Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

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

  1. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    My election hot takes:

    • 2024 Presidential race is DeSantis' to lose. He won Miami-Dade by 11 points, a county that Biden won by 7 points
    • Trump is history. His only role now is playing selfish spoiler internally within Republican party. Too early to call how much damage he will cause, but I'm betting not enough to derail DeSantis.
    • Americans are fundamentally libertarian, whether they are on the left or right. Rights/choice trumps everything.
    • Republican's bet against abortion and lost. The sexual revolution is a winner when it is about individual choice.
    • Democrats bet against parents and school choice and lost. The sexual revolution is a loser when it goes against choice by being statist, mediocre, and anti parental/family choice.
    • McConnell was right, candidate quality matters. Bad quality and you lose the independent vote
    • DeSantis takes what is best about the Trump wave, such as unapologetic anti-wokeness, adds personal/political/managerial competency, and throws in a Bond Girl wife as the cherry on top. 2024 is his to lose.
     
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  2. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Despite his antics, DeSantis comes off well to the suburbanites. He impressed the hell out of my wife when Afternoon Yak / The View, played a clip of him thanking the Biden administration, even though my wife doesn't like some of his views.

    Now what I'm curious about is what will happen to the locals here who fly the Trump DeSantis combo flags. Will their heads explode from internal turmoil? Will they split into two beings, one made of matter and the other made of antimatter and fight to the death? Will we need to create a magnetic corridor for these people to fight it out without taking out the universe with it?

    [​IMG]
     
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    Last edited: Nov 11, 2022
  3. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    DeSantis comes across as competent - a real politician who can thank the loyal opposition when appropriate - instead of a game show host. A lot can happen in two years, but I think it is his to lose. My wife, who was upset with me for not voting for Trump in 2016 now calls Trump a "selfish ass". I think many of his most die hard supporters can see this (and always have) and can read the writing on the wall about who should have their support moving forward. By the end of a tempestuous (but largely insubstantial) squabble, most of them will. I just don't see Trump being a serious contender excepting perhaps in the first few primaries.
     
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  4. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I'd say it's up to Herschel Walker. Walker's got to carry the ball across the line in overtime. Then we can have battle!
     
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    Last edited: Nov 11, 2022
  5. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    @crenca said it better on the bullet points. DeSantis will at least need to do the Pro-Life stuff if he is running in two years. There's already talks of him doing a six-week ban Abortion bill next year in FL, which will be an easy pass since the GOP regain their supermajority in our capital. I have a strong feeling deep down inside DeSantis doesn't care about the abortion stuff, but politics is politics.
     
  6. Kernel Kurtz

    Kernel Kurtz Friend

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    Re abortion, I expect what we are going to see in the next couple election cycles is that every state that allows ballot measures/propositions is going to have one on abortion, and the majority of them are going to end up like the ones we have seen since Roe was struck down, like Kansas earlier this year, or all of the states that had question on the subject last Tuesday. And hey, that is what the USSC implied - it should be left up to the states. I don't think they are going to like the results in the end though. Republicans are out of step with the majority of people on this issue, so the electorate is going to have to clue them in. And on the way, they will draw people to the ballot box who might otherwise not have been interested. It is probably a significant factor in the poor showing the GOP had this cycle, and it is absolutely going to be a feature in the next few election cycles to be sure. In the end I expect abortion will be legal in some form in most states, because the people will decide, not the politicians.
     
  7. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

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    Americans fundamentally libertarian - maybe it's b/c I live and spend most of my time in CA and don't travel enough anymore, but I wish this were true.
    ---------------------------
    I will say though - one of the few legitimate functions of state in libertarian philosophy - much less any type of big government system most R and D seem to subscribe to now - is to disallow and prevent unprovoked violence or use of force between individuals. I could see this as a legitimate way for any level of government to ban abortion as preventing violence between mother and child. Although this will inevitably lead to different people defining "child" as conception vs X weeks vs X months. I could also see this line of thinking having to allow medical, rape, and other exemptions - given that not allowing it would be the propagation of violence against the mother by the state.

    On the flip side, libertarian also = free markets. And free markets have clearly shown that more than just a small fringe of people want abortions... so they're going to happen regardless of any laws... just like any other controlled product or service. May as well make it safe with basic groundwork at that point then whole thing...

    Politically - I suspect Republicans as a whole wouldn't be in this much trouble had they had a little more foresight to allow exemptions... but I guess that what happens when the average politician on both sides is probably 60+ and we're lucky if they have a (working) high school level of modern science education. That or they do but must play politics because the people don't... or people do just fundamentally believe in no exemptions (which I doubt given that even in the 60's the anti-abortion crowd wanted exemptions)

    Edit: Posted not b/c agree or disagree, just want to see what people think or how this plays out.
    -------------------------------
    Low candidate quality is why most of my ballot between candidates / people was left blank. The few I did vote for (local water district and the like) felt very inconsequential and I would have been fine voting for any candidate on the ballot with those positions as it boiled down to voting between different engineers who all had up to snuff levels of experience and projects to manage local water or whatever.

    Speaking of which - I would actually be interested in seeing what a society largely run by engineers and technical experts would look like. Not "experts" like a Bezos or Zuckerburg or Musk or whatever who in a sense may be good at doing their business, but are not necessarily an expert with regards to the nuances of "how to make things work".

    I personally blame Obama, then Trump, and now Biden for this whole "low candidate quality" is acceptable if they appear and then yell loud enough. Not that Bush W was great, but at least there appeared to be a general impression of must be semi-passable competent to the local electorate at the time.
     
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2022
  8. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    On a local note my local congresswomen, the first Native American Republican women in congress was voted out after just one term by just 1,200 votes out of about 200,000 (at least my voted "counted" in a sense). I would blame her Trumpism, but this southern New Mexico district was redrawn to include some of Albuquerque(!), so it was the usual gerrymandering. NM is deep blue and has and will continue to pay for it socially, economically, etc. Texas is just one county away and is our escape valve if it gets intolerable for us.

    Last week I received my 4th jury summons since moving here 14 years ago. I wonder if I deregister (if that is even possible) from the voters roles if the bastards would still summon me. It would be well worth it. I don't mind contributing to civil society, but participating in the so called "justice system" is not what I would call a contribution.
     
  9. dasman66

    dasman66 Self proclaimed lazy ass - friend

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    This past PA election in a nutshell.

    Govenor
    US Senate
    US House

    A mixture of goofballs, dimwits, carpetbaggers, trump apologizers, etc. Not a single person to vote for... competence no where to be found. At best, you were voting against someone... or Mickey Mousing your vote.
     
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  10. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    PA Senate Race was such a joke IMO. Stroke survivor vs NYC carpetbagger.
     
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  11. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Most of our Senate is a joke.
    upload_2022-11-12_8-46-22.png

    Left, right, up, down. They are next to useless making decisions that won't affect them because they will be dead soon. Not to mention the massive wealth they've accumulated via insider information. It would be OK if they looked toward the future or considered what young people want today, but these narcissistic selfish assholes think they will live forever. The two opposing parties thing is really just a distraction to hide their collective love of power and money accumulation.
     
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    Last edited: Nov 12, 2022
  12. dasman66

    dasman66 Self proclaimed lazy ass - friend

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    I keep telling my kids and the younger folks at my office "stop electing your grandparents into office".
     
  13. Syzygy

    Syzygy Friend

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    My problem with the senate is that it no longer serves a purpose. The House are peoples representatives, the senate was intended to represent the states' interests in the federal government , and thus given 6-year terms.

    When the 17th (?) amendment changed that, the states lost their voice, and there was no longer a reason for the senate to be … and no reason to keep 6-year terms.

    Now they play the game that the ones not up for re-election next are free to pass whatever crap they feel like, and only 1/3 has to be careful any given year.

    The state legislatures should vote to convene a convention of states to amend the constitution, and propose to return the senate to state-legislature votes, and another to impose term limits on both houses (and combined years), and some sort of balanced budget, or a return to sound money.

    Then those proposed amendments from the convention would go the states for ratification by ¾ to become a ratified amendments without congress' involvement.
     
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  14. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Entrenched interests are too strong for any change today. Otherwise I'd like to see the Senate be like the UK House of Lords, where they can only delay legislation. Under this arrangement, I'd be fine with each Senator increasing their net worth between 22% and 73039% per year. Heck, they can even stay there until they turn senile and die... oh wait.
     
  15. Biodegraded

    Biodegraded Friend

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    No discussion of truly useless and unrepresentative upper houses can be complete without mention of the Canadian Senate.

    The chamber of "sober second thought", goes the local platitude. But none of those 3 descriptors appear to reflect reality.
     
  16. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    In other news:

    1960x0.jpg
     
  17. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    I am not certain, but I'm British, and I think they can block legislation*. They are not allowed to block certain legislation, eg what is called a money bill.

    A major example of a money bill would be the budget. But the commons gets to decide what is a money bill.




    * they can't throw it out, but they can return it to the Commons.
     
  18. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    Cryptocurrencies are alarmingly blase about engaging in the same sorts of financial chicanery that traditional systems pioneered decades ago given the fact that blockchain ledgers make it so that anything short of overtly blatant money laundering services e.g. TornadoCash leave the people involved exposed to even the barest modicum of scrutiny?

    It's just amusing how the current crypto space farts in the face of decentralisation when that's the primary tenet the whole thing was geared towards.
     
  19. Kernel Kurtz

    Kernel Kurtz Friend

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    To be fair, our senate does have power. Over time it has become the accepted norm that those powers are not used, since the appointed senate is not actually representative of anything, but simply a plum reward for primarily party bagmen and hacks.

    I'd love to see an EEE senate in Canada, but I am realistic enough to know it will never happen. The procedure for constitutional amendment guarantees that the spoiled children of Confederation - Ontario and Quebec - would never allow anything that would challenge their absolute dominance in how the country is run.
     
  20. Syzygy

    Syzygy Friend

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    I've been watching the whole SBF debacle unfold in a crypto group I'm in, and crypto Twitter for the last 10 days.

    It's come to light that he's well connected into the establishment, the Clintons, even the current SEC chairman.

    A lot of the "aid to Ukraine" was deposited into FTX, and at least some of it went back to support Democratic candidates.

    Here's a TikTok overview of some of the shenanigans: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRx3qmcc/

    The sad thing is that a lot of other crypto businesses used FTX for either custodial services or funding, and that all turned out to be sitting atop fake assets. Second-layer businesses are starting to crumble too.

    He was also holding accounts for some celebrities, like Tom Brady, who may never see his life savings again ($650mm)
     

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