General News Thread

[2Bad]

LIVE, from Iowa

[Mcjon01]

That Twitter feed is a train wreck

[Mattias]

There are a ton of unaffiliated Lords who are part of no party which is a bit unique.

Isn't Conrad Black one of those, after the Conservatives booted him for being a convicted criminal. Are the rest similarly out of favour but impossible to get rid of?

[2Bad]

http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/12/news...ata/index.html

Republicans continue to demonstrate their crippling fear of numbers and facts

[Phil12]

Trump once claimed that he had "heard" the rate could be as high as 42% -- even though at the time it was about 5%.

I'm still half in denial that this is our president.

[2Bad]

He's not, and should be told as such on a daily basis.

[Seika]

Isn't Conrad Black one of those, after the Conservatives booted him for being a convicted criminal. Are the rest similarly out of favour but impossible to get rid of?

Typically, those sort go to the 'non-affiliated' set of independent peers instead of the crossbenchers, which is true of Black. I imagine this is the practice because the general crossbencher group is fine with people who had the whip withdrawn but doesn't want to be tainted by association with someone who actually was guilty of unbecoming conduct. That said, I'm sure there are exceptions I'm unaware of.

You can be created a peer directly as a crossbencher. The practice tends to wax while parties feel like they can comfortably do their business (e.g. if they've been in power for several years and have also been creating their own peers) and wane while parties are at risk of the Lords kicking back at them because they don't have reliable support. I think it's somewhere around a third of crossbenchers are like that presently. A lot of the old hereditary peers also went crossbench during the reforms. I'm not really aware of the circumstances of the rest.

The thing is, because the whip means basically nothing in the Lords thanks to no-one being up for re-election, you can be as rebellious as you please anyway. If Heseltine gets thrown out of the Conservatives (he's an old party grandee, so he won't, but as an example) for orchestrating this little show of defiance, all it means is that he'll get slightly few automated drinks invitations. So there tends to be a lot more counter-party voting, in addition to the unpredictable crossbench bloc whose members scatter everywhere on any given issue.

[2Bad]

White Extremist attempts to burn down store because he thought it was owned by Muslims.
http://m.wtvm.com/wtvm/db_376055/con...tguid=3sXJp8ax

[2Bad]

ANOTHER White Extremist is now officially under investigation for... voter fraud!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...=.27692c9a84f1

[asterism42]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...itics-39255181

here we go again

- - - Updated - - -

Though tbh this one was really more a matter of 'when' rather than 'if'.

[2Bad]

Congrats ukip for destroying the UK

[SeiKeo]

'Once in a generation'

[2Bad]

[Laserman]

She's a freaking idiot. Do people really believe this crap? Omg people are actually defending this bull. I can't.

[Five_X]

Sturgeons are a large fish.

[asterism42]

And Trump is a fart

[Rafflesiac]

Hopefully these brave heroes responsibly dispose of their microwaves through proper channels instead of throwing them in the nearest river.

[SeiKeo]

cbo reveals that obamacare forces 14 million people to buy insurance who don't want it

[Mcjon01]

And also simultaneously that the biggest problem with Obamacare is that nobody is buying the insurance and just pay the slap on the wrist fine instead.

[Frostyvale]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-sol...ing-1489419924

“You are never going to see Burger King,” Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the top Army commander in Europe, warned soldiers of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment at a recent rehearsal drill. “Be ready for potatoes three meals a day for six months. The Irish have figured out how to make it interesting. I am sure you can, too.”