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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2017 7:11:43 GMT
Sometimes the way the news is formulated makes me chuckle. On the 8 a.m. news on the radio, they were talking about the Piton de la Fournaise in Réunion, which is having a major eruption and lava flow at the moment. Then they went on to the next subject: "Another volcano in eruption, Donald Trump, said today..."
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Post by chexbres on Feb 11, 2017 17:02:30 GMT
The only difference between Le Piton and Le Trump is that Trump is always in a constant state of eruption. I've been catching up on the news - Kellyanne Conway sure got off easy after her "infomercial" about Ivanka's clothing line, didn't she? She must have gotten down on her knees to do something about that Anyone from Obama's office would have been pilloried...
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Post by mossie on Feb 11, 2017 20:14:08 GMT
So Mr Clinton gave the Donald some tips
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 11, 2017 20:25:22 GMT
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Post by lagatta on Feb 11, 2017 22:14:14 GMT
Yes, I see that there is a precedent with Nixon.
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Post by lagatta on Feb 12, 2017 15:38:31 GMT
Trump administration's attacks regulations protecting pets and other animals:
Under NAFTA, this certainly affects all of us in North America, and probably beyond.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 12, 2017 17:56:09 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2017 18:04:43 GMT
I only watched half of the video, but of course I got the point. My question is whether Trump (and his people) are ordering some of these things or whether a lot of it is being done spontaneously to kiss up to the new administration based on clues that he has given about what is good and what is bad.
Events from the past would lead me to believe that many such decisions are "spontaneous."
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Post by chexbres on Feb 13, 2017 8:30:10 GMT
I am wondering what is taking so long for someone to get to the point about Trump's taxes... If they invoked "article 19" or whatever to silence Senator Pocahontas, why don't they get their act in gear?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2017 21:27:00 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 13, 2017 22:12:23 GMT
Heh heh heh heh heh. Hope he squeezed the shit out of that slimy paw.
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Post by lagatta on Feb 14, 2017 0:02:59 GMT
Yes, that John Oliver piece was brilliant. It doesn't get tedious, though it is actually quite long. That involved quite a bit of research. Trump counts on people not challenging absurdities such as "negative GDP" or outright, baldfaced lies.
I do hope Trump doesn't nuke Ottawa as we aren't very far, and downwind. So is Bernie.
By the way, there actually WAS a Bowling Green massacre in what is now the US - it was in New Amsterdam, a massacre by Dutch settlers of the Lenape people, in the 1600s.
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Post by lagatta on Feb 14, 2017 1:31:01 GMT
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Post by htmb on Feb 14, 2017 2:14:51 GMT
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Post by htmb on Feb 14, 2017 2:33:00 GMT
Lagata, that's a really good story. Thanks for the reminder that there are many positives coming out of all this government mess.
There have been recent reports of immigration raids and subsequent deportation of many mostly Mexican and Central American people, along with rumors circulating in my own community regarding a few job sites where Hispanic workers are now afraid to show up for work.
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Post by chexbres on Feb 14, 2017 20:54:58 GMT
It would be nice if the "crimes" these people are supposed to have committed would be published someplace. I think this is just another "shiny object" that Trump is using to distract from other matters at hand ...like Ivanka.
Someone knew about all of Flynn's lies before the Inauguration. This has apparently been glossed over in another "alternative fact". Lock him up for treason, I say. No matter what Trump says, he broke several laws.
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Post by lagatta on Feb 14, 2017 23:24:03 GMT
Yes, and very serious laws. Not like the minor matters Clinton might have been charged with (highly unlikely in any event).
If you read the long London Review of Books story about the Trumps, Trump is very beholden to Saudi, Russian and other businessmen (old-fashioned sexist term deliberate), some of whom got where they were via very seamy business indeed. Senator McCain seems to be really tearing into the Trump crew - remember that Trump called McCain a coward for being a prisoner of war!
The Russian stuff is probably more seriously illegal than Bannon's ties to Neo-Nazis and Klansmen (hard to say that without seeing gas chambers and mass lynchings...) but the latter is utterly nauseating.
As for the Trump children and Ivanka's husband, isn't that illegal?
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Post by chexbres on Feb 16, 2017 17:39:55 GMT
Supposed to be a conflict of business interests, but in Trump's world, who cares?
Notice was taken that Saudi Arabia, Russia and other countries not included in the "Muslim ban" absolutely have financial and probable embarrassing personal ties to the Trump organization.
Flynn stated - foaming at the mouth - that "if he were guilty of only one-tenth (1/10th) of the crimes Hillary Clinton had committed, he'd be in jail right now!!!" Someone should send him there, forthwith.
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Post by fumobici on Feb 17, 2017 3:45:45 GMT
This Trump-themed float called "Banga Banga" from this year's Carnival in Viareggio, Italy may be the greatest single artwork I've ever seen in my life.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 17, 2017 5:08:28 GMT
I saw that somewhere previously and yes, probably the greatest float ever created.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 17, 2017 6:15:41 GMT
Oh gawd, it just gets worse and worse! Psycho-oaf gave a press conference, letting his rambling and bluster hold sway. One highlight: "[Trump] Asked black journalist April Ryan if she would set up a meeting for him with the Congressional Black Caucus to discuss his inner-city agenda: 'Are they friends of yours?'" Here is the whole cringe-worthy story: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/16/alexander-acosta-labor-secretary-nomination-donald-trumpSo much bumptious bad government in the four weeks he's been in office. Another excerpt from the linked article: "Chuck Schumer, leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate, demanded investigations by both Congress and the justice department into ties between the Trump administration and Russia. ... 'I have been in Congress for a long time, and I’ve never, ever seen anything like this. The institutions of government are being tested in a way they have not been tested in some time ... I believe the stakes to be very high. This is not a drill. Nothing less than our system of checks and balances, the rule of law, and our national security is at stake.'"
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2017 7:46:33 GMT
Some of the people at the President's favourite news channel are getting fed up.
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Post by chexbres on Feb 17, 2017 10:48:31 GMT
Only a matter of time before Shep Smith will get a pink slip instead of a pay slip...
This was the most bizarre exhibition of deflection, derision, and denial that I've ever seen. The reporter had to explain what the CBC meant, before he would reply.
Add the fact that Trump is clearly bored with the "presiding process" and wants to go put on another campaign rally?
We are in so much deep shit if we allow this to continue.
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Post by lagatta on Feb 17, 2017 11:39:51 GMT
I'm going to watch the videos a bit later - it is very early in the morning here.
I just wanted to suggest to Bixa that the Mexicans might want to borrow that float. Banga Banga is a variation of Berlusconi's Bunga Bunga (sex parties).
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Post by rikita on Feb 17, 2017 14:48:18 GMT
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Post by fumobici on Feb 17, 2017 15:53:51 GMT
I'm going to watch the videos a bit later - it is very early in the morning here. I just wanted to suggest to Bixa that the Mexicans might want to borrow that float. Banga Banga is a variation of Berlusconi's Bunga Bunga (sex parties). I noticed that in the text for the video the actual name of the float is "Bang Bang" rather than "banga banga" which is what the announcer at the scene seems to call it. I think it's just hard for Italians to end words with an English "ng" sound, which isn't present in Italian. Also the "a" in "bang" is a vowel sound alien to Italian, and add that to the unfamiliarity with ending words with consonants... I didn't think it was possible for me to love Italy any more than I already do but that float may do the near-impossible. Also the float takes deeper aim than just Trump, he's the terrifying figurehead du jour, but look at the rotating targets of people of color, at the Native American in the cage, the Statue of Liberty figure riding Trump's combover with an assault rifle, the guns. Our problems run a lot deeper than Trump; he's not the problem but, terrifyingly, a symptom of a much larger problem. Even so-called liberals are too often fine with a lot of the systemic racism and violence of our military and police cultures. We were killing brown people both abroad and at home at a vicious rate with Obama as POTUS and it hardly seemed to bother my liberal friends then. Police continue to get away with summary street executions of black victims--even in cities that have been run by Democrats for decades and Middle Eastern wedding parties keep getting droned, brown children killed, countries toppled, entire populations terrorized and hardly a word gets said about it. We still call the killers "heroes" and celebrate them. War criminals and torturers walk free among us, immune from accountability and nobody complains when their "team" is atop the pile. We're not a well country, and this float sums it up nicely.
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Post by mich64 on Feb 17, 2017 15:59:02 GMT
I am wondering what the reaction will be this weekend at the rally the President has planned at an airport hangar in Florida this weekend? What if he encounters citizens opposed to him like some Senators are experiencing when they engaged town hall meetings the past few weekend? He can not have security remove them like he did during the campaign, or can he?
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Post by lagatta on Feb 17, 2017 17:12:34 GMT
Yes, fumobici, I said I hadn't viewed the video of the float when I wrote - I had to respond to a lot of other correspondence, mostly from Europe (some from Italy). There is some Bunga Bunga in there, mind you, with the saloon and bordello as reminders of the Trump family fortune's origin, but even more Bang Bang. I was studying in Italy when Reagan was US president, and there was a lot of graffiti "Reagan - cowboia".
The human actors give a sense of the size of the thing.
Yes, of course it isn't only about Trump.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 18, 2017 4:05:09 GMT
I am wondering what the reaction will be this weekend at the rally the President has planned at an airport hangar in Florida this weekend? What if he encounters citizens opposed to him like some Senators are experiencing when they engaged town hall meetings the past few weekend? He can not have security remove them like he did during the campaign, or can he? Should be interesting, Mich! He's still campaigning, since it's the one thing he seems to be successful at, not like that boring and confusing gig of being president. Who knew there would be so many pop quizzes?! It's so unfair -- big league unfair! The thing that occurs to me is that amongst countries, there is ordinarily formal diplomatic structure and protocol. Even if one country isn't particularly friendly with another, when there is agreement between them, that agreement can be relied upon as a rule. What's going to happen with the US's relationships with other countries with this travesty of a man in the White House? He changes his tune from one day to the next and what country in its right mind would feel secure with anything he says, any promises he makes?
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Post by lagatta on Feb 18, 2017 9:45:28 GMT
Not only that, he is confrontational towards countries with generally "friendly" governments, such as the party currently in power in Australia.
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