tiny. I excuse no violence from right or left. Suggest an instance (with references I can check) of Leftish violence that I can denounce, and I’ll do it (after checks). Perhaps this is what Phil should have done, but instead he’s let you rant and get progressively more strident. Do you honestly believe that Phil is an IRA sympathiser? Really? He’s strung you out on a line of your own making. You’re making a line for me, but I’ve got scissors.

Do I think Phil or you are terrorist sympathisers? I think you just don't care about what your side gets up to. I have given examples of the left supporting violence and even murder. You just threw yourself in front of them and started criticising. Typical of you AK. Sympathising is done by turning a blind eye and making excuses and yes, I know that the Right does it too but they don't pretend to be above all that. You don't accept Jeremy Corbyn as one of your own? Tough, he belongs to the left. Along with numerous repulsive regimes and organisations. I might not like Trump but I would never pretend that he's not on the spectrum of the Right. Much of Labour's last election failure was a refusal to get rid of someone so toxic or even admit his beliefs were revolting. Not to mention their refusal to respect democracy...

The Western elite are furious * that Trump and his supporters are rejecting the result of a democratic vote but were more than happy to interfere in the Brexit election and result. Republicans are angry because they think that the result was stolen from them and will have to wait 4 years to try again. Brexiteers had to wait longer and go through 3 elections to get the result that DID win the referendum. I don't remember your concern for democracy then. You were too busy poking fun at the failures of Brexiteers to defeat the protests and court cases.

I expect no higher qualities in Phil, but I am continually fooled into thinking that you're better than him. My bad.

* It's faux outrage, as they delight in the damage done to the Repulblican reputation, even though it damages the US and the West at the same time. It's fine so long and they get rid of Trump.

Oh, so I just don’t care what my side gets up to. What exactly do you think my side is? It certainly doesn’t and didn’t include the IRA. But apparently when you were discussing murder and mayhem instigated by the Left , I “just threw myself at them (?) and started criticising”. I didn’t, I was criticising your baiting of Phil on a matter that wasn’t remotely related to the topic of the Discussion. And for this I get a string of abuse (including a revisiting of the false tag of Remoaner). Apparently continuing to read this Discussion is “gloating”. Keep making things worse. Lose your pinup boy and lash out.

Tut, tut, tut AK, I've told you numerous times that I don't support Trump but you have a very selective memory. If by being a Right Wing supporter I must by your measure be a Trump supporter, then you must support Corbyn and all his revolting friendships, like Chavez. You can hardly pin the IRA on the Right of the political divide. You must support the Democrats in their former fund raising for the IRA and their not so veiled threats over the Northern Ireland border? Personally I think that saying terrorism will return unless the UK do what the EU demands over the border was tantamount to blackmail and a green light for the terrorists. Though perhaps you award them the political fig leaf of just being 'concerned'? Like the Democrats and Phil, you must be ok with terrorism never going away because those people who have been killed since the GFA are merely background noise and not worth mentioning? Did they deserve to die?

You keep deciding my comments relate to you as a Remoaner - what can I do but believe you? Your first instinct was to defend Phil the troll, not ask yourself if my first comment was valid. You ask me for "instance (with references I can check) of Leftish violence that I can denounce, and I’ll do it (after checks)". If you were the even handed man you pretend to be, you could give ME examples, but you're just as biased and blind as any Trump supportrs you look down your nose at.

“but you're just as biased and blind as any Trump supportrs (sic) you look down your nose at.”
Well I just might be - who can fully evaluate one’s own failings?, but (up till now) I haven’t invaded a Discussion to disrupt it as you have. It is that which I have objected to and only that. I haven’t spread my complaints far and wide as you have now done, but I have learned to live with your “debating style”.

AK, I'm sure that everyone appreciates your refusal to disrupt the sanctity of the Discussion threads with anything that comes close to honesty and self awareness. You are admitting that you can't think of any Left Wing group or group that is favoured by key Left Wing figures, including the Labour leadership and the Democrat party, (even when they are pointed out to you), who have committed violence and or murder. I won't even pose that as a question again because you've had the opportunity and chosen instead to argue.

You regularly chide members here for their refusal to condemn people like Trump, but you are exactly the same.

In Internet slang, a troll is a person who starts flame wars or intentionally upsets people on the Internet. Typically they do this by posting inflammatory and digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog), with the intent of provoking readers into displaying emotional responses and normalizing tangential discussion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

Just going to leave that there.

Back 'atcha Phil.

You are well and truly out to lunch tiny. Made a bad batch?
I admitted nothing whatsoever. Got too many words so are trying to stuff some of them into my mouth?
FYI I think Corbyn was the worst possible mistake Labour could have made. They learned nothing from their dalliance with Foot.

Cheap 'shot' AK, but only what I expect from you.

So, you disliked Corbyn for his lack of electability and financial insanity but his political buddies and outlook were fine? You see Trump as the definition of the Right but Corbyn as an aberration of the Left. I think they are very similar. Ironically it is/was the educated young people who loved Corbyn so much. One might deem both men lifted up by politcal mania.

No comments on the Democrats support of the IRA, past or present? You do see them as the political Left and not the Loony Left like Corbyn? Or do you think we deserve those threats because we didn't do as you wanted? Do you really think the threats were about peace in NI or about buddying up with the EU over a Conservative Issue? Or did you just not notice?

You always feel the need to correct the Right here but never a dicky bird about the Left.

It may well have been a cheap shot tiny, but I genuinely am at a loss to explain your current behaviour.

WRT Corbyn, where on earth did you get those words that I never wrote and which you attribute to me? Looks like you are employing the same tactics as you have with Phil. Smear and add false and twisted meanings. Why do you think I need to explain my feelings about Democrats and the IRA when I never brought the subject up - you did. Finally, for what it’s worth I don’t believe ant American should interfere in our politics, but we hardly set a good example in our past.

“ You always feel the need to correct the Right here but never a dicky bird about the Left.”. Well I naturally lean left, and when it comes to bias there’s an overwhelming amount of it at BH for the Right, so I feel somewhat superfluous.

DFTT

You're not superfluous AK, you're complicit. You were happy to sit by and watch Phil taunt the Trump supporters here (of which I'm not one). Why were you tuning into this topic if not to join Phil in gloating? Why feel the need to support Phil anyway? Do you think he needs your back up? Did you feel that there was something written by Phil or others that would change how you think about US politics? You feel outnumbered here but have never cared that we feel the same when it comes to the TV media.

"for what it’s worth I don’t believe ant American should interfere in our politics, but we hardly set a good example in our past."

You couldn't resist justifying them. Why are you not angry that the US interfered with our elections and with support of a known and deadly terrorist organisation? Why are you easy with them pretending that the GFA is really working and woe betide the British if there is future trouble? Why are you ok with their attempt at blackmail? Why are you ok with Phil dismissing those killed after the GFA including Lyra McKee who even the New IRA regretted? At the other end of the spectrum why are you bothered by the actions of the Washington mob? Most of the dead were their own. Were they more important than Northern Ireland deaths?

If events don't fit the Left's narrative of them being the good guys, they don't exist for you.

Well Phil, my hat’s off to you. I just don’t know how you can keep going. I faced just one opponent it’s true but it was someone I quite respected and whom I have much enjoyed reading in the past. But the way my words are twisted, distorted and falsely presented constitutes a masterclass. The false logic is breathtaking. I realise there is no opportunity to win an argument, so why bother continuing? How do you keep going?

Oh, engagement with TCO2 is a recent thing. He's on the ignore list now.

Head of DC National Guard, Major General William Walker: "25,000 National Guardsmen have come in from all 50 states to help support the Secret Service and the police departments with a peaceful transition to military power.”

oops

- well, you can't say they weren't open about it

AK, where do you think I learned to argue this? The Phils of this world have had the stage for too long and you are so used to it, you don't notice till you experience it yourself. You've presented others and I with plenty of hoops through which you demanded we jump. I'm not sure you even know you do it. You are unable to defend the simplest questions because you don't question your own ideas. You know that Phil has been a troll here for a long time but you buddy up with him automatically against "someone I quite respected and whom I have much enjoyed reading in the past." I didn't notice, you were too busy finding fault and defending the indefensible.

So tiny what did you gain? But you’ve lost much of my respect - but then that was never of any value to you was it. Such a waste of everyone’s time and effort.
Continue your tirades. Perhaps it’s fitting that as Trump’s presidency ends in turmoil, so does this thread.

And what did you gain AK by putting yourself in the way? What do you ever gain by throwing yourself in front of my comments?

Oh tiny I believe I gained (and learned) a great deal. More respect for Phil, much, much less for yourself. I can also recognise a lost cause, and a cause where an opponent doesn’t want to be reasonable and continually ups the ante. Good luck with that.
I believe what I asked for originally was reasonable, but you began to chuck stones. You treated me as an enemy, when I wasn’t. Your loss.

Tiny, A friend has suggested your focus on condemning the IRA and insisting that others follow suite MAY stem from your witnessing or suffering from the IRA Warrington bombings. If so then I very much regret “stepping in your way”. If I judge him correctly, Phil would also show remorse given this possibility. Neither of us, I believe, would ever have supported those atrocities, nor would we have stoked memories in you of those events.
If my friend is correct, then you have my apologies.

Trump'a ties to Putin is a fabrication of the democrat party.
There never was an actual tie.
The only puppet of foreign influence is taking the oath of office today, as his Chinese bosses want.
The idea that President Trump was a Russian puppet ranks down there with UFO abductions.