Off Topic News & Current affairs

Keep the Lawrence woman quiet and focus on the facts.

This is an important development.

 

US Election news overnight;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-55052640

Trump appointee and Trump loyalist Emily Murphy has stated that the organisation she heads up - the General Services Administration (GSA) - now recognises Joe Biden as the "apparent winner" and will begin the Transition process.
She did this she says, because of "recent developments involving legal challenges and certifications of election results". Which is her way of acknowledging very reluctantly that her benefactor's legal cases are all collapsing, and no evidence of fraud on any scale has been found.

Trump himself has acknowledge in tweets that he has recommended the GSA and other Federal Agencies do "what needs to be done". Both Trump and Ms Murphy refer to threats and abuse she has been exposed to because the GSA has until now refused to acknowledge Mr Biden has won the Election, which was three weeks ago now - and the result has been clear to everybody for at least the last fortnight.

I don't approve of threats or abuse directed towards anybody. But when a Government Agency refuses to acknowledge the legitimate winner of an election in the face of overwhelming evidence, and even now only refers to the President-elect as the "apparent winner" millions of voters are going to take that kind of behaviour very badly indeed.

Since 2016 Donald Trump has been appointing people who are slavishly loyal to him personally to positions of power right through the Government in America. Granted, appointing friends and like-minded people to top jobs is something almost all new administrations do. But by her recent conduct, Emily Murphy seems to place her loyalty to Trump above her responsibility to do her job properly and administer a peaceful transition of power, regardless of her personal views.

The Democrats must be boiling with frustration at having to deal with people like Emily Murphy at every step of this transition process. And I should think huge numbers of American voters will be feeling the same way.

Of course, the outgoing President also vowed to continue fighting to overturn the Election result even as he admitted the Transition process must begin.
But his most recent tweets are a sign that he is beginning to back-track significantly.
Eventually he will be forced to take every step that a man with any sense of honour would have accepted with good grace.
His bluster about prevailing is now sounding very hollow indeed.

 

Back on the Grenfell story, I think MP's are absolutely right to try to protect people who own flats in tower blocks covered with dangeroud cladding from financial ruin;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55046465

The notion that these people should be bankrupted, or have to pay thousands and thousands of pounds towards fixing this issue, which is 100% not their fault, is incredibly unjust. They had no say in the use of this cladding. They were not warned about it when they bought their homes.
This is adding insult to horrendous injury.

"Affordable solutions" as the Government describes its current efforts, is nowhere near good enough.
How do they define affordable?

• Crippling monthly payments for decades?
• Loss of life savings?
• Inability to sell and move on because nobody will buy a flat with a huge debt attached to it.

It's obvious that even if there are criminal convictions in the future over Grenfell, the people responsible will never have enough money to pay the costs of removing all dangerous cladding.
The only people who can 'afford' that kind of money are all UK taxpayers.
If we are going to pay, then nobody who has failed (including Health & Safety organisations) should be immune from radical reform to make certain this does not happen again.

 

In the 'good old days' when I used to work I would see cost cutting every day.
To save pennies builders would walk out with sub standard materials not matching compliance. The victims being tenants oblivious to this.

 

Jerrybuilding is as old as the hills. Good reliable honest builders never have to advertise for work.

 

Cladding is a dubious requirement anyway in my view.

Residential buildings should be designed to be visually acceptable without having to cover up what they've been made of.

 

Jerry built - built by a German firm.
Auf Wiedersehen, Pet

 

Oz to Nev, "aagh Moxy is alright he just thinks every day is Guy Fawkes".
THE best ever line.

 

Better writing and acting in those days. The first series of AWP is amongst the best.

 

I feel sorry for our boys, £200 a day is now half that.

 

Boys from the Blackstuff was decent.

 

US Election update:
I'm glad to see the transition mechanism beginning to work, a whole three weeks after the election and two weeks after the result was known.
Remarkable really that nothing more than repeated allegations with no evidence to back them up could have delayed the process for so long.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-55057751

The President-elect and his team now have access to funds and briefings, so they can prepare for Government in the fitting and proper manner.
Common sense and maturity are at last winning out.
The continuing bluster and fake accusations from Trump and his cronies are now almost beneath notice.
Doubtless he'll try any abuse of legal proceedings to delay matters even further. But fewer and fewer are putting any credence by anything he says now.

 

Do I detect a new improved Boris Johnson since the departure of Dominic Cummings?

 

I am wondering what might be happening behind the scenes.

The MP who saw the old lady being manhandled by the Police yesterday afternoon raised an immediate Point of Order in the Commons, demanding that Johnson and/or Patel be summoned to the House to explain the actions of the Police. He was clearly outraged at what he saw.

Certainly the treatment of this old lady was markedly different from the way members of Extinction Rebellion or BKLM were treated.

He is a member of the 1922 Committee which effectively runs the Party. I suspect that Johnson my well be told to put things in order or move over.

 

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Ahhh...

I almost put this Trump / Turkey story in the 'Good News' thread.

Apparently the President is given the choice to 'pardon' one of two turkeys. The presumption being that the turkey not pardoned is going to be served up shortly thereafter.
The story I read though says that even the Turkey that Trump did not pardon won't be going into the oven this Christmas.
Both turkeys are going to an animal reserve of some kind to live out their days.

Doesn't it get you right there?

 

Trump pardons another turkey...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55080923

Michael Flynn (a life-long Democrat before his sudden conversion to Trumpism before the 2016 election) really ought to be grateful to Joe Biden.
If the Democrats had not won the 2020 Election, Flynn would still be convicted of lying to the FBI.

President Trump has had it in his power to pardon Flynn at any time.
Convenient that he chooses to do so now, as part of the tradition of outgoing Presidents issuing pardons.

 

This story is an absolute disgrace, a scandal that brings shame on this country.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-55078634

It beggars belief that there are supposed "clinics" involved in this detestable practice.
We cannot control what happens in some other parts of the World, except by pressuring global agencies to bring about change.
But there is NO WAY this kind of thing has any place in UK medical practice.

This is organised sexual abuse. Plain and simple.
'Honour' based crimes against women and girls come directly from ignorant quackery like this.
This stuff needs to be banned here, ASAP.

 

Latest US Election update;

Proud Boys, you can stand down now.
Donald Trump has said he will willingly leave the Whitehouse if (when) Congress confirms the Electoral College majority of Joe Biden.
That's a concession in effect.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-55096851

The fanatical and deluded can still continue to believe Trump's baseless allegations of mass fraud and vote rigging if they wish, since Trump continues to repeat these every day and shows no sign of giving them up. He remains content to trash American Democracy now that it doesn't deliver what he wants (which is what he does to anything else or anyone else who doesn't see things exactly as he does).

But the influence of the outgoing President is rapidly declining, and will fall off a very steep cliff on January 20th.
After that, should he continue to cry fraud, almost nobody in mainstream US politics is going to be listening.
All he will do is perhaps inspire a few crack-pots to take matters into their own hands and commit acts of terrorism in his name.
A dreadful, needless, yet perversely fitting final legacy for him.

Make America Great Again?
Sadly, Trump only ended up making much of it grate again, and hate again.
The divisive damage he's doing will probably outlive the man himself by decades.

 

Where there's muck there's brass.