A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
Until a few years ago pubs were seen as the quintessential lifestyle business. Late middle aged people with equity from their houses would quit their well paying jobs and invest in a local pub, with the hope of running it until they are too old to carry on.
Pub chains take advantage of this with contracts so onerous it's hard to make any money on them. But it doesn't matter to the pub chain because there are plenty more suckers to take their place. So after a few years of not making a profit the contractor gives up with the loss of their savings, and the pub chain gets the next one in.
Maybe it's a case of the music stopping on this business model.
I remember there was a Lib Dem MP who did alot of excellent work on the pernicious pubco ties.
As. For pubs as a rite of passage. Former soccer players used to flock to them.
Yep. In the old days when top players retired and in those days didn't have huge amounts of money and few other skills buying a pub seemed to be the norm.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
Maybe not a GOP smear. It could be opponents of ICE trying to claim her as one of their own.
Both your and @ianB2's assessments could be correct.
In the dreadful atmosphere which seems to apply in American politics ATM.
It was US Govt sources posting that she was an activist endangering the life of ICE officers to justify the shooting.
Everyone else was "WTF! An ICE officer has just shot someone." Sometime there is only one side.
On the Portland shooting, note that ICE officers don't have uniforms and are routinely masked to hide their identity. In the US if someone masked up starts waving a gun at you then trying to drive away as quickly as possible doesn't seem an irrational act.
I've mentioned it before, but there is a very good origin story podcast on ICE from July last year describing what has been created (expanded really) and who these people are, they have a left viewpoint but their output is well-researched.
Where did the "legal observer" label come from then?
City leaders said she was a legal observer of federal actions in the city and wasn't a target for an ICE-related arrest.
You are a smart guy William, you cannot believe there is an equivalence.
I can understand Trump, Noem and Vance lying through their teeth to protect their narrative. I can understand Jesse Watters's rationale. He is a smug, malevolent ****.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
Maybe not a GOP smear. It could be opponents of ICE trying to claim her as one of their own.
Both your and @ianB2's assessments could be correct.
In the dreadful atmosphere which seems to apply in American politics ATM.
It was US Govt sources posting that she was an activist endangering the life of ICE officers to justify the shooting.
Everyone else was "WTF! An ICE officer has just shot someone." Sometime there is only one side.
On the Portland shooting, note that ICE officers don't have uniforms and are routinely masked to hide their identity. In the US if someone masked up starts waving a gun at you then trying to drive away as quickly as possible doesn't seem an irrational act.
I've mentioned it before, but there is a very good origin story podcast on ICE from July last year describing what has been created (expanded really) and who these people are, they have a left viewpoint but their output is well-researched.
Where did the "legal observer" label come from then?
City leaders said she was a legal observer of federal actions in the city and wasn't a target for an ICE-related arrest.
You are a smart guy William, you cannot believe there is an equivalence.
I can understand Trump, Noem and Vance lying through their teeth to protect their narrative. I can understand Jesse Watters's rationale. He is a smug, malevolent ****.
What is your justification?
There is another point here. "Legal observer" isn't some special status. It'a literally any citizen watching, or pointing a camera at an ICE agent.
Observing and recording the public actions of federal agents is entirely legal. Punishing people for such activity is illegal.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
It's not an exaggeration to say that in real time, we are watching a democracy sliding towards fascism.
The fact that the Left have often cried "wolf" in the past does not alter the fact that the wolf has now appeared.
"The cult of tradition,"
"The rejection of modernism"
"The cult of action for action's sake"
"Disagreement is treason"
"Fear of difference"
"Appeal to a frustrated middle class"
"Obsession with a plot"
The enemies are "at the same time too strong and too weak"
"Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy" because "life is permanent warfare"
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
Maybe not a GOP smear. It could be opponents of ICE trying to claim her as one of their own.
Both your and @ianB2's assessments could be correct.
In the dreadful atmosphere which seems to apply in American politics ATM.
It was US Govt sources posting that she was an activist endangering the life of ICE officers to justify the shooting.
Everyone else was "WTF! An ICE officer has just shot someone." Sometime there is only one side.
On the Portland shooting, note that ICE officers don't have uniforms and are routinely masked to hide their identity. In the US if someone masked up starts waving a gun at you then trying to drive away as quickly as possible doesn't seem an irrational act.
I've mentioned it before, but there is a very good origin story podcast on ICE from July last year describing what has been created (expanded really) and who these people are, they have a left viewpoint but their output is well-researched.
Where did the "legal observer" label come from then?
City leaders said she was a legal observer of federal actions in the city and wasn't a target for an ICE-related arrest.
You are a smart guy William, you cannot believe there is an equivalence.
I can understand Trump, Noem and Vance lying through their teeth to protect their narrative. I can understand Jesse Watters's rationale. He is a smug, malevolent ****.
What is your justification?
There is another point here. "Legal observer" isn't some special status. It'a literally any citizen watching, or pointing a camera at an ICE agent.
Observing and recording the public actions of federal agents is entirely legal. Punishing people for such activity is illegal.
And there is a huge amount of legal rulings - going up to the Supreme Court - on the definite right to observe, record etc the police and federal agents.
Interesting from @georgeeaton on what might be driving the Tory stabilisation/partial recovery in today’s Morning Call. Features some work we did looking at parties people would consider as well as their main VI which suggests the Tories ceiling has grown.
So the Conservatives now have the highest ceiling with MiC, the Greens the lowest
There is definitely a gap appearing for the Conservatives, with moderates giving up on Labour and Farage looking a bit stale. If they can drag Badenoch away from twitter and suppress all the "British ICE" stuff they might be onto a winner.
To me, Badenoch is the only leader that seems modern and has real energy. I suppose that is because she is the youngest. I like the fact she didn't jump on the two child cap bandwagon, Farage disappointed me a bit with that.
Farage was smart there - two child limit will be a big issue in his target seats.
It might be but few of those who would benefit from its removal would vote Reform.
Which is why Farage has changed his mind again.
More sensible would have been to increase standard child benefit for all those eligible for it rather than end the 2 child benefit cap for those on UC.
Farage was also wrong on the polling, 80% of Reform voters wanted to keep the 2 child benefit cap, even higher than the 76% of Tory voters who wanted to keep it. 59% of all voters also wanted to keep the 2 child cap on benefits. Hence Nige has had to backtrack and say the 2 child benefit cap should only be ended for parents who work https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2025/07/15/6143b/2
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
It's not an exaggeration to say that in real time, we are watching a democracy sliding towards fascism.
The fact that the Left have often cried "wolf" in the past does not alter the fact that the wolf has now appeared.
I am with you. What is the most scary in all of this is that top elected officials were far more keen to denounce and attack a dead woman than pass on any condolences or sympathy for the loss of a mother and a citizen.
This is straight from the "dehumanise your opponents" playbook and should terrify us all.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
It's not an exaggeration to say that in real time, we are watching a democracy sliding towards fascism.
The fact that the Left have often cried "wolf" in the past does not alter the fact that the wolf has now appeared.
Yes.
How strange that I find myself standing shoulder to shoulder with you despite our many obvious differences. Pleased to have you as a bedfellow nonetheless.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
Maybe not a GOP smear. It could be opponents of ICE trying to claim her as one of their own.
Both your and @ianB2's assessments could be correct.
In the dreadful atmosphere which seems to apply in American politics ATM.
It was US Govt sources posting that she was an activist endangering the life of ICE officers to justify the shooting.
Everyone else was "WTF! An ICE officer has just shot someone." Sometime there is only one side.
On the Portland shooting, note that ICE officers don't have uniforms and are routinely masked to hide their identity. In the US if someone masked up starts waving a gun at you then trying to drive away as quickly as possible doesn't seem an irrational act.
I've mentioned it before, but there is a very good origin story podcast on ICE from July last year describing what has been created (expanded really) and who these people are, they have a left viewpoint but their output is well-researched.
Where did the "legal observer" label come from then?
City leaders said she was a legal observer of federal actions in the city and wasn't a target for an ICE-related arrest.
You are a smart guy William, you cannot believe there is an equivalence.
I can understand Trump, Noem and Vance lying through their teeth to protect their narrative. I can understand Jesse Watters's rationale. He is a smug, malevolent ****.
What is your justification?
There is another point here. "Legal observer" isn't some special status. It'a literally any citizen watching, or pointing a camera at an ICE agent.
Observing and recording the public actions of federal agents is entirely legal. Punishing people for such activity is illegal.
The Trump administration, you will be shocked to hear, claims otherwise.
https://www.cato.org/commentary/dhs-says-videotaping-ice-agents-illegal-federal-courts-disagree ..Writing in The American Prospect, Matthew Cunningham-Cook reports that in response to an inquiry from the Center for Media and Democracy, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said, “Videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online is doxing our agents” and added: “We will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law.”
Numerous reports from raid scenes suggest that ICE agents are already informally “enforcing” their disapproval of at-the-scene recording by shoving, beating and even shooting (with less lethal munitions) journalists, freelance photographers, and others with cellphone cameras. Bad things seem to happen especially often when persons who make a practice of filming raids are themselves noncitizens.
If you buy the DHS line, the officers who injured journalists after seeing them recording may have been acting in, well, self-defense. Cunningham-Cook cites a press briefing in July at which DHS Secretary Kristi Noem stated that “violence” is “anything that threatens [DHS agents] and their safety. It is doxing them. It is videotaping them where they’re at.” If we’re using Noem’s standard, maybe the officers were just responding with counterviolence to the violence of being filmed.
Fortunately, the courts aren’t on board with that sort of nonsense. While the Supreme Court itself hasn’t yet faced the issue squarely, the seven federal circuits that have done so—the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 10th, and 11th—all agree that the First Amendment protects the right to record police performing their duties in public.* Those circuits cover such populous states as California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia, and Pennsylvania...
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
It's not an exaggeration to say that in real time, we are watching a democracy sliding towards fascism.
The fact that the Left have often cried "wolf" in the past does not alter the fact that the wolf has now appeared.
Yes.
How strange that I find myself standing shoulder to shoulder with you despite our many obvious differences. Pleased to have you as a bedfellow nonetheless.
Hopefully not at the same time as that Joe Hanson guy.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
It's not an exaggeration to say that in real time, we are watching a democracy sliding towards fascism.
The fact that the Left have often cried "wolf" in the past does not alter the fact that the wolf has now appeared.
I am with you. What is the most scary in all of this is that top elected officials were far more keen to denounce and attack a dead woman than pass on any condolences or sympathy for the loss of a mother and a citizen.
This is straight from the "dehumanise your opponents" playbook and should terrify us all.
When Ian Tomlinson died, the Met was straight out of the gate with "drunk, fighting, criminal history"
When de Menezes was shot, he was "a coke sniffing, illegal immigrant who jumped over the station barriers"
After the Forest Gate raid, the police "found" CSAM on the computer of one of the suspects. With file dates *after* he had been arrested and the computer confiscated.
Unpopularity contest - tick. A thing that tempts me to switch from Labour after over 50 years of membership (I'm standing down as CLP chair this month) is the relentlessly negative spin - essentially vote for us as the alternatives are worse. The Tories and LibDems are just as bad and just as prone to switch policies overnight from a perception that they're unpopular, but the Greens seem unrealistic and Your Party seems preoccupied with internal quarrels. So I'm a Don't Know, and I suspect I'm not alone. There's surely a market for a party concentrating on realistic positive alternatives. Isn't there?
Well clearly your heart now leans Green, you just see them as 'unrealistic'
And it's the unrealistic bits which make his heart lean that way.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
Until a few years ago pubs were seen as the quintessential lifestyle business. Late middle aged people with equity from their houses would quit their well paying jobs and invest in a local pub, with the hope of running it until they are too old to carry on.
Pub chains take advantage of this with contracts so onerous it's hard to make any money on them. But it doesn't matter to the pub chain because there are plenty more suckers to take their place. So after a few years of not making a profit the contractor gives up with the loss of their savings, and the pub chain gets the next one in.
Maybe it's a case of the music stopping on this business model.
I remember there was a Lib Dem MP who did alot of excellent work on the pernicious pubco ties.
As. For pubs as a rite of passage. Former soccer players used to flock to them.
Yep. In the old days when top players retired and in those days didn't have huge amounts of money and few other skills buying a pub seemed to be the norm.
For some pubs there's also the issue that the PubCo determines that the development potential of the site is more valuable than it continuing as a pub, so it's in their interest to demonstrate that the pub isn't viable.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
It's not an exaggeration to say that in real time, we are watching a democracy sliding towards fascism.
The fact that the Left have often cried "wolf" in the past does not alter the fact that the wolf has now appeared.
I am with you. What is the most scary in all of this is that top elected officials were far more keen to denounce and attack a dead woman than pass on any condolences or sympathy for the loss of a mother and a citizen.
This is straight from the "dehumanise your opponents" playbook and should terrify us all.
When Ian Tomlinson died, the Met was straight out of the gate with "drunk, fighting, criminal history"
When de Menezes was shot, he was "a coke sniffing, illegal immigrant who jumped over the station barriers"
After the Forest Gate raid, the police "found" CSAM on the computer of one of the suspects. With file dates *after* he had been arrested and the computer confiscated.
It Can Happen Here
On that point also worth noting that due process is not a guarantee. A lot of due process involved in the Windrush deportations, for example.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
Until a few years ago pubs were seen as the quintessential lifestyle business. Late middle aged people with equity from their houses would quit their well paying jobs and invest in a local pub, with the hope of running it until they are too old to carry on.
Pub chains take advantage of this with contracts so onerous it's hard to make any money on them. But it doesn't matter to the pub chain because there are plenty more suckers to take their place. So after a few years of not making a profit the contractor gives up with the loss of their savings, and the pub chain gets the next one in.
Maybe it's a case of the music stopping on this business model.
I remember there was a Lib Dem MP who did alot of excellent work on the pernicious pubco ties.
As. For pubs as a rite of passage. Former soccer players used to flock to them.
For the working class, buying a pub was like buying an annuity, long ago. The memory remains....
See all the stories of RN sailors buying a pub with prize money.
First pub I worked in at 15ish (washing pots / peeling spuds / general kitchen skivvy) was run by an ex-football player. The next pub I worked was run by an ex-merchant Navy chap.
All three clubs (legion, social, country) I’ve worked at have been run by old soaks who drank most of the profits away.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
Until a few years ago pubs were seen as the quintessential lifestyle business. Late middle aged people with equity from their houses would quit their well paying jobs and invest in a local pub, with the hope of running it until they are too old to carry on.
Pub chains take advantage of this with contracts so onerous it's hard to make any money on them. But it doesn't matter to the pub chain because there are plenty more suckers to take their place. So after a few years of not making a profit the contractor gives up with the loss of their savings, and the pub chain gets the next one in.
Maybe it's a case of the music stopping on this business model.
I remember there was a Lib Dem MP who did alot of excellent work on the pernicious pubco ties.
As. For pubs as a rite of passage. Former soccer players used to flock to them.
Yep. In the old days when top players retired and in those days didn't have huge amounts of money and few other skills buying a pub seemed to be the norm.
For some pubs there's also the issue that the PubCo determines that the development potential of the site is more valuable than it continuing as a pub, so it's in their interest to demonstrate that the pub isn't viable.
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
The editor of Women's Hour reads PB....
I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting here?
Iran is much more interesting than Venezuela or any manufactured nonsense over Greenland.
US law enforcement shooting someone is also a 3 times daily occurrence.
I suspect the reason is that the media have got nobody there to report, but still...
The estimable Lindsey Hilsum agrees. I note all the ‘citizen’ journalists and their ilk whipping up a conspiracy about Iran being ignored aren’t busting a gut to get into Iran so they can be the man (or woman) on the spot.
Interesting from @georgeeaton on what might be driving the Tory stabilisation/partial recovery in today’s Morning Call. Features some work we did looking at parties people would consider as well as their main VI which suggests the Tories ceiling has grown.
So the Conservatives now have the highest ceiling with MiC, the Greens the lowest
There is definitely a gap appearing for the Conservatives, with moderates giving up on Labour and Farage looking a bit stale. If they can drag Badenoch away from twitter and suppress all the "British ICE" stuff they might be onto a winner.
To me, Badenoch is the only leader that seems modern and has real energy. I suppose that is because she is the youngest. I like the fact she didn't jump on the two child cap bandwagon, Farage disappointed me a bit with that.
Farage was smart there - two child limit will be a big issue in his target seats.
It might be but few of those who would benefit from its removal would vote Reform.
Which is why Farage has changed his mind again.
You sure about that? Reform's best demographic by housing tenure is people who live in council houses, and we know that their health outcomes are much worse than average. It would not surprise me at all if they have a substantial lead with people on benefits, and particularly people affected by the limit.
From memory, places like Kent, Lancashire, Essex etc had the highest rates in the country.
Farage isn't going to win an election on the council house vote.
And meanwhile those not benefitting from the removal of the two child cap - which would include most people in council houses - will see it as a transfer of their tax payments to 'layabouts and immigrants'.
Which is why Farage is now saying that lifting the cap should only apply to 'working British people'.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
It's not an exaggeration to say that in real time, we are watching a democracy sliding towards fascism.
The fact that the Left have often cried "wolf" in the past does not alter the fact that the wolf has now appeared.
I am with you. What is the most scary in all of this is that top elected officials were far more keen to denounce and attack a dead woman than pass on any condolences or sympathy for the loss of a mother and a citizen.
This is straight from the "dehumanise your opponents" playbook and should terrify us all.
When Ian Tomlinson died, the Met was straight out of the gate with "drunk, fighting, criminal history"
When de Menezes was shot, he was "a coke sniffing, illegal immigrant who jumped over the station barriers"
After the Forest Gate raid, the police "found" CSAM on the computer of one of the suspects. With file dates *after* he had been arrested and the computer confiscated.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
It's not an exaggeration to say that in real time, we are watching a democracy sliding towards fascism.
The fact that the Left have often cried "wolf" in the past does not alter the fact that the wolf has now appeared.
I am with you. What is the most scary in all of this is that top elected officials were far more keen to denounce and attack a dead woman than pass on any condolences or sympathy for the loss of a mother and a citizen.
This is straight from the "dehumanise your opponents" playbook and should terrify us all.
When Ian Tomlinson died, the Met was straight out of the gate with "drunk, fighting, criminal history"
When de Menezes was shot, he was "a coke sniffing, illegal immigrant who jumped over the station barriers"
After the Forest Gate raid, the police "found" CSAM on the computer of one of the suspects. With file dates *after* he had been arrested and the computer confiscated.
It Can Happen Here
Hillsbrough
The complete list would probably break the PB comment length limit.
Just to dial down the temperature... some big Supreme Court rulings should be dropping today - on tariffs, birthright citizenship, and the VRA (ie gerrymandering etc).
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
The editor of Women's Hour reads PB....
I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting here?
Iran is much more interesting than Venezuela or any manufactured nonsense over Greenland.
US law enforcement shooting someone is also a 3 times daily occurrence.
I suspect the reason is that the media have got nobody there to report, but still...
The estimable Lindsey Hilsum agrees. I note all the ‘citizen’ journalists and their ilk whipping up a conspiracy about Iran being ignored aren’t busting a gut to get into Iran so they can be the man (or woman) on the spot.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
I think that this, with the possible exception of the last one, gives ICE too much credit. The principal justification for this is that ICE agents want to be known as hard, dangerous bastards that you cross or interfere with at your peril. Any namby pamby rule of law, MIRANDA rights protagonists need to get that message loud and clear. Trump has been very clear that the law simply does not apply to him and, incredibly, the SC agrees. They don't think it should to his mobsters/designated hit men either.
Have we noted that all of the Reform councils, tax cutting, waste exposing, efficient folk that they are, plan to raise council tax by 5% in most cases, 4% in another.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
It's not an exaggeration to say that in real time, we are watching a democracy sliding towards fascism.
The fact that the Left have often cried "wolf" in the past does not alter the fact that the wolf has now appeared.
I am with you. What is the most scary in all of this is that top elected officials were far more keen to denounce and attack a dead woman than pass on any condolences or sympathy for the loss of a mother and a citizen.
This is straight from the "dehumanise your opponents" playbook and should terrify us all.
When Ian Tomlinson died, the Met was straight out of the gate with "drunk, fighting, criminal history"
When de Menezes was shot, he was "a coke sniffing, illegal immigrant who jumped over the station barriers"
After the Forest Gate raid, the police "found" CSAM on the computer of one of the suspects. With file dates *after* he had been arrested and the computer confiscated.
It Can Happen Here
Hillsbrough
The complete list would probably break the PB comment length limit.
The callous indifference which British officialdom (perhaps all officialdom), displays towards its citizens is quite plain.
What we're seeing in the USA is something that goes further. A government which demonstrates it wields the power of rods and axes over those of its citizens who oppose it.
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
The editor of Women's Hour reads PB....
I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting here?
Iran is much more interesting than Venezuela or any manufactured nonsense over Greenland.
US law enforcement shooting someone is also a 3 times daily occurrence.
I suspect the reason is that the media have got nobody there to report, but still...
The estimable Lindsey Hilsum agrees. I note all the ‘citizen’ journalists and their ilk whipping up a conspiracy about Iran being ignored aren’t busting a gut to get into Iran so they can be the man (or woman) on the spot.
Whilst this is welcome in this instance I find it frightening that the ability to communicate in an entire nation is at the whim of a private organisation controlled by someone like Musk. If the EU is looking for where to start in recovering operational independence from the gangsters now in charge of the US this seems to me to be it.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
I think that this, with the possible exception of the last one, gives ICE too much credit. The principal justification for this is that ICE agents want to be known as hard, dangerous bastards that you cross or interfere with at your peril. Any namby pamby rule of law, MIRANDA rights protagonists need to get that message loud and clear. Trump has been very clear that the law simply does not apply to him and, incredibly, the SC agrees. They don't think it should to his mobsters/designated hit men either.
If an ICE officer fancies an immediate adrenaline rush, or finds themselves an opportunity to satisfy a curiousity power trip the blowing away an innocent might allow them, why not mask up? And to cap it all they learn that there are absolutely no repercussions for doing so.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
Of course it's obvious. After all, the alternative is that ICE and the Trump administration are the baddies, and that's just not possible.
Meanwhile, in local news, the North Carolina Corn Snake, which had been roaming loose on the island, has survived the spell of cold weather and has been recovered, given a health check at my local vet's and is now recovering at Monkey Haven. Speculation is that it might be an unwanted Xmas gift that someone has turned loose.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
Of course it's obvious. After all, the alternative is that ICE and the Trump administration are the baddies, and that's just not possible.
Are we looking forward to Officer Ross's commendation ceremony in the gold plated Oval Office next week?
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
The editor of Women's Hour reads PB....
I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting here?
Iran is much more interesting than Venezuela or any manufactured nonsense over Greenland.
US law enforcement shooting someone is also a 3 times daily occurrence.
I suspect the reason is that the media have got nobody there to report, but still...
The estimable Lindsey Hilsum agrees. I note all the ‘citizen’ journalists and their ilk whipping up a conspiracy about Iran being ignored aren’t busting a gut to get into Iran so they can be the man (or woman) on the spot.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
It's not an exaggeration to say that in real time, we are watching a democracy sliding towards fascism.
The fact that the Left have often cried "wolf" in the past does not alter the fact that the wolf has now appeared.
I am with you. What is the most scary in all of this is that top elected officials were far more keen to denounce and attack a dead woman than pass on any condolences or sympathy for the loss of a mother and a citizen.
This is straight from the "dehumanise your opponents" playbook and should terrify us all.
When Ian Tomlinson died, the Met was straight out of the gate with "drunk, fighting, criminal history"
When de Menezes was shot, he was "a coke sniffing, illegal immigrant who jumped over the station barriers"
After the Forest Gate raid, the police "found" CSAM on the computer of one of the suspects. With file dates *after* he had been arrested and the computer confiscated.
It Can Happen Here
Hillsbrough
The complete list would probably break the PB comment length limit.
The callous indifference which British officialdom (perhaps all officialdom), displays towards its citizens is quite plain.
What we're seeing in the USA is something that goes further. A government which demonstrates it wields the power of rods and axes over those of its citizens who oppose it.
What's happening in the USA is more like a Cold Civil War between two sides who disagree about the nature and purpose of the state.
Have we noted that all of the Reform councils, tax cutting, waste exposing, efficient folk that they are, plan to raise council tax by 5% in most cases, 4% in another.
That article isn't 100% accurate. You can propose an increase of more than 5% but that needs to go to a public vote - I'm surprised that the Guardian didn't mention it as it would allow them an additional little dig.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
Of course it's obvious. After all, the alternative is that ICE and the Trump administration are the baddies, and that's just not possible.
Are we looking forward to Officer Ross's commendation ceremony in the gold plated Oval Office next week?
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
It's not an exaggeration to say that in real time, we are watching a democracy sliding towards fascism.
The fact that the Left have often cried "wolf" in the past does not alter the fact that the wolf has now appeared.
I am with you. What is the most scary in all of this is that top elected officials were far more keen to denounce and attack a dead woman than pass on any condolences or sympathy for the loss of a mother and a citizen.
This is straight from the "dehumanise your opponents" playbook and should terrify us all.
When Ian Tomlinson died, the Met was straight out of the gate with "drunk, fighting, criminal history"
When de Menezes was shot, he was "a coke sniffing, illegal immigrant who jumped over the station barriers"
After the Forest Gate raid, the police "found" CSAM on the computer of one of the suspects. With file dates *after* he had been arrested and the computer confiscated.
It Can Happen Here
It already is - 2,700 people arrested under the terrorism act for peacefully protesting in relation to PA, a proscribed group. Not a single conviction.
Whatever your view of PA, it indeed the act itself, the fact the state continues to make these arrests (with only about 100 actually charged) is itself deeply troubling. Test it in a court, otherwise we're as bad as the Americans.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
It's not an exaggeration to say that in real time, we are watching a democracy sliding towards fascism.
The fact that the Left have often cried "wolf" in the past does not alter the fact that the wolf has now appeared.
I am with you. What is the most scary in all of this is that top elected officials were far more keen to denounce and attack a dead woman than pass on any condolences or sympathy for the loss of a mother and a citizen.
This is straight from the "dehumanise your opponents" playbook and should terrify us all.
When Ian Tomlinson died, the Met was straight out of the gate with "drunk, fighting, criminal history"
When de Menezes was shot, he was "a coke sniffing, illegal immigrant who jumped over the station barriers"
After the Forest Gate raid, the police "found" CSAM on the computer of one of the suspects. With file dates *after* he had been arrested and the computer confiscated.
It Can Happen Here
Hillsbrough
The complete list would probably break the PB comment length limit.
The callous indifference which British officialdom (perhaps all officialdom), displays towards its citizens is quite plain.
What we're seeing in the USA is something that goes further. A government which demonstrates it wields the power of rods and axes over those of its citizens who oppose it.
What's happening in the USA is more like a Cold Civil War between two sides who disagree about the nature and purpose of the state.
I despise the US left's position on trans issues, and sanctuary towns and cities.
And, I despise the overt racism and corruption of MAGA. However, the latter are readier than the former to resort to violence, and electoral malpractice.
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
The editor of Women's Hour reads PB....
I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting here?
Iran is much more interesting than Venezuela or any manufactured nonsense over Greenland.
US law enforcement shooting someone is also a 3 times daily occurrence.
I suspect the reason is that the media have got nobody there to report, but still...
The estimable Lindsey Hilsum agrees. I note all the ‘citizen’ journalists and their ilk whipping up a conspiracy about Iran being ignored aren’t busting a gut to get into Iran so they can be the man (or woman) on the spot.
Whilst this is welcome in this instance I find it frightening that the ability to communicate in an entire nation is at the whim of a private organisation controlled by someone like Musk. If the EU is looking for where to start in recovering operational independence from the gangsters now in charge of the US this seems to me to be it.
- The previous, geo-stationary satellite comms systems require expensive, difficult to obtain terminals. They also have a much lower data rate.
- The Iridium constellation still exists and provides a low data rate service.
- OneWeb (complete with a UK government golden share) also exists, but doesn't provide consumer terminals. Also lower data rate
- Kuiper (now Amazon LEO) is launching their service this year - depends how many satellites they get up there.
- The Chinese are trying to build multiple mega constellations.
- The EU has given up on the idea - it would mean either purchasing a vast amount of SpaceX launches or undermining Ariane 6 by pivoting to a reusable launcher.
EDIT: A friend at ESA was pushed out for advocating that the *ESA projects* for reusable rockets should be accelerated. Reusability is key to making the mega constellations viable.
On the subject in the header - that just shows that the less you do in public, the more popular you become. The more you say, the more people find to dislike. Farage understands this as well, Starmer absolutely does not
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
It's not an exaggeration to say that in real time, we are watching a democracy sliding towards fascism.
The fact that the Left have often cried "wolf" in the past does not alter the fact that the wolf has now appeared.
I am with you. What is the most scary in all of this is that top elected officials were far more keen to denounce and attack a dead woman than pass on any condolences or sympathy for the loss of a mother and a citizen.
This is straight from the "dehumanise your opponents" playbook and should terrify us all.
When Ian Tomlinson died, the Met was straight out of the gate with "drunk, fighting, criminal history"
When de Menezes was shot, he was "a coke sniffing, illegal immigrant who jumped over the station barriers"
After the Forest Gate raid, the police "found" CSAM on the computer of one of the suspects. With file dates *after* he had been arrested and the computer confiscated.
It Can Happen Here
Hillsbrough
The complete list would probably break the PB comment length limit.
The callous indifference which British officialdom (perhaps all officialdom), displays towards its citizens is quite plain.
What we're seeing in the USA is something that goes further. A government which demonstrates it wields the power of rods and axes over those of its citizens who oppose it.
What's happening in the USA is more like a Cold Civil War between two sides who disagree about the nature and purpose of the state.
I despise the US left's position on trans issues, and sanctuary towns and cities.
And, I despise the overt racism and corruption of MAGA. However, the latter are readier than the former to resort to violence, and electoral malpractice.
It should be acknowledged however that the former has done a great deal to encourage the latter.
He is often full of BS, but could be onto something.
As long as it's not here then that's probably for the best. I wonder if he'll end up in Moscow like Assad?
Just what Putin needs, a Muslim cleric speaking out of Moscow...
That the leading lights of the revolution, in Iran, have their Go-Bags packed is well known. For years, they have been buying property abroad, setting up their kids in jobs and universities abroad.
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
The editor of Women's Hour reads PB....
I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting here?
Iran is much more interesting than Venezuela or any manufactured nonsense over Greenland.
US law enforcement shooting someone is also a 3 times daily occurrence.
I suspect the reason is that the media have got nobody there to report, but still...
The estimable Lindsey Hilsum agrees. I note all the ‘citizen’ journalists and their ilk whipping up a conspiracy about Iran being ignored aren’t busting a gut to get into Iran so they can be the man (or woman) on the spot.
Whilst this is welcome in this instance I find it frightening that the ability to communicate in an entire nation is at the whim of a private organisation controlled by someone like Musk. If the EU is looking for where to start in recovering operational independence from the gangsters now in charge of the US this seems to me to be it.
- The previous, geo-stationary satellite comms systems require expensive, difficult to obtain terminals. They also have a much lower data rate.
- The Iridium constellation still exists and provides a low data rate service.
- OneWeb (complete with a UK government golden share) also exists, but doesn't provide consumer terminals. Also lower data rate
- Kuiper (now Amazon LEO) is launching their service this year - depends how many satellites they get up there.
- The Chinese are trying to build multiple mega constellations.
- The EU has given up on the idea - it would mean either purchasing a vast amount of SpaceX launches or undermining Ariane 6 by pivoting to a reusable launcher.
Ariane 6 is obsolete already. Just get on with the pivot, otherwise we'll get beaten by Japan and S Korea, too.
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
The editor of Women's Hour reads PB....
I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting here?
Iran is much more interesting than Venezuela or any manufactured nonsense over Greenland.
US law enforcement shooting someone is also a 3 times daily occurrence.
I suspect the reason is that the media have got nobody there to report, but still...
The estimable Lindsey Hilsum agrees. I note all the ‘citizen’ journalists and their ilk whipping up a conspiracy about Iran being ignored aren’t busting a gut to get into Iran so they can be the man (or woman) on the spot.
Whilst this is welcome in this instance I find it frightening that the ability to communicate in an entire nation is at the whim of a private organisation controlled by someone like Musk. If the EU is looking for where to start in recovering operational independence from the gangsters now in charge of the US this seems to me to be it.
- The previous, geo-stationary satellite comms systems require expensive, difficult to obtain terminals. They also have a much lower data rate.
- The Iridium constellation still exists and provides a low data rate service.
- OneWeb (complete with a UK government golden share) also exists, but doesn't provide consumer terminals. Also lower data rate
- Kuiper (now Amazon LEO) is launching their service this year - depends how many satellites they get up there.
- The Chinese are trying to build multiple mega constellations.
- The EU has given up on the idea - it would mean either purchasing a vast amount of SpaceX launches or undermining Ariane 6 by pivoting to a reusable launcher.
Starlink is brilliant in the Highlands. Deeply frustrating that we can't buy a similar service from a UK/EU regulated provider. I look at the new masts going in and just think they are almost redundant already.
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
The editor of Women's Hour reads PB....
I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting here?
Iran is much more interesting than Venezuela or any manufactured nonsense over Greenland.
US law enforcement shooting someone is also a 3 times daily occurrence.
I suspect the reason is that the media have got nobody there to report, but still...
The estimable Lindsey Hilsum agrees. I note all the ‘citizen’ journalists and their ilk whipping up a conspiracy about Iran being ignored aren’t busting a gut to get into Iran so they can be the man (or woman) on the spot.
Whilst this is welcome in this instance I find it frightening that the ability to communicate in an entire nation is at the whim of a private organisation controlled by someone like Musk. If the EU is looking for where to start in recovering operational independence from the gangsters now in charge of the US this seems to me to be it.
- The previous, geo-stationary satellite comms systems require expensive, difficult to obtain terminals. They also have a much lower data rate.
- The Iridium constellation still exists and provides a low data rate service.
- OneWeb (complete with a UK government golden share) also exists, but doesn't provide consumer terminals. Also lower data rate
- Kuiper (now Amazon LEO) is launching their service this year - depends how many satellites they get up there.
- The Chinese are trying to build multiple mega constellations.
- The EU has given up on the idea - it would mean either purchasing a vast amount of SpaceX launches or undermining Ariane 6 by pivoting to a reusable launcher.
EDIT: A friend at ESA was pushed out for advocating that the *ESA projects* for reusable rockets should be accelerated. Reusability is key to making the mega constellations viable.
It might be possible to turn this on for phone users in Iran. The data rate wouldn't be high, though. Though some involved in testing in the US have reported being able to stream lo-res video.
He is often full of BS, but could be onto something.
As long as it's not here then that's probably for the best. I wonder if he'll end up in Moscow like Assad?
Just what Putin needs, a Muslim cleric speaking out of Moscow...
That the leading lights of the revolution, in Iran, have their Go-Bags packed is well known. For years, they have been buying property abroad, setting up their kids in jobs and universities abroad.
Thoughts and prayers for Prof. Mohammed Marandi of the University of Tehran. It's been a while since he's been on Channel 4 News, espousing the regime narrative - in the perfect English which he seemingly acquired while taking a literature Ph.D at the University of Birmingham.
He is often full of BS, but could be onto something.
As long as it's not here then that's probably for the best. I wonder if he'll end up in Moscow like Assad?
Just what Putin needs, a Muslim cleric speaking out of Moscow...
That the leading lights of the revolution, in Iran, have their Go-Bags packed is well known. For years, they have been buying property abroad, setting up their kids in jobs and universities abroad.
To be honest, most sensible tyrants have an escape plan of some sort to ensure personal survival given they are mostly cowards. We know there's plenty of property in London owned by wealthy Arabs and if and when the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Bahrainis. Qataris and others decide they no longer want to be ruled by autocrats, said autocrats, albeit down to their last few hundred billion, will doubtless be offered sanctuary in the UK where they can do their bit for the economy by employing the locals to clean their houses, wash their cars etc.
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
The editor of Women's Hour reads PB....
I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting here?
Iran is much more interesting than Venezuela or any manufactured nonsense over Greenland.
US law enforcement shooting someone is also a 3 times daily occurrence.
I suspect the reason is that the media have got nobody there to report, but still...
The estimable Lindsey Hilsum agrees. I note all the ‘citizen’ journalists and their ilk whipping up a conspiracy about Iran being ignored aren’t busting a gut to get into Iran so they can be the man (or woman) on the spot.
Whilst this is welcome in this instance I find it frightening that the ability to communicate in an entire nation is at the whim of a private organisation controlled by someone like Musk. If the EU is looking for where to start in recovering operational independence from the gangsters now in charge of the US this seems to me to be it.
- The previous, geo-stationary satellite comms systems require expensive, difficult to obtain terminals. They also have a much lower data rate.
- The Iridium constellation still exists and provides a low data rate service.
- OneWeb (complete with a UK government golden share) also exists, but doesn't provide consumer terminals. Also lower data rate
- Kuiper (now Amazon LEO) is launching their service this year - depends how many satellites they get up there.
- The Chinese are trying to build multiple mega constellations.
- The EU has given up on the idea - it would mean either purchasing a vast amount of SpaceX launches or undermining Ariane 6 by pivoting to a reusable launcher.
Ariane 6 is obsolete already. Just get on with the pivot, otherwise we'll get beaten by Japan and S Korea, too.
The Chinese will get to first stage reusability this year.
Starship will probably go orbital this year. Which blows away even F9. Even without reusing the upper stage, cost per ton per drops massively. Which in turn brings in v3 Starlink.
Japan and South Korea are actually way behind in reusability.
The ESA policy is to stick their head deeper in the sand - see the farce over Themis.
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
The editor of Women's Hour reads PB....
I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting here?
Iran is much more interesting than Venezuela or any manufactured nonsense over Greenland.
US law enforcement shooting someone is also a 3 times daily occurrence.
I suspect the reason is that the media have got nobody there to report, but still...
The estimable Lindsey Hilsum agrees. I note all the ‘citizen’ journalists and their ilk whipping up a conspiracy about Iran being ignored aren’t busting a gut to get into Iran so they can be the man (or woman) on the spot.
Whilst this is welcome in this instance I find it frightening that the ability to communicate in an entire nation is at the whim of a private organisation controlled by someone like Musk. If the EU is looking for where to start in recovering operational independence from the gangsters now in charge of the US this seems to me to be it.
- The previous, geo-stationary satellite comms systems require expensive, difficult to obtain terminals. They also have a much lower data rate.
- The Iridium constellation still exists and provides a low data rate service.
- OneWeb (complete with a UK government golden share) also exists, but doesn't provide consumer terminals. Also lower data rate
- Kuiper (now Amazon LEO) is launching their service this year - depends how many satellites they get up there.
- The Chinese are trying to build multiple mega constellations.
- The EU has given up on the idea - it would mean either purchasing a vast amount of SpaceX launches or undermining Ariane 6 by pivoting to a reusable launcher.
EDIT: A friend at ESA was pushed out for advocating that the *ESA projects* for reusable rockets should be accelerated. Reusability is key to making the mega constellations viable.
When the US was a reliable ally committed to similar principles and objectives it made sense to redirect available resources elsewhere. Now that they are not I think this needs rethought.
He is often full of BS, but could be onto something.
As long as it's not here then that's probably for the best. I wonder if he'll end up in Moscow like Assad?
Just what Putin needs, a Muslim cleric speaking out of Moscow...
That the leading lights of the revolution, in Iran, have their Go-Bags packed is well known. For years, they have been buying property abroad, setting up their kids in jobs and universities abroad.
To be honest, most sensible tyrants have an escape plan of some sort to ensure personal survival given they are mostly cowards. We know there's plenty of property in London owned by wealthy Arabs and if and when the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Bahrainis. Qataris and others decide they no longer want to be ruled by autocrats, said autocrats, albeit down to their last few hundred billion, will doubtless be offered sanctuary in the UK where they can do their bit for the economy by employing the locals to clean their houses, wash their cars etc.
Strangely, some don't. Some of them meet terrible ends, when rich obscurity and safety was just a private jet flight away.
A website for people to check if, prior to the latest climbdown, their local is fucked
The local to us we like to walk to in the summer and have a bite and drink is totally fucked. 400% increase in rateable value. The flat roof pub on the estate next to ours is okay !
Huh, a bunch of pubs I frequent don't show up on there. I suspect that's a bad thing.
It's quite tricky to do pub analysis given the data available. I've previously tried to do cycling/walking analysis around them (e.g. population within 15 minutes) but couldn't be bothered scraping the data required.
One of the pubs near me on there closed down years back, and is boarded up and due to redevelopment into mostly housing, planning already granted. So not sure where the data for that one comes from?
I would love to know how all this works. I have no idea on the details.
There are 2 pubs on my lane. The nearest is rubbish. Doesn't feel clean, beer isn't kept well and has few patrons. How it stays open I don't know. It didn't show up when I put my post code in so I went to the map and it was ok . It got a score of 26/100 on how f**ked it was.
I go to the next pub. It has an interesting story. It was pretty average and went out of business in Covid. Taken over and failed again after a few months. Then 4 employees of a successful pub in a nearby village left and took it over. Boy are they good. They spent 7 months refurbishing it, but without spoiling it. It is still a local, but with a roaring trade in food. It is a fabulous pub now and with that success within a year two of them have moved on to do the same to another pub elsewhere. It is full every night.
They get a rating of Absolutely f**ked. 93/100. Their bill is going from £7k to £34k. Obviously that is an obscene, but I assume a smallish element of their expenses as it is so busy. The other pub is going from £4k to £7k.
Both pubs are about the same size and equally well positioned. Why does the crap pub have much lower rates than the good pub and so less badly impacted. Is it turnover related? If you swapped the ownership around then both pubs would change and the crap one would be come good and the good one crap as it is clearly down to the running of them.
Until a few years ago pubs were seen as the quintessential lifestyle business. Late middle aged people with equity from their houses would quit their well paying jobs and invest in a local pub, with the hope of running it until they are too old to carry on.
Pub chains take advantage of this with contracts so onerous it's hard to make any money on them. But it doesn't matter to the pub chain because there are plenty more suckers to take their place. So after a few years of not making a profit the contractor gives up with the loss of their savings, and the pub chain gets the next one in.
Maybe it's a case of the music stopping on this business model.
I remember there was a Lib Dem MP who did alot of excellent work on the pernicious pubco ties.
As. For pubs as a rite of passage. Former soccer players used to flock to them.
Yep. In the old days when top players retired and in those days didn't have huge amounts of money and few other skills buying a pub seemed to be the norm.
For some pubs there's also the issue that the PubCo determines that the development potential of the site is more valuable than it continuing as a pub, so it's in their interest to demonstrate that the pub isn't viable.
Pub Co's are essentially vampires.
Late stage capitalism- it's easier to make profits by being a vampire than by doing the actual work.
He is often full of BS, but could be onto something.
As long as it's not here then that's probably for the best. I wonder if he'll end up in Moscow like Assad?
Just what Putin needs, a Muslim cleric speaking out of Moscow...
That the leading lights of the revolution, in Iran, have their Go-Bags packed is well known. For years, they have been buying property abroad, setting up their kids in jobs and universities abroad.
Thoughts and prayers for Prof. Mohammed Marandi of the University of Tehran. It's been a while since he's been on Channel 4 News, espousing the regime narrative - in the perfect English which he seemingly acquired while taking a literature Ph.D at the University of Birmingham.
Birmingham? Presumably he likes a nice kipper tie.
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
The editor of Women's Hour reads PB....
No words for this ignorant post, oh to be a woman right now living under the current regime in Iran or Afghanistan, maybe I should just shut up and just retire from PB these days...
I was listening to Women’s Hour and the events in Iran was today’s featured story at the beginning of the programme, that’s all. I think you’re imagining commentary that wasn’t there.
He is often full of BS, but could be onto something.
As long as it's not here then that's probably for the best. I wonder if he'll end up in Moscow like Assad?
Just what Putin needs, a Muslim cleric speaking out of Moscow...
That the leading lights of the revolution, in Iran, have their Go-Bags packed is well known. For years, they have been buying property abroad, setting up their kids in jobs and universities abroad.
Thoughts and prayers for Prof. Mohammed Marandi of the University of Tehran. It's been a while since he's been on Channel 4 News, espousing the regime narrative - in the perfect English which he seemingly acquired while taking a literature Ph.D at the University of Birmingham.
Birmingham? Presumably he likes a nice kipper tie.
Sadly, though his grammar and diction is flawless, he does not appear to have picked up the accent.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
They called her a "domestic terrorist".
Good morning
Listening to the White House accusations was jaw dropping and frightening
I do not know the truth of her killing and I doubt it will come out independently as each side argues over it, but the plain fact that whether she was an innocent Mum or an observer/protester does not remotely excuse her killing
The "justifications" in MAGA-land are one or all of the following:
1. She was a "deranged lesbo"; 2. She was a "domestic terrorist"; 3. This is justified vengeance, for the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the deaths of the Beerhall Putsch Martyrs, at The Capitol, five years ago; 4. FAFO. Disobedience to a member of ICE or the police warrants summary execution; 5. She was trying to run over Jonathan Ross (pretty comprehensively disproved by video footage); 6. She had it coming.
She violently obstructed three hollow point bullets from an ICE agents gun.
So obviously she is a An Antifa Nazi Communist Muslamic Trans Woke Illegal Immigrant Alien AI Terrorist.
It's not an exaggeration to say that in real time, we are watching a democracy sliding towards fascism.
The fact that the Left have often cried "wolf" in the past does not alter the fact that the wolf has now appeared.
The slide into fascism started a year ago. Its steepening and the slide is accelerating.
He is often full of BS, but could be onto something.
As long as it's not here then that's probably for the best. I wonder if he'll end up in Moscow like Assad?
Just what Putin needs, a Muslim cleric speaking out of Moscow...
That the leading lights of the revolution, in Iran, have their Go-Bags packed is well known. For years, they have been buying property abroad, setting up their kids in jobs and universities abroad.
Thoughts and prayers for Prof. Mohammed Marandi of the University of Tehran. It's been a while since he's been on Channel 4 News, espousing the regime narrative - in the perfect English which he seemingly acquired while taking a literature Ph.D at the University of Birmingham.
Wherever he picked up perfect English it's hard to believe it was in Birmingham.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
Maybe not a GOP smear. It could be opponents of ICE trying to claim her as one of their own.
Both your and @ianB2's assessments could be correct.
In the dreadful atmosphere which seems to apply in American politics ATM.
It was US Govt sources posting that she was an activist endangering the life of ICE officers to justify the shooting.
Everyone else was "WTF! An ICE officer has just shot someone." Sometime there is only one side.
On the Portland shooting, note that ICE officers don't have uniforms and are routinely masked to hide their identity. In the US if someone masked up starts waving a gun at you then trying to drive away as quickly as possible doesn't seem an irrational act.
I've mentioned it before, but there is a very good origin story podcast on ICE from July last year describing what has been created (expanded really) and who these people are, they have a left viewpoint but their output is well-researched.
Where did the "legal observer" label come from then?
City leaders said she was a legal observer of federal actions in the city and wasn't a target for an ICE-related arrest.
You are a smart guy William, you cannot believe there is an equivalence.
I can understand Trump, Noem and Vance lying through their teeth to protect their narrative. I can understand Jesse Watters's rationale. He is a smug, malevolent ****.
What is your justification?
There is another point here. "Legal observer" isn't some special status. It'a literally any citizen watching, or pointing a camera at an ICE agent.
Observing and recording the public actions of federal agents is entirely legal. Punishing people for such activity is illegal.
The Trump administration, you will be shocked to hear, claims otherwise.
https://www.cato.org/commentary/dhs-says-videotaping-ice-agents-illegal-federal-courts-disagree ..Writing in The American Prospect, Matthew Cunningham-Cook reports that in response to an inquiry from the Center for Media and Democracy, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said, “Videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online is doxing our agents” and added: “We will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law.”
Numerous reports from raid scenes suggest that ICE agents are already informally “enforcing” their disapproval of at-the-scene recording by shoving, beating and even shooting (with less lethal munitions) journalists, freelance photographers, and others with cellphone cameras. Bad things seem to happen especially often when persons who make a practice of filming raids are themselves noncitizens.
If you buy the DHS line, the officers who injured journalists after seeing them recording may have been acting in, well, self-defense. Cunningham-Cook cites a press briefing in July at which DHS Secretary Kristi Noem stated that “violence” is “anything that threatens [DHS agents] and their safety. It is doxing them. It is videotaping them where they’re at.” If we’re using Noem’s standard, maybe the officers were just responding with counterviolence to the violence of being filmed.
Fortunately, the courts aren’t on board with that sort of nonsense. While the Supreme Court itself hasn’t yet faced the issue squarely, the seven federal circuits that have done so—the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 10th, and 11th—all agree that the First Amendment protects the right to record police performing their duties in public.* Those circuits cover such populous states as California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia, and Pennsylvania...
Question - why do the SA thugs need to hide their identities? If they are law enforcement operating legally then transparency is their protection. Hi, I'm officer X, you broke law y, I'm arresting you and taking you to police station z.
This is the polar opposite. They need to hide their ID because they are illegal.
What is it with dictators that they like everything named after them, they like awards and prizes, they like statues of themselves and everything has to be in gold. It seems to apply to all of them. It is so incredibly naff.
He is often full of BS, but could be onto something.
As long as it's not here then that's probably for the best. I wonder if he'll end up in Moscow like Assad?
Just what Putin needs, a Muslim cleric speaking out of Moscow...
That the leading lights of the revolution, in Iran, have their Go-Bags packed is well known. For years, they have been buying property abroad, setting up their kids in jobs and universities abroad.
I think it was the Dune series, particularly God Emperor, that made me cynical about religion and caused me to rethink my own beliefs. But if it hadn't this would be another opportunity. You'd like to think most civilised or principled countries would have no problem in scooping these clerics up and returning them to justice for their cruelty in a new Iran but you can see the equivocation already.
He is often full of BS, but could be onto something.
As long as it's not here then that's probably for the best. I wonder if he'll end up in Moscow like Assad?
Just what Putin needs, a Muslim cleric speaking out of Moscow...
That the leading lights of the revolution, in Iran, have their Go-Bags packed is well known. For years, they have been buying property abroad, setting up their kids in jobs and universities abroad.
Thoughts and prayers for Prof. Mohammed Marandi of the University of Tehran. It's been a while since he's been on Channel 4 News, espousing the regime narrative - in the perfect English which he seemingly acquired while taking a literature Ph.D at the University of Birmingham.
Wherever he picked up perfect English it's hard to believe it was in Birmingham.
In other news bear does unspeakable things in the woods
Basically this says the country is going to go into (un)managed decline as we are doing nothing to help productivity improve.
Because no matter what people in whitehall think productivity comes from investing in productivity improvements of which one major one is increasing the number of people able to access decent jobs by increasing commuting areas..
Ogles: "This was a justified shooting. If you strike an ICE agent, whether with your fist or car, you're gonna face the consequences. Unfortunately in this circumstance, someone lost their life. But you know what? She struck an ICE agent and the rest is history."
He is often full of BS, but could be onto something.
As long as it's not here then that's probably for the best. I wonder if he'll end up in Moscow like Assad?
Just what Putin needs, a Muslim cleric speaking out of Moscow...
That the leading lights of the revolution, in Iran, have their Go-Bags packed is well known. For years, they have been buying property abroad, setting up their kids in jobs and universities abroad.
Thoughts and prayers for Prof. Mohammed Marandi of the University of Tehran. It's been a while since he's been on Channel 4 News, espousing the regime narrative - in the perfect English which he seemingly acquired while taking a literature Ph.D at the University of Birmingham.
Birmingham? Presumably he likes a nice kipper tie.
Black Country surely, but as a man of the midlands I love the gag.
Looking at the BBC News coverage, I was left with the thought it's not the first time America has covertly got involved in Iranian politics - the coup which instigated the period of authoritarian rule by the Shah in 1953 and the death of Prime Minister Mossadegh is widely now believed to have been a CIA plot.
Interesting to see Pahlavi has only ever seen himself as a transisitional figure pending a national referendum between a constitutional monarchy and a democratic republic (that's a real one, presumably, not the many labelled as such in the workld which are actually totalitarian or authoritarian dictatorships).
He is often full of BS, but could be onto something.
As long as it's not here then that's probably for the best. I wonder if he'll end up in Moscow like Assad?
Just what Putin needs, a Muslim cleric speaking out of Moscow...
That the leading lights of the revolution, in Iran, have their Go-Bags packed is well known. For years, they have been buying property abroad, setting up their kids in jobs and universities abroad.
I think it was the Dune series, particularly God Emperor, that made me cynical about religion and caused me to rethink my own beliefs. But if it hadn't this would be another opportunity. You'd like to think most civilised or principled countries would have no problem in scooping these clerics up and returning them to justice for their cruelty in a new Iran but you can see the equivocation already.
Don’t worry, they will have lawyers briefed already for their asylum applications
“M’lud. My client faces the death penalty if he is returned home. He ordered the murder of 5,000 dissidents, so it would be really unfair for him to face the consequences.”
Watch for what happens after midday prayers in Iran.
These things tend to happen on Fridays.
I still cannot believe why the whole UK media attention is not right now totally focussed on events unfolding in Iran as the main story outside the UK?! It has been a total failure of their news coverage over the last week and more importantly the last pivotal 24 hours as events unfolded and the Iranian Regime shut down the internet, telephone lines and cut off electricity as the growing civil unrest led to huge crowds taking to the streets of towns and cities right across Iran last night. A complete failure by the UK news channels which left anyone following events having to rely on social media for immediate updates on what was happening there!
This is an incredible serious foreign story that has huge implications for the Middle East if the brutal Regime in Iran is finally on the cusp of falling, but only last night did we see some of our news channels finally start reporting on it briefly!
The editor of Women's Hour reads PB....
No words for this ignorant post, oh to be a woman right now living under the current regime in Iran or Afghanistan, maybe I should just shut up and just retire from PB these days...
I was listening to Women’s Hour and the events in Iran was today’s featured story at the beginning of the programme, that’s all. I think you’re imagining commentary that wasn’t there.
He is often full of BS, but could be onto something.
As long as it's not here then that's probably for the best. I wonder if he'll end up in Moscow like Assad?
Just what Putin needs, a Muslim cleric speaking out of Moscow...
That the leading lights of the revolution, in Iran, have their Go-Bags packed is well known. For years, they have been buying property abroad, setting up their kids in jobs and universities abroad.
I think it was the Dune series, particularly God Emperor, that made me cynical about religion and caused me to rethink my own beliefs. But if it hadn't this would be another opportunity. You'd like to think most civilised or principled countries would have no problem in scooping these clerics up and returning them to justice for their cruelty in a new Iran but you can see the equivocation already.
Don’t worry, they will have lawyers briefed already for their asylum applications
“M’lud. My client faces the death penalty if he is returned home. He ordered the murder of 5,000 dissidents, so it would be really unfair for him to face the consequences.”
You’re right. Let’s give him a subsidised social home on a long lease and a monthly pot of index linked cash to,live on.
Neighbors just released a new angle of the ICE shooting and it settles any debate on what actually happened.
This was a mother doing something completely ordinary: Dropping somebody off, then trying to leave. She goes to pull out, stops for one car to pass, then waves the agents to drive past. Within seconds, those ICE agents exit their vehicle and rush her, shouting and escalating the situation. Panicked, she tries to drive away and gets shot in the face three times.
She posed no threat, showed no intent to harm, and was interfering with no one. She was a civilian going about her life. The official statements that followed contradict the footage and read like an attempt to rewrite what happened.
This was a reckless, unjustified killing, followed by a dishonest effort to evade responsibility. It’s horrifying, and it exposes something deeply wrong with the US government and these ICE agents. They must be held accountable. https://x.com/GinoTheGhost/status/2009525021665034702
The earlier video where she waves the ICE car past seemed at odds with the increasing suggestions in the media that she was some sort of observer/protestor trying to obstruct, or at least monitor, what ICE were up to. On CNN somewhere there was a suggestion she'd just dropped her son off at school - if this is so then the suggestions she was some sort of protestor appears to be yet another GOP smear?
Maybe not a GOP smear. It could be opponents of ICE trying to claim her as one of their own.
Both your and @ianB2's assessments could be correct.
In the dreadful atmosphere which seems to apply in American politics ATM.
It was US Govt sources posting that she was an activist endangering the life of ICE officers to justify the shooting.
Everyone else was "WTF! An ICE officer has just shot someone." Sometime there is only one side.
On the Portland shooting, note that ICE officers don't have uniforms and are routinely masked to hide their identity. In the US if someone masked up starts waving a gun at you then trying to drive away as quickly as possible doesn't seem an irrational act.
I've mentioned it before, but there is a very good origin story podcast on ICE from July last year describing what has been created (expanded really) and who these people are, they have a left viewpoint but their output is well-researched.
Where did the "legal observer" label come from then?
City leaders said she was a legal observer of federal actions in the city and wasn't a target for an ICE-related arrest.
You are a smart guy William, you cannot believe there is an equivalence.
I can understand Trump, Noem and Vance lying through their teeth to protect their narrative. I can understand Jesse Watters's rationale. He is a smug, malevolent ****.
What is your justification?
There is another point here. "Legal observer" isn't some special status. It'a literally any citizen watching, or pointing a camera at an ICE agent.
Observing and recording the public actions of federal agents is entirely legal. Punishing people for such activity is illegal.
The Trump administration, you will be shocked to hear, claims otherwise.
https://www.cato.org/commentary/dhs-says-videotaping-ice-agents-illegal-federal-courts-disagree ..Writing in The American Prospect, Matthew Cunningham-Cook reports that in response to an inquiry from the Center for Media and Democracy, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said, “Videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online is doxing our agents” and added: “We will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law.”
Numerous reports from raid scenes suggest that ICE agents are already informally “enforcing” their disapproval of at-the-scene recording by shoving, beating and even shooting (with less lethal munitions) journalists, freelance photographers, and others with cellphone cameras. Bad things seem to happen especially often when persons who make a practice of filming raids are themselves noncitizens.
If you buy the DHS line, the officers who injured journalists after seeing them recording may have been acting in, well, self-defense. Cunningham-Cook cites a press briefing in July at which DHS Secretary Kristi Noem stated that “violence” is “anything that threatens [DHS agents] and their safety. It is doxing them. It is videotaping them where they’re at.” If we’re using Noem’s standard, maybe the officers were just responding with counterviolence to the violence of being filmed.
Fortunately, the courts aren’t on board with that sort of nonsense. While the Supreme Court itself hasn’t yet faced the issue squarely, the seven federal circuits that have done so—the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 10th, and 11th—all agree that the First Amendment protects the right to record police performing their duties in public.* Those circuits cover such populous states as California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia, and Pennsylvania...
Question - why do the SA thugs need to hide their identities? If they are law enforcement operating legally then transparency is their protection. Hi, I'm officer X, you broke law y, I'm arresting you and taking you to police station z.
This is the polar opposite. They need to hide their ID because they are illegal.
The process of normalising state violence is best done without interference from the courts. Hiding identity serves both as an intimidatory tactic, and a means of inhibiting legal challenge.
And once you've normalised state violence, your half way to creating precedent without the bother of going through the courts.
And if they do take a case to the SC, they'd prefer it to be their case (executive right to enforce immigration rules, for example) rather than that of their victim/opponent.
Of course their behaviour is illegal ... but I would not bet my life on the current Supreme Court majority saying so.
In other news bear does unspeakable things in the woods
Basically this says the country is going to go into (un)managed decline as we are doing nothing to help productivity improve.
Because no matter what people in whitehall think productivity comes from investing in productivity improvements of which one major one is increasing the number of people able to access decent jobs by increasing commuting areas..
The fastest economic growth in the EU came from investment in the poorest regions. Parts of the north of England are now among the poorest regions in the EU ...
In other news bear does unspeakable things in the woods
Basically this says the country is going to go into (un)managed decline as we are doing nothing to help productivity improve.
Because no matter what people in whitehall think productivity comes from investing in productivity improvements of which one major one is increasing the number of people able to access decent jobs by increasing commuting areas..
Consider the flip side of managed decline
1) A rocket with a reusable first stage can be developed for less than £500 million 2) Reusable first stages mean that we don't have to worry about bombing the North Sea/Europe when launching from the UK 3) Cheap phased array satellite terminals are now a consumer good.
Put that together, and we could have expanded OneWeb into a mega constellation. Data, navigation and cellular access. Then made vast amounts of money selling it around the world.
But that would upset Bae (stuff must be expensive), ESA, the Settled Policy etc...
He is often full of BS, but could be onto something.
As long as it's not here then that's probably for the best. I wonder if he'll end up in Moscow like Assad?
Just what Putin needs, a Muslim cleric speaking out of Moscow...
That the leading lights of the revolution, in Iran, have their Go-Bags packed is well known. For years, they have been buying property abroad, setting up their kids in jobs and universities abroad.
To be honest, most sensible tyrants have an escape plan of some sort to ensure personal survival given they are mostly cowards. We know there's plenty of property in London owned by wealthy Arabs and if and when the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Bahrainis. Qataris and others decide they no longer want to be ruled by autocrats, said autocrats, albeit down to their last few hundred billion, will doubtless be offered sanctuary in the UK where they can do their bit for the economy by employing the locals to clean their houses, wash their cars etc.
Strangely, some don't. Some of them meet terrible ends, when rich obscurity and safety was just a private jet flight away.
Well Saddam and Gaddafi didn't manage to get their boarding passes in time. Assad did, but you have to wonder how much he is really enjoying the hospitality in Moscow.
He is often full of BS, but could be onto something.
As long as it's not here then that's probably for the best. I wonder if he'll end up in Moscow like Assad?
Just what Putin needs, a Muslim cleric speaking out of Moscow...
That the leading lights of the revolution, in Iran, have their Go-Bags packed is well known. For years, they have been buying property abroad, setting up their kids in jobs and universities abroad.
I think it was the Dune series, particularly God Emperor, that made me cynical about religion and caused me to rethink my own beliefs. But if it hadn't this would be another opportunity. You'd like to think most civilised or principled countries would have no problem in scooping these clerics up and returning them to justice for their cruelty in a new Iran but you can see the equivocation already.
Don’t worry, they will have lawyers briefed already for their asylum applications
“M’lud. My client faces the death penalty if he is returned home. He ordered the murder of 5,000 dissidents, so it would be really unfair for him to face the consequences.”
You’re right. Let’s give him a subsidised social home on a long lease and a monthly pot of index linked cash to,live on.
On the upside, if the Met accidentally bump them off, there will be lots of evidence that they were wrong 'uns....
In other news bear does unspeakable things in the woods
Basically this says the country is going to go into (un)managed decline as we are doing nothing to help productivity improve.
Because no matter what people in whitehall think productivity comes from investing in productivity improvements of which one major one is increasing the number of people able to access decent jobs by increasing commuting areas..
Consider the flip side of managed decline
1) A rocket with a reusable first stage can be developed for less than £500 million 2) Reusable first stages mean that we don't have to worry about bombing the North Sea/Europe when launching from the UK 3) Cheap phased array satellite terminals are now a consumer good.
Put that together, and we could have expanded OneWeb into a mega constellation. Data, navigation and cellular access. Then made vast amounts of money selling it around the world.
But that would upset Bae (stuff must be expensive), ESA, the Settled Policy etc...
JFDI
If we allow industrial policy to be dictated by the incumbents, it will be disastrous for them too in the long term.
He is often full of BS, but could be onto something.
As long as it's not here then that's probably for the best. I wonder if he'll end up in Moscow like Assad?
Just what Putin needs, a Muslim cleric speaking out of Moscow...
That the leading lights of the revolution, in Iran, have their Go-Bags packed is well known. For years, they have been buying property abroad, setting up their kids in jobs and universities abroad.
I think it was the Dune series, particularly God Emperor, that made me cynical about religion and caused me to rethink my own beliefs. But if it hadn't this would be another opportunity. You'd like to think most civilised or principled countries would have no problem in scooping these clerics up and returning them to justice for their cruelty in a new Iran but you can see the equivocation already.
Don’t worry, they will have lawyers briefed already for their asylum applications
“M’lud. My client faces the death penalty if he is returned home. He ordered the murder of 5,000 dissidents, so it would be really unfair for him to face the consequences.”
You’re right. Let’s give him a subsidised social home on a long lease and a monthly pot of index linked cash to,live on.
On the upside, if the Met accidentally bump them off, there will be lots of evidence that they were wrong 'uns....
They'll be no evidence other than a couple of conveniently broken body cams...
That’s Okay as they’ve frozen rail fares that predominantly helps the affluent south. 👍
Priorities priorities
Bicester to Bletchley rail route is "operational" - but Chiltern Rail and the Unions are still arguing about whether the trains should have guards or not, so the route hasn't seen any passenger trains since it became "operational" over a year ago...
Comments
I can understand Trump, Noem and Vance lying through their teeth to protect their narrative. I can understand Jesse Watters's rationale. He is a smug, malevolent ****.
What is your justification?
"Legal observer" isn't some special status. It'a literally any citizen watching, or pointing a camera at an ICE agent.
Observing and recording the public actions of federal agents is entirely legal. Punishing people for such activity is illegal.
Farage was also wrong on the polling, 80% of Reform voters wanted to keep the 2 child benefit cap, even higher than the 76% of Tory voters who wanted to keep it. 59% of all voters also wanted to keep the 2 child cap on benefits. Hence Nige has had to backtrack and say the 2 child benefit cap should only be ended for parents who work
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2025/07/15/6143b/2
This is straight from the "dehumanise your opponents" playbook and should terrify us all.
How strange that I find myself standing shoulder to shoulder with you despite our many obvious differences. Pleased to have you as a bedfellow nonetheless.
https://www.cato.org/commentary/dhs-says-videotaping-ice-agents-illegal-federal-courts-disagree
..Writing in The American Prospect, Matthew Cunningham-Cook reports that in response to an inquiry from the Center for Media and Democracy, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said, “Videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online is doxing our agents” and added: “We will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law.”
Numerous reports from raid scenes suggest that ICE agents are already informally “enforcing” their disapproval of at-the-scene recording by shoving, beating and even shooting (with less lethal munitions) journalists, freelance photographers, and others with cellphone cameras. Bad things seem to happen especially often when persons who make a practice of filming raids are themselves noncitizens.
If you buy the DHS line, the officers who injured journalists after seeing them recording may have been acting in, well, self-defense. Cunningham-Cook cites a press briefing in July at which DHS Secretary Kristi Noem stated that “violence” is “anything that threatens [DHS agents] and their safety. It is doxing them. It is videotaping them where they’re at.” If we’re using Noem’s standard, maybe the officers were just responding with counterviolence to the violence of being filmed.
Fortunately, the courts aren’t on board with that sort of nonsense. While the Supreme Court itself hasn’t yet faced the issue squarely, the seven federal circuits that have done so—the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 10th, and 11th—all agree that the First Amendment protects the right to record police performing their duties in public.* Those circuits cover such populous states as California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia, and Pennsylvania...
- When Ian Tomlinson died, the Met was straight out of the gate with "drunk, fighting, criminal history"
- When de Menezes was shot, he was "a coke sniffing, illegal immigrant who jumped over the station barriers"
- After the Forest Gate raid, the police "found" CSAM on the computer of one of the suspects. With file dates *after* he had been arrested and the computer confiscated.
It Can Happen HereI note all the ‘citizen’ journalists and their ilk whipping up a conspiracy about Iran being ignored aren’t busting a gut to get into Iran so they can be the man (or woman) on the spot.
https://x.com/lindseyhilsum/status/2009487556401139787?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
I think it’s more simple than than that. They see it as a transfer from the working to the work shy.
https://www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/news/trump-machado-nobel-peace-prize-b2897418.html
https://www.middle-east-online.com/en/spacex-activates-starlink-satellite-internet-iran-bypass-blackout
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jan/09/reform-uk-accused-of-betraying-election-pledges-after-council-tax-rises
What we're seeing in the USA is something that goes further. A government which demonstrates it wields the power of rods and axes over those of its citizens who oppose it.
https://x.com/HackBlackburn/status/2009383661766898004
Jack Blackburn 🇺🇦
@HackBlackburn
Spoilers but…
- Relentlessly accuses an innocent woman
- Misrepresents evidence
- Chooses to reveal her undercover role to someone who is murdering people
Amanda’s not exactly helping improve the ailing reputation of the Metropolitan Police
#thetraitors
He is often full of BS, but could be onto something.
https://x.com/breaking911/status/2009472976463495257?s=61
Whatever your view of PA, it indeed the act itself, the fact the state continues to make these arrests (with only about 100 actually charged) is itself deeply troubling. Test it in a court, otherwise we're as bad as the Americans.
And, I despise the overt racism and corruption of MAGA. However, the latter are readier than the former to resort to violence, and electoral malpractice.
- The Iridium constellation still exists and provides a low data rate service.
- OneWeb (complete with a UK government golden share) also exists, but doesn't provide consumer terminals. Also lower data rate
- Kuiper (now Amazon LEO) is launching their service this year - depends how many satellites they get up there.
- The Chinese are trying to build multiple mega constellations.
- The EU has given up on the idea - it would mean either purchasing a vast amount of SpaceX launches or undermining Ariane 6 by pivoting to a reusable launcher.
EDIT: A friend at ESA was pushed out for advocating that the *ESA projects* for reusable rockets should be accelerated. Reusability is key to making the mega constellations viable.
Just get on with the pivot, otherwise we'll get beaten by Japan and S Korea, too.
FFS.
BREAKING:
Government refuses to back Northern Powerhouse Rail. Rumours of a reduction in scheme.
https://x.com/JeromeMayhew/status/2009213331580637500
Part of Starlink is, now, offering cellular service from orbit. https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/apples-iphones-support-starlink-direct-to-cell-coverage-us-2025-01-29/
It might be possible to turn this on for phone users in Iran. The data rate wouldn't be high, though. Though some involved in testing in the US have reported being able to stream lo-res video.
#crisisoffaith
Priorities priorities
Starship will probably go orbital this year. Which blows away even F9. Even without reusing the upper stage, cost per ton per drops massively. Which in turn brings in v3 Starlink.
Japan and South Korea are actually way behind in reusability.
The ESA policy is to stick their head deeper in the sand - see the farce over Themis.
And then we wonder why nothing gets done.
This is the polar opposite. They need to hide their ID because they are illegal.
Because no matter what people in whitehall think productivity comes from investing in productivity improvements of which one major one is increasing the number of people able to access decent jobs by increasing commuting areas..
Ogles: "This was a justified shooting. If you strike an ICE agent, whether with your fist or car, you're gonna face the consequences. Unfortunately in this circumstance, someone lost their life. But you know what? She struck an ICE agent and the rest is history."
Interesting to see Pahlavi has only ever seen himself as a transisitional figure pending a national referendum between a constitutional monarchy and a democratic republic (that's a real one, presumably, not the many labelled as such in the workld which are actually totalitarian or authoritarian dictatorships).
“M’lud. My client faces the death penalty if he is returned home. He ordered the murder of 5,000 dissidents, so it would be really unfair for him to face the consequences.”
Hiding identity serves both as an intimidatory tactic, and a means of inhibiting legal challenge.
And once you've normalised state violence, your half way to creating precedent without the bother of going through the courts.
And if they do take a case to the SC, they'd prefer it to be their case (executive right to enforce immigration rules, for example) rather than that of their victim/opponent.
Of course their behaviour is illegal ... but I would not bet my life on the current Supreme Court majority saying so.
Apart from the Russians onboard. They have been released...
Parts of the north of England are now among the poorest regions in the EU ...
1) A rocket with a reusable first stage can be developed for less than £500 million
2) Reusable first stages mean that we don't have to worry about bombing the North Sea/Europe when launching from the UK
3) Cheap phased array satellite terminals are now a consumer good.
Put that together, and we could have expanded OneWeb into a mega constellation. Data, navigation and cellular access. Then made vast amounts of money selling it around the world.
But that would upset Bae (stuff must be expensive), ESA, the Settled Policy etc...
If we allow industrial policy to be dictated by the incumbents, it will be disastrous for them too in the long term.
JUST IN: The US economy added just 50,000 jobs in December, capping off one of the weakest years of job gains in decades.