Charlie Manson is available. But Drumpf would be intimidated by his intellect.
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Looks like Trumpp admin has decided that the second hundred disgusting days will start off with Trolling Week.
I hope somebody in the press asks Duterte what he would do with all the meth and opioid users in the US.
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Just mention the Holocaust and heâs sure to deliver
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Dictators UNITE!!!
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Duterte has a problem with 3 million drug addicts. DT has a problem with 3-5 million illegal voters who cost him the popular election.
âPresident Trump also invited President Duterte to the White House to discuss the importance of the the United States-Philippines alliance, which is now heading in a very positive direction,â the White House said.
Heh.
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You know someone by the company they keep.
Trump loves Putin, Erdogan, and Duterte, but despises Merkel, Australia, France, and Britain.
Tells you where his head isâŚand puts that comment, âI alone can fix thisâ in perspective.
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Another thing to keep an eye on (of the many):
Heâs starting to talk about Congressional rules (i.e. the Filibuster) as the real reason nothing is getting through Congress.
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All class; all time. America is just getting so much greater every day.
Too bad Idi Amin isnât around anymore - that would be a hell of a dinner party.
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Maybe we can get a two for one arrest deal on this occasion?
Yet another leader converting his nation to the exciting new ideology sweeping the world (more often than not, with a lot of help from the FSB and Russian banks): illiberal sham democracy.
Itâs liberal democracyâs evil twin. Itâs like a tumor hiding itself from the immune system by sending out the same signals as healthy tissue. It eats liberal democracies from the inside out, like the larvae of a parasitic wasp feeding on a living caterpillar, saving the nervous system for last. It hides itself behind the frayed trappings and subverted civic rituals of the liberal democracy it supplants.
Elections are regular, but, one way or another, steered to one outcome. The state propaganda outlets, more often than not, purport to be independent businesses. Rule of law is much talked about, particularly in terms of strident calls âlaw and order,â but nonexistent in practice because the law doesnât seem to apply either to the rulers or the designated scapegoats. And, of course, a strongman stoking fear, fear, fear of the designated scapegoats, always relatively powerless people who are nonetheless portrayed as an existential threat.
Behind the Strongman, always elected or selected with due regard to constitutional formalities, however subverted the process, youâll usually find ever more corrupt, more lawless and more kleptocratic oligarchs, âbusinessmenâ who donât seem to need to obey laws and friends and relatives of the Duly Elected President or Premier. Sometimes theyâre actual plutocrats who run the strongman, but more often than not, theyâre toadying stooges, scheming and intriguing against each other but living in perpetual fear that the leader will imprison them on trumped up charges and steal their fortune on a whim or due to losing the intrigue game.
Most people, at least the Right Sort of people, seem to feel they have as much freedom as they want. The whole system is an ongoing experiment in the absolute minimum amount of freedom that has to be given to keep people supportive and content. But the rule of law is nonexistent. The police beat and kill with impunity. Enemies of the regime are locked up on phony charges or in the later state of decay began to come down unexpected and mysterious cases of dead.
And meanwhile, the Leader becomes ever more cultish, ever more insistent on adulation, ever more paranoid, and somehow just seems to get richer and richer and richer although no one can quite tell how.
The list of countries falling to that ideology keeps growing: Russia and its remaining satellites, Hungary and Poland, Singapore, Turkey and the Philippines. There are growing signs of emergence in South Africa. China is slowly developing into a similar system from the other direction. All of the major European democracies have political parties that adhere to this ideology (all of which seem to have Russian backing, monetary, diplomatic and through covert cyber-operations).
And then thereâs us. And now thereâs us. Thereâs our glorious leader, cozying up to the heads of the other illiberal sham democracies and illiberal parties one after another while our press remains blinded to the significance of the networking of like-minded leaders by the comforting persistence of some unsubverted, or incompletely subverted, institutions resisting his whim.
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Another murdering thug for Agent Orange to admire.
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Man do we need this Russian investigation to get going. Obviously Trounce thinks heâll skate and is emboldened to go darker every day that he isnât on trial.
The depravity is bottomless and the only way to stop it is to use the very system that he wants to destroy against him before he succeeds.
Throw the book at all of them and lets turn this thing around.
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As an ex-pat I can say it doesnât get any easier. For years and years I had to explain how Reagan and the Bushes got elected, why Clinton having a dalliance was such a big deal⌠Then, got a break because of Obama, except I still continually have to explain why so many Americans were against their countryfellows having decent health insurance. And why people are so gun-crazy. And why there is still the death penalty in a First World countryâŚ
Now, most people who know me leave me in peace because they donât want to get me ranting again.
It is tiring and infuriating.
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You should be an expat where I live. Generally speaking, they LOVE Trump.
Why? Do you know?
Heâs a man. Being a strongman is even better.
It seems to be that some place east of the Danube, people start believing that only strong leaders who kick ass, who kill their enemies to the last man, are the best. Itâs a bit sickening.
Thatâs an oversimplification, of course, but it shows you the how the balance is tilted.
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Given that Trump tends to ape the last person heâs talked to, it doesnât seem like such a good idea to have him palling around with murderous dictators.
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Thanks for the answer and that makes sense except that they are ex-pats, not natives of the lands east of the Danube.
I understand that attitude in eastern Europe moving through central Asia since thatâs been the history of that part of the world.
Itâs odd to me that as ex-pats they have picked up that belief. But it also makes a little sense to me since they arenât here and donât appreciate the atmosphere in the country since he was elected which is not good. Peopleâs anxieties here are kind of obvious.
Ah, I was confused. My answer was about the locals. Itâs also a reflection of many interactions with Eastern Europeans.
If there is a group which is more casually and viciously prejudiced, I donât know it. Hereâs a funny example. A colleague from Poland was being teased by a Russian educated Kazakh, who called him a bigot (pretty much true). He then related to me that he was furious when the Kazakh said that a famous Pole was actually Jewish (because then he wouldnât have been Polish, I guess). The attitudes towards women, jewsâwow.