President Trump & the USA

[ozleicester]

18 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

Am I wading in to tinfoil hat territory by looking at the fact Trump is quite probably a Russian asset or at least strong ally and that his government shut down, hysteria over the wall and all of these other pointless distractions are happening while Russia are quietly escalating in Ukraine? 

 

 

if you look at the investigations, he is definitely linked to them. Is Trump a russian plant...

 

[bovril]

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

Am I wading in to tinfoil hat territory by looking at the fact Trump is quite probably a Russian asset or at least strong ally and that his government shut down, hysteria over the wall and all of these other pointless distractions are happening while Russia are quietly escalating in Ukraine? 

 

 

It's getting to the point where it'd be weirder if he wasn't. 

[leicsmac]

3 hours ago, Finnegan said:

Am I wading in to tinfoil hat territory by looking at the fact Trump is quite probably a Russian asset or at least strong ally and that his government shut down, hysteria over the wall and all of these other pointless distractions are happening while Russia are quietly escalating in Ukraine? 

 

 

I don't think it'll ever be proven, but there might be some substance under the tinfoil - I mean, is it really coincidence that a bevy of powerful nations have brought in "strongman" autocrats looking inward at the same time Putin is looking to expand outward some?

 

Every time a Bolsonaro gets in someplace the odds of it all being coincidental get longer.

[Finnegan]

I always found it absolutely mental that the whole world just let Russia take Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea without actually doing anything. Even the reporting on it was incredibly moderate, like, "oh there's just some protests over there."

 

Now the Russians are actually capturing Ukrainian ships and making bold claims like "Ukraine won't exist soon" and its barely noticed over all of our Brexit and Trump noise. Both of which had Russian fingerprints all over their polling. 

 

I feel like El Empty here. It's kinda bonkers but isn't it also kinda obvious? Not really sure I understand how the **** they get away with it. 

[bovril]

2 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

I always found it absolutely mental that the whole world just let Russia take Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea without actually doing anything. Even the reporting on it was incredibly moderate, like, "oh there's just some protests over there."

 

Now the Russians are actually capturing Ukrainian ships and making bold claims like "Ukraine won't exist soon" and its barely noticed over all of our Brexit and Trump noise. Both of which had Russian fingerprints all over their polling. 

 

I feel like El Empty here. It's kinda bonkers but isn't it also kinda obvious? Not really sure I understand how the **** they get away with it. 

This is an interesting article:
 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?destination=%2fopinions%2fhere-are-18-reasons-why-trump-could-be-a-russian-asset%2f2019%2f01%2f13%2f45b1b250-174f-11e9-88fe-f9f77a3bcb6c_story.html%3ffbclid%3dIwAR0PIxXE6RIZtYAguOE-eG_M5d-07Id3pkA40aG-AdHz5Lxw1kbc2AezoF0&fbclid=IwAR0PIxXE6RIZtYAguOE-eG_M5d-07Id3pkA40aG-AdHz5Lxw1kbc2AezoF0&utm_term=.dafe0fc901e7
 

For what it's worth I think his slagging off of NATO / EU and his praise of Putin could be just appealing to his supporters, many of whom are keen on Putin's illiberal, strongman persona. But still, many other interesting points and one not mentioned - the link between Alpha Bank and Trump Tower which is maybe the hardest to explain innocently.

 

[leicsmac]

16 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

I always found it absolutely mental that the whole world just let Russia take Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea without actually doing anything. Even the reporting on it was incredibly moderate, like, "oh there's just some protests over there."

 

Now the Russians are actually capturing Ukrainian ships and making bold claims like "Ukraine won't exist soon" and its barely noticed over all of our Brexit and Trump noise. Both of which had Russian fingerprints all over their polling. 

 

I feel like El Empty here. It's kinda bonkers but isn't it also kinda obvious? Not really sure I understand how the **** they get away with it. 

Yeah, it's a bit weird, that's for sure.

 

The only little bit of comfort is that such guys won't "get away" with it for long - at some point if unaddressed by these blokes a global problem is going to stomp all of these nationalists into the mud along with all their works anyway, just a shame that pretty much everyone else will be along for the ride too.

[Lionator]

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

I always found it absolutely mental that the whole world just let Russia take Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea without actually doing anything. Even the reporting on it was incredibly moderate, like, "oh there's just some protests over there."

 

Now the Russians are actually capturing Ukrainian ships and making bold claims like "Ukraine won't exist soon" and its barely noticed over all of our Brexit and Trump noise. Both of which had Russian fingerprints all over their polling. 

 

I feel like El Empty here. It's kinda bonkers but isn't it also kinda obvious? Not really sure I understand how the **** they get away with it. 

Because how do you stop them? Declare all out war? That would be an absolute mess and you'd be looking at millions of deaths. Severe economic sanctions? They'd turn off the gas and it would be economic carnage this side. 

[Guest MattP]

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

I always found it absolutely mental that the whole world just let Russia take Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea without actually doing anything. Even the reporting on it was incredibly moderate, like, "oh there's just some protests over there."

 

Now the Russians are actually capturing Ukrainian ships and making bold claims like "Ukraine won't exist soon" and its barely noticed over all of our Brexit and Trump noise. Both of which had Russian fingerprints all over their polling. 

 

I feel like El Empty here. It's kinda bonkers but isn't it also kinda obvious? Not really sure I understand how the **** they get away with it. 

Not really much we can do to be honest, Ukraine isn't a NATO member so we can't really go to war with Russia on it - this isn't a recent thing either, Putin invaded South Ossetia a decade ago. I find it just as weird that the West (at the time led by Obama) set out red lines on chemical weapons and didn't enforce those, we said after WW1 we wouldn't let that happen again - even Trump's retaliation "strike" was a token effort after Assad gassed his citizens last year.

I'm finding a lot of things strange as the minute on this side of the World, the Iraq invasion has (understandably) killed any desire for us to be intervening anywhere but I didn't realise it had got to the point where dictators could start doing whatever they want.

 

Trump is great for them as well, not only does he not seem to care about anything but he takes all the outrage from the people usually outraged about the things they do.

[Detroit Blues]

2 hours ago, Lionator said:

Because how do you stop them? Declare all out war? That would be an absolute mess and you'd be looking at millions of deaths. Severe economic sanctions? They'd turn off the gas and it would be economic carnage this side. 

The only way you can hurt Russia is their pocket book. If Putin plunges Russia into a further recession because of his aggressive foreign policy actions, and the Oligarchs start losing money, he'll dwindle in popularity. But that would take a global effort from the US, UK, and the EU. Right now we all have too much shit going on, which you could argue is by Putin's design, so we choose to do nothing.

[Detroit Blues]

Pretty big news today: 

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/trump-russia-cohen-moscow-tower-mueller-investigation?ref=hpsplash

 

 

[lifted*fox]

Putin has everyone ****ed

 

clearly his plan of destabilising everyone so he can push on with capturing ukraine uncontested is working perfectly. 

 

we won't do shit about it, just like we didn't do shit about the use of chemical weapons on UK soil because we rely on them for oil and London is a money laundering location for dirty Russian money.

 

he's ****ed America by either employing Trump as a foreign agent or blackmailing him

he's ****ed the UK by interfering in our politics and assisting Brexit 

 

you gotta hand it to him - while the rest of the world has been pissing about he's gone to war with us and everybody has slept on it. 

 

on the other hand we've got Saudi running about murdering people in embassies and we won't do anything about that because we sell them weapons and want their oil too. 

 

and this sums it all up nicely: 

 

 

 at all the ****ing dumb-dumbs who can't see it or refuse to believe that it's happening.

 

right before your very eyes, brash and in the open. lololololollllolololollolol

 

 

Edited 18 January 2019 by lifted*fox

[Mike Oxlong]

So within days of the media reporting that in light of the government shutdown Donald brought in 1000 burgers for attendees at a White House function we hear that the leader of North Korea has wangled himself an invite to Washington 

 

 

 

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46928035

 

Seven years for second-degree murder.

 

I wonder how the powers that be got to that decision and that sentence, compared to other similar cases?

[Bellend Sebastian]

Someone's clearly not read 'So you've been publicly shamed' by Jon Ronson

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46935701

[leicsmac]

7 minutes ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

Someone's clearly not read 'So you've been publicly shamed' by Jon Ronson

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46935701

Or possibly, any history at all, considering who exactly they were chanting "build that wall" at.

[Bellend Sebastian]

19 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Or possibly, any history at all, considering who exactly they were chanting "build that wall" at.

It's not a great advert for the quality of education offered at the fee paying school these slightly odd looking lads apparently attend, is it?

 

They say there's no such thing as bad publicity but I imagine the Principle may be arguing with that today

[lifted*fox]

49 minutes ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

Someone's clearly not read 'So you've been publicly shamed' by Jon Ronson

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46935701

 

disgusting behaviour - the interview with Nathan afterwards where he was in tears is heartbreaking. 

 

round up these kids and stick them in a fvcking incinerator. the world is truly fvcked if this is the future generations coming through. 

 

the guy is a vietnam vet ffs 

 

Edited 20 January 2019 by lifted*fox

[bovril]

20 minutes ago, lifted*fox said:

 

disgusting behaviour - the interview with Nathan afterwards where he was in tears is heartbreaking. 

 

round up these kids and stick them in a fvcking incinerator. the world is truly fvcked if this is the future generations coming through. 

 

the guy is a vietnam vet ffs 

 

It was disgusting behavior but get a grip ffs. 

[lifted*fox]

2 minutes ago, bovril said:

It was disgusting behavior but get a grip ffs. 

 

quite clearly a tongue-in-cheek comment (which you've taken at face value) but I stand by the sentiment that if schools are throwing out people like this en-masse that have zero understanding of their history and are clearly happy to disrespect people for nothing other than the colour of their skin / nationality then they can all get in the bin.  

[bovril]

1 minute ago, lifted*fox said:

 

quite clearly a tongue-in-cheek comment (which you've taken at face value) but I stand by the sentiment that if schools are throwing out people like this en-masse that have zero understanding of their history and are clearly happy to disrespect people for nothing other than the colour of their skin / nationality then they can all get in the bin.  

They're young so they could change (then again they might not). 

[lifted*fox]

5 minutes ago, bovril said:

They're young so they could change (then again they might not). 

 

your positivity is commendable but imo if these kids have picked up strong enough racist tendencies at what, 16, maybe 17 to stand in front of a native american war vet in MAGA hats and stare him down and make fun of him - I don't see a bright future for them, tbh. it seems they are from wealthy white families, probably have racist parents and it seems rather clear that their private school education isn't teaching them about their countries mixed-race heritage, etc. it'll all add up to them growing into parenthood and passing down the same values to their kids. 

 

Edited 20 January 2019 by lifted*fox

[bovril]

Just now, lifted*fox said:

 

your positivity is commendable but imo if these kids have picked up strong enough racist tendencies at what, 16, maybe 17 to stand in front of a native american war vet in MAGA hats and stare him down and make fun of him - I don't see a bright future for them, tbh. it seems they are from wealthy white families, probably have racist parents and it seems rather clear that their private school education isn't teaching them about their countries mixed-race heritage, etc. it'll all add up to them growing into parenthood and passing down the same values to their kids. 

 

You're probably right. But I grew up in a rural area with some kids from quite racist families and I've seen how some have changed over time. But yes, to have that kind of contempt for others at that age is depressing as fvck. 

[lifted*fox]

5 minutes ago, bovril said:

You're probably right. But I grew up in a rural area with some kids from quite racist families and I've seen how some have changed over time. But yes, to have that kind of contempt for others at that age is depressing as fvck. 

 

tbh it's not all doom & gloom - there's plenty of good people and we still outweigh (at the moment, at least) these pocket groups of racists but this sort of thing is on the rise again. we've gone from relatively isolated incidents of racism from individuals to groups of people gathering and being racist together. that's what is so disturbing about it. saw a great comparison photo on reddit and it kind of sums up how little progress we've made: 

 

 

[Jattdogg]

Absolutely shocking footage of those teens taunting the elder man. When i see these videos i understand that feeling of intimidation. As a brown skinned biracial man i didnt witness racism as it was in the 50s 60s 70s but growing up in the 80s it was alive and well very casually used in the area I lived which was near native 'canadian' reserves. I wont bore you with my experiences as its exactly what you would expect from immature teens and ignorant racists.

 

I hope these kids recognize their actions were inappropriate and change for the better. The parents of every single one of those students should feel ashamed of their kids actions and should ensure they are taught what respect means. Kids will be kids and do stupid things (especially as groups) but can still change for the better.

 

 

 

 

 

[leicsmac]

A pertinent quote regarding the above:

 

"Anyone who knew the popular white boys in high school recognized it: the confident gaze, the eyes twinkling with menace, the smirk. The face of a boy who is not as smart as he thinks he is, but is exactly as powerful. The face that sneers, “What? I’m just standing here,” if you flinch or cry or lash out. The face knows that no matter how you react, it wins."