MicroB

I don't support the inclusion any such material in any school library, or indeed, educational estsblishment. Why are you interested. Which schools do you think should stock those kinds of books, since you have specifically highlighted elementary school libraries should not have them. Logically, then, you think some school libraries should have them. You are attempting to debate using the logical fallacy approach, but along the way making outrageous implications about the ciminality, or not, of forum members. A simple apology would suffice. When did you stop beating your wife?

Reference to this Reel "Rockaway Primetime Reporting" is a partisan account. I think its reference to the tour he gave Terry Moran from ABC before "that" interview. He struggled to describe what President Monroe had achieved besides the Monroe Doctrine. In the context of a debate on whether his mental faculties are failing, its pretty weak sauce.

I think Bush, whatever people think of him when he was in Office, is acting Presidential. His dad went further though. The closest Dubya has gotten, on record, is oblique references to press freedom. We don't really know what he said during the 2017 inauguration; its apocryphal, it kind of fits with his public character, but its better that he just stays silent on the matter. Irrespective of my opinion of a current President, past holders of the office should maintain a statesman like dignity, partly because they know the reality of that office, about what really goes on behind closed doors, and the difficult decisions all Presidents have to take, and life with. And it cuts both ways with a current leader commenting on his predecessor. In both cases, the Head of State represents ALL Americans, not just the ones who voted for him. I'd say the same about Prime Ministers, but constitutionally, that Office is entirely different, and the PM is merely First among Equals (PMs are easily replaced). https://www.politico.eu/article/former-presidents-walk-fine-line-in-trumps-america/#:~:text=Former presidents walk fine line in Trump's America – POLITICO. Yeah, I don't recall any of the former Presidents embarking on some sort of project in collaboration with the current incumbant; whether that's because they don't want anything to do with him, or vice versa, is not clear. When Trump shakes the hand warmly of a departing Biden, or is seen sharing a joke with Obama at a funeral, is it genuine, or just for the cameras. Is the very personal criticism of predecessors genuine, or just for effect? He spent 13 years literally acting a role for the cameras.

Why would Clinton be deported? Watching too much Happy Valley.

To be fair, Corporal Vance made a pretty good fist of standing to attention, saluting, properly attired. Colonel Hegseth, in his shrunken trousers, not so good. He needs someone how to pick a correct fitting suit when buying from JG Penneys. The President, hamfisted.

The controversy is over his transfer from Fordham to Wharton. Wharton's Admission Officer commented in 2019, that the man must have had a decent enough record to be accepted, thought at the time, in the mid-60s, was that more than half of transfers from UPENN were successful, compared to 7.4% today. In 1967, worst at Wharton was worst than most. It was then a below average college, but better than Fordham. In 2011, as a private citizen. Trump demanded publication of Obama's academic transcript. At the same time, as a celebrity at the time, Trump arranged for his own academic records. Its also a fact that on multiple occasions he has claimed to have been top of his class. While his academic records remain private, what are a matter of public record are Commencement Ceremonies Invitations and Deans Lists. https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/07/09/trump-overstated-academic-record-report-says He is listed as an ordinary graduand. Its also important to note, he did not graduate from Fordham. He did not attend the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania. He attended the Wharton Undergraduate School of the University of Pennsylvania. In the 60s, Wharton was then considered the easy route prior to transferring to the better College of Arts and Sciences. Its kind of like someone going to Oxford Brookes and 60 years later claiming they had graduated from the University of Oxford. He did not graduate with honors, such as cum laude, magna cum laude or summa cum laude. This is not conjecture, but public record. Its also a matter of fact that the school awarded honours based on GPA. A score of less than 3.40 meant no honours.

Curiously, in the very recent past, the US government has complained about foreign governments interfering in its own internal politics, and has threatened retaliatory action. It must be ok now to do this, for, say, the Russian Government to reach out to various political groups and organisations within the US.

Locomotives and wagons can be kept running. But they can't stop rail from wearing out. Russia isn't a country without communications, and rail is a very important component of that. The road connections to the Far East have always been poor, due to vast geography and a low population in between Moscow and Vladivostok. Pilots flying into Domodedovo airport are seeing more and more cannibalised airliners. As civil aviation starts to break down, then passenger miles on the trains increases. But if derailment rate increases due to worn out track, then what. If the Far East becomes disconnected, then Russia, in effect, ceases to be a country, in that the Far East will increasingly seek their own agenda.

Or someone pretending to be a Russian, and is Barry from the Wirral, and doing a valiant job of trolling.

Depends how you are measuring "making money". The war is making the West collectively poorer. The West isn't making money. Defence spending might increase, but that's really just bringing purchases forward. And if defence spending increases, then there are cuts in expenditure elsewhere. How did the UK profit frm WW2. The Russian economy is converting to a war economy. Meaning more money is flowing to the oligarchs. Far from a price being paid that is worth it, they just see the money coming back to them. Referring to Ukraine as "the Ukraine" is a Russian habit, designed to diminish the legitimacy of Ukraine.

I was thinking more like Gaddafi. On the lam, found in a sewer pipe, bayonet up the jacksie, face his accusers across the bonnet of a pickup, before a coup de grace. Unmarked grave in a rubbish tip. But it won't happen.

You "dare" (drama queen!!) say no more, because you know it to be nonsense. I know what you are trying to allude to, but it is complete cobblers. Has been ever since Mosely tried it on. You are disgracing the memory of Stalin's millions of victims because of sheet ignorance, all because you have a desire to be liked.

Putin might not be an idiot, but he is an ignorant man.

I believe this is a stalking post.

I think that thinking has always influenced Western kids gloves policy towards Russia; better the devil you know than not. We don't really want Putin's government to collapse. But to think we are worried about a sudden failure of the Russian government is in itself scary. I'd like to think if there was some terrible calamity that befell the US or UK governments that we have the checks and balances in place to ensure Brig. General Jack D. Ripper is just a movie fiction. We probably know that supposed Israeli and South African capabilities remains just a paper capability. We are probably nervous about Pakistan. At the end of the Cold War there was no doubt extensive exchange of notes between Russian and their NATO counterparts. Are we worried about the Russian lack of checks and balances we are prepared to allow a war of conquest to occur because the alternative is much worse. In 1983, the NATO exercise, Able Archer, nearly caused a pre-emptive Soviet attack, except for the bravery of a Russian colonel in refusing an order.

Vance said something almost as bad: The identity is Ulster-Scots. To call a "hillbilly" Irish would be see as a gross insult. Hillbillies was used by Irish catholics to describe members of William's army at the Boyne, who were mostly Scots. Why "Hill Billies". Well, the cvlue is in another term of insult used in Ireland; Planter. Ulster was known as the Ulster Plantation. The Planters were colonists taking over confiscated lands. The story is some got a bit bored and headed off to America for further opportunity. In Ulster, the Planters had a pretty sweet deal compared to the Catholics; fixed rents. All the terms Vance refers to lack insight. Hillbillies at one time described someone with a rabid adherance to Protestantism and the Crown. Red-Necks were Covenanters; hardcore Presbyterians, who refused to accept the primacy of the Church of England, signed their names in blood, and wore red scarves to signify where they stood. White trash? Most sources point to that being a term used by black slaves to describe poor white people; if not Ulster-Scots types, they will have been descendants of those indentured workers (slaves) sent to the tobacco fields of Virginia. And then Vance marries a Hindoo and becomes a Roman Catholic. His ancestors, if Scots, might be thinking was it worth moving to America to establish some god-fearing paradise free of going to hell Catholics for this to happen.

I had a Postie give me stick when he delivered a letter to my Glasgow home address Glasgow, England. The Brits are as bad when we call someone from Alabama a Yank. Could be worse. Some could come on here inviting a metaphorical thick ear, by referring to the "Six Counties" The (Irish) Republican conspiracy theory runs deep. https://hannahmccarthyreports.substack.com/p/jd-vances-catholicism-and-some-pieces

Pad or Egg

The history of Britain is a lot longer than the United Kingdom, which is a few hundred years.

Ulster-Scots is the correct term. This is the curious thing; Ulster-Scots is not the same as being Irish. American politicians like to embrace cultural identities for electoral reasons, and the Irish lobby seems particularly powerful. But being a Hick from West Virginia; thats not going to resonate with a Mick from Boston. Few catholic Irish went to the Appaluchians. The people who settled were descendants of people from the Highland clearances, who moved to "Ulster" (which covers a bit more than the current Northern Ireland), and thence to North America in the 17th and early 18th Centuries. At the heart of the Troubles in Northern Ireland is the acceptance of the "Irishness" of Protestant folk. The ethnicities in Northern Ireland are murky; you have Irish catholics, you have Irish protestants who are descendants of converts, you have Presbyterian protestants decended from Scots, you have Anglican/Methodist descendants of English/Welsh people. You also have people who claim to be descended from survivors of the Armada (likely not true. There is a fair sprinking of Irish people of mixed race heritage such as the late Phil Lynott). If the Protestants are descended from people thrown off lands in Scotland, then why are they so pro-British. Well, that's complicated; the first anti-British uprising was in the 18th Century lead by Dublin Protestants, lead by Wolf Tone, who was worried that the British Crown was hatching a plan with the Catholics. The Prods became "Loyalists", but elements will attack the police. Why? Because "Loyalism" is based on Loyalty to Protestantism. As long as the Monarch is true to protestant principles, they will be loyal. The Police are seen as agents of the Crown; if the Police, or Army, do something which is seen as contrary to Protestantism, then there is no such loyalty, cue masked youths lobbing Molotovs on the Ormeau Road. Orange is associated with Tennessee; Go Big Orange is the popular slogan. Officially its the colour of the American Daisy. In reality, Tennesse is the buckle of the protestant bible belt. All those Orange Counties across the US; not named after a fruit, but by residents who at one time offered moral fielty to a Dutchman who came ashore at Carrickfergus. As an Englishman, I lived for 10 years in Northern Ireland. You think, being British, you understood the politics there. Nope. As an Englishman, I was regarded as a neutral; people from both traditions would be at pains to explain their perspectives. Most Protestants were middle of the road; their opposition to unification with Eire was based on the Republic being dirt poor. That feeling certainly softened with EU integration; the economic argument for the UK became less persuasive, and they are pretty pragmatic. The Good Friday Agreement would never have happened post-Brexit. And Brexit has created all sorts of issues people never thought would arise following the GFA. Voting was an experience, with the single transferable vote. I don't recommend it. I felt I was forced to decide which ex-jailbird/cut throat I wanted to be out of prison. A police friend pointed out to me that many terrorist families, particularly from Armagh, would have criminality going back hundreds of years, irrespective of politics. When Mo Robinson was caught with a truck of dead Vietnamese in Essex, he came from a solidly, Red Hand waving Loyalist family, with a boss from a Republican family from Monahagn. When the Queen Mother died, one of her Irish Guard pallbearers was from a Republican family (he used to decorate his bunk with cuttings from the Sein Fein newspaper). He was also the first Irishman and first British soldier, killed entering Iraq in 2003. So the politics are complex and sometimes a mystery. Irish Catholics in the Americas mostly arrived much later, during the Famine, with clusters around the port cities (just like England; my ancestors were dockers from Cork, moved to Liverpool, then London, in the 1850s), and then further West in the new industrial cities.

For the latter, its a combination of the Biden administration's handling of that pull out, plus the previous administration's habit of directly negotiating with terrorists, and leaving out the legitimate Afghan government out of discussions. The Saigon debacle happened under Ford, and he shared blame, but the reasons were due to a previous President embracing a criminal regime. If Putin was a normal, non-criminal leader, he would have viewed Ukraine joining the EU as an economic opportunity, a good news event for the Russian federation, leading to facilitation of greatly increased trading with the EU and the wider world. But you are right, Putin views sovereignty as a threat to Russia. Yes, Russia found it all too easy to seize Crima, but using this as a reason to excuse Russia is a bit like blaming the rape victim for walking home from the pub. You are right, that Russia is a country with a small dick. Look how they shrivelled at Pristina Airport when faced with a guitar waving young Blues and Royal officer in his little Scorpion tank, when he said "No". Chamberlain greenlighted Herr Hitler into invading Poland because of the reaction to Czechoslovakia, but in the end, the blame for WW2 lies with Hitler and his gang. Chamberlain's defence was he wasn't trusting of the Germans, and was buying time. Halfas was genuinely trusting of the Germans, so Obama veers more towards a Halifax position. Everyone seems to think history started in 2014, in terms of the root of this conflict. Not so. You can go back to 2000, when Putin came to power, and relations with Georgi became frosty, but even before then, when the Politburo in Moscow deliberately encouraged and funded counter-nationalist movements, as they saw Communist power slip away. Its true that those diehards viewed the West with disdain and are contemptuous of democracy, in the same way Hitler was. So Obama's inaction in 2014 confirmed to Putin what he saw from President Bush in 2008, over Georgia, where he allowed the Russian Army to seize US property without a protest. Putin is incapable of civilised behaviour. He is an anti-democrat, so he has no understanding or empatthy with Western liberal democracies. He is so imbided with Bolshevik brainwashing, he sees everything as a threat to the Party, even though the Party has long gone. A normal national leader would not see a country joining the EU as some sort of existensial threat. A normal leader sees that as an economic opportunity. Russia is a country with a small penis that easily shrivels. eg. Pristina Airport. Western leaders have made mistakes, but the fault has always been with Putin, and his geopolitical illiteracy. To blame the West for the War is to blame the young girl who was gang raped for walking home, or the young boy abused by a pedophile for joining the Scouts. Hitler caused WW2. Putin caused WW3.

Complaining about your own people.

Is it?

https://aseannow.com/topic/1351963-president-jd-vance/#findComment-19824449 And its not "Democratic Union Party" but "Democratic Unionist Party". You make them out to be a friendly sort of bunch, not the bible tumping Holy Joes they actually are. And its Northern Ireland, not "north of Ireland". North of Ireland is Dundalk. I'm going with the theory that a great great great grannie slave was banged by the Master. Or he's a Cockney Vance. Either way, increasingly likely , he's a Plastic Hillbilly.