With respect to membership of RNC and DNC, certain NOT all are hacks, puppets or errand-persons.
One who is none of the above, is Washington State Democratic National Committeman David McDonald.
Few have ever heard of him, here or elsewhere, but he was senior partner at one of Seattle top law firms (mostly Republican, founded by father of Bill Gates Billionaire). AND leader of the legal team that led the successful effort to confirm that Christine Gregoire DID win the 2024 WA Governor's race versus Republican Dino Rossi . . . by margin of +133 votes.
(Always have to check to see what WAS the exact margin. Fortunately have a commemorative yo-yo with the precise number recorded for me, and posterity.
For clarification, Casino Royale is NOT PBs leading Sophist - THAT dishonor belongs to another.
Thank you, I do try.
Your claims as "leading Sophist" are on a par with those of ex-Rep George Santos (R-Ponziland).
BTW (also FYI) GS has announced he's running AGAIN for Congress, in another Longggg Island district.
Would it be cynical to ask, what are odds of whatever campaign contributions he garners, being used to buy himself yet more sweaters (jumpers for UKers) for his klepto-politico wardrobe?
Also guessing this trajectory is Nieman Marcus > Nordstrom > Macys > Marshalls > Dollar General > Goodwill.
Santos is a truly baffling character. He lied about so many inconsequential things it genuinely looks like he cannot help himself.
If Long Island voters put him back in they will deserve what they get. At least time they will know they are electing a bullshitter.
Planning a trip to Long Island in September. Hope to drive to Montauk one sunny day - the diametric opposite of Coney Island - and will look out for evidence of a Santos campaign. How about 'The truth sucks'? Surely that's a slogan we can all get behind, most days.
Have several models of Montauk Lighthouse in my model collection of lighthouse models.
Perhaps Santos will (ab)use this beloved local landmark for his 2024 campaign logo?
You can almost certainly name the state with the greatest number of lighthouses. Others are welcome to guess.
Maine?
I thought Maine having been on a cruise there but I believe it is Michigan
Yes, Michigan has a humungous coastline but in a rational world much of it would belong to Wisconsin. The Upper Peninsula is one of the nicer areas to live, though a bit parky in winter. I do hope it hasn't become dystopian like the places @Leon seems drawn to. It was very agreeable 10 years ago.
Back in the early 1970s a friend of mine was in the Air Force, and was stationed for a while at a USAF base on the UP. For which he received overseas pay.
I'll bet you have a copy of "How the States got their Shapes" by Mark Stein. If not, highly recommended. A perfect fusion of geography and history.
An interesting survey indeed, though there's plenty that didn't make it into the book.
One item that did was the Michigan v Ohio "Toledo War" which ended up with Ohio in possession of Toledo and the "Toledo Strip" (today a thriving strip club five blocks from Lake Erie).
Joke in Ohio is that, we won Toledo . . . and lost the War.
To help assuage Michiganders - AFTER Michigan became a state - Congress lopped off a chuck of Wisconsin Territory and gave it to Michigan = the Upper Peninsula.
an observation from the last thread which I was too late too participate in. I worry that we are painting pensioners as rich fat cats (I am not a pensioner as yet). The previous generation designated as boomer certainly for a lot had good pension provision and got to buy homes at a reasonable cost. However they are dying off bit by bit....my generation...generation x however largely missed out on defined benefit schemes and due to 2 decades of low interest rates most of our pots are not going to be huge and affording an index linked pension over 10k is going to be a pipe dream for most of us. In addition many of my generation like myself missed out on cheap housing as we ended up getting divorced in the late 90's to 2000's and then found a single salary wouldn't get us a mortgage even with the cash realised from our sale of half he house.
I forsee when I retire being reviled as a rich pensioner because of the attitude being inculcated while I am struggling to make ends meet. As an example I am keeping an eye on my pension pot and have worked solidly since 1987, been paying contributions, and generally been top 30 to top 20% of earners. I am told I should be looking at an annuity of 5 to 7k a year non index linked if I dont take a lump sum. Hardly going to be having my mouth stuffed with gold on that but the idea of rich pensioners will still persist I don't doubt
I think we all appreciate that not all pensioners are wealthy, and many pensioners still won't be wealthy in twenty years' time. However...
*Most boomers are outright homeowners, and most of their kids have managed to at least get a mortgage to boot
*Thus, given that our economy is so warped by the deliberate constriction of property supply (which yields huge capital gains for homeowners, as well as virtually guaranteed fat profits for most landlords,) the average oldie will continue to be comfortably off for the foreseeable future
*At this point, we remind ourselves that the average pensioner has a higher income than the average worker, after adjustment for housing costs. This doesn't mean that there aren't substantial numbers of dirt poor pensioners, especially amongst those who missed out on home ownership and/or good old fashioned final salary pensions, but most of them are reasonably well to do
*A large proportion of GenX, including some of us who may still be stuck renting, are also going to receive enormous cash windfalls when they inherit their parents' property. This is entirely untaxed save for about 3-4% of the most valuable estates, and will greatly bolster the prosperity of the next generation of olds
Thus, well to do pensioners are the norm not the exception (and dig into the stats and I bet you'll discover that a higher proportion of kids are living in poverty than are the elderly.)
This is the fundamental argument against the Triple Lock, and in favour of its replacement with a much less generous guarantee backed up by means tested payments for the genuinely hard up. Decades of compound inflation in state pension payments will, quite simply, bleed the working population and their children white. It's precisely the same reasoning behind the near-total disappearance of final salary pensions schemes in the private sector: business scrapped them because the contributions were so steep they became unaffordable.
However, Government ultimately depends on voter support, the median elector is now aged in their mid-50s, and the huge grey vote expects triple locked pensions to carry on forever. Which means they will, until the cost finally bankrupts the entire state. And thus, on we go, circling the plughole.
A state pension of £10k per year isn't going to get you very far even if you own your own home - it is a very basic income. You can't do much to change your situation, you can't get credit or borrow money.
It is an error to speak in general terms about pensioners. The fire should be turned on the tax arrangements for pensioners on high incomes due to defined benefit pensions or savings and investments. They demand a lot from the state but as discussed earlier today they pay around half as much tax as working people (due to NI and student loan repayments) on a similar income.
Married couple - £20k/year, and that's "post-tax". That's loads to live on if you own your house outright.
This is the problem with the whole benefits thing. Paying £10k pa to each pensioner regardless of circumstances represents very different outcomes depending on those circumstances. Single person renting will be in grinding poverty, couple who own their house will be comfortably off.
Why say post tax? The pension is taxable. Admittedly if that is all you have it is under the PA but that would be true of all income. Your argument is valid but the post tax comment is misleading.
Off topic: It is possible that, this November, the Loser might win again in the electoral college -- and the Democrats take control of the House. You'd have to do a district-by-district study to see how likely that is, but the Republicans have probably already lost a seat in Alabama.
Consequences? I'm thinking about that problem. (Of course the consequences would depend on what happens in the Senate, too.)
The balance is currently 219-212, with 4 vacancies, and, thanks to the Loser, Republicans are going to have trouble finding quality candidates for many districts.
Off topic: It is possible that, this November, the Loser might win again in the electoral college -- and the Democrats take control of the House. You'd have to do a district-by-district study to see how likely that is, but the Republicans have probably already lost a seat in Alabama.
Consequences? I'm thinking about that problem. (Of course the consequences would depend on what happens in the Senate, too.)
The balance is currently 219-212, with 4 vacancies, and, thanks to the Loser, Republicans are going to have trouble finding quality candidates for many districts.
It's almost inevitable that the Democrats lose the Senate. They will definitely lose West Virginia, and it's an uphill battle for them in both Ohio and Montana (two states that Trump will win by good margins).
Both Nevada and Arizona are up too. It's entirely possible that the Democrats will lose both of those as well.
And that's not it for difficult defences for the Democrats. Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2016: all of those are up for election this year.
So, you could easily have a situation where the Democrats drop from 51 Senate seats (counting Sinema) to 45 or 46. I mean, it probably won't be *that* bad for them, but that's the scale of the challenge they face: three defences where Trump will win by 10+ percentage points, and another 5 seats where Trump is in with a very real chance of winning this time around, which will almost certainly flip the Senate seats.
On the other hand, as you note, the House looks relatively favourable to them. Most incumbents gain house seats between the midterms and the Presidential year, and they're only a few behind, with some new maps that look less bad for them.
It's entirely possible that all three parts of government will flip: with the White House and the Senate going Republican, while the House of Representatives goes Blue.
I felt oddly underwhelmed by it, which surprised me as I have loved every film Nolan has made so far.
I am not sure the time-jumping works with a biographical/semi-biographical film like this one, it just takes you out of it.
Sound mixing was horrendous but not the first film he's decided to seemingly do that on purpose.
Great acting all round.
I just didn't feel anything.
They spent a bunch of time on weird stuff that didn’t advance the story. Then completely left out the weirdness and vast scale of the Manhattan Project.
I felt oddly underwhelmed by it, which surprised me as I have loved every film Nolan has made so far.
I am not sure the time-jumping works with a biographical/semi-biographical film like this one, it just takes you out of it.
Sound mixing was horrendous but not the first film he's decided to seemingly do that on purpose.
Great acting all round.
I just didn't feel anything.
"Congressman, you could use a shovel in making atomic weapons. In fact, you do. You could use a bottle of beer in making atomic weapons. In fact, you do. I’d say isotopes are less useful than electronic components, but more useful than a sandwich!"
No, you're all wrong on Mrs May and Brexit. The main issue wasn't her rhetoric or her mindset, it was the domestic politics of it. A soft Brexit meant SM which meant FOM. No Tory PM could have got that through the Brexit parliament and stayed PM. A Labour PM could but not a Tory one.
Why? Because a deal like that would have run counter to where the party's members and voters and a critical mass of their MPs were. It would have been VONC and out. She knew that. As would any other person in her place at that time in those circumstances.
Soft Brexit = Pipedream.
But also, soft Brexit loses if it's explicitly put to the public in 2016, because it means FOM. Where May ended up was "least economically damaging Brexit that stops FOM", which was probably a reasonable take on the main strand of what the 52% wanted.
But any real deal was bound to disappoint, because what the UK really wanted was for the EU to give us exactly what we wanted in exchange for the pleasure of our company. I'm sure there was a colourful metaphor involving post-divorce relationships.
How would people have voted if they’d known that immigration post-Brexit would be substantially higher?
EU immigration is down it is non EU immigration up which is why Reform are now polling over 10%. Though the new higher salary threshold for migrants may change things
Is that the same Reform as the one that objected to Poles, Romanians and Lithuanians coming here and taking our jobs? You know, the jobs that Brits won’t do.
There's no such thing as jobs that Brits won't do.
Brits do every kind of job imaginable. What you won't have is an unlimited supply of Brits who want to do your job for minimum wage if they can get better wages, terms or conditions elsewhere - which ought not be a problem. Either your work isn't work doing, or it is but you need to improve one or more of your wages, terms or conditions.
Importing people no more fills vacancy than it leads to people taking jobs as it both boosts demand and supply, it doesn't boost one while holding the other still.
When people wonder why I want this Chibnall version of the Conservatives to lose, it's stuff like this. They ban "extremists", but they get to define who "extremists" are. They don't know how a free society works.
Off topic: It is possible that, this November, the Loser might win again in the electoral college -- and the Democrats take control of the House. You'd have to do a district-by-district study to see how likely that is, but the Republicans have probably already lost a seat in Alabama.
Consequences? I'm thinking about that problem. (Of course the consequences would depend on what happens in the Senate, too.)
The balance is currently 219-212, with 4 vacancies, and, thanks to the Loser, Republicans are going to have trouble finding quality candidates for many districts.
It's almost inevitable that the Democrats lose the Senate. They will definitely lose West Virginia, and it's an uphill battle for them in both Ohio and Montana (two states that Trump will win by good margins).
Both Nevada and Arizona are up too. It's entirely possible that the Democrats will lose both of those as well.
And that's not it for difficult defences for the Democrats. Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2016: all of those are up for election this year.
So, you could easily have a situation where the Democrats drop from 51 Senate seats (counting Sinema) to 45 or 46. I mean, it probably won't be *that* bad for them, but that's the scale of the challenge they face: three defences where Trump will win by 10+ percentage points, and another 5 seats where Trump is in with a very real chance of winning this time around, which will almost certainly flip the Senate seats.
On the other hand, as you note, the House looks relatively favourable to them. Most incumbents gain house seats between the midterms and the Presidential year, and they're only a few behind, with some new maps that look less bad for them.
It's entirely possible that all three parts of government will flip: with the White House and the Senate going Republican, while the House of Representatives goes Blue.
You are underplaying how important women's rights to abortion and IVF are going to be against Republicans. The Democrat candidates are going to be universally on the right side of this issue for a significant majority of women. The Republicans on the wrong side. They're in a mess, after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos before being implanted are still children.
Off topic: It is possible that, this November, the Loser might win again in the electoral college -- and the Democrats take control of the House. You'd have to do a district-by-district study to see how likely that is, but the Republicans have probably already lost a seat in Alabama.
Consequences? I'm thinking about that problem. (Of course the consequences would depend on what happens in the Senate, too.)
The balance is currently 219-212, with 4 vacancies, and, thanks to the Loser, Republicans are going to have trouble finding quality candidates for many districts.
It's almost inevitable that the Democrats lose the Senate. They will definitely lose West Virginia, and it's an uphill battle for them in both Ohio and Montana (two states that Trump will win by good margins).
Both Nevada and Arizona are up too. It's entirely possible that the Democrats will lose both of those as well.
And that's not it for difficult defences for the Democrats. Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2016: all of those are up for election this year.
So, you could easily have a situation where the Democrats drop from 51 Senate seats (counting Sinema) to 45 or 46. I mean, it probably won't be *that* bad for them, but that's the scale of the challenge they face: three defences where Trump will win by 10+ percentage points, and another 5 seats where Trump is in with a very real chance of winning this time around, which will almost certainly flip the Senate seats.
On the other hand, as you note, the House looks relatively favourable to them. Most incumbents gain house seats between the midterms and the Presidential year, and they're only a few behind, with some new maps that look less bad for them.
It's entirely possible that all three parts of government will flip: with the White House and the Senate going Republican, while the House of Representatives goes Blue.
You are underplaying how important women's rights to abortion and IVF are going to be against Republicans...
This is the absolute killer for me. Other than this POTUS2024 would be a slam dunk for Trump. But whereas in past elections Trump always overperformed, this time around the GOP have underperformed too often for me to feel easy about a big Trump punt.
No, you're all wrong on Mrs May and Brexit. The main issue wasn't her rhetoric or her mindset, it was the domestic politics of it. A soft Brexit meant SM which meant FOM. No Tory PM could have got that through the Brexit parliament and stayed PM. A Labour PM could but not a Tory one.
Why? Because a deal like that would have run counter to where the party's members and voters and a critical mass of their MPs were. It would have been VONC and out. She knew that. As would any other person in her place at that time in those circumstances.
Soft Brexit = Pipedream.
But also, soft Brexit loses if it's explicitly put to the public in 2016, because it means FOM. Where May ended up was "least economically damaging Brexit that stops FOM", which was probably a reasonable take on the main strand of what the 52% wanted.
But any real deal was bound to disappoint, because what the UK really wanted was for the EU to give us exactly what we wanted in exchange for the pleasure of our company. I'm sure there was a colourful metaphor involving post-divorce relationships.
How would people have voted if they’d known that immigration post-Brexit would be substantially higher?
If the Remain campaign had managed to convince people that a Leave vote would lead to higher immigration then it would have been a landslide for Remain.
But I can see why they didn't try that argument. They would have been ridiculed. I'm not sure how it has happened, particularly when we've had a decade, at least, of Conservative PMs pledged to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands.
This is a good question. How did it happen? How did a Conservative administration so explicitly desirous of lower immigration and having taken back control produce a situation with record high immigration?
Can I be the third to frank this - yes how *did* that happen?
Because Boris Johnson is the most liberal PM we've had. Certainly far more than Blair or Brown.
Yes but seriously.
There have been some suggestions that people are exploiting our openness towards foreign students. The BBC had an interesting report on this:
One influencer wey tell BBC say Nigerians dey sign up for degrees for UK just to get visa for themselves and dia dependents don apologise.
"We don begin to see say a lot of pipo just hide behind di studentship. So di student thing no dey real, no be like say dem need di degrees," Emdee Tiamiyu tok for di interview.
Di Office for National Statistics (ONS) tok say one significant factor behind di high migration numbers in recent years na increase in foreign students and dia dependants wey dey follow dem come.
One fifth of UK student visas last year go to Nigerians - 120,000 in total, wit half for di students themself and half for partners and children.
Nigerians get more family visas for foreign students than any oda nationality, ONS tok.
Comments
One who is none of the above, is Washington State Democratic National Committeman David McDonald.
Few have ever heard of him, here or elsewhere, but he was senior partner at one of Seattle top law firms (mostly Republican, founded by father of Bill Gates Billionaire). AND leader of the legal team that led the successful effort to confirm that Christine Gregoire DID win the 2024 WA Governor's race versus Republican Dino Rossi . . . by margin of +133 votes.
(Always have to check to see what WAS the exact margin. Fortunately have a commemorative yo-yo with the precise number recorded for me, and posterity.
One item that did was the Michigan v Ohio "Toledo War" which ended up with Ohio in possession of Toledo and the "Toledo Strip" (today a thriving strip club five blocks from Lake Erie).
Joke in Ohio is that, we won Toledo . . . and lost the War.
To help assuage Michiganders - AFTER Michigan became a state - Congress lopped off a chuck of Wisconsin Territory and gave it to Michigan = the Upper Peninsula.
Not for the person, but the principle. (Provided bot-ism not proven by monitors qualified to prove it.)
I felt oddly underwhelmed by it, which surprised me as I have loved every film Nolan has made so far.
I am not sure the time-jumping works with a biographical/semi-biographical film like this one, it just takes you out of it.
Sound mixing was horrendous but not the first film he's decided to seemingly do that on purpose.
Great acting all round.
I just didn't feel anything.
Consequences? I'm thinking about that problem. (Of course the consequences would depend on what happens in the Senate, too.)
The balance is currently 219-212, with 4 vacancies, and, thanks to the Loser, Republicans are going to have trouble finding quality candidates for many districts.
Both Nevada and Arizona are up too. It's entirely possible that the Democrats will lose both of those as well.
And that's not it for difficult defences for the Democrats. Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2016: all of those are up for election this year.
So, you could easily have a situation where the Democrats drop from 51 Senate seats (counting Sinema) to 45 or 46. I mean, it probably won't be *that* bad for them, but that's the scale of the challenge they face: three defences where Trump will win by 10+ percentage points, and another 5 seats where Trump is in with a very real chance of winning this time around, which will almost certainly flip the Senate seats.
On the other hand, as you note, the House looks relatively favourable to them. Most incumbents gain house seats between the midterms and the Presidential year, and they're only a few behind, with some new maps that look less bad for them.
It's entirely possible that all three parts of government will flip: with the White House and the Senate going Republican, while the House of Representatives goes Blue.
Brits do every kind of job imaginable. What you won't have is an unlimited supply of Brits who want to do your job for minimum wage if they can get better wages, terms or conditions elsewhere - which ought not be a problem. Either your work isn't work doing, or it is but you need to improve one or more of your wages, terms or conditions.
Importing people no more fills vacancy than it leads to people taking jobs as it both boosts demand and supply, it doesn't boost one while holding the other still.