kgwilson

Hitler did it and look what happened. He was even jailed in the 30s & Trump should now be stripped of his office & convicted of sedition. It probably won't happen and this would inflame and embolden his hard core base of rusted on conspiracist nutters. It was good to see the penny finally dropping from some of the far right members of the senate like Lindsay Graham & Pence finally removed his brown nose.

I prefer my 0 day week though sometimes it seems back to front.

The US death toll from Covid-19 is tipped to exceed 165,000 this month alone. Add that to the 362,000 already and you have more deaths than all the wars they have been involved in since World War 1. Hows that for a smart wealthy democracy or should I say a dumb wealthy despotic flawed democracy.

Just when you think it's all over Trump comes up with another scheme and this time the entire 1 hour phone call was recorded. The desperation has now got to the stage of telling the Georgia election officials to find him nearly 12,000 votes which is effectively voter fraud. So if he manages to get this done he will have been right all along only it is him committing fraud. Of course the Republican Secretary of State told him there was none so he tried threatening him. This is better than a real soap opera. This can be added to the multitude of other criminal acts he has committed seemingly with impunity since he found out a sitting president is pretty much immune to prosecution. Well in 15 days time that is all gone. The question is will Biden have the balls to prosecute him early on in his administration. I think not. They may begin putting it all together & then hit him between the eyes in a couple of years but it is the fuxed up rusted on ignorant gun toting supporters that will have to be dealt with as well.

Guilianis first court appearance in more than 25 years did not go well. He is only there because most of Trumps other lawyers have wisely withdrawn. As expected he made wild claims and produced no evidence, failed to understand normal points of law and even the word opacity. His case had 2 voters named as co-plaintiffs saying they'd been denied the right to vote and it sought to invalidate the votes of 6.8 million people. Of course there was no answer when the Judge said "How can this possibly be justified". It's a complete sham and a sideshow that is eating up cash provided by Trumps crazed supporters and achieving absolutely nothing. There will probably be a comedy TV series about next year.

I'll get back to the original track. US voters have become increasingly distrustful of politicians for years especially those in the rust and bible belts. Their view and influence they felt was being steadily eroded with liberal and socialist ideals and that politicians were all self serving and failing to represent them. Many evangelical or conservative Christians felt their voice had been completely over ruled by the Californian and New York/New England views. While they were Republicans many were also more right leaning and harboured racist and very conservative gun toting views and most are white. Along comes Trump, a business man, a self made billionaire (so he told them) and reality TV star. He said disgraceful things, was shown to have done disgraceful things but he struck a chord with them saying what a lot of them felt deep down but could not say publicly and he was there to drain the political swamp. They elected him. They didn't care about the lies, his dastardly deeds, he was their man. Four years down the track and his malignant narcissism, dishonesty, ignorance and cons have not fazed them at all. They believe him emphatically, all 22,000 times that he has lied are irrelevant to them and several thousand turned up in Washington to support his ridiculous assertion that he really won the election. Now all the media is fake (maybe except Brietbart). These supporters have become fanatics just as those of other despots around the world are. There is no reasoning with them. It is just a bit sad that most Republican senators are still afraid to stand up & accept the facts. So 73 million voted for him but 79 million voted for Biden. A lot of republicans voted for him because they are republicans not because they like Trump. He may have awakened many who were apolitical through his diviciveness and the polls showing he was headed for a landslide defeat but this also galvanised democrats and disaffected republicans to get him out. And they succeeded. Trump showed that he was prepared to do anything to stay in power. What he does after 20 January is anyones guess. He may start his own TV station or leave the country. He will be tied up in lawsuits for years. He may have a tilt at another term in 2024. Meanwhile US politics will get back to something resembling normality with the Republicans running the Senate & Democrats congress so the so called swamp is still there. Biden was considered a poor choice by many but he is experienced, humble and most of all is not a complete a$$hole like Trump.

Maybe that's the last thing Kayleigh McEnany will do. He's taught her to lie as well as he does. The latest is the march by about 5000 super trumpers in Washington DC. They'd been gathering for days from the redneck states & included all the usual suspects like the proud boys. McEnany told the press there were a million of them, 200 times more than were actually there.

The poms are hardly likely to start a nuclear war but they do have the capacity. Their vanguard class nuclear subs are pretty lethal with the new dreadnought class currently under construction thought to be superior to anything else out there and the new Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers are second only to the US nuclear carriers and in many ways actually better. These are all being built by BAE systems that arose as the phoenix of the British Aircraft industry & is now the 3rd largest military equipment company in the world and the only foreign company supplying the US military.

That's why USA is classified as a flawed democracy & at No 25 in the world. It crossed the line from full to flawed in 2016. Partisanship & Trump were the main reasons given although it had been declining for years due to declining trust in government.

One thing that always intrigues me is that Americans consider themselves to have the greatest democracy in the world when in fact they rank No 25 under the EIU world democracy index and are actually considered a flawed democracy. The way their system works seems pretty flawed to me as well although I have not researched the Economic Intelligence Units process of determining this. Trump seemed determined to move towards Authoritarianism by garnering support from a fanatical group who cared little for truth and justice but the majority of republicans who voted for him were more concerned about the enemy of Socialism than they were of Trump so turned a blind eye. I was surprised to find out that about 100 million Americans are evangelical Christians and almost all are exclusively republican. This puts them in the same boat as fundamentalist muslims or any other fanatical religious nut job religions. What goes on inside the vocal beer bbq & guns mob heads is a mystery as well. Most Americans I have come to know and those I was in business with when I was there were fine people but there was always an undercurrent that I did not get close to, nor did I want to.

I just listened to Biden speak and he spoke with confidence, humility, dignity and clarity although his stutter did show itself a couple of times. What a breath of fresh genuine air that has not been heard in the past 4 years from the POTUS. If his lead in Pennsylvania gets beyond the 0.5% margin requiring a recount (currently it is at 0.4%) I think he will declare victory. Trumps legal challenges have all been thrown out so far bar the one to get a bit closer to the counters in Philly. I wonder if Trump will try to pardon himself as he reckons he can between now & Bidens inauguration. That will be funny to watch.

I think a landslide victory depends on how you define it. If Biden wins in Pennsylvania and Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, the number of Electoral college votes will be well in his favour by 304 to 229 & even North Carolina is in doubt so if Biden got that as well it would be 319 to 214. That looks like a landslide to me. With several million votes still to count Biden has received the most votes in American history and is 4 million ahead of Trump. Trumps pathological lying has made him the architect of his own demise. He declared months ago that the election was going to be rigged & told everyone postal voting was fraudulent & told his supporters to vote on the day ignoring all health concerns. Biden encouraged postal voting specifically for health reasons. Guess what, early counting favoured Trump as in person on the day votes are counted first. Postal votes are favouring Biden by a margin of about 4 to 1. As is often said, a good horse always comes from behind.

Another factor in the disunited states is the absolute fear of anything considered socialist especially among those with lower education living in the mid west and southern states. McCarthyism is alive and well here. Trump has seized upon this fear and fed it well. The fact that such things as free healthcare would benefit these people immensely, they associate it with communism and lack of what they see as freedom. In a way it is not surprising that the rate of Covid infection has mushroomed when it costs $150.00 to get a test and the average annual wage in the US is $US33,000.00. The other is the absolute refusal to believe published statistics by the MAGA brigade & even educated Trump supporters who believe emphatically that Trumps record on the economy is unprecedented. Obamas job creation program is the longest in American history at 74 months straight averaging 199,000 a month, GDP growth exceeded 4% four times during Obamas time. Trump has never achieved 4% once. Obama inherited 10% unemployment & brought it down to 4.7%. The major reason for the economy going well during Trumps first 3 years were policies put in place by the Obama regime. Now due to Trumps failure to deal with the pandemic the US is in a way worse position than it could have been with a proper response. And yet the election is on a knife edge. Trump should have been thrown out but that hasn't happened although in all likelihood Biden will get there with Trump screaming and kicking BS all the way. If Trump ends up being prosecuted for even half the things he could be done for he will still be in court (or jail) in 4 years time. That is unless he manages to leave the country to skip all the debts he has to repay.

Well OT you are on the money so far as at 10:23 pm EDT. Trump & republicans have done as you say & Biden may just get over the line gaining Arizona & leading in Wisconsin. Pennsylvania is the key now I'd say.

It is also not that hard to modify a semi automatic to become a fully automatic machine gun.

The Trump campaign is getting really desperate now asking for more donations saying Biden must pay for his Treasonous plot of spying on his campaign & blaming it on the Russians. Trump says he wants to make a statement so big that even the fake new won't be able to ignore it & if the donation is made in the next hour (8/10 6.30pm) it would be 825% matched. It gets crazier by the hour there.

Personally I think making voting compulsory is undemocratic. Why force people to go to a voting place & then they just put in a blank sheet or spoil the paper. It would never work in the US. They have this idea of freedom that even a health pandemic can't deal with so some consider it their right not to comply or wear masks and also their right to pass on whatever they have to anyone else. Voting is not compulsory in NZ but they regularly get very high voter turnouts. I think it comes down to social responsibility. There is very little of that in the US. Each state has a different voter registration system and eligibility is a major issue as in most cases you have to have resided at the same address for a year to register so it works against the young, the less well off and the black population.

We will have to reduce our numbers by several billion to make a difference. 2.5 Billion in 1950 when I was born, now there are 7.8 billion. Even WW2 that killed over 50 million didn't stop the growth. Officially Covid has killed just over a million in 10 months, not even a gnats hair chink in the planets population surge. Trump got back to the White house today, still contagious & immediately took his mask off & aides were seen milling about also without masks. He says he feels better than even 20 years ago (lie 21,000 and something) & urged everyone to get back to normal. Winter is not far off & the infection rate is surging again so deaths in the US will hit 300,000 fairly soon. Most of the White House staff will have it by now and a lot republican senators & congressmen are becoming infected also. Crazy times in the craziest place on earth.

After his election in 2016 I spoke to a number of people who thought he was the best thing for America in years. I've not met anyone in the past 2 or 3 years who thinks he is anything but a raving lunatic hell bent on destroying America so long as he looks good (to him) all the way through it.

Penny Wong is probably the only politician in Australia since I have been here (15 years now) who would be a true leader if given the opportunity even though she says she doesn't want it. I think that like Jacinda she would be able to command respect and provide empathy in any of the crises there have been and are yet to come. She always seems calm and with just a few well chosen words seems able to disarm loudmouth critics with ease. The transition to a renewable energy economy would actually be led by government rather that individuals and companies. Such leadership is rare in the world of today with populist fossil fueled loudmouths getting far more attention than they deserve hastening the climate tipping point that Covid has so conveniently slowed in the last 6 months.

I wonder if this was a decision by the military to counter Trumps attitude towards the other NATO countries saying they weren't contributing enough. The cost of this stunt with 65 year old aircraft is probably equal to the annual contribution of the smaller NATO members. Fuel capacity is almost 48,000 US gallons with a ferry range of 8,700 NM so they are thirsty beasts. The fact that they are still flying is impressive. Their use as a promo probably not unreasonable as they are pretty big & slow at 440 knots so easy to spot. As a deterrent though they are almost completely useless unless they are carrying Nukes.

Also Kelly Anne Conway his original campaign manager & special adviser has resigned. Not altogether surprising given he called her husband a whack job among other insults when he started the Lincoln group although the reason is given as more time with the family which seems to be the standard if you don't want to get a string of insulting derogatory tweets from the Orange dork. Plus 27 former republican members of congress including 3 former Senators have banded together to announce their support for Biden. The writing is on the wall.

Like all Generals Monty made mistakes. Probably his biggest was Operation Market Garden. But he also had many successes. He was though a very good leader and his men followed him willingly. Patton on the other hand was the complete opposite.

It was Boeings arrogance and failure to deal with its problems & not Covid that they ended up with heaps of 737 Max's that has now been exacerbated by the pandemic. The engineers knew it along with most of their employees. The board and senior executives thought they could sort it all out as they'd been able to do for the past 20 years with impunity but the chickens eventually came home to rest.

These are old photos based on an article published in May 2014. It had photos mostly from a 2009 Getty Images collection & although real don't depict the current situation. There is no evidence to suggest this is currently happening. See https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/unsold-cars/ and https://www.hoax-slayer.net/unsold-car-stockpile-images/