I wonder who’ll be next week’s Prime Minister?
Politics and Current Affairs
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There is encouraging news about young voters getting out to vote in today’s election but I just came back from voting and it was very elderly based. I feel sorry for many of them. They grew up at a time when the most trusted man in America was a newsman so they tend to believe the charlatans on TV today. the collection of people were mostly based on the time when I voted. I saw a tweet earlier that listed almost every broadcasting and reporting organization as owned by Republicans so I am not going to worry about anything they say for the next couple of days. I am actually waiting for the screams of vote tampering and election frauds because I enjoy the whimperings of the Lost and Beaten. It comes from my addiction to sports where the Loser always screams bloody murder.
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Finally someone has worked out how to make a real difference in this war.
Hollywood actor Sean Penn gives his Oscar to Zelensky
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There is encouraging news about young voters getting out to vote in today’s election but I just came back from voting and it was very elderly based. I feel sorry for many of them. They grew up at a time when the most trusted man in America was a newsman so they tend to believe the charlatans on TV today. the collection of people were mostly based on the time when I voted. I saw a tweet earlier that listed almost every broadcasting and reporting organization as owned by Republicans so I am not going to worry about anything they say for the next couple of days. I am actually waiting for the screams of vote tampering and election frauds because I enjoy the whimperings of the Lost and Beaten. It comes from my addiction to sports where the Loser always screams bloody murder.
Well it looks like the Red Wave never manifested, even though the Republicans made gains. And Lauren Bobert lost her seat, it seems?
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Boebert hasn’t lost yet, but she trailing slightly. Which is a huge surprise considering her district is a very red district. Overall, the results are better for Dems than expected. If the GOP hadn’t shot themselves in the foot with abortion rights and by running insane idiots on most ballots, they would have absolutely trounced the Democrats. Right now it’s looking like they might barely take control of the house while the senate is a huge toss up. 3 races too close to call with one slightly leaning blue, one slightly leaning red and one almost certain to go to a run-off (why, Georgia?)
the biggest disappointment so far is how well DeSantis, Abbott and Kemp performed in their governor races. Not surprising, but they are such awful humans.
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One thing that still baffles me is why there are no other political parties of significance in the US. Why can’t the Socialist party of California get a seat in the House.
Also judging by these results De Santis might have a shot against Trump.
If more states would switch to something like ranked choice voting, we might see a rise is other viable political parties, but it comes largely down to recognition and money. Citizens United royally fucked politics in this country.
And yes, this election might actually be the beginning of the end of Trump in politics. But it probably means to the rise of DeSantis, who is just MAGA politics distilled into a much more dangerous form.
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One thing that still baffles me is why there are no other political parties of significance in the US. Why can’t the Socialist party of California get a seat in the House.
All together now: First past the post voting!
There’s very little chance a third party will win in any particular state (as evidenced by the Greens and Libertarians and all the other tiny parties with no elected officials)- in California’s case there are as many Republican voters in the state as there are in the three least-populous states Trump won in 2020 combined. A further-left party there risks splitting the Democrat vote and handing the state to the Republicans as opposed to winning out themselves.
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First past the post is a major element but the UK with that has some third party success.
Added to that the US has the ‘primary’ which I heard today has no equivalent in any other democratic system. It requires a very large proportion of the population to make a binary registration decision.
We’ve seen with Perot on the right and Nader on the left that a 3rd party just becomes a spoiler, they never win anywhere but just suck votes away. If say a character like Sanders pushed for a 3rd party nomination he basically guarantees a win for the Republicans.
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Which is why the Tories have the edge in the UK. But they might be being rumbled by Labour and the LDs, at least in by-elections. How it plays out at the next general election I don’t know.
One big difference between the US and UK is there looks to be more emphasis on political allegiance in the US. Maybe the whole party registration aspect plays into that in a way that doesn’t happen in the UK.
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One thing that still baffles me is why there are no other political parties of significance in the US. Why can’t the Socialist party of California get a seat in the House.
Every once in a blue moon, you will see a non-Democrat-Republican win a local race. The biggest reason they are not successful is the money gets sucked to Democrats and Republicans. They just can’t attract the big money, relative to the office sought. People will say they’re Socialist or Libertarian but when the rubber meets the road, they will vote for Democrats and Republicans.
Jesse Ventura as governor of Minnesota (1999-2003) was a rare time an independent party had someone in a high office.
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Which is why the Tories have the edge in the UK.
Oh yes, they generally rule on a minority of votes. A great example is the constituency of Ynys Môn in North Wales. The last election had a split of roughly 30% Labour, 30% Plaid Cymru and 35% Conservative. You’ve got 60% of the electorate voting to the left but it doesn’t matter, it’s a right wing seat.
Anything is better than what we have now but I do think a Labour landslide may not help UK politics. If they had to go into coalition then the other members would push for PR. Labour won’t advocate for that because it means more power sharing but they should. Cameron would not have won in 2015 or May in 2017 with a single transferable vote system.
Here’s a killer example from that era pre Johnson when the majorities were razor thin. Gower in 2015 was won by the Conservatives by less than 100 votes. 2000 voted for the Socialist Workers Party. You can be pretty certain their second choice would not be the Tories and that constituency flips. FPTP is a shit system.
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When we had the referendum on changing the voting system a while back, I always liked the example of a group of six mates deciding where to go for a drink, two saying a local coffee shop and the other four each picking a different pub. Under FPTP everyone ended up with coffee even though four of them wanted a beer.
Unfortunately at the time the waters were sufficiently muddied to disguise the fact that it was about achieving a greater consensus among voters, and make it look as though it was somehow about giving added weight to some votes over others. Even my dad took against it and started asking me stuff like “why should your vote count twice?” which was a bit depressing.
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The AV referendum was doomed to fail really because the presiding party and the opposition opposed it. It was put in reluctantly as part of the coalition agreement which screwed the Lib Dems as they conceded that for the tuition fees and bombed on both.
It would be radically different if a government in power actually tried to sell it, a good example is comparing the 1979 Scottish and Welsh devolution votes versus the 1999 ones. Sadly I think Labour often can’t see the wood for the trees, they have a constitutional bind that they have to contest every seat, and a level of arrogance to rule that in truth sustains Tory wins, they win more often that not because the left is more divided.
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I’d like to think that people are getting more savvy to tactical voting in marginal seats where voting a certain way can oust the conservative candidate, but I’m not sure the evidence is there. Like you say, Labour seemingly have to at least keep up the pretence of contesting every seat, even when stepping aside in some areas could help their cause overall by allowing the Lib Dem to take a seat off a tory.
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Each parties have put up candidates in by-elections, but as each was stronger in one of them, there wasn’t much campaigning from the other.
Both resulted in major swing results. But I’m sceptical this will happen at a general election with higher stakes
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Yeah they all tend to get high on their farts and let their delusions and ambition get in the way of reality and pragmatism. See Jo Swinson (remember her?) genuinely believing she was in with a shout of being Prime Minister at the last election and foregoing any tactical campaigning and progressive alliance with Labour et al which meant they both lost seats to the Tories with majorities smaller than the third place party’s vote share.
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Each parties have put up candidates in by-elections, but as each was stronger in one of them, there wasn’t much campaigning from the other.
Yes in by-elections we do seem to have more token efforts with minimal campaigning for the party least likely to take the seat. I would like to see that carry over to the next GE.
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How bad is Raphael Warnock that dumbass Herschel Walker got enough votes for there to be a runoff election?
This isn’t on Warnock so much as it is on the willful ignorance of too many Georgians.
At least the majority of people in Pennsylvania and Arizona got it right.
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And now it looks like the Dems will retain control of the Senate. And if Warnock wins the Georgia Senate seat next month, Joe Manchin can go fuck himself.
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Leave it to Dave Chappelle to bring the realness:
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Show me the body, MAGA’s not dead until we see the body.
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Show me the body, MAGA’s not dead until we see the body.
And even then we need to bury it at a crossroads with iron and salt
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Show me the body, MAGA’s not dead until we see the body.
And even then we need to bury it at a crossroads with iron and salt
I thought we had to drive a stake through its heart, then cut off its head and stuff its mouth with garlic.
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It’s not mutually exclusive – do them all.
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Nuke the entire site from orbit–it’s the only way to be sure.
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Nuke the entire site from orbit–it’s the only way to be sure.
Fuckin’ A
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Nasty fall or accidental poisoning?
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Show me the body, MAGA’s not dead until we see the body.
Not sure if this news has been carried overseas, but Trump has promised/threatened to make a very important announcement tomorrow, which everyone assumes will be his declaration to run for President in 2024. So even if MAGA is dead, the corpse is still flapping its wings.
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Yeah, if January 6th didn’t kill MAGA, I have my doubts that this will. Chances are Trump still has the GOP by the balls and they’re still such fucking cowards that they’ll bend over for him, even when it’s costing them elections. Individually, the Republican party politicians still have the problem that if Trump counts them as an enemy, they’ll be replaced by their party base.
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MAGA isn’t going to die any time soon. There’s still a lot of MAGA politicians in congress. But it might kill open election denial as a strategy for them. Voters, particularly in swing states, made it pretty clear they didn’t want election deniers in seats of power in their state.
Trump, individually, may also be in a bit of trouble politically (and hopefully legally). But even that is a toss up. His base still could hand him the 2024 nomination. And we all know the spineless GOP will fall in line if that happens. We’ve seen how little conviction conservative politicians actually have. Still, I think they may finally realize Trump is a losing candidate that drags the whole party down. And the only thing the GOP hates more than losing is helping poor people.
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Nasty fall or accidental poisoning?
Yes.
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Yeah, I am not so sure if DeSantis winning the battle against Trump in the Republican Party would be a good thing. I’d rather have a maniac like Trump running who scares away most rational people than somebody who can make almost the same policies more legitimate. I think DeSantis is probably more dangerous than Trump ever was.
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In a best-case scenario, if DeSantis gets the nomination from the GOP, Trump might form his own party and run as an independent, effectively splitting the vote between them and letting Biden (or whomever the Dem candidate will be in 2024) glide to an easy victory.
The Republican Party is aware of this, so either they broker a deal with Trump or they cut all ties with him and cooperate with the January 6th committee, the New York State Attorney General, and any other agency that is currently investigating Trump’s various illegal activities, in an effort to get him out of the way.
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I think DeSantis is probably more dangerous than Trump ever was.
It’s honestly quite tricky to tell. Even with his share of stunts DeSantis is a more rational actor, he was fine to co-operate with Biden in places. I heard journalists today say there is more pragmatism to what he does, he hasn’t been one of the more extreme on abortion as an example and kept a right wing but not absolutist stance.
He is an idealogue though which in some senses can be more dangerous than the narcissistic cult of personality of a Trump or even Johnson. They primarily care for whatever elevates their position. They do it haphazardly with hypocrisy on full show, escaping scrutiny by developing a cult-like following. Idealogues can tend more to hide and manipulate what they are actually doing.
In truth though the result of either approach is neither will help normal working people, don’t vote for them, they will fuck you over every time.
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DeSantis COULD be more dangerous than Trump (he’s certainly more savvy), but he’s also more of a politician than Trump. He rode the MAGA winds into office and yes, he’s still MAGA in terms of politics, but he’s not been much of an election denier. If the DOJ actually indicts Trump, that might be enough to quell any other thoughts of future coups. Especially with election deniers in prominent state positions failing in nearly every race this cycle.
Thats not to say DeSantis wouldn’t suck. He’s pretty awful, but I think there’s a decent chance that he’s a standard shitty Republican instead of a Trump level king of chaos. That said, I hope we never find out because a standard shitty Republican will still do plenty of damage to the country and the world if they’re president.
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If you look at the media some are now saying the Republicans won the House but some are saying they are still missing one seat. Its so chaotic.
It’s always like that with US elections, they decide when to ‘call’ a result and each news provider takes a different view on when they feel confident to do so. It’s why a lot of foreign news organisations only use AP as they are politically neutral.
It’s different to what I am used to in the UK or Malaysia as there is no running count published, they only announce the full tally at the end of the count.
I can’t really explain why some states are so fast and some so achingly slow, taking over a week can’t really have an excuse. Some are big and sparsely populated but as you say so are places like Brazil or Australia.
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It’s a sign of the decline of American standards. American workers have become lazy, they just want to drink their lattes and eat their avocado toast, not count votes. That’s why we need a strong, conservative hand at the wheel.
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It’s a sign of the decline of American standards. American workers have become lazy, they just want to drink their lattes and eat their avocado toast, not count votes. That’s why we need a strong, conservative hand at the wheel.
At least we hold on to our leaders for longer than 44 days.
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At least we hold on to our leaders for longer than 44 days.
Of course you do, it takes at least 60 days to count the votes to confirm them. 😂
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It’s a sign of the decline of American standards. American workers have become lazy, they just want to drink their lattes and eat their avocado toast, not count votes. That’s why we need a strong, conservative hand at the wheel.
At least we hold on to our leaders for longer than 44 days.
“We hung on to Trump for four years” might not be the flex you think it is.
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If you look at the media some are now saying the Republicans won the House but some are saying they are still missing one seat. Its so chaotic.
It’s always like that with US elections, they decide when to ‘call’ a result and each news provider takes a different view on when they feel confident to do so. It’s why a lot of foreign news organisations only use AP as they are politically neutral.
It’s different to what I am used to in the UK or Malaysia as there is no running count published, they only announce the full tally at the end of the count.
I can’t really explain why some states are so fast and some so achingly slow, taking over a week can’t really have an excuse. Some are big and sparsely populated but as you say so are places like Brazil or Australia.
Its because this country is obsessed with “state’s rights” and we’ve allowed every state to have different rules for elections. Some states allow for early votes to be counted as they come in, some don’t. Some say all mail-in votes much be received by Election Day some give close to a week for those to come in as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day. Add to that, most election services, like everything that’s not defense, are critically underfunded so there aren’t enough staff to help with the counting. I’m sure there’s more to it, but those are at least a couple of reasons why counting the results take so long here.
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njerry wrote:
DavidM wrote:
It’s a sign of the decline of American standards. American workers have become lazy, they just want to drink their lattes and eat their avocado toast, not count votes. That’s why we need a strong, conservative hand at the wheel.At least we hold on to our leaders for longer than 44 days.
“We hung on to Trump for four years” might not be the flex you think it is.
Come to think of it, I kinda wish it was as easy for us to toss out our leaders when we lose confidence in them.
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njerry wrote:
DavidM wrote:
It’s a sign of the decline of American standards. American workers have become lazy, they just want to drink their lattes and eat their avocado toast, not count votes. That’s why we need a strong, conservative hand at the wheel.At least we hold on to our leaders for longer than 44 days.
“We hung on to Trump for four years” might not be the flex you think it is.
Come to think of it, I kinda wish it was as easy for us to toss out our leaders when we lose confidence in them.
Hey, at least you only had Trump for four years. One vote and we’re stuck with Brexit forever.*
[*hopefully not forever]
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njerry wrote:
DavidM wrote:
It’s a sign of the decline of American standards. American workers have become lazy, they just want to drink their lattes and eat their avocado toast, not count votes. That’s why we need a strong, conservative hand at the wheel.At least we hold on to our leaders for longer than 44 days.
“We hung on to Trump for four years” might not be the flex you think it is.
Come to think of it, I kinda wish it was as easy for us to toss out our leaders when we lose confidence in them.
Actually it’s almost impossible for us to remove our leaders. That decision lies entirely with our leaders’ minions.
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Actually it’s almost impossible for us to remove our leaders. That decision lies entirely with our leaders’ minions.
True, although there’s always an element of soft power. I think the main driver for axing Truss so quickly was she plunged her party 33 points behind in the polls. If by some strange twist of fate she did the same things but Tory MPs thought their seats were safe she’d still be there.
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Rep. Hakeem Jeffries announces bid to replace Nancy Pelosi as Democratic leader
Unfortunately, history has made me cautiously optimistic about his chances, if not outright cynical.
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I think Nancy did the right thing to step aside and let someone else lead the Democrats in the House. She’s become too set in her ways and intolerant of the new progressive wave of Representatives trying to bring the Party into the 21st Century. Hakeem Jeffries could be the shot in the arm that the Dems need now.
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She’s a good political operator but at 82 it’s long past time to go.
Saying that there’s an election here in Malaysia tomorrow and the oldest ever Prime Minister in the world, Mahatir Mohammed, is standing again at the age of 96. He is actually still sharper than most of the clowns standing.
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Oh, God, I hope not!!!
Marjorie Taylor Greene Will Be House Speaker, Former GOP Congressman Says
Not a chance. But it would be kind of hilarious in the worst possible ways. First because McCarthy has been so desperate to be leader. Watch him get denied the position would be glorious. Second, it would be so insanely divisive. Two years of absolute toxic chaos where nothing at all but a bunch of baseless impeachment attempts and investigations loudly on display to show how out of touch the GOP is with the country.
The biggest drawback would be that I can see MTG actually trying to urge supporters to assassinate Biden and Harris so she could be president. She’s that much of a wacko.
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The Georgia Republican party tried to stop early voting for the runoff election this past Saturday, but luckily they failed.
I read elsewhere that there were long lines for voting on Saturday, and that many of the people on line were young voters, which bodes well for Warnock and the Dems.
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Trump, Done with Democracy, Calls on Kari Lake to Be ‘Installed’ as Arizona’s Governor
I’m starting to think the only reason Trump hasn’t caught a bullet yet is that no one wants to risk making him a martyr.
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Also, the crazies are all on his side. You’re more likely to get a hammer to the head if you’re anti-Trump (or if your wife is).
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I’m not sure why Americans are so up in arms about Trump wanting to change the Constitution. “This is terrible! He swore an oath to uphold the Constiution!”
As far as I’m aware, the Constitution has already been changed 37 times by people who swore oaths to uphold it.
I mean, I fully understand why people don’t want Trump to change it, but arguing that it can’t be changed seems pretty dumb, and yet that’s what I’m seeing.
No, Trump wants to ignore the Constituion so he can be reinstalled as POTUS.
If the Constitution is to be changed, there is an established process for it. That is not what Trump wants.
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To add to Todd’s point, it’s also important to keep the full context of Trump when considering anything he says. This is a guy who’s spent years trying to undermine and tear apart the very institutions he swore an oath to uphold. And he’s spent 2 years desperately crying voter fraud at the drop of a hat in the hope that it would either keep him in office or help put him back in office.
He can’t and shouldn’t be given the same leeway as other people or presidents who might talk about the constitution. Because he’s proven time and time again he’ll destroy anything in his path if it means he’s in power.
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House prices? Too high. Rents? Too high. Supply of new homes? Too low. Rishi’s big idea? Scrap the homebuilding targets!
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Also worth noting that most countries in the ‘developed world’ have more vacant houses than homeless people, so while it’s necessary to build more due to increasing population size and unequal distribution of housing stock, it’s not as vital.
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Yeah, I think if we dealt with vacant houses, people who have multiple unoccupied houses (and if we’re being bold, people with buy-to-let properties) we’d take out a big chunk out of the housing crisis. The other problem with all the OTT targets being set is that it’s leading to a lot of bad houses being built on rural land that we can’t really afford to lose. My town floods constantly, yet the past ten-fifteen years has seen multiple new spatterings of houses built on the flood plains. My local county and town councils have conspired to build a shit-ton of houses in the fields near me, the last gasp of publicly accessible rural space in the area. (I say conspired because no other council in the area or vicinity approves it, nor does it have any actual public mandate). If they’re anything like any of the other many houses they’ve built around here recently, they’ll be cramped little two to three bed properties with no front gardens, no driveways, no real parking areas, tiny back gardens, no public green space at all and ugly as fuck. But they’ll hit the government targets, so that’s all they care about.
(For reference, here are some of the most recent additions to my village, which actually have more front garden that the previous batch.)
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Empty homes is one of those areas that is thought to be easy to resolve, but is a goddamn nightmare.
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I’m sure this comes as a surprise to everyone. Or no surprise
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As YA author Megan Whalen Turner once wrote:
“A liar thinks everyone else lies…. A thief thinks everyone else is stealing from him…. A philanderer thinks everyone else is philandering.”Whenever anyone (Trump) accuses someone of performing some evil deed, I think of this quote.
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Another quote I just heard that could apply:
The guiltiest wolf always howls the loudest.
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Kyrsten Sinema Says She Will Leave the Democratic Party To Become Independent
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Trump Likely to Be Indicted, Will End Life ‘Behind Bars,’ Congressman Says
Unfortunately, that might be wishful thinking.
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I couldn’t make this up.
So, turns out the satirical aspects of Glass Onion cut very, very close for a load of right-wingers in the US and they are frothing over it.
Turns out Johnson was actively deceiving his audience! Wow, who knew? Turns out 2022 had one last joke to show off.
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I’m not so sure, starting to look like 2023-24 might be when an awful lot of karma catches up with people in a way they can’t avoid.
I think it’s probably wishful thinking where the January 6 charges are concerned, but Trump has done so much criming that it’s hard to imagine he won’t go to jail, most likely for tax fraud or something along those lines. The man’s entire business world is a cardhouse built of fraud, and there are so many investigations looking into them that he’ll definitely be convicted, at least. We’ll see if he actully does time – having a president in jail is something that is still hard to imagine especially for the Washington types, I am sure.
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CNN’s KFile reported that claims by Santos that his grandparents “survived the Holocaust” as Ukrainian Jewish refugees from Belgium who changed their surname are contradicted by sources including family trees compiled by genealogy websites, records on Jewish refugees and interviews with multiple genealogists.
“I never claimed to be Jewish,” Santos told the New York Post on Monday. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was ‘Jew-ish.’”
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Santos admitted Monday he didn’t graduate from any college or university, despite previously claiming he had degrees from Baruch College and New York University.
He also admitted that he never worked directly for the financial firms Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, as he has previously suggested, but claimed that he did do work for them through his company, telling the New York Post it was a “poor choice of words” to say he worked for them.
The New York Times first revealed last week that Santos’ biography appeared to be partly fictional. CNN confirmed details of that reporting, including about his college education and employment history.
Wow, it’s kind of impressive that he managed to con his way into Congress.
In a way, he’s the logical continuation of Trump. I can actually see him appealing to that crowd. Who the fuck needs one of those college degrees anyway? Far better to just make them up than to be part of that intellectual elite that is keeping the common man down!
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OK, so if the Republicans continue to fracture in the Speaker of the house election, can the Dems win by just voting en masse for one person who then gets more votes than anyone else by some margin, or do they need 50%+1 of the total vote?
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Traditionally the Speaker of the House is chosen from among the candidates of the majority party (in this case the Republicans); but apparently it is NOT a law, and historically there has been at least one case where a minority-party representative was voted to the role of Speaker.
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Having read up for it they need a simple majority of the people who vote, minus anyone who states “present” in lieu of a vote. Apparently Matt Gaetz approached AOC asking if she’d arrange for sufficient Democrats to vote present, ignoring that she’s not the person who would arrange this even if they were willing to go for it. Usually this vote is a formality because generally party members will follow their leadership’s instructions.
So the Republicans breaking ranks only causes more and more votes, unless one side can convince the other to drop out for one reason or another. It’s entirely possible that the Democrats will retain the Speaker of the House.
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It’s definitely possible that the Dems retain the speakership, but it’s still highly unlikely. Jeffries is getting all 212 Dem votes, McCarthy is getting around 202 GOP votes. If 8 or 9 Dems voted present, that brings down the majority threshold to maybe 212, but Jeffries would only have 203/204 votes so nothing changes.
Right now it’s setup to be a war of attrition. If in the next few votes the numbers stay the same, Dems might end up just end up voting present to kill the stalemate and move on. And maybe they get some concessions from McCarthy in the process. I’d put that as a bit more likely than them retaining the speakership.
But whatever happens, I do love seeing McCarthy humiliated. Dude has spent years publicly gunning for this position and sheltering these lunatics like Gaetz from repercussions. He sold what little soul he had and may get nothing from it but complete embarrassment. Even if he does win, he’ll have zero actual power as the crazies in his party walk all over him.
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But whatever happens, I do love seeing McCarthy humiliated. Dude has spent years publicly gunning for this position and sheltering these lunatics like Gaetz from repercussions. He sold what little soul he had and may get nothing from it but complete embarrassment. Even if he does win, he’ll have zero actual power as the crazies in his party walk all over him.
McCarthy refuses to comment on the George Santos controversy* because Santos has promised he will vote for McCarthy. I know we cannot stop him from eventually getting the votes he needs, but I still want him to squirm a bit longer.
*(during his campaign Santos lied about his education, his job history, his religious background, even about where he lives)
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