The Politics Thread

[Khan]

 

Does anyone really believe it was Melania who convinced him to run?  Does anyone really believe he even TALKS to Melania?  If she actually said, "You know, if you run, you'll win," then she probably was being sarcastic.  Which might explain all the Un! Comfortable! looks she's shooting us.

 

But you know what?  I can tell already that she's going to make a better First Lady than he will a President.  That's why I've upgraded my opinion of the one I used to call First Supermodel.

[Roman]

Melania and Barron don't want to be a part of this at all. Barron is 10....because of his father, he's been thrown into a life and situation he doesn't want to be in at all. Melania loves her son more than anything, and has seemed to be uncomfortable from day 1 IMPO.

[JaneAusten]

I think you are completely wrong about what people will remember about yesterday. All the major newspapers across the country have this as their lead and pictures all over the front pages. And nothing about Madonna.

 

That being said, I appreciated the rally in Chicago. No celebs of note other than a local Olivia Staples who came out and sang I'm every woman. But it was all activists and real people and the speeches were uplifting. I think the worst thing yesterday was Michael Moore trying to co-op the DC rally by making it into a call for Bernie's people. I give Ashley Judd credit for stepping in and interrupting him before it went too far. I assume she knew why a lot of the people were there yesterday. And it wasn't to rally for Bernie and his supporters.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Yeah, but there has often been a considerably large (though not majority) faction in the Philippines that has been fairly anti-American for decades.  What has changed is Duterte's opinion of the man occupying the White House. Unstable recognizes unstable.

 

Speaking of yesterday's march,

There is an article in NYMag that Jared Kushner's brother was spotted at the Women's march.  Not really surprising, since I heard that the family is split ideologically, if you can call it that- basically Jared has split off from the views of several family members including his brother.

Edited January 22, 2017 by DramatistDreamer

[Khan]

 

That's what I have come to believe as well.  In fact, the only member of the Trump family who I think wanted Donald Trump to be president was Donald Trump...and I'm still not even sure about him.

[Juliajms]

Yeah, whatever. He was cute as can be playing peek a boo with his little nephew. I think he's just a shy kid and I very much doubt he has autism, but even if he does that's for the professionals to deal with, not arm chair diagnosticians like Rosie O'Donald.

[DRW50]

 

Even some of the people I know who are totally supportive of the march talked more about Madonna saying stupid things than the rest, but I'm glad if that isn't the case for everyone. 

 

Michael Moore always seems like a ponderous phony to me, like Bill Maher. Kudos to Ashley Judd for not letting him make it all about himself yet again.

[DRW50]

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/blue-red-state-democrats-trump-country-214647

[DramatistDreamer]

I didn't even know that Madonna had appeared until I saw a headline on news homepage online. I guess a lot of people were talking about it, but not in my particular circles.

 

On an international note, the former president of Gambia, Yahya Jammeh has finally conceded (after the African Union, the UN warned that they would intervene and several of his cabinet ministers resigned, etc).

A flood of people had crossed over into bordering countries like Senegal as a peremptive measure, fearing violence, while Adama Barrow, the newly elected president, went to Senegal for security reasons, to be sworn in as president. 

It was feared that Jammeh might have the military at his disposal but several military were quoted as expressing confusion over the fact that they seemed to have two commanders-in-chief, and they can only serve one commander-in-chief at a time.

As I read about Jammeh boarding a plane for an unknown destination I thought "what a shame that a president can stay in so long and have his constituents get so sick of him, that they want him removed from the country, he cannot even stay in his country, that's how bad he made things!"

 

It also made me reflect on the fact that President Obama was always cognizant of the fact that many of his detractors would be only too eager to label him as an 'African dictator', of sorts, which is why he never even entertained the idea of staying on and made an extra point of using words like "citizen" when talking about what he planned to do next. (I remember his speech in Ethiopia where he only half-joking talked about being perplexed about why certain leaders would want to be president for decades when for him, two terms was enough and how he looked forward to a post presidency where he could go to a beach somewhere and relax while drinking from a coconut--many people cheered this as they themselves were from countries that had experienced dictatorships and "presidents for life").

 

Of course, reasonable people know the U.S. has term limits but like the nutters screaming about Obamacare 'death panels' and Kenya, there were bound to be people who actually believed he would try to wrest control of the presidency for longer than two terms because they simply "didn't trust that man". 

 

To their chagrin, Obama left in the same elegant fashion that he entered the presidency.

Edited January 22, 2017 by DramatistDreamer

[marceline]

 

Michael Moore is cut from the same cloth as Bernie Sanders. It's all about the ego.

[JaneAusten]

I honestly wish there was someone else who would be speaking other than these two. Like a WOMAN. Moore was on AMJoy this AM talking about the march and ended it with telling people to support Keith Ellison for DNC Chair. Now I like Ellison but really Moore? I also like Tom Perez and he seems to be the only one kind of fired up and making Voter suppression a priority.

 

As for the Madonna thing, I marched yesterday in Chicago - 250k people. Home, dinner, went out a bit later for a drink with a few friends not one person mentioned it or even knew about it. I only heard about it this morning. And it was a blip.

Edited January 22, 2017 by JaneAusten

[GregNYC]

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Edited January 22, 2017 by GregNYC

[marceline]

 

I like Perez and would be happy to have him in the position but my preferred candidate is Jaime Harrison. He's the head of the South Carolina Dems so he's been in the belly of the beast. I heard an interview with him and was so impressed.

[dragonflies]

 

[marceline]

I love the fact that people think online petitions still matter.