Political Commentator (13:40)
Going back for another moment to this piece by David French. One of the things that he points out that really kind of sticks with me is his powerful words where he says the following I don't think Americans fully appreciate the extraordinary cost Trump's bluster and blunders. It should go without saying, but once you threaten to invade an allied country, you don't just place the existence of the alliance in jeopardy, you raise the possibility of allies turning into mortal enemies. You can also trigger the kind of insecurity and scramble for power that contributed to the start of World War I. In practical terms, it's hard to see how alienating American allies puts America first. And that's my thesis as well. Even if you were America first, what you're doing right here just puts America alone and last and other countries are seeing it. In this David French article, he goes through as well, piece by piece. He describes how Ukraine right now has an army of about a million people. And he explains how America's total force is larger than Ukraine. But to put the size of Ukrainian land force in perspective, the combined size of the US army and Marines, it's around 620,000. In terms of the Ukraine force, about a million men and women under arms who are actually serving as ground forces themselves. And then this article goes on to explain that rapid changes are not just occurring in Ukraine. As Ukraine has developed the cutting aid, the cutting edge drone technology, drone interceptors and all of that. It goes on to say other development across the Western alliance show that European nations are working with shocking speed to free themselves from dependence on America. France is expanding its nuclear arsenal and increasing its defense spending. It is even changing its nuclear doctrine to allow it to deploy nuclear armed aircraft outside France. Germany has approved a plan to spend up to a trillion euros on defense and infrastructure and has also set the goal of creating the strongest military in Europe by 2039. Ironically enough, the 100 year anniversary of the German invasion of Poland, Canada is enacting its own defense budget increases with the added twist that it will be spending far less money on American weapons. And we talked about the F35 review and instead Canada looking more and more to Sweden, to France, to South Korea and others for weapons. This decision mirrors larger European and allied trends. Our allies are increasing their defense budgets and decreasing their dependence on American technology. Just last week, NATO procurement officials decided to replace aging made early warning aircraft, those E3 AWACs. They were potentially going to buy the E7 AWACs, but now they're going to buy the newer design from Saab, a Swedish manufacturer and bombardier of Canada. And Ukraine has signed deals and letters of intent to purchase potentially hundreds of advanced fighters from Sweden and France. All of this is taking place after news reports that Denmark had been prepared to blow up airfields in Greenland if its fellow NATO member, the United States attempted to invade. And then the article goes on to talk more about how by launching a war against Iran without seeking the help of or even consulting our European European allies, we lost potential access to their advanced fighters and frigates as well as to France's carrier battle group. Not good results if you want to actually win. And it basically goes on to say the reason why the United States now this is also how it's going to impact you in the United States. When we talk about America's military budget, $1.5 trillion that the Trump regime is putting out there, it goes on to explain that since the US can no longer rely on allies anymore, if the US has to do everything all alone, it's going to cost a lot more money. Hence a $1.5 trillion defense budget, which ultimately takes money from taxpayers that could be going to services here in the United States and things that it should be going to. And now more money gets funneled to the American military industrial complex, especially as no allies want to help us. I'll just share with you now what Zelenskyy posted as well. He said, because now with Peter Magyar winning the Hungary race, as he's the new prime minister of Hungary, finally, the European Union has removed Orban, who was a Veto over this $90 billion support loan. And now Zelensky explains the first tranche under the approved $90 billion European Support Loan will be directed towards domestic production for Ukraine defense. This includes drones in the entire Militech sector. Second, energy. By next winter. We must protect everything we can to maximize to the maximum extent possible for this purpose. In addition to local budgets, a portion of the funds will be allocated from the central budget. He also held meetings in the Middle east and reached a number of arrangements, particularly in the energy sector. It goes on to talk about the various deals that Zelenskyy has cut as well with Middle east nations for them to buy defense products from Ukraine. Zelenskyy goes on to say, we're grateful to every country that is strengthening its national sanction regime against Russia. This truly helps. And this is a crucial point, that global sanctions should also extend to Russia's nuclear sector and to all associated legal entities and individuals. And obviously he's not thanking the Trump regime there because Donald Trump does everything he can to help Putin right now, removes the sanctions against Russia and Russian oil. And then Donald Trump, he just goes on and he does two things in the morning. He attacks NATO and then he praises Russia. Attacks NATO, praises Russia. Here's Donald Trump attacking NATO. You could hear for yourself, we've wiped