Submitted by Alexander Mercouris of The Duran
‘Russiagate’ is failing and its supporters are getting worried
Three weeks ago I wrote a piece for The Duran in which I suggested that the corner appeared to have been turned in the fake ‘Russiagate’ scandal.
What was a tentative conclusion then can now be firmed up.
Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,
“If we were to use traditional measures for understanding leaders, which involve the defense of borders and national flourishing, Putin would count as the preeminent statesman of our time.
“On the world stage, who could vie with him?”
So asks Chris Caldwell of the Weekly Standard in a remarkable essay in Hillsdale College’s March issue of its magazine, Imprimis.
What elevates Putin above all other 21st-century leaders?
Another dataset, another head-scratching disparity between ostensibly fulsome confidence and evidently sluggish activity. While markets get whipsawed reacting to divergent hard and soft data points, the question that traders need to ask is whether this gap makes any sense.
Bloomberg's Macro Strategist Cameron Crise may have the answer... If you're willing to believe that survey respondents allow their political beliefs to color their answers, then it very well might.
Senator Claire McCaskill said she will join the Democrats attempted filibuster of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch and will not vote for him, making it almost certain that Republicans will have to trigger the “nuclear option” to confirm President Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee.
The Missouri Democrat announced Friday in a post on Medium, faulting the nominee for “a stunning lack of humanity.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson tried to reassure America's nervous European counterparts over Washington's commitment to NATO on Friday but it didn't quite work out as expected when he pressed them again to spend more on defense, triggering a sharp rebuke from Germany.
“As President Trump has made clear, it is no longer sustainable for the U.S. to maintain a disproportionate share of NATO’s defense expenditures,” Tillerson said at a meeting of allied foreign ministers in Brussels.