Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Discussion in 'SBAF Blogs' started by purr1n, Dec 26, 2018.

  1. Phantaminum

    Phantaminum Friend

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    There's a process to it which has already played out in the courts. Trump assigned lawyers to go to state and argue the case for voter fraud. The judges listened and where there was no evidence of fraud the cases were thrown out (which was pretty much all of them). Some of these judges were Trump appointed judges. So the system is working as it should.
     
  2. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    Others have already explained that the system is working. This point however is somewhat concerning to me, in that far too many are swallowing what the media - right and left - is feeding them. Far too many believe what their TV's, Facebook, and phone apps are telling them, or often just suggesting to them. We seem to have less actual "journalism", and more political opinion on the one hand, and just plain emotional manipulation (for the purposes of sells/ratings) on the other than too many seem to realize. Whether it is left wing hysteria and fraud like the Russian scandal and impeachment, or right wing hysteria like a stolen election, where are the voices that pierce through both and get to the underlying reality? Sometimes there is not enough $money$ in reality to sell it I suppose...
     
  3. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

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    WAAAHHHHH BUT HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FEEL SPESHIAL AND USEFUL????? MUH MORAL GESTURINGS!!!!!!!!!!

    *both sides are equally guilty of the above
     
  4. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    WAHHHHH, TRUMP WON, NOT MY PRESIDENT, I'M GOING TO CANADA
    WAHHHHH, TRUMP LOST, HE'S CRYING FRAUD NOW AND USING STALIN TECHNIQUES
    WAHHHHH, TRUMP'S NOT GOING TO BIDEN'S SWEARING IN CEREMONY

    Give me a fricking break.
     
  5. haywood

    haywood Friend

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    There’s basically no unbiased news anymore as everyone saw how successful Fox was selling partisanship.

    I do think we need better assurance that our votes are counted correctly and that all votes are legitimate, the current system is based on trust in the system and that on average the amount of fraud won’t be enough to swing an election but that’s not certain. We have the technology to make certain happen now, but whatever we do it needs to be open (and open source for software/hardware) so that people can trust the outcomes.

    Don’t underestimate how quickly things can fall apart. Half the country was fed four years of Trump is Hitler and now we’re going to see four more of Biden is Mao.
     
  6. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    P.S. - WSJ still wants yr clicks and subscrips, tho. "like and subscribe!!!"

    Is what I've been told untrue???
     
  7. perogie

    perogie Facebook Friend

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    Ha! True enough. If Bob ain’t healthy though it’s unlikely he would be asymptomatic for and he likely got it from someone close to him. However, we need a starting point for assuming point of contact otherwise we’d be testing individuals daily, which is not feasible. This is why self isolation should occur to balance out the possibilities of when someone may have been exposed. If that day was an infection point your taking a test immediately and it coming back negative still doesn’t tell us much. They could test now and a few days later but again, feasibility.
     
  8. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    Before Fox there was Rush Limbaugh, NPR, and CNN. Before them there was Walter Cronkite & Mother Jones. Before them there was the NYT's and all the other big city papers.

    Thing was buried in all the bias was real journalism, but that seems almost gone. I agree with purr1n that Wall Street Journal is actually one of the few papers left that does real journalism in the midst of its bias, simply because they seem willing to pay for it.
     
  9. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    News section of WSJ is good, Opinion section is mostly typical stuff that is kind of boring to read at times.
     
  10. dematted

    dematted Friend

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    I'm pretty far left and I can't stand the editorial page of the New York Times, even though I often agree with it. So much of it is just trite, overworn, self-righteous pablum.
     
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2020
  11. JK47

    JK47 Guest

    Justin TRUEdouche has already sold out the country and is the poorest example of a leader the world has ever seen. BIGGEST POS that sold the country's resources to China, all while keeping a smirk on his face like Bill & Ted...
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 7, 2020
  12. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Typical CNN home page article headers (even today):

    Florida arrests data scientist on Covid
    Biden is better than Trump already
    Trump lied
    Trump prioritizing vaccine to Americans
    Covid is worse than winter
    GOP invite anti-vaxxers to speak
    How Dr. Fauci will spend x-mas
    Biden appointments will be struggle
    Trump subversion is running out
    Trump misinformation watch
    Typical WSJ

    Hospitals race to access vaccine
    Goldman Sachs to acquire 100% of China securities JV
    Chuck Yeager dies
    Biden naming defense secretary
    Pilot to truck driver
    TikTok download ban is blocked by second judge
    Trudeau confident in strong recovery
    Rasidha Jones is MSNBC president
    Boards pressured to diversify
    Dylan sells his songs
    Hottest trend in college football: opting out
    CNN will still be writing about Trump a year from now. I don't have time for Trump and would rather be informed about other more important issues or told interesting stories. WSJ is expensive, but I am willing to pay. Dig in deeper into the Tech, World, Economy, and Business sections in WSJ, and holy cow, it gets even better.
     
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2020
  13. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

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    ^ Was going to reply with some headlines, coverages, and stories that I think would be ideal if I owned a newspaper... but then realized that's actually kind of hard to do impromptu in a paragraph. The above makes me wonder though...
     
  14. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Obviously there's something wrong (or perhaps a deeper dive is necessary) with those numbers based on the current split in the House, which is the probably the most representative body in the USA, gerrymandering aside. Note that congressional districts tend to have 700-800k population, so it's not being skewed by population differences.

    The splits I saw indicated very high percentage red in small rural counties of MI, PA and TX, like 70% to 90%. Heck, Tarrant County in TX (Forth Worth) went 85% Trump! In TX, 13 blue counties shifted red and 7 counties, previously blue, flipped to red.

    The splits in many medium-big cities was more like 53/47 blue/red. We are talking about cities like Dayton, Corpus, Akron, Fresno, Reno, Vegas, Dover (DE), Jacksonville (big), Tampa (big), Miami (big), etc. There were medium-big cities that went 53/47 red/blue like Fort Wayne, Colorado Springs. Knoxville. Greenville (SC), Provo (UT), Wichita, Green Bay, etc.

    Note the above is for POTUS, which would be skewed further blue because of sitting POTUS' overall general unpopularity. For example Salt Lake went Biden for POTUS, but likely went with Mitt in 2018 for Senate.
     
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2020
  15. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Except for canceling your Subscription. So personal experience three months back...I wanted to try WSJ so I did the Digital Subscription online. I got bored of one perspective from the news side (even if it is good). The Opinion section was at times too much full of laughs (almost as scary bad as NYTs in that regard IMO). Since I decided it wasn't really for me, I wanted to cancel the Digital Subscription. Since I'm not in CA I have to call during their business hours to cancel it. After half hour on the phone I was able to cancel the Digital Subscription. Over a month later after cancelling WSJ charged my credit card. Saying WTF, I called WSJ again saying what's up. They told me they confirmed that the Subscription is canceled and yes they did charge my card. But since they are showing my Subscription to be canceled they recommend to dispute it with my Credit Card company. To remove the charge I had to submit a Credit Card dispute. This tells me their billing system isn't the best at this time, and I don't want to send Credit Card disputes when their systems already knew that my Subscription was canceled but they charged my Credit Card (even following the rules as this banker always does by having a fine print fetish).

    That experience left me with a bad taste in my mouth. They should at least offer full online cancelation except for CA customers, bleh.

    Oh well, I'll take my free news I guess. :confused:

    Jacksonville shift was not big. Duval/Jax has been a "purple" county for years thanks to everyone moving in from other parts of the country + the major African American vote had enough of the local GOP (or any Conservatives including Dems) giving them the middle finger since consolation of City/County governments back in the late 60s. While Biden barely gotten 10-13k votes in Jax, the down ticket Dems as expected did not win (which is less about current politics, but GOP voters vote their ballot down to the tee, while a Dem voter most likely only votes on the big ticket stuff, which is why they will fail on the local level). Even the last few years the Dem registration has ballooned over the GOP in Jax, the GOP still shows up for elections. With that being said, the GOP turnout in Jax this year was disappointing to them. Registered Dem voters shown up this time around in my backyard.
     
  16. lagadu

    lagadu Almost "Made"

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    Problem with a 3rd party in a system like the US', with the electoral college and the president having executive power is that if you create a new party, while it's true that you're going to capture votes from both parties (assuming it's a centrist party by US standards) it'll never be a perfect distribution: if 66% of your votes from one of the sides and 34% comes from the other, you're effectively sabotaging that party that is closer to your position, because once you grow you're guaranteeing the other party gets the most votes because their voter base won't be split as much. As long as most states keep giving all their votes to the most voted party, a third party will potentially cause more harm than good.
     
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2020
  17. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    Exactly, and our, in Canada, voting on paper and counting by hand did not protect us against this lowlife, who, among other things almost got away with ordering installation of the Chinese "security" software and devices in all Canadian embassies in the world. He was exposed at the last minute. I am surprised that this story, reported by all Canadian media, with many different spins of course, did not get more coverage in the US.
    To divert attention form this scum, the progressive Canadian newspapers were tirelessly reprinting Bloomberg and WaPo "news" about Trump Russia "collusion" for the last five years.
    The conclusion I guess is that you cannot "protect" election against the electorate :(
     
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2020
  18. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    A total-outsider naive question... Surely all it takes for there to be three or more parties is for someone to start one? Them? So... why don't they?
     
  19. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    • Money
    • People are conditioned to believe that there are only two political parties (even if their ballots might have more on the political party choices) aka /Brainwashing
    • Ignorance of how our Federalism system actually works aka not understanding the different layers of government
     
  20. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    System of government in the USA not parliamentary and ranked voting system too confusing for Americans.

    You are advocating a middle path with less swings!
    • Some people today are too impatient for progress.
    • Most folks are at the same time more conservative and less liberal than the media makes things out to be.
    Example is CA Prop 8 in 2008 which banned gay marriage. It passed 52 to 48%. The only reason it didn't take was because the CA courts struck it down.

    There was also CA Prop 187 in 1994 which banned services to illegal aliens. That passed by a whopping 59% to 41%. The CA courts struck that down too.

    Resentment and extremism rise when courts decide to legislate instead of letting things play out over time. Did I feel the courts made the right decision, probably yes. However, I don't think it was their call. Prop 8 would have been overturned in another 4 years or 8 years at most given the trends in attitude about gay marriage over time. There were also artificial forces funding Yes on Prop 8 from out of state like Utah that would have been unlikely to be sustained. I would have liked to see the "DC rectified" path to allowing gay marriage instead of the courts making a square wave adjustment contrary to the voting public. There's a cost to impatience. A few years in the overall scheme of human rights is a small price to pay to have the entire electorate decide rather than a few appointed state justices.

    Prop 187 would have been no different. However, I think the path to overturn it by the electorate would have taken another 12-16 years. Actually, I'm not even so sure. Nobody I know today, liberal or conservative wants to give illegal aliens (now undocumented immigrants) free shit from the government. However, the state government under Lord Newsom seems to have a mind of its own disconnected from most California citizens.

    BTW, this is why I think John Roberts as Chief Justice is awesome. He knows the SCOTUS needs to be above the fray, to the chagrin of many conservatives. Roberts is playing the long DC rectified game. He is wise.
     
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2020

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