Which I think the EU is justified in doing. The UK clearly wants something that's impossible (not subject to EU rules, no hard border between RoI and NI, no border within the UK). One of those has to give, and the UK has thus far refused to concede to that basic fact. There's no reason for the EU to help the UK when all their efforts will be immediately spat on by a House of Commons that wants the impossible.
Which remains one of the arguments for why the leave side is so adamant, but they're not just afraid of losing England. If departing the EU isn't the disaster they promised they're afraid other countries will follow. At the citizen level in the UK it's become a much more visceral battle where both sides seem to find it preferable to let everything burn rather than see the other side 'win'. I feel like a hard brexit might be the only way they do leave, in which case I wonder how far the EU would be willing to go in terms of mutual economic damage. Even so, what are the odds Johnson could get parliament behind that? I would guess not good...
Well, holy shit. Looks like (most) of your government finally did the right thing: https://apnews.com/096173d122bb4e32...AP&utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter I have to say I've been super impressed with the work that John Stewart has done to get this to happen. Love this picture of McConnell walking on his way into the vote...
I tend to think that the gong show that is the British Parliament is too busy throwing shit at each other and themselves to do anything that requires such coordination and premeditation. Say what you will of May, but she inherited this shit show and tried to do exactly what you're suggesting, and the Parliamentary circle-jerk that ensued got her booted and "Mr. Brexit" in. There are a number of things they could do in this scenario, but they're not, and in the process they are losing a large number of corporations who are running away from the bullshit. Same thing happened in Quebec when their separatist clamour got really, really loud... companies didn't like the uncertainty and pulled out in a big way... to the point that the government then had to provide huge tax incentives to keep the ones that were around, or to lure them back.
There was never an option other than a hard Brexit. The turmoil in British Parliament is more theatrics than anything. Even if Parliament had a unanimous vote to do something, each of the 27 EU member states has a veto vote, which they can throw down at any time for any reason. There was no Brexit scenario that was going to fully satisfy Ireland, Spain and a few others. It would be vetoed immediately and it only takes 1 vote of 27 to torpedo the whole thing. What will happen most likely, is that the UK will lose most, if not all, of its negotiating ability. While the UK cant tug the leash on Europe, the US certainly can and does over and over again. The UK will need to pin itself economically to the US which will have to negotiate on its behalf. And quite honestly, in the long run, theyre probably better off. They have common currency without a common banking policy. The credit market is based on bank lending and not on the backs of bonds or stocks. No one wants to the foot the bill for the military union that was supposed to happen. Italy, Spain and Greece will probably never fully recover economically, and they will be at the tit of Germany and France forever. Seems more like a long-fused powder keg than the diplomatic utopia that was promised.
I'm still holding out hope that the UK Hexits (is that what we're calling it now? Hexit? HaBrexit? whatever), Northern Ireland asserts its right to rejoin the Republic of Ireland under the Good Friday Agreement, Scotland says "fuck it" forces a second independence referendum, and all three (Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland) rejoin/stay in the EU as The Celtic Union. The Isle of Man, Wales, and Cornwall are implicitly invited but unlikely to come along.
I feel like they'll just end up doing what the United States does: the rich buy the uniforms and the poor wear them. It'll just be a little more obvious in the EU when all the soldiers have too many consonants in their last names.
What the fuck is this Mueller testimony? It’s an embarrassment for everyone involved, including Mueller. Jesus Christ the guy won’t answer questions about anything whatsoever. “It’s in the report,” and “I’m not going to get into it.” What was the point of having him testify in the first place?
What is the point of even following it by now? I'm surprised people on here care about this as much as they do. I can't remember which candidate it was in the democrat debate, but he summed it up quite well "When I go town halls nobody asks about the Mueller report. People don't care about it." The media is far more interested in this than the general public is, especially by now. Sorry to be the one to state the obvious, but this story is dead. Everything is public theater at this point.
And yet look at all the people following it. You can tell yourself that it's a non-issue all you want, but it's getting a shit-ton of focus right now.
That and also because most people didn’t read any of the report for themselves. A lot of people only go by easily digestible sound bites. Which is stupid, but hey, that’s America.
Oooh. I really wish I had time to watch this testimony. After listening to Jimmy Dore a little bit, did anyone ask: 1. Based on the core concept of your report - that GRU assets hacked and stole DNC documents and provided them to Wikileaks; was an interview request extended to Julian Assange? If not, why not? 2. How was the material transmitted to Wikileaks? What evidence do you have of this? 3. Please explain how Wikileaks announced the documents published prior to allegedly receiving the documents from Russian assets?
Let me save you the trouble of speculation: “I’ll refer you to the report.” “I’m not going to get into that at this time.”
I only got to watch a few minutes on the shitter at work today. Basically the reps would set up a partisan question hoping to get a sound bite, he'd say "I'm not going to get into that." Like clockwork reading the recap each side has a few lines he said theyve latched onto and will run with as absolute proof and I get the feeling my dump this morning was as important as this mind numbing political theater.
I mean the Democrats' goal was obvious the whole way: get the Mueller Report on video and in short enough clips so that the average American retard doesn't tune out. They've had to fight the uphill battle of Barr lying about the contents of the report from the outset and Trump just repeating "NO OBSTRUCTION, NO COLLUSION" like a broken speak n' spell, and they were looking for ammo. If you read the report, the testimony was always going to be redundant. Republicans for their part were attempting to prop up a few conspiracy theories that could somehow explain how everything to do with the Mueller Report was fake news. Unless they got Mueller to literally crack and say "you're right, it was all orchestrated by the Clintons and all of the fact patterns I discovered along three separate axes (Russian interference, campaign's contacts with Russians, obstruction of justice) were all made up," it was always going to be them just asking wild eyed questions to a Mueller who would respond that such things were not his concern because they were not in the scope of his investigation, the results of which are included in his report.