Politics & Stuff

[Vesper 28,289]

Multiple people shot along highway in Kentucky; suspect at large, authorities say

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kentucky-shooting-london-laurel-county/

 

[cosmicway 1,296]

Socialism in one wod:

[Fulham Broadway 16,666]

12 hours ago, Vesper said:

Charlotte Owen becomes youngest life peer in British history

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/charlotte-owen-boris-johnson-peer-job-b2608283.html

 

Adnani has appeared at least twice on former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, and on one occasion told him that his ambition was to achieve “full spectrum energy dominance”.

Headquartered in a serviced office building in Sevenoaks, Better Earth describes itself as an “energy transition company”. Its website, which is currently under construction, says it will “work directly with national governments and regions that are seeking both inward investment and/or to reduce their emissions ahead of 2030”.

The apparent lack of transparency extends beyond the nature of the firm’s clients: the company no longer has a person of significant control registered at Companies House. The initial filing states that its single share is owned by another company called “Emissions Reduction Corp” registered in Carson City, Nevada.

US company searches reveal the firm was previously called Carbon Royalty Corporation, a Delaware-based company whose directors include Adnani and Nicole Shanahan, who was until recently Robert F Kennedy Jr’s running mate in his campaign for US president before he endorsed Trump. Delaware is a “dark” jurisdiction but sources suggest Carbon Royalty Corporation has raised $40m since it was incorporated in 2021 and its investors appear “undisclosed”, although this is not illegal.

Baroness Margaret Hodge, the former Labour MP who led parliament’s Public Accounts Committee from 2010-2015 said there were “at least four very serious public interest questions” to be answered about the appointment.

“What on earth is an ex-prime minister of the United Kingdom doing, working for a company with an opaque structure? In my experience those who choose to have a UK company owned by a foreign entity only do that because they may have something to hide. What is it in this case? Given the sensitivities around nuclear capabilities we should know who he is in business with, where the money is coming from and why he is using a financial structure that appears to hide the beneficial ownership of the company.”

Better Earth, Amir Adnani and Boris Johnson declined to respond to the Observer’s inquiries about Better Earth’s line of work, funding or any other matters.

The appointment also raises further question marks over Johnson’s relationship with Baroness Owen, a previously unknown junior political adviser who had worked for a matter of months with Johnson at Number 10. Her appointment to the Lords, where she took the title Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge in July last year, became the subject of intense speculation. With just a few years’ job experience under her belt, she now holds the position for life. In her maiden speech in November last year, she thanked Johnson for “putting a great deal of trust in me”.

That trust has now been extended to a senior role in his new company, Better Earth, though her role has also not been widely publicised. She recently updated her House of Lords page to note that she has a paid position as “Vice President, Better Earth Limited (energy transition company)” though she does not appear on the company’s website, X feed or LinkedIn page.

Former Boris Johnson aide joins Lords as youngest ever life peer

Owen mentioned climate only briefly in her maiden speech earlier this year, preferring to showcase her interest in technology, and has no previous employment experience in environmental, nuclear, or green issues. She declined to answer any of the Observer’s questions about her role.

Owen joins two other former Conservative ministers at the firm: Chris Skidmore, who resigned the whip and the party over Rishi Sunak’s oil and gas plan, is Better Earth’s COO, while Nigel Adams, a Johnson ally and former minister without portfolio, is CEO. There is no suggestion that either Skidmore or Adams were in breach of transparency rules.

Before Johnson became a director of Better Earth in May this year, he wrote to Acoba, the government watchdog, alerting them to the appointment. This came during the same period Acoba had accused him of refusing to answer its questions about whom he’d met as a consultant on behalf of a hedge fund, Merlyn Advisors, during a trip to Venezuela.

The incident led the committee’s chairman, Eric Pickles, to warn that Johnson’s behaviour had proved its rules were “unenforceable”.

Like Trump he puts money and pussy as top priorities

[Vesper 28,289]

Michael Gove: Treasury blocked my efforts to punish Grenfell cladding firms

 

Efforts to restrict products made by Kingspan, Arconic and Celotex ran up against the commercial purism of Treasury Mandarin Brain

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/michael-gove-interview-grenfell-tower-victims-b8kbmsrdp

Key points

 

Former housing secretary speaks after official inquiry criticised firms responsible for Grenfell Tower cladding

 

French and Irish governments were reluctant to take action against companies in their jurisdictions, he says

 

Up to 558,000 people in 300,000 flats in UK still in danger as only 10 per cent with known or estimated fire risks have been fixed

It has to begin with an apology. The bereaved, relatives and survivors of the Grenfell tragedy were let down by successive governments. Including governments of which I was a part.

For decades, we did not take building safety as seriously as we should have. We did not treat tenants in social housing with the respect they deserved. We did not respond to the tragedy in the hours and days afterwards with the grip required. And progress on the path towards justice has been painfully slow.

In the seven years since the fire, there has been change for the better. We managed to strong-arm developers into paying for the remediation of unsafe buildings. We passed laws to ensure social housing tenants were listened to with respect and their complaints were quickly addressed. We improved building safety standards, created a new building safety regulator, mandated second staircases in all new buildings over 18m and had reached agreement on funding personal emergency evacuation plans for residents who needed assistance. We reformed the rules to ensure leaseholders didn’t have to pay for the faults in their buildings which they never caused.

 

But the publication of Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s report underlines how much more there is to do. It reinforces in particular the need to pursue those who bear the gravest responsibility for this tragedy with every weapon at the state’s disposal. Especially the companies that manufactured the materials used on a cherished home that became a hecatomb. And that have still not shown proper awareness of their guilt, contrition for their crimes or restitution for their wrongs. A reckoning must come.

Kingspan, Arconic, Celotex. Three companies whose actions meant that products encased a high-rise building which were not just unsafe but positively lethal. Three companies whose employees knew they were lying about the materials they were marketing. Three companies that cheated the tests designed to keep people safe.

• Grenfell Tower report: the five key takeaways from the inquiry

There are many others who failed the victims of Grenfell. The tenant management organisation that dismissed their concerns. The council whose building control system was inadequate. The testing and certification centre, the Building Research Establishment, which was captured by corporate interests after being privatised. And the developers who were at the apex of a dysfunctional system. There has been, over time, an acknowledgement of responsibility from each of them. There is more still to be done to put things right. But progress has been made.

The failures of these bodies were, primarily, failures to protect. They were serious. But they rank behind the failures of Kingspan, Arconic and Celotex, which willingly, knowingly, recklessly put greed ahead of decency.

The Sunday Times columnist Dominic Lawson reported in 2020 the damning evidence the inquiry heard about the dark cynicism of those working for these organisations.

As he wrote: “Kingspan employees joked about the way the firm had managed to get its Kooltherm K15 insulation categorised as ‘class 0’ — that is, appropriate for use in buildings higher than 18 metres — in part by using a different material in the official tests from what was actually being sold.”

In email exchanges they celebrate their own dishonesty:

Kingspan employee 1: “Doesn’t actually get class 0 when we test the whole product tho. LOL.”

Kingspan employee 2: “WHAT. We lied? Honest opinion now.”

Kingspan employee 1: “Yeahhhh …”

And later in the conversation: “All lies, mate … Alls we do is lie here.”

A week earlier the inquiry heard that when a constructor questioned whether Kooltherm K15 was suitable for a high-rise, the Kingspan executive Philip Heath emailed a friend: “I think [they] are getting me confused with someone who gives a dam [sic].”

Arconic’s executives declined to give oral evidence to the inquiry but Sir Martin concluded that they too “deliberately and dishonestly” misled regulators. He also found that Celotex similarly engaged in a “dishonest scheme to mislead its customers and the wider market”.

None of these companies has even begun to make amends, let alone acknowledge fault. Despite our best efforts so far.

• What next for the families and those held responsible?

Because Kingspan is based in Ireland, and Arconic’s European operations and Celotex are in France, our jurisdiction was limited. But we were determined to go after them. Working with the brave activists of Grenfell United we got Mercedes-Benz, and then Ulster Rugby, to shun any association with Kingspan. We set up a recovery strategy unit, headed by a former special forces commander, to alert investors to these companies’ shameless irresponsibility and to put the heat on their collaborators. We were making some progress before the election was called.

But from bureaucracies, both ours and others, there was insufficient action. I pressed the Irish government to act against Kingspan without success. From France only haughty froideur. What made the task more difficult was the compromised nature of our own establishment. Saint-Gobain, the parent company that previously owned Celotex, continues to sponsor the Franco-British Colloque, an annual get-together of French and British politicians, journalists and academics. Efforts on my part to restrict the import of these companies’ products ran up against the commercial purism of Treasury Mandarin Brain.

The task now falls to others to secure the justice I sought but failed to bring. I hope the Crown Prosecution Service and Metropolitan Police will do all they can to bring criminal prosecutions quickly. But pursuing a few of the most guilty individuals is not enough when these companies are still making vast profits without acknowledging their full responsibility.

• The cladding bosses who’ve made millions since Grenfell

Taking the necessary action will require toughness. I worry that the new government may be dissuaded from doing everything necessary by those counselling caution. The officials with whom I worked were determined to pursue the wrongdoers and we were developing a Grenfell justice bill to give us all the tools required. But elsewhere in Whitehall I know there will be voices opposed to robust action. Those saying these companies can be partners in combating climate change. Those arguing that we shouldn’t pick fights with EU neighbours when we want a closer commercial relationship. Those claiming that pursuing individual companies abroad will send a negative signal on foreign investment when the priority is growth.

I understand all those arguments. But you cannot purchase prosperity at the price of justice. You cannot build a safe home for the vulnerable on an unquiet grave. You cannot allow the unacceptable face of capitalism to be left smirking when the tears of victims are still wet. Those who are the guiltiest must pay, and pay the most.

Michael Gove was the Conservative MP for Surrey Heath 2005-24, and housing secretary 2021-24

 

 

[Fulham Broadway 16,666]

2 minutes ago, Vesper said:

Michael Gove: Treasury blocked my efforts to punish Grenfell cladding firms

 

Efforts to restrict products made by Kingspan, Arconic and Celotex ran up against the commercial purism of Treasury Mandarin Brain

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/michael-gove-interview-grenfell-tower-victims-b8kbmsrdp

Key points

 

Former housing secretary speaks after official inquiry criticised firms responsible for Grenfell Tower cladding

 

French and Irish governments were reluctant to take action against companies in their jurisdictions, he says

 

Up to 558,000 people in 300,000 flats in UK still in danger as only 10 per cent with known or estimated fire risks have been fixed

It has to begin with an apology. The bereaved, relatives and survivors of the Grenfell tragedy were let down by successive governments. Including governments of which I was a part.

For decades, we did not take building safety as seriously as we should have. We did not treat tenants in social housing with the respect they deserved. We did not respond to the tragedy in the hours and days afterwards with the grip required. And progress on the path towards justice has been painfully slow.

In the seven years since the fire, there has been change for the better. We managed to strong-arm developers into paying for the remediation of unsafe buildings. We passed laws to ensure social housing tenants were listened to with respect and their complaints were quickly addressed. We improved building safety standards, created a new building safety regulator, mandated second staircases in all new buildings over 18m and had reached agreement on funding personal emergency evacuation plans for residents who needed assistance. We reformed the rules to ensure leaseholders didn’t have to pay for the faults in their buildings which they never caused.

 

But the publication of Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s report underlines how much more there is to do. It reinforces in particular the need to pursue those who bear the gravest responsibility for this tragedy with every weapon at the state’s disposal. Especially the companies that manufactured the materials used on a cherished home that became a hecatomb. And that have still not shown proper awareness of their guilt, contrition for their crimes or restitution for their wrongs. A reckoning must come.

Kingspan, Arconic, Celotex. Three companies whose actions meant that products encased a high-rise building which were not just unsafe but positively lethal. Three companies whose employees knew they were lying about the materials they were marketing. Three companies that cheated the tests designed to keep people safe.

• Grenfell Tower report: the five key takeaways from the inquiry

There are many others who failed the victims of Grenfell. The tenant management organisation that dismissed their concerns. The council whose building control system was inadequate. The testing and certification centre, the Building Research Establishment, which was captured by corporate interests after being privatised. And the developers who were at the apex of a dysfunctional system. There has been, over time, an acknowledgement of responsibility from each of them. There is more still to be done to put things right. But progress has been made.

The failures of these bodies were, primarily, failures to protect. They were serious. But they rank behind the failures of Kingspan, Arconic and Celotex, which willingly, knowingly, recklessly put greed ahead of decency.

The Sunday Times columnist Dominic Lawson reported in 2020 the damning evidence the inquiry heard about the dark cynicism of those working for these organisations.

As he wrote: “Kingspan employees joked about the way the firm had managed to get its Kooltherm K15 insulation categorised as ‘class 0’ — that is, appropriate for use in buildings higher than 18 metres — in part by using a different material in the official tests from what was actually being sold.”

In email exchanges they celebrate their own dishonesty:

Kingspan employee 1: “Doesn’t actually get class 0 when we test the whole product tho. LOL.”

Kingspan employee 2: “WHAT. We lied? Honest opinion now.”

Kingspan employee 1: “Yeahhhh …”

And later in the conversation: “All lies, mate … Alls we do is lie here.”

A week earlier the inquiry heard that when a constructor questioned whether Kooltherm K15 was suitable for a high-rise, the Kingspan executive Philip Heath emailed a friend: “I think [they] are getting me confused with someone who gives a dam [sic].”

Arconic’s executives declined to give oral evidence to the inquiry but Sir Martin concluded that they too “deliberately and dishonestly” misled regulators. He also found that Celotex similarly engaged in a “dishonest scheme to mislead its customers and the wider market”.

None of these companies has even begun to make amends, let alone acknowledge fault. Despite our best efforts so far.

• What next for the families and those held responsible?

Because Kingspan is based in Ireland, and Arconic’s European operations and Celotex are in France, our jurisdiction was limited. But we were determined to go after them. Working with the brave activists of Grenfell United we got Mercedes-Benz, and then Ulster Rugby, to shun any association with Kingspan. We set up a recovery strategy unit, headed by a former special forces commander, to alert investors to these companies’ shameless irresponsibility and to put the heat on their collaborators. We were making some progress before the election was called.

But from bureaucracies, both ours and others, there was insufficient action. I pressed the Irish government to act against Kingspan without success. From France only haughty froideur. What made the task more difficult was the compromised nature of our own establishment. Saint-Gobain, the parent company that previously owned Celotex, continues to sponsor the Franco-British Colloque, an annual get-together of French and British politicians, journalists and academics. Efforts on my part to restrict the import of these companies’ products ran up against the commercial purism of Treasury Mandarin Brain.

The task now falls to others to secure the justice I sought but failed to bring. I hope the Crown Prosecution Service and Metropolitan Police will do all they can to bring criminal prosecutions quickly. But pursuing a few of the most guilty individuals is not enough when these companies are still making vast profits without acknowledging their full responsibility.

• The cladding bosses who’ve made millions since Grenfell

Taking the necessary action will require toughness. I worry that the new government may be dissuaded from doing everything necessary by those counselling caution. The officials with whom I worked were determined to pursue the wrongdoers and we were developing a Grenfell justice bill to give us all the tools required. But elsewhere in Whitehall I know there will be voices opposed to robust action. Those saying these companies can be partners in combating climate change. Those arguing that we shouldn’t pick fights with EU neighbours when we want a closer commercial relationship. Those claiming that pursuing individual companies abroad will send a negative signal on foreign investment when the priority is growth.

I understand all those arguments. But you cannot purchase prosperity at the price of justice. You cannot build a safe home for the vulnerable on an unquiet grave. You cannot allow the unacceptable face of capitalism to be left smirking when the tears of victims are still wet. Those who are the guiltiest must pay, and pay the most.

Michael Gove was the Conservative MP for Surrey Heath 2005-24, and housing secretary 2021-24

 

 

Lying piece of shit -he was part of the problem and financially benefited from it

[Vesper 28,289]

Labour ‘must take on Reform’ before it poses election danger

Nigel Farage’s party is setting up local branches in Labour-held seats, and MPs fear the threat is not being taken seriously

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/labour-must-take-on-reform-before-it-poses-election-danger-rnwvtjfd5

Sir Keir Starmer has been urged to stop “shying away” from attacking Reform UK policies and Nigel Farage if he wants to keep power for a decade.

Reform is setting up about 120 local branches to focus on Labour-held seats, mainly in south Wales and the north of England.

Labour MPs in seats where Reform came second or a close third in the general election say they have noticed a considerable increase in activity from pro-Reform activists over the summer.

“Reform is dangerous if we don’t take them on now,” said one Labour MP who faced a close race with a candidate from Farage’s party, despite no support from Reform headquarters.

“I’m not convinced we got it right in the general election. I think there was this attitude that they’re taking more votes off the Tories than they are at Labour, so we shouldn’t challenge them. We were willing to stay quiet while the Tories morphed into Reform, but we can’t shy away in the future.”

The MP said Labour’s attitude meant there was little scrutiny of “how absolutely loopy [Reform] policies are”.

Labour Together, the think tank close to the party’s leadership, has commissioned polling analysis to identify where the party lost votes and to create a strategy to win next time.

The first part of the report will be presented at the party conference in Liverpool this month. It will show that those who switched from Conservative to Labour were the decisive group in the constituencies that mattered — more so than Tories staying at home or switching to Reform.

 

But MPs said the “red wall” — seats in Labour’s traditional heartlands in the north of England — should not be taken for granted for the next election, adding that ministers should exploit a gap between the Reform leadership and its voter base.

“One of the reasons Ukip didn’t do as well as they were hoping to in the 2015 election is because this video went round of Farage talking about an American-style healthcare system,” the MP said.

“He learnt from that, because this time he stepped around it in debates, but fundamentally Reform’s policies mean a much smaller state and a much reduced ability to spend.

“That’s not where their voters are, and most of the stuff is completely impractical. There’s a naughty part of me that wishes the country could be governed by Reform just for a week, just because I think it would kill dead any chance they’ve got of getting power again.”

Reform led an organised campaign of leaflets and door-knocking only in four seats at the general election: Clacton, Boston & Skegness, Great Yarmouth and Ashfield. It won all four, and took the South Basildon & East Thurrock constituency from the Conservatives with a majority of 98 votes.

The party also came within 20 votes of defeating Richard Holden, the Tory party chairman at the time, in Basildon & Billericay.

Reform’s membership has swelled to 76,000, having added about 10,000 since the election and 25,000 in the final four weeks of the campaign.

The increase in Reform members seems mostly driven by “keyboard warriors”, one MP said. “Many of these are in their Transformers pyjamas in their mum’s basement. But what we haven’t seen yet is Reform on the doorstep or speaking to voters.”

The parliamentary register of interests shows that Farage is paid almost £100,000 a month to present a show on GB News, meaning he would have earned more than £1 million a year on top of his MP’s salary of £91,346. But the Reform leader said the sum included VAT, was paid to his company, which incurs expenses, and covers work carried out since April.

Farage’s popularity took a dent during the unrest in July, after he was accused of encouraging some of the early online misinformation. But Starmer refused to criticise him, saying he was “not going to stand here and cast judgment on what others have been saying”.

MPs raised concerns that misinformation spreading on social media companies would continue to help the Reform vote.

“We need social media companies to step up to squash that misinformation quicker, more efficiently,” one said. “Unfortunately, that is how a lot of people, especially Reform voters and more working-class voters, are taking in their news now.”

Most MPs still cannot conceive of Reform achieving its stated ambition of winning the next election. “I suppose anything is possible in politics,” one said. “But that’s not possible.”

[Vesper 28,289]

7 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Lying piece of shit -he was part of the problem and financially benefited from it

Yes, and I am not defending him, just put up the article for discussion as it is major news.

[Vesper 28,289]

Elon Musk on pace to become world’s first trillionaire by 2027, report says
In addition to world’s richest person, who has $251bn, report names others on track to receive trillionaire status

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/sep/07/elon-musk-first-trillionaire-2027

 

Elon Musk is on pace to become the world’s first trillionaire by 2027, according to a new report from a group that tracks wealth.

Informa Connect Academy’s finding about the boss of electric carmaker Tesla, private rocket company SpaceX and social media platform X (formerly Twitter) stems from the fact that Musk’s wealth has been growing at an average annual rate of 110%. He was also the world’s richest person, with $251bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as the academy’s 2024 Trillion Dollar Club report began circulating Friday.

The academy’s analysis suggested business conglomerate founder Gautam Adani of India would become the second to achieve trillionaire status. That would reportedly happen in 2028 if his annual growth rate remains at 123%.

Jensen Huang, the chief executive officer of the tech firm Nvidia, and Prajogo Pangestu, the Indonesian energy and mining mogul, could also become trillionaires in 2028 if their trajectories hold. Bernard Arnault, the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton boss and the world’s third-richest person with about $200bn, is on track to eclipse a trillion dollars in 2030 – the same year as Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta.

A handful of companies have secured valuations of more than $1tn. Berkshire Hathaway most recently topped the valuation in late August, days before its architect Warren Buffett celebrated his 94th birthday. Nvidia joined the $1tn club in May 2023 and in June hit $3tn, positioning it at the time after Microsoft and before Apple as the world’s second-most-valuable company.

However, as CNBC noted, the question of who might be the globe’s first trillionaire has fascinated the public ever since the world crowned its first billionaire in 1916. That was the US’s John D Rockefeller, the founder and at the time largest shareholder of Standard Oil.

Despite that fascination, many academics see the accumulation of immense wealth as a social ill. One report calculated that the richest 1% of humanity account for more carbon emissions – a primary driver of the ongoing climate crisis – than the poorest 66%.

Just days before Informa Connect Academy tapped Musk as the most likely to become the world’s first trillionaire, one of his posts on X earned him backlash from many of the site’s users.

His post said an interview between former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and podcaster Darryl Cooper – a fellow rightwing media figure – was “very interesting. Worth watching.”

Cooper claimed in the interview that the Nazis did not mean to murder so many people when they carried out the Holocaust and killed 6 million Jews during the second world war. Instead, Cooper remarked, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime simply was not equipped to care for them – and the podcaster blamed British prime minister Winston Churchill for “that war becoming what it did”.

Musk ultimately deleted his post, and the White House condemned Carlson’s interview of Cooper as “a disgusting and sadistic insult to all Americans”.

The billionaire announced in August that he is supporting Donald Trump as the Republican nominee seeks a second presidency in November’s election. Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice-president, is also running in the election.

[Vesper 28,289]

Keir Starmer urges Labour MPs to back ‘unpopular’ plan to cut winter fuel allowance

PM refuses to say if MPs who rebel will be stripped of the whip – but makes clear he expects their support in key vote

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/sep/08/keir-starmer-urges-labour-mps-to-back-unpopular-plan-to-cut-winter-fuel-allowance

 

Keir Starmer has urged Labour MPs to support his “unpopular” plan to remove the winter fuel allowance for all but the poorest pensioners, saying the government could not run away from difficult choices.

Speaking in his first major TV interview since taking office, the prime minister also hinted at increased support for Ukraine, saying his visit to the White House next week to see President Biden would be focused on the “strategic” situation there, and in the Middle East.

Asked about Tuesday’s vote on the changes to the fuel allowance, forced after the Conservatives submitted a motion to annul the government’s change to regulations, Starmer refused to say if Labour MPs who rebelled would be stripped of the whip – but made it clear he expected their support.

“That will be a matter for the chief whip,” he told BBC1’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. “We’re going into a vote. I’m glad we’re having a vote, because I think it’s very important for parliament to speak on this. But every Labour MP was elected in on the same mandate as I was, which was to deliver the change that we need for the country.”

The new government has already suspended the Labour whip from seven MPs who supported an amendment in July to end the two-child benefits cap.

Starmer stressed that restricting access to the payments was a vital part of reducing spending he said had spiralled under a Conservative government which had “run away from difficult decisions”.

“I‘m absolutely convinced that we will only deliver that change – I’m absolutely determined we will – if we do the difficult things now,” he said. “I know they’re unpopular, I know they’re difficult. Of course, they’re tough choices. Tough decisions are tough decisions. Popular decisions aren’t tough, they’re easy.

“I do recognise how difficult it is for some people. I do recognise it’s really hard for some pensioners. But of course, they do rely on the NHS, they do rely on public transport. So these things aren’t completely divorced.”

Worries about the impact of the policy change are known to be shared by some cabinet ministers, with some frontbenchers believing the government will have to announce extra support in the budget.

Starmer, however, argued that with the triple lock policy of pension increases, he could guarantee that the annual increase in the state pension “will outstrip any reduction in the winter fuel payment”.

Starmer is due to be in Washington on Friday for talks with Biden, a trip not yet set out by No 10 but announced by the White House.

Asked if this was an attempt to assuage anger among US officials about the UK’s decision last week to suspend some arms export licences to Israel because of risks they could be used in violations of international law, Starmer rejected the characterisation.

“You’re wrong about that,” he said. “We’ve been talking to the US beforehand and afterwards, and they’re very clear that they’ve got a different legal system, and they understand the decision that we’ve taken. So that’s very clear.

“The reason I’m actually going and having the visit is not about that at all. It’s because the situation in Ukraine is becoming ever more pressing, as is the situation in the Middle East.”

The talks with Biden would focus on “the tactical decisions we have to make” on those areas, he added, saying that the next few months would be crucial for Ukraine, as well as in the Middle East.

Asked if this could lead to an increase in support for Ukraine, or a decision to allow Kyiv to use donated weapons on targets inside Russia, Starmer said he was “not going to get into a discussion about that on live television”.

He added: “But of course, I want to make sure that we give Ukraine the support that it needs for as long as it needs.”

[Vesper 28,289]

Edmundo González, likely winner of Venezuela election, flees to Spain

González fled days after the attorney general for Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, filed a warrant for the arrest of the former diplomat.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/09/08/edmundo-gonzlez-flees-venezuela-spain/

Edmundo González, the Venezuelan opposition candidate and likely winner of the July 28 presidential election, fled the South American nation on Saturday and has received asylum in Spain, his attorney confirmed.

“Unfortunately, the pressure against him was too strong,” said González’s lawyer, José Vicente Haro.

González’s departure comes five days after the attorney general for Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, filed a warrant for the arrest of the 75-year-old former diplomat as part of what he said was an investigation into the opposition’s publication of voting machine receipts showing its candidate won more than twice as many votes as the socialist leader.

Maduro has faced widespread backlash — domestically and internationally — after he declared himself the winner of the election and unleashed a wave of violent repression that rights advocates say is the country’s worst yet. A slew of opposition figures have been detained by Maduro’s security forces or forced into hiding.

Late Saturday evening, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez announced via Instagram that González left after having been “granted the due safe passage for the sake of the tranquility and political peace of the country.”

Fol“This conduct reaffirms the respect for the law that has prevailed in the actions of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the international community,” Rodríguez wrote.

González, she added, had been a “voluntary refugee” in the Spanish Embassy in Caracas for several days. Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares wrote on X that González was heading to the European nation aboard a Spanish Air Force plane.

Juan Pablo Guanipa, an opposition leader, slammed Rodríguez’s statement about the country offering González a “safe passage” to maintain peace in the country.

“That is not the peace that we Venezuelans want. There was a [voting] result that was violated by Maduro and the [national electoral council] and we have to continue fighting so that the victory of [González] is respected, no matter where he is,” Guanipa wrote on X.

According to El País, the diplomatic operation to enable González to safely arrive at the airport and leave the country without being arrested had been underway for two weeks — though the former diplomat made his final decision only after having a meeting with Spanish diplomats Saturday morning, the outlet reported.

On Friday, the night before González’s departure, Maduro’s security forces began surrounding the Argentine Embassy in Caracas, where six of opposition leader María Corina Machado’s top aides have sought asylum for months. The officials remained there throughout Saturday as the Venezuelan government announced it had revoked Brazil’s authorization to represent Argentine interests in the country, including administering the embassy.

That move, El País reported, became a “clear signal” for both González and Spain’s diplomats “that there is currently no safe refuge” in the country.

Haro, González’s attorney, declined to delve into the arrangements that led to his exile but said “there were many details and aspects related to this complex negotiation, the guarantees agreed and the associated situations.”

Ultimately, he added, the decision weighed heavily on González — who opted to avoid the arrest that was most likely awaiting him after a prosecutor accused him of crimes including usurpation, forgery of a public document, instigation and sabotage. Maduro has also accused González of endorsing violence and connected him to a nationwide power outage last week.

Maduro, who has ruled the South American country for more than a decade, has repeatedly used its judiciary to affirm his authority. Last month, Venezuela’s high court ratified Maduro’s claimed election victory — a seal of institutional approval for another six-year term — after the Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council anointed him the winner in July, with what it said was nearly 52 percent of the vote to González’s 43 percent. But the council has not released precinct-level results, and independent reviews of receipts from 23,000 voting machines indicate that González won the election by a wide margin.

He probably got more than twice as many votes as Maduro, according to a Washington Post review of precinct-level tally sheets collected by the opposition — a sample that represents nearly 80 percent of voting machines nationwide.

The United States — along with the European Union and several Latin American countries — has refused to accept Maduro’s claim of victory and instead demanded that the government release precinct-level voting results, as required by the country’s laws.

On Tuesday, White House national security spokesman John Kirby decried the arrest warrant against González as “another example of Mr. Maduro’s efforts to maintain power by force and to refuse to recognize that Mr. González won the most votes on the 28th of July.” He added that the Biden administration is “considering a range of options to demonstrate to Mr. Maduro and his representatives that their actions in Venezuela will have consequences.”

[Vesper 28,289]

Accounts on X

[Vesper 28,289]

The Trump shuffle

[cosmicway 1,296]

2 hours ago, Vesper said:

Edmundo González, likely winner of Venezuela election, flees to Spain

González fled days after the attorney general for Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, filed a warrant for the arrest of the former diplomat.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/09/08/edmundo-gonzlez-flees-venezuela-spain/

Edmundo González, the Venezuelan opposition candidate and likely winner of the July 28 presidential election, fled the South American nation on Saturday and has received asylum in Spain, his attorney confirmed.

“Unfortunately, the pressure against him was too strong,” said González’s lawyer, José Vicente Haro.

González’s departure comes five days after the attorney general for Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, filed a warrant for the arrest of the 75-year-old former diplomat as part of what he said was an investigation into the opposition’s publication of voting machine receipts showing its candidate won more than twice as many votes as the socialist leader.

Maduro has faced widespread backlash — domestically and internationally — after he declared himself the winner of the election and unleashed a wave of violent repression that rights advocates say is the country’s worst yet. A slew of opposition figures have been detained by Maduro’s security forces or forced into hiding.

Late Saturday evening, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez announced via Instagram that González left after having been “granted the due safe passage for the sake of the tranquility and political peace of the country.”

Fol“This conduct reaffirms the respect for the law that has prevailed in the actions of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the international community,” Rodríguez wrote.

González, she added, had been a “voluntary refugee” in the Spanish Embassy in Caracas for several days. Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares wrote on X that González was heading to the European nation aboard a Spanish Air Force plane.

Juan Pablo Guanipa, an opposition leader, slammed Rodríguez’s statement about the country offering González a “safe passage” to maintain peace in the country.

“That is not the peace that we Venezuelans want. There was a [voting] result that was violated by Maduro and the [national electoral council] and we have to continue fighting so that the victory of [González] is respected, no matter where he is,” Guanipa wrote on X.

According to El País, the diplomatic operation to enable González to safely arrive at the airport and leave the country without being arrested had been underway for two weeks — though the former diplomat made his final decision only after having a meeting with Spanish diplomats Saturday morning, the outlet reported.

On Friday, the night before González’s departure, Maduro’s security forces began surrounding the Argentine Embassy in Caracas, where six of opposition leader María Corina Machado’s top aides have sought asylum for months. The officials remained there throughout Saturday as the Venezuelan government announced it had revoked Brazil’s authorization to represent Argentine interests in the country, including administering the embassy.

That move, El País reported, became a “clear signal” for both González and Spain’s diplomats “that there is currently no safe refuge” in the country.

Haro, González’s attorney, declined to delve into the arrangements that led to his exile but said “there were many details and aspects related to this complex negotiation, the guarantees agreed and the associated situations.”

Ultimately, he added, the decision weighed heavily on González — who opted to avoid the arrest that was most likely awaiting him after a prosecutor accused him of crimes including usurpation, forgery of a public document, instigation and sabotage. Maduro has also accused González of endorsing violence and connected him to a nationwide power outage last week.

Maduro, who has ruled the South American country for more than a decade, has repeatedly used its judiciary to affirm his authority. Last month, Venezuela’s high court ratified Maduro’s claimed election victory — a seal of institutional approval for another six-year term — after the Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council anointed him the winner in July, with what it said was nearly 52 percent of the vote to González’s 43 percent. But the council has not released precinct-level results, and independent reviews of receipts from 23,000 voting machines indicate that González won the election by a wide margin.

He probably got more than twice as many votes as Maduro, according to a Washington Post review of precinct-level tally sheets collected by the opposition — a sample that represents nearly 80 percent of voting machines nationwide.

The United States — along with the European Union and several Latin American countries — has refused to accept Maduro’s claim of victory and instead demanded that the government release precinct-level voting results, as required by the country’s laws.

On Tuesday, White House national security spokesman John Kirby decried the arrest warrant against González as “another example of Mr. Maduro’s efforts to maintain power by force and to refuse to recognize that Mr. González won the most votes on the 28th of July.” He added that the Biden administration is “considering a range of options to demonstrate to Mr. Maduro and his representatives that their actions in Venezuela will have consequences.”

Why is Maduro shy to release precinct level results ?
He can cook them like he cooked the general result. Can't he ?

It looks to me like typical socialist incompetence.
The opposition representatives were not allowed to be present in every polling station yet they were allowed in some.
So apparently there are local results that show Gonzales as the winner and apparently those have been verified by the opposition and countersigned by Maduro's representatives.
But after the fraud the idiots have lost track and they don't know which is which.
So if they publish, the election theft will become obvious.

Ahmadinejad - Papadopoulos - Franco - Salazar would never have done that.
Yet another demonstration of socialist failure.

 

Edited September 8 by cosmicway

[Fulham Broadway 16,666]

3 hours ago, Vesper said:

Elon Musk on pace to become world’s first trillionaire by 2027, report says
In addition to world’s richest person, who has $251bn, report names others on track to receive trillionaire status

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/sep/07/elon-musk-first-trillionaire-2027

 

Elon Musk is on pace to become the world’s first trillionaire by 2027, according to a new report from a group that tracks wealth.

Informa Connect Academy’s finding about the boss of electric carmaker Tesla, private rocket company SpaceX and social media platform X (formerly Twitter) stems from the fact that Musk’s wealth has been growing at an average annual rate of 110%. He was also the world’s richest person, with $251bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as the academy’s 2024 Trillion Dollar Club report began circulating Friday.

The academy’s analysis suggested business conglomerate founder Gautam Adani of India would become the second to achieve trillionaire status. That would reportedly happen in 2028 if his annual growth rate remains at 123%.

Jensen Huang, the chief executive officer of the tech firm Nvidia, and Prajogo Pangestu, the Indonesian energy and mining mogul, could also become trillionaires in 2028 if their trajectories hold. Bernard Arnault, the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton boss and the world’s third-richest person with about $200bn, is on track to eclipse a trillion dollars in 2030 – the same year as Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta.

A handful of companies have secured valuations of more than $1tn. Berkshire Hathaway most recently topped the valuation in late August, days before its architect Warren Buffett celebrated his 94th birthday. Nvidia joined the $1tn club in May 2023 and in June hit $3tn, positioning it at the time after Microsoft and before Apple as the world’s second-most-valuable company.

However, as CNBC noted, the question of who might be the globe’s first trillionaire has fascinated the public ever since the world crowned its first billionaire in 1916. That was the US’s John D Rockefeller, the founder and at the time largest shareholder of Standard Oil.

Despite that fascination, many academics see the accumulation of immense wealth as a social ill. One report calculated that the richest 1% of humanity account for more carbon emissions – a primary driver of the ongoing climate crisis – than the poorest 66%.

Just days before Informa Connect Academy tapped Musk as the most likely to become the world’s first trillionaire, one of his posts on X earned him backlash from many of the site’s users.

His post said an interview between former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and podcaster Darryl Cooper – a fellow rightwing media figure – was “very interesting. Worth watching.”

Cooper claimed in the interview that the Nazis did not mean to murder so many people when they carried out the Holocaust and killed 6 million Jews during the second world war. Instead, Cooper remarked, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime simply was not equipped to care for them – and the podcaster blamed British prime minister Winston Churchill for “that war becoming what it did”.

Musk ultimately deleted his post, and the White House condemned Carlson’s interview of Cooper as “a disgusting and sadistic insult to all Americans”.

The billionaire announced in August that he is supporting Donald Trump as the Republican nominee seeks a second presidency in November’s election. Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice-president, is also running in the election.

Unless the cunt croaks

[Vesper 28,289]

8 hours ago, cosmicway said:

Socialism in one wod:

[Fulham Broadway 16,666]

3 hours ago, Vesper said:

Accounts on X

Social media owners are in essence publishers. 

If you or I published hate speech - which Elon Musk (Lone Skum) good anagram btw and Fuckerberg seem to allow we'd be prosecuted. They are responsible for ongoing violence, deaths and misogyny and people aspiring to something they will never be

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,882]

3 hours ago, Vesper said:

Edmundo González, likely winner of Venezuela election, flees to Spain

González fled days after the attorney general for Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, filed a warrant for the arrest of the former diplomat.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/09/08/edmundo-gonzlez-flees-venezuela-spain/

Edmundo González, the Venezuelan opposition candidate and likely winner of the July 28 presidential election, fled the South American nation on Saturday and has received asylum in Spain, his attorney confirmed.

“Unfortunately, the pressure against him was too strong,” said González’s lawyer, José Vicente Haro.

González’s departure comes five days after the attorney general for Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, filed a warrant for the arrest of the 75-year-old former diplomat as part of what he said was an investigation into the opposition’s publication of voting machine receipts showing its candidate won more than twice as many votes as the socialist leader.

Maduro has faced widespread backlash — domestically and internationally — after he declared himself the winner of the election and unleashed a wave of violent repression that rights advocates say is the country’s worst yet. A slew of opposition figures have been detained by Maduro’s security forces or forced into hiding.

Late Saturday evening, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez announced via Instagram that González left after having been “granted the due safe passage for the sake of the tranquility and political peace of the country.”

Fol“This conduct reaffirms the respect for the law that has prevailed in the actions of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the international community,” Rodríguez wrote.

González, she added, had been a “voluntary refugee” in the Spanish Embassy in Caracas for several days. Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares wrote on X that González was heading to the European nation aboard a Spanish Air Force plane.

Juan Pablo Guanipa, an opposition leader, slammed Rodríguez’s statement about the country offering González a “safe passage” to maintain peace in the country.

“That is not the peace that we Venezuelans want. There was a [voting] result that was violated by Maduro and the [national electoral council] and we have to continue fighting so that the victory of [González] is respected, no matter where he is,” Guanipa wrote on X.

According to El País, the diplomatic operation to enable González to safely arrive at the airport and leave the country without being arrested had been underway for two weeks — though the former diplomat made his final decision only after having a meeting with Spanish diplomats Saturday morning, the outlet reported.

On Friday, the night before González’s departure, Maduro’s security forces began surrounding the Argentine Embassy in Caracas, where six of opposition leader María Corina Machado’s top aides have sought asylum for months. The officials remained there throughout Saturday as the Venezuelan government announced it had revoked Brazil’s authorization to represent Argentine interests in the country, including administering the embassy.

That move, El País reported, became a “clear signal” for both González and Spain’s diplomats “that there is currently no safe refuge” in the country.

Haro, González’s attorney, declined to delve into the arrangements that led to his exile but said “there were many details and aspects related to this complex negotiation, the guarantees agreed and the associated situations.”

Ultimately, he added, the decision weighed heavily on González — who opted to avoid the arrest that was most likely awaiting him after a prosecutor accused him of crimes including usurpation, forgery of a public document, instigation and sabotage. Maduro has also accused González of endorsing violence and connected him to a nationwide power outage last week.

Maduro, who has ruled the South American country for more than a decade, has repeatedly used its judiciary to affirm his authority. Last month, Venezuela’s high court ratified Maduro’s claimed election victory — a seal of institutional approval for another six-year term — after the Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council anointed him the winner in July, with what it said was nearly 52 percent of the vote to González’s 43 percent. But the council has not released precinct-level results, and independent reviews of receipts from 23,000 voting machines indicate that González won the election by a wide margin.

He probably got more than twice as many votes as Maduro, according to a Washington Post review of precinct-level tally sheets collected by the opposition — a sample that represents nearly 80 percent of voting machines nationwide.

The United States — along with the European Union and several Latin American countries — has refused to accept Maduro’s claim of victory and instead demanded that the government release precinct-level voting results, as required by the country’s laws.

On Tuesday, White House national security spokesman John Kirby decried the arrest warrant against González as “another example of Mr. Maduro’s efforts to maintain power by force and to refuse to recognize that Mr. González won the most votes on the 28th of July.” He added that the Biden administration is “considering a range of options to demonstrate to Mr. Maduro and his representatives that their actions in Venezuela will have consequences.”

I have a bridge in London to sell folks if anybody thinks the citizens of Venezuela actually elected this CIA plant. This man actually lived right up the street from the feds while getting a degree in Washington DC. We used to be much better at hiding our meddling in the third world. 

[cosmicway 1,296]

17 minutes ago, Vesper said:

 

Leave her out to die you sill berk.