NATO's general secretary says he is "looking forward" to working with Donald Trump's upcoming U.S. administration and reiterated the trans-Atlantic alliance's dedication to increasing funds from non-U.S. members.
From CNN, I got this chart of NATO defense spending:
I can understand Iceland's not spending money. Their deal has always been "you use us as a huge-ass aircraft carrier and keep the wolves away." But the Czech Republic? Haven't they had enough experience with being occupied to do more than free-ride on other countries?
In the meantime, it seems that Trump's Twitter-war with Hamilton continues. I wonder if he is truly that thin-skinned, or if he is using it as a squirrel to deflect the media away from looking too closely at how he is not going to pay any attention to the laws on conflicts of interests. Supposedly, rich people in government are required to put their investments and businesses into a blind trust, where they have no say in what happens to things as long as they're in government. But Trump's plan to let the Spawn of Trump run things makes a mockery of the law.
Trump's just another rich tool who thinks that laws are for other people. Expect the "conservatives" who were railing about Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation to utter not a peep about Trump's flouting the law.
On second thought, both could be true: Trump's using this as a distraction and he is also truly thin-skinned. He has, after all, spent nearly thirty years smarting over the "short-fingered vulgarian" insult.
As for Trump's demand that theater performances be "safe spaces" for him and Pence, you will also not hear a sound from conservatives who have been deriding the concept of "safe spaces" for many years. Nope. Not a whisper.
Apparently, we have the Germans to blame for all of this, for it would seem that draft-dodging is a Trump family tradition.
"You will also not hear a sound from conservatives who have been deriding the concept of "safe spaces" for many years. Nope. Not a whisper."
ReplyDeleteDuh. Of course not. He's trolling them. It's working, too.
Trump isn't really a conservative, now, is he? But you need conservative to own him, even if you have to constantly pick Trump back up and stick him in some conservative's pocket surreptitiously.
People wanted a third party in Washington. Now they got it. Democrats and Republicans and Trump.
Of course he's pissed about Hamilton. Anything short of screaming, groveling adulation is a Crime Against Trump, worse even than a crime against nature (they'll be coming back too). Mr. S.P. (short pickle) Insecure has an adulation gratification span measured in nano-seconds; if everything related to Trump (and *everything* must relate to Trump) isn't glowingly positive and adulatory, the fuse is lit and he's gonna blow.
ReplyDeleteFor the life of me, I don't know what NATO's mission has been since 1993.
ReplyDeleteTrump's right about NATO free riders, about NAFTA, about TPP. Stopped racist, mysoginist, grifting clocks are right twice a day.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what NATO's mission has been since 1993.
ReplyDeleteSame as the European Union: To keep a foot on the neck of the Hun.
Now, now, comrade Misfit....do you know any other 1st world nation that has confessed to and made substantial effort to expiate its war crimes and atrocities? Us (the Indians, the blacks, our little adventures in the Middle East and Asia)? The French? The English (among other things what they did to the Irish and Scotch...you mess with the English, you're messing with professionals)? Hey, we're all just homo not so sapiens.....
ReplyDeleteI'd say NATO is about not looking too juicy to Russian imperialism. But what do I know? And Russia can be forgiven a certain amount of paranoia given the merry adventures of Napoleon (see here for one of the great invasion graphic of all times: www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/graphics/minard_lg.gif) and Hitler...thus wanting buffer states. Containment has a lot to be said for it. Of course, now that the great Orange God is wired by Putin, we need have no fear of them. I laugh when there is serious talk about Trump having to divest his business. As if he could...his empire is surely mortgaged to the hilt and deeply in debt to Russian oligarchy...one stiff breeze and it will all be in bankruptcy court.
Stewart,
ReplyDeleteAllow me to quibble. The Germans were rather quick to turn a blind eye to much of the fuckery of the Nazis. One had to be a really high-ranking war criminal to get put on trial by a German court back in the day. It was only when the kids who were concentration-camp guards were in their 80s and 90s that the fervor for going after the lower-ranking perps took hold.
one stiff breeze and [Trump's empire] will all be in bankruptcy court.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
:)
While the Hamilton comments were done in VERY BAD taste, (there is a time and a place for those sort of things, and that wasn't it) the Trump folks (and the Donald himself) should indeed get over it.
ReplyDeleteOne comment is ok, after that is stupid to keep the thing going.
Walk away.