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.
Every Local Politician Should Read This
I have never seen such a powerful argument for improving local transport links and especially trains than this article in the National.
It is written by a train driver turned local politician and he is talked about Glasgow.
But his arguments can be applied to any city in the world.
Read the article.
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.
Is This French Punishment For Brexiters?
This article on the BBC web site is entitled Dover ferry port passengers hit by traffic chaos. This is said.
Holidaymakers have been hit by delays of up to 12 hours through Kent to get to the Port of Dover, with many being stuck in traffic overnight.
Port authorities said delays built up due to French border checkpoints being understaffed overnight during heightened security levels.
There’s always some problem with the French and the Channel every summer.
But this summer it appears to be worse!
Could it be that the French are showing Brexiters, that they control the border?
After all, we never seem to get a problem with the Belgians!
The strange thing last night, as I came in from Brussels on Eurostar, was that there was some form of overcrowding in the terminal at St. Pancras.
Are The Railways Of Saxony A Benefit Of Communism?
Saxony is a German State with a lot of railways. This page is a list from Wikipedia.
In the UK, after the Second World War, we needed to modernise our railways and what we did was rather patchy and haphazard.
It finally, led to a lot of costs to no great benefit.
- I can remember taking over five hours on a journey to Liverpool in the 1960s.
- I always in the 1960s and 1970s, used to look at a heavy rail train and say how inferior they were to what the London Underground offered.
- Electrification was very slow to come in. I can remember Trains Illustrated saying Felixstowe will be electrified soon in the 1960s.
- Schemes like the Picc-Vic Tunnel in Manchester never saw the light of day.
Finally, the Beeching Report put a can on it.
But in the former East Germany, there were no such cost pressures in a centralised communist economy, where maintaining employment was a priority.
One thing you notice in the are is lots of signal boxes, often with an associated level crossing. Do they need them?
Whereas we would shut railways enthusiastically to cut costs, the East Germans didn’t, as it was against their politics.
So a lot of railways got preserved, where other countries would have closed them!
Now you can see a lot of railway development, as like the UK, Germany is coming round to the view that railways are what people want and they’re good for the economy.
Losing The Plot?
David Aaronovitch in The Times today has a piece about the Labour Party and its leadership election.
He says this.
On the very day that Theresa May was, in effect, transfigured into prime minister, Corbyn was at a meeting of the Cuba Solidarity Committee, recommitting to the dynastic dictatorship of the Castros, just as he has been doing these 40 years.
Was Corbyn getting advice?
I am virtually Corbyn’s age and I can remember the ardent, often heavy smoking, left-wingers we had when I was at Liverpool University, in the 1960s. Prominent amongst them was that pillar of the left; Robert Kilroy Silk, who incidentally was C’s tutor and persisted in smoking Capstan |Full Strength all through tutorials, despite C being pregnant at the time.
I have checked the Internet for all the left-wingers, that I remember from that time and all seem to have vanished without trace. I wonder how many are living in semis in Pinner, Mossley Hill and Edgbaston, with a Mondeo outside and 2.4 children?
What Can We Expect From Theresa May?
I remember Margaret Thatcher well and from things I heard at the time, a lot of people felt they’d get the country they wanted, where criminals were hung and flogged and big business could run roughshod over the small man.
What we got from Mrs. Thatcher was not what everybody expected, because mainly she was an intelligent woman, who analysed what was needed in a crisis and then did it.
I always remember my Labour-supporting accountant at the time, saying that Thatcher and her Chancellors may have reduced the tax paid by high-earners, but they had certainly closed a large number of massive tax loopholes. My accountant certainly would have known.
Mrs. Thatcher certainly stood up to the problems, but then other Prime Ministers would. But I think, she did it in a unique way, which probably meant she could carry the country with her more easily.
I’m certain, that all important female leaders because they think differently to men and generally don’t have the massive ego, that many men do, tend to do different things or the same things in different ways.
For a start Angela Merkel always gives me the impression, she’s the wise aunt, that all families need and many have and Golda Meir made out she was tougher than any man.
Mrs. T always came across as the power-dressed professional and I’ve met a few competent female judges, lawyers and accountants, who put forward the same aura.
Theresa May will develop her own style and aura, as all politicians and especially prime ministers do. She’ll need to as, she has been left with a very bad set of cards.
What do I think she’ll do?
- As I pointed out in Small Modular Nuclear Reactors. I think Hinckley Point C will be cancelled.
- HS2 will be cut back in terms of cost, but increased in scope to create a One Nation Railway. As the changes at Sheffield, that I wrote about in HS2 Does The Right Thing At Sheffield, showed, good design of the railway can save a lot of money ande add more stations to the network.
I will add to this list.
Andrea Leadsom’s Lack Of Judgement
Andrea Leadsom may now have apologised to Theresa May according to this article on the BBC, but I believe the whole affair, shows a remarkable lack of judgement on her part.
In some ways it’s personal to me, as my family has a rather unusual genetic trait.
I have traced me male line back to The Tailor of Bexley in 1800 or so, and I’m certain that is where my coeliac disease came from.
What is curious, is that most women born into the direct male line of the family seem unable to have children, although nieces of the direct line have managed it.
It seems that if you’re the daughter of a coeliac in my family, you can’t have children.
You might say, as I’m a man, who only fathered sons, how am I affected?
Looking back on my family history, it has been riven with arguments and at the bottom of this, there has been the problems of some very strong females, both born in and married to the family.
I’ve also met others, who have similar problems in their families, which leads me to the conclusion, that the significant problem of childless women, should be left to themselves, their family and their doctors.
So to bring it up as an election issue, is just not on. In fact, as Michael Gove was adopted, you can accuse her of other things as well. I lived with an adopted woman for forty years and they are both proud and sensitive about their status.
As a Prime Minister, Leadsom will have to deal with lots of sensitive subjects and I don’t think she has the judgement and tact to handle some of the more difficult problems of this country and the wider world.
I’m Rather Pleased We’ve Now Got Fixed Term Parliaments
On Sunday morning, I usually watch the Andrew Marr Show and then listen to Pienaar’s Politics on the radio.
- Jeremy Corbyn didn’t give the sort of performance one would expect from a future Prime Minister.
- Aaron Banks, who supports UKIP, frightened me, with his support for the party of neck-enders.
- I didn’t like the treatment Angela Eagle says she is getting from Corbyn supporters.
The only sane voices were the two women, who reviewed the papers on the Andrew Marr Show.
One was so disillusioned with the Labour Party, she has decided to be a stand-up comedian. She certainly got plenty of material.
At least because we should wait to 2020 for the next General Election, there is time for everything to calm down.
Is Everybody Keeping Calm And Carrying On?
Perhaps, I should have excluded the Welsh from this, as they may be carrying on, but they certainly haven’t kept calm, as the Dragon rampages through France.
I ask this question because since the Brexit vote on June 23rd, there has not been much real news.
There has been no mass redundancies, the financial markets have settled and there have been no pro- or anti-Brexit riots on the streets.
The only real news from the Government was from George Osborne, who made the decision not to balance the budget by 2020.
It’s reported in this article on the BBC, which is entitled Osborne abandons 2020 budget surplus target.
The national media is obsessed with who will be leading the Labour and Tory parties.
I’m actually taking a practical attitude to these elections.
- Who leads the bitterly-divided Labour Party, is about as relevant these days to the UK, as who is the captain of the Mongolian football team.
- When the Tory party is in crisis, a leader usually appears, who although unfancied does at least a competent job for a few years.
The Tory party will still be here in a decade or so, but without the Sword of Europe hanging over it.
As to the Labout Party, who knows? Party members don’t!
We are facing a fascinating remainder of this year, where these important questions will be answered.
- Will Wales win Euro 2016?
- Will Andy Murray win Wimbledon?
- Will Leicester City carry on next season as they did last?
- Will Mo Farah complete a double-double of the five and ten thousand metres?
- Will Chris Froome win a third Tour de France?
- Will the weather improve and the sun break through?
- Will we ever see any electric trains running on the Great Western?
We will just carry on and apply an appropriate demeanour.
The Anonymous Widower 