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‘America is back’

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden has made it abundantly clear that the nation he was elected to lead is going to return to the world stage.

There will no more talk of “putting America first” at the expense of our nation’s international alliances.

Biden spoke to his fellow G7 leaders this week during a virtual conference and informed them in no uncertain terms that he intends to reverse the direction that his presidential predecessor intended to take the nation.

The nation has rejoined the Paris Climate Accord; the U.S.A. is re-engaging in negotiations with Iran with the aim of preventing the Islamic Republic from obtaining a nuclear weapon; he has affirmed out commitment to NATO; he also has put Russia on notice that he won’t be “pals” with that nation’s strongman leader.

Donald Trump sought to stiff our allies whenever and wherever possible. Joe Biden is not wired that way. He intends to demonstrate his understanding that the world is figuratively shrinking and that the United States intends to reassert its role as the world’s pre-eminent world power.

This is what presidents of the United States have done for the past 100 years. I am one American who supports the tone that President Biden is taking.

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Trump shows his self-punishment gluttony

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Donald Trump surely must be a glutton for punishment.

He has left the G7 meeting in France and now wants to play host to the next summit of the world’s economic powers at his Florida resort at Doral.

Can you say “Emoluments Clause,” anyone? Anyone?

That’s the part of the U.S. Constitution that makes it illegal for presidents of the United States to profit from their public service. You know, taking gifts from the foreign heads of state, kings, princes and potentates. That kind of thing.

So why is Trump pitching this idea of playing host to G7 powers at his glitzy estates? He still owns the place. He is still earning a substantial living from it. He didn’t divest his financial interests after taking office as president.

I don’t get this one single bit.

Trump kept delivering impromptu infomercials to his fellow G7 participants.

Then there’s this: He wants Russian strongman Vladimir Putin to attend the next G7 summit. Yep, Russia. The country got booted out of the G7 because of its aggression against Ukraine. The member nations made the call.

Yet the dictator’s BFF, Donald Trump, wants to give him a pass. Bring him back, says Trump. Let’s make the G7 the G8, even though Russia is a third-rate economic power.

Trump is inviting more trouble for himself.

Unbelievable.

International news

Which is it? Is POTUS unsettled or is it all going well at G7?

Who are we supposed to believe?

Independent observers report that Donald Trump appears unsettled, unnerved, uncomfortable among world leaders meeting at the G7 summit in France.

Trump aides are furious over he way French President Emmanuel Macron has conducted the meetings. They’re angry when a top Iranian official showed up unannounced, apparently at Macron’s invitation. Hey, it’s his country; I guess he can invite whoever he wants.

Then the president of the United States says the meetings are going “well.” It’s all good, he said. No worries.

Let’s see. Who is the more credible source?

OK. I think I can decide. I’ll take the word of others. It pains me terribly to disbelieve the president of my own country. However, given his penchant for prevarication, I am left with no choice.

I don’t believe anything that flies out of POTUS’s pie hole.

So sad.

International news, national news

Russia needs to change its ways, Mr. President

Mr. President, I know you’re busy hobnobbing with world leaders at the G7 summit, but bear with me for a moment or two.

You’re insistence that Russia be brought back into the group of leading industrialized nations misses at least a couple of  fundamental points.

First, the entire coalition of nations kicked Russia out of its ranks because of Vladimir Putin’s interference in Ukrainian affairs. It was President Obama’s deal; Obama wasn’t “outsmarted” by Putin or anyone else.

Yet you keep blaming your immediate predecessor for matters over which he had little actual singular impact. Knock that off, Mr. President.

Second, Russia is a third-rate industrial and economic power. It can barely feed its people. Several U.S. states produced more Gross Domestic Product than Russia. I’d bet real money that Texas, California, New York and Florida all outperform the Russian economy.

The G7 comprises economic powerhouses, Mr. President. Russia ain’t there. It’s a struggling Third World nation with admittedly lots of nuclear weapons held over from the Soviet days and the Cold War the USSR lost when it competed against the United States.

Why did the Soviet Union collapse? I’ll tell you why. It collapsed because the communists were spent. They ran out of gas. They couldn’t compete any longer with the West, the United States, with anyone. It faded into oblivion and left behind a corrupt, crime-ridden government that sought to create some form of “democratic” rule, but has devolved into the authoritarian system you seem to admire.

And why in the world do you want to be partners with a nation that attacked our electoral system in 2016? Oh, wait! I almost forgot! Putin said he didn’t do it and you believe him over the word of our crack intelligence team that says the Russians attacked us with the aim of getting you elected president.

Russia doesn’t deserve to be a part of any sort of coalition of industrialized powers. Not until it actually becomes one.

And for crying out loud, Mr. President, not until you finally, if ever, condemn the Russians for attacking the system of government you swore you would protect.

Your kowtowing to the Russians makes me sick.

Then again, so do you!

International news

Trump’s ‘America first’ agenda runs smack into G7 trouble

Donald Trump’s ability — if you want to call it such — to confound our nation’s ostensible friends and allies is going to be put to a supreme test.

He went to France to attend the G7 summit of the world’s leading economic powers. He went abroad enmeshed in plenty of trouble back home. It seems to be getting to him. Trump has been even more unhinged than usual with his Twitter tirades, tantrums and tempests, if that is even possible.

He wants to launch trade wars with China and Europe. Great! He said the other world economic powers have “taken advantage of” the United States long enough. He wants to get back at them by imposing monstrous tariffs.

But … wait! The tariffs don’t harm the other countries nearly as much as they inflict damage to American consumers of the products on which he wants to impose those tariffs.

Meanwhile, the other heads of state and government with whom he is meeting are trying to figure this guy out. Good luck with that. Millions of Americans can’t get to first base in the effort to grasp what makes this carnival barker tick.

He wants to “put America first.” What the president doesn’t grasp is that his efforts to put this country first — which plays well with his political base — anger our allies throughout a world that has been proverbially shrinking every year since the end of World War II.

Donald Trump, though, worries only about the base at home. He cares little about the consequences of his idiotic Twitter tirades, or whether our nation’s indispensable allies throughout the world can trust the word of the world’s most powerful nation.

The Trump Era is fraught with chaos and confusion.

Just the way Donald Trump likes it.

Dangerous.

International news

It’s called ‘disrespect,’ Mr. President

The Hill and other media are reporting a strange incident that occurred at the G-7 summit in Sicily.

It involves Donald J. Trump’s tardiness in showing up for a group photo with the leaders of the other nations attending the conference.

Rather than walk 700 yards to the photo location, the president waited for a golf cart to haul him there.

Here’s how The Hill reported it: “President Trump chose to ride in a golf cart while his foreign counterparts took a walk through Taormina, Sicily, on Saturday during the Group of Seven summit.

“The Times of London reported the six other world leaders — from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan — walked 700 yards to take a group photo at a piazza in a hilltop town. The U.S. leader decided to wait until he could get a golf cart.

“Trump was late for the photo, but joined the other world leaders during the walk down from the piazza.”

Hey, I know it’s not a h-u-u-u-g-e deal. But really. The president couldn’t have strolled to the photo site, engaging in a little small talk with his colleagues? Maybe he could have cut a deal or two along the way.

Instead, he chose to disrespect them in that inimitable fashion that has become one of the hallmarks of Trump’s time as president.

Just think: There likely will be plenty more of these opportunities along the way.

International news

German leader doesn’t share Trump ‘home run’ view

This is a hunch on my part, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel doesn’t believe, as Donald J. Trump does, that the U.S. president hit a “home run” on his first overseas trip as head of state.

Merkel, arguably Europe’s most popular and potent leader, said at the end of the G-7 summit in Sicily that Germany no longer can “depend” on the United States as a reliable ally; she said the same thing about Great Britain, which is in the midst of pulling out of the European Union.

“The times in which we could completely depend on others are on the way out,” she said at a campaign rally in Munich. “I’ve experienced that in the last few days.”

Is that how one would describe a “home run” in the U.S. president’s view?

The United States’ alliance with NATO has come under intense scrutiny. Donald Trump himself scolded NATO leaders publicly for not paying enough to defend themselves against external threats. The public dressing down didn’t go over well. But, hey, the president hit a home run!

The G-7, which comprises most of the world’s wealthiest nations, also is supposed to showcase U.S. solidarity with these important allies. Reports from the summit suggest, as Merkel has indicated, that European reliance on the United States is fading into oblivion.
So, we’re left with an “every country for itself” mind set, led by the man who wants to “put America first.”

Home run, Mr. President? Nope. You seem to have whiffed.