Politics and Current Affairs

Topic

I wonder who’ll be next week’s Prime Minister?

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Martin Smith wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

And because there’s a two term-limit, the current president, Yoda Michael D Higgins can’t run again.

What was Higgins’s deal before he was President?

Jedi Master Hermit he was involved in electoral politics since the early 70s, first elected as a TD in 1981, lost his seat the following year, was a Senator from 73 – 77 and again from 83-87, then back in the Dail from 87 until he ran for President in 2011

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Martin Smith, Ben

Martin Smith wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

And because there’s a two term-limit, the current president, Yoda Michael D Higgins can’t run again.

What was Higgins’s deal before he was President?

Martin Smith wrote:

What was Higgins’s deal before he was President?

Jedi master in the Dagobah district.

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Arjan Dirkse, Martin Smith, Ben, lorcan_nagle

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/30/will-pivotal-election-turn-czech-republic-into-another-anti-eu-agitator

 

Czechia is a complete basket case, politically speaking. The people are fine, they have good beer and beautiful cities but oh my God are they fucked.

This is a great explanation. Thanks!
I’m so out of touch with Ireland these days, but fuck FF and FG will be evergreen I guess.

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lorcan_nagle

Honestly I’m fine with Germany banning AfD, if they can do so. We should defend what we stand for as a society and fight ideas that are not in accordance with that. I just watched a documentary on religious schools in the Netherlands and it’s disgusting what some of them teach kids. Raising a generation of zealots and bigots. Just close those schools. We sould finally get serious about that. Liberal society is not an “anything goes” society, it stands for certain principles and rights and freedoms and responsibilities we agreed on as a society. We can’t just give that away.

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Ben

Casetteboy just dropped an amazing new video

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Martin Smith, Daniel R, Dave

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Honestly I’m fine with Germany banning AfD, if they can do so.

I wish they’d finally start the proceedings for this, but the other parties are too chickenshit. I mean, there’s a real risk that there isn’t quite enough evidence to ban them – the hurdles for this are very high, and rightfully so. BUT at least as long as the court proceedings for this would be going on, they’d have to be very aware of it and try and dial back their extremist connections and Höcke’s rhetoric. Because as things are, they’re managing very well to convince the average protest voter that they’re just anti-system conservatives, while at the same time building a neo-nazi network.

Isn’t it supposed to be a decision to be made by the justice system? I think we have a process in place in the Netherlands to ban parties but it’s not a decision taken by other political parties, it’s a dicision made by a judge.

 

It should ideally be very simple, if a party in their proclamations and programs repeatedly utter things that are against certain principles of the state, things like equality under the law, or infringement on certain freedoms, ban them. Under such a rule I think the PVVwould be banned here in the Netherlands. They pretty much said they want to ban a whole religion.

 

Iran has a council that is specifically there to weed out undesirable candidates, that go against the principles of their state. Now I think the principles of the Iranian state are pretty bad, but such a vetting system by the law would be a good thing I think.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Isn’t it supposed to be a decision to be made by the justice system? I think we have a process in place in the Netherlands to ban parties but it’s not a decision taken by other political parties, it’s a dicision made by a judge.

The decision whether to ban them would be a judicial decision, but parliament has to start the proceedings.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

It should ideally be very simple, if a party in their proclamations and programs repeatedly utter things that are against certain principles of the state, things like equality under the law, or infringement on certain freedoms, ban them. Under such a rule I think the PVVwould be banned here in the Netherlands. They pretty much said they want to ban a whole religion.

Yeah, our national secret service has already declared them right-wing extremists and enemies of the constitution. The rest of it should be pretty easy really.

Well… easy if you look at the people making up the party and what they say and do. They’re clever enough not to put any of this stuff into the party’s official documents, which I suppose is where it gets tricky.

I hnestly don’t understand why the PVV hasn’t been outlawed here…given their attitude towards Islam. They want to ban the quran and close all mosques. That is a direct attack on basic human rights. It’s crazy that even some normie parties worked with him. I mean I said some things abotu Islam and the behavior of some Muslims that some take offence at, but I hate this polder fascist.

 

Maybe it’s just that they’re afraid of riots from their supporters if that happens.

 

It’s pretty tough…some family members of mine voted Wilders. I just take the stance that everybody has to vote what they think is best and it’s their personal business, I am not going to argue with them about it. I still love them of course.

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Christian

Irish Presidential Election update:

the knives are out, the tabloids have some sort of story about how eeeeevil Catherine Connolly is every few days, a lot of them are misrepresenting things she’s said in her stance as an anti-NATO, anti-EU leftist.  Sadly there’s a huge streak in the anti-NATO sphere, where people are willing to downplay the deeds of NATO’s opponents and she’s said some fairly naive things in that sphere.  The thing that’s stuck the most is the revelation that she hired a person who’d served time for armed robbery, cut she’s stuck to a line stressing that she believes in redemption and this person had served her time. One of the Burke clan (the evangelicals so extreme the Westboro Baptist Church think they need to tone it down) was turfed out of an event Connolly was at the other day, so that’s in her stead too.

Heather Humphreys has been able to avoid the muckracking for the most part, but apparently her husband said that as a proud Unionist he wouldn’t move into Arás an Uachtarain – the President’s residence – which is a bit of an oof moment.

Jim Gavin’s the one who’s been hit the worst with scandal – he had to remove two campaign videos, one because it seemed to suggest he had the backing of the Defense Forces, who are an apolitical organisation and never endorse a candidate; and the other because it had aerial footage of him out for a run, but the footage was shot in a no-drone red zone.  Not a huge deal except Gavin was Chief Operations Officer of the Irish Aviation Authority, he was literally in charge of air safety in Ireland.  On top of that it transpired that he apparently was overpaid around €3,300 rent on a property he owned, and despite promising to return it to the tenant this never happened.  That last one was the straw that broke the camel’s back and he dropped out of the race on Sunday night.

The last poll showed Connolly on 35%, Humphreys on 23% and Gavin on 15%, the balance saying they were undecided or wouldn’t vote, and in a three-candidate race odds are Gavin’s votes would largely transfer to Humphreys or vice versa depending on who went out first.  It’ll be interesting to see how that arithmetic changes now we’re down to two candidates.  In each debate so far the consensus seems to be that Connolly is the more accomplished speaker, and speechifying is one of the main things the President does, so that’s in her favour.

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Martin Smith, Christian, Todd

Trump is turning more anti-Russia. I wonder what goes on behind the scenes, who is influencing him to make these changes.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/07/edouard-philippe-sebastien-lecornu-france-emmanuel-macron-elections

 

An ally of Macron who could be his successor calls for presidential election.

Just as Kamala Harris said. He is sending armies into cities:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-national-guard-training-center-chicago-suburbs/story?id=126320753

There was a report last week about ICE invading a Chicago housing complex (helicopters landing on the roofs) very late at night and zip lining everyone.

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Arjan Dirkse

Al-x wrote:

There was a report last week about ICE invading a Chicago housing complex (helicopters landing on the roofs) very late at night and zip lining everyone.

I really hope you meant to say “zip-TYING everyone”.

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Sean Robinson, Al-x, Todd

njerry wrote:

Al-x wrote:

There was a report last week about ICE invading a Chicago housing complex (helicopters landing on the roofs) very late at night and zip lining everyone.

I really hope you meant to say “zip-TYING everyone”.

Yes. Zip tying. Doesn’t make the news any better though. The country is more of a police state, if it’s not already.
ICE comes with no ID and give no due process. They just abduct without consequence. Now there have been reports of – since they give no ID – ICE impersonators doing robbery and other crimes.

Now six former surgeon generals and two prominent psychiatric organizations are urging for RFK Jr. removal as Health Secretary.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/hhs-hits-back-former-surgeons-general-wrote-op/story?id=126333161
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/10/06/nx-s1-5559217/rfk-jr-mental-health-substance-abuse-ssri

When and how is all this going to end?

Our parliament approved a motion to declare antifa a terrorist organization.

Jesus Christ, what the fuck, Dutch parliament?

Over the last few days, a lot of journalism came around to saying that Trump maybe deserved the Nobel Peace Price because of the armistice in Gaza. The guy who renamed the Department of Defence into Department of War, and who is trying to ware a war against American cities. It’s… rather annoying.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

They should probably wait and see how many days the ceasefire lasts before writing any cheques their asses can’t cash.

 

Or you know, look into the rules of the Nobel Peace Prize and pay attention to the nomination dates.

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Todd

lorcan_nagle wrote:

They should probably wait and see how many days the ceasefire lasts before writing any cheques their asses can’t cash.

 

Or you know, look into the rules of the Nobel Peace Prize and pay attention to the nomination dates.

Lorcan, you know damn good and well that MAGA can’t read.

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lorcan_nagle