U.S. Politics

[peterms]

On 12/27/2016 at 10:21, StefanAVFC said:

Usually under every there are hundreds of bots spamming the same tweet (usually selling some shite)

Report them too!

The latest:

He's a child.

Here's another.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/813945096269860866

Quote

Donald J. Trump Verified account ‏@realDonaldTrump

The U.S. Consumer Confidence Index for December surged nearly four points to 113.7, THE HIGHEST LEVEL IN MORE THAN 15 YEARS! Thanks Donald!

I'm starting to wonder whether the account is real, or if it's just a hoax.  Someone having a laugh to see how ridiculous it can get.

[StefanAVFC]

Referring to himself in the 3rd person.

Someone needs to tell him he won. He's not campaigning anymore.

[peterms]

15 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Referring to himself in the 3rd person.

It's even worse than that - it's the second person, he's addressing himself: Thanks, Donald!

If someone was walking down the street and doing that, you'd think they were having some kind of mental health episode.  To be doing it on twitter, as the incoming head of state, is just a level of weirdness that you couldn't write as comedy.

[OutByEaster?]

He's told Israel to "Stay Strong".

Now, regardless of your feelings on Israel's abhorrent, illegal, murderous, apartheid policies in East Jerusalem and the occupied territories (did I give away my position there?) - it's ridiculous to see what basically amounts to a very public spat between two Presidents, with the outgoing wanting to make a statement against something it appears he's disagreed with on principle (but not been able to disagree with in policy) and the incoming essentially telling the world, "Ignore him, he's stupid." 

We live in a dangerously divided world.

 

[chrisp65]

54 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

He's told Israel to "Stay Strong".

Now, regardless of your feelings on Israel's abhorrent, illegal, murderous, apartheid policies in East Jerusalem and the occupied territories (did I give away my position there?) - it's ridiculous to see what basically amounts to a very public spat between two Presidents, with the outgoing wanting to make a statement against something it appears he's disagreed with on principle (but not been able to disagree with in policy) and the incoming essentially telling the world, "Ignore him, he's stupid." 

We live in a dangerously divided world.

 

I agree entirely. But would add it was a bit of a dick move by the Obama administration to do 'something' with days remaining of an 8 year presidency.

Poor form from all of them.

[OutByEaster?]

13 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I agree entirely. But would add it was a bit of a dick move by the Obama administration to do 'something' with days remaining of an 8 year presidency.

Poor form from all of them.

Obama has done a couple of things in his last days that sort of suggest that he'd wanted to do quite a lot of different things in his eight year stint but couldn't get them through - I think he's just wanting to leave having exercised some sort of principle. Late and not much use, but hey, if it helps him sleep at night...

 

[blandy]

4 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Obama has done a couple of things in his last days that sort of suggest that he'd wanted to do quite a lot of different things in his eight year stint but couldn't get them through - I think he's just wanting to leave having exercised some sort of principle. Late and not much use, but hey, if it helps him sleep at night...

Yeah, he tried all the way through to work with opponents to persuade them, but the Tea party types just wouldn't be persuaded, they blocked and all the rest. Now the election is over, he's just thought, f... it, with Trump coming in there's no point any more, I'll just do as much as I can.

Guantanamo is his shame.

[MakemineVanilla]

 

[blandy]

That's the tea party in a nutshell, albeit a more intelligent nutshell than most of them.

[Awol]

2 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

I agree entirely. But would add it was a bit of a dick move by the Obama administration to do 'something' with days remaining of an 8 year presidency.

Poor form from all of them.

Yes, but even this single fairly weak gesture has put the wind up Netanyahu.

The way he is lashing out at all involved (cancelled a planned meeting with May next month and some bitter reporting in Israel that the UK crafted the resolution) demonstrates that this came as a rude shock. Tel Aviv has acted with impunity for decades, a dose of reality may actually do some good. 

The Israeli right is walking the country into becoming an Apartheid State, if Obama's action forestalls that in any way he's done them a service. 

[HanoiVillan]

9 minutes ago, Awol said:

Yes, but even this single fairly weak gesture has put the wind up Netanyahu.

The way he is lashing out at all involved (cancelled a planned meeting with May next month and some bitter reporting in Israel that the UK crafted the resolution) demonstrates that this came as a rude shock. Tel Aviv has acted with impunity for decades, a dose of reality may actually do some good. 

The Israeli right is walking the country into becoming an Apartheid State, if Obama's action forestalls that in any way he's done them a service. 

Hear hear. 

[peterms]

3 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

... it was a bit of a dick move by the Obama administration to do 'something' with days remaining of an 8 year presidency.
 

Especially while awarding them $38bn "aid".  Are there many countries which give aid to other countries that have a higher life expectancy and lower child mortality than the donor country?

But of course it's not aid as we traditionally know it, more like an arms fund for murdering Palestinians.

[Xann]

1 hour ago, Awol said:

Yes, but even this single fairly weak gesture has put the wind up Netanyahu.

Feathers he spits.

Quote

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told New Zealand's foreign minister that his country's sponsoring of the UN anti-settlement resolution was a "declaration of war".

Mr Netanyahu has also lashed out at President Barack Obama after Friday's Security Council vote, on which the United States' abstention marked a break with tradition, and called the action a "shameful ambush".

The Security Council voted to condemn settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as a "flagrant violation of international law" and demanded Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory”, pointing out that the international community views any Israeli construction over the agreed 1967 Green Line as illegal.

 

Independent

5 minutes ago, peterms said:

But of course it's not aid as we traditionally know it, more like an arms fund for murdering Palestinians.

Israel is the largest recipient of the US foreign aid budget.

Then the money is ploughed into the war industry at home.

[OutByEaster?]

The American taxpayer gives the money to the Pentagon, the Senate instructs the Pentagon to give the money to Israel, Israel takes the money then gives it to US Arms firms for. Israel sells some of those arms to countries the US isn't allowed to, the US Arms industry gives a little of that money back to helpful Senators. It's an established and efficient path for the movement of public money into private hands that relies almost entirely on the American taxpayer being kept in the dark.

I'd be interested to know how the US press is reporting this particular incident.

 

[peterms]

5 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

The American taxpayer gives the money to the Pentagon, the Senate instructs the Pentagon to give the money to Israel, Israel takes the money then gives it to US Arms firms for. Israel sells some of those arms to countries the US isn't allowed to, the US Arms industry gives a little of that money back to helpful Senators. It's an established and efficient path for the movement of public money into private hands that relies almost entirely on the American taxpayer being kept in the dark.

I'd be interested to know how the US press is reporting this particular incident.

 

And the circle includes al-Qaeda and Isis being funded, and Israel treating their injured fighters and releasing them back into combat.

Much more profitable than housing homeless people, or making drinkable water freely available in the richest nation on earth.

And all the while piously invoking "Christian values". 

Pass the sick bucket.

[Awol]

@Xann A declaration of war?! Israel and New Zealand squaring up being possibly the most unlikely conflict in military history..

He's definitely flapping.

[Davkaus]

New Zealand's defence budget is $2.2 billion. They might be in trouble.  

[peterms]

18 minutes ago, Awol said:

@Xann A declaration of war?! Israel and New Zealand squaring up being possibly the most unlikely conflict in military history..

He's definitely flapping.

Yes.  Flapping, as the trailing ends of the badly tied arms of a straitjacket flap as the wearer runs across the lawn away from Matron.

Nurse!  The screens!

Or possibly Icarus...?  Struggling upwards before a headlong dive to destruction.

[HanoiVillan]

Yes, this is the bluster of a man who is beginning to realise that he has crap cards in his hand. Since this mostly (not quite entirely, but mostly) his own fault I have no sympathy whatsoever. 

Israel has been relying on US vetoes for a long time, but there was a time, very recently, when they were losing these votes, but not losing them unanimously. The Republicans are Netanyahu's last stand: they'll go down with him, to the bitter end, no matter what. They changed their policy platform at their convention to remove support for a two-state solution and to state that there would be no space at all between the nations' foreign policies. They stated their support for an 'undivided' Jerusalem as capital, and are clearly planning to move the embassy to Jerusalem. 

The problem is, that the more they are associated with the Trump administration, the further from the international community they will get. And people are starting to realise that if there is no two-state solution even in name, then Israel can be nothing else except an apartheid state. And Trump won't be in power forever. 

[villa4europe]

It's not so much even what he's saying (which is another issue all together) it's that he's using Twitter to do his bidding, they apparently took it off him during the last weeks of the campaign they need to do it again, this is the 3rd or 4th time he's tweeted something dangerous in the space of a couple of weeks, **** ridiculous