LiLSpeedy's Blog

NBC News:

The tensions came to a head around the time President Donald Trump delivered a politicized speech in late July to the Boy Scouts of America, an organization Tillerson once led, the officials said.

Just days earlier, Tillerson had openly disparaged the president, referring to him as a “moron,” after a July 20 meeting at the Pentagon with members of Trump’s national security team and Cabinet officials, according to three officials familiar with the incident.

While it's unclear if he was aware of the incident, Vice President Mike Pence counseled Tillerson, who is fourth in line to the presidency, on ways to ease tensions with Trump, and other top administration officials urged him to remain in the job at least until the end of the year, officials said.

The petty humiliations they inflict on each other will, one day, be quite funny.

After North Korea's latest nuclear threat, President Donald Trump threatened to cut off all US trade with any country that does business with the rogue nation.

"The United States is considering, in addition to other options, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea," he tweeted Sunday.

Though highly unlikely to happen, that option would be nothing short of a total disaster for the US economy and the greater global economy as a whole.

Many countries have trade relations with North Korea at some level. While China dominates the trade market with North Korea, a number of other prominent US trading partners have a minimal economic relationship with the country.

At least 10 of the top 30 trading partners of the US do some level of business in North Korea. Those 10 nations include five of the top 10 US trading partners, and two of those are in the top three. Ending all trade with those nations would lead to the halting of roughly $1.6 trillion in total trade, according to 2016 data, and of more than $520 billion in US exports.

China, the nation Trump appeared to be most closely calling out in the tweet, is the largest US trading partner, with roughly $600 billion in trade happening between the two countries on an annual basis. Other countries that would be affected by such a move include India, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Chile, Brazil, France, Germany, Thailand, and Russia. 2015 data showed that those countries were importing goods such as silver, fork-lifts, and computers from North Korea while exporting pesticides, felt machinery, and sculptures.

With those consequences obvious, the threat hasn't been taken too seriously.

"We think there is little prospect of Trump carrying out his threat to 'stop all trade with any country doing business with North Korea' given that the US imported $479 [billion] of goods and services from China last year," international economist Andrew Kenningham wrote Tuesday in a Capital Economics note.

"But as 86% of North Korea's exports go to China, the US may impose additional targeted sanctions on Chinese entities and individuals which are doing business with North Korea. This in turn could provoke some retaliation from Beijing."

A lieutenant from a police department in Georgia is under investigation after a dash-cam video obtained by Channel 2 Action News appears to show the officer telling a driver during a DUI stop, “Remember, we only kill black people.”

Lt. Greg Abbott of the Cobb County Police Department reportedly asked the driver to grab her cell phone, but she replied she’s afraid to move her hands because she has “just seen way too many videos of cops…”

Abbot responds, “But, you’re not black. Remember, we only shoot black people. We only kill black people, right? All the videos you’ve seen, have you seen the black people get killed?”

The incident occurred in July 2016, and it was brought to light on Wednesday after Channel 2 Action News' open-records request on Friday.

Police Chief Mike Register said Abbot has been placed on administrative duties until the investigation is complete.

Lance LoRusso, Abbott's attorney, told the station in a statement that the 28-year veteran is cooperating with the investigation, and that “his comments must be observed in their totality to understand their context.”

“He was attempting to de-escalate a situation involving an uncooperative passenger. In context, his comments were clearly aimed at attempting to gain compliance by using the passenger's own statements and reasoning to avoid making an arrest,” said LoRusso. 

Suri Chadha Jimenez, a representative of the driver, said she believes the officer’s response was sarcastic because the woman, “gave him some lip,” but nonetheless said, “it makes you cringe when you hear it. It’s unacceptable.”

Register, who was not police chief during the time of the occurence, told Channel 2 that Abbott was a good officer and never had any racial complaints. He added “no matter what context it was said, it shouldn’t have been said,” and that it is being dealt with “head-on.”