Trump

[Markus]

The good news: Being built over a desecrated Native American burial ground, the wall is doomed to be cursed.

[Oniya]

So, apparently Germany's far right thinks Donald Trump is a potential 'liberator'.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/07/world/europe/germany-trump-far-right.html

(Pro-tip:  When the Nazis are rooting for you, you're not doing 'freedom' correctly.)

[TheGlyphstone]

So, apparently Germany's far right thinks Donald Trump is a potential 'liberator'.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/07/world/europe/germany-trump-far-right.html

(Pro-tip:  When the Nazis are rooting for you, you're not doing 'freedom' correctly.)

We knew that three years ago, in Charlottesville with the 'very fine people' who marched under swastika flags.

[Avis habilis]

Until we dismantle it, though, the entire country is cursed. It just explains so much about 2020.

Man, this whole country (& Canada, & Mexico ...) is built on top of an indigenous burial ground. We're all in line for a cursin'.

[stormwyrm]

Man, this whole country (& Canada, & Mexico ...) is built on top of an indigenous burial ground. We're all in line for a cursin'.

“Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.”
― Robert Orben

[marauder13]

Man, this whole country (& Canada, & Mexico ...) is built on top of an indigenous burial ground. We're all in line for a cursin'.

If that is so, then why is the rest of the world getting caught in the cross fire?

[Oniya]

If that is so, then why is the rest of the world getting caught in the cross fire?

Oh, that's a standard in these things.  Completely uninvolved people end up having to deal with what the desecrating party did on the sly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh_W6FLaMvA

[Haibane]

Abusing his position of POTUS yet again to avoid being sued.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54081921

It strikes me that legislation is needed to rescind the relevant sections of the Federal Tort Claims Act so as to prevent abuse of the office.

[Haibane]

Is it April 1st?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54092960

Rather than looking specifically at what an individual does in the name of peace shouldn't one also look at the whole person and their overall attitudes to caring about and respecting others?

[Sara Nilsson]

Remember almost any politician can nominate someone. So it is an empty gesture really, sure it is PR win for Trumpy but that is all. His is one among 318 names.. so... naturally a right wing asshole will nominate him. I been waiting for it.

[TheGlyphstone]

Is it April 1st?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54092960

Rather than looking specifically at what an individual does in the name of peace shouldn't one also look at the whole person and their overall attitudes to caring about and respecting others?

That, and the Nobels have never been about judging character, only actions. Mother Teresa won the award, after all, and Iosef Stalin was nominated twice.

[Oniya]

That, and the Nobels have never been about judging character, only actions. Mother Teresa won the award, after all, and Iosef Stalin was nominated twice.

#KurdishGenocide

[Haibane]

Apparently he's been nominated again by the same far-right Norwegian politician who nominated him in 2018.

Stalin was nominated? Twice? Jesus. He must have paid someone to do it! 

[Sara Nilsson]

Considering how many people can nominate, there is bound to be an asshole among them :)

[TheGlyphstone]

Apparently he's been nominated again by the same far-right Norwegian politician who nominated him in 2018.

Stalin was nominated? Twice? Jesus. He must have paid someone to do it! 

In what little defense can be offered, it was supposedly because he helped defeat Hitler and the Nazis, which is hard to argue with. The total control he had over Soviet internal information networks meant a lot of the really evil stuff he did wasn't known by the wider world for a while.

[gaggedLouise]

Considering how many people can nominate, there is bound to be an asshole among them :)

Yeah, the fact of somebody getting nominated is practically meaningless in itself. It doesn't say anything about the Nobel committee even looking at  the name, they don't even offer  public shortlist of candidates. Literally thousands of people and organizations are nominated each year.

[gaggedLouise]

With Bob Woodward's bombshell tape recordings of conversations with Trump back in February/March, I think it's official: Baghdad Bob is sitting in the Oval Office, and he wants four more years in power, four years of even worse lies and crimes against the American people.

[stormwyrm]

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/bob-woodward-rage-book-trump-coronavirus/index.html

It's pretty fucking damning. Trump, as early as February 7, privately admitted to Bob Woodward in an interview that the coronavirus was deadly, five times deadlier than the seasonal flu, and possibly as lethal as the 1918 flu. This is in stark contrast to his public statements at the time where he downplayed the threat of the virus, which he excuses by saying that he "didn't want to make a panic." Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in a tiny canoe... If instead of downplaying the threat he'd acted decisively with a strict shutdown and a consistent message about masks and social distancing, many thousands of Americans could have been saved.

Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats has gone on record to Woodward, saying that Trump is "dangerous" and "unfit" to be president, and he seems to be harbouring "the secret belief, one that had grown rather than lessened, although unsupported by intelligence proof, that Putin had something on Trump... How else to explain the president's behavior? Coats could see no other explanation."

[gaggedLouise]

Aaand Trump's first attempt to quash the issue is to turn it against Woodward. Saying, basically: Hey, if this guy Bob Woodward thought these quotes were so strange and alarming, ythen shouldn't he have rushed them to the press right away, within the next few weeks? The fact that he didn't shows that *he* didn't think them alarming at the time, either.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1304042651147284480

Of course, Trump thinks no one has any idea how the White House would have responded if there had *been* an article about these taped quotes already in March (and before the first recognized US corona deaths). Like, how did he respond to Bolton's book, even before it was published? Or to his niece's book? Or to attempts to subpoena Don McGahn to hearings about the Dept. of Justice at Congress?

[Callie Del Noire]

Let’s be honest, he did nothing because most of the clusters would be in major cities and thought that equaled his opposition so in his mind no one of consequence

[Oniya]

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-woodward-i-saved-his-ass-mbs-khashoggi-rage-2020-9?utmSource=twitter&utmContent=referral&utmTerm=topbar&referrer=twitter

Trump brags about saving MBS from Congressional actions (i.e. bypassing Congress to make an arms deal, blocking resolutions to stop the sale, and blocking a resolution to end support for the Saudis in Yemen) after getting information about the dismemberment of WP reporter Jamal Kashoggi.

[gaggedLouise]

At a rally in Michigan yesterday, Trump compared himself fighting Corona to Churchill (!) (FDR, too) and invoked two famous statements of the "spirit of 1940". First, quoting Churchill: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!" and then the famous poster: "Keep Calm and Carry On - that's what I did!". 

Saying that this is a stupid travesty is an understatement.

Health safety precautions at the rally were practically nonexistent, from looking at a video stream of it. Some of the people who showed up, standing packed together, chanting in chorus and shouting their heads off, are definitely going to spread the virus around, with dire effects for them, their families or people they might meet in the coming weeks. Trump has fresh blood on his hands, but I guess that's not really news anymore.

[Oniya]

I had a history teacher in 9th grade who was a real Churchill fanboy.  If he's still around, he's probably stalking around his home or classroom reciting:

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal. But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, “come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.”

[Laughing Hyena]

Pity no one has on loop the words "Chinese Hoax" with each and every face that is gone now because of this pandemic "Hoax". Would be a real good reminder for November. My deepest concern is that all of it won't matter and we see four more years with this cancerous growth as our Commander in Chief.

[gaggedLouise]

Pity no one has on loop the words "Chinese Hoax" with each and every face that is gone now because of this pandemic "Hoax". Would be a real good reminder for November. My deepest concern is that all of it won't matter and we see four more years with this cancerous growth as our Commander in Chief.

A couple of times now, over the last three weeks, I've been quoting the haunting final lines from the chorus of "The Knife", this classic track by Genesis about leaders and followers, and the dangers of violent utopian politics...quoting them when I've posted about Trump on other forums. Peter Gabriel, aged twenty, sings:

Some of you are going to die,
Martyrs of course to the freedom that I shall provide.

The guy in the lyrics was probably meant to be a spoof of revolutionary left-wing icons and the fantasies about them at the time - I mean, in 1970 there were Che Guevara and Mao posters in student rooms and cafés all across Europe and the UK - but the song invites new readings as time moves on. Today it's easy to see the parallels with both al-Qaeda and Jair Bolsonaro in the unhinged, bloodthirsty revolutionary of those lyrics. Or Hitler and other fascists, of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBYPPjLJO5U