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The Kobeissi Letter
@KobeissiLetter
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18m
BREAKING: President Trump is considering sending National Guard troops to San Francisco as a part of his "crime crackdown."

Too late. Leon's already left.

The administration is out of control, and appears to be trying to foment rebellion.

The Trump administration has frozen or cut $27 billion in funding in Democrat districts, compared to $739 million in Republican districts. There are open abuses of power occurring daily that would’ve been unthinkable under any other administration.
https://x.com/RichardHanania/status/1978458214397001835

If the Administration seems out of control, that's because all the mechanisms that ought to control them are failing. Mostly by self-immolation.

It's getting to the point where Michael York's line from Tomorrow Belongs To Me doesn't even work as a rhetorical question.

The smug section about "Checks and Balances" in every US politics textbook is going to need some revision.

Be interested to know how a Waymo would distinguish a set of classic temporary roadworks traffic lights that aren't working/stuck on red versus a very long hold but functionally operational 4-way type set of lights.

Control of the Waymo gets passed to a man in a warehouse if they get stuck. It's one of the features they have that the Teslas do not.

Could they use the same technology (control by a man in a warehouse) for lorry deliveries? Would be a lot nicer job sitting in a warehouse driving and going home at the end of shift rather than sleeping in the cab in some lorry park. Could have the Lorries driving for longer too as you just swap out the warehouse driver after mandatory hours reached.

Please hold, your call is important to us.

Hope they always have enough warehouse staff.

The way that Waymo worked in each area they expanded into was -

1) Try out the vehicles with drivers
2) When they had logged enough miles/per driver intervention, the remote option was used.
3) As they logged less and less remote interventions, they increased the number of cars.
4) When the number of interventions was low enough, they launched the service.

That's how they achieved their safety record

Has Keir tried blaming Farage for Chinagate yet?

Sir 'I'll double check that' had a ghastly PMQs and Her Britannic Majesty Kemi has well and truly got the measure of him these days. She doesn't let up any more.

Eye of the beholder:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/oct/15/kemi-brings-a-shovel-to-a-gunfight-and-starmer-lets-her-dig-her-own-hole

I find John Crace rather dull and predictable which tends to make him rather less amusing than he possibly think he is.

Not a patch on Marina Hyde who can genuinely be funny, as well as spiky and original, and quite often insightful. Her take on Trump is well worth a read:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/14/donald-trump-taylor-swift-peace-deal-star

I think she captures what many political commentators miss. Trump has never really progressed from being a Celeb. That's the best way of understanding him.

Do we have any details of this Daily Heil exclusive MRP poll putting the Tories on 7 seats?

As in % shares and data?

Good morning

This is the article but not sure if it is pay walled

How Reform would crush all before them if election was now

https://newspaper.mailplus.co.uk/data/6778/reader/reader.html?social#!preferred/0/package/6778/pub/23069/page/2/content/1070139

It doesn't seem plausible to me. No way would Your Party have 13 seats.

Place it in the round filing cabinet.

It's now up on the Electoral Calculus website. For some reason it has been sat on for over a month (maybe waiting for someone to be stupid enough to pay for it) https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_vipoll_20251015.html

The Election Calculus Map looks like some sort of infection breaking out but stopping / being stopped somewhere north of the M62.

Not even stopped there, EC projects Reform to near sweep the North East and most of Cumbria and even win 4 Reform MPs in Scotland. Only in inner London and other inner cities is the Reform march really stopped

Quite a proposition, really. On the showing to date, a Reform win will produce a cabinet, government, parliament full of people who pack up & go home quite shortly after being elected.

Good morning, everyone.

François Valentin
@Valen10Francois

Reminder that a majority of French people want a retirement age at... 60.

The French electorate and its delusion are crucial players in the current mess


https://x.com/Valen10Francois/status/1978112457588519023

Western electorates are getting increasingly delusional with regard to public finances.

Debt/GDP is around 100% in most developed countries, and with interest rates around 5% that’s 5% of GDP just on the debt interest.

Add to the demographic time bomb and increasing life expectancy, and it’s unrealistic to be retiring at 65, let alone 60.

In the U.K. state pensions are going up by around 4.5% (can’t remember exact number) due to the triple lock.

Crazy

The whole idea of a state pension is ridiculous. It discourages private pension provision and distorts the labour market.

Many over-68s are perfectly capable of working so why should they be paid £12k a year to sit around doing nothing? We have far too many entitled layabouts in this country as it is. A relative of mine just retired at 79 and one of his colleagues famously was still working at 105 (!).

Pensions should be merged with incapacity benefit and the rules tightened up. People should only qualify once old age makes them genuinely incapable of working, not just too lazy to work, any more.

BY the same token the workplace has to value older people too. One of the reasons I retired early was I did not feel valued. They’ve learned the hard way I actually did contribute far more than they thought.

I get my state pension in six and a half years. My pension planning and savings was based on that.