So in America everyone is talking about the final presidential election debate where Biden and Trump went head to head trying to convince people to vote for them. How did it end? Was it as explosive as the first? Who won? These are the questions people are asking. What I have noticed on Twitter is that people are strongly expressing their own opinions on the battle of the grandads, but what disturbs me is the different celebrities that feel it is their place to give an opinion. I have seen celebrities who I have thought to be very intelligent individuals turn stupid over their political beliefs especially those that seem to want to combine politics with religion. It has always been stated, maybe only in the UK, that I don’t know, but as I grew up I was always told never to mix religion with politics, keep god and country separate. Over the last few decades in America I have witnessed how much the church influences the thinking of politicians which is wrong. The word of which ever religious book you follow cannot be used to conduct politics in this modern day and age, yet America is truly controlled by the money from people who wish to inject their own religious beliefs upon the masses through politics.
Anyway I am getting off the subject, which was the presidential debate. The two men faced off in Nashville, Tennessee clashing over COVID and race while trading corruption charges, in their final live TV debate.
On the pandemic, Trump still thinks it will just fizzle out even after catching it himself and says people should just carry on and ignore it, openly stating that he believed it was wrong to inflict further damage on the economy because of an infection from which most people recover. The death count in America currently stands at 223,000 plus, is that most people recovering? Trump does not care about individual lives, just is own bottom line and attacked Biden for staying at home. On the flipside Biden was quick to state there could be more lockdowns in America’s future countering Trumps statement of “We're learning to live with it.” With “Come on. We're dying with it”. The statistics don’t lie.
On race nothing but mindless ‘BS’ was heard as Trump stated "I am the least racist person in this room” bringing up the 1994 crime bill that Biden helped draft and which Black Lives Matter blames for the mass incarceration of African Americans. To which Biden countered stating that Trump was “one of the most racist presidents we've had in modern history. He pours fuel on every single racist fire” adding “This guy is a [racial] dog whistle about as big as a fog horn”, referencing the debacle of the first debate where Trump told ‘The Proud Boys’ to stand back and stand by accidently calling them ‘The Poor Boys’ or was it a slip, you decide.
Then they sparred off over corruption. That is each other’s corruption. Trump brought up purported leaked emails from Mr Biden's son, Hunter, about his business dealings in Ukraine and China, telling Biden “I think you owe an explanation to the American people,” to which Biden denied the president's unfounded insinuation that he somehow had a stake in the ventures stating “I have not taken a single penny from any country whatsoever. Ever”. Then in retaliation Biden brought up the New York Times recent report that questioned Trump having a bank account in China where taxes were paid in the amount of $188,561 from 2013-15 to the country, compared with $750 in US federal taxes that the newspaper reported Trump had paid in 2016-17 when he became president. This prompted Trump to say “I have many bank accounts and they're all listed and they're all over the place,” adding “I mean, I was a businessman doing business”. No he was a conman performing international cons!
What was most amusing during the debate was when Trump was asked about the climate where he instantly went on the attack insulting New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [Known as AOC to her friends and constituents] and her three progressive Democratic colleagues, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who are otherwise collectively known as The Squad by openly stating on camera “you know who developed it (the Green New Deal)? AOC plus three. They know nothing about the climate. I mean she's got a good line of stuff, but she knows nothing about the climate, and they're all hopping through hoops for AOC plus three. Not a real plan, it costs $100 trillion”, which prompted Ms Ocasio-Cortez to immediately take to Twitter to correct the president where she wrote “It's actually AOC plus 115 because that's how many House and Senate members have cosponsored the most ambitious climate legislation in American history”. Ms Ocasio-Cortez also shared a photo of her and three other members of the so-called Squad, writing: “Sisterhood is everything”. In another tweet, she wrote “if someone told me 3 years ago, while I was waitressing to help my family stay afloat, that in a few short years an unhinged President of the United States would be repeatedly saying my name at the 2020 debate, I would’ve brought them some water and told them to sober up”. Whilst on the subject of climate Trump in reference to wind power claimed that he knows “more about the wind” than his challenger does, stating that “It’s extremely expensive. Kills all the birds. It is very intermittent”, which shows Trump is either going a little crazy or he values the lives of birds more than the American people and of course its intermittent its wind. This attack on Ms Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow congresswomen wasn’t Trump’s only misogynistic remark of the night because he also was condescending of the debate’s female monitor, Kristen Welker. Trump in the past few days has attacked Ms Welker’s character as a journalist, yet tried to butter her up during the debate using a smarmy tone when he looked at her and stated live on air “By the way so far I respect very much the way you’re handling this, I have to say”, How much more condescending could he have put it?
All in all, I am glad I don’t live in America, because the way politics is run is unethical, immoral and just down right illegal. How can any democracy allow a politicians vote to be influenced by lobbyists who offer incentives for votes. The oil industry, the arms industry and even the religion industry have a say in how politicians run not only their own states, but the country. A simple promise of a company moving to a state will influence how that governor or senator will cast their vote in a bill that is proposed. I know politics is a game of averages on how a vote is cast, but how can that vote be fair when money or contracts are metaphorically or even physically been used as an influencer. In my humble opinion until America removes lobbyists from the equation no law, bill or act can be truly fair. As the Election stumbles towards the finish line, the polls are showing a hefty swing to the side of the Democrats, but winning the most votes does not always win the election, and the margin is narrower in a handful of states that could decide the race either way. What is really needed is a final decisive push to guarantee Trump is surgically removed from the big chair and is not allowed to stand down installing Pence in to the seat for two months so he can be pardoned of all crimes enacted before and during his presidency. So America the time is nigh, do the right thing and remove Trump from office, cast him in to a prison cell and let the world see the ‘EAGLE’ soar once more.
I could have gone about the debate for pages, but I think I need to check in on dear old Blighty and see how we are ending the week. So as Friday rolls on towards the weekend, stricter coronavirus rules are coming into force for nearly six million Britons. Greater Manchester's population of 2.8 million joined Liverpool City Region and Lancashire in England's highest tier of restrictions [Tier Guidelines] and from 18:00 BST today, 3.1 million people in Wales will have to stay at home as a 17-day lockdown begins. That number will also include South Yorkshire as its populous is moved into tier three restrictions from 00:01 on Saturday, bringing the total number of people living under England's tightest rules to more than seven million as of Sunday. This comes as a minister stated there was a “common purpose here to get the virus down” so people could enjoy Christmas, adding “I think few people expect it to be exactly as it would normally” said Chief Secretary to the Treasury Stephen Barclay, but “the ability of families to spend Christmas together” was “something we all hope to be in a position to do”. Meanwhile, Welsh health minister Vaughan Gething stated the lockdown in Wales was happening now so “we can have a much more normal Christmas season for businesses”. In the last twenty four hours the UK recorded another 189 deaths and 21,242 new confirmed cases. While England uses a 3 tier system and Wales opts for a 17 day ‘circuit breaker’, the Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon is set to announce Scotland’s own 5 tier system to combat the coronavirus. While Scotland and Wales put on a good show to their constituents, Johnson was once again seen to be inept as he faced the nation in yet another useless TV briefing where he confessed to “frustrations” at the Test and Trace system and admitted there is a need to “improve” it. The latest figures show that less than 60% of close contacts of people who tested positive for coronavirus in England are being reached, the lowest weekly percentage since the scheme began and just 15% of people tested for COVID-19 in England at an in-person site are receiving their result within 24 hours. This is a scheme the cabinet saw fit to source outside expertise to develop to the tune of 12 billion pounds which could have gone elsewhere in the fight against the coronavirus, but instead private companies are the winners while the voters are the losers.
Once again it just dumbfounds me how we, as the United Kingdom have suddenly fractured in to four separate governments that do not communicate on a multi-lateral basis to combat this pandemic. We are in unprecedented times of unrest in both lives and livelihoods, yet the four nations under one flag appear to be at an impasse and cannot be seen to be openly uniting to fight off this economic and mortality sapping virus as one nation. What is been seen is each nation going it alone. What will be next checkpoints set up at the borders between England/Scotland and England/Wales to prevent cross border contamination. It is becoming the thing of nightmarish movies about an apocalypse.
Until Johnson, Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster come together as one coalition of ministers on how the United Kingdom will combat this pandemic we will never be free of the virus and how it spreads. A nation cannot run as four separate entities and expect to win in the end. I have said it before and I will say it again what the United Kingdom requires is one political figure head who oversees the English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish first ministers while representing the United Kingdom on the International stage. This person will not have a voting role, but will only be used as a tie break vote if the first ministers can’t come to a satisfactory three to one majority on anything to do with the nation as a whole and would be the one person who represents parliament in conference to the Royal figure head. This type of hierarchy would bring a multi-lateral nationwide scenario while each individual minister dealt with the day to day running of their own nation.
So what we have deemed from the last twenty four hours is that both Trump and Biden are unsuitable as an American President, but at least one of them has a possible Vice President who will be seen to be fighting for the whole populous [Harris] rather than just the god fearing ones [Pence]. Again I will repeat myself I do not understand the influence the ‘GOD SQUAD’ has on the way America is run as a modern day nation where religion is thought better than science. Are American’s regressing to the middle ages of fantasy over reality, where the words of a book controls the minds of the people? I am a semi religious person, but please if we all adhered to the book(s) of religion we would never evolve beyond a middle ages mentality. So America come back to the 21st century.
While the last few months have shown how inept Johnson and his cabinet are at solving life threatening scenarios which have come to pass in to reality as their little sortie in to lockdown easing fails on a national scale and it is us the voters who have to suffer. Unfortunately we in the UK have three more years of our buffoons, while America hopefully only has 13 more days of their incompetent duo. So America while we the UK look on in anticipation and jealousy, you have the vote to start the ball rolling on removing fascism and authoritarianism from your Whitehouse which could start the decline of those ideologies globally. Please make the right decision come November 3rd. With that I will call it a week,
Rant you tomorrow!
Back Monday.
