US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6977

On February 26 2017 11:09 Gahlo wrote:
Another "Say that you love me!" survey.

In a segment on Fox News's “The O'Reilly Factor” that aired Thursday, host Bill O'Reilly spoke with two Swedish nationals about allegations that Sweden had become a more dangerous place in recent years because of immigration.

One guest, Swedish journalist Anne-Sofie Naslund of the Expressen newspaper, pushed back against O'Reilly's comments, suggesting that her country was far safer than it was being presented.

However, the next guest disagreed.

Nils Bildt, billed as a “Swedish defense and national security advisor” by Fox News, told O'Reilly that Naslund was “rather incorrect” and that there had been big problems with integrating immigrants into Swedish society. “These things are not being openly and honestly discussed,” Bildt said.

It was only a brief segment, but it quickly caused controversy back in Sweden, where reporters and experts suggested that Bildt was unknown within the Swedish national security world.


The Dagens Nyheter newspaper reported Friday that neither the Swedish armed forces nor the Foreign Ministry had heard of Bildt. Johan Wiktorin, a fellow at the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences, took to Twitter to suggest he had not heard of Bildt either.


On Twitter, a number of Swedes mocked Fox News's decision to book Bildt.



But who is Nils Bildt? Dagens Nyheter reported that Bildt had in fact emigrated from Sweden in 1994 and that he was originally named Nils Tolling. The newspaper also said Bildt had been convicted of a violent offense while living in Virginia and was given a one-year prison sentence in 2014.

Reached via email, Bildt initially said that he did not dispute anything in the Dagens Nyheter report, though he noted that he had not chosen the title with which he was attributed by Fox News. “I made clear that I am an independent analyst,” Bildt said. Later, he followed up to dispute the claim he had served time in prison.

“Had I spent a year in prison, I would think I would remember it,” Bildt said.

The surname Bildt is well-known in Swedish political circles due to Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister and Swedish foreign minister. Nils Bildt said that he was related to Carl Bildt, who he described as a "most decent and good man." However, when contacted by WorldViews, Carl Bildt noted that his brother, a successful Swedish entrepreneur who is also called Nils, was "highly irritated" when he heard Nils Tolling had began using the surname Bildt. Carl Bildt suggested that the former Nils Tolling had been "trying to use the name to gain favors."

The Bildt who Fox News interviewed is listed as one of the founding partners of Modus World LLC. The company, which says it is based in Washington, Brussels and Tokyo, offers a variety of consulting services, including the “operations and management of possible kidnap and ransom situations,” according to its website, and reports in the Japanese media suggest Bildt was involved a number of hostage negotiations involving Japanese citizens.

David Tabacoff, executive producer of “The O'Reilly Factor,” defended the decision to book Bildt. “Our booker made numerous inquiries and spoke to people who recommended Nils Bildt and after pre-interviewing him and reviewing his bio, we agreed that he would make a good guest for the topic that evening,” Tabacoff said in a statement. (Fox News later said O'Reilly would address the matter on his Monday show.)

However, Bildt's low profile made him a surprising choice, according to Swedish experts. Robert Egnell, a professor at Swedish Defence University, told WorldViews that he did know Bildt, but it was only by chance: The pair had studied together at King’s College London in 2002.

Egnell said that Bildt had left the program early and moved to Japan, after which they had gradually lost touch. “He is in not in any way a known quantity in Sweden and has never been part of the Swedish debate,” Egnell said in an email “He has not lived in Sweden for a very long time and no one within the Swedish security community (which is not a very big pond) seems to know him.”


Fox News's coverage of Sweden has become a subject of debate over the past week, after President Trump referred to “what’s happening” in the country during a rally in Florida last weekend. Swedish experts were confused by the comments, but Trump later clarified he had been referring to a segment with filmmaker Ami Horowitz that had aired on Fox News Channel's “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

Horowitz's film had suggested a link between refugees and increased crime rates in Sweden, but Swedish experts say he oversimplified the problem, and two policemen interviewed by the filmmaker said they had been misrepresented by him.

Speaking to Dagens Nyheter, security expert Wiktorin had suggested Bildt's interview was a “disturbing trend” in U.S. media where Sweden is presented as a “problem country.”

On February 26 2017 09:35 Simberto wrote:
You should realize that this time around, you are going to have a hard time finding ANYONE to help you. A lot of countries helped you in Afghanistan. A few helped you in Iraq. If you randomly invade another country in the region for no apparent reason, you are going to have to do it alone.

Just remember how much fun iraq was. And then don't do it again. Just...don't.

On February 26 2017 12:17 LegalLord wrote:
Curious what the people who actually care about the DNC chair election think about this op-ed.


Source

The US billionaire who helped bankroll Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency played a key role in the campaign for Britain to leave the EU, the Observer has learned.

It has emerged that Robert Mercer, a hedge-fund billionaire, who helped to finance the Trump campaign and who was revealed this weekend as one of the owners of the rightwing Breitbart News Network, is a long-time friend of Nigel Farage. He directed his data analytics firm to provide expert advice to the Leave campaign on how to target swing voters via Facebook – a donation of services that was not declared to the electoral commission.

Cambridge Analytica, an offshoot of a British company, SCL Group, which has 25 years’ experience in military disinformation campaigns and “election management”, claims to use cutting-edge technology to build intimate psychometric profiles of voters to find and target their emotional triggers. Trump’s team paid the firm more than $6m (£4.8m) to target swing voters, and it has now emerged that Mercer also introduced the firm – in which he has a major stake – to Farage.

The communications director of Leave.eu, Andy Wigmore, told the Observer that the longstanding friendship between Nigel Farage and the Mercer family led Mercer to offer his help – free – to the Brexit campaign because of their shared goals. Wigmore said that he introduced Farage and Leave.eu to Cambridge Analytica: “They were happy to help. Because Nigel is a good friend of the Mercers. And Mercer introduced them to us. He said, ‘Here’s this company we think may be useful to you’. What they were trying to do in the US and what we were trying to do had massive parallels. We shared a lot of information.” + Show Spoiler +

Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, is facing growing political pressure to address the steady stream of asylum seekers who have been braving freezing temperatures, fields of waist-deep snow and icy ditches to cross into Canada from the US by foot.

Recent months have seen a growing number of people entering Canada at remote, unguarded locations along the US border. Doing so allows the migrants – many of whom are desperate to flee Trump’s crackdown on immigration – to skirt a longstanding pact that bars most refugee claimants in the US from applying for asylum in Canada.

Advocates in Manitoba say they know of some 139 refugees – including children – who have made the perilous crossing since the start of the year, while groups in Quebec, British Columbia and Ontario also report a rise in irregular crossings.

Some haul suitcases for hours across frozen fields that straddle the border, while others are dropped by taxis metres away from the Quebec border. The asylum seekers – many of whom are from Somalia, Ghana and Djibouti – say their actions are driven by fears of what a Donald Trump presidency could mean for refugees in the US.

As photos of Canadian police smiling as they greeted migrants made the rounds on social media, Trudeau said this week that the government would not seek to stem irregular migration along the US border.

“One of the reasons why Canada remains an open country is Canadians trust our immigration system and the integrity of our borders and the help we provide people who are looking for safety,” Trudeau told parliament. “We will continue to strike that balance between a rigorous system and accepting people who need help.”

Amid concerns that the number of people attempting the crossing could spike as the weather warms, the opposition Conservatives have called on Trudeau and his government to do more to halt the flow of irregular migrants.

Conservative MP Steven Blaney urged Canadian officials to hand over irregular migrants to US authorities while his colleague Candice Bergen highlighted concerns about safety. “People running across farmers’ fields illegally cannot continue,” Bergen said recently. “It is not safe for the people who are running across the fields. It is not safe for the community.”

In the small border town of Emerson, Manitoba – where dozens of refugee claimants have arrived in recent months – Conservative MP Ted Falk pointed to the town’s stretched resources. Emerson’s emergency response team and volunteer firefighting crew have been regularly woken in the middle of the night to help the asylum seekers, Falk said in a video posted to social media.

“We all know that Canada is generous and accepting,” he added. “But we also need to ensure that the integrity of our borders is protected and that we look after our national security. We need to know who is coming into our country, where they’re coming in and why.”

The progressive New Democratic party has repeatedly called on Trudeau’s government to immediately suspend the agreement that prohibits most migrants in the US from making a refugee claim at Canada’s official border crossings.

Under the 2004 Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the US, migrants must apply for asylum in the first country in which they arrive. The agreement is applied at official land, train and airport border crossings.

Advocates say the agreement is leading migrants to instead attempt to enter Canada at isolated, unguarded locations. Once they reach Canadian soil, the agreement no longer applies. The migrants, often disoriented and cold, are apprehended by police and have the right to make a refugee claim and have it heard by Canadian authorities.

The agreement hinges on the idea that the US is a safe country for refugees – an assumption that clashes with the stark reality of the Trump administration, said New Democratic MP Jenny Kwan. “When you have a country that has declared that you’re banned, that you’re not welcome and we don’t want you, and because of where you come from, because of your race and because of your religion, do you feel safe there?” Kwan recently told parliament.