#its the best flying group poll all over again but for a whole country

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Hi,

Apparently the winner of the 2021 New Zealand Bird of the year competition is the long tailed bat.

You read that right a BAT won a BIRD competition against 75 bird species.

Is that mammal bias enough for ya?

oh. my. gd.

[bountyofbeads]

Trump, frustrated by unpopularity with Jews, thrusts Israel into his culture war

https://wapo.st/2zfPtcc

“In his typical buffoonish way, he thinks that by [pushing] out these instructions, essentially, to American Jews to get in line and become his supporters he’s going to be successful,” Shapiro said. “It’s all shaped by his narcissism. It’s all shaped by his transactional nature. It’s all shaped by his insatiable need for praise and confirmation of his greatness and appreciation for the gifts he’s bestowed on whoever it is he’s courting. And it’s not going to fly with this community.”

Trump has no concept of history or religion. His whole life he has done and said things to create conflict between groups of people and promoted or engaged in racism. He's has always believed in his own superiority over others, thinks he knows what's best for everyone and is unwilling to listen to other people's views. The danger in this current moment is the fact that he has surrounded himself with white nationalist sycophants who have their own agenda and no one who's willing to challenge his ideas or actions. My greatest fear is he will create a problem or situation, as he sees he losing the election, with the help of others to try to stay in office.

Trump, frustrated by unpopularity with Jews, thrusts Israel into his culture war

By Philip Rucker | Published August 22 at 6:00 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted August 22, 2019 3:49 PM ET |

President Trump decided long ago that it would be smart politics for him to yoke his administration to Israel and to try to brand the Democratic Party as anti-Semitic.

He set about executing a pro-Israel checklist: moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing the Golan Heights as part of sovereign Israel, and taking a hard line against Iran. And he promoted himself as the greatest president — a deity even — for Jewish people.

Yet Trump has become flummoxed that Jewish Americans are not in turn lining up to support his reelection, according to people familiar with his thinking, and he has lashed out in predictable fashion.

“If you vote for a Democrat, you’re very, very disloyal to Israel and to the Jewish people,” Trump said Wednesday on the South Lawn of the White House. He was amplifying a statement he made in the Oval Office a day earlier: “I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”

Trump’s use of the word “disloyalty” drew immediate criticism from Jewish groups, whose leaders said it echoed anti-Semitic tropes about where American Jews’ loyalty lies. The president insisted his comments were not anti-Semitic.

Regardless, this turn in the president’s rhetoric about Jews magnifies his transactional approach to politics and his miscalculation that his hawkish interpretation of support for Israel should automatically translate into electoral support from Jewish Americans.

It also reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the motivations of many Jews, who are not a monolithic voting bloc but rather prioritize a wide range of issues — not only Israel, but also education, the economy and the environment, as well as civility and morality.

“He is reflecting a concept of Jewish Americans as single-issue voters around Israel, which we’re not; that we’re uniformly hawkish on these issues, which we’re not,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel advocacy group. “In reality, what matters most to us are the exact values that the president is spending his term trashing. We care about equality and justice, and we embrace the notion that this is a nation of immigrants and opportunity for all.”

Looking to his 2020 reelection bid, Trump is thrusting Israel into the culture wars he has waged as president. He is trying to make support for Israel a litmus test — along with immigration and guns — and calling Democrats anti-Semitic to fire up his base.

Daniel Shapiro, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama, said Trump’s expectation that Jewish people vote for him because of his record on Israel is “breathtakingly cynical.”

“In his typical buffoonish way, he thinks that by [pushing] out these instructions, essentially, to American Jews to get in line and become his supporters he’s going to be successful,” Shapiro said. “It’s all shaped by his narcissism. It’s all shaped by his transactional nature. It’s all shaped by his insatiable need for praise and confirmation of his greatness and appreciation for the gifts he’s bestowed on whoever it is he’s courting. And it’s not going to fly with this community.”

Trump’s transactional expectations for Jewish voting patterns reflect how he views other voting blocs. He routinely defends himself against charges that he is racist by citing the relatively low unemployment rate for blacks on his watch, as well as the criminal justice legislation he signed last year, as if those are the only issues of concern to black voters.

Trump has claimed a “Jexodus” movement of Jews from historically backing Democrats to Republicans. But polling shows this may be more fantasy than reality.

In the 2016 election, 71 percent of Jewish voters cast ballots for Hillary Clinton and 23 percent for Trump, according to exit polling. Gallup tracking poll data in 2018 showed that just 26 percent of Jewish Americans approved of Trump’s performance as president while 71 percent disapproved, making Jews the least likely of any of the religious groups studied to support Trump.

Trump has been told over and over again that he is “the most pro-Israel president ever,” according to a former senior administration official, delivering on a wish list that includes recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel — but the official said Trump is angry that he has not received more plaudits from Jewish Americans. Trump contrasts his unpopularity with Jews to the overwhelming support he enjoys from evangelical Christians.

This official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the president’s mind-set, argued that Trump’s rhetoric of late is “a manifestation of frustration of not getting the recognition and the praise and the support that he feels like he deserves as a result of what he’s done.”

Trump placed an early bet on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and they forged a close alliance, but Netanyahu faces a difficult reelection bid next month, and a loss would be devastating to Trump. Furthermore, Trump’s push for a Middle East peace deal has stalled, and the Palestinians have rejected the U.S. proposal.

Still, Trump tweeted a quote early Wednesday from Wayne Allyn Root, a noted conspiracy theorist and conservative radio host in Nevada, who praised Trump on Newsmax and lamented that a majority of Jews vote for Democrats.

“President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America … He’s like the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God,” Trump quoted Root as saying.

Jews do not believe in a second coming.

Trump has used statements from Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) criticizing Israel and its treatment of Palestinians to label them “anti-Semites.” And he has called them “the face of the Democratic Party.”

The Trump campaign’s chief operating officer, Michael Glassner, issued a strongly worded statement Wednesday accusing Democrats of supporting those who want “to wipe Israel from the map.”

“As a Jew myself, I strongly believe that President Trump is right to highlight that there is only one party — the Democrats — excusing and permitting such anti-Jewish venom to be spewed so freely,” Glassner said. “In stark contrast, there is no bigger ally to the Jewish community at home and around the world than President Trump.”

At Trump’s urging, the Israeli government last week blocked the two congresswomen from visiting the country, citing their support for a boycott movement against Israel. The Israelis then relented in response to a request from Tlaib to visit her grandmother, who lives in the occupied West Bank, but the congresswoman ultimately decided not to make the trip because she would have been required by Israel to pledge not to promote boycotts.

[Tlaib says she will not go to Israel after the country initially rejected her request for a visit, then reversed course]

Democratic leaders have publicly supported the congresswomen, even as they have sought to distance the party from some of their sentiments. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said at this spring’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee that his party supported Israel and that it was “absolutely vital” to continue doing so.

“Those who seek to use Israel as a means of scoring political points do a disservice to both Israel and the United States,” Schumer said, in a veiled reference to Trump. “Our politics may be more polarized than ever, but it is incumbent upon all of us who care about the U.S.-Israel relationship to keep it bipartisan.”

After Trump’s “disloyalty” comments this week, Schumer said in a statement Wednesday: “When President Trump uses a trope that has been used against the Jewish people for centuries with dire consequences, he is encouraging — wittingly or unwittingly — anti-Semites throughout the country and the world.”

On the campaign trail, Democratic candidates also denounced Trump’s comments.

“Come on, man. That’s like a dog whistle. ‘Loyalty.’ Come on,” former vice president Joe Biden told a crowd in Newton, Iowa.

Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey shared his understanding of Jewish values. “There’s an idea in Judaism about kindness and decency and mercy,” he told reporters in Altoona, Iowa. He added, “One of the greatest Jewish ideals is to welcome the stranger. One of the great Jewish writings comes from Micah. That is, you know, ‘Do justice. And love mercy.’ These ideals are not being evidenced by the president of the United States.”

Chelsea Janes and David Weigel in Iowa and Emily Guskin in Washington contributed to this report.

[newstfionline]

While Trump bashes NAFTA, it’s Americanizing Mexico

By Joshua Partlow and David Agren, Washington Post. August 28, 2017

MEXICO CITY--The vast Oasis mall, situated in the cobblestoned neighborhood where the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés once lived and where Frida Kahlo painted self-portraits, is an unheralded symbol of Mexico in the era of NAFTA.

Two decades after the North American Free Trade Agreement opened the consumer floodgates here, Mexicans have become accustomed to such luxurious shopping centers, where you can browse Williams-Sonoma crockery, try on Steve Madden shoes, eat at Olive Garden, take your kids to Chuck E. Cheese’s, and watch “War for the Planet of the Apes” on the big screen.

The revolution in shopping options has become so ingrained that many Mexicans recall with haziness the pre-NAFTA days of limited brand choices, domestic knockoffs and black-market scrounging. In such cultural ways, the NAFTA years have brought Mexico and the United States far closer together, a cross-border blending of behaviors that even a clampdown on trade is unlikely to undo.

NAFTA renegotiation talks began Aug. 16 in Washington, on the same day that the NFL sold out tickets in under an hour for an upcoming football game in Mexico City. These first sessions wrapped up four days later, just before a Hollywood movie crew began to film “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” in Mexico City’s central plaza.

On Sunday, President Trump once again blasted NAFTA, tweeting that it was the “worst trade deal ever made.” He blames the treaty for the $60 billion annual U.S. trade deficit with its southern neighbor and a loss of industrial jobs. But in Mexico, NAFTA represents something more profound. In conversations here, free trade is often a stand-in for what kind of relationship Mexico wants with the United States, and what type of country Mexico wants to be.

“NAFTA broke the barriers that limited our society from going out into the world,” said Sergio Aguayo, a prominent political commentator and academic at the College of Mexico. “In a spontaneous way, it began to hybridize cultures, from Mexico to the United States and from the United States to Mexico.”

That cultural mixing--and the job gains that have come to some sectors with freer trade--have made NAFTA more popular in Mexico than north of the border. A Pew Research survey published in May found that 60 percent of Mexicans polled believed NAFTA had benefited the country, compared with just 39 percent of Americans.

Analysts attribute Mexico’s positive feelings to NAFTA’s role in opening what had been for decades a closed economy. The agreement ushered in a flood of U.S. consumer goods and retailers such as Walmart--now Mexico’s largest employer--and chains such as Starbucks, which has opened outlets in all 32 states and sells drinks costing more than the daily minimum wage of $4.50 per day.

All the big box stores that populate the American landscape--Costco, Target, Home Depot, Office Depot, Best Buy--also fly their flags in Mexican cities.

“Mexico, in consumer terms, has always loved the United States,” said Esteban Illades, editor of the Mexican magazine Nexos. “The definite proof that this country loves America is that IHOP opened its first outlet on Palmas,” one of Mexico City’s swankiest streets--and near the offices of the country’s richest man, Carlos Slim.

Mexican government and business leaders are zealous advocates of free trade and lower tariffs, even though that wasn’t the case for much of the past century. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which came to power in 1929, eventually embraced a protectionist model that kept out foreign competitors and subsidized domestic industries--a strategy intended to keep the powerful United States from bleeding the Mexican economy dry.

One result of this strategy was that product selection was scant, with items often of poor quality and sold at high prices. Mexicans who could afford to often traveled to Texas and other border states to shop or found contraband known as “fayuca” at home--everything from imported Snickers bars to Levi’s jeans to stereo systems.

Mexico started opening in the 1980s, joining the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), a worldwide free-trade pact, in 1986. Seven years later, Mexico’s Senate approved NAFTA.

“The variety, quality and the prices” are all better now, said Luis de la Calle, an economist and one of the original NAFTA negotiators. “Previously, Mexican companies wanted to sell what they decided to produce. Now they produce what sells. It’s a psychological and cultural change, thanks to NAFTA.”

Some of the artifacts of pre-NAFTA Mexico can be found in the Museum of Ancient Mexican Toys, a four-story time capsule in Mexico City that has preserved an era when model trains and buses, “lucha libre” plastic wrestling dolls and hand-crank music boxes were manufactured in Mexico.

The owner, Roberto Shimizu, opposed the free-trade agreement when it was negotiated, and he was far from the only one. The Zapatista guerrilla group launched its armed rebellion on Jan. 1, 1994, the day NAFTA went into effect.

Guadalupe Loaeza, a 71-year-old columnist, said Mexican consumers have morphed over her lifetime into something almost foreign to her.

At dinner parties, she said, her friends serve imported steaks; when she goes to restaurants it might be for sushi, hamburgers, Argentine beef, Spanish tapas, Italian pastas. Mexican food, she said, is “not the first option.”

“The world has become more open to us, and it’s made us voracious, greedy for everything, insatiable,” Loaeza said. “So many excesses have contaminated us as a society; we have lost our essence, our equilibrium.”

The degree to which NAFTA has transformed Mexico or “Americanized” the country remains disputed. The Mexican government promoted the agreement in the early 1990s with the heady promise of making Mexico “First World.” But the economy has expanded at a middling pace of roughly 2.6 percent annually.

Some states have boomed, including those benefiting from tourism, such as Quintana Roo and Baja California Sur (home to Cancún and Los Cabos, respectively) and the central-west region known as the “Bajío,” where auto and manufacturing investments flooded in. However, almost half the population still lives in poverty, according to government statistics, while average purchasing power has eroded in recent years.

Unlike during the first negotiations, no strong anti-NAFTA lobby has surfaced in Mexico recently. Protesters, including farmers and union members, did march on the day that NAFTA talks began, and some prominent politicians say they want to pull out of the treaty before Trump can blow it up. But the opposition does not appear large enough to influence Mexico’s bargaining position. Even leftist presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador--whose lead in the polls spooks political and business elites--hasn’t forcefully attacked the treaty.

The lack of widespread opposition in part comes from the weakness of unions and farm groups. Analysts cite additional factors, including Mexicans’ appreciation of the wider selection of goods and services available. After Trump’s inauguration, an attempt at ginning up a boycott of Starbucks and other American companies fell flat.

Lawmakers have also kept any anti-NAFTA rhetoric in check, a reflection of the country’s cautious political culture and a recognition that Mexico depends on foreign direct investment, said Juan Fernando Ibarra, a Mexico native and assistant professor of political science at Colgate University.

Ibarra also points to the boom in the Bajío region, where annual GDP growth in some states has topped 10 percent a year.

“Growth in the country has, on the whole, been somewhat poor,” he said. “But there is a nucleus of states that really benefited.”

Along with growing trade, American trends have taken hold in Mexico.

“Brisket is now in the vernacular,” said Dan DeFossey, a Long Island native and co-founder of Pinche Gringo BBQ, one of at least 14 barbecue joints in Mexico City. (Pinche translates as “damned,” or worse.)

DeFossey started selling brisket from an Airstream trailer parked in a vacant lot in 2013, later started a restaurant and recently opened a second 410-seat outlet.

A poll for El Financiero newspaper found 88 percent of Mexicans surveyed disapproved of Trump--with just 3 percent expressing approval. But DeFossey says the anger toward Trump hasn’t surfaced in his barbecue business.

“The day after the election I was terrified, because of our name, Pinche Gringo,” DeFossey said. “Not one time has anyone said anything about us or given us bad comments.

“It’s the most beautiful thing in this country, the separating of politics from people.”