I wonder sometimes if the way the Press and politicians constantly resort to hyperbole...

... has inoculated voters so much that they think the dire warnings about DJT and Project 2025 are just more of the same. As these days there are no superlatives, and everything is equally awesome and important -- for the next five minutes -- they could just shrug it all off as more clickbate and go back to watching exploitation TV.

Not so much the alleged "short attention span" as a conviction, based on experience, that it's all bullshit anyway.

-- Mal

Donald Trump owns the GOP. I think they need a new animal mascot to reflect this.

A slug, maybe? How about a mud puppy?

Post your suggestions here!

-- Mal

I wonder when the Christofascists will criminalize menstruation.

I mean, let's face it, every month women cruelly murder potential babies and yet we don't hold them accountable for it. This carnage should stop! Any month a woman isn't actively pregnant is genocide!

The horrid thing is, I'm not so sure some of them don't think exactly that.

-- Mal

A Question on Polls for British DUers

How do the actual election results in yesterday's General Election compare with the pre-election polls? Did Labour do better than expected? Any surprises? (Obviously, Reform winning 4 seats is an unpleasant surprise, but weren't they projected to take 7?).

I ask because I've been thinking recently that the polls are getting more and more out-of-touch with the voters, especially when it comes to enthusiasm (or acceptance) for the Left, and the popularity of the Right. It seems to me from across the puddle that the Left performed better than expected, and the Right really tanked. Is this accurate?

-- Mal

No Party has ever won as many as 410 seats in Parliament in the 20th century.

The Conservatives topped out at 397 back in 1983. Some of us may remember Maggie and all her works.

This is non-trivial.

-- Mal

I'm watching the British elections closely...

... while Britain seems to follow the US in most things political (a lot like Australia in that), I think, or perhaps "hope" is a better word, that what happens Over There will be a foreshadowing of what happens here. Yes, the situations are not exactly parallel, but I have been thinking that the British public are as fed up with the "Conservatives" as the US public is with the GOP. And the Conservatives seem to have closely modelled themselves on the GOP: the same arrogant indifference to the public, the same sense of entitlement, the same (or worse!) tired old isolationist and economic rhetoric.

If true, based on the current projections from Over There, we'll be popping champagne corks for days after our own election.

-- Mal

Random thoughts on Donald Trump v United States

This ruling seems to me to display amazing stupidity on the part of the USSC. Because it would seem to be contrary to their best interests, and people are always supposed to act in their own (perceived) best interests.
Therefore I am forced to conclude that my own estimation of the Court's best interests does not align with theirs, and I have to figure out what I'm missing. Several possibilities suggest themselves, all depressing.

The simplest is that they are stupid, and think that with this ruling, they have arrogated to themselves the right to hold the President accountable, by determining what is and is not an official act. This is amazingly shortsighted if true, since Court accountability is necessarily widely separated in time from whatever action the President takes.
Or, it may be that religion or ideology has compelled them to make a ruling that buttresses the authoritarian position of the President. If so, that would explain the apparent irrationality of the ruling, since religion or ideology need not be rational.
Or, it may be that the people who own them instructed them to vote this way, again possibly for religious or ideological reasons, but this time with the idea of strengthening the stranglehold of the wealthy on the levers of power.
In both the latter cases, it pre-supposes confidence that the White House will never be occupied by anyone whose interests do not align with those of the Court or the wealthy who own them. Which again suggests that they are remarkably stupid, or that they know something we don't.

I find it interesting that some of the language of the ruling echoes, almost word-for-word, some of the arguments DJT has made for Presidential immunity. A fourth possibility would be that, like many an evil genius before him, Mr Trump has so enthralled some members of the court as to make them his devoted disciples, who will do or say anything he instructs them to. But their previous rulings on several cases which involve Mr Trump would seem to disprove such an explanation.
Or it could be that DJT and the Court are merely puppets repeating the scripts given them by some other individual or organization, who has a decided agenda which it intends to implement/force on the American people. This agenda would include an authoritarian tyranny which enacts laws with no consideration of the wishes of the people, and often in direct opposition to those wishes.
This individual or organization may be either extorting conformity by some fear or favor, or it may be that the desires of its puppets conform voluntarily to its own desires. Again, desires do not require rationality, so a decision need not be rational to reflect them.

Of course, we know such an organization exists, and we know their agenda: Project 2025. The question is how much influence, and how much leverage, they have. The ruling of the Court could suggest that it is great.

-- Mal

I wonder what the "H" in "Jesus H Christ" stands for...

... boy, I bet people would feel stupid if it turned out his middle name was Irving.

-- Mal

It's that time of year again.

Absolutely nothing to do with politics. Promise. Honest.