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A more gracious way to thank President Trump:
FROM THE DESK OF E.P. UNUM
December 24, 2020
The Honorable Donald J. Trump
President of the United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest
Washington D.C. 20500
Dear President Trump:
I know that you have far more important things to tend to than
reading a letter from me. But, I do sincerely hope that at some point you
do have a chance to read it because it is heartfelt and seeks only to express
thanks to you for devoting the last four years of your life to America.
My days on earth are numbered, but before I fade away, there
is something important I need to say. It may not be important to anyone else,
but it's important to me so here goes:
Like you, I am New York City-born and bred. So, win, lose,
or fraud, Mr. President, sir, you have been a terrific leader and the
finest Commander-in-Chief our nation has had in a long, long time. You have my
eternal thanks for that.
Thank you for putting America First in all of your actions and
policies and, in doing so, making people like me proud to be American.
Thank you for calling out the nations of Europe who have, for one
reason or another, failed to contribute their fair share of GDP to NATO and the
defense of Europe. Your forcefulness shamed them into finally ponying up
financial support to NATO and making it stronger, rather than relying on the
benevolence of America to continue to foot the bill, which we have done for 70
years. That’s leadership. It’s a pity we did not have that kind of
leadership in past Presidents.
Thank you for being unwilling to surrender to the secular
outbursts seeking to remove God from our government and the town square.
And, thank you for reminding us that the very foundation of our Republic and
our way of life is rooted in Christianity. We need only to follow your
lead and not feel we should ever be required to apologize for this.
Thank you for standing up to socialism and totalitarianism across
the globe.
Thank you for your business acumen and leadership in building the
strongest economy we’ve ever experienced in my lifetime.
Thank you for all you have done for the minority communities,
Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Indian, and for reducing poverty and unemployment
in those communities, as well as all across the country to levels never before
seen in our nation.
Thank you for always demonstrating, in words and deeds, what it
means to love our country and to be a proud patriot again.
Thank you for supporting our Nation's Flag and the men and women
who fought, bled, and perished so that we might enjoy the freedoms that stand
behind that flag.
Thank you for supporting our nation's law enforcement
organizations, and understanding how difficult their job really is.
Thank you for quelling the flood of illegal immigration, and
bringing to justice the thousands of criminals that flood brought us. It
remains to be seen if your successor will have the necessary courage and
strength to continue this policy, but even now as I write this letter to you,
caravans of illegal immigrants are building in Honduras, Mexico, Venezuela, and
Nicaragua looking to come north to cross into the United States. In
addition to being illegal, this will create significant economic upheaval here
in the U.S. not to mention the threat of disease.
Thank you for providing corporations business, economic and moral
reasons to come back to America so that we could reinvigorate our manufacturing
base and once again make our own products and put Americans back to work.
Thank you for bringing our troops home from endless wars and
deployments that presented us with little more than body bags; and for your
unswerving commitment to strengthen and rebuild our military.
Thank you for your never-ending attempts at bringing peace to the
Middle East and your unrelenting support for Israel.
Thank you for your tax cuts and the elimination of unnecessary
governmental regulations on oil & gas exploration, fossil fuel initiatives,
and fracking. These have yielded incredible results and for the first
time in the history of our country, the USA is energy independent; we are now a
net exporter rather than an importer of oil. The economic impact of this
has benefited every American and every U.S. Corporation, especially the
Airline, Hotel, and Cruise Industries.
Thank you for donating all of your salary as President for the
past four years, some $1.6 million, to various charitable causes. I am
not aware of any other President in U.S. History who has ever done that. I
doubt your successor will be so inclined.
Thank you for your leadership and the removal of red tape in
Operation Warp Speed, enabling the National Institute of Health and the Center
for Disease Control and Prevention, along with their scientists, to
produce not just one but three vaccines to help cure the Covid-19
Pandemic in record time, never before seen in our history. All
the so-called experts said it could not be done, but your vision, dedication,
commitment, and passion led the way and we did this in a matter of nine
calendar months. The benefits of this will inure to all of us but, in
traditional American fashion, we will share it with the world. I can
think of no greater, lasting legacy than this Mr. President.
I stand in awe and with the utmost gratitude to you for your
efforts.
And, you did all this over a four year period in which the
Democratic/Socialist Party were engaged in a non-stop uncooperative effort
intended to remove you from office by any means necessary, fair or unfair.
The fact that you never withered from their assaults is further testimony to
your resilience and strength. We are so fortunate to have had you as our
President.
Many people have criticized you these past four years. They
have called you any number of vile names under the sun. But if truth be
told these same people, if pressed, likely could not articulate why they
dislike you. Some will say you are “not Presidential” (whatever that
is); “that you are not cool like Barack Hussein Obama”; or that you “were
married three times”, or any number of illogical and irresponsible
opinions. To them, I say that I did not vote for a Priest or for someone
who could speak eloquently with a flair for the dramatic. I voted for a
leader, someone well versed in business and economics, a person who knows what
it takes to make hard decisions, and who has a vision rooted in the very
principles for which our Founding Fathers stood.
I voted for you Mr. President. Thank you for answering the
call
With great appreciation and admiration,
E. P. Unum
Thank you for allowing us to experience a President that wasn’t a lifelong politician, but a lifelong American.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will
give you rest."
Matthew 11:28
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Putin understands a military association/alliance with China would be beneficial to both nations and I believe he and Xi are working assiduously to forge same:
The U.S. Should
Stop Underestimating Russian Power
Vladimir Putin deploys capabilities and
resources that have made his country a resurgent global player
By Kathryn E. Stoner
In recent days, Americans have learned that Russia’s equivalent to the CIA almost certainly executed the most devastating cyber-offensive in history. Over many months, the perpetrators planted malware in data systems throughout the U.S. government and Fortune 500 companies. Among the U.S. government agencies that the Russian security services appear to have infiltrated are the Departments of State, Treasury, Energy and Homeland Security, as well as the National Institutes of Health at the height of a deadly pandemic.
The full extent of the damage may not
be known for years, but the attack fits neatly into a narrative that we have
heard from pundits and policy makers for years: that Vladimir Putin has a weak hand in
international politics—a wobbly economy, a relatively small military, stagnant
population growth—but plays it well. Russia, in short, is a troublemaker but
not a major threat.
The problem with this bit of conventional wisdom is that it
seriously underestimates the value of the cards in Mr. Putin’s hand. Russia
isn’t just formidable in cyberspace. It is globally resurgent in ways that we
can’t afford to dismiss, from Crimea to Syria to sub-Saharan Africa, Venezuela,
the Arctic, Europe and beyond. A proper assessment of Russian power means
looking beyond traditional yardsticks such as GDP or military spending. As Mr.
Putin put it two decades ago (attributing the quote to Winston Churchill ),
“Russia was never so strong as it wants to be and never so weak as it is
thought to be.”
The
post-Cold War picture of Russia as weak and declining is outdated.
The post-Cold War picture of Russia as weak and declining is
outdated. Russia has come a long way from the decrepit, indebted and lawless
country that emerged after the Soviet collapse in 1991, a nation that the late
Sen. John McCain described in 2014 as “a gas station masquerading as a
country.”
Russia still supplies much of the world with oil and
gas—resources on which the global economy depends. But Russia does more than
just mine, refine and sell petroleum; it also controls much of the world’s oil
and gas pipeline infrastructure. That gives Mr. Putin the kind of leverage and
influence over a host of countries (including most of Europe) that doesn’t show
up in measures of relative power such as GDP.
Russia is also the world’s largest exporter of grain, and it
sells many things of far greater value—including nuclear power plants,
construction materials, nickel, timber, diamonds, advanced mining equipment,
chemicals, high-tech communications equipment and ever more sophisticated
weaponry, which sometimes comes with the services of Russian soldiers and
mercenaries.
Russia hasn’t needed the world’s biggest economy or military to
forge new relationships. Only 18 months after Russian-speaking militiamen
seized the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, Russian forces performed a snap
mobilization by air and sea into Syria, saving Bashar al-Assad’s reeling regime—and
changing the balance of power in the Middle East. Russian military hardware,
including antiballistic missile systems, now sit on the soil of Turkey and
Greece (both NATO members), as well as in Iran and Syria; America’s regional
partner Saudi Arabia recently agreed to buy such systems too.
Russia
has taken advantage of the vacuum created by Trump’s isolationism.
Russia has taken advantage of the vacuum created by Mr. Trump’s
isolationism and the resulting strains with U.S. allies. Moscow has supported
right-wing populists in Western Europe, including Marine Le Pen’s bid for the
French presidency, and Mr. Putin has become a role model for authoritarian
populists like Viktor Orbán in Hungary. Nicolás Maduro remains president of
Venezuela because of Russian intervention, and one key reason that Libya
remains a violent mess is Russian support for a powerful warlord there.
Meanwhile, Russia has used oil and weapons sales to forge an
axis of mutual convenience with China. Mr. Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping
boast of their close relationship, and their countries increasingly cooperate
in joint military exercises. Under Narendra Modi, India too relies heavily on
Russia for weaponry. Yet Russia saves plenty of arms for itself and has
transformed the remnants of the decrepit Soviet military into an agile,
professionalized fighting force.
In the past few years, Mr. Putin’s Russia has also become adept
at the use of its “soft power” in support of anti-liberal values. Conservative
societies in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin
America are the most receptive. Many in these countries see Mr. Putin as a
socially conservative alternative to American and European hedonism,
permissiveness and “political correctness.” Russia’s message has been pushed
world-wide through RT, Mr. Putin’s global television mouthpiece, and through
its sister radio network, Sputnik. Notoriously, Russia has also used its “sharp
power” to penetrate information environments in other countries, including
cyberattacks, like the recent offensive against the U.S., and disinformation
campaigns intended to sow confusion about the divide between truth and fiction.
A suspected Russian
cyberattack of the federal government has breached at least six cabinet-level
departments. WSJ’s Gerald F. Seib explains what the hack means for
President-elect Joe Biden's national security efforts. Photo illustration:
Laura Kammermann
President-elect Joe Biden and his foreign-policy team must
meet the true threat posed by today’s Russia. This means working with Mr. Putin
where the U.S. must while challenging his many efforts to harm American
interests, both overseas and at home.
One immediate opportunity for cooperation
is U.S.-Russian arms control, since the New START treaty—which sets crucial
limits on further nuclear-weapons deployment and provides an extensive
verification regime—is set to expire in February 2021.Mr. Biden’s team should
also move quickly to work with Russia and others to revive the Iran nuclear
deal that Mr. Trump too hastily abandoned. A nuclear-armed Iran isn’t in either
Russian or U.S. security interests. Moscow has strong relations with Tehran and
will be instrumental in getting the mullahs to sign any new agreement.
Similarly, Russia remains vital to efforts to curb North Korea’s nuclear
capabilities, after Mr. Trump’s courting of Kim Jong Un did nothing to check his weapons
program. Finally, the Biden administration should work with Moscow on limiting
the further militarization of space and the Arctic.
Matters are quite different on Ukraine: Mr. Biden should work
with our European allies to resist Russia’s continued support of separatist
rebels in Ukraine’s east and Moscow’s occupation of Crimea. The U.S. has some
leverage because of its tough sanctions against Russia and could offer gradual,
partial relief in exchange for concrete actions to end the conflict on decent
terms, including restoring Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia. Meanwhile, Mr.
Biden’s team should invest in Ukraine’s economic and political success,
including fighting corruption. Progress and prosperity in Kyiv would
demonstrate to Russians that democracy can work better than aggressive
autocracy.
At the same time, the Biden administration should take advantage
of some of Russia’s key weaknesses, including the “Putin exodus” of the past
several years. Thousands of Russia’s most highly educated citizens have fled,
and more Russians (especially those aged 18-30) than ever before say in recent
surveys that they intend to emigrate permanently. This robs Russia of the labor
and creativity of its most talented citizens. Making immigration into the U.S.
easier for these highly skilled Russian workers is good for us and bad for Mr.
Putin.
Russia today isn’t a traditional superpower, but it possesses a
diverse set of powerful tools and, under Mr. Putin, the will to use them to
remain a formidable global player. The U.S. must face up to the threat that
Russia now poses with a sense of urgency and by deploying the full range of
American diplomatic, economic and political resources, including a renewed
effort to rally the world to our tradition of democratic values.
—Dr. Stoner is a
senior fellow and deputy director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for
International Studies at Stanford University. Her forthcoming book is “Russia
Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order,” which will be
published by Oxford University Press on Feb. 1.
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Perhaps a'int over till the pants suit lady warbles:
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