Showing posts with label europe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label europe. Show all posts

Sunday, May 28, 2017

Idiot Abroad ~ Trump Fails on World Stage

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Back in 2008 when candidate Mitt Romney went overseas and made one gaffe after another, we thought Romneyshambles was the worst the GOP could do on the world stage.

WRONG!

Donald Trump went overseas last week and continuously acted like the "Ugly American," making a complete jackass of himself and embarassing our country.

















































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Saturday, June 25, 2016

England's Historic #Brexit Shakes Up the World

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Britain voted on a referendum to either leave the European Union of nations or remain part of the network. The conventional wisdom was that England would never vote to leave, yet that's exactly what happened yesterday, sending shockwaves around the world as the pound sterling decreased in value overnight, and markets responded to the new uncertainty by falling around the globe.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of the Brexit were those who admitted on the news that they though their "protest votes" to leave wouldn't matter, that London would vote to remain and that would save the empire - or something like that. In effect, the voters sounded ignorant and regretful that their votes mattered.

Brexit is a cautionary tale for the world - elections have consequences.











































































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Monday, March 3, 2014

Armchair Chickenhawks Say Obama is "Weak and Trembling" on Russia - Updated With "Feckless"

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Previous Related Posts:
Optics Delusion: Russia Invades Ukraine and Twitter Erupts Over Obama Wearing Jeans
Palin Plays the Angry White Victim Card for M.L. King Day
New GOP Scandal: #Umbrellagate
John McCain Plays Iphone Poker During Syria Hearing
Tea Party Tantrum as Obama Shakes Hands with Castro

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Every time there is a world crisis, hysterical members of the GOP begin to war-splain that Obama is weak, I tell you, WEAK! And nowhere near scary enough to put the fear of God into tough-guys like Putin. So weak, ineffectual, non-cowboy Obama better get his act together and Declare War Now!!! Because #BENGHAZIIIIIIII!!!

Of course, people say these things knowing they will never, ever be Leader of the Free World or Commander-in-Chief of the United States Military. Chickenhawks sound brave from the comfort of their armchairs.

The worst is Squeaky Senator Lindsey Graham, R-SC, the ultimate Chickenhawk Neocon:

Well, number one, stop going on television and trying to threaten thugs and dictators. It is not your strong suit. Every time the president goes on national television and threatens Putin or anyone like Putin, everybody's eyes roll, including mine.
We have a weak and indecisive president that invites aggression.
President Obama needs to do something. How about this, suspend Russian membership in the G-8 and the G-20 at least for a year starting right now. And for every day they stay in Crimea, add to the suspension. Do something.
~ Lindsey Graham to Candy Crowley on CNN

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Then there is Graham's friend, John McCain, R-Arizona, who loves war because it gives him a reason to be head of a new committee on, well . . . war. See how that works? You'd think a guy who was tortured in Vietnam for YEARS wouldn't be anxious for the military to rush in where angels fear to tread, but he just needs to be on Meet the Press every week - don't you people understand?

Every moment that the United States and our allies fail to respond sends the signal to President Putin that he can be even more ambitious and aggressive in his military intervention in Ukraine. There is a range of serious options at our disposal at this time without the use of military force. I call on President Obama to rally our European and NATO allies to make clear what costs Russia will face for its aggression and to impose those consequences without further delay.
~ Senator John McCain's Website

Update ~ More McCain on "Feckless Obama":

This is a blatant act on the part of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, and one that must be unacceptable to the world community," he told AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobby. "It cannot stand."
"Why do we care?" McCain asked. "Because this is the ultimate result of a feckless foreign policy where nobody believes in America's strength any more."
~ John McCain via CBS News







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Following the Chickenhawk Twins is, of course, the Queen Bee of all Neocons, Sarah Palin. She believes she now has the gift of prophecy for once suggesting that Putin would "rear his head" in Russia and invade Ukraine. Does anyone really think she came up with that idea on her own? Wherever the talking point came from, Palin couldn't be more delighted at the thought of war with Russia. Patriots and all that.*eyeroll* "Told-Ya-So"

Yes, I could see this one from Alaska. I'm usually not one to Told-Ya-So, but I did, despite my accurate prediction being derided as “an extremely far-fetched scenario” by the “high-brow” Foreign Policy magazine. Here’s what this “stupid” “insipid woman” predicted back in 2008: "After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama's reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia's Putin to invade Ukraine next."
~ Sarah Palin's Facebook

And actually, the person questioning Palin's theory didn't rule out an invasion, just the idea that it would turn into all-out war. He believed it would be easy for Putin to invade Ukraine, and so far, that has been the case. Does it matter that Obama has now been in office for six years and Putin just made a move AFTER the Sochi Olympics?

Blake Hounshell on Foreign Policy Mag about Palin's Invasion Theory:
As we've said before, this is an extremely far-fetched scenario. And given how Russia has been able to unsettle Ukraine's pro-Western government without firing a shot, I don't see why violence would be necessary to bring Kiev to heel. Watch the upcoming parliamentary elections in December to see if Moscow gets the pliable new government it wants.

And she wasn't finished!

Look, the perception of Obama, of him and his potency across the world is one of such weakness. People are looking at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil. They look at our president as one who wears mom jeans and equivocates and bloviates.
~ Sarah Palin on Fox News









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And Obama will start WWIII!!! OMG!

The disarming of America over the past five years limits our options in Ukraine today. I just returned from Georgia in January, and they fear Russia will further invade their territory next. Throughout this administration, I have also warned that if the United States does not maintain a ready and capable military, we would surrender our global influence and leave a vacuum that will be filled by Russia. I warned this day was coming, and it is here.
~ Senator Jim Inhofe, R-Oklahoma

The world does not expect the United States just ‘to stand with the international community,’ as the president said,” They expect the United States to lead. Weak statements, history has proven, only invite aggression.
~ Former Senator Jim DeMint, now head of the conservative Heritage Foundation




Emboldened by President Obama's trembling inaction, Vladimir Putin has invaded the Crimea region of Ukraine. Senior U.S. officials have reportedly called Russia's actions in Crimea an ‘uncontested arrival,’ not an invasion; the same was said about the Anschluss. The hours ahead will decide whether this invasion of Crimea is repelled or expanded to the whole of Ukraine, and whether the West finally confronts Putin or again blinks in disgrace.
At a minimum, President Obama should revoke travel visas and freeze assets of senior Russian officials and Putin cronies, freeze assets of Ukrainian oligarchs who assist the Russian invasion, stop transfers of assets out of Ukraine, support the Ukrainian transitional government and military as it defends Ukraine's territorial integrity, recall our ambassador to Russia, reschedule the upcoming G-8 meeting from Russia to Western Europe or the U.S., and suspend Russia from the G-8. Putin must be punished for his outlaw actions and the Russian people and elites must recognize they will pay a price for them.
~ Representative Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas

Ex-NY Mayor Rudy GIULIANI: Putin decides what he wants to do and he does it in half a day, right? He decided he had to go to their parliament. He went to their parliament. He got permission in 15 minutes.
Neil CAVUTO: Well, that was kind of like perfunctory.
GIULIANI: But he makes a decision and he executes it, quickly. Then everybody reacts. That's what you call a leader. President Obama, he's got to think about it. He's got to go over it again. He's got to talk to more people about it.
~ Fox News/Neil Cavuto - Via Esquire: Rudy Giuliani's Mancrush On Putin

Obama’s whole theory on international relations was: If i’m nice to Iran, if I offer them all kinds of goodies, if I’m nice to the North Koreans, if I’m nice to any adversaries anywhere… He wanted to show the Russians that he was willing to bury the hatchet on all the past and then he wanted cooperation in other areas,” Krauthammer said.
Putin looks at this guy and says I’m dealing with an adolescent, this is a community organizer, he doesn’t understand how the world works. What Putin did, a KGB agent and a thug, he pockets all the things Obama offers him for nothing, he walks away and then he struts the world stage knowing he has an adversary in the White House who will do nothing. And he has done nothing.
~ Fox News Pundit, Charles Krauthammer























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Monday, August 27, 2012

Epic Smackdown: Chris Matthews vs. Reince Priebus

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"That cheap shot about 'I don't have a problem with my birth certificate' was awful.
It is an embarrassment to your party to play that card. This stuff about getting rid of the work requirement for welfare is dishonest.... and you are playing that little ethnic card there. You can play your games and giggle about it, but the fact is your side is playing that card."
. . . It's funny that the first joke he (Romney) ever told a joke in his life was about Obama's Birth Certificate.
~ MSNBC host Chris Matthews speaking to RNC President Reince Priebus on Morning Joe

From Huffington Post:
Later when Priebus alleged that Obama was looking at European policies for guidance, Matthews lost it again.

"Where do you get this from?" Matthews shouted. "This is insane." He charged that Priebus was "playing that card again."

"Let's just work on tone," Brzezinski said. "Chris, let him answer the question," Scarborough said.

"I'm not going to get into a shouting match with Chris so you guys can move on," Priebus said. "Because you're losing, that's why," Matthews said. "Garbage, garbage," Priebus muttered.

"It's your garbage," Matthews fired back.

More Via Politico
“I think Obama’s policies have created a sense that, for whatever reason, he’s looking guidance as far as health care is concerned, as far as our spending is concerned, as far as these stimulus packages are concerned, that he’s looking to Europe for guidance,” said Priebus on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” at the start of what would become a heated back and forth.

“What? Where do you get this from? That’s insane,” responded Matthews. “You mean the fact that every president we’ve had has tried to offset the economic cycle with stimulus going the other direction is somehow European?”

“We’ve got to get the debt under control,” said Priebus.

“What does that have to do with Europe and this foreignization of the government. You’re doing it now. Saying that he’s influenced by foreign influences?” said Matthews.

Transcript Via Think Progress
PRIEBUS: But I think Obama’s policies have created a sense that for whatever reason, he’s looking to guidance [from Europe] as far as health care is concerned, as far as our spending is concerned …

MATTHEWS: What? Where do you get this from? This is insane! You mean the Keynesian fiscal policy — you mean the fact that every president we’ve had has tried to offset the economic cycle with stimulus going the other direction is somehow European? … What’s this got to do with Europe and this foreignization of the guy? You’re doing it now! Saying he’s influenced by foreign influences? You’re playing that card again. What’s this European thing of yours? What are you up to with this constant that he’s not really domestic?

PRIEBUS: You don’t think the take-over of our health care system called Obamacare is a problem for most Americans?

MATTHEWS: Let me tell you some history, sir. Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt pushed for that, Truman pushed for that, were they all under the influence of Europe? Where do you get this from?

PRIEBUS: I’m not going to get into a shouting match with Chris, so you guys can just move on.

MATTHEWS: Because you’re losing, that’s why.

PRIEBUS: No, I’m not losing.



Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy



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Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Romney Shambles Review

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Romney Shambles Day One: Disconcerting London Gaffes
Romney Shambles Day Two: British Press Pounces
Romney Shambles Day Three: On to Israel
Romney Shambles Day Four: Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran
Romney Shambles Day Five: Not Too Kosher
Romney Shambles Day Five: Poland
Romney Shambles Day Six: Warsaw Speech
Romney Shambles Review

"Romneyshambles" is a bastardization of the word "omnishambles," which itself comes from a popular BBC sitcom called The Thick Of It. The show, which will air its fourth season this fall, is a black-hearted, profanity-laden satire of UK politics, set in the government's fictional Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship (DOSAC). A typical episode begins when the department's minister or staff makes a huge political blunder, which the Prime Minister's PR enforcer (an acid-tongued Scot named Malcolm Tucker) has to then fix.
. . . but the popularity of the word "omnishambles" didn't really take off until April of this year, when Labour party leader Ed Milliband famously used it to describe Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron's budget.
. . . Since then, the word has formally entered the British political lexicon. Scottish journalist Alex Massie even wrote an article for the American magazine Foreign Policy with a title that labels Cameron, "Mr. Omnishambles." Now, with #romneyshambles penetrating American political consciousness, our own political vocabulary just got a little more colorful.
~ From MSNBC



It's been a great trip.
~ Romney Advisor, Stuart Stevens

Is there anything about Romney's Rolling Ruckus that would inspire confidence in his ability to lead US foreign policy?
~ David Axelrod on Twitter

I realize that there will be some in the fourth estate or whatever estate who are far more interested in finding something to write about that is unrelated to the economy, to geopolitics, to the threat of war, to the reality of conflict in Afghanistan today, to a nuclearization of Iran.
They are instead trying to find anything else to divert from the fact that these last four years have been tough years for our country."
~ Mitt Romney to Fox News, blaming the press for covering his gaffes

I don’t know how he’ll handle the head of state job. He’s made a mess of being a tourist.
~ Rahm Emanuel, Mayor of Chicago

Who is this klutz, this clodhopper, this lawn sprinkler of national insult? Well, he`s Mitt Romney. Remember him, the guy who promised to restore and upgrade the special relationship with Great Britain and has instead barfed on the Buckingham Palace lawn? The guy who promised to restore peace and security to the land of Israel and has instead managed to raise the level of strife still higher, also the level of fear when his spokesmen said just yesterday that Romney would back Bibi Netanyahu, no matter what he did to Iran, before Romney once again had to walk back his yet another global gaffe.
~ Chris Matthews on Hardball, Monday July 31, 2012

Romney wants to project bold confidence. Instead, he radiates blind certainty. All around the world, people can tell the difference.
~ Eugene Robinson in a Washington Post called "Gaffepalooze"

I tell you, they should call this the moonwalking tour because any time Mitt Romney speaks, he has to then walk backwards while seeming to go forward. You know, how many remarks, you know, can you walk back?
~ David Corn of Mother Jones

Romney is fully in step with the party he leads. Today's Republican Party is characterized by a kind of bellicose ignorance towards the world, contemptuous of Obama's attempts to show respect to foreigners, crudely aggressive towards those deemed the enemies of the US, uninterested in its friends. Take the response of Romney's allies to the London debacle, his surrogates professing that ''we're not worried about overseas headlines'', while one media cheerleader dismissed Cameron as ''limp-wristed'' and Britain as ''a second-rate, semi-degenerate nation''.
~ Sydney Morning Herald

Look, Mitt Romney wondered aloud whether London was ready for the Olympics, and I think it’s clear that voters in this country wonder aloud whether Mitt Romney is ready for the world. And I think the world is not yet ready for Mitt Romney.
Literally to go overseas, stand in the county of our strongest ally — in the Olympics that they had been preparing years for — and question whether or not they’re ready does make you wonder whether or not he ready to be commander in chief.
I thought it was embarrassing for our country.
~ Robert Gibbs quoted in Huffington Post

Mitt Romney, Like Errant Drone Hits Wrong Targets . . .
A drone is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent without a human pilot on board. Its flight is either controlled autonomously by computers in the vehicle, or under or with guidance, typically by remote control.
. . . Mitt Romney’s European tour was intended to bolster his political bona fides but his gaffs are proving him to be a dangerous political drone. Romney’s first target was London.
. . . Romney obviously subscribes to 19th Century columnist John O. Sullivan’s idea that America’s (Anglo-Saxon) success through expansion and exploitation is a result of manifest destiny. He must also subscribe to terms like “American exceptionalism” and former President George W. Bush’s term, “American internationalism”.
The collateral damage from Romney’s attacks could be devastating and long-lasting.
~ Black Star News, New York
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Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Romney Shambles Day Six: Warsaw Speech

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Romney Shambles Day One: Disconcerting London Gaffes
Romney Shambles Day Two: British Press Pounces
Romney Shambles Day Three: On to Israel
Romney Shambles Day Four: Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran
Romney Shambles Day Five: Not Too Kosher
Romney Shambles Day Five: Poland
Romney Shambles Day Six: Warsaw Speech
Romney Shambles Review

Romney's Complete Speech in Warsaw Poland

Romney Aide Curses At Press in Poland
~ Headline on Talking Points Memo

Transcript
CNN: “Governor Romney are you concerned about some of the mishaps of your trip?

NYT: “Governor Romney do you have a statement for the Palestinians?

Washington Post: “What about your gaffes?

NYT: “Governor Romney do you feel that your gaffes have overshadowed your foreign trip?”

CNN: “Governor Romney just a few questions sir, you haven’t taken but three questions on this trip from the press!

Gorka: “Show some respect”

NYT: “We haven’t had another chance to ask a question…”

Gorka: “Kiss my ass. This is a Holy site for the Polish people. Show some respect.”





Gorka subsequently called a pair of reporters to apologize, saying he lost his cool. “It was inappropriate,” Gorka said. Romney was at the square to visit the Polish Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. After he did that, laying a wreath and greeting Polish military veterans, the GOP hopeful decided to walk down to a monument on the other side of the square. Romney has not held a media availability for his traveling press corps since taking three questions outside 10 Downing Street in London last Thursday. ~ Politico.com


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