Donald Trump’s move to scale back the Iran deal is not only a ploy to pressurize the Iranians to accept a new deal, moving both sides toward a war scenario. It’s also about letting him walk away from the North Korean crisis without looking weak and foolish.  

It’s not fake news. It’s really happening. An American president really is poised to tear up a peace deal with the most significant military player in the Middle East, potentially hurling the West into a world war, all for merely quelling his own foibles and failures after nine months in office.

Trump’s absurdly frail personality is behind this latest ruse that is designed to create new tension with Iran, so that he can be seen to be the one getting a better deal with Tehran; and, perhaps more importantly, so he can be at the vortex of a crisis that is guaranteed to keep the US media busy, therefore missing Trump’s domestic failings.

For months now, he has been signing off every 90 days a certificate, which, begrudgingly, accepts that Iran has stuck to its side of the so-called ‘Iran deal.’ Its official title is the ‘The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,’ which, when nailed by Obama in 2015, closed off any chance that Iran could get nuclear weapons for at least a decade.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/406246-trump-iran-nuclear-agreement/

Hercules and Leo are only 11 years old, but they’ve already come close to retiring twice. The two chimpanzees, born and raised at Louisiana’s New Iberia Research Center, became lab animals at the State University of New York in Stony Brook in 2011. There they shared a three-room enclosure, where scientists inserted small electrodes into their muscles to study the evolution of bipedalism. In 2013, they were the subject of an unusual legal gambit. An animal rights group sued to declare the pair legal persons and retire them to a Florida sanctuary, but the effort failed.

Two years later, Hercules and Leo returned to New Iberia, where they mingled with other chimps in outdoor domes with ladders and ropes. But retirement to a sanctuary, where they could climb real trees and have more room to roam, again seemed imminent: The U.S. government had just effectively ended invasive work on chimpanzees, and many observers expected all lab chimps to move to sanctuaries in short order. Yet today, Hercules and Leo, along with nearly 600 of their kind across the country, remain at research facilities. It’s unclear when—or whether—they’ll leave.

In the past 2 years, only 73 chimps have entered sanctuaries, and the slow pace has heightened tensions between the laboratory and sanctuary communities. There’s plenty of blame to go around. Labs have dragged their feet, sanctuaries haven’t expanded quickly enough, and the government itself didn’t have a concrete plan for retirement, despite setting the process in motion in the first place.

read more:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/research-lab-chimps-over-why-have...

You might be wondering why this article is placed here... Well, this is where The Donald should come and join his friends. Peanuts or not, he has overstayed his lab experiment. He should be retired to a "chimpodesium" and be fed in bananas from Puerto Rico.

More than half of Americans don't think Donald Trump is fit to serve as president, yet he has a clear path to winning reelection. If Trump isn't removed from office and doesn't lead the country into some form of global catastrophe, he could secure a second term simply by maintaining his current level of support with his political base.

We have entered a new era in American politics. The 2016 election exposed how economic, social and cultural issues have splintered the country and increasingly divided voters by age, race, education and geography. This isn't going to change.

What have changed are the political fault lines that have driven the debate since the early 1980s. Until now, the ideological divides between the parties were largely differences around social issues, defense spending and trade, as well as tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. Today, the central issue has become populism as voters have moved away from the two political parties and increasingly self-identified as independents.

In 2016, Trump capitalised on this changing political environment. He consolidated the growing number of angry voters who felt let down by the people and institutions controlling power in the country. Trump's support from these voters is personal, not ideological. That explains their willingness to stick with him despite his failures of leadership.

Since Trump's inaugural address, his focus has been on maintaining his support among this loyal base rather than expanding it. As counterintuitive as it may seem, this could be a winning political strategy.

First, Trump knows that gaining the support of a majority of voters in a presidential election is not a requirement; it's simply an aspiration. In fact, two out of the last three presidents were elected despite losing the popular vote.

Second, the continued decline in support for both political parties works to Trump's advantage. The lack of voters' faith in both parties increases the probability that there will be a major third-party candidate on the 2020 ballot. It will also lead to other minor-party candidates joining the presidential race. The multi-candidate field will further divide the anti-Trump vote, making it possible for him to get reelected simply by holding on to his current level of support.

Read more:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trum...

Remember that the USA voted for Stupid Lying Dubya, TWICE... And then for Obama for change and hope and change and hope and change — including the closure of Guantanamo... Ahah... when Obama was the same droning as Dubya with a bit of caffelatte on the face...

United States President Donald Trump has told a soldier's grieving widow on her way to meet her husband's casket that "he knew what he signed up for", according to a congresswoman who overheard the call.

• Sgt La David Johnson and three other soldiers were killed in a terrorist ambush in Niger on October 4
• Mr Trump had not addressed soldiers deaths, criticised Obama and others for not calling families of death soldiers
• Congresswoman who heard President's call to grieving widow weeks after death says call was insensitive

Sergeant La David Johnson, 25, of Miami Gardens, Florida, was killed in Niger earlier this month during an ambush carried out by Boko Haram and other extremists linked to ISIS.

Congresswoman Frederica Wilson was riding in a limousine with the soldier's widow, Myeshia Johnson, and her family to meet the casket at Miami International Airport when she overheard the President's call and what she described on Twitter as his "insensitive comments".

"Basically he said, 'Well I guess he knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurts'," Ms Wilson told CNN.

"I heard what he said because the phone was on speaker."

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-18/donald-trump-tells-soldiers-widow-...

see also:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/us/politics/donald-trump-draft-record...

US President Donald Trump says a claim that he made insensitive remarks to the recently bereaved widow of a soldier is "totally fabricated".

read more:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41663609

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederica_Wilson

The cheque has been sent. That is the message from the White House today after the father of a slain US Army sergeant said a generous offer from President Donald Trump had not materialised.

• Trump offered family of slain US soldier $25,000 from his "personal account"
• Father says cheque never arrived but White House says it is now "sent"
• Trump's chief of staff 'disgusted' military deaths are being 'politicised'

Chris Baldridge told the Washington Post Mr Trump offered his family $US25,000 after the death of his 22-year-old son at the hands of an Afghan police officer in June.

"He said, 'I'm going to write you a cheque out of my personal account for $25,000', and I was just floored," Mr Baldridge said.

"I could not believe he was saying that, and I wish I had it recorded because the man did say this.

"He said, 'No other president has ever done something like this', but he said, 'I'm going to do it'."

But Mr Bainbridge told the newspaper the money never arrived, only a condolence letter.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-19/trump-sends-cheque-to-family-of-wa...