Thought for the Day

One of the most successful films released in recent years, Barbie, is, we are told, Communist Chinese propaganda, Trans propaganda, featuring a de-masculanized ‘beta-male Ken’, and thus a threat to the American family. Danke schön, Frau De Santis.

Not sure if ‘get a life, dude’, should be ‘get another country, go and live there’. Da doo doo Ron is re-writing American history, Trump proposes to expand his powers if elected, to create a Presidential Dictatorship.

It can’t happen here…or can it? I think most Americans reject this ignorance and danger but will the next election be rigged?

https://www.advocate.com/film/right-...er#toggle-gdpr

The MAGA Party is losing their minds and throwing a bitch fit over the release of the Barbie Movie. Shows how insecure they really are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zz8CiMyttU

The shoe definitely fits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlNE0i_Yhy8

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KnightHawk 2.0

The MAGA Party is losing their minds and throwing a bitch fit over the release of the Barbie Movie. Shows how insecure they really are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zz8CiMyttU

---

Is this satire?

The GOP was racist even before they embraced the MAGA King Donald Trump,and will continue to be the party of Bigots,Racists,White Nationalists and Xenophobes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUv05bFpkck

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stavros

One of the most successful films released in recent years, Barbie, is, we are told, Communist Chinese propaganda, Trans propaganda, featuring a de-masculanized ‘beta-male Ken’, and thus a threat to the American family. Danke schön, Frau De Santis.

---

This seems to be the right-wing version of approved cinema.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/202...n-jim-caviezel

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by filghy2

This seems to be the right-wing version of approved cinema.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/202...n-jim-caviezel

---

The first rule of QAnon: don’t mention QAnon.
The second rule of QAnon: never document the occasions when Donald Trump made sexual remarks about his daughter Ivana Marie.
The third rule of QAnon: never refer back in history to the fate of children sold into slavery and transported to the USA.

A perfect description of the MAGA Party. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goO7RXt6sv4

The So-Called GOP are a bunch of whiners,and are upset because their leader was indicted for a third time. And whether they like it or not,there will be more indictments coming againist their leader. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfCGvoeM2EI

Over the past 20 years, NYC has gone through a series of events, 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis and Super Storm Sandy. Although I think it would be fair to say that each one has had a negative impact in its own way, somehow the city has found ways to be resilient.

But given the events of the past three years, I'm starting to wonder how much more this city can take. The pandemic/lockdowns, the negative impacts of the "Defund the police movement, and now the immigrant/migrant crisis.
This happened earlier this week:

http://nypost.com/2023/07/31/migrant...hits-capacity/

Since that report, the immigrants/migrants that were on the sidewalk have been moved into temporary housing. But in the words of Mayor Eric Adams, the situation isn’t going to get any better. Especially since there doesn't seem to be any help coming from Washington D.C. Congress is nowhere to be found. The Department of Homeland Security said they would send a staffer. While President Biden did get a victory in court regarding his asylum policy, it is probably temporary since the ruling will no doubt be appealed. So, until a rational and permanent solution is come up with, I guess New York and other cities who are facing a similar situation are basically on their own.

Which brings me to my next point. No city should have to bear the brunt of or share the cost for several years of this country’s failed attempts at immigration reform. But this is what happens when you stand on a virtual soapbox, thump your chest, and defiantly declare you’re a sanctuary city. Your words tend to come back and haunt you.

It is a disgraceful situation, and not so different from the mess being made of 'illegal immigration'/asylum seekers in the UK. In bith cases, there is it seems to me either no policy, or policies that clearly don't work. In the UK we still await a definitive legal decision on whether or not the Govt has the right to send asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing, a policy so daft when I first read about it I thought it was a joke. Only it ain't.

I agree it sounds morally fine to declare New York or anywhere else a 'Sanctuary city' but that is only half the cake, the rest being the reality of housing people, processing their claims and doing so in a fair way.

I think in the US you have a paralysis of decision making, overlaid by a degree of racism on the part of Republicans; it doesn't look like in practical terms there is a single coherent policy, largely because State and Federal governments are divided and bickering with each other.

What should the policy be? When there is a labour shortage, it is obvious, but allowing free movement of people seems to have become transformed from a key component of freedom itself, to a toxic social issue, as it was used by Nigel Farage in the Brexit debate to demonize immigrants.

Again: why is the US so different from Canada? And does Canada have solutions the US could try?

What Is Canada’s Immigration Policy? | Council on Foreign Relations (cfr.org)

Immigration: US vs. Canada (grcglobalgroup.com)

Even the Cato Institute can produce this-
15 Myths About Immigration Debunked | Immigration | Carnegie Corporation of New York

Isn't this a gift for the Democrats? Republicans at war with America's women; Republican's winning in 2024 determined to trash the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency; re-write all the history books to tell the next generation of children Slavery Was Fun; defunding Law Enforcement to be replaced with Posse Patrol...and coming sooner than they realise-the dissolution of the Sacred Military....

"The Alabama Republican senator Tommy Tuberville is “prepared to burn the military down” with his block on promotions in protest of Pentagon policy on abortion, the Connecticut Democratic senator Chris Murphy said."

"“We do not have a chief of staff of the army for a first time in 200 years,” [Nikki] Haley told the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “More than 300 vacancies. It’s a mess.”"
Republican senator will ‘burn the military down’ over abortion policy, says Democrat | US military | The Guardian

-And who is responsible for it, Ms Haley? You are.

Come on, ye Democrats, and cry 'burn, baby burn' just like in the old days. Only this time make it the GOP....

Or can't they be bothered?

It should be a gift, but partisan voters are firmly entrenched. They will support their party no matter what. So it depends on independents.

Hmmmm...so partisan Republican voters will not compromise on an issue like Abortion which they can see loses them votes....they won't compromise on gun control with no regard to the multiple victims of gun crime, without ever offering a coherent explanation why. They bark about inflation as if it were not under control and declining, or 'open borders' where the average flow of illegal migrants has fallen, not risen. They clearly don't know enough of their own history to object to the De Santis School of History, written by frauds who can't even define slavery, let alone describe it. They want self-government while insisting Govt do this, that, whatever without paying taxes to fund it.

Then, into this soup of bewildered nonsense, comes the actual or potential threat of Independents not voting for either Biden or, if he is the one, Trump, though one hopes that were the latter to happen even Independents would go Democrat. For one of the emerging claims to the Independent vote is Cornel 'I Am a Crank' West, though in his case he is so plain daft I am not sure even the most rigid Independent would endorse him....or would they? Has the US really sunk so low?

Cornel West Should Not Be Running for President | The Nation

Cornel West Made a Huge Mistake - YouTube

This is quite interesting, not least because it has nothing to say about the so-called 'music', even though the mystery of rap from my perspective, is how people shouting or mumbling into a microphone can become millionaires. As for the relentless beat, well haven't Steve Reich and John Adams being writing this for years, and doing a better job of repetition than the drivel called rap?

Why are Black rappers aligning themselves with the right? | Tayo Bero | The Guardian

Try this-

John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine – BBC Proms 2014 - YouTube

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stavros

I came across this long article on Hunter Biden and his 'laptop' -the laptop that doesn't exist, so really the 'hard drive' of which there are now multiple copies, some of them 'edited' by people with, shall we say, 'an agenda'. As the article states

"And for all the time they have spent scrutinizing his emails and his dick pics, Maxey and others have yet to find any incontrovertible evidence of criminality."
The Sordid Saga of Hunter Biden’s Laptop (nymag.com)

Can it be proven that Joe Biden benefited financially from his son's business deals in China and the Ukraine? I doubt it, but that is because of the demands of the law. Does the material exposed leave Hunter Biden with the image of a depressed man doing things with drugs and porn? Yes. Is that illegal? I don't think so.

For years, Trump couldn't get a licence to operate in China. Then he became President, and got his licence -how did that happen? And what about HIS sons, and their management of the 'Trump Organization' -which now doesn't exist, we are told. Double standards?

More pertinent, when is the contents of your hard drive legitimate public knowledge? If someone is a drug dealer, trading illegal porn, ie, breaking the law, then I guess the Courts have the right to take action -but the New York Post, or the Daily Mail?

---

Do Republicans want to get to the 'sordid truth' of Hunter Biden's less than perfect life, or just convict without the hassle of proof, a trial and all that messy stuff?

I guess Hunter Biden isn't the most talented person in that family but I vaguely recall Jimmy Carter's brother was an occasional embarrassment though these days he would be made more of by the Murdoch media.

Republicans Are Mad They Got The Hunter Biden Special Counsel They Asked For (yahoo.com)

Another step into the abyss, the moral collapse of the USA. Or, if voters get their way, a step forward in the extermination of the putrid Republican Party, whose leader fantasises about having sex with his daughter, whose Congressional representatives scream about corruption in the White House without being able to provide a shred of evidence for it, whose not-so-flimsy relations with American Nazis makes one wonder if the Jews will be the first minority to be expelled from the US when 'they' are back in the White House...
Girl, 13, gives birth after she was raped and denied abortion in Mississippi | Abortion | The Guardian

Indictment # 4 came last night againist the MAGA King Donald Trump,and there will be plenty more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbsPPz37h_U

Scumbag behind the "Rep. Ilhan Omar married her brother" rumor was sentenced to 21 years in prison for sex trafficking minors.

https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/ne...-tony-lazzaro/

Trump's latest big lie. No only does he have the weight-to-height ratio of a champion athlete, but he also plays like one, apparently.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/sport/golf...12fa2023&ei=15

If it wasn't for the fact that millions of Americans have decided this guy is the messiah, we could all laugh him off as a ridiculously delusional narcissist.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by filghy2

Trump's latest big lie. No only does he have the weight-to-height ratio of a champion athlete, but he also plays like one, apparently.

If it wasn't for the fact that millions of Americans have decided this guy is the messiah, we could all laugh him off as a ridiculously delusional narcissist.

---

He has some way to go before matching the record of the deceased leader of his 'Beloved' North Korea-

" The greatest golfer in history is gone.
North Korean dictator/superstar golfer Kim Jong-Il has died at 69 -- a fitting age, because 69 is under par on every regulation golf course.
Kim shot 38 under, including 11 holes-in-one, at the 7,700-yard championship course at Pyongyang in the VERY FIRST golf round of his life, according to North Korean state media."
Kim Jong-Il -- North Korea dictator left behind laughable golf legacy - Page 2 - ESPN

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stavros

He has some way to go before matching the record of the deceased leader of his 'Beloved' North Korea-

---

If Trump becomes President again I'm sure we'll get to that

Two Presidents: The current president is doing a great job of running the country and being a leader. While the former president is still spreading lies about the 2020 Presidental Election,duping his supporters into giving him money,and has been indicted 4 times. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjnB8HhaaGs

The Sound of Freedom, far from The Sound of Music. What strikes me about it, and I have not seen the film, is that at a time when the Governors of Texas and Florida are in a campaign to stop Latinos crossing the border, the film which one assumes is close to their ideology, is about an heroic American bringing Latinos across the border....

Sound of Freedom’s success proves America is not only a different country – it’s a different planet (yahoo.com)

I enjoyed reading this, brutal though it is.

'The GOP has become become anti-American, anti-government and anti-United States': Can they be stopped? | Opinion (msn.com)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stavros

I enjoyed reading this, brutal though it is.

'The GOP has become become anti-American, anti-government and anti-United States': Can they be stopped? | Opinion (msn.com)

---

Very interesting article. Yes the GOP aka The MAGA Party can be stopped,by voting them out of office and power and replacing them with politicians who will put country over party,and work for their constituents.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stavros

Do Republicans want to get to the 'sordid truth' of Hunter Biden's less than perfect life, or just convict without the hassle of proof, a trial and all that messy stuff?

I guess Hunter Biden isn't the most talented person in that family but I vaguely recall Jimmy Carter's brother was an occasional embarrassment though these days he would be made more of by the Murdoch media.

Republicans Are Mad They Got The Hunter Biden Special Counsel They Asked For (yahoo.com)

---

Let me get this right, Republicans want to prosecute Hunter Biden over some minor misdemeanor relating to the purchase of a gun -is like, er, Gun Control by any other name? Rather like the Pro-Life Republicans who terminate lives when they are Prisoners on Death Row?

Anyway, other than the laptop that doesn't exist, the hard drive the world and his wife have had access to, the mystery of why the shop owner didn't contact Hunter Biden to return it and so on and so on, this bracing critique does suggest the poor lad is being treated differently from other Americans. And you know the reason why.

Davis: The facts about Hunter Biden | The Hill

Trump's Charges. 91 charges against the MAGA King and Domestic Terrorist Leader Donald Trump. And
the MAGA Caucus in Congress continues to defend their leader and want to impeach President Joe,instead of working for their constituents. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhHhyrnxzVs

"“I am the most investigated man in the entire Congress, and right there you saw Kevin McCarthy lying like a dead dog because I have never asked him to interfere in any ethics matter,” Gaetz said."
Gaetz says McCarthy ‘lying,’ in response to accusations he’s colluding with Swalwell | The Hill

I guess you could say Representative Gaetz is, well, barking....but then I wonder how a dead dog can do anything, let alone bark. Either a strange metaphor that in effect says McCarthy is not lying -because a dead animal can't lie- or Gaetz has a creative, if lazy way with the English language. It could be an amusing moment in the latest version of The Importance of Being Kevin, but without the wit of Oscar Wilde, it seems all they can produce is, what, dogshit?

Or The dogs that bellow, and the wolf that lies

When the Hounds of Spring Are on Winter's Traces (ronnowpoetry.com)

Senile. The MAGA Party are calling President Joe Biden old,but yet they want their leader to be elected president again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgjS_7eNoOg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stavros

It is a disgraceful situation, and not so different from the mess being made of 'illegal immigration'/asylum seekers in the UK. In bith cases, there is it seems to me either no policy, or policies that clearly don't work. In the UK we still await a definitive legal decision on whether or not the Govt has the right to send asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing, a policy so daft when I first read about it I thought it was a joke. Only it ain't.

I agree it sounds morally fine to declare New York or anywhere else a 'Sanctuary city' but that is only half the cake, the rest being the reality of housing people, processing their claims and doing so in a fair way.

I think in the US you have a paralysis of decision making, overlaid by a degree of racism on the part of Republicans; it doesn't look like in practical terms there is a single coherent policy, largely because State and Federal governments are divided and bickering with each other.

What should the policy be? When there is a labour shortage, it is obvious, but allowing free movement of people seems to have become transformed from a key component of freedom itself, to a toxic social issue, as it was used by Nigel Farage in the Brexit debate to demonize immigrants.

---

I don't know what the policy should be, but it shouldn't have been this:

Biden angrily opposed lifting Trump immigration bans but caved to left’s demands: book

//nypost.com/2023/09/05/biden-opposed-lifting-trump-immigration-bans-but-caved-to-lefts-demands/

I think the main problem is this and its brought up in the article:

[Biden] said that voters would never appreciate the difference between refugees fleeing tyranny and economic migrants from Central American. Since he was already getting pulverized on immigration, boosting the cap would just make things worse,” the book says.

Going back to the Obama administration because he had to deal with this situation too, I think word spread that if a person crosses the border illegally and asks for asylum, it will help them jump to the front of the line of the immigration process. But there is a difference between an immigrant, a migrant, and a refugee. But now it seems those differences no longer apply, along with the reasons for asylum, and we are treating everyone as if they're a refugee. When that simply isn't the case. Because let’s be honest, not all those migrants that have been coming since the beginning of the Biden administration are going to qualify for permanent residence and are going to have be sent back. Since they are spread all over the country, that’s going to be another problem.

As for the addressing the labor shortage, since the crisis began, many people have been calling for this to happen:

www.nytimes.com/2023/08/29/business/dealbook/ceos-new-york-migrants.html

"The C.E.O.s also said that immigration control was “clearly” a federal issue, siding with Hochul in calling for federal funding for educational, housing, security and health care services for migrants.

They also supported Hochul’s and Adams’s requests for faster processing of asylum applications and work permits, since newly arrived migrants must otherwise wait 180 days before they can work legally."

But still no word from the federal government if this will happen.

While I believe in freedom of movement within a country and between them, there should be some restriction of movement when it comes to country’s borders. By no means am I saying, “Build the Wall”. Just fix the patches that already exist.

What is depressing is not the absence of a solution, but the accumulation of obstacles to a solution. We can agree that there should be a sharp distinction between economic migrants and asylum seekers -where there are job vacancies, it makes sense to offer immigrants a legal entry procedure, if that does help with the job situation. Just as the processing of claims of asylum ought not to take more than 180 days where in the UK it can now take two to three years or more.

How did these conditions become unmanageable? Mostly through deliberate policies. In countries run by dictators, the solution to protest is simple -get rid of them, and if you can't kill them -as they have done in Syria, expel them, with the figures running into the millions. Russia, Syria, Myanmar have all given people they don't like a stark choice: die here, or leave.

Then there are those who exploit this for financial and political gain -viz Turkey and the scam that sent refugees from Syria to Germany -the people smugglers got their cut, the Turkish Govt got its slice of the pie from the EU. Central American countries with rampant crime and corruption could not care less how many people leave, they don't want them anyway. Again, people make money trafficking migrants north of the border.

But then in the domestic scene, if you have Govt that is more concerned with tax cuts for the rich with cuts to public services, the system begins to stall, cases mount up, while the failure of those who could do it, to create more affordable housing, to fund the public education service people want, creates its own tensions in communities that say they can't cope with new arrivals, because they can't -and that was the whole point. Because most of the tax cutting Conservatives are also racists, or play the race card to demonize immigrants of all categories without putting into place a 'cold turkey' plan whereby the new arrivals are rounded up and sent back to where they came from, if it can be done legally, which on the high seas it can not.

Until the domestic scene is properly funded, and clear and efficient, ie fast procedures put in place to process immigrants and asylum seekers, this problem will not go away. In the US you have the problem at the Federal level which is the hostility of Congress to workable solutions, but often because one party is voting on sectarian lines rather than in terms of what a good and affordable policy might be- right now you can't even agree a budget for your military for reasons that have nothing to do with military needs or policy, and everything to do with an attack on what are perceived to be 'liberal' provisions for service personnel.

In the UK we have had 13 years of 'austerity' which has cut so much money from the agencies that process immigration, that it now takes years to deal with it, while the Home Office wants to process asylum seekers in Rwanda, as daft an idea as ever existed.

But it reveals the collapse of a rational approach to a problem that does have a solution, but not in one place. Chaos in Libya enables traffickers to load the boats that go to Lampedusa where a small island cannot cope -it was a relatively poor and deprived place before this business took off and for all his promises, Berlusconi did nothing practical to solve the problem.

I don't envy Biden or Harris trying to get to grips with this. And the problem is made worse by the shabby antics of De Santis and Abbott who traffic men, women and children for political gain rather than as a solution to the wider problem. Unless, and until a new approach is made to both immigration and the funding and staffing of local services, and foreign governments forced to take control of their own borders, this will not go away.

Don't Rush with your Hosannas just yet, for we are now informed there are Good Jews, Bad Jews, and Jews Who Nose Nuffink-

"Former President Donald Trump marked the start of the Jewish High Holy Days with a fiery missive on Sunday reminding his followers that “liberal Jews” voted to “destroy America & Israel” through their support of Joe Biden."
Trump Says On Rosh Hashanah That ‘Liberal Jews’ Voted To ‘Destroy America’ (yahoo.com)

"Elon Musk has accused George Soros’s foundation of wanting to destroy western civilisation, as the tech tycoon prepares to meet the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in California."
Elon Musk hits out at Soros foundation before meeting Israel’s Netanyahu | Elon Musk | The Guardian

The more the MAGA King And Domestic Terrorist Leader Donald Trump attacks Special Prosecutor Jack Smith,Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and DC Judge Tayna Chutkan,the bigger the hole he dug for himself gets,because everything he says in public can be used against him in court.

Fact Checking: Everything Donald-MAGA King-Trump said in the interview on Meet The Press with Kristen Welker is a lie. Another prime example of him being a pathological liar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw_enJa4PkQ

I recall that in the past there were 'Southern Gentlemen' in Congress who would be passing legislation or attacking Gay Rights during the day, and 'entertain' young men at night.

Lauren Boebert, given her latest 'outing' in Colorado, seems to think it is one thing to attack 'Woke' culture, LGBTQ rights and so on, then reach for the 'Lunchbox' of her date who owns clubs that give work to the very same people she thinks are destroying her country.

Given the scurrilous claims about her past as a 'model' on sugardaddy something-or-other and those photos and that abortion, I suppose you could say, Ms Boebert has both an interest in Rod and Tackle, being possessed of Rack and Form -?

Lauren Boebert's date from groping video owns drag-friendly bar (thepinknews.com)

Disclaimer -I do not know if the material on this site is legit

It Appears Rep. Lauren Boebert Had an 'Explore Talent' Modeling/Actor Page and YIKES (politicalflare.com)

Trump's Instincts: A second term of the MAGA King and Domestic Terrorist Leader Donald Trump,will be a hell of alot worse than his first term because he's shown who he is,and what he's willing to do to stay in power,which includes spreading lies about election fraud,claiming he won the election and causing an insurrection by riling up his supporters to storm the capitol to stop the counting of votes. And also shown he is a threat to democracy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhr0TC4WLK4

I found this on yahoo with regard to Michael Wolff's book on Murdoch

"According to a New York Times review, Wolff describes the Fox-host-turned-Trump-surrogate Kimberly Guilfoyle “settl[ing] into a private plane on the way to [Roger] Ailes’s funeral”, adding: “What was also clear, if you wanted it to be, was that she was wearing no underwear.”
Key takeaways from Michael Wolff’s book on Murdoch, Fox and US politics (yahoo.com)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FslTpwcX...g&name=900x900

The Guest is yet to Come...?

Strong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhYE0vnV_Bg

In 1957 a feature film was released in the USSR, called The Cranes are Flying (dir. Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957). It is one of the worst films I have ever seen, so I am not surprised there is a Crane in Congress who is so offensive he should be 'flying tonight'. And no surprises he is buddies with Matthew Gaetz, who now appears to be Trump's deputy leader, indicating just how desperate this so-called party has become.

A force for change, or change by force? And with no regard for what the American people want...

"“He encouraged the audience to watch a speech by a right-wing pastor who blamed cultural change on a group of German Jewish philosophers and condemned Barack Obama for having a ‘homosexual agenda.'
”“If we don’t wake up,” Crane said, according to the Post, “if we don’t study what they’re doing, and if we don’t put people in influential positions that understand what this war is all about, what they’re trying to do and have and have the courage to call it out, we’re going to lose this country.”

In August, while standing next to Donald Trump at a campaign rally, Congressman Gaetz said, “Mr. President, I cannot stand these people that are destroying our country. They are opening our borders. They are weaponizing our federal law enforcement against patriotic Americans who love this nation as we should.”
“But we know that only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington, D.C. And so to all my friends here in Iowa, when you see them come for this man, know that they are coming for our movement and they are coming for all of us.”"
'He holds the line': Gaetz praises GOP congressman who echoes his call for change 'through force' (msn.com)