Newly appointed Republican and Trump supported Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett is not convinced that humans are changing the world’s climate. Meanwhile China and Japan are convinced and have announced dates by which time they intend to be carbon neutral.
Discussion post for this afternoon’s live US Presidential debate.
Let’s imagine a scenario where you are the President of the United States and it is in the middle of a pandemic. You then contract the virus yourself. How would you rate compared to Donald Trump?
If Donald Trump is re-elected in 30 days’ time, he will be vindicated and emboldened. What will the implications be for New Zealand?
An occasional series
News that Donald Trump has tested positive for Covid will have a significant effect on the US election as well as our local election. It raises the issue who will you trust to lead the country against this most agile yet deadly virus?
President Trump once again refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the US election.
Just two months before election day, Donald Trump appears to have won a diplomatic coup in the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have normalised relations with the state of Israel.
There has been disturbing local news that some members of a local evangelical church, influenced by American equivalents, refused to accept the threat posed by the virus. And in America a new book from Bob Woodward suggests strongly that Donald Trump knew how big a threat Covid would be but chose for political reasons to downplay the risk.
Post Trump how is the world order looking?
The Trump administration has declared war on China, and there is much speculation in the punditry as to whether or not this is a new Cold War similar to that waged post World War 2 against Russia. In my opinion, the 19th century Opium Wars may offer a more appropriate analogy, albeit with a likely different outcome.
This week Donald Trump has defended the US’s abysmal handling of Covid 19 by claiming that the disease is out of control in New Zealand. And National’s rhetoric continues to match what he is saying.
Inasmuch as tiny, distant New Zealand need worry about the foreign policy of the United States, it’s worth a drill into what a Democratic Party dominated United States foreign policy might look like.
Judith Collins’s and National’s ridiculing the proposition that New Zealand could safely hold an election using postal voting has some disturbing similarities with Donald Trump’s approach in America.
He’s old, boring, uninspiring, and offends no-one: surely he’ll fail miserably as President? But he has a stronger chance than any Democrat President since LBJ of getting very strong domestic reforms done.
Joe Biden announces his VP pick.
Trump has announced he will ban Tik-Tok from the United States. It’s Chinese-owned so there. Or maybe he will force it to be sold to Americans.Don’t think security is the issue; kids used it to stuff up his Tulsa rally. And it is good for mockery, as clips about Trump and Pompeo show. Don’t think that will stop if Americans own it.
An occasional series
A really successful and very modern revolution has already started in just the last few weeks. It’s not the revolution we expected.
Donald Trump has planned to hold a political rally on the day used to celebrate the abolition of slavery at a place where one of the worst examples of white brutality on black people using advertising material containing nazi symbols. All in the middle of a global pandemic.
The Black Lives Matter movement is causing many countries to reflect on their history and practices. And the decision of the police to discontinue the Armed Response Teams Trial and the Childrens Commissioner’s scathing report on Oranga Tamariki’s practices in the uplifting of young children, mostly Maori, from their mothers are examples of the change that is happening.
This week Donald Trump has hid in a bunker, used tear gas to move protestors away from a church so that he could have a photo opportunity with a bible, and has started to build his much vaunted wall. Although it is around the White House and not on the Mexican border.
The politics of Covid 19 present difficulties for the opposition. They cannot fault execution of the plan so far and have been reduced to complaining that the restrictions are not being loosened quickly enough.
Ok so this is the worst year I can think of in my lifetime. But apocalyptopia it ain’t.
Todd Muller thinks it is up to Donald Trump to decide if Donald Trump is a racist.
Donald Trump is engaged in an escallating war with Twitter after the Social Platform hid one of his tweets calling for Minneapolis rioters to be shot.
With Benjamin Netanyahu now reinstated as Prime Minister of Israel, the big annexation of the Jordan Valley is gathering momentum.
An occasional series
With President Trump doing what we all expected, and killing 67,000 people and counting through chronic poor leadership, and utterly ruining the U.S. economy as well, it’s time to look at what policies the alternative candidate has on offer.
an occasional series.
The Trump regime has this week plunged new depths in the handling of the Covid-19 Pandemic in the United States
Developments on Covid-19 are happening at pace as we enter the make or break stage concerning the virus’s spread.
New York Governor Cuomo was told CoVid-19 was like an approaching freight train. More like a bullet train was his response. Watching the White House daily briefing with Trump dominant it looks like a massive train wreck is on the way in the US.
It has been disclosed that Donald Trump has attempted to buy exclusive rights to a German vaccine in development. But only for the use of the American people. Meanwhile in New Zealand there is agreat anticipation about the Government’s announced package due to be released tomorrow.
With the world’s economy in turmoil and infection rates continuing to surge the responses of different countries to the crisis shows markedly different results. And the issue could be the determining issue of this year’s election.
A few weeks ago I slagged off the Chinese government for its response to the Corona virus and presumed that authoritarian states could never be as good as democratic states in responding to a pandemic. I want to revisit my opinion.
