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What you want to say – 1st May 2024 May 1, 2024

Posted by guestposter in Uncategorized.
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Again, happy May Day!

As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.

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1. Tomboktu - May 1, 2024

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2. tomasoflatharta - May 1, 2024
3. Hamid - May 1, 2024

Scoop: Congress threatens ICC over Israeli arrest warrants

The International Criminal Court is being warned by members of Congress in both parties that arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials will be met with U.S. retaliation — and legislation to that effect is already in the works, Axios has learned.

….

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) told Axios he expects a House version of Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-Ark.) bill to sanction ICC officials involved in investigating the U.S. and its allies, but added: “We hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  • Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) said the U.S. should “think of whether we stay a signatory” to the Rome Statute — the treaty that established the ICC. 
  • “We have to think about talking to some of the countries that have ratified [the treaty] as to whether they want to support the organization,” he added.

https://www.axios.com/2024/04/29/icc-congress-netanyahu-israel-gaza

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4. sonofstan - May 1, 2024

I’ve been hard on Rory Carroll more than once here, but this seems on the money:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/may/01/dublin-ireland-police-buses-dismantle-tent-city-asylum-seekers

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WorldbyStorm - May 1, 2024

It’s tricky. It certainly doesn’t look great. But both the Irish Refugee Council, the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland and volunteers working with the asylum seekers have pointed to the fact that the encampment was ‘unliveable’ and on the way to being a public health risk for those there and most of those there wanted to go to more secure accommodation – that that was part of their protest. And that the promised accommodation is better.

But this report notes that there’s concerns from some about where they are sent next. And the broader question remains as to how the state accommodates people who arrive on these shores seeking asylum.

Again we come back to systemic failures across the board in engaging with this issue.
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2024/0501/1446714-mount-street-reax/

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5. Wes Ferry - May 1, 2024

Scottish Parliament votes for full compensation for Waspi women – but Labour abstain

MSPs HAVE backed the Scottish Government in a call for “compensation in full” to be paid to women impacted by state pension inequality.

However, Scottish Labour chose to abstain on the motion – instead pushing an amendment calling for “clarity” on a compensation scheme, which ultimately failed.

The Scottish Parliament voted by 75 votes to zero, with 52 abstentions, for the Government motion which echoed the Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) campaign’s calls for “a higher level of compensation to properly reflect the financial harm” that has been suffered.

A Tory amendment, which went further than Labour’s, called on the UK Government to “respond in full” to a report by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and to “pay compensation to those affected”, was rejected by 31 votes to 74, with 21 abstentions.

The Labour amendment stated there “must be clarity on how any compensation scheme would operate”. It was also defeated by 21 votes to 95, with 11 abstentions.

The National, Scotland

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6. sonofstan - May 2, 2024

Up to vote this morning – Green for locals, Tracy Brabin for Mayor – and then cycled into town a different route. You could may house prices against whether Labour posters have a Union Jack on them or not.

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WorldbyStorm - May 2, 2024

That’s a depressing observation re the posters. The raw calculation in that approach by them.

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Paul Culloty - May 2, 2024

Will be interesting to see if the Green shoots continue in England over the weekend, about the biggest potential result to the left of Labour could be the Mayor of the North East, where a Corbynite independent is neck and neck with Starmer’s standard bearer:

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sonofstan - May 2, 2024

Really hope Driscoll makes it.

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sonofstan - May 2, 2024

‘match house prices’

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Tomboktu - May 5, 2024

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7. Paul Culloty - May 2, 2024

PBP call on SF, Soc Dems and left independents to repeat 2020’s “vote left, transfer left” campaign:

https://www.thejournal.ie/pbp-labour-greens-vote-left-transfer-left-pact-6369241-May2024/

Interestingly, an analysis suggests SF were less inclined to do so in 2020 than they were in 2016, though transfers to their own candidates presumably had an impact there:

https://irishelectionprojections.com/2021/04/05/the-impact-of-vote-left-transfer-left-in-ge2020/

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8. James Monaghan - May 2, 2024

6 June Thursday : Talk by Gerald Hanley on Organised labour in the Irish Free

State 1922-1932. Gerald’s best selling book on the subject was recently

published.

EBLANA NEWS

Eblana Club, Eblana Lodge, 3 Eblana Ave., Dun Laoghaire

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9. Tomboktu - May 2, 2024

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10. sonofstan - May 2, 2024

This is gold: Boris J., who introduced the law requiring hoto ID to vote, turned away from his polling station in Oxfordshire….because he forgot to bring ID.

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-05-02/boris-johnson-turned-away-from-voting-after-forgetting-photo-id?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1714679826

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sonofstan - May 2, 2024

‘photo ID’

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WorldbyStorm - May 2, 2024

It’s has this weird inevitability. Like if it had to happen it happened to him.

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sonofstan - May 3, 2024

On reflection, I’m not convinced it wasn’t deliberate: he doesn’t mind being laughed at, but he hates not being talked about at all.

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WorldbyStorm - May 3, 2024

True. It’s the sort of stuff he’d do.

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banjoagbeanjoe - May 3, 2024

My first thought was he did it for the publicity. First step of his masterplan to recapture the Tory party….

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11. irishelectionliterature - May 2, 2024

I see a lot of posters up from candidates for “Coffee Mornings”. Is that just a South Dublin thing or has it spread to the rest of the country?

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Wes Ferry - May 2, 2024

Less troublesome than candidates profiling themselves under the guise of public meetings nominally on uncontroversial issues, I’d guess.

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6to5against - May 3, 2024

We’ve had a few in North Dublin!

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banjoagbeanjoe - May 3, 2024

Talking to a PbP friend. They said candidates put up posters for these meetings this week, on the best poles and in the best positions, so they can replace them with actual election posters, legally, next week.

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roddy - May 3, 2024

In the days before cable ties ,posters were pasted to telephone poles.I remember circa 1973 a young teenage Roddy was sent to affix posters to said poles on behalf of the “Republican clubs”( when said clubs were still Republican and had’nt yet embraced neo Unionism!).My instructions were to break several bottles and grind the glass into tiny pieces.The powdered glass was then mixed in a bucket with paste and applied to the surface of the posters as a crude type of anti tampering device!

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Dr Nightdub - May 3, 2024

One of the greatest-ever lines of testimony in the District Court was that given by a Garda when me and a mate were prosecuted for fly-posting under the Dublin Metropolitan Police Act 1841, way back in the late ’80s.

Even the judge looked startled when the cop said, “At approximately 10:30pm last night on Aston Quay, I arrested the defendant Thomas Flynn in possession of a roll of posters and the defendant Kieran Glennon in possession of a bucket of paste.”

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WorldbyStorm - May 3, 2024

Jesus, roddy, that’s a rough game. But posters being torn down was a real thing across the island.

Dr. Nightdub. That’s a classic.

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Tomboktu - May 3, 2024

A few years ago somebody posted photos of far-right posters in London pasted onto lampposts with razor blade outlines visible in relief.

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12. Tomboktu - May 4, 2024

The final agenda for the union conference has arrived and I’m scratching my head at some of the procedural recommendations in it. The standing orders committee is recommending that most of the amendments be ruled out of order because they would change the original intention of the motion. But that is one of the main reasons you would want to amend a motion.

In the various organisations I’ve been active in or watched, the only restriction on the content of an amendment I’ve ever come across is in the Parliamentary Assemble of the Council of Europe. It doesn’t allow an amendment that reverses or opposes the purpose or effect of the motion it seeks to amend. (Rónán Mullen complained about that when his efforts to oppose a motion on lgb people was ruled out of order.)

Madness.

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Dolores - May 5, 2024

The final agenda for the union conference has arrived and I’m scratching my head at some of the procedural recommendations in it. The standing orders committee is recommending that most of the amendments be ruled out of order because they would change the original intention of the motion. But that is one of the main reasons you would want to amend a motion.

Fórsa conferences are notoriously staged (any sign of the DL branch being allowed out of their usual random placing at the rear of the hall, preferably behind a column?).

Any idea of which particular amendment(s) are being set up to be kicked in the teeth?

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13. 33claremont - May 4, 2024

“… [Sinn Féin’s] investor memo drafted after a meeting with Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty described the party’s economic approach as more like Tony Blair’s ‘New Labour’ than Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party ….”

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/sinn-fein-tell-investors-they-can-tame-far-right-movement/a7034846.html

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WorldbyStorm - May 4, 2024

Hmmm…

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14. James Monaghan - May 5, 2024

Interesting article. https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2024/05/04/what-is-behind-the-decline-in-support-for-sinn-fein/

What is behind the decline in support for Sinn Féin?The party soared on opposition to Government policy on housing but it faces a huge challenge in its positioning on immigration

“

For now, the party is moving towards the same destination that the Government is. “If people are entitled to refugee status then they should be welcome to stay here and they should be looked after,” says Cullinane. “But we need to return unsuccessful applicants.”

But how will this go down with the party’s progressive voters? Aidan Regan of UCD is sceptical. “If they respond by getting harder on immigration, they are in danger of losing younger urban voters to the Social Democrats,” he says.

“The more urban left-leaning vote – that’s where a lot of their growth has come … Centre-left parties, if they harden on immigration, they tend not to benefit electorally.”

[ Sinn Féin is now out of touch with its own supporters, claims Aontú leader ]

In other words, the new message about being against open borders might have reassured the populists, but has alarmed the progressives.

“They’re not going to be able to take a position on immigration that will win votes of people who are voting on the issue of immigration,” says Regan.”

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Michael Carley - May 6, 2024

So they risk what just happened to BLP? They chase voters with a hard line on immigration and lose votes to their left?

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15. sonofstan - May 5, 2024

Bernard Hill has died. I can’t be the only one here who still quotes lines from the Boys from the Blackstuff, even if only internally.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/article/2024/may/05/bernard-hill-actor-who-rose-to-fame-in-boys-from-the-blackstuff-titanic-lord-of-the-rings-dies-aged-79

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WorldbyStorm - May 5, 2024

+1

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16. Wes Ferry - May 6, 2024

Trump’s war on the Department of Justice over his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election has already progressed into an attempt to delegitimize the results of the 2024 election, suggesting he does not believe he will win in a free and fair election. 

Yesterday, Charlie Spies, the Republican Party’s top lawyer, resigned after Trump turned on him for his public statements that the 2020 election was not stolen. Spies was one of three lawyers the Trump team hired in March after it took over the Republican National Committee (RNC). An establishment Republican lawyer, Spies was paired with MAGA lawyer and former right-wing One America News Network anchor Christina Bobb to oversee the RNC’s so-called election integrity unit. Now Spies is out and Bobb, who has been indicted for election fraud for her participation in the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, remains.

In an astonishing exchange on Meet the Press this morning, Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), who is angling to become Trump’s vice-presidential pick, refused six times to say he would accept the results of the 2024 election if Trump didn’t win. Host Kristen Welker asked: “Will you commit to accepting the election results of 2024?” Scott responded: “At the end of the day, the 47th president of the United States will be President Donald Trump.” Welker followed up: “Yes or no, will you accept the election results of 2024 no matter who wins?” Scott answered: “That is my statement.” 

Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American

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17. Hamid - May 6, 2024
Hamid - May 6, 2024

Ed Balls: People are still talking about the LBC interview when Keir Starmer said Israel had the right to cut off water and power to Gaza Not least because the Labour leadership continues to deny he said it, despite all of us being able to watch him saying it! #GMB

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18. Tomboktu - May 6, 2024

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banjoagbeanjoe - May 6, 2024

‘Everything’s just … on hold’: the Netherlands’ next-level housing crisis https://www.theguardian.com/news/article/2024/may/06/netherlands-amsterdam-next-level-housing-crisis?CMP=share_btn_url

Ierland Nederland. Een struggle.

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19. Hamid - May 6, 2024

John Quiggin:

… it struck me that, whereas mainframe computers were archetypal examples of impersonal and alienating machines, personal computers are, or can be, regarded as extensions of their users, that is, as tools. Employers have long struggled to exert control over office computers and the workers who use them, making them extensions of the machine that is corporate IT. But these efforts have always been resisted, and have broken down, to a large extent, with the shift to remote work. My intuition, following Marx, is that this development presages a bigger shift in the relationship between between workers and bosses.

https://crookedtimber.org/2024/05/01/52657/

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20. Hamid - May 6, 2024

Read the letter from 12 Republican senators threatening ICC chief prosecutor @KarimKhanQC with “severe” consequences for him, his family & staff if he goes ahead with an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. “You have been warned.”

https://x.com/mehdirhasan/status/1787503022299332951

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21. Tomboktu - May 7, 2024

I don’t often get a laugh from the weather forecast: “… up to 20 – I get to say 20., it’s great.”

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