Merkel Says Europe Shouldn’t Rely on U.S. or U.K.: About Time She Figured It Out

Now that Angela Merkel has figured out that the United States isn’t big brother to Europe and Europe isn’t big brother to the United States, we can finally start to deal with each other on equal terms.

It’s a moment that’s been in the making for a long time.

We’re also seeing the difference in between an Omega leader and an Alpha leader, in terms of President Obama and President Trump’ s leadership styles.  Obama meekly went along with the crowd, while Trump won’t tuck tail and submit to European groupthink. 

I suspect Trump will keep the U.S. in the Paris Accords, but he’ll insist on stringent new conditions and exemptions in return for the U.S. honoring the treaty.   I also think that he will submit the treaty to the Senate for ratification, which is what should have happened years ago, but Obama chose not to out of fear that the GOP-controlled Senate would (rightly) reject it.

Merkel’s frustration with Trump is a very good sign; his speech calling on NATO members to pay their fair share was dead-on too.  It’s too bad it seemed to fall on deaf European ears, but hopefully they’ll come around.

There’s too much evil in the world for NATO to confront without having to deal with a budget shortfall created by its own members.

Government People Leaking Information to the Media Need to Be Found and Prosecuted: British Police Stop Sharing Information with U.S. Because They “Don’t Want Their Investigation Hindered”

The news from Britain was not entirely unexpected; British police have stopped sharing intelligence from their bombing investigation with the United States out of fear that it’ll be leaked to the news media over here and set their investigation back.

When our own allies don’t trust our government to handle sensitive information, that’s one more indicator that the sources---all of them---need to be found and prosecuted.   And the price they pay needs to be so high that it’ll discourage others from considering doing the same thing.

And President Trump needs to stay on-script with foreign leaders too, especially with governments that are not our friends.   Trusting them with intelligence gathered by the Israeli intelligence network?   That may not have been the best move, but what’s done is done.   Hopefully Israel asked President Trump to check with them first before revealing Israeli-generated intelligence.

Time to go back to Cold War tactics to catch spies and serial leakers.

Trump Fires FBI Director: He Didn’t Have Much of a Choice; This FBI Director Made Too Many Mistakes and Was Badly Damaged

The office of the FBI Director needs to be clear of political entanglements, and Director Comey was up to his eyeballs on them.  He had to go.  The timing was awful, but with everything going on, there was no guarantee that there would be a better time down the road.

An FBI director who doesn’t follow the chain of command is among the most dangerous people in federal government, because of the power of his agency.  He may not be able to order nuclear missiles to be launched, but his was the power to order investigations of national security issues on all levels of government, and out in public too.   Counter-terrorism, counter-intelligence, and criminal investigations are just the tip of the FBI spear.

The FBI director also needs to be an independent observer and do his/her part to protect the public and to stay out of politics, which he didn’t do.  He was badly damaged from his foray into the political realm.

I had said on this blog back in October that I felt that the FBI Director had been overthrown because President Obama wouldn’t order an investigation of his preferred Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, and that the Department of Justice was probably involved.

It’s a reality now.

The hypocrisy of the Democrats who were screaming for Comey’s head eleven days before the election was on full display MINUTES after news broke, of course, but that label also extended to Republicans as well.   Senators and Congresspeople alike from both parties who wanted Comey gone were screaming bloody murder about his dismissal.

This firing has created another circus for the Administration to deal with, and it’s self-inflicted.   I’ve never seen an Administration stab itself in the leg as often as this one does.   Trump should have appointed an independent prosecutor at the same time…this would have given Trump some credibility that he so badly needs.

This is going to get seriously ugly.