Media (502)
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Blowing an Opportunity in 40 Minutes
(Door Hugo Kijne te Hoboken USA)
It could have been Trump’s finest hour. He could have walked up to the podium, looked straight into the camera, solemnly announced the death of the world’s number one terrorist, praised the Delta Force that executed the attack on the compound, thanked the US allies, in particular the Kurds, whose contribution to the success of the raid was critical, then turned around and stepped away. People would have called him presidential, but the president chose to start rambling and lying. He said that Al Baghdadi ‘died like a dog, died like a coward, crying and whimpering,’ although a military spokesperson later told the press that Trump had no way of knowing exactly how the ISIS leader behaved just before he blew himself up. He thanked Russia, Turkey, Syria and finally the Kurds, who provided ‘some help,’ but only after they had been beaten up by the Turks for three days, although later it was revealed that for quite some time the Kurds had provided critical intelligence and monitored the compound, while Russia had only allowed the Americans to fly over territory it occupied and the role of Turkey and Syria was even more nebulous.
Of course Trump couldn’t pass up a chance to criticize Obama, so he declared that Baghdadi should have been killed by his predecessor and said that the ISIS leader was much bigger than Osama Bin Laden, because Bin Laden was not known before 9/11 and Baghdadi had a caliphate. In spite of obligatory denials by the Pentagon it appears that the military was forced to speed up the assault because of the loss of local capabilities due to Trump’s sudden withdrawal of troops from north-eastern Syria, so that the action was a success in spite of rather than thanks to the Commander in Chief. Trump notified the Russians of the upcoming attack on the compound but against protocol not de Democrats, allegedly because he didn’t trust them but more likely to spite them. Also not informed was acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who learned about Al Baghdadi’s death when the president announced it on Twitter. Trump had special praise for the ‘canine’ that chased the terrorist to his death, clarifying that he called it a ‘dog,’ a term he normally only uses in a derogatory way, especially to describe women who dare to criticize him.
If Trump dreamed that he could take a victory lap at game 5 of the World Series he was awoken by the chant ‘lock him up,’ and from then on things went south for him. Nancy Pelosi decided to speed up the impeachment inquiry and not get bogged down in court fights, and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a decorated veteran working for the National Security Counsel, testified that there had been four quid pro quos with Ukraine: an Oval Office meeting and military aid were made contingent upon investigating Biden and Burisma, but also the 2016 election and CrowdStrike.
Vindman was the first witness who had actually been listening in on Trump’s call with Zelensky, and he told House members that passages referring to Biden and Burisma had been omitted from the White House memo that the president on more than one occasion had called an ‘exact transcript’ and a ‘word for word’ reconstruction of the call. As thanks for his service the usual suspects at FOX News painted Vindman as a ‘never Trumper’ and a double agent working for Ukraine.
While the president was urging Republicans to focus on substance instead of process, something they simply cannot do, John Bolton was invited to come testify in the impeachment inquiry. The former National Security Advisor’s lawyer made clear that a subpoena would be required, but it’s still uncertain if Bolton would be willing to answer questions, and nobody can even guess what he would say.
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A Useful Fucking Moron
(Door Hugo Kijne te Hoboken USA)
Trump didn’t play golf last weekend, and that was the second sign that his problems were getting to him after he canned the plan to host the next G7 meeting at his Doral resort in Miami. Mick Mulvaney explained that Doral had been chosen because the president still considers himself a ‘hospitality guy’ and simply wanted to offer his guests the best possible experience. There was no profit motive, Trump would have done it for free if only that was allowed, and it made him lash out at the ‘phony’ emoluments clause in the Constitution, claiming that George Washington had a business desk in the Oval Office but not providing evidence that Washington did business with foreign countries. Trump’s declaration that he is losing between 2 and 5 billion dollars because of his presidency was greeted with skepticism by experts who are convinced that Trump doesn’t even have $1 billion to lose. Mulvaney and Mike Pompeo were sent out to the Sunday shows to argue that there was no quid pro quo with Ukraine, in Mick Mulvaney’s case to walk back his earlier admission, and they did so poorly that the president must have tasted the carpet in the Oval Office.
Trump’s gofers’ lies came crashing down when Ambassador Bill Taylor testified that military aid to Ukraine had been held back because Trump wanted president Zelensky to first publicly announce that Joe Biden and the role of Ukraine in the 2016 elections were under investigation. Pompeo had been stupid enough to give a conscientious civil servant instead of a crook a front row seat to the shakedown, and the Ambassador had diligently been taking notes. If the whistleblower’s letter was the smoking gun Taylor’s testimony was the bullet, and even Mitch McConnell felt compelled to contradict Trump’s statement that the Senate Leader considered his phone call with Zelensky ‘perfect.’ As the impeachment investigation carries on it’s becoming obvious that ‘Abuse of Power’ will be the first article of impeachment, and after the president called the proceedings ‘a lynching’ while Taylor was testifying, the next day over thirty deplorable GOP House members forced themselves into the investigative committee’s Capitol workspace, having cleared their obstructive action with Trump and only showing that they have run out of arguments to defend him.
Meanwhile Putin met with Erdogan and the two autocrats divvied northeastern Syria up between their troops, with some room for Assad but none for the Kurds. Trump had no problem with this arrangement, because according to him the US ‘never agreed to protect the Kurds’ and ‘we took the oil.’ The president declared that Syria, Turkey and ‘all forms of the Kurds’ have been fighting over blood stained sand for ages and lifted all sanctions on Turkey, while in DC the Special Envoy on Syria testified that at least 100 ISIS fighters escaped since the US withdrew its troops.
While Russia benefitted from Trump’s weakening of Ukraine’s defenses against the invasion by its proxies, Russia, Iran, ISIS and Syria benefit from the president’s policies in the Middle East. Trump’s primary motive in his decision making is apparently to please strongmen like Putin and Erdogan, but also Kim Jong-un and even the Taliban, who are holding out for a better deal than they have been offered so far. All these miscreants have his number and can call anytime.
In New York City, in a case involving his tax returns, Trump’s lawyers argued that the president cannot be investigated and that therefore Trump could indeed shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without consequences until after his presidency. And at an event in Pittsburg the president surprised his audience with the news that ‘we’re building a wall in Colorado,’ a state that isn’t on the southern border.
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Nancy Neuters Putin’s Pooch
(Door Hugo Kijne te Hoboken USA)
Trump’s wheels are coming off and a car crash is rapidly becoming inevitable. An impressive line-up of (in some cases former) State Department and National Security Council employees, all of whom are or were involved in US-Ukraine policies, has testified to Congress or will still testify, in spite of White House attempts to silence them. The emerging picture is that of a shadow foreign policy towards Ukraine driven by the president’s political interests and executed by Rudy Giuliani, who used three ‘amigos’: Energy Secretary Rick Perry, former Ukraine liaison Kurt Volker and Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland. Former NSC Russia expert Fiona Hill testified that John Bolton called Giuliani a ‘hand grenade who is going to blow everybody up,’ in reference to what he called the ‘drug deal’ where military aid to Ukraine was made conditional on certain deliverables. Sondland laid all the responsibility for this plot with Trump, and WH Chief of Staff Mulvaney confirmed yesterday that he was right. In the Southern District of New York a criminal and counterintelligence investigation of Giuliani is now under way that may eventually put Hizzoner in jail.
The withdrawal of US troops from Syria resulted in an invasion by Turkey, in spite of an insane letter Trump sent to president Erdogan that allegedly landed in a trashcan. In response the Syrian Kurds sought help from Bashar al-Assad, whose troops moved into northeastern Syria, accompanied by Russian soldiers who took over former US bases. In a presser with the Italian president, whom he called ‘Mozzarella,’ Trump was fine with all this. According to him Syria would be Russia’s next Afghanistan, and if the Turks and the Syrians wanted to fight over ‘a lot of sand’ that was their choice. He suggested that the Syrian Kurds had primarily fought ISIS for money and called them ‘no angels’ who had deliberately let ISIS members escape. To top it off the president called the organization of Turkish Kurds, the PKK, a greater threat than ISIS. Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo, who had been sent to Turkey to broker a ceasefire, proudly ended up negotiating the ethnic cleansing of the Kurds, giving Turkey exactly what it wanted. Trump said that the Kurds were very happy because they wouldn’t be slaughtered and called it ‘a great day for civilization.’
Apparently under stress from the impeachment threat and the fallout from his Syria decision Trump finally lost it during a White House briefing and called Nancy Pelosi a ‘third rate politician’ after she had said that with Trump ‘all roads lead to Putin,’ making her decide to leave the meeting. The president was not finished ranting and called Jim Mattis ‘the world’s most overrated general,’ because Mattis had once said that it would take two years to defeat ISIS while Trump claimed to have done it in one month. He conveniently forgot the role the Kurds played in that achievement.
The president tried to live out his passion for reality TV when the parents of a motorbike rider, who had been killed in England by the wife of an American diplomat who was driving on the wrong side of the road and subsequently fled to the US, came visit the White House. Trump kept the culprit in one room for a Jerry Springer-like reconciliation and the press in another to record it, but the couple didn’t want to meet the woman unless it was on British soil and left him with a bust.
Next to confessing to a quid pro quo in communications with Ukraine Mick Mulvaney announced that the next G7 will be held at Trump’s Doral resort, taking the president’s grifting to a whole new level. According to the latest Gallup poll 52% of Americans now support the president’s removal from office, and as that number keeps growing even Mitch McConnell will realize that Trump is no longer electable.
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Borstklopperij & zelfkritiek
Er was de afgelopen tijd enige opwinding over de commerciële T.V. die 30 jaar geleden werd ingevoerd. Veel nostalgie, een beetje borstklopperij, veel waan en een Joop van den Ende, die benadrukte dat ze het allemaal nog moesten leren en dat er veel rotzooi werd uitgezonden. Daar had hij gelijk in. We gaan precies dertig jaar terug.
Een extra nieuwsuitzending
Op 18 oktober 1989 ‘ s middags om half één bracht de pas begonnen en eerste commerciële t.v.-omroep in dit land RTL-Véronique een extra nieuwsuitzending. Dat ging over de aardbeving in Californië, die om vier minuten over twee ‘s nachts (Nederlandse tijd) plaats vond.
Er waren beelden uit de V.S.; er waren deskundigen; er was opwinding en nauwelijks verholen triomf. De commerciële omroep was eerder dan de publieke, die het nieuws pas uitgebreid om één uur zou brengen.
Wat ze bij RTL-V niet wisten:
ZE HADDEN DE RAMP EXACT VANAF HET MOMENT VAN UITBREKEN AL URENLANG LIVE UITGEZONDEN.
Hoe dat kan?
Welnu.
TOESTEMMING
RTL-Véronique was op 2 oktober 1989 begonnen met commerciële televisie. Van het Commissariaat van de Media hadden ze daar toestemming voor gekregen, omdat het werd aangemerkt als een buitenlandse -Luxemburgse- zender. (Jongeren onder ons weten dit vrijwel nooit, want die denken dat er altijd al commerciële televisie is geweest).
De zender besloot om live de World Series honkbal in Amerika uit te zenden. Dat kon -was de redenering- weinig kwaad, want dat vond vanwege het tijdsverschil van negen uur -de serie werd gespeeld tussen de San Francisco Giants en de Oakland Athletics- toch midden in de nacht plaats.
De beelden werden via het Engelse Screensport overgenomen van ABC. Nederlands commentaar was niet nodig, want de echte honkballiefhebbers gaven toch de voorkeur aan Amerikaanse deskundige commentatoren.
‘s Nachts om twee uur zat ik klaar voor de buis. De derde wedstrijd in deze zogeheten Bay-Series zou zo beginnen. In het Candlestick Stadion van San Francisco zaten 62.000 toeschouwers.
Tientallen miljoenen Amerikanen zaten voor de buis. Buiten in de Bay-Area was het uitermate stil.
En dat is DE REDDING geweest van honderden -mogelijk duizenden- mensen.
Vlak voordat The Gatlin Brothers de Star Spangled Banner zouden zingen, vielen de lichten uit in het stadion.Geen elektriciteit meer. Je zag trillende beelden, die van commentaar werden voorzien door trillende verslaggevers. Vanaf dat moment heb ik uren lang fantastische televisie gezien.
In Amerika deed men verschrikkelijk zijn best, maar het duurde behoorlijk lang voordat men ook maar enigszins in de gaten had hoe groot de ramp was.
Maar men schakelde tenminste, filosofeerde, schakelde opnieuw; het beeld viel regelmatig weg en men wist -iedereen wist- hier gebeurt live iets heel erg ergs.
SCREENSPORT
Bij Screensport in Londen had men dat niet helemaal in de gaten. Soms als er even in die nacht geen beeld was, brachten ze flarden van een motorcross of een oude autorace. Dat werd natuurlijk automatisch overgenomen door RTL-Véronique.
Maar gelukkig kwamen er steeds meer beelden uit Amerika.
Veel speculaties ook.
Veel verkeerde en vaak tegenstrijdige informatie.
Maar de beelden van brandende flats, geplette auto’s, ingestorte brugdelen, verwoeste autowegen, rokende huizen en jankende mensen werden tenminste uitgezonden.
En Véronique?
Véronique deed niets.
Niemand die in beeld kwam, niemand die iets vertelde, iets vertaalde, iets uitlegde.
Niemand, die eens een samenvatting gaf als de beelden wegvielen.
Ze lagen natuurlijk gewoon te slapen!
Pas toen de verantwoordelijke redacteuren hun ontbijtje genuttigd hadden, bedachten ze dat er een extra nieuwsuitzending moest komen. Met 'als eerste in Nederland exclusieve beelden van de aardbeving'.
GEEN WOORD OVER HUN EIGEN UITZENDING, die ze elf uur eerder al waren begonnen.
De serie best of seven werd tien dagen later voortgezet. Oakland werd kampioen: 4-0.
Ook dat nog!
.
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Great and Unmatched Wisdom
(Door Hugo Kijne te Hoboken USA)
During the 2016 presidential campaign Jeb Bush predicted a ‘chaos presidency’ if Trump were to be elected and boy was he right. It’s the only thing that the president does well, confusing and obfuscating, to the point where he himself cannot keep track of his lies. Realizing that his perfect call with Ukrainian president Zelensky might actually get him impeached Trump tried to shift the blame to Energy Secretary Perry, who had just resigned and allegedly made him do it even thought he didn’t want to. That version of events didn’t have a long life, because it was unclear why Perry would have wanted Joe Biden investigated. So the president tried another tack, first denying that he had ever asked for Biden to be investigated and then declaring that it was perfectly fine to have Biden investigated in the context of his never yielding battle against corruption. Imagining the most corrupt US President ever as a corruption fighter was a new challenge for the American public, made even more arduous by the idea that Trump would disapprove of the children of politicians being engaged in profitable foreign business ventures.
Meanwhile House testimony by the former US envoy to Ukraine and text messages he made available showed that for an extended period of time American diplomats and Rudy Giuliani had pressured Ukraine to comply with Trump’s wishes, initially with a White House visit by Zelensky as the reward, but eventually with military aid to Ukraine hanging in the balance. The acting ambassador to Ukraine called this ‘crazy,’ but was silenced by the Trump sycophant who is the ambassador to the EU, who, after checking back with Trump, assured him there was no quid pro quo in the interactions with Ukraine. The White House considered it too risky for this character to testify in Congress, so his appearance was canceled in the last minute, which resulted in a subpoena. In response to these developments the White House Counsel sent a letter to House Democrats calling the impeachment inquiry ‘illegitimate’ and ‘unconstitutional,’ and declared that the White House would not cooperate. In the meantime in New York Trump’s lawyers argued that impeachment is the only constitutional process to investigate a president.
Over the weekend Trump decided to immediately withdraw the US troops who formed a buffer between the Kurds, who had fought side by side with them against ISIS and had 11,000 corpses to show for it, and the Turkish border, all but guaranteeing that the Turkish army would invade Syria and slaughter America’s only reliable allies in the region. Warned even by his staunchest supporters that this was a big mistake Trump tweeted that in his ‘great and unmatched wisdom’ he would obliterate the Turkish economy if Turkey attacked the Kurds, which it has now done.
Trump made his decision after a phone call with Turkish president Erdogan, and since he has significant business interests in Turkey, among them two Trump Towers in Istanbul, he’s not very likely to follow up on that threat. After throwing the Kurds under the bus the president pointed out that they didn’t help us on D-Day, and with a possible release of ISIS fighters by the Kurds he had no problem because they would want to go back to their European countries.
Even the Evangelicals are now split about Trump. Pat Robinson stated that the president would lose his ‘mandate from heaven’ because of the way he had responded to Khashoggi’s murder and abandoned the Kurds, while Ralph Reed said that Christians have a ‘moral obligation’ to support Trump. According to the latest polling 51% of Americans disagree and want him out of office.
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