Mushtaq

Mushtaq

@mushtaq44.bsky.social

Mostly letting off steam - steer clear if you want to avoid politics! But you can’t avoid it sadly, more now than ever 🙁 Also cricket, chess, interesting stuff from sane people… Support Ukraine. Buy shares in history professors. No DMs.

337 followers229 following5.7K posts

Starmer isn’t exactly popular and has made a number of mistakes in 2 years of Govt, but perhaps Labour crowning the most untested PM in modern UK political history, out of frontline politics for decade, with no clear differential policy agenda, might not turn out quite as well for them as they hope…

The divide in America? Those who think the country should be a safe haven for those who seek freedom from oppression, and those who think the country should be a safe haven for those who seek freedom from the consequences of their actions.

Can’t believe these EU/UK politicians are taking this “2 week window cr*p” seriously and trying to “negotiate” with Iran. They’re just giving Trump cover to do whatever he wants when the “negotiations” inevitably fail.

The main difference between Trump 1 and Trump 2? When he says ‘why don’t they just shoot them (protesters)?’ It will happen. When he says ‘why not inject bleach?’ He will get endorsement. When he says ‘why don’t we nuke hurricanes?’….

‘Councils spending too much money et on consultants’ shouts Reform, as it brings forward plans to send “task forces” into councils to identify waste and save money…

Absolute b*llsh*t reporting/framing across the UK MSM this morning, credulously reporting Russia’s “willingness” to reduce its territorial claims in Ukraine in return for “concessions”. Russia has no legitimate territorial claims to give up and the idea that this some sort of runner is contemptible.

Of course it’s no surprise that this stuff emerged from outlets like WSJ and Financial Times that have been actively pushing Russian and US appeasement narratives at convenient times for over 3 years. As usual Putin must be p*ssing himself laughing.

Seeing the middle aged women celebrating/gloating outside the Supreme Court after the trans ruling made me want to puke. Regardless of legal merits of the ruling, the total lack of empathy for a class of people who will now feel considerably more vulnerable and scared belies their true motivations.

In some ways it is a shame that no doubt the vast majority of trans men will choose to show the empathy these women deny others, with their self-righteous belief that transwomen are all predators out to harm other women, and continue to respect their “safe spaces” even if apparently they should.

Imagine having pretensions to claiming to be a leader when you are prepared to wilfully place yourself in the minority of your own party - and not immediately resign when they won’t follow you.

Which he did. A day later. Starmer fresh from his “triumph” is now stuck as the only European leader yet to issue a strong statement backing Zelenskyy. Because having “got something” from Trump (promise of avoidance of tariffs etc) he’s know given Trump leverage.

Mushtaq@mushtaq44.bsky.social

Starmer needs to urgently cancel his meeting with Trump after today. No good will come of it and Trump will probably try to openly humiliate him.

I dunno, it feels like maybe, just maybe, there’s just the embryo of a fightback emerging. Let’s hope this is one time when the Republican campaign against abortion prevails.

If they’ve got into Treasury payment mightn’t they have got into international banking? Even US debt payments? This isn’t a domestic US crisis. They could start breaking banks and countries. And the International Monetary system.

Trump’s going to be so torn in a few short weeks when he has the choice between ignoring the Debt Ceiling and demonstrating his total neutering of Congress and defaulting on US debt which he’s been gagging to do for over 6 years. Could go either way.

One thing to note is that in most cases Trump is doing all this stuff across the board without even having nominees confirmed and in post. They are doing it anyway. Dems should be rejecting it anyway. But they are still doing it regardless. Because they are destroying the Civil Service from within.

For many years most in the rest of the Western world could be content with the idea that often America was wrong for the right reasons. That is no more. America is wrong. It is motivated by bad reasons. They must be resisted whatever the cost.

And so, because it’s still (apparently) still a few weeks, maybe months a way (a lifetime in this current admin), the issue which consumed Washington for months a couple of years ago, and was said could destroy the global economy ie the DEBT CEILING, has been almost forgotten about…

In a few short months (increasingly optimistic timeline) the US administration is going to speed run a global economic, health and political crises, and then use the (usually legitimate) “excuse” that they are a victim of International events to ensure that they do not receive domestic blame.

On day one he signs an EO declaring ‘there are only two genders male and female’ - essentially denying the legal existence of transgenders. On day 7 he bans “that which does not legally exist” from the military.

Meanwhile whilst the sh*t is going on we are probably only a few months away from US defaulting its debts, nuking the $ and the world economy. Last time Trump wanted to do this but everyone around him warned him off. The vast majority of those advising him will be saying very different this time…

The main problem with the “blanket pardons for non- existent crimes” to lift threat of Government persecution is that the pardon only applies to events pre Jan 2025. So if the Govt wants to persecute you for non-existent crimes then they can just do it with “crimes” post Jan 2025.

Not that it matters probably, but are there not Republican Senators who are going to be a tiny bit p*ssed off about this supposed “saving” of TikTok? Bit difficult to believe that they all wanted it leveraging into the Ukraine/Israel funding bill just in the hope that it would make Dems look bad…

The price that Trump is going to demand for ongoing support to Ukraine is going to be enormous. Difficult to believe, but they may be better off going it alone (with allies who actually have the interests of their country and people at heart).

Once a criminal enterprise controls a country at every level it becomes near impossible to remove it, because all those with any power to trigger change are complicit in the criminality, and will not be able to retain their own power in the event of real change.

Has Trump announced his intention to retain legal counsel to the Presidency? Seems like an obvious and easy saving given he can't actually do anything illegal as President and suffer any consequences.

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