Leo

Well-known member
political talks shows on cable news here (CNN, Fox, MSNBC) are formatted just like ESPN. they have hours to fill each day, so they makes the day's comments and tweets and decisions in the equivalent of sports reporting, the minutia of who won/lost last night, why, who's up, who's down, who said what, etc. viewers have become like sports fans, into the mechanics, who won the day, what it means, who will win tomorrow.

we never thought about politics like that when I was younger. social media exacerbated it.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Yes that's true but I'm trying to say something different I think. Like, what do you mean when you say "politics"? Or what does one mean... what does it mean? I suppose it is all of those things but the bit in the middle is sort of the most mundane. I don't even mean gossipy party politics stuff, i mean the brass tacks of the UK's political system is mundane cos it's not real street stuff and it's not high-faluting grand theories, it's just... the middle-bit.
 

Leo

Well-known member
maybe the mechanics is the grand theories enacted, the carrying out. and also what prompts the real street stuff. the theory is more interesting, high-level things, and the street reaction is what makes the general news. The theory is the CEO, projecting the vision and mission. the mechanics is the mundane middle managers who are absorbed with the tactics of carrying out the vision. the unglamorous bit of making the sausage.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Yeah exactly... and the most un-dissensus bit too. K-Punk was never gonna write about the minutiae of marginal constituencies or whether redrawing boundaries might slightly alter the make-up of parliament. Political theorists want to address the fundamentals, truly understand them and then use the power they gain from that. The idea is to change minds and the world forever, not think of a way for the Labour party to claw themselves a few extra seats by a technicality and install Starmer as manager for a year or two.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
I do actually get that this is something like the middlebrow of politics debate. At one end you have grand sweeping theories, cataclysmic shocking theories that can't be contained and which cause empires to rise or fall, at the other extreme you have gritty real life stuff such as protest marches and throwing bricks at the police... or it doesn't even have to be that, can be giving talks to your neighbours and changing actual minds by doing real stuff.

In a politics/film analogy, the former are yer real art films.. Tarkovsky and Bunuel etc, the latter are b-movies (the good ones where lack of taste and failure to understand the limits collide in just the right way and create a different kind of art).. and what we're talking about - party politics and voting systems and the actual names of MPs right now - is the middlebrow, it's The English Patient or a period drama with Daniel Day-Lewis. And I don't blame you if you feel that, cos that's exactly how I feel when I'm discussing it, it's not the sublime rarefied stuff of philosophy, and at the same time you can't exactly defend it by saying "Oh that's just theory, this is the real practical bit that matters" cos it's hardly as if the burning issue on the streets is voting reform or the strength of checks and balances within the UK parliamentary system.

In short, this type of "politics" is the worst kind and I can't really try and defend this type of debate about it cos I'm conscious of that myself even as I'm having it. But, I do find it interesting. The English Patient was on telly the other day and I found it quite powerful (well, that's an exaggeration but I need to make it for this point) so...
Yeah that's interesting that's come up, I was writing in that discussion and I thought the same, I mean I don't think it's boring, it's pretty useful understanding some of the basic structures and all of that, but it is part of that load of politics stuff that is discussed ad naseum elsewhere on the internet where, to be honest, it's rarely a real rush when something clicks and you understand it, it's just more shit on the pile, zoomed in detail of why nothing ever changes. That discussion we had was a bit different though I think coz comparing notes UK to US can be a revelation sometimes
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
I realized the other day, I was having a good day, it was Tuesday this week, and the last couple since then have been shite, that one thing that happened to me (and loads of other people probably) was getting sucked into leftist online novara danny dorling world of ideas and slowly every perception I had was more and more filtered through that lens. When to be honest anything people say that is actually going to be interesting is outside of that, you've heard all that shit before a million times, and it gets in the way of thinking about anything, everything snaps to fit the grid.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
You're right, that is the other thing I didn't say. It's the part of politics that they talk about on Channel Four news and so on, the mainstream if you like.
But I do find it interesting and I do like to discuss it and, as for some reason it doesn't come up that much in Santa Iria de Azoia, here is my best option for a place to discuss it.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
I mean I'm on thier side. But the pundits on novara and Twitter or whatever, they are the soldiers trying to make you think about things in a particular way. I know it's obvious. There's a similarity, although one is evil and one is basically good, between daily mail lines coming out of someone's mouth when you chat to them and guardian op ed lines coming out. It's the same process and it provokes a particular reaction in me, of saying whatever to get out of an argument, it's a recital more than anything else sometimes, it's rarely interesting. Actually I like talking to my right-wing small town estate agent mate coz he brings up these mental ideas that I've never heard before
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I don't know what Novara is... I thought I could wing it and hide my ignorance but I'd actually prefer to know what it is. So, please, put me out of my misery.

Yeah the pundits thing is funny cos some of them are obviously paid shills - but some of them are repeating the exact same arguments for free. Some probably think they came up with them themselves.

We've discussed this a fair bit before here. It's fascinating the way you see an argument appear one morning and then suddenly it's everywhere. I know it's how twitter (the internet even) works - with a bit of a nudge from the aforementioned paid shills seeding the ideas of course - but even so it feels as though someone has flicked a switch that says "Trump supporters; assume position F". Sometimes someone hasn't got the memo here or there and they are still pushing yesterday's (often contradictory) argument and that's an interesting phenomenon in itself.

This is most noticeable when the party line is a really stupid argument that doesn't make any sense but which is still slavishly repeated. You think, yeah, maybe one person could be dumb enough to think this, but the exact same gibberish occurring to tens of thousands of people at once? It's like the teacher realising that everyone copied the same person's homework cos they all made the same ludicrous error in question 3 a) part ii) and concluded that Ahmed had minus root seven black socks in his drawer.
 

Leo

Well-known member
ok, one more mundane trump post, just cuz there always kind of funny

Close associates and advisers to Donald Trump tell Axios they're concerned by his decision to use a relatively inexperienced New Jersey attorney, Alina Habba, in his high-stakes legal fight against New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Why it matters: A former president typically has access to the country's most prestigious experts, including lawyers. Trump has turned to the former general counsel for a parking garage company, who works from a small law office near his Bedminster, N.J., country club.

What they're saying: "He has some lawyers that are very sophisticated with years of experience litigating, and he has now fallen prey to inexperienced lawyers who are just telling him what he wants to hear," said one source close to the former president. A second source, who's close to the Trump legal team, told Axios: "There are real concerns about having a state court tort lawyer come in to represent Donald Trump, not understanding the nuances and issues that surround a former president."

https://www.axios.com/trumps-friends-alarmed-legal-pick-3e28ee26-3325-481d-9e08-245be18d56c9.html

alina-bw-2.jpg
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
rich, are you up really early or really late (dumb question, probably)?
Late. But just chilling - watching Yellowjackets. My body clock is still fucked up from going nocturnal at the weekend so I don't try sleeping until 5am at the earliest. I do have to be up at 9 to take the car to the garage (think I said I had a little crash a week or two back and getting the light replaced) so if I push through I could get to sleep early tomorrow, or maybe I'll just go back to bed after I've done that and stay on this cycle cos in many ways it suits me rather well.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich


Well Trump is a fucking idiot and probably has now lost it to the extent that he is incapable of telling which is a good lawyer who is telling him what might really happen and which is a shyster making completely unrealistic promises. Obviously it's hard to tell what Trump's mental state is right now but going by the statements he releases my feeling is that years of drug abuse along with his constant lying - which presumably goes unchallenged in his immediate circle - and possibly age related deterioration have left him living in a fantasy world where he has no idea what is real and what is not.

For instance, I think that now he honestly thinks he was cheated in the election - at the time he knew he was just talking bollocks but the more the fight dragged on and the more he said it, the more he started to believe it and now I seriously doubt that he remembers how all that started, he just has this huge feeling of injustice that is so real it must be justified.

He has got away with so much throughout his life he probably thinks - and with good reason - that he is untouchable. Maybe he still is, but if a legal threat came along that might potentially destroy him then how would he recognise it, even if he was still in full possession of his faculties? So - to say the least - Trump is probably not in the best to make good decisions about his legal representation.

But, I also think you have to look at it from the other side. Trump has always been famous for not paying and it has been widely reported that he did not pay the lawyers who represented him while he was trying to steal the election. Lately, the role of a Trump lawyer is to defend the indefensible, be forced to spend ages bringing suits that are certain to lose, and then not get paid for it, are there any good lawyers who want to represent him?

A former president typically has access to the country's most prestigious experts, including lawyers

This might just be another way in which Trump is atypical. I guess that ultimately the problem is he doesn't have access to the quality that you would expect and, cos he's a total bell-end, he's making crazy choices from the much reduced options that he does have.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Yes that's true but I'm trying to say something different I think. Like, what do you mean when you say "politics"? Or what does one mean... what does it mean? I suppose it is all of those things but the bit in the middle is sort of the most mundane. I don't even mean gossipy party politics stuff, i mean the brass tacks of the UK's political system is mundane cos it's not real street stuff and it's not high-faluting grand theories, it's just... the middle-bit.
Unfortunately it's the boring-stuff-that-only-boring-people-care-about that has real-life consequences like whether or not you can get an ambulance to take you to hospital if you have a heart attack, isn't it?

And this is the stuff that Starmer excels at, because he has the legal background, while Corbyn was crap at it, which I think is part of the reason the Corbyn cult would prefer a thousand years of Torydom to a single day with Starmer as PM.
 

Leo

Well-known member
Read the never-issued Trump order that would have seized voting machines

Among the records that Donald Trump’s lawyers tried to shield from Jan. 6 investigators are a draft executive order that would have directed the defense secretary to seize voting machines and a document titled “Remarks on National Healing.”

The executive order — which also would have appointed a special counsel to probe the 2020 election — was never issued. The remarks are a draft of a speech Trump gave the next day. Together, the two documents point to the wildly divergent perspectives of White House advisers and allies during Trump’s frenetic final weeks in office.

It’s not clear who wrote either document. But the draft executive order is dated Dec. 16, 2020, and is consistent with proposals that lawyer Sidney Powell made to the then-president. On Dec. 18, 2020, Powell, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump administration lawyer Emily Newman, and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne met with Trump in the Oval Office.
In that meeting, Powell urged Trump to seize voting machines and to appoint her as a special counsel to investigate the election, according to Axios.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
What I don't get is... why didn't they issue them after they got to the point of writing them out. Where did this restraint come from at the last minute? And I suppose my other question is, what would have happened if they had gone all out? Cos from where I'm sitting, in purely tactical terms, I don't think they gained anything by not going all in. It seems that Trump made wild accusations, tried to persuade governors, pushed countless pointless court cases and so on, but the absolutely totally whackadoodle things he sort of toyed with but chickened out of in the end and it seems to me that, from his point of view, that was a mistake. But I don't know - what would have happened if he had gone for it? Would people have let him do it or would they have pushed back? And would he be facing harsher consequences now? I guess it's hard to answer all these hypotheticals especially given that right now we don't know what the ultimate consequences are, is he just gonna get away scott free?
 

Leo

Well-known member
who knows. we'll never know. maybe trump likes to talk crazy but survives by getting other people to DO the crazy. he's either too chicken, or too smart, to do it himself.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Speaking of Trump minions, have you seen that Dems are trying to block Madison Cawthorne from standing for re-election?

A group of lawyers are seeking to block GQP seditionist MADISON CAWTHORNE from running for reelection based of charges he took the oath to preserve thee Constitution yet then encouraged the insurrectionist attack. If successful it may provide a road map to challenge other GQPers.

Does that have any chance of success? What kind of precedent would it set for the future? Sounds like potentially dubious waters to get into... what do you think?
 

Leo

Well-known member
It apparently dates back to civil war times, when confederates tried to pull a proto-MAGA and run for election after the war. we've become anesthetized to the kind of things he's on the record as saying. who knows if it will stand up in court, but they certainly sound insurrectionist. and it's what he was aiming for when he said it, even if it was just rhetoric. apparently he is the one who now has to prove that he wasn't being an insurrectionist.

“They have multiple targets,” he added. “It just so happens that Madison Cawthorn is the tip of the spear.”

That is because North Carolina’s election statute offers challengers a remarkably low bar to question a candidate’s constitutional qualifications for office. Once someone establishes a “reasonable suspicion or belief” that a candidate is not qualified, the burden shifts to the officeseeker to prove otherwise.

If Mr. Cawthorn is labeled an “insurrectionist,” that could have broader ramifications. Other Republican House members, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Paul Gosar of Arizona, and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, face similar accusations, but their state’s election laws present higher hurdles for challenges to their candidate qualifications. If one of their colleagues is disqualified for his role in encouraging the rioters, those hurdles might become easier to clear.
 
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