To say these statements are inherently racist, as virtually every shrieking journo i've seen has done, requires motive-seeking on their part beyond the content of the statements themselves, which is why I said they care so little of confirmation bias. They think it is because they believe, very strongly, that he is, and there is virtually no convincing them otherwise, and no reason to really try.
You are wrong. "Go back to your home country" based on skin color is racist. It's guessing someone's citizenship based on skin color. How many white people has Trump told to go back to their country?
People are part of the problem that excuse such ignorance. People that think it's funny that people are concerned that the President is a white supremacist are going to regret it when you or someone you love is 'the other'.
Maybe you have friends or family that are Hispanic, Asian, brown, Jewish, purple or whatever. Maybe not but such hatred will never end. First they came for x, then y, then z.
Your turn will come buddy. And would these same MAGA chuds chanting "send her back" be happy when they are told to go home to their country? How about the golden rule folks.
A gas station employee was fired for "go back to your country" and as @jjstraka34 mentioned that phrase is specifically mentioned in Federal regulations as being racist workplace harrasment.
Here's the gas station employee held to a higher standard than the disgusting President.
To say these statements are inherently racist, as virtually every shrieking journo i've seen has done, requires motive-seeking on their part beyond the content of the statements themselves, which is why I said they care so little of confirmation bias. They think it is because they believe, very strongly, that he is, and there is virtually no convincing them otherwise, and no reason to really try.
You are wrong. "Go back to your home country" based on skin color is racist. It's guessing someone's citizenship based on skin color. How many white people has Trump told to go back to their country?
People are part of the problem that excuse such ignorance. People that think it's funny that people are concerned that the President is a white supremacist are going to regret it when you or someone you love is 'the other'.
Maybe you have friends or family that are Hispanic, Asian, brown, Jewish, purple or whatever. Maybe not but such hatred will never end. First they came for x, then y, then z.
Your turn will come buddy. And would these same MAGA chuds chanting "send her back" be happy when they are told to go home to their country? How about the golden rule folks.
A gas station employee was fired for "go back to your country" and as @jjstraka34 mentioned that phrase is specifically mentioned in Federal regulations as being racist workplace harrasment.
Here's the gas station employee held to a higher standard than the disgusting President.
Only morons can't see there is no difference between races other than appearance and upbringing. There seems to be a plethora of morons in the world. The far right doesn't have a monopoly on racism though. There's plenty to go around. I wish everybody could see people as individuals, rather than a list of appearances, genetic traits, stereotypic upbringing, and where they were born/raised and how much money their parents have.
Imagine all the people, judged on who they are instead of pre-judged before you know them. That doesn't mean there aren't assholes, it just means you shouldn't predict who they might be by where they came from. I miss John Lennon...
These comments remind me why I find replying so tedious. Trying to "gotcha" me with something I didn't claim to be true, when I am elaborating on the mindset of the average hardcore MAGAbot, the stories that circulate there that are as popular as RussiaGate here, or simply twisting my words beyond comprehension (literally only journalists believe this- really? there are obviously left wing people). If I believe something myself i'll just say it, rather than making disclaimers to the contrary, or in regards to wild reaches, i'll just speak it plainly. I do appreciate the effort though.
@WarChiefZeke I think whether Omar is guilty of anything or not is a side issue. The point is that you said clearly you believe that deportation is an appropriate response for committing fraud.
"I'm starting to like Trump again after that chant. Honestly, really great stuff. The shrieking journos from all corners just makes it even better.
The only thing that would have made it better was if he didn't disavow it, but we've come to expect him to be only half-baked in that regard. His supporters said it because they meant it. They meant it, and it is the correct response. He should care as little to defend himself from the foaming-at-the-mouth hordes as they care about the concept of confirmation bias."
"I don't care if you are a Congressperson or a farm worker, your citizenship should be revoked and you should have to reapply, after a certain time period for a penalty, if you commit fraud. You should, quite literally, be deported."
Given that Trump's statements are about 4 people - and 3 of those were born in the US - that seems a very extreme position to take. Deportation of citizens used to be a popular criminal punishment in the UK, though it was last used in 1867. There would be major logistical as well as moral problems with trying to do that these days ...
You've often said you're not a fan of Trump. Would you then advocate applying the same punishment to him:
- his mother was born in Germany, so Trump is no more of an American than 3 of the 'Squad'.
- he's committed fraud on numerous occasions, both before and after becoming President.
@WarChiefZeke Can you please explain to me what you mean by "the correct response"?
It feels a tad too ironic to try defending myself after I said Trump shouldn't defend himself, but i'm not a public figure, so i'll bite. I think it's defendable both literally and figuratively, although I believe they mean figuratively, as in the oft-repreated phrase among boomercons that "if you don't like this country, leave.". Not deportation by law or anything.
But in regards to literally, there is evidence that Omar committed migration fraud via marriages. At least, that is the theory anyway, because she simply isn't answering any questions about it. Politifact, surprisingly, did a write up here, so you can judge for yourself. While I make no claims as to the truth of this, although it seems obvious to me that *something* weird is going on there, it's been a popular story on the right for awhile, so it wouldn't surprise me that most people who care enough to go to a rally would know this stuff. I don't care if you are a Congressperson or a farm worker, your citizenship should be revoked and you should have to reapply, after a certain time period for a penalty, if you commit fraud. You should, quite literally, be deported.
As for figuratively, the only objections I can really see are the BlueCheck JournoWoke charges of closet racism. The concept of "go back to your original country if you don't like the one you moved to" is racially neutral. This is a meaningful and coherent statement independent of race. In fact, it doesn't even imply it. So is "the country you originally came from sucks, and this one is great". You can, in fact, apply this concept to the whole of his statements.
To say these statements are inherently racist, as virtually every shrieking journo i've seen has done, requires motive-seeking on their part beyond the content of the statements themselves, which is why I said they care so little of confirmation bias. They think it is because they believe, very strongly, that he is, and there is virtually no convincing them otherwise, and no reason to really try.
You can still be critical of a place even if the place you came from was worse off.
I will complain about an over done hamburger and if the response is "well go back to mcdonald's and eat their crap if you don't like it!" completely misses the point of my objection. Sure the burger that was over done is better than McD's but being critical of it just means I want it better, not just for myself, but for everyone else who enters the restaurant.
That same sort of scenario can be played out with Omar if you want. She loves this country. She has stated many times that she is privileged to live in the US. But the US is far from perfect. She was elected to congress to address these imperfections and make the country a better place for everyone. You may disagree on how to make it better, but that is what democracy is all about. Sharing of ideas, debating them, improving them to find compromise.
As for the Omar marrying her brother, if the right needs to constantly rely on unprovable conspiracy theories to push their narratives about individuals it shows that they cannot attack that person's views but only make shit up about them. I think you railed against the Trump dossier when it came out saying that none of it was provable and it was just the lefts attempt to slander Trump. There is no difference between that allegation and the one with Omar, except maybe Trump's was derived from an actual former spy (credible) and Omar's comes from an instatgram post where it was the comment "here's my nieces" was misunderstood. If you know muslim cultural, their all fam, and call themselves brothers and sisters all the time (at least here, in my multicultural city).
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@Balrog99 I wouldn't say search engines were "white washed," they just became more polished and better at doing their job. Top sites know how to gauge google and other algorithms to return top results where the local wackjob page doesn't.
I wouldn't be surprised if some pages like the chans get boycotted. You really don't want your great grandmother who is searching for a salad tosser to click on one of those links. The chans, and sites like it get hits by word of mouth though so they don't really need search engines.
If you refine your search a bit, you maybe able to make a couple pop up, but that, and the creation of the dark web have pushed most of them out of site.
A rundown of just HOW this Ilhan Omar story got started, and man alive have I seen this movie before. Shit, I have seen some of the same ACTORS in this movie before. As someone who hasn't forgotten the prevailing theories on the right that John Kerry faked his war wounds to get a Purple Heart and that Obama was born in Kenya, this story follows the EXACT same pattern on it's way to more "mainstream" media sources. This is how they have been infecting the discourse since the early Bush years. It literally started with a random blog post by a known internet troll, then (as @deltago mentioned) preys on the ignorance about Muslim family culture, and works it's way through all the canals of the sewer of right-wing media. Shit, even if you are inclined to believe this shit, the people involved in it (for instance, Jacob Wohl) are KNOWN liars and frauds. The worst thing they have on her is that one year she filed a joint tax return with who was at the time technically the wrong person, which she rectified and paid the fine for. And are people who have NO problem with Donald Trump screwing a porn star while his 3rd wife was recovering from childbirth REALLY going to sit here and pretend they have the moral authority to sit in judgement of her relationship history?? Sorry, you threw away that privilege FOREVER the moment this guy got elected.
And that is how it works. That is how you brainwash thousands if not millions of people. There isn't much talk around here in any context about the 2004 election, and the Swift-Boat campaign against Kerry (led by the same person who would later start the conspiracy about Obama's birth certificate). People in retrospect claim this was on the fringe. Bullshit. This stuff is mainstream in Republican politics. Because I remember the 2004 Republican convention. And I remember the people who think they have a monopoly on patriotism wearing Purple Heart "band-aids" to mock a Vietnam veteran they have been convinced by a right-wing media machine faked his injuries. It wasn't "some people", it was the entire crowd at the Republican Convention in 2004. And I remember watching it with my grandma, who lost a son in Vietnam and proudly displayed his own Purple Heart on a shelf in her modest home, and she was almost shaking in anger at the display. The Republican base has been this way for 20 years. Trump is simply the avatar that allows them to let their freak-flag fly. This has been there the whole time, it's just that Trump is willing to tap into it way, WAY deeper than Bush, McCain and Romney were willing to. But it's a dam that has been ready to burst since Reagan opened his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi. The monster escaped the lab.
Here's our "expert" on foreign policy. When will his cult of personality realize this guy's a fake? Never? It seems so but it sucks that the cultists are dragging the whole country down with them.
This must have been where Trump remembered his "new" slogan - love it or leave it. He must have remembered this from his childhood fondly.
"Make America Great Again" means there's something wrong with America now, so by his argument he needs to leave it because he hates America.
And wasn't he just clutching his pearls about free speech. He is a free speech warrior BUT if you say something he doesn't like he wants to kick you out of the country. Hmmm.. Maybe he's lying when he says he cares about free speech?
You are about to see a deluge of cell phone videos that document regular people telling minorities to "go back where they came from". I've already seen 3 in the last 24 hours. These videos will be ignored in the same way by the same people who ignore police abuse videos.
For all the people worried that Trump walked back his support to forcibly "send her back", don't worry your hero was only lying. He didn't mean his walk back. He's flip flopped!
He got the media again too, they reported the lies he told and boy do they look foolish now because it turns out he was lying all along. Ha ha fake news take that. So maga or something.
And hey he lied about Omar and AOC while he was at it. Serving up red meat to his gullible supporters to attack the strawman he's created. It's a genius plan just lie something outrageous and literally dozens of people believe it regardless! And the entire Republican party is too scared to argue, disagree, or think for themselves! The art of the con! Stable genus!
“Incredible patriots” is the new “very fine people”: Trump defended the racist chants a day after unconvincingly trying to distance himself from “send her back,” the president abruptly reverses course and flip flopped back to supporting racism.
Actual quote from the President of the United States today:
"You can't talk that way about our country - Not while i'm president"
Or......what exactly?? Set aside the fact that he's just making up quotes out of thin air and attributing them to them. This kind of statement coming from the leader of the Executive Branch is positively one of the most ridiculous things any President has ever said. At long last, we've now moved into the first chapter of the wiping out dissent phase of this nightmare. And where is the "free speech" brigade when this is uttered?? Radio goddamn silence.
Trump is going to marshal the darkest forces imaginable to get re-elected. It's increasingly clear he cannot possibly win the popular vote. If things stay on this track, the Democrats likely get back Pennsylvania and Michigan while Trump will almost certainly hold Ohio and likely Florida. And the entire thing could come down to Wisconsin, where years of Scott Walker's voter suppression have tilted the field. It's entirely likely that Trump could lose nationwide by upward of 5 million votes but be put back into office by 10,000 votes in Wisconsin. This is where we are at a mere 2 1/2 years in. 8 years of this and there won't be anything left to save.
I'm guessing people have missed this among everything else, but it's incredibly important. White collar prosecutions and fines have all been curtailed under this Administration:
They are handing everything to the corporate overlords, and they aren't even BOTHERING to make them abide by any rules. What took place the last time that was allowed?? And what do you imagine will happen if the economy implodes because of Wall Street greed again in his second term?? That is the real nightmare scenario. Trump in full demagogue and authoritarian mode, emboldened by re-election when the economy tanks. He would direct the ire of his cult at ANYONE but himself. Pray this doesn't happen, because it will be the end of this country as we know it if it takes place. If 10-15% of the country suddenly can't make their house payment, they are going to look for someone to blame. And, historically, that person would of course be the President. But this President will attempt to direct that anger away from him, and the way he will do so is to direct it at the same groups he has been demonizing for 3 years and counting. It's always been hard to understand exactly how what took place in Germany in the 30s and 40s could have possibly come to be. I understand now. All too clearly. The only thing that is required to push us over the edge is a national crisis.
The electoral strategy being pursued by Trump and his circle is very clear at the moment. Identify the Democrats with minorities- the 'Squad' are convenient for this- and demonize minorities as the far right always does. Democrats seem divided on whether they can fight from the left or whether they can build a broader coalition...
Boris Johnson has just been made the new Prime Minister. Interesting times abound...
Question, when is UKs next election. IIRC, here in Canada, it is proper etiquette to call an election when the PM is replaced because the populace didn’t vote for that person.
In the UK general elections have to be held within five years of each other, so theoretically not until 2022. At the moment Johnson has a wafer-thin majority which could easily disappear the first time it is tested and possibly result in a vote of No Confidence in the Government which (if passed) would trigger a General Election (which the Conservatives wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell of winning - and given that the Labour party are currently incapable of organising the proverbial in a brewery the UK would descend even further into chaos).
Ok, so if I am reading that correctly, the Conservatives don't really have a majority, they have a minority government as they are being propped up by another party but hold the most seats.
I think a new election at this time would be beneficial and not the doom and gloom and end of Britain I have been reading. I think there was enough false information floating around the time of the first referendum vote that has now been completely clarified that it's going to be a hard exit or no exit. Anything in between is wishful thinking and people shouldn't assume that is going to happen. So any party that runs on "we're going to hold a new referendum within a month after the election" would win it.
The problem at the moment is that Johnson ran on a ticket of Brexit at any cost - including no deal at all, whereas (according to the leadership poll results) approx. one third of Conservative MPs are totally opposed to a no-deal Brexit. So it's not another party that's propping up the conservative party at the moment, it's members of Johnson's own party who completely disagree with his stance on Brexit.
Just so everyone understands what is going on here. Certain students (well, really their parents) had racked up large school lunch debts. The school district threatened to turn them into child protective services if they didn't pay. Local business owner comes in and offers to pay off the debt of ALL of it, and the school board REJECTS the offer. I don't know how much more transparent this can possibly be. This would be like if a hospital didn't accept funds for a cancer patient that were collected at a fundraiser. This proves beyond a SHADOW of a doubt that the school board doesn't give a shit about the debt OR the well-being of the children. It is obvious they care more about humiliating and punishing poor people instead. This isn't even debatable. I mean, what the fuck is this shit?? You raise a big to-do about the money and then REJECT someone's offer to pay the money because the parents didn't meet your standard on the Horatio Alger scale?? The public shaming is more important to them. The cruelty is the point. And it's seeping like a slow-drip poison into every aspect of society.
Just so everyone understands what is going on here. Certain students (well, really their parents) had racked up large school lunch debts. The school district threatened to turn them into child protective services if they didn't pay. Local business owner comes in and offers to pay off the debt of ALL of it, and the school board REJECTS the offer. I don't know how much more transparent this can possibly be. This would be like if a hospital didn't accept funds for a cancer patient that were collected at a fundraiser. This proves beyond a SHADOW of a doubt that the school board doesn't give a shit about the debt OR the well-being of the children. It is obvious they care more about humiliating and punishing poor people instead. This isn't even debatable. I mean, what the fuck is this shit?? You raise a big to-do about the money and then REJECT someone's offer to pay the money because the parents didn't meet your standard on the Horatio Alger scale?? The public shaming is more important to them. The cruelty is the point. And it's seeping like a slow-drip poison into every aspect of society.
I agree. I'm willing to pay what likely amounts to be about $1/week in taxes to fund this fully by the Feds. This is a friggin' joke. I've gotten nasty texts about my daughter being 13 cents in arears for God's sake! That's 13 pennies not even 13 dollars!
Edit: We can argue about whether or not kids will eat 'healthy' meals or not, that's fine, but they should be friggin' free regardless...
Just so everyone understands what is going on here. Certain students (well, really their parents) had racked up large school lunch debts. The school district threatened to turn them into child protective services if they didn't pay. Local business owner comes in and offers to pay off the debt of ALL of it, and the school board REJECTS the offer. I don't know how much more transparent this can possibly be. This would be like if a hospital didn't accept funds for a cancer patient that were collected at a fundraiser. This proves beyond a SHADOW of a doubt that the school board doesn't give a shit about the debt OR the well-being of the children. It is obvious they care more about humiliating and punishing poor people instead. This isn't even debatable. I mean, what the fuck is this shit?? You raise a big to-do about the money and then REJECT someone's offer to pay the money because the parents didn't meet your standard on the Horatio Alger scale?? The public shaming is more important to them. The cruelty is the point. And it's seeping like a slow-drip poison into every aspect of society.
I agree. I'm willing to pay what likely amounts to be about $1/week in taxes to fund this fully by the Feds. This is a friggin' joke. I've gotten nasty texts about my daughter being 13 cents in arears for God's sake! That's 13 pennies not even 13 dollars!
Edit: We can argue about whether or not kids will eat 'healtjy' meals or not, that's fine, but they should be friggin' free regardless...
Look, I happen to have fond memories of the school cafeteria food, but I'm guessing I'm in the minority. Most of the slop they are passing off as "food" for these kids shouldn't cost anything. The idea that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich "substitute" (which is what kids have gotten in alot of these incidents around the country) is any more or less "costly" to the district than that bowl of tomato soup and whatever is passing for a grilled cheese sandwich in that picture is laughable. I mean, how much do you think they are charging parents for that single grilled cheese sandwich, about 5 or 6 spoonfuls of tomato soup, 2 sticks of celery, what probably amounts to 1/20th of the contents of a can of fruit, and a carton of milk that wouldn't even fill a dixie cup??
Just so everyone understands what is going on here. Certain students (well, really their parents) had racked up large school lunch debts. The school district threatened to turn them into child protective services if they didn't pay. Local business owner comes in and offers to pay off the debt of ALL of it, and the school board REJECTS the offer. I don't know how much more transparent this can possibly be. This would be like if a hospital didn't accept funds for a cancer patient that were collected at a fundraiser. This proves beyond a SHADOW of a doubt that the school board doesn't give a shit about the debt OR the well-being of the children. It is obvious they care more about humiliating and punishing poor people instead. This isn't even debatable. I mean, what the fuck is this shit?? You raise a big to-do about the money and then REJECT someone's offer to pay the money because the parents didn't meet your standard on the Horatio Alger scale?? The public shaming is more important to them. The cruelty is the point. And it's seeping like a slow-drip poison into every aspect of society.
I agree. I'm willing to pay what likely amounts to be about $1/week in taxes to fund this fully by the Feds. This is a friggin' joke. I've gotten nasty texts about my daughter being 13 cents in arears for God's sake! That's 13 pennies not even 13 dollars!
Edit: We can argue about whether or not kids will eat 'healtjy' meals or not, that's fine, but they should be friggin' free regardless...
Look, I happen to have fond memories of the school cafeteria food, but I'm guessing I'm in the minority. Most of the slop they are passing off as "food" for these kids shouldn't cost anything. The idea that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich "substitute" (which is what kids have gotten in alot of these incidents around the country) is any more or less "costly" to the district than that bowl of tomato soup and whatever is passing for a grilled cheese sandwich in that picture is laughable. I mean, how much do you think they are charging parents for that single grilled cheese sandwich, about 5 or 6 spoonfuls of tomato soup, 2 sticks of celery, what probably amounts to 1/20th of the contents of a can of fruit, and a carton of milk that wouldn't even fill a dixie cup??
I said I'm willing to pay. I'm more willing to pay for calories to poor kids than for low calorie healthy crap they won't eat. That doesn't mean I'm against healthy food, it just means I want kids to eat what I'm paying for!
Just so everyone understands what is going on here. Certain students (well, really their parents) had racked up large school lunch debts. The school district threatened to turn them into child protective services if they didn't pay. Local business owner comes in and offers to pay off the debt of ALL of it, and the school board REJECTS the offer. I don't know how much more transparent this can possibly be. This would be like if a hospital didn't accept funds for a cancer patient that were collected at a fundraiser. This proves beyond a SHADOW of a doubt that the school board doesn't give a shit about the debt OR the well-being of the children. It is obvious they care more about humiliating and punishing poor people instead. This isn't even debatable. I mean, what the fuck is this shit?? You raise a big to-do about the money and then REJECT someone's offer to pay the money because the parents didn't meet your standard on the Horatio Alger scale?? The public shaming is more important to them. The cruelty is the point. And it's seeping like a slow-drip poison into every aspect of society.
I agree. I'm willing to pay what likely amounts to be about $1/week in taxes to fund this fully by the Feds. This is a friggin' joke. I've gotten nasty texts about my daughter being 13 cents in arears for God's sake! That's 13 pennies not even 13 dollars!
Edit: We can argue about whether or not kids will eat 'healtjy' meals or not, that's fine, but they should be friggin' free regardless...
Look, I happen to have fond memories of the school cafeteria food, but I'm guessing I'm in the minority. Most of the slop they are passing off as "food" for these kids shouldn't cost anything. The idea that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich "substitute" (which is what kids have gotten in alot of these incidents around the country) is any more or less "costly" to the district than that bowl of tomato soup and whatever is passing for a grilled cheese sandwich in that picture is laughable. I mean, how much do you think they are charging parents for that single grilled cheese sandwich, about 5 or 6 spoonfuls of tomato soup, 2 sticks of celery, what probably amounts to 1/20th of the contents of a can of fruit, and a carton of milk that wouldn't even fill a dixie cup??
I said I'm willing to pay. I'm more willing to pay for calories to poor kids than for low calorie healthy crap they won't eat. That doesn't mean I'm against healthy food, it just means I want kids to eat what I'm paying for!
Edit: Once again, I'm for educating people rather than forcing people. Eventually our education system will be so good that kids will 'choose' healthy foods. Until then, I'd rather they eat what I pay for rather than throw it in the garbage...
Just so everyone understands what is going on here. Certain students (well, really their parents) had racked up large school lunch debts. The school district threatened to turn them into child protective services if they didn't pay. Local business owner comes in and offers to pay off the debt of ALL of it, and the school board REJECTS the offer. I don't know how much more transparent this can possibly be. This would be like if a hospital didn't accept funds for a cancer patient that were collected at a fundraiser. This proves beyond a SHADOW of a doubt that the school board doesn't give a shit about the debt OR the well-being of the children. It is obvious they care more about humiliating and punishing poor people instead. This isn't even debatable. I mean, what the fuck is this shit?? You raise a big to-do about the money and then REJECT someone's offer to pay the money because the parents didn't meet your standard on the Horatio Alger scale?? The public shaming is more important to them. The cruelty is the point. And it's seeping like a slow-drip poison into every aspect of society.
I agree. I'm willing to pay what likely amounts to be about $1/week in taxes to fund this fully by the Feds. This is a friggin' joke. I've gotten nasty texts about my daughter being 13 cents in arears for God's sake! That's 13 pennies not even 13 dollars!
Edit: We can argue about whether or not kids will eat 'healtjy' meals or not, that's fine, but they should be friggin' free regardless...
Look, I happen to have fond memories of the school cafeteria food, but I'm guessing I'm in the minority. Most of the slop they are passing off as "food" for these kids shouldn't cost anything. The idea that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich "substitute" (which is what kids have gotten in alot of these incidents around the country) is any more or less "costly" to the district than that bowl of tomato soup and whatever is passing for a grilled cheese sandwich in that picture is laughable. I mean, how much do you think they are charging parents for that single grilled cheese sandwich, about 5 or 6 spoonfuls of tomato soup, 2 sticks of celery, what probably amounts to 1/20th of the contents of a can of fruit, and a carton of milk that wouldn't even fill a dixie cup??
It's about $2 for a complete meal. A 1/2 pint of milk costs $0.15. I'm pretty sure that's less than I pay at the grocery store. That's not including low income discounts since I don't qualify for those. For far less than the cost of a Happy Meal low income families can feed their kids. I'm willing to pay for this completely but don't fucking tell me that parents that can't 'afford' this are struggling to pay for their fucking cigarettes or booze or weed...
The problem at the moment is that Johnson ran on a ticket of Brexit at any cost - including no deal at all, whereas (according to the leadership poll results) approx. one third of Conservative MPs are totally opposed to a no-deal Brexit. So it's not another party that's propping up the conservative party at the moment, it's members of Johnson's own party who completely disagree with his stance on Brexit.
Indeed. Theresa May had a problem that without a working majority she could be held hostage by a relatively small group of hard Brexiteers. The problem for Johnson is that there's a larger group of soft Brexiteers in the party and they are just as prepared to hold him hostage to prevent a no deal Brexit. The solutions he's floated to that are:
1) Dissolving Parliament in the period running up to 31 October (to prevent it making any change to the existing legislation that would mandate an exit then, irrespective of whether there's a deal).
2) Convincing the EU to agree a new deal in principle prior to 31 October and sort out the details later.
Option 1) would make a mockery of democracy and create a constitutional crisis. One issue associated with that that I've seen little discussion of is the role of the queen - who would have to agree to this action. Commentators who have referred to the issue have assumed she would simply agree - as by convention the queen does not express her own will above that of the government. However, I'm not at all sure she would in fact agree. The question is, is it the government the queen should listen to or Parliament? In the situation where the government is clearly trying to frustrate the will of Parliament, my own view is that the queen would decide her duty would be to support Parliament (as the sovereign expression of democracy in the country) and not the government. In practice she could make that position clear to Johnson in advance to prevent him ever actually trying this strategy.
Johnson, unlike Trump, clearly has an ambition to govern on behalf of everyone in the country. However, whatever his wishes might be he has to deal with realities. He's always had a fast and loose relationship with the truth, so there's no reason for anyone to simply trust what he says. That makes it extremely unlikely the EU would agree any sort of non-binding commitment in order to allow option 2) - there's not enough time before October to agree a new set of detailed and binding arrangements. If he did try and offer the EU lots of sweeteners to encourage them to agree to some sort of outline arrangement, he would immediately of course be attacked by the Brexiteers that voted him in.
However great his confidence in his own charisma to allow him to be all things to all people, I think on Brexit he's on to a loser from the start:
- he's given extremely strong assurances that the UK will leave on 31 October, so reverting to wanting another extension will be very hard to sell to those that voted him in.
- there's not enough time to do a new deal and he's been so scathing about the existing deal that a proposal to now agree to that would again not be acceptable to those who voted him in.
- there's a clear majority both in Parliament and the country against a no deal Brexit. It is possible that he will find a way to allow that to happen anyway, but that would kill any hopes he currently has to remain Prime Minister for long thereafter.
My prediction is that it will become apparent by September even to Johnson that the EU won't play with him and he will be unable to reconcile the deeply opposed positions within his party. Left with no realistic options under the current Parliamentary arithmetic I think he will gamble on a general election with the hope that his electoral appeal will give him a fresh mandate (and a real majority). While I don't think his personal appeal would give that prospect much hope, there is a chink of light for him in the fact that Farage has indicated that the Brexit party would be open to electoral cooperation to ensure Brexit goes ahead in October. If the Conservatives and Brexit party did a deal to only put forward one candidate in each seat - and their opponents did not do a similar deal - the logic of the 'first past the post system' would give Johnson a chance of a significant majority despite getting a minority of the votes.
The problem at the moment is that Johnson ran on a ticket of Brexit at any cost - including no deal at all, whereas (according to the leadership poll results) approx. one third of Conservative MPs are totally opposed to a no-deal Brexit. So it's not another party that's propping up the conservative party at the moment, it's members of Johnson's own party who completely disagree with his stance on Brexit.
Indeed. Theresa May had a problem that without a working majority she could be held hostage by a relatively small group of hard Brexiteers. The problem for Johnson is that there's a larger group of soft Brexiteers in the party and they are just as prepared to hold him hostage to prevent a no deal Brexit. The solutions he's floated to that are:
1) Dissolving Parliament in the period running up to 31 October (to prevent it making any change to the existing legislation that would mandate an exit then, irrespective of whether there's a deal).
2) Convincing the EU to agree a new deal in principle prior to 31 October and sort out the details later.
Option 1) would make a mockery of democracy and create a constitutional crisis. One issue associated with that that I've seen little discussion of is the role of the queen - who would have to agree to this action. Commentators who have referred to the issue have assumed she would simply agree - as by convention the queen does not express her own will above that of the government. However, I'm not at all sure she would in fact agree. The question is, is it the government the queen should listen to or Parliament? In the situation where the government is clearly trying to frustrate the will of Parliament, my own view is that the queen would decide her duty would be to support Parliament (as the sovereign expression of democracy in the country) and not the government. In practice she could make that position clear to Johnson in advance to prevent him ever actually trying this strategy.
Johnson, unlike Trump, clearly has an ambition to govern on behalf of everyone in the country. However, whatever his wishes might be he has to deal with realities. He's always had a fast and loose relationship with the truth, so there's no reason for anyone to simply trust what he says. That makes it extremely unlikely the EU would agree any sort of non-binding commitment in order to allow option 2) - there's not enough time before October to agree a new set of detailed and binding arrangements. If he did try and offer the EU lots of sweeteners to encourage them to agree to some sort of outline arrangement, he would immediately of course be attacked by the Brexiteers that voted him in.
However great his confidence in his own charisma to allow him to be all things to all people, I think on Brexit he's on to a loser from the start:
- he's given extremely strong assurances that the UK will leave on 31 October, so reverting to wanting another extension will be very hard to sell to those that voted him in.
- there's not enough time to do a new deal and he's been so scathing about the existing deal that a proposal to now agree to that would again not be acceptable to those who voted him in.
- there's a clear majority both in Parliament and the country against a no deal Brexit. It is possible that he will find a way to allow that to happen anyway, but that would kill any hopes he currently has to remain Prime Minister for long thereafter.
My prediction is that it will become apparent by September even to Johnson that the EU won't play with him and he will be unable to reconcile the deeply opposed positions within his party. Left with no realistic options under the current Parliamentary arithmetic I think he will gamble on a general election with the hope that his electoral appeal will give him a fresh mandate (and a real majority). While I don't think his personal appeal would give that prospect much hope, there is a chink of light for him in the fact that Farage has indicated that the Brexit party would be open to electoral cooperation to ensure Brexit goes ahead in October. If the Conservatives and Brexit party did a deal to only put forward one candidate in each seat - and their opponents did not do a similar deal - the logic of the 'first past the post system' would give Johnson a chance of a significant majority despite getting a minority of the votes.
A hard Brexit will be interesting to say the least. I work for a German company and they've said that they've lost 11% of trade with the UK already. That's 'before' a hard Brexit!!!
Just so everyone understands what is going on here. Certain students (well, really their parents) had racked up large school lunch debts. The school district threatened to turn them into child protective services if they didn't pay. Local business owner comes in and offers to pay off the debt of ALL of it, and the school board REJECTS the offer. I don't know how much more transparent this can possibly be. This would be like if a hospital didn't accept funds for a cancer patient that were collected at a fundraiser. This proves beyond a SHADOW of a doubt that the school board doesn't give a shit about the debt OR the well-being of the children. It is obvious they care more about humiliating and punishing poor people instead. This isn't even debatable. I mean, what the fuck is this shit?? You raise a big to-do about the money and then REJECT someone's offer to pay the money because the parents didn't meet your standard on the Horatio Alger scale?? The public shaming is more important to them. The cruelty is the point. And it's seeping like a slow-drip poison into every aspect of society.
I agree. I'm willing to pay what likely amounts to be about $1/week in taxes to fund this fully by the Feds. This is a friggin' joke. I've gotten nasty texts about my daughter being 13 cents in arears for God's sake! That's 13 pennies not even 13 dollars!
Edit: We can argue about whether or not kids will eat 'healtjy' meals or not, that's fine, but they should be friggin' free regardless...
Look, I happen to have fond memories of the school cafeteria food, but I'm guessing I'm in the minority. Most of the slop they are passing off as "food" for these kids shouldn't cost anything. The idea that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich "substitute" (which is what kids have gotten in alot of these incidents around the country) is any more or less "costly" to the district than that bowl of tomato soup and whatever is passing for a grilled cheese sandwich in that picture is laughable. I mean, how much do you think they are charging parents for that single grilled cheese sandwich, about 5 or 6 spoonfuls of tomato soup, 2 sticks of celery, what probably amounts to 1/20th of the contents of a can of fruit, and a carton of milk that wouldn't even fill a dixie cup??
It's about $2 for a complete meal. A 1/2 pint of milk costs $0.15. I'm pretty sure that's less than I pay at the grocery store. That's not including low income discounts since I don't qualify for those. For far less than the cost of a Happy Meal low income families can feed their kids. I'm willing to pay for this completely but don't fucking tell me that parents that can't 'afford' this are struggling to pay for their fucking cigarettes or booze or weed...
Edit: Or lottery tickets...
Well regardless, I'm telling you. That's $2 per meal, which is how much over the whole year? If you don't think someone could struggle to afford that, you must have never had to deal with financial hardship in your life. Good to see you never got over your inane assumption that all poor people are alchoholics or drug addicts. Is that what you think of me?
Just so everyone understands what is going on here. Certain students (well, really their parents) had racked up large school lunch debts. The school district threatened to turn them into child protective services if they didn't pay. Local business owner comes in and offers to pay off the debt of ALL of it, and the school board REJECTS the offer. I don't know how much more transparent this can possibly be. This would be like if a hospital didn't accept funds for a cancer patient that were collected at a fundraiser. This proves beyond a SHADOW of a doubt that the school board doesn't give a shit about the debt OR the well-being of the children. It is obvious they care more about humiliating and punishing poor people instead. This isn't even debatable. I mean, what the fuck is this shit?? You raise a big to-do about the money and then REJECT someone's offer to pay the money because the parents didn't meet your standard on the Horatio Alger scale?? The public shaming is more important to them. The cruelty is the point. And it's seeping like a slow-drip poison into every aspect of society.
I agree. I'm willing to pay what likely amounts to be about $1/week in taxes to fund this fully by the Feds. This is a friggin' joke. I've gotten nasty texts about my daughter being 13 cents in arears for God's sake! That's 13 pennies not even 13 dollars!
Edit: We can argue about whether or not kids will eat 'healtjy' meals or not, that's fine, but they should be friggin' free regardless...
Look, I happen to have fond memories of the school cafeteria food, but I'm guessing I'm in the minority. Most of the slop they are passing off as "food" for these kids shouldn't cost anything. The idea that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich "substitute" (which is what kids have gotten in alot of these incidents around the country) is any more or less "costly" to the district than that bowl of tomato soup and whatever is passing for a grilled cheese sandwich in that picture is laughable. I mean, how much do you think they are charging parents for that single grilled cheese sandwich, about 5 or 6 spoonfuls of tomato soup, 2 sticks of celery, what probably amounts to 1/20th of the contents of a can of fruit, and a carton of milk that wouldn't even fill a dixie cup??
It's about $2 for a complete meal. A 1/2 pint of milk costs $0.15. I'm pretty sure that's less than I pay at the grocery store. That's not including low income discounts since I don't qualify for those. For far less than the cost of a Happy Meal low income families can feed their kids. I'm willing to pay for this completely but don't fucking tell me that parents that can't 'afford' this are struggling to pay for their fucking cigarettes or booze or weed...
Edit: Or lottery tickets...
Well regardless, I'm telling you. That's $2 per meal, which is how much over the whole year? If you don't think someone could struggle to afford that, you must have never had to deal with financial hardship in your life. Good to see you never got over your inane assumption that all poor people are alchoholics or drug addicts. Is that what you think of me?
Not at all, but I daresay I see enough folks like that at the local party store spending their hard-earned paychecks on shooters and lottery tickets. Theres like 150 school days per year (probably less). That's $300/year. Are you telling me that would break the bank for you? I suppose if you had multiple kids it could be tough but if you're really hurting that bad you likely pay nothing anyway...
Edit: So if the super-poor pay nothing, then in my opinion it's very likely the not-so-poor people making poor life choices that are the bulk of the problem here. Make it free, I don't care. The kids shouldn't have to suffer regardless (and I'd stop getting those annoying phone calls every time I fall more than a dime behind on my payments).
Don't forget that many school districts contract the lunch room--the cafeteria staff are not employees of the school district. If the school district does not pay the money it owes to the corporation then they will typically have to pay even more in late fees, hence the aggressive collection tactics. Still, to have someone come along and offer to pay off all the accounts then the school refuses? That is really odd.
@Balrog99 When my wife was still able to work and we both had jobs and could afford our own place (much better off than we are now), YES, $300 would have totally ruined us. We couldn't afford to buy food the same week that we had to pay rent.
A lot of families do live paycheck to paycheck, and poor spending habits aren't the only reason it would be difficult or even impossible to take a $300 hit, or even half that. There are places in the states where wages are low and living expenses are high, and having disabled family members or health issues can make things even worse.
Especially because that's not necessarily the only $300 hit that might happen in a single year, or a single month.
I think we need to bear in mind that not every family is making the median wage. There are some expenses that would weaken a middle class family but flat out bankrupt a lower class family. The minimum wage ain't that high.
Comments
You are wrong. "Go back to your home country" based on skin color is racist. It's guessing someone's citizenship based on skin color. How many white people has Trump told to go back to their country?
People are part of the problem that excuse such ignorance. People that think it's funny that people are concerned that the President is a white supremacist are going to regret it when you or someone you love is 'the other'.
Maybe you have friends or family that are Hispanic, Asian, brown, Jewish, purple or whatever. Maybe not but such hatred will never end. First they came for x, then y, then z.
Your turn will come buddy. And would these same MAGA chuds chanting "send her back" be happy when they are told to go home to their country? How about the golden rule folks.
A gas station employee was fired for "go back to your country" and as @jjstraka34 mentioned that phrase is specifically mentioned in Federal regulations as being racist workplace harrasment.
Here's the gas station employee held to a higher standard than the disgusting President.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/naperville-sun/ct-nvs-naperville-mobil-clerk-video-fired-st-0719-20190718-66teypxeajfrflkafhznhzao7m-story.html
Only morons can't see there is no difference between races other than appearance and upbringing. There seems to be a plethora of morons in the world. The far right doesn't have a monopoly on racism though. There's plenty to go around. I wish everybody could see people as individuals, rather than a list of appearances, genetic traits, stereotypic upbringing, and where they were born/raised and how much money their parents have.
Imagine all the people, judged on who they are instead of pre-judged before you know them. That doesn't mean there aren't assholes, it just means you shouldn't predict who they might be by where they came from. I miss John Lennon...
@WarChiefZeke I think whether Omar is guilty of anything or not is a side issue. The point is that you said clearly you believe that deportation is an appropriate response for committing fraud.
The only thing that would have made it better was if he didn't disavow it, but we've come to expect him to be only half-baked in that regard. His supporters said it because they meant it. They meant it, and it is the correct response. He should care as little to defend himself from the foaming-at-the-mouth hordes as they care about the concept of confirmation bias."
"I don't care if you are a Congressperson or a farm worker, your citizenship should be revoked and you should have to reapply, after a certain time period for a penalty, if you commit fraud. You should, quite literally, be deported."
Given that Trump's statements are about 4 people - and 3 of those were born in the US - that seems a very extreme position to take. Deportation of citizens used to be a popular criminal punishment in the UK, though it was last used in 1867. There would be major logistical as well as moral problems with trying to do that these days ...
You've often said you're not a fan of Trump. Would you then advocate applying the same punishment to him:
- his mother was born in Germany, so Trump is no more of an American than 3 of the 'Squad'.
- he's committed fraud on numerous occasions, both before and after becoming President.
You can still be critical of a place even if the place you came from was worse off.
I will complain about an over done hamburger and if the response is "well go back to mcdonald's and eat their crap if you don't like it!" completely misses the point of my objection. Sure the burger that was over done is better than McD's but being critical of it just means I want it better, not just for myself, but for everyone else who enters the restaurant.
That same sort of scenario can be played out with Omar if you want. She loves this country. She has stated many times that she is privileged to live in the US. But the US is far from perfect. She was elected to congress to address these imperfections and make the country a better place for everyone. You may disagree on how to make it better, but that is what democracy is all about. Sharing of ideas, debating them, improving them to find compromise.
As for the Omar marrying her brother, if the right needs to constantly rely on unprovable conspiracy theories to push their narratives about individuals it shows that they cannot attack that person's views but only make shit up about them. I think you railed against the Trump dossier when it came out saying that none of it was provable and it was just the lefts attempt to slander Trump. There is no difference between that allegation and the one with Omar, except maybe Trump's was derived from an actual former spy (credible) and Omar's comes from an instatgram post where it was the comment "here's my nieces" was misunderstood. If you know muslim cultural, their all fam, and call themselves brothers and sisters all the time (at least here, in my multicultural city).
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@Balrog99 I wouldn't say search engines were "white washed," they just became more polished and better at doing their job. Top sites know how to gauge google and other algorithms to return top results where the local wackjob page doesn't.
I wouldn't be surprised if some pages like the chans get boycotted. You really don't want your great grandmother who is searching for a salad tosser to click on one of those links. The chans, and sites like it get hits by word of mouth though so they don't really need search engines.
If you refine your search a bit, you maybe able to make a couple pop up, but that, and the creation of the dark web have pushed most of them out of site.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-ilhan-omar-marriage-smear-went-from-an-anonymous-post-on-an-obscure-forum-to-being-embraced-by-trump
And that is how it works. That is how you brainwash thousands if not millions of people. There isn't much talk around here in any context about the 2004 election, and the Swift-Boat campaign against Kerry (led by the same person who would later start the conspiracy about Obama's birth certificate). People in retrospect claim this was on the fringe. Bullshit. This stuff is mainstream in Republican politics. Because I remember the 2004 Republican convention. And I remember the people who think they have a monopoly on patriotism wearing Purple Heart "band-aids" to mock a Vietnam veteran they have been convinced by a right-wing media machine faked his injuries. It wasn't "some people", it was the entire crowd at the Republican Convention in 2004. And I remember watching it with my grandma, who lost a son in Vietnam and proudly displayed his own Purple Heart on a shelf in her modest home, and she was almost shaking in anger at the display. The Republican base has been this way for 20 years. Trump is simply the avatar that allows them to let their freak-flag fly. This has been there the whole time, it's just that Trump is willing to tap into it way, WAY deeper than Bush, McCain and Romney were willing to. But it's a dam that has been ready to burst since Reagan opened his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi. The monster escaped the lab.
This must have been where Trump remembered his "new" slogan - love it or leave it. He must have remembered this from his childhood fondly.
"Make America Great Again" means there's something wrong with America now, so by his argument he needs to leave it because he hates America.
And wasn't he just clutching his pearls about free speech. He is a free speech warrior BUT if you say something he doesn't like he wants to kick you out of the country. Hmmm.. Maybe he's lying when he says he cares about free speech?
He got the media again too, they reported the lies he told and boy do they look foolish now because it turns out he was lying all along. Ha ha fake news take that. So maga or something.
And hey he lied about Omar and AOC while he was at it. Serving up red meat to his gullible supporters to attack the strawman he's created. It's a genius plan just lie something outrageous and literally dozens of people believe it regardless! And the entire Republican party is too scared to argue, disagree, or think for themselves! The art of the con! Stable genus!
“Incredible patriots” is the new “very fine people”: Trump defended the racist chants a day after unconvincingly trying to distance himself from “send her back,” the president abruptly reverses course and flip flopped back to supporting racism.
https://www.vox.com/2019/7/19/20700941/trump-racist-chants-incredible-patriots-ilhan-omar-apollo-11
"You can't talk that way about our country - Not while i'm president"
Or......what exactly?? Set aside the fact that he's just making up quotes out of thin air and attributing them to them. This kind of statement coming from the leader of the Executive Branch is positively one of the most ridiculous things any President has ever said. At long last, we've now moved into the first chapter of the wiping out dissent phase of this nightmare. And where is the "free speech" brigade when this is uttered?? Radio goddamn silence.
Trump is going to marshal the darkest forces imaginable to get re-elected. It's increasingly clear he cannot possibly win the popular vote. If things stay on this track, the Democrats likely get back Pennsylvania and Michigan while Trump will almost certainly hold Ohio and likely Florida. And the entire thing could come down to Wisconsin, where years of Scott Walker's voter suppression have tilted the field. It's entirely likely that Trump could lose nationwide by upward of 5 million votes but be put back into office by 10,000 votes in Wisconsin. This is where we are at a mere 2 1/2 years in. 8 years of this and there won't be anything left to save.
I'm guessing people have missed this among everything else, but it's incredibly important. White collar prosecutions and fines have all been curtailed under this Administration:
https://news.yahoo.com/white-collar-prosecutions-corporate-fines-115601809.html
They are handing everything to the corporate overlords, and they aren't even BOTHERING to make them abide by any rules. What took place the last time that was allowed?? And what do you imagine will happen if the economy implodes because of Wall Street greed again in his second term?? That is the real nightmare scenario. Trump in full demagogue and authoritarian mode, emboldened by re-election when the economy tanks. He would direct the ire of his cult at ANYONE but himself. Pray this doesn't happen, because it will be the end of this country as we know it if it takes place. If 10-15% of the country suddenly can't make their house payment, they are going to look for someone to blame. And, historically, that person would of course be the President. But this President will attempt to direct that anger away from him, and the way he will do so is to direct it at the same groups he has been demonizing for 3 years and counting. It's always been hard to understand exactly how what took place in Germany in the 30s and 40s could have possibly come to be. I understand now. All too clearly. The only thing that is required to push us over the edge is a national crisis.
Question, when is UKs next election. IIRC, here in Canada, it is proper etiquette to call an election when the PM is replaced because the populace didn’t vote for that person.
I think a new election at this time would be beneficial and not the doom and gloom and end of Britain I have been reading. I think there was enough false information floating around the time of the first referendum vote that has now been completely clarified that it's going to be a hard exit or no exit. Anything in between is wishful thinking and people shouldn't assume that is going to happen. So any party that runs on "we're going to hold a new referendum within a month after the election" would win it.
Just so everyone understands what is going on here. Certain students (well, really their parents) had racked up large school lunch debts. The school district threatened to turn them into child protective services if they didn't pay. Local business owner comes in and offers to pay off the debt of ALL of it, and the school board REJECTS the offer. I don't know how much more transparent this can possibly be. This would be like if a hospital didn't accept funds for a cancer patient that were collected at a fundraiser. This proves beyond a SHADOW of a doubt that the school board doesn't give a shit about the debt OR the well-being of the children. It is obvious they care more about humiliating and punishing poor people instead. This isn't even debatable. I mean, what the fuck is this shit?? You raise a big to-do about the money and then REJECT someone's offer to pay the money because the parents didn't meet your standard on the Horatio Alger scale?? The public shaming is more important to them. The cruelty is the point. And it's seeping like a slow-drip poison into every aspect of society.
I agree. I'm willing to pay what likely amounts to be about $1/week in taxes to fund this fully by the Feds. This is a friggin' joke. I've gotten nasty texts about my daughter being 13 cents in arears for God's sake! That's 13 pennies not even 13 dollars!
Edit: We can argue about whether or not kids will eat 'healthy' meals or not, that's fine, but they should be friggin' free regardless...
Look, I happen to have fond memories of the school cafeteria food, but I'm guessing I'm in the minority. Most of the slop they are passing off as "food" for these kids shouldn't cost anything. The idea that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich "substitute" (which is what kids have gotten in alot of these incidents around the country) is any more or less "costly" to the district than that bowl of tomato soup and whatever is passing for a grilled cheese sandwich in that picture is laughable. I mean, how much do you think they are charging parents for that single grilled cheese sandwich, about 5 or 6 spoonfuls of tomato soup, 2 sticks of celery, what probably amounts to 1/20th of the contents of a can of fruit, and a carton of milk that wouldn't even fill a dixie cup??
I said I'm willing to pay. I'm more willing to pay for calories to poor kids than for low calorie healthy crap they won't eat. That doesn't mean I'm against healthy food, it just means I want kids to eat what I'm paying for!
Edit: Once again, I'm for educating people rather than forcing people. Eventually our education system will be so good that kids will 'choose' healthy foods. Until then, I'd rather they eat what I pay for rather than throw it in the garbage...
It's about $2 for a complete meal. A 1/2 pint of milk costs $0.15. I'm pretty sure that's less than I pay at the grocery store. That's not including low income discounts since I don't qualify for those. For far less than the cost of a Happy Meal low income families can feed their kids. I'm willing to pay for this completely but don't fucking tell me that parents that can't 'afford' this are struggling to pay for their fucking cigarettes or booze or weed...
Edit: Or lottery tickets...
Indeed. Theresa May had a problem that without a working majority she could be held hostage by a relatively small group of hard Brexiteers. The problem for Johnson is that there's a larger group of soft Brexiteers in the party and they are just as prepared to hold him hostage to prevent a no deal Brexit. The solutions he's floated to that are:
1) Dissolving Parliament in the period running up to 31 October (to prevent it making any change to the existing legislation that would mandate an exit then, irrespective of whether there's a deal).
2) Convincing the EU to agree a new deal in principle prior to 31 October and sort out the details later.
Option 1) would make a mockery of democracy and create a constitutional crisis. One issue associated with that that I've seen little discussion of is the role of the queen - who would have to agree to this action. Commentators who have referred to the issue have assumed she would simply agree - as by convention the queen does not express her own will above that of the government. However, I'm not at all sure she would in fact agree. The question is, is it the government the queen should listen to or Parliament? In the situation where the government is clearly trying to frustrate the will of Parliament, my own view is that the queen would decide her duty would be to support Parliament (as the sovereign expression of democracy in the country) and not the government. In practice she could make that position clear to Johnson in advance to prevent him ever actually trying this strategy.
Johnson, unlike Trump, clearly has an ambition to govern on behalf of everyone in the country. However, whatever his wishes might be he has to deal with realities. He's always had a fast and loose relationship with the truth, so there's no reason for anyone to simply trust what he says. That makes it extremely unlikely the EU would agree any sort of non-binding commitment in order to allow option 2) - there's not enough time before October to agree a new set of detailed and binding arrangements. If he did try and offer the EU lots of sweeteners to encourage them to agree to some sort of outline arrangement, he would immediately of course be attacked by the Brexiteers that voted him in.
However great his confidence in his own charisma to allow him to be all things to all people, I think on Brexit he's on to a loser from the start:
- he's given extremely strong assurances that the UK will leave on 31 October, so reverting to wanting another extension will be very hard to sell to those that voted him in.
- there's not enough time to do a new deal and he's been so scathing about the existing deal that a proposal to now agree to that would again not be acceptable to those who voted him in.
- there's a clear majority both in Parliament and the country against a no deal Brexit. It is possible that he will find a way to allow that to happen anyway, but that would kill any hopes he currently has to remain Prime Minister for long thereafter.
My prediction is that it will become apparent by September even to Johnson that the EU won't play with him and he will be unable to reconcile the deeply opposed positions within his party. Left with no realistic options under the current Parliamentary arithmetic I think he will gamble on a general election with the hope that his electoral appeal will give him a fresh mandate (and a real majority). While I don't think his personal appeal would give that prospect much hope, there is a chink of light for him in the fact that Farage has indicated that the Brexit party would be open to electoral cooperation to ensure Brexit goes ahead in October. If the Conservatives and Brexit party did a deal to only put forward one candidate in each seat - and their opponents did not do a similar deal - the logic of the 'first past the post system' would give Johnson a chance of a significant majority despite getting a minority of the votes.
A hard Brexit will be interesting to say the least. I work for a German company and they've said that they've lost 11% of trade with the UK already. That's 'before' a hard Brexit!!!
Well regardless, I'm telling you. That's $2 per meal, which is how much over the whole year? If you don't think someone could struggle to afford that, you must have never had to deal with financial hardship in your life. Good to see you never got over your inane assumption that all poor people are alchoholics or drug addicts. Is that what you think of me?
Not at all, but I daresay I see enough folks like that at the local party store spending their hard-earned paychecks on shooters and lottery tickets. Theres like 150 school days per year (probably less). That's $300/year. Are you telling me that would break the bank for you? I suppose if you had multiple kids it could be tough but if you're really hurting that bad you likely pay nothing anyway...
Edit: So if the super-poor pay nothing, then in my opinion it's very likely the not-so-poor people making poor life choices that are the bulk of the problem here. Make it free, I don't care. The kids shouldn't have to suffer regardless (and I'd stop getting those annoying phone calls every time I fall more than a dime behind on my payments).
https://schoolnutrition.org/aboutschoolmeals/schoolmealtrendsstats/
Especially because that's not necessarily the only $300 hit that might happen in a single year, or a single month.
I think we need to bear in mind that not every family is making the median wage. There are some expenses that would weaken a middle class family but flat out bankrupt a lower class family. The minimum wage ain't that high.