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The 2018 NATO summit was held on Wednesday and Thursday, July 11 and 12 in Brussels.
President Donald Trump made it a fiery one, indeed.
First Lady Melania Trump, since recovered from her kidney operation, accompanied her husband. (Breitbart has fashion notes.) They left the White House on July 10:
Both looked to be in robust health, especially the president:
In the video above, Trump answered a few questions from the press. He predicted that, out of NATO, his Brexit-oriented trade meetings in the UK and Putin summit, his discussions with the Russian president would be the easiest of the three.
This is historical background on why Trump is upset with NATO countries:
In fact, NATO published figures supporting that claim on July 10. Of particular note is Graph 5 on page 4 of the PDF. There’s a good NATO chart here.
An article from The Federalist, ‘Trump Is Not To Blame for NATO Chaos, Nor Breaking the Liberal Order’, explains the situation in full, recalling not only NATO’s history but also that of the ancient world. Author Sumantra Maitra, a doctoral researcher at the University of Nottingham, explodes the two myths. It’s well worth reading in full. Excerpts follow.
First, on Trump’s not being to blame for NATO chaos, he says (emphases mine):
NATO enlargement post-Cold War was essentially a push from the liberal internationalist lobby within the Clinton administration, led by Madeleine Albright and backed by the German leaders like Volker Rühe. Evidence suggests there was significant academic opposition to NATO expansion during that time, including from the father of the strategy of Cold War containment, George F Kennan. He said NATO expansion would end up being the greatest blunder of our times …
Also, the cost-benefit analysis of providing an American taxpayer-funded security umbrella to corrupt, violent smaller countries not only is a heavy and needless burden based on a flawed strategy but encourages those smaller countries to risk conflict assuming that American cavalry is just around the hills …
If European powers want American protection, then they should follow American rules and share the burden. Else, they are free to find their own ways.
As for the second myth, there has never been a particular philosophical ‘order’ that governed NATO:
There is no evidence that there ever was a “rule-based order” for Trump to now arguably destroy. Research suggests the liberal order was a myth and a nostalgia about a world that never was. Hard military power is what always mattered on this planet as a guarantee of freedom. Trump is just blunt, genuinely conservative, and mercantile enough to remind us of that.
The European Union and some European countries claim that Russia is a gigantic threat and they need more commitment from the United States. The reality is that Trump’s administration armed the Ukrainians with lethal weapons, re-established the Second Fleet, smoked out 200 Russians in Syria in one day, and told Germans (yes, Germans) to stop the Nord Stream pipeline. Europeans, on the other hand, refuse flatly to pay their fair share for their defense and even refuse to lead America in cutting off the Russian gas supply. It’s quite natural, therefore, that EU technocrats’ protests sound hypocritical to an average American taxpayer.
Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) would agree with that assessment:
Trump’s friend in England, Nigel Farage, would also agree that member countries are not paying their fair share:
Trump tweeted about this several times before he left. Germany contributes only 1% (the US contributes 4%). Some accounts say that the US is paying for 90% of NATO. Therefore, NATO countries must pay more, the US less. Many countries are also delinquent in their past NATO contributions; will they reimburse the US for paying the balance?
In addition, member nations also want to hammer the US with tariffs:
However, another Donald — EU president Tusk from Poland — published a rebuttal to Trump’s claims on the European Council site on July 10. He also read them publicly. His remarks are excerpted below:
Speaking on the eve of the NATO summit here in Brussels, I would like to address President Trump directly, who for a long time now has been criticising Europe almost daily for, in his view, insufficient contributions to the common defence capabilities, and for living off the US. Dear President Trump: America does not have, and will not have a better ally than Europe. Today Europeans spend on defence many times more than Russia, and as much as China …
I would therefore have two remarks here. First of all, dear America, appreciate your allies, after all you don’t have that many. And, dear Europe, spend more on your defence, because everyone respects an ally that is well-prepared and equipped …
Dear Mr President, please remember about this tomorrow, when we meet at the NATO summit, but above all when you meet president Putin in Helsinki. It is always worth knowing: who is your strategic friend? And who is your strategic problem?
The Trumps arrived that day at Melsbroek Air Base near Brussels:
Streets in Brussels were closed to the public for security reasons as the US motorcade sped through:
The next tweet ended with a Q-type statement, further leading me to think that Q is travelling with the president. Q has not commented since Wednesday, July 4:
This was Trump’s schedule for Wednesday, November 11:
The American contingent prepared for the summit in Brussels. Chief of Staff John Kelly is on the right, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders on the left:
Earlier that morning, Trump made known his concern for American farmers:
I wonder if Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg (left hand centre, opposite Trump) …
… knew how hot that morning’s breakfast would be:
Here’s the background:
This diagram, courtesy of Gazprom, shows the current and future Nord Stream pipelines:
This is Trump’s perspective …
… included in one of his hot breakfast servings:
The Daily Mail has looked into the situation and confirms that the above is true:
Donald Trump‘s claim that Germany imports 70 per cent of its gas from Russia at a fiery Nato summit today is correct – and the country will soon receive even more.
The EU’s statistics agency, Eurostat, says that Russia is responsible for up to 75% of Germany’s total gas imports.
And experts say that figure could dramatically increase after a new pipeline between Russia and Germany opens in two years time …
Donald Trump also questioned the role of the former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder who is now working for Gazprom.
Schroeder signed the deal for Nord Stream in haste after being ousted by Angela Merkel in a narrow election defeat in 2005.
Just weeks after leaving office, however, he started overseeing the implementation of the project for Gazprom.
Schroeder took up position as head of Nord Stream AG’s shareholder committee and has worked for the gas behemoth ever since.
The former politician is rumoured to have been paid millions by Gazprom and is set to pocket even more with the announcement of the second phase of the Nord Stream project.
Before the summit officially began that afternoon, President and Mrs Trump spent time at the Tri-Mission Embassy spreading good will:
When everyone gathered at NATO headquarters, there was a group photo shot. Look at the matching royal blue colour scheme of Theresa May and Angela Merkel (0:22 mark, photo here). The woman in red is Croatia’s president:
This was the scene that afternoon at NATO headquarters:
Trump held private meetings with Germany (yes, they discussed the pipeline) and France (remarks here; earlier, Macron hugged his surrogate papa):
This, by the way, is Germany’s military readiness at the moment:
Oddly, while America’s powerful oppose Trump, e.g. most of the US Senate, his popularity rating is above that of most NATO leaders:
Trump’s Brexit friend Nigel Farage agrees:
The following photo shows that Croatia’s president has eyes for Trump (in the nicest possible way):
As the FIFA World Cup was drawing to a close, she gave personalised Croatian football shirts to NATO leaders. (Croatia beat England. Then France beat Croatia 4-2 on Sunday, July 15. France’s last World Cup win was in 1998.)
Returning to official NATO business, Justin Trudeau announced that Canada will assume the command of the NATO training mission in Iraq.
While the NATO leaders met and held separate meetings, separate events were planned for their spouses who renewed friendships and spent time together:
The summit continued that evening at the historic Parc du Cinquantenaire, home to Belgium’s Royal Museums of Art and History:
The EU’s Jean-Claude Juncker was not at his best for the opening ceremony:
Juncker has form. Those who defended him online say he has sciatica. If he did, no doubt more attendees would have leapt to support him physically, but they did not. This is what happened after everyone left the dais:
Mrs Trump’s wardrobe was of interest:
Trump was still upset heading into Day 2:
This was Trump’s schedule for July 12:
Before leaving that day, he held an impromptu press conference (YouTube video):
He referred to himself the way Admiral Ronny Jackson did earlier this year after giving him his health exam. From the transcript:
Q Thank you. We understand your message, but some people ask themselves, will you be tweeting differently once you board the Air Force One? Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: No, that’s other people that do that. I don’t. I’m very consistent. I’m a very stable genius. (Laughter.)
As for the NATO summit:
Q Mr. President, I’m Tara McKelvey with the BBC. Can you tell us whether or not you warned people that the U.S. would pull out of NATO if they weren’t meeting their spending goals?
THE PRESIDENT: I told people that I’d be very unhappy if they didn’t up their commitments very substantially, because the United States has been paying a tremendous amount, probably 90 percent of the cost of NATO. And now, people are going to start and countries are going to start upping their commitments. So I let them know yesterday, actually. I was surprised that you didn’t pick it up; it took until today. But yesterday, I let them know that I was extremely unhappy with what was happening, and they have substantially upped their commitment, yeah. And now we’re very happy and have a very, very powerful, very, very strong NATO, much stronger than it was two days ago …
Q President Trump, Ryan Chilcote, PBS NewsHour. Did you win concessions in your meetings and discussions with the German Chancellor when it comes to German defense spending and also with this issue of purchasing energy from Russia? And secondly, what would you say to your critics that say by creating this scene here at NATO you’re only enabling President Putin and Russia to further disturb things in Ukraine and Georgia?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, if you consider putting up tremendously — you know, the additional funds at a level that nobody has ever seen before, I don’t think that’s helping Russia. I think that NATO is much stronger now than it was two days ago. I think that NATO was not doing what they were supposed to be doing — a lot of the countries. And we were doing much more than we should have been doing.
Frankly, we were carrying too much of a burden. That’s why we call it “burden-sharing.” I was using the term a lot today. “Burden-sharing.” We had a fantastic meeting at the end — 29 countries. And they are putting up a lot. Germany has increased very substantially their time period, and Germany is coming along. And we still have to figure out what’s going on with the pipeline, because the pipeline is coming in from Russia.
So we’re going to have to figure that out. I brought it up; nobody brought it up but me, and we all are talking about it now. And actually, I think the world is talking about it now maybe more than anything else. But we’re going to figure that out.
But — and, frankly, maybe everybody is going to have a good relationship with Russia so there will be a lot less problem with the pipeline. But, to me, that was a very major point of contention. We discussed it at length today. Germany has agreed to do a lot better than they were doing, and we’re very happy with that. We had a very good relationship with Angela Merkel.
On Monday, July 16, in Helsinki, Trump told the Finnish president Sauli Niinistö over their breakfast meeting that NATO has never been stronger.
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Udo Ulfkotte was a German journalist who died of a heart attack in 2017 at the age of 56.
Strangely enough, he never studied journalism, but rather jurisprudence and politics.
He had a distinguished career, which included being assistant editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung for several years; he left the paper in 2003. Between 1986 and 1998, he lived in several Middle Eastern countries. He also wrote several investigative books during his lifetime.
One of his books that is nearly impossible to buy is Gekaufte Journalisten (‘Bought Journalists’), which appeared in English as Journalists for Hire: How the CIA Buys the News. It sells for a whopping $900 on Amazon.com.
Image credit: Amazon.com
It’s worth reading the comments on the aforementioned English language Amazon page for the various comments. In effect, the book is being censored. Here is a good representative comment, where the reviewer gave the book five stars (emphases mine below):
No, I haven’t read the book, because it is priced completely out of my reach. I am giving it five stars anyway because of what I’ve read *about* it, as I’ve followed its author’s saga — the blackout by German media of the original German edition Gekaufte Journalisten (Bought Journalists) for a couple of years now, raids by German police on the author’s house, his noting how he feared for his life, and his finally being found dead on January 13 of this year “from a heart attack” (he was only 56, and because it is possible to kill someone in ways that look like a heart attack, some people believe he was murdered).
The fate of a whistleblower against one of the world’s most powerful organizations in a controlled society being passed off as a democracy?
Two things are abundantly clear: (1) The English translation of this book has been “privished.” There are a couple of good recent discussions of what it means to “privish” a book, but Amazon will not allow me to link to them. So let’s just say: the purpose of “privishing” is make a book with an unwanted message disappear without a trace by limiting information about it, destroying its marketability by printing too few copies, and refusing reprint rights, so that the copies available are too expensive for readers of ordinary means (which is nearly all of us). (2) Anyone who claims there are no conspiracies, that there are no behind-the-scenes efforts by powerful people to suppress information that would expose their efforts at global domination, is full of crap.
Privishing = private + publishing.
Until I read that review, I thought the word had positive connotations, as in a publishing house saving a title and making it more affordable and better-known.
I could not have been more mistaken.
Privishing is meant to kill off a title.
On January 8, 2018, Off Guardian published a good post on the book and the implications of privishing; James Tracy’s ‘English Translation of Udo Ulfkotte’s “Bought Journalists” Suppressed?’ is a must read. A summary with excerpts follows.
A US-Canadian publishing house, Tayen Lane, released the title through their imprint Next Revelation Press in May 2017. Ulfkotte had died earlier, in January. However, in 2015, when James Tracy enquired as to whether there would be an English release, Ulfkotte responded:
Please find the link to the English edition here http://www.tayenlane.com/bought-journalists
The page, at that time, gave an expected publication date.
Today, the page no longer exists.
Tracy explains:
When a book publisher determines that it has acquired a politically volatile or otherwise “troublesome” title it may embark on a process recognized in the industry as “privishing.” “Privishing is a portmanteau meaning to privately publish, as opposed to true publishing that is open to the public,” writes investigative journalist Gerald Colby.
Also:
Privishing often takes place without the author knowing, simply because it involves breach of contract and potential liability.
Tayen Lane will likely not face any legal challenge in this instance, however. Ulfkotte died of a heart attack on January 13, 2017, at age 56.[4]
Tracy provided an update to his article to say — see the tweet below — that someone had ordered a copy of the book, only to receive a cancellation:
Tracy included a 2014 video of Ultkotte saying that he had to work with intelligence agencies at the risk of losing his job. Ultimately, intelligence agencies gave him articles to publish under his own name:
Tracy gives us more about the content of the video:
The German journalist explains how he was recruited during the 1980s to work in espionage. This began through an invitation proffered by his graduate school advisor for an all-expense-paid trip to attend a two-week seminar on the Cold War conflict in Bonn.
After Ulfkotte obtained his doctorate he was given a job as a reporter at “the leading conservative German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, oddly appointed despite no journalistic training and hundreds of other applicants.
Serving as a correspondent throughout the Middle East, Ulfkotte eventually became acquainted with agents from the CIA, German intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Britain’s MI6, and Israel’s Mossad, all of whom valued his ability to travel freely in countries largely closed to the West.
His editors readily collaborated in such intelligence gathering operations,”[5] for which journalist possess “non-official cover” by virtue of their profession.
“Non-official cover” occurs when a journalist is essentially working for the CIA, but it’s not in an official capacity,” Ulfkotte explains.
Tracy includes one of Ulfkotte’s last tweets prior to his death:
Tracy says that intelligence agencies’ ties to media outlets accounts for a) the CIA’s antipathy towards WikiLeaks (which could no doubt make all this public) and b) the media’s insistence on pushing the Trump-Russian collusion narrative.
An American Free Press article from October 2014 — the same year the RT video above was made — has more on Ulfkotte’s book and how he came to be part of the intelligence agency network. Ronald L Ray’s ‘Reporter Admits Most Media Work for CIA, MI6, Mossad‘ is also a must read.
While most of us would say ‘no’ to becoming part of an intelligence network, this is how Ulfkotte described his recruitment:
Prior to a particular semester break, when he hoped to visit Italy and meet young women, a professor asked if he would like to attend a two-week seminar in Bonn on the East-West conflict. This was during the Cold War in a divided Germany. Ulfkotte was not at all interested, but university professors in Germany were (and are) highly respected. It was difficult to refuse.
He was promised that his travel would be paid for, as well as lodging and meals, and he would receive spending money into the bargain. For a young man from poor economic circumstances, this was too much. Relates Ulfkotte, “I suddenly felt this deep feeling inside me that I had ‘always’ wanted to go” to such a seminar. Such “innocent” beginnings were the first bribes, which would draw him ever deeper into a widespread network of corruption and spying, where no one considered such behavior immoral, but rather “accepted practice.”
No one said, “I’m from the CIA,” or from the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND)—the German intelligence service. But the seminar leaders sorted out “who was communist and who was pro-Western” among the young attendees. After further similar events, someone asked Ulfkotte if he would work for the BND—the last thing on his mind. But again, a professor—his doctoral advisor—pressured him to “think about it.” And once more, a poor boy found a free automobile and a good salary very attractive.
Ronald L Ray relates that Ulfkotte’s journalistic career as a war correspondent was a good one in these terms:
Eventually, he did indeed meet agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), BND, Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6 (Military Intelligence, Section 6), and Israel’s Mossad, who valued his ability to travel freely in countries largely closed to the West. His editors were knowing accomplices.
What follows is how Ray, using Ulfkotte’s experiences, describes the system working.
This is far worse than I had imagined.
There are the ‘unofficial covers’ — people who work with an intelligence agency but are not on their payroll as actual agents:
It is a broad, loose network of “friends,” doing one another favors. Many are lead journalists from numerous countries. This informality provides plausible deniability for both sides, but it means an “unofficial cover,” as Ulfkotte became, is on his own if captured.
Those involved leave their various connections and affiliations unknown. Ray says that Ulfkotte once accompanied then Chancellor Helmut Kohl to Jordan. There, he attended a function at which the president of Israel was also present. Ulfkotte began shaking the hands of journalists and officials he knew. All of them had intelligence agency ties:
He was ordered sharply back to his place. Otherwise, “everyone would know” who the other intelligence assets were. It must have been an appreciable percentage, because Ulfkotte then realized they were “all in the same boat.”
Ulfkotte’s ‘friends’ often asked for special favours, e.g. soil samples from various trips or a description of political opinions of leaders in certain countries.
But there was more — an ongoing bribery system of lavish favours — which he received when an intelligence agency or powerful institution approached him with an article to put under his own byline:
Large sums of money, gifts, public recognition and significant career advancement go to those journalists who provide useful information on people they meet or know, or on places to which they travel. Many times, the reporter, like Ulfkotte, need only put his name on an article written for him by some spy agency or financial institution. Money and gifts change hands; doors open to elitist groups, like the Trilateral Commission, Atlantik-Brücke, the Aspen Institute and the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Those who do not cooperate are fired.
Ulfkotte also believed that the CIA created Germany’s BND:
Because Iran has no U.S. embassy, he would enter the Turkish embassy and follow a then-secret, underground escape tunnel into the German embassy, where he would turn over his reports for the CIA or BND. In a recent RT interview, Ulfkotte noted that the BND was created by the CIA. To him, it is a symbol of Germany’s status as a “banana republic,” a “colony of the U.S.”
In closing, here is a direct quote from Ulfkotte that Ray included in his article (emphasis in the original):
“I’ve been a journalist for about 25 years, and I’ve been educated to lie, to betray—and not to tell the truth to the public. . . . The German and American media [is trying] to bring war to the people in Europe, to bring war to Russia. This is a point of no return, and I am going to stand up and say it is not right what I have done in the past, to manipulate people, to make propaganda against Russia, and it is not right what my colleagues do, and have done in the past, because they are bribed to betray the people not only in Germany, but all over Europe. . . . I am very fearful of a new war in Europe, and I don’t [want to see] this situation again. There are always people who push for war, and this is not only politicians, it is journalists too. We have betrayed our readers. . . . I’m fed up with this propaganda. We live in a banana republic [Germany], and not in a democratic country where we have press freedom.” — Udo Ulfkotte
Reading that quote from 2014 and thinking about President Trump’s attempts at negotiating world peace, one can better understand exactly why the media — not to mention the Left and their paymasters — want Trump de-legitimised and, ultimately, suppressed.
May the Hand of God continue to protect the American president, his staff and his family.
Further reading:
‘THE WORLD – upside down’ – Udo Ulfkotte article about his experience in the Middle East (2006)
‘Leading German Journalist: CIA Media Pushing for World War’ – Infowars (2014)
Happy St Nicholas Day!
If you had a celebration today, I hope it was a pleasant treat before Christmas.
My 2014 post has much detail on this famous bishop of the 4th century. There is much we can learn about — and from — this great man:
My 2016 post discusses the customs and celebrations observed on this day:
More on St Nicholas — feast day December 6
In commenting on that post, one of my readers, sunnydaysall, shared her experience of living in Germany and being able to join in the festivities:
Wow! I had no idea St Nicholas was so many things to so many different cultures.
When I lived in Berlin Germany, I lived in the heart of the population… On the “economy” as it was called by military dependents! I loved the German people and their customs, and Christmas was a real treat for my family! We put our shoes out on the stoop for St Nicholas to stuff our shoes with sweet treats and trinkets, and sometimes there was a simple exchanging of gifts! But it was the neighborhood celebrations that we all enjoyed so much!
The European Christmas with St Nicholas was so very different from our American Santa Claus, and Christmas was celebrated with neighbors, family, and friends! The cobblestone streets were filled with carolers and snow! Being from the South, it was the first time I had lived where it truly snowed!! Large beer wagons were filled with hay and people hopped aboard and caroled from the wagons as well! The “huge” horses were draped in jingle bells and they were braided in their mane and tails! The kids would get so excited when they heard them coming!
There were also people in the streets singing and the neighborhood pubs, where everyone gathered, stayed open almost all night! But you had to be ready for Church the next morning! 🙂
For a country with a dwindling population, 40 years ago, Germany was all about celebrating the “family”… But now I hear it is so very different now.
Thanks, sunnydaysall, for documenting a lovely memory — and for letting me share it here.
Last weekend was a busy one for Hamburg.
The city hosted the G20 conference and also had to cope with the usual demonstrations as well as wanton destruction.
G20 conferences nearly always attract protesters, but a number of riots and looting took place this year.
These did not end until well after the G20 conference concluded.
On July 9, Fox News reported (emphases mine):
Anti-globalization activists rioted for a third consecutive night in Hamburg early Sunday even after Group of 20 leaders had already left the northern Germany city.
Police again used water cannon trucks against rioters attacking them with iron rods and pavement blocks. They arrested 186 protesters and temporarily detained another 225 people. Officials say 476 officers have been injured in the violence since Thursday. The number of injured protesters wasn’t clear.
A reader commented:
The organizers of the “protest” are communist/anarchist professional rioters, working for communist front groups such as “International A.N.S.W.E.R.” (funding from Soros). It is easy for communists from all over Europe to get to Hamburg by train. I would bet that [New York City mayor] “Bolshevik Bill” deBlasio is not the only American “protesting” in Hamburg. Some of the reds are probably veterans of Berkeley, Seattle, and Occupy Wall Street.
That is probably true.
Mayor de Blasio’s trip to Hamburg to support the protesters did not go down well with New Yorkers. The New York Post featured him on the front page with this headline:
The day after an NYPD cop was executed, Mayor de Blasio jets off to Germany to rally lefties against the G-20 AND DON’T COME BACK
Twitchy had more:
… New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was getting an earful over his decision to hop a flight to Hamburg, Germany to hang around the G20 summit, despite the fact that his own city had just witnessed the assassination of a police officer and a serious train derailment. The trip also required him to skip out on a swearing-in ceremony for new police officers at a very sensitive time.
Of course the criticism didn’t stop global citizen de Blasio from burning some jet fuel, and on Saturday the mayor retweeted some local coverage of him and his son surveying part of the city that might or might not have been set on fire by anarchists …
Reuters had a report on July 8 saying that Germans were angry at Angela Merkel and the violence:
Germans expressed anger on Sunday over violence that hit a G20 world leaders’ summit in Hamburg, raising awkward questions for Chancellor Angela Merkel less than three months before an election.
About 20,000 police struggled to contain several hundred anti-capitalist militants who torched cars, looted shops and hurled Molotov cocktails and stones during the July 7-8 summit …
German newspapers devoted far more space to pictures of police firing water cannon onto hooded anarchists and other protestors than they did to Merkel’s diplomatic balancing act with fellow leaders of major world economies …
… an Emnid poll showed that a majority of Germans, 59 percent, believed the riots damage the image of their country – even though violence has affected a number of international meetings around the world over the years.
Merkel was forced to defend her choice of Hamburg, saying other cities, like London, had hosted similar meetings. Hamburg, a seaport which is Germany’s second biggest city, has a strong radical leftist tradition. It was also home to an al Qaeda cell that carried out the 9/11 attacks on U.S. targets in 2001.
Merkel had wanted to demonstrate to G20 partners, including Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, her commitment to freedom of speech and rejected the notion that some cities were out of bounds as summit venues.
The strategy has backfired, said some commentators …
Seeking to limit the damage from the security problems before the Sept. 24 parliamentary election, Merkel has promised compensation to Hamburg residents whose property was damaged …
No doubt most of Big Media focussed only on the peaceful protests. So, below are more pictures and short videos of the violence.
A German provided an inside view on 4chan/pol/:
Watch looters ransack a supermarket. Stay with the video until the end:
Radicalised thieves emerged calmly with all sorts of stolen merchandise:
This video from a journalist shows more of the aftermath:
Spare a thought for the staff having to clean this up:
The young environmentalist terrorists set fires by night …
And by day …
The DPA — Deutsche Presse-Agentur — showed what commercial areas of Hamburg looked like on the morning of Saturday, July 8. They included the aforementioned supermarket (photo lower right):
Of course, shop owners and managers could have paid protection money to these terrorists!
The wanton destruction even spread to residential streets:
Of course:
Tomorrow’s post is about the G20 conference.
In closing, I know a few normal people — including the elderly — who empathise with protests such as these. Why? These anarchists and thieves are harming people, destroying property and businesses.
More Americans are walking away from Big Media, whether its mainstream news or printed periodicals.
Those Americans are going online and reading or viewing alternative media, which, at least, seem to be doing a good job of investigation.
This is one small example of why traditional media outlets are losing their grip:
Now a Harvard study of media outlets covering President Donald Trump has proven Americans are correct in their perceptions of bias.
The study, ‘News Coverage of Donald Trump’s First 100 Days’, shows the extent of anti-Trump coverage.
American coverage
This chart gives us a summary of the findings from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy:
It is also worth remembering the 2016 campaign and the many journalists who were in the tank for Hillary Clinton. The Democrats held a few get-togethers for them, which the Podesta WikiLeaks revealed:
European media
Three European media sources were also included: Britain’s Financial Times (FT) and the BBC as well as Germany’s ARD.
Of the European sources, ARD was the worst offender, giving Trump astoundingly negative coverage 98% of the time.
The FT came next with 84% negative coverage. The BBC’s output was negative 74% of the time.
Basic findings
A summary of and excerpts from the study follow. Emphases mine below.
Trump was the star of the news during his first 100 days.
In the United States:
Trump was the topic of 41 percent of all news stories—three times the usual amount.[15] It was also the case that Trump did most of the talking (see Figure 1). He was the featured speaker in nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of his coverage. Members of the administration, including his press secretary, accounted for 11 percent of the sound bites. Other Republicans, including Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, accounted for 4 percent. Altogether, Republicans, inside and outside the administration, accounted for 80 percent of what newsmakers said about the Trump presidency.
Trump supporters were unhappy about the lack of coverage given to violent leftist protests against the president. The Left accused them of being cry babies. However, was Trump’s base right or wrong? They were right. With regard to news coverage:
Participants in anti-Trump protests and demonstrations accounted for … 3 percent.
On the other hand, television coverage did not give the Russian hacking scandal as much time as many of us might have thought:
Immigration was the most heavily covered topic, accounting for 17 percent of Trump’s coverage.[19] Health care ranked second (12 percent), followed by the terrorism threat (9 percent), and Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election (6 percent). Presidential appointments, global trade, Trump’s family and personal life, and the economy were the other topics that received 4 percent or more of the coverage.
Even though they loathe the president, cable news channels know he’s good for their ratings:
News ratings were slumping until Trump entered the arena. Said one network executive, “[Trump] may not be good for America, but [he’s] damn good for [us].”[18]
In Europe, media coverage focussed on international issues but not on Russia:
Although, like their American counterparts, immigration was at the top of the agenda, they gave relatively more space to international trade, military, and foreign policy issues, a reflection of the extent to which Europe is affected by U.S. policies in these areas. On the other hand, Russia’s interference in the U.S. election received considerably less attention in the European media than in the U.S. media.[1]
The three European outlets also discussed Trump’s fitness for office much more than their American counterparts did:
Only 3 percent of Trump’s U.S. coverage explicitly explored the issue of Trump’s fitness for office. European journalists were less restrained with the exception of BBC journalists, who are governed by impartiality rules that prohibit such reporting.[21] Journalists at ARD, Germany’s main public broadcasting outlet, are not governed by the same rules, and Trump’s suitability for the presidency was ARD’s leading topic in January, accounting for a full fifth (20 percent) of its Trump coverage. ARD stayed on the issue in its February coverage, when it consumed 18 percent of its Trump coverage. In March and April, Trump’s fitness for office got less attention from ARD, but it nonetheless accounted for about 10 percent of ARD’s coverage. Even that reduced amount exceeded the level of any of our seven U.S. outlets in any month. And ARD’s journalists were unequivocal in their judgment—98 percent of their evaluations of Trump’s fitness for office were negative, only 2 percent were positive.
Historical perspective
The Harvard study provides history about news coverage of American presidents.
Until the early 1960s, television news gave equal time to stories about Congress and the president.
In 1963, television news expanded to half-hour broadcasts on each of the three networks (CBS, ABC and NBC). This new type of news programme facilitated the hiring of the correspondents and camera crews needed to produce picture-driven news.
This resulted in an increased coverage of the president:
who, in any case, was easier than Congress to capture on camera. Newspapers followed suit and, ever since, the president has received more coverage in the national press than all 535 members of Congress combined.[12] The White House’s dominance has been such that, on national television, the president typically accounts for roughly one-eighth of all news coverage.[13]
The study points out that the president is not only the focus of media but also their target:
Although journalists are accused of having a liberal bias, their real bias is a preference for the negative.[22] News reporting turned sour during the Vietnam and Watergate era and has stayed that way.[23] Journalists’ incentives, everything from getting their stories on the air to acquiring a reputation as a hard-hitting reporter, encourage journalists to focus on what’s wrong with politicians rather than what’s right.[24]
Furthermore, the traditional honeymoon period no longer exists:
That era is now decades in the past. Today’s presidents can expect rough treatment at the hands of the press, and Donald Trump is no exception (see Figure 4). Of the past four presidents, only Barack Obama received favorable coverage during his first 100 days, after which the press reverted to form. During his second 100 days, Obama’s coverage was 57 percent negative to 43 percent positive.[26]
Even so, television news coverage of Trump hit a new low in negativity:
Of news reports with a clear tone, negative reports outpaced positive ones by 80 percent to 20 percent. Trump’s coverage was unsparing. In no week did the coverage drop below 70 percent negative and it reached 90 percent negative at its peak … The best period for Trump was week 12 of his presidency, when he ordered a cruise missile strike on a Syrian airbase in retaliation for the Assad regime’s use of nerve gas on civilians. That week, his coverage divided 70 percent negative to 30 percent positive. Trump’s worst periods were weeks 3 and 4 (a combined 87 percent negative) when federal judges struck down his first executive order banning Muslim immigrants, and weeks 9 and 10 (a combined 88 percent negative) when the House of Representatives was struggling without success to muster the votes to pass a “repeal and replace” health care bill.
No wonder Trump is unhappy with the media
When Trump rails against the media, he has fact on his side:
Trump’s coverage during his first 100 days was not merely negative in overall terms. It was unfavorable on every dimension. There was not a single major topic where Trump’s coverage was more positive than negative …
Trump haters have been spending too much time watching and reading Big Media. Wake up, folks! The Harvard study has news for you:
Research has found that familiarity with a claim increases the likelihood people will believe it, whether it’s true or not. The more they hear of something, the more likely they are to believe it.[34]
Here is the Harvard breakdown of print and television media negativity:
Trump’s attacks on the press have been aimed at what he calls the “mainstream media.” Six of the seven U.S. outlets in our study—CBS, CNN, NBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post—are among those he’s attacked by name. All six portrayed Trump’s first 100 days in highly unfavorable terms … CNN and NBC’s coverage was the most unrelenting—negative stories about Trump outpaced positive ones by 13-to-1 on the two networks. Trump’s coverage on CBS also exceeded the 90 percent mark. Trump’s coverage exceeded the 80 percent level in The New York Times (87 percent negative) and The Washington Post (83 percent negative). The Wall Street Journal came in below that level (70 percent negative), a difference largely attributable to the Journal’s more frequent and more favorable economic coverage.
There was no relief.
Looking at this another way:
Studies of earlier presidents found nothing comparable to the level of unfavorable coverage afforded Trump. Should it continue, it would exceed even that received by Bill Clinton. There was not a single quarter during any year of Clinton’s presidency where his positive coverage exceeded his negative coverage, a dubious record no president before or since has matched.[29] Trump can’t top that string of bad news but he could take it to a new level. During his first 100 days, Clinton’s coverage was 3-to-2 negative over positive.[30] Trump’s first 100 days were 4-to-1 negative over positive.
Interestingly:
Media failing the American people
Although this was not its only conclusion, the study said that the media need to step up and report more about Americans:
Journalists would also do well to spend less time in Washington and more time in places where policy intersects with people’s lives. If they had done so during the presidential campaign, they would not have missed the story that keyed Trump’s victory—the fading of the American Dream for millions of ordinary people. Nor do all such narratives have to be a tale of woe. America at the moment is a divided society in some respects, but it’s not a broken society and the divisions in Washington are deeper than those beyond the Beltway.
True. This is what a Michigan supporter had to say on Friday, May 19. He doesn’t mention the media, but he has a positive message for the president and his fellow supporters:
The man interviewed said that he supported Donald Trump from the beginning. He canvassed door-to-door for him. He got verbally attacked by … family and friends. People on whose doors he knocked sometimes physically assaulted him.
Big Media bear much of the blame for that gentleman’s abuse.
They don’t care about that man. They don’t care about Americans. They do not care one iota about you.
This is what lies ahead, less than a month from now:
The media will fuel the flames then not report on it, just as they ignored the riots earlier this year.
Tune out. Cancel the newspaper subscription. You can read the obituaries online.
If you want to know what’s really happening at the White House, follow the Twitter feed.
The Anheuser-Busch commercial for the Superbowl this year, scheduled to air on February 5, has kicked up a storm and is viewed by a number of Americans as pro-immigration advertising.
It comes a week after President Donald Trump initiated a 90-day immigration ban on seven countries which have majority Muslim populations. These selected countries lack the means for sufficient background checks on their own citizens. (More about this in a future post.)
See if you think this is political commentary:
I have two problems with it. First, by the time Adolphus Busch arrived in the United States in 1857, Germans had been emigrating there for a century, at least. They were well established in society. Secondly, it was unclear to me that the final scene was the famous ‘when Anheuser met Busch’ moment. I thought he was a random guy in a bar until I saw a YouTube from Mark Dice explaining it in the first minute or so:
Budweiser, owned by InBev — a Belgian corporation — denies it is commenting on Trump policy or an anti-immigration climate.
However, I cannot help but wonder if Adolphus Busch would have wanted to be portrayed in that way. Most immigrants wanted to assimilate straightaway. They were not going to dwell on the voyage over, their processing time at Ellis Island or their early years getting established. Everything was about becoming an American.
If you doubt this, then, please be aware that his Wikipedia entry states (emphases mine):
His wealthy family ran a wholesale business of winery and brewery supplies. Busch and his brothers all received quality educations, and he graduated from the notable Collegiate Institute of Belgium in Brussels.[2]
Another German immigrant came to America in the 19th century. His name was Friedrich Trump, pictured at left (courtesy of Wikipedia). He was a Lutheran and came from Kallstadt in Bavaria. He managed to make a fortune within three years. He went everywhere, from New York to the Yukon. Nary a complaint. Even the most recent Channel 4 documentary by anti-Trump Matt Frei on his grandson — shown in late January 2017 — painted Friedrich as a clever, enterprising businessman. That makes me think Adolphus Busch was of the same entrepreneurial mindset.
You didn’t go to the US as a victim then, that’s for sure.
Incidentally, Friedrich returned to Kallstadt after three years only to go through a series of legal hurdles regarding his German nationality! He found out it had been revoked, possibly because he went to the US around the time he was to do his military service. So, back to America he went and the rest is history. According to Matt Frei’s documentary, Friedrich quietly enjoyed his life a lot but died in the Influenza Epidemic of 1918. His widow, Elizabeth — also from Kallstadt — set up a real estate company for her middle son Fred, the president’s father. It was called Elizabeth Trump & Son. Fred was still a minor at the time, even though he was precocious enough to follow in his father’s footsteps and get small houses built.
I recommend that we need to watch these adverts with a gimlet eye and research the immigrant mindset of the 19th and early 20th centuries, very much oriented to assimilating into American society — as future Americans.
Whilst it is wise to refrain from labelling an attack ‘terrorist’ until we have the facts, the media are distorting and denying various aspects of the recent attacks in Europe, particularly Germany.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson came under attack from The Guardian and Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Tom Brake for saying that the recent Munich mall attack on Friday, July 22, was related to terrorism.
In fact, this is what he said from New York where he met with US Secretary of State John Kerry (emphases mine):
If, as seems very likely, this is another terrorist incident, then I think it proves once again that we have a global phenomenon and a global sickness that we have to tackle both at the source – in the areas where the cancer is being incubated in the Middle East – and also of course around the world.
That quote comes from the same Guardian article that accuses Johnson of jumping the gun in labelling the Munich incident as terror-related. Nine people died. The attacker, an 18-year-old German of Iranian extraction, then killed himself.
Since then, the name of the attacker — Ali Sonboly — has been distorted to David Ali Sonboly. That is a BBC link, but I have also seen it on other news outlets where it sometimes appears as Ali David Sonboly. Thankfully, a BBC viewer tweeted in response that the perpetrator’s name is, in fact, Ali Davood Sonboly.
Note the progression from Ali Sonboly to David Ali Sonboly or Ali David Sonboly, when his real name was Ali Davood Sonboly.
You know, we cannot call this what it is or call the attackers by their right names because people might be offended.
The result will be that low info viewers, of which the BBC have many, will be under the impression that this lad was someone he wasn’t. These viewers take the BBC at their word.
I know a lot of people who believe that BBC reports are completely trustworthy because they were 40 or 50 years ago. Folks, the BBC have moved on since then, ever leftward, ever economical with the truth. Their report on Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s resignation on Sunday, July 24, was but another example.
On July 18, three days before Sonboly’s attack in Munich, another adolescent — an ‘unaccompanied’ 17-year-old Afghan asylum seeker who had been living with a foster family in Germany — went on a rampage on a train in northern Bavaria. He took an axe and a knife to 20 passengers. Three were seriously hurt and one sustained ‘light injuries’. All four were from the same family — tourists from Hong Kong who had been enjoying a delightful holiday prior to the attack, including the wedding of an immediate family member in Britain.
The ’17-year old’ (he looked older), whom police shot dead soon afterwards, was reported to have shouted:
“Allahu Akbar” before the attack and investigators believed he had a become ‘self-radicalised’ Muslim.
The same report, from The Mirror, has a video of him wherein IS claimed responsibility:
The teenage ISIS terrorist who launched the terrifying axe attack has been named by Bild as Riaz Khan Ahmadzai, also known as Muhammad Riyad, and he left a suicide note revealing chilling details of his plot, it was reported …
Although police have yet to confirm his identity, a video released by ISIS claims to show him delivering a speech in Pashto to the camera while holding a knife.
The video calls him ‘a soldier of the Islamic State who carried out the Wurzburg attack’.
The video appears to show Riyad saying he would ‘slaughter infidels’ with the knife he holds up to the camera.
He says: “I am a soldier of the caliphate and I am going to carry out an suicide attack in Germany.
“O Kufar, the time has passed when you would come to our homeland and kill our men, our women and our children. And your apostate rulers were silent about these massacres …
The rest of the quote is at the link. A Shanghai paper has more information with links to other media reports.
On Sunday, July 24, a 21-year-old Syrian refugee killed a 45-year-old pregnant Polish lady with a machete in southern Germany. He argued with her around 4:30 p.m. then hacked her to death. He also injured two other people. German authorities imply it was a lone wolf attack, nothing more. They also said that others in the vicinity should not feel threatened. The man is in police custody. Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported on Monday that the two were colleagues and worked in a restaurant. Authorities are unclear when the man arrived in Germany. This was the third act of violence in Germany within 10 days.
The fourth took place that evening. A 27-year old Syrian who had been refused asylum in Germany — and admission to a music festival because he had no ticket — lashed out in the Bavarian town of Ansbach. He had a rucksack with metal items in it used in ‘wood manufacturing’, as authorities put it. He blew himself up outside a local wine bar, the impact of which injured 12 people, three of whom are in serious condition. Few in authority wish to comment further as I write on Monday, although Bavarian interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, said (emphasis in the original):
it was likely the attack was the work of an “Islamist” suicide bomber.
Yet (emphases mine):
Bavarian police said it was unclear if the attacker was Islamist.
The attacker was due to be deported to Bulgaria and had received two deportation orders, the most recent of which was on July 13. Bulgaria was his first safe country of entry.
Patrons of the wine bar were initially told the explosion was caused by a gas leak!
Pity Bavaria, which has had to take in so many refugees and migrants, particularly during the past year.
On Thursday, July 21, the day before the Munich attack, Konstantin Richter wrote a guest post for The Guardian. He gave more information about the train attacker and migration to Germany in general. Excerpts follow:
There are almost 70,000 unaccompanied children living in Germany, and he happened to be one of them. For two weeks prior to the attack he’d been staying with a foster family. He had also started an internship at a local bakery. In the best of all possible worlds, he would have gone from intern to trainee and then to certified German baker. He could have been a role model …
When Germany’s Willkommenskultur (welcome culture) was still in full swing, its advocates argued that Isis would not dare to target a nation that generously opened its borders to those in need. They also thought refugees coming to Germany would feel such enormous gratitude that they couldn’t possibly turn against their host country. Truth be told, I thought so too, but it doesn’t sound right any more.
The refugees who entered Germany had high hopes. Smugglers told them they’d prosper and find jobs instantly. Now they are languishing in asylum-seeker centres and struggling with bureaucracy, uncertain whether they can stay at all. Many of them are young men who are homesick, angry and frustrated, and extremists are deliberately visiting their homes because they know they are fertile ground for recruiting.
… advocates of Willkommenskultur have been on the losing side of the public debate since the events that unfolded in Cologne on New Year’s Eve. They’d be well advised to acknowledge that the open-door asylum policy was overly idealistic, and that they underestimated some of the challenges posed by mass migration.
Meanwhile in France, a policewoman in Nice is at loggerheads with the French government over a report a central government department asked her to prepare concerning the attack on Bastille Day, July 14.
In an interview to a Sunday newspaper, Sandra Bertin said she was in charge of the CCTV room that night. She did not see any national police on duty where the lorry entered the Promenade des Anglais, where the attack with the lorry took place. Local police were unarmed. Bertin says that had they been better armed — like the national police — they would have had a decent chance at stopping the lorry by shooting at the tyres.
National police were stationed further along and were able to stop the lorry by shooting at the windscreen. By then, for 84 people, it was too late.
The next day — Friday — Bertin filed a report, by request, to the CSU (Centre for Urban Supervision), a department of the Interior Ministry but not that of the Interior Minister himself, Bernard Cazeneuve.
She had a difficult telephone conversation with someone who ‘harrassed’ her for an hour asking for specific details of the scene, including the position of the national police. Eventually, Bertin was able to get permission to compile a written report:
“I told her I would only write what I had seen. Perhaps the national police were there, but I didn’t see them on the cameras,” Bertin said.
Bertin, who, incidentally, is secretary general of a Nice public servants union, sent her report electronically.
A few days later, the antiterrorist branch visited her office requesting that she destroy the CCTV tapes she had from that night. She said in her newspaper interview that was because they feared the public might see the tapes.
Officials in Nice have refused to destroy them.
Paris public prosecutor François Molins, whose office is overseeing the investigation, says that the officials visiting Bertin’s office only wanted to see the evidence for themselves.
Interior Minister Cazeneuve said he and his office had no direct involvement in these events. Bertin might be asked to submit to questioning by him or a representative. Even worse, he is suing her for defamation over ‘serious accusations’ she allegedly made against him.
There is a party-political aspect to this. The administration is Socialist. The Agglomeration of Nice is run by the right-of-centre Les Républicains, led locally by Nice’s long-time mayor Christian Estrosi.
From the off, Estrosi said the police protection was woefully inadequate on July 14.
On Tuesday, July 26, a Catholic Mass was brutally interrupted in a town near Rouen in Normandy. Two men, armed with knives, entered the church at Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray shouting ‘Daesh!’ A subsequent report said, ‘Allah akbar!’ One man had a beard, the other was wearing a prayer cap. They took five people hostage and slit the throat of the priest celebrating morning Mass. He died. A nun, Sister Danielle, was able to slip out of the church and call police. Security forces arrived quickly and fatally shot the two men. The article from l’Internaute (linked to above) said this was ‘very likely’ a ‘terrorist attack’. (It is the sort of attack that takes place on churches in Muslim-majority countries.)
Honest reporting. It will be interesting to see what the major French newspapers say. Let’s hope they do not name the attackers ‘Antoine’ and ‘Jean-Pierre’.
Except if it is Maxime, as in Maxime Hauchard, now Abu Abdullah al-Faransi, who — possibly still in Syria since 2013, according to The Mirror — indirectly collaborated in this gruesome act with Adel Kermiche, according to the Daily Mail.
L’Internaute had a live column of what happened in the immediate aftermath. The priest was 86-year-old Revd Jacques Hamel, ordained in 1958. Someone would have to be pathological to murder an elderly priest, especially in such a horrifying manner. A nun who was helping him at the altar was seriously injured. Some of the other hostages also required medical treatment. Police told those living in the immediate vicinity to stay indoors.
Word of the attack soon reached those at the Catholic World Youth Day events being held in Krakow. The Pope, who is in in the Polish city, expressed his ‘pain and horror’. Archbishop LeBrun of Rouen returned to France and his Vicar General took his place in Krakow. The Vicar General went to the scene of the attack immediately. François Hollande and Bernard Cazeneuve arrived shortly afterwards.
The live report states that this church was on the target list of Sid Ahmed Ghlam, 24, the extremist who intended to murder Catholics coming out of Sunday Mass in April 2015 in suburban Paris. Instead, he murdered fitness instructor Aurélie Châtelain who was in her car consulting her computer in Villejuif, just outside Paris. Then Ghlam ran into a spot of bother. He accidentally shot himself in the leg and was bleeding profusely. He drove his own car for some distance, before ringing the emergency services! Police arrived on the scene and arrested him.
Hamel was an active participant in the regional Christian-Muslim dialogue efforts. Mohammed Karabila, president of the regional Muslim organisation, said he was ‘alarmed’ to hear the news of his Christian friend, someone who gave his life serving others: ‘We are all dumbfounded at the mosque. Our prayers go to his family and to the Catholic community.’
I wrote this shortly after the attack. More news has emerged, notably that one of the attackers, who wore an electronic tag, was allowed to roam freely on weekday mornings. The tag was switched off as usual before he left his parents’ home the day of the attack. The Telegraph has a live column, and other news outlets around the world have rightly given this story the attention it deserves.
————————————————————————
These issues with the media and state security forces affect more countries than Germany and France. Belgium’s security police and intelligence departments also have their problems.
The media, however, would do well by telling people the truth.
It has been just under four weeks since the UK voted to leave the EU.
Theresa May has been our PM for one week.
She has done quite a lot of housecleaning in that time with many new appointments to the Cabinet, making it her own, and has created a department for Brexit.
It is unfortunate that the Nice attack took away our initial enjoyment of May’s premiership. I have much to write on her appointment and the lady herself.
For now, a few brief observations follow.
The Conservative Party — best for women
The Conservative Party is the best political party for women in Britain.
Within 26 years, they have given us two female Prime Ministers, redoubtable women both.
By contrast, the right-on, progressive Labour Party has never had a female leader.
Around the time May was entering Downing Street last week, Angela Eagle — a contender for Labour leadership — said that it was high time they had a woman at the top. What Ms Eagle misses is that the Conservatives chose Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May not because of their gender but because of their competence.
I remember watching Andrew Neil’s Sunday Politics (BBC) in 2015 prior to the general election. Several Labour women MPs told Neil week after week that the Conservatives should have more women in Cabinet.
Ho hum. Which party has two female Prime Ministers? The Conservative Party. Which party just happened to have an all-women shortlist for party leadership with Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom just ten days ago? The Conservative Party.
Enough said.
First PMQs an absolute blinder
On Wednesday, July 20, Theresa May held her first Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons.
She played an absolute blinder; she was confident, competent and concise. She answered every question with historical data and/or departmental updates. She took questions on housing, Brexit, ‘honour’ killings and the NHS, to mention a few.
Afterwards, I watched Daily Politics (BBC2) with Jo Coburn and her panel, most of whom, like Coburn herself, are very much left-of-centre. All said that May did very well indeed. Veteran reporter John Pienaar said she was much better than Margaret Thatcher in her early days of PMQs.
Meeting Merkel
May will be travelling to Berlin on July 20 to meet with Angela Merkel over a working dinner. (I will have an update in a subsequent post.)
Brexit is likely to dominate the dinner discussions. Terrorism and the recent attempted Turkish coup are also probable topics.
This is an historic occasion, as both Britain and Germany have female leaders at the same time.
The two seem similar in several respects: both their fathers were clergymen, neither has children, both have a penchant for improving society and they have strong personalities.
Expect mutual respect and honest discussions. It will be interesting to see if, once she meets May, Merkel is willing to engage in some sort of negotiations prior to our invoking Article 50 of the Treaty of Rome.
May will be meeting with France’s François Hollande on July 21. Calais and terrorism are sure to be on the agenda along with Brexit.
Brexit
On July 19, May held her first Cabinet meeting.
She reiterated her commitment to Brexit and will personally oversee that new department as well as those for the economy and social reform.
May has wisely appointed three Leavers to key positions involving Britain’s future outside the EU. Longtime MP David Davis is in charge of the Brexit unit as the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. Boris Johnson, MP and former two-term Mayor of London, is Secretary of State for Foreign and International Affairs. Liam Fox is the Secretary of State for International Trade.
Keeping a close eye on Brexit, the economy and social reform ties together May’s overall agenda for her administration:
we will not allow the country to be defined by Brexit; but instead build the education, skills, and social mobility to allow everyone to prosper from the opportunities of leaving the EU.
I hope she continues to make progress in these areas. I’m beginning to like her a lot.
