Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Thom Hartmann Program" channel.

  1. Abbott might want to be very careful about what he does and says in coming days. Other than the simple concept of negligent homicide there's the issue that he as a state governor has no right to control an international border. I'm Australian and even I know this. We've had all sorts of legal issues regarding boat people entering Australian waters and we've had calls from other countries to either get our SHlT better organised or face reprisals. Some of the Europeans basically threatened us with trade sanctions if we didn't get our act together. They're quieter now that they're having similar issues with the flood out of North Africa. I absolutely support the right of any country to decide who can and who can't enter their country. That is a basic law all countries, states and tribes have had for centuries, but these days we by international agreements we recognise the rights of people claiming asylum to have their case heard. That's not always easy and even if they are not accepted as refugees it doesn't mean you can simply let people die. You certainly can't just stand there and do nothing.
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  2. I don't know why anyone is really surprised. Go look through history and this has been done so many times in the past its almost a standard human trait. Considering the stresses in our society these days after 40+ years of neo-liberalism making everyone feel helpless to some extent, no one should be surprised by the sort of garbage we see. Add into that people who know how to weaponize the frustration of others and it becomes a very dangerous situation.
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  3. ENGINEER HERE: I worked on a waste water treatment plant for a Uranium mine in Australia back in 2005-06. There's a lot that can be done but removing tritium is not that easy and getting all of it out is near impossible. Plus to be fair the amount of toxins in our lives these days is now so great that the Fukushima water is negligible. Things like the lead that was in gasoline for decades did far more damage and effectively gave lead poisoning to the entire planet. The nuclear testing done in the post world war 2 period irradiated the entire human race. Its what makes all the steel made BEFORE that time so valuable and why Pirates raid the ships sunk in World War 2 and World War 1. All of the steel in all, our cars, boats, bridges, trucks,.... etc. is tainted by those tests. We have to accept that we have abused this planet in so many ways its hard to describe and either we learn to take care of it or we die as a species because there is NOTHING ELSE. What I don't like about BOTH SIDES of the nuclear debate is that NEITHER OF THEM tell the whole truth. The pro-nuclear brigade don't talk about either the construction costs, construction time or the decommissioning costs. The anti-nuclear brigade use a staggering amount of scare tactics when there are other things we need to be a lot more scared of like CLIMATE CHANGE, affordable housing, clean food and clean water for a couple of Billion People.
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  4. “It's Easier to Fool People Than It Is to Convince Them That They Have Been Fooled.” – Mark Twain.
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  5. I'm Australian and one of the more astute observations was: "The Republican Oligarchs beat the Democrat CEOs"
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  6. SORRY BUT - I went and checked this and maybe Thom could have done some checking too. There definitely is a direct link from Cannons husband (Josh Lorence) to John Rosatti, but there's not much of a link between John Rosatti and the Colombo crime family and nothing to suggest he's actually a mobster. According to FBI informant and former Colombo captain Salvatore "Big Sal" Miciotta "in late 1993, Victor Orena asked multi-millionaire businessman John Rosatti to provide cars from his dealership to be used to carry out murders, Rosatti declined and instead handed over $50,000 to Orena." (source Wikipedia on the page about the Colombo Crime Family). So there's no actual claim anywhere that Rosatti was actually a mobster just a claim that a mobster approached him at one time and the implication he paid money to NOT be involved.
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  7. Abbott might want to be very careful about what he does and says in coming days. Other than the simple concept of negligent homicide there's the issue that he as a state governor has not right to control an international border. I'm Australian and even I know this.
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  8. I'm Australian but went to college in America in the late 80s. I did engineering but a bunch of my frat brothers were pre-law so I had many discussion about the US constitution. What's amazed when I compare today with the 80s is the insane ignorance about the US Constitution. Americans used to be incredibly proud of the understanding of there own nation. Compared to any other nation (including Australia) Americans WERE the most well educated people with respect to HOW their country ACTUALLY DOES WORK. BUT ITS NO LONGER TRUE and that amazes me because Americans used to be PROUD they understood their own nation. My frat brothers were ADAMANT that America could NEVER become a totalitarian state BECAUSE THEY WERE EDUCATED.
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  9. Hey Thom your next video needs to be on the SCOTUS decision to castrate the EPA.
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  10. Australian here. Four Corners is a program not a station. Its very similar to PBS Frontline, BBC Panorama and Canada's The 5th Estate in fact sometimes 4 Corners shows Frontline or Panorama episodes. The station that produces 4 Corners is Australia's ABC which is our equivalent of PBS. Like the others 4 Corners usually just does 45 minute episodes but occasionally does multi episode stories like Follow the Money. Another great multi-episode 4 Corners is "Fox and the Big Lie" which is all about the involvement of Australian born Rupert Murdoch's Fox network's promoting Trumps election lies. It also includes the now famous interview with Sydney Powell.
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  11. It started before that when they awarded Milton Freidman the Nobel Prize in economics in 1976. That gave his brand of psychotic garbage legitimacy. Did you know the Nobel for Economics IS NOT a real Nobel Prize? It was never sponsored by Nobel or any member of the family. It was sponsored by a Swedish Bank so that the BS economists pump out was made legitimate in the publics eyes. It really is the FAKE Nobel Prize. But Freidman's brand of psychotic shit was the worst thing they ever legitimized.
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  12. They rely on the simple concept that people like to think they are smarter than they are and if you give them information that the rest of us don't know about it REINFORCES that. This is why its so hard to convince people other wise. They then have to admit they were tricked or they were wrong or they just aren't as smart as they think they are.
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  13. Most people have never heard of them until recently. Just like we'd never heard of the Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, CATO Institute and other right wing institutions and lobbyists until recently. America is going to need to comes to terms with these people because the influence they have on American politics is starting to effect other countries. I'm Australian and like Canada, Japan, Mexico, Britain and others, America is our major trading and security partner. These people aren't simply a threat to American Democracy they're a threat to Western Democracy.
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  14. @user-fv4nb3is3c Right now I can't see why we are making even stronger commitments to America when its in this state of flux. I actually went to college there on a scholarship and believe that overall they are a great country with fine people. The problem is they have sat back letting this minority gain a staggering amount of political power. They have had so many opportunities to put limits on this stuff and just didn't. They have let a small group of insanely wealthy people have too much power and that has never worked at any point in history. AND YES I know Rupert bloody Murdoch has been a major player in that. At some point we are going to have to deal with that entire family and their minions.
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  15. Asimov fan here - I love that quote. Isaac was one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. I would have like to have met him. Here's another great quote regarding America from Vice President Henry A. Wallace. quoted from the New York Times, April 9, 1944 “The really dangerous American fascist... is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power... They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective, toward which all their deceit is directed, is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."
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  16. There's a PBS Frontline documentary on how the Kentucky Teachers lost massively in New York Stock Exchange trading and nobody really knew what was going on or the risks that were being taken. Be careful if you have throwable objects nearby. Its so aggravating that you really do feel you want to break something or throw something.
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  17. I'm Australian but went to college in America and this stuff with SCOTUS scares me a lot more than Putin or Xi or Kim. I have a lot of American friends I care about but also as an Australian (like many others - Canada, Japan, Korea, Britain, etc.) America is our most important trading and security partner. I was in Canada for work when Trump without any warning tore up NAFTA and hit them with tariffs. All the treaties and commercial stuff is protected by the most pro-Business SCOTUS in history. Look at "Citizens United" - they don't care what Wall Street does to America, so imagine how much less they care about the rest of us? We trade with all these American companies and if anything comes up they run back to SCOTUS which they own and control. Ask the Central & South Americans about Texaco (Chevron). Secondly - Australia (and others) have backed our future security on the F35 program. What if the next version of Trump one days waves the middle finger and we get no spare parts? Or that spares come with conditions like helping to invade Iran? Its not only America's future that hinges on SCOTUS. Its effects the entire Western World.
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  18. I'm Australian but went to college U. Illinois on a sports scholarship. So I know this part of America quite well and despite the rivalry with Ohio is incredibly sad to hear about ALL THIS STUFF. There was the Governor of Illinois admissions scandal at MY ACTUAL SCHOOL, that affects my employment in Australia because anyone here who googles University of Illinois sees that. I dated a Hoosier for a while and to hear about the collapse of Indiana's manufacturing while Pete Buttigieg tells America how great he is ridiculous. I spent my first Thanksgiving in Kentucky. A while back I saw a PBS Frontline documentary on how the Kentucky Teachers lost massively in New York Stock Exchange trading and nobody really knew what was going on or the risks that were being taken. I spent another Thanksgiving in Cincinnati. I watched the COVID stats for that part of America and to see this on top of everything else that's happened is just heartbreaking.
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  19. ​ @CarlGerhardt1  WHAT DID I SAY IN THE LAST PARAGRAPH? Australia already has plans to grow from the current 26 million to over 50 million. I'm not against that but we can't suddenly do that now. We don't have the housing, infrastructure, energy, water, schools, hospitals just to start the list. We have to say NO and despite what the Europeans said to us they now know. I once saw Angela Merkel who oversaw Germany have the most open of border policies tell a young immigrant girl that "I'm sorry but we can't take everyone." She wasn't being mean or dispassionate or cruel she was just pointing out the basic reality. Every country has limits to what it can do. America is no different and I 100% support America's right to say NO. BUT BUDDY DON'T MISTAKE THAT FOR BEING AN ARSEH0LE. And Greg Abbott is an ARSEH0LE and a damn cruel one at that.
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  20. I am Australian and trying to point out the issues with our Agriculture Sector is like banging you head against a wall made of a combination of brick, carbon fibre, cement, marble, coated in carbide. In general we produce food for 75 million but only have 25 million. That means we feed about 50 million people in "other places." Australia's growth plan (if it can be called that) steadily moving towards 50-60 million because the economists say that will be good enough to support industry. What they really mean is that all those home loans will be a huge boon for the banks. BUT NOBODY wants to discuss what's to happen to all those people in other countries we feed. If we simply jump to 35 million. that means either we need to increase out own production to feed another 10 million or there's 10 million starving somewhere or 20 million only getting 1/2 the food they normally have. Either way we can expect several million starving people rocking up on our shore. Because starving people don't care about borders. AND THAT'S ONLY IF we have no issues with world wide food supply. The thing that really scares Australians (or the ones who are awake) is what happens of there's a crisis and millions of starving people see we have excess food.
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  21. The British rebel economist Gary Stevenson (here on YT) had a great line about when people like David Koch talk about how good or bad things are or how great or worse things would be if certain things were done. He said just add the 2 words "for us" to the end of everything they say. If they say something like "Getting rid of that regulation will be good." add those 2 words. If they say something like "The economy is going great." add those 2 words. If they say something like "The economy is a shambles." add those 2 words. Then everything they say makes sense.
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  22. What they have done is almost standard practice for religious movements with the goal of political power AND ITS NOT a Christian specific thing either. There's a common technique used by religious people where they lift a line or phrase out of the text and literally flip it on end and make it the opposite meaning to suit circumstances. One of the best examples of that is that snippet out of Romans 12:19 "Vengence is mine, says the Lord." Its regarded as one of the great misquotes of human history. Its been used as the Battle Cry for 100s of Christian armies over many centuries. Go read what that paragraph actually says - its the complete opposite. The Muslim suicide bombers and done similar by claiming its a from of martyrdom. Dozens of Muslim scholars have come out and said that's a misinterpretation. They completely ignore those parts that regard suicide as a sin and twist the parts on Martyrdom to include suicide if its against an enemy. The Seven Mountains people are doing similar. Both Revelations and Isiah use word pictures (like are used in parables) and its very easy to lift parts out and flip it into anything you want. But sometimes the explanations are right there in the text. In Rev 17 its says various part of the beast represent political entities as in kings & kingdoms. There's a woman riding on the back of that beast and what social institution has ridden on the back of politics like a prostitute selling itself in any way necessary to retain power, influence and wealth? Answer - organised religion. Revelation 17 is NOT about a religious movement taking over political control. Its the complete opposite. Its about secular politics getting tired of organised religion riding on its back and then turning on it and tearing it to pieces.
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  23. FIRST let me say that this group Thom's describing is despicable and the guy running it is a turd. SECOND Its not just simply women rejecting bad men they are rejecting a lot of good men too. I've watched several of my friends get their lives utterly torn up by their wives. They were not abusive or bad or did anything but try and be decent husbands. One just left one day leaving him with 2 wonderful kids because her boss bought her a car. About 15 years ago I read a report written by a FEMALE psychologist who pointed out that many of her patients were women depressed over their perception there were no men good enough for them to share a life with. She even wrote a book about this. She put much of the blame on an aspect of feminism that said "be demanding of men" being taken out of context. In terms of women demanding that men treat them fairly and with respect I don't no many men who don't agree with that, BUT what this psychologist said was that too many women had these lists of demands as to what a husband should be. These lists were unrealistic leaving a lot of women depressed.
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  24. I'm Australian but went to college at U. Illinois. So I know the Midwest reasonably well. This is kind of surprising because I thought it would have been Delaware (the world capital of tax evasion) or Idaho (the world capital of Russian money) or Texas (the world capital of "look over there at what they are doing"). My take on Ohio is that for every 2 children in Ohio one ends up playing sport for the Buckeyes and the other one learns to read & write.
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  25.  @yvonneplant9434  As for you comment about Australian's telling Americans what to do. We can certainly tell you how to hold an election, but then so can more than 100 other countries. Maybe you should ask the Russians or Chinese how to hold your next election.
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  26. He's a typical American Libertarian Libertarian rule No. 1: "We want the Liberty to strip you of your Liberty" Libertarian rule No. 2: "The Government only has the Liberty to spend money on what we want." Libertarian rule No. 3: "You have the Liberty to concede all power to us."
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  27. That's actually the smart comment among a lot of others some of which are incredibly ignorant. Thom doesn't help a lot with a real doozy. When he said the Bible allowed children to be stoned for being uppity. There's no such rule ANYWHERE in the Bible. People need to be very careful with the Bible. It wasn't written in English or anything close to English. It was mostly written in Ancient Hebrew which was structured very differently to most modern languages. Its made it very easy for unscrupulous people to take advantage of it with interpretations.
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  28.  @terryparenteau1200  I'm Australian but went to college in America (late 80s) and I thought at the time America was showing signs of slipping. Things like basic literacy and math skills. Don't forget America has a long history of simplifying spelling. Its one of those funny subjects between America and the rest of the English speaking world. Sorry fo he longer answer but you raise an important issue. I'm fairly well informed on what's happened in Australia with education as both my parents were High School teachers and 1 cousin was a high school principal. And our system is following America's. What's masking lower education standards are the advances in technology. If you've heard about how apps like MS Word have contributed to a decline in spelling skills because it auto corrects. We have a very similar issue in engineering with packages like AutoCad. Its brilliant in how it helps engineers design BUT it also makes them very lazy with some vital skills. The equivalent to spelling in engineering is tolerancing. That's where you decide how accurate each dimension on a part needs to be. In the past engineers had to think about how accurate each dimension needed to be and now they don't. I think there's been a long slow decline in Western Education that's been so gradual we don't realise it unless we something very specific. I've noticed in engineering but I'm certain its across the board. I think its being driven by at least 2 main things. First there's the fundamentalist religions for sure. That's the point you made and its all about power and obedience. Its been well practiced for 1000s of years by many religions that literacy is for priests and obedience is for the illiterate. Second is politics where its much easier to motivate mobs if they are less educated (eg. Trumpism). After those 2 I know of 2 others. There's pressure from business who again want obedience. There's a lesser and very significant pressure from the FAR LEFT (and I mean the far far far radical nutcase left) who want to take the "we are all equal" mantra to its extreme which means none of us are allowed to be smarter than the least intelligent person in the group. I see that in a lot of industrial training where there are NO GRADES just pass/fail. Its fine for many things but certainly not all. The strange thing is all these pressure drivers need people educated. They just don't like them too educated. Its like that great line from President Snow in the Hunger Games about how a little bit of hope is good and too much is very dangerous.
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  29. And California went onto be the worlds technology superpower. Not Texas, Not Wyoming, Not Florida, Not New York and not any of the other states.
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  30. When did Bernie join the UFC? This looked like a pre-fight press conference: Bernie "Functioning Brain" Sanders Vs Lindsey "Count de Money" Graham.
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  31. Australian here - seeing this from the outside. I have NO DOUBT the Russians were interfering in the 2016 election but I have seen very few people truly explain Putin's MOTIVES and what he actually sought. Masha Gessen (the Russian American Journalist) was interviewed on the Australian show called Planet America (for my mind) put forward the best explanation. FIRST - Masha explained that Putin wasn't a great strategic thinker and that's been born out with the disaster that is now Ukraine. Masha also explained Putin believes in ABSOLUTE LOYALTY and we all saw what he did to Yevgeny Prigozhin. So Putin would EXPECT someone like James Comey to keep his mouth shut. Most of all in Putin's Russia elections are decided beforehand and election days are just confirmations the general population knows their place or at least what percentage know their place. So in Putin's mind Hilary Clinton had already won long before election day. If that's the case then what was Putin really up to and what happened? Everybody has forgotten that out of 330 million Americans Putin hated NOBODY more than Hilary Clinton who had, as Secretary of State, called out Putin publicly and slapped Russia repeatedly with sanctions that personally hurt Putin. So just imagine this. 1) James Comey keeps silent on the emails because in Putin's mind that's what servants do. 2) Hilary then wins. 3) The Russians then leek the emails along with details James Comey covered up. What do you think Trump and the Republicans would have then done? No matter how it turns out Putin wins because: If Trump wins sure Putin gets to laugh at Hilary. BUT If Hilary wins Putin gets to watch America tear itself apart and at the very least Hilary's presidency is a disaster.
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  32. That's actually one of the more sensible comments on the subject I have seen. Well done.
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  33. I'm Australian and that is a staggering way to describe this situation in America. AND YES it seriously scares the crap out of the rest of the world. The rest of us simply can't afford America to fail for several reasons. First there's the obvious security issues, but just as important are the economic reasons. 1) America is still the worlds largest economy (24.6% almost 1/4) and that includes staggering amounts of foreign money invested in America including billions in Chinese money. 2) America (or certain states) have turned out to be some of the worlds largest storehouses of foreign money being hidden from other governments. The Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands might be where the Chicago & New York mobsters hide their money but Russian Oligarchs and 3rd World dictators prefer Idaho, Texas and Delaware. 3) The US dollar is still the worlds reserve currency and that's not changing anytime soon no matter how much the BRICS wants too or how much anyone else wants to. Its just such a massive task. SO NOBODY on the planet, NOT EVEN the Russians can afford America to implode because of the GOP freak show.
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  34. That's because he'll be in a small room, wearing bright orange and the golf course is on the other side of a fence topped with barbed wire. Go have a look at the prison where they send people like him. Its called Federal Prison Camp, Montgomery (FPC Montgomery) and its where Charles Kushner (Jared's father) did his time. AND YES its surrounded by a golf course.
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  35. This is one of those things that's almost crazy for men to comment on but there's clearly something wrong with these people. One of the things that men don't understand is how serious an issue it is for a women to get pregnant until it gets explained to them one day and a friend of mine's wife did one day. The rate of serous threat to life a pregnant women is far higher than men realise think. We've lost sight of the fact that with modern technology like ultrasounds that let doctors know if something is wrong or not. We forget that with healthier food and cleaner water that there are many complications women in modern societies don't face. A few years ago there was a scandal where American doctors were helping poor women in Bangladesh do a simple procedure to block their fallopian tubes and prevent further pregnancies for women who already had children and didn't want any more. The controversy was the technique they were using had something like a 1 in 10,000 chance of cancer. One of the doctors involved explained (I think on 60minutes) that poorer women in Bangladesh had almost a 20% chance that any pregnancy could kill them either during the pregnancy or in childbirth. The fact that Oklahoma has that high rate of deaths says a lot about where Oklahoma is these days. Maybe a bunch of men should stop and listen and think.
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  36. I think they mean the "New Normal" is unpredictable extreme weather.
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  37. Go and look what ex-KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov said in an interview with the Canadians in 1984 about getting opponents so confused they would not be able to discern reality no matter what evidence was presented to them. Its here on YT. Other than the fact that it was the Soviet system that collapsed, what Bezmenov was wrong about was how effective the Soviets actually were with their psychological war. That was because back then they didn't have the right delivery system. What changed and ahs made this point in history so bad was the advent of social media where bad faith actors could just overwhelm people with staggering amounts of misinformation or facts taken out of context. With generative AI that's only going to get worse.
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  38. That's because it really is the Handmaids Tale come to life.
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  39. What actually is there to debate? This choice was made the instant Reagan was elected and he adopted Milton Freidman's "Greed is good" economics. The crazy thing is so many still hold him as a saint and they don't get he put in motion the things that wrecked their lives. Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden have all just kept it going.
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  40. Yeah Peter Zeihan has EXPLAINED several times that Putin wont stop at Ukraine. Its got to do with certain historical strategic locations that the Russians like to control for security reasons. Ukraine isn't one of those locations but its on the way to 2 of them in Poland and Romania.
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  41. That's a good way to put it. America is going to need to come to terms with these hyper-powerful hyper-funded lobbyist institutions. I'm Australian and these organizations have influence in a global scale. By virtue of their power and influence in America they have effects over a lot more than just America. For Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Britain and many others America is the biggest and most influential trading and security partner we have. This place is a concern but its not the real problem and I wish people like Thom would start talking about Harvard and Yale a lot more. That's where the Federalist Society started and that crowd scare me more than anything else. Do you know that 14 of the last 18 SCOTUS judges are Harvard or Yale including 8 of the current 9? Do you know that 5 of the 7 short listed to replace Breyer including Ketanji Brown Jackson are Harvard or Yale. Do you know that both Clintons, both Obamas and Ted Cruz are all Harvard or Yale while Ted Cruz's wife is Harvard and a senior manager at Goldman Sachs? Do you know that AG Merrick garland is both a Federalist Society member and went to Harvard? You might not realize it but that influence affects the entire Western World. Particularly regarding SCOTUS because that's what all of America's giant tech and business monopolies hide behind. George Carlin famously said "Its a big club and we're not in it"
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  42. Interesting sentiment. My bet right now is that Trump will tear the GOP in half and Biden buy ignoring the progressives and pandering to the corporates will split the Dems in half. What might come out it is a 4 party split that then becomes 3 when the corporate Dems and Corporate Repubs merge. I call them the Republicrats because Democlitans sound crap. I think Trump is so hell bent on tearing shit apart because he's a narcissistic shit that he will happily tear the GOP apart. He threatened to do it in 2016 if they didn't back him. Then Again I wont be surprised that on December 15 the 2nd American Civil War will be declared. Either the EC will vote Biden in as they should and the Trumpists will riot or the EC will cheat Biden and the rest of the country will riot. Either way if Trump does not stop this madness America might only have 8 days left. FYI- I'm Australian but went to college in America. Its a great country with great people and the vast majority do not deserve this shit. Take Care & Stay Safe 👍👍🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘
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  43. It actually goes back centuries. For a while we all thought we had broken free of idiotic stupidity and ignorance through education. Then a guy named Reagan got elected by pandering to the Southern fundamentalists and suddenly a lot of idiots were given a stage to perform on. Then America did the stupidest thing of all when they let a guy named Rupert Murdoch get citizenship and then ownership of a media empire I'm Australian. We tried to warn the Brits when he moved there and they didn't listen. Then when he moved to America we tried to warn you guys as well and you guys didn't listen either. He is a master of tapping into peoples base emotions and jacking them up to ridiculous levels where they just simply lose grip with reality.
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  44. I saw a TEDx Talk a few years ago titled The Four Most Dangerous Words? A New Study Shows | Laura Arnold | Its still here on YouTube (I just checked). It was about people writing stuff and publishing it as FACT when most of the times its nothing but PR designed to raise capital from investors. The point made was that for every study saying a new thing there's other studies showing its NOT TRUE. I think there's the same thing in politics and MAYBE the 4 most dangerous words in politics are "A New Report Says" or maybe "A New Poll Shows..." because we hear it so often that its meaningless and the tragedy is that we are likely to DISMISS that one report or poll that we really should NOT.
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  45. SORRY BUT - I went and checked this and maybe Thom could have done some checking too. There definitely is a direct link from Cannons husband (Josh Lorence) to John Rosatti, but there's not much of a link between John Rosatti and the Colombo crime family and nothing to suggest he's actually a mobster. According to FBI informant and former Colombo captain Salvatore "Big Sal" Miciotta "in late 1993, Victor Orena asked multi-millionaire businessman John Rosatti to provide cars from his dealership to be used to carry out murders, Rosatti declined and instead handed over $50,000 to Orena." (source Wikipedia on the page about the Colombo Crime Family). So there's no actual claim anywhere that Rosatti was actually a mobster just a claim that a mobster approached him at one time and the implication he paid money to NOT be involved.
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  46. Agreed, I want to see the GOP explain their next military spending increase.
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  47. I'm an Australian who went to college in America (late 80s). I did engineering but a bunch of friends were pre-law and we used to discuss various things about how our countries worked. I'd studied Orwell in High school (Animal Farm and 1984) which was pretty standard in Australia. I used to argue, as Orwell warned, that any country could fall into a totalitarian state. They used to argue and assure mt that the American System via its constitution that it was not possible for America to become an totalitarian state. This was in the late 80s so they'd all studied civics in high school as as law students they were very well versed in the constitution and how the various parts of the system worked. I'd love to sit down with them now and ask how this has all happened considering they all assured me that this kind of thing was IMPOSSIBLE. They assured me that stripping away people's basic right to vote was IMPOSSIBLE. There's a lot going on in America they assured me was IMPOSSIBLE. They called it the "system of checks and balances." What we never discussed, because it was inconceivable. "What would happen if that system became corrupted?" The main part of that "system of checks and balances" is the US Senate, where senior government appointments and judges are confirmed. Mitch McConnel with massive funding via the Federalist Society has manged to corrupt that system so it no longer functions properly causing serious NEGATIVE EFFECTS through the entire system. And for any country that trades with and/or has security agreements with America its as serious as it can get because it means America is no longer a reliable partner.
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  48. I like dean but am going to take a more pragmatic view on his first point. There's NO GUARANTEE that Trump won't win. Hilary tried and lost that with some of the most stupid campaign strategies ever and she's now head of Biden's re-election team. I'm Australian but went to college in America U. Illinois). So I know the Midwest and Rust Belt fairly well. The moment I heard she wasn't going to campaign in Michigan I knew she was in trouble because I knew the Rust Belt was not going to take that sort of arrogance well. I wasn't alone in thinking she was going to lose. Both Rana Foroohar and Mark Blyth predicted she'd lose but for different reasons. Rana Foroohar said it was her link to NAFTA and Mark Blyth because the Dems had just screwed so many of their BLUE states over time and time again. Not only did Hilary lose Michigan but also Ohio and Penn becoming the first Democrat since Dukakis in 1988 to lose all 3. Even Gore and Kerry won 2 of those 3. If you look at the EC votes if Hilary had won those 3 as Bill and Obama had she would have won. What NOBODY on America's Left has been willing to explain or even face up to was how Trump went from 63 million votes in 2016 to 74 million votes in 2020 when every poll for 2 years had said his base was shrinking. 1) The polling WAS WRONG and NOT by a little but by a staggering amount. An extra 11 million people turned out in 2020 to vote for this guy. Hate him all you like but he knows how to appeal to particular crowds. Jesse Ventura said he learned it from Pro-Wrestling. 2) Despite all the crap and craziness his people really do see him as someone who's going to save them from the career politicians who have made their lives miserable for the past 30+ years. They don't care at all about facts or evidence or how much BS he tells. His base hates the Washington Elite so much that they'd vote for a rapid dog if it would bite one of those elitist snobs. And yes I know Trump is actually one of those elitist snobs, but he knows how to sell his base a different story. EVERYONE FORGETS that before he beat Hilary Trump beat of 16 GOP favorite sons including Jeb Bush and he didn't just beat them he wiped the floor with them. America better wake up to itself and the Democrats need to take the coldest of cold showers and realise that those 74 million might turn out to be 85 million next year.
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  49. I'm an Australian who went to college in America (late 80s) and have been warning that this is a huge issue to Australia, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Britain, Europe, the Philippines and many others. For so many America is our most important trading partner and MORE IMPORTANTLY our most important security partner. Like others we've staked our security future on things like the F35.
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  50. I'm an engineer and you are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. Most people have NO IDEA how software is written or how it works AND ESPECIALLY how it can be manipulated AND EVEN WORSE how it can give the wrong answer. I write software for part of my living. I do industrial control systems and automation. Once the computer has the data and starts crunching it all comes down to the algorithm, BUT EVEN before that the data might be wrong. Look at what happened with the Boeing Max-8. Twice the sensor broke and twice the software acting on bad information flew the plane into the ground. There have been accidents where the AI in Tesla cars have been found to have caused fatal accidents. How many times have we heard how a computer system did something awful with records. Here in Australia we had this brilliant thing called "Robodebt" which was a system that was supposed to stop people getting more than they should from social services. It ended up taking millions of dollars off people it should not have. We still haven't got to the bottom of the that mess. Most countries have similar stories. The IT industry has acted, because of the money it can push on politicians through lobbying, gotten away with so much and the AI Revolution is just making that WORSE.
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