It's interesting that French liberal media was so relieved at the election that they only glancingly referred to the wright's historically high result. They've made the story to be about what was averted. But it's still coming.
Yeah, everybody really ripped and threw away their copy. Now, suddenly, the articles are wondering if Marine Le Pen is finished. It is interesting that left and center can form the tactical alliance like they did. But if the National Assembly really falls into chaos - and people blame the left - the right may just keep coming on.
This was great. I appreciate your clarity of thought on these many overlapping crises. Also, looks like The Big Fail is $2.99 on US Kindle right now. I just grabbed a copy. Thanks for the rec.
Thank you for covering so many important issues. Biden is Macbeth and Jill, his ever-encouraging wife, makes a play for Lady M. All in all, we do have a leadership vacuum: Biden, Trump, Netanyahu, McConnell....
The Big Fail, I've read, includes the Covid response in schools. I was there. It was a travesty. Kids showed up for Zoom classes in bed. Attendance, work, grades, and all accountability went out the window. A year later we returned to "normal," but normal was gone. Immaturity, lack of respect for any authority, learning losses, and most of all, the loss of belief in established structures continue to reap havoc. Masks, no masks, outbreaks, quarantines, ... My career ended early. Another Covid casualty.
Thank you Cathy. I have to admit I'd given zero thought to Jill but now suddenly she does seem like a grey cardinal behind the throne. The pandemic was an unbelievable psychic blow to the society and I'm not sure how much anybody's really recovered from it. The great travesty for me was the period from the fall of 2020 through to the winter of 2021 when the public health authorities basically just disappeared - they were waiting for the vaccines to come out and solve the problem and really didn't think about the knock-on effects in the society in terms of constant masking, remote learning, press censorship, breakdowns in the supply chain, etc.
The UK Labour Party vote "surged" from 32% to 34% (I didn’t recheck the actual values but it’s about a 2% increase). Anyone writing about the UK election who fails to explain the basics is.. not worth reading. It’s why I don’t read journalists, they rarely do any actual work.
Shall I do your work for you here? It’s a first past the post system and the "conservative" vote was split between the Conservative aka Tory party and a new party Reform UK. The "conservative" vote dropped by 5% (but now split between two parties), the Labour Party vote went up by 2%, the Green Party went up by 4% (from memory again). The massive change in seats for the Labour Party and the LibDems (who went from like 11% to 11.5%) is a consequence of the first past the post system where one party in power lost half their votes to another new party.
Lots of interesting things that political commentators could write about the election. Just calling out the number of seats won is.. not worth reading. At least you read Martin Gurri. That’s a positive.
Anything is permissible because we have to defeat Trump. Anything is permissible because we have to defeat covid (and China). Anything is permissible because we have to defeat Putin. Anything is permissible because we have to defeat Hamas.
When you are years out from these existential calamities you can do the little retrospectives, drag Fauci out and put some mildly scandalous anecdotes about our past incompetences in the NYT. But it doesn't matter, there will be a new threat imminently and we will behave in the same manner as before.
Yeah, I KNEW that this would happen, that the Covid reckoning would happen way down the road when nobody is paying attention to it. The mainstream consensus at this point has gotten exactly to where many of the dissidents - the Great Barrington people, the lab leak people, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, Alex Berenson - were during the pandemic, but those people remain "fringe" and the mainstream just backtracks. I did find it pretty rich that Zeynep Tufekci who was a ferocious advocate of masking and boosters claims that she "begged" the government to be less draconian in its response.
Yeah, I didn't want to get into that, but Biden was long past his sell-by date by 2020. Sort of remarkable that his administration functioned as well as it did given that.
I think it proves the American government isn’t being run by one man. It’s being run by the people around him. All they need is his signature which could be faked (maybe)
What is it about American politics that allows for such a myopic cup dribbler as Biden to remain in total and complete power of the Democratic party? Maybe answering that question opens the way for a real democracy to flourish instead of having to suffer four more years of Trump _ asking for a friend.
Thanks Paul. I think the real answer is that Biden was just never really a very smart guy. What he had was a certain hard-charging ability, somewhat similar to Bill Clinton, to always get his way. Nobody ever really wanted him in charge, but he somehow got the VP nod in 2008 and then was the next one on deck after Hillary combusted in 2016. The problem with somebody like Biden is that they have just enough capability to get power and hold it but not enough to see themselves from outside - and Biden just doesn't have close to the grace or clarity to understand what his intransigence is doing to the party or country. It's really a worst case scenario IMO.
It's interesting that French liberal media was so relieved at the election that they only glancingly referred to the wright's historically high result. They've made the story to be about what was averted. But it's still coming.
Yeah, everybody really ripped and threw away their copy. Now, suddenly, the articles are wondering if Marine Le Pen is finished. It is interesting that left and center can form the tactical alliance like they did. But if the National Assembly really falls into chaos - and people blame the left - the right may just keep coming on.
This was great. I appreciate your clarity of thought on these many overlapping crises. Also, looks like The Big Fail is $2.99 on US Kindle right now. I just grabbed a copy. Thanks for the rec.
Thank you Rebecca! The Big Fail is fabulous. I really think it should be the standard treatment of the pandemic.
Is Biden getting messages urging him to stay the course?
Thank you for covering so many important issues. Biden is Macbeth and Jill, his ever-encouraging wife, makes a play for Lady M. All in all, we do have a leadership vacuum: Biden, Trump, Netanyahu, McConnell....
The Big Fail, I've read, includes the Covid response in schools. I was there. It was a travesty. Kids showed up for Zoom classes in bed. Attendance, work, grades, and all accountability went out the window. A year later we returned to "normal," but normal was gone. Immaturity, lack of respect for any authority, learning losses, and most of all, the loss of belief in established structures continue to reap havoc. Masks, no masks, outbreaks, quarantines, ... My career ended early. Another Covid casualty.
Thank you Cathy. I have to admit I'd given zero thought to Jill but now suddenly she does seem like a grey cardinal behind the throne. The pandemic was an unbelievable psychic blow to the society and I'm not sure how much anybody's really recovered from it. The great travesty for me was the period from the fall of 2020 through to the winter of 2021 when the public health authorities basically just disappeared - they were waiting for the vaccines to come out and solve the problem and really didn't think about the knock-on effects in the society in terms of constant masking, remote learning, press censorship, breakdowns in the supply chain, etc.
The UK Labour Party vote "surged" from 32% to 34% (I didn’t recheck the actual values but it’s about a 2% increase). Anyone writing about the UK election who fails to explain the basics is.. not worth reading. It’s why I don’t read journalists, they rarely do any actual work.
Shall I do your work for you here? It’s a first past the post system and the "conservative" vote was split between the Conservative aka Tory party and a new party Reform UK. The "conservative" vote dropped by 5% (but now split between two parties), the Labour Party vote went up by 2%, the Green Party went up by 4% (from memory again). The massive change in seats for the Labour Party and the LibDems (who went from like 11% to 11.5%) is a consequence of the first past the post system where one party in power lost half their votes to another new party.
Lots of interesting things that political commentators could write about the election. Just calling out the number of seats won is.. not worth reading. At least you read Martin Gurri. That’s a positive.
Thanks Stevec, but the basics of UK parliamentary is really not what this post was about. Plenty of other pieces do that.
Anything is permissible because we have to defeat Trump. Anything is permissible because we have to defeat covid (and China). Anything is permissible because we have to defeat Putin. Anything is permissible because we have to defeat Hamas.
When you are years out from these existential calamities you can do the little retrospectives, drag Fauci out and put some mildly scandalous anecdotes about our past incompetences in the NYT. But it doesn't matter, there will be a new threat imminently and we will behave in the same manner as before.
Yeah, I KNEW that this would happen, that the Covid reckoning would happen way down the road when nobody is paying attention to it. The mainstream consensus at this point has gotten exactly to where many of the dissidents - the Great Barrington people, the lab leak people, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, Alex Berenson - were during the pandemic, but those people remain "fringe" and the mainstream just backtracks. I did find it pretty rich that Zeynep Tufekci who was a ferocious advocate of masking and boosters claims that she "begged" the government to be less draconian in its response.
The thing is Biden has been in decline since at least 2020?
Why was he kept in the basement?
Stay alive Joe Biden. Even the Atlantic knew then what was happening.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/stay-alive-joe-biden/608614/
Yeah, I didn't want to get into that, but Biden was long past his sell-by date by 2020. Sort of remarkable that his administration functioned as well as it did given that.
I think it proves the American government isn’t being run by one man. It’s being run by the people around him. All they need is his signature which could be faked (maybe)
What do you reckon Obama has a big input?
What is it about American politics that allows for such a myopic cup dribbler as Biden to remain in total and complete power of the Democratic party? Maybe answering that question opens the way for a real democracy to flourish instead of having to suffer four more years of Trump _ asking for a friend.
Thanks Paul. I think the real answer is that Biden was just never really a very smart guy. What he had was a certain hard-charging ability, somewhat similar to Bill Clinton, to always get his way. Nobody ever really wanted him in charge, but he somehow got the VP nod in 2008 and then was the next one on deck after Hillary combusted in 2016. The problem with somebody like Biden is that they have just enough capability to get power and hold it but not enough to see themselves from outside - and Biden just doesn't have close to the grace or clarity to understand what his intransigence is doing to the party or country. It's really a worst case scenario IMO.