On Monday night, in the span of thirty minutes, The Washington Post launched a flurry of nuclear-tipped Op-Eds aimed directly at Donald Trump and the Republican Party. There was no dancing around the issue. No false equivalence between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. No "both sides do it" comparison of the GOP and Democratic Party. The Washington Post did something that is verboten in modern America: They spoke the unvarnished truth about Republicans and, wow, did it get ugly!

All the links and juicy quotes in their article

keep to the Fen Causeway

The leftwing case for Brexit is strategic and clear. The EU is not - and cannot become - a democracy. Instead, it provides the most hospitable ecosystem in the developed world for rentier monopoly corporations, tax-dodging elites and organised crime. It has an executive so powerful it could crush the leftwing government of Greece; a legislature so weak that it cannot effectively determine laws or control its own civil service. A judiciary that, in the Laval and Viking judgments, subordinated workers' right to strike to an employer's right do business freely.

Its central bank is committed, by treaty, to favour deflation and stagnation over growth. State aid to stricken industries is prohibited. The austerity we deride in Britain as a political choice is, in fact, written into the EU treaty as a non-negotiable obligation. So are the economic principles of the Thatcher era. A Corbyn-led Labour government would have to implement its manifesto in defiance of EU law.
A closer look at the leftwing case for Brexit
Letters: A truly leftwing agenda would be one based on cross-national cooperation and solidarity
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And the situation is getting worse. Europe's leaders still do not know whether they will let Greece go bankrupt in June; they still have no workable plan to distribute the refugees Germany accepted last summer, and having signed a morally bankrupt deal with Turkey to return the refugees, there is now the prospect of that deal's collapse. That means, if thereported demand by an unnamed Belgian minister to "push back or sink" migrant boats in the Aegean is activated, the hands of every citizen of the EU will be metaphorically on the tiller of the ship that does it. You may argue that Britain treats migrants just as badly. The difference is that in Britain I can replace the government, whereas in the EU, I cannot.

That's the principled leftwing case for Brexit.

Now here's the practical reason to ignore it. In two words: Boris Johnson.

He neatly summarizes all of my reservations about how the European project has evolved from a social europe into a Thatcherite one. But his idea that, one day, when Britain reliably vote in leftish governments, we can leave to create a socialist utopia of our own, is simply the warmed over fantasies of Tony Benn from the 70s.

The world is too inter-connected now, for good and ill. Longing for isolationism is, to use Mason's slur late in the article, politically immature. I would rather fix the world we have and we'd best do it togeher

keep to the Fen Causeway

Frankly, the entire debate is an argument within the Tory party and both factions are being as stupid as each other. Just the other week Boris described the EU unification process as;-

Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods.

So far, so Boris. You can laugh, you can scoff, but nothing touches a man who will do anything to ensure his name is on Page One of the papers.  Whether it helps the Brexit campaign is an entirely other thing.

However, Remain has covered itself with something, but dignity wasn't it. They are trying a form of Rovian jujitsu and are trying to use project fear (of foreigners) . Cameron first stated that President Putin would want Brexit, then tacked by saying that if we vote to leave, ISIS itself will immediately attack.

At some point one of these buffoons will claim we're all going to die if the vote goes against them.

Meanwhile, having got their fingers burned by allying themselves with the Tories during the Scottish referendum, Labour are mostly standing apart. They largely want to remain, but I think they realise nobody will be listening to them as the two sides of the Tory party scream at each other idiotically. There's little room in the debate for measured thought.

Anyway, amidst all the screeching, the pollsters report that Remain has maintained a slim lead. Maybe 44/42, maybe 47/38, but it's not yet a decisive lead. This is problematic because if the vote is close, the losers will not accept defeat. And the prospect of a settled peace within the Tory party will vanish almost entirely; their differences are out in the open and, given the childish tantrums on display by both sides, the woundss will not heal. Rather they will fester and erupt, I can honestly see the conservative party being torn apart.

Can't wait


keep to the Fen Causeway

Monday marks the 100 years since the signing of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the secret Anglo-French pact reached during the First World War that proposed splitting the Middle East up into zones of foreign control. The Middle East has been frequently afflicted with war since then, but the situation now -- with ISIS holding territory in Iraq and across the Fertile Crescent, civil war in Syria, government paralysis in Lebanon, growing autocracy and violence in Turkey, and talk of an intifada in Israel and the occupied territories -- has inspired particular debate on the century-old agreement's legacy [...]

The agreement was concluded in secret partly because it represented a betrayal of promises the British government had already made to Hussein bin Ali, the sharif of Mecca. During the war, in an effort to foment an Arab rebellion against the Ottomans, the British sought Hussein's support by agreeing to back the creation of an independent Arab state, with a few caveats. In what is known as the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, Britain laid out the conditions: It wanted to maintain rights in Baghdad and Basra, and it wanted to set aside pieces of present-day Syria, which it said were not fully Arab. The Arabs duly revolted against the Ottomans, with the help of the British military officer T.E. Lawrence. But after the war, the British would maintain that the correspondence did not represent a formal treaty, though Hussein and his family insisted it did. In any case, the promises made to Hussein were in irreconcilable conflict with the Sykes-Picot Agreement.

The remarkable story of how Churchill ended up before the court of ultimate retribution in a red wig began when a new priest, Josef Maisburger, took over the parish church in in the western Austrian province of Vorarlberg in 1934.

Ken Loach won his second Palme d'Or - the festival's highest honour - for I, Daniel Blake, a social-realist drama about a disabled carpenter struggling with the red tape of the benefits system. The director, who turns 80 next month, returned from retirement to make the film, and took to the stage at the Palais to address the audience in French.

"The festival is very important for the future of cinema," he said, instructing all present to "stay strong."

Loach continued by saying it was "very strange" to received the award in such glamorous surroundings, considering the conditions endured by those people who inspired the film.

"When there is despair, the people from the far right take advantage," said Loach. "We must say that another world is possible and necessary."

Jury member Donald Sutherland praised I, Daniel Blake as "an absolutely terrific movie that resonates in your heart and soul," backstage during a press conference.

Obama can appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court if the Senate does nothing  WaPo  OpEd  Gregory L. Diskant

In most respects, the meaning of the "Advice and Consent" clause is obvious. The Senate can always grant or withhold consent by voting on the nominee. The narrower question, starkly presented by the Garland nomination, is what to make of things when the Senate simply fails to perform its constitutional duty.

It is altogether proper to view a decision by the Senate not to act as a waiver of its right to provide advice and consent. A waiver is an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege. As the Supreme Court has said, " `No procedural principle is more familiar to this Court than that a constitutional right,' or a right of any other sort, `may be forfeited in criminal as well as civil cases by the failure to make timely assertion of the right before a tribunal having jurisdiction to determine it.' "

It is in full accord with traditional notions of waiver to say that the Senate, having been given a reasonable opportunity to provide advice and consent to the president with respect to the nomination of Garland, and having failed to do so, can fairly be deemed to have waived its right.

I live such a placid, peaceful life that the killing of unarmed black kids by cops, the bombing of Palestinians by Israelis, all the major shit ... just passes me by, a curiosity. But today I had a very minor taste of what it may feel like. And, BTW, my typing this is catharsis (gesundheit) for this episode. Another learning experience among the apes.  🐵

This morning around 9:30, I'm in bed and I hear a commotion outside; I ignore it. My neighbor knocks on my door, says a street work crew would like me to move my car; it's in the way. Absolutely no warning before it happens. My neighbor asks if it's OK if he and the workmen move my car; I say "sure"; the doors are unlocked, it's in gear with the emergency brake on. I forget that the steering wheel locks without the key in the ignition. Fifteen minute later I go out, my car is "reparked",  slightly on the sidewalk, the product of reduced steering capability;  my car isn't blocking the sidewalk by any means. But, since I don't know how this is going to work out, I write down the license plate number of the work crew dump truck, very visibly, no words exchanged. I do some shit inside, go back to bed, ready to repark my car to it's old place once the work crew leaves. 3:00 ...  work crew gone, large square asphalt area where the crew dug and filled in. No big. Back my car up into it's old place, and I notice something on my windshield under the wiper. I think, "Maybe the crew left some kind of form for me to send in to complain. That would be decent of them."

Guess what !!!  It's a parking ticket for $52.50 for PARKING ON THE SIDEWALK !!!

I can imagine one of the asshole workman thinking, just before they left, "Let's fuck with the guy who took down our license number", and he calls the cops. Get this: I have to send the $$$ to REVENUE SERVICES; right to the point; This is how we make money !!

When I started typing this bit I was really pissed off !! Now I'm nice and calm, ready to be a good citizen, write out a check and chalk it up as a learning experience. All Clint Eastwood urges are gone. Fun, huh? 😒

They tried to assimilate me. They failed.