More Than An Ocean Anyway

Four days after Thanksgiving, Forbes reported

On three days - November 20, 22 and 25 - the volume of travelers passing through U.S. airports exceeded one million. While that is well short of the two million plus travelers recorded daily during Thanksgiving week in 2019, it is still far higher than the number of fliers seen in the early days of the pandemic when the travel volume was in the region of 100,000. With many travelers attending large family dinners held indoors including the presence of over-65s, there is now real concern that the U.S. is set to experience a serious coronavirus shock over the coming weeks.

Over the past week, it seemed that almost every day a record for the number of diagnosed cases, hospitalized individuals, or deaths for the USA was being set.  It is possible that an average of around 3,000 Americans will die daily of Covid-19 the next 3-4 months and leave us with perhaps more than 600,000 deaths by early March.

Obviously, it wouldn't have been this way without a President who has encouraged fatalities. Donald Trump periodically has demonstrated leadership, but of a kind intended to further his dream of purifying the gene pool.

Trump has been a national horror and embarrassment, and threat to the world.  However, governors of fifty states also have demonstrated a lack of leadership, responding weakly and meekly to the coronavirus. At other times, restrictions have been imposed, then relaxed or eliminated, then re-imposed.  A confusing, sometimes bewildering welter of regulations has ensued.

At no time, however, has any governor (let alone the President) demonstrated the leadership exhibited last week 4200 miles from Washington, D.C. when Chancellor Angela Merkel called German citizens to sacrifice with

As hard as it is- and I know how much love has gone into setting up the mulled wine stands and waffle stalls, this is not compatible with the agreement we made to only take food away to eat at home. I'm sorry, I really am sorry from the bottom of my heart. But if the price we pay is 590 deaths a day, then that is unacceptable in my view.

And when scientists are practically begging us to reduce our contacts for a week before we see Grandma and Grandpa, grandparents and older people at Christmas...

Merkel then spoke specifically about schoolchildren before continuing

I only want to say: if we have too many contacts now, in the run-up to Christmas and it ends up being the last Christmas with our grandparents, then we will have done something wrong. We should not let this happen.

Mulled wine stands and waffle stalls. Imagine if last spring, a governor had urged the residents of her state to consider putting aside fairs and festivals, family trips to the lake and to the beach, even family dinners for the summer in order to suppress the coronavirus and allow secondary schools and colleges to open normally in the fall.

And imagine if a governor approaching this holiday season had implored his constituents to limit Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations to their own household. Stay at home, he might have said, so that the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands, of of our residents might be spared. Eat and there, indoors or outdoors, rather than indoors at bars and restaurants. Curtail New Year's Eve revelry. Sacrifice now so people may live.

It might have not worked, and it might be less than a complete success even in Germany. We'll never know, however, because for whatever reason, we don't have in the USA a leader with the courage of an Angela Merkel. And so, death.

 

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Two-Nation Solution

In April, President Donald Trump asked French President Emanuel Macron "why don't you leave the EU?"  The same month, he complained "the European Union, of course, was set up to take advantage of the United States, to attack our piggy bank." 

Shortly before, he reportedly had told the Group of Seven leaders "NATO is as bad as NAFTA," implied to Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven that Sweden should leave NATO, and suggested regime change to the German people.

In an interview with a British tabloid, Trump praised Theresa May's rival Boris Johnson and criticized her handling of Brexit.  A few days later, the Prime Minister revealed that Trump had recommended that she sue the European Union.  He suggested regime change to the German people and a few weeks later charged that Germany is "totally controlled" and "held captive" by Russia.

That did not amuse Prime Minister Merkel, who grew up in East Germany and thus knows much more about being controlled by Russia than does Donald Trump (or maybe not).

Two days before he met Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Trump labeled the EU as a trade "foe" of the USA.

And on and on and on- we get the message, and know on whose behalf President Trump is delivering it. 

When we learned that President Trump repeatedly asked his advisers last August about overthrowing Venezuelan President Maduro, it may have seemed completely unrelated to Trump's determination to destroy the Trans-Atlantic alliance.

However, it may not have been. Last Tuesday, Masha Gessen was asked on "Morning Joe" about what Vladimir Putin wants, and is getting, from the USA.   She replied

He's getting exactly what he wants. Putin does not actually want sanctions lifted. Putin does not necessarily want the United States to recognize the Russian occupation of Crimea, although that would be nice. He's perfectly happy with things as they are. A lot of his legitimacy in Russia is actually based on the image of the United States as an enemy. 

But what he really needs to project is something that he has been striving for for the last eighteen years that he has been in power, which is to recreate the sense of a bi-polar world where the United States and Russia sit down to sort of divvy up the world and he achieved so much toward that goal yesterday. Just having that press conference where he is so clearly in control of a conversation with the American president demonstrated to Russians that he has made Russia great again.

Dividing the globe into two spheres of influence, one of Russia and one of the United States, is no overnight project.  It would require a Congress of Stepford Wives- which Trump currently has- and re-election of the President.  But it's in the works.




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Rhyming with a Tiny, Brittle Witch

I'm Shocked! Shocked to find out that the swagger is gone when he's face-to-face with an adversary. On Tuesday The Washington Post reported

The U.S. president began a remarkable day of transatlantic diplomacy by attacking Germany as “captive to Russia,” later called on NATO countries to double their previous commitment to defense spending and then effectively renounced the gathering altogether.

“He could declare victory . . . and ride off in a blaze of glory as leader of the West,” said Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and to Russia who met with officials on the sidelines of Wednesday’s summit. “But he’s rubbing salt in the wounds.”

Behind closed doors, Trump was cordial and even magnanimous at times with his European counterparts, according to officials who interacted with him. And at dinner, where the leaders mingled as an acrobatic dancer performed, floating in the air, Trump said it was “a very good day at NATO.”

Publicly, however, Trump bristled and bickered, interrupted and impeded — making clear to the world he is impatient and annoyed with an alliance that he says takes advantage of the United States.

“Everything in the room was fine,” Dalia Grybauskaite, the president of Lithuania, said in an interview. But outside the room, she said, Trump was less productive, with his “outspoken rhetoric.”

Publicly, however, Trump bristled and bickered, interrupted and impeded — making clear to the world he is impatient and annoyed with an alliance that he says takes advantage of the United States.

“Everything in the room was fine,” Dalia Grybauskaite, the president of Lithuania, said in an interview. But outside the room, she said, Trump was less productive, with his “outspoken rhetoric.”

During a closed-door working session of all the leaders, Trump was relatively reserved, according to attendees. He repeated the same arguments he made earlier in public that NATO member states needed to up their defense spending and that Germany is too dependent on Russia for natural gas. But he also stressed the common security threats all NATO allies face, according to a senior diplomat who was in the meeting.

This is Donald J. Trump.  Lacking an inner core of belief, he's all bluff and bluster in public while unable to confront anyone directly. Think of it as "The Apprentice" turned upside-down.  Gabriel Sherman reveals that former Fox News vice-president Bill Shine, who has become White House deputy chief of staff for communications, has rapidly become a favorite of the President. There now is

intensified speculation in the West Wing that the president’s long-suffering chief of staff and nemesis, John Kelly, will soon be departing. Kelly opposed the hiring of Shine and has seen his role continue to be diminished, sources said, sometimes in humiliating ways. “They’ve basically stopped telling Kelly when meetings are. People leave him off the calendar,” one administration official told me. “When he finds out, he storms into the room and is like, ‘What’s going on?’” A Republican close to the White House told me that Trump hopes Shine’s expanding role will encourage Kelly to quit. “Trump is too chickenshit to fire Kelly himself,” the source said. The strategy is reminiscent of the president’s decision to hire Anthony Scaramucci as communications director in July 2017 to drive out then-chief of staff Reince Priebus. “This is a more subtle version of Scaramucci,” an outside adviser to the White House told me.

This isn't the first time there has been a big rift, widely reported, between  John Kelly and the President, and not the first time that the firing of Kelly has appeared to be right around the corner.  But Trump hasn't fired the former general for three reasons: 1) Kelly is a former general; 2) Trump can't fire anyone directly; and 3) Trump can't fire anyone directly.

Donald Trump is a windbag. The entire premise of The Apprentice was stagecraft.  John Kelly, who reportedly is unsatisfied with a continental breakfast, may leave the White House, possibly soon.  His job appears to be excruciating and his ticket has been punched for a lucrative, post-White House career on cable or broadcast television news, a conservative think tank, or wherever a reliable conservative is needed.

Nonetheless, he won't be fired, any more than Trump will go toe-to-toe with Angela Merkel and tell her what he really thinks about her and Germany. Back in a more hopeful time, 36 months ago, Bill Maher already had Donald Trump pegged:

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Meanwhile, In Berlin

Representing the Putin-Trump plan for dismantling the Trans-Atlantic Alliance, we have

The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition. Crime in Germany is way up. Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2018

Crime in Germany has been declining, an inconvenient, yet not uncomfortable, fact for a demagogue who used the racially charged "law and order" to lie his way to the top some nineteen months ago.

But Trump is right that there is impatience within the grand coalition Prime Minister Angela Merkel formed earlier this year. Yet, Monday morning in the USA brings the news

German Chancellor Angela Merkel tonight accepted an end-of-the-month deadline from Interior Minister Horst Seehofer on border control.

The compromise would help de-escalate a row that had threatened to blow up the 70-year-old alliance between the two conservative parties — Bavaria’s Christian Social Union and the Christian Democratic Union — destabilising her government.

Mrs Merkel said she would hold talks with other EU countries on migration issues and report back on July 1.

Mr Seehofer said tonight he wanted to proceed step-by-step in his plan to turn back some migrants at the country’s borders.

In the USA, we have a chief executive who has imposed tariffs on those European allies (and Canada), as well as withdrawn from the Iran nuclear agreement and the Paris climate accord and moved the nation's embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. These have all been moves strongly opposed by allies and democratic nations in general, whose objections have been met by a figurative middle finger from President Trump.

His new national security adviser, John Bolton, once said "If I were redoing the [UN] Security Council today, I’d have one permanent member because that’s the real reflection of the distribution of power in the world.” His views have not changed. The President's have: he'd add mainland China and Russia.

By contrast, Merkel has worked out an arrangement, however temporary, with her chief domestic foe, preparatory to meeting with  Italian Prime Minister Conte, later French President Macron, and with the European Union at the end of the month. “In the CDU, we are of the conviction that German and European interests have to be considered together,” Merkel has said (video below from early June).

We've been doing it differently here, with a chief executive who has imposed tariffs on those European allies (and Canada), as well as withdrawn from the Iran nuclear agreement and the Paris climate accord and moved the nation's embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. These have all been moves strongly opposed by allies and democratic nations in general, whose objections have been met by a figurative middle finger from Donald Trump.

The President's new National Security adviser, John Bolton, once said "If I were redoing the [UN] Security Council today, I’d have one permanent member because that’s the real reflection of the distribution of power in the world.” His views have not changed. The President's have: he'd add mainland China and Russia.

Nations working together to come up with solutions to mutual problems may seem a novel approach because Washington has not practiced it since, roughly, the January 2017 inauguration of the "I alone can solve it" authoritarian. The concept of cooperation is almost as awkward as the concept of shame for Donald Trump and his supporters

In tweeting Monday morning "We don’t want what is happening with immigration in Europe to happen with us!" President Trump continues an ultra-nationalistic and ultimately futile approach toward the surge in refugees in the USA and Europe. Fortunately, the German chancellor, seeking a coalition- or at least cooperation- among allies, is leading the continent in addressing the issue. President Trump does not understand: but this is what leadership looks like.

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Lie Of The Day (June 9, 2018)

"I would say." Donald Trump contended at his news conference following the G7 summit, "that the level of relationship is a 10. We have a great relationship. Angela and Emmanuel and Justin. I would say the relationship is a 10."

Following meetings at the White House in late April

President Trump and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany made no attempt on Friday to hide their disagreements over the future of the Iran nuclear deal and trade relations between the United States and Europe after a day of White House meetings that appeared to have produced no breakthroughs on major disputes.

Mr. Trump and Ms. Merkel, who have had a chilly relationship from the start, steered away from the kind of awkward confrontations that have characterized past meetings, going out of their way to compliment each other and accentuate areas of agreement. But Mr. Trump pressed his complaint that the trade relationship between the United States and Europe was “unfair,” and Ms. Merkel made clear that the president had not made the commitment she was seeking — permanently exempting the European Union from the steel and aluminum tariffs he imposed in March.

Mr. Trump congratulated Ms. Merkel for her recent election victory and praised her leadership in helping pressure North Korea to come to the table for talks on dismantling its nuclear program, but he also blasted what he called an unfair trade disparity between the United States and Germany — making particular mention of a $50 billion trade deficit in automobile parts — and dwelled once more on his frequent complaint that Germany does not contribute enough financially to NATO.

In the run-up to the G7 conference in Canada, things got worse. The President said he would impose tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and the European Union and they have vowed to retaliate.Trump  recommended that Russia be admitted to the G7 because "we have a world to run," a reminder to the allies that Trump has far less regard for them than he has for Moscow. He interrupted a breakfast meeting of the conference's gender equality advisory council by showing up late, at which time "fellow G7 leaders stared at Trump as he slowly made his way to his seat, which was across the table from Trudeau and next to International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde."

In the very same response in which he gave a rating of 10 to relations between the USA and those allies, Trump charged

the European Union is brutal to the United States. They don’t — and they understand that. They know it. When I’m telling them, they’re smiling at me. You know, it’s like the gig is up. It’s like the gig is up. They’re not trying to — there’s nothing they can say. They can’t believe they got away with it.

If Donald Trump believes that adds up to a "10," he is an even worse mathematician than he is an historian. But rest assured that he realizes the relationship is closer to a 1 than to a 10, which provided a great opportunity for yet another brazen lie by the President of the United States of America.

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A World To Run

Ian Bremmer and Malcolm Nance, the latter in response to the former, consider President Trump's affinity toward Russian President Vladimir Putin:

No serious foreign policy analyst I know (nor any ex-Trump Admin official) has a good explanation for why Trump is so singularly enamored with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Whatever the reason is, we don’t know it yet.

— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) June 8, 2018

Only counterintelligence explains Trumps slavishness. He a witting asset of the Kremlin. Since the Nobu Resturant meeting with the Russian Oligarchs in November 2013 he has been convinced Russian is his greatest supporter. He won’t let them down. #HailHydra https://t.co/Hqbxi9kkIs

— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) June 8, 2018

Early Thursday morning, The New Yorker posted by Susan Glasser an article in which she referred to a security conference in the Estonian capital the previous week and added

When I went to Berlin after the Tallinn conference, I talked with several German officials who made similar references to personal and familial dysfunction. In their view, Trump’s decision to take on his allies on so many issues all at once is quite different from the standard-issue European policy disputes with the United States, such as the 2003 rift over George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, or Ronald Reagan’s early nineteen-eighties military buildup against the Soviet Union. Those were differing views over how to protect the alliance; now Trump is questioning the alliance itself. “It’s like your parents questioning their love for you,” Norbert Röttgen, the chairman of the Bundestag’s foreign-affairs committee, told me on Monday. “It’s already penetrated the subconscious.”

That was Thursday morning. It wasn't until Friday morning that the President left the White House to be flown to the two-day G-7 summit in Canada and stated "Russia should be in this meeting. Whether you like it or not, and it may not be politically correct, but we have a world to run. . . . They should let Russia come back in."

And so the President of the USA wants Vladimir Putin's Russia to be join the group of seven allies. It would, at least, alleviate the need to tell our intelligence secrets to the Kremlin. But wait- run that one by me again, will you?

We have a world to run.  Trump wasn't talking about the G7-8, the Transatlantic alliance, or the European Union.  One year ago, a former undersecretary of State and ambassador to NATO wrote 

America and Europe are experiencing their most significant crisis in decades. President Trump’s recent visit to NATO and the EU was the least successful of any U.S. president in seven decades, exposing deep ideological divisions and a widening gulf of trust across the Atlantic. Last weekend’s terrorist attacks in London had the same effect. Trump repeatedly criticized London Mayor Sadiq Khan for telling citizens not to be alarmed by the attacks, when Khan actually said they should not be alarmed by a heavy police presence. Trump’s tweets did not go down well in stoic Britain, where the World War II maxim, “keep calm and carry on,” still holds.....

The heart of the problem is Trump’s view of Europe, and Germany in particular, as an economic competitor rather than a strategic partner. This is a sea change in American attitudes towards Europe. All of Trump’s predecessors dating to President Truman have prized Europe’s political and military alliance with America. Trump’s boorish behavior in Brussels and his intemperate tweets criticizing Merkel (and now Khan) have only reinforced the doubts about him in Europe

In late May, after criticism of NATO from President Trump, Angela Merkel remarked "I have experienced this in the last few days. And that is why I can only say that we Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands."

That was in May, 2017. Now, as David Corn mused on AM Joy on Saturday morning, Trump "doesn't want a G-7. He wants a G-2, maybe a G-3" (mainland China included). 

Actual "fate" is pre-determined. Otherwise, fate wouldn't be fate. But if the European Union doesn't want Europe- and possibly the globe- split up by two or three world powers, it needs to start, yesterday.

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Shifting Leadership

Donald Trump held a news conference Friday with the leader of the free world and remarked

We need a reciprocal relationship, which we don't have. The United States right now has a trade deficit with the European Union of $151 billion. And the chancellor and I have discussed it today at length and we're working on it. And we want to make it more fair and the chancellor wants to make it more fair.

Same thing with NATO, we have a far greater burden than we should have. Other countries should be paying more. And I'm not saying Germany alone; other countries should be paying more. We're protecting Europe and, yet, we pay, by far, more than anybody else. And NATO is wonderful but it helps Europe more than it helps us. And why are we paying the vast majority of the costs.

So we're working on those things, it's been unfair. And I don't blame the chancellor and I don't Germany, I don't even blame the European Union; I blame the people that preceded me for allowing this to happen.





Trump periodically blames European nations for not paying their share of the NATO budget. However, as was pointed out the last time he complained, the 2% of their budget member nations are urged to pay goes not into NATO operations, but into their particular defense budget.

Berlin pays less than 2%. But over the last few years, they have paid in other ways.  Although in 2017 Germany accepted only 186,644 asylum seekers, they had taken in approximately 280,000 in 2016 and 890,0000 in 2015.

In comparison, we learned from Pew that as of October 2017

about 28,000 refugees have been resettled in the U.S., far less than in 2016, according to U.S. State Department data. If the number of refugees worldwide remains the same as in 2016 and if few refugees enter the U.S. for the rest of 2017, the U.S. is on track to accept just 0.2% of the world’s refugee population – far less than the historic average of 0.6%, and lower even than the share admitted in 2001 and 2002, in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Each year, the president’s administration sets the ceiling for how many refugees are resettled in the United States. In fiscal 2017, the Trump administration used an executive order to reduce the number of refugee admissions previously set by the outgoing Obama White House to be less than half the initial ceiling. Looking ahead to fiscal 2018, the Trump administration has proposed a refugee resettlement ceiling of 45,000 to Congress. The White House has also asked Congress for lower annual admissions of refugees as part of their immigration principles for immigration legislation.

In the year that ended in September 2016, the USA accepted 84,995 refugees. By contrast, Germany accepted in 2015 more refugees than the USA had in the previous ten years.  It did so while its population was only approximately 26% that of the USA and its gross domestic product only about 19% that of the USA. This is not an example of American exceptionalism.

Leadership is difficult to come by. It's a difficult role for Berlin because of a measure of distrust engendered by the Holocaust and its role in World War II. It's also not a huge nation and is less prosperous (by wealth) and less powerful than the USA.

Not willing to lead, Donald Trump should follow or get out of the way. Instead, by refusing to acknowledge Berlin's role and attacking it, President Trump is not only further relinquishing America's moral leadership, but attacking the Trans-Pacific partnership and the ability of the European Union to contribute to global security.

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A Reveal

He's telling us again.

I'm not referring to comments made by the President during an event with Team USA Olympians and Paralympians on Friday when President Trump declared "what happened with the Palympics was so incredible and so inspiring to me. And I watched- it's a little tough to watch too much, but I watched as much as I could.

Donald Grump already made clear his opinion of handicapped individuals when in November 2015 he imprersonated Serge Kovaleski. As reported by NBC News, "Now, the poor guy- you ought to see the guy: 'Uh, I don't know what I said, I don't remember,' Trump said as he contorted his arms in an apprent imitation of Kovaleski, who suffers from arthogryposis."

Trump went on to gain the GOP nomination for President and win the general election, and, frankly, almost no one cares. This sort of thing has no more impact on the general public than the revelation that Trump committed adultery last year would have on Christian moralists. None.

I'm referring to something more astonishing- but whose import has gone completely unnoticed. Sitting yesterday in the Oval Office with the default leader of the free world, President Trump stated

We were honored. It was a great report, no collusion, which I knew anyway, no coordination, no nothing. It's a witch hunt, that's all it is. There was no collusion with Russia, you can believe this one. She (Merkel) probably can't believe it, who can? But the report was very powerful, very strong, there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian people. Cause I've said many times before, I've always said there was no collusion, but I've also said there has been nobody tougher on Russia than me. With that all being said, if we can get along with Russia, that's a good thing, not a bad thing, but there has been nobody tougher on Russia than me.

There was no collusion with Russia, you can believe this one. She (Merkel) probably can't believe it, who can?

Colloquiallisms change over time, and thus mean something different to individuals of one background than another. But being of the same race and age, from the same part of the country as Trump and only six years younger than he, I can tell you "She probably can't believe it, who can" means "This thing sounds so ridiculous, who would actually realize it's true." President Trump is telling us there was collusion, whether it involved himself or only his campaign. 

To make things even clearer, he combines "I've always said there was no collusion" with "I've also said there has been nobody tougher on Russia than me"- which nearly everyone (including Trump himself) knows is poppycock. He has equated the two: the denial of collusion with the boast which is transparently baseless, and is recognized as such.

Or perhaps he's telling us there was a conspiracy. Media reports focus on Trump repeatedly claiming there was "no collusion" but, as lawyers will point out, there is no "collusion" provision in the U.S. code. There is, however, a generic concept of "collusion," to which Trump probably was referring. He is conceding- almost boasting- that collusion did occur.

Trump's admissions often are hiding in plain sight. Just as he pushed the envelope with his cracks during the campaign about Christianity (and found Christians were unmoved by humiliation of their religion by a conservative Republican), "she probably can't believe it, who can" is Trump pushing the envelope. He's trying to determine how naive the American people can be.  So far, he deserves to chuckle to himself.




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Leading The USA Astray

Soon after President Trump's ill-advised decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, the request from Daily Kos came in to "take action today and tell Congress: It's time to put America first and take the climate crisis seriously before it's too late." Two days later, I was implored by DK to "Sign the petition to your state & city government. Fight climate change by agreeing to join the Paris climate agreement."

Then we were informed that as supporters of  the agreement, the governors of California, New York, and Washington had rapidly formed the United States Climate Alliance, which is to be "a forum to sustain and strengthen existing climate programs, promote the sharing of information and best practices, and implement new programs to reduce carbon emissions from all sectors of the economy.”

This is a good thing, not unlike if the GOP congress were to propose raising the minimum wage to $7.50 per hour, no strings attached (fat chance, that).  Hopefully, it will prove to be only a start, even if it indirectly helps pull Donald Trump's fat out of the fire (on this one issue) and smacks a little of states' rights.






Though doing more good than harm, it's not the primary problem with Trump's move.  Michael Grunwald explains

Similarly, it’s important not to exaggerate the substantive impact of Trump’s decision to bail on Paris, which will officially remove the United States from the agreement in late 2020 at the earliest. It’s a signal that the U.S. government no longer cares about the climate, but that’s been abundantly clear ever since Trump won the election and appointed an energetic fossil-fuel advocate named Scott Pruitt to run the Environmental Protection Agency. Leaving Paris won’t reverse the rapid decline of coal or the boom of cleaner energy in America, because the economics of coal have fallen apart while the cost of wind and solar have plummeted, and it won’t stop that same trend in China, India and the rest of the world. By the same token, if Trump had announced he was staying in the Paris deal, that wouldn’t have meant that Trump was abandoning his efforts to gut Obama’s climate regulations (like the Clean Power Plan for the electricity sector) and other climate policies (like those fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks). Really, it would have been pretty weird for Trump to remain in the deal while trying to undermine everything the U.S. was doing to live up to its commitments.

Meanwhile, the earth is still warming, the polar ice caps are still melting, and the seas are still rising, heedless of the inspiring words committed to paper in Paris, and just as heedless of a noisy American politician’s decision to reject them. Trump may believe climate change is a hoax manufactured in China, and congressional Republicans may continue to oppose any action to address it, but that won’t make the physical realities of climate-driven droughts, floods, pandemics and refugee migrations any less brutal. It’s reminiscent of the old riddle: If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have? Four, because a tail is not a leg. Trump can call global warming a hoax, but 2014 was nevertheless the hottest year on record, until it was displaced by 2015, which was overtaken by 2016. That tail is not a leg.

The major issue is one of leadership. Trump wants to lead his base, or maybe the United States, but not beyond.  A trio of  Washington Post reporters notes that while there will be relatively miminimal concrete impact of Trump's rejection of the climate pact

it matters more that he’s announcing to the nations of the world that he intends to ignore an issue they consider vital to the planet. He is creating an intentional leadership vacuum, dispensing with the long-standing notion of the United States as the indispensable nation—just as he did when he withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal in Asia, with his tepid commitments to NATO on his trip to Europe, and with his proposal for drastic budget cuts in foreign aid and international diplomacy. He is making it clear that America First means the problems of the world are not America’s problems. He’s opening the door for China and Europe to take over the role of global leaders on climate change, and maybe the world’s other major problems.

If he needed a nudge, though, one came from France over the weekend. Macron was quoted in a French journal talking about his white-knuckled handshake with Trump at their first meeting in Brussels, where the newly elected French president gripped Trump’s hand tightly and would not let go for six long seconds in a show of alpha-male fortitude.

“My handshake was not innocent,” Macron said. He likened Trump to a pair of authoritarian strongmen — Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — and said that he was purposefully forceful because he believed his encounter with Trump was “a moment of truth.”

Hearing smack-talk from the Frenchman 31 years his junior irritated and bewildered Trump, aides said.

A few days later, Trump got his revenge. He proclaimed from the Rose Garden, “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”

Embracing strongmen, talking the talk of Vladimir Putin, running down a mayor of the nation's biggest ally, giving the back of the hand to NATO in Brussels, and now boldly and unabashedly undermining U.S. military policy in the Mideast, President Trump has given whole new meaning to the word "weak."

In April, 1970 President Nixon (defending a policy which would end badly) declared that failing to take aggressive action against Cambodia would demonstrate "If, when the chips are down, the world's most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world."

Under the current President, the USA has become a pitiful giant while assisting the forces of totalitarianism, be they Russia, Saudi Arabia, or the Phillipines.   Donald Trump, Eugene Robinson observes, "is abdicating all moral power. The world has no choice but to move on."

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From North America To Europe

With remarkable prescience, Josh Lederman of the Associated Press reported a mere three days after the inauguration of our nation's 45th president

“With the election of Donald Trump, the old world of the 20th century is finally over,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier wrote in the Bild newspaper, reflecting a broader European lament about confused international leadership and increased disorder.

Signs already abounded when at the recent meeting in Brussels, President Trump notably failed to affirm American commitment to Article 5, which emphasizes "an atack against one Ally is considered as an attack against all Allies."  Refusing to acknowledge that the only time Article V has been invoked has been in support of the United States (after 9/11/01), the head of the world's leading economy moaned and groaned like a weak, bullied child, complaining about the size of the defense budgets of member nations.

European leaders were neither pleased nor amused. The de facto chief of NATO, Germany's Angela Merkel, received a standing ovation when a few days later she stated "This is what I experienced in the last few days. We Europeans must really take our destiny into our own hands.”







Thus with no formal declaration, Mrs. Merkel was thrust into the role as leader of the Trans-Atlantic Alliance.  Responding in part to the expected announcement by Trump on June 2 of US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, on June 1

According to a statement being prepared before an EU-China summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, the new alliance will say they are determined to “lead the energy transition” toward a low-carbon economy.

The EU’s climate commissioner, Miguel Arias Cañete, told the Guardian: “The EU and China are joining forces to forge ahead on the implementation of the Paris agreement and accelerate the global transition to clean energy.”

Cañete continued: “No one should be left behind, but the EU and China have decided to move forward. Our successful cooperation on issues like emissions trading and clean technologies are bearing fruit. Now is the time to further strengthen these ties to keep the wheels turning for ambitious global climate action.”

This neatly, albeit disturbingly, fulfills Lederman's speculation on January 23 that

President Donald Trump’s pursuit of an “America first” foreign policy is raising questions about who, if anyone, will fill the void if the U.S. relinquishes its traditional global leadership role. China and Russia are among the aspirants for greater economic and military influence, while an ambivalent Germany could emerge as the West’s moral compass.

Given that mainland China and even Russia are typically not considered part of the "west," Germany has become much more than even a moral compass, an irony no one could even imagine 72 years ago.

It takes no imagination, however, to interpret the whine of Environmental Protection Administrator Scott Pruitt during the Administration's news conference of June 2 when he complained (at 1:40 of video)

The world applauded- the world applauded when we joined Paris. And you know why? I think they applauded because they knew it was going to put this country at an economic disadvantage. And the reason European leaders- going back to the question earlier- is I think they want us to stay in, is that they know it'll shackle our economy that we're leading the world in respect to our CO2 production.







Pruitt- who is said to be one of the two opponents of the pact in the Administration- clearly summarized a prime motive for Trump's action.  The President name-checked cities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan (what- no Wisconsin?) but was also eager to give the middle finger to the rest of the world,  It was only more convenient that it was the Paris Agreement, and the French have a reputation among a lot of Trump voters for those things they find most offensive in the modern world.

Additionally, Pruitt expresses that sense of grievance that runs through so much of Trump's statements and tweets. Whether he and the President really are silly enough to believe that the world's nations joined the Agreement to harm the USA, to "put this country at an economic disadvantage," is less important than its reinforcement as a theme in this presidency.  Similarly, in Brussels, Trump moaned "this is not fair." Whatever he complains at any time of of being "not fair"  is less important than assuaging a sense of grievance..

President Trump, Michael Grunwald notes, is "creating an international leadership vacuum" and "opening the door for China and Europe to take over the role of global leaders on climate change, and maybe the world’s other major problems."

The cooperation between the EU and China on global warming may presage leadership of Beijing on other major problems. But the interests of the free world cannot be met by China,which is not a free country, and which recognizes only its own interests, a view of nation reflected in Trump's "America First" mantra.

The torch of leadership, once alleged to be passed to a new generation, now must pass to a group dedicated to common interests, and to its leader.  "We Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands," Angela Merkel maintains.  The two world wars of the last century notwithstanding, that torch now resides not in Washington, but in Berlin.






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Thrust Into Leadership

Give the Indian-British journalist Sunny Hundal credit for being if not the first, certainly among the first, to recognize (on February 1) that

the German Chancellor isn’t just the leader of Europe, she is now the de-facto leader of the free world. 

The thrice-elected, soft-spoken former scientist from East Germany, armed with a doctorate in quantum chemistry, doesn’t just carry the weight of Germany and Europe on her shoulders, but that of defending freedom and liberalism across the world.

To be clear- and it certainly is- she doesn't have much competition. I know only one word ("schnell") of German, and that from decades of watching "Hogan's Heroes" in first-run and syndication the better part of a half-century. Therefore, I went to Google (translate) for a translation of a Spiegel Online article about the truly remarkable confrontation between President Trump and European leaders.  Evidently a spinoff of Der Spiegel, the German-language news website reports


US President Donald Trump has complained bitterly about the German trade surplus on his meeting with the EU top in Brussels. "The Germans are bad, very bad," said Trump. This was learned by the SPIEGEL from participants in the meeting

Trump said, "Look at the millions of cars they sell in the US, and we'll stop that."

At the meeting, EU Commissioner Jean-Claude Juncker took the side of the Germans and disagreed with Trumps Schelte. Free trade is a good thing for all, said the Commissioner. Juncker had tried a friendly tone, but was hard on the matter, says the participants.

At about an hour's meeting, Trump first met with President Donald Tusk and Commissioner Jean-Claude Juncker, after about 45 minutes, other members of the European Parliament came, including the President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani and the EU's chief diplomat Federica Mogherini. (An analysis of the meeting can be found here.)

According to a report from the "Süddeutsche Zeitung", the EU side was horrified at the extent of the Americans' lack of awareness of trade policy. Apparently, it was unclear to the guests that the EU countries concluded trade agreements only jointly. Trumps economic consultant Gary Cohn is said to have said in the conversation between the US and Germany tariff tariffs other than between the USA and Belgium.

Germany has been exporting more than it has introduced for years. Trump had already made the German surplus on the subject earlier, and the President had already expressed his critical opinion in an interview with the Bild newspaper. "I would say to BMW if they want to build a factory in Mexico and sell cars to the US without a 35 percent tax, they can forget that" Trump said at the time. Since then, there has been a threat of a criminal tax in the room.

The new US president feels the German surplus is unfair because of the fact that trade deficits are elsewhere, he is especially thinking about the US. The federal government is also under pressure within the EU because of the trade surplus. Lastly, Federal Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) had described the surplus as too high in the SPIEGEL interview.

It was actually thought in the EU, after countless meetings of European leaders with Trump and many attempts to explain the international trade policy. This hope may well bury the Europeans.

"Apparently, it was unclear to the guests that the EU countries concluded trade agreements only jointly."  This is so hard to believe it would strain credulity. However, in April

Angela Merkel was forced to explain the “fundamentals” of EU trade to Donald Trump 11 times after he repeatedly asked to do a deal directly with Germany, a senior German official has claimed. 

The US President reportedly exposed "very basic misunderstandings" of how EU trade works during a meeting with the German chancellor last month.

“Ten times Trump asked [Ms Merkel] if he could negotiate a trade deal with Germany. Every time she replied, 'You can’t do a trade deal with Germany, only the EU,'" the official told The Times.

"On the eleventh refusal, Trump finally got the message, 'Oh, we’ll do a deal with Europe then.'"

This was not a good sign. And in the Brussels gathering, Trump chose to admonish the European nations for insufficient financial defense spending- or as the president of the most powerful nation on earth whined, "this is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States."  Calling allies out publicly (rather than, or in addition to, privately) is no way to keep friends- or garner respect.

This was moments after rudely brushing aside the prime minister of Montenegro, thereby demonstrating that nothing says "I am the leader" than rushing to the camera to plead one's case.







Oh, what a mess we've made of things.  However, by "we," I'm referring only to all those politicians, non-traditional media, voters, and others who contributed toward making this guy the President of the United States, previously the leader of the free world.

How quaint the Cold War quip "I love Germany so much, I am glad there are two of them." Now- at least with Trump and Merkel in Washington and Berlin, respectively- that remark has been turned on its head.






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Exploitation, Utah-Style


"Utah," a misguided member of the Washington Post editorial staff writes," has passed the nation's most liberal and most reality-based policy on illegal immigration. And the Republican governor is expected to sign it."

For that we are all to stand up and applaud. It is "a milestone," Les Hockstader opines, which began with

the "Utah Compact," a pithy declaration of reform principles drafted last fall by business leaders and conservative elites, who feared Utah would follow in Arizona's footsteps and risk losing tens of millions of dollars in tourism and convention business, as Arizona did. The compact helped swing public opinion in Utah away from the illegal-immigrant bashers who admired Arizona's law.

The effort, which an impressed Hockstader finds all the more "interesting" because it "is coming from unimpeachable conservatives," consists of a package of three laws, one a less controversial version of Arizona SB 1070, a second which, The New York Times reports

authorized the creation of a state guest worker program by 2013, and instructed the governor and the state attorney general to negotiate with federal authorities for a waiver to allow Utah employers to hire illegal immigrants.

State Attorney General Mark Shurtleff noted "it's a federal crime to employ an illegal alien. I don't know how you get a waiver for a federal crime. I'm going to try."

If the waiver is granted, it may open a whole new role for the federal government. Perhaps businesses in Utah, or another state, can apply for a waiver to pay workers less than the middle wage or to employ child laborers. The possibilities, truly, are endless. And what could be better than waiving application of a law by a "government of laws, and not of men?"

The third new immigration law aims to facilitates the transfer of laborers from Mexico to Utah through existing federal guest-worker programs.

Perspective comes from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who in October explained

Germany's attempt to create a multicultural society has "failed, utterly failed."

Merkel, speaking October 16 at a meeting of her Christian Democratic party in the city of Potsdam, said decades of allowing people of different cultural backgrounds to live side by side without integrating into mainstream society has not worked for Germany.

"In Frankfurt on the Main, two out of three children under the age of five have an immigrant background,” Merkel said.

“We are a country which, at the beginning of the 1960s, actually brought guest workers to Germany. Now they live with us and we lied to ourselves for a while, saying that they won't stay and that they will have disappeared again one day. That's not the reality. This [multicultural] approach -- saying that we simply live side by side and are happy about each other -- this approach has failed, utterly failed."

Germany's failed guest worker program, evidently, invited laborers who were to "have disappeared again one day." Similarly, Hockstader indicates "Utah's guest-worker bill doesn't grant citizenship, of course."

Of course it doesn't- if it did, the labors would be more difficult to exploit and might actually integrate into society, enriching the American mosaic. It's easy, therefore, to understand corporate America's delight at the thought of an extensive network of temporary workers. But it's disconcerting that a portion of the left does not understand that such programs, which treat immigrants as disposable, second-class citizens, incorporate the seeds of the destruction of the very multiculturalism they purport to promote. Just ask Angela Merkel.

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Bush Promotes The Chinese Regime

Reuters reports on March 31, 2008 that Senate Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi has asked President Bush to consider boycotting the Olympic Games to be held in Beijing, China. In an interview to be telecast on ABC's Good Morning America on 4/1/08, the longtime critic of the Communist regime is quoted as saying "I think boycotting the opening ceremony, which really gives respect to the Chinese government, is something that should be kept on the table." She stated "I think the president might want to rethink this later, depending on what other heads of state do."

At least one head of state already has decided what to do. Chancellor Angela Merkel has decided against attending the opening ceremony, reminding us of the remarkable turnaround in German government and society since the end of World War II.

There is a strong argument, though little support, for going much further. In her article entitled "Boycott Beijing" posted on slate.com on 3/24/08, Anne Applebaum counters the standard arguments against boycotting the upcoming Olympics. Boycotts may accomplish a great deal, she notes, as in that of South African athletes from international competitions which helped end apartheid. Additionally, the Olympics can be not only a force for good but also for evil, as in the propaganda coup scored by Adolph Hitler when Nazi Germany hosted the 1936 Olympics. And the Games are perhaps the best place for demonstrations, inasmuch as "the modern Olympics were set up with a political purpose: to promote international peace by encouraging helalth competition (among) nations."

But the least the leader of the Free World can do is to skip the opening ceremony. Instead, White House spokesman Emily Lawrimore said the President "has also made it very clear that the Olympics will shine a bright light on China regarding a variety of issues. These games will provide China with an opportunity to put it's (sic) best face forward."

In a rare if unintended display of honesty, the Administration is not even bothering to pretend that the Games will focus attention on the brutal regime in Beijing, its military buildup, its arguably incomparable air pollution, aid to the Sudanese government in support of genocidal militants, or any other characteristic of this near-fascist state. Rather, they are delighted the Red Chinese will enjoy the fruits of valuable propaganda: "an opportunity to put its best face forward." It's a fascinating position for a President who, when speaking of the Persian Gulf, feigns a fondness for democratic states.