“Yesterday is a hard word for me”: Committee is now trolling Trump

It is becoming obvious that the televised congressional hearings are infuriating Trump. After each session, he issues long rants about them essentially repeating the same things, that it is a partisan witch hunt aimed at him, and that he really did win the election. The problem for Trump is that he is a narcissistic TV addict and so he cannot resist watching a show in which he is the main character, however unflattering it is. So he essentially rage-watches.

It is clear that the members of the committee have noticed this and the last prime time hearing on Thursday, in addition to focusing on Trump’s culpability in inciting the riot and his deliberate and inexcusable passivity while it was going on, also took the opportunity to needle him with outtakes of the video statements Trump put out on January 6th (after doing nothing for more than three hours and instead just watching the riot unfold on the TV in his private dining room) and on the following day, both of which reveal his deep reluctance to condemn the violence of his supporters.

His White House advisors were apprehensive about Trump going on TV and ad libbing because they feared that he would say further inflammatory things and so they prepared a script for him to read. But he ignored it and ad libbed anyway and you can see the result below, where he called the rioters “very special” and that “we love you'”. Who did he mean by ‘we’ anyway?
[Read more…]

Brutal crackdown begins in Sri Lanka

Less than 24 hours after he was sworn is the new president of Sri Lanka, Ranil Wickremesinghe set in motion just what I feared, a brutal crackdown on the largely peaceful protest movements. In a predawn attack early Friday morning at around 1:00 am, a large number of police and military units descended upon the protest camp that had been set in front of the president’s office and attacked protestors, journalists, lawyers, and other observers, injuring many who had to be hospitalized. They also destroyed the camp site.

Here is a BBC reporter whose colleague was also attacked.


[Read more…]

Latest hearings show Trump’s responsibility for the riot

The seeming purpose of the latest hearings of the congressional committee looking in the events of January 6, 2021 was to make it very clear that the invasion of the Capitol on January 6th was instigated by Trump and that the rioters were following his lead when they stormed the Capitol, threatened members of Congress, and defaced the premises. The hearings focused on the 187 minutes between the end of Trump’s speech at the rally and when Trump finally succumbed to the pressure he was getting from his staff and gave a weak statement on TV calling on the rioters to ‘go home’ but saying that he loved them. In addition to previously recorded testimonies, they had two witnesses, the deputy national security advisor Matthew Pottinger and the deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, both of whom were so disgusted with Trump’s behavior on that day that they resigned immediately.

After inciting his followers at the rally, and later inflaming the situation even further with a tweet when it was clear that vice-president Mike Pence was not going along with the hare-brained scheme cooked up by the crazies like Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell, and John Eastman that Pence deny certification of the electoral college votes and instead allow fake slates of electors to be accepted, Trump then did absolutely nothing while the riot was going on, instead watching events unfold on the TV while in his dining room and resisting calls from his staff, family, and even his Fox News TV allies to call off the mob. Clearly everyone believed that the mob was under his control. Trump gave his mealymouthed call for the mob to to leave only after it was clear that the attempt to prevent the certification of Joe Biden as president was failing.
[Read more…]

Attention reporters: Give the basic facts before commentary

Take a look at the opening paragraphs of this news article.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has already helped block one of former President Donald Trump’s allies from winning the Republican nomination for governor in a crucial battleground state. Now he’s hoping for a repeat in his own backyard.

Ducey is part of a burgeoning effort among establishment Republicans to lift up little-known housing developer Karrin Taylor Robson against former television news anchor Kari Lake, who is backed by Trump. Other prominent Republicans, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have also lined up behind Robson in recent days.

[Read more…]

Ominous developments in Sri Lanka

Today the Sri Lankan parliament voted in Ranil Wickremesinghe as president. He received 134 votes in the 225-member body, Dullas Alahapperuma received 82 votes and the leftist candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake got just three.

This is precisely the result that the protestors, who turned out in their hundreds of thousands for over a hundred days and occupied the offices and official residence of the previous president and prime minister, forcing out of office the Rajapaksa clan that had seemed to have aa stranglehold on power, did not want. These protestors see Wickremesinghe as a stooge of the Rajapaksa family who have maneuvered to put him into power so that he will protect them and their interests. even though they are disgraced. It is not for nothing that he is now being called Ranil Rajapaksa, signifying that he is an honorary member of that corrupt family.
[Read more…]

Sri Lanka’s future hangs in the balance

On Tuesday, the Sri Lankan parliament nominated three people from among its members to serve out the remainder of the presidential term of Gotabaya Rajapaksa who was forced to resign and fled the country in the dead of night. One is the current interim president Ranil Wickremesinghe (who ascended to that position because he had been appointed prime minister by the former disgraced president, and the prime minister takes over when the president resigns), the second is someone named Dullas Alahapperuma, and the third is a leftist candidate named Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The vote will be on Wednesday.

This outcome is somewhat bizarre. This is because while the mass protests have removed some of the top people in government, people who had been thought to be invulnerable, the parliament has remained unchanged and the members of parliament are the ones who will select the new president. While the Rajapaksa clan is in disgrace with the president Gotabaya and his three brothers and nephew forced to resign the presidency, prime ministership, and other cabinet posts, the two main challengers Wickremesinghe and Alahapperuma are both affiliated with their party. The third candidate Dissanayake’s party has only three members in parliament and so his chances of winning are slim.
[Read more…]

Why the British monarchy should be abolished

I have frequently written about the British monarchy as consisting of a parasitic bunch of grifters that should abolished. I feel that way about all monarchies and indeed all forms of hereditary privilege since that goes against the egalitarian idea on which democracies should be based. The British monarchy is simply one of the most extreme examples of this kind of privilege. We may never be able to erase all forms of inherited advantages but doing away with monarchies is one of the easiest steps we can take.

Almost always I get a response from some, like this comment in response to recent my post where I pointed out how the monarchy shields itself from the laws that everyone else must follow, and that results in a feudal system for its employees. These responses state that since I am not British, I simply cannot understand the love that the British people have for the royal family and that besides, the institution brings in loads of tourism revenue that justifies its existence. It is an immoral argument that just because they bring in revenue to to country because of tourism, they should be exempt from laws that they do not like and be able to treat their employees like peasants. If that argument is accepted, why should not anyone who brings in money to the country, like exporters of goods, also be exempted?
[Read more…]

Critical week for Sri Lanka

There is a new phase of developments in Sri Lanka following the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa as president after he fled to Singapore. The prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was then sworn in as interim president and now parliament must vote on who from among their members should be president to complete Rajapaksa’s remaining term of office until November 2024. Already there are about five candidates who have declared their intentions to vie for the post and the usual maneuvering has begun. All nominations must be received by 10:00 am on Tuesday 19th July 2022 (local time) and voting by secret ballot must be held within 48 hours of that time. Currently parliament is schedule to meet on the 20th for that purpose.

What I fear most is that the Rajapaksas are maneuvering to have Wickremesinghe be voted as president by parliament, even though he has absolutely no credibility or standing, so that he will continue to shield them from repercussions for their crimes and corruption. The Rajapaksa family’s party still have a big majority in parliament and the general secretary of the party has endorsed Wickremesinghe. Recall that Wickremesinghe is not even a member of that party. His own party suffered such a crushing defeat in the 2019 general election that it lost every single seat it contested including his own. He then shamelessly appointed himself as his party’s representative for the single seat that the party got, based on the complicated rules in Sri Lanka that gives some seats in parliament to parties based on their proportion of the national vote. So he has no credibility or mandate whatsoever.
[Read more…]

Why the British monarchy should be abolished: Reason #2468

The revelations about the extent to which the Queen of England has used the deference accorded to her and her family to enrich themselves keep emerging. Now new revelations show that police are not even allowed onto property owned by the royals without her permission even to investigate potential crimes when speed is of the essence to prevent the destruction of evidence.

Personalised exemptions for the Queen in her private capacity have been written into more than 160 laws since 1967, granting her sweeping immunity from swathes of British law – ranging from animal welfare to workers’ rights. Dozens extend further immunity to her private property portfolio, granting her unique protections as the owner of large landed estates.

More than 30 different laws stipulate that police are barred from entering the private Balmoral and Sandringham estates without the Queen’s permission to investigate suspected crimes, including wildlife offences and environmental pollution – a legal immunity accorded to no other private landowner in the country.

Police are also required to obtain her personal agreement before they can investigate suspected offences at her privately owned salmon and trout fishing business on the River Dee at Balmoral, where anglers are charged up to £630 a day to fish.

Under the longstanding but ill-defined doctrine of sovereign immunity, criminal and civil proceedings are not brought against the monarch as head of state. But an investigation by the Guardian, drawing on official documents and analysis of legislation, reveals the extent to which laws have been written or amended to specify immunity for her conduct as a private citizen, along with her privately owned assets and estates – and even a privately owned business.

One constitutional expert warned that the carve-outs undermine the notion that everyone is equal before the law, while another recommended the monarchy review and simplify the exemptions for the sake of public transparency.

[Read more…]