Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Mike]

Feel free to respond with any video of Biden mangling the English language but Id like to believe we can all just enjoy incoherent political babble for it's own sake. I love that Cotton and Scott had to stand behind him and feign amusement at this fable. As soon as he says the bull got three cows pregnant they had to be thinking "uhhhhh, where's this going, Herschel?"

He might want to lay off the analogy of a bull knocking up 3 cows. lol

[Mike]

I am a liberal because I find the Republican stance on most social issues repugnant (so should most libertarians), and I actually believe there is a role for government to play in solving problems. I now generally prefer to try soft power in foreign policy before resorting to the stick.

I am the opposite of you because in my high school and college years I was a firm believer in the Republican party. More socially liberal than most of them but whatever. Then Iraq happened, which I was fully on board with initially, but by mid 2004 I flipped, and I ain't going back. Even though today's GOP is virtually unrecognizable other than a few dickheads like Newt Gingrich.

Like Jen Psaki, I'm circling back (just kidding, she never did).

Our political Venn diagrams would have largely overlapped in the late '90s - early aughts. I also was a supporter of military intervention in the ME but ended up voting 3rd party in 2004 after strongly supporting GWB in 2000. Social issues were a big reason I drifted left and became a fairly centrist, socially liberal, fiscal conservative. By "social" I don't mean social welfare programs but more about individual freedoms - pro-choice, same-sex marriage...

I was also on board with the belief that government should play a role in problem solving. So much so, that I began working in the public sector after my time in the military. What I've learned is the government can fuck up a ham sandwich and should have as little involvement in our lives as possible. I believe the purpose of local government is to provide essential public services in the most efficient way possible. AND NOTHING ELSE. The role of the federal government is outlined in the Constitution and we should actually follow those rules. Regulate interstate commerce, provide for common defense, act as the ultimate legal authority, confirm federal officers and judges, make laws. AND VERY LITTLE ELSE.

One of the big reasons that pushed me away from the Right, social issues, have now gone so far off the rails the other way that it's a REASON for my rightward tack. The current D party, which IMO has been swallowed whole by the progressive left, believes big government can solve all of society's ills. That's just absurd. The only "solution" they've come up with to date is to throw as much money at something as possible and assume the problem is fixed.

[iam416]

Yeah, I think everyone believes there is some role for government to address some problems. But, not the entire role nor every problem. So, that statement really doesn't mean anything.

My view when it comes government "solving" problems is this: (a) prove up the problem -- provide sufficient evidence to establish the existence of a problem; (b) prove up that the proposed solution will resolve or at least significantly solve the problem -- again, provide sufficient evidence to support the conclusion and (c) show that the solution is narrowly tailored to solve the problem -- that is, show that government act no more than necessary to address the problem.

Now, I might not think that government should be addressing whatever problem it is. HOWEVER, if you run through (a), (b) and (c) then you've at least given me something to think about.

And, I guess, we should add (d) -- the solution is Constititonal.

So, let's take student debt cancellation and run it through the analysis:

(a) I'm not particularly sure that there's an established problem. We can argue a lot on it, but the existence of the problem means higher education is a bad value. And to that end, and most critically, it's probably symptomatic of another problem like preposterous college costs. But, let's assume, for shits and giggles, we satisfy (a).

(b) How does student debt cancellation resolve the problem? Well it doesn't. Not really. It addresses the problem for a snapshot, but in 2 years or 5 years or 10 years the same problem will exist. So, it actually resolves nothing.

(c) Is it narrowly tailored? Well, you would think that if you were actually going to proceed down this road you'd want to figure out how to assist folks who are actually crushed by the debt. A recent Harvard MBA grad working a sweet consultant gig ain't it. A college dropout with $50K debt may be it. But there's zero effort to figure this out.

(d) Heh.

So, in this particular case, Dr. Strangelove may just waive his hands about and say "WE MUST DO SOMETHING!" "THE GOVERNMENT MUST HAVE A ROLE TO SOLVE THIS CRISIS" -- and so forth. And that leads to a "do anyting" is better than "do nothing" approach.

My default will always be "do no harm". I don't trust the government to do no harm, but if youa are going to do something, then tell me why I'm gonna risk folks fucking shit up.

[crashcourse]

buldoc over hassan isnt out of the question

[Dr. Strangelove]

Connecticut jury is in the middle of reading the damages Alex Jones owes these Sandy Hook families individually...it might add up to close to a billion by the time this is done being read.

He'll try to hide his wealth of course but he'll be running and hiding from this the rest of his life. Well earned.

[Dr. Strangelove]

buldoc over hassan isnt out of the question

I mean it's a single digit race. It's possible. But it's not in the top 5 seats most likely to flip.

[Hannibal]

Like Jen Psaki, I'm circling back (just kidding, she never did).

Our political Venn diagrams would have largely overlapped in the late '90s - early aughts. I also was a supporter of military intervention in the ME but ended up voting 3rd party in 2004 after strongly supporting GWB in 2000. Social issues were a big reason I drifted left and became a fairly centrist, socially liberal, fiscal conservative. By "social" I don't mean social welfare programs but more about individual freedoms - pro-choice, same-sex marriage...

I was also on board with the belief that government should play a role in problem solving. So much so, that I began working in the public sector after my time in the military. What I've learned is the government can fuck up a ham sandwich and should have as little involvement in our lives as possible. I believe the purpose of local government is to provide essential public services in the most efficient way possible. AND NOTHING ELSE. The role of the federal government is outlined in the Constitution and we should actually follow those rules. Regulate interstate commerce, provide for common defense, act as the ultimate legal authority, confirm federal officers and judges, make laws. AND VERY LITTLE ELSE.

One of the big reasons that pushed me away from the Right, social issues, have now gone so far off the rails the other way that it's a REASON for my rightward tack. The current D party, which IMO has been swallowed whole by the progressive left, believes big government can solve all of society's ills. That's just absurd. The only "solution" they've come up with to date is to throw as much money at something as possible and assume the problem is fixed.

I have said this at least a few times, but any debate about whether the government has a legitimate role to play in our lives and in the economy is totally pointless and irrelevant. The New Deal happened 90 years ago and the welfare state is approaching its 60^th birthday. The government is already involved in every aspect of our lives and that tide has steadily increased as we have had arguments about privatizing Social Security and minimum wage on the inernet. You are wasting your time if you try to argue about it. Libertarianism is dead as a doornail. And it probably has been for a long time, but people like me didn’t realize it until recently.

The only issues left now are social issues. And the most impactful of those social issues is going to be demographics/race relations. I’d argue that it already is. You don’t need to have a very active imagination to plot what our government will be doing in 30-40 years, when voting officially becomes a demographic head count and 40% of the population is facing a 60% that has been indoctrinated their whole lives to hate them. I’m going to miss it because I’m probably on the 70-and-out plan, but my kids won’t be so lucky.

[Hannibal]

RCP isn't very clear how they reach their projections. I guess it's a combo of history, current polling average, and how far off polls were in that state in the past.

In 2020 RCP average showed Kelley up +5.7. He won by only +2.4. Maybe they think he'll underperform the polls again.

I have a hunch that the polls were farther off in 2016 and 2020 than they were in the 2018 midterms but I have nothing to back that up. It's also a mystery to me how much turnout we should expect and if polls are factoring in R turnout being similar to when Trump's name is actually on the ballot.

Part of it to me honestly looks like they just have an R bias. Their selection of editorials on their front page is usually 60/40 R or maybe 2/3.

[Hannibal]

The Rs are holding strong on the generic ballot, but they are losing some Senate races that should be open and shut wins in an R+1 to R+5 environment with a super unpopular President. Really shitty crop of candidates running shitty campaigns. That includes Vance, who is going to underperform Trump in a year where overperforming Trump should be easy. Walker was chosen because Republicans desperately want based blacks (you can see that in their newfound Kanye worship). Oz was selected because Trump recommended him and Trump probably just recommended him because he’s Trump’s buddy. I don’t know what he was thinking when he endorsed Vance.

In Ohio, the Senate ads are about 2/3 Ryan, and 1/3 Vance. I haven’t seen a single Whaley ad for governor. I’ve seen more ads for out of state Senate candidates on the Big Ten Network and on Toledo stations than I have seen for Whaley. All of the Vance ads that I have seen are hopelessly tone deaf. Gee whoever came up with “Taxing Tim Ryan” as their campaign slogan is a genius.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Vance got the nod because Trump thought Josh Mandel might be some kind of sex weirdo I think...lol. Not even joking. Plus Vance is one of Peter Thiel's guys.

[Hannibal]

Vance got the nod because Trump thought Josh Mandel might be some kind of sex weirdo I think...lol. Not even joking. Plus Vance is one of Peter Thiel's guys.

He could have chosen Gibbons. Gibbons was a very viable candidate and unlike Vance, he didn’t have a track record of publicly trashing Trump.

[Dr. Strangelove]

He could have chosen Gibbons. Gibbons was a very viable candidate and unlike Vance, he didn’t have a track record of publicly trashing Trump.

Yeah I've got no answer there. Trump thought he was too old maybe? He took a long time endorsing anyone in the race as I recall.

[crashcourse]

I mean it's a single digit race. It's possible. But it's not in the top 5 seats most likely to flip.

id say it is top 5 to flip. wisconcin, pennsylvania, georgia, nevada NH. Dont think Az flips. will have lake as govenor but not masters. dont think ohio or NC flips or washington

love the rags to riches stories

private to brigadier general for bulboc

throw in the fact hassan and energy/heating oil is a huge issue there right now and bulboc cut it to a few points and is trending

[Mike]

Momentum is everything toward the end of a campaign. Still almost a month to go.

[Dr. Strangelove]

My top 5 are Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina