International Current Affairs (#BidenIn)

[Neverbloom]

there is no way in hell anyone is going to get a good deal for england for brexit

[mack]

They'll crash out with no deal. The EU can't back down on what they've negotiated now and Boris and his mates won't agree to it. The billionaires pushing for brexit have shorted the pound and will make billions when it crashes after no deal.

The referendum was a cheap political trick intended by Cameron to shore the Tory centre against hard/far right movements in the party and outside ukip bnp etc. It backfired spectacularly.

But the capital and megacorps will still win like they always do. The regular people will suffer.  The US will come in like vultures to pick off the NHS among other things.

[MartinTyler]

3 hours ago, Legionista said:

Put anyone in the job in UK and they face a near impossible task. 

The poms have lost the plot. 

Boris should have been appointed when Cameron resigned after the Brexit vote. He might have made a complete hash of it but the pro-Brexit camp may have appreciated the difficulties better had he been leading negotiations. Instead there has been a couple of wasted years.

[Zelinsky]

1 hour ago, mack said:

They'll crash out with no deal. The EU can't back down on what they've negotiated now and Boris and his mates won't agree to it. The billionaires pushing for brexit have shorted the pound and will make billions when it crashes after no deal.

The referendum was a cheap political trick intended by Cameron to shore the Tory centre against hard/far right movements in the party and outside ukip bnp etc. It backfired spectacularly.

But the capital and megacorps will still win like they always do. The regular people will suffer.  The US will come in like vultures to pick off the NHS among other things.

And good luck to them. I've been following politics since the late 70ies, and when they had meetings at EU level, the UK was always like a vegan at a sausage sizzle, complaining that there were no vegan sausages fried with vegan oil on an unpolluted BBQ. They had special sausages fried for decades, and it is astonishing that it was never enough. 

May they enjoy their reclaimed freedom. I dare say that many in Brussels, Strassbourgh and Luxembourgh will be quite glad to see the better of them.

Edited July 24, 2019 by FCB

[Cynth]

There is a sinister process going on in the US. He is sowing the seeds of division and the more outrageous and unfounded his statements become, the more his followers relish it. 

[mack]

He thinks there are millions of illegal votes that massively change the results of US elections against his party and all he's doing about it is crying on twitter and screaming about it in rallies. Hmm.

[theguyyouwishyouwere]

one day people are going to stop talking about time machines and killing baby hitler and start talking about killing baby-hands trump.

 

he is going straight from the hitler handbook with his immigrant rhetoric. 

[Cynth]

29 minutes ago, mack said:

He thinks there are millions of illegal votes that massively change the results of US elections against his party and all he's doing about it is crying on twitter and screaming about it in rallies. Hmm.

No he doesn’t think it. He wants his followers to think it. He is the king of projection.....there is only one side who whose votes were illegitimate. 

[wendybr]

On 22/07/2019 at 10:35 AM, Midfielder said:

He says the left and right are now akin “to different cultures”.

“We just don’t know what a democracy looks like when you drain all the trust out of the system,” Haidt says. “Although we do have examples of such democracies in Latin America, and the result is generally not pretty. So I don’t know what this future will look like. It may just be a continual decline in trust and efficacy such that everything is contested, everything is fought.

“The current political civil war is between two groups of educated white people with radically different views about what the country is, what morality is and what we need to do to move forward.

“Most Americans are non-political but in the age of social media they have become like dark matter. In a sense they don’t matter, they don’t exist. The modern civil war is being fought by the extremes.” The test is whether the centre — repelled by polarised politics — can revive or whether the ­forces of culture and technology will continue to drive the extremes on the left and right into deeper conflict that entrenches the political civil war that Haidt invokes.

So much interesting material in the article posted on the previous page by Middy....which I've shared with a few people, and which they've found interesting..

Thanks again for posting it Middy - and enjoy the Haidt talk tonight Cynth!

[Cynth]

This video says it all but it will all come to nothing.....democracy is dying in the US.

 

[mack]

Very smart to tell a guy who "jokes" about staying president forever, in a party who actually believe elections are rigged against them, that if he leaves office he'll be arrested.

[Edinburgh]

Something I don't get about the USA law enforcement agencies. They went outside their own jurisdictions to reveal/catch/prosecute the FIFA corruption with at best limited impact/benefit to their own country. But here they seem to be doing bugger all to deal with the criminality and corruption so obvious and made public with surely the bulk of the work already done for them. Yes, it's their President, but for christ's sake, he's sold out his own country!

[Davo]

There isn't even a law preventing them from prosecuting Trump, just a guidance memo from the Office of Legal Council to the DOJ. The intent of that was to prevent it from messing up their separation of powers system or causing the President to spend their whole term in court. I did see an article that said as this was a decision impacting the DOJ it's a federal ruling so an Attorney General from one of the states could theoretically prosecute Trump for breaking state laws, however it would just end up in the partisan Supreme Court which would rule in his favour.

[LeeMarvin]

Ice Cube says Arrest the President.  If you haven't already, do yourself a favour and check out the track.  One of the best from his latest album.

[mack]

The US Department of Justice is an executive branch department that the President is in charge of. Muller is a Special Counsel of the Department of Justice.

The realpolitik of the 'memo' is that no-one at the DOJ wants to allow a situation where someone working for the President would attempt to arrest the President. If Mueller decided he did want to arrest/indict him, the first thing Trump would have done is fire everyone who would have gone through with it. It'd be Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre all over again. Except this time the Republicans would have stood by their corrupt failure of a President.

Instead of allowing a constitutional crisis of "can the President just fire the entire DOJ staff and prevent his being arrested" possibly being legal constitutionally, it becomes a "political question" that involves impeachment first, if the Congress believes the President has committed acts worthy of an arrest, they can remove him. And then the ex-President can be arrested. Or that he would be voted out/finish his term at some point and no longer has the power to fire people.

Trump didn't fire Mueller because he could fight it politically, while avoiding overt political action of firing DOJ agents/staff that ultimately brought down Nixon. About 20 republican senators would have to flip to impeach Trump, and if that were going to happen he'd resign anyway because that would let Pence pardon him to end the whole saga (because you can't be pardoned after impeachment, but you can be pardoned if you resign before).

Most likely result is eventually the Democrats in the House (eg Pelosi and the "Squad" among others) send an impeachment to the Senate where Mitch McConnell blocks it, and both sides use it for political purposes heading into the 2020 election in just under a year and a half. Which the Democrats will lose because they're stupid and their clown car Primary is geared to get Biden the nomination by splitting people away from Sanders. Which will destroy their turnout in the general.

[Midfielder]

almost lol about the US ... well worth watching...

 

[Cynth]

I wish you had all been with me tonight to listen to Jonathan Haidt! So much to think about. A true centrist and a solid take on issues like outrage culture, social media and mental health, the university phenomenon happening in the US as a result of the gen z sensitivities etc. I love that he uses research and data to back up his claims, although he has quite a pessimistic view of where we are headed. He does think that the US’s democracy will implode but he thinks Aust has a chance to save itself. 

[wendybr]

6 hours ago, Cynth said:

I wish you had all been with me tonight to listen to Jonathan Haidt! So much to think about. A true centrist and a solid take on issues like outrage culture, social media and mental health, the university phenomenon happening in the US as a result of the gen z sensitivities etc. I love that he uses research and data to back up his claims, although he has quite a pessimistic view of where we are headed. He does think that the US’s democracy will implode but he thinks Aust has a chance to save itself. 

Thanks for the update, Cynth! I'm sorry I didn't join you.

Might have to post some of his videos...in which he joins those sensible voices calling out "outrage culture", which is robbing the Left of credibility in certain circles.

[wendybr]

This whole story has wider implications...

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/accused-sex-trafficker-jeffrey-epstein-found-injured-in-jail-cell-report-20190725-p52apy.html

[Cynth]

1 hour ago, wendybr said:

This whole story has wider implications...

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/accused-sex-trafficker-jeffrey-epstein-found-injured-in-jail-cell-report-20190725-p52apy.html

How so?

My concern is that this guy holds information in wider spread pedophile rings in the “elite” class. He either tried to suicide or there has been a hit, lots of people will be worried about him talking. As much as I don’t give a damn if he is harmed, I want him to spill the beans first! 

The Miami Herald article was really the best piece of journalistic research I have ever seen and has I would say saved a lot of children from abuse. 

[Davo]

Donald Trump appears in front of fake seal with two-headed eagle, Google search blamed

Quote

The image included a two-headed eagle, instead of just one head, which closely resembles the bird on the Russian coat of arms.

The eagle is holding golf clubs in its left talons, instead of the traditional seal's clutch of arrows, and cash in its right talons, instead of an olive branch.

The actual seal says "E Pluribus Unum", which means "from many one" in Latin, on the banner above the bird's head.

The altered seal said, "45 es un titere", which in Spanish means "45 is a puppet". Mr Trump is the 45th president of the United States.

In addition, the shield on the bird's chest has hammer-and-sickle symbols on it.

 

[wendybr]

 

3 hours ago, Davo said:

The image included a two-headed eagle, instead of just one head, which closely resembles the bird on the Russian coat of arms.

The eagle is holding golf clubs in its left talons, instead of the traditional seal's clutch of arrows, and cash in its right talons, instead of an olive branch.

The actual seal says "E Pluribus Unum", which means "from many one" in Latin, on the banner above the bird's head.

The altered seal said, "45 es un titere", which in Spanish means "45 is a puppet". Mr Trump is the 45th president of the United States.

In addition, the shield on the bird's chest has hammer-and-sickle symbols on it.

Hilarious actually!

[wendybr]

A different Pie!

Environmental activism, this one - campaigning against HS2 - with lots of the usual swearing. 

Maybe some of the Pommies here will have a view on this?

It sounds sad.

 

 

[wendybr]

Maybe this will be Lefty enough for Mack?

 

[mack]

Johnny Howard will be sad he got left out of the Blair/Bush reboot bit.

[Smoggy]

Syria, the world shrugs and looks the other way whilst civilians die.....or talk of crazy conspiracy theories, or make stupid mock presidential seals..., or hark back to past conflicts to ensure there is no action at a time there should have been for Syria.

 

 

Edited July 27, 2019 by Erimus

[mack]

RAAF planes killed 35 civilians in an airstrike in Iraq in 2017, it took 2 years to come out in the media and no-one cared. The PM basically shrugged it off obscuring our involvement, lying about how many people died.

[Smoggy]

4 minutes ago, mack said:

RAAF planes killed 35 civilians in an airstrike in Iraq in 2017, it took 2 years to come out in the media and no-one cared.

Correct....but that was then, when will people look at the situation now, why must mistakes of the past mean that people in Syria must suffer and we must all look the other way, your argument is pathetic in the current Syria context.

Edited July 27, 2019 by Erimus

[mack]

I'm not making any argument. People either don't care because it's not a western country, or don't want their countries getting any more involved in an 8 year long, quagmire civil war.

[Legionista]

2 hours ago, Erimus said:

Correct....but that was then, when will people look at the situation now, why must mistakes of the past mean that people in Syria must suffer and we must all look the other way, your argument is pathetic in the current Syria context.

They have to want it first. 

And they don’t want it.

It’s as simple as that.