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Will the Ayatollahs decide the US election? – politicalbetting.com
Will the Ayatollahs decide the US election? – politicalbetting.com
The smart money seems to be moving to Kamala Harris as she rides a wave of Democratic party enthusiasm and her polling shows an edge in key swing states. Although one should always remember the old adage that no ordinary voter switches on to the candidates before Labor Day, there’s a feeling building that this may well be Trump’s last stand. A successful convention this week and a big speech by the Vice President may further secure the polls.
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Thanks for the piece Rotten Borough.
The other thing to remember is Khamanei is 85 (birthday yesterday, indeed) and is rumoured to have cancer. With Raisi's death the succession is very much up in the air and there may be much jockeying for position.
All that said, however, one thought that does occur to me is if Iran attacks Israel, even through Hizbollah, that might help US politics. It then becomes about Israel fighting for survival and not about them blowing up random Gazans. And ultimately it's hard to see most voters in the US, even the Democratic Muslim vote, siding with Iran in such circumstances.
Austerity measures don’t work.
The last round ended up tripling the national debt.
Any serious legitimate effort to ‘balance the books’ would involve rich people paying more.
Austerity hits only the poor and has zero positive effect.
Trump might though as his evangelical base would want stronger support for Israel.
Good start meanwhile for the Democrats in Chicago with strong speeches last night from Biden and Hillary Clinton for Harris
My personal allowance was also stolen.
https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-israel/
The Conservative's boost in walking/cycling funding in 2020 was one of the more long-sighted things they did during a public health crisis. The 50% cut in 2022 the opposite.
Gulp!! Back to buying the branded toner cartridges
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4836277-democratic-national-convention-biden-harris/
...Biden had a difficult task in an emotionally tough moment.
He understandably wanted to defend his own record while at the same time making the case for Harris — and striking a tone that was not too melancholy nor mawkish.
He pulled it off in an address that lasted almost 50 minutes.
He cast his own presidency as a recovery period from the twin traumas of the Capitol Riot of Jan. 6, 2021 and the COVID-19 pandemic. He wove Harris into his own preferred narrative of recovery, citing her tie-breaking vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act as one example. When the crowd broke out into a chant of “Thank you, Joe,” Biden responded, “Thank you Kamala too.”
There were plenty of attacks on Trump — as a danger to democracy, a candidate who takes a fundamentally pessimistic view of the United States, and a selfish person who killed a bipartisan border deal earlier this year for political gain.
The timing of the speech was hardly in Biden’s favor. By the time he started speaking, it was 11:30 p.m. on the East Coast. He finished well after midnight...>/i>
There's a man, in Iran...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iPgOBoqsaQ
But they're both too old, and his decision to withdraw even if made for the wrong reasons was the right decision.
Other black swans are also available of course but arguably we've already had two this summer- Trump's assassination attempt and Biden stepping down. Enough already.
A crowd of close to 3,000 people from more than 270 different organizations came together to form the coalition to protest.
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/pro-palestinian-protesters-march-dnc/
So, fewer than 3,000.
Blind luck and good judgement help too. One of my favourite winning bets was fairly long odds on Perez to be top 6 at some race a decade or so ago. I didn't realise he had a grid penalty, thus explaining the long odds. Utter fluke, but he ended up getting the result I needed anyway.
Even war may not be enough to rescue Trump if his personal meltdown continues. But let's hope the Iranian choose a way to demonstrate a response without pulling the whole shooting match down on the middle east.
But it's also clear that he's capable of discharging the office, and likely to remain so until the end of his term.
It failed for the same reasons the Liberal Democrats did with their "Stop Brexit" manifesto in 2019, and because Blair promised a referendum on joining the Euro in any event.
That doesn't mean strategically it was a bad move: it could easily have yielded 20-30 extra seats on a different day, and the alternative might have been to lose seats and get virtually no votes at all.
There wasn't a huge amount else for Hague for run on at the time given he was nowhere near a serious challenger for an alternative administration.
That's barely enough for a Donald Trump mass rally.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg49v5k771o
Another capitulation awaits.
Interesting spin from the Labour lobby fodder MP's yesterday on their taking money from Unions. Taking money from the Unions is okay as it is not Frank Hester. Slightly desperate from the whips office that one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex45znGdECE
'Save the Pound' was essentially a strategy to drive up turnout among his core vote and stave off a much worse humiliation.
From that point of view, it worked.
Anyway, how do you know he isn't already back incognito, and just limbering up for another lengthy campaign of breakfast photography and right-wing tomfoolery?
"Bring back the Tories for more industrial disruption!"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/19/sweden-negative-net-immigration-figure-record-low-asylum-application-global-displacement
Really?
I don't think so.
(I always wanted to see a 747 come in to Marshalls, but never managed it.)
Says there’s no point keeping the secret any longer because “the dam has broken / the writing is on the wall”.
In the 1980s, the government had enough prep in place that the miners were mainly hurting themselves.
Right now, roles are reversed. Rail and NHS strikes hurt the public and the government more than the relevant unions.
It's not about strength of will- that's just a story that people tell about the old days. It's about a judgement of reality. Which Maggie was actually pretty good at, until she stated believing her own hype.
Actually what Labour was doing with the economy was really bad, but the outworkings of it were nowhere near apparent, let alone affecting quality of life significantly.
Greeting from Hamburg as Starmer drives yet another nail in UK productivity
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/19/keir-starmer-backs-working-from-home-culture-presenteeism/
We no longer see that now, oh for the olden days.
But on the other hand if theyre all going to work at home we can remove London allowances, that might pepe the place up.
Many of them, coincidentally, senior figures in the CBI.
That's not necessarily true. Anybody who wasn't a complete idiot was able to see that neither Michelle Obama or Hilary Clinton was going to be the Democratic nominee.
Ka'ching.
Very sensible approach, but I wonder how well it will work after decades of Tory and right wing media brainwashing about how immoral and shameful it is to accept "benefits" even in such a situation. (Which is why it's not a trivial matter that the State Pension is commonly seen as something that one has paid for in national insurance, by the way.)
Justin Webb: the Dems hid Biden away from prime time.
Sara Smith: Biden sounded angry and ungracious.
Betting PostF1: backed Hamilton each way in the Netherlands at 9.5.
He was very good there back in 2022 when the Mercedes was a dog and should've won it (had horrendous safety car luck). Both his form and fortune are better now. Bad weather played a part last year but he still rose from 13th to 6th or so.
And, for those who didn't see earlier yesterday, I've backed Piastri to be winner without Verstappen at 8. Might be a little available. Should be around 3-4 or so.
Writing them off after only a few weeks is a bit silly IMO.
Sure it's useful to be there sometimes, there are other people on the fringes of my project it's worth catching up with occasionally, but let me decide on how often that warrants going in. Don't pretend being in the office is, by itself, "productive".
(Rant over - and to work, 2 minutes late!)
Abolishing state involvement in rails, including abolishing subsidies and ensuring rail fares covered train drivers wages would ensure that strikes only worked if passengers were willing to pay more.
Welfare should either be universal (to avoid the poverty trap) or targeted only those who need it, spaffing money on people who don't need it just because they vote is a pathetic way to waste taxpayers money.
The only logical explanation is that Trump really needs Musk's cash, and Musk really is donating substantial sums. But neither of them does much logic so who knows?
It was when Blair promised a referendum, not Brown's tests, that our prospects of joining the Euro faded.
Maybe Starmer's government will turn out to be terrible. Maybe it will turn out to be terrible in ways that those on the right have already predicted. But right now, The People Have Spoken. Rishi asked them Who Governs Britain, and they said "definitely not you, so it will have to be the other bloke." It will be a while before they are prepared to revisit that decision. See this from Ipsos yesterday;
Although his net rating has fallen to 0 from a rating of +7 immediately after the election, Keir Starmer remains the most popular politician asked about. 38% have a favourable opinion towards the Prime Minister (-2 from Jul ’24), whilst 38% are unfavourable (+5). This compares to a net rating of -10 for Rishi Sunak in his second month as Prime Minister (November 2022), and a net rating of -8 for Boris Johnson in January 2020.
40% said they were favourable towards the Labour Party (N/C), compared to 37% who were unfavourable (+3). This net rating of +3 compares with -32 for the Conservative Party in November 2022, and -14 for the Conservatives in January 2020.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/moderate-honeymoon-continues-for-labour-and-keir-starmer