I haven't really followed Sunak since the great Prime Minister shake up (how American of me!). How has he done (scandals aside)?

It's interesting hearing perspectives from those of you outside of the USA.

The main reason that the 40% or so of my immediate neighbors that typically vote republican (all white M/F couples with families) are going to vote Trump is because they perceive that, individually, they will be better off under him. These are all college grads, at least somewhat informed of what's going on, and not normally what you would consider to be backwards people, though they do all have pickup trucks and somehow think that gives them the right to run people off the road.

Conclusions: they are selfish, and misinformed [not uninformed].

The media shares a great bit of blame for this.

(EDIT: FM losthighway already made similar points about selfishness. I should have read back a little further...)

Gramsci wrote: Tue Jan 02, 2024 8:41 am I think it’s bizarre they’re running Biden again. Maybe a last minute switch to Gavin Newsom?

Newsom is a jackass and, as is common with CA pols, he doesn't actually have the juice for a national campaign.

Ace K wrote: Tue Jan 02, 2024 3:03 pm

Gramsci wrote: Tue Jan 02, 2024 8:41 am I think it’s bizarre they’re running Biden again. Maybe a last minute switch to Gavin Newsom?

Newsom is a jackass and, as is common with CA pols, he doesn't actually have the juice for a national campaign.

If only olde Ron Reagan had also lacked that juice. We'd have a better world today.

I've been hearing this story going around that Trump regularly shits his pants and has to wear adult diapers and smells like shit. Really foul odour of shit. If any of that is true, then marvelous - there is some justice in the world. If it is all a complete fabrication, as seems likely, then I must say it's the strongest argument I've heard and I hope it gets plenty of traction. I also hear that Trump has a tiny dick, and I think the voting public has a right to know whether he gets shit all over his tiny dick.

losthighway wrote: Tue Jan 02, 2024 2:56 pm I haven't really followed Sunak since the great Prime Minister shake up (how American of me!). How has he done (scandals aside)?

He’s fucking useless. And now as unpopular as any of his predecessors. I genuinely hope he eats shit at the election. He’s a jumped up little private schoolboy that thinks the country owes him a favour. Literally no one voted for him, in fact his own party ranked him second place again a human lettuce when they had the chance.

Let's count the regional provocations that are unattributed but seem designed to pull Hezbollah into a second front against Israel:
1. The targeted assassination of a Hamas leader in the Golan Heights. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 024-01-02/
2. Roadside bomb(s) in Iran at the annual memorial for commander Qassem Soleimani https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-sole ... 0e2b53ad5a
3. There was a drone strike in Iraq yesterday against an Iran proxy inside the country's borders https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/worl ... -iraq.html (This one was acknowledge by the Pentagon as being as US drone, but acting on who's intelligence?)

This is in addition to the low-level incursions into Southern Lebanon by Israel in the last two months where at least 40 Hezbollah fighters have died. https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/ ... r-conflict

Egg prices may be the least of our concerns if Hezbollah and Iran get pulled into a shooting war with Israel. There's a chance that Netanyahu wants to pull US forces (air or ground, I guess?) into this mess in a nihilistic attempt to watch the whole region burn. I mean, in case you needed something else to worry about while you're trying to sleep tonight.

The disinterest in what Israel is doing by, the world, might be the public opinion american politicians need to distance themselves from right-wing Israel for once ever?

Seems like that second one may no longer be "Unattributed..."

https://www.axios.com/2024/01/04/isis-i ... ity-kerman

ISIS claims responsibility for attack that killed more than 80 in Iran

ISIS claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attack in Iran that killed more than 80 people who had gathered for a ceremony honoring a top Iranian commander killed in a U.S. drone strike four years ago.

^ Weird twist with Isis. I almost didn't believe it, but who am I to say?

Any way you cut it, the hornet's nest of the Middle East is buzzing again. Netanyahu seems positioned to gain from that mess. I want to hope that the dynamic in the federal government around Middle East policy has changed, but dang, our country has found the mess irritable as long as I've been alive.