Exploring what can happen when people think for themselves.
Clinton-linked dark money group targeted Twitter advertisers amid Elon Musk’s takeover
From the article:
“Under the guise of ‘free speech,’ [Musk’s] vision will silence and endanger marginalized communities, and tear at the fraying fabric of democracy.”
I would instead argue that it’s tactics like these – tactics meant to silence the the opposition – that are the real danger to “…the fraying fabric of democracy.”
Why not just devise a new voting paradigm, “Permanent Partizan Voting”?
Democrats sue to open Georgia early voting on Saturday after Thanksgiving, despite voting law
No need to vote in each election while dealing with partizan vote harvesters, long polling lines with no free Popeye’s chicken or Evian bottled water, or pesky dumpster-diving ballot collectors. No, instead just tell the county registrar that you always want to vote along party lines. Select a party and you’re done voting for life! What could be better (except more free stuff from the government!)?
Their primary complaint is that the current average pay is about $24,000 annually for student employees. They want $54,000 annually.
Nearly 48K University of California academic workers go on strike
It is what they fail to mention with which I have issues:
1) This is a PART TIME job, typically 20 hours/week.
2) Part of their compensation is FULL TUITION (currently ~$10,000/yr)
3) It includes a full health insurance package (worth $2K – $6K/year)
So the total compensation amounts to about ~$37,000/year for a part-time job! How many of you would accept a part-time job at ~$36/hour that furthers your academic career?
With tuition and health insurance benefits, at ~54K a year their total compensation would be valued at ~$67,000/year for the same part time job! This would amount to a total hourly rate of ~$64/hour – to pay for a bunch of spoiled brats who also want you to forgive their student loans. To hell with that….
I think the United Auto Workers slogan (yes, they are representing the students), written on the back of this student’s T-shirt, says it all (italics mine):
UAW 2865
EDUCATE.
AGITATE.
ORGANIZE.
‘Nuff said.
My prediction following the mid-terms:
The Democrats will lose both the House and the Senate. Then, being a flock of lame-duck assholes, they will kill the filibuster and pass a bunch of laws (including the “Freedom to Vote” without ID act) before vacating their offices.
Unfortunately, the Republicans will not be able to do anything about it. When they take over they won’t be able to pass any laws, even without the filibuster. Biden will just veto everything they pass, and the Republicans won’t be able to muster a super majority (2/3!) to override the veto. Democrats get their “thumb on the scale” for the next election, effectively winning anyway.
Wallah! We’re all boned. Economy tanks, we’re all made dependent on handouts from the government, and we devolve into extreme socialism and eventual oligarchic despotism. We’ll be controlled by a group of “enlightened” Democrats who know better than the rest of us, and from whom we’ll have to beg for our daily alms.
Well, maybe not that last part. Maybe Democrats will come to their senses and not be the spoil-sports I expect them to be. Wishful thinking…
Question 3 on the Nevada ballot, a change to the constitution ostensibly allowing for open primaries, is really a thinly-veiled attempt to bring rank choice voting to Nevada. However, while I am perturbed by the focus of Question 3 being portrayed as open primaries rather than (the much greater impact) ranked choice voting, both are detrimental to our democratic system – and more so when implemented together.
Open primaries allow the opposition to meddle in the selection of candidates by political parties. We’ve seen the result first-hand in this election: Parties have spent large sums of money in opposition primaries to bolster fringe candidates that they think they can beat in the general election [1]. The disturbing choice for Americans: Dumb and Dumberer. When a political party cannot select their own candidates due to interference from the opposition then these are the choices with which we are left. This will only get worse under an open primary system. If we want the best choices, then we must let each political parties choose who will represent them without interference from the opposition.
But the open primary impact pales by comparison when combined with the effect of ranked choice voting. In ranked choice voting voters rank their candidates by preferential order. If no one candidate garners 50% of the vote, then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and the votes for that candidate are reassigned to the voter’s 2nd choice. This process continues until one candidate attains more than 50% of the vote, thereby winning the election.
Coupled with the open primaries rule, which will allow only the top 5 candidates to proceed to the full election, ranked choice voting becomes a recipe for manipulation. It allows the parties to run multiple candidates, each appealing to a different segment of the population, with the intent that only the party’s preferred candidate will win. The object is to get the “spoiler” candidates into the final election so that – when they are eliminated – their votes will be re-tabulated for their 2nd choice candidate (the same party’s preferred candidate). Worse, we might actually have races where only one party gets through the primary (again, with the intent for a particular candidate to win), leaving candidates with no reason to debate the issues or answer to all the voters.
Open primaries are a recipe for trouble; let’s not California our Nevada. As for rank choice voting, all it does is turn spoiler candidates into a vote-gathering system for the intended candidate. Let’s keep the system fair and simple – oppose both by saying “NO” to Question 3.
[1] Crane, Emily. “Dems Spend $53M to Boost Far-Right GOP Candidates despite Rhetoric: Report.” New York Post. September 12, 2022, Online edition. https://nypost.com/2022/09/12/democrats-spend-53m-to-boost-far-right-gop-candidates/.
I hope Elon pulls off his Twitter revamp, but I am seriously concerned by those who are attempting to effectively “de-platform” Twitter as payback for Musk having the gall to support free speech (and for removing the obvious left-wing bias that Twitter lefties had enjoyed).
The silencing of opposing viewpoints, which is the goal of this effort, is the true danger to our democracy. We must remove these people from power – both political and sociological. They are the true “Nazis” of our day (Think not? Look up how Hitler and his Brownshirts harassed their opposition into silence; the parallels are uncanny).
Bill Maher has jumped on the “Democracy at stake” bandwagon of the left-wing body politic and their media friends:
“Democracy is on the ballot, and unfortunately, it’s going to lose and once it’s gone, it’s gone.”
So let me see if I’ve got this correct, Bill: If the liberals lose the election, by a democratic vote of the people, then democracy will be “gone”?
Are you kidding me?? Isn’t this the very definition of “democracy”, a vote of the people to determine who will represent them? Let’s see what Miriam-Webster has to say about that:
de·moc·ra·cy
a : government by the people
especially : rule of the majority
b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
See, Bill – the key here is “…periodically held free elections.” Note that it says NOTHING about who wins – that’s a liberal thing, claiming that it’s not democratic if you don’t win. And it’s bullshit. Talk about “election deniers”…
We’re tired of your ilk, Bill. We’re tired of hearing that anything not a parroting of the liberal agenda is hate speech and therefor verboten. We’re tired of being told that certain subjects are too sensitive for our ignorant ears because it might actually make us believe someone other than a left-wing media pundit, and so you and your liberal friends in control of social and news media will simply make it go away. We’re tired of being told that free speech refers to AOC spewing her hatred on Twitter without paying an $8 fee. And we’re tired of being told that anyone who opposes the liberal agenda (or votes Republican) is a Nazi – particularly when Nazi stands for “National Socialist Workers Party” (hardly a Republican-type political entity, wouldn’t you agree?). And who was it that tried to limit opposition speech during Hitler’s rein in Germany? That’s right, Bill – it was the Nazis (in this country, pronounced “far-left Democrats”).
Democracy will be the American people throwing your cohorts out of office for all of their attacks on our democracy over the past two years. You know: extended, unnecessary COVID lock downs; the significant loss of educational promise from our children because the the teacher’s union wanting their members to teach from a beach in Mexico instead of in a classroom; extreme inflation due to the unwarranted (and unaffordable) giveaway of TRILLIONS of dollars (here and here, for example) in an effort to win votes? And, of course, the assertion that democracy can only continue if these same idiots are in charge?
I say this, Bill: Fuck you. And the donkey you rode in on.
Do you still think that the the liberal media is not biased? Or is it that you just don’t care because they are biased in your favor?
Interesting read from Bari Weiss’ “Common Sense” substack feed:
Has Criminal Justice Reform Made Us Less Safe? A Debate.
But if the early release of violent criminals is not the problem (as posed by the second essay of the set), then how do we explain the dramatic increase in crime upon the election of liberal, Soros-funded district attorneys and attorneys generals? If it is not the release of these violent criminals causing the rise in violent crime, then it must be the deterrent factor lost when the remaining criminals realize they will no longer go to jail for their crimes. The root cause of either problem is the same: the early release of violent criminals into our society. So to is the result: a dramatic increase in violent crime, whether or not committed by the released criminals.