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It is not always a bad thing for political leaders to give the impression that they are unpredictable. It makes it much more difficult for their enemies to calibrate responses. But Donald Trump is not unpredictable in a good way. He is erratic. His aides have no way of assessing what his next move will be. As a result, they can't plan ahead. Do they have any idea what they're going to do next, now that they moved the Syria conflict into a new phase? I doubt it very much.

I will never forget the first time I saw the infamous Vietnam War protest poster, titled "Q: And babies? A: And Babies." As a young girl, I stared tra...

Why yes, yes they do. However, there is a crucial difference, and it is one that is often overlooked. To make my point I'll choose an example of a very public situation, as opposed to a dingy club where the interaction isn't seen by anyone.

Beth Galey

Graduate-in-denial, journalisting, has no idea what's happening in Mr Robot

The question that the left faces is how to counter this. Certainly, it won't be an easy task, and nor is it one for a counter myth-maker like Corbyn and his Momentum gang. As the profoundly well-qualified Hillary Clinton found out, it's going to take a quite extraordinary effort, overcoming forces that are well-hidden, and very very connected.

President Trump's energy policy is doomed to failure as it comes into collision with economic reality. The advance of renewable energy sources is now unstoppable. So here is my prediction: the keystone pipeline will not get built and new coal mines will not be opened in the US or anywhere else in the world.

Which brings me to Gibraltar. British-owned since 1713, many Brits would rather the days of rationing were brought back than see Spain get their hands on the territory. Does Theresa agree with them? I'm not so sure, especially if it gets in the way of her proposals for a hard Brexit.

Andrew Shaw

Student journalist, blogger and contributor to The National Student

Trying to keep up with what's going on in the internet is like trying to chase down a steroid stuffed greyhound while wearing stilettos and thumbing through an Oxford Concise Dictionary looking for the word "Metaphor". It's not easy.

*Farhan Samanani [2013] is doing a PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge with the support of a Gates Cambridge Scholarshi...

Gates Cambridge Scholars

Gates Cambridge Scholars are intellectually outstanding postgraduate students with a capacity for leadership and a commitment to improving the lives of others

Last week I had a surprise when I picked up my four-year-old twins from pre-school. Their teacher said one of them (Leo) had been telling the class about Theresa May taking us out of the European Union!

Linsey Wynton

Freelance journalist and TV development producer and Mum of three boisterous boys - twins plus a slightly older brother!

The beast of capitalism has slid under most noses for too long, but now it is exhibited within the White House for all to see. Trump and his team are not 'maniacs', the world has not 'gone mad'. No these people know exactly what they are doing, and they love such escapist labels. It is precisely us, civil society, that must stop them in their tracks with this loud and clear message: you may have ruled the world until now, but no longer.

To put America first, Mr Trump must put the UN second. Channeling the far-sighted leadership of UN founding father Franklin D. Roosevelt is the best way to make America great again.

People in Russia are at the mercy of the state-controlled media. People in the West needn't be. If this is the new Cold War, then the West would do well to remember what had helped it to bring down the Berlin Wall and diffuse tensions at the end of the last century.

President Trump is probably sitting in the Oval Office seething. What went wrong? Leaving aside the technical details, such as the loss of medical insurance coverage for 25 million people - scaring the moderates, or in the other extreme, not cutting costs enough for the diehards, this legislative exercise, like all major decisions, is about behaviour.

Johnny Luk

Author of The Grad Job Game and 2009 Junior British Rowing Champion.

The continual contribution and addition to London's culture, that living breathing creature that is constantly evolving, makes us who we are. The answer to the hatred and division we saw this week cannot possibly be more hate and division. Surely love and unity can be the only antidote. That, and a strong cup of tea.

Banseka Kayembe

Law graduate and creator and editor of new political blog Naked Politics: http://www.nakedpolitics.co.uk

When it comes to hair, these are troubling times. Gone are the days when the prize for blonde male political buffoonery went hands down to Boris Johns...

We found that around half of us (49%) reported experiencing anxiety specifically in relation to the US election and following inauguration of Donald Trump as president, with 29% going as far as saying they have experienced a 'fair amount' or 'great deal' of anxiety.

Cal Strode

Senior Media Officer, Mental Health Foundation

Continued here:
Donald Trump: News, satire and everything you need to know ...

The image shows Trump sitting at a table with Rex Tillerson, HR McMaster, Reince Priebus, Jared Kushner and others. Photograph: Shealah Craighead/AP

A photograph tweeted out by White House press secretary Sean Spicer has given the world a look inside Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago situation room.

The president was at his Florida resort for talks with the Chinese president Xi Jinping when he gave approval for the launch of Tomahawk missiles aimed at one of Bashar al-Assads airbases in Syria.

After dinner on Thursday night, he crammed around a small table in the resorts reportedly freshly constructed secure room for a briefing on the progress of the strike.

The image, released by Spicer on Friday, shows Trump sitting at a table with secretary of state Rex Tillerson, commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, national security adviser HR McMaster, chief of staff Reince Priebus, special adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and others. Sitting on the sidelines is adviser Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller and the sole woman in the group, deputy national security advisor Dina Powell. Spicer is also in shot, sitting alone in the corner, near the door.

The group was reportedly looking at a secure video feed of defence secretary Jim Mattis, vice president Mike Pence and others telling Trump that 58 of the 59 rockets launched had hit their targets.

The image of Trump and his team was instantly likened to the photograph of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and others watching the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

The photo was also pored over for clues as to who is in and out of the presidents favour.

Most noteworthy was the position of Kushner at Trumps table and Bannon on the periphery. There were also questions over why so many economy-related aides were present including Ross, treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin and Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council. But that could probably be explained by the other business at Mar-a-Lago, Trumps meeting with Xi, where trade was high on the agenda.

Read this article:
Who's who in Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago situation room? | US ...

From left: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, President Donald Trump, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross at Mar-a-Largo on Friday.

WASHINGTON President Barack Obama agonized for weeks over whether to use military force in Syria after a chemical weapons attack on civilians in 2013. Secretary of State John Kerry built an international and domestic case for military strikes, only to have Obama pull back and ask for congressional authorization.

In contrast, President Trump saw disturbing images on television. And less than three days later, American missiles were falling in Syria.

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While Trumps actions were certainly more decisive, they plunge the United States into a risky uncertainty about whether any broader strategy exists, and whether more military action will be taken; what role Congress will have; and whether the cruise-missile strike on a Syrian airfield has triggered an irreparable US split with Russia in Syria.

In other words, Trump is confronting the same thicket of difficult foreign policy decisions the Obama administration examined for years without coming to consensus. Hes simply gotten to that point much more quickly.

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Hes not going to telegraph his next move, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, told reporters Friday. But I think that this action was very decisive, justified, and proportional to the actions that he felt needed taken. I think it sends a very strong signal not just to Syria but throughout the world.

There are significant problems and limitations with Trumps decision.

Trump now faces multiple tests. One is navigating international anger from Russia, a country currently being investigated for its intervention into the American election Trump won. Another is the continued conflict in the Middle East, a region that has frustrated and entangled many presidents before him.

For Trump, those tests are coming early in his presidency, and he will be forced to manage them with virtually no foreign policy experience, little political capital at home, and an unpredictable worldview.

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Trumps decision to authorize strikes in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack in Syria won bipartisan praise. In fact, his actions were in line with what Hillary Clinton had suggested on Thursday night, and not dissimilar from what Kerry and others inside the Obama administration had argued for in 2013.

But deep questions remain over whether the military strikes mark a new and evolving posture for the Trump administration. He ran a campaign on America First in foreign policy, and as recently as Tuesday pledged that he was not president of the world.

Suddenly hes asserting a moral argument for escalating US intervention in the Mideast, relying on outrage over the use of chemical weapons despite decades-long prohibition against that as a tool of war.

You had an international norm thats been in place since the end of World War I egregiously violated by the regime. When that happens, the world tends to look to us, said Tony Blinken, a former deputy secretary of state and deputy national security adviser under Obama. The president did the right thing, and did it in the right way. But the real question is what comes next, and can he use this to leverage the Russians to move the regime.

The war of words intensified on Friday between the United States and Russia. Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said the United States was prepared to do more. US military officials are trying to determine whether Russia had a role in the chemical attack, according to CNN.

Russia called the US attack a significant blow to the US-Russian relationship. It also withdrew from an agreement with the United States for military cooperation in the region, which is meant to prevent accidental conflict in the air.

Pete Souza/Associated Press

In 2013, President Barack Obama meets with his national security staff to discuss the situation in Syria.

For a Trump administration that has struggled to gain its footing domestically and internationally while losing almost every legislative and legal battle it has faced greater Syrian involvement creates new challenges.

Trump may now need support from the US intelligence community, which he has denounced and denigrated, to help validate and build a case for further action.

In 2013, Kerry sought to build an international coalition for military strikes against Syria. But after the United Kingdom took an unexpected vote in Parliament which ruled out British involvement US lawmakers voiced worries that military action in Syria could be as perilous as military action in Iraq a decade earlier.

That triggered Obamas request for congressional authorization. The request, which seemed doomed to fail, was dropped when the United States and Russia negotiated an agreement for Syria to give up its chemical weapons and agree to international inspections.

The use of the nerve agent sarin this week by Syria raises questions over whether President Bashar Assads forces had stockpiles that were hidden from inspectors or whether they created new supplies of the deadly gas. Some former Obama administration officials have argued that the damage could have been far more significant if Assad had access to the same stockpiles he had in 2013.

As bad and as terrible as what happened this week was, it would have been exponentially worse had we not gotten the agreement we did, Blinken said.

Trump first learned of the gas attack at about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, during his daily intelligencebriefing, according to a timetable outlined by Spicer. At that time, he asked his team to provide a range of options.

By Thursday afternoon, during a meeting in a secure room in Palm Beach, Fla., he gave the go-ahead to move forward with military strikes. Missiles were launched into Syria as he was having dinner with President Xi Jinping of China.

Trump is now looking at a battlefield that is more complex than the one that the Obama administration saw.

Much can be debated about who was right and who was wrong, who was naive and who was prescient, said David Wade, a longtime Kerry aide who was chief of staff at the State Department during the chemical weapons attack in 2013. But the passage of time only makes Syria options worse and decisions harder.

Although the targets are probably the same, four years ago Russians were not flying over Syria and Russian personnel werent on the ground. There is the potential for miscommunication and an unwanted escalation.

The situation in Syria has also changed dramatically, making a political solution more unlikely. The rebels who were gaining ground have lost it.

Still, a series of strikes against Assad could make clear that the United States wont tolerate his use of chemical weapons. It could also increase pressure on Russians and Iranians, giving the United States an upper hand in seeking a diplomatic solution.

Donald Trump has done the right thing on Syria. Finally!! After years of useless hand-wringing in the face of hideous atrocities, Anne-Marie Slaughter, who was the State Departments director of policy planning in the first two years of the Obama administration, wrote on Twitter.

With calls rising for the White House to seek congressional approval once again, some former State Department officials warn against such action, viewing that as one of the pitfalls they encountered.

The administration cant count on congressional support, and they shouldnt contemplate it unless theyre considering boots on the ground, Wade said. Congress today doesnt have the ability to act quickly on an issue like what weve witnessed in Idlib.

See the article here:
Trump acted swiftly, but Syrian dilemma remains the same - The Boston Globe

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Few Americans noticed when Andrew Cuomo, the 56th Governor of New York State, essentially launched his 2020 presidential bid on January 3rd at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, the borough of his birth. The speech was billed as a State of the State address but it was clearly a transparent effort to broaden his exposure to an audience west of the Appalachian Mountain range and south of the Verrazano Bridge.

Yet before he can cast himself as the savior of liberal Democrats by running to be the 46th president, Cuomo has a hurdle to overcome: Reelection to the job he currently has in 2018.

If the NYS GOP want to win the 2018 governors race, however, stalwarts of party could take into account a handful of considerations to realize that Donald TrumpDonald TrumpDocuments reveal how Manafort connected with Trump: report McConnell: Supreme Court vacancy helped Trump win Trump defends Syria strike on Twitter MORE, Jr., might be the candidate they are looking for:

1. Be Different

The GOP needs to field an unconventional candidate that is not connected to the sour taste many New Yorkers have for the current political element in either party.

At 39 years old, Donald, Jr., would be a generation younger than his would-be rival. The ideal candidate would employ an outsider status and lack of political experience as assets, effortlessly turning Cuomos resume and family history in politics into liabilities.

Donald Trump Jr. is considering running for governor of New York: report https://t.co/lfI1yAsSjv pic.twitter.com/wI0v6bxJWR

Hillary didnt lose the electoral vote because she wasn't liberal enough. She lost because she was too establishment, too cautious and too slippery. Similarly, Cuomo, the eldest son of a three-term NY governor who also served as HUD secretary and state attorney general, might also have a hard time portraying himself as anything other than the embodiment of the status quo.

2. Find a New Republican Base

Trump, Jr., could speak the language of downstate Democrats by being born and raised in the area and to upstate Republicans by simply not being Cuomo. A smart strategy would be to apply statewide over the next year the strategy his father used to win the national election last year: Reach out to the blue collar/union workers Democrats have taken for granted and disaffected, promise to drain the swamp 363 miles north of Washington D.C. and resist appearing to cater to party and/or financial influence.

3. Tilt at Windmills

A Siena Research Institute poll from February showed Gov. Cuomo with an enviable 60 percent favorability. In spite of the polling what good Republican trusts polling today anyway? the standard-bearer of the Republican Party must be willing to charge into the headwinds of a seemingly-unwinnable race. A side benefit will be that fielding a serious and credible challenger for this NY gubernatorial race would put Democrats on notice that Republicans wont be writing off traditionally and reliably blue territory in the near future

4. Become Picasso

A common tactic of the Republicans is to paint their opponents as tax-and-spend liberals looking to divide and alienate our fellow citizens. This will not require a lot of paint with Governor Cuomo. New Yorkers that have already fled the state for environmentally and financially greener pastures and those whose plans will be hastened by Governor Cuomos added expense to their tax bills know better than to think Bernie SandersBernie SandersClinton touts NY tuition-free college program As governor, can Donald Trump Jr. make New York great again? Bernies tuition plan is doomed to fail everyone knows, no one cares MORE 2.0 is the future of revitalizing a state that desperately needs revitalization.

Andrew Cuomo 2020? Democrats should say 'Fugetaboutit.' - My latest column for @thehill https://t.co/dtH752cBki

Republicans should be explaining that real leadership is not spending money we dont have or making promises that will financially burden future generations of New Yorkers.

5. Make Cuomo Too Liberal (Even for NY)

The state commander-in-chiefs promotion to the nations commander-in-chief could be put on permanent hold if the GOP properly exploits the Bernie Sanders connection our current governor is endeavoring to cement. Last years candidacy of the admitted Democratic Socialist two words Cuomo is too careful to utter made the word free not only a vision for Democrats but a requirement.

6. And Donald, Jr., Conservative Enough (Even for NY)

The power elite of the state will no doubt raise the question as to whether Donald Trump, Jr. is a real conservative. The jury is out on the answer to this query. But the eldest son of the president is something most NY Republicans are not: He is someone that could win. Hoping for a candidate to run with the bona fides to check every box that aligns with the conservative party hasn't produced much in recent years in New York, a state where every statewide elected official is a Democrat.

7. Stress Cuomos "All-About-Me" Style

A hurdle for Andrew Cuomo will be his blind ambition. His high-profile feud with NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio a fellow Democrat raises serious questions about an ability to bring his own party together let alone run on a platform of national unity. For a party that has made a cottage industry clamoring about President Trumps divisive political style, Democratic voters might balk at the hypocrisy in reelecting and then nominating for president a man whose alienation of political opponents, regardless of party affiliation, is a natural part of his DNA.

8. First Your Guns

New York has set the example, Cuomo said following the passage of the NYSAFE Acts regulation of firearms in 2013. Many gun owners outside of the NYC/Buffalo/Syracuse regions continue to see the measure as a power grab by Cuomo to bolster his standing with the left at the expense of civil liberties. Don Jr. should be reiterating a position that defends lawful gun owners who feel under siege by our current governor.

9. Drain the Swamp

The biggest obstacle to a Cuomo bid isn't a Republican challenger. Its the lack of real reform in Albany and the governor turning a blind eye to corruption not to mention shuttering the Moreland Commission in the most corrupt legislature in the nation. The swamp in Washington, D.C., the current president ran against in 2016 looks like a country club compared to the ethical morass in Albany. The GOP candidate must focus on demolishing the twisted normalcy of our state capitalwhich runs through the executive branch as well.

10. Make it Personal Because it is

The GOP must find a candidate that could make the race not just an election between two parties but a visceral and transparently personal contest. The 2018 governors race should become a referendum on the future of our state and its role in the national dialogue. It would be difficult to envision a more distinctive race and a more monumentally engaging story than the presidents son running in 2018 to lead New York from despair while simultaneously defeating a potential challenger to his father in 2020. Americans responded to the call for Donald Trump to, in his words, make the nation great again. New York Republicans would be wise to consider if his son could be the candidate to do the same for our state.

Donald Trump, Jr., winning in the Empire State in 2018 would be an uphill climb under the best circumstances. Despite the challenge, state Republicans might be wise to bet on the Trump brand even when the odds and an incumbent opponent with presidential ambitions are stacked against him.

James Coll is an adjunct professor of American and Constitutional history at Hofstra University and the founder of ChangeNYS.org, a not-for-profit dedicated to promoting civic education in New York State. He lives in Seaford.

The views of contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.

See the article here:
As governor, can Donald Trump Jr. make New York great again? - The Hill (blog)