Usa Thread

[radioman]

That Jimmy Kimmel thing was funny. Plenty of similar things from Jay Leno et al. What gets me is how can this be? I'm pretty sure they cherry pick the dumbest answers, who knows if they asked 1000 people and got half a dozen fruit loops, they show what makes funny tv but it begs the wider question, how can there be such dumb people, how many more are out there? And in a country that proffers its power to to the rest. Most here would probably think that if Thailand were a world power there would be cause for concern. If the US is now trying to showcase their dumbness as some sort of attribute does not the same hold true for them?

 

[Steve]

Kanye goes to the White House and it wasn't Mr. Smith 2018.  One thing is certain, and it has nothing to do with his political viewpoint (well, maybe it does but that's an aside), Kanye West is not well mentally. If Hillary had won and he did the same thing the facts wouldn't change. The guy is off his meds or needs them. His swear words filled, sometimes nonsensical (alternate universe) rant is a man who is emotionally unstable and the Republicans know this and are exploiting it. Not that the Dems wouldn't do the same thing if some right wing celeb like Kid Rock did the same. 

What may be stranger than Kanye? No one is speaking about is what Jim Brown is doing there. Jim was kinda a milder, kinder Kaepernick in his day and even in recent years has been an activist, borderline militant. I've heard him on videos. He is the big shocker for me. For the last year he's been supporting conservative talking points.Something is amiss. It's not like Trump and conservatives are saying anything new. Neither side has anything new to say, they just package it differently. 

 

 

[Coss]

1 hour ago, radioman said:

That Jimmy Kimmel thing was funny. Plenty of similar things from Jay Leno et al. What gets me is how can this be? I'm pretty sure they cherry pick the dumbest answers, who knows if they asked 1000 people and got half a dozen fruit loops, they show what makes funny tv but it begs the wider question, how can there be such dumb people, how many more are out there? And in a country that proffers its power to to the rest. Most here would probably think that if Thailand were a world power there would be cause for concern. If the US is now trying to showcase their dumbness as some sort of attribute does not the same hold true for them?

 

40 years ago 5 % of people would have answered the same, 'cause they didn't do well at school, now it's more like 75%, because they don't have to learn at school, just google it if you really have to come up with an answer.

43 minutes ago, chocolat steve said:

Kanye goes to the White House and it wasn't Mr. Smith 2018.  One thing is certain, and it has nothing to do with his political viewpoint (well, maybe it does but that's an aside), Kanye West is not well mentally. If Hillary had won and he did the same thing the facts wouldn't change. The guy is off his meds or needs them. His swear words filled, sometimes nonsensical (alternate universe) rant is a man who is emotionally unstable and the Republicans know this and are exploiting it. Not that the Dems wouldn't do the same thing if some right wing celeb like Kid Rock did the same. 

What may be stranger than Kanye? No one is speaking about is what Jim Brown is doing there. Jim was kinda a milder, kinder Kaepernick in his day and even in recent years has been an activist, borderline militant. I've heard him on videos. He is the big shocker for me. For the last year he's been supporting conservative talking points.Something is amiss. It's not like Trump and conservatives are saying anything new. Neither side has anything new to say, they just package it differently. 

 

 

Kanye has ratings (sales) only people with large numbers of numbers allowed.

 

That's why Donald doesn't like Taylor Swift's music any more, he said so just after she converted all her Swifties to the Democratic cause...

 

I'd love to see the Donald bopping along to her music prior to this parting...

[Flashermac]

The week in US politics featured Kanye West, Taylor Swift, the Supreme Court and a hurricane

...

The timing of it all is a bit weird

Remember that long-held feud between Taylor and Kanye West that's been simmering since he invaded the stage when she was getting an MTV award for best video clip in 2009?

This week she got her own back when she declared her Democratic allegiance on Instagram and caused a spike in voter registrations. (Remember that voting isn't compulsory in America so getting people to register and then actually vote is half the battle.)

Swift has endorsed two Democratic candidates in her home state of Tennessee and criticised Republican Marsha Blackburn's voting record on women and LGBT issues, saying the candidate's attitude "appals and terrifies me".

President Trump defended Blackburn and accused Swift of being ignorant. He's previously been a fan but says he "likes her 25 percent less now".

Republican Mike Huckabee (father of @pressec Sarah Huckabee Sanders) fired off this tweet in response.

"So @taylorswift13 has every right to be political but it won't impact election unless we allow 13 yr old girls to vote."

Except according to Vote.org, an organization that aims to increase voter registration, more than 65,000 people signed up to vote within the 24 hours after Swift posted on Instagram. (The post came as voter registrations were closing so that may have also been a factor.)

Note that Jay-Z and Katy Perry endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, even performing at her campaign rallies, and we all know how that went.

Also, having heard it at rally after rally that year, if I never hear Katy Perry's "Roar" again it will be too soon.

Maybe Democrats should adopt "Shake it off" as their new anthem? Just saying.

...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-12/zoe-daniel-october-12/10368292

 

 

 

[Coss]

I note that the Estate of the artist formerly known as Prince, has requested via a bunch 'o Lawyers that the Donald stop playing "Purple Rain" and any other of the former artist's work at his prep rallies.

If I or You, were to use copyright music in such a manner, we'd be prosecuted. But Trump? 'only do if if it's illegal'... and free....

[Coss]

Trump on Khashoggi: "It's in Turkey, and it's not a citizen, as I understand it." 

Dear Donald, Journalists, even critical journalists, even Arab journalists, even Arab journalists with hard to say names, are people, not "its".

So the correct English is, 'he is not a citizen'

Mind you it could be premature to start imposing gender roles, on the recently deceased...

 

Too soon?

[Flashermac]

In Thailand, Khashoggi (like us) would be referred to with the pronoun man, which is the correct one for animals and everyone who is not Thai. 

 

[Steve]

Not condoning Saudi Arabia's actions but if America, China or Russia (along with a few other countries including N.Korea) make a fuss its really a pot, kettle and black thing. No one is supposed to do it except them...lol

[Coss]

Wot you said.

and:

American Mercenaries Were Hired To Assassinate Politicians In The Middle East - 2015

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/aramroston/mercenaries-assassination-us-yemen-uae-spear-golan-dahlan

[Coss]

And in the, battle of the playground ::

Trump resorts to petulant ""I'm president," he said, "and you're not."

Read the whole thing below.

 

 

Trump sidesteps truth with his go-to moves on '60 Minutes'

As he so often does, US President Donald Trump falsely declared on "60 Minutes" North Korea and the United States were going to war before he stepped in to thwart it.

Interviewer Lesley Stahl was having none of it. "We were going to war?"

Trump immediately retreated to safer ground, expressing a view rather than trying to assert a fact: "I think it was going to end up in war," he said, before moving on to his "impression" of the situation.

The 26-minute-long interview was typical Trump - bobbing and weaving through a litany of false claims, misleading assertions and exaggerated facts. Trump again demonstrated what The Washington Post has long documented: His rhetoric is fundamentally based on making statements that are not true, and he will be as deceptive as his audience will allow.

The CBS News program was one of the more difficult public settings Trump has allowed himself to be put in. It was the rare national audience outside the friendly confines of Fox News and in a one-on-one, televised interview with a skilled reporter who challenged him repeatedly.

The result was Trump resorting to all of his favored moves to sidestep the truth.

On Stahl's first question, about whether Trump still thinks climate change is a hoax, the President dodged by saying "something's happening". He then completely reversed course and declared that climate change is not a hoax and that "I'm not denying climate change."

Trump also falsely said the climate will change back again, even though the National Climate Assessment approved by his White House last year said that there was no turning back. He said he did not know whether climate change was man-made, though the same report said "there is no convincing alternative" posed by the evidence.

Trump did his usual shrug when asked whether North Korea is building more nuclear missiles. "Well, nobody really knows. I mean, people are saying that." Among the people who are saying that are US intelligence agencies, who have concluded that North Korea does not intend to fully surrender its nuclear stockpile and is instead workingto conceal its weapons and production facilities.

Even when he adjusts his rhetoric, at times contradicting what he has just said, Trump almost always appears to believe firmly in what he is saying. While he quibbled with Stahl over some details regarding North Korea, for instance, he refused to concede error on the big picture.

He dismissed a question from Stahl about a shout-out he gave to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at one of his recent rallies - "we fell in love" - as "just a figure of speech." Yet he went on to insist that Kim had agreed to denuclearization, a goal long sought by US Presidents.

Kim actually has only signed a nonbinding statement of goals - and the goal to "work toward complete denuclearization" was listed third. The communique the two men signed was far less detailed than a declaration issued by North and South Korea more than a quarter-century ago, with little consequence.

On trade, the President continued to suggest that trade deficits mean that the United States is losing money: "I told President Xi we cannot continue to have China take $500 billion a year out of the United States."

That's wrong. The trade deficit just means Americans are buying more Chinese products than the Chinese are buying from America, not that the Chinese are somehow stealing US money.

Trump also continued to misstate the trade deficit with China. It's not $500 billion, as he told Stahl; it was $335 billion in 2017. The United States imported $505 billion of goods from China, so maybe that's where Trump gets his number.

Curiously, he denied to Stahl that he ever said he was engaged in a trade war with China, even though he has said and tweeted it many times, including on Fox News last week. Again when confronted with his own words, he dialed them back. He insisted he had only called it a "battle" - a term he has used at times - but was now suddenly downgrading it to a mere "skirmish."

He also falsely said that "the European Union was formed in order to take advantage of us on trade." That's a misreading of history, at best. The EU got its start shortly after World War II as the European Coal and Steel Community - an early effort to bind together bitter enemies such as Germany and France in a common economic space to promote peace.

Trump surfaced another old favourite knock on US allies - "we shouldn't be paying almost the entire cost of NATO to protect Europe." Actually, the United States pays 22 percent of NATO's common fund. Trump keeps counting US defense spending devoted to patrolling the Pacific Ocean and other parts of the world as part of NATO funding.

When it was pointed out that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a former general who served in the military for 44 years, believes NATO has kept the peace for 70 years, Trump sniffed, "I think I know more about it than he does."

Questioned about Russian interference in the 2016 election, Trump conceded that "they meddled." But he added, "I think China meddled, too." When Stahl said he was "diverting the whole Russia thing," Trump insisted he was not. "I'm not doing anything," he demurred. "I'm saying Russia, but I'm also saying China."

There is no evidence that China engaged in the same disinformation efforts as Russia, which intelligence agencies have said was designed to swing the election toward Trump.

Finally, Trump continued his habit of mischaracterizing what his predecessor did. He claimed that President Barack Obama "gave away" the Crimea region of Ukraine, when actually Russia seized it and Obama then led an effort to impose sanctions in response.

He also falsely claimed that "Obama had the same thing" as Trump's controversial family separation policy on the border. This is wrong. There is a collection of policies and court rulings spanning Democratic and Republican administrations, but none required the Trump administration to separate children from their families, as Stahl correctly noted.

"I wanted the laws changed," Trump said. But his preferred approach failed in the Senate, getting only 36 of 51 possible Republican votes. He has made little effort to negotiate a compromise.

In one of the testier back and-forths, Trump tried to shut down Stahl with one line that was indisputably true: "I'm president," he said, "and you're not."

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12143503

and

US budget deficit blows out to 6-year high in Donald Trump's second year

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/107879231/us-budget-deficit-blows-out-to-6year-high-in-donald-trumps-second-year