US Presidential elections: Biden leads Trump by 10 points nationally in new Quinnipiac poll

Former Vice President Joe Biden maintains a wide national lead over President Trump heading into the final 12-day stretch before Election Day, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released on Thursday.

The Democratic nominee has a 10-point advantage in the race, garnering the support of a slight majority of likely voters — 51 percent — while Trump lagged behind him at 41 percent, according to the latest poll. That margin is virtually identical to the lead Biden held in two Quinnipiac polls from September that showed the former vice president ahead of Trump 52 percent to 42 percent.

Read more at: Biden leads Trump by 10 points nationally in new Quinnipiac poll | TheHill

US Presidential Elections: Democrat Pete Buttigieg could be antidote to Trump

Democrat Pete Buttigieg, the Midwest mayor who could be the 'antidote to Trump' Were Pete Buttigieg to win the 2020 US presidential election, the intellectual Democrat would become the youngest person ever, and first gay man, to hold the office. The mayor of South Bend has the media’s attention and hopes the polls will follow.

Read more at: 

http://www.france24.com/en/20190412-usa-2020-presidential-election-democrat-pete-buttigieg-midwest-mayor-antidote-trump

People Power: People are fed up: "Populism against the Establishment - a Global Revolution in the making?"-by RM

There has never been a greater divide than that of today between the forces of Populism and the Establishment.

Most people are fed up with their corrupt governments and the power of corporations over the political environment, media, etc,  except, obviously, the "1% have all" global elite..

A Harvard University working paper explains this development as follows:"Rising support for populist parties has disrupted the politics of many Western societies. Perhaps the most widely-held view of mass support for populism -- the economic insecurity perspective--emphasizes the consequences of profound changes transforming the workforce and society in post-industrial economies. Alternatively, the cultural backlash thesis suggests that support can be explained as a retro reaction by once-predominant sectors" of the population to progressive value change.

Alternatively, the cultural backlash thesis suggests that support can be explained as a retro reaction by once-predominant sectors of the population to progressive value change. cultural backlash thesis.

Populist leaders like Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Norbert Hoffer, Nigel Farage, and Geert Wilders are prominent today in many countries, altering established patterns of party competition in contemporary Western societies. Cas Mudde argues that the impact of populist parties has been exaggerated.

But, nevertheless these parties have gained votes and seats in many countries, and entered government coalitions in eleven Western democracies, including in Austria, Italy and Switzerland.2 Across Europe, as is demonstrated, their average share of the vote in national and European parliamentary elections has more than doubled since the 1960s, from around 5.1% to 13.2%, at the expense of center parties.3 During the same era, their share of seats has tripled, from 3.8% to 12.8%.

Even in countries without many elected populist representatives, these parties can still exert tremendous ‘blackmail’ pressure on mainstream parties, public discourse, and the policy agenda, as is illustrated by the UKIP’s role in catalyzing the British exit from the European Union, with massive consequences. 

The electoral fortunes of populist parties are open to multiple explanations which can be grouped into accounts focused upon (1) the demand-side of public opinion, (2) the supply-side of party strategies, and (3) constitutional arrangements governing the rules of the electoral game."

But unhappiness with their situation and the rise of populism does not only limit itself to Western and Industrial societies.

• Almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less than € 2.30 a day.
• The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.
• Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
• Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.
• 1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).

Why? Behind the increasing interconnectedness promised by globalization are global decisions, policies, and practices. These are typically influenced, driven, or formulated by the rich and powerful. These can be leaders of rich countries or other global actors such as multinational corporations, institutions, and influential people.

In the face of such enormous external influence, the governments of poor nations and their people are often powerless. As a result, in the global context, a few get wealthy while the majority struggle.

And now, here we have the US Presidential elections, with two candidates who in all reality are products of the Establishment, but both courting the populist movement.

Though Clinton has suffered from her perceived coziness with Wall Street, she took a hard line against “those who get rich by cheating everybody else.”

And she warned:“I want to send a clear message to every boardroom and executive suite across our country,” Clinton said. “If you scam your customers, exploit your employees, pollute our environment or rip off the taxpayers, we will hold you accountable.”

Billionaire Donald Trump is even more blunt and probably also slightly more honest when it comes to showing he is standing up for the "have-nots"   But while doing this, he is also demolishing the US Republican party as we know it.  Nevertheless, his most lasting impact may be more substantive — he has pushed the GOP into a much more populist corner on policy, challenging the party’s platform on everything from free trade to entitlements. The Republican party will never be the same again.

And last but not least - Donald Trump boasts he can’t be bought by the special interests and advocacy groups that normally fund political campaigns.   Yes indeed he can now safely label himself the   "billionaire populist".

Whatever the result will be of this totally unorthodox US Presidential election, one thing is clear - a political revolution is in the making around the world, and if we think this is as bad or dangerous as it can get - think again.
©
EU-Digest

Fiction or Reality?: Trump's first day at the Oval Office - First briefing by the CIA, Pentagon, FBI

US Presidential Election 2016

Trump: We must destroy ISIS immediately.

CIA: We cannot do that, sir. We created them along with Turkey, Saudi, Qatar and others. 
Trump: The Democrats created them.

CIA: We created ISIS, sir. You need them or else you would lose funding from the natural gas lobby.Trump: Stop funding Pakistan. Let India deal with them.

CIA: We can't do that.  Modi will cut Balochistan out of Pak.Trump: I don't care.

CIA: India will have peace in Kashmir. They will stop buying our weapons. They will become a superpower. We have to fund Pakistan to keep India busy in Kashmir.Trump: But you have to destroy the Taliban.

CIA: Sir, we can't do that. We created the Taliban to keep Russia in check during the 80s. Now they are keeping Pakistan busy and away from their nukes. 

Trump: We have to destroy terror sponsoring regimes in the Middle East. Let us start with the Saudis.

Pentagon: Sir, we can't do that. We created those regimes because we wanted their oil. We can't have democracy there, otherwise their people will get that oil - and we cannot let their people own it.Trump: Then, let us invade Iran.

Pentagon: We cannot do that either, sir.Trump: Why not? THEY ARE OUR NEW "FRIENDS" ...

CIA: We are talking to them, sir.Trump: What? Why?

CIA: We want our stealth drone back. If we attack them, Russia will obliterate us as they did to our buddy ISIS in Syria. Besides we need Iran to keep Israel in check.

Trump: Then let us invade Iraq again.

CIA: Sir, our friends (ISIS) are already occupying 1/3rd of Iraq.Trump: Why not the whole of Iraq?

CIA: We need the Shi'ite gov't of Iraq to keep ISIS in check.Trump: I am banning Muslims from entering US.

FBI: We can't do that.Trump: Why not?

FBI: Then our own population will become fearless.Trump: I am deporting all illegal immigrants to south of the border.

Border patrol: You can't do that, sir.Trump: Why not?

Border patrol: If they're gone, who will build the wall?Trump: I am banning H1Bs.

USCIS: You cannot do that.Trump: Why?

Chief of staff: If you do so we'll have to outsource White House operations to Bangalore. Which is in India.Trump: What  the hell should I do???

CIA: Just enjoy the White House, sir! We will take care of the rest!!!

God bless America! 

Final note: "What if Hillary Clinton becomes President - Don't worry, she already knows all this from previous briefings as a member of the Presidential Cabinet".

EU-Digest

US Presidential Race: FBI Director James Comey closely connected to Clinton's and Washington cronyism culture

A review of FBI Director James Comey’s professional history and relationships shows that the Obama cabinet leader — now under fire for his handling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton — is deeply entrenched in the big-money cronyism culture of Washington, D.C. His personal and professional relationships — all undisclosed as he announced the Bureau would not prosecute Clinton — reinforce bipartisan concerns that he may have politicized the criminal probe.

These concerns focus on millions of dollars that Comey accepted from a Clinton Foundation defense contractor, Comey’s former membership on a Clinton Foundation corporate partner’s board, and his surprising financial relationship with his brother Peter Comey, who works at the law firm that does the  big money  entangled with cronyism cClinton Foundation’s taxes.

When President Obama nominated Comey to become FBI director in 2013, Comey promised the United States Senate that he would recuse himself on all cases involving former employers.

But Comey earned $6 million in one year alone from Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin became a Clinton Foundation donor that very year.

Comey served as deputy attorney general under John Ashcroft for two years of the Bush administration. When he left the Bush administration, he went directly to Lockheed Martin and became vice president, acting as a general counsel.

How much money did James Comey make from Lockheed Martin in his last year with the company, which he left in 2010? More than $6 million in compensation.

Lockheed Martin is a Clinton Foundation donor. The company admitted to becoming a Clinton Global Initiative member in 2010.

According to records, Lockheed Martin is also a member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, which paid Bill Clinton $250,000 to deliver a speech in 2010.

In 2010, Lockheed Martin won 17 approvals for private contracts from the Hillary Clinton State Department

In 2013, Comey became a board member, a director, and a Financial System Vulnerabilities Committee member of the London bank HSBC Holdings.

HSBC Holdings and its various philanthropic branches routinely partner with the Clinton Foundation. For instance, HSBC Holdings has partnered with Deutsche Bank through the Clinton Foundation to “retrofit 1,500 to 2,500 housing units, primarily in the low- to moderate-income sector” in “New York City.”

Read more: FBI director received millions from Clinton Foundation, his brother’s law firm does Clinton’s taxes | EndingFed News Network

US Presidential Elections: Full Transcript of Donald Trump Foreign Policy Speech

Donald Trump

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump delivered a speech from Youngstown, Ohio this afternoon, during which he discussed his plan for defeating ISIS.

During his remarks, Trump declared that the United States is at war with radical Islam and that any country that opposes ISIS should be considered an ally.

Trump also blamed the rise of ISIS on President Obama and on Hillary Clinton, saying that their policies allowed the terrorist organization to flourish. Finally, Trump expanded upon his controversial Muslim ban, proposing a suspension of visas to countries that he described as “exporters” of terrorism.

He also proposed an ideological test to ensure those entering the country adhere to certain principles.

Click on the link below for the full transcript of Donald Trump’s August 15th speech, via the campaign’s website.

READ: Full Transcript of Donald Trump Foreign Policy Speech | Heavy.com

The Netherlands: Counter-Islamification Wilders Will Fly To USA To Support Trump - by Oliver JJ Lane

Donald Trump and Geert Wilders:
 "Birds of a feather flock together"

Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) founding leader and member of parliament, Geert Wilders, has said he will speak at the United States Republican convention in the summer in support of likely party candidate Donald Trump.

Geert Wilders, who is presently facing charges of inciting hatred and discrimination against Moroccans in his native Netherlands is a prominent leader in the European counter-jihad movement and has praised the Trump candidacy for its unaccommodating stance on Muslim mass migration.

Speaking out after Ted Cruz and John Kasich stood down from the Republican candidate race and left Mr. Trump as the only credible candidate earlier this week, Mr. Wilders said of Mr. Trump: “He has guts, a lot of good ideas and speaks to broad groups in society”, reports Rotterdam’s largest newspaper Algemeen Dagblad.

Of the coming race against the candidate most likely to lead the Democrat Party into the 2016 election, Mr. Wilders said: “Clinton may well win in the primaries, but she is incredibly unpopular with the ordinary man and woman in the U.S. I give Trump a good chance”.

Reflecting on the rise of right wing populist politics on both sides of the Atlantic, including the seemingly all-conquering Mr. Trump and the likely victory of anti mass migration candidate in this month’s Austrian presidential elections, Mr. Wilders remarked:

“The patriotic spring in the U.S., Europe and Netherlands is unstoppable, trust me”.

Mr. Wilders called for Europe to close its borders to Muslim migrants in November, shortly before Mr. Trump called for a temporary halt on Muslim migration to the United States. Clearly impressed, Mr. Wilders said at the time: “I hope [Donald Trump] will be the next US President. Good for America, good for Europe. We need brave leaders”.

The PVV leader takes a keen interest in the United States, and was present at the Garland Draw Mohammed Competition attack in 2015. Although he is a veteran campaigner himself, he has been taking clear hints from Mr. Trump’s forthright campaigning style, channeling the famous slogan by remarking “Make the Netherlands Great Again!” last month.

Looking forward to the 2017 elections in the Netherlands, Mr. Wilders said: “On March 15, 2017 we will return the Netherlands to the Dutch”.

Note Almere Digest : Donald Trump  and Geert Widera are probably not as stupid as they appear to be, because they have a very good understanding of what stupid people want to hear.

Read more: Counter-Islamification Wilders Will Fly To USA To Support Trump

US Presidential Elections: More countries are destroyed by their own politicians than by foreign armies - editorial

Montesquieu,

“The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.”, said  Montesquieu, (Charles Louis de Secondat)  (1689-1755), a  famous French political philosopher who lived during the European "Age of Enlightenment".

In fact, putting this in the context of the US Constitution and the intended way America is supposed to function, it follows,“Congress makes the laws, the president carries them out, judges decide controversies, and the citizens may be penalized only by a jury of their peers”,

Unfortunately, in reality, this is not how the US functions as a political entity anymore.

America is now ruled by a uniformly educated class of persons controlling the commanding heights of bureaucracy, of the judiciary, education, the media, large corporations, and that force wields political power through the political establishment.

Its control of access to prestige, power, privilege, and wealth exerts a gravitational pull that has made the political elites its major accomplices.

As to the economy : “Think of the American economy as a large apartment block. A century ago—even 30 years ago—it was the object of envy. But in the last generation its character has changed."

"The penthouses at the top keep getting larger and larger. The apartments in the middle are feeling more and more squeezed and the basement has flooded. To round it off, the elevator is no longer working. That broken elevator is what gets people down the most.” said Lawrence Katz, Harvard University economist, already back in 2010.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) once noted that “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”  Indeed, democracy is a very fragile political system that can sometimes fail the very people it is designed to serve.

American president Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) defined it as “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” He would turnover in his grave if he saw how his Republican party defines the functions of Government today.

But democracy is at its worst when an oligarchy takes control of a country’s institutions and imposes its own agenda. Such is the case, unfortunately, in today’s United States. Money interests, not the sovereign people, control the political system; they control the corporate media system, they control the U.S. Supreme Court and much of the judicial system and, one can even argue that they control a large chunk of the academic system.

The U. S. economy, like most industrial economies, is an open economy. This means that goods and services can be exported and imported while facing a minimum of border taxes and other barriers to international trade. For a quarter of a century now, it has also meant that the U. S. economy is part of the economic globalization model.

The later goes much further than free trade: it means that corporations and banks can move their capital, technology and production plants around the world in search of the greatest profit and the best investment environment. Many economists believe that this globalization model has been pushed too far and has become a major cause of economic stagnation in the industrial economies.

In an open economy, keynesian-type stimulus policies of deficit government spending or of tax reduction do not work properly, essentially because stimulus policies of this type are the equivalent of heating a house in winter with the windows and doors wide open. The new deficit spending may help the world economy, since much of the new spending ends up abroad, but the domestic multiplier effect of such spending can be very low. This means that such an economic stimulus in an open economy may not be as effective in stimulating economic activity as hoped and, in some circumstances, it can do more harm than good.

Nevertheless, many politicians (and some economists cling to the old idea that lowering taxes for the rich when the government is in deficit or new non-infrastructure government deficit spending can stimulate the economy.

 This obviously does not work, at least not if the new deficit spending is not focused domestically. Spending deficit money in Afghanistan or in Iraq doesn’t much stimulate the U.S. economy!

What works in an open economy are policies geared toward changing relative prices in order to encourage domestic production and employment. First of all, a lowering of the real exchange rate can encourage net exports and stimulate domestic production and employment, provided the government does not sustain excessive domestic absorption through unproductive large deficits.

Another approach to move relative prices in favor of domestic production and employment is to use the tax system accordingly. Presently, many American corporations are hardly taxed at all on their profits when they operate abroad. Some appropriate taxation of these profits can encourage repatriation of capital and support additional domestic investments. It may be argued that the American political system is not flexible enough to allow for the use of tax policies to encourage domestic production and employment. If so, this would be another indication that the current state of the political system in the U. S. is inimical to economic progress.

The results of the present day US economic policies are everywhere to be seen. The United States has reached levels of inequality in wealth and income that used to be seen only in some backyard third-world countries.

Specifically, therefore, when it comes to politics, it is also in the best interest of any country to avoid giving power to idiots, ignoramuses, incompetents, devious and delusional characters or to demagogues. If not, watch out.

The records show — More countries are destroyed by their own politicians rather than by foreign armies.

Donald Trump’s claim to be an enemy of 'rule-by-inside-deal' is counter intuitive. His career and fortune have been as participant and beneficiary in the process by which government grants privileges to some and inflicts burdens on others. Crony capitalism is the air he breathes, the only sea in which he swims, his second nature. His recipe for “fixing” America, he tells us, is to appoint “the best people”—he names some of his fellow crony capitalists—to exercise even more unaccountable power and to do so with “unbelievable speed.” He assures the voter that, this time, it will be to “make America great again.” Sure, tell us another one Mr.Trump.

Hillary Clinton's approach is to "improve on the system" as she says. She's also embracing the label of "insider," declaring that she knows "what it takes to get things done". With Hillary it is probably the word "insider" which worries most Americans,specially those who believe that the US political system is rotten to the core.

Bernie Sanders's call for a political revolution is at the center of his political appeal. Progressives don't just love him because his policy proposals are more left wing than Hillary's. They love the fact that he calls America's political and economic system by what it is: corrupt.

America's choice for President in November 2016 will either be as significant as the declaration of independence on July 4, 1776, or the final chapter in the systematic destruction of the American Democracy..
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EU-Digest

US Presidential Elections: - Trump details fabulous riches in White House bid

The Federal Election Commission released the document on Wednesday, a week after Trump filed the form claiming the staggering net worth that critics believe he has exaggerated.

His financial disclosure form, which all White House candidates have to file to qualify, lists a whopping 515 different positions and 168 different assets and sources of income.

It lists 23 separate assets valued at more than $50 million each, including real estate in Chicago and New York, golf clubs in Scotland and the US, a Florida holiday resort and aircraft.

Many items required that he check the box marked "$50 million or more" -- such as in the case of a building perhaps worth $1.5 billion, it said.

It says the Miss Universe pageant, which Trump owns, is worth between $5 and $25 million.

The form says he earned more than $1.7 million from speaking engagements last year, including $450,000 each on three separate occasions in February, May and June in 2014.

It even lists a Screen Actors Guild pension giving him an income of more than $110,000.

Note EU-Digest: among all the Republican Presidential  candidates Donald Trump is probably the only one who could possibly beat Hillary Clinton.

Read more: Flash - Trump details fabulous riches in White House bid - France 24