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Punters think WH2024 will be a 2020 re-run – politicalbetting.com
Punters think WH2024 will be a 2020 re-run – politicalbetting.com
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Punters think WH2024 will be a 2020 re-run – politicalbetting.com
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https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/06/08/this-indictment-will-likely-come-too-early-for-trump-to-consolidate-the-party/
...Trump’s first response to the first public confirmation that he will soon be charged was not, as it turned out, to bellow, “Lock him up!” or even reconsider his past obstruction, but instead demand that the insurrectionists in Congress do something.
His first response was to demand that Republicans turn their focus — as they have for much of the last five years — on defending him at all costs, to the detriment of anything that better serves their interests (to say nothing of the interests of their constituents).
..But this indictment — if it indeed gets filed in the next two weeks or so — may come too early for Trump.
That’s because, as I laid out here, there’s still plenty of time in the GOP primary for other Republicans to take advantage of Trump’s legal woes. Republicans seem to be sensing this opportunity. Chris Christie kicked off his undoubtedly doomed presidential race by focusing on Trump’s epic corruption. Mike Pence kicked off his equally doomed presidential run by emphasizing that he did his duty on January 6, unlike Trump...
Note also the description of recent events in Congress, where the debt ceiling deal has rendered a visible breach between the MAGA members and the more rational Republicans.
Of course, for now, it remains only a theory.
...If Trump weren’t indicted until September or October — still a realistic timeline for January 6, particularly if interim charges must occur first — Trump might have had an opportunity to seal the GOP primary and force the GOP to defend whatever crimes he gets charged with, to own and normalize those crimes as their own, as the GOP has chosen to do for the past six years.
But at the moment, there are hints of a mood change..
A shell hits the water just 50m away from these rescuers on their motorboat. Anyone who's been near shelling can tell you how terrifying that 'woosh' is (and how close it is). If that was land, they would have been dead.
https://twitter.com/NeilPHauer/status/1666783201489047555
I do think it means he’ll come a cropper in the general election, however, assuming he gets the nomination. He already repulsed enough people in enough places that matter to turn out to stop him, and this will just add to that.
DeSantis is looking like a poor campaigner and, whilst you can make some case for non-Trumpian Republicans uniting behind another candidate: (a) it's made less likely by the sheer number of other candidates; and (b) there aren't enough non-Trumpian Republicans.
On Biden, I originally though there may be an issue if a heavyweight (a Governor or Senator) made a play, but I think we'd know by now if a serious competitor was weighing a run. His current opponents aren't credible at all.
Death and illness are, of course, possible given the age of the frontrunners.
#NotAPumpAndDumpStrategy
14pt Labour lead
🌹Lab 44 (=)
🌳Con 30 (-1)
🔶LD 11 (+2)
➡️Reform 5 (=)
🎗️SNP 3 (=)
🌍Gre 3 (=)
⬜️Other 3 (-2)
2,109 UK adults, 2-4 June
(chg from 26-28 May)
https://twitter.com/savanta_uk/status/1666761063101091842?s=46
Dutch salute etc.
I think the Whigs will do well next year.
But was noted above, there are tentative hints that the mainstream (or what's left of it) party has lost patience with its accommodation with the cult - see recent events in the House.
An early indictment (or indictments) of Trump gives an opportunity to his opponents in the party. If he were already nominee, I agree, they would back him rathe than their principles.
https://twitter.com/Mike_Eckel/status/1666719504225714177
Interesting location.
Though even this says something.
Sorry, Trump — Rishi Sunak’s too busy to see you
British PM has no time for former president despite meeting a host of other senior US politicians during Washington DC trip.
https://www.politico.eu/article/sorry-trump-rishi-sunaks-too-busy-to-see-you/
Similarly, if Trump quit, who would be favoured? There's no shortage of candidates here, and perhaps DeSantis would get the "heir to the throne" vote despite the current squabbles - he's less ostentatiously anti-Trump than Pence, while being lavishly right-wing.
< I appreciate that the instability of our government in 2018-19 took place under FPTP, but at least it was the exception to the rule. There have been very few instances in my lifetime where a UK government could not properly function under the present system and they were short lived and resolved by a subsequent election. Under some forms of PR that situation it would either become the rule rather than the exception or be resolved by negotiation often lasting months between politicians from which the public is wholly excluded. How many of the Irish electorate when casting their votes thought that they were voting for a FF/FG coalition for example, and what worth are promises made during an election when they can be readily discarded as soon as post election negotiations kick off?
The majority bonus system seems to me to be a reasonable compromise, incorporating a large dose of PR but with elections being potentially conducted between two coalitions, designed to deliver stable government with the largest coalition being chosen by the electorate.
I'm still holding my breath for the moment that Labour's lead goes down to single figures, which was hotly anticipated by quite a few on here back in the spring.
If, however, Biden got a diagnosis (say) that led to a change of heart on standing again later this year but didn't remove him as President, that's a very different matter and it'd be quite open.
If Trump quit (very unlikely) or died/fell ill (more likely due to age) I think DeSantis is a bit of a shoo-in at this point. He isn't standing as anti-Trump but electable-Trump and is a natural heir. Indeed, he might well have had Trump's endorsement if Trump hadn't decided to go again.
If it were to happen now, there'd be a mad scramble for the primaries, and it's really anyone's at that point - and Harris's worst chance.
Of course the last time a President lost his re election battle after only 1 term of his party in the White House in 1980, Carter, it was Carter's VP Mondale who won the Democrat nomination to take on Reagan having beaten his Democrat rival the somewhat more exciting Gary Hart.
Could Pence be Mondale, DeSantis Hart and Trump Carter? Albeit Carter declined to run again. 1984 was also an election where there were big questions about the incumbent President's age but Reagan famously quipped in a debate with Mondale 'he would not use his opponent's youth and inexperience against him'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RtXmnUe9s0
https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/joe-biden-administration-approval-ratings-and-hypothetical-voting-intention-31-may-2023/
https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-and-boris-johnson-talk-ukraine-russia-war/
Sunak did meet Speaker McCarthy and Senator Romney however, 2 Republicans Trump hates even more than DeSantis
Governor has ordered civilians out. Very interesting...
https://unherd.com/2023/06/britain-can-thrive-as-a-vassal-state/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=d90c17762b&mc_eid=4bd8087faf
Asked about the prospect of a Trump return to the White House in 18 months, Sunak said the leaders he would be speaking to shared “universal values of freedom and democracy and the rule of law.”
Under FPTP the fate of your party is tied up closely with the fate and direction of the country. Tories do well, country implements right wing policies (most of the time). Labour does well, country implements left policies. The assumption therefore is that any constitutional change that is good or bad for a particular party is equally good or bad for the ideological bloc they are associated with.
In a PR system it's the policies and ideologies that matter, not the party label. I'm a Lib Dem party member, but if we ended up with an STV system and it turned out another broadly liberal centrist party had policies more closely aligned with my own, I would happy switch my vote and membership. PR allows people to vote for the party that best represents their viewpoint, which means you get far less of the unease voters have these days feeling they have to vote for one party to keep out the other even though they might hate the leader or front bench.
Under PR would we have more, or fewer, MPs representing liberal internationalist parties? I expect probably more. That might well be at the expense of the legacy Lib Dem party who might end up with fewer. But Lib Dems shoudn't care. The policy is the important thing.
A point behind Trump on hypothetical polling isn't good... but isn't terrible, and I suspect would improve were she to become President (part of the issue with any non-incumbent other than Trump, and particularly a woman, is "can I see this person as President?" which goes away if she is).
So it does seem to me that it's pretty challenging to get past Harris as Democrat nominee if she went in to the campaign as President.
I never said FPTP massively assists the Lib Dems full stop. I said FPTP massively assists the Lib Dems over smaller competitor parties which is unambiguously correct.
On your preferred metric of votes cast to seats won (which isn't a measure of 'fairness' unless you're starting from the flawed premise that PR is the only fair system) then the Lib Dems have a massively better ratio of seats won to votes cast than any smaller competitors do.
The votes cast absolutely could fall, or rise, the party could become a top two party of it could cease to exist altogether. That's unknown.
But when it comes to competition from below, rather than from above, then FPTP aids the Lib Dems at being the third party none of the above protest vote.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-france-election-macron-britain-idUKKBN15B16C
"Britain becoming U.S. vassal state, says French presidential hopeful Macron"
Beijing agrees to pay Havana several billion dollars for eavesdropping facility
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cuba-to-host-secret-chinese-spy-base-focusing-on-u-s-b2fed0e0
We can still support democratic values, and America, in Europe, and even outside the EU, even as part of the new European Political Community, if it develops its own military capacity. It's this readiness to give up up a much more powerful role within Europe, in relative terms, to act as " one of many junior partners of America " that is partly what I find so odd in some of the ideology of ultra-atlanticists. Could this, in fact, spring from a more fundamental lack of self-confidence and self-esteem, somewhere ?
Not the most compelling of arguments.
And to say that's to the LibDem's benefit is taking the piss.
https://www.politico.eu/article/noel-gallagher-england-is-shit-because-brexit/
We can and should work with like minded countries whether they be European, American, Oceanic, Asian or any other.
What we don't need to do is join a power sharing club to do so where decisions are made at a transnational level rather than by democratically elected individuals held to account at national elections.
It working with France is in our interests we should do so. If it ceases to be, we should stop. And we can review that regularly. And on some issues it may suit us to work with them, and on others it might not.
That's a mature and responsible way independent nations act around the globe. No need to demean and lower ourselves to the lowest common denominator or let people like Victor Orban have a say on rules that apply in this country.
Yes Labour and the Tories benefit over the Lib Dems to, I never denied that. Nor is there anything wrong with that. They only benefit over them as long as the voters cast their votes that way.
In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king. The Lib Dems are that one eyed man out of the small parties.
It can exercise a similar role in the European Political Community, if it wants, giving it an outsized influence as that bridge between the English-speaking world and one of the three centres of European power, or it can be happy merely to be a very junior but helpful, scurrying little butler with Pacific pretensions. It simply makes no sense not to take advantage of the disproportionate increase in influence this bridge gives, whether in the EU or the EPC.
Not that we wouldn’t all take that opportunity, were it to arise!
The destruction of the Dam has been greeted with renewed determination to add to the support Estonia is giving to Ukraine. The constant war crimes and acts of pure, barbaric evil is leading even those who speak Russian to reject all things Moscovite.
After four major military and naval exercises in a month, Tallinn seems to be the cross roads of a vast arsenal. Over thirty NATO ships were in the harbour a few days ago, and the number of NATO troops, both based here and on rotation is probably tens of thousands. The Estonian army and militia is at a very high state of readiness. RAF Typhoons are on patrol and despite the perceptions from outside, Estonians feel safer than for many years.
We hope and pray that the ZSU can make the breakthrough to the Azov Sea and punish the invaders of their country. It is truly heart breaking to hear the stories from the thousands of Ukrainians here. The scale of the crimes committed by the Putin regime is truly on a par with the Nazis.
Though few yet believe that a policy of "Rossiya delenda est" can work, there is a growing sense that even if Russia loses and even if Putin dies or goes to the Hague, that unless Russia changes irrevocably, that they cannot be forgiven for what has happened. Again comparisons with Post-war Germany are being made. Unless Russia makes genuine amends for the crimes of Putin and makes a reckoning for the crimes of Communism, then ipso facto, Russia can not recover any place in the civilized world.
As a former Estonian PM said to me yesterday, Forgiveness can only be given if forgiveness is asked, and right now Russia is clearly not sincere in any of its actions.
Praying for the success of the ZSU. The whole future of Europe and the world depends on them. Like the afternoon sun, the light is hazy, and we do not know what the future will bring.
It's also interesting how little reference or importance that article gives to pan-European security. This is because it still fundamentally isn't in the Brexit mindset, so the Ukraine War has wrongfooted that.
<<And yet we come back to the fact that the UK is also one of the three major economic and military powers in Europe>>, that should ofcourse say ! Apologies.
That's why we're not generals.
There is no need to sacrifice our sovereignty or ability to act unilaterally in order to provide that leadership. In fact part of the way you cando that is to be a first mover while other nations aren't yet convinced that you are doing the right thing until you show them that you are.
It's a very bizarre logic to think you need to sacrifice sovereignty to some mythical European Political Community in order to show leadership or have an influence.
I wonder if that story about 50 British special forces stationed in Ukraine, had something to do with this project, or if they worked out of Poland?
But if they're thinking they only stand to gain from reform then they're in denial. Yes they'll probably gain, which is why they want the reform, but it's a gamble and they could lose out too.
If I was a Ukrainian general I'd be saving the good stuff.
Unlike the Russian missiles I don't think it'll be intercepted.
I couldn't tell from the picture quality whether that was true, nor whether anything was 'pique'-ing out
If you want genuine influence, but are not a hegemon, you generally have to pool and share power. That's just the realities of international power relationships, and will apply to the EPC as much as the EU.
WHOA! The Supreme Court's final decision of the day is a 5–4 ruling that AFFIRMS the Voting Rights Act's protection against racial vote dilution! Roberts and Kavanaugh join the liberals. This is a HUGE surprise and a major voting rights victory.
https://twitter.com/mjs_dc/status/1666811655609810945?s=46
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
https://twitter.com/mcpli/status/1666812463231438848?s=46
With luck they will be surprised by the Ukrainians as well.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/06/07/nato-prepares-unprecedented-air-exercise-in-show-of-force-to-russia/
To think otherwise is to have a distinct lack of self-confidence and self-esteem.
There is no requirement at all to pool and share sovereignty. Outside the EU countries don't do that. They work together, have alliances etc, but ultimately make their own decisions and are accountable to their own electorate.
No reason the UK should lack the self-confidence and self-esteem to do the same.
Note the other four still want to kill the Act completely.
One impact of this decision: It's a boon to Democrats' chances of retaking the House in 2024. The Supreme Court had blocked multiple lower court rulings striking down congressional maps that diluted Black voting power. At least some of those rulings should now be implemented.
https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1666812234310496256
Bow before my magnificence, lowly fool.