I'm sure a service can find a way. Might as well have officially sanctioned echo chambers for Democrats and Republicans.
The thing about these 'no moderation' platforms is not that they become echo-chambers but tools to incite violence and insurrection.
Rightly, Trump could not be allowed to continue to spread lies to millions of followers in Twitter, many of whom are clearly not intelligent enough to differentiate between the truth, opinion, and outright lies.
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
My son was given an A in his Higher English last year (admittedly without the inconvenience of actually taking an exam) without ever having studied a Shakespeare play. I mean, why bother? What the hell is the point of the subject?
There isn’t any. FFS, it’s such a pointless subject even Richard Burgon has a Cambridge degree in it.
English degrees were the Media Studies of their day when first introduced. Critics said it was ludicrous to give degrees for leisure activities like reading plays and novels.
The creative arts employ 2.3 million people in Britain. Or did before the pandemic.
Dershowitz knows better than that (or at least he used to before he became a political hack). Sure, he can make the case that this wasn’t incitement that directly resulted in an attack on Congress, but there is a stronger case that that is exactly what it was, and if so, there is absolutely no 1st Amendment defence.
Here’s a question.
If/when Trump is put on trial for any of his manifold recent crimes, would he stick with Giuliani as his attorney or hire someone vaguely competent?
Assuming, of course, anyone vaguely competent would be willing to appear for him.
I find one of the many disappointments from the Trump Presidency is how comprehensively Giuliano trashed his reputation.
He was trashing it LONG before he latched onto Trumpsky for fun AND profit (that being predominate motive).
Note Rudi's ridiculous presidential "campaign" back in 2008. AND the fact that lacked the intestinal fortitude (balls in plain English) to run against Hillary Clinton for US Senator in 2000.
His success as mayor AND his role at 9/11 were WAY over-blown & overrated. A fact that more and more and more people came to realize over the past two decades.
Interesting, recently saw an old re-run of "Murder She Wrote" staring Jessica Lansbury as a character modeled after Agatha Christie & Miss Marple on hit US TV show of 1980s & 90s.
Anyway, this episode (from 80s I think) featured a character who portrayed a New York district attorney type who was Italian (or at least Italian-looking), obssesed with his public image (always looking in the mirror) AND more help than hindrance to the investigation at hand - but was there to take the credit for solving the case at the end.
Am convinced this character was a direct parody of Rudolph Guiliani.
Giuliani slashed crime in New York city and made it a livable city again and was a key rallying point on 9/11 whatever his over loyalty to Trump now
Yes, 9/11 WAS Rudi's shining moment. But his success as anti-crime fighter had more to do with demographics than policy. Note that he put the police department in hands of a toady whose subsequent career was distinguished by a felony conviction.
Any acclaim Rudi got from being mayor is long past. He himself has ensured that it will be scarcely remembered in a decade or two. Whereas his "Four Season" press conference and etc. will live forever in infamy in American history.
while Rudy may have spoken at the rally on Wednesday he did not take any personal part in the attack on the Capitol and condemned it strongly.
Given what he reportedly said at the rally, the second half of the sentence seems completely meaningless. If I helped to whip people up into a rage and direct them at a target, I'm not sure covering my arse with a condemnation really matters. At the least for his professional legal standards.
Defending Rudi is a GOOD thing for Trumpsky-supporters & apologists to do.
BECAUSE it highlights fact that they are trying to defend the indefensible. Keep it up!
I mean, saying that Giuliani "condemned" the riot that he himself helped incite, is NOT what you'd call persuasive.
You are a diehard Democrat, you will never be convinced
Convinced of what? That Giuliani did NOT help incite the Trumpsky Putsch? You got that right, pal.
And has nothing to do with being a "diehard Democrat" which I am not (not diehard anyway).
It has to do with being a diehard American. Something Trumpsky will NEVER understand, and that you hero Rudi abandoned long ago.
BTW, do you still think Mike Pence is a shoo-in for the 2024 Republican nomination, thanks to his support from Trumpsky loyalists?
If that is true - and CNN aren't above sexing these things up - it's breathtaking. We really are in the Fuhrerbunker after the likes of Speer have f***ed off.
Don't forget that Wednesday wasn't about a protest. It was intended to keep Trump IN POWER. After a couple of day of listening to the legal people trying to persuade him to do things to reduce his legal jeopardy, he is now back to thinking how he can still be President (probably been talking to Flynn/Powell/Trump jnr etc again) I wouldn't be surprised if he has been convinced that there is still a route - but this time it involves removing any pretence of being 'peaceful'.
We can only hope that the wilder speculation about the leadership of the DoD definitely isn't true. And i wouldn't be wanting to be involved in security in the State Capitals over the next few days.
I don't see how a public inauguration can safely go ahead.
I tend to agree. It's far more important that it happens, for constitutional reasons, than how it happens. Once it's done, it puts 3 Democrats at the front of the line of Presidential Succession.
I'm wondering if the Presidential Succession should be looked at?
The way America is polarising, if the GOP win the House in the midterms I could picture some extreme Q/GOPers wanting to 'take out' the POTUS and VEEP to 'win back' the Presidency that way.
I would suggest perhaps the Presidential succession should go through the Presidents own Cabinet before it reverts back to the House.
Cabinet isn’t elected
No it isn't, but the Cabinet does reflect the elected President. If something happens to the elected President and Veep simultaneously then someone else from the Cabinet ought to be able to continue with the elected President's agenda until the next election.
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
My son was given an A in his Higher English last year (admittedly without the inconvenience of actually taking an exam) without ever having studied a Shakespeare play. I mean, why bother? What the hell is the point of the subject?
Because authors with a (in some cases tenuous) connection with Scotland are the only essential writers in the English language. In the opinion of the Scottish Government and SQA. AIUI.
Parochial doesn’t come close to describing it. Pig ignorant is perhaps closer.
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
Actually if the aim (and result) is to prevent the children reading it in school then yes it is. You are dancing on the head of a pin and it is pretty shameful.
I look forward to seeing you try - and fail - to defend the other fuckwits in the article who think Shakespeare and Hawthorn should be banned from schools as well.
I doubt the curriculum includes the Ice Twins either, did they ban SeanT?
It is not a case of not having something on the curriculum. It is a case of specifically removing it. And, with all due respect to Sean, he is not Homer.
If that article doesn't make your blood boil then there is something seriously wrong with you.
"The concept that children shouldn’t be exposed to works of literature “in which racism, sexism, ableism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of hate are the norm,” is espoused by young-adult novelist Padma Venkatraman. She wrote in the periodical School Library Journal that no author must be spared in this attempt to scrub literary history.
"Absolving Shakespeare of responsibility by mentioning that he lived at a time when hate-ridden sentiments prevailed, risks sending a subliminal message that academic excellence outweighs hateful rhetoric.
Racism in classics can’t be negated merely by alerting young readers to its presence,” she warned. “Unless we have the time, energy, attention, expertise, and ability to foster nuanced conversations in which even the shyest readers feel empowered to engage if they choose, we may hurt, not help. Pressuring readers of color to speak up also removes free choice and can be harmful."”
No, it doesn't make me angry because if you actually read Venkataraman's article, you will have seen that she explicitly states 'I’m not advocating we ban classics. Or erase the past.' Instead you have just been duped into anger by clickbait shock journalists looking to kick up 'culture war' nonsense.
I have read her article and a lot of the other stuff written by her and around it. 'Not banning' is bullshit. She advocates not teaching it which is just as bad. She says children 'should not be exposed to it' even with explanation.
Your defence is.. well indefensible and based on hoping no one else has bothered to actually research this. You are pretty bloody shameful.
And I see you are perfectly prepared to misrepresent her arguments. I doubt we shall agree.
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
I've not even read this story and most such stories are not as dramatic as advertised, but that does seem like semantics - removing something from a curriculum, for reasons of controversy, would often be described as banning it from schools.
Can’t think of any school apart from Eton perhaps where the Odyssey would be on the curriculum.
Chapter 21 was the set text for GCSE Ancient Greek when I did it...
I used to write Homeric hexameter epithets for my crushes. What a nerd!
--AS
I'm impressed. I just about managed Grade 5 in my O level. But I can write 'Didn't you just break wind?' in Attic Greek which Aeschylus might understand. And it was very useful in getting an ear for the assonance of biological nomenclature. Though it means I grit my teeth at the crimes perpetrated by coaythors who wouldn't believe me ...
ἆρ’ οὐ πέπορδας;
(perfect chosen to express the lingering (!) present effect of past action...)
What I remember is ara mee bebdeekas; (the double ee being the eta). That not right? (Singular, of course. (Can'r work out how to write it in Attic orthography on this thing.)
Yes, that would be the perfect of βδέω (one of very many words for the same thing). I think only its present tense is classical, but that is picking a nit too far. ἆρα μή generally expects a negative answer though.
Dershowitz knows better than that (or at least he used to before he became a political hack). Sure, he can make the case that this wasn’t incitement that directly resulted in an attack on Congress, but there is a stronger case that that is exactly what it was, and if so, there is absolutely no 1st Amendment defence.
Here’s a question.
If/when Trump is put on trial for any of his manifold recent crimes, would he stick with Giuliani as his attorney or hire someone vaguely competent?
Assuming, of course, anyone vaguely competent would be willing to appear for him.
I find one of the many disappointments from the Trump Presidency is how comprehensively Giuliano trashed his reputation.
He was trashing it LONG before he latched onto Trumpsky for fun AND profit (that being predominate motive).
Note Rudi's ridiculous presidential "campaign" back in 2008. AND the fact that lacked the intestinal fortitude (balls in plain English) to run against Hillary Clinton for US Senator in 2000.
His success as mayor AND his role at 9/11 were WAY over-blown & overrated. A fact that more and more and more people came to realize over the past two decades.
Interesting, recently saw an old re-run of "Murder She Wrote" staring Jessica Lansbury as a character modeled after Agatha Christie & Miss Marple on hit US TV show of 1980s & 90s.
Anyway, this episode (from 80s I think) featured a character who portrayed a New York district attorney type who was Italian (or at least Italian-looking), obssesed with his public image (always looking in the mirror) AND more help than hindrance to the investigation at hand - but was there to take the credit for solving the case at the end.
Am convinced this character was a direct parody of Rudolph Guiliani.
Giuliani slashed crime in New York city and made it a livable city again and was a key rallying point on 9/11 whatever his over loyalty to Trump now
Crime was falling before he became mayor.
Not as fast as under his Mayoralty.
His reorganisation of the New York Police Department was key and his broken windows strategy was crucial in cutting crime from the most minor up and he increased the size of NYPD by 12,000 officers during his term.
Yet amazingly crime fell in all major US cities over the same period. Implying the identity of the Major wasn't the decisive factor.
This looks on the face of it, like you just can't accept giving Giuliani the credit for anything, because he supports Trump. See also, Trump isn't a successful businessman, Trump isn't good at getting votes etc. See also, people getting slated for expressing the opinion that Hitler was good at making speeches, building autobahns etc. It seems quite a simple-minded position to me to have to obliterate any area where the focus of your ire might have been successful or shown merit. Obviously you're not the only one, there's a lot of it about.
Guiliani did go after the Mob in NY, in a big way - he definitely did lead that charge, which was personally dangerous.
It is one of the ironies of what he has become, that a part of that was rooting out corruption in the NYPD. Who were, in part, working for/with the Mob.
He also, as Mayor, pushed through and kept the corruption down, in a lot of projects that renewed much of the public spaces in NY.
I think it fair to say that Guiliani is an example of someone who has ended dragged down in the whirlpool of the madness centred on Donald Trump. And he *chose* to head for the centre of it. Others did not - see the Lincoln Project etc.
Let's not pretend Giuliani didn't do a great job as NY mayor just because he's now swum right to the bottom of the sewer with Trump: he did.
In fact, he was so good his policies were imitated around the world and he became Time's person of the year for his display of leadership.
The real question is: what happened since then? And why is he so overwhelmingly loyal to Trump?
Not necessarily. If the new strain achieves the spread we've seen despite 20% immunity, that puts its unrestrained R up accordingly. Which then also pushes up the immunity level required for herd immunity.
True, but at least that's 20% of people who are unlikely to end up back in hospital, and the extra number of infections needed for a higher immunity threshold is less than that.
I'd be a bit cautious about relying on the figures, though. They are inferring cases from deaths, which relies on an accurate (age-specific) IFR. But computing an accurate IFR relies on knowing the number of cases. For sure we get a better estimate of it now, because we are confirming more cases, but it's a difficult number to pin down.
I haven't seen an antibody survey for a while. Has there been one to estimate total infections, or does it start to fail as an estimate because antibodies (as opposed to T/memory B cell immunity) drop off after a few months?
--AS
Originally, antibody prevalence reached about 6% by July and then decayed to 4.4% 12 weeks later. They now have reached about 6.9%, I think.
That 20% figure (and over 50% in some areas) looks surprisingly high. As it should depress R by a factor of 2 in the areas at that sort of level, it does point to extremely high R0. If true.
There’s a lot of “may...” in that article, and I’d suggest an 18 day lag between infection and death is a bit rapid. That’s an average of 13 days from symptoms to death, which is quicker than I’d be comfortable having in a model.
It’s rather different from the UCL model referred to - considerably different in magnitude, from what I can see. (Barking and Dagenham, for example, appears to have had less than half the infections in the UCL model than this one).
I think what you have here is the "publish the story about the research with the shouty numbers".
I've seen various papers making various estimates. They share a common characteristic - no 2 agree on the numbers. Which strongly suggest to me that we don't know. Yet.
What was the number found in that town in Italy where they tested everyone, not long after the first wave went completely out of control there?
But if you subscribe to the school of thought that says ‘statistics are a lot like bikinis, what they reveal is interesting but what they hide is much more interesting’ and looking at actual number of voters is a better pointer.
I might use that one the next time I'm on a stats training course for work.
My grandfather used to say that a good speech was like a woman’s skirt - long enough to cover the important bits, but short enough to be interesting
Nowadays all these seem a bit sub-Benny Hill, and I'd not want to risk their use.
He died in 2001 having retired in 1988, so from a different era
Like Bob Dylan said, the times they are a changing . . .
More pertinently he said that “you don’t need to be a weatherman to see which way the wind blows “.
Which a study in 2007 found had been quoted by more lawyers and judges than any other line of poetry ever.
They probably delivered it more in key than the man himself too.
He wasn’t given his Nobel for perfect pitch.
Indeed. Competent songwriter, not a good singer. Nasal affected drawl pretty much kills most songs he peformed for me. Somehow puts one in mind of Ian Duncan Smith's vocals at the dispatch box.
Calling Bob Dylan a "competent songwriter" is about the funniest thing I've ever seen on PB. Like calling Shakespeare a competent playwright.
Do you not think Shakespeare was a competent playwright?
I do. I also think YOU are incompetent, at least as a songwriting critic!
Though suspect (or rather hope) you were being saucily tongue-in-cheek?
Competent was a compliment.
‘Oi Wolfgang, my mum says you’re a competent composer, not sure myself.’
When it comes to music, a Bach is undoubtedly better than Mozart’s bit.
Whilst I have no sympathy for those who voted against confirmation, surely if it is going to be considered unconstitutional to do so then the mechanism should not be in the constitution.
Well I suppose you could interpret “sickness and self-isolation” as referring to Brexit.
My guess is it’s Covid that’s causing the issues at food processors.
For around ten months I have been eagerly anticipating the first post on PB that shrouds Brexit chaos with the cloak of Covid, and bingo, there it was.
This is what the BBC article says:
"It told customers in an email that there may be "an increase of missing items and substitutions over the next few weeks".
Staff sickness and self-isolation means some food producers are cutting the number of product lines they offer.
While customers might not get their exact product choice, plenty of food should be available, Ocado said.
"Staff absences across the supply chain may lead to an increase in product substitutions for a small number of customers as some suppliers consolidate their offering to maintain output," a spokesperson said."
I don't see much shrouding there.
My post was a gentle jibe @TrèsDifficile for assigning blame to Brexit when the article was clearly about Covid
Sure, and I was replying to Mexican Pete who seemed to think you were putting up chaff to distract from Brexit.
Dershowitz knows better than that (or at least he used to before he became a political hack). Sure, he can make the case that this wasn’t incitement that directly resulted in an attack on Congress, but there is a stronger case that that is exactly what it was, and if so, there is absolutely no 1st Amendment defence.
Here’s a question.
If/when Trump is put on trial for any of his manifold recent crimes, would he stick with Giuliani as his attorney or hire someone vaguely competent?
Assuming, of course, anyone vaguely competent would be willing to appear for him.
I find one of the many disappointments from the Trump Presidency is how comprehensively Giuliano trashed his reputation.
He was trashing it LONG before he latched onto Trumpsky for fun AND profit (that being predominate motive).
Note Rudi's ridiculous presidential "campaign" back in 2008. AND the fact that lacked the intestinal fortitude (balls in plain English) to run against Hillary Clinton for US Senator in 2000.
His success as mayor AND his role at 9/11 were WAY over-blown & overrated. A fact that more and more and more people came to realize over the past two decades.
Interesting, recently saw an old re-run of "Murder She Wrote" staring Jessica Lansbury as a character modeled after Agatha Christie & Miss Marple on hit US TV show of 1980s & 90s.
Anyway, this episode (from 80s I think) featured a character who portrayed a New York district attorney type who was Italian (or at least Italian-looking), obssesed with his public image (always looking in the mirror) AND more help than hindrance to the investigation at hand - but was there to take the credit for solving the case at the end.
Am convinced this character was a direct parody of Rudolph Guiliani.
Giuliani slashed crime in New York city and made it a livable city again and was a key rallying point on 9/11 whatever his over loyalty to Trump now
Crime was falling before he became mayor.
Not as fast as under his Mayoralty.
His reorganisation of the New York Police Department was key and his broken windows strategy was crucial in cutting crime from the most minor up and he increased the size of NYPD by 12,000 officers during his term.
Yet amazingly crime fell in all major US cities over the same period. Implying the identity of the Major wasn't the decisive factor.
This looks on the face of it, like you just can't accept giving Giuliani the credit for anything, because he supports Trump. See also, Trump isn't a successful businessman, Trump isn't good at getting votes etc. See also, people getting slated for expressing the opinion that Hitler was good at making speeches, building autobahns etc. It seems quite a simple-minded position to me to have to obliterate any area where the focus of your ire might have been successful or shown merit. Obviously you're not the only one, there's a lot of it about.
Guiliani did go after the Mob in NY, in a big way - he definitely did lead that charge, which was personally dangerous.
It is one of the ironies of what he has become, that a part of that was rooting out corruption in the NYPD. Who were, in part, working for/with the Mob.
He also, as Mayor, pushed through and kept the corruption down, in a lot of projects that renewed much of the public spaces in NY.
I think it fair to say that Guiliani is an example of someone who has ended dragged down in the whirlpool of the madness centred on Donald Trump. And he *chose* to head for the centre of it. Others did not - see the Lincoln Project etc.
Let's not pretend Giuliani didn't do a great job as NY mayor just because he's now swum right to the bottom of the sewer with Trump: he did.
In fact, he was so good his policies were imitated around the world and he became Time's person of the year for his display of leadership.
The real question is: what happened since then? And why is he so overwhelmingly loyal to Trump?
Remember Donald Trump as a property developer played a large role in rebuilding New York.
I particularly like the 18 new steps required for exporting fish to the EU and the 8 steps the imports then have to follow. Unsurprisingly the importers are deciding that other sources that don't require 8 additional steps are easier to buy from.
The wasters should have prepared, just like Boris Johnson and Philip_Thompson told them to. This is all their own fault.
Not sure why you tagged me. I never said that.
I said there'd be disruption but the market will resolve it and find a new equilibrium.
You said that companies should have prepared just like they were told to. The logical conclusion to that is that if they weren't prepared, it's their own fault.
When? When did I say that?
I don't recall saying that. I said they were advised to prepare for WTO and if they had then any preparations for WTO should be best placed for if we ended up without a deal, or if we did have one. But I always expected disruption and I always said that. I never pretended or claimed it would be easy or without disruption. Nor did I say anything about fault, so no need to put words in my mouth I didn't use.
So I've fully prepared for trading under WTO rules. The issue is that because France (pick your EU country) needs paperwork from the customer's buying my goods they no longer wish to purchase from me as other providers are less hassle.
Well precisely, that's the kind of disruption we'd always have and which the market will need to resolve to a new equilibrium just as I always expected.
Hence Gallowgate's nonsense in suggesting I was arguing preparations would resolve this. They won't. The disruption will occur no matter what.
Uh? Your "new equilibrium" means EU customers who want to reduce new red tape hassle, disruption and associated costs will dispense with their old UK supplier and get their supplies from elsewhere. Indeed from somewhere from where they do not experience additional hassle disruption and cost.
I suppose the "new equilibrium" upside is UK suppliers get the reflective benefit from UK customers...so long as we can supply domestically, which is not a given.
So anyone who doesn't want to deal with paperwork changes their supply chain and life goes on yes.
Or if people want to trade with the paperwork then they fill in the paperwork correctly and move on that way.
Not the end of the world either way.
It is if you are in the UK and used to have significant EU customers who hate paperwork and have a competitor who doesn't require the same paperwork.
Do you cut your price or improve your product offering
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
Actually if the aim (and result) is to prevent the children reading it in school then yes it is. You are dancing on the head of a pin and it is pretty shameful.
I look forward to seeing you try - and fail - to defend the other fuckwits in the article who think Shakespeare and Hawthorn should be banned from schools as well.
I doubt the curriculum includes the Ice Twins either, did they ban SeanT?
It is not a case of not having something on the curriculum. It is a case of specifically removing it. And, with all due respect to Sean, he is not Homer.
If that article doesn't make your blood boil then there is something seriously wrong with you.
"The concept that children shouldn’t be exposed to works of literature “in which racism, sexism, ableism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of hate are the norm,” is espoused by young-adult novelist Padma Venkatraman. She wrote in the periodical School Library Journal that no author must be spared in this attempt to scrub literary history.
"Absolving Shakespeare of responsibility by mentioning that he lived at a time when hate-ridden sentiments prevailed, risks sending a subliminal message that academic excellence outweighs hateful rhetoric.
Racism in classics can’t be negated merely by alerting young readers to its presence,” she warned. “Unless we have the time, energy, attention, expertise, and ability to foster nuanced conversations in which even the shyest readers feel empowered to engage if they choose, we may hurt, not help. Pressuring readers of color to speak up also removes free choice and can be harmful."”
No, it doesn't make me angry because if you actually read Venkataraman's article, you will have seen that she explicitly states 'I’m not advocating we ban classics. Or erase the past.' Instead you have just been duped into anger by clickbait shock journalists looking to kick up 'culture war' nonsense.
I have read her article and a lot of the other stuff written by her and around it. 'Not banning' is bullshit. She advocates not teaching it which is just as bad. She says children 'should not be exposed to it' even with explanation.
Your defence is.. well indefensible and based on hoping no one else has bothered to actually research this. You are pretty bloody shameful.
And I see you are perfectly prepared to misrepresent her arguments. I doubt we shall agree.
Oh yes, I am misrepresenting her arguments by... quoting her extensively. Try again.
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
I've not even read this story and most such stories are not as dramatic as advertised, but that does seem like semantics - removing something from a curriculum, for reasons of controversy, would often be described as banning it from schools.
Can’t think of any school apart from Eton perhaps where the Odyssey would be on the curriculum.
Chapter 21 was the set text for GCSE Ancient Greek when I did it...
I used to write Homeric hexameter epithets for my crushes. What a nerd!
--AS
I'm impressed. I just about managed Grade 5 in my O level. But I can write 'Didn't you just break wind?' in Attic Greek which Aeschylus might understand. And it was very useful in getting an ear for the assonance of biological nomenclature. Though it means I grit my teeth at the crimes perpetrated by coaythors who wouldn't believe me ...
ἆρ’ οὐ πέπορδας;
(perfect chosen to express the lingering (!) present effect of past action...)
What I remember is ara mee bebdeekas; (the double ee being the eta). That not right? (Singular, of course. (Can'r work out how to write it in Attic orthography on this thing.)
Yes, that would be the perfect of βδέω (one of very many words for the same thing). I think only its present tense is classical, but that is picking a nit too far. ἆρα μή generally expects a negative answer though.
Well, who would admit to it, even wearing a chiton? Terriby barbaric, even Oriental.
I feel like this one is farmore fraught than the other. Members of closing ranks, and there are a lot of them, not all of whom will have been Hawley and Cruz.
Like Bob Dylan said, the times they are a changing . . .
More pertinently he said that “you don’t need to be a weatherman to see which way the wind blows “.
Which a study in 2007 found had been quoted by more lawyers and judges than any other line of poetry ever.
They probably delivered it more in key than the man himself too.
He wasn’t given his Nobel for perfect pitch.
Indeed. Competent songwriter, not a good singer. Nasal affected drawl pretty much kills most songs he peformed for me. Somehow puts one in mind of Ian Duncan Smith's vocals at the dispatch box.
Calling Bob Dylan a "competent songwriter" is about the funniest thing I've ever seen on PB. Like calling Shakespeare a competent playwright.
Do you not think Shakespeare was a competent playwright?
I do. I also think YOU are incompetent, at least as a songwriting critic!
Though suspect (or rather hope) you were being saucily tongue-in-cheek?
Competent was a compliment.
‘Oi Wolfgang, my mum says you’re a competent composer, not sure myself.’
When it comes to music, a Bach is undoubtedly better than Mozart’s bit.
Like Bob Dylan said, the times they are a changing . . .
More pertinently he said that “you don’t need to be a weatherman to see which way the wind blows “.
Which a study in 2007 found had been quoted by more lawyers and judges than any other line of poetry ever.
They probably delivered it more in key than the man himself too.
He wasn’t given his Nobel for perfect pitch.
Indeed. Competent songwriter, not a good singer. Nasal affected drawl pretty much kills most songs he peformed for me. Somehow puts one in mind of Ian Duncan Smith's vocals at the dispatch box.
Calling Bob Dylan a "competent songwriter" is about the funniest thing I've ever seen on PB. Like calling Shakespeare a competent playwright.
Do you not think Shakespeare was a competent playwright?
I do. I also think YOU are incompetent, at least as a songwriting critic!
Though suspect (or rather hope) you were being saucily tongue-in-cheek?
Competent was a compliment.
Would you say that someone saying Shakes was "competent" was giving the Bard a compliment?
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
Actually if the aim (and result) is to prevent the children reading it in school then yes it is. You are dancing on the head of a pin and it is pretty shameful.
I look forward to seeing you try - and fail - to defend the other fuckwits in the article who think Shakespeare and Hawthorn should be banned from schools as well.
I doubt the curriculum includes the Ice Twins either, did they ban SeanT?
It is not a case of not having something on the curriculum. It is a case of specifically removing it. And, with all due respect to Sean, he is not Homer.
If that article doesn't make your blood boil then there is something seriously wrong with you.
"The concept that children shouldn’t be exposed to works of literature “in which racism, sexism, ableism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of hate are the norm,” is espoused by young-adult novelist Padma Venkatraman. She wrote in the periodical School Library Journal that no author must be spared in this attempt to scrub literary history.
"Absolving Shakespeare of responsibility by mentioning that he lived at a time when hate-ridden sentiments prevailed, risks sending a subliminal message that academic excellence outweighs hateful rhetoric.
Racism in classics can’t be negated merely by alerting young readers to its presence,” she warned. “Unless we have the time, energy, attention, expertise, and ability to foster nuanced conversations in which even the shyest readers feel empowered to engage if they choose, we may hurt, not help. Pressuring readers of color to speak up also removes free choice and can be harmful."”
No, it doesn't make me angry because if you actually read Venkataraman's article, you will have seen that she explicitly states 'I’m not advocating we ban classics. Or erase the past.' Instead you have just been duped into anger by clickbait shock journalists looking to kick up 'culture war' nonsense.
I have read her article and a lot of the other stuff written by her and around it. 'Not banning' is bullshit. She advocates not teaching it which is just as bad. She says children 'should not be exposed to it' even with explanation.
Your defence is.. well indefensible and based on hoping no one else has bothered to actually research this. You are pretty bloody shameful.
And I see you are perfectly prepared to misrepresent her arguments. I doubt we shall agree.
Oh yes, I am misrepresenting her arguments by... quoting her extensively. Try again.
No point trying to argue with the apostles of right think richard they are more close minded than the puritans
Whilst I have no sympathy for those who voted against confirmation, surely if it is going to be considered unconstitutional to do so then the mechanism should not be in the constitution.
I think it fair too say that they misused a piece of the constitution abominably.
It is hard, perhaps impossible, to write a constitution so that it is proof against human malevolence.
The right to protest about a corrupt election is a fair one - and like the many other laws and rights, it can be turned into a weapon.
This was what happened - a right and a privilege was turned into a weapon against the constitution itself. The *use of the right*, not the right itself, was a flagrant and malevolent attack on democracy.
Dershowitz knows better than that (or at least he used to before he became a political hack). Sure, he can make the case that this wasn’t incitement that directly resulted in an attack on Congress, but there is a stronger case that that is exactly what it was, and if so, there is absolutely no 1st Amendment defence.
Here’s a question.
If/when Trump is put on trial for any of his manifold recent crimes, would he stick with Giuliani as his attorney or hire someone vaguely competent?
Assuming, of course, anyone vaguely competent would be willing to appear for him.
I find one of the many disappointments from the Trump Presidency is how comprehensively Giuliano trashed his reputation.
He was trashing it LONG before he latched onto Trumpsky for fun AND profit (that being predominate motive).
Note Rudi's ridiculous presidential "campaign" back in 2008. AND the fact that lacked the intestinal fortitude (balls in plain English) to run against Hillary Clinton for US Senator in 2000.
His success as mayor AND his role at 9/11 were WAY over-blown & overrated. A fact that more and more and more people came to realize over the past two decades.
Interesting, recently saw an old re-run of "Murder She Wrote" staring Jessica Lansbury as a character modeled after Agatha Christie & Miss Marple on hit US TV show of 1980s & 90s.
Anyway, this episode (from 80s I think) featured a character who portrayed a New York district attorney type who was Italian (or at least Italian-looking), obssesed with his public image (always looking in the mirror) AND more help than hindrance to the investigation at hand - but was there to take the credit for solving the case at the end.
Am convinced this character was a direct parody of Rudolph Guiliani.
Giuliani slashed crime in New York city and made it a livable city again and was a key rallying point on 9/11 whatever his over loyalty to Trump now
Yes, 9/11 WAS Rudi's shining moment. But his success as anti-crime fighter had more to do with demographics than policy. Note that he put the police department in hands of a toady whose subsequent career was distinguished by a felony conviction.
Any acclaim Rudi got from being mayor is long past. He himself has ensured that it will be scarcely remembered in a decade or two. Whereas his "Four Season" press conference and etc. will live forever in infamy in American history.
while Rudy may have spoken at the rally on Wednesday he did not take any personal part in the attack on the Capitol and condemned it strongly.
Given what he reportedly said at the rally, the second half of the sentence seems completely meaningless. If I helped to whip people up into a rage and direct them at a target, I'm not sure covering my arse with a condemnation really matters. At the least for his professional legal standards.
Defending Rudi is a GOOD thing for Trumpsky-supporters & apologists to do.
BECAUSE it highlights fact that they are trying to defend the indefensible. Keep it up!
I mean, saying that Giuliani "condemned" the riot that he himself helped incite, is NOT what you'd call persuasive.
You are a diehard Democrat, you will never be convinced
Convinced of what? That Giuliani did NOT help incite the Trumpsky Putsch? You got that right, pal.
And has nothing to do with being a "diehard Democrat" which I am not (not diehard anyway).
It has to do with being a diehard American. Something Trumpsky will NEVER understand, and that you hero Rudi abandoned long ago.
BTW, do you still think Mike Pence is a shoo-in for the 2024 Republican nomination, thanks to his support from Trumpsky loyalists?
At this point I think the 2024 GOP nomination will be between Pence and Cruz
Whilst I have no sympathy for those who voted against confirmation, surely if it is going to be considered unconstitutional to do so then the mechanism should not be in the constitution.
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
My son was given an A in his Higher English last year (admittedly without the inconvenience of actually taking an exam) without ever having studied a Shakespeare play. I mean, why bother? What the hell is the point of the subject?
Because authors with a (in some cases tenuous) connection with Scotland are the only essential writers in the English language. In the opinion of the Scottish Government and SQA. AIUI.
Parochial doesn’t come close to describing it. Pig ignorant is perhaps closer.
Sort of related, a neighbour's daughter got an A in A level English Lit without reading any of the set texts - she just read the study guides apparently.
Quoting a wee Galloway acolyte with an Israeli flag in his profile is it? Let’s hope George’s Palestinian pals don’t find out from where his new support is drawn.
Odd to play the man not the ball - I'm none the wiser what powers exist here and therefore which outrage monger, for or against, to believe.
I feel like this one is farmore fraught than the other. Members of closing ranks, and there are a lot of them, not all of whom will have been Hawley and Cruz.
Yeah, but people are going to have to vote and those votes will be recorded for the next campaign...
Dershowitz knows better than that (or at least he used to before he became a political hack). Sure, he can make the case that this wasn’t incitement that directly resulted in an attack on Congress, but there is a stronger case that that is exactly what it was, and if so, there is absolutely no 1st Amendment defence.
Here’s a question.
If/when Trump is put on trial for any of his manifold recent crimes, would he stick with Giuliani as his attorney or hire someone vaguely competent?
Assuming, of course, anyone vaguely competent would be willing to appear for him.
I find one of the many disappointments from the Trump Presidency is how comprehensively Giuliano trashed his reputation.
He was trashing it LONG before he latched onto Trumpsky for fun AND profit (that being predominate motive).
Note Rudi's ridiculous presidential "campaign" back in 2008. AND the fact that lacked the intestinal fortitude (balls in plain English) to run against Hillary Clinton for US Senator in 2000.
His success as mayor AND his role at 9/11 were WAY over-blown & overrated. A fact that more and more and more people came to realize over the past two decades.
Interesting, recently saw an old re-run of "Murder She Wrote" staring Jessica Lansbury as a character modeled after Agatha Christie & Miss Marple on hit US TV show of 1980s & 90s.
Anyway, this episode (from 80s I think) featured a character who portrayed a New York district attorney type who was Italian (or at least Italian-looking), obssesed with his public image (always looking in the mirror) AND more help than hindrance to the investigation at hand - but was there to take the credit for solving the case at the end.
Am convinced this character was a direct parody of Rudolph Guiliani.
Giuliani slashed crime in New York city and made it a livable city again and was a key rallying point on 9/11 whatever his over loyalty to Trump now
Crime was falling before he became mayor.
Not as fast as under his Mayoralty.
His reorganisation of the New York Police Department was key and his broken windows strategy was crucial in cutting crime from the most minor up and he increased the size of NYPD by 12,000 officers during his term.
Yet amazingly crime fell in all major US cities over the same period. Implying the identity of the Major wasn't the decisive factor.
This looks on the face of it, like you just can't accept giving Giuliani the credit for anything, because he supports Trump. See also, Trump isn't a successful businessman, Trump isn't good at getting votes etc. See also, people getting slated for expressing the opinion that Hitler was good at making speeches, building autobahns etc. It seems quite a simple-minded position to me to have to obliterate any area where the focus of your ire might have been successful or shown merit. Obviously you're not the only one, there's a lot of it about.
Guiliani did go after the Mob in NY, in a big way - he definitely did lead that charge, which was personally dangerous.
It is one of the ironies of what he has become, that a part of that was rooting out corruption in the NYPD. Who were, in part, working for/with the Mob.
He also, as Mayor, pushed through and kept the corruption down, in a lot of projects that renewed much of the public spaces in NY.
I think it fair to say that Guiliani is an example of someone who has ended dragged down in the whirlpool of the madness centred on Donald Trump. And he *chose* to head for the centre of it. Others did not - see the Lincoln Project etc.
Let's not pretend Giuliani didn't do a great job as NY mayor just because he's now swum right to the bottom of the sewer with Trump: he did.
In fact, he was so good his policies were imitated around the world and he became Time's person of the year for his display of leadership.
The real question is: what happened since then? And why is he so overwhelmingly loyal to Trump?
My argument is that his "greatness" was greatly overrated. Though it's true that even New Yorkers who hated and still hate his guts do giving him grudging credit.
But he was still overrated, mostly because I think he was - at least back then - a superb communicator. Similar to Boris Johnson.
And fact that he was overrated is what makes his self-induced defenestration all the more start and startling.
Alex Jones vs Q is one of the weirder subplots on the batshit right
Odd to think what may be behind it. Jones has definitely believed, or purported to believe conspiracies just as stupid and outlandish, so why not here? Competition?
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
Actually if the aim (and result) is to prevent the children reading it in school then yes it is. You are dancing on the head of a pin and it is pretty shameful.
I look forward to seeing you try - and fail - to defend the other fuckwits in the article who think Shakespeare and Hawthorn should be banned from schools as well.
I doubt the curriculum includes the Ice Twins either, did they ban SeanT?
It is not a case of not having something on the curriculum. It is a case of specifically removing it. And, with all due respect to Sean, he is not Homer.
If that article doesn't make your blood boil then there is something seriously wrong with you.
"The concept that children shouldn’t be exposed to works of literature “in which racism, sexism, ableism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of hate are the norm,” is espoused by young-adult novelist Padma Venkatraman. She wrote in the periodical School Library Journal that no author must be spared in this attempt to scrub literary history.
"Absolving Shakespeare of responsibility by mentioning that he lived at a time when hate-ridden sentiments prevailed, risks sending a subliminal message that academic excellence outweighs hateful rhetoric.
Racism in classics can’t be negated merely by alerting young readers to its presence,” she warned. “Unless we have the time, energy, attention, expertise, and ability to foster nuanced conversations in which even the shyest readers feel empowered to engage if they choose, we may hurt, not help. Pressuring readers of color to speak up also removes free choice and can be harmful."”
No, it doesn't make me angry because if you actually read Venkataraman's article, you will have seen that she explicitly states 'I’m not advocating we ban classics. Or erase the past.' Instead you have just been duped into anger by clickbait shock journalists looking to kick up 'culture war' nonsense.
I have read her article and a lot of the other stuff written by her and around it. 'Not banning' is bullshit. She advocates not teaching it which is just as bad. She says children 'should not be exposed to it' even with explanation.
Your defence is.. well indefensible and based on hoping no one else has bothered to actually research this. You are pretty bloody shameful.
The tide will eventually turn against this ludicrous Woke shit.
Whilst I have no sympathy for those who voted against confirmation, surely if it is going to be considered unconstitutional to do so then the mechanism should not be in the constitution.
Depends on the wording of the amendment, surely?
Yep I suppose so. It is just one of those things that has been bothering me for a few days. Why do they have a system that allows Congress to block the election? It isn't like a States rights thing - which I do understand and appreciate - because in this case it is the States themselves who have submitted the results. All they need to do is tally them.
I remain unconvinced by this particular bit of constitutional arcana
Dershowitz knows better than that (or at least he used to before he became a political hack). Sure, he can make the case that this wasn’t incitement that directly resulted in an attack on Congress, but there is a stronger case that that is exactly what it was, and if so, there is absolutely no 1st Amendment defence.
Here’s a question.
If/when Trump is put on trial for any of his manifold recent crimes, would he stick with Giuliani as his attorney or hire someone vaguely competent?
Assuming, of course, anyone vaguely competent would be willing to appear for him.
I find one of the many disappointments from the Trump Presidency is how comprehensively Giuliano trashed his reputation.
He was trashing it LONG before he latched onto Trumpsky for fun AND profit (that being predominate motive).
Note Rudi's ridiculous presidential "campaign" back in 2008. AND the fact that lacked the intestinal fortitude (balls in plain English) to run against Hillary Clinton for US Senator in 2000.
His success as mayor AND his role at 9/11 were WAY over-blown & overrated. A fact that more and more and more people came to realize over the past two decades.
Interesting, recently saw an old re-run of "Murder She Wrote" staring Jessica Lansbury as a character modeled after Agatha Christie & Miss Marple on hit US TV show of 1980s & 90s.
Anyway, this episode (from 80s I think) featured a character who portrayed a New York district attorney type who was Italian (or at least Italian-looking), obssesed with his public image (always looking in the mirror) AND more help than hindrance to the investigation at hand - but was there to take the credit for solving the case at the end.
Am convinced this character was a direct parody of Rudolph Guiliani.
Giuliani slashed crime in New York city and made it a livable city again and was a key rallying point on 9/11 whatever his over loyalty to Trump now
Crime was falling before he became mayor.
Not as fast as under his Mayoralty.
His reorganisation of the New York Police Department was key and his broken windows strategy was crucial in cutting crime from the most minor up and he increased the size of NYPD by 12,000 officers during his term.
Yet amazingly crime fell in all major US cities over the same period. Implying the identity of the Major wasn't the decisive factor.
This looks on the face of it, like you just can't accept giving Giuliani the credit for anything, because he supports Trump. See also, Trump isn't a successful businessman, Trump isn't good at getting votes etc. See also, people getting slated for expressing the opinion that Hitler was good at making speeches, building autobahns etc. It seems quite a simple-minded position to me to have to obliterate any area where the focus of your ire might have been successful or shown merit. Obviously you're not the only one, there's a lot of it about.
Guiliani did go after the Mob in NY, in a big way - he definitely did lead that charge, which was personally dangerous.
It is one of the ironies of what he has become, that a part of that was rooting out corruption in the NYPD. Who were, in part, working for/with the Mob.
He also, as Mayor, pushed through and kept the corruption down, in a lot of projects that renewed much of the public spaces in NY.
I think it fair to say that Guiliani is an example of someone who has ended dragged down in the whirlpool of the madness centred on Donald Trump. And he *chose* to head for the centre of it. Others did not - see the Lincoln Project etc.
Let's not pretend Giuliani didn't do a great job as NY mayor just because he's now swum right to the bottom of the sewer with Trump: he did.
In fact, he was so good his policies were imitated around the world and he became Time's person of the year for his display of leadership.
The real question is: what happened since then? And why is he so overwhelmingly loyal to Trump?
Remember Donald Trump as a property developer played a large role in rebuilding New York.
Dershowitz knows better than that (or at least he used to before he became a political hack). Sure, he can make the case that this wasn’t incitement that directly resulted in an attack on Congress, but there is a stronger case that that is exactly what it was, and if so, there is absolutely no 1st Amendment defence.
Here’s a question.
If/when Trump is put on trial for any of his manifold recent crimes, would he stick with Giuliani as his attorney or hire someone vaguely competent?
Assuming, of course, anyone vaguely competent would be willing to appear for him.
I find one of the many disappointments from the Trump Presidency is how comprehensively Giuliano trashed his reputation.
He was trashing it LONG before he latched onto Trumpsky for fun AND profit (that being predominate motive).
Note Rudi's ridiculous presidential "campaign" back in 2008. AND the fact that lacked the intestinal fortitude (balls in plain English) to run against Hillary Clinton for US Senator in 2000.
His success as mayor AND his role at 9/11 were WAY over-blown & overrated. A fact that more and more and more people came to realize over the past two decades.
Interesting, recently saw an old re-run of "Murder She Wrote" staring Jessica Lansbury as a character modeled after Agatha Christie & Miss Marple on hit US TV show of 1980s & 90s.
Anyway, this episode (from 80s I think) featured a character who portrayed a New York district attorney type who was Italian (or at least Italian-looking), obssesed with his public image (always looking in the mirror) AND more help than hindrance to the investigation at hand - but was there to take the credit for solving the case at the end.
Am convinced this character was a direct parody of Rudolph Guiliani.
Giuliani slashed crime in New York city and made it a livable city again and was a key rallying point on 9/11 whatever his over loyalty to Trump now
Yes, 9/11 WAS Rudi's shining moment. But his success as anti-crime fighter had more to do with demographics than policy. Note that he put the police department in hands of a toady whose subsequent career was distinguished by a felony conviction.
Any acclaim Rudi got from being mayor is long past. He himself has ensured that it will be scarcely remembered in a decade or two. Whereas his "Four Season" press conference and etc. will live forever in infamy in American history.
while Rudy may have spoken at the rally on Wednesday he did not take any personal part in the attack on the Capitol and condemned it strongly.
Given what he reportedly said at the rally, the second half of the sentence seems completely meaningless. If I helped to whip people up into a rage and direct them at a target, I'm not sure covering my arse with a condemnation really matters. At the least for his professional legal standards.
Defending Rudi is a GOOD thing for Trumpsky-supporters & apologists to do.
BECAUSE it highlights fact that they are trying to defend the indefensible. Keep it up!
I mean, saying that Giuliani "condemned" the riot that he himself helped incite, is NOT what you'd call persuasive.
You are a diehard Democrat, you will never be convinced
Convinced of what? That Giuliani did NOT help incite the Trumpsky Putsch? You got that right, pal.
And has nothing to do with being a "diehard Democrat" which I am not (not diehard anyway).
It has to do with being a diehard American. Something Trumpsky will NEVER understand, and that you hero Rudi abandoned long ago.
BTW, do you still think Mike Pence is a shoo-in for the 2024 Republican nomination, thanks to his support from Trumpsky loyalists?
At this point I think the 2024 GOP nomination will be between Pence and Cruz
Assuming Trump can avoid a conviction I think it's quite likely he'll run as a 'Patriot Party' (or similar candidate in 2024. If Trump *is* convicted, one of his children might attempt it.
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
My son was given an A in his Higher English last year (admittedly without the inconvenience of actually taking an exam) without ever having studied a Shakespeare play. I mean, why bother? What the hell is the point of the subject?
Would be have been expelled if he was caught with a copy of Romeo & Juliet is his locker?
Yep I suppose so. It is just one of those things that has been bothering me for a few days. Why do they have a system that allows Congress to block the election? It isn't like a States rights thing - which I do understand and appreciate - because in this case it is the States themselves who have submitted the results. All they need to do is tally them.
I remain unconvinced by this particular bit of constitutional arcana
At what point in time does it date from? It might have made sense when there were fewer than 50 States in the Union?
Surely by signing up to the new T and C for WhatsApp the GPDR is satisfied.
Not that I have read the new T and C...
It will be likely sign the new T and C which fulfils the consent angle or stop using whatsapp. Facebook recently pulled this move with their oculus hardware and required a facebook account be linked. Even people who bought their kit before this was a requirement have to link to a facebook account by the end of 2023
Dershowitz knows better than that (or at least he used to before he became a political hack). Sure, he can make the case that this wasn’t incitement that directly resulted in an attack on Congress, but there is a stronger case that that is exactly what it was, and if so, there is absolutely no 1st Amendment defence.
Here’s a question.
If/when Trump is put on trial for any of his manifold recent crimes, would he stick with Giuliani as his attorney or hire someone vaguely competent?
Assuming, of course, anyone vaguely competent would be willing to appear for him.
I find one of the many disappointments from the Trump Presidency is how comprehensively Giuliano trashed his reputation.
He was trashing it LONG before he latched onto Trumpsky for fun AND profit (that being predominate motive).
Note Rudi's ridiculous presidential "campaign" back in 2008. AND the fact that lacked the intestinal fortitude (balls in plain English) to run against Hillary Clinton for US Senator in 2000.
His success as mayor AND his role at 9/11 were WAY over-blown & overrated. A fact that more and more and more people came to realize over the past two decades.
Interesting, recently saw an old re-run of "Murder She Wrote" staring Jessica Lansbury as a character modeled after Agatha Christie & Miss Marple on hit US TV show of 1980s & 90s.
Anyway, this episode (from 80s I think) featured a character who portrayed a New York district attorney type who was Italian (or at least Italian-looking), obssesed with his public image (always looking in the mirror) AND more help than hindrance to the investigation at hand - but was there to take the credit for solving the case at the end.
Am convinced this character was a direct parody of Rudolph Guiliani.
Giuliani slashed crime in New York city and made it a livable city again and was a key rallying point on 9/11 whatever his over loyalty to Trump now
Yes, 9/11 WAS Rudi's shining moment. But his success as anti-crime fighter had more to do with demographics than policy. Note that he put the police department in hands of a toady whose subsequent career was distinguished by a felony conviction.
Any acclaim Rudi got from being mayor is long past. He himself has ensured that it will be scarcely remembered in a decade or two. Whereas his "Four Season" press conference and etc. will live forever in infamy in American history.
while Rudy may have spoken at the rally on Wednesday he did not take any personal part in the attack on the Capitol and condemned it strongly.
Given what he reportedly said at the rally, the second half of the sentence seems completely meaningless. If I helped to whip people up into a rage and direct them at a target, I'm not sure covering my arse with a condemnation really matters. At the least for his professional legal standards.
Defending Rudi is a GOOD thing for Trumpsky-supporters & apologists to do.
BECAUSE it highlights fact that they are trying to defend the indefensible. Keep it up!
I mean, saying that Giuliani "condemned" the riot that he himself helped incite, is NOT what you'd call persuasive.
You are a diehard Democrat, you will never be convinced
Convinced of what? That Giuliani did NOT help incite the Trumpsky Putsch? You got that right, pal.
And has nothing to do with being a "diehard Democrat" which I am not (not diehard anyway).
It has to do with being a diehard American. Something Trumpsky will NEVER understand, and that you hero Rudi abandoned long ago.
BTW, do you still think Mike Pence is a shoo-in for the 2024 Republican nomination, thanks to his support from Trumpsky loyalists?
At this point I think the 2024 GOP nomination will be between Pence and Cruz
So Pence is no longer inevitable - has something changed?
As for Cruz, he may run for President just to avoid having to run for re-election as US Senator. Certainly will NOT be nominee, unless the Republican Party has been whittled down to a Trumpskyist rump.
Like Bob Dylan said, the times they are a changing . . .
More pertinently he said that “you don’t need to be a weatherman to see which way the wind blows “.
Which a study in 2007 found had been quoted by more lawyers and judges than any other line of poetry ever.
They probably delivered it more in key than the man himself too.
He wasn’t given his Nobel for perfect pitch.
Indeed. Competent songwriter, not a good singer. Nasal affected drawl pretty much kills most songs he peformed for me. Somehow puts one in mind of Ian Duncan Smith's vocals at the dispatch box.
Calling Bob Dylan a "competent songwriter" is about the funniest thing I've ever seen on PB. Like calling Shakespeare a competent playwright.
Do you not think Shakespeare was a competent playwright?
I do. I also think YOU are incompetent, at least as a songwriting critic!
Though suspect (or rather hope) you were being saucily tongue-in-cheek?
Competent was a compliment.
Would you say that someone saying Shakes was "competent" was giving the Bard a compliment?
At best a back-handed one!
I would just call it a recognition of his skills although personally I've never been tempted to spend a lot of time listening to his oeuvre. I do think comparisons to Mozart and Shakespeare are a little bit of a stretch.
Anyway, how about I call him a talented songwriter - I don't want to be ungenerous.
Perhaps all those bright people around Sir "Round the Clock Vaccinations" can give Welsh Mark some help ?
Because a Labour/LibDem fuck-up in the Welsh vaccines is going to get noticed.
I don't know who is going to win the Great Covid Vaccination Run.
Nicola is the most competent, but probably has the hardest job given the scattered nature of the Scottish population. Boris looks as though he has understood this is important & could give him an opportunity to use his favourite word, "world-beating". And Arlene has a steeliness & grit about her, as befits the DUP.
So, I am pretty sure I know who going to trail in fourth in a field of four.
Dershowitz knows better than that (or at least he used to before he became a political hack). Sure, he can make the case that this wasn’t incitement that directly resulted in an attack on Congress, but there is a stronger case that that is exactly what it was, and if so, there is absolutely no 1st Amendment defence.
Here’s a question.
If/when Trump is put on trial for any of his manifold recent crimes, would he stick with Giuliani as his attorney or hire someone vaguely competent?
Assuming, of course, anyone vaguely competent would be willing to appear for him.
I find one of the many disappointments from the Trump Presidency is how comprehensively Giuliano trashed his reputation.
He was trashing it LONG before he latched onto Trumpsky for fun AND profit (that being predominate motive).
Note Rudi's ridiculous presidential "campaign" back in 2008. AND the fact that lacked the intestinal fortitude (balls in plain English) to run against Hillary Clinton for US Senator in 2000.
His success as mayor AND his role at 9/11 were WAY over-blown & overrated. A fact that more and more and more people came to realize over the past two decades.
Interesting, recently saw an old re-run of "Murder She Wrote" staring Jessica Lansbury as a character modeled after Agatha Christie & Miss Marple on hit US TV show of 1980s & 90s.
Anyway, this episode (from 80s I think) featured a character who portrayed a New York district attorney type who was Italian (or at least Italian-looking), obssesed with his public image (always looking in the mirror) AND more help than hindrance to the investigation at hand - but was there to take the credit for solving the case at the end.
Am convinced this character was a direct parody of Rudolph Guiliani.
Giuliani slashed crime in New York city and made it a livable city again and was a key rallying point on 9/11 whatever his over loyalty to Trump now
Yes, 9/11 WAS Rudi's shining moment. But his success as anti-crime fighter had more to do with demographics than policy. Note that he put the police department in hands of a toady whose subsequent career was distinguished by a felony conviction.
Any acclaim Rudi got from being mayor is long past. He himself has ensured that it will be scarcely remembered in a decade or two. Whereas his "Four Season" press conference and etc. will live forever in infamy in American history.
while Rudy may have spoken at the rally on Wednesday he did not take any personal part in the attack on the Capitol and condemned it strongly.
Given what he reportedly said at the rally, the second half of the sentence seems completely meaningless. If I helped to whip people up into a rage and direct them at a target, I'm not sure covering my arse with a condemnation really matters. At the least for his professional legal standards.
Defending Rudi is a GOOD thing for Trumpsky-supporters & apologists to do.
BECAUSE it highlights fact that they are trying to defend the indefensible. Keep it up!
I mean, saying that Giuliani "condemned" the riot that he himself helped incite, is NOT what you'd call persuasive.
You are a diehard Democrat, you will never be convinced
Convinced of what? That Giuliani did NOT help incite the Trumpsky Putsch? You got that right, pal.
And has nothing to do with being a "diehard Democrat" which I am not (not diehard anyway).
It has to do with being a diehard American. Something Trumpsky will NEVER understand, and that you hero Rudi abandoned long ago.
BTW, do you still think Mike Pence is a shoo-in for the 2024 Republican nomination, thanks to his support from Trumpsky loyalists?
At this point I think the 2024 GOP nomination will be between Pence and Cruz
So Pence is no longer inevitable - has something changed?
As for Cruz, he may run for President just to avoid having to run for re-election as US Senator. Certainly will NOT be nominee, unless the Republican Party has been whittled down to a Trumpskyist rump.
Cruz is hated by people *in* politics to a remarkable degree.
Alex Jones vs Q is one of the weirder subplots on the batshit right
Odd to think what may be behind it. Jones has definitely believed, or purported to believe conspiracies just as stupid and outlandish, so why not here? Competition?
The Q lot are even madder than he is so perhaps it's jealousy
Perhaps all those bright people around Sir "Round the Clock Vaccinations" can give Welsh Mark some help ?
Because a Labour/LibDem fuck-up in the Welsh vaccines is going to get noticed.
I don't know who is going to win the Great Covid Vaccination Run.
Nicola is the most competent, but probably has the hardest job given the scattered nature of the Scottish population. Boris looks as though he has understood this is important & could give him an opportunity to use his favourite word, "world-beating". And Arlene has a steeliness & grit about her, as befits the DUP.
So, I am pretty sure who I know who going to trail in fourth in a field of four.
Yep I suppose so. It is just one of those things that has been bothering me for a few days. Why do they have a system that allows Congress to block the election? It isn't like a States rights thing - which I do understand and appreciate - because in this case it is the States themselves who have submitted the results. All they need to do is tally them.
I remain unconvinced by this particular bit of constitutional arcana
At what point in time does it date from? It might have made sense when there were fewer than 50 States in the Union?
An aquaintance with the behaviour in elections in the 18th century in the western world - and indeed much of the 19th - would probably answer your question.
Many were *staggeringly* corrupt - no secret ballot, bribes openly paid, violence etc...
Yep I suppose so. It is just one of those things that has been bothering me for a few days. Why do they have a system that allows Congress to block the election? It isn't like a States rights thing - which I do understand and appreciate - because in this case it is the States themselves who have submitted the results. All they need to do is tally them.
I remain unconvinced by this particular bit of constitutional arcana
At what point in time does it date from? It might have made sense when there were fewer than 50 States in the Union?
True. You bugger now I have to go and start looking it up because you have got me wondering
Yep I suppose so. It is just one of those things that has been bothering me for a few days. Why do they have a system that allows Congress to block the election? It isn't like a States rights thing - which I do understand and appreciate - because in this case it is the States themselves who have submitted the results. All they need to do is tally them.
I remain unconvinced by this particular bit of constitutional arcana
At what point in time does it date from? It might have made sense when there were fewer than 50 States in the Union?
What if two or more sets of Electoral Votes are submitted from a state (as occurred in 1876). Who in your view should sort THAT out?
Constitutional law is NOT something you make up on the fly. Except in UK where it's standard practice?
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
My son was given an A in his Higher English last year (admittedly without the inconvenience of actually taking an exam) without ever having studied a Shakespeare play. I mean, why bother? What the hell is the point of the subject?
Would be have been expelled if he was caught with a copy of Romeo & Juliet is his locker?
Could be. It’s pretty filthy in places.
'The bawdy hand of the clock holds its prick at noon.'
You wouldn't get that through before 9pm these days.
I am not a lawyer, but I imagine that a competent lawyer would advise Don to say sorry then shut up, going into government-sponsored hiding. Become a realtor in Hicksville, Tennessee.
Basically, any competent lawyer will be sacked within 10 minutes.
Dershowitz knows better than that (or at least he used to before he became a political hack). Sure, he can make the case that this wasn’t incitement that directly resulted in an attack on Congress, but there is a stronger case that that is exactly what it was, and if so, there is absolutely no 1st Amendment defence.
Here’s a question.
If/when Trump is put on trial for any of his manifold recent crimes, would he stick with Giuliani as his attorney or hire someone vaguely competent?
Assuming, of course, anyone vaguely competent would be willing to appear for him.
I find one of the many disappointments from the Trump Presidency is how comprehensively Giuliano trashed his reputation.
He was trashing it LONG before he latched onto Trumpsky for fun AND profit (that being predominate motive).
Note Rudi's ridiculous presidential "campaign" back in 2008. AND the fact that lacked the intestinal fortitude (balls in plain English) to run against Hillary Clinton for US Senator in 2000.
His success as mayor AND his role at 9/11 were WAY over-blown & overrated. A fact that more and more and more people came to realize over the past two decades.
Interesting, recently saw an old re-run of "Murder She Wrote" staring Jessica Lansbury as a character modeled after Agatha Christie & Miss Marple on hit US TV show of 1980s & 90s.
Anyway, this episode (from 80s I think) featured a character who portrayed a New York district attorney type who was Italian (or at least Italian-looking), obssesed with his public image (always looking in the mirror) AND more help than hindrance to the investigation at hand - but was there to take the credit for solving the case at the end.
Am convinced this character was a direct parody of Rudolph Guiliani.
Giuliani slashed crime in New York city and made it a livable city again and was a key rallying point on 9/11 whatever his over loyalty to Trump now
Yes, 9/11 WAS Rudi's shining moment. But his success as anti-crime fighter had more to do with demographics than policy. Note that he put the police department in hands of a toady whose subsequent career was distinguished by a felony conviction.
Any acclaim Rudi got from being mayor is long past. He himself has ensured that it will be scarcely remembered in a decade or two. Whereas his "Four Season" press conference and etc. will live forever in infamy in American history.
while Rudy may have spoken at the rally on Wednesday he did not take any personal part in the attack on the Capitol and condemned it strongly.
Given what he reportedly said at the rally, the second half of the sentence seems completely meaningless. If I helped to whip people up into a rage and direct them at a target, I'm not sure covering my arse with a condemnation really matters. At the least for his professional legal standards.
Defending Rudi is a GOOD thing for Trumpsky-supporters & apologists to do.
BECAUSE it highlights fact that they are trying to defend the indefensible. Keep it up!
I mean, saying that Giuliani "condemned" the riot that he himself helped incite, is NOT what you'd call persuasive.
You are a diehard Democrat, you will never be convinced
Convinced of what? That Giuliani did NOT help incite the Trumpsky Putsch? You got that right, pal.
And has nothing to do with being a "diehard Democrat" which I am not (not diehard anyway).
It has to do with being a diehard American. Something Trumpsky will NEVER understand, and that you hero Rudi abandoned long ago.
BTW, do you still think Mike Pence is a shoo-in for the 2024 Republican nomination, thanks to his support from Trumpsky loyalists?
At this point I think the 2024 GOP nomination will be between Pence and Cruz
So Pence is no longer inevitable - has something changed?
As for Cruz, he may run for President just to avoid having to run for re-election as US Senator. Certainly will NOT be nominee, unless the Republican Party has been whittled down to a Trumpskyist rump.
Cruz is hated by people *in* politics to a remarkable degree.
Pence is widely seen as an empty vessel.
You are right about Cruz - he's a truly nasty piece of work.
As for Pence, my nickname for him has been Booblehead for just the reason you cite. However, he certainly looks way less empty today than he did a week ago.
Dershowitz knows better than that (or at least he used to before he became a political hack). Sure, he can make the case that this wasn’t incitement that directly resulted in an attack on Congress, but there is a stronger case that that is exactly what it was, and if so, there is absolutely no 1st Amendment defence.
Here’s a question.
If/when Trump is put on trial for any of his manifold recent crimes, would he stick with Giuliani as his attorney or hire someone vaguely competent?
Assuming, of course, anyone vaguely competent would be willing to appear for him.
I find one of the many disappointments from the Trump Presidency is how comprehensively Giuliano trashed his reputation.
He was trashing it LONG before he latched onto Trumpsky for fun AND profit (that being predominate motive).
Note Rudi's ridiculous presidential "campaign" back in 2008. AND the fact that lacked the intestinal fortitude (balls in plain English) to run against Hillary Clinton for US Senator in 2000.
His success as mayor AND his role at 9/11 were WAY over-blown & overrated. A fact that more and more and more people came to realize over the past two decades.
Interesting, recently saw an old re-run of "Murder She Wrote" staring Jessica Lansbury as a character modeled after Agatha Christie & Miss Marple on hit US TV show of 1980s & 90s.
Anyway, this episode (from 80s I think) featured a character who portrayed a New York district attorney type who was Italian (or at least Italian-looking), obssesed with his public image (always looking in the mirror) AND more help than hindrance to the investigation at hand - but was there to take the credit for solving the case at the end.
Am convinced this character was a direct parody of Rudolph Guiliani.
Giuliani slashed crime in New York city and made it a livable city again and was a key rallying point on 9/11 whatever his over loyalty to Trump now
Yes, 9/11 WAS Rudi's shining moment. But his success as anti-crime fighter had more to do with demographics than policy. Note that he put the police department in hands of a toady whose subsequent career was distinguished by a felony conviction.
Any acclaim Rudi got from being mayor is long past. He himself has ensured that it will be scarcely remembered in a decade or two. Whereas his "Four Season" press conference and etc. will live forever in infamy in American history.
while Rudy may have spoken at the rally on Wednesday he did not take any personal part in the attack on the Capitol and condemned it strongly.
Given what he reportedly said at the rally, the second half of the sentence seems completely meaningless. If I helped to whip people up into a rage and direct them at a target, I'm not sure covering my arse with a condemnation really matters. At the least for his professional legal standards.
Defending Rudi is a GOOD thing for Trumpsky-supporters & apologists to do.
BECAUSE it highlights fact that they are trying to defend the indefensible. Keep it up!
I mean, saying that Giuliani "condemned" the riot that he himself helped incite, is NOT what you'd call persuasive.
You are a diehard Democrat, you will never be convinced
Convinced of what? That Giuliani did NOT help incite the Trumpsky Putsch? You got that right, pal.
And has nothing to do with being a "diehard Democrat" which I am not (not diehard anyway).
It has to do with being a diehard American. Something Trumpsky will NEVER understand, and that you hero Rudi abandoned long ago.
BTW, do you still think Mike Pence is a shoo-in for the 2024 Republican nomination, thanks to his support from Trumpsky loyalists?
At this point I think the 2024 GOP nomination will be between Pence and Cruz
So Pence is no longer inevitable - has something changed?
As for Cruz, he may run for President just to avoid having to run for re-election as US Senator. Certainly will NOT be nominee, unless the Republican Party has been whittled down to a Trumpskyist rump.
Much of the GOP primary voting base, indeed on some polling the majority at the moment, is what you refer to as 'a Trumpskyite rump.'
Pence will be the moderate candidate to Cruz as lead standard of the Trumpite hardcore
Yep I suppose so. It is just one of those things that has been bothering me for a few days. Why do they have a system that allows Congress to block the election? It isn't like a States rights thing - which I do understand and appreciate - because in this case it is the States themselves who have submitted the results. All they need to do is tally them.
I remain unconvinced by this particular bit of constitutional arcana
At what point in time does it date from? It might have made sense when there were fewer than 50 States in the Union?
What if two or more sets of Electoral Votes are submitted from a state (as occurred in 1876). Who in your view should sort THAT out?
Constitutional law is NOT something you make up on the fly. Except in UK where it's standard practice?
Implying the constitution in the US is not open to interpretation.
The house should impeach as soon as it's able and send the docs to McConnel immediately. Waiting a hundred days to send the senate docs helps the GOP. Slightly.
As for Pence, my nickname for him has been Booblehead for just the reason you cite. However, he certainly looks way less empty today than he did a week ago.
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
My son was given an A in his Higher English last year (admittedly without the inconvenience of actually taking an exam) without ever having studied a Shakespeare play. I mean, why bother? What the hell is the point of the subject?
Would be have been expelled if he was caught with a copy of Romeo & Juliet is his locker?
Could be. It’s pretty filthy in places.
I cannot find my favourite joke from The Simpsons which was: "It started out like Romeo and Juliet, but ended in tragedy."
If that is true - and CNN aren't above sexing these things up - it's breathtaking. We really are in the Fuhrerbunker after the likes of Speer have f***ed off.
Don't forget that Wednesday wasn't about a protest. It was intended to keep Trump IN POWER. After a couple of day of listening to the legal people trying to persuade him to do things to reduce his legal jeopardy, he is now back to thinking how he can still be President (probably been talking to Flynn/Powell/Trump jnr etc again) I wouldn't be surprised if he has been convinced that there is still a route - but this time it involves removing any pretence of being 'peaceful'.
We can only hope that the wilder speculation about the leadership of the DoD definitely isn't true. And i wouldn't be wanting to be involved in security in the State Capitals over the next few days.
I don't see how a public inauguration can safely go ahead.
I tend to agree. It's far more important that it happens, for constitutional reasons, than how it happens. Once it's done, it puts 3 Democrats at the front of the line of Presidential Succession.
I'm wondering if the Presidential Succession should be looked at?
The way America is polarising, if the GOP win the House in the midterms I could picture some extreme Q/GOPers wanting to 'take out' the POTUS and VEEP to 'win back' the Presidency that way.
I would suggest perhaps the Presidential succession should go through the Presidents own Cabinet before it reverts back to the House.
Cabinet isn’t elected
Presidential succession USED to go via Cabinet, but that was changed. Something that Alexander Hague, that great constitutional scholar did NOT realize when he made his infamous "I am in charge" statement to the press just after Ronald Reagan was shot.
THAT was the scariest moment of the whole business; I remember seeing him spout this nonsense on TV. General reaction was, who IS this guy? Some even thought he was part of a coup.
Haig was wrong on a huge number of levels there. Although the Secretary of State is the senior cabinet minister under the Constitution, in that particular situation where the President is incapacitated and the Vice President is absent the person in charge should be whoever holds the relevant ministerial brief - in this case, James Watt as Secretary of the Interior, or, if a military threat was perceived, Caspar Weinberger as Secretary of Defense. Haig, however, claimed that he was in charge and because those two thought a row at that moment would be counterproductive they let him think he was, which included giving the infamous ‘I am in command here’ press briefing. During this briefing, against Haig’s wishes, Weinberger raised the military threat level just as Haig was announcing it would not be raised, probably for no better reason than to show he could. Haig apparently shouted at him a lot for that, only to be told to fuck off.
It was always more about Haig’s ego than about the reality of the situationL but equally, it should be noted the cabinet did work pretty well prior to H’s return in what could have been a very serious crisis.
You are wrong about a number of things:
> the top member of the Cabinet is NOT in charge in absence of Pres or VP, that may be UK practice but NOT in US.
> in USA, the Secretary of the Interior is NOT the equivalent of Home Secretary or European Interior ministers. Over here, the Department of the Interior is responsible for US public lands, for example national parks & monuments.
Haig had ZERO authority to do and say what he did. Which is why he got canned ASAP after Ronald Reagan's recovery.
You are right about the Secretary of the interior but I had already realised my mistake and changed it. (Now of course it would be the Secretary of Homeland Security, but bizarrely until 2001 that was split between about five different departments.)
I’m interested in your other assertion. Who do you think is in charge in those circumstances, and why do you think that? The top member of the cabinet is of course technically the Secretary of State, and as they are not in charge except of course in matters pertaining to foreign affairs it may be that we are actually agreeing.
Think the basic error you are making, is thinking that the US cabinet is THE top executive authority, as is the UK cabinet in your country. Which is NOT the case. Here, the cabinet are simply heads of individual executive departments, with VERY limited powers otherwise, indeed virtually none as a body EXCEPT for role in invoking the 25th amendment.
So the Secretary of Homeland security does NOT have any powers OTHER than those granted directly by law (limited) AND what the President (or in case of 25th Acting President) directly authorizes.
Note that in 1799 during presidency of John Adams a cabinet cabal TRIED to exercise the kind of authority you describe (if I'm understanding you correctly) BUT were shot down. And that was IT.
Further note that after Woodrow Wilson's stroke(s) in 1919, his cabinet did NOT behave that way, and never even tried. Instead, for all intents and purpose Mrs Wilson became a quasi-acting President, though she certainly tried to adhere VERY closely to her husband's wishes as she understood them.
Which is relevant to 1982, when it turned out that Nancy Reagan had a LOT more say-so than Al Haig. Something that he perhaps came to understand when she helped drive a stake through his political heart and permanently ended his career as a mover and shaker.
Which is the point I was actually making. Because cabinet ministers in the US have no powers outside their departments, it would be the heads of the relevant departments that would lead the response and therefore in effect be in charge. Sorry if that was not clear to you.
(Incidentally Haig, although grossly exceeding his authority and ending up looking like a complete twat, wasn’t sacked. He stayed in office long enough to bugger up the US response to the Falklands war as well.)
Forgot to mention Al's (allegedly) pro-Argentine stance, should have added that to make PBers detest him as much as yours truly.
The canned him as soon as they could without making too much of a spectacle about it.
Real reason I think Al Haig was a total slimebag, was one incident during the Chosen Reservoir battle during the Korean War. When US Marines and US Army were fighting for their lives, thanks to the astounding incompetence of MacArthur and his entourage, including young suck-up Al Haig.
Who was dispatched by Mac to the "Frozen Chosen" not to provide any actual assistance, but on a PR exercise to hand out a fistful of medals to the US Army contingent.
Haig swooped down in his helicopter, fresh as a daisy from his cushy Tokyo billet, down to the mud and snow and misery on the ground. It was December 1950 and the bottom had dropped out of the thermometer. The troops fighting the battle were short of just about everything at that point; their clothing was woefully inadequate, in particular their boots. (My father was there, and froze his feet pretty bad, but kept on marching and fighting; for the rest of his life he had problems with his feet.)
Anyway, here comes Al Haig, with a nice clean uniform (including nice warm coat and good boots) and proceeds to hand out medals along with pats on the back. Then after a photo-op, gets back in his chopper and flies back to Tokyo, no doubt for a nice hot bath and a change of cloths. Something the guys he left behind hadn't had not enjoyed for weeks or months - and some never would ever again.
Eyewitnesses say that, after Al Haig went bye bye up in the sky, the Army commander on the ground took the medal that he'd been given - and hurled it into the snow.
The battle, and the subsequent fighting retreat are an epic, and bloody story. Huge admiration for anyone who participated.
And agreed that MacArthur and Haig were shitbags. (Though the former was a remarkable success in administering Japan after the war.)
Dershowitz knows better than that (or at least he used to before he became a political hack). Sure, he can make the case that this wasn’t incitement that directly resulted in an attack on Congress, but there is a stronger case that that is exactly what it was, and if so, there is absolutely no 1st Amendment defence.
Here’s a question.
If/when Trump is put on trial for any of his manifold recent crimes, would he stick with Giuliani as his attorney or hire someone vaguely competent?
Assuming, of course, anyone vaguely competent would be willing to appear for him.
I find one of the many disappointments from the Trump Presidency is how comprehensively Giuliano trashed his reputation.
He was trashing it LONG before he latched onto Trumpsky for fun AND profit (that being predominate motive).
Note Rudi's ridiculous presidential "campaign" back in 2008. AND the fact that lacked the intestinal fortitude (balls in plain English) to run against Hillary Clinton for US Senator in 2000.
His success as mayor AND his role at 9/11 were WAY over-blown & overrated. A fact that more and more and more people came to realize over the past two decades.
Interesting, recently saw an old re-run of "Murder She Wrote" staring Jessica Lansbury as a character modeled after Agatha Christie & Miss Marple on hit US TV show of 1980s & 90s.
Anyway, this episode (from 80s I think) featured a character who portrayed a New York district attorney type who was Italian (or at least Italian-looking), obssesed with his public image (always looking in the mirror) AND more help than hindrance to the investigation at hand - but was there to take the credit for solving the case at the end.
Am convinced this character was a direct parody of Rudolph Guiliani.
Giuliani slashed crime in New York city and made it a livable city again and was a key rallying point on 9/11 whatever his over loyalty to Trump now
Yes, 9/11 WAS Rudi's shining moment. But his success as anti-crime fighter had more to do with demographics than policy. Note that he put the police department in hands of a toady whose subsequent career was distinguished by a felony conviction.
Any acclaim Rudi got from being mayor is long past. He himself has ensured that it will be scarcely remembered in a decade or two. Whereas his "Four Season" press conference and etc. will live forever in infamy in American history.
while Rudy may have spoken at the rally on Wednesday he did not take any personal part in the attack on the Capitol and condemned it strongly.
Given what he reportedly said at the rally, the second half of the sentence seems completely meaningless. If I helped to whip people up into a rage and direct them at a target, I'm not sure covering my arse with a condemnation really matters. At the least for his professional legal standards.
Defending Rudi is a GOOD thing for Trumpsky-supporters & apologists to do.
BECAUSE it highlights fact that they are trying to defend the indefensible. Keep it up!
I mean, saying that Giuliani "condemned" the riot that he himself helped incite, is NOT what you'd call persuasive.
You are a diehard Democrat, you will never be convinced
Convinced of what? That Giuliani did NOT help incite the Trumpsky Putsch? You got that right, pal.
And has nothing to do with being a "diehard Democrat" which I am not (not diehard anyway).
It has to do with being a diehard American. Something Trumpsky will NEVER understand, and that you hero Rudi abandoned long ago.
BTW, do you still think Mike Pence is a shoo-in for the 2024 Republican nomination, thanks to his support from Trumpsky loyalists?
At this point I think the 2024 GOP nomination will be between Pence and Cruz
So Pence is no longer inevitable - has something changed?
As for Cruz, he may run for President just to avoid having to run for re-election as US Senator. Certainly will NOT be nominee, unless the Republican Party has been whittled down to a Trumpskyist rump.
Much of the GOP primary voting base, indeed on some polling the majority at the moment is what you refer to as 'a Trumpskyite rump.'
Pence will be the moderate candidate to Cruz as lead standard of the Trumpite hardcore
You do NOT seem to realize that the Trumpsky base is NOT static. It is melting as we type our drivel on here.
How far down it melts is an open question. Keep in mind, today's polling is a snapshot of the moment NOT a predictor of the future.
Like Bob Dylan said, the times they are a changing . . .
More pertinently he said that “you don’t need to be a weatherman to see which way the wind blows “.
Which a study in 2007 found had been quoted by more lawyers and judges than any other line of poetry ever.
They probably delivered it more in key than the man himself too.
He wasn’t given his Nobel for perfect pitch.
Indeed. Competent songwriter, not a good singer. Nasal affected drawl pretty much kills most songs he peformed for me. Somehow puts one in mind of Ian Duncan Smith's vocals at the dispatch box.
My wife quite likes Dylan (she once stayed at his place, when she was a music producer in Nashville). I think he is the singing chain-saw.
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
My son was given an A in his Higher English last year (admittedly without the inconvenience of actually taking an exam) without ever having studied a Shakespeare play. I mean, why bother? What the hell is the point of the subject?
Because authors with a (in some cases tenuous) connection with Scotland are the only essential writers in the English language. In the opinion of the Scottish Government and SQA. AIUI.
Parochial doesn’t come close to describing it. Pig ignorant is perhaps closer.
The Scottish Government / SQA approach to the English curriculum is illiterate, yes. By all means pick pieces from Scottish literature that deserve their place on the curriculum as some of the best writing anywhere, but don't exclude wonderful writing from England, Ireland, the Americas, India and elsewhere that define the English language, simply because they don't tick a box labelled "Scotland".
Not necessarily. If the new strain achieves the spread we've seen despite 20% immunity, that puts its unrestrained R up accordingly. Which then also pushes up the immunity level required for herd immunity.
True, but at least that's 20% of people who are unlikely to end up back in hospital, and the extra number of infections needed for a higher immunity threshold is less than that.
I'd be a bit cautious about relying on the figures, though. They are inferring cases from deaths, which relies on an accurate (age-specific) IFR. But computing an accurate IFR relies on knowing the number of cases. For sure we get a better estimate of it now, because we are confirming more cases, but it's a difficult number to pin down.
I haven't seen an antibody survey for a while. Has there been one to estimate total infections, or does it start to fail as an estimate because antibodies (as opposed to T/memory B cell immunity) drop off after a few months?
--AS
Originally, antibody prevalence reached about 6% by July and then decayed to 4.4% 12 weeks later. They now have reached about 6.9%, I think.
That 20% figure (and over 50% in some areas) looks surprisingly high. As it should depress R by a factor of 2 in the areas at that sort of level, it does point to extremely high R0. If true.
There’s a lot of “may...” in that article, and I’d suggest an 18 day lag between infection and death is a bit rapid. That’s an average of 13 days from symptoms to death, which is quicker than I’d be comfortable having in a model.
It’s rather different from the UCL model referred to - considerably different in magnitude, from what I can see. (Barking and Dagenham, for example, appears to have had less than half the infections in the UCL model than this one).
I think what you have here is the "publish the story about the research with the shouty numbers".
I've seen various papers making various estimates. They share a common characteristic - no 2 agree on the numbers. Which strongly suggest to me that we don't know. Yet.
What was the number found in that town in Italy where they tested everyone, not long after the first wave went completely out of control there?
Bergamo reckoned, when I visited in September, that about a third of is residents had had the virus during the spring.
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
My son was given an A in his Higher English last year (admittedly without the inconvenience of actually taking an exam) without ever having studied a Shakespeare play. I mean, why bother? What the hell is the point of the subject?
Would be have been expelled if he was caught with a copy of Romeo & Juliet is his locker?
Could be. It’s pretty filthy in places.
'The bawdy hand of the clock holds its prick at noon.'
You wouldn't get that through before 9pm these days.
‘Oh that she were an open arse and thou a poperin pear’ doesn’t actually require too much annotation.
Yep I suppose so. It is just one of those things that has been bothering me for a few days. Why do they have a system that allows Congress to block the election? It isn't like a States rights thing - which I do understand and appreciate - because in this case it is the States themselves who have submitted the results. All they need to do is tally them.
I remain unconvinced by this particular bit of constitutional arcana
At what point in time does it date from? It might have made sense when there were fewer than 50 States in the Union?
What if two or more sets of Electoral Votes are submitted from a state (as occurred in 1876). Who in your view should sort THAT out?
Constitutional law is NOT something you make up on the fly. Except in UK where it's standard practice?
The inability of the US to make even minor changes to it's constitution with the almost impossible current conditions is a real weak point.
Dershowitz knows better than that (or at least he used to before he became a political hack). Sure, he can make the case that this wasn’t incitement that directly resulted in an attack on Congress, but there is a stronger case that that is exactly what it was, and if so, there is absolutely no 1st Amendment defence.
Here’s a question.
If/when Trump is put on trial for any of his manifold recent crimes, would he stick with Giuliani as his attorney or hire someone vaguely competent?
Assuming, of course, anyone vaguely competent would be willing to appear for him.
I find one of the many disappointments from the Trump Presidency is how comprehensively Giuliano trashed his reputation.
He was trashing it LONG before he latched onto Trumpsky for fun AND profit (that being predominate motive).
Note Rudi's ridiculous presidential "campaign" back in 2008. AND the fact that lacked the intestinal fortitude (balls in plain English) to run against Hillary Clinton for US Senator in 2000.
His success as mayor AND his role at 9/11 were WAY over-blown & overrated. A fact that more and more and more people came to realize over the past two decades.
Interesting, recently saw an old re-run of "Murder She Wrote" staring Jessica Lansbury as a character modeled after Agatha Christie & Miss Marple on hit US TV show of 1980s & 90s.
Anyway, this episode (from 80s I think) featured a character who portrayed a New York district attorney type who was Italian (or at least Italian-looking), obssesed with his public image (always looking in the mirror) AND more help than hindrance to the investigation at hand - but was there to take the credit for solving the case at the end.
Am convinced this character was a direct parody of Rudolph Guiliani.
Giuliani slashed crime in New York city and made it a livable city again and was a key rallying point on 9/11 whatever his over loyalty to Trump now
Yes, 9/11 WAS Rudi's shining moment. But his success as anti-crime fighter had more to do with demographics than policy. Note that he put the police department in hands of a toady whose subsequent career was distinguished by a felony conviction.
Any acclaim Rudi got from being mayor is long past. He himself has ensured that it will be scarcely remembered in a decade or two. Whereas his "Four Season" press conference and etc. will live forever in infamy in American history.
Violent crime fell 56% under Giuliani's Mayoralty in New York city, murder by 2/3 and robbery fell by 67%.
In my view he was the most successful New York Mayor of the last 100 years. That is a far more significant legacy than being Trump's personal lawyer and there was nothing illegal about challenging the vote count until its final confirmation and while Rudy may have spoken at the rally on Wednesday he did not take any personal part in the attack on the Capitol and condemned it strongly.
You overrate Rudi. And have never heard of Fiorello La Guardia? Who was in fact the greatest mayor of the city of New York. And NEVER disgraced his city, country and himself the way your hero has.
Do NOT expect to be flying into "Giuliani Airport" anytime soon!
As for his "condemnation" what a sick joke! He WOULD say that now, as he is definitely deserving of disbarment.
He will go down in history, not as the Hero of 2001 but as one of the Scumbuckets of 2020.
TBF I don’t expect to be flying into “La Guardia Airport” anytime soon!
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
My son was given an A in his Higher English last year (admittedly without the inconvenience of actually taking an exam) without ever having studied a Shakespeare play. I mean, why bother? What the hell is the point of the subject?
Because authors with a (in some cases tenuous) connection with Scotland are the only essential writers in the English language. In the opinion of the Scottish Government and SQA. AIUI.
Parochial doesn’t come close to describing it. Pig ignorant is perhaps closer.
Sort of related, a neighbour's daughter got an A in A level English Lit without reading any of the set texts - she just read the study guides apparently.
At a lower level, I got an A in O-level English Lit despite not having *finished* any of the set texts. My success was partly due to our new and incredibly posh teacher whose flowery, descriptive phrases stuck in my working class head to be regurgitated onto the exam paper without fully understanding them.
Not necessarily. If the new strain achieves the spread we've seen despite 20% immunity, that puts its unrestrained R up accordingly. Which then also pushes up the immunity level required for herd immunity.
True, but at least that's 20% of people who are unlikely to end up back in hospital, and the extra number of infections needed for a higher immunity threshold is less than that.
I'd be a bit cautious about relying on the figures, though. They are inferring cases from deaths, which relies on an accurate (age-specific) IFR. But computing an accurate IFR relies on knowing the number of cases. For sure we get a better estimate of it now, because we are confirming more cases, but it's a difficult number to pin down.
I haven't seen an antibody survey for a while. Has there been one to estimate total infections, or does it start to fail as an estimate because antibodies (as opposed to T/memory B cell immunity) drop off after a few months?
--AS
Originally, antibody prevalence reached about 6% by July and then decayed to 4.4% 12 weeks later. They now have reached about 6.9%, I think.
That 20% figure (and over 50% in some areas) looks surprisingly high. As it should depress R by a factor of 2 in the areas at that sort of level, it does point to extremely high R0. If true.
There’s a lot of “may...” in that article, and I’d suggest an 18 day lag between infection and death is a bit rapid. That’s an average of 13 days from symptoms to death, which is quicker than I’d be comfortable having in a model.
It’s rather different from the UCL model referred to - considerably different in magnitude, from what I can see. (Barking and Dagenham, for example, appears to have had less than half the infections in the UCL model than this one).
Yes, my impression is that 20% is a bit high. My brother asked me my guess just a couple of days ago and I said 15%, with 20% at the very top of my estimated range.
I do think we've been underestimating R0 from the start.
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
My son was given an A in his Higher English last year (admittedly without the inconvenience of actually taking an exam) without ever having studied a Shakespeare play. I mean, why bother? What the hell is the point of the subject?
Because authors with a (in some cases tenuous) connection with Scotland are the only essential writers in the English language. In the opinion of the Scottish Government and SQA. AIUI.
Parochial doesn’t come close to describing it. Pig ignorant is perhaps closer.
The Scottish Government / SQA approach to the English curriculum is illiterate, yes. By all means pick pieces from Scottish literature that deserve their place on the curriculum as some of the best writing anywhere, but don't exclude wonderful writing from England, Ireland, the Americas, India and elsewhere that define the English language, simply because they don't tick a box labelled "Scotland".
Hang on - aren't they simply insisting that SOME Scots literature is taught? Not that all has to be?
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
My son was given an A in his Higher English last year (admittedly without the inconvenience of actually taking an exam) without ever having studied a Shakespeare play. I mean, why bother? What the hell is the point of the subject?
Would be have been expelled if he was caught with a copy of Romeo & Juliet is his locker?
Could be. It’s pretty filthy in places.
I cannot find my favourite joke from The Simpsons which was: "It started out like Romeo and Juliet, but ended in tragedy."
If that is true - and CNN aren't above sexing these things up - it's breathtaking. We really are in the Fuhrerbunker after the likes of Speer have f***ed off.
Don't forget that Wednesday wasn't about a protest. It was intended to keep Trump IN POWER. After a couple of day of listening to the legal people trying to persuade him to do things to reduce his legal jeopardy, he is now back to thinking how he can still be President (probably been talking to Flynn/Powell/Trump jnr etc again) I wouldn't be surprised if he has been convinced that there is still a route - but this time it involves removing any pretence of being 'peaceful'.
We can only hope that the wilder speculation about the leadership of the DoD definitely isn't true. And i wouldn't be wanting to be involved in security in the State Capitals over the next few days.
I don't see how a public inauguration can safely go ahead.
I tend to agree. It's far more important that it happens, for constitutional reasons, than how it happens. Once it's done, it puts 3 Democrats at the front of the line of Presidential Succession.
I'm wondering if the Presidential Succession should be looked at?
The way America is polarising, if the GOP win the House in the midterms I could picture some extreme Q/GOPers wanting to 'take out' the POTUS and VEEP to 'win back' the Presidency that way.
I would suggest perhaps the Presidential succession should go through the Presidents own Cabinet before it reverts back to the House.
Cabinet isn’t elected
Presidential succession USED to go via Cabinet, but that was changed. Something that Alexander Hague, that great constitutional scholar did NOT realize when he made his infamous "I am in charge" statement to the press just after Ronald Reagan was shot.
THAT was the scariest moment of the whole business; I remember seeing him spout this nonsense on TV. General reaction was, who IS this guy? Some even thought he was part of a coup.
Haig was wrong on a huge number of levels there. Although the Secretary of State is the senior cabinet minister under the Constitution, in that particular situation where the President is incapacitated and the Vice President is absent the person in charge should be whoever holds the relevant ministerial brief - in this case, James Watt as Secretary of the Interior, or, if a military threat was perceived, Caspar Weinberger as Secretary of Defense. Haig, however, claimed that he was in charge and because those two thought a row at that moment would be counterproductive they let him think he was, which included giving the infamous ‘I am in command here’ press briefing. During this briefing, against Haig’s wishes, Weinberger raised the military threat level just as Haig was announcing it would not be raised, probably for no better reason than to show he could. Haig apparently shouted at him a lot for that, only to be told to fuck off.
It was always more about Haig’s ego than about the reality of the situationL but equally, it should be noted the cabinet did work pretty well prior to H’s return in what could have been a very serious crisis.
You are wrong about a number of things:
> the top member of the Cabinet is NOT in charge in absence of Pres or VP, that may be UK practice but NOT in US.
> in USA, the Secretary of the Interior is NOT the equivalent of Home Secretary or European Interior ministers. Over here, the Department of the Interior is responsible for US public lands, for example national parks & monuments.
Haig had ZERO authority to do and say what he did. Which is why he got canned ASAP after Ronald Reagan's recovery.
You are right about the Secretary of the interior but I had already realised my mistake and changed it. (Now of course it would be the Secretary of Homeland Security, but bizarrely until 2001 that was split between about five different departments.)
I’m interested in your other assertion. Who do you think is in charge in those circumstances, and why do you think that? The top member of the cabinet is of course technically the Secretary of State, and as they are not in charge except of course in matters pertaining to foreign affairs it may be that we are actually agreeing.
Think the basic error you are making, is thinking that the US cabinet is THE top executive authority, as is the UK cabinet in your country. Which is NOT the case. Here, the cabinet are simply heads of individual executive departments, with VERY limited powers otherwise, indeed virtually none as a body EXCEPT for role in invoking the 25th amendment.
So the Secretary of Homeland security does NOT have any powers OTHER than those granted directly by law (limited) AND what the President (or in case of 25th Acting President) directly authorizes.
Note that in 1799 during presidency of John Adams a cabinet cabal TRIED to exercise the kind of authority you describe (if I'm understanding you correctly) BUT were shot down. And that was IT.
Further note that after Woodrow Wilson's stroke(s) in 1919, his cabinet did NOT behave that way, and never even tried. Instead, for all intents and purpose Mrs Wilson became a quasi-acting President, though she certainly tried to adhere VERY closely to her husband's wishes as she understood them.
Which is relevant to 1982, when it turned out that Nancy Reagan had a LOT more say-so than Al Haig. Something that he perhaps came to understand when she helped drive a stake through his political heart and permanently ended his career as a mover and shaker.
Which is the point I was actually making. Because cabinet ministers in the US have no powers outside their departments, it would be the heads of the relevant departments that would lead the response and therefore in effect be in charge. Sorry if that was not clear to you.
(Incidentally Haig, although grossly exceeding his authority and ending up looking like a complete twat, wasn’t sacked. He stayed in office long enough to bugger up the US response to the Falklands war as well.)
Forgot to mention Al's (allegedly) pro-Argentine stance, should have added that to make PBers detest him as much as yours truly.
The canned him as soon as they could without making too much of a spectacle about it.
Real reason I think Al Haig was a total slimebag, was one incident during the Chosen Reservoir battle during the Korean War. When US Marines and US Army were fighting for their lives, thanks to the astounding incompetence of MacArthur and his entourage, including young suck-up Al Haig.
Who was dispatched by Mac to the "Frozen Chosen" not to provide any actual assistance, but on a PR exercise to hand out a fistful of medals to the US Army contingent.
Haig swooped down in his helicopter, fresh as a daisy from his cushy Tokyo billet, down to the mud and snow and misery on the ground. It was December 1950 and the bottom had dropped out of the thermometer. The troops fighting the battle were short of just about everything at that point; their clothing was woefully inadequate, in particular their boots. (My father was there, and froze his feet pretty bad, but kept on marching and fighting; for the rest of his life he had problems with his feet.)
Anyway, here comes Al Haig, with a nice clean uniform (including nice warm coat and good boots) and proceeds to hand out medals along with pats on the back. Then after a photo-op, gets back in his chopper and flies back to Tokyo, no doubt for a nice hot bath and a change of cloths. Something the guys he left behind hadn't had not enjoyed for weeks or months - and some never would ever again.
Eyewitnesses say that, after Al Haig went bye bye up in the sky, the Army commander on the ground took the medal that he'd been given - and hurled it into the snow.
The battle, and the subsequent fighting retreat are an epic, and bloody story. Huge admiration for anyone who participated.
And agreed that MacArthur and Haig were shitbags. (Though the former was a remarkable success in administering Japan after the war.)
MacArthur was one of those people whose highs were REALLY high, and his lows were REALLY low. Never mediocre.
My grandfather, a rocked-ribbed PA Republican, was a BIG fan. So was my dad UNTIL the Chosen Reservoir.
Note that my Daddy Dearest was also at Inchon, which was perhaps Mac's greatest moment, militarily at least. Hard to imagine anyone else (at the time anyway) pulling it off. OR even being allowed to try.
BUT when the shit hit the fan at the Chosen Reservoir, the US Marine Corps to a man decided that Mac was their enemy. And blamed & hated HIM way more than they blamed or hated the Chinese. Indeed, my old man didn't have a bad thing to say against the Chinese that did their damnedest to kill him.
When he got back to the States, he was home on leave the day that Truman fired MacArthur. My grandfather gave him the news, very excited:
"Did you hear, that son of a bitch Truman just fired MacArthur!"
To which my Dad replied, "Good! I hope he shoots the bastard!"
Note that to this day, Douglas MacArthur remains a hate object for the USMC.
In current political context, is worth noting that observers of ALL stripes thought that the firing of Douglas MacArthur would result in a massive political wave of support for him and his cause of expanding the Korean War. Which strangely enough did NOT happen, despite Mac's famous speech to joint session of Congress.
Pre-covid I used to assume anyone who bought a balaclava was automatically placed on a government watchlist, on the grounds no one had every used one for legitimate purposes. Same thing with bolt cutters or alternative face covering attire, including Ex-President face masks if you are an adult.
The above graphs in the headliner are not relevant. The GOP know Trumps record in net outcome terms, he loses them stuff .
The problem is not that he is a behemoth in context of the wider electorate. Its the GOP electorate that is their problem because he threatens to split it, badly, through cult of personality and thus at its worst condemning the GOP to at least one more full cycle of House, Senate & POTUS defeats. It doesn't matter whether he loses them even a net 5% of the 2020 numbers during the next 5 years, its enough. I suspect with everything about to go on he won't quite be the force they fear but right now, he is a major problem and someone falling off a cliff can still be heard all the way until they hit the rocks.
As it is, the stories are he is going to go out with plenty of noise. whether is just noise rather than effect is a 50-50. The Trump cultists, however, are rumoured to talking about another throw of the dice on the 18th.
Whatever one might think of his acting ability there's no denying the man always had screen presence and could deliver some good lines. It's good stuff, albeit I don't know that he needed to shoehorn in a Conan reference to make his point!
Yep I suppose so. It is just one of those things that has been bothering me for a few days. Why do they have a system that allows Congress to block the election? It isn't like a States rights thing - which I do understand and appreciate - because in this case it is the States themselves who have submitted the results. All they need to do is tally them.
I remain unconvinced by this particular bit of constitutional arcana
At what point in time does it date from? It might have made sense when there were fewer than 50 States in the Union?
What if two or more sets of Electoral Votes are submitted from a state (as occurred in 1876). Who in your view should sort THAT out?
Constitutional law is NOT something you make up on the fly. Except in UK where it's standard practice?
The inability of the US to make even minor changes to it's constitution with the almost impossible current conditions is a real weak point.
By the Early 1800s Madison was lamenting that with the influx of new states it would be impossible to amend the constitution. In particular he was wanting to fix the electoral college.
Many of the Founding Fathers knew they had fucked up early.
It was an interesting Twitter thread earlier on Trump's need to resign. Supposedly he is to make a statement tomorrow. He won't quit. He'll probably step up the grave-digging
Apparently the Odyssey and Shakespeare are the literary equivalent of statues of slavers (their words not mine)
Fake news. Odyssey was not banned anywhere.
Actually no. Read the article and it is clear that the Odyssey was removed from the school curriculum. If you have issue with the story then you can also take it up with the Wall Street Journal.
Removing from a curriculum is not the same as banning.
My son was given an A in his Higher English last year (admittedly without the inconvenience of actually taking an exam) without ever having studied a Shakespeare play. I mean, why bother? What the hell is the point of the subject?
Because authors with a (in some cases tenuous) connection with Scotland are the only essential writers in the English language. In the opinion of the Scottish Government and SQA. AIUI.
Parochial doesn’t come close to describing it. Pig ignorant is perhaps closer.
The Scottish Government / SQA approach to the English curriculum is illiterate, yes. By all means pick pieces from Scottish literature that deserve their place on the curriculum as some of the best writing anywhere, but don't exclude wonderful writing from England, Ireland, the Americas, India and elsewhere that define the English language, simply because they don't tick a box labelled "Scotland".
Hang on - aren't they simply insisting that SOME Scots literature is taught? Not that all has to be?
They are saying, you must study these Scottish texts - in some cases sort of Scottish and not all of them very good. You are allowed to study other texts for the critical essay, but we aren't especially encouraging you to do so...
I don't actually have a problem with insisting that SOME Scots literature is taught.
The person to look to right now is Joe Biden. Certainly senior GOP types have been leaning on him to get the impeachment knocked on the head or basically can kicked where its symbolic, i.e. Trump is gone anyway
He might end up buying that and it might make sense. Trump is in diffs more when he leaves than not and an impeachment counts for squat, he is going.
What Trump really needs though is a pardon and unless he can do it himself, it isn't likely to come.
The officer in question committed suicide -no one seems to be linking it to the events at the Capitol that I have seen,.
Well, until now
You need to look harder.
A Capitol Police officer named Howard Liebengood took his own life on Saturday (Jan. 9), multiple outlets have confirmed. This death makes the second policeman who’s died since last Wednesday’s (Jan. 6) storming of the U.S. Capitol by a violent pro-Trump mob. The first officer to die, Officer Brian Sicknick, occurred the following day of the attack.
“Capitol Police union confirms officer Howard Liebengood died by suicide yesterday. In statement they say he responded to riots Wed[nesday],” a Fox News reporter tweeted on Sunday (Jan. 10). TMZ added that the now-deceased cop was 51 years old and was with the Capitol Police Department since 2005.
“He died Saturday while off duty,” the news outlet claims. “Former Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer calls Liebengood’s death a ‘line of duty casualty’ ... clearly meaning even if it was a suicide there’s a direct connection to the riot.”
Initially announced as an “off-duty” death by the U.S. Capitol Police on Sunday morning, multiple news outlets and former police chief Terrance Gainer confirmed that Howard Liebengood, 51, died by suicide on Saturday.
Liebengood, a 15-year veteran of the force, “was among those who responded to the rioting at the U.S. Capitol on January 6,” according to a statement released by the USCP union.
Gainer described Liebengood’s death as a “line of duty casualty” in an interview with CBS News, saying it was no different than the death of fellow officer Brian Sicknick, who died Thursday night from injuries sustained while protecting the Capitol complex.
The person to look to right now is Joe Biden. Certainly senior GOP types have been leaning on him to get the impeachment knocked on the head or basically can kicked where its symbolic, i.e. Trump is gone anyway
He might end up buying that and it might make sense. Trump is in diffs more when he leaves than not and an impeachment counts for squat, he is going.
What Trump really needs though is a pardon and unless he can do it himself, it isn't likely to come.
I don't see why Biden should intervene on the impeachment - that is up to Congress. Separation of Powers (he can cry out!)
A pardon would only help him with the Federal cases. The State cases would go ahead. Some of them include banking/fraud charges that could put him in prison for lengths of time used in astronomy.
My theory on this is that Biden will give the States "first dibs" on prosecuting Trump - this enables him to avoid the pardon issue, while not getting involved in the issue of "persecuting" a predecessor.
Trump can have his day in Federal court later. It will consist of him turning up in a prison jumpsuit, many years down the line, I think.
Whatever one might think of his acting ability there's no denying the man always had screen presence and could deliver some good lines. It's good stuff, albeit I don't know that he needed to shoehorn in a Conan reference to make his point!
Part of the reason for his success was *exactly* his self knowledge - his acting ability being a part of that. He had a very, very good sense of which roles would work for him.
He has also a very good sense of his own legend and knows well which parts resonate in various situations, to his audience.
Comments
Rightly, Trump could not be allowed to continue to spread lies to millions of followers in Twitter, many of whom are clearly not intelligent enough to differentiate between the truth, opinion, and outright lies.
And has nothing to do with being a "diehard Democrat" which I am not (not diehard anyway).
It has to do with being a diehard American. Something Trumpsky will NEVER understand, and that you hero Rudi abandoned long ago.
BTW, do you still think Mike Pence is a shoo-in for the 2024 Republican nomination, thanks to his support from Trumpsky loyalists?
In fact, he was so good his policies were imitated around the world and he became Time's person of the year for his display of leadership.
The real question is: what happened since then? And why is he so overwhelmingly loyal to Trump?
I've seen various papers making various estimates. They share a common characteristic - no 2 agree on the numbers. Which strongly suggest to me that we don't know. Yet.
What was the number found in that town in Italy where they tested everyone, not long after the first wave went completely out of control there?
Good night.
Vienna or Salzburg?
At best a back-handed one!
Note that while Bach makes it to Heaven in Bogus Journey, Mozart ends up in Hell...
It is hard, perhaps impossible, to write a constitution so that it is proof against human malevolence.
The right to protest about a corrupt election is a fair one - and like the many other laws and rights, it can be turned into a weapon.
This was what happened - a right and a privilege was turned into a weapon against the constitution itself. The *use of the right*, not the right itself, was a flagrant and malevolent attack on democracy.
Not that I have read the new T and C...
But he was still overrated, mostly because I think he was - at least back then - a superb communicator. Similar to Boris Johnson.
And fact that he was overrated is what makes his self-induced defenestration all the more start and startling.
People are finally onto them.
I remain unconvinced by this particular bit of constitutional arcana
Like me they'll have just clicked "yes" to get rid of the annoying message.
As for Cruz, he may run for President just to avoid having to run for re-election as US Senator. Certainly will NOT be nominee, unless the Republican Party has been whittled down to a Trumpskyist rump.
Anyway, how about I call him a talented songwriter - I don't want to be ungenerous.
Because a Labour/LibDem fuck-up in the Welsh vaccines is going to get noticed.
I don't know who is going to win the Great Covid Vaccination Run.
Nicola is the most competent, but probably has the hardest job given the scattered nature of the Scottish population. Boris looks as though he has understood this is important & could give him an opportunity to use his favourite word, "world-beating". And Arlene has a steeliness & grit about her, as befits the DUP.
So, I am pretty sure I know who going to trail in fourth in a field of four.
Pence is widely seen as an empty vessel.
https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1348370629477724166
Many were *staggeringly* corrupt - no secret ballot, bribes openly paid, violence etc...
Constitutional law is NOT something you make up on the fly. Except in UK where it's standard practice?
You wouldn't get that through before 9pm these days.
As for Pence, my nickname for him has been Booblehead for just the reason you cite. However, he certainly looks way less empty today than he did a week ago.
Pence will be the moderate candidate to Cruz as lead standard of the Trumpite hardcore
Yeah, I'm gonna do that.
Laters.
Huge admiration for anyone who participated.
And agreed that MacArthur and Haig were shitbags.
(Though the former was a remarkable success in administering Japan after the war.)
How far down it melts is an open question. Keep in mind, today's polling is a snapshot of the moment NOT a predictor of the future.
That's polling 101, right?
I do think we've been underestimating R0 from the start.
--AS
My grandfather, a rocked-ribbed PA Republican, was a BIG fan. So was my dad UNTIL the Chosen Reservoir.
Note that my Daddy Dearest was also at Inchon, which was perhaps Mac's greatest moment, militarily at least. Hard to imagine anyone else (at the time anyway) pulling it off. OR even being allowed to try.
BUT when the shit hit the fan at the Chosen Reservoir, the US Marine Corps to a man decided that Mac was their enemy. And blamed & hated HIM way more than they blamed or hated the Chinese. Indeed, my old man didn't have a bad thing to say against the Chinese that did their damnedest to kill him.
When he got back to the States, he was home on leave the day that Truman fired MacArthur. My grandfather gave him the news, very excited:
"Did you hear, that son of a bitch Truman just fired MacArthur!"
To which my Dad replied, "Good! I hope he shoots the bastard!"
Note that to this day, Douglas MacArthur remains a hate object for the USMC.
In current political context, is worth noting that observers of ALL stripes thought that the firing of Douglas MacArthur would result in a massive political wave of support for him and his cause of expanding the Korean War. Which strangely enough did NOT happen, despite Mac's famous speech to joint session of Congress.
Well, until now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_P-0I6sAck
The problem is not that he is a behemoth in context of the wider electorate. Its the GOP electorate that is their problem because he threatens to split it, badly, through cult of personality and thus at its worst condemning the GOP to at least one more full cycle of House, Senate & POTUS defeats. It doesn't matter whether he loses them even a net 5% of the 2020 numbers during the next 5 years, its enough. I suspect with everything about to go on he won't quite be the force they fear but right now, he is a major problem and someone falling off a cliff can still be heard all the way until they hit the rocks.
As it is, the stories are he is going to go out with plenty of noise. whether is just noise rather than effect is a 50-50. The Trump cultists, however, are rumoured to talking about another throw of the dice on the 18th.
Many of the Founding Fathers knew they had fucked up early.
I don't actually have a problem with insisting that SOME Scots literature is taught.
He might end up buying that and it might make sense. Trump is in diffs more when he leaves than not and an impeachment counts for squat, he is going.
What Trump really needs though is a pardon and unless he can do it himself, it isn't likely to come.
Models featured in the magazine hit back, with Callie Thorpe insisting that 'health is whatever you want to call it'.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9131253/Row-new-plus-size-Cosmopolitan-cover-accused-glamourising-obesity.html
https://twitter.com/BBCHelena/status/1348388425204948993?s=20
A Capitol Police officer named Howard Liebengood took his own life on Saturday (Jan. 9), multiple outlets have confirmed. This death makes the second policeman who’s died since last Wednesday’s (Jan. 6) storming of the U.S. Capitol by a violent pro-Trump mob. The first officer to die, Officer Brian Sicknick, occurred the following day of the attack.
“Capitol Police union confirms officer Howard Liebengood died by suicide yesterday. In statement they say he responded to riots Wed[nesday],” a Fox News reporter tweeted on Sunday (Jan. 10). TMZ added that the now-deceased cop was 51 years old and was with the Capitol Police Department since 2005.
“He died Saturday while off duty,” the news outlet claims. “Former Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer calls Liebengood’s death a ‘line of duty casualty’ ... clearly meaning even if it was a suicide there’s a direct connection to the riot.”
https://www.revolt.tv/news/2021/1/10/22223597/us-capitol-police-officer-suicide
Initially announced as an “off-duty” death by the U.S. Capitol Police on Sunday morning, multiple news outlets and former police chief Terrance Gainer confirmed that Howard Liebengood, 51, died by suicide on Saturday.
Liebengood, a 15-year veteran of the force, “was among those who responded to the rioting at the U.S. Capitol on January 6,” according to a statement released by the USCP union.
Gainer described Liebengood’s death as a “line of duty casualty” in an interview with CBS News, saying it was no different than the death of fellow officer Brian Sicknick, who died Thursday night from injuries sustained while protecting the Capitol complex.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2021/01/10/another-capitol-police-death-officer-dies-by-suicide-after-responding-to-pro-trump-riot/?sh=5d31f2f470dd
A pardon would only help him with the Federal cases. The State cases would go ahead. Some of them include banking/fraud charges that could put him in prison for lengths of time used in astronomy.
My theory on this is that Biden will give the States "first dibs" on prosecuting Trump - this enables him to avoid the pardon issue, while not getting involved in the issue of "persecuting" a predecessor.
Trump can have his day in Federal court later. It will consist of him turning up in a prison jumpsuit, many years down the line, I think.
He has also a very good sense of his own legend and knows well which parts resonate in various situations, to his audience.