Carrie Underwood may be out of a job
She sang America The Beautiful at Trump’s inauguration (the swearing-in ceremony, not the Ball).
I think there was some sort of issue with the sound system because there was a delay then she started singing with no music and invited the audience to join in.
Anyhoo, she’s a judge on American Idol, and according to the link, may be out of a job.
It’s pretty dystopian that it has come to this. You perform at president’s inauguration and you’re a pariah.
What’s the motto here? Do and think as we tell you, anything short of that, and we’re going burn you at the stake? Crazy times.
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Bingo.
A few posts up, I was talking about Kid Rock who is a Trump supporter and who performed both at the party conference last year (where he sang American Bad-ass for Trump days after the first assassination attempt) and the Inaugural Ball.
He has said that even though he didn’t vote for Obama, he attended and performed at Obama’s first Inaugural Ball because he was asked to, and he went out of respect for the Presidency.
France floated sending troops to Greenland, foreign minister says – POLITICO
For someone who had just woken up from a 10 year coma, reading current news would be quite an experience.
Not sure how all this will play out but to me it seems that the US is fast losing its role as the world police and “defender of the free world”.
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That’s what many who support Trump want. No more stupid wars.
The word ‘conservative’ means different things in different countries, but traditional US conservatives who are now called ‘paleoconservatives’ are non-interventionist, believing that America
goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.
She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.
She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
(John Quincy Adams, one of the Founding Fathers).
Except in Greenland, where it is OK to apply the same logic as Russia is applying in Ukraine and China wants to apply in Taiwan.
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There’s a good chance the Greenlanders will free themselves from the colonial yoke of Denmark, and then, once independent, seek to join the US in some manner.
`Monsters to destroy’ rings true 200+ years after JQA said it, as since Bush 1, we’ve been told by the neocons that various bogeymen (Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, Gaddafi, Assad, Chavez/Maduro, Putin, etc) are worse than Hitler and unless we go to war to remove them, we’re a bunch of sissies and appeasers.
Taiwan and Ukraine to me are very different, although I have no desire to be involved in a war for either.
Taiwan, there are 3 groups involved. The CCP, who want to annex Taiwan, the KMT (nationalists) who fled to Taiwan from mainland China when they lost the civil war, and the ethnic Taiwanese, who are a distinct people. As far as I’m concerned, the Taiwanese should have their island back, the KMT should leave, and the CCP should leave Taiwan alone.
Ukraine, some ethnically Russian regions were attached to Ukraine for various reasons. At the dawn of the USSR, Lenin gave the Dombass to the Ukrainian SSR as an inducement to join the USSR. Krushchev gave the Crimea to Ukraine for various reasons, including bolstering Soviet control over Ukraine by increasing the number of ethnic Russians in the Ukrainian SSR and strengthening ties between the two regions. The ethnic Russians were content to be under Ukrainian rule until the 2 neocon-inspired color revolutions. Every time a pro-Russian government got elected, there was a coup. After the second coup, the ethnic Russians lost various language rights and decided to leave.
It looks like Venezuela has come around.
In the first Trump term, a neocon (Elliott Abrams) was given the Venezuela desk.
This time round, Trump sent the A-team in the form of Ric Grenell, who has returned with 6 freed American prisoners and a commitment from Maduro to accept back Venezuelan migrants.
I’ll take that over a bunch of neocons trying to organize coups any day.
President Trump was asked during the campaign whether he had made any missteps in his first term, and his answer was that he had hired some bad people, singling out the neocons.
Nixon made a similar mistake in hiring people with a different agenda.
Personnel is policy as the saying goes.
In the first term, Trump let the neocons handle the Venezuela desk, and we watched as Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself president and the Bank of England confiscated Venezuela’s gold, none of which made America stronger, safer, or more secure.
This time round, Trump went with America First and Ric Grenell.
Edit: added phone call home via Twitter
The FT has speculated (note: speculation not fact) that Venezuelan oil may be part of the deal
“a deal could involve an easing of US sanctions on Venezuela
and dropping a US reward offered for Maduro’s capture
in return for Caracas taking back thousands of [Venezuelan] migrants from the US,
shipping more oil to American Gulf Coast refineries
and releasing US nationals held in Caracas.”
The way forward here may be to ask the neocons what they would do and then do the opposite.
one world. one nation. one language. we need the UED to handle the zerg threat.
I had to look that up.
I have no problem with one language, as long as it’s English, and would even take one currency, as long as it is gold (or maybe BTC)
One nation is a bridge too far
former governor blackface had a “good call” with the Orange Man, and US tariffs on Canada will be paused for 30 days after Canada - just like Mexico - agreed to send 10,000 troops to the border as part of a $1.3 billion border plan which “reinforces the border with new choppers, technology and personnel, enhanced coordination with our American partners, and increased resources to stop the flow of fentanyl”.
i love the volatility. its truly opportunity when it comes to derivatives.
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President Trump has unveiled his vision for Gaza.
What gets my goat is that some of the media (and the BBC in particular is bad, fact check false BBC) insist on referring to Gaza as an enclave.
It is not.
An enclave is a territory that is entirely surrounded by the territory of only one other state or entity.
Neither is it a semi-enclave, which is an area that, except for possessing an unsurrounded sea border (a coastline contiguous with international waters), would otherwise be an enclave.
Gaza is bordered by Egypt, Israel, and the Mediterranean Sea.
It is however an exclave, a portion of a state or district geographically separated from the main part, by some surrounding alien territory.
The Gaza Riviera. It will be glorious. Everyone will love it. Everyone will join hands and sing Kumbaja together.
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It’s honestly mind boggling that it came to the point where some mid-level male-NCAA athlete-turned-female won national championships etc, and people still argued that yes, this is totally fine and fair, and there’s limited advantage because, after all, he is now a she. And that it is discriminatory not to let the heshe mutant compete because human rights or whatever.
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Even CNN says that only 18% support men in women’s sports, so even a majority of Democrats must be opposed
18% is a surprisingly high number. I would think this would be a no-brainer for everyone who has ever played a sport.
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As the old adage goes: “whose bread I eat, his song I sing”
It’s pretty chilling to see how fast companies jump on new trends and values, ditching old “truths” the moment they get in the way of business. Even if you get that business is just business, it’s hard not to get a little cynical.
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