I’m not sure any of the democratic candidates really would want the job after the effects of the pandemic. The DNC can select anyone it likes, right? Maybe Elizabeth Warren will end up the surprise pick.
Politics and in-fighting. Which I guess is just politics. Or infighting
- This topic has 985 replies, 28 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 3 months ago by
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Why does he insist on going on TV every day to make an ass of himself?
“There’s no such thing as bad publicity”?
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This is turning into a mandatory corporate fun event so fast.
SHUT UP! HERE’S A DRINK!
FRED, I TOLD YOU TO GET THE KARAOKE MACHINE STARTED!!!
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Hi there Brits and Yanks. Just saw this interesting new political approach from Germany. The leader speaks using facts and as if those listening are adults. A new concept called ‘nuance’ is also being tried out.
https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1250563004174946304/pu/vid/720×720/7qJy_oMriQ0ikrP6.mp4?tag=10
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WE HAVE TO GET FUCKING EXCITED NOW, MAN!!!
QUICK! Grab a random female’s hair and smell it! There’s no time to lose!
or man’s. Biden doesn’t discriminate with that kind of thing.
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At least he’ll have died doing what he loved.
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When your PR has seen V For Vendetta once pic.twitter.com/WukJheuVsg
— Tom Reagan’s Hat (@andyeduardo77) April 16, 2020
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Will be forever haunted by this image of protestors in Ohio demanding the governor open businesses back up pic.twitter.com/P0nivaYSsY
— future canon (@futurecanon) April 15, 2020
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Here’s a rundown of the 15 most common words used in speeches by US presidents.
Some of it almost rhymes like poetry. ‘Vietnam Secretary American President’
And I love that Obamas top one is Folks.
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Hi there Brits and Yanks. Just saw this interesting new political approach from Germany. The leader speaks using facts and as if those listening are adults. A new concept called ‘nuance’ is also being tried out.
This is why Merkel is still so popular. I don’t like everything about her, and I hate that because of her as a person, we’ve been ruled by the conservative party for two hundred years now, but in this kind of crisis, you really do have to appreciate her calm, no-nonsense, trustworthy manner.
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I like the idea that Merkel is an immortal who has ruled Germany from the shadows for 200 years.
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I like the idea that Merkel is an immortal who has ruled Germany from the shadows for 200 years.
even from 1939 to 1945?
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Christian’s exaggeration aside, 15 years as a leader in a fully democratic country is a hell of a long time. There are a lot of countries with no term limits but usually people get fed up of them after a while or they give up, the UK has had Thatcher with 11 years and Blair with 10 but that 3rd term always seems a stumbling block.
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Yeah it’s a rarity.
In France they used to have seven-year presidential terms (until the referendum in 2000 that changed it to five), and as a result they ended up having Mitterand in power for 14 years and then Chirac for 12 immediately after. It’s a long time, just two presidents across 26 years.
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Meanwhile, 45 proves once again that what he reads from the teleprompter on television every night is not what he feels in his tiny little dead heart:
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Christian’s exaggeration aside, 15 years as a leader in a fully democratic country is a hell of a long time. There are a lot of countries with no term limits but usually people get fed up of them after a while or they give up, the UK has had Thatcher with 11 years and Blair with 10 but that 3rd term always seems a stumbling block.
Yeah, and it really does feel like an eternity. And the thing is that it’s been very bad for our political system, I think. I get why Merkel is popular, and she’s very competent, but her managing to stay in power was in part due to her forming a coalition between the two biggest parties. So there was basically no opposition during a lot of the time she was in power. And the other thing is that she’s been moving the conservative party socially to the left so much that this and our labor party, the SPD, being in government along with them has led to a complete erosion of the SPD. They went from 34,2 percent in 2005 to 17% today.
Which means that there is only one big party left and we are destined to be ruled by the conservatives forever.
(I may have moaned about this before.)
(Also, the story of the SPD’s self-desctrution is of course a little more complex.)
And now that Merkel is out of the door, chances are we will get a chancellor candidate Merz who wants to move the CDU not only back to conservatism but also towards complete neo-liberast dogma. He’s been working for BlackRock, so we know what we’re getting there.
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It is currently very underreported here, as well, but according to the few very recent news items I can find, it seems like in spite of an Austrian veto, the German government is dedicated to pushing it through as quickly as possible when they take over the EU presidency in July. This was a pre-Covid strategy paper, but I think they’ll wait for the presidency change either way to be able to move better in spite of Austria’s blocking it.
So yeah, Merkel seems to still really want this, and I have no doubt Merz would be even more passionate about it. So even if Merz doesn’t turn out to be the CDU candidate (there are a few others, more economically moderate in the running and it’s my pessimism already proclaiming Merz as the next German chancellor) there really isn’t a constellation where Germany would stop pushing for it. But I really am not sure how they will get past that Austrian veto.
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The Sunday Times, a Murdoch newspaper, has led today with an article ripping into Boris Johnson. The summary really that he didn’t turn up to Cobra emergency meetings, spent a lot of time on holiday with his girlfriend and did nothing in the face of expert advice. It’s a very damning piece from a source that is usually sympathetic to any Tory.
A sampling:
“There’s no way you’re at war if your PM isn’t there,” the adviser said. “And what you learn about Boris was he didn’t chair any meetings. He liked his country breaks. He didn’t work weekends. It was like working for an old-fashioned chief executive in a local authority 20 years ago. There was a real sense that he didn’t do urgent crisis planning. It was exactly like people feared he would be.”
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There were these huge gatherings and demonstrations in some states
by people with assault rifles, Trump banners and other things to
end the quarantine/lockdown. Trump was encouraging some
of them and Stephen Moore went so far as to call them Rosa Parks…
They relate to Trump and Trump relates to them. He speaks their language.Meanwhile, I just heard the daily huge clapping and cheering at 7pm for
the front line health workers during this pandemic. They deserve the salute.1 user thanked author for this post.
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it’s the ultimate in Democrat stupidity.
And hilarity.
Hillaryty
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There were these huge gatherings and demonstrations in some states by people with assault rifles
Reports seem to suggest they weren’t actually huge. An article I read earlier today pointed out that in Michigan it was a couple of hundred people and a survey found overall feeling in the state was this:
The Detroit Regional Chamber’s survey found that 57 percent of residents approved of Whitmer’s handling of the pandemic, while 44 percent said the same about Trump. Disapproval of the governor’s response stood at 37 percent, compared with 50 percent for the president’s.
If you are very loud it tends to attract media attention and maybe create a sense of false proportion.
Another example here in Ronnie’s state:
A lot of the “liberate” footage is meant to make these events look big.
Here’s what the protest in Ohio today really looks like.
— Joshua Potash (@JoshuaPotash) April 20, 2020
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A few hundred people is still a lot when you’re not supposed to be in groups larger than 5 though.
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A few hundred people is still a lot when you’re not supposed to be in groups larger than 5 though.
It is and it’s a threat to public health but it’s important sometimes to see the context behind the noise. From some media reports it comes across like half of America is in uproar and demanding a change in approach but the numbers there and poll results say it’s a vocal but very small minority.
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Also… It occurred in more than one state and was
supposedly organized on Facebook…And what is with the assault rifles?
These people have been fed nationalistic, consumeristic and paranoid propaganda for decades, which manifests as a personal identify where they see themselves as the hero of some action story where the big bad government is coming for them.
The reality is, of course that they’re useful idiots.
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Joe Biden Says He’d Pick Michelle Obama As Running Mate ‘In A Heartbeat’
The former first lady has said she won’t run for office, but the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee can always hope.
headshot
By Ron DickerJoe Biden said Monday he’d pick former first lady Michelle Obama as his running mate “in a heartbeat” if she were willing.
“I’d take her in a heartbeat,” Biden told KDKA in an online interview Monday. (Watch portions above.) “She’s brilliant. She knows the way around. She is a really fine woman.”
However, Biden added: “I don’t think she has any desire to live near the White House again.”
The former first lady has repeatedly said she’s not interested in running for office, but her name has been bandied about as a vice president on the Democratic ticket.
As for more realistic choices, Biden said he’s committed to choosing a woman but is not focused on a woman of color.
“There are a number of qualified women out there,” he said.
The Hill noted that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) said she would say yes and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said she’d be “honored” if asked to join the ticket.
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First casualty of virtual parliament and messing up with the mute button.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/vaughan-gething-jenny-rathbone-swearing-18133694
Wales’ health minister launched a tirade about one of his fellow AMs, asking “what the f*** is the matter with her” while being streamed live during an online conference.
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So fifty people sitting in Parliament and they all have perfect hair:
HOW ARE THEY KEEPING THEIR HAIR CUT??? WHY IS NOBODY ADDRESSING THIS IMPORTANT QUESTION??????
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Aren’t half of them wigs anyway?
No, they got rid of the whigs years ago.
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I’ve enjoyed David’s mild obsession with politicians’ hair on Twitter. He does have a point though, there seems a little bit of ‘have and have-nots’ at play.
We’ve seen ‘the country home escape’ from a handful of them in the UK and in Malaysia two ministers have been caught on camera having extended family gatherings.
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Someone wrote this gag headline 3 years ago:
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The government has, in the last day or so, emphasised that successful trade deal negotiations or not, the UK still leaves the EU completely at the end of December.
Global pandemic and recession? Doesn’t matter – it nothing stops Brexit. This applies even if the EU offers an extension. So, no deal Brexit at the end of the year for the sake of the ideologically pure.
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Forgive my naivety here, but Brexit is NOT unilateral, is it? There will be EU actions needed to succesfully facilitate the process, no matter what ends up being the strategy.
Kind of. It should be a mutual agreement of how they deal with each other going ahead but the ‘no deal’ is the nuclear option that can be unilateral. They can just say they failed to agree and fall back on default WTO terms.
Default WTO terms are awful though, especially for manufacturers. Say in the case of Nissan, their final assembly is done in the north of England but various parts like gear boxes and seats are made in Poland and Spain. So if duty is imposed on import and export they are paying it twice, on the import of the parts and then export of the final car. Making the system untenable. Nissan would just have to move.
It is so seemingly daft that the only reason people can see it could happen is to essentially take the UK so far out of the agreed systems it can become a kind of rogue tax haven, the Cayman Islands but with 65 million people.
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Which I suppose makes my point. The default WTO terms should be impossible to fully satisfy under the pandemic because of border closures and decontamination measures employed over trafficked goods. So, whats the point in pushing ahead for the December date?
I mean, as far as I’m aware, just about every bilateral trade agreement has had some level of renegotiation to accommodate how different countries are dealing with the pandemic. Australia, for instance, has reduced the importation for coal and timber to india because their planned infrastructure developments are affected and they don’t need the resources. Similarly, although natural resource mining is an essential industry, other public health orders in Australia mean were not producing as much so it’s actual a mutual arrangement. This can’t be the only example and I would thought there will be loads of examples like this with Britain.
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Forgive my naivety here, but Brexit is NOT unilateral, is it? There will be EU actions needed to succesfully facilitate the process, no matter what ends up being the strategy.
I think the key word here is “successfully” – given that the current transition arrangements have a built-in expiry date of 31 December 2020 then the UK can just wait that out and let the arrangements default to WTO terms if that’s the route they want to take, and the EU can’t really do anything about it.
But they would then have to treat us as a third country with no agreed trading arrangements. And it’s not just trade, there are a lot of regulatory and infrastructure elements that are going to be left hanging too.
It would be massively disruptive and effectively returns us to the worries about ‘no deal’ that we had ahead of the formal exit day that caused such upheaval in parliament last year, in the days before a massive Tory majority removed any prospect of being able to do anything about it.
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I mean, as far as I’m aware, just about every bilateral trade agreement has had some level of renegotiation to accommodate how different countries are dealing with the pandemic.
In this case it’s a withdrawal agreement that sets out the details of the transition period with a view to securing a trade agreement in future, and the withdrawal agreement is firmly time-limited at 31 December.
You can read all the relevant documents here.
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The government has, in the last day or so, emphasised that successful trade deal negotiations or not, the UK still leaves the EU completely at the end of December.
Global pandemic and recession? Doesn’t matter – it nothing stops Brexit. This applies even if the EU offers an extension. So, no deal Brexit at the end of the year for the sake of the ideologically pure.
This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. I have major trade and urban development contracts which are mutually put on hold from settling in this period. The principle of “frustration” applies because the contracts have become impossible to perform because of the lockdown, or otherwise to meet the conditions that were agreed.
I don’t really see why Brexit would be any different (there is an agreement in place with conditions that need to be met and presumably performance of some of those conditions are impossible due to border closures).
If major businesses all around the world are freezing their trade contracts, what possible reason would Britain have to not at least explore the subject?
Forgive my naivety here, but Brexit is NOT unilateral, is it? There will be EU actions needed to succesfully facilitate the process, no matter what ends up being the strategy.
It absolutely is. Also scary. Logically it shouldn’t even be talked about at all, never mind in the middle of a pandemic, but such is the ideology / emotion running Brexit.
Gar and Dave have already covered the grown-up way of actually doing this.
Of course, this is the same government currently spinning at 200 rps to get itself out of deep shit over it not joining a joint EU PPE procurement in Jan and Feb despite invites from the EU.
Meanwhile, the Trump comedy of him telling people in the US to try drinking bleach is no longer funny as some people have done so.
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I mean, as far as I’m aware, just about every bilateral trade agreement has had some level of renegotiation to accommodate how different countries are dealing with the pandemic.
In this case it’s a withdrawal agreement that sets out the details of the transition period with a view to securing a trade agreement in future, and the withdrawal agreement is firmly time-limited at 31 December.
You can read all the relevant documents here.
Thanks (genuinely) I knew there was a withdrawal agreement but i did not knke it had not been made public.
Even though these things are long (500 pages here) I usually get a kick out of perusing them and reading between the lines of the drafting. I did so for the Mueller report and our Banking royal commission report so I’ll probably have a pretty good look at some point.
I still think my initial thinking applies. All trade right noe needs bespoke negotiation given the current climate and the generality of the withdrawal agreement complicates and ultimately supersedes that. The rational thing to do is to delay it, notwithstanding the promises of government.
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The rational thing to do is to delay it, notwithstanding the promises of government.
Sadly the rational train left the station a long time ago.
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Now that I think of it, it might have been a big red bus.
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Injecting yourself with disinfenctant and bleach
Protesting quarantine
Challenging doctors and nurses
“I need a haircut”
“My nails need to get done”Has ignorance really won?
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Same shit, different day:
Mayor against reopening state receives racist message
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Courtesy Drew Edwards.
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So apparently a bunch of US papers are going to be running a story this week with evidence that Trump delayed reacting to the pandemic in order to placate Chinese creditors, to whom he owes hundreds of millions of dollars.
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Saw these on Facebook:
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So apparently a bunch of US papers are going to be running a story this week with evidence that Trump delayed reacting to the pandemic in order to placate Chinese creditors, to whom he owes hundreds of millions of dollars.
Not that it isn’t horrifying to amass a giant heap of corpses to placate some foreign bankers, but we all know that no fallout is going to come Trumps way from this, seeing as nothing matters anymore.
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The truth still matters.
Yeah, but how much does it matter when the revelations won’t change things? It’s clear the Republicans put power over justice given how the impeachment went. The Tara Reede debacle shows that the Democrats are willing to let their claimed morality slide when it’s convenient to them, so how do we know this level of corruption will be a dealbreaker for them if one of their presidents does the same?
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Yeah, but how much does it matter when the revelations won’t change things? It’s clear the Republicans put power over justice given how the impeachment went. The Tara Reede debacle shows that the Democrats are willing to let their claimed morality slide when it’s convenient to them, so how do we know this level of corruption will be a dealbreaker for them if one of their presidents does the same?
You can only blame the party system to some extent here, Lorcan. Trump’s approval rating has been doing great ever since Corona started. I bet it won’t even drop after he suggested injecting disinfectant into your body. The Republicans are behind Trump because he has the support, and the Democrats have no idea how to beat him. This is the people’s will*.
*As expressed in the American gerrymandered and weighed towards rural states political system that doesn’t allow for the actual will of the people.
I actually wan’t attacking the two-party system that time! But it is part of the problem.
In the US especially, there’s a mode of thought that supporting a political party is almost like a sports team, that preformatively saying “I’m a Republican” or “I’m a Democrat” and winning elections is more important than actual principles.
I know I’ve brought it up a few times, but the Tara Reede/Joe Biden thing is a prime example. A lot of commentators I respected and were going after Trump for his abuse claims, and Brett Kavanaugh over Christine Blasey Ford’s claims have been either silent on Reede’s ones, or outright dismissed her with similar or identical rhetoric. Apparently some of the material that’s come out in the last week, like Reede’s mum having called in to Larry King about it in the 90s was being held onto by Trump’s campaign to drop on Biden at an opportune moment, and the same Republicans who ignored or defended Trump’s “locker-room” tape would go after Biden with the same intensity, and be able to ignore the inherent contradiction.
Or with Trump, where almost everyone in the Republican apparatus who was publicly opposed to him has now fallen in line and supports him openly, will defend him on the exact points they attacked him on 4 years ago, and voted to restrict the Impeachment trial to the point of uselesness.
This is why I’ve been saying that Trump isn’t the problem with US politics at the moment, he’s a symptom. Without serious reform it’s just a matter of time before we get another president just as bad as him – or worse – and that president will be defended by whichever party they lead because winning is the most important thing.
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President Donald Trump has said he “can’t imagine why” there has been a spike in calls about disinfectant to US emergency hotlines.
I’m sure some experts somewhere will be studying this. I hope they come up with an answer, it sounds worrying.
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Re: Brexit
Logically it shouldn’t even be talked about at all, never mind in the middle of a pandemic,
I think you’re wrong. Logically, this is the *best* time to push Brexit through. All the economic pain of a no-deal crash-out will be masked by the Corona-crash, so the Brexiteers can wash their hands of it and say, “Not us, it was Corona. Brexit would have worked 100% otherwise, guaranteed.”
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You can only blame the party system to some extent here, Lorcan. Trump’s approval rating has been doing great ever since Corona started. I bet it won’t even drop after he suggested injecting disinfectant into your body.
I’m not so sure. As mentioned before the ‘rallying round the flag’ surge is universal for pretty much every leader, whatever they do. Every leader of every persuasion we can think of has had a poll surge from Ardern to Trump via Macron and Johnson.
The other universal thing about it is it usually doesn’t last very long.
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But large-scale polling on issues doesn’t seem to drill down deep enough. Trump consistently polls overwhelmingly positive with self-identified Republican voters, and far less with self-identified Democrats and “non-political” demographics.
And that’s the thing.
If you look at Trump giving a press conference these days, nobody should be even considering voting for this guy again, no matter what else is going on.
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But large-scale polling on issues doesn’t seem to drill down deep enough. Trump consistently polls overwhelmingly positive with self-identified Republican voters, and far less with self-identified Democrats and “non-political” demographics.
And that’s the thing.
If you look at Trump giving a press conference these days, nobody should be even considering voting for this guy again, no matter what else is going on.
And he’s probably going to win in November because winning and hurting the other side is more important than ideology.
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For the people who are voting, it is apparently also more important than their own well-being, and their country’s dignity.
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I forget again; can someone remind me what Jared Kushner’s qualifications are for his various White House responsibilities?
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/29/politics/jared-kushner-coronavirus-success-story/index.html
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Sweaty flaccid penis given human form.
I know, I was surprised he had achieved so much as well.
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There’s an interesting narrative there. Many were commenting before the last election primaries how US politics was turning into a new ‘monarchy’. Jeb Bush was expected to fight it out with Hillary Clinton. Famous names going for their 3rd and 2nd stints at the top job.
None of that happened, Jeb flopped and Clinton lost. Then Trump came in and put another twist on it by appointing family members to hugely important roles they had no qualifications for. The video of G7 leaders blanking Ivanka when she tries to interject into high level political chat being a prime example.
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I think this is an astute observation.
The trappings associated with political dynasties have been successfully imported into the public expectations of the Trump administration, and clearly it has created a narrative which has been seized by both Trump, his family, and likely his campaign advisers.
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Someone on Twitter has access to the writer’s room, it would seem.
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You know how it was thought we’d get a humbler, grown-up Johnson? Not happening.
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That was something someone actually thought?!
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