July 19, 2015, Sunday funnies
A WaPo op ed columnist urges us to "Stop Laughing at Donald Trump," even as he mocks Republican icon John McCain for having been captured in the Vietnam War. Seems like reasonable advice, given that he might well be a false flag candidate.
The slow moving toxic-waste-train-wreck that is the Greek bailout rolls on as the EU approves a seven billion euro loan to pay back the EU bondholdersGermany the IMF and ECB. The Greek referendum of a couple of weeks ago just highlights the adage of "always have a plan B"... the amateur-hour Greek PM clearly wanted to lose the very vote he was campaigning to win... he wanted cover for the wrong thing... and the end result,,, will probably be yet more suffering for his put upon people.
And China, the world's largest second largest economy, has a stock market crash that might (or might not) be over. God knows they're trying everything they can to keep propping it up, including outlawing selling! Say what you will of communist China; they mean business!
And finally, I'm going to do something I'm not sure I've done on this blog before; I'm going to grade my fellow Columbia political science/international politics student (that would be the President, Barack H. Obama), and then given him an "A," on foreign policy, at least for the current quarter. I'm with financial commentator Mike "Mish" Shedlock on lauding the Iran nuclear deal. Coupled with quiet praise for Russian leader Putin on the Iran deal, the new diplomatic relationship with Cuba, and even behind the scenes manipulation of the IMF to be less bitchy toward Greece, the President is living up, to some degree, to the promise of his ascendancy to the office.
In order to give him the A, I have to drop his lowest grades, on things like the ever-festering sore that is Guantanamo Bay, the never-ending drone wars, bear baiting China and the like, but the Cuba and Iran things-- two of the longest-standing American policy fiascoes Obama inherited from his predecessors-- are sufficiently huge to sustain that grade, IMHO (yes, YMMV, but keep in mind, that even many in Israel blame Netanyahu and his "just say no" stance for the Iran deal)... and so, the simple reality is that restoring some level of normality with Iran (and Cuba)... is really big. It gives me hope that there is promise that just maybe in his last year and a half, he can make progress in some of those other areas (without getting the planet blown up in the process.)
And I'll leave it at that.