please log in to view this image Heat oven to 150C/130C fan/gas 2. Put the prunes in a bowl with the brandy and brown sugar, stir, then set aside to soak. Dust the rabbit in the flour. Heat the oil in a large flameproof dish and brown the rabbit all over until golden – you may have to do this in batches. Set the rabbit aside. Add the bacon, vegetables, garlic and herbs to the dish and fry for 5 mins until starting to colour. Pour in the red wine and scrape all the goodness off the bottom of the dish. Add the chicken stock and put the rabbit back in the dish with the boozy prunes, then cover and cook for 2 hrs, stirring occasionally, until the rabbit is totally tender. Serve scattered with parsley and wild rice on the side. Vin
That is going to be a mighty long wall. And unless there are watchtowers every 100m or so, not really that effective and I am sure Mexicans and other South Americans will find another entry point such as by sea, arriving as an official tourist and then disappearing into the mix.
Congressional Republicans are set to overturn a slew of Obama-era regulations next week, including a controversial anti-bribery rule aimed at U.S. resource companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) and Chevron Corp (CVX.N), according to a top lawmaker. After six years of legal battles, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in June approved the rule requiring companies to disclose payments to foreign governments. It will probably be killed swiftly with two simple congressional votes. Other rules eyed for quick overturning by Congress include newly minted environmental, gun control and labor relations measures, sources said. Earlier this month, McCarthy said the House would try to kill regulations protecting streams and forests from coal mining's impacts, curbing methane leaks on public lands, and requiring employers to report workers' information as part of an attempt to end pay discrimination. In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece on Wednesday, he also added a rule expanding background checks on gun purchases for disabled Social Security recipients to the hit list, as well as the anti-bribery regulation. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us..._medium=Social
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing executive orders that would clear the way to drastically reduce the United States’ role in the United Nations and other international organizations, as well as begin a process to review and potentially abrogate certain forms of multilateral treaties, officials said. The first of the two draft orders, titled “Auditing and Reducing U.S. Funding of International Organizations” and obtained by The New York Times, calls for terminating funding for any United Nations agency or other international body that meets any one of several criteria. The order establishes a committee to recommend where those funding cuts should be made. It asks the committee to look specifically at United States funding for peacekeeping operations; the International Criminal Court; development aid to countries that “oppose important United States policies”; and the United Nations Population Fund, which oversees maternal and reproductive health programs. If President Trump signs the order and its provisions are carried out, the cuts could severely curtail the work of United Nations agencies, which rely on billions of dollars in annual United States contributions for missions that include caring for refugees. https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/...www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1337741
Trumped.! [sorry, I know that's awful]... But here's cuddly, and some. please log in to view this image
Ah, I thought young squirrel but convinced myself it wasn't quite right for that - could well be flying one. We'll call him Saint Squirrel then because he is flying!!!!!
Who are ‘the people’ in these new political times? During the massive, impressive Women’s March in London on Saturday, in which thousands of noisy women, men and children stuck it to Trump, the organisers tweeted the following: ‘We are the people.’ Wait — it’s okay to say ‘the people’ again? Since Trump’s victory in November, and even more so after the Brexit Revolt in June, anyone who used the phrase ‘the people’ risked being branded a useful idiot of hard-right demagoguery. ‘Do you know who else spoke of “the people”?’, left-liberals would inquire, accusingly. ‘THE NAZIS.’ Brexiteers and Trumpeters ‘roar that they represent “the people”,’ said Andrew Rawnsley in the Observer, as part of ‘their endeavour to silence any dissent’. ‘The people’ is a fantasy category,academics insisted. http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/people-new-political-times/
Geert Wilders doesn’t threaten Dutch liberalism: he’s defending it If this wind picks up across the lowlands of Holland, expect it to gain speed across the rest of Europe It looks like the people might do it again. After the British electorate misled themselves so badly and American voters failed to rotate the Clinton and Bush families for another presidential cycle, the latest fear is that democracy might occur in Holland. Polls currently show Geert Wilders’s Freedom party almost at level pegging with the governing VVD party, both milling around the 30-seat mark. Questions about when the Dutch became illiberal miss the point that this is a revolt in defence of liberalism rather than against it. The misinterpretation does Dutch voters a serious disservice and fails to acknowledge that the Dutch status quo of recent years — like that in the UK and US — has gone badly wrong. http://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/geert-wilders-doesnt-threaten-dutch-liberalism-hes-defending-it/
This is the most important part of that article and I'm not convinced many people have realised it yet. There are many examples throughout history of rulers who ignored those whose consent they needed to keep ruling and refused to compromise and it often (perhaps even usually?) ends badly - think King John and the barons, Charles I and Parliament, Louis XVI of France, George III and Lord North and the US colonists, Nicholas II of Russia. Now, we're unlikely to get a violent revolution but why are so many people voting for people like Trump, Wilders, Hofer, Le Pen? Are they all racists? No, clearly not, but for years politicians have continued to ignore the wishes of the public and large chunks of the public are now starting to lose faith in mainstream politicians and vote for unpleasant people because they are the only ones prepared to do what the public wants. The Dutch deputy prime minister spoke recently about eroding support for free movement of people and suggested reform may be needed. I think more politicians need to start thinking along the same lines.
The point is a similar one to which I pointed out either just before or just after our referendum about UKIP. That if people just keep labelling things they don't like with a broad brush then they will be seeing UKIP vote counts rise. We just saw what happened in the US because of this. The answer I got back then on UKIP was "If people want to vote for that racist party" then let them blah bah. This attitude does not help anything. Similarly here and with Trump. It is the left's acceptable form of identity politics. Attack the figurehead and completely ignore the real issues and the real problems. Puck is right on the point of the article. Yet again it is a case of "playing the man not the ball" and that will not ever deal with the issues or problems that is causing people to vote in favour of these parties/movements/people. You can't just narrow this down to a public mistrust of foreigners or muslims or elites etc. There is much much more to it than that and all the time we focus on trying to attack the "messenger" it does nothing about the "message" because someone else will just pop up with the same "message." The reality is that there is nothing wrong with the message. There is a lot wrong with the angle and delivery of the message which is what you all disagree with. Different messengers deliver it differently from their own angle but it is the same overall message. It isn't all about populism unless you want to say Cameron and Blair and Obama were populists. That is just the latest label to go after the messenger. That is just the latest label to go after the messenger. It is time to take our fingers out of our ears, uncover our eyes and stop refuse to concede any ground because this isn't about others trying to take over. It is more about so many people refusing to accept that there is any other viewpoint at all and that nothing must change at all. That will only result in much more that we achieved being lost in the end rather than some concessions and then be able to move forward again at a rate that takes people with them instead of leaving them behind. This isn't just about rustbelt or Northern industrial jobs. That is a media coined phrase. It is all about feeling alienated from your own society because the past 30 years of politicians have moved to quickly onward and not taken half of their electorate with them because of the speed they moved forward. Now I am sure that there will be replies that attack this as being bad and focus on x issue or y issue which I will agree with. However it isn;t about x and y issue. It is about the whole alphabet in capitals and then in lower case as well of issues and it has been too fast for a lot of people to take.
officials resigned Wednesday, part of an ongoing mass exodus of senior foreign service officers who don’t want to stick around for the Trump era. I reported Wednesday morning that the Trump team was narrowing its search for his No. 2 and three officials, and that it was looking to replace the State Department’s long-serving undersecretary for management, Patrick Kennedy. Kennedy, who has been in that job for nine years, was actively involved in the transition and was angling to keep that job under Tillerson, three State Department officials told me. Then suddenly on Wednesday afternoon, Kennedy and three of his top officials resigned unexpectedly, four State Department officials confirmed. Assistant Secretary of State for Administration Joyce Anne Barr, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Michele Bond and Ambassador Gentry O. Smith, director of the Office of Foreign Missions, followed him out the door. In addition, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Gregory Starr retired Jan. 20, and the director of the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations, Lydia Muniz, departed the same day. That amounts to a near-complete housecleaning of all the senior officials that deal with managing the State Department, its overseas posts and its people. And a lot more to it at here; https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.860cfa242dac
