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.
Biden wants to get his programme through. Until last week that was looking iffy due to predicted Republican obstruction. If he can hold the threat of an inquiry over the heads of recalcitrant congressmen but delay implementing it, that might make them a bit more co-operative.
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.
Unless he manages too toxic himself enough to achieve complete irrelevance, Trump can split the Republican vote.
The knowledge of this is his last card with the Republican party, 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.
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.
I don't particularly have an axe to grind on text selection for courses. I did find those in Fox jrs GCSE a bit undemanding in the selected texts, though those at A level were more demanding, indeed quite dull. Not that studying dull topics is a bad thing, as it teaches persistence and perseverance.
Getting the young to read anything for pleasure is the hard bit, and people who don't will never have the cultural depth to place things like Shakespeare into context.
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.
You claim separation of powers means that Biden shouldn't be involved in any move to impeach, yet you suggest Biden will give first dibs to states to prosecute, Biden doesn't give any such dibs, he doesn't get to choose, its called separation of powers and independence of state or indeed federal law enforcement & judiciary to prosecute.
Biden doesn't have an issue to avoid, the rebellion on a pardon would do him enormous damage, so he'd be taking way too big of a risk move to pardon.
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.
At least we've moved on from 'Because authors with a (in some cases tenuous) connection with Scotland are the only essential writers in the English language.'
My wife is a coroner's officer in West Sussex. Temporary morgues were activated a week ago or so. They are debating now whether they need to set up more.
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.
You claim separation of powers means that Biden shouldn't be involved in any move to impeach, yet you suggest Biden will give first dibs to states to prosecute, Biden doesn't give any such dibs, he doesn't get to choose, its called separation of powers and independence of state or indeed federal law enforcement & judiciary to prosecute.
Biden doesn't have an issue to avoid, the rebellion on a pardon would do him enormous damage, so he'd be taking way too big a move to pardon.
It's about why on Earth Biden would want to jump into a tar pit. Impeachment will happen or not without him.
He does indeed have ability to modify the timing of prosecutions. When he assumes control the Executive branch, he could make it policy that the States get to "go first" on any prosecutions. Not as some actual presidential directive - but the Whitehouse would have a certain pull with the Attorney General..... who Biden will be appointing.
He won't pardon - why should he? What reason can anyone come up with - apart from "healing the nation". And for that to be even vaguely viable, Trump would have to own up too his sins. And even then, why should Biden touch it? Politically? Morally?
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 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.
That’s very sad. I can’t help wondering whether it will transpire that this officer gave the rioters a hand in some way.
Other way around I think, his father was a former sergeant-at-arms and chief security official of the U.S. Senate, I think the son took the failure to properly defend the Capitol Building as a personal failure and disgrace to his lineage.
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 two people who can make a difference are Pence and McConnell. Trump will almost certainly be impeached now, so it is a question of does he get convicted or not. 55-65 votes are plausible for conviction without McConnell but either he needs to support conviction or Pence could intervene.
My guess is Pence's remaining loyalty to Trump is purely to the office of the President. Once he is no longer President Pence may commence open battle. If he intervenes in that way it would force the hand of McConnell and mainstream Senate republicans, albeit after Trump has left office.
This should not alarm anyone, these plans were in place in March/April and are perfectly reasonable. There will likely be a need for SOME additional temporary facilities in SOME regions. The release of this story is designed to send a message about how dire it is so the public are struck down by fear, again.
Easy to release all this kind of stuff when you are civil servants, possibly well pensioned, probably are pretty job secure and don't have to worry about how your job is paid for.
Things are difficult but there is no apocalypse. Most of all measures need time to bring things down, at least 2-3 months yet there seems to be this scramble to throw more measures at it with 'we need a stricter lockdown'. People by and large can be trusted, give it time.
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 two people who can make a difference are Pence and McConnell. Trump will almost certainly be impeached now, so it is a question of does he get convicted or not. 55-65 votes are plausible for conviction without McConnell but either he needs to support conviction or Pence could intervene.
My guess is Pence's remaining loyalty to Trump is purely to the office of the President. Once he is no longer President Pence may commence open battle. If he intervenes in that way it would force the hand of McConnell and mainstream Senate republicans, albeit after Trump has left office.
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.
I don't particularly have an axe to grind on text selection for courses. I did find those in Fox jrs GCSE a bit undemanding in the selected texts, though those at A level were more demanding, indeed quite dull. Not that studying dull topics is a bad thing, as it teaches persistence and perseverance.
Getting the young to read anything for pleasure is the hard bit, and people who don't will never have the cultural depth to place things like Shakespeare into context.
It is a challenge. As someone who developed a love of literature at a young age (although I got lazy in later life), I am glad I was challenged. It doesn't work for everyone.
During or after the events in Washington someone posted a pic of the guy wearing an Auschwitz sweat shirt
Well, he has now been named
twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1348390592926134275
I am still very uncomfortable with what is effectively dox'ing on Twitter. If people have identified an individual engaged in criminality / been asked by the authorities to identify them, they should be reporting the names to the police and take it from there.
When they are then arrested / charged, then absolutely report on them.
In Ian M Banks Culture series, many commented that he didn't;'t confront the main issue - in a post scarcity, zero cost of production society, everyone can have everything. So no hard decisions.
The he wrote Excession - where something comes up that reveals the God like AIs of his "Culture" to be just as greedy as others when a unique artefact comes into view.
Strangely, when I talked with him at a book signing about this, he denied that this showed the Culture had the same feet of clay. To him, they were still perfect.
During or after the events in Washington someone posted a pic of the guy wearing an Auschwitz sweat shirt
Well, he has now been named
twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1348390592926134275
I am still very uncomfortable with what is effectively dox'ing on Twitter. If people have identified an individual engaged in criminality / been asked by the authorities to identify them, they should be reporting the names to the police and take it from there.
Those who live by the tweet, die by the tweet. With the Twit-in-Chief being prime example.
During or after the events in Washington someone posted a pic of the guy wearing an Auschwitz sweat shirt
Well, he has now been named
twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1348390592926134275
I am still very uncomfortable with what is effectively dox'ing on Twitter. If people have identified an individual engaged in criminality / been asked by the authorities to identify them, they should be reporting the names to the police and take it from there.
When they are then arrested / charged, then absolutely report on them.
Agreed. And at a more local level, do we need tweets naming rioters posted here on pb. One or two might be fine but as there were over a thousand intruders to be identified and arrested, pb might collapse under the strain, especially for readers on mobile devices.
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.
That’s very sad. I can’t help wondering whether it will transpire that this officer gave the rioters a hand in some way.
Other way around I think, his father was a former sergeant-at-arms and chief security official of the U.S. Senate, I think the son took the failure to properly defend the Capitol Building as a personal failure and disgrace to his lineage.
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 two people who can make a difference are Pence and McConnell. Trump will almost certainly be impeached now, so it is a question of does he get convicted or not. 55-65 votes are plausible for conviction without McConnell but either he needs to support conviction or Pence could intervene.
My guess is Pence's remaining loyalty to Trump is purely to the office of the President. Once he is no longer President Pence may commence open battle. If he intervenes in that way it would force the hand of McConnell and mainstream Senate republicans, albeit after Trump has left office.
I am not sure Pence believes he has a hope of being nominee next time round so he has little to lose in capital. The preferred Republican strategy is not to pour gasoline on the fire and let the next two weeks pass until Trump is out. If he resigns all well and good but otherwise talk and do nothing. In a former job we were taught the importance of occasional inaction and in some cases simply not being somewhere where trouble may be as a way of stopping situations getting messy. The GOP is by and large adopting a similar philosophy
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.
Caro has a great (perhaps overdramatised) account of that at the beginning of Master of the Senate.
MacArthur was a quite remarkable example of hubris. Though his eventual nemesis didn’t quite match the scale.
During or after the events in Washington someone posted a pic of the guy wearing an Auschwitz sweat shirt
Well, he has now been named
twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1348390592926134275
I am still very uncomfortable with what is effectively dox'ing on Twitter. If people have identified an individual engaged in criminality / been asked by the authorities to identify them, they should be reporting the names to the police and take it from there.
When they are then arrested / charged, then absolutely report on them.
It is worth remembering that after the Boston bombing, there was a spate of amateur deceptive work on the internet, using video and photos from social media. Which managed to get a number of "identifications" spectacularly wrong.
Number of claims there, but the one that seems weirdest to me is the one summarised as a claim some countries 'forgot' to join the order for one vaccine, when I'd have thought the whole point of an EU scheme would be you don't have to join such an order, it happens automatically.
This should not alarm anyone, these plans were in place in March/April and are perfectly reasonable. There will likely be a need for SOME additional temporary facilities in SOME regions. The release of this story is designed to send a message about how dire it is so the public are struck down by fear, again.
Easy to release all this kind of stuff when you are civil servants, possibly well pensioned, probably are pretty job secure and don't have to worry about how your job is paid for.
Things are difficult but there is no apocalypse. Most of all measures need time to bring things down, at least 2-3 months yet there seems to be this scramble to throw more measures at it with 'we need a stricter lockdown'. People by and large can be trusted, give it time.
Sounds pretty bad in Enniskillen. This is their hospitals official twitter.
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 two people who can make a difference are Pence and McConnell. Trump will almost certainly be impeached now, so it is a question of does he get convicted or not. 55-65 votes are plausible for conviction without McConnell but either he needs to support conviction or Pence could intervene.
My guess is Pence's remaining loyalty to Trump is purely to the office of the President. Once he is no longer President Pence may commence open battle. If he intervenes in that way it would force the hand of McConnell and mainstream Senate republicans, albeit after Trump has left office.
I am not sure Pence believes he has a hope of being nominee next time round so he has little to lose in capital. The preferred Republican strategy is not to pour gasoline on the fire and let the next two weeks pass until Trump is out. If he resigns all well and good but otherwise talk and do nothing. In a former job we were taught the importance of occasional inaction and in some cases simply not being somewhere where trouble may be as a way of stopping situations getting messy. The GOP is by and large adopting a similar philosophy
Yes I think the Republican party may prefer to wait it out if they can. But Pence is different, his boss sent a mob out to possibly kill him. He will be seething and may be waiting for very public revenge.
In Ian M Banks Culture series, many commented that he didn't;'t confront the main issue - in a post scarcity, zero cost of production society, everyone can have everything. So no hard decisions.
The he write Excession - where something comes up that reveals the God like AIs of his "Culture" to be just as greedy as others when a unique artefact comes into view.
Strangely, when I talked with him at a book signing about this, he denied that this showed the Culture had the same feet of clay. To him, they were still perfect.
Is that really what the author thought about the Culture? I've only read a few of the books and found the Culture pretty sinister, in an understated way.
I did read Excession after it was praised on here, but regret to say did not enjoy it. I don't think I've ever quite 'got' Banks. Controlling AIs is a theme in the Polity books by Neal Asher, and I liked those much more.
Number of claims there, but the one that seems weirdest to me is the one summarised as a claim some countries 'forgot' to join the order for one vaccine, when I'd have thought the whole point of an EU scheme would be you don't have to join such an order, it happens automatically.
That thread is classic of the worse aspects of the EU....
EU decides Pfizer one is too risky and too expensive. Germany come in and throw its weight around and says we have to have the German one, because Germany is in the EU. The French then say, well if we are having the German one, we have to have the French one. MEP tasked with overseeing this, but no idea what is going on.
We have to order this as one right...right...Germany then orders a load for themselves.
During or after the events in Washington someone posted a pic of the guy wearing an Auschwitz sweat shirt
Well, he has now been named
twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1348390592926134275
I am still very uncomfortable with what is effectively dox'ing on Twitter. If people have identified an individual engaged in criminality / been asked by the authorities to identify them, they should be reporting the names to the police and take it from there.
When they are then arrested / charged, then absolutely report on them.
Posting addresses in the public domain is not necessary. Just to the police is fine.
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.
You claim separation of powers means that Biden shouldn't be involved in any move to impeach, yet you suggest Biden will give first dibs to states to prosecute, Biden doesn't give any such dibs, he doesn't get to choose, its called separation of powers and independence of state or indeed federal law enforcement & judiciary to prosecute.
Biden doesn't have an issue to avoid, the rebellion on a pardon would do him enormous damage, so he'd be taking way too big of a risk move to pardon.
Biden WILL have something to say about federal law enforcement, including potential procecution(s) of Trumpsky that are NOT precluded by a pardon. Whether before, during or after any state (most likely New York) action(s).
AND do NOT think Malm meant that BIDEN would pardon The Donald - which obviously is NOT a good bet!
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.
That’s very sad. I can’t help wondering whether it will transpire that this officer gave the rioters a hand in some way.
Other way around I think, his father was a former sergeant-at-arms and chief security official of the U.S. Senate, I think the son took the failure to properly defend the Capitol Building as a personal failure and disgrace to his lineage.
In Ian M Banks Culture series, many commented that he didn't;'t confront the main issue - in a post scarcity, zero cost of production society, everyone can have everything. So no hard decisions.
The he wrote Excession - where something comes up that reveals the God like AIs of his "Culture" to be just as greedy as others when a unique artefact comes into view.
Strangely, when I talked with him at a book signing about this, he denied that this showed the Culture had the same feet of clay. To him, they were still perfect.
Finally the Banks discussion I have been waiting for
I think one of my Iain M. Banks collection has an interview with him at the end as an aside/appendix (off the top of my head it may be The Algebraist). But basically he talks about the challenge of setting up the conflict and drama needed for a decent storyline whilst setting it in effectively a utopic paradise civilisation.
Of course in a lot of the other Culture series novels, the problem is solved relatively trivially by the Culture's enemies and rivals, rather than the Culture itself.
Your point on Excession - I'm not really sure it was greed on behalf of the AI's, just more an element of wanting to present the best side of the Culture to the artefact. Of course, the response turned out to be chaotic (not only because of the Culture to be fair, but still in large part) and they went home realising that they weren't perhaps quite the perfect apex of super-society they thought they were.
During or after the events in Washington someone posted a pic of the guy wearing an Auschwitz sweat shirt
Well, he has now been named
twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1348390592926134275
I am still very uncomfortable with what is effectively dox'ing on Twitter. If people have identified an individual engaged in criminality / been asked by the authorities to identify them, they should be reporting the names to the police and take it from there.
When they are then arrested / charged, then absolutely report on them.
I read that as coming from an arrest: he seems to have been charged with trespass.
Can't do anything by half measures these days I guess. Doesn't seem like it should be hard to not pressure people too much to be model skinny, or demonise fat people, without suggesting healthy is whatever you think it is.
Just cheked my BMI, up to 29.6. Hmm, Christmas bump even larger than usual, I had best get on that.
In Ian M Banks Culture series, many commented that he didn't;'t confront the main issue - in a post scarcity, zero cost of production society, everyone can have everything. So no hard decisions.
The he write Excession - where something comes up that reveals the God like AIs of his "Culture" to be just as greedy as others when a unique artefact comes into view.
Strangely, when I talked with him at a book signing about this, he denied that this showed the Culture had the same feet of clay. To him, they were still perfect.
Is that really what the author thought about the Culture? I've only read a few of the books and found the Culture pretty sinister, in an understated way.
I did read Excession after it was praised on here, but regret to say did not enjoy it. I don't think I've ever quite 'got' Banks. Controlling AIs is a theme in the Polity books by Neal Asher, and I liked those much more.
Yes, it was strange that he saw it that way.
Even after the events related in Look Too Windward - where the Culture is (obviously to me, but not to Banks - I asked him) America and Special Circumstances behaving exactly like the CIA. Complete with torture murder of opponents.
I agree on the sinister aspect. I found it especially in the end of Uses of Weapons - the implication that the drone not merely fixed his body, but rebuilt and modified the mind of you-know-who. So that he could live and be a weapon.
And that was part of the genius of the book - everyone was using everything and everyone else as a weapon. And who was really in the know? Even the hint that he outwitted the Culture....
Number of claims there, but the one that seems weirdest to me is the one summarised as a claim some countries 'forgot' to join the order for one vaccine, when I'd have thought the whole point of an EU scheme would be you don't have to join such an order, it happens automatically.
I don't know about the Covid vaccine deal. In general, the purpose of the joint purchase agreements is to get better terms than you would be offered as a single country. Your country doesn't have to join, but if you do, it's on an equal basis.
It does seem to be something of a prisoners' dilemma. The EU operates too slowly for this environment and if you are nimble you can buy up all the stocks before the EU gets itself organised.
During or after the events in Washington someone posted a pic of the guy wearing an Auschwitz sweat shirt
Well, he has now been named
twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1348390592926134275
I am still very uncomfortable with what is effectively dox'ing on Twitter. If people have identified an individual engaged in criminality / been asked by the authorities to identify them, they should be reporting the names to the police and take it from there.
When they are then arrested / charged, then absolutely report on them.
This should not alarm anyone, these plans were in place in March/April and are perfectly reasonable. There will likely be a need for SOME additional temporary facilities in SOME regions. The release of this story is designed to send a message about how dire it is so the public are struck down by fear, again.
Easy to release all this kind of stuff when you are civil servants, possibly well pensioned, probably are pretty job secure and don't have to worry about how your job is paid for.
Things are difficult but there is no apocalypse. Most of all measures need time to bring things down, at least 2-3 months yet there seems to be this scramble to throw more measures at it with 'we need a stricter lockdown'. People by and large can be trusted, give it time.
I remember reading, way back in classical antiquity, ie February 2020, that the UK plans for a pandemic included a "temporary plague pit in Hyde Park"
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.
Not up to Biden; it’s the job, and prerogative of Congress. I think he’s smart enough not to get in the way.
Rumours that sport, especially racing, might soon be curtailed to free up ambulances. Something similar happened in Ireland back in the spring.
If you want to free up ambulances, then hospitals need to offload arrivals, meaning that paramedics are no longer looking after patients in a van rather than handing over, and going on the next job.
Unless you free up the back door, by creating medical beds in the hospital, you just worsen the situation in the car park.
This is my hospital earlier this week. All those ambulances have a patient in the back that they cannot handover.
You'd be surprised. But though nowadays that is seen as an antisemitic top, not so many years ago it would be seen as an ironic complaint about one's employer piling on too heavy a workload. It is only recently that trivialising the holocaust has been widely acknowledged as antisemitic.
During or after the events in Washington someone posted a pic of the guy wearing an Auschwitz sweat shirt
Well, he has now been named
twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1348390592926134275
I am still very uncomfortable with what is effectively dox'ing on Twitter. If people have identified an individual engaged in criminality / been asked by the authorities to identify them, they should be reporting the names to the police and take it from there.
When they are then arrested / charged, then absolutely report on them.
Posting addresses in the public domain is not necessary. Just to the police is fine.
If I'm understanding this right, it was the COPS who posted this characters name & address, after (previous) arrest for trespassing (in Virginia).
You'd be surprised. But though nowadays that is seen as an antisemitic top, not so many years ago it would be seen as an ironic complaint about one's employer piling on too heavy a workload. It is only recently that trivialising the holocaust has been widely acknowledged as antisemitic.
Coo, not so sure about that, DJL. Can't think that would ever have passed without comment in Stamford Hill or Golders Green.
Number of claims there, but the one that seems weirdest to me is the one summarised as a claim some countries 'forgot' to join the order for one vaccine, when I'd have thought the whole point of an EU scheme would be you don't have to join such an order, it happens automatically.
I don't know about the Covid vaccine deal. In general, the purpose of the joint purchase agreements is to get better terms than you would be offered as a single country. Your country doesn't have to join, but if you do, it's on an equal basis.
It does seem to be something of a prisoners' dilemma. The EU operates too slowly for this environment and if you are nimble you can buy up all the stocks before the EU gets itself organised.
It is nearly too cynical for me, but the following strategy suggests itself...
- Get everyone else signed up to a slow moving common negotiation. - "So Mr Vaccine maker - seems like I am the only one here, cash down. Can I have the first X million please?"
This should not alarm anyone, these plans were in place in March/April and are perfectly reasonable. There will likely be a need for SOME additional temporary facilities in SOME regions. The release of this story is designed to send a message about how dire it is so the public are struck down by fear, again.
Easy to release all this kind of stuff when you are civil servants, possibly well pensioned, probably are pretty job secure and don't have to worry about how your job is paid for.
Things are difficult but there is no apocalypse. Most of all measures need time to bring things down, at least 2-3 months yet there seems to be this scramble to throw more measures at it with 'we need a stricter lockdown'. People by and large can be trusted, give it time.
Can't speak for other areas than Surrey, but the situation in the hospitals is pretty dire here. The saving grace is that new cases have stopped rising for the last few days, and are steady at the very high level they'd reached. Stricter lockdown sounds good to me.
Number of claims there, but the one that seems weirdest to me is the one summarised as a claim some countries 'forgot' to join the order for one vaccine, when I'd have thought the whole point of an EU scheme would be you don't have to join such an order, it happens automatically.
That thread is classic of the worse aspects of the EU....
EU decides Pfizer one is too risky and too expensive. Germany come in and throw its weight around and says we have to have the German one, because Germany is in the EU. The French then say, well if we are having the German one, we have to have the French one. MEP tasked with overseeing this, but no idea what is going on.
We have to order this as one right...right...Germany then orders a load for themselves.
Yes, that is Why Brexit distilled into pure spirit.
If we'd still been in the EU, following orders, we'd have meekly obeyed the Commission, ordered 7 trillion Sanofi jabs to keep Paris happy, stuck by the rules, fair play and cricket and all that, and then watched in amazement as Germany and - to a lesser extent France - secretly pinched a billion Pfizer/AZ jabs of their own, even if France is never going to use them
During or after the events in Washington someone posted a pic of the guy wearing an Auschwitz sweat shirt
Well, he has now been named
twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1348390592926134275
I am still very uncomfortable with what is effectively dox'ing on Twitter. If people have identified an individual engaged in criminality / been asked by the authorities to identify them, they should be reporting the names to the police and take it from there.
When they are then arrested / charged, then absolutely report on them.
There are various online outfits that will print any image you want on a range of hoodies and t-shirts. Many even allow you to setup your own mini-store to sell your designs.
It would be interesting to see what moderation of such things there is. If any.
To be fair, some guy in the print room of a Chinese factory, might have no idea the meaning of what he is hanging up to dry.....
This should not alarm anyone, these plans were in place in March/April and are perfectly reasonable. There will likely be a need for SOME additional temporary facilities in SOME regions. The release of this story is designed to send a message about how dire it is so the public are struck down by fear, again.
Easy to release all this kind of stuff when you are civil servants, possibly well pensioned, probably are pretty job secure and don't have to worry about how your job is paid for.
Things are difficult but there is no apocalypse. Most of all measures need time to bring things down, at least 2-3 months yet there seems to be this scramble to throw more measures at it with 'we need a stricter lockdown'. People by and large can be trusted, give it time.
Sounds pretty bad in Enniskillen. This is their hospitals official twitter.
A number of sites have been under pressure for a few weeks, others on the other hand have had spare. South West Acute Hospital is one of the more under utilised facilities going since the day it opened. Its long term problem is attracting staff which means for its facility size that it often doesn't have the numbers. This is not an unknown problem over here especially with the amount of importation of labour that has had to be done for the NHS staff. Where do you want to go, Belfast or out to Enniskillen lovely as it may be? Outside of Belfast the premier large scale facility is Altnagelvin in Derry and even it has reportedly had some issues recruiting in the past as well but the situation for regional sites is more difficult.
As regards overflow and temporary morgues a number of facilities were identified here back in March/April precisely none of which (I think) were activated. There was a large amount of spaces identified and I would guess some may need to come on stream for say 2-3 months but by no means all because if they all did, we'd be in almighty trouble, not having it tough but subject to overstatement trouble, but proper trouble.
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.
Not up to Biden; it’s the job, and prerogative of Congress. I think he’s smart enough not to get in the way.
That's my take, and for once I'm not sure young Yokes has got that quite right.
I think the impeachment does count for something. He can't run again for one thing and that would hurt his cash flow. I think there may be other issues - pension, security staff etc - which would make less than pleasant for him.
And of course he'd be persona non grata wherever he went, including chokey.
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.
Not up to Biden; it’s the job, and prerogative of Congress. I think he’s smart enough not to get in the way.
That's my take, and for once I'm not sure young Yokes has got that quite right.
I think the impeachment does count for something. He can't run again for one thing and that would hurt his cash flow. I think there may be other issues - pension, security staff etc - which would make less than pleasant for him.
And of course he'd be persona non grata wherever he went, including chokey.
Biden has a role or they would not be asking him to get involved. He can't stop it if Congressional leaders insist on going even if he advises them not to but he can potentially have an influence e.g. suggest another path, either a don't rush it (and that idea has gone round Democrat circles already and is in public domain) or let it go.
I did not say he would or wouldn't but the calls by GOP leaders to him have been made for a reason and I very much doubt the Democrat congressional group would en-masse dismiss any alternatives he may suggest out of hand.
In Ian M Banks Culture series, many commented that he didn't;'t confront the main issue - in a post scarcity, zero cost of production society, everyone can have everything. So no hard decisions.
The he wrote Excession - where something comes up that reveals the God like AIs of his "Culture" to be just as greedy as others when a unique artefact comes into view.
Strangely, when I talked with him at a book signing about this, he denied that this showed the Culture had the same feet of clay. To him, they were still perfect.
Which only goes to show how authors’ creations take on a life of their own.
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.
Not up to Biden; it’s the job, and prerogative of Congress. I think he’s smart enough not to get in the way.
That's my take, and for once I'm not sure young Yokes has got that quite right.
I think the impeachment does count for something. He can't run again for one thing and that would hurt his cash flow. I think there may be other issues - pension, security staff etc - which would make less than pleasant for him.
And of course he'd be persona non grata wherever he went, including chokey.
Biden has a role or they would not be asking him to get involved. He can't stop it if Congressional leaders insist on going even if he advises them not to but he can potentially have an influence e.g. suggest another path, either a don't rush it (and that idea has gone round Democrat circles already and is in public domain) or let it go.
I did not say he would or wouldn't but the calls by GOP leaders to him have been made for a reason and I very much doubt the Democrat congressional group would en-masse dismiss any alternatives he may suggest out of hand.
I think in the best of all worlds, Biden might prefer there to be no impeachment to distract from his first 100 days agenda, and that he might want to bring his influence to bear to stop or delay one.
BUT. There is such anger, not least in Congress, and there is growing evidence by the day that this was much more serious and violent than it appeared on the day. I think the pressure that something must be done, that Trump must be held to account, and that there must be severe consequences are just too great to quash this or kick the can down the road. Biden, being as politically savvy as he is, knows all this - how could be not. Thus I do not think he will intervene at all - he will let the House under Pelosi do what they want and stay the hell out of the way.
For what it's worth, I had the missing thread up on my computer, then reloaded the page. At that point I got an error message, something like "this page cannot be located". Then I right-clicked on "Politicalbetting.com" at the top, and got the main page. Which showed THIS thread as the most recent. The thread AFTER this one was gone.
Comments
Gulp.
The knowledge of this is his last card with the Republican party, I think.
Getting the young to read anything for pleasure is the hard bit, and people who don't will never have the cultural depth to place things like Shakespeare into context.
Biden doesn't have an issue to avoid, the rebellion on a pardon would do him enormous damage, so he'd be taking way too big of a risk move to pardon.
Um and ah and say you're getting The Times a lot cheaper and they'll sort you an even better deal.
He does indeed have ability to modify the timing of prosecutions. When he assumes control the Executive branch, he could make it policy that the States get to "go first" on any prosecutions. Not as some actual presidential directive - but the Whitehouse would have a certain pull with the Attorney General..... who Biden will be appointing.
He won't pardon - why should he? What reason can anyone come up with - apart from "healing the nation". And for that to be even vaguely viable, Trump would have to own up too his sins. And even then, why should Biden touch it? Politically? Morally?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/10/germany-accused-breaching-eu-rules-purchasing-supplies-vaccine/
https://twitter.com/LindsayAWatts/status/1348332737992794118/photo/1
My guess is Pence's remaining loyalty to Trump is purely to the office of the President. Once he is no longer President Pence may commence open battle. If he intervenes in that way it would force the hand of McConnell and mainstream Senate republicans, albeit after Trump has left office.
Well, he has now been named
https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1348390592926134275
Easy to release all this kind of stuff when you are civil servants, possibly well pensioned, probably are pretty job secure and don't have to worry about how your job is paid for.
Things are difficult but there is no apocalypse. Most of all measures need time to bring things down, at least 2-3 months yet there seems to be this scramble to throw more measures at it with 'we need a stricter lockdown'. People by and large can be trusted, give it time.
Which is more important?
When they are then arrested / charged, then absolutely report on them.
IF so, just more blood on the hands of Trumpsky, Giuliani, Cruz, Hawley and the rest of the Putinists who egged on the mob.
The he wrote Excession - where something comes up that reveals the God like AIs of his "Culture" to be just as greedy as others when a unique artefact comes into view.
Strangely, when I talked with him at a book signing about this, he denied that this showed the Culture had the same feet of clay. To him, they were still perfect.
MacArthur was a quite remarkable example of hubris.
Though his eventual nemesis didn’t quite match the scale.
But it seems most places are going to have lessons learned at various different parts of Covid response, we certainly do.
https://twitter.com/olivernmoody/status/1348351187108720643
https://twitter.com/WesternHSCTrust/status/1348332595696775176?s=19
https://twitter.com/roshgauson/status/1348198295856951297?s=21
I did read Excession after it was praised on here, but regret to say did not enjoy it. I don't think I've ever quite 'got' Banks. Controlling AIs is a theme in the Polity books by Neal Asher, and I liked those much more.
EU decides Pfizer one is too risky and too expensive. Germany come in and throw its weight around and says we have to have the German one, because Germany is in the EU. The French then say, well if we are having the German one, we have to have the French one. MEP tasked with overseeing this, but no idea what is going on.
We have to order this as one right...right...Germany then orders a load for themselves.
AND do NOT think Malm meant that BIDEN would pardon The Donald - which obviously is NOT a good bet!
Although I take your "broader" point.
I think one of my Iain M. Banks collection has an interview with him at the end as an aside/appendix (off the top of my head it may be The Algebraist). But basically he talks about the challenge of setting up the conflict and drama needed for a decent storyline whilst setting it in effectively a utopic paradise civilisation.
Of course in a lot of the other Culture series novels, the problem is solved relatively trivially by the Culture's enemies and rivals, rather than the Culture itself.
Your point on Excession - I'm not really sure it was greed on behalf of the AI's, just more an element of wanting to present the best side of the Culture to the artefact. Of course, the response turned out to be chaotic (not only because of the Culture to be fair, but still in large part) and they went home realising that they weren't perhaps quite the perfect apex of super-society they thought they were.
For the record I only used it twice for that purposes.
'Particle physics gives me a hadron'
and
'Bukkake* ruined my carpet'
*Absolutely DO NOT google that if you don't know what it is.
Just cheked my BMI, up to 29.6. Hmm, Christmas bump even larger than usual, I had best get on that.
Even after the events related in Look Too Windward - where the Culture is (obviously to me, but not to Banks - I asked him) America and Special Circumstances behaving exactly like the CIA. Complete with torture murder of opponents.
I agree on the sinister aspect. I found it especially in the end of Uses of Weapons - the implication that the drone not merely fixed his body, but rebuilt and modified the mind of you-know-who. So that he could live and be a weapon.
And that was part of the genius of the book - everyone was using everything and everyone else as a weapon. And who was really in the know? Even the hint that he outwitted the Culture....
It does seem to be something of a prisoners' dilemma. The EU operates too slowly for this environment and if you are nimble you can buy up all the stocks before the EU gets itself organised.
Getting a bit closer now.
I think he’s smart enough not to get in the way.
Unless you free up the back door, by creating medical beds in the hospital, you just worsen the situation in the car park.
This is my hospital earlier this week. All those ambulances have a patient in the back that they cannot handover.
If it's any reassurance, they've been ready since March...
- Get everyone else signed up to a slow moving common negotiation.
- "So Mr Vaccine maker - seems like I am the only one here, cash down. Can I have the first X million please?"
If we'd still been in the EU, following orders, we'd have meekly obeyed the Commission, ordered 7 trillion Sanofi jabs to keep Paris happy, stuck by the rules, fair play and cricket and all that, and then watched in amazement as Germany and - to a lesser extent France - secretly pinched a billion Pfizer/AZ jabs of their own, even if France is never going to use them
NEW THREAD
It would be interesting to see what moderation of such things there is. If any.
To be fair, some guy in the print room of a Chinese factory, might have no idea the meaning of what he is hanging up to dry.....
As regards overflow and temporary morgues a number of facilities were identified here back in March/April precisely none of which (I think) were activated. There was a large amount of spaces identified and I would guess some may need to come on stream for say 2-3 months but by no means all because if they all did, we'd be in almighty trouble, not having it tough but subject to overstatement trouble, but proper trouble.
I think the impeachment does count for something. He can't run again for one thing and that would hurt his cash flow. I think there may be other issues - pension, security staff etc - which would make less than pleasant for him.
And of course he'd be persona non grata wherever he went, including chokey.
I did not say he would or wouldn't but the calls by GOP leaders to him have been made for a reason and I very much doubt the Democrat congressional group would en-masse dismiss any alternatives he may suggest out of hand.
BUT. There is such anger, not least in Congress, and there is growing evidence by the day that this was much more serious and violent than it appeared on the day. I think the pressure that something must be done, that Trump must be held to account, and that there must be severe consequences are just too great to quash this or kick the can down the road. Biden, being as politically savvy as he is, knows all this - how could be not. Thus I do not think he will intervene at all - he will let the House under Pelosi do what they want and stay the hell out of the way.
For various reasons I took the previous post down
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/09/trump-cabinet-resignations-death-star/