Off Topic Politics Thread

10 years too late that double time statement. My employer in 2004 cut sundays to time and a half and other overtime from time and a third to time and a quarter. The year was just a co-incidence though............... cough, cough.

 

Mail Online has been forced to pay out £150,000 to a British Muslim family over a Katie Hopkins column which falsely accused them of extremism.

The column, published in December last year, said that US authorities were right to stop Mahmood Tariq Mahmood, his brother Mohammed Zahid Mahmood and nine children from travelling to Los Angeles for a trip to Disneyland last year. Hopkins also suggested that the two brothers were extremists with links to al-Qaida.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2...m-family-over-katie-hopkins-column?CMP=twt_gu

 

Nostalgic memories of working at the Uni as a technician during the 70/80s. Christmas Day was double time plus a day off in lieu.
Happy days.

 

Hopkins has also had to post an apology on Twitter but did it at 2am, hoping that it would be missed. Sadly, her apology has been reposted a few thousand times...

 

I have always said to my kids don't use the word hate, ever.
Also allow others to express their views even if opposed to yours.
But with Ms Hopkins, let rip.

She uses her hate as a tool, I've never despised a person more.

 

That's the stupidest thing I've seen in weeks.

 

BERLIN—Russia’s ruling party signed a five-year “cooperation agreement” with the anti-immigrant Freedom Party of Austria, one of the clearest signs that the Kremlin is seeking to deepen ties with nationalist and antiestablishment forces in the West.

The two-page agreement, reached in Moscow after Freedom Party leaders met with officials from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, spells out a common commitment to holding regular joint meetings and public events while working to strengthen social and economic ties between Russia and Austria.

The accord is the latest example of Russian efforts to forge ties with antiestablishment, euroskeptic parties in Europe, many of which in turn promote closer ties to Moscow and rolling back the European Union. Marine Le Pen’s National Front has tapped a Russian bank for a loan to help fund its election efforts in France, for instance. Meanwhile, antiestablishment politicians such as Ms. Le Pen, Britain’s Nigel Farage and Geert Wilders, head of the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom, have bashed the EU in interviews on Russian television.

The Freedom Party, which has campaigned on xenophobic, anti-Islam rhetoric and casts itself as an alternative to Europe’s political establishment, is in the opposition in Austrian parliament.

Freedom Party officials also traveled to the U.S. just before the U.S. election for meetings with allies of President-elect Trump. Johann Gudenus, a senior Freedom Party official, said his delegation discussed with the Russians the opportunities for better U.S.-Russian ties after Mr. Trump takes over and the need to end Western sanctions on Russia.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-s...ria-1482170810

 

Sigh

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38383216

Brexit plans to be revealed in the New Year.

 

Buying of the President 2016

A new Texas nonprofit led by Donald Trump’s grown sons is offering access to the freshly-minted president during inauguration weekend — all in exchange for million-dollar donations to unnamed “conservation” charities, according to interviews and documents reviewed by the Center for Public Integrity.

A Center for Public Integrity review of Texas incorporation records found the Opening Day Foundation was created less than a week ago, on Dec. 14. Unlike political committees, such nonprofits aren’t required by law to reveal their donors, allowing sponsors to write seven-figure checks for access to the president while staying anonymous, if they choose

 

yep

Over the weekend, President-elect Donald Trump tapped Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) to be his director of the Office of Management and Budget. This Cabinet-level post is responsible for producing the federal budget, overseeing and evaluating executive branch agencies and otherwise advising the president on fiscal matters. It’s a position with tremendous, far-reaching power, even if the public doesn’t pay much attention to it.

Which is why it’s so concerning that Trump chose Mulvaney, who seems poised to help Trump ignite another worldwide financial crisis.

Mulvaney was first elected to Congress in 2010 as part of the anti-government, tea party wave. A founding member of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, he is among Congress’s most committed fiscal hawks. He has repeatedly voted against his own party’s budget proposals because they were insufficiently conservative.

All this will presumably put him at odds with Trump’s plans to balloon federal deficits through a $7 trillion cut in individual and corporate income taxes, another half-trillion in infrastructure subsidies and other major spending expansions.

...

Whatever their differences on line-item details, though, Mulvaney and the president-elect have at least one major thing in common: an alarming openness to defaulting on the federal debt.

As you may recall, during the campaign Trump repeatedly flirted with the idea of defaulting on U.S. debt obligations. In a CNBC interview in May, he suggested that his experience in offloading private debt would translate nicely to federal obligations. That is, he’d simply persuade the country’s creditors to accept less than full payment.

“I would borrow knowing that if the economy crashed you could make a deal,” he said.

Lol you couldn't make it up

 

The Federal Communications Commission's two Republican members told ISPs yesterday that they will get to work on gutting net neutrality rules "as soon as possible."

FCC Republicans Ajit Pai and Michael O'Rielly sent a letter to five lobby groups representing wireless carriers and small ISPs; while the letter is mostly about plans to extend an exemption for small providers from certain disclosure requirements, the commissioners also said they will tackle the entire net neutrality order shortly after President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20.

"[W]e will seek to revisit [the disclosure] requirements, and the Title II Net Neutrality proceeding more broadly, as soon as possible," they wrote, referring to the order that imposed net neutrality rules and reclassified ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. Pai and O'Rielly noted that they "dissented from the Commission's February 2015 Net Neutrality decision, including the Order's imposition of unnecessary and unjustified burdens on providers."
Pai and O'Rielly will have a 2-1 Republican majority on the FCC after the departure of Democratic Chairman Tom Wheeler on January 20. Pai previously said that the Title II net neutrality order's "days are numbered" under Trump, while O'Rielly said he intends to "undo harmful policies" such as the Title II reclassification.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...le/?comments=1

 

OMG, The guy is a crackpot if that is his real account.

 

It is! He is verified.

 

EU's highest court delivers blow to UK snooper's charter

“General and indiscriminate retention” of emails and electronic communications by governments is illegal, the EU’s highest court has ruled, in a judgment that could trigger challenges against the UK’s new Investigatory Powers Act – the so-called snooper’s charter.

Only targeted interception of traffic and location data in order to combat serious crime is justified, according to a long-awaited decision by the European court of justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg.

https://www.theguardian.com/law/201...livers-blow-to-uk-snoopers-charter?CMP=twt_gu

 

Yes! This is one of the many reasons why we shouldn't be leaving Europe. I can only hope the politicians eventually find it too difficult to get out.

Excellent post, Beefy. That's cheered me up no end.

 

Seems odd that the Berlin lorry driver dropped his wallet in the cab - sounds like a plant to me, and the real driver is someone else.

 

President Obama makes one of his best decisions in permanently banning oil exploration in US owned Arctic and Atlantic waters:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38387525

The environmental repercussions of drilling were exponential. I believe this is a decision which can't be overturned due to a ruling made in USA law in 1953. Canada also made the same announcement, but allowed a review every 5 years. Personally, one wouldn't expect Canada to reverse that.

 

Strange how Obama comes up with this when he is heading out the door, and when the world is awash with cheap oil, driven partly by shale oil production in his own country. Would he have made this call if the oil price was $120/barrel ? - the cynic in me doubts it.

 

The thought occurred to me also. But let's not get bogged down in the detail. It's a great decision and he took it.