192
   

monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

 
 
Setanta
 
  3  
Mon 25 Sep, 2017 11:48 pm
@blatham,
À Propos of your comment about women leading the Democratic Party, I suggest that you check out Tulsi Gabbard. A veteran of Iraq, the Hawaii legislature and the Congress, she was DNC Vice Chair in 2016, and resigned to support Sanders. (Although I consider that bad judgment, it shows that she has the courage of conviction.) She also opposed how the DNC primary elections and primary debate system was being run, and opposed superdelegates.

Here's the Wikipedia bio.
Below viewing threshold (view)
oralloy
 
  -4  
Tue 26 Sep, 2017 12:12 am
@MontereyJack,
MontereyJack wrote:
You will note that there is NOTHING in what you aseeem to consider damning info about BLM that in any way whatsoever backs up your fallacious claim that their real motive is murdering police.

Nothing apart from the fact that the central thing they call for is for police officers to be harshly punished if they defend themselves from a murder attempt by a black person.


MontereyJack wrote:
That is entirely your sick fantasy

No. BLM goons really do call for police to be harshly punished if they defend themselves from a murder attempt by a black person.
Below viewing threshold (view)
izzythepush
 
  3  
Tue 26 Sep, 2017 01:04 am
Quote:
The US has dismissed a statement by North Korea accusing Washington of declaring war on the country, calling the idea "absurd".
The White House also warned Pyongyang to stop provocations after it said it had the right to shoot down US bombers.
A UN spokesman said fiery talk could lead to fatal misunderstandings.
South Korea has called for a level-headed response, warning that accidental clashes in the region could quickly spiral out of control.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41395970

The South Koreans are right. North Korea hasn't really changed, they're doing what they've always done, the main difference is in Trump they've found an idiot who takes them seriously.
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  3  
Tue 26 Sep, 2017 01:19 am
A bit of good news.

Quote:
A female US Marine has made history by becoming the first woman to complete the Corps' famously gruelling infantry officer training.
The lieutenant, who wants to keep her identity private, graduated in Quantico, Virginia, on Monday.
She will soon be assigned to lead a 40-strong platoon.
Marine Corps commandant Gen. Robert Neller tweeted a picture of the woman, saying he was "proud of this officer & her fellow leaders".
There are almost 1.4 million active duty troops in the US armed forces, and about 15% are female.
In March 2016, then-President Barack Obama opened all military positions to women, including combat units.
The 13-week officer training course started in July with 131 Marines, and 88 ultimately graduated.
The Corps says it educates would-be officers in "the leadership, infantry skills, and character required to serve as infantry platoon commanders".
Traditionally around a quarter of all applicants miss the mark, 10% of them on the first day.
The Corps has pushed harder to appeal to female recruits this year, after a nude photo scandal saw some Marines share naked photographs of female colleagues on Facebook.
In May it stoutly defended a recruitment advert - the first led by a woman - after critics said it pandered to political correctness.
In an opinion piece for the New York Times, former Marine captain Teresa Fazio said the female officer would be a major asset in Afghanistan.
"Female troops are invaluable for searching houses and communicating with local women, gaining access to spaces and information that, because of local custom, male troops cannot get," she wrote.
The Marine Corps tweeted a video showing the female officer engaged in exercises in the mountains alongside her male counterparts.
She will now be sent to the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, California, for her first assignment.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41394646
0 Replies
 
Builder
 
  -3  
Tue 26 Sep, 2017 01:23 am
@Setanta,
Quote:
....she was DNC Vice Chair in 2016, and resigned to support Sanders.


With the **** going on in the DNC, anyone with a sense of self-worth would have jumped ship. They supported Trump's candidacy, FFS.
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  3  
Tue 26 Sep, 2017 01:27 am
Quote:
A committee of Congress has called on the White House to provide details of any aides who have used private emails for official business.
The investigation comes after Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner admitted doing so, and the New York Times reported that five other aides also used private email accounts.
Mr Kushner, a senior adviser, has been asked to preserve all his emails.
His wife, Mr Trump's daughter Ivanka, is also said to have a private account.
The demand for more information came in a letter from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, signed by Republican Trey Gowdy and Democrat Elija Cummings.
Addressed to White House Counsel Donald McGahn, it says: "Have you or any non-career official at the White House ever used a personal email account to conduct official business?
"If so, please identify the individual and the account used, and provide evidence of measures to ensure compliance with federal law," it reads.
The letter sets a deadline of 9 October for the disclosure of more information.
Mr Kushner's says that "fewer than 100 emails" were sent through a private account.
The New York Times has named the four other staffers implicated as Steve Bannon, the former chief White House strategist; Reince Priebus, the former chief of staff; and advisers Gary D Cohn and Stephen Miller.
Newsweek magazine says it has details of an email Ivanka sent about collaboration with a business organisation, copying in two federal officials.
There is no suggestion that Mr Kushner or any of the others named shared classified or privileged information via private email accounts.
It is not illegal for White House officials to use private email, as long as they forward professional messages to their work accounts for preservation.
Federal regulations specify how records related to the president and other government activities should be maintained.
If this is not done reliably, the use of private accounts can put official records beyond the reach of journalists, lawmakers and others who seek publicly available information.
The situation also leaves the Trump family open to claims of hypocrisy, as President Trump has repeatedly criticised Hillary Clinton for using a personal email account while she was secretary of state.
On the campaign trail, he vowed to imprison his Democrat rival over her handling of classified information.
Mr Cummings, the ranking member of the House committee, sent a letter to Mr Kushner on Monday, quoting from the Republican investigation of Hillary Clinton's email server to justify asking him to keep his emails.
"The public has a right to access public records," he wrote, quoting Trey Gowdy's letter to Mrs Clinton's legal team on 19 March 2015.
"The public has a right to certainty that no classified or sensitive information was placed at risk of compromise.
"Your actions in response to the preservation request and the information you provide in response to this letter will help determine the next steps in this investigation," the Maryland congressman wrote to Mr Kushner, a former real estate investor.
In a statement Mr Kushner's lawyer said: "Fewer than 100 emails from January through August were either sent to or returned by Mr Kushner to colleagues in the White House from his personal email account."
He said most were news articles or political commentary and "all have been preserved in any event".
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders would not commit to releasing the emails at Monday's press briefing, saying: "I'm not going to get ahead of a conversation that hasn't taken place."
She added that the use of private emails to conduct government business is "to my knowledge, very limited".


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41394477
izzythepush
 
  2  
Tue 26 Sep, 2017 02:43 am
Opinion piece on Trump's spat with the NFL.

Quote:
President Donald Trump's swipes at the National Football League players' protests were nestled in the middle of a nearly hour-and-half-long speech at a rally in Alabama.
The crowd cheered enthusiastically - as they did for his taunts directed at Hillary Clinton, Kim Jong-Un and Senator John McCain, and boasts about his election victory and the beautiful, see-through wall he will build along the US-Mexico border.
It was the NFL comments that gained traction, however, sparking outrage and condemnation from sports stars and franchise owners. NFL games on Sunday were the setting for dozens of player protests of various kinds.
Meanwhile the president, as is his habit when challenged, leaned in to the controversy, firing off a flurry of tweets on the topic.
"NFL attendance and ratings are WAY DOWN," read one presidential missive. "Boring games yes, but many stay away because they love our country. League should back US."
The president seems almost to take pleasure in fanning the flames of controversy, going so far as to call for a boycott of the US's most popular sports league.
But why? Here are a few possibilities.

It's strategic
Things have been rough for the president recently.
Once again it appears that Congress is going to be unable to repeal and replace Obamacare health insurance reforms, despite the president's assurances that doing so would be "easy".
That transparent wall he touted? It currently seems more likely that the president will strike a deal with Democrats to enshrine protections for undocumented immigrants who entered the US as children - a move anathema to portions of his conservative base - than get funding from Congress to build the border barrier.
The candidate the president was in Alabama to boost, Senator Luther Strange, could go down to defeat on Tuesday, representing an embarrassing rebuke to the president from his most loyal supporters.
His approval ratings may be climbing, but there's been a lot of bad news recently - and more could be coming.
So what better way to change the subject than to restart a highly charged cultural debate about the appropriateness of political protests against the national anthem; one that allows the president, much to the delight of his base, to sing the praises of the US military and wrap himself tightly in the red, white and blue?

It's personal
Before Donald Trump was a politician or even a reality television star, he was a professional football owner. The league was the star-crossed USFL in the mid-1980s, and the team was the New Jersey Generals.
Then real-estate magnate Trump bought the team in 1984 and helped encourage the USFL, which was then playing its games in the spring, to move to the autumn, where it would go head-to-head with the NFL.
The NFL crushed the fledgling USFL. Mr Trump unsuccessfully tried to sue the larger league for antitrust violations, many teams went bankrupt, and the USFL eventually folded.
Fast forward to 2014, and Mr Trump had another run-in with the NFL, when he tried to buy the Buffalo Bills team. He was outbid by an energy-sector billionaire and - in a move that should now be quite familiar - took to Twitter to vent his anger.
"Even though I refused to pay a ridiculous price for the Buffalo Bills, I would have produced a winner," he tweeted. "Now that won't happen."
He also called NFL games "boring" and "too soft", adding that he was glad the deal didn't go through.
In other words, Mr Trump has a longstanding grudge against the NFL - and if there's one thing we know about the president, it's that he likes to settle old scores.

It's impulsive
When talking about Donald Trump's actions, it's often tempting to find order where only chaos exists; to ascribe grand schemes when there's an easier, simpler explanation.
The president isn't playing three-dimensional chess and devising plans within plans.
With his NFL outburst, the president could once again be reacting to events, not directing them. On Friday night he gave a long speech filled with everything that was bubbling through his mind at that particular moment.
If the media had focused on his dismissal of the Russia investigation as a hoax or his insistence that winning the popular vote in the presidential election last year would have been easy if he had tried, then that's what the president would have spent the weekend tweeting about.
Instead, here we are, on day four of a furore over players kneeling and flags flying, free speech protections and employee obligations.
If there is no grand strategy, then modern American politics is like a spinning top. There's no way of telling where it's going to go next.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41392959
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  2  
Tue 26 Sep, 2017 03:58 am
Quote:
Basketball star LeBron James has praised the American football players who have protested against Donald Trump, and accused the US president of "using sports to try and divide us".

Trump said on Friday that NFL players who fail to stand during the national anthem should be sacked or suspended.

In widespread protests at the weekend, players responded by kneeling, linking arms or staying in the locker room.

James praised the players' unity, and said: "The people run this country."

The 32-year-old added: "I'm not going to let one individual, no matter their power, ever use sport as a platform to divide us.

"Sport is so amazing, what it can do for everyone. No matter the shape, size, weight, ethnicity, religion or whatever - people find teams, players and colours because of sport. It brings people together like none other."

James, who plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers and has won three NBA championships, campaigned for Hillary Clinton, Trump's rival, during the 2016 presidential election campaign.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/american-football/41393513
blatham
 
  4  
Tue 26 Sep, 2017 04:29 am
@Setanta,
Quote:
Since when have conservatives/Republicans been opposed to limousines?
I recall a GOP convention one election cycle when press were kept away from part of the airport so they wouldn't see and report on all the private jets coming in. For sure, when conservatives use the term "limousine liberals", it's a propaganda device.
blatham
 
  4  
Tue 26 Sep, 2017 04:42 am
@Setanta,
Quote:
I suggest that you check out Tulsi Gabbard.
That's a very impressive lady. And she's pretty much aligned with me on the issues I think important.

Of course, any female is going to face the reality of cultural misogyny and Republicans will jump on that button with jack boots. But I think we simply must get more women into positions of real power.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  4  
Tue 26 Sep, 2017 04:49 am
@izzythepush,
Quote:
"The public has a right to access public records," [Cummings] wrote, quoting Trey Gowdy's letter to Mrs Clinton's legal team on 19 March 2015.
Nice touch.
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  2  
Tue 26 Sep, 2017 04:56 am
@blatham,
Quote:
For sure, when conservatives use the term "limousine liberals", it's a propaganda device.

Latte-swilling Volvo owners...
Mimosa-sucking brunch goers...
Criminal-coddling amnesty lovers...

Samuel Johnson wrote:
My dear friend, clear your mind of cant. You may talk as other people do: you may say to a man, "Sir, I am your most humble servant." You are not his most humble servant. You may say, "These are bad times; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved to such times." You don't mind the times ... You may talk in this manner; it is a mode of talking in Society; but don't think foolishly.”
blatham
 
  3  
Tue 26 Sep, 2017 05:15 am
@hightor,
That is a quote I'd never read before. I have an old copy of Boswell's Life of Johnson but it has been years since I've opened it up. Johnson was such a smart guy.

"Cant" is a wonderful word as it points to not just the intellectual failing of thoughtless, unreflective cliches but those instances where the cliche is larded with sanctimony.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  3  
Tue 26 Sep, 2017 05:17 am
Does the name Robert Mercer come to mind when you read this quote from Steve Bannon? It should.
Quote:
“For Mitch McConnell and Ward Baker and Karl Rove and Steven Law — all the instruments that tried to destroy Judge Moore and his family — your day of reckoning is coming,” Bannon said, referring to the Republican Senate leader and a trio of prominent GOP strategists backing incumbent Sen. Luther Strange. “But more important, for the donors who put up the [campaign] money and the corporatists that put up the money, your day of reckoning is coming, too.”
Politico
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  4  
Tue 26 Sep, 2017 05:33 am
Dallas Cowboys and owner Monday night in Arizona

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_960w/2010-2019/Wires/Images/2017-09-25/AP/Cowboys_Cardinals_Football_24006-8d58d.jpg&w=1484
0 Replies
 
Lash
 
  0  
Tue 26 Sep, 2017 05:50 am
Before the anthem, not during it. Jerry Jones knows his viewing audience.
0 Replies
 
Olivier5
 
  1  
Tue 26 Sep, 2017 05:51 am
@Setanta,
Quote:
she was DNC Vice Chair in 2016, and resigned to support Sanders. (Although I consider that bad judgment, it shows that she has the courage of conviction.)

That was a proof of smarts from Gabbard.

Clinton spectacularly lost the election, so by now it should be pretty clear to any reasoning individual that she was a bad candidate: a heiress with more sense of entitlement than intelligence, a follower in her hubby's footstep but not a leader, and someone with much funny-smelling baggage.

The problem of the mainstream American left is precisely their sense of entitlement, their self-rightedness, their loss of touch with the working class, all things embodied by Clinton. It's high time to move on...
Lash
 
  0  
Tue 26 Sep, 2017 06:00 am
@Olivier5,
Gabbard is the kind of woman I'd love to see as the first female president.

She cut her own path and is courageous in her convictions. No man's coat tails in her climb.
 

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