monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Only a person who knew every word Winny ever said could possibly know that he "never" said it. That would be no one, not even Winny, who promptly forgot half the **** he said.

Not that it even matters. It's been said. Decide for yourself if there's merit to the claim.

Breaking news: Some candyass limey, who doesn't even know what a "body slam" is, claiming he's been "body slammed" don't mean ****. Falling down , or even being pushed down, isn't being "body-slammed."

THIS in a body slam:



But what else would you expect from a cheese-eating "victim" other than hyperbolic drama-queenery, eh?

And, of course, his fellow-travelling cheese-eaters, who deal in being professional "victims" 24/7, latch onto that **** right quick, eh?

Angela Ferkel has publicly stated that Germany will become an islammic state. At this point, I cannot picture Germany, Sweden, or any of several other European states managing to save themselves, the situation is too far gone. Somehow or other, these countries would seem to need to be rescued.

http://joeforamerica.com/2017/05/al-gore-furious-ice-growing-poles-global-warming-hoaxes-implode/?utm_source=USH&utm_medium=shr&utm_campaign=USH

You have to understand that Drax will wade through a million points to correct the one thing he knows might be wrong and smugly produce a retort that has nothing to do with a single one of those points demonstrating how he refuses to "get it."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/following-trumps-trip-merkel-says-europe-cant-rely-on-us-anymore/2017/05/28/4c6b92cc-43c1-11e7-8de1-cec59a9bf4b1_story.html?utm_term=.18266998f695&wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1#comments



More tripe from the Washington Post.

Angela Merkel waking up to the fact that it looks like Germany can no longer count on the US to cover it's NATO defense shortfall is the "toughest review" of Trump's visit to Europe? What was the next toughest? Emmanuel Macron telling the French people they can no longer count on discounted copies of Jerry Lewis' "The Nutty Professor" from the National Endowment for the Arts?

And when did tensions, in need of healing, between the US and Europe first arise? When Trump won the election? Or even before that, when he campaigned on getting freeloading NATO members to honor their defense spending commitments? Did they flow from Trump's proposed travel ban on people coming from seven nations? Maybe it's his strong stance on illegal immigration. Mexico and Central America aren't part of NATO, but maybe the Europeans, especially considering their penchant for open borders, felt the need to take up for these poor nations and against the bully Trump. Maybe they started with his reckless attack on Syria after Assad gassed his people. They're all for condemning such atrocities, but good lord, actually doing something about them could cause WWIII! Or are they only of very recent vintage and a result of Trump's meeting with just about every leader of the Sunni Muslim nations on earth? Yes, they previously wrung their hands and warned that Trumps words and deeds risked driving Muslim nations away from cooperation with the West in combating terrorism, but was getting cozy with the autocratic rulers of these countries a step too far for the classically liberal Europeans? Say what you will, dancing with such devils is something European leaders have never done and never will do!

How nice of the Washington Post to leap to the aid of our friends in Europe and scold Trump for lecturing them. And what's wrong with Trump? Doesn't he know that US presidents are only to lecture the American people? Hasn't he learned anything from his wonderful predecessor?

Germany is an economic powerhouse in Europe and hardly a piker in the global economy and yet their Chancellor acts as if a US president telling her and her people that they need to live up to their commitments and pay a fair share of their own defense is some sort of betrayal. Her melodramatic announcement that the days when Germany could rely on other nations...to cover the shortfall on it's defense spending, is laughable. Realization that Europe “really must take our fate into our own hands" came as a disappointing shock, and only just now, is indicative of just how blithely some Europeans have come to take for granted that the US would shoulder the main weight of defending the West, and their countries for years to come.

In 2016 Germany's defense spending was 1.2% of its GNP despite it's NATO commitment to spend at least 2%. Meanwhile the US spent more than five times what Germany spent and 3.6% of its GNP. Many European nations are very proud of their generous social programs and its no wonder they can be so generous when they've been able to divert billions of dollars committed to defense spending to subsidized healthcare, and very generous (by US standards certainly) pension and unemployment benefits.

The commitment was increased to 2% during the Obama presidency and presumably nations like Germany, Italy, Canada, and Denmark (to name but four of most) just assumed it was a symbolic gesture and good old Uncle Sam would continue to shoulder the main burden.

Some of the nations that have joined France in meeting or exceeding the 2% mark are a little surprising: Economic basket case Greece, Turkey, Estonia and Poland. Even another economically challenged nation like Portugal came a lot closer to 2% than either Germany or Canada which were worse, in terms of missing the mark, than most of their fellow members and whose defense spending has been steadily declining over the last 10 to 15 years.

(The UK managed to hit 1.9% in 2016, but it's very tough to criticize them for such a minor shortfall when they have been the most reliable of our allies in terms of committing troops to actual conflicts)

Based on Merkel's comments and WaPo's reporting one would think that during his visit, Trump told the Europeans they were on their own in terms of defense and couldn't count on military assistance from the US should the need arise. He didn't even threaten them with such a situation should they not step up their spending as they promised they would. Instead he lectured them on fairness and meeting commitments. Good Lord, the nerve of the man!

A fair number of European leaders like Merkel expressed disappointment (read anger) over the fact that Trump didn't devote his speech to reaffirming the commitment of the US to NATO. Well, I'm sure that would have suited them much better: Just tell us that no matter what you have our backs and don't be such a boor and hector us about paying our fair share. You Americans are so crass when it comes to money. Of course many a formerly wealthy freeloader has managed to elude his or her debts, for some time, by just such a phony dodge concerning class.

Merkel's comments sound like the complaints of a daughter who returns to live with his parents after college only to be confronted by her mother telling her that this time around, she will not be cooking her meals if she doesn't keep her room clean as she's always promised she would.

What is one part laughable and one part sickening are so many of the comments attached to this article.

Suddenly, to so many liberals, it's our duty to defend Europe. They bemoan the supposed loss of US influence but it is an influence they never wanted their country to exert when it counted. "Who are we to expect them to follow our foreign policy follies!" they so often cried.

NOTE: It suddenly dawned on me that perhaps, thanks to WaPo reporting, I've misjudged Merkel, and her comments to her people reflected an appreciation of simple reality with no judgement of Trump implied. That they might represent a recognition that Germany and Europe have been riding he US fueled NATO gravy train for too long and it's time take greater responsibility for something so vital as their national security...Naaaahh. (Certainly all the anti-Trumpers commenting on the article who thanked and praised Merkel for rebuking Trump didn't see it that way)

Apparently Trump is not very well liked in Germany and Merkel was had been suffering some backlash for appearing to be too willing to cooperate with our president. I don't really trust much of what I read and hear from the MSM but a repeated story line is that Trump and Merkel immediately took a disliking to one another. If that's true, there's personal as well as political reason for Merkel to now cast Trump as the villain who is willing to abandon Germany and Europe for the sake of a few euros.

Seriously weakening our relationships with European nations would not be a good thing, but this isn't going happen because of Trump's lecture. First of all, European nations are not united in displeasure with the Trump presidency, and secondly I imagine that France, Poland, Estonia and the other NATO members who have been spending 2% or more of their GNP on defense weren't exactly happy with their fellow members who were taking advantage of them as well as the US. Finally, Germany and Europe need the US as much or, arguably, more than the US needs them. Will they cut their noses off to spite themselves because the American president has told them in no uncertain words to pay up on their treaty commitment? Overall, it's a good thing for them to be less dependent on the US. That dependency has never stopped Europeans from criticizing the US and may even be a source for certain anti-American sentiments, but if you can manage it, independence is always better than dependence and provides for more equitable relationships. Of course spending more on defense means either spending less on other things or even more debt, but if one believes that European spending on social programs was unsustainable, before The Lecture, the need to spend more on defense will (depending upon which route they take to accomplish it) either wake them up to the need for some reform or accelerate the inevitable.

Of course, there is no guarantee that any of these nations will now start spending more on defense. The US president they all loved couldn't get the deadbeats to honor their agreements with polite entreaties, and there was no explicit threat from Trump as what might happen if they react the same way to a blunter approach. What they won't get, if they don't pony up, is unambiguous assurances that the US will have their backs if Russia were to start trying to pick them off. Given that it is extremely unlikely that the US wouldn't honor Article 5 were circumstances to actually trigger it (Sec of Defense Mattis has made it abundantly clear that NATO is indispensable to US national security and I imagine so have all of the Joint Chiefs. Trump seems to listen to generals and if, in this case, he didn't, the resignations would start flying) withholding an unequivocal endorsement of the alliance and US commitments to it is the only bargaining chip Trump has. It seems to be something the Europeans value and want (hence their critical words when they didn't get it), but they are obviously not innocent political novices. Domestic pressures could easily lead them to roll the dice and bet on the belief that if the fit hits the shan in Europe, the Yanks will be over there.

While in London this very subject was a topic of discussion and I heard from colleagues, liberal and conservative alike, the rationale that has already developed for justifying a refusal to spend more: the threat isn't as great as the alarmists contend, domestic discord is a more clear and present danger than Russian tanks, there are ways to meet the obligation that don't include increased spending (these were Brits mind you and the argument that providing material military support in terms of troops and hardware might be more valuable to the US than spending more money on radar stations resonated with me), Europe doesn't need US military support ("We defeated the Hun in WWII and we can bloody well do the same with Ivan or any Caliphate that may arise on the horizon"), and even the somewhat cynical "Trump is bluffing. The US will never turn its back on Europe. Too big an investment has been made over the last 100 years or so."

Stay tuned for further developments.