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Posts Tagged ‘donald trump’

20 years of nailing it Afghanistan – watch four culpable US presidents bullshit the world

The US-led invasion of Afghanistan has been led by the US-led retreat from the country ruled by the Taliban, just as it was when the US went in. It’s been 20 years of waste, thousands of lost lives, many more damaged ones, hope destroyed and the dawning realisation that America is good at one thing: picking a president on the strength of their abilities in marketing. George Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden – you’d not want any of them in your corner in a fight. Now – get your war on!

Posted: 24th, August 2021 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment


Elizabeth was not ready for the Trump Revolution

Elizabeth came to Washington DC from Knoxville, Tennessee, to march for Donald Trump.  She made it a foot inside the Capital before she says she was maced and forced back outside. Elizabeth is upset. Elizabeth was not ready to the Revolution.

Posted: 8th, January 2021 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment


Dr Fauci and the delayed Covid-19 injection that robbed Trump and left people dead

When Dr Anthony Fauci, “the top US infectious disease expert” (BBC), was rolling his eyes and smirking at Donald Tump (easy enough), he was a darling of Twitter. And then he went on Fox News and told everyone that the UK had not checked Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine “as carefully” as US health regulators, who have yet to give their jab their endorsement. He then doubled down, heading over to CBS News to say the UK had “rushed” the approval.

Dr. Anthony Fauci criticized the United Kingdom for rushing through the authorization process for a coronavirus vaccine. He told CBS News that British regulators failed to adequately scrutinize data from drug manufacturers before approving a vaccine…

“They kind of ran around the corner of the marathon and joined it in the last mile,” Fauci told CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett in an interview for this week’s episode of “The Takeout” podcast. “They really rushed through that approval.”

Now Fauci says we might have misconstrued his comments. “Our process is one that takes more time than it takes in the UK. And that’s just the reality,” Fauci tells the BBC. “I did not mean to imply any sloppiness even though it came out that way.”

He misspoke? Nonsense, of course. We heard him loud and clear. He painted all the clinicians, doctors, professors and scientists who worked hard to fill the usual white space between each stage of a drugs approval process with hard work, testing and productivity as cheats. And you begin to wonder what role politics plays in Fauci’s to-camera grimaces and opinions. The BBC:

Politics may also explain why the FDA hasn’t yet given the green light. Back in October, President Trump pressured health officials to approve the first vaccine candidates before election day on 3 November but they pushed back, fearing it might become a political football.

The FDA said it wanted to see two months’ extra safety data from the final phase vaccine trials before pharmaceutical companies could apply for emergency approval.

That has inevitably left some arguing the US has got bogged down in a much more detailed review than might have been necessary.

Had Donald Trump been able to hail the vaccine before the US election in which he lost to Joe Biden, he’d have walked it. And wouldn’t faster approval have saved lives?

Posted: 4th, December 2020 | In: News, Politicians | Comment


President Senile or President Lunatic – America decides

Can everything you want to know about the US election be summed up in a tabloid headline? The Daily Star achieves no little success with its front page:

President SEnile Biden

President Senile or President Lunatic? Vote now!

Posted: 5th, November 2020 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians, Tabloids | Comment


Voting for Donald Trump is a sign of mental illness – BBC

So whose it going to be: the orange lunk with the hair tsunami or Homer Simpson’s dad frozen in time? Has there even been two more physically conflicted characters contesting the Presidency of the USA? At least whoever paints Joe Biden for any official portraiture won’t have to tell hm to keep his face still. The BBC, as every major new outfit, is pretty much ignoring every other news event – what Covid-19? – and breathlessly reporting on the vote. Good. America is foreign country, whatever they tell you. And most of the coverage can be classed as escapist entertainment.

So who will win? Will it be the orange lunk with the hair tsunami who says whatever comes into his head, likes the sound of it and repeats it (however divisive) or Homer Simpson’s dad frozen in time who thinks his opponent if George Bush? Has there even been two more physically conflicted characters contesting the Presidency of the USA? At least whoever paints Joe Biden for any official portraiture won’t have to tell hm to keep his face still.

The BBC is pretty much ignoring every other news event – what Covid-19? – and breathlessly reporting on the vote. Good. America is a foreign country, whatever they tell you. And much of the coverage can be classed as escapist entertainment.

And as with all good reality TV shows, the BBC has picked a favourite. Clue: it’s not Trump. The BBC’s Miami bureau chief notes that Florida has backed Trump. To her mind doing so is symptomatic of mental illness:

Trump’s appeal with the large Cuban-American population in Miami-Dade county was palpable, judging by the loud and colourful ‘Trump trains’ that have been going through for weeks. The ones for Biden were always smaller.

Latinos for Trump! Why not? No, why?

…the message that Democrats are ‘socialists’ really hit home.

Cubans and Venezuelans, the other large diaspora here, have a kind of PTSD with the S-word, socialism. They both had to flee their countries after socialist governments ran the countries to the ground.

They look to Trump and see freedom. They see State control in Biden. The BBC pathologises that thinking. According to the NHS: “The main treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are psychological therapies and medication.” The BBC’s reporter makes no mention of have taken any medical training – she just think all Trump voters might be ill.

So whose it going to be: the orange lunk with the hair tsunami or Homer Simpson’s dad frozen in time? Has there even been two more physically conflicted characters contesting the Presidency of the USA? At least whoever paints Joe Biden for any official portraiture won’t have to tell hm to keep his face still. The BBC, as every major new outfit, is pretty much ignoring every other news event – what Covid-19? – and breathlessly reporting on the vote. Good. America is foreign country, whatever they tell you. And most of the coverage can be classed as escapist entertainment.

But the Beeb has picked a side. Clue: it’s not Trump. The BBC’s Miami bureau chief notes that Florida has backed Trump. To her mind doing so is symptomatic of mental illness:

Trump’s appeal with the large Cuban-American population in Miami-Dade county was palpable, judging by the loud and colourful ‘Trump trains’ that have been going through for weeks. The ones for Biden were always smaller.

Latinos for Trump! Why not? No, why?

…the message that Democrats are ‘socialists’ really hit home.

Cubans and Venezuelans, the other large diaspora here, have a kind of PTSD with the S-word, socialism. They both had to flee their countries after socialist governments ran the countries to the ground.

They look to Trump and see a free America. They see too much State control in Biden. The BBC pathologises that thinking. According to the NHS: “The main treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are psychological therapies and medication.” The BBC’s reporter makes no mention of have taken any medical training – she just think all Trump voters might be ill.

Posted: 4th, November 2020 | In: News, Politicians | Comment


Hilary Clinton says this time she will beat Trump

The New York Times‘ headline is choice: “Hillary Clinton Says It’s Different This Time.” The 2016 Democratic candidate on why she’s so confident that Joe Biden will win.

What is different “this time” is that Donald Trump not trying to beat Hilary Clinton.

Posted: 27th, October 2020 | In: News, Politicians | Comment


Tump for Coronavirus and ‘Get Your Knee Off Our Necks’

How Journalism Works, courtesy of the Washington Post.

On August 28, 2020 at 4:37 a.m., the WaPo noticed a “crowded White House” for Donald Trump’s latest address. The crowd was “largely devoid” of Covid-19 precautions – “few masks, little distancing.”

President Trump celebrated his renomination Thursday with a crowded party at the White House that offered a jarring contrast with a nation that is still widely shut down over fears of the coronavirus pandemic whose spread remains uncontrolled.

On August 28, 2020 at 5:26 p.m the WaPo spotted another crowd at the ‘Get Your Knee Off Our Necks’ march for racial equality:

If the topic is Covid-19, then one crowd looks very much like another crowd, right? The story on the march begins in a different tone to the one on Trump:

Thousands of protesters gathered Friday at the Lincoln Memorial to call for criminal justice reform and racial equality while honoring the 57th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” address from the same location.

Planning began in June after the funeral of George Floyd. Organizers say they want to highlight the civil rights issues of today and bring well-known speakers to address the crowd while also mitigating the spread of the novel coronavirus with strict safety protocols.

It’s not until paragraph 31 in the paper’s live blog, readers learn:

In some cases, there was little social distancing as the crowds moved closer to the Lincoln Memorial and the calls for justice boomed louder from the speakers. Most participants, however, did wear masks.

“Some cases” and “most” Or “few and “largely”? Pick your news. Fed your prejudice.

Posted: 28th, August 2020 | In: News, Politicians | Comment


Time to end the cult of leader: Trump or Biden – both are just functionaries

TRUMP tattoo

The British electorate saw off the Corbyn cult. The believers’ chanting, the flag waving and the destruction of naysayers that surrounded Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign to lead Labour Party into Government was about the man not the garbled message. One writer has a dream:

Here’s the most important “issue” to me: I want to make the US into a country where people don’t care who is president, a place like Switzerland. The more people care who is president (as in Venezuela) the worse off the country is.

We vote for the system, not the leader – right?

Posted: 28th, August 2020 | In: Politicians | Comment


Michelle Obama’s ‘low-level depression’ is not a mental illness; Donald Trump appears unwell

Feted and minted former US First Lady Michelle Obama is worried. The BBC tunes into her podcast and hears her say: “I’m waking up in the middle of the night because I’m worrying about something or there’s a heaviness.” The older we get the less well we sleep. “These are not, they are not fulfilling times, spiritually,” says Mrs Obama. “I know that I am dealing with some form of low-grade depression.” Depression is a disease. It’s not to be confused with feeling low or blue. It comes from somewhere other, an invasion that kills your sense of reason and infects your being with a “lie of the mind”.

Rod Dreher likened his depression to walking around the house “as if I were wearing a heavy wool blanket soaked in cold water almost all the time.”

Depression kills. So why is Michelle Obama a little bit depressed? She explains: “Not just because of the quarantine, but because of the racial strife, and just seeing this administration, watching the hypocrisy of it, day in and day out, is dispiriting.”

Pathologising the Trump presidency and being woke – literally awake – might be a step beyond. And you don’t need therapy to cure yourself of Trump-phobia – you need better politics and ideas.

And if we are going to talk about mental illness, can we talk about Donald Trump? The man does not seem to be well.

Posted: 6th, August 2020 | In: Celebrities, News, Politicians | Comment


Watch: Donald Tump is brilliant in the US version of The Thick Of It

Donald Trump’s schtick as a US President in the style of The Thick of It is brilliant.

The journalist is played by Axios National Political Correspondent, Jonathan Swan, Jonathan Swan.

trump swan

Transcript:

Trump: “Here’s one. Well, right here, United States is lowest in numerous categories. We’re lower than the world.”

Swan: “Lower than the world?”

Trump: “Lower than Europe.”

Swan: “In what? In what?”

Swan: “Oh, you’re doing death as a proportion of cases. I’m talking about death as a proportion of population. That’s where the US is really bad. Much worse than Germany, South Korea, et cetera.”

Trump: “You can’t – you can’t do that.”

Swan: “Why can’t I do that?”

Trump: “You have to go by, you have to go by – look. Here is the United States – you have to go by the cases. The cases of death.”

Swan: “Why not as a proportion of population?”

Trump: “What it says is when you have somebody, where there’s a case, the people that live from those cases.”

Swan: “Sure. It’s surely a relevant statistic to say if the US has X population and X percentage of death of that population, opposed to some-”

Trump: “No, because you have to go by the cases.”

Swan: “In South Korea, for example – 51 million population, 300 deaths. It’s like, it’s crazy compared to other countries.”

Trump: “You don’t know that. You don’t know that.”

Swan: “I do. You think they’re faking their statistics? South Korea?”

Trump: “Ahhhhh, I won’t get into that, because I have a very good relationship with the country. But you don’t know that. They have spikes.”

Swan: “Germany, low 9000s?”

Trump: “Here’s one right here, United States. The number of cases – have a look. We’re last. Meaning we’re first.”

Mr Trump was brandishing another chart at this point.

Swan: “Last? I don’t know what we’re first in.”

Trump: “Take a look, it’s cases. And we have cases because of the testing.”

Swan: “I mean, a thousand Americans are dying a day. But I understand, on cases, it’s different.”

Trump: “No but you’re not reporting it correctly, Jonathan.”

Swan: “I think I am.”

Curtains.

Posted: 4th, August 2020 | In: Politicians, TV & Radio | Comment


Donald Trump’s niece Mary: the racists in my family (and in your families)

Donald Trump. Discuss. Actually, don’t bother. Forests will be pulped to discuss his presidency. And to get the logs rolling, here’s his niece, Mary Trump (born 1965), profiled in the Guardian. Her new book about Uncle Donald is out there now.

Mary Trump has given numerous interviews this week after being released from a temporary restraining order.

In an interview with the Washington Post, released Thursday, she described the president as “clearly racist”, and linked it to her wider family’s “knee-jerk anti-Semitism, a knee-jerk racism”.

“Growing up, it was sort of normal to hear them use the n-word or use anti-Semitic expressions,” she told the Post.

Racism and racist language were pretty routine in the 60s and 70s, when Mary Trump was growing up.

Spotter: The Guardian

Posted: 19th, July 2020 | In: News, Politicians | Comment


Warning: you may find Tara Reade upsetting

Tara Reade sex biden

Tara Reade claims US Presidential hopeful Joe Biden sexually assaulted her. Biden, the Democrat Party’s candidate to take on Donald Trump in the next Presidential election, is accused of pushing Mr Reade against a wall and penetrating her with his finger. That was 1993, when she was employed as a staff assistant to Mr Biden when he was a senator for the US state of Delaware. Several women have accused Biden of unwanted touching.

“So, he had one hand underneath my shirt, and the other had, I had a skirt on,” she says “and he went down my skirt and then went up and I remember I was up almost on my tippy toes. When he went inside the skirt, he was talking to me at the same time, and he was leaning into me and I pulled this way away from his head. He looked at me and said, ‘What the hell, man, I heard you liked me’… He pointed his finger at me and he said ‘You’re nothing to me. You’re nothing’.”

Biden says “It never happened”. Someone’s lying. Who do you believe? Biden wants you to make a judgement. This is his own statement from 2018 about Christine Blasey Ford’s claim that Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s nomination to the Supreme Court, sexually assaulted her more than three decades earlier: “For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she is talking about is real, whether or not she forgets the facts, whether or not it’s been made worse or better over time.”

The BBC selects an interesting photo to illustrate the story and issues a warning: “WARNING: Some readers may find details of this story upsetting.”

No warning appears on other BBC stories published today, such as:

West Mercia Police officer charged with rape

India rape: Six-year-old victim’s eyes damaged in attack

Princess Alexandra Hospital security guard charged with rape

Why does the story of a man who once said all women should be believed and called fighting violence against women “the passion of my life” being accused of sexual assault carry a warning when tales of child rape don’t? Is the warning for Biden’s fans who can’t grasp the idea that due process is for everyone, even for people you don’t like who brag about grabbing women’s genitals.

Posted: 8th, May 2020 | In: News | Comment


Trump updates The Strategic National Stockpile for Coronavirus: ‘we don’t have enough medical supplies’

The Trump administration has changed the language on the ‘Strategic National Stockpile’ on an HHS website. The Public Health Emergency squad is underfunded. What they previously told you about things before coronavirus happened was wishful at best and bullshit at worst:

Strategic National Stockpile
Before
Strategic National Stockpile
After

Spotter: @aaronblake

Posted: 3rd, April 2020 | In: News | Comment


Donald Trump hails Coronavirus as a ‘ratings hit’

Donald Trump hails Coronavirus as a ratings hit

Parody dies a little more as Donald Trump hails coronavirus as a ratings hit. This is not from a spoof account. I checked:

Donald Trump hails Coronavirus as a 'ratings hit'

Posted: 30th, March 2020 | In: News, Politicians | Comment


‘Tough Guys For Trump’ – Larry David’s epiphany

larry david donald trump

Larry David has yet to appear in a Bernie Sanders sketch. But he’s in one written for Twitter by Donald Trump.

In this skit, David is seen driving a small, foreign-made car. The liberal New Yorker, star of fly-on-the-wall documentary Curb your Enthusiasm, is wending his way along a sun-dappled road in California when his bad navigation skills and disregard for his fellow Americans causes him to drift and cut up a law-abiding biker.

The biker pulls up alongside.

David, sensing the error of his ways, is converted. In a moment of real epiphany he pulls on a ‘MAGA’ hat and vows to help the biker ‘Make American Great Again’. The buyer nods in brotherhood, politely advises David to “be more careful next time” and drives on.

Unless…

Posted: 12th, February 2020 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment


Hypocrisy! France bemoans US trade tariffs; France wants British trade tariffs

France is upset that the US is thinking about imposing trade tariffs on French cheese, fizz, make-up and handbags. France wants to tax US business. A US ruling into French plans tells us:

The U.S. Trade Representative has completed the first segment of its investigation under section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 and concluded that France’s Digital Services Tax (DST) discriminates against U.S. companies, is inconsistent with prevailing principles of international tax policy, and is unusually burdensome for affected U.S. companies. Specifically, USTR’s investigation found that the French DST discriminates against U.S. digital companies, such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon

Messy. And hypocritical of the French, mais no? If France believes tariffs are wrong, it should argue for free trade deal between the EU and the the post-Brexit UK. But it isn’t.

Posted: 4th, December 2019 | In: Money, News, Politicians | Comment


Harry Dunn: Invisible Anne Sacoolas shames America

anne sacoolas

Where is Anne Sacoolas? She’s no longer in the UK. She might still be checking her hair and make-up in a room at the White House, waiting to “ambush” Harry Dunn’s parents. But to the world at large, the middle-aged woman who legged it is invisible. We don’t see her. And we only hear her speak through a hired suit. Says Anne Sacoolas’ lawyer Amy Jeffress: “We are trying to handle the matter privately and look forward to hearing from the family or their representatives. Anne accepted the invitation to the White House with the hope that the family would meet and was disappointed.”

What more private than a televised big reveal? How about this, Anne and Amy: why doesn’t she just hop on a plane back to the UK and go and see Harry Dunn’s parents? Why doesn’t she call the British police? Why doesn’t Anne Sacoolas do the right thing?

Can it be that Anne Sacoolas, 42, is so valuable an asset to the US that the country cannot function without her? She returned to the United States under diplomatic immunity days after the crash which killed Harry, 19. She said she would not flee. But she did.

Meanwhile, Harry Dunn’s parents are behaving with admirable stoicism. “Meeting Anne Sacoolas in the White House yesterday wouldn’t have brought any healing to her or us,” says the teenager’s grieving mother. “We all accepted right from the off it was a tragic accident. She has to live with that”. Mrs Sacoolas should “do the right thing and set an example to her children… Come back to UK soil and face the justice system and then we can all sit in a room and then we can all start the healing process.”

Of course, that is to assume Anne Sacoolas’s children are not entitled diplo-brats learning the vital lesson that you can leave a foreign teenager dead and get away with it Scot-free if you’ve the right spouse and connections.

And get a load of the Sacoolas family’s representative on the world stage. Having laughed off the accident and attempted to turn the horror into a trite reality TV show, President Trump told media: “My meeting with the family, it was beautiful in a certain way. [Mrs Sacoolas] was in the room right out there, we met right here. I offered to bring the person in question in, and they weren’t ready for it… they wanted to meet with her and unfortunately when we had everybody together they decided not to meet. Perhaps they had lawyers involved by that time, I don’t know exactly.”

Such is the level of bullshit that shames the USA.

Posted: 17th, October 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment


Donald Trump turns Congress blue giving three f***s at City Airport

Donal tRump buttplug

Members of US Congress used swear words such as “asshole” , “fuck”, “shit” and “bitch” 1,900 times on Twitter in 2019. That’s a tenfold rise on 2016 – before Trump’s election, the number was 193.

Can we blame Donald “grab ’em by the pussy” Trump for the coarsening of debate? What about airport bookshops?

Nick Gibb, the schools minister, is upset that “three of the top 10 ‘Airport Exclusive’ books at London City WH Smith have ‘fuck’ in the title.”

Lamentable stuff – today’s politicians are just so unimaginative:

Posted: 13th, September 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment


Chinese fakery : goods rebranded ‘Made In Vietnam’

China tarrifs

Last week US President Donald Trump pledged a hike in tariffs on Chinese imports to the US. Trump accuses China of bad trading practices and intellectual property theft. USA Today has news of a Chinese work-around:

“Dozens” of products have been identified, Hoang Thi Thuy, a Vietnamese Customs Department official, told state-run media, and goods like textiles, fishery products, agricultural products, steel, aluminum, and processed wooden products were most vulnerable to the fraud.

Vietnamese state media noted that in 2017, the Customs Department exposed a company called INTERWYSE for trying to rebrand 600 Chinese-made speakers and phone chargers with a “Made in Vietnam” label.

“It will sabotage Vietnamese brands and products and it will also affect consumers. We could even get tariff retribution from other countries, and if that happens, it will hurt our economy,” Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh told the Vietnamese National Assembly last week.

Vietnam does not have any legal requirements for certification of the “Made in Vietnam” label. The country’s current regulations require that goods be produced partly or completely in Vietnam, but does not provide a mechanism for determining the veracity of the label.

What price that big US trade deal Trump’s promising for a post-Brexit UK features American goods as ‘Made in Britain’?

Posted: 26th, August 2019 | In: Money, News, Politicians | Comment


Donald Trump: John McCain still hasn’t thanked me for his funeral

Donal tRump buttplug

US President Donald Trump ‘has attacked the late Senator John McCain, complaining that he “didn’t get a thank you” for his state funeral.” So says the BBC. McCain never talked when he was in the Hanoi Hilton and he sure as hell ain’t gonna start now that he’s dead.

“We sent him on the way, but I wasn’t a fan of John McCain,” said Trump, reading the room on a visit to an Ohio tank factory. “I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve. I don’t care about this, I didn’t get a thank you. That’s OK.”

Comment from McCain came there none.

Posted: 21st, March 2019 | In: News, Politicians | Comment


Watch Donald Trump call Apple CEO Tim Cook ‘Tim Apple’

Donald Trump capped a meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook by referring him as “Tim Apple”. And nobody in the room – not one person – laughed.

Nobody in the room ever laughs. Why is that?

Is this why he named his company Trump, so he could remember what the hell it was called? That question to you Ivanka Trump, daughter of Ivana Trump.

Posted: 7th, March 2019 | In: News, Politicians, Technology | Comment


Jussie Smollett: and the Oscar for the biggest liar goes to…

Jussie Smollett

Jussie Smollett has been arrested in Chicago. His alleged crime: filing a false police report in which he claimed to be the victim of a homophobic and racist physical attack by two men, allegedly Ola and Abel Osundairo. There was no CCTV and no witnesses to support the claim the Empire actor was punched, his head placed in a noose and told “this is Maga country”, a reference to President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

Smollett was “forever changed” by the incident. He became a recognisable victim of hate. And, boy, is being hated the ultimate thing to be in this era of victimhood-seeking. Smollett bore the scares. He became ambulatory proof that violent fascism is on the march.

But…

Police suspect the 36-year-old actor paid two Nigerian brothers to stage the attack. They are both co-operating with the investigation, US media report. His lawyers have not yet commented. On Wednesday, they said they would “mount an aggressive defence”…

On Wednesday, CBS Chicago obtained footage which appeared to show two people buying materials, including ski masks, that had allegedly been worn by the actor’s attackers.

White Nigerians? Nope. Circumspection be gone!

Ha! You believed him. Psych! He’s an actor!

America will eat itself.

Posted: 21st, February 2019 | In: News | Comment


Brexit: Donald Trump warns British to stock up on Netflix and Xanax as trade war looms

Queen Donald Trump: The Don becomes Her Majesty and Vice Versa in these unsettling pictures

 

Shrewd dealers will stock up on chlorinated chickens, baggy satin vests and TV boxsets because the US-UK trade deal is in dire peril. Donald Trump has looked at Theresa May’s Brexit agreement and says it “sounds like a great deal for the EU”. He also says it means the UK might not be able to trade with the US. The chances of Trump having read all 500-plus pages of the winter fuel allowance are thinner than a parrot’s lips. The deal is crap. The UK is stuck in the EU, liaising with le club with the enthusiasm of a baby seal.

May counters that she is ready to defend her deal in a TV debate with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. He’s unlikely to have read the corpulent pamphlet either. Even a trainee MP knows the deal is dire, but Corbyn has never had his ideas encumbered by power so there’s every chance he’ll struggle to get past the coherently phatic before panicking and belatedly realising that student politics is best left to students. The excruciating TV debate could take place on 9 December – two days before the Parliamentary vote on May’s deal. It’ll make not a sop of difference to the outcome, but might finally trigger a rebellion among Labour MPs as Corbyn spends an hour incontinently telling a tired and irritated electorate that all options are open and he’s not a racist. 

Back to Trump, then, who assured that his lacquer is made in China and not Chelmsford, guffs: “Right now if you look at the deal, [the UK] may not be able to trade with us. And that wouldn’t be a good thing. I don’t think they meant that.” Cabinet Office minister David Lidington – he’s the one who looks like a hairy lemon sorbet, an amuse bouche of an MP whose job is to cleanse the pallet before something of substance arrives (spoiler: it doesn’t) – says Mr Trump’s comments “were not unexpected” and trade deals with the US are “challenging”. “The United States is a tough negotiator,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today. “President Trump’s always said very plainly ‘I put America first’. Well, I’d expect the British prime minister to put British interests first.”

Boom! Boom! Oh, he wasn’t joking.

Meanwhile, whispering from the shadows is Lord Kerslake, a former head of the civil service, said government officials were probably working on a “Plan B” in case the deal was rejected but there would be “no whisper of it” publicly until the outcome of the Commons vote. Failing that we can all vote for Boris Johnson, who’ll paste over the huge gaps in his and our political knowledge by lavishing on cheap gags and gratuitous insults. We’ll all be chortling and eating our young by teatime – but it’ll be British kids and taste better than that imported US chicken.

Posted: 27th, November 2018 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment


After Pittsburgh Jews advised to build militarised homeland to deter attacks

 

President Donald Trump says mass murder at a Pittsburgh synagogue would have been “better” if the Jews had been armed.  “They had a maniac walk in and they didnt have any protection and that is just so sad to see,” said Trump. “The results could have been much better.” One day when Jews return to their homeland after millennia of persecution they can invest heavily in the military. Then no-one will be attack them. They will be treated with respect and murderous anti-Semitism will end.

As for now, we’re told that Robert Bowers walked into the Tree of Life Synagogue during Shabbat service and shouted “All Jews must die” before shooting dead 11 people sand wounding many more.

“This has little to do with it,” said Trump when asked what role US gun laws played in the massacre. “If they had protection inside the results would have been far better. This is a dispute that will always exist I suspect. But if they had some kind of protection inside the temple, maybe it could have been a much different situation. But they didn’t and he was able to do things that unfortunately he shouldn’t have been able to do.”

It’s all too much like when an adviser to Poland’s president said Israel was ashamed “at the passivity of the Jews during the Holocaust.”

Jews have sometimes been described, often for the purpose of assigning blame or inflicting humiliation, as having acted passively in the face of the Holocaust. Key acts of resistance contradict the trope, most notably the Warsaw Uprising of 1943. Smaller revolts took place in death camps, including Sobibor and Treblinka, where starving prisoners without weapons faced heavily armed German guards.

Image: Felix Nussbaum (1904-1944), Camp Synagogue, Saint Cyprien, 1941. (Via)

Posted: 28th, October 2018 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment


Pipe Bombs, Donald Trump and the surge in Demophobia

The rush to blame President Trump for the nut job posting pipe bombs to leading Democrats has been notable for its haste. Do you really believe that a vote for Trump was a vote for terrorism? Blimey, the man’s a berk possessed of all the diplomatic nous of a puppy sat by a pile of poo, but to jump on the link that banging on about ‘fake news’ and locking up Hillary Clinton leads to acts of potential murder is a leap onto a convenient lily pad.

Did we all rush to blame Islamism for the attacks on Paris, London, Barcelona, Nice, New York, Berlin, Toulouse, Brussels, Manchester and Madrid? The advice after those attacks was to look to ourselves for signs of Islamophobia. It wasn’t the loons we need worry about. The real danger was non-Muslims reacting with phobic-born violence towards Muslim mates, work colleagues, family, nurses, doctors, pot heads, cab drivers, lawyers, postmen, Lords, politicians, waiters, victims of crime, victims of Islamist terrorism and any other Muslims who after mass murder would surely mutate before our lizard brains into the enemy unless we were monitored. After Manchester was attacked, we got candles and pledges to unite and remain united. But after pipe bombs in the post, the message is get Trump because the man on the trigger for millions of dangerous fools.

If you want to politicise extreme violence and terrorism, then allow all terrorism to be openly debated. There have been no renditions of ‘Love is All you Need’ in response to the pipe bombs posted to George Soros, Baraka Obama, CNN and Hillary Clinton. We’re not warned to look out for Demophobia and fight it when he see it. Why? Because it’s safe to attack what we believe we can change. Trump can be undone by linking him to acts of violence, hope his decriers ; but confronting the issues that drive a radical, murderous form of Islam, well, best light a candle, create a hashtag and hope for the best.

Let’s not bury debate and allow the berks and bigots to fill the void. Don’t do it if you want to get rid of Trump and stop empowering the likes of Tommy Robinson…

Posted: 26th, October 2018 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment