Europe in Decline: Obama's Trip

President Barack Obama has returned from Europe empty handed. If he had gone there to persuade friendly heads of state in Europe to lend a fighting hand in his new military venture in Afghanistan, the trip must be counted a failure, according to the New York Times, one of the president’s innumerable media cheerleaders:

“With protesters raging outside, NATO leaders on Saturday gave a tepid troop commitment to President Obama’s escalating campaign in Afghanistan, mostly committing soldiers only to a temporary security duty…

“Despite a glowing reception and widespread praise for Mr. Obama’s style and aims, his calls for a more lasting European troop increase for Afghanistan were politely brushed aside, as they had been in negotiations leading up to the meeting.

“As expected, European allies agreed to provide up to 5,000 new troops for Afghanistan, the White House said Saturday. But 3,000 of them are to be deployed only temporarily to provide security for the August elections in Afghanistan.”

Surly anarchist prevented a visit to a cancer hospital in Strasbourg by Carla Bruni, French President’s Nicholas Sarkozy’s model wife and First Lady Michelle Obama, according to the Telegraph.

"’We've had to cancel a planned visit to the hospice because of the danger to all involved,’ said a spokesman for the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

“Michelle Obama meets Carla Bruni-Sarkozy for the first time. His glamorous wife, former model Miss Bruni, had been due to visit the sick and the dying in the centre of the ancient city, on France's border with Germany.

“But determined thugs, many wearing balaclavas and ski masks to hide their faces from police were doing everything they could to disrupts the carefully arranged programme.

“Some 1,000 protesters chanted and waved banners outside the hospice, accusing the leaders' wives of being ‘spoiled tools of capitalism’, according to one banner.”

The ravishingly beautiful Bruni for some reason gave a chilly greeting to the new American president, perhaps a show of Gallic offishness. It is a little unusual to find the plaything of so many drooling men to be less affectionate than, say, the Queen of England, who suffered a back rub from the First Lady and appeared to be warm and affectionate towards the new president.

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez appears to be warming towards President Obama. The mercurial fascist often has issued warnings concerning the evils of capitalism:

“’It's impossible that capitalism can regulate the monster that is the world financial system, it's impossible,’ Chavez told Venezuela's state TV late Thursday. ‘Capitalism needs to go down. It has to end. And we must take a transitional road to a new model that we call socialism.’

Very likely, Mr. Chavez has heard of President Obama’s rebuke to a gaggle of bankers who shuffled to the White House in search of bailout funds:

“My administration,” the president warned the beggars, “is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

The Blumenthal Burisma Connection

Steve Hilton , a Fox News commentator who over the weekend had connected some Burisma corruption dots, had this to say about Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s association with the tangled knot of corruption in Ukraine: “We cross-referenced the Senate co-sponsors of Ed Markey's Ukraine gas bill with the list of Democrats whom Burisma lobbyist, David Leiter, routinely gave money to and found another one -- one of the most sanctimonious of them all, actually -- Sen. Richard Blumenthal."

Powell, the JI, And Economic literacy

Powell, Pesci Substack The Journal Inquirer (JI), one of the last independent newspapers in Connecticut, is now a part of the Hearst Media chain. Hearst has been growing by leaps and bounds in the state during the last decade. At the same time, many newspapers in Connecticut have shrunk in size, the result, some people seem to think, of ad revenue smaller newspapers have lost to internet sites and a declining newspaper reading public. Surviving papers are now seeking to recover the lost revenue by erecting “pay walls.” Like most besieged businesses, newspapers also are attempting to recoup lost revenue through staff reductions, reductions in the size of the product – both candy bars and newspapers are much smaller than they had been in the past – and sell-offs to larger chains that operate according to the social Darwinian principles of monopolistic “red in tooth and claw” giant corporations. The first principle of the successful mega-firm is: Buy out your predator before he swallows

Down The Rabbit Hole, A Book Review

Down the Rabbit Hole How the Culture of Corrections Encourages Crime by Brent McCall & Michael Liebowitz Available at Amazon Price: $12.95/softcover, 337 pages “ Down the Rabbit Hole: How the Culture of Corrections Encourages Crime ,” a penological eye-opener, is written by two Connecticut prisoners, Brent McCall and Michael Liebowitz. Their book is an analytical work, not merely a page-turner prison drama, and it provides serious answers to the question: Why is reoffending a more likely outcome than rehabilitation in the wake of a prison sentence? The multiple answers to this central question are not at all obvious. Before picking up the book, the reader would be well advised to shed his preconceptions and also slough off the highly misleading claims of prison officials concerning the efficacy of programs developed by dusty old experts who have never had an honest discussion with a real convict. Some of the experts are more convincing cons than the cons, p

Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

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