I would have thought she was all in favour of law and order?
Call one to journo from phone box; ring mole back on this number from a burner phone (gives different phone box no). Mole has a lead on a story about footballer cheating on wife. Will splash on front cover. Ring from a long way away from your usual phone and daily routes. Call two from journo's burner. Mole has info of this nature. Footballer cover story was a cover story. Fresh burner phone is available at (location). Don't bring your phone to it, or this burner phone. Call three, burner to burner. Meeting point is a pub in the sticks without CCTV. Get two different black cabs from different taxi firms there, hail to hire, not Ubers, pay cash. Don't bring phone. Mole prints documents using second hand computer and printer without internet connection Meet, no phones, take printed docs, reverse steps.
How do the boys and girls at box 500 catch the mole?
Burner phones and cover stories - we were meeting to discuss this innocent X topic - are often used by insider dealers to try and cover their tracks. It does not work. See the recent case successfully prosecuted by the FCA (Google Fabiana Malek). (I should declare an interest as I was involved in that investigation.)
What you have described up there can be tracked though it takes time and effort. And you forget that much of the effort will be directed at working out who accessed the document which will be trackable, as well as lots of other evidence which helps corroborate other pieces. Then there is the biggest risk of all for the leakers: the fact that the whole leak (from taking the document to publication) was not done by one person but by two and possibly more. So you find the weakest link or put pressure on one of the links. Once you have more than one person involved, they each have to trust the others not to let them down. They each have different agendas and they are all vulnerable to worrying that their trust may be misplaced and that maybe they need to be the one to get first mover advantage.
Don't think for a moment that experienced investigators don't know and use that.
The current investigation is not only in evidence gathering mode but also trying to cause one of the players to crack out of fear, before they are even questioned.
Anyone who calls Corbyn a racist, but not Trump, is a hypocrite who has no genuine interest in opposing racism, but is using it for political ends. And vice versa, of course.
Do you support use of the word "racist" to describe people who are, say, anti-Islam, even though Islam clearly isn't a race and there are plenty of white Muslims in places like Bosnia?
Definition Of Race According To The Equality Act 2010 The Act is clear in its definition of race. Race means being part of a group of people who are identified by their nationality, citizenship, colour, national or ethnic origins.
Anyone who calls Corbyn a racist, but not Trump, is a hypocrite who has no genuine interest in opposing racism, but is using it for political ends. And vice versa, of course.
Do you support use of the word "racist" to describe people who are, say, anti-Islam, even though Islam clearly isn't a race and there are plenty of white Muslims in places like Bosnia?
Definition Of Race According To The Equality Act 2010 The Act is clear in its definition of race. Race means being part of a group of people who are identified by their nationality, citizenship, colour, national or ethnic origins.
There isn't an equivalent term 'religionist' to cover Religious/Belief Discrimination (which is also included in the Equality Act of course). I think most peole would accept the term 'racist' for someone who is virulently anti-Islam.
I would have thought she was all in favour of law and order?
How on earth does one go about getting classified docs from a mole in London these days and still cover the source? Everywhere in zone 1 is under CCTV, your phone isn't secure (esp Huawei), and presumably nor is your landline. Surely the trick is to leave really slim pickings for GCHQ and only a single meeting so 5 don't have much to go on.
Call one to journo from phone box; ring mole back on this number from a burner phone (gives different phone box no). Mole has a lead on a story about footballer cheating on wife. Will splash on front cover. Ring from a long way away from your usual phone and daily routes. Call two from journo's burner. Mole has info of this nature. Footballer cover story was a cover story. Fresh burner phone is available at (location). Don't bring your phone to it, or this burner phone. Call three, burner to burner. Meeting point is a pub in the sticks without CCTV. Get two different black cabs from different taxi firms there, hail to hire, not Ubers, pay cash. Don't bring phone. Mole prints documents using second hand computer and printer without internet connection Meet, no phones, take printed docs, reverse steps.
How do the boys and girls at box 500 catch the mole?
Burner phones and cover stories - we were meeting to discuss this innocent X topic - are often used by insider dealers to try and cover their tracks. It does not work. See the recent case successfully prosecuted by the FCA (Google Fabiana Malek). (I should declare an interest as I was involved in that investigation.)
What you have described up there can be tracked though it takes time and effort. And you forget that much of the effort will be directed at working out who accessed the document which will be trackable, as well as lots of other evidence which helps corroborate other pieces. Then there is the biggest risk of all for the leakers: the fact that the whole leak (from taking the document to publication) was not done by one person but by two and possibly more. So you find the weakest link or put pressure on one of the links. Once you have more than one person involved, they each have to trust the others not to let them down. They each have different agendas and they are all vulnerable to worrying that their trust may be misplaced and that maybe they need to be the one to get first mover advantage.
Don't think for a moment that experienced investigators don't know and use that.
It must be pretty easy to spot all the people playing financial market spreads who are using inside information...
The Democrats are in danger of doing exactly what a lot parties do when they start letting ideologues get too much traction via publicity, they don't aim to win, they aim for purity. The Democratic party establishment has yet to take a hand in primary season but it will at some point and it will think of winning first.
The basic maths are against Trump but the Democrats need to avoid tearing themselves to bits and critically need to avoid 3rd party runs. Trumps base is solid but that solid base isn't enough to see him home, the Democrats have the winning of the swing voters alright but the people that will take them over the top are more frothy and a 3rd party run from either side will hurt them plenty.
On another US note, a story is doing the rounds that Kim Darroch may have been passing on classified info to a US media outlet. The story does appear to have some cred.
Wokeness is all about purity, and expelling people who fail to be pure.
That is a rather ironic statement, unless you are using wokeness to describe Trumps latest tweet! It was after all about expelling people he thinks impure.
The more I see of @AOC, the more I like her. I see why Trump is afraid of her.
One of the issues to be asked is whether moral codes should be enforced by the law at all. This was debated by lawyers in the period before the Wolfenden Report. Effectively, the law used to enforce a largely Christian moral code (hence the ban on homosexuality, suicide & the strict divorce laws). We have abandoned that by and large. But some minority faiths not only have a moral code which used to be the norm here but also feel that the law should reflect that moral code - at least in practice if not de jure - for their own community and possibly more widely.
That is a step back to a pre-Wolfenden world.
My view is that moral codes & law should not be one & the same, partly because there are different moral codes & partly because law based on one religion's moral code is effectively a theocracy rather than a democracy. That is not a world I want to live in.
So the question then arises: how does the law determine what is / is not legal when it comes to matters of general morality. What are the limits of allowable conscience exceptions. That is a matter of power & numbers. If, for instance, the Muslim population grew to a significant extent & did not change its views in - say - a world of PR it is possible to imagine a situation where reversal of some rights for some minorities might be a price that a government has to pay to get & stay in power. It is not inconceivable. That is why it is both important to keep on making the case for the rights that we do have & try and change attitudes. Otherwise we could well find that having abandoned our own Christian-determined law we end up substituting it for another law informed by a very different religion.
I think that's right, although in practice I think that gradual assimilation takes the edge of differences in culture. Essentially we are governed broadly on Enlightenment principles, shorn of religious trappings. The question is whether we are sufficiently attached to them to feel that we have a right to keep them even if a majority disagrees, because their reversal would cause too much pain for the rest of us. I think the answer is "yes", but the logic of that is a written constitution guaranteeing the things that the great majority of the population today agrees to be essential, with a threshold for change that is difficult to achieve (say 66% of Parliament) without a new consensus emerging.
Exactly what should be in it leads us into the more familiar debates around the ECHR. But even people who really dislike the ECHR generally do so because it's European rather than because they want to, say, reintroduce discrimination on grounds of race or sexuality. It is possible in principle to separate matters of taste and custom (e.g. the minimum age for alcohol or drug legalisation) and matters protecting individuals against oppression.
On topic: It seems to me that the two big factors which will determine whether Trump gets a second term are:
1. Will the Dems be able to resist the temptation of assuming that the whole electorate is as horrified by Trump as they are?
2. Will Trump manage to avoid tipping the US economy into a significant slowdown by his economically illiterate obsession with starting trade wars?
I think the answer to both questions will probably be 'No', which makes it hard to call.
Spot on.
I'm interest that both you and @Richard_Nabavi expect the US economy to tip into slowdown within the next 15 months. I respect both your and Richard's views on economic matters but I can't really see the signs of that slowdown yet*.
Is there any evidence?
(*I acknowledge I'm rubbish at spotting imminent downturns/crashes etc.)
On topic: It seems to me that the two big factors which will determine whether Trump gets a second term are:
1. Will the Dems be able to resist the temptation of assuming that the whole electorate is as horrified by Trump as they are?
2. Will Trump manage to avoid tipping the US economy into a significant slowdown by his economically illiterate obsession with starting trade wars?
I think the answer to both questions will probably be 'No', which makes it hard to call.
Interesting view. Funnily enough I think the answer to both questions is possibly 'Yes', which equally makes it hard to call.
The democrat candidate last time had baggage that tied in with Trumps campaign slogan of crooked Hilary, on that score it may be harder work for him this time. He also took states like Florida with Latino votes on basis of he was mostly known as that bloke off the TV show, not a crooked politician or nasty bit of work, on that score too it may be harder this time for him.
Whatever we disagree on, we agree no Florida no chance?
On topic: It seems to me that the two big factors which will determine whether Trump gets a second term are:
1. Will the Dems be able to resist the temptation of assuming that the whole electorate is as horrified by Trump as they are?
2. Will Trump manage to avoid tipping the US economy into a significant slowdown by his economically illiterate obsession with starting trade wars?
I think the answer to both questions will probably be 'No', which makes it hard to call.
The strongest argument against a Trump second term is the numbers one IMO. Trump was very lucky to win the college last time. Since then he has lost a critical chunk of his vote, particularly in the rust belt states. This means he has to win them all back or get people who went Hillary last time to switch to him. Neither appears to be happening right now.
Call one to journo from phone box; ring mole back on this number from a burner phone (gives different phone box no). Mole has a lead on a story about footballer cheating on wife. Will splash on front cover. Ring from a long way away from your usual phone and daily routes. Call two from journo's burner. Mole has info of this nature. Footballer cover story was a cover story. Fresh burner phone is available at (location). Don't bring your phone to it, or this burner phone. Call three, burner to burner. Meeting point is a pub in the sticks without CCTV. Get two different black cabs from different taxi firms there, hail to hire, not Ubers, pay cash. Don't bring phone. Mole prints documents using second hand computer and printer without internet connection Meet, no phones, take printed docs, reverse steps.
How do the boys and girls at box 500 catch the mole?
Burner phones and cover stories - we were meeting to discuss this innocent X topic - are often used by insider dealers to try and cover their tracks. It does not work. See the recent case successfully prosecuted by the FCA (Google Fabiana Malek). (I should declare an interest as I was involved in that investigation.)
What you have described up there can be tracked though it takes time and effort. And you forget that much of the effort will be directed at working out who accessed the document which will be trackable, as well as lots of other evidence which helps corroborate other pieces. Then there is the biggest risk of all for the leakers: the fact that the whole leak (from taking the document to publication) was not done by one person but by two and possibly more. So you find the weakest link or put pressure on one of the links. Once you have more than one person involved, they each have to trust the others not to let them down. They each have different agendas and they are all vulnerable to worrying that their trust may be misplaced and that maybe they need to be the one to get first mover advantage.
Don't think for a moment that experienced investigators don't know and use that.
It must be pretty easy to spot all the people playing financial market spreads who are using inside information...
Anyone who calls Corbyn a racist, but not Trump, is a hypocrite who has no genuine interest in opposing racism, but is using it for political ends. And vice versa, of course.
Do you support use of the word "racist" to describe people who are, say, anti-Islam, even though Islam clearly isn't a race and there are plenty of white Muslims in places like Bosnia?
Definition Of Race According To The Equality Act 2010 The Act is clear in its definition of race. Race means being part of a group of people who are identified by their nationality, citizenship, colour, national or ethnic origins.
There isn't an equivalent term 'religionist' to cover Religious/Belief Discrimination (which is also included in the Equality Act of course). I think most peole would accept the term 'racist' for someone who is virulently anti-Islam.
There is in the UK a very strong correlation between Islam and racial origin, so easy to use one as a proxy for the other.
As each is a protected characteristic under the Equalities Act, does it really matter if discriminating against a religious denomination is racist or another form of bigotry?
Anyone who calls Corbyn a racist, but not Trump, is a hypocrite who has no genuine interest in opposing racism, but is using it for political ends. And vice versa, of course.
Do you support use of the word "racist" to describe people who are, say, anti-Islam, even though Islam clearly isn't a race and there are plenty of white Muslims in places like Bosnia?
I’m sick of this “Islam isn’t a race” so being Islamophobic is not racism bollocks. There is here, and in most countries, a clearly defined concept of indirect discrimination/disparate impact. Using an example from the CAB website say, for example, a health club only accepts customers who are on the electoral register. This applies to all customers in the same way. But Gypsies and Travellers are less likely to be on the electoral register and therefore they’ll find it more difficult to join. This could be indirect discrimination against Gypsies and Travellers because of the protected characteristic of race. The rule seems fair, but it has a worse effect on this particular group of people. Similarly, if you’re Jewish and observe the Sabbath, you can’t work on Saturdays. It doesn’t matter that there aren’t any other Jewish people who work in the same shop. It can still be indirect discrimination if something would normally disadvantage people sharing your ethnic characteristic.
Indirect discrimination can be justified if there is a good reason for it - English teachers have to speak English for example, certain military roles may need a level of physical strength most women cannot meet, space station crew may have to work the Sabbath. But there is no justification for abuse. The vast majority of people of the Islamic faith in this country are of Asian and North African decent. Indeed that is true worldwide, the Albanians are a minority in this respect, so anti Islamic sentiments are always disproportionately targeted at people from Asia and the Middle East. Justification might be possible, a theological or philosophical critique for example, but to target Islam in an abusive manner is racist.
Anyone who calls Corbyn a racist, but not Trump, is a hypocrite who has no genuine interest in opposing racism, but is using it for political ends. And vice versa, of course.
Do you support use of the word "racist" to describe people who are, say, anti-Islam, even though Islam clearly isn't a race and there are plenty of white Muslims in places like Bosnia?
Definition Of Race According To The Equality Act 2010 The Act is clear in its definition of race. Race means being part of a group of people who are identified by their nationality, citizenship, colour, national or ethnic origins.
Religion should be treated no more special than any other belief system.
You wouldn't call it racist to attack fascists based on what they believe, so why not the religious based on what they believe?
IANAE but I think the law begs to differ.
Religion/Religious belief is one of the nine protected characteristics in the 2010 Equality Act; as far as I know political belief isn't similarly protected..
I think that's right, although in practice I think that gradual assimilation takes the edge of differences in culture. Essentially we are governed broadly on Enlightenment principles, shorn of religious trappings. The question is whether we are sufficiently attached to them to feel that we have a right to keep them even if a majority disagrees, because their reversal would cause too much pain for the rest of us. I think the answer is "yes", but the logic of that is a written constitution guaranteeing the things that the great majority of the population today agrees to be essential, with a threshold for change that is difficult to achieve (say 66% of Parliament) without a new consensus emerging. [snip]
I think it's more difficult to be consistent over time than you imply. For example, your written constitution, even as recently as 25 years ago, would almost certainly have contained provisions which we (in the UK and in most Western states, though not necessarily worldwide) would now regard as completely unacceptable prejudice against lesbians and gays. Conversely, people a few decades ago would regard some of our current mainstream views as totally unacceptable - for example, most of humankind in the past regarded abortion as indistinguishable from infanticide, a position which was arguably more logical and defensible than the mainstream view today. Codifying these kinds of issue into 'universal' human rights is fraught with difficulty.
On topic: It seems to me that the two big factors which will determine whether Trump gets a second term are:
1. Will the Dems be able to resist the temptation of assuming that the whole electorate is as horrified by Trump as they are?
2. Will Trump manage to avoid tipping the US economy into a significant slowdown by his economically illiterate obsession with starting trade wars?
I think the answer to both questions will probably be 'No', which makes it hard to call.
Interesting view. Funnily enough I think the answer to both questions is possibly 'Yes', which equally makes it hard to call.
The democrat candidate last time had baggage that tied in with Trumps campaign slogan of crooked Hilary, on that score it may be harder work for him this time. He also took states like Florida with Latino votes on basis of he was mostly known as that bloke off the TV show, not a crooked politician or nasty bit of work, on that score too it may be harder this time for him.
Whatever we disagree on, we agree no Florida no chance?
That's an interesting question.
Florida was great for the Republicans in 2018. They flipped the Senate seat and held the Governor's office.
So, we should forget about in 2020, right?
Except there's upto 1.5 million former felons who'll get the vote in 2020. So that might make a difference.
On topic: It seems to me that the two big factors which will determine whether Trump gets a second term are:
1. Will the Dems be able to resist the temptation of assuming that the whole electorate is as horrified by Trump as they are?
2. Will Trump manage to avoid tipping the US economy into a significant slowdown by his economically illiterate obsession with starting trade wars?
I think the answer to both questions will probably be 'No', which makes it hard to call.
Spot on.
I'm interest that both you and @Richard_Nabavi expect the US economy to tip into slowdown within the next 15 months. I respect both your and Richard's views on economic matters but I can't really see the signs of that slowdown yet*.
Is there any evidence?
(*I acknowledge I'm rubbish at spotting imminent downturns/crashes etc.)
Anyone who calls Corbyn a racist, but not Trump, is a hypocrite who has no genuine interest in opposing racism, but is using it for political ends. And vice versa, of course.
Do you support use of the word "racist" to describe people who are, say, anti-Islam, even though Islam clearly isn't a race and there are plenty of white Muslims in places like Bosnia?
Definition Of Race According To The Equality Act 2010 The Act is clear in its definition of race. Race means being part of a group of people who are identified by their nationality, citizenship, colour, national or ethnic origins.
Religion should be treated no more special than any other belief system.
You wouldn't call it racist to attack fascists based on what they believe, so why not the religious based on what they believe?
IANAE but I think the law begs to differ.
Religion/Religious belief is one of the nine protected characteristics in the 2010 Equality Act; as far as I know political belief isn't similarly protected..
Which is a bad piece of law, though it does refer to "philosophical belief" too.
On topic: It seems to me that the two big factors which will determine whether Trump gets a second term are:
1. Will the Dems be able to resist the temptation of assuming that the whole electorate is as horrified by Trump as they are?
2. Will Trump manage to avoid tipping the US economy into a significant slowdown by his economically illiterate obsession with starting trade wars?
I think the answer to both questions will probably be 'No', which makes it hard to call.
Spot on.
I'm interest that both you and @Richard_Nabavi expect the US economy to tip into slowdown within the next 15 months. I respect both your and Richard's views on economic matters but I can't really see the signs of that slowdown yet*.
Is there any evidence?
(*I acknowledge I'm rubbish at spotting imminent downturns/crashes etc.)
Anyone who calls Corbyn a racist, but not Trump, is a hypocrite who has no genuine interest in opposing racism, but is using it for political ends. And vice versa, of course.
Do you support use of the word "racist" to describe people who are, say, anti-Islam, even though Islam clearly isn't a race and there are plenty of white Muslims in places like Bosnia?
Definition Of Race According To The Equality Act 2010 The Act is clear in its definition of race. Race means being part of a group of people who are identified by their nationality, citizenship, colour, national or ethnic origins.
Religion should be treated no more special than any other belief system.
You wouldn't call it racist to attack fascists based on what they believe, so why not the religious based on what they believe?
IANAE but I think the law begs to differ.
Religion/Religious belief is one of the nine protected characteristics in the 2010 Equality Act; as far as I know political belief isn't similarly protected..
Which is a bad piece of law, though it does refer to "philosophical belief" too.
For reasons I outline above, religious discrimination was often considered indirect race discrimination even before religious discrimination was introduced in 2003.
Anyone who calls Corbyn a racist, but not Trump, is a hypocrite who has no genuine interest in opposing racism, but is using it for political ends. And vice versa, of course.
Do you support use of the word "racist" to describe people who are, say, anti-Islam, even though Islam clearly isn't a race and there are plenty of white Muslims in places like Bosnia?
Definition Of Race According To The Equality Act 2010 The Act is clear in its definition of race. Race means being part of a group of people who are identified by their nationality, citizenship, colour, national or ethnic origins.
There isn't an equivalent term 'religionist' to cover Religious/Belief Discrimination (which is also included in the Equality Act of course). I think most peole would accept the term 'racist' for someone who is virulently anti-Islam.
There is in the UK a very strong correlation between Islam and racial origin, so easy to use one as a proxy for the other.
As each is a protected characteristic under the Equalities Act, does it really matter if discriminating against a religious denomination is racist or another form of bigotry?
I agree, on both points.
The 2010 Equality Act was a major achievement of the Blair/Brown government.
On topic: It seems to me that the two big factors which will determine whether Trump gets a second term are:
1. Will the Dems be able to resist the temptation of assuming that the whole electorate is as horrified by Trump as they are?
2. Will Trump manage to avoid tipping the US economy into a significant slowdown by his economically illiterate obsession with starting trade wars?
I think the answer to both questions will probably be 'No', which makes it hard to call.
Spot on.
I'm interest that both you and @Richard_Nabavi expect the US economy to tip into slowdown within the next 15 months. I respect both your and Richard's views on economic matters but I can't really see the signs of that slowdown yet*.
Is there any evidence?
(*I acknowledge I'm rubbish at spotting imminent downturns/crashes etc.)
On topic: It seems to me that the two big factors which will determine whether Trump gets a second term are:
1. Will the Dems be able to resist the temptation of assuming that the whole electorate is as horrified by Trump as they are?
2. Will Trump manage to avoid tipping the US economy into a significant slowdown by his economically illiterate obsession with starting trade wars?
I think the answer to both questions will probably be 'No', which makes it hard to call.
Interesting view. Funnily enough I think the answer to both questions is possibly 'Yes', which equally makes it hard to call.
The democrat candidate last time had baggage that tied in with Trumps campaign slogan of crooked Hilary, on that score it may be harder work for him this time. He also took states like Florida with Latino votes on basis of he was mostly known as that bloke off the TV show, not a crooked politician or nasty bit of work, on that score too it may be harder this time for him.
Whatever we disagree on, we agree no Florida no chance?
That's an interesting question.
Florida was great for the Republicans in 2018. They flipped the Senate seat and held the Governor's office.
So, we should forget about in 2020, right?
Except there's upto 1.5 million former felons who'll get the vote in 2020. So that might make a difference.
Also a lot of Puerto Rican migration since the hurricane. Just because Trump won it once doesn't mean that it is in the bag for next time.
Anyone who calls Corbyn a racist, but not Trump, is a hypocrite who has no genuine interest in opposing racism, but is using it for political ends. And vice versa, of course.
Do you support use of the word "racist" to describe people who are, say, anti-Islam, even though Islam clearly isn't a race and there are plenty of white Muslims in places like Bosnia?
Definition Of Race According To The Equality Act 2010 The Act is clear in its definition of race. Race means being part of a group of people who are identified by their nationality, citizenship, colour, national or ethnic origins.
There isn't an equivalent term 'religionist' to cover Religious/Belief Discrimination (which is also included in the Equality Act of course). I think most peole would accept the term 'racist' for someone who is virulently anti-Islam.
There is in the UK a very strong correlation between Islam and racial origin, so easy to use one as a proxy for the other.
As each is a protected characteristic under the Equalities Act, does it really matter if discriminating against a religious denomination is racist or another form of bigotry?
Religious discrimination was considered indirect race discrimination for that very reason even before it was introduced here for the first time in the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003
On topic: It seems to me that the two big factors which will determine whether Trump gets a second term are:
1. Will the Dems be able to resist the temptation of assuming that the whole electorate is as horrified by Trump as they are?
2. Will Trump manage to avoid tipping the US economy into a significant slowdown by his economically illiterate obsession with starting trade wars?
I think the answer to both questions will probably be 'No', which makes it hard to call.
Spot on.
I'm interest that both you and @Richard_Nabavi expect the US economy to tip into slowdown within the next 15 months. I respect both your and Richard's views on economic matters but I can't really see the signs of that slowdown yet*.
Is there any evidence?
(*I acknowledge I'm rubbish at spotting imminent downturns/crashes etc.)
On topic: It seems to me that the two big factors which will determine whether Trump gets a second term are:
1. Will the Dems be able to resist the temptation of assuming that the whole electorate is as horrified by Trump as they are?
2. Will Trump manage to avoid tipping the US economy into a significant slowdown by his economically illiterate obsession with starting trade wars?
I think the answer to both questions will probably be 'No', which makes it hard to call.
Interesting view. Funnily enough I think the answer to both questions is possibly 'Yes', which equally makes it hard to call.
The democrat candidate last time had baggage that tied in with Trumps campaign slogan of crooked Hilary, on that score it may be harder work for him this time. He also took states like Florida with Latino votes on basis of he was mostly known as that bloke off the TV show, not a crooked politician or nasty bit of work, on that score too it may be harder this time for him.
Whatever we disagree on, we agree no Florida no chance?
That's an interesting question.
Florida was great for the Republicans in 2018. They flipped the Senate seat and held the Governor's office.
So, we should forget about in 2020, right?
Except there's upto 1.5 million former felons who'll get the vote in 2020. So that might make a difference.
How many of them will bother to vote? Although Florida is still the most likely state to change from GOP to Dem in my opinion.
Anyone who calls Corbyn a racist, but not Trump, is a hypocrite who has no genuine interest in opposing racism, but is using it for political ends. And vice versa, of course.
Do you support use of the word "racist" to describe people who are, say, anti-Islam, even though Islam clearly isn't a race and there are plenty of white Muslims in places like Bosnia?
Definition Of Race According To The Equality Act 2010 The Act is clear in its definition of race. Race means being part of a group of people who are identified by their nationality, citizenship, colour, national or ethnic origins.
Religion should be treated no more special than any other belief system.
You wouldn't call it racist to attack fascists based on what they believe, so why not the religious based on what they believe?
IANAE but I think the law begs to differ.
Religion/Religious belief is one of the nine protected characteristics in the 2010 Equality Act; as far as I know political belief isn't similarly protected..
Which is a bad piece of law, though it does refer to "philosophical belief" too.
For reasons I outline above, religious discrimination was often considered indirect race discrimination even before religious discrimination was introduced in 2003.
Race doesn't equal religion. For examples, there are Muslims and Christians who are black, white or Asian.
Anyone who calls Corbyn a racist, but not Trump, is a hypocrite who has no genuine interest in opposing racism, but is using it for political ends. And vice versa, of course.
Do you support use of the word "racist" to describe people who are, say, anti-Islam, even though Islam clearly isn't a race and there are plenty of white Muslims in places like Bosnia?
Definition Of Race According To The Equality Act 2010 The Act is clear in its definition of race. Race means being part of a group of people who are identified by their nationality, citizenship, colour, national or ethnic origins.
There isn't an equivalent term 'religionist' to cover Religious/Belief Discrimination (which is also included in the Equality Act of course). I think most peole would accept the term 'racist' for someone who is virulently anti-Islam.
Surely it depends why someone is virulently anti-Islam?
If they're virulently anti-Islam because they don't like those foreign sounding people and their faith then yes that is ignorant and racist.
If they're virulently anti-Islam because like Professor Richard Dawkins they are generally virulently anti-religion in general then is that racist?
I would have thought she was all in favour of law and order?
Call one to journo from phone box; ring mole back on this number from a burner phone (gives different phone box no). Mole has a lead on a story about footballer cheating on wife. Will splash on front cover. Ring from a long way away from your usual phone and daily routes. Call two from journo's burner. Mole has info of this nature. Footballer cover story was a cover story. Fresh burner phone is available at (location). Don't bring your phone to it, or this burner phone. Call three, burner to burner. Meeting point is a pub in the sticks without CCTV. Get two different black cabs from different taxi firms there, hail to hire, not Ubers, pay cash. Don't bring phone. Mole prints documents using second hand computer and printer without internet connection Meet, no phones, take printed docs, reverse steps.
How do the boys and girls at box 500 catch the mole?
Burner phones and cover stories - we were meeting to discuss this innocent X topic - are often used by insider dealers to try and cover their tracks. It does not work. See the recent case successfully prosecuted by the FCA (Google Fabiana Malek). (I should declare an interest as I was involved in that investigation.)
What you have described up there can be tracked though it takes time and effort. And you forget that much of the effort will be directed at working out who accessed the document which will be trackable, as well as lots of other evidence which helps corroborate other pieces. Then there is the biggest risk of all for the leakers: the fact that the whole leak (from taking the document to publication) was not done by one person but by two and possibly more. So you find the weakest link or put pressure on one of the links. Once you have more than one person involved, they each have to trust the others not to let them down. They each have different agendas and they are all vulnerable to worrying that their trust may be misplaced and that maybe they need to be the one to get first mover advantage.
Don't think for a moment that experienced investigators don't know and use that.
The current investigation is not only in evidence gathering mode but also trying to cause one of the players to crack out of fear, before they are even questioned.
On topic: It seems to me that the two big factors which will determine whether Trump gets a second term are:
1. Will the Dems be able to resist the temptation of assuming that the whole electorate is as horrified by Trump as they are?
2. Will Trump manage to avoid tipping the US economy into a significant slowdown by his economically illiterate obsession with starting trade wars?
I think the answer to both questions will probably be 'No', which makes it hard to call.
The strongest argument against a Trump second term is the numbers one IMO. Trump was very lucky to win the college last time. Since then he has lost a critical chunk of his vote, particularly in the rust belt states. This means he has to win them all back or get people who went Hillary last time to switch to him. Neither appears to be happening right now.
I would argue that the strongest reason to suppose Trump won't get a second term is that he is moving heaven and earth to motivate his opponents. Telling second and third generation Americans in Congress to "go home" will certainly incentivise a large number of similar backgrounds to vote, and is just the latest of these outbursts. Last election he was superb at undermining his opponents and depressing Hilary's turnout, by appearing as the lesser of two evils. Tough this time round.
Anyone who calls Corbyn a racist, but not Trump, is a hypocrite who has no genuine interest in opposing racism, but is using it for political ends. And vice versa, of course.
Do you support use of the word "racist" to describe people who are, say, anti-Islam, even though Islam clearly isn't a race and there are plenty of white Muslims in places like Bosnia?
Definition Of Race According To The Equality Act 2010 The Act is clear in its definition of race. Race means being part of a group of people who are identified by their nationality, citizenship, colour, national or ethnic origins.
Religion should be treated no more special than any other belief system.
You wouldn't call it racist to attack fascists based on what they believe, so why not the religious based on what they believe?
IANAE but I think the law begs to differ.
Religion/Religious belief is one of the nine protected characteristics in the 2010 Equality Act; as far as I know political belief isn't similarly protected..
Which is a bad piece of law, though it does refer to "philosophical belief" too.
For reasons I outline above, religious discrimination was often considered indirect race discrimination even before religious discrimination was introduced in 2003.
Race doesn't equal religion. For examples, there are Muslims and Christians who are black, white or Asian.
Read my post above. If it is harder for a specific racial group to meet a criteria without objective justification then that is indirect racial discrimination. If you were hiring farm hands prior to 2003 (when religious discrimination was introduced) and barred Islamic candidates, you would have been had for indirect race discrimination because that criteria would make it unjustifiably harder for people of North African and West Asian descent to take the job. If the job were linked to a different religion (a priest for example) then the criteria would be justified - but usually not.
Trump's comments here are smarter politics than many suggest given that the Democrats are struggling to keep their own left ideologues from high publicity. Cortez and Omar are godsends to the Republicans.
Oh, they're very smart politics. Rancid, but very smart. They increase the chances of impeachment as well, which he rightly sees as a potential short-cut to victory.
I still think he'll lose, mind. He threaded a needle last time.
Anyone who calls Corbyn a racist, but not Trump, is a hypocrite who has no genuine interest in opposing racism, but is using it for political ends. And vice versa, of course.
Do you support use of the word "racist" to describe people who are, say, anti-Islam, even though Islam clearly isn't a race and there are plenty of white Muslims in places like Bosnia?
Definition Of Race According To The Equality Act 2010 The Act is clear in its definition of race. Race means being part of a group of people who are identified by their nationality, citizenship, colour, national or ethnic origins.
Religion should be treated no more special than any other belief system.
You wouldn't call it racist to attack fascists based on what they believe, so why not the religious based on what they believe?
IANAE but I think the law begs to differ.
Religion/Religious belief is one of the nine protected characteristics in the 2010 Equality Act; as far as I know political belief isn't similarly protected..
Which is a bad piece of law, though it does refer to "philosophical belief" too.
For reasons I outline above, religious discrimination was often considered indirect race discrimination even before religious discrimination was introduced in 2003.
Race doesn't equal religion. For examples, there are Muslims and Christians who are black, white or Asian.
Read my post above. If it is harder for a specific racial group to meet a criteria without objective justification then that is indirect racial discrimination. If you were hiring farm hands prior to 2003 (when religious discrimination was introduced) and barred Islamic candidates, you would have been had for indirect race discrimination because that criteria would make it unjustifiably harder for people of North African and West Asian descent to take the job. If the job were linked to a different religion (a priest for example) then the criteria would be justified - but usually not.
Not all North Africans and West Asians are Muslim.
We must be careful not to stifle legitimate criticism of any religion or belief system (and those who use that system to deny others their legally protected rights)
It is very easy to throw the word 'racist' at people who have valid criticisms to make about how people are acting.
You should never be able to use your chosen religion or belief system as justification for bigotry, hatred or violence.
On topic: It seems to me that the two big factors which will determine whether Trump gets a second term are:
1. Will the Dems be able to resist the temptation of assuming that the whole electorate is as horrified by Trump as they are?
2. Will Trump manage to avoid tipping the US economy into a significant slowdown by his economically illiterate obsession with starting trade wars?
I think the answer to both questions will probably be 'No', which makes it hard to call.
Interesting view. Funnily enough I think the answer to both questions is possibly 'Yes', which equally makes it hard to call.
The democrat candidate last time had baggage that tied in with Trumps campaign slogan of crooked Hilary, on that score it may be harder work for him this time. He also took states like Florida with Latino votes on basis of he was mostly known as that bloke off the TV show, not a crooked politician or nasty bit of work, on that score too it may be harder this time for him.
Whatever we disagree on, we agree no Florida no chance?
That's an interesting question.
Florida was great for the Republicans in 2018. They flipped the Senate seat and held the Governor's office.
So, we should forget about in 2020, right?
Except there's upto 1.5 million former felons who'll get the vote in 2020. So that might make a difference.
What happens when the election comes down to twenty ballots in Broward county ?
We must be careful not to stifle legitimate criticism of any religion or belief system (and those who use that system to deny others their legally protected rights)
It is very easy to throw the word 'racist' at people who have valid criticisms to make about how people are acting.
You should never be able to use your chosen religion or belief system as justification for bigotry, hatred or violence.
Like what has happened with the Birmingham school protests.
A child's right to go to school and get a quality education, a homosexual's right to equal treatment, should all trump a medieval right to believe sky fairy hates gays.
That’s true but not the point. Indirect discrimination is when there's a practice, policy or rule which applies to everyone in the same way, but it has a worse effect on some people than others. A ban on Islamic candidates disproportionately effects Middle Eastern candidates more than, say, French or Welsh candidates. The percentage of people of the Islamic faith from those areas is far lower so the effect is less on them - it falls disproportionately on people who decend from countries that are majority Islamic. It’s in the Equality Act.
Former felons are disproportionately African American.
Woah. Quick check. Are you saying that:
a) Former felons are disproportionately African American b) African Americans are disproportionately Democrats c) Therefore former felons are disproportionately Democrats
Because if so, would you like to explain to the boys and girls the logical errors you made there?
That’s true but not the point. Indirect discrimination is when there's a practice, policy or rule which applies to everyone in the same way, but it has a worse effect on some people than others. A ban on Islamic candidates disproportionately effects Middle Eastern candidates more than, say, French or Welsh candidates. The percentage of people of the Islamic faith from those areas is far lower so the effect is less on them - it falls disproportionately on people who decend from countries that are majority Islamic. It’s in the Equality Act.
The most unfairly discriminated-against people in any society are short men. The next most unfairly discriminated-against people are ugly people of either sex. But we don't seem to care much about those types of discrimination for some reason.
I would have thought she was all in favour of law and order?
How on earth does one go about getting classified docs from a mole in London these days and still cover the source? Everywhere in zone 1 is under CCTV, your phone isn't secure (esp Huawei), and presumably nor is your landline. Surely the trick is to leave really slim pickings for GCHQ and only a single meeting so 5 don't have much to go on.
Call one to journo from phone box; ring mole back on this number from a burner phone (gives different phone box no). Mole has a lead on a story about footballer cheating on wife. Will splash on front cover. Ring from a long way away from your usual phone and daily routes. Call two from journo's burner. Mole has info of this nature. Footballer cover story was a cover story. Fresh burner phone is available at (location). Don't bring your phone to it, or this burner phone. Call three, burner to burner. Meeting point is a pub in the sticks without CCTV. Get two different black cabs from different taxi firms there, hail to hire, not Ubers, pay cash. Don't bring phone. Mole prints documents using second hand computer and printer without internet connection Meet, no phones, take printed docs, reverse steps.
How do the boys and girls at box 500 catch the mole?
Burner phones and cover stories - we were meeting to discuss this innocent X topic - are often used by insider dealers to try and cover their tracks. It does not work. See the recent case successfully prosecuted by the FCA (Google Fabiana Malek). (I should declare an interest as I was involved in that investigation.)
What you have described up there can be tracked though it takes time and effort. And you forget that much of the effort will be directed at working out who accessed the document which will be trackable, as well as lots of other evidence which helps corroborate other pieces. Then there is the biggest risk of all for the leakers: the fact that the whole leak (from taking the document to publication) was not done by one person but by two and possibly more. So you find the weakest link or put pressure on one of the links. Once you have more than one person involved, they each have to trust the others not to let them down. They each have different agendas and they are all vulnerable to worrying that their trust may be misplaced and that maybe they need to be the one to get first mover advantage.
Don't think for a moment that experienced investigators don't know and use that.
Thanks for the heads-up on the Malek prosecution, and well done; very rare to see a successful insider trading prosecution.
On topic: It seems to me that the two big factors which will determine whether Trump gets a second term are:
1. Will the Dems be able to resist the temptation of assuming that the whole electorate is as horrified by Trump as they are?
2. Will Trump manage to avoid tipping the US economy into a significant slowdown by his economically illiterate obsession with starting trade wars?
I think the answer to both questions will probably be 'No', which makes it hard to call.
Interesting view. Funnily enough I think the answer to both questions is possibly 'Yes', which equally makes it hard to call.
The democrat candidate last time had baggage that tied in with Trumps campaign slogan of crooked Hilary, on that score it may be harder work for him this time. He also took states like Florida with Latino votes on basis of he was mostly known as that bloke off the TV show, not a crooked politician or nasty bit of work, on that score too it may be harder this time for him.
Whatever we disagree on, we agree no Florida no chance?
That's an interesting question.
Florida was great for the Republicans in 2018. They flipped the Senate seat and held the Governor's office.
So, we should forget about in 2020, right?
Except there's upto 1.5 million former felons who'll get the vote in 2020. So that might make a difference.
Great for republicans 2018 though still tight? And the candidate getting the votes that day wasn’t trump.
Trump lost the nationwide PV last time, despite fair wind from his opponents baggage out front and centre and much of his own in the closet. That’s a fair description how his starting point changed this time.
Everyone’s got an offer they can’t refuse, the trump team can come to me and say here’s the offer you can’t refuse, lead our campaign and make us win again. I would turn it down on the basis it’s impossible for him to win this one, it’s a waste of time even trying, regardless of who the democrats put up, and even if the polls could look close, what the voters will do with the privacy of their vote will finish him. I have complete faith The US electorate are not insular as sometimes made out, will march the Donald to the scaffold for the rest of the world.
The Democrats are in danger of doing exactly what a lot parties do when they start letting ideologues get too much traction via publicity, they don't aim to win, they aim for purity. The Democratic party establishment has yet to take a hand in primary season but it will at some point and it will think of winning first.
The basic maths are against Trump but the Democrats need to avoid tearing themselves to bits and critically need to avoid 3rd party runs. Trumps base is solid but that solid base isn't enough to see him home, the Democrats have the winning of the swing voters alright but the people that will take them over the top are more frothy and a 3rd party run from either side will hurt them plenty.
On another US note, a story is doing the rounds that Kim Darroch may have been passing on classified info to a US media outlet. The story does appear to have some cred.
Wokeness is all about purity, and expelling people who fail to be pure.
That is a rather ironic statement, unless you are using wokeness to describe Trumps latest tweet! It was after all about expelling people he thinks impure.
The more I see of @AOC, the more I like her. I see why Trump is afraid of her.
Given how childish Trump acts it's quite possible he just fancies her and this is his way of dealing with that feeling, through mockery and name calling.
How many of them will bother to vote? Although Florida is still the most likely state to change from GOP to Dem in my opinion.
Here's an interesting way of looking at that question. In 2018, we saw midterm elections. Let's look at states which Trump won in 2016, but the Democrats won in 2018:
Arizona Michigan Ohio Pennsylvania West Virginia Wisconsin
Now, let's look at the winning Democrat's absolutel number of votes compared to what Trump got in 2016. You see, midterms have turnouts well down on Presidential years normally. So in the majority of cases, winning Senators in midterms get substantially fewer votes than the President got in their State two years earlier.
How did the Senators in six "flipped" states do:
Arizona -5% Michigan -3% Ohio -17% Pennsylvania -6% West Virginia -41% Wisconsin +5%
What's fascinating about this is that: (1) it tells you that Trump didn't reach a massive number of voters, Hillary turned them off. (2) Sherrod Brown in Ohio is not some magic Trump slayer, having got 17% fewer votes than Trump did in his State,
Indeed the real standout is Wisconsin, where the Dems won by a country mile despite having exactly the kind of candidate HYUFD would rate as no chance. (She's a woman, and worse a gay one. People in the rustbelt would never vote for someone liek that...)
So Biden beats Trump by 9% but Harris beats Trump by only 1% (less than Hillary did in 2016).
Warren and Sanders in between beating Trump by 5% and 7% respectively.
It is no surprise therefore Biden is the candidate camp Trump still most fears, I think though the Democrats will pick Warren as their nominee
Who would you like to win the 2020 election? Personally, I would be glad if anybody beat Trump! Cannot be worse than him...
I would vote for Trump over all the Democrats bar Biden.
If Kasich or Bloomberg or Hickenlooper stood as a third party candidate though I might consider voting for them
HYUFD, one time Clintonite, now completes the move to the dark side. A PB Trumpton. A remarkable move to the hard right over a few short years.
I would have voted for Hillary in 2016 without much enthusiasm yes, I would vote for Trump over Warren and Sanders and Harris but Biden over Trump.
I voted Remain but respect the Leave vote and ideally want Brexit with a Canada style FTA rather than No Deal.
That actually makes me pretty close to the average voter in both the US and UK and it is a sign of how that position instantly means I must be labelled 'hard right extremist' that shows how far some on this blog have disconnected themselves from the views of ordinary people outside the big cities and have still learnt none of the lessons from 2016
We must be careful not to stifle legitimate criticism of any religion or belief system (and those who use that system to deny others their legally protected rights)
It is very easy to throw the word 'racist' at people who have valid criticisms to make about how people are acting.
You should never be able to use your chosen religion or belief system as justification for bigotry, hatred or violence.
Like what has happened with the Birmingham school protests.
A child's right to go to school and get a quality education, a homosexual's right to equal treatment, should all trump a medieval right to believe sky fairy hates gays.
Which AIUI is exactly what has happened thus far. The protests are unpleasant, noisy and generally out of order. But they haven't succeeded. Long may that continue.
How many of them will bother to vote? Although Florida is still the most likely state to change from GOP to Dem in my opinion.
Here's an interesting way of looking at that question. In 2018, we saw midterm elections. Let's look at states which Trump won in 2016, but the Democrats won in 2018:
Arizona Michigan Ohio Pennsylvania West Virginia Wisconsin
Now, let's look at the winning Democrat's absolutel number of votes compared to what Trump got in 2016. You see, midterms have turnouts well down on Presidential years normally. So in the majority of cases, winning Senators in midterms get substantially fewer votes than the President got in their State two years earlier.
How did the Senators in six "flipped" states do:
Arizona -5% Michigan -3% Ohio -17% Pennsylvania -6% West Virginia -41% Wisconsin +5%
What's fascinating about this is that: (1) it tells you that Trump didn't reach a massive number of voters, Hillary turned them off. (2) Sherrod Brown in Ohio is not some magic Trump slayer, having got 17% fewer votes than Trump did in his State,
Indeed the real standout is Wisconsin, where the Dems won by a country mile despite having exactly the kind of candidate HYUFD would rate as no chance. (She's a woman, and worse a gay one. People in the rustbelt would never vote for someone liek that...)
Midterm election results give little guide to the next presidential election, ask Reagan, Clinton and Obama.
Being a woman and gay is not on its own enough to make you unelectable in the rustbelt if you are reasonably centrist, being a coastal left liberal elitist however is
I would have thought she was all in favour of law and order?
How on earth does one go about getting classified docs from a mole in London these days and still cover the source?
Catch the train or drive out of London?
Even easier if you have a place in the country.
"We got you on CCTV at the station both ends, using your oyster, and from there we guessed you'd go to the Swan, El Cap. It's the only pub in the village. And your contact met you there, you're on the same mobile mast for the same three hours over lunch. You went back on the train, but they went back in the car they'd come in . They left their phone on so we can follow them back from the masts. ANPR picked them up in Crouch End, five hours after it picked them up leaving. It's over, Cap, the only thing to think about is who cuts a deal first"
We must be careful not to stifle legitimate criticism of any religion or belief system (and those who use that system to deny others their legally protected rights)
It is very easy to throw the word 'racist' at people who have valid criticisms to make about how people are acting.
You should never be able to use your chosen religion or belief system as justification for bigotry, hatred or violence.
Like what has happened with the Birmingham school protests.
A child's right to go to school and get a quality education, a homosexual's right to equal treatment, should all trump a medieval right to believe sky fairy hates gays.
Which AIUI is exactly what has happened thus far. The protests are unpleasant, noisy and generally out of order. But they haven't succeeded. Long may that continue.
But we have not heard enough from our political leaders to condemn their ignorance. There are some notable exceptions - but on the whole our political class has stayed too quiet on this. That is shameful.
That’s true but not the point. Indirect discrimination is when there's a practice, policy or rule which applies to everyone in the same way, but it has a worse effect on some people than others. A ban on Islamic candidates disproportionately effects Middle Eastern candidates more than, say, French or Welsh candidates. The percentage of people of the Islamic faith from those areas is far lower so the effect is less on them - it falls disproportionately on people who decend from countries that are majority Islamic. It’s in the Equality Act.
The most unfairly discriminated-against people in any society are short men. The next most unfairly discriminated-against people are ugly people of either sex. But we don't seem to care much about those types of discrimination for some reason.
Are people often murdered because they are short men? Do serial killers often target the ugly of either sex?
We must be careful not to stifle legitimate criticism of any religion or belief system (and those who use that system to deny others their legally protected rights)
It is very easy to throw the word 'racist' at people who have valid criticisms to make about how people are acting.
You should never be able to use your chosen religion or belief system as justification for bigotry, hatred or violence.
Like what has happened with the Birmingham school protests.
A child's right to go to school and get a quality education, a homosexual's right to equal treatment, should all trump a medieval right to believe sky fairy hates gays.
Which AIUI is exactly what has happened thus far. The protests are unpleasant, noisy and generally out of order. But they haven't succeeded. Long may that continue.
But we have not heard enough from our political leaders to condemn their ignorance. There are some notable exceptions - but on the whole our political class has stayed too quiet on this. That is shameful.
We can agree on that. Absolutely, and without any equivocation from usually the opposite point of view.
How many of them will bother to vote? Although Florida is still the most likely state to change from GOP to Dem in my opinion.
Here's an interesting way of looking at that question. In 2018, we saw midterm elections. Let's look at states which Trump won in 2016, but the Democrats won in 2018:
Arizona Michigan Ohio Pennsylvania West Virginia Wisconsin
Now, let's look at the winning Democrat's absolutel number of votes compared to what Trump got in 2016. You see, midterms have turnouts well down on Presidential years normally. So in the majority of cases, winning Senators in midterms get substantially fewer votes than the President got in their State two years earlier.
How did the Senators in six "flipped" states do:
Arizona -5% Michigan -3% Ohio -17% Pennsylvania -6% West Virginia -41% Wisconsin +5%
What's fascinating about this is that: (1) it tells you that Trump didn't reach a massive number of voters, Hillary turned them off. (2) Sherrod Brown in Ohio is not some magic Trump slayer, having got 17% fewer votes than Trump did in his State,
Indeed the real standout is Wisconsin, where the Dems won by a country mile despite having exactly the kind of candidate HYUFD would rate as no chance. (She's a woman, and worse a gay one. People in the rustbelt would never vote for someone liek that...)
By a long shot, the best political leaders in the world now heading the top offices are Trump, Putin, Bolsanaro, Orban, Morrison and Salvini. Long may it continue, hopefully with the likes of Le Pen joining in soon.
The hard left of Macron, Merkel, Trudeau etc are still losing this fight.
We must be careful not to stifle legitimate criticism of any religion or belief system (and those who use that system to deny others their legally protected rights)
It is very easy to throw the word 'racist' at people who have valid criticisms to make about how people are acting.
You should never be able to use your chosen religion or belief system as justification for bigotry, hatred or violence.
Like what has happened with the Birmingham school protests.
A child's right to go to school and get a quality education, a homosexual's right to equal treatment, should all trump a medieval right to believe sky fairy hates gays.
Which AIUI is exactly what has happened thus far. The protests are unpleasant, noisy and generally out of order. But they haven't succeeded. Long may that continue.
But we have not heard enough from our political leaders to condemn their ignorance. There are some notable exceptions - but on the whole our political class has stayed too quiet on this. That is shameful.
We can agree on that. Absolutely, and without any equivocation from usually the opposite point of view.
My worry is that the Left is reluctant to say anything for fear of alienate certain core parts of their vote. And the Right are reluctant to say anything because, deep down, they agree with the (ignorant and ill-informed) protesters. And there are others who dare not speak out because they fear they would be labelled racist.
By a long shot, the best political leaders in the world now heading the top offices are Trump, Putin, Bolsanaro, Orban, Morrison and Salvini. Long may it continue, hopefully with the likes of Le Pen joining in soon.
Especially the way Bolsonaro has doubled down on locking Brazil into a regional customs union with a trade deal on the EU's terms, while fobbing off his naive fans with his anti-globalist shtick.
By a long shot, the best political leaders in the world now heading the top offices are Trump, Putin, Bolsanaro, Orban, Morrison and Salvini. Long may it continue, hopefully with the likes of Le Pen joining in soon.
The hard left of Macron, Merkel, Trudeau etc are still losing this fight.
Even I wouldn't go so far as to call Macron and Trudeau hard left though and certainly not Merkel, elitist liberals maybe but certainly not Corbynite
By a long shot, the best political leaders in the world now heading the top offices are Trump, Putin, Bolsanaro, Orban, Morrison and Salvini. Long may it continue, hopefully with the likes of Le Pen joining in soon.
The hard left of Macron, Merkel, Trudeau etc are still losing this fight.
Even I wouldn't go so far as to call Macron and Trudeau hard left though and certainly not Merkel, elitist liberals maybe but certainly not Corbynite
All three support mass-immigration and support policies like criminalising the use of gender pronouns. A few years ago these ideas were confined to the howling loons of Tumblr, and now leaders like these three advocate them.
On social policy, they make the Soviet Union look Tory.
We must be careful not to stifle legitimate criticism of any religion or belief system (and those who use that system to deny others their legally protected rights)
It is very easy to throw the word 'racist' at people who have valid criticisms to make about how people are acting.
You should never be able to use your chosen religion or belief system as justification for bigotry, hatred or violence.
Like what has happened with the Birmingham school protests.
A child's right to go to school and get a quality education, a homosexual's right to equal treatment, should all trump a medieval right to believe sky fairy hates gays.
Which AIUI is exactly what has happened thus far. The protests are unpleasant, noisy and generally out of order. But they haven't succeeded. Long may that continue.
But we have not heard enough from our political leaders to condemn their ignorance. There are some notable exceptions - but on the whole our political class has stayed too quiet on this. That is shameful.
We can agree on that. Absolutely, and without any equivocation from usually the opposite point of view.
My worry is that the Left is reluctant to say anything for fear of alienate certain core parts of their vote. And the Right are reluctant to say anything because, deep down, they agree with the (ignorant and ill-informed) protesters. And there are others who dare not speak out because they fear they would be labelled racist.
It is a toxic mess.
Think you've covered it there. Neither side comes out of it well. Hey ho.
By a long shot, the best political leaders in the world now heading the top offices are Trump, Putin, Bolsanaro, Orban, Morrison and Salvini. Long may it continue, hopefully with the likes of Le Pen joining in soon.
The hard left of Macron, Merkel, Trudeau etc are still losing this fight.
The must be a reason why all of those leaders have attained office. Personally I think the decline of provincial middle-class life in many of the countries concerned is probably the main explanation. It's not always a case of material decline; in some cases it's spiritual decline or a huge drop in the morale of those people. The optimism they experienced between roughly 1955 and 2005 has evaporated.
By a long shot, the best political leaders in the world now heading the top offices are Trump, Putin, Bolsanaro, Orban, Morrison and Salvini. Long may it continue, hopefully with the likes of Le Pen joining in soon.
The hard left of Macron, Merkel, Trudeau etc are still losing this fight.
The most unfairly discriminated-against people in any society are short men. The next most unfairly discriminated-against people are ugly people of either sex.
I realise it is my day to be pedantic, but a) what metric did you use to measure unfair discrimination, b) what was that metric's score for short men, c) what was that metric's score for ugly people, d) what other categories did you measure and e) what were their scores?
This is not necessarily fair as you don't need an absolute score to rank things (since - unlike disproportionality - order is transitive) so you can build a ranked list without a score[1] but in those cases you have to show several comparisons.
[1] This is the underpinning assumption of a world cup, btw: if a beats b, and b beat c, and c beat d, and d beat e, then presumably a would have beaten e. Whether it's true is debatable but - hey - that's sport apparently...
By a long shot, the best political leaders in the world now heading the top offices are Trump, Putin, Bolsanaro, Orban, Morrison and Salvini. Long may it continue, hopefully with the likes of Le Pen joining in soon.
The hard left of Macron, Merkel, Trudeau etc are still losing this fight.
The must be a reason why all of those leaders have attained office. Personally I think the decline of provincial middle-class life in many of the countries concerned is probably the main explanation. It's not always a case of material decline; in some cases it's spiritual decline or a huge drop in the morale of those people. The optimism they experienced between roughly 1955 and 2005 has evaporated.
In Putin's case, it's the use of violence to establish a monopoly on resource assignment and control of the media whilst using national symbology to establishing the self as hero and fulfiller of the national destiny. The Kray twins were good at it too...
How many of them will bother to vote? Although Florida is still the most likely state to change from GOP to Dem in my opinion.
Here's an interesting way of looking at that question. In 2018, we saw midterm elections. Let's look at states which Trump won in 2016, but the Democrats won in 2018:
Arizona Michigan Ohio Pennsylvania West Virginia Wisconsin
Now, let's look at the winning Democrat's absolutel number of votes compared to what Trump got in 2016. You see, midterms have turnouts well down on Presidential years normally. So in the majority of cases, winning Senators in midterms get substantially fewer votes than the President got in their State two years earlier.
How did the Senators in six "flipped" states do:
Arizona -5% Michigan -3% Ohio -17% Pennsylvania -6% West Virginia -41% Wisconsin +5%
What's fascinating about this is that: (1) it tells you that Trump didn't reach a massive number of voters, Hillary turned them off. (2) Sherrod Brown in Ohio is not some magic Trump slayer, having got 17% fewer votes than Trump did in his State,
Indeed the real standout is Wisconsin, where the Dems won by a country mile despite having exactly the kind of candidate HYUFD would rate as no chance. (She's a woman, and worse a gay one. People in the rustbelt would never vote for someone liek that...)
Midterm election results give little guide to the next presidential election, ask Reagan, Clinton and Obama.
Being a woman and gay is not on its own enough to make you unelectable in the rustbelt if you are reasonably centrist, being a coastal left liberal elitist however is
You're right. Look at how centrist coastal liberal Kerry did in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Oh wait. He actually won three of those four states.
One of the issues to be asked is whether moral codes should be enforced by the law at all. This was debated by lawyers in the period before the Wolfenden Report. Effectively, the law used to enforce a largely Christian moral code (hence the ban on homosexuality, suicide & the strict divorce laws). We have abandoned that by and large. But some minority faiths not only have a moral code which used to be the norm here but also feel that the law should reflect that moral code - at least in practice if not de jure - for their own community and possibly more widely.
That is a step back to a pre-Wolfenden world.
My view is that moral codes & law should not be one & the same, partly because there are different moral codes & partly because law based on one religion's moral code is effectively a theocracy rather than a democracy. That is not a world I want to live in.
So the question then arises: how does the law determine what is / is not legal when it comes to matters of general morality. What are the limits of allowable conscience exceptions. That is a matter of power & numbers. If, for instance, the Muslim population grew to a significant extent & did not change its views in - say - a world of PR it is possible to imagine a situation where reversal of some rights for some minorities might be a price that a government has to pay to get & stay in power. It is not inconceivable. That is why it is both important to keep on making the case for the rights that we do have & try and change attitudes. Otherwise we could well find that having abandoned our own Christian-determined law we end up substituting it for another law informed by a very different religion.
By a long shot, the best political leaders in the world now heading the top offices are Trump, Putin, Bolsanaro, Orban, Morrison and Salvini. Long may it continue, hopefully with the likes of Le Pen joining in soon.
The hard left of Macron, Merkel, Trudeau etc are still losing this fight.
Even I wouldn't go so far as to call Macron and Trudeau hard left though and certainly not Merkel, elitist liberals maybe but certainly not Corbynite
All three support mass-immigration and support policies like criminalising the use of gender pronouns. A few years ago these ideas were confined to the howling loons of Tumblr, and now leaders like these three advocate them.
On social policy, they make the Soviet Union look Tory.
The Russian Federation is in many ways the poster child of liberalism. A multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-cultural state with free movement across a vast expanse of territory.
If you're a unemployed short, ugly, white man living in a former mining district with no economic prospects in West Virginia or Barnsley, and every time you listen to the news you hear some incredibly rich actress in Hollywood or London complaining about how unfair it is that she was only paid five million for her latest movie role because of "discrimination", you can sort of understand how and why Trump or Brexit became popular. (Not defending it, just trying to understand it).
How many of them will bother to vote? Although Florida is still the most likely state to change from GOP to Dem in my opinion.
Here's an interesting way of looking at that question. In 2018, we saw midterm elections. Let's look at states which Trump won in 2016, but the Democrats won in 2018:
Arizona Michigan Ohio Pennsylvania West Virginia Wisconsin
Now, let's look at the winning Democrat's absolutel number of votes compared to what Trump got in 2016. You see, midterms have turnouts well down on Presidential years normally. So in the majority of cases, winning Senators in midterms get substantially fewer votes than the President got in their State two years earlier.
How did the Senators in six "flipped" states do:
Arizona -5% Michigan -3% Ohio -17% Pennsylvania -6% West Virginia -41% Wisconsin +5%
What's fascinating about this is that: (1) it tells you that Trump didn't reach a massive number of voters, Hillary turned them off. (2) Sherrod Brown in Ohio is not some magic Trump slayer, having got 17% fewer votes than Trump did in his State,
Indeed the real standout is Wisconsin, where the Dems won by a country mile despite having exactly the kind of candidate HYUFD would rate as no chance. (She's a woman, and worse a gay one. People in the rustbelt would never vote for someone liek that...)
Midterm election results give little guide to the next presidential election, ask Reagan, Clinton and Obama.
Being a woman and gay is not on its own enough to make you unelectable in the rustbelt if you are reasonably centrist, being a coastal left liberal elitist however is
You're right. Look at how centrist coastal liberal Kerry did in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Oh wait. He actually won three of those four states.
Kerry lost Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, West Virginia, Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky, Florida, North Carolina and even some states Hillary won like Nevada, New Mexico and Virginia and Colorado.
Kerry had the worst Electoral College result for a Democrat (prior to Hillary) since Dukakis in 1988, himself another elitist coastal liberal
@HYUFD: the reason midterms are usually no guide is because - tada - turnouts are well down on the general. That is *why* I presented the data as I did.
Let me put this in context. Let's look at the 2010 midterms. Here are the states won by Republicans that had been won by Obama:
Florida Illinois Indiana Iowa Massachusetts New Hampshire North Carolina Ohio Pennsylvania Wisconsin
Quite a few, huh?
Now. How many of those Senators would have beaten Obama in 2016?
Simply, the 2018 midterms were incredibly unusual because they were high turnout affairs. And if history tells us one thing, it's that the higher the turnout, the higher the information content.
How many of them will bother to vote? Although Florida is still the most likely state to change from GOP to Dem in my opinion.
Here's an interesting way of looking at that question. In 2018, we saw midterm elections. Let's look at states which Trump won in 2016, but the Democrats won in 2018:
Arizona Michigan Ohio Pennsylvania West Virginia Wisconsin
Now, let's look at the winning Democrat's absolutel number of votes compared to what Trump got in 2016. You see, midterms have turnouts well down on Presidential years normally. So in the majority of cases, winning Senators in midterms get substantially fewer votes than the President got in their State two years earlier.
How did the Senators in six "flipped" states do:
Arizona -5% Michigan -3% Ohio -17% Pennsylvania -6% West Virginia -41% Wisconsin +5%
What's fascinating about this is that: (1) it tells you that Trump didn't reach a massive number of voters, Hillary turned them off. (2) Sherrod Brown in Ohio is not some magic Trump slayer, having got 17% fewer votes than Trump did in his State,
Indeed the real standout is Wisconsin, where the Dems won by a country mile despite having exactly the kind of candidate HYUFD would rate as no chance. (She's a woman, and worse a gay one. People in the rustbelt would never vote for someone liek that...)
Midterm election results give little guide to the next presidential election, ask Reagan, Clinton and Obama.
Being a woman and gay is not on its own enough to make you unelectable in the rustbelt if you are reasonably centrist, being a coastal left liberal elitist however is
You're right. Look at how centrist coastal liberal Kerry did in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Oh wait. He actually won three of those four states.
Kerry lost Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, West Virginia, Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky, Florida, North Carolina and even some states Hillary won like Nevada, New Mexico and Virginia and Colorado.
Kerry had the worst Electoral College result for a Democrat (prior to Hillary) since Dukakis in 1988, himself another elitist coastal liberal
There is no such thing as an elitist coastal liberal. It’s just another phrase you read somewhere like “diehard remainer” you liked the sound of and have decided to make your catchphrase.
How many of them will bother to vote? Although Florida is still the most likely state to change from GOP to Dem in my opinion.
Here's an interesting way of looking at that question. In 2018, we saw midterm elections. Let's look at states which Trump won in 2016, but the Democrats won in 2018:
Arizona Michigan Ohio Pennsylvania West Virginia Wisconsin
Now, let's look at the winning Democrat's absolutel number of votes compared to what Trump got in 2016. You see, midterms have turnouts well down on Presidential years normally. So in the majority of cases, winning Senators in midterms get substantially fewer votes than the President got in their State two years earlier.
How did the Senators in six "flipped" states do:
Arizona -5% Michigan -3% Ohio -17% Pennsylvania -6% West Virginia -41% Wisconsin +5%
What's fascinating about this is that: (1) it tells you that Trump didn't reach a massive number of voters, Hillary turned them off. (2) Sherrod Brown in Ohio is not some magic Trump slayer, having got 17% fewer votes than Trump did in his State,
Indeed the real standout is Wisconsin, where the Dems won by a country mile despite having exactly the kind of candidate HYUFD would rate as no chance. (She's a woman, and worse a gay one. People in the rustbelt would never vote for someone liek that...)
Midterm election results give little guide to the next presidential election, ask Reagan, Clinton and Obama.
Being a woman and gay is not on its own enough to make you unelectable in the rustbelt if you are reasonably centrist, being a coastal left liberal elitist however is
You're right. Look at how centrist coastal liberal Kerry did in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Oh wait. He actually won three of those four states.
Kerry lost Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, West Virginia, Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky, Florida, North Carolina and even some states Hillary won like Nevada, New Mexico and Virginia and Colorado.
Kerry had the worst Electoral College result for a Democrat (prior to Hillary) since Dukakis in 1988, himself another elitist coastal liberal
Sure. But he won three of the four rust belt states I mentioned.
If you're a unemployed short, ugly, white man living in a former mining district with no economic prospects in West Virginia or Barnsley, and every time you listen to the news you hear some incredibly rich actress in Hollywood or London complaining about how unfair it is that she was only paid five million for her latest movie role because of "discrimination", you can sort of understand how and why Trump or Brexit became popular. (Not defending it, just trying to understand it).
Yes and of course Bill Clinton won West Virginia in 1992 and 1996 and Labour won 77% of the vote in Barnsley in 1997.
Yet in 2016 Trump won 68% of the vote in West Virginia as did Leave in Barnsley and in the 2019 European elections the Brexit Party won more votes in Barnsley than Labour, the LDs, the Greens and the Tories and CUK combined
By a long shot, the best political leaders in the world now heading the top offices are Trump, Putin, Bolsanaro, Orban, Morrison and Salvini. Long may it continue, hopefully with the likes of Le Pen joining in soon.
The hard left of Macron, Merkel, Trudeau etc are still losing this fight.
Trump has done good things, and bad things.
Ultimately, though, successful countries are ones who remember that it's better to have a good system than a great person.
No matter how good a Trump or a Putin might be, if they make the system less capable of restraining an idiot, or make it impossible to evict a tyrant, then they've failed their country.
How many of them will bother to vote? Although Florida is still the most likely state to change from GOP to Dem in my opinion.
Here's an interesting way of looking at that question. In 2018, we saw midterm elections. Let's look at states which Trump won in 2016, but the Democrats won in 2018:
Arizona Michigan Ohio Pennsylvania West Virginia Wisconsin
Now, let's look at the winning Democrat's absolutel number of votes compared to what Trump got in 2016. You see, midterms have turnouts well down on Presidential years normally. So in the majority of cases, winning Senators in midterms get substantially fewer votes than the President got in their State two years earlier.
How did the Senators in six "flipped" states do:
Arizona -5% Michigan -3% Ohio -17% Pennsylvania -6% West Virginia -41% Wisconsin +5%
What's fascinating about this is that: (1) it tells you that Trump didn't reach a massive number of voters, Hillary turned them off. (2) Sherrod Brown in Ohio is not some magic Trump slayer, having got 17% fewer votes than Trump did in his State,
Indeed the real standout is Wisconsin, where the Dems won by a country mile despite having exactly the kind of candidate HYUFD would rate as no chance. (She's a woman, and worse a gay one. People in the rustbelt would never vote for someone liek that...)
Midterm election results give little guide to the next presidential election, ask Reagan, Clinton and Obama.
Being a woman and gay is not on its own enough to make you unelectable in the rustbelt if you are reasonably centrist, being a coastal left liberal elitist however is
You're right. Look at how centrist coastal liberal Kerry did in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Oh wait. He actually won three of those four states.
Kerry lost Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, West Virginia, Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky, Florida, North Carolina and even some states Hillary won like Nevada, New Mexico and Virginia and Colorado.
Kerry had the worst Electoral College result for a Democrat (prior to Hillary) since Dukakis in 1988, himself another elitist coastal liberal
There is no such thing as an elitist coastal liberal. It’s just another phrase you read somewhere like “diehard remainer” you liked the sound of and have decided to make your catchphrase.
There is, an elitist coastal liberal is a left liberal from a wealthy coastal state like New York, Massachusetts or California ie the home states of Hillary, Kerry, Warren and Harris respectively
How many of them will bother to vote? Although Florida is still the most likely state to change from GOP to Dem in my opinion.
Here's an interesting way of looking at that question. In 2018, we saw midterm elections. Let's look at states which Trump won in 2016, but the Democrats won in 2018:
Arizona Michigan Ohio Pennsylvania West Virginia Wisconsin
Now, let's look at the winning Democrat's absolutel number of votes compared to what Trump got in 2016. You see, midterms have turnouts well down on Presidential years normally. So in the majority of cases, winning Senators in midterms get substantially fewer votes than the President got in their State two years earlier.
How did the Senators in six "flipped" states do:
Arizona -5% Michigan -3% Ohio -17% Pennsylvania -6% West Virginia -41% Wisconsin +5%
What's fascinating about this is that: (1) it tells you that Trump didn't reach a massive number of voters, Hillary turned them off. (2) Sherrod Brown in Ohio is not some magic Trump slayer, having got 17% fewer votes than Trump did in his State,
Indeed the real standout is Wisconsin, where the Dems won by a country mile despite having exactly the kind of candidate HYUFD would rate as no chance. (She's a woman, and worse a gay one. People in the rustbelt would never vote for someone liek that...)
Midterm election results give little guide to the next presidential election, ask Reagan, Clinton and Obama.
Being a woman and gay is not on its own enough to make you unelectable in the rustbelt if you are reasonably centrist, being a coastal left liberal elitist however is
You're right. Look at how centrist coastal liberal Kerry did in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Oh wait. He actually won three of those four states.
Kerry lost Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, West Virginia, Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky, Florida, North Carolina and even some states Hillary won like Nevada, New Mexico and Virginia and Colorado.
Kerry had the worst Electoral College result for a Democrat (prior to Hillary) since Dukakis in 1988, himself another elitist coastal liberal
There is no such thing as an elitist coastal liberal. It’s just another phrase you read somewhere like “diehard remainer” you liked the sound of and have decided to make your catchphrase.
There is, an elitist coastal liberal is a left liberal from a wealthy coastal state like New York, Massachusetts or California ie the home states of Hillary, Kerry, Warren and Harris respectively
What about a Harvard law graduate from Hawaii? Would they count?
If you're a unemployed short, ugly, white man living in a former mining district with no economic prospects in West Virginia or Barnsley, and every time you listen to the news you hear some incredibly rich actress in Hollywood or London complaining about how unfair it is that she was only paid five million for her latest movie role because of "discrimination", you can sort of understand how and why Trump or Brexit became popular. (Not defending it, just trying to understand it).
It is even more basic than this, but I do agree this is an issue. I know middle class parents who would not vote for Farage but voted leave because they had seen the amount of labour coming from Europe. This made their jobs easier, because recruitment was easy but they worried about how would their children get a job because of all the competition. They voted leave to stop this competition.
How many of them will bother to vote? Although Florida is still the most likely state to change from GOP to Dem in my opinion.
Here's an interesting way of looking at that question. In 2018, we saw midterm elections. Let's look at states which Trump won in 2016, but the Democrats won in 2018:
Arizona Michigan Ohio Pennsylvania West Virginia Wisconsin
Now, let's look at the winning Democrat's absolutel number of votes compared to what Trump got in 2016. You see, midterms have turnouts well down on Presidential years normally. So in the majority of cases, winning Senators in midterms get substantially fewer votes than the President got in their State two years earlier.
How did the Senators in six "flipped" states do:
Arizona -5% Michigan -3% Ohio -17% Pennsylvania -6% West Virginia -41% Wisconsin +5%
What's fascinating about this is that: (1) it tells you that someone liek that...)
Midterm election results give little guide to the next presidential election, ask Reagan, Clinton and Obama.
Being a woman and gay is not on its own enough to make you unelectable in the rustbelt if you are reasonably centrist, being a coastal left liberal elitist however is
You're right. Look at how centrist coastal liberal Kerry did in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Oh wait. He actually won three of those four states.
Kerry lost Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, West Virginia, Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky, Florida, North Carolina and even some states Hillary won like Nevada, New Mexico and Virginia and Colorado.
Kerry had the worst Electoral College result for a Democrat (prior to Hillary) since Dukakis in 1988, himself another elitist coastal liberal
There is no such thing as an elitist coastal phrase.
There is, an elitist coastal liberal is a left liberal from a wealthy coastal state like New York, Massachusetts or California ie the home states of Hillary, Kerry, Warren and Harris respectively
What about a Harvard law graduate from Hawaii? Would they count?
Obama's home state was Midwestern Illinois and of course he never ran against a sitting President but in 2008 after the crash on Bush's watch and in 2012 against an elitist coastal Republican from Massachusetts in the form of Mitt Romney.
You have to go back to JFK to find the last President elected from Massachusetts and he was more centrist and better able to connect with blue collar and suburban voters than Massachusetts Democrats today
You have to go back to JFK to find the last President elected from Massachusetts and he was more centrist and better able to connect with blue collar and suburban voters than Massachusetts Democrats today
You do realise that Massachuessets has 2.1% of the US population. You'd expect, therefore, about one fiftieth of US Presidents to be from there. So, I'm really not sure that pointing out that Mass hasn't had a President for a few years is that extraordinary.
Do you know how many Delaware Presidents they've been? Errr none. Indeed, there's never even been a Democratic President from a state West of the Missouri.
My point is that drawing sweeping conclusions from small datasets is a losing game.
You have to go back to JFK to find the last President elected from Massachusetts and he was more centrist and better able to connect with blue collar and suburban voters than Massachusetts Democrats today
You do realise that Massachuessets has 2.1% of the US population. You'd expect, therefore, about one fiftieth of US Presidents to be from there. So, I'm really not sure that pointing out that Mass hasn't had a President for a few years is that extraordinary.
Do you know how many Delaware Presidents they've been? Errr none. Indeed, there's never even been a Democratic President from a state West of the Missouri.
My point is that drawing sweeping conclusions from small datasets is a losing game.
Well in the 30 years pre Trump we had not had a President win an election from California or New York either, 2 of the biggest states in the Union.
Trump won the US by pitching himself as anything but an elitist coastal liberal and lost his home state heavily to native New Yorker Hillary. In fact Trump now presents himself as more Florida than New York
Trump won the US by pitching himself as anything but an elitist coastal liberal and lost his home state heavily to native New Yorker Hillary. In fact Trump now presents himself as more Florida than New York
There is, an elitist coastal liberal is a left liberal from a wealthy coastal state like New York, Massachusetts or California ie the home states of Hillary, Kerry, Warren and Harris respectively
This is utter bullshit. Correlation (weak correlation at that) does not equal causation. New York is the home state of Trump, California of Reagan and Romney was Governor of Massachusetts. Bush, despite his homespun Texanness, is actually from Connecticut. As the Yale educated son of a president he was part of an elite - he just didn’t have the liberal bit. If Donald Trump is not an “elite,” then the term is entirely meaningless. It doesn’t really matter where you’re from so long as you can get the message out. Florida is a wealthy coastal state, as is Virginia, doubtless we will see Republican contenders from those States again.. And, while New York City is coastal, the rest of the State is effectively landlocked, unless you count the Great Lakes.
Obama came across as something of a professor, the epitome of an elitist, and he was a Harvard Law Grad. He would still have been elected if he had remained in Massachusetts after graduating. In any event Chicago has more in common with New York City than its midwest hinterland. Similarly, well over 65 million Americans voted for Hillary Clinton, which would make for a lot of “liberal elitists” across the country. The tragedy was vanishing small margins didn’t vote for her in three key states. But then, it’s always easier to invent figments like “liberal coastal elites” to explain the people who don’t agree with you.
With respect, ever since you suggested last week that the Irish-American lobby was concentrated almost exclusively in Boston so we needn’t worry about it with regard to the ROI/NI border issue, I’ve stopped taking anything you say about American politics seriously.
I would have thought she was all in favour of law and order?
How on earth does one go about getting classified docs from a mole in London these days and still cover the source? Everywhere in zone 1 is under CCTV, your phone isn't secure (esp Huawei), and presumably nor is your landline. Surely the trick is to leave really slim pickings for GCHQ and only a single meeting so 5 don't have much to go on.
Call one to journo from phone box; ring mole back on this number from a burner phone (gives different phone box no). Mole has a lead on a story about footballer cheating on wife. Will splash on front cover. Ring from a long way away from your usual phone and daily routes. Call two from journo's burner. Mole has info of this nature. Footballer cover story was a cover story. Fresh burner phone is available at (location). Don't bring your phone to it, or this burner phone. Call three, burner to burner. Meeting point is a pub in the sticks without CCTV. Get two different black cabs from different taxi firms there, hail to hire, not Ubers, pay cash. Don't bring phone. Mole prints documents using second hand computer and printer without internet connection Meet, no phones, take printed docs, reverse steps.
How do the boys and girls at box 500 catch the mole?
They know who accessed the leaked information on the classified system and when
This sort of article in the NYT is completely counterproductive IMO. The problem is Trump himself, not white men in general. But by trying to make it about white men in general, Trump's opponents play into his hands by making it more likely he'll win the next election.
Quite right. An absolute open goal - POTUS tweeting straight out racist nonsense - and their hot take is to blame the demographic he comes from, which is also the largest voting demog in the country? It's only missing the word 'deplorables'.
Have you read the article? It is about Trumps thoughts and the democrats response to them.
Just triggered by the headline, I guess. Which perhaps proves their point ?
Ah, I read through the article several times trying to find what was vaguely offensive about it to anyone bar trump but didnt really look at the headline, which doesnt particularly reflect the article beneath. Perhaps the headline is decided by an editor for clickbait, not by the journalist/commentator.
"Trump’s America Is a ‘White Man’s Country’ His racist idea of citizenship is an old one, brought back from the margins of American politics."
Even still the headline is refererring to Trumps thoughts not white mens thoughts, and says racism had been relegated to the margins of American politics, so the blame is on the person who revived the racism, not the general population of white men who helped move it to the margins.
If you're a unemployed short, ugly, white man living in a former mining district with no economic prospects in West Virginia or Barnsley, and every time you listen to the news you hear some incredibly rich actress in Hollywood or London complaining about how unfair it is that she was only paid five million for her latest movie role because of "discrimination", you can sort of understand how and why Trump or Brexit became popular. (Not defending it, just trying to understand it).
Height is a metric that is significant on pay discrimination, it would be interesting to establish how much of the gender pay gap is covered by height. In corporate land it is easy to find tall nice but dim over promoted executives.
I have come across a smaller sample of senior short men to stereotype, but they seem more capable but also more aggressive, possibly a reaction to the discrimination.
Discrimination on height should certainly be discussed and researched more, as it is a bias that like the other isms is mostly sub conscious and a mix of our biological traits with sampling and causation errors.
At least Trump is an equal opportunities bigot, he rejected Sen Corker as secretary of state as 5'7 was not tall enough for the position.
Percentage of each party’s VI comprised of non-voters last election: Greens 15.9% Plaid Cymru 13.3% Lib Dems 8.9% SNP 8.3% Labour 7.8% Brexit Party 6.9% Conservatives 4.5%
We know that non-voters last time are usually non-voters next time too. Or is it just that the parties with more non-voters just have a younger demographic, and consequently more first-time voters?
Is this significant? Could be if four parties are about even Stevens.
Also fascinating to see how few Brexit Party supporters are former Conservative voters:
Percentage of Brexit Party VI by vote behaviour last election: Conservatives 57% Labour 20% Some other party 11% (presumably mainly UKIP) Did not vote 7% Lib Dems 3% SNP 0.6% Plaid Cymru 0.3%
This should be remembered every time posters (eg HYUFD) lazily add Bxp + Con figures to come up with fantasy numbers for the Drive-over-the-cliff Party.
Anyone who calls Corbyn a racist, but not Trump, is a hypocrite who has no genuine interest in opposing racism, but is using it for political ends. And vice versa, of course.
Do you support use of the word "racist" to describe people who are, say, anti-Islam, even though Islam clearly isn't a race and there are plenty of white Muslims in places like Bosnia?
Definition Of Race According To The Equality Act 2010 The Act is clear in its definition of race. Race means being part of a group of people who are identified by their nationality, citizenship, colour, national or ethnic origins.
There isn't an equivalent term 'religionist' to cover Religious/Belief Discrimination (which is also included in the Equality Act of course). I think most peole would accept the term 'racist' for someone who is virulently anti-Islam.
Surely it depends why someone is virulently anti-Islam?
If they're virulently anti-Islam because they don't like those foreign sounding people and their faith then yes that is ignorant and racist.
If they're virulently anti-Islam because like Professor Richard Dawkins they are generally virulently anti-religion in general then is that racist?
I'd say one of the points established by the Supreme Court, in the Ashers Bakery case is that it is legitimate to discriminate against beliefs, but not people.
So, it would be lawful to refuse to print Catholic devotional material, but unlawful to deny someone s job because they are Catholic.
I note that former Conservative leader William Hague is saying:
1. the next PM cannot prorogue parliament to force through No Deal on 31 October 2. there must be a November 2019 general election
I’m confused.
a. does Hague hold any kind of authority any more within his party? b. is Hague therefore advocating another extension? c. is a November GE now accepted wisdom within his party?
Comments
Spot on.
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/discrimination/what-are-the-different-types-of-discrimination/indirect-discrimination/
They're the only ones who make profits.
The more I see of @AOC, the more I like her. I see why Trump is afraid of her.
https://twitter.com/PodSaveAmerica/status/1150887130652131330?s=19
Exactly what should be in it leads us into the more familiar debates around the ECHR. But even people who really dislike the ECHR generally do so because it's European rather than because they want to, say, reintroduce discrimination on grounds of race or sexuality. It is possible in principle to separate matters of taste and custom (e.g. the minimum age for alcohol or drug legalisation) and matters protecting individuals against oppression.
Is there any evidence?
(*I acknowledge I'm rubbish at spotting imminent downturns/crashes etc.)
Whatever we disagree on, we agree no Florida no chance?
As each is a protected characteristic under the Equalities Act, does it really matter if discriminating against a religious denomination is racist or another form of bigotry?
Even easier if you have a place in the country.
Indirect discrimination can be justified if there is a good reason for it - English teachers have to speak English for example, certain military roles may need a level of physical strength most women cannot meet, space station crew may have to work the Sabbath. But there is no justification for abuse. The vast majority of people of the Islamic faith in this country are of Asian and North African decent. Indeed that is true worldwide, the Albanians are a minority in this respect, so anti Islamic sentiments are always disproportionately targeted at people from Asia and the Middle East. Justification might be possible, a theological or philosophical critique for example, but to target Islam in an abusive manner is racist.
Religion/Religious belief is one of the nine protected characteristics in the 2010 Equality Act; as far as I know political belief isn't similarly protected..
Florida was great for the Republicans in 2018. They flipped the Senate seat and held the Governor's office.
So, we should forget about in 2020, right?
Except there's upto 1.5 million former felons who'll get the vote in 2020. So that might make a difference.
Plus the US PMI is only just above 50.
"'Middle-aged white chiefs' a problem as Armed Forces battle culture of bullying and sexism, report warns"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/07/15/unacceptable-behaviour-armed-forcesdown-pack-white-middle-aged/
The 2010 Equality Act was a major achievement of the Blair/Brown government.
If they're virulently anti-Islam because they don't like those foreign sounding people and their faith then yes that is ignorant and racist.
If they're virulently anti-Islam because like Professor Richard Dawkins they are generally virulently anti-religion in general then is that racist?
Last election he was superb at undermining his opponents and depressing Hilary's turnout, by appearing as the lesser of two evils.
Tough this time round.
Former felons are disproportionately African American.
I still think he'll lose, mind. He threaded a needle last time.
It is very easy to throw the word 'racist' at people who have valid criticisms to make about how people are acting.
You should never be able to use your chosen religion or belief system as justification for bigotry, hatred or violence.
A child's right to go to school and get a quality education, a homosexual's right to equal treatment, should all trump a medieval right to believe sky fairy hates gays.
a) Former felons are disproportionately African American
b) African Americans are disproportionately Democrats
c) Therefore former felons are disproportionately Democrats
Because if so, would you like to explain to the boys and girls the logical errors you made there?
Coughcoughassumingindependencecoughcough
Coughcoughdisproportionalityisntmultiplicativecoughcough
Trump lost the nationwide PV last time, despite fair wind from his opponents baggage out front and centre and much of his own in the closet. That’s a fair description how his starting point changed this time.
Everyone’s got an offer they can’t refuse, the trump team can come to me and say here’s the offer you can’t refuse, lead our campaign and make us win again. I would turn it down on the basis it’s impossible for him to win this one, it’s a waste of time even trying, regardless of who the democrats put up, and even if the polls could look close, what the voters will do with the privacy of their vote will finish him. I have complete faith The US electorate are not insular as sometimes made out, will march the Donald to the scaffold for the rest of the world.
Arizona
Michigan
Ohio
Pennsylvania
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Now, let's look at the winning Democrat's absolutel number of votes compared to what Trump got in 2016. You see, midterms have turnouts well down on Presidential years normally. So in the majority of cases, winning Senators in midterms get substantially fewer votes than the President got in their State two years earlier.
How did the Senators in six "flipped" states do: What's fascinating about this is that: (1) it tells you that Trump didn't reach a massive number of voters, Hillary turned them off. (2) Sherrod Brown in Ohio is not some magic Trump slayer, having got 17% fewer votes than Trump did in his State,
Indeed the real standout is Wisconsin, where the Dems won by a country mile despite having exactly the kind of candidate HYUFD would rate as no chance. (She's a woman, and worse a gay one. People in the rustbelt would never vote for someone liek that...)
I voted Remain but respect the Leave vote and ideally want Brexit with a Canada style FTA rather than No Deal.
That actually makes me pretty close to the average voter in both the US and UK and it is a sign of how that position instantly means I must be labelled 'hard right extremist' that shows how far some on this blog have disconnected themselves from the views of ordinary people outside the big cities and have still learnt none of the lessons from 2016
Being a woman and gay is not on its own enough to make you unelectable in the rustbelt if you are reasonably centrist, being a coastal left liberal elitist however is
By a long shot, the best political leaders in the world now heading the top offices are Trump, Putin, Bolsanaro, Orban, Morrison and Salvini. Long may it continue, hopefully with the likes of Le Pen joining in soon.
The hard left of Macron, Merkel, Trudeau etc are still losing this fight.
It is a toxic mess.
On social policy, they make the Soviet Union look Tory.
This is not necessarily fair as you don't need an absolute score to rank things (since - unlike disproportionality - order is transitive) so you can build a ranked list without a score[1] but in those cases you have to show several comparisons.
[1] This is the underpinning assumption of a world cup, btw: if a beats b, and b beat c, and c beat d, and d beat e, then presumably a would have beaten e. Whether it's true is debatable but - hey - that's sport apparently...
Oh wait. No they don't.
Oh wait. He actually won three of those four states.
Kerry had the worst Electoral College result for a Democrat (prior to Hillary) since Dukakis in 1988, himself another elitist coastal liberal
Let me put this in context. Let's look at the 2010 midterms. Here are the states won by Republicans that had been won by Obama:
Florida
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
North Carolina
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin
Quite a few, huh?
Now. How many of those Senators would have beaten Obama in 2016?
Errr. None. Simply, the 2018 midterms were incredibly unusual because they were high turnout affairs. And if history tells us one thing, it's that the higher the turnout, the higher the information content.
Yet in 2016 Trump won 68% of the vote in West Virginia as did Leave in Barnsley and in the 2019 European elections the Brexit Party won more votes in Barnsley than Labour, the LDs, the Greens and the Tories and CUK combined
Ultimately, though, successful countries are ones who remember that it's better to have a good system than a great person.
No matter how good a Trump or a Putin might be, if they make the system less capable of restraining an idiot, or make it impossible to evict a tyrant, then they've failed their country.
You have to go back to JFK to find the last President elected from Massachusetts and he was more centrist and better able to connect with blue collar and suburban voters than Massachusetts Democrats today
Do you know how many Delaware Presidents they've been? Errr none. Indeed, there's never even been a Democratic President from a state West of the Missouri.
My point is that drawing sweeping conclusions from small datasets is a losing game.
Trump won the US by pitching himself as anything but an elitist coastal liberal and lost his home state heavily to native New Yorker Hillary. In fact Trump now presents himself as more Florida than New York
Obama came across as something of a professor, the epitome of an elitist, and he was a Harvard Law Grad. He would still have been elected if he had remained in Massachusetts after graduating. In any event Chicago has more in common with New York City than its midwest hinterland. Similarly, well over 65 million Americans voted for Hillary Clinton, which would make for a lot of “liberal elitists” across the country. The tragedy was vanishing small margins didn’t vote for her in three key states. But then, it’s always easier to invent figments like “liberal coastal elites” to explain the people who don’t agree with you.
With respect, ever since you suggested last week that the Irish-American lobby was concentrated almost exclusively in Boston so we needn’t worry about it with regard to the ROI/NI border issue, I’ve stopped taking anything you say about American politics seriously.
"Trump’s America Is a ‘White Man’s Country’
His racist idea of citizenship is an old one, brought back from the margins of American politics."
Even still the headline is refererring to Trumps thoughts not white mens thoughts, and says racism had been relegated to the margins of American politics, so the blame is on the person who revived the racism, not the general population of white men who helped move it to the margins.
https://twitter.com/ToryFibs/status/1150691082579189766
You can imagine my surprise that Wes's politically motivated attack was false, almost as if he regularly attacks his political opponents with BS....
Are Jewish people in the UK any more racially distinct from the average Britain than Muslims in the UK?
If not much of the arguments used against Islamophobia being discrimination would also seem to apply to anti-semitism.
I have come across a smaller sample of senior short men to stereotype, but they seem more capable but also more aggressive, possibly a reaction to the discrimination.
Discrimination on height should certainly be discussed and researched more, as it is a bias that like the other isms is mostly sub conscious and a mix of our biological traits with sampling and causation errors.
At least Trump is an equal opportunities bigot, he rejected Sen Corker as secretary of state as 5'7 was not tall enough for the position.
Percentage of each party’s VI comprised of non-voters last election:
Greens 15.9%
Plaid Cymru 13.3%
Lib Dems 8.9%
SNP 8.3%
Labour 7.8%
Brexit Party 6.9%
Conservatives 4.5%
We know that non-voters last time are usually non-voters next time too. Or is it just that the parties with more non-voters just have a younger demographic, and consequently more first-time voters?
Is this significant? Could be if four parties are about even Stevens.
Also fascinating to see how few Brexit Party supporters are former Conservative voters:
Percentage of Brexit Party VI by vote behaviour last election:
Conservatives 57%
Labour 20%
Some other party 11% (presumably mainly UKIP)
Did not vote 7%
Lib Dems 3%
SNP 0.6%
Plaid Cymru 0.3%
This should be remembered every time posters (eg HYUFD) lazily add Bxp + Con figures to come up with fantasy numbers for the Drive-over-the-cliff Party.
Table 30, page 34
https://www.comresglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Final-Tables-Sunday-Express-VI.pdf
About two percent live in Cambridge.
So, it would be lawful to refuse to print Catholic devotional material, but unlawful to deny someone s job because they are Catholic.
1. the next PM cannot prorogue parliament to force through No Deal on 31 October
2. there must be a November 2019 general election
I’m confused.
a. does Hague hold any kind of authority any more within his party?
b. is Hague therefore advocating another extension?
c. is a November GE now accepted wisdom within his party?