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Politics: Biden, Brexit and Beyond
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I would like to ask Mr Brexit here to point me towards the great banana farms of Britain.
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I would like to ask Mr Brexit here to point me towards the great banana farms of Britain.
It’s right next to the orange factory.
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But potatoes at least will grow in the British climate. We can grow the others under glass, but that doesn’t really scale well.
Bananas in particular are famous for being completely absent from Britain during the war, because we literally cannot grow them here. You’d think that Brexiteers of all people would know that, they’re generally obsessed with the war.
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Two weeks after martial law is declared, Biden has been locked up in a Federal facility, and Trump has declared himself President For Life, we’re all going to be sitting around wondering how this happened. Pay attention.
I think Trump might want to do that if he could, but I don’t believe the military would go along with that.
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But potatoes at least will grow in the British climate. We can grow the others under glass, but that doesn’t really scale well.
Bananas in particular are famous for being completely absent from Britain during the war, because we literally cannot grow them here. You’d think that Brexiteers of all people would know that, they’re generally obsessed with the war.
Don’t worry, this woman’s got us covered.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/bananas-growing-north-england-its-8653710
Bananas are growing in the North of England – and it’s all down to duvets
But Kate, who first began keeping tropical plants 23 years ago and has three types of palm tree in her garden as well as exotic flowers and cacti, is not planning on selling her bananas any time soon.
She added: “They are not like they are in greengrocers. They are only two inches long.
“Although they are turning yellow I tried one and I must admit it was disgusting, like eating cardboard.
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Apparently several other states are joining the Texas lawsuit. I guess the South is desperate for a 2nd Civil War now that so much of the country is removing their holy Confederate monuments. Seriously this shit us nuts. And somehow it’s all been sparked by the idiot host of a dumbass reality TV show. But I suppose it would be fitting for America to be destroyed by a shitty businessman considering our obsession with capitalism.
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It is stupidly macho and scary on Brexit now. Always has been, but now it feels worse.
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My resignation letter to Governor Desantis. pic.twitter.com/Wc78tgr6Ef
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonGOPVet4Biden) December 8, 2020
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Witness Mellissa Carone says she’s not self-quarantining after Giuliani’s COVID-19 diagnosis
“I would take it seriously if it came from Trump, because Trump cares about American lives,” Carone said. She added that if networks such as One America News or Newsmax “told me to go get tested, I would do it.”
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Hunter Biden is his dad’s “Billy Beer.”
Hunter Biden says he’s under tax investigation – CNNPolitics
Seems like relatives have long been a problem for Presidents. This is probably why monarchs have long practiced poisoning liabilities and familial threats to their reigns.
CoughcoughPrinceAndrewcoughcough
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Well, looks like Biden might get a chance to NOT pardon a family member.
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2016: Ha ha we won, you lost, get over it.
2017: Ha ha we won, you lost, get over it.
2018: Ha ha we won, you lost, get over it.
2019: Ha ha we won, you lost, get over it.
2020: Gloating isn't very constructive you know. https://t.co/8ZxKDV3HTb
— Matthew Hankins (@mc_hankins) December 9, 2020
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Their argument seems to be the same as the Pennsylvania case that was rejected by the SCOTUS, so I don’t think they have any chance. But fuck it is crazy.
It is not only crazy, but stupid. Essentially, they are trying to claim that one state can sue another state to make it change its own internal election rules. No state has any legal right to influence another state’s laws, and even if they did, the other states could then claim that Texas’ laws need to change to match theirs. On top of this, the Supreme Court in Washington has no jurisdiction over state laws except when they contradict Federal. There would be no reason or even any incentive for the Supreme Court to consider this even if they supported Trump.
On top of all this, all the Electors are confirmed and there is no legal way after Dec 8th to reverse that. So any outcome would only affect the next election. Not this one.
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I’ve not yet fully conceded my “President Trump for life” belief system but I gotta admit it looks ever-increasingly likely that Biden will become the President.
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I’m still holding out hope for Tulsi. How high up is she in the line of succession?
Somewhere in between Hilary Clinton and Jared Kushner.
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No Deal Brexit has been a very slow moving train crash where the destination was inevitable from the start, but some of the passengers – the ones who had told the train driver to scuttle the brakes in the first place – assured us that they were perfectly capable of safely stopping the train, that it was nothing to worry about at all, we don’t need brakes or a driver or an engineer, they’ll sort it. Only now that we’re metres away from crashing, they’ve actually had a look at it and realised they’re incapable changing the fundamental laws of physics and thus of doing anything to prevent the crash and are trying to make out that it’s the destination’s fault for being in the way of their glorious uncontrollable train.
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In all honesty, Brexit was never going to be a great success. I’m sure it would be possible to exit the EU and thrive, but instead of doing the work that could guarantee a successful exit, the UK squandered 4 years trying to figure out what exactly they wanted, dithering around and somehow expecting the EU to cave on red lines that were fundamental to the existence of the EU as an organisation.
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Also, Johnson – a man so egotistical he will screw over the country he is supposed to lead for years for any personal gain, no matter how little.
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A realistic Brexit deal has always come down to the very simple idea of how much compromise you are willing to make (on regulatory alignment etc.) to have access to the benefits of an ongoing relationship with the EU.
If you’ve put yourself in a position where you can’t compromise on anything, then guess what? You don’t get shit.
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The only thing that adds up, in a sick way, is Johnson amping up the no-deal talk so he can then present himself as a miraculous saviour, while no one looks at the small print.
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The only thing that adds up, in a sick way, is Johnson amping up the no-deal talk so he can then present himself as a miraculous saviour, while no one looks at the small print.
He tried that last time with the withdrawal agreement and it was bullshit then.
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Yep and he still got away with it, following it up with an international law breaking bill that screwed it over and he’s still in charge of this, so what won’t be screwed over in pursuit of Cover Thine Arse?
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Someone pointed out online recently that Games Workshop is worth about ten times as much as the entire UK fishing industry, and they wondered what was being done to ensure the smooth shipping of toy soldiers to the EU after Brexit.
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they wondered what was being done to ensure the smooth shipping of toy soldiers to the EU after Brexit.
Maybe the EU will fight them with their own toy soldiers
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Someone pointed out online recently that Games Workshop is worth about ten times as much as the entire UK fishing industry, and they wondered what was being done to ensure the smooth shipping of toy soldiers to the EU after Brexit.
I believe they’ve given them all blue passports.
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Warhammer Blue perhaps?
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Someone pointed out online recently that Games Workshop is worth about ten times as much as the entire UK fishing industry, and they wondered what was being done to ensure the smooth shipping of toy soldiers to the EU after Brexit.
Harrods is worth more than the fishing industry, one shop (okay a very big shop but one shop).
If brexit is a great success for the UK that would probably be the end of the EU. I think that seems unlikely now.
Success can be a subjective thing. It’s not hard to read between the lines that what the Tory grandees want is a very deregulated tax haven. They’ll sacrifice things like the car industry to get it. That’s why they can’t agree the ‘level playing field’ parts.
The fishing is just a smokescreen that plays to the crowd, it’s an easy argument to make about the right to your own waters but it is economically unimportant and can’t work anyway.
(The reason it can’t work is Brits don’t actually like to eat the fish they catch, 70% is exported to the rest of Europe that do. Brits like cod which is rarely found off the coast so imported in from the likes of Norway).
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Meanwhile, my current hometown of Bonn is profitting off of Brexit:
https://www.thejournal.ie/bonn-dublin-weather-5294277-Dec2020/
Dublin blown away by Bonn in post-Brexit bid to host European weather forecasting centre
IRELAND’S HOPES OF becoming a new European centre for weather forecasting have been dashed as the city of Bonn was chosen instead.
The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) has gone for the German city, noting that Bonn is “at the heart of Europe and very well connected”.
It means that Bonn will see a new facility built between 2023 to 2025 that will feature a 16 storey glass tower. Staff will begin working in the city in a temporary location from next year.
[…] The organisation was forced to make some changes because of Brexit and open offices in new locations that are eligible for EU funding.
The ECMWF will still be headquartered in Reading but this new centre in Bonn is in addition to another one in Bologna, Italy that is due to open in 2022.
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The fishing is just a smokescreen that plays to the crowd, it’s an easy argument to make about the right to your own waters but it is economically unimportant and can’t work anyway.
Yeah, it’s a talking point because it’s been hammered by the press for decades, not because it’s an important part of the economy. Everyone can say “what about the fishing quotas” because it’s been background noise since at least 1975
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Boris Johnson tells us we’re getting an Australian style “deal”.
Former Australian PM tells us that Australia has a terrible deal with the EU.
“Be careful what you wish for. Australia’s relationship with the EU is not one, from a trade point of view, that Britain would want.”
Former Australian Prime Minister @TurnbullMalcolm warns the UK against relying on WTO rules for business with Europe. #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/u3OiLJ7SH8
— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) December 10, 2020
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It’s all a smarmy rebranding exercise anyway because an “Australia style deal” is ‘no deal’. They have no trade agreement with the EU.
They have a small agreement on wine imports which the UK won’t have and wouldn’t make any difference if they did as we barely make any wine.
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It’s all a smarmy rebranding exercise anyway because an “Australia style deal” is ‘no deal’. They have no trade agreement with the EU.
Exactly this. It’s like me saying that my house has a Sahara-style swimming pool.
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Yeah, Turnbull says it’s basically just WTO rules, right?
They have a small agreement on wine imports which the UK won’t have and wouldn’t make any difference if they did as we barely make any wine.
So that’s why there’s so many Australian wines in the supermarkets! I’ve been wondering.
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Yup and some WTO terms are really shitty. A few farmers are going to be immediately hit really badly and probably go bust as tariffs on beef (86%) and lamb (67%) are enormous and nobody will want to import them at that price.
The UK is just daydreaming into this, the media has never covered any detail, mostly just reporting the fluff of ‘oven ready sovereignty’ or whatever. As no deal looks inevitable (the optimistic take is Boris is stage managing him saving the day at the last minute but it looks unlikely). It’s going to hit some people like a ton of bricks. They have ads on TV asking firms to prepare but 3 weeks away nobody actually knows what to prepare for.
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They have ads on TV asking firms to prepare but 3 weeks away nobody actually knows what to prepare for.
Similarly, Johnson kept trying to pin Starmer at PMQs this week over whether Labour would vote for a deal, and Starmer kept having to patiently point out that they can’t really decide that until they know what the deal is that they’d be voting for.
It’s madness.
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I’m still holding out hope for Tulsi. How high up is she in the line of succession?
Hope is dead. She is a piece of shit.
Tulsi Gabbard Introduces Anti-Transgender Bill After Claiming To Be LGBTQ-Friendly
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) introduced legislation in the House on Thursday that would bar schools from receiving federal funding if they allow transgender girls and women and non-binary people to compete on sports teams consistent with their gender identities.
The bill — co-sponsored by Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma — was met with immediate outrage from transgender activists and allies who labeled the legislation “blatantly transphobic.”
The “Protect Women’s Sports Act” seeks to clarify that Title IX protections for female athletes are “based on biological sex,” Gabbard and Mullin said in a statement.
Title IX protects people from discrimination based on sex in educational programs that receive federal financial assistance. The new bill would bar schools from receiving such funds if they permit “a person whose biological sex at birth is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls.”
A similar bill was introduced in the Senate earlier this year by Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Georgia) and other Republicans. Loeffler is one of two Republican senators facing competitive runoff elections in Georgia in January.
Explaining her support for the bill, Gabbard ― who’d previously claimed she supported LGBTQ rights ― said she wants to protect “Title IX’s original intent which was based on the general biological distinction between men and women athletes based on sex.”
“Title IX was a historic provision … to provide equal opportunity for women and girls in high school and college sports. It led to a generational shift that impacted countless women, creating life-changing opportunities for girls and women that never existed before,” she said.
“However,” she added, “Title IX is being weakened by some states who are misinterpreting Title IX, creating uncertainty, undue hardship and lost opportunities for female athletes. It is critical that the legacy of Title IX continues to ensure women and girls in sports have the opportunity to compete and excel on a level playing field.”
Gabbard faced immediate backlash for the legislation.
“Tulsi Gabbard is now introducing a blatantly transphobic piece of legislation aimed at trans and non-binary young people,” civil rights activist Charlotte Clymer wrote on Twitter of the bill.
“Remember when Tulsi Gabbard tried to convince us she was an LGBTQ ally? We knew she was a liar, a fraud,” wrote Zeke Stokes, former chief programs officer of LGBTQ rights organization GLAAD.
Gabbard faced scrutiny last year after homophobic remarks she’d made in 2004 surfaced. At least twice that year, the Democrat had publicly called the LGBTQ community and same-sex marriage supporters “homosexual extremists.”
She later told HuffPost in a statement that she regretted “the positions I took in the past” and noted her more recent support for legislation “that ensures equal rights and protections on LGBTQ+ issues.” In 2017, for instance, she backed a bill targeting discrimination based on sexual orientation.
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The supreme court threw out the Texas lawsuit. That’s good news. It seems the SCOTUS isn’t that crazy.
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The supreme court threw out the Texas lawsuit. That’s good news. It seems the SCOTUS isn’t that crazy.
And the fact that the Texas suit, along with others that came their way, were completely baseless. Besides, one state telling other states how to run themselves was a non-starter.
I do find it funny that Trump’s court stacking has not worked for him.
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True – conservative is not crazy. What is crazy is that all these red states have been pushing states rights when it comes to abortion, capital punishment, same-sex marriage bans and gun ownership, BUT lose one election and suddenly all that goes out the window.
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An amicable divorce.
It can only be amicable if 100% of the seceding population want it, which has never happened in any divided nation ever.
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Theoretically, there are legal paths to secession, but it is really only theoretical. They’d need nearly every person in that state to vote for it, then the Federal Government to agree to it, and then every other state in the Union to agree to it. It’s about as realistic as having a second constitutional convention.
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Texas GOP lawmakers are just doing what they do every time their side loses a presidential election. Kick and scream about secession because they didn’t get their way. At this point I kind of wish we would just split up into 2 or 3 countries. It’s clear the conservative side has zero interest in working with even the moderate side of the country. Hell, they aren’t even interested in basic facts and reality anymore. Let all the red states go off and wax nostalgic about the good old days of the 1950s and the confederacy and find out that the liberal states they hate so much keep them propped up. I’m just so sick of the conservatives faux patriotic bullshit. They love the country and constitution only so long as it supports their own views. A state comes up with a shit law that’s pro-abortion or pro-gun or pro-being a piece of shit and they scream about states rights. Some moderate democrat clearly wins a presidential election and they cry to every court in the country to overturn OTHER states election laws and results. It’s been a joke for years and years, but I’m beyond fed up with it. Every single House member that backed this Texas lawsuit should be forced out of office. So should every dumbass attorney general who backed it. But every single one will have zero consequences because there really is no system of accountability in the government. Used to be you could just shame people into resigning. That doesn’t work when politicians and the sycophants around them have no shame.
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ut every single one will have zero consequences because there really is no system of accountability in the government. Used to be you could just shame people into resigning. That doesn’t work when politicians and the sycophants around them have no shame.
“Whatever happened to shame?”
“I think it went the way of honour.”
Still one of the best and sharpest exchanges going, wonderfully executed by Nighy and Walken.
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Al Franken may end up being the last politician to resign after apologizing for a moment of bad judgment. Ironic, considering that his “crime” was doing something childish, not something illegal or corrupt. Mitch McConnell does worse things every day, before his breakfast. Post-Trump there is a new standard of what’s wrong.
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Texas GOP lawmakers are just doing what they do every time their side loses a presidential election. Kick and scream about secession because they didn’t get their way.
Honestly, Texas has a better chance of rejoining Mexico than leaving the United States.
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Today I’m calling on House leaders to refuse to seat any Members trying to overturn the election and make donald trump an unelected dictator. pic.twitter.com/icTmGKCpuR
— Bill Pascrell, Jr. (@BillPascrell) December 11, 2020
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Texas GOP lawmakers are just doing what they do every time their side loses a presidential election. Kick and scream about secession because they didn’t get their way. At this point I kind of wish we would just split up into 2 or 3 countries. It’s clear the conservative side has zero interest in working with even the moderate side of the country. Hell, they aren’t even interested in basic facts and reality anymore. Let all the red states go off and wax nostalgic about the good old days of the 1950s and the confederacy and find out that the liberal states they hate so much keep them propped up. I’m just so sick of the conservatives faux patriotic bullshit. They love the country and constitution only so long as it supports their own views. A state comes up with a shit law that’s pro-abortion or pro-gun or pro-being a piece of shit and they scream about states rights. Some moderate democrat clearly wins a presidential election and they cry to every court in the country to overturn OTHER states election laws and results. It’s been a joke for years and years, but I’m beyond fed up with it. Every single House member that backed this Texas lawsuit should be forced out of office. So should every dumbass attorney general who backed it. But every single one will have zero consequences because there really is no system of accountability in the government. Used to be you could just shame people into resigning. That doesn’t work when politicians and the sycophants around them have no shame.
While I get the sentiment and don’t disagree that the leadership of Texas and other Red States need to get in the fucking sea, Texas and Florida saw the second and third biggest turnouts for Biden. At a quick eyeball, it looks like more people voted for Biden in either state than the 10 smallest-population states that Biden won, combined. And the same thing is reversed for Trump – he won more votes in California than any other state.
The Red State/Blue State thing is an artefact of how the US runs elections, and it really doesn’t help the people at all. If you’re a conservative in California or a progressive in Texas you’re faced with the horrible decision of staying in a place run by people you’ve been conditioned to hate and try and change things, or move to somewhere run by the people you like – but if you move you’re just diluting the power of your compatriots in your former home. The winner takes all nature of politics in the US means there’s no incentive for compromise, so once you’re in you want to ram through as much policy as possible to make it dfficult for the other side to undo it when and if the pendulum swings.
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ut every single one will have zero consequences because there really is no system of accountability in the government. Used to be you could just shame people into resigning. That doesn’t work when politicians and the sycophants around them have no shame.
“Whatever happened to shame?”
“I think it went the way of honour.”
Still one of the best and sharpest exchanges going, wonderfully executed by Nighy and Walken.
The Republicans have pulled a lot of shit over the years but the moment for me which showed they have no honor or shame was when the Senate Republicans refused to call an impeachment vote. You knew that if they had voted it would have been against impeachment. They had the votes. But the fact that they refused to call a vote showed they have neither honor nor shame. They showed their true colors and what they really stand for. They are a garbage party.
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Today I’m calling on House leaders to refuse to seat any Members trying to overturn the election and make donald trump an unelected dictator. pic.twitter.com/icTmGKCpuR
— Bill Pascrell, Jr. (@BillPascrell) December 11, 2020
That’s awesome. It’ll never happen of course, but at least someone’s taking off the kiddie gloves and going for it.
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Trump literally tweeted “I just want to stop the world from killing itself.” I had to giggle at that. It’s pretty funny how he just tweets he’s going to win and he’s not going anywhere twenty times per day.
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Two points on the ludicrous headline that we are deploying naval gunboats to protect our waters from EU trawlers.
First, this maps shows the actual location of all British trawlers on a random day:
Clearly our own trawlers don’t consider British waters all that important.
Second,
The Dutch trawler the Cornelis Vrolijk catches 23% of Britain’s fish from the quotas the Netherlands bought. It sails out of Hull, employing British trawlermen and sails under a British flag. Who are they going to arrest?
The actual point here is that we sold our fishing rights. We privatised them and then sold them to EU companies. We don’t actually have any sovereign rights left to enforce.
But of course, deploying gunboats is nothing to do with protecting anything. It’s propaganda to appease the flag wavers. (The next logical step is a Short Victorious War).
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It’s propaganda to appease the flag wavers. (The next logical step is a Short Victorious War).
Falklands, anybody?
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How dare you use facts and historical evidence when the rest of us are relying on the traditional tools of bluster, shouting very loudly and slagging off Johnny Foreigner.
So you trying to be like Americans?
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How dare you use facts and historical evidence when the rest of us are relying on the traditional tools of bluster, shouting very loudly and slagging off Johnny Foreigner.
So you trying to be like Americans?
Pfft. We taught you Americans everything you know about foreign policy.
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How dare you use facts and historical evidence when the rest of us are relying on the traditional tools of bluster, shouting very loudly and slagging off Johnny Foreigner.
So you trying to be like Americans?
Pfft. We taught you Americans everything you know about foreign policy.
And now the student has surpassed the teacher.
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Today is the day when the Electoral College of Witches gather in a dark forest to dance naked around a giant bonfire, cavort with demons and fairies, spit into the flames, and conjure up the name of the next President of the United States. Or the new Witch Queen. Or both.
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Two points on the ludicrous headline that we are deploying naval gunboats to protect our waters from EU trawlers.
First, this maps shows the actual location of all British trawlers on a random day:
Clearly our own trawlers don’t consider British waters all that important.
Second,
The Dutch trawler the Cornelis Vrolijk catches 23% of Britain’s fish from the quotas the Netherlands bought. It sails out of Hull, employing British trawlermen and sails under a British flag. Who are they going to arrest?
The actual point here is that we sold our fishing rights. We privatised them and then sold them to EU companies. We don’t actually have any sovereign rights left to enforce.
But of course, deploying gunboats is nothing to do with protecting anything. It’s propaganda to appease the flag wavers. (The next logical step is a Short Victorious War).
Someone should tweet “so long and thanks for all the fish” when this is all final by the end of the year.
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Apparently the GOP in some battleground states are planning on sending votes from their own independent electors to Congress because the GOP has basically embraced their new role of traitors to the US. Of course they continue to try to paint it all as their patriotic duty. Because somehow trying endlessly to overthrow the will of the people is the most patriotic and democratic thing possible to them.
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Yeah this is real WTF territory. Can any USian explain this? How can they send electors when they lost?
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Yeah this is real WTF territory. Can any USian explain this? How can they send electors when they lost?
Republican bitches be crazy.
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Electoral College results confirm it: Joe Biden is the next president
It’s over, again.
The 538 members of the Electoral College cast their ballots on Monday, the penultimate step in confirming President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the November election.
In Georgia, a state Biden was able to flip in 2020, former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams took the roll call of electors and announced that the state had cast its Electoral Votes for him.
“I am pleased to announce that Joseph R. Biden has received 16 votes for president of the United States,” Abrams said.
As more members of the Electoral College cast their votes around the country, the drama-free proceedings resembled previous elections in which the results were a foregone conclusion. A little after 5:30 p.m. ET, Biden crossed the 270 Electoral Vote threshold needed to officially be declared the next president when California cast its 55 votes.
Despite pressure for Trump and his legal team to convince the Republican legislatures in battleground states to appoint a slate of electors who would overturn the popular vote, none obliged. Biden was on track to receive the 306 votes he was entitled to, to 232 for Trump — coincidentally, the same margin Trump won by in 2016, which he has characterized as a “landslide.”
Stung by Biden’s victory, Trump has relentlessly claimed that it was the result of electoral fraud. But the outcome was all but sealed on Dec. 8, the “safe harbor day” deadline to resolve any outstanding disputes about the results. That left the formality of casting the Electoral Votes that had already been decided.
Still, even on the day that the Electoral College confirmed his loss, Trump continued to push baseless conspiracy theories about the election results in social media posts immediately flagged as containing misinformation.
But judges in Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia did not agree that fraud had played a role in deciding a winner in the election. In ruling after ruling, Trump’s legal team suffered losses and stinging rebukes from judges, many of them appointed by the president himself, who either found no evidence of fraud, or took issue with the idea that the judiciary would simply toss out enough votes to keep Trump in office for a second term.
A last-ditch effort by 18 Republican attorneys general to ask the Supreme Court to throw out the votes in four states won by Biden was turned down decisively on Friday.
On Monday, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court handed Trump’s lawyer’s their latest defeat, refusing to invalidate some 220,000 ballots and overturn the election results.
“We conclude the Campaign is not entitled to the relief it seeks,” Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote in the the majority opinion.
By 3:00 p.m. ET, all six of the battleground states where Trump contested the election results had cast their Electoral Vote ballots for Biden.
Without an assist from the courts, and with the Electoral College having cast its ballots, all that remains now is for Congress open and count them on Jan. 6. Vice President Mike Pence, who presides over the Senate, will pronounce Biden the winner.
When that happens, the election will truly be over, again.
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Attorney General William Barr resigns, effective Dec. 23
Attorney General William Barr will depart the Trump administration before Christmas, President Donald Trump said Monday.
The widely anticipated departure of Barr, the head of the Department of Justice, came just moments after President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over Trump was formalized by the Electoral College.
Trump, who is refusing to concede the race to Biden, announced Barr’s decision and shared his resignation letter on Twitter.
“Just had a very nice meeting with Attorney General Bill Barr at the White House,” Trump said in a pair of tweets. “Our relationship has been a very good one, he has done an outstanding job!”
Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen will serve as acting attorney general following Barr’s departure, Trump said in the tweets. Richard Donoghue, former US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, will take over Rosen’s role as the No. 2 official at the Justice Department, Trump wrote.
Barr in early December directly contradicted Trump when he revealed that the Department of Justice had not found any evidence of large-scale voter or election fraud that would overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s projected victory.
That admission during an interview with the Associated Press undercut the president, who has refused to concede to Biden and is falsely claiming he won the election, citing an array of unproven fraud conspiracies and asserting the race was “rigged” against him.
The admissions from Barr also sharply undermined the legal efforts from lawyers on the Trump campaign to reverse Biden’s wins in key swing states.
That legal team, led by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has filed a series of lawsuits attempting to invalidate hundreds of thousands of votes, with a specific focus on counties that leaned heavily Democratic in the presidential election. Many of those long-shot lawsuits have already been rejected, and none so far have swayed swing-state judges to block or nullify the certification of Biden’s wins.
Giuliani and another Trump campaign lawyer, Jenna Ellis, pushed back on Barr’s remarks after they were made public.
“With all due respect to the Attorney General, there hasn’t been any semblance of a Department of Justice investigation,” Giuliani and Ellis said in a joint statement released by the Trump campaign.
“Again, with the greatest respect to the Attorney General, his opinion appears to be without any knowledge or investigation of the substantial irregularities and evidence of systemic fraud,” the statement said.
Later in December, Trump voiced frustration with the Justice Department for refusing to make public investigations involving Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in the run-up to the election.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Barr had worked to conceal the probes involving Hunter Biden’s business dealings and finances during the election season, despite pressure from Trump and Republicans seeking information on the Democratic nominee’s son.
Trump on Dec. 11 tweeted, “Why didn’t the Fake News Media, the FBI and the DOJ report the Biden matter BEFORE the Election.”
He falsely added: “Oh well, it’s OK, we won the Election anyway – 75,000,000 VOTES!!!”
Barr’s ouster deepens an ongoing leadership crisis at the Justice Department. The attorney general had faced intense criticism, including from current and former DOJ officials, that he had politicized the department.
Barr raised hackles through his interventions in a number of high-profile federal cases involving Trump’s allies.
After federal prosecutors suggested a harsh prison term for GOP operative Roger Stone, a friend of Trump’s who had been convicted of seven felonies related to lying to Congress, Barr stepped in to lighten that proposed sentence. Four of the federal attorneys on Stone’s case quit the prosecution shortly thereafter. Trump in July commuted Stone’s sentence, sparing him from entering prison.
Barr also faced scrutiny over his handling of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, as well as the termination of Geoffrey Berman, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
At times, however, Barr publicly pushed back on Trump. In one interview, Barr complained that some of the president’s tweets about ongoing cases made it “impossible” for him to do his job.
A more recent controversy involved an embarrassing mix up over the replacement of the former U.S. attorney in Manhattan.
In June, Barr announced that Berman was stepping down, and that he would be replaced by Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Jay Clayton.
Berman, who was reportedly investigating Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, fired back hours later that he had not resigned and would not step down until Trump formally nominated a replacement and that person received Senate confirmation.
Berman ultimately stepped aside after Barr said that he would be replaced on an acting basis by Berman’s deputy, Audrey Strauss.
The end of Barr’s tenure is the final step in the deterioration of Trump’s relationship with his attorney general, an alliance that was once considered to be among the strongest Trump had with any member of his Cabinet.
Barr’s role in the Trump administration, which he took on in 2019, marked his second stint as the nation’s highest law enforcement official. Barr also served as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush in the 1990s.
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Attorney General William Barr will depart the Trump administration before Christmas, President Donald Trump said Monday.
Not the best scenario. As much damage as Barr has done during his tenure, post-election he told the truth about the election results despite such view being contrary to Trump’s position. Now this resignation allows the possibility that Trump will assign the position to a bootlicker who could use his position to overturn the results that the Electoral College just announced.
So much for a Merry Christmas.
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Damn, I really thought I was in with a shot at winning the election at the electoral college stage.
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Attorney General William Barr will depart the Trump administration before Christmas, President Donald Trump said Monday.
Not the best scenario. As much damage as Barr has done during his tenure, post-election he told the truth about the election results despite such view being contrary to Trump’s position. Now this resignation allows the possibility that Trump will assign the position to a bootlicker who could use his position to overturn the results that the Electoral College just announced.
So much for a Merry Christmas.
Not to say they won’t try, but I can’t imagine how an acting federal AG could have any power over state certified elections. The Supreme Court has already shown they have zero interest in getting involved, but something like this would be an instant constitutional crisis that could never possibly stand. As much as I don’t like the conservative justices, they do seem to give some fuck about the Constitution. Even if their interpretation sucks, there’s really no constitutional standing for the federal justice department to overturn state elections as far as I know. Would be even worse with an AG not confirmed by Congress.
But Trump is gonna Trump so…
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this maps shows the actual location of all British trawlers on a random day:
I’ve just learned the map is fake news. Sorry about that.
The map shows the positions of all *EU* trawlers. So any of them might be British. At least today. Next month, the British ones can only be the ones very close to Britain, as we’ll lose the right to all the other waters that the EU can fish.
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Now this resignation allows the possibility that Trump will assign the position to a bootlicker who could use his position to overturn the results that the Electoral College just announced.
If one man can do that, your checks and balances aren’t working.
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Oh, the US checks and balances work…. On the peasants.
Don’t like it? Don’t be a peasant then.
That’s the US system.
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this maps shows the actual location of all British trawlers on a random day:
I’ve just learned the map is fake news. Sorry about that.
The map shows the positions of all *EU* trawlers. So any of them might be British. At least today. Next month, the British ones can only be the ones very close to Britain, as we’ll lose the right to all the other waters that the EU can fish.
Boris really seems to be into this whole Chaos-is-a-ladder thing, doesn’t he?
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Boris really seems to be into this whole Chaos-is-a-ladder thing, doesn’t he?
He certainly does.
Unfortunately for him, it’s this one.
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If one man can do that, your checks and balances aren’t working.
In some cases, unfortunately, the checks and balances come AFTER the action has been taken, and it’s always difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. William Barr, for all his faults, made a point of upholding the law and due process which is why, for example, he did not leak the information about investigations into Hunter Biden’s taxes before Election Day, even though that news may have helped Trump win. In a similar vein, Barr likely stood in the way of Trump declaring martial law (which many of his followers were calling for at the beginning of December). Without Barr as Trump’s stern babysitter, anything could happen between now and January 20th.
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It’s pretty terrifying that even Bill Barr isn’t authoritarian enough for Trump. In other news, McConnell finally admitted Biden and Harris won. If even he’s congratulating Biden on winning then it’s definitely over for Trump. If only I believed there was an actual chance the Dems could take control away from Mitch. I don’t think I’ve ever loathed a politician more than that guy.
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I don’t think I’ve ever loathed a politician more than that guy.
I can’t recall a politician as blatantly two-faced as McConnell. When Justice Scalia died in February 2016, McConnell took the position that a Supreme Court Justice should not be nominated by the sitting president in an election year and would not even hold a hearing to consider Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland; but when RGB died in September this year, so close to the election, McConnell sang a different tune and rushed through the hearings for Amy Coney Barrett rather than wait to see who won in November.
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McConnell warns Senate Republicans against challenging election results
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Republican senators Tuesday during a private caucus call not to object to the election results on January 6, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
McConnell told his caucus that objecting to the results would force Republicans to take a “terrible vote” because they would need to vote it down and appear against President Donald Trump. Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) also echoed McConnell’s remarks.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said that no one objected on the call to McConnell encouraging members to accept the election results.
“There wasn’t any pushback to it,” she said. “There’s wasn’t anyone saying: oh wait a minute. That didn’t occur.”
McConnell’s warning comes one day after the Electoral College officially voted for Joe Biden as the president-elect. The Kentucky Republican acknowledged for the first time that Biden will be the next president in his floor remarks Tuesday.
Several House Republicans, led by hard-line conservative Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), are still planning to challenge the election results on January 6, the date Congress will officially certify them. If a Republican senator joins the long-shot effort, however, it will force both chambers to take a vote on the election. But they have yet to get official buy-in from any GOP senators, though Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) haven’t ruled it out.
Johnson, who is holding a Senate hearing Wednesday on election “irregularities,” recognized Biden as president-elect on Tuesday.
McConnell’s warning underscores how the last-ditch bid to overturn the election is putting the GOP in a bind. On the one hand, Republicans are facing pressure from Trump and his allies to support his attempt to remain in power. And party leaders want to keep the base energized ahead of a pair of critical Georgia runoff races on Jan. 5. that will determine control of the Senate.
But at the same time, McConnell — who is defending a tough Senate map in 2022 — needs to protect his members from taking a tough vote. If the Senate is forced to deliberate the election results, most GOP senators would be going on the record against a president who values fealty above all else. And it would be none other than Vice President Mike Pence presiding over the floor debate — a potentially awkward scenario as his boss continues to deny the reality of the election he lost.
McConnell on Tuesday’s call cited a 2005 objection from former Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) after President George W. Bush’s reelection, which delayed the process by a few hours, according to several sources. The Kentucky Republican warned that he hoped no one, particularly in the class of 2022, thought that was a good idea.
Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — a top Trump ally who has yet to recognize Biden as the president-elect — has dodged questions from reporters about whether he supports Brooks’ gambit. But McCarthy did say during a recent appearance on Fox Business Network that the courts are the proper venue to dispute election results.
“The president is right to go to the courts, have his legal challenges heard,” McCarthy added. “And he said he still has more opportunity to do that, so we’ll wade through and see what happens.”
On Friday, the Supreme Court rejected a longshot bid by Texas and other Republican-led states to overturn the election results. McCarthy had joined that effort.
Trump has yet to show any sign that he will concede. Instead, the president on Tuesday continued to reiterate false claims of voter fraud on Twitter.
The president is also publicly and privately leaning on his Hill allies to launch a last-ditch effort to reverse the election in Congress. He has praised Brooks on Twitter and retweeted a Breitbart news article Tuesday in which Brooks vows to continue fighting the Electoral College results in Congress.
Yet even if a GOP Senator gets on board, the effort is doomed to fail, given the makeup of the Democratic-led House and the increasing number of Senate Republicans who have recognized Biden as the president-elect. Still, it could become yet another Trump loyalty test in the GOP.
In January 2017, a handful of House Democrats took this precise procedural step before their efforts flamed out during a joint session of Congress presided over by Biden, then the outgoing vice president.
“It is over,” Biden said at the time, gaveling down Democrats as Republicans cheered.
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Your point is true though, fishing boats from all countries fish in each others waters, the UK as well as other countries. So if the UK doesn’t have a deal, they can’t fish in EU waters anymore as well as vice versa.
It’s all nonsense anyway Arjan. The fishing industry is tiny in the UK, has less financial value than industries they seem happy to throw under the bus.
Most of the EU boats operating in UK waters have nothing to do with EU rules but the fact that British fishermen sold their quotas to them. The reason they sold the quotas is British consumers don’t actually like to eat the fish that swim in its waters. They prefer the cod found off Norway and Iceland.
The entire reason they are making a fuss about it is it has a nice narrative and the ability to be easily emotive jingoism. They’ve filled the tabloid front pages with stuff like gunboats protecting British waters etc. It’s a populist tool that plays well with the hard of thinking they’ve manipulated all through this, like this guy:
O’Brien repeatedly asks this final question in his show and it’s always the same, nobody can specify an EU law that actually exists and they don’t like, when pressed they’ll eventually fall on immigration (also bearing in mind that the EU has no say on how many refugees you accept anyway). It’s essentially all about xenophobia, not fish.
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Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Neighbors Want Him to Retire Somewhere Else
In November 2019, President Trump announced he was moving his permanent residence from his tower in Manhattan to his resort at Mar-a-Lago for reasons that seemed pretty straightforward: Trump was reluctantly coughing up millions in state and local taxes to declare residence on an island on which he is despised. On the island of Palm Beach, Florida, at least there is no state tax.
According to the Washington Post, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago neighbors delivered a demand letter to the town of Palm Beach on Tuesday contesting the president’s plan to live at the “winter White House” after he leaves the real one in January. This hyper-specific form of NIMBY-ism dates back to a 1993 deal Trump made with the town when he converted the historic estate into a private club. As the paper reports:
The current residency controversy tracks back to a deal Trump cut in 1993 when his finances were foundering, and the cost of maintaining Mar-a-Lago was soaring into the multimillions each year. Under the agreement, club members are banned from spending more than 21 days a year in the club’s guest suites and cannot stay there for any longer than seven consecutive days. Before the arrangement was sealed, an attorney for Trump assured the town council in a public meeting that he would not live at Mar-a-Lago.
At the time, the town’s leaders were wary of Trump because he had sued them after they blocked his attempt to subdivide the historic Mar-a-Lago property into multiple housing lots. Placing the limitations on lengths of stays assured that Trump’s property would remain a private club, as he had promised, rather than a residential hotel …
The 1993 Palm Beach agreement isn’t the only document that raises questions about whether Trump can legally live at Mar-a-Lago. He also signed a document deeding development rights for Mar-a-Lago to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a Washington-based, privately funded nonprofit organization that works to save historic sites around the country. As part of the National Trust deal, Trump agreed to “forever” relinquish his rights to develop Mar-a-Lago or to use it for “any purpose other than club use.”
When it comes to enforcing zoning regulations in one of the nation’s wealthiest zip codes, expect the neighbors to play hardball. “There’s absolutely no legal theory under which he can use that property as both a residence and a club,” Glenn Zeitz, a nearby Palm Beach homeowner told the Post. “Basically he’s playing a dead hand. He’s not going to intimidate or bluff people because we’re going to be there.” In the past, neighbors have complained about traffic during Trump’s visits, as well as his refusals to comply with local codes, like the height limit for a big flagpole he installed.
As for the letter itself — sent to Trump via the Secret Service as well — the neighbors were at least kind enough to use the mob-adjacent language the president loves so much. The demand states that Trump should “avoid an embarrassing situation” of moving in after Joe Biden’s inauguration only to move out on the town’s orders. That’s a nice gilded estate you’ve got there, Mr. President. It’d be a shame if something happened so you couldn’t stay too long.
This song comes to mind:
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And Trump is still a child:
Trump turns on McConnell for calling Biden president-elect
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But at the same time, McConnell — who is defending a tough Senate map in 2022 — needs to protect his members from taking a tough vote. If the Senate is forced to deliberate the election results, most GOP senators would be going on the record against a president who values fealty above all else. And it would be none other than Vice President Mike Pence presiding over the floor debate — a potentially awkward scenario as his boss continues to deny the reality of the election he lost.
Sounds like it’d be a lot of fun.
And now Trump’s turning on McConnell. Man, I really hope as many Republicans as possible tear each other apart over this.
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And now Trump’s turning on McConnell. Man, I really hope as many Republicans as possible tear each other apart over this.
Sure, but if the GOP implodes, how will the Democrats scare people into voting for them? In any other Western nation, the Democratic Party would be the Conservative one.
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The GOP is fucking weird. The old boomer wing of the party seemed to me to be pretty much about lower taxes and less regulations and going abroad on wars, and that’s it. Trump really blew that party up. It will be interesting, and a bit frightening, to see where the party goes from here.
