According to a new report in Politico, soon to be President Trump did fairly well early on in the foreign relations front when he nominated Sen. Marco Rubio to be Secretary of State. Rubio has the requisite experience, being the senior Republican on the Senate’s foreign relations committee. Even I wrote that I like the pick based on Rubio’s interest and relationships in Latin America. But all these warm “feels” on the foreign relations front were burst when Trump named former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence. Handing the nation’s most-treasured secrets over to someone with a known affinity for Vladimir Putin unsettled many in the country but now reports are coming in that – as one would expect, the implications go well beyond our borders.
The Politico article notes that European diplomats are unsettled to say the least, reeling would be more accurate As noted, speaking of the Gabbard nomination:
“This is really terrifying,” Nathalie Loiseau, former French Europe minister under President Emmanuel Macron and now a European lawmaker in his Renew Europe group, posted on X.
So the French equivalent of a former Secretary of State says that Gabbard’s appointment is really terrifying. Perhaps it is because France happens to share the same continent as Russia to the east and fears encroaching Russian imperialism from a Vladamir Putin who never conceded the Cold War and – by all appearances, wants one back. He is willing to fight hot wars to get it going. So if the French find this terrifying, where are the Germans on this? Right with them:
“The time of European restraint and the hope that the USA would protect us is over,” said Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, the German who heads the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Security and Defence.
Interesting quote. People of the MAGA persuasion will say that it is not our job to protect Europe. True… And yet boy did we ever benefit from having our hand in Europe’s collective defense. What other country gets to claim their own military bases on someone else’s soil? How valuable are our joint command bases in Germany and the U.K.? At least as valuable as our Navy base in Japan. It is almost like we get a discount on our own defense – we are the only nation with beachhead military bases from the Far East to Europe. What if the E.U. itself decides that it has had enough? Will they kick us out? Would you blame them?
One more quote:
“This is seriously big and bad,” François Heisbourg, senior adviser for Europe at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, posted on X. “I hope the Senate will block her confirmation — but I don’t expect that to happen.”
Right. The Senate isn’t any more predictable right now than Donald Trump. If John Thune gavels the place out of session, it will act as de facto confirmation of every Trump appointee. Diplomats particularly fear Gabbard, even more than Hegseth and Rubio.
But that makes sense on any number of levels. If one simply starts with the fact that Gabbard is just so obviously pro-Putin, you are a long way there! Just three days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Gabbard called for the “spirit of Aloha” to burst forth such that Ukraine declare itself a “neutral” country, implying that it not fight Russia’s invasion – which makes as much sense as asking France to become neutral three days after Hitler invaded.
But it goes deeper. Intelligence is a commodity, both domestically and internationally. Nations and businesses can never get enough of it. Traditionally, the U.S. and its allies share some of the most sensitive and necessary bits of intelligence, particularly as it involves Putin’s plans in Europe. Now let this play out. Will the Europeans trust intelligence coming from the U.S. – knowing that it’s likely been filtered through Gabbard? Or will they almost assume that it is slanted toward Russian interests, maybe even disinformation meant to further U.S. – Russian relations? It sounds as though our allies in the European Union are damn sure not going to be forwarding us any intelligence they gather.
Will they start spying on us? And what if something totally unexpected arises and we desperately need the E.U. to cooperate with us and yet have blown all credibility? I am thinking China or a massive international terrorism. What if they simply don’t want to help or cooperate?
It is worth asking because it would be very hard for Donald Trump to have picked a less qualified, more pro-Putin American politician than Tulsi Gabbard. Perhaps, just perhaps, picking Sen. Ron Johnson might have sent off just as many alarm bells. But Gabbard is all but a billboard flashing “Something is very wrong here.” And no one is fooling the Europeans. They have a little too much to lose and have seen all this before.
The appointment is already an American loss because all of us – Europeans and Americans, could have united over the need to check China. Instead we are now all left to wonder what sort of relationship the Trump administration wants with Russia, one so pro-Putin as to throw our European allies over the rails. It is just so fast and so wrong. The American Empire wasn’t built in cooperation with Russia. It was built on a near century-old alliance with Western Europe, one that is not only now threatened but may turn to the opposite – open antagonism.
Maybe Marco can talk some sense into everyone. It doesn’t sound like the U.S. Senate will be involved.
God Bless: I can be reached at [email protected] and @JasonMiciak
FAFO.FAFO.FAFO.FAFO.FAFO.FAFO.FAFO.FAFO.FAFO.
We’ve completed stage one…we’ve phucked around…now all of us are about to find out. Anyone now want to justify Garland not doing shit about Trump after January 6th? I sure caught hell years ago but all the armchair ‘warriors’ made excuses. You can now stick those up your asses.
Did YOU have POSITIVE evidence that would’ve helped Garland? I mean, what SPECIFIC evidence was there against Trump that hadn’t already been slapped down by court after court after court dealing with Aryan Nations cases in the 70s and 80s? Do you remember those cases? Well, in case you have (conveniently) forgotten, the Aryan Nations “Churches” would have their leaders riling up their “congregants” to “take action” against Blacks and Jews, leading to a lot of physical altercations and more than a few murders perpetrated by the “congregants.” Some of these men who faced murder charges had defense attorneys trying to tie in the leaders’ rhetoric as being wholly responsible for the defendants’ actions. And not one single court agreed. The leaders claimed they were only expressing free speech and they had NO control over what their “congregants” MIGHT do.
In other words, just because a leader spewed hateful, vile rhetoric, they couldn’t be held responsible for someone deciding to act on that rhetoric.
I just love how you get so riled when the legal system fails people of color and rail about the “injustices” by a “biased” system that so often uses circumstantial evidence (or completely faked evidence) to imprison people but then you turn around and insist that Garland just use circumstantial evidence to prosecute Trump.
Provide the REAL evidence of REAL criminal behavior (e.g, did Donald Trump go to the Capitol building and fight with the Capitol Police or smash windows or smear feces on the walls?) or shut the f*ck up already.
There was years of circumstantial evidence including the day of…enough to appoint a special counsel. Funny how the Jan6th committee had found enough to pressure Garland. Garland didn’t do shit to investigate trump prior to that. So sit at home and enjoy fascism in America. I would bet reading your OCD Google inspired corrections on everyone and your apologist stance…YOU NEVER PUT YOUR SMUG ASS IN A UNIFORM TO DEFEND DEMOCRACY. And when the shit hits the fan you’ll be in your cushy cubby typing away. No worries about the law…the generation of swine now will tell YOU what the law is…
“If John Thune gavels the place out of session, it will act as de facto confirmation of every Trump appointee.”
Nope. I’m absolutely positive that ALL Presidential nominations for major posts REQUIRES Senate confirmation, even if the person is a “recess appointment.”
According to the phrasing of the “recess appointments” clause (Article II, Section 2, Clause 3), “The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”
In other words, those recess appointments are NOT permanent and will eventually have to face a confirmation.
In fact, a SCOTUS decision from just a decade ago (2014, NLRB v Noel Canning), Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, Kennedy, Ginsburg and Kagan agreed that “We hold that, for purposes of the Recess Appointments Clause, the Senate is in session when it says it is, provided that, under its own rules, it retains the capacity to transact Senate business.” And even Scalia, Roberts, Thomas and Alito AGREED with the majority opinion (i.e., a “concurrence”). Scalia’s concurrence, while it did agree with the majority opinion, also argued ” that recess appointments will remain a powerful weapon in the President’s arsenal. … That is unfortunate, because the recess appointment power is an anachronism.” Further, Scalia argued “that the recess appointment power only applies to vacancies that arise while the Senate is in recess” (the majority opinion held that the power applied to vacancies “that occur during a recess and those that occur before and continue to exist through a recess”).
The whole case “arose out of President Barack Obama’s appointments of Sharon Block, Richard Griffin, and Terence Flynn to the National Labor Relations Board and Richard Cordray as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”
And, MITCH MCCONNELL agreed that the Court ruled correctly (as did then-Majority Leader, Harry Reid) by stating, “The President made an unprecedented power grab by placing political allies at a powerful federal agency while the Senate was meeting regularly and without even bothering to wait for its advice and consent. A unanimous Supreme Court has rejected this brazen power-grab.” And Senator Orrin Hatch said that “the Court had emphatically rejected President Obama’s brazen efforts to circumvent the Constitution, bypass the people’s elected representatives, and govern above the law [and] reaffirmed the Senate’s vital advice-and-consent role as a check on executive abuses.”
Now, let’s see Thomas and Alito change their minds to let Donald Trump get away with something that they argued President Obama shouldn’t be allowed to do (and the Obama nominations were for relatively inferior posts).
They’ll do whatever the king tells them to. Remember Roe? These folks have no spine and are just weathervanes blowing where the wind tells them to. Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies and 10 contempt charges. Wanna bet he walks? He will. Where’s all that fancy paperwork justifying that? Talking about past court decisions is a waste of time. They matter not come January 21st…keep justifying the system. Trump will show you slow learners just how little the past decisions mean. Hell they didn’t allow Obama a justice in the early part of the year because it was an election year, then turned around and appointed a religious cult member while voting was going on. And that was the turtle who did trump’s bidding.They honor nothing. You’ll see.
while Rubio has experience on the foreign relations committee he’s never demonstrated much actual knowledge. as for gabbard being pro putin she’s no more so than Trump.