Off Topic Politics Thread

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I remember reading about that in the Guardian under the headline "ENGLISH, FAR RIGHT WING, FOOTBALL FAN, EXTREMEIST, GIVES NAZI SALUTE TO GERMAN DOCTOR".
Then it went on to say how the man, Gary Hitler, a shaven headed multi tattooed conveyor line worker from Southampton, tried to excuse this obviously subliminal fascist gesture as a "good morning" greeting and uses it all the time when back in the UK. He insisted that he accompanied the salute with the word Hi and not Heil as suggested by witnesses. He was reported to be mortified that they heard him.

The BBC, desperate to confirm that Mr Hitler was indeed a fascist searched around until they finally found someone in New York to back them up.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University, said: "Historian of fascism here. It was a Nazi salute and a very belligerent one too."
<laugh> :emoticon-0148-yes: Brilliant IOAG
 
Excellent post on Musk by PR guru Mark Borkowski -

"Topic of the week the inaugural Musk salute. Oh, the delicious irony of it all. The world's richest attention seeker has finally jumped the shark, and we're all pretending to be shocked. About as shocking as a celebrity's "candid" paparazzi shot. Pure performance, darling, and not even a good one.

Look, I've spent decades watching the publicity machine chew up and spit out the great and the good, but Musk's latest performance is something else. It's like watching a tech genius have a midlife crisis in real time, played out in 280-character bursts of increasingly desperate look-at-me syndrome.

Remember when he was actually disrupting things? Proper disruption, mind you, not this dreary pantomime of provocation that reads like a masterclass in reputation suicide. These days he's like those fading celebrities who ring the tabloids to tell them which beach they'll be photogenically jogging on. Except his beach is Twitter, and instead of jogging, he's doing the dance of the desperate attention seeker.

The whole spectacle reminds me of every Silicon Valley boy wonder who started believing their own press. First comes the innovation, then the adulation, then the inevitable descent into what I call 'founder's syndrome' – where every random thought seems worthy of a global announcement. At least Steve Jobs had the turtleneck. Musk's got... what exactly? A Twitter feed that reads like a teenager's diary left open on purpose.

Here's the thing about publicity: it's like Tabasco sauce. A drop of it makes a bland meal interesting. Pour the whole bottle on, and you've ruined the dinner and made yourself look like a proper plonker in the process. Our Elon's not just emptied the bottle – he's bought the factory.

The real tragedy? He's actually got something worth shouting about. Electric cars. Space rockets. The stuff of proper headlines. But no, apparently it's more fun playing the professional provocateur, serving up daily doses of outrage to an audience that's becoming increasingly harder to shock.

You know what's next, don't you? This is the bit where the narrative turns. Where the 'misunderstood genius' storyline starts wearing thin. Trust me, I've seen this show before. It never ends with a standing ovation.

Welcome to the modern attention economy, where even the richest man in the world is desperate for attention. If it weren't so tragic, it'd be hilarious. Actually, scratch that – it is hilarious. Just not for the reasons he thinks."
 
Good to see a Southampton man will benefit from Trump returning to the Presidency.


A BRIT Donald Trump impersonator says the president’s re-election has set him up for a retirement.

Comedian Mike Osman performs as “Donald Trumped” – complete with wig and fake tan.

The 65-year-old said: “The day after he was elected, my phone did not stop. This will be my busiest year, no question.”

Mr Osman, from Southampton, is planning a tour as his alter ego. He added: “He’s given me another four years of work and then I’m going to retire.”
 
Good to see a Southampton man will benefit from Trump returning to the Presidency.


A BRIT Donald Trump impersonator says the president’s re-election has set him up for a retirement.

Comedian Mike Osman performs as “Donald Trumped” – complete with wig and fake tan.

The 65-year-old said: “The day after he was elected, my phone did not stop. This will be my busiest year, no question.”

Mr Osman, from Southampton, is planning a tour as his alter ego. He added: “He’s given me another four years of work and then I’m going to retire.”

Famously opened the failed Celebrations club with Le Tiss.
 
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Good to see a Southampton man will benefit from Trump returning to the Presidency.


A BRIT Donald Trump impersonator says the president’s re-election has set him up for a retirement.

Comedian Mike Osman performs as “Donald Trumped” – complete with wig and fake tan.

The 65-year-old said: “The day after he was elected, my phone did not stop. This will be my busiest year, no question.”

Mr Osman, from Southampton, is planning a tour as his alter ego. He added: “He’s given me another four years of work and then I’m going to retire.”

Love his Lawrie Mac and Mike Channon impressions.
 
The sentencing hearing for the Southport killer Rudakubana has started and he's had to be forcibly removed from the dock for yelling out.
 
It’s easy to do tho. I was working in Germany 25 years ago & arrived on site one morning after being there for a week or so. The German department boss was at the other end of a 30m conveyorised line; I saw him & said “hi” with a straight arm. Didn’t think anything of it. Dr Stephan slowly wandered up, a really large, imposing guy & said, “Gary, in Germany we don’t do that”. I was mortified.
I was on holiday in NZ once and was chatting to some older Germans over a B&B breakfast about what we’d been up to
I told them I’d been on a horse riding trip led by some local girls who had been the Riders of Rohan in one of the early Tolkien films (Hobbit?)
Make up had fitted then with false beards and wigs to achieve the look and I thought they’d be interested to know these were actually made from real human hair, which had been imported from Germany

The implication of this hit me as I finished
I excused myself very quickly thinking “FUUUCK!!!”
 
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Christ this is beyond ****ing grim. So upsetting and makes me angry.
TBH I'm not sure why they have to go back through the horrific events of that day in such detail - just makes it more traumatic for the innocent people who have had their lives ripped apart by that monster. Just sentence the **** to life and let him rot in prison and be done with it.
 
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...rview-january-6-pardons-inauguration-fox-news
The lying **** lies on and on again.
"Among the topics was Trump’s move on Monday to pardon, commute the prison sentences or dismiss the cases of all of the 1,500-plus people charged with crimes in the effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Hannity asked why people who were violent towards police were included."

"Trump claimed that they had suffered unduly harsh prison conditions then falsely claimed that the 2020 election was stolen despite courts, officials and his own attorney general finding otherwise. “They were protesting the vote because they knew the election was rigged and they were protesting the vote and you should be allowed to protest the vote,” he said."

"Often criticised as a Trump sycophant and propagandist, Hannity nevertheless objected that protesters should not be able to invade the Capitol building."

"The president responded: “Most of the people were absolutely innocent. OK. But forgetting all about that, these people have served, horribly, a long time. It would be very, very cumbersome to go and look – you know how many people we’re talking about? 1,500 people.”

"Those pardoned include more than 250 people who were convicted of assault charges, some having attacked police with makeshift weapons such as flagpoles, a hockey stick and a crutch. Many of the attacks were captured on surveillance or body camera footage that showed rioters engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police as officers desperately fought to beat back the angry crowd."

"Yet in his interview with Hannity, Trump claimed: “Some of those people with the police – true – but they were very minor incidents, OK, you know, they get built up by that couple of fake guys that are on CNN all the time. They were very minor incidents and it was time.”

There's more and it's widely reported by verified sources.
 
Warning, satire incoming...

WASHINGTON -- In a move that surprised many commentators today, Donald Trump has announced that he intends to make compassion illegal. "Compassion is the enemy of economy. Too many people are undercutting our economy by helping others for nothing."

Under the motion dubbed "Make War on Love" acts of decency and concern for others would be punishable by a fine of $100 for first time offenders rising to up to two years in prison for repeat offenders.

"It's despicable that this behaviour has been allowed to go on for so long unchallenged," Elon Musk tweeted. "Acts of charity have undermined the profitability of many sectors. How can we expect investment from entrepreneurs keen to exploit our underclass if our efforts are constantly being undermined by woke liberals? High time we brought this to an end."

Some have raised ethical concerns and questioned whether the proposed legislation might run contrary to the religious beliefs of Trump's base, but PragerU professor, Dr Prosperity Makewish, states "There's precedent for this motion. The Bible is very clear on this. In Jesus' day, the leaders were defined by their dogmatism, narrow self-interest and complete lack of moral rectitude. If we want to see Christ's return in rapture, it is essential we expect our leaders to act in the same way."

The debate continues.
 
TBH I'm not sure why they have to go back through the horrific events of that day in such detail - just makes it more traumatic for the innocent people who have had their lives ripped apart by that monster. Just sentence the **** to life and let him rot in prison and be done with it.
I think some of them want all this said publicly. Nobody will be forced to be present. They also may have had worse already. Supposedly his guilty plea came out of the blue and the families had already been taken to a police station to view the bodycam footage from the police who responded first (they expected this to be shown in court show the families in advance to try and reduce the impact of seeing it in court). I've no idea how much they may possibly have seen that they perhaps didn't need to.

EDIT: Actually it sounds like the footage is being shown now anyway.
 
Trump pardoning the people who stormed the White House and the Dark Web mastermind should concern all right thinking people. This is the politicisation of crime.

The issuing of pardons on political grounds is wholly wrong. I usually find the labelling of politicians as Nazis to be lazy and clumsy yet Trump’s behaviour is redolent of what happened in Gernany un the 1930s. I really feel that Europe as a whole must challenge America with boycotts and sanctions.