U.S. Politics

[Chindie]

Worth looking into the Trump Tower Moscow stuff. There's a lot of talk the whole Russia thing is predicated on the tower deal, and more or less everyone involved has lied about it for quite years. Apparently.

Also, Sheriff Joe. Not really related to the wider accusations about Trump, but Arpaio is a real piece of shit. He's got an obscene record of dodginess, and even faked an assassination attempt.

[Keyblade]

He also just appointed a climate change denier as NASA administrator. The meme presidency knows no limits. History classes are gonna be so much fun in a few decades.

[wazzap24]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

Can Trump really survive all this? Are 40% of Americans really that dumb?

It's like every day now, a new revelation about Trump / Russia, For a man that said he had absolutely no ties with Russia, his organisation has now been discovered to have had meetings with at least FOUR different Russian banks, TWO of which aren't even transparently owed by someone else, they are Russian Government owned. They were going to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, would anyone believe Trump knew nothing about that? There are records of an aide boasting that he'll get the deal done with Putin and bring home the election for Trump too...

Then there's the original draft of the Comey firing letter, which has completely different reasons for his firing, which just about proves the obstruction of justice claim there, there's also another obstruction claim about Sheffif Joe with Trump trying to interfere in that way before he pardoned him (even the pardon breaks protocol)

They also think the testimony of the bloke that commissioned the original dossier may be released to the public sometime soon, that in itself could be dynamite

 

Honestly, I think we know the answer don't we? 

At this point, I don't even think even a video of him kiddie fiddling would do it, you'd still have the loony tunes saying it was 'fake news'. 

It's not just Trump, they'll fall for anything. Crazy evangelists, Scientologists, that plastic lego headed 'Tuckshop' bloke on Fox News, Alex 'Gay Frogs' Jones, Paul Joseph Twatson, climate deniers, flat earthers. The list goes on and on. 

Part of the problem is the opposition. Just deriding him and his cult like following isn't going to do it, you've got to provide an alternative they'll believe in. 

The scary thing is, it's getting like it over here too. 

 

[Keyblade]

1 hour ago, wazzap24 said:

Honestly, I think we know the answer don't we? 

At this point, I don't even think even a video of him kiddie fiddling would do it, you'd still have the loony tunes saying it was 'fake news'. 

It's not just Trump, they'll fall for anything. Crazy evangelists, Scientologists, that plastic lego headed 'Tuckshop' bloke on Fox News, Alex 'Gay Frogs' Jones, Paul Joseph Twatson, climate deniers, flat earthers. The list goes on and on. 

Part of the problem is the opposition. Just deriding him and his cult like following isn't going to do it, you've got to provide an alternative they'll believe in. 

The scary thing is, it's getting like it over here too. 

 

Even after losing the election on "ha, at least we're not that guy", the Dems still seemingly haven't learned their lesson. They think not being Republican is enough. They deserve everything.

[villakram]

So a $100B or more hit in Houston and potentially the same again in Florida, with Irma currently approx. off-scale... be interesting to see how the economy responds as that's an all too measurable percentage of GDP. Fingers crossed for those crazy assed Floridians and all those islanders etc. in her path!

Edited September 5, 2017 by villakram

[NoelVilla]

Obama did what he said he would do and has put a very good message about DACA on his social medias.

[limpid]

52 minutes ago, NoelVilla said:

Obama did what he said he would do and has put a very good message about DACA on his social medias.

 

[peterms]

Haven't tried to check the figures, but if correct, astonishing.

 

[peterms]

Well, yes...

 

[HanoiVillan]

'Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business' - Jonah Goldberg's 'Ledeen Doctrine' (2002)

[maqroll]

The biggest Atlantic hurricane on record is moving into the Caribbean at the moment, with a projected path taking it right over Key West and then possibly New Orleans.

[tonyh29]

2 hours ago, peterms said:

Haven't tried to check the figures, but if correct, astonishing.

 

Would appear to be true

In modern history, few things have caused such a sharp spike in US deaths as drug overdoses.

 

[sne]

12 minutes ago, maqroll said:

The biggest Atlantic hurricane on record is moving into the Caribbean at the moment, with a projected path taking it right over Key West and then possibly New Orleans.

So you're saying we need to invade Iran?

[il_serpente]

There's potentially going to be a "Yuge" need for unskilled and low-skill labor to deal with the cleanup efforts after Harvey and Irma.  If only there were a ready and willing supply of such labor available to us 

[snowychap]

1 hour ago, maqroll said:

The biggest Atlantic hurricane on record is moving into the Caribbean at the moment, with a projected path taking it right over Key West and then possibly New Orleans.

One can only hope that the destruction isn't of the level one would expect (from the Leewards onwards).

[Keyblade]

The Donald just a few years ago

He sounds light-years less stupid than he does now, being actually able to complete thoughts and construct coherent sentences...which fuels my suspicion that he has some sort of dementia kicking in.

[Villaphan04]

5 hours ago, maqroll said:

The biggest Atlantic hurricane on record is moving into the Caribbean at the moment, with a projected path taking it right over Key West and then possibly New Orleans.

Another tropical storm, Jose, has formed behind Irma. We will likely see 3 different hurricanes within a couple week of each other. 

[peterms]

Example of how the media deliberately and systematically misreport what N Korea says, in order to present a defensive position as inexplicable aggression:

Quote

...I recommend you pay close attention to this, from a recent column by the Post’s deputy editorial page editor, Jackson Diehl, about North Korea:

[North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un] has shown no interest in talks — he won’t even set foot in China, his biggest patron. Even if negotiations took place, the current regime has made clear that “it will never place its self-defensive nuclear deterrence on the negotiating table,” as one envoy recently put it. [emphasis added]

Here’s why that matters:

1. While the Post’s link is dead, it’s meant to take you to this Associated Press story.

This is what the envoy, North Korea’s Deputy UN Ambassador Kim In Ryong, actually said, according to a transcript from North Korea’s UN Mission quoted in the AP article:

“As long as the U.S. hostile policy and nuclear threat continue [emphasis added], the DPRK, no matter who may say what, will never place its self-defensive nuclear deterrence on the negotiation table or flinch an inch from the road chosen by itself, the road of bolstering up the state nuclear force.”

There’s of course a significant difference between North Korea saying it will never negotiate to halt or eliminate its nuclear weapons program, and that it will never negotiate as long as the U.S. continues to threaten it.

Moreover, many North Korean officials, including Kim himself, have used precisely this formulation over and over again since July 4, when North Korea launched what appeared to be its first genuine intercontinental ballistic missile.

And Diehl’s column is by no means the only example of this misrepresentation. As long as North Korean officials have been saying this, the U.S. media has frequently been cutting the qualifier...

1

 

In the UK, just this morning we've had the dreadful Michael Fallon on both R4 and R5 talking about NK aggression and the US having the right to "defend itself".

The supposedly non-political "Thought For The Day" this morning had an American rabbi, whose talk started with a reference to NK provocation.

It's a constant drip feed to present an alternative reality, where the US patrolling round NK with nukes is defence, and NK developing nukes in response is aggression.  "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."

[tonyh29]

10 hours ago, snowychap said:

One can only hope that the destruction isn't of the level one would expect (from the Leewards onwards).

When I went to NO back in 2012 on one of the tour thingys we did the guide said that if NO got hit again on the same scale as Katrina the talk was that they would abandon the place  and look to resettle the town elsewhere  !!!

no idea if this was his opinion or fact  though

[snowychap]