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90% of famous artists seem absolutely shit to me, ive seen better paintings in nursery school. Another massive con. Don't get me wrong, I respect and appreciate talent, people who can draw and paint well amaze me, Im talking about most art gallery crap lol
I know what you mean but even Rothko seems deep after a toke, no?


I'm not big into some types of modern art but equally I won't slag it off if others enjoy it. However... when I last went to the Tate on the South Bank there was an installation that involved things like a single wall of shed, or some manky old tubing, etc. One of them was a bit of metal air duct mounted vertically in the centre of the room. The type Bruce Willis might crawl through at Christmas. I genuinely had to check it was an exhibit but, yes, it had a tag.
Very similar, but considerably nicer, ducting runs along the ceiling above the cafe!

Now, I actually like design (as opposed to art). I like functional things that engineered and designed close to perfection. I can also like them when they are old, rusty or broken after a lifetime of jobs well done. I often like that considerably more than "art for art's sake". But this was the closest thing to literally getting money for old rope that I've ever seen.
Maybe the joke is on me. I suppose it 'made me think'. But it made me think, what a load of bollocks.
 
Alighting at Blackfriars is a treat.

I am slightly green here.
I rely on a friend who works for East Midlands Trains, or whatever it's called this week.
We can get return 1st class tickets from Chez-Vegas to St. P, with a Breakfast included for £10 Woohoo.
Then it all gets a bit messy.
After breakfast a couple of cans of G&T, alight, get to Borough Market, swallow a couple of oysters, buy some cheese I don't really want and drink some prosecco like a pretentious twat, flounce about on the South Bank, a few jars at The Hornyman, onto St. Catherine's Dock for a few more, then back to the Betjeman Arms for a bottle of Bolly before falling asleep and waking up at Lime Street.

Beats looking at shit art and rubbing your chin for hours.

Damn this virus.
 
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I know what you mean but even Rothko seems deep after a toke, no?


I'm not big into some types of modern art but equally I won't slag it off if others enjoy it. However... when I last went to the Tate on the South Bank there was an installation that involved things like a single wall of shed, or some manky old tubing, etc. One of them was a bit of metal air duct mounted vertically in the centre of the room. The type Bruce Willis might crawl through at Christmas. I genuinely had to check it was an exhibit but, yes, it had a tag.
Very similar, but considerably nicer, ducting runs along the ceiling above the cafe!

Now, I actually like design (as opposed to art). I like functional things that engineered and designed close to perfection. I can also like them when they are old, rusty or broken after a lifetime of jobs well done. I often like that considerably more than "art for art's sake". But this was the closest thing to literally getting money for old rope that I've ever seen.
Maybe the joke is on me. I suppose it 'made me think'. But it made me think, what a load of bollocks.
yeahh thats pretty much in tune with me lol
 
I am slightly green here.
I rely on a friend who works for East Midlands Trains, or whatever it's called this week.
We can get return 1st class tickets from Chez-Vegas to St. P, with a Breakfast included for £10 Woohoo.
Then it all gets a bit messy.
After breakfast a couple of cans of G&T, alight, get to Borough Market, swallow a couple of oysters, buy some cheese I don't really want and drink some prosecco like a pretentious twat, flounce about on the South Bank, a few jars at The Hornyman, onto St. Catherine's Dock for a few more, then back to the Betjeman Arms for a bottle of Bolly before falling asleep and waking up at Lime Street.

Beats looking at shit art and rubbing your chin for hours.

Damn this virus.
im confused, why are people allowed on trains again? lol
 
If the impeachment process were to be successful, Trump would be removed from office. But as hearings in the Senate can last weeks, Trump will have left office by the time the case is concluded. So it can be deduced, the purpose of the impeachment is virtually impossible to fulfil by due process and timescales.

I understand that impeachment proceedings may disqualify from holding public office in the future. Now here's the nub.

It is seeming very likely that the motive(s) for the impeachment is to prevent Trump from holding any public office appointment at anytime in the future. Many are watching on blinded by hatred for Trump (understandable), but is this really being thought through?

This scenario makes me uncomfortable, and don’t think I’m a Trump supporter, he has qualities but IMO, totally unfit for the position he’s held for the last 4 years. That's my opinion.

The political institutions in DC, haven't recovered from the bloody nose they received in 2016 and seem utterly hell bent on preventing anyone from outside their clique running for office, ever again; especially Trump.
Yes he's rude, childish, offensive and not ‘presidential’ but, and here is the issue, people voted for him and that's how democracy works. It has its flaws, but it’s democracy.

Pelosi et al have fought tooth & nail for four years straight to disrupt Trump and his administration, yet their own shortcomings are repeatedly swept aside.
There was a media blackout and many showed very little interest in the Hunter Biden story that emerged prior to the election. That in itself is dangerous: if the story is untrue or ‘sexed up’ then that needs establishing with evidence; if it is true, then the public has a right to know about it and the level to which Jo Biden was involved.
It’s not too dissimilar to the UKs Brexit debate; the media saturated the airwaves with remain pundits trying to convince us that referendum voting was unsafe or we’d change our minds.

The Democrats are actively trying to suppress debate now, but sooner or later these questions will be asked. There is a whiff of the sword of Damocles here and there will be an aftermath that will need to be faced.
70 million Republican voters will not be too happy; the US will have their own equivalents of Soubry, Bercow, Grieve, et al and they will face a similar day of reckoning at the ballot box. Experienced politicians are making decisions based on emotions rather than logic. These are professional politicians!

Those UK politicians didn’t escape the electorate and neither, I believe will the ones in the US; as they attempt a reformation to the pre-Trump era.

What dumfounds me though is these folks have been in politics for decades and they are making such basic mistakes which may be terminal for them. They are insulting 70+ million people.
These people watched the Portland Federal Court get ransacked repeatedly last summer with very little kickback. There were businesses burned, police stations abandoned, lawlessness and looting enveloped whole neighbourhoods.
This was wrong. Statue toppling is wrong. There was no legitimacy for these actions.
To these people it must appear that only one side of the debate is permitted to be aired; then call people who question this ‘racist’ thus shutting it down. What will this result in? Resentment, frustration in a population that is feeling disillusioned.

So the big question is, What are the Democrats doing? They appear to be picking a fight they can’t win. Their actions now need reconciling with 70 million people who voted republican; many of whom are perfectly respectable and intelligent people.

The disconnect from the Hill to the electorate is quite astounding. I think they’re going quite mad.
 
This entire argument makes very little sense and I think you fall into the same traps you accuse others of.

The presidency is an institution that has evolved over 250 years. Trump doesn't get to just singlehandedly redefine all of the conventions of the presidency just because he a) doesn't understand them or b) they don't suit him. Yet that is what he has done.

When you dismiss his negative characteristics, you are dismissing the job; maturity, selflessness, leadership for the many, politeness and "presidential behaviour" are the job; they are not "nice to haves". They are the job and Trump does not get to unilaterally redefine that. If you think he does, why does he and he alone?

Democracy depends upon forbearance. In order for an elected leader to have the latitude to act in all situations, they have to have powers that, used for nefarious reasons, would potentially undermine that democracy; and they equally need to be willing to forebare using those. A leader has to be willing to refuse to use powers that would benefit them personally. Trump has not been willing to do that. He has not been constrained by any personal commitment to democracy, but only by the absolute limits of his power and the limits of what others are willing to do to enable him.

For instance, he has broken several rules of the presidency several times, and these are now dismissed as if they don't matter. He is in flagrant violation of the Emoluments laws; a president cannot personally profit from the presidency; he has abundantly. It is outrageous the bills he has charged the federal government for holding official functions at his private hotels and estates, let alone the trips to Mar-A-Lago, where the US taxpayer are charged for secret service staying in his own club.

He and his family have absolutely shattered the Hatch Act so many times it is barely regarded as a law any more. Yet it is a law, he has broken it many times. You talk about him as if he has been singled out for hard treatment, but It is only political unwillingness to actually enforce federal law on Trump that has prevented him being removed from office for those violations. No other president could have expected to just defy the law like that.

Did democrats hate him? To be fair, most republicans didn't like him either. But that is beside the point. Republicans loathed Obama on a level Trump has never experienced. McConnell on day one stated his intention to make Obama a one term president. Obama met obstructionalism on a level Trump cannot even imagine, it's nadir being the Garland affair. Republicans have no leg to stand on with this.

You say the people voted for him, but that is not true. Yes, he won the 2016 election. But "the people" did not actually vote for him as a majority in either election. His approval has always been low. He was the legitimate president, but you cannot claim any exceptional legitimacy on the basis of his approval by the majority of the people as he did not have it.

You talk about the media. Hunter Biden is a nothing story. But it has constantly been out there. Yet Ivanka's Chinese contracts, Jarad's real estate deals and the extent to which the Trump family have illegally profited from power is never discussed even though it is known to be going on. If you think Hunter Biden is a story, why have you not clamoured for a look into the Trump family, who before our eyes have gained contracts abroad they would never have had otherwise?

The reality is, Trump is a dictator. He has admired only dictators and he has abhorred democratic leaders. The more authoritarian a leader, the more he gets on with them.

And the fact remains that Trump has broken extremely serious laws three times. The Muller enquiry probably reached the right result; his campaign absolutely did try to collude with Russia to steer the 2016 election, but they were too dumb to actually do anything all that illegal. Did Trump make illegal payments to people like Stormy Daniels? Of course he did, he has more or less admitted it. Did Trump commit obstruction of justice? Mr Mueller seemed to think so.

Everybody knows as well that he broke the law on that phone call to Ukraine. Why on earth would you excuse that? He clearly exerts political pressure on a foreign government for his own electoral gain. How on earth is Hunter Biden a foreign policy issue for the presidency to pick up? What he did was extraordinary, illegal and impeachable.

Yet, he has lived his life by so flagrantly ignoring rules that even people such as yourself just assume they don't apply to him. This is a country that impeached a president over a blow job. How is that phone call not impeachable?

And then last Wednesday. He incited, deliberately, an armed coup against Congress. Did he know exactly how it would play out? No. That is why he refused to act against it; he wanted to see how it would play out and whether it had any chance of cancelling certification or actually eliminating Congress in some way. He acted only when that possibility faded. That is treason.
 
This entire argument makes very little sense and I think you fall into the same traps you accuse others of.

The presidency is an institution that has evolved over 250 years. Trump doesn't get to just singlehandedly redefine all of the conventions of the presidency just because he a) doesn't understand them or b) they don't suit him. Yet that is what he has done.

When you dismiss his negative characteristics, you are dismissing the job; maturity, selflessness, leadership for the many, politeness and "presidential behaviour" are the job; they are not "nice to haves". They are the job and Trump does not get to unilaterally redefine that. If you think he does, why does he and he alone?

Democracy depends upon forbearance. In order for an elected leader to have the latitude to act in all situations, they have to have powers that, used for nefarious reasons, would potentially undermine that democracy; and they equally need to be willing to forebare using those. A leader has to be willing to refuse to use powers that would benefit them personally. Trump has not been willing to do that. He has not been constrained by any personal commitment to democracy, but only by the absolute limits of his power and the limits of what others are willing to do to enable him.

For instance, he has broken several rules of the presidency several times, and these are now dismissed as if they don't matter. He is in flagrant violation of the Emoluments laws; a president cannot personally profit from the presidency; he has abundantly. It is outrageous the bills he has charged the federal government for holding official functions at his private hotels and estates, let alone the trips to Mar-A-Lago, where the US taxpayer are charged for secret service staying in his own club.

He and his family have absolutely shattered the Hatch Act so many times it is barely regarded as a law any more. Yet it is a law, he has broken it many times. You talk about him as if he has been singled out for hard treatment, but It is only political unwillingness to actually enforce federal law on Trump that has prevented him being removed from office for those violations. No other president could have expected to just defy the law like that.

Did democrats hate him? To be fair, most republicans didn't like him either. But that is beside the point. Republicans loathed Obama on a level Trump has never experienced. McConnell on day one stated his intention to make Obama a one term president. Obama met obstructionalism on a level Trump cannot even imagine, it's nadir being the Garland affair. Republicans have no leg to stand on with this.

You say the people voted for him, but that is not true. Yes, he won the 2016 election. But "the people" did not actually vote for him as a majority in either election. His approval has always been low. He was the legitimate president, but you cannot claim any exceptional legitimacy on the basis of his approval by the majority of the people as he did not have it.

You talk about the media. Hunter Biden is a nothing story. But it has constantly been out there. Yet Ivanka's Chinese contracts, Jarad's real estate deals and the extent to which the Trump family have illegally profited from power is never discussed even though it is known to be going on. If you think Hunter Biden is a story, why have you not clamoured for a look into the Trump family, who before our eyes have gained contracts abroad they would never have had otherwise?

The reality is, Trump is a dictator. He has admired only dictators and he has abhorred democratic leaders. The more authoritarian a leader, the more he gets on with them.

And the fact remains that Trump has broken extremely serious laws three times. The Muller enquiry probably reached the right result; his campaign absolutely did try to collude with Russia to steer the 2016 election, but they were too dumb to actually do anything all that illegal. Did Trump make illegal payments to people like Stormy Daniels? Of course he did, he has more or less admitted it. Did Trump commit obstruction of justice? Mr Mueller seemed to think so.

Everybody knows as well that he broke the law on that phone call to Ukraine. Why on earth would you excuse that? He clearly exerts political pressure on a foreign government for his own electoral gain. How on earth is Hunter Biden a foreign policy issue for the presidency to pick up? What he did was extraordinary, illegal and impeachable.

Yet, he has lived his life by so flagrantly ignoring rules that even people such as yourself just assume they don't apply to him. This is a country that impeached a president over a blow job. How is that phone call not impeachable?

And then last Wednesday. He incited, deliberately, an armed coup against Congress. Did he know exactly how it would play out? No. That is why he refused to act against it; he wanted to see how it would play out and whether it had any chance of cancelling certification or actually eliminating Congress in some way. He acted only when that possibility faded. That is treason.

Agree with a lot of that, as it's all true, but it is getting away from my main point that the Democrats are going the wrong way about it, aided and abetted by much of the media.
They need to be careful as I think it will have the opposite affect from what they want.
 
Agree with a lot of that, as it's all true, but it is getting away from my main point that the Democrats are going the wrong way about it, aided and abetted by much of the media.
They need to be careful as I think it will have the opposite affect from what they want.
But that is my point though; Trump has been allowed to get away with so much already: more than any other president, probably any other American.

The argument seems to be, "don't punish Trump for what he incited us to do or we'll threaten to do worse".

Where was the national healing when kids were first put in cages? Or in either of the government shutdowns?

What exactly should the democrats do? What lesson do you expect Trump to learn if they do nothing, other than to emphasise his lifelong experience that no action he can ever take will ever have negative consequences for him?

The impeachment is not the issue. The key is declaring him ineligible to ever run for office again, and impeachment is the gateway. Pepsi correctly sees that there are many senior republicans desperate to divest their party of the Trump's and who would love an opportunity to stop another car crash in 2024 while they can blame the democrats for doing it.

Look at it from the outside. Trump being barred from office is the right thing to do. The actual legal and fair thing would be for him to spend the rest of his life in an orange jumpsuit (pick your crime) but that won't happen- because the Dems will show the forbearance that he lacks.

But he must be barred from office or next time will be worse.

The only thing worse to GOP than a Biden presidency (which the sane ones won't mind) will be an unofficial Trump "presidency in waiting"
 
But that is my point though; Trump has been allowed to get away with so much already: more than any other president, probably any other American.

The argument seems to be, "don't punish Trump for what he incited us to do or we'll threaten to do worse".

Where was the national healing when kids were first put in cages? Or in either of the government shutdowns?

What exactly should the democrats do? What lesson do you expect Trump to learn if they do nothing, other than to emphasise his lifelong experience that no action he can ever take will ever have negative consequences for him?

The impeachment is not the issue. The key is declaring him ineligible to ever run for office again, and impeachment is the gateway. Pepsi correctly sees that there are many senior republicans desperate to divest their party of the Trump's and who would love an opportunity to stop another car crash in 2024 while they can blame the democrats for doing it.

Look at it from the outside. Trump being barred from office is the right thing to do. The actual legal and fair thing would be for him to spend the rest of his life in an orange jumpsuit (pick your crime) but that won't happen- because the Dems will show the forbearance that he lacks.

But he must be barred from office or next time will be worse.

The only thing worse to GOP than a Biden presidency (which the sane ones won't mind) will be an unofficial Trump "presidency in waiting"


So how does the reconciliation of the sane millions of Republican voters happen?
Actions demonstrably needed to be taken, I can just see ones own foot being shot off.
 
So how does the reconciliation of the sane millions of Republican voters happen?
Actions demonstrably needed to be taken, I can just see ones own foot being shot off.

We need to learn the lessons of history. Apologies, but a decent reply to this will require more time than I have right at this moment so I'll pick this interesting debate up later
 
Agree with a lot of that, as it's all true, but it is getting away from my main point that the Democrats are going the wrong way about it, aided and abetted by much of the media.
They need to be careful as I think it will have the opposite affect from what they want.

You seem to think that the Republican/Democrat split is totally polarised in America; it is not.

They both have a core support which remains loyal, but there are huge swathes of people across the Country who swap and change allegiances at each election.

It is quite common for a person to vote Democrat in the General Election and Republican for the House Elections, and vice versa.

Reconciling Republican voters after Trump has been impeached will not be anything like the problem you make out; in fact it would be a far larger problem not to impeach after what has happened, and McConnel recognises that.
 
We need to learn the lessons of history. Apologies, but a decent reply to this will require more time than I have right at this moment so I'll pick this interesting debate up later

I am being quite narrow with my thinking I suppose and not looking further back than 2016. One can assume that the Democrats are responding to the Republicans’ adopting the "No to everything Obama wants" policy, taken from 2010 which ran all the way to Garland’s blocking in 2015.

The lack of respect or understanding on both sides goes back many years.
 
If the impeachment process were to be successful, Trump would be removed from office. But as hearings in the Senate can last weeks, Trump will have left office by the time the case is concluded. So it can be deduced, the purpose of the impeachment is virtually impossible to fulfil by due process and timescales.

I understand that impeachment proceedings may disqualify from holding public office in the future. Now here's the nub.

It is seeming very likely that the motive(s) for the impeachment is to prevent Trump from holding any public office appointment at anytime in the future. Many are watching on blinded by hatred for Trump (understandable), but is this really being thought through?

This scenario makes me uncomfortable, and don’t think I’m a Trump supporter, he has qualities but IMO, totally unfit for the position he’s held for the last 4 years. That's my opinion.

The political institutions in DC, haven't recovered from the bloody nose they received in 2016 and seem utterly hell bent on preventing anyone from outside their clique running for office, ever again; especially Trump.
Yes he's rude, childish, offensive and not ‘presidential’ but, and here is the issue, people voted for him and that's how democracy works. It has its flaws, but it’s democracy.

Pelosi et al have fought tooth & nail for four years straight to disrupt Trump and his administration, yet their own shortcomings are repeatedly swept aside.
There was a media blackout and many showed very little interest in the Hunter Biden story that emerged prior to the election. That in itself is dangerous: if the story is untrue or ‘sexed up’ then that needs establishing with evidence; if it is true, then the public has a right to know about it and the level to which Jo Biden was involved.
It’s not too dissimilar to the UKs Brexit debate; the media saturated the airwaves with remain pundits trying to convince us that referendum voting was unsafe or we’d change our minds.

The Democrats are actively trying to suppress debate now, but sooner or later these questions will be asked. There is a whiff of the sword of Damocles here and there will be an aftermath that will need to be faced.
70 million Republican voters will not be too happy; the US will have their own equivalents of Soubry, Bercow, Grieve, et al and they will face a similar day of reckoning at the ballot box. Experienced politicians are making decisions based on emotions rather than logic. These are professional politicians!

Those UK politicians didn’t escape the electorate and neither, I believe will the ones in the US; as they attempt a reformation to the pre-Trump era.

What dumfounds me though is these folks have been in politics for decades and they are making such basic mistakes which may be terminal for them. They are insulting 70+ million people.
These people watched the Portland Federal Court get ransacked repeatedly last summer with very little kickback. There were businesses burned, police stations abandoned, lawlessness and looting enveloped whole neighbourhoods.
This was wrong. Statue toppling is wrong. There was no legitimacy for these actions.
To these people it must appear that only one side of the debate is permitted to be aired; then call people who question this ‘racist’ thus shutting it down. What will this result in? Resentment, frustration in a population that is feeling disillusioned.

So the big question is, What are the Democrats doing? They appear to be picking a fight they can’t win. Their actions now need reconciling with 70 million people who voted republican; many of whom are perfectly respectable and intelligent people.

The disconnect from the Hill to the electorate is quite astounding. I think they’re going quite mad.

A long post that i dont need to finish to know a line has to be drawn. Sure people would have voted for hitler but democracy does not allow for perpetration of violence or intimidation. Trump whipped those people up and people died, he must be symbolically removed and notice given that while flexible, democracy should not be abused.
 
I am being quite narrow with my thinking I suppose and not looking further back than 2016. One can assume that the Democrats are responding to the Republicans’ adopting the "No to everything Obama wants" policy, taken from 2010 which ran all the way to Garland’s blocking in 2015.

The lack of respect or understanding on both sides goes back many years.

Thats the problem, trump doubled down on that but is so thick/narcissistic didnt see where the road led or didnt care cos he thought he was in control. A dangerous demagogue who should never have been allowed into public office.