Tea at Trianon: Rand Paul on the Trump-Putin Summit

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Rand Paul on the Trump-Putin Summit

Some common sense at last. A diplomatic meeting is not the time to publicly confront our most powerful enemy about its spying. They spy on us and we spy on them. It's been going on for half a century or more. Any political party or large business or government entity that does not have adequate cyber-security to protect itself from hackers, either international or domestic, is asking for trouble. From Townhall:

Sen. Rand Paul (R- KY.) said that Monday’s Trump-Putin Summit is not about Russian accountability for cyber-hacking and election interference. "I think really we mistake our response if we think it's about accountability from the Russians," said Sen. Paul when he appeared on CNN's State of the Union reported CNS News.

“They are another country. They are going to spy on us. The do spy on us. They are going to interfere in our elections. We also do the same. Doug Levin at Carnegie Mellon studied this over about a 50-year period in the last century and found 81 times that the U.S. interfered in other country's elections. So we all do it.

What we need to do is make sure our electoral process is protected. And I think because this has gotten partisan and it's all about partisan politics, we've forgotten that really the most important thing is the integrity of our election,” Paul told Tapper.
Jake Tapper, host of CNN’s State of the Union asked Sen. Paul if President Trump should ask Putin to extradite the 12 Russian military who were indicted on Friday on suspicions of attacking the DNC as well as other Democratic organizations. Other indictments included going after Hilary Clinton’s emails and attempting to break into state election boards. (Read more.)

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1 comment:

Unknown said...: You are right. All nations, friendly and enemy spy on each other all the time.

I for one have long hoped Russia could find its way. Peter The Great was their last best hope. It has always been a nation stuck somewhere just outside, yet part of Europe.

Putin, for all of his flaws, is just the sort of bellicose nationalist Russia needs. As a people, they have to find their voice and their way again.

There is much unnecessary fear and hatred. So much political wrangling. So little dialouge.; July 17, 2018 at 9:24:00 AM EDT