Maureen Dowd

The EU. Never in the history of the world has a bigger con been perpetrated by a bunch of conmen that make Damon Runyon’s Big Julie from Chicago and Nathan Detroit look like Socrates and Plato. It is indicative that the EU’s base is in Brussels, capital of a non-country, invented by the Brits to stop the Germans attacking them in the 19th century. (It certainly didn”€™t stop Germany during two World Wars, although it weakened the Wehrmacht slightly; Belgian women were very busy sleeping with the good-looking German officer corps.) Everyone who is not on the government’s payroll knows that where government controls have been effective”€”Europe, Africa”€”the impact has been devastating. These bums in Brussels pass close to 1,000 laws per month, turning Europe into one big bureaucracy where the unelected bureaucrat is king. High taxes, economic controls, and price-fixing are the bureaucrooks”€™ answers to all problems. There used to be a law pertaining to the length a banana must be before it can be sold. Brussels knew very well that the Greeks were cooking the books but did absolutely nothing about it until even the Greeks couldn”€™t hide any longer. The EU is the greatest danger free men and women are facing. Give me Uncle Joe Stalin any day. And Benito did make the trains run on time. Nuke Iran? Never. Nuke Brussels instead.

Benjamin Netanyahu. He looks like a dishonest plumber and would be one if he hadn”€™t managed to intimidate people with pro-settler zealots, right-wing donors such as the casino-owning man from Las Vegas, and the storm-trooper tactics of those who equate the slightest criticism of Israeli policy to anti-Semitism. Netanyahu has no intention to allow a two-state peace. He considers Palestinians to be hardly human and scoffs at their aspirations. He cries wolf at all times and will do his damndest to get Uncle Sam to bomb Iran. Watch out for AIPAC going on overdrive when the combat veteran Senator Hagel’s name comes up for confirmation. Who ever said Israel doesn”€™t decide things in DC?

Have a happy 2013.