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IN THE YEAR of a presidential election in the United States, the news cycle is almost never dull. And there were plenty of developments in the past 10 days or so that warrant pondering. The following is my rapid-fire analysis of five of them.
First, the US has exercised its authority to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution urging an immediate ceasefire to Israel’s war on Gaza. It stands alone on the 15 member Security Council, with 13 backing the text brought forward by Algeria and the United Kingdom abstaining. The US is instead pushing for a temporary ceasefire that is linked to the release of hostages held by Hamas.
While some opine that this is momentous in that America had been reluctant to endorse a ceasefire of any nature up until now, its ongoing unwillingness to unequivocally condemn an ally’s objectively unconscionable conduct in Gaza is increasingly rendering the world’s leading superpower a global pariah. To me, this reticence in the face of unspeakable horror is deeply saddening.
President Joe Biden and his party are stuck between a rock and a hard place, roughly eight months from the general election. The mammoth political power and financial prowess of the Israeli lobby, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), cannot be overestimated.
Notwithstanding the facts that young people understand the Middle East very differently than their elders and that the dismay of Arab Americans in Michigan could be fatal to President Biden’s re-election bid, Democrats from the top of the ticket to the bottom are wary of crossing swords with AIPAC. External critics should be aware that, if Biden et al lose in November, their successors will be on much the same page as Benjamin Netanyahu and even more radical elements in Israeli politics.
Second, a congressional by-election in New York to replace the deposed oddball, Republican George Santos, attracted significant attention. Democrat Tom Suozzi, who formerly held the seat, won the race relatively comfortably. Reflecting upon the results, commenters have highlighted Suozzi’s moderate messaging. He advocated border security, stressed a “law and order” approach to criminal justice and pledged to work in concert with the GOP in the US House of Representatives.
There is nothing new here. The truth is obvious: Democrats can win in battleground districts like this one on Long Island – and nationwide – if their standard bearers run to the middle when it is necessary. But they don’t. And they won’t. Why not? President Biden, despite his decidedly centrist origins, and other elected officials are captives of leftist special interest groups and big donors. It’s a terrible pity.
Third, though she has no path to victory, ex-US Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley refuses to abandon her quixotic quest for the Republican presidential nomination. There are several plausible suppositions floating around.
She actually has her eye on 2028. She is hoping against hope that Donald Trump will pick her for the number two job. Haley is convinced that Trump’s legal troubles will ensnare him and she will be best situated to be his substitute. She wants to be the head of the “Reagan wing” of the GOP.
Running for president can engender lucrative opportunities. Haley perhaps doesn’t really know, but she can’t give up.
My own guess is that it is a mixture of all of these. Nonetheless, it is difficult to fathom why someone who polls show is down to Trump by 25 percentage points in her native South Carolina is clinging on. The Palmetto State votes this weekend. When Haley is crushed in her own back yard, it is even more difficult to imagine that those whose funding has enabled her to persist will keep throwing their money down the toilet.
Fourth, at a fawning Fox News town hall gathering aired on Tuesday, presenter Laura Ingraham put a list of possible running mates to Donald Trump. Haley was not among them. South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, wealthy entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his erstwhile rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination, were mentioned. Congressman Byron Donalds, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and, intriguingly, the one-time Democratic Congresswoman from Hawaii, Tulsi Gabbard, were namechecked.
Trump responded that they were “good people” and next observed that “the VP choice has absolutely no impact.” With respect to the selections made in the last couple of decades, he is correct. The sole exception may be when John McCain went for then-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in 2008. Palin initially made a splash, but soon crashed and burned when it was established that she was way out of her limited depth.
To cut to the quick, after what he would deem a “failed experiment” with Mike Pence, the top quality Trump is seeking in a chief deputy is unwavering, unthinking loyalty, no matter what the boss says or does. And sycophantic grovelling as he dangles the prize won’t go astray. Senator Scott might have the edge on that front thus far.
Finally, on a lighter yet no less depressing note, there are the grotesquely gold Trump sneakers, which apparently sold out swiftly at an extortionate $399 a pair.
It has been posited that those who purchased them did so as an investment. They may become a collector’s item that will be worth thousands in future. Maybe. Still, my reaction is unchanged: who in their right mind…?
—-
The good words that have been said and written about Michael O’Regan, whose death at 70 last Sunday took us all by surprise, bear repeating. Michael was an outstanding political journalist with The Irish Times and covered happenings in Leinster House for many years. He was renowned for being a generous mentor to younger journalists and a font of wisdom on politics in Ireland and beyond. As such, when he kindly complimented my analysis here or elsewhere, it wasn’t just praise – it was the highest sort of praise.
In a busy, albeit too brief, retirement, during which he overcame cancer and wrote courageously about the experience, he brought a valuable perspective to the many radio and television programmes he appeared on. Michael also achieved legendary status on Twitter/X. Whether discussing and debating the key issues or extolling the virtues of everything Kerry, especially the footballers of the cherished county of his birth, Michael’s was a lively and treasured presence on the beleaguered platform. Indeed, those acquainted with him from social media might say that he is now the guiding light for the #Kexit movement he founded!
Getting to know Michael a bit at a personal level was a privilege. He wore his intellect lightly. He was a master storyteller. He was usually smiling or laughing and those in his company followed suit. In my conversations with him, he invariably demonstrated a huge interest in Irish America and a commitment to preserving the vitality of the sacred, mutually beneficial relationship our two countries enjoy.
My thoughts and prayers are with his beloved family, close friends and dear colleagues. May the late, great Michael O’Regan rest in peace.
Larry Donnelly is a Boston lawyer, a Law Lecturer at the University of Galway and a political columnist with TheJournal.ie.
Christ on a bike!
@Ann Experiment: what on earth are they doing up there?
@Peter Cavey: I’m Belfast based and very few here are adhering to social distancing or wearing face masks. Going to the shops is a nightmare for those who are trying to do things the correct way.
@Peter Cavey: ironically not wearing masks!!
@Dermy: What about bars, restaurant? Are people meeting up at house parties and so on?
@Ann Experiment: be the hokey!
@Peter Cavey: Following Michelle’s lead.
@Peter Cavey: they vote for the Shinners and the DUP. That says it all.
@Brian James Moss: Shouldn’t have destroyed the balaclavas with the weapons.
@Peter Cavey: imagine how bad it’d be if they all got on.
@Bert Carolan: yes. All the above. They taking the Doris Johnson approach. (Yes i mean it). Stick head in sand. Leave a week, if it doesn’t improve, then do something.
@james comiskey: very good point
Jaysus do they really have more eeejits than us?
@Finn Faulkner: do you really need to ask yourself that question? Still obsessed with flegs and being part of an identity & nationality that couldn’t care less about them in 2020
@Sean: to be fair, I would say Derry and Strabane are more nationalist than unionist.
@Joe Vlogs: the same applies.
@Sean: I can’t get my head around the sheer denial and carelessness. And that’s in our own back yard. This behaviour is everywhere. Embarrassing.
Maybe move the restrictions in Derry and Strabane forward then, why wait until Monday. They are most effective when enacted quickly
@NotMyIreland: SF set a great example to follow…is the rules don’t need to be followed.
@NotMyIreland: You will find that a certain cohort from each side of the political divide are “tickasfck” and are beyond common sense. Family member went to Derry two weeks ago and said it’s like Gomorrah, with idiots tempting the virus at night. It just needed an outbreak, but it will be exceptionally hard to close down, and even harder for the people that want to overcome this.
And we wonder how Donegal figures are so high. I see NI registered cars flocking to Tayto Park in convoys every weekend, I accept its challenging policing borders, but some common decency and sense should prevail.
@LemonLouise: most of Donegal do their shopping in Derry. If you go to Belfast you’ll hear almost as many southern accents as northern. Border crossings happen both ways
@Anne Marie Devlin: no they don’t. Lol. Unless it’s the once a year to asda, or getting that new TV
What it is, is that Donegal is littered with holiday homes, and the place is full of yellow plates. Period.
Mind you anyone in business close to the boarding will naturally be over and back, from either side.
@RJ: supermarket car parks in Derry city, Strabane, Enniskillen are full of southern regs every day of the week.
@Anne Marie Devlin: agreed!! Seen it myself last time I was home to visit my mam!!! Was shocking Wasn’t sure I was even in Derry at 1 point! My mam said it’s like that every week. People off here to do the big shop etc…
Build a wall
@Armonline: better make it tall
Yikes, And that’s just 6 counties
I’d be surprised if we don’t see similar down south.
Hopefully all 900+ will recover speedily.
I’m from Belfast. I’ve only been up once since the lockdown. What really shocked me was the high number of tourists mainly from the UK and the south. Open-top bus tours were jam packed and those awful drinking bike tours were whizzing around the city centre. My mother won’t go into town unless it’s mid week and early morning. I’m not a fan of lockdowns at all, but this has to stop and it’s up to the council to stop it
@Anne Marie Devlin: I thought you were from Cork Anne-Marie
@SB: I live in Cork, but am from Belfast
In the old days the IRA would have ordered the virus out of the country
@IRL77: nah, they would have just kneecapped anyone that tested positive to ensure the practised social distancing.
This is the equivalent of 4000 in the 26 counties, not accounting for population density.
@Bernard Sweeney: closer to 2450 but i get your point..
@Bernard Sweeney:
In the rates of cases per 100,000
NI – 139.2
ROI – 90.2
Reckon us in the south will be around the same
Close the border
@Nomad: argee you & need big time close border
Lockdown will now happen
@Roger Dawson: made your decision have you roger?
@Roger Dawson: Not if FF or FG can’t find another money tree
On boy! We can’t compete with that.
@Daniel Murphy: Stephen Donnelly – hold my beer!
@John Kelly: is Donnelly a super spreader or perhaps could it be because people are not complying with advice and guidelines
WOW. Jaysus that ain’t good.
Read in another report that if a second lock down happens in the North or a circuit breaker as they call it – Michelle O Neill wants it to be an ill island lock down. Yea right
@Darrell Mc Cormack: She doesn’t even believe what she says herself. Herself and Arlene are simply useless.
@Darrell Mc Cormack: ill island lockdown indeed
@Darrell Mc Cormack: there is an argument for it, but only if its a fully coordinated approach and we are aiming for eradication….but I believe that has been deemed impossible.
We will be there soon ourselves with the minority ignoring the advice..
Well that’s DIRE!
They do not have the resources to track that number of cases in one day, look out for many more cases to come.
Why the big numbers in the north? What behavior patterns has their been up there as opposed to the south and the UK? And this is all from a week to two weeks ago.And is our behavior in the south any different?
Very scary esp since its just 6 counties. Stay safe and wear a mask please
I cannot come to terms with the ignorance and selfishness of people who won’t wear masks properly or at all and won’t even try to keep their distance. They may as well be going around randomly injecting people.
Wow!
Build that wall!
Christ of all the places to be not wearing masks! Very worrying numbers, although one additional death which apart from the unfortunate person is not too bad
Holy cr*p!!
We’ll probably see the same and I won’t be bit surprised but NPHET will have another national lock down, cases will drop to single figures , open up society again, cases will rise again,lock down again, repeat and repeat =economy crumbles.
@SB: that’s what lockdowns are supposed to do. Suppress, save lives, allow for controlled economic activity and await the arrival of a vaccine. You know this lad. Your alternative of open fully, dispense with the old and vulnerable, overrun the health system and face economic chaos anyway, is no alternative at all.
@GrumpyAulFella: just how long do you think it will take for a proper working safe vaccine to arrive eh, it could take years and at what cost to the economy, people’s mental health etc, etc, etc so no your wrong on every single level
@SB: no. From what I’ve read even now having learned a lot about the virus, in just 7 months or so, treatments are being applied that are now more effective than in the early days. There is so much money and effort being pumped into research that 3 are at advanced stages already according to Dr Fauci. We may not have a silver bullet in Q1 next year but we should have more life saving treatments to co-habit with this thing while we wait for a vaccine. Your alternative, to sacrifice the elderly and vulnerable is a model from the dark ages. I’ll ask you yet again, how many daily deaths in Ireland is acceptable to you for a full open economy?
Out of curiosity: could it be a backlog of test results similar to the one we had in April with our 1500 cases? Really hoping so.
I had to travel through Belfast twice and stayed overnight in hotel in last 10 days. Staff ALL wearing masks but ALL below their noses. I have seen many like it but not as much here in cork. Public information campaign needed re the human respiratory system anatomy!
Interesting study from one of the best medical journals out there. We’re all saved !! Well 81% of us are. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-020-00808-x
@Paul Moran: Ties in with what Michael Levitt said in March. Based on Diamond Princess he said it appears 80 percent have some form of immunity and are not infected.
@Paul Moran: Did you actually read this Paul? You’re a better man than me!
@Monster Munch: that’s not what it says at all, perhaps you could point to the line in the article that states an 80% immunity that dies with the 80% immunity on Diamond Princess, you might also provide a source for that claim whilst you’re at it? As I think your assumed that those that weren’t infected onboard were immune, whereas that a a range of reasons they may not have been infected apart from immunity
@D Mems: https://twitter.com/MLevitt_NP2013/status/1276788391280025600?s=09
Levitt saying since March that 20 percent get infected then it burns out. I’m not sure he’s right. In fact he seems a bit mental. Just that report, if it says a similar number have immunity would tie with this.
@Paul Moran: I note it states that ‘there is still a substantial percentage of patients with negative or borderline antibody responses and thus unclear immunity status after SARS-CoV-2 infection’.It also states more research needed.
What’s exciting is the news in September of the Covid-19 Research led by University of Bristol which discovered a druggable pocket in SARS-COV-2 Spike protein.
Journal article:’Scientists say they may have discovered a new way to try to combat the virus that causes Covid-19′
@Monster Munch: tweets are not a valid academic source, all the more so when the tweet isn’t from the study author, appears to cherry-pick graphs and quotes and doesnt actually provide a link to the Nobel Laureate’s research. Can you provide a valid source please?
Meanwhile we have the government and EU jumping up and down about “no border on the island of Ireland” – looks like a border mightn’t be such a bad idea for a while.
Well you do have the likes of Sammy Wilson up there.
@John Walsh: nothing worse than a dose of the Sammys.
If someone was to get 99.67% in an exam, people would say that was an extraordinary result. If someone was to get 99.97% in an exam, that would extremely close to perfection. So, please explain to me why people are frightened because 0.33% of people in NI tested positive for the cold and 0.03% of people in NI have died with the cold? What we are witnessing is people losing their minds over nothing.
@Mark McAuley: because we don’t routinely test swabs for the common cold, so I’d say your figures are off, plus, the common cold doesn’t have a 4-6% fatality rate and result in survivors having long term life altering conditions.
@Mark McAuley: it’s ironic that those who deny the severity and threat of this novel virus are always the ones who shout most hysterically that it’s everyone else who is losing their minds.
@D Mems: where are you getting a CFR of 4 to 6 %
Let’s see what the numbers are like after the BPerfect Cosmetics event in Belfast yesterday.
My god biggest case 934 Daily in northern Ireland population 1.8M small than Ireland population 5M under,
Why are the comments closed on the cutting of HIV services in order to redeploy the staff to Covid testing by the HSE?
Shut the borders
Yea it’s flu season what do people expect
@Imback: g’way with that, wait until November or December before spouting such nonsense.
Wide open eyes emoji alert klaxon.
Thats all the marching.
Donegal has 26 to 30 cases per day , Derry Strabane 201 today.
Odd to see a more than double of NI highest register of cases in one day only.
The amount of panic stricken characters that read and comment on Journal covid articles is extraordinary. Have you lot nothing else to do with you lives!?
@Bill: and what were you doing an hour ago?
@Pauline Gallagher: it took me that length of time to sift through all the fear!
Northerners. Drive like aholes, spread virus’s with the same disregard.
@Pauline Gallagher: Yet in 2019, road deaths per population in Rep. Ireland and N. Ireland, were exactly the same. I suppose the ‘Northerners’ caused the majority of accidents in the Republic?
Fortunately, deaths numbers are low though like here. Let’s hope number of deaths don’t increase. Fingers crossed.
Pluck snakes
More Covid clickbait from the Journal! Figures here mustn’t be high enough to fit the daily hairy scary narrative!
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