Tues/Med-AM ~ TheFrontPageCover

The Front Page Cover
~ Featuring ~
The Liberal Order Is Rigged
by Jeff D. Colgan and Robert O. Keohane
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 Trump's Welcome Bluntness 
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NATO has been a subject of some controversy for President Donald Trump. During last year's Republican primary campaign, Trump alleged, "NATO is costing us a fortune" and is "obsolete" because other nations aren't pulling their weight. At the time, it was jarring because conservative politicians don't talk that way about our allies. Trump walked back the "obsolete" charge, but otherwise he's stuck to his guns.
          Just yesterday at NATO headquarters in Brussels, he called out several NATO member leaders as they literally stood behind him. "These grave security concerns are the same reason that I have been very, very direct with Secretary [Jens] Stoltenberg and members of the alliance in saying that NATO members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations," Trump said, "for 23 of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying and what they are supposed to be paying for their defense. This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States."
          "We should recognize that with these chronic underpayments and growing threats, even two percent of GDP is insufficient to close the gaps in modernizing readiness and the size of forces," he continued. "We have to make up for the many years lost. Two percent is the bare minimum for confronting today's very real and very vicious threats."
          Some critics pounced, citing this as evidence that Trump won't follow through on America's Article 5 obligations to come to Europe's defense. But that's just utter silliness that, frankly, serves Vladimir Putin's agenda. At an event unveiling a memorial to 9/11 and NATO's first and only invocation of Article 5, Trump praised NATO for responding "swiftly and decisively" after those attacks. He added, "We will never forsake the friends who stood by our side." How do those remarks constitute any waffling on U.S. commitments?
          Trump's loose lips can indeed be a problem, and no doubt our allies would appreciate consistency. But his admonition to NATO members who don't contribute fully could be the impetus for a needed course correction for the old alliance. Furthermore, it's certainly part of the larger strategy of his first foreign trip — cleaning up Barack liar-nObama's mess and fighting terrorism~The Patriot Post
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Ramadan Bombathon Begins
by David Wood
{answeringmuslims.com} ~ Ramadan 2017 has arrived, which means that we're going to see a massive number of terrorist attacks carried out in the name of Allah... The "Religion of Peace" website keeps a running tally of these terrorist attacks and compares them with the terrorist attacks carried out in the name of all other religions combined. Let's see if all religions are equally violent. http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2017/05/ramadan-bombathon-begins.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+answeringmuslims%2FynNl+%28Answering+Muslims%29
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De Blasio Staffer, Rising Democrat,
Caught With Child Porn
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by Mike Raust
{dailycaller.com} ~ Jacob Schwartz was a prominent young Democrat and a staffer for New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. That is until he got caught with an alleged truckload of kiddie porn this week... Schwartz’s collection included 89 videos and over 3,000 images of girls between the ages of 6 months and 16 years, often performing sexual acts on adult men. He was apprehended by the New York Police Department computer-crimes investigators on Thursday. Schwartz’s political career began at a young age. Until very recently he was the head of Manhattan Democrats, and he got his start assisting his father, lawyer and Democratic operative Arthur Schwartz in campaigning for various candidates...http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/26/de-blasio-staffer-rising-democrat-caught-with-child-porn/
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Europe Fights Back with Candles
and Teddy Bears
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by Giulio Meotti
{gatestoneinstitute.org} ~ This long and sad list is the human harvest of Islamic terrorism on Europe's soil:.. Madrid: 191. London: 58. Amsterdam: 1. Paris: 148. Brussels: 36. Copenhagen: 2. Nice: 86. Stockholm: 4. Berlin: 12. Manchester: 22. And it does not take into account the hundreds of Europeans butchered abroad, in Bali, in Sousse, in Dakka, in Jerusalem, in Sharm el Sheikh, in Istanbul. But after 567 victims of terror, Europe still does not understand. Just the first half of 2017 has seen terror attacks attempted in Europe every nine days on average. Yet, despite this Islamist offensive, Europe is fighting back with teddy bears, candles, flowers, vigils, Twitter hashtags and cartoons... https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10430/terrorism-candles-teddy-bears
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Clapper Says No ‘Smoking Gun’ Evidence Of Collusion, Though ‘Dashboard’ Lit Up With Warnings
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by Chuck Ross
{dailycaller.com} ~ Former director of national intelligence James Clapper reiterated on Sunday that he saw no “smoking gun” evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government... But he did say that his “dashboard was lit up” with concerns about Trump advisers’ interactions with Russians before he left office on Jan. 20. “I have to say, at the time I left, I did not see any smoking gun certitude evidence of collusion. But it certainly was appropriate given all the signs…for the FBI to investigate,” Clapper said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Clapper was specifically asked about new reports that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner asked Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December about the possibilities of setting up a secret communications channel with the Kremlin... http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/28/clapper-says-no-smoking-gun-evidence-of-collusion-though-dashboard-lit-up-with-warnings-video/?utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=TheDC%20Morning&utm_campaign=TheDC%20Weekend
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Manchester Failures, 23,000 Suspects
In Britain, Things Must Change
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by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ Nigel Farage joined Greg Gutfeld for a discussion on a serious topic following the terrorist strike in Manchester... the intelligence failures and glossing over that has led the UK to the point it is at now.  Gutfeld notes that the UK is the world’s fifth largest economy,  but that they often use the excuse of having limited resources. He asks, “Even if you have limited resources, shouldn’t that go to this, defense of the realm? Wouldn’t that be the most important?? Farage responds sarcastically, in the context of the globalist control of Europe, saying, “No, good Lord no, you’re missing the point. We’re spending all of our money on foreign aid and giving money to the European Union. I mean it’s mad, isn’t it?”... http://rickwells.us/farage-manchester-failures-23000-suspects-britain-things-must-change/
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The Liberal Order Is Rigged
by Jeff D. Colgan and Robert O. Keohane
{foreignaffairs.com} ~ Prior to 2016, debates about the global order mostly revolved around its structure and the question of whether the United States should actively lead it or should retrench, pulling back from its alliances and other commitments. But during the past year or two, it became clear that those debates had missed a key point: today’s crucial foreign policy challenges arise less from problems between countries than from domestic politics within them. That is one lesson of the sudden and surprising return of populism to Western countries, a trend that found its most powerful expression last year in the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the EU, or Brexit, and the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president.

It can be hard to pin down the meaning of “populism,” but its crucial identifying mark is the belief that each country has an authentic “people” who are held back by the collusion of foreign forces and self-serving elites at home. A populist leader claims to represent the people and seeks to weaken or destroy institutions such as legislatures, judiciaries, and the press and to cast off external restraints in defense of national sovereignty. Populism comes in a range of ideological flavors. Left-wing populists want to “soak the rich” in the name of equality; right-wing populists want to remove constraints on wealth in the name of growth. Populism is therefore defined not by a particular view of economic distribution but by a faith in strong leaders and a dislike of limits on sovereignty and of powerful institutions.

Such institutions are, of course, key features of the liberal order: think of the UN, the EU, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and major alliances such as NATO. Through them, the Washington-led order encourages multilateral cooperation on issues ranging from security to trade to climate change. Since 1945, the order has helped preserve peace among the great powers. In addition to the order’s other accomplishments, the stability it provides has discouraged countries such as Germany, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons.

This peace-building aspect of the liberal order has been an extraordinary success. So, too, is the way in which the order has allowed the developing world to advance, with billions of people rising out of crippling poverty and new middle classes burgeoning all over the world. But for all of the order’s success, its institutions have become disconnected from publics in the very countries that created them. Since the early 1980s, the effects of a neoliberal economic agenda have eroded the social contract that had previously ensured crucial political support for the order. Many middle- and working-class voters in the United Kingdom, the United States, and elsewhere have come to believe—with a good deal of justification—that the system is rigged.

Those of us who have not only analyzed globalization and the liberal order but also celebrated them share some responsibility for the rise of populism. We did not pay enough attention as capitalism hijacked globalization. Economic elites designed international institutions to serve their own interests and to create firmer links between themselves and governments. Ordinary people were left out. The time has come to acknowledge this reality and push for policies that can save the liberal order before it is too late.

THE BOATS THAT DIDN'T RISE

In 2016, the two states that had done the most to construct the liberal order—the United Kingdom and the United States—seemed to turn their backs on it. In the former, the successful Brexit campaign focused on restoring British sovereignty; in the latter, the Trump campaign was explicitly nationalist in tone and content. Not surprisingly, this has prompted strong reactions in places that continue to value the liberal order, such as Germany: a poll published in February by the German newspaper Die Welt found that only 22 percent of Germans believe that the United States is a trustworthy ally, down from 59 percent just three months earlier, prior to Trump’s victory—a whopping 37-point decrease.

The Brexit and Trump phenomena reflect a breakdown in the social contract at the core of liberal democracy: those who do well in a market-based society promise to make sure that those disadvantaged by market forces do not fall too far behind. But fall behind they have. Between 1974 and 2015, the real median household income for Americans without high school diplomas fell by almost 20 percent. And even those with high school diplomas, but without any college education, saw their real median household income plummet by 24 percent. On the other hand, those with college degrees saw their incomes and wealth expand. Among those Americans, the real median household income rose by 17 percent; those with graduate degrees did even better.

As political scientists such as Robert Putnam and Margaret Weir have documented, such trends have led to different sets of Americans living in separate worlds. The well-off do not live near the poor or interact with them in public institutions as much as they used to. This self-segregation has sapped a sense of solidarity from American civic life: even as communications technology has connected people as never before, different social classes have drifted further apart, becoming almost alien to one another. And since cosmopolitan elites were doing so well, many came to the conclusion—often without realizing it—that solidarity just wasn’t that important for a well-functioning democracy.

Elites have taken advantage of the global liberal order—sometimes inadvertently, sometimes intentionally—to capture most of the income and wealth gains in recent decades, and they have not shared much with the middle and lower classes. Wealthier, better-educated Americans have pushed for or accepted regressive tax policies, trade and investment agreements that encouraged corporate outsourcing, and the underfunding of public and higher education. The result of such policies has been to undermine what the political scientist John Ruggie once called “embedded liberalism”: a global order made up of free-market societies that nevertheless preserved welfare states and labor-market policies that allowed for the retraining of people whose skills became obsolete, compensation for those who lost out from trade liberalization, and validation of the self-worth of all citizens, even if they were not highly productive in economic terms. Elites pushed for and supported the first part of this vision—free markets, open borders, and multilateralism—but in the 1970s and even more so in the 1980s, they began to neglect the other part of the bargain: a robust safety net for those who struggled. That imbalance undermined domestic support for free trade, military alliances, and much else.

The bill for that broken social contract came due in 2016 on both sides of the Atlantic. And yet even now, many observers downplay the threat this political shift poses to the liberal order. Some argue that the economic benefits of global integration are so overwhelming that national governments will find their way back to liberalism, regardless of campaign rhetoric and populist posturing. But the fact is that politicians respond to electoral incentives even when those incentives diverge considerably from their country’s long-term interests—and in recent years, many voters have joined in the populist rejection of globalization and the liberal order.

Moreover, business leaders and stock markets, which might have been expected to serve as a brake on populist fervor, have instead mostly rewarded proposals for lower taxes with no accompanying reduction in government spending. This is shortsighted. Grabbing even more of the benefits of globalization at the expense of the middle and working classes might further undermine political support for the integrated supply chains and immigration on which the U.S. economy depends. This position is reminiscent of the way that eighteenth-century French aristocrats refused to pay taxes while indulging in expensive foreign military adventures. They got away with it for many years—until the French Revolution suddenly laid waste to their privilege. Today’s elites risk making a similar mistake.
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