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Midterms betting: GOP favourite for the House – DEM for the Senate – politicalbetting.com

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  • Leon said:

    I am the prophet in the wilderness. If we stay on this current course, in ten years time even you will be thinking "Shit, Leon was right"
    When are you eating locusts and wild honey then?
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 3,537

    Reagan guru reveals the flaw in Trussenomics
    Liz Truss’s growth plan will only add up if she wins a mandate for deep spending curbs to match her promised tax cuts

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/reagan-guru-reveals-the-flaw-in-trussenomics-cg2rqj5fn (£££)

    Can't read the article because £££, but it's worth remembering that Reaganomics only worked for the USA because of the world's insatiable appetite for $$$. Less nations, not so much.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,277
    So the government is trying to block the release of information regarding the Rwandan asylum policy .

    It now appears that they were warned that torture and killings take place in the country but ignored that as they were desperate to please the right wing press and Patel the puppy killer wouldn’t countenance anything that stopped her from being able to claim success !

  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 64,695
    edited August 2022

    Fiona Bruce already has QT, Fake or Fortune, Antiques Roadshow. When would she find the time?
    I'm not a fan. I don't get why the Beeb rate her so highly.

    If she is the quizzer on UC I probably will stop watching.

    Give the show to Victoria Coren and let's move on to next bet FFS.

  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,063

    I was parodying positions like yours.

    If you accept that it’s a genuine movement, why bring up the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
    I think it is very fair to say that the term woke is now very overused and overgeneralised, particularly in the USA but not only there. I don't think it unreasonable to note there are trends, with their motivations purportedly arising from the original context, which have led to some very silly or worrying policies or proposals, the sorts of things that gets the headline reporting and even acknowledged as not a good idea (I recall some from the John Oliver piece earlier this year, since he is very much in favour of critical race theory and the like, and so was careful to acknowledge there are genuine examples of misapplication, which he was worried about because it was worrying people unnecessarily in his view about the more general stuff).

    So to some degree the 'what do people even mean by woke?' question can be legitimate, but as you note there are also those who simultaneously pretend confusion as to what is meant, whilst also using the original definition or other positive use (eg being awake to matters of social injustice) and going 'and what is wrong with that?', thereby both saying it is not a thing at all, but also that it is a good thing. That does happen. One could say the larger fears are a conspiracy, but it is a thing, but that is not always what people do.
  • Since you're a heterosexual white man you have little to fear from Gilead, unless they do prohibition again in which case you would be fucked. There are plenty of people for whom rule by Christian nationalist fascists would literally be a death sentence. The worst the woke would do to you would be to make you do an implicit bias course or become a vegan.
    I have a daughter. Who has the right and the brains and the drive to be whatever she wants to be. Shitkicker Gilead types want to take Georgia equivalents of her and tie her to the bed / kitchen. Because of selected quotes from a selectively male-edited bible they don't understand.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Leon said:

    Again, a total inability to grasp what I'm on about

    Have you read that article about Wokeness in US medicine? I'll link it one more time

    https://www.city-journal.org/the-corruption-of-medicine

    it's long, detailed, brilliant, and terrifying, and gives the lie to any trivial bullshit that Wokeness is merely about "pronouns". And this is just one area of American life

    I want my kids to live in a western world that is free, prosperous, dynamic, liberal and Enlightened (in the 18th century sense). All that is, I believe, threatened by this
    The only thing is, I was hearing EXACTLY this rant from Rhodes scholars back in the early 80s.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,063

    Reagan guru reveals the flaw in Trussenomics
    Liz Truss’s growth plan will only add up if she wins a mandate for deep spending curbs to match her promised tax cuts

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/reagan-guru-reveals-the-flaw-in-trussenomics-cg2rqj5fn (£££)

    Well who could have predicted that?
  • 1. We burnt the easy to extract North Sea Reserves
    2. We didn't really profit as a nation as the Norwegians did because a big capitalist Investment Fund is obvious communism vs giving the rights away for a quick profit now
    3. We had alternatives in place. Pipe it from the middle east (sodding Taliban turncoats screwed that up), or from Russia (sodding Putin), or from dunno
    We burnt the easiest to extract Reserves but there's still viable reserves which end up tied up in planning problems and held up for years by eco-zealots that seem to think that burning Putin's gas is better than burning our own.
  • Why is this still going on?
    Because the 1922 don't understand politics. Three hustings this week and another three next week.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 64,695

    https://twitter.com/1goodtern/status/1559519407742885890?s=21&t=uPXQpSpBFEv1ODJGoJO6Nw

    I'm a trustee of a charity whose electricity bill will rise from
    £8k in 2019
    to
    £50k in 2023.

    We're screwed.
    This country, I mean.

    You know what this means for businesses, charities, homeowners, industry, hospitals, schools?

    Everything will *collapse*.

    The plan that Scottish Power chair came up with which many other utilities are now supporting could be expanded to SMEs and other smaller organizations.


    Beginning to feel like war time planning is needed.

    Is Truss up to leading us through the worst economic crisis since the War?

    I very much doubt it, but I hope she surprises me.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,927

    Credible.
    Unless you are a woman
    Unless you are gay
    Unless you are non-white
    Unless you don't fly the (Confederate) flag

    Nothing about the theocratic women-hating hell that is developing in southern America is credible. And as a man with your own womenfolk, I'm surprised you are cheering on the people who think that should your daughters live within their ministrations should have less rights than a rifle.

    Woke is not saying that women should let the man rape them. And then deny them abortion. And then deny them rights to basic human freedoms. Yet if you listen to these fundamentalist GOPper shitkickers thats all they talk about needing to introduce.
    I think the overturning of Roe v Wade is ugly and foolish at best, and appalling at worst - ie if it leads to blanket bans on all abortions across multiple states. That way lies human misery for many

    However, I can see the religious reasons for opposing abortion, and I recognise that they are sincere. And often espoused by women, let it be noted. Moreover, I don't yet see evidence that this decision (much as I dislike it) is "turning America into Gilead"

  • pingping Posts: 3,805

    https://twitter.com/1goodtern/status/1559519407742885890?s=21&t=uPXQpSpBFEv1ODJGoJO6Nw

    I'm a trustee of a charity whose electricity bill will rise from
    £8k in 2019
    to
    £50k in 2023.

    We're screwed.
    This country, I mean.

    You know what this means for businesses, charities, homeowners, industry, hospitals, schools?

    Everything will *collapse*.

    It’s gonna be bad.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 50,450

    I was parodying positions like yours.

    If you accept that it’s a genuine movement, why bring up the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
    I don't say it is a genuine movement, I say "Woke" is just awareness of conscious and unconscious biases in society. It is not a new phenomenon, though the biases if interest have fluctuated over the years.

    The idea of "Cultural Marxism" as an organised conspiracy to bring down the West is as false as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were a century ago.

    There is nothing new under the sun, just the names change from time to time, to caricature and demonise the threat of "the other".
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    rcs1000 said:

    I would be very cautious about the Smarkets Senate bet.

    Imagine a scenario where it is Dems 49, Republicans 50, Evan McMullin 1.

    Who controls the Senate?

    If I were Evan McMullin in that situation, I wring a pretty good deal out of the Dems ...
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 50,450

    We burnt the easiest to extract Reserves but there's still viable reserves which end up tied up in planning problems and held up for years by eco-zealots that seem to think that burning Putin's gas is better than burning our own.
    Not eco-zealots so much as buccanering capitalists.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,554
    edited August 2022

    Sunak "moves on to say – very loudly – that he will take on the “lefty-woke culture that wants to cancel our history, our values and our women”

    Erm, pardon? "Our" women? Women aren't property.
    I know. It really grates. Why hasn't someone pointed out to him how awful it sounds, how awful it is?
  • ping said:

    It’s gonna be bad.
    Resilience. Britain has largely chosen not to have it.

    And a bit like Johnson with Covid, Truss gives the impression of not wanting to intervene. Even if that's a good instinct, it runs the risk of delaying necessary action, so it ends up worse than it needs to be.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 23,149
    edited August 2022

    There is a problem with Labour and women. Extrapolating that from one political party which is nothing like most businesses or organisations makes no sense to me.

    Labour currently has 104 female MPs out of 199 (52%).

    Conservatives currently have 87 female MPs out of 357 (24%).

    Not too shabby for Labour, though I accept the criticism of no permanent female leader.

    Perhaps the Tories need a bit of positive discrimination, though? Females clearly heavily underrepresented as Tory MPs.

    Case in point. Quota met so "not too shabby" rather than addressing the issue as to why there remain problems with the Party and women. The band aid of AWS has masked the problem.

    Putting on a mask by insisting on quotas just hides the problem you have but leaves it there.

    Females are far better represented at the top of Tory politics than Labour politics, despite Labour filling the backbenches with Tokens to make the numbers work.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    IshmaelZ said:

    25% of seats in either House should be allocated to Afro Americans, by law.


    Why? They are 12% of the population.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 64,695
    Sunak is on yet again about missed health appointments.

    He has not a clue about the reality.

    The outpatient clinic my wife attends for a very serious illness is continually overbooked deliberately as the only way the consultant team can see everyone in the area every six months. It has been this way for the last five years at least. The odd person not turning up makes it slightly more manageable. But as it is a clinic that is supposed to finish at noon runs until nearly 2pm in my experience, which presumably means no lunch for staff and also eats into the afternoon clinic tasks in other parts of the hospital.

    These people are working their nuts off.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,927
    Cyclefree said:

    I know. It really grates.Why hasn't someone pointed out to him how awful it sounds, how awful it is?
    He's a billionaire. He can afford to have these things focus grouped. I suggest he's done that and the feedback is: it works

    If so: Lord knows why, it is a weird phrase
  • We burnt the easiest to extract Reserves but there's still viable reserves which end up tied up in planning problems and held up for years by eco-zealots that seem to think that burning Putin's gas is better than burning our own.
    Also, the more expensive to extract gas and oil is more expensive than the easy to import Russian stuff. Planning permission of a rig in the North Sea not usually a NIMBY issue.

    My Dad has made enough money over the years investing in small energy firms finding new reserves. But got out when it started becoming more common than not for the big reserve not to be economically viable to bring up.

    OK higher prices may change the economics and make it worth investor money to extract. But as we can't afford to pay those prices, what is the point?

    Or - don't flog our reserves off cheaply, don't let the regulator approve all these gas power stations, and not have this problem.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 50,450
    nico679 said:

    So the government is trying to block the release of information regarding the Rwandan asylum policy .

    It now appears that they were warned that torture and killings take place in the country but ignored that as they were desperate to please the right wing press and Patel the puppy killer wouldn’t countenance anything that stopped her from being able to claim success !

    Now, if you want a conspiracy theory with some grounding in fact...
  • Foxy said:

    Not eco-zealots so much as buccanering capitalists.
    But that's not possible.

    Pure buccaneering capitalism is the finest economic system known to man. It responds perfectly and instantly to everything with no downsides at all.
  • Leon said:

    I think the overturning of Roe v Wade is ugly and foolish at best, and appalling at worst - ie if it leads to blanket bans on all abortions across multiple states. That way lies human misery for many

    However, I can see the religious reasons for opposing abortion, and I recognise that they are sincere. And often espoused by women, let it be noted. Moreover, I don't yet see evidence that this decision (much as I dislike it) is "turning America into Gilead"

    Well we're already seeing bans on abortion. And on birth control. And challenges on women going out of state are being mooted. And various lawmakers at state and federal level propose all kinds of lunatic restrictions.

    We can see very clearly the direction of travel.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 72,866

    Sunak is on yet again about missed health appointments.

    He has not a clue about the reality.

    The outpatient clinic my wife attends for a very serious illness is continually overbooked deliberately as the only way the consultant team can see everyone in the area every six months. It has been this way for the last five years at least. The odd person not turning up makes it slightly more manageable. But as it is a clinic that is supposed to finish at noon runs until nearly 2pm in my experience, which presumably means no lunch for staff and also eats into the afternoon clinic tasks in other parts of the hospital.

    These people are working their nuts off.

    We're back to SeanT!
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 50,450
    Leon said:

    He's a billionaire. He can afford to have these things focus grouped. I suggest he's done that and the feedback is: it works

    If so: Lord knows why, it is a weird phrase
    Presumably a lot of older Conservatives are quite comfortable with that terminology. He isn't touting for the votes of second generation feminists, at least not at present.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,852
    edited August 2022

    We burnt the easiest to extract Reserves but there's still viable reserves which end up tied up in planning problems and held up for years by eco-zealots that seem to think that burning Putin's gas is better than burning our own.
    Weren't a number of the eco-zealots funded from Russia? A good investment by Gazprom.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 64,695
    edited August 2022

    Resilience. Britain has largely chosen not to have it.

    And a bit like Johnson with Covid, Truss gives the impression of not wanting to intervene. Even if that's a good instinct, it runs the risk of delaying necessary action, so it ends up worse than it needs to be.
    Clegg said in 2010 that there is no point building new nuke capacity in UK as it would not be available until 2022.

    And then Facebook made him the company's No 2.

    Sell Facebook.

  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,277
    Oh dear poor Liz .

    Caught on audio slagging off British workers saying they need to graft more . And also admitting that immigrants never were a negative for UK productivity and that in effect they were being scapegoated.
  • Foxy said:

    Not eco-zealots so much as buccanering capitalists.
    Buccaneering capitalists led to Scotland's First Minister wanting to block Cambo?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 54,173
    Foxy said:

    I don't say it is a genuine movement, I say "Woke" is just awareness of conscious and unconscious biases in society. It is not a new phenomenon, though the biases if interest have fluctuated over the years.

    The idea of "Cultural Marxism" as an organised conspiracy to bring down the West is as false as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were a century ago.

    There is nothing new under the sun, just the names change from time to time, to caricature and demonise the threat of "the other".
    Cultural Marxists really believe it, just as economic Marxists really believed it, so it’s an irrelevant point to say that it isn’t a conspiracy to bring down the West. The question is whether the ideas hold up and what effect the attempt to put them into practice is having.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,554
    Foxy said:

    Presumably a lot of older Conservatives are quite comfortable with that terminology. He isn't touting for the votes of second generation feminists, at least not at present.
    Well my Husband has a vote and thinks the phrase is awful. He says it's the sort of thing the Taliban would say.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    But that's not possible.

    Pure buccaneering capitalism is the finest economic system known to man. It responds perfectly and instantly to everything with no downsides at all.
    There are no downsides. There are only new equilibria.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,714
    edited August 2022

    Case in point. Quota met so "not too shabby" rather than addressing the issue as to why there remain problems with the Party and women. The band aid of AWS has masked the problem.

    Putting on a mask by insisting on quotas just hides the problem you have but leaves it there.

    Females are far better represented at the top of Tory politics than Labour politics, despite Labour filling the backbenches with Tokens to make the numbers work.
    I wasn't responding to you, quite deliberately, but to noneoftheabove. I know your views; you repeat them ad infinitum.
  • Sunak is on yet again about missed health appointments.

    He has not a clue about the reality.

    The outpatient clinic my wife attends for a very serious illness is continually overbooked deliberately as the only way the consultant team can see everyone in the area every six months. It has been this way for the last five years at least. The odd person not turning up makes it slightly more manageable. But as it is a clinic that is supposed to finish at noon runs until nearly 2pm in my experience, which presumably means no lunch for staff and also eats into the afternoon clinic tasks in other parts of the hospital.

    These people are working their nuts off.

    Also, he is in Scotland. When Westminster politicians talk about "the NHS" or "our NHS" they are talking about "England's NHS". What happens in Scotland is no longer the domain of Westminster.

    So even if "missed health appointments" are an issue in Scotland as well as England they are issues affecting two separate entities with no single fix or policy that can affect both. So many people south of the wall do not understand this.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    rcs1000 said:

    Which Brian Cox? I would quite like the Succession one.
    Particularly as a KGB agent in R.E.D.
  • Leon said:

    He's a billionaire. He can afford to have these things focus grouped. I suggest he's done that and the feedback is: it works

    If so: Lord knows why, it is a weird phrase
    It might make sense in the context of the electorate for this election. After all, the modal voter is of a certain age (older than me, I suspect older than you), and sees himself as having a duty to protect his women. It's not that long ago that people did talk like that.

    That anyone not already retired thinks it sounds awful is another of those dreadful generation gaps that the Conservatives are happily stapling themselves the dying side of.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    TimT said:


    Why? They are 12% of the population.
    I was trolling. Not a thing I do very often, but I am bang to rights here. my sincere apoologies.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,246
    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    Silly boy.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    IshmaelZ said:

    I was trolling. Not a thing I do very often, but I am bang to rights here. my sincere apoologies.
    LOL. On those percentages, I was wondering if you were also going to guarantee in law 36% representation for Latinos.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 54,031
    rcs1000 said:

    Which Brian Cox? I would quite like the Succession one.
    That one has a handshake like being presented with a dead mackerel though.
  • A key point made by Rishi:

    "By definition, [swing voters] are not ideological. They’re not naturally Tories, they’re not naturally Labour people. What they want, above anything else, is a government that works … a government that is conducted seriously, competently … and with decency and integrity at the heart of everything that it does. That is the change I’m going to bring and that is how we will appeal to everyone."

    The problem is that the rancid old giffers who make up so much of the selectorate have no care for such things...
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,927
    edited August 2022
    Foxy said:

    I don't say it is a genuine movement, I say "Woke" is just awareness of conscious and unconscious biases in society. It is not a new phenomenon, though the biases if interest have fluctuated over the years.

    The idea of "Cultural Marxism" as an organised conspiracy to bring down the West is as false as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were a century ago.

    There is nothing new under the sun, just the names change from time to time, to caricature and demonise the threat of "the other".
    It's not an organised conspiracy, it's an ideology with aspects of religion - see the evangelism, the promise of salvation (check your privilege!), the original sin (of whiteness), and so on

    This is what makes it so powerful. It is a profound mental virus: a collation of brilliant memes. Marxism given the emotional potency of Catholicism or Islam. Cultural Marxism is therefore a good shorthand, Woke is even better

    It is not "trying to bring down the west" - like any virus or ideology it seeks merely to propagate itself and spread. it has no other teleology. However there are proponents of it who really do have this aim: actual Marxists. And there is little doubt that it is being exploited by our enemies abroad - Russia and China - to harm us, to deepen western divisions around race and gender etc - using social media

    So it is nothing like the Protocols. It is more akin to the birth of a new faith

    Read more here:


    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-if-wokeness-really-is-the-new-christianity-
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,317

    Well we're already seeing bans on abortion. And on birth control. And challenges on women going out of state are being mooted. And various lawmakers at state and federal level propose all kinds of lunatic restrictions.

    We can see very clearly the direction of travel.
    Yep WH24 is shaping up as a real binary right/wrong good/evil forwards/backwards choice for America. A case of which direction they're heading, Lincoln County Road or Armageddon.
  • I wasn't responding to you, quite deliberately, but to noneoftheabove. I know your views; you repeat them ad infinitum.
    I get that, and I was using your response to demonstrate my point to noneoftheabove.

    You represented everything I said in my argument to noneoftheabove that he was sceptical about, you came around and demonstrated the point. You take the quota numbers and say "not too shabby" rather than addressing the concerns, that's why quotas and positive discrimination are a very bad system, it allows people like you to rest on your laurels and say "not shabby" rather than see what the real issues are.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,277
    Nigelb said:

    Silly boy.
    Remember Leon droning on about Remainers trying to overturn the EU ref result but in vomit inducing hypocrisy is backing Trump who sent a mob to storm Congress and who wanted to overturn the US election .
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468

    What does Leon actually mean by Woke - a term he uses in just about every post

    Makes me wonder about what I mean when I say "I woke up this morning". Perhaps all those blues songs were about something completely different than we all thought.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,714

    I get that, and I was using your response to demonstrate my point to noneoftheabove.

    You represented everything I said in my argument to noneoftheabove that he was sceptical about, you came around and demonstrated the point. You take the quota numbers and say "not too shabby" rather than addressing the concerns, that's why quotas and positive discrimination are a very bad system, it allows people like you to rest on your laurels and say "not shabby" rather than see what the real issues are.
    You really can't take a hint, can you?
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 16,261
    Leon said:

    Again, a total inability to grasp what I'm on about

    Have you read that article about Wokeness in US medicine? I'll link it one more time

    https://www.city-journal.org/the-corruption-of-medicine

    it's long, detailed, brilliant, and terrifying, and gives the lie to any trivial bullshit that Wokeness is merely about "pronouns". And this is just one area of American life

    I want my kids to live in a western world that is free, prosperous, dynamic, liberal and Enlightened (in the 18th century sense). All that is, I believe, threatened by this
    I want my kids to live in a world where they aren't shat on for being brown. The eighteenth century enlightenment wasn't great for people who looked like them.
  • You really can't take a hint, can you?
    Not when you come rushing out and leave an open net, no, I have to take the shot instead.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,927

    Well we're already seeing bans on abortion. And on birth control. And challenges on women going out of state are being mooted. And various lawmakers at state and federal level propose all kinds of lunatic restrictions.

    We can see very clearly the direction of travel.
    Hmm


    "After the fall of Roe, Republican pursuit of abortion bans appears to falter

    "The stunning defeat of the Kansas referendum and internal divisions have undercut an all-out assault on reproductive rights"


    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/11/republicans-anti-abortion-policies-roe-v-wade-kansas
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 72,866

    That one has a handshake like being presented with a dead mackerel though.
    In the full knowledge I will regret asking:

    Who presented you with a dead mackerel so you could make this comparison?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,927

    I want my kids to live in a world where they aren't shat on for being brown. The eighteenth century enlightenment wasn't great for people who looked like them.
    That 2nd sentence is one of the stupidest remarks I have ever seen on PB

    The Enlightenment didn't bring in Nirvana on Day 1, but it absolutely laid the groundwork for the Abolition of Slavery, and many other wonderful freedoms. Why do you think they made that big old fuss about "the Rights of Man"?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,246
    Is there any possibility of the Truss thing making any difference at all to the result ?

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/16/leaked-audio-reveals-liz-truss-said-british-workers-needed-more-graft
    …Liz Truss, now the Tory leadership frontrunner, launched an astonishing broadside against British workers, saying they needed “more graft” and suggesting they lacked the “skill and application” of foreign rivals, the Guardian can reveal.

    In a leaked recording, the then No 2 at the Treasury also risked pitting Londoners against the rest of the country by attempting to explain the difference between the capital and other regions in the UK.

    Truss, who has put patriotism at the heart of her leadership campaign, suggested the disparity was “partly a mindset or attitude thing”.…


    Or was she just thinking of Boris ?
  • Leon said:

    Hmm


    "After the fall of Roe, Republican pursuit of abortion bans appears to falter

    "The stunning defeat of the Kansas referendum and internal divisions have undercut an all-out assault on reproductive rights"


    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/11/republicans-anti-abortion-policies-roe-v-wade-kansas
    Kansas - not a CSA state - held a referendum. Non-shitkickers vote down shitkicker proposal.

    States south of the sanity line won't do commie things like hold a referendum.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 72,866
    Nigelb said:

    Is there any possibility of the Truss thing making any difference at all to the result ?

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/16/leaked-audio-reveals-liz-truss-said-british-workers-needed-more-graft
    …Liz Truss, now the Tory leadership frontrunner, launched an astonishing broadside against British workers, saying they needed “more graft” and suggesting they lacked the “skill and application” of foreign rivals, the Guardian can reveal.

    In a leaked recording, the then No 2 at the Treasury also risked pitting Londoners against the rest of the country by attempting to explain the difference between the capital and other regions in the UK.

    Truss, who has put patriotism at the heart of her leadership campaign, suggested the disparity was “partly a mindset or attitude thing”.…


    Or was she just thinking of Boris ?

    It won't make a difference to the result of this election, but it makes it less likely there will be a cult formed around her that the MPs will have to be wary of six months in when she needs defenestrating.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 30,212
    Nigelb said:

    Is there any possibility of the Truss thing making any difference at all to the result ?

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/16/leaked-audio-reveals-liz-truss-said-british-workers-needed-more-graft
    …Liz Truss, now the Tory leadership frontrunner, launched an astonishing broadside against British workers, saying they needed “more graft” and suggesting they lacked the “skill and application” of foreign rivals, the Guardian can reveal.

    In a leaked recording, the then No 2 at the Treasury also risked pitting Londoners against the rest of the country by attempting to explain the difference between the capital and other regions in the UK.

    Truss, who has put patriotism at the heart of her leadership campaign, suggested the disparity was “partly a mindset or attitude thing”.…


    Or was she just thinking of Boris ?

    'She's right' is what most will think. Especially Tory members.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,927
    nico679 said:

    Remember Leon droning on about Remainers trying to overturn the EU ref result but in vomit inducing hypocrisy is backing Trump who sent a mob to storm Congress and who wanted to overturn the US election .
    I'm not backing Trump. My comment was a Situationist provocation to get the new thread off to a cracking start

    I'd not be - shall we say - *overly unhappy* if Trump dropped dead tomorrow. I'd mourn the passing of a human soul for a nanosecond then crack open several bottles of English fizz

    My ideal is for a non-religious-freak Republican to get the nomination, and thrash the Woke Dems
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,277
    Nigelb said:

    Is there any possibility of the Truss thing making any difference at all to the result ?

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/16/leaked-audio-reveals-liz-truss-said-british-workers-needed-more-graft
    …Liz Truss, now the Tory leadership frontrunner, launched an astonishing broadside against British workers, saying they needed “more graft” and suggesting they lacked the “skill and application” of foreign rivals, the Guardian can reveal.

    In a leaked recording, the then No 2 at the Treasury also risked pitting Londoners against the rest of the country by attempting to explain the difference between the capital and other regions in the UK.

    Truss, who has put patriotism at the heart of her leadership campaign, suggested the disparity was “partly a mindset or attitude thing”.…


    Or was she just thinking of Boris ?

    Truss is the chosen one for the membership so this won’t make any difference but the opposition should have fun with this . Truss wants Brits to work like the Chinese and thinks Brits have a bad attitude to work .
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 34,274

    I want my kids to live in a world where they aren't shat on for being brown. The eighteenth century enlightenment wasn't great for people who looked like them.
    I have seven grandchildren; three are brown skinned and four white skinned. At the moment they don't all live in the UK, but should they decide to do so I want them all to be treated the same!
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    Leon said:

    Again, a total inability to grasp what I'm on about

    Have you read that article about Wokeness in US medicine? I'll link it one more time

    https://www.city-journal.org/the-corruption-of-medicine

    it's long, detailed, brilliant, and terrifying, and gives the lie to any trivial bullshit that Wokeness is merely about "pronouns". And this is just one area of American life

    I want my kids to live in a western world that is free, prosperous, dynamic, liberal and Enlightened (in the 18th century sense). All that is, I believe, threatened by this
    There are so many things wrong with this article that I can barely be bothered to dismantle it. The biggest thing is the assumption that there is a thing called 'merit' that we can accurately measure which itself has universal 'merit' in predicting future success in medicine.

    While the attempt to overcome the inherit biases in the archaic approach to developing good doctors inherently espoused by the article does include a whole bunch of gobbledegook, that does not invalidate the criticisms of the old merit by test approach, nor indeed the need to seek better ways to develop doctors. To read this article, you'd believe that cramming the latin names of tiny bones was considerably more important than being able to speak to a patient with empathy and LISTEN to them.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,246
    Little Marco….

    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3603940-demings-up-by-4-points-in-challenge-to-rubio-poll/
    …Rep. Val Demings (D) leads Sen. Marco Rubio (R) by 4 percentage points in Florida’s Senate race, according to a poll released Tuesday.
    The poll, released by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab, shows Demings with the support of 48 percent of surveyed registered voters who said they would vote in the midterms.
    Rubio, in comparison, received 44 percent support, while 7 percent said they would choose someone else...
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,277
    Leon said:

    I'm not backing Trump. My comment was a Situationist provocation to get the new thread off to a cracking start

    I'd not be - shall we say - *overly unhappy* if Trump dropped dead tomorrow. I'd mourn the passing of a human soul for a nanosecond then crack open several bottles of English fizz

    My ideal is for a non-religious-freak Republican to get the nomination, and thrash the Woke Dems
    Okay but you did say Trump 24 . Anyway good luck trying to find a non-religious -freak Republican.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,246
    I recall HYUFD though this would trend in the other direction…

    Poll: Abortion enters top five Latino issues
    A majority of respondents say the procedure should be legal regardless of their personal beliefs, according to a July survey from two Latino civil rights organizations.
    https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/16/abortion-latino-issues-voters-midterms-00052119
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 30,212
    Leon said:

    I'm not backing Trump. My comment was a Situationist provocation to get the new thread off to a cracking start

    I'd not be - shall we say - *overly unhappy* if Trump dropped dead tomorrow. I'd mourn the passing of a human soul for a nanosecond then crack open several bottles of English fizz

    My ideal is for a non-religious-freak Republican to get the nomination, and thrash the Woke Dems
    From a British perspective, Trump was the most benign President since Reagan, if not before.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 72,866
    Nigelb said:

    Little Marco….

    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3603940-demings-up-by-4-points-in-challenge-to-rubio-poll/
    …Rep. Val Demings (D) leads Sen. Marco Rubio (R) by 4 percentage points in Florida’s Senate race, according to a poll released Tuesday.
    The poll, released by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab, shows Demings with the support of 48 percent of surveyed registered voters who said they would vote in the midterms.
    Rubio, in comparison, received 44 percent support, while 7 percent said they would choose someone else...

    Did anyone have that as a possible flip?

    A loss there would be a major and surely fatal blow to Republican chances of taking the Senate.
  • 'She's right' is what most will think. Especially Tory members.
    For the people she has to appeal to now, most of whom stopped having to work some time ago, it will be fine-to-appealing.

    In a general election, perhaps less so.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    I want my kids to live in a world where they aren't shat on for being brown. The eighteenth century enlightenment wasn't great for people who looked like them.
    Well, quite. From a doctrinal and economic point of view the Enlightenment is better called the Age of Slavery. It was liberal and Enlightened as fuck for posh whiteys. It is also not the case that there were a few regrettable decades of slavery after which the liberated darkies were treated as respected equals of their former owners., and have been ever since The social inequities persist and get worse. Injecting unqualified Afro Americans into elite universities is exactly the wrong way of addressing the problem, but the fact of the problem's existence is 100 times more important than the fact that the proposed solution is wrong.
  • From a British perspective, Trump was the most benign President since Reagan, if not before.
    Where British = Russian.

    Trump undermined Britain's alliances like NATO, friends like Ukraine whom he tried to shaft by tying aid to digging up dirt on his opponents etc.

    I can see why your mate Vlad likes Trump. Britain, not so much. Worst President of my life by far from a British perspective.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,927
    TimT said:

    There are so many things wrong with this article that I can barely be bothered to dismantle it. The biggest thing is the assumption that there is a thing called 'merit' that we can accurately measure which itself has universal 'merit' in predicting future success in medicine.

    While the attempt to overcome the inherit biases in the archaic approach to developing good doctors inherently espoused by the article does include a whole bunch of gobbledegook, that does not invalidate the criticisms of the old merit by test approach, nor indeed the need to seek better ways to develop doctors. To read this article, you'd believe that cramming the latin names of tiny bones was considerably more important than being able to speak to a patient with empathy and LISTEN to them.
    Ah yes

    So you mean they assess the students to see how "likeable" they are? How friendly and smiley? Coz that's quite important in a doctor

    Also it's quite handy if you want to drive down the awkwardly large number of bright Asian students. Fuck them. Stupid Chinese geeks. No one likes them anyway


    "Harvard’s method for tamping down its Asian American applicants to an acceptable level has controversially involved using a subjective “personal” score, gauging qualities such as “likability, courage, kindness and being ‘widely respected.’” According to Harvard, Asian Americans systematically score worse by these measures than any other racial group, weighing down their admittance rate despite higher academic scores."

    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/02/the-left-is-gaslighting-asian-americans-on-school-admissions.html


  • For the people she has to appeal to now, most of whom stopped having to work some time ago, it will be fine-to-appealing.

    In a general election, perhaps less so.
    Do you think Truss has ever shown any adaptability of thinking and willingness to appeal to the next election rather than the last one?

    The moment she's in Downing Street she'll be inevitably thinking about what does she need to do to win the next election, not what did she need to do to win her last one. She's a politician, and an agile and adaptable one at that. 👍
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Liz is increasingly impressive.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 34,274
    The age of the enlightenment was also a time of some terrible abuses in British working practices. Four and five-year-old children were working in the mills and in the mines; working in conditions which threatened their lives.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,927
    nico679 said:

    Okay but you did say Trump 24 . Anyway good luck trying to find a non-religious -freak Republican.
    Yes, that is an issue

    De Santis is probably the best bet for Reps. Not obviously insane, and not entirely crazed about abortion

    https://eu.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/state/2022/07/02/florida-governor-desantis-post-roe-abortion-debate-roe-v-wade/7770054001/
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 3,153

    'She's right' is what most will think. Especially Tory members.
    "“There’s a slight thing in Britain about wanting the easy answers. That’s my reflection on the election and what’s gone before it, and the referendum – we say it’s all Europe that’s causing these huge problems … it’s all these migrants causing these problems. But actually what needs to happen is more … more graft. It’s not a popular message.”"

    They won't think most of that is true!
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    Leon said:

    Ah yes

    So you mean they assess the students to see how "likeable" they are? How friendly and smiley? Coz that's quite important in a doctor

    Also it's quite handy if you want to drive down the awkwardly large number of bright Asian students. Fuck them. Stupid Chinese geeks. No one likes them anyway


    "Harvard’s method for tamping down its Asian American applicants to an acceptable level has controversially involved using a subjective “personal” score, gauging qualities such as “likability, courage, kindness and being ‘widely respected.’” According to Harvard, Asian Americans systematically score worse by these measures than any other racial group, weighing down their admittance rate despite higher academic scores."

    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/02/the-left-is-gaslighting-asian-americans-on-school-admissions.html


    If you're asking me if I'd prefer a Harvard Medical School graduate to a graduate from a second-tier medical school, where the emphasis is on holistic medicine and working with the patient to find the treatments they want, I'd take the latter any day of the week.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,277
    Leon said:

    Yes, that is an issue

    De Santis is probably the best bet for Reps. Not obviously insane, and not entirely crazed about abortion

    https://eu.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/state/2022/07/02/florida-governor-desantis-post-roe-abortion-debate-roe-v-wade/7770054001/
    Yes I think he’d be favourite for the nomination if Trump doesn’t run .
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 30,212
    edited August 2022

    Where British = Russian.

    Trump undermined Britain's alliances like NATO, friends like Ukraine whom he tried to shaft by tying aid to digging up dirt on his opponents etc.

    I can see why your mate Vlad likes Trump. Britain, not so much. Worst President of my life by far from a British perspective.
    I don't think there's any empirical measure by which your argument stacks up. Trump did not oblige Britain to enter any conflicts and shed treasure (or worse, blood) in so doing. He didn't seek to chide us or interfere with our domestic politics. He didn't oblige us to sanction anyone and force our biggest companies to divest their assets. He didn't sanction the US pillage of our companies in the manner of Standard Chartered or BP. He didn't bully us into accepting US takeovers of companies that we had blocked on national security grounds. He even made positive noises about a trade deal. I happen to think his proposed trade deal would have been bad for us and good for America, but I can't add that to the negative pile because it never happened. It was a brief, peaceful interregnum.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 72,866
    edited August 2022
    nico679 said:

    Yes I think he’d be favourite for the nomination if Trump doesn’t run .
    If Rubio is struggling, de Santis is no certainty for the governorship.

    And if he loses, he can kiss goodbye to any chance of the presidency in 2024.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,927
    TimT said:

    If you're asking me if I'd prefer a Harvard Medical School graduate to a graduate from a second-tier medical school, where the emphasis is on holistic medicine and working with the patient to find the treatments they want, I'd take the latter any day of the week.
    You just gotta keep the Chinese and Koreans out, right? Autistic Nerds
  • I don't think there's any empirical measure by which your argument stacks up. Trump did not oblige Britain to enter any conflicts to shed treasure (or worse, blood) in so doing. He didn't seek to chide us or interfere with our domestic politics. He didn't oblige us to sanction anyone and force our biggest companies to divest their assets. He didn't sanction the pillage our companies in the manner of Standard Chartered or BP. He even made positive noises about a trade deal. I happen to think his proposed trade deal would have been bad for us and good for America, but I can't add that to the negative pile because it never happened. It was a brief, peaceful interregnum.
    "Peace" isn't a good thing if that peace is achieved by surrender.

    Your argument is no different to the argument of Ishmael that we shouldn't have women wearing short skirts as it might provoke rape, we shouldn't publish literature as it might provoke torture etc

    You want "peace" by surrendering to Putin etc. No thank you.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    ...
    ydoethur said:

    Did anyone have that as a possible flip?

    A loss there would be a major and surely fatal blow to Republican chances of taking the Senate.
    If the GOP are losing Florida in the Senate (put me down as extremely sceptical of this) then it is a massacre, they won't be holding the House either.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    You just gotta keep the Chinese and Koreans out, right? Autistic Nerds
    I've nothing against Chinese and Koreans and did not mention them in my posts. You are the one who did. My ENT doc is Korean, and very funny.

    Maybe you're the racist thinking all Chinese and Koreans are autistic nerds.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,927
    TimT said:

    I've nothing against Chinese and Koreans. My ENT doc is Korean, and very funny.

    Maybe you're the racist thinking all Chinese and Koreans are autistic nerds.
    Wait? What?


    I'm literally quoting the means used by Harvard to drive down the number of otherwise-highly-qualified East Asian candidates, so Harvard can get the racial mix it wants. They assess their "likeability"

    "Harvard’s method for tamping down its Asian American applicants to an acceptable level has controversially involved using a subjective “personal” score, gauging qualities such as “likability, courage, kindness and being ‘widely respected.’” According to Harvard, Asian Americans systematically score worse by these measures than any other racial group, weighing down their admittance rate despite higher academic scores."
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 38,254
    Alistair said:

    ...

    If the GOP are losing Florida in the Senate (put me down as extremely sceptical of this) then it is a massacre, they won't be holding the House either.
    It's a strange poll as it puts De Santis up 7-8%. In practice, I think that hardly anyone will split their ticket between De Santis and Rubio.

    Both candidates, on average, have a pretty clear lead.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    "Peace" isn't a good thing if that peace is achieved by surrender.

    Your argument is no different to the argument of Ishmael that we shouldn't have women wearing short skirts as it might provoke rape, we shouldn't publish literature as it might provoke torture etc

    You want "peace" by surrendering to Putin etc. No thank you.
    Don't be such an utterly insufferable fucking prick. Nothing I said is analogous or reduces to the short skirt point, and your utterly moronic position is that the right to free speech always and everywhere overrides the right of Jews not to be tortured to death. If you don't understand that ask a grown up to read the previous thread and confirm it to you.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 30,212

    "Peace" isn't a good thing if that peace is achieved by surrender.

    Your argument is no different to the argument of Ishmael that we shouldn't have women wearing short skirts as it might provoke rape, we shouldn't publish literature as it might provoke torture etc

    You want "peace" by surrendering to Putin etc. No thank you.
    Your argument isn't even an argument, it's a series of less than pertinent cliches. I think that tells its own story.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Leon said:

    Yes, that is an issue

    De Santis is probably the best bet for Reps. Not obviously insane, and not entirely crazed about abortion

    https://eu.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/state/2022/07/02/florida-governor-desantis-post-roe-abortion-debate-roe-v-wade/7770054001/
    He's an absolute lunatic. Punished businesses for exercising free speech, banning books in schools, twisting the law to ignore the results of a referendum to disenfranchise voters.

    Absolute roaster.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    Don't be such an utterly insufferable fucking prick. Nothing I said is analogous or reduces to the short skirt point, and your utterly moronic position is that the right to free speech always and everywhere overrides the right of Jews not to be tortured to death. If you don't understand that ask a grown up to read the previous thread and confirm it to you.
    Plenty of grown ups read the previous thread and they almost all confirmed that your moral compass is broken.

    Jews should not be tortured to death and if any are that is the responsibility of the torturers and those who aid and abet them, not those who sell short skirts or publish novels.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 30,212
    Alistair said:

    He's an absolute lunatic. Punished businesses for exercising free speech, banning books in schools, twisting the law to ignore the results of a referendum to disenfranchise voters.

    Absolute roaster.
    My betfair account (following an RCS tip) says he's a fine upstanding fellow.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 72,866
    Sean_F said:

    It's a strange poll as it puts De Santis up 7-8%. In practice, I think that hardly anyone will split their ticket between De Santis and Rubio.

    Both candidates, on average, have a pretty clear lead.
    What's striking though is the reduction in that lead. From 20 points six months ago to that 7-8 now.

    Although I note they hedge it with caveats about the certainty of 'certain to vote' Dems.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,927
    Alistair said:

    He's an absolute lunatic. Punished businesses for exercising free speech, banning books in schools, twisting the law to ignore the results of a referendum to disenfranchise voters.

    Absolute roaster.
    I like him. Takes on The Woke

    If the GOP choose him he could slaughter the Dems in 2024, esp if they are mad enough to go for Biden or Harris
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    TimT said:

    If you're asking me if I'd prefer a Harvard Medical School graduate to a graduate from a second-tier medical school, where the emphasis is on holistic medicine and working with the patient to find the treatments they want, I'd take the latter any day of the week.
    Shit, really? The two serious demands I have made of doctors in the past decade have been to cause me not to have cancer any more, and to pop a couple of titanium hip joints in. I gave as much of a fuck about holisticism as I care whether my truck gets holistically serviced.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 38,254

    The age of the enlightenment was also a time of some terrible abuses in British working practices. Four and five-year-old children were working in the mills and in the mines; working in conditions which threatened their lives.

    It was. The point is, things gradually got better, both then and subsequently.

    Without the Enlightenment, we'd be living in a world where about 5% of the population could vote, few would see anything problematic with child labour, and where our idea of fun would be popping down to Bedlam to torment the lunatics, visiting the local child brothel, or watching someone getting hanged, drawn and quartered.
  • Do you think Truss has ever shown any adaptability of thinking and willingness to appeal to the next election rather than the last one?

    The moment she's in Downing Street she'll be inevitably thinking about what does she need to do to win the next election, not what did she need to do to win her last one. She's a politician, and an agile and adaptable one at that. 👍
    Yes and no. In some ways she has proved to be remarkably agile, but other bits of her thinking are positively scleroic. There are several examples of bees taking residence in her bonnet and proving to be hard to shift, even after being taken through the "this is why it won't work" bit. The most obvious one being the "solar farms mean farmers can't grow food" thing, which you'd hope that a DEFRA minister would have realised is tosh. The same surely has to be true of her stated tax plan, which is the opposite of targeted on the needy.

    Maybe she is a political genius who is about to betray those who want a proper economic libertarian in charge. But I'm not convinced; mostly what you see in leadership campaigns is roughly what you get.

  • DynamoDynamo Posts: 651
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    I'm not backing Trump. My comment was a Situationist provocation to get the new thread off to a cracking start
    I don't think pretending to support insane right-wing politicians on internet forums was quite the type of thing the Situs were into :smiley::smiley:

    You are Gianfranco S and I claim my five pounds!
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 64,695
    ydoethur said:

    What's striking though is the reduction in that lead. From 20 points six months ago to that 7-8 now.

    Although I note they hedge it with caveats about the certainty of 'certain to vote' Dems.
    It's the hope that Trump is actually toxic to enough of the electorate who are not mad that kills you.
This discussion has been closed.