To try to stay in power anyway, Trump’s strategy started with pushing the idea that the election was a fraud, a strategy he floated in 2016 but then dropped after he found out he won.
Screaming “fraud,” Trump’s legal allies sued many times in many states … and they lost across the board, because they had no evidence.
But the point of suing was to make it seem like there was a case for fraud, in order to put pressure on Republican politicians to question the election and change the results. There were numerous recounts in many states.
Also, Trump and his allies set up fake (electoral college) electors in swing states he had lost, to try to cast votes for him even though he lost.
On Jan. 6th, Trump provoked the mob to try to intimidate congress into delaying confirmation of Biden’s win.
Trump’s overall aim was to sow enough dissent, delay, and confusion to throw the election back to the states, while convincing or coercing the Republican legislatures to change the results to re-elect Trump.
All of this was highly illegal – the fake electors, pressuring politicians to throw out election results, trying to forcefully delay confirmation in Congress.
Trump was attempting to throw out the election so he could stay in power. He was attempting a soft coup – that is, a coup without the military, since the military refused to join him.
Trump MUST BE prosecuted. If he is not held accountable, a future coup becomes inevitable, since it will be understood to be a strategy that can be used without negative consequences.
If successful, the soft coup strategy would end voting democracy in the United States.
If democracy ends, it ends for everyone, not just libs and Dems. If you’re a Trump supporter, you might actually like it for a while, but dictatorships eventually crush everyone, including you, unless you’re one of the few on the inside and with a lot of money and power.
]]>A top American Russia analyst has warned that targeted advanced sanctions on Vladimir Putin’s regime are likely to be a “total flop” due to the abject dependence of the British economy on finance from Russian oligarchs.
News of the comments comes just as Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced “a massive package of economic sanctions designed in time to hobble the Russian economy” [simply another of Johnson’s many, many lies], as well as efforts to “collectively cease the dependence on Russian oil and gas that for too long has given Putin his grip on western politics”.
According to Paul B Stephan – a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia, it is Britain that is likely to be the biggest drag on any Western sanctions initiative against Russia.
According to Prof Stephan, the most likely sanctions will be targeting individuals in positions of leadership in Russia, as well as “people in close contact with Putin” including “their families and their firms”.
This – the easiest form of sanctions – would be extremely difficult to implement due to Britain’s intimate financial relationships with Russian oligarchs.
“I think that the US would have difficulty, for example, getting the British to go along with that,” he said in an interview with the University of Virginia.
“The British services economy is so dependent on Russia – from educating their kids, to providing litigation and British courts for disputes among Russian business leaders, to processing investments. I just am really sceptical that the City of London would permit such targeted advanced sanctions to happen. I think an attempt to ban the export of Russian oil and gas would not be successful.”
Both Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party have played a key role in facilitating the influence of Russian money on the British services economy. Prof Stephan’s comments provide important context for the Prime Minister’s invitation to City of London executives to Downing Street on Wednesday to reassure them about the impact of sanctions.
]]>Public health advice is no longer being followed under Boris Johnson’s “living with Covid” strategy to end mass testing, senior civil servants have acknowledged in a leaked account of a cross-Whitehall briefing.
The briefing by a senior member of the Covid taskforce was delivered to civil service leaders across Whitehall on Thursday afternoon, making clear that following public health advice was no longer the sole priority.
The senior official said public health advice would not be met in NHS or social care settings in relation to the testing of staff, and that was a “decision that the PM, chancellor and indeed the cabinet have agreed to”.
On the call, he said:
“It will be the case from 1 April that testing in DH own settings including the NHS and adult social care will not fully match the public health advice because of spending considerations. We will not be testing adult social care staff or NHS staff at the frequency recommended by clinicians because there is not the funding to pay for it.”
Johnson has repeatedly stressed throughout the pandemic that he would “follow the science” and listen to his public health experts. [Johnson lied. Again.] However, that appears to have ended with the “living with Covid” strategy, which set out a timetable for winding down testing and scrapping mandatory isolation.
The government has not published its public health advice from the UK Health and Security Agency but it is understood its advisers did not recommend winding down testing unless the prevalence of Covid was at a low level in the UK and that the pandemic was in a “steady state” near to endemicity. The government’s experts do not believe that state has currently been reached.
The strategy to end mass testing was published after a row between Sajid Javid, the health secretary, who wanted up to £5bn more for testing, and Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, who insisted there would be no more cash after spending £15bn over the last year.
]]>Universities are currently advised that students and staff on campus should take lateral flow tests (LFTs) twice a week, even if they do not have coronavirus symptoms. But the contract to supply the kits, through NHS test and trace and the UK Health Security Agency, will be terminated on Friday and not renewed.
The cabinet is said to be split over Covid strategy and the future of testing, with the Treasury pushing to end mass testing as a cost-saving measure [no consideration of human health], while the health secretary, Sajid Javid, wants to retain some free testing to aid community surveillance of the virus.
Higher education leaders were informed of the surprise decision only on Wednesday [16 Feb 2022]. Universities also appear to have been told they cannot distribute any remaining stocks of LFTs past the end of this week [18 Feb 2022].
Alistair Jarvis, the chief executive of Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors and college leaders, said:
“We are asking government for urgent clarification that universities can continue to distribute test kits from the supplies they have on campus. This makes sense when universities have kits which would otherwise go to waste and while there is still demand from students and staff this term.”
Jo Grady, the general secretary of the University and College Union, accused the government of “playing fast and loose” with the safety of staff and students on campus, and said the decision could jeopardise in-person teaching.
“This approach is reckless_ and may lead to Covid outbreaks being undetected until it is far too late to limit infections. It is also completely irresponsible for the government to make this change at such short notice,” Grady said._
]]>“Ministers must explain how employers are supposed to ensure campuses remain safe when testing is a key health and safety control measure. They must also commit to not abandoning free PCR testing for symptomatic cases. University staff and students need these reassurances urgently.”
It has emerged that Stuart Andrew previously voted against a 2016 amendment to the Housing and Planning Bill, which would have obliged landlords to provide appropriate living conditions to their tenants.
Andrew was one of 72 Tory MPs who voted down the amendment and were also landlords, as he has a house in the Leeds area which reportedly provides him with over £10,000 of annual rental income.
Tory ministers said at the time of the vote that the change would have triggered “unnecessary regulation and cost to landlords”, and argued local authorities “already have strong and effective powers” to police poor-quality homes.
But Labour’s Teresa Pearce said at the time that it was not acceptable to have people up and down the UK living in housing “unfit for human habitation” in 2016.
“This clause would change the lives of many tenants and provide a more robust, secure and safe private rented sector, which surely we all desire,” Pearce argued.
]]>The nagging feeling that the UK was perhaps not the bastion of democracy, human rights and good governance that it had always claimed to be had been creeping up on me for a while.
Issues such as the questionable basis for the Iraq War and Britain’s potential complicity in the abuse of detainees; reports highlighting poverty, inequality and other systemic problems were all certainly worrying. I was aware that our system was not perfect. But I never fundamentally questioned its core structures.
My confidence was seriously shaken by Brexit, on which many politicians – including Government ministers – made shameless misrepresentations about the costs and benefits of staying in versus leaving the EU, and the implications of the various options before us.
Eventually, this prompted my resignation from the Foreign Office in 2019, when I realised that I could no longer promote the Government’s half-truths with a straight face.
Since then, I have watched our country’s trajectory with dismay, as the Government has continued to:
But I was triggered last week by news of the Kazakh President’s shoot-to-kill policy of protestors demonstrating against his regime. Sure enough, the UK’s Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, was quick to denounce the violence. Yet, it immediately reminded me that this violence was taking place in a country in which kleptocratic leaders were using British financial services and institutions to launder their ill-gotten gains.
We were, of course, not actively encouraging suppression, but arguably we were indirectly complicit. This led me to reflect on other areas where there is a gap between our words and deeds:
The problems have become worse and the hypocrisy more apparent under Boris Johnson’s Government.
We encourage respect for minority concerns in other countries, but this Government drove through Brexit despite its rejection by majorities in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
We demand other countries respect international law, though our Government threatens to renege on its own deal with the EU.
We promote conflict resolution, and frequently offer to share ‘best practice’ from the Good Friday Agreement, while the Government pursues a form of Brexit described recently by the agreement’s negotiator, Jonathan Powell, as “political vandalism”, for the damage it does to the delicate balance in Northern Ireland.
The Government urges other countries to treat migrants with dignity but does its best to prevent refugees from coming here.
The Government demands other nations abide by rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, but seeks to reduce the same court’s influence in the UK.
The Government supports independent judiciaries, respect for the rule of law and human rights overseas while:
It says that it deplores suppression of protests overseas but is introducing measures to restrict protests at home.
Critics will say that I am making ludicrous comparisons. They will say that in no way can the UK be compared to some of the autocracies we like to criticise. That, of course, there is no danger of this country sliding into authoritarianism: we are the country of the Magna Carta, we fought two world wars to uphold freedoms, British experts helped create and run many of the world’s leading institutions, that ‘Global Britain’ is a force for good.
But, if that was ever once true, I question if it remains so now. Complacency and apathy are the death of democracy.
]]>Fresh allegations arose on Friday about lockdown parties at the residence of United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson — with two separate gatherings on the eve of the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II’s husband Prince Philip.
Just two days ago, Johnson was forced to apologise for attending a garden party in 2020, after it was revealed that he and his staff at his Downing Street office and residence breached lockdown restrictions. The revelations prompted public outrage in the UK.
The latest media reports suggest his staff held two more parties at Downing Street in April last year, during a period of national mourning.
The allegations about parties ahead of the royal funeral were published in the conservative Daily Telegraph, for which Johnson was previously a regular columnist.
While Johnson was not present at the latest events, he was said to have attended at least one party in May 2020, when lockdown restrictions were at their tightest.
Martin Reynolds, the prime minister’s principle private secretary, invited some 100 staff to the event that Johnson himself attended. Some 30 to 40 people did attend, despite strict legal restrictions on social mixing — including a limit of 10 at funerals.
In an email marked “Sensitive,” he told them to “Bring your own booze.”
]]>A Conservative Party manifesto pledge to hire 26,000 extra health professionals to work in GP surgeries is set to be broken by the Tory government, health leaders have warned, leaving family doctors straining under a heavier workload.
About 9,500 of the promised physiotherapists, pharmacists, mental health therapists and other clinical staff so far have been recruited to help GPs and practice nurses.
Senior doctors have warned that patients will pay the price for the slow delivery of extra personnel by facing persistently long waits for an appointment.
But in November the health secretary, Sajid Javid, admitted that Johnson’s often-repeated 6,000 extra GPs pledge would be missed.
Official NHS workforce statistics highlighted by the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) show that by September only an estimated 9,464 extra clinical staff had been recruited – far short of the 13,000 that should have been in post by then at a rate of 5,200 a year for five years, given the ARRS scheme had begun in March 2019.
“The impact of not having enough staff in general practice is being felt acutely both by GPs and our team members who are working to their limits, and our patients, who are facing longer waits for the care they need. Meeting this [extra staff] target – and the GP target – will be vital to addressing this.”
NHS workforce statistics show that in September there were still only …
… working across the 6,600 GP surgeries in England. There were also just 47 health support workers and 252 health and wellbeing coaches, who advise on lifestyle.
]]>British cheesemaker who predicted Brexit would cost him hundreds of thousands of pounds in exports has called the UK’s departure from the EU single market a disaster, after losing his entire wholesale and retail business in the bloc over the past year.
Simon Spurrell, the co-founder of the Cheshire Cheese Company, said personal advice from a government minister to pursue non-EU markets to compensate for his losses had proved to be “an expensive joke”.
“It turns out our greatest competitor on the planet is the UK government because every time they do a fantastic deal, they kick us out of that market – starting with the Brexit deal,” he said.
His online retail business was hit immediately after the Brexit negotiator David Frost failed to secure a frictionless trade deal addressing sales to individual customers in the EU.
Spurrell said he had lost 20% of sales overnight after discovering he needed to provide a £180 health certificate on each order, including gift packs costing £25 or £30. He said the viability of his online retail had come to a “dead stop”
After he embarked on a personal crusade to draw attention to the plight of UK exporters involving almost 200 media interviews around the world, he was invited to an online meeting with Victoria Prentis, a minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. She suggested that emerging markets could compensate for the Brexit-related hole in the Cheshire Cheese Company’s finances.
Spurrell said he had pursued new business in Norway and Canada but post-Brexit trade deals sealed by the government had put barriers in place.
“We no longer have any ability to deal with the EU as our three distributors in Germany, France and Italy have said we have become too expensive because of the new checks and paperwork.
“And now we’ve also lost Norway since the trade deal, as duty for wholesale is 273%. Then we tried Canada but what the government didn’t tell us is that duty of 244% is applied on any consignment over $20 [£15].”
That meant Canadian customers who ordered a gift pack worth £50, including transport fees, were asked to pay £178 extra in duty when the courier arrived at their door,
]]>Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, announced plans to “overhaul” the Human Rights Act, bring in a new British bill of rights and, as he put it, “restore common sense” to our laws. In reality, he is making real his long-held dream to weaken vital human rights protections, make justice conditional on good behaviour and insulate the state from accountability.
They include:
This is being done under the guise of the deportation of “foreign criminals”, a proposal that goes hand in hand with the government’s determination to use the revoking of citizenship as a punishment, creating instead a tiered system of rights protection based on your immigration status.
But human rights are universal – take them from one group and you take them from all of us. And of course the right to a private and family life goes a lot wider than immigration.
When the government hollows out these protections, we won’t be able to protect:
These are the legal obligations on public bodies to protect rights.
Take away these obligations and you give licence to the police, the army and other state bodies to neglect their duties – with no possibility of justice.
Let us remember that it is these very state bodies that are responsible for some of the gravest human rights abuses that happen in the UK.
Free speech is a vital right that already receives special protection in the Human Rights Act. So it is clear that this government does not want to protect the principle of free speech – it wants instead to protect the kinds of speech it likes to hear and gag those it doesn’t. Just look at another bill going through parliament at the moment – the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill, which attempts to criminalise protest. There are also plans to take away whistleblower protections in the Official Secrets Act.
As it attempts this crude power grab:
That is if their case even makes it to court.
Raab’s plans include a new “permissions stage” for all human rights cases, requiring people to show that they have faced “significant disadvantage” as a result of the abuse of their human rights before they can even argue their case. Evidence of this disadvantage would need to be shown before a trial, therefore needing you to get evidence of the said abuse from your opponent – the British state.
As a human rights lawyer, I have worked on many cases of terrible human rights abuses that became clear only when we cross-examined witnesses or managed to get disclosure of evidence.
There was a case about the death of a young woman in psychiatric care, in which the hospital said in witness statements that it had checked on her regularly as she had been assessed as being of high risk of suicide. When we managed to get the CCTV evidence on disclosure we found that this was a lie – she had been left completely alone in her room, and took her own life. Under Raab’s plans, these kinds of cases would never even see the light of day in court.
]]>Dominic Grieve told Byline TV that the Government’s:
All show why the Conservative Party’s problems go beyond one leader.
The Prime Minister is a “shambles” who was always going to be forced down the route of becoming a “populist demagogue” – but simply getting rid of him will not end the Conservative Party’s deeper problems, says former Conservative Attorney General
Dominic Grieve told Byline TV that the removal of Johnson as Prime Minister in itself would not lead to significant change for the party, which is under the grip of a warped and weaponised sense of “parliamentary sovereignty” as its guiding principle.
“I don’t think it would completely cure the problem,” the barrister said. “We seem to be living in a period with an obsession for this thing called parliamentary sovereignty. It does mean ultimately in our constitution that Parliament’s will is going to prevail. But, the attitude of the Government… is that parliamentary sovereignty means that a government with a majority can do absolutely whatever it likes. And then, if people disapprove, they chuck that Government out at the next general election, and that is democracy with parliamentary sovereignty.
“But parliamentary democracy works, in part, because minorities are prepared to accept majority decisions. And, once you remove the legitimacy of minority viewpoints, you are starting to erode the very foundations on which our society is based. And that’s extremely dangerous.
“It is the difference between the rule of law and rule by law. Rule by law means you pass a law on anything you like, and then that is how you coerce people into doing things. Rule of law carries with it an implication that it’s being done within a historic constitutional framework, where there are limits to the way governments will behave even when they have full power, potentially, to behave differently. This Government is the most extreme example I’ve seen in all my time in politics for having a disregard for principles of the rule of law.”
Responding to Johnson’s plan to reportedly allow ministers to throw-out legal rulings that the Government does not agree with, and restrict the power of judicial review – a key check on the executive – Grieve, a QC, said that the move seems predicated on keeping judges in the frame as “enemies of the people”.
]]>Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon hit out at the Prime Minister and Chancellor Rishi Sunak for skipping the Covid Cobra meeting, on the day more cash was pledged to combat the Omicron ‘tsunami’.
New coronavirus measures before Christmas have not been ruled out by the Health Secretary Sajid Javid, who said there are “no guarantees” following a “sobering analysis” from scientific advisers warning about the threat from Omicron.
Ms Sturgeon added: “As infections soar and businesses suffer, we still need much more urgency in action/support from UK Gov – so that devolved gov hands are not tied.
“To that end, it was disappointing and frustrating that neither the PM nor the Chancellor attended this evening’s COBRA (Covid meeting).”
There has been no further government comment of a potential lockdown before the end of 2021.
Modelling from scientific advisers, published on Saturday, showed that if ministers stuck to the current Plan B measures, there could be a peak of 3,000 hospital admissions in England per day.
Advisers also said hospital admissions with the variant in the UK are “probably around one tenth of the true number” due to a lag in reporting.
Despite the ramping-up of the booster programme, experts said it would not help in terms of hospitals admissions in the near future, as many would be people who are infected now before immunity has had time to build.
]]>The prime minister spent about 15 minutes with staff at the alleged social gathering on 15 May 2020, telling one aide inside No 10 that they deserved a drink for “beating back” coronavirus, a joint investigation by the Guardian and Independent was told.
Sources claimed about 20 staff drank wine and spirits and ate pizza following a press conference on that day, some in offices inside No 10 and others going into the garden. Some staff stayed drinking until late into the evening, they alleged.
Rules at the time allowed only two people from different households to meet outside, at a distance of 2 metres. Earlier that evening, Matt Hancock, then health secretary, had urged people to “stay at home as much as is possible” and asked them to “please stick with the rules, keep an eye on your family and don’t take risks” during the period of good weather.
The claims follow a string of reports about similar alleged events in Downing Street and elsewhere during the subsequent lockdown last Christmas, and suggests rules might have been broken over a series of months.
The claims are a further blow to Johnson, who is reeling from reports detailing a series of apparent lockdown-breaching parties last winter, and has been widely mocked for insisting no rules were broken.
Among these was an alleged party on 18 December 2020, a time when all indoor social mixing in London was prohibited, involving wine and cheese and staff swapping “secret Santa” presents.
]]>Headteachers are warning of “chaos” in England’s schools as Omicron sweeps across the country, with high levels of staff and pupil absences and reports that parents are planning to keep children home to avoid the virus before Christmas.
School leaders and unions urged the government to introduce more protective measures, including:
In areas with high infection rates, some year groups are being sent home to study remotely because not enough teachers or supply teachers are available, and a small number of schools have been forced to move online until the end of term.
In some schools up to half the teaching workforce is unavailable for work due to Covid-related absence, according to the NASUWT union, which is calling for a staggered start to the new term and additional on-site testing facilities in January.
Dr Patrick Roach, the NASUWT general secretary, wrote to the education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, on Monday calling for immediate action.
“We ask you to avoid a repeat of the confusion and chaos which last year impacted negatively on public and parental confidence and hampered the hard work of teachers and school and college leaders in their preparations at the start of 2021,” he said.
]]>“An immediate announcement from the government on additional measures for schools and colleges is, we believe, essential before the majority of schools and colleges close for the Christmas break.”
The Government is ruling by diktat and denying democracy by avoiding proper Parliamentary scrutiny of new legislation according to two hard-hitting reports published today by senior members of the House of Lords.
Two House of Lords select committees – composed of 21 peers with 520 years of Parliamentary experience between them – say the Government is routinely passing “skeleton” bills which give ministers wide-ranging powers to change the law – alongside secondary legislation, in the form of statutory instruments, without detailed explanation of the impact of the measures.
The Government had originally used skeleton bills to pass urgent legislation to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and “get Brexit done” but the peers now say the practice has been extended to other areas by Boris Johnson’s Government.
The peers cite six skeleton bills since 2019 that had nothing to do with the pandemic or Brexit, covering areas like:
All these contain measures giving ministers wide powers to change the law without consulting Parliament.
The peers say the Government is finding more inventive ways to take powers away from Parliament in addition to the well known Henry VIII clauses – where ministers take power to act without consulting Parliament.
These include:
These are slipped into legislation, as well as making law by “public notice”. They cite powers given to the Treasury as an example.
The report says:
“Treasury’s says that such notices will only make provision that is purely technical or administrative in nature… For Ministers and others to make law by ‘public notice’, without any recourse to Parliament, is highly unusual and such provisions should attract strict surveillance by Parliament.”
This revives on a limited scale the right abolished in 1547 to make law by Royal proclamation, at least for the Treasury and HMRC, the peers say.
“These reports from our two committees are a blunt warning, that hundreds of laws are being imposed on all of us, in effect by government diktat, with no effective scrutiny and control by Parliament,” Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, chair of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee said.
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