A dystopian few pages to catch up on this evening. But not as dystopian as my day.
The car got crunched by a slow moving lorry turning right out of a garage. Borderline write off / reparable, because repairs these days cost so much and the car is 6 years old.
But what makes it a right bugger is we’re in France, the insurance doesn’t provide a courtesy car abroad let alone repatriation, so I’m having to leave the old smashed up car at the body shop awaiting an estimate, and in the meantime had to buy a week of last-minute car hire and 3 overpriced easyJet tickets home this Sunday, and then one of us will have to fly back out in a couple of months to pick up the car, if it gets repaired.
Second time I’ve had a car accident abroad (I’ve never had one in Britain). To be avoided.
So many PBers with stories of woe tonight! Good luck with all the arrangements, Tim.
A reporter asks Bukele if Kilmar Ábrego García will be returned to the US.
"How can I return a criminal to the US? Smuggle a terrorist in?," Bukele replies.
He then calls the question "absurd" and says he won't release Ábrego García because he isn't fond of releasing people from his prisons.
"The question is preposterous," Bukele says. "I don't have the power to return him to the United States."
Which means, if the US government doesn't contradict this, that the Trump administration has taken to itself the power to disappear people, innocent or guilty.
Let us speak plainly: Nayib Bukele is a minor strongman who will do whatever Donald Trump demands of him. If Trump wants Abrego Garcia in the United States, then Bukele will return him. By the same token, if Bukele understands that Trump does not want Abrego Garcia returned, then he will keep the man.
Bukele has no interests in this game other than pleasing his political patron. His exercise of Salvadoran “sovereignty” can only be read as an expression of Donald Trump’s will.
Anyone who asserts otherwise is either a villain or a fool.
So if Bukele affirmatively refuses to repatriate Abrego Garcia, it will mean that Trump has told him not to.
At which point the Supreme Court will face a choice.
Surrender or escalation?..
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 13m Watching Trump and Bukele in the Oval Office just now made me feel physically ill.
He makes the skin crawl of any right thinking person anywhere. Oh America, what the hell have you done?
The slope isn't slippery; the frog isn't gradually getting boiled. Within its first hundred days the Trump administration has openly asserted the right/ power to seize and imprison anyone— including political dissidents, including citizens— and deprive them of any legal recourse at all.
If only there was a recent historical example where people deemed to be inferior were concentrated in facilities built in other countries. Then we could work out how to assess this situation.
I think there are several of those, including several involving Usonia, and several slightly further back involving almost every "advanced" country.
However I have enough complications of my own around here today, involving my inability to be able to take a treatment involving an injection into my eyeball that I have not sufficiently explained yet but which may be as simple as being very flinchy due to a very uncomfortable lack of sleep last night due possibly to an argumentative insulin pump for various reasons that happen occasionally, and a late rescheduling of appointment time.
So good evening all, genuinely - and sympathy for @TSE .
If you’re a native white Briton, emigrate. You’re not wanted
Telegraph:
“NHS trusts are fast-tracking ethnic minorities to top jobs to meet diversity quotas.
At least 11 major hospital trusts around England have schemes or programmes focused on helping ethnic minority employees to gain promotions to senior roles.
The drive to “improve representation” in management positions and on boards has included initiatives such as “reverse mentoring” and “white ally training”, as well as dedicated development opportunities for ethnic minorities.
The policies are on top of NHS guidance, revealed by The Telegraph, encouraging all recruiters to ensure that there is a black or other ethnic minority candidate on all interview shortlists.
Other NHS equality, diversity and inclusion policies include recommending the Rooney Rule – an American football policy that makes it mandatory for ethnic minorities to be shortlisted for interviews if they apply – making managers justify hiring white British nationals, as well as using race as a “tie-breaker” if two candidates are equal.”
Where to? This is common all over the Anglophone world. And I don't speak foreign. FWIW, I've been on the wrong end of this in the public sector.
Eastern Europe it doesn't happen, nor Meloni's italy, nor now Trump's US which is clamping down on it too.
If underrepresented levels of ethnic minorities at top levels relative to staff and those they serve there may be a case for it in limited form but no more
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
If you’re a native white Briton, emigrate. You’re not wanted
Telegraph:
“NHS trusts are fast-tracking ethnic minorities to top jobs to meet diversity quotas.
At least 11 major hospital trusts around England have schemes or programmes focused on helping ethnic minority employees to gain promotions to senior roles.
The drive to “improve representation” in management positions and on boards has included initiatives such as “reverse mentoring” and “white ally training”, as well as dedicated development opportunities for ethnic minorities.
The policies are on top of NHS guidance, revealed by The Telegraph, encouraging all recruiters to ensure that there is a black or other ethnic minority candidate on all interview shortlists.
Other NHS equality, diversity and inclusion policies include recommending the Rooney Rule – an American football policy that makes it mandatory for ethnic minorities to be shortlisted for interviews if they apply – making managers justify hiring white British nationals, as well as using race as a “tie-breaker” if two candidates are equal.”
Where to? This is common all over the Anglophone world. And I don't speak foreign. FWIW, I've been on the wrong end of this in the public sector.
Eastern Europe it doesn't happen, nor Meloni's italy, nor now Trump's US which is clamping down on it too.
If underrepresented levels of ethnic minorities at top levels relative to staff and those they serve there may be a case for it in limited form but no more
Was it wrong for the PSNI to prioritise Catholic applicants?
Not sure I want to poke a sick bear either - hope you feel better soon, Robert.
I always enjoy a good rant on immigration - we now see the two aspects to the question. In simple terms, what do we do to stop "them" coming? What do we do about the ones already here?
No one, it seems to me, has come up with a coherent approach to net zero migration apart from having it as a policy objective but that's up there with good public services, balanced public finances, strong defences and low inflation as platitudes which we all know to be largely unachievable currently.
What does "net zero migration" look like? One out, one in presumably. Not sure how that would work in practice - all those arriving illegally immediately deported without process (genuine refugees?) but how else would this be monitored without a considerable bureaucracy monitoring arrivals and departures?
While we're struggling with that, what about those already here, whether legally or illegally? The immediate deportation of all foreign-born criminals irrespective of the crime and sentence but do we go for a one strike and you're out whereby any non-British citizen convicted of any custodial offence gets immediately deported?
We'd need to spend a lot on enhancing the border protection side of law enforcement to hunt down visa overstayers (presumably mainly students) and deport them as well.
What about re-migration (or voluntary repatriation as it used to be called)? Do we offer those from for example Syria money to return? What about those from other countries (including EU members)?
Some of these questions may seem harsh but they seem to be to the main obstacles to the implementation of the kind of policies being put forward by Reform and others. There seem to be some serious financial aspects to all this in terms of needing to spend a lot of money to make the policy work.
Besides the practical questions about immigration and migration, there's the cultural angle to all of this. That's where the waters get even murkier.
I think there will be an Islamic Political party here within the next decade or two which will see UK politics change like never before. I doubt there is anything that can be done by those who wish immigration should have been limited in the past now. It is over. I feel like a white man living in late 1960s Salisbury, Rhodesia
My guess is there will be a new country formed in the Eastern European nations which haven't succumbed to Islamic immigration and people will start to move there. A bit like Orania in South Africa.
You feel like "a white man living in late 1960s Salisbury, Rhodesia"? What the actual fuck?! Do you thinklate '60s Rhodesia is a model we should be following?
I think it's clear that Isam thinks 1960s Rhodesia is not a model we should be following.
He’s promoting the model of Orania, a white supremacist town in South Africa.
I'm saying I think that Europeans will end up creating something like that. Does that mean I am promoting it? I don't think so, I'm just saying it's what I think will happen in the next 50-60 years, I'm not about to start trying to set it up myself
I don't think it will happen at all, and that it is the usual "Great Replacement Theory" claptrap so beloved of those down far right rabbit holes.
But why mention it and 1960s Rodesia if you do not approve of it? Don't take us for fools.
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
Democracy requires no one to be above the law, otherwise it is democracy in name only.
Not sure I want to poke a sick bear either - hope you feel better soon, Robert.
I always enjoy a good rant on immigration - we now see the two aspects to the question. In simple terms, what do we do to stop "them" coming? What do we do about the ones already here?
No one, it seems to me, has come up with a coherent approach to net zero migration apart from having it as a policy objective but that's up there with good public services, balanced public finances, strong defences and low inflation as platitudes which we all know to be largely unachievable currently.
What does "net zero migration" look like? One out, one in presumably. Not sure how that would work in practice - all those arriving illegally immediately deported without process (genuine refugees?) but how else would this be monitored without a considerable bureaucracy monitoring arrivals and departures?
While we're struggling with that, what about those already here, whether legally or illegally? The immediate deportation of all foreign-born criminals irrespective of the crime and sentence but do we go for a one strike and you're out whereby any non-British citizen convicted of any custodial offence gets immediately deported?
We'd need to spend a lot on enhancing the border protection side of law enforcement to hunt down visa overstayers (presumably mainly students) and deport them as well.
What about re-migration (or voluntary repatriation as it used to be called)? Do we offer those from for example Syria money to return? What about those from other countries (including EU members)?
Some of these questions may seem harsh but they seem to be to the main obstacles to the implementation of the kind of policies being put forward by Reform and others. There seem to be some serious financial aspects to all this in terms of needing to spend a lot of money to make the policy work.
Besides the practical questions about immigration and migration, there's the cultural angle to all of this. That's where the waters get even murkier.
I think there will be an Islamic Political party here within the next decade or two which will see UK politics change like never before. I doubt there is anything that can be done by those who wish immigration should have been limited in the past now. It is over. I feel like a white man living in late 1960s Salisbury, Rhodesia
My guess is there will be a new country formed in the Eastern European nations which haven't succumbed to Islamic immigration and people will start to move there. A bit like Orania in South Africa.
You feel like "a white man living in late 1960s Salisbury, Rhodesia"? What the actual fuck?! Do you thinklate '60s Rhodesia is a model we should be following?
Yes, I feel like England is still a nice place to live for a middle class, white man, and they/I enjoy an amount of privilege that fifty years ago would have been considered perfectly normal. But the country is changing, and soon "we" won't be in charge any more and so I think the comparison with late 60s Rhodesia is apt. The white/Europeans there were basking in the twilight of their gilded lives, knowing in the back of their mind that it was all going to end soon, and that's how I feel about England.
I am a human. I feel like England is a nice place to live for humans. You talk of “we”, but my idea of “we” is not based on other people matching my skin tone or my gender, it’s not based on whether someone was born near or far.
Maybe it, the pleasantness of England, will end, but if it does, it won’t end because immigrants exist and some people’s ancestors worshipped a different sky god. No, it will end because racists and misogynist sociopaths gain power through lies and propaganda, as has happened in the US.
Strange. I am saying middle class, white men enjoy a certain privilege living in England, and you are applauded for disagreeing
Not sure I want to poke a sick bear either - hope you feel better soon, Robert.
I always enjoy a good rant on immigration - we now see the two aspects to the question. In simple terms, what do we do to stop "them" coming? What do we do about the ones already here?
No one, it seems to me, has come up with a coherent approach to net zero migration apart from having it as a policy objective but that's up there with good public services, balanced public finances, strong defences and low inflation as platitudes which we all know to be largely unachievable currently.
What does "net zero migration" look like? One out, one in presumably. Not sure how that would work in practice - all those arriving illegally immediately deported without process (genuine refugees?) but how else would this be monitored without a considerable bureaucracy monitoring arrivals and departures?
While we're struggling with that, what about those already here, whether legally or illegally? The immediate deportation of all foreign-born criminals irrespective of the crime and sentence but do we go for a one strike and you're out whereby any non-British citizen convicted of any custodial offence gets immediately deported?
We'd need to spend a lot on enhancing the border protection side of law enforcement to hunt down visa overstayers (presumably mainly students) and deport them as well.
What about re-migration (or voluntary repatriation as it used to be called)? Do we offer those from for example Syria money to return? What about those from other countries (including EU members)?
Some of these questions may seem harsh but they seem to be to the main obstacles to the implementation of the kind of policies being put forward by Reform and others. There seem to be some serious financial aspects to all this in terms of needing to spend a lot of money to make the policy work.
Besides the practical questions about immigration and migration, there's the cultural angle to all of this. That's where the waters get even murkier.
I think there will be an Islamic Political party here within the next decade or two which will see UK politics change like never before. I doubt there is anything that can be done by those who wish immigration should have been limited in the past now. It is over. I feel like a white man living in late 1960s Salisbury, Rhodesia
My guess is there will be a new country formed in the Eastern European nations which haven't succumbed to Islamic immigration and people will start to move there. A bit like Orania in South Africa.
You feel like "a white man living in late 1960s Salisbury, Rhodesia"? What the actual fuck?! Do you thinklate '60s Rhodesia is a model we should be following?
Yes, I feel like England is still a nice place to live for a middle class, white man, and they/I enjoy an amount of privilege that fifty years ago would have been considered perfectly normal. But the country is changing, and soon "we" won't be in charge any more and so I think the comparison with late 60s Rhodesia is apt. The white/Europeans there were basking in the twilight of their gilded lives, knowing in the back of their mind that it was all going to end soon, and that's how I feel about England.
I am a human. I feel like England is a nice place to live for humans. You talk of “we”, but my idea of “we” is not based on other people matching my skin tone or my gender, it’s not based on whether someone was born near or far.
Maybe it, the pleasantness of England, will end, but if it does, it won’t end because immigrants exist and some people’s ancestors worshipped a different sky god. No, it will end because racists and misogynist sociopaths gain power through lies and propaganda, as has happened in the US.
There's an unstated assumption that the bad guys against whom you need to be on your guard are members of your own in-group, and if only you can prevent them from gaining power, nothing will disturb the march towards utopia. It's dangerously misguided.
Not sure I want to poke a sick bear either - hope you feel better soon, Robert.
I always enjoy a good rant on immigration - we now see the two aspects to the question. In simple terms, what do we do to stop "them" coming? What do we do about the ones already here?
No one, it seems to me, has come up with a coherent approach to net zero migration apart from having it as a policy objective but that's up there with good public services, balanced public finances, strong defences and low inflation as platitudes which we all know to be largely unachievable currently.
What does "net zero migration" look like? One out, one in presumably. Not sure how that would work in practice - all those arriving illegally immediately deported without process (genuine refugees?) but how else would this be monitored without a considerable bureaucracy monitoring arrivals and departures?
While we're struggling with that, what about those already here, whether legally or illegally? The immediate deportation of all foreign-born criminals irrespective of the crime and sentence but do we go for a one strike and you're out whereby any non-British citizen convicted of any custodial offence gets immediately deported?
We'd need to spend a lot on enhancing the border protection side of law enforcement to hunt down visa overstayers (presumably mainly students) and deport them as well.
What about re-migration (or voluntary repatriation as it used to be called)? Do we offer those from for example Syria money to return? What about those from other countries (including EU members)?
Some of these questions may seem harsh but they seem to be to the main obstacles to the implementation of the kind of policies being put forward by Reform and others. There seem to be some serious financial aspects to all this in terms of needing to spend a lot of money to make the policy work.
Besides the practical questions about immigration and migration, there's the cultural angle to all of this. That's where the waters get even murkier.
I think there will be an Islamic Political party here within the next decade or two which will see UK politics change like never before. I doubt there is anything that can be done by those who wish immigration should have been limited in the past now. It is over. I feel like a white man living in late 1960s Salisbury, Rhodesia
My guess is there will be a new country formed in the Eastern European nations which haven't succumbed to Islamic immigration and people will start to move there. A bit like Orania in South Africa.
You feel like "a white man living in late 1960s Salisbury, Rhodesia"? What the actual fuck?! Do you thinklate '60s Rhodesia is a model we should be following?
I think it's clear that Isam thinks 1960s Rhodesia is not a model we should be following.
He’s promoting the model of Orania, a white supremacist town in South Africa.
I'm saying I think that Europeans will end up creating something like that. Does that mean I am promoting it? I don't think so, I'm just saying it's what I think will happen in the next 50-60 years, I'm not about to start trying to set it up myself
I don't think it will happen at all, and that it is the usual "Great Replacement Theory" claptrap so beloved of those down far right rabbit holes.
But why mention it and 1960s Rodesia if you do not approve of it? Don't take us for fools.
Maybe you are a fool? I’m just saying what I think will happen, I don’t really care what anyone thinks of me for it
A reporter asks Bukele if Kilmar Ábrego García will be returned to the US.
"How can I return a criminal to the US? Smuggle a terrorist in?," Bukele replies.
He then calls the question "absurd" and says he won't release Ábrego García because he isn't fond of releasing people from his prisons.
"The question is preposterous," Bukele says. "I don't have the power to return him to the United States."
Which means, if the US government doesn't contradict this, that the Trump administration has taken to itself the power to disappear people, innocent or guilty.
Let us speak plainly: Nayib Bukele is a minor strongman who will do whatever Donald Trump demands of him. If Trump wants Abrego Garcia in the United States, then Bukele will return him. By the same token, if Bukele understands that Trump does not want Abrego Garcia returned, then he will keep the man.
Bukele has no interests in this game other than pleasing his political patron. His exercise of Salvadoran “sovereignty” can only be read as an expression of Donald Trump’s will.
Anyone who asserts otherwise is either a villain or a fool.
So if Bukele affirmatively refuses to repatriate Abrego Garcia, it will mean that Trump has told him not to.
At which point the Supreme Court will face a choice.
Surrender or escalation?..
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 13m Watching Trump and Bukele in the Oval Office just now made me feel physically ill.
He makes the skin crawl of any right thinking person anywhere. Oh America, what the hell have you done?
It’s the inevitable endpoint of woke leftism. The people will voluntarily elect right wing strongmen
The exact same thing will happen in the UK if we don’t reverse course on multiple crucial issues. Firstly, migration
How many times do the centrist dads need to be told this?
He doesn't make my skin crawl whatsoever.
I think most would quite like a bit of the Bukele approach within the British justice system, rather than it being populated with people who think a 'by no means bleeding-heart liberal' view is that people from ethnic and religious minorities should serve lower sentences for the same severity of crime.
What, being sent to a foreign prison at the whim of an erratic PM having committed no crime and having never been convicted of anything?
Absolutely fucking not. And if a lefty PM tried to do that to someone like you, I'd be out on the streets fighting your cause even if you would never return the favour.
(Your last bit is a blatant inverted lie. The purpose of the guidance was to try and mitigate the issue of minorities getting longer sentences for the same crimes).
Who has Bukele sent abroad for comitting no crime?
OH! I see.
"No crime" here is a bit of a trap by the Right as it is quite possible that the individual concerned has committed a crime. However Bukele and Trump are between them imprisoning a person who is not subject to a prison sentence.
Habeas Corpus is still a law in this country. Doubtless you'd see it repealed as a bleeding-heart woke lefty inconvenience.
Does habeus corpus have any relevance in a society which literally seeks to imprison white people more often than black and brown people, on the basis of their skin colour? No. It doesn’t
We live in a society that locks up black and brown people more often than white people. And a society that has the courage to recognise that and seek to do something about it. We should be proud of it.
I would say two things there David, are we locking mor eup because the law/legal system is racist or is it because they commit more crimes. Do you have any data as to what the reason is behind it.
Sentencing has been shown to have a racial bias, with ethnic minorities getting harsher punishments for equivalent crimes.
Don't you be bringing facts into the discussion, this is about saloon bar prejudice.
Not sure I want to poke a sick bear either - hope you feel better soon, Robert.
I always enjoy a good rant on immigration - we now see the two aspects to the question. In simple terms, what do we do to stop "them" coming? What do we do about the ones already here?
No one, it seems to me, has come up with a coherent approach to net zero migration apart from having it as a policy objective but that's up there with good public services, balanced public finances, strong defences and low inflation as platitudes which we all know to be largely unachievable currently.
What does "net zero migration" look like? One out, one in presumably. Not sure how that would work in practice - all those arriving illegally immediately deported without process (genuine refugees?) but how else would this be monitored without a considerable bureaucracy monitoring arrivals and departures?
While we're struggling with that, what about those already here, whether legally or illegally? The immediate deportation of all foreign-born criminals irrespective of the crime and sentence but do we go for a one strike and you're out whereby any non-British citizen convicted of any custodial offence gets immediately deported?
We'd need to spend a lot on enhancing the border protection side of law enforcement to hunt down visa overstayers (presumably mainly students) and deport them as well.
What about re-migration (or voluntary repatriation as it used to be called)? Do we offer those from for example Syria money to return? What about those from other countries (including EU members)?
Some of these questions may seem harsh but they seem to be to the main obstacles to the implementation of the kind of policies being put forward by Reform and others. There seem to be some serious financial aspects to all this in terms of needing to spend a lot of money to make the policy work.
Besides the practical questions about immigration and migration, there's the cultural angle to all of this. That's where the waters get even murkier.
I think there will be an Islamic Political party here within the next decade or two which will see UK politics change like never before. I doubt there is anything that can be done by those who wish immigration should have been limited in the past now. It is over. I feel like a white man living in late 1960s Salisbury, Rhodesia
My guess is there will be a new country formed in the Eastern European nations which haven't succumbed to Islamic immigration and people will start to move there. A bit like Orania in South Africa.
You feel like "a white man living in late 1960s Salisbury, Rhodesia"? What the actual fuck?! Do you thinklate '60s Rhodesia is a model we should be following?
Yes, I feel like England is still a nice place to live for a middle class, white man, and they/I enjoy an amount of privilege that fifty years ago would have been considered perfectly normal. But the country is changing, and soon "we" won't be in charge any more and so I think the comparison with late 60s Rhodesia is apt. The white/Europeans there were basking in the twilight of their gilded lives, knowing in the back of their mind that it was all going to end soon, and that's how I feel about England.
Really? I'm glad I don't feel like that - politically I've never felt so optimistic.
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
Democracy requires no one to be above the law, otherwise it is democracy in name only.
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
Democracy requires no one to be above the law, otherwise it is democracy in name only.
Why isn't the law on illegal migration being applied in the UK?
A reporter asks Bukele if Kilmar Ábrego García will be returned to the US.
"How can I return a criminal to the US? Smuggle a terrorist in?," Bukele replies.
He then calls the question "absurd" and says he won't release Ábrego García because he isn't fond of releasing people from his prisons.
"The question is preposterous," Bukele says. "I don't have the power to return him to the United States."
Which means, if the US government doesn't contradict this, that the Trump administration has taken to itself the power to disappear people, innocent or guilty.
Let us speak plainly: Nayib Bukele is a minor strongman who will do whatever Donald Trump demands of him. If Trump wants Abrego Garcia in the United States, then Bukele will return him. By the same token, if Bukele understands that Trump does not want Abrego Garcia returned, then he will keep the man.
Bukele has no interests in this game other than pleasing his political patron. His exercise of Salvadoran “sovereignty” can only be read as an expression of Donald Trump’s will.
Anyone who asserts otherwise is either a villain or a fool.
So if Bukele affirmatively refuses to repatriate Abrego Garcia, it will mean that Trump has told him not to.
At which point the Supreme Court will face a choice.
Surrender or escalation?..
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 13m Watching Trump and Bukele in the Oval Office just now made me feel physically ill.
He makes the skin crawl of any right thinking person anywhere. Oh America, what the hell have you done?
The slope isn't slippery; the frog isn't gradually getting boiled. Within its first hundred days the Trump administration has openly asserted the right/ power to seize and imprison anyone— including political dissidents, including citizens— and deprive them of any legal recourse at all.
If only there was a recent historical example where people deemed to be inferior were concentrated in facilities built in other countries. Then we could work out how to assess this situation.
I think there are several of those, including several involving Usonia, and several slightly further back involving almost every "advanced" country.
However I have enough complications of my own around here today, involving my inability to be able to take a treatment involving an injection into my eyeball that I have not sufficiently explained yet but which may be as simple as being very flinchy due to a very uncomfortable lack of sleep last night due possibly to an argumentative insulin pump for various reasons that happen occasionally, and a late rescheduling of appointment time.
So good evening all, genuinely - and sympathy for @TSE .
Oh lord, that's worrying. Good luck!
Worrying, but basically discomfort, and a Doctor who picked up on a patient who was unable to hold sufficiently still for an eye injection even with extra quantities of numbing eye drops as "it happens sometimes" - though not to me previously. The Doc's comment was "don't worry too much, we see it".
I've had a week off the insulin pump, and going back and recovering control, an uncomfortable, or just moving the appointment time could cause instability. My worst ever period was related to just moving GP, and the change of pattern. It's minor, and personal.
Relatively, Jenrick and Philp driving slogans into our politics they have picked up from Nick Griffin and Stuart Yaxley-Lennon via Lee Anderson, Nigel Farage, Natcon and the Spectator to weaponise their expressed racism is extremely concerning, and societal, but we have a thicket of checks and balances, and underlying values which are humanitarian, which I think will fight off the trend to mainstream racism *.
Trump imo is very dangerous, and is yanking innocent brown people of the streets, and vanishing them to concentration camps in El Salvador in the hope that his rhetoric will bury the issue, and the innocent victims will die off in obscurity. The historic underlying culture in the USA is of performative brutality, and the victims can go and f*ck themselves. The USA has done this many times and not look in the mirror; in Europe we have tried to leave it behind because we *have* looked in the mirror.
Trump is one stride from Third World Dictatorship values which involve arresting Judges, and that is one step from Argentina or Chile in the 1970s, and vanishing people then killing them yourselves or throwing them out of helicopters at 5000 feet.
People like Anderson, Philp and Jenrick are - I hope - merely varieties of useful idiot.
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
Democracy requires no one to be above the law, otherwise it is democracy in name only.
Why isn't the law on illegal migration being applied in the UK?
I'm not sure what you mean. It's not illegal to enter the country to seek asylum.
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
Democracy requires no one to be above the law, otherwise it is democracy in name only.
No it doesn't, if a party or leader was elected to power with a manifesto commitment to exempt certain groups from some laws that would still be democratic even if contrary to the ruie of law
Local Election voting intention, Reform 30%, Labour 20%, Tory 24%.
Supplementary questions aren't good for Labour, particularly Rachel from accounts.
25% said Reform would be better for the NHS ! Looks like the pandemic of idiocy from across the Atlantic is spreading to the UK .
'Sir Keir’s net rating in the North and Midlands is -26 per cent, based on 27 per cent approving of him and 53 per cent disapproving.
It compares to Mr Farage on -4 and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch on -8. Voters in the Red Wall heartlands are particularly damning of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who has an approval rating of -35 after last year’s Budget and cuts to winter fuel payments.
Asked who would make the best PM, Mr Farage pips Sir Keir by 26 to 25 per cent, with Ms Badenoch on 12.
Mr Farage also leads the PM by 30 per cent to 22 when respondents were asked which party leader best represents the views of working people.
And today the Reform boss tells The Sun that the Government has abandoned its traditional voters to “pander to the middle classes”.
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
Democracy requires no one to be above the law, otherwise it is democracy in name only.
No it doesn't, if a party or leader was elected to power with a manifesto commitment to exempt certain groups from some laws that would still be democratic even if contrary to the ruie of law
So, it would be OK for the majority to strip the minority of the right to ... say ... vote?
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
Democracy requires no one to be above the law, otherwise it is democracy in name only.
No it doesn't, if a party or leader was elected to power with a manifesto commitment to exempt certain groups from some laws that would still be democratic even if contrary to the ruie of law
So, it would be OK for the majority to strip the minority of the right to ... say ... vote?
There's a practical example that applies to the UK. At the moment Commonwealth citizens have the right to vote in UK elections. I don't think there would be anything sinister about removing that right.
Local Election voting intention, Reform 30%, Labour 20%, Tory 24%.
Supplementary questions aren't good for Labour, particularly Rachel from accounts.
25% said Reform would be better for the NHS ! Looks like the pandemic of idiocy from across the Atlantic is spreading to the UK .
'Sir Keir’s net rating in the North and Midlands is -26 per cent, based on 27 per cent approving of him and 53 per cent disapproving.
It compares to Mr Farage on -4 and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch on -8. Voters in the Red Wall heartlands are particularly damning of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who has an approval rating of -35 after last year’s Budget and cuts to winter fuel payments.
Asked who would make the best PM, Mr Farage pips Sir Keir by 26 to 25 per cent, with Ms Badenoch on 12.
Mr Farage also leads the PM by 30 per cent to 22 when respondents were asked which party leader best represents the views of working people.
And today the Reform boss tells The Sun that the Government has abandoned its traditional voters to “pander to the middle classes”.
That I think may relate partly to investment decisions, and to how they have been publicised.
The Govt are timid in coming forward with their own achievements.
I refer back to what Margaret Hodge said when she defeated Nick Griffin in 2010 (without checking). It is delivery and putting forward positive values, rather than working from the back foot.
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
Democracy requires no one to be above the law, otherwise it is democracy in name only.
No it doesn't, if a party or leader was elected to power with a manifesto commitment to exempt certain groups from some laws that would still be democratic even if contrary to the ruie of law
So, it would be OK for the majority to strip the minority of the right to ... say ... vote?
There's a practical example that applies to the UK. At the moment Commonwealth citizens have the right to vote in UK elections. I don't think there would be anything sinister about removing that right.
That wouldn't be removing the rights of British citizens.
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
Democracy requires no one to be above the law, otherwise it is democracy in name only.
No it doesn't, if a party or leader was elected to power with a manifesto commitment to exempt certain groups from some laws that would still be democratic even if contrary to the ruie of law
So, it would be OK for the majority to strip the minority of the right to ... say ... vote?
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
Democracy requires no one to be above the law, otherwise it is democracy in name only.
No it doesn't, if a party or leader was elected to power with a manifesto commitment to exempt certain groups from some laws that would still be democratic even if contrary to the ruie of law
So, it would be OK for the majority to strip the minority of the right to ... say ... vote?
There's a practical example that applies to the UK. At the moment Commonwealth citizens have the right to vote in UK elections. I don't think there would be anything sinister about removing that right.
That wouldn't be removing the rights of British citizens.
It's the same principle. It would be removing rights from the minority in a way that changed the polity.
Yes and no. Having different viewpoints is essential for having any kind of lively debate. If everyone agrees with each other then you head down Twitter alley and into the blue sky zone of never encountering a different opinion. It’s also good to have people make suggestions, claims etc that can be exposed with facts or sensible argument. Nick Griffin's career was ended by exposure on Question Time. There are huge issues with race and mysogeny. Personally I think every person should he judged on their merits alone and sex, race (whatever that really means) etc should be irrelevant. And yet we have a world we’re somehow white men dominate positions of power, and business and in all likelihood the higher echelons of the NHS (although I’d expect a higher level of white women in the NHS). So for some, action needs to be taken. And usually that action is not about disadvantaging white men, rather it is about encouraging and helping others to aim higher in their careers. But should we suppress those who don’t agree with this? I think not, lest something you hold dear becomes verboten.
I’ve got no issue with differing views. It’s when people come on here blatantly to troll and inflame arguments that I think what’s the point?
Yes and no. Having different viewpoints is essential for having any kind of lively debate. If everyone agrees with each other then you head down Twitter alley and into the blue sky zone of never encountering a different opinion. It’s also good to have people make suggestions, claims etc that can be exposed with facts or sensible argument. Nick Griffin's career was ended by exposure on Question Time. There are huge issues with race and mysogeny. Personally I think every person should he judged on their merits alone and sex, race (whatever that really means) etc should be irrelevant. And yet we have a world we’re somehow white men dominate positions of power, and business and in all likelihood the higher echelons of the NHS (although I’d expect a higher level of white women in the NHS). So for some, action needs to be taken. And usually that action is not about disadvantaging white men, rather it is about encouraging and helping others to aim higher in their careers. But should we suppress those who don’t agree with this? I think not, lest something you hold dear becomes verboten.
I’ve got no issue with differing views. It’s when people come on here blatantly to troll and inflame arguments that I think what’s the point?
Do you think that’s it? One user in particular does like to wind up and freely admits it, but you can always just ignore.
Once the Clacton Panto has been mentally relocated to the end of the Clacton Pier, it helps a little .
The local version in Ashfield is a little more annoying, as it impinges on Planet Normal.
My photo quota (I think - that is satirical and I do not recognise the action men. The one on the right rings a small bell.):
It's Leon and Livermore on their alcohol dependent, white nationalist walking holiday.
Not sure I want to poke a sick bear either - hope you feel better soon, Robert.
I always enjoy a good rant on immigration - we now see the two aspects to the question. In simple terms, what do we do to stop "them" coming? What do we do about the ones already here?
No one, it seems to me, has come up with a coherent approach to net zero migration apart from having it as a policy objective but that's up there with good public services, balanced public finances, strong defences and low inflation as platitudes which we all know to be largely unachievable currently.
What does "net zero migration" look like? One out, one in presumably. Not sure how that would work in practice - all those arriving illegally immediately deported without process (genuine refugees?) but how else would this be monitored without a considerable bureaucracy monitoring arrivals and departures?
While we're struggling with that, what about those already here, whether legally or illegally? The immediate deportation of all foreign-born criminals irrespective of the crime and sentence but do we go for a one strike and you're out whereby any non-British citizen convicted of any custodial offence gets immediately deported?
We'd need to spend a lot on enhancing the border protection side of law enforcement to hunt down visa overstayers (presumably mainly students) and deport them as well.
What about re-migration (or voluntary repatriation as it used to be called)? Do we offer those from for example Syria money to return? What about those from other countries (including EU members)?
Some of these questions may seem harsh but they seem to be to the main obstacles to the implementation of the kind of policies being put forward by Reform and others. There seem to be some serious financial aspects to all this in terms of needing to spend a lot of money to make the policy work.
Besides the practical questions about immigration and migration, there's the cultural angle to all of this. That's where the waters get even murkier.
I think there will be an Islamic Political party here within the next decade or two which will see UK politics change like never before. I doubt there is anything that can be done by those who wish immigration should have been limited in the past now. It is over. I feel like a white man living in late 1960s Salisbury, Rhodesia
My guess is there will be a new country formed in the Eastern European nations which haven't succumbed to Islamic immigration and people will start to move there. A bit like Orania in South Africa.
You feel like "a white man living in late 1960s Salisbury, Rhodesia"? What the actual fuck?! Do you thinklate '60s Rhodesia is a model we should be following?
I think it's clear that Isam thinks 1960s Rhodesia is not a model we should be following.
He’s promoting the model of Orania, a white supremacist town in South Africa.
I'm saying I think that Europeans will end up creating something like that. Does that mean I am promoting it? I don't think so, I'm just saying it's what I think will happen in the next 50-60 years, I'm not about to start trying to set it up myself
If only you hadn't been daft enough to vote for brexit, you could have moved to this new Galt's Gulch in the Polish hinterlands once they get it going.
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
Democracy requires no one to be above the law, otherwise it is democracy in name only.
No it doesn't, if a party or leader was elected to power with a manifesto commitment to exempt certain groups from some laws that would still be democratic even if contrary to the ruie of law
So, it would be OK for the majority to strip the minority of the right to ... say ... vote?
There's a practical example that applies to the UK. At the moment Commonwealth citizens have the right to vote in UK elections. I don't think there would be anything sinister about removing that right.
That wouldn't be removing the rights of British citizens.
It's the same principle. It would be removing rights from the minority in a way that changed the polity.
I'm not sure that's true.
It's not unusual to change the rights of non-citizens in the UK. It happens all the time, such as when visa types are changed or whatever. I realize you may disagree, and that is your right, but it seems a very situation to (for example) the government stripping the right to vote from all redheads.
Harvard University President Alan Garber has rejected the Trump Admin's demand to prohibit protests and cut DEI programs to receive funding: "[Harvard] will not negotiate over its independence or constitutional rights." https://x.com/DisavowTrump20/status/1911850688000254311
So they're going to continue with the failed ideas of DEI.
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
Democracy requires no one to be above the law, otherwise it is democracy in name only.
No it doesn't, if a party or leader was elected to power with a manifesto commitment to exempt certain groups from some laws that would still be democratic even if contrary to the ruie of law
So, it would be OK for the majority to strip the minority of the right to ... say ... vote?
There's a practical example that applies to the UK. At the moment Commonwealth citizens have the right to vote in UK elections. I don't think there would be anything sinister about removing that right.
That wouldn't be removing the rights of British citizens.
It's the same principle. It would be removing rights from the minority in a way that changed the polity.
I'm not sure that's true.
It's not unusual to change the rights of non-citizens in the UK. It happens all the time, such as when visa types are changed or whatever. I realize you may disagree, and that is your right, but it seems a very situation to (for example) the government stripping the right to vote from all redheads.
It's not unusual to change the rights of anyone in the UK, whether citizen or not, but the fact is that at the moment the right to vote is not directly tied to UK citizenship, and narrowing the definition of who gets to vote is precisely the question we're talking about.
"Donald Trump says the US could deport 'homegrown criminals' to El Salvador jail
The Trump administration has sent hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a notorious facility in El Salvador, since March, but the president has now suggested that "homegrown criminals" could also be sent there."
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
Democracy requires no one to be above the law, otherwise it is democracy in name only.
No it doesn't, if a party or leader was elected to power with a manifesto commitment to exempt certain groups from some laws that would still be democratic even if contrary to the ruie of law
So, it would be OK for the majority to strip the minority of the right to ... say ... vote?
There's a practical example that applies to the UK. At the moment Commonwealth citizens have the right to vote in UK elections. I don't think there would be anything sinister about removing that right.
That wouldn't be removing the rights of British citizens.
It's the same principle. It would be removing rights from the minority in a way that changed the polity.
I'm not sure that's true.
It's not unusual to change the rights of non-citizens in the UK. It happens all the time, such as when visa types are changed or whatever. I realize you may disagree, and that is your right, but it seems a very situation to (for example) the government stripping the right to vote from all redheads.
It's not unusual to change the rights of anyone in the UK, whether citizen or not, but the fact is that at the moment the right to vote is not directly tied to UK citizenship, and narrowing the definition of who gets to vote is precisely the question we're talking about.
Look: if the question is should Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK have the right to vote in national elections? then the answer is no.
But I was specifically responding to @HYUFD's comment, which was
if a party or leader was elected to power with a manifesto commitment to exempt certain groups from some laws that would still be democratic even if contrary to the ruie of law
"Donald Trump says the US could deport 'homegrown criminals' to El Salvador jail
The Trump administration has sent hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a notorious facility in El Salvador, since March, but the president has now suggested that "homegrown criminals" could also be sent there."
That one definitely won't fly with the supreme court. The Republican constitution absolutists on the court will see anybody born in the US regardless of status as American.
"If ‘Woke’ Puritanism Is the Disease, Trump’s Amoral Populism Isn’t the Cure Valid critiques of progressive moralism have devolved into an embrace of anything-goes strongman rule. Eric Kaufmann"
"While Trump has commendably crippled the use of aggressive DEI policies in government and academia, he’s failed to persuade moderates to back his campaign—in part because his administration hasn’t developed a compelling moral narrative that serves to address the resulting pushback. The need to build broad constituencies to support one’s policies, a central focus of most politicians in free societies, is seen as irrelevant to those, such as Trump, whose only goal is to keep tossing red meat to core supporters. This behaviour isn’t just amoral and anti-democratic. It’s juvenile. Trump and Musk have become America’s trolls-in-chief—as exemplified by the White House’s posting of an AI-generated cartoon depicting an immigrant crying in handcuffs. This type of “shitposting” is the furthest thing from presidential."
Harvard University President Alan Garber has rejected the Trump Admin's demand to prohibit protests and cut DEI programs to receive funding: "[Harvard] will not negotiate over its independence or constitutional rights." https://x.com/DisavowTrump20/status/1911850688000254311
So they're going to continue with the failed ideas of DEI.
Trump hasn't attempted to persuade Harvard of the necessity of doing so, he's attempting to make them do so thru the power of the purse. If somebody told you to not do a legal thing and they'd put a lien on your salary to prevent you, what would you do?
Do you think that’s it? One user in particular does like to wind up and freely admits it, but you can always just ignore.
With the amount they spam and post in certain threads it’s basically impossible. I’d support a posting limit for us all, maybe 5 posts a day maximum.
It’s not impossible, and imposing a limit on posts would be a death knell for comments. You current account has nearly a thousand days of posts on that scale.
I don't post as often as I used to (among other things getting married again on Wednesday, hooray), but I think the current system still works well. There are one or two posters who I tend to skim past (maybe they skim me too), but that's no more of a problem than the newsstand having papers that I don't usually read. PB still works well IMO, giving a flow of news and opinion from people with a common interest in how we're governed.
Harvard University President Alan Garber has rejected the Trump Admin's demand to prohibit protests and cut DEI programs to receive funding: "[Harvard] will not negotiate over its independence or constitutional rights." https://x.com/DisavowTrump20/status/1911850688000254311
So they're going to continue with the failed ideas of DEI.
Trump hasn't attempted to persuade Harvard of the necessity of doing so, he's attempting to make them do so thru the power of the purse. If somebody told you to not do a legal thing and they'd put a lien on your salary to prevent you, what would you do?
"Donald Trump says the US could deport 'homegrown criminals' to El Salvador jail
The Trump administration has sent hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a notorious facility in El Salvador, since March, but the president has now suggested that "homegrown criminals" could also be sent there."
That one definitely won't fly with the supreme court. The Republican constitution absolutists on the court will see anybody born in the US regardless of status as American.
Harvard University President Alan Garber has rejected the Trump Admin's demand to prohibit protests and cut DEI programs to receive funding: "[Harvard] will not negotiate over its independence or constitutional rights." https://x.com/DisavowTrump20/status/1911850688000254311
So they're going to continue with the failed ideas of DEI.
Isn't Harvard one of the world's leading Universities? So why describe its DEI policies as failed?
"Donald Trump says the US could deport 'homegrown criminals' to El Salvador jail
The Trump administration has sent hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a notorious facility in El Salvador, since March, but the president has now suggested that "homegrown criminals" could also be sent there."
That one definitely won't fly with the supreme court. The Republican constitution absolutists on the court will see anybody born in the US regardless of status as American.
"Donald Trump says the US could deport 'homegrown criminals' to El Salvador jail
The Trump administration has sent hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a notorious facility in El Salvador, since March, but the president has now suggested that "homegrown criminals" could also be sent there."
That one definitely won't fly with the supreme court. The Republican constitution absolutists on the court will see anybody born in the US regardless of status as American.
"Donald Trump says the US could deport 'homegrown criminals' to El Salvador jail
The Trump administration has sent hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a notorious facility in El Salvador, since March, but the president has now suggested that "homegrown criminals" could also be sent there."
"Donald Trump says the US could deport 'homegrown criminals' to El Salvador jail
The Trump administration has sent hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a notorious facility in El Salvador, since March, but the president has now suggested that "homegrown criminals" could also be sent there."
They appear to be just picking people off the streets now. They cold not find their target, so they picked up someone with no criminal record and no tattoos:
This is where we will end up if we are not careful. We've already had @Leon professing how China deals with its Muslim population: which, if you remember, is massive 're-education' camps holding millions.
Do not believe it will just be the 'bad' people who end up there. It will be anyone who catches the attention of authorities, for whatever reason, or just people found on the streets.
And lots of the anti-woke, anti MeToo and anti-DEI people will mutter under their breaths "How terrible!" whilst secretly wondering if they'll be next. And their freedoms, too, will slowly be eroded.
I see as suspect has been arrested for setting fire to Governor Shapiros official residence with a molotov cocktail while the Governor and his family were sleeping on the first night of Passover
Cody Balmer has a long history of misogynistic, pro-gun, anti-semitic and anti-Biden Social Media posts and was out on bail at the time.
Was Liz Truss always this mad and hid it to climb the greasy poll or was it encounter with the "deep state"* that caused it?
* she never shuts up about it these days and appears to be basically include everything.
Trump is the best argument against the existence of the deep state. Discuss.
Agreed, if the movies were right, a shady cabal from the Military/Industrial complex would have engineered his end by now for damaging their arms sales and military influence around the world.
"I was horrified to hear about what happened to Vanessa Brown last month. In March, Ms Brown, 50, was arrested on suspicion of theft and then detained, searched and banged up by Surrey Police for nearly eight hours after she took her daughters’ iPads away in an effort to get her 16-year-old eldest daughter to focus on revision. She went to visit her mother in Cobham for a coffee, took the tablets with her and a couple of hours later had the plod knocking on the door to conduct a “welfare check”, before arresting her. There but for the grace of God, etc. Surrey Police has since apologised, and acknowledged its error."
Weird case. I’d like to know who the man in his forties who reported the iPads as stolen is. And why he did that. Did the girls claim that they had been stolen? Hence the police action?
Her ex, the girls’ father.
The comments from the neighbours about her are not positive
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
Democracy requires no one to be above the law, otherwise it is democracy in name only.
No it doesn't, if a party or leader was elected to power with a manifesto commitment to exempt certain groups from some laws that would still be democratic even if contrary to the ruie of law
So, it would be OK for the majority to strip the minority of the right to ... say ... vote?
There's a practical example that applies to the UK. At the moment Commonwealth citizens have the right to vote in UK elections. I don't think there would be anything sinister about removing that right.
That wouldn't be removing the rights of British citizens.
It's the same principle. It would be removing rights from the minority in a way that changed the polity.
I'm not sure that's true.
It's not unusual to change the rights of non-citizens in the UK. It happens all the time, such as when visa types are changed or whatever. I realize you may disagree, and that is your right, but it seems a very situation to (for example) the government stripping the right to vote from all redheads.
Democracy just means the rule of the people, as opposed to the elite. Both ancient and modern era democracy were quite happy to tolerate (for example) mass slavery, and severely limit those who could vote. There are those in the right who woukd remive women's suffrage.
Their definition has so narrow in terms of constraints on arbitrary power, that it's close to meaningless.
One of my pet hates is web forms that do not send you a response. They are everywhere, including in government.
A couple of weeks ago, I applied for a non-government service (*) through a web form. I put my details in, including a long comment about the service I required. I gave my email address and all other info. I heard nothing back, and when I contacted them yesterday, they said that they had not received the request.
So I've no idea if they are lying, made a mistake, or the web form got sent to /dev/null.
In ye olden days, a fair few websites used to send your submission back to your email address, or at the very least just send an email saying something along the lines of "Thanks for your submission." This meant you at least knew it had been received. Nowadays, including from government services, you often get nothing.
(*) A bike fitting, before dirty minds get started...
Harvard University President Alan Garber has rejected the Trump Admin's demand to prohibit protests and cut DEI programs to receive funding: "[Harvard] will not negotiate over its independence or constitutional rights." https://x.com/DisavowTrump20/status/1911850688000254311
So they're going to continue with the failed ideas of DEI.
That doesn’t matter
They are fighting for their independence from the government
One of my pet hates is web forms that do not send you a response. They are everywhere, including in government.
A couple of weeks ago, I applied for a non-government service (*) through a web form. I put my details in, including a long comment about the service I required. I gave my email address and all other info. I heard nothing back, and when I contacted them yesterday, they said that they had not received the request.
So I've no idea if they are lying, made a mistake, or the web form got sent to /dev/null.
In ye olden days, a fair few websites used to send your submission back to your email address, or at the very least just send an email saying something along the lines of "Thanks for your submission." This meant you at least knew it had been received. Nowadays, including from government services, you often get nothing.
(*) A bike fitting, before dirty minds get started...
All computer programs are written by the writer with little thought for the user. Was it ever thus?
Harvard University President Alan Garber has rejected the Trump Admin's demand to prohibit protests and cut DEI programs to receive funding: "[Harvard] will not negotiate over its independence or constitutional rights." https://x.com/DisavowTrump20/status/1911850688000254311
So they're going to continue with the failed ideas of DEI.
That doesn’t matter
They are fighting for their independence from the government
In Trump's America, the 'marketplace of ideas' means only the opinions of the highest bidder count.
One of my pet hates is web forms that do not send you a response. They are everywhere, including in government.
A couple of weeks ago, I applied for a non-government service (*) through a web form. I put my details in, including a long comment about the service I required. I gave my email address and all other info. I heard nothing back, and when I contacted them yesterday, they said that they had not received the request.
So I've no idea if they are lying, made a mistake, or the web form got sent to /dev/null.
In ye olden days, a fair few websites used to send your submission back to your email address, or at the very least just send an email saying something along the lines of "Thanks for your submission." This meant you at least knew it had been received. Nowadays, including from government services, you often get nothing.
(*) A bike fitting, before dirty minds get started...
You are probably right but check your spam folder, just in case. Almost-empty acknowledgement emails can be false positives. Mine right now has one such.
One of my pet hates is web forms that do not send you a response. They are everywhere, including in government.
A couple of weeks ago, I applied for a non-government service (*) through a web form. I put my details in, including a long comment about the service I required. I gave my email address and all other info. I heard nothing back, and when I contacted them yesterday, they said that they had not received the request.
So I've no idea if they are lying, made a mistake, or the web form got sent to /dev/null.
In ye olden days, a fair few websites used to send your submission back to your email address, or at the very least just send an email saying something along the lines of "Thanks for your submission." This meant you at least knew it had been received. Nowadays, including from government services, you often get nothing.
(*) A bike fitting, before dirty minds get started...
All computer programs are written by the writer with little thought for the user. Was it ever thus?
In the case of a small company, blaming the programmer might be reasonable. But IME it also happens with services on governmental/official websites, where there would have been a team of people involved.
As another example: I submitted a response to the new EWR scheme, as they were very keen for locals to do. I submitted it through their web page. There was zero response to the submission (*), and if I had not already saved a copy of my long submission, I would have lost it.
(*) And yes, I checked junk email and other folders.
One of my pet hates is web forms that do not send you a response. They are everywhere, including in government.
A couple of weeks ago, I applied for a non-government service (*) through a web form. I put my details in, including a long comment about the service I required. I gave my email address and all other info. I heard nothing back, and when I contacted them yesterday, they said that they had not received the request.
So I've no idea if they are lying, made a mistake, or the web form got sent to /dev/null.
In ye olden days, a fair few websites used to send your submission back to your email address, or at the very least just send an email saying something along the lines of "Thanks for your submission." This meant you at least knew it had been received. Nowadays, including from government services, you often get nothing.
(*) A bike fitting, before dirty minds get started...
You are probably right but check your spam folder, just in case. Almost-empty acknowledgement emails can be false positives. Mine right now has one such.
That's something I routinely do. Although as that particular email address is attached to a website, I get *lots* of junk email...
F1: the 16th Undercutters podcast is done. Glad I made Tuesday the day, recording/editing later was not ideal (but doable). Anyway, very interesting Bahrain Grand Prix, title set up nicely, and a probably good Saudi Arabian Grand Prix to come. Oh, and MBS remains less than popular.
Probably going to go and make a doctor's appointment today. Mildly amused when checking the list on the NHS website that one of the reasons to call 999 is if you can't breathe.
Ahem. Unlikely I'd be giving a great description of my symptoms if that's the case...
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
Democracy requires no one to be above the law, otherwise it is democracy in name only.
No it doesn't, if a party or leader was elected to power with a manifesto commitment to exempt certain groups from some laws that would still be democratic even if contrary to the ruie of law
So, it would be OK for the majority to strip the minority of the right to ... say ... vote?
It would be democratic if immoral
So let's take this to its logical absurd conclusion. How about an elected government which was elected with a manifesto to remove the vote of everyone. Does that mean the subsequent dictatorship is democratic?
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
Democracy requires no one to be above the law, otherwise it is democracy in name only.
No it doesn't, if a party or leader was elected to power with a manifesto commitment to exempt certain groups from some laws that would still be democratic even if contrary to the ruie of law
So, it would be OK for the majority to strip the minority of the right to ... say ... vote?
It would be democratic if immoral
So let's take this to its logical absurd conclusion. How about an elected government which was elected with a manifesto to remove the vote of everyone. Does that mean the subsequent dictatorship is democratic?
Seems like an oxymoron to me.
Alexis de Tocqueville (and John Stuart Mill for that matter) were there before you:
It is interesting to reflect that Tocqueville was perturbed about the US for precisely the reasons we are seeing now:
In my opinion, the main evil of the present democratic institutions of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against tyranny. When an individual or a party is wronged in the United States, to whom can he apply for redress? If to public opinion, public opinion constitutes the majority; if to the legislature, it represents the majority and implicitly obeys it; if to the executive power, it is appointed by the majority and serves as a passive tool in its hands. The public force consists of the majority under arms; the jury is the majority invested with the right of hearing judicial cases; and in certain states even the judges are elected by the majority. However iniquitous or absurd the measure of which you complain, you must submit to it as well as you can.
I do not say that there is a frequent use of tyranny in America at the present day; but I maintain that there is no sure barrier against it, and that the causes which mitigate the government there are to be found in the circumstances and the manners of the country more than in its laws.
Probably going to go and make a doctor's appointment today. Mildly amused when checking the list on the NHS website that one of the reasons to call 999 is if you can't breathe.
Ahem. Unlikely I'd be giving a great description of my symptoms if that's the case...
IMV it's good advice. Dialling 999 will put you in touch with an operator, and they're fairly experienced and well-trained to detect when someone is genuinely in trouble or when there's a hoax. Even if you cannot breathe, they might tell from rasping or other sounds that you're in trouble. If you're on a landline, they know the address. If on a mobile, dialling 999 should automatically turn on your GPS and send your approximate location AIUI.
(There's also the 55 feature, for silent calls to the police.)
David Frum @davidfrum · 2h Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say "if we still have free and fair elections in the United States" when I talk about 2026 midterms.
Anyone know what happens next? Presumably the President isn't meant to ignore the Supreme Court, but is there anything they can do to enforce their will?
No point asking the US Marshals to enforce a Court order as they are under the DOJ which is full MAGA. Maybe the Supreme Court Police could be used, but this is unlikely as we could see bits of the US government fighting one another. My hunch is the SCOTUS will simply buckle, and that will be the end of the USA as a democracy.
The Supreme Court is not elected unlike Trump. Democracy does not guarantee enforcing the rule of law and constitution
Democracy requires no one to be above the law, otherwise it is democracy in name only.
No it doesn't, if a party or leader was elected to power with a manifesto commitment to exempt certain groups from some laws that would still be democratic even if contrary to the ruie of law
So, it would be OK for the majority to strip the minority of the right to ... say ... vote?
It would be democratic if immoral
So let's take this to its logical absurd conclusion. How about an elected government which was elected with a manifesto to remove the vote of everyone. Does that mean the subsequent dictatorship is democratic?
Seems like an oxymoron to me.
You could argue it was the will of the people.
But if only 60% voted and they gave the governing party a massive majority on only 33% of the votes cast, then yes, that does look rather like the tyranny of democracy enabling dictatorship.
Harvard University President Alan Garber has rejected the Trump Admin's demand to prohibit protests and cut DEI programs to receive funding: "[Harvard] will not negotiate over its independence or constitutional rights." https://x.com/DisavowTrump20/status/1911850688000254311
So they're going to continue with the failed ideas of DEI.
Isn't Harvard one of the world's leading Universities? So why describe its DEI policies as failed?
Harvard is a very rich organisation with something like $50bn of funds. It also has some of the cleverest people on the planet according to itself. Why does it need government funding?
"Donald Trump says the US could deport 'homegrown criminals' to El Salvador jail
The Trump administration has sent hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a notorious facility in El Salvador, since March, but the president has now suggested that "homegrown criminals" could also be sent there."
That one definitely won't fly with the supreme court. The Republican constitution absolutists on the court will see anybody born in the US regardless of status as American.
Bush, Clinton, Obama, all at some point went big on deporting foreign criminals, doing far more numbers than Trump is currently managing.
90% of those deported to El Salvador had no criminal record. None had due process.
So why do you use the Trumpian language that they were "foreign criminals"?
Presumably because they entered the country illegally.
Without due process how do you know?
First word of the post, of course! Presume. Who does the presuming, and who 'benefits' from the presumption are also questions with easy answers. For the first, it's 'people like me' and the second is 'people not like me.'
What happens when one suddenly finds themselves in the out group is similarly obvious, but some people don't seem to think that could ever happen. If only someone, a German pastor perhaps, had written a poem about that exact situation.
Harvard University President Alan Garber has rejected the Trump Admin's demand to prohibit protests and cut DEI programs to receive funding: "[Harvard] will not negotiate over its independence or constitutional rights." https://x.com/DisavowTrump20/status/1911850688000254311
So they're going to continue with the failed ideas of DEI.
Isn't Harvard one of the world's leading Universities? So why describe its DEI policies as failed?
Harvard is a very rich organisation with something like $50bn of funds. It also has some of the cleverest people on the planet according to itself. Why does it need government funding?
They are nearly rich enough to get a post in Trump's Administration...
Harvard University President Alan Garber has rejected the Trump Admin's demand to prohibit protests and cut DEI programs to receive funding: "[Harvard] will not negotiate over its independence or constitutional rights." https://x.com/DisavowTrump20/status/1911850688000254311
So they're going to continue with the failed ideas of DEI.
Isn't Harvard one of the world's leading Universities? So why describe its DEI policies as failed?
Harvard is a very rich organisation with something like $50bn of funds. It also has some of the cleverest people on the planet according to itself. Why does it need government funding?
I suspect that is the whole reason why they have told Donald Trump to shove it. They can afford to.
Regardless of the merits or demerits of this as a policy, or the issues behind it, they are right to do so. Universities should be beholden to nobody but their own senate.
Interestingly, it has been known to happen in this country as well. When Leighton Andrews went off on one and ordered all unis in Wales to merge on his terms because he wanted more central control, with one exception (Newport) they simply ignored him.
A few years back, an acquaintances dad had a heart attack whilst driving alone. The car behind him noticed he was driving erratically and decided to follow. When the car crashed off the road, he stopped and extricated the driver. He flagged down the net car along, which turned out to contain a doctor/paramedic, who saved the driver's life.
If the first driver had not decided to follow him; if the second had not contained someone first-aid trained...
Comments
If underrepresented levels of ethnic minorities at top levels relative to staff and those they serve there may be a case for it in limited form but no more
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/34466460/reform-labours-red-wall-election-starmer-farage/
Reform on 30%, Labour 27%, Tory 22%.
Local Election voting intention, Reform 30%, Labour 20%, Tory 24%.
Supplementary questions aren't good for Labour, particularly Rachel from accounts.
But why mention it and 1960s Rodesia if you do not approve of it? Don't take us for fools.
I've had a week off the insulin pump, and going back and recovering control, an uncomfortable, or just moving the appointment time could cause instability. My worst ever period was related to just moving GP, and the change of pattern. It's minor, and personal.
Relatively, Jenrick and Philp driving slogans into our politics they have picked up from Nick Griffin and Stuart Yaxley-Lennon via Lee Anderson, Nigel Farage, Natcon and the Spectator to weaponise their expressed racism is extremely concerning, and societal, but we have a thicket of checks and balances, and underlying values which are humanitarian, which I think will fight off the trend to mainstream racism *.
Trump imo is very dangerous, and is yanking innocent brown people of the streets, and vanishing them to concentration camps in El Salvador in the hope that his rhetoric will bury the issue, and the innocent victims will die off in obscurity. The historic underlying culture in the USA is of performative brutality, and the victims can go and f*ck themselves. The USA has done this many times and not look in the mirror; in Europe we have tried to leave it behind because we *have* looked in the mirror.
Trump is one stride from Third World Dictatorship values which involve arresting Judges, and that is one step from Argentina or Chile in the 1970s, and vanishing people then killing them yourselves or throwing them out of helicopters at 5000 feet.
People like Anderson, Philp and Jenrick are - I hope - merely varieties of useful idiot.
Quite an interesting "Great Lives" - evaluating Benny Hill.
Hero or anti-hero?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0029zdg
It compares to Mr Farage on -4 and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch on -8.
Voters in the Red Wall heartlands are particularly damning of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who has an approval rating of -35 after last year’s Budget and cuts to winter fuel payments.
Asked who would make the best PM, Mr Farage pips Sir Keir by 26 to 25 per cent, with Ms Badenoch on 12.
Mr Farage also leads the PM by 30 per cent to 22 when respondents were asked which party leader best represents the views of working people.
And today the Reform boss tells The Sun that the Government has abandoned its traditional voters to “pander to the middle classes”.
The Govt are timid in coming forward with their own achievements.
I refer back to what Margaret Hodge said when she defeated Nick Griffin in 2010 (without checking). It is delivery and putting forward positive values, rather than working from the back foot.
It's not unusual to change the rights of non-citizens in the UK. It happens all the time, such as when visa types are changed or whatever. I realize you may disagree, and that is your right, but it seems a very situation to (for example) the government stripping the right to vote from all redheads.
The Trump administration has sent hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a notorious facility in El Salvador, since March, but the president has now suggested that "homegrown criminals" could also be sent there."
https://news.sky.com/story/donald-trump-says-the-us-could-deport-homegrown-criminals-to-el-salvador-jail-13348980
But I was specifically responding to @HYUFD's comment, which was
if a party or leader was elected to power with a manifesto commitment to exempt certain groups from some laws that would still be democratic even if contrary to the ruie of law
Which has nothing to do with immigrants.
I thought this was an interesting chart,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_and_removal_from_the_United_States#/media/File:1892-_Immigration_Enforcement_Actions_-_Department_of_Homeland_Security.svg
Bush, Clinton, Obama, all at some point went big on deporting foreign criminals, doing far more numbers than Trump is currently managing.
"If ‘Woke’ Puritanism Is the Disease, Trump’s Amoral Populism Isn’t the Cure
Valid critiques of progressive moralism have devolved into an embrace of anything-goes strongman rule.
Eric Kaufmann"
https://quillette.com/2025/04/11/if-woke-puritanism-is-the-disease-trumps-amoral-populism-isnt-the-cure-2/
Quote
"While Trump has commendably crippled the use of aggressive DEI policies in government and academia, he’s failed to persuade moderates to back his campaign—in part because his administration hasn’t developed a compelling moral narrative that serves to address the resulting pushback. The need to build broad constituencies to support one’s policies, a central focus of most politicians in free societies, is seen as irrelevant to those, such as Trump, whose only goal is to keep tossing red meat to core supporters.
This behaviour isn’t just amoral and anti-democratic. It’s juvenile. Trump and Musk have become America’s trolls-in-chief—as exemplified by the White House’s posting of an AI-generated cartoon depicting an immigrant crying in handcuffs. This type of “shitposting” is the furthest thing from presidential."
https://www.natesilver.net/p/the-4-factions-of-trump-20?r=2a9ngu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Anchovies, anchovies, you're so delicious...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPSbH3x1Ox8
So why do you use the Trumpian language that they were "foreign criminals"?
Maybe he hears good things about the climate in El Salvador?
https://x.com/vodkasnowflake/status/1911832487329739261/photo/1
This is where we will end up if we are not careful. We've already had @Leon professing how China deals with its Muslim population: which, if you remember, is massive 're-education' camps holding millions.
Do not believe it will just be the 'bad' people who end up there. It will be anyone who catches the attention of authorities, for whatever reason, or just people found on the streets.
It will be people like my wife.
It will be people like @TheScreamingEagles
And lots of the anti-woke, anti MeToo and anti-DEI people will mutter under their breaths "How terrible!" whilst secretly wondering if they'll be next. And their freedoms, too, will slowly be eroded.
Cody Balmer has a long history of misogynistic, pro-gun, anti-semitic and anti-Biden Social Media posts and was out on bail at the time.
Just another ordinary day in Trumpistan.
The comments from the neighbours about her are not positive
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_democracy
Democracy just means the rule of the people, as opposed to the elite.
Both ancient and modern era democracy were quite happy to tolerate (for example) mass slavery, and severely limit those who could vote. There are those in the right who woukd remive women's suffrage.
Their definition has so narrow in terms of constraints on arbitrary power, that it's close to meaningless.
One of my pet hates is web forms that do not send you a response. They are everywhere, including in government.
A couple of weeks ago, I applied for a non-government service (*) through a web form. I put my details in, including a long comment about the service I required. I gave my email address and all other info. I heard nothing back, and when I contacted them yesterday, they said that they had not received the request.
So I've no idea if they are lying, made a mistake, or the web form got sent to /dev/null.
In ye olden days, a fair few websites used to send your submission back to your email address, or at the very least just send an email saying something along the lines of "Thanks for your submission." This meant you at least knew it had been received. Nowadays, including from government services, you often get nothing.
(*) A bike fitting, before dirty minds get started...
They are fighting for their independence from the government
As another example: I submitted a response to the new EWR scheme, as they were very keen for locals to do. I submitted it through their web page. There was zero response to the submission (*), and if I had not already saved a copy of my long submission, I would have lost it.
(*) And yes, I checked junk email and other folders.
F1: the 16th Undercutters podcast is done. Glad I made Tuesday the day, recording/editing later was not ideal (but doable). Anyway, very interesting Bahrain Grand Prix, title set up nicely, and a probably good Saudi Arabian Grand Prix to come. Oh, and MBS remains less than popular.
Podbean: https://undercutters.podbean.com/e/f1-2025-bahrain-gp-review-and-saudi-arabian-gp-preview/
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f1-2025-bahrain-gp-review-and-saudi-arabian-gp-preview/id1786574257?i=1000703556715
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6SNzWPn8fUvRee27IXuFZZ
Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/bcfe213b-55fb-408a-a823-dc6693ee9f78/episodes/e951a925-ebfa-45de-b65c-0d95ea83c550/undercutters---f1-podcast-f1-2025-bahrain-gp-review-and-saudi-arabian-gp-preview
Transcript: https://morrisf1.blogspot.com/2025/04/f1-2025-bahrain-gp-review-and-saudi.html
Ahem. Unlikely I'd be giving a great description of my symptoms if that's the case...
Seems like an oxymoron to me.
https://www.rug.nl/ucg/education/webinar/images-pdf/detoqueville-tyranny-of-the-majority.pdf
It is interesting to reflect that Tocqueville was perturbed about the US for precisely the reasons we are seeing now:
In my opinion, the main evil of the present democratic institutions of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against tyranny. When an individual or a party is wronged in the United States, to whom can he apply for redress? If to public opinion, public opinion constitutes the majority; if to the legislature, it represents the majority and implicitly obeys it; if to the executive power, it is appointed by the majority and serves as a passive tool in its hands. The public force consists of the majority under arms; the jury is the majority invested with the right of hearing judicial cases; and in certain states even the judges are elected by the majority. However iniquitous or absurd the measure of which you complain, you must submit to it as well as you can.
I do not say that there is a frequent use of tyranny in America at the present day; but I maintain that there is no sure barrier against it, and that the causes which mitigate the government there are to be found in the circumstances and the manners of the country more than in its laws.
(There's also the 55 feature, for silent calls to the police.)
But if only 60% voted and they gave the governing party a massive majority on only 33% of the votes cast, then yes, that does look rather like the tyranny of democracy enabling dictatorship.
What happens when one suddenly finds themselves in the out group is similarly obvious, but some people don't seem to think that could ever happen. If only someone, a German pastor perhaps, had written a poem about that exact situation.
But probably too clever.
NEW THREAD
Regardless of the merits or demerits of this as a policy, or the issues behind it, they are right to do so. Universities should be beholden to nobody but their own senate.
Interestingly, it has been known to happen in this country as well. When Leighton Andrews went off on one and ordered all unis in Wales to merge on his terms because he wanted more central control, with one exception (Newport) they simply ignored him.
A few years back, an acquaintances dad had a heart attack whilst driving alone. The car behind him noticed he was driving erratically and decided to follow. When the car crashed off the road, he stopped and extricated the driver. He flagged down the net car along, which turned out to contain a doctor/paramedic, who saved the driver's life.
If the first driver had not decided to follow him; if the second had not contained someone first-aid trained...
Dumb luck plays a part in all our lives.
All my very best wishes for a swift and full recovery.