Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/16/politics/donald-trump-republican-anxiety/index.html

As Republican angst about Donald Trump grows closer to panic, some longtime GOP strategists and donors are discussing creative ways to cut their presumptive nominee loose at their convention in July.

There's renewed talk in some Republican circles to find a way out as Trump lags big time behind Hillary Clinton in several new polls, and he has the highest unfavorable rating of any candidate for a major party on record -- 70% in this week's Washington Post-ABC poll

One source with knowledge of these discussions underscores to CNN, however, that all of the ideas being bandied about now are highly unlikely to see fruition -- mostly because this kind of move to get rid of a nominee elected by GOP primary and caucus voters would be unprecedented.

Still, here are some options:


Free delegates at the convention


Right now the ideas are focused in and around freeing convention delegates who are bound to Trump.

One way to do that would be to survey the delegates and find out who is willing the go with someone else in a second ballot. The challenge with this, according to a source familiar with the talks, is there has to be a lot of specificity. Delegates will have to be asked not just if they are willing to abandon Trump, but also whether they would then be willing to vote for a specific candidate instead.

A huge hurdle for "Never Trump" Republicans is that the alternatives -- Ted Cruz and others -- are still considered by many to be "untenable."


Using the Rules Committee

Another idea is to use the RNC convention rules committee to try to pass a rule freeing all the delegates to vote for whomever they want on the front end.

Conservatives Eric O'Keefe and David Rifkin, Jr., wrote an op ed in the Wall Street Journal this week advocating the idea, and pushing back on those who say it's not possible because state party rules, not national party rules, dictate whether delegates are bound.

"These statutes can't be legally enforced. When Republican delegates arrive in Cleveland to select their party's nominee, they should recognize that they are bound only by their consciences," wrote O'Keefe and Rifkin.

Trump threatens to go it alone

"A candidate who cannot win the support of a majority of Republican delegates voting their consciences does not deserve to be the nominee and certainly has no legal right to be," they argued.

'Conscience clause'

Another idea is to dust off an addition to the rules at the 1976 convention, called a "conscience clause," which would allow delegates bound to a candidate to be unbound if they feel the candidate did or said things they disagree with between their state's primary or caucus and the convention.

At this point, sources familiar with these discussions insist neither the congressional leadership nor the RNC is involved in these talks at all.

And, sources underscore, most of these ideas would be incredibly hard to execute -- never mind that they understand it would feed into the very real anger at the "establishment" among GOP voters that fueled Trump's victories in the first place.

It would likely prove Trump's point: party systems are rigged and cannot be trusted.

My strawberries are soggy , too much rain need a bit of dry weather . Soggy bottom no good .

so we now know the killer of cox is a mental person a sick mental person .
just a sad death by a sick mental person .

Not really, Tanker.

The circumstances of the killing of this lovely lady, Jo Cox, who is a married woman with a family, and who is also Member of Parliament, have compounded substantially.

The Houses of Parliament building enjoys substantial security with CCTV camera and armed police.

However, MPs out there in the community, even when in their own surgeries (offices), seeing constituents have virtually no protection whatsoever.

So what, if anything , do we need to do about ensuring their safety?

Tanker, are you saying: "No need to do anything because, in this instance, the murderer was a one-off nutter"?

There is almost nothing that can be done to improve security of MPs. They need to meet the public at their surgeries, attend public meetings, walk around on private business. The cost of providing the sort of security that a PM might have is prohibitive. It would be a multiple of an MPs salary plus accommodation for at least two detectives each.

i thoroughly agree hays
anyone with any sort of public profile is potentially a target to someone, just as you have the potential of being in an accident every time you drive your car

an ordinary backbench mp is no more likely to be physically attacked than say jeremy clarkson

curious ...... from FT

US diplomats urge strikes on Syria regime
Dozens sign document urging military action to force settlement of conflict

Well you've got to ask yourself sometime if its worth having these
MP surgery's in the first place, seeing as most of these mp's don't
give a fig about the opinions of their constituents and they follow party
policy...As an example, the MP for Plymouth who held an on line poll
to judge the feeling for a remain or a Leave in the referendum, and
when the poll results showed that 70% wanted to LEAVE this mp went
on the Daily Politics and said he would be voting to remain, Just like
his Labour party policy...

so let's abandon surgeries ..... you can then (rightly) accuse mps of being completely out of touch with their constituents and the world outside parliament

whether an mp has a greater obligation to their constituents or to the party line is a moot point ..... or should they vote according to their personal conviction?

the debate for the reintroduction of hanging might be such an issue, though i accept that in that instant there never was any party line

The MP may have disagreed with his constituents. MPs often do not vote as the public might want. The classic example is capital punishment. If MPs voted with the public, we would still have capital punishment.

MPs do care about the opinions of their constituents. A common complaint is that the public are not listened to. What that means is that various pressure groups do not get what they want. The reality is that their voice may be heard and then a decision is made and is not necessarily what some people want. You have a right to be heard but not to have what you want.

My son worked as an intern for a government minister in the constituency office. He spent most of his time sorting of the problems of constituents. The Minister took a lot trouble to be briefed on the details of cases and offered additional help if the cases could not be resolved.

I see the lack of proper judgement:

From FT

US diplomats urge strikes on Syria regime
Dozens sign document urging military action to force settlement of conflict

repeated post

the man was a mental nutter out of is mind .listen to the locals on the issue .

didn't know i had a bad echo nicknamed ahoj :-)

Sorry, I did't mean anything, but pointing on their narrow minded views.

They must have too many bombs unused and need to replaced old stock .

There's a number of the indigenous population that feel seriously dis-
enfranchised, they feel that their voices are being ignored, some see
immigrants coming into the country and having more say then them,
who were born, lived and worked here all their lives.

There are lots of area's where the indigenous population's vote is meaningless
due to 'minorities' bloc voting.

It's getting to the stage where for many voting is a waste of time, this
referendum is the only vote that EACH individual will feel gives them at
least 'some' resemblance of democracy...

Immigrants not born here cannot vote in General Elections no mater if EU or non EU until they become full UK citizens.

Yes haystack you are splitting hairs once again....

have listened to all and the only way is to vote

OUT OUT OUT