kevininthemiddle.bsky.social
Ex-army but not a flag waver, left-leaning, anti-facist, been around most of the horror stories in the world in the last 30 years but still optimistic
229 posts
26 followers
27 following
Active Commenter
comment in response to
post
"Warrior ethos" my ass. I did 10 years with 2 active service tours; the best I served with just got on with the job and did what had to be done. They didn't need to posture and pretend they were "warriors" - they did what they were trained to do. Hegseth is little more than a pathetic wannabe.
comment in response to
post
I stand corrected on my conflation with CGT, my point, clumsily made is that we should pay tax on what we receive that we have not earned. Your point here is well made about houses being considered as both a generator and store of wealth. It's an obsession in both the UK and Ireland.
comment in response to
post
Inheritance for most of us is a relatively new issue - the vast amount of wealth created by property prices has created a situation where we believe that wealth accrued by our parents is ours to inherit without taxation. It's not! We didn't earn it. It's a capital gain and should be taxed as such.
comment in response to
post
Trump said "It was a good conversation". What does that even mean, "good conversation"? What was the call for? So they could shoot the breeze and talk about the weather?
comment in response to
post
Just what the world needs, even more weapons. There's something truly distasteful about the world's biggest arms manufacturing countries all sitting on the UN Security Council and bleating about the need for peace as they fuel the conflicts with their products.
comment in response to
post
The News Agents must have been infected with the BBC "balance virus" so they need to give bullshitters like Amber Rudd air time to spout nonsense and be indignant.
comment in response to
post
What to say that hasn’t already been said? The delusional ranting of someone who is clearly mentally ill.
comment in response to
post
a perfect parody of the insufferable nonsense that is Jordan Peterson. This made my morning; thank you!
comment in response to
post
Am so very disappointed to see The News Agents now acting like the average talk show and bringing on guests hawking their wares. Tapper is offering nothing by way of political analysis (he never does) and is simply selling a sensationalist hatchet job; and you guys are lapping it up. Poor choice.
comment in response to
post
He is the very definition of vulgarity, rudeness, vanity, self-absorption, crass boorishness and sheer stupidity. President Ramaphosa was a model of composure as the wall of shit that is Trump washed over him.
comment in response to
post
Is this "quite close" the same as the "quite close" we've been told about for ever for harnessed nuclear fusion technology? Seems more like a sales pitch than an actual verifiable fact.
comment in response to
post
Me too. Feels like an aural tabloid sometimes and that they’re just filling airtime with tabloid fodder.
comment in response to
post
Ah so if there were only white people with guns it would be fine? What a repulsive and racist argument that is.
comment in response to
post
Stupid garbage logic indeed - from you! Your militarised police are still as ineffectual and useless as a wet paper bag. Giving everyone the right carry a gun has only increased the risk instead of reducing it. Only in America does pouring gasoline on the fire equate to firefighting 🤦🏻♂️
comment in response to
post
He's gone away to screw the South African government - the one he accuses of genocide against white South Africans - out of a couple of hundred million for Starlink. Another grift brought to you by Trump Inc.
comment in response to
post
I had elevated PSA, went from 4.5 to 13 in a year. Did biopsy, they found some cancer on both sides. Gleason score was 7, had radical prostatectomy - 7 laters later I am still clear with no measurable PSA on annual test. PSA is not very reliable but it’s a good place to start once you’re over 40.
comment in response to
post
On that we can agree !
comment in response to
post
Again, perhaps you should ask them, not me.
comment in response to
post
You need to hit the dictionary and read what existential means. They have never had the means to threaten the very existence of the state of Israel. Surely that is clear when you see what is happening to Gaza now.
comment in response to
post
Why ask me when you clearly have your own answer all lined up? You also have no proof they did that other than what IDF spokespersons tell you. In any case, I'm not defending Hamas. I was (a) pointing out you were wrong about 50 years and (b) saying I am not anti-Semitic. So go ask Hamas instead.
comment in response to
post
Moreover, I don't hate Jews. I have been to both Gaza and the West Bank many times and have seen what it is like to live there under the Israeli occupation. To be against what Israel does is not an expression of anti-semitism. That's just an easy argument to hide behind.
comment in response to
post
Well that's not really true is it? Hamas was only created in 1987 during the first Intifada. That doesn't make them any less reprehensible, but we might as well use facts to make an argument. Hamas has never really been an existential threat to Israel, but it has certainly been a dangerous one.
comment in response to
post
It is truly staggering that the head of Homeland Security doesn't know what Habeus Corpus is. No surprise however that this plastic dimwit doesn't know.
comment in response to
post
That's exactly the description I use for him. Uncontrolled flow of excrement every time he opens his mouth - nothing useful to say, nothing clever, nothing kind or empathic. Only shit!
comment in response to
post
I absolutely agree!
comment in response to
post
What are the odds we’ll have a loaded panel on Question Time with Farage, Badenoch and their odious gobshite fellow travelers being given equal billing for “balance”?
comment in response to
post
Very good point. The media is complicit in this endless promotion of Farage and Reform. They don't go after him; they fawn over him and his witless utterings.
comment in response to
post
I'm not sure I can agree that there are gradations of racism. A racist is a racist.
comment in response to
post
It was a pleasure to watch Maitlis surgically fillet this odious little man and his racist views. He is vile, his politics are vile, yet the BBC still brings out Farage et al. for every political issue for "balance". The first question they should be asked at every interview is "are you a racist?"
comment in response to
post
One only has to listen to Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotrich to understand that this is not a bargaining ploy.
comment in response to
post
Why is this particularly chilling or extraordinary? Francesca Albanese (and many other worthy souls) have been describing what is happening for ages already. In fact Fletcher is wrong - it's not being used as a bargaining chip because Israel is not bargaining; it is actively eliminating Gaza.
comment in response to
post
Blah, blah, blah. The "planet" is not destroyable but all human life is. There were no humans around when it was "MUCH warmer". The ecosystem is in decline, but if you imagine that single-cell organisms in hot oceanic soup is a good future for the planet then good for you.
comment in response to
post
I would have thought shit was his natural environment.
comment in response to
post
"The goal is 14"? Seriously, what does that even mean? That just sounds like an aspiration. It would be better to know what is the minimum operating requirement for safety.
comment in response to
post
So is anyone actually buying this bullshit sandwich? - apart from him, that is.
comment in response to
post
Normalizing Hegseth's approach to the military by printing this garbage.
comment in response to
post
. . . . and to distract from his grifting and the enrichment of his criminal enterprise family.
comment in response to
post
This is the real story. I’ve said it here before and we need to keep saying it. He keeps saying “look over there” while he, his crime syndicate family and his minion horde are grifting and enriching themselves to the detriment of everyone else.
comment in response to
post
Obviously he's realised how much money the rest of them are scamming so he wants back in.
comment in response to
post
Oh I am more than sure of that. But you are right to point it out !
comment in response to
post
Hasn't really been much of an influence for good has it? In fact one could argue that it's a veneer behind which American Protestantism continues as before; white country for white people, manifest destiny and the rest of that 19th century claptrap.
comment in response to
post
Wasn’t Peter, the first Pope, jewish? Come to think of it, wasn’t Jesus jewish too? I don’t think he was a white anglo-saxon protestant with blue eyes and blonde hair. These MAGA lunatics know as much about their own professed Christianity as they do about tariffs.
comment in response to
post
You’ve just got to love the fact that the MAGA universe is going into meltdown because the Pope is not a raging bigot like them. “Woke Marxist Pope” 😂😂😂 The idea is so ludicrous.
comment in response to
post
Surely it's the "art" of the deal 😂
comment in response to
post
So Americans - or at least those who can afford to - can buy Range Rovers with only a 10% tariff instead of the 25% Trump slapped on UK. But 10% is still higher than the original 2.5% before he started his tariff bullshit. Not much of a win there. "Deepen the economic relationship" - my ass!
comment in response to
post
This is nothing near blasphemy. It's comedy. It doesn't mock religion or even the pope, it mocks Trump, not the Catholic Church. I don't think anyone should be offended on religious grounds by this.
comment in response to
post
She shows great intelligence and integrity. I think she's great. Unfortunately she terrifies the manosphere (Red and Blue) which will seek to undermine her at every opportunity. Misogyny runs deep in American politics.
comment in response to
post
I listened to him but it looks even worse in transcript. He sounds like someone who actually has nothing to say at all but has an overweening desire to say anything just to get the attention. He is generally clueless as to what is going on in the real world and is living in his own Truman Show.