Politics

When no editor wants something, why not a substack?

Kamala Harris became the first woman to be given presidential powers on Friday as Joe Biden briefly transferred authority while he underwent a colonoscopy.

The White House said Ms Harris served as acting president for an hour and 25 minutes while Mr Biden was placed under anaesthesia for the routine procedure.

She didn’t set off the missiles or anything by mistake. Now the question is, would we all still survive if she had 23,000 times that span in which to fuck up during a first term?

There is even speculation that Biden could seek to offload Harris, perhaps when the next vacancy arises for a seat on the Supreme Court. He said last year that he would propose a black woman.

Would be amusing though. Imagine the whipping that would have to be done to get her through the Senate.

Dominic Cummings has claimed that Boris Johnson has a secret exit from his Downing Street flat to help him escape the building without officials seeing him leave.

Mr Johnson’s former chief adviser, who has set up an email newsletter which he uses to launch broadsides at Downing Street, said the Prime Minister “likes to be able to escape his office without outer office knowing” and had installed a “special extra exit at the top of the No 10 flat”.

After all, Zac is in government and as his father said, when a man marries his mistress he creates a job vacancy.

We have to stop politicians marking their own homework, and bring in legal frameworks that deter bad behaviour. We need a legally binding agreement between MPs and those who elect them, to ensure that all understand what is expected. Working hours, disciplinary policy, harassment, discrimination, expenses, misconduct, conflicts of interest and outside jobs should all be covered. I believe this reform would change the culture, calibre and cost of politics overnight.

We went though all of this with John Wilkes. Any tosser who can get the votes is fine as an MP. Absent some very general rules – no bankrupts etc – we don’t have legal restrictions. Eve a criminal serving a sentence can get elected. As has been done at least once.

Kamala Harris is least popular US vice-president in at least 50 years

At least enough people know who she is to be able to say they don’t like her.

Dementia: A Public Policy Challenge
As the US population ages, the number of people with dementia keeps rising. It’s a problem from hell and a huge social challenge.

Sadly it is only about the wider problem, not the current and immediate one.

Mr Hilton told The Telegraph’s Planet Normal podcast – which you can listen to using the audio player above – that he believed Mr Biden’s mental acuity and failure to get bills passed in Congress will likely doom the Democrats to a single term.

“People say don’t be mean, he’s an old man, you can’t call him senile. I do call him senile because he clearly is senile,” said Mr Hilton, who served Mr Cameron’s director of strategy from 2010-2012 before moving to the United States.

I significantly doubt that we’re going to see the invocation of that 25th amendment (right no.?). That would bring Kamala into office and that would definitely be one term, right? Tho’ there would be that joy of significantly pissing off Hillary as she was supposed to be the first woman, right?

Hmm, actually, I wonder how much politicking there is going on. K to resign, Hills appointed, then the 25th? OK, I doubt it, but I refuse to believe that it hasn’t been dreamt about.

When asked on Fox News what he would do on his first day in the state’s senate, he said: “I really don’t know. That’s the key factor. I don’t know what I don’t know, so, I will learn what I need to know.

This is the NJ truck driver who just won the state Senate seat previously held by the President of the state senate. His elections expenses were $153. Some business cards and donuts for the staff.

That level of efficiency in spending isn’t going to last but still…..

Labour members could be target of scams after party database hack fixed
Supporters urged to be vigilant as urgent investigation begins into suspected ransomware attack that left data compromised

Vigilance is urged among Labour Party supporters as the recent hack of the party membership database has been fixed. Experts warn that there will be a likely flood of fraud attempts. Those sad and stupid enough to be on the listings are warned to look out for such scams as claims that socialism works, the lady dick really is female and that Sir Keir is a human.

Gets to extract the cash from the population:

Hospitals in Haiti are close to collapse because criminal gangs have blockaded one of the country’s major fuel terminals, demanding $50m to let it reopen.

Unable to rely on Haiti’s electrical grid, hospital use diesel-powered generators. The fuel shortage has forced them to shut many of their wards, turn away patients and suspend the already limited Covid vaccination programme.

As with Mancur Olson some gangs are better than others. And vicious bloody slaughter is sometimes the correct reaction to certain gangs attempting the cash extraction.

Who in buggery would accept anything from a couple of Combe Downers like that pair?

A dictator’s son, an actor-turned-mayor, and a champion boxer: an eclectic mix of personalities declared this month that they would compete to become the Philippine’s next president.

More than 60 million Filipinos will go to the polls to decide who should replace the populist leader Rodrigo Duterte, who is nearing the end of his six-year term limit.

The dictator’s son is Bongbong Marcos. Who I was at school with, at Worth.

Not that we knew each other, I was junior school at the time he was senior. He never has known of my existence and I only knew of his when I walked around the corner one day to see Ferdie and Imelda and their vast limo arriving to take him for a weekend out of the place.

So, no actual link and all that. But clearly the old school tie is a sufficient recommendation for running a nation. After all, that’s how we English do it isn’t it?

What would be fun to know is whether there are any ageing English Catholics hanging around the edge of his campaign looking for the odd government granted monopoly etc. Just how strongly did that education stick?

Social media companies ‘must do more’ to protect MPs from online hate
Matt Warman, a former digital minister, warns that more action is needed on anonymous accounts that abusers can hide behind

Knives in churches, that might be a problem. But shouting out bad names online possibly not.

Bill Clinton to remain in hospital as he recovers from urological infection

No, no, just an infection, not an infection infection. No, definitely not the clap. Nope.

Revealing:

Dr Richard Beeching closed 2,300 stations and 5,000 miles of track in the late 1960s so that we could properly begin our addiction to the car: to individualism;

Why do you peasants insist on believing in a free and liberal polity? Why can’t you be the faceless masses of theory, happy with whatever scraps true communalism offers?

Biden’s translation device fails during UN Quad meeting: ‘I can’t get this to function at all’

Brains are difficult things as we all know…..

Who would have believed it?

Clinton lawyer charged with lying to FBI during Trump-Russia inquiry
Michael Sussmann is second person to be indicted in William Barr-ordered investigation of the investigators

When investigating who might have lied it is – allegedly – one of the Clinton lawyers. Who could believe such a thing?

Amazing, really:

What if the fate of the world was complicated and also, to most people, a bit boring? What if we got a chance to change the world or even save it, and hardly anyone noticed? I hardly dare to start this essay with the phrase “budget reconciliation” lest you be inspired to click elsewhere right away, but stick with me. This is important and also includes a Britney Spears sighting. Because the budget reconciliation bill is maybe the most important thing happening right now, in the long run, but the least dramatic, at least in how it’s being reported. By important I mean significant, for all of us, for the long-term future, for the lives of ordinary people and for the climate.

So she goes off and talks about how this is all about the long list of wokeisms and luvvieness that she supports.

Which isn’t the point at all.

“Budget reconciliation” is a tactic to get a bill passed. One that is used when there isn’t sufficient support to overcome the filibuster rules in the US Senate. There’s nothing, nothing at all, in the concept that says it should be about or even is about wokeism and luvvieness.

The wokeism and luvvieness is in this specific bill which people are trying to use this process to pass. That they’re using this process is the proof itself, whole and complete, that it doesn’t have widespread support. That’s why they’re using this process, see?

This:

Meanwhile Mr Trudeau’s main rival, the Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, has run a largely successful campaign blaming the Liberal leader for a selfishly opportunistic election, swelling the national debt and failing to tackle climate change.

That’s the conservatives arguing that not enough is being done about climate change.

Hmm, with Princess Nut Nut, maybe not so different.