Patrick's Notebook

The Washington Post has found another Russian secret agent in America’s own backyard, this time reprimanding US-based streaming service Netflix for doing the Kremlin’s bidding by showing a Russian historical drama.

It won’t be long before it is suggested that Netflix should register as a foreign agent. After all, the Washington Post advises the media giant to “think carefully whether it wants to be in business with Russia’s propaganda channels.”

Donald Trump, Mike Pence and John Bolton – best known for their “erratic and aggressive” traits – are a “toxic mixture” that leaves Europe less secure, a reputable German MP has warned.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government hoped that it could quietly wait for the Trump administration to end, but that was “a bitter illusion,” Jurgen Trittin, former minister for the environment and now a prominent Green Party MP, argued in an op-ed for Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper.

The sitting US administration combines the erratic destructiveness of Donald Trump with the neoconservative aggression of Pence and Bolton.

The German politician proceeded to up the ante: “This is a toxic mixture, it endangers Europe’s security.”

Nearly two-thirds of Germans say Trump is more dangerous than Putin.
In support of his claim, Trittin listed a number of important accords that were derailed or abandoned by the US, including the Paris climate change agreement, the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and – most recently – the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). Treaties aside, Trump also quit UNESCO, citing the UN body’s ‘anti-Israel stance.’

AOC asking questions during Oversight and Reform Committee hearing

I have a dog, she is a good dog. I have no doubt that she would lay down her life for me. She provides “security” around the house mostly barking at squirrels and passing pedestrians. She claims we are under threat and should get another dog so together they can bark at more pedestrians and more squirrels. I think it is threat inflation and getting out of hand, she is questioning my patriotism.

Threat inflation typically relies on misrepresenting the facts, or presenting them in the most alarming way possible. If another state is behaving in a way that our government doesn’t like, sometimes the mere fact that it is displeasing is treated as proof of a dire threat. It doesn’t matter if the threat is a relatively minor, manageable one–it has to be cast as a threat to regional stability and “world order.” It doesn’t even matter if the U.S. and its allies are actually threatened by the behavior in question, since the assumption that the U.S. is a guarantor of “world order” dangerously makes any and every threat to anyone our problem.

“An economic miracle is taking place in the United States”, according to Trump during the state of the union address. This may be the case but the economic expansion has slowed dramatically during his time in office compared with his predecessor.

The ‘donald’ likes to brag about how well the economy is doing by pointing to the stock market gains. As of today, all three major indexes, the DOW, S&P 500, and NASDAQ are all negative for the year and leading indicators imply further economic decline. At least his disapproval rating is steadily increasing.