Who’s controlling this global mendacity?

Slight quandary which to run with here:

* The joke of Merz in Germany riding a wave of stopping illegals at the border, being returned in a near landslide, then next day turning around and reversing the policy, a la Starmer…

* The joke of Bondi saying the Epstein files are on her desk, then she, Luna and Mace deciding instead to have a jolly in Dallas on a “fact finding tour”, asking old-timers if they remember JFK…

*. The joke conference with Zelensky demanding money, with Trudeau, Starmer and Macron suddenly finding billions whilst cost cutting the indigenous vulnerable in their countries…

* Merz saying the AfD has no voice, ditto Macron on Le Pen in France, ditto Starmer and Reform in the UK…

* The policy of raiding, imprisoning, firing from jobs any daring to criticise govt policy.

I’m thinking the clever ruse of reversing policy straight after election, a la Johnson, Starmer and now Merz is the one to look at here now … namely how on earth they have the temerity, brazenly, in front of the public which just elected them, to suddenly renege. 

Politicians are not known for courage, so someone or something has emboldened them to do this … the sheer gall of it is jawdropping. They’re vious quite convinced there’ll be no comeback on it … or maybe the comeback is factored in … maybe people like May and Johnson happily accepted they could do thisbe swept aside some yars later, their job for their masters done.

The question was, and still is… who exactly are their masters?

Well, They Would Say That, Wouldn’t They?

To the 'Guardian' letter pages!

Recent press comment about the role of the attorney general, Richard Hermer, referred to in your article (‘Deeply unfair’: how attorney general became lightning rod for criticism of Starmer, 13 February), overlooks the principle that those representing parties in contentious litigation have the right, and indeed the duty, to put forward the case for their clients without fear or favour, so that, as and when appropriate, the court or tribunal can itself independently decide whether such a case is or is not valid. As the great British advocate and judge Norman Birkett once pointed out in a radio talk about the art of advocacy, it is essential that a lawyer’s presentation of the case for a client is not perceived as an expression of the lawyer’s personal opinions.

With decisions as perverse as this one being made by them, that's going to be pretty difficulty to maintain, isn't it?  

Not only would this be incorrect as a matter of fact, but it would also undermine our system of justice, under which the case for each side is fully and objectively presented before a decision is made by an impartial and independent tribunal.

Stories like this one aren't really helping are they? 

Those who state or imply that, in doing this, the lawyers are advancing their own personal opinions, are doing immense and untold damage, not only to our legal system but to society as a whole. They are undermining the rule of law and opening a path towards a society in which the public no longer trust the legal system or the individuals who participate in it.

So, who is saying this?  

Stephen Hockman KC and Sam Townend KC

Former chairs, Bar Council Christina Blacklaws and I Stephanie Boyce Former presidents, Law Society

Ah.  

The problem with climate change “reports”

 There are, imho, quite a few problems with this article in TDS:

HERE

… and the first is summed up in an old quote from the OUP:

”We believe a scientist because he can substantate his remarks, not because he is elegant and forcible in his enunciation. In fact we distrust him when he seems to be influencing us by his manner.”

-I.A.Richards, Science and Poetry, 1926, in the Oxford Quick Reference Quotations, Ed. Susan Ratcliffe, OUP, 1999.

The problems then continue in the linked article where the author, Chris Morrison, writes:

“Needless to say, there has been no mention of these finding(s) in narrative-driven mainstream media. In fact one Nature pre-publication peer-reviewer commented on the clear danger the paper presented to this important climate scares promoting the Net Zero fantasy. “I see this paper as potentially being used by deniers of climate change impacts,” the reviewer notes. “Consider if possible some rephrasing to put even more emphasis on impact rather than on burned area,” is the suggestion. In other words, concentrate on the emotional impact of individual fires, allowing legacy media, aided by junk computer modelled attribution studies, to concentrate on speculation and fearmongering rather than the facts. Another clear example of what might be termed Ultra Processed News, designed to make the individual consumer sick with worry and induce mass climate psychosis.”

The problem with that piece of prose, aside from being unclear on the goodies and baddies unless Chris defines which are which … is that he himself opened with similar:

“Sensational Findings Published in Nature Blow Politicised Wildfire Climate Scam Out of the Water”

He redeems himself to a point, quoting Anthony Watts, but the Milliband “fanatics” are simply going to trot out their own “scientists” …. hundreds of them … in less fanatical language, projecting “junk” stats as Chris writes and thus the classic adversarial camps scenario is set up, where only one side’s “stats” are used and no mention is made of false meteorological station readings, for example, which were widely reported in soc-med in the past two years.

On a different topic but the methodology by the “Demonrats” v ICE is similar … there’s always straight projection onto the whistleblowing side by the called-out side, as Vox Day mentioned long ago … to the extent that the key Deep State miscreants actually call themselves The Resistance … really? Resistance to what, pray tell? To “far-right, racist disinformation crims” (us), whilst the Deep State apparatchiks occupy the “middle ground” through the MSM, “defending our Democracy”?

An example of this use of the calling-out side’s, the whistleblowing side’s, own vocab store of expressions and projecting it back, was in a Gladstone quote in the OUP book quoted near the top:

”I absorb the vapour and return it as a flood.”

-W.A.Gladstone, on public speaking, in Lord Riddell, Some Things that Matter (1927 Ed.)

The methodology we prefer … but it takes huge wallops of ethics, a lack of fear of what we’ll find, plus a willingness to concede some points but then cite others counter to that … is to see the snippets of data and opinion all laid out on a large table after a brainstorming session by those of all persuasions … with varying theories of interpretation also laid out on said table …

… but I fear that that model is a product of wishful thinking … how long in that room before the headbutting starts between the orators of the two camps? Always two, note, on any given bone of contention, as if it must be, by definition, a zero sum argument, one side “demolishing” the other as Badenough and the Llama-Harmer imagine they do at PMQs, to the headshaking of Reform.

DEI’s main crime is everyone’s safety

Whether it’s on land, water or in the air … even on a bridge in Florida … it’s a lawless, dangerous place now … the vulnerable are the first to be hit.

When the US govt appears to be fighting for European peoples

At 11:38 p.m., Friday, I should not have woken up, having crashed for the night … anyway, here we are, not even Saturday, thought I’d check X and there’s Publius, a key anon pundit close to MAGA.

Rand Paul tried to “@DOGE” the Senate Budget last night with a $1.5 trillion Spending Cut Amendment, but it crashed 24-76. All Democrats voted NO, joined by 29 RINOs like McConnell, Graham, Cornyn, Tillis, and Thune – thwarting his attempt to reduce inflation and debt.

Here are the 29 “Republicans” who joined every Democrat in voting this down:

Banks (R-IN) – 2030 (Elected 2024) Blackburn (R-TN) – 2030 (Elected 2024) Boozman (R-AR) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Budd (R-NC) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Capito (R-WV) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Collins (R-ME) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Cornyn (R-TX) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Cotton (R-AR) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Cramer (R-ND) – 2030 (Elected 2024) Crapo (R-ID) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Fischer (R-NE) – 2030 (Elected 2024) Graham (R-SC) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Grassley (R-IA) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Hawley (R-MO) – 2030 (Elected 2024) Hoeven (R-ND) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Hyde-Smith (R-MS) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Lankford (R-OK) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Marshall (R-KS) – 2026 (Elected 2020) McConnell (R-KY) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Moran (R-KS) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Mullin (R-OK) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Murkowski (R-AK) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Ricketts (R-NE) – 2030 (Elected 2024) Rounds (R-SD) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Scott (R-SC) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Sullivan (R-AK) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Thune (R-SD) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Tillis (R-NC) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Wicker (R-MS) – 2030 (Elected 2024)

*NOTE: These dates assume no resignations, special elections, or other unforeseen changes.

All right … the context for non-Americans and for Americans unaware:

Yes and no … the combined House and Executive does have a say and POTUS does have the right of veto on actual bills … which one would assume he would use with Thune’s big-spending bill, inc. the Ukraine money Zelensky demanded.

Remember that this just now was a vote against a bill, not a bill in itself … in other words, the Senate “vetoed” (voted against) Rand Paul’s amendment. POTUS therefore will instead veto (hopefully) the Thune bill itself to stop it becoming law … the one which bypassed the House proposed bill, backed by POTUS.

Are there any mitigating circumstances for those Republicans above voting with the demonrats?

Well there may be. If House plus POTUS already have a way to kill the bill later, then the Rand Paul amendment might have just been an opening play to flush out the RINOs … or else certain Senators knew of the later play (to come) and did not impede it … it’s a wafer thin argument imho and who am I … not an expert in US division of powers.

But to employ that overused word … the optics certainly look bad to MAGA eyes. They, MAGA, and the RINO GOP, are certainly a house divided, as Lincoln put it long ago. I’ll be interested to see Mike Davis’s comment, though he’s judiciary.

Now, let’s jump across the pond to us and the Llama-Harmer’s latest, as reported and commented on by Vance and one other (Musk? Bondi?):

Also, this comment below appears to be on part of Vance’s speech at CPAC:

The US MAGA govt seems here to be going in to bat for the common folk across Britain and Europe, against their govts.

The ‘Guardian’ Are Beginning To Feel The Winds Of Change

It's always fun when 'Guardian' staffers go out amongst the people of this fair land...

As strange as it may sound, Rugeley felt like a good place to feel the global shock waves from the inauguration of Donald Trump – dutifully attended, let’s not forget, by the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos – and to find out what people thought about his style of politics. Last summer, the result in the local constituency of Cannock Chase saw the first stirrings of a change that has since gripped national politics: Labour and the Tories finished on 36% and 29% of the vote respectively, while the Anglo-Trumpers of Reform UK took a very impressive 27%.

And if it were run right now, Labour would be lucky to get into double figures, wouldn’t they? 

As this shift has played out, there have been recent suggestions that any British appetite for Trump-style politics is bound to be limited.

Well, maybe you shouldn’t believe all you’re told.  

In Rugeley, it did not feel like that.

See? 

Our first stop was a bustling community centre, where a parent and toddler group was happening next to a weekly lunch for pensioners – and we got a sharp sense of how the quiet privations and disappointments of 21st-century English lives have opened people to the specious promises of hard-right populism.

What 'hard - right populism', John?  

We had a long conversation with Emma and Cian, a couple who had come with their baby. “This is a very, very quiet town – it always has been,” she said. “Not a lot goes on around here … and nothing lasts long.” To most people, Cian told me, the arrival and eventual winding-down of the Amazon warehouse had barely registered. He didn’t know anyone who had worked there. “It’s just a big blue building at the end of the town that’ll be gone soon.” I wondered: when the government changed last year, did it make them feel any different about the future? “No,” said Emma, wearily. “We don’t expect anything out of what we’re told.”

Not exactly the fires of revolution, but maybe those aren't too far off... 

What if a Trump-type figure promised to make Britain great again? She laughed, and glanced at her partner. “We’ve got different opinions on that,” she said. “I kind of like what he’s doing. I wish more would be put into the UK. I think we need someone with a bit more of … an oomph about them.”

Oh dear! Seizing on a brown face like a drowning man seizing a lifebelt, John tries again:

Nearby, we met Kenan, a Turkish-born Just Eat driver – forced into the world of endless delivery shifts, he said, when his IT business went bust during the pandemic. When I mentioned Trump, his face lit up.

“He’s the man,” he said. “He’s the man.” “He’s reckless,” he told me, and he was not using that word as a pejorative. “He does what he says, not like other politicians. They say they’re going to do something with the economy, and they don’t do it. But Donald Trump does.” Did it feel strange to be bigging up someone so set against immigration? “As a foreigner,” he said, “I’ve seen people only using the system. And I’m working 12 or 13 hours a day.”

Heh! And why shouldn't he be aggrieved by that, John? Why should he feel solidarity with them? 

As darkness fell, we sat in a car park, listening to the first Trump speech of inauguration day with one of the car windows down.

The locals probably thought you were dogging…. 

A white transit van pulled up next to us: inside was a father and his three kids. He began telling us the details of his life before we even asked about them. “My dad was in world war two,” he said. “When he left the navy, he had three cement wagons, and he put the concrete in Spaghetti Junction in Birmingham.” His daily existence, by contrast, was a mess of financial hardship, the impossibility of combining childcare with work, a dire shortage of mental health provision and the impossibilities of the benefits system. Four days a week, he said, he hardly ate. He was now 50: he had voted only once in his life, and it was for Reform UK. “Some of the things Trump says, some of the things Elon Musk says, some of the things Reform UK say – they sound good,” he said. “But it’s action you want in this country.”

I fear one day we'll see it, and it won't be something John will be rushing out to cover.... 

In praise of Rolf Norfolk, a voice of reason

Bless Sackerson or Rolf Norfolk, such a gentle-man of the old school.  Bless his heart because at first I thought he was excusing Llama-Harmer’s behaviour, that destructive tenacity to hold onto a society-wrecking plan … and not just our society either, just quietly.

Starmer is a wrecking ball, as DJT himself is … one’s been given his instructions by the Frankfurt School, WEF or whatever, the other also has a grand plan, which does wreck the schemes of the corrupt and unfortunately, all those who fell in with them but might also involve much unintended collateral at home along the way … you know the old adage about omelettes and eggs.

Rolf is of the old “big tent” style who tries to come to terms with difficult types … I’m more a brick wall or wrecking ball type … with a bit of Rolf’s compassion for the worthy.  Anyway, it was clear as I went on that he was not excusing Starmer, he was explaining him:

“They do have emotions - often they get on well with animals, who are not so tricky. But for them human social intercourse can be like a tourist trying to speak Greek and their rhythm of responses is halting. As a result they can be misunderstood as impassive, unfeeling. Dan Hodges in the MoS reports a senior government official as saying Starmer is ‘a very strange man. There's no empathy there. You try to talk him through the implications of what he's proposing and he goes blank.

Asperger’s types can be very intelligent but faced with a largely social world that is unpredictable and sometimes frightening or painful they may turn to a model that they can understand and control; not just computer games but - if they have sufficient power - grand schemes with niches for everyone else. In reality the model is bound to be inadequate and the Aspie will be intolerant of ‘square pegs,’ as Adam Smith noted in 1759:

‘The man of system… is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it.’”

I’d say Rolf is not wrong in his analysis here … as a former prep school head, one did not last long without at least being nimble on one’s feet and understanding root causes … but at the same time, there were red lines and the recidivist found a ton of bricks descending where once there had been terse questioning, followed by stern warning and finally the ton of bricks. Some can’t do the ton of bricks bit but occasionally … well often really … it’s necessary.

What’s to come out of the turmoil across the pond, apart from civil war?  Well, there is already civil war brought on by the wreckers from the Lincoln School and Wundt more than a century ago, plus from the Frankfurt School luminaries, Starmer-type destruction simplified into feelgood ideology to bludgeon the middle-class type into submission via the politics of envy.

Yes, there’s already civil war … the MAGA types are simply bringing it to a head … there is stormy weather ahead.  There are two diametrically opposed visions … more than two if the various invaders are included.

I had occasion, in 2007 to 2010, to be most grateful to Rolf Norfolk … I still am.  A good man at heart.

Schools Aren’t There To Worry About ‘The Wellbeing Of Teachers And Headteachers’

Moves to overhaul the way schools are inspected in England have been criticised by headteachers and teaching unions as “demoralising” and worse than the system they are aiming to replace. The changes by the Ofsted schools inspectorate would replace single judgments such as “outstanding” with a new report card for parents. They will be unveiled by Ofsted’s chief inspector, Martyn Oliver, on Monday alongside the launch of a public consultation. The leaders of England’s education unions have derided key aspects of the proposals, as did the family of Ruth Perry, the primary school headteacher whose suicide after an “intimidating” Ofsted inspection precipitated Labour’s pledge to scrap the use of headline grades.

Yes, this entire effort is driven by the fact one - ONE - teacher, who clearly was in the wrong job and must have had other issues, killed herself.  

The new system would grade schools, nurseries and colleges in eight individual areas on a five-step scale, ranging from “exemplary” to “causing concern”, alongside a separate evaluation of whether safeguarding standards were met. Inspections currently look at four to six areas, including safeguarding, on a four-step scale from “outstanding” to “inadequate”. Despite months of discussion by Ofsted, many of the proposals have been rejected as bewildering and ineffective by union leaders, leaving the overhaul in disarray at the start of the 12-week consultation.

If you find this 'bewildering', are you maybe in the wrong job? 

But Prof Julia Waters, Perry’s sister, said her fears that Ofsted was incapable of reforming the inspection regime had been justified. “Ofsted’s proposed new inspection model has some improvements but retains many of the dangerous features of the previous system, while introducing a series of changes with potential new risks to the wellbeing of teachers and headteachers,” Waters said.

Screw their 'wellbeing', they are there to do a job, and if they feel aggrieved at being judged on how well they do it, so what? We are all judged accordingly.

Boris Johnson a case in point

There were two topics to post this morning … one a comment on tyranny by a Narrowboat girl … the other what you see below:

There was one other actually … Zelensky declaring war on the west last evening but that one needs exploring first before posting on it.  Back to Johnson and the Brit-sit.

Whichever of the main two branches of the Uniparty is in, the result will be the same … both are profligate in the worst possible way, just as Biden’s 2020 usurpers were … even on the last day, Biden’s handlers were thinking of places to send the last of the money to.  USAID was the transport vehicle in the main.

Who are the bunnies who pay?  Taxpayers of all kinds of course. Right, as a commenter st our place wrote … only way an individual can hit back, the cumulative effect if everybody does it, is non-compliance with diktats but there are obstacles there.

Firstly, not everyone is of the same mind that things are as bad as they are. Secondly, not everyone is in the same position … all very well calling for non-compliance when you have less to lose … for some, that non-compliance ruins them because of the very piecemeal nature of it across the land.

And that makes it dead easy for the stasi to pick off each person or family one by one over the months, throwing the book at them … either obscene lengths of stints in prison, with long stretches in solitary … or in Nazi Germany back then in Poland, whole villages slaughtered because of one person’s non-compliance.

Clearly there must be an answer to this or else the people of the land perish … whoa, hang on … is that not what WEF Unterfuhrer Starmer is doing … bumping off the elderly and dissident first, whilst flooding the land with fighting age aliens, who also gum up the system?

Boris … Messiah?  Hardly … Mr. Partygoer during Covid is hardly going to do anything whatever for the ordinary Brit … maybe just for Princess Nut-Nut.  Plus his Brexit betrayal too of course.

All right … Reform?  Tice and Farage are useless … M25 bubble people … going for gongs or whatever.

The other three?  The youngest … hardly. Leaving Rupert and Lee … excellent chaps, salt of the earth, they certainly care … do they have what it takes to save the land?  That experience in dirty politics where every person is to a point a quisling?

There’s a lesson in the US on this … DJT was an innocent in a house of traitors in his first term … then the Steal and some sages have written that he had to go through the Steal, the baptism of fire, in order to wake up. For example, would Fauci have been exposed, had DJT just been returned for a final term?

Back to Britain … is there any sort of “leader” on the horizon whatever who can command enough numbers to cross that line?  Farage? Musk said he did not have what it took.  Hmmmmm.

Back to Bill’s non-compliance … I agree in principle … now, in practice … how to go about it with brutalist Starmer?

When Is NHS Bedblocking Dealt With, And When Isn't It?

 

This is Jessie, to whom the organisation people clapped on their doorsteps for showed no mercy, despite it not being her wish to bedblock:

"I feel very angry, upset, worthless, and like my mental health and my life does not matter," says Jessie, propped up in a hospital bed.

She is recording this in a video diary. Blue NHS curtains are drawn around the bed and all her possessions are stacked up in the tiny chaotic space this creates. Among the piles of boxes and bags sit the dolls she holds to keep her calm.

Thirty-five-year-old Jessie spent 550 days in Northampton General Hospital. For nearly all that time, she was medically fit to leave but finding her a suitable place to go to was difficult.

The BBC has followed her story for more than five months as the NHS trust took costly High Court action against her, to have her evicted from the hospital bed she was occupying. 

Meanwhile, in London, action is not taken in five months, no, not even in thrice that number: 

Ruth, you see, is not a patient. Not really. A patient is someone who needs nursing care or medical treatment.

Ruth and Mimi, who’d been living in Grimsby before coming to London, claimed they were homeless and had nowhere to go. Hospitals can obtain possession orders to evict patients from a bed, but the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Barnet, has chosen not to issue legal proceedings.

So what's the difference, Reader? It surely can't be the most obvious thing, can it?