This was Jaime Jessop five days ago:
It’s become a war now and it seems Trump is the only Western leader willing to fight it on our behalf – and his of course. They are gunning for him.
Jaime was pointing to a Daily Mail story succinctly titled Twitter boss Jack Dorsey apologizes for blocking Biden Ukraine story ‘with zero context’ – but STILL doesn’t let users share it because it ‘contains private information like email addresses’ – as Trump threatens to remove Facebook and Twitter protections. (That link is now to an updated version late in 15th October, over 24 hours after the original.)
This was me strongly agreeing with Steve McIntyre around the same time:
Was that unfair to Trump? Or too much wishful thinking on my part?
This thread is an opportunity to discuss the current President and the forthcoming US election, just as we did on the day the result of the last one became clear. See Trump, climate and the future of the world. Brad Keyes spoke for all of us that time, I’m sure, when he wrote:
First, it’s hard to believe the normally-reliable expertocracy got this one so ass-forwards.
What can we expect of the expertocracy this time? And how much will it matter?
Bikeshedding and Baloney Bigly
Two weeks ago I defined terms as follows:
In my framing bikeshedding is avoidance of difficult thoughts by staying narrow in mind. And baloney is what happens, internally, and then externally, when we pretend to understand the big picture when we don’t.
Here I’m positively encouraging us to try and express a view, however tentative, on the big picture, just as that phrase “Trump, climate and the future of the world” intimated four years ago.
I guess it’s that subtle difference between an opinion – or indeed a fear – held and expressed with humility and, well, the other thing. But it does seem to me there are some big picture issues arising.
Here’s a Twitter interaction from two months ago that points to one of my own top concerns:
SSCI is the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Steve is quoting from their report on ‘Russiagate’. Hmmm… is the previously unknown prodigy who worked out who the Steele dossier’s primary sub-source was. But feel free to count all that as bikeshedding. What’s the big picture here? (I realise that there’s more than one possible angle. But I went first. China might well be Steve Bannon’s and yours. And they could be related.)
Climate Scepticism 
Yr reference to the Cliscep time machine, ‘Trump, climate and the future of the world.’ Fascinating tuning in to those astute ‘n oft witty comments and comments less so, since we but see the fuchure darkly.
Picking out out this comment from Catweazel…
‘Having lived through the Cuban missile crisis, when at a British public school we were excused lessons on the 23rd October 1962 because no-one knew if there was any further need for them and the World came within 20 minutes of mutually assured destruction, hence being aware of just how fast and how hard the shit can hit the fan, personally I think I’d rather give it a miss.
But there again, I’m not a “Liberal” Leftist, so I haven’t a clue why you lot may prefer a warmonger with a nice safe underground bunker to hide in to someone who prefers peace between nuclear armed states…
As a secondary consideration, a Trump presidency appears likely to utterly defuse the crazy Warmist scam, and that can only be a good thing for everyone but subsidy farmers, AGW delusion dependent academics and all the other ten thousand or more parasites who fly round the World in private jets, first class and business class – de-planing into huge fleets of limousines – to spend two weeks all expenses paid at five star resorts, thus creating a carbon footprint the size of an average Third World nation, to pass laws making my life more expensive.’
Well Trump didn’t diffuse yr globalists but he did diffuse the situation in the Middle East for now, and supports the US Constitution against its free to interpret Democrat judges who think they’re there to make the laws. Who’da thought?
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At the risk of getting very badly stung by poking the Trump hive here. Hasn’t the incumbent POTUS been bikeshedding a tad? No Mexican-paid wall despite much posturing. Coal production down. And what has he really done about climate science? Was all that Red Team-Blue Team posturing just indecision as to which colour to paint that shed?
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I don’t like Trump one little bit. I think the only thing in his favour is that his instincts are sometimes correct. He’s right to be suspicious of the climatocracy; he’s right to mistrust the Chinese leadership; he’s right to mistrust the Iranian mullahs; he’s right to try to bring North Korea in to the fold.
Yet for all that, he’s a total failure. He is not remotely Presidential in his approach and has made the USA a laughing stock. He’s not inclusive, so can’t persuade people to go along with his ideas, even on those rare occasions when he’s right. He feeds off and encourages people’s prejudices, and (although the Democrats and MSM have certainly played their part) he has presided over a massively divided country, whose divisions have worsened on his watch. Many of his tweets are puerile and cringeworthy.
I’ll be glad to see him voted out, though I have no enthusiasm at all for the person who will replace him in the White House. Are Trump and Biden really the best that the two big political parties can offer to the electorate in a country of around 330m people?
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A total failure who has somehow managed to defuse tension in North Korea, Syria, Iran, and the Gulf States. I’d go for that type of failure everytime over the preening, posturing and war-mongering of an Obama. Even the assassination of that Iranian general, greeted with such howling by the Guardianistas, seems to have had better results than most USA foreign interventions in the last 20 years
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If you don’t read Breitbart or other dodgy rightwing US websites then you won’t know what the Daily Mail story is about. There are about four or five separate sources demonstrating that Hunter Biden was paid millions by Russians, Chinese and Ukrainians because he was the son of his father, or to put it round the other way, Vice President Biden used his influence on US foreign policy to channel money to his son. The New York Post is revealing information from a laptop belonging to Biden Jnr via Rudi Giuliani. Breitbart has information from an ex-associate of Biden’s business partner Devon Archer (both now in prison) on how Chinese billionaires paid for a guided tour of the White House. Peter Schwiezer’s books “Secret Empires” and “Profiles in Corruption” add more. A recent report from a Senate committee revealed the 3.5 million Hunter Biden received from the ex-wife of a mayor of Moscow. And finally there’s Joe Biden himself boasting about his quid pro quo deal – forcing the sacking of the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the company that paid Hunter Biden over a million to sit on its board.
All this is, according to the Guardian, “debunked conspiracy theories.”
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Beth, talking of the Cliscep thread that began on 9th November 2016:
We did indeed see the future imperfectly, with the benefit of 2020 hindsight. Steve Mc’s summary four years later I think bears repeating:
I think, re-reading, many of us did foresee Trump being his own worst enemy. But his strength in withstanding and resisting the so-called ‘resistance’ against him, which was far worse and more underhand than I could have predicted, I for one did not foresee.
Famous UK climate sceptic, and leftie, and brother, Piers Corbyn, put two points in Trump’s favour succinctly earlier this month, surprising the Daily Express:
I wouldn’t agree with Piers on all matters of science or politics but I thought that had two virtues: no bikeshedding and courage. (Or maybe that’s just two sides of the same coin.)
The not-starting-wars chimes in with MiaB’s point today and Catweazel’s four years ago, quoted by Beth:
OK, videos coming up. On the Hunter Biden scandal Geoff tries to unpack, but Twitter and Facebook won’t, I pointed indirectly to Steve Bannon two days ago in the main post. Here’s a quick way there:
Now less than two minutes on how Trump’s weaknesses shouldn’t make us miss the big picture of what he’s up against:
… and the whole speech:
I agree with Klingenstein – but he doesn’t even mention the no-new-wars or indeed not wanting a new Cold War. (This I think is because he’s trying to get Republican never-Trumpers to swing back to the President.)
On how extreme the alternative being presented is this genuinely shocked me:
The big picture is indeed hard to achieve balance to describe. But the survival of US democracy I genuinely think is at stake, as I implied in my tweet to Steve on 14th.
Having said which, all views to the contrary on Cliscep are also warmly welcomed!
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Richard says, ‘I think, re-reading, many of us did foresee Trump being his own worst enemy. But his strength in withstanding and resisting the so-called ‘resistance’ against him, which was far worse and more underhand than I could have predicted, I for one did not foresee.’
…Like Yogi Berra says about prediction. But you also refer to his strength in withstanding the resistance against him. This is resistance against a unified progressivist press that has come to dominate western society in the US and elsewhere. In Oz I don’t expect much coverage in the media of the Hunter Biden computer story.
Think we should acknowledge Trump’s strengths.There’s a lot of focus on Trump’s personal flaws but as a *leader* he has shown the necessary strengths of courage, committed energy and common sense. His dealing with North Korea was masterly, carrot and stick, I’d say, he doesn’t bend to blackmail and the press don’t frighten him into compliance with their woke politics, as more compliant leaders are wont to do. And regarding dignity or lack thereof, on ceremonial occasions at home or abroad, he does okay.
Richard,.I too think democracy is at stake if Biden wins. Here in Oz, with China expanding its sphere of influence in our region,I appreciate the US as our powerful friend and democratic ally.
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Scott Atlas, Trump’s newly appointed coronavirus adviser who was himself spectacularly censored by Twitter for sharing a mask-sceptic Tweet, certainly frames it as a war:
The country, Atlas said, is in dangerous territory if people who show data contrary to conventional wisdom are silenced.
“This will mark the downfall of the United States if censorship of information is allowed,” he lamented. “It honestly is the end of the country.”
He shared the above article (which quotes him) on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/SWAtlasHoover/status/1318526922696032257
Atlas obviously sees the deadly danger to civilisation of scientific censorship, manifest in its most extreme and destructive form during the coronavirus pandemic. But let’s not forget that exactly the same form of media-assisted censorship has been at work in the silencing of climate sceptics and the attempted exile of said sceptics to the ‘fringe’. I’ll say it again, if Covid-19 hysteria crashes and burns, then climate hysteria is in imminent danger of doing the same. But Trump needs to win big and he needs to open up America again on Atlas’s advice.
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Jaime, agree with all of the above. No democracy with censorship of the press or censorship by the press.
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I should have added two other comments when making my earlier post.
First, I do give Trump credit for not starting any new wars (unlike both his Democrat and Republican predecessors).
Secondly, the immediate assault on him by the incredulous MSM and Democrat establishment, after he won the election but before he had even taken office, beggared belief. However, the faults of the Democrats don’t redound to Trump’s credit, they just shame the Democrats. So the rest of my anti-Trump sentiment stands.
In some ways, his climate scepticism does us no favours, since the climate concerned can point to Trump as (in their eyes) the Devil incarnate, and tar the rest of us with the same brush.
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Scott Atlas being interviewed, very well, by UnHerd in the UK, published less than two hours ago:
YouTube was good enough to draw my attention to this, having just read Jaime referencing the guy.
Big Tech lending a hand!
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Mark (and Alan): I do intend to engage in more detail with what you’ve said, including, of course, the climate angles.
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Just getting around to watching that interview Richard, but other things to do first. Will watch later.
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From Zero Hedge:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/debunked-wikipedia-editors-back-bidens-stifle-dissent
Ian Miles Cheong tweets:
When a user removed the word “debunked” two minutes later an editor “reverted the change, adding, ‘it’s been debunked and we have consensus language here.’”
“Consensus,” “the science is settled,” “debunked.” Haven’t we been here before?
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Wow. So much that could be said. Let me start with Jaime:
This is very close to my view. And I think ‘Covid-19 hysteria’ is bound to crash and burn. But it may be long and painful as it does. (And we may differ about what is and isn’t Covid hysteria, on the margins.)
I have always felt that Covid-19 should be an incredibly valuable – if gut-wrenching – learning experience for those in charge of policy.
Geoff:
That’s very interesting about Wikipedia and the Hunter Biden/Ukraine material.
This followed Steve Mc giving evidence of Google suppression of search results on Sunday:
How remarkable that Eli (aka Josh Halpern) didn’t have anything to say there.
It’s not the just the same playbook, it’s the same people.
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Alan (with apologies):
That last sentence is very clever, thanks.
Yes, Trump has done some bikeshedding as POTUS.
He hasn’t really made much of a dent in the climate science industry.
I thought his pulling out of the Paris agreement was major, though. And his statement on doing so I thought was so good that it was worthy of the term Guenieresque. Because it was nothing to do with the science. Just the policy stupidity. And that was easily enough.
It’s not a full answer. There probably isn’t one. It’s messy.
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Mark, I do get the dislike of Trump. Thanks for expressing it. Courage has many facets!
However, I found I changed on this. The key light-bulb moment for me was what Victor Davis Hanson said about Trump’s authenticity here:
I saved you 1 minute 55 seconds of intro there!
Another thing I’ve come to appreciate is his sense of humour. When alongside Theresa May in London he asked Jeremy Hunt, sitting in the front row, whether he thought Michael Gove (a key rival) was going to be a good candidate for the Tory leadership. Everyone fell about. (He’d also just claimed that he didn’t know and hadn’t met Gove. That early interview for The Times with Rupert Murdoch sitting in probably did register. But Gove had taken a few pot shots at the new POTUS. It was a masterful way of dealing with all that.)
But he also messes up, in all kinds of ways. Becoming close to vengeful, as Tom Klingenstein puts it. Not that other politicians haven’t been motivated by such base emotions. But Trump is so open about it.
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Richard. As I’m sure you realize, my criticism of Trump was for his relative inactivity regarding climate SCIENCE. His pulling the US out of the Paris Agreement is a policy issue, and was rather brave. He was, however, unable to convince any other country of any significance to follow suite.
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It took only five days for the coup to brainstorm and focus group their story
The Biden hard drives are just more proof that the President Trump is a Russian spy.
Additionally, the oligarch tech lords will not be stopped in their destruction of the public square.
There is open talk of criminalization of supporters of President Trump and those who served the nation under his Presidency.
This is shaping up to be the last election.
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ALAN
Why should Trump try and convince any other country to follow suit? He’s perfectly happy to see competitors price themselves out of markets with expensive energy and overstrict environmental rules. From our point of view we see someone who loses an opportunity to give a solid argument why he’s doing the right thing. But I bet his supporters don’t see things that way. Giving solid arguments is what the swamp creatures do, well briefed as they are by their paymasters. It’s a looking glass world. Trump even looks like a character drawn by John Tenniel.
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Actually there is no evidence at all that President Trump is cooperating with or being handled by Russians now any more than he was during 2016::
None at all
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There are very real limits on what POTUS can do by way of domestic policy. Most Presidents only manage to get one or two things done. Obama got his rather crappy health care act through but that’s about it. Are there 1 million electric vehicles on the road in the USA? It’s about 190,000. Is 80 %of USA energy “clean”?
Trump struggled to get the majority Republicans to formulate any amendment to the health care system.
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Geoff
“Why should Trump try and convince any other country to follow suit? He’s perfectly happy to see competitors price themselves out of markets with expensive energy and overstrict environmental rules.“
That’s short termism. So competitors grow weaker and are less able or willing to buy American products. How long will it be that American products are subjected to tariffs because they were produced with fossil fuel energy?
If I remember correctly around 4 years ago geoengineering was a hot topic. Geoengineering affects everybody. Climate change is considered a global problem and may be “solved” by a global solution. To oppose this development, which could adversely affect everyone, Trump would have needed allies.
Finally, even Trump cannot believe that the presidency will remain in sceptical hands. Unless the science is debunked (something Trump has neglected) policy decisions will be made at a global level, and without allies the climate crisis hoax continues and might well intensify.
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Alan, do you see any signs that any leader of the BRIC nations, which are among the heaviest users and suppliers of fossil fuels, shows any signs of believing the mantra?
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MiaB. I repeat, my concern is that Trump, despite blowing all hot about challenging the climate science consensus, has done very little. Here we were all in favour of Trump’s support for the Red Team – Blue Team proposal, yet this has gone nowhere. The actions of BRIC nations are not pertinent to any discussion of this point.
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Regarding Trump, in terms of summary, the only significant aspect was it was choice between Hillary vs Trump, and currently choice of Trump and Biden.
For fun one can compare Hillary vs Biden.
It seems with Hillary it seems she was her own man and Biden quite the opposite. Hillary was leader and Biden is not. Where would Hillary lead to could be question. Biden is, where will he be lead to- which might be a good thing- if Biden was following the will of people. There also idea that Biden if elected would not even be the US president, not even the Vice President. He spent his time in a basement, until
he is not longer of use, not being the President.
So one might be tempted to compare Hillary vs Kamala. But you can’t really say Kamala will be her own man, either. But she might be the face of the President. One could imagine she could be “active”. One can imagine Kamala might be trying to get a second term. But there no reason to assume she has capable to do anything. Hillary, there was no doubt, she could done something, and probably include a string failures doing something. And getting US into a hot war, would have been quite possible.
Generally no US president ever tries to get us into war, and not question that Hillary would try to get US into a war. So, matter, would she succeed in not getting the US into a hot war [or other kinds of war}.
So Hillary vs Kamala in terms of chance either will lead to a hot war and terms continuing get US involved in various conflicts and might go even worse than “normal”.
In terms stopping US riots {petty war} Kamala has made it worse- rather doing utter nothing- made worse. So, proven she will let things, burn.
Anyways, it seems Trump will win in huge landslide.
I always have some doubt about who US public votes for, but seems they always elect the right person
for the job {even in the case of Obama- the worse US president, ever- but then again, what were the choices- McCain and Romney].
Or no one can say the US primaries choices are getting right people for the job.
It seems US primaries always tend to pick worst possible people for the job.
And that seems to make the US elections, interesting.
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With all these Trump videos, I’d like to add Ben Shapiro’s:
I don’t think Trump is going to win and I blame fracking. While it’s probably the only thing holding up the US economy, it does have its drawbacks. For one, there’s a plethora of plastic structural things that break. Does anyone have a family heirloom potato chip bag clamp? But the big one is that it gives the left a cake that they can both have and eat. They can rail against it while reaping its benefits. Gas backup allows them to temporarily sustain the unsustainable increase in renewable energy.
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Mike, Shapiro talks fast! And it’s impressive, not least because he admits he got Trump wrong this time four years ago. Me too. I want to come back to that, but maybe after the election.
Alan, one very good thing Trump did on climate science was to give some level of authority to Will Happer:
(Best thing Delingpole’s done in the last year, in my humble view.) I agree that major change didn’t ensue. Not yet. Again, and because it’s related, I want to come back to that. But let’s get the election done first.
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Victor Davis Hanson on How Trump Should Approach the Final Debate this evening:
I agree with every word. Will POTUS have the self-control?
I may have to focus on work now. Until closer to the election itself. Ciao.
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Sorry about your future absence Richard. For balance I would have asked you what Joe would have to do to counter your devastating plan should the Donald adopt it and have the control to carry it out. Personally I have doubts whether this is possible and have never known any politician stick to yes or no answers.
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Sorry, that should have been Victor Davis Hanson’s devastating plan.
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ALAN KENDALL
We know what Biden will do in the unlikely event of a difficult question coming his way. As in the first debate, he will say: “I do’ wanna answer that. Wha’ I wan’ say t’e American people is: ..”
And he’ll turn his warm smiling Irish eyes to camera and burble for two minutes.
Get used to it. We’ll be seeing a lot more of it in the next four years. Unless Trump uses his last three months in power to start a world war or two.
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Biden’s going to disappear without trace very soon, even if he somehow does manage to get elected.
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RICHARD DRAKE invites us to come out from behind the bikeshed and consider the bigger picture. So here goes:
Tuesday and Wednesday the Guardian’s live coverage of the US presidential election reported that Biden was “lidding” (putting an end to) his daily activities around 11am EST. Today they report:
The vice presidential candidate will be addressing a screen, while the presidential candidate will be presumably resting.
Ready for a two hour debate moderated by a fellow Democrat.
From which the subject of foreign policy has been removed, in order to prevent any discussion of his financial links with China, Russia and the Ukraine.
If Biden requires 24 hours of repose before facing a two hour debate, how long should he rest before taking up the presidency for four years?
Meanwhile, in the same twelve hours of GMT daytime, Zerohedge has reported that:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-offloads-court-packing-decision-commission-study
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/hunter-biden-laptop-linked-fbi-money-laundering-investigation
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/senate-panel-votes-subpoena-zuckerberg-dorsey-over-ny-post-censorship
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/usa-today-refuses-publish-hunter-biden-scandal-op-ed-so-here-it
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/rudy-giuliani-describes-alleged-underage-material-hunter-bidens-laptop
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/kamala-harris-schumer-cuomo-and-feinstein-listed-key-contacts-biden-china-joint-venture
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-campaign-implies-hunters-ex-biz-partners-are-russian-assets
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-campaign-implies-hunters-ex-biz-partners-are-russian-assets
In that mother lode (no, that’s not rude) are confirmations from two more of Hunter’s ex-business associates that the e-mails are genuine, and that the “big guy” who took 10% off the top (before his 50% share of the profits after expenses) of every deal with Russia, China and the Ukraine was indeed Joe Biden.
Funnily enough, neither the BBC nor the Guardian reported any of the above in their live coverage of the US election, though both found a prominent place on their front pages for a story of Rudi Giuliani being caught by Borat with his hand down his trousers.
There’s an interesting 60 minute video by Rudi Giuliani in the links above. ZeroHedge summarises the first 20 minutes and I watched the remaining 40. I creased up when he paused midway to deliver a message from his sponsors for a miracle treatment for stiff joints. My European mentality boggled at much of his style, his histrionics. Then, about four minutes before the end, Giuliani draws some conclusions, and I felt won over – not necessarily to Rudi and his boss, but to a certain vision of what democracy might be. To a jaded old European like me, it sounds weird. But Giuliani is older and no doubt more jaded than me. If you’d told me a few weeks ago that I’d be transcribing the thoughts of Rudi Giuliani (minus his recommendations for stiff joints) I’d have said … well, I don’t know what I’ve had said, but I’d have been sceptical.
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I thought this forum was a place for critical thinking to counter the climate cult, but now the Trump cult seems to have taken hold.
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Giving out ‘likes’ while my computah says ‘yes.’ Usually it don’t.
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Wow! The bigger picture is (according to Geoff and a minimum of 4 “likers”) the American election and all the accompanying mudslinging. So Trump is a climate sceptic and so everything else (and that’s a lot) is forgiven, even though promises to challenge “the science” have come to naught.
Where, oh where is an old, Trump hating, climate change sceptic to go🤨 Not here anymore, not Bishop Hill and Jo Nova has turned into a antipodean Republican love in. And I doubt if it will end next week. If Biden wins it will be contested. Think I’ll get out some box-sets and retire to my man-cave.
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Alan, please don’t go and leave me alone with the Trumpies!
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Seriously? If you host some guy’s vision of what a genuine democracy should look like, complete with its rejection of the notion that a belligerent, anti-democratic foreign power should have any place interfering in the governance of another nation’s democracy, and you get 4 likes (which is near a record for this site) then, ergo, the hosting site, formerly a bastion of rational climate scepticism, becomes transformed overnight into an echo chamber for the ‘Trump cult’? Is anybody who would prefer to vote for Trump, warts and all, in preference to traitorous, paedo, CCP-bottom-licking, immoral trougher Biden, now a ‘cult member’? Did I really wake up this morning to find that I’m now a brainwashed Trump scientologist?
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Jaime, I don’t believe I said that (in fact, I know I didn’t). I was making a light-hearted remark, seeking to keep Alan Kendall’s valuable contributions here, rather than watch him depart. I made similar attempts to keep you, and your valuable contributions here, not so long ago, you may recall.
Please don’t be so sensitive. Humour loss is the last thing we need at a time like this.
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Reading it all through again, I wonder if Jaimes’ comments were aimed at Alan K rather than at me specifically (or at both us, perhaps). If so, my comment still stands. I think Alan’s comments were also quite light-hearted.
In any event, Alan’s comment focuses on a real issue, which I think climate sceptics need to address. Why is it that climate hysterics tend to be on the “left” of politics (whatever that means these days) while climate sceptics tend to be on the “right” (again, whatever that means)? I have opined in the past about finding myself in what I would once have regarded as strange company (no offence intended) as I sit here sharing climate (and other types of) scepticism with others with whom I have politically little else in common. Why do people on the “left” fail to make the connection between their obsession with climate and the damage that their policy prescriptions will cause to the poorest in society, here and around the world?
It’s rather a big issue, I think, one perhaps worthy of a discussion piece here. I persevere at Bishop Hill, and maintain a decent modus vivendi with people there whose views are well to the right of mine, but like Alan, I can find it hard going at times. That’s my (and his) issue, perhaps, but why the left/right divide over climate, and what on earth makes a small number of people like Alan and me not succumb to the norm?
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Mark, we’re all getting a bit hypersensitive here aren’t we? I wrote my comment before your comment even appeared on the site. It was mainly in response to PM610310, with a bit of a dig at Alan too. We all have different opinions here, but we should strive to co-exist and not be tempted to use a broad brush to label those with whom we disagree, and I say that fully cognisant of the fact that I am probably not entirely innocent in that respect. These are fractious times. Let’s not be fractured.
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Alan: “Wow! The bigger picture is (according to Geoff and a minimum of 4 “likers”) the American election and all the accompanying mudslinging.”
1) ‘Likes’ don’t necessarily mean agreement with all therein, rather that the contribution / info / links are appreciated as useful angle of debate. 2) ‘Bigger picture’ doesn’t mean an exclusive one that *eclipses* other issues, rather a wider one that adds issues; their relative importance is itself part of the debate and they’re also potentially on different timescales. This US election is a highly important issue for the climate conflict (the polarisation could hardly be greater regarding party / leader climate policies within the most powerful nation on Earth), and various others too.
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Mark: “Why is it that climate hysterics tend to be on the “left” of politics (whatever that means these days) while climate sceptics tend to be on the “right” (again, whatever that means)?”
This was not originally true, and to a fair extent it is still not really true, albeit it’s a changing picture.
As climate culture first arose, as is typical with cultures they make whatever alliances they can locally and opportunistically. In the US, the Dem / Lib orientated public were early out of the gate in allying with catastrophic climate culture (CCC), meaning that the Rep / Con public rejected it (merely via opposing the stance of their traditional enemy, not via rationality). However, in Germany for very many years the main climate change action / support came from *right* of centre, not left, and Merkel was known as ‘the climate chancellor’. The same polarisation as occurs in the US didn’t happen because a) the US is far more publicly polarized (on a big range of issues) than other Western nations, and b) CCC was not without allies on the German left, despite its main partner being right. Within other countries, such as the UK, CCC has managed the clever feat of allying almost equally with *all* main parties. For many years, out of only 2 skeptics regularly up speaking in parliament, 1 was Labour, 1 was conservative. Currently, there is essentially no official skeptic representation in parliament.
As CCC has grown and globalised, the different nature in different countries experience clashes and so re-alignment to some extent. Given the US status and power, and until Trump, there is a net ‘pull left’. At one point in UK this did seem to cause some conservative resistance, but the fragility of same is easily observed by the current government’s gung-ho for net-zero. While grass-roots conservatives still harbour more skepticism, and for instance Labour in charge would have gone further and faster re climate policy, the lean is still slight in that the government seems to have no blowback from its own side that would yet be considered dangerous (may change post covid). In Oz however, the global net pull left almost pulled the right in two as a main fissure opened up inside the right rather than between left / right. Hence in-fighting, climate being a critical issue in Oz politics, and a quick succession of prime ministers swapped mostly because of this issue.
I think the net pull left will continue to grow, and policy evolution more closely matches the left because this is CCC’s best chance I think. Plus the public right are more skeptical than the elite right (i.e. actual politicians, barring the US and especially Trump of course). So maybe what happened in Oz could occur in the UK, post covid. And the clinging on to CCC (because of perceived popularity / morality / science) by much of the right, sends a gift to parties like the National Rally in France and PVV in Holland, (albeit they haven’t really seized it yet, which shows how soft right resistance still is). Yet currently, outside the US it’s a closer approximation to say that most parties support climate orthodoxy, than to say only left ones do, and this is not causing right parties too much grass-roots grief as yet.
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@ Andy “Currently, there is essentially no official skeptic representation in parliament.”
Two days ago there was an article by Tom Chivers on UnHerd (sommat like “Why do people believe obviously untrue things?”). He recited the catechism (climate change real and dangerous), then explained that a farmer in Montana had a lot to lose by blaming climate change for weather damage. This was because the farmer might be ostracised by right-leaning neigbours.
At this point the author was close to generating enough voltage to start up the old arc welder. He might have wondered how hard would it be for a UK MP to ask: “Is climate change really going to lead to catastrophe?” The answer is very hard indeed. None opposed the declaration of a climate emergency. None as far as I know opposed the extension of the CO2 reduction target from 80% to 100%. Not because not one of 650 MPs had any doubts. But because they were fearful of the consequences of speaking out.
What Chivers did not grok in that moment was that it is possible for the majority to believe wrong things in order to fit in, just as it is possible for smaller communities to coalesce around wacky ideas. He did not appreciate either that it is possible for some subjects to have a little nuance to them, such that the debate is not between “no climate change” and “catastrophic climate change,” and that the reality might lie somewhere between.
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Alan Kendall wrote: “So Trump is a climate sceptic and so everything else (and that’s a lot) is forgiven”
Just maybe he has far less to be forgiven for than you seem to think, unless being big and brash and saying what he thinks is too much. He has been subject to one of the greatest witch hunts of all time. Laws have been broken left right and center to “get him”. The media habitually take his words out of context and apply the least charitable interpretation, if not outright lie, about everything he says and does. So did the things you think he’s being forgiven for actually happen in the way you think they did?
Everybody loved the guy not so long ago, didn’t have a bad thing to say about him. He’s an old school liberal. Many good stories about his generosity, treatment of people and works for minority communities, but run for President against the democratic (not to mention many republicans) establishment, and have the temerity to beat them all in one of the most embarrassing upsets to the political elite establishment in recent history, and suddenly he’s the most evil, fascist, racist, homophobic, sexist man on earth.
2+2 != 5.
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Jaime, thank you for your comment – pax!
Andy West, thank you also for your response. I largely agree with what you say, insofar as you talk about “right” and “left” political parties or movements. However, when it comes to individual beliefs, I still hove to my view that those who consider themselves to be left-wing (or who others might regard as left-wing) tend to be highly concerned about climate change, and often to push the extreme versions of it (“we’re all doomed unless we commit economic suicide, and destroy our lifestyles immediately). Similarly, most individuals who are sceptical about the alarmism around climate change, seem to me to be more right-wing in their views (at least seen from my soft left perspective).
I remain bemused as to why people who claim to be concerned about the poorest in society are so keen to implement policies that will make the lives of very many of those people so much worse, ostensibly to save them from a climate chaos (which in this country at least will almost certainly not cause any or at least any significant problems for most people). Taking it one stage further, now that I’m on a roll, why are Scots politicians among the most zealous of the climate hysterics, when Scotland of all countries almost certainly stands to benefit from some warming, and when given Scotland’s insignificant GHG emissions, they can make no meaningful difference to anything anyway, whatever steps they take to commit economic suicide?
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Geez, there’s almost too much to take in, certainly to respond to.
First, my 6.48am post was largely in agreement with that of PM610310. I originally started posting at Cliscep because it was largely apolitical and a very welcome change from Bishop Hill. You dealt sensibly (except for Brad!) with matters that interested me and mostly dealt with your resident troll (where are you Len?) in a pleasant fashion. In recent weeks the American election has cast its shadow over us. In an election where I don’t believe hardly any of us regulars can vote or even influence, political views are broadcast. And those views are so, so uneven.
Second, Mark Hodgson responded largely in the same light-hearted way, and then more seriously picking up and expanding my main point that at Cliscep and other sceptical sites the political leanings of contributors is so one-sided. But explaining this disparity is difficult -as difficult to explain as accounting for the left-wing bias of British academia.
Third Jaime weighed in with an admonishment to lighten up, despite Mark and myself trying to be light hearted.
Andy came in with comments related to “likes” commenting ‘Likes’ don’t necessarily mean agreement with all therein, rather that the contribution / info / links are appreciated as useful angle of debate. But PM610310’s post and mine kicked off a whole debate (i.e. a useful angle of debate), yet as of a few minutes ago have garnered nary a like. Like says what it says on the tin.
Later Andy commented upon “This US election is a highly important issue for the climate conflict “. I agree, but “The bigger issue” includes all the other matters that are required of a leader. No one should mistake my commitment to climate scepticism, yet four years ago I wouldn’t have voted for Trump and this year I have even less inclination to support him. After all those promises to look into climate science, the result has been nada.
I’ll respond to later comments directed to me in a later post. But I do need to thank Mark for his support, which cannot have been easy in front of a potentially hostile crowd.
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Of course I’m not a Trumpy! I just accept the principle that it’s more interesting and useful to reveal the flaws on your own “side” than to hunt with the pack. I only got into climate denial because of my confusion at seeing the usually sensible centre left media (the Guardian in my case) apparently muddled about climate change. Twelve years on it’s clear that there’s been a sea change in our politics and the left has become the ideologically rigid defenders of all kinds of unpleasantnesses, including cold war-mongering and support for censorship, both of which have been at work in the anti-Trump campaign.
The point of quoting Rudi Giuliani at length was precisely that he’s the sort of person I wouldn’t normally spend a second listening to. There have been a lot of people on the left expressing themselves recently, e.g. Glenn Greenwald, who was sacked from the Intercept, which he founded, for expressing anti-Biden thoughts. It’s complicated and it’s not likely to get simpler soon.
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JIT, good points.
“Not because not one of 650 MPs had any doubts. But because they were fearful of the consequences of speaking out.”
But I’d argue rather, because of ‘a whole range of (largely subconscious) biases’, of which explicit fear of losing group status / acceptance / moral approval by speaking out, is just one. This is how cultures work.
The Montana farmer scenario is likely a spin-off of Dan Kahan’s ‘Kentucky farmer’ scenario, which got a little oxygen within orthodoxy a few years back. In which such farmers still disbelieve (man-made) climate change due to their cultural bias (indeed including from peer pressure), and yet change their practices to accommodate it; thus this called “knowing disbelief”. I challenged Dan on the theory at cultural cognition blog some years back. There is *not* evidence to show that this is true, and he eventually fell back to ‘the jury is still out’, which I guess was fair enough. The quoted papers on farming practice show mainly that farmers in Kentucky or elsewhere have always adapted to the environment at practically every timescale, because climate has always changed psuedo-cyclically on various timescales anyhow. Plus as farming has gotten more and more competitive, they have had to constantly up their game in order to survive in the business (resulting in more produce out of less land in a continuous trend since farming began, but especially lately). So in fact they are *not* dong anything different to accommodate (specifically man-made) climate change.
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Mark: “I still hove to my view that those who consider themselves to be left-wing (or who others might regard as left-wing) tend to be highly concerned about climate change, and often to push the extreme versions of it (“we’re all doomed unless we commit economic suicide, and destroy our lifestyles immediately). Similarly, most individuals who are sceptical about the alarmism around climate change, seem to me to be more right-wing in their views (at least seen from my soft left perspective).”
Well it depends which country you are in, and whether the issue arises in a reality-constrained (competes with other policies / issues) or unconstrained manner (free-form opinion), as these give different results. And you perhaps know more people who are climate-literate, but publics aren’t, which also makes a difference. Outside the US, and including the UK, political lean is not a particularly great predictor of climate attitudes, albeit you need to assess over different survey questions because it can be biased one way or the other depending upon how the issue is framed (e.g. fiscal framing gets different results to ‘clean environment’ framing, etc). Having said that, per my above, public right leaning is more skeptical than politicians right leaning. Interestingly, at the level of whole nations (and again excluding the US), religiosity as a predictor of climate attitudes across nations is an order of magnitude better than any political lean. This is a cultural interaction thing.
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“…yet as of a few minutes ago have garnered nary a like…”
Oh dear. I liked the last one 🙂
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Here’s Giuliani laying into Biden. I just don’t think people realise how utterly corrupt and criminal this man really is – a man who is currently running against Trump for the presidency of the United States! Unbelievable. That’s the reality now, so however much one may detest Trump for his lack of statesman-like qualities, his abrasiveness, his alleged racism, sexism, or other perceived shortcomings, I don’t think anybody can reasonably argue that he is not the better candidate to lead the US for the next 4 years. I argue that Trump is the ONLY major world leader who appears not to have been corrupted by corporatists and globalists. I hope I’m right. I don’t trust him 100% but if Biden gets in, the US is probably finished and along with it, western civilisation. I really do think that much is at stake with this election.
https://twitter.com/MonsieurAmerica/status/1321961695665811458
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Even further off-topic:
Did you know that ‘Ypres’ was Agent Zigzag’s second wife’s first baptismal name? (Ypres Betty Farmer, born in 1917 in Cleobury Mortimer.)
Lots of other Brit babies had ‘Ypres’ in their names 1915-1918 (usually as a second or third name). Horribly sad.
—
FFFFF Wipers Fritz signing off
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On a related (sort of) point to the issue (or non-issue!) of the political bent of climate sceptics and climate alarmists, it seems that the dividing line on climate scepticism largely (but not entirely) transfers to scepticism about the political response to Covid-19. Pay a visit to our friend aTTPs’s site, and you’ll see the same sort of comments about Covid-policy scepticism as you’ll find there about climate sceptics. You won’t read any alternative views there.
On the other hand, TinyCO2 (once a visitor to this parish, now encountered by me solely at Bishop Hill), although a climate sceptic of the first order, is largely in favour of the political response to Covid-19 in this country, if I interpret her comments correctly.
All of which makes me think that sceptics are more diverse and free-thinking than alarmists, but then I would say that, wouldn’t I?
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Vinny, I had a great uncle, born in 1914, whose middle name was Louvain.
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Mark, you say:
“On a related (sort of) point to the issue (or non-issue!) of the political bent of climate sceptics and climate alarmists, it seems that the dividing line on climate scepticism largely (but not entirely) transfers to scepticism about the political response to Covid-19. Pay a visit to our friend aTTPs’s site, and you’ll see the same sort of comments about Covid-policy scepticism as you’ll find there about climate sceptics.”
I understand now why Tom Fuller doesn’t comment or write here anymore:
“I understand why some people are climate skeptics. Many are intelligent people who have studied the issue.
I can understand why some people are skeptics about various aspects of the scientific study of Covid-19 and attempts to deal with it.
I think people who tick both boxes are in a bit of difficulty dealing with reality.”
Which is quite funny really – or it would be, if present circumstances were less grave – seeing as how ATTP’s blog is powered exclusively by unicorn farts these days.
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2020/10/24/policy-in-the-language-of-science/#comment-183405
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“I can understand why some people are skeptics about various aspects of the scientific study of Covid-19 and attempts to deal with it.”
‘Attempts to deal with it’:
1. Stay at Home Save the NHS
2. Stay at Home Save Lives
3. Stay at Home Save Christmas
I don’t think he does understand. Personally, I’ve abandoned Covid scepticism, in that to be armed and dangerous and in possession of facts, science and data was a totally useless strategy. All that remains now is raw fury.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8898985/Boris-Johnson-announce-national-coronavirus-lockdown-WEEK-save-Christmas.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailUK
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https://twitter.com/RobertMCutler/status/1322314289542299648
See the beginning of my post for context.
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I can no longer read or comment on the Clim Cov Brexit Peace Prize article. My Mac takes one look at all those tweets and uploads and has a funny turn. Can anyone do anything about it?
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As an American who is living through what is happening in the United States right now, I have a few observations. I reflect on how Cicero outlined the techniques to get a crowd to disregard facts and instead follow emotions.
I observe that historically when a person is falsely accused continuously then the accusers are not interested in justice.
Until President Trump declared as a Republican, he was a moderate democrat, well known for decades for anti-racism stands, widely praised by black leaders, who famously forced the ending of racist property restrictions. In a long series of interviews over many years, Mr. Trump never once showed any inkling of any dubious stand with Russia. His business dealings we’re widely seen as smart, tough, legal and successful. Even when faced, in the 1990s, with the possible loss of his fortune, he came back. To much acclaim the NYT called him the “come back kid”.
Fast forward to 2016. When Mr. Trump states the fact that some Ilegal immigrants are violent criminals, he is called a bigot who says all immigrants are violent criminals.
For starters.
Those claiming Me. Trump is an idiot/fraud/hitler/etc. are frankly just demonstrating the power, as described from Cicero to Orwell, of manipulation to overwhelm reason. The billionaire Oligarchs openly moving to “reset” the economy -while staying in charge- are using their media, big Tech, and government influence to create the perception Pepe who should know better have of President Trump.
They lie about him to damage him, and lie for their pathetic obvious puppet, Biden, to protect him.
Wake up. We are being subjected to the billionaire club moving to take over as much of the world as possible.
Amoral billionaires and corrupt bureaucrats running the world- what could possibly go wrong?
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@ Geoff you could try i) installing firefox if you’re using safari and ii) using the add-on “noscript” to turn off facebook and twitter and whatever else is embedded on the page (it means you won’t see them of course).
Of course, with fingers on the levers of power you could start a new thread as “Climate, Covid, Brexit, Peace Prize continued”?
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Mark, I think Verdun is the winner, if there can be such a thing. Thousands of WW1 babies were christened ‘Verdun’, most of them in 1916.
Oddly, there seem to have been only about fifty Somme babies in England. I think there were more Louvain babies than that. Perhaps babies named in commemoration of the Somme were named after individual battles instead.
Climate babies? I can find only two in England: a 19th-century cobbler called Climate Hines and the 21st-century covid faith-healer Archbishop Climate Wiseman*. (There’s also an Edwin Montague Climate Stranack, but I think that’s a typo for Cliburn.)
I can’t find any Influenza or Covid babies.
===
*AKA Bclimax, among other names. As Bclimax, he offers an app that will order you ‘taxi rides, food, deliveries, city motor bikes, and private jets & Planes’. I was thinking of flying to Sicily next week to take my shoes and socks off and give a speech about preventing climate change at a secret (oops!) event organised by Google. I’ll probably install Archbishop Climate Wiseman’s app, give him all my banking details and book a private jet. And if I start feeling unwell on the way home, I’ll use his app to order some of his anti-covid oil and string. If that order doesn’t go through – perhaps because my bank account is empty – I’m sure the Archbishop will have another app that can help me.
Onwards and upwards!
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Geoff: Sorry about that. I’ll look into possible solutions.
FYI, Google Chrome on my Mac brings it up fine – if slowly – but Safari on my iPhone also gives up, as you’re finding. I’m the main culprit in embedding too many tweets, I expect, and I assume (but don’t know for sure) this is what is causing the problem. As Jit says, a new thread might make sense. I’ll look into it later today.
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Back on topic. Can any Trump haters argue with this? I don’t know enough about US politics to assess whether what this guy from Fox News says is correct, but it seems legit.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1322758350749184000
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Jit, Richard
Thanks. I’ve fixed the problem with a new post, to continue the discussion from here and from “…PeacePrize.” Hope that’s OK. Tweets certainly slow down loading, but I think it may have been a link to a paper on Hyperbole that automatically embedded the thing.
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Geoff,
I’ve removed the dodgy hyperlink in the hope that it helps.
Or should that just be ‘dodgy link’?
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Jaime,
Anything on Fox News outside of Chris Wallace is spin, propaganda or outright lies. Trump has done nothing for the economy. He inherited a functioning economy which had grown for 7 ½ years and has not improved it. Pre pandemic his performance on jobs, growth and inflation was approximately the same as Obama’s last few years (and Obama had to deal with an obstructive Senate – hence Trump/McConnell have been able to ram through a succession of right wing /christian extremist judges into the courts including the Supreme Court).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/05/trump-obama-economy/
https://news.yahoo.com/myth-trump-economy-121817487.html
I get that climate sceptics are happy that Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement. Except in the minds of impressionable children and the rest of the cult, there is no such thing as a climate “crisis” but Trump is isolated and has zero credibility. I doubt he even understands or cares about it. I am more concerned with real problems (like most real people). I am from Australia, and vote for the conservatives but have lived here for 2 + years and Trump is a disaster.
I’ve seen the US up close and personal for the past 2 years, and even living in Northern California, 2 hours north of San Francisco is as far as you need to go to find dangerous people with guns. I certainly wouldn’t be living in Michigan right now, and I am definitely staying off the streets next week. Trump has made all of this worse.
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Jaime: That’s Steve Hilton, once David Cameron’s thinker-in-chief. Cameron's green guru reveals his doubts over global warming was the story in November 2011. False dawns, huh. He’s been in the USA because his wife has a big job in Big Tech.
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pm6….
You are living in an alternate reality that ignores facts and data.
But thanks for the chuckles.
Perhaps living in Melbourne and dealing with the emerging Chinese police state in Victoria will be more to your liking.
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pm6….
Quoting the Bezos Post, which is the newspaper that started the Russian scam, about Judges is literally like quoting Pravda or the CCP directly.
Wow, you are a pathetic little troll.
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Could we all exhibit more self control and not distribute insults at those which we disagree with politically? One of the main reasons for my participation here is that good manners ruled. That seems to be under threat.
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Yes, thanks Alan, and to Hunterson… if you want to have a discussion on facts and data, please provide some.
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From what I’ve read, it would seem that it all depends on the period you’re looking at when comparing Trump’s economic performance with Obama’s. If you look at the end of Obama’s term as President and compare it to the same length of time at the beginning of Trump’s term, Trump comes out well on top, but other comparison periods don’t reveal too much difference. The point is made that federal government can only have so much influence on the economy anyway, which is probably true. Certainly, Covid has had a big impact and that’s been down to individual State governers choosing to close down their economies. What’s undeniable is that Trump has performed exceptionally well on getting to record low unemployment and he’s done much more for blacks and hispanics than Obama did – despite being so terribly racist! With Biden threatening to close the country down and dismantle the oil industry, Trump’s definitely a safer pair of hands than Biden on the future US economy. If only we had our own Trump in Downing Street; instead we’ve got an avid ‘nuke the economy/build back Greener’ idiot in charge.
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A thought on US presidential election polls.
In 2016 polls tended to converge towards a narrow-to-comfortable national lead for Clinton of 1-6%. They weren’t too far out. Only one, by USC for the Los Angeles Times, gave Trump a lead of 5%. Quite wrong, of course, or, if you prefer, right for the wrong reasons. I had a look at their methodology, which were quite different from all the others, since they went back each week to the same respondents, instead of taking a new sample each time. A journalist with an ounce of curiosity would have made story out of that and got himself a scoop.
This year, a few days before the election, the polls are all over the place, giving Biden a lead of between 1 and 14%, with each pollster giving fairly consistent results week after week. With that kind of spread one at least is likely to be right. The biggest Biden lead (14%) is predicted by polls for the Guardian, the Independent, and the Boston Herald. Rasmussen Reports is alone in predicting a close result – a 1% lead for Biden this week, and even a 1% lead for Trump a week ago. They claim to have got the result right last time, though I can’t see them cited on the Wiki page for 2016.
Most polls tend to have sample sizes of around 1000, which gives them a margin of error of about 3%. Note that this margin only applies to a perfectly constructed sample, which means getting the right number of respondents in key groups, which, in my far off market research days, meant age, sex, social class and geographical region. To these have been added race and educational attainment, making filling all the cells in a sample of 1000 an impossible task. It was difficult enough doing face to face interviews, but at least you could be sure of what sex and in what region people were, and you could have a good guess at their age and social class. Now interviews are by mobile phone, and there’s apparently a refusal rate of over 90%. Given these potential sources of error, it’s amazing how self-consistent polls are, with Rasmussen regularly giving a Biden lead of 3 to minus 1%, and the Guardian ranging from 10 to 14%. No doubt they “weight” the results to keep them in line with their previous guesstimates.
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Geoff, I’ve noticed exactly the same over the last weeks and days. And I think this also means that, while indeed one of them is likely to be right, simply taking the average (or indeed the poll integrator outputs, which have never been below ~6.5% if memory serves and have been usually nearer or indeed above 8 in the last days), may not be a great way to estimate which one 0: I’ve seen some discussion about the weightings which are being added for ‘quiet Trumpers’, which apparently a number of polls are doing, but how would one estimate this? Maybe those biased Rep add a big weight for this, and those biased Dem, a little one! I also noted that some polls occur much more frequently than others, their regular pulse so presumably pulling the average their way more than others. If you want to have more influence, just do more poll cycles!
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Facts…
When dealing with trolls is like pearls before swine…
But here are a few:
Total lack of evidence that Judges nominated by President Trump and confirmed by the Senate have been anything less than professional and mainstream in their rulings.
WaPo as propaganda:
The Russia craze, started by WaPo, proved to be completely fabricated.
Pretending that only skeptics claim that consensus believers call it a climate crisis:
XR, Australian climate policy, the false claims about the GBR, SLR, storms, floods, islands “sinking”, etc.
Trump inherited a US economy with the lowest growth levels over right years in many decades.
His predecessor claimed it was the new normal.
By 2020 the US economy was growing at its highest rated ever, factories and industries were returning from China, wages and employment for all Americans was highest in decades.
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Dialectical argument…
welcoming contradiction
before facts, preferring
swine before pearls.
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As the OP who became something of an absentee landlord on this thread, can I especially thank Geoff Chambers for his really honest and humble distlllation of the ‘big picture’ as he saw it, then his follow ups.
Tucker Carlson is also an interesting thinker. A critic of Trump, for example, over his flip-flop policy on regime change in Syria, giving a platform to Democrat candidate Tulsi Gabbard and others of independent mind on that thorny subject. Carlson’s summing up of the decision today will do me.
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What is the Big Picture? It’s not whether Hunter leveraged (awful word) his pop’s position to get a job he didn’t deserve, nor whether Joe faced off against CornPop or someone back in 1966 or somewhen. It’s not Trump vs Biden & the most important election, er, since the last one. Trump is not going to be the climate sceptics’ saviour. He might be a stone in the shoe of the alarmists for 4 years but hey! Big Picture, what’s 4 years? Naught.
So what is the Big Picture? Is it that we’re all in this together, a motley crew hurtling thro’ space on a glorious rock to a destination that is perfectly well known for all of us as individuals but unknown and unknowable for us as a species? Dunno. It seems that our world has never been better for people. When sceptics see climate policies imposed from on high that we think will slow or reverse human progress, it is natural to get moderately cross. Others don’t see what to us is perfectly obvious: that most of the western world is mobilising for war to fight against what is little more than a phantom.
We probably get a bit crazy that those around us are calling for more war. In this world worthless plastic trash is called a commodity and ends up washing into the sea or is heaped up in recycling centres to eventually “accidentally” catch fire. In this Big Picture few of us look up at the stars – whether figuratively in seeing beyond the limits of our parochial first world troubles or literally, as city dwellers unawed by a cosmos we are blind to.
Is the West fading? Burdened by guilt, decadent, out of ideas, and, yes, chasing phantoms as if this is some great project that ought to unite us in common endeavour. A moon shot.
In the Big Picture, CO2 rose to the top of the to-do list when all the other major problems were solved, or at least heavily pruned. We may have never had it so good, but there’s a hint that we may never have it this good again. A lot of things point that way if you’re a pessimist: asset prices, low inflation, wage stagnation, the demise of manufacturing, even automation, the lead weight of climate policies, and the rise of confident but unscrupulous regimes.
I dunno. I prefer to be an optimist, but just how rational is that?
But I think the bike shed ought to be rust-coloured, & full of abandoned, vandalised bikes with occasional stray wheels forlornly padlocked to it. The air should taste a little bitter, as if someone has burnt something made of plastic. There should be little green domes of acrocarpous moss growing in the cracks in the concrete, & someone will have used a spray can to write ACAB in large letters on the back wall. I could go on about my dream bike shed, but I won’t.
But seriously folks, I don’t care who wins, but really hope that the losing side accepts the result in good grace.
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Lovely writing…all in together, whatever the weather.
Tho’ serfs care who wins THE election. (
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Here is Melbourne, Australia treats people who dare to protest the lockdown.
Please explain how this is a good thing:
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This sums up what I believe is actually happening in the US. And apparently much of the rest of the West.
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Hit,
Losing in good grace to a revolting mixture of bureaucrats, thugs, racists and freakish billionaires is not going to happen.
It can’t happen.
Their coalition is wildly unstable. The lies they tell too widely separated from reality. Their victory will lead to decades of tyranny, civil war, suppression, censorship, lawlessness, , racial violence.
Do you think the censorship cancer will suddenly stop spreading? The shitty irrational magical thinking of “climate science” has already spread and degrades other areas of policy and science.
Look at the anti-scientific lockdowns, now indulged in violently around the world.
The circular reasoning and anti-historical critical race theory is deeply rooted in the West now. It is a mind and soul killing meme.
The US bureaucrats are brazenly talking about a coup against President Trump if he wins.
The FBI knew about Biden corruption nearly a year ago. They had the hard drive that actually exonerates the President for what he was impeached for.
And puts trolls blame Mr. Trump for this?
Only a fool doesn’t see this for what it is.
What is coming could easily make the French terror Lenin’s terror and the Cultural revolution look like child’s play.
All to please some crazed obsessive billionaires and their lackeys.
Those billionaires and their lackeys will be surprised when the rest of their fucking coalition figures out who’s actually still in charge.
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I’m a Melbournite and we have been subjected to months of lockdown, curfew and punitive fines for misdemeanour by our Socialist Chairman Dan Andrews,
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-02/woman-charged-ballarat-covid-protest-live-stream/12623118
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Here’s what she posted.https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/police-arrest-pregnant-woman-over-social-media-post/
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Beth: We must do a thread on the Australian situation.
Jit: Thanks for that. I think!
Here’s a closing thought on the US situation today from our sponsor.
Well, he is for all climate blogs.
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I agree with Hunterson. I’m not optimistic. Even if Trump wins, I’m not optimistic. America is a great nation, a powerful nation still and with Trump at the helm, it may just start to turn the tide against this madness. Without him, all is lost. But the rot runs deep, very deep and it has infested every major country on earth, every major political party, almost without exception the entirety of western academia and its erstwhile ‘prestigious’ intellectual institutions, and it has also infested the judicial systems and police forces. Trump is going to have to weed out the rot in his own country before he can even begin to persuade other nations that there is a way out of this globalist tyranny racing ahead of itself now to literally take possession of our lives and our bodies and extinguish the joy of living and being free, which should be the birthright of every living thing on the planet.
There is zero chance that the Democrats and their supporters will lose with good grace; far more liklely they will try to burn down cities in their anguish at losing. If Trump loses, I suspect many Republicans will feel cheated. That’s the way it is. The Poles are too far apart now, the space in between filled with bitterness, angst and resentment, for there to be ‘good grace’ on either side. It’s not going to happen. Any peace now will be attained only on the other side of a war.
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Richard, a thread on Melbourne @ cliscep, somehing I’d look forward to reading..
Re above Steve Mc.. Been sitting up late watching this fascinating video by Robert Barnes and Rick Baris on what are the odds? How the polls sampling fail (again and again!) Nate Silver and others a major fail. https://www.facebook.com/PeoplesPunditDaily/videos/642567173285680/
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HUNTERSON7 3 Nov 2020 11.06 am
Good video. You can hear what the demonstrators are saying. Police tactics seemed to be to arrest anyone who made a peace sign. The journalist mentions quite casually how Nazis too were just obeying orders. In context, in the middle of a classic case of state suppression of basic freedoms, it makes perfect sense. The question we’ve been churning over for a time about the Nazi analogy can be rephrased thus: “Is an analogy ok when made in a certain context, in the heat of a moment of confrontation, and not ok when written outside that context?” (France is faced with a similar dilemma over a stupid cartoon, but all debate on the subject is auto-censored.)
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RICHARD DRAKE
I think I should be glowing with pride for that. If I only knew who Tucker Carlson was. (Now I do.)
Steve McIntyre has also been busy with a useful timeline of the Biden story. It’s on Scribd which I’m afraid will upload itself automatically if I link to it. You can find the link here.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/11/hunter-bidens-story-matters-especially-if-joe-biden-wins.html#more
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AIME
Cheer up. I don’t like to see you like this. My GP recommended Magnesium supplements against depression. Apparently we don’t get enough in our vegetables because of modern intensive farming methods.
On post election violence: the fact that all the pundits are predicting it is a sign it may not happen. Hundreds of thousands of armed Americans have been confronting each other in the streets for months now, and there have been relatively few deaths. Nothing like the shootouts that are a regular feature of everyday life in Chicago or Marseille.
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Geoff, thanks, I’m going from ultra-gloomy to slightly upbeat and positive in ever decreasing time periods lately, which probably means I should just stop reading ‘news’ of fast moving events on line. When I said ‘war’, I wasn’t meaning specifically violent civil unrest, I was envisaging more a broad spectrum conflict of ideology, of cultures, peaking in the coming weeks and months, sparked specifically by the re-election of Trump (if that happens). I was thinking more of a war for the soul of western civilisation. I’m almost certain that there will be violence on the streets of the US – how widespread or serious it becomes, I don’t know.
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I was shopping last night and the supermarket was being shipped out as if a big storm is coming. I casually asked the young clerk who monitors the self-checkout line if the shopping was intense. I always use self-checkout when available and have no challenges using this option. After her answer, she looked at me with a sort of pity, and proceeded then to ask for my few items to check me out and did so.. She gave the vibe of someone who really feels sorry for someone else.
I am working as voting poll center volunteer today. I also worked the early voting. Our location is new and on a lightly used street. So far all is quiet. 🙏👌
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@ Geoff quarter to five
Steve McIntyre’s timeline: for such shenanigans, the word swamp was invented. Compared to this, the “golden showers” etc was thin gruel indeed (pardon the slightly nauseating mixture of imagery, which was accidental, but I’ve left it).
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An interesting aspect of the McIntyre data is that Biden’s supporters have been largely insulated from the financial impacts of the Covid policy disaster. Teachers, government workers and very wealthy never had a paycheck at risk from the anti-scientific lockdown hysteria.
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Evening Jamie,
Maximilian Auffhammer recently noted- “On top of this comes a significantly more conservative supreme court, which makes me worry about Massachusetts versus EPA, the case that gave the EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gases as air pollution under the Clean Air Act.”
https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2020/11/02/sticks-and-stones-or-prices-and-quantities/
If president Trump is not reelected I anticipate some states and many heavy industries joining forces to petition the courts for a review of the endangerment finding.
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Geoff: Tucker has a starring role in this interesting piece on the ‘New Contras’ who are breaking with the old lamestream media, led or at least influenced by Glenn Greenwald: The New Contras’ Insurgence Against Legacy Media Is Only Getting Hotter
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Hasta luego
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On Trump declaring victory from the White House (which he may not have exactly done), and accusing the Dems of fraud, multiple viewpoints are available. Here are two responses in the last hour that amused me.
That joke went down like a bucket of sick with traditional Republican UN-sceptics of course.
This I also enjoyed, from two folks who voted for Trump, one with more enthusiasm than the other:
The fear of fascist takeover is of course very real. The fear is real, I mean. And that makes people feel that its referent is real. So they may do terrible things. Hold tight.
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Difficult to untangle all what’s happening at the moment, with the media lying, but it seems like PA stopped counting and went home when it was obvious Trump was winning! Trump has declared victory, perhaps prematurely or not, but it’s looking that way. Nobody is ever going to trust the media again after all this – they’ve shown themselves to be rotten to the very core. Meanwhile, here in the UK, the lockdown lies are coming out fast and furious, though if the vote goes ahead, Labour will still probably swing it. Effectively, the government has delegated power to the Labour party to decide the fate of the nation.
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Trump was ahead in WI and then the Democrats suddenly ‘found’ 110,000 votes. This is looking very bad. Attempted voter fraud to get Biden in. America hangs on a knife-edge. Civil war looks likely if they manage to pull this coup off; it’s a possibility if they don’t. Tomorrow, Britain is due to be shut down again. Christ. What a mess.
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Here’s an anniversary I missed in all the excitement.
“Our planet’s greatest challenge.”
Er, no. Not even close.
The process of dealing with Covid can still I feel bang some sense into some particularly thick skulls. Plus the resulting financials.
And Trump. Not that the fight is going to be pretty from here on in.
That subthread from Jason Beale is worth a read.
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Just saw Philadelphia city commissioner Al Schmidt interviewed on CNN. He says something like: “We’re counting day and night, as you can see behind me.”
Behind him is a vast hangar filled with empty desks. Not a soul in sight. Then three casually dressed figures cross the screen – the morning shift of vote counters? Dunno, but at least two of them had bulky looking backpacks – sandwiches for two days heavy counting?
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Does anyone know what’s going on? Twitter have censored the President of the US! The election hinges on a few key states in the NE which have apprently stopped counting? Not declared?
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So now it is taking direct corruption of the vote counting process to save Biden from embarrassing defeat.
I personally watched a polling judge issue ballots to people who openly stated they had not registered to vote. The County clerk’s office went from stating not to issue ballots to non-registered voters to stating, against state law, everyone who shows up gets to at least vote provisionally.
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Across the country, if democrats can control the vote and the President is winning, there are suddenly problems with the counting. Computers crash, pipes break and flood buildings, ballots are “found”.
This rebellion must be crushed
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I don’t think we know Jaime – nor, in my picture, does anyone, though I don’t doubt some are desperately plotting to make us think we know what ain’t so, perhaps including the Philadelphia city commissioner Geoff has just had the pleasure of viewing.
I respect Bernie Sanders for spelling out the scenario we seem to be facing, on 23rd October, if not all the guy’s politics, Green New Deal included:
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It seems fairly obvious now. It was all about the US presidential election. It was only ever about the US election.
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What was?
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Richard, Sanders seems very sure about what will happen doesn’t he? It’s odd though that all or nearly all of the postal ballots are Democrat.
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The response to coronavirus.
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Jaime: ah ok. The ‘mostly peaceful’ protests aka looting in Democrat controlled cities would have been another possible answer. Both trying to ensnare Trump. It’s been a monumentally dirty campaign, the way I see it. They have been desperate to get rid of hombre naranja. The big picture of why remains fascinating.
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Whilst people are obsessing about Nazi comparisons on another thread, with the future of the free world hanging in the balance, I thought this was rather important:
“I have not had time to delve deeply enough into the Wisconsin numbers to say definitively that voter fraud occurred there on a large scale. I will say this, however: one of two things is true. The first is that Wisconsin experienced a voter turnout that neither it nor any other state has ever come close to in the modern era, on behalf of the worst candidate nominated in the modern era. The second is that the Democrats used voter fraud on a massive scale to stake a claim to Wisconsin’s electoral votes.”
Wow.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/11/massive-voter-fraud-in-wisconsin.php
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Hinderaker is a bit out of date I think. This looks really important:
Steve’s tweets and replies is the place I tend to look!
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Here’s some news from Willis, plus his tragic but all-too-credible commentary.
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Newt Gingrich spells out how the law should now operate
https://twitter.com/m1dn7ghtrider/status/1324547913322795009
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8 minutes onward. This is what happened in the US presidential election. Mind blowing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhuA71CvXyg&feature=youtu.be
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Before he went to bed in Toronto (I assume) Steve had two interactions I found instructive, one critical of the Trump campaign and one where he admitted that he himself had gone beyond the evidence in what he’d said. Here goes.
One lawyerly type claiming to be Canadian (I never entirely trust such claims from pseudonyms, until I know them) disagreed with Steve on that:
while someone else saw a weakness in Trump from well before:
Blaming Trump will be in full swing soon. And calling him a fascist, of course.
But it’s right that Steve is free to make his own criticism. This stuff is hard.
The other interaction got into the weeds of what evidence there is for voting fraud.
https://twitter.com/jamesalangibson/status/1324593904386146308
https://twitter.com/jamesalangibson/status/1324596012959232000
Steve as ever admits when he’s gone beyond the evidence, just as he always did on Climate Audit in the thick of ridiculous criticism from Mann and acolytes. Respect as always. And this sounded just a little bit hopeful.
https://twitter.com/jamesalangibson/status/1324598006759321601
Overall, though, I think Steve is thinking it’s too little too late. Few have done more for the cause of truth in this area though.
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Jaime: Bannon has been taken down by YouTube. (Interestingly, this didn’t seem to take effect at the same time in all locales.) Here’s some relevant commentary from three long-time climate sceptics – Briggs, Steve Mc, Stockwell.
Excessive language (and analogies) are an early Christmas present for these guys.
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Sadly, I think Steve may be correct regarding the rollout of the Biden hard drive the FBI withheld for months.
But the rebellion/coup is deeper, more powerful and more organized than most of us realized until far too late.
The vote counting scam, the complete buy-in by all media, the ruthless Orwellian nature of “coverage” on CNN etc is mind boggling.
USA is facing a post Constitutional, post Republic governance. “banana repubvlic” may be too kind for what these wicked nerds have concocted.
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Hunterson: I too agree about the flawed “rollout of the Biden hard drive”. Even though Bannon and Giuliani are smart guys they didn’t understand the power of crowdsourcing. It may have been a fatal mistake. But, as you say, many have underestimated the level of organisation on the other side.
All the same, I appreciate the wag who produced this.
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An eye-witness tweets:
Once again, a bit of humour helps with the bitter pill:
https://twitter.com/DeplorableDebut/status/1324778099725209603
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This whistleblower was previously anonymous. Respect.
https://twitter.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1324845160358940673
Courage calls to courage everywhere, as my feminist friends like to say.
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Mark Steyn gives a great summary of the shenanigans in his latest podcast, Election Day Plus Three.
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This seems very fair comment, from a reluctant Trump voter:
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Steve Mc though is debunking some Trump-supporting theories.
Wherever the data takes us. That’s us at Cliscep too, right?
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Steve continues to learn, and discard his own theories if the data don’t support them:
The big emphasis from the Trump campaign on substantial dirty tricks in the centre of Philadelphia doesn’t seem to be supported by the data either. There obviously were some – but not enough to make a material difference. They have got to work fast on the suburbs, to see if there is evidence of significant malpractice there, before bothering the Supreme Court.
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Richard, with all sincere respect to you and Steve, the democrat controlled vote counting machine does not act at all as if they agree that there are no significant voting irregularities.
They are acting exactly like banana republic ballot fraud specialists.
If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.
Don’t over complicate this: it only diverts from the secretive, blatant vote fraud.
Steve’s analysis can’t explain away halting vote counting and then minutes later walking in coolers and backpacks.
Innocence does not explain violating multiple legal orders to allow meaningful witnessing of what is supposed to under the law to be a transparent process.
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It’s a globalist coup and if it succeeds, it is very, very bad news for the UK and and for America and indeed Western civilisation. Boris the Red has already come out in support of Beijing Biden, even as it is clear that the election results will be contested. At best, this means that he has made himself an enemy of the US president Trump if he is re-elected after this fiasco, at worst it means that BoJo will be a globalist Biden/Harris whore with whom he will work closely to tear down our respective democracies, annihilate civil liberties and proceed full speed ahead with the planned ‘Great Reset’ now that trump is out of the way. The fact that these scum all seem so sure of themselves worries me greatly. Do NOT expect lockdown to end on 2nd December. The old world did not pass away, it was stolen literally from beneath our noses and the new world will not be a nice place.
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Hunterson, Steve’s analysis, interesting though it may be, fails to recognise the reality on the ground. Votes counted where observers have been excluded are not legal, votes from dead people are not legal. Those votes must be excluded. Let’s see what happens when they are, then decide if a Biden win is remotely believable – supposedly he polled 8.9 million more votes than Obama in 2012 and virtually every time the guy appeared in public, he was an absolute disaster. Whatever happens now, America is set for years of internal strife.
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Looking for other explanations for the data …
and Steve has also just retweeted this
I’m also leaving Cliscep at this point. Could be for just two weeks or maybe two months. In which case, Happy Christmas all. Or two years.
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I’ll come back on here occasionally just to chat about the good old days when we thought we could beat the Green blob and its ever more menacing and militant political wing with science, data, facts, logic, rationality and common sense. But in the end, they just ignored all that and steam-rollered over everything – science, the Enlightenment, democracy, human rights, civilisation, humanity.
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Will the last person to leave turn off the light.
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Looks like it’s me, (at least in the Northern Hemisphere.) Anyone want to take over a second hand climate blog, 2 million words on the clock, slightly foxed, only twelve previous owners?
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Your comment has been removed because it did not abide by our community standards.
🙂
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JAIME
Your 6 Nov 10.50 am video has been removed by Youtube. What was it?
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Hmmm…
I’m clearly not in tune with what is going on at this amazing site.
I honestly am not following what’s happening.
But the devolution into post rational, post-Western culture seems to be accelerated.
I guess our small bit of free thinking/ free speaking is not isolated from the ebb tide.
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It was the Steve Bannon War Room video episode 476 Geoff. Apparently, he talked about having Fauci’s head on a pike and all the usual suspects freaked out. He got permanently banned from Twitter for it. Still OK to make comedy sketches depicting a severed Trump head as far as I know; in fact that sketch will probably make a comeback by popular demand.
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The maculate conception of this new world order: billionaires funding racist and fascist thugs, media coordination that would leave Minitruth awe struck, daily hates morphed into 24×7 hates…
Watching this coalition that is made up of inherently unlike components survive will be like watching late Roman Republic machinations. Maybe even late Empire, with emperors in and out of power sometimes every few months…
But to be clear about this site:
I have enjoyed the many fascinating articles, the underlying optimism that there is hope for data driven narratives, the independence of the many contributors, and the tolerance with which my terrible typing has been treated.
If the Fellowship of this Ring is moving on, well it has been a wonderful journey.
Very best regards and best of luck to all.
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going on recent comments at this blog, the old Laurel and Hardy Catchphrase seems apt – “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!”
which from wiki – “Most times, after Hardy said that phrase, Laurel would start to cry, exclaiming “Well, I couldn’t help it…” and begin to whimper while speaking gibberish”
ps – not meant to apply to anyone in particular, just to lighten the mood 🙂
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Geoff, please soldier on. I’m not leaving unless it goes dark.
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Hunterson: That is much appreciated. As everyone here is, by me.
I should perhaps have said that 7th November was always going to be a big change for me, partly to do with other work, and my departure (of indeterminate length, but for at least two weeks) isn’t to do with recent controversies. I will continue to make full backups!
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I’m clutching at little rays of hope and probably will do until Jan 6th. Apparently, Biden’s victory violates Benford’s Law which can be used as evidence of election fraud. The fact that Wiki have revised their entry on November 5th speaks of the same old tactics beloved of the Left – if you don’t like the science, then change it, or ignore it. Bring in new ‘experts’ who disagree with it.
An interesting thread here though:
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I won’t be posting here any more (at least on this thread.) My ancient Mac can’t cope with so many tweets and takes ages to upload and get to the end of the thread. When everybody else has left I shall be banning uploads from Twitter. It’s perfectly easy to copy and paste the content of a tweet. All you have to do is miss out the first and last character of the tweet and add it in later, and it won’t automatically upload itself and send you off to Twitterland.
HUNTERSON7
Hang on. It’s not over yet.
I shouldn’t be telling you this, but WordPress allows me to change anything I like on this site, including comments. I’ve sometimes used it correct spelling when it gets too out of hand, but I can use it to transform Jaime into Zorro if I like, print all Richard’s posts in gothic typeface, or make Alan Kendall admit that he hacked the UEA servers. So far I’ve resisted the temptation, but my patience has its limits…
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JAIME
Benford’s Law?? I love the graphs, but to anyone who doesn’t have a degree in statistics it sounds like reading chicken’s entrails. The media would kill it with ridicule. Can you imagine a half a dozen conservative judges, known for their purist interpretation of the constitution, announcing: “Biden had too many threes and fours in his scores – we’re handing it to Donald”?
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Look at this. Trump’s tally in Allgeheny vs. expected, plus Biden’s tally vs. expected. Huge difference:
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Like I said Geoff, I’m clutching at straws, hoping that justice, logic and reason will win the day, that if it can be demonstrated in a court of law that Biden’s vote tally is statistically extremely unlikely or impossible, then combined with all the other evidence which the Trump team might collect, the baying hyenas of the media may be shocked into stunned silence.
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Here is a useful resource on Benford’s law. It is a paper titled: ‘Benford’s Law and the Detection of Election Fraud’, and it was published in the journal ‘Political Analysis’. I will not supply a link because it is to a pdf file, and I know this causes a problem for some readers. However, for those who cannot access the paper, I reproduce its abstract below:
“The proliferation of elections in even those states that are arguably anything but democratic has given rise to a focused interest on developing methods for detecting fraud in the official statistics of a state’s election returns. Among these efforts are those that employ Benford’s Law, with the most common application being an attempt to proclaim some election or another fraud free or replete with fraud. This essay, however, argues that, despite its apparent utility in looking at other phenomena, Benford’s Law is problematical at best as a forensic tool when applied to elections. Looking at simulations designed to model both fair and fraudulent contests as well as data drawn from elections we know, on the basis of other investigations, were either permeated by fraud or unlikely to have experienced any measurable malfeasance, we find that conformity with and deviations from Benford’s Law follow no pattern. It is not simply that the Law occasionally judges a fraudulent election fair or a fair election fraudulent. Its ‘‘success rate’’ either way is essentially equivalent to a toss of a coin, thereby rendering it poblematical at best as a forensic tool and wholly misleading at worst.”
In accordance with my recently imposed self-moderation, I do not intend commenting upon the paper’s contents.
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In accordance with my not wanting to (be seen) to dominate the narrative here at Cliscep, I shall leave readers to read carefully John’s cited paper plus ponder the applicability and the reliability of Benford’s Law in the detection of fraud by reading beyond that study. It’s a fascinating statistical tool with a wide range of applications. Forensic evidence? Probably not, but used in conjunction with other evidence, it might be a useful part of the prosecution’s case.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffsb&q=Benford%27s+Law+success+rate&ia=web
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As a point of clarification, the general utility of Benford’s Law in the detection of fraud is not the issue. It is indeed a fascinating statistical tool with a wide range of applications. The cited paper is only concerned with its proven applicability when looking specifically at election fraud (which is the issue). The data under analysis has to meet a number of criteria for Benford’s Law to apply. The question, presumably, is whether or not those criteria are met by election returns data.
As an aside, I first came across Benford’s Law at university when I offered up the results of a physics lab experiment for marking. My data should have obeyed Benford’s Law, but my tutor pointed out that it didn’t. I was aghast at the implied allegation that I had fiddled the results of my experiment, and I would have lodged a formal complaint had it not been true.
The moral of the story: Don’t cut corners, no matter how keen you are to get to the student’s union bar for a bevy or two.
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Voter fraud / rigged election is a delusional conspiracy theory on par with Qanon. Trump’s lawsuits will fail because there is no evidence of systematic fraud. Trump lost because too many Republicans and Independents turned against him.
This is a reasonable explanation as to what happened. The Democrats achieved a massive turnout primarily represented through early voting and mail ballots. The Republicans – concerned that this would have down ballot effects worked very hard to get their turnout up on election day, which they achieved – arguably better than the Democrats.
Aware that a sizable chuck of their constituency was potentially planning to vote for Biden, they pushed the message that it was important to vote GOP in the House and Senate even if they were planning on voting for Biden. This seems to have panned out, hence preserving GOP Senate majority (Georgia runoffs notwithstanding), and picking up House seats. A lot of voters split their ticket voting opposite party to their Presidential pick, the same thing happened with Obama.
According to Rep Don Bacon (Nebraska 2nd) his District voted for Biden by 5 – 6 %, yet re-elected him by the same margin. Interviewed on radio on Saturday afternoon after the AP had called the election, he said that much of his conservative GOP were fairly repulsed by Trump, quote “the tweets, the insults, the constant lies, and concerns about handling of the pandemic”. Last time they “held their nose”, but this time many of them decided to vote him out, figuring that Mitch McConnell would still be in control of the Senate.
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pms and “the nothing to see here move on”scam is great except for the fact that it’s made up.
Just like the “Trump colluded with Russia”, or “Trump colluded with Ukraine”, or “ANTIFA is just an idea”. Or the rationalization that censorship by billionaires is good for a democratic process.
The fact is democrat controlled vote counts have been crooked for decades, and “found”votes always favor democrats.
The media, last time anyone not ignorant of American law, doesn’t have a Constitutional role in picking the President.
The overwhelming evidence that in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona Nevada and Georgia, democrat controlled vote counts violated existing law and) or ignore Court orders.
Back to Trump alienated…
You mean alienated like when corporate media would literally parse inflammatory false quotes out of what the President said?
Or how any achievement and f his was dismissed, ignored or lied about?
Or how false accusations, known to be false, were treated seriously by media?
Or how physical evidence of Biden’s long known corruption, like his racism, we’re just censored?
Fortunately we have at least a few days more.
Gore, when his Florida team was caught trying to corruptly flip the 2000 election, was praised for his refusal to concede.
I think President Trump fighting to show the 100% correlation between “dirty elections” and “democrat vote counting” is worth it.
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So the Democrats rig the Presidential election, but forget to rig the Senate and the House. We’re all waiting for the overwhelming evidence.
Outside of the cult everyone sees Trump for what he is – a con-man, serial bankrupt and obnoxious reality TV personality, and not all that intelligent.
I guess there will be a great need for de-programming therapists once the spell is finally broken.
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What a great pity it is that this locale could not have been a US election free zone. The outcome will obviously have great implications for how climate change is approached, but it is not this aspect that is being pursued. Instead we have claim and counterclaim over whether burst water pipes were politically motivated or whether thousands and thousands of votes could magically appear overnight. Only farce relieves the gloom as when Trump’s mouthpiece mistakenly holds a press conference in a garden-centre car park; the centre later apparently selling badges “Make America Rake Again”.
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It is at once informative, entertaining yet a bit pathetic to watch the TDS afflicted go through their stunted intellectual responses to the issues. Instead of dealing with evidence, they arm wave and claim it’s all just deluded cult belief. Perhaps one can find a point to address the issues, but if experience is a guide, don’t hold one’s breath.
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An informed non-TDS addled perspective:
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2020/11/09/2020-the-things-youll-be-told-that-arent-true/
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Grownups respond to Biden’s demands for immediate power.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/gsa-responds-to-biden-campaign-ascertainment-has-not-yet-been-made-on-power-transfer_3571403.html
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Thank heavens the Pointman is still with us. A breath of sanity. Good grief, Biden is not EVEN the President Elect at this moment in time. Yet we have our utter disgrace of a PM and government ministers congratulating him and Harris and looking forward to working together to further the Covid crisis and climate crisis scams. My life will be complete if, in the New Year, I can just see the smile wiped off of all these fraudsters’ faces. Of course, if they went to jail that would be even better.
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My concern with the comments here is that many people seemed to think that Trump has been/is somehow a positive for countering the climate cult. Trump is a non stop liar and con-artist. Anything associated with him is diminished. The pandemic demonstrated his incompetence and allowed the climate cult to describe him as anti-science which is true enough based on some of his statements. Fortunately the pandemic has pushed the climate “crisis” off the media radar, so by the time the virus is under control, Trump may be out of the spotlight.
He left the Paris Agreement because it wasn’t fair to the US. It would have been much more useful if he had withdrawn (with allies) for sound policy reasons, ie. the science and the models are still beset by massive uncertainty, the impacts are ill-defined and possibly insignificant, and the policy proposals are wasteful and ineffective. This is the argument we need to have, not conspiracy theories. Now Biden will rejoin Paris, and the rational/sceptical voice has achieved nothing.
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Except for the small, inconvenient fact that the Paris Agreement does disadvantage the US economy and job sector and it does allow Chinese industry to compete unfairly with US manufacturers. Trump is a business man. His reasoning for leaving the Paris Accord was sound. America comes first for Trump. American jobs and the American economy are more important than challenging scientific dogma. However, he was indeed preparing a team to challenge the scientific rationale upon which the Paris Agreement was supposedly based but this was headed off by his advisors to be done during his second term.
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pms keeps claiming, without proof, that President Trump is a “con-artist and fraud”, over and over.
With no proof, no evidence. Just a mouse like a pebble in a coffee can.
And the critique he offers as an example of how bad Mr. Trump’s policy on climate is as empty and lacking in thought as well.
Leaving an unfair horrible faux treaty pile of crap like Paris because it is unfair is as good a reason as any to leave it.
The craptastic science behind the climate mania, if attacked head on, is a certain losing strategy.
But let’s see: jingoistic derivative hate-ons, calling about 50% of the nation, and many around the world, delusional, ignoring all evidence in favor of Trump or against Biden and the crooked elections, and a laughable ignorance of American elections.
What else can pms entertain us with?
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Evidence : Michael Cohen’s testimony to congress under oath to congress; conclusions of Tony Schwartz (the real author of the art of the deal), and David Cay Johnston (financial journalist and tax researcher) who have known him for decades. But hey, if Don says its all fake news thats good enough for you, right?
ignoring all evidence in favor of Trump? No – its just not compelling or even reasonable to conclude that he is anything other than a dummy and loser. Ignoring evidence against Biden – No just the stuff that’s made up like Hunter’s laptop.
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50 % of the population delusional
Well not all of them. My guess is most of them know Trump is a narcissistic racist con-man as described by his niece (more fake news), but they voted for him anyway. Others, intelligent people such as yourself, yes – definitely delusional (maintaining a belief despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument).
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Ignorance of American politics. Let me make a testable prediction then. The Green New Deal will remain on the shelf irrespective of whether the Democrats win control of the Senate or not.
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pms,
So four years of demonstrably false charges against the President don’t count.
So sworn affidavit after sworn affidavit of election vote corruption is nothing.
So Pennsylvania going back to toss up doesn’t count.
So Biden being told to never concede is great but is delusional conspiracy for Trump.
So Gore was a hero to litigate in 2000 over one state, but it is hurting democracy to question multiple states that have violated their own election laws.
And the testimony if a convicted perjurer counts for what, exactly?
But what is most interesting is how anxious the anti-Trump extremists are to not discuss the election, but rather to silence all questions.
To that most Americans say, “nutz”.
As to the so-called GND, if one understood American politics one would know about how to eat an elephant.
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So, the Attorney General allows the process to begin on the investigation of ‘significant fraud’ and the head of the Election Crime board immediately resigns citing the fact that he’s not happy with the change in rules enabling a more pre-emptive and urgent approach to investigations in light of the necessity to provide ‘the American people with confidence in the electoral process’. Why would he do that?
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There is only one standard to judge all others. One need only ask “what would democrats do?”. With a proven record of “by any means necessary”, anything less than that is being generous.
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Hunterson … continue with the delusions. The crybaby in chief has lost the election, and has no one to blame but himself. Notice other elections (eg. New Zealand, and my home state of Queensland Australia) – leaders being returned with increased margins or landslide. Difference = competence in managing the pandemic. I’m sure plenty of rational republicans realize now they should have impeached Trump, and would now be celebrating a Pence landslide and retaking the House.
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US Secretary of State Pompeo has just confirmed there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration. Lefties are going absolutely crazy. What does he know that we don’t?
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pm,
President Trump just won NC.
What is it with TDS and the fear of Republicans excercising the same legal rights democrats rely on? The impeachment…you mean the one where the democrat party obstructed justice to divert from Biden’s corruption?
The impeachment that the Biden hard drive proves the President was correct, not to mention lawfully using his authority?
pm, you’re not merely wrong, you’re irrelevant.
Only stoners or TDS gullible idiots think the election is already over.
Whatever you’re smoking, you should think of keeping it for the weekend ..
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Biden’s corruption? I guess you see the Trump family as a model of transparency without conflicts of interest. The hard drive? you mean the one that 4 Seasons Rudy took to the NY Post because Fox wouldn’t touch it. Do you believe in QAnon also?
TDS – Trump and supporters denying reality of election loss
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I’d say you have a case of TDS, PM6.but how do I know? In actuality I can’t impute motive as no one can read someone else’s mind.
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BTS,
Motive is not an issue with TDS. It is a set of behaviors.
pm,
Wait you ‘splain it away with blaming Rduy?
And the IT shop owner a year ago was in on it, and the Biden’s biz partner was in on it, and the prostitutes and crack dealers were in on it..
The test, by the way of political corruption is this:
Did the politician leave office richer than his or her salary and disclosed assets- inheritance etc.- would have justified?
But thanks for playing…next!
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H7,
And do the press jest look away? That’s when you know the system’s really compromised,
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Trump Disappointment Syndrome? Alas this will all be over soon.
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LOL – Lew discovers PR.
Lead author Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the University of Bristol, said: “Our analysis presents empirical evidence consistent with the theory that whenever the media report something threatening or politically uncomfortable for President Trump, his account increasingly tweets about unrelated topics representing his political strengths. This systematic diversion of attention away from a topic potentially damaging to him was shown to significantly reduce negative media coverage the next day.”
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2020/november/trump-twitter.html
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Indeed, Barry. If there’s been one constant in the Trump presidency, it’s for the media to find a reason why everything is bad.
I well recall the early stages of covid. Banning flights from china was deemed racist and xenophobic and it was proposed that Trump being a germaphobe was causing him to overreact. To oppose his plans, democrats like Pelosi were telling people to go party in Chinatown…
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In the way of an update, remember the ‘burst water pipe’? Well, there was no burst pipe. But here’s what happened. Poll watchers were told to go home but four people remained in Georgia, State Farm Arena. They pulled out suitcases stuffed full of ballots hidden under the benches beneath the table cloths and started counting them. The real question we should be asking is who suppressed release of this vital CCTV footage until now? I think you’ll agree though, it does not fall into the category of ‘no evidence’.
https://rumble.com/vbm3dl-georgia-senate-hearing-shares-surveillance-footage-revealing-potential-ball.html?mref=5z34n&mc=c3aii
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Jaime:
As you probably know, Steve Mc feels very strongly that this kind of evidence, and personal testimony, is easily the best way to convince the courts that something was not as it should have been, so that proper recounts, with signature checking for mail-in ballots, come into play. I’m not into the weeds of the Dominion theories but I tend to side with Steve on such things. Old Climate Audit threads like Bre-X: Is de Guzman Alive? in 2005 speak of Steve’s interest in such ‘foul play’. His legal expertise, coming down from the grandfather who was a senior judge in Canada, is another factor.
Anyway, it sounds a very fair question.
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Richard,
It does seem to me that evidence has been deliberately suppressed in the hope that election results will be certified by state legislatures.
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I’m convinced that is the case Jaime. But not that I could win the case in the US courts in time. That is a matter, for those of us who think the alternative administration will be far worse, of some despair. But we should at least wait until all deadlines are reached.
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This sounds hopeful:
I haven’t got a chance to read the Texas lawsuit but Hans seems to be a lawyer with a good heart and a sound mind.
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As far as I can see, the ‘Texas’ lawsuit – which has been joined by Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, South Carolina and South Dakota – alleges only that MI, GA, WI and PA have violated the US constitution in the run-up to this election. As far as I am aware, this is demonstrable fact – they did violate the US constitution. So how can SCOTUS possibly rule that they did not?
Dellers has written an article for Conservative Woman in which he takes aim at the MSM and the entire progressive liberal left wing establishment. Of particular note, he voices his opinion on conspiracy theories:
“Yes, it’s a conspiracy
This, I think, is the biggest stumbling block for conservative commentators who pride themselves on their record of being nobody’s fool. Sometimes they’ll say, ‘Given the choice between cock-up and conspiracy, I’ll always opt for cock-up,’ as though this made them insightful and worldly rather than hackneyed and gullible. What they don’t get – perfectly understandable since the Left has done a brilliant job of creating a cultural environment in which anything smacks of ‘conspiracy theory’ must perforce be for tinfoil hat freaks only – is that not all conspiracies are theory. Some are real. This one is, definitely. Wouldn’t it be awful if democracy and Western civilisation were allowed to go down the toilet because the people who should have stopped it happening were too embarrassed to do so, for fear that calling out the crime of the century might make them look foolish?”
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/trump-v-biden-yes-its-a-conspiracy/
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After the 2020 US election I quoted Steve McIntyre (above) saying “many times, Trump seems to be his own worst enemy”. Now, after the 2022 midterms, it’s clear to me and others that he’s become the worst enemy of climate scepticism regaining any legislative power in the States. (This angle was, surely, why we spent so much time on Trump on Cliscep from 2015 onwards.)
One thing I found funny last night, around 11pm, was which story was of most interest to readers of the BBC News website:
As Jit and Mark have been pointing out, nothing on COP27 in the top whatever, even in The Guardian. But how bad things had been for the most famous climate dissident in the world, love him or loathe him … that’s different.
The Republican Party has some very thorny issues to sort out. Fox News interviewed Marc Thiessen, speechwriter for former President George W Bush, after it was clear the results were a very damp squib for the GOP, and he I thought was suitably trenchant:
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Allow me quote myself from Jit’s How Not Zero Will the Next PM Be? on 1 Aug 22
All the hopefuls this time, notably Ron DeSantis, are against green policies, a stance which is a key part of the Trump agenda. This takes you right to that bit:
Davis Hanson mentioned DeSantis explicitly, even in July the young gun considered most likely to upset the Trump applecart. And Trump himself has mentioned DeSantis this week but, surprise surprise, not in quite such a balanced way. See the BBC’s US election: Trump tears into rising Republican rival DeSantis today, for example. And here’s one response to that, and worse things not reported by the BBC that Trump has threatened to reveal about the past of his rival:
Now a key passage from the ever-balanced BBC:
The problem is “Mr Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud in 2020” weren’t baseless, as it turned out. The FBI tipped the scales on the Hunter Biden laptop story and, from polls later, it seems to have made the difference between defeat and victory for the orange one. See from this comment onwards on my Bit Rot thread on 30th August:
Then consider these articles last month:
It’s been two years since 51 intelligence agents interfered with an election — they still won’t apologize in the New York Post
‘Russian Disinfo,’ Huh? Computer Store Owner Sues Hunter, Biden Campaign For Defamation Over Laptop by Margot Cleveland again.
The situation is an absolute shocker, in other words. But the Republicans must jettison Trump, if they possibly can. That’s my humble opinion, as a climate sceptic. It’s the only way that some sense will return to energy policy in the highly influential and divided United States of America. As well as in other policy areas.
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Despite the BBC narrative
It is the Republicans that were winning
and the Dems losing
It’s just Reps had bigger expectations
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Stew: Since you wrote that the BBC Live page on the midterms has had
2:23am Democrats retain control of the US Senate
3pm (just now) Party needs to move on from Trump – Republican senator
I’m with those saying that these results are disastrous for the Republicans. Their expectations were indeed much higher. The Democrats deliberately made the issue one of Trump and the ‘election denial’ of his followers. The dirty tricks of two years ago have paid off big time. Climate alarmism has been greatly strengthened in the process.
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A couple of comments on the presidential debate in the wee hours, Weston-super-Mare time, from one of Donald Trump’s regular media champions, the BBC (!). Start reading here for best results.
That was five minutes after this
So he did and Trump’s explanation at the time was one of the best reasoned pieces we saw from him during the whole presidency. But then I may be biased on that. Though I was one of the most cautious Trump-watchers on Cliscep in the early days.
Intelligent conspiracism (oxymoron warning) and witty commentary have proliferated on X since:
https://x.com/rdrake98/status/1806544081486532891
https://x.com/rdrake98/status/1806552862819787046
I heard only a tiny part of proceedings but a lot of the above rings true.
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Richard,
John Leake sums up the Presidential debate for me, a debate where JFK Jr. was excluded. The Leaders debate in the UK, where Farage was excluded, should provoke a similar response in any British voter faced with the prospect of one or the other of these lacklustre leaders and their respective parties in government.
https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/one-must-have-a-mind-of-winter
Your average British voter at this point must be thoroughly demoralised and faced with an even more difficult decision than Americans about which party to vote for. Because it basically comes down to this:
Vote Tory get a hard left Labour government
Vote Labour get a hard left Labour government
Vote Reform get a hard left Labour government
Vote Other get a hard left Labour government
They tell me it’s summer (looks like autumn to me), but I have a mind of winter.
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I’m off to do some walking Jaime but that’s thought-provoking and moving about the mind of winter, thanks. How they found things in the first book of Narnia. Metaphors aplenty.
The UK parallels and differences are also worth exploring. Will say more before or after 4th July. And what a date that is.
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*RFK Jr.*
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Hilarious, realistic and insightful. From a blogger recently recommended by Norman Fenton.
Farewell Sweet Prince
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People on X are saying: ‘I despise Biden, but it was really cruel to put him up there.’
Of course it was cruel. What would you expect from Biden’s handlers behind the scenes? They are ruthless, unfeeling, cruel, conniving, callous criminals who have deliberately inflicted great harm, even death, upon millions of Americans, young and old (I’m thinking especially open borders and mass vaccination policies). Not to mention millions of more people abroad of course. Biden has served his purpose. They controlled him through bribes when he was of sounder mind – and of course when he was of sounder mind, he was probably just as corrupt, evil and conniving as they are. But he’s now lost his mind and the drugs don’t work any more, so they need to dispose of him. Hence, put him in front of a worldwide television audience and watch him implode, real time. Crush him like a used paper bag and throw him in the litter bin. I wonder who they’ll use next?
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Here Brendan O’Neill vents his spleen at the people pushing Biden forward. It’s a subject that has been on my mind today. Plebs could see that he was not fit to run a whelk stall let alone the USA, and yet the denunciations of anyone who suggested that were strident.
The only reason I can see for this facade is the hope that Joe would win re-election and then hand over to Kamala. Someone probably thought Americans wouldn’t vote for her. This may be cynical on my part, but what other reason for this abuse could there be? I hope Americans are furious with the Biden team for what they have done to him.
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Jaime, your comment appeared while I was typing mine. I am cynical, but not that cynical. I think they hoped he would get through the debate without a complete collapse.
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I am very cynical Jit. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they slipped a few placebos in with his usual medication a day or two before just to ensure that he really did lose his marbles on the day.
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As with Jit, I’m cynical, but rarely as cynical as Jaime!
I thought four years ago that Biden would serve a year or so of his term, then step aside on health grounds, thus making way for Kamala Harris. I have been surprised that Biden remained in post as long as he has. One possible explanation is that they thought that Biden (with the advantage of being the incumbent POTUS) could beat Trump again, especially having had Trump convicted of criminal offences, but that they doubted Kamala’s ability to beat him. Perhaps the plan, then, was that Biden would beat Trump for a second time before stepping aside shortly afterwards. If so, the plan is now unravelling.
I write the above as no Trump supporter – quite the opposite. I despair that Trump -v- Biden in the US, and Sunak -v- Starmer in the UK is what is being served up to the electorate. How did things get this bad?
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Here’s a leftie mag’s opinion piece about whether Biden is fit to stand:
https://jacobin.com/2024/06/democrats-biden-presidential-debate-2024/
I don’t think either candidate is fit to stand – or were fit to stand in earlier presidential elections, either. I was astonished when both of them were elected and yet here we are with the two of them as the only possible options for next US president. The British political system is a mess and our politicians are mostly rubbish but hopefully we’ll never get prime ministers who are confabulists as egomaniacal as Trump or as obviously
dementedelderly as Biden.LikeLike
Comment From the lucia’s by Mike M. – The Blackboard | Where we talk about news. 🙂 (rankexploits.com)
“Here is a thorough trashing of the gaslighting re Biden’s fitness for office:
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/06/28/why-the-democrats-lied-about-joe-bidens-frailty/
He says nothing about Jill. I think she deserves an extra measure of contempt.”
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Even the measure of my cynicism may have been insufficient. Old Joe is back on form this morning, looking and sounding much better; a ‘changed man’. It’s obviously the same person. Body doubles is a conspiracy too far for me. So, what explains his miraculous overnight recovery and apparent determination now to fight on? To my mind, he has been put back on his full dose of Alzheimer’s medication or he was acting the part last night. For what reason is anybody’s guess, but there is something very, very odd going on.
https://x.com/JoeyMannarinoUS/status/1806754829018054930
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Jaime et al: There’s much we don’t know. But this I think is sobering.
— Helen Dale
— ZBM2
— https://x.com/_HelenDale/status/1806998144623779971
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“Trump would withdraw US from Paris climate treaty again, campaign says
The statement comes after years of conservatives laying the groundwork for Trump to withdraw from the global agreement intended to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases causing climate change.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/28/trump-paris-climate-treaty-withdrawal-again-00165903
Donald Trump would yank the United States out of the Paris climate accord for the second time if he wins the presidency again in November, a campaign spokesperson told POLITICO Friday.
The statement comes after years of conservatives laying the groundwork for Trump to withdraw from the global agreement intended to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases causing climate change. Their efforts include drafting executive orders for Trump to quickly sign if he regains the White House, a lawyer familiar with the process told POLITICO.
Among them is a draft order that could remove the United States from the entire United Nations’ framework underpinning global climate negotiations, a much more definitive step that could do lasting damage to the effort to limit the Earth’s warming.
When asked Friday if Trump would repeat his removal of the United States from the landmark climate agreement, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt replied, “Yes, he has said that” he would....
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Mark,
Biden’s very first action as soon as he entered the White House was to rejoin Paris. It’s almost like climate and energy policy are the number one electoral priority in the US and the defining difference between conservatives and left wing democrats.
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It is remarkable how Paris is centre-stage in the US FPTP situation this year.
As for Biden reports say he is discussing the election with his family today.
Here’s another point of view on the debate, from a reporter in Toronto:
That’s followed by extensive debate of the lies on either side.
Then there’s Elon’s friend David Sachs
I don’t expect anything fricking beautiful from the UK election this week.
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“Cock-up or conspiracy? Thoughts on Joe Biden’s spectacular debate failure, and whether it reflects a deliberate takedown by rivals in his own party”
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/cock-up-or-conspiracy-thoughts-on
Unfortunately, you need to be a subscriber to read the whole thing. FWIW, the Daily Mail goes with the idea that it was a soft coup, holding a debate earlier than usual giving the Democrat high-ups time to replace him with a better candidate before the election in November:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13583907/pressure-mounts-Joe-Biden-quit-Elton-John-turns-Democrat-insiders-President-set-fail.html
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“Biden blames jet lag and travel for poor debate performance”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4ngx67qle6o
Who knows if it’s a legitimate defence, but in any event it’s a pretty poor one. Don’t US Presidents travel a lot? Isn’t he basically admitting that unless he doesn’t travel far, he’s not up to being POTUS?
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He has blamed jet lag. Others have said he had a cold on the night. Elsewhere it is claimed he performs poorly after 4 pm, and that he begins to function at 11 am, and has a nap (presumably between 11 and 4). Insiders allegedly report that they have to sugar-coat bad news for fear of his rages, and that they double up so that there is a potential witness alongside them.
Other than that, it’s all going great.
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Vote Biden – save valuable tax dollars funding Air Force One.
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Here are two distinguished historians commenting on The Times (here) quoting David Ignatius quoting Shakespeare in the Washington Post
I’d say it’s been rot from the MSM on this and related subjects for a long time now.
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You may think that Biden is senile, but he thinks you are all just ‘really dumb’.
Remarks by President Biden on Extreme Weather | The White House
I may be dumb, but I know better than to attribute the full cost of extreme weather event damages to climate change. Thick, or what?
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He might usefully be reminded that globally 9 people die as a result of extreme cold for every person who dies as a result of extreme heat. Admittedly that doesn’t seem to be true in the US, but sadly an awful lot of people died there in the bitterly cold winter storms in January.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2023/07/19/excessive-summer-heat-can-kill-but-extreme-cold-causes-more-fatalities/
By the way, my cousin in Tasmania told me that it was -17.3C there the other night. Funny that nobody is interested in reporting that.
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President sensible and fully capable, if sometimes inaudible:
“For God’s sake” is what jumped out at me. When did we say pseudo-religion?
Of course we deny nothing of the kind.
But the use of the deity is dumb. And given all the rest it’s backing up, evil.
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This year’s election changed. Screenshots of my instant reactions.
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It’s far too early to know anything about the (now deceased) perpetrator of the assassination attempt. He may have had mental issues. It might be nothing to do with politics. We mustn’t jump to conclusions about that.
However, the reaction of some on the left (as per the tweet highlighted by Richard) is sickening. I have always regarded myself as being to the left of politics, and have been a believer in live and let live. Despising what others say, but defending their right to say it. Seeking to argue the correctness of my views, rather than shutting down the arguments advanced by those with whom I disagree. Believing that violence is appalling and solves nothing. All that sort of thing.
But now I look at the “left” in the UK, USA, Europe, globally, and I wonder what on earth happened. Celebrating the Hamas violence against innocent festival-goers, including the use of rape as a weapon of war. Openly claiming regret that an assassination attempt failed. A Labour government waging war on the working class. Celebrations of milk-shake throwing at right-wing candidates. Constant “fact-checks” that gaslight the public. Clamping down debate on social media. And so on.
There was a time when we lefties thought that we had the moral high ground and that it was the far right that was despicable. It seems the boot may now be on the other foot (or perhaps it’s on both feet at once). Difficult times. As so often I hope for the best, but fear the worst.
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Mark, you wrote, “A Labour government waging war on the working class.” Such behaviour does not surprise me given the “flipping” of the elite leadership of the current Labour Party (and indeed much of what in earlier times would have been identified as the leaders of the parties of the Left in the Western world). This “flipping” is discussed in Matt Goodwin’s book “Values, Voice and Virtue”. Although Goodwin does not use the term “flipping”, he speaks of ‘luxury beliefs’ and even invokes Thomas Piketty’s term “brahmins” for those holding the most luxurious beliefs. In short, sadly, the Left ain’t what it used to be. Regards, John C.
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Some suggestions from Spectator correspondents:
‘Initial reports from the BBC indicate that an Israeli missile was the cause. They sought a comment from Greenpeace, who apparently explained that worsening climate change will result in greater incidences of Jewish world domination.‘
‘And Brexit.‘
‘Indeed, altered climatic conditions affected the missile’s trajectory.‘
‘And Hamas announced that 703 disabled children were killed in the crossfire‘
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Norman Fenton has pointed out that even the Jerusalem Post are attempting to put a spin on this assassination attempt:
https://x.com/profnfenton/status/1812405158627713115
CNN, Sky, the BBC, they’re all at it, trying furiously to spin the attempted murder of a presidential candidate as something rather less significant and serious. Even the Telegraph:
https://x.com/LozzaFox/status/1812395398763348360
Yeah, so according to the Torygraph, the bullet which injured Trump was enclosed in apostrophes and so also were the bullets which killed one spectator and seriously injured two others.
The far left woke mind virus does not discriminate. It infects all of the MSM. They are the victim here. They are now dead, finished. Trump lives on to fight another day. Let’s hope they don’t actually manage to murder him before he takes office.
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So, cockup or conspiracy?
Or conspiracy+: It was all staged in order to ensure Trump gets re-elected? Whichever way you look at it, a cockup looks extremely unlikely. I could say the same for various other issues under discussion! I don’t think we inhabit an especially incompetent Universe.
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Link to above comment (in moderation because I forgot to remove links!):
https://www.steynonline.com/14433/what-they-wanted
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One of those anomalous occasions I, not Mark, rescued a comment from spam Jaime
The plot thickens 😉
I won’t try and judge it though. The devil is lurking in the detail. Except:
Grazing the target’s ear when his head is moving? Staged not.
I said in my first comment “This year’s election changed”.
I can’t see Trump not being re-elected now, in other words. But this was not the intention.
If he’s not assassinated before November, of course.
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I agree with Richard. If the information we have is accurate (and of course it may not be) I don’t see how this could possibly have been staged. I was qualified as a marksman in the infantry (a long time ago) so know something of these matters. Although it would not be particularly difficult to hit a target the size of someone’s head at 150 yards, to clip someone’s ear at that range, especially when the target was moving around, would be exceptionally difficult. And absurdly risky.
PS: to be fair to the Torygraph that headline with apostrophes came from an early edition when little was known. Its current headline says simply: ‘Trump shot‘.
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I agree with you both for the same reasons. Trump wasn’t wearing an earpiece so the killer could communicate to him something like: “OK, hold your hear right there, I’m going to take the shot now.” Plus, the killer was killed and he killed one bystander and injured two more. A conspiracy too far for me, but some people are addicted to them, like peeling layers of an onion, they just can’t stop. I am however extremely suspicious about the alleged ‘incompetence’ of the security services.
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Jaime,
I’m with you in thinking that these far-fetched conspiracies are just to be expected and can be readily dismissed. That’s why I think the likes of van der Linden are over-reacting when they say they are a threat to democracy.
However, the distinction between cock-up and conspiracy is not always clear cut and there is a grey area where speculation is not so unreasonable. As a former quality manager I got quite used to seeing cockups, and the incompetence and complacency required to explain the root cause would often beggar belief. In fact, the negligence would often have an element of wilfulness. So, were the security forces wilfully negligent in allowing it to happen? Were the media wilfully negligent in using so much insightful rhetoric? Just how much wilful negligence is needed to turn a cockup into a conspiracy anyway? And how much is needed to pose a threat to democracy? These are the questions folks.
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Oops! I think I meant ‘inciteful rhetoric’. You see now what I meant by negligence that beggars belief? 🙂
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Well, the ‘staged’ theory makes no sense so we can rule that out. But the fact that the so-called security forces didn’t check and double check a roof only 150 yards from and with a clear view of the podium is to say the least remarkable. Could it have been deliberate? It’s impossible to rule that out. But the fact that it would easily be found out (as happened) makes it unlikely and IMHO rules out a conspiracy. Therefore I vote either for appalling incompetence or for an utterly stupid security chief who for some reason thought it that not checking the roof was a good idea. And even that seems unlikely – surely someone in his team, given the importance of the occasion, would have seen to it that the boss’s decision was ignored.
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John, I was about make that very joke. Then I thought “As well as insight, he’s great at self-deprecation.” You didn’t let me down.
On how the widespread incitement fed into this incident I’ve been learning about stochastic terrorism. Or I think I have.
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Agree with Robin about the ‘staged’ theory. But what about this question?
There again, how huge are the numbers?
This is why, even in the first few minutes after I’d heard about the shooting, I said Pseudonyms . Don’t. Help.
Messy doesn’t do this justice. But it’s a great mercy that America isn’t already in civil war today.
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Richard,
Stochastic terrorism? What a great term! It’s right up there with ‘plausible deniability’. No one needs to conspire when one can just let one’s incompetence weight the dice.
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From a Spectator correspondent:
‘At last the Democrats have got the ear of Trump‘
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More from the Spectator:
Comment: It would have had more impact if Trump had pretended that the shot was fatal, then made a comeback three days later.
Response: Jesus Christ!
Apologies. I’ll get my coat.
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Perhaps the SS sniper was waiting for permission to shoot. The assassin only fired four shots apparently. The response was very quick after the shooting started.
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Jit, Dominic Cummings is inclined to disagree
That’s to Anthony Guglielmi, Chief of Communications for the United States Secret Service. DC goes on to talk about the UK situation, which he thinks is worse.
On DEI there was this a few hours after the shooting, showing what Guglielmi’s female boss has recently said to the MSM
In defence of the fairer sex involved yesterday there was this
Dan Bongino’s Resign today seems fitting for the senior officers of both sexes in this case.
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Refreshingly balanced for a change – it discusses the conspiracy theories on both sides:
“How conspiracy theories and hate dominated social feeds after assassination attempt on Trump”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cyr7pyd0687o
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Jit: Apologies. If the people I quoted are right, “Perhaps the SS sniper was waiting for permission to shoot” could well be right. Did that situation reflect best SS practice though? Many people are saying nothing like. And some certainly seem to have relevant experience.
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Seriously, I’ve read some waffle in my time, which sets out to sound impressive, and probably does, but completely fails to address the issues. This is from Susan Crabtree, “White House & Natl Political Correspondent”:
https://x.com/susancrabtree/status/1812462982661841170
Firstly, it does not explain how a sniper came to be on a rooftop in clear sight of Trump, in the first place. But let’s presume that was just an innocent oversight and let’s look instead at the reasons why the sniper was allowed to let off several rounds (almost killing Trump and fatally injuring one spectator, plus seriously injuring two others) before the SS sniper took him out. Caution apparently:
So, a federal agent sniper, with 20-20 vision presumably, looking through the telescopic sight of his rifle, is unsure whether his target is holding a rifle or a telescope?
You cannot be bloody serious!
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why are we spending time debating in this venue the many faint possibilities related to a failed attempt by someone so far rather poorly defined as to motive or ability in his failed attempt to assassinate a presidential contender? Do we believe there is a climate-related motive? I don’t see any so far.
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Alan: There’s a climate-related everything if John is right in Only Connect!
Trump is the only possible Western leader who can be called a climate sceptic. Agreed? And, typically, his enemies don’t exactly praise him for it. Many of them compare him with Hitler. It’s probable that the shooter felt both things. Is that polarisation and demonisation healthy for the debate on Net Zero and the rest in the West?
And would you agree with what I said earlier?
There again, he could be in prison by November or by January. And that could also spark a civil war in America I would say. There are many variants of the future possible and each surely will affect the climate debate, one way or the other.
But I agree (though I can’t control what other people wish to say) that we’ve probably gone far enough on the motives of all those responsible for this averted disaster, given the small amount we can know.
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Alan,
Perhaps there is no climate-related motive here but it is a sobering thought that the likes of John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky would place the likes of you and I in the same bracket as those who think this assassination attempt was staged. So I can understand why some on this site would wish to discuss the matter, if only to place some distance between us and the loonies.
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Alan/Richard – a partial quote from the head post opening lines POSTED ON BY RICHARD DRAKE
“This was Jaime Jessop five days ago: It’s become a war now and it seems Trump is the only Western leader willing to fight it on our behalf – and his of course. They are gunning for him.”
Jaime used that term as we all would (my meaning would be “throw the book at him”” which they have.
Sadly some guy had other plans.
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People are crazy and times are strange, unguarded rooftop within shooting range,
and just how did an assassin target that roof, happenstance, opportunism or maybe collusion?
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Yeh well. Do I believe Trump will argue or act against those supporting climate change action? Well not really. He already had four years in which to do this and didn’t. Yes he pulled the USA out of the Paris Agreement but he clearly established that he was doing this on economic grounds. All pre-election promises to combat or evaluate the”Science” were broken. I recall an important promise to set up a high-power red-team/blue team debate which had considerable promise that never took place.
So sorry, I don’t believe continued focus upon Trump because of his climate stance is misplaced.
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Yes I know Alan that this is O/T but I thought this post by Francis Menton might be of interest: https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-7-14-whats-the-story-with-the-secret-service.
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Robin, that’s a lot of words from Francis to say this basically:
https://x.com/bobscartoons/status/1812580047716249822
Alan, there are any number of climate related reasons why bumping off Trump in order to ‘save the planet’ might be an appropriate and proportional act for the ‘greater good’:
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/03/climate/trump-v-biden-climate-stakes/index.html
And right after the Chevron Supreme Court ruling, climate change fanatics had even more to be concerned about a second Trump term.
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Jaime, and Trump’s excuses for not acting last time are?
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Alan,
The failure to address the basic science was regrettable, but perhaps inevitable. Maybe he took a leaf out of Robin’s book and decided it just wasn’t worth it! He did only have four years during which he energised the American economy principally using fracked gas, withdrew from Paris and did in fact express personal scepticism about global warming several times during his tenure – to howls of outrage from the usual suspects. Here for instance. Had he been given a second term, it is likely that he would have built on this rejection of global warming dogma and gone further, perhaps only then deciding to set up a proper scientific debate on the science. We shall never know. What he might do if he gets re-elected, we can only speculate, but it is extremely likely that he will once again withdraw the US from Paris and hopefully he will go much further than that. He definitely has fire in his blood now I would imagine. Climate cultists are right to be concerned.
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I’ve just watched Dan Bongino’s 40ish minute show on Rumble. Dan was part of the Secret Service for 12 years, part of the team that protected Presidents and other high-level ‘protectees’. He has friends and sources in the current team. Tomorrow he is hosting another show on the attempted assassination with Tucker Carlson as his guest. This one got up to 280,000 viewers and the CEO of Rumble appeared at the end to be thanked for the tech that, amazingly, held up!
Here’s what I remember. There may have been a ‘line of sight’ issue for the law enforcement sniper who eventually took the assassin out. He would have had authorisation to shoot before the 20-year-old did. The main scandal is the perimeter team not doing all the necessary and standard work beforehand. Police should have been on that roof, given its clear line of sight to Trump, making it impossible for Crooks to get anywhere near. Security had already clocked him as suspicious, before the event began, but then ‘lost him’. Dan says that in that scenario Trump should not have been allowed on stage.
I paid $5 to view (or to join Bongino on Locals, which I thought was necessary!) He’s a big Trump supporter and spoke to him on the phone this morning (ET time). He says Trump is in very good shape morale-wise. I believe (from past experience) Dan is a man of integrity who also says what he doesn’t know. You may find it worth a try.
https://rumble.com/v571hol-an-apocalyptic-security-failure-ep.-2286-07152024.html
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One big thing omitted (by me) there. There should have been helicopters and drones in the air throughout that would have seen Crooks long before he could have got any shots off. This again is absolutely standard.
Another Bongino point and my reflection. One female in the team protecting Trump’s body was too short (as many others have also noted). His head was still entirely exposed as he was helped up to exit. But it was that very flaw that allowed him to pump his arm and fist in a way that was highly visible and became the iconic pic of the whole incident.
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I’m sure Bongino is right. I said yesterday that the fact that the security forces didn’t check and double check a roof only 150 yards from and with a clear view of the podium is to say the least remarkable. I don’t think I put that strongly enough: having been engaged for about eighteen months in a location where a hostile shooting was a constant possibility, I would say that such a basic and obvious failure was utterly irresponsible. How on earth could it have happened?
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According to Mark Steyn, the rooftop which the shooter was on was designated ‘outside of the security perimeter’ by the Feds. 150 yards from where Trump was standing was ‘outside of the security perimeter’! That is incomprehensible. Even more incomprehensible is that members of the public were warning there was a man on the roof a minute before the shooting but SS did nothing because it was outside the designated perimeter. A local cop climbed up there and quickly climbed back down when the AR-15 was pointed at him, after which the assassin took his shots. The only logical conclusions are: the security services allowed this random gunman to take pot shots at Trump’s head, by being deliberately negligent, firstly by letting him in to the event unchallenged and then allowing him to get in a prime position to take a shot, or they planned the assassination and were complicit in the whole incident.
https://www.steynonline.com/14436/shoots-and-ladders
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Richard – your comment & link – “On how the widespread incitement fed into this incident I’ve been learning about stochastic terrorism. Or I think I have.”
Led me to this post by William M. Briggs Statistician to the Stars! – Arrest All Stochastic Terrorists In Trump Assassination Attempt & Civilian Murder & Shootings – William M. Briggs (wmbriggs.com)
Which has this link to David Aaronovitch Presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Briefing Room
Notes from the Underground with David Aaronovitch
The best Substack in the Anglosphere by top British journalist, David Aaronovitch
https://x.com/FamedCelebrity/status/1812423992231268712/photo/1
@DAaronovitch
this morning a tweet that I deleted, clearly satirical but deliberately misinterpreted, has been resurrected (and therefore reproduced far more often than the original). Not only does this now endanger me, but also maliciously seeks to obscure my intention: to deplore such violence utterly.”
ps – can somebody clean up my comment!!!
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Previous post in mod, so – Arrest All Stochastic Terrorists In Trump Assassination Attempt & Civilian Murder & Shootings – William M. Briggs (wmbriggs.com)
links to a x comment by David Aaronovitch Presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Briefing Room.
David Aaronovitch
@DAaronovitch This morning a tweet that I deleted, clearly satirical but deliberately misinterpreted, has been resurrected (and therefore reproduced far more often than the original). Not only does this now endanger me, but also maliciously seeks to obscure my intention: to deplore such violence utterly.
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William Briggs, climate sceptic and statistician, who was a strong supporter of Steve McIntyre during Climategate, then banned from Twitter (old regime), may be straying too far from his area of expertise here. End of his long tweet an hour ago …
But it makes you think.
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I rather think from this article – JD Vance as Trump’s Running Mate: A Climate Policy Collision Course? – that the author isn’t a fan of JD Vance.
An extract:
But relax: I’m sure we can rely on Ed Miliband for ‘deft navigation’.
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From that article, this rather gives the game away:
“UK businesses in the renewable energy sector might find themselves facing stiffer competition from a revitalised US oil and gas industry. This could impact the profitability and feasibility of UK renewable energy projects, particularly if US policies drive down global oil and gas prices. The delicate balance of the renewable energy market could be tipped, leaving UK initiatives floundering in the wake of cheaper, more abundant fossil fuels.”
It is policy choices which have rendered fossil fuels relatively expensive (though still cheaper than renewables, when the extra costs associated with renewables are properly taken into account – extra infrastructure, back-up to cope with intermittency, etc). Stop disadvantaging fossil fuels by deliberate policy choices, and renewables will be hung out to dry.
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Surely not? With Milibanned in control of the Clean Energy revolution in the UK, the rest of the world is going to follow our example, not that silly little country the other side of the Pond or even sillier China; that’s what Milibanned promised us, that’s why we’re not committing unilateral economic suicide but leading the world into a bright new age of clean energy.
Robin:
Relax even more. Green blobber energy ignoramus Emma Pinchbeck looks set to become the new CEO of the CCC. Trump/Vance vs. Millibanned/Pinchbeck? No contest. Set the controls for the heart of Sunnica. Thank Gaia, the world will be saved from fossil fuelled climate breakdown!
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From that link (hopefully not covered above) –
“Diplomatic efforts must be redoubled to find common ground and mitigate the negative impacts of US policy shifts. It will be essential for the UK to strengthen alliances with other like-minded nations to keep advancing the global renewable energy agenda. The stakes are high, and the path forward fraught with challenges, but the urgency of the climate crisis demands that we rise to the occasion.
In the end, while Vance’s ascension to the ticket might thrill the MAGA crowd, it casts a long shadow over international efforts to combat climate change. The UK must brace itself for this potential policy collision, ready to lead with resilience and resolve. After all, the future of our planet depends on it.”
OMG – looks like Richard Alvin is another planet saving serial entrepreneur “We win because our people do. Everything is underpinned by our values, chief among which is integrity – without which we are nothing.”
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BREAKING NEWS:
No, this isn’t the Babylon Bee headline, it’s real. The sloping roof in question looks like it has an angle of 15-20 degrees. Really scary. One wrong step and you could go plummeting to your death. I mean, not even hardened mountain goats would risk going up there. Only 20 year old Trump assassins would even think of going up there.
https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1813217646436909550
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13639613/Secret-Service-director-wasnt-roof-gunman.html
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According to the BBC:
Protection for Donald Trump was boosted several weeks ago after US authorities learned of an Iranian plot to kill him, according to national security officials.
Whatever was it like before it was boosted?
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There was much hilarity about Iran having been brought into the picture last night, where Don Bongino hosted not just Tucker Carlson but Donald Trump Jnr. Bongino says Trump’s team had asked for more security on multiple occasions in the past months and the bottom line is that those requests have been rebuffed. Even he was was surprised to learn that there were only three members of the elite Washington SS team he used to belong to at this event. He implored one individual to go public with what he knows about how basic protocols were ignored. But he knows it’s counterproductive for him to say more. It’s up to that individual’s conscience.
Again, some Clisceppers may find it educational, without saying you’ll agree with every word. Everyone present has a very high opinion of JD Vance. Tucker has famously said that in Washington every evil person he knows, from any wing of any party, hates Vance with a passion. You probably won’t read that on BBC Verify.
https://rumble.com/v5782t1-bongino-x-tucker-carlson-live-at-the-rnc.html
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At the risk of continuing a discussion that, at least on the face of it, has nothing to do with climate change, I feel I must draw attention to this Mark Steyn column in which he makes and provides links to some extraordinary claims regarding the Trump assassination attempt: https://www.steynonline.com/14442/when-the-government-wants-you-dead.
His conclusion:
I find it very hard to believe that these allegations are true – but Steyn, whom I respect, seems pretty well convinced. What do others think?
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Robin: Taking my cue from Steyn’s headline I think the evidence is clear:
Not that Steyn’s evidence is complete or flawless. Or anyone’s.
And not that Trump is the best possible representative for divine love among men.
Or climate scepticism.
But better than the alternative, who embraced this evil.
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Ostensibly, the attempted assassination of Trump has nothing to do with climate change (or the climate change mitigation grift), but in today’s crazy world, all the craziness flows from a common source I believe.
So we should not feel unduly pressurised IMO to focus exclusively on the climate craziness, just mainly on that subject.
Somebody wanted Trump dead and the fact that he’s not dead seems like a bona fide miracle to me and, in keeping with what Richard says above, in circumstances where evil is thwarted by such miracles, we tend to give credit to God – as Trump has done. I’m reserving judgement on that one, but if the miracles keep piling up – Trump gets elected without being murdered and he goes on to turn America around and vanquish or at least repel its enemies from within and without – that will be a divine miracle. If Trump/Vance put a stop to the evils of the Green New Deal and the Inflation Reduction Act and, in response, climate crazies across the world, but particularly here in Britain, totally freak out at the prospect of losing their grift, that will be the equivalent of Christ throwing the money-changers out of the church.
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When I said ‘from the same source’, I had not seen this tweet from Ryan Maue or the utterly dreadful posts he was referencing. These ‘climate communicators’ (Mann included) are not toning down the rhetoric, they are ramping it up, almost certainly inciting further attempts on the life of Trump. They are mad and they are bad, functionally evil if not actually evil.
https://x.com/RyanMaue/status/1813578874456064044
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I doubt they’re going to be effective with crucial swing voters. Because, whatever his faults, Trump has exemplified tremendous courage and it will be seen that way by the vast majority. And a number of Silicon Valley donors who’ve come off the fence. Not least Elon Musk. That’s already happened. (It helps that JD Vance was once one of them and has been on the same journey re the Orange One.)
As for inciting further unstable people to try to assassinate Trump, with the help of unrepentant evil in high places, that unfortunately is more likely. This response to Ryan Maue seems fair:
I don’t think we can duck the ‘fight fight fight’.
One miracle doesn’t make a new world. But it’s given honest hearts a chance.
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For the benefit of those who did not check out the Ryan Maue link posted by Jaime above, it features a tweet posted by Michael Mann, which has this to say regarding a recent Trump rally:
I am reminded of something I read in the paper I have just featured in “The Wisdom of Crowds”:
All I can say is if it looks like bias, swims like bias, and quacks like bias, well…
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With explanations like this, who needs loopy conspiracy theories?
Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle is blasted for ‘stupidity’ and ‘BS excuse’ that snipers were not on the roof used by gunman Thomas Crooks because it was ‘too sloped’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13643051/Secret-Service-director-Kimberly-Cheatle-blasted-stupidity-BS-excuse-snipers-not-roof-used-gunman-Thomas-Crooks-sloped.html
Somehow she has managed to come up with something less believable than fake blood and staged assassination.
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John, Cheatle’s ‘BS excuse’ should I think be upgraded to African bull elephant s**t. Because on the other roof, the roof which the feds did choose to guard, two SS snipers are clearly seen perched ‘precariously’ on the sloping pitch. It was one of these guys who eventually took out the assassin after he fired shots. Also, the Secret Service’s job is to put their own lives at risk in the service of protecting Presidents and people running to be President, by acting as human shields if necessary. So we are supposed to believe that a slightly sloping roof is far too dangerous for their snipers but personal protection agents throwing themselves in front of a hail of bullets to protect a President is not! At this point, they are just mocking us. Their absurdity is not a sign of desperation, it has become their weapon of choice.
https://x.com/WhoshotyaCo/status/1813242771274076240
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My memory of ‘point 22’ rifle shooting at school almost 60 years ago is that the firing position was arranged so that the arms holding the rifle were slightly higher than our feet; this arrangement was to assist more accurate shooting. That is, FACING UP-SLOPE HELPS THE MARKSMAN/SNIPER!
Regards, John C.
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I took some time to watch bits of last night’s Republican convention early this morning Somerset time. I didn’t get to JD Vance’s speech (I will) but did listen to some of Don Jnr. So one good, one trickier moment there.
Good (all imo obviously) was building up to the VP pick by saying that he Don was born in Trump Tower and JD in real poverty and family trauma. And yet they’re united. Call me a sucker but that bit felt real.
Trickier: “I don’t believe in coincidences but I do believe in God’s plan.” I have problems with both parts. Meaningless coincidences do happen and not everything goes according to God’s plan. But sometimes He does intervene. And then there’s loads of work to be done. (Jaime speaks of the deepest week of His intervening. Really moving thanks.)
(I write that last paragraph partly because I think it gives more room for agreement with non-theists and agnostics. You may fiercely disagree!)
Thanks too to John R for various deep thoughts, including on incitement from Trump’s opponents like climate crusader Michael Mann. But on X yesterday I came across Cathy Young’s riposte: Donald Trump’s Violent Rhetoric: A Catalogue. So is it even-stevens on that?
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This morning the BBC has a story – Trump gunman seen as threat before attack but was lost in crowd – that contains some interesting information. For example here’s an extract:
But what I found particularly interesting is the picture found by scrolling down. It shows two investigators quite happily standing on that ‘dangerous’ sloping roof.
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It’s safe to go up there when you’re hosing the blood off apparently!
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The comedy ends here. Very disturbing:
https://x.com/Michael_Yon/status/1813286486198132813
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Thanks Jaime. Whatever the motive of that NYT photographer they didn’t just want Trump dead, they wanted this horrendous image of his head exploding on prime time. Pour encourager les autres, as they say.
On coincidences and the extent of conspiracy versus mere malice Daniel Jupp also makes some good points this morning.
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How much time between the blanket tactical channel message and the assassin firing? More than a couple of seconds and it almost certainly proves that it was an inside job. If SS weren’t listening to the blanket tactical channel, then that raises very serious questions also.
https://x.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1813633089454911622
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Richard, that Substack post you reference doesn’t so much pit cockup against conspiracy but cockup vs. malign intent – and it demonstrates that the evidence for malign intent is a lot more persuasive than the evidence which strongly argues against cockup. The author is not a highly trained expert but he can see that clearly. Add this to the analyses by highly trained experts in security, weapons, photography, etc. and you have a pretty damning case overall which, at best, puts the SS in the frame for deliberate, malign incompetence, or, at worst, a planned operation to murder Trump. The odd ‘coincidences’ of CNN suddenly deciding to live stream a Trump rally for the first time, plus a NYT photographer opting to use a maximum 30 frames per second setting points to the latter.
Had Trump got his head blown off that day, this would all no doubt have come out in the wash, but would it have mattered so much I wonder? Trump would be dead. Job done. Deal with the fallout? Not a problem. But Trump isn’t dead – by the grace of God it would seem. That makes the questioning so much more pertinent and dangerous for the Secret Service. The rat is in the corner.
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Jaime, the way I read it Jupp was separating
The maybe coincidences one can come back to later (Jupp says).
I didn’t have long to write my last comment, nor this one!
Grace is a key word here. “Full of grace and truth.” Meaning we need to be ruthless in pursuing truth as well, as you do.
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Regarding the shutter speed etc, I have spoken to a photographer who thinks these are entirely reasonable settings and that the conspiracy theorist does not know what he is talking about.
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Jit,
We are aware of the qualifications of the ‘conspiracy theorist who doesn’t know what he’s talking about’; perhaps you would advise us of the qualifications of your photographer friend who does, apparently.
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Jaime: Your response put me in mind of the word (neologism) doxxing. From that my brain went straight to doxology. I don’t think I’ve ever made that faux-morpheme connection before. Given that I’ve said (to a few of us) that I’ll close this thread to further comments after Trump’s speech tonight I found that funny.
A photographer Jit has spoken to is fine by me. Glad to hear his opinion.
Michael Yon looks an interesting guy. He’s been fasting in Japan for around ten days. He says so in his video follow-up. Which I will now watch, because of this sparky interaction between the two of you.
I’ll leave the Amen till later.
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Richard, I am loathe to get into the ‘my qualifications and experience are better than your qualifications and experience’ argument, because that is BS and is nauseatingly familiar to me from years of interactions with climate ‘experts’ and their cheerleaders. What matters is the evidence. It’s all that matters. But, a guy who has lots of qualifications and experience has commented upon the evidence and has pointedly not gone further than that by advancing his theory as to what the evidence points to. He has not posited any ‘conspiracy theory’, just given us his experienced, rational interpretation of the facts. So I think it is entirely reasonable to enquire of Jit what experience and qualifications his photographer friend has which apparently allow him to conclude that this guy is a conspiracy theorist and doesn’t know what he is talking about. If that creates sparks, then so be it.
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Good article on Trump’s VP pick, J D Vance. A climate change sceptic and a fierce opponent of renewable energy and the abandonment of fossil fuels. No wonder the Green Blob is freaking out at the prospect of a second Trump term:
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Jaime, my correspondent has no qualifications. He does have 50 years’ experience of photography, with a beginning in studio photography taught by a professional. His present setup costs more than most family cars, and is capable of actually taking photographs at 1/8000 s, which is more than most cameras (Clisceppers, go and check the shortest shutter time on your cameras now).
He does admit that something fishy could be established by interrogating the EXIF on the image, but then you would not be looking at the shutter but at the other properties, i.e. the aperture and ISO, as evidence that the 1/8000 was “out of norm.” One has to consider the setup and the purpose of the shot (it is rational to lower the F-stop to achieve a nice bokeh).
If the matter was not a conspiracy theory, I do not see why you would raise it at all. It is either unremarkable or extraordinary. If your expert alleges the latter, it is for a purpose.
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Jit,
Pointing out that something is extraordinary or anomalous does not justify the person who does so being labelled a conspiracy theorist. Also, pointing out that something is extraordinary or anomalous, does not necessarily imply that there is purpose behind it, beyond pointing out that something is abnormal and thus requires an explanation. It certainly does not imply automatically that the purpose is to identify a malign conspiracy. Extraordinary and anomalous observations regarding human events almost always have an innocent explanation. It is only in exceptionally rare circumstances that they turn out to be evidence of a malign conspiracy. The NYT photographer may have a perfectly rational explanation as to why he was shooting at 1/8000th shutter speed that day. I have yet to hear it. In light of the recent online speculation, I expect he will be keen to do so.
I have yet to hear a perfectly rational and innocent explanation for all the other extraordinary goings on at the Butler, PA Trump rally, leading up to the attempted assassination. The end point is most definitely malign intent, in that somebody attempted to murder Trump. Are all the other oddities and unbelievable security failings connected in some way to that end point, i.e. the attempted murder of a presidential candidate? At this stage, it looks more likely than not that they are. They certainly facilitated the attempt on Trump’s life to an extraordinary degree. Flinging accusations of ‘conspiracy theorist’ however, at people who are looking at the evidence, collating the evidence and questioning anomalies is unhelpful at best and deliberately obstructive of genuine enquiry at worst. It is a tactic increasingly used by our enemies to try to shut down questioning of mainstream narratives and delegitimise genuine scepticism by conflating it with wild, evidence-free speculation concerning the existence of nefarious conspiracies and motivations lurking behind strange, unexplained or even perfectly normal occurrences.
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“Trump Vows to Axe Biden’s Electric Car Mandate and Other Green Schemes on “Day One””
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/07/19/trump-vows-to-axe-bidens-electric-car-mandate-and-other-green-schemes-on-day-one/
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Jaime:
It’s never bothered me. Since 1976. It sure doesn’t in this instance. I’d love you to feel the same way.
Mark: Thanks for bringing us back to the subject. Well, it’s not the only subject but it’s very good news. Will they execute better this time? Alan has a point on that.
Jit:
One of the defences I’ve seen on X for an unusual MSM interest in this Trump rally was there were rumours he would reveal his VP pick. The camera tech is not my bag. I was and am grateful for Jaime pointing to this guy. His first reaction was exactly the same as mine – never seen a pic of a bullet trace like that. It means more that he hasn’t! I doubt your friend has, or you would have said. But it’s a sideshow compared to the assassination attempt itself and the level of incompetence that enabled it.
I’ve decided to keep this thread open until it’s clear who is going to be chosen as Trump’s opponent by the Dems.
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Jaime: Just to repeat, don’t take conspiracy theorist as a pejorative. The truth – and honesty about where we don’t have it – is all that matters.
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Richard, accusations of conspiracy theorist coming from the ‘other side’ are water off a duck’s back and even a badge of honour. On your advice, I shall try to broaden this nonchalant response to include those coming from all directions!
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An amusing aside on the whole cockup vs. conspiracy thing. There is a LOT of debate happening on X re. the Crowdstrike Falcon platform update which has caused chaos around the world. Apparently it was a very basic C++ programming error which resulted in the program pointing to an invalid memory address. Some claiming experience in the industry are saying there is no way this could have happened because testing would (should) have been done prior to the release of the forced update to Windows systems, therefore it’s intentional, therefore malign, therefore it’s a CONSPIRACY! Others are saying it could have happened and that it was probably all down to some DEI employee, therefore it’s not intentional, it’s just a cockup.
What these people are missing is the obvious: if it could have happened because Crowdstrike’s quality control/testing systems are so lax that they would allow such an error to pass unnoticed, then that is a cockup obviously. But then you have the option of deciding whether the programmer who made the error is just incompetent or they did it intentionally. But if they did it intentionally, perhaps knowing that it would get past the lax scrutiny at the company and end up blue-screening millions of machines worldwide, then that is still not a conspiracy because you can’t have a conspiracy of one! It takes two or more people to conspire! LOL
It would only be a full blown conspiracy if the error was programmed intentionally or accidentally and then deliberately passed through testing or was not tested, on the assumption that this would require the cooperation of a number of employees working at the company.
Robert Malone hints that there might be “nefarious intent” involved (though he doesn’t mention conspiracy) and frames the argument as “the great Enshittining v. nefarious intent”. LOL again.
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Robert Malone also cross posted this, which summarises the “official narrative” of the Trump shooting plus the many glaringly obvious inconsistencies which point to a CONSPIRACY.
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Thanks Jaime. Bret Weinstein has some other questions.
The most chilling response I’ve seen so far:
The ‘second shooter’ theory mentioned in ‘The Truth About Cancer’ post has itself been shot down. I think. Follow down or back from these tweets
https://x.com/rdrake98/status/1814502521433632902
https://x.com/Rods_of_God/status/1814448360687874166
I think it’s fair to say we’re all conspiracists about this. And any of us can be wrong on a whole host of details.
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Richard,
Difficult to follow all these technical arguments from many people on X. Supposedly, the acoustic trace of the shots was the give-away that there was a third weapon. What we need is a detailed and thorough FBI investigation, made public as soon as possible, but that looks unlikely.
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I think I’m also missing something because the BBC is reporting almost matter-of-fact that Trump has spoken to Zelensky about the war in Ukraine and has apparently stated his resolve to get both sides to end the conflict. Like he’s already the President? With Biden missing in action and the Democrats running around like headless chickens and just a few days after somebody actually tried to blow Trump’s head off at a very public rally with the nation’s press in attendance. After Johnson spoke to Trump in person and got his ‘assurances’ about Ukraine. It’s all getting rather tangled and web-like.
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Even Zuckerberg is warming to Trump:
https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1814323582115234213
Seriously weird. It’s like the bloodied ear is turning into . . . . . a bloodless coup!
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All-In Blog on Trump assassination attempt. Like yo’all at Ciscep. these are data guys with worldly experience and with varied political POVs.
What was the chain of command doing, re that unguarded roof-top and Trump not removed immediately from the Stage when the sniper had been recognised as a person of concern?
In the face of such a security failure, the chain of command do not have the right to investigate themselves and say they’re good!
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Thanks Beth, I watched all of that! JD Vance is such a key figure now and two of the guys knowing him so well really helps. I feel this time, with some younger people in cabinet they’re really going to back out of the Green New Deal and the rest. And the bureaucracy in DC sees that coming and hates it.
Jaime: Zuckerberg changing his tune also doesn’t surprise me. The Tech Bros, despite their vast wealth, are young men susceptible to fads and fashion. Trump’s survival and courage has triggered something with this group.
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Jaime,
“What we need is a detailed and thorough FBI investigation…”
What part of ‘we cannot expect our highly trained special forces to stand on slightly sloped roofs’ did you not understand? Surely a detailed investigation is superfluous in the face of such an obvious explanation. 🙂
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This is very entertaining:
https://x.com/phsjr1/status/1814329661570097283
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This is from Robert Malone on what he calls the Great Enshittening and it illustrates perfectly the reason why we keep going round in circles arguing about incompetence vs. malign intent, or cockup vs. conspiracy on anything from climate change/Net Zero to Covid to the attempted Trump assassination and now the Crowdstrike debacle. Incompetence is there, so is nefarious planning (conspiracy), so are complex systems (with emergent properties). These intersect to give unanticipated consequences, arbitrary bureaucracy and corruption. At the intersecting core of the core of the diagram is the banality of evil (what I have termed functional evil).
One simple diagram explains why we have such a hard time separating incompetence from malign intent from emergent properties of complex systems. Malone really is a treasure.
Speaking for myself, once again, I am struck that the same recurring central clusterfrack (summarized by the Venn diagram below) applies. This is what is causing enshittification to be such a routine problem in modern life —the same set of overlapping forces that are at the heart of the ongoing controversies concerning the assassination attempt on President and Candidate Donald Trump.
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It’s such a complicated ga-a-me.
H/t XTC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzPECgrwjKE
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Beth – thanks for the link, well worth a watch.
ps – @Richard – “The Tech Bros, despite their vast wealth, are young men susceptible to fads and fashion. Trump’s survival and courage has triggered something with this group.”
Not sure what you mean by that, Zuckerberg is 40 (I think).
I would guess what “triggered something with this group” is the tv/net/media coverage showing Trump nearly getting a head shot & getting back up (sadly some in the crowd didn’t).
reading your comment again, I may have misinterpreted.
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dfhunter: An exception is the founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, who is 56 and remains a fiercely anti-Trump Democrat donor
As discussed by David Sacks on the All-In podcast. It’s obviously a complex picture but I do stand by my ‘fads and fashions’ comment. Sacks by contrast I admire for taking a strong line on the tragic Ukraine situation in his RNC speech, which sure isn’t going to please all Republicans
All of these new, younger Trump supporters are also climate sceptics. And unlike Reform UK they have a realistic opportunity to have executive power in 2025. Then it’s all in the execution.
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Jaime,
It’s difficult to say where the CloudStrike debacle fits in the Venn Diagram because the failure of basic software quality assurance seems so profound. Quite apart from a failure to apply adequate regression testing and change control procedures, there is also the absence of encoded error-checking and a failure to pick up on that failure in routine code examination. Add to that the question as to why C++ was chosen for a mission-critical driver. It does happen, but the idea is then to only use a safe subset of the language, such as MISRA C++. I certainly remember when my employer proposed such an application I, in my capacity as software quality manager, immediately sat down with the lead software engineer to define such a subset (MISRA C++ wasn’t available back then). Care would then be taken to ensure compliance with this in-house standard.
All of the above took time and money but was essential to avoid the CloudStrike scenario. I see that CloudStrike has lots of adverts online boasting about their DEI initiatives but nothing about their software development standards and credentials. I’m afraid that is the way everything is going. By the time I had retired, my employer had completely disbanded the SQA department but DEI was going from strength to strength.
https://misra.org.uk/misra-c-plus-plus/
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John: I hadn’t heard of MISRA but most definitely had of the new systems programming language called Rust which doesn’t have the security holes of C++. And yet
Click down to the quoted tweet for mention of “conspiracy”. I won’t try to explain, except to say, like you, this strikes me as classic cockup. From a company richly rewarded for toadying up to corrupt government. That never ends with great quality.
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Linking back to Trump/Vance via DEI here’s Ayaan Hirsi Ali
She quotes this key passage from Vance
So he gave up being a tech venture capitalist.
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Richard,
And I have to admit that Rust is new to me. I should also re-stress that MISRA C++ is not a language as such, rather a defined subset of C++; although I understand that static code analysis tools are available to check compliance. I doubt that CloudStrike are bothered about any of this. They seem more concerned with LGBTQ+ compliance.
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John,
Blackrock is pushing the DEI agenda on many companies by exerting their financial muscle. They are also pushing the climate scam hard. No play ball, then no get vital financial investment.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-10/blackrock-plans-to-push-companies-on-racial-diversity-in-2021
It is no coincidence that Blackrock is a major shareholder in Crowdstrike. So what you’ve got is a huge investment corporation manipulating the recruitment market and creating the conditions where incompetence is bound to cause problems – a very major, global problem in the case of the Crowdstrike Falcon update. If indeed it was incompetence which caused the programming error.
Why is Larry Fink at Blackrock pushing the DEI agenda so hard? He must be aware of the potential catastrophic consequences – in the aviation industry for instance. This is why that Venn diagram is so useful. It tells us nothing about actual motivations and what is happening on the ground, but it gives us a good insight into what forces are at play, what the inputs might be which explain the empirically observable output.
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And here’s your climate link, specifically the Net Zero agenda being foisted upon the UK, where the diverse, equitable and inclusive NG ESO (soon to be NESO) are currently setting out their plans for Britain’s zero carbon energy future (nightmare):
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/future-energy-scenarios-brainstorm
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/future-energy-scenarios-brainstorm/comment/62754488
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New York Post yesterday but only just spotted:
Did Robert Malone predict that? Or anyone in conspiracist corner? Or is it bunk?
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Richard, I wonder if Trump is aware of the saying:
“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer still”?
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Jaime,
It’s so sad. I remember when organisations were just judged on their ability to deliver the products and services they were designed for, and (where appropriate) to do so profitably. Now it’s all about adopting the right ideology. I could see the writing on the wall in my company when the HR manager decreed that, as software quality manager, I should report to her. My abject refusal to cooperate had a lot to do with my ultimate demise.
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Biden has resigned. Now what?
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Robin, he’s resigned from campaigning, withdrawn from the race, but claims he will now focus on fulfilling his duties as President for the rest of his term . . . . . which I guess means more incoherent ramblings. So Dems have to choose a new candidate from a decidedly motley bunch to go up against Die Hard Supertrump!
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Jaime: so I understand. But what I find hard to understand is how someone who knows he’s incapable to running an election campaign believes he’s capable of being the President of the USA.
As for the Dems choosing the new candidate, it’s reported that Biden has endorsed Kamala Harris.
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What I find hard to understand is anything that Harris says:
https://www.foxnews.com/media/most-awkward-embarrassing-kamala-harris-word-salads-2022
At least Biden had senility as an excuse.
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The Dem contender? When she’s on the world stage with Putin, Chi et al will she be able to
manage her ( uncontrollable ) mirth?
Will a good time be had by all?
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If Kamala Harris runs for President, millions of America’s founding fathers and mothers will be turning in their graves – and the Dems will make sure that they all vote for the cackling idiot.
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‘…If Kamala Harris runs for President, millions of America’s founding fathers and mothers will be turning in their graves –’ 😦
What would Benjamin Franklin and John Adams say?
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One might hope Beth that they might say “About time”.
Odd that Trump might run against two women opponents in seeking the presidency.
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It’s been a while since I removed comments from any of my threads. But let’s notice what’s odious in the current conversation, on more than one side.
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Richard, many thanks.
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No problem. There are many such traps would-be critics of Biden and Harris can fall into. For me Abigail Shrier nailed both sides of the story two days ago. Starting with the weakest spot: Harris’s advocacy of a Net Zero like policy for the US.
There again, will Harris finally be Trump’s opponent?
From the same New York Post which got the Hunter Biden laptop story absolutely right four years ago, leading to my screenshot at the top.
Mysteries remain.
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“Democrats’ VP pick Tim Walz welcomed as climate champion by green advocates
Kamala Harris’s running mate boasts a strong record on climate policy and green energy as Minnesota governor”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/07/tim-walz-climate-change-policy-environment
…”Like Vice-President Harris, Governor Walz knows that climate change is the existential threat of our time,” the Sierra Club executive director, Ben Jealous, said in a statement. “The Harris-Walz ticket is one that understands the fight before us.”…
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Thanks for that Mark. I have only listened to fragments of Trump’s 2+ hour conversation with Elon Musk (I will listen to it all) but this, from what seems an even-handed tweet review, I find intriguing:
Isn’t that all we’re asking for, instead of “client journalism”.
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I have listened to three interviews JD Vance gave over the weekend. He criticises Kamala Harris’s stance on climate/energy, in two very different contexts, in the first two:
Dana Bash on CNN
Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation
Jonathan Karl on ABC News
I may have missed other references but I’ll come back to those two.
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From Grok, X’s own AI, under Musk-Trump Talk on Climate
We can all make mistakes! I have a nice newfangled transcript maker now but will only listen to the whole thing tomorrow. I certainly think this event matters in shedding some light, however imperfect.
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“Trump would pull out of Paris climate treaty again – and Harris faces tough choices
If elected, the Democrat is likely to face a trade-off over manufacturing jobs and economic independence from China”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/13/donald-trump-paris-climate-treaty-kamala-harris-china
…As president, Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Paris climate agreement, while the US under Joe Biden rejoined it. Trump has promised to expand oil and gas production, and his campaign has said he will again withdraw the US from the Paris accord if he wins a second term.
By contrast, Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, supported the Green New Deal, an ambitious congressional plan for tackling the climate crisis, while serving in the Senate in 2019. As California’s attorney general, she investigated the oil industry, securing a settlement from a subsidiary of BP for underground gas tank ruptures, as well as indictments against a Texas-based pipeline operator for an environmentally damaging oil leak.
Clearly, the positions of the two candidates on the climate crisis could not be more different.
But one might ask: what is so catastrophic about a newly re-elected Trump pulling the US out of the Paris accord a second time, if the next president could, like Biden, simply rejoin it?
In fact, Trump’s advisers are aware of the possibility. They are reportedly drafting executive orders that would remove the US not just from the Paris climate agreement but also from the UN framework convention on climate change, the foundation on which the Paris agreement is built.
Reversing that step would then require approval by the US Senate. And Senate approval cannot be taken for granted, given the ample representation in that chamber of oil- and gas-rich states.
Moreover, a Trump presidency would put other bilateral climate agreements, actual and potential, at risk. Currently, a prospective US-EU climate deal, intended to reconcile the respective economies’ different approaches to reining in greenhouse gas emissions, is in suspended animation, owing to the approach of the US election….
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Historic. RFK Jr has dropped out of the race and is supporting Trump, and will speak at a Trump rally in Arizona. He realises the future of the USA is at stake and rightly discerns the existential threat of a Harris/Walz administration. So the man who has long campaigned against ‘Big Oil’ and has talked up the ‘climate crisis’ has put his patriotic duty to his country first and aligned himself with Trump. Sad that his own sister has now publicly disowned him, but the proud legacy of the Kennedy family lives on in RFK Jr alone, not the rest of the sell outs.
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Jaime:
“So the man who has long campaigned against ‘Big Oil’ and has talked up the ‘climate crisis’ has put his patriotic duty to his country first and aligned himself with Trump.”
Key indicator for change. We can hope. Both men’s comments about assassinations and attempted assassinations last night I found very moving.
That should jump right there.
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Could US developments explain the gloominess of the drivers of climate alarm this side of the pond?
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This is absolutely stunning from Malone on the Kennedy speech. I can normally lift a few quintessential quotes which summarise a piece of writing, but every single word of this article is quintessential wisdom and it needs to be read, demands to be read. I’ve said it before: Robert Malone has been an absolute treasure throughout these last four years, ever since that seminal Dark Horse podcast and he, more than anyone, has suffered the slings and arrows of the opposition and from ‘our side’ and has come out stronger, meaner, leaner and fighting. He is a real inspiration and so is RFK.
https://www.malone.news/p/rf-kennedy-jr-and-political-realignment
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Love him or hate him, the reaction to the win in some quarters, as documented by the Telegraph, has been funny.
Is this real, or performative?
For us, the key point is surely whether he will effectively destroy the global climate merry-go-round. If he does, do we carry on showing “climate leadership”?
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If Trump withdraws from the Paris Agreement and the UNFCC, I think that will sound the death knell for any future COPs and it’s going to put Mr Milibean in a very awkward position. My guess is that he won’t be around for much longer.
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I known for my caution on such matters but Kamala Harris has now conceded
https://x.com/amuse/status/1854235889431642222
and called her opponent, emphasizing a peaceful transfer of power.
I think we all have much to be thankful for, in the size of Trump’s victory this time.
As I put it on 14th July
I’m incredibly thankful today. It can only improve the climate/energy situation, including for the UK. But I feel it’s much deeper than that.
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Personally I think Trump as POTUS is a disaster for everything except climate policy, but it’s democracy in action, I accept it, and I hope that the Trump-haters in the US and around the world accept it this time.
It’s not all bad news, of course. With the German coalition possibly about to crumble, if Trump drastically changes the US approach to climate/net zero etc, then far from Britain “leading the world” (sic) we will increasingly look like a strange outlier. And that has to be a difficult position for the Labour government to maintain, especially if power cuts kick in, energy becomes much more expensive, and the EU starts to change its tune.
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This has got to be the headline of the year from Matt Taibbi:
Giant Electoral Asteroid Strikes America’s Intellectual Class, Which Fails to Notice
https://www.racket.news/p/giant-electoral-asteroid-strikes
LOL
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I think the winning argument was something like this:
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Regarding Democrats’ support for wokism and mis/disi/nformation
I think Trump’s Election win is a victory for free speech. Maybe my
southern home land will follow the example.
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“Trump victory ‘major setback’ to climate action”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5ygplyg09ro
[Comment box quick links ?temporarily? broken.]
Hopefully it might rather mean more consideration of the costs of climate action, alongside a realistic consideration of the “benefits”.
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Jit – thanks for the link to that BBC article. It says, re the Paris Agreement:
No it didn’t: developing countries (the source of over 60% of global emissions) were specifically exempted from any obligation to cut their emissions. There’s a lot of other nonsense in the article – I might refer to it in the COP29 thread.
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I particularly liked this paragraph:
“But with renewable energy gaining a strong foothold in the US and popular support for wind and solar, Trump’s efforts to ramp up oil and gas instead may be less effective.”
I think that’s called whistling in the dark to keep your spirits up. It calls for a fact check by BBC Verify who would no doubt report on it, if it were a Trumpian statement, as being made without evidence.
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The Hunter Biden story that provided the New York Post pic for this post over four years ago has now come to its hilarious/tragic conclusion. Detectable egg on various high-minded media faces is of course being denied by the usual sources.
What is going to happen in Trump’s second term? Three ‘neocon’ thinkers discussed this with Peter Robinson five days ago, with a lot of attempted historical perspective, right or wrong. One strength of the conversation for me was what all three admitted they’d got wrong about the guy, despite his obvious flaws. Another was the importance of Biden’s green revolution in losing the election for Harris and as an easy way for Trump to make his term considered a success, most likely leading to two successive terms for JD Vance, where concern for those in energy poverty would remain centre-stage. One of the trio, a bit like Mark Hodgson, remains extremely wary. But Henry Olsen summed up some of the upside, including the green aspect.
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42 mts – The legacy Liberal media portion was worth a watch as well. Smug “boys” having a chat.
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dfh: Yes, that section on the death of the liberal MSM, with help from David Sacks, is either sobering or exciting – Podhoretz’s point of view, and mine. The Guardian becoming meaningless, marginal noise, even compared to the last ten years? Bring it on.
It’s what Podhoretz says about the centrality of fracking and cheap reliable energy later that most resonated with me. In the context of Trump’s character flaws around 1h08m. Leading to two terms of JD Vance, who they all seem to rate very highly.
That will give the valiant UK resistance to Net Zero considerable covering fire-power, even if the reported Musk donation of $100m to Reform doesn’t happen!
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Nature on the review of NSF grants:
Today being Monday 3rd February.
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As this is a storage catch-all for matters Trump, I wanted to note this headline in the BBC’s live coverage of Israel-Iran:
“Trump’s social media rhetoric points to possible entry in conflict – expert”
[@8.29]
It takes a real expert to take Trump’s:
And deduce that it points to a possible entry into the conflict. This is why the experts get the big bucks. No ordinary folk could ever have interpreted what Trump said in that way.
[Truth Social quotes via the Telegraph.]
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A note to posterity: yesterday, Trump gave a rambling diatribe in the UN, in which, among other things, he railed against climate change hysteria. Jo Nova describes the climate-related parts of his speech here.
Apparently he also dislikes the tiles at the UN. They are hideous as a backdrop for a leader to stand against, that is true – something that once seen, cannot be unseen, and is slightly distracting.
On the same day, a network of hidden sim farms was found, primed to disrupts telecommunications in the vicinity of the UN. To what end? Time will tell.
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Jit, here according to CFACT is a partial transcript of what Trump said about climate policy when he addressed the UN General Assembly:
As you say, JoNova has even more.
It’s no exaggeration to describe all this as extraordinary.
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Watched about 1/2 of tonight’s – Channel 4 Announces Night of TV Dedicated To Donald Trump Untruths | Channel 4
But had to give up. The unrelenting bias was to much.
As for the Sadik Khan and Donald Trump rumpus. seems some MSM forget this –
Donald Trump baby blimp ready to take first steps – BBC News
“A controversial blimp, that will fly to protest US president Donald Trump’s visit, is ready for launch, its organisers told the Victoria Derbyshire programme.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has given permission for the helium-filled six-metre (19.7ft) high balloon to fly.”
Think that was never forgotten by Trump.
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