Because Friday night is Music Night

It’s the big one tomorrow morning. England vs Seff Efrica in the World Cup Final. The nerves are jangling. People are saying that England are favourites. Two good teams in a one-off match is pretty much evens in my book. It depends on who brings it.

But I’m up for it, up like John Lennon was up for it the night he smashed this Beatles number. His voice never sounded so strong. That’s Eric Clapton on lead guitar, Keef Richards on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums too. I know, if it wasn’t filmed then no-one would have believed it.

Have a good weekend whatever you’re up too. As always, feel free to share your top sounds down below –

“Since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in 2015, a culture of antisemitism has been allowed to emerge and fester in the Party at all levels … The Jewish Labour Movement only will be campaigning for exceptional candidates and in exceptional circumstance.”

The Jewish Labour Movement cannot and will not support the Labour Party in the General Election. Because it’s an anti-semitic party, you see. Even hardcore left wing Jews are finally waking up to that to the danger they’re in.

Nigel Farage has called on Boris Johnson to drop his Brexit deal or face his party’s candidates in every seat.

Speaking at the Brexit Party’s election campaign launch, he called on the PM to “build a Leave alliance” and seek a free trade agreement with the EU.

If Mr Johnson refuses, Mr Farage said he already had 500 candidates he could field against the Tories in seats across England, Scotland and Wales.

Having defeated Treasonous Remain, Farage sets his sight on Brexit. He’s offering the Prime Minister a deal he simply can’t accept. There’s no way he will ditch his withdrawal agreement for a pact with The Brexit Party.

I sincerely hope that this is infantile willy-waving for the cameras and that serious discussions are happening off-stage. There are two Treasonous Remain MPs in Parliament who should not be. One is there because The Brexit Party split the Tory vote in Peterborough, the other because the Tories split Brexit Party votes in Wales. Without a deal this will happen across scores of seats at the General Election.

They need to identify the 80/90/whatever seats that The Brexit Party has a better shot at than the Tories and allow Farage’s team a clear run in them. That’s the kind of deal needed, not some demented ultimatum which the Prime Minister cannot accept and which will result in another hung Parliament.

A Highlighted comment from Kurt

Comment is free, but facts are sacred

Trump is right we have a dishonest media, but its his own side that is guilty.

Whenever you read a story, the first thing you want to do is focus on is the facts, that’s your insurance policy, and stops you looking foolish later. The next step having established the facts is then to interpret, to give an opinion, to comment upon those facts.

When I hear a story, a news item, the first thing I’ll do is check the BBC, that gives me a shorthand account of what has happened or what has been alleged to have happened.

Then I’ll go to the guardian to have it fleshed out , detect nuances, observe patterns, and if controversial I can establish likelihood and probabilities of its authenticity.

Only then might i turn to opinion to my trusted commentators to read their slant, interpretation.
See how the story fits the narrative of current events. How does it sit? Ring True? Has is form?

My Claim is that the Right Wing , anywhere and everywhere do this back to front , this is their failure.
They start with opinion and see if they can scramble some details out of the story to fit their narrative, and run with that , often mad as the clappers.

This is dangerous and stupid , because they’re on the back foot when facts are established ,and they are challenged . The better ones fall off the story because they have some integrity, but the worst Hannity, Giuliani keep going , damaging the body politic.

Fact checking is not some left wing bias, or conspiracy or deep state, its an honest appraisal ,
a rigorous evidence based assessment ,from which to work with. Its your goto and your ghetto.
You establish your credibility and self-respect follows.

Lets stick with that facts gentlemen and see where that leads us .

Guest Post by Seimi

I recently returned from a short trip abroad. I boarded a ferry in the port of Belfast and travelled to another country, showed my passport and entered England.

Now, before anyone starts yelling about us all being part of the UK etc, allow me to explain. England is a foreign country to me. They speak a language I don’t fully understand, they won’t accept my paper money (even though it’s all Stirling) and they do things differently.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, by the way. I always enjoy my trips to England. They are a lovely bunch of people; very friendly and helpful. Their beer is great (more on that in a minute) and their food is pretty much the same as back home in Ireland. But whenever I visit, I am distinctly aware that I am not on home ground.

I tend to view displays of Union flags as a political statement, and when I encounter such in Belfast, I tend to become wary and watchful. I forgot where I was last weekend when I saw those flags flying, and for a brief moment I found myself looking over my shoulder and watching what I said, before I remembered that this is the national flag of my hosts and that it’s perfectly normal to fly it there (although not in as much abundance as back home!).

England is a much more multicultural place than Ireland, north or south. We are really only at the beginning of our immigrant experience, and we still tend to be surprised and curious when a black family get on the bus, or we hear a group of kids speaking in Arabic. We have had a large Chinese community here for years – the largest non-indigenous group in NI – but they have always tended to keep to themselves, rarely mixing with the locals. We are, as a whole, fairly welcoming of immigrants, with a small minority letting us down with their racist actions.

But in England, immigration is something which stretches back generations, and as a visitor, it always takes a little time to adjust.

Liverpool is a city very similar to Belfast: compact centre, with plenty of night life; majority working class population, given to openness and friendliness to strangers; areas of social deprivation and others of affluency; stunning, historical architecture sandwiched between ugly, modern buildings. I have found parts of London and Manchester to be similar, as well as Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland, and Cardiff in Wales, and I suppose that UK and Irish cities tend to follow a familiar format.

It’s only when you travel outside the cities that the ‘real’ England appears. I had the pleasure of visiting Macclesfield last year. A real, working class town, with row upon row of small houses, built to house the hundreds of workers who worked in its (at one time) 71 silk mills. I spent a very pleasant afternoon and evening in Macclesfield, sampling local ales and bitters. Bitter is not a common drink in Ireland, and whenever I’m in England, I love to try the local brews. I also visited the pub where Macclesfield’s greatest export, the Macc Lads, used to drink. It was also the hometown of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis.

On my latest trip overseas, I visited the beautiful town of Chester. This was proper England, the England I had envisioned in my mind since childhood. Roman architecture nestled comfortably beside the black and white Tudor buildings, further complimented by the glorious Victorian designs throughout the town centre. Seated in the Bear and Billett, supping Ockell’s Bitter, I thought to myself that this was the England of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Shakespeare; the type of town visited by Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, where Billy Bunter, Winker Watson and Lord Snooty would buy humbugs and where Elizabeth Bennet or Miss Havisham might have come to be fitted for their gowns.

This is a country I recognise, but not as my own. It is a country I have read about for years, and seen in countless films. The differences are at times stark, sometimes more subtle. It is not a country I bear any animosity towards. This is not the nation which invaded mine. This is the nation of talented playwrights, cultured philosophers and educators and gifted craftsmen. It is a country I wish to explore more, to learn more about. As the Bard of Avon put it:

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,–
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

Supping my Ockell’s Bitter in the Bear and Billet, it was difficult to argue against that.

“…surrounded by enemies and spies catching and perverting every word that falls from my lips or flows from my pen, and inventing where facts fail them.” -Thomas Jefferson’s reflections on Washington, D.C. in a letter to his daughter Martha.
Some things never change, dad!

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) October 31, 2019

An interesting perspective from Bernie Sanders.

“Open borders? That’s a Right-wing proposal that would make everybody in America poorer… You’re doing away with the concept of the nation state” — Bernie Sanders pic.twitter.com/Hk2LHM3fEw

— Paul Embery (@PaulEmbery) October 31, 2019

“Corporatist” would be a more accurate description of the Koch brothers and their like. Undoubtedly many corporatists have successfully pushed for more and more immigration into our countries.

He rightly identifies that open borders is a denial of the national state. I wonder what he thinks of the EU then, membership of which guarantees, de facto, open borders and which is intended to extinguish the European nation states.

They’re gonna need a bigger bus.

Boris and the Vote Leave campaign famously rammed home the message, during the EU referendum, that our gross contributions to the EU were £350 million per week. On the day that we were supposed to leave the EU, we learn from the Office for National Statistics that they have increased to £398 million per week.

Per week.

It’s actually higher than that, because each country collects excise duties on imports from outside the EU and sends them on to Brussels too. On three occasions this year we could have put have a stop to it. On three occasions we could have saved ourselves mega-billions each year. On three occasions we were stopped from doing so by the kind of lying bastards who complain about so-called austerity.

Remember we allow murderers to walk over a Technicality…….

Liberty :  the power to do as one pleases : freedom from physical restraint : freedom from arbitrary or despotic control : the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges : the power of choice.

The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.

“The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men.”

When we watch anyone’s Liberty be abused we are repulsed as Americans. We step into other nations affairs over it. Yet right now we are threatening the our own Liberty. We are taking ourselves down a very dangerous path. We are walking down it without thinking. We are walking down it and it is being cheered because it serves a political agenda and not the People.

I started this post with a Truth.

The Democrat Party and the majority of the Press has decided that Donald Trump should be Impeached. Fine I have absolutely no problem with that. Have a Trial if you find him Guilty Hang him…… as long as that is what the EVIDENCE of his CRIMES calls for.

But so far there seems to be some confusion of what to charge him with. They tried Collusion that failed, they didn’t push the obstruction. Now it’s Quid Pro Quo on a phone call….. maybe. We don’t know because Adam Schiff hasn’t quite found the evidence of anything, but he’s speculating about a lot…. if you listen to the leaks….

The Press, the Politicians, and we the Pundits are all caught up in the fight. This is our Super Bowl.

The rest of the country however don’t view it as passionately as we do. They go about their daily lives and all this is background noise. They are in fact watching, listening and reading about it. Over the next year they will watch, listen, and read all the shenanigans on both sides. They will then be the JURY.

The Election will decide everything. If the Dems keep the House they will have won, if they lose it they lost and the Impeachment ends.

On a personal note.

If the Democrats can do this….. Hold an Impeachment Hearing without real Due Process and without a crime against the President, what can they do to you ?

Double up on your Popcorn this is going to fun.