US presidential candidate Marco Rubio: "Putin is a gangster"

 

 

Florida senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio is the right man to handle Vladimir Putin!

Rubio in a speech:

"As soon as I take office, I will move quickly to increase pressure on Moscow. I will impose a new round of sanctions on The Kremlin’s senior leadership and other Russian entities, including Gazprom, and will work with Europe to exclude Russia from the SWIFT interbank payment system.

I will immediately provide Ukraine with lethal military assistance and increased intelligence sharing to ensure that Putin’s violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty comes at a price.

I will impose visa bans and asset freezes against high-level Russian officials, and move to isolate Russia diplomatically by ceasing efforts to engage Moscow on issues not essential to resolving the crisis in Ukraine.

Under my administration, there will be no pleading for meetings with Vladimir Putin. He will be treated as the gangster and thug that he is. And yes, I stand by that phrasing."

Edward Lucas on the claims that the Ukraine crisis was NATO´s and EU´s fault

A number of foreign-policy expterts have blamed NATO and the EU for the crisis in Ukraine. Edward Lucas looks at how the predictions made by political scientist John Mearsheimer and others have fared:

The Ukraine crisis is the West’s fault. That has been the contention of a slew of foreign-policy experts, notably the distinguished political scientist John Mearsheimer, who wrote a much-quoted piece in Foreign Affairs in August last year called “The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin.”

For those who missed it, Mearsheimer blamed the crisis in Ukraine on NATO enlargement, saying that Russia had adamantly opposed it (which is not true); that it breached undertakings given to the Soviet Union (also false); and that Putin feared that the “coup” against Yanukovych was a prelude to a NATO base in Crimea (also untrue).

Mearsheimer also argued that the EU had been “marching eastward” and therefore provoking Russia and that the West was recklessly promoting democracy with the aim of turning Ukraine into a “Western stronghold on Russia’s doorstep.”

The counter-arguments to this are well known. The biggest is that they remove from Ukrainians and others any say in their own future. They are just counters in a board game played by others. As Mearsheimer argues, might is right and countries Ukraine’s position just have to get used to it.

That is both inaccurate and morally dubious (given how much the countries of the “bloodlands” have suffered in the past century). It is right to say that Russia, not the West, gets to decide what constitutes a threat to Russia. We can’t help it if Russia’s ex-KGB regime is afflicted by paranoia. But if Russia’s threat-perception becomes the paramount and unchallenged factor in regional security, we are in effect assenting to a new Yalta.

Read the entire article here

Finally something to celebrate at the Paris COP 21: "Global warming has been good to Champagne makers"

A few thousand bottles of vintage champagne are ready for the COP 21 delegates in Paris.

The famous Maxim´s will be one of the main venues for these much appreciated "side events" ...

As Paris gets ready to welcome the 50,000 or so delegates to the megalomaniac COP 21 climate jamboree, due to begin on November 30, there is finally some good news to report.

When US President Barack Obama, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the likes arrive in the beginning of the meeting for a photo opportunity (the French idea is to have heads of state present only in the beginning of the conference in order to make statements) they can wholeheartedly enjoy the champagne offered by their host, President Hollande, knowing that global warming has been good to this noble wine:

As France prepares to host world leaders for talks on how to slow global warming next month, producers of the northeastern French region's famous sparkling wine have seen only benefits from rising temperatures so far.
The 1.2 degrees centigrade increase in temperatures in the region over the past 30 years has reduced frost damage. It has also added one degree in the level of alcohol and reduced acidity, making it easier to comply with strict production rules, according to champagne makers group CIVC.
"The Champagne region and Germany are among the northerly vineyards which have managed to develop thanks to warmer weather," Jean-Marc Touzard, coordinator of a program on wine and climate change at French research institute INRA.
"Even if I feel very concerned by climate change, I have to say that for the moment it has had only positive effects for Champagne," Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger, president of the group that bears his family's name, told Reuters at the company's Reims headquarters.

Obama: "Large part of this Earth" could become uninhabitable 25 years from now!

US President Barack Obama thinks that "large parts of this Earth" will become uninhabitable in "our lifetimes" if global warming is not reduced. The average life expectancy in the US is about 79 years ( 78.8 in 2012), which, considering that Obama was born in 1961, means that large parts of the Earth would be uninhabitable as soon as 2040.

We all know that there has been no global warming for almost nineteen years now. This means that there has to be a hell of a lot of warming during the next 25 years to make "large parts of this Earth" uninhabitable by 2040! Does Obama really believe in this rubbish? I do not think so, but he surely thinks that this kind of scaremongering makes him popular among greenies and other "progressive" global warming believers.

Dr. Oliver Hartwich: "Merkel´s irresponsible decision has created an existential challenge to her own country"

Angela Merkel´s open doors refugee policy has seriously weakened Germany and the entire EU:

Nothing is fine in Europe these days. Since Angela Merkel singlehandedly opened Germany’s borders to refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and any other nomads, the continent has been plunged into chaos. First and foremost, Merkel’s irresponsible decision has created an existential challenge to her own country. But it also threatens to wreck the European Union -- or at least turn it into an entirely different organisation. --

Before too long, we can expect Turkey to use the leverage presented to it by the refugee crisis to extort more concessions from Merkel. And how ironic would that be: to see liberal Britain depart from the EU while authoritarian Turkey joins – and both of them essentially because of the same reason.
Merkel’s political stupidity has exposed her to blackmail from Turkey – and from Greece. Again, it is completely ironic how the balance of power has shifted in Europe. Only half a year ago, it was the Greek government that was humiliated in Europe and had to give in to Germany’s demands. The refugee crisis has changed that too. --

What this shows is how much Merkel’s policies have reduced Germany’s standing. Not so long ago, Germany was seen as strong and Merkel as one of the most powerful politicians in the world. Today, the British are preparing their departure from the EU, Turkey cannot believe its luck to be dictating its demands to Berlin, and even Greece may feel encouraged to stand up to Germany.

We are witnessing a fundamental shift of power within the EU. This shift of power has weakened Merkel’s Germany and it will eventually lead to an EU that is very different from the EU that we knew.

It is indeed the end of the EU as we knew it. Britain out, Turkey in and Greece debt free: who would have thought what seismic shifts the refugee crisis could trigger in the EU’s power play?

Read the entire article here

New poll: Americans refuse to be worried about global warming

Despite the continuing scaremongering by the warmist establishment, a clear majority of Americans refuse to be worried about global warming. The new AP poll must be a huge disappointment for the alarmists:

However, fewer than one in four Americans are extremely or very worried about it, according the poll of 1,058 people. About one out of three Americans are moderately worried and the highest percentage of those polled — 38 percent — were not too worried or not at all worried.
Despite high profile preaching by Pope Francis, only 36 percent of Americans see global warming as a moral issue and only a quarter of those asked see it as a fairness issue, according to the poll which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
"The big deal is that climate has not been a voting issue of the American population," said Dana Fisher, director of the Program for Society and the Environment at the University of Maryland. "If the American population were left to lead on the issue of climate, it's just not going to happen."

The problem with today´s politicians: " If no one is in charge, no one can be held accountable"

Markus Somm has written an excellent article in the German blog Die Achse des Guten.

Here is my quick translation of part of it:

Perhaps nothing has made more clear what´s wrong with the present day politicians, than the refugee crisis. Maybe it took this tragedy to open the eyes of the citizens of Europe. Too many politicians enjoy being generous, to help people and to save the world, mostly with money that is not theirs, mostly with decisions the consequences of which they must never wear because they lie far in the future. They often say 'yes, rarely say no.That as so many politicians in the refugee crisis almost instinctively call for international coordination, makes one suspicious. It is symptomatic. When something is "coordinated", as it is always said, it means that a great number of people take part in the decision making - or not - in any case so many that nobody longer understands who has decided what. In other words, who is responsible for what. The present generation of politicians have masterfully managed to blur responsibilities: therefore they are so happy to avoid the decision-making processes of the nation state, where they are clearly seen as rulers, and take refuge in the higher spheres of the supranational, where all and no one are responsible. Who decided? Who's to blame?Nobody knows. Is it the EU? The Commission, the Council of Ministers, the UN and the OECD, or the G-8? Or is it the parliament? If no one is in charge, no one can be held accountable. Borders determine a territory, but they also show where the responsibility lies. Therefore borders are less popular with some politicians. In the EU the view, to know no limits, under the heading Schengen, was made almost a raison d'etre. The more difficult it is now to defend these borders, even the Schengen external borders that had never been lifted on paper.

How true!

If you speak German, you can read the entire article here.