USA Politics/Election Thread: Biden, Harris, Trump, Democrats, Republicans, et al

[stawns]

51 minutes ago, CBH1926 said:

We need to change these stupid residency laws for the politicians.

Hawley lives in VA but represents MO, Romney lived in UT but was Governor of Massachusetts.

 

Now you got Mehmet Oz running in PA but lives in NJ.

Not to mention, what kind of asshole votes for a politician that doesn’t even live in a state that he represents!

Republicans don't care where they live or even who they are.......as long as there's a d "R" by their names

 

[Ilunga]

2 hours ago, King Heffy said:

What if they're angry and think that give them an arse-kicking in their own Olympics sends the message better?

Yeah kicking team China's ice hockey team makes a huge statement.

 

Most Winter Olympic Sports are dominated by the Europeans and North Americans so kicking their arse is what they do on the world cup and at the world champs every 2 years on a regular basis.

 

What would hurt China more and maybe get them to change their policies would be to boycott the Olympics being held in China.

 

 

[Smashian Kassian]

6 hours ago, Warhippy said:

This is more on the rhetoric end of things but is again, factually correct

 

 

 

Biden getting the US out of Afghanistan was probably the greatest accomplishment of his life (though executed badly) and the corporate media - not just Fox - $&!# on him harder than they ever have / will for anything over the course of his presidency. 

 

Go figure..... 

 

 

[stawns]

11 hours ago, Ilunga said:

Yeah kicking team China's ice hockey team makes a huge statement.

 

Most Winter Olympic Sports are dominated by the Europeans and North Americans so kicking their arse is what they do on the world cup and at the world champs every 2 years on a regular basis.

 

What would hurt China more and maybe get them to change their policies would be to boycott the Olympics being held in China.

 

 

I lived through one Cold war, I'd rather not go through another

[JM_]

5 minutes ago, stawns said:

I lived through one Cold war, I'd rather not go through another

I think its inevitable, thats where Xi wants to take the world and right now he can. 

[King Heffy]

11 hours ago, Ilunga said:

Yeah kicking team China's ice hockey team makes a huge statement.

 

Most Winter Olympic Sports are dominated by the Europeans and North Americans so kicking their arse is what they do on the world cup and at the world champs every 2 years on a regular basis.

 

What would hurt China more and maybe get them to change their policies would be to boycott the Olympics being held in China.

 

 

And if athletes choose to not go, I will support that.  I don't believe forcing them sends the right message.

[RUPERTKBD]

Mark Meadows has decided that he will no longer "cooperate" with the Jan 6th commission:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/07/mark-meadows-withdraws-cooperation-capitol-attack-investigation

 

Quote

 

In a sudden reversal, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows will not cooperate with a House of Representatives committee investigating the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, a lawyer for the former Trump aide said on Tuesday.

Meadows indicated last week that he would speak to the panel. But on the same day the Guardian broke news of Meadows’ memoir, The Chief’s Chief, in which he detailed Trump’s positive and negative Covid tests and their cover-up before his first debate with Joe Biden last year.

Trump gave Meadows a glowing blurb for his book but news of its contents kicked off a firestorm of controversy and prompted a backlash from the former presidenttowards Meadows.

On Tuesday, Maggie Haberman, a New York Times journalist, reported that “sources close to Trump say he hates Meadows book and feels betrayed by him”.

Haberman also wrote that Meadows’ “cooperation was always seen as bare minimum. The reality doesn’t change much but timing is notable.”

Meadows’ attorney, George Terwilliger, wrote in a letter on Tuesday that a deposition would be “untenable” because the 6 January select committee “has no intention of respecting boundaries” concerning questions that Trump has claimed are off-limits because of executive privilege.

Executive privilege covers the confidentiality or otherwise of communications between a president and his aides. The Biden administration has waived it in the investigation of 6 January. Trump and key allies entwined in events leading up to the storming of the Capitol, around which five people died, have invoked it.

Terwilliger also said he learned over the weekend that the committee had issued a subpoena to a third-party communications provider that he said would include “intensely personal” information.

In an interview on the conservative Fox News network, the attorney added: “We have made efforts over many weeks to reach an accommodation with the committee.”

 

Full story in the link, but the gist is that Meadows was never actually going to cooperate with the commission. He was only willing to do so under his own terms, which means that he would refuse to answer any questions he deemed damaging to himself, or his dear leader.

I see this whole charade as part of a broader attempt by Trump and his enablers to "kick the can down the road", stalling the investigation long enough so that it runs past the 2022 mid-terms, when they hope the GOP retakes the House and subsequently kills the investigation.

In my mind, the DOJ needs to do to Meadows what it did to Bannon. Show these lying traitors that there is indeed a price for attempting to overthrow a legally elected government and then cover it up afterward.

[stawns]

13 minutes ago, JM_ said:

I think its inevitable, thats where Xi wants to take the world and right now he can. 

I don't really buy that.  Do they want to flex their power?  Of course they do, what powerful country doesn't?  China has been exploited by the West for a long time now and are obviously intent on bringing that to the end.  I'd rather see the west work with them than against them.  The Cold War achieved nothing more than the miltarization of the planet, we should have learned from it

[JM_]

7 minutes ago, stawns said:

I don't really buy that.  Do they want to flex their power?  Of course they do, what powerful country doesn't?  China has been exploited by the West for a long time now and are obviously intent on bringing that to the end.  I'd rather see the west work with them than against them.  The Cold War achieved nothing more than the miltarization of the planet, we should have learned from it

China wasn't exploited, they drew us in for dependence on them. 

[Ilunga]

5 hours ago, stawns said:

I lived through one Cold war, I'd rather not go through another

We are already in one. 

 

I wonder how you would feel if you were part of the Uyghur diaspora. 

 

 

[Ilunga]

5 hours ago, King Heffy said:

And if athletes choose to not go, I will support that.  I don't believe forcing them sends the right message.

I have never and will never force anyone to do anything.

 

However by going any athlete that does is condoning the human rights abuses that are happening in China.

[RUPERTKBD]

Just a quick point about participating in the Olympics:

 

I hear a lot of "better to go and draw worldwide attention to the Uighur's plight....." The problem with that line of thinking is that it was basically disproven 16 years ago. That was the last time the Olympics were held in Beijing and at the time there was a lot of outrage over Chinese aggression in Tibet.

 

I didn't see things get any better after the '08 Olympics.

 

BTW: There's no way to go back to the thread, but I argued against awarding the Olympics to a repressive regime in '08 as well.

[Ilunga]

Just now, RUPERTKBD said:

Just a quick point about participating in the Olympics:

 

I hear a lot of "better to go and draw worldwide attention to the Uighur's plight....." The problem with that line of thinking is that it was basically disproven 16 years ago. That was the last time the Olympics were held in Beijing and at the time there was a lot of outrage over Chinese aggression in Tibet.

 

I didn't see things get any better after the '08 Olympics.

 

BTW: There's no way to go back to the thread, but I argued against awarding the Olympics to a repressive regime in '08 as well.

Yeah and look what happened 3 years after Jesse Owens kicked some Aryan ass.

[stawns]

13 minutes ago, Ilunga said:

We are already in one. 

 

I wonder how you would feel if you were part of the Uyghur diaspora. 

 

 

we're not in a cold war, not like the actual Cold War anyway.  Again, I'd prefer not to go back to that

[King Heffy]

8 minutes ago, Ilunga said:

Yeah and look what happened 3 years after Jesse Owens kicked some Aryan ass.

And look what happened 4 years after we boycotted Moscow.

[Ilunga]

20 minutes ago, stawns said:

we're not in a cold war, not like the actual Cold War anyway.  Again, I'd prefer not to go back to that

Um yeah we are. 

 

You might not be feeling the effects like we are here in Aus and the Taiwan.

 

I have been listening to many analysts that state while it will not be the same as the Russia -US cold war it is and will continue to be the 2 largest world powers acting to the detriment of "lesser" powers.

 

You did not answer my question.

How would you feel if you were part of the Uyghur diaspora ?

[Ilunga]

27 minutes ago, King Heffy said:

And look what happened 4 years after we boycotted Moscow.

 

Exactly,the wall came down.

 

Many eastern European nations citizens regained a measure of their freedoms. 

 

So you are agreeing with me ?

[King Heffy]

1 minute ago, Ilunga said:

 

Exactly,the wall came down.

 

Many eastern European nations citizens regained a measure of their freedoms. 

 

So you are agreeing with me ?

No, I'm saying the Soviets retaliated by boycotting 1984 and it did little to help.  The economic collapse and the Chernobyl disaster are my personal theories as to why the wall fell, but it's certainly up to debate and more complex than some athletes not showing up to the Olympics.

[RUPERTKBD]

It's hard to say if the Moscow boycott had an affect either way and it's fair to say that boycotting Beijing would do no good, however, IMHO, China simply doesn't deserve to host a prestigious event like the Olympics and a boycott would be an embarrassment, especially if multiple countries stayed away.

 

It's worth noting though, that a sustained boycott from the sporting and entertainment communities certainly did have an impact in South Africa.

 

Admittedly, this is apples and orangutans, but I think it at least argues in favor of a boycott.

[gurn]

7 minutes ago, Ilunga said:

Um yeah we are. 

Agreed.

This war hasn't been about military might, until the last 5-10 years anyway.

Now along with economic flexing, the Chinese Government is really starting to push their military buildup.

I'm guessing not many people are aware of the most recent navy "drills" that China put on, that mimic an island invasion force. Hello Taiwan.

And others have forgotten, or don't care about the abuses going on in Hong Kong.

Plus the border "dispute" with India.

The Chinese claim to vast areas of the Arctic, simply because "We are so big we deserve a bunch of it"

Now CSIS is saying that China is messing with Canada by engaging in a miss information campaign.

 

When things get so bad that Japan has begun to rearm and is looking at changing their constitution, in order to grow their military might even further;  long past time for the world to notice and take action.

 

AS to how effective Chinese propaganda is, look no further than this web site; where it is now almost standard for people to point out they are talking about the Chinese government and not the Chinese people.

Why? Are the people in the Chinese government, outside foreign contractors or something? Did they hire a bunch of Vietnamese legislators?

Why do we specify it is the government that is an issue? worried about offending our supplier of cheap goods? Concerned that the big bully won't like us?

 

Time for Canada and Canadians to rise from our slumber, get back into shape as the whole world is changing.