Not sure if this belongs on here, but I had never watched the series The Tudors, so have been watching it on IPTV. One episode, in series 3, shows Thomas Cromwell openly receiving bribes in return for favours and/or titles. When someone asked if the king was aware of it, the response was along the lines of “he doesn’t care so long as he gets his cut”. Made me think about modern politics and also about Prince Charles taking money from unlikely sources for his charity. For what it’s worth, I know the series isn’t as historically accurate as it could be.
Indiana State Rep wants to bring an amendment to the anti abortion law, arguing that if an unwanted pregnancy is an act of God, then erectile disfunction and impotency should also be treated as an act of God and drugs treating the problems should be banned. I can understand where he is going with this, but if it gets included will someone try and pass a law banning the treatment of cancer or other illnesses? ps my last sentence isn’t a suggestion for the Tories, to help free up space in hospitals and reduce welfare payments. https://fb.watch/eIT-KAT4Yd/
Yet again I have read that Truss wants to tackle “Militant Trade Unions”, with the word militant being used in an attempt to make people think that the unions are taking extremist action, rather than following the laws that allow them to withhold their labour - something that the Tories have made increasingly difficult by imposing voting and turnout rules on strikes that they don’t apply to any other vote in the country, including their own for choosing the next party leader. When are people going to realise that there is no more militant a group of people than the Tory party? The Militant Tory Party sounds about right. This can be proven by the draconian laws they have imposed on the public’s right to protest, their desire to continue with (and worsening) laws by which strike action can be taken and their desire to take us out of the ECHR, to name just three examples. Coming out of the ECHR would put us in an elite group with Belarus, which is the only other FPTP country in Europe and is a dictatorship (mmm coincidence?) and Russia.
A couple of days ago I read a report about a 93 year old, one legged wheelchair user and dementia sufferer threatening care home staff with a knife. The police were duly called and two of the UK’s finest arrested him, but not before one had blinded him with pepper spray and struck him with his baton. The second one tasered him. Three weeks later the man died and the officers are currently under investigation for manslaughter. Not going to trivialise the threat of a knife, but could they not have found a better way to restrain him, such as enveloping him in a blanket to restrict his arm movements, to enable disarmament, rather than all of the above?
I just found that story to get the details. People with dementia do sometimes get aggressive but even so it beggars belief that they couldn't contain a 93yr old, in a wheelchair without the violence they used. I've had a lot of sympathy for the police in the past, they are dealing with the dregs of our society a lot of the time but they are getting out of control. These overreactions to minor situations are becoming more and more regular and the amount of crime committed by the police themselves is incredible.
Worth noting that the "taking classified documents with him when he left the White House" thing is the least of his legal troubles. This doesn't bode well, because: - This is literally unprecedented, as far as anyone can tell. First time in history a search warrant has been served on a current or past US president. Even with Nixon, he was ordered to turn over documents (and did, eventually). - Getting a judge to sign off on a federal warrant means that they have very strong evidence that something would be found there, and that something spoke to a federal crime. The evidentiary standards for a surprise search are really high. - The fact that they were willing to execute a surprise search warrant doesn't bode well for him in other cases, either. The biggest hurdle has been concerns about politicization of justice and nebulous issues of executive privilege. They've broken the seal now.
This point in bold is the key one here. It's one thing to ask for a warrant, it's another thing for a judge to sign it off.
And from listening to former federal prosecutors, while you can get a state-level judge to sign off on damned near anything, the bar for getting a federal magistrate judge to sign a high-profile search warrant is really high. You need to not only have significant evidence that a crime was committed, but you need probable cause that you'll find further evidence at that location at this time. The speculation, which makes sense to me, is that one of the interviews from one of the variety of investigations led someone in Trump's orbit to tell investigators that he still has extremely sensitive classified documents that he was meant to have turned over (because this whole thing comes out of him taking boxes of classified information to Mar-A-Lago for some godawful reason), or that he was using documents pilfered from the White House for a malign purpose, as it's hard to imagine much else resulting in a surprise raid. If it was something more mild they'd have likely either demanded he turn it over, or gotten a court order as with Nixon. The other fun element: misuse of classified information apparently comes with a specific penalty beyond any criminal exposure, namely that you're banned from holding political or government office in the future.
Amusing, as well, to see lots of Republicans decrying the FBI as a Democrat institution like Donald Trump didn't pick the current head of the FBI, Christopher Wray - a fellow Republican - after firing Comey.
Someone has issued the following guidelines for anyone who is going to stop their utility DDs, in protest at the prices/profiteering. “Fighting back against extortionate energy bills from profiteering energy oligarchs DO NOT refuse to pay your energy bill in October. Below is how you can make a stand and hurt your energy supplier without getting into debt/damaging your credit rating: 1. Cancel your DD & pay for what you use each month. 2. You then need to write a letter of complaint to your energy supplier. Once that complaint had been raised, your energy supplier can't take any debt collection work on your account, so they can't pass your details to the credit reference agencies etc. That bill gets put on hold whilst they try to resolve your complaint. The energy company might offer you a small reduction - DON'T accept it. Keep the complaint open & hold strong. 3. Eventually, they will send you a letter of 'Deadlock'. A letter of Deadlock is a letter that is sent to you from your energy company saying they gone as far as they can with your complaint & can't go any further, so your only option now is to take it up with the energy Ombudsman. For every complaint the Ombudsman receives, they charge your energy supplier £500 for every claim they have to investigate. 4. The energy companies also have limitations on how many complaints they're allowed open as well as a turnaround time of how fast they have to respond to a complaint & get a complaint closed. If they don't respond to them fast enough & don't resolve the complaints or they have too many complaints open, the energy firm will also get hit with a fine from the Ombudsman. This is how your hurt an energy company. This will also put them in breach of their licensing conditions & put their ability to trade at risk. So if you want to fight these extortionate price hikes 1. Raise complaints 2. Do NOT close them 3. Take them to the Ombudsman You can also submit a “subject access request” at the same time as the above. This means the energy company has a legal obligation to provide you with every piece of information they have on you; including telephone conversation transcripts, past bills, everything! This is time consuming for them to collect and is a huge hassle for them however they legally have only one month to comply.”
If he does go to prison, that will reflect very well indeed on US justice. There aren’t many places in the world where the rich and powerful, all the way to the very top, are held to the same standards as the rest of society. For that reason alone, I hope he goes to gaol.
Can't see it TBH. But at least it looks possible, maybe probable, that he will be unable to run for any sort of public office ever again.
