Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

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.

 

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

Is what I've been told untrue???

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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...

 

^ 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...

 

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.

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

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?

 

• 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

 

As someone who is not represented by either party, but who votes GOP because they don't hate my life, my values, and what I want for my children, the third party is an interesting discussion. The two party system is an inherently conservative system - it pulls everyone into an simplifying either/or in theory and in fact through most of its history in practice.

During my voting lifetime grassroots dissatisfaction with the two party system has led to 3 different third party "events" lets call them (because the particulars did not endure): Ross Perot, Tea Party, and Trump. On the surface all three seem to have come from the "conservative" GOP side, but I think much of the people/energy of all three came from the large hole left from the Democrat party repudiating its "conservative" wing . It is telling that the more conservative you were/are, as opposed to merely a typical "neo-conservative" (what I call libertarian) GOP supporter, the more you were attracted to all three. It is also revealing I think of how liberal/progressive/democratic party biased the media (in general - exluding the "conservative" alt media) has become from Ross to Trump, in that Perot was given credence, the Tea Party was dismissed as radical, and Trump was simply hated and actively undermined.

The courts are an interesting aspect of this as well, because the more conservative you are the higher the court issue rises as a direct factor of your vote. The willingness of SCOTUS (really the whole judicial branch) to step in and decide for the progressive side on almost everything and anything has of course not gone unnoticed. However at the same time there has been a paralysis for various reasons of the legislative branch, so the courts are merely filling the power vacuum. Still, such naked use of power used to benefit one side of an ideological divide is bound to prompt an equally powerful reaction - more energy to a third option.

Despite all this the two party system has proved very robust. The increasing divide between the haves (the elitists' who control both parties, government, media, universities, etc.) and the have nots (the "average" person who is not nearly as culturally liberal as these elites, yet who at the same time want to see a less neo-conservative economic policy for the lower/middle classes) is obvious for all to see. How long can this tension - this chasm last? Yet, as I said, the two party system has proved very robust so far...

 

Maybe. I suspect conservatives may be right in that he is Anthony Kennedy 2.0 - seeming to be "above the fray" but in point of fact leading the court's activist choosing-of-sides in the ideological divide.

 

Looks like SCOTUS is not going to brother with the PA case.