Posts Tagged ‘Europe’
Paris lockdown…
…didn’t stop the yellow-vest riots. Now the rioters are torching everything in their path, creating hazards in Brussels and Amsterdam as well. The headlines mention vague causes such as cost of living, and fuel prices, and the like. The actual problem is that French President Macron bought into the United Nation’s latest fit of global warming hysteria which would have necessitated throwing Western societies back into the Victorian Age at least.
Don’t you remember when Barack Obama said he had to destroy the coal industry and that gasoline prices had to rise to $7 or $8 per gallon to achieve the necessary climate goals? Apparently what’s left of the French middle class isn’t thrilled at the prospect of involuntary time machine travel. Democrats could learn something from this, but I doubt they will draw the correct conclusion from the riots, which is that the rioters have bats and sticks and bricks, but no Second Amendment to protect them from a tyrannical government. We do…That’s something to think about if it crosses the ocean.
In the meantime, Macron is in trouble on all sides.
Flooding in Europe…
Europe is seeing its worst flooding in many years, sometimes in half a century. If you’ve ever visited Prague, these shots will depress you.
Holocaust Remembrance Day…
Europe apparently likes Israel and Jews as much as His Oneness does. I don’t care that Rupert Murdoch has apologized for the hideous cartoon his paper ran. Mark Steyn points out the basic stupidity of the piece.
It ain’t all that slow…
The president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says that Europe is in a slow decline and that we need more trade agreements so we can sell them products while they can still afford to buy them. He’s quite correct, except that the decline is picking up speed rapidly, and with His Oneness re-elected, we aren’t all that far behind the continent.
Slip-sliding away…
North America and Europe are growing apart daily. Have a look at these astonishing underwater photographs of the tectonic plates.
For want of severance….
If you didn’t watch Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli on Greta Van Sustern’s On the Record last Friday night, you missed a delightfully cogent explanation of the severance clause, and why ObamaCare doesn’t have one (thanks, Sen. Scott Brown), and why, if any of the lawsuits prevail, the whole bill will likely hit File 13.
Louis Case does a fine job on the segment here. And as he so saliently points out, who wants to be the judge who bought the absurd argument that the individual mandate is both crucial and irrelevant to ObamaCare, and via that conceit turned America into Europe?
If we Europeanize…
Jonah Goldberg has a timely column asking what Europe will do if America becomes like them.
Foul foreign policy…
I wonder how the Poles and Czechs like having their steadfast support in Iraq and Afghanistan repaid with Obama’s announcement that he’s changing from Bush’s land-based missile defense system to one which is sea-based and less reliable? It is the work of a rank amateur, but it’s perfectly in accordance with his principles of making nice with our enemies and throwing allies under what has become a very large bus.
Be sure to use the links in John Tabin’s excellent post. As he notes, His Oneness got NOTHING for giving Russia what it wanted. Our troops stationed in Europe, and our allies, will be less secure, and the world sees what a weakling Obama is. How Putin must be laughing! Eastern Europe, not so much.
And all this on the 70th anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Poland. Oh yeah, His Oneness is really sensitive, and so well-informed about history.
All this on the day our Constitution is 222 years old. What a battered and shredded document it has become.
UPDATE: Who profits from this abrupt change in the defense of Eastern Europe? Besides Russia, apparently GE, one of Obama’s intimate connections.
And good for Poland’s Prime Minister, who refused to take Hillary Clinton’s call to inform him of the betrayal.
Closing Gitmo…
This is Obama’s order to close Gitmo:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ClosureOfGuantanamoDetentionFacilities/
It would be more appropriately entitled “A Pronouncement to Get Me Creds From the Left and Have the World Love Me While My Guys Form a Panel to Study Everything and Buy Me a Year Before I Have To Set Up a New Gitmo Somewhere and My Attorney General Creates an Out For Me On Interrogations.”
Make no mistake, he has left an escape hatch whereby he can get legal opinions so he isn’t restricted to the Army Field Manuel, which ex-CIA agent Mike Baker correctly says wouldn’t persuade a recalcitrant American teenager. And notice Sec. 8 b — the entire plan to create a plan is “subject to the availability of appropriations.”
It’s very clever politics, and utterly cynical leadership. We will see much more of this having it both ways, just as His Oneness did during the campaign.
Of course, after making the appropriate noises of approval, Europe is now going from “congratulations!” to “we can’t take them unless the USA certifies them as harmless.” Obama’s charm doesn’t seem to be enough just yet.
Time for Thorns 