Politics & Stuff

[KEVINAA 57]

Here is the tweet/post from 3 march 2017 if you want to bookmark it. This is the only person I found who posted this.

Edited March 5 by KEVINAA

[Fernando 6,387]

18 hours ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

Cant see him winning this year though.

 

Biden has ran a pretty solid ship. Although his Zionism is depressing.

I think Trump is going to win because of the immigration issue. 

Don't underestimate the power of the people when you mess with their wallet. And immigration is causing all that. 

For me I'm fine helping immigrants and taking a hit but that's not everyone view. 

[robsblubot 3,263]

9 minutes ago, Fernando said:

I think Trump is going to win because of the immigration issue. 

Don't underestimate the power of the people when you mess with their wallet. And immigration is causing all that. 

For me I'm fine helping immigrants and taking a hit but that's not everyone view. 

When people make allegations like those, say Fox News, the burden of proof is on them. I personally think the claim is horseshit and there are TONS of factors that affect the economy, and often it has little to do with immediate policy (Dems or Gop). Speaking of which, jobs are strong, stocks are up, which will work in Biden's favor.

While I think the Biden administration could have been doing more on immigration, the Dems did call the GOP bluff with the bill we discussed a couple of pages back. 

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,770]

55 minutes ago, Fernando said:

I think Trump is going to win because of the immigration issue. 

Don't underestimate the power of the people when you mess with their wallet. And immigration is causing all that. 

For me I'm fine helping immigrants and taking a hit but that's not everyone view. 

Trump didnt stop illegal immigration during his 4 years though. And he didnt even deport as many as Obama did.

 

If Immigration is the main point then Biden wins, although he will be hurt in places like here in Georgia where an immigrant killed a college girl this year.

[cosmicway 1,263]

1 hour ago, Fernando said:

I think Trump is going to win because of the immigration issue. 

Don't underestimate the power of the people when you mess with their wallet. And immigration is causing all that. 

For me I'm fine helping immigrants and taking a hit but that's not everyone view. 

Immigration ...
Again.
What is an immigrant ?
An immigrant is a person with two arms, two legs, two heads.
An immigrant can be a nuclear scientist (Oppenheimer) or someone who sells sunglasses and lighters in the high street.
He is just a person.
But if you were an immigrant what would annoy you most ?

a) the extreme racists, fascists and apartheidists
b) the so called "defense" on your behalf by the reds, felllowtravelers, glass breaking anarchist groups.

For me it's the (b).
In the long game It's what makes you an endangered species and not the nutcase rightwinger.

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,770]

2 hours ago, cosmicway said:

Immigration ...
Again.
What is an immigrant ?
An immigrant is a person with two arms, two legs, two heads.
An immigrant can be a nuclear scientist (Oppenheimer) or someone who sells sunglasses and lighters in the high street.
He is just a person.
But if you were an immigrant what would annoy you most ?

a) the extreme racists, fascists and apartheidists
b) the so called "defense" on your behalf by the reds, felllowtravelers, glass breaking anarchist groups.

For me it's the (b).
In the long game It's what makes you an endangered species and not the nutcase rightwinger.

A would probably want you killed, or at the very least removed.

B, even misguided, probably has your best interests as an immigrant as a thought.

I do think thats probably the difference in America though. Oppenheimer was the children of immigrants, but he was as Americans as it comes.  Trump's mom was born in Europe, so were the parents of his dad, buts he's the biggest symbol of American ignorance. 1 generation makes you American. Its different with you lot in Europe.

[cosmicway 1,263]

48 minutes ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

A would probably want you killed, or at the very least removed.

B, even misguided, probably has your best interests as an immigrant as a thought.

I do think thats probably the difference in America though. Oppenheimer was the children of immigrants, but he was as Americans as it comes.  Trump's mom was born in Europe, so were the parents of his dad, buts he's the biggest symbol of American ignorance. 1 generation makes you American. Its different with you lot in Europe.

The other one with the H bomb was Hungarian immigrant.
Also the fellow who designed the Mini Cooper was a Greek one, Isigonis.

The (b) crowd are not misguided however. They are instruments of the international communist conspiracy.

[NikkiCFC 7,634]

3 hours ago, cosmicway said:

Immigration ...
Again.
What is an immigrant ?
An immigrant is a person with two arms, two legs, two heads.
An immigrant can be a nuclear scientist (Oppenheimer) or someone who sells sunglasses and lighters in the high street.
He is just a person.
But if you were an immigrant what would annoy you most ?

a) the extreme racists, fascists and apartheidists
b) the so called "defense" on your behalf by the reds, felllowtravelers, glass breaking anarchist groups.

For me it's the (b).
In the long game It's what makes you an endangered species and not the nutcase rightwinger.

I don't think anyone has anything against legal immigration. Coming to country with papers. Problem is millions of illegal immigrants. Would you be happy,  let's say 2m people coming to Greece with those ships?

[cosmicway 1,263]

13 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

I don't think anyone has anything against legal immigration. Coming to country with papers. Problem is millions of illegal immigrants. Would you be happy,  let's say 2m people coming to Greece with those ships?

You are mistaken or you are a wet lib.
Several Greek immigrants in Germany have been brutally murdered by neonazis.
Also about the 2m people you are also mistaken. Not taking them in is not the same as ethnic cleansing.

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,770]

25 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

The other one with the H bomb was Hungarian immigrant.
Also the fellow who designed the Mini Cooper was a Greek one, Isigonis.

The (b) crowd are not misguided however. They are instruments of the international communist conspiracy.

I've been around enough leftist circles to know there is no conspiracy. They are just as disorganized and flying by the seats of their pants as any other group😂

I think immigration is a net positive to societies, but I also think it has to be done smartly. I think America, and to a lesser extent Canada, have done it very well. Brought in well educated people who were able to contribute quickly. When you do that it is pretty much all upside. Then you have nations like Japan which are pretty much dead due to lack of outside influence. They won't ever reach their former glory without bringing in some new blood.

[cosmicway 1,263]

15 minutes ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

I've been around enough leftist circles to know there is no conspiracy. They are just as disorganized and flying by the seats of their pants as any other group😂

I think immigration is a net positive to societies, but I also think it has to be done smartly. I think America, and to a lesser extent Canada, have done it very well. Brought in well educated people who were able to contribute quickly. When you do that it is pretty much all upside. Then you have nations like Japan which are pretty much dead due to lack of outside influence. They won't ever reach their former glory without bringing in some new blood.

My great grand dad was Greek American immigrant.
Fought in Flanders in WW1 then when he returned to America he becamse citizen but was killed in an industrial accident.
That's why I 'm not American - my mom at any rate.
 

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,770]

2 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

My great grand dad was Greek American immigrant.
Fought in Flanders in WW1 then when he returned to America he becamse citizen but was killed in an industrial accident.
That's why I 'm not American - my mom at any rate.
 

Hindsight is 20/20, but they probably should have stayed over here after he died. The wealth this country generated from the period of the Cold War until like 2008 was unparalleled.

We'll never be there again, but when we were it was a thing of beauty.

[cosmicway 1,263]

23 minutes ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

I've been around enough leftist circles to know there is no conspiracy. They are just as disorganized and flying by the seats of their pants as any other group😂
 

Well it's a bit hard lines for them without uncle Joe.
But they were acting like a well oiled machine as long as uncle Joe was around.
They don't give a toss about immigtants, they try to use them as instruments.
Being unable to start a revolution themselves they would rather have the right wing extremists take over to create chaos (Eisenhower spotted that btw when he was president).
Putin is acting along the same lines now with his friend Bannon.

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,770]

44 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

Well it's a bit hard lines for them without uncle Joe.
But they were acting like a well oiled machine as long as uncle Joe was around.
They don't give a toss about immigtants, they try to use them as instruments.
Being unable to start a revolution themselves they would rather have the right wing extremists take over to create chaos (Eisenhower spotted that btw when he was president).
Putin is acting along the same lines now with his friend Bannon.

Joe is about as centrist as centrist gets though. Nobody on the far left likes him.

 

He's a Zionist who made his name working with segregationists to stop school integration.😂

[cosmicway 1,263]

12 minutes ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

He's a Zionist who made his name working with segregationists to stop school integration.😂

Those were segrgationists who had changed their views.

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,770]

Just now, cosmicway said:

Those were segrgationists who had changed their views.

Not At all. He sponsored a bill with them in 1975 that seeked to prohibit federal bussing.

On that they were in agreement. He is no fan of the liberal.

[robsblubot 3,263]

If being supportive of the existence of Israel, their right to live, is being a "Zionist" then count me in. The time to discuss their right to be there, to exist, is now irrelevant. So, I pretty much disagree with most opinions here around that. I also suspect the US president has little leeway here, regardless of political affiliation.

Regarding the immigration talking point from the GOP, as usual, they are lying via whatever the fuck Fox News is.
Jobs, esp low-paying, are (and have been for a while) being replaced left, right and center by automation, not immigrants. Cashiers here in my state are mostly gone in the big chain stores. Things will only accelerate with AI esp once that reaches drivers (truck drivers as well). I'm actually curious about what politicians will lie about then.

Don't get me wrong, rampant uncontrolled immigration creates a lot of different problems, homelessness being the most obvious one. Homelessness, I feel, is where the democrats are most vulnerable. Their policies do not work at all at the regional level. I've worked in San Francisco for years--not exactly in downtown, but close enough to see quite a bit.

Edited March 6 by robsblubot

[Vesper 27,435]

U.S. floods arms into Israel despite mounting alarm over war’s conduct

Washington has approved more than 100 separate military sales to Israel since its invasion of Gaza, even as officials complain Israeli leaders have not done enough to protect civilians

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/06/us-weapons-israel-gaza/

The United States has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate foreign military sales to Israel since the Gaza war began Oct. 7, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid, U.S. officials told members of Congress in a recent classified briefing.

The triple-digit figure, which has not been previously reported, is the latest indication of Washington’s extensive involvement in the polarizing five-month conflict even as top U.S. officials and lawmakers increasingly express deep reservations about Israel’s military tactics in a campaign that has killed more than 30,000 people, according to Gaza’s health authorities.

Only two approved foreign military sales to Israel have been made public since the start of conflict: $106 million worth of tank ammunition and $147.5 million of components needed to make 155 mm shells. Those sales invited public scrutiny because the Biden administration bypassed Congress to approve the packages by invoking an emergency authority.

But in the case of the 100 other transactions, known in government-speak as Foreign Military Sales or FMS, the weapons transfers were processed without any public debate because each fell under a specific dollar amount that requires the executive branch to individually notify Congress, according to U.S. officials and lawmakers who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military matter.

Taken together, the weapons packages amount to a massive transfer of firepower at a time when senior U.S. officials have complained that Israeli officials have fallen short on their appeals to limit civilian casualties, allow more aid into Gaza and refrain from rhetoric calling for the permanent displacement of Palestinians.

“That’s an extraordinary number of sales over the course of a pretty short amount of time, which really strongly suggests that the Israeli campaign would not be sustainable without this level of U.S. support,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former senior Biden administration official and current president of Refugees International.

The Israeli government did not immediately offer comment.

State Department spokesman Matt Miller said the Biden administration has “followed the procedures Congress itself has specified to keep members well-informed and regularly briefs members even when formal notification is not a legal requirement.”

He added that U.S. officials have “engaged Congress” on arms transfers to Israel “more than 200 times” since Hamas launched a cross-border attack into Israel that killed 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostage.

When asked about surge of weapons into Israel, some U.S. lawmakers who sit on committees with oversight of national security said the Biden administration must exercise its leverage over the government of Israel.

“You ask a lot of Americans about arm transfers to Israel right now, and they look at you like you’re crazy, like, ‘why in the world would we be sending more bombs over there?’” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.), a member of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees, said in an interview.

“These people already fled from the north to the south, and now they’re all huddled in a small piece of Gaza, and you’re going to continue to bombard them?” Castro said, referring to Israel’s planned offensive in Rafah, where more than 1 million displaced Palestinians have sought shelter.

U.S. officials have warned the Israeli government against waging an offensive in Rafah without a plan to evacuate civilians. But some Democrats worry that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will disregard Washington’s pleas as he has other U.S. demands to allow more food, water and medicine into the enclosed enclave, and to dial back the intensity of a military campaign that has leveled entire city blocks and destroyed huge numbers of homes across the strip.

Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) said in an interview that the Biden administration should apply “existing standards” stipulating that the United States “shouldn’t transfer arms or equipment to places where it’s reasonably likely that those will be used to inflict civilian casualties, or to harm civilian infrastructure.”

Crow, also a member of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees, recently petitioned Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, seeking information on “any restrictions” that the administration had put in place to ensure Israel was not using U.S. intelligence to harm civilians or civilian infrastructure.

“I am concerned that the widespread use of artillery and air power in Gaza — and the resulting level of civilian casualties — is both a strategic and moral error,” wrote Crow, a former Army Ranger who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A senior State Department official declined to provide the total number or cost of all U.S. arms transferred to Israel since Oct. 7 but described them as a mix of new sales and “active FMS cases.”

“These are items that are typical for any modern military, including one that is as sophisticated as Israel’s,” said the official.

The dearth of publicly available information about U.S. arms sales to Israel leaves unclear how many of the most recent transfers amount to the routine supply of U.S. security assistance to Israel as opposed to the rapid replenishing of munitions as a result of its bombardment of Gaza.

Israel, like most militaries, does not routinely disclose data about its weapons expenditures, but in the first week of the war, it said it had already dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza.

The lack of public information about arms deliveries has prompted some arms experts to push for changes. “The arms transfer process lacks transparency by design,” said Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned in protest over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy.

The vast number of transfers since Oct. 7, largely financed by the more than $3.3 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds Washington provides to Israel every year, “is something we deserve to know as citizens of a democracy,” he said.

Republicans have largely opposed efforts to rein in U.S. arms provisions to Israel and earlier this year introduced legislation to provide an additional $17.6 billion to Israel on top of the $3.3 billion the U.S. provides annually. The Biden administration also supports additional military aid to Israel, but a package has been held up due to infighting in Congress over border security and aid to Ukraine.

What is clear is Washington’s deep involvement in the conflict, even if it isn’t the entity dropping the munitions or pulling the trigger, said Konyndyk, the former administration official.

“The U.S. cannot maintain that, on the one hand, Israel is a sovereign state that’s making its own decisions and we’re not going to second-guess them, and, on the other hand, transfer this level of armament in such a short time and somehow act as if we are not directly involved,” he said.

Edited March 7 by Vesper