Russia have deployed 50,000 police and National Guard forces to the oblasts along the western border with the EU, ahead of an oncoming assault of ISIS militants from Turkey. According to a Federal Security Services report, thousands of highly trained Islamic terrorists are going to launch an attack in Europe due to Turkey allowing an unprecedented flood of millions of Syrian migrants through their borders.
Dutch lawmakers are to abolish an old law in the Netherlands that makes it a criminal offence to insult foreign heads of state, in an attempt to prevent Turkish leader Erdogan from going on a rampage prosecuting Dutch citizens. Justice minister Ard van der Steur confirmed to Parliament that citizens are now free to insult public officials as much as they wish. Dutchnews.nl reports: Earlier this week, MPs from the two Dutch liberal parties VVD and D66 called on the government to scrap the law, following Turkey’s attempt to prosecute a German comedian.
Wisconsin has played a big role in this year’s Republican presidential contest, giving Ted Cruz a victory that boosts his chances of fighting Donald Trump all the way to a contested convention in July. But a year ago, prognosticators imagined even bigger things for the Badger State—specifically, the possibility that its governor, Scott Walker, would be the Republican nominee.
Authored by Eric Zuesse,
Richard Nixon’s similarities to Hillary Clinton are remarkable:
1: Both were highly successful politicians who had exceptionally negative net-approval ratings from the U.S. public, but were viewed highly favorably by the voters within their own Party.
2: Both were unsuccessful in their first run for the Presidency, but managed to come back and ran considerably more successful campaigns the second time around.
Fareed Zakaria tries some rhetorical sleight of hand in his defense of the U.S.-Saudi relationship:
The central dilemma remains: Were the Saudi monarchy to fall, it might be replaced not by a group of liberals and democrats but rather by Islamists and reactionaries. Having watched this movie in Iraq, Egypt, Libya and Syria, I am cautious about destabilizing a regime that is in many areas — defense, oil, finance — a stable ally.