Sanctions are like a vaccine which when overly or misapplied lose their effectiveness

Sanctions are like a vaccine which when overly or misapplied lose their effectiveness. Trump's unilateral decision to discard the Iran Nuclear deal and reimpose the sanctions regime that Europe, Russia and China had agreed to bring Iran to the table to make the deal in the first place and with the full expectation they would be imposed again only with their agreement.  Now we have Russia in disagreement with sanctions altogether and Europe and China partially so. Europe’s disagreement will test U.S. based financial sanctions because they have the wherewithal and currency to counter them given a little time to tinker and develop workarounds just like a good microbe would. China can ignore the sanctions and buy oil at a discount from those rejecting it by blindly following U.S. demands to cease business dealings in Iran. And most dangerously for American power all three spheres of influence are aligned against the U.S.

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin conferred privately in Helsinki, Finland, on Monday here is the Transcript

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin conferred privately in
Helsinki, Finland, on Monday, with only interpreters
present. Since then, speculation has been rife about the
content of their discussion. The New York Reporter
obtained a transcript of the conversation, published below.

President Trump: Vlad, thank you for taking this meeting.

President Putin:    You are welcome Donald. Now, what
can I do for you?

President Trump:  Its the Trump Tower project
in Moscow. What will it take to get it started? Come on Vlad,
it’s the showpiece project to make Russia really great
again, just like you want.

President Putin:    But those sanctions, Donald! Mike Flynn
told me they were gone the moment you took office.  You
promised they would be gone. Is that really you Donald,
big promise no result?

 

President Trump:  Whadda you mean no result! Look how
I pulled the Iran Deal to make France and Germany think
twice about those sanctions that Mike Pompeo says they
have to follow just because we say so.  All we need now is
that smiley frog Macron to man up and say no. Didn't he
mention anything about breaking the Iran sanctions
yesterday after France won the World Cup?

President Putin:    Nothing, what a dummy! You'd think he
would be looking out for his own like Total Petroleum and
Peugeot Auto and Airbus Aircraft instead of letting them
get pushed around by those stupid Obama sanctions. Let me
get LePen to wake him up.

President Trump:  And I'll do my chaos thing, maybe fire
Mueller. Another dummy. He knows we messed with other
people's elections so what is it those idiots want me to do?
Lecture you like that pussy, Obama!  Besides I always figured
all the top dogs like our NSA, you, China and Israel have all the
emails. Where is the collusion in my asking you in public to
release what you got?

President Putin:    Yeah, I didn’t like those pesky Panama
Papers the NSA released either.  I’ll tell you what. You send over
your hacks to interrogate those over reaching heavy handed
GRU morons who should have left well enough alone.  I mean
the FSB was already in undetected reading stuff like how
Wasserman was strangling Bernie’s campaign to help out
Hillary and they could have made it look like the NSA released
them. Imagine the mess that would have made. But nooooo those
morons. I am ready to string up the dozen of them right now.
Collusion! Why would I have ordered an alternate hack of an
office that was totally hacked already, for soviet sake, and don’t
talk to me about poisoning traitors!

President Trump:  Okay Vlad, I see I got you worked up so lets
tone it down and agree we had a really great meeting and that
you are a swell guy who can be trusted yadda da de da.

President Putin:    Alright, you keep it up with Pompeo, Bolton
and that weasel Mnuchin making the Europeans mad as hell
with irrational insistence to comply with those stupid sanctions.
Those Euro dummies! You don't see Xi kowtowing to
that stupidity. His people are in Tehran right now getting the best
possible deal on oil everyone else is staying away from because of
sanctions.

President Trump:  Yeah Xi is no dummy, really keeps his cards
close to the vest. Boy, Shanghai could really use a Trump Tower.
But first things first, right Vlad?

President Putin:    Get the sanctions lifted on Russia and you can
send Don Jr. over to make the Moscow deal, but not a moment
sooner!

President Trump:  Done. So hey, how about them Croats?

  

Considering United State’s support for Israel at least the withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council is honest.

That Donald J Trump is a thoughtless and cruel bully breaking old friendships, alliances, institutions and myths goes without saying but some of these plates needed breaking, such as an exceptional belief in our moral superiority. A belief which reached its zenith with the successful prosecution of a World War against the maximum terrorist Adolf Hitler.  In war, whether hot or cold, one exaggerates the moral turpitude of the other and with Hitler no nuance was required. Unfortunately the cold war that came after was one of ideas rather than deeds where a claim of goodness was neither clear nor relevant. By Vietnam the swing in our as well as the World's perception of our goodness reached the low remarked by Pogo, “we have met the enemy and he is us.”  Thank our President for making it clear that human rights is just an ancillary issue we are willing to include when it doesn’t conflict with our primary pursuit and exclude when not, such as defending Israel’s recent wanton shooting of Palestinians. Considering United State’s support for Israel at least the withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council is honest.

When @Rodforctgov asks you to volunteer in the ballot petition drive, think of it as a contribution you can make that money can’t buy. @LibertarianCT

I believe that the LPCT is missing the opportunity to engage
new members by not immediately asking them to volunteer for
the ballot petition drive. Many won’t but the few that do are what
will grow the party, so use the hardship of having to get our
candidates on the ballot this year to to build relationships and
develop our narrative. I would suggest we reject the professional
petition gatherers and concentrate on volunteers to make our party
and its candidates viable.

My situation in Fairfield County where I grew up with and was
a commuter is to gather signatures at the railroad station in the early
morning hours.  My first question is to ask if they are registered to
vote in Darien, my hometown but when I start in Greenwich next week
it will be Greenwich. Eliciting a yes puts to you halfway there while
also qualifying the respondent. The rest is so easy that you can relax
and enjoy the experience. Rejection isn’t an insult so just say thank
you and move on to next. If someone expresses interest in the
candidate then pass a card of Rod’s campaign. Frankly, a couple of
hours of this makes my day especially where I meet friends who smile
at my whacked out politics but who sign anyway and think about it.  
And that’s the point. Its one’s active engagement which makes others
think that there is something worthwhile going on. It’s intriguing.

So when Rod asks as your point person to volunteer in the ballot
petition drive, think of it as a contribution you can make that money
can’t buy.  

Trump is managing to do the unthinkable, turn our allies away from us to China

My recent tweets are unAmerican as they go against Trump's interests. So be it but the G-7 meeting today in Quebec, Canada makes crystal clear the natural ally for the G-6 is not the United States which battling it on all diplomatic and economic fronts, but China. And instead of sitting helplessly by President Macron of France should stop playing the nice guy and convince China to drop Boeing and take up Airbus exclusively for the following reasons. First, Trump's arbitrary decision against the Iran Nuclear Deal exposed Airbus to sales limiting sanctions because of unauthorized technology transfers. Doubtful China would want to be hampered by the same so the pitch would be for Europe and China to develop workarounds to these exclusive to U.S. tech solutions.  Second, its economic hardball that will take the bloom off the likes of Boeing, United Technologies and GE, all Dow Jones Stocks, and Honeywell and other aerospace tech manufactures, starting a recession in the U.S. to show the American public our Smoot Hawley loving moronic leadership of King Donald.   

Iran decision is the tipping point which breaks the European alliance leaving long lasting blows to our relations

A primary impetus of a nation is to be autonomous, to resist the impositions of other nations on it,  so consider what President Donald Trump has done to France in particular and the European Union in general by his arbitrary decision to renounce the Iran Nuclear Deal and impose economic sanctions that the alliance never thought would be implemented arbitrarily by the United States.  France with a belief in the peace engendering effect of trade and having sensed an economic opportunity worked energetically to provide Iran the promised economic surge to bring the country back into the community of nations. Now it finds French industry forced to give up investments and opportunity in Iran despite President Emmanuel Macron’s most congenial efforts to persuade our President not too.  France is a proud country and as its former President Charles de Gaulle has proven a fiercely independent one as well. It’s not logical to believe that this insult will be swept under the rug.

Total, a French oil company equivalent to our ExxonMobil in national prestige, is now forced to give up its investment in Iran.  Peugeot, an auto company equivalent to our Ford in national prestige is now forced to give up its investment in Iran. Airbus, a European aircraft manufacturer equivalent to our Boeing and based in France, is now forced to take back aircraft with American technology that it has leased or sold to Iran.  Would our companies tolerate such an imposition from another? Trump in his Elkhart Indiana stump speech bragged that he was for the U.S.A. first just as Macron is for France. It is time for France to to put their business first.

The blunt economic trauma forced on our allies by the Trump Administration demanding adherence to the Iran sanctions will breakdown our alliance.  It will be felt first by American Aerospace Companies, Honeywell Corp. for example, as Europe develops workarounds to technology stopping European aircraft from freely being sold wherever Europe deems legal and appropriate.  Since China is a Iran Deal signatory it will see Europe’s pain and its reaction to it thereby inculcating in them the need for self sufficiency and develop competing technology.

On top of Trump’s Aluminum and Steel tariffs renouncing the Iran Deal might be the last straw that breaks the alliance’s back so that it’s no wonder that one European minister’s reaction was to tweet that Trump can count on only one helping hand in fulfilling the sanctions against Iran, the one attached to the end of his arm.  Once again a sane and rational China may be the preferred ally on trade matters as well.

Finally it’s Mr. Trump’s bad manners that will drive away the European Alliance.  He had a pugnacious upbringing which he further developed into an all consuming me against the world persona in later life. It’s a particularly poor background  for diplomacy he treats our allies and the linkages that bind us together as he does our foes. He is a brute, a brute who considers it sport to squash a nice guy like the President of France Emmanuel Macron down to the point of pleading irrelevance.  Under the circumstances it is logical for politicians in Europe to think of United States as an adversary because for their political life they can’t just take these insults lying down. Renouncing the Iran deal is the tipping point which breaks our European alliance leaving long lasting blows to our relations

If Trump believes he is for U.S.A. first then Macron should be for France and Peugeot, Airbus and Total and with Europe breakout of U.S. Sanctions over arbitrary decision

Total, the French oil giant, announced this week it is canceling planned contracts in Iran, and the top executives of other multinational companies have said, some publicly and others privately, that they have no choice. Iran is a relatively small customer, and the United States is its largest.