by Frank Schnittger
Wed Oct 2nd, 2024 at 07:37:17 PM EST
by Frank Schnittger
Tue Sep 17th, 2024 at 07:47:44 PM EST
Following Trump's disastrous debate performance, Taylor Swift released the following statement:
by Frank Schnittger
Tue Sep 10th, 2024 at 10:39:02 AM EST
Crossposted from Slugger O'Toole
by Frank Schnittger
Tue Sep 3rd, 2024 at 10:33:55 PM EST
This is the fifth of a series of posts on the US elections following on from Hitler with Nukes? (July 21st.), A Dead Bear Bounce for Kennedy? (Aug. 5th.), The Tipping Point: Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump (Aug. 12th.), and Kamala Harris Surge? (Aug. 21st.) Most of the titles had question marks as the precise shape of the campaigns had still to emerge, especially after the withdrawal of President Biden from the race.
by Frank Schnittger
Sun Sep 1st, 2024 at 02:39:23 PM EST
I love to blog because I love to write, but also to engage with those who do me the honour of reading and engaging what I have written. I am grateful when they point out errors in my writing because that is how I learn. In particular, I am grateful to the denizens of Slugger O'Toole who have taught me so much of what little I know of Northern Ireland.
Crossposted from Slugger O'Toole
by Frank Schnittger
Thu Aug 22nd, 2024 at 03:08:25 PM EST
Just a few weeks ago Trump was leading Biden in almost all the key battleground states. He had beaten Biden in the Presidential debate, had had a triumphant coronation at the Republican National Convention, and was approaching sainthood as the bullet missed his head by mere inches. His devoted followers interpreted that as a sign from God that he was truly the blessed one. Even his anointment of JP Vance as his Vice Presidential nominee could be dismissed as "not very important" when it turned out to be unpopular with the voters.
by Frank Schnittger
Wed Aug 21st, 2024 at 08:02:40 AM EST
Doug Beattie has resigned the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party citing "irreconcilable differences" with party officers.
by Frank Schnittger
Mon Aug 12th, 2024 at 12:55:53 PM EST
2020 Electoral Map
This is the electoral map with which Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in 2020 by a margin of 306 votes to 232 in the 2020 electoral college. (See footnote for changes in the electoral college for 2024)*
Despite winning the popular vote by 81,284,666 (51.3%) to 74,224,319 (46.9%), a margin of over 7 million votes (4.4%), Biden only won the electoral college thanks to narrow wins in Georgia (0.24%). Arizona (0.31%) and Wisconsin (0.63%) with a combined margin of a little over 40,000 votes. Absent those wins, he would have lost the election.
by Frank Schnittger
Mon Aug 5th, 2024 at 01:49:16 PM EST
A "dead cat bounce" is defined as a temporary, short-lived recovery of asset prices from a prolonged decline or a bear market that is followed by the continuation of the downward trend. Frequently, downtrends are interrupted by brief periods of recovery--or small rallies--during which prices temporarily rise.
The phrase came to mind when Robert Kennedy Jnr, the independent US Presidential admitted dumping a dead baby bear in New York's Central Park and sparking a major security incident ten years ago. Why US voters who wanted neither Biden nor Trump to win the Presidency would turn to another septuagenarian of very limited achievement was never quite clear to me, but he had been polling as high as 15% earlier in 2024, when Biden was still in the race. That has now dropped to less than 6% in recent polling since Kamala Harris replaced Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket.
by Frank Schnittger
Sun Jul 21st, 2024 at 12:10:49 PM EST
I had the pleasure of attending the first two days of the McGill Summer school in the village of Glenties, Donegal, for the first time this year and listened to some excellent discussions and talks. Friday was headlined by An Taoiseach, Simon Harris who gave a speech and interview proposing to set up a new department of Infrastructural Development to improve the delivery of major infrastructural projects. See report by Mark Hennesy here.
by Frank Schnittger
Sat Jul 13th, 2024 at 06:43:27 PM EST
by Frank Schnittger
Tue Jul 9th, 2024 at 01:41:25 PM EST
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again
Every now and again there is a debate on Slugger, or indeed elsewhere, about when and why the Secretary of State might call a border poll. Demographic change, changing voting patterns, and the UK's changing economic and political circumstances are all adduced to determine when that might be. Indeed, Sinn Féin have called on him to clarify his criteria for making a decision.
by Frank Schnittger
Sun Jul 7th, 2024 at 06:43:20 PM EST
Sometimes when you analyse the actual numbers of election results, they don't match up with the popular or media narrative. For instance, Keir Starmer's "Landslide Victory" with 9,712,011 votes was actually won with almost 600,000 votes less than Corbyn's humiliating defeat with 10,269,051 votes in 2019. The difference was that Rishi Sunak's Tories actually got less than half the votes (6,814,469) than Boris Johnson's did (13,966,454). So much for "Getting Brexit done".
Crossposted from Slugger O'Toole where a lively discussion is taking place
by Frank Schnittger
Sat Jun 22nd, 2024 at 10:23:28 PM EST
by Frank Schnittger
Sun Apr 28th, 2024 at 01:10:47 PM EST
by Frank Schnittger
Thu Apr 18th, 2024 at 09:20:19 PM EST
On several occasions now I have written an OP in response to one by Andy Pollak. I hope he takes it as a sort of back-handed compliment: no one better espouses what I call the conventional approach to reconciliation than he. According to this view, reconciliation must happen before, during, and after any border poll and is to be arrived at by nationalists and unionists talking to each other, and arriving at some sort of compromise down the middle, with Ireland becoming more British to make unionists feel more comfortable and unionists coming to accept that their might just be a little smidgeon of Irishness in their background and traditions, which can be incorporated, to some degree, in some sort of woolly, as yet undefined, complex consociational set of structures in a very blurry new Ireland that they can just about live with.
by Frank Schnittger
Sun Mar 31st, 2024 at 04:45:52 PM EST
Andy Pollak has written another impassioned plea for reconciliation in Northern Ireland as a precursor to any border poll. In an ideal world that is obviously very desirable. But there is also a danger that we confuse political reconciliation with social, community, and or religious reconciliation.
For many nationalists, division was caused by partition, and reconciliation can only begin when partition has ended and that scar has healed. For many unionists, division was caused by Irish independence, and reconciliation can only begin when Ireland re-joins the UK, or at the very least when nationalists in Northern Ireland accept the permanence UK rule, and thereby cease to be Irish nationalists, and become, in effect, unionists. How has that worked out in practice, given it has been embedded in the status quo for 100 years?
by Frank Schnittger
Thu Mar 21st, 2024 at 10:59:26 PM EST
by Frank Schnittger
Thu Mar 14th, 2024 at 01:46:23 PM EST
Terry Wright asks the quite reasonable question: "What will a united Ireland look like?" and unionists often feel frustrated when they get what appears to them to be an unclear answer. But there is also a problem with the question because no one can foretell the future with absolute confidence and certainty. So perhaps it is more helpful (and accurate) to explain how the process of change is managed in Ireland, and how this might apply to Northern Ireland in a post re-unification scenario. There are a number of important points which should be noted in this regard:
by Frank Schnittger
Wed Feb 21st, 2024 at 10:21:58 PM EST
Former leader, Gerry Adams; Northern Ireland First Minister, Michelle O'Neill: and Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald.
There have been quite a few posts on Slugger O'Toole by able writers such as Michael Palmer, Ian Clarke, and Brian Walker about the prospects for political unionism and particularly the DUP now that the Assembly and Executive have been restored. Mick Fealty has also written a perceptive piece on the opportunity that being the official opposition provides for the SDLP. But no one seems to be writing about the prospects for Sinn Féin.
Not being a member or supporter, and not having many contacts within the party, I am not in a good position to fill that void. But it seems to me that even from an outsider's perspective the changed situation provides some opportunities and threats for the party, to which they bring particular strengths and weaknesses. Let us look at each of these in turn:
