Trump II

[scyth]

Remember Vietnam? They had no navy,

they had navy - remember the classical US lies akin to WMD in Iraq ? Gulf of Tonkin

no air force

They had air force, for example the history of one US pilot downed by the said air force and then captured when he was bombing civilian targets = https://www.pownetwork.org/bios/t/t038.htm

, 8 million tons of bombs dropped on them

plus a lot of chemicals ("agent orange") were used by the county which likes to moralize a lot about others

[scyth]

owned by Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

those two despicable bastards deserve their statues to put down immediately

Ron Chernow's magisterial biography Washington: A Life makes clear, while he lived, the nation's first president extracted his pound of flesh from those whom he preferred to call his "servants", or "family".

Washington saw himself as a benevolent master, but he did not tolerate suspected shirkers on his farm, even when they were pregnant, elderly or crippled.


He once scolded a slave who pleaded that he could not work because his arm was in a sling.

As Chernow writes, Washington picked up a rake and demonstrated how to use it with one arm.

"If you use your hand to eat," he said, "why can't you use it to work?"

He was not averse to shipping refractory slaves to the West Indies, such as one man named Waggoner Jack, where the tropical climate and relentless toil in sugarcane brakes tended to abbreviate life expectancy.

"There are few Negroes who will work unless there be a constant eye on them," Washington advised one overseer, warning of their "idleness and deceit" unless treated firmly.

Washington, Chernow notes, wholly approved in 1793 when one of his estate managers, Anthony Whitting, whipped a slave named Charlotte.

Martha, the president's wife, had deemed her to be "indolent".

"Your treatment of Charlotte was very proper," Washington wrote, "and if she or any other of the servants will not do their duty by fair means, or are impertinent, correction (as the only alternative) must be administered."

Washington badgered Whitting to keep another slave named Gunner hard at work to "continue throwing up brick earth". Gunner was 83 years old.

With his Mount Vernon plantation creaking under financial pressure owing to his long absences serving the country, Washington would fire off angry letters to his overseers insisting on greater crop productivity.

Given these reprimands it is perhaps hardly surprising that another of his estate managers, Hiland Crow, was notorious for brutally flogging slaves.

In early 1788 the Potomac river froze over for five weeks, but even with nine inches of snow on the ground, Washington did not spare them from gruelling outdoor labour.

He sent the female slaves to dig up tree stumps from a frozen swamp.

During this Arctic snap, Washington ventured to ride out and inspect his farms, but noted in his diary that, "finding the cold disagreeable I returned".

When some of his slaves absconded during the Revolutionary War to find protection - humiliatingly, for him - with the enemy, Washington did not let up in his efforts to reclaim what he saw as his property.

One internal British memo portrayed him after victory as demanding the runaways be returned "with all the grossness and ferocity of a captain of banditti". The British refused.

Whenever George and Martha's bondmen and women did flee, the first couple seemed to regard them as disloyal ingrates.

In one runaway notice Washington posted in a newspaper, he wrote that a slave named Caesar had escaped "without any cause whatever".

That these enslaved human beings might thirst for freedom, or even the opportunity to learn to read and write, did not seem to occur to him.

Jefferson, as every American schoolchild knows, is the nation's third president, and a genius political theoretician who penned arguably the five most important words in modern history - "all men are created equal" - in the 1776 Declaration of Independence.

He also owned up to 140 slaves.

A bon vivant who lived in luxury at a palatial Virginia estate, Jefferson knew America's original sin was a "depravity", as he described it.

But his statements about black people are rarely taught in classrooms today.

Here are some Jefferson quotes that visitors will not find on his memorial, a Roman pantheon-style temple to liberty where the Sage of Monticello's graven image keeps vigil over the Tidal Basin in Washington DC.

To his friend, French social reformer the Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Jefferson confided that he envisaged eventual manumission to entail "exporting to a distance the whole black race".

The duke wrote: "He [Jefferson] bases his opinion on the certain danger… of seeing blood mixed without means of preventing it".

And yet Jefferson, historians say, fathered up to six children by one of his mixed-race slaves, Sally Hemings.

In his book Notes on the State of Virginia, he prophesied a race war in America and "convulsions which will probably never end but on the extermination of the one or the other race".

Jefferson also opined in this work that black people's "unfortunate difference of color" made them less beautiful than whites.

"They are more ardent after their female," he continued, "but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation.

"Their griefs are transient… in reason much inferior."

And so on.

[Alan Klein]

Slavery was despicable and widely practiced.  Washington and Jefferson lived 250 years ago when it was very prevalent. 

What's your point?  Do we throw the baby out with the bath water?  Do you think you'd be any different if you were born then?  How do you know what you're doing today won't be criticized tomorrow as being unenlightened as well?  Are we all so noble and sin free today that we can judge people in the past so harshly?  Do you ever have a feeling of forgiveness or do you harbor ill feeling forever especially if you weren't personally effected?  Even if you were personally effected?  When can you let go and move on?  Do you want history to condemn the present to disharmony and anger and hatred? 

[James Clark]

those two despicable bastards deserve their statues to put down immediately

You're on a roll today, but have you actually read Chernow's books?  Other American history with an abundance of primary sources?  Anything from the Enlightenment philosophies that guided our founders?The practical foundations of this country are indeed cruel in some ways, utterly inhumane in others. Nevertheless, the structures we created are far different (and not just by degree) and far superior that the rule of the Tsars, or of Stalin or Lenin, for example. We are a flawed execution of a perfect premise, but there are far worse things to be.

[texshooter]

Democratic State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal:   "I hope Trump is assassinated."

The Left at their finest.

source

[Alan Klein]

Democratic State Senator: "I hope Trump is assassinated."
She doesn't sound very Democratic to me.
The Left at their finest.

source

She doesn't sound very Democratic to me.

[Schewe]

De

The Left at their finest.

She doesn't speak for me and othe democrats...pretty sure she stepped out of bounds and will be forced out...

Make no mistake I want Trump gone but I want it to happen legally!

[James Clark]

She doesn't speak for me and othe democrats...pretty sure she stepped out of bounds and will be forced out...

Make no mistake I want Trump gone but I want it to happen legally!

Likewise.

[pegelli]

She doesn't speak for me and othe democrats...pretty sure she stepped out of bounds and will be forced out...

Make no mistake I want Trump gone but I want it to happen legally!

Pretty crazy by this lady and indeed very undemocratic.

I'm even not sure I want Trump out, does anybody really think we'd be better off with Pence? A Christian hypocrit who steals from the poor to give to the rich and still smiles when he tries to explain that it's better for everybody. He's way more polished then Trump but in my mind rotten to the core.

[texshooter]

Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal is not a hate criminal; she is a "social justice warrior."   How dare you denounce her by creating a "moral equivalence" between fighting hate and hate itself.  She is a hate fighter, not a fighting hater.


[Caution: ingredients may contain satire byproducts]




My message: Say yes to free speech and no to violence.

[Rob C]

This is getting well beyond amazing. This is getting dangerously close to the Great American Meltdown (GAM).

I wonder: could Mr Putin really have been this clever? If so, he's backed the greatest Horse since Troy.

Rob C

[Farmer]

with an exception where one seemed to develop rather powerful-looking shoulder areas over some time.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc, Rob.

[BobShaw]

This is getting well beyond amazing. This is getting dangerously close to the Great American Meltdown (GAM).
I wonder: could Mr Putin really have been this clever? If so, he's backed the greatest Horse since Troy.
Rob C

Pretty true. The rest of the world worries about dying from Cholesterol, bee stings and terrorism in that order.
Putin enjoys 80% popularity in his own country.

[James Clark]

Pretty true. The rest of the world worries about dying from Cholesterol, bee stings and terrorism in that order.
Putin enjoys 80% popularity in his own country.

Funny how that works when you kill dissenters, eh?

[Schewe]

The Big Orange Buffoon™ won't like this one...

The Failing Trump Presidency


Illustration by Doug Chayka; Photograph by Doug Mills/The New York Times

With each day, President Trump offers fresh proof that he is failing the office that Americans entrusted to him. The rolling disaster of his presidency accelerated downhill last week with a news conference on Tuesday at which he seemed determined to sow racial strife in a nation desperate for a unifying vision.

Since the 1930s it has not typically been a challenge for an American leader to denounce Nazism. But there is nothing typical about this president; urged by some of his advisers and family members to summon the majesty and moral authority of the presidency to heal the wounds of last weekend’s neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville, to put the good of the country before personal pique, he chose instead to deliver a defense of white supremacists that raised as never before profound doubts about his moral compass, his grasp of the obligations of his office and his fitness to occupy it.

This, in essence, is where we are now: a nation led by a prince of discord who seems divorced from decency and common sense. The alarm bells were loud and swift. Five members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff delivered a rare rebuke, condemning race-based extremism in the military and the nation. Foreign leaders, from Secretary General António Guterres of the United Nations to Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, condemned intolerance and a failure of leadership in the White House.

--snip--

The deeper question, to Mr. Trump’s remaining supporters, is not political but moral. It is whether they will continue to follow a standard-bearer who is alienating most of the country by embracing extremists. Yes, other Republican leaders, while claiming the mantle of Abraham Lincoln, have subtly and not so subtly courted bigots since the days of Richard Nixon’s “Southern strategy.” But Mr. Trump has now made that subtext his text. Last week, he stripped away the pretense and the camouflage. In deciding to split Americans apart rather than draw them together, he abandoned the legacy of Lincoln for the legacy of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. He chose to summon not America’s better angels, but its demons.

[Schewe]

The Rise and Fall of Steve Bannon


With most of his policy proposals blocked, Steve Bannon’s legacy will likely be one of xenophobia
and hostility to nonwhites.

...
Voices on the nationalist right now fear that, with Bannon gone, Trump will be guided by the globalists. After the news of Bannon’s sacking became public, an editor at Breitbart tweeted, “#WAR.” I’m skeptical that Bannon’s exit will mean much. His policy legacy is mixed. He and Trump have mostly stamped out the immigration-reform wing of the G.O.P., though the business class and important leaders, like Paul Ryan, are still sympathetic.

But on economic policy, such as trade, and his recent attempt to push Republicans to raise taxes on the super-wealthy, Bannon made no progress to win allies in Congress. He failed to secure Trump’s repeal of Obamacare, and the nationalist trade agenda, including Bannon’s effort to pull out of nafta, has been stymied. The travel ban is still tied up in the courts. Trump’s recent attacks on the Republican senators Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Jeff Flake, and Lindsey Graham have made the Senate more hostile to any Presidential proposals and more interested in driving its own traditional Republican agenda. Trump’s remarks on Charlottesville further eroded any influence he has, both in Congress and with Americans outside his shrunken base.

The lasting legacy of Bannonism is the xenophobia and hostility to nonwhites that emanates from the White House and has remained a political fire that this Administration is constantly fanning. But, as we learned this week, Trump doesn’t need Bannon to keep those flames alive.

Now we just need to get rid of Miller and Gorka and we'll have a democratic, New York Jewish White House :~)

[Schewe]

This is what I call "delicious irony", the Boston Free Speech Coalition which organized their rally today ended up having a couple of dozen people in their rally but got upwards of 40,000 people to counter protest racism, bigotry & hate. Only 27 arrests and only minor injuries...I call that a very successful rally in support of true American values...course, it's likely NOT what organizers were expecting.

Heck, even Trump congratulated the large group's efforts:

Donald J. Trump ‏Verified account
@realDonaldTrump
I want to applaud the many protestors in Boston who are speaking out against bigotry and hate. Our country will soon come together as one!
1:41 PM - 19 Aug 2017

I was watching Fox News and truth be told, the newscasters seemed a bit disappointed there wasn't massive violence. They kept moving from camera to camera but couldn't find anything other than a young counter protester trying to grab a Trump supporter's flag out of here hand. They played it over and over that passed judgement that it was a clear case of assault! But while I hope the lady wasn't injured (she did fall down in the grass) the newscaster used it to claim there was violence at the rally. But it was clearly trumped up (pun intended).



But in the end when the rally members were bussed out and the main body of protesters peacefully left, there were a few skirmishes with anarchists that got taken into custody, sometimes "aggressively". But I think the cops did a really good job and the vast majority of people got their messages across...America doesn't accept racism, bigotry & hate. And nobody's "free speech rights" were denied...

Boston Right-Wing 'Free Speech' Rally Dwarfed By Counterprotesters

A small number of right-wing "Free Speech Rally" demonstrators disbanded early from Boston Common after they were confronted by thousands of counterprotesters shouting anti-Nazi and anti-KKK slogans.

Deborah Becker, a reporter with member station WBUR in Boston, said that "a few dozen" rally attendees were escorted from Parkman Bandstand by police and placed into police vehicles "for their own safety."

"The counterdemonstrators cheered as the group was escorted out of the area in police wagons," reports WGBH's Phillip Martin.

"I didn't realize how unplanned of an event it was going to be," Samson Racioppi, a Libertarian candidate for Congress who was expected to speak at the rally, was quoted by WCVB-TV as saying. "I really think it was supposed to be a good event by the organizers, but it kinda fell apart."

The conservative activists had insisted they have no connection to last week's violent protests in Charlottesville, Va., which drew white nationalists and sparked violent clashes and a deadly vehicle attack. But that did not satisfy those who opposed their message. Many of them handed out stickers showing the face of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, who was killed in Charlottesville when a man who attended the white nationalist rally allegedly rammed his car into a crowd of counterdemonstrators.

Earlier, a speaker who addressed the crowd condemned what many see as President Trump's tepid response to events last week in Charlottesville.

"If you don't condemn it, you condone it," the speaker said. Demonstrators also chanted "black lives matter" and "our streets."

" 'The courts have made it abundantly clear that they have the right to gather, no matter how repugnant their views are,' said Mayor Martin J. Walsh. 'They don't have the right to create unsafe conditions. ... They must respect our city.' "

[Alan Klein]

Good policing makes all the difference.  Boston, MA did what Charlottesville, VA should have done.  Keep the groups apart.  That allows everyone to make their point respecting free speech without descending into chaos and violence.   

Frankly I think the Virginia Democrat Governor McAuliffe, who's looking to become president, told his state police to back off hoping to spark a conflict that he then played too.  Watch his speeches in ads when the Democrat nomination process starts in a few years. 

[BobShaw]

I was watching Fox News and truth be told, the newscasters seemed a bit disappointed there wasn't massive violence.

There is a saying in media, "Good news is NO news."

Funny how that works when you kill dissenters, eh?

If you are saying Putin wins because there is no valid political alternative then he would probably have the same opinion on Trump's win.
I haven't been there, but I know a few who have and enjoyed it.
The disposable income of Russians has apparently increased 7 times since 2000.

[Farmer]

The disposable income of Russians has apparently increased 7 times since 2000.

Russian GDP per capita hit a low around 1999 of USD1,330- and was USD1,771- in 2000 and hit a high in 2013 of USD15,543- and in 2016 was down to USD8,748-.  The last 3 years have not been good for Russia economically and it sits somewhere in the 60s in terms of nations GDP per capita.  Also, that includes a lot of new billionaires - I don't have quick access to the data that excludes outliers.

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=GDP+per+capita+russia+per+year&gws_rd=cr&ei=RxuZWb_3Bcj78gWD3JroCQ