John Cotter

Even the most shameless prize in history is ashamed to be there.

Even the FIFA Peace Prize trophy is double facepalming in the foreground.

Even Benjamin Franklin understood this in the North American context as early as the 1750s. In the world in which we live, Brexit and the sovereigntist delusions that fed it are at best naive, parochial, and completely out of touch with global realities.

Mr Musk would like to pick off small, purely national regulators and Mr Medvedev would like a patchwork of disjointed Principalities and Archdukedoms to Russia’s west that would be easily manipulated and turned against each other and serve as a Disney-style attraction for oligarchs and their money.

Frustratingly, remainers said this again and again during the Brexit referendum: European states are small and in global terms weak on their own. And Europe’s enemies want it that way. But of course that was talking Britain down and other such delusional rubbish.

I wonder how far the logical jump will be between awarding Trump a peace prize and reinstating Russia, because I can imagine the lads in FIFA would love to have Russia back.

And then Obama and Trump have a decade of back-and-forth wins like Messi and Ronaldo with the Ballon d’Or until the true peace GOAT emerges.

The banter outcome is the second annual FIFA Peace Prize goes to Obama.

I may run for the FIFA presidency just to strip Trump of the FIFA Peace Prize.

Or such a beautiful, comprehensive, and permanent peace, a tremendous peace, has been achieved that no more prizes are needed.

Does the existence of a FIFA Peace Prize imply, nay demand, the existence of a Nobel World Cup?

It’s a good thing that the completely above board process to decide the FIFA peace prize resulted in a Trump win. It would have been awkward to have to present it to someone else at the ceremony.

I also love the idea that a group of people who can’t sort out a workable hand ball rule thought they’d diversify into handing out peace prizes.

My money is on Trump sweeping the FIFA prizes this year Michael Phelps style: peace, literature, physics, medicine; he’s taking them all.

Oh to be a fly on the wall in the FIFA Committee when they were deciding on who should receive the first annual FIFA Peace Prize. I have no doubt that the debate was rigorous and hard-fought.

“You know, I achieved such a beautiful peace, a tremendous peace that they don’t need the prize anymore. There are no wars and they say there never will be ever again. A lot of people are saying that we’ve achieved a big forever peace. It’s incredible, frankly.”

Petition to rename it the Maradona Peace Prize?

What’s lovely about the FIFA peace prize is that it’s the kind of participation trophy that Trump supporters would generally hate. In fact, it’s worse than a participation trophy because he didn’t even participate.

Has FIFA effectively tied itself into giving Trump the FIFA peace prize next year as well, and maybe for the two years after that?

They also messed up the Euros by expanding it beyond 16. The competitiveness and the fact around 12 of the 16 could conceivably win the whole thing was the thing that made it great.

Apart from the morality of this World Cup, it’s going to be cursed anyway. It was already bloated at 32 teams, but at least had the benefit of being twice the last 16. Now it’s going to have ridiculously one-sided group games and the incentive to play negatively for a decent third-place finish.

YouTube video by CA AC Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence

m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxgk...

The FIFA Peace Prize. Major First Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence vibes.

All three books are excellent, btw, and there are some really important takeaways, which I discuss in the piece. Chris’ monograph arguing for an adapted form of impeachment is highly recommended for UK constitutional law scholars, even if I don’t agree with all the conclusions.

Impeachment: Contention, neglect, and ways forward Abstract. Though we may debate whether or not we live in an age of impeachment, it is undoubtedly the case that the last decade or so has seen the publicat

My review essay on three books on impeachment (all authored or co-edited by @chrisjmonaghan.bsky.social) is now available as an advance copy (it will appear in the third issue of this year’s International Journal of Constitutional Law). academic.oup.com/icon/advance...

At this point, a transfer window should be imposed for political party defections.

Zack Polanski appears to be the man who can finally burst the cosy and polite liberal/left consensus on Bluesky. One half of my time line thinks he’s the messiah and the other half thinks he’s a naughty populist.

That’s the beauty of it. It could be just utter rage bait. No criteria, just 10 minutes of waffling about the 10 best laws like it’s self-evident.

There’s an idea for a YouTube video: a countdown of my top 10 favourite laws of all time.

Pete Hegseth is an uncomplicated case of what impeachment was created for.