The Next Election, Political News, and Other Forms of Comedy (US, UK, & Intl)

[doghouse]

Well, the French did initially ask us to join them, but our leaders still thought they ruled the waves.

Britain has to take the bulk of the blame for this, or more precisely its politicians. As Scruton pointed out in that other article I posted in another thread, Heath lied to the electorate as to what the EU (the EEC as it was know as at the time) was really about, claiming it to be a trading block. And subsequent politicians have attempted to maintain this fiction ever since. But the gap between reality and fiction became to big.

Somewhat, yes, but the reason it is what it is resides in Britain's ambivalence to the whole thing to start. Instead of half doing it it shpuld have led the charge in shaping it or abstained all together.

As I said, it could be anything you want.

Everyone I hear a Brit moan about EU regulation this is all I think of.

 

[formby]

Somewhat, yes, but the reason it is what it is resides in Britain's ambivalence to the whole thing to start. Instead of half doing it it shpuld have led the charge in shaping it or abstained all together.

As I said, it could be anything you want.

I think Heath was a genuine Europhile. He'd been a officer in WWII and it had affected him deeply. So I think he fully supported the project. Others in his party (Conservative) probably not. Interestingly, the Labour party was pretty much against entry.

The British don't have the same fears that those on the continent have. Our country didn't suffer the carnage that they did, even though it took a battering. The concept of a kind of political straitjacket to constrain the nation state is alien to us. This I think is one of the problems, one of many.

As for the accusations of Little Englanders, it carries little weight. You couldn't have acquired a global empire if you were insular.

However, I think you are correct, Britain should have abstained from the EU and cultivated the Commonwealth which it neglected.

 

[Monkeyface]

I think Heath was a genuine Europhile. He'd been a officer in WWII and it had affected him deeply. So I think he fully supported the project. Others in his party (Conservative) probably not. Interestingly, the Labour party was pretty much against entry.

The British don't have the same fears that those on the continent have. Our country didn't suffer the carnage that they did, even though it took a battering. The concept of a kind of political straitjacket to constrain the nation state is alien to us. This I think is one of the problems, one of many.

As for the accusations of Little Englanders, it carries little weight. You couldn't have acquired a global empire if you were insular.

However, I think you are correct, Britain should have abstained from the EU and cultivated the Commonwealth which it neglected.

The commonwealth is too small and too far to matter for the UK. It was smart to focus on the 450 million people on your doorstep, and Britain has benefitted massively from the EU. Due to your own politics that benefit mainly went to London, but that's your own fault. London was the capital of the EU, and now you've given that up.

 

[Fwiffo]

Wasn't formby one of the ones who didn't give a toss about what happens to the City?

There was no incentive to develop the Commonwealth postwar. The business model no longer worked. Cheap to free labour and raw materials shipped back to the mother country wasn't required anymore. Never mind most of the Commonwealth had immature economies of their own and would require great investment to yield anything (on the order of what China is doing now). There wasn't a BRICS at the time to export to. If at the beginning of decolonisation India, South Africa and Nigeria were what they are now with Australia/Canada as buttress - the maximum that Britain could pull off is an economic alliance comparable to the TPP less the States and China.

 

[formby]

Wasn't formby one of the ones who didn't give a toss about what happens to the City?

There was no incentive to develop the Commonwealth postwar. The business model no longer worked. Cheap to free labour and raw materials shipped back to the mother country wasn't required anymore. Never mind most of the Commonwealth had immature economies of their own and would require great investment to yield anything (on the order of what China is doing now). There wasn't a BRICS at the time to export to. If at the beginning of decolonisation India, South Africa and Nigeria were what they are now with Australia/Canada as buttress - the maximum that Britain could pull off is an economic alliance comparable to the TPP less the States and China.

formby is still one of the ones who doesn't give a toss about the City.

I also said cultivate the Commonwealth, that could have been done, if the political will was there.

 

[Monkeyface]

formby is still one of the ones who doesn't give a toss about the City.

I also said cultivate the Commonwealth, that could have been done, if the political will was there.

Say bye bye to 15% of your tax revenue! Financial institutions are the only companies that actually pay tax.

 

[formby]

Say bye bye to 15% of your tax revenue! Financial institutions are the only companies that actually pay tax.

Which tax is this? Corporation Tax? The financial sector as a whole only paid about £3.4 billion. By far the biggest contribution was Income Tax.

 

[Monkeyface]

Which tax is this? Corporation Tax? The financial sector as a whole only paid about £3.4 billion. By far the biggest contribution was Income Tax.

Fake news!

The ninth edition of our annual Total Tax report finds that the UK's financial services sector contributed £71.4 billion in taxes in the year to March 2016.

This year's figure is £4.9 billion more than the 2015 study (2015: £66.5bn), is the highest since the survey began in 2007, and is equivalent to 11.5% of total UK government tax receipts.

https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/bus...search-publications/Pages/total-tax-2016.aspx

 

[formby]

Fake news!

The ninth edition of our annual Total Tax report finds that the UK's financial services sector contributed £71.4 billion in taxes in the year to March 2016.

This year's figure is £4.9 billion more than the 2015 study (2015: £66.5bn), is the highest since the survey began in 2007, and is equivalent to 11.5% of total UK government tax receipts.

https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/bus...search-publications/Pages/total-tax-2016.aspx

http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06193/SN06193.pdf

Read section 5, carefully.

 

[Grand Potentate]

http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06193/SN06193.pdf

Read section 5, carefully.

You're asking too much of him

 

[doghouse]

So it looks like Macron is on track for the largest parliamentary majority since de Gaulle.

 

[Grand Potentate]

So it looks like Macron is on track for the largest parliamentary majority since de Gaulle.

Macron, not Le Pen, to turn state of emergency into common law

by Ramin Mazaheri

Emmanuel Macron very quickly made it official: He will introduce a bill which will transform extraordinary state of emergency powers into regular police practice.

According to Le Monde, which saw a leaked copy of the bill: “…almost all the measures of the state of emergency will be found in common law.”

What this means is that the post-Charlie Hebdo war hysteria has not only never stopped, but will have become the new, permanent normal: Anyone can be arrested, searched and detained with just a simple accusation. Judges simply need to be “informed”; police have carte blanche.

So…when can I start referring to France as an “authoritarian state” without getting edited?

LOL, I don’t know what it would actually require to finally start calling that spade a “spade”…. I am reminded that Confucius’ “rectification of names” doctrine shows that the failure to call things by their proper names can only lead to social disorder.

I hate to say I told you so, but after less than one month in power Macron has proven to be what many feared: All the fascism of Marine Le Pen, slightly less (perhaps) of the xenophobia , 100 times the austerity. What a lousy formula that is!

And despite all the warning signs, Macron won pretty handily. And again, despite all the warning signs, Macron’s party is set to win an absolute majority in Parliament when the final round votes are tallied on June 18.

The bill transforming civil liberties in France will be immediately introduced three days later, on June 21. Macron is not wasting any time in showing his true colors, and the bill was obviously whistle-blown in order to warn voters.

I understand if the average person isn’t paying attention, but for journalists – it’s our job to do so.

Some journalists are wasting space by acting completely surprised at the legalization of what is properly termed a “police state dictatorship”, but Macron showed his authoritarian inclination by repeatedly promising to extend the state of emergency upon entering office and he said so again this week (until November 1).

Instead of focusing on the campaign – when he spoke to voters directly – many journalists are foolishly claiming to have been misled by a comment in his book that the state of emergency could not be “permanent”.

Well, of course….absolutely nobody, anywhere is saying that France needs to be living under a permanent state of emergency until the end of time.

But France is currently a country so badly burned by Hollande’s 180-degree about-face on election promises that they are perhaps hyper-sensitive to yet another faithless elected. But they are being willfully blind, again, and they would do better to examine the fact that his proposed changes to the labor code this week are even more right-wing than what he warned of while campaigning.

I remind readers that a “French Patriot Act”, which gave cops all the powers they allegedly needed to fight terrorism, was rushed through in the 2015 post-Charlie Hebdo war hysteria. France’s executive branch was already perhaps the most powerful in the West, so at the time many said it wasn’t even necessary.

But they grabbed more power, anyway, because that seems to be the only true talent of Western politicians in the 21st century.

The backroom deal that cemented Macron becomes much clearer

Macron’s campaign was not plunging but certainly fading when he made a key political deal with the leading centrist politician in France, Francois Bayrou. Bayrou finished 5th in the 2012 presidential election, to give you an idea of his significant domestic standing.

It was late February and Macron had fallen below conservative Francois Fillon and Marine Le Pen in the polls. But then the centrist party leader announced he would ally with Macron, and Macron never left the top two again.

I assumed that the backroom deal was Bayrou’s support in exchange for the prime minister spot, but he surprisingly settled for Justice Minister, the nation’s top prosecutor.

Well, nobody predicted that the two would seek to drastically expand the role of the Justice Minster: The proposed bill effectively makes the nation’s top lawyer into the nation’s top judge! That’s obviously a huge, alarming conflict of interest.

The new bill will mean that the judicial branch no longer decides on anything with the word “terrorism” attached – no longer acts as a check and balance – they simply must be informed of decisions taken by the executive branch: i.e., the president, the Interior and Justice Ministers, and Officer Jean-Michel Everycop.

When police don’t need warrants for searches, raids and arrests, then judges are just rubber-stampers, except for cases like those found on reality court TV.

The leak became public literally minutes from when the “Sages”, or “Wise Ones”, of France’s Constitutional Council strongly condemned the government’s practice of banning people from attending demonstrations and abusing house arrests.

Amnesty reported last week that some 650 specific individuals were banned from attending peaceful, anti-government protests in the past 18 months. The overwhelming majority were during the anti-labor code rollback protests, with a couple dozen environmentalists banned during the UN COP 21 summit in Paris, which Trump recently rejected.

This condemnation by the Guardian Council – I’m sorry, the Wise Ones – was leavened by the fact that they waited one and half years to make a ruling on such a fundamental issue of democratic rights…in fact, there’s so much leavening the bread has lost all nutritional value: they were obviously in the pocket of the Hollande administration.

The Wise Ones did not dare touch the question of banning entire demonstrations: Amnesty said 155 demonstrations have banned, but they didn’t point out that an undoubted “chilling effect” surely led to the premature strangulation of many in the cradle. I guess let’s look for that decision in December 2019?

‘Je suis Algerien!’

Now there’s a slogan which has roughly zero chance of going viral, LOL!

But it’s basically true, because the last time there was a state of emergency in France it was to prevent Algerian independence. We have all been Algerians since November 2015, and now Macron wants us all to be Algerians permanently (hey, better than being Libyans – then we’d get bombed by NATO!).

Maybe this is where the European project becomes useful: If passed, the bill will surely go before the European Court of Human Rights.

A fundamental question which never gets posed by the mainstream media is: Why do politicians keep doing this? As I dared to write hours after an ISIL terror attack in Iran (and my faith has been justified), Iranian politicians did not manipulate terrorism to attempt an anti-democratic executive branch power grab.

The answers to such a question cannot be good, but it seems France’s politicians want more power, more money, more fame, more everything else that…does not benefit the entire commonweal: more equality, more social justice, more happiness, more peace, etc.

But the precipitous fall of Hollande’s prime minister and primary enforcer, Manuel Valls, should be a cautionary tale that such power grabs backfire with voters. Heck, the entire French Socialist Party may not even win enough seats to form a parliamentary group, which calls into question their very existence. Voters are not as dumb as they think!

And because they are no good answers to such questions, you don’t rise very high on the journalism ladder by posing such questions.

I remind readers that Macron has said that he will not remain in politics after his presidency – he’ll go back to private service and make enough money to buy an NBA franchise, like Obama plans to. For a public servant that is a rather mercenary plan. Half of Macron’s nearly 400 party candidates are totally new to politics, so it’s appears certain they will be easily malleable to Macron’s will; it seems less certain that they are committed to the public good instead of reaping the benefits of quickly-acquired power.

Are we judging Macron too soon?

I keep asking Macron voters, but not in a needling way, if they are happy with their vote – I’m still waiting for an enthusiastic “yes”.

I don’t want to come off as too negative too early in Macron’s presidency: I think many have done that with Trump. It seems clear that Trump had no idea how much Deep State blowback there would be to what he proposed to implement, and we shouldn’t be surprised that he was totally unprepared for that. However, he could find his feet and start punching back – it ain’t over, and it’s more accurate to say it’s only just begun.

Macron, however, was the number 2 man in Elysée Palace (France’s White House) and worked closely with Hollande. Macron was a top cabinet minister. He clearly knows the political ropes and what he is doing. Trump probably just watched “House of Cards” as preparation (plenty of Russophobia there).

Ultimately what Macron is doing is implementing the will of the bosses – that’s the simplest way to put it. Macron can’t imagine going against them, and he sees himself as one of them. Macron, the former Rothschild banker, is also one of high finance and the bond-buyers, and they are obviously delighted at his ascension.

We journalists like to have our fun, and we’re actually not that creative, so we like to come up with funny names for the physical and mental midgets we have to follow daily. I dubbed France’s boy wonder “Emmanuel Macr-Obama” because both politicians were just a shiny repackaging of the same capitalist/imperialist brand.

But maybe Macron and Marine Le Pen were one-and-the-same all along?

But maybe Macron is even worse: Who can say that Le Pen would be taking this route, which is clearly authoritarian?

Of course, if Le Pen had done something like this I think French Twitter might have exploded in outrage.

It’s certainly hard to not predict that by pushing Macron France’s mainstream media will lose major credibility with every Macron step to the right.

When allegedly left-wing Libération writes of the proposed bill: “…the sentiment of being duped is starting to be seen among social networks, traditional citizen rights’ watchdogs, NGOs, lawyers’ unions and political progressives,” one wants to say, “Go take a long walk off a short pier, Libé….” After all, they broke the law on impartiality the day before the presidential vote with a cover that read, “Do what you want but vote Macron”.

What’s certain is that the mainstream media is never going to really condemn Macron…or Clinton, Obama, Cameron, etc. That means it’s really down to the average citizen. Many predict this 2nd labor code rollback will inspire Hollande-era levels of strikes and protests – will this normalization of the emergency state add to that?

But all of those groups listed by Libération should have known better; should have warned the public of who is the real Macron; are culpable in scaring the electorate into voting for him.

Of course, being no fool, I vote communist, but when we are told that Le Pen was the fascist and then we see that Macron is immediately preparing to institutionalize of fascism – well, you get that wrong and anyone with ethics must admit responsibility. And then they should change their point of view.

I feel I would have been writing the same things had Bernie Sanders won in the United States….

There is no Third Way, there is no reconciliation with capitalism, there is no end to xenophobia without socialist unity, there is no way a Rothschild banker could have been what you foolishly pretended he was.

And yet, as I write this, tomorrow is the first round in France’s Parliamentary elections: Voters are set to give Macron an absolute majority in Parliament and, combined with the conservative Républicain Party, to elect 90% pro-austerity politicians. C’est dingue…it’s crazy!

I didn’t have to be this way, but this is what compromise with capitalism looks like – the result is always anti-democratic.

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television.

 

[Monkeyface]

http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06193/SN06193.pdf

Read section 5, carefully.

Those are wildly disparate numbers. The city of London says 20% of the 71bn is corporation tax, which is much higher than 3.4bn you quote. You'd think there wouldn't be a dispute over this?

 

[Scherensammler]

So it looks like Macron is on track for the largest parliamentary majority since de Gaulle.

Yeah, he got low 30+% of 50% of the electorate, and somehow the MSM spin that as a "triumph" and "landslide victory"!

 

[Lord Buckley]

It is good he has an overwhelming majority, he has no excuse for failure. All those newbies into politics, easily manipulated.

If you notice how Macron dresses in those navy suits, white shirt and matching navy tie, he is in the style we have come to expect of our politicians: sartorially inert, you can project just about anything onto him and believe it.

We'll see how well he gets on during the negotiations for Brexit. I believe his authoritarian streak and inability to negotiate will come to the fore.

 

[Scherensammler]

We'll see how well he gets on during the negotiations for Brexit. I believe his authoritarian streak and inability to negotiate will come to the fore.

Only if you believe that the thoughts and actions are his own.

 

[Monkeyface]

Only if you believe that the thoughts and actions are his own.

Who's puppet are you? Is snowflake officepants controlling you from across the pond?

 

[Scherensammler]

Who's puppet are you? Is snowflake officepants controlling you from across the pond?

Macron's "career" is well documented. He sucked at every job he had and yet he was made the "new white hope" for a failing French state. Plus there is not one word of criticism in the Western MSM, not even the fact that he had an affair at a very young age with a much older woman which destroyed her marriage raises an eyebrow.
But hey, we gladly live in a world where gang rape, paedophilia, honour killings and child marriage are ok now.

 

[Fwiffo]

It is good he has an overwhelming majority, he has no excuse for failure. All those newbies into politics, easily manipulated.

Wasn't that what people said about President Trump having the executive, the House and the Senate?

 

[Monkeyface]

Macron's "career" is well documented. He sucked at every job he had and yet he was made the "new white hope" for a failing French state. Plus there is not one word of criticism in the Western MSM, not even the fact that he had an affair at a very young age with a much older woman which destroyed her marriage raises an eyebrow.
But hey, we gladly live in a world where gang rape, paedophilia, honour killings and child marriage are ok now.

That's not an answer to my question.

 

[Lord Buckley]

Macron's "career" is well documented. He sucked at every job he had and yet he was made the "new white hope" for a failing French state. Plus there is not one word of criticism in the Western MSM, not even the fact that he had an affair at a very young age with a much older woman which destroyed her marriage raises an eyebrow.
But hey, we gladly live in a world where gang rape, paedophilia, honour killings and child marriage are ok now.

The teacher thing can be seen as quite cute in the context of an affair taking place 20 years ago. Now it comes across as downright strange, if not suspect. You could stay with her for a couple of years and then move on, realising the age difference is a tragic mistake. I don't have any issue with the affair at the start, but now, all this pretending she is a young woman full of vitality and he is a the youngest French President full of vigour and virility who is about to deliver a reforming breath of fresh air. No, it doesn't quite work for me.

Wasn't that what people said about President Trump having the executive, the House and the Senate?

But this time it's different....

 

[Scherensammler]

That's not an answer to my question.

It's hidden in the text. The letters are all there. Just need to put them in correct order!

 

[doghouse]

Got more mileage out of that simple observation than I anticipated.

 

[formby]

Those are wildly disparate numbers. The city of London says 20% of the 71bn is corporation tax, which is much higher than 3.4bn you quote. You'd think there wouldn't be a dispute over this?

I don't need to dispute it, the figures come from HMRC.

 

[güero]

Yeah, he got low 30+% of 50% of the electorate, and somehow the MSM spin that as a "triumph" and "landslide victory"!

Are you serious? According to fake news, he got at least 68% of seats and can get up to 79%? What do you think is the appropriate way to describe this?

 

[Monkeyface]

I don't need to dispute it, the figures come from HMRC.

View attachment 23605

Ah, different sectors. I'm talking financial services as a whole, you're talking about just the banking sector.

 

[Grand Potentate]

Ah, different sectors. I'm talking financial services as a whole, you're talking about just the banking sector.

not sure if serious

 

[Scherensammler]

Are you serious? According to fake news, he got at least 68% of seats and can get up to 79%? What do you think is the appropriate way to describe this?

Ein Dämpfer ist allerdings die historisch schwache Wahlbeteiligung: Mit 48,7 Prozent ging weniger als die Hälfte der Wahlberechtigten zur Abstimmung.

Only 49% of eligible voters voted and he got 34% of that. I wouldn't call that a "triumph" or "landslide victory"!
But thanks to the system that still means he could (and probably will) get a massive majority in parliament.
That means 50% of the French voters did neither like Macron or LePen. Nor the other available candidates.
F*ck, he did not even get the popular vote...

 

[formby]

Ah, different sectors. I'm talking financial services as a whole, you're talking about just the banking sector.

Even the figure of 70+ billion is wrong because it includes tax it collects, for example insurance premium tax. The customer pays this, not the bank / insurer, they just collect it on behalf of HMRC.

The City also only accounts for about 50% of UK financial activity.

 

[Grand Potentate]

for all you britishers, this looks like a very interesting piece:

http://www.politico.eu/article/how-...essina-lynton-crosby-uk-sarah-palin-campaign/

How Theresa May lost it
A reluctance to delegate, hubris and campaigning ineptitude ruined British prime minister’s grand plan to secure a mandate.

 

[formby]

for all you britishers, this looks like a very interesting piece:

http://www.politico.eu/article/how-...essina-lynton-crosby-uk-sarah-palin-campaign/

How Theresa May lost it
A reluctance to delegate, hubris and campaigning ineptitude ruined British prime minister’s grand plan to secure a mandate.

Lots of conjecture there. I'd be interesting to know the effect the collapse of the UKIP vote had on the the final vote.

 

[Grand Potentate]

 

[Grand Potentate]

Lots of conjecture there. I'd be interesting to know the effect the collapse of the UKIP vote had on the the final vote.

what's your take on the impending breakup of ireland if DUP wants to fuck sinn fein over?

 

[formby]

what's your take on the impending breakup of ireland if DUP wants to fuck sinn fein over?

What do you mean breakup? There isn't anything to breakup.

 

[Grand Potentate]

What do you mean breakup? There isn't anything to breakup.

the political alliance

 

[formby]

the political alliance

I've not given it much thought really.

 

[Fwiffo]

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-40281300

"Tim Farron has said he is to step down as leader of the Liberal Democrats, less than a week after the election.

In a statement, he said he was 'torn between living as a faithful Christian and serving as a political leader'.

He said he should have dealt 'more wisely' with questions relating to his faith during the election campaign, including his views on gay sex."

PM May had no issues inviting the DUP and their anti abortion, anti gay, orthodox platform into the governing coalition and this man has personal struggles and resigns?

 

[Lord Buckley]

Tim Farron is a classic closet homosexual, you can see the self-loathing in every gesture and his hangups on the great non-issue of gay relationships. A total wank stain.

Good to see Paul Joseph Watson back on top form:

 

[Fwiffo]

Chris Christie lounges with family on New Jersey park beach he shut down

He has no intention of running for office again does he? This is like that moment when Al Gore showed up in a hot tub on Saturday Night Live? Throwing in the towel?

 

[Grand Potentate]

Chris Christie lounges with family on New Jersey park beach he shut down

He has no intention of running for office again does he? This is like that moment when Al Gore showed up in a hot tub on Saturday Night Live? Throwing in the towel?

you have to admire how clueless he really is