Trump II

[Alan Klein]

More vacuous asshole comments from the peanut gallery.

It's interesting that you didn't find Jeff's original comment vacuous. ("It must irritate the heck out of Sean Hannity that he has to go up against two gay TV show hosts; Rachel Maddow & Anderson Cooper. Poor little snowflake")  The fact that he's competing groups apparently doesn't bother you.  This is the essence of identity politics.  Separate people into competing groups.  Gay vs. straight.  Black vs. white. Etc. 

Me?  I'm equally insulting.  Egalitarian vacuous. 

[Alan Klein]

Something like that.

That's funny. 

[BobShaw]

*For those of you outside the United States, the Secret Service is a law-enforcement agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (historically, it was part of the Treasury Department) that is responsible for prosecuting financial crimes such as counterfeiting of currency, as well as providing protection services for certain American and visiting foreign officials.

So between the Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, Treasury Department, CIA, FBI, probably 50 State police forces, local city police forces, sheriffs, marshals, Custom and Border protection, Coast Guard and whatever, how many "police" forces do you have?
We have 8 dysfunctional police forces that don't talk to each other much in Australia so I can imagine a big problem in US in just getting police forces on the same page regarding processes, drivers licences, etc. Training can not be consistent much at all.

[Alan Klein]

I posted awhile back that Trump could stand on his head and spit wooden nickels and the biased press would object to their size.  Well, here you go.  The "Old Lady" biased NY Times objects to the way Trump does his visit to Texas to inspire and give hope to the flood victims.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/opinion/trump-ego-harvey-floods.html?_r=0

Meanwhile, there's always room to give Obama credit even though he's no longer president.  Here's a tweet that shows him at a  soup kitchen in Houston helping the flood victims.  Problem is, it happened in 2015 in a Washington DC homeless shelter.  Oh well.  Close enough. 
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2017/aug/28/blog-posting/outdated-photo-wrongly-suggests-barack-obama-food-/

You can't make this stuff up. 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

More vacuous asshole comments from the peanut gallery.

In response...

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Something like that.

[Alan Klein]

So between the Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, Treasury Department, CIA, FBI, probably 50 State police forces, local city police forces, sheriffs, marshals, Custom and Border protection, Coast Guard and whatever, how many "police" forces do you have?
We have 8 dysfunctional police forces that don't talk to each other much in Australia so I can imagine a big problem in US in just getting police forces on the same page regarding processes, drivers licences, etc. Training can not be consistent much at all.

It's a big issue.  It's bad enough that government agencies are pretty dysfunctional on their own.  When you try to coordinate among them, it's like a bunch of drunks trying to paint a house.  One of things that still upsets me about 9-11, is that by political decision, the CIA and the FBI were not allowed to share information about terrorists.  Politicians were more concerned about the niceties of the fears that the CIA would get into domestic overseeing.  (Well, there may be some real concern about the NSA listening to our telephone calls,)  In any case, both groups spent very little time sharing information about terrorists.  Had they been talking and coordinating more, 9-11 may have been interrupted.  So afterward, it was decided in 2004 that we made a big error.  So the government created  a cabinet level position called the Director of National Intelligence who coordinates the activities of 17 different intelligence agencies. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_of_National_Intelligence

I hope it's working.  Frankly, it sounds like they're covering too much territory.  But then again, we haven't had another 9-11, so we got to be hopeful it's working better than what we had before. 

Of course, the DNI covers the 17 federal agencies.  Every other state has state police forces, local forces like NYPD, sheriffs, county police, state forest rangers, etc.  We're like an armed camp.  My biggest concern is when I go through a little town nearby, that I stick to their 25mph speed limit.  Their few cops issue a lot of speeding tickets to fund their town and you can't be too careful driving through. 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Madness continues:

Oh, and let's not forget a flier circulating a university in Utah, requesting a nation-wide ban on veterans attending college, on the grounds that they bring with them racist, white-supremacy world-view.

[LesPalenik]

Swans next?

In Michigan, the state’s Department of Natural Resources proposed to reduce drastically mute swan numbers.
However, it turns out that it was not because of the white color, but because they are now considered an invasive pest.

Meanwhile, the multicultural multicolored Canada geese that have attained the title of the foulest of the fowl are spreading in Ontario like crazy. Their populations have grown exponentially in recent decades, fed on the green lawns, golf courses, parks and farm fields left bereft of natural predators by sprawling human development. Both, swans and wild geese are edible, but their meat is quite dry and therefore best combined with a farmed-raised goose, duck, or bacon.

[Alan Klein]

Les, as it warms up in Canada, geese don't have to fly south for the winter.  We had your problem a couple of decades ago in NYC.  Their poop is disgusting when you walk in a city park.  On the plus side, if it continues to warm up, Canadians won't have to fly south to Florida for the winter either.  You'll be able to sun yourself on the St. Lawrence. 

[Robert Roaldi]

This might be a good moment to remember Katrina: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/06/naomi-klein-how-power-profits-from-disaster.

[Robert Roaldi]

Fascinating podcast about fake news in Ukraine: http://www.npr.org/2017/08/21/544952989/rough-translation-what-americans-can-learn-from-fake-news-in-ukraine.

I preferred the old names to "fake news". When private sources issue fake news, it's lying, when governments do it, it's propaganda. Calling it "fake news" makes it a little cute and trendy, somehow. Reminds me of the deflective use of the word "bug" instead of "defect" in software.

[LesPalenik]

The "fake news", or as called before "propaganda" originated actually in the old Soviet Union under Stalin and Lenin, and was later exported to the other communist countries.
I lived through it myself until my early twenties. Listened in secret to Radio Free Europe from an early age, and that helped to make sense of the convoluted news in official radio and newspapers, but many people ate up those news wholesale, and then in 1989 when the velvet revolution came, they felt cheated, confused and scared. They didn't know whether to believe the old communist propaganda or the new pro-western publications.

Sadly, now almost 30 years after the liberation from the old Soviet system, many of the previous satelite states are still not used to democracy, how to interpret the news and the art of making compromises, and that this leads to ongoing corruption and fake news fabrication. This is the case not only in Ukraine, but also in Czechia, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary. You can corrupt decent people in one generation, but it may take 3-5 generations to undo the damage.

[Alan Klein]

The "fake news", or as called before "propaganda" originated actually in the old Soviet Union under Stalin and Lenin, and was later exported to the other communist countries.
I lived through it myself until my early twenties. Listened in secret to Radio Free Europe from an early age, and that helped to make sense of the convoluted news in official radio and newspapers, but many people ate up those news wholesale, and then in 1989 when the velvet revolution came, they felt cheated, confused and scared. They didn't know whether to believe the old communist propaganda or the new pro-western publications.

Sadly, now almost 30 years after the liberation from the old Soviet system, many of the previous satelite states are still not used to democracy, how to interpret the news and the art of making compromises, and that this leads to ongoing corruption and fake news fabrication. This is the case not only in Ukraine, but also in Czechia, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary. You can corrupt decent people in one generation, but it may take 3-5 generations to undo the damage.

Were they even democratic societies before the Soviet Union?  I'm not familiar with their histories.  But could it go back even further?  When one thinks of Russia, the Tzars were followed by dictators of the Communist variety.  But still monarchial in outlook.  So now they have Putin, a free market dictator of sorts.  The Russians seem to like it.  So how was it in those other states? 

[LesPalenik]

Les, as it warms up in Canada, geese don't have to fly south for the winter.  We had your problem a couple of decades ago in NYC.  Their poop is disgusting when you walk in a city park.  On the plus side, if it continues to warm up, Canadians won't have to fly south to Florida for the winter either.  You'll be able to sun yourself on the St. Lawrence.

Not quite warm for sunning, but the average temperature in February 2017 in Toronto was exactly zero degree in Celsius (daily temperatures ranging from +2C to -4C).
That compared with -12C average in February 2015 in Toronto or 6C average in February 2017 in Dublin.

Interestingly, this summer in Toronto was not as hot as usual, but just last week I swam in a very agreeable St. Lawrence river in the Thousand Islands area.

[LesPalenik]

Were they even democratic societies before the Soviet Union?  I'm not familiar with their histories.  But could it go back even further?  When one thinks of Russia, the Tzars were followed by dictators of the Communist variety.  But still monarchial in outlook.  So now they have Putin, a free market dictator of sorts.  The Russians seem to like it.  So how was it in those other states?

I don't have extensive knowledge of the world history, but the old Czechoslovakia was between 1918 and 1948 a modern and well functioning democratic country. And quite industrial as well - making cars, motorcycles, cameras, even revolvers and rifles.

CORRECTION: Czechoslovakia was formed in 1918 and became a communist state in 1948, but in 1939 Hitler annexed the Czech lands and incorporated the primarily German speaking Sudetenland into Germany and formed Czech protectorate in the rest of the occupied land. That situation lasted between 1939 and 1945, until the end of the WW2.

[texshooter]

The white population needs to be culled according to Michael Moore:


"by 2050, white people are going to be the minority, and I’m not sad to say I can’t wait for that day to happen. I hope I live long enough to see it because it will be a better country.”

Can one be a racist against his own race?  Or are we witnessing the emergence of a new mental disorder?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/28/michael-moore-donald-trump-on-track-to-win-re-elec/

[Alan Klein]

Not quite warm for sunning, but the average temperature in February 2017 in Toronto was exactly zero degree in Celsius (daily temperatures ranging from +2C to -4C).
That compared with -12C average in February 2015 in Toronto or 6C average in February 2017 in Dublin.

Interestingly, this summer in Toronto was not as hot as usual, but just last week I swam in a very agreeable St. Lawrence river in the Thousand Islands area.

I've been telling my wife recently we have to go to the Thousand Islands.  I've always wanted to go muskellunge fishing. 

[Chris Kern]

So between the Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, Treasury Department, CIA, FBI, probably 50 State police forces, local city police forces, sheriffs, marshals, Custom and Border protection, Coast Guard and whatever, how many "police" forces do you have?

The principal federal law enforcement agency is the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation).  Other federal agencies have more limited jurisdiction established by specific statutes: for example, the Secret Service with respect to counterfeiting, Immigration and Customs Enforcement with respect to immigration violations, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives with respect to ... well, I guess that's fairly obvious.  Each state government establishes and organizes its own police agencies independently to enforce state laws (with some concurrent jurisdiction over federal law enforcement); typically these agencies exist at both statewide and local—city, town—levels.

The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have no law enforcement responsibilities.  (The United States, unlike most countries, does not have a domestic intelligence agency.  The FBI, however, does have authority to investigate espionage by agents of foreign governments operating within the United States.)

[Alan Klein]

The white population needs to be culled according to Michael Moore:


"by 2050, white people are going to be the minority, and I’m not sad to say I can’t wait for that day to happen. I hope I live long enough to see it because it will be a better country.”

Can one be a racist against his own race?  Or are we witnessing the emergence of a new mental disorder?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/28/michael-moore-donald-trump-on-track-to-win-re-elec/

It's a form of nihilism.  These people need to get a life.