See the newest political analysis? Russia pressed Mr. Trump to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin after the tense exchange of diplomatic expulsions last week. Mr. Trump had floated the idea of meeting with Mr. Putin at the White House in a March 20 phone call, a Russian official said. At the time, Mr. Trump had told reporters that he expected to “be seeing President Putin in the not-too-distant future.” But on Friday, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on seven of Russia’s richest men and 17 top government officials, penalties designed to punish Mr. Putin’s inner circle for Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and other global transgressions. It was another indication that as Congress and much of the administration pushes for increased pressure in response to Mr. Putin’s aggressions, Mr. Trump continues to advocate good relations with his Russian counterpart.
Or perhaps the Times cannot avoid the reality that the “Abraham Accords” between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain are a historic achievement. It is the first advance toward peace in the Middle East since Israel signed a treaty with Jordan in 1994. By exposing the intransigence and corruption of the Palestinian authorities, and thereby removing them from the diplomatic equation, the Trump administration reestablished the “peace process” as a negotiation between states. And because the states in the region face a common foe — Iran — they have every incentive to band together. This is textbook realpolitik. The world is better off for it.
US Foreign politics and Brexit 2020 latest : Last week, with the introduction of the Internal Markets Bill, the rubber hit the road. By the British government’s own admission, the bill violates the Withdrawal Agreement signed onto with the EU, albeit only in “a very specific and limited way,” in the words of Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis. Specifically, it violates Article IV, which establishes the Agreement’s supremacy over U.K. law. The British government has taken this measure because they want their own ministers to decide what goods arriving in Northern Ireland from Great Britain should be subject to EU customs checks. In other words, the government is reasserting its sovereignty over Northern Ireland now that the U.K. is safely out of the EU by deliberately violating international law.
McConnell had no constitutional obligation to take up Obama’s Garland nomination in 2016, and he has no obligation to wait for 2021 to vote on the next appointment. There is no constitutional crisis. There is only now a faction of left-wing partisans who are threatening to weaken and pack courts because they didn’t get their way. Guess what? It was the Democrats who demanded that the GOP ignore the “Biden rule” when it wasn’t convenient for them. It was Democrats who blew up the judicial filibuster. It was Democrats who argued that Trump shouldn’t be allowed to have any nominees. It was Chuck Schumer who argued that Democrats should “reverse the presumption of confirmation” for now-beloved George W. Bush in his second term. It was Democrats who engaged in an authoritarian-style witch-hunt against Brett Kavanaugh in an effort to delegitimize the court. Democrats care about as much about precedents as do “liberal” Supreme Court justices. See even more information at https://zetpress.com/.
