The United States is providing a real-life demonstration of the superiority of Parliamentary systems of government.
If a UK Prime Minister tried to defy the courts then they would be dismissed by the Monarch.
The problem with Presidential systems is that there is no way to remove a President who goes rogue, but continues to have the support of their Party.
Parliamentary systems at least ensure that the Head of State is a non-political person who is a lot less likely to go rogue.
A UK PM with the backing of a majority of the Commons could do *anything* that their majority enabled.
Primary legislation could be used to shutdown any legal issue.
If the UK PM is stopped from doing something by courts, and then does things "properly" by passing new legislation, then certainly, the PM can do (nearly) anything.
On the other hand, if the PM just ignores court orders & goes ahead with doing the thing that he was stopped from doing, then the Monarch would use his Reserve Powers to remove the PM.
Something like this happened in Australia in the 1970s. A Labor PM retained a majority in the lower House, but his budget was blocked in the Senate. The PM's response to this to try to get a loan from a dodgy Middle Eastern businessman to try to keep the government running, which was definitely norm-breaking, if not illegal. The Governor General then dismissed the Prime Minister and appointed the Leader of the Opposition as the new PM, and called fresh elections.
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 20m 🚨🚨🚨 So we're hitting a crisis point, with the apparent evasion of court orders on deportations and immigration, plus shutting down agencies, canceling grants, and firing civil servants contrary to law. And claims from DOJ that Article II of the Constitution enables autocracy.
Trump has done some mad stupid shit these last weeks, but deporting violent Venezuelan gangsters to El Salvador is not one of them. It’s also bound to be popular. Are the Dems really gonna fight on THIS hill?
Putting aside who was being deported are you comfortable with governments ignoring the courts ? This time you agree with the decision because of who’s being deported . It doesn’t matter if the decision is popular or not . Next time it might be a decision you disagree with , what if Labour just ignored the courts here . Would you be okay with that ?
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
That speech is one of my favourite of all time. And I believe was also a favourite of the excellent Cyclefree, late of this parish.
It is a good speech, though of course the real Thomas More was happy with rigging the legal system to burn people who had slightly different views on trans issues.
(Transsubstantiation in this case).
Oh absolutely. To my mind he was a thoroughly nasty piece of work...
More certainly was unpleasant to our modern sensibilities. An unpleasant bigot and a royal sycophant.
But given when and where he was born, anything else would have been truly astonishing. The notion of religious tolerance barely existed in the sixteenth century, with the odd exception of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and stirrings in France towards the end, and that was only after some terrible civil wars. And people of those years had much more ingrained respect for hierarchy than we do.
More's murderous intolerance, like Julius Caesar's slaves or Churchill's ingrained racism, was entirely a product of its time. So, just as revering him excessively is ridiculous, I'm not sure if we can really call him a "nasty piece of work" on those grounds.
And of course he'd have regarded us, with our lack of respect for social hierarchy, tolerance of feminism and sodomy and secularism, with just as much uncomprehending disdain as we view him.
I suppose my point, not an original one, is that judging historical figures by today's standards is problematic.
Obviously this is right, but we tend to look at the past through the lives of very powerful people with a lot to lose in a fragile world. These are few in number. Looking at other people gives a different sense. To take some at random. I get no sense that Pepys or Chaucer thought that burning people for thinking different thoughts was fine, or the author of Piers Plowman, or Julian of Norwich.
Both the past and ther present are highly nuanced.
Moore imprisoned a man (in his, Moore's house) because he had been found not guilty of heresy. The chap in question hadn't just confessed, and persuaded a jury that he was not guilty.
The relevant Bishop who had brought the prosecution, had tried to catch the person in question, for heresy several times and failed.
Moore then tried to force the chap to confess - "To save the Bishop's credit"
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 20m 🚨🚨🚨 So we're hitting a crisis point, with the apparent evasion of court orders on deportations and immigration, plus shutting down agencies, canceling grants, and firing civil servants contrary to law. And claims from DOJ that Article II of the Constitution enables autocracy.
Trump has done some mad stupid shit these last weeks, but deporting violent Venezuelan gangsters to El Salvador is not one of them. It’s also bound to be popular. Are the Dems really gonna fight on THIS hill?
Putting aside who was being deported are you comfortable with governments ignoring the courts ? This time you agree with the decision because of who’s being deported . It doesn’t matter if the decision is popular or not . Next time it might be a decision you disagree with , what if Labour just ignored the courts here . Would you be okay with that ?
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
That speech is one of my favourite of all time. And I believe was also a favourite of the excellent Cyclefree, late of this parish.
It is a good speech, though of course the real Thomas More was happy with rigging the legal system to burn people who had slightly different views on trans issues.
(Transsubstantiation in this case).
Oh absolutely. To my mind he was a thoroughly nasty piece of work...
More certainly was unpleasant to our modern sensibilities. An unpleasant bigot and a royal sycophant.
But given when and where he was born, anything else would have been truly astonishing. The notion of religious tolerance barely existed in the sixteenth century, with the odd exception of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and stirrings in France towards the end, and that was only after some terrible civil wars. And people of those years had much more ingrained respect for hierarchy than we do.
More's murderous intolerance, like Julius Caesar's slaves or Churchill's ingrained racism, was entirely a product of its time. So, just as revering him excessively is ridiculous, I'm not sure if we can really call him a "nasty piece of work" on those grounds.
And of course he'd have regarded us, with our lack of respect for social hierarchy, tolerance of feminism and sodomy and secularism, with just as much uncomprehending disdain as we view him.
I suppose my point, not an original one, is that judging historical figures by today's standards is problematic.
Obviously this is right, but we tend to look at the past through the lives of very powerful people with a lot to lose in a fragile world. These are few in number. Looking at other people gives a different sense. To take some at random. I get no sense that Pepys or Chaucer thought that burning people for thinking different thoughts was fine, or the author of Piers Plowman, or Julian of Norwich.
Both the past and ther present are highly nuanced.
Indeed, and there were people, even in the late 19th century, that did not regard the white race as inherently superior. You can generally find unconventional opinions if you look hard enough.
But I still don't judge Churchill morally for racist views, or Thomas More for being a murderous bigot, because the overwhelming consensus in their eras was for jingoistic imperialism and religious fanaticism respectively.
Being a product of your times, like More or Churchill or 90% of us, is understandable and morally neutral. Falling below them (for example burning whole towns of innocent people because a few of them are Cathars or committing ethnic genocide) is reprehensible. And rising above them is extraodinary.
And, because people are complex, the same person can rise above their era in one sphere, or at one time, and fall below it in another respect. And because they live for decades, opinions that were standard when they were young are often outdated when they are old. Churchill's sense of racial superiority, which was normal enough in the 1890s, was even in the 1920s beginning to perturb his Cabinet colleagues and by the time he died was much less acceptable in polite society, even if still held by a large portion of the country.
CNN report on the Brown Univ deportation case, mentioned above. It seems to me that UK media, including BBC, are giving scant attention to the internal USA political crisis, as opposed to the international dimension, though there is (for the moment) lots of USA media/social media covering it. But in fact this USA takeover by crooks is potentially the biggest story for years.
So the punters think Labour most seats and Farage next PM.
An interesting combination.
How long would a Ref-Con coalition hold together in those circumstances?
Labour's problem will be the same as July 24, getting their own voters to turn out. Those voters don't want Reform-lite, and Reform voters want the real thing.
Labour need to make a left wing case for being in government. I forecast a good night for Reform, Greens and LDs in the May locals, and a bad night for both Tories and Labour.
You want Streeting to reinstate NHS England, Cooper to deport fewer people and Reeves to increase welfare and foreign aid ? The window is shifting only one way between now and 2029
Politically, I think Starmer is being quite wise.
It's interesting to speculate who's advising him. I might surmise that after a diabolical first 6 months he's now listening a lot more to the Blairites.
Yes, there's been a huge change in Labour's approach to politics after the terrible budget. I think getting rid of Sue Grey is probably a big part of the reason they're much closer to delivering what the voters want. She always struck me as a roadblock to making big changes to anything and everything. I think once Starmer gets rid of the current AG there may be a point where Labour break back into the mid 30s in the polls as they deport illegal immigrants and foreign criminals more quickly. That is still the universally agreed upon policy in the country and if Labour deliver where the Tories failed it will be a game changer for them.
Can you see him getting rid of Hermer? May as well ditch Milliband too. That seems almost too much to hope for.
Hermer will definitely go in the next reshuffle, I think Starmer just doesn't want to make it look like he's sacking him so will wait until the summer. Miliband has been Reeked anyway, all of his pet policies are being reversed and it looks like they're also going to get rid of the idiotic EV target too.
Normalcy bias. I suspect that for most of the Tories reign post 2019 they would have been expected to win most seats too, simply because they started off with so many more than anyone else, as Labour do now.
But our politics has got more volatile and Labour does not start from a strong position in terms of share of the vote. It may be that the split on the right gives them the same tactical advantage that the Labour/SDP split gave Maggie but I wouldn't count on that just yet.
Yes. I got stung on what I thought was a great price for Con most seats after the 2019 GE. Came out a little ahead on GE2024 in the end, but it would have been a nice profit if it wasn't for that ill-advised punt.
I've been waiting all day for a single headline that states "Trump administration deports 300 in violation of court order" - the actual, undisputed facts of the situation. Instead, mainstream outlets have been twisting themselves in knots to avoid just SAYING WHAT HAPPENED.
The oligarchs that are desperate to stay on the good side of Trusk to avoid their own 'deportations' are unwilling to do so on the platforms they own...
Totally agree. One thing that is going on in MSM coverage is that they are mindful of the fact that 'what is the law on the matter' is currently, and abominably, being contested so that any unqualified statement they make about Trump acting illegally may quite soon be rendered 'legal' by a craven SCOTUS. At which point Trump has them trapped and he has excuses for measures against them.
It may be worth keeping an eye on MSNBC over the next few hours, and also keep an eye on more independent comment such as Bryan Tyler Cohen eg
I've been waiting all day for a single headline that states "Trump administration deports 300 in violation of court order" - the actual, undisputed facts of the situation. Instead, mainstream outlets have been twisting themselves in knots to avoid just SAYING WHAT HAPPENED.
The oligarchs that are desperate to stay on the good side of Trusk to avoid their own 'deportations' are unwilling to do so on the platforms they own...
Silly nicknames like “Trusk” make you look silly and thereby weakens your argument. It also implicitly diminishes Trump’s responsibility for what is happening on his watch
One has to be careful with nicknames, otherwise one might start talking about how Donald 'Tusk' is screwing over Poland by diminishing NATO
So the punters think Labour most seats and Farage next PM.
An interesting combination.
How long would a Ref-Con coalition hold together in those circumstances?
Not quite. IIRC punters think there is an 81% chance that Farage won't be the next PM; and as of the header today a 59% chance that Labour won't get most seats.
Farage is a 19% chance in a Grand National size field with 50 Foinavons entered, and where the only decent horse, the current PM, isn't a runner for 'next'.
Labour most seats is a 41% in a three horse race.
Value? There's a bit of value with Labour; and in the PM Handicap, value in Streeting possibly.
As for me, I am retiring hurt after Cheltenham.
Labour members would likely vote for Rayner over Streeting if Starmer went
It depends when Starmer goes and what has happened by then. Perhaps the NHS will be back to empty corridors and full operating theatres, and nurses will be banging saucepans for Wes Streeting.
But since I fully expect Starmer to follow Wilson into early retirement (and for much the same reason) there might not be too much time left.
Ironically the minister who has made most progress is Ed Miliband, who cost Labour the 2015 election.
Ed Miliband would be a gift to Farage, the progress he has made is hammering industry with net zero
Would he? The kind of person who hates Miliband/Net Zero is likely to be a Reform supporter in the first place. If anything, it would be a gift to the Greens/Lib Dems. It would be particularly harmful for Labour in places like Teesside , where renewables are employing lots of people in areas with historically low economic performance.
A reminder that PB exists in a bit of a climate bubble - Net Zero gets about 74% support, with 76% among Conservative voters.
Depends on the question you ask, phrase the question about the job losses, energy and fuel price rises from pushing net zero too quickly and that support plummets
So the punters think Labour most seats and Farage next PM.
An interesting combination.
How long would a Ref-Con coalition hold together in those circumstances?
Not quite. IIRC punters think there is an 81% chance that Farage won't be the next PM; and as of the header today a 59% chance that Labour won't get most seats.
Farage is a 19% chance in a Grand National size field with 50 Foinavons entered, and where the only decent horse, the current PM, isn't a runner for 'next'.
Labour most seats is a 41% in a three horse race.
Value? There's a bit of value with Labour; and in the PM Handicap, value in Streeting possibly.
As for me, I am retiring hurt after Cheltenham.
Labour members would likely vote for Rayner over Streeting if Starmer went
It depends when Starmer goes and what has happened by then. Perhaps the NHS will be back to empty corridors and full operating theatres, and nurses will be banging saucepans for Wes Streeting.
But since I fully expect Starmer to follow Wilson into early retirement (and for much the same reason) there might not be too much time left.
Ironically the minister who has made most progress is Ed Miliband, who cost Labour the 2015 election.
Ed Miliband would be a gift to Farage, the progress he has made is hammering industry with net zero
Would he? The kind of person who hates Miliband/Net Zero is likely to be a Reform supporter in the first place. If anything, it would be a gift to the Greens/Lib Dems. It would be particularly harmful for Labour in places like Teesside , where renewables are employing lots of people in areas with historically low economic performance.
A reminder that PB exists in a bit of a climate bubble - Net Zero gets about 74% support, with 76% among Conservative voters.
What people are willing to say they support and what people are willing to pay higher prices and taxes for are not necessarily the same.
I agree with others that the mood music coming out of Labour is more savvy of late, and there appears to have been a kind of dawning realisation that the sorts of policies and approach being trailed last summer is going to buy them a one way ticket to disaster. Certainly their media management looks to have improved a lot.
Their problem remains the economy and the legacy of That Budget and Reeves’ general failings. If they can’t get people feeling better off they will continue to struggle for all the better messaging, I think. It would certainly be more than helpful for the government if some key economic metrics start to favour them in the next 18 months.
I've been waiting all day for a single headline that states "Trump administration deports 300 in violation of court order" - the actual, undisputed facts of the situation. Instead, mainstream outlets have been twisting themselves in knots to avoid just SAYING WHAT HAPPENED.
The oligarchs that are desperate to stay on the good side of Trusk to avoid their own 'deportations' are unwilling to do so on the platforms they own...
Totally agree. One thing that is going on in MSM coverage is that they are mindful of the fact that 'what is the law on the matter' is currently, and abominably, being contested so that any unqualified statement they make about Trump acting illegally may quite soon be rendered 'legal' by a craven SCOTUS. At which point Trump has them trapped and he has excuses for measures against them.
It may be worth keeping an eye on MSNBC over the next few hours, and also keep an eye on more independent comment such as Bryan Tyler Cohen eg
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
So the punters think Labour most seats and Farage next PM.
An interesting combination.
How long would a Ref-Con coalition hold together in those circumstances?
Not quite. IIRC punters think there is an 81% chance that Farage won't be the next PM; and as of the header today a 59% chance that Labour won't get most seats.
Farage is a 19% chance in a Grand National size field with 50 Foinavons entered, and where the only decent horse, the current PM, isn't a runner for 'next'.
Labour most seats is a 41% in a three horse race.
Value? There's a bit of value with Labour; and in the PM Handicap, value in Streeting possibly.
As for me, I am retiring hurt after Cheltenham.
Labour members would likely vote for Rayner over Streeting if Starmer went
Especially as Streeting only won his seat by 500 votes . Rayner would certainly get my vote if I was a member and I’d be more likely to vote Labour if she was the Leader .
Rayner's seat is not entirely safe either, it is a Reform target, though she has proved she can win a national Labour members vote unlike Streeting, Rayner got 53% in the final round of the Labour Deputy Leadership election in 2020.
Unlike the Tories Labour MPs can't pick the final two to go to members either, they can only nominate eligible candidates and there is no mechanism for MPs alone to remove a leader without members getting a say in a leadership election too
Normalcy bias. I suspect that for most of the Tories reign post 2019 they would have been expected to win most seats too, simply because they started off with so many more than anyone else, as Labour do now.
But our politics has got more volatile and Labour does not start from a strong position in terms of share of the vote. It may be that the split on the right gives them the same tactical advantage that the Labour/SDP split gave Maggie but I wouldn't count on that just yet.
Yes. I got stung on what I thought was a great price for Con most seats after the 2019 GE. Came out a little ahead on GE2024 in the end, but it would have been a nice profit if it wasn't for that ill-advised punt.
Same on both fronts. I thought Cons most seats was a great trade. Wrong and expensively so. Rescued myself (and more) with a spectacular spread buy of LD seats. Thank you Ed. What a man.
I've been waiting all day for a single headline that states "Trump administration deports 300 in violation of court order" - the actual, undisputed facts of the situation. Instead, mainstream outlets have been twisting themselves in knots to avoid just SAYING WHAT HAPPENED.
The oligarchs that are desperate to stay on the good side of Trusk to avoid their own 'deportations' are unwilling to do so on the platforms they own...
Totally agree. One thing that is going on in MSM coverage is that they are mindful of the fact that 'what is the law on the matter' is currently, and abominably, being contested so that any unqualified statement they make about Trump acting illegally may quite soon be rendered 'legal' by a craven SCOTUS. At which point Trump has them trapped and he has excuses for measures against them.
It may be worth keeping an eye on MSNBC over the next few hours, and also keep an eye on more independent comment such as Bryan Tyler Cohen eg
This is where we seem to be on headlines .. "despite":
Even the Guardian is not going all out. I get the strong impression that even UK MSM, and especially BBC is slightly under orders to keep it as friendly as possible. And they may be acting in self interest too, as presumably their USA staff are in a vulnerable position.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
If it mobilises Democrat turnout for the midterm elections next year
Normalcy bias. I suspect that for most of the Tories reign post 2019 they would have been expected to win most seats too, simply because they started off with so many more than anyone else, as Labour do now.
But our politics has got more volatile and Labour does not start from a strong position in terms of share of the vote. It may be that the split on the right gives them the same tactical advantage that the Labour/SDP split gave Maggie but I wouldn't count on that just yet.
Yes. I got stung on what I thought was a great price for Con most seats after the 2019 GE. Came out a little ahead on GE2024 in the end, but it would have been a nice profit if it wasn't for that ill-advised punt.
Ill advised punt probably applies to most recent Tory leaders in a rhymy slang sort of way.
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 20m 🚨🚨🚨 So we're hitting a crisis point, with the apparent evasion of court orders on deportations and immigration, plus shutting down agencies, canceling grants, and firing civil servants contrary to law. And claims from DOJ that Article II of the Constitution enables autocracy.
Trump has done some mad stupid shit these last weeks, but deporting violent Venezuelan gangsters to El Salvador is not one of them. It’s also bound to be popular. Are the Dems really gonna fight on THIS hill?
Putting aside who was being deported are you comfortable with governments ignoring the courts ? This time you agree with the decision because of who’s being deported . It doesn’t matter if the decision is popular or not . Next time it might be a decision you disagree with , what if Labour just ignored the courts here . Would you be okay with that ?
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
That speech is one of my favourite of all time. And I believe was also a favourite of the excellent Cyclefree, late of this parish.
It is a good speech, though of course the real Thomas More was happy with rigging the legal system to burn people who had slightly different views on trans issues.
(Transsubstantiation in this case).
Oh absolutely. To my mind he was a thoroughly nasty piece of work...
More certainly was unpleasant to our modern sensibilities. An unpleasant bigot and a royal sycophant.
But given when and where he was born, anything else would have been truly astonishing. The notion of religious tolerance barely existed in the sixteenth century, with the odd exception of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and stirrings in France towards the end, and that was only after some terrible civil wars. And people of those years had much more ingrained respect for hierarchy than we do.
More's murderous intolerance, like Julius Caesar's slaves or Churchill's ingrained racism, was entirely a product of its time. So, just as revering him excessively is ridiculous, I'm not sure if we can really call him a "nasty piece of work" on those grounds.
And of course he'd have regarded us, with our lack of respect for social hierarchy, tolerance of feminism and sodomy and secularism, with just as much uncomprehending disdain as we view him.
I suppose my point, not an original one, is that judging historical figures by today's standards is problematic.
Obviously this is right, but we tend to look at the past through the lives of very powerful people with a lot to lose in a fragile world. These are few in number. Looking at other people gives a different sense. To take some at random. I get no sense that Pepys or Chaucer thought that burning people for thinking different thoughts was fine, or the author of Piers Plowman, or Julian of Norwich.
Both the past and ther present are highly nuanced.
Indeed, and there were people, even in the late 19th century, that did not regard the white race as inherently superior. You can generally find unconventional opinions if you look hard enough.
But I still don't judge Churchill morally for racist views, or Thomas More for being a murderous bigot, because the overwhelming consensus in their eras was for jingoistic imperialism and religious fanaticism respectively.
Being a product of your times, like More or Churchill or 90% of us, is understandable and morally neutral. Falling below them (for example burning whole towns of innocent people because a few of them are Cathars or committing ethnic genocide) is reprehensible. And rising above them is extraodinary.
And, because people are complex, the same person can rise above their era in one sphere, or at one time, and fall below it in another respect. And because they live for decades, opinions that were standard when they were young are often outdated when they are old. Churchill's sense of racial superiority, which was normal enough in the 1890s, was even in the 1920s beginning to perturb his Cabinet colleagues and by the time he died was much less acceptable in polite society, even if still held by a large portion of the country.
And likely still held by many Reform and most Tommy Robinson supporters
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Opposition to Trump and his sex slave GOP certainly needs a leader or leaders to coalesce round. It shows the dire straits of the Dems that they can't even rustle up some centrist response to Sanders (normally their reflex action to an outbreak of Bernie-ism).
CNN report on the Brown Univ deportation case, mentioned above. It seems to me that UK media, including BBC, are giving scant attention to the internal USA political crisis, as opposed to the international dimension, though there is (for the moment) lots of USA media/social media covering it. But in fact this USA takeover by crooks is potentially the biggest story for years.
So the punters think Labour most seats and Farage next PM.
An interesting combination.
How long would a Ref-Con coalition hold together in those circumstances?
Labour's problem will be the same as July 24, getting their own voters to turn out. Those voters don't want Reform-lite, and Reform voters want the real thing.
Labour need to make a left wing case for being in government. I forecast a good night for Reform, Greens and LDs in the May locals, and a bad night for both Tories and Labour.
Electoral Calculus projects the Tories will win most seats in the local county council elections in May, Reform will be second, the LDs third and Labour an abysmal fourth
Though if councils like Essex and Norfolk had not delayed elections EC projected Reform would have won most council seats.
Of course London, Scotland, Wales and the big cities aren't holding elections so the only areas that are are the shires which despise Starmer and Labour now
Again electoral calculus is useless in the current scenario with Reform doing so well in the polls, but without an established base. The algorithms are based upon a different political make up. We saw the same sort of thing with the MRP polls.
You mention most seats, not gains/loses, so you may well be correct regarding the Tories because in County elections the Tories do better for obvious reasons, but they WILL lose a large number of seats, which is what the media will focus on.
You mention Essex and Norfolk, but didn't mention Surrey, Oxfordshire etc being cancelled also. They would also have seen huge losses for the Tories, but not to Reform but to the LDs. The net effect is the Tories will lose less than if these Counties had been up in May and Reform and the LDs will do well, but not as well as if these counties had been included. If they were included the Tories would have taken a huge pasting. It is difficult for instance to have seen them hanging onto more than a handful in Surrey. I assume the same for Oxford and (you will know more than me about this) I assume the same for Essex at the hands of Reform.
I agree Reform will do well, but not as well as prediction models, because the models are not set up for their appearance so are far too crude particularly as they haven't yet established a ground game (although they are getting there).
My prediction is Reform, LDs and Greens will make big gains, but because of the Counties excluded and because electoral calculus does a very crude calculation for Reform, Reform will do less well than the calculator's prediction, but it will still be a very good night for them.
Tories and Labour will make big losses, but not to the extent they would have done if the Counties that have been removed were included because many of these would have been the most profitable for LDs, Greens and Reform.
Electoral Calculus MRP has the Tories indeed losing 732 councillors in May but they still would come top with 548 councillors once the delayed councils are excluded.
Reform would be second with 474, the LDs third with 270, Labour fourth with 252 and the Greens fifth with 27 (with Others and Independents on 77)
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Opposition to Trump and his sex slave GOP certainly needs a leader or leaders to coalesce round. It shows the dire straits of the Dems that they can't even rustle up some centrist response to Sanders (normally their reflex action to and outbreak of Bernie-ism).
The Dems should find a leader who says “I agree with everything Trump is doing, absolutely everything, apart from the tariffs and being mean to Canada”
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Opposition to Trump and his sex slave GOP certainly needs a leader or leaders to coalesce round. It shows the dire straits of the Dems that they can't even rustle up some centrist response to Sanders (normally their reflex action to an outbreak of Bernie-ism).
To be honest the Dems could win the midterms with no leader at all if Trump's approval slumps to 40% or less, if it hovers around 50% even a JFK and Obama clone leader wouldn't mean they won
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 20m 🚨🚨🚨 So we're hitting a crisis point, with the apparent evasion of court orders on deportations and immigration, plus shutting down agencies, canceling grants, and firing civil servants contrary to law. And claims from DOJ that Article II of the Constitution enables autocracy.
Trump has done some mad stupid shit these last weeks, but deporting violent Venezuelan gangsters to El Salvador is not one of them. It’s also bound to be popular. Are the Dems really gonna fight on THIS hill?
Putting aside who was being deported are you comfortable with governments ignoring the courts ? This time you agree with the decision because of who’s being deported . It doesn’t matter if the decision is popular or not . Next time it might be a decision you disagree with , what if Labour just ignored the courts here . Would you be okay with that ?
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
That speech is one of my favourite of all time. And I believe was also a favourite of the excellent Cyclefree, late of this parish.
It is a good speech, though of course the real Thomas More was happy with rigging the legal system to burn people who had slightly different views on trans issues.
(Transsubstantiation in this case).
Oh absolutely. To my mind he was a thoroughly nasty piece of work...
More certainly was unpleasant to our modern sensibilities. An unpleasant bigot and a royal sycophant.
But given when and where he was born, anything else would have been truly astonishing. The notion of religious tolerance barely existed in the sixteenth century, with the odd exception of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and stirrings in France towards the end, and that was only after some terrible civil wars. And people of those years had much more ingrained respect for hierarchy than we do.
More's murderous intolerance, like Julius Caesar's slaves or Churchill's ingrained racism, was entirely a product of its time. So, just as revering him excessively is ridiculous, I'm not sure if we can really call him a "nasty piece of work" on those grounds.
And of course he'd have regarded us, with our lack of respect for social hierarchy, tolerance of feminism and sodomy and secularism, with just as much uncomprehending disdain as we view him.
I suppose my point, not an original one, is that judging historical figures by today's standards is problematic.
Obviously this is right, but we tend to look at the past through the lives of very powerful people with a lot to lose in a fragile world. These are few in number. Looking at other people gives a different sense. To take some at random. I get no sense that Pepys or Chaucer thought that burning people for thinking different thoughts was fine, or the author of Piers Plowman, or Julian of Norwich.
Both the past and ther present are highly nuanced.
Indeed, and there were people, even in the late 19th century, that did not regard the white race as inherently superior. You can generally find unconventional opinions if you look hard enough.
But I still don't judge Churchill morally for racist views, or Thomas More for being a murderous bigot, because the overwhelming consensus in their eras was for jingoistic imperialism and religious fanaticism respectively.
Being a product of your times, like More or Churchill or 90% of us, is understandable and morally neutral. Falling below them (for example burning whole towns of innocent people because a few of them are Cathars or committing ethnic genocide) is reprehensible. And rising above them is extraodinary.
And, because people are complex, the same person can rise above their era in one sphere, or at one time, and fall below it in another respect. And because they live for decades, opinions that were standard when they were young are often outdated when they are old. Churchill's sense of racial superiority, which was normal enough in the 1890s, was even in the 1920s beginning to perturb his Cabinet colleagues and by the time he died was much less acceptable in polite society, even if still held by a large portion of the country.
And likely still held by many Reform and most Tommy Robinson supporters
Even though the IQ levels of the Tom-eh supporters are clear evidence against white superiority.
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 20m 🚨🚨🚨 So we're hitting a crisis point, with the apparent evasion of court orders on deportations and immigration, plus shutting down agencies, canceling grants, and firing civil servants contrary to law. And claims from DOJ that Article II of the Constitution enables autocracy.
Trump has done some mad stupid shit these last weeks, but deporting violent Venezuelan gangsters to El Salvador is not one of them. It’s also bound to be popular. Are the Dems really gonna fight on THIS hill?
Putting aside who was being deported are you comfortable with governments ignoring the courts ? This time you agree with the decision because of who’s being deported . It doesn’t matter if the decision is popular or not . Next time it might be a decision you disagree with , what if Labour just ignored the courts here . Would you be okay with that ?
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
That speech is one of my favourite of all time. And I believe was also a favourite of the excellent Cyclefree, late of this parish.
It is a good speech, though of course the real Thomas More was happy with rigging the legal system to burn people who had slightly different views on trans issues.
(Transsubstantiation in this case).
Oh absolutely. To my mind he was a thoroughly nasty piece of work...
More certainly was unpleasant to our modern sensibilities. An unpleasant bigot and a royal sycophant.
But given when and where he was born, anything else would have been truly astonishing. The notion of religious tolerance barely existed in the sixteenth century, with the odd exception of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and stirrings in France towards the end, and that was only after some terrible civil wars. And people of those years had much more ingrained respect for hierarchy than we do.
More's murderous intolerance, like Julius Caesar's slaves or Churchill's ingrained racism, was entirely a product of its time. So, just as revering him excessively is ridiculous, I'm not sure if we can really call him a "nasty piece of work" on those grounds.
And of course he'd have regarded us, with our lack of respect for social hierarchy, tolerance of feminism and sodomy and secularism, with just as much uncomprehending disdain as we view him.
I suppose my point, not an original one, is that judging historical figures by today's standards is problematic.
Obviously this is right, but we tend to look at the past through the lives of very powerful people with a lot to lose in a fragile world. These are few in number. Looking at other people gives a different sense. To take some at random. I get no sense that Pepys or Chaucer thought that burning people for thinking different thoughts was fine, or the author of Piers Plowman, or Julian of Norwich.
Both the past and ther present are highly nuanced.
Indeed, and there were people, even in the late 19th century, that did not regard the white race as inherently superior. You can generally find unconventional opinions if you look hard enough.
But I still don't judge Churchill morally for racist views, or Thomas More for being a murderous bigot, because the overwhelming consensus in their eras was for jingoistic imperialism and religious fanaticism respectively.
Being a product of your times, like More or Churchill or 90% of us, is understandable and morally neutral. Falling below them (for example burning whole towns of innocent people because a few of them are Cathars or committing ethnic genocide) is reprehensible. And rising above them is extraodinary.
And, because people are complex, the same person can rise above their era in one sphere, or at one time, and fall below it in another respect. And because they live for decades, opinions that were standard when they were young are often outdated when they are old. Churchill's sense of racial superiority, which was normal enough in the 1890s, was even in the 1920s beginning to perturb his Cabinet colleagues and by the time he died was much less acceptable in polite society, even if still held by a large portion of the country.
And likely still held by many Reform and most Tommy Robinson supporters
Even though the IQ levels of the Tom-eh supporters are clear evidence against white superiority.
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 20m 🚨🚨🚨 So we're hitting a crisis point, with the apparent evasion of court orders on deportations and immigration, plus shutting down agencies, canceling grants, and firing civil servants contrary to law. And claims from DOJ that Article II of the Constitution enables autocracy.
Trump has done some mad stupid shit these last weeks, but deporting violent Venezuelan gangsters to El Salvador is not one of them. It’s also bound to be popular. Are the Dems really gonna fight on THIS hill?
Putting aside who was being deported are you comfortable with governments ignoring the courts ? This time you agree with the decision because of who’s being deported . It doesn’t matter if the decision is popular or not . Next time it might be a decision you disagree with , what if Labour just ignored the courts here . Would you be okay with that ?
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
That speech is one of my favourite of all time. And I believe was also a favourite of the excellent Cyclefree, late of this parish.
It is a good speech, though of course the real Thomas More was happy with rigging the legal system to burn people who had slightly different views on trans issues.
(Transsubstantiation in this case).
Oh absolutely. To my mind he was a thoroughly nasty piece of work...
More certainly was unpleasant to our modern sensibilities. An unpleasant bigot and a royal sycophant.
But given when and where he was born, anything else would have been truly astonishing. The notion of religious tolerance barely existed in the sixteenth century, with the odd exception of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and stirrings in France towards the end, and that was only after some terrible civil wars. And people of those years had much more ingrained respect for hierarchy than we do.
More's murderous intolerance, like Julius Caesar's slaves or Churchill's ingrained racism, was entirely a product of its time. So, just as revering him excessively is ridiculous, I'm not sure if we can really call him a "nasty piece of work" on those grounds.
And of course he'd have regarded us, with our lack of respect for social hierarchy, tolerance of feminism and sodomy and secularism, with just as much uncomprehending disdain as we view him.
I suppose my point, not an original one, is that judging historical figures by today's standards is problematic.
Obviously this is right, but we tend to look at the past through the lives of very powerful people with a lot to lose in a fragile world. These are few in number. Looking at other people gives a different sense. To take some at random. I get no sense that Pepys or Chaucer thought that burning people for thinking different thoughts was fine, or the author of Piers Plowman, or Julian of Norwich.
Both the past and ther present are highly nuanced.
Indeed, and there were people, even in the late 19th century, that did not regard the white race as inherently superior. You can generally find unconventional opinions if you look hard enough.
But I still don't judge Churchill morally for racist views, or Thomas More for being a murderous bigot, because the overwhelming consensus in their eras was for jingoistic imperialism and religious fanaticism respectively.
Being a product of your times, like More or Churchill or 90% of us, is understandable and morally neutral. Falling below them (for example burning whole towns of innocent people because a few of them are Cathars or committing ethnic genocide) is reprehensible. And rising above them is extraodinary.
And, because people are complex, the same person can rise above their era in one sphere, or at one time, and fall below it in another respect. And because they live for decades, opinions that were standard when they were young are often outdated when they are old. Churchill's sense of racial superiority, which was normal enough in the 1890s, was even in the 1920s beginning to perturb his Cabinet colleagues and by the time he died was much less acceptable in polite society, even if still held by a large portion of the country.
And likely still held by many Reform and most Tommy Robinson supporters
Even though the IQ levels of the Tom-eh supporters are clear evidence against white superiority.
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 20m 🚨🚨🚨 So we're hitting a crisis point, with the apparent evasion of court orders on deportations and immigration, plus shutting down agencies, canceling grants, and firing civil servants contrary to law. And claims from DOJ that Article II of the Constitution enables autocracy.
Trump has done some mad stupid shit these last weeks, but deporting violent Venezuelan gangsters to El Salvador is not one of them. It’s also bound to be popular. Are the Dems really gonna fight on THIS hill?
Putting aside who was being deported are you comfortable with governments ignoring the courts ? This time you agree with the decision because of who’s being deported . It doesn’t matter if the decision is popular or not . Next time it might be a decision you disagree with , what if Labour just ignored the courts here . Would you be okay with that ?
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
That speech is one of my favourite of all time. And I believe was also a favourite of the excellent Cyclefree, late of this parish.
It is a good speech, though of course the real Thomas More was happy with rigging the legal system to burn people who had slightly different views on trans issues.
(Transsubstantiation in this case).
Oh absolutely. To my mind he was a thoroughly nasty piece of work...
More certainly was unpleasant to our modern sensibilities. An unpleasant bigot and a royal sycophant.
But given when and where he was born, anything else would have been truly astonishing. The notion of religious tolerance barely existed in the sixteenth century, with the odd exception of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and stirrings in France towards the end, and that was only after some terrible civil wars. And people of those years had much more ingrained respect for hierarchy than we do.
More's murderous intolerance, like Julius Caesar's slaves or Churchill's ingrained racism, was entirely a product of its time. So, just as revering him excessively is ridiculous, I'm not sure if we can really call him a "nasty piece of work" on those grounds.
And of course he'd have regarded us, with our lack of respect for social hierarchy, tolerance of feminism and sodomy and secularism, with just as much uncomprehending disdain as we view him.
I suppose my point, not an original one, is that judging historical figures by today's standards is problematic.
But excusing things as being "entirely a product of its time" means that we can't criticise anyone in the past at all. It's also ahistorical as it pretends there was no contemporary criticism. For example, in The Leo Amery Diaries: 1929-1945 Amery (Churchill's own Secretary of State for India) wrote "on the subject of India, Winston is not quite sane" and that he did not "see much difference between [Churchill's] outlook and Hitler's"
So the punters think Labour most seats and Farage next PM.
An interesting combination.
How long would a Ref-Con coalition hold together in those circumstances?
Labour's problem will be the same as July 24, getting their own voters to turn out. Those voters don't want Reform-lite, and Reform voters want the real thing.
Labour need to make a left wing case for being in government. I forecast a good night for Reform, Greens and LDs in the May locals, and a bad night for both Tories and Labour.
Electoral Calculus projects the Tories will win most seats in the local county council elections in May, Reform will be second, the LDs third and Labour an abysmal fourth
Though if councils like Essex and Norfolk had not delayed elections EC projected Reform would have won most council seats.
Of course London, Scotland, Wales and the big cities aren't holding elections so the only areas that are are the shires which despise Starmer and Labour now
Again electoral calculus is useless in the current scenario with Reform doing so well in the polls, but without an established base. The algorithms are based upon a different political make up. We saw the same sort of thing with the MRP polls.
You mention most seats, not gains/loses, so you may well be correct regarding the Tories because in County elections the Tories do better for obvious reasons, but they WILL lose a large number of seats, which is what the media will focus on.
You mention Essex and Norfolk, but didn't mention Surrey, Oxfordshire etc being cancelled also. They would also have seen huge losses for the Tories, but not to Reform but to the LDs. The net effect is the Tories will lose less than if these Counties had been up in May and Reform and the LDs will do well, but not as well as if these counties had been included. If they were included the Tories would have taken a huge pasting. It is difficult for instance to have seen them hanging onto more than a handful in Surrey. I assume the same for Oxford and (you will know more than me about this) I assume the same for Essex at the hands of Reform.
I agree Reform will do well, but not as well as prediction models, because the models are not set up for their appearance so are far too crude particularly as they haven't yet established a ground game (although they are getting there).
My prediction is Reform, LDs and Greens will make big gains, but because of the Counties excluded and because electoral calculus does a very crude calculation for Reform, Reform will do less well than the calculator's prediction, but it will still be a very good night for them.
Tories and Labour will make big losses, but not to the extent they would have done if the Counties that have been removed were included because many of these would have been the most profitable for LDs, Greens and Reform.
Electoral Calculus MRP has the Tories indeed losing 732 councillors in May but they still would come top with 548 councillors once the delayed councils are excluded.
Reform would be second with 474, the LDs third with 270, Labour fourth with 252 and the Greens fifth with 27 (with Others and Independents on 77)
At the moment, yes, because Labour are doing quasi right-wing things like increasing defence spending and cutting back on welfare, that the Tories talked about a lot but never really managed to grasp properly.
So, the risk is, both on competence and policy they are outgunned.
The idea of any opposition losing out on perceived competence with Reeves as Chancellor is mildly mindboggling. Kemi announced some policy work recently which is long overdue and it will be interesting to see what they come up with. A coherent opposition is certainly required and I don't see Reform ever fulfilling that role.
How quickly Liz Truss is forgotten.
Rachel Reeves has inherited a dire economic situation, a lunatic in the Whitehouse intent on crashing the global economy and now a consensus that the UK needs to significantly increase defence spending. I don't like many of the choices the govt is making, but she's been willing to make tough choices.
Comes with being in office. 2010 was a pretty tough inheritance too, as was 2019, as it turned out.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
CNN report on the Brown Univ deportation case, mentioned above. It seems to me that UK media, including BBC, are giving scant attention to the internal USA political crisis, as opposed to the international dimension, though there is (for the moment) lots of USA media/social media covering it. But in fact this USA takeover by crooks is potentially the biggest story for years.
"Her lawyer, Thomas S Brown, also said, as reported by The Providence Journal, there had been some “wrinkle” with her visa application"
We have seen these stories related to UK time and time again reported by the Guardian where the wrinkle is glossed over e.g. the granny from Singapore who kept a home in Singapore, had family there, went to and from Singapore on a regular basis and only when her husband died did she try and claim she had to remain in the UK because she couldn't manage in Singapore.
Mrs U works a lot in the US. You don't try and go to the US for work with a "wrinkle" in your visa. The border agents can be absolute brutal in their reading of the rules (regardless of who is president). She has seen colleagues be turned around in the past for not having all the i's dotted and t's crossed.
This is the US law which Trump relied on for the deportations. The government argues, quite literally, that it cannot even be examined by the courts.
Perviously it has been invoked three times in the last couple of centuries, each time when the US was actually at war.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/21 Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government, and the President makes public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies. The President is authorized in any such event, by his proclamation thereof, or other public act, to direct the conduct to be observed on the part of the United States, toward the aliens who become so liable; the manner and degree of the restraint to which they shall be subject and in what cases, and upon what security their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the removal of those who, not being permitted to reside within the United States, refuse or neglect to depart therefrom; and to establish any other regulations which are found necessary in the premises and for the public safety.
Point being that if this particular law is properly invoked (it very probably isn't in this case), then actions taken by the administration to deport anyone of overseas origin are almost beyond judicial review.
If it is a purely political decision to invoke this act, not reviewable by the courts (an absurd idea, IMO, but that is the position of the GOP), then it allows the President to declare that the US is in a state of war at will - which along with other things would allow him to suspend habeas corpus entirely.
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 20m 🚨🚨🚨 So we're hitting a crisis point, with the apparent evasion of court orders on deportations and immigration, plus shutting down agencies, canceling grants, and firing civil servants contrary to law. And claims from DOJ that Article II of the Constitution enables autocracy.
Trump has done some mad stupid shit these last weeks, but deporting violent Venezuelan gangsters to El Salvador is not one of them. It’s also bound to be popular. Are the Dems really gonna fight on THIS hill?
Putting aside who was being deported are you comfortable with governments ignoring the courts ? This time you agree with the decision because of who’s being deported . It doesn’t matter if the decision is popular or not . Next time it might be a decision you disagree with , what if Labour just ignored the courts here . Would you be okay with that ?
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
That speech is one of my favourite of all time. And I believe was also a favourite of the excellent Cyclefree, late of this parish.
It is a good speech, though of course the real Thomas More was happy with rigging the legal system to burn people who had slightly different views on trans issues.
(Transsubstantiation in this case).
Oh absolutely. To my mind he was a thoroughly nasty piece of work...
More certainly was unpleasant to our modern sensibilities. An unpleasant bigot and a royal sycophant.
But given when and where he was born, anything else would have been truly astonishing. The notion of religious tolerance barely existed in the sixteenth century, with the odd exception of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and stirrings in France towards the end, and that was only after some terrible civil wars. And people of those years had much more ingrained respect for hierarchy than we do.
More's murderous intolerance, like Julius Caesar's slaves or Churchill's ingrained racism, was entirely a product of its time. So, just as revering him excessively is ridiculous, I'm not sure if we can really call him a "nasty piece of work" on those grounds.
And of course he'd have regarded us, with our lack of respect for social hierarchy, tolerance of feminism and sodomy and secularism, with just as much uncomprehending disdain as we view him.
I suppose my point, not an original one, is that judging historical figures by today's standards is problematic.
But excusing things as being "entirely a product of its time" means that we can't criticise anyone in the past at all. It's also ahistorical as it pretends there was no contemporary criticism. For example, in The Leo Amery Diaries: 1929-1945 Amery (Churchill's own Secretary of State for India) wrote "on the subject of India, Winston is not quite sane" and that he did not "see much difference between [Churchill's] outlook and Hitler's"
More doesn't come across too well in the Mantel novels.
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 20m 🚨🚨🚨 So we're hitting a crisis point, with the apparent evasion of court orders on deportations and immigration, plus shutting down agencies, canceling grants, and firing civil servants contrary to law. And claims from DOJ that Article II of the Constitution enables autocracy.
Trump has done some mad stupid shit these last weeks, but deporting violent Venezuelan gangsters to El Salvador is not one of them. It’s also bound to be popular. Are the Dems really gonna fight on THIS hill?
Putting aside who was being deported are you comfortable with governments ignoring the courts ? This time you agree with the decision because of who’s being deported . It doesn’t matter if the decision is popular or not . Next time it might be a decision you disagree with , what if Labour just ignored the courts here . Would you be okay with that ?
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
That speech is one of my favourite of all time. And I believe was also a favourite of the excellent Cyclefree, late of this parish.
It is a good speech, though of course the real Thomas More was happy with rigging the legal system to burn people who had slightly different views on trans issues.
(Transsubstantiation in this case).
Oh absolutely. To my mind he was a thoroughly nasty piece of work...
More certainly was unpleasant to our modern sensibilities. An unpleasant bigot and a royal sycophant.
But given when and where he was born, anything else would have been truly astonishing. The notion of religious tolerance barely existed in the sixteenth century, with the odd exception of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and stirrings in France towards the end, and that was only after some terrible civil wars. And people of those years had much more ingrained respect for hierarchy than we do.
More's murderous intolerance, like Julius Caesar's slaves or Churchill's ingrained racism, was entirely a product of its time. So, just as revering him excessively is ridiculous, I'm not sure if we can really call him a "nasty piece of work" on those grounds.
And of course he'd have regarded us, with our lack of respect for social hierarchy, tolerance of feminism and sodomy and secularism, with just as much uncomprehending disdain as we view him.
I suppose my point, not an original one, is that judging historical figures by today's standards is problematic.
But excusing things as being "entirely a product of its time" means that we can't criticise anyone in the past at all. It's also ahistorical as it pretends there was no contemporary criticism. For example, in The Leo Amery Diaries: 1929-1945 Amery (Churchill's own Secretary of State for India) wrote "on the subject of India, Winston is not quite sane" and that he did not "see much difference between [Churchill's] outlook and Hitler's"
More doesn't come across too well in the Mantel novels.
You wouldn't expect him to. He is there to contrast with her hero, the righteous martyr, the blessed Cromwell. I mean George Lucas was REALLY mean about Darth Vader, and don't get me started on poor Tom Riddell.
CNN report on the Brown Univ deportation case, mentioned above. It seems to me that UK media, including BBC, are giving scant attention to the internal USA political crisis, as opposed to the international dimension, though there is (for the moment) lots of USA media/social media covering it. But in fact this USA takeover by crooks is potentially the biggest story for years.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
So the punters think Labour most seats and Farage next PM.
An interesting combination.
How long would a Ref-Con coalition hold together in those circumstances?
Not quite. IIRC punters think there is an 81% chance that Farage won't be the next PM; and as of the header today a 59% chance that Labour won't get most seats.
Farage is a 19% chance in a Grand National size field with 50 Foinavons entered, and where the only decent horse, the current PM, isn't a runner for 'next'.
Labour most seats is a 41% in a three horse race.
Value? There's a bit of value with Labour; and in the PM Handicap, value in Streeting possibly.
As for me, I am retiring hurt after Cheltenham.
Labour members would likely vote for Rayner over Streeting if Starmer went
It depends when Starmer goes and what has happened by then. Perhaps the NHS will be back to empty corridors and full operating theatres, and nurses will be banging saucepans for Wes Streeting.
But since I fully expect Starmer to follow Wilson into early retirement (and for much the same reason) there might not be too much time left.
Ironically the minister who has made most progress is Ed Miliband, who cost Labour the 2015 election.
Ed Miliband would be a gift to Farage, the progress he has made is hammering industry with net zero
Would he? The kind of person who hates Miliband/Net Zero is likely to be a Reform supporter in the first place. If anything, it would be a gift to the Greens/Lib Dems. It would be particularly harmful for Labour in places like Teesside , where renewables are employing lots of people in areas with historically low economic performance.
A reminder that PB exists in a bit of a climate bubble - Net Zero gets about 74% support, with 76% among Conservative voters.
The pursuit of Net Zero is an existential threat to the British economy that results in no benefit to our planet. It has previously been a 'Do you like motherhood and apple pie?' question that no right thinking person would dare oppose, and to a great extent still is. But I suspect the trend is downward as people wise up.
CNN report on the Brown Univ deportation case, mentioned above. It seems to me that UK media, including BBC, are giving scant attention to the internal USA political crisis, as opposed to the international dimension, though there is (for the moment) lots of USA media/social media covering it. But in fact this USA takeover by crooks is potentially the biggest story for years.
"Her lawyer, Thomas S Brown, also said, as reported by The Providence Journal, there had been some “wrinkle” with her visa application"
We have seen these stories related to UK time and time again reported by the Guardian where the wrinkle is glossed over e.g. the granny from Singapore who kept a home in Singapore, had family there, went to and from Singapore on a regular basis and only when her husband died did she try and claim she had to remain in the UK because she couldn't manage in Singapore.
Mrs U works a lot in the US. You don't try and go to the US for work with a "wrinkle" in your visa. The border agents can be absolute brutal in their reading of the rules (regardless of who is president). She has seen colleagues be turned around in the past for not having all the i's dotted and t's crossed.
I think I would wait for what said wrinkle was.
If there was any import to said wrinkle you'd think the authorities(sic) would be highlighting it asap.
I suspect it'll relate to being a bit Muslamic in a manner threatening to the American way of life.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
I don't agree at all. This is rightwing-populist power grab, that will only be defeated by equally mobilising leftwing populism.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
I am certain they will get it. As for Biden Crime Family, I do have to laugh. Trump is running the US government like a mafia don and you’re targeting his predecessor as the crook.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Opposition to Trump and his sex slave GOP certainly needs a leader or leaders to coalesce round. It shows the dire straits of the Dems that they can't even rustle up some centrist response to Sanders (normally their reflex action to and outbreak of Bernie-ism).
The Dems should find a leader who says “I agree with everything Trump is doing, absolutely everything, apart from the tariffs and being mean to Canada”
That would win with about 86% of voters
It'd be nice if he or she also opposed turning the US into an autocracy. But perhaps you can't have everything.
CNN report on the Brown Univ deportation case, mentioned above. It seems to me that UK media, including BBC, are giving scant attention to the internal USA political crisis, as opposed to the international dimension, though there is (for the moment) lots of USA media/social media covering it. But in fact this USA takeover by crooks is potentially the biggest story for years.
"Her lawyer, Thomas S Brown, also said, as reported by The Providence Journal, there had been some “wrinkle” with her visa application"
We have seen these stories related to UK time and time again reported by the Guardian where the wrinkle is glossed over e.g. the granny from Singapore who kept a home in Singapore, had family there, went to and from Singapore on a regular basis and only when her husband died did she try and claim she had to remain in the UK because she couldn't manage in Singapore.
Mrs U works a lot in the US. You don't try and go to the US for work with a "wrinkle" in your visa. The border agents can be absolute brutal in their reading of the rules (regardless of who is president). She has seen colleagues be turned around in the past for not having all the i's dotted and t's crossed.
I think I would wait for what said wrinkle was.
If there was any import to said wrinkle you'd think the authorities(sic) would be highlighting it asap.
I suspect it'll relate to being a bit Muslamic in a manner threatening to the American way of life.
Its her own lawyer is saying there is a wrinkle which is an admission something isn't quite right. They claim it could be sorted, but as I say, when it comes to work visa in the US, you don't risk it, you get it sorted prior to travel.
Mrs U has had to delay travel for work on numerous occasions to ensure everything is in order.
I think waiting to find out what might to some seem trivial, but US takes their paperwork for immigration visas incredibly seriously. And the border agents have on the surface a lot of power to detain and turn you around.
When I was in academia it was a constant frustration at how seeming random the US could be over visas for people to even visit conferences, let alone do a sabbatical, despite stellar academic records.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
I don't agree at all. This is rightwing-populist power grab, that will only be defeated by equally mobilising leftwing populism.
I don't agree at all that Sanders is too mad, I mean. He's the only kind of figure to have purchase in places like working-class Iowa and Michigan, where he's beginning to draw in thousands of people open to him.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
'But he’s gat (sic), and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.'
It is a good job we know your politics @RochdalePioneers because that could be read 2 ways particularly if you stop reading eg
'But he is gay, and appalling as that is ....'
Made me smile anyway as I know you could never mean that. It reminds me of all the times I have left a 'not' out of a sentence and consequently have written something appalling.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
"Biden crime family"?
Can I help you out of that deep rabbit hole?
The levels of cognitive dissonance are astonishing. Let’s assume that Hunter Biden is a bad’un. May be true. But his crimes are rather pale in comparison to Trump’s own ongoing criminality.
What kind of person do you have to be to ignore that gargantuan plank sticking out of your eye because you are performatively excited by the splinter in someone else’s eye?
Trump and the Republicans have a majority now so even if they wanted to the Democrats couldn't block his legislation until at least the midterm elections
What the Democrats primarily need is someone who can articulate a confident and cohesive vision for America, while concisely and charismatically being able to rebut Trumpism.
The problem they have at the moment, I think, is that they are too associated (rightly or wrongly) with the whiff of managed American decline and a perception that they are too far removed from the average American. They need someone with the common touch, who can energise but actually authentically sell a future. They are so vulnerable to the Trumpian claims that they are out of touch, incompetent establishment figures and they need to combat it. They could do with a few more AOCs I think - not necessarily for her politics but just a bit more of an authentic backstory and vision.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
I don't agree at all. This is rightwing-populist power grab, that will only be defeated by equally mobilising leftwing populism.
What does left wing populism look like though? IMO it's hamstrung greatly relative to its right wing equivalent because it can't push the xenophobia nostalgia buttons that are so powerful electorally. Well it can, but then it becomes no better than what it's supposed to be fighting.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
I don't agree at all. This is rightwing-populist power grab, that will only be defeated by equally mobilising leftwing populism.
I don't agree at all that Sanders is too mad, I mean. He's the only kind of figure to have purchase in places like working-class Iowa and Michigan, where he's beginning to draw in thousands of people open to him.
And his "madness" would make him a bit right wing for the UK Labour Party.
This is the guy whose idea is to gradually extend Medicaid and Medicare to cover more and more people, leading to an eventual government insurance option for healthcare.
If you stood up at the Labour Party conference to suggest that, you'd probably be thrown out.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
But he’s gat (sic), and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
It is a good job we know your politics @RochdalePioneers because that could be read 2 ways particularly if you stop reading eg
But he is gay, and appalling as that is ....
Made me smile anyway as I know you could never mean that. It reminds me of all the times I have left a 'not' out of a sentence and consequently have written something appalling.
But he’s gay (without the typo this time), and as appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him
How can you read that as me saying being gay is appalling? It’s appalling that being gay will sink his chances, it really shouldn’t matter. But it will because in Gilead it’s a crime not to be white and straight and Christian. It’s borderline a crime to be a woman as well, especially one who isn’t married and subservient to their husband.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
I don't agree at all. This is rightwing-populist power grab, that will only be defeated by equally mobilising leftwing populism.
I don't agree at all that Sanders is too mad, I mean. He's the only kind of figure to have purchase in places like working-class Iowa and Michigan, where he's beginning to draw in thousands of people open to him.
And his "madness" would make him a bit right wing for the UK Labour Party.
This is the guy whose idea is to gradually extend Medicaid and Medicare to cover more and more people, leading to an eventual government insurance option for healthcare.
If you stood up at the Labour Party conference to suggest that, you'd probably be thrown out.
Bernie is - politically speaking in the American context - mad. And I’m saying that as someone who backed him against Hilary Clinton in 2016. Personally I like his politics an awful lot. I like that he rages against injustice and calls it how he sees it. We need more people in politics like Bernie Sanders.
But - and it’s a big but - there is no way he can get elected. Not now. Which makes him pointless.
CNN report on the Brown Univ deportation case, mentioned above. It seems to me that UK media, including BBC, are giving scant attention to the internal USA political crisis, as opposed to the international dimension, though there is (for the moment) lots of USA media/social media covering it. But in fact this USA takeover by crooks is potentially the biggest story for years.
Their is attention from ex-BBC figures - such as Katty Kay, on the Rest is Politics US. Though personally I'm not a huge fan of that, I listen from time to time.
Has anyone listened to coverage on the BBC World Service? They have the relevant experience of reporting on authoritarian and third world regimes.
It seems pretty clear that the mission is to get rid of as many illegal aliens as possible. And as the definition of “illegal alien” now includes American citizens should we be surprised that things like this happen?
Valid visa? Check. Court order banning removal? Check. Has she been removed? Check.
The court? Likely run by traitors, best ignore.
Where have I heard "judges enemy of the people" before?
There is a difference. Back then the phrase was a headline by the Daily Heil. Now? Official US government policy.
There are still a few people making excuses for the Trump regime. Apparently woke / liberals are the threat to America. But it’s ok, they’re deporting the other people. Except as many have already discovered, Trump’s madness will have a direct negative impact on them.
Ignorance was one of William Beveridge’s five giants. He was referring to the lack of education many suffered. Now? People get the education that past generations aspired to. But are kept deliberately ignorant by an elite who wants them to know only what they are told, rather than an understanding of reality.
Don’t Look Up…
The problem began with the legislature stopping legislating. So we got to the point that the Federal Government (under Obama) was suing to prevent states enforcing *Federal* laws that the Executive Branch didn't like.
So the courts became the new legislature. Which sounds nice, if you are progressive lawyer. My New York relatives thought this was great.
Then the Tea Party (and later MAGA) types realised that what you need to do is take control of the process of appointing judges from the ground up. Fill all the junior appointments with like minded people - they will filter up. Then only vote for politicians who will "Deliver Our Judges".
Even if the Democrats win a landslide in 2026 and the Presidency in 2028, they will now be fighting a system that is designed against them.
The warning for the UK is that the Executive needs to execute, the Legislature needs to legislate and the Judicial, judge. One part trying to use the courts for political cover and triangulation is a disaster.
That's a somewhat abbreviated history. The oversized role of the courts in US lawmaking goes back much further, arguably to when the Supreme Court invented for themselves the power to overrule the legislature in 1803.
The collapse of bipartisanship, which has largely been driven by the GOP, then pushed executives into finding other routes by which to govern. The frequent cohabitation produced by the US system, where Democrats more often won Presidential elections, but the Republicans often had control of the Senate, meant it was often Democrat executives doing that. But I think it's misleading to suggest that Democrats invented using the courts in this way.
The Democrats need to choose which battle to fight. They can't accuse Trump of waging a war on working families while they use the courts to block deportations.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
I don't agree at all. This is rightwing-populist power grab, that will only be defeated by equally mobilising leftwing populism.
I don't agree at all that Sanders is too mad, I mean. He's the only kind of figure to have purchase in places like working-class Iowa and Michigan, where he's beginning to draw in thousands of people open to him.
And his "madness" would make him a bit right wing for the UK Labour Party.
This is the guy whose idea is to gradually extend Medicaid and Medicare to cover more and more people, leading to an eventual government insurance option for healthcare.
If you stood up at the Labour Party conference to suggest that, you'd probably be thrown out.
It is interesting that PB Tories started their critique of the Starmer Government as being the most left wing in history. Now the analysis is one of the Starmer Government is more right wing than Tommeh. Make your minds up.
Although tbf the Starmer Government doesn't look like radical socialism to me either.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
I don't agree at all. This is rightwing-populist power grab, that will only be defeated by equally mobilising leftwing populism.
I don't agree at all that Sanders is too mad, I mean. He's the only kind of figure to have purchase in places like working-class Iowa and Michigan, where he's beginning to draw in thousands of people open to him.
And his "madness" would make him a bit right wing for the UK Labour Party.
This is the guy whose idea is to gradually extend Medicaid and Medicare to cover more and more people, leading to an eventual government insurance option for healthcare.
If you stood up at the Labour Party conference to suggest that, you'd probably be thrown out.
Bernie is - politically speaking in the American context - mad. And I’m saying that as someone who backed him against Hilary Clinton in 2016. Personally I like his politics an awful lot. I like that he rages against injustice and calls it how he sees it. We need more people in politics like Bernie Sanders.
But - and it’s a big but - there is no way he can get elected. Not now. Which makes him pointless.
If social security collapses, and governmental systems start to fail, as they are already starting to, I think he could be elected, quite easily.
People look to an equally radical response, in those kind of situations.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
"Biden crime family"?
Can I help you out of that deep rabbit hole?
The levels of cognitive dissonance are astonishing. Let’s assume that Hunter Biden is a bad’un. May be true. But his crimes are rather pale in comparison to Trump’s own ongoing criminality.
What kind of person do you have to be to ignore that gargantuan plank sticking out of your eye because you are performatively excited by the splinter in someone else’s eye?
The kind of person Trump is filling his Administration with.
"From a historical point of view it’s cool to see that modern spacecraft still use the red (port) and green (starboard) lights established by the UK Steam Navigation Act in 1846."
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 20m 🚨🚨🚨 So we're hitting a crisis point, with the apparent evasion of court orders on deportations and immigration, plus shutting down agencies, canceling grants, and firing civil servants contrary to law. And claims from DOJ that Article II of the Constitution enables autocracy.
Trump has done some mad stupid shit these last weeks, but deporting violent Venezuelan gangsters to El Salvador is not one of them. It’s also bound to be popular. Are the Dems really gonna fight on THIS hill?
Putting aside who was being deported are you comfortable with governments ignoring the courts ? This time you agree with the decision because of who’s being deported . It doesn’t matter if the decision is popular or not . Next time it might be a decision you disagree with , what if Labour just ignored the courts here . Would you be okay with that ?
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
That speech is one of my favourite of all time. And I believe was also a favourite of the excellent Cyclefree, late of this parish.
It is a good speech, though of course the real Thomas More was happy with rigging the legal system to burn people who had slightly different views on trans issues.
(Transsubstantiation in this case).
Oh absolutely. To my mind he was a thoroughly nasty piece of work...
More certainly was unpleasant to our modern sensibilities. An unpleasant bigot and a royal sycophant.
But given when and where he was born, anything else would have been truly astonishing. The notion of religious tolerance barely existed in the sixteenth century, with the odd exception of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and stirrings in France towards the end, and that was only after some terrible civil wars. And people of those years had much more ingrained respect for hierarchy than we do.
More's murderous intolerance, like Julius Caesar's slaves or Churchill's ingrained racism, was entirely a product of its time. So, just as revering him excessively is ridiculous, I'm not sure if we can really call him a "nasty piece of work" on those grounds.
And of course he'd have regarded us, with our lack of respect for social hierarchy, tolerance of feminism and sodomy and secularism, with just as much uncomprehending disdain as we view him.
I suppose my point, not an original one, is that judging historical figures by today's standards is problematic.
Obviously this is right, but we tend to look at the past through the lives of very powerful people with a lot to lose in a fragile world. These are few in number. Looking at other people gives a different sense. To take some at random. I get no sense that Pepys or Chaucer thought that burning people for thinking different thoughts was fine, or the author of Piers Plowman, or Julian of Norwich.
Both the past and ther present are highly nuanced.
Indeed, and there were people, even in the late 19th century, that did not regard the white race as inherently superior. You can generally find unconventional opinions if you look hard enough.
But I still don't judge Churchill morally for racist views, or Thomas More for being a murderous bigot, because the overwhelming consensus in their eras was for jingoistic imperialism and religious fanaticism respectively.
Being a product of your times, like More or Churchill or 90% of us, is understandable and morally neutral. Falling below them (for example burning whole towns of innocent people because a few of them are Cathars or committing ethnic genocide) is reprehensible. And rising above them is extraodinary.
And, because people are complex, the same person can rise above their era in one sphere, or at one time, and fall below it in another respect. And because they live for decades, opinions that were standard when they were young are often outdated when they are old. Churchill's sense of racial superiority, which was normal enough in the 1890s, was even in the 1920s beginning to perturb his Cabinet colleagues and by the time he died was much less acceptable in polite society, even if still held by a large portion of the country.
And likely still held by many Reform and most Tommy Robinson supporters
Even though the IQ levels of the Tom-eh supporters are clear evidence against white superiority.
He's less racist than the average Estonian.
Makes more sense if you replace Estonian with Etonian.
CNN report on the Brown Univ deportation case, mentioned above. It seems to me that UK media, including BBC, are giving scant attention to the internal USA political crisis, as opposed to the international dimension, though there is (for the moment) lots of USA media/social media covering it. But in fact this USA takeover by crooks is potentially the biggest story for years.
Their is attention from ex-BBC figures - such as Katty Kay, on the Rest is Politics US. Though personally I'm not a huge fan of that, I listen from time to time.
Has anyone listened to coverage on the BBC World Service? They have the relevant experience of reporting on authoritarian and third world regimes.
It seems pretty clear that the mission is to get rid of as many illegal aliens as possible. And as the definition of “illegal alien” now includes American citizens should we be surprised that things like this happen?
Valid visa? Check. Court order banning removal? Check. Has she been removed? Check.
The court? Likely run by traitors, best ignore.
Where have I heard "judges enemy of the people" before?
There is a difference. Back then the phrase was a headline by the Daily Heil. Now? Official US government policy.
There are still a few people making excuses for the Trump regime. Apparently woke / liberals are the threat to America. But it’s ok, they’re deporting the other people. Except as many have already discovered, Trump’s madness will have a direct negative impact on them.
Ignorance was one of William Beveridge’s five giants. He was referring to the lack of education many suffered. Now? People get the education that past generations aspired to. But are kept deliberately ignorant by an elite who wants them to know only what they are told, rather than an understanding of reality.
Don’t Look Up…
The problem began with the legislature stopping legislating. So we got to the point that the Federal Government (under Obama) was suing to prevent states enforcing *Federal* laws that the Executive Branch didn't like.
So the courts became the new legislature. Which sounds nice, if you are progressive lawyer. My New York relatives thought this was great.
Then the Tea Party (and later MAGA) types realised that what you need to do is take control of the process of appointing judges from the ground up. Fill all the junior appointments with like minded people - they will filter up. Then only vote for politicians who will "Deliver Our Judges".
Even if the Democrats win a landslide in 2026 and the Presidency in 2028, they will now be fighting a system that is designed against them.
The warning for the UK is that the Executive needs to execute, the Legislature needs to legislate and the Judicial, judge. One part trying to use the courts for political cover and triangulation is a disaster.
That's a somewhat abbreviated history. The oversized role of the courts in US lawmaking goes back much further, arguably to when the Supreme Court invented for themselves the power to overrule the legislature in 1803.
The collapse of bipartisanship, which has largely been driven by the GOP, then pushed executives into finding other routes by which to govern. The frequent cohabitation produced by the US system, where Democrats more often won Presidential elections, but the Republicans often had control of the Senate, meant it was often Democrat executives doing that. But I think it's misleading to suggest that Democrats invented using the courts in this way.
The current argument goes way beyond that, though. This is about Trump claiming wartime powers - only rarely used even in wartime - in peacetime.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
But he’s gat (sic), and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
It is a good job we know your politics @RochdalePioneers because that could be read 2 ways particularly if you stop reading eg
But he is gay, and appalling as that is ....
Made me smile anyway as I know you could never mean that. It reminds me of all the times I have left a 'not' out of a sentence and consequently have written something appalling.
But he’s gay (without the typo this time), and as appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him
How can you read that as me saying being gay is appalling? It’s appalling that being gay will sink his chances, it really shouldn’t matter. But it will because in Gilead it’s a crime not to be white and straight and Christian. It’s borderline a crime to be a woman as well, especially one who isn’t married and subservient to their husband.
Oh I agree with you 100% @RochdalePioneers and was only jesting with you, but you must be able to see that someone who doesn't know you could read it another way eg appalling to be gay.
It made me smile because I regularly type sentences that can be read incorrectly and I appreciate that there was nothing wrong with your sentence, but it is easy to read it incorrectly and I know that the incorrect reading would horrify you.
CNN report on the Brown Univ deportation case, mentioned above. It seems to me that UK media, including BBC, are giving scant attention to the internal USA political crisis, as opposed to the international dimension, though there is (for the moment) lots of USA media/social media covering it. But in fact this USA takeover by crooks is potentially the biggest story for years.
Their is attention from ex-BBC figures - such as Katty Kay, on the Rest is Politics US. Though personally I'm not a huge fan of that, I listen from time to time.
Has anyone listened to coverage on the BBC World Service? They have the relevant experience of reporting on authoritarian and third world regimes.
It seems pretty clear that the mission is to get rid of as many illegal aliens as possible. And as the definition of “illegal alien” now includes American citizens should we be surprised that things like this happen?
Valid visa? Check. Court order banning removal? Check. Has she been removed? Check.
The court? Likely run by traitors, best ignore.
Where have I heard "judges enemy of the people" before?
There is a difference. Back then the phrase was a headline by the Daily Heil. Now? Official US government policy.
There are still a few people making excuses for the Trump regime. Apparently woke / liberals are the threat to America. But it’s ok, they’re deporting the other people. Except as many have already discovered, Trump’s madness will have a direct negative impact on them.
Ignorance was one of William Beveridge’s five giants. He was referring to the lack of education many suffered. Now? People get the education that past generations aspired to. But are kept deliberately ignorant by an elite who wants them to know only what they are told, rather than an understanding of reality.
Don’t Look Up…
The problem began with the legislature stopping legislating. So we got to the point that the Federal Government (under Obama) was suing to prevent states enforcing *Federal* laws that the Executive Branch didn't like.
So the courts became the new legislature. Which sounds nice, if you are progressive lawyer. My New York relatives thought this was great.
Then the Tea Party (and later MAGA) types realised that what you need to do is take control of the process of appointing judges from the ground up. Fill all the junior appointments with like minded people - they will filter up. Then only vote for politicians who will "Deliver Our Judges".
Even if the Democrats win a landslide in 2026 and the Presidency in 2028, they will now be fighting a system that is designed against them.
The warning for the UK is that the Executive needs to execute, the Legislature needs to legislate and the Judicial, judge. One part trying to use the courts for political cover and triangulation is a disaster.
That's a somewhat abbreviated history. The oversized role of the courts in US lawmaking goes back much further, arguably to when the Supreme Court invented for themselves the power to overrule the legislature in 1803.
The collapse of bipartisanship, which has largely been driven by the GOP, then pushed executives into finding other routes by which to govern. The frequent cohabitation produced by the US system, where Democrats more often won Presidential elections, but the Republicans often had control of the Senate, meant it was often Democrat executives doing that. But I think it's misleading to suggest that Democrats invented using the courts in this way.
Both parties stated playing the game - unsurprising, given the number of lawyers on both sides.
It was also a way of getting re-elected. Stop supporting policies or doing anything in the legislature. See the collapse of the budget process.
CNN report on the Brown Univ deportation case, mentioned above. It seems to me that UK media, including BBC, are giving scant attention to the internal USA political crisis, as opposed to the international dimension, though there is (for the moment) lots of USA media/social media covering it. But in fact this USA takeover by crooks is potentially the biggest story for years.
Their is attention from ex-BBC figures - such as Katty Kay, on the Rest is Politics US. Though personally I'm not a huge fan of that, I listen from time to time.
Has anyone listened to coverage on the BBC World Service? They have the relevant experience of reporting on authoritarian and third world regimes.
It seems pretty clear that the mission is to get rid of as many illegal aliens as possible. And as the definition of “illegal alien” now includes American citizens should we be surprised that things like this happen?
Valid visa? Check. Court order banning removal? Check. Has she been removed? Check.
The court? Likely run by traitors, best ignore.
Where have I heard "judges enemy of the people" before?
There is a difference. Back then the phrase was a headline by the Daily Heil. Now? Official US government policy.
There are still a few people making excuses for the Trump regime. Apparently woke / liberals are the threat to America. But it’s ok, they’re deporting the other people. Except as many have already discovered, Trump’s madness will have a direct negative impact on them.
Ignorance was one of William Beveridge’s five giants. He was referring to the lack of education many suffered. Now? People get the education that past generations aspired to. But are kept deliberately ignorant by an elite who wants them to know only what they are told, rather than an understanding of reality.
Don’t Look Up…
The problem began with the legislature stopping legislating. So we got to the point that the Federal Government (under Obama) was suing to prevent states enforcing *Federal* laws that the Executive Branch didn't like.
So the courts became the new legislature. Which sounds nice, if you are progressive lawyer. My New York relatives thought this was great.
Then the Tea Party (and later MAGA) types realised that what you need to do is take control of the process of appointing judges from the ground up. Fill all the junior appointments with like minded people - they will filter up. Then only vote for politicians who will "Deliver Our Judges".
Even if the Democrats win a landslide in 2026 and the Presidency in 2028, they will now be fighting a system that is designed against them.
The warning for the UK is that the Executive needs to execute, the Legislature needs to legislate and the Judicial, judge. One part trying to use the courts for political cover and triangulation is a disaster.
That's a somewhat abbreviated history. The oversized role of the courts in US lawmaking goes back much further, arguably to when the Supreme Court invented for themselves the power to overrule the legislature in 1803.
The collapse of bipartisanship, which has largely been driven by the GOP, then pushed executives into finding other routes by which to govern. The frequent cohabitation produced by the US system, where Democrats more often won Presidential elections, but the Republicans often had control of the Senate, meant it was often Democrat executives doing that. But I think it's misleading to suggest that Democrats invented using the courts in this way.
The current argument goes way beyond that, though. This is about Trump claiming wartime powers - only rarely used even in wartime - in peacetime.
According to Fiona Hill we are in WW3 already. If you take that claim seriously then you do have to expect states to behave as such.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
I don't agree at all. This is rightwing-populist power grab, that will only be defeated by equally mobilising leftwing populism.
I don't agree at all that Sanders is too mad, I mean. He's the only kind of figure to have purchase in places like working-class Iowa and Michigan, where he's beginning to draw in thousands of people open to him.
And his "madness" would make him a bit right wing for the UK Labour Party.
This is the guy whose idea is to gradually extend Medicaid and Medicare to cover more and more people, leading to an eventual government insurance option for healthcare.
If you stood up at the Labour Party conference to suggest that, you'd probably be thrown out.
Bernie is - politically speaking in the American context - mad. And I’m saying that as someone who backed him against Hilary Clinton in 2016. Personally I like his politics an awful lot. I like that he rages against injustice and calls it how he sees it. We need more people in politics like Bernie Sanders.
But - and it’s a big but - there is no way he can get elected. Not now. Which makes him pointless.
If social security collapses, and governmental systems start to fail, as they are already starting to, I think he could be elected, quite easily.
People look to an equally radical response, in those kind of situations.
He is 83. The US is increasingly a gerontocracy but I am not convinced someone who will be 87 at the time of the next presidential election should be the standard bearer of the opposition, particularly given the problems they had with Biden.
They need someone with the passion of Sanders but the man himself is too much of a stretch.
CNN report on the Brown Univ deportation case, mentioned above. It seems to me that UK media, including BBC, are giving scant attention to the internal USA political crisis, as opposed to the international dimension, though there is (for the moment) lots of USA media/social media covering it. But in fact this USA takeover by crooks is potentially the biggest story for years.
Their is attention from ex-BBC figures - such as Katty Kay, on the Rest is Politics US. Though personally I'm not a huge fan of that, I listen from time to time.
Has anyone listened to coverage on the BBC World Service? They have the relevant experience of reporting on authoritarian and third world regimes.
It seems pretty clear that the mission is to get rid of as many illegal aliens as possible. And as the definition of “illegal alien” now includes American citizens should we be surprised that things like this happen?
Valid visa? Check. Court order banning removal? Check. Has she been removed? Check.
The court? Likely run by traitors, best ignore.
Where have I heard "judges enemy of the people" before?
There is a difference. Back then the phrase was a headline by the Daily Heil. Now? Official US government policy.
There are still a few people making excuses for the Trump regime. Apparently woke / liberals are the threat to America. But it’s ok, they’re deporting the other people. Except as many have already discovered, Trump’s madness will have a direct negative impact on them.
Ignorance was one of William Beveridge’s five giants. He was referring to the lack of education many suffered. Now? People get the education that past generations aspired to. But are kept deliberately ignorant by an elite who wants them to know only what they are told, rather than an understanding of reality.
Don’t Look Up…
The problem began with the legislature stopping legislating. So we got to the point that the Federal Government (under Obama) was suing to prevent states enforcing *Federal* laws that the Executive Branch didn't like.
So the courts became the new legislature. Which sounds nice, if you are progressive lawyer. My New York relatives thought this was great.
Then the Tea Party (and later MAGA) types realised that what you need to do is take control of the process of appointing judges from the ground up. Fill all the junior appointments with like minded people - they will filter up. Then only vote for politicians who will "Deliver Our Judges".
Even if the Democrats win a landslide in 2026 and the Presidency in 2028, they will now be fighting a system that is designed against them.
The warning for the UK is that the Executive needs to execute, the Legislature needs to legislate and the Judicial, judge. One part trying to use the courts for political cover and triangulation is a disaster.
That's a somewhat abbreviated history. The oversized role of the courts in US lawmaking goes back much further, arguably to when the Supreme Court invented for themselves the power to overrule the legislature in 1803.
The collapse of bipartisanship, which has largely been driven by the GOP, then pushed executives into finding other routes by which to govern. The frequent cohabitation produced by the US system, where Democrats more often won Presidential elections, but the Republicans often had control of the Senate, meant it was often Democrat executives doing that. But I think it's misleading to suggest that Democrats invented using the courts in this way.
The current argument goes way beyond that, though. This is about Trump claiming wartime powers - only rarely used even in wartime - in peacetime.
According to Fiona Hill we are in WW3 already. If you take that claim seriously then you do have to expect states to behave as such.
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 20m 🚨🚨🚨 So we're hitting a crisis point, with the apparent evasion of court orders on deportations and immigration, plus shutting down agencies, canceling grants, and firing civil servants contrary to law. And claims from DOJ that Article II of the Constitution enables autocracy.
Trump has done some mad stupid shit these last weeks, but deporting violent Venezuelan gangsters to El Salvador is not one of them. It’s also bound to be popular. Are the Dems really gonna fight on THIS hill?
Putting aside who was being deported are you comfortable with governments ignoring the courts ? This time you agree with the decision because of who’s being deported . It doesn’t matter if the decision is popular or not . Next time it might be a decision you disagree with , what if Labour just ignored the courts here . Would you be okay with that ?
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
That speech is one of my favourite of all time. And I believe was also a favourite of the excellent Cyclefree, late of this parish.
It is a good speech, though of course the real Thomas More was happy with rigging the legal system to burn people who had slightly different views on trans issues.
(Transsubstantiation in this case).
Oh absolutely. To my mind he was a thoroughly nasty piece of work...
More certainly was unpleasant to our modern sensibilities. An unpleasant bigot and a royal sycophant.
But given when and where he was born, anything else would have been truly astonishing. The notion of religious tolerance barely existed in the sixteenth century, with the odd exception of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and stirrings in France towards the end, and that was only after some terrible civil wars. And people of those years had much more ingrained respect for hierarchy than we do.
More's murderous intolerance, like Julius Caesar's slaves or Churchill's ingrained racism, was entirely a product of its time. So, just as revering him excessively is ridiculous, I'm not sure if we can really call him a "nasty piece of work" on those grounds.
And of course he'd have regarded us, with our lack of respect for social hierarchy, tolerance of feminism and sodomy and secularism, with just as much uncomprehending disdain as we view him.
I suppose my point, not an original one, is that judging historical figures by today's standards is problematic.
But excusing things as being "entirely a product of its time" means that we can't criticise anyone in the past at all. It's also ahistorical as it pretends there was no contemporary criticism. For example, in The Leo Amery Diaries: 1929-1945 Amery (Churchill's own Secretary of State for India) wrote "on the subject of India, Winston is not quite sane" and that he did not "see much difference between [Churchill's] outlook and Hitler's"
Trying to deal with values dissonance, when studying history, is fascinating. The way I approach it is this:
1. One tries to see the world through the eyes of people who lived at the time. The fact that we might see their values as abhorrent, does not necessarily make them bad people. They would see many of our values as abhorrent, as will people alive a century from now. A bit of humility is required.
2. For most of history, most societies operated at not far above subsistence level. A modern rich world country has a standard of living thirty to forty times subsistence. That makes a very big difference to a whole range of attitudes and behaviours, in past times.
3. Showing sympathy for individuals does not mean one should not condemn some beliefs and practices as wrong. Chattel slavery was widespread throughout history, but then so were genocide, rape, child abuse, and murder. One does not need to pretend that such things were *good*. Not every slave owner was an evil man, but in any time and place, people had the right to *resist* being made into slaves, and to escape that condition if they could, the same way they have always been entitled to resist murder, rape, kidnap.
4. Did a particular figure behave better or worse than contemporaries? People like Alfred the Great, Saladdin, many Eastern Roman emperors, might seem harsh to a modern eye. To contemporaries, they would have appeared exceedingly generous and lenient towards enemies. Alfred spared Guthrum, when torturing him to death would have been considered legitimate. Saladdin and his brother each released their share of the captives at Jerusalem, without ramsom. Eastern Emperors typically confined their rivals and family members to monasteries and convents, rather than butchering them.
Conversely, there are those who were cruel and vicious, even in the eyes of contemporaries. William the Conqueror's Harrying of the North was shocking, even to contemporaries. Edward I introduced hanging, drawing, and quartering, into English law, laughed at the drowning of Jews that he expelled from England, and pursued wars of unusual brutality in Wales and Scotland. Henry VIII was cruel and faithless, even by contemporary norms. Robert Clive was despised by men like Samuel Johnson and Adam Smith. Vedius Pollio disgusted Augustus, by feeding slaves who offended him to his Moray eels.
The Democrats need to choose which battle to fight. They can't accuse Trump of waging a war on working families while they use the courts to block deportations.
You are conflating two, not necessarily inclusive narratives. It is true that as the Trump administration are successfully othering foreigners as the cause of US working family poverty,fighting unjust deportation of foreigners is probably not particularly politically advantageous.
Trump and the Republicans have a majority now so even if they wanted to the Democrats couldn't block his legislation until at least the midterm elections
Assuming he bothers with legislation. Decrees or JFDI seem to be the preferred MO.
The Democrats need to choose which battle to fight. They can't accuse Trump of waging a war on working families while they use the courts to block deportations.
You are conflating two, not necessarily inclusive narratives. It is true that as the Trump administration are successfully othering foreigners as the cause of US working family poverty,fighting unjust deportation of foreigners is probably not particularly politically advantageous.
This is the argument william pretends not to understand.
I’m totally fine with deporting gang members who commit crimes who don’t have legal status.
I just don’t want Tom Homan or an ICE agent grabbing anyone off the street and flying them to a prison in El Salvador while claiming they are all of those things with zero due process. https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1901438162230001783
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
"Biden crime family"?
Can I help you out of that deep rabbit hole?
Can I help you out of your deep hole of denial ?
We were told that Joe Biden wasn't senile.
We were told that Hunter Biden wasn't a criminal.
We were told that Joe Biden would not pardon Hunter Biden.
We were told it was good that centrists like Manchin and Sinema had been driven out of the Dem party.
We were told it was good that Vance was mocked for having a deprived upbringing.
The Dems need to take a good look at how they've repeatedly fucked up and clear out those who enabled it.
But that would require some honesty and hard work wouldn't it.
And its so much easier to wave the pompoms and bleat "our side good, their side bad".
A more detailed analysis of the legal processes around the 'deportation' of the 200 Venezuelans. 13 minutes.
In response to Trump's fake declaration of war, a federal judge has responded off a hearing late on Saturday, to substantially expand a Temporary Restraining Order by first certifying a class of all immigrants adversely affected by Trump's phony Saturday proclamation of war. Popok explains how the Judge likely shut down any Stays being entered by Appellate Court's above him by setting a fast briefing schedule and attacks on his jurisdiction by first certifying a class.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Opposition to Trump and his sex slave GOP certainly needs a leader or leaders to coalesce round. It shows the dire straits of the Dems that they can't even rustle up some centrist response to Sanders (normally their reflex action to an outbreak of Bernie-ism).
What has happened to Kamala Harris? Doesn't she have any leadership role in the party now?
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Opposition to Trump and his sex slave GOP certainly needs a leader or leaders to coalesce round. It shows the dire straits of the Dems that they can't even rustle up some centrist response to Sanders (normally their reflex action to an outbreak of Bernie-ism).
What has happened to Kamala Harris? Doesn't she have any leadership role in the party now?
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
"Biden crime family"?
Can I help you out of that deep rabbit hole?
Can I help you out of your deep hole of denial ?
We were told that Joe Biden wasn't senile.
We were told that Hunter Biden wasn't a criminal.
We were told that Joe Biden would not pardon Hunter Biden.
We were told it was good that centrists like Manchin and Sinema had been driven out of the Dem party.
We were told it was good that Vance was mocked for having a deprived upbringing.
The Dems need to take a good look at how they've repeatedly fucked up and clear out those who enabled it.
But that would require some honesty and hard work wouldn't it.
And its so much easier to wave the pompoms and bleat "our side good, their side bad".
Aren't most people complaining that both sides are bad? One side has gone straightforwardly wicked, and the other is pathetic and self serving. Using brainless soundbites from either domain doesn't look good to me.
A lot of datapoints for the hypothesis that Chuck Schumer's weakness is emboldening those around Trump to initiate attacks on Biden's circle as the start of more direct persecution of the wider Democratic Party.
Anyone talking about future elections needs to bear in mind that being a Democrat might be illegal by then...
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
"Biden crime family"?
Can I help you out of that deep rabbit hole?
Can I help you out of your deep hole of denial ?
We were told that Joe Biden wasn't senile.
We were told that Hunter Biden wasn't a criminal.
We were told that Joe Biden would not pardon Hunter Biden.
We were told it was good that centrists like Manchin and Sinema had been driven out of the Dem party.
We were told it was good that Vance was mocked for having a deprived upbringing.
The Dems need to take a good look at how they've repeatedly fucked up and clear out those who enabled it.
But that would require some honesty and hard work wouldn't it.
And its so much easier to wave the pompoms and bleat "our side good, their side bad".
Setting aside who is the ‘we’ in ‘we were told’, and who was doing the telling, I’m not quite seeing the connection between your little list and ‘the Biden crime family’ thing.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
"Biden crime family"?
Can I help you out of that deep rabbit hole?
Can I help you out of your deep hole of denial ?
We were told that Joe Biden wasn't senile.
We were told that Hunter Biden wasn't a criminal.
We were told that Joe Biden would not pardon Hunter Biden.
We were told it was good that centrists like Manchin and Sinema had been driven out of the Dem party.
We were told it was good that Vance was mocked for having a deprived upbringing.
The Dems need to take a good look at how they've repeatedly fucked up and clear out those who enabled it.
But that would require some honesty and hard work wouldn't it.
And its so much easier to wave the pompoms and bleat "our side good, their side bad".
If that is the lens through which you view US politics you really need new glasses.
US local and federal politics has always been partisan, to a degree corrupt and often self agrandising. Just look at the notion of the Kennedy's stealing the 1960 election or Bush manipulating the strands of government for a very controversial win in 2000.
They are all at it, gerrymandering electoral boundaries, suppressing votes, conducting foreign policy to enrich the first family and their friends. None of that is good or worthy but compared to what we are seeing now they are but trifles. You are looking at a power grab by the executive on a scale not seen before. Where it leads, nobody knows. However what is clear is the alignment of Trump's cabinet with Putin's Kremlin
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
"Biden crime family"?
Can I help you out of that deep rabbit hole?
Can I help you out of your deep hole of denial ?
We were told that Joe Biden wasn't senile.
We were told that Hunter Biden wasn't a criminal.
We were told that Joe Biden would not pardon Hunter Biden.
We were told it was good that centrists like Manchin and Sinema had been driven out of the Dem party.
We were told it was good that Vance was mocked for having a deprived upbringing.
The Dems need to take a good look at how they've repeatedly fucked up and clear out those who enabled it.
But that would require some honesty and hard work wouldn't it.
And its so much easier to wave the pompoms and bleat "our side good, their side bad".
Setting aside who is the ‘we’ in ‘we were told’, and who was doing the telling, I’m not quite seeing the connection between your little list and ‘the Biden crime family’ thing.
Vance should be mocked for having a deprived upbringing though. That one is correct. From the permanent cast of barely suppressed spite on his face you can tell he spent most of his 9 months in utero dodging the coathanger.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
He's 83 now. At the next election he will be 87.
In a country that is supposed to be even more youth-obsessed than ours.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Opposition to Trump and his sex slave GOP certainly needs a leader or leaders to coalesce round. It shows the dire straits of the Dems that they can't even rustle up some centrist response to Sanders (normally their reflex action to an outbreak of Bernie-ism).
What has happened to Kamala Harris? Doesn't she have any leadership role in the party now?
Not really- after all, she lost.
My impression is that the American system is set up to try and avoid having unitary party leaders as we understand them. In part, to avoid the sort of thing we're seeing at the moment.
I think what Wes Streeting is doing for the NHS is better and more than any minister has done in at least the last 30 years.
I also think he's the only Labour minister I've heard speaking who doesn't sound like a robot or an inarticulate patronizing halfwit. He sounds human.
There. Shocked? Or not?
Most unshocking thing I’ll see all day. Funnily enough I think and have thought Wes was robotic and patronising, but obviously Wes wants to appeal to Reform voters rather than anyone to the left of Labour First. Mission accomplished.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Opposition to Trump and his sex slave GOP certainly needs a leader or leaders to coalesce round. It shows the dire straits of the Dems that they can't even rustle up some centrist response to Sanders (normally their reflex action to an outbreak of Bernie-ism).
What has happened to Kamala Harris? Doesn't she have any leadership role in the party now?
Not really- after all, she lost.
My impression is that the American system is set up to try and avoid having unitary party leaders as we understand them. In part, to avoid the sort of thing we're seeing at the moment.
Between presidential elections and when a party is not in the Oval Office the leaders of the US party are basically the Senate and House party leaders
I've been waiting all day for a single headline that states "Trump administration deports 300 in violation of court order" - the actual, undisputed facts of the situation. Instead, mainstream outlets have been twisting themselves in knots to avoid just SAYING WHAT HAPPENED.
The oligarchs that are desperate to stay on the good side of Trusk to avoid their own 'deportations' are unwilling to do so on the platforms they own...
Silly nicknames like “Trusk” make you look silly and thereby weakens your argument. It also implicitly diminishes Trump’s responsibility for what is happening on his watch
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
I don't agree at all. This is rightwing-populist power grab, that will only be defeated by equally mobilising leftwing populism.
I don't agree at all that Sanders is too mad, I mean. He's the only kind of figure to have purchase in places like working-class Iowa and Michigan, where he's beginning to draw in thousands of people open to him.
And his "madness" would make him a bit right wing for the UK Labour Party.
This is the guy whose idea is to gradually extend Medicaid and Medicare to cover more and more people, leading to an eventual government insurance option for healthcare.
If you stood up at the Labour Party conference to suggest that, you'd probably be thrown out.
Bernie is - politically speaking in the American context - mad. And I’m saying that as someone who backed him against Hilary Clinton in 2016. Personally I like his politics an awful lot. I like that he rages against injustice and calls it how he sees it. We need more people in politics like Bernie Sanders.
But - and it’s a big but - there is no way he can get elected. Not now. Which makes him pointless.
If social security collapses, and governmental systems start to fail, as they are already starting to, I think he could be elected, quite easily.
People look to an equally radical response, in those kind of situations.
He is 83. The US is increasingly a gerontocracy but I am not convinced someone who will be 87 at the time of the next presidential election should be the standard bearer of the opposition, particularly given the problems they had with Biden.
They need someone with the passion of Sanders but the man himself is too much of a stretch.
AOC is the obvious candidate, like Sanders a Democrat Corbyn.
If Trump's tariffs raise cost of living significantly with few extra jobs even she could win
I've been waiting all day for a single headline that states "Trump administration deports 300 in violation of court order" - the actual, undisputed facts of the situation. Instead, mainstream outlets have been twisting themselves in knots to avoid just SAYING WHAT HAPPENED.
The oligarchs that are desperate to stay on the good side of Trusk to avoid their own 'deportations' are unwilling to do so on the platforms they own...
Silly nicknames like “Trusk” make you look silly and thereby weakens your argument. It also implicitly diminishes Trump’s responsibility for what is happening on his watch
Mump is better anyways. It's onomatopoeic.
The hamster cheeked Himmler is jealous and thinks it should be Vamp, hence the copious amounts of eyeliner.
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
Bernie is too mad to do that. The DNC needs to find a straight version of Pete Buttigieg. With a pretty wife and all American name. Pete is sensationally good. But he’s gat, and appalling as it is I think that’s enough to sink him as a post-Trump contender.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
Buttgieg was also mediocre in office and was one of the liars who said that Biden was good for another four years.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
I don't agree at all. This is rightwing-populist power grab, that will only be defeated by equally mobilising leftwing populism.
I don't agree at all that Sanders is too mad, I mean. He's the only kind of figure to have purchase in places like working-class Iowa and Michigan, where he's beginning to draw in thousands of people open to him.
He's had decades to find and nurture a protege, yet has failed to do so
I'm beginning to think Sanders is the only hope for America. If he can give tens of more speeches like this, he can mobilise millions. In fact, I see that duplicate version of this are already attracting millions on social media.
He's 83 now. At the next election he will be 87.
In a country that is supposed to be even more youth-obsessed than ours.
If he's a hope it's a frail one.
AOC is Bernie’s heir apparent. Can’t see it working in normal circumstances but she would certainly energise the base in a way Harris didn’t.
I've been waiting all day for a single headline that states "Trump administration deports 300 in violation of court order" - the actual, undisputed facts of the situation. Instead, mainstream outlets have been twisting themselves in knots to avoid just SAYING WHAT HAPPENED.
The oligarchs that are desperate to stay on the good side of Trusk to avoid their own 'deportations' are unwilling to do so on the platforms they own...
Silly nicknames like “Trusk” make you look silly and thereby weakens your argument. It also implicitly diminishes Trump’s responsibility for what is happening on his watch
Mump is better anyways. It's onomatopoeic.
And consistent with RFK's attitude to vaccinatable diseases.
A few weeks ago, we were discussing the fact that we weren't quite at the point where the rule of law had broken down in the US, and there were still legal constraints on the Trump administration.
After the deportation flights - not just the fact that they ignored the order, but the fact that the AG issued a note suggesting that they did not believe the court had the jurisdiction to make the order, and carried on regardless - are we still hiding behind a fig leaf that the courts have any power over this Presidency?
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On the other hand, if the PM just ignores court orders & goes ahead with doing the thing that he was stopped from doing, then the Monarch would use his Reserve Powers to remove the PM.
Something like this happened in Australia in the 1970s. A Labor PM retained a majority in the lower House, but his budget was blocked in the Senate. The PM's response to this to try to get a loan from a dodgy Middle Eastern businessman to try to keep the government running, which was definitely norm-breaking, if not illegal. The Governor General then dismissed the Prime Minister and appointed the Leader of the Opposition as the new PM, and called fresh elections.
The relevant Bishop who had brought the prosecution, had tried to catch the person in question, for heresy several times and failed.
Moore then tried to force the chap to confess - "To save the Bishop's credit"
But I still don't judge Churchill morally for racist views, or Thomas More for being a murderous bigot, because the overwhelming consensus in their eras was for jingoistic imperialism and religious fanaticism respectively.
Being a product of your times, like More or Churchill or 90% of us, is understandable and morally neutral. Falling below them (for example burning whole towns of innocent people because a few of them are Cathars or committing ethnic genocide) is reprehensible. And rising above them is extraodinary.
And, because people are complex, the same person can rise above their era in one sphere, or at one time, and fall below it in another respect. And because they live for decades, opinions that were standard when they were young are often outdated when they are old. Churchill's sense of racial superiority, which was normal enough in the 1890s, was even in the 1920s beginning to perturb his Cabinet colleagues and by the time he died was much less acceptable in polite society, even if still held by a large portion of the country.
It may be worth keeping an eye on MSNBC over the next few hours, and also keep an eye on more independent comment such as Bryan Tyler Cohen eg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eppn03_SuZc
and Democracy Docket
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=democracy+docket
Their problem remains the economy and the legacy of That Budget and Reeves’ general failings. If they can’t get people feeling better off they will continue to struggle for all the better messaging, I think. It would certainly be more than helpful for the government if some key economic metrics start to favour them in the next 18 months.
Unlike the Tories Labour MPs can't pick the final two to go to members either, they can only nominate eligible candidates and there is no mechanism for MPs alone to remove a leader without members getting a say in a leadership election too
Reform would be second with 474, the LDs third with 270, Labour fourth with 252 and the Greens fifth with 27 (with Others and Independents on 77)
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_lepoll_20250314.html
Even with Surrey and Oxfordshire included and not delayed the Tories on 688 councillors would be ahead of the LDs on a forecast 401 councillors.
Reform would win most seats though with Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk included and not delayed with 697
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_lepoll_20250314.html
That would win with about 86% of voters
Amery (Churchill's own Secretary of State for India) wrote "on the subject of India, Winston is not quite sane" and that he did not "see much difference between [Churchill's] outlook and Hitler's"
I'd see successful for them as 400, which with their existing just-over-100, will put them on 500+.
Assuming there are any post-Trump contenders…
We have seen these stories related to UK time and time again reported by the Guardian where the wrinkle is glossed over e.g. the granny from Singapore who kept a home in Singapore, had family there, went to and from Singapore on a regular basis and only when her husband died did she try and claim she had to remain in the UK because she couldn't manage in Singapore.
Mrs U works a lot in the US. You don't try and go to the US for work with a "wrinkle" in your visa. The border agents can be absolute brutal in their reading of the rules (regardless of who is president). She has seen colleagues be turned around in the past for not having all the i's dotted and t's crossed.
I think I would wait for what said wrinkle was.
If it is a purely political decision to invoke this act, not reviewable by the courts (an absurd idea, IMO, but that is the position of the GOP), then it allows the President to declare that the US is in a state of war at will - which along with other things would allow him to suspend habeas corpus entirely.
This is exceptionally dangerous stuff.
I mean George Lucas was REALLY mean about Darth Vader, and don't get me started on poor Tom Riddell.
In 2025 only 1.4% growth is expected, a 0.3% reduction on December’s projection. 2026’s growth is also forecast to be lower at 1.2%, a 0.1% reduction.
The Dems need a clean break from those involved in the administration of the Biden crime family.
I suspect it'll relate to being a bit Muslamic in a manner threatening to the American way of life.
Can I help you out of that deep rabbit hole?
Mrs U has had to delay travel for work on numerous occasions to ensure everything is in order.
I think waiting to find out what might to some seem trivial, but US takes their paperwork for immigration visas incredibly seriously. And the border agents have on the surface a lot of power to detain and turn you around.
When I was in academia it was a constant frustration at how seeming random the US could be over visas for people to even visit conferences, let alone do a sabbatical, despite stellar academic records.
It is a good job we know your politics @RochdalePioneers because that could be read 2 ways particularly if you stop reading eg
'But he is gay, and appalling as that is ....'
Made me smile anyway as I know you could never mean that. It reminds me of all the times I have left a 'not' out of a sentence and consequently have written something appalling.
There's no other option.
What kind of person do you have to be to ignore that gargantuan plank sticking out of your eye because you are performatively excited by the splinter in someone else’s eye?
The problem they have at the moment, I think, is that they are too associated (rightly or wrongly) with the whiff of managed American decline and a perception that they are too far removed from the average American. They need someone with the common touch, who can energise but actually authentically sell a future. They are so vulnerable to the Trumpian claims that they are out of touch, incompetent establishment figures and they need to combat it. They could do with a few more AOCs I think - not necessarily for her politics but just a bit more of an authentic backstory and vision.
This is the guy whose idea is to gradually extend Medicaid and Medicare to cover more and more people, leading to an eventual government insurance option for healthcare.
If you stood up at the Labour Party conference to suggest that, you'd probably be thrown out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcIahANO6Lk&pp=ygUHU2FuZGVycw==#bottom-sheet
How can you read that as me saying being gay is appalling? It’s appalling that being gay will sink his chances, it really shouldn’t matter. But it will because in Gilead it’s a crime not to be white and straight and Christian. It’s borderline a crime to be a woman as well, especially one who isn’t married and subservient to their husband.
https://x.com/sandyofsuffolk/status/1901271473559392584
This tweet is going to shock you all.
I think what Wes Streeting is doing for the NHS is better and more than any minister has done in at least the last 30 years.
I also think he's the only Labour minister I've heard speaking who doesn't sound like a robot or an inarticulate patronizing halfwit. He sounds human.
There. Shocked? Or not?
But - and it’s a big but - there is no way he can get elected. Not now. Which makes him pointless.
The collapse of bipartisanship, which has largely been driven by the GOP, then pushed executives into finding other routes by which to govern. The frequent cohabitation produced by the US system, where Democrats more often won Presidential elections, but the Republicans often had control of the Senate, meant it was often Democrat executives doing that. But I think it's misleading to suggest that Democrats invented using the courts in this way.
(Terrible though Truss was, the US would be in a better place if she was in charge instead of Trump and Musk.)
Although tbf the Starmer Government doesn't look like radical socialism to me either.
People look to an equally radical response, in those kind of situations.
This is about Trump claiming wartime powers - only rarely used even in wartime - in peacetime.
It made me smile because I regularly type sentences that can be read incorrectly and I appreciate that there was nothing wrong with your sentence, but it is easy to read it incorrectly and I know that the incorrect reading would horrify you.
It was also a way of getting re-elected. Stop supporting policies or doing anything in the legislature. See the collapse of the budget process.
They need someone with the passion of Sanders but the man himself is too much of a stretch.
1. One tries to see the world through the eyes of people who lived at the time. The fact that we might see their values as abhorrent, does not necessarily make them bad people. They would see many of our values as abhorrent, as will people alive a century from now. A bit of humility is required.
2. For most of history, most societies operated at not far above subsistence level. A modern rich world country has a standard of living thirty to forty times subsistence. That makes a very big difference to a whole range of attitudes and behaviours, in past times.
3. Showing sympathy for individuals does not mean one should not condemn some beliefs and practices as wrong. Chattel slavery was widespread throughout history, but then so were genocide, rape, child abuse, and murder. One does not need to pretend that such things were *good*. Not every slave owner was an evil man, but in any time and place, people had the right to *resist* being made into slaves, and to escape that condition if they could, the same way they have always been entitled to resist murder, rape, kidnap.
4. Did a particular figure behave better or worse than contemporaries? People like Alfred the Great, Saladdin, many Eastern Roman emperors, might seem harsh to a modern eye. To contemporaries, they would have appeared exceedingly generous and lenient towards enemies. Alfred spared Guthrum, when torturing him to death would have been considered legitimate. Saladdin and his brother each released their share of the captives at Jerusalem, without ramsom. Eastern Emperors typically confined their rivals and family members to monasteries and convents, rather than butchering them.
Conversely, there are those who were cruel and vicious, even in the eyes of contemporaries. William the Conqueror's Harrying of the North was shocking, even to contemporaries. Edward I introduced hanging, drawing, and quartering, into English law, laughed at the drowning of Jews that he expelled from England, and pursued wars of unusual brutality in Wales and Scotland. Henry VIII was cruel and faithless, even by contemporary norms. Robert Clive was despised by men like Samuel Johnson and Adam Smith. Vedius Pollio disgusted Augustus, by feeding slaves who offended him to his Moray eels.
I’m totally fine with deporting gang members who commit crimes who don’t have legal status.
I just don’t want Tom Homan or an ICE agent grabbing anyone off the street and flying them to a prison in El Salvador while claiming they are all of those things with zero due process.
https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1901438162230001783
We were told that Joe Biden wasn't senile.
We were told that Hunter Biden wasn't a criminal.
We were told that Joe Biden would not pardon Hunter Biden.
We were told it was good that centrists like Manchin and Sinema had been driven out of the Dem party.
We were told it was good that Vance was mocked for having a deprived upbringing.
The Dems need to take a good look at how they've repeatedly fucked up and clear out those who enabled it.
But that would require some honesty and hard work wouldn't it.
And its so much easier to wave the pompoms and bleat "our side good, their side bad".
In response to Trump's fake declaration of war, a federal judge has responded off a hearing late on Saturday, to substantially expand a Temporary Restraining Order by first certifying a class of all immigrants adversely affected by Trump's phony Saturday proclamation of war. Popok explains how the Judge likely shut down any Stays being entered by Appellate Court's above him by setting a fast briefing schedule and attacks on his jurisdiction by first certifying a class.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7-CUK9o_Og
A lot of datapoints for the hypothesis that Chuck Schumer's weakness is emboldening those around Trump to initiate attacks on Biden's circle as the start of more direct persecution of the wider Democratic Party.
Anyone talking about future elections needs to bear in mind that being a Democrat might be illegal by then...
US local and federal politics has always been partisan, to a degree corrupt and often self agrandising. Just look at the notion of the Kennedy's stealing the 1960 election or Bush manipulating the strands of government for a very controversial win in 2000.
They are all at it, gerrymandering electoral boundaries, suppressing votes, conducting foreign policy to enrich the first family and their friends. None of that is good or worthy but compared to what we are seeing now they are but trifles. You are looking at a power grab by the executive on a scale not seen before. Where it leads, nobody knows. However what is clear is the alignment of Trump's cabinet with Putin's Kremlin
In a country that is supposed to be even more youth-obsessed than ours.
If he's a hope it's a frail one.
My impression is that the American system is set up to try and avoid having unitary party leaders as we understand them. In part, to avoid the sort of thing we're seeing at the moment.
Funnily enough I think and have thought Wes was robotic and patronising, but obviously Wes wants to appeal to Reform voters rather than anyone to the left of Labour First. Mission accomplished.
It's onomatopoeic.
If Trump's tariffs raise cost of living significantly with few extra jobs even she could win
After the deportation flights - not just the fact that they ignored the order, but the fact that the AG issued a note suggesting that they did not believe the court had the jurisdiction to make the order, and carried on regardless - are we still hiding behind a fig leaf that the courts have any power over this Presidency?