Bitching is protected by the First Amendment- for now anyway.
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Bitching is protected by the First Amendment- for now anyway.
Interesting being told to "Get over it!" by the same yokels who've done nothing, & I mean literally nothing, but piss & moan for the last 8 years.
Donald Trump interviewed by The Hollywood Reporter in 2015:
“Julia Roberts is terrific, and many others...Meryl Streep is excellent; she’s a fine person, too."
Donald Trump 9th January 2017
Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn't know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...-a7518551.html
James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, January 11 2017
The intelligence community has not made any judgement that the information in this document is reliable, and we did not rely upon it in any way for our conclusions.”
Donald Trump, January 12 2017
“James Clapper called me yesterday to denounce the false and fictitious report that was illegally circulated. Made up, phony facts. Too bad!”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7523801.html
I can't believe that this crazy fucker (Trump) will make it beyond one year without the Republicans themselves calling for his impeachment.
Also , I see that Trump played the 'Hitler Card' during his news conference yesterday , thus confirming Godwin's law . lol.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
Donald Trump 22 December 2016
The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes'
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/u...ates.html?_r=0
Donald Trump 15 January 2017
I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-a-great-thing
From the White House website, January 9 2017
Press Statement John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
January 9, 2017
Throughout my career, including as Secretary of State, I have stood strongly in support of the LGBTI community, recognizing that respect for human rights must include respect for all individuals. LGBTI employees serve as proud members of the State Department and valued colleagues dedicated to the service of our country. For the past several years, the Department has pressed for the families of LGBTI officers to have the same protections overseas as families of other officers. In 2015, to further promote LGBTI rights throughout the world, I appointed the first ever Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons.
In the past – as far back as the 1940s, but continuing for decades – the Department of State was among many public and private employers that discriminated against employees and job applicants on the basis of perceived sexual orientation, forcing some employees to resign or refusing to hire certain applicants in the first place. These actions were wrong then, just as they would be wrong today.
On behalf of the Department, I apologize to those who were impacted by the practices of the past and reaffirm the Department’s steadfast commitment to diversity and inclusion for all our employees, including members of the LGBTI community.
From the same link on White House website, January 25 2017
We're Sorry, that page can't be found.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7544551.html
Sad, scary, slimy and foreboding of the ignorance to come.
There's all kinds of stupid shit happening right now. As entertaining as it is, it's just a smoke screen. While you're fixated on the White House antics, Paul Ryan is in a big hurry to hand Social Security & Medicare over to the same Wall Street geniuses who brought us the panic of 2008. Gotta set priorities.
I understand your point, and agree with it, but I also think it is wrong for people to dismiss what Trump says because it is all for show, and that the real deal is the way in which Congress and the Supreme Court will examine and filter his policy proposals. Indeed, the New York Times today argues that a legal judgement by Justice Scalia may prevent Trump from building the wall he wants. The article is here-Quote:
Originally Posted by hippifried
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/o...ft-region&_r=0
However, words do matter, for two reasons. The first is the practical one, such as Trump trashing the reputation of a company whose value on the stock market plummets, while vultures eagerly buy up valuable stock at bargain prices.
The second is a matter of tone, for Trump is not just Chief Executive with all that implies with regard to policy making, he is the Head of State and represents the USA in the world. For years we have had Presidents who had a degree of gravitas and poise, but never a man who was so rude and indifferent to the world around him. For all the ridicule he received when he entered office, Ronald Reagan had experience of public office and knew how to deliver a stinging speech that made its points, but also had a sense of humour, something Trump lacks. George W. Bush was similarly mocked for his mangled English when he entered office, but was visibly crushed by 9/11 and deserved the sympathy of the world, whatever happened after that in Iraq. One thinks of the way other Presidents have held themselves, for example both Mary Robinson and Michael Higgins have presented Ireland on the world stage with a balance of humility and grace unthinkable in a man like Trump, and in Robinson's case when Ireland's reputation was sullied by outrageous acts of violence committed in the cause of a 'United Ireland'.
So yes, let us wait and see how the deals pan out, but we cannot ignore the man with a mission, urged on by some seriously nasty people who are unaccountable to the public.
I never said "dismiss" anything. But the President's unilateral actions are reversible. Congress has the ability to cause real & permanent damage. Paul Ryan is an Ayn Rand crazy. Let that sink in for a few minutes or years. He's the second most powerful person in the US.
He's working his way through the circus crowd, picking pockets, while everyone laughs at the clown car.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELD2AwFN9Nc
The Netherlands welcomes Trump
My contribution
A century ago the Ottoman provinces of Beirut, Aleppo and Damascus took in Christian Armenian refugees from the genocidal massacres that were taking place in Anatolia; they gave them food and shelter, they gave them a new chance in life. Today Syria is creating refugees in their millions, but the USA has decided only some Christians will be allowed entry into the US. And, as has been pointed out, Trump signed the order on Holocaust Memorial Day:
In 1939, the German oceanliner St Louis and its 937 passengers, almost all Jewish refugees, were turned away from the port of Miami and sent back to Europe. Of those passengers, 254 were murdered in the Holocaust. The US government turned away those refugees, so heartbreakingly close to safety – and also restricted Jewish immigration and instituted new vetting procedures – because of rampant overblown fears that the Nazis might smuggle spies and saboteurs in among the Jewish refugees.
On Friday, which was Holocaust Remembrance Day, The White House put out a statement that failed to mention the 6 million Jews who were exterminated by the Nazis. Hours later, President Trump signed an executive order suspending all refugee resettlement for 120 days and indefinitely suspending the resettlement of refugees from Syria.
Full article is here-
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...emembrance-day
The executive order is already having an effect.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38781420
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38783512
The executive order has been enjoined.
.....by some Brooklyn Federal judge. They can't be deported but they're still being detained. very confusing.Quote:
Originally Posted by hippifried
Guess this is how it will be for the next 4 years. POTUS signs an order and a court overturnes it.
Having said nothing on the issue, and facing damnation by association, Mrs May yesterday declared the government 'does not agree' with the Executive Order imposing the ban, and instructed Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to clarify the issue with their US counterparts (Homeland Security and State respectively), which in practice, as the counterparts do not yet exist, meant Johnson talking to Steven Bannon and President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner -and appear to have proved the 'Special Relationship' exists as UK citizens with dual citizenship will not be banned from entering the US unless they arrive directly from one of the countries on the list.
The Foreign Office has issued the clarification in the link below via the BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38789821
Further to my post above, I should add that I see this as an example of Trump proving to his voters that he is delivering on his promises. That the policy is incoherent and doesn't actually work is irrelevant to Trump and his team who presumably take the view that the most important thing is to broadcast the decision first, then worry about the details later, and condemn anyone who opposes it by twitter, which is how most US policy seems to be delivered these days. In any case, they must believe their voters are not interested in the details which will as Flabbybody argues above, drag on through Congress and the Courts for the next year or so. For this reason Trump has not pointed out to his voters his administration has already modified the policy -on Green Card holders and UK citizens with dual nationality- but declared the policy is a success and should have been made years ago. One wonders what failure will look like when it is finally acknowledged, if it ever is.
Since my post 6 hours ago, the US Embassy in London has issued an 'urgent notice' contradicting the change in policy announced by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, it states-
“Per U.S. Presidential Executive Order signed on January 27, 2017, visa issuance to aliens from the countries of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen has been suspended effective immediately until further notification,” the US embassy’s statement said.
“If you are a national, or dual national, of one of these countries, please do not schedule a visa appointment or pay any visa fees at this time.
“If you already have an appointment scheduled, please DO NOT ATTEND your appointment as we will not be able to proceed with your visa interview.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a7552911.html
We have been Trumped. What is true at 8am is not true at 2pm. Thus will it continue.
I agree that this is Trump showing his supporters that he's prepared to deliver on his ideals. However, I wonder if Trump and his team actually believe that they will get their policies through? In one sense, Trump can't lose. If he delivers, great (for him), if he fails, he can cite it as yet another example of being opposed by "the system, the establishment" and all those he claims to be against him and his supporters.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
You are right, because Trump has deduced that his core support pays no attention to 'the media' -which must surely also include Murdoch's various outlets as well as Breitbart- with an opinion poll claiming 56% of US citizens polled agree with the policy. You are also possibly right that as the policy is filtered through Congress and the Judiciary it may unravel, but the additional damage tha has been done is to the reputation of the USA. Banning refugees in the manner it has been done runs counter to the spirit if not the letter of those international agreements the US has been party to since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, it takes away hope from those people who might have seen the US as their last place of refuge, it does nothing to address the origin of the problem in a refugee crisis in Syria created by the government and it external backers, and thus presents the USA as a mean and unfriendly country, and, contrary to the almost constant reference to the Ministry of Christ and the Bible as a guide to living, smears Christianity with an indifference to distress it does not deserve.Quote:
Originally Posted by Laphroaig
But this time next week something else will grab the headlines. I guess the first 100 days will be going like this at 100mph, no brakes needed.
Acting Attorney General instructed her DOJ staff to forgo enforcement of Executive Action banning Muslim immigrants due to constitutions conflicts. Trump promptly sacked her....took him about 2 hours.
But don't get too comfortable with that story. We'll be getting a new Supreme Court appointee today @ 8:00 PM EST.
He'll likely make Clarence Thomas look like Ralph Nadir. (we know it's a he)
Buy gold, sell dollars, and make sure there's at least a year's supply of spirits in the basement. My choice is Canadian Rye.
What is emerging is the shambolic nature of the new administration but also the determination of Trump's advisers, notably Steven Bannon, to use this transitional period to press forward with controversial 'change' before an established Washington network of officials and lawyers can delay decision making while checking for legal and moral issues in policy.
Obama made a point of inviting Trump to the White House and committing himself to the same smooth transition that he received from George W. Bush, yet the Trump approach has been to disregard the norms that used to prevail, as was evident in the State Department. There, senior officials -many of them women, incidentally- handed in their formal resignations expecting to be asked to remain in post while the White House replaced them -no, they were all told to leave immediately, just as Ambassadors around the world were, in effect, sacked on Day One and told to return home, even if there was no replacement.
The Bannon approach, to make swift, bold decisions means that the Department of Homeland Security had no idea the Executive Order on immigration had been issued, even though it is their primary responsibility. In addition, this meant that the precise legal force of the EO was not subjected to a critique before it was issued, setting up the confrontation with acting Attorney General Yates who is accused of 'betrayal' even though her position was quite precisely a legal not a political one, as her letter has shown. Moreover, the replacement, Dana Boente has not, unlike Yates, received confirmation from the Senate which makes one wonder if he has the right let alone the competence to make legal decisions before the nominated Attorney General takes office. Bizarrely, it was Jeff Sessions in her confirmation hearings who asked her if she would be prepared to stand up to a President and tell him a decisions was legally unacceptable. She said yes. The rest is history.
The focus is thus on Bannon and Stephen Miller -co-writers of Trump's inauguration speech- and son-in-law Jared Kushner, as the key agents of power, with Trump appearing in the role of TV host to make the speeches and sign the documents while the real work goes on behind him. Today's New York Times is particularly harsh on Bannon, whose role now extends to the National Security Council where the useless, know-nothing Generals are told only turn up when there is something important to discuss, while Bannon and the rest do the daily work of absorbing political and military intelligence in which they have zero experience at the top level.
Meanwhile in the UK, more than 1,653,000 people have signed a petition calling on the government to downgrade Trump's visit, so it will have to be debated in Parliament. Yesterday it was receiving more than 30,000 signatures an hour, this has slowed, but the text and result can be viewed here-
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/171928
There's a somewhat similar story in relation to Australia. Our government made a deal with the Obama administration for the US to take a number of refugees who were detained en route to Australia, many of them from the 7 designated countries. Our Prime Minister claimed that he had obtained Trump's agreement to proceed with this, but now it seems unclear http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-0...e-deal/8228336Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
The background is that under Australia's hard-line policy unauthorised asylum seekers are not allowed to enter the country - instead they are sent to detention camps in a couple of Pacific Island countries who we've bribed to take these people. However, the high court of Papua New Guinea (the largest destination) has declared this arrangement to be illegal, so if the government can't find other countries to take them the whole policy may unravel.
Unfortunately, our government has decided that craven appeasement is the best way to deal with Trump. Unlike the UK and many other countries, our PM has refused to make any criticism of Trump's executive order.
But filghy2 among those there could be five year old boys. A 5 year old boy was handcuffed and detained at Dulles Airport in the US for four hours and this is what Calamity Sean had to say about it:
“To assume that just because of someone’s age and gender that they don’t pose a threat would be misguided and wrong.”
So it is official, the USA is terrified of 5 year old boys.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7554521.html
Further developments on the above story http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-0...e-deal/8235820
So our PM did Trump the favour of not publicly criticizing him, and in return Trump publicly dumped on him. Australia has probably been the US's most loyal ally over recent decades (we even went to Vietnam when the Brits refused). By the time this idiot is through the US may not have too many friends in the world.
From The Guardian:
Kellyanne Conway, Senior Advisor to President Trump, 2nd February 2017
“I bet it’s brand new information to people that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came here to this country, were radicalised and they were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre. “Most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered.”
The Guardian, 3rd February 2017
It didn’t get covered, many are now pointing out, because there was no such massacre.
The two Iraqi men arrested in 2011 did live in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and are currently serving life sentences for federal terrorism offences. But there was no massacre, nor were they accused of planning one. The US department of justice, announcing their convictions in 2012, said: “Neither was charged with plotting attacks within the United States.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...never-happened
federal-judge-grants-temporary-restraining order on-immigration-ban-on-nationwide-basis
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/03/seatt...ide-basis.html
Surely it has to be Trump vodka, who can resist that grin?...:hide-1:Quote:
Originally Posted by flabbybody
Attachment 992732Attachment 992733
The Executive Order issued from the White House may have been a deliberate hand grenade designed to blow off for Trump's voters, implying he had complied with a campaign promise. That Trump can insult James Robart as a 'so-called judge' is merely par for this particular hole, as we know by know that anyone who disagrees with him is in some way deficient. The point is Trump doesn't care, and the claim that the EO deliberately intended to target both Green Card holders and Muslims appears to underline that the EO was never about either protecting the US from potential terrorists or tightening up the law on immigration, it was just a publicity stunt. The reactions thus show Republicans contradicting each other in a mad scramble to defend a policy that has
violated the guarantee of equal protection and the first amendment’s establishment clause, infringed the constitutional right to due process and contravened the federal Immigration and Nationality Act.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...utional-crisis
In addition, just as Calamity Sean denied it, and Paul Ryan claimed that had the EO been a 'Muslim ban' he would not have supported it, Rudolph Giuliani claims it is not only precisely a Muslim ban, but that is what Trump told him, thus:
“I’ll tell you the whole history of it,” Giuliani told Fox News last week. “When he first announced it, he said ‘Muslim ban’. He called me up, he said, ‘Put a commission together, show me the right way to do it legally.’”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...n-judge-ruling
That this 'Muslim ban' does not cover either Egypt or Saudi Arabia, where Trump has business interests is of course just one of those things. The effect has been to imply incompetence in the White House, but it could just be one of Steven Bannon's infernal tricks to flush out the 'enemies' who can then be paraded in front of the 'voters' as the people responsible for preventing Trump from 'Making America Great Again'. Trump can lose the argument in law, but he wins the politics, for as long as the Trump voters support him.
Masks are off, facism took over. A bully threw the chess board in the air, fucked his own pawns dry in the ass. Nothing will ever be the same again.
Bannon Goebels wakes up, reads a few pages from the Art of War, some CIA reports on how they succesfully killed democracy and installed some generals for the benefit of a few businessmen.
Then he broods over how he can use the protest as an excuse to advance the grip on power. Having the left AND center defending the devil's incarnate "Muslim" is gold for them.
America is being grated indeed, it's allies will have to scramble to save their furniture.
This is what you got - you were warned
The latest is the claim that the media is downplaying reporting of terrorist attacks, with a list of 78 supposed examples. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.0afbfb3d5342
This is laughable as it includes a number of attacks that received widespread media coverage. It has also emerged that Kellyanne Conway's fictional Bowling Green massacre claim was not a slip, but has been made twice before. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...re-three-times
They are certainly following Dr Goebbels' advice: "If you tell the same lie enough times, people will believe it; and the bigger the lie the better".
Trump needs to destroy the free press. Lügenpresse translates to “lying press,” was employed by the Third Reich in Nazi propaganda targeting Jews, communists, and the foreign press who dared report on Hitler’s mania and monstrous atrocities.
Donald Trump used it at his rallies to heckle members of the press. The underlying aim of lügenpresse is to sow distrust and disbelief in the Fourth Estate in the service of a competing agenda, and no American figure in modern history has sought to delegitimize the press quite like Trump.
Trump consistently characterizes the press as “liars” and “among the most dishonest groups of people I’ve ever met.”
Trump delivered an address at CIA headquarters where he attacked the media again, claiming that numerous reports of inauguration crowds in the 200,000 range—backed by photos of a not-so-packed National Mall—were false, with the President ginning up an attendance number of 1.5 million, while falsely claiming that crowds “went all the way back to the Washington monument.”
Even more disturbing, however, was Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s warning to journalists during a press conference: “There’s been a lot of talk in the media about the responsibility to hold Donald Trump accountable, and I’m here to tell you it goes two ways. We’re going to hold the press accountable as well.” Lügenpresse.
Here’s another view:
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...e-steve-bannon
On the one hand one has to ask if Americans really are so ignorant they cannot spell Denmark or even San Bernardino, but on the other hand I think the simple truth is that the people who prepared this document don't care. Somewhere in that statement should be a shocking reaction, but as this aspect of the Trump Presidency now seems standard, it will be regarded as normal for official documents on the United States of America to look like they were written by an 11-year old. And my apologies to those 11-year old Americans who can spell.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
Mein Kampf sums up an approach to propaganda - I think this, in part, answers the above
Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people. (...) All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. (...) The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses. The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another. (...) The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood.
“They are right. We expect a return on investment.”
-Betsy DeVos in the ’90s about being accused of buying influence with campaign donations
DeVos gave substantial sums of money to the Senators who voted to confirm her new position as Secretary of State for Education, which she sees as her opportunity to 'advance God's kingdom' across the USA (which is, nevertheless, a Republic). Marco Rubio received over $90,000 -there is a list in this link.
http://www.business2community.com/go...harts-01774485