For some time, Michelle Obama has been 3rd favourite for the Democratic nomination behind Biden and Newsom (though Kennedy has just edged ahead of her).
She is 5th favourite for President behind Biden, Trump, Newsom and DeSantis.
Yet I don't think I've seen a single post on this forum that has even mentioned her.
Do people think she is a serious possibility? The odds suggest that if Biden were to drop out she would have a very serious chance indeed.
Also, the odds suggest that IF she were to get the nomination, she would then be odds on favourite to win the Presidency.
She’s the lay of the century (in betting terms, of course!).
She’s said nothing to indicate she has any interest at all in running for any elected office, let alone the top job. She’s now wealthy beyond belief, and is enjoying her life just as it is.
On topic, Biden has two problems: his age, and that he's been a deeply mediocre President, with low approval ratings that have never recovered from his disastrous Afghanistan decision. If he'd been a good President, his age would seem less important.
Of course, if he'd picked a decent Vice-President, rather than a token because it was "time", he might be handing the nomination over to him gracefully about now. But as it is, he'll certainly try to run again, given that he believes that beating Trump is a sacred duty, and there's no-one else who stands a chance. That may be narcissistic, but he's a senior politician so that goes with the territory.
In my judgment, he's been a very good president.
The simultaneously held beliefs on the right that abandoning Afghanistan was disastrous, while aiding Ukraine is a mistake, are bizarrely contradictory. Though they can easily be explained as sheer antipathy to a Democratic president.
Lots of people on the right support aiding Ukraine, and think that Biden has been "a day late and a dollar short" as John Bolton puts it. I certainly agree.
Are you saying that leaving Afghanistan was a triumph? By showing the West's weakness it could have emboldened Putin to invade. ...
Afghanistan doesn't really figure from Ukraine's POV - and a US still embroiled there would have been far less likely to intervene in Ukraine, in my view.
Sorry Nigel but I think you are quite wrong about this.
The chaotic, rushed, evacuation from Afghanistan was a clear signal to Putin that Biden's America would not stand up for countries outside of NATO. He invaded Ukraine just 6 months later.
That is certainly the view of General Tod Wolters, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe
Likewise it is the view of former French President François Hollande:
“If Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, it was not due to a provocation from the Atlantic alliance […]. He understood that the global situation enabled him to go even further than he had anticipated. […] When the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, it showed signs of weakness, and Vladimir Putin interpreted it as a success for himself. Each of our withdrawals has been a new opportunity for his influence to grow. According to this dynamic, Vladimir Putin understood he could go very far if he wished so.
There are certainly those who believe that - and it is, for largely self-serving reasons, the conventional wisdom on the right. But I think it's largely nonsense.
The Biden administration consistently warned Putin of consequences for at least a year running up to the invasion. Putin calculated - wrongly - that the 'SMO' would be done before anyone had a chance to intervene. The fait accompli calculation was very much based on what had happened in Crimea.
I am not sure how you can in all seriousness make a claim that a Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, a former French President, and an eminent historian are pointing out the clear link for 'self-serving' reasons.
I also think it's careless to dismiss such talk as 'conventional wisdom on the right.'
It's also naive to think that just because Biden warned Putin with words that this would make the difference. Putin is someone who reacts to actions not fine talking.
That you don't see the clear link between the chaotic American and Allied withdrawal from Afghanistan and the invasion of Ukraine 6 months later is, if I may say so, being rather deliberately obtuse. You may be right that Crimea had an effect, but in your zeal to pin it all on that, don't dismiss the rather more obvious cause and effect that most everyone else, including eminent analysts, accept.
I didn't - read what I wrote; ...and it is, for largely self-serving reasons, the conventional wisdom on the right..
You're entitled to your judgment, as are those you cite. But I think they are wrong. Afghanistan isn't clear 'cause and effect' - not least because the invasion was planned at least a year before it took place.
To re-iterate, we know from copious evidence that Putin expected the operation to be over in days. US intervention in that event would not have been military.
Maybe Biden got confused again and warned Prussia not to invade Yugoslavia.
The idea the Afghanistan debacle was a green light to Putin does not bear consideration.
See his invasions of Georgia and (2014) Ukraine. Putin invading neighbours because he has a Soviet Union cosplay habit is his normal operating procedure.
One would’ve thought that Putin would have considered the chaotic Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan. Good morning, everybody!
It seems that Putin and his chosen military “experts” were high on their own supply. They believed that if the pro Western government was decapitated at the very top, the rest of the population would rush to embrace Mother Russia.
The reverse was true - resistance was spontaneous, heartfelt and at every level. There was a rather good account of the actions in one town in the early days of the invasion. People rushed - together. To work out what they could do. One chap, who owned an earth moving company, went to the town mayor and sketched out a plan to scarp the banks of the local river to make it impossible for a amphibious vehicles to climb out of the river. He’d got his diggers in position already - just wanted the go ahead from the local defence forces. The concrete construction guy was right behind him to ask what he could pour…
It was stuff like this that bogged the Russian invasion down. Part of this was that nearly all the people the Russians had tried to bribe into supporting the invasion had gone straight to the Ukrainian government. So in many places they walked into traps set by their supposed allies in Ukraine.
It reminded me of the contrast with the U.K. and France in 1940. In France, there were many instances of military figures refusing to take any action outside their orders - jobsworthism squared.
In the Manchester, by contrast, at a conference of commanders, the heavy AA guy arrived to say that he’d got his gunners setting up for anti-tank work (heavy AA guns were devastating vs WWII tanks) and that they were working on setting up so they could be used as long range artillery as well - he’d got officers and men who served in field artillery units to explain what was needed. He was at the conference to get a list of target points (cross roads etc) to pre-register…
As the Russians encountered this “unnatural resistance” their kill lists grew longer. The original plan was to decapitate Ukrainian society so that it could be converted into a 100% Russian fiefe.
The same reason as the Katyn Massacres.
As the depth of their “problem” grew, they murdered more and more, to try and kill all the Ukranians, and just leave the Russians.
As the depth of the resistance became clear, their genocidal crap got bigger.
One would’ve thought that Putin would have considered the chaotic Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan. Good morning, everybody!
It seems that Putin and his chosen military “experts” were high on their own supply. They believed that if the pro Western government was decapitated at the very top, the rest of the population would rush to embrace Mother Russia.
The reverse was true - resistance was spontaneous, heartfelt and at every level. There was a rather good account of the actions in one town in the early days of the invasion. People rushed - together. To work out what they could do. One chap, who owned an earth moving company, went to the town mayor and sketched out a plan to scarp the banks of the local river to make it impossible for a amphibious vehicles to climb out of the river. He’d got his diggers in position already - just wanted the go ahead from the local defence forces. The concrete construction guy was right behind him to ask what he could pour…
It was stuff like this that bogged the Russian invasion down. Part of this was that nearly all the people the Russians had tried to bribe into supporting the invasion had gone straight to the Ukrainian government. So in many places they walked into traps set by their supposed allies in Ukraine.
It reminded me of the contrast with the U.K. and France in 1940. In France, there were many instances of military figures refusing to take any action outside their orders - jobsworthism squared.
In the Manchester, by contrast, at a conference of commanders, the heavy AA guy arrived to say that he’d got his gunners setting up for anti-tank work (heavy AA guns were devastating vs WWII tanks) and that they were working on setting up so they could be used as long range artillery as well - he’d got officers and men who served in field artillery units to explain what was needed. He was at the conference to get a list of target points (cross roads etc) to pre-register…
As the Russians encountered this “unnatural resistance” their kill lists grew longer. The original plan was to decapitate Ukrainian society so that it could be converted into a 100% Russian fiefe.
The same reason as the Katyn Massacres.
As the depth of their “problem” grew, they murdered more and more, to try and kill all the Ukrainians, and just leave the Russians.
As the depth of the resistance became clear
The Russians appeared to genuinely think they’d be greeted by flags and hugs, as they sped their way down the roads to Kiev. Instead, they were met with hundreds of NLAWs and Javelins, ready to take out their tanks from any available window.
In slightly funny news, a pilot ejected out of an F35 over South Carolina yesterday. The pilot's been located and is alive, but there is no immediate evidence that the plane crashed. The *rumours* are that it kept on flying on autopilot; and that they cannot locate it.
At least when the British one went over the end of the carrier last year, they knew exactly where it was and could quickly set about recovering it, albeit at quite some expense.
Surprised that 12 hours later they still don’t know where it is, although of course these things are designed to look no bigger than a bird on primary radar. It could well be in the Atlantic, in which case there’s going to be one hell of a search operation launched to find it, lest the Chinese or the Russians get to it first.
I actually know someone who bailed out of a test flight in a prototype glider, after it became uncontrollable in flight - yet it somehow ended up landing at the airfield from which it had taken off, albeit rather heavily. The pilot landed a couple of miles away under his parachute, and was thankfully uninjured.
I thought about the stealthy aspects as well; except for the fact it won't have a canopy, and would therefore would have a much larger radar signature, particularly from airborne radars.
More likely its transponder was switched off / disabled, and the US military did not turn on, or get suitable radars into the area, in time.
(IANAE, WAG, etc, etc)
They should have put an Apple AirTag on it.
Helps me locate so many things.
I just find it easier and cheaper not to lose things...
Trust me, putting an AirTag in the backpacks of your kids is a life saver.
Amazing how we managed for generations before Airtags, or even Apple, ever existed.
On topic, Biden has two problems: his age, and that he's been a deeply mediocre President, with low approval ratings that have never recovered from his disastrous Afghanistan decision. If he'd been a good President, his age would seem less important.
Of course, if he'd picked a decent Vice-President, rather than a token because it was "time", he might be handing the nomination over to him gracefully about now. But as it is, he'll certainly try to run again, given that he believes that beating Trump is a sacred duty, and there's no-one else who stands a chance. That may be narcissistic, but he's a senior politician so that goes with the territory.
Spot on
And, on the subject of Ukraine, most of you will be aware that despite being one of those dreadful Leftie types, I argued from the outset that we should have installed a No Fly Zone over Ukraine.
You have to stand up to bullies.
After telling people in the run up to the invasion that arming Ukraine was raising tensions, that there was going to be no war etc…
The consequences of a no fly zone - NATO pilots directly shooting down Russian aircraft and attacking Russian air defences deep inside Russia have been explained a number of times.
A no fly zone was, in any event, only possible had European NATO members agreed to it. Given how slow (eg) Germany was in even accepting the reality of the invasion and the need to support Ukraine, it was never going to happen even if the US had been in favour.
Any analysis of what we "should have done" has to take into account what was even possible.
In slightly funny news, a pilot ejected out of an F35 over South Carolina yesterday. The pilot's been located and is alive, but there is no immediate evidence that the plane crashed. The *rumours* are that it kept on flying on autopilot; and that they cannot locate it.
At least when the British one went over the end of the carrier last year, they knew exactly where it was and could quickly set about recovering it, albeit at quite some expense.
Surprised that 12 hours later they still don’t know where it is, although of course these things are designed to look no bigger than a bird on primary radar. It could well be in the Atlantic, in which case there’s going to be one hell of a search operation launched to find it, lest the Chinese or the Russians get to it first.
I actually know someone who bailed out of a test flight in a prototype glider, after it became uncontrollable in flight - yet it somehow ended up landing at the airfield from which it had taken off, albeit rather heavily. The pilot landed a couple of miles away under his parachute, and was thankfully uninjured.
I thought about the stealthy aspects as well; except for the fact it won't have a canopy, and would therefore would have a much larger radar signature, particularly from airborne radars.
More likely its transponder was switched off / disabled, and the US military did not turn on, or get suitable radars into the area, in time.
(IANAE, WAG, etc, etc)
They should have put an Apple AirTag on it.
Helps me locate so many things.
I just find it easier and cheaper not to lose things...
Trust me, putting an AirTag in the backpacks of your kids is a life saver.
It’s “easy” not to lose things. It’s much harder to ensure one’s children don’t!
On topic, Biden has two problems: his age, and that he's been a deeply mediocre President, with low approval ratings that have never recovered from his disastrous Afghanistan decision. If he'd been a good President, his age would seem less important.
Of course, if he'd picked a decent Vice-President, rather than a token because it was "time", he might be handing the nomination over to him gracefully about now. But as it is, he'll certainly try to run again, given that he believes that beating Trump is a sacred duty, and there's no-one else who stands a chance. That may be narcissistic, but he's a senior politician so that goes with the territory.
In my judgment, he's been a very good president.
The simultaneously held beliefs on the right that abandoning Afghanistan was disastrous, while aiding Ukraine is a mistake, are bizarrely contradictory. Though they can easily be explained as sheer antipathy to a Democratic president.
Lots of people on the right support aiding Ukraine, and think that Biden has been "a day late and a dollar short" as John Bolton puts it. I certainly agree.
Are you saying that leaving Afghanistan was a triumph? By showing the West's weakness it could have emboldened Putin to invade. ...
Afghanistan doesn't really figure from Ukraine's POV - and a US still embroiled there would have been far less likely to intervene in Ukraine, in my view.
Sorry Nigel but I think you are quite wrong about this.
The chaotic, rushed, evacuation from Afghanistan was a clear signal to Putin that Biden's America would not stand up for countries outside of NATO. He invaded Ukraine just 6 months later.
That is certainly the view of General Tod Wolters, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe
Likewise it is the view of former French President François Hollande:
“If Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, it was not due to a provocation from the Atlantic alliance […]. He understood that the global situation enabled him to go even further than he had anticipated. […] When the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, it showed signs of weakness, and Vladimir Putin interpreted it as a success for himself. Each of our withdrawals has been a new opportunity for his influence to grow. According to this dynamic, Vladimir Putin understood he could go very far if he wished so.
There are certainly those who believe that - and it is, for largely self-serving reasons, the conventional wisdom on the right. But I think it's largely nonsense.
The Biden administration consistently warned Putin of consequences for at least a year running up to the invasion. Putin calculated - wrongly - that the 'SMO' would be done before anyone had a chance to intervene. The fait accompli calculation was very much based on what had happened in Crimea.
I am not sure how you can in all seriousness make a claim that a Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, a former French President, and an eminent historian are pointing out the clear link for 'self-serving' reasons.
I also think it's careless to dismiss such talk as 'conventional wisdom on the right.'
It's also naive to think that just because Biden warned Putin with words that this would make the difference. Putin is someone who reacts to actions not fine talking.
That you don't see the clear link between the chaotic American and Allied withdrawal from Afghanistan and the invasion of Ukraine 6 months later is, if I may say so, being rather deliberately obtuse. You may be right that Crimea had an effect, but in your zeal to pin it all on that, don't dismiss the rather more obvious cause and effect that most everyone else, including eminent analysts, accept.
I didn't - read what I wrote; ...and it is, for largely self-serving reasons, the conventional wisdom on the right..
You're entitled to your judgment, as are those you cite. But I think they are wrong. Afghanistan isn't clear 'cause and effect' - not least because the invasion was planned at least a year before it took place.
To re-iterate, we know from copious evidence that Putin expected the operation to be over in days. US intervention in that event would not have been military.
Maybe Biden got confused again and warned Prussia not to invade Yugoslavia.
In slightly funny news, a pilot ejected out of an F35 over South Carolina yesterday. The pilot's been located and is alive, but there is no immediate evidence that the plane crashed. The *rumours* are that it kept on flying on autopilot; and that they cannot locate it.
At least when the British one went over the end of the carrier last year, they knew exactly where it was and could quickly set about recovering it, albeit at quite some expense.
Surprised that 12 hours later they still don’t know where it is, although of course these things are designed to look no bigger than a bird on primary radar. It could well be in the Atlantic, in which case there’s going to be one hell of a search operation launched to find it, lest the Chinese or the Russians get to it first.
I actually know someone who bailed out of a test flight in a prototype glider, after it became uncontrollable in flight - yet it somehow ended up landing at the airfield from which it had taken off, albeit rather heavily. The pilot landed a couple of miles away under his parachute, and was thankfully uninjured.
I thought about the stealthy aspects as well; except for the fact it won't have a canopy, and would therefore would have a much larger radar signature, particularly from airborne radars.
More likely its transponder was switched off / disabled, and the US military did not turn on, or get suitable radars into the area, in time.
(IANAE, WAG, etc, etc)
They should have put an Apple AirTag on it.
Helps me locate so many things.
I just find it easier and cheaper not to lose things...
Trust me, putting an AirTag in the backpacks of your kids is a life saver.
Amazing how we managed for generations before Airtags, or even Apple, ever existed.
Part of it is that we had fewer things. We are drowning in stuff.
One would’ve thought that Putin would have considered the chaotic Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan. Good morning, everybody!
It seems that Putin and his chosen military “experts” were high on their own supply. They believed that if the pro Western government was decapitated at the very top, the rest of the population would rush to embrace Mother Russia.
The reverse was true - resistance was spontaneous, heartfelt and at every level. There was a rather good account of the actions in one town in the early days of the invasion. People rushed - together. To work out what they could do. One chap, who owned an earth moving company, went to the town mayor and sketched out a plan to scarp the banks of the local river to make it impossible for a amphibious vehicles to climb out of the river. He’d got his diggers in position already - just wanted the go ahead from the local defence forces. The concrete construction guy was right behind him to ask what he could pour…
It was stuff like this that bogged the Russian invasion down. Part of this was that nearly all the people the Russians had tried to bribe into supporting the invasion had gone straight to the Ukrainian government. So in many places they walked into traps set by their supposed allies in Ukraine.
It reminded me of the contrast with the U.K. and France in 1940. In France, there were many instances of military figures refusing to take any action outside their orders - jobsworthism squared.
In the Manchester, by contrast, at a conference of commanders, the heavy AA guy arrived to say that he’d got his gunners setting up for anti-tank work (heavy AA guns were devastating vs WWII tanks) and that they were working on setting up so they could be used as long range artillery as well - he’d got officers and men who served in field artillery units to explain what was needed. He was at the conference to get a list of target points (cross roads etc) to pre-register…
As the Russians encountered this “unnatural resistance” their kill lists grew longer. The original plan was to decapitate Ukrainian society so that it could be converted into a 100% Russian fiefe.
The same reason as the Katyn Massacres.
As the depth of their “problem” grew, they murdered more and more, to try and kill all the Ukrainians, and just leave the Russians.
As the depth of the resistance became clear
The Russians appeared to genuinely think they’d be greeted by flags and hugs, as they sped their way down the roads to Kiev. Instead, they were met with hundreds of NLAWs and Javelins, ready to take out their tanks from any available window.
More that, for once, universal conscription worked. Within hours of the invasion, the recently released from service were queuing up at their local military bases to get their weapons and join units.
One would’ve thought that Putin would have considered the chaotic Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan. Good morning, everybody!
It seems that Putin and his chosen military “experts” were high on their own supply. They believed that if the pro Western government was decapitated at the very top, the rest of the population would rush to embrace Mother Russia.
The reverse was true - resistance was spontaneous, heartfelt and at every level. There was a rather good account of the actions in one town in the early days of the invasion. People rushed - together. To work out what they could do. One chap, who owned an earth moving company, went to the town mayor and sketched out a plan to scarp the banks of the local river to make it impossible for a amphibious vehicles to climb out of the river. He’d got his diggers in position already - just wanted the go ahead from the local defence forces. The concrete construction guy was right behind him to ask what he could pour…
It was stuff like this that bogged the Russian invasion down. Part of this was that nearly all the people the Russians had tried to bribe into supporting the invasion had gone straight to the Ukrainian government. So in many places they walked into traps set by their supposed allies in Ukraine.
It reminded me of the contrast with the U.K. and France in 1940. In France, there were many instances of military figures refusing to take any action outside their orders - jobsworthism squared.
In the Manchester, by contrast, at a conference of commanders, the heavy AA guy arrived to say that he’d got his gunners setting up for anti-tank work (heavy AA guns were devastating vs WWII tanks) and that they were working on setting up so they could be used as long range artillery as well - he’d got officers and men who served in field artillery units to explain what was needed. He was at the conference to get a list of target points (cross roads etc) to pre-register…
As the Russians encountered this “unnatural resistance” their kill lists grew longer. The original plan was to decapitate Ukrainian society so that it could be converted into a 100% Russian fiefe.
The same reason as the Katyn Massacres.
As the depth of their “problem” grew, they murdered more and more, to try and kill all the Ukrainians, and just leave the Russians.
As the depth of the resistance became clear
The Russians appeared to genuinely think they’d be greeted by flags and hugs, as they sped their way down the roads to Kiev. Instead, they were met with hundreds of NLAWs and Javelins, ready to take out their tanks from any available window.
More that, for once, universal conscription worked. Within hours of the invasion, the recently released from service were queuing up at their local military bases to get their weapons and join units.
IMV the woman with the sunflower seeds epitomises Ukraine in those first few days:
"A Ukrainian woman is being hailed for her bravery after she confronted a heavily-armed Russian soldier and offered him sunflower seeds — so that they might bloom when he dies."
On topic, Biden has two problems: his age, and that he's been a deeply mediocre President, with low approval ratings that have never recovered from his disastrous Afghanistan decision. If he'd been a good President, his age would seem less important.
Of course, if he'd picked a decent Vice-President, rather than a token because it was "time", he might be handing the nomination over to him gracefully about now. But as it is, he'll certainly try to run again, given that he believes that beating Trump is a sacred duty, and there's no-one else who stands a chance. That may be narcissistic, but he's a senior politician so that goes with the territory.
In my judgment, he's been a very good president.
The simultaneously held beliefs on the right that abandoning Afghanistan was disastrous, while aiding Ukraine is a mistake, are bizarrely contradictory. Though they can easily be explained as sheer antipathy to a Democratic president.
Lots of people on the right support aiding Ukraine, and think that Biden has been "a day late and a dollar short" as John Bolton puts it. I certainly agree.
Are you saying that leaving Afghanistan was a triumph? By showing the West's weakness it could have emboldened Putin to invade. ...
Afghanistan doesn't really figure from Ukraine's POV - and a US still embroiled there would have been far less likely to intervene in Ukraine, in my view.
Sorry Nigel but I think you are quite wrong about this.
The chaotic, rushed, evacuation from Afghanistan was a clear signal to Putin that Biden's America would not stand up for countries outside of NATO. He invaded Ukraine just 6 months later.
That is certainly the view of General Tod Wolters, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe
Likewise it is the view of former French President François Hollande:
“If Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, it was not due to a provocation from the Atlantic alliance […]. He understood that the global situation enabled him to go even further than he had anticipated. […] When the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, it showed signs of weakness, and Vladimir Putin interpreted it as a success for himself. Each of our withdrawals has been a new opportunity for his influence to grow. According to this dynamic, Vladimir Putin understood he could go very far if he wished so.
There are certainly those who believe that - and it is, for largely self-serving reasons, the conventional wisdom on the right. But I think it's largely nonsense.
The Biden administration consistently warned Putin of consequences for at least a year running up to the invasion. Putin calculated - wrongly - that the 'SMO' would be done before anyone had a chance to intervene. The fait accompli calculation was very much based on what had happened in Crimea.
I am not sure how you can in all seriousness make a claim that a Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, a former French President, and an eminent historian are pointing out the clear link for 'self-serving' reasons.
I also think it's careless to dismiss such talk as 'conventional wisdom on the right.'
It's also naive to think that just because Biden warned Putin with words that this would make the difference. Putin is someone who reacts to actions not fine talking.
That you don't see the clear link between the chaotic American and Allied withdrawal from Afghanistan and the invasion of Ukraine 6 months later is, if I may say so, being rather deliberately obtuse. You may be right that Crimea had an effect, but in your zeal to pin it all on that, don't dismiss the rather more obvious cause and effect that most everyone else, including eminent analysts, accept.
I didn't - read what I wrote; ...and it is, for largely self-serving reasons, the conventional wisdom on the right..
You're entitled to your judgment, as are those you cite. But I think they are wrong. Afghanistan isn't clear 'cause and effect' - not least because the invasion was planned at least a year before it took place.
To re-iterate, we know from copious evidence that Putin expected the operation to be over in days. US intervention in that event would not have been military.
Maybe Biden got confused again and warned Prussia not to invade Yugoslavia.
I'm in France now and the racial tensions are pretty palpable. Mixed-race couples are much rarer than they are in the UK, you see a lot more racist graffiti and there is still a much heavier police presence than there was last time I was here. But the most shocking thing I've seen was when my train crossed the border from Italy into France: the police went through it and methodically checked all the IDs of any non-white men, and yanked lots of them off for further questioning.
Interestingly the same thing happened earlier in my middle-aged Interrail trip around Europe this summer when we crossed from Hungary into Austria.
So much for free movement within Schengen.
Anyway, I moaned about it to a (slightly swarthy looking but ethnically European) friend who knows French history well and used to live in Nice and he emailed back:
"Sadly what you have seen on the trains this summer (and I did too - on our way to Florence, surprise, surprise, I got more questions from the Italian border guards on the Lausanne-Milan train than [his wife] or any of the white people in our carriage, and we saw several black people on the platform at Domodossola having presumably been yanked off the train, then later in my trip I saw some hefty French border guards lurking at both Ventimiglia and Menton-Garavan stations, I think as at the height of the holiday season the train was too packed for on-board controls) goes back way further than 2015!
"That kind of thing was already common practice on the Ventimiglia trains in our day (2002-2003) ... But it's all also very much in continuity with French policing of North Africans going back to colonial times. The only real difference from what you would have seen on the same train in the 1920s is that Italians aren't viewed with suspicion in France any more."
Stoke space have an interesting merging of their second stage engine system and their heat shield system for rentry. It’s another of those ideas that’s been talked about for decades, but they are the first to build and fly.
Way offtopic, but Brent Crude is likely to go through $95 a barrel today.
That’s actually up on this date a year ago, and will make the inflation number this month much more difficult for the government.
As I’ve been saying for months, Western governments, especially those looking at an election next year - Mr Sunak and Mr Biden - need to persuade the OPEC countries to turn on the taps, and get Putin’s black market oil out of the world trade.
Probably a Provincial Science Teacher ignorant question, what's in it for Saudi et al?
I'm in France now and the racial tensions are pretty palpable. Mixed-race couples are much rarer than they are in the UK, you see a lot more racist graffiti and there is still a much heavier police presence than there was last time I was here. But the most shocking thing I've seen was when my train crossed the border from Italy into France: the police went through it and methodically checked all the IDs of any non-white men, and yanked lots of them off for further questioning.
Interestingly the same thing happened earlier in my middle-aged Interrail trip around Europe this summer when we crossed from Hungary into Austria.
So much for free movement within Schengen.
Anyway, I moaned about it to a (slightly swarthy looking but ethnically European) friend who knows French history well and used to live in Nice and he emailed back:
"Sadly what you have seen on the trains this summer (and I did too - on our way to Florence, surprise, surprise, I got more questions from the Italian border guards on the Lausanne-Milan train than [his wife] or any of the white people in our carriage, and we saw several black people on the platform at Domodossola having presumably been yanked off the train, then later in my trip I saw some hefty French border guards lurking at both Ventimiglia and Menton-Garavan stations, I think as at the height of the holiday season the train was too packed for on-board controls) goes back way further than 2015!
"That kind of thing was already common practice on the Ventimiglia trains in our day (2002-2003) ... But it's all also very much in continuity with French policing of North Africans going back to colonial times. The only real difference from what you would have seen on the same train in the 1920s is that Italians aren't viewed with suspicion in France any more."
#LibyanCoastguardIssues
A Spanish friend with an African wife says that racism is a massive problem when he goes back to Spain, especially in the South.
Perhaps Brand could say his behaviour 'fell short of his values'. If he had any.
You want to compare vaping when it's not allowed with accusations of rape and sexual assault?
Er, no.
Being chucked out of a theatre for overly-vigorous smooching is an oddly humanising thing for the bizarre Boebert. Amusing that the fella is a Dem activist too. What is with the 'walk off with the middle finger' thing though? Reminds me of Andrea Jenkin after Boris's de-PMing.
Way offtopic, but Brent Crude is likely to go through $95 a barrel today.
That’s actually up on this date a year ago, and will make the inflation number this month much more difficult for the government.
As I’ve been saying for months, Western governments, especially those looking at an election next year - Mr Sunak and Mr Biden - need to persuade the OPEC countries to turn on the taps, and get Putin’s black market oil out of the world trade.
Probably a Provincial Science Teacher ignorant question, what's in it for Saudi et al?
Re-igniting the willy-waving contest between MBS and Putin, that started during the pandemic.
Also, a more friendly West as the OPEC nations try to look both ways at the moment.
On topic, Biden has two problems: his age, and that he's been a deeply mediocre President, with low approval ratings that have never recovered from his disastrous Afghanistan decision. If he'd been a good President, his age would seem less important.
Of course, if he'd picked a decent Vice-President, rather than a token because it was "time", he might be handing the nomination over to him gracefully about now. But as it is, he'll certainly try to run again, given that he believes that beating Trump is a sacred duty, and there's no-one else who stands a chance. That may be narcissistic, but he's a senior politician so that goes with the territory.
Spot on
And, on the subject of Ukraine, most of you will be aware that despite being one of those dreadful Leftie types, I argued from the outset that we should have installed a No Fly Zone over Ukraine.
You have to stand up to bullies.
After telling people in the run up to the invasion that arming Ukraine was raising tensions, that there was going to be no war etc…
The consequences of a no fly zone - NATO pilots directly shooting down Russian aircraft and attacking Russian air defences deep inside Russia have been explained a number of times.
A no fly zone was, in any event, only possible had European NATO members agreed to it. Given how slow (eg) Germany was in even accepting the reality of the invasion and the need to support Ukraine, it was never going to happen even if the US had been in favour.
Any analysis of what we "should have done" has to take into account what was even possible.
That might be true, but if you are going to have a fantasy world where the US wad in favour of a no-fly zone, you may as well have a fantasy world where the rest of NATO was too.
View of Busan from the memorial to resistance to the Japanese invasion.
Of 1592.
South Korea sounds a fascinating place. Either high rise or forest is an interesting combination. They need to sort out their fertility issue though.
I will certainly revisit. Though I've been here for nearly three weeks, it's been a bit of a lightning tour. Seoul alone would justify at least a fortnight's stay.
For some time, Michelle Obama has been 3rd favourite for the Democratic nomination behind Biden and Newsom (though Kennedy has just edged ahead of her).
She is 5th favourite for President behind Biden, Trump, Newsom and DeSantis.
Yet I don't think I've seen a single post on this forum that has even mentioned her.
Do people think she is a serious possibility? The odds suggest that if Biden were to drop out she would have a very serious chance indeed.
Also, the odds suggest that IF she were to get the nomination, she would then be odds on favourite to win the Presidency.
No, she's not a serious possibility. Not totally impossible, but well under a 1% chance, not least because she shows no sign of running.
You get silly odds like that because if you have to lock up your money with zero interest in a currency with quite a bit of inflation for at least a year with a not 100% trustworthy counterparty you need a reasonable return, so idiots won't find anyone to lay their stupid bets until they put up an offer quite a lot higher than the actual probability.
Biden will not face a seriously contested primary unless he has a serious medical issue.
The whole reason Biden is POTUS is that, post Obama and post Trump, the Democratic party have not coalesced around a single set of policies or an avatar for those policies - and Biden was the stop gap until that could be settled internally. With the older generation of Democratic politicians (see Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer) holding on for dear life, there is rare injection of younger politicians. Those who are younger are, by necessity, outside of Democratic policy orthodoxy; if you are within the orthodoxy you are willing to accept the "wait your turn" mentality that centrist Dems have created. So the youngest politicians in the Democratic caucus are typically the most progressive, which the Democratic Party establishment don't want to be POTUS because they a) think they'll lose and b) disagree with them on policy, whilst the older are moderates.
That leads us to the problem of Biden's successor. Kamala is not good at politics - her campaign last time and her management of the Veep position shows that. Buttigieg will not win a primary - his moderateness is off putting to younger Democrats and his inability to make inroads with African American voters means he has no big constituency in the party. Gretchen Whitmer makes sense, but a blue state governor hasn't done well in a primary for a long time. Bernie or Warren are non starters; the party do not want someone that progressive and whilst they have some popularity they don't have enough to storm the primaries. Raphael Warnock, as a Democratic senator from Georgia, would be an interesting person to run - but he doesn't have the infrastructure for a run like that yet.
The only person who evidently would unite the base is someone who clearly hates the idea of being POTUS; Michelle Obama. She is considered more progressive than Barack was, Obama world would jump behind her and she has a natural constituency in the party. She also has the same skill at public speaking that Barack has - and hopefully having seen how the GOP responded to her husbands presidency would not fall for the same peanuts football gag that the Dems did during his presidency.
The only other politician I could see with big enough popularity and a natural base is AOC - and she won't run until 2028 at the earliest. She's lost a lot of her bomb thrower verve, partly as she has been institutionalised and partly because the Democratic party has worn her down, so she won't directly run against Biden - and in a world where he can't run she is just a little too young (I think she would only just be 35 when sworn in?). So Biden is the candidate out of inertia rather than anything else.
Ok topic if some credible challenger is planning on taking on Biden they should probably think about raising money and getting on ballots and things like that. It's already halfway through September. It's not something you can do at the last minute unless the incumbent suddenly dies or implodes or whatever.
Biden will not face a seriously contested primary unless he has a serious medical issue.
The whole reason Biden is POTUS is that, post Obama and post Trump, the Democratic party have not coalesced around a single set of policies or an avatar for those policies - and Biden was the stop gap until that could be settled internally. With the older generation of Democratic politicians (see Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer) holding on for dear life, there is rare injection of younger politicians. Those who are younger are, by necessity, outside of Democratic policy orthodoxy; if you are within the orthodoxy you are willing to accept the "wait your turn" mentality that centrist Dems have created. So the youngest politicians in the Democratic caucus are typically the most progressive, which the Democratic Party establishment don't want to be POTUS because they a) think they'll lose and b) disagree with them on policy, whilst the older are moderates.
That leads us to the problem of Biden's successor. Kamala is not good at politics - her campaign last time and her management of the Veep position shows that. Buttigieg will not win a primary - his moderateness is off putting to younger Democrats and his inability to make inroads with African American voters means he has no big constituency in the party. Gretchen Whitmer makes sense, but a blue state governor hasn't done well in a primary for a long time. Bernie or Warren are non starters; the party do not want someone that progressive and whilst they have some popularity they don't have enough to storm the primaries. Raphael Warnock, as a Democratic senator from Georgia, would be an interesting person to run - but he doesn't have the infrastructure for a run like that yet.
The only person who evidently would unite the base is someone who clearly hates the idea of being POTUS; Michelle Obama. She is considered more progressive than Barack was, Obama world would jump behind her and she has a natural constituency in the party. She also has the same skill at public speaking that Barack has - and hopefully having seen how the GOP responded to her husbands presidency would not fall for the same peanuts football gag that the Dems did during his presidency.
The only other politician I could see with big enough popularity and a natural base is AOC - and she won't run until 2028 at the earliest. She's lost a lot of her bomb thrower verve, partly as she has been institutionalised and partly because the Democratic party has worn her down, so she won't directly run against Biden - and in a world where he can't run she is just a little too young (I think she would only just be 35 when sworn in?). So Biden is the candidate out of inertia rather than anything else.
An excellent if sombre assessment.
(I would just add that Sanders, as well as being too progressive, is also 82 himself....)
Biden will not face a seriously contested primary unless he has a serious medical issue.
The whole reason Biden is POTUS is that, post Obama and post Trump, the Democratic party have not coalesced around a single set of policies or an avatar for those policies - and Biden was the stop gap until that could be settled internally. With the older generation of Democratic politicians (see Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer) holding on for dear life, there is rare injection of younger politicians. Those who are younger are, by necessity, outside of Democratic policy orthodoxy; if you are within the orthodoxy you are willing to accept the "wait your turn" mentality that centrist Dems have created. So the youngest politicians in the Democratic caucus are typically the most progressive, which the Democratic Party establishment don't want to be POTUS because they a) think they'll lose and b) disagree with them on policy, whilst the older are moderates.
That leads us to the problem of Biden's successor. Kamala is not good at politics - her campaign last time and her management of the Veep position shows that. Buttigieg will not win a primary - his moderateness is off putting to younger Democrats and his inability to make inroads with African American voters means he has no big constituency in the party. Gretchen Whitmer makes sense, but a blue state governor hasn't done well in a primary for a long time. Bernie or Warren are non starters; the party do not want someone that progressive and whilst they have some popularity they don't have enough to storm the primaries. Raphael Warnock, as a Democratic senator from Georgia, would be an interesting person to run - but he doesn't have the infrastructure for a run like that yet.
The only person who evidently would unite the base is someone who clearly hates the idea of being POTUS; Michelle Obama. She is considered more progressive than Barack was, Obama world would jump behind her and she has a natural constituency in the party. She also has the same skill at public speaking that Barack has - and hopefully having seen how the GOP responded to her husbands presidency would not fall for the same peanuts football gag that the Dems did during his presidency.
The only other politician I could see with big enough popularity and a natural base is AOC - and she won't run until 2028 at the earliest. She's lost a lot of her bomb thrower verve, partly as she has been institutionalised and partly because the Democratic party has worn her down, so she won't directly run against Biden - and in a world where he can't run she is just a little too young (I think she would only just be 35 when sworn in?). So Biden is the candidate out of inertia rather than anything else.
Stoke space have an interesting merging of their second stage engine system and their heat shield system for rentry. It’s another of those ideas that’s been talked about for decades, but they are the first to build and fly.
Yes, they're another of the small launcher startups with an interesting idea. Sadly, they're probably starting too late.
The other day Firefly got a US payload into orbit with their responsive service - that really is impressive.
Way offtopic, but Brent Crude is likely to go through $95 a barrel today.
That’s actually up on this date a year ago, and will make the inflation number this month much more difficult for the government.
As I’ve been saying for months, Western governments, especially those looking at an election next year - Mr Sunak and Mr Biden - need to persuade the OPEC countries to turn on the taps, and get Putin’s black market oil out of the world trade.
Probably a Provincial Science Teacher ignorant question, what's in it for Saudi et al?
Nothing and I think the Saudi’s are very happy to pump less because their reserves may not be as great as the world thinks…
Stoke space have an interesting merging of their second stage engine system and their heat shield system for rentry. It’s another of those ideas that’s been talked about for decades, but they are the first to build and fly.
Surely, Stoke-on-Trent has more pressing local concerns than a space programme?
Stoke space have an interesting merging of their second stage engine system and their heat shield system for rentry. It’s another of those ideas that’s been talked about for decades, but they are the first to build and fly.
Surely, Stoke-on-Trent has more pressing local concerns than a space programme?
I don't know. I can imagine many of the locals will do anything to escape...
View of Busan from the memorial to resistance to the Japanese invasion.
Of 1592.
Good morning
My abiding memory of our visit to Busan was the incredible ship building and marine construction going on which made me comment to my good lady that that is where all our shipbuilding has gone to
Have had to do a mid-month expenses update as they are piling up at a rate of knots for the second month running.
Lets just say that as I keep finding new projects to do for Big Client its a good opportunity for me to spend more of our money on their behalf. Good job our cash flow is healthy...
Biden will not face a seriously contested primary unless he has a serious medical issue.
The whole reason Biden is POTUS is that, post Obama and post Trump, the Democratic party have not coalesced around a single set of policies or an avatar for those policies - and Biden was the stop gap until that could be settled internally. With the older generation of Democratic politicians (see Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer) holding on for dear life, there is rare injection of younger politicians. Those who are younger are, by necessity, outside of Democratic policy orthodoxy; if you are within the orthodoxy you are willing to accept the "wait your turn" mentality that centrist Dems have created. So the youngest politicians in the Democratic caucus are typically the most progressive, which the Democratic Party establishment don't want to be POTUS because they a) think they'll lose and b) disagree with them on policy, whilst the older are moderates.
That leads us to the problem of Biden's successor. Kamala is not good at politics - her campaign last time and her management of the Veep position shows that. Buttigieg will not win a primary - his moderateness is off putting to younger Democrats and his inability to make inroads with African American voters means he has no big constituency in the party. Gretchen Whitmer makes sense, but a blue state governor hasn't done well in a primary for a long time. Bernie or Warren are non starters; the party do not want someone that progressive and whilst they have some popularity they don't have enough to storm the primaries. Raphael Warnock, as a Democratic senator from Georgia, would be an interesting person to run - but he doesn't have the infrastructure for a run like that yet.
The only person who evidently would unite the base is someone who clearly hates the idea of being POTUS; Michelle Obama. She is considered more progressive than Barack was, Obama world would jump behind her and she has a natural constituency in the party. She also has the same skill at public speaking that Barack has - and hopefully having seen how the GOP responded to her husbands presidency would not fall for the same peanuts football gag that the Dems did during his presidency.
The only other politician I could see with big enough popularity and a natural base is AOC - and she won't run until 2028 at the earliest. She's lost a lot of her bomb thrower verve, partly as she has been institutionalised and partly because the Democratic party has worn her down, so she won't directly run against Biden - and in a world where he can't run she is just a little too young (I think she would only just be 35 when sworn in?). So Biden is the candidate out of inertia rather than anything else.
What do you think about Newsom?
He falls under the blue governor category in my view. He clearly wants it - but I also don't see his natural constituency within the party base. His moves at the moment all seem to be about getting on TV aimed at moderates and GOP voters (he likes being on Fox), which is a very GE strategy, not a primary one.
If he can convince Obama world he is their best option, he may manage it? But he would be another very corporate friendly Democratic candidate in a political environment where both parties are willing to criticise corporations more and more (if for different reasons). He has been trying to mediate some of the strikes happening in Hollywood, but the unions don't seem keen on the idea - which suggests they don't trust him. Union politics is becoming even more important for the Democratic primaries as they gain in popularity and flex their muscles more.
Biden will not face a seriously contested primary unless he has a serious medical issue.
The whole reason Biden is POTUS is that, post Obama and post Trump, the Democratic party have not coalesced around a single set of policies or an avatar for those policies - and Biden was the stop gap until that could be settled internally. With the older generation of Democratic politicians (see Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer) holding on for dear life, there is rare injection of younger politicians. Those who are younger are, by necessity, outside of Democratic policy orthodoxy; if you are within the orthodoxy you are willing to accept the "wait your turn" mentality that centrist Dems have created. So the youngest politicians in the Democratic caucus are typically the most progressive, which the Democratic Party establishment don't want to be POTUS because they a) think they'll lose and b) disagree with them on policy, whilst the older are moderates.
That leads us to the problem of Biden's successor. Kamala is not good at politics - her campaign last time and her management of the Veep position shows that. Buttigieg will not win a primary - his moderateness is off putting to younger Democrats and his inability to make inroads with African American voters means he has no big constituency in the party. Gretchen Whitmer makes sense, but a blue state governor hasn't done well in a primary for a long time. Bernie or Warren are non starters; the party do not want someone that progressive and whilst they have some popularity they don't have enough to storm the primaries. Raphael Warnock, as a Democratic senator from Georgia, would be an interesting person to run - but he doesn't have the infrastructure for a run like that yet.
The only person who evidently would unite the base is someone who clearly hates the idea of being POTUS; Michelle Obama. She is considered more progressive than Barack was, Obama world would jump behind her and she has a natural constituency in the party. She also has the same skill at public speaking that Barack has - and hopefully having seen how the GOP responded to her husbands presidency would not fall for the same peanuts football gag that the Dems did during his presidency.
The only other politician I could see with big enough popularity and a natural base is AOC - and she won't run until 2028 at the earliest. She's lost a lot of her bomb thrower verve, partly as she has been institutionalised and partly because the Democratic party has worn her down, so she won't directly run against Biden - and in a world where he can't run she is just a little too young (I think she would only just be 35 when sworn in?). So Biden is the candidate out of inertia rather than anything else.
What do you think about Newsom?
He seems to be the darling of Betfair at the moment. One of those I've laid. Heavily.
Biden will not face a seriously contested primary unless he has a serious medical issue.
The whole reason Biden is POTUS is that, post Obama and post Trump, the Democratic party have not coalesced around a single set of policies or an avatar for those policies - and Biden was the stop gap until that could be settled internally. With the older generation of Democratic politicians (see Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer) holding on for dear life, there is rare injection of younger politicians. Those who are younger are, by necessity, outside of Democratic policy orthodoxy; if you are within the orthodoxy you are willing to accept the "wait your turn" mentality that centrist Dems have created. So the youngest politicians in the Democratic caucus are typically the most progressive, which the Democratic Party establishment don't want to be POTUS because they a) think they'll lose and b) disagree with them on policy, whilst the older are moderates.
That leads us to the problem of Biden's successor. Kamala is not good at politics - her campaign last time and her management of the Veep position shows that. Buttigieg will not win a primary - his moderateness is off putting to younger Democrats and his inability to make inroads with African American voters means he has no big constituency in the party. Gretchen Whitmer makes sense, but a blue state governor hasn't done well in a primary for a long time. Bernie or Warren are non starters; the party do not want someone that progressive and whilst they have some popularity they don't have enough to storm the primaries. Raphael Warnock, as a Democratic senator from Georgia, would be an interesting person to run - but he doesn't have the infrastructure for a run like that yet.
The only person who evidently would unite the base is someone who clearly hates the idea of being POTUS; Michelle Obama. She is considered more progressive than Barack was, Obama world would jump behind her and she has a natural constituency in the party. She also has the same skill at public speaking that Barack has - and hopefully having seen how the GOP responded to her husbands presidency would not fall for the same peanuts football gag that the Dems did during his presidency.
The only other politician I could see with big enough popularity and a natural base is AOC - and she won't run until 2028 at the earliest. She's lost a lot of her bomb thrower verve, partly as she has been institutionalised and partly because the Democratic party has worn her down, so she won't directly run against Biden - and in a world where he can't run she is just a little too young (I think she would only just be 35 when sworn in?). So Biden is the candidate out of inertia rather than anything else.
An excellent if sombre assessment.
(I would just add that Sanders, as well as being too progressive, is also 82 himself....)
Yes Sanders is old, but the issue with Biden is more that he looks and acts his age rather than the age itself. Trump is still quite old, and yet people are less likely to hold it against him (despite the fact some of his quirks could be explained via dementia). People trust (maybe incorrectly) that Sanders has the vigour of his convictions.
I think Sanders will likely be significant based on who he endorses in 2028 rather than running himself. If he supports AOC, for example, that would be significant. (I disagree with many assessments painting the left as falling for personalities - both Sanders' and Corbyn's popularity I feel had to do with people yearning for their policies and not based on them personally)
Biden will not face a seriously contested primary unless he has a serious medical issue.
The whole reason Biden is POTUS is that, post Obama and post Trump, the Democratic party have not coalesced around a single set of policies or an avatar for those policies - and Biden was the stop gap until that could be settled internally. With the older generation of Democratic politicians (see Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer) holding on for dear life, there is rare injection of younger politicians. Those who are younger are, by necessity, outside of Democratic policy orthodoxy; if you are within the orthodoxy you are willing to accept the "wait your turn" mentality that centrist Dems have created. So the youngest politicians in the Democratic caucus are typically the most progressive, which the Democratic Party establishment don't want to be POTUS because they a) think they'll lose and b) disagree with them on policy, whilst the older are moderates.
That leads us to the problem of Biden's successor. Kamala is not good at politics - her campaign last time and her management of the Veep position shows that. Buttigieg will not win a primary - his moderateness is off putting to younger Democrats and his inability to make inroads with African American voters means he has no big constituency in the party. Gretchen Whitmer makes sense, but a blue state governor hasn't done well in a primary for a long time. Bernie or Warren are non starters; the party do not want someone that progressive and whilst they have some popularity they don't have enough to storm the primaries. Raphael Warnock, as a Democratic senator from Georgia, would be an interesting person to run - but he doesn't have the infrastructure for a run like that yet.
The only person who evidently would unite the base is someone who clearly hates the idea of being POTUS; Michelle Obama. She is considered more progressive than Barack was, Obama world would jump behind her and she has a natural constituency in the party. She also has the same skill at public speaking that Barack has - and hopefully having seen how the GOP responded to her husbands presidency would not fall for the same peanuts football gag that the Dems did during his presidency.
The only other politician I could see with big enough popularity and a natural base is AOC - and she won't run until 2028 at the earliest. She's lost a lot of her bomb thrower verve, partly as she has been institutionalised and partly because the Democratic party has worn her down, so she won't directly run against Biden - and in a world where he can't run she is just a little too young (I think she would only just be 35 when sworn in?). So Biden is the candidate out of inertia rather than anything else.
What do you think about Newsom?
He falls under the blue governor category in my view. He clearly wants it - but I also don't see his natural constituency within the party base. His moves at the moment all seem to be about getting on TV aimed at moderates and GOP voters (he likes being on Fox), which is a very GE strategy, not a primary one.
If he can convince Obama world he is their best option, he may manage it? But he would be another very corporate friendly Democratic candidate in a political environment where both parties are willing to criticise corporations more and more (if for different reasons). He has been trying to mediate some of the strikes happening in Hollywood, but the unions don't seem keen on the idea - which suggests they don't trust him. Union politics is becoming even more important for the Democratic primaries as they gain in popularity and flex their muscles more.
He is the 16/1 third fave for prez (17/2 for winning Dem candidate, which tbh I think if you were going to back him the 16s outright would be much better value)
I feel like there is value in this market somewhere for somebody who knows the ins and outs of US politics well enough (i.e. much better than me). Backs as well as lays.
View of Busan from the memorial to resistance to the Japanese invasion.
Of 1592.
South Korea sounds a fascinating place. Either high rise or forest is an interesting combination. They need to sort out their fertility issue though.
Having space to put the children down is helpful.
Also treating women like equals.
I've noticed that the couples with young families that you see, tend to have attentive husbands who pay a great deal of attention to both wife and children.
In slightly funny news, a pilot ejected out of an F35 over South Carolina yesterday. The pilot's been located and is alive, but there is no immediate evidence that the plane crashed. The *rumours* are that it kept on flying on autopilot; and that they cannot locate it.
On topic, Biden has two problems: his age, and that he's been a deeply mediocre President, with low approval ratings that have never recovered from his disastrous Afghanistan decision. If he'd been a good President, his age would seem less important.
Of course, if he'd picked a decent Vice-President, rather than a token because it was "time", he might be handing the nomination over to him gracefully about now. But as it is, he'll certainly try to run again, given that he believes that beating Trump is a sacred duty, and there's no-one else who stands a chance. That may be narcissistic, but he's a senior politician so that goes with the territory.
Spot on
And, on the subject of Ukraine, most of you will be aware that despite being one of those dreadful Leftie types, I argued from the outset that we should have installed a No Fly Zone over Ukraine.
You have to stand up to bullies.
After telling people in the run up to the invasion that arming Ukraine was raising tensions, that there was going to be no war etc…
The consequences of a no fly zone - NATO pilots directly shooting down Russian aircraft and attacking Russian air defences deep inside Russia have been explained a number of times.
A no fly zone was, in any event, only possible had European NATO members agreed to it. Given how slow (eg) Germany was in even accepting the reality of the invasion and the need to support Ukraine, it was never going to happen even if the US had been in favour.
Any analysis of what we "should have done" has to take into account what was even possible.
That might be true, but if you are going to have a fantasy world where the US wad in favour of a no-fly zone, you may as well have a fantasy world where the rest of NATO was too.
"HMG deeply regrets the death of a rogue Russian pilot who strayed into Ukrainian airspace yesterday evening. The RAF will cooperate with any investigation conducted by the Russian government and offers their condolences to the pilot's family."
Not sure on Biden - I'd say that a lot of it is media talking point. If you compare him to Mr Trump's incoherent warbling he comes across as a sprightly spring chicken. Did I hear trump get Mr Biden muddled up with Mr Obama yesterday?
Looking at it practically, Mr Biden has quite a lot of achievements. Agree that Mrs (assuming pronouns!) Obama would be an interesting runner.
But does it also not depend on the level of confusion in the GOP cf Mr Trump being held to account for his crimes, and whether they remain the Domain of Fruitcakes.
Also, how will the abortion politics play out amongst independents?
On Keir Starmer's Brexit Gambit, I'm not convinced by the politics - a rhetoric of "I will renegotiate with the EU to get Britain a better deal" will immediately set Brussels off on a belief that he intends a worse deal for the EU; that's just how Brussels thinks.
He needs a rhetoric around moving forward to a better, closer deal - which means towards better single market access without getting bent over and BFONTed by Brussels.
And that need infinite patience, which can work - see Horizon - since all the special-pleaders in the EU will want their personal pantomime-dance and their perceived pound of flesh.
Going to the European Commission in the persona of Oliver Twist Starmer will achieve little in the UK's interest.
In slightly funny news, a pilot ejected out of an F35 over South Carolina yesterday. The pilot's been located and is alive, but there is no immediate evidence that the plane crashed. The *rumours* are that it kept on flying on autopilot; and that they cannot locate it.
Biden will not face a seriously contested primary unless he has a serious medical issue.
The whole reason Biden is POTUS is that, post Obama and post Trump, the Democratic party have not coalesced around a single set of policies or an avatar for those policies - and Biden was the stop gap until that could be settled internally. With the older generation of Democratic politicians (see Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer) holding on for dear life, there is rare injection of younger politicians. Those who are younger are, by necessity, outside of Democratic policy orthodoxy; if you are within the orthodoxy you are willing to accept the "wait your turn" mentality that centrist Dems have created. So the youngest politicians in the Democratic caucus are typically the most progressive, which the Democratic Party establishment don't want to be POTUS because they a) think they'll lose and b) disagree with them on policy, whilst the older are moderates.
That leads us to the problem of Biden's successor. Kamala is not good at politics - her campaign last time and her management of the Veep position shows that. Buttigieg will not win a primary - his moderateness is off putting to younger Democrats and his inability to make inroads with African American voters means he has no big constituency in the party. Gretchen Whitmer makes sense, but a blue state governor hasn't done well in a primary for a long time. Bernie or Warren are non starters; the party do not want someone that progressive and whilst they have some popularity they don't have enough to storm the primaries. Raphael Warnock, as a Democratic senator from Georgia, would be an interesting person to run - but he doesn't have the infrastructure for a run like that yet.
The only person who evidently would unite the base is someone who clearly hates the idea of being POTUS; Michelle Obama. She is considered more progressive than Barack was, Obama world would jump behind her and she has a natural constituency in the party. She also has the same skill at public speaking that Barack has - and hopefully having seen how the GOP responded to her husbands presidency would not fall for the same peanuts football gag that the Dems did during his presidency.
The only other politician I could see with big enough popularity and a natural base is AOC - and she won't run until 2028 at the earliest. She's lost a lot of her bomb thrower verve, partly as she has been institutionalised and partly because the Democratic party has worn her down, so she won't directly run against Biden - and in a world where he can't run she is just a little too young (I think she would only just be 35 when sworn in?). So Biden is the candidate out of inertia rather than anything else.
What do you think about Newsom?
He falls under the blue governor category in my view. He clearly wants it - but I also don't see his natural constituency within the party base. His moves at the moment all seem to be about getting on TV aimed at moderates and GOP voters (he likes being on Fox), which is a very GE strategy, not a primary one.
If he can convince Obama world he is their best option, he may manage it? But he would be another very corporate friendly Democratic candidate in a political environment where both parties are willing to criticise corporations more and more (if for different reasons). He has been trying to mediate some of the strikes happening in Hollywood, but the unions don't seem keen on the idea - which suggests they don't trust him. Union politics is becoming even more important for the Democratic primaries as they gain in popularity and flex their muscles more.
He is the 16/1 third fave for prez (17/2 for winning Dem candidate, which tbh I think if you were going to back him the 16s outright would be much better value)
I feel like there is value in this market somewhere for somebody who knows the ins and outs of US politics well enough (i.e. much better than me). Backs as well as lays.
Newsome is a strange one; he seems to be doing a weird play for if Biden drops out AFTER the primaries, in my view? His appearances on Fox and willingness to debate DeSantis seems like him doing GE campaigning in the event Biden is ill / dies but the primaries had already happened and someone needs to step in at the convention (I think if Biden dies after the convention his VP would be the nominee?) The Democratic establishment don't trust Kamala to be a winner on her own, and Newsom knows her well as governor in the state she was a senator for - so I think this is him giving the party options in that weird scenario.
Stoke space have an interesting merging of their second stage engine system and their heat shield system for rentry. It’s another of those ideas that’s been talked about for decades, but they are the first to build and fly.
Yes, they're another of the small launcher startups with an interesting idea. Sadly, they're probably starting too late.
The other day Firefly got a US payload into orbit with their responsive service - that really is impressive.
They’ve got an idea which puts full reuse into play at a smaller launcher size.
They are pretty much the only people trying to challenge SpaceX on price, rather than saying “we will be the second most expensive launcher on the market”.
Biden will not face a seriously contested primary unless he has a serious medical issue.
The whole reason Biden is POTUS is that, post Obama and post Trump, the Democratic party have not coalesced around a single set of policies or an avatar for those policies - and Biden was the stop gap until that could be settled internally. With the older generation of Democratic politicians (see Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer) holding on for dear life, there is rare injection of younger politicians. Those who are younger are, by necessity, outside of Democratic policy orthodoxy; if you are within the orthodoxy you are willing to accept the "wait your turn" mentality that centrist Dems have created. So the youngest politicians in the Democratic caucus are typically the most progressive, which the Democratic Party establishment don't want to be POTUS because they a) think they'll lose and b) disagree with them on policy, whilst the older are moderates.
That leads us to the problem of Biden's successor. Kamala is not good at politics - her campaign last time and her management of the Veep position shows that. Buttigieg will not win a primary - his moderateness is off putting to younger Democrats and his inability to make inroads with African American voters means he has no big constituency in the party. Gretchen Whitmer makes sense, but a blue state governor hasn't done well in a primary for a long time. Bernie or Warren are non starters; the party do not want someone that progressive and whilst they have some popularity they don't have enough to storm the primaries. Raphael Warnock, as a Democratic senator from Georgia, would be an interesting person to run - but he doesn't have the infrastructure for a run like that yet.
The only person who evidently would unite the base is someone who clearly hates the idea of being POTUS; Michelle Obama. She is considered more progressive than Barack was, Obama world would jump behind her and she has a natural constituency in the party. She also has the same skill at public speaking that Barack has - and hopefully having seen how the GOP responded to her husbands presidency would not fall for the same peanuts football gag that the Dems did during his presidency.
The only other politician I could see with big enough popularity and a natural base is AOC - and she won't run until 2028 at the earliest. She's lost a lot of her bomb thrower verve, partly as she has been institutionalised and partly because the Democratic party has worn her down, so she won't directly run against Biden - and in a world where he can't run she is just a little too young (I think she would only just be 35 when sworn in?). So Biden is the candidate out of inertia rather than anything else.
What do you think about Newsom?
He falls under the blue governor category in my view. He clearly wants it - but I also don't see his natural constituency within the party base. His moves at the moment all seem to be about getting on TV aimed at moderates and GOP voters (he likes being on Fox), which is a very GE strategy, not a primary one.
If he can convince Obama world he is their best option, he may manage it? But he would be another very corporate friendly Democratic candidate in a political environment where both parties are willing to criticise corporations more and more (if for different reasons). He has been trying to mediate some of the strikes happening in Hollywood, but the unions don't seem keen on the idea - which suggests they don't trust him. Union politics is becoming even more important for the Democratic primaries as they gain in popularity and flex their muscles more.
He is the 16/1 third fave for prez (17/2 for winning Dem candidate, which tbh I think if you were going to back him the 16s outright would be much better value)
I feel like there is value in this market somewhere for somebody who knows the ins and outs of US politics well enough (i.e. much better than me). Backs as well as lays.
Newsome is a strange one; he seems to be doing a weird play for if Biden drops out AFTER the primaries, in my view? His appearances on Fox and willingness to debate DeSantis seems like him doing GE campaigning in the event Biden is ill / dies but the primaries had already happened and someone needs to step in at the convention (I think if Biden dies after the convention his VP would be the nominee?) The Democratic establishment don't trust Kamala to be a winner on her own, and Newsom knows her well as governor in the state she was a senator for - so I think this is him giving the party options in that weird scenario.
View of Busan from the memorial to resistance to the Japanese invasion.
Of 1592.
South Korea sounds a fascinating place. Either high rise or forest is an interesting combination. They need to sort out their fertility issue though.
Driving through the industrial city of Ulsan (pop 1.1m) was interesting. Pretty well the highest per capita GDP in the country, but a high rise dystopia with hundreds of rather ugly back to back apartment blocks.
Go through the tunnel in the nearby hillside, and you're in green countryside in moments.
Not sure on Biden - I'd say that a lot of it is media talking point. If you compare him to Mr Trump's incoherent warbling he comes across as a sprightly spring chicken. Did I hear trump get Mr Biden muddled up with Mr Obama yesterday?
Looking at it practically, Mr Biden has quite a lot of achievements.
On Keir Starmer's Brexit Gambit, I'm not convinced by the politics - a rhetoric of "I will renegotiate with the EU to get Britain a better deal" will immediately set Brussels off on a belief that he intends a worse deal for the EU; that's just how Brussels thinks.
He needs a rhetoric around moving forward to a better, closer deal - which means towards better single market access without getting bent over and BFONTed by Brussels.
And that need infinite patience, which can work - see Horizon - since all the special-pleaders in the EU will want their personal pantomime-dance and their perceived pound of flesh.
Going to the European Commission in the persona of Oliver Twist Starmer will achieve little.
He has the opportunity to put rocket boosters under our GDP by saying he will negotiate to join the single market
Indeed I would expect substantial support from across the UK
Biden will not face a seriously contested primary unless he has a serious medical issue.
The whole reason Biden is POTUS is that, post Obama and post Trump, the Democratic party have not coalesced around a single set of policies or an avatar for those policies - and Biden was the stop gap until that could be settled internally. With the older generation of Democratic politicians (see Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer) holding on for dear life, there is rare injection of younger politicians. Those who are younger are, by necessity, outside of Democratic policy orthodoxy; if you are within the orthodoxy you are willing to accept the "wait your turn" mentality that centrist Dems have created. So the youngest politicians in the Democratic caucus are typically the most progressive, which the Democratic Party establishment don't want to be POTUS because they a) think they'll lose and b) disagree with them on policy, whilst the older are moderates.
That leads us to the problem of Biden's successor. Kamala is not good at politics - her campaign last time and her management of the Veep position shows that. Buttigieg will not win a primary - his moderateness is off putting to younger Democrats and his inability to make inroads with African American voters means he has no big constituency in the party. Gretchen Whitmer makes sense, but a blue state governor hasn't done well in a primary for a long time. Bernie or Warren are non starters; the party do not want someone that progressive and whilst they have some popularity they don't have enough to storm the primaries. Raphael Warnock, as a Democratic senator from Georgia, would be an interesting person to run - but he doesn't have the infrastructure for a run like that yet.
The only person who evidently would unite the base is someone who clearly hates the idea of being POTUS; Michelle Obama. She is considered more progressive than Barack was, Obama world would jump behind her and she has a natural constituency in the party. She also has the same skill at public speaking that Barack has - and hopefully having seen how the GOP responded to her husbands presidency would not fall for the same peanuts football gag that the Dems did during his presidency.
The only other politician I could see with big enough popularity and a natural base is AOC - and she won't run until 2028 at the earliest. She's lost a lot of her bomb thrower verve, partly as she has been institutionalised and partly because the Democratic party has worn her down, so she won't directly run against Biden - and in a world where he can't run she is just a little too young (I think she would only just be 35 when sworn in?). So Biden is the candidate out of inertia rather than anything else.
What do you think about Newsom?
He falls under the blue governor category in my view. He clearly wants it - but I also don't see his natural constituency within the party base. His moves at the moment all seem to be about getting on TV aimed at moderates and GOP voters (he likes being on Fox), which is a very GE strategy, not a primary one.
If he can convince Obama world he is their best option, he may manage it? But he would be another very corporate friendly Democratic candidate in a political environment where both parties are willing to criticise corporations more and more (if for different reasons). He has been trying to mediate some of the strikes happening in Hollywood, but the unions don't seem keen on the idea - which suggests they don't trust him. Union politics is becoming even more important for the Democratic primaries as they gain in popularity and flex their muscles more.
He is the 16/1 third fave for prez (17/2 for winning Dem candidate, which tbh I think if you were going to back him the 16s outright would be much better value)
I feel like there is value in this market somewhere for somebody who knows the ins and outs of US politics well enough (i.e. much better than me). Backs as well as lays.
Newsome is a strange one; he seems to be doing a weird play for if Biden drops out AFTER the primaries, in my view? His appearances on Fox and willingness to debate DeSantis seems like him doing GE campaigning in the event Biden is ill / dies but the primaries had already happened and someone needs to step in at the convention (I think if Biden dies after the convention his VP would be the nominee?) The Democratic establishment don't trust Kamala to be a winner on her own, and Newsom knows her well as governor in the state she was a senator for - so I think this is him giving the party options in that weird scenario.
He's related to Pelosi. Family business.
'Related' is a stretch tbh.
"Newsom's aunt was married to Ron Pelosi, the brother-in-law of then Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi."
On topic, the Democrats are in a sorry state if Biden is the best they have. Then again, America is pretty much already sliding into the abyss, so they are trying to work out which candidate if any is capable of stopping the fall.
In any election - especially in their system - its as much about the opposition as your own choices. The Gilead Origins Party will choose Trump. Tens of millions of Americans seem set on handing the country over to fascist mobsters. So the Dems aren't making normal choices for a normal election.
But even so. Biden? Is the plan to stop fascism to re-elect a President also drifting off into his own decline? Really? Where is their anti-Trump? Calling out Gilead and the Mob and rightly decrying both as unamerican?
Not sure on Biden - I'd say that a lot of it is media talking point. If you compare him to Mr Trump's incoherent warbling he comes across as a sprightly spring chicken. Did I hear trump get Mr Biden muddled up with Mr Obama yesterday?
Looking at it practically, Mr Biden has quite a lot of achievements.
On Keir Starmer's Brexit Gambit, I'm not convinced by the politics - a rhetoric of "I will renegotiate with the EU to get Britain a better deal" will immediately set Brussels off on a belief that he intends a worse deal for the EU; that's just how Brussels thinks.
He needs a rhetoric around moving forward to a better, closer deal - which means towards better single market access without getting bent over and BFONTed by Brussels.
And that need infinite patience, which can work - see Horizon - since all the special-pleaders in the EU will want their personal pantomime-dance and their perceived pound of flesh.
Going to the European Commission in the persona of Oliver Twist Starmer will achieve little.
He has the opportunity to put rocket boosters under our GDP by saying he will negotiate to join the single market
Indeed I would expect substantial support from across the UK
Anything else will only be cosmetic
Agree - Single Market following the established patterns, whilst maintaining the wider direct engagement worldwide made possible by Brexit is probably the way.
Plus lots and lots and lots of sweating the detail, which is where the current Govt has repeatedly fallen down.
I think Mr Starmer has failed to distinguish politically between "it's all the Tories" and "events (eg COVID). Since he's laid all the blame on purely the Tory Government, it's more difficult for him to blame events when it turns out a Labour Government can't fix it all. IMO, anyway.
Not sure on Biden - I'd say that a lot of it is media talking point. If you compare him to Mr Trump's incoherent warbling he comes across as a sprightly spring chicken. Did I hear trump get Mr Biden muddled up with Mr Obama yesterday?
Looking at it practically, Mr Biden has quite a lot of achievements. Agree that Mrs (assuming pronouns!) Obama would be an interesting runner.
But does it also not depend on the level of confusion in the GOP cf Mr Trump being held to account for his crimes, and whether they remain the Domain of Fruitcakes.
Also, how will the abortion politics play out amongst independents?
On Keir Starmer's Brexit Gambit, I'm not convinced by the politics - a rhetoric of "I will renegotiate with the EU to get Britain a better deal" will immediately set Brussels off on a belief that he intends a worse deal for the EU; that's just how Brussels thinks.
He needs a rhetoric around moving forward to a better, closer deal - which means towards better single market access without getting bent over and BFONTed by Brussels.
And that need infinite patience, which can work - see Horizon - since all the special-pleaders in the EU will want their personal pantomime-dance and their perceived pound of flesh.
Going to the European Commission in the persona of Oliver Twist Starmer will achieve little in the UK's interest.
The problem for Biden is that whilst he has achievements, most voters aren't feeling them.
Like, the IRA is good and important. But he also failed to get the child tax credit expansion renewed - meaning that the child poverty rate of 5% from '21 has jumped to 12% now. People are feeling the hurt of the problems in the economy, and the GOP (and Manchin) are making sure that the benefits of Biden's policies to ameliorate them are less impactful.
On topic, the Democrats are in a sorry state if Biden is the best they have. Then again, America is pretty much already sliding into the abyss, so they are trying to work out which candidate if any is capable of stopping the fall.
In any election - especially in their system - its as much about the opposition as your own choices. The Gilead Origins Party will choose Trump. Tens of millions of Americans seem set on handing the country over to fascist mobsters. So the Dems aren't making normal choices for a normal election.
But even so. Biden? Is the plan to stop fascism to re-elect a President also drifting off into his own decline? Really? Where is their anti-Trump? Calling out Gilead and the Mob and rightly decrying both as unamerican?
Biden isn't the best that the Democrats have - but he is the only one that enough of them agree are acceptable to pass muster; if Obama land hadn't convinced Klobachar and Buttigieg to drop out in 2020 when they did and back him it's entirely possible we would be talking about if president Sanders was too old to be running for re-election.
To me one difference between Clinton and Biden is that Clinton was a crook, which I don't think is true of Biden.
This is an important point. Clinton was a crook. We have had other dodgy presidents previously, and a lot more dodge if we look into Congress.
None of them are remotely on the scale that Trump is on. The odd dodgy deal here and there is not equitable to being charged with Racketeering and running a Corrupt Organisation. And yes its only a charge. But there is an awful lot of evidence out there supporting it. The lunacy is that tens of millions insist its all politically driven and not true.
Biden will not face a seriously contested primary unless he has a serious medical issue.
The whole reason Biden is POTUS is that, post Obama and post Trump, the Democratic party have not coalesced around a single set of policies or an avatar for those policies - and Biden was the stop gap until that could be settled internally. With the older generation of Democratic politicians (see Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer) holding on for dear life, there is rare injection of younger politicians. Those who are younger are, by necessity, outside of Democratic policy orthodoxy; if you are within the orthodoxy you are willing to accept the "wait your turn" mentality that centrist Dems have created. So the youngest politicians in the Democratic caucus are typically the most progressive, which the Democratic Party establishment don't want to be POTUS because they a) think they'll lose and b) disagree with them on policy, whilst the older are moderates.
That leads us to the problem of Biden's successor. Kamala is not good at politics - her campaign last time and her management of the Veep position shows that. Buttigieg will not win a primary - his moderateness is off putting to younger Democrats and his inability to make inroads with African American voters means he has no big constituency in the party. Gretchen Whitmer makes sense, but a blue state governor hasn't done well in a primary for a long time. Bernie or Warren are non starters; the party do not want someone that progressive and whilst they have some popularity they don't have enough to storm the primaries. Raphael Warnock, as a Democratic senator from Georgia, would be an interesting person to run - but he doesn't have the infrastructure for a run like that yet.
The only person who evidently would unite the base is someone who clearly hates the idea of being POTUS; Michelle Obama. She is considered more progressive than Barack was, Obama world would jump behind her and she has a natural constituency in the party. She also has the same skill at public speaking that Barack has - and hopefully having seen how the GOP responded to her husbands presidency would not fall for the same peanuts football gag that the Dems did during his presidency.
The only other politician I could see with big enough popularity and a natural base is AOC - and she won't run until 2028 at the earliest. She's lost a lot of her bomb thrower verve, partly as she has been institutionalised and partly because the Democratic party has worn her down, so she won't directly run against Biden - and in a world where he can't run she is just a little too young (I think she would only just be 35 when sworn in?). So Biden is the candidate out of inertia rather than anything else.
What do you think about Newsom?
He falls under the blue governor category in my view. He clearly wants it - but I also don't see his natural constituency within the party base. His moves at the moment all seem to be about getting on TV aimed at moderates and GOP voters (he likes being on Fox), which is a very GE strategy, not a primary one.
If he can convince Obama world he is their best option, he may manage it? But he would be another very corporate friendly Democratic candidate in a political environment where both parties are willing to criticise corporations more and more (if for different reasons). He has been trying to mediate some of the strikes happening in Hollywood, but the unions don't seem keen on the idea - which suggests they don't trust him. Union politics is becoming even more important for the Democratic primaries as they gain in popularity and flex their muscles more.
He is the 16/1 third fave for prez (17/2 for winning Dem candidate, which tbh I think if you were going to back him the 16s outright would be much better value)
I feel like there is value in this market somewhere for somebody who knows the ins and outs of US politics well enough (i.e. much better than me). Backs as well as lays.
Newsome is a strange one; he seems to be doing a weird play for if Biden drops out AFTER the primaries, in my view? His appearances on Fox and willingness to debate DeSantis seems like him doing GE campaigning in the event Biden is ill / dies but the primaries had already happened and someone needs to step in at the convention (I think if Biden dies after the convention his VP would be the nominee?) The Democratic establishment don't trust Kamala to be a winner on her own, and Newsom knows her well as governor in the state she was a senator for - so I think this is him giving the party options in that weird scenario.
He's related to Pelosi. Family business.
That doesn't explain his strategy, though. If he was angling for 2028 he should be going to South Carolina or Georgia. Instead he's directly taking on Republicans. Unless he's angling for Veep spot because he thinks Kamala is that weak, it doesn't make much sense as a primary plan.
Oo, I see that The Truss is back in the game today.
Rishi Rich must be delighted.
I reckon she will definitely run for tory leader again after Sunak gets his shit pushed in at the GE. She and her acolytes at GBeebies/Telegraph/etc. are already crafting the Dolchstosslegende in preparation.
Apols if this has already been mentioned but if Biden has decided not to stand again he's not going to announce that until February at the earliest is he?
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
You may have to continue watching for quite a long time as the media are unlikely to move on anytime soon
I find France24 palls after a few hours - too much on a loop, and they have commentators on their debate shows seriously arguing the Putin viewpoint as if they believe it - one away from Scott Ritter. But F24 is very good on horror stories about countries that aren't France.
I tend to combine it with Deutsche Welle. which is - as one might expect - stolid, but thoughtful.
My wallpaper this morning will be Despatches, if it is available.
The BBC are using quite the photo of Russell Brand this morning, that could be a caption competition.
On topic, Biden has two problems: his age, and that he's been a deeply mediocre President, with low approval ratings that have never recovered from his disastrous Afghanistan decision. If he'd been a good President, his age would seem less important.
Of course, if he'd picked a decent Vice-President, rather than a token because it was "time", he might be handing the nomination over to him gracefully about now. But as it is, he'll certainly try to run again, given that he believes that beating Trump is a sacred duty, and there's no-one else who stands a chance. That may be narcissistic, but he's a senior politician so that goes with the territory.
In my judgment, he's been a very good president.
The simultaneously held beliefs on the right that abandoning Afghanistan was disastrous, while aiding Ukraine is a mistake, are bizarrely contradictory. Though they can easily be explained as sheer antipathy to a Democratic president.
Lots of people on the right support aiding Ukraine, and think that Biden has been "a day late and a dollar short" as John Bolton puts it. I certainly agree.
Are you saying that leaving Afghanistan was a triumph? By showing the West's weakness it could have emboldened Putin to invade. ...
Afghanistan doesn't really figure from Ukraine's POV - and a US still embroiled there would have been far less likely to intervene in Ukraine, in my view.
Sorry Nigel but I think you are quite wrong about this.
The chaotic, rushed, evacuation from Afghanistan was a clear signal to Putin that Biden's America would not stand up for countries outside of NATO. He invaded Ukraine just 6 months later.
That is certainly the view of General Tod Wolters, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe
Likewise it is the view of former French President François Hollande:
“If Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, it was not due to a provocation from the Atlantic alliance […]. He understood that the global situation enabled him to go even further than he had anticipated. […] When the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, it showed signs of weakness, and Vladimir Putin interpreted it as a success for himself. Each of our withdrawals has been a new opportunity for his influence to grow. According to this dynamic, Vladimir Putin understood he could go very far if he wished so.
There are certainly those who believe that - and it is, for largely self-serving reasons, the conventional wisdom on the right. But I think it's largely nonsense.
The Biden administration consistently warned Putin of consequences for at least a year running up to the invasion. Putin calculated - wrongly - that the 'SMO' would be done before anyone had a chance to intervene. The fait accompli calculation was very much based on what had happened in Crimea.
I am not sure how you can in all seriousness make a claim that a Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, a former French President, and an eminent historian are pointing out the clear link for 'self-serving' reasons.
I also think it's careless to dismiss such talk as 'conventional wisdom on the right.'
It's also naive to think that just because Biden warned Putin with words that this would make the difference. Putin is someone who reacts to actions not fine talking.
That you don't see the clear link between the chaotic American and Allied withdrawal from Afghanistan and the invasion of Ukraine 6 months later is, if I may say so, being rather deliberately obtuse. You may be right that Crimea had an effect, but in your zeal to pin it all on that, don't dismiss the rather more obvious cause and effect that most everyone else, including eminent analysts, accept.
I didn't - read what I wrote; ...and it is, for largely self-serving reasons, the conventional wisdom on the right..
You're entitled to your judgment, as are those you cite. But I think they are wrong. Afghanistan isn't clear 'cause and effect' - not least because the invasion was planned at least a year before it took place.
To re-iterate, we know from copious evidence that Putin expected the operation to be over in days. US intervention in that event would not have been military.
Maybe Biden got confused again and warned Prussia not to invade Yugoslavia.
Can't we stipulate that they're both old, but only one of them is completely bonkers ?
He's not bonkers, he's a sociopath. He has a firm grasp on reality, and from his point of view he's chillingly rational. He's just totally self-interested and incapable of empathy.
Biden will not face a seriously contested primary unless he has a serious medical issue.
The whole reason Biden is POTUS is that, post Obama and post Trump, the Democratic party have not coalesced around a single set of policies or an avatar for those policies - and Biden was the stop gap until that could be settled internally. With the older generation of Democratic politicians (see Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer) holding on for dear life, there is rare injection of younger politicians. Those who are younger are, by necessity, outside of Democratic policy orthodoxy; if you are within the orthodoxy you are willing to accept the "wait your turn" mentality that centrist Dems have created. So the youngest politicians in the Democratic caucus are typically the most progressive, which the Democratic Party establishment don't want to be POTUS because they a) think they'll lose and b) disagree with them on policy, whilst the older are moderates.
That leads us to the problem of Biden's successor. Kamala is not good at politics - her campaign last time and her management of the Veep position shows that. Buttigieg will not win a primary - his moderateness is off putting to younger Democrats and his inability to make inroads with African American voters means he has no big constituency in the party. Gretchen Whitmer makes sense, but a blue state governor hasn't done well in a primary for a long time. Bernie or Warren are non starters; the party do not want someone that progressive and whilst they have some popularity they don't have enough to storm the primaries. Raphael Warnock, as a Democratic senator from Georgia, would be an interesting person to run - but he doesn't have the infrastructure for a run like that yet.
The only person who evidently would unite the base is someone who clearly hates the idea of being POTUS; Michelle Obama. She is considered more progressive than Barack was, Obama world would jump behind her and she has a natural constituency in the party. She also has the same skill at public speaking that Barack has - and hopefully having seen how the GOP responded to her husbands presidency would not fall for the same peanuts football gag that the Dems did during his presidency.
The only other politician I could see with big enough popularity and a natural base is AOC - and she won't run until 2028 at the earliest. She's lost a lot of her bomb thrower verve, partly as she has been institutionalised and partly because the Democratic party has worn her down, so she won't directly run against Biden - and in a world where he can't run she is just a little too young (I think she would only just be 35 when sworn in?). So Biden is the candidate out of inertia rather than anything else.
What do you think about Newsom?
He falls under the blue governor category in my view. He clearly wants it - but I also don't see his natural constituency within the party base. His moves at the moment all seem to be about getting on TV aimed at moderates and GOP voters (he likes being on Fox), which is a very GE strategy, not a primary one.
If he can convince Obama world he is their best option, he may manage it? But he would be another very corporate friendly Democratic candidate in a political environment where both parties are willing to criticise corporations more and more (if for different reasons). He has been trying to mediate some of the strikes happening in Hollywood, but the unions don't seem keen on the idea - which suggests they don't trust him. Union politics is becoming even more important for the Democratic primaries as they gain in popularity and flex their muscles more.
He is the 16/1 third fave for prez (17/2 for winning Dem candidate, which tbh I think if you were going to back him the 16s outright would be much better value)
I feel like there is value in this market somewhere for somebody who knows the ins and outs of US politics well enough (i.e. much better than me). Backs as well as lays.
Newsome is a strange one; he seems to be doing a weird play for if Biden drops out AFTER the primaries, in my view? His appearances on Fox and willingness to debate DeSantis seems like him doing GE campaigning in the event Biden is ill / dies but the primaries had already happened and someone needs to step in at the convention (I think if Biden dies after the convention his VP would be the nominee?) The Democratic establishment don't trust Kamala to be a winner on her own, and Newsom knows her well as governor in the state she was a senator for - so I think this is him giving the party options in that weird scenario.
He's related to Pelosi. Family business.
'Related' is a stretch tbh.
"Newsom's aunt was married to Ron Pelosi, the brother-in-law of then Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi."
So four degrees of separation, two less than the rest of humanity, but hardly a close relation.
Biden will not face a seriously contested primary unless he has a serious medical issue.
The whole reason Biden is POTUS is that, post Obama and post Trump, the Democratic party have not coalesced around a single set of policies or an avatar for those policies - and Biden was the stop gap until that could be settled internally. With the older generation of Democratic politicians (see Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer) holding on for dear life, there is rare injection of younger politicians. Those who are younger are, by necessity, outside of Democratic policy orthodoxy; if you are within the orthodoxy you are willing to accept the "wait your turn" mentality that centrist Dems have created. So the youngest politicians in the Democratic caucus are typically the most progressive, which the Democratic Party establishment don't want to be POTUS because they a) think they'll lose and b) disagree with them on policy, whilst the older are moderates.
That leads us to the problem of Biden's successor. Kamala is not good at politics - her campaign last time and her management of the Veep position shows that. Buttigieg will not win a primary - his moderateness is off putting to younger Democrats and his inability to make inroads with African American voters means he has no big constituency in the party. Gretchen Whitmer makes sense, but a blue state governor hasn't done well in a primary for a long time. Bernie or Warren are non starters; the party do not want someone that progressive and whilst they have some popularity they don't have enough to storm the primaries. Raphael Warnock, as a Democratic senator from Georgia, would be an interesting person to run - but he doesn't have the infrastructure for a run like that yet.
The only person who evidently would unite the base is someone who clearly hates the idea of being POTUS; Michelle Obama. She is considered more progressive than Barack was, Obama world would jump behind her and she has a natural constituency in the party. She also has the same skill at public speaking that Barack has - and hopefully having seen how the GOP responded to her husbands presidency would not fall for the same peanuts football gag that the Dems did during his presidency.
The only other politician I could see with big enough popularity and a natural base is AOC - and she won't run until 2028 at the earliest. She's lost a lot of her bomb thrower verve, partly as she has been institutionalised and partly because the Democratic party has worn her down, so she won't directly run against Biden - and in a world where he can't run she is just a little too young (I think she would only just be 35 when sworn in?). So Biden is the candidate out of inertia rather than anything else.
What do you think about Newsom?
He falls under the blue governor category in my view. He clearly wants it - but I also don't see his natural constituency within the party base. His moves at the moment all seem to be about getting on TV aimed at moderates and GOP voters (he likes being on Fox), which is a very GE strategy, not a primary one.
If he can convince Obama world he is their best option, he may manage it? But he would be another very corporate friendly Democratic candidate in a political environment where both parties are willing to criticise corporations more and more (if for different reasons). He has been trying to mediate some of the strikes happening in Hollywood, but the unions don't seem keen on the idea - which suggests they don't trust him. Union politics is becoming even more important for the Democratic primaries as they gain in popularity and flex their muscles more.
He is the 16/1 third fave for prez (17/2 for winning Dem candidate, which tbh I think if you were going to back him the 16s outright would be much better value)
I feel like there is value in this market somewhere for somebody who knows the ins and outs of US politics well enough (i.e. much better than me). Backs as well as lays.
Newsome is a strange one; he seems to be doing a weird play for if Biden drops out AFTER the primaries, in my view? His appearances on Fox and willingness to debate DeSantis seems like him doing GE campaigning in the event Biden is ill / dies but the primaries had already happened and someone needs to step in at the convention (I think if Biden dies after the convention his VP would be the nominee?) The Democratic establishment don't trust Kamala to be a winner on her own, and Newsom knows her well as governor in the state she was a senator for - so I think this is him giving the party options in that weird scenario.
He's related to Pelosi. Family business.
That doesn't explain his strategy, though. If he was angling for 2028 he should be going to South Carolina or Georgia. Instead he's directly taking on Republicans. Unless he's angling for Veep spot because he thinks Kamala is that weak, it doesn't make much sense as a primary plan.
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
My listening viewing rules..
Rule 1
Never watch live TV unless it's sport you want to watch. Ie no adverts nor trailers and an hr entertainment that can be scrolled through is only about 43 minutes. You can pause and scroll thro opinion
Rule 2
Never watch rolling news, most of it is not Iimportant and is endlessly repeated. Virtually nothing is that important that you need to know now.. /exception...the Death our Queen.
Rule 3 Avoid any celebrity based or endorsed programme.
If you hear the words Harry and Meghan or Meghan and Harry.. switch off
To me one difference between Clinton and Biden is that Clinton was a crook, which I don't think is true of Biden.
This is an important point. Clinton was a crook. We have had other dodgy presidents previously, and a lot more dodge if we look into Congress.
None of them are remotely on the scale that Trump is on. The odd dodgy deal here and there is not equitable to being charged with Racketeering and running a Corrupt Organisation. And yes its only a charge. But there is an awful lot of evidence out there supporting it. The lunacy is that tens of millions insist its all politically driven and not true.
Is there any other counterargument than 'witch hunt' though?
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
My listening viewing rules..
Rule 1
Never watch live TV unless it's sport you want to watch. Ie no adverts nor trailers and an hr entertainment that can be scrolled through is only about 43 minutes. You can pause and scroll thro opinion
Rule 2
Never watch rolling news, most of it is not Iimportant and is endlessly repeated. Virtually nothing is that important that you need to know now.. /exception...the Death our Queen.
Rule 3 Avoid any celebrity based or endorsed programme.
If you hear the words Harry and Meghan or Meghan and Harry.. switch off
You know it makes sense.
Listen to BBC sounds, much better than TV....
My go to is if anything probably still BBC World Service Radio, as it has been for quite a long time.
Oo, I see that The Truss is back in the game today.
Rishi Rich must be delighted.
I reckon she will definitely run for tory leader again after Sunak gets his shit pushed in at the GE. She and her acolytes at GBeebies/Telegraph/etc. are already crafting the Dolchstosslegende in preparation.
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
You may have to continue watching for quite a long time as the media are unlikely to move on anytime soon
I find France24 palls after a few hours - too much on a loop, and they have commentators on their debate shows seriously arguing the Putin viewpoint as if they believe it - one away from Scott Ritter. But F24 is very good on horror stories about countries that aren't France.
I tend to combine it with Deutsche Welle. which is - as one might expect - stolid, but thoughtful.
My wallpaper this morning will be Despatches, if it is available.
The BBC are using quite the photo of Russell Brand this morning, that could be a caption competition.
I notice they chose to use one from his stand up the other evening in which one could be mistaken he was making nazi salute. I am sure it was just the only one they had.
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
My listening viewing rules..
Rule 1
Never watch live TV unless it's sport you want to watch. Ie no adverts nor trailers and an hr entertainment that can be scrolled through is only about 43 minutes. You can pause and scroll thro opinion
Rule 2
Never watch rolling news, most of it is not Iimportant and is endlessly repeated. Virtually nothing is that important that you need to know now.. /exception...the Death our Queen.
Rule 3 Avoid any celebrity based or endorsed programme.
If you hear the words Harry and Meghan or Meghan and Harry.. switch off
You know it makes sense.
Listen to BBC sounds, much better than TV....
Does anyone watch live TV any more, for something that’s not sports or a major news event such as HMQ’s passing or 9/11? Even then, I’m much more likely to come to this site here when a major news story breaks.
Perhaps election night is the exception, but that’s pretty much like a sporting event these days!
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I like her but the one to beat Trump I think would be Gretchen Whitmer.
It’s tragic that Biden could help deliver another Trump presidency .
Biden is the only Democrat to have beaten Trump and there is no evidence any other Democrat would poll better than him.
Indeed whether or not Trump is convicted in court next year is likely to be far more influential on the presidential race than who the Democratic nominee is
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
You may have to continue watching for quite a long time as the media are unlikely to move on anytime soon
I find France24 palls after a few hours - too much on a loop, and they have commentators on their debate shows seriously arguing the Putin viewpoint as if they believe it - one away from Scott Ritter. But F24 is very good on horror stories about countries that aren't France.
I tend to combine it with Deutsche Welle. which is - as one might expect - stolid, but thoughtful.
My wallpaper this morning will be Despatches, if it is available.
The BBC are using quite the photo of Russell Brand this morning, that could be a caption competition.
There is a very obvious one but it would be utterly tasteless under the circumstances.
To me one difference between Clinton and Biden is that Clinton was a crook, which I don't think is true of Biden.
This is an important point. Clinton was a crook. We have had other dodgy presidents previously, and a lot more dodge if we look into Congress.
None of them are remotely on the scale that Trump is on. The odd dodgy deal here and there is not equitable to being charged with Racketeering and running a Corrupt Organisation. And yes its only a charge. But there is an awful lot of evidence out there supporting it. The lunacy is that tens of millions insist its all politically driven and not true.
Is there any other counterargument than 'witch hunt' though?
They will find plenty of counter-arguments, but they're all versions of witch hunt.
Georgia re charging him with threatening to jail officials if they didn't throw out legal votes so that he won. They have him absolutely bang to rights. He absolutely did it and we have all heard one of the recordings. And there was a lot more done outside of Georgia as they tried to throw fake electors at Congress to have the actual election result set aside.
That they have even *charged* him with this - repeatedly, in various jurisdictions - should be enough to constitutionally make him ineligible. But the people backing him are explicitly trying to warp the constitution to their own ends. So he will be allowed to run. America's first ever mobster president.
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
I reckon you might have to stay there for quite a lot longer yet if you wish to avoid Wusselly Verbosity. It feels like the media are going to run and run and run with this.
Outside of his cult followers, i imagine a lot of public forgot he even existed before this story, but it is being covered like the PM has been caught doing this stuff.
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I like her but the one to beat Trump I think would be Gretchen Whitmer.
It’s tragic that Biden could help deliver another Trump presidency .
Biden is the only Democrat to have beaten Trump and there is no evidence any other Democrat would poll better than him.
Indeed whether or not Trump is convicted in court next year is likely to be far more influential on the presidential race than who the Democratic nominee is
I’m not convinced that Trump will ever be convicted . I don’t see a jury unanimously agreeing. You’ll always get one jury member who likes Trump .
Not sure on Biden - I'd say that a lot of it is media talking point. If you compare him to Mr Trump's incoherent warbling he comes across as a sprightly spring chicken. Did I hear trump get Mr Biden muddled up with Mr Obama yesterday?
Looking at it practically, Mr Biden has quite a lot of achievements.
On Keir Starmer's Brexit Gambit, I'm not convinced by the politics - a rhetoric of "I will renegotiate with the EU to get Britain a better deal" will immediately set Brussels off on a belief that he intends a worse deal for the EU; that's just how Brussels thinks.
He needs a rhetoric around moving forward to a better, closer deal - which means towards better single market access without getting bent over and BFONTed by Brussels.
And that need infinite patience, which can work - see Horizon - since all the special-pleaders in the EU will want their personal pantomime-dance and their perceived pound of flesh.
Going to the European Commission in the persona of Oliver Twist Starmer will achieve little.
He has the opportunity to put rocket boosters under our GDP by saying he will negotiate to join the single market
Indeed I would expect substantial support from across the UK
Anything else will only be cosmetic
That would also hand the redwall back on a plate to the Conservatives as it means free movement restored
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I'll admit to knowing little about US politics, despite trying to pick up stuff from PB, I find it all such a weird place.
But what is it about having the wife of an ex-president as a candidate? Hilary Clinton had clearly been very politically active and served as a senator and as the Secretary of State, so there is a track record there.
But Michelle Obama? I understand she has a successful legal career, but otherwise doing lots of good work as the wife of the President shouldn't really be the first thing you look for.
I mean, should the Tories have gone for Norma Major in 1997?
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I'll admit to knowing little about US politics, despite trying to pick up stuff from PB, I find it all such a weird place.
But what is it about having the wife of an ex-president as a candidate? Hilary Clinton had clearly been very politically active and served as a senator and as the Secretary of State, so there is a track record there.
But Michelle Obama? I understand she has a successful legal career, but otherwise doing lots of good work as the wife of the President shouldn't really be the first thing you look for.
I mean, should the Tories have gone for Norma Major in 1997?
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
My listening viewing rules..
Rule 1
Never watch live TV unless it's sport you want to watch. Ie no adverts nor trailers and an hr entertainment that can be scrolled through is only about 43 minutes. You can pause and scroll thro opinion
Rule 2
Never watch rolling news, most of it is not Iimportant and is endlessly repeated. Virtually nothing is that important that you need to know now.. /exception...the Death our Queen.
Rule 3 Avoid any celebrity based or endorsed programme.
If you hear the words Harry and Meghan or Meghan and Harry.. switch off
You know it makes sense.
Listen to BBC sounds, much better than TV....
Does anyone watch live TV any more, for something that’s not sports or a major news event such as HMQ’s passing or 9/11? Even then, I’m much more likely to come to this site here when a major news story breaks.
Perhaps election night is the exception, but that’s pretty much like a sporting event these days!
Surprisingly, a lot of people do still watch live tv. It is declining of course, but from a high base. Page eight onwards here has a lot of interesting info. The oldies are driving the volume hugely, but interesting even for proper youngsters it’s a not-insignificant part of viewing habits - albeit I suspect largely driven by sport and other things that would be watched live (E.g. reality tv type shows, Strictly etc.)
Oo, I see that The Truss is back in the game today.
Rishi Rich must be delighted.
I reckon she will definitely run for tory leader again after Sunak gets his shit pushed in at the GE. She and her acolytes at GBeebies/Telegraph/etc. are already crafting the Dolchstosslegende in preparation.
Badenoch, Barclay, Tugendhat, Mordaunt, Braverman even Rees Mogg would beat Truss in the next leadership election now. She wouldn't even get to the final round anyway
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
My listening viewing rules..
Rule 1
Never watch live TV unless it's sport you want to watch. Ie no adverts nor trailers and an hr entertainment that can be scrolled through is only about 43 minutes. You can pause and scroll thro opinion
Rule 2
Never watch rolling news, most of it is not Iimportant and is endlessly repeated. Virtually nothing is that important that you need to know now.. /exception...the Death our Queen.
Rule 3 Avoid any celebrity based or endorsed programme.
If you hear the words Harry and Meghan or Meghan and Harry.. switch off
You know it makes sense.
Listen to BBC sounds, much better than TV....
Does anyone watch live TV any more, for something that’s not sports or a major news event such as HMQ’s passing or 9/11? Even then, I’m much more likely to come to this site here when a major news story breaks.
Perhaps election night is the exception, but that’s pretty much like a sporting event these days!
We're the same, we only watch sport or other national events (state funeral, election nights) live.
We're probably unusual in that we record rather than stream mostly - a legacy of the days when our broadband was too slow to support streaming. Recording allows you to zip through adverts, which AFAIK you can't do on ITV / C4 / C5 players. Also, although we do use iPlayer, for some reason we can never manage to pause, reverse or fast forward reliably (user incompetence probably).
We don't have any paid streaming services (apart from Prime as a side-benefit of the free next-day delivery). We've tried them but the content we were interested in is too limited to justify the cost.
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I like her but the one to beat Trump I think would be Gretchen Whitmer.
It’s tragic that Biden could help deliver another Trump presidency .
Gretchen Whitmer’s an interesting one, would definitely be in with a chance if Biden endorsed her.
The real problem is still how they can avoid the useless Kamala Harris being seen as the default, if Biden doesn’t run. She loses the general election to any credible Republican.
The Dems really need to do a full primary season, which means Biden making the call early to stand aside. Does Dr Jill have enough authority to tap him on the shoulder and tell him to retire? The last couple of years have been quite sad to watch his cognitive decline, he’s obviously on a lot of medication for public appearances.
Oo, I see that The Truss is back in the game today.
Rishi Rich must be delighted.
I reckon she will definitely run for tory leader again after Sunak gets his shit pushed in at the GE. She and her acolytes at GBeebies/Telegraph/etc. are already crafting the Dolchstosslegende in preparation.
Badenoch, Barclay, Tugendhat, Mordaunt, Braverman even Rees Mogg would beat Truss in the next leadership election now. She wouldn't even get to the final round anyway
Depends on how many Tory MPs are left, and which ones surely?
Someone should do an analysis of whether the make-up of the PCP would be more, or less, right-wing with increasing levels of seat loss.
(Personally, I am looking forward to the remaining 20 Tory MPs deciding which of themselves they will put to the membership.)
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I like her but the one to beat Trump I think would be Gretchen Whitmer.
It’s tragic that Biden could help deliver another Trump presidency .
Gretchen Whitmer’s an interesting one, would definitely be in with a chance if Biden endorsed her.
The real problem is still how they can avoid the useless Kamala Harris being seen as the default, if Biden doesn’t run. She loses the general election to any credible Republican.
The Dems really need to do a full primary season, which means Biden making the call early to stand aside. Does Dr Jill have enough authority to tap him on the shoulder and tell him to retire? The last couple of years have been quite sad to watch his cognitive decline, he’s obviously on a lot of medication for public appearances.
Jill Biden might be part of the problem not the solution and likes being First Lady . Biden is an old 80 year old . There are many 80 year olds with huge energy and who can still speak coherently.
Mid Beds: BF have put up a market on whether or not Gareth Mackey (Ind) gets 12.5% of the vote. Market very thin but would be worth keeping an eye on this. I had him down as a contender and would therefore be inclined to go over 12.5%.
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
I reckon you might have to stay there for quite a lot longer yet if you wish to avoid Wusselly Verbosity. It feels like the media are going to run and run and run with this.
Outside of his cult followers, i imagine a lot of public forgot he even existed before this story, but it is being covered like the PM has been caught doing this stuff.
As some of us said on Friday, if the ‘story of the year’, that led to leave being cancelled at newspapers, turned out to be that Russell Brand is a pervert, then it’s hardly news to anyone who’s followed comedy for the past, oh, couple of decades?
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I like her but the one to beat Trump I think would be Gretchen Whitmer.
It’s tragic that Biden could help deliver another Trump presidency .
Biden is the only Democrat to have beaten Trump and there is no evidence any other Democrat would poll better than him.
Indeed whether or not Trump is convicted in court next year is likely to be far more influential on the presidential race than who the Democratic nominee is
Doesn't the evidence that another candidate may well do better than Biden come in the form of polling indicating Biden is somewhat unpopular, and that Americans, including Democrats, are at best lukewarm about him standing for re-election in light of his relative unpopularity and advanced age?
That doesn't doom him, and he has some strengths as a candidate (chief among them that he is the incumbent). But I don't think you can say there is NO evidence to support the idea that a different candidate would have a better chance.
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I like her but the one to beat Trump I think would be Gretchen Whitmer.
It’s tragic that Biden could help deliver another Trump presidency .
Biden is the only Democrat to have beaten Trump and there is no evidence any other Democrat would poll better than him.
Indeed whether or not Trump is convicted in court next year is likely to be far more influential on the presidential race than who the Democratic nominee is
I’m not convinced that Trump will ever be convicted . I don’t see a jury unanimously agreeing. You’ll always get one jury member who likes Trump .
How do you even get started with selecting a jury for a fair trial, literally everybody has heard of him and most have very strong opinions. Remember that in US, jury selection is a big part of pre-trial, how many people are they going to find that says never really had an opinion one way or another.
Comments
I've laid her to the nines.
The idea the Afghanistan debacle was a green light to Putin does not bear consideration.
See his invasions of Georgia and (2014) Ukraine. Putin invading neighbours because he has a Soviet Union cosplay habit is his normal operating procedure.
The reverse was true - resistance was spontaneous, heartfelt and at every level. There was a rather good account of the actions in one town in the early days of the invasion. People rushed - together. To work out what they could do. One chap, who owned an earth moving company, went to the town mayor and sketched out a plan to scarp the banks of the local river to make it impossible for a amphibious vehicles to climb out of the river. He’d got his diggers in position already - just wanted the go ahead from the local defence forces. The concrete construction guy was right behind him to ask what he could pour…
It was stuff like this that bogged the Russian invasion down. Part of this was that nearly all the people the Russians had tried to bribe into supporting the invasion had gone straight to the Ukrainian government. So in many places they walked into traps set by their supposed allies in Ukraine.
It reminded me of the contrast with the U.K. and France in 1940. In France, there were many instances of military figures refusing to take any action outside their orders - jobsworthism squared.
In the Manchester, by contrast, at a conference of commanders, the heavy AA guy arrived to say that he’d got his gunners setting up for anti-tank work (heavy AA guns were devastating vs WWII tanks) and that they were working on setting up so they could be used as long range artillery as well - he’d got officers and men who served in field artillery units to explain what was needed. He was at the conference to get a list of target points (cross roads etc) to pre-register…
As the Russians encountered this “unnatural resistance” their kill lists grew longer. The original plan was to decapitate Ukrainian society so that it could be converted into a 100% Russian fiefe.
The same reason as the Katyn Massacres.
As the depth of their “problem” grew, they murdered more and more, to try and kill all the Ukranians, and just leave the Russians.
As the depth of the resistance became clear, their genocidal crap got bigger.
Given how slow (eg) Germany was in even accepting the reality of the invasion and the need to support Ukraine, it was never going to happen even if the US had been in favour.
Any analysis of what we "should have done" has to take into account what was even possible.
Of 1592.
"A Ukrainian woman is being hailed for her bravery after she confronted a heavily-armed Russian soldier and offered him sunflower seeds — so that they might bloom when he dies."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-russia-soldier-woman-confrontation-b2022993.html
I wonder what happened to her. I hope she survived.
are much rarer than they are in the UK, you see a lot more racist graffiti and there is still a much heavier police presence than there was last time I was here. But the most shocking thing I've seen was when my train crossed the border from Italy into France: the police went through it and methodically checked all the IDs of any non-white men, and yanked lots of them off for further questioning.
Interestingly the same thing happened earlier in my middle-aged Interrail trip around Europe this summer when we crossed from Hungary into Austria.
So much for free movement within Schengen.
Anyway, I moaned about it to a (slightly swarthy looking but ethnically European) friend who knows French history well and used to live in Nice and he emailed back:
"Sadly what you have seen on the trains this summer (and I did too - on our way to Florence, surprise, surprise, I got more questions from the Italian border guards on the Lausanne-Milan train than [his wife] or any of the white people in our carriage, and we saw several black people on the platform at Domodossola having presumably been yanked off the train, then later in my trip I saw some hefty French border guards lurking at both Ventimiglia and Menton-Garavan stations, I think as at the height of the holiday season the train was too packed for on-board controls) goes back way further than 2015!
"That kind of thing was already common practice on the Ventimiglia trains in our day (2002-2003) ... But it's all also very much in continuity with French policing of North Africans going back to colonial times. The only real difference from what you would have seen on the same train in the 1920s is that Italians aren't viewed with suspicion in France any more."
Also treating women like equals.
https://x.com/stoke_space/status/1703569700540883195?s=46&t=BXfRXqZ4RcCOdvlSgUjZSg
Stoke space have an interesting merging of their second stage engine system and their heat shield system for rentry. It’s another of those ideas that’s been talked about for decades, but they are the first to build and fly.
A Spanish friend with an African wife says that racism is a massive problem when he goes back to Spain, especially in the South.
Also, a more friendly West as the OPEC nations try to look both ways at the moment.
Though I've been here for nearly three weeks, it's been a bit of a lightning tour. Seoul alone would justify at least a fortnight's stay.
You get silly odds like that because if you have to lock up your money with zero interest in a currency with quite a bit of inflation for at least a year with a not 100% trustworthy counterparty you need a reasonable return, so idiots won't find anyone to lay their stupid bets until they put up an offer quite a lot higher than the actual probability.
The whole reason Biden is POTUS is that, post Obama and post Trump, the Democratic party have not coalesced around a single set of policies or an avatar for those policies - and Biden was the stop gap until that could be settled internally. With the older generation of Democratic politicians (see Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer) holding on for dear life, there is rare injection of younger politicians. Those who are younger are, by necessity, outside of Democratic policy orthodoxy; if you are within the orthodoxy you are willing to accept the "wait your turn" mentality that centrist Dems have created. So the youngest politicians in the Democratic caucus are typically the most progressive, which the Democratic Party establishment don't want to be POTUS because they a) think they'll lose and b) disagree with them on policy, whilst the older are moderates.
That leads us to the problem of Biden's successor. Kamala is not good at politics - her campaign last time and her management of the Veep position shows that. Buttigieg will not win a primary - his moderateness is off putting to younger Democrats and his inability to make inroads with African American voters means he has no big constituency in the party. Gretchen Whitmer makes sense, but a blue state governor hasn't done well in a primary for a long time. Bernie or Warren are non starters; the party do not want someone that progressive and whilst they have some popularity they don't have enough to storm the primaries. Raphael Warnock, as a Democratic senator from Georgia, would be an interesting person to run - but he doesn't have the infrastructure for a run like that yet.
The only person who evidently would unite the base is someone who clearly hates the idea of being POTUS; Michelle Obama. She is considered more progressive than Barack was, Obama world would jump behind her and she has a natural constituency in the party. She also has the same skill at public speaking that Barack has - and hopefully having seen how the GOP responded to her husbands presidency would not fall for the same peanuts football gag that the Dems did during his presidency.
The only other politician I could see with big enough popularity and a natural base is AOC - and she won't run until 2028 at the earliest. She's lost a lot of her bomb thrower verve, partly as she has been institutionalised and partly because the Democratic party has worn her down, so she won't directly run against Biden - and in a world where he can't run she is just a little too young (I think she would only just be 35 when sworn in?). So Biden is the candidate out of inertia rather than anything else.
(I would just add that Sanders, as well as being too progressive, is also 82 himself....)
The other day Firefly got a US payload into orbit with their responsive service - that really is impressive.
My abiding memory of our visit to Busan was the incredible ship building and marine construction going on which made me comment to my good lady that that is where all our shipbuilding has gone to
Fascinating country
Lets just say that as I keep finding new projects to do for Big Client its a good opportunity for me to spend more of our money on their behalf. Good job our cash flow is healthy...
If he can convince Obama world he is their best option, he may manage it? But he would be another very corporate friendly Democratic candidate in a political environment where both parties are willing to criticise corporations more and more (if for different reasons). He has been trying to mediate some of the strikes happening in Hollywood, but the unions don't seem keen on the idea - which suggests they don't trust him. Union politics is becoming even more important for the Democratic primaries as they gain in popularity and flex their muscles more.
I think Sanders will likely be significant based on who he endorses in 2028 rather than running himself. If he supports AOC, for example, that would be significant. (I disagree with many assessments painting the left as falling for personalities - both Sanders' and Corbyn's popularity I feel had to do with people yearning for their policies and not based on them personally)
I feel like there is value in this market somewhere for somebody who knows the ins and outs of US politics well enough (i.e. much better than me). Backs as well as lays.
Like many other places, attitudes are polarised.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/france-fighter-jet-ejection-scli-intl/index.html
Something like that.
Not sure on Biden - I'd say that a lot of it is media talking point. If you compare him to Mr Trump's incoherent warbling he comes across as a sprightly spring chicken. Did I hear trump get Mr Biden muddled up with Mr Obama yesterday?
Looking at it practically, Mr Biden has quite a lot of achievements. Agree that Mrs (assuming pronouns!) Obama would be an interesting runner.
But does it also not depend on the level of confusion in the GOP cf Mr Trump being held to account for his crimes, and whether they remain the Domain of Fruitcakes.
Also, how will the abortion politics play out amongst independents?
On Keir Starmer's Brexit Gambit, I'm not convinced by the politics - a rhetoric of "I will renegotiate with the EU to get Britain a better deal" will immediately set Brussels off on a belief that he intends a worse deal for the EU; that's just how Brussels thinks.
He needs a rhetoric around moving forward to a better, closer deal - which means towards better single market access without getting bent over and BFONTed by Brussels.
And that need infinite patience, which can work - see Horizon - since all the special-pleaders in the EU will want their personal pantomime-dance and their perceived pound of flesh.
Going to the European Commission in the persona of Oliver Twist Starmer will achieve little in the UK's interest.
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/168652
About a 30 second fall time from 6,000 to be spent cursing the wankers that didn't secure the seat.
They are pretty much the only people trying to challenge SpaceX on price, rather than saying “we will be the second most expensive launcher on the market”.
Why does the song "I can't stand up for falling down" spring to mind?
Pretty well the highest per capita GDP in the country, but a high rise dystopia with hundreds of rather ugly back to back apartment blocks.
Go through the tunnel in the nearby hillside, and you're in green countryside in moments.
Indeed I would expect substantial support from across the UK
Anything else will only be cosmetic
"Newsom's aunt was married to Ron Pelosi, the brother-in-law of then Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi."
In any election - especially in their system - its as much about the opposition as your own choices. The Gilead Origins Party will choose Trump. Tens of millions of Americans seem set on handing the country over to fascist mobsters. So the Dems aren't making normal choices for a normal election.
But even so. Biden? Is the plan to stop fascism to re-elect a President also drifting off into his own decline? Really? Where is their anti-Trump? Calling out Gilead and the Mob and rightly decrying both as unamerican?
Plus lots and lots and lots of sweating the detail, which is where the current Govt has repeatedly fallen down.
I think Mr Starmer has failed to distinguish politically between "it's all the Tories" and "events (eg COVID). Since he's laid all the blame on purely the Tory Government, it's more difficult for him to blame events when it turns out a Labour Government can't fix it all. IMO, anyway.
Like, the IRA is good and important. But he also failed to get the child tax credit expansion renewed - meaning that the child poverty rate of 5% from '21 has jumped to 12% now. People are feeling the hurt of the problems in the economy, and the GOP (and Manchin) are making sure that the benefits of Biden's policies to ameliorate them are less impactful.
A Russell Brand free zone .
An inspiration to all nations.
Rishi Rich must be delighted.
None of them are remotely on the scale that Trump is on. The odd dodgy deal here and there is not equitable to being charged with Racketeering and running a Corrupt Organisation. And yes its only a charge. But there is an awful lot of evidence out there supporting it. The lunacy is that tens of millions insist its all politically driven and not true.
I tend to combine it with Deutsche Welle. which is - as one might expect - stolid, but thoughtful.
My wallpaper this morning will be Despatches, if it is available.
The BBC are using quite the photo of Russell Brand this morning, that could be a caption competition.
Biden is being selfish and ironically could be the handmaiden that helps to end US democracy .
Rule 1
Never watch live TV unless it's sport you want to watch. Ie no adverts nor trailers and an hr entertainment that can be scrolled through is only about 43 minutes.
You can pause and scroll thro opinion
Rule 2
Never watch rolling news, most of it is not Iimportant and is endlessly repeated. Virtually nothing is that important that you need to know now.. /exception...the Death our Queen.
Rule 3
Avoid any celebrity based or endorsed programme.
If you hear the words Harry and Meghan or Meghan and Harry.. switch off
You know it makes sense.
Listen to BBC sounds, much better than TV....
It’s tragic that Biden could help deliver another Trump presidency .
I still suspect Biden will not run in 2024.
Gretchen Whitmer would be a good Dem choice.
Perhaps election night is the exception, but that’s pretty much like a sporting event these days!
Indeed whether or not Trump is convicted in court next year is likely to be far more influential on the presidential race than who the Democratic nominee is
Georgia re charging him with threatening to jail officials if they didn't throw out legal votes so that he won. They have him absolutely bang to rights. He absolutely did it and we have all heard one of the recordings. And there was a lot more done outside of Georgia as they tried to throw fake electors at Congress to have the actual election result set aside.
That they have even *charged* him with this - repeatedly, in various jurisdictions - should be enough to constitutionally make him ineligible. But the people backing him are explicitly trying to warp the constitution to their own ends. So he will be allowed to run. America's first ever mobster president.
Outside of his cult followers, i imagine a lot of public forgot he even existed before this story, but it is being covered like the PM has been caught doing this stuff.
Sudan’s most famous modern building aflame. Another war rages with very little notice.
But what is it about having the wife of an ex-president as a candidate? Hilary Clinton had clearly been very politically active and served as a senator and as the Secretary of State, so there is a track record there.
But Michelle Obama? I understand she has a successful legal career, but otherwise doing lots of good work as the wife of the President shouldn't really be the first thing you look for.
I mean, should the Tories have gone for Norma Major in 1997?
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0029/265376/media-nations-report-2023.pdf
We're probably unusual in that we record rather than stream mostly - a legacy of the days when our broadband was too slow to support streaming. Recording allows you to zip through adverts, which AFAIK you can't do on ITV / C4 / C5 players. Also, although we do use iPlayer, for some reason we can never manage to pause, reverse or fast forward reliably (user incompetence probably).
We don't have any paid streaming services (apart from Prime as a side-benefit of the free next-day delivery). We've tried them but the content we were interested in is too limited to justify the cost.
The real problem is still how they can avoid the useless Kamala Harris being seen as the default, if Biden doesn’t run. She loses the general election to any credible Republican.
The Dems really need to do a full primary season, which means Biden making the call early to stand aside. Does Dr Jill have enough authority to tap him on the shoulder and tell him to retire? The last couple of years have been quite sad to watch his cognitive decline, he’s obviously on a lot of medication for public appearances.
Someone should do an analysis of whether the make-up of the PCP would be more, or less, right-wing with increasing levels of seat loss.
(Personally, I am looking forward to the remaining 20 Tory MPs deciding which of themselves they will put to the membership.)
That doesn't doom him, and he has some strengths as a candidate (chief among them that he is the incumbent). But I don't think you can say there is NO evidence to support the idea that a different candidate would have a better chance.