Categories
Options
Just two weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses – politicalbetting.com
Just two weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses – politicalbetting.com
The first event in this year’s White House Race takes place in just a fortnight when the Republican Party holds its caucuses in Iowa. This is very different from an ordinary primary because what happens is that Republican voters have to attend caucuses at the local Precinct centre in order to meet and cast their votes for the candidate they want to be selected
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
But if he is shocked in the caucuses and primaries, how exactly he reacts to having genuine opponent is likely to be memorable. 🫠
EDIT. First 😝
It's entirely possible, even probable, that if he gets the nomination he'll win the Presidency again, especially as the incumbent, who is pretty incompetent and clearly well past whatever competence he once had, refuses to step aside for a new generation.
In which case the Free World, with an erratic America and powerful, aggressive dictatorships around the world, is in uncharted territory, at any rate since the 1930s.
I guess if people are naming him to pollsters to show they support him but they don't really want him to be president?
Or I guess SCOTUS could say he was disqualified but that has to be low-single-digit probability in itself, it would be extra weird for it to happen so quickly, and they'd probably vote for him anyway.
But if it now looks as if Haley can beat RDS in Iowa as well, the man is toast and might as well go back now to his day job of running Florida into the ground.
The New Hampshire primary is likely to be more significant but unless Haley wins it or comes so close she frightens Trump into actually punching her I don’t think it will stop him.
As we saw rather graphically on the last thread, the Republicans are way past reason on the subject of Trump (or Biden, for that matter).
Here’s the result from 2016:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Iowa_Republican_presidential_caucuses
Everything I’ve seen suggests it’s the same this time, although if you know better from a reliable source I’m happy to be corrected.
Could anyone give me a brief résumé of pb regulars’ health over the past two months, without breaking confidences etc.? I was concerned about a couple of people who were suffering from various things at the time when I went away.
I know OGH had a fall, which sounded very nasty.
OKC is suffering from various ailments and is using a wheelchair.
Big G North Wales has had heart problems and needs a pacemaker.
Happy new year to you as well.
(You will note I nobly resisted using annoying acronyms!)
Thanks so much yd. Much appreciated.
Really sorry to hear about the issues for all three. @Big_G_NorthWales is a concern
I may be heading off again for a time but hope they, and all on here, have as good a year as possible.
Oh, and my only prediction for 2024, apart from the obvious one about Labour winning, is that I don’t think Sunak has the courage to go for Spring. He’s a ditherer so I expect him to flail around until October or even November. It will be a mistake.
Liverpool were very good last night. They’ve only lost once this season and that was a highly dubious one at the THFC stadium.
@TSE shameless sucking up for a brownie point or two.
Also, is Eddie Howe in danger? For those who bet on football, is he the next Premier League manager to face the sack? Or perhaps Thomas Frank?
Camera manufacturers Canon, Nikon, and Sony, are to introduce digital signatures to their professional-grade cameras, so that photojournalists and media outlets can verify them as authentic.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Nikon-Sony-and-Canon-fight-AI-fakes-with-new-camera-tech
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/jan/02/ofsted-bows-to-pressure-and-halts-inspections-after-ruth-perrys-suicide
I hope Oliver remembers to include the safeguarding and GDPR training that’s also not been happening, and to get the DBS mess and some actual safeguarding procedures sorted.
At least he seems to understand the problem. On the BBC this morning he was not pulling his punches about the state of the organisation and the reputational damage it has suffered. A refreshing contrast to Spielman. Let’s see if he follows up.
Checkups have just been stepped down to a phone call every 6 weeks, and my white cell boosting jabs have been stepped down to one a week from three a week a couple of months ago, as apparently I had too many now - there are acceptable limits at both top and bottom ends.
Have a good break if you take one.
Just to give everyone a bit of a giggle here is a list of things that definitely will not happen because they are so very very silly.
1) Vladimir Putin will come up with a new policy on the Ukraine war which involves withdrawal of all Russian troops and not killing people.
2) The Supreme Court will rule 8-0 that Donald Trump as a mad dangerous fascist who has tried to overthrow the government of the United States is ineligible to be president under the 14th amendment.
3) Clarence Thomas will honourably recuse himself from every case involving Donald Trump.
4) The republican nominee will be somebody sane and the democratic nominee will be somebody aged below 107. The winner will be decided by an arm wrestle rather than all that boring and outdated nonsense with the Electoral College so the Russians/Republicans can’t rig the vote.
5) Rishi Sunak will call an election at an opportune moment.
6) Inspired however by the enthusiastic endorsement of @bigJohnowls, Keir Starmer will win an overall majority of around 250.
7) Despite their shattering defeat, the Tories see sense and elect Penny Mordaunt as their new leader rather than a complete nut case (the complete nut case in question being Suella Braverman)
8) Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes will resign. The England cricket team led by Zak Crawley will win every single test plus a one day international against a scratch team from Outer Mongolia.
9) Lancashire will have their finest ever year in the championship inspired by their new coach Dale Benkenstein.
And finally, just in case you thought I was serious:
10) @Leon will be proved right about something.
That’s the order polling has them in: T, DeS, H, R, Christie, Hutchinson. Showing how unimportant endorsements are, DeSantis has the most endorsements of Iowa elected GOP politicians, including the Governor.
Main opposition party chief attacked during visit to Busan
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=366185
2024 general elections likely to be neck-and-neck race
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=366062
The President currently has approval ratings which make Biden's look good, but there's a general lack of trust in politicians, so it's likely to be a close election.
The opposition leader is under criminal indictment.
...polls, conducted between Dec. 26 and 27, revealed that 35 percent of 1,000 people aged 18 and above who were surveyed remain undecided about which party candidate to vote for in their constituency in the upcoming elections. Another 29 percent said they would vote for a PPP candidate, while 25 percent voiced support for a DPK candidate.
Among the respondents, 30 percent agreed that the DPK should win the elections to help indicate the public's disapproval of Yoon's government, while 26 percent believed that the PPP should win, thereby showing their distrust of the main opposition party. However, another 22 percent said both sides deserve the public's disapproval...
I'm intrigued given your expertise in this area: would you say school Ofsted reports should be taken with a pinch of salt, or are they barely worth considering? From a parent's perspective, that is.
And since you are given no information about the inspectors other than their names - no statistics on how far their judgements are borne out by subsequent inspections, for example, or how many safeguarding breaches they have been accused (it should be none but that's not the way OFSTED works) - I would say that parents should probably not rely on them.
They might be useful as part of research into a school before visiting it so you know what to look for, as events like Caversham where the report was essentially made up are still in my experience comparatively rare.
But even allowing for that inspectors tend only to see what they're looking for, and in any case the rigidity of the criteria they use means the school reflects the criteria rather than whether your particular child would find the school a good place to be.
Mhairi Black has said she was always “uncomfortable” with the SNP’s singular reliance on Nicola Sturgeon’s personality to promote the party.
The nationalists’ deputy leader at Westminster said that her former leader’s departure from office was “quite healthy because I’m a big believer in politics should be about policy as opposed to personality”.
Black said that she has not missed Sturgeon since Scotland’s longest-serving first minister quit last spring but predicted that she would “still have a part to play in future years”.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sturgeon-cult-of-personality-was-uncomfortable-says-black-5gv7rqtqs
I wonder what's about to burn through now?
As an aside, this morning's announcement from the new guy in charge is at least an admission of how deeply in denial Spielman was.
Put the crack pipe back in the locker where you found it ;-)
They got their name right on their website.
Cleverley is by far one of the most impressive communicators on the government front bench. But even in his case, there is this very clear sense of entitlement, arrogance and bitter resentment.
Really very common with this lot, from Sunak on down. The slightest questioning, and this properly - seemingly personally - angry response emerges.
They say they are *for* education.
Although I suppose that's an issue around performance rather than nomenclature.
How many times will Mhairi Black deny Nicola Sturgeon before the cock crows?
One day the DfE will be educated. Today is not that day.
Which, in fairness to Yousless, is a very small step in the right direction.
I even had a cabbie tell me off for trying to pay him with cash.
He hates carrying cash as it is a security risk and the nearest branch is 40 mins away.
It's about whether they're for education or against it.
*The best argument for private schools is that they somehow got the likes of Spielman, Gribbell and Acland-Hood through a-levels. They must be fecking amazing to do that given how dim they all are.
Boebert faults Ryan Reynolds, Barbra Streisand for her district switch
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4384160-boebert-faults-ryan-reynolds-barbra-streisand-district-switch/
...“It’s coming from Hollywood when you have Barbra Streisand coming in and donating to the Democrat, when you have Ryan Reynolds coming in and donating to the Democrat,” she said. “It shows you that Hollywood is trying to buy their way into Congress.”
According to Federal Election Commission filings, Streisand donated $1,000 to Frisch’s campaign in April, while Reynolds donated $500 in March...
Ten years ago I remember you had to have cash to get a cab, or you couldn't get home.
32kg to get back to my fighting weight of summer 2020.
Debilitating cough doesn't help!
https://x.com/nfergus/status/1741547139304755343?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
Ukraine is the test and the west is failing.
May have made all the difference in later primaries. We will never know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DKv5H5Frt0
Tom Scott - just another of the phalanx of world-defining people from Mansfield !!
But fancy you and he asking the same question about poor old Plato?!
What's this, though? Another box of matchmakers? Don't mind if I do.
https://twitter.com/opinion/status/1205645070726242305/photo/1
Basically, carbon emissions would have fallen since 2007 but for the increases in China and India. The US and the EU have both done rather well but the net effect is still increasing emissions.
And that some of it *may* be in time to have an impact for the Iowa caucuses.
There are both Civil and Criminal cases in New York for a start.
https://x.com/timesradio/status/1742096773223510097?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/south-korean-opposition-leader-lee-jae-myung-stabbed-in-neck-82svdbgpg
I worry, I really do.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/02/from-furious-to-farcical-uk-popular-culture-tackles-the-home-rental-crisis
'The mouldy new version of Sims may be in response to the reality that more and more gamers are living as renters, but it has proven too much for some. A trailer for the game showed a player retching from multiplying mould in a shower and sprouting luminescent mushrooms impervious to blasts with anti-mould spray, leading one player to ask the game’s creators on social media: “Can we turn off the mould? Sorry, it just grosses me out.”'
Japan Airlines plane in flames on the runway at Tokyo's Haneda Airport
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-67862011
Yes, people watching non-Fox news will see evidence being given and analysed during the trials, but Fox will cover as little as possible, as will the right wing online sources.
So by the time the verdicts come down, and anything seeps into the brains of the Trump supporters, it's high;y likely he'll be unassailable for the nomination.
Front stage historians come in about three flavours: centres left and right, and national treasures like Lord Hennessey. Our lives of drudgery are adorned by their offerings.
N Ferguson has a living to make and a name to sustain as a rational, traditional centre right western and pro western historian. He does it well. There is nothing in his TwiX here that is irrational, implausible or impossible. It's what happens if a handful of trajectories are sustained globally.
He is not catastrophising.
Which is why "cumulative" carbon emissions charts are absolute batcrap crazy nonsense. The fact that people in the UK heated their homes by burning coal in fireplaces in the past, and that our electricity was coal powered in the past, has absolutely nothing to do with emissions today.
EDIT: DavidL is quite right that it was probably a much bigger factor in the prior decade rather than the last decade. As recently as 2012 we were still primarily using coal in our own electricity, now we almost never do, the change in our carbon in the last decade has been quite real and not just outsoucing.