against him, the Russian money is too plentiful, flowing into the RNC coffers. Money is what they worship, while touting "family values" They all know tRump is a disaster, yet as long as they benefit he is left to carry on. It will take YEARS to restore respect, esteem and integrity to this WH, and even this country.

[relogic]

2. You're half-way there.

Now, throw your abhorrence to the other, enabling, aberrations sitting on Capital Hill. Mr. Brennan, your blinders or bias are showing if you don’t critique the other half that keeps this usurper in power. I know it’s tempting to pull the low hanging fruit from the rotting tree, but come on-address the necessary pruning of the diseased chestnut.

[BlueJac]

3. Trump is not alone

his Republican enablers are also at work destroying this country.

[SWBTATTReg]

4. Thank you Mr. Brennan!! Thank you fleur-de-lisa for posting!

One doesn't get into anywhere from 1600 to 3500 lawsuits w/o being a 'd**k' (pardon my language please). RUMP doesn't still get it, on how to be a 'president' and is failing miserably in attempting to be one. With the way that RUMP is going through staff, lying, and the like, his administration is already failing by many measures.

My concern is what if something major happen, will RUMP do? I doubt RUMP will care anything about the US and instead go running back to his man cave (baby cave) and cower. He's already proved it by the example of China's ZTE when RUMP said he was concerned about the jobs lost by ZTE! Wow...sure shifted track here quickly, especially when his daughter's company got approval for 13 trademarks.

Unfortunately, in the meantime, hundreds if not thousands of lives could be lost (an attack by an adversary would indeed be possible now, with RUMP distracted so easily by a tweet or negative comment by anyone), but w/ the thousands and thousands of truly dedicated American federal government and military employees, this possibility has been spared the American public).

American lives have already been lost in secret military actions in Africa and Syria, with the possibility of inadvertently widening and expanding military adventurism, all while not saying a word to Congress or the American people. His administration is undermining requests for documentation by Congress and other investigating bodies, his attorney was actively destroying critical documents before the FBI acted upon a no knock raid to seize the materials before being lost.

Serious Damage is already being done w/ all of the idiotic actions that RUMP is doing to undermine American economic and other interests all over the world, and jobs by the thousands are being lost monthly. His actions in pulling out of treaties (IRAN, climate, etc.) unilaterally, putting tariffs on major trade goods exchanged with our allies, the list goes on and on (soybeans, alum., steel, cars, you name it...).

The traitorous repug-controlled congress, in achieving its long awaited goal of power in all 3 branches of government, has been blinded by its corruption, and self-centered, misplaced morality. Pretending that they knew how to govern, they instead, proved how badly they actually are, in governing. Their training (the repugs) has been that government has no role at all, and that the private section should do everything 100%. History has shown that this concept has failed miserably (no government, just private business).

Eventually, this will drag everything down, and the American taxpayer/citizen is going to the be suffering w/ no negative consequences to the repug party afterwards (other then being voted out of office). This is not what I want. I want these people to truly be punished should it be discovered that they (repugs) colluded w/ a foreign government to seize power illegally. Numerous safeguards should be put in place to prevent this from ever happening again.