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The resistible force meets the movable object – politicalbetting.com
The resistible force meets the movable object – politicalbetting.com
An absolutely brutal @QuinnipiacPoll for Democrats:Republican Party: 43% favorable, 45% unfavorable (-2)Democratic Party: 31% favorable, 57% unfavorable (-26) pic.twitter.com/m0RgPmGWno
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But nothing to say. Yet.
If the figures haven't changed in 6 months then they are in trouble.
I think government perception in the US - and to a lesser extent the rest of the west - will increasingly be influenced and controlled by the Internet and social media. There's several reasons why Musk and the GOP are attacking 'traditional' media, and control of the narrative is one of them.
We:LL have to see whether voters turn on him when the effects of tariffs and cuts start to hit them or whether they doubledown.
A bit like my fellow Foxes fans booing our team off the pitch at Everton.
REF: 27% (+1)
LAB: 23% (+1)
CON: 21% (-2)
LDEM: 11% (-1)
GRN: 10% (-)
via @FindoutnowUK, 29 Jan
Chgs. w/ 22 Jan
Unless 'refusing to co-operate with anyone in Trump's team' =
Two senior officials at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have been suspended after they tried to stop members of Elon Musk's efficiency team from accessing secure systems, according to reports.
Sky News' US partner NBC News spoke to three sources who said the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team wanted to access some files that were beyond their security level.
https://news.sky.com/story/senior-usaid-pair-suspended-after-refusing-elon-musks-doge-staff-access-to-secure-systems-13302165
Also we have the evidence of Musk claiming that working weekends is a superpower because bureaucrats don't work weekends...
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886317363953279401
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-young-engineers/
https://bsky.app/profile/yougov.co.uk/post/3lgzlbnvpdc23
DOGE has not been established according to US law, so has no legal authority to carry out the actions attempted.
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/advocacy-groups-file-four-lawsuits-against-musk-led-doge
A polite fiction.
I don't bet, but I wonder if he'll still be president come the end of the year.
I wonder how the US markets are going to react come opening time.
It’s great if you want Dark Noom. It probably has more Dark Noom than any capital city on earth. This is where Hitler died. This was a stasi torture chamber. This was the Berlin Wall. Those are graffiti by red army soldiers etc
But most people don’t travel to experience the noomy absence of god and the tingle of spiritual despair and bleakness; so hey Ho
Some excellent museums and nice gardens. Definitely better in summer unter den linden
Is there any of old Berlin left or is it totally rebuilt
East Berlin probably has more than West because they didn't have the money to demolish and develop
It's not a great world city, nowhere near. I'm not even sure it is in the noble second tier of European cities alongside, say Barcelona or Rome, Vienna or Athens
It's in the crowded third tier - with Lisbon, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Munich, Prague, Edinburgh, Dublin...
Better than Wick, mind you
As for Trump’s approval ratings approving that’s not exactly surprising when he is clearly doing things. I mean granted what he’s doing seems to be utterly insane but your average American won’t see the insanity
Pinning the failure of Brexit on Brexiteers is tricky. Cults are not known for rationality.
TWO Russian oil refineries on fire!!
https://x.com/tendar/status/1886284349126893782
The SNP "may" ban cat ownership in some places and restrict it in others.
A policy I Can well get behind.
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/14267268/scots-banned-owning-cats-report/
I can see the 'boycott USA' gaining traction over there. You have a President imposing tariffs on you for no reason, threateningly calling ok you to become the 51st state.
USD strengthening too, which makes US exports even less competitive on top of retaliatory tariffs. Great way to improve a trade deficit.
The Democrats just need to hold steady and call out Trump for making things more expensive for ordinary Americans. Because that is the inevitable result on his trade policy.
I do think it was perhaps at its most compelling around the mid noughties, funnily enough around the time that Merkel was taking office or had just bedded in. Some of the past was even more present (e.g the ugly East German parliament building was still standing, though I think was already slated for demolition) but there was perhaps a dynamism and energy in the air with the new architecture of government, the rebuilt Reichstag building etc, which gave it the feeling of a city in optimistic transition - moving from the shadows of the past into the exciting new European future where Germany would take the lead. The city is still great, but perhaps seeing it in that optimistic, transitional moment was the most special
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/33154476/brit-james-wilton-killed-russian-drone-ukraine/
We have the whip-hand here, which makes a change. The EU is desperate for a good deal, maintaining their fleets in British waters, and they're not hiding it very well
We need to extract a hefty pound of trading flesh, in return
I really like Berlin, with all it's lakes, parks, and fascinating history. The Nazi stuff was pretty much eradicated, with not even a marker to show where the bunker was. Some great museums too, especially the Topography of Terror (on the rise of the Nazis in Berlin) and on Museum Island. Great nightlife too, with a fair whiff of the Caberet era.
There's a lot still being constructed but well worth a visit. 250 000 Beliners turned out yesterday to March against AfD. They know where it all leads.
Outdoor-loving felines would also be kept indoors by their owners under the scheme.
The only exception would be if dedicated owners build outdoor enclosures for their pets.
One bizarre solution was also that cats could be taken for walks on a LEAD.
They have also suggested that all cats in vulnerable wildlife areas should be forced to be neutered.
We must protect the wild haggises.
Tesla sales in Europe are already falling and will fall further. They are now the least cool car brand in the world outside of Reform circles.
(Imagine the frothing on here if Biden had done the same).
Rome is at the top of the second tier
Shanghai is probably the likeliest to make the grade to world city, and maybe soon
But to be in the rarefied second tier you need a lot of history (hence Rome, Athens), amazing culture and architecture (Vienna, Barcelona). I'd put Moscow and St Petersburg in this second tier, as well, and Istanbul
Berlin doesn't quite match those cities, to my mind
Top of the third tier is about right for the Prussian capital
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Yh9ZCVZtpbgqYMCL8
It's a damn shame the Old Continent seems determined to commit economic/demographic seppuku
I see Berlin as a tangible, living fable: an aspiring imperial capital until it was shattered by 1918, the vital, exhilarating cultural experiment of Weimar shattered by the Nazis, the dark surrender to the worst of human nature ending in a shattered, divided city. It’s Homeric and puts Berlin right up there in terms of world significance.
https://x.com/meanwhileinua/status/1885954258299728111
Fuck me, quite an experience. Reading of those intense horrors in the final days, then you look up and see the streets and parks described
As for Berlin we are there this year but that’s because we want to go to a concert and the band is playing 2 dates in total - London and Berlin (where they alongside a lot of other musicians now live)
And the London concert is midweek at a venue I don’t like
update - 30 to 35 seems to be the range
However if forced, I'd put them in Tier 3, near the top. Their economic and tech/political important is tiny, but they are so crucial in the European story, so stuffed with art, so fundamentally beautiful, they easily deserve an elevated slot. Likewise Naples maybe
Putin can't stop. But the price of not stopping is smashing about the only thing that creates value in the Russian economy. Russia will run out of money. The war economy is making products that have proven to be useless in Ukraine, so no-one will pay more than a string of sea-shells for them.
Then the only thing it will have is vodka.
You cannot support both Trump/GOP and Ukraine.
The new long-range ‘drones’ look somewhat like a remote-controlled Cessna light aircraft, but with explosives where the people should be!
Why is that ?
Prices in America will go up a bit owing to tariffs. Prices go up all the time, and went up a lot during Covid and the associated cost of living crisis.
The GOP are simply choosing not to exercise them.
Similarly on tariffs: Congress has the power to immediately overturn tariffs imposed by the executive on "national security" grounds, if they so choose.
Possibly in Tier 53? Alongside Enniscorthy and Ozorkow, but there's a lot of dispute amongst tier-ologists as to whether it should be above or below Hyvinkaa, the self-styled "Newent of the East"
Ukraine claims to be manufacturing 30,000 of these “Cessna with a 250kg bomb” drones a year. What happens to the Russian economy when every major oil refinery and storage facility is being hit multiple times a month?
Rome is absolutely a top tier city as a travel destination for anyone who isn't a weirdo.
However yes Trump's tariffs will define his term especially if they increase prices for US consumers and hit exporters without bringing manufacturing jobs back to the rustbelt. With polls suggesting just 38% of Americans back tariffs that could certainly win the Democrats the midterms by default
https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3917
Her supporters have their own separate reality.
Hard to say: once inside a belief system people tend to double down on their past decisions rather than reverse them when faced with new contradictory information. But that only applies to the true Maga believers. Those who lent Trump their vote may feel very differently.
The problem, obviously, is that we are no longer in normal times: Musk has taken direct control of the expenditure of the federal government, giving him unprecedented power over every aspect of the US. In six month’s time, if you want federal money it seems plausible that you’re going to need Musk’s personal approval, which he will be able to revert at any time. “Can US democracy survive this take-over by the oligarchs?” is not a question I expected to be asking, but it’s one we’re going to find out the answer to I guess.
S Korea probably made the right choice in massively developing its own arms industry.
Trump was elected on a promise of halting inflation.
The risk for Putin is that when the war stops the questions will be asked about his leadership. He cannot afford to stop.
Dissatisfaction or disillusionment with the incoming administration manifests itself first as falling levels of enthusiasm for that party or President. People look first for alternatives (the Democrats may do better at local level before their national profile improves) or register their dissatisfaction by abstention before actively considering a party which could form an alternative Government or President.
Reform, for example, is currently a party of protest, of discontent, of disillusion with BOTH the current Government and the previous incumbents but it’s not yet a vote for Government. Reform is currently whatever you want it to be - there will come a time when it will have to answer the real questions - what would they do in Government? How would their immigration policy work? Who would they support in the event of a Hung Parliament?
But even as a top city destination, Berlin doesn't cut it
What are the ten must see cities in Europe?
London
Paris
Rome
Barcelona
Athens
Vienna
Venice
Istanbul
Moscow
St Petersburg
Sorry, Berlin doesn't make it
It's in the next ten, isn't it?
Prague
Amsterdam
Madrid
Naples
Lisbon
Dublin
Berlin
Kyiv
Edinburgh
Florence
If Tbilisi is allowed I'd swap it for Dublin
Remedial reading comprehension classes for you, again.
I wouldn't put Berlin in the top ten cities to visit.
It is not just shit, it is SO shit even those who believed in it have abandoned the faith.
Guns top-trump Facebook and X...
Good morning, everyone.
https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1886324958185283925
Might not even be the Ukrainians who did it, but the Chechens...
One story I like was how the Athens underground got dug - it was sold to the archaeologists as a unique opportunity to dig in places they could never previously touch. Quite a bit of stuff they found was incorporated into the stations.