He *had* to do it - it was her fault after all....

Oh lookie, Pompass Pompeo.

Hence, the correct use of "dumbfounded".

Bad joke, I know. But that's only because we have a bad joke in the White House this President's Day.

But Pompeo's resume would make you expect more from him in the way of honor, integrity, leadership, and loyalty. He had a successful military career after graduating at the tippy top of his class from West Point, for chrissakes. Turns out he's a lying bully, loyal only to Trump, who betrays whatever oaths he has taken to serve the people of the United States and protect them and the constitution.

Yet he considers himself a "saved" individual awaiting the end-times when he will, I guess, suffer a rapturous ascension into heaven where his god will reward him with 72 virgins.

God they are seriously challenged.

When faced with a nuclear power rule by a petulant child, I think they showed remarkable restraint.

France making a couple big deals recently. Like that foreign aid Trump held up to Ukraine. That's money that actually goes to our own defense contractors. Most foreign aid is that way, food and everything. It's mandated they buy the stuff from us. Only a small percentage of total foreign aid is money we just let them have to use in their country. Those deals don't have to always go our way.

They have to be thinking, what if - the US and Russia tries to take down the EU?

It's been that way in a sense because the people making big bucks on it want it that way. An average Joe type guy assembling javelin missiles likes it that way too. We taxpayer pay alright, but it's other Americans on the receiving end.

War as a weapon's evaluation process. It's how the MIC operates. I REALLY don't want the MIC signing up with the Putin/Trump worldview, do you?

Perfect match.

When I finally did, LOL!

But you have to tell me, why did you choose that screen name?

and word combo for my long lost kitty... it's part of her name, sort of.

Now I'll always be thinking of your kitty cat when I see your name.



Had to edit this to add, I had a cat by the name of Gertrude. My brother named her while I was on vacation. She was answering to it when I came home. Anyway, my nickname for her was fishy face. Because she loved her tuna!

More like a dog dressed up in kitty clothes. He full name: Luna the tuna fish, wild ferocious beast. And she was every bit of it as I added names as she showed who she was. I miss her so much I don't think I'd ever be able to have another pet, it nearly destroyed me when she disappeared.

I am fortunate to have a couple dogs and a cat that live next door and seek me out for love when I'm outside. The cat has taken to sneaking in the door when I can't keep him out. He just wanders around smelling things, rolls around on the carpet for a couple minutes and then he's ready to go back out. But he come running to the front of the driveway from half a block away when he hears my car coming down the lane just to get some petting.

Believe me, I know how hard it is when you lose a pet who is actually your family. I hate calling them pets because they ARE family.

It sounds like the cat from next door knows that you need some Kitty love, but you're not ready to have another cat. It might happen someday, but in the meantime you can certainly enjoy the love that you get from this cat.

I absolutely love animals. But I'm allergic! I grew up with dogs and cats and I never had any problems with allergies until I was in my forties.

Dogs don't bother me nearly as much, and I would love to have one, but can't afford to fence in my yard. I live in Coyote country and I would absolutely have to do that.

I am terribly allergic to cats. And it makes me so mad because I want one so badly.

So when my neighbors go on trips, I volunteer to take care of their cats and dogs. That way I still get the joy of being around them. But I can go home to a dander free house.

The fans at the daytona 500 lurvd the yellow haired idiot..

NASCAR seems to attract the dregs of humanity.

"the Beast" was driven around the track in the taxpayer funded and owned limo.

That woman cyclist who was photographed flipping off the president's motorcade! My hero! Could someone please photoshop her into this picture somehow? Of course, she was to the side of the motorcade, so it might be tricky. Maybe take her now-famous photo and photoshop in the NASCAR racetrack and packed stands instead.

are "dumbfounded" when they go out into the oxygen of the rest of the world. It's like the election in 2012, when Romney and Ann (in her "first lady" prom dress) were shocked that they didn't win because Dick Morris (remember him?) said he would win in a "landslide".

There was a Pence speech in the past few years (I don't recall the venue) where he paused for what he thought would be an applause line and he was faced with complete silence from the audience. I think The Orange One has suffered that ignominy as well. Or when the UN laughed at him when he said he had accomplished more than any other human being in all of history (or some such BS).

Ours is the dumbest. We’re number one!

in people who have been told that their delusions don't apply in the real world.

Pence had the same look as did Trump in the past. Both were talking to Europeans, both were using their propaganda lines and were expecting positive feedback from their audience. They got nothing instead.
Europeans are smart like that, they can tell what is real and what is propaganda.

Their carefully constructed but false value system crumbles, and reality slowly starts to creep in.

And it hurts!

Once you step outside Trump's BOD (bubble of delusion), the real world slaps you in the face and says . . . You are doing it wrong, stupid!

The border of that BOD is somewhere just outside the US border, it seems.

(But it shouldn't be news to any American who has paid any attention to media outside the US, surely? The 'no love for Trump and his cronies' isn't a secret.)

who cannot see anything wrong with their Nazi-like policies. They just don't "get it".

No Super Jared or Ivanka showing off her chest?

.

While confident people aren't always stupid, stupid people often have a way of being overly confident.

==============

Can I borrow it?

Overly confident people are usually trying to sell you something. "I believe in my own hype, and my confident act should make you a believer too."

Gotta laugh, way too transparent!

So ignorant of how things really are outside the McDonald's special sauce drenched echo chamber of non-stop, self-aggrandizing Donald Trump claptrap. They probably expected the Adults In The Room to line up for tickets to kiss Donald Trump's Imperial Signet Ring.

US behavior under Trump has been scandalously but openly anti-ally. This is just the faux reaction for their faux audience.

"What did weeeee do wrong?"

but only because they assumed no one in the rest of the world could see the big Trump trainwreck/dumpster fire happening in the US, and work out why, and react to it.

So it was unexpected. Didn't think others were watching, didn't think those outsiders were capable of doing intelligent judgement, finding the whole thing distasteful and acting that out.

As an outsider in Australia, I've got to say many aspects of America - it's political system, it's leadership, it's legal system especially - have taken a big dive in perceived respect due.

Not quite at the corrupt banana republic status, but getting closer by the day.

We're a disgrace

He is clueless, everyone at church likes him!

how out of touch and ignorant they are.

...as secretary of state.

He's such a toady: I think it was the New Yorker that said he was "a heat-seeking missile aimed up Trump's ass."

just dumb?

It’s a characteristic of the clown car troupe.

Your new peers don't like you either.
I wonder if there might be a reason why nobody likes you

Without declaring war and after luring him to a third country under false pretences.

But why do they have to be so nasty to us?

Into respecting and praising anything he does , and to fear him, but they realize he's nothing but a cancer, and a very corrupt career criminal.

what she is thinking of the thugs in the WH!--oh I can but I am watching my blood pressure!

I have great hopes that he is who I think he is.

Boy, there is nothing like being met with stone cold silence, is there?

and that the world is glad the US has a president that they can respect.

how could they be dumbfounded?! do they live that far up trump's ass? do they exist in a fascist bubble in which betraying your allies and cozying up to adversaries is virtuous? do they really believe that trump's policies are good?

i can't imagine what they expected after the last 3 years. do they ever catch up on the news, read a newspaper, take a briefing? if they were dumbfounded they are profoundly ignorant of current affairs.

Don't worry about it.

The disdain shown by their European allies is in the very best tradition of international politics. And while they may appear to hold the US in contempt, they were putting on their best faces in order to keep the entente cordiale flowing.

What they should worry about is how much disgust the Europeans actually feel toward the US administration. And then once they done worrying about that, they should imagine how countries who aren't allies feel about them.

Allied countries undoubtedly stopped sharing some intelligence with the US a few years ago. Countries are less inclined to join the US in military actions. Russia and Canada increase exports to China and forge new bonds that will last beyond Trump. China won't come rushing back to US farmers since Russia has started trading pork and soy beans. American products are no longer seen as 'cool' in most parts of the world and people won't want to come and visit Disney.

If you want to see these changes in action, look no further than 5G, the US has been violently opposed to the adoption of systems made by Huawei. Once, I think that would have mattered. But now both allied and non-allied countries are simply going ahead. Huawei has closed its offices in Santa Clara and 600 jobs have moved to Canada.

Americans make up just over 4% of the worlds population. And while currently they are just regarded as a bad place to share intelligence with, and a bad place to do business with - Trump has threatened the U.K. with 25% tariffs on cars already - they are also well on their way to becoming an international pariah.

America has had bad presidents before. The world dealt with it and bided their time. They believed things would right themselves. Now they have seen there are no checks and balances. No white knights in the form of 'equal branches' that will ride to the rescue and halt the madness. If Trump gets reelected, or democrats fail to reform laws to ensure this never happens again, America is going to be a very lonely country.