I’ll always be ready. I’m not stopping just because the kremlin wants an overbloated orange fungus to declare itself as a king/god. I’m ready to vote like my life depends on it. It always has and always will. I’m especially always ready to vanquish evil by any means necessary. Stay safe. I’ll see you all at the polls.
You don’t mince words and I love it! Kevin Roberts can kiss my ass! The fascists on the Supreme Court all need to be impeached. They are rewriting the fucking constitution! They are traitors. Goddamnit, we have to take this country back from the brink. I’m a 74 yr old woman but I will fight till my last breath for democracy and freedom. These fascists don’t have a chance when all the patriots in this country awaken to the danger we’re in.
I must admit that immediately after the debate I too thought Biden should step aside. But I've had time to think and read and I've been convinced otherwise. There are a number of reasons for that: 1) debates don't influence the vote by any significant amount. Obama had a pretty bad first debate yet he still won and Hillary had a great first debate yet she still lost. 2) the democrats just don't have any obvious candidate to take Biden's place. If they had they'd have pushed for them long ago. 3) you don't change horses mid-stream. Changing candidates at this late stage is very likely to be deleterious to the Democrat campaign. Biden, for all his faults is a known entity, any new candidate wouldn't be. Biden has also been a remarkably successful president, one of the 10 best ever.
Finally, as I keep saying, Trump is older than Biden was when he took office. On top of that Trump is showing marked signs of age related mental and physical deterioration, far more than Biden. In fact, Biden seems remarkably fit and sharp and any deterioration is minimal, well within what you'd expect.
Anyway, I'm off to vote (our elections (UK) are always on a Thursday. Don't ask me why, it's been that way since long before I first voted in the ’79 election. It does seem an odd day for elections but polling stations are open from 07:00 - 22:00. Early results will probably start coming in around 01:00 - 02:00. It'll be a long night. All the polls indicate a landslide for the Labour Party (traditionally a left wing, social democrat party but taken very much to the centre by Tony Blair and even more so by its current leader, Keir Starmer) and a drubbing for the Conservative Party (incumbents for the last 14 years and a right wing, market capitalist party. If the polls are accurate, the Tories will have their worst result since 1830. Some are predicting as few as 155 seats of a total of 650!). They're broadly similar to the Democrats and Republicans, though the Tories (short for Conservative, singular Tory), while bad aren't as awful as the GOP has become). Curiously their colours are opposite which has led to some confusion in my case, red for Labour, blue for Tory. Labour has a rose as its symbol, the Tories a blue torch. There are a few other parties, most notably the Lib-Dems (liberal democrats who used to be the Liberal party until they merged with the SPD in 1988, the Social Democrat Party, a splinter group of the Labour Party founded by the ‘Gang of Four’ in 1981. Then there's the Green Party; Reform, who used to be UKIP, the UK Independence Party, a very right wing party originally formed solely on the single issue of getting Britain out of the EU; the SNP in Scotland, the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymry, a Welsh nationalist party. I won't go into the Northern Ireland parties, there are about half a dozen broadly split between unionists, largely Protestant who want to remain part of the UK and Republicans, mostly Catholics who want to unite with Eire (the Republic of Ireland. That's enough British politics. Sorry about that, thought I'd give a quick summary of our situation. I hope it wasn't too tiresome 🙂).
Excellent explanation—thank you! I’m excited for the hope that Labour will have a big win. In 2016, the Brexit win was a foreshadowing of the horror of King Donald ascending to the presidency. I fervently hope that this time, Labour’s victory will foreshadow our blue Democratic wave in November. I have cousins in the Liverpool area, and I really love the UK. Good luck!
Thank you for this mini history lesson on UK politics. I hope the labour party wins big. It would be a nice contrast to what’s happening in France right now, which is a bit disconcerting to say the least.
That was a great summery. Sounds like you guys are headed in a positive direction. Wish we were. It’s scary as fuck over here. These MAGA’s are nuts. Wish us luck over here. We’re gonna need it. Cheers mate. 👍😎
Thank you all for your kind comments 🙏🏼. I thought I'd give you an update on our elections as you seem to be genuinely interested. As you may have heard, Labour won a landslide and the Tories did even worse than expected. I'd like to add a few observations to give more detail and context. Labour won 412 of 650 seats, the Tories just 121, their worst result ever (the polls were predicting 155 which would have been their worst since 1830). There are a handful of constituencies yet to declare but they won't make a great deal of difference except to the smaller parties. The Lib-Dems were big winners, increasing their representation by 60 seats, from 11 to 71. The Greens won 4 seats (previously 1) and, I regret to say, Reform UK also won 4 seats (previously 0). Finally, the SNP lost 40 seats and have just 8. I don't have the figures for Plaid Cymry but they did well: the Tories lost all their seats in Wales. Reform UK, who aren't actually a political party but a limited company (very odd, no doubt for tax reasons) actually polled 16% of the vote, so their lack of seats is one thing to thank our skewed and undemocratic First Past the Post (FPTP) system for. The Tories got 23.7% of the vote, Labour 33.7%, only 1.5% more than in the 2019 election, which was one of their worst results since WWII. Go figure. It's similar for the Lib-Dems who with 12.2% only polled 0.7% more than in the 2019 election. Note how many more seats than Reform they got with ¾ of the votes. It's all a bit baffling how such large differences can occur with such small swings. I don't have a figure for the turnout yet, but it was low, between 55%-65%. There's no doubt that there was a lot of tactical voting and that despite their huge majority, this was more of an expression of the country's dissatisfaction with the Tories than it was an endorsement of Labour. I would like to think that Reform wouldn't have done as well if we had a fairer voting system. I'm fairly sure that the Green Party would do a lot better, as one of the reasons they poll so low is tactical voting. With proportional representation (PR) that would be much less common, people would be far more likely to vote for their preferred candidate/party, depending on the system used. We did have a referendum on 2011 but the form of PR on offer (the Alternative Vote system also known as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)) was the worst of the various options: it was overwhelmingly rejected (there was a very low turnout of just 42.2% and the result was 67.9%-32.1% against. It was promised to the Lib-Dems by the Tories as part of their coalition agreement and I'm fairly convinced that the reason we weren't asked whether we wanted PR in general or offered alternatives such as the Single Transferable Vote (STV) was to minimise its chances of success.
The one advantage of FPTP that's always trotted out is that the Member of Parliament (MP) for one's constituency is a direct representative; MPs do have regular ‘surgeries’ where constituents can meet them to discuss particular issues and problems they have. IRV is the one system of PR where that link would be preserved. I'll give you brief a summary of the various PR systems. Under IRV everyone gets a single vote but they rank the candidates in order of preference. If any candidate has over 50% of the votes they win. If no candidate has >50% the last placed candidate is eliminated and their votes distributed among the remaining candidates according to the second choices on their votes. This process goes on until one candidate has over 50% (using the 3ʳᵈ choice if the 2ⁿᵈ has already been eliminated). Under STV a constituency has several representatives, usually between 3-7 and the voter can put as many of the candidates as they want in order of preference, i.e. you can put them all in order of preference, only give your first choice, or rank any number in between. Under this system there is a quota of the minimum number of votes required to become elected, called the ‘droop quota’. It's calculated with the formula nᵥ ÷ (k + 1) where nᵥ is the total number of votes cast and k is the number of candidates to be elected. As a percentage of the votes cast nᵥ is always 100, so with three candidates the droop quota is 25% of the total votes cast. There are two other types of PR: Party List where you vote for a party rather than a candidate. Candidates are allocated seats in the order of each party's list according to their share of the vote, e.g. if a party got enough votes for 20 seats they are allocated to the first 20 candidates on their list. Finally there's Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (MMP). This is basically a mix of Party List and FPTP. Under this system you get two votes, one for a candidate and one for a party. A local representative is elected as in FPTP and additional candidates are allocated seats according to the party votes as in the Party List system. This would have been a preferential option in the referendum and would probably have gotten more support than the IRV system and would have retained the single representative per constituency. There is a version of this system under which each constituency gets more than one representative. If you're interested in more detail here's a link to the Wikipedia page on PR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation?wprov=sfla1 . All of these systems have their advantages and disadvantages but they're all fairer and more democratic than FPTP. STV, which is my preference generally considered the fairest system results in 81% of voters seeing their first choice elected and at least 15% getting their first two choices.
I was encouraged to give those update by your kind comments so I hope you found it interesting and informative. I know it's still a bit over four months to go but I wish you all the best of luck and will be keeping my fingers crossed for you🤞🏼. I really hope that the Democrats don't make any hasty decisions, we need to be united to avoid the disaster of another Trump presidency. I read a report on SubStack recently, by an non-political organisation of historians (unfortunately I can't find it again, I really should make a note of articles I'm likely to refer to 😔. If I do manage to find it again I'll post a link) ranked Biden as one of the ten best presidents in US history. They also ranked Trump as one of the five worst! Why this isn't more apparent to the electorate is a mystery to me.
I haven't found the report I read but the American Historical Organisation conducted a survey among historians and presidential experts that ranks Biden's presidency 14ᵗʰ and Trump's 46ᵗʰ (i.e. the worst) in US history.
If you believe that winning debates is a harbinger of winning the presidency, just ask President Hillary Clinton or President Mitt Romney. We all need to get our asses to the polls and once and for all eradicate the demented Orangutan and his Nazi police.
Happy Independence Day, I hope we get another one. That was what I was saying to everyone I saw on the grocery store today. Yes I was part of that parade of older women in their red, white and blue, rolling our carts and hoping to get through, just another day. But it’s not just another day. We might not get another one like today next year. So as I stood behind a guy in line with a Trump cap on (Trump on the back strap … deliciously sarcastic on its “strap”), and could not resist saying “if Trump wins we’re not gonna get another Independence Day”. and around and looked at me and said what? And I repeated it, and he said OK. Who was the wimp in that moment?
If Biden says he will impeach Thomas and Alito his poll numbers would go up immensely. He has immunity now and in the drivers seat. He should take a stand and start weeding out the corrupt court.
I totally agree with you.The putrid SCROTUS and the media vultures that are after Biden to withdraw had already made up their minds that he needed to go BEFORE the actual debate.They were just waiting for a fuck-up moment from him to shit can him and it so happened to happen at the debate.Notice the flaming murderous screaming from CNN, MSNBC and the others who were calling for his head even before the debate was over.Lawrence O’Donnell was the only one to not guillotine Biden.Period.The media and beyond corrupt scotus is not going to mandate who I vote for and I am NOT abandoning Joe Biden.F the traitors and Nazi trash!
Exactly, thank God we still have this chance to vote.
On a different note, I would like to see JD Vance demoralized and no longer a candidate for tfg’s running mate, maybe he will step off the curb and get whacked…..
Thank you for mentioning Lawrence O’Donnell—he has been my hero since that debate! I work at home and usually have MSNBC on in the background all day, but Tuesday and Wednesday—and today—I’ve had to turn it off, except at 10 o’clock for Lawrence. Oh, and Tuesday night for Maddow’s tour de force interview with Stormy Daniels.
Yes Lawrence has been a beacon of light in these dark times .I was even a bit disappointed in Rachel Maddow as she was moving forward to the talk about removing Joe Biden from the ballot.I would have expected her to be a champion of Joe’s but no.
"Trump has been credibly accused of raping a 12-year-old girl multiple times"
I haven't looked into this much, but unless there is more than what I have seen (largely leaping to salacious conclusions by people who have an agenda akin to pushing the Tara Reade claims) really calls that "credibly" into question.
I’ll always be ready. I’m not stopping just because the kremlin wants an overbloated orange fungus to declare itself as a king/god. I’m ready to vote like my life depends on it. It always has and always will. I’m especially always ready to vanquish evil by any means necessary. Stay safe. I’ll see you all at the polls.
Love this!
You don’t mince words and I love it! Kevin Roberts can kiss my ass! The fascists on the Supreme Court all need to be impeached. They are rewriting the fucking constitution! They are traitors. Goddamnit, we have to take this country back from the brink. I’m a 74 yr old woman but I will fight till my last breath for democracy and freedom. These fascists don’t have a chance when all the patriots in this country awaken to the danger we’re in.
Hear! Hear!
Women better come out in Droves!! 45 brags and brags, grabbing us and taking away our human rights!! No respect for humans! Or America!
I must admit that immediately after the debate I too thought Biden should step aside. But I've had time to think and read and I've been convinced otherwise. There are a number of reasons for that: 1) debates don't influence the vote by any significant amount. Obama had a pretty bad first debate yet he still won and Hillary had a great first debate yet she still lost. 2) the democrats just don't have any obvious candidate to take Biden's place. If they had they'd have pushed for them long ago. 3) you don't change horses mid-stream. Changing candidates at this late stage is very likely to be deleterious to the Democrat campaign. Biden, for all his faults is a known entity, any new candidate wouldn't be. Biden has also been a remarkably successful president, one of the 10 best ever.
Finally, as I keep saying, Trump is older than Biden was when he took office. On top of that Trump is showing marked signs of age related mental and physical deterioration, far more than Biden. In fact, Biden seems remarkably fit and sharp and any deterioration is minimal, well within what you'd expect.
Anyway, I'm off to vote (our elections (UK) are always on a Thursday. Don't ask me why, it's been that way since long before I first voted in the ’79 election. It does seem an odd day for elections but polling stations are open from 07:00 - 22:00. Early results will probably start coming in around 01:00 - 02:00. It'll be a long night. All the polls indicate a landslide for the Labour Party (traditionally a left wing, social democrat party but taken very much to the centre by Tony Blair and even more so by its current leader, Keir Starmer) and a drubbing for the Conservative Party (incumbents for the last 14 years and a right wing, market capitalist party. If the polls are accurate, the Tories will have their worst result since 1830. Some are predicting as few as 155 seats of a total of 650!). They're broadly similar to the Democrats and Republicans, though the Tories (short for Conservative, singular Tory), while bad aren't as awful as the GOP has become). Curiously their colours are opposite which has led to some confusion in my case, red for Labour, blue for Tory. Labour has a rose as its symbol, the Tories a blue torch. There are a few other parties, most notably the Lib-Dems (liberal democrats who used to be the Liberal party until they merged with the SPD in 1988, the Social Democrat Party, a splinter group of the Labour Party founded by the ‘Gang of Four’ in 1981. Then there's the Green Party; Reform, who used to be UKIP, the UK Independence Party, a very right wing party originally formed solely on the single issue of getting Britain out of the EU; the SNP in Scotland, the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymry, a Welsh nationalist party. I won't go into the Northern Ireland parties, there are about half a dozen broadly split between unionists, largely Protestant who want to remain part of the UK and Republicans, mostly Catholics who want to unite with Eire (the Republic of Ireland. That's enough British politics. Sorry about that, thought I'd give a quick summary of our situation. I hope it wasn't too tiresome 🙂).
Excellent explanation—thank you! I’m excited for the hope that Labour will have a big win. In 2016, the Brexit win was a foreshadowing of the horror of King Donald ascending to the presidency. I fervently hope that this time, Labour’s victory will foreshadow our blue Democratic wave in November. I have cousins in the Liverpool area, and I really love the UK. Good luck!
Thank you. I'm going to reply to my original comment to give you the results and a few observations…
John Oliver had a great piece on the upcoming UK election. I appreciate your further commentary.
I do like him but haven't seen that. I'll look it up, thank you.
Thank you for this mini history lesson on UK politics. I hope the labour party wins big. It would be a nice contrast to what’s happening in France right now, which is a bit disconcerting to say the least.
It was interesting and cleared a lot up for me! Thanks for this.
That was a great summery. Sounds like you guys are headed in a positive direction. Wish we were. It’s scary as fuck over here. These MAGA’s are nuts. Wish us luck over here. We’re gonna need it. Cheers mate. 👍😎
I do wish you luck, most fervently 🤞🏼
Thank you all for your kind comments 🙏🏼. I thought I'd give you an update on our elections as you seem to be genuinely interested. As you may have heard, Labour won a landslide and the Tories did even worse than expected. I'd like to add a few observations to give more detail and context. Labour won 412 of 650 seats, the Tories just 121, their worst result ever (the polls were predicting 155 which would have been their worst since 1830). There are a handful of constituencies yet to declare but they won't make a great deal of difference except to the smaller parties. The Lib-Dems were big winners, increasing their representation by 60 seats, from 11 to 71. The Greens won 4 seats (previously 1) and, I regret to say, Reform UK also won 4 seats (previously 0). Finally, the SNP lost 40 seats and have just 8. I don't have the figures for Plaid Cymry but they did well: the Tories lost all their seats in Wales. Reform UK, who aren't actually a political party but a limited company (very odd, no doubt for tax reasons) actually polled 16% of the vote, so their lack of seats is one thing to thank our skewed and undemocratic First Past the Post (FPTP) system for. The Tories got 23.7% of the vote, Labour 33.7%, only 1.5% more than in the 2019 election, which was one of their worst results since WWII. Go figure. It's similar for the Lib-Dems who with 12.2% only polled 0.7% more than in the 2019 election. Note how many more seats than Reform they got with ¾ of the votes. It's all a bit baffling how such large differences can occur with such small swings. I don't have a figure for the turnout yet, but it was low, between 55%-65%. There's no doubt that there was a lot of tactical voting and that despite their huge majority, this was more of an expression of the country's dissatisfaction with the Tories than it was an endorsement of Labour. I would like to think that Reform wouldn't have done as well if we had a fairer voting system. I'm fairly sure that the Green Party would do a lot better, as one of the reasons they poll so low is tactical voting. With proportional representation (PR) that would be much less common, people would be far more likely to vote for their preferred candidate/party, depending on the system used. We did have a referendum on 2011 but the form of PR on offer (the Alternative Vote system also known as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)) was the worst of the various options: it was overwhelmingly rejected (there was a very low turnout of just 42.2% and the result was 67.9%-32.1% against. It was promised to the Lib-Dems by the Tories as part of their coalition agreement and I'm fairly convinced that the reason we weren't asked whether we wanted PR in general or offered alternatives such as the Single Transferable Vote (STV) was to minimise its chances of success.
The one advantage of FPTP that's always trotted out is that the Member of Parliament (MP) for one's constituency is a direct representative; MPs do have regular ‘surgeries’ where constituents can meet them to discuss particular issues and problems they have. IRV is the one system of PR where that link would be preserved. I'll give you brief a summary of the various PR systems. Under IRV everyone gets a single vote but they rank the candidates in order of preference. If any candidate has over 50% of the votes they win. If no candidate has >50% the last placed candidate is eliminated and their votes distributed among the remaining candidates according to the second choices on their votes. This process goes on until one candidate has over 50% (using the 3ʳᵈ choice if the 2ⁿᵈ has already been eliminated). Under STV a constituency has several representatives, usually between 3-7 and the voter can put as many of the candidates as they want in order of preference, i.e. you can put them all in order of preference, only give your first choice, or rank any number in between. Under this system there is a quota of the minimum number of votes required to become elected, called the ‘droop quota’. It's calculated with the formula nᵥ ÷ (k + 1) where nᵥ is the total number of votes cast and k is the number of candidates to be elected. As a percentage of the votes cast nᵥ is always 100, so with three candidates the droop quota is 25% of the total votes cast. There are two other types of PR: Party List where you vote for a party rather than a candidate. Candidates are allocated seats in the order of each party's list according to their share of the vote, e.g. if a party got enough votes for 20 seats they are allocated to the first 20 candidates on their list. Finally there's Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (MMP). This is basically a mix of Party List and FPTP. Under this system you get two votes, one for a candidate and one for a party. A local representative is elected as in FPTP and additional candidates are allocated seats according to the party votes as in the Party List system. This would have been a preferential option in the referendum and would probably have gotten more support than the IRV system and would have retained the single representative per constituency. There is a version of this system under which each constituency gets more than one representative. If you're interested in more detail here's a link to the Wikipedia page on PR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation?wprov=sfla1 . All of these systems have their advantages and disadvantages but they're all fairer and more democratic than FPTP. STV, which is my preference generally considered the fairest system results in 81% of voters seeing their first choice elected and at least 15% getting their first two choices.
I was encouraged to give those update by your kind comments so I hope you found it interesting and informative. I know it's still a bit over four months to go but I wish you all the best of luck and will be keeping my fingers crossed for you🤞🏼. I really hope that the Democrats don't make any hasty decisions, we need to be united to avoid the disaster of another Trump presidency. I read a report on SubStack recently, by an non-political organisation of historians (unfortunately I can't find it again, I really should make a note of articles I'm likely to refer to 😔. If I do manage to find it again I'll post a link) ranked Biden as one of the ten best presidents in US history. They also ranked Trump as one of the five worst! Why this isn't more apparent to the electorate is a mystery to me.
I haven't found the report I read but the American Historical Organisation conducted a survey among historians and presidential experts that ranks Biden's presidency 14ᵗʰ and Trump's 46ᵗʰ (i.e. the worst) in US history.
Punch a nazi in the face.....
I think that's my favorite quote from you. 😊👊
If you believe that winning debates is a harbinger of winning the presidency, just ask President Hillary Clinton or President Mitt Romney. We all need to get our asses to the polls and once and for all eradicate the demented Orangutan and his Nazi police.
Happy Independence Day, I hope we get another one. That was what I was saying to everyone I saw on the grocery store today. Yes I was part of that parade of older women in their red, white and blue, rolling our carts and hoping to get through, just another day. But it’s not just another day. We might not get another one like today next year. So as I stood behind a guy in line with a Trump cap on (Trump on the back strap … deliciously sarcastic on its “strap”), and could not resist saying “if Trump wins we’re not gonna get another Independence Day”. and around and looked at me and said what? And I repeated it, and he said OK. Who was the wimp in that moment?
If Biden says he will impeach Thomas and Alito his poll numbers would go up immensely. He has immunity now and in the drivers seat. He should take a stand and start weeding out the corrupt court.
This, every word of this! Thanks Justin and Happy 4th.
Now I have a name for my voodoo doll.
Thank you!
I totally agree with you.The putrid SCROTUS and the media vultures that are after Biden to withdraw had already made up their minds that he needed to go BEFORE the actual debate.They were just waiting for a fuck-up moment from him to shit can him and it so happened to happen at the debate.Notice the flaming murderous screaming from CNN, MSNBC and the others who were calling for his head even before the debate was over.Lawrence O’Donnell was the only one to not guillotine Biden.Period.The media and beyond corrupt scotus is not going to mandate who I vote for and I am NOT abandoning Joe Biden.F the traitors and Nazi trash!
Exactly, thank God we still have this chance to vote.
On a different note, I would like to see JD Vance demoralized and no longer a candidate for tfg’s running mate, maybe he will step off the curb and get whacked…..
Thank you for mentioning Lawrence O’Donnell—he has been my hero since that debate! I work at home and usually have MSNBC on in the background all day, but Tuesday and Wednesday—and today—I’ve had to turn it off, except at 10 o’clock for Lawrence. Oh, and Tuesday night for Maddow’s tour de force interview with Stormy Daniels.
Yes Lawrence has been a beacon of light in these dark times .I was even a bit disappointed in Rachel Maddow as she was moving forward to the talk about removing Joe Biden from the ballot.I would have expected her to be a champion of Joe’s but no.
Amen.
https://open.substack.com/pub/gregconners/p/better-pissed-off-than-pissed-on?r=2yz13s&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
"Trump has been credibly accused of raping a 12-year-old girl multiple times"
I haven't looked into this much, but unless there is more than what I have seen (largely leaping to salacious conclusions by people who have an agenda akin to pushing the Tara Reade claims) really calls that "credibly" into question.
Preach! Keep it up! We will prevail!
Thank you, Justin!
Excellent, really enjoyed reading, and made made me feel better.