Financial Times (June 20)
“Which tribe of politicians can claim to be the party of business? Back in the tax-cutting, deregulating, privatizing days of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the question was simple to answer on each side of the Atlantic. But Donald Trump and Brexit have a way of scrambling well-worn assumptions.” Neither the Republican Party or, across the pond, the Conservative Party remain the clear home of business.
Tags: Assumptions, Atlantic, Brexit, Business, Conservative, Deregulating, Politicians, Privatizing, Reagan, Republicans, Tax-cutting, Thatcher, Trump
The Independent (June 19)
“In the Tory leadership debate, the rare glimmers of truth were even more painful than the lies. It was an ingenious new method of national torture. Five would be prime ministers, appealing to reason, but knowing that in the end, only the psychopaths will decide.”
Tags: Debate, Ingenious, Leadership, Lies, Painful, Prime minister, Psychopaths, Reason, Torture, Tory, Truth
Washington Post (June 18)
“The president’s lying is the only argument you need in a debate about Trump…. There is virtually no topic about which Trump hasn’t lied, often repeatedly. Immigration, trade, Iran, North Korea, health care — they all lead back to false and misleading claims.” For this reason, 500 days before the election, the Florida Sentinel became the first newspaper to make a 2020 presidential endorsement: “Not Donald Trump,” who the paper deemed a “unique and present danger” to the Constitution of the United States of America.
Tags: Constitution, Danger, Election, Endorsement, False, Florida Sentinel, Health care, Immigration, Iran, Lying, Misleading, Newspaper, North Korea, Trade, Trump
Wall Street Journal (June 18)
“The boom in U.S. oil production…has become a strategic advantage against authoritarian governments that want to use oil as a weapon. Europe’s weak economy doesn’t have to cope with an oil shock, and the U.S. can squeeze Iran’s exports without damaging the global economy.”
Tags: Authoritarian, Boom, Economy, Exports, Iran, Oil, Production, Shock, Strategic advantage, U.S., Weapon. Europe
Los Angeles Times (June 18)
The President consistently “runs through the talking points about the economy or judges as quickly as possible so he can get to the really important topic: Donald Trump. The problem for Trump is that if the central question of the election is him he will lose because he is not popular.”
BBC (June 17)
According to the British Chambers of Commerce, “Brexit worries will see business investment contract faster this year and recover more slowly next year” as businesses are focusing on contingency planning and stockpiling, rather than sustainable investment.
The Economist (June 15)
The majority of Hong Kong’s courageous protestors were “young—too young to be nostalgic about British rule. Their unhappiness at Beijing’s heavy hand was entirely their own…. The Communist Party has been making clear that it will tolerate no more insubordination—and yet three days later demonstrators braved rubber bullets, tear gas and legal retribution to make their point. All these things are evidence that, as many Hong Kongers see it, nothing less than the future of their city is at stake.”
Tags: Beijing, British, Bullets, Communist party, Courageous, Future, Heavy hand, Hong Kong, Insubordination, Nostalgic, Protestors, Tear gas, Young
Washington Post (June 14)
“Is the Iran-U.S. tinderbox about to ignite?” In one sense, it already has. Burning tankers provided “the dramatic imagery that sometimes precedes armed conflict.” Clearly fraught, the confrontation is partly due to “Iranian overconfidence” and frustration. “Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign has collided head on with Khamenei’s maximum resistance. Met by American economic warfare, Iran’s hard-liners are doubling down with their own forms of deniable warfare, with mines, drones and proxy attacks.”
Tags: Armed conflict, Confrontation, Deniable warfare, Drones, Economic warfare, Frustration, Hard-liners, Ignite, Iran, Khamenei, Mines, Overconfidence, Pressure, Proxy attacks, Resistance, Tankers, Tinderbox, Trump’s, U.S.
Foreign Policy (June 13)
The Tory party has “bravely put party before country” and their “internal fights” have virtually “wrecked the U.K.” Any achievements the conservative “government might claim—record numbers of people in work, a ‘balancing of the books’—have been completely overshadowed by Brexit, a farce produced as a direct result of internal Tory squabbling and dissension.”
Tags: Achievements, Brexit, Conservative, Farce, Government, Overshadowed, Squabbling, Tory, U.K., Wrecked
The Irish Times (June 13)
“Next door in Britain there’s a fevered contest under way for leadership of the Tory Party and thus Britain. The right-wing Tory Party once presented itself as the pragmatic party of business. Now it’s a radical separatist sect populated by clownish demagogues.” The three leading contenders are “the opium user [Rory Stewart], the buffoon [Boris Johnson]and the swivel-eyed loon [Dominic Raab].”
Tags: Buffoon, Business, Contest, Cownish, Demagogues, Johnson, Leadership, Loon. Raab, Opium, Pragmatic, Radical, Separatist, Stewart, Tory Party, UK
