Brexit Update.

On June 23rd (23/6/16) British voters decided to exit the European Union (EU). The so-called "Brexit."

This was possibly the most significant event to affect the continent since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. Or possibly the construction of the Berlin wall in 1961. Or possibly even the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1945.

However since then almost absolutely nothing has happened.

The only significant development was a ruling on November 3rd (3/11/16) by the British High Court that the British Government cannot use what is known as "Royal Prerogative" to start Brexit negotiations by invoking what is known as "Article 50."

Royal Prerogative is one of those things that really highlights just how far away Britain actually is from being the type of modern democracy that it likes to pretend that it is.

Britain's core constitutional principle is that the Monarch - currently Queen Elizabeth II - is some sort of supernatural being anointed by God to rule over us all. As such we couldn't possibly place any restriction on the Monarch's power - their prerogative. After all it is God's will.

The problem is that over the centuries numerous people have claimed to be this supernatural being anointed by God - often at the same time. With God's support normally being demonstrated through victory in battle these disputes over who God loves the most have frequently turned bloody.

Sadly I am not joking when I say that the TV show "Game of Thrones" is loosely based on British political history. Specifically a period between 1135 and 1154 known as; "The Anarchy." If you believe the legend of St George of Lydda there were even dragons.

As a result over the years numerous restrictions have been placed on the Monarch's power as a compromise to avoid yet another war. Probably the most famous example of this is the Magna Carta of 1215.

The Magna Carta was actually a ruse introduced by King John to prevent the Catholic Pope from publicly denouncing King John's claim to be anointed by God and therefore his legitimacy to call himself King. For some reason at the time the Catholic Pope was considered another supernatural being anointed by God but one that outranked the English/British Monarch.

Pretty much as soon as the Pope had visited England to reaffirm his anointment by God King John simply tore up the Magna Carta.

The current situation is that the Monarch defers the day-to-day running of the country to the democratically elected government which sits in the House of Commons - the lower House of Parliament. This allows the Prime Minister - or Queen's First Minister - to exert Royal Prerogative on the Monarch's behalf. 

As such Royal Prerogative currently functions as something similar to an Executive Order in the US. However there are a number of crucial differences. For example an Executive Order cannot be used to sign the US up to or withdraw from an international treaty. These days Royal Prerogative is pretty much only used to sign the UK up to or withdraw from international treaties.

However this primacy of the government over the Monarch is actually relatively new only coming into being following the First World War in the 1920's as a way to avoid a Russian-style revolution.

Also it is an accepted norm of behaviour rather than a written rule. Therefore the Queen could simply wake up one morning and decide that she is going to take over the day-to-day running of the country. Some would argue that is exactly what she did both in 1974 and again in 2010.

Britain's big constitutional shift of course came in the 1530's when King Henry VIII decided he wanted to divorce his wife Catherine of Aragon. The Catholic Pope denied King Henry VIII this divorce.

So King Henry VIII responded by declaring that the Pope was not a supernatural being anointed by God and certainly not one that outranked King Henry VIII. Instead King Henry VIII declared himself to be the head of the Protestant Church of England and that Church to be the only true Christian Church. He then promptly granted himself a divorce.

This split between the Catholic Church and the newly invented Protestant Church of England plunged Britain into a period of political turmoil that arguably lasted until the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland in 1998.

For example just two days after the High Court ruling the UK on November 5th (5/11/16) celebrated the 411th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. This was a failed attempt by Catholics - most notably Guy Fawkes - to blow up both houses of Parliament in order to kill the Protestant King James VI of Scotland and I of England.

More specifically Bonfire Night as it's known celebrates the burning alive of Catholics as punishment for the failed assassination attempt. I may though be going off on a bit of a tangent there.

Most notably though the Catholic, Protestant split triggered not one but three Civil Wars.

The first of these - 1642 to 1646 - saw the Protestant King Charles I overthrown by a Protestant almost Emperor when he planned to marry a Catholic. The second - 1648 to 1649 - was an unsuccessful attempt by supporters of King Charles I to overthrow the Emperor - Oliver Cromwell - and restore him as King. The third - 1649 to 1651 - saw King Charles I son King Charles II successfully overthrow Cromwell eventually restoring Britain as a Catholic nation.

However the Protestants religious fervour was not spent so in 1688 they staged what went on to become known as "The Glorious Revolution." This really began with the reading of the "Declaration of Rights." With the Protestants eventually winning what I would term a fourth Civil War along with the Act of Settlement of 1701 the Declaration of Rights became the Bill of Rights of 1689.

Apart from granting Protestants the right to bear arms the Bill of Rights amongst other things declares that;

"That the pretended Power of Suspending of Laws or the Execution of Laws by Regall Authority without Consent of Parlyament is illegall."

Putting aside the old English spelling from the context of a document that bills itself as a declaration of Rights & Liberties this can be taken to mean that Royal Prerogative cannot - without the consent of Parliament - be used to take away the rights of citizens that have been granted by Parliament.

One of the main things that has driven British voters to call for a Brexit is the role that the EU plays in writing laws that apply to British citizens.

As a result of this the British Parliament hasn't actually passed any laws of its own on a vast array of tedious but important subjects such as the definition of a foodstuff for the purpose of international trade in the best part of 45 years. Instead they've simply adopted the EU law as UK law.

This is the reason why the so-called "Progressive" parties such as Labour, the Liberal Democrats and in particular the Scottish National Party (SNP) are so opposed to Brexit. It means that they'll have to start earning their money by representing their constituents rather than relying on, say, the Germans, the French or the Dutch to do their work for them.

Under British law the what is termed "Statutory Instrument" that makes EU law into UK law is the European Communities Act of 1972. This is where things really start getting complicated.

The Article 50 that everybody keeps referring to is Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty of 2007. This is the most recent in a series of roughly a dozen treaties dating back to 1945 through which the EU exists. However demonstrating that it has always had something of a troubled relationship with the EU the UK does not formally recognise a single one of these treaties. Instead it only recognises the 1972 European Communities Act.

Therefore I - like I think most reasonable people - would argue that the triggering of Article 50 in no way impacts the 1972 Act. However due to the apparent need to believe in dragons and fairies the British Establishment has a long history of refusing to employ reasonable people. So no matter how wrong it is an established point of law that triggering Article 50 would also repeal the 1972 Act.

That would remove a number of rights granted to citizens by Parliament and therefore would require the consent of Parliament under the 1689 Bill of Rights. Hence the November 3rd (3/11/16) ruling.

However it is worth pointing out that the 1972 Act does allow for Royal Prerogative to be used to make any law or right to be converted into a UK law that would function independently of the EU. Therefore at the same time that it triggers Article 50 the government could also transfer all the EU legislation into UK independent legislation. The UK Parliament could then work through each law one-by-one on its own time.

The November 3rd (3/11/16) ruling in no way blocks Brexit. It merely states - wrongly in my opinion - that the government must seek the consent of Parliament before triggering Article 50. The government can go about this in two ways;

The first is to introduce a simple resolution stating that Parliaments consents to the triggering of Article 50. This resolution will be subject to a simple up or down vote.

Under the Parliamentary system the reason the government gets to call itself the government is because it has enough supporters within the House of Commons - the lower house - to win any vote. This is known as a working majority. Therefore all the other political parties could vote against the resolution and it would still pass.

Things get a little more complicated in the House of Lords - the upper house - where the current government does not have a working majority.

However the unelected Lords have long since lost their right to veto the will of the Commons. Instead they can only refer matters back to the Commons for further consideration. However if the Lords reject a Commons proposal for - I think - a third time following the fourth Commons vote it bypasses the Lords and goes straight to the Monarch for signing into law.

The second thing the government could do is introduce a traditional Bill/Act.

However this would be a much more time consuming process because it would have to go through committees and numerous readings and votes. Those MP's who are ideologically opposed to Brexit could delay it almost indefinitely by demanding that completely irrelevant amendments are considered sending the whole thing back to the start of the process.

I think this type of Parliamentary vandalism would be very destructive and significantly increase the chances of the UK being unable to negotiate a successful Brexit deal.

Even before questions over its authority to do so were raised the British government had planned to defer the triggering of Article 50 until the spring of 2017.

That's because regardless of when the negotiation period ends it won't be until January 1st of the following year that any changes come into effect. So based on a two year negotiation period starting in March 2017 it will be January 1st 2020 (1/1/20) before Brexit actually happens.

Ideally you want to leave the longest period possible between any changes being agreed and those changes coming into effect to allow people to adjust to the changes. For example the Lisbon Treaty itself was signed in 2007 but didn't come into effect until 2010. Likewise the so-called Paris Agreement on Climate Change was agreed in 2015 but won't come into effect until 2020.

Even a delay until the summer of 2017 would significantly reduce the period available for adjustment to the point Britain may have to consider deferring the trigger of Article 50 until the spring of 2018 and by extension Brexit until at least 2021.

This is going to create a long period of uncertainty and if there is one that business and financial markets hate it is uncertainty.

In the months since the Brexit vote the value of the UK Pound has plunged to almost parity with the US Dollar. This is not a result of Brexit because Brexit has not happened. Instead it is the result of the uncertainty about when Brexit is going to happen.

If Parliament forces the government to wait until the spring of 2018 to trigger Article 50 the value of the UK Pound is going to take an absolute battering.

Also if Parliament forces the government into a full Commons debate over the Brexit strategy that is going to put Britain's entire negotiation strategy in full public view. Particularly in the view of the very people Britain will be trying to negotiate with. That is basically page 1 of how to lose a negotiation.

In fact with the November 3rd (3/11/16) case being brought by Gina Miller - founder of the investment firm SCM Private - I suspect that along with the Pound's plunge the markets are trying to pressure the government to blow open the Brexit negotiations. So Ms Miller's investors can ensure the outcome that is best for them rather than for the UK or even the EU.

The UK government has of course announced its intention to appeal the High Court's ruling at the Law Lords. As part of an attempt to convince outsiders that the UK is a modern democracy rather than a bit of a nut house the Law Lords re-branded themselves "The Supreme Court" in 2009. However unlike an actual Supreme Court it remains part of the legislative & executive branches of government rather than separate from them.

However if I was framing the government's appeal I would focus heavily on the fact that Parliament has already given its consent for Article 50 to be triggered. Specifically they consented for the issue to be decided by the British electorate by passing the European Union Referendum Act of 2015. There is certainly nothing in the wording of that act to support the claim that the referendum is merely advisory.

In fact the High Court's November 3rd (3/11/16) ruling seems so detached from reality I would even go so far as to suggest that it owed more to the theatrics of the US Presidential election and the November 7th to November 18th (7-18/11/16) COP22 Summit then anything to do with Brexit.

The High Court ruling of course set in motion a chorus of disapproval amongst the British press. With the help of Prince Henry/Harry's starpower this allowed US voters to discuss what a clear and present danger to democracy and the rule of law Hillary Clinton represented. After all if someone who believes themselves to be a supernatural being anointed by God to rule thinks you're being a bit arrogant chances are you're being a bit arrogant.

With Donald Trump defeating Hillary Clinton in the November 8th (8/11/16) election talk at COP22 turned to whether the US would withdraw from the so-called Paris Agreement.

Some are of the opinion that in order to do this the US would have to trigger Article 28 which rather like the triggering of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty would start of a multi-year withdrawal process.

However the more literate would point out that like all the other articles Article 28 has no legal force. Specifically because President Obama demanded they have no legal force so he could use an Executive Order to sign the US up to the agreement. 

In order to achieve that Obama turned up to negotiations in October 2015 like some sort of drunk toddler smashing everything to bits. However in the five to six years prior to that everybody else was working towards a Statutory Instrument similar to a Treaty or a Protocol to replace the outgoing Kyoto Protocol.

By "Everybody Else" I of course mean 192 nations representing some 7 billion people. So not only did they each have their own objectives from the negotiations they also have slightly different understandings of what a Statutory Instrument actually is. Therefore discussions about legal systems and constitutional precedents are constant at Climate Change negotiations.

Also the 1688 Bill of Rights and the 1701 Act of Settlement are the only two pieces of legislation that are common throughout all members of the UK Commonwealth.

As such the whole thing does seem to have provided a convenient codebase for discussions between big hitters such as Canada, India and Australia that other nations such as the US and China would struggle to understand.

17:25 on 21/11/16 (UK date).

 

The Anti-Trump Protests.

Since Donald Trump won the US Presidential election on Tuesday (8/11/16) there have been a number of protests in several US states and cities decrying the result.

These may have reminded some people of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots that have plagued America since the summer of 2014.

The actions of Black Lives Matter were coordinated and organised attempts to subvert the democratic process as expressed through the legal and judicial process. In short they were trying to use violence and the threat of violence force through prosecutions and convictions that had no basis in law.

The original case was that of Micheal Brown in Ferguson, Missouri back in August 2014. Within at most a couple of days investigators knew that Brown's fingerprints and DNA were on the police officer's weapon - particularly on the slide. They also knew that his - I think - blood was on the inside of the door of the police vehicle.

As a result it was clear that Brown had first being shot as he was reaching into the police vehicle to attack the officer in an attempt to steal his firearm. In short it was obvious that it was a perfectly legal shooting.

So when this evidence was prevented to the Grand Jury it dismissed the charges because they were utterly baseless.

However the violence of Black Lives Matter continued. So in fear many state prosecutors and Governors simply decided to do away with Grand Juries in such case. That is despite them being laid down in the fifth amendment to the US Constitution.

A prime example of this is the case of Walter Scott who was shot and killed by police officer Michael Slager in North Charleston, South Carolina back in April 2015. The trial of this case is currently underway.

Between Internet outages and furniture deliveries I feel like I've not had a moment's peace in the past 10 days. As a result I won't be re-arguing the entire case here.

However Walter Scott was undeniably a felon. He was also undeniably fleeing when he was killed. As such the "Fleeing Felon" rule most certainly does apply. This holds that a police officer can shoot and kill a felon who is fleeing in order to eliminate the threat to either themselves or the wider public.

A prime example of why this rule exists is the ambush of Officer Jesse Hartnett by Edward Archer in Philadelphia in January 2016.  Despite being shot multiple times as he sat in his patrol car Hartnett was able to give chase and shoot and kill Archer as he fled. Thus preventing another attack.

The key test in the fleeing felon one is the reasonable person test. In short would you - as a reasonable person - reach the same conclusion as the defendant under the same circumstances. However if it is found that a defendant has acted unreasonably they can only be convicted of manslaughter rather than murder.

The only reason that the local Mayor Keith Summey announced a completely unsupportable murder charge before the matter had gone a Grand Jury was fear that Black Lives Matter would respond violently.

That is terrorism plain and simple and it presents a very serious threat to American society.

However at the moment these anti-Trump protests seem to be different.

Over the past two years the Hillary Clinton campaign has been whipping up young and often vulnerable Americans into an almost religious frenzy that only she can protect America from the evil Donald Trump and she is definitely going to be elected President.

Now that has been shown to be a lie many of her supporters are now almost grieving with lots of anger and nervous energy to get out of their systems.

Although there have been some windows broken and missiles thrown amid the usual tear gas these protests so far haven't been particularly violent.

Last night a protester was shot in the leg in Portland, Oregon. However this seems to have been the result of a motorists getting frustrated that the protesters were blocking traffic rather than being political violence by either the protesters or by counter-protesters.

Crucially at this point there doesn't seem to be any serious attempt to use violence or intimidation to subvert the democratic process.

So for the time being rather than getting over excited by these protests I'm happy to let them tire themselves out.

However it is worth pointing out that Donald Trump is still only the President-elect. Until January 20th 2017 (20/1/17) Barack Obama remains as President.

Therefore if the situation does escalate or deteriorate it falls to Obama to respond.

17:05 on 12/11/16 (UK date)

The Second US Presidential Debate.

I am well aware that the US Presidential election is now over. However this is something that I've been meaning to tidy up for a while.

I think the second US Presidential debate held on October 9th (9/10/16) really summed up not only how utterly detached from reality that the Hillary Clinton campaign was but also the extent to which the entire system - including the supposedly independent debate commission - was in favour of Hillary Clinton.

The Clinton campaign's big play for ahead of that second debate was the release of the Billy Bush tapes on October 7th (7/10/16). The intention being to portray Donald Trump as some sort of sexual predator. Despite the fact Trump pretty much blew that out of the water by inviting just a handful of women Bill Clinton has sexually assaulted over the years to the debate everyone just snapped straight back to the Clinton narrative.

Well everyone except the leader of Britain's purple themed UK Independence Party (UKIP) Nigel Farage who likened Donald Trump's performance to that of a glorious Silverbacked Gorilla. 

The following day there were numerous social media memes - which the traditional media were more than happy to report on - claiming that Trump had been stalking Hillary Clinton around the stage invading her personal space like some sort of sexual predator. The fact is that like so much else of Clinton's campaign this simply wasn't true.

The debate was in the Town Hall format. This meant that on stage right you had a podium and chair that had been assigned as Donald Trump's area. On stage left you had another podium and chair which had been assigned as Hillary Clinton's area. You then had members of the public who'd been chosen to ask questions sitting to both the left and right of the stage. In front of them all you had the moderators who were asking questions that had supposedly been sent in by members of the public via social media.

Whenever a question was asked by someone on stage right or by the moderators Hillary Clinton would immediately walk over to the right of the stage. She would then stand right in front of Donald Trump's assigned - let's go with; "Enclosure."

So it wasn't a case of Donald Trump invading Hillary Clinton's personal space throughout the debate. It was actually Hillary Clinton who was invading Trump's personal space.

However the hope was clearly that because Donald Trump is of slightly above average height while Hillary Clinton is of slightly below average height viewers wouldn't pick up on this and he would be percieved as the aggressor.

The questions seem to have been arranged in order to aid the Clinton campaign in this aim. There were four in total from audience members on both stage left and stage right.

The first question came from stage left while the next four questions came from stage right. The remaining three questions from stage left came in quick succession in a ten minute period right at the end. As a result a huge majority of the debate was spent dealing with questions from stage right and the moderators.

I actually have a degree of experience with exactly this type of snidey behaviour.

Back in 2007 I was volunteering for a charity that was partnered with the local council to help rehabilitate people with mental health problems.

During my time there a new member of staff joined who seemed to take an instant dislike to me. This lesbian wasted no time in telling anyone who would listen that I was homophobic and that I was bullying her. If she'd made an official complaint it would have triggered a formal disciplinary process to which I would have been allowed to bring an advocate.

The advocate I would have chosen would have been my lesbian mother who at the time also happened to be a government lawyer who helped draft the relevant piece of legislation.

Despite not realising that she was setting herself up for possibly the shortest disciplinary hearing in history this co-worker never did make a formal complaint. That was largely because the only piece of my supposedly intimidating and bullying behaviour she could point to as evidence was the fact that I'm quite tall. That is obviously no more my fault than her sexuality is hers.

So in the end I quit. After all that's not how you behave towards people who are trying to do you a favour.

This all happened about six months before the 2008 financial crash which was rather like Britain's 9/11. Not only did I know that was coming it actually factored into my decision making.

Nearly ten years later there are still some people utterly convinced that they are brilliant at this sort of thing while I am completely useless. Therefore I must allow them to 'help' me be rehabilitated by working at a minimum wage job in a supermarket where one day I may be promoted to work on the check-out.

One area that really helps to highlight the folly of that point of view is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Of the six Conferences of Parties (COP's) that occurred between 2010 and 2016 I found myself in Court for four of them. These were primarily to argue civil cases over said council's treatment of my grandmother. She actually died during the 2012 COP16 which was somewhat stressful.

One of the things that was achieved during those years was the formation of the Green Climate Fund (GCF). This is essentially a bank to fund efforts to combat climate change. The GCF's headquarters in South Korea was actually opened on my grandmother's birthday the following year.

The current COP22 opened in Morocco on Monday (7/11/16). The week before the so-called Paris Agreement which was reached at last year's COP21 came into force. However it will not actually take effect until 2020.

As a result COP22 seems to be being largely used to talk about other things. Particularly by people who are trying to hide their hope that President-elect Donald Trump will follow through on his promise to sign an executive order to scrap what has become known as; "The 12/12 Atrocity." It is only then that we can re-start work on something that will actually combat climate change.

The Closing Ceremony of the 2016 Olympic Games held in Rio de Janerio, Brazil featured a segment set in a vegetable garden. This was intended to mock current US First Lady Michelle Obama and her efforts to get children to eat more vegetables. Specifically the sarcastic #ThanksMichelle hashtag used by students to protest their new 'healthy' school meals.

However with the games being held in Rio - the birthplace of the UNFCCC - the issue of climate change also featured heavily.

This is particularly true of the very dry Opening Ceremony. This made frequent reference to the Brutalist school or urban design which grew from the Modernist school that was in part founded by very famous Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.

Essentially the Brutalist school pioneered the idea of dormitory cities. These are small cities designed just to house workers who travel to near-by economic cities.

From a climate change perspective these are a horrible idea because even if you are using public transport the further people have to travel to and from work the more greenhouse gas emissions you get and by extension more climate change.

Brutalist urban design is also extremely problematic for that hard to define concept of "Social Cohesion." Essentially with the dormitory cities being deserted during the day and the economic city being deserted at night there is no sense of community or togetherness in either.

Brazil obviously has many examples of Brutalist design. However a particularly good example within the UK is the London borough of Croydon. Essentially it was designed in the 1960's to act as a dormitory city for central London. It is also where I spent a year studying urban design and geography.

To combat the social cohesion problem Croydon has built a Tram system running from residential areas in the east and west into the town centre. The idea being to give the town centre a bit of life during the day while most residents are working in central London to the north.

The year I spent studying in Croydon was also the year between construction on the Tram system being completed and it finally getting a safety certificate to carry passengers.

If you look on a map you will see that the main offices for the Tram system - "Tramlink" as it's officially known - are literally right between Croydon College and the offices of Croydon planning department. As a result the amount of information I have forgotten about Croydon's Tram system is mind boggling.

However I seem to remember that the original safety problem was that drivers unfamiliar with Trams kept driving their cars into the side of them not realising that things on rails can't swerve out of the way.

On Wednesday (9/11/16) Croydon's Tram system suffered its first major accident when one derailed killing 7 and injuring a further 50 passengers. Although the cause of the crash is still under investigation speed is believed to be a major factor. So the discussion is essentially;

"Was the driver going to fast? Or; Is the track just too damn slow?"

Then of course there is the issue of the Notting Hill Housing Trust (NHHT) Housing Association who I consider to be responsible for the murder of my grandmother.

The Conservative MP for Croydon Central - Gavin Barwell - who has appeared on TV screens across the globe as a result of the crash is also the Minister of State for Housing and Planning. He like the rest of the Conservative government was elected in 2015 on a manifesto promise to abolish housing associations exactly like the NHHT.

As a result it also seems to serve as a warning from upon high that certain people shouldn't be at all confident in their current point of view.

Of course in the sending of that message four - and I think is likely to be confirmed - seven wholly innocent people have been killed.

Surely it would have been easier just to kill the people who - in my opinion at least - completely deserve it.

15:25 on 11/11/16 (UK date).

Yay! Capitalism.

You may remember that after the Olympics I said I needed a week or two to recover.

Well it turns out my father is not the World's most sensitive person. It was that week he decided to get a carpenter in to fix the stairs forcing me to take refuge in the outside world.

The following day he then decided that he wanted to buy a new sofa. Now I think buying a sofa is rather like buying a car. It's something you're going to have to live with for a good few years so needs some careful consideration.

I can't say that I appreciated being forced to learn everything there is to know about furniture design in the space of a few hours.

My father though had got fixated on the idea that he really wanted a reclining sofa.

The first problem with this is that having always having to prop himself up with cushions I'm not at all sure my father actually wants a recliner.

The second problem is that recliner open up to roughly double their size. That would make it roughly half the size of the room it is supposed to fit in. As a compromise we ended up getting a motorised recliner because the mechanism takes up less space.

I still think I need to go to Climate Change jail for that.

Anyway it was delivered this morning. So I basically had to roll out of bed straight into steel toed boots and do my Superman impression by lifting the old, Oak framed more or less on my own.

I also think  I may now have fixed my PC. For some reason the LAN was routing to a proxy server that no longer exists. So I'm now routing it to one that does.

12:40 on 11/11/16 (UK date).

Love Trumps Hate.

For the past two years the US Democratic Party has waged a hateful and divisive campaign to have Hillary Clinton elected President.

Their entire strategy in this has been to focus on the differences between people such as their race, gender or sexuality. Isolating people into their neat little boxes. They then tell different lies to these different groups to convince them that only Hillary Clinton can protect them against all the other, almost tribes.

The most famous example of this is the lie of Michael Brown being an innocent, unarmed man who was murdered by the racist police. Another good example is Hillary Clinton's refusal to admit that she voted for a wall between Mexico and the US back when she was a Senator in 2006.

This has clearly not been done for the good of America. It wasn't even been done to gain the power needed to reshape the world for better or worse. Instead it was done just because Hillary Clinton really, really wanted to call herself President.

Yesterday (8/11/16) American voters whole heartedly this destructive world view.

Instead they decided that they simply wanted to be Americans. And they want America to be great again.

Not only did Donald Trump win the Presidency but his Republican Party secured control of both the upper - Senate - and lower - House of Representives - of Congress.

It is a quirk of American politics that although he has been elected Trump won't actually take up office until January 2017. It is during this period that I feel current President Obama will be at his most dangerous. Despite his speech today he is exactly the sort of man who will try and burn down the house just to spite his successor.

It is a tradition of American politics that upon taking up office the new President will use their first 100 days to start driving through the policies they want use to change the country. I have never liked this tradition. I hope Trump breaks with it and becomes the first President to use those hundred days to assess the situation and then decide what needs to be done.

Due to FBI Director Comet's decision to completely abdicate responsibility this election has also been something of a referendum on whether Hillary Clinton should be prosecuted for her crimes of espionage.

Quite apart from the fact she is clearly guilty and guilty people should be punished I think such a prosecution will be good for the Democratic Party.

Since her husband left office in 2000 the Democrats have been gripped by this almost religious fervor that Hillary Clinton will be America's first female President. The fact that she lost to Obama back in 2008 didn't seem to dent this view at all.

This obsession that only Hillary Clinton can be Democrats nominee is absolutely killing the party.

I notice that despite finally conceding the election Hillary Clinton has still not announced her retirement from politics. Maybe it will take being sent to prison to finally get the hint and allow new ideas to grow.


20:10 on 9/11/16 (UK date).

The 2016 Presidential Election: Hillary Clinton Pt.3

This should be read as a direct continuation of; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/the-2016-presidential-election-hillary_5.html

Hillary Clinton's campaign has been more than happy to engage in the political violence of the current Democratic administration.

Throughout the early part of 2016 up to the conventions this electoral campaign has been marked by often quite serious violence at and around rallies by the Republican nominee Donald Trump. That violence has been carried out by supporters of Hillary Clinton and organised by the Democrat Party.

One of the most well documented examples of this is Zumela Rodriguez who led the violence at Trump's rally in Chicago in March 2016 which caused it to be cancelled. At the time Rodriguez was on the payroll of the Hillary Clinton campaign being paid around $1000 for her time. She was also paid a $30 dollar bonus which was put down in the campaign accounts as a payment for a 'phone.'

Then of course there is the Republican Party campaign office in Orange County, Hillsborough, North Carolina. On October 15th (15/10/16) this was burnt out in a firebomb attack and graffiti warning the; "Nazi Republicans" to leave the area.

There are of course many other examples because as Democrat campaign organiser James O'Keefe is on the record as saying; "Sometimes we just pay insane people to do things for us."

Although I would say that it is not even the biggest the most talked about scandal of Hillary Clinton's term as Secretary of State is her use of a private email server.

On July 5th (5//7/16) a long FBI investigation found that through her use of that  server Hillary Clinton had leaked 110 secure government documents. Ten of those documents carried the most serious "Top Secret" status. Each on of those documents represents a separate criminal offence committed by Hillary Clinton against the United States contrary to Title 18 Chapter 37 Section 793(f) of the US code - sometimes referred to as the 1917 Espionage Act.

Under that act the test of guilt is not intent but merely gross negligence. That means that the person needs not have chosen to leak secret documents. They merely need to have caused secret documents to be held insecurely through their own carelessness. 

The FBI described Hillary Clinton's behaviour as "extremely careless" and Hillary Clinton herself admits that she made serious mistakes. Those are just synonyms for; "Gross Negligence."

However Hillary Clinton has still not been prosecuted for those crimes. In explaining his decision not to prosecute FBI director James Comey said that he simply did not want to. That is most certainly not a valid legal reason.

We are assured though that the failure to prosecute Hillary Clinton has absolutely nothing to do with the cozy chat that her husband Bill Clinton had with Attorney General Loretta Lynch aboard his private jet just days before. We are also assured that it has absolutely nothing to do with the $500,000 that Hillary Clinton's close friend Terry McAuliffe donated to the wife of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe who was the lead agent in the investigation.

If you are interested in justice or democracy the most worrying element of Hillary Clinton's campaign was the way they immediately used violence in an attempt to intimidate law enforcement.

This began on the day the FBI announced the findings of its investigation - (5/7/16) - with the release of a video showing the death of a black man - Alton Sterling - in Baton Rogue, Louisiana at the hands of the police.

At the time of his death Sterling was in possession of a illegal firearm with which he'd been threatening members of the public and physically attacking the police officers who'd been called in to protect the public from Sterling. As such you will struggle to find a better example of the legal use of lethal force.

The following day (6/7/16) another video was released of another black man - Philando Castile - being shot and killed at the hands of the police. This time in St Paul, Minnesota.

At the time Castile was legally in possession of a concealed firearm but refused to follow the training which allowed him to carry that weapon. Instead he refused to follow the police officers instructions to show his hands while shouting that he had a gun and reaching for it. Castile's death was not caused so much by the bullet wound to his arm but by the fact his girlfriend - Diamond Reynolds - blocked the police officers attempts to render lifesaving medical aid so she could film Castile's death in the style of an ISIL Martyrdom video.

Although both of these shootings were legally justified the Democrat thugs of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement immediately took to the streets of cities across the US in protest and riot. They even stormed the official residence of the Minnesota Governor.

On Thursday (7/7/16) FBI Director Comey was called before the US Congress to answer questions on the Hillary Clinton investigation. The Democrat members of Congress universally used this not to discuss Hillary Clinton's crimes but as an opportunity to incite their BLM street army into a further frenzy of anger and violence.

That very night the violence that the Democrats had incited boiled over. At a BLM protest in Dallas, Texas one of the protesters picked up a rifle and opened fire on the police killing five officers and wounding seven others.

Despite this attack the Democrats still failed to condemn BLM as the domestic terror group that they are. Instead the Democrats continued to incite BLM further in the hope law enforcement would be intimidated and back off from prosecuting Hillary Clinton.

Again the violence the Democrats had incited in order to keep Hillary Clinton in the Presidential race boiled over into another BLM terror attack. This time in Baton Rouge, Louisiana where three more police officers were shot and murdered.

That a candidate for a major US political party would use violence and terror against not just political opponents but against the apparatus of state such as the justice system is absolutely shocking. Rather than being something you associate with a prosperous democracy it is something you more normally find in third world dictatorships and failed states.

Although it pre-dates Obama's candidacy let alone his Presidency the recent case study that continues to influence international thinking on such matters is Kenya in 2007/8.

Here both candidates for the Presidency sent armies of thugs to the streets to prevent people from voting for their opponent. When the election result was announced both candidates rejected it and their respective street armies intensified their violence. It was only after 1,500 people had been killed and 600,000 internally displaced and the United Nations (UN) intervened that a Government of National Unity (GNU) was formed the violence ended

Other good current examples are Libya where they now have a Government of National Accord (GNA) and South Sudan which is still under discussion. In both these cases the US State Department and the US Ambassador to the UN frequently make statements calling on all parties to refrain from violence and respect the democratic process.

The Democrats approach to democracy also seems rather similar to the current situation in Venezuela.

Amid an economic collapse the Venezuelan people are desperate to hold a recall election to get rid of their President Nicholas Maduro. However being under the political control of Maduro the nation's Courts keep trying to block them.

For example the rules state that for a recall election to take place a petition must be signed by 1% of voters nationally. With more than 10% of voters having signed the petition the Courts have suddenly and inexplicably decided that it must be 1% of voters in each electoral district. The Supreme Court is refusing to rule on the issue until 2017 by which time a recall election will only result in Maduro being replaced by his deputy - Aristobulo Isturiz - rather than a new President being elected.

With Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez tending to blame everything on the American capitalist pig dogs the US has tried to avoid commenting on the situation too much. However apparently food shortages in the country have got so bad that earlier this year the Obama administration was forced to grant US citizenship to Alicia Machado.

The Democrats repeated assaults on democracy and the rule of law over these past years have been loudly protested by America's peers in Europe and as far a field as Australia and Brazil. The assumption amongst developed democracies being that any party prepared to behave in such a way would simply be banned from participating in the democratic process.

Then of course there is the ever present question of Hillary Clinton's health and her medical fitness to hold the office of President.

According to her medical records since 2012 Hillary Clinton has been taking a drug called Warfarin to thin her blood and stop it from clotting. Officially the reason for this is to prevent a condition called Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT).

Normally when a patient is prescribed Warfarin to guard against DVT they are immobilised such as if they were bedridden after major surgery or in traction to treat a fracture. Clearly neither of these circumstances apply to Hillary Clinton. Therefore it is highly unusual that she is still taking Warfarin some four years later.

Hillary Clinton's treatment is much more consistent with what you would expect of a patient who is at high risk of suffering from Ischemic Attacks. Sometimes referred to as "Strokes" these attacks which can be transient in nature - TIA's - occur when the blood vessels in the brain get blocked by clots causing the brain to shut down.  Depending on the severity of the attack this can cause the patient to black out and fall alongside longer lasting effects such as paralysis and death.

Hillary Clinton's treatment with Warfarin of course began following a mysterious fall back in 2012. That fall undeniably left Hillary Clinton with a degree of brain damage. That is why following it she had to wear glasses with special Fresnel lenses to correct her double vision.

Then of course there was Hillary Clinton's mysterious fall at the 9/11 memorial on September 11th (11/9/16). There have also been numerous photographs and video footage of Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail suffering from stumbles and dizzy spells and then having members of her staff perform neurological tests on her hands and face to rule out the paralysis normally associated with TIA's.

If, as the evidence suggests, Hillary Clinton is suffering from TIA's that would absolutely rule her medically unfit to become President. During TIA's the braincells die and are not replaced leading to neurological impairment. Normally the first thing to go is memory followed by cognitive or reasoning skills.

Throughout the investigation into her emails Hillary Clinton has made no secret of the fact that she suffers from memory loss. Lately she has also been showing signs of impaired reasoning.

On September 17th (17/9/16)  a terrorist bombing occurred in the Chelsea district of New York City. Hillary Clinton's first reaction was to attempt to deny that it had been a terrorist attack. She even went so far as to condemn Donald Trump for declaring that the bombing had in fact been caused by a bomb.

Obviously having showed that her heart lies with radical Islamist terrorist who wish to attack US citizens rather than those US citizens Hillary Clinton really needed a distraction to move the newscycle on.

So on September 20th (20/9/16) we had yet another tale of an unarmed black man being murdered by the racist police. This time Keith Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina. In order to incite BLM to protest and dominate the newscycle the Democrat Mayor Jennifer Roberts initially refused to release video of the shooting in the hope of fuelling a conspiracy theory.

On September 23rd (23/9/16) Keith Scott's wife - Rakeyia Scott - released her own video of the shooting.

Obviously Mrs Scott knew that her husband was an extremely violent man who had served 6 years in prison for shooting a man after taking a plea bargain on an attempted murder charge. Mrs Scott herself has had to report her husband to the police on several occasions in order to protect herself and their children. Mrs Scott also knew that her husband was in possession of an illegal firearm rather than a book as was initially claimed.

So Mrs Scott's video features her shouting repeatedly - I think 9 times - and clearly "Don't You Do it Keith!" as she herself was concerned her husband was about to open fire on the police.

Bizarrely it was at this moment that Hillary Clinton decided to travel to Charlotte, North Carolina to meet with the family and support their campaign against the police. As if standing alongside people who are so clearly lying would in some way help her campaign.

It actually fell to Mayor Roberts who is quite a low ranking member of the Democrat Party to plead with Hillary Clinton to cancel her visit because it would damage her campaign.

Then of course there was the second Presidential debate. Asked a question about her email scandal Hillary Clinton acknowledged that she had made a series of mistakes. In doing so she acknowledged that she had committed the Gross Negligence element of the offence in front TV cameras that were recording and roughly 80 million witnesses. That alone should have been grounds to re-open the investigation.

This pattern of seemingly irrational behaviour has very much been the hallmark of Hillary Clinton's campaign.

For example just last Wednesday (2/11/16) she invited Obama to campaign for her at North Carolina University in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This course was the scene of  the February 10th 2015 (10/2/15) Chapel Hill shooting in which three Muslim students at North Carolina University were murdered in their off campus home by a neighbour.

Immediately following the shooting the local Mosque which at the time was under FBI investigation for links to ISIL organised protests condemning America's oppressive Islamaphobia. They were quickly joined by Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan who called on Obama to publicly condemn the Islamaphobic murders.

Of course what Obama should have done is taken the opportunity to gently remind Erdogan that in a democracy it is not the place of the President to interfere in ongoing criminal investigations. Instead Obama meekly did what Erdogan told him to and condemned the Islamaphobic murders.

Obviously the case still has to go to trial. However investigators have still not found any evidence of an Islamaphobic motive. They have though found lots of evidence that the killings were motivated by a parking dispute.

Why you would want to remind voters of that right before an election is utterly beyond me.

Particularly as most of the students Obama was campaigning in front of will not actually vote in this key battleground state. Instead they will cast absentee ballots in their home state.

If Hillary Clinton has that sort of brain fade as President particularly if she's dealing with a potential nuclear confrontation between Russia and Turkey in Syria or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK/North) the consequences would be absolutely catastrophic.

As I'd hoped Barack Obama would finally be learning it is not simply enough for CNN to refuse to cover the story or try a put a positive spin on it for voters. If a President suffers from even a temporary loss of logical reasoning it will create very real problems to which very real solutions will need to be found.

A prime example of this is the current situation in Syria.

On August 24th (24/8/16) Turkey launched an invasion and occupation of northern Syria to protect ISIL's supply-lines to and from Turkey from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). What Obama should have immediately done is to tell Erdogan in no uncertain terms to withdraw his occupation force.

However Obama chickened out of that thinking that he could distract voters with a big operation to liberate Mosul in Iraq to which CNN would be given front row seats. This plan of course relies on leaving the west of Mosul undefended to allow ISIL to escape back to Raqqa in Syria.

Then at an apparently very angry NATO meeting it was pointed out to the US that if ISIL fighters can flee to Raqqa then they can flee to Europe and beyond via Turkey.

So suddenly yesterday (6/11/16) it was announced that the SDF are launching an operation to liberate Raqqa. This has me extremely concerned.

The combined Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and Iraqi Peshmerga forces bearing down on Mosul massively outstrip the size of force ISIL have to defend the city. So despite the fact that due to a complete lack of strategic planning they will suffer unnecessarily high casualties Mosul will eventually by liberated.

The SDF however are a much smaller, lightly armed almost guerrilla force. Therefore there is a very real risk that the SDF will be wiped out in an operation to liberate Raqqa. That means that there will no longer be a moderate anti-ISIL groundforce in Syria.

So the US can cut off my Internet connection and it can block my Tweets to stop me talking about it. Hillary Clinton may even win the election.

However we're still going to be left with the problem of how to defeat ISIL. No matter what name they're using this week.

The FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's espionage is also another prime example of political spin not being the same as success.

Since July Hillary Clinton, the Democrats and the media have been assuring us that the investigation is closed and we should all just move on. Obviously I would like to say that is simply not true.

However in the time it has taken me to look up the specific statute on my phone and then get this to an Internet cafe to publish it seems that Comey has made a decision.

In certain sections of the media - particularly CNN - this is being reported as the FBI finding no evidence that Hillary Clinton has committed any crime. However this isn't quite true.

Under intense pressure from the same Democrat Congressmen who riled up BLM Comey has decided to refer everyone to his earlier statement of July 5th (5/7/16). As I'm sure Comey is well aware this is something that suspects frequently do under interrogation. Normally right before they invoke the fifth amendment against self-incrimination.

Comey's original statement of course is that there is clear evidence that Hillary Clinton has committed 110 crimes of espionage against the US. However he just doesn't want to prosecute her for those crimes.

So it seems that once again the weight of the world is upon the shoulders of you, the American voter.

As I see it your choice for President is between;

A man who has successfully run a multinational corporation for more than 30 years and is probably the most liberal Republican candidate since the 1980's.

Or;

A woman who appears to be at war with America and seems to view the Presidency as an alternative to prison.

12:50 on 7/11/16 (UK date)