Random Politics Blogs (23)

Surveys show that Trump is popular with most women in USA, regardless of his reported behaviour and other activities. He must have the personality and power plus wealth that women yearn for in a man.

Do you want something too? Maybe you can explain what happened.



Let us go brandon this November.

There are about 1000 political prisoners in Russia now. It is more, than there were in late USSR times. That means, that the present putler's regimen is worse.

Kara-Murza
Yashin
Chanysheva
Scochilenko
Pivovarov
Gabyshev
Gorinov
Berkovich

Here's the full list of political prisoners:



Who will be next?

IRAN'S retaliation against Israel for the embassy attack, was inevitable. They said they would do something, and they were then obliged to act. But, they knew that their drones and missiles would be shot down. America warned everyone in advance and so Israel etc were prepared. It took about 8 hours for the missiles to reach the appropriate air space, and then strangely enough, some Arab countries joined in to shoot them down. Iran is no doubt not liked in the middle East and perhaps the message has got home.

Hey Bill!

I will start of sharing my favorite 1960 presidential campaign commercial. Please contribute yours too….

Yuliya Navalnay, the wife of Navalny who she states was murdered by Putin, has requested the Russian people to protest at midday on 17th March when elections are held ( election's? joke ) They should form long queues at polling stations and vote for any alternative candidate to Putin, or spoil their ballot papers. The world will see the protest.

In February, Elon Musk dared to complain on Twitter that “Nobody is pushing this war more than Nuland.” He was referring to Victoria Nuland, the US undersecretary of state for political affairs, who has served four administrations as a pillar of the Department of State. The only administration that didn’t request her services was Donald Trump’s. He may have judged Nuland’s personality as incompatible with his “America First” philosophy. Trump was well aware of the fact that Nuland was the wife of neoconservative thinker, Robert Kagan, one of the most visible instigators of George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq.

Trump based his primary campaign on breaking with fellow Republican Bush’s disastrous foreign policy that had produced unending chaos in the Middle East. The Donald felt perfectly capable of independently crafting his own disastrous policies. He demonstrated his capacity when he pulled the US out of the Iran deal, the Paris climate accord and wiggled out of various nuclear disarmament agreements (the INF Treaty, Open Skies and START).

In the 20th century presidential campaign, Trump had established himself as the anti-Republican establishment candidate. He scored his first major victory in 2016 when, waging an assault on the folly of George Bush’s invasion of Iraq, he quickly eliminated from the primary race the favored Republican candidate, Jeb Bush, George’s brother.

What may seem more surprising is the trust Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama’s Secretary of State, placed in Nuland when she appointed a symbol of neo-con ideology her State Department Spokesperson. Was Clinton’s intention to show the world that, on her watch, despite President Barack Obama’s image as a peacemaker, foreign policy would not deviate from the outrageous belligerence of the Bush era? Clinton’s successor, John Kerry, in 2013 appointed Nuland Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. He promptly sent her to Ukraine to prod on a movement that, under her guidance, would produce a spectacular coup d’état.

Musk was obviously aware of Nuland past when he accused her of being the principal promoter of a tragically uncontrollable war in Ukraine. Shortly after Musk’s tweet, journalist David Ignatius mentioned the tweet in an interview with Nuland. Her response reads as an astonishing but not surprising non sequitur. “Well, I would start with a basic fact here, which I’m confident is well known, which is if this war is to end, it could end tomorrow if Vladimir Putin chose to end it and to withdraw his troops. So this is not about us.”

Nuland’s denial of agency has become the standard truism used in the West to close the debate on how the war in Ukraine should be settled. Even anti-establishment Jeremy Scahill of the Intercept recently insisted that “there’s one person who could end this tomorrow, and that’s Vladimir Putin.” He had been criticizing Biden’s risky escalation in Ukraine and his duplicity concerning the Nord Stream attack. Scahill probably felt it necessary to use the facile disclaimer to deflect the suspicion that he was pro-Russian. In contrast, Nuland utters the cliché to counter Musk’s accusation of being a warmonger. By adding “this is not about us,” she wants the public to believe that she is just an innocent bystander with no influence over events.

Nuland’s notorious intercepted phone call with US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt in February 2014 tells a different story. She appears as a kind of behind-the-scenes revolutionary leader. The ultimate irony is that the pretext for the people’s protests was Ukraine’s candidacy to become a member of the European Union. In her phone call, what did Nuland have to say about that issue? “f*ck the EU!”

In a democracy, those who have greater wealth are able to achieve more or less what they desire. If they wish to become a president or prime minister, they can afford to hire the best people to promote their cause. If they have committed any civil or criminal acts, they can usually pay off those who have suffered or been inconvenienced. They have the best lawyers. In the USA, you would think that such a large and powerful country would have the talent available to provide the best leadership. The talent is no doubt there, but without the wealth, achievement to a high status is difficult or impossible.
The best USA can offer is Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The former will no doubt become president again. The alternative choice is someone who appears to have difficulty with his faculties. Forgetful, sometimes looks in a trans like state, unsteady on his feet.
Should the electoral system change and end the wealthy only candidates? Replace with a public funded arrangement with the best qualified individuals chosen?
In an autocracy, if you have wealth and desire power, and if you finance the right people, eg. Police, military, and gather round you a group who like the idea of power themselves, and the freedom to use it, even if it means the use of intimidation and violence to assist them. Elections are never needed or are rigged to achieve the desired result. Examples of this can be found in China, North Korea, Russia and Iran.
Difficult to ever change this form of power, unless the people revolt and risk their lives in the process.
Democracy takes bravery.