Category Archives: Just strange

Anne Applebaum Interview About President Donald Trump – SPIEGEL ONLINE

Applebaum: I don’t want to predict calamity. But I am afraid of a new Russian occupation of parts of Eastern Europe. Also of a new Russian campaign to exert influence in Germany or other parts Europe, aimed at making continental politics less democratic. I am afraid of a US trade war and even a shooting war with China.

Source: Anne Applebaum Interview About President Donald Trump – SPIEGEL ONLINE

Donald Trump presidency: A man baby in the White House | In English | EL PAÍS

The most abnormal thing is his character; that the richest, most powerful and most influential nation on the planet is going to have as its president a “man baby,” as he was defined with terrifying lucidity by the US political humorist Jon Stewart. Trump is a 70-year-old man with the emotional development of, well, perhaps not a newborn baby, but certainly a spoiled elementary school brat.

Source: Donald Trump presidency: A man baby in the White House | In English | EL PAÍS

American hegemony: The Anglo-American suicide | In English | EL PAÍS

And yet it would not be the first time in history that an empire has committed suicide. From 1405 to 1433, China’s imperial navy sailed all the seas of Asia and along the east coast of Africa under Admiral Zheng He. The Ming dynasty was able to organize expeditions of up to 300 ships (some of them 120 meters in length at a time when the Santa María of Columbus only measured 26 meters) and employing tens of thousands of sailors. But when the Yongle Emperor died, coinciding with the era when Portuguese sailors were beginning to sail the seas, his successors decided to end the expeditions and began a long period of isolation that would ultimately cut China off from knowledge and key markets at a crucial juncture in its own development. This left the country in a position of weakness that later allowed the West to easily defeat it, obliging it to open its markets. The fact that, while Trump and May are announcing their intention to leave, Chinese president Xi Jinping is defending globalization at Davos, should offer a very clear indication of the depth of the power shift that we are acting as witnesses to – one that will only get deeper.

Source: American hegemony: The Anglo-American suicide | In English | EL PAÍS

Is the GOP Trying to Kill Americans? | Dame Magazine

I’m cussing a lot because I’m furious. Like millions of Americans (despite my Welsh birth, I’m about to become an American citizen) I have never had an employer who paid for my health care. (Actually, I had one employer, who was mandated to provide me with health care for a year through the Writers Guild.) But now this kind of bullshit is back. Donald Trump and the Republicans’ attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act is not a way to curb a bureaucratic mess, but an out and out war on the American people. Because repealing the ACA would mean everyone with a preexisting condition will no longer be able to get health-care coverage. It means those of you middle-income people without health care provided by an employer, but unable to qualify for Medicare, will have to dig deep and find $200 to $300 a month to give to an insurance company who will squabble over each and every doctor’s visit, every dime you spend, every minor symptom you have.After the birth of my son and a horrible divorce, I was crippled with depression and anxiety and PTSD. I credit mental-health-care services—weekly visits to a therapist at $40 a pop even with insurance, monthly visits to a psychiatrist at $50, monthly prescriptions at $20—with saving my life. I am a healthy person. I do yoga, I dance, I eat healthy, I’m active. Being felled by MRSA, a retained placenta, mental-health issues could and would have killed me without insurance.Living in America is prohibitively expensive, and in a big city, even more so. Rent, traffic tickets, tickets for having you dog off leash, tickets for overtaking in the fast lane—it never fucking ends. I often feel like white men are masticating me as they try to suck the sinews off my bones to make stock for their fucking stew. This country is a devastating and unfriendly place to be, and yet here we all are, trying to make the best of it, faced with little choice but to wake up, day after day, work in jobs we hate for pennies our employers argue over, paying rent for homes owned by people who see us as cash cows. I knew this was happening, but the reality of it has devastated me more than I can say. In my ten years of American living, moving here during the Bush era, I began to see real change, and now I am bearing witness to a perilous plunge into a new, worse horror.We need to do everything we can to stop it. Start by picking up the phone: Call. Your. Senator.

Source: Is the GOP Trying to Kill Americans? | Dame Magazine

Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet – Amanda Hess

My harasser finally acquiesced to the protection order when my lawyer showed him that we knew the blog comments were coming from his computer — he had made a valiant attempt to obscure his comments, but he’d slipped up in a couple of instances, and we could prove the rape threats were his. When the judge approved the order, she instructed my harasser that he was not allowed to contact me in any way — not by email, Twitter, phone, blog comment, or by hiring a hot air balloon to float over my house with a message, she said. And he had to stay at least 100 feet away from me at all times. The restraining order would last one year.Soon after the order expired, he sent an email to my new workplace.

Source: Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet

Men and women who threaten and/or incite criminal abuse against others on the internet and other digital and analog devices should not be allowed to do so. All organizations participating in facilitating the transmission of such abuse should be held financially accountable for the harm caused by such communications. Each transmission of such a message should constitute an individual criminal act.

Putin revels in Trump, lies and videotape | World | DW.COM | 13.01.2017

Given Trump had a long history of trying to do business with Russia in the 90’s and then later with the Miss Universe pageant, it’s not unreasonable to assume that Russia’s security services would have files on him. It would be unusual if they didn’t. The Czech’s are said to have had files on him as far back as the 1970s.Usually though you wouldn’t reveal your trump card publicly as your leverage would be lost – unless, of course, you had an entirely different plan in mind.The Kremlin labels allegations about the tapes existence as ‘pulp fiction’ but there must be some form of quiet enjoyment it’s reveling in as it watches the US tear itself apart. First with the hacking allegations and the role it may have played in getting Trump elected, and now with talks of impeachment before he’s even sworn in. It’s a disaster. Utter political disarray. And if Trump is looking for support at home, he may have to change his tune as, let’s face it, he hasn’t got off on a great start with his own intelligence agencies. If he doesn’t, they may well rain on his parade.And all of this as Russia enjoys its Orthodox Christmas. Who could ask for more? Putin speaks fluent German so perhaps the word that’s floating through his mind as he gazes across the square from the Kremlin to the Ritz Carlton – feeling a little inner glow – is schadenfreude.

Source: Putin revels in Trump, lies and videotape | World | DW.COM | 13.01.2017

Russia dossier: what happens next – and could Donald Trump be impeached? | US news | The Guardian

The most sensational details contained in the dossier concern the allegation that Russian spies gathered compromising material, or “kompromat”, on Trump by secretly recording audio and video tape of his sexual activities in the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton hotel in Moscow. Such content is virtually impossible to prove, or disprove, other than in the unlikely circumstance that tapes were to emerge. A potentially more potent line of inquiry contained in the dossier that could yet cause Trump trouble relates to allegations that members of his team were in close contact with Russian officials in the course of last year’s presidential election over Russian hacking of Democratic emails that were later published by WikiLeaks. Independent reports suggest that US intelligence agencies were already investigating alleged links, such as those between businessman Carter Page and senior Russian officials. The president-elect’s spokesman Sean Spicer this week said that the president-elect “does not know” Page, even though Trump himself last March described Page as a member of his foreign policy team.

Source: Russia dossier: what happens next – and could Donald Trump be impeached? | US news | The Guardian

How a Sensational, Unverified Dossier Became a Crisis for Donald Trump – The New York Times

The story began in September 2015, when a wealthy Republican donor who strongly opposed Mr. Trump put up the money to hire a Washington research firm run by former journalists, Fusion GPS, to compile a dossier about the real estate magnate’s past scandals and weaknesses, according to a person familiar with the effort. The person described the opposition research work on condition of anonymity, citing the volatile nature of the story and the likelihood of future legal disputes. The identity of the donor is unclear.

The Archaeological thefts | nadiaharhash

An Israeli colleague of mine, from an Israeli organization that stands against Israeli policies (Emek Shaveh) in what is claimed to be archeological and national parks as means to displace Palestinians and grab more control on the land, found while surfing some archaeological journals on the web, about some new findings in Deir Dib Wan, a town on the outskirts of Ramallah in what is categorized as a B area according to Oslo Accords. The excavated site was on the C area of the village, which seemed to have been covered by an American mission belonging to a theological institute within the University of Texas for the last twenty years, without even bothering to search for the landowners or taking any permission. The Israeli Coordination offices in charges of area C, however, no one has the right to enter a land and use it, excavate it without the permission or the notice of its people. Something that kept happening for twenty years. What we know from the journal, and thanks to this!!! That the area has a 1500 years old Byzantine city, the excavations revealed a church, homes, potteries, and definitely more. The university has been conducting exhibitions on the findings in the last years.

Source: The Archaeological thefts | nadiaharhash