Best Of

@BillyBaldwin

Not Black.
Not Trans.
Not Muslim.
Not an Immigrant.
Not a Democrat.

Meet Charlie Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson.

A white Christian, Conservative, Republican male with a gun... again.

https://x.com/BillyBaldwin/status/1966505118989172895

Hmmm, as much as I want to trust random people on twitter…

He does not appear to have any criminal history, according to state records reviewed by Reuters. He was a registered voter but was not affiliated with a political party, according to state voter records.

@BillyBaldwin

Not Black.
Not Trans.
Not Muslim.
Not an Immigrant.
Not a Democrat.

Meet Charlie Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson.

A white Christian, Conservative, Republican male with a gun... again.

https://x.com/BillyBaldwin/status/1966505118989172895

Are you sure about this? I genuinely don’t know

There are people - not entirely unreliable - claiming he recently swerved violently left, denouncing Kirk and Trump etc as Nazis. I’ve no idea

People will say whatever makes them feel best - whether left wing or right wing.

Who knows what the truth is these days. But it does seem like he wrote “hey fascist catch” on the bullet casings. This was in the FBI and governor briefings? Also an antifa slogan

And the family do seem to be reporting he turned extreme left quite recently

However - big caveat - maybe this is all made up bollocks on X? It’s so hard to pin down the actuality

Too many of these extreme left and extreme right shootings. Why are they never extreme centrist dads?

Labour find it really difficult to remove their leaders. Corbyn was astonishingly useless (at least for those who had understandably not paid any attention to his career) and lost an election and they still couldn't get rid of him. Starmer is a sitting PM and he's not going anywhere unless he chooses to do so.

His judgement is shite. This is not news. Everyone knew this when they chose him. But he is PM and will not want to stand down on any terms other than his own.

His judgement is poor and his news management is poor. Adds up to shite, but I don't mind the latter element.

I’m sorry, but Starmer’s political judgment is way beyond “poor”. Sunak was “poor”. Starmer is in a different league

There are so many examples but let’s focus on Lord Yum Yum. He didn’t have to do any of this. He didn’t have to appoint him. He didn’t have to rush out and express confidence in him as the scandal kicked off. He didn’t have to do that AGAIN in the commons even as everyone else in the universe knew Mandy was toast

All unforced. All howlingly stupid. He is so bad at politics people semi-seriously wonder if he is a spy paid by China

He is the worst “politician” we’ve seen in number 10 in my lifetime. He has no political sense. Zero

He’s a dull witted public sector lawyer and that’s where he should have stayed

I can't disagree with you on any point. What it adds up to though is a PM as good as many in recent years. Nobody can be worse than Truss - I think we all agree on that. I have a personal hate of Gordon Brown. I liked Cameron, Boris is sort of an exception, and I'd feel poorly of myself if I went after Mrs May. So it boils down to Sunak vs Starmer. Now I'm a lifelong Tory, but I have to tell you that I think Starmer has been the better PM.

Why exactly? Rishi comes in and gets inflation under control. he does not give the unions massive pay rises we can not afford. he does not give away the chagos islands and cost us 30 billion in the process. he restores a level of market confidence after the trusterfuck. He also does some stupid stuff to be sure, but the only good thing I can honestly think Starmer has done well is suck up to Trump. Freebies, WFA, union pay rises, poor appointments, fails to cut welfare, why is he better? genuinely interested in how you see it.

If you read the media that explains Chagos at 30 billion, some even go at 100 billion, and cover each government action with similar hyperbole, then sure, on those "facts" Starmer is worse than Rishi, but the fact base is pretty "alternative".

If you prefer Chagos at 3 billion that's fine by me. I am asking why Starmer is better than Rishi to some people, what are the big plusses for starmer, or big minus for Rishi? Rwanda? his attempted election give away?

Seriousness. Most of the problems Starmer et al are facing are down to unserious nature of the last few Tory governments, particularly from Boris onwards. Labour aren't very good and Sunak was an improvement on Johnson and Truss but Starmer is still ahead imo.

Rwanda is a good example, not because I am overly offended by the civil rights implications, I am a bit, but far more offended by the contempt he held the nation in. He made the asylum problem worse for both claimants and locals for political gain, and was too stupid and naive to realise that the beneficiaries of that politics would be Refukkers not the Tories.

Thank you, very interesting. I find them very similar TBH. Capable people in a way but terrible politicians. Still better then a capable politician who is not able or interested in doing the job like Boris mind.

Thing is, Sunak had the opportunity to be the one to break the logjam.

Deep down, we all know that there's a mismatch between the things we want the state to provide and the amount we are happy to pay for them. We know there is a deep hypocricy in our approach to immigration. It's been going on for most of my lifetime, and it's there because we, as voters, vote for it.

Sunak could have thought "sod it, I'm going to lose, but I'm going to hand over a good legacy" by adressing those mismatches. He might have struggled to get it past his MPs, but seriously... who else were they going to put in place? And Truss had set herself up to be the fall gal. Instead, he decided to go deeper into the madness- partly with Rwanda, partly with his "we can cut tax rates because of spending cuts I'm not going to describe".

The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one, as the saying goes. Sunak and Hunt could have been brave, everything was set up for them to be brave, in the way that Major and Clarke were in the runup to 1997. But their actions were those of cowards. And it didn't really save any seats.

Starmer is not good- though I wonder if he is a good as the system lets anyone be, as good as our society deserves. He's certainly better than Sunak.

@BillyBaldwin

Not Black.
Not Trans.
Not Muslim.
Not an Immigrant.
Not a Democrat.

Meet Charlie Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson.

A white Christian, Conservative, Republican male with a gun... again.

https://x.com/BillyBaldwin/status/1966505118989172895

Hmmm, as much as I want to trust random people on twitter…

He does not appear to have any criminal history, according to state records reviewed by Reuters. He was a registered voter but was not affiliated with a political party, according to state voter records.

@BillyBaldwin

Not Black.
Not Trans.
Not Muslim.
Not an Immigrant.
Not a Democrat.

Meet Charlie Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson.

A white Christian, Conservative, Republican male with a gun... again.

https://x.com/BillyBaldwin/status/1966505118989172895

Are you sure about this? I genuinely don’t know

There are people - not entirely unreliable - claiming he recently swerved violently left, denouncing Kirk and Trump etc as Nazis. I’ve no idea

People will say whatever makes them feel best - whether left wing or right wing.

Who knows what the truth is these days. But it does seem like he wrote “hey fascist catch” on the bullet casings. This was in the FBI and governor briefings? Also an antifa slogan

And the family do seem to be reporting he turned extreme left quite recently

However - big caveat - maybe this is all made up bollocks on X? It’s so hard to pin down the actuality

Too many of these extreme left and extreme right shootings. Why are they never extreme centrist dads?

To which, I accept, the appropriate answer is “Iraq”.

Labour find it really difficult to remove their leaders. Corbyn was astonishingly useless (at least for those who had understandably not paid any attention to his career) and lost an election and they still couldn't get rid of him. Starmer is a sitting PM and he's not going anywhere unless he chooses to do so.

His judgement is shite. This is not news. Everyone knew this when they chose him. But he is PM and will not want to stand down on any terms other than his own.

Did everyone know Starmer’s judgement was shite when they chose him? Pretty sure there was a period when folk thought there might be a teeny bit of sunshine peeping out of his fundament - businesslike rational, efficient, non ideological were all terms I recall being in play.

Some folk. Anyone who watched how he weesled around Corbyn should have realised this was a man who wouldn't recognise a principle if it was the basis of a trip and slip claim.

One of the more serious ones I have seen.

An Irish Grandma, 47 years in the USA on a Green Card and married to a US citizen, detained when returning from a visit to Ireland for a funeral with husband, is now facing deportation for a "crime of moral turpitude", because she bounced a $25 cheque in 2015 - which she subsequently made good. From the Indy:

An Irish grandmother of five, who is married to an American citizen and who has lived in the U.S. on a green card for 47 years, is facing deportation.

Donna Hughes-Brown, 58, was arrested by ICE over a bad check for $25 she passed a decade ago, according to her husband. Born in England the grandmother holds Irish citizenship and first came to the U.S. with her parents and brother aged 11.

She visited the Republic of Ireland earlier this summer for a family funeral, only to be arrested when she returned to Chicago O’Hare International Airport on July 29.

She has since been detained for more than 30 days and held at a facility in Campbell County, Kentucky, with the U.S. government threatening to deport her over the check, which it argues was a “crime of moral turpitude,” despite her family saying she paid the money back long ago.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ice-deportation-donna-hughes-brown-grandmother-b2824030.html

A short vid analysing this, and suggesting where it is going - with an aim of instilling fear. Phil Moorehouse, and I mainly agree with the analysis this time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArXFp-CnswU

It's this sort of thing that is deterring members of my family from visiting friends in the US - it's not that they have committed any offences, but they feel slightly unsure that they'd be safe.