Whatever you might think of Maduro, the seizure and kidnapping of a head of state takes us to a very dark place. Vast, arbitrary, extra-legal power, which could be exercised almost anywhere, regardless of the character of the target government.
In his 2019 memoir The Threat, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe quotes first-term Trump saying Venezuela was “the country we should be going to war with, they have all that oil and they’re right on our back door.”
zeteo.com/p/venezuela-...
W/out congressional authorization or popular support, Trump bombed Venezuela’s capital & kidnapped its president, just weeks after Trump admitted on TV that this is about taking Venezuela’s oil, & after months of theft & murder on the high seas.
To call this admin “lawless” is an understatement.
EU doing the EU thing of saying whatever the US does is fine as long as EU citizens are safe and they can mumble something about the UN.
Fuck the US, the UK, and the EU.
It means absolutely nothing to anyone concerned right now but here's what the United Nations says about kidnapping Heads of State.
legal.un.org/ilc/texts/in...
A note that just because the President of the United States used the word 'captured' doesn't mean news organisations should just use it without attribution... or maybe at all really?
The world’s first trillionaire initiated a move that has left more than half a million people dead, most of whom are children.
We're struggling to house people and media are asking elected reps whether we need to cut EU migrants, Visa holders, or international protection seekers.
Why isnt the question whether we need to cut vacancy, dereliction, or short-term lets?
Property rights trump human rights in Ireland #spéirgorm
Naftali Bennett: "The truth is clear. Israel's standing in the United States is collapsing." The country is increasingly viewed as a "pariah state".
Perhaps a small glimmer of hope can be gleaned from that stark admission.
- Paul Kearns, in Tel Aviv.
www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...
“As friends of Ireland and strong advocates for a close relationship between Ireland and the United States, we write to express our deep concern over Ireland’s one-sided approach to Israel, a vital ally of the United States,” say 23 members of Congress.
www.irishtimes.com/politics/202... #otb
Seeing Irish people simp for Humphreys because she'll keep her head down reminds me of that MLK quote "...the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice" #spéirgorm
Wouldn't you be livid after spending all that money on posters?
And a delightful humiliation for Micheál Martin, who I hate the way King Cyrus hated the Athenians
I hear there's a lock-in in Fagan's tonight...
#Aras25
Men will literally drop out of a presidential election instead of going to therapy
Humphreys realising she's gotta get by without her little sidekick now
Oh, and it would be nice if the people who would tweak with our neutrality would be upfront about the reason this has become urgent: Afghanistan fell and everyone saw, America can't and won't win wars alone anymore, other countries need to pay for western hegemony now.
I think we protecting neutrality and anti-war diplomacy is right because it's right.
I don't think it helps us in our dealings with other countries or means that anyone sees us as an honest broker. I'm sure lots of them think we're smug and rich.
But we should do it, even if it's unpopular.
But some other countries don't take our neutrality seriously. Stalin didn't. Most of our EU neighbours, especially the easterly ones, do not. And we do rely on the military assistance of other states in emergencies, like evacuating Irish citizens from Afghanistan.
Our history has shown us that borders are three problems in a trenchcoat, pretending to be a solution.
And it's nice to think that we can bring that experience to the rest of the world in positive ways.
Furthermore, we grant passports to descendants of citizens because we don't expect anyone to earn their citizenship on the battlefield.
We put animals on coins instead of murderers in uniform. We made a poet our first president, not some general.
It's not just neutrality, it's being anti-war.
Some thoughts Ireland's neutrality:
Irish neutrality and non-violence is important, it's a huge part of our history and identity. An anti-conscription movement led to the birth of the State. Replacing the RIC with an unarmed police force was a policy priority. And who could forget the boycott?
Of all Jim Gavin’s gaffes, it turns out it was his spare one that took him down.
Remember folks Ireland operates under the PRSTV system. Payback Rent or Scupper The Vote.
I’m still thinking about Gavins response to the question on the #womenofhonour -he saw nothing, he knew nothing-and he wants to be President? Can you imagine him responding as our previous presidents have done to issues as national trauma! He’s the see nothing,do nothing candidate #speirgorm #aras25
Maria Steen starting her campaign by claiming immigrants do not share "our" social or culture values all the more amazing in the context of her exposing an extreme and doctrinaire version of Christianity that is not even shared by most of her fellow Christians in Ireland.
Steen is one of the most insidiously awful people this country has ever produced. An empathy free self-regarding fundamentalist who wants to turn Ireland into a theocracy and who loves a microphone almost as much as she loves herself. I’d rather have the idiot fighter in the Áras
"...bringing the proposals to Cabinet this week to make apartments more attractive for developers"
The housing crisis distilled into one phrase.
I bet the phase "low-hanging fruit" was used when James Browne was coming up with this new incentive.
www.thejournal.ie/apartment-ch...
#IrishPol
