Do The Eyes Have It - Politically Perhaps?

[PeterRS]

One of Britain's fallouts from the Epstein scandal has been the sacking of a man who has been almost at the centre of much of British and European politics for almost 30 years, the British Ambassador to Washington Lord Peter Mandelson. There is now an enquiry as to whether he might have given away state secrets to Epstein. 

My own politics aside, I have always found Mandelson a somewhat creepy individual. It has nothing to do with his being gay. It is on the political influence he has exerted when he seemed to have little importance other than having been a key PR figure responsible for the election of Tony Blair to the PM's job in 1997. I found him creepy because I rarely believed what he said. To me, looking closely at his eyes gave his game away. When someone is trying to convince you of something and he knows that he has an ulterior motive, that person frequently cannot stare you straight in the eye. I found that with much of what Mandelson uttered over the years.

I started looking more carefully at eye movements when a youngster and Harold Wilson was the Labour government's Prime Minister. Unless reading from a teleprompter, he could never keep his eyes straight ahead, always looking to the side momentarily, so much so that even I as a political neophyte then could tell he was lying. Once when the subject of a 'live' interview on the weekly news Panorama programme about the Vietnam War with the BBC's brilliant, knowledgable - and subsequently reveald as gay - reporter James Mossman, his words twisted and turned and his eyes darted about. Apart from his obvious discomfort, you could tell just from his eyes that he was lying.

Spinning the truth - or outright lying - is now part and parcel of political life. Some like Trump have been lying for so many decades it has become second nature and his eyes give little away. But for lesser experienced public figures, even today I find their eyes often show it! 

[jimmie50]

1 hour ago, PeterRS said:

Some like Trump have been lying for so many decades it has become second nature

I honestly believe that trump has lied so much for such a long time that he actually believes his lies.  They are his own reality.  Weird.  

[floridarob]

1 hour ago, jimmie50 said:

 They are his own reality.

Oh, he knows.....

[vinapu]

9 hours ago, jimmie50 said:

I honestly believe that trump has lied so much for such a long time that he actually believes his lies.  They are his own reality.  Weird.  

only 2 more years , if that much

[Suckrates]

22 minutes ago, vinapu said:

only 2 more years , if that much

[Keithambrose]

1 hour ago, vinapu said:

only 2 more years , if that much

Nearly 3!

[vinapu]

1 hour ago, Keithambrose said:

Nearly 3!

hopes are , he may be tempered after midterms

[floridarob]

1 minute ago, vinapu said:

hopes are , he may be tempered after midterms

most likely votes/voters will be tempered at midterms if they get their way...

[unicorn]

9 hours ago, vinapu said:

hopes are , he may be tempered after midterms

He's working hard trying to rig the elections. He thinks he can. I'm not sure he can do as much as he thinks he can. He's mostly acted like he's above the law (because he essentially is), but at least there are some brakes being applied by the Judicial branch.

[vinapu]

10 minutes ago, unicorn said:

He's working hard trying to rig the elections. He thinks he can. I'm not sure he can do as much as he thinks he can. He's mostly acted like he's above the law (because he essentially is), but at least there are some brakes being applied by the Judicial branch.

And we are talking about USA, not Cambodia , Benin or Suriname

[jimmie50]

9 hours ago, floridarob said:

most likely votes/voters will be tempered at midterms if they get their way...

Yes, it would seem from recent news reports his advisers are encouraging him to declare a national emergency in order to take control of the midterm elections.  To be honest, I never knew such a law existed that would allow a president to declare such an emergency, but has already been stated here, he doesn't think the laws apply to him anyway.  He just makes things up as he goes along and nobody seems to be willing to stand up to him and stop him.  As much as I hope the midterm elections will produce a change in at least one house of congress, I am beginning to have my doubts it will become a reality given the current political climate.  

I was just reading a report this morning that said this was the first time since the Great Depression that the US has experienced a net loss in population due to citizens immigrating to other countries.  Something like 150,000 leaving the country permanently.  People are giving up hope.  

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/more-george-clooney-moving-france-080000139.html

[PeterRS]

WIth the US Supreme Court stacked with Trump supporters (including two sex offenders and one supreme liar) long after he is six feet underground, I can see even a Democratic Congress majority getting beaten down continuously. Were I half my age and living in the USA, I would already have started emigration procedures. At least there are jobs in my line of work in other countries and I'd make sure I had enough cash to see out any interregnum fallow period.

[Keithambrose]

7 hours ago, vinapu said:

And we are talking about USA, not Cambodia , Benin or Suriname

Or Hungary.

[jimmie50]

Don't mean to hijack this post...given the current situation in the Middle East and the fact a deranged orange bobble-head is hell bent on not only destroying the US but the world...does anyone else see this is the beginnings of WW3?  Scary times for sure.  

[mauRICE]

2 hours ago, jimmie50 said:

Don't mean to hijack this post...given the current situation in the Middle East and the fact a deranged orange bobble-head is hell bent on not only destroying the US but the world...does anyone else see this is the beginnings of WW3?  Scary times for sure.  

The orange head is bending over backwards to accommodate the wishes of the genocidal Israeli regime; I wonder what they've got on him. This attack is a great distraction from the Epstein files and the allegations of child rape against him, and provide more cover for the genocidal Israeli regime to kill even more Palestinian women and children in Gaza and the West Bank. The significance of this happening in the holy months of Ramadan and Lent is not lost on people of faith, not that the US and its overlord the genocidal Israeli regime ever had any regard for such sensitivities whenever they wanted to go on a killing spree.

This attempt at regime change will fail too like all previous attempts at regime change by the US, including at least one previous attempt in Iran itself, where the US backed a coup in 1953 to overthrow democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh following his nationalisation of Iran's oil industry, and install their puppet the corrupt and authoritarian Shah Reza Pahlavi to protect Western oil interests.  And we all know what happened to the Shah in 1979 and who came to power in his place. God willing, Iran will emerge stronger from the ashes of this latest attack to stand up to the US and the genocidal Israeli regime.

[vinapu]

1 hour ago, jimmie50 said:

..does anyone else see this is the beginnings of WW3?  Scary times for sure.  

scary , yes, WW3 , no. That would require other military power i.e. Russia or China to step in on opposite side. Russia , no because they are already in Ukrainian war swamp. China , not yet,  as now they are only great power not involved in any military conflict thus oasis of stability with time to wait for others to bleed blood and treasury

[Moses]

On 2/27/2026 at 5:37 AM, PeterRS said:

that person frequently cannot stare you straight in the eye

It works only on meetings. And it doesn't works on TV: they record shows with many cameras, and while you thinking what actor stares away, he may stare on another camera or interviewer.

[PeterRS]

8 hours ago, Moses said:

It works only on meetings. And it doesn't works on TV: they record shows with many cameras, and while you thinking what actor stares away, he may stare on another camera or interviewer.

I have worked with two television companies. Most of my post related to the way interviews were conducted prior to 20 years ago. But many interviews are still conducted with a maximum of two cameras, especially if they are out of the studio. It is too costly for stations to pay for more than two crews to cover inrterviews. Shifty eyes remain just that - shifty eyes! We saw that in the interview with the former Prince Andrew held in Buckinham Palace when he dug his own grave. I do not know how many camera crews they used - I suspect about four. But the viewer still caught him out.

[mauRICE]

14 hours ago, mauRICE said:

This attack is a great distraction from the Epstein files and the allegations of child rape against him,...

Didn't that serial philanderer Bill Clinton also attack Iraq at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal? (To be fair, I'd fuck around too if I were married to that two-faced and triple chinned Hillary Clinton.) So this is nothing new. One of my favourite political satires is Wag The Dog  (1997) which I believe is inspired by real life events and shows the extent to which these politicians are willing to go to cover up their own criminal behaviour and hold on to power. In fact there are eerie similarities with Trump as the president in that film had allegedly fiddled with a girl scout in the Oval Office which his minders were trying to cover up by starting a war with Albania.