Friday, February 03, 2017

Demonizing liberals

A shocking tweet from a Trumper...


...turns out to be a classic smear.


(The above images came from here.) Mark my words: When Big Wedding II happens, false evidence will smear liberals as perpetrators.

Damned good question. Professor Michael McFaul asks a question that should have occurred to every journalist in America. As you probably know, Trump got into a row with Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull during a phone call.
President Trump reportedly had a fiery conversation over the weekend with Australia’s prime minister over a refugee deal agreed upon under the Obama administration.

Trump reportedly blasted the agreement as “the worst deal ever” and accused Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of seeking to export “the next Boston bombers.”
To which McFaul asks:
Given Trump's concern about the “next Boston bombers” expressed to Australian PM, why were Russia and Kyrgyzstan not on his visa ban decree?
Damned good question, that. Obviously, Trump's ban has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual terror attacks we have experienced since 2001.

By the way, I'm probably the only person you know who has read Turnbull's 1988 book The Spycatcher Trial, which is hard to find in the U.S. That work definitely gave me a new perspective on Paul Greenglass, who later went on to make the Jason Bourne movies (with help from an old high school friend of mine.)

4 comments:

gerry-troll said...

joseph-you've got to admit that Trumps being in office gives you material for at least 2 conspiracies a day.

The fact that some of his supporters are as rabid as some of the lefts supporters in doing this kind of stuff gives both sides plenty of material.

The strangest thing is that it already seems that Trump has been president 2 years already not 2 weeks.

We are all going to be exhausted for awhile.

Anonymous said...

Gerry,
This might be the one thing that you have said do far that I agree with.
It has been an exhusting two weeks.
M

b said...

Le Pen is likely to be the next president of France. Look at this from the Financial Times:

"Polls show Ms Le Pen, the 48-year-old daughter of the founder of the National Front party, Jean-Marie Le Pen, winning the first round of the election on April 23 and then losing the May 7 run-off to a more mainstream candidate.

But the collapse of support for the socialist party, the funding scandal engulfing the centre-right candidate and a young and untested independent candidate as the latest frontrunner, has offered the party a glimmer of hope of winning the election.
"

First, the "Socialist" Party has gained a lot of support in the polls in the last few days since Benoit Hamon was chosen as its nominee. With Fillon falling, the SP may soon be snapping at Macron's heels for second place in the polls.

Second, Benoit Macron is not a "young and untested" candidate. He is young, yes, but he was a well-known figure in Francois Hollande's government, even to the extent that some called him Hollande's "vice-president". He also had a lot of exposure as minister of the economy from 2014 to 2016.

The Financial Times is obviously supporting Le Pen.

She is taking a leaf out of Trump's book. The story about a journalist getting roughed up? Yeah, right. Great publicity.

The allegations that she misused EU money by paying it to party staff? Note that that's the *EU*. Opposing the current form of the EU is a major plank of her platform. There will be no judicial investigation. The allegation does her no harm whatsoever: it reinforces her message. She's refusing to pay the money back. She's standing up to the EU.

As for the scandal besetting Fillon, he LIED. There is a big difference. He took French parliamentary funds and he paid them to his wife, claiming she was doing a lot of work when she wasn't doing any. Oh and his wife is Welsh.

Macron will be next to be taken out. He spent government money wining and dining bankers and other scum. He is a former banker himself. He says he did it because he wanted them on the government's side, not because he wanted them to help his own campaign.

Everything here is playing to Le Pen's message. It's her against the EU, the foreigners and the bankers. For France.

Hot tip: Le Pen's opponent in the second round is unlikely to be from the "right". It is far more likely to be Benoit Hamon, the "Socialist" Party's candidate, who is on the "left" of that party. It could even be Jean-Luc Melenchon, who is outside the SP and to the left of it. But more likely it will be Hamon.

Hamon is being explicitly supported by Alain Soral and Dieudonné M'bala M'bala.

The point is that a large part of the French right wing base would vote for Le Pen in the second round against any "socialist" candidate.

b said...

Here's more in support of my thesis that the international fascists are trying to give second place in the French first round not to a "rightist" or a "centrist", but to the "left-wing" Socialist Party candidate, Benoît Hamon. Their aim is to have Le Pen beat him in the second round.

Consider Alain Soral. He is on the French far right, hangs out with monarchists, praises Putin (which is usual on the European far right now), and he has been one of the guys who have helped the National Front to establish a ground outside of the narrow party framework, preparing the "new France" to come. Others include author Michel Houellebecq and Soral's friend the comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala. (What's really sad is that some of what Soral and Dieudonné say about the Zionist mafia is true. Soral probably feels more at home with Putin's guys than he does with Netanyahu's.)

The following combination of facts is salient:

1) Soral has written a foreword to Alexander Dugin's "The Fourth Political Theory"

2) Soral is publicly backing the Socialist Party's Benoît Hamon for the French presidency.