Donald Trump: Conflicting legal arguments against political realities

 

Using conflicts legal arguments against political realities will damage an already injured American democracy.

Let voters decide who they want as President of the USA, and especially in the present context in terms of geopolitical realities.

Political battles must be fought in the ballot box and not in the courts. Using the courts as a political tool will undermine democracy.

We do understand that the Democratic Party is in deep trouble when it  uses the courts to win elections. What are the alternatives. Is there an alternative to Joe Biden? Who is being proposed as VicePresident?

Democrats should be focusing their minds to decide their own direction of travel, not using the courts to prevent millions of Americans from having a voice in the coming Presidential Elections.  

London Elections: Labour won, but... big advances for other political parties

 

Although Sadiq Khan won another term as Mayor, there have been major changes in London's political environment.

Greens, Lib Dems and Reform are winning spaces. People who used to vote Labour are now switching allegiances and turning out to vote Green.

The turnout, compared to previous elections, was lower and 6 out of 10 registered voters did not vote.

What will happen in a General Election? The results announced in May are only half of the picture due to a lower turnout. What will happen in a General Election?

This is just the end of the beginning. How will the two major political parties deal with discontent and division in their ranks? Will their be yet another leadership contest in the Conservative Party? Is this the reason why the planned October General Election might actually be run earlier than expected? The month of July has been mentioned. Will there be any more defections from now until the date of the General Election?

When it comes to geopolitical agendas, the Secretary for Defense, Grant Shapps MP, made a grandiose announcement in terms of investment in Defense, investment that he might not be able to deliver if as many predict the Conservative government comes to an end at the next General Election. By then, a winning Labour Party will be under pressure to deliver on many other priorities not to be drowned by a series of industrial disputes. For Labour voters and trade unions, national issues have a lot more weight than geopolitical issues. Health, Education and Transport - to name three key areas - are much more relevant than militaristic issues.

Who wins in France and who wins in the USA also matters. With Macron out of the way, Marine Le Pen could take the reins and it remains to be seen who will be the winner in the USA in November. If Biden wins in November, could he last another four years? Lets look at those chosen as VicePresidential Candidates.

United Kingdom: Prime Minister, what are you doing to prepare Britain for war?

 

Prime Minister, what are you doing to prepare Britain for war?

Never mind the speeches and the reschuffles. Never mind the change of faces in the Cabinet. What is the British Prime Minister actually doing to prepare Britain for war?

All we hear is about filling up Royal Air Force bases with illegal migrants caught in the Channel or setting up barges that might be a fire hazard.

All we hear is about sending equipment of dubious military value to a theatre of war that might be the Sarajevo of the Twenty-First Century. The last we heard from the British government was a minimal salary increase of about 5% for those serving in the British Armed Forces. We also heard about a Tank Project that resulted in failure after failure.

Rishi Sunak is an accountant. He is no war leader. He is not even a politician as he dropped into politics coming from the world of high finances without any military background or the capacity to understand what it means to lead a country at war. His counterpart, Keir Starmer, is no war leader either. He is a man who came from a legal background without any military background whatsoever. So even the presumed replacement does not know how to lead a country at war.

All we hear is bla, bla, bla at NATO meetings that are no more than social gatherings including some failed Secretaries of State ie Ursula von der Leyen, the enemy of the German Armed Forces. As Defense Secretary she was atrocious to the point that many in Germany celebrated the fact that she was appointed President of the European Commission. 

The one man that knew something about war left the Cabinet. Ben Wallace MP was a military man with a military career and he knew what he was talking about, but he was dismissed by an old man with diminishing intellectual capabilities called Joe Biden. In fact, when there was talk about considering possible candidates, Joe Biden personally dismissed Ben Wallace MP and he did not want him not even as a possible candidate. Who replaced Ben Wallace MP. Grant Shapps MP, a man whose profund knowledge can be summarized as 'my family escaped from National Socialist Germany'. Being the descendant of people persecuted by National Socialist Germany is no proven skill in military matters that involve preparing a country for war.

UK: In the midst of a crisis, Britain replaces Defence Secretary

In the midst of crisis, a man with a solid military career and proven record is out and a man with little or no knowledge of military matters steps in. Just a few weeks ago when there was talk about a new NATO Secretary General, the then British Secretary for Defense Ben Wallace MP was rejected outright by President Joe Biden that vetoed him pushing him out of the selection process for NATO Secretary General even before the process started.

At this point, a exchange of words between Ben Wallace and Volodomir Zelensky was made public. Ben Wallace told the Ukrainian President that 'Britain is no Amazon'. Not many hours passed when Ben Wallace himself stated that if there was a reshuffle he would not remain as member of the Cabinet and that he would not be standing for re-election at the next General Election. Now, as the reshuffle went ahead, Ben Wallace resigned to be replaced by Grant Shapps, a man with no military career, no rapport within the military and little knowledge of what being Secretary for Defense implies.  

Grant Shapps

And all this is happening, when US nuclear weapons are returning to the United Kingdom to be placed in various RAF locations and work is well underway since the Pentagon was given the monies for such a huge and dangerous endeavour. Let us remember that the American government has now less overseeing of where the monies go and that budget controls have been 'relaxed'. In the military there is an expression: fire at will. 

Ben Wallace

Ben Wallace is not a 'Yes' man. Perhaps this was the reason for his demise. Grant Shapps might be more maleable. There is another English expression: 'Ignorance is bliss'. Don't see, don't talk, don't listen. If the situation gets worse on the battefront, the present British govenrment will find itself with more that it can chew. The British Armed Forces are literally no existing. For decades, they have been downgraded both in terms of equipment and of manpower. A politician might end up asking the Armed Forces to do more than they can actually do and Britain as whole will be in jeopardy.

These are the two people who will send Americans to die in war

 

These are the two people who will send Americans to die in war

Why do more and more people dislike politicians? Well, politicians don't seem to have a very good track record when it comes to making decisions that will put lives in jeopardy. At least, in the past, some of those making decisions had had some involvement in military issues including real military conflicts. Nowadays, all is decided with money and popularity contests and this is why we end up with the mess that we end up with. Are you happy to have these people send your children to conflicts in foreign lands? We are not talking about American survival. We are talking about vested interests of a certain group of individuals who will use your children as cannon fodder.

War is a business for the said individuals. The conflict in Afghanistan meant that Britain spent 40 billion Pound that could have been spent elsewhere to make the lives of British peoples better. How much did American spend? You might have to spend a sizeable amount of your income to pay for health expenses. You might be late with your mortgage payments and at tisk of losing your home - it happened to many Americans in the so called Sub Prime scandal. Don't doubt for a minute that those promoting wars aboard don't give a damn about your well-being and the well-being of your children. They could not care less. They just have to stand and utter some warmongering soundbites and fill up their pockets with the taxes that you pay.

Joe Biden is white and Kamala Harris is mixed race - Black and Asian. Does race matter? Of course not. There are crooks of all races and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are just examples of what is going wrong in the USA.  

Those of us who were 'educated, educated, educated' by Tony Blair know that American has its own dose of Tony Blair, the ones who cry about non existing WMDs and then go on to kill civilians with drones. Oh, yes, and the Guantanamo Detention Centre is still there. President Obama who was President for two Consecutive periods promised to close down the detention centre in Guantanamo Bay and Joe Biden was his VicePresident. Did they close the detention centre in Guantanamo Bay? Of course they did not. Soundbites to get themselves elected soon to be forgotten to join the lot of unfulfilled promises.

Johnson/Biden: Trade Deal dead in the water

 

This reminds me of couples that go around denying that their marriages are in trouble. We have never been so happy, they say. This is before the next morning announcement indicating that they have agreed to bring their marriage to an amicable conclusion.

This was said to be a meeting about climate, but right at the beginning the British Prime Minister indicated that there is not going to be a bilateral trade agreement in the foreseable future.

Reading between lines, I reckon that the beginning was not the best of beginnings, starting with an unilateral American withdrawal that left its NATO partners buffled. After that, came the announcement of a deal regarding nuclear submarines that only benefits the USA despite the fact that UK was the middleman. On top of that, it damaged the relationship with France. A UK politician tried to rest to dimish the importance of the damage caused by saying that in the last ten years Britain and France have coordinated their military with French officers in charge of British units and Britsh officers in charge of French units and so forth. Ten years are ten years, but in politics 24 hours is a lot and much of what has happend regarding AUKUS should not be underestimated. 

The rise of energy prices due to a rise of energy consumption will not make choices any easier. If gas prices and oil prices go up, coal is a natural component of the energy mix that cannot be left behind. Joe Biden can talk about financial support to be offered to poorer countries to support towards more environmentally friendly economies, but reality tells you fossil fuels will continue to be the first choice for many for many years to come.

The choice between diesel and nuclear was a logical choice to make. Firstly, it is about not using fossiel fuels and, secondly, it is about operational capabilities. While diesel vessels depend on regular refuelling, nuclear vessels can operate continuously for at least 25 years. The decision was rational, but the way it was implemented created divisions that could have been avoided. The jobs that would have been maintained or created in France will now go to the USA. USA's submarines are all nuclear so it will not be too difficult to produce a few more. In any case, it is expected that the new submarines will become operational by the year 2030, as long as there are no delays. As a British politician explained, this is not about real military capabilities in the short term. The idea is to send a message to China about the determination to prevent a Chinese military escalation in Asia Pacific.

A journalist asked who was more of a priority in terms of talking about US/UK relations: Joe Biden or Kamala Harris? In the USA, people are already talking about the American mid-term elections due to take place in November 2022 when all 435 seats of the House of Representatives and 34 or a 100 seats in the Senate will be up for election. What happens from now until the Mid-Term Elections will determine if Biden ends or does not end as a lame duck President during his first term in office.