A Little Foreign Policy Discussion?

 

Forgive me if I'm disregarding "the discourse" about President Biden's press conference regarding foreign policy--it's very stupid. Biden is exceptionally knowledgeable about world affairs and has simply done a fine job as president in fraught times. He isn't going to make everyone happy. A press conference isn't going to rescue him from a fickle media or self-aggrandizing "smart guys".  They want bumper stickers, he's got volumes of actual experience, just with a few "typos". 

While this pivotal/not pivotal press conference has been taking place, the former president has been sitting down with Viktor Orban, who had just been enjoying the company of Putin and Xi. Orban is pretending he's on a peace mission. Let me show you the Russian definition of peace:

It's not just that they want to keep Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. They don't want Ukraine to be a country. This is not peace. It's the ragged bloody end of genocide. (Actually, why should they be rewarded by keeping anything they stole via murder? ) This is the "peace" Trump says out loud where people can hear that he would resolve "before inauguration". Oh and get back WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich. 

Rays of Hope for Democracy

 

Le Pen: "The policies I represent are the policies represented by Mr. Trump... They're represented by Mr. Putin."

And today, the French people rejected them.

Based. 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/Rk3P4IyBRR

— Joshua Reed Eakle 🗽 (@JoshEakle) July 7, 2024

Between yesterday's pushback against the far-right in France and the Labour Party win in the UK, I guess at least there are some things to feel good about, even while US politics is giving me the agita. Evil never rests though. Le Pen (and Salvini's La Lega) has some kind of Patriots for Europe thing cooking with Orban who had just gone sleazing off to visit Putin (not in a way that represents the EU).

Not sure how patriots of any stripe mooch up to Putin.

I have thoughts about that, and about how CPAC and Heritage seem to love, love, love Orban, too. But I think I will just be happy about the elections for a little while, first. 

TWGB: Wondering About His Super Seedy Ass

 

This could strike some as reminiscent of when Manafort obtained $16M in loans approved by bank CEO Stephen Calk, who was seeking positions in the Trump administration. Calk was convicted for that by a jury in Manhattan. Press release by DOJ ⬇️ https://t.co/WAFC0JBLQY https://t.co/TmGwu2K1s9

— Andrew Weissmann (weissmann11 on Threads)🌻 (@AWeissmann_) March 8, 2024

It says a lot about Trump that when he finally does post a supersedeas bond to forestall collections activity in anticipation of appeal of the defamation civil case, instantly people go to work trying to find out the sketchy part: Who is the surety company? What's the catch? Does he have a cosigner? Isn't someone from that company a crony? Does that company have ties to Russia? Aren't they mentioned in his fraud trial?

So, um, yeah, there's something possibly sketchy in there--it's TrumpWorld. He wanted to waive having to put up a bond for this case altogether on the grounds that he was good for it, and then turned around and had paper filed in his fraud civil case implying no, he is not good for hundreds of millions of dollars. (You know, the one where he was accused of inflating his wealth and claimed he WAS SO worth hundreds of millions, liquid.)