Commandant Teste's official art is adorable as always. I'm actually a bit surprised how much I like it, considering she's in almost the exact same pose for all of them.
Macron made it clear that he would have done it with any US president since the invitation was for the anniversary of American intervention in WWI. The last time we invited a POTUS for Bastille Day, it was in 1989, with Bush the elder, for the French Revolution 200th anniversary.
As for playing Daft Punk, I am not sure if Macron willed it or the military. Then again, he is pretty young, a guy from my generation, who may have watched the same shit on TV I did as a child. I dont agree with his ideas, myself being more left leaning (the ideal of social solidarity, etc.. Not having me or my possible children living in the shithole of a society described by Emile Zola). But he was a better, I say it begrudgingly, alternative than the other crazy.
Though wasn't the whole "Russia wanted to meddle with US elections" a definitive thing now? Not from the USA myself, but I've watched at least two separate hearings where two different former CIA heads stated that Russia tried to meddle.
Would kinda make sense to refer to them as such from US' perspective in that case. Then again I'm pretty uninformed so could be missing something here.
edit: Upvoted to a score of 3 and now down to 0, what's going on in this comment section?
An enemy state would be one we're at war with, which we aren't with Russia, so anyone who says it is exaggerating. But they're certainly a HOSTILE state since they did blatantly tried to hack election data and certainly did hack the Democrats servers with the intent to flood the news with "E-mails! E-mails!" to discredit Clinton. The actual content of the E-mails was less important that just making her look untrustworthy. The intelligence community also strongly suspects they were behind many online fake news stories that slammed Clinton to make Trump look better. Whether Trump or his campaign team worked with them to do so is the subject of federal investigation, made complicated by Trump's people frequently lying about their associations with various Russians with government connections.
If meddling in foreign elections was an enemy action then America would be outlawed to all the world. From Europe to Russia/Asia to Latin America to Africa to SE Asia their fat fingers have manipulated everybody. Nonstop.
I think calling Russia an "enemy state" is a bit too strong, at least for my definition of enemy.
I can't really say that US/Russia is on friendly terms though, or even have an common ground. US supports Kurds, Russia supports Syria/Turkey. America supports Ukraine, Russia annexes Crimea. What prevents me from saying they are an enemy state is that both are global powers vying for influence in a changing world, it is impossible for there not to be conflict. To me an enemy is someone who explicitly wishes harm on another person, not someone who would hurt (or help) them in order to further their own goals.
Interference into another country's political process is a constant thing, yes, with means ranging from diplomacy to really weird espionage games that we only learn about decades later and a lot of these occur between allied states.
Ultimately, though, all of the chaos happening because of the e-mail hacks serves russian interests. Dividing between party lines, having the media against the sitting president, marginalizing the legacy and impact of the previous president.
I am more interested in what people are willing to suggest going forward rather than looking for someone to hang, at this point. An impeached president doesn't solve the existing problems that led to his election nor does it combat foreign states cutting into US influence.
Though we do have a president that is seeking to drastically alter the US's standing with the world, so safe to say its not a fun time to be a moderate
Though wasn't the whole "Russia wanted to meddle with US elections" a definitive thing now? Not from the USA myself, but I've watched at least two separate hearings where two different former CIA heads stated that Russia tried to meddle.
Would kinda make sense to refer to them as such from US' perspective in that case. Then again I'm pretty uninformed so could be missing something here.
edit: Upvoted to a score of 3 and now down to 0, what's going on in this comment section?
And then it goes up to a +1 and then down to a -1.
