I guess with the French election I’m mainly thinking about the second round. If it’s Philippe versus Le Pen then hopefully enough people will back Philippe, because I think Le Pen would be worse.

In the first round maybe there’s more freedom to vote for who you really like. But if it ends up being Melenchon versus Le Pen in the second round, it could be pretty difficult to stop Le Pen winning.

Rich people pump money into politics in order to amplify their personal whims. Then they wonder why self-described socialist politicians are becoming more popular.

Apparently he has citizenship of the USA and Canada as well as South Africa:

According to Isaacson’s biography and an Esquire magazine profile of Musk, he became a US citizen in 2002

I’m trying out Piefed. Lemmy looks like relatively good software, but I don’t like the political views of the developers behind Lemmy. Their whole shtick seems to be “non-western countries good, western countries bad”.

Of course, western countries have done many bad things. But I think plenty of non-western countries have also done bad things. I just don’t buy into a narrative which always tries to paint western countries as “the bad guys” and non-western countries as “the good guys”.

Fair points. I’m British not American, so I’m sure you know a lot more about Newsom than I do. I’ve seen a couple of interviews with him but that’s about it.

If 2028 is Newsom vs Vance and Newsom wins, I would hope that would improve the world. Maybe a Democrat who more boldly stands up for ordinary (non-wealthy) people would be better, but whether they’d get enough support from Middle America to win the presidency, I don’t know.

I think I read some time ago that Newsom’s argument is that a national billionaire tax would be better and more effective than a California billionaire tax.

But yeah maybe he should just support both: a California tax and a national tax.

It is pretty obscene that billionaires can spend nearly limitless money trying to defeat a proposal for them to pay just a little bit more in tax; a tax which could save the lives of the most disadvantaged people in society.

Newsom seems more sensible than Trump. Presumably if Newsom does win the presidency in 2028 then he would be more supportive of Ukraine, like Biden was.

Fuck America

I don’t think that quote is referring to the deal that the UK had when it was in the EU. I think the quote is referring to the UK’s post-Brexit deal with the EU (the Trade and Cooperation Agreement). I guess Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader who gave that quote, believes that the Prime Minister is wasting time if he tries to get an improvement on that deal, because she thinks the EU won’t significantly change it. I disagree with Badenoch’s pessimism though. I think the UK should try to get a closer relationship with the EU, and I think the EU might be receptive to this.

Michel Barnier, formerly the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, recently indicated his support for “a stronger EU-UK defence pact”, for example. That article shows that Barnier considers freedom of movement to be a non-negotiable part of single market membership (just like it was when the UK was in the EU). But he seems open to the idea of the UK not adopting the euro, if it rejoined the EU: “he added that adopting the euro need not necessarily be a condition of renewed membership”. This is coherent with Barnier earlier this year saying that the UK could potentially stay out of the euro and out of the Schengen Area if it rejoined the EU:

I am speaking about Schengen, I am speaking about the single currency: there are other member states who are not in them. It is perfectly possible to have opt-outs in these fields.

That’s true, I should have thought about Canada and other allies of the West (Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, maybe others).

I guess the US was the lynchpin that held “the West” together. Without good leadership from them, then I guess the world is as Mark Carney described: the US doing its own thing, and then a bunch of “middle powers”, who should act together, if they want better outcomes when dealing with the big powers.

Maybe Putin doesn’t need video of Trump. Maybe Trump’s admiration of dictators like Putin is all Putin needs to get Trump to do the Kremlin’s bidding.

If Europe doesn’t build stuff like this then it will probably just become poorer and less relevant, while the US and China push forward and dominate the world with their technology.

Europe definitely has the talent for advanced technology. It’s probably just a question of having the political will to create the right conditions.

I wouldn’t be surprised if tankies cheer on Marine Le Pen for this policy alone.

In other news, it has been discovered that the Pope is Catholic.