If there’s news or issues from the USA worth discussing today you can do it here.
US discussion – Saturday
Posted by Pete George on February 25, 2017
https://yournz.org/2017/02/25/us-discussion-saturday-3/
Previous Post
Media watch – Saturday
Media watch – Saturday
Next Post
Comical Donny and the buttons
Comical Donny and the buttons
22 Comments
-
Posts
- Media watch – Wednesday
- Open Forum – Wednesday
- General chat
- World watch – Wednesday
- ANZAC Day 2018
- No cost analysis, no consultation, no idea on oil and gas ban
- A third of homes have mould problems
- A lot to learn about a serious renewable energy strategy
- Waikeria prison decision deferred again
- Presidential parade
- Media watch – Tuesday
- General chat
- Open Forum – Tuesday
- World watch – Tuesday
- Hooton apologises to Steven Joyce
- ‘Nuclear-free moment’ a bad climate analogy
- Middlemore hospital sewerage problems were politicised shit fight
- Flaws in land management report need to be rectified quickly
- Risky rush to hand out Provincial Growth funds
- Peters: Commonwealth leaders excited about trade agreement
Search this blog:
Recent Comments
- Gezza on Media watch – Tuesday
- Gezza on General chat
- Trevors_Elbow on ANZAC Day 2018
- Gezza on No cost analysis, no consultation, no idea on oil and gas ban
- sorethumb on Open Forum – Tuesday
- Pickled Possum on No cost analysis, no consultation, no idea on oil and gas ban
- Pickled Possum on General chat
- Blazer on No cost analysis, no consultation, no idea on oil and gas ban
- Gezza on Open Forum – Tuesday
- Gezza on Waikeria prison decision deferred again
- Gezza on No cost analysis, no consultation, no idea on oil and gas ban
- Blazer on Open Forum – Tuesday
- sorethumb on Open Forum – Tuesday
- Alan Wilkinson on Waikeria prison decision deferred again
- sorethumb on Open Forum – Tuesday
Meta
Archives
RSS Links
NZ Politics
- 2017 Act Party Andrew Little asset sales Auckland Australia Bill English Cameron Slater cannabis Clare Curran climate change Colin Craig Conservative Party David Cunliffe David Farrar David Parker David Seymour David Shearer defamation dirty politics Donald Trump Dunedin election flag GCSB government Grant Robertson Green Party Greens Hillary Clinton Hone Harawira housing immigration Internet Party Jacinda Ardern James Shaw John Key Judith Collins Kim Dotcom Kiwiblog Labour leadership lprent Mana Party Maori Party marijuana Martyn Bradbury Metiria Turei National New Zealand Nicky Hager Northland NZ First NZ Herald parliament Peter Dunne Phil Goff police poll referendum Roy Morgan Russel Norman Russia Steven Joyce The Daily Blog The Nation The Standard TPPA Trans Pacific Partnership Trevor Mallard UK United Future USA Whale Oil Winston Peters
Gezza
/ February 25, 2017DA TRUMPSTA’s best tweets so far today:
……
‘S&P 500 Edges Higher After Trump Renews Jobs Pledge’
……
Seven people shot and killed yesterday in Chicago. What is going on there – totally out of control. Chicago needs help!
……
Big interview tonight by Henry Kravis at The Business Council of Washington. Looking forward to it!
……
The FBI is totally unable to stop the national security “leakers” that have permeated our government for a long time. They can’t even……
……
find the leakers within the FBI itself. Classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on U.S. FIND NOW
……
Going to CPAC!
……
Must have got internet back. [Ed.]
……
More tweets may possibly be found here when he has spare time:
https://mobile.twitter.com/realdonaldtrump
……
Sat 25 Feb 2017. 0555 hours
Nelly Smickers
/ February 25, 2017A very good friend of *Chucks* in LA has started following me on twitter…..Richie sent this link thru last night which looks to me to be really, really disturbing
It would be particularly interesting to get *BJM’s* take on it ❗
Alan Wilkinson
/ February 25, 2017Judging by the rest of that website, just a lot of Lefty Fake News, Nelly.
Nelly Smickers
/ February 25, 2017Easy to dismiss it as that, of course, Al. In between preparing lunch, I decided to google each of those names mentioned in the *Palmer Report*……6 out of the 7 have died exactly as described (the exception being Sergei Mikhailov, who according to the NYT was arrested in January for treason).
As Wayne’s mum often sez, “Sometimes the truth can be stranger than fiction”
Joe Bloggs
/ February 25, 2017agree Nelly, it’s very easy to dismiss news or commentary as Lefty Fake News.
The right are great at tactics like this – they’ve usurped the expression ‘political correctness’ to raise the bogeyman of powerful forces determined to suppress inconvenient truths by policing language.
The right uses of “fake news” and “political correctness” as attack weapons to challenge what they see as the dominance of liberalism and to attack left-leaning tendencies within the academy. “Political correctness” became a term used to drum into the public imagination the idea that there was a deep divide between the “ordinary people” and the “liberal elite”, who sought to control the speech and thoughts of regular folk.
And by resorting to these same memes the right can displace responsibility for the hardship that many of their fellow citizens are facing
Nelly Smickers
/ February 25, 2017*DOTUS* attempts to deflect MSM attention *away* from Sweden…..
Pete George
/ February 25, 2017High Flying Duck
/ February 25, 2017Fake news! Trumps hands are Yuuuuge!
High Flying Duck
/ February 25, 2017And he is not a Warmonger…
Pete George
/ February 25, 2017I don’t think we can make that conclusion yet. What if there’s a terrorist strike on the US? Or on US troops in the Middle East or elsewhere? Or things blow up in Korea or the South China Sea or the Ukraine or Latvia or Slovakia? Trump’s reaction is difficult to predict at this stage. But he has said he wants to massively enlarge the US military.
High Flying Duck
/ February 25, 2017I was just posting a light hearted picture – but you are correct, he has not been tested as yet. He has been bullish with potential enemy states, but brinkmanship is a big part of keeping the peace. Tread softly but carry a big stick.
There are many preconceptions, but no evidence either way.
High Flying Duck
/ February 25, 2017And no-one is more presidential than the Donald.
Anonymous Coward
/ February 25, 2017Arizona not only buys into the notion of Paid Protesters, but approves a bill that will allow authorities to seize property from ANY protester at a protest id damage occurs.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170223/11402636779/arizona-legislators-approve-bill-that-would-allow-government-to-seize-assets-protesters.shtml
Pete George
/ February 25, 2017High Flying Duck
/ February 25, 2017Unfortunately neither do CNN:
“CNN whose boss is on record of threatening the use of CNN resources to paint Trump in a negative light -what is blackmail? And its public!”
Pete George
/ February 25, 2017bjmarsh1
/ February 25, 2017I have been puzzling over why Trump is so insistent about getting the FBI to find the leakers, and to come up publicly with a statement that clears his Administration Officials of collaborating with the Russians. To add to this is the circumstances of the 7 Russian operatives/officials deaths. The point about the Russian deaths is their apparent unfavourable view of Putin’s strategy and his priority of increasing military power to back up his vision for a greater Russia within the boundaries of the old Soviet Socialist Republic. His KGB/GRU experience would lead him to nip the problem in the bud. There is signs of growing opposition to the amount of the economic burden being carried by the Russian proletariat.
Back to the hard one. Why is Trump still banging on about the Russian connection. I consider that he is aware of the Democratic’s thesis as to why Hilary lost. If Trump can disprove that thesis, then the claims to his Presidency being illegitimate will be dead for ever.
The clue to this shows up in reports about the Democrats election for the Chair of the DNC, as follows:
“Senior Democrats in Congress, such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), have argued that Clinton would have won without a few bad breaks, Russian intervention, and FBI head James Comey’s email investigation. To throw that away in exchange for the unproven approach Sanders represents, they argue, would be madness — particularly given that Obama’s coalition carried two presidential elections already.”
There it is the two reasons why Hilary lost according to senior Diplomats. That whole thesis crumbles when the Russian element is disproved. Remember, Wikileaks have disclaimed Russian origins for the hacked and authentic Clinton and Podesta Emails.
bjmarsh1
/ February 25, 2017I would also add that there is a degree of US Officials contacts between the Russian Embassy and the State Department. Most of these are formal third person notes addressed to the Russian Ambassador and a record is kept of them. The language used is very formal. When informal contact is made by telephone or email, they would be recorded. Any contacts outside of the office must be reported, and will be viewed by the US Counter Intelligence officers in relation to personal security clearances and the officer concerned may be interviewed. (debriefed). The FBI would thus need to look at reports and seek explanations for any contacts not recorded. I have no doubt that this routine intercourse occurred in the Obama administration and would have logically been a routine during the handover period. Nothing sinister in that. So other contacts would stick out like the proverbial, and acted on routinely.
[Fixed gremlins in last comment. PG]
Pete George
/ February 25, 2017bjmarsh1
/ February 25, 2017Those who read and quote the”Washington Post” like me should genuinely be aware of the following:
“News media should illuminate conflicts of interest, not embody them. But the owner of the Washington Post is now doing big business with the Central Intelligence Agency, while readers of the newspaper’s CIA coverage are left in the dark.
The Post’s new owner, Jeff Bezos, is the founder and CEO of Amazon — which recently landed a $600 million contract with the CIA. But the Post’s articles about the CIA are not disclosing that the newspaper’s sole owner is the main owner of CIA business partner Amazon.
Even for a multi-billionaire like Bezos, a $600 million contract is a big deal. That’s more than twice as much as Bezos paid to buy the Post four months ago.
And there’s likely to be plenty more where that CIA largesse came from. Amazon’s offer wasn’t the low bid, but it won the CIA contract anyway by offering advanced high-tech “cloud” infrastructure.
Bezos personally and publicly touts Amazon Web Services, and it’s evident that Amazon will be seeking more CIA contracts. Last month, Amazon issued a statement saying, “We look forward to a successful relationship with the CIA.”
As Amazon’s majority owner and the Post’s only owner, Bezos stands to gain a lot more if his newspaper does less ruffling and more soothing of CIA feathers.
Amazon has a bad history of currying favour with the U.S. government’s “national security” establishment. The media watch group FAIR pointed out what happened after WikiLeaks published State Department cables: “WikiLeaks was booted from Amazon’s web-hosting service AWS. So at the height of public interest in what WikiLeaks was publishing, readers were unable to access the WikiLeaks website.”
How’s that for a commitment to the public’s right to know?”
We as Kiwis should be aware that our rules do not apply in the US situation, and also be not so naive as to take things as they appear. The old adage in Crime and Intelligence is to follow the money, and thats where it starts. The equation is Money (M) equals Power (P), and the reverse is also true. Mathematically it starts as M=P, and logically P=M. So the more power you have the richer you become. Now look at what is said above and think about why ownership of the Washington Post becomes important. You are all smart enough to draw your own conclusions. The result of your thinking about the information is called “Intelligence”. Sleep well!
Nelly Smickers
/ February 25, 2017A really, really interesting read BJ…..and might I say, you are one of the most eloquent and knowledgeable *janitors* I have ever come across XD
bjmarsh1
/ February 25, 2017Thank you Nelly, I try and look in the corners and up on the ceilings as well, you know the bits the broad brush ones forget!