Verdi Wilson

Court of Appeal increases Henry Nowak killer's minimum jail term from 21 to 25 years bbc.in/48jS0mh

Commuters stared at phones as 'Afghan migrants raped autistic girl on train' thescottishsun.co.uk/news/17…

Republicans are going to have a terrible night, and the simple reason why is that Trump has put up perhaps the worst *performance* this term of any president in a century or more. Remember that he entered with an actual mandate: the House and Senate, a popular vote victory and a swing-state sweep, and 6-3 Supreme Court. Democrats were afraid enough to vote for mild but real immigration restrictionist legislation in the Laken Riley Act. Everyone wondered how far the "Vibe Shift" would go. Trump managed to turn that into essentially zero durable wins whatsoever. He personally *hates* the very idea of legislation, the notion that he would have to spend time going back and forth with Congress, learning details and making compromises. So he simply didn't do it! He didn't make a compelling case for abolishing the filibuster. He didn't try communicating clearly to the public in support of popular bills to get to 60 votes. He just decided not to do it at all. So they passed an unpopular tax cut, some funding for ICE, and a sop to the crypto industry, and that was basically it. Least productive Congress in decades, due to the tastes of one man. Trump adopted one of the worst macro policies we've ever had: high deficits, high tariffs, and attacks on central bank independence. We managed to pay higher interest rates while still having high trade deficits AND weakening the dollar. Just a total failure. On immigration, perhaps THE signature issue, Trump essentially min-maxxed effectiveness and backlash. Instead of trying to leverage the political moment for new laws and a self-deportation agenda (that is, walling off the economy to remove the benefit of irregular presence in the US), he opted for a maximally aggressive approach. The administration spent attention, funds, legal manpower on stunts like deporting random people to Salvadoran prisons with essentially no due process. ICE and Border Patrol were encouraged to be aggressive and confrontational, which helped contribute to the shooting deaths of American protestors. It turns out, that's extremely unpopular! What about the approach of going after employers? The obvious vector? Trump hated that idea! He repeatedly has said he doesn't want to target businesses (especially farms) that use large amounts of illegal labor. This is just an incomprehensible position. Instead of charging a few dozen businessmen and removing the incentive for millions of illegal workers to be here, you arrest people off the street one by one at the cost of thousands of dollars in manpower per each, while their crying wives and kids post TikToks about it. Upshot on immigration: electoral strength turned into a crippling electoral weakness in exchange for deporting maybe 6% of the illegally present population. The tariffs were a total shitshow. Embarrassing rollout, no underlying theory of action at all. No targeted focus on key industries. Our country tariffed products we can't grow. We tariffed *inputs* of our own valuable exports. The schemes and amounts changed constantly, sending the stock market reeling and presenting scenes of chaos to the world. Trump's messaging throughout has been generationally bad. While facing nearly 2:1 unpopularity, he spends his days posting AI slop, saying he'll rename New Mexico or invade allies, among other bizarre remarks. He brags about a ballroom and a pool repainting while gas hits records. At no point has he ever attempted any kind of message discipline. Then there are the deeply unpopular attacks on rule of law, his "game-recognize-game" pardons for all manner of scammers and criminals, the crypto schemes that he and his family engage in, the evilly conceived and embarrassingly executed legal attacks on Comey, Jerome Powell, and others. With his monthslong stand on NOT releasing the Epstein files, he became maybe the first president ever to stake out a 99-1 issue on the 1% side. That's not even getting into Iran, DOGE, his candidate recruitment choices, or countless other things. Simply put: Trump has managed to royally screw up virtually every single facet of his presidency. It's been undeniable, voters have noticed, and there's really no escape from it. This is what the GOP base chose in early 2024, and this is the world they're living with now. Where they handed the reins of history to a fat, vain, washed-up old man and let him drive.

🇩🇪🚨MEGA-ESCÁNDALO: La ganadora de las elecciones de BERLÍN, del partido de ultraizquierda Die Linke confiesa por error que Hamás controla su partido y teme por su vida💣 Un error acaba de generar una crisis de seguridad impresionante. La revista Der Spiegel —un medio, cabe destacar, de marcada tendencia izquierdista— ha sacado a la luz un documento interno que prueba cómo Die Linke ha sido secuestrado por el islamismo. Su candidata a gobernar Berlín, Elif Eralp, envió por accidente a la redacción las notas privadas de una entrevista donde confiesa estar coaccionada y aterrorizada por Hamás que opera dentro de su propio partido. Resulta que luego de una entrevista, el equipo de la candidata revisó la transcripción. Durante este proceso, Eralp hizo comentarios internos que debían quedar en la más estricta confidencialidad. Sin embargo, el documento con las acotaciones sin borrar fue devuelto a los periodistas. El contenido de esas notas es dinamita. Cuando Der Spiegel le preguntó por Ibrahim Ibrahim —un propalestino simpatizante de Hamás que celebró la masacre del 7 de octubre—, la respuesta pública iba a ser esquiva. Pero en el margen del documento filtrado, Eralp escribió la verdad: «Hay un PROBLEMA. [...] mi marido no, y yo tampoco, quiero nombrar nombres concretos, él tiene miedo de esta gente y yo también». La filtración expone la cruda realidad del islamoizquierdismo en Alemania: Eralp llegó a comparar el nivel de amenaza de estos militantes pro-Palestina con el del Crimen Organizado e implora abortar la publicación: «No puedo poner en peligro a mí misma y a mi familia por Der SPIEGEL. ¿Qué hacemos ahora? ¿Anulamos toda la entrevista?». El mayor chiste de toda esta situación, sin embargo, quedó plasmado en una de las frases que Eralp sí quería publicar. En un alarde de desconexión absoluta, la candidata afirma en la entrevista: «Lo que sí puedo decir con total claridad es que, como alcaldesa gobernante, velaré por la seguridad de todas las berlinesas y todos los berlineses». Una promesa que resulta irrisoria viniendo de una dirigente que, en el mismo documento, reconoce en secreto que ni siquiera puede proteger a su propia familia de las bases de su partido. Luego del escándalo, Eralp ha anunciado que procederá legalmente contra Der Spiegel y presentará una queja formal ante el Consejo de Prensa por haber citado sus anotaciones internas. Esta maniobra judicial evidencia de inmediato lo susceptibles y completamente desbordados que están en realidad estos cuadros dirigentes frente a situaciones de crisis. La izquierda radical berlinesa creyó que podía capitalizar electoralmente el extremismo islámico; hoy, los documentos demuestran que es el extremismo quien los tiene de rehenes.

Breaking 📢 1/ St Andrews University has set an example in academia by taking a rare firm line against its outgoing Rector, Stella Maris - banning her from campus for 7 years. This all started with a very distressing email about the Gaza conflict in November 2023.

A clear statement from @RapeCrisisEandW - Every adult and child who has experienced sexual violence deserves access to to support - The Rape Crisis National Service Standards recognise the benefit of women only services and spaces - RCEW Centres MUST provide women-only spaces and services - This does not mean that they cannot *also* provide services (or referral) for male survivors including trans-identifying men. rapecrisis.org.uk/news/rcew-…

The Woman of the Day is the Anglo-Saxon noblewoman Godgifu of West Mercia, the only woman to remain a landholder in Britain after those robbing Normans swept in and stole everything that wasn’t nailed down (and quite a few things that were). Of course you’ve heard of her. You’ve heard of the Godiva Procession which was instituted in 1678 by Coventry Fair to commemorate the legendary ride by the Lady. Taking pity on the people of Coventry suffering grievously under her husband's oppressive taxation, she called his bluff that he would repeal the taxes if she would strip naked and ride through the streets of the town, clothed only in her long hair. She only agreed on the condition that everyone stayed indoors and shut their windows, but a tailor known ever afterwards as Peeping Tom disobeyed and was struck blind. Allegedly. It was all bunkum. Absolute bunkum. Lady Godiva’s real name was Godgifu. She married Leofric, Earl of Mercia, but both she and her husband were major philanthropists and among the most munificent of the Anglo-Saxon nobility until the Norman Conquest in 1066 (and those robbing Normans came along, etc). In Anglo-Saxon times, in laws dated around 1008 AD, women enjoyed full property rights, from peasant to nobility. They could own land, farms, houses. Upon marriage, a husband was legally required to give his wife a Morgengifu (Morning Gift): land, money, or goods, which remained her independent property that she could sell, give away, or manage as she chose. Women wrote their own wills and left property to whomever they chose including children, servants, or religious institutions, and they didn’t need their husband's permission. All that stopped after 1066. The new feudal system tied land ownership to military service, something women were barred from providing. Women became the chattels (property) of their husbands if they were married, or their fathers if they were not, a legal state known as coverture. Still, I’m sure the Normans thought they were being progressive and inclusive, two words I’ve come to loathe. But I digress. Godgifu survived the death of her husband and was mentioned in the Domesday Book, one of the few Anglo-Saxons and the only woman to remain a major landholder after the Conquest. Godgifu certainly would have ridden a horse but not in protest and certainly not minus her clothes. Still, the idea of it proved quite a crowd pleaser at Coventry Fair in 1678, even though the first fake Lady Godiva was actually a lad. Yes, I know. Some things just don’t change. In the intervening years, the myth was spiced up by the Puritans to prove a moral point but dampened down by other Protestants to make it fit for delicate ears. Never forget: the objectification of women is eternal, along with its fraternal twin, misogyny. The two generally go hand in hand. Despite several attempts to shut down the procession — in 1845, the Mayor got fed up with the crowds jostling to get a better view of her, expostulating, “It’s a disgrace”, and in 1854, the Bishop of Worcester protested against “a Birmingham whore being paraded through the streets as Lady Godiva” — it continued as a annual event until the 1960s. Godgifu’s date of birth is unknown but she died in her mid-fifties in 1067 after the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Domesday Book of 1086 notes that the lands formerly held by her had passed to others. Men of course. Chattels are property, and property cannot own property. Married women finally achieved independent taxation in their own right in 1990. Prior to that, their husbands were responsible for paying tax on their income unless she obtained his signature and consent to claim her own single person's allowance and pay tax on her own earnings. Her unearned income — such as investment or savings interest — still legally belonged to him. And of course, the "marital rape exemption" — the legal assumption that a wife could not withhold sexual consent from her husband under the marriage contract — was not formally abolished in English law until 1991. 935 years. It only took 935 years in this country to demolish the legal status and definition of Woman as Property, and despite the Supreme Court ruling, we still find ourselves having to dismantle the definition of Woman as a feeling — with political parties, Civil Service departments, with trade unions, charities, retailers, and with sporting bodies. I know many of us are tired of fighting the same old battles but keep going, sisters. “We woman suffragists have a great mission — the greatest mission the world has ever known. It is to free half the human race, and through that freedom to save the rest.” Emmeline Pankhurst, 17 October 1912.