I'm almost definitely too lazy to research this and write it but it might be fun to have a thread on possible dark horse GOP candidates.
I think you have to free yourself from two prejudices when considering this race: Firstly that it's going to be Trump, and secondly that it's going to be some sensible alternative.
The 10 stadiums: Wembley (90,652) National Stadium of Wales (73,952) Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (62,322) City of Manchester Stadium (61,000) Everton Stadium (52,679) St James' Park (52,305) Villa Park (52,190) Hampden Park (52,032) Dublin Arena (51,711) Casement Park (34,500)
Yeah, that makes sense. I assume the "National Stadium of Wales" is the latest re-branding of the Millennium Stadium?
Only two in London and one in any other city, as expected.
Eastlands an easy choice over Old Trafford, as is the new Everton stadium over Anfield.
Good choices all round, I think. Perhaps a moderate gripe at two stadiums in London and two in England's north west, but in absolute fairness they are the two real powerhouse regions for football in England and as such have the pick of the grounds.
A 32 team tournament could have accommodated a couple more, you'd have thought. Murrayfield and one of the City Ground or Hillsborough, maybe.
If they were going to add another one in England then somewhere in the south outside of London would have been nice. Southampton maybe?
Proviso, though: IIRC from previous tournament bids the list of stadiums in the bid document isn't necessarily the final one.
True, Southampton would be a good pick - B&H Albion's ground also is a reasonable logistical choice for yer Albania v Estonia-type fixtures - as, I suppose, would Aberdeen's new ground, if it ever actually gets built.
(Fact is, this really could/should have been an England bid - five nations co-hosting is taking the piss a bit. A lot of very good stadiums in this country. I get why it's not though.)
England probably has more decent stadiums per square mile than any country on earth
On top of those listed you’ve got Twickenham, Anfield, Old Trafford, Chelsea, the Olympic stadium, the new Highbury, etc etc. You could even adapt Lords. An embarrassment of riches
I was at a friend's house on Monday and he had been bought this book as a present:
I spent a good few minutes having a look through it. It has many very small stadiums (along with the likes of Anfield etc.) that you can just turn up to watch games at. Some stunning settings for many of these stadiums. Although some of them really are little more than a fence around a football pitch.
Even though I only spent a little time with the book I can heavily recommend it and am thinking about setting a goal to visit them all!
WaPo (via Seattle Times) - Judge chides Fox News over Dominion claim of ‘missing’ Murdoch documents
WILMINGTON, Del. — An attorney for Dominion Voting Systems alleged Tuesday that Fox News withheld information that would have entitled Dominion to obtain more of network co-founder Rupert Murdoch’s communications in the election-technology company’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit.
Justin Nelson, an attorney for Dominion, told the judge in the case that the company had been led to believe that Murdoch held the title of officer only for Fox’s parent company. But over the past few days, he said, Dominion learned that the mogul also holds an officer title for Fox News.
“This alone has meant that we are missing a whole bunch of Rupert Murdoch documents that we otherwise would have been entitled to,” Nelson said. “It’s very troubling that this is where we are. It’s something that has really affected how we have litigated this case.”
Judge Eric M. Davis echoed Nelson’s frustration with Fox, saying the missing information about Murdoch’s title may have affected his decision-making regarding a recent ruling that narrowed the scope of the case. “I could have made an entirely wrong decision,” Davis said.
Addressing an attorney for Fox News, the judge said the network has a “credibility problem.”
“My problem is that it’s been represented more than once to me that he’s not an officer of Fox News,” Davis said. “I need to feel comfortable that when you represent something to me, it’s the truth. I’m not very happy right now. I don’t know why this is such a difficult thing.” . . .
SSI - Fox News is literally incredible? Who'd have thunk it?!?!
On topic: The April 4th issue of the New York Times included a dialogue between David Leonhardt and Maggie Haberman, with these two nuggets from Haberman: 'Trump has been trying to avoid being indicted since he was first criminally investigated in the 1970s. He actually hasn't faced enormous criminal threats since then. He has instead operated in a world in which so much is based on machine politics and what Marie Brenner, the journalist, once described as New York's "favor economy"'
'It's worth remembering his company was convicted on 17 counts of tax fraud and other crimes last year.'
The cumulative effect of his court losses may well prevent Trump from winning the nomination, much less the general election.
Anecdotal yes, but my lefty chums (yes, I have plenty) are giving the junior doctors zero support. I mean, really pissed off by their action. That 35% claim has just really riled them up.
Interesting to see if there is any polling on this (done by someone other than the BMA).
Anecdotal yes, but my lefty chums (yes, I have plenty) are giving the junior doctors zero support. I mean, really pissed off by their action. That 35% claim has just really riled them up.
Interesting to see if there is any polling on this (done by someone other than the BMA).
"If they're your chums, they can't be TRUE lefties!"
Anecdotal yes, but my lefty chums (yes, I have plenty) are giving the junior doctors zero support. I mean, really pissed off by their action. That 35% claim has just really riled them up.
Interesting to see if there is any polling on this (done by someone other than the BMA).
"If they're your chums, they can't be TRUE lefties!"
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
No one learned how to do a coup properly by this action. They just went on a demo march which got out of hand.
Trump was actively planning in multiple ways to displace the winner of the election, Biden. Delaying the proceedings at the Capitol were part of that. You seem to be ignoring that broader context.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe he sent his willing helpers to the Capitol. But by rights no group of people should ever be able to tear down some metal barriers and force their way into the seat of government. Into a football match maybe, but not into the Capitol. Once there they were as bemused as anyone although five people did die that day and many were in fear of their lives.
So if he sent them to delay proceedings while he hatched his master plan it was both unexpectedly successful and, as it appears that he is not now POTUS, very unsuccessful.
Sending a group of people to delay proceedings if you don't like an election result is not great. But it is hardly assembling a well-armed body designed to take by force the levers of power of a nation, now, is it.
There was a lot going on that day, of which we still don’t know much of it.
There’s been some releases of video in the past few weeks, that suggest the ‘invaders’ were being almost given a guided tour by Capitol security, while there’s also been certain identifiable people in the footage suggesting an invasion, who have never been arrested, despite dozens of people being held in custody for two years awaiting trial. People on trial have been acquitted after footage of them being let into the building by security have emerged, while others have been convicted because the available video evidence was not made available to their defence.
IMHO it was an attempt to delay proceedings, rather than a genuine attempt to overthrow the government. It also sits badly, given the history of infiltration of fringe groups by CIA and FBI in the States.
I don’t recall the protestors chanting “Delay the proceedings” or holding up banners to say the same. They cried “Hang Pence”! They were there because they wanted Trump made the winner of the election.
Stop being an apologist for violence.
So asking why there is video footage of protestors being escorted round the Capitol is now being "an apologist for violence"?
You are usually the type of person who talks about "follow the science", "facts are sacred" etc. Now we have a video which clearly shows the protestors being led around and your instant response is to try to shut any discussion down.
Well quite. There appears, from the outside, to be a situation where many non-violent people are now in prison, while those inciting violence appear to be getting away with it.
For the avoidance of doubt, people who were violent and inciting violence should be in prison, and people who were protesting peacefully should be free.
Peaceful protest can still be illegal in some circumstances. That’s certainly Conservative Party policy here in the UK!
Would you like to list some of these cases of non-violent people who are now in prison?
Let’s start with Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman”. He just got released from a four-year sentence, yet there’s no evidence of him involved in any violent act, nor of breaking into anywhere that the security didn’t think he should be allowed to go.
Thanks. So, he pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding. He thinks he was guilty of a crime carrying a prison sentence. The prosecutors thought he was guilty of a crime carrying a prison sentence. He went to prison. I’m not seeing the problem here.
Do you think there’s a problem when someone pleads guilty to a crime carrying a prison sentence then gets a prison sentence?
Also, it was a 41 month sentence, which is nearer to 3 years, and he was released early.
The video that’s been released in the last few weeks, was not made available to his defence team at the time of the trial. That’s a serious breach of his rights, given that all of the CCTV was requested by his lawyer. His choice was either to take the plea bargain and get four years, or to contest the trial and get life with no parole, for treason, on conviction. The US “justice” system is totally screwed up like that.
The (highly selectively edited) video doesn’t prove he’s innocent. It doesn’t prove he wasn’t trying to obstruct an official proceeding.
I don’t believe the US justice system is so flawed that we should just dismiss its findings. I have more faith in the US justice system than I do in Tucker Carlson, a proven liar. You appear to put more faith in Carlson. If Chansley was innocent, he could have pleaded so. He said he was guilty. He’s never recanted that, AFAIK.
The problem with the US justice system, is that the evidence was clearly withheld from the defence, and he’s given an option of a few years with a guilty plea, or life in prison if it goes to trial and he’s found guilty
How many of us, knowing we we innocent of the accusation, would still just take the plea deal?
The evidence that doesn’t prove he’s innocent? That evidence?
It shouldn’t be for him to prove his innocence, it should be for the State to prove his guilt.
The State did prove his guilt. The State got him to say he was guilty. He willingly spoke at length about his own guilt during his sentencing hearing. He’s never gone back on those statements.
“Plead guilty and get a couple of years, or plead innocent and never get out”
That isn’t justice.
You don't really think he was innocent of the charges, do you? Genuine question.
The charges they were preparing, were basically treason. Yes, I think he was innocent of that charge, he was a bit of an idiot, rather than someone with a serious plan to overthrow the government.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
No one learned how to do a coup properly by this action. They just went on a demo march which got out of hand.
Trump was actively planning in multiple ways to displace the winner of the election, Biden. Delaying the proceedings at the Capitol were part of that. You seem to be ignoring that broader context.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe he sent his willing helpers to the Capitol. But by rights no group of people should ever be able to tear down some metal barriers and force their way into the seat of government. Into a football match maybe, but not into the Capitol. Once there they were as bemused as anyone although five people did die that day and many were in fear of their lives.
So if he sent them to delay proceedings while he hatched his master plan it was both unexpectedly successful and, as it appears that he is not now POTUS, very unsuccessful.
Sending a group of people to delay proceedings if you don't like an election result is not great. But it is hardly assembling a well-armed body designed to take by force the levers of power of a nation, now, is it.
There was a lot going on that day, of which we still don’t know much of it.
There’s been some releases of video in the past few weeks, that suggest the ‘invaders’ were being almost given a guided tour by Capitol security, while there’s also been certain identifiable people in the footage suggesting an invasion, who have never been arrested, despite dozens of people being held in custody for two years awaiting trial. People on trial have been acquitted after footage of them being let into the building by security have emerged, while others have been convicted because the available video evidence was not made available to their defence.
IMHO it was an attempt to delay proceedings, rather than a genuine attempt to overthrow the government. It also sits badly, given the history of infiltration of fringe groups by CIA and FBI in the States.
I don’t recall the protestors chanting “Delay the proceedings” or holding up banners to say the same. They cried “Hang Pence”! They were there because they wanted Trump made the winner of the election.
Stop being an apologist for violence.
So asking why there is video footage of protestors being escorted round the Capitol is now being "an apologist for violence"?
You are usually the type of person who talks about "follow the science", "facts are sacred" etc. Now we have a video which clearly shows the protestors being led around and your instant response is to try to shut any discussion down.
Well quite. There appears, from the outside, to be a situation where many non-violent people are now in prison, while those inciting violence appear to be getting away with it.
For the avoidance of doubt, people who were violent and inciting violence should be in prison, and people who were protesting peacefully should be free.
Peaceful protest can still be illegal in some circumstances. That’s certainly Conservative Party policy here in the UK!
Would you like to list some of these cases of non-violent people who are now in prison?
Let’s start with Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman”. He just got released from a four-year sentence, yet there’s no evidence of him involved in any violent act, nor of breaking into anywhere that the security didn’t think he should be allowed to go.
Thanks. So, he pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding. He thinks he was guilty of a crime carrying a prison sentence. The prosecutors thought he was guilty of a crime carrying a prison sentence. He went to prison. I’m not seeing the problem here.
Do you think there’s a problem when someone pleads guilty to a crime carrying a prison sentence then gets a prison sentence?
Also, it was a 41 month sentence, which is nearer to 3 years, and he was released early.
The video that’s been released in the last few weeks, was not made available to his defence team at the time of the trial. That’s a serious breach of his rights, given that all of the CCTV was requested by his lawyer. His choice was either to take the plea bargain and get four years, or to contest the trial and get life with no parole, for treason, on conviction. The US “justice” system is totally screwed up like that.
The (highly selectively edited) video doesn’t prove he’s innocent. It doesn’t prove he wasn’t trying to obstruct an official proceeding.
I don’t believe the US justice system is so flawed that we should just dismiss its findings. I have more faith in the US justice system than I do in Tucker Carlson, a proven liar. You appear to put more faith in Carlson. If Chansley was innocent, he could have pleaded so. He said he was guilty. He’s never recanted that, AFAIK.
The problem with the US justice system, is that the evidence was clearly withheld from the defence, and he’s given an option of a few years with a guilty plea, or life in prison if it goes to trial and he’s found guilty
How many of us, knowing we we innocent of the accusation, would still just take the plea deal?
The evidence that doesn’t prove he’s innocent? That evidence?
It shouldn’t be for him to prove his innocence, it should be for the State to prove his guilt.
The State did prove his guilt. The State got him to say he was guilty. He willingly spoke at length about his own guilt during his sentencing hearing. He’s never gone back on those statements.
“Plead guilty and get a couple of years, or plead innocent and never get out”
That isn’t justice.
You don't really think he was innocent of the charges, do you? Genuine question.
The charges they were preparing, were basically treason. Yes, I think he was innocent of that charge, he was a bit of an idiot, rather than someone with a serious plan to overthrow the government.
Well, you think he was not guilty of reason and he wasn’t found guilty of treason, so all’s right with the world…?
Do you think he was innocent of the charge of trying to obstruct an official proceeding?
My point is, that he didn’t have the opportunity to defend himself in court.
Yes, he did. He didn’t have to take the plea deal. Notice the second word in “plea deal”? It’s “deal”, an agreement between two or more parties.
You can quixotically claim that all plea deals are a perversion of justice, but that seems a bit silly to me.
In the US context, plea deals are absolutely a perversion of justice.
Very O/T - but a friend of mine is going to be visiting Soho soon for the first time (and first time in London for about 10 years). Anyone have some recommendations for food/drinks? He's open to any style/region and not that fussed about the price (assuming not insane 'wtaf' prices). He's mid-30s, professional, Italian family background if that narrows anything down.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
No one learned how to do a coup properly by this action. They just went on a demo march which got out of hand.
Trump was actively planning in multiple ways to displace the winner of the election, Biden. Delaying the proceedings at the Capitol were part of that. You seem to be ignoring that broader context.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe he sent his willing helpers to the Capitol. But by rights no group of people should ever be able to tear down some metal barriers and force their way into the seat of government. Into a football match maybe, but not into the Capitol. Once there they were as bemused as anyone although five people did die that day and many were in fear of their lives.
So if he sent them to delay proceedings while he hatched his master plan it was both unexpectedly successful and, as it appears that he is not now POTUS, very unsuccessful.
Sending a group of people to delay proceedings if you don't like an election result is not great. But it is hardly assembling a well-armed body designed to take by force the levers of power of a nation, now, is it.
There was a lot going on that day, of which we still don’t know much of it.
There’s been some releases of video in the past few weeks, that suggest the ‘invaders’ were being almost given a guided tour by Capitol security, while there’s also been certain identifiable people in the footage suggesting an invasion, who have never been arrested, despite dozens of people being held in custody for two years awaiting trial. People on trial have been acquitted after footage of them being let into the building by security have emerged, while others have been convicted because the available video evidence was not made available to their defence.
IMHO it was an attempt to delay proceedings, rather than a genuine attempt to overthrow the government. It also sits badly, given the history of infiltration of fringe groups by CIA and FBI in the States.
I don’t recall the protestors chanting “Delay the proceedings” or holding up banners to say the same. They cried “Hang Pence”! They were there because they wanted Trump made the winner of the election.
Stop being an apologist for violence.
So asking why there is video footage of protestors being escorted round the Capitol is now being "an apologist for violence"?
You are usually the type of person who talks about "follow the science", "facts are sacred" etc. Now we have a video which clearly shows the protestors being led around and your instant response is to try to shut any discussion down.
Well quite. There appears, from the outside, to be a situation where many non-violent people are now in prison, while those inciting violence appear to be getting away with it.
For the avoidance of doubt, people who were violent and inciting violence should be in prison, and people who were protesting peacefully should be free.
Peaceful protest can still be illegal in some circumstances. That’s certainly Conservative Party policy here in the UK!
Would you like to list some of these cases of non-violent people who are now in prison?
Let’s start with Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman”. He just got released from a four-year sentence, yet there’s no evidence of him involved in any violent act, nor of breaking into anywhere that the security didn’t think he should be allowed to go.
I think you're confusing being "allowed" to be somewhere from not being physically stopped from going somewhere. It's common practice in a riot to fall back to some extent rather than defend every square inch, as that's the best way to avoid physical harm to individuals.
But there's no question of rioters being "allowed" in the offices of Congressmen, or onto the floor of the House.
He was walking around, either escorted or unchallenged, and there was no evidence of violence on his behalf. None of which should be worth a sentence of 41 months in prison, thanks to a misguided plea bargain that otherwise threatened to send him away for life, when CCTV evidence in favour was withheld from his defence.
How does the CCTV evidence prove his innocence?
Why should he have to prove his innocence?
Well, he was accused of a crime. He doesn’t have to prove his innocence, but you and Sandpit are acting as if Tucker Carlson’s video would’ve have changed what happened if it had been seen at the time. It only would’ve changed what happened if it provided evidence of his innocence. It doesn’t.
I don't know what Tucker Carlson has to do with anything, I've never mentioned him?
Congress released the tapes exclusively to Fox News, so Carlson's edited selection is what we get to see.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
No one learned how to do a coup properly by this action. They just went on a demo march which got out of hand.
Trump was actively planning in multiple ways to displace the winner of the election, Biden. Delaying the proceedings at the Capitol were part of that. You seem to be ignoring that broader context.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe he sent his willing helpers to the Capitol. But by rights no group of people should ever be able to tear down some metal barriers and force their way into the seat of government. Into a football match maybe, but not into the Capitol. Once there they were as bemused as anyone although five people did die that day and many were in fear of their lives.
So if he sent them to delay proceedings while he hatched his master plan it was both unexpectedly successful and, as it appears that he is not now POTUS, very unsuccessful.
Sending a group of people to delay proceedings if you don't like an election result is not great. But it is hardly assembling a well-armed body designed to take by force the levers of power of a nation, now, is it.
There was a lot going on that day, of which we still don’t know much of it.
There’s been some releases of video in the past few weeks, that suggest the ‘invaders’ were being almost given a guided tour by Capitol security, while there’s also been certain identifiable people in the footage suggesting an invasion, who have never been arrested, despite dozens of people being held in custody for two years awaiting trial. People on trial have been acquitted after footage of them being let into the building by security have emerged, while others have been convicted because the available video evidence was not made available to their defence.
IMHO it was an attempt to delay proceedings, rather than a genuine attempt to overthrow the government. It also sits badly, given the history of infiltration of fringe groups by CIA and FBI in the States.
I don’t recall the protestors chanting “Delay the proceedings” or holding up banners to say the same. They cried “Hang Pence”! They were there because they wanted Trump made the winner of the election.
Stop being an apologist for violence.
So asking why there is video footage of protestors being escorted round the Capitol is now being "an apologist for violence"?
You are usually the type of person who talks about "follow the science", "facts are sacred" etc. Now we have a video which clearly shows the protestors being led around and your instant response is to try to shut any discussion down.
Well quite. There appears, from the outside, to be a situation where many non-violent people are now in prison, while those inciting violence appear to be getting away with it.
For the avoidance of doubt, people who were violent and inciting violence should be in prison, and people who were protesting peacefully should be free.
Peaceful protest can still be illegal in some circumstances. That’s certainly Conservative Party policy here in the UK!
Would you like to list some of these cases of non-violent people who are now in prison?
Let’s start with Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman”. He just got released from a four-year sentence, yet there’s no evidence of him involved in any violent act, nor of breaking into anywhere that the security didn’t think he should be allowed to go.
Thanks. So, he pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding. He thinks he was guilty of a crime carrying a prison sentence. The prosecutors thought he was guilty of a crime carrying a prison sentence. He went to prison. I’m not seeing the problem here.
Do you think there’s a problem when someone pleads guilty to a crime carrying a prison sentence then gets a prison sentence?
Also, it was a 41 month sentence, which is nearer to 3 years, and he was released early.
The US criminal justice system puts a huge amount of pressure on people to plead guilty.
Plea bargains ought to be banned in my opinion.
Whilst there is some merit in this in terms of the very aggressive plea bargaining (where the difference between the plea offered and back up prosecution to be brought is huge), it is very hard to see how the justice system can function without some give and take between prosecution and defence.
Ultimately, it can be a lot better for defendants and indeed victims to move quickly to a guilty plea rather than have a drawn out case arguing over the precise crime committed (which can involve fine distinctions and limited differences in penalties) and facts which are disputed which don't have a bearing on guilt but do on mitigation/aggravation.
Also, is a discount on sentence for an early guilty plea a form of plea bargain in your eyes? You certainly do get credit in sentencing for not dragging it out to trial or the eve of trial... is that really such a bad thing?
The difference between our discount system is simple and why ours is fair
pleady guilty to x you get sentenced for x minus a third
The states however its plead guilty to x and be out in 2 years or we will charge you with y and if you lose you will serve 20 to 30 years.
The latter is blackmail to plead guilty or we are going to pin more severe charges on you. Now knowing the states if they had you bang to rights on those more severe charges they wouldn't be offering a plea bargain. So it amounts to take the 2 years and plead to a lesser charge or roll the dice and play double or nothing
WaPo (via Seattle Times) - Judge chides Fox News over Dominion claim of ‘missing’ Murdoch documents
WILMINGTON, Del. — An attorney for Dominion Voting Systems alleged Tuesday that Fox News withheld information that would have entitled Dominion to obtain more of network co-founder Rupert Murdoch’s communications in the election-technology company’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit.
Justin Nelson, an attorney for Dominion, told the judge in the case that the company had been led to believe that Murdoch held the title of officer only for Fox’s parent company. But over the past few days, he said, Dominion learned that the mogul also holds an officer title for Fox News.
“This alone has meant that we are missing a whole bunch of Rupert Murdoch documents that we otherwise would have been entitled to,” Nelson said. “It’s very troubling that this is where we are. It’s something that has really affected how we have litigated this case.”
Judge Eric M. Davis echoed Nelson’s frustration with Fox, saying the missing information about Murdoch’s title may have affected his decision-making regarding a recent ruling that narrowed the scope of the case. “I could have made an entirely wrong decision,” Davis said.
Addressing an attorney for Fox News, the judge said the network has a “credibility problem.”
“My problem is that it’s been represented more than once to me that he’s not an officer of Fox News,” Davis said. “I need to feel comfortable that when you represent something to me, it’s the truth. I’m not very happy right now. I don’t know why this is such a difficult thing.” . . .
SSI - Fox News is literally incredible? Who'd have thunk it?!?!
They are risking an eye-watering punitive award...
Anecdotal yes, but my lefty chums (yes, I have plenty) are giving the junior doctors zero support. I mean, really pissed off by their action. That 35% claim has just really riled them up.
Interesting to see if there is any polling on this (done by someone other than the BMA).
"If they're your chums, they can't be TRUE lefties!"
Anecdotal yes, but my lefty chums (yes, I have plenty) are giving the junior doctors zero support. I mean, really pissed off by their action. That 35% claim has just really riled them up.
Interesting to see if there is any polling on this (done by someone other than the BMA).
"If they're your chums, they can't be TRUE lefties!"
(only kidding!)
The South-West.
Probably sleeping Lib Dems .
Just been round to next door to investigate a branch falling off one of their trees. By gum it's windy - my brolly is now an ex-brolly.
Very O/T - but a friend of mine is going to be visiting Soho soon for the first time (and first time in London for about 10 years). Anyone have some recommendations for food/drinks? He's open to any style/region and not that fussed about the price (assuming not insane 'wtaf' prices). He's mid-30s, professional, Italian family background if that narrows anything down.
Almost certainly won't want chocolate on his coffee then.
Anecdotal yes, but my lefty chums (yes, I have plenty) are giving the junior doctors zero support. I mean, really pissed off by their action. That 35% claim has just really riled them up.
Interesting to see if there is any polling on this (done by someone other than the BMA).
"If they're your chums, they can't be TRUE lefties!"
(only kidding!)
They can be as long as they don't kiss him
Well I think I can reasonably claim to be a 'lefty', and I would happily have a drink with Mr M!
Have to say that Macron running around sucking up to China has been fun, though a little unedifying, to watch. Apparently Europe frees itself from the shacked of America by kowtowing to China. For all of the annoyances, pain and whatever else has come after Brexit, this is why I wanted out. We are not aligned with them, our view of the world and their view of the world are miles apart. It's becoming clearer and clearer that the EU is ready to sell Ukraine out so they can start selling BMWs and dishwashers to Russians again. Any "peace" deal brokered by Macron, Xi and Putin is a victory for invaders and despots and should be rejected out of hand.
Macron is debasing himself, France and Europe to be "the guy in the room". Any world leader could do that and they have chosen not to. He is a fool and I hope the protestors win and get rid of him.
France is in a bad place because it's difficult not to see Le Pen winning the next presidential election.
I listened to the speech - though not the interview, as I can't find a version.
To me it sounds like continuing efforts to recast the EU in the image of France.
The late Isaac Asimov would have agreed with kjh's comments about humor. But I think both Asimov and kjh missed an important qualification: Not everybody can tell every joke, without offending.
For example, Asimov tells this joke in, as I recall, his first joke collection:
A young Jewish man goes to a radio station to interview for a job as an announcer. When he comes back home, his parents ask him whether he got the job.
"No", he says. "Why not?" "Because they are p-p-p-prejudiced", he stutters.
As it happens, when I was teaching in Chicago, a black fellow teacher told me that same joke -- only the young man was black, in his version.
I wouldn't tell either version, not being Jewish, or black.
(Then there are jokes that are better, if the right person is telling them; for example I know a "Martian" joke that I think works best if told by a man to a woman, or a group of women.)
WaPo (via Seattle Times) - Judge chides Fox News over Dominion claim of ‘missing’ Murdoch documents
WILMINGTON, Del. — An attorney for Dominion Voting Systems alleged Tuesday that Fox News withheld information that would have entitled Dominion to obtain more of network co-founder Rupert Murdoch’s communications in the election-technology company’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit.
Justin Nelson, an attorney for Dominion, told the judge in the case that the company had been led to believe that Murdoch held the title of officer only for Fox’s parent company. But over the past few days, he said, Dominion learned that the mogul also holds an officer title for Fox News.
“This alone has meant that we are missing a whole bunch of Rupert Murdoch documents that we otherwise would have been entitled to,” Nelson said. “It’s very troubling that this is where we are. It’s something that has really affected how we have litigated this case.”
Judge Eric M. Davis echoed Nelson’s frustration with Fox, saying the missing information about Murdoch’s title may have affected his decision-making regarding a recent ruling that narrowed the scope of the case. “I could have made an entirely wrong decision,” Davis said.
Addressing an attorney for Fox News, the judge said the network has a “credibility problem.”
“My problem is that it’s been represented more than once to me that he’s not an officer of Fox News,” Davis said. “I need to feel comfortable that when you represent something to me, it’s the truth. I’m not very happy right now. I don’t know why this is such a difficult thing.” . . .
SSI - Fox News is literally incredible? Who'd have thunk it?!?!
They are risking an eye-watering punitive award...
Could be crippling. I wouldn't want to have shares in them now.
Very O/T - but a friend of mine is going to be visiting Soho soon for the first time (and first time in London for about 10 years). Anyone have some recommendations for food/drinks? He's open to any style/region and not that fussed about the price (assuming not insane 'wtaf' prices). He's mid-30s, professional, Italian family background if that narrows anything down.
Coach and Horses if he wants a proper London pub with lots of atmos. The French House is also good but tiny
Foodwise it's hard to hit the sweet spot between decent but fairly generic Italian/Indian/Thai and super fancy but expensive like Sola (modern American, and delicious, but ££££)
Prix Fixe on Dean Street is rather nice French brasserie food, in an agreeable spot, and not WTF expensive. Quo Vadis has one of the best sandwiches in the world: the smoked eel, and it's also not ridiculously pricey, tho it ain't cheap either
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
No one learned how to do a coup properly by this action. They just went on a demo march which got out of hand.
Trump was actively planning in multiple ways to displace the winner of the election, Biden. Delaying the proceedings at the Capitol were part of that. You seem to be ignoring that broader context.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe he sent his willing helpers to the Capitol. But by rights no group of people should ever be able to tear down some metal barriers and force their way into the seat of government. Into a football match maybe, but not into the Capitol. Once there they were as bemused as anyone although five people did die that day and many were in fear of their lives.
So if he sent them to delay proceedings while he hatched his master plan it was both unexpectedly successful and, as it appears that he is not now POTUS, very unsuccessful.
Sending a group of people to delay proceedings if you don't like an election result is not great. But it is hardly assembling a well-armed body designed to take by force the levers of power of a nation, now, is it.
There was a lot going on that day, of which we still don’t know much of it.
There’s been some releases of video in the past few weeks, that suggest the ‘invaders’ were being almost given a guided tour by Capitol security, while there’s also been certain identifiable people in the footage suggesting an invasion, who have never been arrested, despite dozens of people being held in custody for two years awaiting trial. People on trial have been acquitted after footage of them being let into the building by security have emerged, while others have been convicted because the available video evidence was not made available to their defence.
IMHO it was an attempt to delay proceedings, rather than a genuine attempt to overthrow the government. It also sits badly, given the history of infiltration of fringe groups by CIA and FBI in the States.
I don’t recall the protestors chanting “Delay the proceedings” or holding up banners to say the same. They cried “Hang Pence”! They were there because they wanted Trump made the winner of the election.
Stop being an apologist for violence.
So asking why there is video footage of protestors being escorted round the Capitol is now being "an apologist for violence"?
You are usually the type of person who talks about "follow the science", "facts are sacred" etc. Now we have a video which clearly shows the protestors being led around and your instant response is to try to shut any discussion down.
Well quite. There appears, from the outside, to be a situation where many non-violent people are now in prison, while those inciting violence appear to be getting away with it.
For the avoidance of doubt, people who were violent and inciting violence should be in prison, and people who were protesting peacefully should be free.
Peaceful protest can still be illegal in some circumstances. That’s certainly Conservative Party policy here in the UK!
Would you like to list some of these cases of non-violent people who are now in prison?
Let’s start with Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman”. He just got released from a four-year sentence, yet there’s no evidence of him involved in any violent act, nor of breaking into anywhere that the security didn’t think he should be allowed to go.
Thanks. So, he pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding. He thinks he was guilty of a crime carrying a prison sentence. The prosecutors thought he was guilty of a crime carrying a prison sentence. He went to prison. I’m not seeing the problem here.
Do you think there’s a problem when someone pleads guilty to a crime carrying a prison sentence then gets a prison sentence?
Also, it was a 41 month sentence, which is nearer to 3 years, and he was released early.
The video that’s been released in the last few weeks, was not made available to his defence team at the time of the trial. That’s a serious breach of his rights, given that all of the CCTV was requested by his lawyer. His choice was either to take the plea bargain and get four years, or to contest the trial and get life with no parole, for treason, on conviction. The US “justice” system is totally screwed up like that.
The (highly selectively edited) video doesn’t prove he’s innocent. It doesn’t prove he wasn’t trying to obstruct an official proceeding.
I don’t believe the US justice system is so flawed that we should just dismiss its findings. I have more faith in the US justice system than I do in Tucker Carlson, a proven liar. You appear to put more faith in Carlson. If Chansley was innocent, he could have pleaded so. He said he was guilty. He’s never recanted that, AFAIK.
The problem with the US justice system, is that the evidence was clearly withheld from the defence, and he’s given an option of a few years with a guilty plea, or life in prison if it goes to trial and he’s found guilty
How many of us, knowing we we innocent of the accusation, would still just take the plea deal?
The evidence that doesn’t prove he’s innocent? That evidence?
It shouldn’t be for him to prove his innocence, it should be for the State to prove his guilt.
The State did prove his guilt. The State got him to say he was guilty. He willingly spoke at length about his own guilt during his sentencing hearing. He’s never gone back on those statements.
“Plead guilty and get a couple of years, or plead innocent and never get out”
That isn’t justice.
You don't really think he was innocent of the charges, do you? Genuine question.
The charges they were preparing, were basically treason. Yes, I think he was innocent of that charge, he was a bit of an idiot, rather than someone with a serious plan to overthrow the government.
It is now 15.44. In the last 24 hours Yousless has: *confirmed that neither he nor any of the other candidates for leadership of the party had been informed that the auditors of the party had given notice last September; * confirmed that they have written to the Electoral Commission advising that they are having difficulties in finding replacement auditors to audit the books before the July deadline. *decided to throw another couple of hundred thousand of public money at a doomed JR of the GRR s35 decision.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
No one learned how to do a coup properly by this action. They just went on a demo march which got out of hand.
Trump was actively planning in multiple ways to displace the winner of the election, Biden. Delaying the proceedings at the Capitol were part of that. You seem to be ignoring that broader context.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe he sent his willing helpers to the Capitol. But by rights no group of people should ever be able to tear down some metal barriers and force their way into the seat of government. Into a football match maybe, but not into the Capitol. Once there they were as bemused as anyone although five people did die that day and many were in fear of their lives.
So if he sent them to delay proceedings while he hatched his master plan it was both unexpectedly successful and, as it appears that he is not now POTUS, very unsuccessful.
Sending a group of people to delay proceedings if you don't like an election result is not great. But it is hardly assembling a well-armed body designed to take by force the levers of power of a nation, now, is it.
There was a lot going on that day, of which we still don’t know much of it.
There’s been some releases of video in the past few weeks, that suggest the ‘invaders’ were being almost given a guided tour by Capitol security, while there’s also been certain identifiable people in the footage suggesting an invasion, who have never been arrested, despite dozens of people being held in custody for two years awaiting trial. People on trial have been acquitted after footage of them being let into the building by security have emerged, while others have been convicted because the available video evidence was not made available to their defence.
IMHO it was an attempt to delay proceedings, rather than a genuine attempt to overthrow the government. It also sits badly, given the history of infiltration of fringe groups by CIA and FBI in the States.
I don’t recall the protestors chanting “Delay the proceedings” or holding up banners to say the same. They cried “Hang Pence”! They were there because they wanted Trump made the winner of the election.
Stop being an apologist for violence.
So asking why there is video footage of protestors being escorted round the Capitol is now being "an apologist for violence"?
You are usually the type of person who talks about "follow the science", "facts are sacred" etc. Now we have a video which clearly shows the protestors being led around and your instant response is to try to shut any discussion down.
Well quite. There appears, from the outside, to be a situation where many non-violent people are now in prison, while those inciting violence appear to be getting away with it.
For the avoidance of doubt, people who were violent and inciting violence should be in prison, and people who were protesting peacefully should be free.
Peaceful protest can still be illegal in some circumstances. That’s certainly Conservative Party policy here in the UK!
Would you like to list some of these cases of non-violent people who are now in prison?
Let’s start with Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman”. He just got released from a four-year sentence, yet there’s no evidence of him involved in any violent act, nor of breaking into anywhere that the security didn’t think he should be allowed to go.
Thanks. So, he pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding. He thinks he was guilty of a crime carrying a prison sentence. The prosecutors thought he was guilty of a crime carrying a prison sentence. He went to prison. I’m not seeing the problem here.
Do you think there’s a problem when someone pleads guilty to a crime carrying a prison sentence then gets a prison sentence?
Also, it was a 41 month sentence, which is nearer to 3 years, and he was released early.
The video that’s been released in the last few weeks, was not made available to his defence team at the time of the trial. That’s a serious breach of his rights, given that all of the CCTV was requested by his lawyer. His choice was either to take the plea bargain and get four years, or to contest the trial and get life with no parole, for treason, on conviction. The US “justice” system is totally screwed up like that.
The (highly selectively edited) video doesn’t prove he’s innocent. It doesn’t prove he wasn’t trying to obstruct an official proceeding.
I don’t believe the US justice system is so flawed that we should just dismiss its findings. I have more faith in the US justice system than I do in Tucker Carlson, a proven liar. You appear to put more faith in Carlson. If Chansley was innocent, he could have pleaded so. He said he was guilty. He’s never recanted that, AFAIK.
The problem with the US justice system, is that the evidence was clearly withheld from the defence, and he’s given an option of a few years with a guilty plea, or life in prison if it goes to trial and he’s found guilty
How many of us, knowing we we innocent of the accusation, would still just take the plea deal?
The evidence that doesn’t prove he’s innocent? That evidence?
It shouldn’t be for him to prove his innocence, it should be for the State to prove his guilt.
The State did prove his guilt. The State got him to say he was guilty. He willingly spoke at length about his own guilt during his sentencing hearing. He’s never gone back on those statements.
“Plead guilty and get a couple of years, or plead innocent and never get out”
That isn’t justice.
You don't really think he was innocent of the charges, do you? Genuine question.
The charges they were preparing, were basically treason. Yes, I think he was innocent of that charge, he was a bit of an idiot, rather than someone with a serious plan to overthrow the government.
So, guilty of what he was charged with.
If that's the case, wouldn't justice demand that he was tried on those charges with a full defence, without the threat of life imprisonment on nonsense charges?
Very O/T - but a friend of mine is going to be visiting Soho soon for the first time (and first time in London for about 10 years). Anyone have some recommendations for food/drinks? He's open to any style/region and not that fussed about the price (assuming not insane 'wtaf' prices). He's mid-30s, professional, Italian family background if that narrows anything down.
Coach and Horses if he wants a proper London pub with lots of atmos. The French House is also good but tiny
Foodwise it's hard to hit the sweet spot between decent but fairly generic Italian/Indian/Thai and super fancy but expensive like Sola (modern American, and delicious, but ££££)
Prix Fixe on Dean Street is rather nice French brasserie food, in an agreeable spot, and not WTF expensive. Quo Vadis has one of the best sandwiches in the world: the smoked eel, and it's also not ridiculously pricey, tho it ain't cheap either
Oh - thanks! I'll pass all that along. I haven't been in that neck of the woods for donkeys so am pretty useless recommendation wise.
If you want to get wound up about US justice, then consider this Texas case, where the governor has publicly promised to pardon a newly convicted murderer.
My non expert take would be to charge Trump with insurrection under US Code 2383
This would seem to cover the events of 6 January 2021:
Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
I should say in passing that the consequences for a political party of not having their books audited by a suitably qualified auditor is that the Electoral Commission have the power to appoint their own auditors to do the work for them. This would be a potentially catastrophic loss of control by the party which could end up opening up any number of issues. On the other hand it just might be what the SNP needs if the Sturgeon/Morrel era is to be left behind.
His announcement has not drawn much attention from our news organizations, but former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson is running for president -- and has already made sharp criticisms of Trump.
The 10 stadiums: Wembley (90,652) National Stadium of Wales (73,952) Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (62,322) City of Manchester Stadium (61,000) Everton Stadium (52,679) St James' Park (52,305) Villa Park (52,190) Hampden Park (52,032) Dublin Arena (51,711) Casement Park (34,500)
Yeah, that makes sense. I assume the "National Stadium of Wales" is the latest re-branding of the Millennium Stadium?
Only two in London and one in any other city, as expected.
Eastlands an easy choice over Old Trafford, as is the new Everton stadium over Anfield.
Good choices all round, I think. Perhaps a moderate gripe at two stadiums in London and two in England's north west, but in absolute fairness they are the two real powerhouse regions for football in England and as such have the pick of the grounds.
A 32 team tournament could have accommodated a couple more, you'd have thought. Murrayfield and one of the City Ground or Hillsborough, maybe.
If they were going to add another one in England then somewhere in the south outside of London would have been nice. Southampton maybe?
Proviso, though: IIRC from previous tournament bids the list of stadiums in the bid document isn't necessarily the final one.
True, Southampton would be a good pick - B&H Albion's ground also is a reasonable logistical choice for yer Albania v Estonia-type fixtures - as, I suppose, would Aberdeen's new ground, if it ever actually gets built.
(Fact is, this really could/should have been an England bid - five nations co-hosting is taking the piss a bit. A lot of very good stadiums in this country. I get why it's not though.)
England probably has more decent stadiums per square mile than any country on earth
On top of those listed you’ve got Twickenham, Anfield, Old Trafford, Chelsea, the Olympic stadium, the new Highbury, etc etc. You could even adapt Lords. An embarrassment of riches
While I don't disagree with the spirit of that, the title of 'most decent stadiums per square mile' possibly, lamentably, now goes to Qatar, or else to some microstate (OTTOMH: Barbados, with the Kensington Oval?)
But you're right. Not least because lots of countries just don't have non-football sports which draw crowds in the same we as we do. I was at a conference at Old Trafford football stadium a few years back with some Europeans. Now, if you're getting to Old Trafford football stadium by public transport, the most obvious and common way to do it is to get the tram to Old Trafford tram stop - the walk from which takes you past Old Trafford cricket ground. Almost all of the Europeans - and in particular the Germans - that I spoke to about it expressed amazement that a sport apart from football (and especially cricket, which they thought of as a bit of a twee joke) could support such a big stadium - most just assumed it was Manchester City's ground. (To be clear, these were people who weren't necessarily massive sports fans - the conference was nothing to do with football.)
Very O/T - but a friend of mine is going to be visiting Soho soon for the first time (and first time in London for about 10 years). Anyone have some recommendations for food/drinks? He's open to any style/region and not that fussed about the price (assuming not insane 'wtaf' prices). He's mid-30s, professional, Italian family background if that narrows anything down.
Ceviche Soho is tiny and not cheap, but does quite authentic Peruvian cuisine.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
No one learned how to do a coup properly by this action. They just went on a demo march which got out of hand.
Trump was actively planning in multiple ways to displace the winner of the election, Biden. Delaying the proceedings at the Capitol were part of that. You seem to be ignoring that broader context.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe he sent his willing helpers to the Capitol. But by rights no group of people should ever be able to tear down some metal barriers and force their way into the seat of government. Into a football match maybe, but not into the Capitol. Once there they were as bemused as anyone although five people did die that day and many were in fear of their lives.
So if he sent them to delay proceedings while he hatched his master plan it was both unexpectedly successful and, as it appears that he is not now POTUS, very unsuccessful.
Sending a group of people to delay proceedings if you don't like an election result is not great. But it is hardly assembling a well-armed body designed to take by force the levers of power of a nation, now, is it.
There was a lot going on that day, of which we still don’t know much of it.
There’s been some releases of video in the past few weeks, that suggest the ‘invaders’ were being almost given a guided tour by Capitol security, while there’s also been certain identifiable people in the footage suggesting an invasion, who have never been arrested, despite dozens of people being held in custody for two years awaiting trial. People on trial have been acquitted after footage of them being let into the building by security have emerged, while others have been convicted because the available video evidence was not made available to their defence.
IMHO it was an attempt to delay proceedings, rather than a genuine attempt to overthrow the government. It also sits badly, given the history of infiltration of fringe groups by CIA and FBI in the States.
I don’t recall the protestors chanting “Delay the proceedings” or holding up banners to say the same. They cried “Hang Pence”! They were there because they wanted Trump made the winner of the election.
Stop being an apologist for violence.
So asking why there is video footage of protestors being escorted round the Capitol is now being "an apologist for violence"?
You are usually the type of person who talks about "follow the science", "facts are sacred" etc. Now we have a video which clearly shows the protestors being led around and your instant response is to try to shut any discussion down.
Well quite. There appears, from the outside, to be a situation where many non-violent people are now in prison, while those inciting violence appear to be getting away with it.
For the avoidance of doubt, people who were violent and inciting violence should be in prison, and people who were protesting peacefully should be free.
Peaceful protest can still be illegal in some circumstances. That’s certainly Conservative Party policy here in the UK!
Would you like to list some of these cases of non-violent people who are now in prison?
Let’s start with Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman”. He just got released from a four-year sentence, yet there’s no evidence of him involved in any violent act, nor of breaking into anywhere that the security didn’t think he should be allowed to go.
I think you're confusing being "allowed" to be somewhere from not being physically stopped from going somewhere. It's common practice in a riot to fall back to some extent rather than defend every square inch, as that's the best way to avoid physical harm to individuals.
But there's no question of rioters being "allowed" in the offices of Congressmen, or onto the floor of the House.
He was walking around, either escorted or unchallenged, and there was no evidence of violence on his behalf. None of which should be worth a sentence of 41 months in prison, thanks to a misguided plea bargain that otherwise threatened to send him away for life, when CCTV evidence in favour was withheld from his defence.
How does the CCTV evidence prove his innocence?
Why should he have to prove his innocence?
Well, he was accused of a crime. He doesn’t have to prove his innocence, but you and Sandpit are acting as if Tucker Carlson’s video would’ve have changed what happened if it had been seen at the time. It only would’ve changed what happened if it provided evidence of his innocence. It doesn’t.
I don't know what Tucker Carlson has to do with anything, I've never mentioned him?
Congress released the tapes exclusively to Fox News, so Carlson's edited selection is what we get to see.
So are you saying the footage of the Shaman being led through the Capitol is false / doctored? Because if you are not - and accept it is real - then I have no idea what other interpretation you could draw from that footage than that he was in there with the knowledge and in the company of police officers.
Also interesting that, literally days after that footage is released, he gets released at a discount to his sentence for 'good behaviour'.
WaPo (via Seattle Times) - Judge chides Fox News over Dominion claim of ‘missing’ Murdoch documents
WILMINGTON, Del. — An attorney for Dominion Voting Systems alleged Tuesday that Fox News withheld information that would have entitled Dominion to obtain more of network co-founder Rupert Murdoch’s communications in the election-technology company’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit.
Justin Nelson, an attorney for Dominion, told the judge in the case that the company had been led to believe that Murdoch held the title of officer only for Fox’s parent company. But over the past few days, he said, Dominion learned that the mogul also holds an officer title for Fox News.
“This alone has meant that we are missing a whole bunch of Rupert Murdoch documents that we otherwise would have been entitled to,” Nelson said. “It’s very troubling that this is where we are. It’s something that has really affected how we have litigated this case.”
Judge Eric M. Davis echoed Nelson’s frustration with Fox, saying the missing information about Murdoch’s title may have affected his decision-making regarding a recent ruling that narrowed the scope of the case. “I could have made an entirely wrong decision,” Davis said.
Addressing an attorney for Fox News, the judge said the network has a “credibility problem.”
“My problem is that it’s been represented more than once to me that he’s not an officer of Fox News,” Davis said. “I need to feel comfortable that when you represent something to me, it’s the truth. I’m not very happy right now. I don’t know why this is such a difficult thing.” . . .
SSI - Fox News is literally incredible? Who'd have thunk it?!?!
They are risking an eye-watering punitive award...
Pungent PB pundit alert - note that "eye-watering" is a figure of speech that is used WAY more by British than by Americans.
As for Fox "News" . . .
NYT - Fox News Settles Defamation Case With Venezuelan Businessman
In a letter to a New York judge, the parties said they had reached a settlement in a case related to claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, but did not disclose the terms.
Fox News and one of its former hosts, Lou Dobbs, have settled a defamation suit with a Venezuelan businessman whom the network linked to voting-system fraud in the 2020 election.
In a letter filed on Saturday to a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, the parties said they had reached a confidential settlement, although they did not disclose the terms.
“This matter has been resolved amicably by both sides,” a spokesperson for Fox News said in an email. “We have no further comment.”
The settlement was disclosed days before jury selection this week in a major defamation case that Fox News is defending. That case, a $1.6 billion lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, says that Fox News lied about voter fraud in the 2020 election, and that Fox hosts and guests repeatedly made false claims about Dominion machines and their supposed role in a plot to steal the election from President Donald J. Trump.
Fox News and one of its former hosts, Lou Dobbs, have settled a defamation suit with a Venezuelan businessman whom the network linked to voting-system fraud in the 2020 election.
In a letter filed on Saturday to a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, the parties said they had reached a confidential settlement, although they did not disclose the terms.
“This matter has been resolved amicably by both sides,” a spokesperson for Fox News said in an email. “We have no further comment.”
The settlement was disclosed days before jury selection this week in a major defamation case that Fox News is defending. That case, a $1.6 billion lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, says that Fox News lied about voter fraud in the 2020 election, and that Fox hosts and guests repeatedly made false claims about Dominion machines and their supposed role in a plot to steal the election from President Donald J. Trump. . . .
In the case of the Venezuelan businessman, Majed Khalil, Mr. Dobbs and Sidney Powell, a regular guest on Fox News, said on the air and in related Twitter posts that Dominion was using software to flip votes from Mr. Trump to Joseph R. Biden Jr., or to add votes for Mr. Biden.
One of the tweets falsely said Mr. Khalil was “the effective ‘COO’ of the election project.” In an earlier complaint, Mr. Khalil said neither Fox News nor Mr. Dobbs had reached out to him for comment.
Fox Business canceled Mr. Dobbs’s weekday show in February 2021.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
No one learned how to do a coup properly by this action. They just went on a demo march which got out of hand.
Trump was actively planning in multiple ways to displace the winner of the election, Biden. Delaying the proceedings at the Capitol were part of that. You seem to be ignoring that broader context.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe he sent his willing helpers to the Capitol. But by rights no group of people should ever be able to tear down some metal barriers and force their way into the seat of government. Into a football match maybe, but not into the Capitol. Once there they were as bemused as anyone although five people did die that day and many were in fear of their lives.
So if he sent them to delay proceedings while he hatched his master plan it was both unexpectedly successful and, as it appears that he is not now POTUS, very unsuccessful.
Sending a group of people to delay proceedings if you don't like an election result is not great. But it is hardly assembling a well-armed body designed to take by force the levers of power of a nation, now, is it.
There was a lot going on that day, of which we still don’t know much of it.
There’s been some releases of video in the past few weeks, that suggest the ‘invaders’ were being almost given a guided tour by Capitol security, while there’s also been certain identifiable people in the footage suggesting an invasion, who have never been arrested, despite dozens of people being held in custody for two years awaiting trial. People on trial have been acquitted after footage of them being let into the building by security have emerged, while others have been convicted because the available video evidence was not made available to their defence.
IMHO it was an attempt to delay proceedings, rather than a genuine attempt to overthrow the government. It also sits badly, given the history of infiltration of fringe groups by CIA and FBI in the States.
I don’t recall the protestors chanting “Delay the proceedings” or holding up banners to say the same. They cried “Hang Pence”! They were there because they wanted Trump made the winner of the election.
Stop being an apologist for violence.
So asking why there is video footage of protestors being escorted round the Capitol is now being "an apologist for violence"?
You are usually the type of person who talks about "follow the science", "facts are sacred" etc. Now we have a video which clearly shows the protestors being led around and your instant response is to try to shut any discussion down.
Well quite. There appears, from the outside, to be a situation where many non-violent people are now in prison, while those inciting violence appear to be getting away with it.
For the avoidance of doubt, people who were violent and inciting violence should be in prison, and people who were protesting peacefully should be free.
Peaceful protest can still be illegal in some circumstances. That’s certainly Conservative Party policy here in the UK!
Would you like to list some of these cases of non-violent people who are now in prison?
Let’s start with Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman”. He just got released from a four-year sentence, yet there’s no evidence of him involved in any violent act, nor of breaking into anywhere that the security didn’t think he should be allowed to go.
Thanks. So, he pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding. He thinks he was guilty of a crime carrying a prison sentence. The prosecutors thought he was guilty of a crime carrying a prison sentence. He went to prison. I’m not seeing the problem here.
Do you think there’s a problem when someone pleads guilty to a crime carrying a prison sentence then gets a prison sentence?
Also, it was a 41 month sentence, which is nearer to 3 years, and he was released early.
The US criminal justice system puts a huge amount of pressure on people to plead guilty.
Plea bargains ought to be banned in my opinion.
Whilst there is some merit in this in terms of the very aggressive plea bargaining (where the difference between the plea offered and back up prosecution to be brought is huge), it is very hard to see how the justice system can function without some give and take between prosecution and defence.
Ultimately, it can be a lot better for defendants and indeed victims to move quickly to a guilty plea rather than have a drawn out case arguing over the precise crime committed (which can involve fine distinctions and limited differences in penalties) and facts which are disputed which don't have a bearing on guilt but do on mitigation/aggravation.
Also, is a discount on sentence for an early guilty plea a form of plea bargain in your eyes? You certainly do get credit in sentencing for not dragging it out to trial or the eve of trial... is that really such a bad thing?
The difference between our discount system is simple and why ours is fair
pleady guilty to x you get sentenced for x minus a third
The states however its plead guilty to x and be out in 2 years or we will charge you with y and if you lose you will serve 20 to 30 years.
The latter is blackmail to plead guilty or we are going to pin more severe charges on you. Now knowing the states if they had you bang to rights on those more severe charges they wouldn't be offering a plea bargain. So it amounts to take the 2 years and plead to a lesser charge or roll the dice and play double or nothing
Except it's not double or nothing it's often as you demonstrated above - 15x or nothing - which opens the question of how many innocent people take the plea bargain because it's the least worst option.
I should say in passing that the consequences for a political party of not having their books audited by a suitably qualified auditor is that the Electoral Commission have the power to appoint their own auditors to do the work for them. This would be a potentially catastrophic loss of control by the party which could end up opening up any number of issues. On the other hand it just might be what the SNP needs if the Sturgeon/Morrel era is to be left behind.
Why shouldn't that be the norm?
Surely, the point of auditors is that they do identify the issues not do the client's bidding!
If you want to get wound up about US justice, then consider this Texas case, where the governor has publicly promised to pardon a newly convicted murderer.
Very O/T - but a friend of mine is going to be visiting Soho soon for the first time (and first time in London for about 10 years). Anyone have some recommendations for food/drinks? He's open to any style/region and not that fussed about the price (assuming not insane 'wtaf' prices). He's mid-30s, professional, Italian family background if that narrows anything down.
Ceviche Soho is tiny and not cheap, but does quite authentic Peruvian cuisine.
It is now 15.44. In the last 24 hours Yousless has: *confirmed that neither he nor any of the other candidates for leadership of the party had been informed that the auditors of the party had given notice last September; * confirmed that they have written to the Electoral Commission advising that they are having difficulties in finding replacement auditors to audit the books before the July deadline. *decided to throw another couple of hundred thousand of public money at a doomed JR of the GRR s35 decision.
Surely there is time for one more?
How about, the Polish company that bid for the ferries suing the Scottish Government?
I should say in passing that the consequences for a political party of not having their books audited by a suitably qualified auditor is that the Electoral Commission have the power to appoint their own auditors to do the work for them. This would be a potentially catastrophic loss of control by the party which could end up opening up any number of issues. On the other hand it just might be what the SNP needs if the Sturgeon/Morrel era is to be left behind.
Why shouldn't that be the norm?
Surely, the point of auditors is that they do identify the issues not do the client's bidding!
The point of being an auditor is to get an in that allows other parts of your accountancy firm (tax, consultancy) to make the real money.
The late Isaac Asimov would have agreed with kjh's comments about humor. But I think both Asimov and kjh missed an important qualification: Not everybody can tell every joke, without offending.
For example, Asimov tells this joke in, as I recall, his first joke collection:
A young Jewish man goes to a radio station to interview for a job as an announcer. When he comes back home, his parents ask him whether he got the job.
"No", he says. "Why not?" "Because they are p-p-p-prejudiced", he stutters.
As it happens, when I was teaching in Chicago, a black fellow teacher told me that same joke -- only the young man was black, in his version.
I wouldn't tell either version, not being Jewish, or black.
(Then there are jokes that are better, if the right person is telling them; for example I know a "Martian" joke that I think works best if told by a man to a woman, or a group of women.)
Another aspect of this is that you CAN tell offensive jokes, as long as they are funny (and of course this is as much in the telling as in the material). Generally the more offensive, the higher the bar of humour it has to cross in order not to fall hopelessly flat.
The late Isaac Asimov would have agreed with kjh's comments about humor. But I think both Asimov and kjh missed an important qualification: Not everybody can tell every joke, without offending.
For example, Asimov tells this joke in, as I recall, his first joke collection:
A young Jewish man goes to a radio station to interview for a job as an announcer. When he comes back home, his parents ask him whether he got the job.
"No", he says. "Why not?" "Because they are p-p-p-prejudiced", he stutters.
As it happens, when I was teaching in Chicago, a black fellow teacher told me that same joke -- only the young man was black, in his version.
I wouldn't tell either version, not being Jewish, or black.
(Then there are jokes that are better, if the right person is telling them; for example I know a "Martian" joke that I think works best if told by a man to a woman, or a group of women.)
It was from a Jew that I first heard the Auschwitz Watchtower joke. It's probably unwise to tell it if one is not Jewish.
1) Man is charged with unlawfully entering a restricted area and obstructing an official proceeding.
2) Man pleads guilty to the latter charge.
3) Subsequently footage emerges of him unlawfully entering the aforesaid restricted area which *checks notes* led to the official proceeding in question being obstructed.
4) Somehow, this means he's not guilty of obstructing an official proceeding.
I can understand one through three, but four seems a bit of a leap of logic.
The late Isaac Asimov would have agreed with kjh's comments about humor. But I think both Asimov and kjh missed an important qualification: Not everybody can tell every joke, without offending.
For example, Asimov tells this joke in, as I recall, his first joke collection:
A young Jewish man goes to a radio station to interview for a job as an announcer. When he comes back home, his parents ask him whether he got the job.
"No", he says. "Why not?" "Because they are p-p-p-prejudiced", he stutters.
As it happens, when I was teaching in Chicago, a black fellow teacher told me that same joke -- only the young man was black, in his version.
I wouldn't tell either version, not being Jewish, or black.
(Then there are jokes that are better, if the right person is telling them; for example I know a "Martian" joke that I think works best if told by a man to a woman, or a group of women.)
It was from a Jew that I first heard the Auschwitz Watchtower joke. It's probably unwise to tell it if one is not Jewish.
Dennis Taylor loves a good Irish joke. He was asked what his favourite was at a meeting in England. He told this one:
Q) What's black, blue and floats in the Irish Sea?
It is now 15.44. In the last 24 hours Yousless has: *confirmed that neither he nor any of the other candidates for leadership of the party had been informed that the auditors of the party had given notice last September; * confirmed that they have written to the Electoral Commission advising that they are having difficulties in finding replacement auditors to audit the books before the July deadline. *decided to throw another couple of hundred thousand of public money at a doomed JR of the GRR s35 decision.
Surely there is time for one more?
If they think they can't get ANYBODY by July - three months away - that rather suggests they have already asked EVERYBODY.....
The 10 stadiums: Wembley (90,652) National Stadium of Wales (73,952) Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (62,322) City of Manchester Stadium (61,000) Everton Stadium (52,679) St James' Park (52,305) Villa Park (52,190) Hampden Park (52,032) Dublin Arena (51,711) Casement Park (34,500)
Yeah, that makes sense. I assume the "National Stadium of Wales" is the latest re-branding of the Millennium Stadium?
Only two in London and one in any other city, as expected.
Eastlands an easy choice over Old Trafford, as is the new Everton stadium over Anfield.
Good choices all round, I think. Perhaps a moderate gripe at two stadiums in London and two in England's north west, but in absolute fairness they are the two real powerhouse regions for football in England and as such have the pick of the grounds.
A 32 team tournament could have accommodated a couple more, you'd have thought. Murrayfield and one of the City Ground or Hillsborough, maybe.
If they were going to add another one in England then somewhere in the south outside of London would have been nice. Southampton maybe?
Proviso, though: IIRC from previous tournament bids the list of stadiums in the bid document isn't necessarily the final one.
True, Southampton would be a good pick - B&H Albion's ground also is a reasonable logistical choice for yer Albania v Estonia-type fixtures - as, I suppose, would Aberdeen's new ground, if it ever actually gets built.
(Fact is, this really could/should have been an England bid - five nations co-hosting is taking the piss a bit. A lot of very good stadiums in this country. I get why it's not though.)
England probably has more decent stadiums per square mile than any country on earth
On top of those listed you’ve got Twickenham, Anfield, Old Trafford, Chelsea, the Olympic stadium, the new Highbury, etc etc. You could even adapt Lords. An embarrassment of riches
While I don't disagree with the spirit of that, the title of 'most decent stadiums per square mile' possibly, lamentably, now goes to Qatar, or else to some microstate (OTTOMH: Barbados, with the Kensington Oval?)
But you're right. Not least because lots of countries just don't have non-football sports which draw crowds in the same we as we do. I was at a conference at Old Trafford football stadium a few years back with some Europeans. Now, if you're getting to Old Trafford football stadium by public transport, the most obvious and common way to do it is to get the tram to Old Trafford tram stop - the walk from which takes you past Old Trafford cricket ground. Almost all of the Europeans - and in particular the Germans - that I spoke to about it expressed amazement that a sport apart from football (and especially cricket, which they thought of as a bit of a twee joke) could support such a big stadium - most just assumed it was Manchester City's ground. (To be clear, these were people who weren't necessarily massive sports fans - the conference was nothing to do with football.)
Twickenham could easily be the national stadium in most countries - modern, impressive, capacity 82,000. It's not even dedicated to our main sport
I should say in passing that the consequences for a political party of not having their books audited by a suitably qualified auditor is that the Electoral Commission have the power to appoint their own auditors to do the work for them. This would be a potentially catastrophic loss of control by the party which could end up opening up any number of issues. On the other hand it just might be what the SNP needs if the Sturgeon/Morrel era is to be left behind.
Why shouldn't that be the norm?
Surely, the point of auditors is that they do identify the issues not do the client's bidding!
The problem is the 100% problem - if he auditors raise any questions at all, this is seen as a disaster for the client.
And no one likes creating disasters for the clients, do they?
It is now 15.44. In the last 24 hours Yousless has: *confirmed that neither he nor any of the other candidates for leadership of the party had been informed that the auditors of the party had given notice last September; * confirmed that they have written to the Electoral Commission advising that they are having difficulties in finding replacement auditors to audit the books before the July deadline. *decided to throw another couple of hundred thousand of public money at a doomed JR of the GRR s35 decision.
Surely there is time for one more?
How about, the Polish company that bid for the ferries suing the Scottish Government?
Are they? Oh joy. The public finances will soon make the SNP's finances look good. The audit trail explaining how Ferguson Marine managed to get the contract will no doubt be impeccable. After all Nicola announced they had won before the tendering process had even been completed. What could possibly go wrong?
I should say in passing that the consequences for a political party of not having their books audited by a suitably qualified auditor is that the Electoral Commission have the power to appoint their own auditors to do the work for them. This would be a potentially catastrophic loss of control by the party which could end up opening up any number of issues. On the other hand it just might be what the SNP needs if the Sturgeon/Morrel era is to be left behind.
Why shouldn't that be the norm?
Surely, the point of auditors is that they do identify the issues not do the client's bidding!
The point of being an auditor is to get an in that allows other parts of your accountancy firm (tax, consultancy) to make the real money.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
No one learned how to do a coup properly by this action. They just went on a demo march which got out of hand.
Trump was actively planning in multiple ways to displace the winner of the election, Biden. Delaying the proceedings at the Capitol were part of that. You seem to be ignoring that broader context.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe he sent his willing helpers to the Capitol. But by rights no group of people should ever be able to tear down some metal barriers and force their way into the seat of government. Into a football match maybe, but not into the Capitol. Once there they were as bemused as anyone although five people did die that day and many were in fear of their lives.
So if he sent them to delay proceedings while he hatched his master plan it was both unexpectedly successful and, as it appears that he is not now POTUS, very unsuccessful.
Sending a group of people to delay proceedings if you don't like an election result is not great. But it is hardly assembling a well-armed body designed to take by force the levers of power of a nation, now, is it.
There was a lot going on that day, of which we still don’t know much of it.
There’s been some releases of video in the past few weeks, that suggest the ‘invaders’ were being almost given a guided tour by Capitol security, while there’s also been certain identifiable people in the footage suggesting an invasion, who have never been arrested, despite dozens of people being held in custody for two years awaiting trial. People on trial have been acquitted after footage of them being let into the building by security have emerged, while others have been convicted because the available video evidence was not made available to their defence.
IMHO it was an attempt to delay proceedings, rather than a genuine attempt to overthrow the government. It also sits badly, given the history of infiltration of fringe groups by CIA and FBI in the States.
I don’t recall the protestors chanting “Delay the proceedings” or holding up banners to say the same. They cried “Hang Pence”! They were there because they wanted Trump made the winner of the election.
Stop being an apologist for violence.
So asking why there is video footage of protestors being escorted round the Capitol is now being "an apologist for violence"?
You are usually the type of person who talks about "follow the science", "facts are sacred" etc. Now we have a video which clearly shows the protestors being led around and your instant response is to try to shut any discussion down.
Well quite. There appears, from the outside, to be a situation where many non-violent people are now in prison, while those inciting violence appear to be getting away with it.
For the avoidance of doubt, people who were violent and inciting violence should be in prison, and people who were protesting peacefully should be free.
Peaceful protest can still be illegal in some circumstances. That’s certainly Conservative Party policy here in the UK!
Would you like to list some of these cases of non-violent people who are now in prison?
Let’s start with Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman”. He just got released from a four-year sentence, yet there’s no evidence of him involved in any violent act, nor of breaking into anywhere that the security didn’t think he should be allowed to go.
I think you're confusing being "allowed" to be somewhere from not being physically stopped from going somewhere. It's common practice in a riot to fall back to some extent rather than defend every square inch, as that's the best way to avoid physical harm to individuals.
But there's no question of rioters being "allowed" in the offices of Congressmen, or onto the floor of the House.
He was walking around, either escorted or unchallenged, and there was no evidence of violence on his behalf. None of which should be worth a sentence of 41 months in prison, thanks to a misguided plea bargain that otherwise threatened to send him away for life, when CCTV evidence in favour was withheld from his defence.
How does the CCTV evidence prove his innocence?
Why should he have to prove his innocence?
Well, he was accused of a crime. He doesn’t have to prove his innocence, but you and Sandpit are acting as if Tucker Carlson’s video would’ve have changed what happened if it had been seen at the time. It only would’ve changed what happened if it provided evidence of his innocence. It doesn’t.
I don't know what Tucker Carlson has to do with anything, I've never mentioned him?
Congress released the tapes exclusively to Fox News, so Carlson's edited selection is what we get to see.
So are you saying the footage of the Shaman being led through the Capitol is false / doctored? Because if you are not - and accept it is real - then I have no idea what other interpretation you could draw from that footage than that he was in there with the knowledge and in the company of police officers.
Also interesting that, literally days after that footage is released, he gets released at a discount to his sentence for 'good behaviour'.
Of course the footage is real - it's also irrelevant, the police were outnumbered. They managed to keep the mob away from the legislators but it was very close - and some people died.
It is now 15.44. In the last 24 hours Yousless has: *confirmed that neither he nor any of the other candidates for leadership of the party had been informed that the auditors of the party had given notice last September; * confirmed that they have written to the Electoral Commission advising that they are having difficulties in finding replacement auditors to audit the books before the July deadline. *decided to throw another couple of hundred thousand of public money at a doomed JR of the GRR s35 decision.
Surely there is time for one more?
How about, the Polish company that bid for the ferries suing the Scottish Government?
Could some enterprising lawyers offer to take the case on a no-win, no-fee basis?
The late Isaac Asimov would have agreed with kjh's comments about humor. But I think both Asimov and kjh missed an important qualification: Not everybody can tell every joke, without offending.
For example, Asimov tells this joke in, as I recall, his first joke collection:
A young Jewish man goes to a radio station to interview for a job as an announcer. When he comes back home, his parents ask him whether he got the job.
"No", he says. "Why not?" "Because they are p-p-p-prejudiced", he stutters.
As it happens, when I was teaching in Chicago, a black fellow teacher told me that same joke -- only the young man was black, in his version.
I wouldn't tell either version, not being Jewish, or black.
(Then there are jokes that are better, if the right person is telling them; for example I know a "Martian" joke that I think works best if told by a man to a woman, or a group of women.)
It was from a Jew that I first heard the Auschwitz Watchtower joke. It's probably unwise to tell it if one is not Jewish.
Dennis Taylor loves a good Irish joke. He was asked what his favourite was at a meeting in England. He told this one:
Q) What's black, blue and floats in the Irish Sea?
A) An Englishman who's just told an Irish joke.
I like this Irish joke.
"An Irishman goes on to a building site looking for a job and is told by the foreman that he will have to undertake a brief test. ‘Fine,’ says the Irishman. ‘OK then,’ says the foreman. ‘First up, can you tell me the difference between a joist and a girder?’ ‘That’s easy,’ the Irishman replies. ‘Joyce wrote Ulysses and Goethe wrote Faust.’
Far from being too thick for the job, the Irishman is over-qualified.
Very O/T - but a friend of mine is going to be visiting Soho soon for the first time (and first time in London for about 10 years). Anyone have some recommendations for food/drinks? He's open to any style/region and not that fussed about the price (assuming not insane 'wtaf' prices). He's mid-30s, professional, Italian family background if that narrows anything down.
Ceviche Soho is tiny and not cheap, but does quite authentic Peruvian cuisine.
Oh - ta - I'll pass that along too. I'm quite jealous of his trip now!
I should say in passing that the consequences for a political party of not having their books audited by a suitably qualified auditor is that the Electoral Commission have the power to appoint their own auditors to do the work for them. This would be a potentially catastrophic loss of control by the party which could end up opening up any number of issues. On the other hand it just might be what the SNP needs if the Sturgeon/Morrel era is to be left behind.
Why shouldn't that be the norm?
Surely, the point of auditors is that they do identify the issues not do the client's bidding!
I should say in passing that the consequences for a political party of not having their books audited by a suitably qualified auditor is that the Electoral Commission have the power to appoint their own auditors to do the work for them. This would be a potentially catastrophic loss of control by the party which could end up opening up any number of issues. On the other hand it just might be what the SNP needs if the Sturgeon/Morrel era is to be left behind.
Twitter is speculating, quite brazenly, that Sturgeon was at one point the legal treasurer of the party (or something like that) due to the lack of auditors (which no one knew about apart from her and Murrell??? How did that work?)
The theory is, if anything more is amiss, this could open her up to actual criminal charges
I have no idea if any of this is true or justifiable, but it is mindboggling how quickly she's gone from untouchable leader to potential court appearances, as the accused
I should say in passing that the consequences for a political party of not having their books audited by a suitably qualified auditor is that the Electoral Commission have the power to appoint their own auditors to do the work for them. This would be a potentially catastrophic loss of control by the party which could end up opening up any number of issues. On the other hand it just might be what the SNP needs if the Sturgeon/Morrel era is to be left behind.
Why shouldn't that be the norm?
Surely, the point of auditors is that they do identify the issues not do the client's bidding!
The point of being an auditor is to get an in that allows other parts of your accountancy firm (tax, consultancy) to make the real money.
Does the insolvency department count?
The problem facing the SNP looks insoluble rather than merely insolvent.
I should say in passing that the consequences for a political party of not having their books audited by a suitably qualified auditor is that the Electoral Commission have the power to appoint their own auditors to do the work for them. This would be a potentially catastrophic loss of control by the party which could end up opening up any number of issues. On the other hand it just might be what the SNP needs if the Sturgeon/Morrel era is to be left behind.
Why shouldn't that be the norm?
Surely, the point of auditors is that they do identify the issues not do the client's bidding!
The point of being an auditor is to get an in that allows other parts of your accountancy firm (tax, consultancy) to make the real money.
Does the insolvency department count?
Yep but I think if you are the auditor you are probably ruled out of being the administrator / liquidator.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
No one learned how to do a coup properly by this action. They just went on a demo march which got out of hand.
Trump was actively planning in multiple ways to displace the winner of the election, Biden. Delaying the proceedings at the Capitol were part of that. You seem to be ignoring that broader context.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe he sent his willing helpers to the Capitol. But by rights no group of people should ever be able to tear down some metal barriers and force their way into the seat of government. Into a football match maybe, but not into the Capitol. Once there they were as bemused as anyone although five people did die that day and many were in fear of their lives.
So if he sent them to delay proceedings while he hatched his master plan it was both unexpectedly successful and, as it appears that he is not now POTUS, very unsuccessful.
Sending a group of people to delay proceedings if you don't like an election result is not great. But it is hardly assembling a well-armed body designed to take by force the levers of power of a nation, now, is it.
There was a lot going on that day, of which we still don’t know much of it.
There’s been some releases of video in the past few weeks, that suggest the ‘invaders’ were being almost given a guided tour by Capitol security, while there’s also been certain identifiable people in the footage suggesting an invasion, who have never been arrested, despite dozens of people being held in custody for two years awaiting trial. People on trial have been acquitted after footage of them being let into the building by security have emerged, while others have been convicted because the available video evidence was not made available to their defence.
IMHO it was an attempt to delay proceedings, rather than a genuine attempt to overthrow the government. It also sits badly, given the history of infiltration of fringe groups by CIA and FBI in the States.
I don’t recall the protestors chanting “Delay the proceedings” or holding up banners to say the same. They cried “Hang Pence”! They were there because they wanted Trump made the winner of the election.
Stop being an apologist for violence.
So asking why there is video footage of protestors being escorted round the Capitol is now being "an apologist for violence"?
You are usually the type of person who talks about "follow the science", "facts are sacred" etc. Now we have a video which clearly shows the protestors being led around and your instant response is to try to shut any discussion down.
Well quite. There appears, from the outside, to be a situation where many non-violent people are now in prison, while those inciting violence appear to be getting away with it.
For the avoidance of doubt, people who were violent and inciting violence should be in prison, and people who were protesting peacefully should be free.
Peaceful protest can still be illegal in some circumstances. That’s certainly Conservative Party policy here in the UK!
Would you like to list some of these cases of non-violent people who are now in prison?
Let’s start with Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman”. He just got released from a four-year sentence, yet there’s no evidence of him involved in any violent act, nor of breaking into anywhere that the security didn’t think he should be allowed to go.
I think you're confusing being "allowed" to be somewhere from not being physically stopped from going somewhere. It's common practice in a riot to fall back to some extent rather than defend every square inch, as that's the best way to avoid physical harm to individuals.
But there's no question of rioters being "allowed" in the offices of Congressmen, or onto the floor of the House.
He was walking around, either escorted or unchallenged, and there was no evidence of violence on his behalf. None of which should be worth a sentence of 41 months in prison, thanks to a misguided plea bargain that otherwise threatened to send him away for life, when CCTV evidence in favour was withheld from his defence.
How does the CCTV evidence prove his innocence?
Why should he have to prove his innocence?
Well, he was accused of a crime. He doesn’t have to prove his innocence, but you and Sandpit are acting as if Tucker Carlson’s video would’ve have changed what happened if it had been seen at the time. It only would’ve changed what happened if it provided evidence of his innocence. It doesn’t.
I don't know what Tucker Carlson has to do with anything, I've never mentioned him?
Congress released the tapes exclusively to Fox News, so Carlson's edited selection is what we get to see.
So are you saying the footage of the Shaman being led through the Capitol is false / doctored? Because if you are not - and accept it is real - then I have no idea what other interpretation you could draw from that footage than that he was in there with the knowledge and in the company of police officers.
Also interesting that, literally days after that footage is released, he gets released at a discount to his sentence for 'good behaviour'.
Having already entered the building as part of a violent protest and seeking to disrupt an official proceeding, footage, heavily edited by Tucker Carlson, shows the undermanned police handling the situation by trying to lead Chansley and others around.
Obviously he was there with the knowledge of police officers. They could see him. He's quite distinctive.
He was in the company of police officers at times as they tried to manage the situation.
Neither of those facts alter that he shouldn't have been in the building at all and had entered to disrupt proceedings. The footage, indeed, shows Chansley was where he shouldn't be.
Do you have any evidence that his early release was connected to the Carlson footage? Or is that just you swallowing a bullshit Trumpist conspiracy theory?
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
No one learned how to do a coup properly by this action. They just went on a demo march which got out of hand.
Trump was actively planning in multiple ways to displace the winner of the election, Biden. Delaying the proceedings at the Capitol were part of that. You seem to be ignoring that broader context.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe he sent his willing helpers to the Capitol. But by rights no group of people should ever be able to tear down some metal barriers and force their way into the seat of government. Into a football match maybe, but not into the Capitol. Once there they were as bemused as anyone although five people did die that day and many were in fear of their lives.
So if he sent them to delay proceedings while he hatched his master plan it was both unexpectedly successful and, as it appears that he is not now POTUS, very unsuccessful.
Sending a group of people to delay proceedings if you don't like an election result is not great. But it is hardly assembling a well-armed body designed to take by force the levers of power of a nation, now, is it.
There was a lot going on that day, of which we still don’t know much of it.
There’s been some releases of video in the past few weeks, that suggest the ‘invaders’ were being almost given a guided tour by Capitol security, while there’s also been certain identifiable people in the footage suggesting an invasion, who have never been arrested, despite dozens of people being held in custody for two years awaiting trial. People on trial have been acquitted after footage of them being let into the building by security have emerged, while others have been convicted because the available video evidence was not made available to their defence.
IMHO it was an attempt to delay proceedings, rather than a genuine attempt to overthrow the government. It also sits badly, given the history of infiltration of fringe groups by CIA and FBI in the States.
I don’t recall the protestors chanting “Delay the proceedings” or holding up banners to say the same. They cried “Hang Pence”! They were there because they wanted Trump made the winner of the election.
Stop being an apologist for violence.
So asking why there is video footage of protestors being escorted round the Capitol is now being "an apologist for violence"?
You are usually the type of person who talks about "follow the science", "facts are sacred" etc. Now we have a video which clearly shows the protestors being led around and your instant response is to try to shut any discussion down.
Well quite. There appears, from the outside, to be a situation where many non-violent people are now in prison, while those inciting violence appear to be getting away with it.
For the avoidance of doubt, people who were violent and inciting violence should be in prison, and people who were protesting peacefully should be free.
Peaceful protest can still be illegal in some circumstances. That’s certainly Conservative Party policy here in the UK!
Would you like to list some of these cases of non-violent people who are now in prison?
Let’s start with Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman”. He just got released from a four-year sentence, yet there’s no evidence of him involved in any violent act, nor of breaking into anywhere that the security didn’t think he should be allowed to go.
I think you're confusing being "allowed" to be somewhere from not being physically stopped from going somewhere. It's common practice in a riot to fall back to some extent rather than defend every square inch, as that's the best way to avoid physical harm to individuals.
But there's no question of rioters being "allowed" in the offices of Congressmen, or onto the floor of the House.
He was walking around, either escorted or unchallenged, and there was no evidence of violence on his behalf. None of which should be worth a sentence of 41 months in prison, thanks to a misguided plea bargain that otherwise threatened to send him away for life, when CCTV evidence in favour was withheld from his defence.
How does the CCTV evidence prove his innocence?
Why should he have to prove his innocence?
Well, he was accused of a crime. He doesn’t have to prove his innocence, but you and Sandpit are acting as if Tucker Carlson’s video would’ve have changed what happened if it had been seen at the time. It only would’ve changed what happened if it provided evidence of his innocence. It doesn’t.
I don't know what Tucker Carlson has to do with anything, I've never mentioned him?
Congress released the tapes exclusively to Fox News, so Carlson's edited selection is what we get to see.
Relying on Fucker Carlson as a source? That's inherently/intentionally fucked up.
The 10 stadiums: Wembley (90,652) National Stadium of Wales (73,952) Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (62,322) City of Manchester Stadium (61,000) Everton Stadium (52,679) St James' Park (52,305) Villa Park (52,190) Hampden Park (52,032) Dublin Arena (51,711) Casement Park (34,500)
Was heartily mocked on here when I said a couple of years back that Everton would get it over Anfield. That a state of the art new City centre Stadium would be favoured over a hodgepodge of improvements to a 140 year old ground in a creaking, none too appealing suburb with extremely poor transport links, was trumped by the idea that UEFA officials would prefer it "because they are used to going there. And it's LFC." Same for Old Trafford it seems.
Indeed you were. Fair play – humble pie for tea for many PBers.
I should say in passing that the consequences for a political party of not having their books audited by a suitably qualified auditor is that the Electoral Commission have the power to appoint their own auditors to do the work for them. This would be a potentially catastrophic loss of control by the party which could end up opening up any number of issues. On the other hand it just might be what the SNP needs if the Sturgeon/Morrel era is to be left behind.
Why shouldn't that be the norm?
Surely, the point of auditors is that they do identify the issues not do the client's bidding!
Well that's the problem with auditors, and why most auditing is completely bloody useless.
I should say in passing that the consequences for a political party of not having their books audited by a suitably qualified auditor is that the Electoral Commission have the power to appoint their own auditors to do the work for them. This would be a potentially catastrophic loss of control by the party which could end up opening up any number of issues. On the other hand it just might be what the SNP needs if the Sturgeon/Morrel era is to be left behind.
Twitter is speculating, quite brazenly, that Sturgeon was at one point the legal treasurer of the party (or something like that) due to the lack of auditors (which no one knew about apart from her and Murrell??? How did that work?)
The theory is, if anything more is amiss, this could open her up to actual criminal charges
I have no idea if any of this is true or justifiable, but it is mindboggling how quickly she's gone from untouchable leader to potential court appearances, as the accused
The duties under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendum Act 2000 are on the Treasurer of the party who has to ensure that the books are audited timeously and has a range of other responsibilities (these include reporting donations and loans such as Murrell's loan which was not reported).
The Treasurer of the SNP, Douglas Chapman, resigned in May 2021 because he said he was not being given access to the records that he needed to do his duties. It is a mandatory post and there is a suggestion that I have not seen confirmed yet that for a period of time after his resignation Nicola took on the role to meet that requirement. Whether she actually did anything in the role is, I think, entirely unknown.
The late Isaac Asimov would have agreed with kjh's comments about humor. But I think both Asimov and kjh missed an important qualification: Not everybody can tell every joke, without offending.
For example, Asimov tells this joke in, as I recall, his first joke collection:
A young Jewish man goes to a radio station to interview for a job as an announcer. When he comes back home, his parents ask him whether he got the job.
"No", he says. "Why not?" "Because they are p-p-p-prejudiced", he stutters.
As it happens, when I was teaching in Chicago, a black fellow teacher told me that same joke -- only the young man was black, in his version.
I wouldn't tell either version, not being Jewish, or black.
(Then there are jokes that are better, if the right person is telling them; for example I know a "Martian" joke that I think works best if told by a man to a woman, or a group of women.)
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
No one learned how to do a coup properly by this action. They just went on a demo march which got out of hand.
Trump was actively planning in multiple ways to displace the winner of the election, Biden. Delaying the proceedings at the Capitol were part of that. You seem to be ignoring that broader context.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe he sent his willing helpers to the Capitol. But by rights no group of people should ever be able to tear down some metal barriers and force their way into the seat of government. Into a football match maybe, but not into the Capitol. Once there they were as bemused as anyone although five people did die that day and many were in fear of their lives.
So if he sent them to delay proceedings while he hatched his master plan it was both unexpectedly successful and, as it appears that he is not now POTUS, very unsuccessful.
Sending a group of people to delay proceedings if you don't like an election result is not great. But it is hardly assembling a well-armed body designed to take by force the levers of power of a nation, now, is it.
There was a lot going on that day, of which we still don’t know much of it.
There’s been some releases of video in the past few weeks, that suggest the ‘invaders’ were being almost given a guided tour by Capitol security, while there’s also been certain identifiable people in the footage suggesting an invasion, who have never been arrested, despite dozens of people being held in custody for two years awaiting trial. People on trial have been acquitted after footage of them being let into the building by security have emerged, while others have been convicted because the available video evidence was not made available to their defence.
IMHO it was an attempt to delay proceedings, rather than a genuine attempt to overthrow the government. It also sits badly, given the history of infiltration of fringe groups by CIA and FBI in the States.
I don’t recall the protestors chanting “Delay the proceedings” or holding up banners to say the same. They cried “Hang Pence”! They were there because they wanted Trump made the winner of the election.
Stop being an apologist for violence.
So asking why there is video footage of protestors being escorted round the Capitol is now being "an apologist for violence"?
You are usually the type of person who talks about "follow the science", "facts are sacred" etc. Now we have a video which clearly shows the protestors being led around and your instant response is to try to shut any discussion down.
Well quite. There appears, from the outside, to be a situation where many non-violent people are now in prison, while those inciting violence appear to be getting away with it.
For the avoidance of doubt, people who were violent and inciting violence should be in prison, and people who were protesting peacefully should be free.
Peaceful protest can still be illegal in some circumstances. That’s certainly Conservative Party policy here in the UK!
Would you like to list some of these cases of non-violent people who are now in prison?
Let’s start with Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman”. He just got released from a four-year sentence, yet there’s no evidence of him involved in any violent act, nor of breaking into anywhere that the security didn’t think he should be allowed to go.
I think you're confusing being "allowed" to be somewhere from not being physically stopped from going somewhere. It's common practice in a riot to fall back to some extent rather than defend every square inch, as that's the best way to avoid physical harm to individuals.
But there's no question of rioters being "allowed" in the offices of Congressmen, or onto the floor of the House.
He was walking around, either escorted or unchallenged, and there was no evidence of violence on his behalf. None of which should be worth a sentence of 41 months in prison, thanks to a misguided plea bargain that otherwise threatened to send him away for life, when CCTV evidence in favour was withheld from his defence.
How does the CCTV evidence prove his innocence?
Why should he have to prove his innocence?
Well, he was accused of a crime. He doesn’t have to prove his innocence, but you and Sandpit are acting as if Tucker Carlson’s video would’ve have changed what happened if it had been seen at the time. It only would’ve changed what happened if it provided evidence of his innocence. It doesn’t.
I don't know what Tucker Carlson has to do with anything, I've never mentioned him?
Congress released the tapes exclusively to Fox News, so Carlson's edited selection is what we get to see.
So are you saying the footage of the Shaman being led through the Capitol is false / doctored? Because if you are not - and accept it is real - then I have no idea what other interpretation you could draw from that footage than that he was in there with the knowledge and in the company of police officers.
Also interesting that, literally days after that footage is released, he gets released at a discount to his sentence for 'good behaviour'.
Having already entered the building as part of a violent protest and seeking to disrupt an official proceeding, footage, heavily edited by Tucker Carlson, shows the undermanned police handling the situation by trying to lead Chansley and others around.
Do you have any actual evidence for that, or are you playing the man not the ball?
I should say in passing that the consequences for a political party of not having their books audited by a suitably qualified auditor is that the Electoral Commission have the power to appoint their own auditors to do the work for them. This would be a potentially catastrophic loss of control by the party which could end up opening up any number of issues. On the other hand it just might be what the SNP needs if the Sturgeon/Morrel era is to be left behind.
Twitter is speculating, quite brazenly, that Sturgeon was at one point the legal treasurer of the party (or something like that) due to the lack of auditors (which no one knew about apart from her and Murrell??? How did that work?)
The theory is, if anything more is amiss, this could open her up to actual criminal charges
I have no idea if any of this is true or justifiable, but it is mindboggling how quickly she's gone from untouchable leader to potential court appearances, as the accused
My brain is switching between “that’s insane” and “people do insane shit”
I should say in passing that the consequences for a political party of not having their books audited by a suitably qualified auditor is that the Electoral Commission have the power to appoint their own auditors to do the work for them. This would be a potentially catastrophic loss of control by the party which could end up opening up any number of issues. On the other hand it just might be what the SNP needs if the Sturgeon/Morrel era is to be left behind.
Why shouldn't that be the norm?
Surely, the point of auditors is that they do identify the issues not do the client's bidding!
The point of being an auditor is to get an in that allows other parts of your accountancy firm (tax, consultancy) to make the real money.
Does the insolvency department count?
The problem facing the SNP looks insoluble rather than merely insolvent.
The 10 stadiums: Wembley (90,652) National Stadium of Wales (73,952) Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (62,322) City of Manchester Stadium (61,000) Everton Stadium (52,679) St James' Park (52,305) Villa Park (52,190) Hampden Park (52,032) Dublin Arena (51,711) Casement Park (34,500)
Yeah, that makes sense. I assume the "National Stadium of Wales" is the latest re-branding of the Millennium Stadium?
Only two in London and one in any other city, as expected.
Eastlands an easy choice over Old Trafford, as is the new Everton stadium over Anfield.
Good choices all round, I think. Perhaps a moderate gripe at two stadiums in London and two in England's north west, but in absolute fairness they are the two real powerhouse regions for football in England and as such have the pick of the grounds.
A 32 team tournament could have accommodated a couple more, you'd have thought. Murrayfield and one of the City Ground or Hillsborough, maybe.
If they were going to add another one in England then somewhere in the south outside of London would have been nice. Southampton maybe?
Proviso, though: IIRC from previous tournament bids the list of stadiums in the bid document isn't necessarily the final one.
True, Southampton would be a good pick - B&H Albion's ground also is a reasonable logistical choice for yer Albania v Estonia-type fixtures - as, I suppose, would Aberdeen's new ground, if it ever actually gets built.
(Fact is, this really could/should have been an England bid - five nations co-hosting is taking the piss a bit. A lot of very good stadiums in this country. I get why it's not though.)
England probably has more decent stadiums per square mile than any country on earth
On top of those listed you’ve got Twickenham, Anfield, Old Trafford, Chelsea, the Olympic stadium, the new Highbury, etc etc. You could even adapt Lords. An embarrassment of riches
While I don't disagree with the spirit of that, the title of 'most decent stadiums per square mile' possibly, lamentably, now goes to Qatar, or else to some microstate (OTTOMH: Barbados, with the Kensington Oval?)
But you're right. Not least because lots of countries just don't have non-football sports which draw crowds in the same we as we do. I was at a conference at Old Trafford football stadium a few years back with some Europeans. Now, if you're getting to Old Trafford football stadium by public transport, the most obvious and common way to do it is to get the tram to Old Trafford tram stop - the walk from which takes you past Old Trafford cricket ground. Almost all of the Europeans - and in particular the Germans - that I spoke to about it expressed amazement that a sport apart from football (and especially cricket, which they thought of as a bit of a twee joke) could support such a big stadium - most just assumed it was Manchester City's ground. (To be clear, these were people who weren't necessarily massive sports fans - the conference was nothing to do with football.)
Twickenham could easily be the national stadium in most countries - modern, impressive, capacity 82,000. It's not even dedicated to our main sport
I should say in passing that the consequences for a political party of not having their books audited by a suitably qualified auditor is that the Electoral Commission have the power to appoint their own auditors to do the work for them. This would be a potentially catastrophic loss of control by the party which could end up opening up any number of issues. On the other hand it just might be what the SNP needs if the Sturgeon/Morrel era is to be left behind.
Twitter is speculating, quite brazenly, that Sturgeon was at one point the legal treasurer of the party (or something like that) due to the lack of auditors (which no one knew about apart from her and Murrell??? How did that work?)
The theory is, if anything more is amiss, this could open her up to actual criminal charges
I have no idea if any of this is true or justifiable, but it is mindboggling how quickly she's gone from untouchable leader to potential court appearances, as the accused
The duties under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendum Act 2000 are on the Treasurer of the party who has to ensure that the books are audited timeously and has a range of other responsibilities (these include reporting donations and loans such as Murrell's loan which was not reported).
The Treasurer of the SNP, Douglas Chapman, resigned in May 2021 because he said he was not being given access to the records that he needed to do his duties. It is a mandatory post and there is a suggestion that I have not seen confirmed yet that for a period of time after his resignation Nicola took on the role to meet that requirement. Whether she actually did anything in the role is, I think, entirely unknown.
It will be entirely unknown to her.
"I have no recollection....the SNP you say?.....No....."
2) Butthurt, he alleges vote rigging and runs as an independent;
3) DeSantis quits as Governor of Florida to focus on being nominee;
4) Biden selects Whitmer, Ossoff or Buttigieg as his VP;
5) Biden wins in an absolute landslide, due to the split vote, consigning both Trump and DeSantis to the outer darkness;
6) Biden then retires for undisclosed health reasons, leaving a capable President in charge;
7) A sane Republican nominee - Haley, perhaps? - emerges in 2028 and wins easily.
4 and 6 are not essential, but they would be optimal.
I think point 4 - maybe not necessarily one of those, but a VP who is sensible, competent and doesn't drive away swing voters - is actually essential. If Biden does that he's going to win by a landslide that even the paranoid would see couldn't be overturned.
The problem is, the VP role is occupied by someone who doesn't necessarily fulfil any of those three requirements. And who was the last POTUS to jettison their VP before their re-election bid?
Either the SNP simply don't care how bad this looks because they are so dim or arrogant or both, or they reckon they are doomed so they are grabbing as much loot as they can, and cushy jobs, before the Scottish people boot them out
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
No one learned how to do a coup properly by this action. They just went on a demo march which got out of hand.
Trump was actively planning in multiple ways to displace the winner of the election, Biden. Delaying the proceedings at the Capitol were part of that. You seem to be ignoring that broader context.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe he sent his willing helpers to the Capitol. But by rights no group of people should ever be able to tear down some metal barriers and force their way into the seat of government. Into a football match maybe, but not into the Capitol. Once there they were as bemused as anyone although five people did die that day and many were in fear of their lives.
So if he sent them to delay proceedings while he hatched his master plan it was both unexpectedly successful and, as it appears that he is not now POTUS, very unsuccessful.
Sending a group of people to delay proceedings if you don't like an election result is not great. But it is hardly assembling a well-armed body designed to take by force the levers of power of a nation, now, is it.
There was a lot going on that day, of which we still don’t know much of it.
There’s been some releases of video in the past few weeks, that suggest the ‘invaders’ were being almost given a guided tour by Capitol security, while there’s also been certain identifiable people in the footage suggesting an invasion, who have never been arrested, despite dozens of people being held in custody for two years awaiting trial. People on trial have been acquitted after footage of them being let into the building by security have emerged, while others have been convicted because the available video evidence was not made available to their defence.
IMHO it was an attempt to delay proceedings, rather than a genuine attempt to overthrow the government. It also sits badly, given the history of infiltration of fringe groups by CIA and FBI in the States.
I don’t recall the protestors chanting “Delay the proceedings” or holding up banners to say the same. They cried “Hang Pence”! They were there because they wanted Trump made the winner of the election.
Stop being an apologist for violence.
So asking why there is video footage of protestors being escorted round the Capitol is now being "an apologist for violence"?
You are usually the type of person who talks about "follow the science", "facts are sacred" etc. Now we have a video which clearly shows the protestors being led around and your instant response is to try to shut any discussion down.
Well quite. There appears, from the outside, to be a situation where many non-violent people are now in prison, while those inciting violence appear to be getting away with it.
For the avoidance of doubt, people who were violent and inciting violence should be in prison, and people who were protesting peacefully should be free.
Peaceful protest can still be illegal in some circumstances. That’s certainly Conservative Party policy here in the UK!
Would you like to list some of these cases of non-violent people who are now in prison?
Let’s start with Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman”. He just got released from a four-year sentence, yet there’s no evidence of him involved in any violent act, nor of breaking into anywhere that the security didn’t think he should be allowed to go.
I think you're confusing being "allowed" to be somewhere from not being physically stopped from going somewhere. It's common practice in a riot to fall back to some extent rather than defend every square inch, as that's the best way to avoid physical harm to individuals.
But there's no question of rioters being "allowed" in the offices of Congressmen, or onto the floor of the House.
He was walking around, either escorted or unchallenged, and there was no evidence of violence on his behalf. None of which should be worth a sentence of 41 months in prison, thanks to a misguided plea bargain that otherwise threatened to send him away for life, when CCTV evidence in favour was withheld from his defence.
How does the CCTV evidence prove his innocence?
Why should he have to prove his innocence?
Well, he was accused of a crime. He doesn’t have to prove his innocence, but you and Sandpit are acting as if Tucker Carlson’s video would’ve have changed what happened if it had been seen at the time. It only would’ve changed what happened if it provided evidence of his innocence. It doesn’t.
I don't know what Tucker Carlson has to do with anything, I've never mentioned him?
Congress released the tapes exclusively to Fox News, so Carlson's edited selection is what we get to see.
So are you saying the footage of the Shaman being led through the Capitol is false / doctored? Because if you are not - and accept it is real - then I have no idea what other interpretation you could draw from that footage than that he was in there with the knowledge and in the company of police officers.
Also interesting that, literally days after that footage is released, he gets released at a discount to his sentence for 'good behaviour'.
Having already entered the building as part of a violent protest and seeking to disrupt an official proceeding, footage, heavily edited by Tucker Carlson, shows the undermanned police handling the situation by trying to lead Chansley and others around.
Do you have any actual evidence for that, or are you playing the man not the ball?
Yes, obviously. There are several hundred hours of tapes.
I should say in passing that the consequences for a political party of not having their books audited by a suitably qualified auditor is that the Electoral Commission have the power to appoint their own auditors to do the work for them. This would be a potentially catastrophic loss of control by the party which could end up opening up any number of issues. On the other hand it just might be what the SNP needs if the Sturgeon/Morrel era is to be left behind.
Twitter is speculating, quite brazenly, that Sturgeon was at one point the legal treasurer of the party (or something like that) due to the lack of auditors (which no one knew about apart from her and Murrell??? How did that work?)
The theory is, if anything more is amiss, this could open her up to actual criminal charges
I have no idea if any of this is true or justifiable, but it is mindboggling how quickly she's gone from untouchable leader to potential court appearances, as the accused
The late Isaac Asimov would have agreed with kjh's comments about humor. But I think both Asimov and kjh missed an important qualification: Not everybody can tell every joke, without offending.
For example, Asimov tells this joke in, as I recall, his first joke collection:
A young Jewish man goes to a radio station to interview for a job as an announcer. When he comes back home, his parents ask him whether he got the job.
"No", he says. "Why not?" "Because they are p-p-p-prejudiced", he stutters.
As it happens, when I was teaching in Chicago, a black fellow teacher told me that same joke -- only the young man was black, in his version.
I wouldn't tell either version, not being Jewish, or black.
(Then there are jokes that are better, if the right person is telling them; for example I know a "Martian" joke that I think works best if told by a man to a woman, or a group of women.)
It was from a Jew that I first heard the Auschwitz Watchtower joke. It's probably unwise to tell it if one is not Jewish.
Dennis Taylor loves a good Irish joke. He was asked what his favourite was at a meeting in England. He told this one:
Q) What's black, blue and floats in the Irish Sea?
A) An Englishman who's just told an Irish joke.
I like this Irish joke.
"An Irishman goes on to a building site looking for a job and is told by the foreman that he will have to undertake a brief test. ‘Fine,’ says the Irishman. ‘OK then,’ says the foreman. ‘First up, can you tell me the difference between a joist and a girder?’ ‘That’s easy,’ the Irishman replies. ‘Joyce wrote Ulysses and Goethe wrote Faust.’
Far from being too thick for the job, the Irishman is over-qualified.
The following joke needs a pre-existing stereotype to work: it's hard to see how to do it without one.
Two Irish pilots are coming in to land. They touch down, and almost immediately find themselves ploughing through the grass.
Pilot 1: Man, that was a short runway! Pilot 2: Wide, though, wasn't it?
Now, if we started that with "Two thick pilots are coming into land" it wouldn't work at all.
Either the SNP simply don't care how bad this looks because they are so dim or arrogant or both, or they reckon they are doomed so they are grabbing as much loot as they can, and cushy jobs, before the Scottish people boot them out
2) Butthurt, he alleges vote rigging and runs as an independent;
3) DeSantis quits as Governor of Florida to focus on being nominee;
4) Biden selects Whitmer, Ossoff or Buttigieg as his VP;
5) Biden wins in an absolute landslide, due to the split vote, consigning both Trump and DeSantis to the outer darkness;
6) Biden then retires for undisclosed health reasons, leaving a capable President in charge;
7) A sane Republican nominee - Haley, perhaps? - emerges in 2028 and wins easily.
4 and 6 are not essential, but they would be optimal.
I think point 4 - maybe not necessarily one of those, but a VP who is sensible, competent and doesn't drive away swing voters - is actually essential. If Biden does that he's going to win by a landslide that even the paranoid would see couldn't be overturned.
The problem is, the VP role is occupied by someone who doesn't necessarily fulfil any of those three requirements. And who was the last POTUS to jettison their VP before their re-election bid?
Harris needs to be offloaded elsewhere sooner rather than later. Isn't she a lawyer so the ideal plan would be to send her to the Supreme court (which I'm sure was a rumoured plan).
I should say in passing that the consequences for a political party of not having their books audited by a suitably qualified auditor is that the Electoral Commission have the power to appoint their own auditors to do the work for them. This would be a potentially catastrophic loss of control by the party which could end up opening up any number of issues. On the other hand it just might be what the SNP needs if the Sturgeon/Morrel era is to be left behind.
Twitter is speculating, quite brazenly, that Sturgeon was at one point the legal treasurer of the party (or something like that) due to the lack of auditors (which no one knew about apart from her and Murrell??? How did that work?)
The theory is, if anything more is amiss, this could open her up to actual criminal charges
I have no idea if any of this is true or justifiable, but it is mindboggling how quickly she's gone from untouchable leader to potential court appearances, as the accused
Scotland Trump!
When did Sturgeon last meet Trump?
(Following up on my theory that Trump carries a virus that causes people’s brains to melt)
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
No one learned how to do a coup properly by this action. They just went on a demo march which got out of hand.
Trump was actively planning in multiple ways to displace the winner of the election, Biden. Delaying the proceedings at the Capitol were part of that. You seem to be ignoring that broader context.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe he sent his willing helpers to the Capitol. But by rights no group of people should ever be able to tear down some metal barriers and force their way into the seat of government. Into a football match maybe, but not into the Capitol. Once there they were as bemused as anyone although five people did die that day and many were in fear of their lives.
So if he sent them to delay proceedings while he hatched his master plan it was both unexpectedly successful and, as it appears that he is not now POTUS, very unsuccessful.
Sending a group of people to delay proceedings if you don't like an election result is not great. But it is hardly assembling a well-armed body designed to take by force the levers of power of a nation, now, is it.
There was a lot going on that day, of which we still don’t know much of it.
There’s been some releases of video in the past few weeks, that suggest the ‘invaders’ were being almost given a guided tour by Capitol security, while there’s also been certain identifiable people in the footage suggesting an invasion, who have never been arrested, despite dozens of people being held in custody for two years awaiting trial. People on trial have been acquitted after footage of them being let into the building by security have emerged, while others have been convicted because the available video evidence was not made available to their defence.
IMHO it was an attempt to delay proceedings, rather than a genuine attempt to overthrow the government. It also sits badly, given the history of infiltration of fringe groups by CIA and FBI in the States.
I don’t recall the protestors chanting “Delay the proceedings” or holding up banners to say the same. They cried “Hang Pence”! They were there because they wanted Trump made the winner of the election.
Stop being an apologist for violence.
So asking why there is video footage of protestors being escorted round the Capitol is now being "an apologist for violence"?
You are usually the type of person who talks about "follow the science", "facts are sacred" etc. Now we have a video which clearly shows the protestors being led around and your instant response is to try to shut any discussion down.
Well quite. There appears, from the outside, to be a situation where many non-violent people are now in prison, while those inciting violence appear to be getting away with it.
For the avoidance of doubt, people who were violent and inciting violence should be in prison, and people who were protesting peacefully should be free.
Peaceful protest can still be illegal in some circumstances. That’s certainly Conservative Party policy here in the UK!
Would you like to list some of these cases of non-violent people who are now in prison?
Let’s start with Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman”. He just got released from a four-year sentence, yet there’s no evidence of him involved in any violent act, nor of breaking into anywhere that the security didn’t think he should be allowed to go.
I think you're confusing being "allowed" to be somewhere from not being physically stopped from going somewhere. It's common practice in a riot to fall back to some extent rather than defend every square inch, as that's the best way to avoid physical harm to individuals.
But there's no question of rioters being "allowed" in the offices of Congressmen, or onto the floor of the House.
He was walking around, either escorted or unchallenged, and there was no evidence of violence on his behalf. None of which should be worth a sentence of 41 months in prison, thanks to a misguided plea bargain that otherwise threatened to send him away for life, when CCTV evidence in favour was withheld from his defence.
How does the CCTV evidence prove his innocence?
Why should he have to prove his innocence?
Well, he was accused of a crime. He doesn’t have to prove his innocence, but you and Sandpit are acting as if Tucker Carlson’s video would’ve have changed what happened if it had been seen at the time. It only would’ve changed what happened if it provided evidence of his innocence. It doesn’t.
I don't know what Tucker Carlson has to do with anything, I've never mentioned him?
Congress released the tapes exclusively to Fox News, so Carlson's edited selection is what we get to see.
So are you saying the footage of the Shaman being led through the Capitol is false / doctored? Because if you are not - and accept it is real - then I have no idea what other interpretation you could draw from that footage than that he was in there with the knowledge and in the company of police officers.
Also interesting that, literally days after that footage is released, he gets released at a discount to his sentence for 'good behaviour'.
Having already entered the building as part of a violent protest and seeking to disrupt an official proceeding, footage, heavily edited by Tucker Carlson, shows the undermanned police handling the situation by trying to lead Chansley and others around.
Do you have any actual evidence for that, or are you playing the man not the ball?
Yes, obviously. There are several hundred hours of tapes.
I'm not sure that follows. "heavily edited" implies to me something more nefarious than just selecting a section for broadcast - not to mention that it doesn't imply that Carlson himself did the selecting/editing.
Either the SNP simply don't care how bad this looks because they are so dim or arrogant or both, or they reckon they are doomed so they are grabbing as much loot as they can, and cushy jobs, before the Scottish people boot them out
I think we have a winner!
Having a husband and wife at the top of the SNP definitely underlines that vital sense of "continuity", after Mr and Mrs Sturgeon and Murrell had to sadly depart
Not clear to me why Murrayfield (and, thus, Edinburgh) was overlooked for Euro 2028. Great stadium in a superb city.
If there's only going to be one stadium in Scotland, the SFA is going to insist it's Hampden.
If there are only 10 stadiums in total, can they really justify a second one in Scotland?
It;'s a long way from Glasgow to Newcastle though (which given how the initial games will be structured will be the other stadium for the initial set of games).
2) Butthurt, he alleges vote rigging and runs as an independent;
3) DeSantis quits as Governor of Florida to focus on being nominee;
4) Biden selects Whitmer, Ossoff or Buttigieg as his VP;
5) Biden wins in an absolute landslide, due to the split vote, consigning both Trump and DeSantis to the outer darkness;
6) Biden then retires for undisclosed health reasons, leaving a capable President in charge;
7) A sane Republican nominee - Haley, perhaps? - emerges in 2028 and wins easily.
4 and 6 are not essential, but they would be optimal.
I think point 4 - maybe not necessarily one of those, but a VP who is sensible, competent and doesn't drive away swing voters - is actually essential. If Biden does that he's going to win by a landslide that even the paranoid would see couldn't be overturned.
The problem is, the VP role is occupied by someone who doesn't necessarily fulfil any of those three requirements. And who was the last POTUS to jettison their VP before their re-election bid?
Ford, and before that, Roosevelt (twice, although on the first occasion the Veep had opposed him at the convention).
I have to say with all due respect to Biden I still think it was a real error by Obama not to bring forward a younger VP in 2012. Clinton would never have bothered to stand in that case and Trump would never happened.
The 10 stadiums: Wembley (90,652) National Stadium of Wales (73,952) Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (62,322) City of Manchester Stadium (61,000) Everton Stadium (52,679) St James' Park (52,305) Villa Park (52,190) Hampden Park (52,032) Dublin Arena (51,711) Casement Park (34,500)
Yeah, that makes sense. I assume the "National Stadium of Wales" is the latest re-branding of the Millennium Stadium?
Only two in London and one in any other city, as expected.
Eastlands an easy choice over Old Trafford, as is the new Everton stadium over Anfield.
Good choices all round, I think. Perhaps a moderate gripe at two stadiums in London and two in England's north west, but in absolute fairness they are the two real powerhouse regions for football in England and as such have the pick of the grounds.
A 32 team tournament could have accommodated a couple more, you'd have thought. Murrayfield and one of the City Ground or Hillsborough, maybe.
If they were going to add another one in England then somewhere in the south outside of London would have been nice. Southampton maybe?
Proviso, though: IIRC from previous tournament bids the list of stadiums in the bid document isn't necessarily the final one.
True, Southampton would be a good pick - B&H Albion's ground also is a reasonable logistical choice for yer Albania v Estonia-type fixtures - as, I suppose, would Aberdeen's new ground, if it ever actually gets built.
(Fact is, this really could/should have been an England bid - five nations co-hosting is taking the piss a bit. A lot of very good stadiums in this country. I get why it's not though.)
England probably has more decent stadiums per square mile than any country on earth
On top of those listed you’ve got Twickenham, Anfield, Old Trafford, Chelsea, the Olympic stadium, the new Highbury, etc etc. You could even adapt Lords. An embarrassment of riches
While I don't disagree with the spirit of that, the title of 'most decent stadiums per square mile' possibly, lamentably, now goes to Qatar, or else to some microstate (OTTOMH: Barbados, with the Kensington Oval?)
But you're right. Not least because lots of countries just don't have non-football sports which draw crowds in the same we as we do. I was at a conference at Old Trafford football stadium a few years back with some Europeans. Now, if you're getting to Old Trafford football stadium by public transport, the most obvious and common way to do it is to get the tram to Old Trafford tram stop - the walk from which takes you past Old Trafford cricket ground. Almost all of the Europeans - and in particular the Germans - that I spoke to about it expressed amazement that a sport apart from football (and especially cricket, which they thought of as a bit of a twee joke) could support such a big stadium - most just assumed it was Manchester City's ground. (To be clear, these were people who weren't necessarily massive sports fans - the conference was nothing to do with football.)
There are also a number of football teams with stadia far better than they ought to have because they share with rugby. Wigan Athletic, Hull and Huddersfield for three.
GPT4, it turns out, is an exceptionally capable scientist
“Conclusions In this paper, we presented an Intelligent Agent system capable of autonomously designing, planning, and executing complex scientific experiments. Our system demonstrates exceptional reasoning and experimental design capabilities, effectively addressing complex problems and generating high-quality code”
Indeed it is so good the authors slightly freak out, and demand that it be prevented from creating new drugs, poisons, bioweapons. Etc. Good luck persuading the Chinese to do that
That’s not quite what they wrote.
You may not be aware but there has been software/databases that design chemical synthesis for a while - one such is called reaxys - I use it frequently. There have also been software to predict properties of novel compounds, although prediction does not always meet reality. What this paper presents is interesting, but I don’t see a spark of AGI here, rather improvements on things that are already happening. Looks extremely useful for the design of new molecular targets, but I note it refused to synthsise the one interesting looking drug…
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
No one learned how to do a coup properly by this action. They just went on a demo march which got out of hand.
Trump was actively planning in multiple ways to displace the winner of the election, Biden. Delaying the proceedings at the Capitol were part of that. You seem to be ignoring that broader context.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe he sent his willing helpers to the Capitol. But by rights no group of people should ever be able to tear down some metal barriers and force their way into the seat of government. Into a football match maybe, but not into the Capitol. Once there they were as bemused as anyone although five people did die that day and many were in fear of their lives.
So if he sent them to delay proceedings while he hatched his master plan it was both unexpectedly successful and, as it appears that he is not now POTUS, very unsuccessful.
Sending a group of people to delay proceedings if you don't like an election result is not great. But it is hardly assembling a well-armed body designed to take by force the levers of power of a nation, now, is it.
There was a lot going on that day, of which we still don’t know much of it.
There’s been some releases of video in the past few weeks, that suggest the ‘invaders’ were being almost given a guided tour by Capitol security, while there’s also been certain identifiable people in the footage suggesting an invasion, who have never been arrested, despite dozens of people being held in custody for two years awaiting trial. People on trial have been acquitted after footage of them being let into the building by security have emerged, while others have been convicted because the available video evidence was not made available to their defence.
IMHO it was an attempt to delay proceedings, rather than a genuine attempt to overthrow the government. It also sits badly, given the history of infiltration of fringe groups by CIA and FBI in the States.
I don’t recall the protestors chanting “Delay the proceedings” or holding up banners to say the same. They cried “Hang Pence”! They were there because they wanted Trump made the winner of the election.
Stop being an apologist for violence.
So asking why there is video footage of protestors being escorted round the Capitol is now being "an apologist for violence"?
You are usually the type of person who talks about "follow the science", "facts are sacred" etc. Now we have a video which clearly shows the protestors being led around and your instant response is to try to shut any discussion down.
Well quite. There appears, from the outside, to be a situation where many non-violent people are now in prison, while those inciting violence appear to be getting away with it.
For the avoidance of doubt, people who were violent and inciting violence should be in prison, and people who were protesting peacefully should be free.
Peaceful protest can still be illegal in some circumstances. That’s certainly Conservative Party policy here in the UK!
Would you like to list some of these cases of non-violent people who are now in prison?
Let’s start with Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman”. He just got released from a four-year sentence, yet there’s no evidence of him involved in any violent act, nor of breaking into anywhere that the security didn’t think he should be allowed to go.
I think you're confusing being "allowed" to be somewhere from not being physically stopped from going somewhere. It's common practice in a riot to fall back to some extent rather than defend every square inch, as that's the best way to avoid physical harm to individuals.
But there's no question of rioters being "allowed" in the offices of Congressmen, or onto the floor of the House.
He was walking around, either escorted or unchallenged, and there was no evidence of violence on his behalf. None of which should be worth a sentence of 41 months in prison, thanks to a misguided plea bargain that otherwise threatened to send him away for life, when CCTV evidence in favour was withheld from his defence.
How does the CCTV evidence prove his innocence?
Why should he have to prove his innocence?
Well, he was accused of a crime. He doesn’t have to prove his innocence, but you and Sandpit are acting as if Tucker Carlson’s video would’ve have changed what happened if it had been seen at the time. It only would’ve changed what happened if it provided evidence of his innocence. It doesn’t.
I don't know what Tucker Carlson has to do with anything, I've never mentioned him?
Congress released the tapes exclusively to Fox News, so Carlson's edited selection is what we get to see.
So are you saying the footage of the Shaman being led through the Capitol is false / doctored? Because if you are not - and accept it is real - then I have no idea what other interpretation you could draw from that footage than that he was in there with the knowledge and in the company of police officers.
Also interesting that, literally days after that footage is released, he gets released at a discount to his sentence for 'good behaviour'.
Having already entered the building as part of a violent protest and seeking to disrupt an official proceeding, footage, heavily edited by Tucker Carlson, shows the undermanned police handling the situation by trying to lead Chansley and others around.
Do you have any actual evidence for that, or are you playing the man not the ball?
That's how it's been reported by media around the globe.
And, also, this is Tucker Carlson. If you can't play the man when you're dealing with a proven liar and propagandist, who has admitted to saying lies for entertainment, when can you? This guy has spread COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and described Iraqis as "semi-literate primitive monkeys".
I should say in passing that the consequences for a political party of not having their books audited by a suitably qualified auditor is that the Electoral Commission have the power to appoint their own auditors to do the work for them. This would be a potentially catastrophic loss of control by the party which could end up opening up any number of issues. On the other hand it just might be what the SNP needs if the Sturgeon/Morrel era is to be left behind.
Why shouldn't that be the norm?
Surely, the point of auditors is that they do identify the issues not do the client's bidding!
The point of being an auditor is to get an in that allows other parts of your accountancy firm (tax, consultancy) to make the real money.
Does the insolvency department count?
Yep but I think if you are the auditor you are probably ruled out of being the administrator / liquidator.
But your mate in the firm down the road gets the administrator's job in return for you getting the insolvency of one of his/her audit clients! And you both say what a good job the auditor has done.
2) Butthurt, he alleges vote rigging and runs as an independent;
3) DeSantis quits as Governor of Florida to focus on being nominee;
4) Biden selects Whitmer, Ossoff or Buttigieg as his VP;
5) Biden wins in an absolute landslide, due to the split vote, consigning both Trump and DeSantis to the outer darkness;
6) Biden then retires for undisclosed health reasons, leaving a capable President in charge;
7) A sane Republican nominee - Haley, perhaps? - emerges in 2028 and wins easily.
4 and 6 are not essential, but they would be optimal.
Sane Republican isn't easy to see right now. The values they need to espouse to get the nomination are wildly out of touch with those of the median voter.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
The invasion of the Capitol wasn’t all that was happening. You have to place that violence, encouraged by Trump, in the context of his planning to ignore the democratic result of the election and install himself, with fake electors and having the military seize voting machines, e.g. see https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/fake-electors-explainer/index.html
The coup was a bad joke. In a properly-planned coup, all the pieces have been played by the time that the coup is executed.
Isn’t that the worry? They’ve tried once, but were pretty incompetent at it. What happens if they try again and execute it well?
Yes, that's another of the weird deflections. It wasn't a coup as it failed, or didn't meet a particular definition of trying to overturn an election (and therefore state).
A coup displaces the incumbent administration and replaces it with something else. There was absolutely no intent to do this in this case. Yes there were some 2nd amendment loons with their weapons slung over their backs but had they been the slightest bit serious the body count would have been huge and not the 4:1 protesters:state that it turned out to be.
No one learned how to do a coup properly by this action. They just went on a demo march which got out of hand.
Trump was actively planning in multiple ways to displace the winner of the election, Biden. Delaying the proceedings at the Capitol were part of that. You seem to be ignoring that broader context.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe he sent his willing helpers to the Capitol. But by rights no group of people should ever be able to tear down some metal barriers and force their way into the seat of government. Into a football match maybe, but not into the Capitol. Once there they were as bemused as anyone although five people did die that day and many were in fear of their lives.
So if he sent them to delay proceedings while he hatched his master plan it was both unexpectedly successful and, as it appears that he is not now POTUS, very unsuccessful.
Sending a group of people to delay proceedings if you don't like an election result is not great. But it is hardly assembling a well-armed body designed to take by force the levers of power of a nation, now, is it.
There was a lot going on that day, of which we still don’t know much of it.
There’s been some releases of video in the past few weeks, that suggest the ‘invaders’ were being almost given a guided tour by Capitol security, while there’s also been certain identifiable people in the footage suggesting an invasion, who have never been arrested, despite dozens of people being held in custody for two years awaiting trial. People on trial have been acquitted after footage of them being let into the building by security have emerged, while others have been convicted because the available video evidence was not made available to their defence.
IMHO it was an attempt to delay proceedings, rather than a genuine attempt to overthrow the government. It also sits badly, given the history of infiltration of fringe groups by CIA and FBI in the States.
I don’t recall the protestors chanting “Delay the proceedings” or holding up banners to say the same. They cried “Hang Pence”! They were there because they wanted Trump made the winner of the election.
Stop being an apologist for violence.
So asking why there is video footage of protestors being escorted round the Capitol is now being "an apologist for violence"?
You are usually the type of person who talks about "follow the science", "facts are sacred" etc. Now we have a video which clearly shows the protestors being led around and your instant response is to try to shut any discussion down.
Well quite. There appears, from the outside, to be a situation where many non-violent people are now in prison, while those inciting violence appear to be getting away with it.
For the avoidance of doubt, people who were violent and inciting violence should be in prison, and people who were protesting peacefully should be free.
Peaceful protest can still be illegal in some circumstances. That’s certainly Conservative Party policy here in the UK!
Would you like to list some of these cases of non-violent people who are now in prison?
Let’s start with Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman”. He just got released from a four-year sentence, yet there’s no evidence of him involved in any violent act, nor of breaking into anywhere that the security didn’t think he should be allowed to go.
I think you're confusing being "allowed" to be somewhere from not being physically stopped from going somewhere. It's common practice in a riot to fall back to some extent rather than defend every square inch, as that's the best way to avoid physical harm to individuals.
But there's no question of rioters being "allowed" in the offices of Congressmen, or onto the floor of the House.
He was walking around, either escorted or unchallenged, and there was no evidence of violence on his behalf. None of which should be worth a sentence of 41 months in prison, thanks to a misguided plea bargain that otherwise threatened to send him away for life, when CCTV evidence in favour was withheld from his defence.
How does the CCTV evidence prove his innocence?
Why should he have to prove his innocence?
Well, he was accused of a crime. He doesn’t have to prove his innocence, but you and Sandpit are acting as if Tucker Carlson’s video would’ve have changed what happened if it had been seen at the time. It only would’ve changed what happened if it provided evidence of his innocence. It doesn’t.
I don't know what Tucker Carlson has to do with anything, I've never mentioned him?
Congress released the tapes exclusively to Fox News, so Carlson's edited selection is what we get to see.
So are you saying the footage of the Shaman being led through the Capitol is false / doctored? Because if you are not - and accept it is real - then I have no idea what other interpretation you could draw from that footage than that he was in there with the knowledge and in the company of police officers.
Also interesting that, literally days after that footage is released, he gets released at a discount to his sentence for 'good behaviour'.
Having already entered the building as part of a violent protest and seeking to disrupt an official proceeding, footage, heavily edited by Tucker Carlson, shows the undermanned police handling the situation by trying to lead Chansley and others around.
Do you have any actual evidence for that, or are you playing the man not the ball?
Yes, obviously. There are several hundred hours of tapes.
I'm not sure that follows. "heavily edited" implies to me something more nefarious than just selecting a section for broadcast - not to mention that it doesn't imply that Carlson himself did the selecting/editing.
Sorry, I thought you meant the kind of editing where you choose which bits of footage to show, and which to leave out.
Do you have any evidence to suggest that either Fox News, or the good Tucker, would be a sensible choice if you were seeking an unbiased account ? As opposed to releasing the tapes to all news organisations ?
2) Butthurt, he alleges vote rigging and runs as an independent;
3) DeSantis quits as Governor of Florida to focus on being nominee;
4) Biden selects Whitmer, Ossoff or Buttigieg as his VP;
5) Biden wins in an absolute landslide, due to the split vote, consigning both Trump and DeSantis to the outer darkness;
6) Biden then retires for undisclosed health reasons, leaving a capable President in charge;
7) A sane Republican nominee - Haley, perhaps? - emerges in 2028 and wins easily.
4 and 6 are not essential, but they would be optimal.
I think point 4 - maybe not necessarily one of those, but a VP who is sensible, competent and doesn't drive away swing voters - is actually essential. If Biden does that he's going to win by a landslide that even the paranoid would see couldn't be overturned.
The problem is, the VP role is occupied by someone who doesn't necessarily fulfil any of those three requirements. And who was the last POTUS to jettison their VP before their re-election bid?
Ford, and before that, Roosevelt (twice, although on the first occasion the Veep had opposed him at the convention).
I have to say with all due respect to Biden I still think it was a real error by Obama not to bring forward a younger VP in 2012. Clinton would never have bothered to stand in that case and Trump would never happened.
Agreed on that but I think Obama was worried about his re-election prospects in 2012 and, quite frankly, he saw having someone like Biden who was an old white guy who had a reputation for being 'conservative' when it came to race and crime issues as giving him cover.
Comments
I think you have to free yourself from two prejudices when considering this race: Firstly that it's going to be Trump, and secondly that it's going to be some sensible alternative.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/British-Footballs-Greatest-Grounds-Must-See/dp/1785316478
I spent a good few minutes having a look through it. It has many very small stadiums (along with the likes of Anfield etc.) that you can just turn up to watch games at. Some stunning settings for many of these stadiums. Although some of them really are little more than a fence around a football pitch.
Even though I only spent a little time with the book I can heavily recommend it and am thinking about setting a goal to visit them all!
WILMINGTON, Del. — An attorney for Dominion Voting Systems alleged Tuesday that Fox News withheld information that would have entitled Dominion to obtain more of network co-founder Rupert Murdoch’s communications in the election-technology company’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit.
Justin Nelson, an attorney for Dominion, told the judge in the case that the company had been led to believe that Murdoch held the title of officer only for Fox’s parent company. But over the past few days, he said, Dominion learned that the mogul also holds an officer title for Fox News.
“This alone has meant that we are missing a whole bunch of Rupert Murdoch documents that we otherwise would have been entitled to,” Nelson said. “It’s very troubling that this is where we are. It’s something that has really affected how we have litigated this case.”
Judge Eric M. Davis echoed Nelson’s frustration with Fox, saying the missing information about Murdoch’s title may have affected his decision-making regarding a recent ruling that narrowed the scope of the case. “I could have made an entirely wrong decision,” Davis said.
Addressing an attorney for Fox News, the judge said the network has a “credibility problem.”
“My problem is that it’s been represented more than once to me that he’s not an officer of Fox News,” Davis said. “I need to feel comfortable that when you represent something to me, it’s the truth. I’m not very happy right now. I don’t know why this is such a difficult thing.” . . .
SSI - Fox News is literally incredible? Who'd have thunk it?!?!
'It's worth remembering his company was convicted on 17 counts of tax fraud and other crimes last year.'
The cumulative effect of his court losses may well prevent Trump from winning the nomination, much less the general election.
The upcoming E. Jean Carroll trial might be particularly damaging, in my view: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Jean_Carroll_litigation_against_Donald_Trump
Interesting to see if there is any polling on this (done by someone other than the BMA).
(only kidding!)
pleady guilty to x you get sentenced for x minus a third
The states however its plead guilty to x and be out in 2 years or we will charge you with y and if you lose you will serve 20 to 30 years.
The latter is blackmail to plead guilty or we are going to pin more severe charges on you. Now knowing the states if they had you bang to rights on those more severe charges they wouldn't be offering a plea bargain. So it amounts to take the 2 years and plead to a lesser charge or roll the dice and play double or nothing
Probably sleeping Lib Dems
Just been round to next door to investigate a branch falling off one of their trees. By gum it's windy - my brolly is now an ex-brolly.
To me it sounds like continuing efforts to recast the EU in the image of France.
For example, Asimov tells this joke in, as I recall, his first joke collection:
A young Jewish man goes to a radio station to interview for a job as an announcer. When he comes back home, his parents ask him whether he got the job.
"No", he says.
"Why not?"
"Because they are p-p-p-prejudiced", he stutters.
As it happens, when I was teaching in Chicago, a black fellow teacher told me that same joke -- only the young man was black, in his version.
I wouldn't tell either version, not being Jewish, or black.
(Then there are jokes that are better, if the right person is telling them; for example I know a "Martian" joke that I think works best if told by a man to a woman, or a group of women.)
Foodwise it's hard to hit the sweet spot between decent but fairly generic Italian/Indian/Thai and super fancy but expensive like Sola (modern American, and delicious, but ££££)
Prix Fixe on Dean Street is rather nice French brasserie food, in an agreeable spot, and not WTF expensive. Quo Vadis has one of the best sandwiches in the world: the smoked eel, and it's also not ridiculously pricey, tho it ain't cheap either
In the last 24 hours Yousless has:
*confirmed that neither he nor any of the other candidates for leadership of the party had been informed that the auditors of the party had given notice last September;
* confirmed that they have written to the Electoral Commission advising that they are having difficulties in finding replacement auditors to audit the books before the July deadline.
*decided to throw another couple of hundred thousand of public money at a doomed JR of the GRR s35 decision.
Surely there is time for one more?
Thanks again!
The smearing of Garrett Foster
The far right justifies political violence by villainizing a decent man
https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-smearing-of-garrett-foster?sd=pf
This would seem to cover the events of 6 January 2021:
Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
Incidentally, Hutchinson has an impressive record of public service: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Hutchinson
But you're right. Not least because lots of countries just don't have non-football sports which draw crowds in the same we as we do. I was at a conference at Old Trafford football stadium a few years back with some Europeans. Now, if you're getting to Old Trafford football stadium by public transport, the most obvious and common way to do it is to get the tram to Old Trafford tram stop - the walk from which takes you past Old Trafford cricket ground. Almost all of the Europeans - and in particular the Germans - that I spoke to about it expressed amazement that a sport apart from football (and especially cricket, which they thought of as a bit of a twee joke) could support such a big stadium - most just assumed it was Manchester City's ground. (To be clear, these were people who weren't necessarily massive sports fans - the conference was nothing to do with football.)
Also interesting that, literally days after that footage is released, he gets released at a discount to his sentence for 'good behaviour'.
As for Fox "News" . . .
NYT - Fox News Settles Defamation Case With Venezuelan Businessman
In a letter to a New York judge, the parties said they had reached a settlement in a case related to claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, but did not disclose the terms.
Fox News and one of its former hosts, Lou Dobbs, have settled a defamation suit with a Venezuelan businessman whom the network linked to voting-system fraud in the 2020 election.
In a letter filed on Saturday to a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, the parties said they had reached a confidential settlement, although they did not disclose the terms.
“This matter has been resolved amicably by both sides,” a spokesperson for Fox News said in an email. “We have no further comment.”
The settlement was disclosed days before jury selection this week in a major defamation case that Fox News is defending. That case, a $1.6 billion lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, says that Fox News lied about voter fraud in the 2020 election, and that Fox hosts and guests repeatedly made false claims about Dominion machines and their supposed role in a plot to steal the election from President Donald J. Trump.
Fox News and one of its former hosts, Lou Dobbs, have settled a defamation suit with a Venezuelan businessman whom the network linked to voting-system fraud in the 2020 election.
In a letter filed on Saturday to a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, the parties said they had reached a confidential settlement, although they did not disclose the terms.
“This matter has been resolved amicably by both sides,” a spokesperson for Fox News said in an email. “We have no further comment.”
The settlement was disclosed days before jury selection this week in a major defamation case that Fox News is defending. That case, a $1.6 billion lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, says that Fox News lied about voter fraud in the 2020 election, and that Fox hosts and guests repeatedly made false claims about Dominion machines and their supposed role in a plot to steal the election from President Donald J. Trump. . . .
In the case of the Venezuelan businessman, Majed Khalil, Mr. Dobbs and Sidney Powell, a regular guest on Fox News, said on the air and in related Twitter posts that Dominion was using software to flip votes from Mr. Trump to Joseph R. Biden Jr., or to add votes for Mr. Biden.
One of the tweets falsely said Mr. Khalil was “the effective ‘COO’ of the election project.” In an earlier complaint, Mr. Khalil said neither Fox News nor Mr. Dobbs had reached out to him for comment.
Fox Business canceled Mr. Dobbs’s weekday show in February 2021.
Surely, the point of auditors is that they do identify the issues not do the client's bidding!
"The campervan was an iSmove model, the latest version of which includes felt walls "for delightfully soothing acoustics"
In the SNP, no-one can hear you scream.....
Tucker Carlson does not care about logic.
Q) What's black, blue and floats in the Irish Sea?
A) An Englishman who's just told an Irish joke.
And no one likes creating disasters for the clients, do they?
https://news.sky.com/story/donald-trump-accuses-his-friend-emmanuel-macron-of-kissing-president-xi-jinpings-a-during-beijing-visit-12855833
1) Trump loses in the primaries to DeSantis;
2) Butthurt, he alleges vote rigging and runs as an independent;
3) DeSantis quits as Governor of Florida to focus on being nominee;
4) Biden selects Whitmer, Ossoff or Buttigieg as his VP;
5) Biden wins in an absolute landslide, due to the split vote, consigning both Trump and DeSantis to the outer darkness;
6) Biden then retires for undisclosed health reasons, leaving a capable President in charge;
7) A sane Republican nominee - Haley, perhaps? - emerges in 2028 and wins easily.
4 and 6 are not essential, but they would be optimal.
"An Irishman goes on to a building site looking for a job and is told by the foreman that he will have to undertake a brief test. ‘Fine,’ says the Irishman. ‘OK then,’ says the foreman. ‘First up, can you tell me the difference between a joist and a girder?’ ‘That’s easy,’ the Irishman replies. ‘Joyce wrote Ulysses and Goethe wrote Faust.’
Far from being too thick for the job, the Irishman is over-qualified.
The theory is, if anything more is amiss, this could open her up to actual criminal charges
I have no idea if any of this is true or justifiable, but it is mindboggling how quickly she's gone from untouchable leader to potential court appearances, as the accused
Obviously he was there with the knowledge of police officers. They could see him. He's quite distinctive.
He was in the company of police officers at times as they tried to manage the situation.
Neither of those facts alter that he shouldn't have been in the building at all and had entered to disrupt proceedings. The footage, indeed, shows Chansley was where he shouldn't be.
Do you have any evidence that his early release was connected to the Carlson footage? Or is that just you swallowing a bullshit Trumpist conspiracy theory?
That's Trump's job.
The Treasurer of the SNP, Douglas Chapman, resigned in May 2021 because he said he was not being given access to the records that he needed to do his duties. It is a mandatory post and there is a suggestion that I have not seen confirmed yet that for a period of time after his resignation Nicola took on the role to meet that requirement. Whether she actually did anything in the role is, I think, entirely unknown.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alSLpf1MlXo
If any of that is vaguely true… WTAF?
"I have no recollection....the SNP you say?.....No....."
The problem is, the VP role is occupied by someone who doesn't necessarily fulfil any of those three requirements. And who was the last POTUS to jettison their VP before their re-election bid?
Oh
"And this improves governance how exactly?
Humza Yousaf hands plum SNP job to wife of his independence minister"
https://twitter.com/HTScotPol/status/1646128813493956613?s=20
Either the SNP simply don't care how bad this looks because they are so dim or arrogant or both, or they reckon they are doomed so they are grabbing as much loot as they can, and cushy jobs, before the Scottish people boot them out
There are several hundred hours of tapes.
Two Irish pilots are coming in to land. They touch down, and almost immediately find themselves ploughing through the grass.
Pilot 1: Man, that was a short runway!
Pilot 2: Wide, though, wasn't it?
Now, if we started that with "Two thick pilots are coming into land" it wouldn't work at all.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/12/ron-desantis-presidential-run-00091599
If there are only 10 stadiums in total, can they really justify a second one in Scotland?
The issue is that he is up against Trump and Trump is going after the same base with more success...
(Following up on my theory that Trump carries a virus that causes people’s brains to melt)
I have to say with all due respect to Biden I still think it was a real error by Obama not to bring forward a younger VP in 2012. Clinton would never have bothered to stand in that case and Trump would never happened.
Wigan Athletic, Hull and Huddersfield for three.
You may not be aware but there has been software/databases that design chemical synthesis for a while - one such is called reaxys - I use it frequently.
There have also been software to predict properties of novel compounds, although prediction does not always meet reality.
What this paper presents is interesting, but I don’t see a spark of AGI here, rather improvements on things that are already happening.
Looks extremely useful for the design of new molecular targets, but I note it refused to synthsise the one interesting looking drug…
And, also, this is Tucker Carlson. If you can't play the man when you're dealing with a proven liar and propagandist, who has admitted to saying lies for entertainment, when can you? This guy has spread COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and described Iraqis as "semi-literate primitive monkeys".
The values they need to espouse to get the nomination are wildly out of touch with those of the median voter.
Do you have any evidence to suggest that either Fox News, or the good Tucker, would be a sensible choice if you were seeking an unbiased account ?
As opposed to releasing the tapes to all news organisations ?