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I read the news today (oh boy) - Current world events
10 April 2020
2.30pm
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50yearslate
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Dark Overlord said

AppleScruffJunior said

^Might as well not have had the unnecessary voting. Bye bye Bernie, Bernie goodbye.

He’s suspended his campaign.

Biden v. Trump, in whenever the hell it happens.

  

While Bernie’s far from perfect, he’s the best chance we had so it’s a real shame that he’s gone.

As much as i hate Trump, i might end up voting for him because i can’t bare the idea of someone with cognitive decline running our country.

  

imao (see look i’m using it in a sentence) I’d rather have someone with cognitive decline as president than Trump (yay for checks and balances, yay for advisors and cabinet members!).

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10 April 2020
2.36pm
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Oh come on. Trump’s ordered tons of ventilators and they are coming just as soon as they are no longer needed. He’s then sending them on a tour of the world. He’s clearly doing a brilliant job and every other country is jealous of how brilliantly he is doing and he’s brilliant. He says it enough so it must be true. 
Oh and ignore all the experts because Trump thinks he knows and that’s enough. 

"I told you everything I could about me, Told you everything I could" ('Before Believing' - Emmylou Harris)

10 April 2020
3.06pm
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I wish there was a conspiracy thread but I had to do research (in German 4/10 would not recommend) on the consequences of the virus on the global economy and it wouldn’t surprise me if the far-right Italian parties use the current squabbling among the EU members as their base reason as to why Italy should leave the EU.

 

Basically long story short: Most EU members support “Corona Bonds”- debt mutualisation. I’m not in finance but it basically means all the richer EU countries- Germany, France, Ireland etc. will agree to pay more to borrow and the poorer countries will pay less. 

Most EU countries support this because it will help the poorer and the most negatively impacted countries get back on their feet quicker, thereby benefiting the EU as a whole quicker. The big boys- namely Germany, Finland, Austria and The Netherlands are not on board with Corona Bonds saying the EU has already done enough, in that billions of Euro is being given to countries to help support SMEs and to buy PPE already from the EU.

While the EU are fighting over this, Russia has been sending supplies into Italy, cutely labelled ‘With Russia From Love’, and Cuba and China have sent doctors. None of these countries are in the EU.

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Now all of those countries are renowned for their philanthropic efforts and I’m sure they expect nothing in return but it wouldn’t surprise me if when this cools down in Italy that the far-right media will say “Well, who supported us? Not the EU. We don’t need the EU. The EU takes away money from us every year and we get nothing in return, even when the country is suffering and almost a thousand people per day are dying”, and we know Russia likes meddling in politics so they can gain from countries’ damages.

Stir up the same propaganda bull- that happened in the UK with the Brexit vote and we could be in trouble.

 

If the bonds do get passed, Germany’s AfD party will say how it’s unfair that the wealthy German taxpayers who has done nothing wrong should have to pay for other countries’ mistakes or ill-preparation.

If they don’t get passed, Italy’s anti-EU sentiment will rise. Their Prime Minister has said that the EU will have failed as a project if these bonds don’t get approved.

 

We seemingly all seem to forget that the EU’s main mission is solidarity to “enhance economic, social and territorial cohesion and solidarity among EU countries”. 

 

As a big supporter of the EU, it’s worrying me.

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11 April 2020
2.48am
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Well, ebola hasn’t gone away yet…

https://www.washingtonpost.com…..story.html

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15 April 2020
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Since the UK media has either completely ignored this news or covered it in an unbelievably dishonest way, I thought I might as well make a post about it – a few days ago, an internal Labour Party report commissioned to investigate the party’s lacklustre response to issues of anti-semitism was leaked. Those who follow UK politics might remember this being a pretty big talking point around the time of the election in December. It was pretty distressing to be a party member with all that going on – the party is supposed to stand against racism and bigotry wherever it can, so the thought that such abhorrent views and stereotypes could persist within our membership is just depressing. 

Anyways, the report was leaked (frustratingly, not in an un-redacted form, so unfortunately the names and details of the victims of anti-semitism have been exposed) and it has ended up unearthing some pretty appalling realities. Firstly, there was/is an anti-semitism problem within the party which went largely unaddressed, and secondly although the leadership under Corbyn did try to take steps to improve its handling, their efforts fell short. We pretty much knew that stuff already. What is more shocking is that the report revealed that a faction to the right of the party of unelected positions working at the party HQ, who were opposed to Corbyn’s leadership right from the beginning, actively worked to sabotage (through creating a “litany of mistakes” designed to obstruct any meaningful solution to the issue) the party’s handling of the anti-semitism issue in order to present the leadership in a bad light and thus be able to oust Corbyn from his spot following a general election defeat. The report confirms that the party failed to act on the majority of anti-semitism complaints, something which was at the time blamed on Corbyn and the left, but was actually largely due to deliberate incompetence – after Jennie Formby took over as general secretary from Iain McNicol (one of the most prominent anti-Corbyn actors involved) in April 2018 there was already a huge backlog of un-dealt with anti-semitism cases, and the report details examples of HQ officials giving inaccurate information to the leader’s office and even outright lying about the progress of dealing with complaints. 

That isn’t all though – it appears this pattern of behaviour runs deeper than the anti-semitism issue, and was indeed a co-ordinated approach to sabotage the party’s electoral chances overall. Leaked WhatsApp messages from a chat containing numerous right-faction staffers at the party HQ show that in the run up to the 2017 election (one in which Labour was less than 2,500 votes away from being able to form a government), they stopped sending the spending budgets for individual constituency campaigns towards a Corbyn ally who was supposed to approve them in order to manipulate funds by taking money away from key marginal seats and diverting it to ensuring that MPs aligned with their faction, like then-deputy leader Tom Watson, were re-elected. As well as diverting funds, they also refused to share information with the leader’s office and engaged in a collective tactic of, in their own words, “coming into the office and doing nothing for a few months”. 

In the run up to the election, the WhatsApp messages show this group complaining every time a poll showed Labour rising in the polls (with one person commenting that a poll showing the party up to 36% made her feel sick) and celebrating polls that showed the Conservatives with a strong lead. Another commenting that she didn’t think she’d be able to “cope with the idea” of Corbyn becoming Prime Minister. After the election result was announced, which had the party’s strongest popular vote share since 1997 and eliminated the Conservative parliamentary majority, members of the group described themselves as in need of counselling and one person said it was “opposite to what [they] had been working towards for the last couple of years”. They put on a brave face to not reveal their disappointment, though, saying that “everybody needs to be very upbeat”, later describing their feelings about the election as “post-traumatic stress”. 

Furthermore, the report shows that amongst these unelected staffers, there was a widespread culture of bullying and personal insults. Apparently referring to the left of the party as ‘Trots’ was endemic to this faction, with them referring to their regular purges of left wing activists as “Trot bashing” and similar. More disgustingly, one person said they hoped a young left-wing activist with documented mental health issues “dies in a fire”, with another one adding tastefully “wish there was a petrol can emoji”. On an occasion where MP Diane Abbot was crying in the buildings toilets after receiving abuse from the press, members of the WhatsApp group posted comments about how Abbot “literally makes me sick” and another posted that they had informed a Sky News reporter of where to find her, no doubt with the hope of extending Abbot’s humiliation. 

As a party member, I’m shocked and disgusted with this behaviour. I want to believe that I’m part of a party based on solidarity and common decency, but the existence of a well organised, high up and extremely nasty faction within the party actively dedicating itself to sabotaging the party’s electoral chances in order to further its own ambitions, is just appalling, especially to consider the incalculable amount of effort that the membership puts into election campaigning every time. I personally spent hours and hours in the freezing cold and rain knocking on doors and speaking to often unfriendly strangers, so I’m sure you can imagine how it feels to know all of that effort was undermined by some smug careerists who apparently couldn’t even stand the thought of their own bloody party winning an election. I voted for Keir Starmer for leader in the hopes that he’d be able to unify the party and improve our standing in the polls, and I’m glad he doesn’t personally belong to this specific faction or ideological subset, but so far I’ve been disappointed with his response to this issue. If he wants to improve, he’d better start acting quickly. 

Blergh, rant over. I would post a link to the report, or offer to share my own copy I have downloaded, but the former has been removed from the UKLabour subreddit and the latter is unfortunately the un-redacted version of the report, which I don’t feel comfortable sharing. You can find an excellent piece describing the behaviour of this faction here, and an Independent article on the whole affair here. There’s also a very comprehensive, though admittedly opinionated overview of the whole issue here

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19 April 2020
11.30pm
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Canada has just seen its worse mass murder in modern times – a gunman has killed 16 people before being killed.

heartheartto all of Canada. Terrible news and not something I expect to hear out of Canada.a-hard-days-night-paul-10heart

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19 April 2020
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Ugh. blue-meanie

apple01andheart to the people who lost their loved ones in this tragedy.

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20 April 2020
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Horrifying news from Canada, especially in this dark time. All the love to our Canadian friends heart

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24 April 2020
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24 April 2020
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AppleScruffJunior said
94335110_10156903752646822_727908905547464704_o.jpgImage Enlarger

  

That’s how good Trump is at this. You can argue both ways of whether he said it as has since been reported, those who support him will say no as does Trump’s team, but it is there to be taken that way. So he’ll call the media out saying they are falsely reporting which will only strengthen those who support him and think the media are the enemy. Everyone else will continue to believe he’s a deluded dangerous individual who will go against the experts it he thinks he’s right. 

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24 April 2020
1.34pm
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You’re fake news, mmm.

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24 April 2020
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YOU ARE SO FAKE - GIF on ImgurImage Enlarger

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24 April 2020
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I was clearly being sarcastic. Dettol tastes lovely this time of year.

 

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24 April 2020
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AppleScruffJunior said
I was clearly being sarcastic. Dettol tastes lovely this time of year.

  

Aren’t we all? Unless we’re not but that’s not unless I am. 

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25 April 2020
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Trump has apparently been advised not to attend the US daily briefs as he is causing more harm than good to his campaign. 

"I told you everything I could about me, Told you everything I could" ('Before Believing' - Emmylou Harris)

25 April 2020
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meanmistermustard said
Trump has apparently been advised not to attend the US daily briefs as he is causing more harm than good to his campaign. 

  

He’s been advised to? He’ll still attend. If he’s told it’s illegal for him to attend? He might start to consider not attending. He’ll do what he wants to do, not what he’s told to do.

 

In other news, there are conflicting reports about Kim Jong-Un. Some say he is in a vegetative state after a botched heart surgery, and some sources say he has died after said surgery. We’ll probably get confirmation from the state in a few days I reckon.

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25 April 2020
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To be fair, the DNC essentially did the same thing with Biden, although it was due to his cognitive decline as opposed to encouraging people to do things that can kill them.

As for Kim Jong Un, i have no sympathy for a bloodthirsty dictator who kills anyone who gets in his way. Sadly, his sister likely won’t be any better so North Korea is screwed either way.

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25 April 2020
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Kim’s sister isn’t the heir to the ‘throne’ it would appear – his children are, however none of them are adults yet so there’s no apparent heir – meaning his sister would probably be the interim dictator before having to hand it over to his children.
But as if she’d hand over the power…

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25 April 2020
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The Hole Got Fixed said

He’s been advised to? He’ll still attend. If he’s told it’s illegal for him to attend? He might start to consider not attending. He’ll do what he wants to do, not what he’s told to do.

A true kindred spirit. ahdn_john_08_gifa-hard-days-night-paul-7
 
I honestly think there are probably more productive uses of the President’s time than those endless press briefings, though.

In other news, there are conflicting reports about Kim Jong-Un. Some say he is in a vegetative state after a botched heart surgery, and some sources say he has died after said surgery. We’ll probably get confirmation from the state in a few days I reckon.  

Yeah, I’ve heard about that. I’ve also heard it posited that the Chinese Communist Party might make some attempt to make a move in on North Korea. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but it sure will be interesting ahdn_paul_01

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25 April 2020
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Beatlebug said

The Hole Got Fixed said

He’s been advised to? He’ll still attend. If he’s told it’s illegal for him to attend? He might start to consider not attending. He’ll do what he wants to do, not what he’s told to do.

A true kindred spirit. ahdn_john_08_gifa-hard-days-night-paul-7

That second smiley doesn’t show? It also doesn’t show in the smiley box. Anyone else?

I honestly think there are probably more productive uses of the President’s time than those endless press briefings, though.

Agree tbh

In other news, there are conflicting reports about Kim Jong-Un. Some say he is in a vegetative state after a botched heart surgery, and some sources say he has died after said surgery. We’ll probably get confirmation from the state in a few days I reckon.  

Yeah, I’ve heard about that. I’ve also heard it posited that the Chinese Communist Party might make some attempt to make a move in on North Korea. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but it sure will be interesting ahdn_paul_01

  

Hadn’t heard that. That would be very.. interesting

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