Straggler

8 hours ago, regular_john said:

Israel is surrounded by nations full of people that long to see it, and all of its residents, conquered, defeated, and in many cases slaughtered. 

 

Let's not forget the Iranian statement that they 'kiss the hands' of the attackers of October 7th. The rape, murder, and kidnap of men, women, and children was literally celebrated at government level by a powerful sovereign nation.

 

If Israel is not able to defend itself and does not have the support of powerful allies, every man, woman, and child within its borders is in grave danger. October 7th should serve as a chilling warning to the intentions of Hamas and their allies.

 

The very phrase 'From the river to the sea', so mindlessly chanted by knowing and unknowing antisemites, demands the eradication of the Jewish population of the region.

 

That is why the US so strongly supports Israel, as should we all.

No. My support is conditional. One of my conditions is that you must not commit genocide or ethnic cleansing. Doesn't seem like a particularly controversial line in the sand to draw either.

1 hour ago, Genie said:

I reckon lots and lots of people think that stopping the boats unlocks all the capacity in the NHS, police, council homes, potholes etc.

I had a conversation with 2 chaps who were convinced that disabled veterans were going homeless because of illegal immigrants. They had read it in the daily mail and there was no convincing them otherwise. They were also convinced that they had to keep Starmer out or this terrible situation would be made worse. The current lot were considered bad, but the alternative in their eyes was to be avoided at all costs. It was so frustrating talking to them.  Then again they were self employed tradesmen who have had most of their competition ejected from the country so for them everything is peachy.

Yet to suggest reversing this decision despite it being proven beyond doubt to be based on lies, is still heresy in mainstream politics.

12 hours ago, Jareth said:

There is - kick both sets of bastards out of the equation 

I was staying at my uncles house a while back, and his solution was to drop a nuke or 10 and turn the whole area into glass. Then anyone who wants to live there can move in if they still want to.  

It's not a position I agree with.

It does seem difficult to see how mankind survives though. We seem determined to keep turning to slaughter each other, to keep a rictus grip on our little bit of a world that dies faster the tighter we grip.  It's really quite mad.

We are all knife fighting on an inflatable dinghy.

9 hours ago, Kiwivillan said:

Studs up challenge from Gusto is not upgraded to red. VAR in the mud AGAIN!

They deserve to be in the mud. They have consistently given reds for far less, happily contradicting the on field ref (DCL as one example from many) and they let a really blatant red go. No excuses on this one. Incompetence again.

2 minutes ago, sidcow said:

So won't vote are set to be the main opposition next term then.  Anyone know their policies?

One man no vote.

On 05/01/2024 at 07:48, villa4europe said:

looks like DD season 4, looks pretty good despite me having no interest in her as a character, also looks like something they desperately needed to me

Watched episode 1. Found it pretty boring tbh. Not as dumb as some of the writing has been elsewhere, but it really struggles to get me to care therefore little to no engagement. I turned on American Gangster again rather than watch episode 2.

I'll probably come back to it when really struggling to find anything good.

28 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

*Marjorie Taylor Green - a US Congresswoman and right wing conspiracy nutjob.

You're welcome fellow Europeans.

Sadly this barely covers just how batshut crazy this woman is. She literally took part in Jan 6th riots, she was the one dementedly talking through the door of AOC's office telling them to come out and the same woman who said if she had been organising it they would have been armed and successful. A proper horror story human.

Is Bruno Guimaraes really as lumbering and slow as he looks today? He tracks back like he is dragging a plough behind him.

1 hour ago, nick76 said:

I can see both sides.

Without doubt the people should decide who leads them.

With that though it’s US law that has raised this question which Americans have complete allegiance to through the Constitution and rule of law. 

So in this case those two premises (based on this ruling) is at conflict.  

So you either let anybody run for President or you adhere to the rules set out.  Americans choose and adhere to having some rules, like this where Trump is currently off the ballot for insurrection and decades ago Arnold Schwarzenegger was denied to run because he wasn’t a natural-born citizen who himself was popular.

(I also argue Americans don’t get to pick their President because it’s based on the Electoral College rules than popular vote so a person in one state has more voting power than a person in another state but that’s just my personal gripe with their voting format.  It just means that the President isn’t always the candidate with the most votes that wins, so the American public doesn’t always get the most popular candidate but again that’s the LAW that Americans follow…so again following their laws as in the above discussion.)

It's already well established that there are some restrictions on who can run and who cannot.  You already sited the born in the USA rule, you would also have to be over 35.  The both sides argument on this on is really either you are in favour of the rule of law or you are not.

12 hours ago, bickster said:

Wouldn’t matter, this whole factory reset and lost phone nonsense needs to be called out. Get yourself a new phone, hell even just delete whatsapp and then reinstall it. Did those WhatsApp’s suddenly magically reappear? I'm guessing they probably are, the messages are held by Meta and not the device

Have any journos pointed this out yet?

This does my head in. Unless specifically instructed to delete the messages they will all be sat in a data center somewhere.  With end to end encryption Meta should genuinely not be able to read the messages themselves so technically cannot hand over the conversations even if they should wish to do so.  In this case as the access to the messages was apparently inadvertently lost, then retrieval should in theory be done with the permission of the owner of the data and the process will not be contentious at all. Just activate the account on any device and any undeleted messages will be there.

Of course we know the loss was not really inadvertent, but at least we could move the conversation on to the destruction or deliberate concealment of the evidence rather than pretending this obvious BS has any credibility.

I'm confused why they have not asked Meta to retrieve the account and cannot understand at all why any journalists have not asked about this.

On 15/12/2023 at 10:48, Chindie said:

 

That was full of stunning facts. Just rams home just how nuts they have been financially 

1 hour ago, bickster said:

He's probably got 12 of the same suit anyway

He's a selfish clearing in the woods and a 100% grifter. Even with 12 of the same suit I don't think he would let anyone cut one up when he could just get them to use a roll of cheap ass material and post it out. His charity was fake, his university was fake, his suit will be fake too. 

18 minutes ago, Genie said:

Has anyone mentioned that billionaire Trump is selling small sections of the suit he was wearing in the mug shot. But it’s not quite as simple as that, interest buyers also have to spend a load of money on NFT’s to qualify.

Thats top tier grifting.

I'd bet good money that the bit of suit that actually turns up is not from the actual suit he wore.

Also Biden is funding and supplying the huge majority of the military aid to allow Ukraine to fight against Russia. Hardly the act of a person scared of Putin. It is the Trump MAGA clearings in the woods that are blocking the latest aid package. If Trump has had his way he would let Putin march across Europe 

13 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Listen i am not a trump fan at all , but this is simply not true. If trump was terrified of putin he would have invaded sooner.

If anything its biden that looks terrified of putin and is putins bitch. Trump doesn't seem scared of anyone.

Unless you want world world 3 and the destruction of us all then seeing putin as a enemy is not the way to go. Dialogue and improving relations is the way to keep us all here. Otherwise your heading for a nuke war and the castrophic end of us all.

 

Trump has bravado, but it is all show. When push comes to shove he is a coward. Watch any of the meetings between the two from Trump's time in office and you can see the dynamic. His own sister describes him as a scared little boy in a man's body who uses aggression and bullying to hide is own inadequacies. Like most bullies he is a weak man inside.

I don't want nuclear war, but to see Putin as anything other than he is, is a folly. So far negotiating with him is just giving him time to prepare his next act of aggression before tossing all the negotiated agreements in the bin.

6 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

But the point remains no invasion happened while trump was in charge.

There seemed to be a better relationship between trump and putin than biden and putin where relationships are at a complete all time low.

Trump was Putin's little bitch. Trump was terrified of him and did what he was told. I'm not sure that counts as a good relationship. Biden treats Putin like the enemy of the USA and NATO that he is, which unsurprisingly means a more hostile relationship. 

30 minutes ago, bickster said:

Really? I thought they had to keep out of directly influencing democracy

Yep, it is a fascinating story, and you have it right, that technically they should not be cutting a deal like this, but they did it anyway effectively to save the USA.

It is a story really well told here:

Bagman

Quote

In 1973, in the throes of the Watergate scandal, three young federal prosecutors uncovered a separate criminal scheme being run inside the White House — the sitting vice president, Spiro Agnew, was taking envelopes stuffed with cash in exchange for official acts as an elected official. If Nixon left office, Agnew would be the next President. And so, what would happen if the President was charged with a federal crime? Worse yet, what if he was convicted?

There is a bit of Watergate precedence being used by Jack Smith at the moment, with the Supreme Court being asked to look urgently at Trumps claim of "Presidential Immunity".  There are so many echoes of Watergate at the moment, it is well worth having a listen.  Although Agnew wasn't a part of Watergate, he was just doing other criminal things at the same time.

1 hour ago, bickster said:

That really isn’t something the FBI can offer as a deal

It's the exact deal they offered Spiro Agnew during Watergate to prevent him from becoming President after Nixon. 

2 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

It's basically a cliche now, but what the Tories want is getting closer and closer to fascism every day

It already is Fascist IMO, it is becoming Orwellian. They are literally legislating that reality isn't what we can see with our eyes reality is what they tell us it is.

Proper 1984 stuff.

Why YouTube is better than the BBC. The guy is a QPR fan and he actually did some research.....!

9 minutes ago, nick76 said:

Don’t get this narrative!

He’s got passed $1 trillion dollar Infrastructure Bill which the electorate needed and Republicans who voted against it are dining off money used in their states.

He’s got the biggest gun safety bill in 30 years…obviously not what everybody wants and far from enough but to get anything through on guns is a miracle.

The CHIPS and Science Act brought a lot of manufacturing back to US especially semi conductors.

I can keep going to the Inflation Reduction Act including limit of prescription drug costs for annual limits and lowering insulin costs…and there is more.  I think in such a divided political environment he’s done loads.  I mean Trump talked about Infrastructure Week and even had all control of all the branches of government for part of his tenure but still didn’t pass it.

Biden has many issues re his age and declining mental state but his record for the electorate is pretty impressive.  I think seeing it written down on paper shows how much he’s done whereas right wing media try to distract from it.

I don't watch any right wing media, I do however recall what he promised and what he has actually achieved.  I've never said he has done nothing, but in comparison to the size of the promise he has managed very little and what he has achieved has been so compromised that it has very little actual impact.  The main promises that seemed to impact the lives of normal people were to my mind:

1. Raise the minimum wage to $15

2. Forgive student debt

3. Codify Roe v Wade

All 3 he has failed completely on.  According to the the linked promise tracker (below) he is tracking at about 27% promises kept.  That is a failure any way you cut it.

Biden promise tracker

Quote

The Biden Promise Tracker monitors the 99 most important campaign promises of President Joseph R. Biden, elected in November 2020. Biden said his top priorities were fighting the coronavirus, improving the economy, responding to calls for racial justice and combating climate change. For each campaign promise, our reporters research the issue and then rate it based on whether the promise was achieved: Promise Kept, Promise Broken, Compromise, Stalled, In the Works or Not Yet Rated. We rate the promise not on the president's intentions or effort, but on verifiable outcomes.

And why has he failed so much or had to compromise so heavily?  Just take a look at Joe Manchin and how he has ripped the heart out Biden's agenda.  Has Manchin faced any sanction, or any pressure?  Nope, he just keeps voting with the GOP and Biden holds up his hand and says there is nothing he can do.  I want Biden to win more than most, but his failure is not a right wing talking point, it is a matter of fact.

4 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

Have you been watching the debates? All them are talking about is the fentanyl coming from china to mexico then into the states via the cartels uts been a massive issue over the last few years.

Ive never watched fox news in my life mate

Economy jack manley  jp morgan analyst on the economy has said the US is on verge of a recession. Yes there has been some growth in last quarter but not out yhe woods yet.

Your blaming trump from the withdrawal process? Yes he ordered it but Bidens administration  orchestrated  it. Biden was PM at the time too. I mean come on you dont hold biden accountable for anything?

If biden was doing such a terrific job as you seem to be alluding to, the race wouldnt even be close with trump as we know how bad trump is !

 

The Republican debates are basically a Trump buttkissing exercise in a race to come second to the orange Jesus. Chris Christie is the only one not using the debates as an audition to be VP, so the talking points there are totally untethered from reality as Trump would demand. 

The reason Biden is failing is partly his age and obvious decline, but it is mostly because he has failed to deliver against almost all of the agenda he promised in the last election. All he has competently delivered is for his donors, not for the electorate. He has maintained a status quo that the majority are not happy with. 

He is a hard man to vote for because, despite not being awful, he has failed and who wants to vote for more of that? He is still light years better than Trump though 

4 hours ago, Genie said:

At least that’s something, knowing he can only do a maximum of 4 years worth of damage might be a blessing. 

You believe he would go?

8 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

They had an attempted coup that was backed by the sitting president, a president withheld military aid to Ukraine as he wanted an investigation into a political rival. Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Ron DeSantis, the overturning of Roe vs Wade, Moms for Liberty. Thats just off the top of my head. We may have corruption and ineptitude here but I would take ours every single day versus the US. 

What's even crazier is that the polling suggests Trump has a decent chance of winning the election when it happens. The guy is literally standing to be the last democratically elected president of the USA. For the race to be close with everything we know about Trump demonstrates just how broken America is right now.