The odds on Trump regaining the White House in November’s election have eased a bit following the decision by the jury in the Carroll court defamation case. The decision by the jury that Trump has to pay Carroll $84m could undermine his position with voters across the country and punters have reacted accordingly.
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Trump has evangelicals eternal gratitude for appointing SC justices who would reverse Roe v Wade. Cutting back on and ideally ending abortion in the US is conservative evangelicals number 1 priority
Then again, in a sensible world, he would have been cast into the outer darkness in 2020, rather than being all but inevitable for the Republican nomination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election#Voter_demographics
What a terrible choice
*by no means all. We know there are a significant subset of Trump voters who will vote for the man whatever happens. But i do not believe that is anything near 50% of the population.
Prediction - Trump, if he gets to the actual election as the live Republican candidate, will get more than 43% of the vote, no matter what.
That includes criminal convictions.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68104203
Just when you thought things could not get any worse.
Probably will lambast the Israeli government for not nuking Gaza.
Much as I'm largely negative about UK politics, if any aspiring politician had done this in 2015 their career would have been over. Nowadays, I'm not so sure.
Things that happen cannot hurt Trump because the story that he and his supporters tell about reality is more important to them than actual reality.
We've had nine years of one outrageous thing after another, any one of which would have destroyed any other politician. Why are people still expecting that the latest of these things will damage Trump when the previous several hundred have not done so?
43% is a very safe floor for his vote.
One way our otherwise pathetic system has worked in the last few years is it has been catching up with those who abuse their position for sexual gratification.
Now we need to find a way to get the bastards who screw us for their pecuniary advantage.
[ETA: I am thinking of politicians who became 'real' journalists, not just "columnists on the basis that they are/were politicians"]
EDIT WW3 is only in the interest of megalomaniacs who see it as a way of avoiding jail or assassination. Putin? Netanyahu? Trump? People like that. And even then ... Hopefully there are sane people around them
(Which does not mean I support Israel's current regime.)
What IF Putin sees Trump's election as an opportunity to move West threatening the use of nukes, and Trump warns Europe about retaliating against his mate? Bollocks? Yes, but so was your suggestion.
I would have conquered Everest IF I hadn't missed the boat train from Victoria.
The best trick the Devil ever played was to get folks to think Trump was one of their own.
It will be hundreds of millions.
Frankly, if the Democrats can't make hay against a fraudster rapist, they really don't deserve to be in power, so shit will they be at politics. Trump's woes are nothing - NOTHING - to do with Biden. They are everything to do with the sack of personality defects that is Donald Trump.
"On our recent Tenerife holiday the whole hotel experience was elevated immensely by high quality live music acts every evening in one of the outdoor terrace bars"
Sorry @kinabalu but that was irresistible
This is up there with renowned anarcho-nihilist @Dura_Ace confessing that, actually, he really enoys watching "One Foot in the Grave"
More coming for Mr Trump in the report of the Financial Monitor put into his New York businesses by the Court.
eg a $48m loan included in various regulatory paperwork that they now say "does not exist", and will be 'left out in the future'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRbIJC3IUqY
Already, 30 percent of Southern Baptists “seldom” or “never” attend church, according to the Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Survey. The southern Bible Belt is quickly becoming a region of unchurched or lapsed Protestants who may still hang onto their evangelical identity to some extent but who don’t think going to church is necessary.
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/august-web-only/church-attendance-sbc-southern-evangelicals-now-lapsed.html
And unlike cultural Anglicans retaining a belief in tea and being a bit nicer to people, cultural Southern Baptists can drift into something pretty grim away from the anchoring of a real church with actual people in it.
Ah, Teneriffe!
Ah, Teneriffe!
Retreating Mountain!
Purples of Ages — pause for you —
Sunset — reviews her Sapphire Regiment —
Day — drops you her Red Adieu!
Still — Clad in your Mail of ices —
Thigh of Granite — and thew — of Steel —
Heedless — alike — of pomp — or parting
Ah, Teneriffe!
I'm kneeling — still —
14:12 and onwards here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vt29
It reports suggestions that this is a resurgence of "Christian Nationalism", which sounds to me like the Christian Reconstructionism that was visible on the fringes several decades ago:
Christian reconstructionism is a fundamentalist Calvinist theonomic movement. It developed primarily under the direction of R. J. Rushdoony, Greg Bahnsen and Gary North and has had an important influence on the Christian right in the United States. Its central theme is that society should be reconstructed under the lordship of Jesus in all aspects of life. In keeping with the biblical cultural mandate, reconstructionists advocate for theonomy and the restoration of certain biblical laws said to have continued applicability. These include the death penalty not only for murder, but also for idolatry, open homosexuality, adultery, witchcraft and blasphemy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_reconstructionism
Looking through the word-salad, this is a sort-of Christian Fundamentalist parallel to "back-to-the-Caliphate" Islam, where the attempt is to recreate a perceived form of "Christian Society". Read by some Trump supporters across into politics.
It is both theologically illiterate and anti-democratic.
"On our recent Tun bridge Wells holiday the whole hotel experience was elevated immensely by high quality live music acts every evening in one of the outdoor terrace bars"
But if I was asked to devise an absolutely cringe, naff, non-U, scrotum-shrivellingly Poujadiste holiday recommendation it would be that
Every single word is perfect, right down to the immortal triplet "outdoor terrace bars"
Good live music is great even in mundane settings.
https://www.visitleicester.info
In the Islamic parallel, no one (even Iran) except the Taliban and ISIS have so far re-imposed the Jizya - which is a tax imposed on non-Muslims in a Muslim society, traditionally 'justified' as a tax-for-protection for those not subject to military service.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jizya
1. A naturalised Brit writer who now lives in New Orleans (an old friend) - age 50
2. A Canadian rye whiskey distiller, age 43 (a new friend), who spends half his life in the USA
For very different reasons both of them (and both are centre-left) are convinced Trump will win
For the first guy it's partly because he thinks Biden has lost too many left wingers due to his Israel stance (and Biden's too old), for the second it's because he thinks "America has gone mad", and he has also looked at voting in places like Louisville Kentucky in detail, to see what's going on
Make of that what you will, but they are very different people, both highly intelligent, reaching the same conclusion: Trump will win
I tend to disagree, but it is sobering to hear
But what's wrong with liking performed music? It's AI-proof as you remarked only the other day. Or do you prefer Muzak?
From the same article,
When asked, “Do you think most people would try to take advantage of you if they got a chance or would they try to be fair?” 54 percent of white Protestant southerners who attended church no more than once a year said that most people would try to take advantage of them.
In response to the question “Would you say that most of the time people try to be helpful or that they are mostly just looking out for themselves?” 58 percent said the latter.
The responses from white Southern Protestants who attended church every week were almost the direct opposite. Sixty-two percent said that most people would “try to be fair” rather than take advantage of them, and 57 percent said that most of the time people “try to be helpful.”
And there's Trumpism.
Non-cylindrical secondaries say hello.
There are a few possible UK parallels, but I don't know their manner-of-life well enough to comment usefully.
WTAF makes anyone believe that? Music by definition is a series of notes, one after the other. Certain sequences are more pleasing and evocative than others. Certain timbres, timings, instrumentations are also more pleasing than others - for reasons of newness, weirdness, sadness, and so on
An AI can run through every possible series of notes producing a trillion variations every minute. Another AI can be programmed to choose the "best" - ie most likely to please the human ear, even the most sophisticated human ear. Voila: brilliant AI music, indistinguishable from that composed by humans, indeed probably better, and, then, inevitably better
This can then be "played" by AI bands, orchestras, singers, because music is just a particular modulation of sound waves reaching your ears. It is just maths. It can absolutely be replicated, and will be, if we continue down the AI road
Art as a human product is largely done, music might be the next art FORM to go, after photography
On the other hand he is quite keen to get me banned, whenever he sees an opportunity, and he is also a contentedly retired, millionaire accountant living in a large house in Hampstead, so I reckon he can cope
But in Bangkok I stay (if I am paying) in a nice four star off Sukhumvit Road in the lower sois
My ideal hotel, for working (as I am doing) is a good four star. You want enough luxury and comfort to make everything easy (24 hour room service, good bar, good location, all day cleaning) but you don't want the extra fuss and bother and lily-gilding that comes with 5 star hotels (plus they charge thrice as much)
I've stayed in hundreds of five star hotels, some of the best in the world, but actually many of them aren't that relaxing, because they are always status conscious and constantly trying to prove to you why they are 5 star. Always trying to clean your shoes or offer you a different butler or demanding you choose from the pillow menu, etc
Enough! Give me a good chilled out 4 star. A good place that does the job and doesn't make a meal of it
The Loser's first wife accused him of marital rape, under oath. (She later retracted the accusation, when she was not under oath.)
I tend to agree with @DavidL and, yes, @kinabalu that eventually the good economic news will see Biden over the line (along with Trump being SO mad and offensive)
But these guys I chatted with the last two days were both quite persuasive. eg I hadn't considered how much Biden has alienated his own leftwing with his Israel position. My New Orleans friend thinks young leftwingers and minority ethnic voters will simply abstain as a protest, and that could switch a few states to Trump - moreover these voters do not especially care (coz they simply don't like Biden)
https://twitter.com/Liz_Cheney/status/1751258837703664025
I’m told that, in response to my prior tweet,
@EliseStefanik deleted her 1/6/21 statement — that those who stormed the Capitol “must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” Here is Elise’s statement again. Feel free to share.
I think your argument actually asks the right question, or at least a right question.
When I read Dickens, watch Macbeth, listen to late Beethoven, look at The Girl with the Pearl Earring, am I only participating in a programmed order you describe, or am I in fact in communication with a person or persons, including the creator of the work. You seem to think the former, I think the latter but await reasonably clear demonstration.
But his mum was sent to prison that day having been wrongfully accused of stealing £75,000 from the Post Office - and spent nearly five months in jail.
Adi thought she was in hospital and only discovered the truth eight years later. Now aged 23, he says he "hated" his mum for leaving him so abruptly.
Speaking to the BBC, Adi says all the Horizon victims deserve compensation."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68084538
Trump is pushing 80, clearly suffering from mental decline and looks as unfit as a leaking balloon. A VP under him could reasonably expect to be president under one or other provision of the 25th within his term.
After he had dismantled all constitutional protections...
So if you're profoundly religious and believe Homo sapiens was divinely and deliberately made by God in His image, and we therefore have some unique skill which cannot be copied, then there is a logic to your position, otherwise it is nonsense
That's the thought pump. What constitutes that is, of course, wholly mysterious. You can't just 'program' it. Derrrrrr.
'Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, the international day dedicated to victims of genocide.
Marking the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, today we remember all people murdered because of something that made them who they were.'
https://twitter.com/BrightonHoveCC/status/1751168226694701316
Certainly evangelical leadership and opinion leaders recognize that most of Catholic hierarchy and bulk of conservative/Republican Catholic politicos are on THEIR side - NOT Biden's. (Nor the Pope's for that matter.)