Chris Janzing :Republican/Tabloid shill

She's spending her MSNBC show gunning for Franken, just like she gunned for Hillary whenever she could.

Brexit : British people are asked to draw the Irish border...what could go wrong ?

Could you draw Ireland's border with Northern Ireland? The border with Northern Ireland has become a major Brexit stumbling block.

https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/935599685611515904

Ireland : Census 2016 says we are older, less religious and speak less Irish

Some 22,500 more people left country than came in during the five year period to 2016

Ireland is now a country with older and less religious people and with more migrants and travellers, and we are speaking less Irish, according to the first results from Census 2016.

The population of Ireland rose by 3.8 per cent between April 2011 and April 2016, according to results from the Central Statistic Office (CSO) published today.

Based on the census conducted on every home in the country on April 24th last year, the population on that night was 4,761,865. This is the slowest rate of increase recorded since the 1991- 1996 census period.

SNIP

Population change between 2011 to 2016 was largely driven by natural increase, with births outnumbering deaths by 196,000.
Overall migration patterns over the five years revealed that 22,500 more people left the country than entered it.
There are 810,000 foreign-born people in Ireland, representing 17.3 per cent of the population. The number of Poles was virtually unchanged, and they remain the largest single foreign nationality in the country, followed by the UK and Lithuania. The largest increases in foreign nationals since 2011 were from people born in Romania and Brazil. Meanwhile, the number of people holding dual Irish nationality almost doubled from 55,905 in 2011 to 104,784 in 2016.

There were significant changes in the responses to questions about religion, with 78 per cent of the population, or 3.7 million people, declaring themselves as Roman Catholic, a fall of 132,220 from 2011, when Catholics represented 84 per cent.
The second largest group in this category were those declaring no religion, at 10 per cent or 468,420, an increase of 198,610 from six per cent in 2011.

The rate of increase in divorces is slowing, with an increase of 16,125 compared to an increase of 28,236 between 2006 and 2011.

Jon Stewart talking with Howard Stern

Covers Louis CK, his wife's pet farm, his son's illness and his non-relationship with his father, plus much more. Very interesting interview.

Brexit : May can still avoid Brexit train wreck - but she will have to take a new line

This is an article from one of the foremost Irish Economists, Colm McCarthy.

I think I'm restricted in the amount of the article I can post here but there's a free signup for anyone interested below

May can still avoid Brexit train wreck - but she will have to take a new line

The EU-27 won't call the UK's bluff despite its negotiating stance bordering on fantasy

'What the hell does your government think it's doing?" a former Conservative minister asked the Irish Times' London correspondent, Denis Staunton, last week. "Do they not know the pressure she'll come under to just walk away?" The UK Prime Minister Theresa May has already capitulated to pressure from the ultra Brexiteers in her party and has chosen a costly and disruptive route to departure from the European Union. These post-referendum choices are the source of the difficulties over the Irish border and of the bewilderment in Europe about the UK government's negotiating objectives revealed in the leaked memo from the Irish foreign affairs department last week.

The British electorate chose to depart the EU but it is the British government that has chosen to implement this decision in a manner that has created the stand-off with Europe, concerns about Britain's longer-term economic prospects and conflict over the Irish border.

SNIP

Nigel Dodds, the Democratic Unionist Party's deputy leader, told a BBC interviewer last week that he favoured a walk-away position for the UK in the upcoming negotiations on the withdrawal deal. No deal is better than a bad deal according to Dodds, at least as a negotiating tactic, in line with the position expounded regularly by bravura Brexiteers in London. But bluffing in negotiations does not work if your counterparty knows for sure that your stated preference is a bluff. And a no-deal outcome for the UK, including Northern Ireland, would be a chaotic train wreck, as the bravura Brexiteers must surely understand. Michel Barnier and his EU-27 negotiating team regard the no-deal preference as nonsensical and have been ignoring the bluffers.

Neither Northern Ireland nor the Republic should welcome a hard border down the Irish Sea: as Dodds quite correctly pointed out, NI does far more trade with mainland Britain than it does with the Republic, and he must know that the same is true for the Republic.
Speaking later to Sky News, Dodds had this to say about the position of the Irish government: "Their real aim is to try to get to a situation where either they try to force the United Kingdom as a whole to stay within the customs union, which is in their interests clearly. Or, if they fail that, to at least force Northern Ireland to stay within the customs union and the single market…"

The DUP chose to campaign for Britain's departure from the EU, as was its entitlement. But the DUP has yet to explain why the form of departure chosen by May and her colleagues is in Northern Ireland's interests. Why would it be a bad outcome for Northern Ireland if the UK (all of it) left the EU but stayed in the single market and customs union, Varadkar's preference, minimising economic damage and preserving an open border?

MSNBC The Beat : Russia on Trial .... on now

Mock trial of the evidence we know about so far

Friday night reminder : The Beat special with Ari Melber

Just a reminder, on MSNBC, Friday night, 6pm est, Ari Mebler is doing a mock court on Trump Russia collusion using the evidence we know so far.

Might be worth a look.

Update : Fmr. prosecutor @renato_mariotti and defense attorney @AlanDersh present both sides of the Trump-Russia controversy to a live mock jury. Hosted by @AriMelber

Brexit : Leave-voting Grimsby accused of double standards

Seriously, is there a genetic link between this lot and Trumpers ?

The seaside town of Grimsby voted overwhelmingly to leave the European Union, but now Brexit is on the horizon, it’s being accused of avoiding the reality. Faced with the prospect of hefty tariffs and import duties, it’s now asking for special dispensation for its vital seafood industry. Remainers say they’re deploying double standards

Feinstein, Grassley request more information from Jared Kushner

Interestingly Grassley was only cc'd on the request to Roger Stone but is a co-signatory on this.

https://twitter.com/frankthorp/status/931227089692438528

Diane Feinstein requests documents from Roger Stone