O/T:- Trump Presidency 2.0 [hic sunt dracones]

[Jampie]

Even if that minerals deal with the US secured Ukraine all of their lost territory and a return of their abducted citizens (including children), I would say it's immoral. The US has basically announced they never cared about peace or anyone's sovereignty - it's only ever been money. Vile.

But to be all about "compelling commercial opportunities"... with one of the most corrupt nations on earth run by one of the most brutal authoritarian regimes on earth, the guys who started the war... it's just unbelievable. A whole new layer of unbelievably disgusting crap coming from Washington.

[BigFatPie]

I am sceptical on how much of the Liberal Partys resurgence in the polls is a reaction to the election and behaviour of Donald Trump, rather than a reflection a several other factors that have recently upset the previous trajectory.

Our former prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who was so beloved outside of Canada but absolutely hated within, finally stepped aside. As your chart shows, he was getting absolute wrecked in the polls and he was taking the whole Party down with him.

Some of the reasons for his unpopularity were as follows: There is a very serious housing crisis here that has been getting exponentially worse with each successive year and they have been doing absolutely nothing about it - even go so far as to tell the public they will not bring housing prices down. Inflation, while according to official numbers has been coming back down closer to normal, people are not seeing it at the grocery stores. Or infrastructure has suffered from severe neglect and lack of investment. This is apparent in every major Canadian city, and Canadians are finally becoming aware that countries like China have far surpassed us in modernizing. This is coupled with the fact that we, like many western countries, have been bringing in record numbers of immigrants but just do not have the public infrastructure to support them and accommodate so many people. There has also been a significant shift in the wind in regards to identity politics issues. Trudeau was the champion of jumping on top of a Pride Parade float - this is now backfiring. As you may recall he was caught in photographs wearing black face more than once and is was probably the only global leader of his time who could get away with it. But his years of talking a lot while saying nothing are catching up with him. It was long evident before he realized it that be needed to go.

But nobody was ever really excited about the Cinservative Partys leading man. They only wanted to punish Trudeau.

This was exactly in the same veins as all the British politicians - Theresa May, the forgettable woman who lost the bet to the head of lettuce, Rishi Sunak and now Keir Starmer. Nobody really voted FOR any of these politicians, but rather did so begrudgingly because they liked the other option even less. Many would characterize American politics the exact same way. I would even go so far as to say very few people were die hard Trump or Harris fans, they just found their particular choice a bit less unpalatable than the other.

Enter Mark Carney, the new Liberal Prime Minister. Despite being a somewhat disgraced world banker of sorts, the Canadian media has pumped him up to be the second coming of Jesus. They’re really worked hard and spent a lot of money trying to pump him up in the eyes of Canadians. And according to official polls (which somehow are oddly much different than internal polls), people are buying it!

There was even a clear election campaign propaganda article the other day crediting Carney with orchestrating a buying and selling of US bonds that caused Trump to pause the tariffs. What it failed to mention, and made it so obviously clear that it is an election article, is that Carney had been PM for less than a month and still does not even hold a seat in the Canadian parliament… and yet he somehow significantly increased our bond yield within 3 weeks, and organized half of the world to do the same, then sold them off en mass. A poster above alluded to this same story.

Anyways… the election is right around the corner. If the polls are right The Liberals will have pulled one out of a hat. But I think it is far less to do with Trump and more the lack of options.

Like you guys had the choice between Sunak and Starmer, while the Americans had the choice between Trump and Harris.

The sort of *all politicians are the same* nonsense I would expect from a Putin apologist.

Also claiming that chart I linked to is to do with everything except Trump wanting to annex Canada suggests a denial of reality commensurate with many of your other posts.

[The Dug Out]

He's telling the American (re)public what they want to hear, it's their favourite toy and you can't take it off them.

Hi is also telling the vast majority of American citizens that overwhelming voted for him that he is doing exactly what they voted him in to do.

[andy6025]

The sort of *all politicians are the same* nonsense I would expect from a Putin apologist.

Also claiming that chart I linked to is to do with everything except Trump wanting to annex Canada suggests a denial of reality commensurate with many of your other posts.

Your chart clearly shows that the flip between the Conservatives and Liberals occurred exactly when Carney was elected at the Liberal Party leadership convention and sworn in as Prime Minister 5 days later, rather than almost 2 months before when Trump was sworn in, or 4 months prior when he was elected. Had Trudeau stayed on as Liberal leader this flip would never have happened. As I explained before, Trudeaus unpopularity dragged the Liberals deep into the mud. Their miraculous resurgence has nothing to do Trump.

[drillerpie]

Hi is also telling the vast majority of American citizens that overwhelming voted for him that he is doing exactly what they voted him in to do.

Vast majority?

[the_anticlough]

Vast majority?

49.8% on 64.1% turn out

[Jampie]

Predictions in this thread appear to have been somewhat incorrect; The nominally left-wing Labor government in Australia has just been re-elected in an absolute landslide.

The right wing leader lost his seat.

Personally I would have preferred a minority government, I think these guys have absolutely not earned this through positive change and I really hope they get a move on actually solving the problems this term. Will be a pleasant surprise if they do.

There is absolutely no question that some part of the left wing victory here was a "trump effect", hard to say how much though.

[Lullapie]

At the weekend Joe Biden was officially diagnosed with what could be construed as terminal prostate cancer. A horrible diagnosis to have and I'm sure we all hope he gets the best care and treatment to try and prolong or defeat the awful illness.

On a non-personal level though, it does open up how many lies did the Democratic Party hierarchy tell to the US public (and indeed the world). We're not talking about Joe Bloggs here, we are talking about President Joe Biden.

The rats are already leaving the sinking ship, with Democrat-journalist Jake Tapper trying his best to eek a few more dollars out of Joe Biden's suffering, by releasing his book, Original Sin, remarking about how those in the Party were aware of Joe's mental decline BEFORE he stood for election in 2020. However, Tapper was adamant on CNN right up until Trump won, that Biden's cognitive function was fine. Another hypocrite.

There's a pattern emerging in the world, where when the left is found out to be telling lies or that they have done something wrong, to call it a right-wing conspiracy theory. Remember Trump being elected through Russian money? Remember Hunter Biden's fake Russian laptop? Remember the British anti-asylum riots being those of the far-right. For those where I live, there is still the video of Jacinda Ardern 'speaking' to the New Zealand public, telling them to only believe what she and her government told them. She also tried to get through a 'hate speech' act where the government decided what was hate speech - a la Joseph Goebbels.

The left control so much of the media and hence control the narrative. Trump added to the English language the expression 'fake news'. You don't see it, until you see it, then you start to question everything that you are fed through the media.

More Democrat lies will emerge as time moves on. Lets hope next time they get into power, that the media offers up more scrutiny to prevent this from happening again.

Jill Biden is starting to look like a real life Lady Macbeth.

[SwalePie]

...
Trump added to the English language the expression 'fake news'. You don't see it, until you see it, then you start to question everything that you are fed through the media.

Yes that's Trump's comms strategy in a nutshell. He is perhaps the greatest root cause of the proliferation of conspiracy theories and culture-war gaslighting in recent times.

The final part above is the problem. You start to question both the dubious sources and the trustworthy ones until you become so distrustful that you don't know what to believe any more...so you believe nothing but him and his people's BS. He depends on that.

[andy6025]

Yes that's Trump's comms strategy in a nutshell. He is perhaps the greatest root cause of the proliferation of conspiracy theories and culture-war gaslighting in recent times.

The final part above is the problem. You start to question both the dubious sources and the trustworthy ones until you become so distrustful that you don't know what to believe any more...so you believe nothing but him and his people's BS. He depends on that.

While I will enthusiastically grant that Donald Trump is far from a pedlar of the truth and that he has a tendency to make sh?*t up at a whim, I beg to know who the hell you
find trustworthy?

Take this nifty little conglomeration of clips as an example. Almost nobody at all in the political sphere, left or right, and the media, left or right, seemed to question the ridiculously absurd chorus of anchors and expert talking heads claiming that Russia blew up the Nordstream pipeline. Only one guest who appeared in the MAM, professor Jeffrey Sachs, said that it was clearly the United States whoodunnit, but he was immediately shut down. Anyone else who also might have claimed it was not Russia was let nowhere near the airwaves.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NSZyKYitC3M&pp=ygUhcnVzc2lhIGJsZXcgdXAgdGhlIHBpcGVsaW5lIGNsaXBz

So, how can we trust anything they say when they are either such unabashed liars who will tell the public whatever the CIA wants them to say, or they are so laughably stupid that they cannot recognize how dumb their claims are?

Who in the MSM, pray tell, is trustworthy?

[Jampie]

Andy, who is Matt Orfalea? Are you saying we shouldn't trust him? Ok.

I don't trust Jeffrey Sachs either.

Regarding the pipeline explosion: You are convinced it was a US job and see everything through that lens. It probably wasn't a US job (what did they get out of it? The pipleline was already shut down) and so your view on it is heavily distorted by your belief (without evidence).

Regarding news sources, no source is 100% trust for me. Australia's ABC and the BBC are pretty high tho - when they report a fact they generally get it right, and if you email them a correction they generally correct the article. Reuters and AP are generally pretty high too but not infallible.

ABC and BBC will sometimes avoid reporting a fact if the fact counteracts one of their pet narratives, and that knocks off more than a few points on the trustometer for me.

On the other end of the scale is any murdoch press outlet - they almost all operate as propaganda.

Somewhere in the middle but still low trust are the other US commercial news services - CNN, MSNBC etc. During the Biden presidency it seemed like 80% or more of their content was about Trump still.

[andy6025]

Andy, who is Matt Orfalea? Are you saying we shouldn't trust him? Ok.

I don't trust Jeffrey Sachs either.

Regarding the pipeline explosion: You are convinced it was a US job and see everything through that lens. It probably wasn't a US job (what did they get out of it? The pipleline was already shut down) and so your view on it is heavily distorted by your belief (without evidence).

Regarding news sources, no source is 100% trust for me. Australia's ABC and the BBC are pretty high tho - when they report a fact they generally get it right, and if you email them a correction they generally correct the article. Reuters and AP are generally pretty high too but not infallible.

ABC and BBC will sometimes avoid reporting a fact if the fact counteracts one of their pet narratives, and that knocks off more than a few points on the trustometer for me.

On the other end of the scale is any murdoch press outlet - they almost all operate as propaganda.

Somewhere in the middle but still low trust are the other US commercial news services - CNN, MSNBC etc. During the Biden presidency it seemed like 80% or more of their content was about Trump still.

Andy, who is Matt Orfalea? Are you saying we shouldn't trust him? Ok.

Matt Orfalea is the name of the YouTube channel that produced the video I posted in my last clip. And of course we shouldn?t trust him. Don?t waste my time with such obvious deductions. It really makes you such a third rate debater.

[QUOTE=Jampie;40710182
Regarding the pipeline explosion: You are convinced it was a US job and see everything through that lens. It probably wasn't a US job (what did they get out of it? The pipleline was already shut down) and so your view on it is heavily distorted by your belief (without evidence).[/QUOTE]

Debating the pipeline sabotage with you would be for entertainment purposes, and right now that wouldn?t much entertain me. See comment above for further clarification.

Regarding news sources, no source is 100% trust for me. Australia's ABC and the BBC are pretty high tho - when they report a fact they generally get it right, and if you email them a correction they generally correct the article. Reuters and AP are generally pretty high too but not infallible.

I?ll tell you a little story about the BBC and how it really opened my eyes to how deep and thick the bullsht in the MSM is. Of course most of us claim to perceive news corporations, public and/or private, to be biased or slanted, to favour certain partisan narratives over others, etc., but this really spoke to me as to how far they are willing to unashamedly and completely manipulate their audiences by knowingly spewing lies.

It was around noon or 1 oclock in the fall of 2001. I was in my mid 20s living in London. The twin towers had already been brought down, Osama Bin Laden had been fingered as the culprit, and the US were ready to exact their revenge on the Taliban with support from most of the world, including in no small part from Russia.

However, tensions were high and given a few factors such as its highly mountainous terrain and a long history of having successfully repelled infallible invaders, it was by no means 100% certain that the coalition led by our yankee friends would succeed. As we know, it ultimately did not.

Anyways, the bombing campaign that our western powers are so well known for was well underway but it was soon time for the ground invasion. Everyone was nervous as to how easy or difficult it would be, and how many American lives would be lost in the endeavour. It goes without saying that Afghani lives don?t ever count.

Introducing The Northern Alliance - a group of anti-Taliban rebels left over from the Soviet-Afghan war, who had deep ties and support from Russia. Putin offered them up as useful tools to aid the Americans in their mission. Led by Hamid Karzai, who would go on to become the first president after the invasion, they were to spearhead ground operations on Americas behalf.

And so this brings us to the BBC with a team of reporters embedded among the Northern Alliance on the eve of ground operations, witnessing and doing a piece on a final training operation they are conducting, only several days before going to war. The BBC captured and played footage of their tanks and other equipment, soldiers running up a hill with AKs popping off, as well as them running through the stereotypical jungle gym obstacle course that we typically think of when imagining eastern training camps, terrorist or otherwise.

The BBC narrator, however, told a very bleak account. I am paraphrasing here, of course, but my memory of it is vivid. This is how it went:

(Quote) Here we are with the Northern Alliance, a ragtag outfit of Afghani rebels upon whom the Americans and their partners are hinging their hopes to spearhead the ground invasion to topple the Taliban. Today we witnessed a live fire training exercise on the eve of battle and what we witnessed does not bode well for them. They are poorly experienced, poorly organized, poorly led, poorly trained, and their moral is very low. Their equipment consists of a few old tanks left over from the Soviet-Afghan war, half of which does not work. Their live fire training exercise was a fiasco in which they even managed to accidentally shoot one of their own. It will be a wonder if they are able to achieve their objectives, and an even greater wonder as to how the Americans and their partners are relying on them to accomplish anything. (End Quote).

I was quite surprised to hear this report. It certainly painted a bleak picture of Americas new found Afghani allies. When 6 oclock rolled around on the same day I tuned back into the BBC to watch the report again, as they would surely replay it for their dinner audience. And so they did. The video footage was exactly the same, but what is this? The narration over top was the exact same voice, but what he reported was entirely different. Paraphrasing once again, it went something like this:

(Quote) Here we are with the battle hardened Northern Alliance - Americas new found Afghani allies who have been carefully selected to spearhead the ground invasion to topple the Taliban. We are fortunate to witness a live fire training exercise as they prepare to receive the order to begin operations. They are an experienced group of well trained fighters who are chomping at the bit to reclaim their country. They even have tanks! While there was a brief mishap during their live fire training exercise in which a soldier was wounded, they are eager to get operations underway and are pouring over maps and carefully laying plans to make their dreams a reality. Etc. (end quote).

It was a complete Annalena Baerbock 360! I was stunned. Only a few hours before they had told a completely different story. This is scandalous and will undoubtedly be exposed! Over the next several days I kept checking other news outlets to see if any of them caught on to the blatant change in narrative coming from the BBC. Surely this would be an opportunity for them to discredit the BBC and pump out their own chests to show how they are more reliable. But no? not a peep from them. They all pedalled the same optimistic narrative on their newfound heroes, with no mention of the BBCs about face.

While of course this particular new item is no big deal in the grand scheme of anything, it really impacted my views on the media, not just as a dogmatic abstraction where we proudly pronounce that we do not really trust the news, but as a lived experience as if we witnessed our own pocket being picked, we know the culprit and caught him red handed, but had absolutely no recourse to justice. As George Bush famously butchered the phrase; fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, well, you are not going to fool me again.

Unless it is a local story about a cat up a tree, or it is a rare occasion when they appear to contradict their own masters then I do not trust any of them. They get a big fat 0% from me.

Since then I have seen other similar occurrences. My next favourite is when I watched an old video of Donald Trump musing that if he ever did run for president then he would do so as as Republican because Republicans are the dumbest group of voters because you could tell them anything you want and they would believe it.

Once he announced his candidacy to be the GOP nomination for President, the video was scrubbed from the internet and replaced with supposed fact checking website such as snopes and others claiming that no such quote ever came from him because People Magazine never existed in 1988. I did manage to track down the link the YouTube video in which I saw it, which obviously has nothing to do with People Magazine, but it came up This Video No Longer Exists.

We really do live in a Matrix.

[SwalePie]

......

We really do live in a Matrix.

There's literally zero point to debating you now as you're so far down the rabbit hole you've selected. Obviously I respect your right to believe whatever you want to believe Andy, so good luck with it all.

[Jampie]

Andy... from what debate about the pipeline are we abstaining, exactly? Our "Debate" consistently runs like this:

Andy: The Americans did it.
Jampie: What evidence of that is there? And why would they do it? The pipeline was shut down
Andy: *3-6 months of silence*
Andy: The Americans did it.
*sequence repeats*

Regarding your BBC story: entirely plausible and believable to me. Sounds like a case of government interference in BBC's editorial "independence", such as it exists. Personally I don't get the 0% though. Should that knock it down a peg and make you skeptical of BBC articles whenever they contradict convenient UK government narratives? Sure. But by golly, it doesn't put them below random youtubers or the bloody Kremlin, does it? Yikes.

I just don't think you can conclude, based on a handful of instances where the BBC did some BS, that the entire factual edifice they present is fabricated. That doesn't even make sense.

[andy6025]

Andy... from what debate about the pipeline are we abstaining, exactly? Our "Debate" consistently runs like this:

Andy: The Americans did it.
Jampie: What evidence of that is there? And why would they do it? The pipeline was shut down
Andy: *3-6 months of silence*
Andy: The Americans did it.
*sequence repeats*

Regarding your BBC story: entirely plausible and believable to me. Sounds like a case of government interference in BBC's editorial "independence", such as it exists. Personally I don't get the 0% though. Should that knock it down a peg and make you skeptical of BBC articles whenever they contradict convenient UK government narratives? Sure. But by golly, it doesn't put them below random youtubers or the bloody Kremlin, does it? Yikes.

I just don't think you can conclude, based on a handful of instances where the BBC did some BS, that the entire factual edifice they present is fabricated. That doesn't even make sense.

The video I posted shows claims by many American politicians, including Joe Biden, saying they wanted to put an end to the pipeline. I will leave you to decipher for yourself the obvious motivations behind their own claims. Seymour Hersh also wrote an article detailing how it was done that I am sure you have read.

And I did not say everything the BBC say is fabricated. I said that I do not trust any of it at face value, with the exceptions I already noted. When someone is proven to be a contemptuous liar, as you have admitted you believe the media and politicians are, then even if you claim to trust them to tell the truth roughly 80% of the time, how can you know which of their claims fall under the 80% and which fall under the 20%? It is only logical to be sceptical of 100% of it. That does not mean that 100% is fabricated, it means that 100% is subject to possible doubt.

Or, like Swale, you can throw logic out the window and believe whatever narratives your masters tell you in full confidence that you could never be fooled. As Samuel Clemens famously said, it is easier to fool people than convince them they have been fooled!