Politics

I was listening to a BBC interview with an American this morning, who said that he was going to put is choice in the "Little box at the bottom marked none of these" Is it true that the Americans have this advanced option on their ballot papers? I would love to see them introduced here.

Doesn't it seem to you that ultimately the time came for EU to make the most decisive step in its history and accept Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and Russia making economic unification of Europe complete in this way?

Poland is pushing the EU into crisis: ps. koti and Silvestru should be the most interested in this subject, after all they're Polish citizens..

Is there a way or process to stop incumbent governments hijacking the election process and legal system in their favour for future elections?

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team has reportedly filed the first criminal charges as part of the sprawling inquiry into Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, CNN reported.. Citing “sources briefed on the matter,” the network said a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., approved the charges, which have been sealed by a federal judge. CNN did not indicate who had been charged, how many people had been charged, or what charges had been filed by Mueller’s team. An arrest could come by Monday. Reuters subsequently confirmed CNN's report. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/robert-mueller-sealed-indictment/544292/ …

There is stiff competition from the UK with the "Brexit" vote followed up rapidly by the "what the flip have we done" realisation, and the "we still want all the good bits" pout - and frankly on the United States side the failure to agree to stop selling weapons of war to those on a terror watchlist seemed to be a shoo in; but this latest farce from Washington just adds layers of ineptitude, corruption, and sheer downright nastiness to an already strong contender http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/senate-zika-funding_us_5772937fe4b0dbb1bbbc00c2 A spending bill with 1.1 billion to be set aside for funding the US response to the Zika virus has failed in the house …

It seems to me that the Trump administration is pre-meditatively creating and escalating a problem with Iran to the extent of maneuvering the armed forces and removing non-essential staff from Iraq. Do you think the ulterior motive might be to bury bad news at home by distraction?

The answer is both reassuring and disturbing This is actually the title of a report by Haworth et al (Bulletin of the atomic scientists 2019). In this report they conducted an experiment in which a representative group of Americans were shown different scenarios (e.g. North Korea conducting missile tests and threatening allies or the US) and asked them what responses they would favour a preventative strike under different scenarios (e.g. limited air strike, large scale strike, nuclear strike). In these scenarios they were also presented with different numbers of civilian North Korean casualties (15,000 up to 1.1 million) and different rates of success of these p…

Documentaries: Untold History of the United States, Born in Gaza, The War Show and Last Men In Aleppo. "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence...". Samuel Huntington. Gaza 2014. 507 children killed and 3,598 wounded. 80% of Gaza's population depends on humanitarian aid. More than 400,000 children need psychological support in Gaza. Once again WH supports a dictator who kills his own people: Bashar al-Assad (Syria) against the Islamic State. WH still kills innocent civilians (Vietnam, Gaza and Syria). Israel did not learn anything from World War II. The WH…

Teaching and protesting is not effective. There are still people who dont respect different races and cultures. Why don't we imprison them? It is one of the biggest issues today and everybody talks about less important things. Sorry for my English.

The Kyoto Protocol is a UN strategy for minimizing greenhouse gas emmissions in nations across the world. The taxes levied on a country's emmissions, are called emmision caps. Now China has an emmision cap twice that of USA. So that means China pays double the emmision taxes as USA. This extraeneous cost could be used to balance out the US china trade deficit if USA manouvered it's trade equation to take into account and control chinas emission taxes. After all, global commerce is a set of equations and one trade route can be enlargened to control another with all parties' agreement!

https://phys.org/news/2019-06-york-world-ambitious-carbon-reduction.html New York to get one of world's most ambitious carbon reduction plans: New York state lawmakers on Wednesday passed one of the world's most ambitious laws aimed at countering climate change, under which fossil fuel power plants and gasoline cars will be phased out by 2050. more at link...... <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> then we have this....…

What should the UN's stand be other than withdrawing its forces from Sudan? How should the USA offer military support to the Sudanese civilians? Should it interfere in any way or not?

Might not be any human civilization to see glaciers again : https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-climate-change-report-human-civilization-at-risk-extinction-by-2050-new-australian-climate/ "A new report by Australian climate experts warns that "climate change now represents a near- to mid-term existential threat" to human civilization. In this grim forecast — which was endorsed by the former chief of the Australian Defense Force — human civilization could end by 2050 due to the destabilizing societal and environmental factors caused by a rapidly warming planet. The report, entitled "Existential climate-related security risk: A scenario approach," lays out a futu…

I had never noticed Trump's connection with "PRO" wrestling, or more properly called "WWE" for "World Wrestling Entertainment," until I saw "Last Week Tonight" with John Oliver. "PRO" really means "FAKE" wrestling. Is anyone familiar with real wrestling, the kind of wrestling they have in high school, college and the Olympics? Are there any fans of real wrestling out there? Are there fans of WWE out there? What is the appeal? WWE is a choreographed dance that looks so fake, by the standards of special effects in movies, but is good enough for the fans. Trump's base always says, "We don't take Trump literally, we take him seriously." That is what the WWE is ALL ab…

Seems that even places with strict gun laws aren't immune from idiots wanting to hurt/kill other people. Seems so much more shocking when the news comes from a place other than the USA. My condolences to our Australian friends, BeeCee, Hyper, and other members who live down-under.

So he finally revealed his tax records. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/07/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html?fbclid=IwAR2CiXhc1rA2Lpo5lwLLcBB1_o--jWoXH5MgbKx3sT9SnDzy14oy8O5ZWIs Do those that voted for him still have his confidence seeing as his campaign was all about what a great business man he was? Maybe his father left him a note like the one from 'Brewster's Millions'.

During Barr's confirmation I gave him the benefit of the doubt about his integrity. But I learned that he applied for the job of attorney general long before he was confirmed. In his 19-page job application he said that a president has almost unlimited powers to defy accusations of obstruction of justice. So Trump hired him. Now we are seeing Barr mischaracterizing the Mueller report. When questioned if he knew what Mueller thought about Barr's 4-page memo "exonerating" Trump, Barr said he didn't know what Mueller thought about his mischaracterization of the Mueller report, which was a lie. Mueller sent Barr a letter complaining about his mischaracterization of his …

Can we avoid war? "So asking if the US and China can avoid Thucydides's trap is no mere academic question" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-47613416

The US govt is shut down over the semantics of what the US needs on its' southern border, a wall or a fence. Or border security technology and additional personnel? Trump had said he insisted on a " concrete wall" not a fence, but recently he thinks they are the same. So my question is about the $5 billion he demands for his "wall" does that mean he wants to begin a project of REPLACING the fencing that is already there with his "steel slats" see-thru "wall". Does he want to tear down the inferior fencing and replace it with his super steel slats? What I would suggest is they install total surveillance along the border to find out EXACTLY WHERE the most people ar…

What does it mean wrt to whether something needs to be reported. Is gossip "in the public interest"? Does it differ either side of the Atlantic? What are the parameters?

In October Cesar sayoc was arrested for sending explosives to Obama, Joe Biden, Clinton, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, former Attorney General Eric Holder, actor Robert De Niro, John Brennan, James Clapper, billionaires George Soros and Tom Steyer, and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. Yesterday a Military Officer was arrested who was plotting to kill some of the same people, link below. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has only been in political office 6 weeks and already made the list of a right wing extremist who was plotting to murder people. This isn't standard political polarization. This isn't a typical both sides issue. We are in a very dangerous political environment. …

President Trump's backed healthcare plan was recently pulled. However Congress can revive debate and propose another bill in the future. What are some of the solutions we'd like to see? *keeping in mind that we aren't starting from scratch. It seems solutions are dominated by who pays for healthcare: single payer, employer based, individual tax credits, etc. Cost cutting solutions tend to revolve around malpractice protection. I think one outlooked area is education. It is very expensive and academically difficult to pursue a medical career. That limits the number of people who are willing and able to pursue a medical career and also influences how much salary those w…

Yuri Bezmenov was a KGB agent who defected to Canada in the 70s. In the 80s he gave a series of talks and lectures on KGB intelligence methods. Notably he claimed that most work was not secret gathering, but developing people in Western countries who could unwittingly assist in a subversion program. These were usually people in higher education, the intention was to train the next generation in ideas that would bring about "demoralisation" of the West, so that further influence and control could be leveraged. How credible is the theory that a Soviet style conspiracy has gripped Western academia? Bezmenov warned in the 80s that the West did not have much time to reverse th…

On December 22nd 2017 the current in office Potus passed a major piece of legislation relating to taxes. It included massive tax cuts and many people predicted that this tax bill would result in businesses making much more money and the richer getting richer and the poorer getting poorer. However, regarding benefits to lower-income people. https://www.majoritywhip.gov/TaxReformWorks?utm_source=Speaker.gov+Master+List&utm_campaign=b998d88a3d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3e173f5a25-b998d88a3d-157378765 This link has every single source located at the top, just click the company and you'll get the source. As muc…