2020 Becomes the Dementia Campaign

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/07/2020-dementia-campaign-123106

The two people most likely to control the U.S nuclear arsenal, and with it the capacity to blow up civilization, through January 2025 are both well into their 70s and facing pervasive public speculation that they are becoming senile.

That is some funny stuff, no?

 

President Donald Trump’s own public blunders—saying that his father was born in Germany when it was really his grandfather or referring to Apple CEO Tim Cook as “Tim Apple”—have prompted commentary throughout his term questioning whether his cognitive faculties are deteriorating.

Hear why Roberts sided with liberals on Supreme Court abortion ruling

What's going on between Russia, US and Afghanistan?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53220163

Ambiguity

This episode also throws a stark light on the current state of US-Russia relations. US policy towards Moscow is suffering from a kind of schizophrenia.

On the one hand, the US is wary of Russian nuclear modernisation and suspicious of its broader plans in the Middle East and elsewhere; but on the other, this administration is strangely accepting of Russian denials, for example concerning its alleged intrusion into the US election campaign.

Much of this ambiguity is down to the person of President Trump himself, whom many see as rather admiring of strong, dictatorial leaders.

And to this extent, the handling of this intelligence report casts another light on the whole foreign policy process within the Trump administration.

It will add weight to those critics from both the Democratic side of politics and more hardline Republicans, like the former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who argue in their different ways that there is no strategic direction, no joined up thinking, and no leadership from the top.

Joe: GOP Senators, Speak Out For Our Troops Today | Morning Joe | MSNBC

Trump Says ‘Nobody Briefed’ Him On Alleged Russian Plot Offering Bounties On U.S. Soldiers

Trump's Response to Putin's Bounty on US Troops - "There Have Not Been Many Attacks on Us"

Trump Fights the Last War

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/trump-fights-the-last-war/

The president reasons: “Based on decisions being rendered now, this list is more important than ever before (Second Amendment, Right to Life, Religious Liberty, etc.).” Lest we miss the characteristically Trumpian subtlety, he adds, “VOTE 2020!”

If you needed a laugh to get you through just-another-day-at-the-Apocalypse, our “Conservative” president then proceeded to post no fewer than 21 tweets describing the combined hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure spending he plans to shovel out to states he hopes to win in November.

By the way, with Trump in the White House and the McConnell-led Republican Senate having slyly buried periodic public debates over the debt limit, the nation is now over $26 trillion in the red. If you’re keeping score, that’s an increase of over $6 trillion since January 20, 2017. Obama spending was unprecedented, but Trump is on pace to exceed it. And don’t tell me about the unforeseen coronavirus crisis; debt was already accumulating mountainously before the lockdown, and the president keeps saying more infrastructure spending is imperative — it may be the only thing he and congressional Democrats can agree on.

The point being that the president is not a conservative, in the sense either of political ideology or temperament. He has some conservative sensibilities and has mastered some right-wing tropes. But he’s not a conservative thinker wedded to a conservative policy agenda. That’s hardly a revelation. He’s not wired to think in those terms. He’s not a progressive, either.

 

As the pandemic rages, Trump indulges his obsessions

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/29/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-russia/index.html

"If wearing masks is important, and all the health experts tell us that it is in containing the disease in 2020, it would help if from time to time the President would wear one to help us get rid of this political debate that says if you're for Trump, you don't wear a mask, if you're against Trump, you do," the Tennessee Republican said on CNN's "Inside Politics."

Russian Bounty Report Seems Like the Kind of Thing Trump Should’ve Known, GOP Says

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/russian-bounty-report-seems-like-kind-of-thing-trump-shouldve-known-gop-says

Conservative commentator David Frum noted that the story being reported by the Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal “doesn’t mean it’s certainly true.” What it does mean, Frum wrote on Twitter, is that “very credible people in [the] U.S. intelligence service are angry and alarmed. Angry and alarmed enough to provide evidence to three leading media sources.” In addition to Trump’s denial, Frum cited former Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell’s claim that he never “heard” of the bounties and that of John Ratcliffe, the office’s current director, who tweeted that he had never “briefed” the president. But, he added, “it’s also not impossible” for these three officials to be “telling a version of the truth,” noting the possibility that “the information was withheld from Trump by briefers who have learned not to upset him”—given previous reports of Trump staff keeping Russia-related things from the president so as not to piss him off—as well as “that Grenell during his tenure at ODNI was simply not doing the work.” Frum remarked it to be “noteworthy” that no denials have come from the Pentagon, the C.I.A., or the National Security Council, all of which the Times said declined to comment.

Trump retweets video of supporter shouting 'white power'

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53212685

In the tweet, which was later deleted, the president thanked "the great people of The Villages" - referring to the retirement community north-west of Orlando where the rally took place. "The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall. Corrupt Joe is shot. See you soon!!!," he wrote.

The video included in the tweet showed a Trump supporter in a golf cart raising a clenched fist and shouting "white power". He appeared to be responding to a protester calling him a racist and using profanities. Other anti-Trump protesters shouted "Nazi" and other accusations at the rally-goers.

White House spokesman Judd Deere said the president "did not hear the one statement made on the video" but saw "tremendous enthusiasm from his many supporters".

 

‘No Good Answer’ To Why Trump Wasn’t Briefed On Russian Bounty Intel, Chuck Todd Says | Sunday TODAY

Top conservatives demand answers on reports Russia paid Taliban to kill US troops

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/top-congressional-conservatives-demand-answers-from-white-house-on-reports-russia-paid-taliban-to-kill-us-troops

 

One of the top Republican lawmakers in the House joined on Sunday a growing list of legislators calling on the Trump administration to explain what it knew about the reports that Russian intelligence agents offered to pay bounties to Afghan militants who killed U.S. troops in the country. 

 

House Republican Conference chair Liz Cheney of Wyoming tweeted on Sunday morning that if the reports in the New York Times about the bounties is true, then the White House needs to explain what it knew about the intelligence and how it responded. Cheney, the third-ranking Republican in the House, specifically focused on the denials by both Trump and White House staff that neither the president nor Vice President Pence were briefed on the matter, and asked for more information on why this is the case.

"If reporting about Russian bounties on US forces is true, the White House must explain: 1. Why weren’t the president or vice president briefed?" Cheney tweeted. "Was the info in the PDB? 2. Who did know and when? 3. What has been done in response to protect our forces & hold Putin accountable?"

Russia offered cash rewards to Taliban fighters to kill US troops in Afghanistan

Panicking Trump tries to change the subject

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/27/opinions/trump-tries-to-change-the-subject-coronavirus-statues-ghitis/index.html

With the prospect of losing reelection by a landslide, Trump views any acknowledgment of the pandemic disaster as another mark against him. So, he not only lies about it himself, he sent Vice President Mike Pence to do a more elegant version of his misleading claims. Pence, appearing Friday for the first time in almost two months with the White House Coronavirus Task Force, claimed against all evidence, "all 50 states," are "opening up safely and responsibly." He told Americans, "we've all seen encouraging news as we open America again," misleadingly saying the upsurge in cases is "a reflection of a great success in expanding testing."