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Of talking dogs and politicians – politicalbetting.com
Of talking dogs and politicians – politicalbetting.com
We’re still allowed to take daily exercise and I expect that most readers do. If, like me, you go for a walk, you have no doubt been treated to the experience of an unleashed dog bounding up to you. As it barks and jumps, you regularly hear the owner breezily assure you: “don’t worry, he won’t bite”. On such occasions, an ex of mine used to reply sardonically: “fuck me, a talking dog”.
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Following the riots and seeing the visceral anger of the mob, captured brilliantly by ITN's Robert Moore, I hope Joe Biden has phenomenal protection for his term in office. A right-wing assassination attempt seems to me pretty likely. Obviously I hope it doesn't happen.
Ghoulish, macabre and distatestful it may be but a bet on Kamala Harris might be prudent.
An excellent article below, which perfectly encapsulates how more economically marginalised parts of America have been pressed into the service of ultra-capitalism by its prevailing media culture of the last three decades.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/09/us-capitol-attackers-violence-rural-west
"When the full story of the 6 January storming of the US Capitol building is told, historians will have to make sense of what might seem an odd footnote. The two most prominent rightwing militia groups that participated in the mob onslaught on Congress – the Three Percenters, based in Idaho, and the Oath Keepers, based in Nevada – cut their teeth in obscure corners of the American west, where for close to a decade they have threatened violence against federal employees and institutions that steward the nation’s public lands.
“The mob violence that swarmed the halls of the Capitol building and other government offices flows from a series of smaller armed insurrections by domestic terrorists across the west,” says Erik Molvar, executive director of the Western Watersheds Project, a non-profit that advocates for environmental regulation of public lands.
Time after time in Idaho, Nevada and Utah, the Three Percenters and Oath Keepers, paramilitary organizations formed in the wake of Barack Obama’s election in 2008, have come to the rescue of ranchers, miners and loggers who have violated federal environmental regulations on the public domain but who the militias said were innocent commoners oppressed by a vicious state apparatus."
Mr. Rose, I think that's bollocks, as an excuse. I agree it's entirely possible some people thought that way, but if they did they're bloody idiots.
"Well, that guy got away with it so I will too" is a moronic approach when dealing with an infectious disease.
That's not to say the PM handled it anything like well. As with so many things, he did not. But his incompetence is no excuse for individuals to abandon the concept of responsibility (for self-preservation, no less!) in favour of an infantile strop.
The first is how much power a President has.It's easy to compare them to our PM and think that on paper they're similar. They're not. Filling the Cabinet with his family would have seen him off on day one. Vesting so much power in the hands of one person sane or not. Directly voted or not is not a good idea
The second is how much I miss the sanctity of the EU. It's easy to think the days of going to war with our neighbours is long gone so keeping the peace is no longer an issue but if you wanted the non belligerent security of any grouping in the world you would choose it to be the EU.
Two key takeaways for me - Trump does not need to be defined by a label, he is important enough in history and unique enough for us to need to treat him simply as Trump, and that his future remains very uncertain even if his current world looks bleak (for him).
Looks a well documented case, and severe illness second time.
Willingness to go along with such depends heavily on the feeling that we are all in the same boat. The emotions stirred up by Cummings’s behaviour - not just the breach but the patent pack of lies he told to explain it and the lack of any punishment or sanction - were surely akin to those stirred up under wartime rationing on finding that some local bigwig is getting extra eggs on the black market, and nothing is being done about it.
Most of us prefer to make our own judgements (as some PB’ers did from the outset) and that is where most people are now.
And that's saying something!
Amazon told Parler it had found 98 posts on the site that encouraged violence. Apple and Google have removed the app from their stores.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55608081
Only 98...if that's the line in the sand, twitter is screwed.
Part of the problem, on top of the lawbreaking, the hypocrisy and the extraordinary dishonesty was simply that people hated him and were therefore especially furious with the way he had behaved, and at the same time, feeling he had confirmed everything they had ever said about him.
The fact that, nearly nine months we still worry about it, and worse, make jokes about it means that it was pushed high into public awareness. Which it wouldn't have been if all concerned had not been at pains to make silly and unbelievable excuses.
Rather like Trump effectively saying the other day 'That's enough, be good now and go home!' when lives were clearly at risk.
And Good Morning everyone.
Whereas under our majoritarian system there aren't such checks - local government is powerless and the Lords almost so. Look how easily we have been confined by law to our homes, without even a parliamentary vote, much to the anger of some on even the government's own side. It may not be one man (person), but a small clique has exceptional power under our very centralised system. And, given the exceptional patronage and firing power that one person has, he or she simply needs to select people who will not cause any trouble.
Which of course, means that everyone thinks they do have ‘sufficient reason’ to do whatever they want and actually have the authority of the Attorney General to do so.
I should point out the laws have changed since to remove that loophole, but the damage has been done.
As we saw last week it gets dicey once they go from banning nutters like Alex Jones to mainstream regulated media outlet like TalkRadio.
Tuesday was the Georgia Run-off.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/10/baffling-brexit-rules-threaten-export-chaos-gove-is-warned
The point I always make is that it's the goal of reducing contact between people that matters. Each rule is superfluous but if you get rid of one restriction you need to beef up another. Don't want a mask mandate? No problem but then we'll have to close all shops and indoor spaces. Don't want travel restrictions? Then we'll have to have mandatory quarantine you every time you travel outside of a specified area.
The current and first lockdown represent the combination of each measure that the public will tolerate keeping the overall goal in mind. As you say Mr D none of them make sense individually and if the public don't comply en masse then another combination will need to be found.
The political calculations now consuming both parties' brass are playing out against the backdrop of more imminent threats. Security concerns ahead of Biden's January 20 inaugural are growing. Chatter on right-wing, pro-Trump social media forums has turned increasingly virulent -- and it is unclear whether the President, even if he so chose, could rein it in. Worries over future violence extend beyond the Capitol and its immediate surroundings. American and United Airlines, with the support of two flight attendants' unions, have taken steps to beef up security in the air and on the ground. Both carriers have increased staffing at DC-area airports, which will also see deployments of Capitol Police ahead of Inauguration Day, and American has put a stop on alcohol service on flights into and out of the region.
Could a British PM call the mob to Westminster because he wanted to make a speech and get the police to man it and construction crews to build the amphitheatre? I don't think so. He'd need so many permissions it just couldn't happen
if Parler have written any of the app using AWS tools they are not going to be able to leave with a working app in anything like that timeframe (it may takes months to rewrite items).
Were I an AWS customer (and I'm not as I'm an Azure house) I would be asking for confirmation that I wouldn't be given the same impossible deadline.
Whilst people should still be responsible, the Government bears more burden of the blame than my earlier post indicated.
"“There are customs experts with 30 years’ experience who are baffled by what the new regulations mean, let alone small- and medium-sized businesses who have never had to deal with the kind of paperwork that is now required. The great fear is that for many it will prove too much and they will simply choose not to export to the EU.”"
The government didn't understand how trade works and have ended up with a deal which they don't understand. Having soent years saying fuck business and branding warnings as Project Fear it'll be a painful revelation to find out that manufacturing and logistics experts actually did know what they were talking about after all.
This isn't just "apply the same paperwork as you would for anywhere else what's the problem?" as some parrots on here have re-squawked. This is a deal which does not work at a fundamental practical level for the supply chain of the UK.
Final observation. However bad this gets for the government, Labour will struggle to profit. As the omnishambles deal collapses and the stupidity of both it's structure and the details is laid bare, Labour attacks will be batted aside with a simple line. "You voted for it". Bravo Keith, bravo.
Both versions introduced whole piles of paperwork the only thing the deal avoided was tariffs on top of the paperwork.
Sadly politicians (and the general public) think it's tariffs that creates issues but as anyone who has exported things will know it's the paperwork that takes time and kills you.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55605111
So, we now discover that the Welsh Government has already got 270,000 COVID doses
And used only 50,000 of them. They have so far used only 18 per cent of what has been delivered.
Sir "Round the Clock Vaccinations" has forgotten to mention to his Welsh colleagues that there is a great urgency to get jabs in arms.
His breach of the rules and failure to be censured was as if we were shot through the heart.
Of course, if you are an extreme individualist anti-statist you won't get this. But most of us in Britain, pace Thatcher, still believe in society.
Ms Rose
Also, later down the thread, I do amend my view. I'd forgotten the wishy-washy stupid line the Government took which helped dilute compliance from the public.
An important lesson Labour didn't learn from the Coalition. The coalition did a lot of positive things and a whole pile of negative things. Tory bills backed by LibDem MPs are still hung around the neck of the LibDems years later. "You voted for it". This is the fate that Labour have chosen.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/13698278/benjamin-mendy-breaches-lockdown-flying-greece-lover/
Have there been any numbers released for the other home nations?
I am much more uncomfortable with people not wearing masks.
It really was a no win choice for Labour - but I did say continually that they should have just taken the day off and left the Tories to it.
Sadly because of the Covid announcements that wasn't an option.
The undoubted damage caused by Cummings' actions were the fault of Cummmings for doing it and Johnson for not sacking him. No one else.
'Kamala Harris to become POTUS (not acting Potus) before the end of 2024" at 3/1
https://sports.ladbrokes.com/event/politics/specials/specials/specials/225860312/all-markets
Given Biden's age it's maybe worth a punt anyway but the odds seem a little mean to me. I think I will put a little on it.
It has been mentioned that if you're out running without a dog, that's fine. But tongue-in-cheek or not, prior to the pandemic if you were single and out walking without a dog some people did eye you with suspicion. Holding a dog lead, or a poo bag, or better still an actual dog close by and suddenly you're a person fit for an eyeball to eyeball conversation.
Liz Cheney, the third highest-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, offered a quote for the history books when she said: “There is no question that the president formed the mob, the president incited the mob, the president addressed the mob. He lit the flame.”
There is a terrible cost to America’s experiment with Trumpism and the price will still be being paid after he has been removed. The cost of Trumpism is also to be counted in a poisoning of American politics. Republican voters...usually like to think they belong to the party of law and order. So it is testimony to the scale of his malignant achievement that polling of Trump voters suggests that two-thirds buy his big lie that the election was stolen and as many approved as deplored the mayhem unleashed at the citadel of their country’s democracy. America’s claim to be a “beacon of liberty” has always been contestable. Under him, the idea became risible.
The Trump presidency has emboldened autocrats the world over to believe that liberal democracy is in decline and tomorrow belongs to them. It is not just America that has suffered a terrible price for the Trump presidency. The cost is being paid in lost liberty around the planet.
So we’re back to distribution. Which I guess will be the media’s theme for the week.
Yours, A former Remainer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBxC9O31TH8
(Allowing for absence making the heart grow fonder that should see them comfortably over the line)
There was no reason for the media to spend a week talking about a civil servant holding no elected office, who never made public statements, except for their Brexit-related vendetta against him.
To pay out under the terms of that book would she have to become POTUS via an election?
Care home residents, their carers and the over-80s make up just under 6 million people
I think this means everyone over 80 should be jabbed very shortly, in the next few days.
We should be able to monitor this on pb.com, where there still seem to be posters with over 80 year old relatives who are unjabbed.* That should change quickly now.
The vaccines are already there.
(Edit, And even 80 year old + posters in the case of BigG)
But that is to miss the point. The impression created was "one rule for them, another rule for the rest of us", which inevitably undermined public commitment to follow the rules.
He tells Sophy Ridge: "Yes we're on course. The rate limiting factor at the moment is supply but that's increasing.
"I'm very glad to say that at the moment we're running at over 200,000 people being vaccinated every day.
"We've now vaccinated around one third of the over-80s in this country so we're making significant progress but there's still further expansion to go.
"This week we're opening mass vaccination centres. Big sites, for instance at Epsom racecourse.
"There's seven going live this week with more to come next week where we will get through very large numbers of people."
Plus the post is till a mess; we’re still receiving Christmas cards here so there are likely to be letters still stuck in the postal network.
"We had to vote for this otherwise the government with its huge majority wouldn't have got its deal through" isn't convincing.