Thought for the Day [Archive] - Page 3 - HungAngels - Guide to TGirls and Transsexuals

Stavros

01-18-2018, 08:41 AM

(https://twitter.com/RP_Newsletter)
I found this twitter account which posts the most inflammatory lines from Ron Paul's old newsletter. I suppose I am posting this so I remember where it is when Ron Paul acolytes pop up. Paul claimed he was unaware of all of these comments going out under his name...I found it an interesting read anyway.

I find it hard to believe someone like this can be nominated let alone elected to public office, I suspect on the hustings and on tv he has focused more on his libertarian economic ideas rather than the conspiracy theories he seems addicted to. Or it could be that there a lot of Americans who do believe this rubbish just as they believe American is 'broken' and u-no-who is going to fix it.

I was intrigued by the concept of a 'witch-lesbo-feminists' to look at Texe Marrs contributions to history on Amazon, where he has multiple books, two of which stand out: Mystery Babylon: New World Order Unveiled (2010) where the product description includes-
What if Jesus was absolutely accurate when he said,"I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.

Indeed, there is another book, written by an English 'Christian' called Hitchcock (!) called The Synagogue of Satan: the Secret History of Jewish World Domination (2015) which includes facts you never knew about, such as that Stalin and Rupert Murdoch were/are Jewish, and I bet you never heard of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or the German Jews who transformed themselves into Christian Illuminati, and bet you never heard the name Rothschild before. One wonders what purpose this drivel serves when it repeats age old lies that bear no relation to the world we live in, unless you think there really is secret world government and that Chinese Communists are part of it and, wait for it, also Jews. See how cunning they are? Sweet and sour pork with fried rice...the devil's own dish.

As for the 'Synagogue of Satan' if synagogue is the correct translation for the reference in the book of Revelation (itself a mish-mash of threats and warnings rather than actual revelations, or maybe just the revelations of a mad man called John) it refers to the complex relationship early Christians had with the Jews of Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean as the 'fake' Christian Paul embarked on his mission to unify Christians under his perverted interpretation of the Gospels. There is a complex history and theology involved here, but not as a stick with which to beat the Jews and their comrades in arms, which appear to be Communists, and those 'witch-lesbo-feminists' who are known as you see them: they wear trouser suits, have short hair, and are interested in politics.

But if I were to call this 'fake history' someone not far from you may pluck this rubbish from obscurity and present the American public with his list of True Books to Read. But then I take the dim view that the only person who could create 'Fake News Awards' is a fake President, who hasn't read the Constitution, doesn't know the words of the National Anthem whether standing up or bent on one knee; who heaps insults and abuse on the families of service men and women who have died for their country; who has dismissed everyone in the armed forces before his reign as 'failures'; who has no humility, no grace, no sense of humour, no policies but does have three marriages, five legitimate children that we know about, a long history of sexual misconduct and a curious fascination with Shark Week on the Discovery Channel.

buttslinger

01-25-2018, 08:07 AM

Mueller training his team for the upcoming chat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAJSgw0nfJ4

broncofan

02-01-2018, 07:24 PM

The FISA program has always been controversial because initially it was unclear whether its procedures in general violate the fourth amendment. The court's proceedings are ex parte, in secret, and if never used in a criminal prosecution the subject of surveillance never knows about it. Early on it was thought that if there was a firewall between national security operations and eventual criminal prosecutions, there might not be a fourth amendment issue. When the fourth amendment is violated, the remedy in criminal trials is that the evidence obtained can't be used. If the surveillance is done in order to prevent attacks or prevent active espionage operations and not to gather evidence for criminal trial, then perhaps the fourth amendment concerns aren't as great.

But the concerns about the fisa courts are inherent in the program which has been repeatedly approved and re-approved, and in times of emergency expanded.

To give you a sense of how easy it has been historically to get a fisa warrant against a subject thought to be an agent of a foreign power, there is a chart in the wikipedia link. Out of more than 35,000 requests, only 12 denials of applications. Does anyone think the surveillance of Carter Page would be anywhere close to the most egregious, given his extensive contacts with Russian diplomats and spies?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Co urt

And for those concerned about wikipedia's reliability, here's a useful article discussing it.;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

Stavros

02-01-2018, 08:33 PM

As a thought for today, imagine someone comes fresh to this and asks the question: why Russia?

The Chinese, on the basis of campaign speeches could reasonably prefer Mrs Clinton to someone who abuses them in public and threatens their trade with the US -but there is no evidence the Chinese interfered with the election on her behalf, ditto the Iranians who would also have preferred Mrs Clinton as someone supporting the Nuclear Deal. So if major states are taking sides, why would Russia be working on behalf of the Republicans, or, at least, manipulating the election to defeat the chances of Mrs Clinton?

The answer lies with the money, the money train from Moscow to New York, the historic purchase of apartments and condos in Manhattan and Florida. It lies in the men around the man, from Felix Sater to Carter Page, from Roger Stone to Michael Flynn, from Paul Manafort to George Papadopoulos -the links to Russia being laid out like bear shit in the woods. Again and again, the links are solid, established over time, above all, special, in a way links to other countries are not, with one exception, namely the links to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

I find it hard to believe a huge arms deal with Saudi Arabia was signed without a single bribe being paid. This, to me, is one relationship that needs forensic examination, as the direct attack on US citizens by Saudi Arabians, with or without the full knowledge or approval of the Saudi government must open a new window onto the power of money to corrupt politics to the extent that dead Americans are the price that is paid for the imaginary prize of stability in the Middle East.

broncofan

02-06-2018, 01:18 AM

Anyone who knows how the stock market works would know that Trump was not responsible for the stock market rising in the past year. Stocks represent only those companies that are publicly traded and they don't trade on fundamentals like earnings in the short term but rather expectations as well as the opportunity cost of other investments. People whose behavior buoys or depresses stock prices are paying attention to things like interest rates, market volatility, and their own personal planning which includes the time horizon of their investments and their spending needs.

In the past five days the s & P dropped 7%. Today alone it dipped 4%. The point is that the President does not have full control over the short term direction that the market goes in. His policies may affect employment and possibly earnings growth, though the latter has as much to do with monetary policy, and is also controlled by many factors not sensitive to either fiscal or monetary policy.

The only thing this establishes is that our country is currently led by a moron. A moron. He doesn't know what drives the economy. He doesn't know how our government works or is supposed to work. He doesn't know how the stock market operates. A moron.

trish

02-06-2018, 02:56 AM

He (Trump) doesn't know what drives the economy. He doesn't know how our government works or is supposed to work. He doesn't know how the stock market operates. But...but...but he's a business man!

buttslinger

02-06-2018, 07:59 PM

One of the commentators on "the shows" said that Trump is like Mr. Burns on The Simpsons.
His doctor examined him and found that his had practically every ailment known to man......but they kind of balanced or cancelled each other out so he could function in spite of all the faults.
If it weren't for the Russian Sword of Damocles hanging over his head, Trump would be a lot like BUSH II point II 1/2, feeding the rich and starving the poor, while the World frowns in disapproval.
On TV and Radio this morning, The Republicans are just flat out lying now. Business as usual.
When I worked in the Library of Congress, all kinds of stuff used to roll through there. I once read an original script for That Girl with Marlo Thomas. All the sentences were about five words long and written on a fifth grade level. This is how the Republicans talk to their Audience. The simpler the better. Say what you will, it works well enough to fill the pockets of Politicians and their Sponsors. This Market Crash will make Insiders a ton of money in the end. It's good to be King, isn't it Donald? You Lying Sack o' Shit. I want to see the downfall of Trump set up the big move, the downfall of Putin. Followed by the landslide election of Mark Warner. But I'm a Dreamer.

Stavros

02-08-2018, 07:39 PM

From a country that has given us world class achievements in the arts, sciences, engineering, medicine, philosophy -the list goes on- comes the bleak reality that this President prefers to take advice from people who have achieved nothing, but promote ideas so remote from Christianity as to be something else, and to be garbage. This is not a cure for flu, but voluntary euthanasia -maybe that is the true aim of these dangerous people?

“Jesus himself gave us the flu shot. He redeemed us from the curse of flu and we receive it, and we take it, and we are healed by his stripes.
“Get on the word, stay on the word, and if you say, ‘Well, I don’t have any symptoms of the flu’, great, that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
“Just keep saying that ‘I’ll never have the flu, I’ll never have the flu’. Put words, inoculate yourself with the word of God.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/gloria-copeland-trump-adviser-flu-shot-jesus-god-christian-evangelical-healing-miracle-a8197801.html

trish

02-08-2018, 09:53 PM

Jesus Himself gave me these black lace Van Jonsson panties.
Praise be to Jee-YAY-sus!

buttslinger

02-08-2018, 09:59 PM

A large portion of Trump's base come from Smalltown USA. In the town where my sister-in-law grew up people thought you were crazy to drive 25 minutes to the next town for a better job. I'm not sure if they still have TV Evangelists, but I know in the rural part of the country, College is for people that are very rich or very smart. For the most part, the smalltown group dynamic sees being different, or exceling past your peers, or trying to change things as uppity, or citified. Everybody knows their neighbor, nobody locks doors.
I'm kind of surprised Trump didn't have Mike Pence lay hands on a cripple and make him walk again at his rallies, once the sinner casts out Satan (gay sex, porn, abortionists, touching yourself, and most of all, TRANNIES!!!!)
I'm pretty sure the whole reason they got Trump to put Pence on the ticket was to reel in the Evangelicals, scarier than Trump being a phony Believer is Pence as a true Believer. I hope Mueller's net is big enough to snare Pence or we'll have another problem on out hands, President Mike Pence receiving marching orders from God.

Stavros

02-09-2018, 06:16 AM

If you are still wondering how someone so obviously unfit for public office was selected by the Republican Party to run for the highest in the USA, questions must be asked how someone unfit for public office can be nominated to run in a race [no pun intended] he cannot win. Does this party actually have membership rules that determine who can and cannot run for office in its name?

ILLINOIS Republicans should have paid closer attention to the state’s third district, a Democratic fiefdom that includes a part of Chicago and its southwestern suburbs. Arthur Jones, a notorious neo-Nazi, will almost certainly win the Republican primary for the third district’s seat in the House of Representatives on March 20th because he is unopposed by any other Republican candidate. Mr Jones is a former member of the National Socialist White People’s Party and a variety of other Nazi groupings. He calls the Holocaust an “international extortion racket” and proudly displays racist and anti-Semitic bile on his website and blog.
https://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2018/02/nazi-nominee

flabbybody

02-09-2018, 08:05 AM

broncofan

02-09-2018, 09:51 AM

We all learned in civics class that a party affiliation, even one as distasteful as Neo-Nazi, does not disqualify someone from running or holding public office.
Fair point but I wonder whether parties should have procedures for excluding individuals from membership if they bring the party into disrepute or express views that are inconsistent with the party line. With such rules they can force someone like Arthur Jones to run as an independent or form his own party but never force him out of a race or off a ballot etc.

broncofan

02-09-2018, 10:27 AM

trish

02-09-2018, 04:41 PM

I feel that a lot of political change in the U.S. (for good or ill) is due the possibility that political parties are up for grabs. Is the Democratic Party the party of civil rights, or of economic equality etc. because those issues are represented in the party platform, or are they in the party platform because individuals who care about those issues decided to make them the issues of the party?

I sitting here trying to wake up, morning coffee in hand, and trying to think of examples of how the Republican and Democratic parties have changed faces over the decades because of pressures within the party or because of energized people joining them and changing them from within.

Stavros

02-09-2018, 07:17 PM

My guess from the little I've read about the subject is that the different treatment of party membership in the U.S v the UK is that parties don't have as much intrinsic significance in our system. They do not have to form a majority of our legislature or form coalitions and so there is very little government standing to enforce rules of membership.

As for the parties doing so themselves, the question might be to what extent a private organization can prevent someone from using their name or attempting to affiliate. They can deny funding and resources but maybe there is no easy legal mechanism (I can think of causes of action but would a party really want to sue?) to preclude someone from saying they are a Republican even if they express views the party disagrees with. One thing to consider is that we never actually register with the party. We state an "affiliation" when we register to vote with our state. I don't know how this impacts the analysis.

Your last comment about registering to vote as a Democrat or a Republican has initiated some thoughts on why your party system is so different. If I were asked when filling out my registration form to register a political preference that would be because I lived in a dictatorship or some sort of police state. I understand why it is done in the US, yet the explanation -to enable registered Democrats to vote in the nominating procedures for Democrat candidates- is itself weakened if someone registers as a 'independent' whereupon they too, in an Open Primacy can vote for the Democrat candidate, which is absurd since it may allow a swivel-eyed lunatic to vote for or against someone just to spoil the ballot or select another extremist candidate.

My understanding now is that because States rather than the Government run elections, the rules are different in each state and thus the national organizations are in effect managing local decisions and that Americans believe this to be democracy in action. An alternative would be for a central committee in Washington DC to approve candidates in California or Vermont that local people might resent.

In addition, historically, parties in the US, including the two main ones, have emerged and changed radically over time, the most obvious being the Democrats as the party that replaced slavery with segregation in the South before becoming the party of the northern industrial working class, and the Republicans which once opposed slavery yet these days seems to lament its loss. Whereas in the UK the two main parties in the 19th century, Tories and Liberals emerged from within the ruling elites and were thus imposed on the electorate until Labour emerged from the streets, the mines and the factories in 1900, in the US it seems to me parties are local affairs that are not integrated into a nationwide organization. But that doesn't mean even local parties should not have a mechanism for ensuring that someone with a proven past that is opposed to the party now seeks to represent should be approved not least when it is clear his views have not changed.

Is this a strength or a weakness? In the UK, you can run for local office or Parliament if you want to, forming your own party or standing as an individual championing some cause, but you must get the endorsements of local residents and pay the fee to do so. But in the major parties you have to be a paid-up member of the party with a party card to prove it. Moreover, in the Tory, Labour and Liberal-Democrat parties there is usually a time constraint that means you cannot join the party on Friday and seek nomination on a Monday. When I knew these things better than I do now, it used to be a minimum of two years membership before anyone could run for the local council, either the same for Parliament or maybe it was five years but the rules have changed since then anyway. In addition, the examination of your past and the assumption your party colleagues know who you are is a major source of support, as I believe it must be in the US. Mavericks do get through sometimes but most of the time the system works, the one issue of recent vintage being 'women-only' shortlists in selection processes for local council and Parliamentary seats to give more women the chance to be elected.

The absence of an annual membership fee and a roll of members and of any restrain on who can step forward and seek the nomination for a party is in my view a major flaw in the US precisely because it gives an opportunity to individuals with no proven skills in politics or even coherent ideas 'the right' to seek election, which they should do as independents if they are so keen. I would go so far as to suggest that the nomination of a man utterly incapable of political leadership, who can barely read and write and has not a shred of interest in either the rule of law or the Constitution validates my position, but the fact is you just don't do politics our way and there is nothing other than the vote on the day to prevent one of those ghastly Kardashian or Jenner people from receiving the nomination to be President. Maybe the point is that the norms we have seen erased in the last year suggest you do now need a reform or tightening of the way in which people seek the nomination of the two main parties or the selection process will turn into a farce.

I found the contributions here to be of interest-
https://ask.metafilter.com/22753/Why-Register-Your-Political-Affiliation-in-America

Stavros

02-09-2018, 07:42 PM

We all learned in civics class that a party affiliation, even one as distasteful as Neo-Nazi, does not disqualify someone from running or holding public office. If the seat is unwinnable the GOP must feel it's a waste of scarce resources to challenge the lunatic. Why give him attention with a primary contest?
And what's your campaign strategy against a holocost denying Nazi? "My opponent is wrong, the holocost definitely occurred...now how do we fix Obamacare?"

Such things in Germany are illegal, indeed Arthur Jones would by now either be in prison, or live in exile- in the USA (?).
German democracy does not suffer by banning representations of the Third Reich, and Holocaust Denial is illegal there and in 15 other countries in Europe and again democracy has not suffered because of it.

Free speech is a precious right, but it appears in the US to enable speech whose only purpose is to insult, or provoke, or even to incite violence though there must be limits even on that. You could of course argue that Arthur Jones will always be a loser because his views are so extreme and the manner in which he presents them so hysterical, but Alex Jones is also hysterical and has directly or indirectly damaged people's lives.

What does one do? In the UK most of the time we confront them. When the English Defence League or Britain First gets permission to march, a counter-demonstration is organized to confront them, even though that is what they want -to cause trouble and get free publicity. It is for the most part a tedious exercise, but the reality is that these people have little or no support in this country. Even in the case of UKIP, Nigel Farage appealed to neo-Nazis, racists, anti-Muslims and the assortment of nationalist and right-wing weirdos to 'hold your noses and vote UKIP'. The result: rejection at the last election. Now Farage spends his days bleating about the 'betrayal' of Brexit and backing the break-up of California, while urgently waiting for the €70,000 golden goodbye from the European Parliament.

I guess you will be spending the rest of your life shaking your head in disbelief at the rubbish people believe. You don't need candidates in election to broadcast it, and should be able to stop it, at least in the Democrat and Republican parties.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial

buttslinger

02-09-2018, 08:36 PM

I believe we try to err on the side of Freedom, it's kind of refreshing that a Nazi can run for office, it's reassuring that his name is in a district that is so overwhelming Democrat, that most of the time Republicans don't even run a candidate. They say if everyone was forced to vote (50% DON'T) that Democrats would rule everything, which is to say the Republican party would then SHIFT it's platform HARD LEFT to try and grab 51% of the votes. In the case of Roy Moore, the plan was to let him win the seat and then expel him for ethics violations. But if you had a town that was inhabited overwhelmingly with pedophiles, or bikers, the Sherriff of the town would spend a lot of time looking the other way when crimes were committed. Majority Rules. Unless the Majority doesn't vote.
When Marion Berry was Mayor of Washington DC, 14th St at 3AM on a Saturday night was bumper to bumper traffic, with whores filling the sidewalks. Hoes got the word DC was cool and flocked into town.
When I worked at the US Patent office, a guy came in with me who was so stupid, by the time they let him go everyone had a story of some moronic thing he had done or said. Sometime later, I saw his photo on a poster running for some local office, in which he stated one of his qualifications as having worked at the Patent Office. Saul Alinsky moved the spirit of "Majority Rules" to the private sector by legally creating Unions and having voiceless company individuals sign over their Employee Stock Proxy to a Labor-Oriented Anti-Boss.
The Military is a completely different matter. Many things in life are a blessing and a curse, depending on how you look at them. Compared to many times in History, having A President waiting for handcuffs ain't that bad.

Stavros

02-10-2018, 02:29 AM

I believe we try to err on the side of Freedom, it's kind of refreshing that a Nazi can run for office.

What is being 'refreshed'? There is not a single idea or policy from the Third Reich that needs to be rescued from the dustbin of history, and to give these cretins the exposure they crave begs the question: is National Socialism being normalized by free speech law? I don't see how any argument about the Third Reich can be positive, in part because it was itself based on a negation of humanity, in part because in its operations it was violence on such a scale that wherever it went destruction followed, until Germany itself was engulfed and destroyed.

To argue that free speech must gives licence to Arthur Jones may seem a simple defence of a basic human right, but what is the purpose of this man's political mission? What has been noticeable about those who are either born-again Nazis or Nazis who never lost the faith has been the insidious way in which they approach their pet subject, not in defence, but in attack. They revive the insulting question Did Six Million Die? They revive the conspiracy theories that Jews have an ullterior motive in all they do -just this week the Hungarian Jewish financier and philanthropist George Soros was pilloried in the Telegraph in the UK for allegedly using his billions to derail Brexit, at a time when he is being pilloried by politicians in Poland and Hungary whose motives are not always confined to his Open Society programme but often overtly or covertly refers to his being Jewish as if that in itself was sinister.

The internet has its strengths and weaknesses, a weakness being that someone 'fascinated' by the Third Reich can spend all their time having their fears and phobias being reinforced by arguments that are lies, fabrication and hateful and intended to provoke. People are being killed by men who get lathered up by some hysterical drivel they see on the internet, there is nothing refreshing about it, it is the dormant curse re-emerging to claim another casualty.

But I guess the US has yet to come to terms with the Civil War. Slavery was replaced by segregation, and another hundred years passed before Black Americans in the South had the equal right to vote with everyone else, yet 50 years on and they are losing those rights again. This is not due to refreshing ideas, but the refreshment of segregation, prejudice and hate. And to think the Confederacy is defended even though, by definition it was anti-American!

Freedom to kill is not freedom at all, but its negation.

buttslinger

02-10-2018, 05:53 AM

.....Freedom to kill is not freedom at all, but its negation.

Okay, Stavros, World War II and American Slavery happened because Freedom means nothing when you're broke. Maybe you've never mown lawns, dug ditches, or worked Construction, but I did, and those jobs sucked. Nazi Germany and the Old South happened because nothing speaks louder than Hard Cold Cash, brother. We don't put our 2nd class citizens in chains or ovens, but we do give them dead end crap jobs so they can rent crap apartments, buy beer and pay taxes. With those taxes we monitor Hate Groups, so let them sing loud and clear, all the better to pounce on them at the right time.
Cretins Rule, on this site and in the World. Look around, you'll find a lot more guys drooling with one hand in their pants upstairs than discussing the Nature of Freedom down here.
Freedom of Speech, There's nothing more American. But History is a product of the Glands, not Reason. We're knee deep in some War every generation.
I'd say Black people have it better now than the 1850s or 1950s, same as White people. Should Stupid People be allowed to vote? Should Nazis and Racists be allowed to vote? Welcome to the USA.

Stavros

02-10-2018, 07:17 AM

Buttslinger, I think you have missed the point that is part of the debate over this current President, that norms of behaviour and speech have been swept aside and replaced with a personalized Presidency that heaps insults and abuse on Gold Star families when they are Black, lavishes them with praise when they are White. If you were to ask the question: Since 1930 when have American Nazis believed they had a champion in the White House who shared their views on race? The answer ought to shock you, because you could give an accurate one.

Again, the point is that what many people may think is a marginal idea of little interest or influence, over time acquires a degree of support, so that what was unthinkable is being thought, what was not talked about is part of the debate, what was not a threat to democracy and the rule of law becomes precisely that. It is not always about wealth or poverty, and you should know Americans have been put in chains, and killed in gas chambers long after the demolition of Auschwitz were still the preferred mode of execution in US States.

It would be easy to dismiss the present lapse in standards as a temporary phenomenon, that the erosion of standard norms of decency and behaviour will be restored soon, but it would be just as easy to do nothing believing that, only to discover such complacency gives oxygen to those who seek to parcel it out only among themselves. The Nazis, as the book said, were a warning from history. What happened once, can happen again, even if it appears in a different uniform.

buttslinger

02-10-2018, 05:33 PM

Since WWII we've had Republicans in charge half the time, and Democrats the other half. Johnson desegregated the Schools, George Wallace wins the South the next election. George W Bush destroys the economy, We get our first Black President. We get our first Black President, next, We get our first Trump. Remember when Bush, Romney, and McCain were Monsters? Of Course it is bad that we have a Nazi-esque President, but Trump doesn't even read his Intelligence Memos in the morning. That's the real Danger. For every Nazi Rally you have, you have a hundred Women's Rallies, so I'm not that worried,.... in fact, the next Democratic President may be too far left. When George Wallace was Governor of Alabama, his wife ran the State House and picked the Prison Trusties to work as servants. When they asked her why she picked only murderers, she replied that her Murderers committed crimes of Passion, She didn't want a bunch or thieves in the House!!!!! Trump is no Murderer, he's a thief.
I'll let you all in on a little secret, it gets so boring down here, sometimes I fan the flames just to get the fire going. I really did believe we were scheduled for 16 years with a Democratic President, that hadn't happened since Truman. The USA has to be Bad Guy Number One in the World, if we get too nice, We may get replaced by some Country that isn't so nice to the West. The British Empire came and went, my Generation lucked out, but eventually History says our days are numbered, no matter what we do. It's not what you see that kills you, it's what you don't see.

buttslinger

02-10-2018, 07:19 PM

My Brother knocked on the door, without going into details, we have Family Problems that are driving me insane. When Erika talks about joining the Nazi Party, then the Satan Party, it's no giant surprise that her next move is to the Mental Institution Party. But she has earned a spot here far more than me, I'm straight and am now far too old for this crowd. But Stavros, until you admit that Elvis is the one true King, You British sold us our slaves, and your Chamberlain made WWII happen!!!! Bazinga!! Your King made Georgia a penal colony!As far as the danger that these far right groups might actually elect a President, that horse has left the barn. Just like you left the EU. Talk is cheap.
I don't see how Mueller doesn't reveal years and years of Trump laundering Russian Mob money, He's got the best Federal Investigators in that field investigating it. And since most of those guys were pals with Putin, I don't see how some form of Collusion is going to be proven. IF that happens, then what. Trump is not like Reagan who went gently into that good night, Congress will have to act, then what?? Every Trump voter is going to be .........I have no idea. How is Sean Hannity going to spin that? How is Pence, or for that matter ANY Republican going to say they were shocked? What about the millions of Americans that voted for him? Are they going to realize they were wrong or dig in deeper???
Normalcy will not be restored. But yeah, the voice of Reason seems to have no impact on our President, even worse, his millions of supporters. They're all armed, you know. Be Afraid! Be VERY Afraid!!
The Reason I like Mark Warner is he is a Democratic with social values who was also a Businessman who fixed the Budget when he was Governor of Virginia.
The United States is about the size of Europe, and now we have Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Asian, Middle Eastern, Left, Right, Gay, Straight, Christian, Atheist, Rock, Rap, Jazz, 500 channels on TV. On top of that we're 20 TRILLION in debt. What could go wrong?
But Yes, Stavros, I might admit that it's NOT refreshing to have Nazis on the ballot.

Stavros

02-10-2018, 08:16 PM

But Stavros, until you admit that Elvis is the one true King, You British sold us our slaves, and your Chamberlain made WWII happen!!!! Bazinga!! Your King made Georgia a penal colony!As far as the danger that these far right groups might actually elect a President, that horse has left the barn. Just like you left the EU. Talk is cheap.

But Yes, Stavros, I might admit that it's NOT refreshing to have Nazis on the ballot.

I detest Elvis and always have; Chamberlain did not 'make' war happen, Hitler did; and you were never obliged to buy a single slave.

In the circumstances maybe you should lie down and get some rest. And ponder the thought that just as the Confederacy existed in opposition to the USA, which it left and then subjected to military attack, so the 'alt-right' contains within it, as with American Nazis people who reject the Constitution as the framework of democracy in the US and to my mind want to scrap the project and start again. By definition they are anti-American. Democracy always has to contend with the fact that it gives space and freedom to those who are opposed to it, and bases its strength on the view that the majority will always prefer democracy over dictatorship, and for that reason it is something to be preserved and protected, and where it doesn't work to be extended. The only people who lose out in a democracy are people who believe their privilege is more important than the rights of citizens.

buttslinger

02-10-2018, 10:45 PM

You're missing one important fact: I have the blood of Robert E Lee flowing through my veins (great great...nephew) and if I was sitting in a Mississippi field in 1835 and my son died last winter, and there were no schools or hospitals or roads I'd probably buy slaves too. Just like Chamberlain didn't cause WWII, The South didn't cause Slavery. And without machinery, in fact even with machinery farms have to hire cheap labor every harvest. You really don't have a choice.
History is never wrong, people are. We broke off from England and won, the South broke off from the North and Lost. The American Indian Lost. The Nazis and Slave Traders lost. To the winner goes the spoils, and Trump won.
If Jesus taught us anything, you can lose with Grace. Like Graceland in Memphis. I don't know, Stavros, if you don't like Elvis, I have to question all your values, really, Thank you. Thank you very much.

https://preview.ibb.co/ewmGGS/elvisatgraceland2.jpg (https://ibb.co/gb5nO7)

I am 100% disabled and have been all life, it wasn't until I was 43 that I found out only because I couldn't work 40 hours anymore. Life is unfair. But like my whore drug dealer Diane told me before she was murdered; "Hey, I had my fun, I don't regret anything"
People do the best they can, you never know what others are up against.
Dogs look up to us, cats look down at us, pigs treat us as equals.
To be honest, I laughed at Elvis as a kid, it wasn't until years after he was dead I came to appreciate his place in American Music.
What the fuck thread is this, Thought for the Day??? I think I'll eat lunch now, don't mind me Stavros, it's easy to get a rise out of you. I got issues.

trish

02-10-2018, 11:40 PM

buttslinger

02-11-2018, 02:06 AM

.. If you were in the kitchen you'd hear me a singin':

Don't drop your fried banana sandwich when you swivel your hips.
As Atonement to Stavros' sensibility maybe I'll get into Volume IV of John Richardson's Picasso series.

AND
My memory is fading fast, but I due recall that just previous to Rosenstein setting up the Mueller investigation, we were getting revelation after revelation every day, and I think it was one of the Lindsey Grahams who lamented that now we won't hear anything more about Trump and Russia, it would all be under lock and key, depositions held in back rooms. Mueller is the Seeing Eye who knows all, tells nothing. But really, the revelations haven't stopped, buy apparently they're just the ones that remind us what a Jackass Trump is, not enough to hang him from the highest yardarm. Day after day of total incompetence coming out of the White House, God, what a cold winter.......I shake my head when he pays off some pornstar, I rip the armrests of my Lazyboy when I hear he won't sign the Russian Sanctions.
The World is suffering from Trump Fatigue, Nine out of Ten Journalists condemning Trump just makes it worse, not better, I've run out of insults to hurl. It's not even going to be satisfying when Trump goes down. The People who don't care will come out unscathed. SAD!!

Stavros

02-11-2018, 08:51 AM

[QUOTE=buttslinger;1821040
If Jesus taught us anything, you can lose with Grace. Like Graceland in Memphis. I don't know, Stavros, if you don't like Elvis, I have to question all your values, really, Thank you. Thank you very much.[/QUOTE]

Values don't come into it, a taste in music does. Technically, I suppose, Elvis made music, if you call that singing. In qualitative terms it would be pointless for me to continue as I don't even think this ridiculous, bloated southern queen is worth my attention.

Forgot to add: Volume IV of Richardson's biography of Picasso has not been published yet. It was given a date of 2014 but there have been numerous delays not least as Richardson is I think 95 and has poor eyesight.

Stavros

02-11-2018, 08:53 AM

When I'm fixing diner and Trump comes on the radio I'm often inspired to appropriate the words of Elvis. If you were in the kitchen you'd hear me a singin':

Well they said you was high class, but that was just a lie.
Yeah, they said you was high class, but that was just a lie.
Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit an’ you ain’t no friend of mine.

Of all the things I have heard him called, 'high class' was never one of them! He has been portrayed most of the time as the man that he is: vain, deceitful, vulgar and crude.

trish

02-11-2018, 06:49 PM

True enough, it's mostly Donald who says Donald is a class act and it's mostly Donald who calls his opponents low class. To be fair, his supporters do also get confused sometimes: Are solid gold faucets and knobs in the lavatory high class or just vulgar?

chupapau

02-11-2018, 10:07 PM

Jericho

02-11-2018, 10:21 PM

Do people who like ketchup fill swimming pools with it?

That sounds like fun.
Added bonus, yer rusty sheriffs badge would come out nice and shiny! :hide-1:

buttslinger

02-12-2018, 05:21 AM

Thanks, Jericho, for the thumbs down on Stravos' Elvis Dis, I hope everybody knows I like and admire Stavros and take every opportunity to tease him. The 4th Picasso book is like the vacuum nature abhors, kind of like the one in Trump's head. I see a lonely little rich boy, desperate for attention from his parents who sent him away to military school, mixed in with a narcissistic prick who just plain enjoys being a prick.
Even more alarming is the group dynamic psychosis of the Republican base.....wha' did they SLEEPWALK through 2000-2008? Was a Black President so infuriating to them they had to hire Trump to get even???
Democracy is actually still kind of an experiment, and it's being tested right now. I can recall being ecstatic having Trump as the Republican Candidate. Maybe Putin is sending subliminal messages through the dumbest American TV shows. Strange Forces are in play!!!!

https://preview.ibb.co/kEvOWS/1book30.jpg (https://ibb.co/hdsRkn)

Jericho

02-12-2018, 04:53 PM

Thanks, Jericho, for

Whilst I do question his taste in, well, everything really, thanks in this case are unearned. :hide-1:

buttslinger

02-12-2018, 06:47 PM

Whilst I do question his taste in, well, everything really, thanks in this case are unearned. :hide-1:

he he, we're all performing a thankless task here, if it weren't for the torrid t-girls, .............sigh

trish

02-12-2018, 07:48 PM

torrid
adjective
1. very hot and dry.
2. full of difficulty or tribulation.

Which meaning did you have in mind? Choose carefully. :)

Stavros

02-12-2018, 08:03 PM

Moving on from the trivial issues discussed above to something more serious: does social media change policy and the way people think, and win elections?

One of the major issues in the investigations that Robert Mueller is conducting, concerns the ability or otherwise of 'Bots' and automated messages, particularly on Twitter, to sway people's opinions. The favoured tactic appears to be to select keywords like 'Clinton' 'Deep State' 'Democracy' 'Scandal' 'the truth' and so on as tools that are designed to smear someone's reputation, raise questions that appear to have a troubling answer, but also mount campaigns.

This analysis by Politico of the #releasethememo is the clearest example I have come across of how this works, noting that even a large part of the campaign originated in and was driven by the Russians, it dove-tailed with other 'alt-right' and pro-Memo enthusiasts to generate thousands of tweets/re-tweets a day. It is quite a long article, but it does more than most articles to explain how the system is used and can be manipulated by those keen enough to take it on. It is also part of the narrative that puts Russia in the frame as a leading opponent of liberal democracy, which it has in the past ridiculed as an incompetent form of government that is messy and confused -and has often been anti-Russian. Russia's strategic aims in the long terms are to break the solidarity of those it sees as 'the enemy' -NATO and the European Union being top of the list; to break-up the large trading blocs such as the EU which Russia sees as exerting too much power in Europe at the expense of Russia's economic needs, particularly in retrieving the markets and raw materials it lost when the USSR dissolved; and because Russia is stronger when its enemies are weaker.

Thus, the article begins:
On Tuesday morning—the day after the House Intelligence Committee voted along partisan lines to send Rep. Devin Nunes’ memo, alleging abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, to President Donald Trump for declassification—presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway was confronted with the idea that Russian trolls were promoting the #releasethememo hashtag online. She was offended. Russian trolls, she told a television interviewer, “have nothing to do with releasing the memo—that was a vote of the intelligence committee.” But her assertion is incorrect. The vote marked the culmination of a targeted, 11-day information operation that was amplified by computational propaganda techniques and aimed to change both public perceptions and the behavior of American lawmakers.
And it worked. By the time the memo got to the president, its release was a forgone conclusion—even before he had read it (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/01/31/the-trump-white-house-is-100-percent-playing-fast-and-loose-with-classified-information/?utm_term=.c7cfd71aae72).
This bears repeating: Computational propaganda—defined (https://prezi.com/b_vewutjwzut/computational-propaganda/) as “the use of information and communication technologies to manipulate perceptions, affect cognition, and influence behavior”—has been used, successfully, to manipulate the perceptions of the American public and the actions of elected officials.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/04/trump-twitter-russians-release-the-memo-216935

Highly recommended.

buttslinger

02-13-2018, 02:09 AM

People have been programming people forever, the change now is that computers and the internet can reach voters in any country around the world, dirt cheap. On Fox News, Roger Ailes sent out a memo a day to tell his bimbos what topic to stress that day. For a while, there was a question whether of not this was even legal to give one Party airtime with no crossexamination, the loophole is that Fox News is not News, it's Opinionated Entertainment.
It's amazing to me to hear Kellyanne Conway and other surrogates who are so stupid yet can have the discipline and training not to break character while they spew out their biased garbage. In Advertising, the highest rates go to the sponsors of shows with a young audience who are just starting to have money to spend. If you can hook a kid on Camel cigarettes, or Budweiser beer, you've got him for life. Older viewers are set in their ways. You have to wonder if truly bright people are susceptible to brainwashing tricks, I've heard it said that people of good breeding or intelligence can be just as enticed by immoral and illegal sexual cravings, they just have the presence of mind not to act on those feelings. I don't know.
My Brother was a Teacher, and the past few years he and some of his Associates have been trying to find out the best way to in effect "program" students to learn better. Apparently MEMORIZING plays a large part in the pursuit of a fine mind, it's become a lost art.
What's most troubling is we have done nothing to deter the Russians from their games, and there is even talk that they did indeed hack into voting rolls and voting machines. Imagine what they're doing that we don't know about, the fact that the old Reagan Republicans aren't up in arms is scary to me. Everybody's shell shocked.
BTW Torrid is Intense, like a big line of crystal meth. Those Nazis were Elite when it came to Propaganda and Amphetamine. The Russians, the White House, isn't it considered clumsy when everyone knows what your secret agenda is??

Stavros

02-13-2018, 04:43 AM

broncofan

02-13-2018, 08:12 AM

I meant to add in my post on #releasethememo that I am still not sure if Russian involvement in the 2016 election at the 'Bot' level in social media was a deciding factor in the result, but it might have played a role. Owing to the other issues at the time, not least the FBI's re-opening of the Clinton Emails problem, may have had more influence. Nevertheless I believe the article goes some way to showing how Bots can be influential.
I didn't look at the article but will tomorrow. The bots can be influential and they are surrounding this investigation to try to sow discord. They favor Trump but I get the feeling the objective is to promote chaos. I look at the comments underneath Adam Schiff (the Democratic head of the house oversight committee) videos on youtube and they couldn't be more obvious yelling things about how Schiff can expect to be indicted any minute. It is an enormous effort to just weaken confidence in our system and to stoke paranoia and make it very difficult to ascertain the truth.

broncofan

02-13-2018, 08:19 AM

I meant to add in my post on #releasethememo that I am still not sure if Russian involvement in the 2016 election at the 'Bot' level in social media was a deciding factor in the result, but it might have played a role.
And though it's impossible to know the magnitude of the effect it's easy to see it's much more effective than traditional media, even right-wing outlets like fox. They are talking to a demographic that is already highly gullible and are flooding them with nonsense in an interactive forum. At some point it really becomes hard to distinguish the bots from the idiots parroting the bots. It's like a giant game of telephone with an emotional, paranoid crowd being fed bullshit to confirm their biases.

trish

02-13-2018, 05:18 PM

does social media change policy and the way people think, and win elections?

I'm a bit late to this discussion. I don't know if social media directly changes policy, but I do think it directly influences elections and those elected decide upon and implement policy.

What I think modern social media is:
It’s addictive. People get hooked on the bright colors, the stream of funny memes, the affirmation of likes, loves, wows, etc., the arguments and accompanying drama. There is even some early research suggesting these things give us dopamine highs. As a result people are constantly checking and rechecking their apps for another hit.

What I think modern social media does to our politics.
1. It energizes individuals.
2. It spreads messages quickly and widely.
3. It divides people. Memes tend to be black and white. You’re on our team or you’re on the wrong team.
4. It neutralizes authority. Sounds good but it doesn’t distinguish between reputable or disreputable sources.
5. It replaces the yard sign, the bill-board, the newspaper ad, the letter to the newspaper, the newspaper itself. Political parties used to pay for the first three of these and depend on the last two. So yes, social media makes a difference in elections.

buttslinger

02-13-2018, 09:41 PM

Does anybody else hit Go Advanced and have their entire message disappear into cyberspace?

To make a long painful story short, I read an article in my youth about subliminal advertising, it only takes a fraction of a second for the human mind to "click and save" some deep human basic need imbedded in a cereal ad, so the flip of a magazine page turns into you grabbing a new cereal off a grocery store shelf because you saw some ad months before with a sexual image buried in it. Apparently, this method is cost effective enough to show a profit.
Every Country in the World are now Business Competitors, and while China is the true threat, St Petersburg Russia has a huge percentage of criminal hackers living there. If one hacker can send out a thousand variations of a "HIT AD" on Hillary Clinton, and thousands of Americans see it, even if less than one percent of voters in a two person race can decide a swing state and an election. If a Canadian Pharmacy selling Cialis claims to be the best in quality and price, but some sleazy competitor posts thousands of fake bad reviews, the lies have it.
https://image.ibb.co/h6sro7/0000.jpg (https://imgbb.com/)

broncofan

02-14-2018, 05:39 AM

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/us/politics/stormy-daniels-michael-cohen-trump.html

Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen claims he paid off Stormy Daniels with his own money and was not reimbursed. As someone on twitter pointed out, if he did not get reimbursed it is an in-kind contribution to the Trump campaign by an individual that violates federal election laws. It also would be a gift to Donald Trump that he did not report to the IRS, as you have to file a return for gifts over 14,000 dollars.

It's unlikely he would pay off a pornstar Trump had sex with using his own money though so we haven't gotten the full story. Have a feeling we haven't heard the end of this affair.

buttslinger

02-14-2018, 06:24 AM

There's a lot of questions about Cohen's finances, I believe the Republican Party is paying him for Trump's defense. And maybe other stuff.
The big story I heard tonight is that US Intelligence had the list of corrupt Russian Oligarchs all written up to release, for that Magnitsky Payback, and Putin was pissing his pants because it was a list of all his closest buds. At the last minute, somebody "high up" in the Trump Administration squashed it and Mnuchin copied and pasted a list from Forbes Magazine instead. WTF is it gonna take?? If the Dems take the House next November, they get to lead the Investigation Committees. I guess that's what it's gonna take. But that's a long long time.

Stavros

02-28-2018, 06:43 PM

I am sure we have discussed this before, but nevertheless you have to wonder if a basic education is required before someone can be elected to Congress (it doesn't seem to apply to the Presidency these days).

A Republican congressman has suggested Jewish people killed in the Holocaust (http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/Holocaust) could have saved themselves if they had been armed.

Don Young (http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/don-young) made the remarks as he attempted to argue against stricter gun control (http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/gun-control) laws in the US, which he implied would make Americans less safe.

“How many millions of people were shot and killed because they were unarmed? Fifty million in Russia,” he told a conference in Juneau, Alaska.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/republican-congressman-jews-holocaust-gun-control-alaska-don-young-nazis-armed-a8232721.html

Psst! Don!! Warsaw! Ghetto! Uprising!!!

broncofan

03-03-2018, 04:31 AM

Here's a really funny tweet about Jared Kushner that made me laugh. I like sharing:). Scroll through to see it. https://twitter.com/Mobute/status/889631433366679552

Stavros

03-09-2018, 10:53 AM

It is a curious moment in economic history when a man who claims to be billionaire businessman and one would assume a devoted adherent of capitalism, uses his position as President to declare that free trade and competition are bad for the USA -the complete opposite of what his political hero Ronald Reagan said when the latter was President. Some among us have indeed been critical of the operations of the 'free market' but as capitalism is, or was the 'only game in the global town' it was always about its variations rather than the justification for its existence

Here is the thought: suppose capitalism does not decline to be replaced by socialism, as Marx expected, but just declines in what we might call 'system failure' with no coherent replacement? Perhaps what we are watching, as the USA buries free trade and competition, tears up the rule book and hopes for the best, is a long future of economic incoherence and in effect the replacement of competition with economic 'war' in which nobody wins in the long term.

The President will have achieved his dream, born out of an incendiary resentment, to destroy the political and economic system of the USA and to have broken the back of international economic regimes, but leaving nothing beneficial in its place. It is, in an even more curious way, a mirror image of his history as a businessman: six bankrupt business ventures that collapsed from incompetent management as he filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy and walked away leaving his investors stranded without their money, while he pocketed a billion $ in tax compensation for being a failure.

filghy2

03-11-2018, 03:56 AM

It is a curious moment in economic history when a man who claims to be billionaire businessman and one would assume a devoted adherent of capitalism, uses his position as President to declare that free trade and competition are bad for the USA -the complete opposite of what his political hero Ronald Reagan said when the latter was President.

Trump clearly doesn't believe in true capitalism in which businesses compete freely in an open market. Rather. he believes in crony capitalism in which insiders get preferred treatment while those who don't play along with him are penalised. It looks like a similar approach may be applied to international trade, with only countries that cosy up to him and do him favours being exempted from tariffs.

To the extent that there is any coherent thinking behind this, it seems to be the simplistic assumption that whatever would be good for someone like him must be good for the country. It is also based on zero-sum thinking in which it is possible to gain only by someone else losing. This a complete complete travesty of economics, as well as good business principles. Trump has always viewed investors, customers and supplies as people to be screwed for his immediate benefit, rather than people with whom he can develop relationships for mutual benefit in the longer term. Given his limited intellect, it is not surprising that he brings the same mentality to international economic relations.

Stavros

03-11-2018, 10:10 PM

Meanwhile, hot on the heel of its reform of gun law, Florida has now raised the legal age of marriage to combat the scandal of child marriage in the US-

Florida (http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/Florida) has banned marriage for children under 17, after a campaign by a woman who was forced to marry her rapist when she was just 11-years-old.
Sherry Johnson (http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/sherry-johnson) watched from the gallery as the state legislature voted 109-1 to pass a bill removing exemptions allowing boys and girls of any age to marry if a pregnancy was involved.
"My heart is happy," she said afterward. "My goal was to protect our children and I feel like my mission has been accomplished. This is not about me. I survived."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/child-marriage-banned-florida-minimum-age-17-campaign-rape-victim-a8249341.html

This makes it more severe than in the UK where 16-year olds can marry. The point of interest I think is that it appears the advocates of child marriage are mostly Christian. An attempt to raise the age in Kentucky failed due to lobbying by a Conservative group called the Family Foundation of Kentucky.

A bill that would ban child marriage in the US state of Kentucky has been delayed by a conservative lobbying group, according to local reports.
The legislation had been expected to go to a vote by the state Senate Judiciary Committee late last week, but part of it was opposed by the Family Foundation of Kentucky, reports the Insider Louisville (https://insiderlouisville.com/metro/bipartisan-child-marriage-bill-faces-roadblock-from-conservative-family-foundation/) website.
http://www.theweek.co.uk/92084/kentucky-child-marriage-ban-stalled-by-conservatives

Stavros

03-14-2018, 10:54 AM

Does the Chief Executive of the USA ever call into his office a senior official and tell him, or her, to their faces 'You're Fired!'? Would it not match the status of the Head of the FBI and the Secretary of State to tell them to their faces they are being sacked? And is that not an expression of the power the Chief Executive has?

Or, to put it another way -why does the Chief Executive prefer to sack people by tweet?

The word cowardice comes easily to mind.

Jericho

03-14-2018, 08:31 PM

Pilgrim, are you casting aspersions on Don Waynes courage?

Or, to put it another way -why does the Chief Executive prefer to sack people by tweet?

The word cowardice comes easily to mind.

Stavros

03-15-2018, 10:04 AM

Pilgrim, are you casting aspersions on Don Waynes courage?

I am not a Pilgrim, nor am I David Dennison and I did not have sex with that woman...

If Dennison is Trump, which the record leaves virtually no doubt he is, the cash to Daniels — the agreement arranges for payment wired “on or before 1600 hours PST on 10/27/16” — is an expense plainly related to his presidential candidacy and thus, tawdry as it is, the public’s business. By law.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/david-dennison-depravity-exposed-trump-stormy-daniels-lies-article-1.3861988

buttslinger

03-15-2018, 06:21 PM

taw·dry
/ˈtôdrē/
adjective: tawdry; comparative adjective: tawdrier; superlative adjective: tawdriest
showy but cheap and of poor quality.
synonyms: gaudy, flashy, showy, garish, loud;

Well, who will win the "tawdriest" award, Trump or Stormy?
They had an article about Stormy Daniel's twitter feed in the paper, all the Trumpites are attacking her, calling her a Scank.....She has to correct their spelling to the proper English spelling Skank....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/for-stormy-daniels-swatting-away-twitter-trolls-is-a-work-of-art/2018/03/10/f51039bc-2414-11e8-94da-ebf9d112159c_story.html?utm_term=.e28aceff35e8

Stavros

03-16-2018, 12:21 AM

Does the Chief Executive of the USA ever call into his office a senior official and tell him, or her, to their faces 'You're Fired!'? Would it not match the status of the Head of the FBI and the Secretary of State to tell them to their faces they are being sacked? And is that not an expression of the power the Chief Executive has?
Or, to put it another way -why does the Chief Executive prefer to sack people by tweet?
The word cowardice comes easily to mind.

Anthony Zurcher has written an article on this very subject, it is here-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43421000

Stavros

03-17-2018, 01:32 PM

broncofan

03-17-2018, 04:19 PM

Re Stormy Daniels -not sure if I have asked this before, but does a Non-Disclosure Agreement violate the First Amendment rights of the person who signs it, if it can be shown that they signed under duress -indeed, is an NDA always signed under duress and does this in itself make them legally fragile?

http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/research/cornell-law-review/upload/Garfield-final.pdf

I found this law review article on the subject from a very good institution. It was written twenty years ago but that doesn't mean there have been a lot of cases that would supplant its reasoning or make it out of date. It also appears to be fairly influential given how many times it's been cited by other scholars.

I've only read the introduction so far, but it looks like it's an issue that is at least talked about in scholarship, even if there aren't a lot of court cases about it. While there is broad freedom for private parties to form contracts, courts may refuse to enforce them because doing so involves their action on behalf of the state (and I suppose the implication that they sanction the underlying bargain).

At the state (as opposed to federal) level, there are many cases where courts will simply refuse to enforce a contract because doing so would be repugnant to public policy. As the author states, the public policy may be the interest in public discourse, which implicates the first amendment concern. Duress is a formal contract defense and could apply regardless of the subject matter of the contract, but may be especially strong given that the only justification there is for allowing someone to relinquish a guaranteed right is that it was freely bargained away.

Oftentimes scholarship likes this reflects novel ways of looking at the law that aren't considered by courts. But I do imagine in this case, if and when the contract comes before a court the Judge will think long and hard about the circumstances of contract formation and whether the subject matter is something the state should involve itself in by enforcing the contract.

broncofan

03-17-2018, 04:55 PM

I assume that if it is about a sexual affair that threatens to embarrass the party seeking the NDA this is not the same as X having told Y he killed his wife paying Y to keep it secret via an NDA?

I think you're right. Even in Garfield's analysis, he discusses as an aspect of free speech, the importance of the information to the public dialogue. If it doesn't involve something to do with ethics but is simply prurient and embarrassing, the public policy/speech argument is weakened. There are still formation defenses that stand alone given the odd way in which the contract was executed.

Stavros

03-18-2018, 09:46 AM

I think you're right. Even in Garfield's analysis, he discusses as an aspect of free speech, the importance of the information to the public dialogue. If it doesn't involve something to do with ethics but is simply prurient and embarrassing, the public policy/speech argument is weakened. There are still formation defenses that stand alone given the odd way in which the contract was executed.

I suspect that this is what the Supreme Court would say, but it seems to me there is another angle here. If you set aside whether someone felt forced into signing away their 1st Amendments rights on a matter that is not concerned with the breaking of the law, and that a Court would say they can do nothing about that, there is still the moral argument, that in effect, people with money are purchasing an exemption from justice.

In the case of Harvey Weinstein who may have broken the law -cases of rape and assault have not been proven in a court of law- it surely cannot be right that a man escapes the justice a court would have decided by writing a cheque and coercing the victim to sign an NDA? Again, in the case of David Dennison, given his form with a fake university it seems to me his attitude is simple: the rule of law does not apply to me, I pay to be exempt from it. Most people do not have David Dennison's money and can't buy their way out of traffic violations or the consequences of running corrupt businesses, whereas he can, and does.

This to me shows such contempt for the due process of law it is hardly surprising that the man trumpets his glee when an FBI officer with 21 years service is sacked days before his retirement to deny him a pension, even though no case against the man has been made in a court of law and the officer concerned has proved that the President and his staff have lied about him leaking to the press.

When the rule of law no longer applies, or can be bought by those with the most money, democracy itself becomes a secondary thing, a nuisance to be avoided.

broncofan

03-18-2018, 03:56 PM

Today Trey Gowdy, a Republican congressman who is not running for re-election, said to Trump's personal lawyer John Dowd, "if you have an innocent client Mr. Dowd, act like it." The only reason he had the gumption to make this statement is because he will not have to face the consequences during re-election. Every Republican knows that they cannot tell the truth about the President without becoming the object of his ire and dealing with his abuse online.

Yet it's still surprising to me that more of them have not stood up to him regardless of the consequences. Whether Mueller ends up getting fired or connecting Donald Trump to criminality, history will not be kind to him or anyone who stood by while he tried to dismantle the rule of law in this country. The best case scenario for Trump is that multiple associates of his committed crimes and he himself is only guilty of many impeachable acts of obstruction, from pressuring Sessions, to threatening Rosenstein, to firing Comey, to this extremely troubling and transparent campaign against McCabe. Even if it were a purely careerist move, in the long run, telling the truth about Trump would seem like the better bet. Ten years from now, how will this era be seen with the full perspective of hindsight?

Here's what our former CIA head had to say https://twitter.com/JohnBrennan/status/974978856997224448

Stavros

03-18-2018, 07:13 PM

I understand that libel laws are different in the US and that there is something called 'malicious libel' -but isn't this an example of malicious libel, and why doesn't Comey do something other than write book?

Trump tweeted (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/975341676297445377): “Wow, watch Comey lie under oath to Senator G when asked ‘have you ever been an anonymous source … or known someone else to be an anonymous source...?’ He said strongly ‘never, no.’ He lied as shown clearly on @foxandfriends.”

Trump was evidently watching his favourite Fox News show. Earlier, magazine show Fox & Friends played an exchange from a 3 May 2017 congressional hearing (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/03/read-the-full-testimony-of-fbi-director-james-comey-in-which-he-discusses-clinton-email-investigation/?utm_term=.affb373f2b5f) in which Comey was questioned by the Republican senator Chuck Grassley.

Grassley asked: “Director Comey, have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?”
Comey said: “Never.”

Grassley: “Question two, and relatively related: have you ever authorised someone else at the FBI (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/fbi) to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?”
Comey: “No.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/18/trump-andrew-mccabe-memos-james-comey-fbi

buttslinger

03-18-2018, 07:55 PM

I have a hunch that the Intelligence agencies and Congress pretty much know exactly what's going on, but so what, how do you FIX it? Who do you tell? Certainly not the People.
Comey and Gowdy, they both despise Hillary and think Trump should be hanged for treason. Maybe they're right.
It's like the American Indians say "White man speaks with forked tongue"
Economics triggered Mexicans in the US and Muslims in Europe, Death and Taxes are inevitable, in the meantime, in between time, ain't we got fun?
Things are supposed to be fucked up. Too many moving parts.

https://preview.ibb.co/mc3qjc/new_map.jpg (https://ibb.co/nAdO4c)

buttslinger

03-18-2018, 10:04 PM

I forgot to thank Bronc for the Brennan tweet, yeah, what he said.
Obama warned Trump about two things: Mike Flynn and Kim Jong-un.
One shoe has dropped.........
Did you know only 15 haircuts are allowed in North Korea?
I went to school with Iranians, I joke with the Pakistanis at the 7-11, but I've never seen a North Korean in my life. I think, just like in the cartoons, when Trump orders the firing squad to shoot Mueller, they'll all turn around and shoot him, and we'll let the chips fall where they may, but God help us all if Trump handles Korea like he handled Flynn.....
I gotta get me one'a dem haircuts.

https://image.ibb.co/m1FZuc/Haircut_Obama_Kim_Jong_Un_zpsbd24635d.jpg (https://imgbb.com/)

sukumvit boy

03-19-2018, 12:14 AM

1064182
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIhkklnA73Q

buttslinger

03-19-2018, 04:28 AM

I guess it's good every so often to look at the bright side, at least we don't live in North Korea.
If you Bitch there, the next day, you're not there. 100% approval record.
But if Trump makes a surprise move and names Bolton as Secretary of State, and you notice I'm not posting anymore, please donate to a Charity of your choice in lieu of Flowers.

filghy2

03-19-2018, 05:05 AM

Yet it's still surprising to me that more of them have not stood up to him regardless of the consequences. Whether Mueller ends up getting fired or connecting Donald Trump to criminality, history will not be kind to him or anyone who stood by while he tried to dismantle the rule of law in this country.

The problem is that the one-third of the country who still support Trump and refuse to believe anything bad about him is the majority of Republican voters. Even if an individual member of congress might increase their chances in a general election by turning against Trump it is unlikely they would survive a primary challenge. Also, having hitched their wagon to Trump thus far, there is no way the Republican party can abandon him at this stage without being dragged down with him.

broncofan

03-19-2018, 05:18 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/18/us/austin-explosions-investigation/index.html

In Austin Texas there have been three package bombs delivered to people that have killed two and injured one. The victims have been either black or hispanic and it looks like there's a strong chance that it is a racially motivated terrorist attack. It has started to garner national attention but initially it was drowned out by everything that is going on with the Trump administration.

It appears that the FBI is taking it seriously which is good news. Afterall, they are an organization that does not depend on political forces to do their job. There are some questions in my view about the commitment of Sessions who thought the biggest priority of his Justice Department civil rights group was to tackle affirmative action. And of course the President has not taken a leadership role on this and to my knowledge has not issued a statement. Given the nature of these attacks, he should assure the public that it is a priority and everything is being done to put an end to the attacks and catch the perpetrators.

Stavros

03-20-2018, 05:35 PM

In Austin Texas there have been three package bombs delivered to people that have killed two and injured one. The victims have been either black or hispanic and it looks like there's a strong chance that it is a racially motivated terrorist attack. It has started to garner national attention but initially it was drowned out by everything that is going on with the Trump administration.
It appears that the FBI is taking it seriously which is good news. Afterall, they are an organization that does not depend on political forces to do their job. There are some questions in my view about the commitment of Sessions who thought the biggest priority of his Justice Department civil rights group was to tackle affirmative action. And of course the President has not taken a leadership role on this and to my knowledge has not issued a statement. Given the nature of these attacks, he should assure the public that it is a priority and everything is being done to put an end to the attacks and catch the perpetrators.

Vox has this:
On Tuesday, the president is holding a White House roundtable on “sanctuary cities” — a (purported) safety threat he is always happy to talk about. The attorney general of Texas will be among the attendees. It would be an obvious opportunity for Trump to say something about the bombings, with an official from the state affected by them literally sitting in front of him. If the president doesn’t, it will be a deafening silence.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/19/17139590/austin-bombing-trump-terrorism

We wait and see, but it seems to me the President is more focused on trashing the reputation of the FBI as an adjunct to the Democratic Party determined to smear him with lies, rather than support it as a law and order agency focused on saving people's lives and fighting crime.

broncofan

03-21-2018, 03:04 AM

broncofan

03-21-2018, 03:33 AM

Stavros

03-21-2018, 10:17 AM

It's only implicit in the article, but the reason the President definitely doesn't have immunity in the above case is because the defamation he is accused of took place before his inauguration. I found an article that discusses what is "an official act" for the purpose of Presidential Immunity once he is the sitting president, but it's not that clear, except that the most important case on the matter says it includes "acts within the outer perimeter" of the President's official duties. It would be especially contentious here because of how the President mixes the official with the personal though probably he is immune for any stupid statement he makes regarding government personnel.

Thank you for this. I don't know but I think the difference might be that Presidents don't usually engage in public cat calls with people they don't like using crude and vulgar language, whereas the present incumbent seems to relish the opportunity to insult Americans as if they were purposefully lying, or disloyal, which they might be to him, and to the USA. I think he believes loyalty to him and the USA are the same thing. And I wonder what happens after a time when so many people and institutions are labelled 'fake'. 'liars', 'crooked' and so on, and if people then believe anything they are told. That the President looks and sounds juvenile and a bully is something he doesn't care about, just as either doesn't care about the reputation of the Office of President, or has the longer term intention of degrading the value of the office, just in case Americas elect a person called Jose, or Mustafa or Melanie.

In the UK there is something called Parliamentary Privilege which means an MP can stand up in the House of Commons and accuse another person or persons of criminal activity or lying and cannot be prosecuted -but this privilege is very rarely used and when it has been the accused has often urged the MP to repeat the claim outside Parliament and thus be sued. Tom Watson, the Labour MP used Parliamentary Privilege to accuse Rupert Murdoch of perverting the course of justice in 2011 at the time of the phone hacking revelations; and another MP in the same year used Parliamentary Privilege to name a footballer who had issued an injunction preventing newspapers from identifying him as a man who had cheated on his wife (the footballer is currently manager of the national football team of Wales). The latter MP was accused of self-promotion and was not popular as he in effect undermined privacy law in the UK, but not with much effect as there are numerous injunctions which prevent the press from revealing that one well known football manager was having an affair with a younger woman, and a most famous gay pop singer was alleged to have been involved in some sort of 'sex scandal'.

vamille

03-22-2018, 04:38 AM

Trump is a good man .People kill people not guns so fun king stop it with Trump

trish

03-23-2018, 05:46 PM

...People kill people not guns...
Really? Ask a coroner. Arteries severed by bullets passing through flesh, organs exploded by bullets fired by military-style weapons. Wounds kill people.

“When one of the trauma surgeons went to open a young victim in the operating room, there was ‘nothing left to repair’ because a bullet from Cruz’s AR-15 had ripped an internal organ to shreds. The patient could not be saved.” ( http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5424197/Radiologist-reveals-effects-AR-15-bullets-human-body.html )

“The tissue destruction is almost unimaginable. Bones are exploded, soft tissue is absolutely destroyed. The injuries to the chest or abdomen - it’s like a bomb went off.” ( https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/health/parkland-shooting-victims-ar15.html )

“I was looking at a CT scan of one of the mass-shooting victims from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, who had been brought to the trauma center during my call shift. The organ looked like an overripe melon smashed by a sledgemammer, and was bleeding extensively. How could a gunshot wound have caused this much damage?” ( https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/what-i-saw-treating-the-victims-from-parkland-should-change-the-debate-on-guns/553937/ )

Bullet wounds kill people. Especially those from military-style rifles like the AR-15 and others. Sometimes those bullets are fired deliberately and sometimes not, it doesn't much matter to the victim. You want to shoot these kind of weapons, join the military. We don't need them and we don't want them.

Trump is a good man . Okay now I’m laughing. You mean that pussy grabbing, xenophobic sleazeball we have for a president who never honored a contract, cheats at golf, spends all day watching TV and doesn’t have two living brain cells he could get a spark out of even if he rubbed them together? Try again.

broncofan

03-28-2018, 02:04 AM

I've had a couple of thoughts today, but none so gleeful as my realization that Sean Penn is the worst writer who has ever lived.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sean-penn-bob-honey-who-just-do-stuff-review_us_5ab9a1bee4b008c9e5fa89a2?ncid=engmodushp mg00000004

Some excerpts:

“Whenever he felt these collisions of incubus and succubus, he punched his way out of the proletariat with the purposeful inputting of covert codes, thereby drawing distraction through Scottsdale deployments, dodging the ambush of innocents astray, evading the viscount vogue of Viagratic assaults on virtual vaginas, or worse, falling passively into prosaic pastimes.”

“Hence, his life remains incessantly infused with her identity-infidelity, and her abhorrent ascensions to those constant salacious sessions of sexual solitaire she’d seen as self-regard."

“While the privileged patronize this pickle as epithet to the epigenetic inequality of equals, Bob smells a cyber-assisted assault emboldened by right-brain Hollywood narcissists.”

On the other hand, I'm glad to see Sean Penn and I share an interest in epigenetics. Maybe we both read the same book:tongue:

broncofan

03-28-2018, 05:27 AM

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/03/corbyn-has-won-the-battle-for-the-left/

I agree with every word of this. It's interesting that what what has happened at the top of the party with suspensions actually masks some of the more overt ugliness in the party at the grassroots level. The Corbyn supporters I've come across are some of the most ignorant cranks I've seen in my life; people with no concept of anything that's happened in the last hundred years, people who think the word Zionist sanitizes any statement no matter how difficult it is to ascertain what they mean by Zionist, and who are sure that nobody who criticizes them could do so in good faith. What unifies them is their certainty that anyone who disagrees with them has been bought off or is in some way corrupt.

Beyond that, I heard Deborah Lipstadt is going to be including some of what's going in Labour in her next book. With any luck she'll be sued by some heretofore unrecognized bigot who will only upon the announcement of the verdict be disgraced.

Jericho

03-28-2018, 12:21 PM

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/03/corbyn-has-won-the-battle-for-the-left/.

Ah, "The Spectator".
Article's about as unbiased as this one.
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2018/03/28/reminder-israel-put-up-a-1000000-bounty-for-labour-insiders-to-undermine-corbyn/

broncofan

03-28-2018, 05:46 PM

Ah, "The Spectator".
Article's about as unbiased as this one.
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2018/03/28/reminder-israel-put-up-a-1000000-bounty-for-labour-insiders-to-undermine-corbyn/
It's an editorial. I'm not depending upon it for facts.

I know you're only posting this as evidence of a biased article but I don't even understand the logic of it. Israel could be paying every person on the planet a trillion dollars to undermine Corbyn and it would not explain what's going on. Could they be responsible for statements by Kirby, Downing, Lezard, Livingstone, and all of the people on twitter who are fans of Corbyn and steeped in conspiracy theories? The problem is I've actually seen it for myself.

I could be in the employ of the Israeli government right now (I'm not) and I couldn't have made the people in the Palestine Live group post the type of stuff they posted. I posted this before. I don't actually agree with all of the author's editorial comments, but what it documents is consistent with what I've seen on twitter from these folks. I fail to see how the type of stuff that got posted in that forum, mostly by people who consider themselves left-wing, could get posted without them being completely desensitized to what's right and wrong.

http://david-collier.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/180305_livereport_part1_FINAL.pdf

You have to recall that this facebook group was started by people concerned about the humanitarian situation in Palestine and ended with people posting caricatures, posting the word Holocaust in the Hollywood hills, numerous articles about the Holocaust being a hoax, about Jewish blood making people barbarous, and the merits of Mein Kampf. Some of these same people were active in the protest against the protest of anti-semitism. The party is probably going to suspend some of these people, but I wonder how left-wing movements committed to the principles of anti-racism could fall so far.

Although I agree with Cohen, I'm not as convinced it began with Corbyn or that he has much control over it at this point. But it doesn't help when he acknowledges there are pockets of antisemtism within the party while those pockets are busy yelling it's a smear campaign and starting petitions to try to punish Labour Mps who are concerned about the issue.

Anyhow, here's an article by Hadley Freeman in the guardian that also makes some of the points, though it's an editorial. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/27/jews-furious-corbyn-evasions-labour-antisemitism

Ben in LA

03-30-2018, 10:56 AM

Yes Roseanne has the right to have a reboot of her famous show. But if you want to support a Nazi-sympathizing, transphobic asshole that actually DID disrespect the American flag while performing the national anthem be my guest. Just don’t be surprised with the criticism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls1YVhcLD2c

Stavros

03-30-2018, 05:18 PM

You have to recall that this facebook group was started by people concerned about the humanitarian situation in Palestine and ended with people posting caricatures, posting the word Holocaust in the Hollywood hills, numerous articles about the Holocaust being a hoax, about Jewish blood making people barbarous, and the merits of Mein Kampf. Some of these same people were active in the protest against the protest of anti-semitism. The party is probably going to suspend some of these people, but I wonder how left-wing movements committed to the principles of anti-racism could fall so far.
Although I agree with Cohen, I'm not as convinced it began with Corbyn or that he has much control over it at this point. But it doesn't help when he acknowledges there are pockets of antisemtism within the party while those pockets are busy yelling it's a smear campaign and starting petitions to try to punish Labour Mps who are concerned about the issue.

I fear we are dealing with a movement that is proceeding along parallel lines. It is clear to me that in one direction, the failure to undermine Corbyn's support in the last General Election by depicting him as 'soft on terrorism' because of his 'links' to Provisional Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland, has led to this new attack on anti-semites in the party, who exist in spite of, not because of Jeremy Corbyn. Orchestrated by supporters of the Conservative Party, he is being made responsible for a lot of social media content he has never read, but his inept response to the Mural in East London is an example of how he tends not to condemn but be lenient if the people he has been told are on his side. The Mural itself did not depict 'bankers'; as the artist has pointed out it includes JD Rockefeller and Aleister Crowley neither of whom were bankers, but doesn't explain why their natural features disappear into a grotesque parody of Nazi anti-Jewish iconography. Even if the Mural is satire, it is a poor example of it, and the failure of Corbyn to see it before commenting on it helps his enemies.
But he is not a great politician anyway, so why do we expect him to act like one?

The other rail is the more complex one of racism, which has existed in the Labour Party since its inception in 1900 even though the Party itself is not racist - and let's not forget the racists who vote for it!- just as Jeremy Corbyn is not racist even though some of his supporters are. Just as Corbyn could deny support for the armed struggle in Northern Ireland though I once sat in a room with Labour Party members who did, and still do. You have to wonder how someone selling The Starry Plough outside a GMC meeting stuffs the papers in a bag before joining the meeting as a delegate, though I stress this was not in JC's constituency.

The Trotskyist group identified by their paper -Militant!- were a pain the arse like all Trotskyists, but their rank and file members were drawn from the working class and at one point after the Samson Bond fracas in Liverpool were -not amusingly- dubbed the Labour Party's 'Strasserites', which is even odder as the founder, Ted Grant, who erased his personal history before leaving South Africa for the UK in the 1940s, was rumoured to have been born Jewish.

I have explained before the difference between the Labour left's attitude to Israel before and after 1967 and how it reflects changes on the left of the Labour Party as well as the changes in Israel. I don't see how one can understand it without noting these changes, but I must admit that while David Collier is a hypocrite and a grade A shit, the evidence from social media has surprised me but perhaps I was just not aware of it in the days when I was in the party, due to it being undercover whereas social media has given people who would normally be ignored as cranks and racists a voice we don't want to hear. Also I was in two CLP's in London both of which had sizeable Jewish residents and party members.

And how different is the current problem in the Labour Party from the other racism that was in the news nearly two decades ago? I leave you with this blast from the past, with its eerie echoes from the week-

One of Britain's most prominent black politicians has launched a withering broadside against the Government and the Labour Party for being guilty of erecting 'institutional barriers' against black and Asian people. In an attack that echoes the 'institutional racism' phrase in the Macpherson report, Trevor Phillips, the Labour Party's candidate for deputy mayor of London and now Labour chair of the Greater London Assembly, said that the party had to take a deep look into its soul if it was to regain the trust of its huge black and Asian support.

Writing in The Observer, Phillips said many of Britain's democratic bodies looked as if they had been 'ethnically cleansed' of black people.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2000/may/21/uk.race

broncofan

03-30-2018, 08:02 PM

I agree with what you say. I won't be "online" until next week as I'm typing this on a phone and my thumbs are too fat to write anything useful. David Collier is a very bad person to present this evidence for a lot of reasons, some actually evident from the text of what he wrote, a large portion of which I would redact.

I don't come close to thinking Corbyn, McDonnell et al are actually are exponents of most of the views we see. I do think the response is often "oh shit this looks bad" which they're human and I'd have to be stupid not to understand where that's coming from. I think they went through stages of thinking the complaints were primarily politically motivated to understanding there's something there beneath the level they operate at which is too difficult for them to address and maintain their dominant narrative that they're being smeared.

The world is infinitely more interesting than this issue but I think this is coming up so frequently because many people's personal experience is different from what goes on at many levels of interaction. If you look at shawcrofts response the most charitable interpretation is that she just got tired of dealing with things she thinks haven't been substantive and didn't consider the evidence. But what Alan bull posted only required a cursory glance to understand its abhorrence. This is the problem with trying to deal with important issues in a polarized environment.

Stavros

03-30-2018, 09:22 PM

And I agree with your post, and the article that Jonathan Freedland posted in The Guardian earlier today.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/30/antisemitism-jews-canary-coalmine-fake-news

What puzzles me is why someone like Alan Bull (is that his real name?) would consider the Labour Party his natural home, just as I must admit to being somewhere between amazed and depressed at the drivel I have seen in relation to this issue in the Labour Party. My parents were born before the First World War and thus their lives were shaped, indeed, joined together as a result of the wars and revolutions that punctuated the first 50 years of the 20th century. I grew up in the shadow of those events although neither parent told me a great deal about their experiences, and although I was aware of the Holocaust I did not read much about it until I was in my early 20s and reading the essays in George Steiner's Language and Silence. So much has been written that has increased and improved our knowledge of what happened I am dismayed that anyone would deny it, only to understand they do so because they want to believe something else, be it for emotional or political reasons, much as those who feel a deep need to deny that al-Qaeda was responsible for 9/11.

In this context, fake news is not just an attempt to twist an event to make it seem something other than what it is. It becomes an assault on language itself. Steiner, in one of the most provocative passages in an essay in the collection I cited above, wrote-

"Languages have great reserves of life. They can absorb masses of hysteria, illiteracy and cheapness [...] But there comes a breaking point. Use a language to conceive, organize, and justify Belsen; use it to make out specifications for gas ovens; use it to dehumanize man during twelve years of calculated bestiality. Something will happen to it. [...] Something will happen to the words. Something of the lies and sadism will settle in the marrow of the language. Imperceptibly at first, like the poisons of radiation sifting silently into the bone. But the cancer will begin, and the deep-set destruction. The language will no longer grow and freshen. It will no longer perform, quite as well as it used to, its two principal functions: the conveyance of humane order which we call law, and the communication of the quick of the human spirit which we call grace."
http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/holocaust/steinerls.html

Steiner later had to admit that Paul Celan had in fact gone some way to disproving his own theory, as well as Adorno's desperate cry 'there can be no poetry after Auschwitz', writing in German a poetry of 'that silence' that restored an element of the human spirit, if not its grace. I discovered Celan through Steiner, but wonder if the strenuous campaign against the truth that it is being waged by the semi-literate moron in the White House and his friends risks reducing the human situation to a sequence of events that culminate in some barbarity later generations will query -how did this happen?

Stavros

04-13-2018, 03:31 PM

“James Comey is a proven LEAKER & LIAR,” Trump tweeted. “Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did-until he was, in fact, fired. He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under OATH.”

In his next tweet, Trump wrote: “He is a weak and untruthful slime ball who was a terrible Director of the FBI (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/fbi). His handling of the Crooked Hillary Clinton case will go down as one of the worst “botch jobs” of history. It was my great honor to fire James Comey!”

And he calls himself President of the United States of America. How much longer is this insult to the intelligence going to last?

peejaye

04-13-2018, 05:00 PM

10690481069049

Favorite programme of the "far right". :fu:

filghy2

04-14-2018, 01:47 AM

You really think these people are watching the BBC in their spare time?

1069081

peejaye

04-14-2018, 10:02 AM

& who exactly branded those cunts above as the " far right".
Don't tell me.... You think this Government are slightly "right of center" like that other Public fucking schoolboy twat on here? They're called the "nasty party" for a reason!
You two probably call Blairs' warmongering Government left wing ! Those cunts above are extremists.

Stavros

04-15-2018, 10:36 AM

Listening to the radio over the last few says I have been thinking about 'red lines' and come to the conclusion that the phrase is either without meaning, or is just sophistry, an excuse, and it doesn't matter who uses it, be it George W. Bush, Barack Obama, or Theresa May. The point for me is that chemicals and biological weapons were first outlawed after their use in the First World War, in 1928 and in various other laws since then, and the OPCW believes most stocks of chemical weapons in the world have now been destroyed.

But there has always been the problem of 'verification' -such as the nuclear arsenals of the USA and the USSR-, but in the case of chemical weapons the use of Napalm and Agent Orange in Vietnam by the USA proves that states continued to develop varieties of chemical agents -sometimes for medical purposes which were then transferred to the battlefield, as an experiment- while the evidence that Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran during the war as well as the Kurds during the Anfal campaign, is not contested.

So red lines are not needed, as the use of chemical weapons is illegal and has been so for 100 years. So why use the term? Mostly because there is no international police force, and the states with the powers to 'punish' transgressors either do so, or don't. The USA was not going to prosecute its own President, Lyndon B. Johnson, for breaking international law. When the USA broke international law through its illegal war in Nicaragua, it withdrew from the Court that issued the judgement and ignored it. On the other hand, while Saddam Hussein was not 'punished' for using chemical weapons in Iran and Iraq, 'weapons of mass destruction' was a term invented to suggest his stockpile of such weapons included chemical ones, though the international team of inspectors reported most of them had been destroyed by 2003, and those that remained were of no practical use. Whatever, the decision had been made to overthrow the government and the USA and the UK did just that.

Red lines, it seems, are more likely to appear under the eyes of people who don't get enough sleep. They don't appear on the faces of those who sleep easily at night no matter how many lives are destroyed through bombs and bullets.

But however necessary, international law remains a compelling but often it seems, a useless instrument -is there any way to make it effective if the only people who can do so also break the law?

Ben in LA

04-15-2018, 01:33 PM

Stavros

04-15-2018, 03:36 PM

The same ones that were yelling “Blue lives matter!” are now the same ones with the most criticism of the FBI.

If WWIII does happen, these second amendment fetishists, the “well-regulated” militia and those loud mouthed “patriots” should be the first ones to go fight, not the poor.

I admit I had never heard of Blue Lives Matter and had to look it up. It is a bit rich that people who have killed 'in the line of duty' without prejudice to their careers should suddenly make part of their job description a special cause. Are marines who join up told 'this job may endanger your life'? As if they didn't know?

As for the 'criticism of the FBI', it is surely a sign that there is a potential crisis of government when the President and his supporters not only brand senior officers of the FBI with decades of service fighting crime (and successfully too in many cases) as 'leakers and liars' but even set up a web-page called 'Lyin' Comey'. And when you realise this has nothing to do with the USA or the FBI but the personality of one man (no, not Comey), you begin to see the threat that is posed to democracy itself.

If it were the military, and who knows, if Mattis or some 4-star general displeases el Commandante and the military becomes 'the threat', the 'well armed militia' may all that stands between you and the restoration of the monarchy. Only it will be the lad from Queens not our Queen who is in seated on the throne, demanding obedience, loyalty, reverence and love from all his subjects, with parades, pageants and public sculpture.

An afterthought: Can you imagine supporters of Malcolm X or the Black Panthers in 1968 creating a website 'Lyin J Edgar Hoover'? They would still be in prison, or these days, in Guantanamo Bay.

blackchubby38

04-20-2018, 09:54 PM

I don't know what the DNC seeks to gain by filing a lawsuit that claims that Russia, Trump, and Wikileaks conspired to the disrupt the 2016 campaign. But I think its a waste of time and a big mistake. They should be focused on the midterm elections and starting to figure out who is going to run in 2020. I also think that it shows they still haven't gotten over the fact that Hillary lost and that they can't accept the fact they have made some mistakes along the way that led to someone like Trump getting elected.

broncofan

04-20-2018, 10:35 PM

I don't know what the DNC seeks to gain by filing a lawsuit that claims that Russia, Trump, and Wikileaks conspired to the disrupt the 2016 campaign.
I've seen headlines but haven't read anything about it. My first inclination is that you're right, particularly since the claim is really the end game of a criminal investigation that will either end in indictments and impeachment or not. I wonder if they think they can force depositions or that somehow through discovery they can uncover something. It seems like a waste of resources and possibly energy but it depends who they have handle it and whether it detracts from their efforts in the midterms. But my first thought is to agree with you.

Stavros

04-21-2018, 01:03 AM

Small historical note: after the Watergate offices of the DNC were burgled, Lawrence O'Brien then Chair of the DNC filed a civil law suit against the Committee to Re-Elect the President seeking a million $$ in damages and for the invasion of privacy. The case dragged because it conflicted with the criminal proceedings, but was settled on the last day of Nixon's tenure when the DNC was paid $750,000.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4CzC63NbKwMC&pg=PA163&lpg=PA163&dq=DNC+lawrence+o%27brien+civil+suit++1972&source=bl&ots=lmYXmOLO-g&sig=y0MsmQB4g_0LdwkuzYc_3tD-grQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjNo7jA-cnaAhVlDcAKHWJMBpkQ6AEwB3oECAAQWA#v=onepage&q=DNC%20lawrence%20o'brien%20civil%20suit%20%20197 2&f=false

Also referred to at the end of this report=
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/20/trump-russia-wikileaks-sued-democrats-lawsuit

I suspect that just as the Republicans are using various tactics to smear or sabotage the Mueller Investigation, the DNC feels it should mount a campaign of its own, at the very least it sows doubts in the minds of voters about the probity of the Russian-American Presidential campaign in 2016.

peejaye

04-21-2018, 03:08 PM

This is my thought of the day..... as it is every fucking day!

1070636

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/209433

buttslinger

04-23-2018, 02:44 AM

Stavros

04-23-2018, 07:57 AM

So, what's going to happen? Will Democrat's Wet Dreams of seeing a Republican President slapped in cuffs finally cum true??? In what Universe could the FBI and NYC not have enough proof to impeach and arrest Trump ten times over? What other outcome could happen? How could what's going to happen not be the darkest day in US Politics maybe ever?

Follow the money.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/trump-lied-to-me-about-his-wealth-to-get-onto-the-forbes-400-here-are-the-tapes/2018/04/20/ac762b08-4287-11e8-8569-26fda6b404c7_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.afd5f9c64a3f

Or, as Mueller gets ever closer to the truth will John Barron decide the truth in this case is a 'no-go area'?
The more one reads about this man, the more one wonders when the Presidency is going to be engulfed in crisis. I don't know if there is a timetable for Mueller's investigation to produce a report -on the eve of the mid-terms?

peejaye

04-23-2018, 02:13 PM

Shame you're not more concerned about the state of Leadership & crisis after crisis in your own country! Too busy putting the world to rights, fucking do-gooding Jackass!

Stavros

04-23-2018, 02:51 PM

Shame you're not more concerned about the state of Leadership & crisis after crisis in your own country! Too busy putting the world to rights, fucking do-gooding Jackass!

And your contribution to the debate is what, exactly?
I started a thread on immigration -central to the Windrush scandal- some time ago and it produced no reply; when I post the latest development on the Brexit farce, including criticism of the government of Theresa May, you prefer to respond with abuse rather than debate. I posted a development on the Grenfell Tower tragedy not so long ago -a thread I started- but you have had nothing much to say about it. The USA is important, as is Russia, and other places I have visited, or lived and worked in, and anyway you are free to open and debate in any thread.
I believe with your life experience you could do so much better and it would generate more interesting posts.

peejaye

04-23-2018, 04:53 PM

And your contribution to the debate is what, exactly?

As a very ordinary UK citizen I allow the US to get on with its own affairs, shame you & the fucking warmongers over here don't take a leaf out of that book & keep your big fucking noses out of other peoples business!
Debating Brexit is for those who regret it happened, Nigel Farage speaks for the majority of Brexiteers, it's a shame he's not involved in the negotiations, they'd be finished now!
As with Greenfell; I read only last week this scum in administration have given absolutely NOTHING(££) to any council, as yet, to improve high rise housing! So what, exactly, is there to debate? :confused:

filghy2

04-25-2018, 08:56 AM

You still don't get it, do you Stavros? All problems will be solved by the magic Brexit fairy, who can be summoned by uttering the appropriate incantations - "take back control","Britain for the British", "fuck the establishment" etc. Any problems must therefore due to 'traitors' and 'neo-liberals' who refuse to believe in the magic fairy.

Seriously, why don't you do as everyone else does and just ignore his outpourings of bile? He only posts here to feed his need to nurture resentments, so why give him oxygen?

peejaye

04-25-2018, 10:01 AM

Nice thought :praying:

1071239

peejaye

04-25-2018, 02:24 PM

You still don't get it, do you Stavros? All problems will be solved by the magic Brexit fairy, who can be summoned by uttering the appropriate incantations - "take back control","Britain for the British", "fuck the establishment" etc. Any problems must therefore due to 'traitors' and 'neo-liberals' who refuse to believe in the magic fairy.

I just laugh my cock off at you little fucking men trying to be big men! :claps

Ben in LA

04-25-2018, 02:36 PM

Millennials blame boomers for ruining their lives (https://www.axios.com/51-of-millennials-blame-boomers-1524592674-0d20667a-c9e5-4e30-a430-3957e325a0d0.html), and when you look at the big picture they’re partly correct.

peejaye

04-25-2018, 02:50 PM

Life is what you make it Ben. Make the most of it, you don't get as long as you think.

Jericho

04-25-2018, 11:34 PM

What, independence from sanity?

Nice thought :praying:

1071239

buttslinger

04-26-2018, 07:25 PM

My thought for the day isn't that ignorance is bliss, in fact I would say it's far worse than it seems, and there is no solution.

broncofan

04-26-2018, 07:57 PM

My thought for the day isn't that ignorance is bliss, in fact I would say it's far worse than it seems, and there is no solution.
Signals don't look good right now but I'm not sure it's time for despair either. Though there isn't a ton of activity on this side of the forum these days, I am curious what people think will happen in November with the mid-terms. I think if Democrats win the House Trump will be impeached but that it would require a smoking gun for him to be removed from office.

We are all notoriously bad when it comes to seeing what's around the bend. I posted a thread a couple of months before the election in 2016 asking what people thought would happen if Trump would win given that the polls gave him almost a 50% chance. The answers were mostly half-hearted because people thought he almost certainly wouldn't, and one person said he wouldn't answer because he didn't think he would have to worry about it.

I am reading a book by Cass Sunstein on the history of the impeachment clause in the Constitution and how the founding fathers saw it as being essential to a republican form of government. It is not a purely legal book, but spends more time discussing the early history of impeachment in the colonies and even its roots in England against the King's ministers who were accountable to the Parliament. It is an extremely breezy read, and discusses the history of impeachment, which of course is not to overturn an unfavorable political result, but to remove a President when he begins to abuse his authority and how essential it was seen by the founders who did not think term limits and electoral accountability were sufficient to prevent creeping despotism. I am only one-third of the way through, but it appears that Trump's daily behavior is the type of misconduct and self-aggrandizement that impeachment was designed to check (maybe that's wishful thinking). I highly recommend it to anyone who is curious about how impeachment operates, what standards are relevant for determining impeachability, and just a general tour of its discussion at the constitutional convention.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073X3DV2M/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

blackchubby38

04-26-2018, 11:04 PM

I truly believe that its time for the black community to give white people, especially kids, who listen to hip hop a pass when it comes to saying the n-word. This way we could put an end to outrage that ensues whenever someone goes back in time to dig up six or seven year old tweets.

filghy2

04-27-2018, 02:55 AM

I am reading a book by Cass Sunstein on the history of the impeachment clause in the Constitution and how the founding fathers saw it as being essential to a republican form of government. It is not a purely legal book, but spends more time discussing the early history of impeachment in the colonies and even its roots in England against the King's ministers who were accountable to the Parliament. It is an extremely breezy read, and discusses the history of impeachment, which of course is not to overturn an unfavorable political result, but to remove a President when he begins to abuse his authority and how essential it was seen by the founders who did not think term limits and electoral accountability were sufficient to prevent creeping despotism. I am only one-third of the way through, but it appears that Trump's daily behavior is the type of misconduct and self-aggrandizement that impeachment was designed to check (maybe that's wishful thinking). I highly recommend it to anyone who is curious about how impeachment operates, what standards are relevant for determining impeachability, and just a general tour of its discussion at the constitutional convention.

What I always find paradoxical about the US is that your country was founded as a reaction against autocracy, and the founding fathers clearly intended a fairly limited presidency. yet you have ended up with a powerful imperial presidency. The same thing has happened in parliamentary democracies to a degree - the executive has increased its power at the expense of the legislature. But the critical difference in a parliamentary system is that it's much easier to remove a leader who proves unsuitable. Leaders are often removed by their own party when they become too unpopular.

The founding fathers seem to have assumed that there would be enough people of good conscience on both sides of Congress to constrain and, if necessary, remove Presidents who abused their power. They did not envisage a situation in which a President's party would largely continue to support him whatever he did. I suspect that may prove to be the fatal flaw in the US system in the long term, and possibly in the short term.

broncofan

04-27-2018, 03:35 AM

What I always find paradoxical about the US is that your country was founded as a reaction against autocracy, and the founding fathers clearly intended a fairly limited presidency. yet you have ended up with a powerful imperial presidency. The same thing has happened in parliamentary democracies to a degree - the executive has increased its power at the expense of the legislature. But the critical difference in a parliamentary system is that it's much easier to remove a leader who proves unsuitable. Leaders are often removed by their own party when they become too unpopular.

The founding fathers seem to have assumed that there would be enough people of good conscience on both sides of Congress to constrain and, if necessary, remove Presidents who abused their power. They did not envisage a situation in which a President's party would largely continue to support him whatever he did. I suspect that may prove to be the fatal flaw in the US system in the long term, and possibly in the short term.

I agree that the founders didn't expect this kind of factionalism. They seemed to discuss at length the bad faith of individuals but did not expect it to be so systemic. One issue that partly explains the strength of our executive is the fact that we had a failed government under the Articles of Confederation, in which our federal government didn't even have the power to levy taxes or regulate commerce and states could coin their own money. It is a surprise that in making the adjustment they would not just create a unitary executive, but one whose power could only be curtailed by removal from office. They provide a mechanism for the removal but not a built-in mechanism to insulate the investigation that would lead to his removal.

There was an entire discussion about whether the creation of a unitary executive was a betrayal of the revolution or whether there would still be enough to distinguish a President and a King but they clearly thought that accountability to the public every four years would be more salutary than it is.

I also think it's a bit paradoxical that they ended up deciding on something that insulated the President so much. They were very clear that impeachment should not operate as a no confidence vote and made both the standard for impeaching the President high (treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors) as well as the institutional safeguards (bicameral votes of 1/2 and 2/3 respectively). They could not have possibly known that our system would develop the way it did and that the second vote in the senate would be virtually unattainable.

What's interesting is that when the founders were discussing the impeachment process they considered having the impeachment trial in the Judiciary, but thought there was a GREATER chance of the process being politicized given that the Supreme Court Justices are appointed by the President. They did seem to anticipate the types of ways in which a President could abuse his power. Consider this direction by Madison: "if the President uses pardon power in a corrupt way, by pardoning crimes he himself has advised, impeachment is the remedy."

In the end I think you're right. They expected there would be corrupt officials but they didn't anticipate such tribalism, where factions would develop over the best way to run the country, and it would prevent people from performing their duties honorably. They seemed to take for granted that people would behave badly but that Congressmen would see themselves as distinct from the President.

peejaye

04-27-2018, 12:56 PM

peejaye

04-27-2018, 01:42 PM

Funny how the Political Elite are remaining tight lipped about what's happened in Korea today & what, if any, involvement Donald Trump may of had? :ignore:

Stavros

04-27-2018, 04:25 PM

What I always find paradoxical about the US is that your country was founded as a reaction against autocracy, and the founding fathers clearly intended a fairly limited presidency. yet you have ended up with a powerful imperial presidency. The same thing has happened in parliamentary democracies to a degree - the executive has increased its power at the expense of the legislature. But the critical difference in a parliamentary system is that it's much easier to remove a leader who proves unsuitable. Leaders are often removed by their own party when they become too unpopular.
The founding fathers seem to have assumed that there would be enough people of good conscience on both sides of Congress to constrain and, if necessary, remove Presidents who abused their power. They did not envisage a situation in which a President's party would largely continue to support him whatever he did. I suspect that may prove to be the fatal flaw in the US system in the long term, and possibly in the short term.

The ideas in your lucid post have been dealt with in the article in the New York Times linked below on the forthcoming judgement of the Supreme Court on the 'Muslim travel ban' which they expect the Court to uphold.

In effect, Congress has created a permissive environment in which Presidential power is exceeding the limits imposed upon it by the Constitution, primarily because Congress is itself reluctant to make decisions which are then 'kicked upstairs' as opposed to 'down the road'.

The USA may be on the verge of a serious crisis as Presidential power exceeds its Constitutional limits but the Supreme Court argues it is for Congress not the Court to take action against the President to restore its authority, which a Republican Congress may be reluctant to do. If the travel ban is upheld by the Court then it would mean that Religion has become a definite component of immigration policy which would be Unconstitutional thus presenting the bizarre case of the Supreme Court that is supposed to maintain and interpret the Constitution giving the President the legal right to subvert it.

That the ban is selective in order to protect the financial interests of the President may only add to the moral impurity of the decision of both the Court and the President.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/opinion/travel-ban-supreme-court-separation.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollectio n%2Fopinion-contributors&action=click&contentCollection=contributors&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=29&pgtype=sectionfront

peejaye

04-27-2018, 04:40 PM

Breathtaking.... life in the fucking fast lane. Never a dull moment with these two party animals around :rock2

buttslinger

04-28-2018, 02:17 AM

In Kollege they taught us about two tribes in Africa- one tribe was very conservative, distrusting, lots of fences and distrust, the other was very liberal, every kid was raised by the village. Because it was Kollege, we weren't allowed to assume that the Enlightened Tribe was entitled to look down on the Suspicious Tribe, you have to step outside the situation to see it clearly.
Why aren't the Republicans interested in the Putin Side of this?? Most of my Life we were at war with Russia, what happened? Did Conservative Media make Nancy Pelosi eviler than Putin? If Putin's fingerprints are on the Mueller Investigation, shit will fly!!!!

peejaye

04-28-2018, 10:13 AM

Apologies to my US colleagues but I just thought I'd post this.

1071712

filghy2

04-29-2018, 04:23 AM

The USA may be on the verge of a serious crisis as Presidential power exceeds its Constitutional limits but the Supreme Court argues it is for Congress not the Court to take action against the President to restore its authority, which a Republican Congress may be reluctant to do.

It used to be assumed that the main dangers to democracy were external (communism and nazism), but we may about to find out how easily democracy can be subverted from the inside. It's hard to see how a healthy democracy can survive if one side refuses to accept any constraints on obtaining and exercising power by any means possible, which is where the Republicans have been heading for some time.

There seems to be three ways that this can go:
(a) The US heads in the direction of countries like Hungary and Poland, where the ruling party gains control over all arms of government and manipulates these to entrench itself in power and suppress opposition.
(b) Voters desert the Republican party to such a degree that it is forced to change its ways to avoid remaining in the political wilderness indefinitely.
(c) Voters desert the Republican party but it remains in the grip of white nationalists who refuse to reform, with its supporters increasingly resorting to political violence.

Stavros

04-29-2018, 08:50 AM

It used to be assumed that the main dangers to democracy were external (communism and nazism), but we may about to find out how easily democracy can be subverted from the inside. It's hard to see how a healthy democracy can survive if one side refuses to accept any constraints on obtaining and exercising power by any means possible, which is where the Republicans have been heading for some time.

There seems to be three ways that this can go:
(a) The US heads in the direction of countries like Hungary and Poland, where the ruling party gains control over all arms of government and manipulates these to entrench itself in power and suppress opposition.
(b) Voters desert the Republican party to such a degree that it is forced to change its ways to avoid remaining in the political wilderness indefinitely.
(c) Voters desert the Republican party but it remains in the grip of white nationalists who refuse to reform, with its supporters increasingly resorting to political violence.
At the moment I would opt for C, but I would add that using 'States Rights' the fourth option which is not so far from reality is States using their control of the electoral process to maintain Republican Party control where the electorate is mostly Democrat largely because of your option B. Voter Suppression, Voter Registration controls and gerrymandered district boundaries seem to me to me attacks on the process of democracy and I am surprised the Democrats have not made more of this as a national issue.

If the US was serious about political reform, and again, the Democrats ought to be pushing it, control of the electoral process should be taken away from the States and given to an Independent Electoral Commission which would draw district boundaries, and be responsible for the registration of voters, and the efficient management of elections in every part of the State. There are also other potential changes which I am not sure if the US has considered before but look like this:

The USA has a House of Representatives with 435 seats for a population of 325 million, the UK equivalent, the House of Commons has 650 seats (to be reduced to 600) for a population of 65 million; Australia has 150 seats in its House of Representatives for a population of 24 million. It seems to me that the US needs to adapt to a rise in population and accordingly amend its seats in the House of Representatives to take account of that growth.

There are opportunities for change that would improve the spread of democratic representation, and there are opportunities for mischief that may undermine faith in that democracy. The US has in the past been more open to change than most European countries, I wonder if the Democrats are aware of the potential they have to make voting more attractive to the next generation?

peejaye

04-29-2018, 10:01 AM

Stavros

04-29-2018, 11:30 AM

peejaye

04-29-2018, 12:54 PM

Stavros

04-29-2018, 03:11 PM

This man is 100 times the man you will ever be. Reason; while you're in your Library with your books & your fucking internet this man is travelling around parts of broken Britain listening to people living in poverty because of you liberal shits. People who've lost their skilled jobs to foreign people because they work for half the money, trying to address these huge problems. You sit in your little ivory tower throwing stones at him, silver spoon sticking out of your arse but don't ever accuse me of speaking the same language as you.

I don't know where you go each day when you are not emboldened by the 'fucking internet', but I do leave my apartment, I do shop in this town and sometimes the next, and I do both talk to real people and listen to them too. In fact I had an extensive chat with a local bus driver who wants to run for the Council for UKIP even though I failed to persuade him to run as an independent instead, so as not to be an object of ridicule in a constituency where UKIP doesn't even make it to the toilet walls.

I could yet again point out to you that I am not a liberal but as is apparent this is the kind of detail that passes you by, as is the simple fact that Dame Farage is a free market capitalist of the kind that regarded Margaret Thatcher as the Second Coming- but without the sexual connotation.

That will be the same man who made a small fortune from the liberalized capital markets that followed the 'big bang' (think gang bangers without the sex) in the 1980s that became part of the globalization of capital, and later still as a functionally useless Member of the European Parliament who trousered over a million quid in salary and expenses but has to wait nearly 10 years to get the pension he is entitled to receive from an institution he is dedicated to destroy. So I guess he is 100 times the man I am, in terms of money obtained under false premises, and in terms of the weight of hypocrisy compared to my rather more modest and less lucrative modesty.

As for the People who've lost their skilled jobs to foreign people because they work for half the money, you might recall that when Dame Farage was mopping up commissions on capital markets, those same markets, encouraged by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher throughout the 1980s were off-shoring jobs in 'traditional industry' from Europe and North America to China and other parts of Asia, and that the growth of China following the massacres in 1989 rescued the global economy from recession, and that it is because of China's economic growth that you have had affordable clothes, affordable long haul flights, affordable flat-screen tv's and smart phones, and probably the affordable computer on which you surf the 'fucking internet' and post your views on Hung Angels.

It is called, after all, capitalism, and if you don't like it I don't know why you would be so besotted with the man who helped to make it happen, and who thinks free market capitalism (also known as liberal economics) should be even more aggressive than it has been, and who does not care in the slightest about the fate of the British people whom he has held in contempt for his entire political career as the man who led UKIP, a party he described as a party of 'low-grade people', a designation that fits him perfectly.

Is that why his children have German passports?

peejaye

04-29-2018, 04:01 PM

buttslinger

04-29-2018, 06:32 PM

Weed is legal in DC now, you can buy a trinket from a vendor for $200 and get an ounce of primo herb as a loophole treat, I guess like those gun-show loopholes. Marijuana's stock is going up, as opiates run amok. My State Virginia is about to make medicinal marijuana legal for a wider range of ills, I need a RX stat!!

Stavros

04-30-2018, 09:46 AM

I knew all that thanks, I've actually started following him on Twitter along with the other 1.19 million people, not UKIP just him. As I think you know; I do support a Political Party & don't walk around with part of a fence hanging out of my arse from sitting on it all day slagging off both sides.
Oh.... & I still like him, his passion & his beliefs for his country.

Let me get this straight: you follow, indeed admire Nigel Farage, but vote Labour? Surely some contradiction here....?

And do you agree with Farage when he says that the American President 'has a point' when banning transgendered people from serving in the US armed forces?

How about his support for Roy Moore in the Alabama election? And the comment he made that Americans should be more concerned with the influence of the 'Jewish lobby' than Russian interference in their elections? And is it not curious that at a time when George Soros (who is Jewish) and his Open Society Foundation is under attack in Hungary where it is based, Farage had this to say about him:

We’ve never, ever in the world of politics, seen a political pressure campaigning group with this kind of money. They’ve got more money than most governments have got. From what I can see, Soros wants to break down the nation-state, he wants to break down the family unit, he wants to break down all of the norms that we attribute to Western society. I think it’s a very dangerous thing.
https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/nigel-farage-george-sores-and-real-international-political-collusion

Hmmm, where have we heard this stuff before?

peejaye

04-30-2018, 01:52 PM

Stavros, you really should get a life & stop driving yourself insane with Politics. I agree with Farage & everything he has said about Brexit, I'm not interested what football team he supports or who his friends are, here or in the US!
Your getting obsessed with your favourite subject again, Donald Trump. He must be causing you nightmares? I've told you before I know nothing about Trump. I have also never heard of any other of those other characters you mention above as my hobbies are football, beer & world rail networks, not World Politics & do-gooding, sorry.
Oh, & I'm strongly against anything that discriminates against Trans people & the cunts who attack & kill them; I would bury them alive!

Stavros

04-30-2018, 02:18 PM

[QUOTE=peejaye;1836100
I've told you before I know nothing about Trump.
Oh, & I'm strongly against anything that discriminates against Trans people & the cunts who attack & kill them; I would bury them alive![/QUOTE]

If you really are so ignorant, and indeed, uninterested in politics in the US, the UK or anywhere else, then why do you post comments in this section of Hung Angels?

peejaye

04-30-2018, 04:36 PM

:banghead
:banghead

filghy2

05-01-2018, 02:20 AM

Oh, & I'm strongly against anything that discriminates against Trans people & the cunts who attack & kill them; I would bury them alive!

Hello, earth calling planet Peejaye. https://transequality.org/the-discrimination-administration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Russia

If you really believe what you say then why aren't you strongly against Trump and, especially, Putin?

And why do you come here obsessively every day just to complain about how boring the discussion is and how uninterested you are in politics? Isn't that a bit weird?

Ben in LA

05-01-2018, 01:28 PM

Those fiscally conservative Republicans are at it again. (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-30/treasury-s-488-billion-in-borrowing-sets-a-first-quarter-record)

buttslinger

05-01-2018, 09:42 PM

Much like being RIGHT doesn't matter so much when you're throwing back Budweisers and shooting STOP signs, I guess LYING doesn't matter that much when you're raking in millions of dollars to your private Retirement Fund.
Good Times, Good Times...........

Stavros

05-02-2018, 12:14 PM

Those fiscally conservative Republicans are at it again. (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-30/treasury-s-488-billion-in-borrowing-sets-a-first-quarter-record)

Quote from Dick Cheney talking to Paul O'Neill:
Reagan proved that deficits don't matter.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney

All those 'God, Family and Country' zealots also look prepared to say in response to the evidence of the President's pay-off to porn stars and playboy bunnies (also known as women), marriages Nos 1, 2, 3- 'we never said he was perfect but he is giving key jobs to our boys'...or, it no longer matters.
I guess Conservative values no longer matter -not even to Conservatives. Maybe they would prefer to be known from now on as Confederates?

Stavros

05-02-2018, 04:47 PM

Skimming through the headlines I notice something about Kanye West. I haven't googled him to find out who is is, probably some jerk off a reality tv show. Is he important?

filghy2

05-03-2018, 08:02 AM

He's a pretty successful and critically well-regarded musician, married to Kim Kardashian (famous for being famous). Also a complete egomaniac with a history of bizarre statements, which might explain why he gets along with Trump so well.

filghy2

05-03-2018, 09:49 AM

What Planet you two fucking psychopaths are orbiting is anyones business ?
& what website you're getting your warped information from is a mystery, USA in crisis? YOU fucking wish! Only yesterday an economist on CNN said the economy & employment were doing well & Trumps involvement in Korea is also looking favorable. Change the fucking record, no ones fucking listening.

This man is 100 times the man you will ever be. Reason; while you're in your Library with your books & your fucking internet this man is travelling around parts of broken Britain listening to people living in poverty because of you liberal shits. People who've lost their skilled jobs to foreign people because they work for half the money, trying to address these huge problems. You sit in your little ivory tower throwing stones at him, silver spoon sticking out of your arse but don't ever accuse me of speaking the same language as you.

You're absolutely fucking Right Peejaye. Why didn't I see it before?

US unemployment rate is 4.1%. Trump should get the Nobel Prize in Economics as well as the peace prize. Look at the UK - 4.2% Unemployment. What a fucking Disaster! Look at the unemployment rate before the UK joined the common market in 1973 - 4.2%. Clear evidence that being in the EU put people out of work.

Trump is a good friend of the Working Class too. You won't see him supporting big tax cuts for the Filthy Rich or cutting benefits for people at the bottom - not like those Tory cunts.

On top of all this, peace in our time is just around the corner. Trump just has to turn up, fix Kim Jong Un with a stare and yell "fuck you, little rocket man" and Kim will be on his knees, begging Trump to take those Nukes away. It's not as if he went to any trouble or expense to get them or he has any reason to keep them.

Come to think of it, maybe Sir Nigel should share that Nobel Prize in Economics for his rigorous analysis debunking that cunt Ricardo's theory of comparative fucking advantage. Can someone please explain what that Drivel means in English? Why can't these cunts just stick to simple Anglo-Saxon words of four letters? And what sort of Name is Ricardo anyway? Sounds like a Foreign cunt taking jobs from English economists. Not a good English Name like Farage.

The only problem with Sir Nigel is he doesn't go far enough. It's not enough to just stop future Immigration. We need to go back and deport any cunts whose ancestors came from overseas and diluted good English blood. This Neo-liberal Open Borders shit has gone on for far too long - Normans, Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, Romans, Celts, no end to it. If only we had of put up a big Wall before the first Immigrants came we would have no problems today.

As for you Stavros, you can take that silver spoon out of your strawberry fucking gateau and stick it up your arse (keeping your little finger stuck out if you like). Where the fuck do you get off forcing people to come here every day and read your Pompous Drivel when they could be out doing more useful things like getting boozed, immigrant-bashing or studying the collected works of Nigel Farage? And what's with this pretentious elitist idea of studying things to understand them. Real men in the real world don't waste time studying things. They just go with their gut instinct and blame everything on some cunts they don't like the look of.

Jericho

05-03-2018, 08:22 PM

As for you Stavros, you can take that silver spoon out of your strawberry fucking gateau and stick it up your arse.

Silver spoon, how insulting!
In the Stavros Rees Mogg household, it's a 24k spork or nothing! :dead:

Stavros

05-03-2018, 11:30 PM

QUOTE=Jericho;1836704]Silver spoon, how insulting!In the Stavros Rees Mogg household, it's a 24k spork or nothing! :dead:[/QUOTE]

Hard times for all. Just two nights ago I was eating cod and chips in Tasty Plaice with a fork that was supposed to be plastic but had the consistency of rubber. And no, one doesn't eat mushy peas. Definitely for plebs only!

Ben in LA

05-04-2018, 10:39 AM

Neil Cavuto actually went off-script to tell it how it is (Twitter post). (https://twitter.com/teamcavuto/status/992147250934702080?s=21) Needless to say, most Fox “News” viewers didn’t like the truth being told to them, especially via state television.

Jericho

05-04-2018, 01:16 PM

filghy2

05-05-2018, 06:40 AM

Damn, but there's some crazy fukkers in the comments section!

PamBenTrumpin is right onto the truth - George Soros masterminding rampant vote fraud. There had to be an international Jewish-financial conspiracy in there somewhere. Luckily he's an incompetent vote-rigger - must've got the states mixed up in 2016.

Stavros

05-24-2018, 04:23 PM

Reading about the NFL decision on kneeling during the National Anthem, I came across the US Flag Code, which I had never heard of before -does this mean that if the President -any President- wears a US Flag lapel badge he is violating the Code?

Football player Sage Rosenfels makes this point:

Rosenfels then dropped the hammer on the NFL itself by quoting the official U.S. flag code that was established in the 1940s (https://www.usflag.org/uscode36.html#173).

“The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery,” the code reads in part. “The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any way whatsoever.”
He then posted a photo of an official player jersey being sold by the NFL that incorporates the flag into a player’s number — which is a direct violation of the U.S. flag code.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/05/former-nfl-player-lays-waste-leagues-hypocrisy-american-flag-one-perfect-photo/

Stavros

06-03-2018, 07:37 AM

I read this today:

Donald Trump’s lawyers sent a private 20-page letter to the special counsel Robert Mueller to assert that he cannot be forced to testify in the investigation into Russian meddling (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/08/donald-trump-russia-investigation-key-questions-latest-news-collusion-timeline) in the 2016 election, according to a report.

They also argue that Trump could not have committed obstruction (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/07/trump-robert-mueller-russia-investigation-fighting-back) because he has absolute authority over all federal investigations.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/02/donald-trump-russia-investigation-lawyer-private-letter

If in purely legal terms the above is true, and if the Democrats gain control of Congress, they might be best changing the law rather than impeaching the President. It appears that what was considered immoral but not illegal -using the Office of President to make money, for example- has been challenged by a man determined to use the office for financial gain, knowing he can do it legally. Moreover, I think that in a divided Congress, rational changes to the law that deal with legal issues exposed by the current President would attract bi-partisan votes in a way impeachment would not. And it would have the longer lasting benefit of limiting what a President can currently do with the Office.

buttslinger

06-05-2018, 12:15 AM

On TV they said if Fox News existed in the 1970s like it does now, Watergate would have never existed. The White House and Fox have 83% of Republicans believing Mueller is a political hit-man. Fox has the advantage of preaching to a choir that is lily white, while legit news services have to reach out to an audience of all cultures. CNN and NBC have to play by the rules of good journalism, all Fox needs to do is keep Murdoch happy. Slanted Media coverage is worth a fortune. They can change lies into truth. My kind of Lawyer. My kind of Jury.

https://preview.ibb.co/do0fA8/1.jpg (https://ibb.co/eTJBHo)

Yvonne183

06-06-2018, 01:47 AM

Free Tommy Robinson!

filghy2

06-06-2018, 02:55 AM

Donald Trump’s lawyers sent a private 20-page letter to the special counsel Robert Mueller to assert that he cannot be forced to testify in the investigation into Russian meddling (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/08/donald-trump-russia-investigation-key-questions-latest-news-collusion-timeline) in the 2016 election, according to a report.

They also argue that Trump could not have committed obstruction (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/07/trump-robert-mueller-russia-investigation-fighting-back) because he has absolute authority over all federal investigations.

Nixon made similar assertions of unlimited executive privilege. Even after he resigned he continued to assert that "When the President does it, that means it's not illegal". My understanding is that these claims were rejected by the courts (eg he was forced hand over the critical tapes). The Court also ruled against Bill Clinton's attempt to invoke executive privilege in the Paula Jones case. https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/02/politics/supreme-court-nixon-clinton-trump-executive-privilege/index.html

I'm no constitutional law expert, but I assume that the Supreme Court would again reject such extreme assertions if it came to the test, which it probably will at some point. The scary question is what happens if Trump simply defies their decisions.

buttslinger

06-06-2018, 05:08 AM

Damn, but there's some crazy fukkers in the comments section! :dead:

Trump's twitter page has the greatest comments in the world.

broncofan

06-06-2018, 05:20 AM

Nixon made similar assertions of unlimited executive privilege. Even after he resigned he continued to assert that "When the President does it, that means it's not illegal". My understanding is that these claims were rejected by the courts (eg he was forced hand over the critical tapes). The Court also ruled against Bill Clinton's attempt to invoke executive privilege in the Paula Jones case. https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/02/politics/supreme-court-nixon-clinton-trump-executive-privilege/index.html

I'm no constitutional law expert, but I assume that the Supreme Court would again reject such extreme assertions if it came to the test, which it probably will at some point. The scary question is what happens if Trump simply defies their decisions.
Nixon was forced to hand over subpoenaed tapes and the court held that the executive privilege was broad but not unlimited. My understanding is that the executive privilege is somewhat analogous to the deliberative process privilege which applies to agencies that want to shield their deliberations from public view until they've reached a conclusion. The same ideas underpin the privilege, which is that decisions are undermined if officials' thought processes are subject to scrutiny while they are grappling with an issue.

The court will balance the relevance of the information to the judicial process against whatever role secrecy plays to the efficient operation of the executive branch. I don't know how Trump will fare but it's already been determined the privilege has limits and is not intended to protect information simply because the President finds it embarrassing or legally inconvenient.

As for the claim that "if the President does it it's not illegal", that is Nixonian and stems from a similar mindset about the nature of executive power. The belief of Nixon, which was never judicially tested nor part of impeachment hearings because he resigned, is that the President cannot obstruct justice because whenever he acts within his article ii power, the act is legitimate regardless of his motive.

It is an unconvincing argument because the executive branch uses officers to carry out its functions and some of those officers act autonomously. If the President has committed crimes and he puts obstacles in the way of his own officers, he is obstructing justice, notwithstanding the fact that he is taking specific actions he would be empowered to take if not for his corrupt motive.

Firing the head of the fbi=constitutionally permissible. Firing the head of the fbi because he is investigating you=obstruction of justice, a federal offense.

I don't know whether the information the President doesn't want to divulge is covered by privilege but I do know that it would be very difficult to find five intelligent people who thinks Nixon's maxim makes sense.

broncofan

06-06-2018, 05:57 AM

Nixon was forced to hand over subpoenaed tapes and the court held that the executive privilege was broad but not unlimited. My understanding is that the executive privilege is somewhat analogous to the deliberative process privilege which applies to agencies that want to shield their deliberations from public view until they've reached a conclusion. The same ideas underpin the privilege, which is that decisions are undermined if officials' thought processes are subject to scrutiny while they are grappling with an issue.

The court will balance the relevance of the information to the judicial process against whatever role secrecy plays to the efficient operation of the executive branch. I don't know how Trump will fare but it's already been determined the privilege has limits and is not intended to protect information simply because the President finds it embarrassing or legally inconvenient.

Turns out executive privilege is broader than the deliberative process privilege which is just one component. I still feel like the justification for the deliberative process privilege mostly applies to the entire scope of executive privilege which is that the independence of the branch depends on candid communications within it. This is a decent primer on the subject. Doesn't cover exactly how it works in a grand jury setting but gives you an idea that the privilege has a specific purpose and scope and asserting it is not merely to get a rubber stamp shielding any activity from scrutiny. https://lawfareblog.com/primer-executive-privilege-and-executive-branch-approach-congressional-oversight

I feel like the following is the crux of it: The Court rejected Nixon’s argument that the privilege was absolute and therefore precluded enforcement of the grand jury subpoena. Instead, at least when grounded in the president’s generalized interest in the confidentiality of his communications, the Court viewed the privilege as a qualified one, subject to a balancing of the competing interests and legitimate needs of the respective branches—and ordered the production of the tapes.

Stavros

06-06-2018, 09:51 AM

Free Tommy Robinson!

Why? He broke the law, having been warned by the Court too desist from attempting to reveal the details in a case before it was completed, where there is a legally justified ban on media reporting because the defendants are involved in more than one trial. It does not happen often, but happens to protect the integrity of the justice system, should details of one trial affect the decisions of the jury in another. 'Robinsons' aim throughout has been to smear the reputation of Islam on the basis that the religion and the people who practice it have no place in the UK. As a former 'leader' of the 'English Defence League' he is one of many wannabe leaders of the English who have been insulting the country ever since the British Brothers League targeted Jews in the early 20th century, and make no mistake, Muslims might be first in the departure lounge, Afro-Caribbeans and Jews are in taxis on their way to the exit, if he were to make public policy.

Here's the other thing: not only is this former leader of the 'English Defence League' in reality Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, his parental heritage is Irish, not English. He has at various times also asked to be identified as Andrew McMaster or Paul Harris, after, all what's in a name? It might not be fake news, but fake names it is.

He is a loser and an idiot, which is why he is in prison where he belongs.

bluesoul

06-14-2018, 02:30 AM

alex jones is having just a little too much fun reporting about tommy robinson in this segment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEfiDU7jqsI

Stavros

06-14-2018, 11:13 AM

The usual worthless rubbish from Alex Jones, the man who claims Sandy Hook was a Hoax, because he really is that desperate.

Facts:
Tommy Robinson/Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has not been sentenced to death, this is plain stupid as we don't have capital punishment in the UK, and if Prison is a rough place to be, is that a surprise?

Leicester is a Category B prison, not a Category A prison.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prisons_in_the_United_Kingdom

Tommy Robinson/Stephen Yaxley-Lennon broke the law, and deliberately broke the law knowing it would result in a custodial sentence.

Robinson's supporters are Neo-Nazis, they give the Nazi salute openly at demonstrations and attack the police. They have also received public support from UKIP leader Gerard Batten, former UKIP leadership candidate Ann-Marie Waters, Dutch nationalist Geert Wilders, and American nationalist Steven Bannon, while associates of Yaxley-Lennon include Jayda Fransen, the criminal fascist whose videos of hate were approved of by the President of the USA when he re-tweeted them to prove how much contempt he has for the UK and its democratic political system.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/tommy-robinson-free-protest-nazi-salutes-london-violence-police-arrests-attacks-prison-a8393566.html

As for Caolan Robertson, this ridiculous little squirt may be on Alex Jone's speed dial, but he has no other claim to fame.
https://resistinghate.org/caolin-robertson-pretend-journalist/

Stavros

06-17-2018, 10:27 AM

Reading about the way in which the US Attorney General is vetting candidates for senior positions in the law to prevent anyone with even a hint of liberal tendencies from becoming Judges or even working as a clerk in his Department, makes me wonder if there is a transformation taking place in both the political and the legal system, a trend taking place not just in the USA, but in a different format in the UK, Hungary and Poland where 'Identity politics' is being challenged by a crude Nationalism.

The core problem is that the President was written off during the campaign as a loser, based on his lack of intelligence, his vulgarity and the zeal with which he insulted and abused a diverse group of Americans, from its women and veterans to the disabled. Far from the record suggesting he is a one-term wonder, the evidence may show that his support has strengthened to the extent that candidates who approve of him are being selected to run in the mid-terms. What is interesting about this is that instead of being the man who broke the back of the two-party system and led to a re-alignment, what the President and his supporters have realised is that they don't need to break anything, just take over the existing institutions they have ridiculed for so long, and make them their own.

A good case is Abortion, for while they would love the Supreme Court to repeal Roe-v-Wade, they realise now they don't need to, just use the power in the States they control to strip Planned Parenthood centres of their funds, and impose term limits on abortion so strict it is, in effect, impossible for a woman to get one in the State. Similarly, the infusion of alt-right candidates in the justice system, which will affect the Supreme Court as Justices Kennedy and Ginsberg retire, will lead to a firm bias in the Supreme and Circuit Courts, as well as in States, which will make law on the basis of the Bible rather than the Constitution, which will be in practice a dead letter as the new Court simply rejects every appeal made to it that does not fit with their preferred source of law, ie the Bible.

I sense a transformation that is bloodless, silent, and effective unless the Republican Party of T can be defeated. But in those States where the RPOT holds office, a different USA will emerge, the wet dream of the Confederates who always hated the America of Major Lindsay and Martin Luther King, of JFK and Clinton, of anyone born who is Black, Latino, Muslim and Jewish. There is a similar pattern in the UK where a fringe element now want to abolish the House of Lords, that want to see the EU fall apart, that are obsessed with the fantasy of free trade, and opposed to all kinds of immigration.

It is hard to know if this is an experiment that will fail, but if it succeeds, our countries will be even more divided now than they were 25 years ago, and I see no good emerging from such a change.

buttslinger

06-17-2018, 08:40 PM

Mick Jagger said it didn't matter what they said about you on page 67, as long as your face is on the cover of the magazine.
Give the Devil his due, Trump is a Rock Star.
How could the framers of the Constitution forsee that a future President might take the office not to serve, but to be served?
With a served subpoena and impeachment.
I'm sure Mueller sailed past page 67 of his report long ago.
And what Trump calls "fighting back" they call "resisting" in the hood.
After Mueller is through mopping the floor with these wannabe patriots, I hope the Democratic Party grows a backbone and destroys what's left of the Republicans once and for all. Whatever lofty ambitions they had once have been overtaken by time.
Check these Commandments. Killing a guy outside the White House is the only sin this prick HASN'T done! SAD!

https://preview.ibb.co/fAwUvJ/vaetchanan_seeing_layers_in_the_ten_commandments.j pg (https://ibb.co/e8Dnhy)

Stavros

06-18-2018, 03:23 AM

On the one hand, Buttslinger, you might be right, but on the other hand, you can't assume either Mueller or the mid-terms will rescue you from this destructive Presidency. Even though a majority of Americans may disapprove of him, the President and his Republican Party can probably hold on to numerous states where the resurrection of a Confederate mentality has been emboldened by a man who declares his fellow Americans 'liars' and 'traitors' and is an open racist who now shreds immigrant families locking up children in cages reminiscent of Guantanamo Bay. Critically, the take-over of the justice system is designed to reverse every liberal law passed since 1965 when possible, and prevent any new ones reaching the statute books of the State or the Union, the legacy of the worst President in history will be with you for some time.

From an international perspective, it may be even worse, as this sombre but well argued article in the New York Times presents the vision-

At a summit in Canada, the president of the United States rejected associating the country with “the rules-based international order” that America had built after World War II, and threatened the country’s closest allies with a trade war. He insulted the Canadian prime minister, and then, just a few days later, lavished praise on Kim Jong-un, the world’s most repressive dictator. Without consulting America’s allies in the region, he even reiterated his desire to withdraw American troops from South Korea.
Such reckless disregard for the security concerns of America’s allies, hostility to mutually beneficial trade and willful isolation of the United States is unprecedented. Yet this is the foreign policy of the Trump administration. Quite explicitly, the leader of the free world wants to destroy the alliances, trading relationships and international institutions that have characterized the American-led order for 70 years.
The administration’s alternative vision for the international order is a bare-knuckled assertion of unilateral power that some call America First; more colorfully, a White House official characterized it to The Atlantic as the “We’re America, Bitch (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/a-senior-white-house-official-defines-the-trump-doctrine-were-america-bitch/562511/)” doctrine. This aggressive disregard for the interests of like-minded countries, indifference to democracy and human rights and cultivation of dictators is the new world Mr. Trump is creating. He and his closest advisers would pull down the liberal order, with America at its helm, that remains the best guarantor of world peace humanity has ever known. We are entering a new, terrifying era.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/opinion/sunday/trump-china-america-first.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fo pinion-politics&action=click&contentCollection=politics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront

Just as critical is the apparent inability of the defenders of the post-war system to resist this maniac, least of all here in the UK where Theresa May has made so many promises to the man who insults her openly, that it would be hard for her now to do the right thing and tell the President he is not welcome in the UK. Indeed, shadow Foreign Secretary, Labour's Emily Thornberry has now said she will not only meet the President if invited to do so, but accept the invitation to 'tell him to his face' what she thinks of him on the flimsy basis that the UK still has friends in the US, friends the President has already dismissed as 'liars' and 'traitors', where in fact, Emily Thornberry is a disgrace to the Labour movement and an embarrassment to the rest of this country. How can anyone have any effect on a man who knows he is right all of the time, and, like the President's Men who have been exposed as chronic liars who break the law and co-ordinated election issues with the Russians, simply doesn't care what people think.

This is the new politics: I am right, I will do what I want, I don't care what you think and you can get lost.

bluesoul

06-22-2018, 12:46 AM

so- melania trump went to visit detained immigrant children held at the border wearing a jacket that had the words "i really don't care. do u?"

somehow i find that very punk- i'd have just advised her to wear it at mar-a-largo instead. also, a spokesperson for her doesn't get why everyone is focused on that because it has no hidden message whatsoever.

https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/melania-jacket-dont-care-do-you.jpg

https://www.vox.com/2018/6/21/17489632/melania-trump-jacket-zara-i-really-dont-care-do-u

buttslinger

06-22-2018, 04:13 AM

Riddle me this-
I'm Rod Rosenstein and Mueller just came over and showed me proof Trump colluded with the Russians. What do I do?

Immediately file charges?
What if TREASON is like the second or third worst thing they found?
Call all my girlfriends?
Finish the Report like it was the most important report the world has ever seen
Call Mitch for a drink?

bluesoul

06-22-2018, 04:37 AM

https://s8.postimg.cc/aczu6u1id/Screen_Shot_2018-06-21_at_7.34.55_PM.png

couldn't she just moon the cameras?

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1009916650622251009

Stavros

06-26-2018, 08:41 AM

Free speech must apply to all if it is to work, so I wonder about the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington Virginia asking Sarah H. Sanders to leave. I assume the management can ask anyone to leave; but by making this not only public but using her White House twitter feed to do so, did Sanders violate a basic ethical rule on not using official stationary to make a personal remark that could have damaging commercial repercussions on a business? The point being that another restaurant called the Red Hen, but in New Jersey was inundated with over 600 abusive phone calls and negative reviews online even if those Americans can't tell the difference between New Jersey and Virginia, which may not come as a surprise to some. In addition to the President describing a restaurant he has never been to as 'filthy' -is this not a personal comment that could damage a business and itself unethical?- online reviews expose the limits of free speech when one can say of the Lexington restaurant “Fit for a Nazi, this restaurant is perfect for serving hatred and bitter spirits to its liberal customers."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/red-hen-restaurant-sarah-huckabee-sanders-bad-reviews-yelp-virginia-trump-twitter-a8416231.html

The President has been photographed with a McDonald's meal but that chain doesn't seem to have suffered because of it, but more generally I think that confronting politicians you don't like in public is a risky thing to do if they are not on official business. Would it be fair to confront a Senator of Congressional Representative if he or she were in the Mall with their children? It works all ways regardless of party, but if invisible lines are crossed, the political sphere merges with the personal to a degree that may actually damage even further the discourse on politics in our societies, be it the US, the UK, Europe or wherever. We have already had one MP murdered while doing her job, just as someone attempted to murder Gabrielle Gifford in 2011.

But leadership on this should come from the top, so it is maybe not surprising if by lowering the tone of politics and attacking people in vulgar language the President bears some responsibility for this. But I guess its never too late to do the right thing, right?

buttslinger

06-26-2018, 05:38 PM

Even though Trump has the Oval Office and Majorities in the Senate, House, Supreme Court, State Governors, .....he continues to operate in campaign mode and paint himself, his base, and the USA as victims. The first house I ever lived in was a couple blocks from the baseball field where House members were shot last year, so watch out Maxine Waters, don't scream fire in a burning building just yet. In the USA we have this sanity clause in our Constitution called IMPEACHMENT, and it's been in the Conversation since two seconds after Trump was elected.

filghy2

06-27-2018, 02:47 AM

filghy2

06-27-2018, 03:08 AM

Free speech must apply to all if it is to work, so I wonder about the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington Virginia asking Sarah H. Sanders to leave.

I feel uneasy about the restaurant's actions - not because we owe decency to people who show no decency towards others but because this sort of thing is probably counterproductive. It does nothing to convince anyone who is not already anti-Trump and it just plays into the 'us vs them' mentality, which is exactly what Trump wants.

buttslinger

06-27-2018, 04:13 AM

How does the sanity clause work when the lunatics are in charge of all branches of the asylum?

It doesn't. That's why we had elections today. Are LAZY DEMOCRATS the cause of all this? Only if we want to win.
Where's my HANNITY BOYCOTT list?
https://image.ibb.co/ckRPx8/sebastian_gorka.jpg (https://ibb.co/d3b2jo)

bluesoul

06-29-2018, 02:18 AM

so- yesterday milo yiannopoulos "joked" that death squads should start murdering journalists (http://fortune.com/2018/06/26/milo-yiannopoulos-jokes-of-death-squads-murdering-journalists/). today, there was just a shooting at capital gazette in annapolis (http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-gazette-shooting-20180628-story.html).

that my was thought of the day

buttslinger

06-29-2018, 07:32 PM

I hope Mueller catches Putin in his net, two birds with one stone would be nice.
It certainly would be a nice ending to this ugliest of tales.

https://preview.ibb.co/kkXAbd/00.jpg (https://ibb.co/cJ0JUy)

Stavros

07-03-2018, 12:52 AM

Here is a thought that has occurred to me recently but has strengthened in the last two days: under the guise of its leader's attack on Political Correctness, the Republican PoT has declared war on women, and not just American women.

It began in the 2016 campaign with the candidate's relentless, and often tasteless and disgusting attacks on women, from the journalist Megyn Kelly, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Nancy Pelosi, to the vitriol reserved for the number one enemy, Hillary Clinton. But the President, who does not hide his view that the purpose of women is to cook, clean and breed, and has behind him a coterie of religious freaks determined to control women's bodies with all the zeal of the Taliban and Daesh, has extended his and his party's venom to two of the most powerful women in world politics -Angela Merkel and Theresa May.

When the Man walks into a room, he expects everyone to stand up, to praise him, to recognise him as the leader. When he walks into the room at a summit, be it G20, G7 or NATO he is just one of many leaders, and he can't stand it. He hates multilateral bodies because the USA has to negotiate in partnership with numerous parties, and thus prefers to destroy them -the EU, NATO, WTO, NAFTA, the UN- so the US can negotiate bi-lateral deals from a position of strength. But it goes further than this.

When he has talked to Angela Merkel, she cannot hide the fact that she is talking to someone not really interested in politics who is not, and will never get used to being denied, and told he is wrong, as she has done many times. He dislikes Theresa May because when he was rabbiting on about his gold handicap, she wanted to talk about the details of policy in which he has no interest, and of which he has little knowledge. But even more than this, Merkel represents the EU which he loathes and despises, and May represents a weak leader who may not deliver the deal the US wants.

When John Bolton met the 'European Research Group' of Tory MPs over the weekend, I believe he encouraged them to agitate against Theresa May to prepare the way for an internal party revolt that would see her face a leadership competition later this year, but that her perceived vacillating over the details of Brexit is just one aspect of the broader point: the President can't stand women in positions of power, and will do whatever he can to end the political careers of Merkel and May.

A President of spite and revenge, misogyny and chaos; unfit to be the President of the USA; unfit for public office of any description; unfit to be called a man.

buttslinger

07-03-2018, 05:54 AM

My thought lately is that if Trump legalizes pot he's got my vote.
It's getting hot in DC, hot and sweaty, like rubbing your face in the uncleavage of Sarah Sanders Huckabee.
While we're talking about what a buffoon he is, he's picking up Supreme Court Judges like diamonds on the sidewalk. Better to be lucky than good, eh, Donald?
I think Donald's bad with women for the same reason his Dad sent him to Military School: he's bad period. bad apple.
Let's ask his former two wives...oops, they were paid not to talk.
better to be rich than lucky.

If you don't believe in God you should believe in Money, man, that stuff can take you places you've never dreamed about!

Stavros

07-21-2018, 11:29 PM

Meanwhile, hot on the trail of his buddy in Europe, Steve Bannon is to establish a neo-Fascist 'Foundation' in Europe to rival the Open Society Foundation which Bannon loathes and detests:

“Soros is brilliant,” Bannon told the website. “He’s evil, but he’s brilliant.”

The irony is that Bannon thinks it is possible because politics in Europe appears to be so cheap, thus:

He appears optimistic, however, about his potential impact on the European stage, buoyed by the knowledge that the leave campaign’s victory in the Brexit referendum was achieved on a £7m budget.
He told the Daily Beast: “When they told me the spending cap was £7m, I go: ‘You mean £70m? What the fuck?!’ £7m doesn’t buy anything. It doesn’t buy you Facebook data, it doesn’t buy you ads, it doesn’t do anything. Dude! You just took the fifth-largest economy in the world out of the EU for £7m!”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/21/steve-bannon-plans-foundation-to-fuel-far-right-in-europe

Indeed, Mr Bannon. Next question: how much of that £7 Million originated in the Russian Federation?

buttslinger

07-22-2018, 12:46 AM

One of the revelations for me in all this is how much MONEY there is in......what's the word, LOBBYING or PAYOFFS?...
All these people sending huge checks to Michael Cohen for ...his input. Manafort and Flynn raking in millions because they're connected. Buttslinger had to eat shit for all the money he made, that guy deserves a medal. Oh wait, I forgot about the thousands I embezzled.

These guys may be the scum of the earth, but it sure seems like the sun rains cash on them.

One time at work I read an article in a magazine right after the AIDS epidemic began in the eighties, it was the story of a Murder. It seems that a couple guys put ads in all the gay publications of the time, ads in the misery section. They wove a real sob story about a man and his gay lover who came down with AIDS and it was a heartbreaking story, and all these people just started sending them checks! I can't remember how much they were making, but I do remember this one little scam was netting these bozos several times what I was making at my square job. The ad was such a cash cow, that when a third party found out about and tried to muscle in, they killed him!

Stavros

07-26-2018, 03:21 PM

A thought-provoking article in today's Financial Times by Philip Stephens on the way that Nostalgia has been used, abused and manipulated to create a sense of loss/crisis in the present that can only be remedies by a return to the past. Here are the concluding paragraphs-

Nostalgia has always had its place in politics. Respect for tradition is at the heart of Burkean conservatism. The deep irony about the now mythologised postwar decades, however, is that these were times when citizens looked unambiguously to the future. Technological advance was seen as progress, liberalism promised emancipation. The age of Sputnik, colour television and The Beatles was all about shedding the past. Its confidence flowed from the embrace of modernity. The emotions were progressive, welcoming of new technology and newcomers alike.

And now? A fascinating report by the London-based think-tank Demos observes that recent elections in France and Germany, as well as the British referendum, show the “pervasive extent” that language that plays up the status, security and simplicity of the past has infiltrated political culture. People who have lost faith in the future are seeking solace in old, imagined, certainties.

The lesson for mainstream politicians should be evident. The nationalists will always win when the argument is framed by nostalgia. Progressive politics need a message about the future powerful enough to reclaim the voters’ collective gaze. They could make a start by explaining how to ensure our children are better off than their parents.
https://www.ft.com/content/78f1984e-9002-11e8-bb8f-a6a2f7bca546

Stavros

07-26-2018, 04:48 PM

The Russians again? This is becoming a snowball story; are Disney involved too? How long will it be before we see photos of Rupert Murdoch dancing the Hopak with Vladimir Putin?
Senior members of the National Rifle Association (NRA) met the wife of the Russian billionaire who allegedly gave financial support to a woman accused of being a secret agent for Moscow in the US.
The NRA (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/nra) members met Svetlana Nikolaeva, who is the head of a gun company that supplies sniper rifles to the Russian military and intelligence services, during a trip to Moscow during the 2016 election campaign.
Nikolaeva’s husband, Konstantin Nikolaev, allegedly provided funding to Maria Butina, a young Russian woman charged with carrying out an illicit spying operation in Washington. Nikolaev reportedly once invested in his wife’s gun company.

The finding sheds further light on the links forged in recent years between America’s powerful gun lobby and well-connected Russians. US prosecutors allege Butina’s activities were directed by Alexander Torshin (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/18/maria-butina-spy-russia-intelligence-nra-republicans-latest-news), a senior Russian state banker and an NRA member.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/26/maria-butina-nra-svetlana-nikolaeva-konstantin-nikolaev

buttslinger

07-31-2018, 04:12 AM

Thought #1
If you want Trump to rot in prison, you are OK.
If you want oil of vitriol thrown in his eyes, that's on you...…….
#2
My Psychiatrist had a routine test he gave all his new patients to see how "WITH IT" you are.
He asked me to name all the Presidents backwards.
#3
If Mueller has the stone cold evidence on Trump, is it routine that he would stay mum and continue on with the Investigation until it's completion? I'm sure after the Comey/Clinton fiasco, Mueller wants this one done right by the book, but he can't sit on information like that forever. Late September sounds like he wants the people to know the facts BEFORE the election. ???? Yes? I hope so.
#4
Has Rudy's bad Dental work poisoned his mind?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFWv42U1l4A

buttslinger

08-01-2018, 03:56 AM

Thought provided by Judge Jeanine Pirro on Fox News a few minutes ago:
Federal Prosecutor Conviction Rate: 98%

broncofan

08-01-2018, 07:22 PM

This will be the last time I post about the anti-Semitism scandal in Labour for a while, at least until there are more developments. Labour members seem to believe that if you can find a single Jew out of 300,000 in Britain to support a view then the view cannot be anti-Semitic. So you see them post statements from a Holocaust survivor saying "an anti-Semite is someone the Jews hate", or on Holocaust Memorial Day, you see a deluge of harassment of Jews saying essentially that we have made the Holocaust all about ourselves and are selfish for wanting to memorialize our dead. Again, they seem to think the support of a single Jew, or a letter penned by some random number of Jews like 31 (if they could get 32 would they or is there something special about 31?) means that no matter how hostile and hateful the sentiment, one Jewish endorsement inoculates it.

The anti-Semitism by random councilors and the silence and later obfuscation by their apologists are fairly obvious and well documented, from Holocaust denial to claims that Talmudic Jews drink blood to accusations that Rabbis who have expressed concern about Corbyn are really Mossad. But what is even more obvious is the behavior of rank and file members who will at various times say stuff like "I can't be anti-Semitic because Jews aren't real semites", which comes as a great relief to Jews I'm sure. There are the everyday accusations that individual Jews, some of whom have never said anything about Israel, are part of a fifth column, or the random, pretextual attacks on any Jew who speaks out. An article in skwawkbox recently titled "the Jewish War on Corbyn" was a highlight (why not Judea Declares War on Corbyn?), but it was written by a man whose last name is Cohen so all is well.

The sad thing is that no matter how many instances of anti-Semitism there are by rank and file members nor how many high profile cases emerge, there will be members who will continue to say "where's the evidence" and when provided with it say, well what's anti-Semitic about that.

I think the thing to keep in mind is that like any other group of people Jews are reasonable and able to identify hostility towards them. Occasionally you will find a Jewish person who believes a statement that is not anti-Semitic is, or one who will defend the most obvious anti-Semitic statement, but it is very unlikely that you have a large majority of a significant Jewish population think they are being harassed when they're not. The fact is, the evidence is there, but it often trails the objections because not every Jewish person compiles screenshots.

One thing I have asked a couple of Corbyn supporters online who were angry that Margaret Hodge, who in an undoubted moment of indecorous and uncivil conduct called Corbyn a "fucking anti-Semite", is why they are more upset by that than a councilor within their party who denied the Holocaust? Why are they more upset about that than that someone who handles disputes actually defended this person? Most of the time their response sounds improvised; in other words these are people who are day and night talking about a "smear campaign" against Corbyn but haven't heard of Alan Bull, or Damien Enticott, or Gerry Downing, et al.

broncofan

08-01-2018, 11:31 PM

Stavros

08-02-2018, 03:30 AM

Alright, this is genuinely the last post. If I feel compelled to post about it again, I'll create a thread. I just thought I would include the latest evidence as part of my last post. I honestly don't think you have politicians and others acting like this and it's just an aberration.

There are a number of threads in this latest crisis for the Labour Party, I can't unravel them all, and as I have not been a member since the mid 1980s and stopped voting for them because of the Iraq war I can't speak with much authority on recent events. Except to say with regard to Damien Enticott that just as Nigel Farage when he left UKIP said his party was full of 'low grade people' so is the Labour Party at local level, indeed most parties as it is not that easy to get decent people to run for the local council.

It is quite simple -Enticott claims he lives in a 'shared house' or a 'pub' and that his account was hacked by someone who posed the material 'for a laugh' when the reality is that he has been posting offensive material about Jews since 2015 -
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/labour-councillor-suspended-over-execute-12990670

I can only imagine that he has loyal supporters in the local party who even if they don't like what he says (?) stood by him, whereas there are clear guidelines in the Labour Party and someone should have lodged a complaint with the National Executive Committee when the first post in Facebook appeared in 2015. At the very least there would have been an enquiry.

Enticott represents the kind of people who feel empowered by Facebook, Twitter and social media but don't edit themselves, either because they don't care, maybe because they don't think many people read their stuff, but I suspect there has been as deep a vein of prejudice in Labour as there has been in other parties. In the past I have been chilled by anti-Black prejudice in the Labour Party, in one case from a councillor for an east London council who was also a shop steward the union would not take action to remove even when we could prove he had broken internal election rules to protect his position. It is also the case that there were members of the Trotskyist Militant group in the 1980s who were organizing on working class estates in Manchester and Liverpool with a barely disguised contempt for black people.

There is another thread which is quite simply anti-Corbyn, and will use any and all material they can get to present him as soft on issues related to the kind of 'radical' or 'revolutionary' political causes he has promoted since he entered politics in the 1970s. The current theory which links him to anti-semitism and Israel is the theory that the 'Americans' are behind this, and that it dates from the anti-war movement in 2003 which has since cast 'New Labour' and the Republican Party as failures with the knock on effect of undermining automatic support for the foreign policy of the US. To have in Corbyn so openly hostile to Israel a politician who could become Prime Minister has energized those Americans now said to be 'interfering' in British politics much as Steve Bannon has supported the criminal Tommy Robinson, thus -but note the source, we have:

The British state needs to restore the trustworthiness of a potential Labour government in the eyes of the USA. To that end Labour has to offer explicit support for US policy in the Middle East. This was the point of David Cameron’s demands for backing the bombing of the Syrian state and of the Syrian Islamist opposition, and the ridiculous momentary glorification of Hilary Benn in December 2015.
https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1197/smears-roll-on/

In other words, something must be done to replace Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party.

In effect, and this is the last point, Corbyn is now having to account for his past, which didn't matter so much when he was just a back-bench MP, one of those on both sides of the Commons who have been borderline if not actually extremists (they can also be found in the US Congress).
The diving line, as I have said before, is 1967 because it not only marked a major shift in attitudes towards Israel following the war and the illegal occupation of the Wes Bank, but coincided with an influx of those Trotskyists and Leninists who decided Labour and not a fringe Trostskyist party was their best vehicle for the 'parliamentary road to socialism' ie, using the law and the institutions of the state to achieve what the Bolsheviks achieved through violent revolution.

Critically, Israel shifted from being the socialist state founded by the Labour Party in 1948 to becoming an outpost of American imperialism in 1967. The Palestinians, pretty much ignored and written off before 1967 became the victims and the left their 'chapmpions', even as people like Corby tied themselves in knots trying, as happened later with the IRA and the Provisional IRA, to simultaneously justify and condemn acts of 'national liberation' even when they were clearly just acts of murder and the people involved for all their political claims running extortion rackets and much else beside, let alone the bizarre if not hypocritical position of someone on the left offering support for a Nationalist cause.

Somewhere in all this, the bitterness that has followed the war of 1967 and the extremism on both sides has polarised politics much as we have seen it polarised in the US and France and elsewhere albeit around other issues such as civil rights (in the US) and immigration (in Europe).

The language has declined to become raw, raucous and offensive, because it is intended to be so, in the US Newt Gingrich was a pioneer of this kind of dirty politics, with no regard for its consequences. Corbyn has been predictably provocative, because that in the 1980s was the 'language of resistance', but in an attempt to get people to question the 'official view' and question assumptions about Israel and the Palestinians Corbyn failed, because he does not have a coherent view of the issue anyway, just as his supposed interest in Latin America (via his Latin American wives) has not enabled him to mount a serious critique of the collapse of Venezuela or the failures in Cuba. Besotted with revolutionary politics, you defend the revolution at all times, before taking it to task, just as Corbyn stands by those members of his party who stand condemnded as Jews whose views on Israel are not so much critical as just downright offensive because they were instrumental in gettim him elected to the House of Commons and radicalizing the Labour party in the 1980s through Target '82. Solidarity means he is reluctant to call them out, let alone expel them from the party which has nevertheless expelled Ken Livingstone and the lesser known Moshe Machover.

In the end, Corbyn is a symptom of a deep malaise in British (and not just British) politics: a second rate politician. We have rarely been managed by such a poor class of politicians who seem unable to manage, shackled by one crisis after another, unable to control the members of their own party, and a hostage to a language and opinions that were once considered so outrageous they were left at the margins where they were seen to belong to wither and die. The worst part of it is that there do not seem to be any alternative candidates who inspire hope. If Corbyn is under so much pressure he agrees to go, he will only concede to John McDonnell, which would in policy terms be more of the same. just as the replacement for Theresa May could be the proven liar, managerially incompetent, rule and law breaking fraud called Boris Johnson.

We live in dark times.

Stavros

08-02-2018, 10:48 AM

Extremism of a different kind, in this case Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as 'Tommy Robinson'. Ezra Levant, founder of Rebel Media in Canada was shredded by Eddie Mair on the BBC's PM programme last night (1 August 2018) when Levant attempted to defend the manner in which Yaxley-Lennon broke the law -for which crime he may yet be returned to prison. The point of interest is the international support this nasty thug has received, a lot of which either does not understand how the Law of England works, or doesn't care, or believes the law should be suspended when dealing with Muslims, which is pretty much the same as doing away with the law altogether. The first link outlines the case, the second the international backers raising money for his so-called 'journalist'.

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/why-tommy-robinson-was-jailed-over-facebook-rant-outside-leeds-crown-court-1-9184513

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/tommy-robinson-free-prison-release-contempt-court-farright-edl-a8472796.html

buttslinger

08-03-2018, 04:45 AM

Will Trump flip to get Putin? They say he's got the keys to every door of the US Embassy in Moscow. But that's just what they say.
Jeez, these sleazoids sure get paid well, Manafort's "Endangered Species Line" of sports jackets cost a year's salary at McDonalds. I'm told that the Scammers all want jury trials, I guess they think they can sell anything. One of Manafort's houses is in the neighborhood that used to go to my high school. Man, those rich kids had it made. It's good to be rich. My thought of the day is it sure would be nice to be rich. Yeah Man. Stupid Rich.

https://image.ibb.co/d17iiz/tumblr_p9569n_Zv_NL1wsb8fgo1_640.jpg (https://ibb.co/jw30Ve)

Stavros

08-05-2018, 10:06 AM

I wonder...

The US first lady, Melania Trump (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/melania-trump), said she would be open to visiting the NBA superstar LeBron James’s new public school, the day after her husband questioned the Los Angeles Lakers player’s intelligence.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/04/lebron-james-donald-trump-insult-melania-trump

Who will the Republicans choose as their candidate in 2020? Oh wait, she wasn't born in the USA. Ah well. Maybe the question should be, who will she campaign for in 2020?

buttslinger

08-05-2018, 07:20 PM

I remember when the thought of an Eastern European Trophy Fuck Wife as First Lady was a big laugh, I remember when John McCain would have been the worst President ever. In the broadest sense It seems like Democrats hate Republicans because of what they do to the Country, and Republicans hate Democrats because of what they do to them personally. It kinda seems like the people who like Trump like him because the Democrats detest him personally. Like in so many of my posts, this is where it all falls apart, who can say what's really in the mind of another, especially when half the time they don't know. After all this mess is over, we'll have a President that isn't a criminal, but I have a hunch we'll still have half the country hating the other half, because we have a two party system. There's only one person who can unite the country now: Vladimir Putin. Thanks Trump, you're a genius.

buttslinger

08-06-2018, 07:50 PM

In 2008 we were debating whether or not Banks were too big to fail, and I think for the next 8 years Businesses sat on their money in the stock market, in a pissing match with Obama as to who the American People belong to, big Business or Big Government. Now with Trump at the helm destroying every sensible REGULATION and tossing CEOs 1.6 trillion, there's no question Big Business RULES.
Luckily every other Country in the World faces the same dilemma, when do the WORKERS get to see the fruits of their labor?
When we sent the Marshall plan to Japan, we introduced milk into their diets and they all grew two inches. We told them the way to run businesses, and for a while there Japan was kicking our ass with Sony Trinitrons and Honda Accords. But American Businesses don't follow the rules we taught Japan, American Bosses made rules to make themselves rich. In Japan the lowest factory worker can "shut down the entire line" when he or she spots a mistake. In the USA the Bosses are bragging about their golf score in the office, while pissed off workers screw with the product. So why is the USA still the most vibrant Economy in the World? Nuclear Weapons?
When Republicans say "WE" can't afford Medicare for all, they mean freewheeling Big Businesses can't afford it.
https://preview.ibb.co/fHwA3z/oo.jpg (https://ibb.co/hpXiOz)

buttslinger

08-06-2018, 11:40 PM

For sore eyes:
https://preview.ibb.co/mZt20e/1.jpg (https://ibb.co/n5kt6K)

Stavros

08-08-2018, 12:49 AM

I can't recall if the word Collusion has been part of our posts related to the Mueller enquiry, but an article in today's New York Times, confirms that 'collusion' has no precise definition in law and prompts the thought that for once the President may be right that there was no collusion with Russia, but that the more serious allegations remain.
I have found a selection of legal opinion which replaces the word Collusion with the more intense Conspiracy, thus increasing the weight on the President's shoulders, to add to the case that the New York State Attorney General has brought against the President, his family and their charitable foundation.
I don't know if in the latter case he will settle out of court rather than have his behaviour -and tax returns- made public, we shall see. Both on the BBC 2 Newsnight programme this evening, and yesterday on the Radio 4 lunchtime news discussion, defenders of the President sounded desperate and dismissive of the legal issues, not expressing despair at the repeated tweets and comments from the man himself that contradict previous statements and appear to harass the Special Prosecutor. Maybe we are reaching the point soon where he must decide if he is going to stop it all, if he can, and take his chances on the mid-terms.

The legal debate here-
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/12/what-is-collusion-215366

The New York case here-
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/14/trump-charity-sued-latest-new-york-attorney-general-violations

buttslinger

08-10-2018, 06:47 PM

I'm getting TV ads about K-12 "internet schools" … instead of brick buildings and school buses, kids get to learn in their pajamas in front of the TV-Teacher. I'm guessing this is a Republican plot to save money at the expense of the poor. Marketing cheap education for the masses. Rich kids go to Prep School. Trump's Education Secretary Betsy DeVos doesn't even believe in public school, the great American melting pot.

Stavros

08-14-2018, 03:57 PM

The Corbyn situation shows no sign of rest even in the 'Summer Hole' (as the Germans call) it, or the 'Silly season' in the UK.

The latest controversy concerns the visit Corbyn made to the Palestinians Martyrs Cemetery in Tunisia in 2014 when a wreath was laid on the graves of men assumed to have been part of the Black September unit that murdered Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1971. Corbyn says he did not participate in the ceremony for Black September 'martyrs' but the victims of an Israeli air-strike on Tunis -at that time the HQ of the PLO- in 1985. It doesn't get any better when Corbyn is quoted thus:

“I was there because I wanted to see a fitting memorial to everyone who has died in every terrorist incident everywhere because we have to end it. You cannot pursue peace by a cycle of violence; the only way you can pursue peace [is] by a cycle of dialogue.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/13/jeremy-corbyn-not-involved-munich-olympics-massacre-wreath-laying

One can easily dismiss the outrage of the world class hypocrite Benjamin Netanyahu, who every year celebrates the terrorist attack on the King David Hotel in 1946 causing 91 deaths and 46 injuries, whereas the Israeli historian Mordechai Golani takes a different view:
Seventy years after the pre-State of Israel Irgun underground militia blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing more than 90 people, historian Prof. Mordechai Golani called the attack "an act of terror that stained our history, leaving it scarred.”
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-historian-calls-1946-attack-on-king-david-hotel-terror-1.5414668

No, the real problem is that Corbyn has for most of his political career taken sides in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians choosing the latter because of their 'revolutionary' credentials, something that was important for the 1968 Marxists, Trotskyists and various other left-wing radicals who also defended or justified the actions of the IRA and the Provisional IRA, the Viet-Cong, and so on. From this perspective, Palestinians are victims of Zionist Imperialism or some concoction based on Zionism and American Imperialism choosing Israel as its runway in the Middle East, and so on.

What Corbyn does, however, is simply ignore the question that asks if the PLO was worthy of the claim that it represented the Palestinian people? And if he is so opposed to violence, why offer support to some of the most murderous groups in the Middle East who did not discriminate between Jew and Arab, Muslim and Christian, but killed anyone who got in their way?

Even if you allow for splits in the PLO caused by doctrinal differences between Arafat's Fateh movement and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and yet more splits -the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and smaller groups, the fact is that the various branches of the PLO were as committed to murdering Palestinians as they were Israelis.

Black September, for example, chose as its first victim not a Jew, but the Jordanian Prime Minister, Wasfi al-Tell who had been given the responsibility of throwing the PLO out of Jordan, a bloody campaign that began in September 1970 following an attempted assassination by the PFLP on King Hussein, and a campaign that ended the following year when the PLO removed to Lebanon, where it caused havoc in the domestic politics that were a partial cause of the civil war that broke out in 1975.

Wasfi al-Tell was shot dead in Cairo, around the same time his younger brother living in Amman was also a target though Fateh only succeeded in killing their housekeeper who was, needless to say, a Palestinian.

The PLO, notably in the capital Amman, had behaved with the kind of reckless criminality that has taken many politically motivated 'guerilla' groups away from their root cause - for example, the 'Real IRA' has been ranked the 9th richest 'terror group' (topped at the time by ISIS see the list here
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/real-ira-is-ninth-richest-terror-group-in-the-world-30748913.html)

The PLO was responsible for protection rackets, daylight robbery, summary executions, and more rapes than anyone bothered to count. And when the PLO moved to Lebanon, it carried on where it left off in Jordan.

Corbyn may not have read Yezid Sayigh's comprehensive history Armed Struggle and the Search for State (1997), but to do so puts that 'armed struggle' into context, explaining why it became so central to the Palestinian search for justice after 1967, but also why they abandoned it in the 1970s as their primary strategy when it was clear that it did not work and caused them more problems than they were worth. Moreover, by adopting the most militant Palestinians as their favoured clients, Corbyn and the Labour left in his penumbra, and crucially, the Israeli government, ignored the Palestinians actually living under the illegal occupation in the West Bank and Gaza District until they emerged at the Madrid Conference in 1990 as the only sane voices the Palestinians had. Indeed, had the Israelis not chosen extremists -they supported the formation of HAMAS in the first Intifada as a counter-weight to Fateh- they could have reached an accommodation with Haidar Abdul-Shafi and Hanan Ashrawi that would have or could have produced a peace treaty not unlike the one that was eventually signed in 1993, the peace treaty that Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu were, and are committed to destroy.

But that is a 'what if' in history, whereas Corbyn chose his 'revolutionary' friends to maintain his public profile as a committed radical.
But there are times when you must ask yourself, do I need friends like this? And with so many Palestinians to choose from, why choose the ones so closely associated with murder and crime?

Jericho

08-14-2018, 06:09 PM

The latest controversy concerns the visit Corbyn made to the Palestinians Martyrs Cemetery in Tunisia in 2014 when a wreath was laid on the graves of men assumed to have been part of the Black September unit that murdered Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1971.

Still, takes the heat off Boris, eh!

Stavros

08-14-2018, 09:08 PM

Still, takes the heat off Boris, eh!

Not for long, he doesn't like it when he is not the centre of attention. He will be back with some more flippant nonsense in the Telegraph soon.

broncofan

08-14-2018, 09:52 PM

broncofan

08-14-2018, 10:32 PM

When you look at Boris Johnson's comments there's nothing to deconstruct. There's no guile, there's no pretense, there's just ridicule and malice. It is the type of jibe a person on the right says because they think nobody will be concerned about it. One almost expects bigotry from many on the right, though it doesn't make it less reprehensible.

It is more surprising to see on the left, but also dangerous because the left must be a bulwark against the normalization of hatred and irrationality. To see people on the left rightly call out Israeli "what-aboutery" and then engage in what-aboutery when it is convenient is dismaying.

It can serve no humanistic principle to castrate and murder an individual who has done nothing wrong out of expedience for a cause or based on some notion of collective guilt. It is not bourgeois or privileged to sympathize with the athletes who were brutalized nor is it heroic (or even acceptable) to sympathize with their torturers.

Stavros

08-15-2018, 01:40 AM

I agree with Stavros' post above, but I guess one element that has been striking for me is that I can't see anything coherent about what Corbyn does.
If he wants to meet with odious people because he doesn't believe in de-platforming people, he would have to not de-platform people.

Again, the point of reference here is the 1960s when Corbyn developed his political position, with the depressing fact that he hasn't changed his views since then. I believe the famous JM Keynes goes somethng like 'I make up my mind based on the facts, and when the facts change, I change my mind', yet Corbyn and also McDonnell argue as if there had been no change to capitalism in the last 50 years, as if Labour had not lost four general elections in a row. They have no coherent view of the state, and like most Marxists, are unable to make sense of nationalism or offer a more appealing alternative. They have supported National Liberation movements because they see them as 'revolutionary' even socialist, but a national movements by definition cannot be socialist, something that always undermined their support for a 'United Ireland'.
Unless you believe the 'revolution' for a National cause will then lead to something different, much as the February Revolution led to the Bolshevik Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution in Iran -supported at the time by the Socialist Workers Party ('All The Way With The Ayatollahs' screamed their paper in February 1979)- before the Mullahs took over in another flop for the UK's perennial losers.

The attachment to revolutionary causes is derived from their admiration for Lenin and the belief the Russian Revolution was a triumph, not disregarding the astonishing level of violence it released, but accepting it as part of a sort of cathartic reaction to oppression. What did you expect? It was a revolution! The long list of causes to be supported ranged from the Viet Cong to Salvador Allende, from the Shining Path to the PLO, but it gets more complicated when you factor in the Red Brigades, the IRA/Provisional IRA and Baader-Meinhof/Red Army Faction because where we never really saw the victims of the faraway 'revolutionary struggles' the European 'guerilla' groups were right here. So they condemn all acts of violence, at the same time believing in the cause. 'Yes, I believe in a United Ireland, but don't approve of the means being used to get it'. And then, in the pub afterwards they tell you they want precisely the revolution they have just said they don't approve of, because there is no revolution without violence.

From here, you get to a position where you don't share a platform with 'racists and fascists' which would endorse their views, or in Corbyn's case, not even the Tories. If he was all but invisible on tv during the EU referendum it was because he would not share a platform with David Cameron, and the only occasion when I think he did appear in a tv debate was when Cameron wasn't there. So the only people he is going to share a platform with on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are committed to one side, which is rather like saying he doesn't believe in a peaceful solution, because a true peace can only be negotiated with both sides, just as two communities locked in such a small space must either find a way to co-habit or face one or two more decades confronting each other with no peace in sight. He enjoys the struggle, and has no plan for peace.

For the same reason, John Hume was treated with contempt by Corbyn and Livingstone in the 1980s, yet it was Hume more than any other party leader in Northern Ireland who worked tirelessly to create a dialogue between communities in Northern Ireland and between North and South which, when the time came, was one of the outcomes of the Good Friday Agreement, in reality a minor triumph for a man the left ridiculed as a waste of time.

Peter Hennessy made the point on BBC Radio 4 last Friday that for the first time in its history, the hard left that had always been a noisy fringe, have taken over the management of the party. Corbyn's primary aim, and he will step down when he thinks he has achieved it, perhaps after this year's conference, or next year, is to re-structure the Labour Party as a Leninist vehicle for his version of the Parliamentary Road to Socialism. This entails building a vibrant membership, which has been achieved now with over 500,000 members, but organized in such a way that instead of the members informing the leadership the aim is for the leadership to inform the members, for the 'delegates' in between to act as cadres explaining the policy platform of the party, in effect issuing them with a party line.

I don't think Corbyn cares too much about anti-semitism, the Middle East or the Americans (another blind spot the British left has never been able to understand), he is focused on building support around a core set of policies on health, housing, education, transport and the utilities that he believes the public are mostly concerned with. The policies are no more radical than those Harold Wilson proposed in 1964 and 1974 or Clement Attlee in 1945, but the party is different, the tone is different, and, crucially, the economic circumstances different and much more fragile than they were in the 1960s, and we have yet to feel the true force of Brexit.

There is a sense of desperation in British politics, rather than optimism, as the cloud of Brexit hangs over us like a sword waiting to fall. I have never before known such a lack of confidence in our political leadership. It is as if they are all useless. And that can't be good. Or maybe I am too much of a pessimist.

broncofan

08-15-2018, 11:35 PM

https://twitter.com/JohnBrennan/status/1029830514230865920

More impeachment material. I don't know how long ago we crossed a bright red line but I doubt people have gotten this desensitized to the corruption that this will not be discussed for a week or so in the media and then buried or forgotten for the time being. I'm sure there will be a handful of legal experts who will claim that because security clearance is not an entitlement or a guaranteed right that revoking it for self-serving reasons is not impeachable. Or maybe they'll say we cannot even inquire into the reasons it was revoked to begin with since the executive is in charge of the process.

There's something almost boring and mundane about the way in which he can do things that are corrupt and people can scratch their heads asking where it ranks on the list of things he's done.

Stavros

08-16-2018, 01:54 PM

Given that revenge is fundamental to the President's actions -and indeed, the decisions of most of his senior appointments- Obama Made it, We Destroy It- it is hardly surprising that he should act out of spite when insulting and abusing his fellow Americans for not adoring him, for not telling him he is the greatest and the most popular President in History. You can at least be relieved to know that while his taste in home furnishings is similar to those of Saddam Hussein and Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi, he has not yet ordered his 'enemies' into the Oval Office to blow their brains out, or have them tortured before being executed, as happened with Saddam's two sons-in-law when they were persuaded to return to Iraq after fleeing to Jordan.

Rather than impeachment, the Democrats ought to compile a list of reforms to the Presidency and the political system to make America governable again, by the people, for the people, not some semi-literate con-man who doesn't even remember where his father was born and thinks he can renege on international agreements anytime he feels like it.

Limit the powers of the Presidency in law, stop gerrymandering by the states and create an Independent Boundary Commission so that Congressional Districts will comprise a balanced representation of the people who live in them, so that all Americans can register and vote.

While it is encouraging to see a new generation of candidates being selected by the Democrats, do the cohort nominated so far illustrate how badly divided the USA is, when the Republicans appear to be nominating people who ten years ago would not have been considered fit for office? And where is the united voice the Democrats need to convince voters they have the vision to take the USA into the future rather than the past? If revenge is one of the components that has made the Presidency look like a low-grade tv soap opera, maybe the Democrats should go in a different direction, with a different tone of voice, and offer the people something positive instead.

broncofan

08-16-2018, 09:20 PM

Limit the powers of the Presidency in law, stop gerrymandering by the states and create an Independent Boundary Commission so that Congressional Districts will comprise a balanced representation of the people who live in them, so that all Americans can register and vote.

There are certain things Congress can do and some they probably can't without a Constitutional amendment. Among the things I imagine they can do is to add some enforcement ability to the Emoluments Clause. They can also pass anti-nepotism laws that apply to the President. They can try to pass laws that protect investigations into the executive branch by special counsel, though this is already hitting areas that might require a Constitutional amendment to address.

There was a case back in the 70s called Morrison v. Olson where the constitutionality of the special counsel provision was at issue. The special counsel provisions provided for an independent counsel to investigate the executive branch and the special counsel would be limited in tenure and could be fired by the Attorney General for cause. The Constitution gives the President the ability to fire "principal officers" of the executive branch and it was argued in the challenge that limiting the President's ability to fire the special counsel directly was unconstitutional. The Court ended up upholding the special counsel provision. The reasons the Court gave was that the special counsel is limited in tenure (and therefore not a "principal officer") and can be fired for "good cause" by the Attorney General. However, they probably would not uphold a law preventing the President form firing the head of the FBI or his Attorney General and installing a puppet to fire the special counsel. Until there's a constitutional amendment the remedy is impeachment.

I still agree with you that the idea of reform, where it is allowed, and to the extent that it can prevent self-dealing and nepotism is extremely important. Also the safeguards for the democratic processes are important.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/487/654/

broncofan

08-16-2018, 09:29 PM

My point above is that while you're right some problems with addressing the President's conduct prospectively is that he or she is given certain powers that are inherent and can't be removed by law and the remedy for most types of misconduct is almost exclusively impeachment, a political process. What good is a law without enforcement? And what good is a process that cannot be completely insulated from interference by the person being investigated?

Stavros

08-17-2018, 01:05 AM

There are certain things Congress can do and some they probably can't without a Constitutional amendment. Among the things I imagine they can do is to add some enforcement ability to the Emoluments Clause. They can also pass anti-nepotism laws that apply to the President. They can try to pass laws that protect investigations into the executive branch by special counsel, though this is already hitting areas that might require a Constitutional amendment to address.

So far, so good, because these things appear to be 'doable'. However, you may have read that the nominee for the Supreme Court, Kavanaugh, seems to think special counsels investigating the President is wrong, though I would have thought there must be a basic principle in the Constitution that the President can never be 'above the law' even when he is, in a manner of speaking, making legal decisions -for example, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Surely the whole point of the Presidential powers in the Constitution was designed to prevent a President acting as a dictator or King, even if they never thought to add emolument clauses because they never expected a President to be corrupt in that way.

Your superior knowledge of the law and America makes me wonder how the 'States rights' issue conflicts with my proposal to create an Independent Boundary Commission, because from this side of the pond, it is simply outrageous how some states can legally take away the right to vote that exists from registered voters, and prevent the registration of new ones. In aggregate terms this issue, from purging voter rolls to suppression, involves millions of Americans. There is nothing here about a hundred or a thousand spoiled ballot papers or alleged rigged voting, this is stark: millions denied the vote, and that is before you ask who they are to find they are mostly Black, Latino, and any other social group.

I understand that States protect their rights from the same fear of dictatorship that the Constitution attached to the Presidency, but voting is so fundamental to the operation of democracy that I don't see how or why it should differ across the country. Moreover, the evidence of gerrymandering is so blatant I don't see how it can be regarded as anything but corrupt, but if the Supreme Court declines to take action because it doesn't want to encroach on States rights, then in 2020 you could have in some places in the USA, fewer voters, not because they died or moved away, but because the ruling party is afraid they won't vote for them so stops them from voting, which is not so far from the dictatorship that the Constitution is supposed to prevent.

It is because the States themselves have corrupted the system that they should no longer be allowed to own it. And thus it is time to create a nationwide independent body, or watch your democracy fail the people it is supposed to protect. But will the Democrats even propose anything so bold, that would change the character- and the outcome- of elections to come?

buttslinger

08-17-2018, 05:14 AM

The Red States are the Poor States, you scratch any problem deep enough and you'll probably find the real problem is insufficient funds. The Republicans can say whatever they want, right now they're in STEAL mode. When all the money is long gone, and the Democrats are back in charge, they pivot to OBSTRUCT mode. Gaming the system is as American as Cherry Pie.

Locks keep the honest people out.

Stavros

08-17-2018, 10:22 AM

The Red States are the Poor States, you scratch any problem deep enough and you'll probably find the real problem is insufficient funds.

I think this is a misleading generalization. For example, a survey did find that most of the poorest counties in the US are in Red States, but that rural areas tend to be poor anyway and Red States have more rural communities than Blue States-

Generally speaking, rural areas have a lower cost of living, so the small income you make in a poor, rural Texas county is going to go further than it would if you lived in a poor, urban area like Detroit or Camden, N.J. This raises questions about how comparatively disadvantaged poor Americans are in rural and urban areas.
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jul/29/facebook-posts/are-97-nations-100-poorest-counties-red-states/

On the other hand there is the argument:
Go somewhere with low tax burdens, light regulation, and limited government, young man. Grow up with your country in a red state.

That’s the conclusion of the annual “Rich States, Poor States” report from the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, set to be released Tuesday.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/exclusive-new-study-finds-red-states-have-best-economic-outlook-in-2018

But then,
In 2012, Kansas did what Donald Trump wants to do: it introduced huge tax cuts to try to boost growth. Today, the state is out of money – and residents are angry
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/15/kansas-trump-style-tax-cuts-economic-disaster

Maybe it is a question of competence in the management of other people's money, and who you think does it best? The Republicans with their trillion dollar defence addiction, or the Democrats and their welfare programmes....or maybe it ain't that stark.

Stavros

08-28-2018, 02:54 PM

Here is a thought, though I may have expressed it before: Democrats should focus their energies on reforming the electoral system, to get people in a representative democracy doing that most basic thing denied to them, in this case, in Texas: Voting.

Imagine, the two lowest turnouts for Mayoral elections:
Fort Worth, pop. 850-900,000, voter turnout: 6%
Dallas, pop 1.493 million, voter turnout: 6%

For young voters [I]the statistics are even more alarming: turnout among 18- to 34-year-olds in the city is currently running at 1.5%.

Are these figures accurate?
Now add in people being sent to prison for voting and you prompt a repeat: how many not voting? Going to prison if they do?
Yup, because the law is vague and this poor woman had no idea she had been removed from the register, and even though she cast a provisional vote that wasn't counted, she still faces the prospect of jail time.

This is not democracy, but discrimination. And who was it said the elections are rigged?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/27/crime-of-voting-texas-woman-crystal-mason-five-years-prison

Stavros

08-30-2018, 10:27 AM

Visits to Africa by politicians in their official role:

President of the USA: 0
Theresa May: 1
Angela Merkel: 4
Emmanuel Macron: 7.

buttslinger

08-31-2018, 07:05 PM

…..Democrats should focus their energies on reforming the electoral system, to get people in a representative democracy doing that most basic thing denied to them...

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the Democrats will be back in 2020, I think if Trump has two semis worth of charges against him, we could get Medicare for all, good Healthcare for the rich, and excellent healthcare for the Saudis that fly in on their Lear jets. That's as good as it gets. Johnson gave us Medicare and Civil Rights, but at a terrific political cost, the Republicans rode Obamacare from 2010-2016. Backlash against Obamacare was their only real platform. But it was enough to get back the House and Senate. Politics was never meant to be a 24/7 expedition, the Republicans did that and they need to be punished for it.

If everybody voted, Democrats would control everything, say the political gurus. Freedom is a double edged sword.
Trump and the Republicans are in charge of everything, they have a following of voters that forgive all sins, the economy is booming, and yet the sky is falling on them.

I'd advise the Dems to lay low, and try to win over the floundering Republican voters.

They sure don't make Republicans like John McCain anymore, it's all about money now, and it will only get worse.

buttslinger

09-04-2018, 05:46 AM

Stavros

09-04-2018, 07:28 AM

Tonight's Lament....
I still have a couple Newspapers from when Kennedy was shot. One is the Washington Star, a newspaper delivered in the afternoon by paperboys. Long time ago, Kimosabe.
If Mueller can prove Putin had Trump over a barrel, and Trump actually gave up State Secrets, or covered for him in Syria, did favors, anything, ...that newspaper I would save.

You are assuming that the report of the Special Counsel will see the light of day. This is what an article in Vox stated in July:

Mueller is only required by law to deliver a confidential report to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the investigation. And Rosensteinhas no obligation to send the report to Congress or tell the public about it. Which means much of what Mueller uncovers may remain a secret.
https://www.vox.com/world/2018/3/19/17139490/mueller-trump-russia-final-report

In the last 11 hours (ie, overnight in the UK), the President's lawyer Rudolph Giuliani has not only endorsed the view that the report may remain secret but argued the President could cite 'Executive Privilege' as the reason. But, this being Giuliani, he also said the President is preparing a rebuttal report which is already 58 pages long.

It also comes days after Giuliani told the Daily Beast (http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/404452-giuliani-trump-legal-team-is-putting-together-a-voluminous-counter) that Trump's legal team is almost finished with a “voluminous” report aimed at discrediting Mueller.
“The first half of it is 58 pages, and second half isn't done yet. … It needs an executive summary if it goes over a hundred,” Giuliani told the Beast.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/404828-giuliani-trumps-legal-team-may-block-mueller-from-releasing-final

But surely that cannot be published either as it would reveal to the public what it is in the Mueller report the President doesn't want you to see! Makes you wonder how much Giuliani is charging his client and whether or not he is going to advise him to keep his own report secret.

The details that the President wants out of the public view relate to his financial history, with regard to the flow of money from Russia to the US, and the tax paid on that income-or not paid, as the case might be. If we know one thing, it is that the President has an obsession with his money that may be more important than anything in his life other than his phenomenal belief in himself as the greatest and most popular President in history. The closer anyone gets to the truth about his money, the further away those irritating things called 'the people' will be from learning the truth about their glorious President. And you can be sure Mitch McConnell will defend the President in his attempt to turn the whole of the Mueller investigation into a non-event. The primary aim right now is to confirm Brett Kavanaugh as the new Justice on the Supreme Court.

buttslinger

09-04-2018, 04:41 PM

You are assuming that the report of the Special Counsel will see the light of day....

It seems nobody is really sure what the rules are, we're plowing some new legal ground here. If you listen to Rudy on any particular day, you here different stories, one is that Rosenstein or whoever could just take the report from Mueller and lock it in a safe. Or just end the Investigation. In which case that night at 9PM the entire Mueller team would be on Rachel Maddow's show spilling their guts, which would be even worse for Trump in the Court of Public Opinion. Trump is large and in charge, holds all the cards, but as every President has found in the past, that is a made-up reality they write for job descriptions. Hitler said it best, in a Democracy, FDR fights with one hand tied behind his back. It made no sense to Hitler, and it makes no sense to Trump.

We really don't know what's going on, which gives every voter a chance to use his or her imagination to fill in the blanks. If Mueller truly found out that Putin had compromised Trump, all these failsafes would probably occur that very day, limiting what Trump was told, in case he passes a thumb drive to Putin when they're alone for two hours at Helsinki. Maybe all of Trump's daily briefings are fake news. Who knows?

He who laughs last laughs best, after Mueller comes St Peter, but first we have to find out what Kavanaugh thinks about all this. Oy!

You would think Trump would be cracking up by now, acting squirrely or giving himself away in falsehoods. I wonder how many people outside his family he's told the truth to? Is Mike Pence even curious? There are tons of open questions and possible outcomes. And then there's the problem of the 50 million people who voted for Trump. They knew he was an asshole when they voted for him.
https://image.ibb.co/i3XQHz/00.jpg (https://imgbb.com/)

Stavros

09-04-2018, 06:08 PM

Trump is large and in charge, holds all the cards, but as every President has found in the past, that is a made-up reality they write for job descriptions. Hitler said it best, in a Democracy, FDR fights with one hand tied behind his back. It made no sense to Hitler, and it makes no sense to Trump.

I don't know why Hitler has to get into every discussion we have on politics, and his comment is nonsense anyway. It is up to a President to create a working relationship with Congress so they can produce the legislation that Americans want and need, it does not have to be a confrontational relationship at all. In other words, two hands shaking others not one hand tied behind the back.

As for the President, he does not hold all the cards, as he is not an Autocrat or a dictator. Congress can make demands, and change the rules if it can to ensure no President can hide behind 'Executive Privilege' if that means breaking the law and getting away with it, for the simple reason that nobody is above the law in the USA.

What you need is an opposition that works, rather than barks. Or whines, in the case of Dianne Feinstein who on today's evidence has as much impact as a paper bag falling to the floor. Pathetic really.

buttslinger

09-05-2018, 02:22 AM

Citing Hitler is usually goes with a losing argument, but I am a loser, so I can say Hitler made the USA a Superpower and England a Tourist Destination. No Offence, Mate. The Democrat's Face is Pelosi, Schumer, maybe Clinton and Biden. All Yesterday's Papers. They should run Mark Warner and get back on the Obama trail, this time with a better economy. Trump is going down, Pence is a wimp, but Conservative Media calls the shots, it is fantastically great that they've hitched their wagon to a Traitor. Could a Shemale Fap Site with zero women back an ugly Woman President? Maybe Lysistrata will run. If Women started their own Party, they'd win everything.

Stavros

09-11-2018, 10:39 AM

Should the President of the USA have the right to not only tell a private company how to run its business, but threaten it if it does not do as he says? And in the case of Apple, is the President right to claim that if Apple moves all of its production to the it will pay 'zero tax'? Does that apply to all private companies, or is it in the gift of the President to make those decisions?

Well, at least it proves yet again that this President does not believe in markets, or maybe just doesn't understand how they work, and that government knows best. Hang on, why not take over Apple and make it a Federally owned company? Then the President can make all the decisions, because he is making American great again -right?

https://www.ft.com/content/e9caf2c2-b393-11e8-bbc3-ccd7de085ffe

Stavros

09-11-2018, 04:21 PM

In the comments to the FT article I linked above is another link, to an interview with Tim Cook which gives an important and different perspective on Apple in China from what is often thought to be the basis of the relationship: cheap labour. This is what Cook says:

"The number one reason why we like to be in China is the people. China has extraordinary skills. And the part that's the most unknown is there's almost 2 million application developers in China that write apps for the iOS App Store. These are some of the most innovative mobile apps in the world, and the entrepreneurs that run them are some of the most inspiring and entrepreneurial in the world. Those are sold not only here but exported around the world."
Highly skilled software developers developing apps for the App Store are one reason Apple likes to be in China. But the depth of highly skilled labor in the manufacturing space is why Apple makes its iPhones there:

"China has moved into very advanced manufacturing, so you find in China the intersection of craftsman kind of skill, and sophisticated robotics and the computer science world. That intersection, which is very rare to find anywhere, that kind of skill, is very important to our business because of the precision and quality level that we like. The thing that most people focus on if they're a foreigner coming to China is the size of the market, and obviously it's the biggest market in the world in so many areas. But for us, the number one attraction is the quality of the people."
https://www.inc.com/glenn-leibowitz/apple-ceo-tim-cook-this-is-number-1-reason-we-make-iphones-in-china-its-not-what-you-think.html

Another prompt to policy makers in the USA: education is your future. Your future prosperity depends on the education you provide for your people, of all ages.

Stavros

10-12-2018, 02:31 AM

I don't know who this weirdo is or how he got into the White House, but I think he is in urgent need of help. And no, I am not referring to the President...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egGUqv8LTkw

filghy2

10-12-2018, 08:47 AM

I don't know who this weirdo is or how he got into the White House

Because he's a useful idiot - "See, how can I be a racist when this famous black guy loves me?". Trump never tires of hearing people praise him, but you can virtually see him thinking - "How long am I going to have to sit here feigning interest in this drivel?"

broncofan

10-28-2018, 07:39 PM

There is a nexus between Trump's rhetoric and the shooting at the synagogue in Pittsburgh that is very strong. There have always been conspiracy theorists and neo-nazis who have occupied small corners of the internet and fantasized about harming minorities but on some level they're aware of their own crankiness and I believe even embarrassed by how disgusting they are.

The conspiracy theorist usually knows at some deep level that they're ridiculous. It's why Alex Jones claimed to merely be an entertainer in court. It's why part of the David Irving trial involved proving that he deliberately distorted the record. They really harbor doubts about their own bullshit that they rarely admit to.

When you have a President spreading conspiracy theories about Jews trafficking people in Central America and a rich Jew magically influencing events, some of that doubt is bound to vanish. If you asked me whether the deadliest anti-semitic attack would have occurred without Donald Trump and the Republicans rhetoric, I am surprised that I think the answer is no. And I say this in spite of the fact that hateful attacks are occasionally pereptrated against every community even without a racist president.

The man who committed this attack held the same worldview as Trump, with this ridiculous and artificial distinction between globalist and nationalist and the toxic Soros rhetoric. He only believed Trump wasn't extreme enough. But I think it was important for him to see someone whose worldview was somewhat proximate...it made him hopeful that all of the garbage he believed could have a grain of truth.

This comes on the heels of a white supremacist attack on two African-Americans in a Kroger and an attempted terrorist attack against influential Democrats. The danger is to validate the delusions of sick people. There is something to be said about a man in power who has made it clear that if you're a racist, he is not your enemy and will not oppose you except in the vaguest and most general terms.

filghy2

10-29-2018, 01:20 AM

Meanwhile in the right-wing media echo chamber, it's all the fault of the mainstream media and Trump is the real victim. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/25/trump-gop-bomb-scare-940825

It's significant that whenever a Muslim kills or tries to kill others it's readily described as an act of terrorism, but whenever a right-wing extremist does the same he's just a deranged individual. There's a real reluctance to call political terrorism for what it is. https://www.vox.com/2018/10/28/18032350/domestic-terrorism-cable-news-megyn-kelly-fired

broncofan

10-29-2018, 04:42 PM

It's significant that whenever a Muslim kills or tries to kill others it's readily described as an act of terrorism, but whenever a right-wing extremist does the same he's just a deranged individual. There's a real reluctance to call political terrorism for what it is. https://www.vox.com/2018/10/28/18032350/domestic-terrorism-cable-news-megyn-kelly-fired
The media has to figure out what it seeks to gain by using the term. If it is just a term to describe whether someone is part of an organized effort to use violence to further a political message, then white supremacists qualify. If it's enough to say someone is part of Al Qaeda because they are "radicalized" by reading online material and getting logistical support then it is enough to say this person received the same from neo-nazis and is a domestic terrorist. Any responsible law enforcement agency would use every legal means to monitor the groups in which this man moved.

dns4809

10-29-2018, 06:13 PM

Trump tweets says this
“The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People, must stop the open & obvious hostility & report the news accurately & fairly,” he tweeted. “Fake News Must End!”
But should say this
“The Fox News Media, the true Enemy of the People, must stop the open & obvious hostility & report the news accurately & fairly,” he tweeted. “Fox News Must End!”

broncofan

11-07-2018, 05:35 AM

Nbc just projected that the Democrats have taken the house. Nate Silver's model still has them only at an 88% chance of winning but it's been oscillating all over the place. The Republicans ran some of the most despicable people for Congress I've ever seen and were pretty vocal about trying to discourage segments of our population from voting.

In the short-term winning the House means subpoena power for the House investigation and that the Republicans will not be able to take health care away from people for at least two more years. More to come...

filghy2

11-07-2018, 06:02 AM

filghy2

11-07-2018, 06:14 AM

I see NYT is predicting an 8% popular vote margin to the Democrats. In a normal democracy that would be a landslide victory and a decisive rejection of Trump.

broncofan

11-07-2018, 06:40 AM

I'm wary of early calls after the 2000 election, but it looks like the outcome will be as expected. I feel more relieved than elated. It's disappointing that there hasn't been a more decisive rejection of Trump.

Why are there such long queues at US elections? In Australia I've never had to wait more than a few minutes to vote.
My polling place was in an urban area and I didn't have a long wait but some polling places reported extremely long waits. Republicans have an incentive to make the process tougher as we know. Trump even tweeted that law enforcement would be watching for illegal voters which was a transparent attempt at intimidation.

It is disappointing that it's not a bigger blue wave like we expected but honestly I'm happy with the win in the House.

I'm curious if anyone knows about the repeal of the felon disenfranchisement law in Florida. It sounds like it's not only a just thing but also something that could have a big impact in future elections.

As for the 8% margin, I saw a chart earlier in the night that compared it to other large swing years. In a country that's pretty evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, that is a statement. But still, as you indicate, one would expect more given what we're dealing with here.

buttslinger

11-07-2018, 07:05 AM

She's baa-a-a-ack!!

https://image.ibb.co/ebrBiV/00.jpg (https://ibb.co/jsDfcq)

A few heartaches, but Americans who haven't lost their mind now have enough to define the next two years and maybe, maybe set up a real defining moment in 2020. I can dream, can't I?

It's a damn shame about the Senate, I admit I was hoping for a miracle.

Will Trump start firing people tomorrow? DE-FENCE! DE-FENCE!
this next two years is gonna be thick, man. I worked on my Movie Library this week so as not to jinx the election, it was relaxing.....

filghy2

11-09-2018, 06:22 AM

It's looking like Trump in the next two years is going to be even more unhinged than he was in the last two.
- With an increased Senate majority and fewer moderate Republicans in Congress he has less need to worry about keeping them on side.
- He seems to have convinced himself that his mid-term strategy of ramping up anti-immigrant rhetoric worked.
- His normal response to feeling threatened is to go on the attack and double down on playing to his support base.

It's true that some past presidents have come back from even worse mid-term setbacks to win a second term (eg Clinton, Obama), but it seems less likely Trump can repeat that.
- In those cases the president came into office after a recession and was helped by an improving economy. With unemployment now at 3.7%, there is more chance that the economy will get worse over the next two years rather than improve.
- The Trump/Republican strategy relies on appealing to a fairly narrow support base, notably older and less-educated whites. Even with electoral manipulation this does not look like a winning long-term strategy. Doubling down on appealing to this base is likely to alienate further the people who moved away from the Republicans in the mid-terms, particularly suburbanites.

Of course many things can happen in two years, and it is possible that developments could play into Trump's hands by stoking peoples' fears. Democrats will also need to play it smart by focusing on the most important things and not continually responding to Trump's baiting.

Stavros

11-19-2018, 06:47 PM

Why does the President of the United States never miss an opportunity to insult and abuse Americans, particuarly veterans with years of service to their country?

Because he is a despicable Traitor.
In 2016 the US was attacked by the Russian Federation which targeted the American running for the Presidency as the Democrat Party's nominee -Hillary Rodham Clinton. When the Republican candidate and his team discovered the Russians were attacking the USA they had a legal and a moral obligation to defend the USA from external attack but publicly joined the attack on the USA even begging the Russians to help them attack America. He is a Traitor and is going to gaol.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1064540462848098304
https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1064244070854418437/photo/1
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/12/07/trumps-claim-that-he-predicted-osama-bin-laden/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5c57c9684d9e

And when California is ravaged by forest fires, people dead, their homes destroyed why is the natural reaction of one Head of State -the President of the USA- zero empathy, abuse, and threats to cut Federal funding in the State concerned, when the natural reaction of the Head of State in the UK was to consider the victims and first responders?

There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2018 (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1061168803218948096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/11/politics/california-wildfires-trump-tweets/index.html

Prince Philip and I offer our deepest sympathies to the people of California, who continue to suffer from the devastating fires across the state.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of the victims, and to all those who have lost their homes and livelihoods. I pay tribute to the courage and dedication of the US emergency services and the volunteers that have provided support.

- Elizabeth R

filghy2

11-20-2018, 12:54 AM

And when California is ravaged by forest fires, people dead, their homes destroyed why is the natural reaction of one Head of State -the President of the USA- zero empathy, abuse, and threats to cut Federal funding in the State concerned, when the natural reaction of the Head of State in the UK was to consider the victims and first responders?
[I]There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2018 (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1061168803218948096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

But it's all because they haven't been out raking the forests Stavros, like they do in Finland. https://www.vox.com/world/2018/11/19/18102613/finland-trump-raking-woods

If this man was not President, would anyone regard him as anything other than a cranky, delusional, selfish old man?

buttslinger

11-21-2018, 12:37 AM

I doubt even of a few years of Psychology classes could fully explain Trump, after all is said and done, he pulled off being elected President, the first public office he ever applied for. I think he's figured out the expiration date on his office is coming two years early, the smell of sulfur and rotting eggs is coming cum January. No more tax breaks for Corporations, no more rallies, no more Nunes. Even Fox News is looking to put a bit of distance between them and Donny Boy. One thing for sure, none of my predictions ever pan out with this guy, he's playing by a different rule book. The one where Saudi Princes give Jared Kushner millions of dollars, I reckon, but I could be wrong.

Stavros

11-21-2018, 01:14 PM

Go compare your politicians, be they of 1939 vintage or 2018. Here, on the 80th Anniversary of the Kindertransport, at a time when refugees are being turned away, is the example of one man who at the time, and since, has represented decency in politics.
(Full article in the link).

"Clement Attlee, the Labour (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/labour) prime minister whose government founded the welfare state, looked after a child refugee who escaped from the Nazis in the months leading up to the second world war, it can be revealed.
The then leader of the opposition sponsored a Jewish mother and her two children, giving them the confidence and authorisation to leave Germany in 1939 and move to the UK.
After their escape, Attlee invited one of the children into their home in Stanmore, north-west London, testimony and letters show. He neither publicised nor sought to make political capital from his visitor.
Paul Willer, the former child refugee who is now 90 and living in Gloucestershire, was 10 when he stayed with the Attlees for four months until the beginning of the war.
He has arranged to meet Attlee’s granddaughter for the first time on Wednesday at the 80th anniversary of the (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/10/the-kindertransport-children-80-years-on-for-the-rest-of-his-life-my-father-had-nightmares-that-the-gestapo-were-coming-for-him)Kindertransport (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/10/the-kindertransport-children-80-years-on-for-the-rest-of-his-life-my-father-had-nightmares-that-the-gestapo-were-coming-for-him) scheme, which saved thousands of mainly Jewish children from Nazi Germany."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/20/clement-attlee-child-refugee-paul-willer-fled-nazis-1939

Yvonne183

12-04-2018, 04:04 AM

"Thought for the day"

This site is kinda boring.

Be back in two years, if they let me out, take care Starvos.

buttslinger

12-08-2018, 06:19 AM

Maybe things are finally opening up. Real Jailtime for Cohen and Manafort.
Niagara Falls!
slowly they turned...
inch by inch...
step by step....

broncofan

12-15-2018, 04:25 PM

The ACA has been overturned by a federal Judge in Texas. The original case to test its constitutionality (National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius) hinged mostly on the individual mandate, which requires people to get health insurance or pay a penalty. The idea was that if the law was going to remove pre-existing conditions from the list of things actuaries could consider then there would be an adverse selection problem. To avoid this, people who would otherwise opt out of the market because they're healthy had to be forced to purchase insurance.

This became a Constitutional issue because Congress needs an explicit grant of power from our Constitution to legislate. For this sort of scheme, the usual grant comes from the Commerce Clause. Republicans argued that the Commerce Clause can only be used to regulate commerce, not to force people to engage in it. Therefore, the individual mandate could not be justified as an appropriate use of commerce clause power. Judge Roberts ended up upholding the individual mandate as an appropriate use of Congress' ability to tax. The penalty, he argued, was an appropriate use of the government's ability to tax, and they can regulate using taxes as they often do in order to incentivize or dis-incentivize behaviors in addition to raising revenue.

Fast-forward to more recent times. In their tax bill, Republicans reduced the penalty for the individual mandate to $0. The Texas Judge who overturned the ACA in its entirety reasoned that if the penalty is zero, then it is not a tax and there is no Constitutional authority to pass the individual mandate. Since the mandate justified the pre-existing conditions protection, or at least made it financially more feasible, then the law as a whole must fall. In his argument, the mandate is the linchpin of the law, and is not severable from the other provisions.

There are a lot of problems with his argument. First, the only part of the law that was passed under taxing power authority was the mandate. When the penalty is zero there is no longer authority for that provision but it is also essentially a nullity. When Congress decided to reduce the penalty to zero they no longer needed authority to force people to get insurance because they ARE NOT forcing people to get insurance. Without the ability to declare any portion of the ACA unconstitutional the Judge certainly cannot then strike down the entire law as not being coherent with one provision excised. Congress decided to remove the penalty that enforced the mandate and so the law is exactly as they intended. Does it work better with the mandate? Yes it makes more sense. But Congress decided to essentially remove it. If they decided to remove it, then the Judge is not striking it down as unconstitutional, along with the rest of the law.

I don't really understand the logic of the Texas Judge's opinion very well because most provisions of the ACA don't depend on the mandate anyway, so the argument that the rest of the law is not severable from it also doesn't make sense. I believe even with our new Supreme Court Justices this opinion will be overturned but it will be a very good test of the integrity of our new Justices and a portent of things to come given that their tenure is measured in decades.

Stavros

12-15-2018, 10:52 PM

In the USA health care is a business in which a few lucky people make a lot of money from other people's suffering. Until you replace profit with public service, until you create a single-payer service that offers all Americans a standard of health care that applies to them regardless of their economic circumstances, a service which as the name suggests has moral depth rather than commercial width, the USA will be regarded as one of the worst places in the developed world to fall ill or sustain an accident.

But you have a President, and a Party who regard the environment as something to pollute, with coal slurry, chemicals, any old shit as long as it is pumped into your rivers and streams to kill the fish, turn the water yellow and above all, make people hate their land.

You have an immigration policy that is based on hate, that denies the most basic human rights to people in need, that stands idly by when children are torn from their parents and die, because the President and his party wants it that way, they want people to hate America so much they will turn away from it.

You have an apartheid education policy because the President and his party have so deep and abiding a loathing of Black Americans they can't stand the thought that Oliver and Clare will be sitting next to G-Ray and Shaniqua, it is an education policy designed to retard the opportunities that Americans are promised in the Constitution. They hate education when it gives equal opportunities to Black people. What else is the bus for?

You have a foreign policy that is designed to increase the hatred and the venom that people feel for the USA, a policy that supports vicious dictatorships, that applauds illegality and the war on democracy, that provides the Materiel with which men, women and children are bombed to death where they live, their homes, their businesses, their schools and hospitals destroyed. And this carnage, this American Carnage is the promise of a so-called man, in reality a despicable traitor, who invites the world to abuse his country.

For years this person was the butt of ridicule in New York and New Jersey, a grubby loud-mouth with proven links to the New York Mafia and the Russian Mafia, a man who has invented scam after scam after scam to rob people of their money, who for more than 40 years has insulted and abused anyone and everyone who exposes the venal nature of his crooked business affairs. He knew it, and he hated you, as he now sits in the Oval Office determined to shit on your breakfast every day, because he can. He calls an American woman a 'dog', American men are 'sons of bitches' and he knows its crude, and he knows it upsets people because that is his entire intention, to take revenge on the America that recognised from day one that he is a worthless liar, a fraud, a racist, a misogyist, a product of the slime of Queens who, when he discovered the Russians were attacking the USA, had the opportunity to defend America, but chose to join their campaign against the American running for the Presidency in 2016, and he even publicly announced -twice in one day- that he was an A-Grade traitor, knowing his America would do nothing about it.

He hates you, he hates you with an incendiary loathing that is determined to make a Paradise of all your towns and cities and villages because you will not worship him.

Health care? Who cares?

buttslinger

12-16-2018, 06:56 AM

I think even the hard-core grits are catching on that Trump is a Comic Book President, like Alfred E Newman. The real threat to the US and the Western World is the 20 trillion dollar deficit, a problem nobody wants to tackle. `
Did you see Pence with Chuck and Nancy? Nick Mulvaney????? The rats are leaving the ship.

Tom1964

12-17-2018, 03:36 PM

Not being from the USA myself. Is Donald Trump doing a good job, bad job, or an ok job? I know he's a businessman and does that help with his presidency? I see him on the news here in UK but don't know how he's doing. I would be interested to hear from anyone who lives there.

dns4809

12-18-2018, 12:59 AM

look at the stock market...not to good ...he is a CON MAN

broncofan

12-22-2018, 06:19 PM

I looked at a brokerage account that has my savings in it. I am not so happy about it. This makes sense given that the market is down about 10% and at least some of my investments are equities.

I get annoyed that people seem to think that short-term gains in the stock market are somehow a useful indicator of either the President's performance or even economic strength. In the short-term the value of stocks can fluctuate wildly based on expectations, the opportunity cost of stocks relative to other securities, and people's tolerance for risk. In fact, the price of stocks can deviate wildly from underlying fundamentals for fairly long periods of time.

As a result, it may be too early to decide that the dip represents anything other than short-term volatility, though if anyone needed their money immediately it would represent a real loss and probably represents that anyway, because if one were not in the market they could purchase now with assets that have a greater value. One thing the market does not like in the short-term is instability. I am not sure what effect shutting down the government has on people's expectations about the future value of American companies, but it might not be good. I am not sure what effect our former Secretary of Defense saying the President is basically a moron who is destroying old alliances and soft on our adversaries has, but it doesn't bode well for stability. Or the recent reports that the President is obstructing Justice even more flagrantly. Or the President's daily tweets about some Kafka-esque design for a wall with steel slats. Or any of it. Maybe it's the fed.

But is this conman going to claim credit for the upside and lay blame on everyone else for the dip? Of course.

broncofan

12-22-2018, 06:36 PM

Or the President's daily tweets about some Kafka-esque design for a wall with steel slats. Or any of it.
When I say Kafka-esque I'm think of In the Penal Colony about the commandante with his excessive pride in some high tech device meant to punish the prisoners and provide enlightenment to them at the same time. I haven't been following the steel slat conversation but I saw the picture of the proposed design. It looks like steel bars with spikes at the end of them. Someone on twitter made a joke about Vlad the Impaler, but I haven't heard any In the Penal Colony references but maybe because that's a stretch. In addition to being creepy and sadistic sounding, the entire thing makes it seem like he's completely lost what's left of his marbles.

Stavros

12-26-2018, 08:37 AM

If you want to know what a mess your President is making of your economy and watch the value of your stock continue to decline, the article by Robert Reich in The Guardian a few days before Christmas will help. I just hope the UK avoids dealing with this debt-addicted con man who wants the UK taxpayer to service the US debt. US based payday loan companies are entering the country for that very purpose, they should be banned from doing business in the U.K.

As for funding the border wall to end the shutdown, who is going to blink first? Surely this is one battle the President must lose?

buttslinger

12-27-2018, 06:22 AM

In a couple weeks Democrats get their teeth back. There are lots of New York Real Estate Tycoons who belong behind bars, but only one of them has a multi-million dollar investigation hanging over his head, run by the best in the business. This Country will be fucked by Trump, but Trump will be fucked in the end in the end. That's kinda how we roll over here.

broncofan

12-28-2018, 02:30 AM

If you want to know what a mess your President is making of your economy and watch the value of your stock continue to decline, the article by Robert Reich in The Guardian a few days before Christmas will help.
My investment advisor is a Marxist. He's trying to abolish the system of private capital starting with my brokerage account. He's purchased shares for me in some strange international equity fund that he's assured me is uncorrelated with the market. The problem is it achieves this by going down no matter what the market is doing. It's a hedge against profit making.

I'm not sure what I'm getting at here except that I'm gonna take a flight to safety. The market is all over the place and I don't have the stomach for it....the President is literally moving the market with his tweets. He misspells a word and the Dow drops a hundred points.

This is not a bourgeois thing either. People's pensions are also getting hit. You don't need a lot in the way of savings to want to have some equity exposure. Like Buttslinger I too am excited for the Democrats to control the House Intelligence Investigation. That really is something to look for because it takes place in full view of the public.

buttslinger

12-31-2018, 06:26 PM

I think if Daniel Boone stepped off a Time Machine he'd love the Safeways and Home Depots, but the constant hum of continuous advertising would make him quite ill. Everywhere you look somebody's trying to get your money through some scheme. The Land o' the Free is deceptive advertising.
I'm going to try to focus on what's important: the NFL playoffs, maybe Mueller will Sing in February. The Republican's unexpected windfall will come to an end. Republicans-sell. Democrats-buy. The good, the bad, the ugly, you can get it all right here in the USA, ….Cash, Check, Visa, I have friends who live just to buy stuff.

Stavros

01-23-2019, 01:04 PM

Here is a thought for today:

If the Federal Government compels Federal officers and employees to work without pay, is this not the restoration of slavery?

And if Slavery has been abolished in the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, does this not mean that the President has violated the oath of office he took to protect and preserve that Constitution?

And have the Republican Senators who support the restoration of slavery through their support for the shutdown also violated their oath of office to protect the Constitution?

If so these are surely clear grounds for the impeachment of the President and all and any Senators and Congressional Representatives who support the shutdown and in doing so the restoration of slavery, and has the time not come to begin immediate proceedings to remove them from office?

Impeachment in the past has been cited in allegations of corruption, or in the multiple cases of Senators who supported the Confederate States that attacked the United States of America in 1865-
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Expulsion_Censure.htm

Or it could just be that the Republican Party and their boy in the Oval Office approve of slavery, or at the very least, really don't care if people are forced to work without pay, can't pay their bills, have their homes re-possessed, commit suicide -whatever. It makes for a leaner government and a lower payroll bill.

buttslinger

01-24-2019, 07:51 AM

I think you could impeach Trump for watching TV if you wanted to, and had 60 votes in the senate.
You still have Republicans voting for Russian Oligarchs. Unbelievable.

The Mueller Report is going to blow minds.

Stavros

01-24-2019, 04:35 PM

The Mueller Report, if it is ever published may indeed change things as they are. What may also be happening is on one level the dream of every Libertarian -of the 800,000 Federal workers enslaved in a 'work without pay' relationship some may decide to stop working for the Federal government and take their employment elsewhere. The question then is can the Government function without them? If so, the shutdown has in effect been a job shredding exercise that would have caused outrage had the Govt decided to sack 800,000 workers.

On another level it is not just the clerks, the cleaners and transport security staff who might leave, it is also the scientists, the researchers, the translators -so that the Federal Government would be losing the unskilled staff it needs to clean toilets and polish floors as well as professionals who provide the Government with reasonable advice based on years of experience and research. We know Tillerson shredded jobs at the State Department and that the US is now increasingly poor in resources such as foreign languages, country analysis and experienced diplomacy though we also know the President and his son-in-law appear to regard foreign relations as their personal briefs, presumably because there is so much money to be made and because they don' want experts with years of experience telling them what let alone how to 'do' foreign affairs.

The irony is that as the US appears to be preparing to intervene in Venezuela, one wonders if there is anyone in the administration who speaks Spanish and can find Venezuela on the map. Dare one say there are quite a few on the southern border who do, and maybe even know more about Venezuela than Hare Kushner? They can't all be rapists and drug mules.

Stavros

02-08-2019, 11:19 AM

So let me get my head round this: has the President encouraged Pecker to publish photos of Jeff Bezos's pecker? And if Pecker has photos of one man's pecker, does he have photos of the President's pecker, and is this why Pecker is a publisher with the power to penetrate the egos of powerful men? Who gains from watching boys comparing their peckers, and does it mean size matters?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47166938

buttslinger

02-08-2019, 06:45 PM

...Pecker has photos of one man's pecker, does he have photos of the President's pecker...

Wait a minute,...uh, yeah here it is, chapter 9, page 265 from Mueller's report......PUTIN has the pics of Preze"s pecker, Peckar has the pics of Cruze"s Dad shooting Kennedy. FAKE NEWS FAKE NEWS!!!!!!!

Seriously, I hope the Democrat's one wish is Wisdom, because we're going to have the Mother of all messes when this is over.

filghy2

02-09-2019, 01:05 AM

Who gains from watching boys comparing their peckers, and does it mean size matters?

It certainly does to Trump. https://www.thecut.com/2016/03/donald-trump-best-penis-moments.html

According to Stormy Daniels, it is smaller than average and shaped like a toadstool. If there are pictures, I really hope I never see them. It's bad enough to be constantly seeing that weird hair and orange face.

broncofan

02-14-2019, 04:11 AM

I find myself without political company. Ilhan Omar, a Congresswoman, recently said "it's all about the benjamins (meaning money)" in response to a tweet about the basis for U.S. Congressional support for Israel.

It has been widely portrayed as anti-semitic and I don't think it is. She clarified her statement to say that she was speaking about AIPAC and its lobbying activities on behalf of the Israeli government.

This has long been a hot button issue because it is very easy to talk about lobbies, particularly AIPAC, in ways that could raise the most resonant anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. If you think about what a foreign lobby does, you have the seeds of many of the accusations that have been directed at Jews for centuries. Money for favors? Check. Lobbyists pay money and they buy influence, and though I think AIPAC doesn't directly contribute to campaigns, they spend money in the hopes of obtaining favorable legislation for Israel. In discussing an Israeli lobby, a person could, if they didn't limit their argument to actual lobbyists, portray Jewish people as being perfidious, sneaky, and powerful beyond rational explanation.

The problem with saying Omar's comment is anti-Semitic is that she didn't actually do those things. Would I have preferred seriousness of purpose to a glib statement about money? Sure. After all, the best antidote to the accusation that you're engaged in conspiratorial stereotyping is to be specific and clear about the parameters of what you're talking about.

For instance, if one looks at the ways one could talk about the Israeli lobby in anti-Semitic ways, it makes Omar's comment look benign. One could accuse any Jewish person they disagree with of being in "the lobby" and basically portray it as an amorphous agglomeration of Jews. But all she did was say that Congress' disposition is influenced by the money of AIPAC. I'm sure it is.

The reason I said I find it strange is that people have portrayed this as similar to some of the Labour crises. That seems bizarre and ill-informed to me.

Can you imagine a U.S. Congressman circulating a petition on behalf of Gilad Atzmon? Look him up. An MP did that and pretended he didn't know who he was when I, an American, first heard of the guy a decade ago. I feel the U.S. is far too restrictive of this conversation and allows fair comment to be portrayed as bigotry, whereas elsewhere fairly clear hatred is portrayed as fair comment. Also, many of the things that I saw in Labour didn't have anything to do with Israel, like when Damien Enticott said that "Talmud Jews need executing". It's hard to draw fair comment from a statement like that, but some people were able to infer that we weren't objecting out of genuine concern but rather out of an illicit motive to harm the party that spoke for Palestinian rights. Go figure. What a mess. I fully support the Democratic party and only wish more people had stood up for Omar, who raised a hot button issue, one that needs to be spoken about sensitively, but was not anti-Semitic.

filghy2

02-14-2019, 05:10 AM

I wonder if the criticism of her would be so vehement if she was not a Muslim. I agree than accusations of anti-semitism are too often used to dismiss criticism of Israeli government policies and other countries' support for them.

Ironically, the Israeli government has been establishing closer relationships with right-wing nationalist governments in Europe who have a history of anti-semitism but are prepared to support Israel's own nationalist policies.

broncofan

02-14-2019, 05:26 AM

I wonder if the criticism of her would be so vehement if she was not a Muslim.
It depends who the criticism is from. Some of the "criticism" of her was openly Islamophobic (see Lee Zeldin). The reaction of the Republican party is hypocritical and ridiculous. Other people had concerns that she first referred to money and seemed to indicate it completely accounted for their support of Israel. It's unprovable either way, but we speculate about other lobbies in exactly the same way. Who has not said that the NRA's activities buy legislation? It's not provable either.

I think other parts of the Jewish community are concerned about the way lobbying activity can so easily turn to conspiracy talk. But, you have to deal with that when you get there. I haven't much enjoyed being asked who my Zionist paymaster is by idiots because I disagree with some harebrained thing they've said, but some topics will be a lightning rod for those people. You can't blame the person just for raising a legitimate topic of discussion.

A good example: David Duke is offering support for Omar. Is that damning for her? Of course not. Everyone with a brain knows that yes, a Neo-Nazi will try to mainstream anything that will make some segments of the Jewish community a bit uncomfortable. But it does have an emotional effect that is hard to avoid.

I definitely think her being Muslim plays a role but the discussion of concerted behavior by any segment of the Jewish community is hot button.

Stavros

02-14-2019, 08:39 PM

This has long been a hot button issue because it is very easy to talk about lobbies, particularly AIPAC, in ways that could raise the most resonant anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. If you think about what a foreign lobby does, you have the seeds of many of the accusations that have been directed at Jews for centuries. Money for favors? Check. Lobbyists pay money and they buy influence, and though I think AIPAC doesn't directly contribute to campaigns, they spend money in the hopes of obtaining favorable legislation for Israel. In discussing an Israeli lobby, a person could, if they didn't limit their argument to actual lobbyists, portray Jewish people as being perfidious, sneaky, and powerful beyond rational explanation.

The famous or notorious power of the 'Israel Lobby' in Washington begs the question: is it really as influential as people say it is, compared to, say the 'fossil fuels lobby' or 'Big Pharma'? One way of answering the question would be another question: would the Middle East policy of the USA be different if the 'Israel Lobby'did not exist? I am inclined to the view that it would not.

Consider the recognition of Israel in 1948. It may be the case that supporters of the Zionist project -not all of them Jewish- lobbied Washington even before the full extent of the Holocaust was revealed. And it is the case that President Truman was sympathetic to Zionism as a humanitarian project. However, when he suggested to Prime Minister Attlee that the British allow Jewish immigration into Palestine, and Attlee responded by suggesting the US share the governance of Palestine, Truman stepped back. Similarly, Truman through his Secretary of State, George Marshall, was aware that Arab opinion was opposed to the creation of Israel and that Marshall himself was too, indeed at one time Marshall threatened to resign over the issue. But when on the 14th of May the US offered Israel de facto recognition, Truman remarked they had got in there before the USSR, which gave de jure recognition three days later -the US not giving Israel de jure recognition until 1949.
https://historylessons.net/trumans-controversial-decision-to-recognize-israel

If the US was thus acting as much in a context of Cold War as sympathy for Zionism, would the absence of a Zionist lobby have made any difference to that decision? Now consider the USA's first military intervention in the Middle East, Operation Blue Bat in Lebanon 1958. The Christian government of Camille Chamoun had been harassed by Lebanese Muslims acting in solidarity with Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser, who formed the 'United Arab Republic' in 1958 with Syria which was accused by Chamoun of infiltrating weapons into Lebanon that would be used to attack his government. The point is that when the US intervened, it was justified by the 'Truman Doctrine' to 'intervene to protect regimes it considered threatened by international communism' (the USSR began selling arms to Egypt in 1948, increasing their support in 1955 two years after the Revolution). And thus one could add that the moment when the USA formally took sides in the Middle East in 1967, for Israel and against the Arabs, it was either overt support for Zionism, or the Cold War view that the Arabs -principally Egypt- had become clients of the USSR and logic thus dictated that Israel require protection from Communism -or a mix of both. The irony here is that Israel in 1948 declared itself a Socialist state, which -even if only nominally- it remained under Labour rule until the Likud election victory of 1977, but that the US either did not regard Israel as a Socialist state, and its relations with the USSR by 1967 had deteriorated, or took those factors into account. Given the strange incident of Israel's attack on the USS Liberty during the 1967 War, one wonders if the Johnson administration took a longer term view and just accepted that the incident was a regrettable mistake.

But, and this is the point, did the Israel lobby influence Johnson's decision, or was the USA's alliance with Israel shaped entirely by the Cold War? I suspect it was, as the Chinese might put it, 70% Cold War, 30% Zionism. Even before the 1967 War the USA had persuaded Israel to allow weapons it was sending to the Yemen to pass through Israel and across the Giulf of Aqaba to Saudi Arabia, at the time fighting a proxy war with Egypt, thus presenting the case of the Communist-backed Egypt against the American backed Saudi Arabians. It was not noted at the time that the best judgement one could make of both armies was that 'they were not very good on the battlefield', while the incendiary rhetoric of Nasser insisted Egypt was about to inflict a savage defeat on Israel. And yet, Indar Rikhye once remarked that for all the propaganda, the blunt reality was that the Egyptians had taken possession of Soviet MIG fighter jets, but when the 1967 war broke out the only pilot who knew how to fly them was an Indian.

If the Cold War shaped US policy in the Middle East, the 1979 Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt did not bring this to an end, for while Anwar el-Sadat broke off Egypt's relations with the USSR, the latter simply reinforced their support for Syria, and in various loops with Iraq so that the 'Russian threat' in the Middle East did not diminish in 1979, while the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan eventually led the 'war on terror' to replace the Cold War.

In all this, there is no doubt that the Israel Lobby has promoted Israel among legislators in Congress, but so too have the 'Evangelical Christians' with their apocalyptic vision which to me often sounds overtly anti-Jewish, while at various times the 'Fossil Fuel' lobby has got stuck in with the result that Israel and Saudi Arabia are de facto allies, the most salient losers in all this being the Palestinians, whose lobbying efforts if they even exist, are feeble to the point of being without purpose. One wonders if the new generation of Congressional Representatives will make any difference, given that the House by tradition at least does not formulate foreign policy.

It may be that the Israel Lobby is more successful in reverse, that is, through its campaigns with its supporters that tell them this or that Senator or Congressional Representative is 'bad for Israel' or 'good for Israel' but I don't know if any conclusive research can prove that bad publicity has cost a sitting representative their seat.

Ultimately, the questions must focus on the aims of US policy in the Middle East, what it actually achieves, and the longer term impact. The region remains volatile, partly due to chronic interventions that cause more problems than they solve, and we have yet to know if Netanyahu will be defeated in the elections this year and Israel take a new direction, particularly with regard to the illegal occupation of the West Bank, illegal settlemens, and Palestinian rights. The Lobby has a voice, and at the moment a sympathetic ear in the White House in the case of Jared Kushner (one doubts his father-in-law cares about the Middle East other than the flow of 'lovely dollars' from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf into his bulging pockets), but so far too Kushner's policy making has been inept and counter-productive to peace in the region. One can only hope this will end in 2020, though I don't expect radical changes to US policy in the region.

broncofan

02-17-2019, 05:57 PM

The history you present makes sense up to a point in time but if the cold war is not still raging then some would say that basis for support has expired and yet Congress still mostly supports Israel. Evangelical Christians support Israel for theological reasons that some might call anti-Semitic but which Israelis and other Jews aren't concerned about because they don't believe the theology.

I think the reason a lobby could be very effective despite not spending as much money as people think is that it's NOT an issue that many people think about in the voting booth. The number of people who vote based on foreign entanglements is probably a small percentage of the population and so if there's a lobbying interest, that provides Congressmen an incentive not to adjust to changing attitudes. As a result, one hears a lot of clichés, almost reflexive support, and very little specific policy analysis.

After reading your post, I think the Cold War history is most relevant to explaining the origin of the alliance, but inertia and a whole confluence of factors might explain continued support ranging from: the belief that Israel is Western (maybe a carryover from the Cold War), Evangelical support, lobbying, and the fact that it doesn't play a lot at the polls.

When people discuss lobbies, the tendency is to overplay a lobby's influence, purely because a lobby is only effective if it causes legislators to act in ways that don't reflect the public's views. We say the NRA completely accounts for support of guns in this country but the anti-democratic effect is probably more subtle than that. We have a culture where guns play a disproportionate role in people's lives. Many of the legislators who take money from the NRA are probably already positively inclined towards the militarization of civilian life in ways that don't make sense to many people around the world myself included. But maybe without the NRA they would consider all sorts of gun safety proposals that don't interfere with their general pro-gun view.

I think you're right that AIPAC does not explain the U.S.' alliance with Israel or even explain the endurance of it but I think it does prevent Congressmen from modifying their positions based on actions Israel takes that are counter-productive or violate international law. A lobby is probably best at creating inertia, and subtly decreasing the sensitivity of legislators to changing attitudes.

broncofan

02-22-2019, 02:21 AM

https://twitter.com/Baddiel/status/1098560476630446080

I think this tweet highlights an interesting trend that is occurring in Britain largely from sympathizers of the Labour party: the leveraging of the Palestinian cause to harass Jews and impinge on Jewish life in the UK. Apparently this school requires the ratification of a society for it to become an official group. There is a student association for nearly every minority group, but the Jewish group has been voted against by over 200 students and might fail because of Zionism or something like that. The school assures people in a lukewarm tone that though there were concerns, it will probably pass. But it's amazing how loose the link can be to the idea of Jewish statehood before people will find an excuse to single out their Jewish students.

https://www.jta.org/2018/11/05/global/british-labour-party-branch-votes-motion-condemning-pittsburgh-synagogue-attack

This was another thing that I had seen. Can you imagine voting down a motion to condemn a murderous attack on a place of worship? I would vote for that motion if the attack occurred in the most remote region of Earth against the congregation of a religious community I'd never heard of. Apparently the most common objection was that there was too much focus on anti-Semitism this, anti-Semitism that. As though the idea of the motion was really a group seeking special treatment. The British Labour party should discourage its membership from behaving in ways that are so laced with irrational hostility and resentment if they want people to stop talking about it. It gets a disproportionate amount of attention because their facebook pages and twitter accounts look like nothing I've ever seen from anti-racists.

I've actually written a bar mitzvah speech for any Corbynite fortunate enough to be invited. It's short but I think it gets right to the point: "out of my deepest respect for the Jewish tradition and this rite of passage into manhood, I now hold you legally and morally responsible for the human rights violations of Israel. Congratulations on becoming an adult."

And while I was asked to separate this topic and have flirted with the idea of a thread, I would like to collect the evidence. I guess my question is what is going on and how many times do I have to watch the Al Jazeera documentary the Lobby with Joan Ryan and the Israeli in the bar to understand how a deadly synagogue attack in Pittsburgh really has to do with Israel, and a Jewish society in a school, and according to Derek Hatton any Jew who doesn't say what he wants when he wants it.

Stavros

02-22-2019, 02:14 PM

https://twitter.com/Baddiel/status/1098560476630446080

I think this tweet highlights an interesting trend that is occurring in Britain largely from sympathizers of the Labour party:
https://www.jta.org/2018/11/05/global/british-labour-party-branch-votes-motion-condemning-pittsburgh-synagogue-attack

This was another thing that I had seen. Can you imagine voting down a motion to condemn a murderous attack on a place of worship? I would vote for that motion if the attack occurred in the most remote region of Earth against the congregation of a religious community I'd never heard of. Apparently the most common objection was that there was too much focus on anti-Semitism this, anti-Semitism that. As though the idea of the motion was really a group seeking special treatment. The British Labour party should discourage its membership from behaving in ways that are so laced with irrational hostility and resentment if they want people to stop talking about it. It gets a disproportionate amount of attention because their facebook pages and twitter accounts look like nothing I've ever seen from anti-racists.

Your link in the second example to the JTA does them no favours. Here is the second paragraph:

Steve Cooke, secretary of the Norton West branch in the Stockton North constituency of about 67,000 people near Scotland, submitted the motion for a vote following the Oct. 27 shooting attack.

-Stockton-on-Tees is as close to Scotland as New York is to Canada.
-Stockton North might have 67,000 constituents, but Norton West branch does not, in the council elections in 2015 on a turnout of 72.5%, the total number of votes cast was 6,613. I doubt the Norton West Branch has more than a few hundred members if that, and the active members they do have will be known to the General Management Committee of the CLP, so who knows what else is going on there? A comment that does not depart from the resolution itself, which was valid and could easily have been passed without causing a fuss. They have made themselves look foolish in the way it has been handled.

On the Baddiel tweet, there has been a long and sorry history with regard to Jewish Societies in English universities. I was in a university in 1986 or thereabouts when the National Union of Students submitted a resolution to all its members which called for the denial of Jewish Societies the right to affiliate to the NUS. I am not sure, but I think the resolution originated in the Socialist Workers Party and was proposed by their members, and passed at an executive meeiting of the NUS which meant it had to be rolled out across the country. The resolution when it came up for discussion produced the largest gathering of students we had seen at an NUS meeting, and was moved, not by any NUS members in the University by by two representatives of the NUS, one of whom was Palestinian in origin. If I tell you that when I saw it I was staggered to see it had 40 clauses you may understand that student politics may not always need to be taken seriously even when it causes such hurt, indeed, insult. The Resolution was not passed by the students and the debate such as it was produced some memorable moments -one member of the SWP Students section, known affectionately as Swizz (short for Swindled rather than Swiss) ended the meeting screaming 'I want to change the structure of society!' though he may have been drunk at the time. One of his comrades, whom I knew because he married a student I knew quite well, is now a foghorn in Momentum.
I tend to see these issues as the kind of student issues that you can trace back for years and which never seem to change, and are often found at the beginning of the academic year when first years 'get involved' and before they get lumbered with essays and course work. In those days you could guarantee that between late September and the end of October angry students would be staging a protest outside the nearest supermarket to campus selling South African produce calling for boycotts, and mostly ignored by shoppers who, if they were like me, did not buy South African oranges anyway.

But yes, the sentiments behind this sort of thing are intolerant and based on ignorance and prejudice, but rarely produce their desired outcome, it is gesture politics of the worst kind.

One afterthought -in another university I was involved in, the Islamic Society came close to being prosecuted. Because of my interest in the Middle East and some work I was doing with students from Libya, Saudi Arabia, Oman and the Yemen, I was aware of the arguments they were having with each other and browsed the Islamic Society pages, only to discover to my horror that there were large sections that offered advice, not on 'how to shop in the UK' or 'how to claim housing benefit' but advice on how to be a good Muslim. When I read the pages on women, the page on 'Women working' said that 'capitalism is a Jewish plot to destroy the family' -for women's work is family work, an odd thing to say to a student whose intention might be to be a doctor- I cut and paste it into a search engine to find it was a direct quote from Sayed al-Qutb's Signposts, a text much admired by Osama bin Laden, and extremists sympathetic to his cause (though at the time he was in Afghanistan fighting the Russians and unknown to us) -I guess this shows that students tend to be 'radicals' because Qutb has never been anything other than an extremists. I don't know what happened next but the Islamic Society's web-pages were suddenly locked behind a password entry system, and that lack of transparency which might have spared them prosecution nevertheless seemed to me to be a basic violation of student politics. Publish and be damned.

One final thought: Israel has spent $100 million on the successful launch into space of a rocket headed to the Moon. What a criminal waste of money! Two or so years ago there was a huge demonsration in Tel-Aviv by young people who can't buy an apartment because affordable housing in the urban areas between Tel-Aviv and Haifa has been disappearing as 'property inflation' puts it beyond most Israelis -why spend $100m on the Moon when people want somewhere to live? Better still, how about spending $100m providing Palestinians on the West Bank with a decent and reliable water supply?
What did Bette Davis say in Dark Voyager? Oh Jerry, let's not ask for the moon. We have the stars...'