A man for all seasons landscaping

@SpencerGuard @FreeBeacon My grandparents were part of this movement - how is the suffering of partition somehow supposed to persuade us this is a good idea? And that was an example where the displaced people had a different country willing to welcome them.

@SpencerGuard @FreeBeacon "Mass population transfers have been common after wars. The classic example are those of the late 1940s, when there were no fewer than 20 different groups—including the Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus of the Punjab" What?

Must read: The Historical Case for Trump’s Riviera by Sir Andrew Roberts @FreeBeacon (- my summary, start a war & lose a war, there are always consequences, not reward which would cause more wars). Much of the international condemnation of Donald Trump’s "Riviera" plan for Gaza rests on the assumption that the Palestinians retain sovereignty over the territory, despite all the events that have taken place since their incursion into Israel on October 7, 2023, and that they also continue to have the right to choose their own government. In fact, historical precedent suggests that Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel that day, and its condign punishment by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), have severe implications for whether the Gazans still have the right to decide their own destiny, and who governs them. For again and again in the past, peoples who unleash unprovoked aggressive wars against their neighbors and are then defeated—as the Gazans have been on any conceivable metric—lose either their government or their sovereignty, or both. It would be strange were Hamas somehow to buck this historical trend. Mass population transfers have been common after wars. The classic example are those of the late 1940s, when there were no fewer than 20 different groups—including the Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus of the Punjab, the Crimean Tartars, the Japanese and Korean Kuril and Sakhalin Islanders, the Soviet Chechen, Ingush, and Balkars, even the Italians of Istria—who were moved to different regions. At the time of the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, over 800,000 Jews from Arab lands were forced out of lands that they had lived in for centuries. freebeacon.com/israel/the-his…

@jonathanchait There's a real danger of a powerful guy facing consequences for his actions and that will not stand. What kind of country is the US if someone can be excluded from political office for trying to carry out an autogolpe.

I have heard the legal case for this, but the politics and civics of this move are awful. Hope/expect SCOTUS to overturn.

@matthewschmitz Surely preserving democratic traditions require prosecuting powerful people who attempt to subvert democracy through an autogolpe.

For those sincerely concerned to preserve our democratic traditions, there is no need to take such drastic measures. As disruptive as Mr. Trump can be, his success testifies to American voters’ desire for moderation and skepticism of extremist ideologies.

Trump is often denounced as a “threat to democracy” with radical and extreme policies. But he enjoys enduring support because he is seen by many voters — often with good reason — as a pragmatic if unpredictable kind of moderate. My essay for the @nytimes: nytimes.com/2023/12/18/opi…

The Rwanda deportations policy has become the perfect political example of the Sunak Cost Fallacy.

@guardian "The first year was the worst, and the second year was the worst too. The third year I didn't enjoy at all. After that the UK went into a bit of a decline."

Need a Christmas party game? Try ranking 13 years of Tory screw-ups in order of severity | Andrew Rawnsley #Echobox=1702161685" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

@IanDunt Liz Truss still has allies?

Yes that's it. Definitely. Simon Clark is the solution to your problems. That's not mad at all.

@Darin1981 @waitmanb Scientists have been trying to get the developed world to reduce carbon emissions for decades. But it turns out the reason why they didn't succeed is that this guy on the internets isn't persuasive enough.

If we aren’t supposed to eat animals, why are they made out of meat?

@DougJBalloon In this US space agency, it was a tradition: hire a few nazis to build your rockets to the moon. But now the woke mob is taking all of that away.

American History X Bad boy Elon is the sexiest Nazi since a beef-upped Ed Norton, and he’s turned the platform formerly know as Twitter into an online fight club. by Maureen Dowd

@waitmanb It was necessary to abolish human rights in order to save them.

I'm sorry, WHAT?! thetimes.co.uk/article/human-….

@StevePeers Luke ... we've passed emergency legislation stating Alderaan still exists.

The Home Secretary:

@SeanJonesKC twitter.com/BexleyLister/s…

@PippaCrerar Does he mean a private jet flight for himself?

Sunak says "we are working extremely hard" to get a plane taking off to Rwanda "in the Spring".

BREAKING: Rishi Sunak says he will change domestic law to prevent domestic courts blocking Rwanda asylum plan. He will take "necessary steps" to prevent Strasbourg court from stopping flights - hinting he's prepared to leave European human rights convention.

@PippaCrerar UK to start throwing asylum seekers out of planes. Sunak proposes to circumvent objections that they'll fall to their deaths by passing law stating up is down.

PM tells press conference: "I will not allow a foreign court to block these flights. I am prepared to do what is necessary. I will not take the easy way out." He adds that the patience of British people "can only be stretched so thin" as they expect boats to be stopped.

all sorts of terrible corporate and government crimes are being done while news media focuses on Israel-Palestine twitter.com/astroehlein/st…

Wave of expulsion of refugees: Not just Pakistan and Turkey, Iran is quietly deporting tens of thousands of afghans, too hrw.org/news/2023/11/1… tolonews.com/afghanistan-18… twitter.com/suhaunah/statu…

@GeorgePeretzKC @StevePeers I assume she wrote it in crayon before some poor assistant had the job of typing it up.

@legalstyleblog @DanKaszeta

Enough is enough, I have submitted my vote of no confidence letter to the Chairman of the 1922. It is time for Rishi Sunak to go and replace him with a 'real' Conservative party leader.

This is so badly written I assume the original draft was in crayon before some poor assistant had to type it up.