Globe and Mail apoplectic over Putin-Trump confab in Helsinki

There's been shit-hemorrages galore at the Globe since Trump failed to win the release of Putin's Crimean hostages yesterday.

Both Mark MacKinnon and Adrian Morrow lard their front page news stories with plenty of anti-Trump editorializing. Doug Saunders picks up the baton in a quarter page op-ed castigating Trump for failing the people of Syria, Ukraine, and Britain, all of whom were apparently waiting for the US to save them from Putin's aggression.

The paper's main editorial starts out with this fair and balanced assessment of the Trump-Putin meeting;

Donald Trump covered himself with disgrace on Monday, giving another surreal and disturbing performance on the world stage that should fill lovers of peace and democracy with dread.

I certainly love peace and democracy, but what fills me with dread is that there are still folks like the Globe's op-ed crew in positions of influence who think that the USA is the standard-bearer for peace and democracy. That's been a demonstrably false proposition since at least August of 1945.

America bombs other nations for peace and over-throws elected democracies for democracy?

But the Globe and Mail's home-grown Trumpaphobes have nothing on guest hyperventilator Jared Yates Sexton.

Jared turned on his TV just in time for the Trump-Putin news conference and saw the leader of the free world, the President of the Exceptional Nation, "licking the boots of a murderous dictator." According to Jared, this is an even greater outrage than the Singapore summit a few weeks ago with that fat kid from North Korea, where "people are slaughtered, imprisoned, and denied basic human dignity."

I thought he was talking about his own country for a minute, because the description certainly fits, but apparently it's even worse in North Korea, if such a thing can be imagined. Anyway, Trump committed an outrage by attending a conference in Singapore that "put the American flag on an equal footing with that of North Korea."

Who can even imagine such a thing? The Stars and Stripes just another flag alongside a flag that belongs to slanty-eyed brownish folks who have been giving Uncle Sam the finger since 1950?

The horror!

Jared rants along in that vein for a few hundred words. Obviously Trump is a grave threat to the US-dominated world order. That's what I've hoped for all along; that the world will finally wake up and see "American leadership" of the global order for what it is, and it's certainly not been about peace and democracy in my lifetime.

Jared's not giving up hope for American Exceptionalism though. Apparently Mueller has some "concrete evidence" of something that will restore dignity to American politics, although neither Jared  or Mueller are forthcoming about what that might be.

If Mueller doesn't deliver, Jared figures Trump needs to be "removed for the good of the country." How or by whom Trump should be removed isn't something Jared elaborates on. I'm assuming he's talking about the democratic process whereby the resistance can put paid to the Orange Ogre at the ballot box two years hence.

If he's talking about something else, I guess we'll find out soon enough if President John Brennan and his Sec of State Michael Moore are up to restoring America's image in the post-Trump world. I'm sceptical.


As for Putin's hostages in Crimea, it seems that a solid majority are quite content to face the future as Russians instead of Ukrainians.

People who value peace and democracy should respect their wishes.

Harper's Putin-bashing on the election trail was an epic fail

The so-called Ukraine crisis has pretty much been run off the front page by the ISIS crisis, but I'm sure you recall Putin's "annexation" of Crimea and his "invasion" of the Donbass region. The reason you remember is because Big Steve put a lot of electoral eggs in his anti-Putin basket, and our media never tired of retelling the same tired tale; we have to stand up to Putin's quest for world domination. Yup, Bad Vlad was trying to rebuild the Soviet Empire for sure...

Serious people understood all along that Harper's jingoistic rhetoric was aimed squarely at the Ukrainian Canadian vote in the upcoming election. Apparently the Conservative Party brain trust was convinced that third and fourth generation Ukrainian Canadians would reflexively vote Harper if the anti-Putin slanders were loud enough.

Alas, it was not to be. Not that the rhetoric wasn't loud enough, or that Harper's grand-standing (remember Australia?) wasn't silly enough; it was simply too silly. In the end, the Conservative showing in Ukrainian Canadian ridings shrivelled mightily.

The other so-called ethnic vote Harper was excessively pandering to was the "Jewish vote." That was probably something that went beyond mere electioneering considerations. If you look at the agenda of the Alliance Missionary Church types who were heavily over-represented among Harper's inner circle, it's not hard to see the "Christian Zionist" sub-text that permeates their ideology.

Nevertheless, there can be no question that the Harper gang was aiming for a sweep of the most populous Jewish ridings with their incessant pro-Likud rhetoric. How did that work out? Not so great. Three out of four went Liberal.

Why? Those "Christian Zionists" made the mistake of assuming that every Jewish Canadian automatically supports everything the government of Israel does. When the government of Israel is in the hands of a racist settler clique, there are many many Jewish Canadians who have grave reservations about giving unqualified and unquestioning support to the state of Israel.

Harper's politics of division went far beyond Ukrainian and Jewish Canadians of course. It was native against non-native, old-stock against immigrant, old immigrants against new immigrant... wherever the Harperites found a fissure to bang a wedge in, they went for it.

On the other hand, Trudeau built a campaign around inclusivity and tolerance, and Canadians bought in big-time.

Maybe there's hope for this country yet.

Fear and loathing and sheer imbecility at the Munk leader's debate

You gotta feel Peter Munk's pain. A couple of years ago he had the biggest gold mining company in the world. Now he's got the "Munk Debates."

Tonight's iteration of that over-reaching franchise is billed as the "Munk Leader's Debate," and features the three old boy leaders while ignoring the new girl, Green Party leader Elizabeth May.

Near as I can tell, the only winner in this "debate" was the unctuous moderator, "social entrepreneur" and careerist extraordinaire Rudyard Griffiths. He was obviously enjoying his most recent fifteen minutes of fame.

I have a hunch that a lot of tickets for this gig were sold via the Ukrainian-Canadian Council. How else to explain the undue prominence given that tired trope, "Putin's aggression?"

Before watching this I read the texts of both Obama's and Putin's speeches at the UNGA. Sure, Obama was obliged to toss in a few bromides about how it's unacceptable for big countries to run roughshod over small ones, but absolutely no one in the place takes that seriously.

Who runs over more small countries? The USA or Russia? And how many refugees are streaming out of Crimea?

The Israel-pandering was quite distasteful too. Apparently none of these charlatans can grasp the fact that it's possible to be "pro-Israel" while being vehemently anti-Netanyahu, anti-settlement, and anti-Likud. In fact, the long-term viability of Israel will depend on allies who are capable of doing just that.

Who won the debate?

Elizabeth May, simply by not disgracing herself by being a part of it.

Russia isolated? Billions of investment dollars pouring into Crimea

According to this story at Pravda.ru, there's no shortage of investors eager to put development money into Crimea.

They're coming from Turkey, China, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, among others. Obviously a lot of folks world wide are more than happy to thumb their noses at the sanctimonious Washington-led sanctions that are intended to "isolate" Putin.

Maybe it's time for the Nations of Virtue to come up with a Plan B; respect the decision of the people of Crimea to reunite with Russia, stop antagonizing Russia, and offer instead some meaningful assistance to the crew of cretins we installed in Kyiv.

By all accounts, things in Ukraine have only gotten worse since the Nuland/Pyatt putsch. Obviously the people of Crimea made the correct choice in wanting nothing to do with it.

New York Times finds smoking gun that links Putin to Crimea "annexation"

Neil MacFarquhar has the straight skinny for you on how Vlad planned out the conquest of Crimea at least two weeks before the referendum that sealed the deal.

It's in the New York Times, so it's obviously true...

What it is, is an obvious piece of non-news.

The Russian military would have gamed the occupation of Crimea routinely and regularly ever since 1991. That's when the usurpation of the Crimean peninsula became a serious possibility. It would have amounted to serious negligence if Russian security gaming had NOT planned for the need to block NATO designs on Crimea.

It's fair to say that Russia has been harbouring contingency plans re: Crimea since 1991, not since two weeks before the referendum in 2014.

NATO designs on Crimea were always a foregone conclusion. After all, that would deprive the "evil empire" of its only warm water military base. What a prize that would be for the NATO warmongers!

It's safe to say that the Russian military had contingency plans to preserve its Black Sea assets even in the Yeltsin era.

When the Maidan putsch came to fruition, Putin realized he had to act. Contrary to what the NYT would have you believe, the plan to repatriate Crimea wasn't hatched two weeks before the referendum; the plan was over twenty years old.

Putin the Pariah

The establishment lefties at Slate have Putin isolated, shunned, ignored, and more dangerous than ever.

Well, one thing he isn't is "ignored." You can't find a news site anywhere in the Nations of Virtue where Putin's name does not appear on the home page.

That leaves "isolated, shunned, and more dangerous than ever."

If Putin is now more dangerous than ever, one must enquire as to how dangerous he was before.

While the bold activists of Pussy Riot may disagree, having spent 18 months hard time in the gulag for defiling a church, (and being sprung prematurely by the great ogre himself) it is exceedingly difficult to find where Putin has been a danger to anyone.

There was the bloodless reclamation of Crimea, which has unsettled those aforementioned Nations of Virtue no end. This seems to have gone over rather swimmingly with the citizens of Crimea. They tend to see Putin as a saviour rather than a pariah.

As for isolated and shunned, the record speaks for itself. While there is certainly no question that the self-anointed "International Community," ie the US and the usual me-too states, have done their level best and then some to isolate and shun Putin, there is no evidence whatsoever that isolation and shunning has come to pass.

Not only does Putin enjoy approval rates in Russia that are totally unthinkable among the hapless dolts who are doing the shunning... Hollande, Harper, Obama, Cameron... but he has far more credibility in the world beyond NATO than any of his detractors.

Which seems to drive the animus of his detractors... when there is nothing to say, shout louder.

State Dept. no.2 bullshitter Marie Harf's latest anti-Putin tirade easily deflected by Kremlin

Marie Harf had a zinger for the world's media today, or at least that segment of the world's media that hangs on every word out of Washington.

Commenting on the demise of Crimea post re-integration with Russia, she opined that Crimea tourism has been decimated to the point that Putin himself has been the only tourist to Crimea this summer.

To which Russian media were not long in coming up with this rejoinder.

Two million tourists thus far in the season, perhaps three millions by the end of the summer, and a 30% increase in tourists from Russia.

Yes, I'm fully aware there is propaganda on all sides, but our side used to be so much more convincing...

"Freedom isn't free"; Obama exhorts NATO allies to increase arms spending

Let's do some math here. According to Obama's pep talk to the Nations of Virtue in Brussels today, our European allies need to pony up more money for weapons so that NATO can have a "credible deterrent" to Putin's neo-Soviet designs on eastern Europe.

In 2013 NATO spent a combined one trillion dollars plus on defence. Russia spent in the range of 90 billions. If outspending Russia by a factor of 10 has failed to provide a "credible deterrent", how much more spending does Obama think would buy credibility?

Nor would military spending seem to be the deciding factor in Russia's "take-over" of Crimea, which, let's not forget, came off without a shot being fired. Contrast that bit of Russian "aggression" to America's shock and awe approach to imposing its will. Recent history tells us that while there may well be a correlation between military spending and the enthusiasm to pursue military action, there is no correlation whatsoever between military action and getting the results you want.

In fact, all of America's big talk and the big stick they've been keen to use has resulted in a profound decline in America's influence and prestige on the world stage over the past twenty years.

America's solution? Let's spend more money on weapons!

Which does not mean that Obama has slipped his moorings and is over there spouting nonsense. America is the world's biggest arms supplier and producer by a wide margin, and weapons are America's number one export. Nothing like a little fear-mongering to scare up some sales!