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Exclusive: A federal grand jury has approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Mueller https://t.co/ZVvg1WCjMs pic.twitter.com/fXsVZUILni
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http://m.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Fox-News-host-Sean-Hannity-has-Twitter-meltdown-12313372.php
What do we reckon would happen specifically? I mean, his stated position is that the whole thing is a politically-motivated witch-hunt and something something Hillary Clinton. It seems consistent with that to just aggressively pardon everybody. So if he does this, what's anybody going to do about it? I mean, maybe we could try to sue the incompetent cretins who wrote the US constitution, but they're all dead, so what's the next move?
https://twitter.com/foxnews/status/924477659131691008
Difficult to see how this plays out, but those who don’t like Trump will take one side and those that do like him will take the other - irrespective of the facts and evidence in each case presented.
If he is implicated directly, or if he is alleged to be using his power to obstruct justice, and if the Dems do well in the midterms, he may be impeached.
And if pigs could fly we'd all carry much heavier duty umbrellas.
Obviously there’s no parallels there with Labour and Momentum in the UK - none whatsoever.
If not I feel that the comparison is unfair to the egregious Mr Trump.
Or do his repeated threats to obliterate North Korea count?
The commentary I have read suggests that it will be the small fish first- hope to get them to implicate the bigger players.
From a betting perspective what I would like to get a handle on is how long will this process take?
I’ve been laying a 2018 Trump exit - (at 3.5 atm) - but perhaps that’s when the shit will really hit the fan?
Allegations against named MPs in the Sundays look relatively minor so far, those looking for a couple more Harvey Weinsteins are going to be disappointed. Out of order and deserving of censure certainly, but I’m not sure what’s written so far is going to produce any by-elections.
I do wonder if this might lead to MPs’ staff being employed by Parliament directly, with an HR structure in place that might allow such incidents to be dealt with more appropriately?
I had a secretary a few years ago who whenever she wanted something approved would touch me on the shoulder and slowly run her hands down my chest while looking me straight in the eyes while asking her request. She was gorgeous and therefore it was acceptable to me - But I think I would get in a lot of trouble if I did the same in reverse.
Another time a middle aged teacher (when I was doing some evening language classes) kept inviting me back to her appartment to 'help her plug in her stereo'. I declined but one of my colleagues innocently took her up on her offer a few weeks later. As he was fiddling with the phono jacks (honestly) she offered him a glass of wine and when she came back with it she was half naked.... He was a happliy married man and ran away. He didnt report her out of embarrassment and was terrified of his wife finding out that he got into that position in the first place.
It goes on everywhere - in both directions.
It would be insane if the Spanish government to prosecute him, never mind lock him up, still more to extradite him first - so we must assume they would do it.
Edit - that said I don't think even Rajoy is thick enough to shoot him.
I still doubt they’ve got enough to impeach Trump himself. He’s
not stupidalways had good lawyers.He could do that from the Oval Office today.
Mr. Mark, Trump's time in office is certainly an interesting one.
F1: wrote the qualifying half of the pre-race stuff yesterday, and will give the numbers a look today. Surprised that, Mercedes aside, there are lots of big intra-team gaps. Even Renault, who line up 8th and 9th, have three-tenths between them.
So perhaps the answer is to have a professional staff who serve MPs in a civil service style way. This would have several additional advantages:
* MPs' staff would not lose their jobs when the MP lost
* Over the years they would become really expert at casework and research, while currently each MP brings in new people who have to learn the ropes
* The temptation for MPs to appoint loyalists and then use them on Parliamentary time for political work (as I'm sure is done by many) would be removed.
MPs would really not like it, as it's much nicer to appoint people you know and trust than have some random civil servant assigned to you, and implementation would be a nightmare, as thousands of existing staff would be at risk of losing jobs, but it could be phased in over 15 years, say.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/presidents-pardon-power-works
I mean they tried to get Clinton on lying... a bar I think we can say Trump has met pretty comfortably.
The question is what will convince congressional republicans to put country before party.
Or just wait until the public puts the democrats in charge.
Hamilton 1.12 to finish the race - he’s 17 from 17 so far this season.
Vettel to finish the race LAY 1.25
Verstappen 3.6 to win
Safety car 1.55 - possibly just about value at that price but looking for 1.66-1.75
Lead first lap Verstappen at 4 and Hamilton at 8.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iceland-election/iceland-leans-toward-leftist-government-in-latest-vote-count-idUSKBN1CY005?il=0
but the official website (which shows 207% of the votes counted, duh) seems to show the left falling short of 32 - they'd need the Centre Party:
http://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/elections2017/
Quite impressive that the scandal-hit Independence Party are not doing that badly - perhaps shows that if the economy is doing well, many voters will forgive anything.
'Former White House advisor Sebastian Gorka suggested Thursday night that if the Obama administration’s Uranium One deal had taken place in the 1950s, those involved might have been executed.
“If this had happened in the 1950s, there would be people up on treason charges right now. The Rosenbergs, okay? This is equivalent to what the Rosenbergs did, and those people got the chair,” Gorka said on Fox News Thursday night.'
http://tinyurl.com/y9j3wzxu
It would be quite easy to see Trump saying
"Look, these people on my Pardon list, I know them, they are good people. They have done nothing wrong. If they get charged, it's all political. So I have no problem in giving them an immediate pardon, from any federal offences related to the 2016 election camapign. The other side were the ones doing the dirty tricks. But I'm a generous man. If the prosecutor wants to charge them - I'll pardon them too. We just need too move on, stop wasting Government resources on this, and instead start bringing rapists and drug-dealers to courts. They are the real criminals in our country - and they are getting away with it, while prosecutors run around trying to make charges stick on good, patriotic Americans...."
His base would buy that.
Agree Hamilton is very likely to finish but I do dislike odds that tight.
These things are always easier much in theory than in practice, where as you say there are thousands of people employed by MPs.
I can easily understand why an MP might appoint their spouse as a PA, for example, given the need for being away from home in London most weeks. I’m fine with that provided that they are actually working as the MP’s PA and not just banking the salary.
How many caseworkers and researchers in Westminster (as opposed to constituency offices) are looking for a career in casework or research, and how many see the job as a stepping stone to a further career? In my industry precisely no-one goes into IT to work on the helpdesk all their life - but the vast majority start there, if only as an introduction to understanding the customer.
Maybe the parties can have a pool of Parliamentary staff that can move around, so that as an MP your staffers are ‘from’ your party and believe in the same things you do? I’ve always thought of it as particularly bad when an MP retires or is defeated and takes a very nice pay-off, while their young researcher gets redundancy pay and told to go and find someone else to work for (I exaggerate a little, but you know what I mean).
In that case I withdraw my question to Sandpit - Trump and Momentum are obviously directly comparable.
Unless you reject that premise the current investigation is just the continuation of politics by other means. Bill Clinton had 8 years of this and it did not stop him leaving office as a popular President. I am not sure about popular but I would be pretty confident that this is not going to bring Trump down.
I note that the legal eagles are not immune to this:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/10/law-firm-partner-says-no-more-briefs-for-linkedin-sexism-row-barrister
Caseworkers vary in why they do it, but for most I think it's a mixture of personal and political loyalty to the MP and interest in the work. I had one part-timer, a former librarian, who has to work from home to look after her partner. She was a brillint caseworker and never wanted to do anything else: this gave her a chance to use her skills which were otherwise atrophing. None of my team went on to do anything new political, though a couple carried on with what they were already doing.
I was hit on by quite a few men when younger and better looking, once by a boss when I was working in a fast food outlet, but never in a threatening way.
Dr. Foxinsox, I don't know. My guess would be (at least mostly) yes, simply because there are more men in Westminster and men are likelier to commit crimes (as an aside, it'd be amusing if it weren't serious that generalising about things men collectively fail at is acceptable in modern discourse, but praising men generally or generalising about female failures will get you jumped on).
An interesting bit here on how Russian troll farms are now interested in #Catalonia
https://twitter.com/SarahLudford/status/924411520758542337?s=09
Whatever the role of the individuals that Mueller is investigating, the whole story needs covering. We cannot just accept foreign manipulation of our elections unchallenged.
From Trump??
-self employed or unsupervised people. Having an affair whilst filling in a time sheet must be tricky.
-a splash of money which facilitates assignations etc
-a high pressure job involving a lot of stress. I don't regard this as an excuse or even a reason but a basis for self indulgence as are alcohol and drugs. People persuade themselves they "deserve" it.
-massive egos and more than the average level of selfishness.
Politicians tick a lot of these boxes as do sports stars, actors, producers etc. Lawyers are indeed not exempt.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5027963/Amber-Rudd-backs-Boris-Johnson-PM.html
One term presidents are Losers.
As I understand it MPs also have much higher divorce rates than the general population, if travelling with their wife rather than their secretary keeps their eyes on the job, then all the better for everyone. Providing of course that the spouse is actually doing the job for which she’s being paid.
She seemed to be normally squired round the department by one or other of the younger lecturers.
Pharmacy was about 33% female, so we were a bit bemused by the attention she got.
However, long years later I’m about to start on a project with a female engineer. (another ‘senior’)
It shows a basic lack of respect for others.
I am aware of one very senior female executive in a largely male dominated institution who would say wholly inappropriate things to more junior men, in one case to someone who was seeking promotion from her. The men felt very very uncomfortable but did not speak up. The executive also bullied her female staff, at least one of whom left as a result. This sort of behaviour is not limited to men but it is wrong whoever does it.
time to save the turnip
https://sluggerotoole.com/2017/10/29/this-halloween-spare-a-thought-for-the-forgotten-turnip/
where's malc ?
http://nypost.com/2017/10/24/jeff-flake-wont-rule-out-taking-on-trump-in-2020-primary/
While Trump would almost certainly beat him that would be a good omen for the Democrats, no President who has faced a significant primary challenge in the last 50 years has been re-elected. For example George Bush Snr lost to Bill Clinton after being challenged by Pat Buchanan in 1992 and Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan after being challenged by Ted Kennedy in 1980, Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter after being challenged by Ronald Reagan in 1976 and LBJ was forced to abandon his re-election bid in 1968 after being challenged by Eugene McCarthy and his VP, Hubert Humphrey, was then beaten by Richard Nixon in November.
Does anyone know how he managed to become so popular with the media?
but as the comments in the article say, it wasnt half hard work hollowing them out !
There is far too much rationalisation going on, by MPs, by oafish sexual predators, by fraudsters and the rest seeking to justify by whatever peg they can hang their threadbare argument on behaviour that they want to do.
Living abroad in a city full of British expats, it’s amazing how many conversations in early November start with the poppy. It’s the same one I’ve had for three years now, I just make sure it gets put away in a safe place.
*shudder*
I suppose we should be thankful they havent adopted rutabaga
however what did you do in Wales at Halloween, were you the same as Ireland and Scotland ?