Greenland purchase talk excuse for left to scream (again)

Serving as president comes at a high cost.

The nation’s first president, George Washington, who served as the leader of the Continental Army that defeated England’s attempt to whip the colonies back under English domination and then reluctantly agreed to serve as the new nation’s first president, made it clear that he would have preferred to be back at home on the farm.

Historical accounts say that he derived little or no income from his property while he led the colonials’ army to a surprising win over the crack English military.

President Donald Trump put his financial empire on hold when he ran and surprisingly won the presidency in 2016.

It should also be remembered that he doesn’t accept a salary for his service.

His reward for putting the nation first has been continual vilification from a left-wing major media and cohorts in government who obviously had different plans for America than to become a more constitutionally-bound republic.

Any initiative by the Trump administration draws immediate derision from media and the former government officials that lost their power when Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton didn’t sail into the presidency as they expected.

The left had banked its hopes on a president who would continue the Obama plan to “fundamentally transform America” – obviously into a more socialist system.

It seems likely the Never Trumpers would criticize the president if he personally found a cure for cancer.

They certainly can’t stand it that his policies have provided an economic boom that has benefitted most Americans. Unemployment rates nationally have dropped to record lows.

One of the latest events to prompt the nation’s leftist cabal to heap derision on the president involved an idea for the U.S. to purchase Greenland from Denmark.

The left immediately went frenetic, labeling it buffoonery.

Newsweek, a reliably leftist publication, used the event to quote Russian sources to criticize the proposal.

It headed its story “Russia mocks Trump’s failed Greenland purchase; We don’t engage in international shopping of that kind.”

Its opening paragraph read:

“The Kremlin has mocked President Donald Trump’s proposed purchase of the Danish territory of Greenland, suggesting that Russia would not engage in “shopping” of that kind.”

It follows with this:

“Trump’s proposal to acquire the Arctic territory has caused a falling out between the U.S. and Denmark, with the president canceling a planned visit to the country after Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen dismissed the plan as ‘absurd.’

“The president characterized Frederiksen’s response as ‘nasty,’ and told journalists at the White House on Wednesday that he thought the prime minister’s comments were “inappropriate.” He added, “All she had to do is say: ‘No, we wouldn’t be interested.’”

Leftist elitists in the nation’s government and their cohorts in the major media, who are ever-so-much-smarter than anyone else, especially those Hillary Clinton called “deplorables” (you can translate that into “hicks” or any other pejorative term) feel they need to make all decisions for regular citizens.

But wait a minute. The Russian spokesperson’s comment was not as inflammatory as the Newsweek item indicated, but the publication used it to make another disparaging attack on the president.

The Russia spokesman simply said “It’s not our issue and we wouldn’t like to interfere.”

The article later admitted that Greenland is rich in mineral wealth and occupies a strategically valuable position inside the Arctic Circle and that world powers (say China and maybe even Russia) are increasingly looking towards the Arctic where new sea lanes are opening.

Then it got into its usual “global warming” mantra and said the natural resources there are becoming more accessible “as a result of melting sea ice caused by climate change.”

Greenland, which is three times the size of Texas, was a Danish colony until 1953 when it became a formal territory of the country. It operates with self-governing autonomy, though is subservient to Copenhagen’s foreign affairs and defense decisions.

The territory lacks infrastructure and is home to only 56,000 people. There are no roads connecting the island’s 17 towns, meaning residents must travel by sea or by air.

The Norse found Greenland and Iceland, which is actually warmer than Greenland, before they found their way to the North American continent about the year 1000.

America has bought large properties previously, including the Louisiana Purchase and Alaska – not to mention the Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917 – so what is wrong about considering a property whose capital Nuuk is closer to New York than to Copenhagen, the Danish capital?

Greenland’s location is strategically important for the U.S. militarily.

The shortest route from Europe to North America goes across Greenland.

It seems rather simple-minded to dismiss the idea out-of-hand.

Possibly Greenland’s inhabitants might prefer to be American citizens, especially if the U.S. invested in improving its infrastructure.

Interestingly, Democratic President Harry Truman attempted to buy Greenland when Greenland was still a colony and the Cold War with Russia was escalating. Copenhagen declined to sell at that point.

An attempt by the U.S. to purchase Greenland is far from absurd.

As a side note, the U.S. Studies Center at the University of Sydney, Australia, released a report recently that warned America has lost military superiority in the Indo-Pacific region and Chinese missiles could wipe out its bases “with precision strikes in the opening hours of a conflict.”

China has shown interest in Greenland.

The executive summary provided this nugget:

“The combined effect of ongoing wars in the Middle East, budget austerity, underinvestment in advanced military capabilities and the scale of America’s liberal order-building agenda has left the US armed forces ill-prepared for great power competition in the Indo-Pacific.”

The poison pills left by the Obama regime continue to haunt us.

President Trump inherited a cluster of problems.