Beltway Insider: Trump Memory Lapse Agrees to Putin Meet; Maryland Shooting; Justice Kennedy, SCOTUS Search, Travel Ban; Election Results

  • Print

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to meet to potentially further the discussion on ending the suspension of Russia from the G8, and the return of Crimea, and ending Putin's direct involvement with Syria.

 

According to Gallup, President Trump job approval, over the past week, increased by one percentage point to 41% of those polled who approve of his effectiveness as President and those who disapprove of his effectiveness as President increased by five percentage points to 55%.

Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin Will Meet in Helsinki

"President Donald J. Trump and President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation will meet on July 16, 2018, in Helsinki, Finland.  The two leaders will discuss relations between the United States and Russia and a range of national security issues," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said.

An inevitable meeting between the two Superpowers appeared to take shape following the recent G7 Summit hosted by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. President Trump made further statements indicting his belief that Russia should be permitted to return to the exclusive leadership summit of the leading eight global economies.

The ongoing investigation into collusion and Russian involvement in the 2016 election, which has netted several key players in the Trump campaign, continues to delve into the possibilities of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Many believe the president, or those closest to him, made a clandestine deal with a leading member of the Russian Party and either by passive involvement or active participation influenced the electoral results allowing the President to gain the office in an astonishing upset and resounding victory.


Beltway Insider: Trump’s Border Crisis; The Numbers; UNHRC; NYC Gay Vote; GE/Disney/Comcast


The reparation to President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation one would have expected would be the restoration of Russian relations and other compensations. Putin has maintained a level of international duplicity especially over the last ten years.

The Ukraine and Crimea

Putin has several key issues to overcome before the remainder of the G7 nations would even consider ending his suspension.

Putin has been expelled from the G7 for more than four years following the military led takeover of the Crimean Peninsula. From that point forward Russian, under Putin's direction and leadership, has actively engaged in effort to destabilize the region.

Violating the territorial sovereignty of neighboring Ukraine, and the annexation of Crimean, harassing and terrorizing Ukraine, a continued effort to create instability in the region, supporting the Pro-Russian Separatist on the eastern front in Ukraine which resulted in the downing of Malaysia Airline Flight 17 on July 17, 2014, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members, including Joep Lange, former president of the International AIDS Society and five other respected and scientific leaders en route to the 20th International AIDS Conference.

Syria

Those efforts have also extended to increase the humanitarian crisis in Russian ally Syria, who purchases military fighter jets and weapons from The Kremlin. Russia has long defended its selling of military weapons and support of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad as one of simple economics, a business deal, while the world views the annihilation of Syrian citizens as a deepening humanitarian crisis that continues even to this day.

The use of chemical weapons, a violation of the proliferation of life treaty, daily bombing raids targeting innocent children and families who have no allegiance or loyalty to the rebels and whose only crime is to live in a rebel held area and born of Syrian nationality.

Assad, with the full backing of Russia, would murder its own citizens to return war torn Syria to in total to Assad. The lives of innocent civilians are of no consequence to either.

Russian Diplomats Expelled In Response to British Chemical Weapons Attack

Most recently, beginning on March 25, 2018, President Trump announced the closure of the Russian Consulate in Seattle and the expulsion of hundreds of diplomats in response to the United Kingdom's response to the nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent Sergei Skirpal and his daughter living in Salisbury, England.

Two dozens British citizens were also exposed and treated for exposure to the nerve gas Novichok, a substance developed in the Soviet Union in the 1970's.

President Trump maintained the loyalty of the G7, joining with British Prime Minster Theresa May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and President Emanuel Macron in condemning the attacks and assess the instigator of these attacks is Russia.

    

This use of a military-grade nerve agent, of a type developed by Russia, constitutes the first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since the Second World War. It is an assault on the United Kingdom's sovereignty and any such use by a state party is a clear violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and a breach of international law. It threatens the security of us all.

 

The United Kingdom thoroughly briefed its allies that it was highly likely that Russia was responsible for the attack. We share the United Kingdom's assessment that there is no plausible alternative explanation, and note that Russia´s failure to address the legitimate request by the government of the United Kingdom further underlines Russia's responsibility.

 

We call on Russia to address all questions related to the attack in Salisbury. Russia should, in particular, provide full and complete disclosure of the Novichok program to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Beltway Insider, 18 March 2018

Death by Putin

President Putin, the former head of the KGB, the Russian equivalent to the CIA, has recently won a second consecutive term in office, his fourth term overall. Critics of the leader, those who survive to speak as many attest that Putin has been meticulously thorough in eliminating early members of his inner circle.

      

Boris Nemtsov, a former Deputy Prime Miinster, was killed in a drive by shooting, on a bridge, within view of the Kremlin in February 2015. Nemtsov was vocally opposed to the annexation of the Ukraine and challenged Putin on his position. He also called for a Political rally in Moscow, days before he died.

 

Nemtsov was a Kremlin insider, a leading reformer and consider someone with potential to succeed Putin in the polls.

 

"But Putin's critics couldn't help drawing parallels with the unexplained deaths of other Kremlin foes. '"I have an impression - I hope it's only an impression - that the practice of killing political opponents has started spreading in Russia,"' said Gennady Gudkov, a former parliamentarian and ex-security services officer, to the Moscow Times," as reported in The Chicago Tribune.

 

Many others who have supported Putin and been privy to his inner workings, motivations and dirty secrets have wound up dead. Over the past fifteen years at least ten former associates have been killed. Having successfully managed to clean his closet of any links to wrongdoing Putin is becoming increasingly bold and acting without restraint.

 

A fixture in his camp during his early days of his first term, Boris Berezovsky was a Putin ally. A tycoon he single handedly orchestrated a smear campaign of Nemtsov smoothing the way for Putin to secure the election.

 

He grew critical of Putin six years later after the former President had Alexander Litcinenko, a former intelligence officer with the KGB, murdered in London. Openly criticizing Putin on any issue, ever, is the beginning of the end. Berezovsky was found with a noose around his neck. Although initially ruled a suicide the coroner, changed his original finding and later indicated the exact reason for his death was unknown. Beltway Insider, 18 March 2018

Is the meeting with Putin a confessional with President Trump expected to absolve all wrongs or is the President paving the road to complete the 2016 election obligations? In either case the meeting with Putin, so soon after President Trump expelled diplomats appears to have ulterior motives and secondary agendas.

Justice Kennedy To Retire Leaving Trump With Second Appointment

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy announced his plans to retire effective July 31, 2018 leaving President Trump the opportunity to fill the vacancy and create a right leaning court affecting landmarked decisions dating as far back as 1970.

Kennedy, nominated to the court in 1987 by then President Reagan, was quickly confirmed without opposition. During his thirty years of honorable service on the Supreme Court of the united States, he has maintain a voice dedicated for individual rights.

A Originalist in thought, Kennedy, during his tenure on the Court, authored landmark opinions in every significant area of constitutional law, most notably on equal protection under the law, the separation of powers, and the First Amendment's guarantees of freedom of speech and religion.

President Trump has announced a short list of potential nominees is expected Monday, July 9, 2018.

SCOTUS Decision Upholds Travel Ban

In other news from the Supreme Court, Justices have ruled, 5-4, upholding aspects of President Trump's contentious proclamation 9645, which suspended the entry of foreign nationals into the United States from countries that failed to meet minimum baseline requirements for immigration screening and vetting.


Op/Ed: Mexico – The New Syria


"After an evaluation of nearly 200 countries, travel restrictions were imposed on nationals from Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, and Somalia. The Presidential Proclamation followed a worldwide review conducted by the Department of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Department of State and other agencies, to assess the information the United States needs to confirm the identity of and the potential security threat posed by individuals seeking to enter the country.

As the Supreme Court majority noted, the Proclamation is "limited to countries that were previously designated by Congress or prior administrations as posing national security risks,"' said Secretary Sanders.

The Supreme Court ruling has affirmed the President's authority to use a vetting process to identify and exclude foreign nationals who pose a threat to the safety and security of the United States.

Annapolis Newsroom Shooting Suspect Charged

A disgruntled reader, who swore an oath in legal documents nearly one year ago, returned to the offices of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland and true to his word, he unleased the promised hell fire upon the newspaper.

In what is called a targeted, and calculated attack, the shooter identified as Jared Ramos, 38, has a long seething feud with the newspaper for what he called was a intentional effort to defame his name and reputation stemming from a defamation lawsuit filed against the paper and subsequently dismissed.

In the days following the Thursday, June 27, attack information from inside the newsroom has been revealed which at this stage in the reporting of mass shooting the words all run together from the previous attacks: a war zone, bloody, stepping over dead bodies, shock, trauma, hiding, hoping, praying, listening to the shots, eyeing the exit, hoping, praying, listening for the reload.

The five victims of Thursday's shooting were all employees of Capital Gazette: Gerald Fischman, 61, the editorial page editor; Rob Hiaasen, 59, an editor and features columnist; John McNamara, 56, sports reporter and editor for the local weekly papers; Wendi Winters, 65, was a local news reporter and community columnist; Rebecca Smith, 34, a sales assistant.

Not one of these individuals were employed had anything, at all, to do with the defamation case, the columns or the reports on Ramos. For someone who sent a year of threats, even several less than 24 hours before he showed up, he missed everyone involved with his original meltdown. Now, the only thing he has proven is that they were right.

Ramos was charged with five counts of murder.

Not since the Islamic State attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, on January 7, 2015, where 12 were killed and 11 injured, has a newsroom been the target of a mass shooting and the Capital Gazette is the first in the United States.

US Election Results

The mid-term elections are shaping up around the country with familiar names and shocking new ones carving out shocking victories and stunning upsets.

New York's 14th District

New York's 2018 Congressional primary election left nearly everyone surprised as newcomer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28, a self-described Bernie Sanders socialist, handily ousted 10th Term Democrat, Joseph Crowley, to represent New York's 14th district, which includes eastern Bronx and Northern Queens, becoming the youngest elected congresswoman in history.

Mitt Romney wins GOP primary for Senate in Utah

Former Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney is returning to politics, running for Senator for the state of Utah. The former Governor of Massachusetts, is not new to political services and has is the third person in history, should be elected in November, to hold to different political offices in two different states. Romney lead the recent run off by more than 50% of the Republican vote.

For more information on President Donald Trump: www.whitehouse.gov

Sources: Whitehouse.gov, Wikipedia.com