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You should always check the wording of your bets – politicalbetting.com

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  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 59,176
    edited January 8

    Sandpit said:

    What might be the next big story, it looks like there’s a medical emergency on the International Space Station.

    https://x.com/nasaspaceflight/status/2009129900637143450

    Let’s hope that whatever it is, is amenable to delay in treatment and 3-4.5g on the way back.
    Sounds like a developing story. The live feed from the ISS was cut last night, and NASA are briefing that an early end to the mission is a possibility.

    A nightmare scenario for everyone involved, and something which has seemingly never actually happened before.

    The stress of the return journey is possibly better than the alternative.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 36,308

    Rachel Reeves appears to have put her foot in it.

    https://x.com/ziayusufuk/status/2009200669987586318

    You came up with similar linguistic pedantry regarding Starmer a couple of days ago.

    Perhaps Yusuf remains unaware of Nigel's alleged white supremacist schoolboy narratives. FWIW, I suspect Yusuf will be ahead of me in the queue to the football stadium come the day of the revolution.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 36,308

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Can I quote you what Scott just posted? You do seem to have an answer to most of my liberal filth posts.
    Scott_xP said:

    @EdKrassen

    While you watch what took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, remember that when the Nazis and Hitler’s Gestapo killed innocent people in Germany, they too gaslit the public into believing those people were criminals.

    The only way a government can get away with killing people is by selling the narrative that that killing was justified.

    Believe what you see with your own eyes, not what Donald Trump is telling you you saw.

    https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/2009214648382349514?s=20

  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 40,281

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Trump’s goals are self-aggrandisement and paying off scores.

    He doesn’t have Hitler’s ideological ambitions.

    He, and his coterie are certainly malevolent, and could reasonably be described as fascist.
  • OllyT said:

    FF43 said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    You argue for fascism and then pretend the consequences are the fault of the victims or those opposed to it. You are not the only such person, so I guess in the interest of "balance" these views need to be aired. I'm not sure whether that's a good idea for those concerned, but it's not my call.

    Nevertheless it's not misinterpretation when people push back on that argument.
    Are immigration enforcement raids in Britain also an example of fascism?
    Is “West Side Story” Steven Sondheim’s best work?

    (I presume we’re playing some sort of game of non sequiturs.)
    No just his usual pathetic attempts at whataboutery
    I think calling West Side Story a "pathetic attempt at whataboutery" is a bit harsh. It has some nice tunes in it. Not as good as Into the Woods though (see it at the Bridge - a brilliant production),
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 89,349
    edited January 8

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Labour now pulling the business rate changes for pubs.

    Is there anything the party is actually going to see through?

    So yet again they’ve spent the political capital but not raised the money?
    Yes
    They really just should have said the finances were a lot worse than they expected because the Tories were bad, and we’re putting up income tax rates by 2% (or 4% while reducing -ee NI by 2%) for the duration of this Parliament.

    The bad news would all have been out of the way 18 months ago, they’d have actually raised the money, and there wouldn’t be an increasing number of organised groups pissed off with Labour.

    Bonus points if they actually dropped the tax rise back at the end of this Parliament, with a promise not to repeat next time.

    It’s the most inept government ever, they really don’t have a clue how to actually govern.
    Merge employee NI and IT. And add in a new rate so pensioners below £50k don’t pay more.

    This would have equalised taxation, kinda kept the promise on tax*, saved admin costs.

    Oh, and raised money.

    As for winter fuel - put all the old age extra benefits in a blender and come out with a payment that is taxed/means tested to target the poorest.

    Can I be Labour Chancellor?

    *You could even create a small tax *cut* for the employed at the same time
    I don't even think you would have needed to go down the expensive means testing oldies benefits. If we are merging NI and IC, rich pensioners are going to be paying extra tax so that rather nullifies the claims of squillionaire OAPs still getting their freebie WFA if they are now paying more in tax than before. Triple lock of course can go in the bin as well.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 57,042
    https://x.com/NOELreports/status/2009252244814741989

    Iraq is moving to nationalise operations at its massive West Qurna-2 oilfield after U.S. sanctions forced Russian oil giant Lukoil to declare force majeure. With Lukoil holding a 75% stake, Baghdad has tasked the state-run Basra Oil Company with taking over for the next 12 months, keeping output steady at around 465,000 to 480,000 barrels per day.

    The move is aimed at avoiding supply disruptions while Iraq shops for new investors to replace the sanctioned Russian firm.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 89,349
    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Trump’s goals are self-aggrandisement and paying off scores.

    He doesn’t have Hitler’s ideological ambitions.

    He, and his coterie are certainly malevolent, and could reasonably be described as fascist.
    But can he paint?
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 18,007

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Trump’s goals are self-aggrandisement and paying off scores.

    He doesn’t have Hitler’s ideological ambitions.

    He, and his coterie are certainly malevolent, and could reasonably be described as fascist.
    But can he paint?
    Dubya can: https://www.instagram.com/p/CDj1RoEJaIc/
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 59,817

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Can I quote you what Scott just posted? You do seem to have an answer to most of my liberal filth posts.
    Scott_xP said:

    @EdKrassen

    While you watch what took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, remember that when the Nazis and Hitler’s Gestapo killed innocent people in Germany, they too gaslit the public into believing those people were criminals.

    The only way a government can get away with killing people is by selling the narrative that that killing was justified.

    Believe what you see with your own eyes, not what Donald Trump is telling you you saw.

    https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/2009214648382349514?s=20

    I was addressing the more focused point - Trump himself.

    The Stephen Miller types are indeed fascists. See also the Minister For War.

    Trump himself has none of the focus or ideology of… anyone. I think. He’s a random collection of emotions looking for immediate satisfaction.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 36,308
    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Trump’s goals are self-aggrandisement and paying off scores.

    He doesn’t have Hitler’s ideological ambitions.

    He, and his coterie are certainly malevolent, and could reasonably be described as fascist.
    Stephen Miller, Vance and Hegseth are idealogues. Miller and Hegseth are white supremacists. Hegseth even has the tattoos to prove it. Some of the parallels, as I mentioned are uncanny. Last Saturday's adventure into Sudetenland for starters.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 89,349

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Trump’s goals are self-aggrandisement and paying off scores.

    He doesn’t have Hitler’s ideological ambitions.

    He, and his coterie are certainly malevolent, and could reasonably be described as fascist.
    But can he paint?
    Dubya can: https://www.instagram.com/p/CDj1RoEJaIc/
    A bit like Hitler, world have been a better place if they had stuck to art.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 34,616

    Agreed re header about checking terms. Obvious examples for pb on recurring politics markets include:-

    • Next party leaders (normally acting leaders are excluded)
    • Next cabinet exits (how are wide-ranging reshuffles settled?)
    • Prime Minister exit dates (normally PMs linger until a replacement is found, which can take days or months)
    The first applies to football as well, where caretaker managers are normally ignored for betting purposes.
    OT-ish but Christmas Number One is a market that fits here and has just been explained by TRiE. Kylie won when everyone expected Xmas playlists to give Wham! the hat trick. It turns out Christmas Number One is a movable feast.

    2025 the relevant chart was sales up to the 18th of December, the first time it had been so early since 2010 or 11. Amazon went gangbusters promoting Kylie, and it worked. The following week, which was the week up to Christmas Day itself, normal service was resumed, everyone turned on their Xmas playlists, and Wham! was back on top. Richard Osman suggests the odds might be attractive in 2026.

    So as with the header, check the terms!
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 59,817
    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Trump’s goals are self-aggrandisement and paying off scores.

    He doesn’t have Hitler’s ideological ambitions.

    He, and his coterie are certainly malevolent, and could reasonably be described as fascist.
    A number of them (Stephen Miller as a prime example) exhibit/aspire to all the points in Umberto Ecco’s masterly definition of fascism.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 18,007

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Can I quote you what Scott just posted? You do seem to have an answer to most of my liberal filth posts.
    Scott_xP said:

    @EdKrassen

    While you watch what took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, remember that when the Nazis and Hitler’s Gestapo killed innocent people in Germany, they too gaslit the public into believing those people were criminals.

    The only way a government can get away with killing people is by selling the narrative that that killing was justified.

    Believe what you see with your own eyes, not what Donald Trump is telling you you saw.

    https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/2009214648382349514?s=20

    I was addressing the more focused point - Trump himself.

    The Stephen Miller types are indeed fascists. See also the Minister For War.

    Trump himself has none of the focus or ideology of… anyone. I think. He’s a random collection of emotions looking for immediate satisfaction.
    Yes and no. He is racist, always has been. That fits a fascist ideology. Trump, maybe for self-serving reasons, believes in an all-powerful leader figure making a country great again. That also fits a fascist ideology. There's a bundle of ideas there that align with Miller's more explicit fascism.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 85,119
    Taz said:

    Nigelb said:

    How will these numbers (or issues) change when it becomes apparent over the next couple of years that immigration numbers are down massively ?
    Notice "crime" doesn't even crack the top five.

    What do the public say the govt’s #1 priority for 2026 should be? Respondents answered in their own words, which we have categorised

    1. Tackling immigration: 23%
    2. Cost of living: 16%
    3. Economy: 10%
    4. NHS: 5%
    5. Climate change: 3%

    Results link in replies

    https://x.com/YouGov/status/2008568826988839415

    Housing is not in the top 5. I am surprised.
    That partially explains why successive governments have done such a poor job of addressing it.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 36,308

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Can I quote you what Scott just posted? You do seem to have an answer to most of my liberal filth posts.
    Scott_xP said:

    @EdKrassen

    While you watch what took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, remember that when the Nazis and Hitler’s Gestapo killed innocent people in Germany, they too gaslit the public into believing those people were criminals.

    The only way a government can get away with killing people is by selling the narrative that that killing was justified.

    Believe what you see with your own eyes, not what Donald Trump is telling you you saw.

    https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/2009214648382349514?s=20

    I was addressing the more focused point - Trump himself.

    The Stephen Miller types are indeed fascists. See also the Minister For War.

    Trump himself has none of the focus or ideology of… anyone. I think. He’s a random collection of emotions looking for immediate satisfaction.
    But Trump is the front for these guys. How can you unhook Trump from Miller?

    Someone asked in the Hitler comparison context, can Trump paint? Two things the Trump signature cartoons ( ie Jeff's 50th birthday card) and his orange face painting, which granted isn't very good and looks like he's smeared his face with baby poo. But who am I to denounce that as not being art?
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 9,009
    Guardian reporting Labour will climb down on pub business rates and maybe wider hospitality sector. Wonder why they bother annoying everyone and then backing down.

    Higher taxes for you and me so pubs and restaurants can keep their tax breaks.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 59,817

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Can I quote you what Scott just posted? You do seem to have an answer to most of my liberal filth posts.
    Scott_xP said:

    @EdKrassen

    While you watch what took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, remember that when the Nazis and Hitler’s Gestapo killed innocent people in Germany, they too gaslit the public into believing those people were criminals.

    The only way a government can get away with killing people is by selling the narrative that that killing was justified.

    Believe what you see with your own eyes, not what Donald Trump is telling you you saw.

    https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/2009214648382349514?s=20

    I was addressing the more focused point - Trump himself.

    The Stephen Miller types are indeed fascists. See also the Minister For War.

    Trump himself has none of the focus or ideology of… anyone. I think. He’s a random collection of emotions looking for immediate satisfaction.
    Yes and no. He is racist, always has been. That fits a fascist ideology. Trump, maybe for self-serving reasons, believes in an all-powerful leader figure making a country great again. That also fits a fascist ideology. There's a bundle of ideas there that align with Miller's more explicit fascism.
    Back when he was less addled, Trump was a New York Democrat. With some racist behaviour towards tenants in some of his buildings, true.

    At least that’s what he publicly espoused. Pal of the Clintons etc.

    Was he always as he is now, or did he change. See Fetterman?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 36,308
    edited January 8

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Can I quote you what Scott just posted? You do seem to have an answer to most of my liberal filth posts.
    Scott_xP said:

    @EdKrassen

    While you watch what took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, remember that when the Nazis and Hitler’s Gestapo killed innocent people in Germany, they too gaslit the public into believing those people were criminals.

    The only way a government can get away with killing people is by selling the narrative that that killing was justified.

    Believe what you see with your own eyes, not what Donald Trump is telling you you saw.

    https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/2009214648382349514?s=20

    I was addressing the more focused point - Trump himself.

    The Stephen Miller types are indeed fascists. See also the Minister For War.

    Trump himself has none of the focus or ideology of… anyone. I think. He’s a random collection of emotions looking for immediate satisfaction.
    Yes and no. He is racist, always has been. That fits a fascist ideology. Trump, maybe for self-serving reasons, believes in an all-powerful leader figure making a country great again. That also fits a fascist ideology. There's a bundle of ideas there that align with Miller's more explicit fascism.

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Trump’s goals are self-aggrandisement and paying off scores.

    He doesn’t have Hitler’s ideological ambitions.

    He, and his coterie are certainly malevolent, and could reasonably be described as fascist.
    A number of them (Stephen Miller as a prime example) exhibit/aspire to all the points in Umberto Ecco’s masterly definition of fascism.


    They dovetail perfectly into Hannah Arendt's definition of authoritarianism too.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 59,176
    Second sanctioned vessel said to be heading up the English Channel.

    https://x.com/unclesamosint/status/2009267669950701614

    Is there going to be a response from the Royal Navy?
  • FossFoss Posts: 2,212
    Sandpit said:

    Second sanctioned vessel said to be heading up the English Channel.

    https://x.com/unclesamosint/status/2009267669950701614

    Is there going to be a response from the Royal Navy?

    If there isn't then that really does suggest there was something special on yesterday's capture.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 59,817

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Can I quote you what Scott just posted? You do seem to have an answer to most of my liberal filth posts.
    Scott_xP said:

    @EdKrassen

    While you watch what took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, remember that when the Nazis and Hitler’s Gestapo killed innocent people in Germany, they too gaslit the public into believing those people were criminals.

    The only way a government can get away with killing people is by selling the narrative that that killing was justified.

    Believe what you see with your own eyes, not what Donald Trump is telling you you saw.

    https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/2009214648382349514?s=20

    I was addressing the more focused point - Trump himself.

    The Stephen Miller types are indeed fascists. See also the Minister For War.

    Trump himself has none of the focus or ideology of… anyone. I think. He’s a random collection of emotions looking for immediate satisfaction.
    But Trump is the front for these guys. How can you unhook Trump from Miller?

    Someone asked in the Hitler comparison context, can Trump paint? Two things the Trump signature cartoons ( ie Jeff's 50th birthday card) and his orange face painting, which granted isn't very good and looks like he's smeared his face with baby poo. But who am I to denounce that as not being art?
    Thought - Trump is actually close to being one of those invented leaders, that crop up in tales of authoritarian societies.

    His supporters project their wishes onto him - which have connection to the reality.

    His name is used as a cipher by the Inner Party to do what they want.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 85,119
    Carnyx said:

    Nigelb said:

    FF43 said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    You argue for fascism and then pretend the consequences are the fault of the victims or those opposed to it. You are not the only such person, so I guess in the interest of "balance" these views need to be aired. I'm not sure whether that's a good idea for those concerned, but it's not my call.

    Nevertheless it's not misinterpretation when people push back on that argument.
    Are immigration enforcement raids in Britain also an example of fascism?
    Is “West Side Story” Steven Sondheim’s best work?

    (I presume we’re playing some sort of game of non sequiturs.)
    Which dinosaur would you choose as a family pet?
    A small herbivorous one from the Cretaceous (a late stage of evolution so likely quite intelligent and potentially trainable).

    Perhaps this guy:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertadromeus
    Many years ago was published a splendid book on choosing dinosaurs for pets, police work, etc. Excellent advice.

    https://chasmosaurs.com/2023/05/17/vintage-dinosaur-art-how-to-keep-dinosaurs-part-1/
    https://chasmosaurs.com/2023/06/08/vintage-dinosaur-art-how-to-keep-dinosaurs-part-2/
    I remember being given the first edition of that for Christmas.
    Its practical advice clearly stuck. The cricket pads, btw, are an excellent idea for saurophiles.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 34,616
    Foss said:

    Sandpit said:

    Second sanctioned vessel said to be heading up the English Channel.

    https://x.com/unclesamosint/status/2009267669950701614

    Is there going to be a response from the Royal Navy?

    If there isn't then that really does suggest there was something special on yesterday's capture.
    Or it suggests that we are frit of Russia and are just cheerleading American actions.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 36,308

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Can I quote you what Scott just posted? You do seem to have an answer to most of my liberal filth posts.
    Scott_xP said:

    @EdKrassen

    While you watch what took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, remember that when the Nazis and Hitler’s Gestapo killed innocent people in Germany, they too gaslit the public into believing those people were criminals.

    The only way a government can get away with killing people is by selling the narrative that that killing was justified.

    Believe what you see with your own eyes, not what Donald Trump is telling you you saw.

    https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/2009214648382349514?s=20

    I was addressing the more focused point - Trump himself.

    The Stephen Miller types are indeed fascists. See also the Minister For War.

    Trump himself has none of the focus or ideology of… anyone. I think. He’s a random collection of emotions looking for immediate satisfaction.
    But Trump is the front for these guys. How can you unhook Trump from Miller?

    Someone asked in the Hitler comparison context, can Trump paint? Two things the Trump signature cartoons ( ie Jeff's 50th birthday card) and his orange face painting, which granted isn't very good and looks like he's smeared his face with baby poo. But who am I to denounce that as not being art?
    Thought - Trump is actually close to being one of those invented leaders, that crop up in tales of authoritarian societies.

    His supporters project their wishes onto him - which have connection to the reality.

    His name is used as a cipher by the Inner Party to do what they want.
    All the bullshit posted on Truth Social regarding the execution of Nicole Good was in Trump's name. If he isn't misrepresenting the truth someone is doing it on his behalf.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 34,616

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Can I quote you what Scott just posted? You do seem to have an answer to most of my liberal filth posts.
    Scott_xP said:

    @EdKrassen

    While you watch what took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, remember that when the Nazis and Hitler’s Gestapo killed innocent people in Germany, they too gaslit the public into believing those people were criminals.

    The only way a government can get away with killing people is by selling the narrative that that killing was justified.

    Believe what you see with your own eyes, not what Donald Trump is telling you you saw.

    https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/2009214648382349514?s=20

    I was addressing the more focused point - Trump himself.

    The Stephen Miller types are indeed fascists. See also the Minister For War.

    Trump himself has none of the focus or ideology of… anyone. I think. He’s a random collection of emotions looking for immediate satisfaction.
    But Trump is the front for these guys. How can you unhook Trump from Miller?

    Someone asked in the Hitler comparison context, can Trump paint? Two things the Trump signature cartoons ( ie Jeff's 50th birthday card) and his orange face painting, which granted isn't very good and looks like he's smeared his face with baby poo. But who am I to denounce that as not being art?
    Thought - Trump is actually close to being one of those invented leaders, that crop up in tales of authoritarian societies.

    His supporters project their wishes onto him - which have connection to the reality.

    His name is used as a cipher by the Inner Party to do what they want.
    See also Reagan and GW Bush. The only difference is which particular GOP hard men are running the show while the affable, telegenic front man distracts the public.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 45,663

    eek said:

    FF43 said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    You argue for fascism and then pretend the consequences are the fault of the victims or those opposed to it. You are not the only such person, so I guess in the interest of "balance" these views need to be aired. I'm not sure whether that's a good idea for those concerned, but it's not my call.

    Nevertheless it's not misinterpretation when people push back on that argument.
    Are immigration enforcement raids in Britain also an example of fascism?
    If UK Border Force are masked up, armed and executing and deporting British citizens, and people with a legitimate leave to remain, yes.

    This government's behaviour towards Shamima Begum is arguably illegal according to international law protocols. If you choose to call that fascism that's up to you.
    Shamima Begum is a weird case - firstly it's about the only thing I agree with Nigel Farage on and secondly we raised her and she should be held responsible for any crimes she's committed. Instead we didn't bother with the criminal prosecutions, took a quick way out and have now wasted years trying to justify it.
    One of the issues for me is this - do we have the evidence to convict her of the things we believe she has done? I'm not convinced we do. So bringing her back/allowing her back in order to lock her up in prison may well not work that well. I'd rather she stood trial in the place of her crimes, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

    And she was likely groomed and is thus also, partially, a victim too. People have less sympathy for her than they do for victims of the other grooming story, but she didn't just decide to up and leave to join ISIS in a vacuum.
    Something really dodgy about it, they let thousands of mental men who had been there shooting and killing people yet she is the only person stopped and they lied about her being Bangladeshi citizen etc. Something very fishy there they want kept quiet.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 36,308
    malcolmg said:

    eek said:

    FF43 said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    You argue for fascism and then pretend the consequences are the fault of the victims or those opposed to it. You are not the only such person, so I guess in the interest of "balance" these views need to be aired. I'm not sure whether that's a good idea for those concerned, but it's not my call.

    Nevertheless it's not misinterpretation when people push back on that argument.
    Are immigration enforcement raids in Britain also an example of fascism?
    If UK Border Force are masked up, armed and executing and deporting British citizens, and people with a legitimate leave to remain, yes.

    This government's behaviour towards Shamima Begum is arguably illegal according to international law protocols. If you choose to call that fascism that's up to you.
    Shamima Begum is a weird case - firstly it's about the only thing I agree with Nigel Farage on and secondly we raised her and she should be held responsible for any crimes she's committed. Instead we didn't bother with the criminal prosecutions, took a quick way out and have now wasted years trying to justify it.
    One of the issues for me is this - do we have the evidence to convict her of the things we believe she has done? I'm not convinced we do. So bringing her back/allowing her back in order to lock her up in prison may well not work that well. I'd rather she stood trial in the place of her crimes, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

    And she was likely groomed and is thus also, partially, a victim too. People have less sympathy for her than they do for victims of the other grooming story, but she didn't just decide to up and leave to join ISIS in a vacuum.
    Something really dodgy about it, they let thousands of mental men who had been there shooting and killing people yet she is the only person stopped and they lied about her being Bangladeshi citizen etc. Something very fishy there they want kept quiet.
    'kin' hell. Not only do I agree with Farage but also Scots Nationalist Tory Malcolm over this issue!
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 85,119

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Can I quote you what Scott just posted? You do seem to have an answer to most of my liberal filth posts.
    Scott_xP said:

    @EdKrassen

    While you watch what took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, remember that when the Nazis and Hitler’s Gestapo killed innocent people in Germany, they too gaslit the public into believing those people were criminals.

    The only way a government can get away with killing people is by selling the narrative that that killing was justified.

    Believe what you see with your own eyes, not what Donald Trump is telling you you saw.

    https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/2009214648382349514?s=20

    I was addressing the more focused point - Trump himself.

    The Stephen Miller types are indeed fascists. See also the Minister For War.

    Trump himself has none of the focus or ideology of… anyone. I think. He’s a random collection of emotions looking for immediate satisfaction.
    Yes and no. He is racist, always has been. That fits a fascist ideology. Trump, maybe for self-serving reasons, believes in an all-powerful leader figure making a country great again. That also fits a fascist ideology. There's a bundle of ideas there that align with Miller's more explicit fascism.
    Back when he was less addled, Trump was a New York Democrat. With some racist behaviour towards tenants in some of his buildings, true.

    At least that’s what he publicly espoused. Pal of the Clintons etc.

    Was he always as he is now, or did he change. See Fetterman?
    I’m currently finishing American Psycho (published in 1991) and guess who gets mentioned every five pages or so as Patrick Bateman’s idol in the world of outrageous nihilism among late-1980s NYC yuppies.
    https://x.com/IAPonomarenko/status/2008665209515503833

    See also the case of the Central Park Five.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 45,663

    theProle said:

    Nigelb said:

    How will these numbers (or issues) change when it becomes apparent over the next couple of years that immigration numbers are down massively ?
    Notice "crime" doesn't even crack the top five.

    What do the public say the govt’s #1 priority for 2026 should be? Respondents answered in their own words, which we have categorised

    1. Tackling immigration: 23%
    2. Cost of living: 16%
    3. Economy: 10%
    4. NHS: 5%
    5. Climate change: 3%

    Results link in replies

    https://x.com/YouGov/status/2008568826988839415

    As I think I've said before, a hugely massive bad number being a bit smaller than a previous even huger massive bad number, although an improvement, doesn't solve the problem.

    It's an attempt at a slight of hand like politicians mixing up the deficit and the national debt, and implying that merely *reducing* the deficit will reduce the debt.

    We're not even remotely near Cameron's tens of thousands yet, never mind the net zero or below (very easy without forcing anyone to leave - cap visas to say 90% of the previous year's emigration figure, job done) which is what's needed to actually cut the pressure immigration is placing on housing and services.

    Of course, if we don't solve the boats, part of the *political* problem is that they become a bigger and bigger part of the net figure. When we're letting in a net million people, 40k boat people are a drop in the ocean. Get legal immigration under control so the total is say 100k net, nearly half that net number is boat people, and it's a tiny issue no longer.
    To pick up on one point, I would say we are "remotely near Cameron's tens of thousands". Net immigration was 204k in 2025 and the number is falling. That's getting closer to, say, 90k, which would meet Cameron's description. To describe 2025's figure as merely "a bit smaller than a previous even huger massive bad number" is misleading and does not capture the absolutely huge drop in net immigration we've seen over the last 2 years.
    so you reckon it will only be mainly illegal boat people this year
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 18,007
    malcolmg said:

    theProle said:

    Nigelb said:

    How will these numbers (or issues) change when it becomes apparent over the next couple of years that immigration numbers are down massively ?
    Notice "crime" doesn't even crack the top five.

    What do the public say the govt’s #1 priority for 2026 should be? Respondents answered in their own words, which we have categorised

    1. Tackling immigration: 23%
    2. Cost of living: 16%
    3. Economy: 10%
    4. NHS: 5%
    5. Climate change: 3%

    Results link in replies

    https://x.com/YouGov/status/2008568826988839415

    As I think I've said before, a hugely massive bad number being a bit smaller than a previous even huger massive bad number, although an improvement, doesn't solve the problem.

    It's an attempt at a slight of hand like politicians mixing up the deficit and the national debt, and implying that merely *reducing* the deficit will reduce the debt.

    We're not even remotely near Cameron's tens of thousands yet, never mind the net zero or below (very easy without forcing anyone to leave - cap visas to say 90% of the previous year's emigration figure, job done) which is what's needed to actually cut the pressure immigration is placing on housing and services.

    Of course, if we don't solve the boats, part of the *political* problem is that they become a bigger and bigger part of the net figure. When we're letting in a net million people, 40k boat people are a drop in the ocean. Get legal immigration under control so the total is say 100k net, nearly half that net number is boat people, and it's a tiny issue no longer.
    To pick up on one point, I would say we are "remotely near Cameron's tens of thousands". Net immigration was 204k in 2025 and the number is falling. That's getting closer to, say, 90k, which would meet Cameron's description. To describe 2025's figure as merely "a bit smaller than a previous even huger massive bad number" is misleading and does not capture the absolutely huge drop in net immigration we've seen over the last 2 years.
    so you reckon it will only be mainly illegal boat people this year
    I take @theProle 's point that as immigration falls, the proportion of that immigration that came over on illegal boats is higher. So, it was about a fifth last year. That proportion could well rise further, yes, although hard to predict.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 59,176
    edited January 8
    The oilfield that Iraq is renationalising from the Russians, is allegedly responsible for 1% of global supply!

    https://x.com/warmonitor3/status/2009253297236959288
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 45,663

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Labour now pulling the business rate changes for pubs.

    Is there anything the party is actually going to see through?

    So yet again they’ve spent the political capital but not raised the money?
    Yes
    They really just should have said the finances were a lot worse than they expected because the Tories were bad, and we’re putting up income tax rates by 2% (or 4% while reducing -ee NI by 2%) for the duration of this Parliament.

    The bad news would all have been out of the way 18 months ago, they’d have actually raised the money, and there wouldn’t be an increasing number of organised groups pissed off with Labour.

    Bonus points if they actually dropped the tax rise back at the end of this Parliament, with a promise not to repeat next time.

    It’s the most inept government ever, they really don’t have a clue how to actually govern.
    Merge employee NI and IT. And add in a new rate so pensioners below £50k don’t pay more.

    This would have equalised taxation, kinda kept the promise on tax*, saved admin costs.

    Oh, and raised money.

    As for winter fuel - put all the old age extra benefits in a blender and come out with a payment that is taxed/means tested to target the poorest.

    Can I be Labour Chancellor?

    *You could even create a small tax *cut* for the employed at the same time
    Plus tax benefits same as any other income , including eth free rent , council tax etc.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 57,242
    Met Office RED WARNING for wind in SW England!
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 36,308
    malcolmg said:

    theProle said:

    Nigelb said:

    How will these numbers (or issues) change when it becomes apparent over the next couple of years that immigration numbers are down massively ?
    Notice "crime" doesn't even crack the top five.

    What do the public say the govt’s #1 priority for 2026 should be? Respondents answered in their own words, which we have categorised

    1. Tackling immigration: 23%
    2. Cost of living: 16%
    3. Economy: 10%
    4. NHS: 5%
    5. Climate change: 3%

    Results link in replies

    https://x.com/YouGov/status/2008568826988839415

    As I think I've said before, a hugely massive bad number being a bit smaller than a previous even huger massive bad number, although an improvement, doesn't solve the problem.

    It's an attempt at a slight of hand like politicians mixing up the deficit and the national debt, and implying that merely *reducing* the deficit will reduce the debt.

    We're not even remotely near Cameron's tens of thousands yet, never mind the net zero or below (very easy without forcing anyone to leave - cap visas to say 90% of the previous year's emigration figure, job done) which is what's needed to actually cut the pressure immigration is placing on housing and services.

    Of course, if we don't solve the boats, part of the *political* problem is that they become a bigger and bigger part of the net figure. When we're letting in a net million people, 40k boat people are a drop in the ocean. Get legal immigration under control so the total is say 100k net, nearly half that net number is boat people, and it's a tiny issue no longer.
    To pick up on one point, I would say we are "remotely near Cameron's tens of thousands". Net immigration was 204k in 2025 and the number is falling. That's getting closer to, say, 90k, which would meet Cameron's description. To describe 2025's figure as merely "a bit smaller than a previous even huger massive bad number" is misleading and does not capture the absolutely huge drop in net immigration we've seen over the last 2 years.
    so you reckon it will only be mainly illegal boat people this year
    Were those boat people Rupert Lowe saw paddling in the North Sea past Great Yarmouth pier on their way to Scotland?
  • Met Office RED WARNING for wind in SW England!

    North of England - wear your thick jacket.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 59,176

    Met Office RED WARNING for wind in SW England!

    Well my parents are currently on a plane heading for Heathrow. What could possibly go wrong?
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 8,527
    rkrkrk said:

    Guardian reporting Labour will climb down on pub business rates and maybe wider hospitality sector. Wonder why they bother annoying everyone and then backing down.

    Higher taxes for you and me so pubs and restaurants can keep their tax breaks.

    They’re just piss poor political tacticians. The problem is they keep making these unforced errors, and they really should have learned from previous mistakes by now.

    The Treasury in particular gives the impression of being completely dysfunctional at the moment.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 36,308
    Sandpit said:

    Met Office RED WARNING for wind in SW England!

    Well my parents are currently on a plane heading for Heathrow. What could possibly go wrong?
    Diverted to Stansted?
  • rkrkrk said:

    Guardian reporting Labour will climb down on pub business rates and maybe wider hospitality sector. Wonder why they bother annoying everyone and then backing down.

    Higher taxes for you and me so pubs and restaurants can keep their tax breaks.

    They’re just piss poor political tacticians. The problem is they keep making these unforced errors, and they really should have learned from previous mistakes by now.

    The Treasury in particular gives the impression of being completely dysfunctional at the moment.
    At the moment?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 85,119
    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 62,833

    https://x.com/NOELreports/status/2009252244814741989

    Iraq is moving to nationalise operations at its massive West Qurna-2 oilfield after U.S. sanctions forced Russian oil giant Lukoil to declare force majeure. With Lukoil holding a 75% stake, Baghdad has tasked the state-run Basra Oil Company with taking over for the next 12 months, keeping output steady at around 465,000 to 480,000 barrels per day.

    The move is aimed at avoiding supply disruptions while Iraq shops for new investors to replace the sanctioned Russian firm.

    Output is sadly likely to decline slightly this year - but hopefully one of the international majors takes over and reverses that.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 62,833
    Sandpit said:

    The oilfield that Iraq is renationalising from the Russians, is allegedly responsible for 1% of global supply!

    https://x.com/warmonitor3/status/2009253297236959288

    It's about 0.5%... but still it produced (on its own) oil equivalent to a third of British usage.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 59,817
    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 62,833
    Sandpit said:

    Met Office RED WARNING for wind in SW England!

    Well my parents are currently on a plane heading for Heathrow. What could possibly go wrong?
    The weather is utterly miserable in the South East right now.

    And I'm on a bike without mudguards.

    Oops.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 59,817
    Sandpit said:

    Met Office RED WARNING for wind in SW England!

    Well my parents are currently on a plane heading for Heathrow. What could possibly go wrong?
    You run into Colonel Stuart at the airport….
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 57,042
    https://x.com/SecScottBessent/status/2009264006083522849

    Effective immediately, the United States is withdrawing from @theGCF.

    Our nation will no longer fund radical organizations like the GCF [Green Climate Fund] whose goals run contrary to the fact that affordable, reliable energy is fundamental to economic growth and poverty reduction.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 59,176
    edited January 8
    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Met Office RED WARNING for wind in SW England!

    Well my parents are currently on a plane heading for Heathrow. What could possibly go wrong?
    The weather is utterly miserable in the South East right now.

    And I'm on a bike without mudguards.

    Oops.
    Well I’m South and East of Heathrow, and the weather here’s brilliant!

    (Perhaps parents should have stayed here for another week or two? The offer was made and declined).
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 85,119

    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
    Raju: The Speaker and others have said that this driver was weaponizing her vehicle.

    AOC: Their editorializing of this event to justify this is disgusting. Watch it for yourself and make that assessment for yourself on which of these leaders are lying to you.

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/2009059549970682104


    For almost a year, Donald Trump's personal police force has rampaged across America.

    His administration has driven extremism and cruelty while discarding basic safeguards and accountability.

    Now, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen is dead.

    Donald Trump owns this. His deliberate escalation of intimidation and chaos has consequences. His reckless crackdown must end.

    https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2009049140689313876

    For the rest of it, we will see.


  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 59,817
    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    The oilfield that Iraq is renationalising from the Russians, is allegedly responsible for 1% of global supply!

    https://x.com/warmonitor3/status/2009253297236959288

    It's about 0.5%... but still it produced (on its own) oil equivalent to a third of British usage.
    Trump & Co. seem to be pissing Russians this week.

    Does he think he’s in a Moscow hotel room or something?

    Or is it “spheres of influence”?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 59,817
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
    Raju: The Speaker and others have said that this driver was weaponizing her vehicle.

    AOC: Their editorializing of this event to justify this is disgusting. Watch it for yourself and make that assessment for yourself on which of these leaders are lying to you.

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/2009059549970682104


    For almost a year, Donald Trump's personal police force has rampaged across America.

    His administration has driven extremism and cruelty while discarding basic safeguards and accountability.

    Now, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen is dead.

    Donald Trump owns this. His deliberate escalation of intimidation and chaos has consequences. His reckless crackdown must end.

    https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2009049140689313876

    For the rest of it, we will see.


    Indeed. What I expected.

    Want to bet on the rest?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 85,119
    My dear Americans, I am saying this out of love and care, and not because I have anything against the USA.
    Sometimes you can see things better from the outside.
    Any discussions on the ICE going as far as kidnapping and now - killing people, – whatever the circumstances, are fruitless.
    The moment the ICE started to operate in masks (which almost never happened before March 2025, ever since the creation of the agency in 2003) is the moment your state has gone rogue. We had very similar processes in Russia, too. You might be having that a bit different due to the more mature society, but it has the potential to become the same shit on steroids.
    If you have an agency in your country, which:
    - has covered the faces of their agents by default
    - has no clear and known protocol upon which they operate (e.g. you are stopped because you're not white enough, or because you got reported by a neighbour as an illegal)
    - is allowed to use force against you
    - is overseen, audited and expected by THE SAME STRUCTURE they belong to (DHS)

    you are already in deep, deep problems.

    It is clearly visible in the fact that people are kidnapped or robbed by some thugs posing as ICE agents. It is only possible because the agency itself is not overseen and does not have clear protocols.

    So, even if you are all for fighting 'illegal aliens', this should seriously concern you. It is the state that goes rogue.

    https://x.com/pepel_klaasa/status/2009200884417208458
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 59,176
    edited January 8
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
    Raju: The Speaker and others have said that this driver was weaponizing her vehicle.

    AOC: Their editorializing of this event to justify this is disgusting. Watch it for yourself and make that assessment for yourself on which of these leaders are lying to you.

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/2009059549970682104


    For almost a year, Donald Trump's personal police force has rampaged across America.

    His administration has driven extremism and cruelty while discarding basic safeguards and accountability.

    Now, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen is dead.

    Donald Trump owns this. His deliberate escalation of intimidation and chaos has consequences. His reckless crackdown must end.

    https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2009049140689313876

    For the rest of it, we will see.


    Ah, Gov Newsom, on the first anniversary of the massive fire that engulfed his State, has nothing to say about the rebuilding that hasn’t even started to happen, delayed by process imposed by his government.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 57,242

    Sandpit said:

    Met Office RED WARNING for wind in SW England!

    Well my parents are currently on a plane heading for Heathrow. What could possibly go wrong?
    You run into Colonel Stuart at the airport….
    "So much for the element of chance!"
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 34,616
    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    That would be a leading question, or for Americans, push-polling, or for politicians, framing the narrative.
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 3,671
    Off topic, but I thought some of you might appreciate this cheerful possibility:

    Good news next month? Maybe.
    Artemis II is a planned lunar spaceflight mission under the Artemis program, led by NASA. It is intended to be the second flight of the Space Launch System (SLS), and is both the first crewed mission of the Orion spacecraft and the first crewed mission to the vicinity of the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. Launch is scheduled for no earlier than February 5, 2026.

    The 10-day mission will carry NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency, on a free-return trajectory around the Moon and back to Earth.
    (Links omitted.)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_II

    In recent years, I have come to the tentative conclusion that JFK erred when he made our objective a moon landing in less than 10 years. Instead, he should have planned to make us the first “space faring” nation. (A moon landing would have come out of that as a by-product.)
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 34,616
    OT the Racing Post (in a space-filling piece by a racing tipster) has suggested backing Trump to go in 2026, so if the price shortens, that will be why.

    A scroll through X produced a 9-2 bet that should be long odds-on. Is it wishful thinking?
    https://www.racingpost.com/news/opinion/comment/a-scroll-through-x-produced-a-9-2-bet-that-should-be-long-odds-on.-is-it-wishful-thinking-aMe1B7N3y5qK
  • TazTaz Posts: 23,878
    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    Nigelb said:

    How will these numbers (or issues) change when it becomes apparent over the next couple of years that immigration numbers are down massively ?
    Notice "crime" doesn't even crack the top five.

    What do the public say the govt’s #1 priority for 2026 should be? Respondents answered in their own words, which we have categorised

    1. Tackling immigration: 23%
    2. Cost of living: 16%
    3. Economy: 10%
    4. NHS: 5%
    5. Climate change: 3%

    Results link in replies

    https://x.com/YouGov/status/2008568826988839415

    Housing is not in the top 5. I am surprised.
    That partially explains why successive governments have done such a poor job of addressing it.
    Indeed it does.

    I guess for the majority, if you have a home or secure tenancy it is not an issue.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 8,017
    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Met Office RED WARNING for wind in SW England!

    Well my parents are currently on a plane heading for Heathrow. What could possibly go wrong?
    The weather is utterly miserable in the South East right now.

    And I'm on a bike without mudguards.

    Oops.
    It it makes you feel any better I spent a couple of hours outside yesterday making sure things were all secure and then another couple this morning once the forecasts for here all started agreeing it was going to be F10-11 gusts between 95 and 110. Hurricane force 12 west of here out to sea but there is nothing really between the Atlantic and my house that will break it up. Things I wouldn’t have moved or put into stores yesterday suddenly looked quite lightweight.

    I managed to convince myself to sleep in a different bedroom tonight as above my normal bedroom are huge chimney stacks and I’ve become paranoid that these westerlies will hit one straight on and would go through until it squished me on my bed which I do not want!
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 34,616

    Met Office RED WARNING for wind in SW England!

    This might explain not one but two emergency notification tests today.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 33,931
    boulay said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Met Office RED WARNING for wind in SW England!

    Well my parents are currently on a plane heading for Heathrow. What could possibly go wrong?
    The weather is utterly miserable in the South East right now.

    And I'm on a bike without mudguards.

    Oops.
    It it makes you feel any better I spent a couple of hours outside yesterday making sure things were all secure and then another couple this morning once the forecasts for here all started agreeing it was going to be F10-11 gusts between 95 and 110. Hurricane force 12 west of here out to sea but there is nothing really between the Atlantic and my house that will break it up. Things I wouldn’t have moved or put into stores yesterday suddenly looked quite lightweight.

    I managed to convince myself to sleep in a different bedroom tonight as above my normal bedroom are huge chimney stacks and I’ve become paranoid that these westerlies will hit one straight on and would go through until it squished me on my bed which I do not want!
    Hope all goes well over the next 24 hours and you come through with no damage.
  • TazTaz Posts: 23,878

    Met Office RED WARNING for wind in SW England!

    North of England - wear your thick jacket.
    Minus 3 here, the postman was wearing shorts today.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 85,119
    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
    Raju: The Speaker and others have said that this driver was weaponizing her vehicle.

    AOC: Their editorializing of this event to justify this is disgusting. Watch it for yourself and make that assessment for yourself on which of these leaders are lying to you.

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/2009059549970682104


    For almost a year, Donald Trump's personal police force has rampaged across America.

    His administration has driven extremism and cruelty while discarding basic safeguards and accountability.

    Now, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen is dead.

    Donald Trump owns this. His deliberate escalation of intimidation and chaos has consequences. His reckless crackdown must end.

    https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2009049140689313876

    For the rest of it, we will see.


    Ah, Gov Newsom, on the first anniversary of the massive fire that engulfed his State, has nothing to say about the rebuilding that hasn’t even started to happen, delayed by process imposed by his government.
    Ah, whataboutery.

    (And a quick search suggests that he's had a fair amount to say about it.)
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 57,242
    edited January 8

    Off topic, but I thought some of you might appreciate this cheerful possibility:

    Good news next month? Maybe.

    "Artemis II is a planned lunar spaceflight mission under the Artemis program, led by NASA. It is intended to be the second flight of the Space Launch System (SLS), and is both the first crewed mission of the Orion spacecraft and the first crewed mission to the vicinity of the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. Launch is scheduled for no earlier than February 5, 2026.

    "The 10-day mission will carry NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency, on a free-return trajectory around the Moon and back to Earth."
    (Links omitted.)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_II

    In recent years, I have come to the tentative conclusion that JFK erred when he made our objective a moon landing in less than 10 years. Instead, he should have planned to make us the first “space faring” nation. (A moon landing would have come out of that as a by-product.)

    Fun fact, in Superman II (Christopher Reeve incarnation), the fictitious moon mission (jointly manned by the USA and USSR!) is called "Artemis".
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 59,176
    Make America California Again!

    https://x.com/shellenberger/status/2009247464960950370

    A Ukrainian family in California has lost custody of their daughter after refusing to allow her to medically transition to a "boy."

    Speaking to Reduxx, the parents say they were also entered into an abuse registry by child protective services.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 57,042
    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
    Raju: The Speaker and others have said that this driver was weaponizing her vehicle.

    AOC: Their editorializing of this event to justify this is disgusting. Watch it for yourself and make that assessment for yourself on which of these leaders are lying to you.

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/2009059549970682104


    For almost a year, Donald Trump's personal police force has rampaged across America.

    His administration has driven extremism and cruelty while discarding basic safeguards and accountability.

    Now, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen is dead.

    Donald Trump owns this. His deliberate escalation of intimidation and chaos has consequences. His reckless crackdown must end.

    https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2009049140689313876

    For the rest of it, we will see.


    Ah, Gov Newsom, on the first anniversary of the massive fire that engulfed his State, has nothing to say about the rebuilding that hasn’t even started to happen, delayed by process imposed by his government.
    Ah, whataboutery.

    (And a quick search suggests that he's had a fair amount to say about it.)
    Calling ICE "Donald Trump's personal police force" is a bit of a stretch, isn't it? It's possible to regard them as a menace without stoking this fantasy that the US is in the grip of fascism.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 57,242

    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
    Raju: The Speaker and others have said that this driver was weaponizing her vehicle.

    AOC: Their editorializing of this event to justify this is disgusting. Watch it for yourself and make that assessment for yourself on which of these leaders are lying to you.

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/2009059549970682104


    For almost a year, Donald Trump's personal police force has rampaged across America.

    His administration has driven extremism and cruelty while discarding basic safeguards and accountability.

    Now, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen is dead.

    Donald Trump owns this. His deliberate escalation of intimidation and chaos has consequences. His reckless crackdown must end.

    https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2009049140689313876

    For the rest of it, we will see.


    Ah, Gov Newsom, on the first anniversary of the massive fire that engulfed his State, has nothing to say about the rebuilding that hasn’t even started to happen, delayed by process imposed by his government.
    Ah, whataboutery.

    (And a quick search suggests that he's had a fair amount to say about it.)
    Calling ICE "Donald Trump's personal police force" is a bit of a stretch, isn't it? It's possible to regard them as a menace without stoking this fantasy that the US is in the grip of fascism.
    The SS started out as "Adolf Hitler's personal body guard"...
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 36,308
    ...
    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
    Raju: The Speaker and others have said that this driver was weaponizing her vehicle.

    AOC: Their editorializing of this event to justify this is disgusting. Watch it for yourself and make that assessment for yourself on which of these leaders are lying to you.

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/2009059549970682104


    For almost a year, Donald Trump's personal police force has rampaged across America.

    His administration has driven extremism and cruelty while discarding basic safeguards and accountability.

    Now, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen is dead.

    Donald Trump owns this. His deliberate escalation of intimidation and chaos has consequences. His reckless crackdown must end.

    https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2009049140689313876

    For the rest of it, we will see.


    Ah, Gov Newsom, on the first anniversary of the massive fire that engulfed his State, has nothing to say about the rebuilding that hasn’t even started to happen, delayed by process imposed by his government.
    Kristi Noem has recently made a direct personal threat to Gavin Newsom on Fox after being encouraged by that vile, smug f***** Jesse Watters. Do you think she should follow through?
  • DoctorGDoctorG Posts: 394
    rkrkrk said:

    Guardian reporting Labour will climb down on pub business rates and maybe wider hospitality sector. Wonder why they bother annoying everyone and then backing down.

    Higher taxes for you and me so pubs and restaurants can keep their tax breaks.

    They're a sector getting a pretty hard time from tax increases, NI rise hit them quite hard, I have sympathy for them. We need a vibrant hospitality sector to stop us becoming society of recluses, they've had a pretty tough time since covid. No one wants to work those hours, which is in part why migrants are needed to fill those jobs

    The politics, again, are dreadful. Tax first and work out consequences later is the way it seems to work from the government
  • boulayboulay Posts: 8,017

    boulay said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Met Office RED WARNING for wind in SW England!

    Well my parents are currently on a plane heading for Heathrow. What could possibly go wrong?
    The weather is utterly miserable in the South East right now.

    And I'm on a bike without mudguards.

    Oops.
    It it makes you feel any better I spent a couple of hours outside yesterday making sure things were all secure and then another couple this morning once the forecasts for here all started agreeing it was going to be F10-11 gusts between 95 and 110. Hurricane force 12 west of here out to sea but there is nothing really between the Atlantic and my house that will break it up. Things I wouldn’t have moved or put into stores yesterday suddenly looked quite lightweight.

    I managed to convince myself to sleep in a different bedroom tonight as above my normal bedroom are huge chimney stacks and I’ve become paranoid that these westerlies will hit one straight on and would go through until it squished me on my bed which I do not want!
    Hope all goes well over the next 24 hours and you come through with no damage.
    Ha thanks, just being overly cautious, got lots to do this year and don’t fancy being sidelined by an operation to remove a chimney pot from my face.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 59,176

    Sandpit said:

    Make America California Again!

    https://x.com/shellenberger/status/2009247464960950370

    A Ukrainian family in California has lost custody of their daughter after refusing to allow her to medically transition to a "boy."

    Speaking to Reduxx, the parents say they were also entered into an abuse registry by child protective services.

    You are embarrasing yourself today.
    Sorry, why is the state kidnapping children of refugees?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 85,119

    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
    Raju: The Speaker and others have said that this driver was weaponizing her vehicle.

    AOC: Their editorializing of this event to justify this is disgusting. Watch it for yourself and make that assessment for yourself on which of these leaders are lying to you.

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/2009059549970682104


    For almost a year, Donald Trump's personal police force has rampaged across America.

    His administration has driven extremism and cruelty while discarding basic safeguards and accountability.

    Now, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen is dead.

    Donald Trump owns this. His deliberate escalation of intimidation and chaos has consequences. His reckless crackdown must end.

    https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2009049140689313876

    For the rest of it, we will see.


    Ah, Gov Newsom, on the first anniversary of the massive fire that engulfed his State, has nothing to say about the rebuilding that hasn’t even started to happen, delayed by process imposed by his government.
    Ah, whataboutery.

    (And a quick search suggests that he's had a fair amount to say about it.)
    Calling ICE "Donald Trump's personal police force" is a bit of a stretch, isn't it? It's possible to regard them as a menace without stoking this fantasy that the US is in the grip of fascism.
    Is it ?

    (Or are you saying that it's actually Stephen Miller's ?)
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 57,042

    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
    Raju: The Speaker and others have said that this driver was weaponizing her vehicle.

    AOC: Their editorializing of this event to justify this is disgusting. Watch it for yourself and make that assessment for yourself on which of these leaders are lying to you.

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/2009059549970682104


    For almost a year, Donald Trump's personal police force has rampaged across America.

    His administration has driven extremism and cruelty while discarding basic safeguards and accountability.

    Now, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen is dead.

    Donald Trump owns this. His deliberate escalation of intimidation and chaos has consequences. His reckless crackdown must end.

    https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2009049140689313876

    For the rest of it, we will see.


    Ah, Gov Newsom, on the first anniversary of the massive fire that engulfed his State, has nothing to say about the rebuilding that hasn’t even started to happen, delayed by process imposed by his government.
    Ah, whataboutery.

    (And a quick search suggests that he's had a fair amount to say about it.)
    Calling ICE "Donald Trump's personal police force" is a bit of a stretch, isn't it? It's possible to regard them as a menace without stoking this fantasy that the US is in the grip of fascism.
    The SS started out as "Adolf Hitler's personal body guard"...
    Yes, thank you for highlighting the contrast with ICE.

    Newsom is no different to the British far-left during the 80s calling the police "Thatcher's Gestapo".
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 4,103

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    The oilfield that Iraq is renationalising from the Russians, is allegedly responsible for 1% of global supply!

    https://x.com/warmonitor3/status/2009253297236959288

    It's about 0.5%... but still it produced (on its own) oil equivalent to a third of British usage.
    Trump & Co. seem to be pissing Russians this week.

    Does he think he’s in a Moscow hotel room or something?

    Or is it “spheres of influence”?
    The Russians can't even bring Ukraine into their "sphere" and are losing ground everywhere.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 34,616
    edited January 8

    DoctorG said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Guardian reporting Labour will climb down on pub business rates and maybe wider hospitality sector. Wonder why they bother annoying everyone and then backing down.

    Higher taxes for you and me so pubs and restaurants can keep their tax breaks.

    They're a sector getting a pretty hard time from tax increases, NI rise hit them quite hard, I have sympathy for them. We need a vibrant hospitality sector to stop us becoming society of recluses, they've had a pretty tough time since covid. No one wants to work those hours, which is in part why migrants are needed to fill those jobs

    The politics, again, are dreadful. Tax first and work out consequences later is the way it seems to work from the government
    I think it is pretty obvious what has happened the past 2 budgets. Reeves and wider government have done very little thinking while having declared certain red lines.

    They then go to the treasury bods and say what policies have you got in the drawer for raising taxes, they then produce a big list of them, Reeves picks a few, and off we go. No joined up thinking, no strategy, little thought about potential pitfalls or about implementation e.g. see pay per mile on EVs.
    Yes, it is the same process that gave us the omnishambles budget all those years ago – stringing together unconnected items from the Treasury's wish list of measures previously rejected on political grounds. Trouble is, it is getting to be a bit of a habit. Once bitten, twice bitten, is not the usual proverb.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 33,931
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Make America California Again!

    https://x.com/shellenberger/status/2009247464960950370

    A Ukrainian family in California has lost custody of their daughter after refusing to allow her to medically transition to a "boy."

    Speaking to Reduxx, the parents say they were also entered into an abuse registry by child protective services.

    You are embarrasing yourself today.
    Sorry, why is the state kidnapping children of refugees?
    Why is the Federal Government murdering innocent citizens? The only reason you are highlighting this today is to try and distract attention from the real issue in America which is a paramilitary force under the direct control of the President murdering and kidnapping US citizens.

    As I said earlier. The US under Trump is becoming more like Venezuela every day.
  • TazTaz Posts: 23,878

    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
    Raju: The Speaker and others have said that this driver was weaponizing her vehicle.

    AOC: Their editorializing of this event to justify this is disgusting. Watch it for yourself and make that assessment for yourself on which of these leaders are lying to you.

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/2009059549970682104


    For almost a year, Donald Trump's personal police force has rampaged across America.

    His administration has driven extremism and cruelty while discarding basic safeguards and accountability.

    Now, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen is dead.

    Donald Trump owns this. His deliberate escalation of intimidation and chaos has consequences. His reckless crackdown must end.

    https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2009049140689313876

    For the rest of it, we will see.


    Ah, Gov Newsom, on the first anniversary of the massive fire that engulfed his State, has nothing to say about the rebuilding that hasn’t even started to happen, delayed by process imposed by his government.
    Ah, whataboutery.

    (And a quick search suggests that he's had a fair amount to say about it.)
    Calling ICE "Donald Trump's personal police force" is a bit of a stretch, isn't it? It's possible to regard them as a menace without stoking this fantasy that the US is in the grip of fascism.
    The SS started out as "Adolf Hitler's personal body guard"...
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 57,242

    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
    Raju: The Speaker and others have said that this driver was weaponizing her vehicle.

    AOC: Their editorializing of this event to justify this is disgusting. Watch it for yourself and make that assessment for yourself on which of these leaders are lying to you.

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/2009059549970682104


    For almost a year, Donald Trump's personal police force has rampaged across America.

    His administration has driven extremism and cruelty while discarding basic safeguards and accountability.

    Now, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen is dead.

    Donald Trump owns this. His deliberate escalation of intimidation and chaos has consequences. His reckless crackdown must end.

    https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2009049140689313876

    For the rest of it, we will see.


    Ah, Gov Newsom, on the first anniversary of the massive fire that engulfed his State, has nothing to say about the rebuilding that hasn’t even started to happen, delayed by process imposed by his government.
    Ah, whataboutery.

    (And a quick search suggests that he's had a fair amount to say about it.)
    Calling ICE "Donald Trump's personal police force" is a bit of a stretch, isn't it? It's possible to regard them as a menace without stoking this fantasy that the US is in the grip of fascism.
    The SS started out as "Adolf Hitler's personal body guard"...
    Yes, thank you for highlighting the contrast with ICE.

    Newsom is no different to the British far-left during the 80s calling the police "Thatcher's Gestapo".
    So, you're an apologist for the execution of unarmed US civilians, then?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 89,349
    edited January 8

    DoctorG said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Guardian reporting Labour will climb down on pub business rates and maybe wider hospitality sector. Wonder why they bother annoying everyone and then backing down.

    Higher taxes for you and me so pubs and restaurants can keep their tax breaks.

    They're a sector getting a pretty hard time from tax increases, NI rise hit them quite hard, I have sympathy for them. We need a vibrant hospitality sector to stop us becoming society of recluses, they've had a pretty tough time since covid. No one wants to work those hours, which is in part why migrants are needed to fill those jobs

    The politics, again, are dreadful. Tax first and work out consequences later is the way it seems to work from the government
    I think it is pretty obvious what has happened the past 2 budgets. Reeves and wider government have done very little thinking while having declared certain red lines.

    They then go to the treasury bods and say what policies have you got in the drawer for raising taxes, they then produce a big list of them, Reeves picks a few, and off we go. No joined up thinking, no strategy, little thought about potential pitfalls or about implementation e.g. see pay per mile on EVs.
    Yes, it is the same process that gave us the omnishambles budget all those years ago – stringing together unconnected items from the Treasury's wish list of measures previously rejected on political grounds. Trouble is, it is getting to be a bit of a habit. Once bitten, twice bitten, is not the usual proverb.
    The omnishambles budget is completely overblown compared to the clusterfucks we have had more recently (not just Labour ones, Sunak NI+++ was another example of terrible thinking econimically and politically). If the major issue is taxes on if a pasty is hot or cold its not exactly in the same universe of we have tripled your business rates.

    And actually the VAT system should be reformed it is a now total nonsense. But it is far too timid to be messing about those edge cases like hot pasties. The whole its a "luxury" goods, cakes vs biscuits, etc, is insane in this day and age.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 13,146
    Taz said:

    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
    Raju: The Speaker and others have said that this driver was weaponizing her vehicle.

    AOC: Their editorializing of this event to justify this is disgusting. Watch it for yourself and make that assessment for yourself on which of these leaders are lying to you.

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/2009059549970682104


    For almost a year, Donald Trump's personal police force has rampaged across America.

    His administration has driven extremism and cruelty while discarding basic safeguards and accountability.

    Now, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen is dead.

    Donald Trump owns this. His deliberate escalation of intimidation and chaos has consequences. His reckless crackdown must end.

    https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2009049140689313876

    For the rest of it, we will see.


    Ah, Gov Newsom, on the first anniversary of the massive fire that engulfed his State, has nothing to say about the rebuilding that hasn’t even started to happen, delayed by process imposed by his government.
    Ah, whataboutery.

    (And a quick search suggests that he's had a fair amount to say about it.)
    Calling ICE "Donald Trump's personal police force" is a bit of a stretch, isn't it? It's possible to regard them as a menace without stoking this fantasy that the US is in the grip of fascism.
    The SS started out as "Adolf Hitler's personal body guard"...
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
    I found this interesting from your link -

    Godwin's law can be applied mistakenly or abused as a distraction, a diversion, or even censorship, when miscasting an opponent's argument as hyperbole even when the comparison made by the argument is appropriate.[11] Godwin has criticized the over-application of the adage, claiming that it does not articulate a fallacy, but rather is intended to reduce the frequency of inappropriate and hyperbolic comparisons:[12]

    "Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics, its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler to think a bit harder about the Holocaust."
  • PhilPhil Posts: 3,128

    DoctorG said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Guardian reporting Labour will climb down on pub business rates and maybe wider hospitality sector. Wonder why they bother annoying everyone and then backing down.

    Higher taxes for you and me so pubs and restaurants can keep their tax breaks.

    They're a sector getting a pretty hard time from tax increases, NI rise hit them quite hard, I have sympathy for them. We need a vibrant hospitality sector to stop us becoming society of recluses, they've had a pretty tough time since covid. No one wants to work those hours, which is in part why migrants are needed to fill those jobs

    The politics, again, are dreadful. Tax first and work out consequences later is the way it seems to work from the government
    I think it is pretty obvious what has happened the past 2 budgets. Reeves and wider government have done very little thinking while having declared certain red lines.

    They then go to the treasury bods and say what policies have you got in the drawer for raising taxes, they then produce a big list of them, Reeves picks a few, and off we go. No joined up thinking, no strategy, little thought about potential pitfalls or about implementation e.g. see pay per mile on EVs.
    This is why promising not to raise headline tax rates is such a hostage to fortune - it makes it much harder politically to do the necessary thing if economic circumstances changes. For the last few election cycles politicians have raced to promise not to raise headline tax rates, something which was stupid then & just looks worse & worse over time.

    The last few elections were not decided by whether the government promised to hold the line on income tax at the expense of everything else - Boris won on Brexit, Labour won on simply not being the Tories. So why do politicians insist on entering into this reverse auction of idiocy every time?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 85,119
    The suggestion that there's a deliberate effort to provoke civil disturbance doesn't seem far fetched.

    Minneapolis schools cancel classes after Border Patrol clash disrupts dismissal at Roosevelt
    https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/08/after-border-patrol-clash-at-roosevelt-minneapolis-schools-cancel-classes
    Minneapolis Public Schools on Wednesday canceled classes district-wide for the remainder of the week “due to safety concerns,” following the killing of a woman Wednesday by an ICE agent. The district said it was acting “out of an abundance of caution.”

    The move came after officials at Roosevelt High School said armed U.S. Border Patrol officers came on school property during dismissal Wednesday and began tackling people, handcuffed two staff members and released chemical weapons on bystanders.

    “The guy, I’m telling him like, ‘Please step off the school grounds,’ and this dude comes up and bumps into me and then tells me that I pushed him, and he’s trying to push me, and he knocked me down,” a school official, who spoke to MPR News on condition of anonymity said.

    “They don’t care. They’re just animals,” the official added. “I’ve never seen people behave like this.”...


    Note, Border Force.

    What are they even doing in a Minneapolis school ?

    Are they Trump's personal police force or something ?


  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 36,308

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Make America California Again!

    https://x.com/shellenberger/status/2009247464960950370

    A Ukrainian family in California has lost custody of their daughter after refusing to allow her to medically transition to a "boy."

    Speaking to Reduxx, the parents say they were also entered into an abuse registry by child protective services.

    You are embarrasing yourself today.
    Sorry, why is the state kidnapping children of refugees?
    Why is the Federal Government murdering innocent citizens? The only reason you are highlighting this today is to try and distract attention from the real issue in America which is a paramilitary force under the direct control of the President murdering and kidnapping US citizens.

    As I said earlier. The US under Trump is becoming more like Venezuela every day.
    The execution of Nicole Good has completely kicked the news into touch that after 20 days the DOJ have only released 1% of the Epstein Files.

    A big win?
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 5,133

    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
    Raju: The Speaker and others have said that this driver was weaponizing her vehicle.

    AOC: Their editorializing of this event to justify this is disgusting. Watch it for yourself and make that assessment for yourself on which of these leaders are lying to you.

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/2009059549970682104


    For almost a year, Donald Trump's personal police force has rampaged across America.

    His administration has driven extremism and cruelty while discarding basic safeguards and accountability.

    Now, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen is dead.

    Donald Trump owns this. His deliberate escalation of intimidation and chaos has consequences. His reckless crackdown must end.

    https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2009049140689313876

    For the rest of it, we will see.


    Ah, Gov Newsom, on the first anniversary of the massive fire that engulfed his State, has nothing to say about the rebuilding that hasn’t even started to happen, delayed by process imposed by his government.
    Ah, whataboutery.

    (And a quick search suggests that he's had a fair amount to say about it.)
    Calling ICE "Donald Trump's personal police force" is a bit of a stretch, isn't it? It's possible to regard them as a menace without stoking this fantasy that the US is in the grip of fascism.
    The SS started out as "Adolf Hitler's personal body guard"...
    Yes, thank you for highlighting the contrast with ICE.

    Newsom is no different to the British far-left during the 80s calling the police "Thatcher's Gestapo".
    They may have not been members of the Gestapo, but ask any miner about their actions on any picket line. Waving payslips under miners noses?

    You're a bot anyway so you wouldn't know.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 89,349
    Phil said:

    DoctorG said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Guardian reporting Labour will climb down on pub business rates and maybe wider hospitality sector. Wonder why they bother annoying everyone and then backing down.

    Higher taxes for you and me so pubs and restaurants can keep their tax breaks.

    They're a sector getting a pretty hard time from tax increases, NI rise hit them quite hard, I have sympathy for them. We need a vibrant hospitality sector to stop us becoming society of recluses, they've had a pretty tough time since covid. No one wants to work those hours, which is in part why migrants are needed to fill those jobs

    The politics, again, are dreadful. Tax first and work out consequences later is the way it seems to work from the government
    I think it is pretty obvious what has happened the past 2 budgets. Reeves and wider government have done very little thinking while having declared certain red lines.

    They then go to the treasury bods and say what policies have you got in the drawer for raising taxes, they then produce a big list of them, Reeves picks a few, and off we go. No joined up thinking, no strategy, little thought about potential pitfalls or about implementation e.g. see pay per mile on EVs.
    This is why promising not to raise headline tax rates is such a hostage to fortune - it makes it much harder politically to do the necessary thing if economic circumstances changes. For the last few election cycles politicians have raced to promise not to raise headline tax rates, something which was stupid then & just looks worse & worse over time.

    The last few elections were not decided by whether the government promised to hold the line on income tax at the expense of everything else - Boris won on Brexit, Labour won on simply not being the Tories. So why do politicians insist on entering into this reverse auction of idiocy every time?
    Because a) they think its the only way to win and b) it requires some serious thinking and laying the pitch, not just slogans. Nobody seems to be prepared to do the hard yards.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 57,242
    Taz said:

    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
    Raju: The Speaker and others have said that this driver was weaponizing her vehicle.

    AOC: Their editorializing of this event to justify this is disgusting. Watch it for yourself and make that assessment for yourself on which of these leaders are lying to you.

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/2009059549970682104


    For almost a year, Donald Trump's personal police force has rampaged across America.

    His administration has driven extremism and cruelty while discarding basic safeguards and accountability.

    Now, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen is dead.

    Donald Trump owns this. His deliberate escalation of intimidation and chaos has consequences. His reckless crackdown must end.

    https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2009049140689313876

    For the rest of it, we will see.


    Ah, Gov Newsom, on the first anniversary of the massive fire that engulfed his State, has nothing to say about the rebuilding that hasn’t even started to happen, delayed by process imposed by his government.
    Ah, whataboutery.

    (And a quick search suggests that he's had a fair amount to say about it.)
    Calling ICE "Donald Trump's personal police force" is a bit of a stretch, isn't it? It's possible to regard them as a menace without stoking this fantasy that the US is in the grip of fascism.
    The SS started out as "Adolf Hitler's personal body guard"...
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
    So, you're an apologist for the execution of unarmed US civilians, then?
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 5,133

    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
    Raju: The Speaker and others have said that this driver was weaponizing her vehicle.

    AOC: Their editorializing of this event to justify this is disgusting. Watch it for yourself and make that assessment for yourself on which of these leaders are lying to you.

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/2009059549970682104


    For almost a year, Donald Trump's personal police force has rampaged across America.

    His administration has driven extremism and cruelty while discarding basic safeguards and accountability.

    Now, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen is dead.

    Donald Trump owns this. His deliberate escalation of intimidation and chaos has consequences. His reckless crackdown must end.

    https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2009049140689313876

    For the rest of it, we will see.


    Ah, Gov Newsom, on the first anniversary of the massive fire that engulfed his State, has nothing to say about the rebuilding that hasn’t even started to happen, delayed by process imposed by his government.
    Ah, whataboutery.

    (And a quick search suggests that he's had a fair amount to say about it.)
    Calling ICE "Donald Trump's personal police force" is a bit of a stretch, isn't it? It's possible to regard them as a menace without stoking this fantasy that the US is in the grip of fascism.
    The SS started out as "Adolf Hitler's personal body guard"...
    Yes, thank you for highlighting the contrast with ICE.

    Newsom is no different to the British far-left during the 80s calling the police "Thatcher's Gestapo".
    They may have not been members of the Gestapo, but ask any miner about their actions on any picket line. Waving payslips under miners noses?

    You're a bot anyway so you wouldn't know.
    ...and you're no better than Lord Haw Haw
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 36,308

    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
    Raju: The Speaker and others have said that this driver was weaponizing her vehicle.

    AOC: Their editorializing of this event to justify this is disgusting. Watch it for yourself and make that assessment for yourself on which of these leaders are lying to you.

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/2009059549970682104


    For almost a year, Donald Trump's personal police force has rampaged across America.

    His administration has driven extremism and cruelty while discarding basic safeguards and accountability.

    Now, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen is dead.

    Donald Trump owns this. His deliberate escalation of intimidation and chaos has consequences. His reckless crackdown must end.

    https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2009049140689313876

    For the rest of it, we will see.


    Ah, Gov Newsom, on the first anniversary of the massive fire that engulfed his State, has nothing to say about the rebuilding that hasn’t even started to happen, delayed by process imposed by his government.
    Ah, whataboutery.

    (And a quick search suggests that he's had a fair amount to say about it.)
    Calling ICE "Donald Trump's personal police force" is a bit of a stretch, isn't it? It's possible to regard them as a menace without stoking this fantasy that the US is in the grip of fascism.
    The SS started out as "Adolf Hitler's personal body guard"...
    Yes, thank you for highlighting the contrast with ICE.

    Newsom is no different to the British far-left during the 80s calling the police "Thatcher's Gestapo".
    You OK Hun?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 48,726

    kinabalu said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    There's been some misinterpretation of my comment last night.

    Particularly since 2020, there's been a growing tendency in progressive circles to delegitimise law enforcement per se and to see it as virtuous to inhibit the operation. In some places the police can barely so much as arrest someone without an uninvolved member of the public intervening to take the 'victim's' side.

    Politicians who encourage this behaviour while portentously warning that somebody is going to get killed only make that outcome more likely because it's inevitable that either a protester will take it too far or an officer will make the wrong snap decision when under pressure, as seems to have happened yesterday.

    I'm sure murdering mothers of small children is generally entirely capable of reasoned explanation but I feel this attempt can be (and I am sure will be) improved upon. You are not quite at the 'locked and loaded and ready to win an argument with James O'Brien' stage yet.
    Online MAGA are complaining at media reporting saying she was unarmed, on the grounds that she was in a car and a car can be used as a weapon, therefore she should be described as armed. They appear to think ICE should have free reign to shoot any driver.
    One of the issues that both videos settle is that she was at no point off the road, nor was she trying to mount the pavement. That finishes the 'car as a weapon' argument.
    After she had been shot dead she released the clutch in a hostile manner which could have put the Proud Boy/ Oath Keeper to the front of the car in danger.
    But we aren't privy to what President Trump has seen, which is the ICE officer being "violently wilfully and viciously run over" by the woman. So crushed and mangled was he that "it is hard to believe he is still alive".

    So perhaps people should hang fire until he releases that footage. You wouldn't have thought he'd flat out lie about something as serious as this.
    Reading comments on the videos, the MAGA bots are are already hard at work. She was a terrorist, threatening ICE agents, she should have been at home with her children, she’s a lesbo, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore etc.
    And pretty much on every forum and media around. This is what people forget when they expect sanity to return or that we can avoid it here.
    Most forums have a small army of bots ready to pile in on such occasions. We have to make do with William Glenn.

    Poor sod needs help.
    Are you forgetting poor Sandpit?
    Post Brexit, @williamglenn was probably the most authoritative and informative pro-EU poster on here. Was that @williamglenn fired and replaced by this one?

    @Sandpit still needs to square the circle of being both pro-Trump and pro-Ukraine. That Venn diagram appears remarkably similar to two non dissecting circles.
    I’m definitely not “Pro-Trump”.

    I just don’t think he’s Hitler, and understand why people voted for him, which is a long way away from being a supporter.
    That's quite a low bar, though, not being Hitler.
    On the other hand the parallels are uncanny.
    Really?

    Trump is more of an addled figure head for the coterie of evil clowns around him.

    The difference this is time round isn’t Trump, it’s that the 2025 lot realised they had missed a huge opportunity with his first administration. So they pitch their ideas as Working Towards The Big Orange.
    Can I quote you what Scott just posted? You do seem to have an answer to most of my liberal filth posts.
    Scott_xP said:

    @EdKrassen

    While you watch what took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, remember that when the Nazis and Hitler’s Gestapo killed innocent people in Germany, they too gaslit the public into believing those people were criminals.

    The only way a government can get away with killing people is by selling the narrative that that killing was justified.

    Believe what you see with your own eyes, not what Donald Trump is telling you you saw.

    https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/2009214648382349514?s=20

    I was addressing the more focused point - Trump himself.

    The Stephen Miller types are indeed fascists. See also the Minister For War.

    Trump himself has none of the focus or ideology of… anyone. I think. He’s a random collection of emotions looking for immediate satisfaction.
    But Trump is the front for these guys. How can you unhook Trump from Miller?

    Someone asked in the Hitler comparison context, can Trump paint? Two things the Trump signature cartoons ( ie Jeff's 50th birthday card) and his orange face painting, which granted isn't very good and looks like he's smeared his face with baby poo. But who am I to denounce that as not being art?
    Thought - Trump is actually close to being one of those invented leaders, that crop up in tales of authoritarian societies.

    His supporters project their wishes onto him - which have connection to the reality.

    His name is used as a cipher by the Inner Party to do what they want.
    The whole thing would work perfectly as a pitch-black comedy whereby the world's largest concentration of power somehow falls into the hands of the most unfit person imaginable to hold it. Unfortunately this satirical masterpiece - perhaps even rivalling Dr Strangelove - will never see the light of day because its central conceit has been mugged by reality.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 18,007

    Nigelb said:

    Every congressional democrat and every democrat who's running for president should be asked a simple question:

    Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?

    These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it.

    https://x.com/JDVance/status/2009248101064704147

    No investigation.

    No regret.

    Just propaganda and the character assassination of a dead woman, killed by their agents, from everyone in this administration.

    I expect some actual pushback from AOC & similar.

    Maybe some mealy blather from “Mainstream Democrats”.

    Then crickets.

    Time was when Congress and the Senate had some function or the other. Anyone remember what it was?
    AOC was caught by a journalist coming down those big steps and gave a good off-the-cuff response.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 89,349
    Downing Street has asked ministers to find departmental savings to fund the new digital ID scheme

    Chief Secretary to the PM Darren Jones wrote to government departments last month asking them to identify savings that could be diverted to pay for the policy, according to people familiar with the matter

    https://x.com/alexwickham/status/2009268514201182303?s=20
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