How Do You Get Round This One, Donald?
This article from Global Rail News is entitled Request for California high-speed train parts to be exempt from domestic content rules.
This is said.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) has requested several key components of its trains be exempt from the USA’s strict local content requirements because there is nowhere in the country that can currently manufacture them.
So what parts are involved?
It appears to be body shells, braking systems and bogies.
Aren’t they fairly crucial?
It’s Time To Look On The Bright Side Of Trump
This was the title of a comment by Matt Ridley in The Times yesterday.
He may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I have read a couple of his books; Genome and Nature via Nurture and found they added to my knowledge.
This is a precis of his comment.
He starts like this.
So here, after a few days of talking to people in America’s two biggest economies, California and Texas, are ten reasons why I think a Trump residency may not be as awful as many think, even if, like me, you heard of the news of his victory with a sinking feeling.
The article has ten main sections.
- Just as after Brexit, the markets went up, not down. Despite the predictions of analysts.
- He is already watering down his more outlandish threats.
- The Presidency is nothing like as powerful a job as it seems.
- The Democratic Party will soon be back and hounding Mr. Trump, if only in the Courts.
- Mr. Trump is already surrounding himself with reasonably sensible people.
- Some of his policies are not so bad.
- His adviser on climate and energy, Myron Ebell, is right that climate change policy has become a gravy train for the rich that hurts the poor.
- The promised “swamp draining” – in the unlikely event Mr. Trump pulls it off – will be cathartic.
- His reprehensible attitude to women, minorities and the disabled, though setting a terrible example, is fortunately unlikely to result in actual persecution by the government.
- The idea that this is the end of democracy or the start of fascism, as some hyperventilating luvvies are saying, is nonsense.
Ridley finishes with.
If he really does kill the North American Free Trade Agreement, as well as the transpacific and transatlantic trade treaties, he will assuredly cause a recession that hurts blue-collar workers in the rust belt more than free trade ever did. And he might craqsh the world economy.
I can see few silver linings there.
Here are some quotes from the article I can agree with.
- Mr. Pence is a creationist and religious conservative, which is not my cup of tea.
- The House Speaker, Paul Ryan, is a formidable figure who will effectively decide how much of Trump’s programme will happen.
- Steven Mnuchin, the likely Treasury Secretary, is from Goldman Sachs, for goodness sake.
- If Mr. Trump unleashes more gas production, that will cut emissions and drive out coal faster than renewable energy ever could.
- Compared with many Republicans, Mr. Trump is positively liberal on matters such as abortion and religion.
- If Mr. Trump makes a mess of things, he will be gone in four years – or sooner.
If you get a chance to read the whole article, you should.
Where Will Madame Tussards Put Their Donald Trump?
The BBC in London are reporting, that Madame Tussards are creating a new waxwork of Donald Trump.
I was wondering, where they would put it!
Vote Early! Vote Often!
What Would Happen If Trump Made It To The White House?
The Times yesterday tried to answer this question in an analysis.
Introduction
- Donald Trump has changed parties five times.
- He would be the first commander-in-chief with no experience in office or at the top of the military.
- He says he’s his own best adviser on foreign policy.
- He as campaigned as the ultimate political outsider.
Day 1
- He has vowed to erase the Obama presidency.
- He would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
- He would suspend a scheme that brings Syrian refugees to the US.
- He could task officials with drafting trade cases against China.
- He would go to a terrific inauguration ball.
The First 100 Days
- He would drain the Washington sump.
- He could restrict White House officials becoming corporate lobbyists after leaving.
- He could introduce term limits for members of Congress.
- He could cancel all payments to the UN climate change programme.
- He would begin interviewing candidates for the upreme Court, a decision, that could shape issues like abortion and gun control for thirty years.
- He has said he would give top jobs to generals.
- He will face resistance in Congress.
- The wall with Mexico will be designed.
- An immigration ban on some countries would be in place.
- Plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act would be in place.
More
A lot more is said on the wall, taxes, Syria, NATO, trade, Obamacare and immigration.
Read the article!
Conclusion
I doubt, I’ll ever go anywhere near the United States again.
Heaven Help The World If Trump Becomes US President
That idiot Trump has sunk to a new low with the statements reported in this article on the BBC, which has a title of US election: Anger over Donald Trump gun rights remarks.
As nearly all Brits, Aussies, Canadians and most Europeans will tell him, guns are the cause of a lot of America’s problems and not the solution.
I fear for the world if someone as stupid and hot-headed as Trump should become President of the United States.
Hopefully, good sense will prevail.
Perhaps, the worst scenario would see Corbyn, Le Pen, Petry, Trump, Wilders and Xi Jinping, sitting down to decide the world’s future.
Katrina Pierson
Katrina Pierson is Trump’s spokeswoman.
This article on The Intercept, which is entitled Donald Trump’s Spokeswman says a lot of things that are not true, gives more idea about her competence and how she does her job.
The article starts with these two paragraphs.
Let this news, and the fact that it is news, sink in: Katrina Pierson, the former Tea Party activist who is now Donald Trump’s national spokeswoman, admitted on Wednesday that Barack Obama was not the president of the United States in 2004.
The reason it was considered necessary to extract this concession to reality from Pierson is that she had insisted, during an interview with CNN the night before, that President Obama was responsible for the death of Capt. Humayun Khan, an American soldier who was killed in Iraq five years before he became commander-in-chief.
She obviously didn’t get the job with Trump because of her brains and scientific correctness.
Perhaps, as she came from The Tea Party, she should go back to what she does best and serve tea in the Texan equivalent of Betty’s.
I Was Always Told It Was Rude To Point
My mother told me it was rude to point, but it seems Donald Trump does it all the time, as this page from Time points out.
This image is typical.
CLEVELAND, OH – JULY 18: Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump gestures to his wife Melania after she delivered a speech on the first day of the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicks off on July 18. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
I can see it on the cover of Private Eye with a very funny caption.
Boris And Trump
I like this poster.
Boris And Trump
Let’s face it, if you’re stupid enough to vote for Trump as United States President, you’re probably stupid enough to vote for Brexit in the UK.
Trump and Brexit together would be a perfect storm!
Is Trump Fit To Run A Whelk Stall?
This article on the BBC web site is entitled US election 2016: Mitt Romney warns Trump not fit to run country.
It is one of the most amazing political attacks, I’ve ever heard by someone on a member of their own party.
Even Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, never had an attack like Mitt Romney’s on Donald Trump, from someone who is supposedly of the same political persuasion.
Look at the Wikipedia entry for Trump University or Trump Entrepreneur Initiative as it is now called.
And what about Trump Shuttle, Trump Mortgage, Trump Ice etc.?
Trump Forgot The Ace Of Clubs
This article on the BBC web site, is entitled Donald Trump loses wind farm legal challenge. This is said.
Donald Trump’s legal challenge to a planned offshore wind farm has been rejected by the UK’s Supreme Court.
The UK Supreme Court is probably the end of an expensive road.
My late friend; Brian, would have said that an old accountancy phrase would apply – Screwed, Glued and Tattooed.
Seeing as it’s Scotland, perhaps it should be the Scottish version – Screwed, Glued and Bagpiped. I’m certain, there are a large number of Scots, who have innovative uses of a set of bagpipes as an instrument of torture.
There is this article on the Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group, entitled EOWDC partners welcome Supreme Court decision. This is said.
Vattenfall and Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group (AREG), partners of Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm Ltd, the company behind the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (EOWDC), welcomed today’s Supreme Court decision.
Andy Paine, Project Director for AOWFL, said: “This is another significant step forward for the EOWDC. It affirms the scheme’s potential to position Scotland, and particularly the North-east, as a centre of innovative offshore wind power. The project partners remain committed to seeing the EOWDC come to fruition and delivering long-term economic benefits to the region.”
It certainly looks like Trump didn’t have the heaviest club; the Ace, in his bag.
I’ll leave the last word to the Professional Golfers Association, as detailed in this report on the BBC entitled Donald Trump controversy bad for golf – PGA chief Sandy Jones. This is said.
The chief executive of the Professional Golfers’ Association says the ongoing controversy generated by Donald Trump is “not a positive thing for golf.”
Trump, who owns two Scottish courses, has been criticised for comments made during his bid to become the Republican Party’s US presidential candidate.
And Sandy Jones says the negative publicity around Trump is bad for golf.
“Sadly his political campaign in America seems to be getting in the way of all the great things golf offers.”
Tìoraidh!
The Anonymous Widower 