SpankyMcFarland

Here’s what I posted on October 17 on the first page of this very thread.

Well, I’m through either way.

This thread should be in state politics. It’s certainly not federal despite the efforts of Mamdani’s critics to characterize it that way and insinuate he’ll have some role in US foreign policy. The recent debate was of high quality - all three are entertainers who can deliver a zinger and Sliwa had a few excellent ones - but I think Mamdani did well again. While Cuomo was livelier this time, his record and billionaire backers remain a serious impediment to a candidate competing for left of centre voters. Mamdani is the central matter in this contest. Will he be stopped by oligarch money and the inherent wackiness of some of his policy proposals? If he wins I hope he trims his sails a bit and doesn’t end up in De Blasio’s shoes. By contrast, Cuomo is the status quo candidate. Enthusiasm for him is fairly muted. Many of his own supporters are far more passionate about defeating Mamdani than granting the former governor’s political career an unlikely lease of life.

The laws of economics have not changed and they will come for Trump in the end: https://apple.news/AatTWgd6ESfSwKs53MZIAcg

That might have been possible if somebody like Nemtsov had become president and guided Russia towards liberal democracy. It could have ever happened with Putin. Firstly, he’s a tyrant and, secondly, he hates the West.

I am correct in what I said. Stick to the point.

Trump is a recidivist criminal who has never shown respect for the rule of law. He should have been prosecuted promptly for the Jan 6 riot and the grotesque corruption in Georgia where he asked for votes to be found. Now America is paying the price as he goes after everybody who tried to hold him to account and demands bribes from corporations and universities. If you can’t see the difference I can’t help you.

Do they never get out or what?

The ad misrepresented nothing. Trump can’t handle the truth.

A better deal if he can. Either way he needs to get this sorted ASAP before there’s no deal on offer.

Trump seems far angrier with Doug Ford than I’ve ever seen him with murderous tyrants like Xi, Putin or Kim. That alone says a lot about him.

And the talk about a third term. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/oct/27/donald-trump-japan-sanae-takaichi-asia-canada-trade-news-updates-us-politics-live We could continue like this all night. He’s a rather distinctive chap.

Are these the statements of a normal president?

Who is the left in your view? How do you know their lives are failed and miserable?

Are the critics of Carney here all as concerned about the Trump family’s massively larger business entanglements and brazen conflicts of interest?

I do know this. Sliwa is not going to win. And who is doing the suing? Any credibility there?

That’s just how I personally understand these words. I haven’t put much thought into this matter before it was raised.

I think there’s a bit of Trump in Ford. He’s a hard man to manage. I’d say he wonders why he isn’t PM himself a fair bit of the time.

We are talking about a game, as in a competition. War is considered a game in that sense. That may be how a person starts to make a billion but every billionaire has competed ferociously with other particular people in their business and has seen their companies disappear. The rivalries are intense and often bitter. That’s what civil suits are for - to stop these rivalries getting any more dangerous as they do in some countries. Capitalism is relentlessly Darwinian. Getting into med school is a competition. You are graded on a bell curve so you have to beat other people and you judge that in the first instance by beating the people around you. Getting into the specialty you want is also highly competitive. Doctors are competitive. They may play that down when talking to patients but not when talking about each other. A person who is not highly competitive has zero chance of being PM in any country. The PM is the last person standing in the brutal fight to be PM. There are few lines of work where a competitive streak is more vital. Your opponents are in the other party but your enemies are all around you.

Of course they want peace. They always have. They have no designs on Russia. The problem is that Putin doesn’t understand peace the way most Westerners do. Peace for him is a pause on the way to taking the whole country and continuing the war to reconstruct the Russian empire in Eastern Europe. Putin will only act with restraint as you call it when he is brutally restrained by force.

Poilievre failed to keep the two wings of his party together. He did the easy thing and ran as a Reform candidate, driving some PC voters to the Liberals. Ford needed to be included and acknowledged from the beginning.

The incredibly left-wing editorial board of the WSJ weighs in on Trump’s response to Ford’s ad:

I can’t recall an ambitious person who isn’t competitive or vice versa.

The leader of Ukraine is a Russian-speaking Jewish comedian, hardly a natural standard bearer for tribal nationalism. I believe this war is about defending freedom in Eastern Europe. Glory to Ukraine.

The lack of debate among Republicans about this is bizarre. Until recently, many of them were free trade absolutists. Now they just keep quiet.