BF2S Forums Presidential Election 2016

In hundreds of highly classified phone calls with foreign heads of state, President Donald Trump was so consistently unprepared for discussion of serious issues, so often outplayed in his conversations with powerful leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and so abusive to leaders of America's principal allies, that the calls helped convince some senior US officials -- including his former secretaries of state and defense, two national security advisers and his longest-serving chief of staff -- that the President himself posed a danger to the national security of the United States, according to White House and intelligence officials intimately familiar with the contents of the conversations.

The calls caused former top Trump deputies -- including national security advisers H.R. McMaster and John Bolton, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and White House chief of staff John Kelly, as well as intelligence officials -- to conclude that the President was often "delusional," as two sources put it, in his dealings with foreign leaders. The sources said there was little evidence that the President became more skillful or competent in his telephone conversations with most heads of state over time. Rather, he continued to believe that he could either charm, jawbone or bully almost any foreign leader into capitulating to his will, and often pursued goals more attuned to his own agenda than what many of his senior advisers considered the national interest.

These officials' concerns about the calls, and particularly Trump's deference to Putin, take on new resonance with reports the President may have learned in March that Russia had offered the Taliban bounties to kill US troops in Afghanistan -- and yet took no action. CNN's sources said there were calls between Putin and Trump about Trump's desire to end the American military presence in Afghanistan but they mentioned no discussion of the supposed Taliban bounties.
By far the greatest number of Trump's telephone discussions with an individual head of state were with Erdogan, who sometimes phoned the White House at least twice a week and was put through directly to the President on standing orders from Trump, according to the sources. Meanwhile, the President regularly bullied and demeaned the leaders of America's principal allies, especially two women: telling Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom she was weak and lacked courage; and telling German Chancellor Angela Merkel that she was "stupid."

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-06-30 05:07:46)

Just as bipartisan opinion in Washington has coalesced around alarm at China’s rise, an elite consensus has emerged in the Chinese capital. Especially in this summer of pandemic and street protests, America is called a nation in decline: a rich country too divided, selfish and racist to keep its citizens safe. Chinese elites see Mr Trump as a symptom and an agent of that decline. State media long refrained from direct attacks on Mr Trump. Not now. The Global Times, a nationalist tabloid, this month reported that Chinese netizens mockingly call him Chuan Jianguo, or “Build-up-the-country Trump”. Their joke, that he is a double-agent wrecking America to make China strong, prompts lines like “Comrade Chuan Jianguo, don’t blow your cover!” Does such scorn mean that China wants Mr Trump re-elected? There, elites are divided. At root, their debates turn on two questions: is American decline irreversible, and would its acceleration suit China just now?

Last edited by uziq (2020-06-30 17:18:24)

CLARK COUNTY, Wash. — A sheriff in Washington state has directed workers to remove all depictions of the thin blue line from sheriff's office property amid mounting tensions between law enforcement and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Sheriff Chuck Atkins with the Clark County Sheriff's Office told KPTV that his decision stems from a desire to heal his community. Speaking at a Juneteenth webinar with the NAACP, Atkins said he didn't want the symbol to be a reason citizens might be afraid to come to his deputies.

“I'm not gonna let that little sticker be the divide among people in the community who will be afraid to come to us because of that,” Atkins said. “I will remove that sticker, we're still the same people. So, I hope the actions they see we take says we want to be part of the solution.”

While Sheriff Atkins says he has received some blowback from members of law enforcement after his decision, he says he still believes it's the right one. The sheriff's office confirmed to KPTV that all of its thin blue line stickers had been removed by Tuesday.

uziq wrote:

jay is so much like rand paul, it’s hilarious. listen to any of his recent ‘speeches’ and it’s all there. the defensiveness, the churlishness, the inchoate rage culminating in some platitude about ‘being positive’ / ‘believing in something’ / ‘not being a coward’. and, of course, lest we forget, the ‘carrying covid-19 in public and infecting people’ routine.

Last edited by uziq (2020-07-02 01:07:38)

Last edited by uziq (2020-07-04 11:28:04)