If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
The system did do its job. He was voted out for having failed as president.
The issue became that he then repeatedly tried to overthrow the system to stay in power.
Whatever her many and egregious shortcomings, that was hardly the fault of Hilary Clinton.
As @Sandpit has pointed out, American politicians on both sides are so immersed in the system, there are plenty of things which you could investigate.
Clinton and classified government documentation on her personal e-mail servers? Tick
Biden and the payments to his family? Tick
Obama's failure to stop Biden's activities as VP and whether he therefore allowed foreign countries to influence US policy? Tick
Nancy Pelosi and her share deals? Tick
Once you start down this route, there is no end.
H Clinton was investigated. Her errors were deemed too minor to prosecute.
Biden and his son have been investigated. Nothing has been found to link any payments to Joe. Hunter has been charged with some minor crimes.
The problem with your argument of equivalence is that the facts don’t agree with you.
Also, as the late and lamented conservative humourist, P J O´Rourke, once said as he- very reluctantly endorsed- Hilary over Trump.. "I am endorsing Hillary, and all her lies and all her empty promises. It's the second-worst thing that can happen to this country, but she's way behind in second place. She's wrong about absolutely everything, but she's wrong within normal parameters."
Trump was not only a lousy President, he was, and is, a lousy man. Neither is he a lousy man "within normal parameters". He is not just a liar, a crook, and a rogue- as we keep finding, he is way beyond normal parameters..
Trump is uniquely a performance artist of fakery, a liar so brazen that he is not so much post truth, he is a man who does not even understand what truth is. His personal conduct is industrial strength creepy and slimy, exactly the kind of creep and slime he learned from Roy Cohn when he hired him as his personal attorney, so that he could learn corruption and slime from the master. We can judge a man by his friends: crooked attorneys, mafiosi, call girls, fraudsters and general scum.
So, while his supporters may shout "they are all the same", the truth is inevitably different. He is unique and uniquely he has been impeached twice and indicted four times and rising. This is not normal, it is no where near normal parameters, in fact no one else even comes close.
And he will end in jail.
I remember saying at the time that I thought Clinton would be a terrible president, probably not much better than Trump.
I stand by the first point. On that last point I was truly tragically mistaken.
It remains my second most stupid comment on PB, just behind my 2015 comment that Alistair Cook was mad to stick the Aussies in on winning the toss. At Trent Bridge...
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
A long time back, I was at the Park Lane antiques fair.
A dealer was remarking that it was hard times in the Fabergee and similar snuff box sales market.
He did laugh when I suggested marketing the snuff boxes to gangster rappers. A box to store powder you put in your nose, ultra bling, "posh" and super expensive - how could it fail?
But only now, momentarily: lots of catching up to do with the inflation accumulated over the last 2-3 years. An instantaneous differential rate is one thing: what hits people in the pocket is the integral.
Edit: and real wages *still* going down, even on your figure.
Inflation fallen from 10% to under 8%, if you had your way we would have an inflationary wage spiral and inflation rising from 10% not falling
My way? What on earth are you talking about?
You're proud of inflation at 8% ... positvely proud of it. And a situation where actual workers' wages play little part in inflation. As pointed out many times here.
I am proud of the government reducing inflation from 11.1% last year at its peak to just 7.9% this month ie little more than the 7.8% rise in wages on today's figures.
Had you been in charge inflation would probably now be 12%+ and rising
Had my granny been a Caenorhabditis elegans, I wouldn't be shaking my head at your approach to rational argument.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
Had an experience with a real life Saturday morning Russian troll today.
Opened with small talk, then for no reason switched to talking about an 'interesting' podcast by RFK Jr, and how he laid out a timeline about Ukraine and you cannot blame the Russians really. I opined I really could, and they started on the checklist - NATO expansion, ethnic Russians being oppressed, look at the USA in Iraq, the works. By the end I was preempting all the points they were raising.
They walk among us.
The damage done to the reputation of the West by that stupid, stupid war will keep reverberating through the decades. It will forever be used as justification to keep third countries onside by aggressors seeking to "liberate" through invasion.
Stark illustration of the absolute disaster of Cameron's and Osborne's austerity policy. None of our peers followed us down that route.
The Conservatives have done nothing else right since then, either.
Much of the Eurozone had real austerity, not the increasing annually (but at a slower rate) "austerity" that the UK had.
Look at Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, the Netherlands and more for the austerity other nations had.
The only ones that didn't were those that didn't have a deficit like ours.
I can't think of any European peer that was spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave when the GFC hit (like Brown's was) that then continued to without any form of austerity afterwards.
Labour should use that graph in its election ads.
Whatever, spin you and fellow rightists try to put on it, most people will see the the simple truth: Labour = growing wages; Tories = stagnant wages.
Borrowing to boost wages isn't growing wages, its stealing from your grandchildren.
But a lot of voters seem to like that as a policy.
That's more bullshit.
Here's the UK defict as %GDP for the period 1998 - 2023
See that point in 2002/03 when it goes into having a deficit, despite there not being a recession in 2002/03?
Stupid, stupid, stupid mismanagement of the finances.
So when the inevitable recession hit, instead of going from budget surplus to manageable budget deficit, we went from deficit to humongous out of control deficit instead. Because the deficit inevitably worsens when you hit the inevitable downturn, which is why you don't blow your budget wide open five years before the recession.
For the rest of the century the deficit has improved annually, or gotten worse during downtimes (like GFC or Covid or Russia/Ukraine War) which is natural and appropriate economics. Spending like there's no tomorrow pre-crash just means you're royally fucked when the crash inevitably comes. And it was entirely unnecessary since there was a budget surplus in 2002 and that just had to be maintained as a balanced budget or small surplus in order to avoid austerity.
First of all there was a recession in the early 2000s, just not in Britain. Have you considered we avoided this recession because of Brown's counter-cyclical spending? Secondly, the scale of the GFC makes the small and within normal range deficits beforehand immaterial. You've been banging this drum for years, and you are wrong.
Firstly what recession was there in 2002/03?
Are you perhaps referring to the minor recession other nations experienced in 2000/01?
Have I considered that we avoided the recession in 2000/01 because of an increase in expenditure that only happened from 2002/03 onwards? No, I have not. I'll let you figure out why.
Secondly no the range of deficits beforehand is not immaterial because it is the starting point. The scale of the GFC was rather typical actually for how it blew the budget, it added 7% to our deficit. Other recessions have equally typically added about 7% to the deficit. That's pretty normal, not massive.
The problem was that 1% surplus minus 7% equals a 6% deficit - that is tolerable for a recession. See the last UK recession before the GFC for that.
Whereas a pre-existing and utterly unnecessary 3% deficit, minus a further 7%, suddenly equals a 10% deficit. Which is intolerable.
This is why Brown's overspending was catastrophic. Not because its an unprecedented deficit but adding a typical and to be-expected cyclical, recessionary swing in the budget from a 3% deficit starting point left us horrifically exposed. Because we were horrifically exposed by having such a deficit pre-crash as our starting point to move from.
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
The system did do its job. He was voted out for having failed as president.
The issue became that he then repeatedly tried to overthrow the system to stay in power.
Whatever her many and egregious shortcomings, that was hardly the fault of Hilary Clinton.
As @Sandpit has pointed out, American politicians on both sides are so immersed in the system, there are plenty of things which you could investigate.
Clinton and classified government documentation on her personal e-mail servers? Tick
Biden and the payments to his family? Tick
Obama's failure to stop Biden's activities as VP and whether he therefore allowed foreign countries to influence US policy? Tick
Nancy Pelosi and her share deals? Tick
Once you start down this route, there is no end.
H Clinton was investigated. Her errors were deemed too minor to prosecute.
Biden and his son have been investigated. Nothing has been found to link any payments to Joe. Hunter has been charged with some minor crimes.
The problem with your argument of equivalence is that the facts don’t agree with you.
Also, as the late and lamented conservative humourist, P J O´Rourke, once said as he- very reluctantly- endorsed Hilary over Trump.. "I am endorsing Hillary, and all her lies and all her empty promises. It's the second-worst thing that can happen to this country, but she's way behind in second place. She's wrong about absolutely everything, but she's wrong within normal parameters."
Trump was not only a lousy President, he was, and is, a lousy man. Neither is he a lousy man "within normal parameters". He is not just a liar, a crook, and a rogue- as we keep finding, he is way beyond normal parameters..
Trump is uniquely a performance artist of fakery, a liar so brazen that he is not so much post truth, he is a man who does not even understand what truth is. His personal conduct is industrial strength creepy and slimy, exactly the kind of creep and slime he learned from Roy Cohn when he hired him as his personal attorney, so that he could learn corruption and slime from the master. We can judge a man by his friends: crooked attorneys, mafiosi, call girls, fraudsters and general scum.
So, while his supporters may shout "they are all the same", the truth is inevitably different. He is unique and uniquely he has been impeached twice and indicted four times and rising. This is not normal, it is no where near normal parameters, in fact no one else even comes close.
And he will end in jail.
I agree completely up to the final sentence. I think he'll find a way to slip the net somehow, be it the Presidency, doing a runner, or dying, before he serves time.
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
Indeed. Someone in the US needs to take a step back from the hyper-polarisation, before a genuine conflict emerges. I don’t think it will be a hot civil war, but it will definitely be violent in places, as we’ve seen sporadically in the past few years.
The biggest problem is that the polarisation is popular; it sells newspapers and cable news eyeballs, it brings in donations and brings out voters. The actual Trump in power, was nothing like the rhetoric from either his own side or his opponents.
Trying to jail your political opponents, for actions committed while they were in office, is possibly the worst example of this polarisation in practice. It doesn’t help that the amount of money in politics, means that almost no-one who’s been around Washington for any length of time is properly clean, so the incentives are there to continue trying to prosecute opppenents whenever there’s a change of government.
There really needs to be an expansion of both term limits and maximum ages. A President or Senator shouldn’t be older than 70 on election, and both limited to two terms. Reps should be limited to five terms, a decade in the House, and not older than the federal retirement age.
I would agree on all this. I think the one thing that is missing is the personal element. I put a lot of the blame on Obama. He so personally detested Trump - and you only have to see the look in his eyes when he dropped the mic to see how much he hated the man with a passion - that he encouraged the Democrats to go after Trump. I do think Clinton was miffed but she had little real influence post-her defeat and, in any event, I am sure Bill would have been advising her not to rock the boat.
Obama really does have a lot to answer for.
#allobamasfault
Only from the PB Trumptons.
Only on PB.
PM Trumpers have a simple world view.
They are right wing. Trump is right wing. Trump therefore cannot be wrong.
Meanwhile in the real world, Trump has been indicted by multiple jurisdictions for multiple alleged crimes of multiple types. If the charges are all politically motivated then a great deal of imagination has been brought by the left wing conspirators to fake so much evidence for so many different crimes.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park where you're sticking your front end in first in order to leave the boot available for your shopping. And yet while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Can you attach a roofbox? It's not obvious that you can. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
The system did do its job. He was voted out for having failed as president.
The issue became that he then repeatedly tried to overthrow the system to stay in power.
Whatever her many and egregious shortcomings, that was hardly the fault of Hilary Clinton.
As @Sandpit has pointed out, American politicians on both sides are so immersed in the system, there are plenty of things which you could investigate.
Clinton and classified government documentation on her personal e-mail servers? Tick
Biden and the payments to his family? Tick
Obama's failure to stop Biden's activities as VP and whether he therefore allowed foreign countries to influence US policy? Tick
Nancy Pelosi and her share deals? Tick
Once you start down this route, there is no end.
H Clinton was investigated. Her errors were deemed too minor to prosecute.
Biden and his son have been investigated. Nothing has been found to link any payments to Joe. Hunter has been charged with some minor crimes.
The problem with your argument of equivalence is that the facts don’t agree with you.
Also, as the late and lamented conservative humourist, P J O´Rourke, once said as he- very reluctantly endorsed- Hilary over Trump.. "I am endorsing Hillary, and all her lies and all her empty promises. It's the second-worst thing that can happen to this country, but she's way behind in second place. She's wrong about absolutely everything, but she's wrong within normal parameters."
Trump was not only a lousy President, he was, and is, a lousy man. Neither is he a lousy man "within normal parameters". He is not just a liar, a crook, and a rogue- as we keep finding, he is way beyond normal parameters..
Trump is uniquely a performance artist of fakery, a liar so brazen that he is not so much post truth, he is a man who does not even understand what truth is. His personal conduct is industrial strength creepy and slimy, exactly the kind of creep and slime he learned from Roy Cohn when he hired him as his personal attorney, so that he could learn corruption and slime from the master. We can judge a man by his friends: crooked attorneys, mafiosi, call girls, fraudsters and general scum.
So, while his supporters may shout "they are all the same", the truth is inevitably different. He is unique and uniquely he has been impeached twice and indicted four times and rising. This is not normal, it is no where near normal parameters, in fact no one else even comes close.
And he will end in jail.
I remember saying at the time that I thought Clinton would be a terrible president, probably not much better than Trump.
I stand by the first point. On that last point I was truly tragically mistaken.
It remains my second most stupid comment on PB, just behind my 2015 comment that Alistair Cook was mad to stick the Aussies in on winning the toss. At Trent Bridge...
I have faith in you, you've probably said something more stupid
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
Indeed. Someone in the US needs to take a step back from the hyper-polarisation, before a genuine conflict emerges. I don’t think it will be a hot civil war, but it will definitely be violent in places, as we’ve seen sporadically in the past few years.
The biggest problem is that the polarisation is popular; it sells newspapers and cable news eyeballs, it brings in donations and brings out voters. The actual Trump in power, was nothing like the rhetoric from either his own side or his opponents.
Trying to jail your political opponents, for actions committed while they were in office, is possibly the worst example of this polarisation in practice. It doesn’t help that the amount of money in politics, means that almost no-one who’s been around Washington for any length of time is properly clean, so the incentives are there to continue trying to prosecute opppenents whenever there’s a change of government.
There really needs to be an expansion of both term limits and maximum ages. A President or Senator shouldn’t be older than 70 on election, and both limited to two terms. Reps should be limited to five terms, a decade in the House, and not older than the federal retirement age.
I would agree on all this. I think the one thing that is missing is the personal element. I put a lot of the blame on Obama. He so personally detested Trump - and you only have to see the look in his eyes when he dropped the mic to see how much he hated the man with a passion - that he encouraged the Democrats to go after Trump. I do think Clinton was miffed but she had little real influence post-her defeat and, in any event, I am sure Bill would have been advising her not to rock the boat.
Obama really does have a lot to answer for.
#allobamasfault
Only from the PB Trumptons.
Only on PB.
PM Trumpers have a simple world view.
They are right wing. Trump is right wing. Trump therefore cannot be wrong.
Meanwhile in the real world, Trump has been indicted by multiple jurisdictions for multiple alleged crimes of multiple types. If the charges are all politically motivated then a great deal of imagination has been brought by the left wing conspirators to fake so much evidence for so many different crimes.
Trump is America's mirror Corbyn.
Any sane right winger should want absolutely nothing to do with him.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park. And while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
People in that sort of car go shopping and self-catering? I appreciate you are probably joking but your first point sounds like a serious one.
I always emerge from junctions like that. If you are old enough and your truck is large, old and battered enough, it's a de facto right of way situation.
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
Indeed. Someone in the US needs to take a step back from the hyper-polarisation, before a genuine conflict emerges. I don’t think it will be a hot civil war, but it will definitely be violent in places, as we’ve seen sporadically in the past few years.
The biggest problem is that the polarisation is popular; it sells newspapers and cable news eyeballs, it brings in donations and brings out voters. The actual Trump in power, was nothing like the rhetoric from either his own side or his opponents.
Trying to jail your political opponents, for actions committed while they were in office, is possibly the worst example of this polarisation in practice. It doesn’t help that the amount of money in politics, means that almost no-one who’s been around Washington for any length of time is properly clean, so the incentives are there to continue trying to prosecute opppenents whenever there’s a change of government.
There really needs to be an expansion of both term limits and maximum ages. A President or Senator shouldn’t be older than 70 on election, and both limited to two terms. Reps should be limited to five terms, a decade in the House, and not older than the federal retirement age.
But what’s the alternative to trying to jail your political opponents for actions committed while they were in office, *when* they have broken the law? Why should Trump be allowed to break the law just because he’s a politician?
The law applies to everyone is a bedrock of a democratic system. Immunity for those in office is a recipe for disaster. We’ve all heard the phone call. Trump asked Raffensperger to find votes for him. That seems like prima facie evidence of legal wrongdoing.
Also that call was well after most legal challenges had failed, iirc, which could be important. If most matters were legally settles and legal avenues exhausted, the same basic urgings are much worse, since even if you believe it all still, you don't have a right to try to change things in a non legal way.
The BBC have a copy of the call on their website. Sadly it stops immediately after Trump says something like ‘we won the state’. Just after he’s asked for another 11,000 votes. It would have been helpful to have Raffenberger’s reply.
It was a long call in fairness. It goes back and forth a lot with Trump blustering and threatening.
The key has to be that some of his charges are not escaped by him saying he believed the vote was rigged no matter who told him otherwise. Or just believed the moves were legal. That will work on some but not all. Others are that even if he did believe he was not allowed to do it.
Some things done are very wrong regardless of if it's criminal of course.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park where you're sticking your front end in first in order to leave the boot available for your shopping. And yet while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Can you attach a roofbox? It's not obvious that you can. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
One sends one’s luggage ahead of oneself, when going on a road trip in a Grand Tourer. One certainly has someone else to do the shopping, and probably even the parking.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
But only now, momentarily: lots of catching up to do with the inflation accumulated over the last 2-3 years. An instantaneous differential rate is one thing: what hits people in the pocket is the integral.
Edit: and real wages *still* going down, even on your figure.
Inflation fallen from 10% to under 8%, if you had your way we would have an inflationary wage spiral and inflation rising from 10% not falling
Surely, at bottom, all we want is wages rising faster than prices? If wages are rising lest fast than prices, this is bad news. The fact that wages rising above the increase in prices may, down the line, lead to prices rising is not a reason to celebrate prices rising faster than wages. Now we probably all agree than this is most easily achieved in a low-inflation scenario. But that's a secondary issue.
What does the BoE expect people to do - not accept a wage increase in a cost-of-living crisis as interest rates surge?
This is all very messy. Despite record net migration, the fall in participation rates has seen the labour market tighten, putting pressure on wages.
There was record saving during the pandemic for richer households, so they have plenty to burn during this period even while the "furlough class" suffer. And interest rates on savings are not high enough to reduce their propensity to spend.
Meanwhile, people who own their homes outright (those richer people again, generally) aren't feeling the pinch as much, and the only tool available to the BoE hurts mortgage holders and renters the most, many of whom cannot reduce their spending any further.
I think the economic orthodoxy is that you can use counter-cyclical tax increases to take money out of the economy, and consequently cool inflation. Ideally creating the space to cut taxes in the event of a recession/deflation. Bonus being that tax increases could be more targeted than interest rate increases - so perhaps a property or asset tax?
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
Indeed. Someone in the US needs to take a step back from the hyper-polarisation, before a genuine conflict emerges. I don’t think it will be a hot civil war, but it will definitely be violent in places, as we’ve seen sporadically in the past few years.
The biggest problem is that the polarisation is popular; it sells newspapers and cable news eyeballs, it brings in donations and brings out voters. The actual Trump in power, was nothing like the rhetoric from either his own side or his opponents.
Trying to jail your political opponents, for actions committed while they were in office, is possibly the worst example of this polarisation in practice. It doesn’t help that the amount of money in politics, means that almost no-one who’s been around Washington for any length of time is properly clean, so the incentives are there to continue trying to prosecute opppenents whenever there’s a change of government.
There really needs to be an expansion of both term limits and maximum ages. A President or Senator shouldn’t be older than 70 on election, and both limited to two terms. Reps should be limited to five terms, a decade in the House, and not older than the federal retirement age.
I would agree on all this. I think the one thing that is missing is the personal element. I put a lot of the blame on Obama. He so personally detested Trump - and you only have to see the look in his eyes when he dropped the mic to see how much he hated the man with a passion - that he encouraged the Democrats to go after Trump. I do think Clinton was miffed but she had little real influence post-her defeat and, in any event, I am sure Bill would have been advising her not to rock the boat.
Obama really does have a lot to answer for.
#allobamasfault
Only from the PB Trumptons.
Only on PB.
PM Trumpers have a simple world view.
They are right wing. Trump is right wing. Trump therefore cannot be wrong.
Meanwhile in the real world, Trump has been indicted by multiple jurisdictions for multiple alleged crimes of multiple types. If the charges are all politically motivated then a great deal of imagination has been brought by the left wing conspirators to fake so much evidence for so many different crimes.
Trump is America's mirror Corbyn.
Any sane right winger should want absolutely nothing to do with him.
Trump is way beyond Corbyn. Way way waaaaaaaay beyond. However politically off-centre Jezbollah was, he didn't advocate any of the madness that Trump has done. And having grown a cult following quickly, Jezza was just as quick to lose it. Trump on the other hand seems to only grow in support the more bonkers and criminal he gets.
See for instance the Sally Clark case, where the infamous Roy Meadow opined on the chance of two cot deaths in one family, without understanding statistics (Bayes theory, for @Miklosvar ).
coughcoughassumingindependencecoughcough
Equation 1: P(A and B ) = P(A) x P(B) if B is independent of A
Equation 2: P(A and B ) = P(A) x P(B|A) if B is not independent of A
Roy Meadow thought that the second cot death (B) was independent of the first cot death (A), so he used the first equation. But apparently they aren't and he should have used the second equation instead
That is still very poor probability maths for the situation.
While for any specific individual the probability of two unlikely things happening together is small, in a large enough population the probability that it will happen to someone will be a lot higher, and you shouldn't prosecute that someone simply for being unlucky.
Wasn't this a problem with early DNA matching that nobody wanted to talk about?
If you have reason to test your suspect and you get a match, fine. If you trawl a database of x million people and get a match, not so good.
More that early DNA testing used a cheap, quick method for a "match" which wasn't actually matching DNA. More that one sample was fairly like the other. The probability of a "match" was quite low.
There was that too.
But there were a number of cases where the evidence was presented that a DNA match was a 1 in 10m chance - or something like that - and there wasn't much else to go on.
At that point you should be thinking, well, that means there are 6 people out there in the UK who you could have trawled from a database. This isn't a 99.9999999% chance you having the right person, it is a 17% chance.
Assumes no contamination of the sample etc. Wasn't there a recent case of a mystery woman showing up in multiple unlinked cases that turned out to be someone not being careful in the manufacture of the kits?
Yes. It seems were a number of odd cases of contamination.
I see as predicted I'mnofanofTrumpbutism is back in vogue. To be scrupulously fair, I think some of these lads (despite the occasional fig leaf protestation) are fans of Trump.
Lots of thinly veiled Trumptons on PB.
Speaking personally, I really can't be bothered with prefacing my thoughts on any given issue with 'now I'm no fan of'. Anyone worth discussing something with will engage with the issues. Idiots looking for 'thinly veiled Trumptons' weren't likely to bring much of value to the discussion anyway.
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
Indeed. Someone in the US needs to take a step back from the hyper-polarisation, before a genuine conflict emerges. I don’t think it will be a hot civil war, but it will definitely be violent in places, as we’ve seen sporadically in the past few years.
The biggest problem is that the polarisation is popular; it sells newspapers and cable news eyeballs, it brings in donations and brings out voters. The actual Trump in power, was nothing like the rhetoric from either his own side or his opponents.
Trying to jail your political opponents, for actions committed while they were in office, is possibly the worst example of this polarisation in practice. It doesn’t help that the amount of money in politics, means that almost no-one who’s been around Washington for any length of time is properly clean, so the incentives are there to continue trying to prosecute opppenents whenever there’s a change of government.
There really needs to be an expansion of both term limits and maximum ages. A President or Senator shouldn’t be older than 70 on election, and both limited to two terms. Reps should be limited to five terms, a decade in the House, and not older than the federal retirement age.
I would agree on all this. I think the one thing that is missing is the personal element. I put a lot of the blame on Obama. He so personally detested Trump - and you only have to see the look in his eyes when he dropped the mic to see how much he hated the man with a passion - that he encouraged the Democrats to go after Trump. I do think Clinton was miffed but she had little real influence post-her defeat and, in any event, I am sure Bill would have been advising her not to rock the boat.
Obama really does have a lot to answer for.
#allobamasfault
Only from the PB Trumptons.
Only on PB.
PM Trumpers have a simple world view.
They are right wing. Trump is right wing. Trump therefore cannot be wrong.
Meanwhile in the real world, Trump has been indicted by multiple jurisdictions for multiple alleged crimes of multiple types. If the charges are all politically motivated then a great deal of imagination has been brought by the left wing conspirators to fake so much evidence for so many different crimes.
Trump is America's mirror Corbyn.
Any sane right winger should want absolutely nothing to do with him.
Trump is way beyond Corbyn. Way way waaaaaaaay beyond. However politically off-centre Jezbollah was, he didn't advocate any of the madness that Trump has done. And having grown a cult following quickly, Jezza was just as quick to lose it. Trump on the other hand seems to only grow in support the more bonkers and criminal he gets.
With all his many faults, Corbyn didn't try to overthrow the government.
Even when he did unexpectedly well in 2017, and claimed a moral victory, he stuck firmly to constitutional methods.
I see as predicted I'mnofanofTrumpbutism is back in vogue. To be scrupulously fair, I think some of these lads (despite the occasional fig leaf protestation) are fans of Trump.
Lots of thinly veiled Trumptons on PB.
Speaking personally, I really can't be bothered with prefacing my thoughts on any given issue with 'now I'm no fan of'. Anyone worth discussing something with will engage with the issues. Idiots looking for 'thinly veiled Trumptons' weren't likely to bring much of value to the discussion anyway.
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
Indeed. Someone in the US needs to take a step back from the hyper-polarisation, before a genuine conflict emerges. I don’t think it will be a hot civil war, but it will definitely be violent in places, as we’ve seen sporadically in the past few years.
The biggest problem is that the polarisation is popular; it sells newspapers and cable news eyeballs, it brings in donations and brings out voters. The actual Trump in power, was nothing like the rhetoric from either his own side or his opponents.
Trying to jail your political opponents, for actions committed while they were in office, is possibly the worst example of this polarisation in practice. It doesn’t help that the amount of money in politics, means that almost no-one who’s been around Washington for any length of time is properly clean, so the incentives are there to continue trying to prosecute opppenents whenever there’s a change of government.
There really needs to be an expansion of both term limits and maximum ages. A President or Senator shouldn’t be older than 70 on election, and both limited to two terms. Reps should be limited to five terms, a decade in the House, and not older than the federal retirement age.
I would agree on all this. I think the one thing that is missing is the personal element. I put a lot of the blame on Obama. He so personally detested Trump - and you only have to see the look in his eyes when he dropped the mic to see how much he hated the man with a passion - that he encouraged the Democrats to go after Trump. I do think Clinton was miffed but she had little real influence post-her defeat and, in any event, I am sure Bill would have been advising her not to rock the boat.
Obama really does have a lot to answer for.
#allobamasfault
Only from the PB Trumptons.
Only on PB.
PM Trumpers have a simple world view.
They are right wing. Trump is right wing. Trump therefore cannot be wrong.
Meanwhile in the real world, Trump has been indicted by multiple jurisdictions for multiple alleged crimes of multiple types. If the charges are all politically motivated then a great deal of imagination has been brought by the left wing conspirators to fake so much evidence for so many different crimes.
Trump is America's mirror Corbyn.
Any sane right winger should want absolutely nothing to do with him.
Trump is way beyond Corbyn. Way way waaaaaaaay beyond. However politically off-centre Jezbollah was, he didn't advocate any of the madness that Trump has done. And having grown a cult following quickly, Jezza was just as quick to lose it. Trump on the other hand seems to only grow in support the more bonkers and criminal he gets.
As someone who despises Corbyn - he hasn't shown the slightest sign of trying to overthrow the political system. Or the myriad of financial and procedural crimes that Trump has commited.
Off thread - we're rewatching Parks and Recreation. In series 5 (so probably about 2009), Joe Biden makes an appearance. Now, acting is hard (anyone remember Maggie's appearance in Yes Minister?). People who aren't actors tend to be wooden at best. But Joe Biden was not only very good, but also charming, articulate and charismatic. For those who didn't really come across him until he was president in his dotage, it was quite a shock. (And I know they can shoot and reshoot and reshoot, but presumably when he's recording stuff as president he can too.)
Bloody funny episode. Most of them were. When she leans in for the snog it's priceless.
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
The system did do its job. He was voted out for having failed as president.
The issue became that he then repeatedly tried to overthrow the system to stay in power.
Whatever her many and egregious shortcomings, that was hardly the fault of Hilary Clinton.
As @Sandpit has pointed out, American politicians on both sides are so immersed in the system, there are plenty of things which you could investigate.
Clinton and classified government documentation on her personal e-mail servers? Tick
Biden and the payments to his family? Tick
Obama's failure to stop Biden's activities as VP and whether he therefore allowed foreign countries to influence US policy? Tick
Nancy Pelosi and her share deals? Tick
Once you start down this route, there is no end.
H Clinton was investigated. Her errors were deemed too minor to prosecute.
Biden and his son have been investigated. Nothing has been found to link any payments to Joe. Hunter has been charged with some minor crimes.
The problem with your argument of equivalence is that the facts don’t agree with you.
Also, as the late and lamented conservative humourist, P J O´Rourke, once said as he- very reluctantly endorsed- Hilary over Trump.. "I am endorsing Hillary, and all her lies and all her empty promises. It's the second-worst thing that can happen to this country, but she's way behind in second place. She's wrong about absolutely everything, but she's wrong within normal parameters."
Trump was not only a lousy President, he was, and is, a lousy man. Neither is he a lousy man "within normal parameters". He is not just a liar, a crook, and a rogue- as we keep finding, he is way beyond normal parameters..
Trump is uniquely a performance artist of fakery, a liar so brazen that he is not so much post truth, he is a man who does not even understand what truth is. His personal conduct is industrial strength creepy and slimy, exactly the kind of creep and slime he learned from Roy Cohn when he hired him as his personal attorney, so that he could learn corruption and slime from the master. We can judge a man by his friends: crooked attorneys, mafiosi, call girls, fraudsters and general scum.
So, while his supporters may shout "they are all the same", the truth is inevitably different. He is unique and uniquely he has been impeached twice and indicted four times and rising. This is not normal, it is no where near normal parameters, in fact no one else even comes close.
And he will end in jail.
I remember saying at the time that I thought Clinton would be a terrible president, probably not much better than Trump.
I stand by the first point. On that last point I was truly tragically mistaken.
It remains my second most stupid comment on PB, just behind my 2015 comment that Alistair Cook was mad to stick the Aussies in on winning the toss. At Trent Bridge...
I have faith in you, you've probably said something more stupid
The only way I could have said something more stupid than that is if I commented on the integrity, administrative efficiency and personal charm of an official of the DfE.
And that has not happened in this space time continuum.
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
Indeed. Someone in the US needs to take a step back from the hyper-polarisation, before a genuine conflict emerges. I don’t think it will be a hot civil war, but it will definitely be violent in places, as we’ve seen sporadically in the past few years.
The biggest problem is that the polarisation is popular; it sells newspapers and cable news eyeballs, it brings in donations and brings out voters. The actual Trump in power, was nothing like the rhetoric from either his own side or his opponents.
Trying to jail your political opponents, for actions committed while they were in office, is possibly the worst example of this polarisation in practice. It doesn’t help that the amount of money in politics, means that almost no-one who’s been around Washington for any length of time is properly clean, so the incentives are there to continue trying to prosecute opppenents whenever there’s a change of government.
There really needs to be an expansion of both term limits and maximum ages. A President or Senator shouldn’t be older than 70 on election, and both limited to two terms. Reps should be limited to five terms, a decade in the House, and not older than the federal retirement age.
I would agree on all this. I think the one thing that is missing is the personal element. I put a lot of the blame on Obama. He so personally detested Trump - and you only have to see the look in his eyes when he dropped the mic to see how much he hated the man with a passion - that he encouraged the Democrats to go after Trump. I do think Clinton was miffed but she had little real influence post-her defeat and, in any event, I am sure Bill would have been advising her not to rock the boat.
Obama really does have a lot to answer for.
#allobamasfault
Only from the PB Trumptons.
Only on PB.
PM Trumpers have a simple world view.
They are right wing. Trump is right wing. Trump therefore cannot be wrong.
Meanwhile in the real world, Trump has been indicted by multiple jurisdictions for multiple alleged crimes of multiple types. If the charges are all politically motivated then a great deal of imagination has been brought by the left wing conspirators to fake so much evidence for so many different crimes.
Trump is America's mirror Corbyn.
Any sane right winger should want absolutely nothing to do with him.
Trump is way beyond Corbyn. Way way waaaaaaaay beyond. However politically off-centre Jezbollah was, he didn't advocate any of the madness that Trump has done. And having grown a cult following quickly, Jezza was just as quick to lose it. Trump on the other hand seems to only grow in support the more bonkers and criminal he gets.
Trump is worst than Corbyn, I'll agree with that, but he was advocating madness - and not just economic madness but the antisemitism etc
However Jezza didn't lose his following quickly, indeed the similarity with Trump is quite eerie in that having lost his first General Election his supporters acted (and many still act to this day) like he won it instead. Remind you of anyone?
Like any Dracula B-movie, It took a second stake through the heart, a second election defeat to kill of Corbynism. Maybe that's what it will take for Trumpism too?
If so, lets hope America's voters wield the stake as they need to.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park. And while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
People in that sort of car go shopping and self-catering? I appreciate you are probably joking but your first point sounds like a serious one.
I always emerge from junctions like that. If you are old enough and your truck is large, old and battered enough, it's a de facto right of way situation.
I'm amusing myself by thinking what I would do with one of those, but I think my general point is a reasonable one - if I buy a thing, it is because I think it will serve a particular purpose better than another thing. Presumably that's also true of whoever buys this - they're not buying it for it to sit in a garage. But what purpose does it serve? What journeys can you make for which it is better than an alternative? Not ease of use (going to the supermarket) or fitting a lot of stuff in. And presumably there are also better cars for speed, if that's your thing. And certainly not affordability. I can't imagine any circumstance that the oligarch goes out to his garage and thinks THAT is the car for the journey I'm making today.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park where you're sticking your front end in first in order to leave the boot available for your shopping. And yet while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Can you attach a roofbox? It's not obvious that you can. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
As I explained when chatting to a hotel manager in Sofia, you don't drive a Rolls Royce you are driven in a Rolls Royce.
Cue 2 weeks later all the rich clientele having drivers...
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
Indeed. Someone in the US needs to take a step back from the hyper-polarisation, before a genuine conflict emerges. I don’t think it will be a hot civil war, but it will definitely be violent in places, as we’ve seen sporadically in the past few years.
The biggest problem is that the polarisation is popular; it sells newspapers and cable news eyeballs, it brings in donations and brings out voters. The actual Trump in power, was nothing like the rhetoric from either his own side or his opponents.
Trying to jail your political opponents, for actions committed while they were in office, is possibly the worst example of this polarisation in practice. It doesn’t help that the amount of money in politics, means that almost no-one who’s been around Washington for any length of time is properly clean, so the incentives are there to continue trying to prosecute opppenents whenever there’s a change of government.
There really needs to be an expansion of both term limits and maximum ages. A President or Senator shouldn’t be older than 70 on election, and both limited to two terms. Reps should be limited to five terms, a decade in the House, and not older than the federal retirement age.
I would agree on all this. I think the one thing that is missing is the personal element. I put a lot of the blame on Obama. He so personally detested Trump - and you only have to see the look in his eyes when he dropped the mic to see how much he hated the man with a passion - that he encouraged the Democrats to go after Trump. I do think Clinton was miffed but she had little real influence post-her defeat and, in any event, I am sure Bill would have been advising her not to rock the boat.
Obama really does have a lot to answer for.
#allobamasfault
Only from the PB Trumptons.
Only on PB.
PM Trumpers have a simple world view.
They are right wing. Trump is right wing. Trump therefore cannot be wrong.
Meanwhile in the real world, Trump has been indicted by multiple jurisdictions for multiple alleged crimes of multiple types. If the charges are all politically motivated then a great deal of imagination has been brought by the left wing conspirators to fake so much evidence for so many different crimes.
Trump is America's mirror Corbyn.
Any sane right winger should want absolutely nothing to do with him.
Trump is way beyond Corbyn. Way way waaaaaaaay beyond. However politically off-centre Jezbollah was, he didn't advocate any of the madness that Trump has done. And having grown a cult following quickly, Jezza was just as quick to lose it. Trump on the other hand seems to only grow in support the more bonkers and criminal he gets.
As someone who despises Corbyn - he hasn't shown the slightest sign of trying to overthrow the political system. Or the myriad of financial and procedural crimes that Trump has commited.
To be fair to Corbyn, arguably he hasn't claimed a lot of money he actually should have done for reasonable expenses.
There was one time when he was spending so much out of his own salary on campaigning materials he defaulted on his mortgage.
He could be accused of many things, but certainly not being venal.
Trump's indictment may be a matter of much interest, comment and amusement, but it also reflects well on the USofA. Inconceivable for the like to happen in Russia, China or Iran.
The indictment matters much less than the convictions, which we do not have yet.
The US *appears* to have very narrowly dodged a bullet. I don't expect them to learn any lessons from this, and there will soon be other charlatans - perhaps cleverer than Trump - playing similar games. Which would be bad for the USA and the world.
You seem to be assuming that Trump will be stopped by being in jail. I am not so sure.
TDS in full force.
He is not going to be Potus from prison.
Enough of the gratuitous bedwetting.
You really need to show your workings here. The probabilities are on the face of it easily non-zero that Trump is imprisoned, and is elected. Are you saying the probability of one of them is in fact zero, and if so which? Or are you saying that a country so bound by law and precedent that it murders tens of thousands of its citizens every year because of an 18th century rule about muskets, is going to say sod the technicalities, we'll find a workaround? If you are saying that, what is the workaround going to be?
I'm saying it ain't going to happen. We'll see if I'm right.
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
Indeed. Someone in the US needs to take a step back from the hyper-polarisation, before a genuine conflict emerges. I don’t think it will be a hot civil war, but it will definitely be violent in places, as we’ve seen sporadically in the past few years.
The biggest problem is that the polarisation is popular; it sells newspapers and cable news eyeballs, it brings in donations and brings out voters. The actual Trump in power, was nothing like the rhetoric from either his own side or his opponents.
Trying to jail your political opponents, for actions committed while they were in office, is possibly the worst example of this polarisation in practice. It doesn’t help that the amount of money in politics, means that almost no-one who’s been around Washington for any length of time is properly clean, so the incentives are there to continue trying to prosecute opppenents whenever there’s a change of government.
There really needs to be an expansion of both term limits and maximum ages. A President or Senator shouldn’t be older than 70 on election, and both limited to two terms. Reps should be limited to five terms, a decade in the House, and not older than the federal retirement age.
But what’s the alternative to trying to jail your political opponents for actions committed while they were in office, *when* they have broken the law? Why should Trump be allowed to break the law just because he’s a politician?
The law applies to everyone is a bedrock of a democratic system. Immunity for those in office is a recipe for disaster. We’ve all heard the phone call. Trump asked Raffensperger to find votes for him. That seems like prima facie evidence of legal wrongdoing.
Also that call was well after most legal challenges had failed, iirc, which could be important. If most matters were legally settles and legal avenues exhausted, the same basic urgings are much worse, since even if you believe it all still, you don't have a right to try to change things in a non legal way.
The BBC have a copy of the call on their website. Sadly it stops immediately after Trump says something like ‘we won the state’. Just after he’s asked for another 11,000 votes. It would have been helpful to have Raffenberger’s reply.
It was a long call in fairness. It goes back and forth a lot with Trump blustering and threatening.
The key has to be that some of his charges are not escaped by him saying he believed the vote was rigged no matter who told him otherwise. Or just believed the moves were legal. That will work on some but not all. Others are that even if he did believe he was not allowed to do it.
Some things done are very wrong regardless of if it's criminal of course.
I see as predicted I'mnofanofTrumpbutism is back in vogue. To be scrupulously fair, I think some of these lads (despite the occasional fig leaf protestation) are fans of Trump.
Lots of thinly veiled Trumptons on PB.
Speaking personally, I really can't be bothered with prefacing my thoughts on any given issue with 'now I'm no fan of'. Anyone worth discussing something with will engage with the issues. Idiots looking for 'thinly veiled Trumptons' weren't likely to bring much of value to the discussion anyway.
There's no need for you to do that, we already know you're a fan of Putin and anyone who wishes harm on America - like Trump.
I see as predicted I'mnofanofTrumpbutism is back in vogue. To be scrupulously fair, I think some of these lads (despite the occasional fig leaf protestation) are fans of Trump.
Lots of thinly veiled Trumptons on PB.
Speaking personally, I really can't be bothered with prefacing my thoughts on any given issue with 'now I'm no fan of'. Anyone worth discussing something with will engage with the issues. Idiots looking for 'thinly veiled Trumptons' weren't likely to bring much of value to the discussion anyway.
Serious point - third axles might come into fashion, reducing tax liability when the government switches VED to axle-load.
No chance. The added weight and complexity would cost far too much. Bear in mind, you'd need two different rate racks to maintain Ackerman among many other complications.
It would also be very difficult to market and sell as most car buyers are very conservative. The last time I was at the Porsche test track at Leipzig (met Walter Rohrl!) an exec ruefully reflected that it was pointless to focus group car designs as people invariably just preferred designs that were closest to those with which they were already familiar.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park where you're sticking your front end in first in order to leave the boot available for your shopping. And yet while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Can you attach a roofbox? It's not obvious that you can. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
One sends one’s luggage ahead of oneself, when going on a road trip in a Grand Tourer. One certainly has someone else to do the shopping, and probably even the parking.
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
Indeed. Someone in the US needs to take a step back from the hyper-polarisation, before a genuine conflict emerges. I don’t think it will be a hot civil war, but it will definitely be violent in places, as we’ve seen sporadically in the past few years.
The biggest problem is that the polarisation is popular; it sells newspapers and cable news eyeballs, it brings in donations and brings out voters. The actual Trump in power, was nothing like the rhetoric from either his own side or his opponents.
Trying to jail your political opponents, for actions committed while they were in office, is possibly the worst example of this polarisation in practice. It doesn’t help that the amount of money in politics, means that almost no-one who’s been around Washington for any length of time is properly clean, so the incentives are there to continue trying to prosecute opppenents whenever there’s a change of government.
There really needs to be an expansion of both term limits and maximum ages. A President or Senator shouldn’t be older than 70 on election, and both limited to two terms. Reps should be limited to five terms, a decade in the House, and not older than the federal retirement age.
I would agree on all this. I think the one thing that is missing is the personal element. I put a lot of the blame on Obama. He so personally detested Trump - and you only have to see the look in his eyes when he dropped the mic to see how much he hated the man with a passion - that he encouraged the Democrats to go after Trump. I do think Clinton was miffed but she had little real influence post-her defeat and, in any event, I am sure Bill would have been advising her not to rock the boat.
Obama really does have a lot to answer for.
#allobamasfault
Only from the PB Trumptons.
Only on PB.
PM Trumpers have a simple world view.
They are right wing. Trump is right wing. Trump therefore cannot be wrong.
Meanwhile in the real world, Trump has been indicted by multiple jurisdictions for multiple alleged crimes of multiple types. If the charges are all politically motivated then a great deal of imagination has been brought by the left wing conspirators to fake so much evidence for so many different crimes.
Trump is America's mirror Corbyn.
Any sane right winger should want absolutely nothing to do with him.
Trump is way beyond Corbyn. Way way waaaaaaaay beyond. However politically off-centre Jezbollah was, he didn't advocate any of the madness that Trump has done. And having grown a cult following quickly, Jezza was just as quick to lose it. Trump on the other hand seems to only grow in support the more bonkers and criminal he gets.
As someone who despises Corbyn - he hasn't shown the slightest sign of trying to overthrow the political system. Or the myriad of financial and procedural crimes that Trump has commited.
But why do we have PB Trump Crankies desperate to insist that its all a political scam? Jezbollah cultists insisted that the myriad anti-semitism which was self-evident was nothing of the sort. He was Framed.
Trump stands accused - with reams of very visible evidence - of multiple serious crimes in multiple places over multiple years. For it all to be a political stitch-up as @Alanbrooke insisted there must have been an almighty liberal conspiracy against DJT.
He is a monster - a direct threat to both America's democracy and to global stability. Yet still they cheer him on and deny reality because his policies match their own ideals and that must mean he is a good'un.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park. And while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
People in that sort of car go shopping and self-catering? I appreciate you are probably joking but your first point sounds like a serious one.
I always emerge from junctions like that. If you are old enough and your truck is large, old and battered enough, it's a de facto right of way situation.
I'm amusing myself by thinking what I would do with one of those, but I think my general point is a reasonable one - if I buy a thing, it is because I think it will serve a particular purpose better than another thing. Presumably that's also true of whoever buys this - they're not buying it for it to sit in a garage. But what purpose does it serve? What journeys can you make for which it is better than an alternative? Not ease of use (going to the supermarket) or fitting a lot of stuff in. And presumably there are also better cars for speed, if that's your thing. And certainly not affordability. I can't imagine any circumstance that the oligarch goes out to his garage and thinks THAT is the car for the journey I'm making today.
The Roller is the car to be driven to important meetings and events particularly where photographers might be. It's not for practicality, speed or efficiency.
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
Indeed. Someone in the US needs to take a step back from the hyper-polarisation, before a genuine conflict emerges. I don’t think it will be a hot civil war, but it will definitely be violent in places, as we’ve seen sporadically in the past few years.
The biggest problem is that the polarisation is popular; it sells newspapers and cable news eyeballs, it brings in donations and brings out voters. The actual Trump in power, was nothing like the rhetoric from either his own side or his opponents.
Trying to jail your political opponents, for actions committed while they were in office, is possibly the worst example of this polarisation in practice. It doesn’t help that the amount of money in politics, means that almost no-one who’s been around Washington for any length of time is properly clean, so the incentives are there to continue trying to prosecute opppenents whenever there’s a change of government.
There really needs to be an expansion of both term limits and maximum ages. A President or Senator shouldn’t be older than 70 on election, and both limited to two terms. Reps should be limited to five terms, a decade in the House, and not older than the federal retirement age.
I would agree on all this. I think the one thing that is missing is the personal element. I put a lot of the blame on Obama. He so personally detested Trump - and you only have to see the look in his eyes when he dropped the mic to see how much he hated the man with a passion - that he encouraged the Democrats to go after Trump. I do think Clinton was miffed but she had little real influence post-her defeat and, in any event, I am sure Bill would have been advising her not to rock the boat.
Obama really does have a lot to answer for.
#allobamasfault
Only from the PB Trumptons.
Only on PB.
PM Trumpers have a simple world view.
They are right wing. Trump is right wing. Trump therefore cannot be wrong.
Meanwhile in the real world, Trump has been indicted by multiple jurisdictions for multiple alleged crimes of multiple types. If the charges are all politically motivated then a great deal of imagination has been brought by the left wing conspirators to fake so much evidence for so many different crimes.
Trump is America's mirror Corbyn.
Any sane right winger should want absolutely nothing to do with him.
Trump is way beyond Corbyn. Way way waaaaaaaay beyond. However politically off-centre Jezbollah was, he didn't advocate any of the madness that Trump has done. And having grown a cult following quickly, Jezza was just as quick to lose it. Trump on the other hand seems to only grow in support the more bonkers and criminal he gets.
As someone who despises Corbyn - he hasn't shown the slightest sign of trying to overthrow the political system. Or the myriad of financial and procedural crimes that Trump has commited.
It's possible to draw a few parallels, but it's not massively helpful to do so as the scales are so different, and the potential criminality is on one side only.
Off thread - we're rewatching Parks and Recreation. In series 5 (so probably about 2009), Joe Biden makes an appearance. Now, acting is hard (anyone remember Maggie's appearance in Yes Minister?). People who aren't actors tend to be wooden at best. But Joe Biden was not only very good, but also charming, articulate and charismatic. For those who didn't really come across him until he was president in his dotage, it was quite a shock. (And I know they can shoot and reshoot and reshoot, but presumably when he's recording stuff as president he can too.)
Interesting meandering thought on which world leaders would have made good actors. Reagan obviously had previous.
Blair's v natural Catherine Tate bit I think demonstrated at least a solid local am-dram level of acting competence. Obama could cut a decent scene as well.
The other end of the spectrum you've got maybe Brown and Thatcher, both of whom kind of struggled to play themselves in real life.
Other British PMs of my lifetime I could imagine acting reasonably competently: Johnson, and possibly May might be a dark horse. Definitely not Major, Truss or Sunak. Cameron I'd expect to be averagely wooden but not terrible.
Abroad, Berlusconi would surely have been a good character actor. I could imagine Sarkozy pulling off a menacing baddie role in a French arthouse movie too. In fact most French presidents strike me as likely to be decent thesps. Merkel would have been wooden, as would Scholz. Xi woeful. Putin probably annoyingly good.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
* I think what they have done is take some sort of overall average not the housing average, which includes things such as factory units at £4k per month.
The housing number is more like £1100-1250.
Let's leave aside whether a sample of about 15-20 properties is meaningful, and that the "advertised" rent has nothing to do with what the 95-98% of tenants in the town in existing tenancies are actually paying.
Trump's indictment may be a matter of much interest, comment and amusement, but it also reflects well on the USofA. Inconceivable for the like to happen in Russia, China or Iran.
The indictment matters much less than the convictions, which we do not have yet.
The US *appears* to have very narrowly dodged a bullet. I don't expect them to learn any lessons from this, and there will soon be other charlatans - perhaps cleverer than Trump - playing similar games. Which would be bad for the USA and the world.
You seem to be assuming that Trump will be stopped by being in jail. I am not so sure.
TDS in full force.
He is not going to be Potus from prison.
Enough of the gratuitous bedwetting.
You really need to show your workings here. The probabilities are on the face of it easily non-zero that Trump is imprisoned, and is elected. Are you saying the probability of one of them is in fact zero, and if so which? Or are you saying that a country so bound by law and precedent that it murders tens of thousands of its citizens every year because of an 18th century rule about muskets, is going to say sod the technicalities, we'll find a workaround? If you are saying that, what is the workaround going to be?
I'm saying it ain't going to happen. We'll see if I'm right.
We agree that it is very unlikely to happen. Fine, but where does the "bedwetters" come from? Let's break this down in racing terms. You are effectively saying you are laying a 100/1 shot in the National, insulting people who reasonably say, unlikely but it might come in, and bigging yourself up as a man who knows his horses ("We'll see if I'm right") on the basis of a prediction which anyone can make, knowledge of racing or not.
And here's the twist: the horse is called Foinavon* and you look really, really silly. Just like, say, someone who spent December 2019 calling people bedwetters for saying Trump wouldn't go quietly, there'd be trouble before January 20. What happened next?
*It really is, as I have just discovered. Shouldn't be as it is named after Foinaven, Foinne Bheinn, and Foinavon grates as badly as Bon Nevis.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park where you're sticking your front end in first in order to leave the boot available for your shopping. And yet while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Can you attach a roofbox? It's not obvious that you can. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
I’m always somewhat bemused to read stories of rich people done for drink driving, usually returning from a night out. Surely these people have a member of staff who can help out, or at least a good car service on speed dial to pick them up? As I explained when chatting to a hotel manager in Sofia, you don't drive a Rolls Royce you are driven in a Rolls Royce.
Cue 2 weeks later all the rich clientele having drivers...
I’m always somewhat bemused when someone rich gets done for drinking and driving. Don’t these people have a member of staff who can pick them up, or at least a good car service on speed dial?
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Whenever I hear the phrase New Money, I hear an echo of the phrase "Detective New Money", in a weird cod-Russian accent.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Yes, there's a lot of old money out there which looks like it's doing just fine in terms of Rolls-Royce affordability if it wanted one. A lot of that slavery compensation money was very wisely invested.
I see as predicted I'mnofanofTrumpbutism is back in vogue. To be scrupulously fair, I think some of these lads (despite the occasional fig leaf protestation) are fans of Trump.
Lots of thinly veiled Trumptons on PB.
Speaking personally, I really can't be bothered with prefacing my thoughts on any given issue with 'now I'm no fan of'. Anyone worth discussing something with will engage with the issues. Idiots looking for 'thinly veiled Trumptons' weren't likely to bring much of value to the discussion anyway.
Harsh but fair.
You remind me of a poster called Ishmael who no longer posts on here, for some reason. He had similar Trumpian obsessions, luxuriating daily in dark fantasies about the orange one. Still, there's a lot of it about on PB – even without Ishmael, you are in plentiful company.
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
Indeed. Someone in the US needs to take a step back from the hyper-polarisation, before a genuine conflict emerges. I don’t think it will be a hot civil war, but it will definitely be violent in places, as we’ve seen sporadically in the past few years.
The biggest problem is that the polarisation is popular; it sells newspapers and cable news eyeballs, it brings in donations and brings out voters. The actual Trump in power, was nothing like the rhetoric from either his own side or his opponents.
Trying to jail your political opponents, for actions committed while they were in office, is possibly the worst example of this polarisation in practice. It doesn’t help that the amount of money in politics, means that almost no-one who’s been around Washington for any length of time is properly clean, so the incentives are there to continue trying to prosecute opppenents whenever there’s a change of government.
There really needs to be an expansion of both term limits and maximum ages. A President or Senator shouldn’t be older than 70 on election, and both limited to two terms. Reps should be limited to five terms, a decade in the House, and not older than the federal retirement age.
I would agree on all this. I think the one thing that is missing is the personal element. I put a lot of the blame on Obama. He so personally detested Trump - and you only have to see the look in his eyes when he dropped the mic to see how much he hated the man with a passion - that he encouraged the Democrats to go after Trump. I do think Clinton was miffed but she had little real influence post-her defeat and, in any event, I am sure Bill would have been advising her not to rock the boat.
Obama really does have a lot to answer for.
#allobamasfault
Only from the PB Trumptons.
Only on PB.
PM Trumpers have a simple world view.
They are right wing. Trump is right wing. Trump therefore cannot be wrong.
Meanwhile in the real world, Trump has been indicted by multiple jurisdictions for multiple alleged crimes of multiple types. If the charges are all politically motivated then a great deal of imagination has been brought by the left wing conspirators to fake so much evidence for so many different crimes.
Trump is America's mirror Corbyn.
Any sane right winger should want absolutely nothing to do with him.
Trump is way beyond Corbyn. Way way waaaaaaaay beyond. However politically off-centre Jezbollah was, he didn't advocate any of the madness that Trump has done. And having grown a cult following quickly, Jezza was just as quick to lose it. Trump on the other hand seems to only grow in support the more bonkers and criminal he gets.
As someone who despises Corbyn - he hasn't shown the slightest sign of trying to overthrow the political system. Or the myriad of financial and procedural crimes that Trump has commited.
But why do we have PB Trump Crankies desperate to insist that its all a political scam? Jezbollah cultists insisted that the myriad anti-semitism which was self-evident was nothing of the sort. He was Framed.
Trump stands accused - with reams of very visible evidence - of multiple serious crimes in multiple places over multiple years. For it all to be a political stitch-up as @Alanbrooke insisted there must have been an almighty liberal conspiracy against DJT.
He is a monster - a direct threat to both America's democracy and to global stability. Yet still they cheer him on and deny reality because his policies match their own ideals and that must mean he is a good'un.
I think the "all as bad as each other" philosophy can be very tempting for people whose ideology makes it hard to face up to the fact one of their lot is a rotter. Corbynites regularly did this by whatabouting islamophobia. Russia has been doing it for years on all sorts of things, particularly corruption - the reverse cargo cult, which is something Trumpites have happily drawn on. We're seeing it on PB as the election draws near, with Labour's imperfections being held up as equivalent to the Tory government's abject failures. Beergate was an example too.
The other implication of this philosophy is that the ends justify the means. That lot are bad, therefore we are justified in doing anything we want because otherwise we're fighting with one hand behind our backs. It's a tension you see in US Dem circles and in Ukrainian commentators too, for example around the use of cluster munitions. There was a clumsy Labour attempt with those attack ads on Sunak a few months ago. The trouble with this approach is it tends to bolster the argument that they're all as bad as each other.
Serious point - third axles might come into fashion, reducing tax liability when the government switches VED to axle-load.
No chance. The added weight and complexity would cost far too much. Bear in mind, you'd need two different rate racks to maintain Ackerman among many other complications.
It would also be very difficult to market and sell as most car buyers are very conservative. The last time I was at the Porsche test track at Leipzig (met Walter Rohrl!) an exec ruefully reflected that it was pointless to focus group car designs as people invariably just preferred designs that were closest to those with which they were already familiar.
That, or cars which look like attack helicopters. I notice that even the Nissan Kitten now looks like it could launch a suite of Hellfire missiles on the neighbouring Citroen Berlingo.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park where you're sticking your front end in first in order to leave the boot available for your shopping. And yet while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Can you attach a roofbox? It's not obvious that you can. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
I’m always somewhat bemused to read stories of rich people done for drink driving, usually returning from a night out. Surely these people have a member of staff who can help out, or at least a good car service on speed dial to pick them up? As I explained when chatting to a hotel manager in Sofia, you don't drive a Rolls Royce you are driven in a Rolls Royce.
Cue 2 weeks later all the rich clientele having drivers...
I’m always somewhat bemused when someone rich gets done for drinking and driving. Don’t these people have a member of staff who can pick them up, or at least a good car service on speed dial?
Never on hand when needed. It's like owning just one jet, it's always in the wrong continent, or the pilot is.
Trump's indictment may be a matter of much interest, comment and amusement, but it also reflects well on the USofA. Inconceivable for the like to happen in Russia, China or Iran.
The indictment matters much less than the convictions, which we do not have yet.
The US *appears* to have very narrowly dodged a bullet. I don't expect them to learn any lessons from this, and there will soon be other charlatans - perhaps cleverer than Trump - playing similar games. Which would be bad for the USA and the world.
You seem to be assuming that Trump will be stopped by being in jail. I am not so sure.
TDS in full force.
He is not going to be Potus from prison.
Enough of the gratuitous bedwetting.
You really need to show your workings here. The probabilities are on the face of it easily non-zero that Trump is imprisoned, and is elected. Are you saying the probability of one of them is in fact zero, and if so which? Or are you saying that a country so bound by law and precedent that it murders tens of thousands of its citizens every year because of an 18th century rule about muskets, is going to say sod the technicalities, we'll find a workaround? If you are saying that, what is the workaround going to be?
I'm saying it ain't going to happen. We'll see if I'm right.
We agree that it is very unlikely to happen. Fine, but where does the "bedwetters" come from? Let's break this down in racing terms. You are effectively saying you are laying a 100/1 shot in the National, insulting people who reasonably say, unlikely but it might come in, and bigging yourself up as a man who knows his horses ("We'll see if I'm right") on the basis of a prediction which anyone can make, knowledge of racing or not.
And here's the twist: the horse is called Foinavon* and you look really, really silly. Just like, say, someone who spent December 2019 calling people bedwetters for saying Trump wouldn't go quietly, there'd be trouble before January 20. What happened next?
*It really is, as I have just discovered. Shouldn't be as it is named after Foinaven, Foinne Bheinn, and Foinavon grates as badly as Bon Nevis.
It's not going to happen. Trump isn't going to rule the United States from jail. Only in the world of those with either very weird fantasies or a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome is that a realistic outcome.
Telegraph and the Bank of England appear to be seriously upset at wages going up.
“Mortgage holders are braced for more pain as spiralling wage growth fuelled predictions that the Bank of England will be forced to further crank up interest rates.
“The surprise jump prompted traders to ramp up bets that the Bank of England will press ahead with a further interest rate rise to 5.5pc in September before going further to 5.75pc by the end of the year.
“Soaring wages also inched up predictions for the peak of inflation. The City of London now expects the Bank of England’s base rate to peak as high as 6pc in March 2023. This is up from expectations of 5.75pc on Monday.
I wonder if Andrew Bailey will lead by example and freeze all wages at the Bank of England ?
Starting with his own £500k salary, £100k bonus, and a very nice index-linked DB pension.
IIRC he’s the highest-paid public-sector employee in the UK.
The foolish mistake Bailey made was in calling for pay restraint. Not only totally impractical but outside of his remit. It also gave the impression of a man who did not want to use the tools available to him.
AIUI he has/had only one tool - Interest Rates. Most control theorists would be horrified by a hugely complex system with only one control lever...
I have some vague recollection that Osborne as Chancellor gave the Bank some extra tools to intervene in the mortgage market, to set limits on income multiples, LTV ratios, perhaps even overall limits on mortgage lending. Perhaps I've misremembered. They don't seem much talked about.
The Irish Central Bank has such powers, though their most recent change was to loosen the restrictions, in an apparent attempt to prevent interest rate rises from reducing house prices. Which I couldn't make much sense of.
Mr. Brooke, in 2016 Trump seemed less bonkers than now.
The storming of the Capitol was a less than edifying spectacle.
J6 was a fk up where the police lost control of a crowd. The correct response is to sack the police chief and put better measures in place for next time,
They broke into the Capitol you loon! This is like people running amok through the Houses of Parliament calling for the execution of key government ministers or members of the Royal Family. It was not "police losing control of a crowd". It was an insurrectionist riot with murderous intent ffs. Nothing less.
Alanbrooke isn't a loon. He's just trolling again.
In this case not. The police screwed up thats all there is to it. An insurrection requires planning and organisation and Trump cant do either of those. The Dems are simply using the matter to get at Trump. If Trump had done all the things he;s accused of he would have been in jail two years ago,
A remarkable display of ignorance, wilful or otherwise.
So why is he not in jail ?
Why are all the indictments coming out in the middle of an election ?
We’re hardly in the “middle” of an election. The first primary is 5 months away.
Cases take time to come to court.
Indeed. It was a bloody dim comment from Alan. He needs to invest in a diary.
Who uses a paper diary these days?!? They must be mad...
I see as predicted I'mnofanofTrumpbutism is back in vogue. To be scrupulously fair, I think some of these lads (despite the occasional fig leaf protestation) are fans of Trump.
Lots of thinly veiled Trumptons on PB.
Speaking personally, I really can't be bothered with prefacing my thoughts on any given issue with 'now I'm no fan of'. Anyone worth discussing something with will engage with the issues. Idiots looking for 'thinly veiled Trumptons' weren't likely to bring much of value to the discussion anyway.
Harsh but fair.
You remind me of a poster called Ishmael who no longer posts on here, for some reason. He had similar Trumpian obsessions, luxuriating daily in dark fantasies about the orange one. Still, there's a lot of it about on PB – even without Ishmael, you are in plentiful company.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park where you're sticking your front end in first in order to leave the boot available for your shopping. And yet while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Can you attach a roofbox? It's not obvious that you can. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
I’m always somewhat bemused to read stories of rich people done for drink driving, usually returning from a night out. Surely these people have a member of staff who can help out, or at least a good car service on speed dial to pick them up? As I explained when chatting to a hotel manager in Sofia, you don't drive a Rolls Royce you are driven in a Rolls Royce.
Cue 2 weeks later all the rich clientele having drivers...
I’m always somewhat bemused when someone rich gets done for drinking and driving. Don’t these people have a member of staff who can pick them up, or at least a good car service on speed dial?
Any drunk driving is a clear act of stupidity, not sure why it matters whether the person involved is rich or otherwise.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park. And while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
People in that sort of car go shopping and self-catering? I appreciate you are probably joking but your first point sounds like a serious one.
I always emerge from junctions like that. If you are old enough and your truck is large, old and battered enough, it's a de facto right of way situation.
I'm amusing myself by thinking what I would do with one of those, but I think my general point is a reasonable one - if I buy a thing, it is because I think it will serve a particular purpose better than another thing. Presumably that's also true of whoever buys this - they're not buying it for it to sit in a garage. But what purpose does it serve? What journeys can you make for which it is better than an alternative? Not ease of use (going to the supermarket) or fitting a lot of stuff in. And presumably there are also better cars for speed, if that's your thing. And certainly not affordability. I can't imagine any circumstance that the oligarch goes out to his garage and thinks THAT is the car for the journey I'm making today.
The Roller is the car to be driven to important meetings and events particularly where photographers might be. It's not for practicality, speed or efficiency.
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
Indeed. Someone in the US needs to take a step back from the hyper-polarisation, before a genuine conflict emerges. I don’t think it will be a hot civil war, but it will definitely be violent in places, as we’ve seen sporadically in the past few years.
The biggest problem is that the polarisation is popular; it sells newspapers and cable news eyeballs, it brings in donations and brings out voters. The actual Trump in power, was nothing like the rhetoric from either his own side or his opponents.
Trying to jail your political opponents, for actions committed while they were in office, is possibly the worst example of this polarisation in practice. It doesn’t help that the amount of money in politics, means that almost no-one who’s been around Washington for any length of time is properly clean, so the incentives are there to continue trying to prosecute opppenents whenever there’s a change of government.
There really needs to be an expansion of both term limits and maximum ages. A President or Senator shouldn’t be older than 70 on election, and both limited to two terms. Reps should be limited to five terms, a decade in the House, and not older than the federal retirement age.
But what’s the alternative to trying to jail your political opponents for actions committed while they were in office, *when* they have broken the law? Why should Trump be allowed to break the law just because he’s a politician?
The law applies to everyone is a bedrock of a democratic system. Immunity for those in office is a recipe for disaster. We’ve all heard the phone call. Trump asked Raffensperger to find votes for him. That seems like prima facie evidence of legal wrongdoing.
Also that call was well after most legal challenges had failed, iirc, which could be important. If most matters were legally settles and legal avenues exhausted, the same basic urgings are much worse, since even if you believe it all still, you don't have a right to try to change things in a non legal way.
The BBC have a copy of the call on their website. Sadly it stops immediately after Trump says something like ‘we won the state’. Just after he’s asked for another 11,000 votes. It would have been helpful to have Raffenberger’s reply.
It was a long call in fairness. It goes back and forth a lot with Trump blustering and threatening.
The key has to be that some of his charges are not escaped by him saying he believed the vote was rigged no matter who told him otherwise. Or just believed the moves were legal. That will work on some but not all. Others are that even if he did believe he was not allowed to do it.
Some things done are very wrong regardless of if it's criminal of course.
How can anyone read that and conclude that Trump and his team weren't trying to overturn the result? Remember that all of this action is supposedly politically motivated. So it must be that this so-called transcript was faked and hidden on Hunter Biden's laptop.
In my very limited, cloistered, old, new, no money experience driving a Rolls Royce or Bentley is a fabulous experience.
The only thing I can't get behind is that apparently you are, if you are in the know, an owner, etc, supposed to call them "Royces". Which truly is hideous.
Trump's indictment may be a matter of much interest, comment and amusement, but it also reflects well on the USofA. Inconceivable for the like to happen in Russia, China or Iran.
The indictment matters much less than the convictions, which we do not have yet.
The US *appears* to have very narrowly dodged a bullet. I don't expect them to learn any lessons from this, and there will soon be other charlatans - perhaps cleverer than Trump - playing similar games. Which would be bad for the USA and the world.
You seem to be assuming that Trump will be stopped by being in jail. I am not so sure.
TDS in full force.
He is not going to be Potus from prison.
Enough of the gratuitous bedwetting.
You really need to show your workings here. The probabilities are on the face of it easily non-zero that Trump is imprisoned, and is elected. Are you saying the probability of one of them is in fact zero, and if so which? Or are you saying that a country so bound by law and precedent that it murders tens of thousands of its citizens every year because of an 18th century rule about muskets, is going to say sod the technicalities, we'll find a workaround? If you are saying that, what is the workaround going to be?
I'm saying it ain't going to happen. We'll see if I'm right.
We agree that it is very unlikely to happen. Fine, but where does the "bedwetters" come from? Let's break this down in racing terms. You are effectively saying you are laying a 100/1 shot in the National, insulting people who reasonably say, unlikely but it might come in, and bigging yourself up as a man who knows his horses ("We'll see if I'm right") on the basis of a prediction which anyone can make, knowledge of racing or not.
And here's the twist: the horse is called Foinavon* and you look really, really silly. Just like, say, someone who spent December 2019 calling people bedwetters for saying Trump wouldn't go quietly, there'd be trouble before January 20. What happened next?
*It really is, as I have just discovered. Shouldn't be as it is named after Foinaven, Foinne Bheinn, and Foinavon grates as badly as Bon Nevis.
It's not going to happen. Trump isn't going to rule the United States from jail. Only in the world of those with either very weird fantasies or a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome is that a realistic outcome.
Take a cold shower.
Just like the storming of the Capitol was never going to happen. It is extraordinary that the difference between 100/1 against, and not happening, is so hard to understand for someone on a betting site.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
As the sainted Jeremy Clarkson noted, it is truly bizarre that there is so much discrimination against people solely on account of what type of driveshaft their car has.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park. And while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
People in that sort of car go shopping and self-catering? I appreciate you are probably joking but your first point sounds like a serious one.
I always emerge from junctions like that. If you are old enough and your truck is large, old and battered enough, it's a de facto right of way situation.
I'm amusing myself by thinking what I would do with one of those, but I think my general point is a reasonable one - if I buy a thing, it is because I think it will serve a particular purpose better than another thing. Presumably that's also true of whoever buys this - they're not buying it for it to sit in a garage. But what purpose does it serve? What journeys can you make for which it is better than an alternative? Not ease of use (going to the supermarket) or fitting a lot of stuff in. And presumably there are also better cars for speed, if that's your thing. And certainly not affordability. I can't imagine any circumstance that the oligarch goes out to his garage and thinks THAT is the car for the journey I'm making today.
The Roller is the car to be driven to important meetings and events particularly where photographers might be. It's not for practicality, speed or efficiency.
For arriving in, not travelling in?
Still hideous.
I know a bloke whose dad used to take his helicopter down from Cheshire to Smith's Lawn. He sent the chauffeur down in the car the night before, to pick him up for the less than a mile from helipad to final destination.
Off thread - we're rewatching Parks and Recreation. In series 5 (so probably about 2009), Joe Biden makes an appearance. Now, acting is hard (anyone remember Maggie's appearance in Yes Minister?). People who aren't actors tend to be wooden at best. But Joe Biden was not only very good, but also charming, articulate and charismatic. For those who didn't really come across him until he was president in his dotage, it was quite a shock. (And I know they can shoot and reshoot and reshoot, but presumably when he's recording stuff as president he can too.)
Interesting meandering thought on which world leaders would have made good actors. Reagan obviously had previous.
Blair's v natural Catherine Tate bit I think demonstrated at least a solid local am-dram level of acting competence. Obama could cut a decent scene as well.
The other end of the spectrum you've got maybe Brown and Thatcher, both of whom kind of struggled to play themselves in real life.
Other British PMs of my lifetime I could imagine acting reasonably competently: Johnson, and possibly May might be a dark horse. Definitely not Major, Truss or Sunak. Cameron I'd expect to be averagely wooden but not terrible.
Abroad, Berlusconi would surely have been a good character actor. I could imagine Sarkozy pulling off a menacing baddie role in a French arthouse movie too. In fact most French presidents strike me as likely to be decent thesps. Merkel would have been wooden, as would Scholz. Xi woeful. Putin probably annoyingly good.
Major has (like Steve Davis) a good sense of self-aware humour which would help. Agree on the other PMs though.
More historically, for reasons I can't quite explain I can imagine Willy Brandt being a good actor. Also feel Lloyd George would have been a natural.
And of course, Eva Peron ought to get a mention here.
FPT: Nigelb asked: "You'd have voted Trump had [Washington] been a competitive state ? (I'd have called it unsatisfying, rather than 'free'.)"
No, of course not. If you won't follow the rules, you shouldn't even be in the game.
(Disclosure: I don't know how many Americans agree with me on this, but I believe Obama and Trump have many of the same defects. To begin with, both are incompetent narcissists, and both liars. I would say that Obama told at least an order of magnitude more falsehoods than his predecessor, and Trump did the same.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park where you're sticking your front end in first in order to leave the boot available for your shopping. And yet while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Can you attach a roofbox? It's not obvious that you can. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
I’m always somewhat bemused to read stories of rich people done for drink driving, usually returning from a night out. Surely these people have a member of staff who can help out, or at least a good car service on speed dial to pick them up? As I explained when chatting to a hotel manager in Sofia, you don't drive a Rolls Royce you are driven in a Rolls Royce.
Cue 2 weeks later all the rich clientele having drivers...
I’m always somewhat bemused when someone rich gets done for drinking and driving. Don’t these people have a member of staff who can pick them up, or at least a good car service on speed dial?
Any drunk driving is a clear act of stupidity, not sure why it matters whether the person involved is rich or otherwise.
Oh indeed. But it takes a special kind of stupid to drive home, when you can afford to pay someone with an S-class to sit outside the restaurant for four hours waiting for you.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park. And while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
People in that sort of car go shopping and self-catering? I appreciate you are probably joking but your first point sounds like a serious one.
I always emerge from junctions like that. If you are old enough and your truck is large, old and battered enough, it's a de facto right of way situation.
I'm amusing myself by thinking what I would do with one of those, but I think my general point is a reasonable one - if I buy a thing, it is because I think it will serve a particular purpose better than another thing. Presumably that's also true of whoever buys this - they're not buying it for it to sit in a garage. But what purpose does it serve? What journeys can you make for which it is better than an alternative? Not ease of use (going to the supermarket) or fitting a lot of stuff in. And presumably there are also better cars for speed, if that's your thing. And certainly not affordability. I can't imagine any circumstance that the oligarch goes out to his garage and thinks THAT is the car for the journey I'm making today.
The Roller is the car to be driven to important meetings and events particularly where photographers might be. It's not for practicality, speed or efficiency.
For arriving in, not travelling in?
Still hideous.
I know a bloke whose dad used to take his helicopter down from Cheshire to Smith's Lawn. He sent the chauffeur down in the car the night before, to pick him up for the less than a mile from helipad to final destination.
He was from Cheshire? Going to Smith's Lawn? How perfectly ghastly.
I see as predicted I'mnofanofTrumpbutism is back in vogue. To be scrupulously fair, I think some of these lads (despite the occasional fig leaf protestation) are fans of Trump.
Lots of thinly veiled Trumptons on PB.
Speaking personally, I really can't be bothered with prefacing my thoughts on any given issue with 'now I'm no fan of'. Anyone worth discussing something with will engage with the issues. Idiots looking for 'thinly veiled Trumptons' weren't likely to bring much of value to the discussion anyway.
Harsh but fair.
You remind me of a poster called Ishmael who no longer posts on here, for some reason. He had similar Trumpian obsessions, luxuriating daily in dark fantasies about the orange one. Still, there's a lot of it about on PB – even without Ishmael, you are in plentiful company.
In my very limited, cloistered, old, new, no money experience driving a Rolls Royce or Bentley is a fabulous experience.
The only thing I can't get behind is that apparently you are, if you are in the know, an owner, etc, supposed to call them "Royces". Which truly is hideous.
An erstwhile company secretary used to drive her Nissan Micra to work, unless it was in the shop. Then she would use the Roller instead...
Trump's indictment may be a matter of much interest, comment and amusement, but it also reflects well on the USofA. Inconceivable for the like to happen in Russia, China or Iran.
The indictment matters much less than the convictions, which we do not have yet.
The US *appears* to have very narrowly dodged a bullet. I don't expect them to learn any lessons from this, and there will soon be other charlatans - perhaps cleverer than Trump - playing similar games. Which would be bad for the USA and the world.
You seem to be assuming that Trump will be stopped by being in jail. I am not so sure.
TDS in full force.
He is not going to be Potus from prison.
Enough of the gratuitous bedwetting.
You really need to show your workings here. The probabilities are on the face of it easily non-zero that Trump is imprisoned, and is elected. Are you saying the probability of one of them is in fact zero, and if so which? Or are you saying that a country so bound by law and precedent that it murders tens of thousands of its citizens every year because of an 18th century rule about muskets, is going to say sod the technicalities, we'll find a workaround? If you are saying that, what is the workaround going to be?
I'm saying it ain't going to happen. We'll see if I'm right.
We agree that it is very unlikely to happen. Fine, but where does the "bedwetters" come from? Let's break this down in racing terms. You are effectively saying you are laying a 100/1 shot in the National, insulting people who reasonably say, unlikely but it might come in, and bigging yourself up as a man who knows his horses ("We'll see if I'm right") on the basis of a prediction which anyone can make, knowledge of racing or not.
And here's the twist: the horse is called Foinavon* and you look really, really silly. Just like, say, someone who spent December 2019 calling people bedwetters for saying Trump wouldn't go quietly, there'd be trouble before January 20. What happened next?
*It really is, as I have just discovered. Shouldn't be as it is named after Foinaven, Foinne Bheinn, and Foinavon grates as badly as Bon Nevis.
It's not going to happen. Trump isn't going to rule the United States from jail. Only in the world of those with either very weird fantasies or a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome is that a realistic outcome.
Take a cold shower.
I agree to the extent that if he's in prison when he's elected he's not going to stay in prison for long. That in itself would do further damage to the rule of law.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
As the sainted Jeremy Clarkson noted, it is truly bizarre that there is so much discrimination against people solely on account of what type of driveshaft their car has.
I was recently very off hand with somebody because they still had the standard steering servo in their RC car.
Trump's indictment may be a matter of much interest, comment and amusement, but it also reflects well on the USofA. Inconceivable for the like to happen in Russia, China or Iran.
The indictment matters much less than the convictions, which we do not have yet.
The US *appears* to have very narrowly dodged a bullet. I don't expect them to learn any lessons from this, and there will soon be other charlatans - perhaps cleverer than Trump - playing similar games. Which would be bad for the USA and the world.
You seem to be assuming that Trump will be stopped by being in jail. I am not so sure.
TDS in full force.
He is not going to be Potus from prison.
Enough of the gratuitous bedwetting.
You really need to show your workings here. The probabilities are on the face of it easily non-zero that Trump is imprisoned, and is elected. Are you saying the probability of one of them is in fact zero, and if so which? Or are you saying that a country so bound by law and precedent that it murders tens of thousands of its citizens every year because of an 18th century rule about muskets, is going to say sod the technicalities, we'll find a workaround? If you are saying that, what is the workaround going to be?
I'm saying it ain't going to happen. We'll see if I'm right.
We agree that it is very unlikely to happen. Fine, but where does the "bedwetters" come from? Let's break this down in racing terms. You are effectively saying you are laying a 100/1 shot in the National, insulting people who reasonably say, unlikely but it might come in, and bigging yourself up as a man who knows his horses ("We'll see if I'm right") on the basis of a prediction which anyone can make, knowledge of racing or not.
And here's the twist: the horse is called Foinavon* and you look really, really silly. Just like, say, someone who spent December 2019 calling people bedwetters for saying Trump wouldn't go quietly, there'd be trouble before January 20. What happened next?
*It really is, as I have just discovered. Shouldn't be as it is named after Foinaven, Foinne Bheinn, and Foinavon grates as badly as Bon Nevis.
It's not going to happen. Trump isn't going to rule the United States from jail. Only in the world of those with either very weird fantasies or a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome is that a realistic outcome.
Take a cold shower.
I agree to the extent that if he's in prison when he's elected he's not going to stay in prison for long. That in itself would do further damage to the rule of law.
He won't even be elected if in jail, see the very sensible posts of @hyufd upthread
Trump's indictment may be a matter of much interest, comment and amusement, but it also reflects well on the USofA. Inconceivable for the like to happen in Russia, China or Iran.
The indictment matters much less than the convictions, which we do not have yet.
The US *appears* to have very narrowly dodged a bullet. I don't expect them to learn any lessons from this, and there will soon be other charlatans - perhaps cleverer than Trump - playing similar games. Which would be bad for the USA and the world.
You seem to be assuming that Trump will be stopped by being in jail. I am not so sure.
TDS in full force.
He is not going to be Potus from prison.
Enough of the gratuitous bedwetting.
You really need to show your workings here. The probabilities are on the face of it easily non-zero that Trump is imprisoned, and is elected. Are you saying the probability of one of them is in fact zero, and if so which? Or are you saying that a country so bound by law and precedent that it murders tens of thousands of its citizens every year because of an 18th century rule about muskets, is going to say sod the technicalities, we'll find a workaround? If you are saying that, what is the workaround going to be?
I'm saying it ain't going to happen. We'll see if I'm right.
We agree that it is very unlikely to happen. Fine, but where does the "bedwetters" come from? Let's break this down in racing terms. You are effectively saying you are laying a 100/1 shot in the National, insulting people who reasonably say, unlikely but it might come in, and bigging yourself up as a man who knows his horses ("We'll see if I'm right") on the basis of a prediction which anyone can make, knowledge of racing or not.
And here's the twist: the horse is called Foinavon* and you look really, really silly. Just like, say, someone who spent December 2019 calling people bedwetters for saying Trump wouldn't go quietly, there'd be trouble before January 20. What happened next?
*It really is, as I have just discovered. Shouldn't be as it is named after Foinaven, Foinne Bheinn, and Foinavon grates as badly as Bon Nevis.
It's not going to happen. Trump isn't going to rule the United States from jail. Only in the world of those with either very weird fantasies or a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome is that a realistic outcome.
Take a cold shower.
I agree to the extent that if he's in prison when he's elected he's not going to stay in prison for long. That in itself would do further damage to the rule of law.
Fine. We have the unstoppable force of reelection meeting the immovable obstacle of imprisonment. Any useful, adult discussion needs to state, with reasons, which stops/which moves. "Bedwetter" fails to address the issue.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
I think it is entitlement and lack of courtesy to other road users that grates rather than a specific car. Many SUVs are big for the sake of being big, not practicality. We have limited road and parking space.
If you really want to travel in something large to annoy the neighbours, why not go the full Chris Eubank?
Need to change tax to the fourth power of axle weight x number of axles.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Yes. I keep expecting it to fart and say "better out than in" in a Yorkshire accent.
In practical terms, it looks very hard to drive. The front is so far in front of the driver. The front of the car would arrive at a junction and the driver would still be sat six foot behind the stop line and unable to see the approaching traffic. The only way to pull out would be to stick your nose into the oncoming traffic and hope for the best. And a right bloody nuisance to park, I would have thought, particularly in a supermarket car park. And while it's a big car, it doesn't look like it could easily take all the luggage for a family of five going self catering for two weeks. Exactly what sort of journeys is it good for?
People in that sort of car go shopping and self-catering? I appreciate you are probably joking but your first point sounds like a serious one.
I always emerge from junctions like that. If you are old enough and your truck is large, old and battered enough, it's a de facto right of way situation.
I'm amusing myself by thinking what I would do with one of those, but I think my general point is a reasonable one - if I buy a thing, it is because I think it will serve a particular purpose better than another thing. Presumably that's also true of whoever buys this - they're not buying it for it to sit in a garage. But what purpose does it serve? What journeys can you make for which it is better than an alternative? Not ease of use (going to the supermarket) or fitting a lot of stuff in. And presumably there are also better cars for speed, if that's your thing. And certainly not affordability. I can't imagine any circumstance that the oligarch goes out to his garage and thinks THAT is the car for the journey I'm making today.
The Roller is the car to be driven to important meetings and events particularly where photographers might be. It's not for practicality, speed or efficiency.
For arriving in, not travelling in?
Still hideous.
I know a bloke whose dad used to take his helicopter down from Cheshire to Smith's Lawn. He sent the chauffeur down in the car the night before, to pick him up for the less than a mile from helipad to final destination.
He was from Cheshire? Going to Smith's Lawn? How perfectly ghastly.
Back in the day when footballers earned 10/- a match, and Cheshire was OK. Son is now in Devon.
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
Indeed. Someone in the US needs to take a step back from the hyper-polarisation, before a genuine conflict emerges. I don’t think it will be a hot civil war, but it will definitely be violent in places, as we’ve seen sporadically in the past few years.
The biggest problem is that the polarisation is popular; it sells newspapers and cable news eyeballs, it brings in donations and brings out voters. The actual Trump in power, was nothing like the rhetoric from either his own side or his opponents.
Trying to jail your political opponents, for actions committed while they were in office, is possibly the worst example of this polarisation in practice. It doesn’t help that the amount of money in politics, means that almost no-one who’s been around Washington for any length of time is properly clean, so the incentives are there to continue trying to prosecute opppenents whenever there’s a change of government.
There really needs to be an expansion of both term limits and maximum ages. A President or Senator shouldn’t be older than 70 on election, and both limited to two terms. Reps should be limited to five terms, a decade in the House, and not older than the federal retirement age.
But what’s the alternative to trying to jail your political opponents for actions committed while they were in office, *when* they have broken the law? Why should Trump be allowed to break the law just because he’s a politician?
The law applies to everyone is a bedrock of a democratic system. Immunity for those in office is a recipe for disaster. We’ve all heard the phone call. Trump asked Raffensperger to find votes for him. That seems like prima facie evidence of legal wrongdoing.
Also that call was well after most legal challenges had failed, iirc, which could be important. If most matters were legally settles and legal avenues exhausted, the same basic urgings are much worse, since even if you believe it all still, you don't have a right to try to change things in a non legal way.
The BBC have a copy of the call on their website. Sadly it stops immediately after Trump says something like ‘we won the state’. Just after he’s asked for another 11,000 votes. It would have been helpful to have Raffenberger’s reply.
It was a long call in fairness. It goes back and forth a lot with Trump blustering and threatening.
The key has to be that some of his charges are not escaped by him saying he believed the vote was rigged no matter who told him otherwise. Or just believed the moves were legal. That will work on some but not all. Others are that even if he did believe he was not allowed to do it.
Some things done are very wrong regardless of if it's criminal of course.
How can anyone read that and conclude that Trump and his team weren't trying to overturn the result? Remember that all of this action is supposedly politically motivated. So it must be that this so-called transcript was faked and hidden on Hunter Biden's laptop.
I don't think I'd find Trump guilty on that transcript. It's a completely incoherent word salad.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
My firm has just put out a "modest payrise" and, basically, "no bonus this year" missive, but with a 'we watch the market and our competitors carefully' caveat.
I think this basically means they're going to try sub-inflation rises and see who jumps, before dealing with them on an ad-hoc basis.
Not sure if other professional services firms are the same.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
I think it is entitlement and lack of courtesy to other road users that grates rather than a specific car. Many SUVs are big for the sake of being big, not practicality. We have limited road and parking space.
If you really want to travel in something large to annoy the neighbours, why not go the full Chris Eubank?
Need to change tax to the fourth power of axle weight x number of axles.
Lots of narrow roads around my neck of the woods. Would it be so bad if there were regulations for a maximum length and width of a car?
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
I think it is entitlement and lack of courtesy to other road users that grates rather than a specific car. Many SUVs are big for the sake of being big, not practicality. We have limited road and parking space.
If you really want to travel in something large to annoy the neighbours, why not go the full Chris Eubank?
Need to change tax to the fourth power of axle weight x number of axles.
That Defender which killed two schoolgirls in Wimbledon would have bounced off the fence if it had been a nissan Micra.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
TBH I think 'urgh' is a perfectly understandable reflex response to El Musko.
I'll make the point again: disliking Elon Musk for his continual shitbaggery does not mean you have to dislike his companies when they have achieved things. It's perfectly possible to think that Tesla is a great company, but that Musk is a tw@t. Ditto SpaceX.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
Equally its possible to think that Tesla is great, SpaceX is great, while Twitter is shit.
Or to think that someone who had Tesla and SpaceX who chose to then turn his attention to Twitter instead, shows rather shit priorities or a steep decline in his reasoning.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
I think it is entitlement and lack of courtesy to other road users that grates rather than a specific car. Many SUVs are big for the sake of being big, not practicality. We have limited road and parking space.
If you really want to travel in something large to annoy the neighbours, why not go the full Chris Eubank?
Need to change tax to the fourth power of axle weight x number of axles.
That Defender which killed two schoolgirls in Wimbledon would have bounced off the fence if it had been a nissan Micra.
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
Indeed. Someone in the US needs to take a step back from the hyper-polarisation, before a genuine conflict emerges. I don’t think it will be a hot civil war, but it will definitely be violent in places, as we’ve seen sporadically in the past few years.
The biggest problem is that the polarisation is popular; it sells newspapers and cable news eyeballs, it brings in donations and brings out voters. The actual Trump in power, was nothing like the rhetoric from either his own side or his opponents.
Trying to jail your political opponents, for actions committed while they were in office, is possibly the worst example of this polarisation in practice. It doesn’t help that the amount of money in politics, means that almost no-one who’s been around Washington for any length of time is properly clean, so the incentives are there to continue trying to prosecute opppenents whenever there’s a change of government.
There really needs to be an expansion of both term limits and maximum ages. A President or Senator shouldn’t be older than 70 on election, and both limited to two terms. Reps should be limited to five terms, a decade in the House, and not older than the federal retirement age.
But what’s the alternative to trying to jail your political opponents for actions committed while they were in office, *when* they have broken the law? Why should Trump be allowed to break the law just because he’s a politician?
The law applies to everyone is a bedrock of a democratic system. Immunity for those in office is a recipe for disaster. We’ve all heard the phone call. Trump asked Raffensperger to find votes for him. That seems like prima facie evidence of legal wrongdoing.
Also that call was well after most legal challenges had failed, iirc, which could be important. If most matters were legally settles and legal avenues exhausted, the same basic urgings are much worse, since even if you believe it all still, you don't have a right to try to change things in a non legal way.
The BBC have a copy of the call on their website. Sadly it stops immediately after Trump says something like ‘we won the state’. Just after he’s asked for another 11,000 votes. It would have been helpful to have Raffenberger’s reply.
It was a long call in fairness. It goes back and forth a lot with Trump blustering and threatening.
The key has to be that some of his charges are not escaped by him saying he believed the vote was rigged no matter who told him otherwise. Or just believed the moves were legal. That will work on some but not all. Others are that even if he did believe he was not allowed to do it.
Some things done are very wrong regardless of if it's criminal of course.
How can anyone read that and conclude that Trump and his team weren't trying to overturn the result? Remember that all of this action is supposedly politically motivated. So it must be that this so-called transcript was faked and hidden on Hunter Biden's laptop.
I don't think I'd find Trump guilty on that transcript. It's a completely incoherent word salad.
They’d better have a lot more than just that transcript, given the context of him being a candidate. A jury finding him not guilty almost certainly sees his support increase among moderates.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
I think it is entitlement and lack of courtesy to other road users that grates rather than a specific car. Many SUVs are big for the sake of being big, not practicality. We have limited road and parking space.
If you really want to travel in something large to annoy the neighbours, why not go the full Chris Eubank?
Need to change tax to the fourth power of axle weight x number of axles.
Lots of narrow roads around my neck of the woods. Would it be so bad if there were regulations for a maximum length and width of a car?
Narrow roads = likely (likely) one, or several of high hedgerows, drainage ditches, wide verges, muddy gateways, unknown obstacles eg fallen trees all of a sudden.
All of which argue for a large, robust, all wheel drive car.
If it's the driving you are worried about then that's a different matter.
Hideous; like the tank-sized Bentleys an insult to the elegant heritage of the brand. The sort of car a child would design out of Fimo.
Appreciate it's appealing to the core audience of tasteless arrivistes, of course.
Arguably, it is Rolls-Royce's lack of self-delusion regarding its market - giving drug barons, gangsters, rappers, tech bros, nepo babies etc a veneer of respectability whilst appealing to their poor taste - that has kept them in business. Arrivistes have money, and nouveaux-pauvres do not.
Totally, and fair play to them - they're delivering to their target audience and presumably actually growing their business, which is what businesses ought to be doing.
I still think it's minging.
Rule 1 - people with new money have no taste but very much like to demonstrate that they have money by buying expensive items that scream very expensive (and utterly tasteless).
Rule 2 - ignore people who make up arbitrary and petty rules about "new money" (what that?) in order, presumably, to make themselves feel better at their lack of achievement.
Rule 3 – who cares what people choose to drive? Lots of weird comments on here about "SUVs Urgh", "Elon Musk Urgh" and "BMW drivers urgh". Make cities and towns better to reduce the need for car use overall rather than obsessing about the make and model of the cars on the road, that presumably their owners like.
I think it is entitlement and lack of courtesy to other road users that grates rather than a specific car. Many SUVs are big for the sake of being big, not practicality. We have limited road and parking space.
If you really want to travel in something large to annoy the neighbours, why not go the full Chris Eubank?
Need to change tax to the fourth power of axle weight x number of axles.
That Defender which killed two schoolgirls in Wimbledon would have bounced off the fence if it had been a nissan Micra.
Do we know what the story was there in the end?
Prosecution incoming I think. went a bit too quick and braked a bit too hard at a guess, though you'd expect ABS and stuff to be able to sort that problem.
If Trump survives these legal attacks and somehow contrives to win, then he will make sure he is immune forever and he will want vengeance to boot
Truly perilous times for the USA. It’s arguably another step towards actual civil conflict. And as with other civil wars each step towards the war makes logical sense in itself, may indeed be completely justifiable (here is probably an example of that) yet the sense of an impending explosion only grows
A classic example of 'you reap what you sow'. @Alanbrooke is right - we were promised all these things in 2016 and which never happened. The correct response to Trump being elected in 2016 should have been just to ignore his bluster and let the system do its work - either out in 2020 or 2024. But no. Because Clinton couldn't accept she had lost her chance to be the first female President and Obama hated Trump with a passion, it all became about getting rid of him at all costs.
If you believe the man is the Devil, as many on here and on the Democrat side do, then any - and I mean any - means to stop him seems justifiable. And, before you say, 'he's a crook' and 'he should be tried for his crimes', we all know the practice doesn't match the theory in that the authorities turn a blind eye when circumstances dictate. We have the 'not in the public interest' test here for exactly these reasons.
What will happen is as clear as daylight. Even if Trump does go down, whoever is the Republican GOP candidate will only get the nomination - and the turnout - if they promise to go after the Democrat side. Old Joe's payoffs (and, for fuck's sake, who really believes this idea you have to show direct payments to Biden? Nobody in any political position where records are open to disclosure etc), Obama and Clinton et al all under investigation if the GOP wins.
There is a good chance the US is heading towards a potential internal armed conflict within the next 24-36 months.
The system did do its job. He was voted out for having failed as president.
The issue became that he then repeatedly tried to overthrow the system to stay in power.
Whatever her many and egregious shortcomings, that was hardly the fault of Hilary Clinton.
As @Sandpit has pointed out, American politicians on both sides are so immersed in the system, there are plenty of things which you could investigate.
Clinton and classified government documentation on her personal e-mail servers? Tick
Biden and the payments to his family? Tick
Obama's failure to stop Biden's activities as VP and whether he therefore allowed foreign countries to influence US policy? Tick
Nancy Pelosi and her share deals? Tick
Once you start down this route, there is no end.
H Clinton was investigated. Her errors were deemed too minor to prosecute.
Biden and his son have been investigated. Nothing has been found to link any payments to Joe. Hunter has been charged with some minor crimes.
The problem with your argument of equivalence is that the facts don’t agree with you.
Also, as the late and lamented conservative humourist, P J O´Rourke, once said as he- very reluctantly endorsed- Hilary over Trump.. "I am endorsing Hillary, and all her lies and all her empty promises. It's the second-worst thing that can happen to this country, but she's way behind in second place. She's wrong about absolutely everything, but she's wrong within normal parameters."
Trump was not only a lousy President, he was, and is, a lousy man. Neither is he a lousy man "within normal parameters". He is not just a liar, a crook, and a rogue- as we keep finding, he is way beyond normal parameters..
Trump is uniquely a performance artist of fakery, a liar so brazen that he is not so much post truth, he is a man who does not even understand what truth is. His personal conduct is industrial strength creepy and slimy, exactly the kind of creep and slime he learned from Roy Cohn when he hired him as his personal attorney, so that he could learn corruption and slime from the master. We can judge a man by his friends: crooked attorneys, mafiosi, call girls, fraudsters and general scum.
So, while his supporters may shout "they are all the same", the truth is inevitably different. He is unique and uniquely he has been impeached twice and indicted four times and rising. This is not normal, it is no where near normal parameters, in fact no one else even comes close.
And he will end in jail.
I remember saying at the time that I thought Clinton would be a terrible president, probably not much better than Trump.
I stand by the first point. On that last point I was truly tragically mistaken.
It remains my second most stupid comment on PB, just behind my 2015 comment that Alistair Cook was mad to stick the Aussies in on winning the toss. At Trent Bridge...
I have faith in you, you've probably said something more stupid
The only way I could have said something more stupid than that is if I commented on the integrity, administrative efficiency and personal charm of an official of the DfE.
And that has not happened in this space time continuum.
I'm just curious about your third most stupid comment.
Comments
I stand by the first point. On that last point I was truly tragically mistaken.
It remains my second most stupid comment on PB, just behind my 2015 comment that Alistair Cook was mad to stick the Aussies in on winning the toss. At Trent Bridge...
A dealer was remarking that it was hard times in the Fabergee and similar snuff box sales market.
He did laugh when I suggested marketing the snuff boxes to gangster rappers. A box to store powder you put in your nose, ultra bling, "posh" and super expensive - how could it fail?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycZauwjrtHQ (warning: very non-PC today)
Still offensively massive to me, but hey.
Are you perhaps referring to the minor recession other nations experienced in 2000/01?
Have I considered that we avoided the recession in 2000/01 because of an increase in expenditure that only happened from 2002/03 onwards? No, I have not. I'll let you figure out why.
Secondly no the range of deficits beforehand is not immaterial because it is the starting point. The scale of the GFC was rather typical actually for how it blew the budget, it added 7% to our deficit. Other recessions have equally typically added about 7% to the deficit. That's pretty normal, not massive.
The problem was that 1% surplus minus 7% equals a 6% deficit - that is tolerable for a recession. See the last UK recession before the GFC for that.
Whereas a pre-existing and utterly unnecessary 3% deficit, minus a further 7%, suddenly equals a 10% deficit. Which is intolerable.
This is why Brown's overspending was catastrophic. Not because its an unprecedented deficit but adding a typical and to be-expected cyclical, recessionary swing in the budget from a 3% deficit starting point left us horrifically exposed. Because we were horrifically exposed by having such a deficit pre-crash as our starting point to move from.
They are right wing.
Trump is right wing.
Trump therefore cannot be wrong.
Meanwhile in the real world, Trump has been indicted by multiple jurisdictions for multiple alleged crimes of multiple types. If the charges are all politically motivated then a great deal of imagination has been brought by the left wing conspirators to fake so much evidence for so many different crimes.
Any sane right winger should want absolutely nothing to do with him.
I always emerge from junctions like that. If you are old enough and your truck is large, old and battered enough, it's a de facto right of way situation.
The key has to be that some of his charges are not escaped by him saying he believed the vote was rigged no matter who told him otherwise. Or just believed the moves were legal. That will work on some but not all. Others are that even if he did believe he was not allowed to do it.
Some things done are very wrong regardless of if it's criminal of course.
However, politically this would be a tough sell.
Serious point - third axles might come into fashion, reducing tax liability when the government switches VED to axle-load.
https://www.promega.com/~/media/files/resources/conference proceedings/ishi 14/oral presentations/howitt.pdf
Even when he did unexpectedly well in 2017, and claimed a moral victory, he stuck firmly to constitutional methods.
And that has not happened in this space time continuum.
However Jezza didn't lose his following quickly, indeed the similarity with Trump is quite eerie in that having lost his first General Election his supporters acted (and many still act to this day) like he won it instead. Remind you of anyone?
Like any Dracula B-movie, It took a second stake through the heart, a second election defeat to kill of Corbynism. Maybe that's what it will take for Trumpism too?
If so, lets hope America's voters wield the stake as they need to.
Cue 2 weeks later all the rich clientele having drivers...
There was one time when he was spending so much out of his own salary on campaigning materials he defaulted on his mortgage.
He could be accused of many things, but certainly not being venal.
It would also be very difficult to market and sell as most car buyers are very conservative. The last time I was at the Porsche test track at Leipzig (met Walter Rohrl!) an exec ruefully reflected that it was pointless to focus group car designs as people invariably just preferred designs that were closest to those with which they were already familiar.
Trump stands accused - with reams of very visible evidence - of multiple serious crimes in multiple places over multiple years. For it all to be a political stitch-up as @Alanbrooke insisted there must have been an almighty liberal conspiracy against DJT.
He is a monster - a direct threat to both America's democracy and to global stability. Yet still they cheer him on and deny reality because his policies match their own ideals and that must mean he is a good'un.
Abroad, Berlusconi would surely have been a good character actor. I could imagine Sarkozy pulling off a menacing baddie role in a French arthouse movie too. In fact most French presidents strike me as likely to be decent thesps. Merkel would have been wooden, as would Scholz. Xi woeful. Putin probably annoyingly good.
BBC on rent levels in Frome.
Frome Town Council has adopted the formal declaration to draw attention to the shortage of housing in the town.
The average rent in Frome has risen to £1,499 a month, which is 50% of the average salary.
Click through to their data source, and the highest price residential listing is £1500 per month *.
Crappy crapulation from the crapulator which is UK media.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-66463563
https://www.home.co.uk/for_rent/frome/current_rents?location=frome
https://www.home.co.uk/for_rent/results.htm?TOWN_SEARCH=1&location=frome&radius=2
* I think what they have done is take some sort of overall average not the housing average, which includes things such as factory units at £4k per month.
The housing number is more like £1100-1250.
Let's leave aside whether a sample of about 15-20 properties is meaningful, and that the "advertised" rent has nothing to do with what the 95-98% of tenants in the town in existing tenancies are actually paying.
And here's the twist: the horse is called Foinavon* and you look really, really silly. Just like, say, someone who spent December 2019 calling people bedwetters for saying Trump wouldn't go quietly, there'd be trouble before January 20. What happened next?
*It really is, as I have just discovered. Shouldn't be as it is named after Foinaven, Foinne Bheinn, and Foinavon grates as badly as Bon Nevis.
The other implication of this philosophy is that the ends justify the means. That lot are bad, therefore we are justified in doing anything we want because otherwise we're fighting with one hand behind our backs. It's a tension you see in US Dem circles and in Ukrainian commentators too, for example around the use of cluster munitions. There was a clumsy Labour attempt with those attack ads on Sunak a few months ago. The trouble with this approach is it tends to bolster the argument that they're all as bad as each other.
Take a cold shower.
The Irish Central Bank has such powers, though their most recent change was to loosen the restrictions, in an apparent attempt to prevent interest rate rises from reducing house prices. Which I couldn't make much sense of.
Still hideous.
old,new, no money experience driving a Rolls Royce or Bentley is a fabulous experience.The only thing I can't get behind is that apparently you are, if you are in the know, an owner, etc, supposed to call them "Royces". Which truly is hideous.
More historically, for reasons I can't quite explain I can imagine Willy Brandt being a good actor. Also feel Lloyd George would have been a natural.
And of course, Eva Peron ought to get a mention here.
Plus all the hideous 50s-90s architecture
Eek
(I'd have called it unsatisfying, rather than 'free'.)"
No, of course not. If you won't follow the rules, you shouldn't even be in the game.
(Disclosure: I don't know how many Americans agree with me on this, but I believe Obama and Trump have many of the same defects. To begin with, both are incompetent narcissists, and both liars. I would say that Obama told at least an order of magnitude more falsehoods than his predecessor, and Trump did the same.
And both encouraged Putin's aggression.)
The people are generally fat and hideous
Was going to direct you to the Rusty Bike pub for lunch, but it has closed for good.
"A total of 1,230 people, including victims of crime and witnesses, have had their data breached by Norfolk and Suffolk police forces."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66510136
If you really want to travel in something large to annoy the neighbours, why not go the full Chris Eubank?
Need to change tax to the fourth power of axle weight x number of axles.
Whereas sadly, it appears being a fan of Musk often means excusing his companies when they do bad, or terrible, things.
I think this basically means they're going to try sub-inflation rises and see who jumps, before dealing with them on an ad-hoc basis.
Not sure if other professional services firms are the same.
Or to think that someone who had Tesla and SpaceX who chose to then turn his attention to Twitter instead, shows rather shit priorities or a steep decline in his reasoning.
I’ve chosen Harry’s for a boozy lunch. Tripadvisor recommended. So far so good. It’s away from the post war horror
All of which argue for a large, robust, all wheel drive car.
If it's the driving you are worried about then that's a different matter.