Trump back as favourite to win WH2014 – politicalbetting.com
Trump back as favourite to win WH2014 – politicalbetting.com
After the raid on his Florida home and all the other developments relating to ‘Trump he is now back as favourite to win the Presidency back at WH2014.
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ie Leak at least a bit of radiation, blame it on the Ukrainians, say it was shelled. What's not to like? Don't destroy the plant and the world, but do enough - poison a town or two - to put terror into your enemies, and make Europe sue for peace
Putin and Russia rely on the impression of power and aggression. If they back down now, and nothing happens, then it will look weak. So it was all a bluff. The West will gain resolve
For this gambit to work best for him, he needs to do something bad at the power plant, just not something apocalyptic, yet
Toxic matter meets toxic antimatter - neutralises both?
Bad is easy (turn off water to cooling ponds) apocalyptic much harder, apparently
1.04 Liz Truss 96%
21 Rishi Sunak 5%
Next Conservative leader
1.04 Liz Truss 96%
21 Rishi Sunak 5%
https://twitter.com/ralee85/status/1560322642888081411
Why, if they were mad enough to do such a thing, would the Ukrainians hit one of their own nuclear power plants instead of a Russian one?
Truss 68% Sunak 31% on conservative members already voted
38% haven't voted yet though just 26% are undecided
There are only about 10% sitting on the fence
Create a Fukushima style calamity. Kill a few hundred people and contaminate 100 sq km of Ukraine
That would be enough, I reckon, to horrify the world, terrify europe and create pressure on Ukraine to accept a bad peace, as the west agrees to lift sanctions
It’s not pleasant but I could easily see that “working” for Putin
Talking my book, yes, in spades, but a year from now people will be kicking themselves not laying this. They'll be shaking their heads and going, "how could we have ever thought that was going to happen?"
And I'll say to them, "because you didn't see the wood, just the trees".
Well I won't - since that would be naff - but this will be the reason.
I find it very hard to believe that Ukraine could create a 'false flag' attack in a facility it doesn't even control. However, I also don't see the point of Russia blowing up a nuclear power station in territory it occupies.
Facebook post by the Flat Earth Society:
"The Flat Earth Society has members ALL AROUND THE GLOBE" ...
1. The peace would be unstable. Russia will likely also be unstable after this no matter how it plays out.
2. Ukrainian society would not accept it so as a minimum partisan warfare would continue on a massive scale. I think that the Ukrainians would continue fighting with the official army even if threated with reduced western arms support and that would actually swing public opinion in the West behind them.
3. The Poles and others would not accept it and would funnel arms in to support Ukrainian resistance.
4. Russian military collapse may well occur in quite a short timeframe, Ukrainians could go through the motions of a coerced negotiation until military defeat for Russia.
5. Western public opinion might swing to more belligerence if Russia threatens or causes a nuclear incident and at a minimum will insist on effective sanctions continuing.
Tragic.
So it is not quite all over but, well, some people are on the pitch...
And there will be a next time.
However we have learned to our cost that he is prepared to make huge gambles. In a bad way
I reckon there’s a 50% chance he will do something bad at the nuclear plant soon, and a 10% chance it will be really bad - Chernobyl style. And a 2% chance it is so bad it will kick off nuclear war and we will all die
7/2 bar the rest
Rajan isn’t who I’d been told. This is worse. A man who has applauded the “bravery” of TERFs is taking over a show with one of the biggest queer/trans representations on TV. It sends a clear signal and undoes so much work done to make all students feel welcome and safe.
https://twitter.com/lillcrawf/status/1560194819477147649
Edit: I see you made that point later.
So whilst we cannot believe every story coming out about evils of Russian plans, they have demonstrably taken irrational actions before, threatened far worse actions over much more minor slights (eg nuclear weapon threats), so such a course has to be reacted to as if it is likely, just in case. If they were concerned about losing ground in general, even if not near that plant, that would provide a pretext to remind others that Russia could take action.
No one has an interest in nuclear disaster, but they'd also claim to have no interest in tens of thousands dying or shelling cities to bits, yet they clearly do and are prepared to take massive risks around these plants already, so it isn't out of left field to worry.
Objectively, the issue seems to be that the Russians have based artillery at the plant, confident that the Ukrainians won't blow it up, which is just as unfair as basing a firing position in a hospital or a school and then comploaining if it's attacked. The Ukrainians have a legitimate interest in making this an ongoing issue. But I can't see that either side actually have an interest in a nuclear disaster.
What’s annoying is that the Russians genuinely seem to think we’ll believe their transparent lies. I can see why they got on with Dominic Cummings.
Edited to reflect the right century.
> Essentially two kinds of Republican/conservative voters in WY pissed off by Cheney's dissing (to put it mildly) of Trump:
1. True Trumpist believers and similar dyed-in-the-wool Putinist allies and/or chumps
2. GOP & conservative independents less wedded to Trump personally & ideologically BUT who recognize & respect clout of him AND his defenders, suckups, fellow-travelers, etc., etc. within the Republican Party, esp IF GOP can regain control of even half of Congress
Obvious how Cheney ran afoul of first group. What messed her up with the second, was fact that her break with Trump got her tossed out of US House GOP leadership and otherwise destroyed her influence with Republican politicos, activists, funders and (most) reliably Republican voters.
PLUS fact that Cheney lacked a true grass-roots base within Wyoming, having risen fast & somewhat furiously (in view of some GOP rivals) politically by drafting onto her big-shot (local AND DC) Big Daddy Cheney to boost her into the Republican governmental establishment.
Once the basis of her Beltway GOP establishment credentials were shredded by her own post-January 2021 patriotism, only thing she had to fall back on was nostalgia, old family retainers & the like, and Democrats.
Liz Cheney was an obvious goner months before the 2022 Wyoming primary. What drove her rejection by the voters to epic proportions, was her disconnect from what most folks in the Equality State consider their vital, critical and greatly endangered (in particular by Democrats) economic interests, namely coal, gas and oil.
Both are ironic. So many of those clamouring to get into medical school will drop out after they've qualified, and the government capping numbers is the same one trying to fill shortages of doctors.
Twitter photo in their profile
""The Guardian wrote, "Amol Rajan, (...) is a declared republican who once branded the royal family as 'absurd' and the media as a 'propaganda outlet' for the monarchy."[33] In 2021, he publicly apologised for comments made in a 2012 article he wrote for The Independent, in which he described Prince Philip as a "racist buffoon" and Prince Charles as "scientifically illiterate", and for an open letter he sent to Prince William and his wife Catherine while the two were expecting their first child, in which he described their public role as a "total fraud", the Queen's Diamond Jubilee as a "celebration of mediocrity", and the royal family as a clan "unusually full of fools"."
Wikipedia says his dad's full name was Frederick Christ Trump. Why Trump doesn't advertise himself as the Son of Christ I don't know.
I wonder what “casting” means in this context. I know the choice of which teams make it to TV is not wholly merit-based, but are they picking and choosing people for each team too?
Thanks, it looks like Old Father Time isn't such a friend after all.
Even if that made sense then, the nature of diplomacy with horrible regimes being what it is, the actions this year show the answer should be very different now, even with additional cost.
The wannabe assassin managed just 2 pages
The power plant’s a bit further east but it should be within their range if they wanted to cause a catastrophe.
A wonderful day for #FBPE Eurogoons. Here's one telling us how we are all going to suffer because of the new charges for travel under the ETIAS visa waiver scheme.
Jim Brown 3.5 % #FBPE #FBSI #FBR🏴🇪🇺
@JimJasbro
Aug 17
If you're not a club member..you have to pay more to enter...I knew this would happen #BrexitDisaster #brexittotaldisasternotmovingontilltheyhave
https://twitter.com/i/status/1559552006284611584
It's £5.92 for the whole of the EU for 3 years. 16p a month. The country will starve.
He currently polls about 50% among registered Republicans for the Presidential nomination. He has similar favourable/unfavourable numbers than Joe Biden. (And the Dems, could of course, pick someone even less electable, like Kamala Harris.)
On the other hand, Trump is a diminished figure, with mounting legal and financial risks. He is also exceptionally unpopular with Democrats.
My gut - for what it's worth - is that if the Democrats were to choose a sensible and moderate Presidential nominee (and ideally one below the age of 60), they would defeat Trump handily in 2024. The problem is that word 'if'. Biden probably wants to run again. And he's not going to be any less senile. And Harris is next in line if Biden does not stand (albeit she was bloody awful last time in the Primaries, so it's far from certain she'd win the nomination).
By contrast, I think Pence or DeSantis or Hayley or Cotton or whoever, would probably win the Presidency handily. I think the US is ready for a Republican again. But I don't think they're ready for another Trump term.
My next question is this: what if Trump's "picks" do particularly badly in November? Walker in Georgia, Oz in Pennsylvania, Vance in Ohio, Masters in Arizona - they are all candidates where Trump has thrown his weight. What if they don't do well? (And what if Trump opponents like Brian Kemp do do well?)
From a betting perspective, I think Trump is about right: he's a one in five shot. DeSantis is probably a little rich for me, given he has a difficult Gubernatorial race ahead of him. (Albeit there is a clear path for him too. So any selling of DeSantis would be in small size.)
Biden is probably a little cheap. If he decides to run again (and he really shouldn't), then he's going to win the nomination, and then be a 50/50 shot (or better) for the Presidency.
And Gavin Newsom's price is insane. He's not running. And even if he ran, he wouldn't win the nomination. Heck, I'm not even sure he'd carry his home state.
Most does not (necessarily) = majority.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysG96dUtGh4
Returning from my evening walk, I see the cost of a litre of unleaded at my local Tesco's is back down to 166.9p.
A significant fall (25p) from the peak value in June but still well above where it was at the beginning of the year, let alone this time last year.
Looking at oil prices, WTI is around $90 per barrel and Brent Crude at $96 per barrel which takes us back to just before Putin's invasion of Ukraine but well in front of this time last year when a barrel of Brent Crude went for just under $70 so effectively a one third increase in 12 months so it's not surprising it's hurting.
Yes, it's off its highs of March and June when Brent Crude traded above $120 per barrel.
What are we seeing? Has additional supply come on stream from Saudi and others to balance the apparent (though not I suspect actual) absence of Russian oil or are we seeing a reversion to a "new normality" as the conflict in the Ukraine seems to have reached a stalemate with neither side winning nor losing at this point.
Is there a possibility we are also seeing a fall off in demand - I'm reminded in 2008 oil prices (and petrol prices) surged in the spring before collapsing spectacularly with the loss of Lehman Brothers and the worldwide slowdown. We saw another demand-led collapse in the spring of 2020 but for very different reasons.
The question is whether OPEC and others will try to cut supply to keep prices up - as we've seen Saudi isn't doing badly out of the new higher oil prices and neither are firms like Saudi Aramco. If there's a thought prices could be softening I wonder if we'll see a slight contraction in supply.
The economic and political impact of higher oil prices are well known - the oil price spike of 1973-74 dominated the 1970s and signalled the end of the post-war Butskellite concensus and the dawn of Thatcherism. As to what will happen if $100 per barrel oil is here to stay, I'm not sure. The energy crisis, like housing, is multi-faceted and nuanced and defies simple or simplistic solutions.
The provision of energy is one thing - the provision and cost of fuel is another - not unrelated but the connections go right through the economy and society.
I find Rushdie easier to listen to eg on Radio. My favourite of his is Haroun and the Sea of Stories, which he wrote for children
(Update - beginning to wonder if it is fake)
Who hates who?
https://twitter.com/OCanonist/status/1559667917783834625
There have been many conflicts where each side has blamed the other for doing something. There have been some in which one side has accused the other of being about to carry out a provocation. But I don't know of any other conflicts in which both sides have said the other side will carry out a provocation in a named small area the next day.
TASS: Russian side on alleged Ukrainian plan: https://tass.com/politics/1495145
Ukrinform: Ukrainian side on alleged Russian plan: https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3553342-russian-invaders-plot-provocation-at-zaporizhzhia-npp-for-aug-19-intelligence.html
Tomorrow is a Friday too, and not only will markets shut for the weekend but it's also a monthly options expiry day.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-62594141