Politics

Accelerating political violence, like the attack in Buffalo, increasingly blurs the line between the mainstream political conservative movement and outright murderous insanity. The question is no longer whether there will be a civil conflict in the United States. The question is how the sides will divide, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how those strengths and weaknesses will determine the outcome.

Interesting that the violence by Antifa, BLM and so on isn’t a blurring of the lines between mainstream progressives and outright murderous insanity really, isn’t it?

According to a New York Times series, Tucker Carlson has articulated the theory of white replacement more than 400 times on his show.

And how many times has the NYT gleefully pointed out that the US is about to become a minority majority nation? Which is saying much the same thing but just using a different description of it.

David Lammy has called on Labour to “categorically” oppose a 10 per cent pay rise for airport workers, sparking a row with one of the UK’s largest unions and accusations of hypocrisy from the party’s Left wing.

The shadow foreign secretary moved to toughen Labour’s stance ahead of a “summer of discontent” over falling pay by saying he did not support strikes and “categorically” opposed strikes by BA staff, “because I’m serious about the business of being in Government”.

It’s difficult to understand the triangulation that gets him to that position….

Labour should back proportional representation for Westminster elections to allow more cooperation between political parties on a programme of urgently needed social reform, says Andy Burnham.

1) There are too many people who would like to be a Minister for all to agree on which few should get to be ministers.

2) There’s not actually any one programme that you all agree upon.

Here’s a simple prediction. Not a single government will be re-elected anywhere in the developed world over the next three years. Inflation will wipe them all out.

Although if whoever it is can make the election about some other subject – abortion, foreigners, war, summat – then they might have a chance. So, watch as other issues are pushed then…..

Labour’s shadow chancellor had three students working for her office while only paying them expenses, in what critics have dubbed “unpaid internships”, The Telegraph can reveal.

Rachel Reeves paid the students travel and lunch expenses

If this is “come and stuff envelopes in the Commons for a few days to see what it’s like” student internship then fine. Lunch and Tube pass. For that will of course include tea on the terrace, and vistors gallery and all sorts of other fun stuff.

But Ms Reeves’ office has argued that the positions do not amount to “unpaid interns” because the students involved are on work placement and get maintenance support.

Students – for an academic year?

Now that’s gobshite, yes.

Hillary Clinton faced constant sexism in 2016 campaign, says ex-aide
Huma Abedin says candidate and her team would feel obliged to laugh off offensive remarks

There’s a line between “No Women” and “Not this woman”.

One that’s rather being blurred here in these complaints about sexism, no?

However, she said Clinton did not suit the “personality-driven” nature of US politics, which she said favoured the likes of Donald Trump, a “charismatic shock and awe communicator”; Barack Obama, who would make people “think anything’s possible, it’s going to rain honey and ice-cream”; and Bill Clinton, who “connected with every single person in the room” whenever he gave a speech.

While the latter two were “amazing orators, communicators of their generations”. Abedin said, “Hillary’s the first person to say that was not her strength, she’s a policy wonk and she gets stuff done”.

Quite, near all of them bad policies. Even, the very idea that there should be detailed policies…..

A logical problem that is:

But the liberals will not resile from this stance, even though it involves, as usual, a philosophical paradox, a contradiction. They will argue, simultaneously, that the poor are not more inclined to criminality than the rich and that the poor are driven to crime as a consequence of the predations of the rich.

Over the last 12 years, I fear we have been sleepwalking closer and closer to the F word. I know everyone is scared to say it for fear of sounding over the top or being accused of going too far, but I say this with all sincerity. When I say the F word, I am talking about fascism—fascism wrapped in red, white and blue. You may mock and you may disagree, but fascism does not come in with intentional evil plans or the introduction of leather jackboots. It does not happen like that.

Not wholly sure I’d true the analysis of a nationalist and socialist politician on this. Especially as she – happened – to be wearing a black shirt at the time.

A strong performance by left-wing Democrats in primary elections came as a snub to President Biden: he wants centrist candidates who he believes have a better chance of winning in November’s midterm elections.

Instead, Democratic voters chose “progressives” for the vacant US Senate seats in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, seen as key to control of the chamber, while also rejecting a rare endorsement by Biden of a well-funded, sitting centrist congressman in Oregon.

Fake left, run right, has long been the way to get through the primary and election process for Democrats (the inverse for Rs of course). But what happens when the left part isn’t a fake and then meets the general population?

Obese people will outnumber those of a healthy weight within five years, a stark report warns.

The study by Cancer Research UK shows that by 2027, those whose weight does not compromise their health will be in the minority.

The forecasts show four in 10 will be obese within two decades, while seven in 10 will be overweight or obese.

Being overweight, shading into that obesity range, is actually healthier than being of that “normal” weight.

So they’re simply wrong, aren’t they? And yet they’re taking that wrong as being the basis of how we must be ruled:

The charity issued the new analysis as it criticised the Government’s decision to delay a ban on buy-one-get-one- free deals and advertising of junk food to children.

Building the law on incorrect information doesn’t work out well……

Contrary to popular progressive opinion it’s not in fact Trump driving the revolution:

Trump’s Midas effect may be waning as Dr Oz struggles to win over Maga crowds
The former president’s pick faces a late challenge from ‘Ultra-MAGA’ candidate Kathy Barnette, testing Mr Trump’s command of his followers

The wave exists and Trump has ridden it, for sure. But that’s the political point here, Trump’s not the cause of the wave, he’s just been the rider.

There really are tens of millions out there who despise the progressive dispensation. Akin, in fact very close, to Farage. Neither politician was the cause of the national upchuck. Rider, exploiter, channeller, as you wish, but not the cause. That significant chunk of the population ain’t happy.

Which is a problem for that progressive and managerial tendency, isn’t it?

Robert Halfon, a former minister and select committee chair, labeled oil company bosses “the new oligarchs”.

He said: “The oil bosses are earning multi-million-pound salaries and getting multi-million-pound bonuses. They are in essence, in my view, the new oligarchs.”

So stupid he seems to have made his career in the wrong political party all these years.

Labour heavyweight Wes Streeting denies plan to succeed Starmer

Whether or not he makes it just think about it. Wes is described as a heavyweight who has a chance of making it. Not exactly got top quality politicians these days, have we?

The left has finally got its act together – in France. Watch out, Macron and Le Pen
Cole Stangler
A new alliance led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party will fight June’s legislative elections – and threatens the established order

Usual lefty mantra. Organise! We can beat the system if we organise!

The problem comes not with the gaining of power, but what might be done with any power gained:

Voters had spoken and they preferred Mélenchon’s line: massive state spending to tackle the climate crisis; wealth redistribution and worker protections; an unapologetic response to rising racism and xenophobia; a willingness to bypass European Union rules if they prevent such policies from being carried out.

The same old stupidities.

Plus ca change…..

Vladimir Putin is ‘more dangerous than Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin’
Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, says the Russian leader’s ‘monstrous ideology’ poses a deadly threat to Europe

Strongman authoritarianism with a bit of Russian dominance? Sure, I think Putin’s dangerous and all that but the ideology? We’ve seen that before and it’s no way as bad as the other two.

Yes, he even oppresses his own people but does so to maintain power, he’s not conducting moral or racial crusades. As ever, better a bastard dictator than a moralist…..

That legal head at Twitter:

She convinced then-CEO Jack Dorsey not to sell political advertisements during the 2020 United States presidential election.[1] She has spoken in defense of the decision by stating, “It wasn’t about anything other than, ‘This is the right thing to do for us as a company.'”[1]

A media company funded entirely by advertising should not take part in the quadrennial orgy of advertising?

What toss is this?

Joe Biden must act to reduce mounting economic pressure by ditching “woke advisers”, Mitt Romney said.

The Utah senator and former Republican presidential nominee made the demand in a column for the Wall Street Journal.

“A new set of priorities requires a new set of principals,” Romney wrote. “President Biden needs to ditch his woke advisers and surround himself with people who want to get the economy working again.”

One of the gigs I’ve got at present means reading quite a lot of the progressive press over there. The thing I’m really noting is that they don’t seem to have an actual idea. There’re masses of little tactical things. Sure, say anything to justify the child tax credit – just as an example. Invent some new measure of income in order to claim that unrealised capital gains should be taxed as income. Shriek that gerrymandering is the end of democracy – when, as the name suggests, it’s been going on as long as The Republic.

But there doesn’t seem to be any unifying idea – no principle. OK, politics often doesn’t have much of one but there doesn’t seem to be any one. It really does strike as being only about who should be the principals. You know, naked power fight.

Questions in The Guardian we can answer:

Just what exactly is continuing to keep Boris Johnson in power?

Marine Le Pen’s team has accused the European Union of “coming to the aid” of Emmanuel Macron after the bloc’s anti-fraud body claimed that the Right-wing candidate embezzled more than €100,000 (£83,000) whilst working for the European Parliament.

Mediapart, the French news outlet, revealed at the weekend that a report by Olaf, the European anti-fraud office, accused Ms Le Pen and three other former MEPs – including her father Jean-Marie – of misusing European Parliament funds.

The report also alleged that Ms Le Pen personally misappropriated roughly €137,000 (£113,000) of public money from Strasbourg during her time as an MEP between 2004 and 2017. On Sunday, French prosecutors confirmed that they were examining the allegations.

Of course, the release of this is on the normal EU timescale. Absolutely nothing to do with it coinciding with the second round of the French presidential election. Absolutely nothing, nothing, at all.

Hey, wanna buy a bridge?

How Sri Lanka’s shift to organic farming left it in the manure
Ignoring its own advisers, the government banned agricultural chemicals. The result has been an economic catastrophe

Interesting how so many fashionable ideas are blowing up at the same time. MMT does cause inflation and no, politicians won’t raise taxes to stop it doing so. MMT does therefore not work as an economic policy.

Organic farming starves folks. Solar and wind power drives up, not down, energy prices.

Gosh, who would have thought it?