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The Roe v Wade ruling has made the Midterms less predictable – politicalbetting.com

Up to last month’s historic decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade precedent on abortion it did appear that the Republican party was going to take the House and the Senate in the November 8th mid-term elections.
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Former President Donald Trump and close aides have spent the days since the FBI searched his Florida home rushing to assemble a team of respected defense lawyers. But the answer they keep hearing is “No.”
The struggle to find expert legal advice puts Trump in a bind as he faces potential criminal exposure from a records dispute with the National Archives that escalated into a federal investigation of possible violations of the Espionage Act and other statutes.
“Everyone is saying no,” said a prominent Republican lawyer who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential conversations. . . .
Longtime confidants and advisers of Trump have grown worried about Trump’s current stable of lawyers, noting that most of them have little to no experience in cases of this type, according to two people familiar with the internal discussions.
A Trump spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. . . .
“The Trump team needs a first-rate, highly experienced federal criminal practitioner,” said Jon Sale, a Florida defense attorney who worked on the Watergate prosecution team and said he turned down representing Trump last week because he did not have enough time to devote to the case. “You have to evaluate whether you want to take it. It’s not like a DUI. It’s representing the former president of the United States — and maybe the next one — in what’s one of the highest-visibility cases ever.”
“In olden days, he would tell firms representing him was a benefit because they could advertise off it. Today it’s not the same,” said Michael Cohen, a former lawyer for Trump who was convicted of tax evasion, making false statements, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress in 2018. “He’s also a very difficult client in that he’s always pushing the envelope, he rarely listens to sound legal advice and he wants you to do things that are not appropriate, ethically or legally.”
One lawyer told a story from early in Trump’s presidency about members of his legal team urging him against tweeting about the Mueller probe, only to find he had tweeted about it before they got to the end of the West Wing driveway. Several people said that Trump was nearly impossible to represent and that it would be unclear whether they would ever get paid. . . .
Far be it from me to ken the innermost workings of the heart of Leon's former heartthrob!
However, will venture to guess that she is perhaps motivated by desire to refuel her celebrity status, and with it her (rejuvenated) political clout in GOP circles AND (more to the point methinks) access to serious cash from campaigns, media & other sources.
Addendum - it appears that much though not all of reluctance of many Alaskans to embrace the 2nd political coming of Sarah Palin, is skepticism that she will be truly focused on the needs of Alaska - which is uniquely dependent on federal government policy among the states - as opposed to her own self aggrandizement.
BTW despite the rhetoric, I don't think there are any principles whatsoever in this debate which belong distinctively to either religious or non religious traditions. Bringing either religion or humanism (etc) into it distorts the debate.
(John Roberts and his wife have two children, both adopted. Amy Coney Barrett and her husband have seven children, two adopted from Haiti. Their youngest biological child has Down syndrome. Those four may be a record for adoptees for a single court.)
Suddenly pineapple pizza doesn't seem that bad! Chicago Town deep pan with sausage and BLUEBERRIES is set to be the new divisive dish
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-11120051/Chicago-Town-launches-sausage-blueberry-pizza.html
Bit early to discount Sarah Palin's potential presence as part of what one GOP consultant calls "the exotic section of the Capitol Hill zoo".
She's a grifter, grifters keep on a' grifting. It's just what they do.
Why? Because bulk of Wyoming voters are VERY focused on the needs, challenges & prospects of the energy industry, in particular coal and natural gas, also oil. And were alienated in good measure from Cheney because she is clearly NOT putting the economic interest of Wyoming (as perceived by locals) first & foremost on HER political agenda.
“The Polish prime minister claims the EU is democratic in name only — with Germany and France wielding the real power.”
https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1559662568469401603?s=21&t=JybzmCBqb6nLvItAoxYYsQ
1.07 Liz Truss 93%
13 Rishi Sunak 8%
Next Conservative leader
1.08 Liz Truss 93%
13 Rishi Sunak 8%
Singing the same old tunes, though given recent events feels just like a moan about getting knuckles tapped.
"It is the member states and not the EU institutions that must decide on the direction and priorities of EU action," he added.
The search for consensus, and "not the domination of the strongest," must form the basis of cooperation, he wrote.
Liz Truss is a moron.
And while Rishi probably is only interesting in talking to one section of the NI population, is this another Tory husting event? Such a group is only a section of one section of the NI population in any case.
Who are they by the way, is it the Ulster Unionists? Are they affiliated and get a vote? Or is there a tiny Tory party there?
As usual, the Pavlovian reaction on here to deem anyone who opposes Trump as a saint regardless of their faults kicks into play (I agree with your comment BTW @SeaShantyIrish2 ).
Cheney was, by all accounts, an awful representative for Wyoming and widely disliked. She had a reputation for cancelling events and not turning up, not even bothering to live in the state or represent its interests, and was only concerned about her own status in the Beltway.
That had far more to do with the scale of her defeat than her opposition to Trump.
The tip of the iceberg. This is going to be brutal on these sort of businesses.
https://thestrayferret.co.uk/70000-energy-bill-increase-forces-harrogate-district-farm-shop-to-close/
Edit: Very nearly held their deposit in North Down, their best result. Not bad, honestly.
Asked a lot of hypotheticals:
"What if Boris Johnson remained Prime Minster"
"What if Liz Truss..."
"What if Sunak..."
"What if Stamer..."
etc.
Used the standard form of the independence question and no weird culture war questions tacked on so that rules out both lunatic fringe ends from the potential commissioner list.
There wasn't a centrist pundit in the land who thought Row was at risk.
Even after the draft opinion was leaked you could still find "don't freak out" columns being penned.
Certainly the stories about Liz Cheney's "awful" representation of Wyoming interests in Congress were NOT prevalent BEFORE she voted to impeach Trump.
Indeed, her removal from GOP leadership in wake of Jan 2021 was stark before-after divide with respect to her political clout inside the Beltway, including for Wyoming interests.
Second, Rishi is talking to members of the Conservative and Unionist Party, who probably do identify as British rather than Irish, even though the genius of the Good Friday Agreement is to allow a Schrodinger's Cat-like ambiguity on the question of national identity, as viewers of the recent documentary series Derry Girls would know (especially the finale set on the day of the referendum).
In those circumstances, you need a very strong justification to hand that decision from the woman carrying and sustaining the foetus within her to the electorate. It's the very definition of the tyranny of the majority.
That is a massive vote against her in the primary.
But, anyway, the Good Friday Agreement allows everyone in Northern Ireland to identify as British, and it's pretty safe to assume that any members of the Conservative and Unionist Party will identify as British, though they may think of themselves as Irish as well.
The criticism is bizarre. How many Irish Republicans would you expect to find as members of the Tory party?
And Kansas tells us that - in the vast majority of US states - abortion will continue to be legal and available. The exceptions will be in the Deep South and Utah,
It is, however, worth noting that the Republican Party has got itself into a bit of a pickle here. There are a couple of US States where legal abortion is popular, and yet Republican controlled legislatures have passed laws that broadly criminalise it. While RvW existed, this was of little import; it was virtue signaling to primary voters.
Now, though, those laws come into existence.
Voters, for what it's worth, tend to support restrictions on abortion. But very few of them support blanket bans.
The key question, really, is how much abortion matters.
And Kansas tells us the answer is quite a lot. Around 200,000 independents came out to vote in the Kansas ballot proposition, even though they couldn't vote in either party's primaries. Overall turnout was up close to 90% from the 2018 primaries.
That's a hell of a lot of people who cared enough to come out and vote.
Now, this doesn't mean that those people will vote Democrat. But they might well come out to overturn blanket abortion bans. And that probably means voting Democrat.
Hopefully the treasonous Trump fanatics get their due deserves.
This is just you as a Trump apologist trying to rewrite history
It's still a rotten take - as intellectually shallow as it is callous.
According to BBC analysis of police crime figures, 66 murder investigations have been launched this year in London by the Met Police, City of London Police and British Transport Police (BTP).
This is slightly lower compared with this time last year where police had launched 78 murder investigations in the capital.
Nearly two-thirds of London homicide victims in 2022 have been stabbed to death.
Four people have been fatally shot - all within the last month.
Sixty-two cases have led to arrests, and 52 cases have seen someone charged with murder.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-62575679
They said to the best of my knowledge that Roe was "settled law" and it was, until it was unsettled by them.
They never to the best of my knowledge said they wouldn't unsettle it, given the opportunity.
Biden should have stacked the court when he was inaugurated, he didn't, so he let them do this. He should have also made DC and PR states.
But I believe process matters. And process means democratic buy in.
I'm sorry that abortion will be illegal in some states. It sucks for the women involved. But decisions about criminality should be made by voters.
Geographically The British Isles are the whole archipelago including Ireland. But of course that derives from the fact that the British (as opposed to the Irish) wrote the rules and named stuff.
As an aside interestingly, names can of course change and quite quickly. The North Sea was usually known as The German Sea until the middle of the 18th Century. Perhaps in the future The British Isles will indeed be The Irish Isles. It does have a rather more poetic alliteration to it.
Democracy matters - we both agree on that. But other fundamental things matter too, such as the autonomy of the individual over his or her body. There are matters where 50%+1 simply isn't sufficient justification. If you think it is, I'd suggest you haven't really thought at all. What you've done is fetishise one important principle over all others.
I'd be happy with British-Irish Isles, though who knows what a Manxer would think of it.
Wiki tells me UK Law uses the subtly different 'British Islands' to include the bits that include the UK, Channel Islands and Isle of Man. So if someone uses that one they are not including the Republic and are well set if someone gets huffy about the name.
Edit: Another suggestion was Anglo-Celtic Isles, which I guess might be more accurate than British?
Of course, it's not quite that simple - the public may not be able to pay the new prices, and the whole farm shop sector may shrink in favour of supermarkets. But every story about business energy prices seems to feature a business owner swearing blind they can't put prices up. It seems odd.
Churchill's comment on democracy - "democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time" is perfectly true but within its construction there is an explicit and valid criticism.
Democracy is flawed and like any other system created by man it needs constant supervision and challenge. That is why we have the other arms of Government. Because pure democracy killed Socrates. Because Hitler and Trump were both democratically elected and because there are some basic principles which are even more important than democracy.
I think you have drawn your line in the wrong place in the sand.
Cheney had never been, from my POV, an admirable politician.
But on the single most important thing in her career - the future of US democracy - she made a brave and correct stand.
Also, somewhat problematic projecting approx 5% swing in WA to USA as a whole.
That said, your general proposition of slender GOP majority in next US House MAY hold well hold water.
Perhaps worth noting, that 158 years ago, in the Summer of 1864, it looked like Abraham was all-but-certain to be booted out of the White House that Fall.
Until, that is, Union victory in September, 1864 at the Battle of Atlanta, the schwerpunkt of the Confederacy, significantly altered the electoral prospects for Abe and the Republican Party sharply upward.
Ironically he claims to be a critic of Trump
Of course most businesses will survive but tens of thousands of extra businesses will fold over the winter compared to a typical year.
The judge ruled that the Foreign Office must hand over the documents before a hearing on 5 September.
Chortle.
And.........nobody knows when the book with codeword "Finland" might come out...but it's possible to suppose what might be considered an important date...
Truss and Rwanda is one to watch.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/aug/17/rwanda-asylum-policy-passages-must-be-revealed-judge-rules
"The 10 passages the government asked the court to allow it not to disclose were contained in a draft country policy and information note about the asylum system and related human rights issues in Rwanda, and in an accompanying email – five comments in each document.
"The judge ruled that there was 'public interest' in the court having access to some of the material. He added that some of it was already in the public domain.
"His judgment states: 'I recognise strong public interest in not undermining international relations with a friendly state (Rwanda). Nonetheless that consideration is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring access to relevant information in this litigation.'
The decision means the six passages, barring a few words, will not be kept secret during the high court hearing on 5 September. The other four passages will not be disclosed.' "
Oh.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/17/florida-pregnant-teenager-abortion-court
Which takes nothing away from the Profiles in Courage character of her current position. But does go a long way - along with the deterioration of her former political clout at home and in DC - to explain the depths to which her support has fallen in the state where Cheneys once called the tune and ruled the roost.
If abortion, or other contentious issues, are exclusively a matter for the courts, well, the appointment of judges then just becomes a matter of political partisanship, as we've seen.
Keir Starmer's Labour lost an "alarming" 100,000 members in 2021, according to the party's latest annual accounts...
At the end of 2020 total membership stood at 523,332, but fell by over 91,000 to 432,213 in December 2021.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmers-labour-lost-almost-27763417
LDs also dropped quite a bit apparently.
The Atlantic Archipelago is another alternative that has been proposed, but I tend simply to use "Britain and Ireland".
Land of the Free.
Truth is. Far too many people join a political party for the health of democracy. Whereas millions will join single issues campaigns and charities.
But anyway, I didn't say that IONA was a perfect option.
The Kyiv Independent
@KyivIndependent
⚡️Russia pulls military aircraft out of Crimean airbases after recent explosions.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate reported that no less than 24 planes and 14 helicopters had been transferred out of airfields in Crimea.
https://mobile.twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1559963717860737024
An unrepresentative legislative body, with life membership and ultimate constitutional power.
Only the insane think that is a good idea.