Tag Archives: UN

International news

Why is globalism evil?

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Donald J. Trump and his moronic MAGA followers decided about a decade agp to declare war on that thing they refer to these days as “globalism.”

They have all said they intend to “put America first,” even if that philosophy destroys our most successful international alliances. They are on track to destroy those alliances built on international fears of tyrants seeking to conquer the world.

Donald Trump came along nearly a decade ago to declare his presidential candidacy. He vowed to “make America great again,” believing foolishly that American somehow had surrendered its greatness. It never did. The country has remained great even during its most difficult crises.

Much of America’s greatness rested in its wilingness to become the leading nation in the global community of nations. Presidents of the United States assumed the unspecified role as leader of the free world. They did so with pride in the nation’s standing internationally.

Globalism, it was long thought, was a good thing. The world has “shrunk” in a figurative way with nations depending on each other for commerce, military aid and cultural exchanges. Globalism, therefore, was not considered a four-letter word.

That is, until Trump came along.

These days we hear from the MAGA minions that globalism lies at the core of perceived difficulties. Many of those so-called difficulties were figmants of political strategists’ imagination. Trump inherited the strongest economy in generations, yet he managed to persuade enough voters in 2024 that their retirement accounts were going straight into the crapper.

Well, many retirees are feeling pain now … but it’s caused by Trump’s tariffs and the uncertainty they bring.

Globalism is not the bogeyman the MAGA gang has made it out to be. It has helped keep us safe, it has generated trade and it has helped Americans keep the jobs they now are losing.

medical news

Happy pandemic ‘anniversary’

Gosh, it’s been two years since the global killer virus pandemic arrived in North Texas, which is what the TV news anchors are telling us today.

Do I wish everyone a “happy anniversary”? Nah. I’ll pass on that one.

I will take note of the date the media are marking by stating that it has taken us two full years since the virus struck its first victim in this part of the world to get it under control … at least that is everyone’s hope.

The World Health Organization (which we have since rejoined since Joe Biden became president), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United Nations and a slew of other medical experts are saying the “pandemic” has given way to an “endemic.” I think that is their way of saying that the coronavirus — aka COVID 19 — is here to stay, possibly forever, but that we’re going to have deal with it the way we deal with the flu and other common infectious diseases.

It will be my sincere hope that in the future we can wish ourselves a “happy anniversary” to mark the date that the COVID 19 virus is deemed no longer crucial to the way we conduct our lives.

I’m all for celebrating that day.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Biden seeks to reassure allies, warn foes

Joseph R. Biden Jr. stood before the United Nations today and delivered the kind of speech Americans — and those around the world — hadn’t heard delivered from a U.S. president in some time.

He spoke of diplomacy, of global warming, of human rights, of an end to U.S. warfare. President Biden delivered a reasoned, rationale, coherent speech to the U.N. General Assembly that was devoid of name-calling — such as “Little Rocket Man” — and some of the curious statements that would fly out of the mouth of Biden’s presidential predecessor.

To be sure, the current president has a heaping plate full of trouble. We have a refugee crisis on our southern border. We are still trying to finish extricating ourselves fully from Afghanistan. The nation is battling a COVID-19 pandemic that many of us thought was whipped four months ago.

To hear the president’s tone, though, in a speech to the world’s No. 1 diplomatic body seems to signal a return to normal diplomatic procedure, the kind of thing he promised when he ran for president in 2020.

Yes, President Biden is struggling at home. The political forces that keep digging in against him are fierce, determined and dogged in their effort to torpedo everything the wants to do.

However, I remain determined to offer my support in the efforts this president is making to repair the wreckage left by his predecessor.

Today’s speech at the U.N. took us another step toward that end.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Susan Rice for VP? Sure!

I love the conjecture about Susan Rice that is emerging as Joe Biden prepares to announce his selection as a running mate for the 2020 presidential campaign.

Some pundits are wondering whether Rice is “qualified,” given that she’s never run for elective office.

I laugh out loud. I guffaw. I roar my amusement! Why?

Look at who Americans elected as president in 2016! Yep, we elected a phony, fraudulent business tycoon who became known to millions of Americans as the host of a reality TV show. Donald Trump had never run for public office, either.

But … by golly, the dude won enough Electoral College votes to squeak by an eminently more qualified opponent, Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Now we might get to see whether Susan Rice has the chops to run for the vice presidency. She most certainly does!

She served in two posts in the Barack Obama administration: as United Nations ambassador and then as national security adviser. Let there be no doubt that Susan Rice brings credibility as a foreign policy expert.

So what, then, if she hasn’t sought elective public office? She has served the pubic in high-powered, highly sensitive positions.

As for the selection process that is under way, I am going to place my trust in the former vice president’s wisdom in finding the right person to run with him.

Biden has been through the vetting process already, with President Obama’s team looking high and low for the correct individual to work with the new president who had to cope with a financial collapse that was second in recent times in severity only to what is occurring at this time on Donald Trump’s watch.

Biden, who would be the oldest man ever elected president, has said publicly that he wants someone who can succeed him after a single term if he determines he is unable to seek re-election in 2024. He also is looking for someone who is “simpatico” with the presidential nominee, a trait that proved invaluable during the eight years Biden served as vice president in the Obama administration.

Does that individual happen to be Susan Rice? Or one of the other dozen or so women being considered by Biden?

The presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee knows what he’s doing. I will keep the faith that he selects someone with whom he can campaign successfully against Donald Trump.

national news

Trump is ‘truthful,’ says ex-UN envoy … wow!

Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images

I suppose it’s all right to have different points of view on important people, depending on your persuasion or perhaps even depending on how you are tracking your own political future.

What does one make of former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley declaring that Donald Trump is a “truthful” individual?

That’s a serious head-scratcher. Then again, Nikki Haley is believed to be seeking to run for president one day and just might be positing some notions that will put her in the good graces of the man who holds the office at this moment.

Haley is pushing back on calls to impeach the president. She told the “Today” show that Trump has been truthful in his dealings with her. Haley said Trump always “listened” when the two of them spoke and that he was good to work with.

Well, OK. Whatever you say, Mme. Ambassador.

I just cannot get past the countless examples of what I call gratuitous lying on Trump’s part. You know, when he lies when he doesn’t need to lie. He just makes things up. Says whatever rests in that noggin of his. It’s big stuff and dumb stuff.

The big stuff? How about when he said he lost “many friends” on 9/11 when he never attended a single funeral in the wake of that tragedy. The dumb stuff? Let’s look at when he said his father was born in Germany, when he was born in New York City.

This president is “truthful”? Hardly.

national news

Stability? Who needs stability, right, Mr. POTUS?

Donald Trump is showing that he can be a master rationalizer. The guy can seek to rationalize every idiotic circumstance.

Such as the array of “acting” Cabinet secretaries and senior administration officials. The president says he is in no hurry to find permanent replacements, saying something about liking the “flexibility” that’s built in to his current administration makeup.

Ridiculous!

He has an acting White House chief of staff, an acting interior secretary, an acting attorney general, an acting defense secretary, an acting U.N. ambassador, an acting Environmental Protection Agency administrator. Only the White House chief of staff does not require Senate confirmation.

Now, the president has nominated individuals to become the permanent U.N. envoy, the EPA boss and attorney general.

However, he is being caught in a swirl of legal and political conflicts that are interfering with the “normal” flow of business; of course, “normal” takes on a new meaning in this Era of Donald J. Trump, which is to say that there is a whole “new normal.”

I happen to believe that the presence of so many “acting” executive branch officials begets more chaos and uncertainty. There can be little good side to having all these posts occupied by individuals who just keeping seats warm for someone else.

How about getting busy, Mr. President?

International news

The ‘best’ are great, the worst are, well, something else

Donald Trump has shown an ability to hire a wide-ranging array of key administration officials. They run from the brightest of lights to the dimmest of bulbs.

I consider Defense Secretary James Mattis to be among the stars of the Trump administration. He’s a retired four-star Marine Corps general; tested in combat. He’s dedicated to the defense of this country. Thoughtful, learned and a totally competent strategic thinker.

I hope he stays for the duration of the Trump administration, although Mattis’s tenure is beginning to show signs of wobbliness.

Then there’s the president’s latest selection to be our ambassador to the United Nations.

I am having difficulty wrapping my noggin around this one. Heather Nauert is nominated to be our nation’s top envoy on the world stage. Her credentials? None. She has nothing to offer.

Except for this: She once was a “news” personality on the Fox News News Channel, the president’s network of choice. She did a co-hosting gig on “Fox & Friends.” She dressed up in goofy costumes and acted totally, well, the way morning “news” talk show co-hosts often act.

Then she got a job as spokeswoman for the State Department. You might be recall how she sought to praise U.S.-Germany relations by citing, for instance, the upcoming D-Day commemoration. D’oh! Wait a second!

Our guys fought the Germans to the death on the beaches at Normandy, France. We were at war.

This is the kind of “experience” the president sought when he named this person to be our advocate on at the United Nations.

Weird, man.

national news

Ivanka won’t seek UN job. Fine, but who would want it?

Ivanka Trump says she won’t be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

She wrote this on Twitter: It is an honor to serve in the White House alongside so many great colleagues and I know that the President will nominate a formidable replacement for Ambassador Haley. That replacement will not be me.

That’s good to hear. Why? Well, for starters, Ivanka Trump is nowhere close to being qualified for the job that Nikki Haley is leaving at the end of the year. Her only credential is that she is a product of the president’s loins. Period. End of story.

She wouldn’t acknowledge, of course, that any such appointment would be totally inappropriate and that it would hand this highly critical diplomatic post to someone who has no business serving in any official adviser capacity in the White House.

Yet the president, Daddy Trump, has said she would be terrific. She’s up to the job. She’s the tops … he says.

I now will quote fictional Col. Sherman T. Potter: Buffalo bagels.

The task now for the president is to find someone who can work within an administration that suffers from maximum chaos and confusion. What’s more, the president is now being served by a national security adviser, John Bolton, who once said of the UN that you could “lose the top 10 floors” of the UN building and not lose a thing. Oh, and that quip came from a guy, Bolton, who served as ambassador to the United Nations.

The next UN ambassador will have to work with Bolton. And with a president who still has to exhibit any understanding at any level of the nuances of international diplomacy.

Who will Trump nominate for this job? That remains the latest parlor game to occupy idle minds in Washington, D.C. He’ll boast about being able to select from an enormous pool of applicants. Of course, we have no way to know about the size of that pool.

Trump will tell us his applicant pool is h-u-u-u-uge and many Americans will believe him. I won’t.

As for Ivanka’s decision to take herself out of running, man, I hope she can tell her father privately in no uncertain terms that she really and truly means it.

She won’t replace Nikki Haley.

national news, political news

Suck it up, Michael Wolff, and take the heat

I am well into Michael Wolff’s book “Fire and Fury” and am finding it an interesting and entertaining piece of work. Much of it rings true as well.

But when the author goes on these national TV talk shows to discuss some of the more, um, salacious elements of the book, he needs to prepare for the grilling he should expect to get.

He got grilled hard this week on MSNBC by “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski, who wondered why he would suggest that U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley would be engaging in an affair with Donald John Trump.

Wolff took offense at the question. Brzezinski persisted, noting that he implies an alleged Haley-Trump “relationship” near the end of his book.

The back-and-forth continued for a few moments before Brzezinski shut the interview down.

Wolff defamed Haley, according to Brzezinski. Wolff decided to go after the MSBNC co-host in a series of tweets after his appearance on “Morning Joe.”

I won’t comment yet on “Fire and Fury,” as I have a good bit of it yet to read. I do object, though, to assertions he is making about our nation’s U.N. ambassador and the president. This is a serious head-scratcher, given the ubiquitous presence of cameras, recording devices and other gadgets that can detect any kind of, um, “suspicious” behavior.

As for the author’s inability or unwillingness to endure tough questioning from journalists, well, he needs to toughen up.

International news

POTUS set to tell U.N. to go … ?

The president of the United States is getting ready to deliver a speech to the United Nations General Assembly. It’s a big test for Donald J. Trump. Is he up to the task?

Trump is a novice at this worldwide geopolitical stuff. He campaigned for the office he now holds by pledging to “put America first.” That means, according to some observers, that he intends to pull the United States out of its traditional role as the world’s most indispensable nation. We won’t be the “world’s policeman” any longer, according to Trump’s campaign stump rhetoric.

But … now he’s the man in charge. He’s the president of the world’s remaining military superpower.

Trump went to Europe not long ago and scolded our NATO partners about their lack of paying their fair share for its self-defense. It didn’t go well with our military alliance partners.

He already has decided to back out of the Paris Climate Accord, joining just two countries in refusing to join a worldwide agreement to reduce carbon emissions that a vast majority of scientists believe is contributing to the changing worldwide climate. Oh, wait! The president calls all that climate change stuff a “hoax.” Who needs the rest of the world?

Perhaps the biggest issue for Trump to confront will be the Iran nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration. It seeks to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. International watchdog groups say Iran is compiling with the agreement. Trump — no surprise here — is suggesting the Iranians aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do.

The president has until Oct. 15 to make a final determination on Iran’s compliance. What … will … he … decide?

I am going to await the tone of Trump’s remarks. He continues to look and sound like someone who has yet to find his comfort zone on the world stage. Sure, he talks about his prowess as a dealmaker and touts his business acumen. He’ll be standing in front of representatives of a couple hundred sovereign states, each with their own set of values, and political agendas.

Putting America first might play well in front of select domestic audiences. On the world stage? I’m waiting to see if he tries to sell that one to an international crowd.