Category Archives: Russia
1980s Want Foreign Policy Back
Click Mitt to enlarge image.
The day before he reported for duty as a freshman U.S. Senator, Mitt Romney turned in his grades on the Chief Executive. In a Washington Post column Romney gave President Trump passing marks for some of his policies. But he flunked him for presidential character.
But, on balance, his conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions last month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office.
He also marked Trump down for failure to co-operate with allies. He noted:
The alternative to U.S. world leadership offered by China and Russia is autocratic, corrupt and brutal.
1980s Want Foreign Policy Back
Romney’s been consistent about Russia as our number one threat. And President Obama mocked him for it in their 2012 debate.
“And, the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
Trump responded that if Romney had stood up to Obama’s taunts he might be president today.
White House Safe House
Accidental President
I got the idea of a the White House as a safe house from a Holman Jenkins column in the WSJ. He doesn’t think Trump expected to win.
Winning was his colossal if propitious miscalculation. Nobody would care about Stormy Daniels if he weren’t president. His decades-long pursuit of a Trump Tower in Moscow would be a non-story…
Unfortunately, it will also occur to Mr. Trump now that his best move is to cling to the White House at all costs. That’s because under Justice Department guidelines he can expect not to be indicted as long as he remains in office.
Unindicted Co-Conspiritor Witch Hunt
Click on the cartoon to enlarge it.
President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen ratted him out. He says Trump directed him to arrange hush money payments to a playboy model and a porn star. Trump then reimbursed him for the Stormy Daniels payment. Cohen claims that helped Trump’s 2016 election chances and therefore it was an illegal in-kind campaign contribution.
Witch Hunt
Democrats are wary of impeachment talk but Cohen’s lawyer (and Bill Clinton’s old impeachment defender) Lanny Davis is howling “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
But Bill Clinton’s former speech writer Mark Penn says there’s nothing illegal about it. Had Trump used campaign funds to pay hush money it would have been an illegal personal use of campaign funds. So using his own money can’t be considered a campaign contribution. And Professor Dershowitz says even if it is a campaign contribution there’s no limit to the amount Trump can contribute to his own campaign.
Trump tweets “witch hunt.” Stay tuned.
In The Intelligence Community We Trust
The intelligence “community” is popular with the never Trump crowd these days. Former CIA Director and Communist voter John Brennan says Trump’s behavior in Helsinki was “treasonous” and “impeachable.” The president did take Putin’s word over that of his own national intelligence director’s after all. (He changed his mind the next day with the old double negative apostrophe explanation.)
National intelligence directors didn’t always get the last word, though. James Clapper told The Senate Intelligence Committee that the NSA didn’t spy on phone calls of ordinary Americans. But ordinary Americans weren’t buying it and he later admitted, “it was the least untruthful statement he could make.”
Churchill Collusion
It’s true. The great man was Stalin’s drinking buddy.
Churchill Collusion
But back then Russia and Britain were on the same side against the Nazis. Technically, it wasn’t Russia either. It was the communist Soviet Union. And Stalin was its totalitarian dictator who murdered millions more than the mere authoritarian Putin.
