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Don't get me wrong here, But I LIKE Donald Trump.


Phil Perry

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You fellas are stimulating my idle curiosity in the middle east direction.. darn it.. don't really have the time as I am doing other things at the moment....

 

With all of this, I still can't see how Israel is likened to Hitler. Yes, they have benen oppressive and brutal, but it would appear to be a fight for its survuival rather than systematic extermination. And there is no evidence that Israel has sought to want to have them all exterminated (that anyone can point me to). @Yenn, the claim that the Jews simply took the land doesn't seem entirely true either. Accordig to Wikipedia, after the Ottomans allowed limited purchase of Palestinian land, the Jews actually bought a lot of the land - faciliated by wealthy Arabs..(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine)  Yes, since wars declared and infitada - the land taken has been less curteous but as I recall, Germany had large swathes of Prussia before WWI (or was it WWII), and I don't hear anyone protesting to have it returned to them.. I guess a product of war is you can lose or gain land. It would probably also go some way to explain why the Palestinian state was fragmented between Gaza and the West Bank? Also, Israel did retrun the whole Sinai to Egypt under the pretence of peace.. Of course, as with anything ME related, nothing is simple.

 

My point is I can't see the parallels betwen Hitler and Israel. The more I look into it, the less I can see it.. With the sole exception of "expanionism".. but Israel's expansion came as the result of wars waged against it - not some  vicious land grab as people assert (referring again to the purchase - of course, merely purchasing land does not mean you can self-govern)..

 

Yes, Israel has the backing of the US.. but for it's two first big wars, it didn't... I believe in the 1966 war (and since), at least Egypt had the backing of the Russians... to the point the Russians were involved in the fighting at least once.. So it is not all a one-way street..

 

Maybe we should break this off to a separate thread.. Trump may be getting jealous he isn't getting all the attention 😉

 

So my question is do you think it is a better road for the Palestinians to get their independent state for the Arab world to make true and lasting peace(there will always be squabbles), or do you think it will be easier to pursue isolation and conflict? Of course, this may have to be predicated by the Arab world obtaining peace amongst themselves as well.. something at least in modern times seems more remote than peace with Israel.

Edited by Jerry_Atrick
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6 hours ago, willedoo said:

There were a few others in between as well. Joh's own party gave him the boot and installed Mike Ahern as Premier who was followed by Russell Cooper. Russell Cooper's Nationals lost to Labor's Wayne Goss. Goss won two elections but then lost their majority in a by-election and the Nationals were back with Rob Borbidge as Premier for two years. Borbidge lost to Labor's Peter Beatty who was followed by Anna Bligh as Premier.

 

Interesting that this election sees Queensland transition to four year terms. If Labor get back in, the LNP would have only been in government five out of thirty five years by the end of the next term.

Wasn't there some RWNJ in there for a short time... Campbell Newman?

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43 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

PS I can't recall, did he actually DO anything memorable?

 

Not much. Sacked a lot of public servants, accused Labor of being funded by the bikies, and told the citizenry that we wouldn't get promised government funding in our electorates if we elected a Labor member. I think even his own party saw him as an embarrassment. He was a temporary prickle in Queensland's undies.

 

The crazy thing is that the LNP bumped him in there as a messiah to win the election, and they didn't really need to. Anna Bligh's government was on the nose to the point that former LNP leader John-Paul Langbroek would have won anyway. It was a bizzarre affair. Newman challenged for the LNP leadership and won, but he wasn't a member of parliament. So some lackey was appointed interim leader until the election even though Newman called the shots from outside parliament. Newman won his seat and became instant Premier. As an example of how bad he was, at the election after his first term, Labor only held seven seats in parliament and won government from the LNP. It was the biggest electoral defeat in Australia's history.

 

Some similarities between Newman and Trump. Both touted as messiah, both turned into embarrassing nut jobs after being elected.

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3 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

a better road for the Palestinians to get their independent state

There is one big religious problem to be sorted - access to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Sacred to the three Abrahamic religions. Until all people can carry out their religious observances there without interference from the other two religions, the fights will continue.

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On 30/10/2020 at 9:27 PM, old man emu said:

There is one big religious problem to be sorted - access to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Sacred to the three Abrahamic religions. Until all people can carry out their religious observances there without interference from the other two religions, the fights will continue.

Can't they just time share it?  One lot get Mondays & Thursdays, another lot get it Tuesdays & Fridays, third lot Wednesdays & Saturdays and it's closed for cleaning Sundays.

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Well, one lot wants it midday  Friday. Another wants it from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday, and the third lot want it on Sunday, except for Good Friday when they want it on Friday afternoon. That works pretty well. It's just the traffic jams as the changeover takes place.

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:off topic:  Sort of.

 

Everyone has been urging people to vote for Trump or vote for Biden, but has already been noted, Joe Citizen doesn't actually vote for the person he wants as President. Sure, he casts a vote that indicates who he wants as President, but it is a vote to determine which Electoral College members his State will send to the Electoral College. Electoral College refers to the group of presidential electors required by the United States Constitution to form every four years for the sole purpose of electing the president and vice president of the United States.  Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution provides that each state shall “appoint” electors selected in a manner its legislature determines. 

 

Electors are selected state-by-state, as determined by the laws of each state.  Most states have appointed their electors winner-take-all, based on the statewide popular vote on Election Day. The slate of electors that represent the winning ticket in a state or Washington, D.C., will vote for those two offices. Electors are nominated by a party and pledged to vote for their party's candidate. Many states require an elector to vote for the candidate to which the elector is pledged, and most electors do regardless, but some "faithless electors" have voted for other candidates or refrained from voting.

 

The original plan of the Electoral College was based upon several assumptions and anticipations of the Framers of the Constitution:

1. Choice of the president should reflect the "sense of the people" at a particular time, not the dictates of a faction in a "pre-established body" such as Congress or the State legislatures, and independent of the influence of "foreign powers".

2. The choice would be made decisively with a "full and fair expression of the public will" but also maintaining "as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder".

3. Individual electors would be elected by citizens on a district-by-district basis. Voting for president would include the widest electorate allowed in each state.

4. Each presidential elector would exercise independent judgment when voting, deliberating with the most complete information available in a system that over time, tended to bring about a good administration of the laws passed by Congress.

5. Candidates would not pair together on the same ticket with assumed placements toward each office of president and vice president.

6. The system as designed would rarely produce a winner, thus sending the presidential election to the House of Representatives.

 

Idea 5 went by the boards when the Part system developed and a Party proposed candidates for President and Vice-President. The custom of allowing recognized political parties to select a slate of prospective electors developed early. In contemporary practice, each presidential-vice presidential ticket has an associated slate of potential electors. Then on Election Day, the voters select a ticket and thereby select the associated electors. Candidates for elector are nominated by state chapters of nationally oriented political parties in the months prior to Election Day. That effectively cuts out Idea 4. The practice of "winner takes all" means that the electors sent from a State are simply "Yes" men who cast their vote for their Party's candidate. 

 

A "faithless elector" is one who does not cast an electoral vote for the candidate of the party for whom that elector pledged to vote. Thirty-three states plus the District of Columbia have laws against faithless electors, which were first enforced after the 2016 election, where ten electors voted or attempted to vote contrary to their pledges. Faithless electors have never changed the outcome of a U.S. election for president. So State laws also prevent the application of Idea 4.

 

These are the States that ban faithless electors:

220px-Faithless_elector_states.svg.png

 

The constitutionality of state pledge laws was confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1952 in Ray v. Blair in a 5–2 vote. The court ruled states have the right to require electors to pledge to vote for the candidate whom their party supports, and the right to remove potential electors who refuse to pledge prior to the election. The ruling only held that requiring a pledge, not a vote, was constitutional and Justice Jackson, joined by Justice Douglas, wrote in his dissent:

No one faithful to our history can deny that the plan originally contemplated what is implicit in its text – that electors would be free agents, to exercise an independent and nonpartisan judgment as to the men best qualified for the Nation's highest offices.

One recent legal scholar believes "a state law that would thwart a federal elector’s discretion at an extraordinary time when it reasonably must be exercised would clearly violate Article II and the Twelfth Amendment"

 

One wonders if there will be faithless electors in 2020. I doubt if the faithlessness with exhibit itself in jumping the fence. More like failing to have a go at jumping it.

 

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Not long now but it has still been all too long.

The election is not about who is the better, Trump or Biden? It is more about a sanity check for the electors.

If Biden wins they are voting for a has been that should never have been promoted int the position, but maybe they are hoping that he will be declared unfit to govern ans they will have their first lady President.

If Trump wins it will just show that the electorate will accept any pack of lies, so long as it suits their ego. They don't have the fall back on Pence, because he has been inconsequential all the way since 2016.

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 Whichever way the American election goes, there remains a more important imperative. Whichever way this American election pans out, there remains one issue to be addressed.

 

It is clear that the great American concept of democracy has become so corrupted that it no longer serves the best interests of the people. Most recently it has degenerated into a psychological media manipulation war instead of a rational policy discussion.

 

To correct this problem requires revisiting the intentions of the founding fathers and overhauling the constitution and the democratic process.

 

Unfortunately this is most unlikely. The only likely outcome is civil unrest, (whoever wins this particular contest), probably enough to show that despotic dictators can outperform the coming American 'democracy' over the next few years.

 

Worse for us, it seems that the present Australian Federal government is still depending upon support from 'lobby groups' and 'think tanks' to stay in power instead of long term plans. They seem intent on making us a banana republic (actually a coal republic). And are doing their best to increase our dependency on holes in the ground instead of motivating our home manufacturing base to drag the country towards economic independence.

 

I'm not sure I like the way modern democracy is heading. Is it still the least worst system?

Edited by nomadpete
self control
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The party system should be banned, it is the root cause of the problem. Well meaning people stand for parliament and become corrupted, because they need the party to push for them and they then only work for the party.

Even if we didn't ban the party, we should insist that the cabinet consists of the best people available, with no party requirements.

We have a senate which is supposedly a house of review, but senators are in the cabinet. How can they sit in on the decisions and then review them. It doesn't make sense.

The other problem is that there is no accountability. No minister is ever held responsible for his decisions. Whoever puts his signature on a piece of legislation, should be accountable. The government we have now cannot even govern legally, it fails to follow the requirements of the constitution.

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I beg to disagree. I believe Biden will just fall over the line, and of course, it will be due to postal votes, which are running about 70% in his favour.

 

But I reckon Trump will try to claim the election on the night, just on initial counting, and try to claim all the postal votes counted after the polling places close, are fraudulent.

 

Of course, he has little chance of getting support for that stance - even a number of Republicans are saying that all the postal votes count, provided they have been properly verified.

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It is going to be close.. I have been putting it 60% chance to Trump, 40% Biden and regardless of who wins, increased the chance of civil unrest to 60% and all out civil war stays at 25% The best chances Biden has are potential Trumo own goals:

  • Advising his voters to turn up on the day during a pandemic... If appropriate COVID safeguards are in place, voting will be slower, the queues outside will be longer and people will get impatient and just leave without voting.
  • He may have given enough of his voters COVID that become too ill to go to vote.

If I were voting, it would be a really tough choice. On the one hand, a racist, narcissist despot who is looking to usurp democracy. On the other hand, a meek and weak public servant who only thinks about policy some time after being challenged on issues - and although we know he is likely to resign/retire some time in his first term, we have no idea what KH will really be like as she has been fighting in the B team. The yanks like their leaders to be tough; they like their leaders to be assertive and to some extent these days aggressive. Policies and politics went out the window years ago.

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Trump the peacemaker?

Are the agreements his lackeys have recently stitched up between Israel and Arab states really about peace or just another money-making deal?

More likely the catalyst for a new arms race.

 

The UAE has been trying without success, reportedly for six years, to get permission from Washington to buy F-35s and become the first Arab country to possess them.”

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-54737029

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I am sticking with my earlier prediction of a Biden win.   Part of the reasoning on that is that the mail in votes are extremely high.  We know in states that record whether a vote is from a registered  Dem or Rep.  registered Dems far outnumber registered Rep although there are also a fair few voters with no affiliation.     This is why Trump needs to get his supporters motivated to vote on the day. and why he is keen to throw doubt on mail in ballots. Being a registered Dem or Rep does not of course guarantee that they will vote that way.

 

This election it is thought that  there has so far been a record turnout of young people.   

 

Covid concerns especially amongst the elderly voters. The fact that it is a close race in Texas is interesting.

 

The polling, Now I can just hear everybody saying that "the polls are useless and were so inaccurate last time.    The first point is that they were no as out as people tend to believe although they were out just enough in the states that mattered.   It is known what the polling deficiencies were last time  (under sampling white less educated  males),  This has been addressed this time.  I suspect that pollsters may even be being over cautious this time.

 

I suspect that if Trump does win it will be because mail in votes have been struck out.

 

 

In terms of who should win, I believe that  Biden is the least dangerous option.  Trumps ego and mental state is troubling.    Trump is dangerous because he rejects advice and of course we know what happens to his advisers who don't toe the line.     I suspect Biden may be somewhat ineffectual but will stay inside the norms and will heed advice. I note that at one of yesterdays rallies Trump  promised to sack Anthony Fauci, which leads me to Trumps anti science beliefs.  

 

Trump's biggest talent is being a salesman in terms of talking up his achievements.    One of his greatest achievements has been fostering more division and my greatest fear is if he loses what he will  encourage his nuttier and armed supporters.

 

Whilst the economy was doing reasonably well before covid it has gone significantly downhill lately,  Covid is a significant challenge for any government but doing nothing is not really an option.  

 

Trump is hoping to kill off the affordable care act (Obama care) but when asked what he would replace it with he claims to have a new plan (and of course it is beautiful) but I cant find any details anywhere.  If I were a struggling US citizen I would need to see details.

 

Trump claimed he was going to drain the swamp but the Whitehouse now seems to be a family enterprise.

 

I guess we will see what happens.

 

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I see shops boarding up as if expecting a hurricane. Someone expects trouble.

 

I personally don't believe Trump had Covid. A piece of theatre for the benefits of garnering the sympathy vote. Recovered too quickly, that staged drive-by for his nut-job supporters. Yes, it probably was in the administration precinct, but not DJT. Then there is his ratbag children, DTJr proclaiming the death toll virtually nothing, the day the CDC reported just over 1,000 deaths in one day.

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