We'll Always Have Paris

We’ll Always Have Paris:  Two countries are not members of  the Paris Climate Accords, Syria and Nicaragua.  Syria is obviously distracted by the ravages of its civil war and Nicaragua has boycotted the accords because of a belief that the agreement doesn’t go far enough.  A third holdout, Uzbekistan, signed last month.  Before the G7 meetings in Sicily ended Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the European Union reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris agreement.  Only the US didn’t join in the affirmation.  As he left, Trump tweeted that he “will make my final decision on the Paris Accord next week!”  Under pressure from a large group of science doubting Senators who irrationally fear the “economic impact” of saving the environment for future generations Trump, who campaigned on leaving, is leaning towards withdrawal. It is looking more and more likely that the US, which was largely responsible for orchestrating the agreement in the first place, will be joining Syria and Nicaragua but unlike Nicaragua it won’t be because we don’t think the agreement goes far enough. Au revoir Paris, at least for now.

Just Another Blundering American:  Trump made a lasting impression on Europe, but not in a good way.  On Sunday German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the “times when we could completely rely on others are, to an extent over.” Though she didn’t explicitly mention the US or Trump her realization “had come in the last few days” and her statement was clearly a response to Trump’s oafish behavior and failure to include the Three Musketeers “all for one and one for all” provision in his NATO remarks. One indication that Merkel’s reaction is widely felt is that her chief rival in Germany’s upcoming elections is united with her in opposition to Trump.  Trump for his part, thinks his meetings in Europe went well and takes full credit for pushing the other NATO countries to up their financial contributions.  He said as much when he tweeted “NATO countries have agreed to step up payments considerably, as they should.  Money is beginning to pour in.”  He is either ignoring or unaware that increasing defense spending is a multiyear process and that to the extent that money is “pouring in” to NATO it is mostly the result of Obama era quiet diplomacy.  For some inexplicable reason Trump continues to prefer dictators and strongmen to democracies and historical allies.

Get Outta Here You Crazy Russian:   Russian President Putin visited new French President Macron this weekend ostensibly to push the reset button on the French-Russian relationship.  However, things didn’t go as planned for Putin.  While Macron talked about the need for dialogue he also said that defending Western ideals is France’s priority and he set a red line against continued use of chemical weapons in Syria.  At a press conference following their meeting Putin rejected allegations that Russia had tried to influence the outcome of the French elections but Macron wouldn’t let him get away with his denials. Macron responded that “when media organs spread slanderous falsehoods, they are no longer journalists.” He was directly referring to Russia Today and Sputnik, Russia’s government owned press.  Unlike Trump who still won’t acknowledge Russian interference in the US elections, Macron has no problem calling Putin out.  Macron who faked Trump out during at the NATO meeting by veering to the right to avoid Trump’s first attempt at a handshake, is showing that he may be young and inexperienced as a politician but he is smart and calls them like he sees them.

I’m Shocked, Shocked:  No one in the White House has denied that Kushner had those questionable meetings with Kislyak and Sergey Gorkov, the Russian Spy academy graduate and Putin crony who runs state owned VneshEconomBank.  The party line remains that if those conversations took place, they were just perfectly normal, reasonable attempts to establish a back channel with US adversaries while circumventing US intelligence agencies.  Homeland Security Secretary Kelly said that establishing a secret channel is “a good thing” and added that Kushner is a “great guy, decent guy” and you know he is Trump’s son-in-law so what else can I say.  Senator McCain didn’t buy into the party line, he reiterated his belief that Russia is the number one adversary of the US and said that it is not standard procedure for someone who is not in an appointed position to be having side chats with the Russians.  Among Republicans, Maverick McCain is still an outlier.  Lindsey Graham tried to sidestep the issue by questioning the veracity of the story, suggesting that Kislyak may have just been planting a false story when he told Moscow that Kushner tried to set up a back channel in Russian facilities.  Other Republicans ran with Graham’s narrative and Trump tweet smacked the news for “fabricated lies made up by the #fakemedia.” Democrats and many former intelligence officers are calling for Kushner to lose his security clearance.  Characteristically, Kushner who is rarely heard, kept quiet.

Round Up the Usual Suspects:  Now that Trump is back from Spring Break, he is getting down to business and refocusing on his leaky, disorganized White House operation.  Rumors abound that he is reaching out to the usual suspects, including Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, to help with crisis management.  Bannon’s star may be ascending again and this weekend the supposedly banished Nazi-sympathizer Sebastian Gorka issued a few statements on behalf of the administration. Communications Director Mike Dubke has resigned and Sean Spicer, who is still sulking about being excluded from the meeting with the Pope, may be kept in a locked closet or a White House bush, while daily press conferences are cancelled, led by Huckabee-Sanders, kept off TV, led by various senior White House officials or all of the above.  It has also been suggested that Chief of Staff Reince Priebus will be dispatched to serve as the US Ambassador to Greece, assuming that Trump can find another supplicant willing to serve as his Chief of Staff.   

Human Life is Cheap:  Sadly two men were attacked and killed and one was wounded in Portland, Oregon when they tried to help two women who were targeted by an anti-Muslim lunatic.  Trump waited days to respond to the attack before finally tweeting out a condemnation of the “violent attacks in Portland.”  His tweet came from his less frequently used, official POTUS account.  Wonder if he even knows he sent that tweet?