Friday 29th of March 2024

flattery...

flattery

Many of Putin's comments circled back to relations with the United States, including a bit of look-ahead musing on the White House race. Putin said Russia would work with "whomever the American voters choose," but singled out Trump.

He's a very lively man, talented without doubt," Putin said according to the Interfax news service after the three-hour news conference. He added that Trump is the "absolute leader in the presidential race".

"He's saying he wants to go to another level of relations, closer, deeper relations with Russia," Putin continued. "How can we not welcome that? Of course we welcome that."

Trump in October gave a similar assessment of Russia's leader, saying he could "get along very well with" Putin despite differences.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/vladimir-putin-says-donald-trump-is-a-very-lively-man-talented-without-doubt-20151217-glqf7x.html#ixzz3uck4cpmU
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

 

still leading...

When Donald Trump stepped to the podium in a football stadium in Mobile, Alabama, filled with 30,000 people there to hear him spread the gospel of Trump, he was overcome.

"Now I know how the great Billy Graham felt," Trump said last month.

Trump and Graham, the famed Baptist revival preacher and counselor to presidents, are not exactly cut from the same cloth. And yet, Trump is winning over Christian conservatives in the current Republican presidential primary.

 

http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/09/13/439833719/true-believer-why-donald-trump-is-the-choice-of-the-religious-right

when trump is the only one who "makes sense"...

“If you’re in favor of World War III, you have your candidate.”

So said Rand Paul, looking directly at Gov. Chris Christie, who had just responded to a question from CNN’s Wolf Blitzer as to whether he would shoot down a Russian plane that violated his no-fly zone in Syria.

“Not only would I be prepared to do it, I would do it,” blurted Christie: “I would talk to Vladimir Putin … I’d say to him, ‘Listen, Mr. President, there’s a no-fly zone in Syria; you fly in, it applies to you.’

“Yes, we would shoot down the planes of Russian pilots if in fact they were stupid enough to think that this president was the same feckless weakling … we have in the Oval Office … right now.”

Ex-Gov. George Pataki and ex-Sen. Rick Santorum would also impose a no-fly zone and shoot down Russian planes that violated it. Said Gov. John Kasich, “It’s time we punched the Russians in the nose.”

Carly Fiorina would impose a no-fly zone and not even talk to Putin until we’ve conducted “military exercises in the Baltic States” on Russia’s border. Jeb Bush, too, would impose a no-fly zone.

These warhawks apparently assume that President Putin is a coward who, if you shoot down his warplanes, will back away from a fight. Are we sure? After the Turks shot down that Sukhoi SU-24, Moscow sent fighter planes to Syria to escort its bombers and has reportedly deployed its lethal S-300 antiaircraft system there.

 

read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/time-to-stop-the-war-party/

So far, Trump is the only Republican who "makes sense" — as much as a loose cannon — in his planned dealing with Russia (see at top). All the others are loonies, except Rand Paul, but he does not stand a chance against the tide of popular warmongering.

why trump is doomed...

 

Trump Campaign Desperately Looking for New Group to Offend


    On the surface, the Donald Trump campaign to become president for life of the United States of America appears unstoppable.

    Like a cotton-candy-haired perpetually-squinting oddly-tanned robotic juggernaut, Trump is polling strong not only in Iowa but also in the nation at large.


    However, at Trump headquarters all is in a panic as countless staffers rush about the stock market-like floor with large posters of the Donald staring at them from above.

    "We're running out of resources!" complained one wide-eyed staffer who pleaded with us to be kept anonymous lest his college-educated friends realize who he's campaigning for.


    Apparently the major struggle is that Trump is running out of the fuel that has kept his campaign as huuuuge as it is: groups to offend.

    "You would think that in a nation as diverse as ours, this would be a boundless resource," continued the staffer, who was on the cusp of a breakdown.

    "But no. Our supreme leader the Donald has exceeded his supply of groups to insult on the campaign trail. If we cannot find more communities, we're doomed! DOOMED I TELL YOU! DOOMED!!!"


    Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/buzzvine/donald-trump-muslims-mexicans-immigrants-refugees-women-republicans-election-politics-154369/#s5DKwP0sOO5XVBXj.99

Gus has the feeling that this was a spoof article written by one of the bible bashers at the Christian Post... Very drole...

 

trump is polluting european skies...

The story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

parliamentary petition backed by 500,000 people failed to bar Donald Trump from the United Kingdom, but the controversial US presidential candidate and climate change skeptic now faces a new deterrent: a fine for the carbon pollution from one of his enormous private jets.

The Bahrain Royal family, 21st Century Fox America, the company chaired by Rupert Murdoch, and British construction vehicle manufacturers JCB have also been asked to pay up for flights to and from the UK.

The Environment Agency, which is responsible for enforcing the European Union's emissions trading scheme (ETS) in the UK, has issued over £750,000 (roughly $1.1 million) in fines to a total of 25 operators for "failure to surrender sufficient allowances to cover annual reportable emissions".

The ETS requires polluters to surrender a carbon permit for every metric ton of carbon pollution emitted, or pay a €100 ($109) per ton fine. Permits are given to many air operators for free but can be bought if needed for about €8 ($8.72) currently.

read more: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/01/donald-trump-fined-pollution-climate-uk-jet

owen jones writes turdy articles for the guardian...

 


Owen Jones: Tough on meanness, tough on the causes of meanness

by Kit


In his latest piece on Vladimir Putin, Owen Jones demonstrates the weakness of the politically left-of-centre press in the UK – and indeed the Western world as a whole. A certain kind of chinless, sweater-vested, well-meaningness that achieves nothing but smugness and twitter shares. In this article – here – he sets out a political platform that is, in essence, tough on meanness and tough on the causes of meanness.

In its own way it is more insidious than the out-spoken right-wing nonsense of Trump or Farage. Let’s be friendly, he says. Let’s all get along. Everybody should be allowed to do whatever they want…

…and you should go to jail for saying otherwise.

His point is simple – Putin is bad and the left should not apologise for him – and he makes it pretty effectively. He just has to repeat massive geopolitical lies, whilst propping up his own public image as “the guy at the Guardian you wish your daughter would date”.

Let’s dive right in, shall we? The headline:


Putin is a human rights abusing oligarch.


Well, it’s direct at least. But seems to only demonstrate that Mr Jones doesn’t know what “oligarch” means. (Hint, it doesn’t mean “nasty man” Owen). The definition is very simple, and none of it applies to Putin who is not a business magnate and has never worked in anything but government. An Oligarchy is:


…a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people might be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, religious or military control. Such states are often controlled by a few prominent families who typically pass their influence from one generation to the next…


Russia is actually a democracy, though you’d be forgiven for not realising this if you only ever read the Guardian, and Putin is an elected head of state – and a popular one at that. Not an autocrat. Not an oligarch. You can’t force a lie to become true simply through repetition. Interestingly enough, according to researchers at Princeton (that well-known den of pro-Kremlin spies): the USA actually IS an oligarchy. But I digress.


A rightwing authoritarian leader who attacks civil liberties, stigmatises lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, indulges in chauvinistic nationalism, is in bed with rapacious oligarchs and who is admired by the European and American hard right.


My word, the inaccuracies come thick and fast don’t they?

Rightwing? In what sense? Economically speaking Putin would actually be considered rather left-wing in the UK or US. When was the last time a British government re-nationalised an industry? Russia has a far more socialist economy than we do. Is he right-wing racially? No. There’s no racial discrimination in Russian government. Russia has dozens of ethnic minorities, all protected under law unlike – and I’m just pulling a random example out of the air here – ethnic Russians in Ukraine.

Stigmatises LGBT people? Oh, this is about THAT law isn’t it? The propaganda law. The law which forbids the “promotion of non-traditional sexual practices to children”. Yup, that sounds pretty brutal. I mean, just listen to the guy talk here or read his statements here, he’s obviously a raging homophobe.

NB. For anybody interested there’s a breakdown of the Russian law written by a gay American lawyer here, and good discussion of it on the No Agenda show (about 10 minutes in).

Putin is “in bed” with rapacious oligarchs? The Russian government, under Putin, does business with all sorts of oligarchs. Like Berezovsky, who moved to London after Putin was elected. Or Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was stripped of his assets and arrested for fraud. Or Sergei Pugachev, who is currently on the run after being prosecuted for embezzling. When Putin stripped the oil-based oligarchs’ control of Russia’s energy reserves, who was he in bed with then? When he re-nationalised those industries and poured the money into re-building Russian infrastructure…at which oligarch’s behest was that? We live in a country where Google, Vodafone, Amazon et al regularly dodge billions of pounds worth of taxes, with no repercussions, can we really afford to start throwing stones about government corruption? Is there any chance, at all, Cameron would permit the arrest of British bankster?

Jones, of course, does have a point – the involvement of billionaires in politics is dangerous, and possibly insidious. I mean you’d never see George Soros pulling political levers in the West, and God knows no big business ever gave money to Clinton, Blair, Cameron or anybody else. It’s not like there’s an oligarch running for President of America right now…

As for who Putin is “admired by”, it doesn’t signify. A man does not choose his admirers. A weak argument from a weak writer.

Now BBC One’s Panorama has broadcast allegations that the Russian leader has secretly amassed a vast fortune…. a British public inquiry concluded that ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was likely to have been murdered at the personal behest of Putin…. but we know that some of those critical of the government – like Anna Politkovskaya, who courageously opposed Putin’s war in Chechnya…”

Yes, with the recent (farcical) Litvinenko ruling, Russia-bashing is back in vogue. Well done Owen, it seems your moral outrage has peaked at the time most likely to get you thousands of shares on facebook. Lucky you.

There’s a common thread in all of the above accusations – there’s no evidence to back up any of them. In the case of Litvinenko, the court actually ignored evidence he was poisoned BEFORE November 1st in order to make their narrative fit together (see the video published earlier this week), and as for the BBC’s ludicrous Panorama episode, well, let’s just say it’s getting its own article.

Jones’ portrayal of the Second Chechen War as “Putin’s war”, and his later use of the phrase “[Putin’s] savage war in Chechnya”, are both quite interesting. Firstly it suggests an ignorance of military history on Owen’s part (not surprising considering his ignorance of economics, legislation and even the basic meaning of words) – the Second Chechen War was started as a result of theinvasion of Dagestan. In August 1999 Dagestan, a federal republic, was invaded by the “Islamic International Brigade”, this is their flag, it may look a little familiar. Just imagine it emblazoned on the hood of a brand new Toyota.

flag

Remind you of anything?

In response to an invasion by Islamic insurgents, Russia sent in the army – I’m not sure if Owen considers this savage, or not – and pushed the invaders back into the neighbouring republic, Chechnya. The constant, low-level insurgency in Chechnya then spilled over into all out war. The Russian and Chechen authorities on the one side, and Chechen rebels, IIB and Mujahideen on the other. Yes, THAT Mujahideen. The “Islamic extremists are fine as long as they are killing Russians” model, so successfully set up in Afghanistan in 1979 and deployed in Syria last year, was used in Chechnya too.


Is war bad? Obviously. Did the people of Chechnya suffer? Immeasurably. But to lay that at the Kremlin’s door, as if Chechnya were a vanity project of the Russian leadership, is so terribly dishonest that you wonder how Jones can sleep at night.

To then compare Chechnya and Crimea, as Jones does here:


…the west’s attitude towards Putin is hypocritical. When Putin prosecuted his savage war in Chechnya, there was none of the western outrage later meted out when the Russians annexed the Crimea.

 

Is to step sideways into madness. Putting aside the pathetic parroting of the “annexation” meme, I’m curious to know how much outrage defending your country from Islamic insurgents should merit, and – indeed – what course of action Owen would recommend in place of “savage” self-defence. I suppose the Western press is just of the opinion that, if an army turn up at your border, you don’t ask who they are or why they are blowing up your buildings, and you certainly don’t shoot back, you just let them in and apologise for the mess.

When you look at it that way, both the refugee crisis and the condemnation of Assad suddenly make a lot more sense.


We should express our solidarity with Russia’s embattled democrats and leftists. We don’t have to choose between critiquing our own foreign policy and opposing unjust foreign governments. In a sense, critics of western foreign policy have more of a responsibility to speak out. While supporters of, for example, the Iraq calamity can be more easily batted away by Putin apologists, nobody can accuse people like me of hypocritically failing to critique western foreign policy.

 

Once again, Owen, Russia’s “democrats” are in charge. They were democratically elected, they are very popular. I know Western definitions of democracy are shifting at the moment, but there’s nothing intrinsically more fair about being ruled by a government nobody voted for, it doesn’t mean the system works. And Russia’s “leftists”? The communist party is the second biggest presence in the Duma. They are the majority of Putin’s opposition – a role usually attributed to political no-names likes Nemstov or Navalny, in a British press that increasingly has little to no interest in physical realities.

There’s nothing alternative or liberal here, not really. Beneath the veneer of liking immigrants and the rainbow-facebook picture and sorting out his recycling Owen Jones is very much on The Right Side. Our side. He’s against wars, but obviously OUR wars are better than THEIR wars. It doesn’t matter to him that, for several years now, Russia has been the only thing between America and the global chaos they’ve been trying to incite, it doesn’t matter that Washington continues to pursue policies that require Russian good-sense and judgment to avoid World War III.

He still, somehow, maintains the moral authority of the west. Its God-given right to dictate terms, and its duty to lead the world. He doesn’t question the Empire, only gently corrects it. We should all help the poor refugees, but let’s not think too hard about the policies of deliberate destabilization that lead us to this crisis. We should all resist ISIS, but let’s not publish (or even read) the reams of evidence that show ISIS is being funded by NATO allies and equipped by America.

Everything is basically fine, we should just be a bit nicer. At least we’re not Russians.

This whole article could have been written by Luke Harding, or Shaun Walker or Michael White or Jonathan Jones – it shows only that the spectrum of acceptable opinions narrows more and more each day, and that modern journalism is a lot like early model Fords – “Any colour you want, as long as Putin is the bad guy”. It is a laundry list of myths and bullshit and hot air. Sound and fury, signifying less than nothing. It could have any picture in the by-line, it just so happens it has the pasty pre-pubescent looking one. The accompanying apologetic subtext is the only thing that sets it apart. “I’m one of the gang!”, the weedy kid pipes up. “I’m cool too!”.

At least when Shaun Walker copies and pastes opinions from the GCHQ approved list, he doesn’t pretend it’s for anything other than money.

And here, it seems, we come to the crux of the point: In the above paragraph “people like me”, would perhaps better phrased as “People, like me!”. In short, Owen Jones prizes his perceived role as “the good guy” too much to question the official narrative of the Western press. Safeguarding his reputation as supporter of all things pleasant, he likes being invited to talk at LGBT rallies, and getting handshakes and being nice.

We get it Owen, you’re nice. You’re not good, you’re not right, you’re just nice

 

 

http://off-guardian.org/2016/01/28/owen-jones-tough-on-meanness-tough-on-the-causes-of-meanness/

yes...

 


Is Vladimir Putin the latest ally of Donald Trump?
Donald Trump has found an unlikely ally in the form of Vladimir Putin, claims the Independent On Sunday. President Putin, and other senior Russian politicians, allegedly welcomed Trump’s recent comment that “an easing of tensions and improved relations with Russia, from a position of strength only, is possible”. Putin has previously spoken warmly of the billionaire White House hopeful.

http://www.theweek.co.uk/daily-briefing/72188/ten-things-you-need-to-know-today-sunday-1-may-2016


We've been on the case since god was involved... See toon at top (note date)...