US General Elections 2020

Cant wait for Trump and Vance to annihilate Starmer and Lammy over the Chagos islands.

{{ Watched 3 hours of Hedgseth's testimony yesterday, he will almost certainly get nominated which is mind boggling to me- to put in charge of your armed forces a man who does not support even the principles of the Geneva Convention, who would not deny that if asked by Trump he would invade an ally and peaceful sovereign country if it was in US interests (ie Greenland) nor would he oppose it seems opening fire on protestors, a man previously drunk on the job and with questions over possible sexual harassment of women in his employment, as well as embezzlement of funds from Veterans programs. And despite his attempts to add some nuance or caveats to his former statements regarding women, his contempt for women in the forces was still clear and its religious basis obvious, as was his thinly veiled views on homosexuality and trans.
And his basic line of- I may have done some bad things but that's ok God will forgive me' should not hold a millimetre of water, claiming mental health issues and that your actions are in any way excused by the fact you have an imaginary superbeing living rent free in your head is astonishing to me that can still be used as any sort of defence in this day and age. America seems so primitive these days, falling back on superstitions and on reinforcement of restrictive thinking by the few on the masses in the name of an non-existent mythologised being who they can decide what 'He' thinks. It was clearer than ever that there is little, if any difference, between such thinking in the US and in Israel and in Saudi, or Afghanistan- anywhere the mentally ill are given power over people (well the religious stuff would probably have got by inthe past, the US has long been one of the worlds nutty religous regimes, its just getitng even worse now.
You'd think any one of these things would exclude him from the job, prior to MAGA' rise it would have been, and both ideas would have had member voting them down, not just divide on party lines.
And it didn't get any better today according to Rubio the admins view on international bodies an on any sort of world order of laws and rules is out the window- unless those institutions bow to America and directly benefit America and only America it seems.
Odd that the country that gave us Star Treks enduring vision of a Utopia with one earth government is so afraid of the idea of international law. With Rubio rallying against international intuitions as having become invested with liberal ideas such as no borders and no sovereignty. Both rather prerequisites for a global order of law. International Law has to cross orders or its not international by definition. The noly issue with Internation Law is that those who set it up- including America ironically- gave themselves vetoes. True international Law should be equal votes per country regardless of size or power or influence, that would stop the dominance of the few big world powers over the rest of us.

At Bondi's hearing she said she didn't rule out going after people Trump wants vengeance on, wouldn't publicly condemn Patels hit list of people he wants the Justice Dept. to go after, and she would not say that Trump lost the election to Biden but neither could she provide a shred of evidence to back that outrageous claim- and she will be in charge of Law? An entirely evidence based position? Again that alone should have been enough to bar her from the role, but again she will almost certainly get the role anyway, despite seemingly believing you don't need any evidence to declare guilt!}}

A fair appraisal, I think.

{{ How is that fair Figg?   Its just a right wing mutual masturbation club ( I know your a fully paid up member of that club these days, but be careful what you wish for I say especially as a women, these people are not your friends or defenders, most of them are convicted sexual assaulters or under suspicion of sexul assualt, but you go right ahead and cheer them on if you wish, its your gender your selling down the river here not mine). That vids just typically ubelievably selective- I atually watched 3 hours of the hearing, did you Figg? (I dont think he did either). Odd he failed to mention shooting protestors, invading allied soverign peaceful nations, ignoring international laws or his record of drunken lecherous behaviour towards women or probable embezelment of funds from veteran services. Any one of which should be enough to disqualify him from even consideration for the job. }}

Chris Cuomo is quite liberal, Petty. I think his fair complaint is that liberals should concentrate on qualifications, and focussing on personal morality (though important) comes up as political personal attacks. Hegseth is definitely not qualified to oversee the largest military force on Earth, and that is what the main focus should have been.

Yes, they did ask those questions, but they opened themselves up needlessly to accusations of partisanship. Chris Cuomo is trying to get his liberal side of the aisle to see how they are shooting themselves in the foot. And I agree with him - they could have put forth an airtight case that his qualifications alone are disqualifying, but instead they swivelled all the cameras towards character assassination.

{{ Still doesnt excuse not reporting fairly on the hearing, and it doesn't.From the three hours I watched only 2 democrats took that tact, the rest went after him on lack of experience, his record of drunkeness at work, and his attitude towards women in the armed forces and his views on international law and the rules of engagement, including going into his support for the pardoning of two US soldiers who shot prisoners to death. His refusal to rule out invading an ally, or shooting at protestors. The majority of what was brought up was entriely relevant to the role, and to his unsuitablity to fulfill it.
By focusing as the right too have solely, on what a minority of the democrats at the hearing persued, he is doing the work of the right for them by not reporting all the rest, the bulk and vast majority of the hearing which makes it clear why he shouldnt have the job. And should not in a sane society have even made it this far.
The democrats in defeat are just eating their own tale, and it will not help them.}}

I give you a lot of credit for watching the full 3 hours. But the fact that all that most anyone else has seen is the personal morality attacks makes it clear they should never have gone there. I agree with you that Chris Cuomo drew attention away from the substantive part (and having seen AOC in action before I think she may have been leading the charge on the substantive points) but his point about not even going down the personal morality route is still valid.

the fact that all that most anyone else has seen is the personal morality attacks - Halfy

{{{ It speaks nothing to the Hearing, but it does speak volumes to US news reporting, and contributes in no small part to the bullk of the rest of the world viewing the American public as amongst the most ignorant. Its no wonder when their news, right and left, focus on trivia and ignore substantive real issues.}}

the fact that all that most anyone else has seen is the personal morality attacks - Halfy

{{{ It speaks nothing to the Hearing, but it does speak volumes to US news reporting, and contributes in no small part to the bullk of the rest of the world viewing the American public as amongst the most ignorant. Its no wonder when their news, right and left, focus on trivia and ignore substantive real issues.}}

I bet the 'right wing masturbation club' wouldn't have allowed California to burn to the ground.

Yep, because they would logged all the forests into oblivion by now.

But the california problem is twofold. One is a once in a lifetime drought followed by once in a lifetime winds; the other is not allowing natural burns or implementing controlled burns. I doubt republican policy would have been much different. Except for logging, and then we'd have flooding problems.

The 'far right masturbation club' would probably have put some water into the fire hydrants and reservoirs. And they probably wouldn't have employed a 200lb lesbian who would refuse to carry a man from a burning house because "he was in the wrong place".

Actually there was as much water as the system had capacity to transmit. I don't think anyone would have had the foresight to rebuild the entire municipal water system for a fire of this magnitude.

Typical engineering design is for a 100 year disaster: something you would expect on average every 100 years. LA has NEVER had a fire of this magnitude, so it wasn't factored into the planning. It will now.

Very interesting and revealing interviews.

The current regime is nearly always thrown out after a bad response to a disaster.  But cutting firefiighters in the last year admittedly makes no sense.  Would republicans have done any better?  Don't fool yourself. Remember that Texas has had deadly power problems during heat waves recently - bad management of longstanding environmental problems is universal. Democrats are at least better at giving them lip service.

um Texas seems to be more a case of massive population growth combined with an unusual ice storm and the system not being sufficiently Winterized for severe weather. It does not compare in any way to the blatant incompetence from Newsom and Bass that led to no water in the pipes and the insane obsession with DEI over safety and lives.

it sounds pretty identical to me.  Both are cases of larger natural events then ever before, both are the results of population growth and a system not keeping up with it.  Same old story.

Florida has been in drought for a long time, a little bit of rainfall makes no difference.  But the main reservoir in question was actually drained for repair. This water would be sent to other reservoirs, but it still wasn't enough because demand quadrupled once firefighting started.

https://apnews.com/article/california-los-angeles-wildfires-water-misinformation-27b0059719e8b475d452030c221fe544

{{ Oh Halfy! Trying to use actual facts and real researched informaton, waste of time with the right Halfy when you could just get all your info second, third and fourthhand from blog posts, X and youtube! Besides experts are all liberal, lefty, commie, muslim lovers, the right doesnt need experts, it doesnt need to know things or understand anything, knowledge and thinking, thats for weaklings and commie lovers! }}

Indeed halfy, why not get all your info from the lefty msm like CNN or the BBC who have a super-duper reputation for unbiased news coverage and a sterling history of honesty. I mean, its not as if they cover up massive industrial scale rape of white girls or anything, or Biden letting his kid off for rampant corruption while slagging off Trumpy. Yep, Youtube and its army of concerned citizens trying to continue free speech while the government jails people for FB memes, are all evil 5th columnists aren't they. And of course we all know that any questioning of our Beloved Leaders are really just far-right thugs.

{{{ No one is is against questioning authority Figg, me least of all. But there has to be balance and reason applied- take Musk causing outrage over the child grooming scandal, it rilded up the right, especially the right wing press keen to appeal to Musk, which in turn riled up right wing voters, who in turn put pressure on politicians, and those who benefit, like Farage, or Bandenoch by cosing up to Musk took itup in Palriament pressuring the government to hold a public enquiry - the result a whole new inquiry.

Now what didnt come into this, and certainly not into the thinking of Musks, Farage, Banedoch or any of the rights minds when there's cheap points to score and anger to fuel at the expense of abused children, was that there have been inquires, those inquires led to the putting forward of 22 recommendtions for changes to the system to address the issues, not just the issue of the crime itself, but also the issue of the reasons why the authorities did not act as they should have, including fears of accusations of racism.

However our right wing governmentof the time, the Tories, sat on those recommendations for the better partof a decade, when they left power they had implemented zero of them.

Do we need more laws to address this? No the problem was never the lack of law, it was the lack of application of the law and the reasons why. New legislation will not change this, new laws will not change this, implimenting the existing recommendations will.

And most importantly of all, did Musk think of the victims and their families and what they want? Because all the decent journalists, the ones who asked the victims and their families for comment, it was clear what they want, implementation of the recomendations already made. What do they not want at all? Another lengthy inquiry - which will only result in recommendations remarkably like those from the last ones-dragging their ordeal and them through the public eye all over again, whilst the 22 recommendations lie in a drawer still unused.

The rights position, whilst based on a genuine outrage at the complete failure of the authorities to do their job, is also devoid of anything but outrage. Its position makes no sense, its detrimental to protecting current and future children under the threat of such gang related abuse as more enquiries simply means another year of delay in any change, and it is the last thing the victims want to happen.

And the reason the rights position is so is because its not interested in the actual facts, or what the point of a new inquiry would be or any new legisaltion over the exisiting laws or recommendation already made, it doesn't really care, because it just wants to shout its anger and stir up anger, an make sure it can squarely blame it solely on the left and liberal standards. Its not in the interests of children, its in the interests of sewing discord at the left.

Another fine example is Musk putting out that when PM Gordon Brown put out a memo telling the police the kids were asking for it and its what they knew and just how they lived. Actual journalism into this turned up the source of this story, a man who told it to a local newspaper, and who was recounting something he had heard secondhand that supposedly some police had said. The memo in question he refrenced is of course, as all governments documents of that type are, still in existence to read, and contains no such reference, nor anything vaguely ike it anywhere within the memo. But again research, journalism, knowing what you are talking about, these are not important currently to the right, generating anger at the left is. It doesnt have to be founded in truth.}}

To be fair there's nearly as much of this sort of thing happening on the Left.  I give governors of Southern states in the US credit for shipping immigrants up to self righteous northern cities that said the immigrants were not being properly dealt with.  People may say it was heartless to use them as political pawns, but I think the point needed to be made that you can't complain about something unless you are busy dealing with it yourself.

But at least I can say the northern cities did get down to work trying to find housing and support systems. You often get the same thing out of both sides in the end; it's just the focus of bloviation that changes.

Blaming Musk who highlighted this cover up and blaming the left or the right is completely useless and redundant. The blame game should go to those responsible, and that transcends party politics. The blame goes to the politicians of all stamps who were more concerned with hurty feelings, the councils, the police, the social workers and the imams and priests who failed to speak up. Blaming Musk is a whitewash, blaming the right is a whitewash. And the Jay report was a complete whitewash too. This woman knows what she is talking about, she has lived it for decades, and Elon Musk matters not one jot. Its a distraction from reality.

{{ Yes, she is a very strong advocate and was one of the main whistleblowers on the entire thing, she has a book and set up a Foundation. At about the 5 mins mark and again almost right at the end she likewise points out the uselessness of another enquiry, we have recommendations never acted upon as she points out. Another enquiry serves no one but the government, as they take so long the public has usually moved onto something else by the time they finish. They are a tool government normally use not to expose things, but to kick an issue into the long grass.

Yet more enquiries is exactly what we are getting as a direct result of pressure from the right, from the right in Parliament (despite the hypocracy of the Tory position after they failed to impliment any recommendations over 14 years of rule, and they themselves ruled out a public enquiry when in office). All the rights outrage and anger has done is stir up more anger and division, and yes it is more dangerous anger when its targeted at a minority group within a minority group of society, and forced an enquiry that in no way at all will serve any justice for the victims, and will delay any changes being implemented to help prevent further such abuses going on. The right succeed in outrage, but are disastrous in application.

As she rightly points out a large part of the issue in England it seems lies with their Crown Prosecution service, ironically it only acted after Nazir Afzal was appointed as the CP's Chief Prosecutor for the NE of England, and he discovered the previous reasons being given for not prosecuting- that the girls were unreliable witnesses- decided immediately that was in error and he overturned the decision, bringing the whole thing officially into the light and into the courts, finally.

And who appointed Afzal? Our current PM Keir Starmer in one of his first reponses as Head of the CPS when he took office in response to the original enquiry.
In 2013, long before Keir was anywhere near High Office, or even Leader of the Opposition, but was Head of the CPS, Parliament did a Home Affairs Select Committee Report into the situation, it reported that, "unlike many other official agencies implicated in this issue the CPS had readily admitted that victims had been let down by them and have attempted both to discover the cause of this systematic failure and to improve the way things are done so as to avoid a repetition of such events. Mr Starmer has striven to improve the treatment of victims of sexual assault within the criminal justice system throughout his term as Director of Public Prosecution (DPP)."

The BBC Verify service dug into all the reports from the time concerning the CP and Starmers role in it, both internally and external independent reviews of the agency, they found- "We have been unable to find any direct criticism of Sir Keir personally in any of the reports on the scandal, nor can we identify any suggestions that he himself made any decisions not to prosecute."

Yet what did the right say about Starmer's time in the role? Well Musk and co accused him of being "complicit in the rape of children" and falsely said that as Head of the CPS he blocked prosecutions from going ahead, and he described Jess Philips, the Minister newly in Charge of public safeguards as, "a rape genocide apologist" because she ruled out another pointless enquiry. These attacks were taken up and amplified by an eager right wing press and devoured by eager right wing eyes on a thousand angry right wing youtube vids and X feeds. The result as you would expect, threats of violence, death threats and a need for an increase in police protection around those accused by the mob, and it is by the mob, and all of course at the tax payer expense.

Starmer, Cooper, Brown, they have all had to get increased police protection and have recieved a significiant increase in death threats around this issue, all because of false information, demonstrably provably false like Musk's Brown memo that never existed, but that the right have taken as true without the slightest bit of checking to find out if it is. And that is dangerous for society. Thats mob rule.

The reaity is that whilst the right are screaming that the left are apologists for child grooming, it was in fact the right who were in power in the form of the Tories throughout, and the only place any real change took place was within the CPS, driven by its new Head, our now left wing PM Keir Starmer. It was those on the left within public bodies such as the CPS, who were making changes and doing something to actually try to change the situation whilst the right sat on their hands and did nothing, and kept utterly silent. Where was the rights outrage then? Where were the Musks then accusing Boris and the right of being rape apologists?

And unfortunately Musk does matter as he has become the cheerleader and puppetmaster of the British rightwing press and champion of a thoudsand right wing youtubers and X account holders, spreading his lies and misinformation till it does reach the wider public attention through our right wing press media. }}

Why do you keep insisting the Brown memo doesn't exist, when Maggie Oliver quite clearly states that Brown and Starmer colluded to cover up a live investigation into grooming gangs.

Musk was 100 % correct about Jess Philips. She is a disgusting fake feminist hypocrite, and she should resign or be sacked.

BBC verify is a sick joke. The BBC churns out more nonces than any other organization. There is one nonce uncovered on a weekly basis. They are a totally biased and discredited media.

{{ I say the memo doesnt exist due it not existing. The origin of the story was one Mr Afzal.

'Mr Afzal clarified his position admitting that he has never seen any circular with the form of words that he used in his 2018 interview. He now says he was referring to police officers who had told him some officers had misinterpreted instructions in a circular sent by the Home Office. Mr Afzal pointed to  Home Office circular 017/2008 which is about the police's powers under the 1989 Children's Act. (You can read the supposed memo here youself Figg and see if the evidence of your own eyes helps you out any)

https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20130309160639/http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/about-us/corporate-publications-strategy/home-office-circulars/circulars-2008/017-2008/

'Mr Afzal said he was "paraphrasing what I thought that meant to them", when he gave his Radio 4 interview. Despite being unable to explain how it could be misinterpreted in such a fashion. Mr Afzal was asked if he could provide the names of any of the police officers but was unable to do so.'

You cant just ignore the statement of the man who started the memo story Figg, nor the fact the memo he refers to contains no such wording or phrasing- something you can check yourself by oh I dont know, reading the thing, nor that no other persons or the alleged officers he was speaking of can be found. The memo he spoke of never existed, doesnt exist and the man himself admits as much.
This is precisely the problem on the right, a complete refusal to accept obvious blatant fact when it fails to fit the narrative.

The women, Oliver in the video also spread this complete lie saying in her defence-  "My knowledge of this comes from what Nazir Afzal said publicly in 2018 in his BBC interview." So her knowledge, Musks and yours is based on one bloke pharaphrasing what he thinks some unknown police officers meant about what some other unknown police officers told them about how they had misinterpreted a circular from the Home Office that doesn't actually say any of it. Yup that sure sounds like a totally reliable source to me!! }}