BTW, I think the latest Trump attacks - i.e. focusing on cost of living, and immigration - show that he is beginning to get back on track after being completely derailed by the Biden-Harris swap.
Whether he can remain focused for the next 12 weeks remains up for debate: if he can keep the conversation on areas where he is strong (immigration and the economy), then he is very much in contention. If he goes off on grievance fueled rants, or if the conversation moves onto mental fitness or Project 2025 or abortion, then it's going to be much harder for him.
I can't stand Trump, but Harris's overall lead is still MoE. Polls don't mean anything till after Labour Day at the earliest anyway.
In fact, if it stays this close, it will probably be decided in the courts like 2000, in which case Harris is in deep trouble.
It's a tossup.
The reason why I'm saying Trump will lose isn't what the polls show now. And that's despite the big move we've already seen from Tump being way out in front of Biden to now being behind Harris.
I'm saying it because the momentum is there for Harris and will accelerate as Trump goes batshit crazy over not being in the lead and not being the anointed one. Yes, his base will vote for him as they are crazy / pathologically hate Democrats and Liberals / are screaming hypocrite evangelical "Christians" etc etc.
It isn't about them. Its about everyone else. Trump lost massively in 2020. Tell me where he is going to find the millions of votes needed to win this time. They didn't vote for crazy last time but as he utterly melts down and displays all of the demented old man behaviours that Biden was attacked for they will decide he should get their vote this time?
Sorry, but with the very greatest respect, Trump didn't lose massively in 2020 - it was a 4.5% defeat in the popular vote, and Biden only won 306 EV.
1964, 1972, and 1984 were massive losses, but 2020 doesn't really fall into that category.
· The Ukrainian army continues its retreat into Russia.
Darth Putin
Also from Darth Putin
"There’s a gas pipeline running *right thru* Ukraine which supplies Russian gas and Ukraine has left it undamaged.
Instead they blew up Nordstream 2, saving Russian billions of $ in fines cos it’s a force majeure, just as a Russian military deep sea dive boat was right next to it"
I can't stand Trump, but Harris's overall lead is still MoE. Polls don't mean anything till after Labour Day at the earliest anyway.
In fact, if it stays this close, it will probably be decided in the courts like 2000, in which case Harris is in deep trouble.
It's a tossup.
At the moment Harris has a lower average popular vote lead over Trump than Biden or Hillary had.
However Harris is doing better in swing states than Hillary did, leading now on average in Michigan and Wisconsin for example and tied in Georgia, even if still worse than Biden did in 2020. So yes it looks the closest election in the EC since 2000 though even in 2000 had Gore been ahead in Florida even the SC stopping the count wouldn't have stopped him winning
It is close, exceptionally close. I make Harris the very narrow favourite, but Trump really only needs to flip one of the rustbelt to snatch the election.
It is worth remembering, of course, that it is far from impossible that Ms Harris holds onto WI, PA and MI, while losing the popular vote. That - assuming she held onto her single Nebraska elector - would give her a 270-268 edge.
I don't know about you guys, but I don't think we'd see a gracious concession speech from him under that scenaro.
The idea that there could be a tie 269-269 is perhaps the funniest. In which case the House selects the President and the Senate the VP, so we could theoretically have a Trump-Harris administration.
TL:DR he’s not a fan of the modern Democratic Party, prefers the old party of his father and uncle who stood up for the little people rather than the donor class and globalist interests.
Price controls don’t have a good track record . They might be good politics . In this case the GOP attacking Harris for fighting for consumers might backfire .
Sometimes political forums miss just how little the general public follow the minutiae of policies .
Explaining to the general public why price controls aren’t a good idea . Good luck with that .
Price controls are dependent either upon wage controls or higher taxes.
Many oldies are wiling to accept that to have the prices that they remember from previous decades:
David Mort, 90, from Risca in Caerphilly said: "For old age pensioners it's getting worse."
"A cup of tea, 20p - that's plenty. £2.20 is not a fair price," he said. "If it were me I wouldn't go in there, it's as simple as that."
That was funny. Once you’re paying rent, utilities, and wages, you need to see a certain income every day just to break even, irrespective of what you’re buying and selling.
Whether it’s cereal, coffee, or beer, the fixed costs are the same. Hence £5 for a bowl of Corn Flakes and some milk in central London.
How Chinese EV maker Geely “torture tests” its new LFP blade battery for safety: - simultaneous puncture by 8 steel needles - 5.8mm infantry rifle bullet penetration test - seawater corrosion immersion - 26-ton overweight rolling - single-pack side collision - fire roasting
I can't stand Trump, but Harris's overall lead is still MoE. Polls don't mean anything till after Labour Day at the earliest anyway.
In fact, if it stays this close, it will probably be decided in the courts like 2000, in which case Harris is in deep trouble.
It's a tossup.
The reason why I'm saying Trump will lose isn't what the polls show now. And that's despite the big move we've already seen from Tump being way out in front of Biden to now being behind Harris.
I'm saying it because the momentum is there for Harris and will accelerate as Trump goes batshit crazy over not being in the lead and not being the anointed one. Yes, his base will vote for him as they are crazy / pathologically hate Democrats and Liberals / are screaming hypocrite evangelical "Christians" etc etc.
It isn't about them. Its about everyone else. Trump lost massively in 2020. Tell me where he is going to find the millions of votes needed to win this time. They didn't vote for crazy last time but as he utterly melts down and displays all of the demented old man behaviours that Biden was attacked for they will decide he should get their vote this time?
Your analysis tasks at the first hurdle because, despite everything, Trump's approval ratings are better now than four years ago. That polling result is impossible if your analysis is correct.
Price controls don’t have a good track record . They might be good politics . In this case the GOP attacking Harris for fighting for consumers might backfire .
Sometimes political forums miss just how little the general public follow the minutiae of policies .
Explaining to the general public why price controls aren’t a good idea . Good luck with that .
Price controls are dependent either upon wage controls or higher taxes.
Many oldies are wiling to accept that to have the prices that they remember from previous decades:
David Mort, 90, from Risca in Caerphilly said: "For old age pensioners it's getting worse."
"A cup of tea, 20p - that's plenty. £2.20 is not a fair price," he said. "If it were me I wouldn't go in there, it's as simple as that."
Hundreds of protesters attacked a cereal cafe in east London on Saturday night, daubing the word “scum” on the shop window and setting fire to an effigy of a police officer.
Riot police were called in to defend the Cereal Killer Cafe in Shoreditch after it was targeted by a large crowd of anti-gentrification activists carrying pigs’ heads and torches.
The owners of the cafe, which has been seen by some as a symbol of inequality in east London, said on Sunday that the attack left customers including children “terrified for their lives”.
I wonder if these people were immediately arrested, tried and jailed:
The protest was advertised on Facebook as the third Fuck Parade, and was apparently organised by the anarchist group Class War. The event page stated: “Our communities are being ripped apart – by Russian oligarchs, Saudi sheiks, Israeli scumbag property developers, Texan oil-money twats and our own home-grown Eton toffs. Local authorities are coining it in, in a short-sighted race for cash by ‘regenerating’ social housing. “We don’t want luxury flats that no one can afford, we want genuinely affordable housing. We don’t want pop-up gin bars or brioche buns, we want community.” The Fuck Parade organisers had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
I can't stand Trump, but Harris's overall lead is still MoE. Polls don't mean anything till after Labour Day at the earliest anyway.
In fact, if it stays this close, it will probably be decided in the courts like 2000, in which case Harris is in deep trouble.
It's a tossup.
The reason why I'm saying Trump will lose isn't what the polls show now. And that's despite the big move we've already seen from Tump being way out in front of Biden to now being behind Harris.
I'm saying it because the momentum is there for Harris and will accelerate as Trump goes batshit crazy over not being in the lead and not being the anointed one. Yes, his base will vote for him as they are crazy / pathologically hate Democrats and Liberals / are screaming hypocrite evangelical "Christians" etc etc.
It isn't about them. Its about everyone else. Trump lost massively in 2020. Tell me where he is going to find the millions of votes needed to win this time. They didn't vote for crazy last time but as he utterly melts down and displays all of the demented old man behaviours that Biden was attacked for they will decide he should get their vote this time?
Sorry, but with the very greatest respect, Trump didn't lose massively in 2020 - it was a 4.5% defeat in the popular vote, and Biden only won 306 EV.
1964, 1972, and 1984 were massive losses, but 2020 doesn't really fall into that category.
Price controls don’t have a good track record . They might be good politics . In this case the GOP attacking Harris for fighting for consumers might backfire .
Sometimes political forums miss just how little the general public follow the minutiae of policies .
Explaining to the general public why price controls aren’t a good idea . Good luck with that .
Price controls are dependent either upon wage controls or higher taxes.
Many oldies are wiling to accept that to have the prices that they remember from previous decades:
David Mort, 90, from Risca in Caerphilly said: "For old age pensioners it's getting worse."
"A cup of tea, 20p - that's plenty. £2.20 is not a fair price," he said. "If it were me I wouldn't go in there, it's as simple as that."
That was funny. Once you’re paying rent, utilities, and wages, you need to see a certain income every day just to break even, irrespective of what you’re buying and selling.
Whether it’s cereal, coffee, or beer, the fixed costs are the same. Hence £5 for a bowl of Corn Flakes and some milk in central London.
Some people are all about "the feels", not reality.
The other thing I found funny, was that they were claiming it was racist and classist for a couple of immigrants to setup a Cereal bar in the Brick Lane area, charging lots. And not used by the local people
The entire Brick Lane area is crammed with businesses, setup by immigrants, charging huge prices for curry & alcohol. And the locals don't go to them either.
Trump ultimately picked Vance to double down on his Maga message and take it through to 2028 if he wins given he could not run again anyway. Vance also represents what was a swing state, Ohio, which even though it has voted for Trump twice also voted for Obama twice.
How Chinese EV maker Geely “torture tests” its new LFP blade battery for safety: - simultaneous puncture by 8 steel needles - 5.8mm infantry rifle bullet penetration test - seawater corrosion immersion - 26-ton overweight rolling - single-pack side collision - fire roasting
I can't stand Trump, but Harris's overall lead is still MoE. Polls don't mean anything till after Labour Day at the earliest anyway.
In fact, if it stays this close, it will probably be decided in the courts like 2000, in which case Harris is in deep trouble.
It's a tossup.
At the moment Harris has a lower average popular vote lead over Trump than Biden or Hillary had.
However Harris is doing better in swing states than Hillary did, leading now on average in Michigan and Wisconsin for example and tied in Georgia, even if still worse than Biden did in 2020. So yes it looks the closest election in the EC since 2000 though even in 2000 had Gore been ahead in Florida even the SC stopping the count wouldn't have stopped him winning
It is close, exceptionally close. I make Harris the very narrow favourite, but Trump really only needs to flip one of the rustbelt to snatch the election.
It is worth remembering, of course, that it is far from impossible that Ms Harris holds onto WI, PA and MI, while losing the popular vote. That - assuming she held onto her single Nebraska elector - would give her a 270-268 edge.
I don't know about you guys, but I don't think we'd see a gracious concession speech from him under that scenaro.
The idea that there could be a tie 269-269 is perhaps the funniest. In which case the House selects the President and the Senate the VP, so we could theoretically have a Trump-Harris administration.
Price controls don’t have a good track record . They might be good politics . In this case the GOP attacking Harris for fighting for consumers might backfire .
Sometimes political forums miss just how little the general public follow the minutiae of policies .
Explaining to the general public why price controls aren’t a good idea . Good luck with that .
Price controls are dependent either upon wage controls or higher taxes.
Many oldies are wiling to accept that to have the prices that they remember from previous decades:
David Mort, 90, from Risca in Caerphilly said: "For old age pensioners it's getting worse."
"A cup of tea, 20p - that's plenty. £2.20 is not a fair price," he said. "If it were me I wouldn't go in there, it's as simple as that."
That was funny. Once you’re paying rent, utilities, and wages, you need to see a certain income every day just to break even, irrespective of what you’re buying and selling.
Whether it’s cereal, coffee, or beer, the fixed costs are the same. Hence £5 for a bowl of Corn Flakes and some milk in central London.
Some people are all about "the feels", not reality.
The other thing I found funny, was that they were claiming it was racist and classist for a couple of immigrants to setup a Cereal bar in the Brick Lane area, charging lots. And not used by the local people
The entire Brick Lane area is crammed with businesses, setup by immigrants, charging huge prices for curry & alcohol. And the locals don't go to them either.
Oh inded. I actually got to know the area quite well in around 2005, when the ‘gentrification’ was starting and we were still a decade away from talking about the ‘Silicon Valley Roundabout’.
My customer, a £15 kebab shop restaurant open until 3am.
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Trump didn't pick Vance to bring anything to the ticket - and the selection was one vetted by his son, and really at the prompting of a handful of billionaire donors.
As much as anything, it was an expression of hubris, rather than electoral calculation.
Yet Harris picked Walz from Minnesota, which has voted Democrat since 1976, over Shapiro from swing state Pennsylvania. Indeed Vance represents Ohio which voted for Obama, so is more of a swing state than Minnesota.
Though Harris will hope Walz has appeal in upper Midwest swing states Wisconsin and Michigan too
Coach Walz appeals across a wide spectrum. If AI was asked to generate a VP pick that would maximise support across the political spectrum, it would be hard pushed to generate something better than Walz.
If an assassin took out President Trump/President Harris, which VP would you want stepping up? No contest. A marginal - but non-trivial - factor in how people will vote.
Trump ultimately picked Vance to double down on his Maga message and take it through to 2028 if he wins given he could not run again anyway. Vance also represents what was a swing state, Ohio, which even though it has voted for Trump twice also voted for Obama twice.
Ohio is no longer a swing state.
Still more of a swing state than Minnesota, albeit Walz was born in Nebraska where Biden won 1 EC vote in 2020
I can't stand Trump, but Harris's overall lead is still MoE. Polls don't mean anything till after Labour Day at the earliest anyway.
In fact, if it stays this close, it will probably be decided in the courts like 2000, in which case Harris is in deep trouble.
It's a tossup.
At the moment Harris has a lower average popular vote lead over Trump than Biden or Hillary had.
However Harris is doing better in swing states than Hillary did, leading now on average in Michigan and Wisconsin for example and tied in Georgia, even if still worse than Biden did in 2020. So yes it looks the closest election in the EC since 2000 though even in 2000 had Gore been ahead in Florida even the SC stopping the count wouldn't have stopped him winning
It is close, exceptionally close. I make Harris the very narrow favourite, but Trump really only needs to flip one of the rustbelt to snatch the election.
It is worth remembering, of course, that it is far from impossible that Ms Harris holds onto WI, PA and MI, while losing the popular vote. That - assuming she held onto her single Nebraska elector - would give her a 270-268 edge.
I don't know about you guys, but I don't think we'd see a gracious concession speech from him under that scenaro.
I can’t see a gracious concession speech from him even if he loses by margins that would make Mondale or Landon blush.
He’ll be ranting about stolen elections and being the rightful president for the rest of his life probably *even if he wins*.
Price controls don’t have a good track record . They might be good politics . In this case the GOP attacking Harris for fighting for consumers might backfire .
Sometimes political forums miss just how little the general public follow the minutiae of policies .
Explaining to the general public why price controls aren’t a good idea . Good luck with that .
Price controls are dependent either upon wage controls or higher taxes.
Many oldies are wiling to accept that to have the prices that they remember from previous decades:
David Mort, 90, from Risca in Caerphilly said: "For old age pensioners it's getting worse."
"A cup of tea, 20p - that's plenty. £2.20 is not a fair price," he said. "If it were me I wouldn't go in there, it's as simple as that."
That was funny. Once you’re paying rent, utilities, and wages, you need to see a certain income every day just to break even, irrespective of what you’re buying and selling.
Whether it’s cereal, coffee, or beer, the fixed costs are the same. Hence £5 for a bowl of Corn Flakes and some milk in central London.
Some people are all about "the feels", not reality.
The other thing I found funny, was that they were claiming it was racist and classist for a couple of immigrants to setup a Cereal bar in the Brick Lane area, charging lots. And not used by the local people
The entire Brick Lane area is crammed with businesses, setup by immigrants, charging huge prices for curry & alcohol. And the locals don't go to them either.
Oh inded. I actually got to know the area quite well in around 2005, when the ‘gentrification’ was starting and we were still a decade away from talking about the ‘Silicon Valley Roundabout’.
My customer, a £15 kebab shop restaurant open until 3am.
I remember that my somewhat naive flatmate was a bit surprised, when we walked through Brick Lane at about 6am, one day.
Huge container lorries with the brand of the Curry King chap, from Manchester, were slowly moving up road, dropping off racks of pre-cooked stuff at each restaurant.
Which is why most places there were expensive, a bit shit and the food tasted the same.
I've heard that they've tried to pull it back from that, more recently, but haven't been back in years
Trump: Virtually 100% of the net job creation in the last year has gone to migrants In fact I've heard substantially more and actually beyond that number 100%. It’s a much higher number than that but the government has not caught up with that yet. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1824187096401318126
Almost certainly bullshit because of the speaker, but mathematically its entirely possible for net figures like this to be over 100%.
Completely making up figures as an example, imagine 50,000 jobs (net) have been created - of which 60,000 (net) have gone to migrants and there are 10,000 fewer non-migrants employed than before.
However while its possible, given who said it, I expect for that reason alone its total bullshit.
If we assume that the non-migrant population of the US is undergoing the same demographic transition as other rich countries, with a shrinking working-age population supporting a growing retired population, then you'd expect to see something like this where you have strong immigration to keep the population growing.
You'd have fewer non-migrants employed because there were fewer non-migrants of working-age.
Edit: The bullshit is in the interpretation of the statistic - that it's part of the great replacement conspiracy.
I can't stand Trump, but Harris's overall lead is still MoE. Polls don't mean anything till after Labour Day at the earliest anyway.
In fact, if it stays this close, it will probably be decided in the courts like 2000, in which case Harris is in deep trouble.
It's a tossup.
At the moment Harris has a lower average popular vote lead over Trump than Biden or Hillary had.
However Harris is doing better in swing states than Hillary did, leading now on average in Michigan and Wisconsin for example and tied in Georgia, even if still worse than Biden did in 2020. So yes it looks the closest election in the EC since 2000 though even in 2000 had Gore been ahead in Florida even the SC stopping the count wouldn't have stopped him winning
It is close, exceptionally close. I make Harris the very narrow favourite, but Trump really only needs to flip one of the rustbelt to snatch the election.
It is worth remembering, of course, that it is far from impossible that Ms Harris holds onto WI, PA and MI, while losing the popular vote. That - assuming she held onto her single Nebraska elector - would give her a 270-268 edge.
I don't know about you guys, but I don't think we'd see a gracious concession speech from him under that scenaro.
The idea that there could be a tie 269-269 is perhaps the funniest. In which case the House selects the President and the Senate the VP, so we could theoretically have a Trump-Harris administration.
How Chinese EV maker Geely “torture tests” its new LFP blade battery for safety: - simultaneous puncture by 8 steel needles - 5.8mm infantry rifle bullet penetration test - seawater corrosion immersion - 26-ton overweight rolling - single-pack side collision - fire roasting
interesting to note it's 5kg per kwh of storage while existing more expensive and riskier lithium ion is 4kg per kwh.
LFP is for now taking over the industry, as it's much cheaper then the chemistries which involve manganese or chromium etc, is more stable and longer lasting and offers nearly as good performance.
Solid state will take over eventually, as it will represent a big improvement on almost all metrics, but it's unlikely to be available outside high end models for most of the rest of this decade.
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Trump didn't pick Vance to bring anything to the ticket - and the selection was one vetted by his son, and really at the prompting of a handful of billionaire donors.
As much as anything, it was an expression of hubris, rather than electoral calculation.
Yet Harris picked Walz from Minnesota, which has voted Democrat since 1976, over Shapiro from swing state Pennsylvania. Indeed Vance represents Ohio which voted for Obama, so is more of a swing state than Minnesota.
Though Harris will hope Walz has appeal in upper Midwest swing states Wisconsin and Michigan too
Coach Walz appeals across a wide spectrum. If AI was asked to generate a VP pick that would maximise support across the political spectrum, it would be hard pushed to generate something better than Walz.
If an assassin took out President Trump/President Harris, which VP would you want stepping up? No contest. A marginal - but non-trivial - factor in how people will vote.
This may also be a consideration given Trump’s age and the fact he doesn’t look or sound well.
The biggest bonus of Walz really though is his skill in warming up the crowds. You see lots of happy, cheering people behind Harris as she mouths platitudes at a modest pace, and lots of puzzled,bored people behind Trump as he witters on about stolen elections, persecution, massive crowds and sharks.
The contrast is stark. Trump won in 2016 partly because his energy and his backers’ enthusiasm were palpable compared to Clinton, who was dull, controversial and had a few health episodes. Now, the candidate who fits *that* bill is Trump himself.
Price controls don’t have a good track record . They might be good politics . In this case the GOP attacking Harris for fighting for consumers might backfire .
Sometimes political forums miss just how little the general public follow the minutiae of policies .
Explaining to the general public why price controls aren’t a good idea . Good luck with that .
Price controls are dependent either upon wage controls or higher taxes.
Many oldies are wiling to accept that to have the prices that they remember from previous decades:
David Mort, 90, from Risca in Caerphilly said: "For old age pensioners it's getting worse."
"A cup of tea, 20p - that's plenty. £2.20 is not a fair price," he said. "If it were me I wouldn't go in there, it's as simple as that."
Hundreds of protesters attacked a cereal cafe in east London on Saturday night, daubing the word “scum” on the shop window and setting fire to an effigy of a police officer.
Riot police were called in to defend the Cereal Killer Cafe in Shoreditch after it was targeted by a large crowd of anti-gentrification activists carrying pigs’ heads and torches.
The owners of the cafe, which has been seen by some as a symbol of inequality in east London, said on Sunday that the attack left customers including children “terrified for their lives”.
I wonder if these people were immediately arrested, tried and jailed:
The protest was advertised on Facebook as the third Fuck Parade, and was apparently organised by the anarchist group Class War. The event page stated: “Our communities are being ripped apart – by Russian oligarchs, Saudi sheiks, Israeli scumbag property developers, Texan oil-money twats and our own home-grown Eton toffs. Local authorities are coining it in, in a short-sighted race for cash by ‘regenerating’ social housing. “We don’t want luxury flats that no one can afford, we want genuinely affordable housing. We don’t want pop-up gin bars or brioche buns, we want community.” The Fuck Parade organisers had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
Class War were always scum. Interestingly, they seemed to share the body odour problem with the Fascists. And the other brands of nutters.
Hmmmm - a thesis.... The Correlation of Personal Hygiene With Political Extremism.
Trump ultimately picked Vance to double down on his Maga message and take it through to 2028 if he wins given he could not run again anyway. Vance also represents what was a swing state, Ohio, which even though it has voted for Trump twice also voted for Obama twice.
The other thing to remember is that in some important states the GOP has had four years to lever its way into the voter registration and election certification process. In a close contest this is going to be very important - and when it goes to court, guess who is in control of the one where the final decisions will be made.
It’s happening behind the scenes, but there’s an acknowledgment in Republican circles that their language around postal votes and registration was a serious factor in the 2020 result.
Their operation is being led by a guy called Scott Presler https://x.com/scottpresler who is touring the country recruiting people to sign up Republicans to vote, and encouraging them to vote early.
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
I can't stand Trump, but Harris's overall lead is still MoE. Polls don't mean anything till after Labour Day at the earliest anyway.
In fact, if it stays this close, it will probably be decided in the courts like 2000, in which case Harris is in deep trouble.
It's a tossup.
At the moment Harris has a lower average popular vote lead over Trump than Biden or Hillary had.
However Harris is doing better in swing states than Hillary did, leading now on average in Michigan and Wisconsin for example and tied in Georgia, even if still worse than Biden did in 2020. So yes it looks the closest election in the EC since 2000 though even in 2000 had Gore been ahead in Florida even the SC stopping the count wouldn't have stopped him winning
It is close, exceptionally close. I make Harris the very narrow favourite, but Trump really only needs to flip one of the rustbelt to snatch the election.
It is worth remembering, of course, that it is far from impossible that Ms Harris holds onto WI, PA and MI, while losing the popular vote. That - assuming she held onto her single Nebraska elector - would give her a 270-268 edge.
I don't know about you guys, but I don't think we'd see a gracious concession speech from him under that scenaro.
The idea that there could be a tie 269-269 is perhaps the funniest. In which case the House selects the President and the Senate the VP, so we could theoretically have a Trump-Harris administration.
That he's the only person ever to win the popular vote and the electoral vote but still not win the Presidential election is a small thing to make me smile then.
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
The fail was baked in long before. Probably before Trump got there, to be fair.
Trump ultimately picked Vance to double down on his Maga message and take it through to 2028 if he wins given he could not run again anyway. Vance also represents what was a swing state, Ohio, which even though it has voted for Trump twice also voted for Obama twice.
Ohio is no longer a swing state.
Since the Vance pick, it might be...
Vance seems to have swung quite a lot at one time…
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Vance brings an understanding of the working class, of success through adversity, of the importance of family.
He has the backstory of a modern Abraham Lincoln, of the supposed 'American dream' personified.
Unfortunately Vance is a bit odd and has picked up some extreme views along the way - unsurprisingly with his traumatic background.
So why weren't these oddities and extreme views picked up on during the selection process ?
My theory is that Don Jnr and Vance have some sort of bromance based upon family issues - Vance had a difficult upbringing and having Trump as your father might not have been easy.
It seems that Musk and Thiel were highly instrumental in the Vance pick. Going with Vance unlocks Tech Bro/Crypto money that Trump very badly needs.
If so then perhaps this is more evidence for Vance 2028.
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
May 2021 (the date Trump’s withdrawal deal took effect) was four months after the inauguration. The withdrawal as the Taliban took Kabul was August - seven months.
Edit - if you check the dates, you will also find significant troop transfers that had not been planned (amounting to around 75% of US forces) happened in November and December 2020.
Incidentally, the only reason I would disagree that withdrawing was the right idea is because I’ve never understood why some people thought the invasion would be a good idea in the first place.
Incidentally, an acquaintance has taken on an intern for the summer in a tech role.
Interns often have issues with their (usually first) interactions with an office-based work environment, but one lass is having more than usual, as she has zero idea how to drive a Windows-style WIMP GUI. It looks as though she has only ever used phones and tablets.
I can't stand Trump, but Harris's overall lead is still MoE. Polls don't mean anything till after Labour Day at the earliest anyway.
In fact, if it stays this close, it will probably be decided in the courts like 2000, in which case Harris is in deep trouble.
It's a tossup.
At the moment Harris has a lower average popular vote lead over Trump than Biden or Hillary had.
However Harris is doing better in swing states than Hillary did, leading now on average in Michigan and Wisconsin for example and tied in Georgia, even if still worse than Biden did in 2020. So yes it looks the closest election in the EC since 2000 though even in 2000 had Gore been ahead in Florida even the SC stopping the count wouldn't have stopped him winning
It is close, exceptionally close. I make Harris the very narrow favourite, but Trump really only needs to flip one of the rustbelt to snatch the election.
It is worth remembering, of course, that it is far from impossible that Ms Harris holds onto WI, PA and MI, while losing the popular vote. That - assuming she held onto her single Nebraska elector - would give her a 270-268 edge.
I don't know about you guys, but I don't think we'd see a gracious concession speech from him under that scenaro.
The idea that there could be a tie 269-269 is perhaps the funniest. In which case the House selects the President and the Senate the VP, so we could theoretically have a Trump-Harris administration.
That he's the only person ever to win the popular vote and the electoral vote but still not win the Presidential election is a small thing to make me smile then.
I think the US election is still going to be uncomfortably close but I do think Harris deserves to be the narrow favourite now.
She has opened up the electoral map (which gives her more routes to 270) and with the convention next week her momentum will be sustained through to September. If she has a good debate I think she’ll be the firm favourite at that point.
But it’s absolutely correct that there is still a lot of scrutiny to come for Harris and Trump is going through a rough spell. I can easily see the gap narrowing again.
BTW, I think the latest Trump attacks - i.e. focusing on cost of living, and immigration - show that he is beginning to get back on track after being completely derailed by the Biden-Harris swap.
Whether he can remain focused for the next 12 weeks remains up for debate: if he can keep the conversation on areas where he is strong (immigration and the economy), then he is very much in contention. If he goes off on grievance fueled rants, or if the conversation moves onto mental fitness or Project 2025 or abortion, then it's going to be much harder for him.
That is an interesting piece. It basically says "the Democrats lost because they had ceased to operate as a party, and were just a bunch of special interest groups".
Which certainly has some truth in it. But it also misses the fact that the 2016 election was an anomaly in some ways: Clinton clearly won the popular vote. Trump got a vote share that would have resulted in a drubbing in most years. And yes, I know that elections are won on electoral votes, but you do need to look at both. You can't say "the Democrats were really unpopular because [x]", if the Democrats actually did OK in vote terms.
That piece is also startling for how different the Trump of 2016 is to the Trump of 2024. Gone is high energy Donald... And instead we have high grievances Donald... someone obsessed by perceived slights, and a stolen election.
Donald Trump is in contention in this race for one reason, and that is that voters in the developed world have gotten poorer in the last four years. He is - otherwise - a much weaker candidate than in 2016, while Harris is a slightly better candidate than Clinton. I also don't think the Democrats are as naive as in 2016: they know that Trump is a formidable enemy, and they aren't complacent.
So, I make Harris the very narrow favourite. I think this race comes down to women's turnout: women are (a) much less likely to be Trump fans, and (b) much more concerned about abortion rights. And abortion is literally on the ballot in Florida and Arizona. If those voters come out to express their concern about abortion bans, then Trump is in real trouble. If Trump keeps the story on the economy and immigration, and he manages to keep discussion away from abortion, then he stands a good chance of winning.
I can't stand Trump, but Harris's overall lead is still MoE. Polls don't mean anything till after Labour Day at the earliest anyway.
In fact, if it stays this close, it will probably be decided in the courts like 2000, in which case Harris is in deep trouble.
It's a tossup.
At the moment Harris has a lower average popular vote lead over Trump than Biden or Hillary had.
However Harris is doing better in swing states than Hillary did, leading now on average in Michigan and Wisconsin for example and tied in Georgia, even if still worse than Biden did in 2020. So yes it looks the closest election in the EC since 2000 though even in 2000 had Gore been ahead in Florida even the SC stopping the count wouldn't have stopped him winning
It is close, exceptionally close. I make Harris the very narrow favourite, but Trump really only needs to flip one of the rustbelt to snatch the election.
It is worth remembering, of course, that it is far from impossible that Ms Harris holds onto WI, PA and MI, while losing the popular vote. That - assuming she held onto her single Nebraska elector - would give her a 270-268 edge.
I don't know about you guys, but I don't think we'd see a gracious concession speech from him under that scenaro.
The idea that there could be a tie 269-269 is perhaps the funniest. In which case the House selects the President and the Senate the VP, so we could theoretically have a Trump-Harris administration.
That he's the only person ever to win the popular vote and the electoral vote but still not win the Presidential election is a small thing to make me smile then.
Trump: Virtually 100% of the net job creation in the last year has gone to migrants In fact I've heard substantially more and actually beyond that number 100%. It’s a much higher number than that but the government has not caught up with that yet. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1824187096401318126
Almost certainly bullshit because of the speaker, but mathematically its entirely possible for net figures like this to be over 100%.
Completely making up figures as an example, imagine 50,000 jobs (net) have been created - of which 60,000 (net) have gone to migrants and there are 10,000 fewer non-migrants employed than before.
However while its possible, given who said it, I expect for that reason alone its total bullshit.
Your second reaction is the right one I think. Parsing Trump's random spewings has become as though they might make some sort of sense has become a bad habit with the media.
Maybe it’s my mistake: I was unaware it was the media’s job to make a deeply stupid and sinister man seem palatable to mainstream Americans.
But that seems to be what they are doing. Last week, an NBC News reporter asked Trump a question about his policy position on mifepristone access, and his response was absolute word salad. Gibberish. Incomprehensible rubbish.
This is what he said in response to a question from NBC’s Garrett Haake about a national abortion ban and whether he would be open to ordering the FDA to revoke the authorization for mifepristone:
"You could do things that will be—would supplement, absolutely, and those things are pretty open and humane, but you have to be able to have a vote. And all I want to do is give everybody a vote, and the votes are taking place right now as we speak."
What is he talking about? Seriously, what is that supposed to mean?
Haake then asked: “Is that something you would consider?” to which I say, literally, what?
Is what something Trump would consider? What are you referring to, Garrett? His insistence that everybody has a vote? Or some nebulous things “that would supplement absolutely” but which also would be “pretty open and humane.” What does that even mean? Where I come from, if a person gives an answer like that, you should follow up with, “What the actual fuck are you talking about?” Or, if unlike me, you’re a professional, “Can you explain what you mean?”..
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Trump didn't pick Vance to bring anything to the ticket - and the selection was one vetted by his son, and really at the prompting of a handful of billionaire donors.
As much as anything, it was an expression of hubris, rather than electoral calculation.
Yet Harris picked Walz from Minnesota, which has voted Democrat since 1976, over Shapiro from swing state Pennsylvania. Indeed Vance represents Ohio which voted for Obama, so is more of a swing state than Minnesota.
Though Harris will hope Walz has appeal in upper Midwest swing states Wisconsin and Michigan too
Coach Walz appeals across a wide spectrum. If AI was asked to generate a VP pick that would maximise support across the political spectrum, it would be hard pushed to generate something better than Walz.
If an assassin took out President Trump/President Harris, which VP would you want stepping up? No contest. A marginal - but non-trivial - factor in how people will vote.
This may also be a consideration given Trump’s age and the fact he doesn’t look or sound well.
The biggest bonus of Walz really though is his skill in warming up the crowds. You see lots of happy, cheering people behind Harris as she mouths platitudes at a modest pace, and lots of puzzled,bored people behind Trump as he witters on about stolen elections, persecution, massive crowds and sharks.
The contrast is stark. Trump won in 2016 partly because his energy and his backers’ enthusiasm were palpable compared to Clinton, who was dull, controversial and had a few health episodes. Now, the candidate who fits *that* bill is Trump himself.
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
May 2021 (the date Trump’s withdrawal deal took effect) was four months after the inauguration. The withdrawal as the Taliban took Kabul was August - seven months.
Sorry, my maths fail. Seven months is still plenty for organisation like the DoD with a budget of $2trn and literally millions of people. Admittedly, they expend a portion of those very significant resources trying to thwart the schemes of the Department of State but it's still enough time, money and people to do a better job than they did.
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Trump didn't pick Vance to bring anything to the ticket - and the selection was one vetted by his son, and really at the prompting of a handful of billionaire donors.
As much as anything, it was an expression of hubris, rather than electoral calculation.
Yet Harris picked Walz from Minnesota, which has voted Democrat since 1976, over Shapiro from swing state Pennsylvania. Indeed Vance represents Ohio which voted for Obama, so is more of a swing state than Minnesota.
Though Harris will hope Walz has appeal in upper Midwest swing states Wisconsin and Michigan too
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
For a military man, that's a rather stoopid thing to say. The seeds of failure can be sown at any time; and usually germinate long before the failure becomes apparent.
In the same way Putin's attempt to take over Ukraine in February 22 failed in the first few days; but the reasons for that failure are based in things that happened years or even decades before.
BTW, I think the latest Trump attacks - i.e. focusing on cost of living, and immigration - show that he is beginning to get back on track after being completely derailed by the Biden-Harris swap.
Whether he can remain focused for the next 12 weeks remains up for debate: if he can keep the conversation on areas where he is strong (immigration and the economy), then he is very much in contention. If he goes off on grievance fueled rants, or if the conversation moves onto mental fitness or Project 2025 or abortion, then it's going to be much harder for him.
That is an interesting piece. It basically says "the Democrats lost because they had ceased to operate as a party, and were just a bunch of special interest groups".
Which certainly has some truth in it. But it also misses the fact that the 2016 election was an anomaly in some ways: Clinton clearly won the popular vote. Trump got a vote share that would have resulted in a drubbing in most years. And yes, I know that elections are won on electoral votes, but you do need to look at both. You can't say "the Democrats were really unpopular because [x]", if the Democrats actually did OK in vote terms.
That piece is also startling for how different the Trump of 2016 is to the Trump of 2024. Gone is high energy Donald... And instead we have high grievances Donald... someone obsessed by perceived slights, and a stolen election.
Donald Trump is in contention in this race for one reason, and that is that voters in the developed world have gotten poorer in the last four years. He is - otherwise - a much weaker candidate than in 2016, while Harris is a slightly better candidate than Clinton. I also don't think the Democrats are as naive as in 2016: they know that Trump is a formidable enemy, and they aren't complacent.
So, I make Harris the very narrow favourite. I think this race comes down to women's turnout: women are (a) much less likely to be Trump fans, and (b) much more concerned about abortion rights. And abortion is literally on the ballot in Florida and Arizona. If those voters come out to express their concern about abortion bans, then Trump is in real trouble. If Trump keeps the story on the economy and immigration, and he manages to keep discussion away from abortion, then he stands a good chance of winning.
He has however blown the at least I'm not a criminal attack line.
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
Price controls don’t have a good track record . They might be good politics . In this case the GOP attacking Harris for fighting for consumers might backfire .
Sometimes political forums miss just how little the general public follow the minutiae of policies .
Explaining to the general public why price controls aren’t a good idea . Good luck with that .
Price controls are dependent either upon wage controls or higher taxes.
Many oldies are wiling to accept that to have the prices that they remember from previous decades:
David Mort, 90, from Risca in Caerphilly said: "For old age pensioners it's getting worse."
"A cup of tea, 20p - that's plenty. £2.20 is not a fair price," he said. "If it were me I wouldn't go in there, it's as simple as that."
Incidentally, an acquaintance has taken on an intern for the summer in a tech role.
Interns often have issues with their (usually first) interactions with an office-based work environment, but one lass is having more than usual, as she has zero idea how to drive a Windows-style WIMP GUI. It looks as though she has only ever used phones and tablets.
I wonder how common an issues this is?
What is a WIMP GUI? I've only ever used standard Microsoft office, and GLIMS (lab)
Incidentally, an acquaintance has taken on an intern for the summer in a tech role.
Interns often have issues with their (usually first) interactions with an office-based work environment, but one lass is having more than usual, as she has zero idea how to drive a Windows-style WIMP GUI. It looks as though she has only ever used phones and tablets.
I wonder how common an issues this is?
Quite a number of households don't have computers anymore (if they ever did). Tablets only, if that.
The "Home computer" category in household surveys includes tablets, IIRC.
...So, I make Harris the very narrow favourite. I think this race comes down to women's turnout: women are (a) much less likely to be Trump fans, and (b) much more concerned about abortion rights. And abortion is literally on the ballot in Florida and Arizona. If those voters come out to express their concern about abortion bans, then Trump is in real trouble. If Trump keeps the story on the economy and immigration, and he manages to keep discussion away from abortion, then he stands a good chance of winning.
Does he really win on the economy ? The Biden Harris administration can point to some pretty decent economic figures; inflation is falling; and there's likely to be at least one interest rate cut before November, possibly two. Trump's offering is, putting it generously, incoherent. And his tariff proposals plain nuts.
Trump ultimately picked Vance to double down on his Maga message and take it through to 2028 if he wins given he could not run again anyway. Vance also represents what was a swing state, Ohio, which even though it has voted for Trump twice also voted for Obama twice.
Ohio is no longer a swing state.
Since the Vance pick, it might be...
Vance seems to have swung quite a lot at one time…
Trump's base must be loving those cross-dressing images of Vance that have started, er, coming out...
Incidentally, an acquaintance has taken on an intern for the summer in a tech role.
Interns often have issues with their (usually first) interactions with an office-based work environment, but one lass is having more than usual, as she has zero idea how to drive a Windows-style WIMP GUI. It looks as though she has only ever used phones and tablets.
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
May 2021 (the date Trump’s withdrawal deal took effect) was four months after the inauguration. The withdrawal as the Taliban took Kabul was August - seven months.
Sorry, my maths fail. Seven months is still plenty for organisation like the DoD with a budget of $2trn and literally millions of people. Admittedly, they expend a portion of those very significant resources trying to thwart the schemes of the Department of State but it's still enough time, money and people to do a better job than they did.
I'm glad smarter people than me have maths fails
Yes, they possibly could and arguably should have done better. But they were deliberately set up to fail. Trump wanted a deal with the Taleban to boast about his deal making skills. Unless he's actually as stupid as he looks he must have known it would fail. And his abrupt withdrawal of so many troops between defeat and inauguration doesn't suggest he wanted to see an orderly withdrawal.
When you add in the fact Biden wanted out too, plus Covid, plus the sidelining of the Afghan government from the deal...well, it's not surprising it was a fiasco.
In many ways, however, politically speaking the worst part was the news management. Why they didn't shout Trump's ineptitude at deal making and strategy from the rooftops I don't know. Or maybe they did, but nobody listened.
Trump ultimately picked Vance to double down on his Maga message and take it through to 2028 if he wins given he could not run again anyway. Vance also represents what was a swing state, Ohio, which even though it has voted for Trump twice also voted for Obama twice.
Ohio is no longer a swing state.
Since the Vance pick, it might be...
Vance seems to have swung quite a lot at one time…
Trump's base must be loving those cross-dressing images of Vance that have started, er, coming out...
What about that one of him taking women into men's toilets?
On Ukraine the difficulties in Donetsk make me fear that the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk might be a last desperate gamble before the Donetsk front collapses.
It may end up being the case that the western failure to supply sufficient artillery ammunition, or other weapons to negate the Russian artillery advantage, are the deciding factor in the war.
Incidentally, an acquaintance has taken on an intern for the summer in a tech role.
Interns often have issues with their (usually first) interactions with an office-based work environment, but one lass is having more than usual, as she has zero idea how to drive a Windows-style WIMP GUI. It looks as though she has only ever used phones and tablets.
I wonder how common an issues this is?
What is a WIMP GUI? I've only ever used standard Microsoft office, and GLIMS (lab)
You've used it then...
It's what you get when you fire up a desktop computer - Windows, Mac or nearly all Linux systems
Incidentally, an acquaintance has taken on an intern for the summer in a tech role.
Interns often have issues with their (usually first) interactions with an office-based work environment, but one lass is having more than usual, as she has zero idea how to drive a Windows-style WIMP GUI. It looks as though she has only ever used phones and tablets.
I wonder how common an issues this is?
Surprised but not shocked, I think.
Especially for the cohort who spent a formative period doing school computing on whatever devices could be grabbed during lockdown.
(A Level sciences include some genetic IT work as part of the practical skills section, it's always a bit alarming how far back one has to start skills-wise.)
Price controls don’t have a good track record . They might be good politics . In this case the GOP attacking Harris for fighting for consumers might backfire .
Sometimes political forums miss just how little the general public follow the minutiae of policies .
Explaining to the general public why price controls aren’t a good idea . Good luck with that .
Price controls are dependent either upon wage controls or higher taxes.
Many oldies are wiling to accept that to have the prices that they remember from previous decades:
David Mort, 90, from Risca in Caerphilly said: "For old age pensioners it's getting worse."
"A cup of tea, 20p - that's plenty. £2.20 is not a fair price," he said. "If it were me I wouldn't go in there, it's as simple as that."
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Trump didn't pick Vance to bring anything to the ticket - and the selection was one vetted by his son, and really at the prompting of a handful of billionaire donors.
As much as anything, it was an expression of hubris, rather than electoral calculation.
Yet Harris picked Walz from Minnesota, which has voted Democrat since 1976, over Shapiro from swing state Pennsylvania. Indeed Vance represents Ohio which voted for Obama, so is more of a swing state than Minnesota.
Though Harris will hope Walz has appeal in upper Midwest swing states Wisconsin and Michigan too
Coach Walz appeals across a wide spectrum. If AI was asked to generate a VP pick that would maximise support across the political spectrum, it would be hard pushed to generate something better than Walz.
If an assassin took out President Trump/President Harris, which VP would you want stepping up? No contest. A marginal - but non-trivial - factor in how people will vote.
This may also be a consideration given Trump’s age and the fact he doesn’t look or sound well.
The biggest bonus of Walz really though is his skill in warming up the crowds. You see lots of happy, cheering people behind Harris as she mouths platitudes at a modest pace, and lots of puzzled,bored people behind Trump as he witters on about stolen elections, persecution, massive crowds and sharks.
The contrast is stark. Trump won in 2016 partly because his energy and his backers’ enthusiasm were palpable compared to Clinton, who was dull, controversial and had a few health episodes. Now, the candidate who fits *that* bill is Trump himself.
Plus one is more likely to actually be locked up.
If Trump wins, we can be pretty sure Harris will be locked up.
Price controls don’t have a good track record . They might be good politics . In this case the GOP attacking Harris for fighting for consumers might backfire .
Sometimes political forums miss just how little the general public follow the minutiae of policies .
Explaining to the general public why price controls aren’t a good idea . Good luck with that .
Price controls are dependent either upon wage controls or higher taxes.
Many oldies are wiling to accept that to have the prices that they remember from previous decades:
David Mort, 90, from Risca in Caerphilly said: "For old age pensioners it's getting worse."
"A cup of tea, 20p - that's plenty. £2.20 is not a fair price," he said. "If it were me I wouldn't go in there, it's as simple as that."
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Perhaps his narcissism drove it. Usually you pick a running mate to broaden the ticket. But the inference there is it's not all about you. If you win someone else has contributed and is seen to have contributed. He cannot be having that.
Incidentally, an acquaintance has taken on an intern for the summer in a tech role.
Interns often have issues with their (usually first) interactions with an office-based work environment, but one lass is having more than usual, as she has zero idea how to drive a Windows-style WIMP GUI. It looks as though she has only ever used phones and tablets.
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Perhaps his narcissism drove it. Usually you pick a running mate to broaden the ticket. But the inference there is it's not all about you. If you win someone else has contributed and is seen to have contributed. He cannot be having that.
The other irony is that in picking Walz, who seems genuinely to like Harris and so far is unswervingly loyal to her and actually not terribly interested in the limelight for its own sake, Harris seems to have come up with a Veep candidate who's much more on board for her candidacy than Vance is with Trump.
Have you noticed how at the end of every speech he makes when he shakes Harris' hand he points at her and smiles to show how she's the important one? And gets a big cheer for it?
Incidentally, an acquaintance has taken on an intern for the summer in a tech role.
Interns often have issues with their (usually first) interactions with an office-based work environment, but one lass is having more than usual, as she has zero idea how to drive a Windows-style WIMP GUI. It looks as though she has only ever used phones and tablets.
I wonder how common an issues this is?
What is a WIMP GUI? I've only ever used standard Microsoft office, and GLIMS (lab)
You've used it then...
It's what you get when you fire up a desktop computer - Windows, Mac or nearly all Linux systems
Thank God you got it correct. Far too many people used to say: "Windows, Icons, Mouse and Pointer," including some technical magazines. Except windows, icons, menus and pointers are software, and a mouse is hardware...
If you'd got that wrong, I'd have to have banished you to ConHome in shame...
...So, I make Harris the very narrow favourite. I think this race comes down to women's turnout: women are (a) much less likely to be Trump fans, and (b) much more concerned about abortion rights. And abortion is literally on the ballot in Florida and Arizona. If those voters come out to express their concern about abortion bans, then Trump is in real trouble. If Trump keeps the story on the economy and immigration, and he manages to keep discussion away from abortion, then he stands a good chance of winning.
Does he really win on the economy ? The Biden Harris administration can point to some pretty decent economic figures; inflation is falling; and there's likely to be at least one interest rate cut before November, possibly two. Trump's offering is, putting it generously, incoherent. And his tariff proposals plain nuts.
How did “inflation is falling” work out for Rishi Sunak?
Prices are a lot higher than they were four years ago.
Incidentally, an acquaintance has taken on an intern for the summer in a tech role.
Interns often have issues with their (usually first) interactions with an office-based work environment, but one lass is having more than usual, as she has zero idea how to drive a Windows-style WIMP GUI. It looks as though she has only ever used phones and tablets.
I wonder how common an issues this is?
What is a WIMP GUI? I've only ever used standard Microsoft office, and GLIMS (lab)
You've used it then...
It's what you get when you fire up a desktop computer - Windows, Mac or nearly all Linux systems
Thank God you got it correct. Far too many people used to say: "Windows, Icons, Mouse and Pointer," including some technical magazines. Except windows, icons, menus and pointers are software, and a mouse is hardware...
If you'd got that wrong, I'd have to have banished you to ConHome in shame...
And GUI is Graphical User Interface.
Mouse and Pointer would be a tad redundant, would it not too?
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Trump didn't pick Vance to bring anything to the ticket - and the selection was one vetted by his son, and really at the prompting of a handful of billionaire donors.
As much as anything, it was an expression of hubris, rather than electoral calculation.
Yet Harris picked Walz from Minnesota, which has voted Democrat since 1976, over Shapiro from swing state Pennsylvania. Indeed Vance represents Ohio which voted for Obama, so is more of a swing state than Minnesota.
Though Harris will hope Walz has appeal in upper Midwest swing states Wisconsin and Michigan too
Coach Walz appeals across a wide spectrum. If AI was asked to generate a VP pick that would maximise support across the political spectrum, it would be hard pushed to generate something better than Walz.
If an assassin took out President Trump/President Harris, which VP would you want stepping up? No contest. A marginal - but non-trivial - factor in how people will vote.
This may also be a consideration given Trump’s age and the fact he doesn’t look or sound well.
The biggest bonus of Walz really though is his skill in warming up the crowds. You see lots of happy, cheering people behind Harris as she mouths platitudes at a modest pace, and lots of puzzled,bored people behind Trump as he witters on about stolen elections, persecution, massive crowds and sharks.
The contrast is stark. Trump won in 2016 partly because his energy and his backers’ enthusiasm were palpable compared to Clinton, who was dull, controversial and had a few health episodes. Now, the candidate who fits *that* bill is Trump himself.
Plus one is more likely to actually be locked up.
If Trump wins, we can be pretty sure Harris will be locked up.
Unless he has the army behind him to impose a dictatorship highly unlikely unless Harris commits a serious crime
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
May 2021 (the date Trump’s withdrawal deal took effect) was four months after the inauguration. The withdrawal as the Taliban took Kabul was August - seven months.
Edit - if you check the dates, you will also find significant troop transfers that had not been planned (amounting to around 75% of US forces) happened in November and December 2020.
Incidentally, the only reason I would disagree that withdrawing was the right idea is because I’ve never understood why some people thought the invasion would be a good idea in the first place.
Biden wanted to celebrate the withdrawal on September 11th 2021, and was pushing everything towards that deadline.
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Trump didn't pick Vance to bring anything to the ticket - and the selection was one vetted by his son, and really at the prompting of a handful of billionaire donors.
As much as anything, it was an expression of hubris, rather than electoral calculation.
Yet Harris picked Walz from Minnesota, which has voted Democrat since 1976, over Shapiro from swing state Pennsylvania. Indeed Vance represents Ohio which voted for Obama, so is more of a swing state than Minnesota.
Though Harris will hope Walz has appeal in upper Midwest swing states Wisconsin and Michigan too
Coach Walz appeals across a wide spectrum. If AI was asked to generate a VP pick that would maximise support across the political spectrum, it would be hard pushed to generate something better than Walz.
If an assassin took out President Trump/President Harris, which VP would you want stepping up? No contest. A marginal - but non-trivial - factor in how people will vote.
This may also be a consideration given Trump’s age and the fact he doesn’t look or sound well.
The biggest bonus of Walz really though is his skill in warming up the crowds. You see lots of happy, cheering people behind Harris as she mouths platitudes at a modest pace, and lots of puzzled,bored people behind Trump as he witters on about stolen elections, persecution, massive crowds and sharks.
The contrast is stark. Trump won in 2016 partly because his energy and his backers’ enthusiasm were palpable compared to Clinton, who was dull, controversial and had a few health episodes. Now, the candidate who fits *that* bill is Trump himself.
Plus one is more likely to actually be locked up.
If Trump wins, we can be pretty sure Harris will be locked up.
Unless he has the army behind him to impose a dictatorship highly unlikely unless Harris commits a serious crime
She's already committed one. Calling the Great Leader a fraudster and sexual creep.
And he doesn't need the army, just the courts.
Who are, of course, entirely impartial and not at all throwing out cases for political reasons, or declaring Presidents have immunity because it's June.
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Trump didn't pick Vance to bring anything to the ticket - and the selection was one vetted by his son, and really at the prompting of a handful of billionaire donors.
As much as anything, it was an expression of hubris, rather than electoral calculation.
Yet Harris picked Walz from Minnesota, which has voted Democrat since 1976, over Shapiro from swing state Pennsylvania. Indeed Vance represents Ohio which voted for Obama, so is more of a swing state than Minnesota.
Though Harris will hope Walz has appeal in upper Midwest swing states Wisconsin and Michigan too
Minnesota is more of a swing state than Ohio.
It isn't, Minnesota has voted Democrat at every presidential election since 1976. Ohio voted for Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton twice and Obama twice over the same timeframe even if it voted for Trump last time.
Biden won Minnesota by 7% in 2020 which was only fractionally less than the 8% Trump won Ohio by
Incidentally, an acquaintance has taken on an intern for the summer in a tech role.
Interns often have issues with their (usually first) interactions with an office-based work environment, but one lass is having more than usual, as she has zero idea how to drive a Windows-style WIMP GUI. It looks as though she has only ever used phones and tablets.
I wonder how common an issues this is?
Perhaps she's a Mac Victim ?
(Good morning everyone.)
A Mac should be fine, interface-wise. It's not too hard to move from a desktop Mac to Windows and vice versa.
The problem is many tablet apps are rather simplified, and the way desktop GUIs work can be rather different. For one thing, the presence of both network and local storage can be much more pronounced on desktop than it is on tablets. Not realising you've saved a file onto the local device, and not onto the network, as an example.
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
May 2021 (the date Trump’s withdrawal deal took effect) was four months after the inauguration. The withdrawal as the Taliban took Kabul was August - seven months.
Edit - if you check the dates, you will also find significant troop transfers that had not been planned (amounting to around 75% of US forces) happened in November and December 2020.
Incidentally, the only reason I would disagree that withdrawing was the right idea is because I’ve never understood why some people thought the invasion would be a good idea in the first place.
Biden wanted to celebrate the withdrawal on September 11th 2021, and was pushing everything towards that deadline.
That’s why it ended up being such a mess.
America had failed to win the war and peace after 20 years in the country, that's why it ended up being such a mess.
Withdrawals after being defeated are rarely pleasant.
Still, America's mess in Afghanistan is nothing like the mess that Putin has gotten Russia into in Ukraine - that's a whole another level.
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
May 2021 (the date Trump’s withdrawal deal took effect) was four months after the inauguration. The withdrawal as the Taliban took Kabul was August - seven months.
Edit - if you check the dates, you will also find significant troop transfers that had not been planned (amounting to around 75% of US forces) happened in November and December 2020.
Incidentally, the only reason I would disagree that withdrawing was the right idea is because I’ve never understood why some people thought the invasion would be a good idea in the first place.
As it removed Bin Laden and the Taliban from power and enabled Bin Laden to be caught and killed in a Pakistani city where he fled
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Trump didn't pick Vance to bring anything to the ticket - and the selection was one vetted by his son, and really at the prompting of a handful of billionaire donors.
As much as anything, it was an expression of hubris, rather than electoral calculation.
Yet Harris picked Walz from Minnesota, which has voted Democrat since 1976, over Shapiro from swing state Pennsylvania. Indeed Vance represents Ohio which voted for Obama, so is more of a swing state than Minnesota.
Though Harris will hope Walz has appeal in upper Midwest swing states Wisconsin and Michigan too
Minnesota is more of a swing state than Ohio.
It isn't, Minnesota has voted Democrat at every presidential election since 1976. Ohio voted for Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton twice and Obama twice over the same timeframe even if it voted for Trump last time.
Biden won Minnesota by 7% in 2020 which was only fractionally less than the 8% Trump won Ohio by
That the winning candidate won a state by less than the losing candidate won a state shows its the latter which is by far the "safer" state today, even if it used to be a swing state.
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Trump didn't pick Vance to bring anything to the ticket - and the selection was one vetted by his son, and really at the prompting of a handful of billionaire donors.
As much as anything, it was an expression of hubris, rather than electoral calculation.
Yet Harris picked Walz from Minnesota, which has voted Democrat since 1976, over Shapiro from swing state Pennsylvania. Indeed Vance represents Ohio which voted for Obama, so is more of a swing state than Minnesota.
Though Harris will hope Walz has appeal in upper Midwest swing states Wisconsin and Michigan too
Minnesota is more of a swing state than Ohio.
It isn't, Minnesota has voted Democrat at every presidential election since 1976. Ohio voted for Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton twice and Obama twice over the same timeframe even if it voted for Trump last time
Ohio had voted for every winning candidate since 1960 until it didn't. (And only twice in all the twentieth century did it vote for the losing candidate - 1944 and 1960.)
Things can change. Just as Kensington used to be the safest Conservative seat in the country just 20 years ago and is now a safe Labour seat.
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
May 2021 (the date Trump’s withdrawal deal took effect) was four months after the inauguration. The withdrawal as the Taliban took Kabul was August - seven months.
Edit - if you check the dates, you will also find significant troop transfers that had not been planned (amounting to around 75% of US forces) happened in November and December 2020.
Incidentally, the only reason I would disagree that withdrawing was the right idea is because I’ve never understood why some people thought the invasion would be a good idea in the first place.
As it removed Bin Laden and the Taliban from power and enabled Bin Laden to be caught and killed in a Pakistani city where he fled
This may come as a slight surprise, Hyufd. But it didn't remove the Taliban from power. It temporarily removed them from Kabul.
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
May 2021 (the date Trump’s withdrawal deal took effect) was four months after the inauguration. The withdrawal as the Taliban took Kabul was August - seven months.
Sorry, my maths fail. Seven months is still plenty for organisation like the DoD with a budget of $2trn and literally millions of people. Admittedly, they expend a portion of those very significant resources trying to thwart the schemes of the Department of State but it's still enough time, money and people to do a better job than they did.
I'm glad smarter people than me have maths fails
Yes, they possibly could and arguably should have done better. But they were deliberately set up to fail. Trump wanted a deal with the Taleban to boast about his deal making skills. Unless he's actually as stupid as he looks he must have known it would fail. And his abrupt withdrawal of so many troops between defeat and inauguration doesn't suggest he wanted to see an orderly withdrawal.
When you add in the fact Biden wanted out too, plus Covid, plus the sidelining of the Afghan government from the deal...well, it's not surprising it was a fiasco.
In many ways, however, politically speaking the worst part was the news management. Why they didn't shout Trump's ineptitude at deal making and strategy from the rooftops I don't know. Or maybe they did, but nobody listened.
In hindsight, and I am not saying I would have thought of it at the time or am remotely suitable to run such an undertaking, they would have been better off gradually collapsing the US presence to Bagram which was much easier to secure and doing the final exfiltration from there.
However, by 2021 the US contingent at Bagram was very druggy, quite rapey and generally toxic so I can see the problem with letting them organise the final curtain on the Afghan adventure.
...So, I make Harris the very narrow favourite. I think this race comes down to women's turnout: women are (a) much less likely to be Trump fans, and (b) much more concerned about abortion rights. And abortion is literally on the ballot in Florida and Arizona. If those voters come out to express their concern about abortion bans, then Trump is in real trouble. If Trump keeps the story on the economy and immigration, and he manages to keep discussion away from abortion, then he stands a good chance of winning.
Does he really win on the economy ? The Biden Harris administration can point to some pretty decent economic figures; inflation is falling; and there's likely to be at least one interest rate cut before November, possibly two. Trump's offering is, putting it generously, incoherent. And his tariff proposals plain nuts.
How did “inflation is falling” work out for Rishi Sunak?
Prices are a lot higher than they were four years ago.
And from what I hear eating out is significantly more expensive which is something people in America really notice...
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Trump didn't pick Vance to bring anything to the ticket - and the selection was one vetted by his son, and really at the prompting of a handful of billionaire donors.
As much as anything, it was an expression of hubris, rather than electoral calculation.
Yet Harris picked Walz from Minnesota, which has voted Democrat since 1976, over Shapiro from swing state Pennsylvania. Indeed Vance represents Ohio which voted for Obama, so is more of a swing state than Minnesota.
Though Harris will hope Walz has appeal in upper Midwest swing states Wisconsin and Michigan too
Minnesota is more of a swing state than Ohio.
It isn't, Minnesota has voted Democrat at every presidential election since 1976. Ohio voted for Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton twice and Obama twice over the same timeframe even if it voted for Trump last time
Ohio had voted for every winning candidate since 1960 until it didn't. (And only twice in all the twentieth century did it vote for the losing candidate - 1944 and 1960.)
Things can change. Just as Kensington used to be the safest Conservative seat in the country just 20 years ago and is now a safe Labour seat.
Kensington is no longer a safe Tory seat but it is still certainly a swing seat not safe Labour. Indeed Kensington and Bayswater is now only the 76th Conservative target seat so the Tories could win it back from Labour even if Labour still won a clear majority nationally https://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/conservative
Ohio is also still a swing state just one that is particularly pro Trump relative to say Romney or McCain when they were GOP nominees and it voted for Obama
How Chinese EV maker Geely “torture tests” its new LFP blade battery for safety: - simultaneous puncture by 8 steel needles - 5.8mm infantry rifle bullet penetration test - seawater corrosion immersion - 26-ton overweight rolling - single-pack side collision - fire roasting
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Trump didn't pick Vance to bring anything to the ticket - and the selection was one vetted by his son, and really at the prompting of a handful of billionaire donors.
As much as anything, it was an expression of hubris, rather than electoral calculation.
Yet Harris picked Walz from Minnesota, which has voted Democrat since 1976, over Shapiro from swing state Pennsylvania. Indeed Vance represents Ohio which voted for Obama, so is more of a swing state than Minnesota.
Though Harris will hope Walz has appeal in upper Midwest swing states Wisconsin and Michigan too
Coach Walz appeals across a wide spectrum. If AI was asked to generate a VP pick that would maximise support across the political spectrum, it would be hard pushed to generate something better than Walz.
If an assassin took out President Trump/President Harris, which VP would you want stepping up? No contest. A marginal - but non-trivial - factor in how people will vote.
This may also be a consideration given Trump’s age and the fact he doesn’t look or sound well.
The biggest bonus of Walz really though is his skill in warming up the crowds. You see lots of happy, cheering people behind Harris as she mouths platitudes at a modest pace, and lots of puzzled,bored people behind Trump as he witters on about stolen elections, persecution, massive crowds and sharks.
The contrast is stark. Trump won in 2016 partly because his energy and his backers’ enthusiasm were palpable compared to Clinton, who was dull, controversial and had a few health episodes. Now, the candidate who fits *that* bill is Trump himself.
Plus one is more likely to actually be locked up.
If Trump wins, we can be pretty sure Harris will be locked up.
Unless he has the army behind him to impose a dictatorship highly unlikely unless Harris commits a serious crime
She's already committed one. Calling the Great Leader a fraudster and sexual creep.
And he doesn't need the army, just the courts.
Who are, of course, entirely impartial and not at all throwing out cases for political reasons, or declaring Presidents have immunity because it's June.
The courts aren't just going to jail someone who has committed no crime even if most of the judges are Republicans.
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Trump didn't pick Vance to bring anything to the ticket - and the selection was one vetted by his son, and really at the prompting of a handful of billionaire donors.
As much as anything, it was an expression of hubris, rather than electoral calculation.
Yet Harris picked Walz from Minnesota, which has voted Democrat since 1976, over Shapiro from swing state Pennsylvania. Indeed Vance represents Ohio which voted for Obama, so is more of a swing state than Minnesota.
Though Harris will hope Walz has appeal in upper Midwest swing states Wisconsin and Michigan too
Minnesota is more of a swing state than Ohio.
It isn't, Minnesota has voted Democrat at every presidential election since 1976. Ohio voted for Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton twice and Obama twice over the same timeframe even if it voted for Trump last time
Ohio had voted for every winning candidate since 1960 until it didn't. (And only twice in all the twentieth century did it vote for the losing candidate - 1944 and 1960.)
Things can change. Just as Kensington used to be the safest Conservative seat in the country just 20 years ago and is now a safe Labour seat.
Kensington is no longer a safe Tory seat but it is still certainly a swing seat not safe Labour. Indeed Kensington and Bayswater is now only the 76th Conservative target seat so the Tories could win it back from Labour even if Labour still won a clear majority nationally https://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/conservative
Ohio is also still a swing state just one that is particularly pro Trump relative to say Romney or McCain when they were GOP nominees and it voted for Obama
Swing states don't tend to go to the losing candidate, let alone the losing candidate by 8%.
Ohio used to be a swing state, it might be again in the future, but currently its safe GOP.
Incidentally, in much more important news: Chris Woakes was carrying an injury when he withdrew from the Hundred nonsense. That's why England insisted he be rested.
If Woakes and Stokes are injured even if Woakes is fit to play surely even that idiot Key has to call up more cover?
With Higgins injured as well, you would guess Barnard would be next cab off the rank, but maybe Kasey Aldridge has just timed his runs perfectly if he takes a few today?
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
May 2021 (the date Trump’s withdrawal deal took effect) was four months after the inauguration. The withdrawal as the Taliban took Kabul was August - seven months.
Edit - if you check the dates, you will also find significant troop transfers that had not been planned (amounting to around 75% of US forces) happened in November and December 2020.
Incidentally, the only reason I would disagree that withdrawing was the right idea is because I’ve never understood why some people thought the invasion would be a good idea in the first place.
Biden wanted to celebrate the withdrawal on September 11th 2021, and was pushing everything towards that deadline.
That’s why it ended up being such a mess.
America had failed to win the war and peace after 20 years in the country, that's why it ended up being such a mess.
Withdrawals after being defeated are rarely pleasant.
Still, America's mess in Afghanistan is nothing like the mess that Putin has gotten Russia into in Ukraine - that's a whole another level.
The Ukranians are still advancing into Russia, it’s totally nuts.
The Russians are digging trenches around the railways at Lgov, but the Ukranians now have main battle tanks advancing their positions which don’t care much about trenches.
10 days now, and they’ve been totally unable to throw much more than untrained conscripts at the situation, most of which are now PoWs, because we all would be when confronted with an actual enemy army.
I had first assumed that this was some sort of special forces raid that would go and get something close to the border and then extract themselves, but it’s clearly as much of an invasion as we saw in Feb ‘22, just better organised and with reinforcements coming from behind. Oh, and without the indiscriminate killing of civilians. Meanwhile, there’s now 200,000 evacuees in the wider region, that the Russians have to put somewhere.
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Trump didn't pick Vance to bring anything to the ticket - and the selection was one vetted by his son, and really at the prompting of a handful of billionaire donors.
As much as anything, it was an expression of hubris, rather than electoral calculation.
Yet Harris picked Walz from Minnesota, which has voted Democrat since 1976, over Shapiro from swing state Pennsylvania. Indeed Vance represents Ohio which voted for Obama, so is more of a swing state than Minnesota.
Though Harris will hope Walz has appeal in upper Midwest swing states Wisconsin and Michigan too
Coach Walz appeals across a wide spectrum. If AI was asked to generate a VP pick that would maximise support across the political spectrum, it would be hard pushed to generate something better than Walz.
If an assassin took out President Trump/President Harris, which VP would you want stepping up? No contest. A marginal - but non-trivial - factor in how people will vote.
This may also be a consideration given Trump’s age and the fact he doesn’t look or sound well.
The biggest bonus of Walz really though is his skill in warming up the crowds. You see lots of happy, cheering people behind Harris as she mouths platitudes at a modest pace, and lots of puzzled,bored people behind Trump as he witters on about stolen elections, persecution, massive crowds and sharks.
The contrast is stark. Trump won in 2016 partly because his energy and his backers’ enthusiasm were palpable compared to Clinton, who was dull, controversial and had a few health episodes. Now, the candidate who fits *that* bill is Trump himself.
Plus one is more likely to actually be locked up.
If Trump wins, we can be pretty sure Harris will be locked up.
Unless he has the army behind him to impose a dictatorship highly unlikely unless Harris commits a serious crime
She's already committed one. Calling the Great Leader a fraudster and sexual creep.
And he doesn't need the army, just the courts.
Who are, of course, entirely impartial and not at all throwing out cases for political reasons, or declaring Presidents have immunity because it's June.
The courts aren't just going to jail someone who has committed no crime even if most of the judges are Republicans.
They just need to say in light of whatever the Supreme Court called their nonsense on immunity that they have no power to release her.
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Trump didn't pick Vance to bring anything to the ticket - and the selection was one vetted by his son, and really at the prompting of a handful of billionaire donors.
As much as anything, it was an expression of hubris, rather than electoral calculation.
Yet Harris picked Walz from Minnesota, which has voted Democrat since 1976, over Shapiro from swing state Pennsylvania. Indeed Vance represents Ohio which voted for Obama, so is more of a swing state than Minnesota.
Though Harris will hope Walz has appeal in upper Midwest swing states Wisconsin and Michigan too
Minnesota is more of a swing state than Ohio.
It isn't, Minnesota has voted Democrat at every presidential election since 1976. Ohio voted for Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton twice and Obama twice over the same timeframe even if it voted for Trump last time
Ohio had voted for every winning candidate since 1960 until it didn't. (And only twice in all the twentieth century did it vote for the losing candidate - 1944 and 1960.)
Things can change. Just as Kensington used to be the safest Conservative seat in the country just 20 years ago and is now a safe Labour seat.
Kensington is no longer a safe Tory seat but it is still certainly a swing seat not safe Labour. Indeed Kensington and Bayswater is now only the 76th Conservative target seat so the Tories could win it back from Labour even if Labour still won a clear majority nationally https://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/conservative
Ohio is also still a swing state just one that is particularly pro Trump relative to say Romney or McCain when they were GOP nominees and it voted for Obama
Swing states don't tend to go to the losing candidate, let alone the losing candidate by 8%.
Ohio used to be a swing state, it might be again in the future, but currently its safe GOP.
It is reasonably safe for Trump, not necessarily for the GOP.
Just as Mansfield or Grimsby were reasonably safe for Boris not necessarily for the Tories and now both have Labour MPs again since Boris left
That list doesn't have "overcharge it too fast" in it !
Overcharge/Overdischarge protection is a function of the BMS not the battery. I don't think there is much that can be done to the battery, in isolation, to inhibit dendrite formation eventually leading to entertaining fires and explosions.
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
May 2021 (the date Trump’s withdrawal deal took effect) was four months after the inauguration. The withdrawal as the Taliban took Kabul was August - seven months.
Edit - if you check the dates, you will also find significant troop transfers that had not been planned (amounting to around 75% of US forces) happened in November and December 2020.
Incidentally, the only reason I would disagree that withdrawing was the right idea is because I’ve never understood why some people thought the invasion would be a good idea in the first place.
Biden wanted to celebrate the withdrawal on September 11th 2021, and was pushing everything towards that deadline.
That’s why it ended up being such a mess.
America had failed to win the war and peace after 20 years in the country, that's why it ended up being such a mess.
Withdrawals after being defeated are rarely pleasant.
Still, America's mess in Afghanistan is nothing like the mess that Putin has gotten Russia into in Ukraine - that's a whole another level.
The Ukranians are still advancing into Russia, it’s totally nuts.
The Russians are digging trenches around the railways at Lvov, but the Ukranians now have main battle tanks advancing their positions which don’t care much about trenches.
10 days now, and they’ve been totally unable to throw much more than untrained conscripts at the situation, most of which are now PoWs, because we all would be when confronted with an actual enemy army.
I had first assumed that this was some sort of special forces raid that would go and get something close to the border and then extract themselves, but it’s clearly as much of an invasion as we saw in Feb ‘22, just better organised and with reinforcements coming from behind. Oh, and without the indiscriminate killing of civilians. Meanwhile, there’s now 200,000 evacuees in the wider region, that the Russians have to put somewhere.
Hope Ukr have worked out their supply chains in detail rather than just rushing ahead.
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
May 2021 (the date Trump’s withdrawal deal took effect) was four months after the inauguration. The withdrawal as the Taliban took Kabul was August - seven months.
Edit - if you check the dates, you will also find significant troop transfers that had not been planned (amounting to around 75% of US forces) happened in November and December 2020.
Incidentally, the only reason I would disagree that withdrawing was the right idea is because I’ve never understood why some people thought the invasion would be a good idea in the first place.
Biden wanted to celebrate the withdrawal on September 11th 2021, and was pushing everything towards that deadline.
That’s why it ended up being such a mess.
America had failed to win the war and peace after 20 years in the country, that's why it ended up being such a mess.
Withdrawals after being defeated are rarely pleasant.
Still, America's mess in Afghanistan is nothing like the mess that Putin has gotten Russia into in Ukraine - that's a whole another level.
The Ukranians are still advancing into Russia, it’s totally nuts.
The Russians are digging trenches around the railways at Lvov, but the Ukranians now have main battle tanks advancing their positions which don’t care much about trenches.
10 days now, and they’ve been totally unable to throw much more than untrained conscripts at the situation, most of which are now PoWs, because we all would be when confronted with an actual enemy army.
I had first assumed that this was some sort of special forces raid that would go and get something close to the border and then extract themselves, but it’s clearly as much of an invasion as we saw in Feb ‘22, just better organised and with reinforcements coming from behind. Oh, and without the indiscriminate killing of civilians. Meanwhile, there’s now 200,000 evacuees in the wider region, that the Russians have to put somewhere.
One of the Russian cope strategies online was to say: "We're slowly advancing in the east of Ukraine whilst our great armoured fist, complete with T-14s and SU-57s, is being prepared for the knockout blow on Kyiv / Kharkiv / Odessa!!!!"
In other words, that Russia had a large force ready to go into Ukraine once they had denuded Ukraine enough.
I think it's now clear that that was utter copium b/s. The Ukrainians may be being denuded, but the Russians have also been. They don't seem to have a great deal spare.
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
May 2021 (the date Trump’s withdrawal deal took effect) was four months after the inauguration. The withdrawal as the Taliban took Kabul was August - seven months.
Edit - if you check the dates, you will also find significant troop transfers that had not been planned (amounting to around 75% of US forces) happened in November and December 2020.
Incidentally, the only reason I would disagree that withdrawing was the right idea is because I’ve never understood why some people thought the invasion would be a good idea in the first place.
As it removed Bin Laden and the Taliban from power and enabled Bin Laden to be caught and killed in a Pakistani city where he fled
This may come as a slight surprise, Hyufd. But it didn't remove the Taliban from power. It temporarily removed them from Kabul.
Which is the capital and they only got back to power once US troops withdrew. The aim of the invasion was ultimately primarily to kill Bin Laden post 9/11 which was achieved
Trump was always going to find having a running mate hard. It required him to think about someone else for a moment or two. He also sent a mob to lynch his previous running mate so not everyone would be up for the job.
Pence at least brought his evangelicals into the tent. I am really not sure what Vance was meant to bring but for Trump to pick someone with such a rich vein of misogyny going back for years seems to have doubled down on a weakness of his own. If I was to point to one single factor that was weighing this race Harris's way it would be the differential on women voters. Its the abortion thing, the misogyny, the pussy grabbing thing, the lack of loyalty to serial spouses, the patronising crap and the gratuitous rudeness handed out to Harris. Its a long list of reasons that is going to alienate a lot of women.
Trump didn't pick Vance to bring anything to the ticket - and the selection was one vetted by his son, and really at the prompting of a handful of billionaire donors.
As much as anything, it was an expression of hubris, rather than electoral calculation.
Yet Harris picked Walz from Minnesota, which has voted Democrat since 1976, over Shapiro from swing state Pennsylvania. Indeed Vance represents Ohio which voted for Obama, so is more of a swing state than Minnesota.
Though Harris will hope Walz has appeal in upper Midwest swing states Wisconsin and Michigan too
Coach Walz appeals across a wide spectrum. If AI was asked to generate a VP pick that would maximise support across the political spectrum, it would be hard pushed to generate something better than Walz.
If an assassin took out President Trump/President Harris, which VP would you want stepping up? No contest. A marginal - but non-trivial - factor in how people will vote.
This may also be a consideration given Trump’s age and the fact he doesn’t look or sound well.
The biggest bonus of Walz really though is his skill in warming up the crowds. You see lots of happy, cheering people behind Harris as she mouths platitudes at a modest pace, and lots of puzzled,bored people behind Trump as he witters on about stolen elections, persecution, massive crowds and sharks.
The contrast is stark. Trump won in 2016 partly because his energy and his backers’ enthusiasm were palpable compared to Clinton, who was dull, controversial and had a few health episodes. Now, the candidate who fits *that* bill is Trump himself.
Plus one is more likely to actually be locked up.
If Trump wins, we can be pretty sure Harris will be locked up.
Unless he has the army behind him to impose a dictatorship highly unlikely unless Harris commits a serious crime
She's already committed one. Calling the Great Leader a fraudster and sexual creep.
And he doesn't need the army, just the courts.
Who are, of course, entirely impartial and not at all throwing out cases for political reasons, or declaring Presidents have immunity because it's June.
The courts aren't just going to jail someone who has committed no crime even if most of the judges are Republicans.
They just need to say in light of whatever the Supreme Court called their nonsense on immunity that they have no power to release her.
That's why it was such a stupid, stupid ruling.
Yes but that would assume a lower court had already convicted her of a criminal offence and jailed her, yet if she had committed no criminal offence in the first place that would not happen anyway.
The President has no constitutional powers to sentence and jail individuals himself, immunity just relates to his own liberty from prosecution
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
May 2021 (the date Trump’s withdrawal deal took effect) was four months after the inauguration. The withdrawal as the Taliban took Kabul was August - seven months.
Edit - if you check the dates, you will also find significant troop transfers that had not been planned (amounting to around 75% of US forces) happened in November and December 2020.
Incidentally, the only reason I would disagree that withdrawing was the right idea is because I’ve never understood why some people thought the invasion would be a good idea in the first place.
Biden wanted to celebrate the withdrawal on September 11th 2021, and was pushing everything towards that deadline.
That’s why it ended up being such a mess.
America had failed to win the war and peace after 20 years in the country, that's why it ended up being such a mess.
Withdrawals after being defeated are rarely pleasant.
Still, America's mess in Afghanistan is nothing like the mess that Putin has gotten Russia into in Ukraine - that's a whole another level.
The Ukranians are still advancing into Russia, it’s totally nuts.
The Russians are digging trenches around the railways at Lvov, but the Ukranians now have main battle tanks advancing their positions which don’t care much about trenches.
10 days now, and they’ve been totally unable to throw much more than untrained conscripts at the situation, most of which are now PoWs, because we all would be when confronted with an actual enemy army.
I had first assumed that this was some sort of special forces raid that would go and get something close to the border and then extract themselves, but it’s clearly as much of an invasion as we saw in Feb ‘22, just better organised and with reinforcements coming from behind. Oh, and without the indiscriminate killing of civilians. Meanwhile, there’s now 200,000 evacuees in the wider region, that the Russians have to put somewhere.
Hope Ukr have worked out their supply chains in detail rather than just rushing ahead.
There were rumours, and a subtly-worded tweet from Ukrainian railways, that they have been restoring a railway link from Ukraine into the captured area. It'd be interesting to know if that's true; or even if there is a link! (railway map online has all the place names in Cyrillic, and I find it next to impossible to navigate in that part of the world.)
Trump: Virtually 100% of the net job creation in the last year has gone to migrants In fact I've heard substantially more and actually beyond that number 100%. It’s a much higher number than that but the government has not caught up with that yet. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1824187096401318126
Almost certainly bullshit because of the speaker, but mathematically its entirely possible for net figures like this to be over 100%.
Completely making up figures as an example, imagine 50,000 jobs (net) have been created - of which 60,000 (net) have gone to migrants and there are 10,000 fewer non-migrants employed than before.
However while its possible, given who said it, I expect for that reason alone its total bullshit.
Your second reaction is the right one I think. Parsing Trump's random spewings has become as though they might make some sort of sense has become a bad habit with the media.
Maybe it’s my mistake: I was unaware it was the media’s job to make a deeply stupid and sinister man seem palatable to mainstream Americans.
But that seems to be what they are doing. Last week, an NBC News reporter asked Trump a question about his policy position on mifepristone access, and his response was absolute word salad. Gibberish. Incomprehensible rubbish.
This is what he said in response to a question from NBC’s Garrett Haake about a national abortion ban and whether he would be open to ordering the FDA to revoke the authorization for mifepristone:
"You could do things that will be—would supplement, absolutely, and those things are pretty open and humane, but you have to be able to have a vote. And all I want to do is give everybody a vote, and the votes are taking place right now as we speak."
What is he talking about? Seriously, what is that supposed to mean?
Haake then asked: “Is that something you would consider?” to which I say, literally, what?
Is what something Trump would consider? What are you referring to, Garrett? His insistence that everybody has a vote? Or some nebulous things “that would supplement absolutely” but which also would be “pretty open and humane.” What does that even mean? Where I come from, if a person gives an answer like that, you should follow up with, “What the actual fuck are you talking about?” Or, if unlike me, you’re a professional, “Can you explain what you mean?”..
It's ridiculous. He talks like somebody with concussion. Back in 2016 his supporters came up with that "take him seriously not literally" line to pre-empt this criticism (that most of what he says is an incoherent babble), in effect a piece of special pleading that their man not be held to account to usual standards. It was successful, people fell for it, and some of them still are.
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
May 2021 (the date Trump’s withdrawal deal took effect) was four months after the inauguration. The withdrawal as the Taliban took Kabul was August - seven months.
Edit - if you check the dates, you will also find significant troop transfers that had not been planned (amounting to around 75% of US forces) happened in November and December 2020.
Incidentally, the only reason I would disagree that withdrawing was the right idea is because I’ve never understood why some people thought the invasion would be a good idea in the first place.
Biden wanted to celebrate the withdrawal on September 11th 2021, and was pushing everything towards that deadline.
That’s why it ended up being such a mess.
America had failed to win the war and peace after 20 years in the country, that's why it ended up being such a mess.
Withdrawals after being defeated are rarely pleasant.
Still, America's mess in Afghanistan is nothing like the mess that Putin has gotten Russia into in Ukraine - that's a whole another level.
The Ukranians are still advancing into Russia, it’s totally nuts.
The Russians are digging trenches around the railways at Lvov, but the Ukranians now have main battle tanks advancing their positions which don’t care much about trenches.
10 days now, and they’ve been totally unable to throw much more than untrained conscripts at the situation, most of which are now PoWs, because we all would be when confronted with an actual enemy army.
I had first assumed that this was some sort of special forces raid that would go and get something close to the border and then extract themselves, but it’s clearly as much of an invasion as we saw in Feb ‘22, just better organised and with reinforcements coming from behind. Oh, and without the indiscriminate killing of civilians. Meanwhile, there’s now 200,000 evacuees in the wider region, that the Russians have to put somewhere.
One of the Russian cope strategies online was to say: "We're slowly advancing in the east of Ukraine whilst our great armoured fist, complete with T-14s and SU-57s, is being prepared for the knockout blow on Kyiv / Kharkiv / Odessa!!!!"
In other words, that Russia had a large force ready to go into Ukraine once they had denuded Ukraine enough.
I think it's now clear that that was utter copium b/s. The Ukrainians may be being denuded, but the Russians have also been. They don't seem to have a great deal spare.
The Russians may be being denuded, its not clear that Ukraine are.
Ukraine may have limited supplies of people, but they are getting supplies of munitions, tanks etc from around the globe.
While Russia acts as if it has a limitless supply of people but actually has an acute demographic crunch of its own and is sending its people into a meat grinder.
In long wars its logistics that wins wars, and Ukraine has the superior logistics.
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
May 2021 (the date Trump’s withdrawal deal took effect) was four months after the inauguration. The withdrawal as the Taliban took Kabul was August - seven months.
Edit - if you check the dates, you will also find significant troop transfers that had not been planned (amounting to around 75% of US forces) happened in November and December 2020.
Incidentally, the only reason I would disagree that withdrawing was the right idea is because I’ve never understood why some people thought the invasion would be a good idea in the first place.
Biden wanted to celebrate the withdrawal on September 11th 2021, and was pushing everything towards that deadline.
That’s why it ended up being such a mess.
America had failed to win the war and peace after 20 years in the country, that's why it ended up being such a mess.
Withdrawals after being defeated are rarely pleasant.
Still, America's mess in Afghanistan is nothing like the mess that Putin has gotten Russia into in Ukraine - that's a whole another level.
The Ukranians are still advancing into Russia, it’s totally nuts.
The Russians are digging trenches around the railways at Lgov, but the Ukranians now have main battle tanks advancing their positions which don’t care much about trenches.
10 days now, and they’ve been totally unable to throw much more than untrained conscripts at the situation, most of which are now PoWs, because we all would be when confronted with an actual enemy army.
I had first assumed that this was some sort of special forces raid that would go and get something close to the border and then extract themselves, but it’s clearly as much of an invasion as we saw in Feb ‘22, just better organised and with reinforcements coming from behind. Oh, and without the indiscriminate killing of civilians. Meanwhile, there’s now 200,000 evacuees in the wider region, that the Russians have to put somewhere.
200,000 bitching to whoever will listen that they have been evicted from their Russian homes by Ukrainians. There comes a point when even the state apparatus can't close that down and it bursts into the public consciousness.
And deliberately set things up so the final evacuation which would inevitably be chaotic would only happen after the election.
How can Trump control what Biden's team do 18 months after the inauguration? They had time to organise the withdrawal any way they preferred. Cutting and running was a good idea, the fact that it was a lethal fiasco was on the incumbents.
May 2021 (the date Trump’s withdrawal deal took effect) was four months after the inauguration. The withdrawal as the Taliban took Kabul was August - seven months.
Edit - if you check the dates, you will also find significant troop transfers that had not been planned (amounting to around 75% of US forces) happened in November and December 2020.
Incidentally, the only reason I would disagree that withdrawing was the right idea is because I’ve never understood why some people thought the invasion would be a good idea in the first place.
Biden wanted to celebrate the withdrawal on September 11th 2021, and was pushing everything towards that deadline.
That’s why it ended up being such a mess.
America had failed to win the war and peace after 20 years in the country, that's why it ended up being such a mess.
Withdrawals after being defeated are rarely pleasant.
Still, America's mess in Afghanistan is nothing like the mess that Putin has gotten Russia into in Ukraine - that's a whole another level.
The Ukranians are still advancing into Russia, it’s totally nuts.
The Russians are digging trenches around the railways at Lvov, but the Ukranians now have main battle tanks advancing their positions which don’t care much about trenches.
10 days now, and they’ve been totally unable to throw much more than untrained conscripts at the situation, most of which are now PoWs, because we all would be when confronted with an actual enemy army.
I had first assumed that this was some sort of special forces raid that would go and get something close to the border and then extract themselves, but it’s clearly as much of an invasion as we saw in Feb ‘22, just better organised and with reinforcements coming from behind. Oh, and without the indiscriminate killing of civilians. Meanwhile, there’s now 200,000 evacuees in the wider region, that the Russians have to put somewhere.
One of the Russian cope strategies online was to say: "We're slowly advancing in the east of Ukraine whilst our great armoured fist, complete with T-14s and SU-57s, is being prepared for the knockout blow on Kyiv / Kharkiv / Odessa!!!!"
In other words, that Russia had a large force ready to go into Ukraine once they had denuded Ukraine enough.
I think it's now clear that that was utter copium b/s. The Ukrainians may be being denuded, but the Russians have also been. They don't seem to have a great deal spare.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. The Ukrainians have captured an area about the size of Berkshire. At the same time, they have lost an area the size of England and Wales combined and they seem to be falling back in the south.
Yes, highly embarrassing for Putin. Makes him look stupid. But it comes with significant risks for Ukraine and it's not wholly clear yet what they expect to get from it, never mind will get.
It may put an end to the idea of a stalemated war, Korea Mark 2. But given Russia's size and resources that may not be to Ukraine's advantage.
Comments
https://www.hoover.org/research/why-trump-won
"There’s a gas pipeline running *right thru* Ukraine which supplies Russian gas and Ukraine has left it undamaged.
Instead they blew up Nordstream 2, saving Russian billions of $ in fines cos it’s a force majeure, just as a Russian military deep sea dive boat was right next to it"
I'd almost feel sorry for that candidate, except its Andrew Jackson, the worst US POTUS ever in my eyes.
Whether it’s cereal, coffee, or beer, the fixed costs are the same. Hence £5 for a bowl of Corn Flakes and some milk in central London.
- simultaneous puncture by 8 steel needles
- 5.8mm infantry rifle bullet penetration test
- seawater corrosion immersion
- 26-ton overweight rolling
- single-pack side collision
- fire roasting
https://x.com/kyleichan/status/1824328820213563728
Hundreds of protesters attacked a cereal cafe in east London on Saturday night, daubing the word “scum” on the shop window and setting fire to an effigy of a police officer.
Riot police were called in to defend the Cereal Killer Cafe in Shoreditch after it was targeted by a large crowd of anti-gentrification activists carrying pigs’ heads and torches.
The owners of the cafe, which has been seen by some as a symbol of inequality in east London, said on Sunday that the attack left customers including children “terrified for their lives”.
I wonder if these people were immediately arrested, tried and jailed:
The protest was advertised on Facebook as the third Fuck Parade, and was apparently organised by the anarchist group Class War. The event page stated: “Our communities are being ripped apart – by Russian oligarchs, Saudi sheiks, Israeli scumbag property developers, Texan oil-money twats and our own home-grown Eton toffs. Local authorities are coining it in, in a short-sighted race for cash by ‘regenerating’ social housing. “We don’t want luxury flats that no one can afford, we want genuinely affordable housing. We don’t want pop-up gin bars or brioche buns, we want community.” The Fuck Parade organisers had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
The other thing I found funny, was that they were claiming it was racist and classist for a couple of immigrants to setup a Cereal bar in the Brick Lane area, charging lots. And not used by the local people
The entire Brick Lane area is crammed with businesses, setup by immigrants, charging huge prices for curry & alcohol. And the locals don't go to them either.
And if the Dems have held the Senate, hello Acting President Walz in about a week.
My customer, a £15 kebab shop restaurant open until 3am.
If an assassin took out President Trump/President Harris, which VP would you want stepping up? No contest. A marginal - but non-trivial - factor in how people will vote.
was born in Nebraska where Biden won 1 EC vote in 2020
He’ll be ranting about stolen elections and being the rightful president for the rest of his life probably *even if he wins*.
Huge container lorries with the brand of the Curry King chap, from Manchester, were slowly moving up road, dropping off racks of pre-cooked stuff at each restaurant.
Which is why most places there were expensive, a bit shit and the food tasted the same.
I've heard that they've tried to pull it back from that, more recently, but haven't been back in years
You'd have fewer non-migrants employed because there were fewer non-migrants of working-age.
Edit: The bullshit is in the interpretation of the statistic - that it's part of the great replacement conspiracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Removal_Act
Solid state will take over eventually, as it will represent a big improvement on almost all metrics, but it's unlikely to be available outside high end models for most of the rest of this decade.
The biggest bonus of Walz really though is his skill in warming up the crowds. You see lots of happy, cheering people behind Harris as she mouths platitudes at a modest pace, and lots of puzzled,bored people behind Trump as he witters on about stolen elections, persecution, massive crowds and sharks.
The contrast is stark. Trump won in 2016 partly because his energy and his backers’ enthusiasm were palpable compared to Clinton, who was dull, controversial and had a few health episodes. Now, the candidate who fits *that* bill is Trump himself.
Hmmmm - a thesis.... The Correlation of Personal Hygiene With Political Extremism.
Their operation is being led by a guy called Scott Presler https://x.com/scottpresler who is touring the country recruiting people to sign up Republicans to vote, and encouraging them to vote early.
Hence why I rate him as the worst ever.
That he's the only person ever to win the popular vote and the electoral vote but still not win the Presidential election is a small thing to make me smile then.
Edit - if you check the dates, you will also find significant troop transfers that had not been planned (amounting to around 75% of US forces) happened in November and December 2020.
Incidentally, the only reason I would disagree that withdrawing was the right idea is because I’ve never understood why some people thought the invasion would be a good idea in the first place.
Interns often have issues with their (usually first) interactions with an office-based work environment, but one lass is having more than usual, as she has zero idea how to drive a Windows-style WIMP GUI. It looks as though she has only ever used phones and tablets.
I wonder how common an issues this is?
I tend to agree on Jackson, but James Buchanan seems to win (lose bigly) most of the scholarly surveys (leaving out recent incumbents).
Maybe that says something about history study in the US?
She has opened up the electoral map (which gives her more routes to 270) and with the convention next week her momentum will be sustained through to September. If she has a good debate I think she’ll be the firm favourite at that point.
But it’s absolutely correct that there is still a lot of scrutiny to come for Harris and Trump is going through a rough spell. I can easily see the gap narrowing again.
Which certainly has some truth in it. But it also misses the fact that the 2016 election was an anomaly in some ways: Clinton clearly won the popular vote. Trump got a vote share that would have resulted in a drubbing in most years. And yes, I know that elections are won on electoral votes, but you do need to look at both. You can't say "the Democrats were really unpopular because [x]", if the Democrats actually did OK in vote terms.
That piece is also startling for how different the Trump of 2016 is to the Trump of 2024. Gone is high energy Donald... And instead we have high grievances Donald... someone obsessed by perceived slights, and a stolen election.
Donald Trump is in contention in this race for one reason, and that is that voters in the developed world have gotten poorer in the last four years. He is - otherwise - a much weaker candidate than in 2016, while Harris is a slightly better candidate than Clinton. I also don't think the Democrats are as naive as in 2016: they know that Trump is a formidable enemy, and they aren't complacent.
So, I make Harris the very narrow favourite. I think this race comes down to women's turnout: women are (a) much less likely to be Trump fans, and (b) much more concerned about abortion rights. And abortion is literally on the ballot in Florida and Arizona. If those voters come out to express their concern about abortion bans, then Trump is in real trouble. If Trump keeps the story on the economy and immigration, and he manages to keep discussion away from abortion, then he stands a good chance of winning.
Jackson is far more malevolent and worse than Buchanan.
Parsing Trump's random spewings has become as though they might make some sort of sense has become a bad habit with the media.
I prefer this analysis.
https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2024/08/15/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-the-medias-relationship-with-trump/
... why does the mainstream media continue to take what he says in good faith? And even worse, perhaps: Why does the media continue to take things he doesn’t say and turn them into things he might have said if he weren’t such a blistering dumbass?
Maybe it’s my mistake: I was unaware it was the media’s job to make a deeply stupid and sinister man seem palatable to mainstream Americans.
But that seems to be what they are doing. Last week, an NBC News reporter asked Trump a question about his policy position on mifepristone access, and his response was absolute word salad. Gibberish. Incomprehensible rubbish.
This is what he said in response to a question from NBC’s Garrett Haake about a national abortion ban and whether he would be open to ordering the FDA to revoke the authorization for mifepristone:
"You could do things that will be—would supplement, absolutely, and those things are pretty open and humane, but you have to be able to have a vote. And all I want to do is give everybody a vote, and the votes are taking place right now as we speak."
What is he talking about? Seriously, what is that supposed to mean?
Haake then asked: “Is that something you would consider?” to which I say, literally, what?
Is what something Trump would consider? What are you referring to, Garrett? His insistence that everybody has a vote? Or some nebulous things “that would supplement absolutely” but which also would be “pretty open and humane.” What does that even mean? Where I come from, if a person gives an answer like that, you should follow up with, “What the actual fuck are you talking about?” Or, if unlike me, you’re a professional, “Can you explain what you mean?”..
When do you think the Americans left Afghanistan?
In the same way Putin's attempt to take over Ukraine in February 22 failed in the first few days; but the reasons for that failure are based in things that happened years or even decades before.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/30/us-afghanistan-war-military-pullout-report-biden-trump
The "Home computer" category in household surveys includes tablets, IIRC.
The Biden Harris administration can point to some pretty decent economic figures; inflation is falling; and there's likely to be at least one interest rate cut before November, possibly two.
Trump's offering is, putting it generously, incoherent. And his tariff proposals plain nuts.
(Good morning everyone.)
Yes, they possibly could and arguably should have done better. But they were deliberately set up to fail. Trump wanted a deal with the Taleban to boast about his deal making skills. Unless he's actually as stupid as he looks he must have known it would fail. And his abrupt withdrawal of so many troops between defeat and inauguration doesn't suggest he wanted to see an orderly withdrawal.
When you add in the fact Biden wanted out too, plus Covid, plus the sidelining of the Afghan government from the deal...well, it's not surprising it was a fiasco.
In many ways, however, politically speaking the worst part was the news management. Why they didn't shout Trump's ineptitude at deal making and strategy from the rooftops I don't know. Or maybe they did, but nobody listened.
It may end up being the case that the western failure to supply sufficient artillery ammunition, or other weapons to negate the Russian artillery advantage, are the deciding factor in the war.
It's what you get when you fire up a desktop computer - Windows, Mac or nearly all Linux systems
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIMP_(computing)
Windows
Icons
Menus
Pointer
Especially for the cohort who spent a formative period doing school computing on whatever devices could be grabbed during lockdown.
(A Level sciences include some genetic IT work as part of the practical skills section, it's always a bit alarming how far back one has to start skills-wise.)
I suggested to the lady running it, that she number tables and rent them out by the hour.
She did laugh when I told her about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd's_Coffee_House - she'd never heard of that story...
Let’s hope so!
If we want nice Third Places, and we do, property needs to be cheaper than it is.
Have you noticed how at the end of every speech he makes when he shakes Harris' hand he points at her and smiles to show how she's the important one? And gets a big cheer for it?
Can you imagine Vance doing that for Trump?
If you'd got that wrong, I'd have to have banished you to ConHome in shame...
And GUI is Graphical User Interface.
Prices are a lot higher than they were four years ago.
That’s why it ended up being such a mess.
And he doesn't need the army, just the courts.
Who are, of course, entirely impartial and not at all throwing out cases for political reasons, or declaring Presidents have immunity because it's June.
Biden won Minnesota by 7% in 2020 which was only fractionally less than the 8% Trump won Ohio by
The problem is many tablet apps are rather simplified, and the way desktop GUIs work can be rather different. For one thing, the presence of both network and local storage can be much more pronounced on desktop than it is on tablets. Not realising you've saved a file onto the local device, and not onto the network, as an example.
Withdrawals after being defeated are rarely pleasant.
Still, America's mess in Afghanistan is nothing like the mess that Putin has gotten Russia into in Ukraine - that's a whole another level.
VANCE
JENRICK
Things can change. Just as Kensington used to be the safest Conservative seat in the country just 20 years ago and is now a safe Labour seat.
https://x.com/DevinCow/status/1824214026953560465
However, by 2021 the US contingent at Bagram was very druggy, quite rapey and generally toxic so I can see the problem with letting them organise the final curtain on the Afghan adventure.
https://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/conservative
Ohio is also still a swing state just one that is particularly pro Trump relative to say Romney or McCain when they were GOP nominees and it voted for Obama
Ohio used to be a swing state, it might be again in the future, but currently its safe GOP.
If Woakes and Stokes are injured even if Woakes is fit to play surely even that idiot Key has to call up more cover?
With Higgins injured as well, you would guess Barnard would be next cab off the rank, but maybe Kasey Aldridge has just timed his runs perfectly if he takes a few today?
The Russians are digging trenches around the railways at Lgov, but the Ukranians now have main battle tanks advancing their positions which don’t care much about trenches.
10 days now, and they’ve been totally unable to throw much more than untrained conscripts at the situation, most of which are now PoWs, because we all would be when confronted with an actual enemy army.
I had first assumed that this was some sort of special forces raid that would go and get something close to the border and then extract themselves, but it’s clearly as much of an invasion as we saw in Feb ‘22, just better organised and with reinforcements coming from behind. Oh, and without the indiscriminate killing of civilians. Meanwhile, there’s now 200,000 evacuees in the wider region, that the Russians have to put somewhere.
That's why it was such a stupid, stupid ruling.
Just as Mansfield or Grimsby were reasonably safe for Boris not necessarily for the Tories and now both have Labour MPs again since Boris left
In other words, that Russia had a large force ready to go into Ukraine once they had denuded Ukraine enough.
I think it's now clear that that was utter copium b/s. The Ukrainians may be being denuded, but the Russians have also been. They don't seem to have a great deal spare.
The President has no constitutional powers to sentence and jail individuals himself, immunity just relates to his own liberty from prosecution
Ukraine may have limited supplies of people, but they are getting supplies of munitions, tanks etc from around the globe.
While Russia acts as if it has a limitless supply of people but actually has an acute demographic crunch of its own and is sending its people into a meat grinder.
In long wars its logistics that wins wars, and Ukraine has the superior logistics.
Seem to have nought else available.
Yes, highly embarrassing for Putin. Makes him look stupid. But it comes with significant risks for Ukraine and it's not wholly clear yet what they expect to get from it, never mind will get.
It may put an end to the idea of a stalemated war, Korea Mark 2. But given Russia's size and resources that may not be to Ukraine's advantage.