More Trump idiocy

[Psamathe]

based on the articles I've read, some of the nations HAVE explored the alternatives and generally use those too. But as you say, this IS easy money; so I can understand why they take it.

(and who cares about the middle-men? All that matters is the cash reaching the wildlife parks or whatever. I don't care who is ripping off the hunters.)

EDIT to add:

Apart from the flawed "income" case, Trophy Hunting perpetuates a view of animals and provides a justification for people who get some warped pleasure from killing a living animal for their own personal gratification.

However you regard it and it's impacts it is a bad solution to a problem. We need to resolve the issues about habitat loss, diversity maintenance, etc. not to patch over the issues by encouraging people who get pleasure from killing.

Ian

Yes, those are downsides - but the animals don't care.

I'd refrained from calling Trump Jr an animal but I think you are right. There is something very sick about somebody who gets their jollies from needlessly killing a wild animal.

Ian

[reohn2]

There are poor parts of the world with endangered species, that depend on the income from rich western hunters to support their conservation programs.

It may seem in bad taste, but it does materially benefit the specieses in the long run. Sad but true.


(I'm not saying that Alaska is in this category!)

But does it?
Take humans for an example........

[661-Pete]

Bit of a bump again.
When I glanced at this article, I assumed it was April 1st come early:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... oronavirus
But no: it appears to be the genuine thing.
So: if anyone can dream up a post which contains the words "Trump" and "democracy" in the same sentence, I wish them luck....

[merseymouth]

Evening all, I think we should actively campaign to get President Trump a major International Award?
I do believe that he is the most outstanding candidate for the award in many a long year!
The award is of course the prestigious "IgNobel Award"!
I can see no other person so well suited to receive such an accolade. Please support this campaign in the most active way possible, he must be fully recognized for all of his efforts.
He is the stand-out man of his type in centuries!
Rather this than an Honourary Knighthood Pavo Absolutus. MM

[fullupandslowingdown]

I followed on to the next article in that vein.

A Texas appeals court on Thursday upheld a five-year prison sentence for a woman who was convicted of illegally voting even though she didn’t know she was ineligible when she went to the polls in 2016. The punishment for the Fort Worth woman, Crystal Mason, stirred national outrage because of its severity, prompting accusations that prosecutors were trying to intimidate Texans from voting.

Four years ago, Mason was on supervised release, similar to probation, for a federal felony conviction related to tax fraud. She didn’t know that Texas prohibits felons from voting until they finish their sentence entirely. Mason voted in the last presidential election at the urging of her mother and cast a provisional ballot when poll workers couldn’t find her name on the voter registration rolls. The ballot was never counted because Mason was not an eligible voter.

During her 2018 trial probation officials testified that they never told Mason she could not vote, but the appeals court said that didn’t matter. Mason was guilty, the court said, because she knew she was on supervised release. “Contrary to Mason’s assertion, the fact that she did not know she was legally ineligible to vote was irrelevant to her prosecution,” Justice Wade Birdwell wrote for a three-judge panel on Texas’ second court of appeals.

We can't complain so much about our democracy, can we.

edition:

As states around the country enacted emergency measures to deal with the outbreak of coronavirus, Kentucky lawmakers quietly tightened and approved a new photo identification requirement that would make it harder to vote.

Lawmakers eliminated a “catch-all” provision that allowed voters to give their own reason for being unable to obtain acceptable identification if they signed an affidavit swearing they were unable to obtain acceptable identification, according to Joshua Douglas, a law professor at the University of Kentucky, who said he had reviewed the changes. Now voters have to provide one of the specific and approved reasons for lacking ID to vote. The legislators also tweaked the law so that IDs from other states were not acceptable.

Kentucky’s secretary of state, Michael Adams, a Republican, praised the measure in a statement. He noted that the bill would allow anyone who did not have an ID to get one for nothing and allowed people to vote if a poll worker recognized them. “I ran for this office to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat,” he said.

The lawmakers made the changes in a committee days after Kentucky’s governor, Andy Beshear, a Democrat, closed the state capitol to the public over coronavirus concerns. DMV offices, one of the most common places people would obtain a photo ID throughout the state are also closed as Kentucky deals with 47 cases of Covid-19 thus far. The Kentucky primary is scheduled to take place on 23 June (the state postponed it from 19 May amid the coronavirus outbreak) and the deadline to register is 20 April.

“It’s absurd,” Douglas, who has advised Adams on the legislation, said of the timing of the changes. “It makes me question how much the legislature really care about the Kentucky voters.”

[661-Pete]

It seems that the Drumph is ignoring his own administration's advice and refusing to hide his ugly mug behind a face-mask.

What does he hope to achieve by that? Kill off millions of potential Democrat voters?

Perhaps he would rather don one of those 'Anonymous' Guy Fawkes masks:

With any luck some kids will mistake him for Guy Fawkes, drag him on top of a bonfire, and set it alight....

[Oldjohnw]

It seems that the Drumph is ignoring his own administration's advice and refusing to hide his ugly mug behind a face-mask.

What does he hope to achieve by that? Kill off millions of potential Democrat voters?

Perhaps he would rather don one of those 'Anonymous' Guy Fawkes masks:

With any luck some kids will mistake him for Guy Fawkes, drag him on top of a bonfire, and set it alight....

More than that he says "It's voluntary, you don't need to do it". There's only one outcome to that, just like the London pubs

[fullupandslowingdown]

other countries may well remember in later years how the richest greatest nation on earth chose to pull up the drawbridge and snatch back whatever they wanted. I presume from a legal point of view, the facemasks returned to the US from Germany, hadn't been paid for. Otherwise that's theft. And if that theft resulted in a death, that would be a fabulous international court case. The yanks are so quick to take everyone else to court for infractions to their laws, even when the infraction was committed on home soil, it's about time the tables were turned.

And regardless of all that, the rest of the world should take heed of the lesson. You can't rely on the yanks. If something is critical to your country, make it yourself. This crisis is a long overdue wakeup call to countries to reduce this just in time, cheapest supplier wins approach to supplies. Once upon a time a nation considered industries like, power, water, telephone, rail, steel, chemicals, all as strategically important industry that shouldn't be trusted to johnny foreigner in case of war. Well we're in a war now, against SARS-CoV-2. And we need all our industry because some people can't be trusted, ever.

[661-Pete]

World War III may well not be fought between the West and Russia/China (or should that be "Oceania vs. Eurasia/Eastasia"?). It may be between Europe allied with all other countries on the one hand, and the US of A on the other. As long as there's a single idiot left in that benighted country, sporting a red baseball cap with the letters "M A G A" or similar, on it, I shall not trust any Transpondian.

Whose side would England take in such a hypothetical conflict, I wonder?

[Psamathe]

Interesting report

Trump’s net worth plunges $1 billion in less than a month
..
Forbes has released its 34th annual world’s billionaires list, which ranks the wealthiest individuals globally, and President Donald Trump's estimated wealth is down dramatically.

Mr Trump’s fortune has fallen by $1bn in just a month and he has dropped from 715th on the list to 1001st place, according to Forbes.

As of 1 March, Forbes valued Trump’s net worth at $3.1bn. After markets took a turn due to the coronavirus pandemic, the president’s fortune was recalculated to an estimated $2.1bn.

The drop is primarily through a collapse in the value of commercial real estate — the bulk of the Trump fortune — as well as falls in the value of residential real estate, hospitality holdings, licensing and golf courses.
....

What I find interesting is not so much the drop but tht he has moved dramatically down the "rich list" meaning he has done a lot worse than others.

Ian

[Mike Sales]

Seems like his policy of relying on bull and pretending it's not happening won't work.
Feel good MAGA chants will not prevent pandemics and climate crises either.
Perhaps his next bankruptcy will be his last.

[merseymouth]

Hi, Is he a modern times Canute? "Virus I say go away!" MM

[Cunobelin]

Latest is the "wonder drug" that is being "very effective"

Hydroxychloroquine is an antiMAlarial drug that Trump has been touting (without ANY evidence) as a cure for Coronavirus. Fauci has tried to put this to bed several times but been closed down each time - Now we know why. It appears that TRump and several of his famil Trusts have significant shares in Sanofi the manufacturer.

So he is not promoting the drug for anything other than financial reasons

[youtube]S1MyHPmSPdg[/youtube]

[Oldjohnw]

Latest is the "wonder drug" that is being "very effective"

Hydroxychloroquine is an antiMAlarial drug that Trump has been touting (without ANY evidence) as a cure for Coronavirus. Fauci has tried to put this to bed several times but been closed down each time - Now we know why. It appears that TRump and several of his famil Trusts have significant shares in Sanofi the manufacturer.

So he is not promoting the drug for anything other than financial reasons

[youtube]S1MyHPmSPdg[/youtube]

Furthermore, the drug is used successfully for lupus and some kind of arthritis: there is now apparently a shortage for those sufferers.

[Cugel]

Hi, Is he a modern times Canute? "Virus I say go away!" MM

You employed too many letters in that comparison.

Cugel