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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
November/December 2020 5
News Miscellany
Villager
Covidious
Villager wants to patent the adjective Covidi-
ous for invidious, covetous, infectious people.
Trump, you were Covidious. As Trudeau, who
speaks for the people might say, “it sucks”.
Trumping Trump
Trump has said it will not end well. But though
right-wing he has not created a totalitarian Su-
preme Court. Even his appointees Neil Gorsuch
and Brett Kavanaugh showed independence in
July when they largely sided with the New York
district attorney giving access to Trump’s fi nan-
cial records.The Supreme Court is not going to
overturn Biden’s signifi cant majority.
Trump’s opponents will have plenty of potential
charges to choose from, once he makes his dis-
graceful exit. Chief among his antagonists will
be Republican Robert Mueller, former FBI head
and the special counsel who oversaw the in-
vestigationinto allegations of Russian interfer-
ence in the 2016 Election but never interviewed
Trump, and the Senate Intelligence Committee
- a Republican-led panel. They have forensically
documented how Trump committed obstruc-
tion of justice (18 U.S. Code § 73), lied to inves-
tigators (18 U.S. Code § 1001), and conspired
with Russian intelligence to commit an o ence
against the United States (18 U.S. Code § 371).
All three felonies attract a maximum sentence
of fi ve years in prison - per charge. The reason
charges were not pursued was simply because
he remained President and there was no point
in making a determination. Federal prosecutors
could be ready to indict Trump as early as the
fi rst quarter of 2021.
But there are hurdles. First, on his way out of
o ce, Trump could – in an ultimate act of Nar-
cissism - pre-emptively, and dubiously, pardon
himself. Second, Trump claims that “executive
privilege” bars prosecutors from obtaining evi-
dence of presidential misconduct though it’s tra-
ditionally been limited to shielding discussions
between presidents and their advisers, not ac-
tions. But Trump will try anything, assuming his
clasping fi ngerlets yield power when he loses
the election. And then there’s the possibility
of ignominy and indictment being followed by
bankruptcy as Brand Trump swims naked.
Final gratuitous Donald Trump
lookalike section
Over the years we’ve had over a hundred items
that look like the President of America. We’re
sadly wrapping up with an insect tribute.
§
No AOC
Joe Biden’s ‘clean energy revolution and envi-
ronmental justice’ plan will invest $2 trillion in
clean energy and infrastructure over four years,
and aims at a carbon-free power sector by 2035.
But Biden is no AOC. His plan is for net-zero
emissions by 2050 as opposed to hers for 2030.
Biden supports fracking. And he loves foolishly
fast cars.
Fast-ridin’Biden
In an August campaign video he takes his classic
1967 Corvette Stingray sports car that was a wed-
ding gift from his father out for an electoral spin
and let’s us into his mid-twentieth-century brain:
“I’m trying to get my miles in before the Secret
Service stops me…I love this car. Every time I get
in I think about my dad and Beau. God, could my
dad drive a car, oof!”. He added that he hopes
electric cars can go at 200 miles an hour.
Chidin’ bidin’ Biden
Biden will be as weirdly pro-Wall St as Demo-
crats always are. In a recent video he describes
disgraced ratings agency, Moody’s, as “highly-
respected” after they asserted his Build Back
Better plan is going to create seven million more
jobs than the President’s plan. In fact, asked at
the Congressional Financial Crisis Inquiry Com-
mission in 2010 why Moody’s ratings failed lead-
ing up to the housing crisis, its own executives
blamed a “factory mentality” and conceded
“Bankers knew we couldn’t say no to a deal.
They took advantage
of that”. Moody’s are
not respected. Biden
also says “I’m goin’ to
ask ‘em [people mak-
ing over €400,000
and big Corporations]
to begin to pay their
6 November/December 2020
fair share”. Beginnin’ to ask the rich to pay their
pay share won’t be fast enough. We’ll soon be
sick of him.
Scrapin’ in Scranton
Until Biden was 12 he lived in Scranton, Penn-
sylvania’s Kinnegad. Secretly he then moved to
posh Delaware though to be fair it was the worst
part of it. He says “90 percent of my class mates
identified themselves as Irish. The centerpiece
of life in Scranton was the church, the nuns, the
priests, and the monsignor. Vocations were a big
deal. I was Irish to the point that my dad used
to get angry at times. He’d say, ‘Your mother’s a
Robinette, you’re part French’ I always used to
say, ‘No, I’m Irish’…Aunt Gertie would say, ‘Now
you remember, Joey, about the Black and Tans,
don’t you?’. She had never seen the Black and
Tans, for the Lord’s sake but she could recite
chapter and verse about them”.Villager thinks
this is all a bit hopeless but at least it’s likely to
spawn grief for perfidious Boris Johnson.
Nominative determinism
Steven Gallant ungallantly murdered an ex-
firefighter in Hull in 2005, earning 17 years in
the clink but has obtained the Queen’s Pardon
for leading the gallant assault on Isis’s London
Bridge knife attacker – who killed two people
- with a toothpick, narwhal tusk or some such.
Judging judge
Igor Judge, Baron Judge Kt PC, is the former Lord
Chief Justice in England and Wales who is in
-
flamed by the Internal Market Bill, which would
allow British ministers to renege on parts of
the Brexit withdrawal agreement. Judge Judge
judges that “the damage is to the UK’s standing
in the world”.
Judge not…
So Susan Denham spoke to Seamus Woulfe on
the basis of strict confidentiality. She then for
-
warded her report on his shenanigans and his
boorish view of his (non)-culpability to the Chief
Justice who forwarded it to the Judicial Council
which published it in full. This is brilliant legal
sleight from our legal elite. Technically Mr Jus
-
tice Woulfe has an enormous action for breach of
confidence but how realistically could he pursue
it? The judge was damned. Villager predicts that
the poor mans illness will overtake his continu
-
ance on the Supreme Court and only hopes he
holds on to the €224,000 salary he’s been earn
-
ing, doing nothing, since July, and his pension.
Incidentally is Sue Denham a
pseudonym?
A snake taken out by a
cockroach
When the current editor took over this magazine
one of the first things he did for some reason
was to oer a fruitless reward for information
about how Declan Ganley was funding the anti-
Lisbon Treaty outfit, Libertas.
The anomalously Euro-indulgent editor was
fresh from a campaign promoting the need to
deal with climate change in the run-up to the
2007 general election. As part of that he has ad
-
mitted being involved in facilitating the trailing
of delinquent Environment Minister Dick Roche
by a costumed apocalyptic cock (i.e. Dick) roach
which finished up getting beaten up under the
railway bridge in Bray.
Village ran an aggressive factual piece by Kevin
Barrington suggesting Ganley had covertly in
-
serted a clause into a contract with the police in
Iraq, and in which Dick Roche, by now Minister
for Europe, called Ganley “a liar, a self-mythol
-
ogiser, a snake-oil salesman”, and accused him
of lying: “There is no way Ganley can keep the
lid on such a catalogue of lies and dirty deeds”.
Ganley sued for defamation.
The editor and Roche became best mates for
a week, with no small-minded mention of in
-
sects and Roche’s Ministerial Eurolimo parked
outside the Village oce while Roche decanted
the best information the government could lay
hands on into adavits for the magazine.
In April 2009 Ganley agreed in the High Court to
withdraw proceedings.
Village paid no costs or damages to Ganley and
the article and its imputations remained on the
shelves, despite Ganley’s threats to have it re
-
moved.
Village agreed to publish an interview with Gan
-
ley but the interviewer Ganley in the end insisted
on, Mr Bruce Arnold, submitted a piece which
gave no evidence he had interviewed Ganley
for Village, but was instead a scraping paean
to him. Village published it anyway, though it
didn’t pay the pompous Arnold as his article was
a travesty. In other words Ganley couldn’t get Vil
-
lage to withdraw its serious allegations despite
his aggressive legal action.
Subsequently he sued RTÉ. Ganley claimed a
‘Prime Time’ programme implied he had falsely
claimed to be a paid adviser to the Latvian gov-
ernment; was somehow involved in the death of
Kosta Tribecka with whom he had a close busi
-
ness relationship; caused a fund to lose the life
savings of thousands of Albanian pensioners
and was covertly working for the CIA and/or an
“ill-defined group” known as ‘Neocons’”.
RTÉ denied defamation. On 22 October 2020 RTE
apologised. It said it stood over the journalism
of the programme but “accepts unreservedly as
stated on the programme that the death of Mr
Tribecka was wholly unrelated to Mr Ganley or
any business related to him”. The apology was
limited in scope but it was reported by the un
-
reliable John McGuirk, long-time Ganley acolyte,
on Gript.ie, that “They have agreed to pay a sub
-
stantial sum in damages, plus the costs of both
parties”.
On the other hand, a statement released by Gan
-
ley’s solicitors merely declared he was happy
with the apology and “the financial agreement
reached” but did not refer to damages.
Green on the law
The problem with Irish environmental law is not
its existence or the amount of it, but its quality.
And in particular its enforceability. A lot of the
legislation the Greens introduced in 2007-11
simply added to the edifice of under-enforced
existing legislation. This enabled them to claim
credit for introducing legislation rather than any
actual real eects. So, for example, various wor
-
thy Planning Acts and regulations did nothing to
stop the pattern of sprawl of Dublin into Leinster
and one-o-housing. Then as now it would be
better to focus on making current laws enforce
-
able. We can’t rely on politicians or on ocials,
local or national, so there has to be the possibil
-
ity of citizens or dedicated NGOs taking action
where laws are flouted. It’s called justiciability.
A big word and a big concept, though not di
-
cult. It is inexcusably misleading for the Greens
to say the Climate Act is legally binding when
its ‘legality’ means nothing. A Department being
legally bound to do something is meaningless
since failure is not actionable.
A recent action by Friends of the Irish Environ
-
November/December 2020 7
ment extracted a judgment from the Supreme
Court that provisions of the 2015 Climate Act that
are “specific” were justiciable. Though there’s
been a lot of blustery commentary from some
who should know better that’s key. The specific
provisions of the not-very-specific 2020 Climate
Act will be justiciable. Why therefore are the
Greens not insisting on putting 7% annual cuts
into their Act? If they don’t, the way things are
going, the Greens will be turfed out amid inter
-
nal and external turmoil before they’ve made
any headway at all on climate; and they may be
replaced by a government even less focused on
the complex business of doing anything more
than going through the motions, environmen
-
tally.
Brown on the Park
Villager hears Leo Varadkar and Fianna Fáil’s
Jack Chambers are the forces behind the anti-
lockdown in the Phoenix Park whereby Europe’s
largest enclosed park opens all its gates to cars
and becomes a large car-park in which it is dif
-
ficult to find almost anywhere where the air is
good. Patrick O’Donovan, an irrelevance, is the
minister technically in charge of the OPW but it
is tyros Varadkar and Chambers whose constitu
-
ents want to drive everywhere, exposing their
compliant TDs to the plausible allegation that
though young in body they are ancient, or at
least twentieth-century, in spirit.
Brown in Cork
Elsewhere, O’Donovan has a been calling for
objections to OPW flood defence works in Cork
to be withdrawn by Save Cork City. The group
Save Cork City has been objecting to OPW works
as it says “they would seriously reduce the eco
-
nomic and social potential of Cork while damag-
ing wildlife habitat and heritage in the city and
reducing property value”. The group say that
their support is increasing as people witness the
obvious failure of analogos defences in Skibber
-
een and Bandon this year. Save Cork City have
lodged a recent complaint with the EU Commis
-
sion against the Minister and the city’s miser-
able Drainage Department.
Villager is instigating a competition for the best
political miscellany column in Ireland.
Up, up and away
What’s all that with Irish aerocompanies? We
seem to spawn half the commercial aero-activity
in the world. Brendan O’Regan founded the first
Duty Free shop in Shannon in 1947. We’ve an
egregious history in airline leasing starting with
the long-forgotten pre-tigerish GPA founded by
Tony ‘Ryanair’ Ryan Aercap, Air Lease Corpora
-
tion and Avolon are in the biggest five aircraft
leasers (lessors?) in the world. In airlines them
-
selves there’s evergreen aerosexual Michael
O’Leary bombastically atop Europe’s largest
airline. Willie Walsh formerly CEO of Aer Lingus
was until September CEO of IAG, formed from
the merger of British Airways and Iberia and in
-
corporating Aer Lingus, Vueling, British Midland
and Air Europa. And now Seán Doyle has taken
over as CEO of British Airways. Alan Joyce is CEO
of Qantas. Etihad Airways,flynas,Jetstar, Ma
-
laysiaAirlines, Royal Brunei Airlines, Tiger Air-
ways, andVivaAerobus have all had Irish CEOs.
A waste of talent on moribund unsustainable
development: much more away than up and up,
Villager bemoans.
Harte Peat’s heart beats still
Two years after Friends of the Irish environment
blew the whistle about Bord na Móna’s mad
idea of using peat instead of straw for animal
bedding, it has fled the peat bedding sector! But
Harte Peat continues, as does many a cowboy
digging out the last of our raised bogs.
Baring down
Sir Evelyn Baring
was governor of Ke
-
nya where he set up
a system of concen
-
tration camps, from
1952-59 where tens
of thousands of Ki
-
kuyu people were
tortured, mutilated,
and burnt to death.
He is Dominic Cum
-
mings’ grandfather-
in-law.
A borrower be
Apparently 15-year Irish bond yields are 0.058%
- each billion Euro we borrow costs each of us 13
cents a year. It is literally crazy not to be investing
in environmental protection when climate and
biodiversity problems pose existential threats to
humans. And sustainable housing.
Brian Hogan
Brian Hogan, who has died at the age of 91,
lived long enough to see many of the buildings
he designed - including Canada House on St
Stephen’s Green, Oisín House on Pearse Street,
the former IDA Ireland headquarters at Wilton
Place and much of the Setanta Centre on Nassau
Street - binned. He was the “architect of choice”
for developers such as New Ireland Assurance
and Marlborough Holdings, whose legacy to
Dublin is Telephone House on Marlborough
Street (1970) - a great pre-cast concrete hulk
that may, or may not, be turned into a hotel. He
pitched up at several planning oral hearings over
the last 25 years to defend mediocrity, such as
Kevin Roche’s elusive scheme for Spencer Dock.
According to an implausibly obsequious August
obituary in the Irish Times: “He became ob
-
sessed with the idea that his buildings shouldn’t
be noticed”. On the success of that project may
he be judged.
Flannel again?
Ming Flanagan claims his Twitter account was
hacked on 28 September while he was in Ireland
- by someone in Brussels. A message ostensibly
trying to Google pictures of his former-Green-Par
-
ty associate Saoirse McHugh “skinny-dipping”
was Tweeted in the middle of the night from his
account. So Flanagan asked the Belgian police
to investigate at the beginning of October. Vil
-
lage inclined to believe Flanagan, and asked him
to update us on any progress but was met with
only silence. It was not clear whether the silence
came from Belgium or Ireland.
People have asked Villager for his view on winter
lockdowns. He is against.
