The documentary filmmaker who filmed with Donald Trump and his family in the months before and after the attack on the Capitol says he now needs armed protection.
Alex Holder, who testified to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection last week, spoke candidly about the risks his disclosures have put him in during a BBC TV interview Wednesday.
When asked if he felt threatened because of the evidence he’s given to the panel, Holder said: “Well, my life changed about a week ago and I now literally have two armed guards outside this studio right now that follow me around everywhere.”
Read the full article.
“According to some, I’m an undercover FBI agent; some think I’m an MI6 spy, and there’s all sorts of conspiracies and threats that are coming through.” https://t.co/nr3XBWZwRS
Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis is pushing out a pediatrician from a board in charge of running the state’s Healthy Kids program because of her viewpoints on vaccines for children under five.
The brief email did not go into great detail, but said that Patronis — a Republican running for re-election this year — was removing Gwynn from the Florida Healthy Kids Board because she had made “some very political statements that do not reflect the CFO’s point of view, even going so far as to as to say that the state is ‘obstruct(ing)’ access to vaccines.”
“The CFO does not share your opinion and believes the state has gone to great lengths to protect lives in the face of the Coronavirus,” reads the email sent to Gwynn by Susan Miller, who is Deputy Chief of Staff for Patronis.
In an interview with Florida Politics, Gwynn said the Healthy Kids Board of Directors has only met once since her appointment in March.
But Gwynn has appeared in approximately ten interviews with television, radio and print media since Gov. Ron DeSantis and Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced the state won’t make COVID-19 vaccines available for children under five years of age at local county health departments.
The local health departments play a key role, Gwynn said, in childhood vaccination efforts. Some of the state’s poorest children in the state go to the county health departments to get vaccinated.
But health departments also play a key role in helping distribute vaccines to pediatricians who work in rural areas or in small group practices.
Pediatricians who don’t have access to large amounts of cold storage capacity rely on the local county health departments to supply COVID-19 vaccines for their patients. Additionally, pediatricians who don’t meet the minimum number of doses required to order through the state system also rely on the health departments to provide them vaccines for their patients.
“Pediatricians can still do that to this day for kids over five,” Gwynn said of relying on the health departments to provide them with COVID 19 vaccines. “They, the Governor and the state Surgeon General, just chose to not allow the under 5 to be carried (by the health departments). This is about health equity and children that live in poverty. That’s what this is about.”
The Healthy Kids Corporation provides subsidized health insurance to children throughout the state with funding that comes from both the federal government and the state.
Gwynn, a South Florida pediatrician who cares for poor children, told Florida Politics she never identified herself as a member of the Florida Health Kids Board in any of the interviews.
“I don’t like to play this game. That’s not my intent to engage in this political war,” she said.
Sen. Tina Polsky, a Boca Raton Democrat who has been talking to Gwynn about the impact of the DeSantis administration’s decision on vaccines for small children, criticized Patronis’ actions.
“I am appalled at the decision of the CFO to oust Dr. Lisa Gwynn, the President of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, an expert in pediatric care and vaccines, from the Florida Healthy Kids Board because she spoke out against the administration in an effort to get her youngest, most vulnerable patients a life-saving vaccine,” Polsky wrote in a text. “The tyranny of this administration continues to smother any dissenting opinions (e.g. Dr. Scott Rivkees). All Floridians should know how an acclaimed doctor has been treated by the DeSantis regime.”
Gwynn says the board has only met once since her appointment in March. Florida’s surgeon general, mentioned below, is associated with the anti-vax extremist group America’s Frontline Doctors.
Things are getting worse in Florida.
The #DeSantis regime is retaliating against pediatricians for speaking out against their unprecedented obstruction of COVID vaccines for kids.https://t.co/VAildh9WG8
Florida's decision not to pre-order COVID vaccines for children six months to five years old will lead to delays since doctors and hospitals in the state will be responsible for ordering them. https://t.co/pBCb2WyN7f
At yesterday's briefing, Dr. Ladapo made clear neither he nor Gov. DeSantis believe Florida parents should have the choice to vaccinate their children against the coronavirus at county health departments, the primary point of care for 33,000 Florida kids.
— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis (@COVIDOversight) June 29, 2022
At yesterday's briefing, Dr. Ladapo made clear neither he nor Gov. DeSantis believe Florida parents should have the choice to vaccinate their children against the coronavirus at county health departments, the primary point of care for 33,000 Florida kids.
— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis (@COVIDOversight) June 29, 2022
Sooooo, move heaven and Earth to protect the unborn zygote but if it’s an actual, live, miniature human being it “Die motherfuckers”. Republican “logic”….
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Wednesday criticized comments that Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) made on Sunday in which she called for ending the separation of church and state in the United States.
Boebert said in a speech at the Cornerstone Christian Center in Basalt, Colo., that she is “tired” of the principle and falsely claimed that the Founding Fathers did not intend to keep religion separate from government.
Kinzinger condemned Boebert’s comments and compared them to the views of the Taliban, the militant Islamic fundamentalist group that rules Afghanistan.
“There is no difference between this and the Taliban. We must oppose the Christian Taliban. I say this as a Christian,” he tweeted.
Boebert argued that the separation of church and state “junk” is not in the Constitution and was only in a letter that “means nothing like they say it does.”
She appeared to be referencing a letter that then-President Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1802 to the Danbury Baptist Church Association in Connecticut. In the letter, Jefferson wrote that the American people had built “a wall of separation between Church and State.”
The constitutional interpretation of separation of church and state comes from the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
The Supreme Court applied this provision also to the states through the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause, which prohibits states from passing laws that restrict people’s “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
But the court has more recently signaled a willingness to allow religion in public spaces, striking down a law in Maine earlier this month that prevented religious schools from receiving tuition aid from public funds. It also ruled in favor of a high school football coach who was placed on leave for violating the school’s policy against staff encouraging students to engage in prayer.
Boebert argued that the church should direct the government, and not the other way around.
Boebert won the Republican nomination for reelection to her seat on Tuesday, after winning election to the House in 2020 and gaining a reputation as a far-right conservative with hard-line views,
There is no difference between this and the Taliban. We must opposed the Christian Taliban. I say this as a Christian
It’s not like Bimbobert actually read any history books about our forefathers…or any actual books at all. Her kind will walk around with lil’ booklets of the Constitution and pocket Bibles and wave them in everyone’s faces…implying that they’ve actually read, let alone understand either of them.
And she obviously has never read The Bible, or she’d know her lies and calls for violence are in direct contrast to the teachings of Jesus. Did you ever see Beneath The Planet Of The Apes? She reminds me of those fucked up people who lived underground and worshiped a nuclear missile.
Here we have a Protestant wishing for a Medieval hierarchical (and patriarchal) structure where the church (the RCC) had control over government and the law. The very thing Madison, Jefferson, Washington, etc. didn’t want.
The not-so-quiet part about when Bobble-head says “church” is that she means Christian church. They’re fine with religious privilege, as long as it’s the right religion.
When Bobble-head says “church”, she means Christian Church. And when she says “Christian Church”, she means Evangelical Protestant Christian Church. And when she says “Evangelical Protestant Christian Church”. . .
The phrase “wall of separation between church and state” comes from Thomas Jefferson who, as President, wrote a letter to the Danbury (Connecticut) Baptist Association dated January 1, 1802. They had written to President Jefferson with concerns about the First Amendment. The phrase was later used in two landmark Supreme Court rulings, Reynolds v. United States (1879) and Everson v. Board of Education (1947.) Reynolds held that “religious duty” (in this case, Mormon requirement for polygamy) was not a defense against criminal charges. Everson held that states are bound to secure Constitutional rights, specifically that “Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion…” also applied to state legislatures.
So it surprises me not at all that the Dominionists, who usually fetishize the “original intent” of the Founders, are desperate to ignore this piece of original intent.
Two employees with a North Carolina company say they were fired after refusing to participate in the firm’s daily Christian prayer meetings, which they said went against their respective religious beliefs, according to a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The lawsuit, which seeks a jury trial, was filed in U.S. District Court in Greensboro on Monday on behalf of John McGaha, a construction manager at Aurora Pro Services, and Mackenzie Saunders, a customer service representatives at the Greensboro residential services company. The EEOC announced the lawsuit Tuesday in a news release.
Mary Kate Littlejohn, a Greenville, South Carolina, attorney representing McGaha and Saunders, declined comment Tuesday. No one from Aurora Pro Services was immediately available for comment Tuesday and questions on the lawsuit were referred to an email address from which there was no immediate answer.
In the complaint, the EEOC says daily prayer meetings are part of Aurora’s business model, though there is no reference to it on its web page. Attendance at the prayer meetings was mandatory for employees and was a condition of employment regardless of a worker’s religious beliefs or affiliation, the complaint said.
On occasion, prayers were requested and offered “for poor performing employees who were identified by name,” according to the complaint. Also, the complaint noted, the company owner took attendance and would reprimand employees who did not attend.
McGaha, who identifies himself as an atheist, was hired by the company on June 8, 2020. He said the prayer meetings, which initially lasted around 15 minutes, stretched in length to around 45 minutes and even longer. Saunders, who worked at Aurora from November 2020 until Jan. 21, 2021, describes herself as an agnostic. She also acknowledged that the prayer meetings became longer over time.
According to the complaint, McGaha said the longer the prayer meetings went, the less tolerable they became. He said he was asked on one occasion to lead the Christian prayer, which he refused. In late August 2020, he asked the owner of the company to be excused from those parts of the meeting that pertained to religion because of his conflict with it, but the owner refused and told him “it would be in his best interest to do so.”
McGaha asked again in September to be excused. The complaint said the owner told him that he did not have to believe in God nor did he have to like the meetings but he had to participate. McGaha refused and he was fired, the complaint said. Before he was fired, the owner reduced his base pay from $800 to $400 and his commissions were withheld after his dismissal, the EEOC said.
In January 2021, Saunders stopped going to the prayer meetings because they conflicted with her religion. She was fired, the complaint said, adding that the owner told her she “was not a good fit” for the company.
The complaint also seeks a permanent injunction to prevent the company from engaging in employment practices that discriminate on the basis of religion and subject workers to a hostile work environment “by coercing participating in daily prayer.”
The plaintiffs, one an atheist and the other an agnostic, say the daily prayer meetings went against their respective religious beliefs. https://t.co/ar11LbtrLf
After I told the Supervisor who was in charge of my sexual harassment complaint on how his brother in law called me a faggot, knocked me down, pinned me to the floor and spit in my face he said I needed to forgive everyone (especially his brother in law) and “turn it over to Jesus”.
These “moral” people and their enablers are freaking evil.
I worked for a state agency here in Oklahoma. It was a industrial setting (a fossil fueled power plant) where I worked in the Operations Department. This was before I transitioned so I guess I stuck out with the good old boys for not wanting to degrade and generally trash women. They assumed I was a gay male so I caught abuse from both the wife beaters and the religious nuts. On top of that I had no help from management.
Well, after my mental break I was able to go on SSDI. Even after years of therapy there are problems. Still uneasy around tall buildings. Had two coworkers throw rocks at me off a six story building.
SCOTUS ruling: Atheists and agnostics have no religious beliefs, are spiritually defective, have no rights, and we hereby proclaim they are not human. Prison for both plaintiffs, until they see the error of their ways.
And so the erasing of same sex couples begins. Just students know that a teacher is married to someone of the same gender is now forbidden in Florida. How does this protect children? It does clearly make gay married teachers a lower class of people than straight married teachers. What next limiting benefits to gay married teachers or just making it illegal to have gay teachers? WTF, I am going out of my mind that the US in a few short years snapped back into a theocracy. Hugs
Representatives for Orange County teachers sounded alarm bells Monday after word spread from principals that Orange County Public Schools would impose strict restrictions on classroom behavior after Florida’s new Parental Rights in Education law, a.k.a the “Don’t Say Gay” law, took effect.
According to representatives of the county’s teacher association, teachers and staff members will be disallowed from wearing rainbow articles of clothing, including lanyards distributed by the district last year. Elementary-level teachers reported being discouraged from putting pictures of their same-sex spouse on their desk or talking about them to students.
“Safe Space” stickers aimed at LGBTQ students may have to be removed from doors, teachers will have to report to parents if a student “comes out” to them and they must use pronouns assigned at birth, regardless of what the parents allow, the CTA reported.
"teachers and staff members will be disallowed from wearing rainbow articles of clothing, including lanyards distributed by the district last year… teachers reported being discouraged from putting pictures of their same-sex spouse on their desk"https://t.co/rGqqNeeKQn
— Christian Vanderbrouk 🇺🇸🇺🇦🌻 (@UrbanAchievr) June 29, 2022
Florida has no law barring such discrimination nor does the federal government. There’s no basis for such a suit and should it actually go into court the current right wing courts will rule against us. This is why we are so fucked and this is just the beginning.
Give it time. If Thomas gets his no ‘substantive due process’ case, that would undermine Loving. And there’s cases every year about one wedding or another not allowing an interracial couple to celebrate there – and the venues do win the cases if they are sufficiently private.
Hear, fucking, hear. I think a lot of Americans, including people on this forum, really haven’t grappled with what’s happening. For all the country’s history of injustice against Blacks, Native people, women and LGBT people, most of us have only ever known life in a nation of democracy, freedom and rule of law.
We’re now entering a phase of history that people in Europe and other countries such as Chile have already seen – where democracy, freedom and rule of law all collapse and are replaced with dictatorship, oppression and lawless rule by decree. It’s disorienting, like the sudden death of a loved one, and it takes a while to wrap your head around it and realize that what you have always known as normal is now gone.
They already are. I am in a number of online groups for music teachers. They are leaving in droves. I guess the MSM will wait and report on this in September when schools can’t open for lack of teachers. (Always a day late and a dollar short our US excuse for journalism!) So it’s already bad, but yes this will make it worse.
The books that have been banned are like “And Tango Makes Three” showing two male parents and no sex. But stories like Goldilocks with a Mama Bear, Papa Bear and Baby Bear are not banned.
It is about indoctrinating their version of what a family looks like, what a couple looks like.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late Before you are six or seven or eight
I love this podcast for making laws and court rulings understandable to the public. Also for those that are hearing impaired they do a transcript of the show. Sadly the transcript for this episode is not up yet. I hope you enjoy the show and the breakdown of how the six conservatives justices are gaslighting the country to make these religious laws not based on the constitution but on their religious dictates to give religion a superior place in US society, to make place the Christian religion above all others and to demote secularism to mean discrimination of the Christian religion. Hugs
OA608: Forget Church-State Separation, SCOTUS Mandates Christian Favoritism
The hits just keep on coming with this disgraceful, illegitimate Supreme Court. Andrew Seidel joins us to break down Carson v. Makin, and explains why precedent is meaningless, and the only thing that matters to this court when it comes to Church/State cases is: Christians win. Then, Ace Associate Morgan Stringer joins us to explain why the entire internet is wrong about Biden “banning Juuls and cigarettes.”
FILE – The drug misoprostol sits on a gynecological table at Casa Fusa, a health center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Jan. 22, 2021. Facebook and Instagram have begun promptly removing posts that offer abortion pills to women who may not be able to access them following a Supreme Court decision that stripped away constitutional protections for the procedure. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano, File)
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FILE – Boxes of the drug mifepristone line a shelf at the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Wednesday, March 16, 2022. Facebook and Instagram have begun promptly removing posts that offer abortion pills to women who may not be able to access them following a Supreme Court decision that stripped away constitutional protections for the procedure. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed, File)
Such social media posts ostensibly aimed to help women living in states where preexisting laws banning abortion suddenly snapped into effect on Friday. That’s when the high court overruled Roe v. Wade, its 1973 decision that declared access to abortion a constitutional right.
Memes and status updates explaining how women could legally obtain abortion pills in the mail exploded across social platforms. Some even offered to mail the prescriptions to women living in states that now ban the procedure.
Almost immediately, Facebook and Instagram began removing some of these posts, just as millions across the U.S. were searching for clarity around abortion access. General mentions of abortion pills, as well as posts mentioning specific versions such as mifepristone and misoprostol, suddenly spiked Friday morning across Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and TV broadcasts, according to an analysis by the media intelligence firm Zignal Labs.
By Sunday, Zignal had counted more than 250,000 such mentions.
The AP obtained a screenshot on Friday of one Instagram post from a woman who offered to purchase or forward abortion pills through the mail, minutes after the court ruled to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion.
“DM me if you want to order abortion pills, but want them sent to my address instead of yours,” the post on Instagram read.
Instagram took it down within moments. Vice Media first reported on Monday that Meta, the parent of both Facebook and Instagram, was taking down posts about abortion pills.
On Monday, an AP reporter tested how the company would respond to a similar post on Facebook, writing: “If you send me your address, I will mail you abortion pills.”
The post was removed within one minute.
The Facebook account was immediately put on a “warning” status for the post, which Facebook said violated its standards on “guns, animals and other regulated goods.”
Yet, when the AP reporter made the same exact post but swapped out the words “abortion pills” for “a gun,” the post remained untouched. A post with the same exact offer to mail “weed” was also left up and not considered a violation.
Marijuana is illegal under federal law and it is illegal to send it through the mail.
Abortion pills, however, can legally be obtained through the mail after an online consultation from prescribers who have undergone certification and training.
In an email, a Meta spokesperson pointed to company policies that prohibit the sale of certain items, including guns, alcohol, drugs and pharmaceuticals. The company did not explain the apparent discrepancies in its enforcement of that policy.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone confirmed in a tweet Monday that the company will not allow individuals to gift or sell pharmaceuticals on its platform, but will allow content that shares information on how to access pills. Stone acknowledged some problems with enforcing that policy across its platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram.
“We’ve discovered some instances of incorrect enforcement and are correcting these,” Stone said in the tweet.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said Friday that states should not ban mifepristone, the medication used to induce an abortion.
“States may not ban mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy,” Garland said in a Friday statement.
But some Republicans have already tried to stop their residents from obtaining abortion pills through the mail, with some states like West Virginia and Tennessee prohibiting providers from prescribing the medication through telemedicine consultation.
Content that attempts to buy, sell, trade, gift, request or donate pharmaceuticals is not allowed. Content that discusses the affordability and accessibility of prescription medication is allowed. We've discovered some instances of incorrect enforcement and are correcting these.
Again these people insist the LGBTQ+ are the moral degenerates and that men dressed in costume reading to kids in public is somehow grooming kids for abuse. Hugs
A Kissimmee pastor was arrested Monday after he was suspected of exposing his genitals and masturbating at a Starbucks, according to Osceola County Sheriff’s Office.
Enginio Dali Muniz-Colon, 39, was arrested and taken to Osceola County Jail, where he faces a charge of exposure of sexual organs, OCSO said. Muniz-Colon is a pastor and teaches online Ministry classes, according to OCSO.
On May 9, deputies received a report of an incident involving a man exposing his genitals and pleasuring himself at a Starbucks at 1041 W Osceola Parkway, OCSO said. The sheriff’s office Special Victim’s Unit began investigating and found Muniz-Colon had similar charges at the same Starbucks.
Deputies with the @OsceolaSheriff have arrested Enginio Dali Muniz-Colon after they say he was found exposing himself, masturbating on the patio of Starbucks on Osceola Pkwy. They say this isn’t the first time and that he’s a pastor in Kissimmee. @WESHpic.twitter.com/ju2JEpLvza
I am confused, can Scotland just vote to leave the UK and then just do it? Would there be a war or something if they tried? Here in the US we have a lot of rabid right wingers talk about leaving the Union but it is well known it can not be done unless all states and the federal government agree. Some say it can not be legally done at all. Hugs
Scottish first minister on collision course with Boris Johnson over plans for second referendum next year.
Britain is headed for a fresh constitutional crisis as Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon prepares to outline plans for a second vote on Scottish independence — with or without Boris Johnson’s agreement.
In a 20-minute speech to lawmakers in the Scottish parliament (Holyrood) on Tuesday, Sturgeon will set out her long-awaited route to some form of a second referendum, vowing to press ahead even if — as expected — Johnson’s U.K. government continues to withhold consent.
The first poll in 2014, in which the pro-Union side triumphed by 55 percent to 45 percent, followed then-Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to temporarily hand Holyrood the power to hold a referendum. This time, no such consent from Westminster will be forthcoming.
After pro-independence parties gained a majority of seats in last year’s Holyrood elections, Sturgeon argued her government now had a mandate to hold a fresh vote. In response, Johnson and U.K. ministers have pointed to nationalist statements from 2014 that the first referendum would be a “once in a generation” event, and say Sturgeon’s current focus should be on helping Scots with the cost-of-living-crisis.
Sturgeon will say Tuesday that her preferred option remains a repeat of the 2014 transfer of powers, stating in pre-released remarks: “Westminster rule over Scotland cannot be based on anything other than a consented, voluntary partnership.”
“It is time to give people the democratic choice they have voted for.”
Nationalists and unionists alike expect this plea to fall on deaf ears. An official from the U.K. government said its position in opposition to another referendum would not change.
The most hotly anticipated portion of Sturgeon’s speech will therefore concern how her government plans to hold a referendum if Westminster does not grant consent.
In a press conference earlier this month, Sturgeon stressed that any efforts to hold a referendum must be done “in a lawful manner” — a reference to the widely-held view that either the U.K. government or an activist private citizen would take the Scottish government to court if it tried to hold a referendum against the will of Westminster.
One way to get around the legal difficulties could be to hold a purely advisory poll, according to a former senior civil servant involved in the negotiations for the 2014 referendum.
“Perhaps instead of a ‘referendum on independence,’ the bill is instead about something like asking the people of Scotland for a mandate to open independence negotiations with the U.K,” Ciaran Martin wrote in the Sunday Times. He added that such a measure “might stand a better chance in court.”
Some unionists have made clear they would boycott any consultative poll, regardless of its legality. But with October 2023 penciled in as Sturgeon’s ideal date for a fresh referendum, and legislation to enact a vote expected in Holyrood later this year, a court battle looks increasingly inevitable.
POTENTIAL SCOTLAND INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM POLL OF POLLS
📢 This just in: the Scottish are coming … for their independence! 🏴
The UK is headed for a fresh crisis as Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon prepares to outline plans for a second vote on Scottish independence.https://t.co/8X8ZcWo7Zs
Nicola Sturgeon accused of sowing ‘division and strife’ over plan for second Scottish independence referendum – UK politics live https://t.co/CLokWtcNk3
Congratulations to the Conservative Party of the UK, who as paid agents of the Russian government have installed Russian oligarchs in the House of Lords, compromised the NHS in the middle of a global pandemic, knocked the legs out from under several UK industries, weakened the EU, weakened NATO and brought about the likely dissolution of the UK.
David Cameron, Teresa May, Boris Johnson… traitors to their country, all.
Christ. I don’t know if I should bother with this one, since everyone’s going to be talking Braveheart shite.
The SNP have no currency plan. They are lying about us getting straight into the EU. Scexit negotiations, if they happened, would make Brexit negotiations look like cancelling a broadband contract, and this time the tories they’d be negotiating with would actually (not in their lies) hold all the cards.
I live in Scotland, and I am dependent on state benefits and the NHS. My appetite for risk is very fucking limited indeed. As is the appetite of most people in Scotland. Unless a non-binding referendum was boycotted, like the private referendum financed by SNP donor Brian Souter when he wanted to keep Section 28, Remain would win.
First, Braveheart is 20 years old and is an overrated film with the historical accuracy of sheep shit.
Second, not everyone. There is a strange draw I admit in the States to independence from everything it seems, definitely in light of the Crown (talk about a solution in search of a problem), Ireland, and Scotland. As if anything associated with England is tethered to a war that a bunch of colonists won only with the aide of France.
There is definitely a need for more input in terms of Scotland’s access to economically driven initiatives, particularly in the Highlands and the Northern Islands/Hebredes, which, in truth, the SNP doesn’t seem to deal much with at all. The loss of association with the EU definitely hurt crofters for one small example, and of course, the whole fishing industry thing. But those, and even increased voice in Westminster, can be resolved without a total break, which would just create even more chaos. Let’s face it: the economic ties bind; the whole separation thing might have been wonders when Catholics and Protestants were burning each other at the stake, but Mary, we’ve moved on.
It’s not the Scotland hates England; to be honest, that is a very American centric view. Are there representation issues? Yes, but independence is not a strong way to go for a country that is so linked economically to its neighbor to the south, and that is, truly, so small in population to support its own without that economic (and etc.) safety net. We are talking a country that has about 1/.2 the population not of England but only of London. There are too many ties that bind for a complete separation.
Honest question here… Right now the EU seems (to my American ass) poised to accelerate membership for a few countries such as Ukraine and Moldova for very obvious reasons. I’m assuming that the expectation is that it wouldn’t do the same for Scotland despite it being a former member because Scotland isn’t under the same kind of threat as Ukraine and Moldova. And thus Scotland would have to go through a some-number-of-years long process to join. Have I got that right?
My uncle, when a student in Edinburgh, was arrested when he climbed a flagpole to replace the Union Jack with the flag of Scotland. That would have been sometime In the late 1930s. Independence has been festering for a long time, but it’s a lot like Texas seceding in that it’ll cause more problems than it solves.
YouGov’s latest tracking data on an independence vote shows that, if there was a vote today, the outcome would be identical to how it was in 2014, with 55% saying they would vote No and 45% Yes. Since the referendum, support for remaining in the UK has tended to be above support for leaving, and while in 2020 we saw the biggest Yes lead of any YouGov poll at 53%, this support has dwindled in subsequent polls through 2021 and 2022.
Scottie's Playtime 