June 23 marks the fifth anniversary of the day the United Kingdom voted in a referendum to leave the European Union. Here’s a look at some of the most memorable moments of Brexit pic.twitter.com/0zM34pVqZx
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 23, 2021
If I’d had more warning, I’d have asked Tony Jay to write an explainer for us. On the other hand, I don’t want to be responsible for the poor fella stroking out…
WaterGirl
This didn’t post at its scheduled time, so I forced it a few minutes later at 8:37. I didn’t want anyone to wonder why it’s been up for 6 minutes and they hadn’t seen it.
KrackenJack
If you had asked me for a snap guess, I wouldn’t have said five years. Maybe three or four.
Baud
OT
Another Scott
Via IamHappyToast:
Of course, it was never really about money or trade or putting more money in the NHS or whatever. It was about punching down on foreigners. And the craven Tory leadership being unable or unwilling to say that a leave-the-EU referendum was actually a crackpot idea and stop it from happening.
And the UK will pay a price for a very long time.
Cheers,
Scott.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: It’s a bipartisan group of senators, not a group of bipartisan senators, dammit.
Another Scott
Cheers,
Scott.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Let’s see if it’s been watered down to a warm pail of spit to get enough Republican Senators on board.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Either way, I suspect it’s bad news, but I guess we’ll know soon enough.
It’s most likely to be ridiculously narrow, and having any deal at all will likely make it harder to pass the rest of what is needed through reconciliation. If Manchin gets what he wants in this deal, i suspect it’s likely that we lose his vote for reconciliation.
I am sick of delay, delay, delay. it’s the Republican strategy, and it’s not good for us.
I am perfectly happy to be wrong on this, but I’m ready to stop screwing around on this and on an investigation into Jan 6.
dmsilev
“And they all lived happily ever after”
Right?
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Let’s not kink shame.
WaterGirl
Joe looked exhausted today, but who wouldn’t be after the schedule he has had overseas.
I am sure Joe has things that need to move forward this week, but I hope he takes the entire weekend off. He needs to take care of himself
Another Scott
@?BillinGlendaleCA: No links, but my recollection is that Psaki and others have been talking about this “bipartisan” thing as a down-payment, but that they’re going to keep pushing for all the other things in the American Jobs Plan. I’m not exactly sure how that’s going to work, but it’s good that they’re not being fooled by this “bipartisan” stuff (especially when most of the $1T isn’t new money in the things that they were talking about earlier) and giving up on all the rest.
We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
I didn’t remember the precise date but I certainly knew the year was 2016. Remember thinking at the time how exceedingly distressing it was to have both the USA and the U.K. commit national suicide more or less simultaneously.
Mike E
Now would be a good time for a futbol post… Here is Colombia scoring the goal of the tournament on Brazil https://mobile.twitter.com/FOXSoccer/status/1407854919596527618
Bill Arnold
@dmsilev:
Off topic, but check out this table, specifically the story endings column. (The beginnings are fun too.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_upon_a_time
A sample beginning:
“There once was, (as never before)… because if there wasn’t, it wouldn’t have been to told.”
A sample ending:
“…and if they haven’t died already, they are living happily to this day. “
Another Scott
@Bill Arnold:
This is the end; run away with it.
Hehe.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gin & Tonic:
Forget it,
JakeG&T. It’s Politico.?BillinGlendaleCA
OT: The COVID positivity rate in LA County continues to go up. It was 0.4% last week and today is at 0.61%. While it’s nothing in comparison to last winter at 21%, this is not good.
Kay
It is truly amazing how fast this went tragically wrong . It was immediately weaponized by the Right to shut down speech.
Our “public intellectuals” just aren’t very smart. Really poorly thought out.
Gin & Tonic
Lots of people here that know stuff. I recently visited Gettysburg, for the first time. Had noted that I don’t know much about the US Civil War, so I picked up a copy of Bruce Catton’s book The Civil War. It was published 60 years ago, but at that point it was nearly a century after that war. Is this considered to be a decent history? There are a million books, in very great detail about the various battles and campaigns, but life is short, and I wanted something digestible.
I know our resident son of a Civil War expert is no longer with us to respond.
Baud
@Kay:
Who is he referring to?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay:
Sounds like cancel culture to me.
laura
I see Brexit as the coverup of a great crime – offshore unaccountable wealth. And the same shite-bags that cheer loaded for Brexit are the same or run in the same circles as the shite bags who thought Donald Trump should be installed as president.
OT good news, my Giants just beat down the Angel’s in 13 innings. Bad news, there’s a fire in Sonoma near the square, and clusters of outbreaks of Delta variant are igniting in Marin County and likely will mirror fire season.
WaterGirl
@Mike E: Sorry, I believe Anne Laurie is off duty :-) and I know nothing about football or soccer.
But you could always talk soccer in the soccer thread Anne Laurie put up this morning.
If you start commenting, Recent Comments will show that the thread is live, and I bet you would get some takers.
dmsilev
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Some of that is broad-base surveillance programs winding down. A lot of schools and colleges were testing all the students all the time with some ridiculously low positivity rate (through April and May, my crew had a positivity rate that was roughly 0.03% and no that’s not a typo), but now that it’s summer that’s offline and testing is a bit more focused.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@dmsilev: Thanks, I did also see that testing has decreased as well, that might explain it.
dmsilev
@Gin & Tonic: It’s not bad. McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom is a somewhat more recent but equally readable text; that’s quite good and is generally the go-to for a single volume that covers both the lead-up to the war and the war itself.
Redshift
Since I also heard the news yesterday that the current Spanish government has pardoned the Catalan separatist leaders, I wonder if anything came of the suspicions that Russian disinformation played a significant role in driving both Brexit and the Catalan independence movement. Does anyone know if a source for any follow-up on that?
Another Scott
@Kay: The right has been attacking universities since at least Galileo’s day. It’s what they do – they don’t need an excuse from something a liberal says.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
Mrs. Betty Bower’s latest:
(includes link to 6:39 video)
Cheers,
Scott.
dmsilev
@?BillinGlendaleCA: We’ve gone from about 3000 tests a week in March to less than 300 now in our surveillance program. Most of that is the policy that anyone who is fully vaccinated is removed from the testing pool.
PsiFighter37
Seeing how Brexit turned out should have been an omen of what was to come in November for us.
Baud
Someone should sponsor a critical race 10K.
WaterGirl
Holy cow, thank you to the person who just donated through the Voces link at the top of the page!
WaterGirl
@PsiFighter37: Yes! Many of us were saying at the time that we hoped the lesson of Brexit might deter some people who were thinking of voting for T**** as a protest vote, thinking he would never win so it would hurt.
VOR
@Gin & Tonic: Just don’t get Shelby Foote’s book, he is famous for Lost Cause nostalgia.
Kay
@Baud:
Matthew Yglesias, Chait- the centrist pundits who freaked out about what DougJ refers to as “the Oberlin student council” :)
They managed to create a new Tea Party which will now purge schools of liberals. I don’t think I can recall anything backfiring this completely and quickly. Truly a wonder to behold, this profound a failure.
They never, ever get it. You dance with the gal who brung you. They really believed that the Republican Party were staunch proponents of free speech? Why? Because Tom Cotton said so? Has there EVER been a successful liberal/libertarian alliance? Every single time it’s tried the liberals get absolutely slaughtered.
Kay
@Baud:
Here’s a good rule- if Glenn Greenwald is involved it ends badly. Even tangentially! The kiss of fucking death.
Ohio Mom
Gin & Tonic:
I’m glad I saw Gettysburg but the place that really got to me was the John Brown museum at Harper’s Ferry National Historic Site.
Was John Brown a saint in disguise or a madman that just latched onto the abolitionist movement (in the same way that very unhappy old white men latched onto MAGA)?
Gettysburg seemed to me to be about war and military strategy — Harper’s Ferry in contrast, was all about the mysteries behind deep commitment to a cause.
Gin & Tonic
@VOR: What struck me was the presence at Gettysburg of monuments to a number of Confederate units. North Carolina, Virginia, possibly others. I’ve never been to Normandy, were Germans allowed to put up monuments to the Nazis there?
Auntie Anne
@Gin & Tonic: I like Page Smith’s A Trial by Fire. It’s volume 4 of his 8 book series and a good overview.
lollipopguild
@Gin & Tonic: Catton is a very good writer, I read almost all of his stuff 50 years or so ago and really enjoyed his books.
mrmoshpotato
I have a feeling he’d relish writing up a tome on all the wankers.
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: I went to Gettysburg with my grandpa when I was a tike. I didn’t know much about it so it didn’t make a big impression on me at the time. I should go back.
One thing that did stick with me was that Eisenhower had ~ 150 acre farm right next to the battlefield.
There are so many connections running through history…
Cheers,
Scott.
sanjeevs
Pinoy Aquino died today. Only 61 years old.
Will be even harder for the anti-Duterte side to coalesce before the Philippine elections next year.
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: I’ve never been to Normandy either, so I dunno.
J and I took a vacation in Austria a few years ago and we were in some little town and saw a little church on a hill beside the main road and decided to look inside. We both were very surprised to see swastikas all over the place as part of the original decorations in various memorial niches, etc. We couldn’t read enough of the German to get the context…
Cheers,
Scott.
M31
@Gin & Tonic: another vote for The Battle Cry of Freedom as clear and readable, and with good chapters on the run up
Mike in NC
@Gin & Tonic: Generally, the best single volume on the Civil War is considered to be “Battle Cry of Freedom” by James McPherson, first published in 1988.
Ohio Mom
Gin & Tonic:
A few years ago, signs along east-west roads in the Cincinnati area went up, declaring them the “John Hunt Morgan Heritage Trail.”
Who was he? A Confederate General who led his troops on a 1,000 mile rampage through Indiana and Ohio — I assume there are signs the whole length where there are roads along his route.
I wouldn’t mind a sign at the place he surrendered — Salinville, Ohio, the northernmost spot reached by Confederate troops. A sign that would mark it as the Union victory it was.
Until I googled him, I assumed John Morgan Hunt was some sort of good guy, not a traitor. Why else put up all this signs?
Anyway, my point is, they are *still* putting up monuments.
Another Scott
Looks like it’s going to pretty hot in Phoenix…
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@sanjeevs:
Is there thought to be anything suspicious about his death? The news reports I’ve seen so far are pretty skimpy, and none mentions a cause of death. Several of them do mention his heavy smoking, however.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
SiubhanDuinne
@Another Scott:
Not unlike cremation.
Mike E
@Gin & Tonic: I went there long after Burns’ canon and Maxwell’s ode to the “lovely” carnage so I really didn’t keep much of a talley on the historical markers. The physical effect of the terrain really captured my imagination. I couldn’t help but run down Little Round Top and rout 15th Alabama all over again!
ETA Brazil just scored two late goals to beat Colombia in front of zero fans
Another Scott
@SiubhanDuinne:
AlJazeera:
There were some lurid accusations that he was involved in a murder for hire in Belize, but he only seemed be indicted for tax evasion:
Hmm… There’s that word again…
Cheers,
Scott.
sanjeevs
@SiubhanDuinne: No Pnoy was a heavy smoker. Health hadn’t been good for a while.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
The Tory leadership is the fount of crackpot ideas related to BREXIT. The Tory hardliners ironically named the European Research Group (ERG) has been fighting an alignment between the UK and the European Community since the early 1990s. They still want to see a hard BREXIT, and wax nostalgic for a return to the 1800s and the days of empire.
Recently Boris Johnson renewed his request for a $200 million yacht to visit foreign countries as the UK seeks new trade deals. Even the Queen called this a crazy ass idea.
But then, doubling down on appeals to insane xenophobia, BoJo declared that soon the NHS would not need any foreign doctors and would be able to train so many new physicians that the government would be able to send excess doctors out into the world to practice free market medicine, they way God intended. Somehow he just glossed over the reality of understaffed and underpaid NHS nurses.
The right wing Telegraph recently printed a story, complete with pretty tables and charts, showing what an economic success BREXIT has been. Most sane observers looked at the numbers and concluded that they had all been made up, since nothing agreed with any of the official reports of various statistics gathering agencies. Telegraph readers don’t care, and most other right wing media simply ignored the misrepresentation.
The situation in Northern Ireland may spin out of control. Meanwhile, in Scotland, they are pushing harder for a referendum on independence.
Yea, Happy BREXIT Day!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ohio Mom: John Brown’s second son, Jason is buried in Akron. He and his brother had a cabin up in the hills above Pasadena in the late 1800’s. He also helped to build the Echo Mountain Railway. Brown Mountain in the San Gabriels is named after John Brown.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Another Scott:
They got their blue passports, though.
Ken
@Another Scott: The swastika was a religious and decorative motif for thousands of years. It was being used in Europe until the 1920s, and is still in use in some places. The English version was called a “fylfot”, allegedly because it was used to fill empty space at the foot of windows, tiled fireplaces, etc. Wikipedia has a rundown.
Ken
Because so many parts of the world have such fond memories of giant British ships sailing into their ports and opening up trade?
Another Scott
@Ken: Understood, but these were clearly WWII-related from the dates.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Brachiator: I should have explicitly said I was referring to David Cameron. He let himself get forced into calling for a referendum, and all the rest.
Yeah, it was the Tories RWNJs that pushed it, but he could have prevented it. (But, maybe it’s actually a case of If my grandma had wheels she’d be a Studebaker…)
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Gin & Tonic: Get James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom, it’s at least 30 years old, but it’s more current than Catton and it ain’t (shudder) Shelby Foote.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
Who knows. Cameron and later Theresa May both seemed to mis-read the public sentiment and the agenda of their own party.
But once they stumbled, the BREXIT hardliners seized the opportunity and made the most of it.
I keep hearing that Tories distrust Johnson, but here he is, still in place and bumbling along.
dnfree
@Gin & Tonic: I’m going to suggest the book that I thought was excellent. It’s called America Aflame. I was looking for something that covered the time period from about 1830 or so to when Reconstruction failed, not a lot of dwelling on battles like what we had in high school. I wanted more original sources quoted. I’ve been recommending it to anyone who’s interested, and even people who aren’t.
https://www.amazon.com/America-Aflame-Civil-Created-Nation/dp/160819390X
ian
@Ohio Mom:
He was neither. He was a family man who believed very deeply in abolitionism, convinced his close friends and family of the morality of his cause, and was willing to use deadly violence against unarmed people who supported the slave-system. His murder of 5 unarmed slave-holders and their associates in Kansas years before his raid on Harper’s Ferry is more reflective of his beliefs than his letter actions and portrayals.
Briefly- he was willing to die and commit violence to achieve the world he wanted. That makes him dangerous, but it does not make him insane or a saint.
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
We also have areas that are not all that high up vaccination wise. CA does a map by zip code and the one I live in is only just over 60% fully vaccinated. Some are over 80% or 90%. Some are less than 30%. With fully opening and the overall vaccination level, I’d bet we have a surge, maybe not a big one but a surge none the less.
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
Was going to say that’s cold. But it just didn’t sound right….
Geminid
@Brachiator: I read that a prime motivation behind Brexit was that new E.U. financial reporting requirements were pending, and some very wealthy Britons wanted to keep their money hidden. I asked Mr. Jay about this story last winter and I remember him affirming it.
Russia also had a role, pushing pro-Brexit propaganda through bogus social media accounts, just as they later were to push anti-Clinton propaganda during the 2016 election. Brexit may have been of great benefit to Russian oligarchs and Russian financial interests in the UK. And it certainly furthered Russia’s strategic goal of degrading European unity.
So essentially, the British people were slickf##ked.
Geminid
@ian: The first man killed in John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry was a free Black man. He worked at the railway station, and when he walked out to see what the commotion was, Brown’s men told him to freeze. When he turned around and started back, they shot him down.
Harriet Tubman had planned to join John Brown’s attack. In the event, she stayed home. Tubman may have been unwell, but it could also be that she correctly judged Brown to be a reckless and bloodthirsty fanatic.
Brachiator
@Geminid:
Yeah, I’ve read that too, and it is credible to a certain degree. But so far, BREXIT is slowly wrecking the British economy. Their biggest industry was the financial services sector, and this is taking a huge hit as some companies move out of the City of London, and European firms pick up the business. It would be incredibly cynical and vile for a small group of wealthy, entitled dopes to sink the entire nation just to be able to hang onto their loot. But sadly plausible.
Here it is British oligarchs vs Russian oligarchs. Both are pretty vile. But the anti EU sentiment has been long brewing in the UK among some conservatives. They might even have welcomed the interference even if they did not solicit it.
Geminid
@Brachiator: I’m not sure one can be too cynical about the morality of the wealthy British elite. Even after Munich, they were willing to subsidize Hitler if he would turn on the Russians.* And the example of the modern Russian oligarchs probably has not improved their ethics or civic-mindedness.
*See The Deadly Embrace, an account of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact by British authors…
Geminid
@Geminid: That’s The Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin, and the Nazi-Soviet Pact 1939-41 (1988), by Anthony Read and David Fisher. By Read and Fisher’s account, it was Neville Chamberlin who in 1939 dangled a massive loan to Hitler. But I think the potential lenders must have been in on the plan
Tony Jay
Heh. I slept through this.
Metaphor, or something.
Anne Laurie
@Tony Jay: Glad you saw it, at least!
(Of course, if you ever decide you *do* want to write up a retrospective, my email is always open… )
Matt
@Another Scott:
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Yeah, it’s a “down payment”. And Lucy will TOTES let Charlie Brown kick the ball this time.
Remember when the ACA was the “down payment” to seriously reforming our healthcare system? Remember how the “centrists” insisted it be watered down over and over in the interest of bipartisanship? Remember how no Republicans voted for it?
evodevo
@Ohio Mom:
One of our local towns has a Morgan Raid re-enactment every year (well, except 2020, of course)….Morgan was sent up through KY to try and distract KY from sending reinforcements to battles in TN…he was supposed to attack Lexington, but they were too well-defended, so he attacked the little railroad hub in Cynthiana with about a thousand men. It was quite a battle. He picked up a lot of loot and horses, but was forced to head back south when Union troops moved in.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Another Scott: david cameron, like his gen x brother by another mother paul ryan, thought his toffee ass could ride the national-conservative tiger to auterity.
he was wrong.