Notre Dame Restoration

The most famous Roman Catholic cathedral in Europe outside the Vatican, Notre-Dame in Paris, has been restored to its glory five years after a destructive fire that gutted the structure and risked destruction to numerous sacred items and artifacts (many if not most of which were saved).  French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to have it restored completely by the 2024 Paris Olympics or, failing that, by the end of 2024.  The restoration crews got the job done with 24 days to spare.

The cathedral looks as grand and opulent as it did when completed in 1345, and the restoration crews cleaned and unearthed architectural details and cleaned paintings of grim and dust that had long since accumulated before the fire.  Notre-Dame has more than regained its place as a house of worship designed to make you feel like you are in heaven itself, the whole point of the grandiosity of Catholic ecclesiastical architecture.

President Macron has called Notre-Dame the soul of the French nation, and he told Bill Whittaker of CBS News that the restoration project helped unite France, a country that's as bitterly divided these days as much as the United States.  He also told Whittaker that working for a common goal and recognizing what brings a nation together can be a good way to heal the divisions.

Of course, don't expect anything like this to take place in America, where the most important building in the nation, the Capitol, was crapped in during the January 6 insurrection.  What goal could we stupid Americans set to unite the country?  Certainly not restoring a Catholic cathedral, as that would violate the separation of church and state, and besides, progressives would be incensed at any public works project that gives preference toward a faith known for its patriarchy and misogyny . . . even as these same so-called progressives demand that we respect Islam.

Build a national high-speed rail network?  No, conservatives insist that's an effort to intrude on our freedom of mobility - to go where we want, when we want in our cars.  Eradicate the measles?  No, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as the incoming Health and Human Services Secretary, won't allow the necessary vaccinations.  Get money out of politics?  Don't make me chortle.  We're not likely to get behind a common cause unless the Germans invade us.

But then, the last time the Germans invaded us . . .

. . . we welcomed them with open arms.

The truth of the matter is, for all of the bad breaks France has had economically and politically, the French people know who they are and have known for over a thousand years.  Here in the United States, after nearly a quarter of a millennium,  we still have no idea who we are.  If we have a common identity at all, it's an adherence to the Constitution, which seems quaint as Trump prepares to return to power, or maybe making lots of money.  Other than that, we can't agree on anything.  It should thus come as no surprise that the French would spare no expense to rebuild in five years a masterpiece of medieval architecture dating back to the reign of Philip VI of the House of Valois, a cathedral of stone, wood and lead that has stood for eight centuries, while in United States, took well over a decade to fill the hole in the ground left by the destruction of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, a pair of buildings dating back to the 1970s that were made of steel, aluminum, drywall and spray-on fireproofing held together with spit to cut costs.

Sad.

So it seems somewhat appropriate that Trump has named the money-grubbing and crooked real estate developer and pardoned felon Charles Kushner, father of Jared, as his ambassador to France.

This country needs an enema.

Both Sides of the Channel

Emmanuel Macron was once seen as a wunderkind in French politics who could breathe life into the old Hexagon when he was elected president of France in 2017.  That bloom has long disappeared from the rose.  Last week by-elections that Macron called were held in France to try to shore up his centrist base in the French parliament.  It ended up getting wiped out by extremist factions - mostly right-wing extremists, who were supporters of Popular Front leader Marine Le Pen - due to continuing economic instability in the country.

The elections in France were indicative of the increasing popularity of right-wing politics in continental Europe.  Not the raw American strain - French women don't get fat, and they don't have to worry about losing their reproductive rights either - but still a virulent strain of reactionism that is hostile to immigration, fair trade,  free markets and fearu of the economic realities of the post-COVID fallout.  What's going on in Hungary is only getting more popular in Germany and Italy as well as France.

Meanwhile, the British threw out the Conservatives and their leader, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, sweeping in Labour and their leader Keir Starmer to power with an historic majority in the House of Commons.  Prime Minister Starmer takes office as a technocrat who ran on policy as a message to revive Britain's sluggish economy, suggesting that the Brits are bucking an increasingly global trend and taking a more pragmatic approach to solving problems.

There is one disturbing common trend between Britain and France - in both cases, the incumbents lost.  that trend has dark forebodings for the American elections in November.      

Is Paris Burning Again?

In late 2019 and early 2020, I was hoping to spend a month or two in Paris in the immediate future at the invitation of a friend who lives there - possibly as soon as the summer of 2020.  When COVID hit, I decided that I should wait until the pandemic abated - by 2023 at the earliest.

Yeah, I'm not going to Paris this year either.  And not because I've given up any hope of going anywhere in Europe ever (though I have) . . . 

It seems that the French are on the warpath again, burning everything in sight, including this unfortunate Peugeot (at least I think this is a Peugeot; it's hard to tell when the brand emblem and the radiator grille have both melted), because of President Emmanuel Macron's move to raise the retirement age.  Macron wants to raise the retirement age in France so that the national old-age pension plan doesn't go bankrupt due to the aging population and the low birth rate (which made me wonder how the French could be such great lovers yet still be unable to procreate, until I remembered that even Marine Le Pen wouldn't criminalize birth control).  The French are not only burning cars but going on strike in just about every industry and service, letting garbage pile up on the once-romantic streets of Paris.

What does Macron want to do with the retirement age?  He wants to raise it from 62 years to . . . 64.

Are you kidding me?

I mean, in the United States, the retirement is even higher than Macron wants it to be in France, and many Americans can't retire at the U.S retirement age of 65  - and by the way, the retirement age for my generation and for subsequent generations is higher still, at 67.  Some politicians are already suggesting that the retirement age in the U.S. could be raised even higher, like up to 70.  The French will still have it better than we do with a retirement age of 64, and yet they start destroying and shutting down the country in protest?  It makes you wonder what we could achieve if we protested as angrily and as violently as the French.

Oh, right . . .

I remain utterly amused by the French.  They have it better than we do in so many ways - paid family leave, high-speed rail, Emmanuelle Béart - yet they go ballistic when they're asked to give up something small or tolerate a minor inconvenience, even when the result is continuing to have a better quality of life than us silly Americans, still without a Cabinet-level equivalent to France's Ministry of Culture.  Raising the retirement age to an age still below that of the retirement age in the United States - a country where workers can't take all of August off - is hardly the reason to let the trash pile up higher than Mont Blanc.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: Sure, the French have more to lose than Americans do, but that's only because they have more in the first place!

President Macron has directed his prime minister to subvert the French Parliament and push his retirement reform bill through by using an obscure procedure allowed by France's 1958 constitution.  The 2024 Paris Olympics are going to be a big disaster, if this keeps up.

This Is Not France

French President Emmanuel Macron won re-election, largely because while many people were disappointed with him, many of them would have rather eaten raw snails than vote for right-winger Marine Le Pen.  Especially when a Le Pen presidency would have resulted in France's withdrawal from NATO and the coalition against Ukraine.

So Joe Biden, or another Democrat to be determined if Biden does not run for another term, could still win the 2024 presidential election over Donald Trump or a pro-Trump Republican, right?

Wrong.  Why? Because this is not France.

The French people voted with their heads to keep a dangerous chick like Marine Le Pen out of office.  Americans vote with their guts, which is how right-wingers get elected.  Also, because she's French, Le Pen is not a sore loser who would claim that the election was stolen - and there is no such thing as a French electoral college that awards electoral votes from each of the country's 94 departments and can circumvent the will of the people.  And you know that "liberty, equality, fraternity" thing?  The French may not always live up to that standard, but they do take seriously the right to vote.  For one thing, they don't pass laws to restrict the vote.

Another thing is, they vote on Sundays.  Not Tuesdays.    

The Ukraine war is more of a factor in the French presidential election than it is likely to be here in the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential election because, well, Kiev is about 1,470 miles from Paris, which is shorter than the distance between New York and Denver, and there's no ocean between the two countries either.  If a Republican administration that takes office in 2025, should the war in Ukraine still be going on by then, pulls out of NATO, that move will be met by the American people with more by a shrug than a shudder.  That's what my gut tells me.  (My head? No, I'm an American.)   

Also, the French have a lot of amenities and programs that we Americans lack.  Despite inflation ravaging the French economy, it's not ravaging it as much as it's ravaging our own, and the French of course have guaranteed health care.  Not to mention more nice things to cushion an inflationary economy.   

Remember, once again - this is not France.

Okay, is there any other business? 

Le Poison Le Pen

This wasn't supposed to happen.

French President Emmanuel Macron was seen as a shoo-in for re-election because of his ability to stand up to Vladimir Putin in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.   But, as in America, inflation, immigration, and intolerance have contaminated the electorate in France  to the point where right-wing populism has not only become acceptable, it's become, like an Ungaro outfit, fashionable.  And the far right's best known spokesperson, Marine Le Pen (below) could possibly be elected president of France on April 24. 

With her plain-speaking campaign style and her resemblance to a kindly but strong matriarch in an André Téchiné movie, Le Pen seems harmless enough.  Until you remember she's the leader of the ultra-nationalist National Rally (formerly National Front) party, and her campaign platform includes restricting immigration from Third World countries, forcing Muslim women to stop wearing headscarves, ending free trade, privatizing public broadcasting stopping subsidies for renewable energy, and pulling her country out of NATO.  Sound familiar?

Le Pen blames the stagnating economy and rising energy prices in France on the centrist Macron government, and she's even taken to speaking out against what we Americans call "wokeism" to incite fear and envy among the French working class that she claims the elites have forgotten.   Le Pen, 53, isn't trying to copy Trump.  She, like her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, has been spewing this right-wing populist rhetoric since before Trump got into American politics.

If there's anything positive to say about Le Pen (and I'm stretching it here), it's that she's not as extreme on social issues as she used to be.  She's more accepting of abortion and same-sex marriages and she no longer calls for the reinstatement of the death penalty, which France abolished in 1981.  Trump Republicans aren't yet where she is on those issues now.  None of this, however, should obscure the fact that, if elected, she'd be the most reactionary French leader since Pétain.

Like voters in the United States who are ticked off at President Biden, voters in France are fed up with COVID restrictions, inflation, and economic malaise.  They look to be ready to punish Macron and replace him with an ogress who would terrorize liberals, minorities, and intellectuals with her raw-meat fascism.   Here's what I don't get.  Americans have a lot to be mad about, because we haven't been able to have nice things for at least forty years.  The French, on the other hand, have the highest-ranking health-care delivery system in the world, high-quality public transportation (including the intercity bullet trains), a first-rate school system, and paid maternity leave.  What the hell do they have to be upset about?

You know, I sort of hope Marin Le Pen wins on April 24.  We Americans had to live for four years and suffer under his policies while our country became the skunk of the world. I'd like to see French spend the next five years learning how that feels!  Maybe a President Le Pen will abolish and repeal some of those nice things we Yanks still lack.  How did Joni Mitchell put it?  "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'til its gone."

(And, maybe she'll demonize anyone opposed to her to the point where they get guys with tiki torches marching through Cherbourg and chanting anti-Semitic slogans.  In France they hate on Main Street.)  

The Delta Corona

A week ago, I wrote about the disaster that would result once the Delta variant of SARS CoV-2 hit - really hit - in the U.S.  Well, it's really hitting now.  More people are catching the delta corona in numbers we haven't seen since we had to worry about the British Alpha variant, and states like Missouri and Florida are in full pandemic mode once again.   Even states where new numbers are low, like my home state of New Jersey, are seeing cases surge, though nowhere nearly as much as in states out west or down south.  The only thing keeping the delta corona from getting as bad as it was this past winter is the relatively large number of people already vaccinated, and a majority of people happen to be fully vaccinated in New Jersey.

Oh yeah, about vaccinations . . . I'm not as hopeful about the very incremental rise in vaccination rates as I used to be.  The national vaccination rate, according to the Web site Our World In Data, went from 47.8 percent to 48.5 percent between July 3 and July 11 - a daily increase of one tenth of a percent - suggesting that we could reach 70 percent of Americans vaccinated by some time in February 2022 if that rate continues.  But it's July 15 now, and so many people seem to have shunned a COVID vaccine lately that Our World In Data hasn't updated its figures since July 11 (this past Sunday).  

And yet the foolishness continues.  Right-wingers at the latest Conservative Political Action Conference applauded the news that vaccination rates have gone down.  Florida governor Ron DeSantis, a 2024 Republican presidential possibility, is basing his 2022 gubernatorial re-election campaign on demonizing Dr. Anthony Fauci.  Even as French President Emmanuel Macron (below) is now requiring vaccine passports, which caused vaccination appointments in France to go up rapidly, the very idea of vaccine passports remains as popular in America as proposals to legalize LSD.

Before you start checking out rental properties in Paris and looking at where you can get a good deal on a Renault once you're there, however, there is still a modicum of hope.  Republican leaders such as Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell and Arkansas governor Asa Hutchison are pushing for more COVID vaccinations ("We're in the red zone, but not in the end zone," Senator McConnell explained).  The Biden administration is preparing to fight back against vaccine misinformation, doubling down on efforts to get local political figures, clergy, and doctors to convince people to get vaccinated.  President Biden has even enlisted Olivia Rodrigo - a singer who's popular with American youth, though she's unheard of by folks whose idea of a great female singer is Janis Joplin or Stevie Nicks - to encourage more young people to get the jab.  President Biden is also preparing to send surge teams to areas of the country where COVID is rebounding to get treatments and testing for those who caught the bug.  And there's anecdotal evidence that, in hot spots like Springfield, Missouri, people are beginning to get vaccinated based on the alarming surge in COVID cases.

Despite all that, the pandemic in America is clearly going to get worse before it gets better.  Even those who get sick or know someone who does may not be convinced enough to get vaccinated, and if even any variant that arises from the Delta isn't vaccine-resistant, it's likely to be an even bigger deal in terms of transmission and symptoms.  Considering natural immunity from infection and any spike in vaccinations that may occur based on the current situation, the pandemic will likely end in America soon enough.  But it's going to end with a bang, not a whimper; once the Delta variant burns out, it's going to leave a lot scorched earth in its wake.

And it may even upend Ron DeSantis' campaign strategy.

Viruses, vaccines, variants . . . I'm surprised that the "v" key on my laptop hasn't worn off completely by now.

Nothing To Laugh About

When I was a kid, back in elementary school in the early seventies, I was taught that America was the greatest democracy on earth, even as the President of the United States was undermining it with his spies and his attack on the press, which my parents and my teachers blissfully shielded me from, seeing as such presidential conduct would be so soul-crushing to a seven-year-old.  Now that we have a President dong far worse than Nixon ever did, including acting like, well, a seven-year-old, we have world leaders at international summits like the recent NATO summit laughing at us.  

On the left is Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, who got the ball rolling with his jokes about Donald Trump rambling on too much at his press conference, which clearly amused British prime minster Boris Johnson, second from left.  Bear in mind that they both serve a queen who has been sitting on the British throne since Winston Churchill was prime minister last, and she's a head of state no one ever elected.  And isn't that the queen's daughter whose back is turned to the camera?  In between Johnson and Princess Anne is French president Emmanuel Macron, an elected head of state whose office is designed to be like that of a king.  But at least the Brits love their queen.  (Prince Andrew, not so much.)   The French haven't shown Macron much love lately.

But here's the point: All three of these leaders - even Johnson - are much more mature and responsible leaders than Donald J. Trump, which is why they're laughing at him.  The United States is supposed to be the world's greatest democracy, yet Trump is being laughed at by two prime ministers serving a queen, the daughter of said queen, and a president who has the trappings of a king.

It's enough of a shame for America to be laughed at, when we're supposed to be the world's greatest democracy.  But while Trump deserves to be laughed at, other world leaders shouldn't be laughing at us; rather, they should be furious with us.  The United States, under Trump's watch, has withdrawn from fighting climate change, abandoned the fight against the Islamic State in Syria, cozied up with the Russians in a way that goes beyond détente, undermined the very organization these leaders were at a summit for, and generally made the world a more horrid place because we're no longer content enough to just make our own nation more horrid with lax gun laws, a poor education system, and a lousy health care system.  Everything America has done to the world under Trump - and Americans who support him are also to blame for being partners in crime - calls for swift, severe, punitive action against the United States.  What America does to its own people - voter suppression, for example - ought to be enough for a boycott against the U.S., like the one against South Africa for apartheid.  I'll repeat what James Howard Kunstler said in 1996: "I begin to come to the disquieting conclusion that we Americans are these days a wicked people who deserve to be punished."

Oh yeah, to any of my fellow Americans who are ashamed that world leaders are laughing at Trump, well, we could have elected in 2016 a President that world leaders wouldn't have laughed at.  But, as I recall, when that presidential candidate - my candidate - was running, you couldn't stop laughing at him!

In case you haven't figured it out already, I'm in no laughing mood.

We All Live With Yellow Vests

Is Paris burning?

Protests in Paris and elsewhere in France have been going on for over a month to protest President  Emmanuel Macron's economic reforms, including a higher tax on gasoline and diesel fuel meant to cut down on carbon emissions from automobiles by having people use them less.  The protesters have been wearing the yellow vests required to be kept in the cars of all French motorists because . . . well, I don't know why, but they have to have them.

Anyway, when I first heard about these protests, I couldn't understand why people in a country blessed with a sound, smart transportation policy that offers lots of mass-transit alternatives would get in a snit over taxes on fuels for their cars - cars that are fuel-efficient by necessity, because the French don't encourage the mass production of gas guzzlers like America does.  But it turns out that many French people rely more on their Renaults than on their metro systems - a curious condition, given the legendary unreliability of Renaults - and they can't bear more taxes.  In fact, the French already have to deal with a high cost of living, and even though their minimum wage is higher than ours (€9.53 an hour, or US$12.10, which works out to €1,498.47 a month, or US$1,700.30), they can't get very far on that, either. 

After the center of Paris started bearing an eerie resemblance to the downtown area of Detroit - a city founded by the French - Macron backed down on the fuel taxes, canceling them and promising a €100 (US$113.09) per month increase in the minimum wage in 2019 and the cancellation of charges and taxes on overtime hours in 2019, but he refuses to raise taxes on the rich.

And Americans thought Macron was a progressive because he speaks two languages and wants to do something about climate change?  

Anyway, the French people say that's not enough, and so they keep pressing for more demands.  Because that's the difference between France and the United States.  There, the people protest in the streets and get results.  Here, we protest and get arrested for loitering.  In France, the government is afraid of the people, but in the U.S., the people are afraid of the government.

In France right now, though, the government could completely collapse, as Macron's concessions haven't satisfied anyone because he still takes a neo-liberal, pro-business approach to managing the French economy.  And at this point, a period of instability could be strong enough and severe enough to topple the French government like a thunderstorm topples an oak tree.  And there could be a Sixth Republic as a result.

I feel sorry for all of the American tourists who went to Paris for the holidays.  No, not really . . . because if you can afford to even go to Paris in the first place, why should I feel sorry for you?  

Hard To Believe

Some things are hard to believe, aren't they?

Hard to believe that Trump would arrive at the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I separately and also deliberately apart from virtually every other world leader, right?  No, the thing that's hard to believe is that he made it at all.  He wouldn't honor American war dead at a cemetery outside Paris because it was raining and he didn't want to muss up his hair.  He skipped a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery back home for the same reason.  What you expect from someone whose biggest obsession is himself?

Hard to believe that Trump razzed French president Emmanuel Macron for suggesting a pan-European defense force and proclaimed that American military superiority saved the French in both world wars? No, I believe it, because Republicans like Trump are renowned for always taking the opportunity to dismiss the French, especially for their bad luck in military engagements.  But then Republicans never appreciated that the French are better at making love than making war.

Hard to believe that Democrat Kyrsten Sinema edged out Republican Martha McSally in the U.S. Senate election in Arizona, to become Arizona's first female senator and become the first Democrat elected to the Senate from the Grand Canyon State in three decades?  No, because McSally tried to make immigration an issue in a state with a growing Hispanic population and left a bitter taste in people's mouths.  However, award McSally points for her gracious concession video, which also included her dog. 

Hard to believe that they're still counting votes in the gubernatorial and senatorial elections in Florida?  Really?  Are you kidding?

Hard to believe that a Mississippi Republican senator said something racist referring to lynching in this day and age?  See above. 

Hard to believe that Trump would get rid of Kirstjen Nielsen at the Department of Homeland Security at a time when he has 15,000 soldiers at the border defending America from . . . what?  A thousand women and children?  No, not really, because Trump doesn't think through things when he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Hard to believe that Trump would blame California for its forest fires because of bad forest management even though the latest fires are brush fires and federal forest management is a federal responsibility?  No, because Trump hates Californians for not voting for him in 2016.   Hey, he's petty. 

Hard to believe it's going to snow in the Northeast tomorrow when it's only November?  No, because that's the result of what's fueling the California wildfires - climate change. 

Mr. Macron Goes To Washington

So this Frenchman walks into a joint session of a Republican-majority Congress and starts talking . . .

That's the joke.

But there's nothing funny about the concerns French President Emmanuel Macron voiced in his speech before Congress this past Wednesday.  After some laudatory remarks about the special relationship between France and the United States and the long alliance between the two countries - longer than our alliance with the British, which didn't even take root until the 1870s - Macron stressed the importance of an interdependent relationship between the U.S. and its European allies, urging the United States to avoid a trade war, rejoin the Paris climate agreement, make the transition to a carbon-neutral economy, understand the value of rules and regulations in economics (Macron is a trained economist), and, most important at this particular moment, stay in the Iran deal.  He also vowed that Iran would never get a nuclear weapon.  

Macron's speech got some applause from Republicans, especially his remarks on trade.  But when he touched on all of the other major points, he might as well have been reading a chapter from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," for all of the good that it did to persuade the GOP majority.  Indeed, when he stressed the importance of regulating economies and climate science, neither House Speaker Paul Ryan nor Vice President Mike Pence (who was there as the presiding office of the Senate), sitting behind the French leader,  bothered to acknowledge those comments.

Macron has charmed and flattered Donald Trump to try to reason with him on this state visit, in which the two men have forged an unlikely and peculiar friendship, though their only commonalities are never having held elective office before and marrying women not of their own respective generations.  It got Macron a state dinner.  But he still can't get Trump to admit that the Paris Agreement is a good idea (he didn't try on this trip), trade remains a point of relative disagreement, and it looks more and more like the Iran deal - the last remaining pillar of Barack Obama's "legacy" - is on borrowed time. Oh yeah, those of you still angry with Debbie Wasserman Schultz for promoting Hillary Clinton and thus giving us Donald  Trump and thus threatening the Iran deal, bear in mind that Wasserman Schultz, along with several other Democrats, were skeptical about the deal.  

It is just at sort of cluelessness and duplicity among the Democratic establishment that let Trump get elected President and why Democratic leaders so richly deserve not being invited to the Macron state dinner.

And if Macron wants to change Trump's mind about the Iran deal . . . maybe he can give him a ten-page pamphlet that explains the benefits of the deal in monosyllabic words . . . maybe one that features Babar!                

Yeah, I tick off everyone . . . 

But Syri-ously . . .

Donald Trump is being applauded for working with the British and the French on a trilateral approach to handling the humanitarian crisis in Syria by lobbing a few missiles in Bashar al-Assad's chemical-weapons facilities after a chemical attack by the Syrian government against its own people.  Let's break down that premature acclaim:

Trump's manly posturing against Syria's benefactor, Russian President Vladimir Putin, doesn't back up the attack.  The Western allies attacked three specific targets in the country but avoided Syrian air bases, lest the U.S., Great Britain and France provoke Russian forces - and there were certainly no attacks on Russian installations despite Trump's earlier tweet.  This attack does nothing to deter Assad; an attack on a chemical-research facility lauded as having set back research work on lethal gases.  I don't think the Syrians need to do any more research on the subject; they've finished their homework.

Assad is still winning the civil war.  The rebels have been forced to surrender all over the country, and now it's only a matter of time before he puts down the rebellion completely.  There's no justification for Assad's use of chemical weapons on his own people, but this strike against him isn't going to deter him.

If we are really concerned with the welfare of the Syrian people, we should let in more Syrian refugees and take the burden off Europe. But Trump isn't willing to do that.   

Trump has suggested that this attack could lead to negotiations to end the Syrian civil war.  The President has taken the lead in establishing possible negotiations - President Macron of France, that is, who is quickly turning out to be the de facto leader of the Western alliance.   American involvement is already nil, what with the Russians, the Iranians, and the Turks having held high-level summits on Syria at which the Americans were not invited.  But then, Trump was against continued military involvement in the Islamic State-dominated areas of Syria - and thus against against continued military involvement in Syria period - as recently as a week earlier before he was for it.

Abstaining from an attack Russian forces at least prevents a third world war, but it also shows how much Trump wants to pretend to get tough on Putin when Putin likely has him under his thumb.

"What?  James Comey just put out his memoirs?  I didn't hear about that!"  Exactly - because of Syria.

Hillbots will likely sneer at me for going third party on the Democrats in 2016 in part because Hillary Clinton was thinking of establishing a no-fly zone over Syria could provoke the Russians.  I can hear Hillary supporters now - "Green Party voters said that if I voted for Hillary, we'd have a war in Syria - well, I voted for Hillary, now we have a war in Syria!"  Ha ha ha. But I'm not laughing.  And yes, I still think Martin O'Malley (you knew I was going to mention his name) was right; we shouldn't do anything in Syria that could provoke a wider conflict simply to get rid of Assad, and Putin's involvement in Syria will be a blunder for the Russian leader.  Getting involved in that bed of thorns for a base or two on the Mediterranean will only come back to bite the Russians in the rear just like our involvement in Iraq bit us.  

And any effort to prevent Iranian access to the Mediterranean through Syria can be checked with that nuclear agreement with Iran - you know, the one Trump and Mike Pompeo want to ditch?

My commentary is done here. 

Apples and Croissants

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Donald Trump, Jr. was in enough hot water when he turned out to have met a Russian female lawyer, while in the company of campaign manager Paul Manafort, his brother-in-law Jared Kushner, to get incriminating information about Hillary Clinton.  Now it turns out he met with four other people at that same June 2016 meeting - including a British publicist and a former Soviet intelligence officer.  All in an effort to tip the scales for his dad even as the Democrats were tipping the scales for Hillary.  I'm suddenly reminded of why I voted Green.

Anyway, there's no evidence that the younger Trump got any information about Hillary, and, if he didn't, he obviously need never have bothered, as his father still won.  But it may turn out that he did get some dirt on Hillary, and even he didn't, his fraternization with the Russians only reveals how far and how low the Trump family was and is willing to go to gain ultimate power. Martin O'Malley famously said that the Presidency is not a crown to pass back and forth between two families; that is, the Bushes and the Clintons.  Look what happens when it's entirely controlled by one family.  This family.

This should prove once and for all that Trump is not to be trusted and that he should be forced to resign.  But Republicans still are backing him.  I don't get it; if Trump goes, they still have Mike Pence.  Pence is a nut like Trump, but at least he's an honorable nut!

And now for the croissant . . . French President Emmanuel Macron hosted Donald Trump at Bastille Day celebrations in Paris and treated him like a good friend.  "Macron" must be French for "Blair."  Nice try, Monsieur President, but Trump still isn't going to get the U.S. back in the Paris Agreement.  You have to talk to his boss Steve Bannon about that!

Le Marche Americain Est Futile?

President Emmanuel Macron of France achieved the impossible.  His center-left party En Marche! just won a huge majority in the French parliament, 361 out of 577 seats, after two separate rounds of voting, despite the fact that En Marche! was only formed a year earlier.  The two major parties in France, the Republicans and the Socialists, are in free fall because they no longer represent the concerns of the average Frenchman, and Marine Le Pen's National Front has been discredited as well.

So here's the thing.  Why can't we in America do what Macron did - start a new party?

As I type, the U.S. Republican Party is in a quagmire, hobbled by factions and despised for its love for power for power's sake, but the Democrats are so bewildered and completely out of touch with average Americans that they are on the verge of Whig-like extinction.  (Jon Ossoff in Georgia and Archie Parnell in South Carolina both lost their respective special U.S. House races yesterday, meaning that the Republicans have held every one of their five congressional seats - four in the House, one in the Senate - up for special election since Trump was elected President.)  Both parties continue to stifle legislation that would benefit ordinary people at the expense of their wealthy benefactors, and both count on fear tactics to get the few people who actually bother to vote to continue to support them.  We need a new party to address the concerns of ordinary people and make the economy work for everyone, as well as provide equality and fairness for everyone.  We need to to do something about health care, infrastructure, Wall Street reform, education, and so many other things, and neither party seems to be either willing or able to do a thing about any of this, despite their rhetoric.  Look, the Republican Party was formed in 1854 to fill the void left by the Whigs, but the party grew rapidly, and by 1860 the party had won the Presidency.  And the only technology they had to organize themselves with was the telegraph.  Don't tell me that, in an age of cell phones, the Internet, TV and radio, people can't form a new party in the United States and get it up and running in a year.

Then again, maybe they can't.  Maybe too many Americans have just gotten too apathetic, or may they're just too pathetic.  Maybe too many of us would just rather not get involved to preserve our own interests.  Once upon a time, we taught the French democracy; now, it appears that the student has become the master. 

And to those who say that Citizens United makes forming a new party impossible here, and that ordinary people can't make a financial contribution to a start-up party, let me recite two little words familiar to Bernie Sanders supporters - twenty-seven dollars!

(A warning, though, to Bernie Sanders fans thinking about forming a new party - the French Socialists just took a beating in parliamentary elections, going from 280 seats to 46.) 

Le President Macron

Hail to le chef!

Emmanuel Macron, the former centrist economy minister of France, was elected the twenty-fifth president of France.  He defeated right-wing harridan Marine Le Pen by twenty percentage points.

Macron has vowed to combat terrorism, keep France as a strong and active player in the European Union and work to gain the trust of France's disaffected blue-collar workers, and he is expected to have France take the lead on climate change from us stupid and ignorant Americans - and invite American scientists to come to France to work on the problem.  

Hey, Monsieur le Président élu, want to invite some American bloggers? 

Macron is not only the youngest man elected president of France (he's 39), he's the first French president of En Marche!, a party Macron, a former Socialist, formed in April 2016 - which, as of this writing, was thirteen months ago.

Democrats, take note - you could be replaced by a new party that could form any day now (Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley, I hope you're reading this!).  We could have a new left-of-center party like En Marche! - complete with an exclamation point in its name - by 2020, whereas you, Democrats, could be une marche futile.       

Once again, the French have saved Western civilization.  Nationalist thugs similar to Le Pen have also foundered in Austria and the Netherlands, which also benefits Western civilization.  And America, as another French leader, World War I-era Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, once said, continues to go from barbarism to degeneration without the necessary interval of civilization.  

And Macron's win has made things so much easier for the International Olympic Committee.  Had Le Pen won the French presidency, the members of IOC, faced with holding the 2024 Olympics in either Paris, a capital of a country run by a right-wing moron in skirts, or in Los Angeles, the second largest city of a country run by a right-wing moron with long ties, would have tossed a coin.  Now Paris should definitely get the Olympics for 2024, especially when it hasn't hosted the Games since 1924.  Everyone involved with the LA Olympic bid committee should just turn out the lights and go home.  

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a passport to renew.            

Sacre Bleu!

Marine Le Pen survived the first round of the French presidential election, finishing second in a field of eleven candidates just behind Emmanuel Macron, who has promised to keep France in the European Union, keep France in NATO, and keep France sane.   Le Poison Pen would ask France to withdraw from both groups and go off on its own, and proceed to regain the greatness of its imperial age.  Ah yes, the one that ended with the Germans at the gates of Paris, Louis Napoleon surrendering Alsace, Lorraine and his throne, a group of Communists controlling the capital, and the country on such an edge of desperation that it could only be saved by . . . an Irishman!

Be that as it may, Macron's narrow lead in the first round of the election has given observers some hope that the French will not make the same sort of mistake that British made when they voted to get out of the European Union or a mistake like the one the Americans made when, despite Hillary Clinton's popular-vote win, they elected Donald Trump President (which could have been avoided had the Democrats nominated someone else - an Irishman!).

Maybe Macron's call for patriotism over nationalism and his confidence and youth (he's 39)  will win out over Le Pen in the end.  I hope so.  Because, after seeing Great Britain and the United States screw up, it would be pretty scary to see the land of fine wines, Truffaut, Pierre Renoir, Jean Renoir, the City of Light, the Riviera, croissants, Berlioz, the Enlightenment, Henri-Pierre Roche, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Adjani, Sophie Marceau, a whole slew of other great actresses with supermodel looks, Balzac, Impressionism, Cezanne, Charles Aznavour, Jacques Cousteau, and all sorts of other groovy contributions to Western civilization go . . . completely off its rocker.

Oh yeah, speaking of rockers, France gave us Johnny Hallyday too. 

Come on, frogs - do the right thing and put Emanuel Macron in the Elysian Palace!