If this is what happens in the midterms then the Republicans are in for a shellacking
If this is what happens in the midterms then the Republicans are in for a shellacking – politicalbetting.com
Republicans did not lose the TX SD-9 runoff because of low GOP turnout: they lost because almost all of the independents and some of the Republicans voted Dem.Of those who voted in the TX SD-9 runoff, 50%+ were GOP primary voters or at GOP HH; only 35% were Dems or at Dem HH pic.twitter.com/osPAhm3nS4
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*which would be a novelty in the land of gerrymandering and voter suppression.
They will almost certainly try, though.
What a noble guy!
He's lovin' it!
https://x.com/DamianSurvation/status/2018961574611018027
“History is-a made at night. Character is what you are in the dark.”
I find UK politics utterly baffling at the moment. About US politics, best if I say nothing, except: thanks for the header.
Sarah Ferguson ‘took daughters to visit newly free Jeffrey Epstein’
The former Duchess of York travelled with Eugenie, 19, and Beatrice, 20, five days after financier was released for child sex crimes
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/royal-family/article/sarah-ferguson-epstein-files-latest-9kn2g6n6j
Sarah Ferguson asked Epstein to find ‘pretty’ goddaughter a job
Former Duchess of York also pointed out that her goddaughter was 22 years old in email exchange
Sarah Ferguson tried to persuade Jeffrey Epstein to give her goddaughter a job in his office, describing her as a “pretty girl”, newly released emails show.
The former Duchess of York pointed out that Laura McGowan was 22 years old in the email sent in 2010 to Epstein, who had recently been released from prison for child sex crimes.
Ms Ferguson asked Epstein, a registered sex offender by that point, to find a place for Ms McGowan to stay.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/02/03/sarah-ferguson-epstein-files-goddaughter/?recomm_id=6e7f6bc4-7320-4231-bff3-a617e92a5e96
Hope he had the nous to avoid that one.
Pass me the mind bleach.
Gordon Brown, for instance, seems genuinely shocked and angered by the cabinet leaks revelations.
An instructive warning against making others complicit in one’s social media fawning (or perhaps avoid doing the fawning in the first place).
👀🚨Meanwhile, while Mandelson scandal is galloping along, I hear that Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman ended up WITH LABOUR MPs in the AYE lobby on lifting two child benefit cap.
A source tells me they “got on their phones trying to get instructions from Farage as to whether they should be there or not”
“They tried to leave at one point but got trapped as the doors were locked”
Reform source confirms this happened & says it was a ‘genuine mistake’ & neither MP registered a vote. All other Reform MPs voted against….
UPDATE: It’s been pointed out to me that because they went thru lobby the votes recorded. The record on HoC vote here. So Jenrick and Braverman voted WITH Labour to lift the two child benefit cap 🫣
À Labour source texts: “Not our fault they don’t understand procedure and can’t organise a group of *checks notes* 8 MPs”
https://x.com/BethRigby/status/2018812866858795410
Two Reform MPs accidentally vote to scrap two-child benefit limit in Commons blunder
"They made a genuine mistake walking through the wrong lobby," Reform spokesperson says
https://x.com/ashcowburn/status/2018965187521548387
https://open.substack.com/pub/swingometer/p/gorton-and-denton-update-1?utm_source=post-banner&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app
Rather equivocal and hedging, but interesting point on local candidates:
"One of the most consistent findings in research on candidates is that both party members and voters value local roots more than practically anything else, an effect which has been growing. As voters lose faith in national politics, credentials as a local champion loom ever larger."
(There were quite a few)
In the scandal with that celebrity photographer, a while back, there was a pattern. The top stars he photographed said he was a perfect gentleman etc. He preyed on the up-and-coming.
The presidential election is more dangerous because a lot of people have committed crimes and they'll have nothing left to lose but if the Dems can get a decent swing this time they'll control most of the legislatures and governor jobs, which closes down one of the main avenues Trump would have in a overturning a lost presidential election, namely to get the states to sign off on the wrong electors, then get SCOTUS to say, "it's not our place to second-guess the states".
Oh, to live in such times!
Sadly, it's always been the way and those who get to the top by understanding raw power know it.
Said those words outloud and everything.
[edited]
PB - where standards mean something.
One which does, and drives me mad, is "i'm based in..." and "Where are you based?".
Oh, and chefs adding "off" to everything. "Bake it off" "Fry them off" et al.
Hollywood’s culture is foul. I was just reading about Phil Spector’s murder of Lana Clarkson, and what an uphill struggle her family had to get justice.
Sounds like a recipe for voter suppression.
https://x.com/danneidle/status/2018969749917503833?s=61
A current working list:
Israel as a bit of democratic light in the middle east
NATO
The United States as global policeman and ally and protector of the west
The Conservative party
The Labour party
The two party system
The UN
The WTO
The rules based order
The monarchy
Nuclear non proliferation
The deal following the fall of the Berlin wall.
Things fall apart; the centrist dads cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
But the point is that the *threat* of ICE is sufficient to cause a lot of minority people to not go to work, not go to the shops....
They don't need a group of goons at every polling station.
Voter suppression. Change the rules so that only some people can vote, and only in person.
Voter intimidation. Try and keep people away from polling stations.
Rig the vote. Buy the companies that make the voting machines or install 'supporters' at the counts.
Deny the results. Even if enough people vote and the counts are true, Trump will declare the results are fraudulent and he won anyway
https://x.com/cspan/status/2018801306731749705
.@SenTedCruz: "Are we right now on stolen land?"
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
But, eminent people must not be embarrassed.
Sort of like the trial of Gaius Verres. His behaviour was so blatant, he had to be cut loose, but the rest of the establishment were spared.
The images emerging now from Iran of young people, older people, boys and girls, who were murdered in the last few weeks by the Iranian Islamic dictator, the Islamic Corps of Revolutionary Guards, Basij militia and imported killers from Iraq, are heartbreaking but also enraging.
Some depict beautiful people at play, at the gym, dancing, on motorbikes; some makeshift morgues full of bodies; some streetscenes where killers shoot down unarmed protesters; and many show families opening bodybags to find their dead children shot in the head; others discover bodies of protesters wounded then executed in hospital beds and particularly women with uteruses removed or other horrors to conceal brutal rapes... Many are not young but it looks like the slaughter of the best and brightest of Iran Gen Z. Ive tried to repost these here.
I have been contacted by people in Iran (who weirdly read my books in pirated Farsi editions) who manage to come online in various ways and they beg me to keep posting these images and faces and keep talking about them. Embarrassingly they thank me just for doing this! That is why i am writing this now. We must keep going and keep doing so.
The numbers killed are astonishing: based on sources within the murderous dictatorship, it may be as many as 36000 were murdered just in the first days of the terror 8/9 January and more later - making it likely that 40,000 is a horribly plausible estimate.
This makes this event the most greatest massacre in modern Iranian history by far, the greatest single event slaughter in modern MIddle Eastern history since 1900 - along with the Assad's liquidation of an entire town, site of Islamist insurgents, Hama, in 1982 when around 30,000 were killed. Both of them not taking place in wars but in cold blood - and this Iranian atrocity being far more terrible since none of the protesters were armed.
We live in a time of egregious comparisons to the Holocaust when the Holocaust is repellently abused and minimized by cynical cretins - radiohosts, podders, politicians- to criticize anything from vaccination to ICE raids. But here is a comparison that stands in its scale and horror: in size and horror this does resemble the two days of Babi Yar near Kiev in Sept 1941 where 33,000 Jews were killed. It is also worth pointing out that an entire progressive movement arose against the autocracy of the Shah.
And his was an autocracy. But in his forty year one reign, only around 3000 people were killed, mainly in the last year before his downfall.
It is very striking that the UN has barely commented on thiis…
https://x.com/simonmontefiore/status/2018630202482397222?s=46
He goes on in that vein. Excoriating the “progressives”
I suspect Donald Trump has thought of that one before you.
e.g. "Can you make an appointment tomorrow at 10am?"
"yes, I can."
"Perfect."
I have feeling this one is the Aussie's fault???
THIRTY THOUSAND
@simonmontefiore is right. This is up there with the Nazis. Worse than Tiananmen
The mind blanks at the horror
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/06/21/keir-starmer-peter-mandelson-adviser-jeffrey-epstein-link/
Sir Keir Starmer won’t freeze out Mandelson over Epstein friendship
JP Morgan report suggests that the Labour peer stayed at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse in 2009 while the billionaire was in prison
I keep hoping it isn’t true. The utter bleakness
Shocked and appalled.
At the lack of quality in the whataboutery on display here, this morning.
Barely 1/10.
If this goes on, exile to ConHome won't be enough. Immurement in the cell with Piers Corbyn and Piers Moron will be required.
(As Malmesbury is missing whataboutery)
See the multiple enquires that have last decades, until everyone is asleep. And then publish a worthy tome that sends everyone left to sleep, as well.
https://bbc.co.uk/news/live/c17zkj7nwzjt
And why is it buried in the local news?
He wasn’t on the Snooker Loopy hit song but he did have a Big break.
Given his birthday was the 4th March he was not a Virgo either. A Pisces. Odd
Apologies if already posted but we have the weekly More In Common numbers:
Reform: 30% (+1)
Labour: 21% (-1)
Conservative: 20% (=)
Liberal Democrat: 14% (+1)
Green: 10% (=)
Fieldwork 31/1 - 2/2 - changes from the poll issued 28/1.