Fueled by Trump’s Tweets, Anthem Protests Grow to a Nationwide Rebuke


By KEN BELSON SEPT. 24, 2017


On three teams, nearly all the football players skipped the national anthem altogether. Dozens of others, from London to Los Angeles, knelt or locked arms on the sidelines, joined by several team owners in a league normally friendly to President Trump. Some of the sport’s biggest stars joined the kind of demonstration they have steadfastly avoided.

It was an unusual, sweeping wave of protest and defiance on the sidelines of the country’s most popular game, generated by Mr. Trump’s stream of calls to fire players who have declined to stand for the national anthem in order to raise awareness of police brutality and racial injustice.

What had been a modest round of anthem demonstrations this season led by a handful of African-American players mushroomed and morphed into a nationwide, diverse rebuke to Mr. Trump, with even some of his staunchest supporters in the N.F.L., including several owners, joining in or condemning Mr. Trump for divisiveness.

Julius Thomas, a Miami Dolphins tight end who had previously stood for the anthem, knelt for it on Sunday with several players.

“To have the president trying to intimidate people — I wanted to send a message that I don’t condone that,” Thomas said, echoing the opinion of most N.F.L. players. “I’m not O.K. with somebody trying to prevent someone from standing up for what they think is important.”Photo

But the acts of defiance received a far more mixed reception from fans, both in the stadiums and on social media, suggesting that what were promoted as acts of unity might have exacerbated a divide and dragged yet another of the country’s institutions into the turbulent cross currents of race and politics.

At Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, videos posted on social media showed some Eagles fans yelling at anti-Trump protesters holding placards. At MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., before the Jets played the Dolphins, many fans, a majority of them white, said they did not support the anthem protests but also did not agree with the president’s view that players should be fired because of them.

“I’m a Republican who voted for him, but I think this is a battle he doesn’t need to get into,” said Greg Zaccaria, 61, from White Plains, who said he had been a Jets season-ticket holder since 1978. Yet he objected to the anthem protests, saying, “I understand what they’re trying to get at, I just think there are better ways of expressing yourself.”

Mr. Trump, in a speech on Friday and a weekend-long series of tweets, had all but baited athletes and the league to respond by saying that those who do not stand for the anthem should be fired. He added that the league was in decline for tolerating the protests and for taking steps to reduce brain damage among players.

As the sideline demonstrations unfolded on Sunday, Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter: “Great solidarity for our national anthem and for our Country. Standing with locked arms is good, kneeling is not acceptable. Bad ratings!”

And before boarding Air Force One in the evening, Mr. Trump told reporters that his comments had “nothing to do with race or anything else — this has to do with respect for our country and respect for our flag.”

Still, players and team officials said they had made the gestures, including locking arms, in solidarity with players who had demonstrated during the anthem, not to support Mr. Trump.

There was a variety of protests on the sidelines Sunday. All but one player from the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of the league’s most celebrated teams, refused to go out for the anthem. The lone exception was Alejandro Villanueva, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan.

The Steelers, who were playing the Bears, were booed heavily by fans in Chicago when they ran onto the field after the anthem.

The Steelers, along with the Tennessee Titans and the Seattle Seahawks, who were playing each other and similarly skipped the anthem, broke a league rule requiring athletes to be present for the anthem, though a league executive said they would not be penalized.

“We will not stand for the injustice that has plagued people of color in this country,” Seahawks players said in a statement before the game. “Out of love for our country and in honor of the sacrifices made on our behalf, we unite to oppose those that would deny our most basic freedoms.”

Even stars who normally shy from controversy took a stand.

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers posted a photograph of himself kneeling with three of his teammates during warm-ups before the game, and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, a supporter of the president, “liked” Rodgers’s photo. Later, before the Patriots’ game against the Houston Texans in Foxborough, Mass., Brady locked arms with a teammate on the field and placed his hand over his heart during the anthem. Rodgers stood during the anthem, but three of his teammates sat on the bench.

A dozen or so Patriots knelt during the anthem, prompting some fans at Gillette Stadium to boo.

Still, one of the more surprising reactions came from the Patriots’ owner, Robert K. Kraft, a friend and campaign donor of the president who has invited Mr. Trump to sit with him at home games, as well as from other owners who were considered bedrock supporters of the president.

“I am deeply disappointed by the tone of the comments made by the President on Friday,” Kraft said in a statement hours before the New England game, adding that he supported players’ “right to peacefully affect social change and raise awareness in a manner that they feel is most impactful.”

E. Stanley Kroenke, the owner of the Los Angeles Rams, and Martha Firestone Ford, the owner of the Detroit Lions, both of whom lean to the right politically, also scolded the president.

Ford said “negative and disrespectful comments” were “contrary to the founding principles of our country, and we do not support those comments or opinions.”

She and the Atlanta Falcons’ owner, Arthur M. Blank, who donates to many Democratic causes, linked arms with players during the anthem before the Falcons-Lions game in Detroit. The singer Rico LaVelle went down on one knee as he finished singing the anthem.

The demonstrations intensified what was already a divisive debate that began last season when Colin Kaepernick, then a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, began kneeling during the playing of the national anthem, to highlight, he has said, police brutality and racial injustice.

He left the team after last season and has not played in the league since, inspiring questions over whether teams are punishing him, while many other players have knelt or made gestures in support of him or other social causes during the anthem.

Kaepernick has not commented, and his social media accounts were largely quiet on the president and the new round of protests.Photo

But the fallout from Mr. Trump’s remarks spilled over into other sports.

In a tweet Friday, Mr. Trump disinvited the Golden State Warriors, the N.B.A. champions, to any traditional White House visit, after members of the team, including its biggest star, Stephen Curry, were critical of him. But on Sunday, the N.H.L. champion Pittsburgh Penguins said they would go to the White House, and declared such visits to be free of politics.

Nascar team owners went a step further, saying they would not tolerate drivers who protested during the anthem.

To promote the idea of the N.F.L. as a unifying force, the league was planning to replay a television ad called “Inside These Lines” on NBC on Sunday night when the Oakland Raiders played the Washington Redskins outside the nation’s capital.

While none of the Jets’ players knelt during the playing of the anthem, they locked arms on the sideline and were joined by some of the team’s administrators. On the other side of the field, four Miami Dolphins players — Maurice Smith, Kenny Stills, Thomas and Laremy Tunsil — knelt, while the team’s owner, Stephen M. Ross, locked arms with two of his players.

Two years ago, Mr. Ross started a nonprofit organization to combat racism and discrimination.

Outside the stadium in East Rutherford, Julie and Vin Santomero, who brought their sons to the game, said they also did not want to see protests at a sporting event because they attended games to get away from politics. “It’s a football game,” Mrs. Santomero said. “They’re here to play the game.”

Jesse Melendez, 29, of Dix Hills, N.Y.; Je’anna Pulistar, 29, of Lindenhurst, N.Y.; Roger Guevara, 29, of Yonkers; and Genesis Pineda, 27, of Yonkers, took the opposing view by supporting the N.F.L. players’ right to protest during the anthem.

“People don’t get mad when people are shot or killed, but they’re getting mad because a football player is kneeling or raising a fist,” said Melendez, who is African-American. “The double standard is crazy.”


Bill Pennington contributed reporting from East Rutherford, N.J.

My Response:

This article is written for American's mainly as it is a pretty specific issue within the Nation. It doesn't really have much international connection. It is also probably written for people who are over the age of 18 and have a more liberal viewpoint. These are more likely to read the New York Times and would be concerned about the government and specifically Trump. Because of this audience the author is probably writing with a bias against Trump. He is also writing from someone who is very involved in sports as he is the NFL reporter for the New York Times. This probably means that he may be targeting specifically sports fans. Another way I believe that the author is bias is because he seemed to support those who protested more than those who were against it. When I read this article I had a bias which I supported the protesters because I generally don't like Trump and in this case it did seem to me that it was a racism issue.

 In my opinion I think that all of the players who protested were very brave. I also think that it is super encouraging that even some of Trumps biggest supporters in the NFL could see that what he said was wrong. I think that this gives hope that the nation will not just give into what Trump says. I also think that these players must have the right to protest because the USA claims to have freedom of speech and protest is part of those freedoms. I think that when you do not agree with the direction the nation is going you must have the right to express those feelings.

Myanmar Draws Scorn for Rohingya Crisis, but Few Urge Sanctions


By AUSTIN RAMZYSEPT. 18, 2017


HONG KONG — Despite international condemnation of Myanmar’s campaign of violence against the Rohingya people, there have been few calls for a return to the sort of sanctions that were long a part of the country’s relationship with the West.

After a Rohingya militant group attacked police outposts last month, Myanmar’s military, along with vigilante groups, launched a crackdown in the western state of Rakhine, triggering a refugee crisis that has sent more than 400,000 Rohingya fleeing to neighboring Bangladesh.

On Monday, Boris Johnson, Britain’s foreign secretary, led a private discussion of the Rohingya crisis among foreign ministers attending the United Nations General Assembly. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto head of Myanmar’s government, last week decided not to attend the General Assembly, where she would probably have drawn a flood of criticism.

Mr. Johnson said nothing about whether the government of Myanmar could face sanctions. In a statement from his office, he called on Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi to take steps to halt the crisis.

Myanmar’s national security adviser participated in the session, which was closed to the press.

“I was encouraged by our discussion and by the participation of the senior Burmese representatives,” Mr. Johnson said in the statement, “but we now need to see action to stop the violence and open up immediate humanitarian access.”

While the United Nations Security Council has the power to impose economic sanctions on Myanmar, that prospect is considered unlikely for now. The Myanmar government has said it was working with Russia and China — veto-wielding members of the Security Council — to block any efforts to punish it over the crackdown in Rakhine.

The Security Council did condemn the violence last week, its first such unified statement on Myanmar in nine years. But China blocked an effort by Egypt to add language calling for Rohingya refugees to be guaranteed the right to return to Myanmar from Bangladesh, Agence France-Presse reported. The government of Myanmar, a majority-Buddhist country, does not recognize the Rohingya, most of whom are Muslim, as citizens.


With regional powers vying to gain influence in Myanmar, China’s government sees potential benefit in backing Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy, while she faces international criticism, said Yun Sun, a scholar at the Stimson Center in Washington.

“This is basically an opportunity for China and a vulnerability of Aung San Suu Kyi,” she said. “The Chinese government says the Rohingya issue doesn’t affect us and by supporting Aung San Suu Kyi we don’t lose anything.”

“Instead we gain the potential friendship” of the government, Ms. Sun said.

The state-run Myanmar News Agency quoted China’s ambassador to Myanmar last week as saying his country supported the crackdown in Rakhine.

“The stance of China regarding the terrorist attacks in Rakhine is clear, it is just an internal affair,” said the ambassador, Hong Liang. “The counterattacks of Myanmar security forces against extremist terrorists and the government’s undertakings to provide assistance to the people are strongly welcomed.”

In another sign that China is drawing closer to Myanmar, last week it opened an interim liaison office in Naypyidaw, the remote city that was inaugurated as Myanmar’s capital in 2005. Most foreign missions have stayed in Yangon, the country’s former capital.


China’s support for the military crackdown may be partly rooted in the recent opening of a Chinese-operated oil terminal at Kyaukpyu port, in southern Rakhine. While the military’s campaign is being carried out in the north of Rakhine, China would be concerned if the violence expanded and imperiled the terminal, Ms. Sun said.

On Monday, Human Rights Watch called for targeted sanctions against Myanmar’s military. It also called for new restrictions on the sale of arms to the country.

“Burmese security forces are committing ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya and disregarding the condemnation of world leaders,” John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “The time has come to impose tougher measures that Burma’s generals cannot ignore.”

For decades, Myanmar — or Burma, as it was formerly known — was one of the most isolated countries, with the United States and other Western countries enforcing sanctions against its military-led government. But as the military has gradually released some of its political control, the country’s interactions have grown dramatically.

The European Union and the United States pulled back broad sanctions after elections in 2012. Then last year, President Barack Obama dropped sanctions on aid from Washington to the government of Myanmar, as well as restrictions on several dozen people with ties to the former military government.

That move was made in recognition of the advancement of democracy in Myanmar. But human rights groups worried it would also reduce the leverage the United States had to try to curb abuses against the Rohingya.

Last week, Senator John McCain of Arizona said he would remove language from a defense-spending bill that would fund cooperation between the militaries of the United States and Myanmar. Mr. McCain has called on Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi to do more to help the Rohingya.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her long struggle against military rule, has many fans among lawmakers around the world, and that may insulate Myanmar from more serious censure from the United States and other governments.

The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said last week that “publicly condemning Aung San Suu Kyi, the best hope for democratic reform in Burma, is simply not constructive.” He noted that under Myanmar’s Constitution, she is barred from the presidency and her civilian government has no authority over the military. Her position is “an exceedingly difficult one,” he said.

Sean Turnell, an economic adviser to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s office, said her civilian government needs international support, “not uninformed ostracism or irresponsible or calculated incitement.”

“The people who lead this government are the same people who faced down evil for decades,” he added. “They remain Myanmar’s best hope.”

My Response:

From my reading of this article I did not feel that there was much bias either way for the sanctions or against them. There was bias, however, in the fact that they agreed with most of the world that Myanmar's actions against the Rohingya are wrong. I agree with this and I agree that something needs to be done to stop these actions. I also think that it is very wrong that china would be possibly supporting them in this in order to gain influence and power. However, I also do not think that the sanctions are a good idea. I think that sanctions isolate a nation from the rest of the world and can easily make them hostile towards the outside as it has with North Korea. Obviously these issues are very different but I think that there needs to be a different solution to this problem. I think that the first step in this solution is diplomatic talks which have already started. These diplomatic talks need to convince Myanmar that it is in their best interest to stop with this ethnic cleansing otherwise the only other option is sanctions. I think that this needs to be done urgently before more people die or are forced to leave and it is the United Nations responsibility to deal with this.

Mexico offered to help Texas recover from Harvey. But it just took back the offer.

Reeling from a devastating earthquake and Hurricane Katia, Mexico says it can no longer offer aid to Texas.

by Sarah Wildman


On Monday morning, the Mexican foreign ministry issued a statement withdrawing the country’s offer of aid to Hurricane Harvey-ravaged Texas.

It was a surprising reversal for the government of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, which had, just last week, hammered out a plan for a logistical support relief package for Texas.

As with so much else in the increasingly fraught relationship between the US and Mexico, one of America’s biggest trading partners, it may have come down to President Trump and the controversial things he says — or, in this case, declined to say.

That, combined with a stunning number of natural disasters piled one on top of one another.

On September 7, a massive earthquake tore through the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Tabasco, taking 95 lives, inflicting hundreds of millions of dollars in material damage, and wounding hundreds. While local officials in the US offered a note of condolence, Trump didn’t tweet words of solidarity, or concern, about Mexico’s disaster.

The 8.2 magnitude Mexican earthquake hit Friday. On Saturday morning, Mexico was walloped by another natural disaster, Hurricane Katia:

In the wake of the destruction, Mexico said today, its own need is now too great. It simply is no longer in a position to offer the food, medical personnel, and material goods it had offered to those in Texas affected by the storm. All efforts would now, instead, be directed to helping the considerable number of victims across Mexico:


Given this circumstance, the Mexican government will channel all logistical support available to care for the families and communities affected in the national territory, so it has been reported to the government of Texas and the federal government of the United States that unfortunately in this it will not be possible to provide aid originally offered to Texas in the wake of Hurricane Harvey in late August.

The initial Mexican offer of aid for Texas may have raised hopes of a thaw between the Mexican government and the Trump administration, which have been battling over Trump’s promise to make Mexico pay for his proposed border wall. The lack of communication between the countries’ leaders seems likely to return things to their normal, chilly state.
Mexico was gracious when Harvey devastated Texas

When Hurricane Harvey submerged Houston the last week of August, Mexico quickly offered to help — proffering logistical aid for flood-damaged regions, including food and medical personnel — just as it had done when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005. It did so even though Trump had spent the Sunday of Harvey’s devastation tweeting about building the border wall and making Mexico pay for it.


Mexico dismissed that provocation, and simply offered help. The Mexican foreign ministry, for its part, wearily insisted again there would be no money for a border wall, just money to be a good neighbor. “On August 27, Chancellor Luis Videgaray held a telephone call with Texas Governor Greg Abbott to express our solidarity and identify specific supports,” the office of the foreign ministry explained today. “On August 28, a diplomatic note was sent to the United States Department of State detailing the Mexican offer of support personnel, technical equipment and supplies.”

On August 30, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson officially thanked his Mexican counterpart for the aid.

Diplomatic envoys ferried offers between the two countries. On September 6, Texas agreed to accept an aid package, with just logistical support. Separately, Mexican Red Cross workers were already on the ground.

And then the earthquake hit. But even in withdrawing the aid offer, Mexican officials noted that Harvey victims were well on their way to recovery and redirecting aid made sense. “This decision is made since the conditions of both countries have changed and based on the fact that aid needs in Texas have fortunately decreased,” the foreign service statement noted.

In its statement, Mexico added, “The Mexican government takes this opportunity to thank the Governor of Texas Greg Abbott for his message of solidarity to our country on the occasion of the September 7 earthquake.”

Abbott isn’t Trump, but it’s good to know that at least one prominent American politician thought to send a message of well-being to those suffering outside the borders of the US.

Citation: 

Wildman, Sarah. “Mexico Offered to Help Texas Recover from Harvey. But It Just Took Back the Offer.” Vox, Vox, 11 Sept. 2017, www.vox.com/world/2017/9/11/16290452/mexico-takes-back-offer-of-harvey-aid.

My Response:

This article is very interesting in that it has brought together both natural disasters and political controversy. In my opinion I think that Vox news may have stretched the facts a bit too far in order to include their anti-Trump bias. Although they may not be far from the truth with this inference that Mexico may have withdrawn their support partially because of Donald Trump. However, in a time like this where Mexico is really suffering it is tough to justify that. I think that if it had been at a different time I would have agreed much more with the author that Trump's actions caused them to withdraw. The other reason this doesn't seem to be the truth is that even when Trump continued on the day with his provocative tweets Mexico still offered their help. I believe that Mexico really just doesn't have the ability to help at this point in time. My slant is generally anti-Trump also so it would be nice to believe that Mexico pulled out because of him but this isn't really the truth.

North Korea's nuclear tests: How should Trump respond- Response

North Korea's nuclear tests: How should Trump respond?

By Dr John Nilsson-Wright-Chatham House & University of Cambridge

3 September 2017


North Korea's dramatic testing of a sixth nuclear device has once again raised fears of rising tensions in north-east Asia and the prospect of war breaking out on the Korean peninsula.

The size of the latest test - equivalent to a 6.3 magnitude earthquake - suggests a step-change in the destructive power of the North's nuclear assets.

It was five to six times larger than its last test in September 2016, and potentially seven times as large as the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

But it is too early to assess Pyongyang's boast to have successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. The North has made similar uncorroborated claims in the past, but irrespective of the precise nature of the explosion, there seems little doubt that the destructive capacity of Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal has increased substantially.
Why does North Korea want nuclear weapons?

The North's motives for testing remain unchanged. Pyongyang's desire to acquire nuclear weapons dates from at least the 1960s, and is rooted in a desire for political autonomy, national prestige and military strength.

Added to this is Kim Jong-un's desire to secure an unambiguous deterrent to safeguard against a potential US pre-emptive attack - a key element in explaining not only Kim's sharply accelerated missile testing programme, but also the latest photo boast apparently showing him inspecting a new entirely "homemade" nuclear warhead.

While analysts are divided on whether the North's progress in developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (following its two tests in July) has enabled it to strike the United States with nuclear weapons, in some ways the technical debate is moot.

The demonstration effect of repeated missile and nuclear weapons testing makes it extremely unlikely that an American president would contemplate a direct strike on the country, other than in retaliation against a North Korean attack - a move that North Korean officials know would be suicidal.

Kim Jong-un's behaviour since taking over as the North's leader in December 2011 suggests that he is a rational actor, albeit a particularly egotistical and brutal one given his willingness to execute and purge both close family members and senior elite North Korean officials.

His actions are those of a calculating risk-taker (more so than his father Kim Jong-il) intent on thumbing his nose at President Trump, while also bolstering his legitimacy in the eyes of his own people by realising his goal of military modernisation. This objective appears to be widely popular with many North Koreans, especially those living in Pyongyang.
How should the US respond?

While the North remains the primary source of regional insecurity, an additional, and perhaps more worrying element of instability is the temperament and thinking of Donald Trump.

The US president continues very conspicuously to hint at the possibility of pre-emptive US military action against the North - a course of action that would have catastrophic consequences for the citizens of Japan, South Korea and especially the 10 million or so residents of Seoul directly in range of the North's conventional and nuclear forces.

Ultimately, a US military response to the North Korean challenge would, therefore, represent a "doomsday" scenario for America's two key regional allies as well as jeopardising the lives of the 28,500 US servicemen and personnel based in South Korea.

It is, therefore, easy to understand why both US Defence Secretary James Mattis and National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster are reportedly firmly opposed to the military option except as a last defensive resort.

President Trump's bellicose sabre-rattling may be a negotiating ploy, intended to alarm Pyongyang sufficiently to deter it from further provocations, or to encourage an increasingly irritated Chinese leadership to impose decisive and punitive economic pressure on the North, most immediately through a suspension of critical crude oil supplies.

Yet if this is the intention, it does not appear to be working. The North has since April been stockpiling supplies of oil to guard against any new sanctions and the Chinese leadership, while reportedly increasingly irritated by the North, may therefore have concluded that restricting oil as either a symbolic or actual economic weapon may have limited immediate impact.

Assuming the president is neither irrational nor wilfully impulsive, nor willing to sacrifice Seoul for the interests of Washington, then the most likely response to the current crisis will be for the administration to push for much tougher sanctions against the North.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is currently drawing up a new proposal to punish any third countries doing business with the North by cutting off their access to the US market. While this would certainly be a dramatic and arguably proportionate response to the new North Korean provocation, it runs the risk of being both ineffective and counter-productive.

Unilateral US sanctions would be hard to enforce, would potentially provoke crippling retaliatory trade sanctions by countries such as China that have balked at further across the board economic pressure on the North, and would at best, even if enforceable, take time to have a meaningful effect on the North Korean leadership.

Given the grave risks and limited benefits associated with either sanctions or military action, diplomacy and dialogue remain the best means of defusing the current crisis.

While the UN and individual nations should continue to forcefully condemn the North's behaviour, it remains the responsibility of the United States - still the world's indispensable superpower - to actively and imaginatively explore the options for some form of dialogue with North Korea.

Not talking leaves open the possibility that strategic tensions will continue. A frustrated President Trump confronted, weeks or months from now, by the failure of sanctions or political brinkmanship to bring the North to heel, may end up acting on his apparent belief that force is the "one thing" that Kim Jong-un understands.

In such a situation it is conceivable that both sides may misperceive the intentions of the other and end up stumbling into conflict that could escalate to the nuclear level - not through rational design but by accidental miscalculation.

Patient negotiation remains, therefore, a way of pointing out to the North not only the costs (both diplomatic and economic) of further provocations, but also the potential gains to be realised through moderation.

Talking is not, as President Trump has erroneously suggested, "appeasement" and represents the best way of averting military conflict and preventing the hands of the doomsday clock, for now at least, moving perilously closer to midnight.

From: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41143589

My Response:

Audience:

This article was published on BBC world news and is therefore probably meant for a largely international audience. This means that it is written for mainly non-Americans such as European and Asian peoples. 

Author's Bias: 

This article was written by Dr John Nilsson-Wright who is a research fellow with the Asia program of Chatham house. It is very hard to determine what kind of Bias this author may have but it is likely that he is slightly bias toward Asian thoughts and topics because that is what he has spent so much time researching.

Publisher Bias: 

The publisher of this article is the BBC which generally tends to have a bias against the United States and in this case probably has some bias against North Korea. Since these are the two nations being discussed the article tends to be harsh against both of these nations.

Reader Bias:

Personally as a reader I tend to have a bias against North Korea because I generally think of them as the 'bad guys' and that can twist my view on this story. I also am generally biased against Donald Trump because of his actions and words as president. This may mean I will tend to think that he may choose the wrong options of the one's that this article proposes.

Purpose:

The goal of the author of this article is to inform the audience on what he believes is the best way for the Donald Trump and the United States to deal with this issue. His goal is also to help keep peace by offering his expert opinion on the issue.

Opinion:

To me this topic is very scary because it gives evidence that we are on the verge of a nuclear war and I am not convinced that Donald Trump cares enough about the rest of the world to prevent this. I do agree with the author that the only way to truly stop North Korea is by diplomatic relations but I am not sure that is possible and therefore I think that we need to come up with a more creative idea to solve this issue. I also think that it is important that they at least attempt to put the sanctions on North Korea because although the author doesn't believe this will work I am not convinced of that and I think that it will at least slow the North down in their progress. However I totally agree that the worst possible solution to this issue is military involvement because of the dangers which that creates.