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Lucky. Trump’s farcial self-coup failed because of little more than the happenstance of his inadequa

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  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,355
    DougSeal said:

    kle4 said:

    malcolmg said:

    algarkirk said:

    Floater said:

    So she thinks Scotland will get carved up into a Free State and a area that remains part of the UK?

    I call dibs on Edinburgh for the UK.
    They can keep Glasgow
    Borders, Edinburgh, Shetlands, Orkneys, I and O Hebrides, West Highlands to UK. The rest to Lesser Pictland?

    We would not piss on you if you were on fire, you will be getting zero , zilch , nada. You will be stuck with Wales as your only colony for as long as they hang about.
    You take this stuff way too seriously, malc. If Cherry is arguing for an Ireland type settlement then why wouldn't people note that parts of Ireland stayed in the UK and extend the analogy? Don't be such a priss.

    If you want to get upset at people for extending the analogy, get mad at her for using it in the first place.
    My mental image of Malc is Father Jack
    Rather than the reality , a senior professional that makes shedloads who imagines a skinny , round specced conveyancing lawyer in a dodgy suit.
  • FF43 said:

    malcolmg said:

    Sandpit said:

    kle4 said:

    Well I suppose technically referendums are not required either way, but does that seem advisable? At least she clarified this

    Joanna Cherry made it clear she would not wish to "replicate the violence" that preceded the creation of the Irish Republic just over a century ago.
    Nice of her to make that clear. She sounds like Trump telling his supporters to calm down yesterday.
    Hard to beat a squealing unionist, you know they are worried.
    If you say, "While no-one
    Joanna Cherry is stupid and dangerous.
    On current evidence she seems to have got the civil war aspect of Irish independence right, just a bit premature - all the right notes, just not necessarily in the right order.
  • Foxy said:

    I see Wayne Rooney's managerial career is going from strength to strength 💪

    https://twitter.com/BBCSport/status/1347905452479283203?s=19

    TBF, like Aston Villa last night, Covid-19 meant the entire first team and coaching staff couldn't play/manage for Derby today.
    Who the hell wants to be fair to Derby County? Man up....
    Any fan of Phoenix Nights will like this result!
  • gealbhan said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Floater said:

    Bravo David - excellent

    It is very good. Thank you @david_herdson.

    From what is now coming out I think this was more than a mob expressing their frustrations. Some of those who went to Congress were intent on violence and others on stopping Congress declaring Jo Biden the next President. Had they done so - whether by seizing hostages or creating such disorder that Congress could not continue - I have no doubt that Trump would have used that to stay in power. I also think we have not yet found out the truth of why security in Congress was so poor, whether actions were deliberately taken to make it easier for the mob to storm it and the extent of any connivance by some in the police.

    It may look like a clown coup because there were some grannies in the crowd or people wearing silly costumes. But there were also some who were armed and were anything but clowns. Trump looks like an orange-haired buffoon but his actions - not just this week - but for a long time show him to be a danger to democracy and good governance.
    I don’t agree.

    David, I always read, without any doubt, Is brilliant writer and commentator. But not today. “He succeeds by playing rugby whilst others playing football.” Is meant as explanation, but actually tells us nothing. Hackneyed I think is the expression.

    The whole premise of the article stands or falls on the belief Trump actually wanted revolution, actively sought it. As an argument it leaves no room for Trump merely unable to admit defeat. Admitting defeat is just not the Trump brand, it’s not the thing he can do with his father watching, and he dug himself into a hole by not doing the proper diplomatic thing needed in political defeat.

    No, Trump has never been serious about revolution.

    In fact, commentary on US politics on PB since the election has been extremely poor. You big up the bad guy as being more strategic than merely incapable, and everything written here is a sigh of relief he’s gone, the politics and issues in US politics today read through those cloudy glasses.
    But that's my point. Trump has wished for what amounts to a revolution but never credibly aligned his strategy with that goal. He wanted it to drop into his lap. He's agitated for it and, to an extent, prepared some of the groundwork and agitated a mob (but an unled and unprepared one), but never prepared properly for what the logic of his demands required.

    Which is why he failed.
    It was a very lazy coup.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,355
    Leon said:

    Joanna Cherry is dangerous. Her ridiculous rhetoric will be counterproductive for the Independent cause
    The 40-55% of Scots who, in recent years, have said in polls or votes that they want to stay in the Union, might also have reason to be aggrieved if they are simply ignored, and their British identity stripped away, without even a 2nd referendum.

    Madness.

    Hopefully the nuttier Nats will pursue this, as it will destroy the Nat cause.
    Keep wishing for what will not happen, rUK will be a dump.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,441
    malcolmg said:

    DougSeal said:

    kle4 said:

    malcolmg said:

    algarkirk said:

    Floater said:

    So she thinks Scotland will get carved up into a Free State and a area that remains part of the UK?

    I call dibs on Edinburgh for the UK.
    They can keep Glasgow
    Borders, Edinburgh, Shetlands, Orkneys, I and O Hebrides, West Highlands to UK. The rest to Lesser Pictland?

    We would not piss on you if you were on fire, you will be getting zero , zilch , nada. You will be stuck with Wales as your only colony for as long as they hang about.
    You take this stuff way too seriously, malc. If Cherry is arguing for an Ireland type settlement then why wouldn't people note that parts of Ireland stayed in the UK and extend the analogy? Don't be such a priss.

    If you want to get upset at people for extending the analogy, get mad at her for using it in the first place.
    My mental image of Malc is Father Jack
    Rather than the reality , a senior professional that makes shedloads who imagines a skinny , round specced conveyancing lawyer in a dodgy suit.
    ARSE! TURNIP!!!! DRINK!!
  • Foxy said:

    I see Wayne Rooney's managerial career is going from strength to strength 💪

    https://twitter.com/BBCSport/status/1347905452479283203?s=19

    TBF, like Aston Villa last night, Covid-19 meant the entire first team and coaching staff couldn't play/manage for Derby today.
    Who the hell wants to be fair to Derby County? Man up....
    Any fan of Phoenix Nights will like this result!
    Coming in your ear, was ahem, what I had in my head watching the match.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126

    Scott_xP said:

    Oh

    https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1347910919804887041

    Does that include those that sent them there?

    Yes.

    Cruz, Hawley, Trump and everyone else involved should be impeached.
    Cruz and Hawley can probably claim just enough distance from the inciting, at least the catalysing moments, though certainly have moral culpability.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,165
    edited January 2021

    gealbhan said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Floater said:

    Bravo David - excellent

    It is very good. Thank you @david_herdson.

    From what is now coming out I think this was more than a mob expressing their frustrations. Some of those who went to Congress were intent on violence and others on stopping Congress declaring Jo Biden the next President. Had they done so - whether by seizing hostages or creating such disorder that Congress could not continue - I have no doubt that Trump would have used that to stay in power. I also think we have not yet found out the truth of why security in Congress was so poor, whether actions were deliberately taken to make it easier for the mob to storm it and the extent of any connivance by some in the police.

    It may look like a clown coup because there were some grannies in the crowd or people wearing silly costumes. But there were also some who were armed and were anything but clowns. Trump looks like an orange-haired buffoon but his actions - not just this week - but for a long time show him to be a danger to democracy and good governance.
    I don’t agree.

    David, I always read, without any doubt, Is brilliant writer and commentator. But not today. “He succeeds by playing rugby whilst others playing football.” Is meant as explanation, but actually tells us nothing. Hackneyed I think is the expression.

    The whole premise of the article stands or falls on the belief Trump actually wanted revolution, actively sought it. As an argument it leaves no room for Trump merely unable to admit defeat. Admitting defeat is just not the Trump brand, it’s not the thing he can do with his father watching, and he dug himself into a hole by not doing the proper diplomatic thing needed in political defeat.

    No, Trump has never been serious about revolution.

    In fact, commentary on US politics on PB since the election has been extremely poor. You big up the bad guy as being more strategic than merely incapable, and everything written here is a sigh of relief he’s gone, the politics and issues in US politics today read through those cloudy glasses.
    But that's my point. Trump has wished for what amounts to a revolution but never credibly aligned his strategy with that goal. He wanted it to drop into his lap. He's agitated for it and, to an extent, prepared some of the groundwork and agitated a mob (but an unled and unprepared one), but never prepared properly for what the logic of his demands required.

    Which is why he failed.
    And yet, as you say, despite all this incompetence, it looks as if he came reasonably close to succeeding. That is an enormous shock to everyone.
  • Foxy said:

    I see Wayne Rooney's managerial career is going from strength to strength 💪

    https://twitter.com/BBCSport/status/1347905452479283203?s=19

    TBF, like Aston Villa last night, Covid-19 meant the entire first team and coaching staff couldn't play/manage for Derby today.
    Who the hell wants to be fair to Derby County? Man up....
    Well I'm not normally fair to the granny shagger but I'm being magnanimous in 2021.
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 17,744
    HYUFD said:

    To be an effective coup Trump needed the support of the army and police, a rabble rousing mob was always going to lose control after a few hours and so it proved and then Congress returned to confirm it would not object to Biden's win bar the Trump diehards within the GOP

    That's not right. For it to be an effective coup, those undertaking it didn't need the support of the security services (though that would have been decisive); they just needed them neutering.

    But the key point there is the 'rabble-roused mob'. *That* was the error: not having an organised, armed vanguard who knew what they were doing. Such people could undoubtedly have been found.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868
    edited January 2021
    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    One point to add, in favour of David's thesis, is that much of the American Right believes there has ALREADY been a coup: America has inexplicably and "illegally" been taken over by a bunch of Woke liberal anti-patriots, pushing an alien, unAmerican agenda.

    That would, morally, justify a counter-coup

    It might if it were true but unless you are of the Q-Anon persuasion it's bullshit.
    That's my point, duh. A lot of the American Right buys into the QAnon stuff, it is remarkably widespread


    "A new survey has revealed that Americans increasingly believe in conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which claims that a deep state run by satan-worshipping pedophiles has worked to undermine Donald Trump.

    "According to the NPR/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, some 39 per cent of respondents said they agreed that the president was being undermined in this way.

    "When asked whether or not “satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media,” only 47 per cent said the statement was incorrect. "

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/qanon-conspiracies-trump-election-poll-b1780528.html
    Credulous people will believe all sorts of rubbish.

    There’s even a guy on here who posts predictions from his astrologer in the apparent expectation that readers might actually take them seriously.
  • DougSeal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    dixiedean said:

    Several members of the GOP came out well when the heat was on. I name Raffensperger. Gov. Kemp. The Governor of Maryland who called out the National Guard and deployed them. The numerous Congress folk and Senators who were having none of it.
    Above all Mike Pence. Who almost single handedly saved the Republic. Who'd have imagined that?
    The problem with a coup is you need full control of your own side. Don thought he did. But didn't.
    When the curtain was drawn back there wasn't much more than a sad loser and a bunch of enablers.
    Some very sad, some extremely dangerous.

    Pence could come out of the inevitable Congressional Inquiry very well indeed. "The Man Who Saved American Democracy" might not be a bad tagline to go into the next election with.
    Yes - he might. We must be thankful that he did the right thing at last when it mattered.

    Set against that is the fact that he was Trump's loyal vice-President for 4 years. Also what did he say and do in the 2 months since the election to try and stop Trump's behaviour which culminated in this week's events?

    Let's get all the facts before rushing to canonise him.
    Do we not have to be a bit careful with Pence. Yes he comes out of it with some credit but only really because even in his own eyes it wasn't so much that he could choose to do the right thing so much as it was that there was no wrong thing he really had the option of doing even if he wanted to?

    Does it not basically boil down to he did good cos turns out he's not also a fascist like his boss?

    Perhaps I'm oversimplifying.
    Yes. There is a Manichean tendency in modern life to try and categorise all people into good or evil. I’ll give Darth Vader credit for throwing the Emperor down the shaft at the last minute but, let’s face it, he was also complicit in the destruction of Alderaan and killing nearly all the Jedi. So a net negative. As with Pence.
    Everybody loves a good redemption arc. If I mention Zuko, how many will get the reference?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,599

    Foxy said:

    I see Wayne Rooney's managerial career is going from strength to strength 💪

    https://twitter.com/BBCSport/status/1347905452479283203?s=19

    TBF, like Aston Villa last night, Covid-19 meant the entire first team and coaching staff couldn't play/manage for Derby today.
    Who the hell wants to be fair to Derby County? Man up....
    Well I'm not normally fair to the granny shagger but I'm being magnanimous in 2021.
    Presumably they all got sick, because they laughed at the boss when he told them to behave themselves and not socialise?
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486
    I agree with David. And Matthew Parris in today’s Times.

    Trump is a sad, pathetic has-been. He’s done. I will do all I can to help the PB Trumptons come to terms with reality.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,600
    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    One point to add, in favour of David's thesis, is that much of the American Right believes there has ALREADY been a coup: America has inexplicably and "illegally" been taken over by a bunch of Woke liberal anti-patriots, pushing an alien, unAmerican agenda.

    That would, morally, justify a counter-coup

    It might if it were true but unless you are of the Q-Anon persuasion it's bullshit.
    That's my point, duh. A lot of the American Right buys into the QAnon stuff, it is remarkably widespread


    "A new survey has revealed that Americans increasingly believe in conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which claims that a deep state run by satan-worshipping pedophiles has worked to undermine Donald Trump.

    "According to the NPR/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, some 39 per cent of respondents said they agreed that the president was being undermined in this way.

    "When asked whether or not “satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media,” only 47 per cent said the statement was incorrect. "

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/qanon-conspiracies-trump-election-poll-b1780528.html
    Credulous people will believe all sorts of rubbish.

    There’s even a guy on here who posts predictions from his astrologer in the apparent expectation that readers might actually take them seriously.
    Man alive, this can be a tough crowd sometimes....
  • DougSeal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    dixiedean said:

    Several members of the GOP came out well when the heat was on. I name Raffensperger. Gov. Kemp. The Governor of Maryland who called out the National Guard and deployed them. The numerous Congress folk and Senators who were having none of it.
    Above all Mike Pence. Who almost single handedly saved the Republic. Who'd have imagined that?
    The problem with a coup is you need full control of your own side. Don thought he did. But didn't.
    When the curtain was drawn back there wasn't much more than a sad loser and a bunch of enablers.
    Some very sad, some extremely dangerous.

    Pence could come out of the inevitable Congressional Inquiry very well indeed. "The Man Who Saved American Democracy" might not be a bad tagline to go into the next election with.
    Yes - he might. We must be thankful that he did the right thing at last when it mattered.

    Set against that is the fact that he was Trump's loyal vice-President for 4 years. Also what did he say and do in the 2 months since the election to try and stop Trump's behaviour which culminated in this week's events?

    Let's get all the facts before rushing to canonise him.
    Do we not have to be a bit careful with Pence. Yes he comes out of it with some credit but only really because even in his own eyes it wasn't so much that he could choose to do the right thing so much as it was that there was no wrong thing he really had the option of doing even if he wanted to?

    Does it not basically boil down to he did good cos turns out he's not also a fascist like his boss?

    Perhaps I'm oversimplifying.
    Yes. There is a Manichean tendency in modern life to try and categorise all people into good or evil. I’ll give Darth Vader credit for throwing the Emperor down the shaft at the last minute but, let’s face it, he was also complicit in the destruction of Alderaan and killing nearly all the Jedi. So a net negative. As with Pence.
    Everybody loves a good redemption arc. If I mention Zuko, how many will get the reference?
    Either you're talking about The Last Airbender or Danny Zuko from Grease?
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    One point to add, in favour of David's thesis, is that much of the American Right believes there has ALREADY been a coup: America has inexplicably and "illegally" been taken over by a bunch of Woke liberal anti-patriots, pushing an alien, unAmerican agenda.

    That would, morally, justify a counter-coup

    It might if it were true but unless you are of the Q-Anon persuasion it's bullshit.
    That's my point, duh. A lot of the American Right buys into the QAnon stuff, it is remarkably widespread


    "A new survey has revealed that Americans increasingly believe in conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which claims that a deep state run by satan-worshipping pedophiles has worked to undermine Donald Trump.

    "According to the NPR/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, some 39 per cent of respondents said they agreed that the president was being undermined in this way.

    "When asked whether or not “satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media,” only 47 per cent said the statement was incorrect. "

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/qanon-conspiracies-trump-election-poll-b1780528.html
    We can see where the alt-right, the Q-Anon loonies etc have taken the American right.

    So how would you suggest going about "engaging" with people with those beliefs?
    I don't have a clue.

    It should also be noted, for balance, that a chunk of the American Left is just as bad: it has been captured by mad identity politics, insane racist Marxism like "Official BLM", proper anarchists like Antifa. Tearing down statues of Abe Lincoln in month-long riots. Not sensible.

    America is in a very dark place, as I said yesterday. The polarisation is now so intense it is hard to see a way out. Neither side wants compromise. And they all have guns.

    Eek.
    It’s funny. The wife and I (pandemic permitting) are making firm plans to move back to Connecticut in Spring/Summer 2022. I don’t wholly disagree with you (save perhaps to the degree of Anarchist/Marxist infiltration - the Black Panthers were also Marxist and they similarly were used to tar the whole civil rights movement) but I feel more detached from the arguments than the divisions we have here, into which I am deeply emotionally invested. New England as a whole is not really as divided - Republicans can win but not Trumpists (see Phil Scott, Susan Collins, Mitt Romney...). Also New Haven has much better pizza.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,001

    But the key point there is the 'rabble-roused mob'. *That* was the error: not having an organised, armed vanguard who knew what they were doing. Such people could undoubtedly have been found.

    https://twitter.com/adamgoldmanNYT/status/1347764284969930753
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382
    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Disagree, Hawley is young, articulate, very intelligent, Standford and Yale degrees, taught at St Paul's, a former lawyer and now probably the most telegenic figurehead for the Trumpite GOP base once Trump leaves office
    With great respect I'd rate Larry Sabato's view ahead of you
  • DougSeal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    dixiedean said:

    Several members of the GOP came out well when the heat was on. I name Raffensperger. Gov. Kemp. The Governor of Maryland who called out the National Guard and deployed them. The numerous Congress folk and Senators who were having none of it.
    Above all Mike Pence. Who almost single handedly saved the Republic. Who'd have imagined that?
    The problem with a coup is you need full control of your own side. Don thought he did. But didn't.
    When the curtain was drawn back there wasn't much more than a sad loser and a bunch of enablers.
    Some very sad, some extremely dangerous.

    Pence could come out of the inevitable Congressional Inquiry very well indeed. "The Man Who Saved American Democracy" might not be a bad tagline to go into the next election with.
    Yes - he might. We must be thankful that he did the right thing at last when it mattered.

    Set against that is the fact that he was Trump's loyal vice-President for 4 years. Also what did he say and do in the 2 months since the election to try and stop Trump's behaviour which culminated in this week's events?

    Let's get all the facts before rushing to canonise him.
    Do we not have to be a bit careful with Pence. Yes he comes out of it with some credit but only really because even in his own eyes it wasn't so much that he could choose to do the right thing so much as it was that there was no wrong thing he really had the option of doing even if he wanted to?

    Does it not basically boil down to he did good cos turns out he's not also a fascist like his boss?

    Perhaps I'm oversimplifying.
    Yes. There is a Manichean tendency in modern life to try and categorise all people into good or evil. I’ll give Darth Vader credit for throwing the Emperor down the shaft at the last minute but, let’s face it, he was also complicit in the destruction of Alderaan and killing nearly all the Jedi. So a net negative. As with Pence.
    Everybody loves a good redemption arc. If I mention Zuko, how many will get the reference?
    Either you're talking about The Last Airbender or Danny Zuko from Grease?
    The former; though Danny does have a good growth arc (AKA character development) I'm not sure it counts as redemption as such.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,221
    Sean_F said:

    Foxy said:

    This is the sort of stuff Biden has to deal with. Such delusion is not open to reconciliation. The best that can be done is to get some of the waverers back from the precipice.

    https://twitter.com/resophonick/status/1347216449480364032?s=09

    That sounds just Jesse Pinkman and his friends in Breaking Bad.
    And that ended well for all concerned.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,441
    Floater said:
    In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP

    If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,751
    Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people

    People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    edited January 2021
    malcolmg said:



    Rather than the reality , a senior professional that makes shedloads who imagines a skinny , round specced conveyancing lawyer in a dodgy suit.

    I didn’t know you were a lawyer!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,441
    edited January 2021
    Chris said:

    Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people

    People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???

    Friend of mine just texted from Victoria Park, Hackney. She says it is "absolutely rammed, no one wearing masks".

    Very hard to resist the feeling we're screwed. Unless they can vaccinate basically the entire country in the next 8 weeks, and even then it will be tight
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,751
    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP

    If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.
    Does anyone know what the axes are, or what the different curves represent?
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,893
    Chris said:

    Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people

    People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???

    Have to say my local cafe allowed people to wait inside until New Year but in the last ten days it's been outdoor waiting only which is fine. Not sure that's being universally applied at all food outlets.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868
    edited January 2021
    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    One point to add, in favour of David's thesis, is that much of the American Right believes there has ALREADY been a coup: America has inexplicably and "illegally" been taken over by a bunch of Woke liberal anti-patriots, pushing an alien, unAmerican agenda.

    That would, morally, justify a counter-coup

    It might if it were true but unless you are of the Q-Anon persuasion it's bullshit.
    That's my point, duh. A lot of the American Right buys into the QAnon stuff, it is remarkably widespread


    "A new survey has revealed that Americans increasingly believe in conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which claims that a deep state run by satan-worshipping pedophiles has worked to undermine Donald Trump.

    "According to the NPR/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, some 39 per cent of respondents said they agreed that the president was being undermined in this way.

    "When asked whether or not “satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media,” only 47 per cent said the statement was incorrect. "

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/qanon-conspiracies-trump-election-poll-b1780528.html
    We can see where the alt-right, the Q-Anon loonies etc have taken the American right.

    So how would you suggest going about "engaging" with people with those beliefs?
    I don't have a clue.

    It should also be noted, for balance, that a chunk of the American Left is just as bad: it has been captured by mad identity politics, insane racist Marxism like "Official BLM", proper anarchists like Antifa. Tearing down statues of Abe Lincoln in month-long riots. Not sensible.

    America is in a very dark place, as I said yesterday. The polarisation is now so intense it is hard to see a way out. Neither side wants compromise. And they all have guns.

    Eek.
    Passing over the rare flash of self awareness in the first sentence, I tuned in to the Mike Gallagher show this morning. He is the Republican shock jock who I spent time listening to during my drive around the Great Plains in 2019, largely because the only alternative on the car radio was an even more loopy religious channel. Although I have to concede he’s a radio professional and his show can easily become compelling listening.

    From yesterday’s show, his line is to condemn the violence at the Capitol unambiguously, playing the Trump ‘hostage tape’ over and over to underline the nonsense of any suggestion that Trump incited the riot, and then to major on the comparison between a range of Democrats’ comments after the BLM protests to try and establish the position that the Dems are the people who are really the ones soft on violent protest.

    This then allows him to go into full-on attack mode toward the Dems seeking impeachment on the grounds that they are seeking to make unjustifiable political capital from an event where Trump’s own hands are completely clean.

    As when I listened in 2019, it’s the adverts that I found the most shocking; the advertisers on the programme clearly know they have an audience of mugs. Fish oil tablets bigged up as an all-embracing pain cure on sale for $20 for a small pot. A religious firm selling ‘boxes of blessings’, each one supposedly prayed over before being mailed out. All manner of quack medical treatments and seemingly dodgy financial investments, and humdrum items like pillows marketed as if they were guaranteed to cure all insomnia, being pitched at people the suppliers must believe have more money than sense, even though in reality I suspect they have little of either. Products mostly endorsed by Gallagher himself as the host of the show.
  • At ease, everyone, Liz and Phil have had the jab.

    https://twitter.com/DarrenEuronews/status/1347921558514315269
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,751
    stodge said:

    Chris said:

    Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people

    People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???

    Have to say my local cafe allowed people to wait inside until New Year but in the last ten days it's been outdoor waiting only which is fine. Not sure that's being universally applied at all food outlets.
    And what the rationale is for them being open at all?

    Just economic? Fine if we're being fed a lot of flim-flam just to make us behave, but if the NHS is in danger of collapsing in the next few weeks, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives ...
  • kle4 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Oh

    https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1347910919804887041

    Does that include those that sent them there?

    Yes.

    Cruz, Hawley, Trump and everyone else involved should be impeached.
    Cruz and Hawley can probably claim just enough distance from the inciting, at least the catalysing moments, though certainly have moral culpability.
    They're cattle trucked, mate.
  • HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Disagree, Hawley is young, articulate, very intelligent, Standford and Yale degrees, taught at St Paul's, a former lawyer and now probably the most telegenic figurehead for the Trumpite GOP base once Trump leaves office
    With great respect I'd rate Larry Sabato's view ahead of you
    I liked Nate Silver's take on Josh Hawley before this week's events, which was along the lines that he's the sort of guy who gets talked about a fair bit before finishing fifth in the Iowa caucus. That feels credible.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    edited January 2021



    Star Wars is full of appalling inconsistencies. They've been putting Star Destroyers on screen for 44 years, through 9 films and endless spin-offs, but have they ever destroyed one single star? Noooo......

    The stupidest thing about Star Destroyers is that they have a bridge, a la a sailing ship, in an exposed, raised, part of the superstructure, with windows so the officers can look out at battles taking place over unimaginable distances. Accordingly when a rebel fighter crashes into it the whole ship is crippled, as happened at the Battle of Endor The 2003 Battlestar Galactica reboot had it much better, putting command and control in the centre of the ship where it was much less exposed.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,893
    edited January 2021
    Leon said:


    In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP

    If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.

    Have to say in the blizzard of graphs and spreadsheets churned out by some on a daily basis for information and by others to enforce or re-enforce a politically motivated point, I think the numbers of those 75 or older in hospitals have started to fall suggesting the vaccination of a sizeable minority of the very elderly population is starting to have the desired effect.

    Unfortunately, the ravages of the virus aren't just physical or mental but linguistic. The term "vaccination" exists and while I realise that's a lot of typing for those used to Twitter or for those with the attention span of a bored amoeba, it's the appropriate term. What we are now seeing is "jabbed" or as some numpty tried a couple of days ago "stabbed".

    Someone who has been vaccinated is apparently now described as "jabbed up" - honestly, civilisation teeters on the brink according to Martin Day but there's no reason why we should descend into the abyss taking the wonderful English language with us.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,766
    She's the lass from Jupiter.
  • At ease, everyone, Liz and Phil have had the jab.

    https://twitter.com/DarrenEuronews/status/1347921558514315269

    Given their ages I'm amazed it has taken that long to get to them.
  • At ease, everyone, Liz and Phil have had the jab.

    https://twitter.com/DarrenEuronews/status/1347921558514315269

    Well that's pages 1-14 of the Sunday Express taken care of.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,381
    That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,165
    edited January 2021
    Leon said:
    Yes, I posted that a bit earlier on today in other thread too.

    There's a very interesting interview with him, here :

    https://www.gq.com/story/man-predicted-capitol-coup-interview

    "They thought, "This is the thing we have been asked to do. Trump is telling us to do this, so we have to do it." But more than that, it must be important enough, the key to his winning. Because why would he ask us to come to Washington if it wasn't part of the plan? It wouldn't make any sense. There's a trend among the Trump fans—it's almost religious—to see him as basically infallible and any mistakes are caused by bad people around him. He wouldn't be calling us to Washington unless there was a purpose that would ultimately end in him winning the election.

    The other part of it this is that since the late summer, when Trump was falling in polls and Biden was polling thoroughly ahead, the one thing I picked up from all parts of Trump World—from the QAnon-ish to the MAGA-ish to fairly moderate conservatives—is: Trump's gonna win. You didn't see that from people supporting Biden. You saw, you really hope he wins. The Trump people thought: Trump's going to win and not only is he going to win, you smug liberals, you're going to have the smile wiped off your face.

    Come Election Day, he doesn't win. So all these people go, "Wait, it can't be. How could Trump possibly lose an election that everyone I know knew he was going to win?" I could just see a certain reality catching up with [them], and it would have to be on that day [of the certification]. And once they saw Trump saying to his supporters, come to DC on that day, I could see it going the wrong way.

    You could see the discussion become less abstract. By last week, these people were sharing maps of D.C. They were talking about having enough of them that they would be able to erect basically their own cadre around the entire area of Congress. They had a map of the tunnels [in the basement of the Capitol], and they were talking about how they're going to be able to stop Congress from leaving. They imagined that this was the day there were going to be mass executions of Congressmen."
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,001
    DougSeal said:

    The stupidest thing about Star Destroyers is that they have a bridge, a la a sailing ship, in an exposed, raised, part of the superstructure, with windows so the officers can look out at battles taking place over unimaginable distances. Accordingly when a rebel fighter crashes into it the whole ship is crippled, as happened at the Battle of Endor The 2003 Battlestar Galactica reboot had it much better, putting command and control in the centre of the ship where it was much less exposed.

    I did the Royal Yacht tour and was surprised to find the wheelhouse is below the bridge, with no windows, which apparently was the norm for warship design at the time
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    Chris said:

    Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people

    People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???

    It looks to me as though the Govt have given up with lockdowns.

    It is now being implemented in a pretty half-hearted manner -- why, for example, change the definition of key workers so now the schools are very much fuller than in the previous lockdown ?

    Or, why tell students to stay at home, but that they can return to University if their home working environment is not as good. Given a choice between stay at home with mum & dad, or go to University for druggy fun & sex, most students will decide their "working environment is better at University".

    I think the Govt have concluded that too many people are not going to lockdown hard any more. In fact, I think among young people, that is probably a correct assessment.

    Many of them are thinking: "Why should I sacrifice the magical youth of my life just for some boring geriatric?"
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,441
    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    One point to add, in favour of David's thesis, is that much of the American Right believes there has ALREADY been a coup: America has inexplicably and "illegally" been taken over by a bunch of Woke liberal anti-patriots, pushing an alien, unAmerican agenda.

    That would, morally, justify a counter-coup

    It might if it were true but unless you are of the Q-Anon persuasion it's bullshit.
    That's my point, duh. A lot of the American Right buys into the QAnon stuff, it is remarkably widespread


    "A new survey has revealed that Americans increasingly believe in conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which claims that a deep state run by satan-worshipping pedophiles has worked to undermine Donald Trump.

    "According to the NPR/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, some 39 per cent of respondents said they agreed that the president was being undermined in this way.

    "When asked whether or not “satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media,” only 47 per cent said the statement was incorrect. "

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/qanon-conspiracies-trump-election-poll-b1780528.html
    We can see where the alt-right, the Q-Anon loonies etc have taken the American right.

    So how would you suggest going about "engaging" with people with those beliefs?
    I don't have a clue.

    It should also be noted, for balance, that a chunk of the American Left is just as bad: it has been captured by mad identity politics, insane racist Marxism like "Official BLM", proper anarchists like Antifa. Tearing down statues of Abe Lincoln in month-long riots. Not sensible.

    America is in a very dark place, as I said yesterday. The polarisation is now so intense it is hard to see a way out. Neither side wants compromise. And they all have guns.

    Eek.
    That's just the apologists current line of deflection.

    Yes there are idiots within the BLM ranks but in essence the movement has a valid raison d'être, the racism and brutality of the police in the US. I doubt anyone could seriously argue they don't have a case. The BLM movement does don't dominate the Democratic Party, Biden and Harris have explicitly criticised the notion of defunding the police.

    Whats the equivalent case for storming the Capitol to try to overturn the Presidential election? The GOP is dominated by that ideology.
    The madness of the American identitarian Left is evidenced more in its philosophy than its storming of buildings (tho they do quite a lot of that, as well - see Seattle, Portland, LA, and many more, this year)

    One example are the concepts of White Privilege and White Fragility, which have completely captured much of the Left (Google it if you don't believe me). These assert that white people are intrinsically racist, and that if you deny your white racism, that just PROVES you are racist.

    What does this attitude say to the poor white American in middle America struggling to get by on minimum wage? It says a big F you, you horrible racist. Don't try to deny it. You're racist.

    No wonder America is polarising. And both sides are stoking the fires.


  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,207

    That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
    Strangely you didn't mention the Labour mp who queue jumped
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,766
    Leon said:

    Chris said:

    Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people

    People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???

    Friend of mine just texted from Victoria Park, Hackney. She says it is "absolutely rammed, no one wearing masks".

    Very hard to resist the feeling we're screwed. Unless they can vaccinate basically the entire country in the next 8 weeks, and even then it will be tight
    I don't get why people aren't f*cking scared given the new situation. We are in total lock down at our house and I've been a bit of a sceptic.

    Do they just think it will definitely be someone else lying in the corridor of a broken hospital begging for oxygen when the NHS collapses next month?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    stodge said:

    Leon said:


    In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP

    If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.

    Have to say in the blizzard of graphs and spreadsheets churned out by some on a daily basis for information and by others to enforce or re-enforce a politically motivated point, I think the numbers of those 75 or older in hospitals have started to fall suggesting the vaccination of a sizeable minority of the very elderly population is starting to have the desired effect.

    Unfortunately, the ravages of the virus aren't just physical or mental but linguistic. The term "vaccination" exists and while I realise that's a lot of typing for those used to Twitter or for those with the attention span of a bored amoeba, it's the appropriate term. What we are now seeing is "jabbed" or as some numpty tried a couple of days ago "stabbed".

    Someone who has been vaccinated is apparently now described as "jabbed up" - honestly, civilisation teeters on the brink according to Martin Day but there's no reason why we should descend into the abyss taking the wonderful English language with us.
    Quite right. If this sort of thing is allowed to continue we'll have people routinely referring to omnibuses as "buses."
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,893
    Chris said:

    stodge said:


    Have to say my local cafe allowed people to wait inside until New Year but in the last ten days it's been outdoor waiting only which is fine. Not sure that's being universally applied at all food outlets.

    And what the rationale is for them being open at all?

    Just economic? Fine if we're being fed a lot of flim-flam just to make us behave, but if the NHS is in danger of collapsing in the next few weeks, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives ...
    Indeed and it's a notable difference between the restrictions of March/April and now - back then, many more food outlets were closed. I do think those only offering delivery can remain open and with reasonable precautions are safe. I must confess I took a risk waiting in for my hot lunch one day and it's bothered me ever since.

    As to the substantive, we are back to the health vs wealth debate which has raged since mid-March last year.

    To paraphrase Helen Lovejoy "won't somebody please think of the economy?!"
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,441
    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    One point to add, in favour of David's thesis, is that much of the American Right believes there has ALREADY been a coup: America has inexplicably and "illegally" been taken over by a bunch of Woke liberal anti-patriots, pushing an alien, unAmerican agenda.

    That would, morally, justify a counter-coup

    It might if it were true but unless you are of the Q-Anon persuasion it's bullshit.
    That's my point, duh. A lot of the American Right buys into the QAnon stuff, it is remarkably widespread


    "A new survey has revealed that Americans increasingly believe in conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which claims that a deep state run by satan-worshipping pedophiles has worked to undermine Donald Trump.

    "According to the NPR/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, some 39 per cent of respondents said they agreed that the president was being undermined in this way.

    "When asked whether or not “satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media,” only 47 per cent said the statement was incorrect. "

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/qanon-conspiracies-trump-election-poll-b1780528.html
    We can see where the alt-right, the Q-Anon loonies etc have taken the American right.

    So how would you suggest going about "engaging" with people with those beliefs?
    I don't have a clue.

    It should also be noted, for balance, that a chunk of the American Left is just as bad: it has been captured by mad identity politics, insane racist Marxism like "Official BLM", proper anarchists like Antifa. Tearing down statues of Abe Lincoln in month-long riots. Not sensible.

    America is in a very dark place, as I said yesterday. The polarisation is now so intense it is hard to see a way out. Neither side wants compromise. And they all have guns.

    Eek.
    Passing over the rare flash of self awareness in the first sentence, I tuned in to the Mike Gallagher show this morning. He is the Republican shock jock who I spent time listening to during my drive around the Great Plains in 2019, largely because the only alternative on the car radio was an even more loopy religious channel. Although I have to concede he’s a radio professional and his show can easily become compelling listening.

    From yesterday’s show, his line is to condemn the violence at the Capitol unambiguously, playing the Trump ‘hostage tape’ over and over to underline the nonsense of any suggestion that Trump incited the riot, and then to major on the comparison between a range of Democrats’ comments after the BLM protests to try and establish the position that the Dems are the people who are really the ones soft on violent protest.

    This then allows him to go into full-on attack mode toward the Dems seeking impeachment on the grounds that they are seeking to make unjustifiable political capital from an event where Trump’s own hands are completely clean.

    As when I listened in 2019, it’s the adverts that I found the most shocking; the advertisers on the programme clearly know they have an audience of mugs. Fish oil tablets bigged up as an all-embracing pain cure on sale for $20 for a small pot. A religious firm selling ‘boxes of blessings’, each one supposedly prayed over before being mailed out. All manner of quack medical treatments and seemingly dodgy financial investments, and humdrum items like pillows marketed as if they were guaranteed to cure all insomnia, being pitched at people the suppliers must believe have more money than sense, even though in reality I suspect they have little of either. Products mostly endorsed by Gallagher himself as the host of the show.
    One possibility is that we are now seeing the effects of the decline in human IQ, which has been going on since the turn of the century (and possibly much longer). Stupider people (of right or left) will believe stupider things.

    I hate to be mean but I do think kids today are a bit thicker than they used to be. Nicer, but thicker

    https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/iq-rates-are-dropping-many-developed-countries-doesn-t-bode-ncna1008576
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,381
    Floater said:

    That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
    Strangely you didn't mention the Labour mp who queue jumped
    I am quite happy for you to add him to the pot. I wasn't aware of the Labour MP in question
  • Floater said:

    That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
    Strangely you didn't mention the Labour mp who queue jumped
    Who was that?
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 17,744
    Just read some of the earlier comments. Thanks for the kind words.

    To add, before I log off for the afternoon, I did flag a lot of what subsequently happened, back in mid-Nov - though while I thought violence last Wednesday a credible possibility, I though Trump would pull back from it. You can't get everything right.

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/11/21/trumps-plan-d-its-all-about-the-electoral-college/
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,381

    Chris said:

    Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people

    People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???

    It looks to me as though the Govt have given up with lockdowns.

    It is now being implemented in a pretty half-hearted manner -- why, for example, change the definition of key workers so now the schools are very much fuller than in the previous lockdown ?

    Or, why tell students to stay at home, but that they can return to University if their home working environment is not as good. Given a choice between stay at home with mum & dad, or go to University for druggy fun & sex, most students will decide their "working environment is better at University".

    I think the Govt have concluded that too many people are not going to lockdown hard any more. In fact, I think among young people, that is probably a correct assessment.

    Many of them are thinking: "Why should I sacrifice the magical youth of my life just for some boring geriatric?"
    Your undergraduate days were clearly more exciting than mine.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,893
    IshmaelZ said:

    stodge said:

    Leon said:


    In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP

    If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.

    Have to say in the blizzard of graphs and spreadsheets churned out by some on a daily basis for information and by others to enforce or re-enforce a politically motivated point, I think the numbers of those 75 or older in hospitals have started to fall suggesting the vaccination of a sizeable minority of the very elderly population is starting to have the desired effect.

    Unfortunately, the ravages of the virus aren't just physical or mental but linguistic. The term "vaccination" exists and while I realise that's a lot of typing for those used to Twitter or for those with the attention span of a bored amoeba, it's the appropriate term. What we are now seeing is "jabbed" or as some numpty tried a couple of days ago "stabbed".

    Someone who has been vaccinated is apparently now described as "jabbed up" - honestly, civilisation teeters on the brink according to Martin Day but there's no reason why we should descend into the abyss taking the wonderful English language with us.
    Quite right. If this sort of thing is allowed to continue we'll have people routinely referring to omnibuses as "buses."
    As you quite rightly admonished me the other evening for an incorrect usage of the term "inoculation", I feel compelled to yield to your perspicacity in these matters.
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 4,939

    At ease, everyone, Liz and Phil have had the jab.

    https://twitter.com/DarrenEuronews/status/1347921558514315269

    Well that's pages 1-14 of the Sunday Express taken care of.
    Diana relegated to page 15? Shock Horror!
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    OllyT said:

    Leon said:

    One point to add, in favour of David's thesis, is that much of the American Right believes there has ALREADY been a coup: America has inexplicably and "illegally" been taken over by a bunch of Woke liberal anti-patriots, pushing an alien, unAmerican agenda.

    That would, morally, justify a counter-coup

    It might if it were true but unless you are of the Q-Anon persuasion it's bullshit.
    That's my point, duh. A lot of the American Right buys into the QAnon stuff, it is remarkably widespread


    "A new survey has revealed that Americans increasingly believe in conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which claims that a deep state run by satan-worshipping pedophiles has worked to undermine Donald Trump.

    "According to the NPR/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, some 39 per cent of respondents said they agreed that the president was being undermined in this way.

    "When asked whether or not “satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media,” only 47 per cent said the statement was incorrect. "

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/qanon-conspiracies-trump-election-poll-b1780528.html
    We can see where the alt-right, the Q-Anon loonies etc have taken the American right.

    So how would you suggest going about "engaging" with people with those beliefs?
    I don't have a clue.

    It should also be noted, for balance, that a chunk of the American Left is just as bad: it has been captured by mad identity politics, insane racist Marxism like "Official BLM", proper anarchists like Antifa. Tearing down statues of Abe Lincoln in month-long riots. Not sensible.

    America is in a very dark place, as I said yesterday. The polarisation is now so intense it is hard to see a way out. Neither side wants compromise. And they all have guns.

    Eek.
    Passing over the rare flash of self awareness in the first sentence, I tuned in to the Mike Gallagher show this morning. He is the Republican shock jock who I spent time listening to during my drive around the Great Plains in 2019, largely because the only alternative on the car radio was an even more loopy religious channel. Although I have to concede he’s a radio professional and his show can easily become compelling listening.

    From yesterday’s show, his line is to condemn the violence at the Capitol unambiguously, playing the Trump ‘hostage tape’ over and over to underline the nonsense of any suggestion that Trump incited the riot, and then to major on the comparison between a range of Democrats’ comments after the BLM protests to try and establish the position that the Dems are the people who are really the ones soft on violent protest.

    This then allows him to go into full-on attack mode toward the Dems seeking impeachment on the grounds that they are seeking to make unjustifiable political capital from an event where Trump’s own hands are completely clean.

    As when I listened in 2019, it’s the adverts that I found the most shocking; the advertisers on the programme clearly know they have an audience of mugs. Fish oil tablets bigged up as an all-embracing pain cure on sale for $20 for a small pot. A religious firm selling ‘boxes of blessings’, each one supposedly prayed over before being mailed out. All manner of quack medical treatments and seemingly dodgy financial investments, and humdrum items like pillows marketed as if they were guaranteed to cure all insomnia, being pitched at people the suppliers must believe have more money than sense, even though in reality I suspect they have little of either. Products mostly endorsed by Gallagher himself as the host of the show.
    One possibility is that we are now seeing the effects of the decline in human IQ, which has been going on since the turn of the century (and possibly much longer). Stupider people (of right or left) will believe stupider things.

    I hate to be mean but I do think kids today are a bit thicker than they used to be. Nicer, but thicker

    https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/iq-rates-are-dropping-many-developed-countries-doesn-t-bode-ncna1008576
    They are not the generation of whom 50%+ carried on smoking cigarettes, or indeed took them up, after the Doll report came out. We are. So I don't think the distribution of complete fucking idiocy is clear cut.
  • stodge said:

    Leon said:


    In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP

    If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.

    Have to say in the blizzard of graphs and spreadsheets churned out by some on a daily basis for information and by others to enforce or re-enforce a politically motivated point, I think the numbers of those 75 or older in hospitals have started to fall suggesting the vaccination of a sizeable minority of the very elderly population is starting to have the desired effect.

    Unfortunately, the ravages of the virus aren't just physical or mental but linguistic. The term "vaccination" exists and while I realise that's a lot of typing for those used to Twitter or for those with the attention span of a bored amoeba, it's the appropriate term. What we are now seeing is "jabbed" or as some numpty tried a couple of days ago "stabbed".

    Someone who has been vaccinated is apparently now described as "jabbed up" - honestly, civilisation teeters on the brink according to Martin Day but there's no reason why we should descend into the abyss taking the wonderful English language with us.
    It's a disgrace.
    It should of course be jagged up.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,213

    kinabalu said:

    kle4 said:

    Looked like a good piece but I'm afraid I gave up on the third or fourth paragraph. Too long, too wordy.

    It's not exactly War and Peace.

    I thought it was just long enough to make its argument.
    Criticisms of the articles here being too long consistently astound me. Who can be bothered to log on to a political betting site a couple of days after a coup in Washington yet finds two minutes reading something very well written and argued a bit too much? And then makes that public!
    I'm prone to be unnecessarily verbose myself, and if people generally prefer something shorter and punchier I totally get that, but whilst things can be too padded, longform content simply affords more opportunity to lay out an argument. It's not overly repetitve, it has clear points to make, so merely being too long is not a negative it's what you do with that length that matters. I have heard.
    Brevity - using the minimum of words to make your point - is in my most humble opinion praised and celebrated well in excess of its true value and worth. By which I mean it's rather overrated. In my view.
    Interesting. Would you care to expand on that, say a 50,000 word thesis to start with?
    That will be a challenge. My prose needs room to breathe.
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,258
    Chris said:

    Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people

    People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???

    You missed out - shopping for food.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,766

    stodge said:

    Leon said:


    In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP

    If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.

    Have to say in the blizzard of graphs and spreadsheets churned out by some on a daily basis for information and by others to enforce or re-enforce a politically motivated point, I think the numbers of those 75 or older in hospitals have started to fall suggesting the vaccination of a sizeable minority of the very elderly population is starting to have the desired effect.

    Unfortunately, the ravages of the virus aren't just physical or mental but linguistic. The term "vaccination" exists and while I realise that's a lot of typing for those used to Twitter or for those with the attention span of a bored amoeba, it's the appropriate term. What we are now seeing is "jabbed" or as some numpty tried a couple of days ago "stabbed".

    Someone who has been vaccinated is apparently now described as "jabbed up" - honestly, civilisation teeters on the brink according to Martin Day but there's no reason why we should descend into the abyss taking the wonderful English language with us.
    It's a disgrace.
    It should of course be jagged up.
    My wife and I have been joking about being "stabbed" every flu season for years.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,766

    At ease, everyone, Liz and Phil have had the jab.

    https://twitter.com/DarrenEuronews/status/1347921558514315269

    Well that's pages 1-14 of the Sunday Express taken care of.
    Diana relegated to page 15? Shock Horror!
    "Diana is alive and had a vaccination yesterday" shock.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,001

    It's a disgrace.
    It should of course be jagged up.

    https://twitter.com/gorbalsgoebbels/status/1347533761211211779
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,207
    Andy_JS said:

    Useful idiots.

    "The Chinese government is funding British YouTube stars to produce pro-China propaganda videos, an investigation by The Times can reveal."

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/beijing-funds-british-youtubers-to-further-its-propaganda-war-x5gqp5fg0

    That might provide an explanation for some of the crap posted on here about China.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,766
    Scott_xP said:
    Let's not take the risk eh?

    Impeach the SOB.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,381

    Just read some of the earlier comments. Thanks for the kind words.

    To add, before I log off for the afternoon, I did flag a lot of what subsequently happened, back in mid-Nov - though while I thought violence last Wednesday a credible possibility, I though Trump would pull back from it. You can't get everything right.

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/11/21/trumps-plan-d-its-all-about-the-electoral-college/

    It really is a great essay, thank you.

    Anyone underestimating how out of control this incident could have become is rather naive.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541

    Chris said:

    Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people

    People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???

    It looks to me as though the Govt have given up with lockdowns.

    It is now being implemented in a pretty half-hearted manner -- why, for example, change the definition of key workers so now the schools are very much fuller than in the previous lockdown ?

    Or, why tell students to stay at home, but that they can return to University if their home working environment is not as good. Given a choice between stay at home with mum & dad, or go to University for druggy fun & sex, most students will decide their "working environment is better at University".

    I think the Govt have concluded that too many people are not going to lockdown hard any more. In fact, I think among young people, that is probably a correct assessment.

    Many of them are thinking: "Why should I sacrifice the magical youth of my life just for some boring geriatric?"
    I’ve been thinking this for nearly a year. In a stand off between the libido of the nation’s teens and twenty somethings and Matt Hancock, it’s hard to see Matt Hancock winning. We don’t have enough police, surveillance, to ensure a lockdown. It’s going to fray and they know it is.
  • Floater said:

    That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
    Strangely you didn't mention the Labour mp who queue jumped
    Who was that?
    Khalid Mahmood, Birmingham Perry Barr.

    It pains me, but he is quite high up the priority list, having been in the hospital for dialysis/having had an organ transplant.
  • Chris said:

    stodge said:

    Chris said:

    Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people

    People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???

    Have to say my local cafe allowed people to wait inside until New Year but in the last ten days it's been outdoor waiting only which is fine. Not sure that's being universally applied at all food outlets.
    And what the rationale is for them being open at all?

    Just economic? Fine if we're being fed a lot of flim-flam just to make us behave, but if the NHS is in danger of collapsing in the next few weeks, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives ...
    To serve those that cannot cook, those who are key workers, who do not have the time to cook, low paid key workers whose only real option is takeaway food. When you're barely above minimum wage a £3.49 Fillet O'Fish from the Golden Arches might be your only option.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    DougSeal said:



    Star Wars is full of appalling inconsistencies. They've been putting Star Destroyers on screen for 44 years, through 9 films and endless spin-offs, but have they ever destroyed one single star? Noooo......

    The stupidest thing about Star Destroyers is that they have a bridge, a la a sailing ship, in an exposed, raised, part of the superstructure, with windows so the officers can look out at battles taking place over unimaginable distances. Accordingly when a rebel fighter crashes into it the whole ship is crippled, as happened at the Battle of Endor The 2003 Battlestar Galactica reboot had it much better, putting command and control in the centre of the ship where it was much less exposed.
    One of the many reasons why the BSG reboot is my favourite sci-fi series - I like a touch of realism in my fantasy universes.
  • Scott_xP said:

    It's a disgrace.
    It should of course be jagged up.

    https://twitter.com/gorbalsgoebbels/status/1347533761211211779
    Out of all the humourless cnuts on Scotpol twitter, the Gorbals Goebbels takes the biscuit. Or should I say bannock.
  • stodge said:

    Leon said:


    In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP

    If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.

    Have to say in the blizzard of graphs and spreadsheets churned out by some on a daily basis for information and by others to enforce or re-enforce a politically motivated point,
    I think the numbers of those 75 or older in hospitals have started to fall suggesting the vaccination of a sizeable minority of the very elderly population is starting to have the desired effect.

    Unfortunately, the ravages of the virus aren't just physical or mental but linguistic. The term "vaccination" exists and while I realise that's a lot of typing for those used to Twitter or for those with the attention span of a bored amoeba, it's the appropriate term. What we are now seeing is "jabbed" or as some numpty tried a couple of days ago "stabbed".

    Someone who has been vaccinated is apparently now described as "jabbed up" - honestly, civilisation teeters on the brink according to Martin Day but there's no reason why we should descend into the abyss taking the wonderful English language with us.
    Just wondering where you saw that - I think we should see some evidence that the vaccination strategy is working by mid-Jan and that would be in over-75s hospitalisations and also, to use Hancocks turn of phrase, a decoupling of the case rates from the other statistics.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,600

    Chris said:

    Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people

    People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???

    You missed out - shopping for food.
    What about that raft of people who only know of "food" from restaurants and takeaways? How can they possibly cope in a lockdown when they re supposed to - *gulp* - cook their own?
  • FossFoss Posts: 1,019
    Nicely triangulated; late enough that it doesn’t seem like they jumped the queue, early enough to show faith and to encourage the older demographic.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,381

    Floater said:

    That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
    Strangely you didn't mention the Labour mp who queue jumped
    Who was that?
    All I can find is a debunked conspiracy theory put out by Guido and Allin -Khan apologising for suggesting Conservative MPs were queue jumping. I have no doubt Floater is on the money but I can't find it.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,600
    Foss said:

    Nicely triangulated; late enough that it doesn’t seem like they jumped the queue, early enough to show faith and to encourage the older demographic.
    ...and late enough to check that nice Mr Shakespeare didn't grow a second head or have a chest-burster appear at mealtime, after his jab.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,092
    edited January 2021

    Floater said:

    That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
    Strangely you didn't mention the Labour mp who queue jumped
    Who was that?
    All I can find is a debunked conspiracy theory put out by Guido and Allin -Khan apologising for suggesting Conservative MPs were queue jumping. I have no doubt Floater is on the money but I can't find it.
    Here is the story...

    Any leftover vaccine should go to doctors or nurses' reaction as city MP gets jab by joining queue

    https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/any-leftover-vaccine-should-go-19538943

    Did he queue jump, sort of.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,441
    DougSeal said:

    Chris said:

    Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people

    People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???

    It looks to me as though the Govt have given up with lockdowns.

    It is now being implemented in a pretty half-hearted manner -- why, for example, change the definition of key workers so now the schools are very much fuller than in the previous lockdown ?

    Or, why tell students to stay at home, but that they can return to University if their home working environment is not as good. Given a choice between stay at home with mum & dad, or go to University for druggy fun & sex, most students will decide their "working environment is better at University".

    I think the Govt have concluded that too many people are not going to lockdown hard any more. In fact, I think among young people, that is probably a correct assessment.

    Many of them are thinking: "Why should I sacrifice the magical youth of my life just for some boring geriatric?"
    I’ve been thinking this for nearly a year. In a stand off between the libido of the nation’s teens and twenty somethings and Matt Hancock, it’s hard to see Matt Hancock winning. We don’t have enough police, surveillance, to ensure a lockdown. It’s going to fray and they know it is.
    As a 20 year old friend said to me the other day (as she headed out for a student party) how often are you 20 years old? Not very often. Many of these kids have spent long lonely months without fun, drugs, sex, booze, friends, and flirting, through 2020. They've had enough now. They want to get laid.

    Also, for a young woman, it is particularly hard. A woman is at peak physical attractiveness from about 18-25. That's just seven years when she is a head-turning stunner, when she has incredible power over men.

    We have asked her to hide that beauty under a mask for many months, and we're also saying give up one year of your seven years of sexual power.

    They are rebelling.

  • DougSeal said:

    Chris said:

    Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people

    People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???

    It looks to me as though the Govt have given up with lockdowns.

    It is now being implemented in a pretty half-hearted manner -- why, for example, change the definition of key workers so now the schools are very much fuller than in the previous lockdown ?

    Or, why tell students to stay at home, but that they can return to University if their home working environment is not as good. Given a choice between stay at home with mum & dad, or go to University for druggy fun & sex, most students will decide their "working environment is better at University".

    I think the Govt have concluded that too many people are not going to lockdown hard any more. In fact, I think among young people, that is probably a correct assessment.

    Many of them are thinking: "Why should I sacrifice the magical youth of my life just for some boring geriatric?"
    I’ve been thinking this for nearly a year. In a stand off between the libido of the nation’s teens and twenty somethings and Matt Hancock, it’s hard to see Matt Hancock winning. We don’t have enough police, surveillance, to ensure a lockdown. It’s going to fray and they know it is.
    Just done about 20km walking around Brum - mostly on canals and parks. I have to go into work two or three days a week, and walk there and back. I've been out a fair bit this week and just mentally making notes.

    I think this lockdown will break the *moment* the weather improves, or if there's a high profile 'unfair' story (thinking either another Cummings tale or something like the police storming into that family home the other night).
  • Floater said:

    That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
    Strangely you didn't mention the Labour mp who queue jumped
    Who was that?
    All I can find is a debunked conspiracy theory put out by Guido and Allin -Khan apologising for suggesting Conservative MPs were queue jumping. I have no doubt Floater is on the money but I can't find it.
    Here is the story...

    Any leftover vaccine should go to doctors or nurses' reaction as city MP gets jab by joining queue

    https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/any-leftover-vaccine-should-go-19538943

    Did he queue jump, yes sort of.
    The story is bollocks, he was kidney donor, he's was on the priority list.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,361
    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP

    If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.
    It's a not entire foolish thing to consider.

    This is why there is such a push on the vaccine in this country, I believe.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,381

    Floater said:

    That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
    Strangely you didn't mention the Labour mp who queue jumped
    Who was that?
    All I can find is a debunked conspiracy theory put out by Guido and Allin -Khan apologising for suggesting Conservative MPs were queue jumping. I have no doubt Floater is on the money but I can't find it.
    Here is the story...

    Any leftover vaccine should go to doctors or nurses' reaction as city MP gets jab by joining queue

    https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/any-leftover-vaccine-should-go-19538943

    Did he queue jump, yes sort of.
    Thanks. That is unacceptable.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,376

    gealbhan said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Floater said:

    Bravo David - excellent

    It is very good. Thank you @david_herdson.

    From what is now coming out I think this was more than a mob expressing their frustrations. Some of those who went to Congress were intent on violence and others on stopping Congress declaring Jo Biden the next President. Had they done so - whether by seizing hostages or creating such disorder that Congress could not continue - I have no doubt that Trump would have used that to stay in power. I also think we have not yet found out the truth of why security in Congress was so poor, whether actions were deliberately taken to make it easier for the mob to storm it and the extent of any connivance by some in the police.

    It may look like a clown coup because there were some grannies in the crowd or people wearing silly costumes. But there were also some who were armed and were anything but clowns. Trump looks like an orange-haired buffoon but his actions - not just this week - but for a long time show him to be a danger to democracy and good governance.
    I don’t agree.

    David, I always read, without any doubt, Is brilliant writer and commentator. But not today. “He succeeds by playing rugby whilst others playing football.” Is meant as explanation, but actually tells us nothing. Hackneyed I think is the expression.

    The whole premise of the article stands or falls on the belief Trump actually wanted revolution, actively sought it. As an argument it leaves no room for Trump merely unable to admit defeat. Admitting defeat is just not the Trump brand, it’s not the thing he can do with his father watching, and he dug himself into a hole by not doing the proper diplomatic thing needed in political defeat.

    No, Trump has never been serious about revolution.

    In fact, commentary on US politics on PB since the election has been extremely poor. You big up the bad guy as being more strategic than merely incapable, and everything written here is a sigh of relief he’s gone, the politics and issues in US politics today read through those cloudy glasses.
    But that's my point. Trump has wished for what amounts to a revolution but never credibly aligned his strategy with that goal. He wanted it to drop into his lap. He's agitated for it and, to an extent, prepared some of the groundwork and agitated a mob (but an unled and unprepared one), but never prepared properly for what the logic of his demands required.

    Which is why he failed.
    It was a very lazy coup.
    Power Play, a 1978 film with Peter O'Toole, Donald Pleasance, and David Hemmings, shows how you should conduct a coup d'etat
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 5,331
    Scott_xP said:
    Ah, Sean Spicer. 2017 nostalgia. Tell me again, how big a crowd was there for the inauguration, Sean?
This discussion has been closed.