With no sense of irony, a “liberal” media which rightly excoriates the President of Gambia for failing to accept an election result, continues to do precisely the same thing in the case of Donald Trump. No invective is too strong to be cast against a man whose election the “liberal” media did everything possible to prevent.
With the happy resignation of Stephen Daisley, a strong contender for worst journalist in the World is now Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian. He takes the irony to an entirely new level. He claims that Trump will destroy the legacy by which smaller nations “long looked to the US to maintain something close to a rules-based international system.” He completely ignores the fact that the greatest single hammer blow against the rules based international system was delivered by Freedland’s idol Tony Blair, when he supported the invasion of Iraq without a Security Council Resolution and in the specific knowledge that, if the matter of force were properly put to the Security Council, it would not merely meet three vetoes but lose a majority vote.
The UN, and the rule of international law, have never recovered from that hammer blow, which Freedland enthusiastically cheered on. Nor has Freedland apparently noticed that the smaller nations rather detest than worship the USA. It has invaded and bombed them, interfered in their elections, supported right wing coups and armies, run destabilising CIA drug rings in them, and armed and even sometimes led dictatorial death squads. Look at all those US Security Council vetoes and the resolutions that never got to a vote because of threatened US vetoes. Look at all those General Assembly votes that were everyone against the USA, Israel and the poor occupied Marshall Islands. Freedland’s hymn to the Pax Americana is a sick joke. For much of the world, a period of American isolationism would be extremely welcome.
I am thankfully too clear-headed to like Trump because of the extraordinary campaign of vilification to which he has been subjected. Freedland has no shame about repeating the lie that Trump kept Hitler’s speeches by his bedside. I was in a position to know for sure that the “Russian hacking” elements of the extraordinary “Manchurian candidate” rubbish which the entire establishment threw at Trump was definitively untrue. I had the background and training to see that the Christopher Steele dossier was not only nonsense, but a fake, not in fact produced seriatim on the dates claimed. The involvement of the US security services in spreading lies as intelligence to undermine an incoming President will go down as a crucial moment in US history. We have not yet seen the denouement of that story.
But none of that makes Trump a good person. He could be an appalling monster and still be subjected to dirty tricks by other very bad people. There is much about Trump to dislike. His sensible desire for better relations with Russia is matched by a stupid drive to goad China.
Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric did tap in to the populist racism which is unfortunately sweeping developed countries at the moment. The very wealthy have succeeded in diverting justified anger at the results of globalisation on to immigrant populations, who are themselves victims of globalisation. By shamelessly tapping in to the deep wells of popular atavism, the elite have managed the extraordinary trick of escaping the wrath their appalling profiteering and extreme levels of wealth should bring. His words on race in his inauguration address were good, but does he really mean them? His anti-Muslim rhetoric remains deeply troubling. His ludicrous boast yesterday that he would end radical Islamic terrorism is precisely indicative of the counter-productive stupidity that feeds it.
I am a free trader and dislike the march of protectionism. But on the other hand, international trade agreements have become routinely not about tariffs but much more about the allocation of resources within the states concerned, mandating a neo-liberal model and giving extraordinary legal status to multinational companies. The collapse of the current model of international trade agreement, if that is what Trump really heralds, has both its positive and negative aspects.
It is of course a major question whether the establishment and his own Republican party allow him to do anything too radical at all. My own suspicion is that after all the huffing and puffing, nothing much is going to change. The key intra-party battle will probably be over the only policy he affirmed in any detail yesterday, the return of New Deal type state infrastructure spending. The idea of a massive state funded programme of national infrastructure, particularly in transport, to get heavy industry back on its feet, is the very antithesis of neo-liberalism. I think yesterday cleared up the question of whether Trump really meant it – he does. Will he be allowed to do it by a party committed to small state and balanced budgets, is a huge question. As Trump is also committed to tax cuts, it implies a massive budget deficit – with which Trump might well be comfortable. If Trump does succeed, it could fundamentally shift the way western governments look at economics, turning back the clock to the happier days before the advent of monetarism.
So that is Trump. Much that is bad but some fascinating things to watch. I suppose the reason I can’t join in the “it’s a disaster” screams, is that I thought it was already a disaster. The neo-liberal, warmongering orthodoxies did not have my support, despite Obama’s suave veneer. The pandering to racist populism of Trump is bad, and we must keep a watch on it. He may turn out not really to be different at all. Like all politicians, personal enrichment will doubtless be high on his agenda. But I do not start from the presumption the world is now a worse place than it was last week. I shall wait and see.
Trump has just withdrawn the United States from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JrTcGhepHA
… this, on his first work day in office.
I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto.
And McCain said withdrawing is a big mistake, so you know it’s the right move.
Trump repeals TPP Nice one.
I thought I would never get to see somone sticking to the Illuminati.Good luck to him.
https://www.rt.com/usa/374819-trump-orders-tpp-repeal/
“Heaven on Earth, in the terms of the Illuminati matrix, is when banking kings, pharmaceutical giants, oil and agribusiness conglomerates and military hardware exponents – have finally stitched-up the global control agenda – and produced their ‘new world order’ of compassionless automatons -maintained in their comfort zones by those dehumanised, servile citizens who have failed to grasp the nature of the illusion that is being perpetrated upon them.”
http://internationaltimes.it/organic-hierarchy-and-dark-side-deception/
The other countries involved in TPP are going ahead so Trump has not “abolished ” it.
It is dead. And so, it is to be hoped, is TTIP. And NAFTA is looking very pale too, while the EU is in desperate need of a heart transplant.
Sean Spicer, the Whitehouse press secretary, gave a press conference today. Spicer talked about the withdrawal from the TPP, and the Patient Freedom Act of 2017 (Trump’s replacement for Obamacare), and a number of other things. Spicer also steamed into the media again, although he was a lot more polite than he was on Saturday (8 minute clip)…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfD5OF0LhpA
If interested you can find the full press conference here (1 hour and 20 minutes)…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXoyk4PDZ4I
Michelle Obama left Palm Springs after a short stay there to fly in Richard Branson’s plane to the Virgin Islands. Barack Obama apparently did not fly with her.
A short stay indeed. Weren’t they meant to be going on holiday together?
Trump Wins The Unions: Teamsters Praise TPP Withdrawal, Labor Chiefs Describe “Incredible” Meeting With Trump:
Reagan began his presidency by going after the air traffic controllers’ union. Trump is beginning quite differently.
Quite differently from any US President I’ve ever witnessed.
If they do take out Trump I would hazard a guess that civil war would now be on the cards; and I know what you said in a previous thread about the deep state, but some of these people are absolute crazies.
Rob there certainly are real loonies in the Land of the Swedes.
Swedish politician resigns after suggesting someone should ‘shoot’ Trump
https://www.rt.com/news/374818-swedish-politician-shoot-trump/
A municipal council member of a Swedish town called Kalmar has resigned due to a Facebook post he made asking if someone could “shoot” America’s new president, Donald Trump.
“I believed that Donald Trump would calm down after he became the president [of the US]. But how wrong I was! He exceeded my worst fears! Could anyone shoot him?” Swedish Social Democratic Party member Roland Peterson, a municipal official in Kalmar’s Soedermoere district, wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday, though he removed it an hour later.
Is Madona from the Land of the Swedes?
“So that is Trump. Much that is bad but some fascinating things to watch. I suppose the reason I can’t join in the “it’s a disaster” screams, is that I thought it was already a disaster.”
You can never expect any “clans man” to call it a disaster when another “clans man” starts “protecting” his clan, eh? Nothing racist about protecting “our clan” eh? Independence for the clans!
“Is Madonna from the Land of the Swedes?”
She’s not the only one:
http://clanmurray.org/clan-history.html
“One consequences of the change was the creation of the Murray Clan because, sometime before 1130, David I granted lands to many Normans and Flemish including Freskin Son of Ollec – considered to be the founder of Clan Murray. David’s aim was to create vassals who owed their fealty to the king with the aim of eventually calling on their service when needed. Freskin’s original grant was in West Lothian west of Edinburgh. In 1130 , Freskin was to service in fighting against Angus and his Moray-men. Freskin and others like him were successful in defeating Angus.”
Oh how the world is so full of people claiming to be something they are not!
Predictably enough-and as predicted here before- the capitalist media now finds itself so discredited, after years of distorting and suppressing news, not to mention publishing outright lies, that its relatively truthful account of the size of the crowds at the Presidential inauguration can be dismissed by Trump’s aides.
Given the choice this election could never have produced a result that benefited either the people of America or the rest of the world. No good could have come of it. And none has, unless it is that people have learned to distrust the media and the government, the CIA and the New York Times, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. And most of us knew those things already.
It won’t be long however before everyone in the political class is back on the same page: Trump will be lying and threatening his opponents and the Washington Post will be back to its See No Evil, Hear No Evil ways.
While the trolls are away being briefed on the what the New Boss wants, I will slip in this quotation from the WSWS report of Trump’s rant in Langley yesterday:
“..Trump’s anger is directed in the first instance against an utterly corrupt and subservient corporate-controlled press, which is rightly held in contempt by broad sections of the population because of its role as a purveyor of government lies and propaganda.
“The new government, a direct instrument of the financial oligarchy, is nevertheless out to further muzzle the media in order to carry through a violent attack on the democratic rights and social conditions of the working class and prepare bigger and bloodier wars internationally…”
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/01/23/lead-j23.html
I fear that they are right.
The gangsters in the White House will be looking for easy pickings in Latin America to snack on. And Canada, ruled by politicians addicted to US shoe leather is likely to be in for a very nasty shock.
Rex Tillerson: Trump foreign affairs pick narrowly backed
The move capped a busy day for the new Donald Trump administration.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38723195
Tillerson’s close business ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin have generated controversy, particularly in light of the revelations about Putin’s business dealings in the Panama papers.
In 2014 Tillerson strongly opposed the sanctions against Russia.
He has previously been the director of the joint US-Russian oil company Exxon Neftegas.
I wish him well in repairing relationships between Russia and the U.S.A.
Also calming down Syria.
Also calming down Ukraine.
Obomba asked for U.K. Trident missile, mis-fire
to be covered up, because it was a failing of U.S.A. technology
Speaking to The Times, an unnamed British military source claimed:
“It was the Obama administration that asked the Cameron administration not to comment on this.
“The US administration may have been worried that there could be similar problems on other missiles.”
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/758021/obama-cover-up-trident-missile-failed-launch-david-cameron-theresa-may-michael-fallon
Not Mrs. May’s fault but to keep knowledge, like that from Parliament, when they are being asked top nod-through a stunning amount of public money and commitment for a re-newal of the Trident Programme, is a BIG Mistake.
She did have the option of holding off the vote for another year, what was the rush?
Same with the Hinkley Point C French Project, why rush that through, with such haste, when there are so, so, many doubts?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/hinkley-point-c
I imagine this is to offer a semblance of “normality” while the new May administration flounder on Brexit.
You cannot really have Nuclear Submarines and Nuclear weapons without Nuclear Power Stations and a @fleet@ of Nuclear Scientists and Nuclear Technicians, you need a critical mass of expertize.
@ Micheal Norton,
I was not aware that Putin was connected to the Panama Papers expose.Please attach link.
The wonderful billion dollar Trident, similar to a boomerang, you fire it and it comes back and blows you up. Woderful.lets develop more and spend billions.
This is a Monty Python weapon ,controlled by Basil Fawlty.
Billion dollars is nothing. The revamping of the U.S. nuclear arsenal that the Obama administration planned and that the Trump administration apparently intends to go ahead with has been estimated to cost a trillion dollars. And that’s before the inevitable — and massive — cost overruns, unless Trump can find a way to prevent them.
Do you think this ‘misfiring’ was another USS Donald Cook in the Black Sea moment?
Anybody who thinks that updating our leased Trident to the tune of ‘as many billions as they can get away with’ will secure our bacon, think again.
Technology has moved on and these subs are not invulnerable, however strongly built.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/drone-warfare-heads-under-the-seas-as-us-seeks-advantage-over-rivals/2016/11/24/9f756572-9c61-11e6-b3c9-f662adaa0048_story.html?utm_term=.5543f585f7ae
The US thinks its cornering the technology for underwater drones by building big, when others have succeeded with smaller craft.
Agree. Defences against underwater drones etc.?
They have dozens of the evil things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ohio-class_submarines existing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia-class_submarine coming soon to an ocean near you
Our relics are decomposing in Devonport threatening life.
Devonport: Living next to a nuclear submarine graveyard
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-28157707
Laid-up nuclear submarines at Rosyth and Devonport cost £16m
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-32086030
But ‘they are keeping us safe’ as Fracking Fallon said so many times yesterday. In fact, parrot like, he used the phrase four times.
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2017-01-23/debates/F1A6B273-AC23-4408-9B0C-81FE88B081F2/TridentTestFiring
I note that not much of the free press is reporting on Sweden.
Only yesterday someone called Roland Pettersson a member of the Swedish Social Democratic Party posted a facebook message asking if anyone could “shoot Donald Trump”
All sounds fair and reasonable to me – no doubt the Swedes would be equally relaxed if someone started agitating for the assassination of prominent Swedish citizens.
Anyone interested in how an entire country can go collectively insane would do well to study Sweden. The rest of the world clearly needs to isolate Sweden and have nothing whatsoever to do with it. No trade, no diplomatic relations, no ability for Swedish citizens to travel to other countries, no membership of international organizations, from FIFA to the UN. Nothing. Cartographers should not even include Sweden on maps
And then there’s that psychotic killer David Attenborough. The streets aren’t safe even in the UK…
https://inews.co.uk/essentials/culture/television/david-attenborough-reported-fbi-shoot-donald-trump-joke/
Here is Dmitry Orlov on the matter of Trump:
“There is a new executive team taking over in Washington. Some people view this development with cautious optimism, others quake in trepidation, gnash their teeth, rend their garments and scatter ashes over the heads Old Testament-style. Those who expect things to be a bit different in Washington now can point to something rather specific: in his inaugural address, Trump used words never before heard in an inauguration speech: words like “bleed,” “carnage,” “depletion,” “disrepair,” “ripped,” “rusted,” “sad,” “stolen” and “trapped.” These words describe the real United States, not the fake United States concocted by politicians, the media and wealthy elites. The fake United States is close to full employment; the real United States has sidelined close to 100 million unemployed workers. In the fake United States the economy has recovered and is growing nicely; the real United States is sinking ever deeper into unrepayable debt, rushing headlong toward inevitable national bankruptcy. It would seem that Trump is interested in reality whereas his predecessor excelled in deluding himself—and others. This would indicate that perhaps the new boss won’t be the same as the old boss.
“But in another sense the change of command is no change at all, because all that ever happens is that one bunch of psychopaths is swapped for another bunch of psychopaths. Thanks to a multigenerational selective breeding experiment, the upper echelons of all the social machines in the United States—be they corporations, the courts, government agencies or other bureaucracies—are stocked with psychopaths. In turn, putting one’s faith in a bunch of psychopaths seems like a foolhardy thing to do. In Shrinking the Technosphere, I wrote:
http://cluborlov.blogspot.ca/
Over and over again. Dwellings demolished. Land stolen. Settler homes built.
Jonathan Cook writes on the planned destruction of a Bedouin village, Umm al-Hiran in the desert which Trump supports.
The village which contains 1,000 inhabitants doesn’t even feature on a Google map. This is the background to its existence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umm_al-Hiran
‘A “Continuing Nakba” in Umm al-Hiran
Israel has advanced plans to raze the village of 150 homes and replace it with a town for Israeli Jews
by Jonathan Cook / January 23rd, 2017
They came in their thousands, from across Israel and from occupied East Jerusalem, to bury Yacoub Abu al-Qiyan after Friday midday prayers. The small dusty valley at the heart of Umm al-Hiran village in the Negev desert turned dark with rows of worshippers. But Abu al-Qiyan’s body never materialised. By early afternoon, it was confirmed that the Israeli police had refused to release the corpse, two days after Abu al-Qiyan was shot dead during a pre-dawn raid to bulldoze his home and those of another dozen families.
A sword has hung over the heads of Umm al-Hiran’s 1,000 inhabitants for many months, as the Israeli government has advanced plans to raze the Palestinian Bedouin village of 150 homes and replace it with a town for Israeli Jews.’
/..
http://dissidentvoice.org/2017/01/a-continuing-nakba-in-umm-al-hiran/
Documenting it doesn’t appear to change anything, does it?
Just like the Glencoe massacre, though, the truth, recorded tends to reverberate.
How many massacres did the recording of Glencoe prevent? Take a look at this-
Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.
This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.
Yes, that’s Albert Einstein in 1949. Could have been written today. Reverberation doesn’t change anything.
“Reverberation doesn’t change anything.”
Bang on.
Looking for reasons to getting rid of the EU?
Here’s one:
“Early in 2016, the EU Commission recommended re-approval for another 15-years of the license for the controversial glyphosate toxin, the most widely used weed-killer in the world, the main ingredient in Roundup of Monsanto. The Commission, a decidedly anti-democratic, non-elected body of faceless bureaucrats, declared then that their “yes” decision was based on the determination by the EU’s European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) that there was no reason to believe glyphosate is a carcinogen. That all was before the decision by Germany’s Bayer AG to takeover Monsanto.
“The snag in that early EU Commission decision to renew for another 15 years glyphosate lies in the fact that the EFSA refused to make open disclosure of the relevant health and safety studies EFSA claimed to rely on. Most alarming in that initial EU decision to renew was the fact that EFSA’s decision went totally against the 2015 determination by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that glyphosate, was a “probable human carcinogen.” In lay terms that means odds greater than 50% are that it causes human cancers on exposure. Glyphosate presence has been tested in ordinary drinking water or in food crops sprayed with Roundup of other glyphosate-based weed-killers.
http://journal-neo.org/2017/01/24/did-bayer-ag-do-a-sly-deal-on-glyphosate-with-eu-commission/
This article is also a timely reminder of the fact that neo-liberalism forgot: namely that Free Trade without protection against monopolies is a nonsense: three corporations now control the world supply of seeds and weedkiller.
The EU Commission is a corrupt institution, run by corrupt people.
I don’t think getting rid of the EU would get rid of Monsanto – or glyphosate, either, which is as herbicides go relatively innocuous, and less likely than many to turn up in human food. Monsanto’s market is international, and Bayer/Monsanto can relocate as readily as the next global monster if the EU falls apart.
Talking of food, do remember not to eat golden fried or grilled stuff. Stick to steamed fish and semolina…until the next study suggests otherwise, that is.
Trump & Koch bros were ostensibly at odds during both the Republican selection process and the presidential election. I found that odd given that Trump so perfectly suits a billionaire grass roots movement opposed to climate change and state regulation of the environment and business. Anyway David Koch apparently met with Trump on 22 December for a rapprochement. Today Trump announces support for controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Huffington Post on 21 October last year suggested that pipeline might be worth US100 billion to the brothers. I don’t know if that figure is accurate.
Although according to Dark Money the Koch bros and friends put circa US600 -700 million into the election that was lawful due to two Supreme Court decisions during Obama’s terms. They did not fund Trump though. They were said to have funded every other GOP candidate, but Trump. So they are super clean.
Also in news Israel approves further homes in disputed territory and a suggestion that Trump’s son in law’s family (not necessarily him) business is invested in the development.
Still interesting to see Unions approve Trump today and for all his unpopularity here it appears that Trump has some ability to gather critical mass for his views. Even here now the fact of Trump has seriously weakened remainders hands.
Given the world governments are insolvent something powerful had to happen. Pity it was mobilized by libertarian billionaires. We have to wait and watch. I mean watch. We need the strongest most fearless press imaginable. People local and national. Grassroots press anyone? Any liberal billionaires like to facilitate a grassroots press movement other than twitter.
.
Have you seen this realnews documentary about billionaire John Mercer putting his money behind trump, (though he backed cruz at first)? I think Mercer has some link to the Kock brothers (i can’t remember – it’s in the video), or just they support the same organisations (eg tea party) – similar characters either way.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3021
You may enjoy this:
https://www.good.is/infographics/koch-brothers-trump-administration
Or not.
And thanks Ba’al, though as you may have seen on a subsequent thread I’ve had to take umbrage on what there is to see in Wales
Thanks Burt it’s v interesting Robert Mercer is part of the Koch network of billionaires.it was Mercer who donatedUS1M to help pay for ads attacking the Ground Zero Mosque plan in 2011. His company is also said to own the smartest financial computer around. The name didn’t click until I heard Renaissance and then I knew bingo it’s Koch or damn close. David and Charles two canny brothers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38734450
The Scottish Donald has infuriated environmentalists by signing executive orders that support two controversial oil pipelines.
The new Republican president backed the Keystone XL and Dakota Access projects, provided American steel is used.
The Obama administration in late 2015 halted Keystone, which would carry crude from Canada to Texas.
He is getting off to a cracking start, he has not time for the Global Warming Alarmists or the pink hatters.
Signing another order calling for US steel to be used in construction of oil pipelines, Mr Trump added: “If we’re going to build pipelines in the United States, the pipes should be made in the United States.
“From now on we’re going to start making pipelines in the United States… like we used to do in the old days.”
Environmental groups reacted with outrage.
Greenpeace director Annie Leonard said that “instead of pushing bogus claims about the potential of pipelines to create jobs, Trump should focus his efforts on the clean energy sector where America’s future lives”.
Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said: “Donald Trump has been in office for four days and he’s already proving to be the dangerous threat to our climate we feared he would be.
“Simply put, Donald Trump is who we thought he is: a person who will sell off Americans’ property and Tribal rights, clean air, and safe water to corporate polluters.”
Wonder if the new national infrastructure fund will pay for replacing old leaking pipes, or require the companies to pay. Has to be the latter.
Who is based in Dakota? The Koch bros.
IFA-2 (also Interconnexion France-Angleterre 2) is a proposed 204-kilometre (127 mi) long 1,000 MW HVDC cable between France and the United Kingdom.[1]
Great Electrical News
The cable would be connected to the French grid at the Tourbe 400 kV substation. From there, a high voltage alternating current (HVAC) underground cable would run to the converter station near La Hogue. From the converter station a 24-kilometre (15 mi) long underground HVDC cable would run to landfall point at the east of Merville-Franceville-Plage. In the British side the landfall point is located at Monks Hill Beach, at the southern end of Daedalus Airfield. The converter station would be located to the north east of Daedalus Airfield. From there a 2-kilometre (1.2 mi) long underground HVAC cable would run to the point of connection to the grid at Chilling 400 kV substation, near Warsash, Hampshire.
In 2015, the European Commission identified IFA-2 as one of key energy infrastructure projects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IFA-2
|Now approved.
I think this is for Flammanville.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-38723864
Tho if I had to chose between 13 years of war in ME or pollution and environmental would have to choose the latter.
On the topic of irony, I bet Trump wishes he could swap the Democrat-inclined progressive US media for the extreme right-wing British media who absolutely adore him and the racist, Islamophobic, xenophobic, isolationist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, ableist and transphobic nature of this new Republican administration. If you look at the way that Trump handles a direct question – such as the way he replied that he didn’t know what his policy was going to be on LGBT rights – it becomes apparent that behind all that outward bombast, he is actually a very weak leader indeed. My guess is that the more calculating of the extremists that he has populated his administration with – such as religious fundamentalist evangelical, LGBT-hating Pence – will use him as a puppet to enable them to rule by proxy. By all accounts Trump is an incurable narcissist and I’d imagine it would be quite easy to massage his overinflated ego to get what one wants.
Libertarians support LGBT and anything that increases individual freedom and reduces government control.
I think many “extremists” were exposed during some of the protests as they smashed shops up and disrupted order. I also think another, who goes by the name of Madonna, spoke very extreme language indeed when she referred to “blowing up the White House”.
The BBC, so outraged by the phrase “alternative facts”, today did a few of their own courtesy of Laura Kuennsberg who has just informed us that today the government didn’t “lose” at the Supreme Court but in fact won a victory!
It’s called ‘gaslighting’. In the end nobody believes anything they hear.
Gaslighting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting
Gaslighting is a form of manipulation through persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying in an attempt to destabilize and delegitimize a target. Its intent is to sow seeds of doubt in the targets, hoping to make them question their own memory, perception, and sanity.
Thanks for the link.
I’m astonished by how well it describes current output by the BBC especially on politics. Kuennsberg, Neil and Jo Coburg are clearly leading gaslighters in the field!
Seeing the Keystone and DAP projects being approved by Trump is sickening. I still believe that he will be preferable to Clinton in international affairs and the long term after shocks of his victory will help break the corporate hold on our politics but it’s sad to see his impact on the most vulnerable Americans and the environment.
Standing Rock is to be a battle ground. Let’s hope the Sioux receive all the support they require.
Koch Bro with friendly President Turmp v the Sioux. Interesting.
Devastating confrontation between china and America in the South China Seas
Mr Spicer’s comments echo those of Donald Trump’s new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
During his nomination hearing, Mr Tillerson said the US should block access to islands being built by China in the South China Sea, likening it to Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
“We’re going to have to send China a clear signal that first, the island-building stops and second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed,” he told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The Chinese state media responded by warning that such actions would lead to a “devastating confrontation”.
Ministry of Truth
In the HoC today. Ref the Trident misfire.
A point of order from the chair of the Defence Committee referring to SIR Craig Oliver, ex spin doctor to Cameron and made a Knight of the Realm for his services. LOL.
Point of Order
24 January 2017
2.18 pm
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Yesterday I told the House in good faith:
“Sir Craig Oliver vehemently denies that he or any other member of David Cameron’s media team ever knew about the aborted Trident test”.—[Official Report, 23 January 2017; Vol. 620, c. 25.]
Sir Craig had said that to my parliamentary office staff, in terms bordering on rudeness. However, when invited to appear before the Defence Committee today, he told the Clerk that he did not wish to attend, saying that he had left No. 10 to work for the remain campaign before the test firing took place. Is there some way in which I can correct the record and assure the House that we held a most interesting session today on the subject of the Trident test firing in June, in the regrettable absence of the Secretary of State for Defence and, indeed, Sir Craig Oliver himself?
Mr Speaker
The right hon. Gentleman has borne stoically and with fortitude the absence of the named individual. It would certainly have been a gruelling experience to appear in front of the Committee chaired by the right hon. Gentleman. I think the answer to his question as to whether there is some orderly way in which he can put the record straight is: there is, he’s found it, job done.’
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2017-01-24/debates/7835D75B-050F-481B-ADD4-53A59024BC6D/PointOfOrder
Unnecessary verbiage as per usual from Mr Speaker.
Daily Mail: No 10 is in ‘cloud cuckoo land’ to think it could keep botched Trident missile launch secret because Russia would know about it, says ex-Navy chief.
Admiral Lord West said he could have phoned Putin to find out about the failed test, and Putin would have told him, as the Russians would have been monitoring the test and Putin owed him a favor.
The people who are kept in the dark are the citizens.
Trump Signs Order to Move Forward Keystone, Dakota Access Pipelines (2 minute clip)…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_X4rChiRoM
I hope those veterans from last month don’t wait for an invitation to re-convene. Perhaps they could break Trump at the first hurdle when the nation watches it’s veterans being beaten to a pulp by their own police on live TV.
Unnecessary apostrophe aside…
yesterdays court ruling on the legitimacy of this Governments sole intentions to demand a blank cheque from other parties, was clear as ice, they can’t rule without an act of Parliament.
Now we come to the vexing question whether parliament can be used by a party assumed to have won an election, which has a case for cheating pending.
Is this a legitimate Government? after having cheated in 29 Constituencies, and without any police ruling yet.
My questions to the Electoral Commission this morning.
“With police investigation outstanding on the legitimacy of this cheating Government, how do you rank its ability to take and design acts of a Parliament which change the future of this country, when they have been deliberately trying to divert from this fraud.
Does it really take another lawyer and court to settle this question? when your guidelines, applied with rigour to all other candidates, have been flouted and amount to electoral fraud, a criminal act?
What do we do with an agency that can’t be impartial and is eroding what little is left of democracy by colluding with the ‘illegitimate’ Government of the day.
Do we, the public, as well as election agents and election managers, pander to its ( the E.C.’s) status and deliberations alone?
What reforms would you say are now urgently necessary to stop fraud by parties and its agents?
yours sincerely
Did you sign your letter?
yes Michael I did.
Excellent point. No policy the Tories can make has any legitimacy. This government is unelected. They have no mandate. A general election should be called to settle all of these matters. Theresa May and the Voidoids (The Blank Cheque Generation) should inherit a storm of non co-operation from the highest civil servant to the lowest bum on the streets.
Sales of George Orwell’s 1984 soar after Donald Trump adviser puts forward ‘alternative facts’
Donald Trump’s claims about the size of his inauguration crowd draws comparisons with George Orwell’s dystopian novel.
25 January 2017
Orwell’s classic is about a society that where facts are distorted
Image Caption:
Sales of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 have soared since Donald Trump’s adviser coined the phrase “alternative facts”.
Orwell’s classic novel is a tale of a society where facts are distorted using a fictional language called “newspeak”.
Personal thought is suppressed using the term “doublethink”, which Orwell wrote “means the power of holding contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them”.
The book, first published in 1949, topped Amazon’s bestseller list on Wednesday after Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway put forward what she called “alternative facts” in a TV interview.
http://news.sky.com/story/sales-of-george-orwells-1984-soar-after-donald-trump-adviser-puts-forward-alternative-facts-10741848
Here you go Craig Murray, clamping down on the protests and criticism you’re so objecting to:
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/23/lawmakers-in-eight-states-have-proposed-laws-criminalizing-peaceful-protest/
Looking forward to more backtracking on the WikiLeaks ‘indirect support’ for Trump over the coming weeks, months and years.
What you call “Wikileaks ‘indirect support’ for Trump” is known in the real world as Wikileaks publishing documents of public interest.
You might as well, and probably did, call publishing reports that there were no WMDs in Iraq ‘indirect support of Saddam Hussein.’
No, in the real world WikiLeaks made a deliberate and concerted effort during the election and especially the final weeks to drip feed the media with Podesta email ‘highlights’ via its site and especially its twitter feed. So much so that it became intensely popular with Trump supporters. That was a deliberate intervention in the election entirely against one of the two main candidates. There’s a huge difference between releasing information en masse and allowing people to make whatever use of that data, and timing media feeds to be picked up and exploited by the mainstream media at critical moments. Constantly. For weeks. Pretending otherwise is completely mendacious.
That’s only confirmed by the way WikiLeaks assumed responsibility for helping sway the election in Trump’s favour, and by the bizarre ‘defence’ offered of him and his new regime by those involved, including this incredible complaint from Craig Murray that Trump isn’t being given some slack from the ‘liberal media.’
As for your final comment: no I didn’t call the reports saying there were no WMDs indirect support for Hussein. They confirmed what I had already deduced when I opposed the war from the very outset. You can’t evade my criticism by inventing positions and opinions for me. That’s lazy and stupid.
Hahahah – Blame WikiLeaks for Hillary being just about the worst candidate ever.
It was Trump who had zero political experience, never held office of any kind, he was the worst possible candidate yet walked right into the top job.
It’s like making someone with no medical experience whatsoever head of brain surgery.
No, I supported Sanders and I agree, she was the worst candidate ever. For the Democrats. That still doesn’t make her a worse option than Trump by any stretch of the imagination – as people like Sanders, Chomsky etc. agreed. That assessment notwithstanding, it’s not me who said WikiLeaks swung the election for Trump: that was WikiLeaks and Craig Murray. Stated right here after the election. Actually I think the FBI had a role, but fundamentally she lost because she was an unpopular candidate and failed to get out the Democrat vote. As warned by Sanders supporters.
The issue now is entirely other: the past and continued support by WikiLeaks and allies for a right-wing administration.
Yes Shatnersrug
The Dems Brought this on the world.. Robbing Bernie. Ect
Now Trump signs up for the Pipeline.. Surprise.. The Sioux Aint having it.
RT is reporting that six journalists have been arrested on felony “inciting a riot” charges for covering the disturbances in D.C. on Inauguration Day. ‘Outrage!’ 6 journalists including RT reporter face ‘inappropriate’ rioting charges . They include RT America’s Alexander Rubinstein, who was covering DisruptJ20’s activities.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average broke 20,000 for the first time at the opening of trading on Wall Street this morning. I don’t think a lot of investors would support a deep state coup against Trump at this point.
Wednesday
“The Guardian newspaper engages in child abuse: look at this pathetic headline
“Will the Guardian stop using this little Syrian child as a prop for its crude propaganda on Syria? They can vomit their daily dosage of propaganda and fabrications about Syria without having to rely on this little innocent child: “Bana al-Abed, 7, begs Donald Trump to help children of Syria”
Tuesday
“I can’t believe how low the Independent newspaper of UK has stooped
“This is how desperate the Independent is to serve its propaganda interests? They rely on Amir Taheri who has the credibility of Lyndon LaRouche and the politics of Breibart? And they are not ashamed to cite Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat, the mouthpiece of the Saudi King and his sons? “Amir Taheri, a columnist with the Saudi-owned London based newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, claimed in a piece published in Saturday’s edition that Bashar al-Assad’s mental health is suffering after almost six years of conflict.” What has happened to the press in the UK in the last few years? UK newspapers like the Guardian and the Independent used to be a good alternative to US mainstream newspapers and now they have become worse in fact.”
Posted by As’ad AbuKhalil
Maybe you should consider your own discursive ethics (see above) before questioning others. You know, as a basic starting point to a political education.
Aurora – you are a joke.
I’m sure bevin can defend him or herself without your weak attempts.
Defend myself from what?
The post on which you are commenting is an excerpt from AsadAbuKhalil’s Angry Arab blog. Presumably you wished to direct your comment at him., though quite why I am unsure.
As to the earlier remarks that you made, I cannot see why the Clintonite conspiracy theory regarding Wikileaks’ measured releases of the Podesta emails should be taken seriously.
Trump does not owe his election either to Wikileaks or the Russians but to the Democratic party, and that includes Bernie Sanders, who caved in before the DNC gangsters and left his millions of supporters, including the last remnants of the savaged Union rank and file in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio, bewildered and deserted. He would have done better to bolt the Party and run as an Independent. Had he done so even if Trump had won there would have been a real opposition ready to resist him, rather than this totally bogus movement.
Margaret Kimberley, as usual, nails it:
http://www.blackagendareport.com/democrats_attack_from_right
WikiLeaks was very insistent on the fact that the material had been released in bulk. Afterwards they were merely ‘highlighting’ specific emails via twitter etc.. The question is the timing (and motive) of those media alerts. If you wish to deny that they had any connection to the election campaign, go ahead.
Actually I agree. But that’s not what the writer of this blog claimed.
Like I said, my question is with the weird apology and defence being made for Trump in this article: it condemns him, yes, but implies that it’s only rhetoric and ‘nothing much will happen’ – though a lot already has (we’ll see in the next few days, maybe even today, whether the ban on Muslims entering goes beyond rhetoric). And bizarrely suggests his administration should not be subject to ‘invective’ despite the actions already being taken.
As for the link, I read it. I wouldn’t immediately place it under ‘constructive’ but there’s not enough for me to really reach an informed opinion. Thanks for pointing it out anyhow.
Read the DNC and Podesta emails and you will see that the Clinton campaign used every trick in the book to game the media. If Wikileaks did time their revelations to maximise their effects on Clinton-and I sincerely doubt that they did- they were doing nothing that Podesta, Debbie Schultz and Donna Brazile weren’t doing every day.
The real story of the 2016 election is not Trump’s victory but the fact that the Democratic presence in Congress is completely useless, neutered by its Clinton connections, braindead and corrupt. Look at the Senate! Look at the House! and bear in in that the DNC has moved mountains to ensure that no real Democrats, no Sanders supporters, no new Kusiniches get nominated, or if they get nominated, get money to campaign with.
Here’s a thought: Taft Hartley is 70 this year. It has lived too long. Killing it should be the first order of business for the American left. When that is done you can begin to fight Trump but as long as organising strikes is virtually illegal, you have no chance.
I took with Large Pinch of Salt ..This post on your take on Arsehole features Trump…
The video of Him Arsehole..treating his wife like this.. The MSM think this is Funny.. I see a trapped, Tortured Soul. Something real nasty in this exchange… Bastard. –
https://twitter.com/hashtag/FreeMelania?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Mexico: We will not pay for Trump border wall
bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38753826
So up yours Donald.
The wall is to stop U.S.A. jobs bleeding away South to Mexico.
The wall is to stop wetbacks getting into the U.S.A.
The wall is to give the New Authorities in the U.S.A. control of their borders.
Once the wall is constructed, there can be regulated traffic between the two countries, not necessarily to the long tern detriment of Mexico.
A country that is bleeding its young and entreprenurial class into its neighbours is not greatly benefiting.
Example Poland = Germany
Many of the younger, fitter moreambitious people move to Germany of the U.K.
The population of Poland is shrinking and it is getting older, most do not move back home.
Long term, Mexico should not let so many of its younger, fitter, more ambitious people move to the U.S.A.
Mexico can do brilliantly on its own, it does no longer have to live on the coat tails of its bigger Neighbour.
It also has the rest of the Caribbean, Central America and South America to trade with / dominate.
BUT beware of China.
You should try both to keep up and keep away from fake news sites like the BBC.
President Trump has used Twitter to explain to Sr. Nieto just how Mexico will pay for the border wall and how Mexico has no choice in the matter. That’s right the US runs an annual $50 billion trade deficit with Mexico Onda adios al dinero mis hermanos Mexicanos.
Treeza refers to what has just happened in America as a ‘New Age’. Stupid person.
Paul Flynn said this morning in the HoC that it was not so much a ‘New Age’ but a ‘New Dark Age’. Quite so.
I’m surprised at Craig’s comments about Trump’s infrastructure plan. Without knowing much about anything, but still knowing the salient facts – Trump is all about business and he takes a mobster approach, as his ‘you do for me and I do for you’ explanations for it attest – one could never imagine that Trump is going to do anything like the kind of infrastructure spending that out of work, patriotic, Americans would want to see. He’ll do a Greece on the US, the same as Justin Trudeau’s finance minister (who hails from a rightwing think tank called the C.D. Howe Institute, which had as it’s main goals the selling of neoliberalism to Canadians – http://bit.ly/2k4x8bI) is now doing to Canadians, as Michael Hudson explains on the Real News Network (http://bit.ly/2kkMPJk). Trump is NOT a socialist (by which I mean that he doesn’t believe in collective society building and collective problem solving for the whole country, rather than just his class). He believes in the profit motive and inequality and plays the Darwinian game of ‘riches for the strongest’. Survival, and not how you do it, is what he’s all about. Rules are great for strategically breaking, which allows you to get ahead of and on top of sucker sheep, otherwise known as law abiding citizens.