#putin out-smarted trump

[trmpt]

Jordan Michael Smith/March 21, 2024

ILLUSTRATION BY VICTOR JUHASZ

Excerpt: “But Trump is unique among presidents in expressing outright adoration for despots and authoritarians—not because they can benefit American interests despite their cruelty, but because, whatever impact they may have on American interests, these leaders have the virtue of being cruel. As Henry Hill says of the gangster Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas, Trump is ‘the kind of guy who root[s] for the bad guys in the movies.’

“As president, Trump realized his ambitions to befriend tyrants, praising North Korea’s Kim Jong Un (‘great strength economically’), Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (‘he’s doing a very good job’), China’s Xi Jinping (‘a very, very good man’), and, of course, Russia’s Vladimir Putin (‘very smart’). He saved his insults for NATO and countries like Denmark. During his post-presidency, and now in his campaign to become president again this November, Trump has continued gushing about leaders who expend copious resources repressing the basic freedoms of their peoples. He has brandished their endorsements as qualifications for his reelection. In December, Trump said of Kim Jong Un: ‘He’s not so fond of this [Biden] administration, but he’s fond of me.’ He was implying that voters should value the exceptional level of approval that he receives from someone overseeing maybe the world’s worst totalitarian state.”

[cazort]

Why I'm Enthusiastic About Kamala Harris

I've seen so much negative talk about Trump and we all agree with that, but I want to highlight what I like most about Kamala Harris and why I'm actively enthusiastic and excited about voting for her:

She is pro-abortion rights and pro- comprehensive sex ed

She would appoint good Supreme Court Justices.

She respects people with a diverse range of political views and would include some voices from both progressive and conservative perspectives in her administration.

She is unambiguously pro-LGBTQ rights, including not just on gay rights but also trans rights.

She would represent continuity with the Biden administration, an administration that I think has done a good job on most issues.

On the issue of Palestine/Israel/Gaza (where I am most critical of Biden), I think Harris is a significant improvement over Biden, and also offers the better path of the only two viable candidates, towards ending the genocide. She has spoken out against the civilian deaths and she has snubbed Netanyahu which is a huge plus in my book.

She has shown a willingness to change her views, such as how she moved from being opposed to decriminalizing sex work in 2008, to being supportive of it in 2019, and being initially skeptical of marijuana legalization in 2010, but coming to support it in 2015. I like a candidate who can change their views, but more importantly, she is changing in a direction I like.

She would be good on the economy; she opposes tariffs, and would continue the Biden administration policies which have led to economic prosperity.

She has a solid and fairly diverse track record of experience, working as attorney general for the largest state, then senator for that state, then VP.

She has worked to combat over-incarceration and cruel treatment of people in prison, doing things like reducing mandatory minimum sentences and working to reduce recidivism, opposing solitary confinement, ending private prisons, and ending cash bail. She has also pledged to use the president's clemency powers to release a lot of people who have been imprisoned unjustly or given unfairly harsh sentences.

She has a concrete plan to enact immigration reform that would adequately fund the processing of asylum applications and fix the backlog of immigrants at the border. And the plan has broad bipartisan support.

On top of this she also has already done some things to address the root causes of migration in Latin America, particularly people fleeing Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador

She is pro-net-neutrality.

She supports universal healthcare, but also has concrete recommendations for how to improve the current status quo.

She is pro-science, including on issues like climate change, COVID, vaccinations, and health and nutrition. Her mom was a scientist!

She is pro-Ukraine, wanting to keep Russia out of Ukraine and ensure Ukraine wins their war of defense and maintains their independence.

She is across-the-board better on women's issues, not just reproductive rights but also sexual violence and domestic violence, workplace equality and the pay gap, and women's issues in Latin America (which is related to the immigration pressure I mentioned above.)

She generally takes stances on foreign policy I agree with, being skeptical of leaders (Putin, Orban, Netanyahu) I want us to be skeptical of, and working with and looking up to the ones I want us to work with and look up to (Olaf Scholz, Emmanuel Macron). She already has a working relationship with many of these leaders too, and has a reputation of being both personable and tough, just what I'd want.

She's smart, well-educated, and surrounded with smart, well-educated, and wise people. Her campaign is stable and well-run, and I trust her to put together a team of competent advisors and run this country competently, probably even more so than Biden has done, and Biden has done a pretty decent job, exceeding my expectations even.

Harris also has an impressive list of endorsements. I can't possibly be comprehensive here, but it includes people as diverse as the most progressive Democrat Lawmakers (Bernie Sanders and AOC), some of the most conservative former GOP legislators (Jeff Flake, Liz Cheney), and over 100 former GOP staffers including a disturbing number of insiders from the Trump administration. This is telling! You don't see this sort of whistleblowing and defection from within the Biden administration.

The fact that Harris has racked up endorsements from people spanning the whole political spectrum from solid-right to solid-left and everything in between, impresses me. This is the sign of someone who is going to be good at getting people to work together, someone who will listen to a wide range of viewpoints and develop better policy and take better courses of action as a result. It's what I always want in a president.

In some elections I have been frustrated that I'm voting for a "lesser of two evils" but this time around I actually feel actively enthusiastic about Harris. I am excited to vote tomorrow and excited to finally be done with this election, and I am cautiously optimistic that it is going to turn out really well.

I encourage everyone to vote and make sure to make sure everyone close to you is also voting!

[darkmaga-returns]

The use by Russia of a ballistic missile with a MIRVed warhead—optionally IRBM or ICBM at Russia’s discretion—was a very serious shot across the bow, directed to the two nations that have chosen to go to war with Russia. The Russian strike was a demonstration—it was a kinetic strike rather than an explosive one. The question on many minds has to be, What comes next? The Russians specifically stated that they have an interest in destroying a US missile site in Poland. But that’s just one target in Europe on what is probably a very long Russian list. What comes next is up to the “small group of people” who are pursuing the war on Russia.

For an informed and impassioned monologue on what it means and what’s at stake, check out Danny Davis:

BREAKING: Putin - "Our Missiles CANNOT be Intercepted"

Davis warns that even for Trump there will be no easy peace. Putin holds all the high cards. Stop being stupid is Davis’ advice.

Philip Pilkington adds to this with a series of smart tweets:

Philip Pilkington @philippilk These missiles - likely MIRVs - look faster and more accurate than what Iran sent against Israel. The likely outcome of giving Ukraine permission for long-range strikes is similar advanced tech to US rivals in the Mid East. Biden is not motivated by US security concerns.

There was just one missile, but with a MIRVed warhead. I’d be very surprised if Russia shared its MIRV tech with any Middle Eastern nation. However, the possibility that Russia further responds by sharing additional weaponry above and beyond what the Pentagon has openly admitted is “scary” is a real prospect.

PUTIN: OUR "FRONTIER MISSILES" CAN HIT ALL OF EUROPE Russia is preparing to deploy RS-26 "Frontier" missiles, capable of striking anywhere in Europe, in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and UK-made missiles, including Storm Shadows, on Russian soil. Kremlin officials warn of strikes on Ukraine's critical infrastructure, with Putin recently easing laws for deploying nuclear weapons. The RS-26 has a 3,600-mile range and 3 times the payload of standard Kremlin bombs, marking a major escalation in the conflict. Source: Daily Mail

Philip Pilkington @philippilk Europe is now going to be targeted by the sort of MIRVs the Russians just launched on Ukraine. These missiles can overcome air defence, but Europe has no air defence anyway. Biden and his goons just demolished European security. These people are a major security risk.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

John Nichols at The Nation:

Donald Trump has made no secret of his determination to govern as a “dictator” if he regains the presidency, and that’s got his critics warning that his reelection would spell the end of democracy. But Trump and his allies are too smart to go full Kim Jong Un. Rather, the former president’s enthusiasm for the authoritarian regimes of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Tayyip Erdoğan, and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán suggests the models he would build on: managing elections to benefit himself and his Republican allies; gutting public broadcasting and constraining press freedom; and undermining civil society. Trump, who famously demanded that the results of Georgia’s 2020 presidential voting be “recalculated” to give him a win, wants the trappings of democracy without the reality of electoral consequences. That’s what propaganda experts Edward Herman and Frank Brodhead once described as “demonstration elections,” in which, instead of actual contests, wins are assured for the authoritarians who control the machinery of democracy. The outline for such a scenario emerges from a thorough reading of Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership, which specifically proposes a Trump-friendly recalculation of the systems that sustain American democracy. The strategy for establishing an American version of Orbán’s “illiberal democracy” is not spelled out in any particular chapter of Mandate. Rather, it is woven throughout the whole of the document, with key elements appearing in the chapters on reworking the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the Federal Election Commission (FEC). In the section on the DHS, for instance, there’s a plan to eliminate the ability of the agency that monitors election security to prevent the spread of disinformation about voting and vote counting.

How serious a threat to democracy would that pose? Think back to November 2020, when Trump was developing his Big Lie about the election he’d just lost. Trump’s false assertion that the election had been characterized by “massive improprieties and fraud” was tripped up by Chris Krebs, who served as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the DHS. The Republican appointee and his team had established a 24/7 “war room” to work with officials across the country to monitor threats to the security and integrity of the election. The operation was so meticulous that Krebs could boldly announce after the voting was finished: “America, we have confidence in the security of your vote, you should, too.” At the same time, his coordinating team declared, “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.” This infuriated Trump, who immediately fired the nation’s top election security official.

In Mandate’s chapter on the DHS, Ken Cuccinelli writes, “Of the utmost urgency is immediately ending CISA’s counter-mis/disinformation efforts. The federal government cannot be the arbiter of truth.” Cuccinelli previously complained that CISA “is a DHS component that the Left has weaponized to censor speech and affect elections.” As for the team that worked so successfully with Krebs to secure the 2020 election, the Project 2025 document declares that “the entirety of the CISA Cybersecurity Advisory Committee should be dismissed on Day One.” The potential impact? “It’s a way of emasculating the agency—that is, it prevents it from doing its job,” says Herb Lin, a cyber-policy and security scholar at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

This is just one way that Project 2025’s cabal of “experts” is scheming to thwart honest discourse about elections and democracy. A chapter on public broadcasting proposes to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as part of a larger plan to upend NPR, PBS, and “other public broadcasters that benefit from CPB funding, including the even-further-to-the Left Pacifica Radio and American Public Media.” More destabilizing than the total funding cut that Project 2025 entertains is a parallel plan to end the status of NPR and Pacifica radio stations as “noncommercial education stations.” That could deny them their current channel numbers at the low end of the radio spectrum (88 to 92 FM)—a move that would open prime territory on the dial for the sort of religious programming that already claims roughly 42 percent of the airwaves that the FCC reserves for noncommercial broadcasting. And don’t imagine that the FCC would be in a position to write new rules that guard against the surrender of those airwaves to the Trump-aligned religious right.

[...]

While project 2025 seeks to rewire the FCC to favor Trump’s allies, it also wants to lock in dysfunction at the Federal Election Commission, the agency that is supposed to govern campaign spending and fundraising. Established 50 years ago, the FEC has six members—three Republicans and three Democrats—who are charged with overseeing the integrity of federal election campaigns. In recent years, however, this even partisan divide has robbed the FEC of its ability to act because, as a group of former FEC employees working with the Campaign Legal Center explained, “three Commissioners of the same party, acting in concert, can leave the agency in a state of deadlock.” As the spending by outside groups on elections “has exponentially increased, foreign nationals and governments have willfully manipulated our elections, and coordination between super PACs and candidates has become commonplace,” the former employees noted. Yet “the FEC [has] deadlocked on enforcement matters more often than not, frequently refusing to even investigate alleged violations despite overwhelming publicly available information supporting them.”

John Nichols wrote in The Nation about how Project 2025’s radical right-wing wishlist of items contains plans to wreck and subvert what is left of America’s democracy.

See Also:

The Nation: June 2024 Issue

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Drew Sheneman, Newark Star-Ledger

* * * *

Harris continues to take her message directly to the people

October 16, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

Kamala Harris continued to bring her message directly to voters by bypassing major media. She sat for an hour in an interview with Charlamagne Tha God, whose podcast, “Breakfast Club,” reaches millions daily.  The entire interview is here: We The People: An Audio Town Hall With Kamala Harris & Charlamagne Tha God. But if you don’t have sixty minutes to spare, key moments are here:

Harris responds to MAGA attack ads saying that she “won’t do anything for Black people.” Watch Harris’s answer over five minutes as she corrects the record and attacks the disinformation being peddled by Trump. She challenges Charlamagne, “Ask Donald Trump what his plan is for Black voters. I will tell you what it is. It is Project 2025, which it makes it more difficult for Black Americans to live safely in their communities with full protection of the Constitution.”

Harris responds to question of whether it “smart politics” to campaign for support directly from the Black community? Harris provides a direct, genuine answer about her desire to be the “president for everybody” while also recognizing the disparities facing Black voters.

Kamala pushes back against the false claim that she and Biden “did nothing” about immigration for the first three years of their term. If you watch nothing else, check out this answer.

Kamala answers a question from a listener about Trump's claim that he will use the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798 to deport immigrants. Harris calls out Trump for choosing to run on fear of immigration.

The interview also focused on the threat posed by Donald Trump. As she did on Monday, Kamala Harris sharpened her attacks on Trump, agreeing that he posed a “fascist” threat to the United States. For a summary of Harris’s criticisms of Trump, see NYTimes, Harris Agrees Trump Is a Fascist: 5 Charlamagne Interview Takeaways (Accessible to all.)

There are other notable moments, but here is the point: Kamala Harris sat for sixty minutes and answered serious questions from listeners to a program that reaches millions in the Black community every day. Van Jones of CNN rated the performance by Harris as “an A+++.” See CNN, Video: Van Jones reacts to Harris’ radio town hall with Charlamagne tha God. (See remarks beginning at 1:55).

It is beyond quibble that in agreeing to be interviewed by Charlamagne Tha God, Kamala Harris reached millions of listeners in the Black community who might not have otherwise heard her message. It was a smart move.

Critics of Kamala Harris (read: Fox News) are attempting to dismiss the interview as “friendly” and therefore not worthy of serious consideration. Of course, Trump is imploding in “friendly” interviews by allies like Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kristy Noem.

When Trump appeared on Tuesday before a “friendly” crowd at the Chicago Economic Club, he melted down when the interviewer challenged him for not answering the questions. See HuffPo, Trump Defends Tariff Plans In Wandering Remarks In Chicago.

Here is HuffPo’s description of the off-the-rails interview:

Appearing before the Economic Club of Chicago in Illinois, the presidential candidate also said he could do a better job on interest rate policy than Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, claimed he had never criticized 81-year-old President Joe Biden over his age, and refused to say whether he had talked with Russian President Vladimir Putin since the end of Trump's 2017-2021 White House term, as journalist Bob Woodward has reported.

And when the interviewer said that experts disagreed with Trump about tariffs, Trump attacked the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and the interviewer:

“You’re wrong. You’ve been wrong, you’ve been wrong all your life on this stuff,” Trump told John Micklethwait, the editor-in-chief of business news giant Bloomberg News, when the pair disagreed about tariffs and their impact on the U.S. dollar. “What does The Wall Street Journal know? They’ve been wrong about everything,” Trump said when Micklethwait mentioned the paper’s editorial page being critical of the bigger budget deficits it says his plans would cause.

Although the Trump campaign praised the interview as the best ever by any presidential candidate, the campaign canceled an interview with the business news program on CNBC: See Forbes, Trump Cancels CNBC Interview—As He Fights With Major Networks Over Interviews With Harris.

Trump will drop all future interviews except those with hosts in his pocket. Meanwhile, an increasingly confident Kamala Harris is reportedly in talks to appear on Joe Rogan’s top-rated podcast, has agreed to a CNN townhall in Philadelphia next week, and will appear on a Fox “News” for an interview this week. See The Philadelphia Inquirer, Kamala Harris is going on Fox News in Philly. Donald Trump isn’t happy.

Does it matter that Kamala Harris is running a disciplined, professional, and confident campaign while Trump's campaign is flailing? Yes. A lot. Just imagine if Kamala Harris was running a poor campaign that stumbled and misfired every day. The media and pundits would be unforgiving, claiming that a weak and disorganized campaign was evidence of unfitness to be president.

And yet, Trump has multiple meltdowns each day and major media looks on with mild bemusement. The NYTimes dismissed Trump's 39-minute interlude of listening to music at a rally on Monday as an “improvisational detour.” Really?! If Harris had done the same thing, the Times would have described the event as “disqualifying.” Perhaps that explains why Kamala Harris would rather be interviewed by Fox News than the NYTimes.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[daughters-of-liberty]

And it's like, I'm not voting for Trump cause he has a penis; I'm voting for Trump because I remember the economy under Trump and I like owning guns.

I, a woman, am not voting for Kamala because she's been useless as the border czar, she doesn't know what she's talking about, she actually literally did sleep her way to the top, and she wants you to forget all of that. She wants you to vote her into an office she's already very close to! She could make changes for the border crisis, gun laws, taxes, and climate change TODAY. Why did Joe Biden not do anything while in office? Why, if it matters so much to her, did she not suggest or outright strongarm Joe into making those changes?? WHAT is actually going to change if she moves her office supplies down the hall?

And don't get me wrong, I have criticisms about Trump. He said he would build a wall, he didn't. He was indirectly responsible for all those men and women being detained after January 6th, he didn't pay their bail or even send them a fruit basket while in custody. A little disappointing. But he kept us out of any new wars. He kept Putin and Kim Jong Un at bay. He fostered American business. We became an oil exporter under Trump. Groceries and gas were affordable. I and my coworkers got bonuses...working at a non-union GROCERY STORE. Housing was affordable. If I was smart and saved my money for not even three years, I could've bought a piece of property...on $11 an hour at the time.

And people wonder why I'm flabbergasted when I see signs that say "we can't go back to Trump". Why? Are you afraid of living in a strong economy or something? Everyone was doing just fine until Covid happened...rather conveniently, I must say.

[ivankahasbeentreatedsounfairly]

President-elect Donald J. Trump said in a new interview that he will use the opening hours of his presidency to pardon people convicted of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol assault, begin deportations of undocumented immigrants and increase oil production.

He also said during the interview, which Time magazine publishedon Thursday, that he might support getting rid of some childhood vaccines if data shows links to autism. He declined to answer a question about whether he had talked with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia since the November election but said Ukraine should not have been allowed to fire U.S.-made missiles into Russia.

Speaking of pardons in Jan. 6 cases, he said: “We’re going to do it very quickly, and it’s going to start in the first hour that I get into office.” He said the pardons would go to “nonviolent” people who were at the Capitol, which was overrun by Trump supporters after he lost the 2020 election. “A vast majority should not be in jail, and they’ve suffered gravely,” he said.

The president-elect’s comments came during a wide-ranging interview conducted on Nov. 25 as part of the magazine’s choice of Mr. Trump to be its person of the year. In the interview, which the magazine said lasted more than an hour, the president-elect bragged that he had run a “flawless” campaign and that Democrats were out of touch with Americans.

He also said he planned a “virtual closure of Department of Education in Washington,” though he did not explain what that meant. And he said that he might reverse President Biden’s expansion of Title IX protections, which includes prohibitions against harassment of transgender students.

Americans “don’t want to see, you know, men playing in women’s sports. They don’t,” Mr. Trump said. “They don’t want to see all of this transgender, which is, it’s just taken over.”

On foreign policy, the president-elect lashed out against Mr. Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use U.S.-made missiles against some targets in Russia, calling it an escalation of the fighting that began with Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022. He hinted that efforts to reach an end to the war might gain momentum once he is back in office.

“But I would imagine people are waiting until I get in before anything happens. I would imagine,” he told Time. “I think that would be very smart to do that.”

Mr. Trump declined to say whether he had received assurances from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel that he would end the war in Gaza. But the president-elect dismissed concerns about a protracted war that could further destabilize the Middle East.

He said “some very productive things” were happening in the Middle East, but refused to say what they were.

“I think that the Middle East is an easier problem to handle than what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine. OK, I just want to say that up front. The Middle East is going to get solved,” he said, adding: “I think it’s more complicated than the Russia-Ukraine, but I think it’s, it’s, it’s easier to solve.”

In the interview, Mr. Trump spent a significant amount of time on immigration. He repeatedly said that he would begin a crackdown on people who are in the United States illegally. He said federal law does not prohibit the use of the military in that effort.

“Well, it doesn’t, it doesn’t stop the military if it’s an invasion of our country, and I consider it an invasion of our country,” the president-elect said. “I’ll only do what the law allows, but I will go up to the maximum level of what the law allows.”

On vaccines, Mr. Trump said he plans to listen to the arguments made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic who is Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Both men have promoted the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism.

“We’re going to have a big discussion. The autism rate is at a level that nobody ever believed possible. If you look at things that are happening, there’s something causing it,” Mr. Trump said in the interview.

The president-elect said that the discussion could lead to some childhood vaccinations being banned.

“It could if I think it’s dangerous, if I think they are not beneficial, but I don’t think it’s going to be very controversial in the end,” he said.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/12/12/us/trump-news

[ramrodd]

Nancy Pelosi lost her nerve and threw away 8 million winning votes when she threw away Joe BIden.

If you voted for Biden, what was your reason? Did you think that Biden was smart enough to make a good President or was it just hate for Donald Trump?

COMMENTARY:

As an Eisenhower Republican, I have observed since I got back from Vietnam that Conservative libertarians are operationally incompetent and committed entirely to securing power and personal wealth. The Reagan people managed to blow up two space shuttles, Bush/Cheney trashed Iraq and had a totally ineffectual response to Katrina and Trump brought up the January 6 Conspiracy because he couldn’t respond with any coherence to the Covid-19 challenge and thought surrendering to the Taliban was what Putin wanted him to do.

In contrast, McGovern Democrats have been out of ideas since at least 1975 but their native exercise of Democratic Socialism makes government work in spite of the sabotage, obstruction and applied stupidity arising from the Nazification of America with Reaganomics.

Trump was the road apple on the top of 40 years of a Reaganomics shit sandwich while Biden and the Democrats don’t entirely know what they are doing but are willing to learn and, historically, muddle through. And, just for the record, I quit voting Republican in 1988 when it became evident that the agenda of the Conservative libertarians and January 6 Republicans was to pack the Supreme Court with Fascists, beginning with Antonin Scalia. Brett Kavanaugh as a memorial to the elevation of incompetence as a reward for Fascist loyalty is sufficient reason to vote for somebody but Donald Trump.

[writer59january13]

Poetic letter Putin the electric kool aid acid test results into action...

when president elect Donald John Trump sworn in vowing to accept the following pledge. "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," whose surprise come from behind winning as commander in chief ten days after Tuesday, November 5, 2024

doth stymie and stump the writer of these words, who would much prefer leader of our free webbed wide world a character like Forrest Gump.

I find myself dumbfounded

and not trying to be a smart ass

foo fighting generic humble sitting on his rump, nevertheless, I rather imagine (fire breathing snapping) dragon, whose known fearsomeness clearly recognized versus accompanying, (albeit riding shotgun) in his swiftly tailored harried stylied customized reo speedwagon freshly minted forty seventh president as he cozies up with top three notch totalitarian rulers of the webbed wide world such as Ali Hosseini Khamenei,

Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un for starters.

Soon - once dominion wrought

upon peoples of these United States freedom of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness will find inalienable rights

enshrining Declaration of Independence

and Constitution well taut flag rent internecine conflict pitting free soilers against slave owners

and rendered all for nought countless young lives sacrificed upon hallowed ground, where vicious battles fought, and feverishly achieved courtesy unimagined beastie boys nsync with cutting crew witnessed progressive solutions with grievous social issues,

but now that big bad Don secured a majority of 270 electoral votes required to elect as POTUS, (and did you notice absent accusation of rigged elections?), where gubernatorial celebrants swigged one after another draught of legitimacy to lampoon

anybody and everybody at will invariably kindle sophisticated wordsmiths, who possess an incisive wit and wisdom would showcase their adroit skill in their zeal to fulminate against self appointed dictatorial henchmen as bitter pill wickedly spewing phlegm out nostril demanding theatrical performances

attendance required or else lest one get hashtagged as linkedin

with subversive nasty happy horsesh*t

as stipulated in their handbill addressed to each person electronically and courtesy hard copy individually courtesy autofill utilizing a generic template to pronounce all future edicts.

Away thinly veiled threats to wreak havoc and foment spoiled Christmas

for the next four years, whereby maybe Santa in league with reindeer and elves

can arrange for Cruella to feign being his long lost sis before he gets his bear size paws

on documents painstakingly drafted

against British sovereignty over fate of thirteen colonies to relish contra dancing at all hours of the day and night (watch for ContraCopia Saturday, November 30, 2024 - 2:00 pm until 11:00 pm)

where all proceeds go to raise fiddler on the roof atop complex edifice,

where wild asparagus throve,

and swallowtail butterflies

flitted to and fro, hither and yon totally oblivious, judicious, fractious, capricious, and adventitious dramatic changing of the guard

upholding fledgling recipe for Norwegian bachelor farmers forefathers/mothers to jump/ kick started democracy.

[worldofwardcraft]

The Siberian Candidate.

October 28, 2024

Glenn Carle, a former CIA national intelligence officer responsible for evaluating foreign threats, said back in 2017, "My assessment is that Trump is actually working directly for the Russians." He is not alone in this opinion. When asked in 2018 if he thought Donald Trump was a de facto Russian asset, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe simply answered, "I do, I do."

An asset differs from an actual agent in being someone who can easily be manipulated into doing the bidding of a foreign government. Ex-KGB spy Yuri Shvets told journalist Craig Unger how Trump was perfect for such a role:

In terms of his personality, the guy is not a complicated cookie, his most important characteristics being low intellect coupled with hyperinflated vanity. This makes him a dream for an experienced recruiter.

Trump has always been nauseatingly fawning in his praise of thuggish Russian president Vlad Putin. He called Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine "genius," never tires of referring to Putin as "smart" and continually boasts of his cozy relationship with the Kremlin kleptocrat.

Early in his presidency, Trump invited Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador Sergey Kislyak to the Oval Office. The Washington Post reported that he shared with them top-secret information regarding a highly sensitive intelligence operation. In fealty to Mother Russia, he also threatened to pull out of NATO, ended the Iran arms agreement, tore up the treaty with Russia limiting their nuclear missiles, and withheld military aid to Ukraine.

Midway through his term, Trump asked the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to provide a list of American spies. The New York Times described what happened next:

Leading counterintelligence officials issued a memo to all of the CIA’s global stations saying that a concerning number of U.S. informants were being captured and executed.

At the end of his tenure, the career criminal stole hundreds of top-secret documents and squirreled them away at Mar-a-Lago. Among these was a binder containing raw intelligence concerning Russian election interference in 2016 that, according to Newsweek, Trump may have sold to them. Explains The Guardian:

Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years and proved so willing to parrot anti-western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow.

In return, Russia helped Trump with each of his presidential election runs, including this one. In July, a US intelligence official announced, "We have not observed a shift in Russia's preferences for the presidential race from past elections." Trump, it seems, is still their chosen nominee.

[salemander5000]

This is about a comment on a post about Elon Musk having a conversation with Putin. eugenedebs1920 needs a history lesson about Stalin. Staling killed his own people. Millions died in Gulags and from starvation under his leadership. At one time Stalin was aligned with Hitler. The two of them were going to divide up Europe. Stalin backed away from Hitler later when he realized this wasn't going to happen. Staling then aligned himself with FDR. FDR knew what Stalin was all about and of course he had a deal with him but he was smart enough to know that Stalin would have his own deal behind FDRs back. After we defeated Germany and the War ended Stalin wanted East Berlin. He kept those people in check by puting people in prison. He built a wall and no one could get out. They shot people who tried and were caught. Behind all of this was the OAS which later on was the CIA. Stalin had his own of course and that was the KGB. Putin learned from these old guys who retired from the KGB. My point of all of this is this; eugendebs1920 says that FDR screwed over Stalin? That's a laugh. FDR crossed his fingers when he shook hands with that Dictator just like Stalin crossed his fingers. Both leaders were after the Scientists who were working on Nuclear Bombs and Rockets. It was a race to get those Scientists. It's not FDRs fault nor was it Trumans fault that the world is the way it is. The Russians want our lunch and always will. The likes of Trump and Musk are just another problem we are facing in the Country now what with both of them admiring a Dictator. The only way to try to stop this is to vote Trump out. Make Him Go Away!

..Okay, I agree that Trump and Musk are awful people and it's in the best interests of the US to not let Donald get elected again.. but why did you go on a rant about Stalin and FDR over me liking one post from someone who, upon a quick search, hasn't even discussed them? What?

[darkmaga-returns]

JD Vance puts on a masterclass in dealing with dishonest media.

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance was forced to correct NBC News anchor Kristen Welker on Sunday after she made a false claim about Donald Trump.

Instead of asking Vance about the Trump-Vance vision for America, Welker chose to begin her interview with Vance — which aired just days before Election Day — by asking him if he views Russian President Vladimir Putin as an "ally" or "enemy."

'I think that that's a misunderstanding of the history, Kristen.'

Vance, in response, called Putin an "adversary" and "competitor," explaining America needs "to be smart about diplomacy." Vance then tried to shift the conversation to topics Americans care about, but Welker refused to ask about those issues. Instead, she asked Vance why he's "not willing to go so far as to call [Putin] an enemy."

"Well, we're not in a war with him, and I don't want to be in a war with Vladimir Putin’s Russia," Vance shot back.

And that's when the interview took a turn.

Vance told Welker that America needs "smart diplomacy" to restore peace in the world and to turn the page from the foreign policy disasters of the Biden-Harris administration. Oddly, Welker responded by asserting that Russia invaded Ukraine when Trump was president, forcing Vance to give her a history lesson.

"Of course, Donald Trump was president for four years while Russia was essentially invading Crimea," Welker said. "Why didn't he kick him out when he had the chance? He had four years."

"Oh, I think that that's a misunderstanding of the history, Kristen," Vance responded.

"Well, there was fighting going on," Welker insisted

"First of all, we had Russia invade another country, a sovereign nation, during Obama," Vance corrected. "We had Russia invade a sovereign nation during Bush’s term. We had Russia invade a sovereign nation during the leadership of Kamala Harris."

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Henri J. Barkey at The UnPopulist:

Trump has not concealed his admiration for populist authoritarians worldwide. He has gone out of his way to praise and laud “strong leaders,” such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin—whom he admired for “being able to kill whoever,” calling him a “genius.” And he’s on record noting that Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has “made some smart decisions we could learn from in the United States,” adding that there’s no one “smarter or a better leader” than the Hungarian strongman. Much has been written about Trump’s parallels with these two leaders. But there is another strongman whom Trump could turn to for inspiration who has not received nearly as much attention: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president since 2014.

The two leaders represent opposite and conflicting ends of the civilizational pole: Erdoğan, a deeply devout Muslim, sees himself as the leader of the Islamic world and an antagonist of the West. Though not religious, Trump is positioning himself as the defender of Western Civilization.

But both are thoroughgoing illiberals who engage in populist politics and claim to represent the forces of “good” (the populace) against “evil” (the elites). They both rail against the Deep State, “derin devlet” in Turkey, even after Erdoğan, through his cunning, has defanged it. (The notion of the Deep State actually came to America from Turkey and referred to an unelected military brass that functioned as a shadowy parallel government, not anything that has ever existed here.) They both reject the current liberal-international order and harbor a deep disdain for their respective countries’ institutions that check executive power.

Understanding how Erdoğan transformed Turkey’s political system—rooted in the secular ideology of its founder, Kemal Atatürk—and quasi-democratic institutions into an illiberal regime that imposes a religious, nationalist ideology dominated by him would therefore be instructive. He has already reshaped the Turkish state and society in his image, just as Trump and his MAGA acolytes want to do in the United States. Both Erdoğan and Trump are narcissistic, thin-skinned figures who expect unquestioning, cult-like loyalty, especially when they go after the enemies that they see everywhere. They engage in demagoguery and conspiracy theories, creating an alternate reality that helps them solidify their hold on their allies and sympathizers. This gives them a solid basis to try to flatten civil society and governing institutions—and impose their will on the country.

Contempt for Courts and the Rule of Law

Consider how, instead of fixing Turkey’s admittedly imperfect rule of law, Erdoğan has coopted it. He has attacked the judiciary, sacking thousands of judges and prosecutors who wouldn’t bend to his will, replacing them with inexperienced judges who would. He has then used the courts to punish antagonists and, equally importantly, protect cronies, allies, and friends (Trump himself is no stranger to protecting and rewarding loyalists and friends). In essence, he has given a real-life demonstration of what a system that a strongman uses to “punish his enemies and reward his friends,” as Trump and his allies are overtly seeking, would look like. Turkish prisons are chock full of people whose sole crime was crossing or standing up to Erdoğan, like civil society leader Osman Kavala, who was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for supposedly initiating the 2013 Gezi Park demonstrations against an urban development project and destabilizing the government. The scale of the two-and-a-half-million-strong demonstrations rivaled those in Arab Spring countries two years prior and badly spooked Erdoğan. The case against Kavala has received much international attention and resulted in a constitutionally binding ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for his release, which Erdoğan ignored.

The leader of the opposition Kurdish party, People’s Democracy Party, Selahattin Demirtaş, was also sentenced to life imprisonment on terrorism charges for allegedly inspiring protests in 2014 and insulting the president, a crime in Turkey. This was a naked attempt to neutralize Demirtaş, a charismatic politician who was responsible for his party’s unexpected election success and setbacks for Erdoğan’s party. Trump, likewise, has made no secret of his wish to prosecute his opponents. During his presidency, the Department of Justice initiated politically motivated cases against former Obama secretaries of state Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, as well as former FBI Director James Comey, on an assortment of charges but they didn’t go anywhere.

It isn’t just opposition party officials Trump wants to go after but even his own if he thinks they are crossing him. He has called for the “execution” of the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley—because he kept a line of communication open with the Chinese during the last few turbulent months of the Trump presidency to avoid any dangerous misunderstandings. But his deepest desire for “retribution”—his word—is against Republicans who have had the temerity to attempt to hold him accountable to the rule of law. He’s vociferously called for former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney from Wyoming to be tried for treason—in a military court reserved for enemy combatants and war criminals, no less—because she cooperated with Democrats on the House Jan. 6 Committee to investigate his efforts to overturn the election and foment the attack on the Capitol. In other words, as far as Trump is concerned, he is the state.

Erdoğan has reached deep into civil society and charged tens of thousands of people, from journalists and politicians to ordinary citizens and even minors, with “insulting President Erdoğan”—in each case, the delineation of what constitutes an “insult” was primarily left to the the presidential palace. Similarly, countless newspapers and news websites have been subjected to capricious fines or shut down.

Likewise, Trump wants to silence the media—calling it the “enemy of the people”—and, most recently, threatened to scrap ABC’s broadcasting license after his poor debate performance that he blamed on the network’s moderators. He also wants Mark Zuckerberg to “spend the rest of his life in jail” for election interference should the Facebook founder, like in 2020, extend funding to boost local election infrastructure, which Trump believes, without any basis, went primarily to blue states and handed the election to Biden.

While the U.S. judicial system is significantly more resilient than Turkey’s, it is far from clear that it will hold in the face of outright contempt and open defiance that the Trump team, just like Erdoğan, has exhibited. Consider how both have handled the highest court in the land. On the rare occasion when the Constitutional Court diverged from Erdoğan’s preferred outcome, he defied its ruling. This year, for example, the court ruled that an opposition member elected to parliament should be released from jail and permitted to assume his seat. In refusing to implement the ruling, Erdoğan absurdly argued that a lower court’s prior verdict overruled that of the country’s highest court. Likewise, JD Vance, Trump’s vice-presidential choice, has declared that if the Supreme Court objects to the duo’s plans to fire civil servants and replace them with loyalists, the administration should ignore the ruling. It should “stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say the Chief Justice has made the ruling, now let him enforce it.”

[...]

Ending the Separation of Religion and State

Religion and religious identity have become integral to Turkey’s politics since Erdoğan came along. He has prioritized the creation of a “pious generation” that identifies being a Turk with being a Muslim and has used the school system to accomplish this goal. He has created religious schools that equally divide their classes between a regular curriculum and core classes on Islam. Trump, unlike Erdoğan, may not be personally devout, but he has been supportive of evangelical Christians’ demands for public schools to sport Christian religious symbols, such as displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms or teaching the Bible. Republican governors in some red states are following through. Louisiana became the first state to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in schools. Oklahoma has gone even further and ordered Bible teaching to be part of the regular school curriculum.

Mongering Conspiracy Theories

Conspiracy discourses are a standard tool of authoritarians because they serve to project an image of victimhood, which they use to solidify their bonds with the public. Erdoğan used this to great effect when he blamed Washington, without any evidence, for organizing the failed 2016 military coup. Similarly, Trump blamed his 2020 loss on outlandish theories about voter fraud, machine swapping, deliberate local miscounting of votes, and much else. He is already yammering that this will be the most corrupt election in history if he loses.

Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have lots of things in common: oppress their peoples, bloviate about enemies real or perceived, religious nationalism, and more.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

President Biden condemns Trump's comments encouraging Putin to attack NATO countries.

In a second very positive development on Tuesday, President Biden gave brief remarks at the White House condemning Trump's statement “encouraging” Russia to invade NATO allies who do not “pay” their “dues.” (Fact check: NATO allies do not “pay dues.”) The fact that Biden has gone on the offensive is morally and strategically important. (The eight-minute video is here: CNN, Dumb, shameful, dangerous, un-American: Biden blasts Trump's comments on NATO.

Biden’s defense of the NATO alliance honors America’s commitment to global peace and security. Trump's statement has rattled our NATO allies and given aid and comfort to Russia’s expansionist plans. It was the honorable and right thing to do to speak out from the White House. Good for Joe Biden!

At least as importantly, President Biden’s forward-leaning stance on foreign policy is a smart strategic move. Foreign policy is an area where maturity, judgment, stability, and lateral thinking matter—a lot. Biden has those qualities in abundance, while Trump exhibits the antithesis of those attributes.

In his remarks (full text here) President Biden said, in part:

Can you imagine, a former president of the U.S. saying that? The whole world heard it. The worst thing is he means it. No other president in our history has ever bowed down to a Russian dictator. For God's sake, it's dumb, it's shameful, it’s dangerous, it’s un-American.” When America gives it word, it means something. When we make a commitment, we keep it. And NATO is a sacred commitment. Donald Trump looks at this as if it’s a burden. When he looks at NATO, he doesn’t see the alliance that protects America and the world. He sees a protection racket. [¶¶] [O]ur adversaries have long sought to create cracks in the Alliance. The greatest hope of all those who wish America harm is for NATO to fall apart. And you can be sure that they all cheered when they heard Donald Trump — when they heard what he said. I know this: I will not walk away. I can’t imagine any other president walking away. For as long as I’m president, if Putin attacks a NATO Ally, the United States will defend every inch of NATO territory. Let me close with this. You’ve heard me say this before. Our nation stands at an inflection point — an inflection point in history — where the decisions we make now are going to determine the course of our future for decades to come. This is one of those moments.

President Biden must continue to call out Trump's outrageous statements with similar force every time he threatens to turn the FBI into a private police force, round up millions of immigrants, or withdraw (again) from the Paris Climate Agreement.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[textingaboutprometheus]

lol apparently they killed that murderous psychopath by accident. Netanyahu ain't stopping his own murderous campaign, he has to take over Lebanon or whatever the hell he is doing.

I see. I guess I'll need to listen to Rhodes bonus episode this week for information. Rhodes out there digging into world politics for all of us.

Hes a smart guy and I think it's bad ass he pissed off Putin enough to get banned from Russia. I want a country thats friendly with Trump to ban me!

[sublimeobservationarcade]

America Is Exporting Hate To The World

Where did social media originate? Yes, the United States of America. Although, that should read the disunited states of America. Through social media America is exporting hate to the world. Its own special homegrown kind of hate and division. We are having discussions about banning social media for our kids because of the damage it is doing to them. If we were smart we would ban it per se for everybody. Spend a few minutes considering the pros and cons of this Internet borne home of gossip and misinformation.

Social Media Is The American Medium Of Hate

Yes, there have been instances of important information during natural disasters being disseminated via Facebook. Up against this are numerous examples of downright lies being spread by both malign and misinformed actors in a wide variety of circumstances. The platforms have been reluctant to fact check and police content. During the recent global pandemic we witnessed gross violations of policies in this regard for political purposes resulting in banning’s of account holders by Twitter and Facebook. Freedom of speech is given as reason enough for these folk to be able to do such stuff on social media. Elon Musk bought Twitter and turned it into X, apparently for this very reason.

Photo by Ivan Samkov on Pexels.com

Hate Speech Free To Spread Lies & Disinformation

Now, we have rampant disinformation and hate speech  enjoying an unchecked express ride on X. Social media is opinion masquerading as news, in many instances. The digital medium itself lends weight to gossip and unsubstantiated stuff. Algorithms favour click bait content designed to outrage viewers over factuality. Fake news is spread by both haters and manipulators. Most viewers have no idea of the source of the tweet, post, or video and whether it is genuine or a bot. The recently exposed Russian funding of alt-right pro Trump videos is testament to this. Americans will do anything for money. The Russian state wants a Putin loving Trump back in the White House, as kleptocrats flock together for exponentially more grift and graft. What Is Social Media American Style? What is social media? Ostensibly, a platform like Facebook was based on the school yearbook prevalent in American schools. It contained photos and information about individuals in that class and year, as a record for posterity. Digitally morph that into Facebook and it became a way to find friends online and map lives for general comment. Generations of us have come along in the 21C looking into screens, as some electronic mirror/ record of our existence. This largely unregulated space provides proof of life without the perquisite standards of factuality demanded by the old paper records kept by the state. Computers are essentially about record keeping and filing. Social media is full of fake identities and unreal digital records of lives.

Photo by Nikita Belokhonov on Pexels.com No Identity Checks Necessary Yuval Harari makes a cogent point when he emphasises that the blatant proliferation of fake human identities online are incredibly damaging to our societies. He suggests that we make it a serious crime to counterfeit human identities, as we do for counterfeiting money. The fraudulent behaviour widely occurring across social media and other digital mediums sees scams costing tens of billions of dollars annually. Our banks wont guarantee the safety of our funds anymore, as they have moved out of the security business and into the transactional convenience game. They take a cut or a fee from every movement of currency, whether it be by you or a scammer. If you or I are fooled into transferring large amounts of our money into a fraudulent account, more fool us and the financial institution will not bear any responsibility. Unverified Free For All For Frauds If you read stuff online and don’t bother checking it for its veracity, well that says something about who you are. If you don’t bother tracing the source of the material and don’t understand that everyone has an agenda, well the truth of the matter may well allude you. Social media is a free for all, where the actual identities of correspondents are hidden. You might be following a bot, a machine. You may well be arguing with a non-human entity. The algorithms are designed to get us all riled up, so that we stay on the platform. Americans engineered social media and have been fine tuning it ever since. There is no definitive agreement on who was first in this space. “When did social media start gaining momentum? The early 2000s witnessed an exponential rise in the usage of these platforms. SixDegrees’ revolutionary model was the catalyst, setting the stage for the advent of giants like Facebook and X.” - (https://sciencepod.net/when-was-social-media-invented/) Billions of people use social media globally and it has generated some positive outcomes but like all things it is on a continuum. Back in its home, America, the negatives are clearly outweighing what positives remain. Kids growing into adults with their noses stuck in their phone screens and developing a crick in their necks from constantly looking down. Lives without meaning unless they are posted online with digital facsimiles posing as happiness. Cyber bullying preying upon teenagers and young adults. Sex and pornography blurring into the same thing in the minds of many of the generations infected by the compulsion to interact with social media. Peer group pressure feeds the social media disease. Our modern cultures  are defined by these devices and their software. Our brains are being manipulated by the constant use and engagement with social media. We don’t have the data yet to see what the longer term ramifications of this will be.

Trump The Social Media President Donald Trump became the ‘social media President’. His posts on Twitter and later Truth Social became a direct conduit between President and the American people. The fact that Trump is a compulsive liar and arch manipulator of misinformation makes him the perfect ambassador for this fraudulent communication network. Giving the allusion of cutting through the bullshit via this medium has served Trump well. His narrative of being an anti-politician and a champion of the people has fitted in well with the laconic confines of X and Truth Social formats. Trump’s messaging via social media is far more effective politically than his rambling incoherent rally speeches. Lying online is easier because body language largely cannot give you away. Although, Trump must be considered one of the greatest liars ever in American history. The Amplification Of Lies & Gossip America is exporting hate to the world through its invention and marketing of social media. Big Tech in the US is largely unregulated and has grown into a trillion dollar behemoth. Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and the many other manifestations of it have the ability to control our thinking. We use their devices unceasingly and the software they hold engages with us 24/7. Social media is all about group think in its ability to influence users and sections of our societies to vote certain ways. Why do you think the Russians, Chinese and Iranians have been hell bent on sewing discord and division in the American political sphere. Democracy appears to have a vulnerability here, especially for those viewing it from authoritarian states. Brexit was directly influenced by Russian meddling in the social media arena around that vote. Hillary Clinton was defeated by Trump in the 2016 presidential race and again Russian influence was identified in the social media space by the FBI. The polarization vehemently present in the US is spreading across the globe via social media. You can see it in Britain and Europe and in Australia. Sections of populations being siloed in their views about increasingly emotive topics like the Israel Hamas conflict. Politicians on the right and left drumming up support on the back of their stances on issues like this. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been coopted by political groups for their own benefit. The centre has, seemingly, been deserted for extremist positions on either side of this. The way social media works, as a networking tool, has to be a big part of why this is occurring globally. It could be the existential danger of our time that we are not seeing, joining climate change as one of the four apocalyptic horsemen.

Media Must Be Regulated Media has long been recognised over the years as requiring regulation. The unfettered reign of social media is an anomaly. The printing press ramped up civil unrest, hate and violence for centuries following its invention in the 15C. It is estimated that a third of Europe’s population died in the resulting wars and conflicts. “German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg is credited with inventing the printing press around 1436, although he was far from the first to automate the book-printing process. Woodblock printing in China dates back to the 9th century and Korean bookmakers were printing with moveable metal type a century before Gutenberg.” - (https://www.history.com/news/printing-press-renaissance) Thus, we can see that information technology is no benign thing. Governments brought in strict laws around who could own and operate newspapers, radio and TV networks. Various laws in different countries defined what could be printed, broadcast, and disseminated. In America, they got around the freedom of speech laws in the Constitution by making everything top secret at the source. Government agencies declared documents sealed under national security laws heading off any debate about freedom of speech. This is one of the reasons why Americans are so god damned suspicious and paranoid about conspiracies because they have so much information denied to them. Land of the free is a load of poppycock really. Social media gives them free access to a veritable sewer full of fictions, exaggerations, lies, and distortions. Nothing is top secret on X, Facebook, Tik Tok or Truth Social, as there is never anything worth hiding there.

Photo by Pranavsinh suratia on Pexels.com Billionaires & Social Media Elon Musk is a billionaire running a social media platform and this is dangerous thing. Musk has around 200 million followers on X himself. Zuckerberg is another billionaire with both Facebook and Instagram at his disposal for influencing hundreds of millions of people. The old media is in its death throws, with newspapers and broadcast TV shrinking in influence rapidly. The Rupert Murdochs’ are a dying species despite the loudness of Fox News and Sky News Australia. Rabid right wing diatribes fill their air waves with no journalism to be found only opinion. American hate is more than hot air and is something that international governments would do well to recognise before it is too late.  Before their citizens are infected beyond redemption. American political violence is the natural progression of that hate and segregated polarization. Seeing fellow and sister human beings as ‘the other’ rather than having a shared universal identity is a forerunner to violence. The oligarchs have got so big, so wealthy, that governments are pitiful in comparison in many instances. Tax cuts for corporations and the super wealthy have seen their incomes treble of late since the Trump tax cuts of 2017. Competition from sectors has disappeared and these rentier oligarchies extract billions from endless fees, subscriptions and charges. Big Tech has seen countless mergers and acquisitions resulting in giant multinationals minimising their taxation in boltholes like Ireland. Super Pacs define the political space in the US with the top 1% of the wealthy spending billions on electing politicians and parties. The American people have been shunted to the back of the bus and are treated like third class citizens in determining who runs the country. Democracy has been bought off by the super wealthy. 333 million people and just a tiny percentage get to call the shots and determine policy. Of course they are going to look after their own interests to the detriment of ordinary working Americans. It seems like many Americans are like children in that they are happily distracted by the circus and the BS of Trump. Hating immigrants, hating coloured folk, hating LGBTQI people, hating non-Christians, and hating women who don’t kiss ass as a matter of course.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Pexels.com Through social media America is exporting hate to the world. It is an American invention and it is still being refined according to their social engineering skills. We have embraced it via our love of technology. We love our smart phones and they are connected to social media network platforms. Many of us live in big cities and deal with loneliness in these modern urban settings. Some of us keep the home fires burning by our engagement with social media. Trolling or being trolled online. Stoking hate as a consolation for the omission of love in our lives, perhaps. Somehow we have lost the ability to interact in the flesh and have a good natured debate. The anonymity of online forums appeals to many to vent and say stuff we wouldn’t have the guts to say in person. The public good has shrunk and we have seen the rise of an overwhelming concern for self-aggrandisement. People bang on about civil rights but rarely mention civil duties.  The Americanisation of the world continues apace. Perhaps, the iPhone should have come with a warning about this. Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©HouseTherapy

SpaceX Demo-2 Preflight (NHQ202005270020) by NASA HQ PHOTO is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0 Read the full article